I present to you, Respectable Niko.

I’ve never liked the opening levels of the Grand Theft Auto series, a slow progression of basic tutorials guiding you in the particular controls and processes of the game, followed by a fairly dull set of slow-burning missions in order to introduce you into the story whilst holding you back from the full-on mayhem you want to be causing.  Grand Theft Auto IV’s opening is more cinematic than the previous games in the series, but ultimately the same in it’s build up.  You know what’s coming, I know what’s coming, so why, for remarkably open sandbox games, is your progress so fixed and linear?  I was about to have a rather strange experience however.

There was a very slight build up, but the opening story was merely creating the setting.  I can clearly remember the shift from the normal run of the mill GTA game to something greater.  It took place in a little shop called НОВИНКИ ПОСЛЕДНЕИ МОДЫ, otherwise known as ‘the Russian Shop’, this is the place used to introduce the player to GTA IV’s clothing system.  I never know what to buy in these places, the game has normally not developed enough for me to have a created a defined personality, so I normally end up just trying on various clothes and picking the ones I like the look of (or dislike the least).  The Russian Shop has a very limited range of stock, so I simply chose a new jacket and trousers that were essentially the same as my original clothing.  As I was approaching the counter however I noticed a stand displaying various glasses and decided to try a few on, this was when it hit me.  As I’ve already said, you know what to expect with GTA games, no matter who the person you’re playing you know they’re ultimately a crook, but as I looked at Niko Bellic’s face, wearing those glasses he almost looked…respectable.

All of the above had occurred because Niko was going on a date, having just met a friend of his cousins receptionist, Michelle.  Unlike most of the people you meet in GTA IV she isn’t a crook, she’s just living a normal life in Liberty City.  With my new-found sense of normality I picked up Michelle from her flat and took her out bowling.  Walking down the promenade Niko and Michelle run through quite a long series of dialogue.  I could have run to the bowling alley, but I was too busy enjoying their conversation, it wasn’t much more than pleasantries but I felt a connection between them.  Gruff Niko Bellic trying his best to sound like a nice person, and Michelle genuinely interested in him (or so I felt).  Bowling a few balls down the lane I was thinking, this is his chance, Niko could live a normal life here.  Married to Michelle and working at his cousins taxi firm, it wouldn’t be the riches he went to America dreaming about, but it would be a normal, peaceful life.  The conversation continued on the way to take Michelle home, cementing my idea that Niko had a chance at happiness.

Trouble had already begun when some thugs had threatened his cousin and as the story started unfolding, Niko became more aware of how big of a lie his cousin had been telling him about his ‘great life’ in the land of the free.  Having already delivered a rather nasty blow to one of the loan sharks, they were even more intent upon getting the money they were owed.  This is when Niko received a desperate call from his cousin, the climax had come and he was being attacked.  Niko’s past was still very much clouded in mystery but there had been several references to being in the army, he obviously wanted a change from that old life but he still had the skills.  After squarely beating two of the thugs a car chase begins to chase down the final loan shark, then he too is given reason to back off.

Now you might think that this would have ended any ideas beyond the expected structure of the game, that this had put a damper on my longing for Niko to live a normal life, but it hadn’t, and the reason is environment.  I never would have done any of these things myself, but Niko comes from a war-torn country and lives in a very hard part of Liberty City with vandals, drug dealers and who knows how many other criminals constantly surrounding him.  So when he rushed to his cousins aid and beat up the people who were after him, it wasn’t enough to dissuade me.  He was defending his family, taking care of his cousin.  The loan-sharks were now gone, maybe he could settle down to a peaceful life with his cousin and wife Michelle.

For a time, I believed it was possible.  We know what to expect from GTA games, but for a short time I actually envisaged a game that allowed me a way out of the normal violence, mayhem and destruction (no matter how fun it is to play), I was role-playing in a non-role-playing game.  It wouldn’t last of course, if I wanted to keep playing the game I would eventually have to give up on this ideal, and so Respectable Niko came to an end.  But he wasn’t gone, he’d made an impact on me, and now I have shared that with you the reader (someone must be reading right?).  One day we may have a truly complete sandbox, a fully fleshed out world where we can do anything we want, but until that day we still have these very special moments that elevate our gaming experiences.

If you love graphs, then you’ll love today’s post. Following on from last weeks post about the installation of my new Corsair H50 CPU Cooler it was time to explore probably the biggest benefit of better cooling, overclocking.  Overclocking is where you adjust the settings so that the component (generally the CPU, but it’s also possible to overclock RAM, graphics cards and some other small bit and pieces) runs above it’s normal operating levels.  A bad overclock can cause significant damage to the component or components in question, however a careful overclock only has two possible downsides, increased energy requirements and greater heat generation, which is where the increased cooling comes into play.  Components can handle certain levels of heat without too much problem, anything above will cause them long term damage.  But supposing your cooling system is good enough to cool the component far below their maximum tolerance level, let’s say the maximum tolerance is 90°c but your cooling brings the temperatures down so that even when it’s under load (when it’s working) it only reaches 50°c.  That’s fourty more degrees that your component could tolerate, adding in a hefty safety margin still means you could run 10-20°c with barely any impact on the lifespan of your component.  (If you’re after some further reading, have a look at this great article on component degradation by AnandTech.)

This is what makes overclocking more of an art, than a science.  Even processors of the same model will have minor differences between them, one might be able to tolerate a couple more degrees than the other, another might handle heat well but not take so well to increased voltages.  Therein lies the skill of overclocking, carefully testing the limits of your components without damaging them.  Some people are fanatical about overclocking, always trying to eke out some extra performance no matter how long it takes, one of the more well known examples is of people attaching metal enclosures to the motherboard for holding liquid nitrogen.  I am most definitely not of that league, before now I had never performed even a minor overclock.  However when I was planning this computer I set my aim for the long-term, keeping a gaming computer competitive can be a difficult and expensive process, but by making the correct decisions you can minimise this by quite a large margin.  Apart from replacing the cooler on my graphics card (which is just one of those things that happens some times) and the standard extra hard disk space I haven’t spent any money on my computer in almost two years, and it’s still capable of playing modern games on fairly high settings.  But my aim was even more long term than this, I decided to purchase an OEM processor so that I could spend the savings on a better third-party fan.  My choice of processor model was also carefully made, around the time there were two directions I could have gone, a faster dual core like an E8500 or slower quad, the most recommended at the time being the Q6600.  Whether I made the right decision I will probably never know, but one of the reasons I went for the Q6600 was because of it’s almost legendary overclocking capabilities, but it was always my intention to wait as long as possible before attempting an overclock, definitely beyond my warranty.  So here we are…

Overclocking

I won’t be going into the details of performing an overclock, I knew practically nothing before I started and still don’t know all that much now.  I will instead point any curious readers to the same guide I used.  It’s examples are specific to the Core2Duo and Core2Quad ranges, but it gives a huge amount of information that should help you whatever processor you have.  I found it a brilliant guide not only giving me the information I needed to perform an overclock, but also providing lots of extra reading for those who wish to learn more.

How to Overclock C2Q (Quads) and C2D (Duals) – A Guide v1.7

When you are about to perform an overclock, it’s often a good idea to set your aim beforehand.  This not only holds you back from getting carried away and making silly mistakes, it also gives you something to aim for.  I had read that people have managed to overclock the Q6600 up to 3.6Ghz without any effort, this was a little ambitious for me so after reading through the above guide I settled upon 3Ghz.  If I could achieve more then I would go for it, but this was a good starting goal.

What I hadn’t realised is how long it’s recommended you test your system after making any changes.  A lot of guides suggest only making minor changes, and running a test after each change.   That is for exploratory overclocks though, I was treading well worn territory and knew that my aim was easily in reach, it really pays to do research on your components as it could save you a lot of time.  I made the various preparations in the BIOS then I was reading to start changing settings, to reach my goal of 3Ghz all I had to do was increase the FSB to 333.  I restarted the computer, watching and waiting the whole while, fortunately it booted fine and I was soon running a stress test with Prime95.  After several minutes no errors had appeared so I decide to start on the next section of the guide which was optimising the voltage levels.  This is where I ran into problems, I had left the power settings on automatic, as the guide advised, but when I tried lowering the settings the computer failed to boot Windows.  Looking at the basic settings in the guide I thought I would get away with only changing the Vcore, after all this wasn’t required for smooth running but merely to lower the heat levels.  The original voltage level was 1.3250 and my motherboard had options in steps of 0.0250, I took the settings listed in the guide and found the next notch up which gave me 1.2750, after that failed to boot I tried 1.3000 which also failed to boot.  In the end I decided to just leave the settings on automatic, the temperatures were well within reason and the guide did make it clear that settings could vary widely between different computers.

I did also attempted to increase the FSB to 400, however this caused my computer to fail to boot and it just kept restarting and cutting out.  After clearing the CMOS and re-entering my previous settings the computer started fine.  I am almost certain this problem was down to my RAM.  There are two settings you can adjust to overclock a CPU, the Multiplier and the FSB, the multipliers on Core2′s are locked with a maximum of 9, which mine was already on so the only setting I could adjust was the FSB.  The Front Side Bus is not a part of the CPU but the motherboard which means changing it also impacts on other parts of your system.  As you increase the FSB the speed of the RAM also increases, to allow different settings you can adjust the RAM divider which I did as part of the preparations.  At an FSB of 333 the RAM was running at 833, just 33 above it’s standard rating, however at 400 it was trying to run at 1000 and I didn’t have any lower divider options to step it down.  It’s probable I’m missing something but as my understanding of overclocking is still fairly weak I just decided to take my 3Ghz and run.

The Tests

According to most guides (including the one I listed) you need to run a full stress test on your CPU before it can be considered stable.  This guide recommends running Prime95 for 24 hours, which seems a little extreme to me.  This was further backed up by some extra reading I did, some opinions suggest that technically to guarantee stability you should be running the stress test for several days and that it’s unrealistic to require someone to run it for that long.  If I were overclocking with unfamiliar settings it might have been a good idea to run it for 24 hours, however I was fairly certain I wouldn’t run into any problems given that I was using already tested settings, and what are the chances that I will ever run my computer at full capacity for 24 hours?  In the end I just decided to run it during the day, since my computer is in my room I wouldn’t be able to run it all night anyway, and 12 hours seemed like a more realistic time frame.

Aside from errors you should also run a temperature monitoring program like Core Temps, which I have been using for all my testing.  On the evening I performed the overclock I ran Prime95 for a few hours and it never exceeded 61°c, fairly hot but well within what I understand to be reasonable limits for my CPU.  (This actually made me more worried about the temperatures I was operating at before, but I shall not mention that again…)  The next day I started the test running as soon as I got up, and stopped it just before I was going to bed.  Results in the next section.

Last week I mentioned the games I was using to test my new settings, but last week was only about temperature levels, this week I needed FPS measurements from the games which requires a more strict set of testing rules.  In each of the games I decided upon my own routes for testing, there are no set tests you can perform in Oblivion or Wurm Online (Crysis does have a synthetic benchmark) but I quite like this fact.  Opinions will be split here and I don’t think either side is ‘right’, one side will say that for a fair test you need to replicate the exact same conditions for every run, the other side will say that whilst you do need to keep the situation as similar as possible, having the player perform the test threes times then averaging the result gives a more realistic marker of what you will actually experience in the game.

Crysis

I ran two tests with Crysis:

Alien Assault

This test takes part just after the mid-point of the game, there are two reasons I selected it.  One, this is the most straining portion of the game, not only is there a lot of action, it’s well known that the ice effects can often be crippling for even high level computers and the aliens also add a lot of blurring effects to the mix.  Two, it’s completely on rails.

Beach

I chose the second test mainly because it’s probably the most beautiful part of the entire game.  This also has the benefit of providing a calmer test with no action, which I would assume is what stresses the CPU the most.

Oblivion

It should be noted that I was running quite a few mods (although no major graphics packs such as Quarls) and decided to just leave them instead of going through the messy process of turning them all off.  I ran with exactly the same settings both before and after so it shouldn’t make any impact on the results, it may just mean you won’t get exactly the same FPS as me even on similar settings.

Walk

A nice walk in the country from Battlehorn Castle, includes both some close range sections and more expansive views.

Ride

Similar to the walk path, except riding on a horse at full speed before stopping to take in the view at the end.  Likely to require more CPU power as it moves across the land, especially at the cell transition.

Wurm Online

Just the one test here, a simple stroll from my house up and through part of the village, starts off in a large open area then enters a housing district which contains more CPU sapping objects.  Due to the time between my first readings and overclocking I decided to run another test using water cooling but no overclock, the landscape of Wurm is constantly changing.

The Results

Please note the different tests that have been performed here.  Since I performed a second set of temperature tests last week to discover base difference between the Fan and Water Cooler, I performed a further temperature test this week to reveal the change after overclocking.  The FPS measurements however are from my original set of tests with the fan, this is not only because there shouldn’t be a difference between the water and fan tests since they used the same settings, but it also gives me an actual comparison of how much better off I am with the new cooler.

Also, I was originally going to include all of the FPS data I collected in some fancy line graphs, but it ended up being too messy so I just averaged out the three sets of results.

Idle

These temps were taken as soon as the computer logged into Windows and were run for approximately five minutes.  Nice results, barely 3°c difference.

Prime95

These samples were taken during a 30 minute test, just to note the maximum temperature difference.

Crysis

Now for some real world (sort of) testing.  Only 5°c difference under load seems a pretty fair price to pay, but then it all depends on how much improvement I’m getting for that cost.

Well that’s a lot of difference…  Of course this may be proving that my original theory was correct, that my graphics card is capping any improvement I might otherwise get from the overclock.  Guess we’ll need to move on to find out.

Oblivion

Similar story here, although the temperature gap closes off at the end for some reason.

Now these are more interesting results, in the Walk test the FPS increases bye as much as 5 frames per second, that’s not really very much but it is a difference I suppose.  However the Ride test shows that the CPU increase hasn’t solved my loading issues, so it’s almost certainly down to my hard disk or possibly a mod…  Moving on.

Wurm Online

Same as before, about a 5°c difference, since I tend to run this test in the background while I’m going through my usual duties I end up with more data and overall it seems pretty stable.

Now this is more interesting, firstly it shows that running a second test was a good idea since the complexity of the area has changed by quite a bit.  Secondly there is a much more noticeable increase in FPS, as much as 15 frames more than at stock on water cooling.

Conclusions

Ultimately I’m slightly deflated by these results.  I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it just seems like very little increase.  Okay so I haven’t made that big of a change, only an increase of .6Ghz but…I don’t know I just thought it would make a larger impact.

On the whole I think my first expedition into overclocking went pretty well but, to continue the hiking theme, I did see another huge mountain ahead and if I could only scale it I’m sure I would see a bigger impact.  My alterations were pretty simplistic, only dabbling with a small selection of options, so I intend to read up more on the subject and hopefully I’ll be able to better balance my system.  I might even manage that 400 FSB I attempted.

The cooler has proved itself pretty well though, a 5°c increase overall seems perfectly reasonable to me, I just wish I was getting more for it.  The biggest benefit for me has undoubtedly been the quieter noise levels, even when I was running Prime95 I didn’t notice any audible increase, although the temperatures may just not have been high enough to kick the fans into action.  Given what I’ve read of other people’s temperatures I’m sure I must have poor case airflow, no doubt because of all the snaking wires that sit at the bottom…  But I’m now happy that at least my CPU is safe.

For reference, here are some more details on my main components:

Processor:  Intel Q6600

Motherboard:  Gigabyte P35-DS3

RAM:  800Mhz DDR2 4GB

Okay, so I’m not the kind of person who gets sent free hardware from manufacturers.  However, as followers of PC Gamer’s Twelve Days of Christmas competition will know, I did win a lovely cooler, and technically it was shipped and paid for by Corsair.  Close as I’m ever going to get.

The Corsair H50 High-Performance CPU Cooler is a closed-system water cooler.  I did once look into water cooling, it offers impressive levels of cooling over traditional heatsink\fan systems and can also be a lot quieter.  However it’s still a mostly DIY area of computer modding, people design their own systems from the myriad of water cooling components available, there are dangers of leaks and regular maintenance is required, not to the mention the huge financial cost.  I decided it wasn’t the kind of project I should be messing about with.  At the time I had only seen one example of a pre-built kit that was anywhere near within my price range, a CPU water cooler like this one but manufactured by a company I hadn’t heard of.  After a quick search I found very few reviews, none of which were very convincing.  So I let the idea pass.

I had entered a couple of the previous days competitions and didn’t expect to get any further this time, this time though I won.  Not only was I happy that I’d won such a great prize, I also thought I could easily get a few informative blog posts out of it, and here we are.  By performing several tests both before and after I would not only be able to provide people curious about this product, or water cooling in general, with some useful information, I would also find out how much of a difference it was actually making to my system.

The Tests

Aside from watching the large yellow numbers of FRAPS in the bottom right hand corner of my screen I have never performed tests on my computer before.  I’m sure my testing won’t stand-up against some of the professional hardware review sites, but I just wanted to explain how I have put some thought into the tests.

Firstly I won’t be performing any synthetic tests, they always seem very professional in reviews but I’m only interested in what direct impact it will be having on my gaming experiences.  So I selected three games based on what little knowledge I have of CPU\GPU balances in games.

Crysis

What performance testing would be complete without one of the best looking (from a technical stand-point, discounting art-style) games that brings even the latest computer hardware to it’s knees.  From what I have gathered from various performance reports, my graphics card is holding back any performance increases I might otherwise get from a faster CPU, so Crysis will be a sort of control sample for the next two.  It will also be good to see if I can improve the performance of this debilitating game, later on in the tests.

Oblivion

From reading various posts on the official Elder Scrolls forums my 8800GT should be able to run at a good FPS on the highest settings, yet I’m still only getting low-ish FPS plus some occasional stutter.  The system requirements list a 2Ghz CPU as the minimum required for playing, and the recommend says 3Ghz.  Now I’ve known since AMDs rise to fame in the Athlon 64 days that clock rate isn’t as important to performance as the other inner workings of a CPU, but I don’t have any other form of measurement.  Oblivion was developed in the pre-dual core days, and whilst you do get extra performance if background tasks have another core to run on, the game will always be limited to the limits of the individual cores.  In my case that’s 2.4Ghz, so my reasoning is that this could be the main source of the poor performance in Oblivion.  Not the soundest of reasoning, but it will make for an interesting test.

Wurm Online

Not only is this the game that I am playing the most at the moment (…), Wurm Online also manages to kick my CPU fan into overdrive every time I play.  Although it may not look like it Wurm Online seems to tax my computer more than most games, whether this is down to poor optimisation or just because of how complex the items system is I don’t know.  But I’m almost certain my graphics card is not breaking much of a sweat.

Using Core Temps I took readings from each game before I installed the new cooler.  In Crysis and Oblivion I just played around for twenty minutes or so and in Wurm Online I left it running for about half-an-hour whilst doing some of my usual jobs.

The Installation

With the pre-installation tests out of the way it was time to fit the cooler.  I was originally thinking of taking some step by step photographs like I did with the Akasa Vortexx Neo, but installation proved to be a little more long winded than I thought.  So I’ve just taken a before and after picture.

After I removed my Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro, I set about reading the instructions that came with my new cooler.  They were nice and simple, if lacking a bit in certain details.  The cooler comes with two sets of brackets and screws one for Intel, the other for AMD CPUs.  Unfortunately this was when I found out that the brackets came in two parts, and one of them needed to go on the back of the motherboard.  This of course meant removing my graphics card and TV tuner, then unscrewing my motherboard from the case.  Not a particularly hard task, I was the one that fitted it after all, but I would certainly have preferred not to have needed to do it.  At first I had a bit of trouble working out how to line up the rear frame, this was the first (of only two) oversights in the instructions, admittedly they are listed as the quick start instructions but it is such a small thing.  There are four metal plugs which go into the frame to give the screws from the other side something to grip on.  The correct holes are marked clearly enough on the frame so it wasn’t too much of a problem once I realised.

With the rear frame now in place it was time to start thinking about radiator placement.  This was actually the second step in the instructions but I preferred to sort out the motherboard first before finding a home for it.  As you can see from the picture above, the little round section with the Corsair logo on it sits on top of the processor, the recommended radiator position is where most rear case fans are.  Strangely it suggests the optimum flow should be in from the rear fan, with my case (and most cases I think) the idea is for air to flow from the front then out the back.  The suggested position could possibly cause problems with my graphics card, since air would be coming from the front fan and the back.

My first thought was to put it on one of the fan spaces on the top of the case, this would then blow the air down towards the graphics card, which would then push it out of the back.  Unfortunately the radiator and fan took up too much space.  Limited by the length of the hoses the only position that would work was on the rear exhaust.  Upon being told I had won this cooler I had a closer look into what it was I had won, on the main Corsair product page it links to an article discussing dual fans, one on either side of the radiator.  It was an interesting read but was not something I would have considered doing, however if I had to fit it to the rear exhaust I would get an extra fan.  I thought, performance might be optimum coming into the case, but with two fans it would surely work well enough blowing out.  So that’s what I did.  Unfortunately this meant sharing the screws provided, they are much longer than traditional fan screws since they pass through the case, then through the fan before securing themselves on the radiator.  Two seemed stable enough though, and I used two traditional screws to further secure the first fan to the case.

Next I needed to fit the front bracket to the motherboard, this is where the second problem cropped up.  It was partly my fault, I should have paid closer attention to the parts I had available.  After fitting the correct plugs to the bracket it was time to insert the screws, the first two went in very smoothly but the third was a much tighter fit.  What I didn’t realise at the time was that there were two sets of almost identical screws, the only difference been the small thread at the end, one was larger than the other and I was trying to put one of the larger ones in a hole made for the smaller ones.  After taking things to far and having to undo most of my work I did eventually discover my error and fitted the bracket.

The final step was to attach the pump\heatsink to the processor, thermal paste came pre-applied which was very helpful so all I had to do was press it against the processor, give it a small twist, then tighten the bracket around it.  This was quite fiddly but just took a bit of working, I had tightened the screws on the motherboard a bit too much, so after loosening them I managed to get the bracket to grip.

Not the perfect installation, but good enough.  On a second glance at the picture it does look like the hoses are a little twisted but they aren’t, it’s just the funny angle I took the picture at.  As you can see on this picture from the official article I mentioned earlier, they do stick out and away from the motherboard a little.

The Results

With the cooler fitted I was eager to see how much of a difference it was going to make.  Regrettably one of the other fans in my computer has developed an annoying whirr during boot up so the sound difference wasn’t apparent at first.  Sticking my ear close to the case I could hear little bubbles travelling around the cooler for it’s first activation since been packaged (assuming they test them when they are manufactured).  As the annoying whirr cut out I listened carefully and heard…nothing really.  One of the fans is attached to the standard motherboard fan connections and the other is connected to the CPU fan connection.  I had a quite peek at the BIOS screen and saw that with smart fan control active, the main fan was travelling at a stately something-hundred RPM.

I had almost gotten used to the build up of the CPU fan during heavy use, but now I heard nothing but the standard hum that constantly comes from my case.  I don’t have a sound meter, and I’ve never quite understood how the decibels translate into a real life situation (beyond the simple, more is louder), so all I have are my impressions.  The difference is definitely noticeable.

But enough rambling, it’s time for cold hard facts.  I didn’t practice the most accurate testing methodology (I think the slow build up on the Crysis graph is from when I was messing around on the settings screen), but the difference speaks for itself.

Crysis

Oblivion

Wurm Online

Conclusions

I think it’s safe to say I was blown away.  I forgot to take idle readings but I’m fairly sure they used to hover around the 40′s-50′s, now I’m getting low 30′s occasionally dipping lower.  When it comes to handling the increased heat that comes with gaming the cooler also takes it in it’s stride, never even reaching 50°c.

The difference is so startling that I can only think I didn’t place my original fan correctly.  I had originally placed it the wrong way (not that you’d know since the computer seemed to run fine), maybe when I turned it around I didn’t quite put it on level, who knows?  Yet surely if it wasn’t placed correctly I would have had overheating issues?  Whatever the answer, I don’t think it could have come much closer to the Corsair H50, which seems to be running brilliantly.

However I’m guessing you, the reader, have a question, and that’s how much does it cost?  I got it for free, knowing what I know now would I pay money for it?  To know that we first need to know the price, and a quick search using Google’s Shopping search shows prices around £60.  The cheapest price from a retailer I know of (and so would be comfortable ordering from) is £55.98 delivered.  Which is a pretty amazing price I feel.

It is out of my comfort zone though, I paid around £15 for my original cooler and it’s served me well over almost 2 years.  That leaves a difference of about £40, and I’m not one for spending lots of money on hardware (aside from my original payment), I probably won’t be upgrading my graphics card for at least another year.  But I think people who spend more often on hardware would be quite happy with this price, especially if their processor is one of the fastest available for their motherboard and so would have to spend a lot more to buy faster hardware.

So I probably wouldn’t buy this product…as things stand at the moment.  Cool components are all well and good, they have decreased wear-and-tear, but they don’t have any other benefits on their own.  However more cooling opens up another avenue that could prove more exciting…

Part Two coming soon…

And for those who are not celebrating today, hope the sales are treating you well.

As most PC Gamer readers will know it’s Top 100 time again, although it has been pushed back to a  later time than usual, with the writers list appearing in the latest January 2010 (PCG209) issue.  Following on from that will be the PC Gamer Readers Top 100, with the site already up and taking votes.

Now I’ve never submitted a list to anything like this before, I’ve always struggled coming up with a definitive list of my favourites, whether it be in a simple forum thread or something more official like this.  If you ask me to name the games I have most enjoyed, I can regale you with tales from distant mystic lands, beautiful beaches and hard fought conflicts.  But when it comes to quantifying that in a list I have never been able to do it.  This time I was determined, I would submit a list all I needed to do was to decide on which five titles deserved a place.

I have thought about which titles would make it to my list several times before, the last time the Readers Top 100 came around I even started a little text file with some quick notes which still resides on my desktop:

Homeworld 1/2
Morrowind
Evil Genius
StarLancer
KOTORs

Possibles
—————-
Psychonauts
TF2

Probably not Top 10
—————-
Portal
Startopia
Giants:  Citizen Kabuto

Three out of my old list I knew I wanted on my new one somewhere; Evil Genius, Morrowind and Homeworld.  I don’t think I need to tell people who have read my little blog before about how much I like Evil Genius, having written about it for an entire week, then going on to write-up a final section when I eventually managed to complete it.  Morrowind I haven’t written about before, mainly because I haven’t played it in over a year, but I still often think back fondly to my experiences in that amazing world.  It has even gone so far as to influence my choice of online personality, M_the_C.

Homeworld is another game I remember fondly from back in my earlier gaming days, and then again more recently in its sequel.  Since you can only select a single game title and not a game series I could only pick one, and that one had to be the original.  Apart from sparking off not only a great series, but a whole company in the form of Relic, its innovative gameplay, amazing choice of soundtrack, and brilliant tale of a wandering people looking for a new (old) home all come together in one amazing package.  Homeworld 2, I think, does a good job of living up to the original with some interesting tweaks on the gameplay and graphics that look amazing even today, however it failed to capture my imagination as the first did.  I also knew the fourth title that had to be in my top 5, it only made the possibles list before, but is so deserving of a place for total play time if nothing else.  Team Fortress 2 is the only online multiplayer game that I still play often, twice now I’ve taken a break for over a month, but then I always come back refreshed and ready for action.

With four out of the five already selected, all I had to do was decide on one more, sadly this would be the most difficult choice to make.  There are so many games that I have played over the years that deserve a place.  Going back to my old list, my first consideration was Psychonauts, which is an absolutely fantastic game, yet sadly it is let down by often annoying platform gameplay culminating in the final level ‘Meat Circus’.  This doesn’t drag the game down in it’s own right, it is still very worth playing, but I think that games in the top five should not have any such problems.  Carrying on from my old list, Portal is brilliant but ultimately limited, Giants:  Citizen Kabuto is hilarious but hardly has the best gameplay and the KOTORs have too many minor niggles (especially the second, which I consider my favourite of the two).  Startopia and Starlancer were definite contenders, but I wanted to keep searching.  Another game that came to mind was Mirror’s Edge, I really enjoyed playing through it and was also sparked by it’s strangely low place of 99 in PC Gamers list.  But I decided what I was feeling was that it deserved to be higher, but not so much that it should be included in my top five.

As I lay in bed last night trying to get to sleep I racked my brains, but I struggled to think of which games I had played that needed consideration.  Then I thought of my list (that I still keep updated) of completed games, surely if any game is going to make my list it should be on this list?  So the next day I went to the page and started scrolling down, the usual flood of fond memories came but I felt some reservation about each of the games, they were good, but not quite deserving.  Baldur’s Gate did spring to mind, I spent quite a lot of time playing that when I was younger, but when I played more recently I hadn’t found it quite so appealing.  That is probably because I started right at the end, at the most difficult part, but something still kept me back.  I sighed as I reached the bottom of the list, none of them had jumped out at me, so I went to my list of games that I hadn’t completed (not updated), after all it was perfectly possible that the illusive game might be in there, I only completed Evil Genius recently.  But it was to no avail.

I also considered Wurm Online, which members of the PCG village are currently hoping to push into the chart.  I haven’t even been playing for a year but it still manages to match TF2 in total play time, and I do have a lot of fond memories of playing it.  However the only real reason I continue to play is because of the PCG Village, with it’s villagers and all that I have invested in it, you could say that this is a feature of the game but I can’t help feeling it still isn’t quite deserving of a place.  (Sorry guys.  )

Having searched through every game I can remember playing I still couldn’t think of any more contenders, so I was left with two options, Startopia and Starlancer.  At first I had put Startopia on the list, but on remembering Starlancer I was torn between them.  That’s when I put my judgemental hat on, the only way I could decide between the two was by looking at it from the other side, which had the most flaws?  I very much enjoyed Starlancer, but it didn’t have any amazing ideas, space combat games were still pretty prevalent when it was released.  Whereas Startopia had new and interesting ideas in spades, yes there had been management games before, and there are at least several other ones based around running a space station\outpost.  Yet Startopia stands above them all in my opinion, everything from the medical system, to the trading goods, to the character back stories, to the Biodeck was brimming with ideas.  The station combat system wasn’t so well thought out though, I never managed to take over many sections in a sandbox game.  The sandbox also shows up the balance issues over the long term, the missions only lasted half an hour at the most (except the last) so everything tended to run smoothly, but the longer sandbox games often became muddled and hard to manage.  Startopia does have it’s flaws.  Whereas Starlancers gameplay is mostly excellent, and the quality of the game was very high, I can’t remember ever running into a bug, and I did so love the stories.  Tales of heroism and betrayal, sure it was all a bit too patriotic, my ideals versus yours, and it could largely be said that it was based around the Cold War should it have escalated into a full on conflict, but it was still enjoyable.

And that’s when I found it, the deciding factor, when measuring the overall quality of the game Starlancer beats Startopia.  I love games with great ideas.  I am quite happy having bought Crysis, Mirror’s Edge, Half-Life 2:  Episode 2, and only really played through them the once.  I get most of my enjoyment out of the experience.  But I have never been able to complete all of the Startopia missions, and I have played through Starlancer in its entirety.

With my list now full, it all comes down to deciding the order, something I am still doing as I type this.  Before I had even decided between Startopia and Starlancer I knew the winner had to be in fifth, if I had been more certain of them they would already be on the list.  Team Fortress 2 shouldn’t be at the top, nor at the bottom.  In this way PC Gamer’s list matches up to mine as I think it should be third, it could be pushed to second or fourth if I run into troubles with the others but right now third place looks comfortable.  At first I had Evil Genius at the top, it was the first one I thought of for this list, but I don’t feel comfortable with it there.  I have largely left it alone when it comes to it’s flaws, but now we’re down to the nitty-gritty they do make an impact.  Second place about Team Fortress 2 looks good, and with Homeworld in fourth (I haven’t played it in ages, I’m too worried it won’t live up to my original experience.) that pushes Morrowind up to first.  But still, something doesn’t quite feel right with it up there.  I still feel it’s a toss-up between Morrowind and Evil Genius, and I think I’m less certain about Evil Genius (procrastinating sentence much?).

If I had another option for the top spot, I might have thought about Morrowinds position relative to Evil Genius more, but although I can still think of several possibles for fifth place none of them could also move to first so here we have it.

M_the_Cs Top Five Games:

The Elder Scrolls III:  Morrowind

Evil Genius

Team Fortress 2

Homeworld

Starlancer

I’ve no doubt you’ll probably play it a couple of times then forget about it, but if you can get a good game going it can be hilarious.  I’ve just finished playing a match and found myself chuckling for several minutes after I had stopped playing.

A long time ago I wrote about a multiplayer flash game called Farragomate.  In it you had to construct sentences from a selection of random words and connectors (the, if, of, etc.), then everyone voted for the best sentence.  If you got together with a good group (who didn’t insist on having penis as a user name so that they could use it in the game) you could end up with some pretty funny lines (whether intentional or not).  This game is structured very similarly.

Post it Draw it (aside from being an advert for the famous yellow notes) is basically a multiplayer flash game based around the game Pictionary.  Each player takes a turn and has to draw a picture to represent a word, or words, on a yellow piece of paper (hence the Post it connection) whilst everyone else guesses.

The selection of words on offer is generally pretty good, with a few strange ones thrown in, and you are generally given enough time, with easy ones lasting around 10 seconds and the harder words going on for up to a minute.  In the top right hand corner there is also a hang-man style hint which slowly reveals as time goes on, which often helps your mind connect with what is being drawn and occasionally helping solving it without.

Technically the game does a good enough job, I’ve read about various issues in the comments but experienced only a few minor connection problems myself.  The game reproduces the pictures in close to real-time, with some lag depending on the drawers connection, and has a pretty large selection of colours and tools to give you the best possible chance of drawing something recognisable.

There is also a strange system of bonus points which I haven’t been able to fathom out, it’s possibly the large boost at the end from this that resulted in someone reporting me, either that or they’re just a sore loser.

Which brings me onto my next point, that the quality of the game depends on your fellow players.  Like Farragomate you may end up playing with some people who aren’t willing to commit to the game, and who simply write out the answer on the pad.  There are some words you’ll get that are just too hard to draw a picture of, but so long as you give it a try there’s no problem in writing out the answer, however some people just do it straight from the start.  That’s a real shame because some of the funniest moments come from people putting out random guesses that have a vague link to what has been drawn, and the inevitable collective sigh when you all see the answer.

As I said at the beginning this isn’t a brilliant game that will enthral you and capture your interest for days on end, but for a quick bit of fun it’s well worth a go.  Have a go either on the games own web page here, or the usual Kongregate link.

To finish, I’d like to issue a public apology to some of the people I have played with, my drawing skills are atrocious and aside from a few strokes of genius my doodles often bear very little to the word I was given. 

The Service

It’s been three months now since I first signed up to Metaboli and did my subsequent write-up ‘Metaboli – A Viable Alternative?‘.  Overall I think my experience has been a positive one, I’ve been given a chance to try games I might not otherwise have tried, and on the odd occasion found one that I’ve then gone on to buy.  The choice on offer can be a little overwhelming and several times I’ve been unable to choose which downloaded game I want to play.

I suppose that’s a benefit of actually buying a game, firstly the games you buy are ones you really want to play.  Secondly you have also invested money in it, which makes you feel like you’re losing out if you don’t get around to playing it, this gives you an incentive to play even when you might not be that interested.  With Metaboli you’re paying for access to the whole collection of games and, aside from one or two you particularly want to play, you don’t have to play any of them.  Regulars of the PC Gamer Forums will know I’m a great bargain lover, I am constantly picking up new titles which has interfered with my making use of the service.  I have still found the time to play a good selection of games however, I played ans subsequently bought Sniper Elite, completed Trine, found out I didn’t like Far Cry 2 or Assassin’s Creed and climbed most of the ladders in Unreal Tournament.

Cancellation is relatively painless, so long as you know how it works.  I had read that you need to cancel 48 hours before your next payment, which I did, but the next payment still went through.  After checking my account page I found that it had cancelled at the end of the next subscription period.  This wasn’t so bad for me, but it could annoy some people, so the moral of the story is, cancel early.  I’ve been able to play for the whole month that I paid for, so no early cut-off.  I’m sure if I’d have contacted support they would have sorted it out.  When you cancel, your account is still active and you can keep all of the games you have downloaded on your hard disk (you obviously can’t play them), this means that you can easily skip a month or two if money is tight or for whatever other reason you might have, but still go back to your saves at a later date.

The Games

I mentioned in my original article that the Metaboli service is not fully compatible with 64-bit systems.  Only games that have been updated to the new Yummy software will work.  Despite this however I still managed to find a lot of games to play, and all of the new releases use the new system.  In the three months I’ve been subscribing there have been 56 new games have been added, some of these are new, others have just been updated to the new software.  Not all of the titles are great, just as with other digital distribution services and any of the many retail businesses before them, but there were quite a few interesting ones.  Now, just take a minute to think about that, 56 new games for £12.95 a month (£38.85 in total maths fans).  That works out at 69p per title, or 99p per title if you deduct the casual games (which are a mixed bunch, Plants vs. Zombies is included for example).  These 56 games include some big titles such as Assassin’s Creed, Overlord 2, Fuel, Sam & Max Seasons 1 & 2, Anno 1404, Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising, Mount & Blade, Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander, Tropico 3, Medieval:  Total War 2, Company of Heroes…  Now you could say, ‘Well I’ve got a 32bit OS, so these games wouldn’t be new to me’, and it’s true, quite a few were simply updated for 64bit compatibility, but a new subscriber would still have all those games to play.  As for numbers, I’d estimate around 38 of those titles are new to Metaboli (sadly no easy way to search) during the time I’ve been subscribing, which is still a hefty amount.

Usability

Overall my use of the interface has been good and most of the minor issues I’ve had can probably be traced back to my refusal to disable UAC, which quite a few people will have already done anyway.  It’s a little annoying that you have to use a web browser to launch the games, but liveable.  The system offers all the options you could want, delete content (with the option to keep saved games), prioritise downloads, disable individual downloads, and  also offers the ability to start playing a game before it has completely downloaded (not all games support this).  My one annoyance with the downloading is that you can’t (easily) play a game whilst others download, although I think this works when you use the early start feature.  There is a little work around, if you’re playing a game that has a launch window pop-up before the game you can then go back to your browser and start the downloads, it’s also possible you could do this by Alt-Tab-bing but as most gamers know some games hate doing this.  It wouldn’t be so bad if it followed used similar system to Steam, in that multiplayer games disable downloads but single- keeps it going.

Conclusion

Having made good use of the service (although I wish I could have played the games more often) I now have a good understanding of Metaboli.  Aside from a few minor niggles it is a very good service, and if you’re looking for some kind of subscription-based service I can easily recommend it.  I am planning to resubscribe at some point in the future, it might not be for a while and I might only subscribe for a month or two at a time, but it’s definitely a consideration for me and as the catalogue expands I’ll gain more and more reasons.  (Batman:  Arkahm Asylum is apparently coming soon, although I may just buy it when the price is right.)

The points I made in my original article still stand, some people don’t like the idea of losing all access when you stop subscribing, preferring to buy their games so that they will always have access to them.  In which case Metaboli is not for you.  For those who want wide selection of games available for them to play when they have some spare time, this could be a better option.  You could spend £12-ish (or £6.95 for the Essential pack) on a single game, if you shop around possibly a few, but that will be all you have.  If you’re happy with that then fine, but if you’d prefer more choice (a lot more choice) Metaboli could be an interesting option.

For those who prefer owning their games, it could still be a possibility.  How many games have you bought that you actually play on a regular basis?  For the average gamer it’s probably one or two, probably online multiplayer games like Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty, Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike: Source, or possibly a sandbox like The Sims.  There is nothing stopping you from buying these games, and having a subscription to Metaboli (except for limited funds…  ).  That way you get the best of both worlds, you still get to play your favourite game(s) whenever you want, but you also have access to a selection of games whenever you fancy something different.

When it comes down to it, it’s all personal choice.  Nothing I can help you with there.  But if you just want to know what the service itself is like, then I’m happy to recommend it. 

I’m not usually a fan of wordy introductions, but this was too the point and short enough to grip my attention.

My first real views of the game, has a gritty charm to it.  There is also a nice, simple tutorial that fits very well with the story of the game.

For those that have never heard, or played any of the Penumbra games, interaction is the key.  You don’t just click on this cabinet to open it, you grip the door and drag the mouse.

Bit nippy out.

Rock, smash ice.  Now we know why Scissors joined Paper and Rock.

Things get pretty tense in Penumbra Overture, some parts really spooked me.  But then, I am a wimp.

Why do they always hide those ‘You are here’ symbols?

It’s not the most beautiful game, but it has it’s moments.

Books were one of my favourite parts of Morrowind, and I’ve been enjoying Penumbra’s notes.  Some developers just get wordy for the sake of wordiness.

So far things have been pretty interesting, but for the last half-an-hour I looked at this…

…or this.  But that’s only because I was cowering in a corner.  The howl sent a shiver down my legs.  (I know it’s normally spine, but my spine was fine.)

I love interesting doodles.  In fact I once thought of an idea for a game based largely around archaeological artwork.

So far it’s been an interesting experience.  I don’t like scary games, so I’m not sure how far I’ll get, but considering the price I got it at and the fact that I have now actually given it a good try I don’t have to feel so guilty.  The story so far is intriguing, but like most intriguing starts I’m waiting for the disappointing end.  I hope I’m wrong about it though.

I know I’ve written a fair amount about Wurm lately, so I’m going to start this post off with a more general message.  There have been some amazing quests in games, but eventually you have experienced them all and all you can do is wander around aimlessly.  Sandbox games go some way to fix this, in a PC Gamer preview of The Elder Scrolls IV:  Oblivion, the writer told of his experiences playing the game before it’s release.  A standard PR event, writers from various magazines, websites, etc. met up after they’d had a chance to play around with the game, and each one had a different story to tell.  But even they are often not open enough to create unlimited adventures, once all of the official quests are complete the world can feel a little empty.  Either every item is hand placed, or randomly generated, the former are more interesting but limited in number and the latter are unlimited in number yet lack any reason.

That’s where Wurm Online has an advantage, since the whole world can be changed by other players, you aren’t stuck with the same layout you often get in sandbox games or even other MMOs.  Abandoned chests can appear anywhere, and contain anything from gems and high quality tools, to a pile of wood scrap.  Developers spend a lot of time writing back stories for these , Morrowind in particular I remember for leaving interesting notes and books for you to find, with some great tales.  But although the backstories in Wurm are often trivial or boring, they are always natural, and occasionally you find an item with an amazing backstory, the aforementioned chest could have been dropped by a passing trader who took on too many items to carry home, he could have acquired it from a traveller who took the chest from a little village in the mountains which was raided when their fences fell down.

When it comes to the stories we make up for ourselves however, sandbox games can still prove a great catalyst for the imagination.  They contain enough detail and a large enough backdrop, all it needs is a spark.  Ignoring all the mini-side quests to return a glove to a warriors loved one (Morrowind), sometimes our imagination can fill in the backstory when it is missing in the game.  When on a quest for the usual reasons (treasure, main storyline, boredom) you join forces with an Orc warrior, after facing unimaginable hardships together you are initiated into a group of knights.  More important issues call you away, but you promise to return once your quest is complete, to carry on your great work.  I have still yet to return to Mazoga, someday I hope I can keep that promise…

The reason I’m writing this is because a few days ago I experienced another such adventure of the imagination.

It was a bright, sunny day, a few clouds were drifting through the sky, and in the PCG village the inhabitants were going about their daily lives.  I needed to pop down to the coast to pick-up the clay I had dug earlier in the day, so I asked Jekev, the village animal carer, if I could borrow some of the animals to drag my cart.

I had wanted to give hitching a try for a long time, and now seemed the perfect opportunity.  Jekev agreed and decided to join me for a little ride, I had to fix up my cart before we left so he hitched up his cart and decided to have a ride around.  It was an entertaining spectacle watching him ride around, one of our neighbours, Hippias, hopped on the back and the two of them wandered around the village for a while.

Soon my cart was ready and I grabbed my rope and started hitching one of the village bulls and Pothop the horse, who we rescued from an area that had been completely fenced off, to my large cart. Then, after waiting for the gate to be unlocked I was off, the handling was spotty and the animals picky, but I was having a great time. I started heading for the gravel path that led down to the coast, and the clay-laden boat that waited below. Things were going well, until the trail started descending, my engines weren’t keen on the steep and uneven slope, and there wasn’t a safe way around.

Jekev had joined me by this point and he too could not find a safe route, then I remembered there was another slope on the other side of the village. This one was completely man-made and stood a better chance of suiting the animals temperament. So we flicked the reins and headed back through the village. We had only gotten halfway when we once again ran into issues, the villages position on the edge of a hill had always been a little troublesome and designing walkable paths took a lot of effort. Unfortunately, what had been suitable for us wasn’t for our herd and we couldn’t even get close to where we wanted to go.

Disheartened I started riding back to the farm, on the way we drove past the path that leads up to the summit of the mountain. I got to thinking about the poor animals, stuck in the middle of this dense forest, with no easy way down. I decided to take them up to see the sights, little did I know that this would be the start of a mini-adventure.

The long path up to the top of the hill is a good one, the slope is just enough to be easily walkable, although it still takes some effort if you’re carrying a lot of weight, but for the bulls and Pothop the horse it was almost effortless. Ahead though we saw a kink in the road. As we drew closer we saw it was a fairly large rise in one corner of the road, which proved too steep for our poor travelling train. So Jekev and I leapt of our carts, shovels in hand and we started digging. After a few minutes the rise was now a very shallow lump, so we climbed back up and carried back on our way.

As we ascended higher and higher, the edge of the hill started creeping in towards the road, and soon the trees started parting and we got a look at the magnificent view over Glitterlake, across to the even higher hill on the other side.

Maintaining a shallow gradient up the hill is a difficult task, eventually the hill starts out-ascending the road, and soon we reached the twist in the road that had been created to bypass this issue. We started turning our carts, heading up and round, but as the path started coming back on itself we hit another difficult slope. So once again we climbed down and started work with our shovels. This time however none of our changes seemed to make a difference, at some sections we hit the bedrock below, and the cherry trees that are so prevalent on this hill got in the way of others. We were stuck.

The top was so tantalisingly close, I was determined not to give up. I started thinking about everything I knew about carts, which admittedly is very little, then I remembered back to all the old westerns I had seen when I was younger. This situation was similar to the difficult river crossings that always seemed to come right before bandits pounced upon their position. What they had to do was unhitch the animals, and lead them past one by one, then slowly work the heavy carts along by hand. So that’s that we did, we grabbed our ropes and lead the animals up past the difficult slope. Then slowly dragged the carts up after them, constantly on the look-out for bandits who might try to steal our precious livestock.

We re-hitched the animals and were soon on our way again. The road to the top didn’t turn up any more problems, and soon it started disappearing. We were very close now, all we had to do was navigate the uneven terrain, past the fences and buildings, till we reached the edge. Directly ahead it was too steep, so we worked our way along the top and round the other side.

Eventually we made it to the edge, we parked up the carts and let the animals drink in the view. After many struggles and distractions, we had made it to the summit. We had done it, for Pothop and the bulls.

The view went on for miles, right down the spine of Golden Valley. Campfires and settlements could be made out in the distance.

After waiting around for a while, it was time to start heading back. The animals reluctantly turned away from the view and we set off back down the hill. We reached the twist again, and in a momentary case of amnesia, I forgot what we had done last time. After leading the animals down the difficult slope the journey was a simple one and we were soon back home.

It was a sad return, during the journey we had been so excited, working through the hardships. Now the adventure had ended.

I will remember this little adventure for a quite a while, and will be reminded of it every time I hitch any animals to a cart Wurm Online.  Many other people have had little adventures like this, that only they have experienced.  So feel free to share. 

So far I’ve been having a lot of fun, it’s been a while since I’ve played a good RPG.  It feels familiar, there is much in common with the KOTOR games, but there are quite a few subtleties that make the experience different.  It’s one of these I want to write about today, with a more general gaming focus.

Going back to the original Baldur’s Gate, all Bioware RPGs I can remember playing have given you a numbered list of conversation options.  Mass Effect does things differently though, possibly in a console friendly move they’ve used a radial selector, with various conversation options tagging off.  It’s interesting, but a little too fiddly.  Now that I have been playing a while I can use it effectively, but I haven’t quite gotten used to it.  What I am more interested in, are the options given.  In other games you are given a full text list of things you can have your character to say, but in Mass Effect it’s shortened, focusing on the motivation rather than what is actually said.  Have a look at the following example:

These could be proper lines, they’d be a bit small but would work.  However this is just the surface, once you select one of them the view pans to your character who delivers a longer version of the line.  In their smaller form they make it much easier to work out the intended motivation, in a more verbose statement the actual point might only be apparent when you reach the end of the line.  From this selection you can tell what mood the full lines are going be, the first is a friendly response, the second is curt but not unfriendly and the bottom decidedly anti-social.  There are more complicated choices you have to make throughout the game, this one just addresses the point better.

Now it’s possible they only designed it this way to save space, but I think it’s actually a good way of doing things, giving these contracted options.  It leaves you in control of your characters path, but still allows you to experience the story unfolding.

It also stops you from reading too much into the options, something I personally have done in the past, particularly with the KOTOR games.  There can only be a small number of storyline paths, otherwise the story becomes confusing and difficult to navigate, so ultimately these options will generalise, using a phrase you might not associate with a particular motivation.

Mass Effects implementation isn’t perfect, some of the spoken sections feel like a generic mish-mash of several of the options.  I haven’t gone through all the options of a conversation, this is just something I’ve picked up from hearing the response, but several times I have thought ‘That’s what I thought the other option would say’.  For example, two choices of ‘Thank You’, and ‘Good-bye’  would have the player say:  ‘I’ve got to go now, thank you.’ whichever you chose.  Now it’s quite possible there are subtle differences between what is actually said, but it does take away some of the feeling of choice.  But as an idea, it’s a good example.

By only giving the gist of what your character will say, you don’t constantly see what you are missing.  Different forks in the storyline, characters and information you hadn’t considered relevant before, when you choose an option you are choosing a line of questioning, where this brings you out is up to the story.  Rather than wishing you said something else, you wonder what would have been revealed if you’d asked a different question.  They’re both very similar, but there is a subtle difference.  It’s quite possible this has been used before in other games, but this is the first time I remember encountering it, definitely the first one in which I’ve noticed it.

There are benefits to having the lines in full, one reason is it fleshes out the options more, you know exactly what you’re selecting when you make a choice.  With this system there is always an element of uncertainty.  It also helps give you an idea of what is coming next, whether this is good or bad depends on the situation and your personal views.  The main reason you have the full text options in games such as KOTOR series though, is that your character does not repeat the lines.

There are two reasons I can see for this; one, it cuts down the amount of voice recordings required.  Now in this day of multi-terabyte hard disks, space is no longer a major concern, paying voice talent remains expensive though, that’s why you often here the same voice performing different roles.  Some people find it off-putting when characters don’t speak to you, but the player’s character often remains silent and since that is usually the largest single role voicing it could be very expensive, especially when you start adding male\female versions and possibly multiple voices per gender.

The second reason is that by not voicing the player’s representation, it allows many more different types of character.  Adding a voice can force a personality onto the character, rather than being exactly what the player imagines.  In Mass Effect, despite having several differing classes, the background choices are all very similar.  So the constricted choice doesn’t matter so much, but in more open games it could all to easily restrict the choice.

It was like that in KOTOR and in a lot of other RPGs too, there are some like The Elder Scrolls series and Baldur’s Gate that have a story that allows for any character type, but most are closely bound to a storyline creating character boundaries even if it allows some freedom of choice.  Actually in The Elder Scrolls, I preferred Morrowind’s conversations over Oblivion’s.  It was nice having someone talk to you, but using all text allows a lot more freedom.  More people can say more things, and it allows more detail.  Then there was the issue of people sounding to similar, and *shudders* the beggars changing voice mid-conversation.  One question is, would this system work as well if the character responded in text?

So it’s not an idea that fits every game, but in the cases where it works I would like to see more implementations of it.  If the game is going to give the player a lot of freedom, then the traditional way using text is best, however I feel those that are bound to a storyline should use this system of motivational dialogue.  It helps engross you in the story, speeds up the pace of conversations to a more realistic level, and allows for greater surprises.