Last year I finally played Red Dead Redemption and said it was “easily one of the greatest games I’ve ever played”. Now I’ve played the sequel prequel and it too is up there in the pantheon.

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Rockstar took the unusual approach of releasing it as a prequel to the original game, which at first seems like an odd decision. But that decision immediately pays off, as you are introduced to the new protagonist - Arthur Morgan - via a mission to rescue the hero of the first game, John Marston. This provokes two instant emotional reactions: one being the joy of seeing John again, and the other the beginning of forging a new bond with Arthur - a bond which is the core of RDR2. It’s a brilliant beginning to a brilliant game.

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I pulled out my stage coach times And I read the latest news I tapped my feet in dumb surprise And of course I saw they knew

The journey of the game is a familiar one to Western fans, following Arthur and his adopted family of outlaws and rebels through their dreams and tribulations on their quest for a better and free life. Arthur himself is a rough man of few words but long on loyalty and honour. And over the course of the game you grow to love him deeply.

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The Pinkertons pulled out my bags And asked me for my name I stuttered out my answer And hung my head in shame

Being a Rockstar game you are mostly free to play Arthur as good or as bad as you choose. You can be an upstanding gangster grudgingly respected by even the law abiding citizenry, or you can be a nasty piece of low down villainy who terrorises from lake to landing. Naturally I chose the former, though there are enough moral conundrums and choices to ensure that you’re never quite the model citizen, always straying outside the law rather than in.

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Now they’ve found me Lord I say at last they’ve found me It’s hard to run From a starving family

The game world is stunning, the most alive and realistic (within the Western framework) world I’ve ever ventured in. The wildlife and nature is quite incredible, both graphically and audibly, each valley or mountain top or forest swarming with movement and sound. For much of the game you are simply riding free and exploring, drawn to the next vista and watching herds of bison grazing on the plains.

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Reading that ornithologists have studied the game and gave it top marks comes as no surprise. Nor that a friend’s father examined the railway details all the way down to the joinery on the sleepers and rails and was amazed by their accuracy. It may sound crazy to put that level of detail in a game of this type, but it pays off in spades with the immersion and joy the world generates.

Now I’ve seen this chain gang Lord I say let me see my priest I couldn’t have faced your desert sand Old burning brown backed beast

Special mention must be made of the horses in the game. The models are beautiful, from their movement to their coats to the idle animations to the incredible detail of their faces. Over the course of the game you can tame wild horses and develop their skills, and by the end you will have made a bond stronger then iron with your favourites.

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The poor house they hit me for my kin And claimed my crumbling walls Now I know how Reno felt When he ran from the law

Some reviewers have said you don’t need to play the first game to play the second, and while that is true it also means you would miss out on a huge component of the RDR2. Knowing the fate of many of the characters you play alongside brings an emotional heft that is extremely affecting. It’s quite different to a sequel where you are continuing a story, here you are starting a story where you know the ending, and that makes all the difference in the world.

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Now they’ve found me Well I won’t run I’m tired of hearing There goes a well-known gun

It is an extremely emotional voyage the game takes you on if you let it, one which can be played with great freedom of action and yet remain a shining example of the power of a single player game to craft and shape a story that lives on beyond the boundaries of the game. And in Arthur, Rockstar have created one of the great videogame - or any medium really - characters. Spend some time in his skin and you’re unlikely to forget it.

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#Blaugust16

Song lyrics from Elton John & Bernie Taupin’s ‘Ballad of a Well-Known Gun’

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Our Alliance Guild ran Blackrock Depths this evening - or at least the first 7 bosses: it has 20 in total. I suspect this is the largest 5 man dungeon in Warcraft.

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Doing some research for the run, I was amazed to read that when it was originally released in Patch 1.3.0 in 2005 it would take 4-6 hours to run. That’s remarkable, and remarkable that people would have the stamina to do such a lengthy run. Especially given how much harder it would have been on release with mobs at level and no min-maxxing possible as this Dungeon would have been dropping the best gear in game.

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Even just navigating it must have been a challenge, with multiple levels and an dizzying array of routes and obstacles. These days it’s much easier with Dwarven mole machines allowing fast travel to various spots throughout the maze.

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It has unique attributes like The Black Forge which is the only place in game where you can smelt Dark Iron Ore, and The Black Anvil which allows those bars to be crafted into items. And those two locations are deep within the dungeon, so you can’t just traipse down there to do a bit of crafting.

It’s lovely that the gear you forged was largely fire-resistance, which set you up for the yet to be released Molten Core, the first Warcraft raid. The Forge is even located just before the entrance to the Raid as a hint and teaser. That kind of precise logical progression is sorely missing from the ‘retail’ game.

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Places like Blackrock Spire are another reason Classic is going to be fascinating. When even the Dungeons are challenging marathons, it will be a real test of the capacity of the modern MMO player. Assuming it’s successful enough to move off Patch 1.12, which it surely will be given the current level of interest.

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#Blaugust15

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Today Overwatch introduced the Role Queue, a feature that forces players to queue as one of the three character archtypes: Tank, Support, and DPS. There are two slots of each role available, which means every game will end up with two Tanks, two Supports, and two DPS.

For MMO players that will be a very familiar concept - it’s the holy trinity but in an FPS, something I don’t think many people would have expected to see. Even the queuing system looks familiar, with rewards for queuing as a particular role based on their current popularity.

As usual, Tanks and Healers are scooping up the loot, and DPS have the long queue. Which suits me fine as DPS is not my forte in Overwatch.

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Being able to queue as a Support or Tank makes me much more likely to try out Competitive play more, as you can be fairly confident you’ll be able to play one of the characters you know well. I can play two Tanks relatively well (D.va and Orisa) and one moderately (Reinhardt), and Mercy is my favourite Support character (aka Healer).

One odd artefact of this is that the non-healing Supports have been moved to the DPS class. In fact they should probably rename Support to Healing, as that’s all that’s left there now. For example Symmetra (another favourite) and Mei used to be Support, but now have to compete in the far more populated DPS category. And both being low DPS output compared to the more pure damage dealers means there will probably be a fair bit of finger-pointing if they’re chosen. Though apparently Mei-meta is the new hotness - I’m waiting for the Sym-meta for my moment of glory!

It’s a bit of a controversial change in some ways. As Skyline says in that video, one of the pleasures of Overwatch is the fluidity of the teams, and the ability to adjust on the fly. Coming up again a heavy tank team? Double your DPS and see if you can overwhelm them. Switch to a specific character temporarily to counter someone on the other team. Just want to have some fun - play a 6 Healer composition and be unkillable. That will all be much more difficult - if not impossible - with the new system, and while fluid comps will still be on offer in Arcade mode, that’s less appealing than the main game.

And another great feature of Overwatch has always been the strength of character, and how different they all are. With Role Locking there will have to be more consistency across characters to ensure balance. We can already see that some of that happening in the patch notes today with Bridgette being nerfed into more of a Healer than an all round powerhouse:

Developer Comment: The goal of these changes is to make Brigitte more of a primary healer for your team, at the cost of weakening her survivability. Since Brigitte will now be only one of two support heroes for your team, it is important that she can provide enough healing to be valuable in that role.

It will be very interesting to see how this plays out, and whether it boosts or dampens enthusiasm for the game. One wild theory might be that this is being done in order to allow Blizzard to launch Overwatch 2 - dare we hope for Overwatch PVE - at Blizzcon. Overwatch Classic (heh) can be the eSports version, with closely balanced characters and locked roles, and Overwatch 2 can be the one where the creativity can run wild.

Unlikely, but then so was Blizzard doing Warcraft Classic.

#Blaugust14

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The reserve-your-name event for Classic seemed to start about as well as the original launch by the sounds, which is appropriate.

I dutifully logged in at 0800 with a bunch of names ready to go, was briefly queued, then connected only to find that all the servers were showing as ‘Locked’. Mysterious. Clicking on Arugal loaded up a ‘Logging in to game server’ message that sat there doing nothing until I clicked Cancel and tried again. Unfortunately the same thing happened. At that point I decided this could go on for a long time, so I bailed and went to work for the day.

Tonight I logged on again, and immediately got through and onto the Arugal server. A few moments configuring a Tauren Hunter later, I tried my original name - ‘Stroeb’ - and was successful! It pays not to want a real word or popular fake name. I also managed to get ‘Banehammer’ (a favourite WotLK character of mine and my original tank) on the Remulos server, and ‘Angler’ on Pagle - perhaps my favourite of the lot. Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza here we come (if/when Blizzard upgrade Classic to v1.7 that is!).

The idea of Classic has continued to curtail my time on Live, other than the Alliance dungeon progression crew. I’m occasionally dipping in and doing a few Nazjatar dailies, but it’s nothing like the dedication and enjoyment I got working toward Pathfinder I. While I will eventually unlock Pathfinder II I suspect it will be some time coming.

Doing things very late in an expansion often works in your favour as buffs and rewards tend to be increased toward the end of days when Blizzard gets everyone ready for the New Thing. Classic may turn out to be too much hard work once the reality sets in, but for now the idea of a true fresh start - no imported gold, no heirlooms, no muscle memory - is still tremendously appealing.

#Blaugust13

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Last night I reached level 10 and unlocked a swathe of features, most of which I missed as the screen alerts and pop-ups flew by. The main one was that I am now officially a Gladiator tank.

While I’d unlocked my first clear tanking ability at level 8 with Rampart (reduces incoming damage temporarily), at level 10 several new abilities appeared. The main one is something called Iron Will which increases the enmity enemy mobs feel toward me. This looks like it’s a permanent taunt, making me much more attractive to mobs when fighting in a group. It’s tied to an ‘Oath Gauge’ which is a on screen icon that’s either on of off as far as I can tell - so less of a gauge than a switch.

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A passive Tank Mastery trait also unlocked, which has the standard reduce damage + increase HP buffs based on my vitality and strength attributes respectively.

One thing the game hasn’t done a great job of explaining - unlike many things which are explained very well - is the stats I should be aiming for on gear. Many of the quest rewards make me choose between Strength (leather) and Intelligence (cloth) upgrades, so I’ve been gravitating to Strength. But I did seem to see somewhere, though I can’t find it now, that Intelligence is important for tanking, so I’m not sure what to choose here. Given I won’t be tanking - or at least not yet - I think Strength is still going to be preferable, especially with the Tank Mastery trait bonus.

I’m enjoying the Gladiator, feeling like you can take a few hits and being well armoured and armed is always satisfying to me in a game. I should probably start thinking about starting a new Class now that I can, but for the moment I will stay true to the Gladiator way. One of the rewards for reaching this milestone was a piece of unique untradable body armour (though I suspect every other Gladiator is also wearing it), which had the unfortunate effect of exposing my less than ideal pants.

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I was a little surprised to find there wasn’t much song and dance about reaching level 10 back in Ul’dah at the Gladiator Guild - just another clean up mission - but I suppose that’s the Gladiator way: all business.

Level 10 should also mean professions are available, and given you can do all of them at once I should probably be a bit cautious that crafting doesn’t take over the gameplay for me. Fishing is guaranteed though.

I had been assuming the Gladiator missions were the main quest line, but there is a ‘Main Scenario Quest’ which must be the core story - I’d just been chugging through all the quests as I moved around the map so wasn’t following closely which was associated with what. Thinking back the core story did seem to involve a lot of courier deliveries and kill five thing quests, so maybe that’s why it hadn’t grabbed my focus. Time to pay attention.

Out in the adventuring world I have started to get a better handle on my survivability too. Handling multiple mobs seems to be ok, as long as you’re careful, though having only one AoE ability so far is a bit limiting. The FATES have become easy but I think I’m outlevelling most of those in the first zone now. They are a bit repetitive after a while, with most being a variation of defeat the waves of mobs and collect all of the things. I’m not sure that I’ll continue with them unless they sound interesting or different - I think GW2’s public events might be better designed on the whole.

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The GCD feels a bit slow still, but I’m starting to enjoy the pacing of the attack sequences. It feels almost like a rhythm game, albeit a slightly ponderous one. It’s fun working it out without referring to guides, though I suspect I’m being less than efficient. The ability options are starting to grow too, so getting some kind of optimum rotation going will take some study.

And I need to find some pants.

#Blaugust12

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