Category: Archive

Things written when I was younger and dumber.

Review | Mass Effect 3 (Multiplayer)

18 January 2014 / Sinead

Game reviews aren’t a genre I’ve written much about before, but Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer mode seemed like a good place to start.

However, I should probably clarify one thing first though – I haven’t played the single-player campaign of ME3. That’s mostly because the games are so good that I know finishing the story will kind of be the end of an era- the gaming equivalent of finishing the last Harry Potter book. My love for this series is based on just how awesome I’ve found the multiplayer to be- and also on completing the first game, which I bought after playing the third. Below is my explanation of just why I find this game so appealing.

Characters

In multiplayer, there are 64 available characters (originally 25, with new ones added throughout the year after release) – split across 12 alien races and various humans, in 6 attack classes. Each race has different health and shield levels, and different weapon preferences. Each character has three abilities, which can be for attack, self-defence, or team support. Some are common to many characters, such as Incinerate (a fireball attack), Overload (an electrical attack that removes enemy shields), or the ability to place a Sentry Turret. Other, more esoteric powers are unique to one character, such as Poison Strike (a teleporting semi-charge that creates a poison cloud corrupting nearby enemies).

There being so many potential powers and combinations means there are options to suit every type of playstyle. You could use a Tactical Cloak (invisibility) to hide and snipe from the farthest reaches of the level, and take enemies out before they get anywhere near the team. Or, levelling the Cloak differently, you can use it as a temporary distraction to sneak up to enemies and attack at point-blank range. Taking a Vanguard character into battle allows for a tank setup, taking damage away from teammates while dishing out far more, while taking an Adept provides Biotic powers that can put enemies in suspended animation, or throw them across the room.

Invisiblity plus a jetpack = a great character.

My first character- a fluorescent blue Human Engineer equipped with Overload and Incinerate- remained my favourite for the first few months of play. However, the release of new characters and power combinations means that role was taken firstly by the Quarian Infiltrator (the invisible sniper style mentioned above), and now the Turian Ghost Infiltrator. The TGI, pictured here in his neon glory, is one of the most powerful classes in the game when played correctly.

His abilities are the Tactical Cloak, Overload, and a Stimulant Pack that increases shield levels, weapon damage, and melee damage. Although I first started playing as him because he has both invisibility and a jetpack- a very fun combination to use.

Speaking of jetpacks leads on to one of my very few criticisms of this game. To ensure that brand new players would not be disadvantaged by playing the game months after its release, the later characters brought out were more powerful and had stronger abilities than the starting characters. While this is a good idea in theory, it was perhaps applied too strongly- when looking at the ME3 forums, very few original characters are still used due to the new ones being either more fun or simply more survivable.

The two characters that are probably too overpowered to be fair are the final ones released, the Alliance Infiltration Unit, and the Geth Juggernaut. The AIU is mostly a typical infiltrator build, but her final power is essentially temporary invincibility- while it is active, she cannot be killed. Furthermore, this ability is treated in the same way as a grenade ability, meaning she can top up her invincibility powerups at every ammunition box on a level, and keep it almost permanently active on small levels.

The Juggernaut doesn’t even need to worry about invincibility powers, because at twice the height and eight times the shield strength of any other character, almost nothing can take it down. On the lowest two difficulties, using a Juggernaut means actively having to try to be knocked down. They also cannot be hurt by the instant-kill attacks of stronger enemies. I’ve never played as one myself, because I haven’t unlocked it yet (new characters are unlocked via random cards bought in packs), but playing in matches with them I’ve seen one downed less than a handful of times.

Weapons

The same pros and cons can probably be applied to the weapons, though to a lesser extent. Weapons are easily customised, meaning the same weapon can be tweaked to fit very different characters by adding extra components. The all-rounder Phaeston assault rifle, for example, can be equipped with Ultra-light materials and a power magnifier, making it perfectly suited to backing up a Biotic class who need a very light loadout in order to use their powers quickly. On the other hand, adding an extended barrel and stability modifier makes it a useful weapon for Soldier classes to use suppressive fire.

The amount of customisation available means, similarly to characters, that there is always something new to try out. However, because there are so many weapons, even well-performing weapons can be forgotten about. Also, there are some weapons that can only be used well by specific characters or classes, making them a fairly niche option. For example, the Anti-Synthetic Rifle is incredibly powerful against one species of enemy, but useless against any other type.

Gameplay and Teams

Gameplay is pretty simple at its core- a team of 1-4 players take on waves of progressively more enemies, the aim being to survive through 11 waves. Mixed in with fighting are objective missions such as holding a specific point on the map, retrieving lost objects, or escorting a valuable drone to a safe location. That sounds like it should get repetitive quickly but in practice, it very rarely does. This might be luck on my part, as my average ability level means I have a set of characters that I can comfortably play Silver difficulty on, and a (smaller) set of characters I can use for Gold difficulty, meaning the game is rarely boringly easy or frustratingly hard.

The maps available are mostly based on different territories seen in the single-player campaign- there isn’t anything too strange on most of them, but they are all fun to play on, and all can suit different styles. The most interesting part is the addition of Hazard versions of the original maps, which add a danger that affects gameplay in some way. Some maps only have a very subtle effect (such as Giant, which adds thunder and lightning to make aiming more difficult). Others change how the map is played completely: Firebase White, which has a sniper-friendly outside area with close-quarters inside areas, gains a visibility-destroying snowstorm which forces everyone inside.

Challenge System

The multiplayer challenge system is very comprehensive, covering general challenges such as playing on each map a set amount, weapon challenges obtained by scoring points with each weapon, and alien challenges obtained by surviving matches with specific characters. This system means trying out everything in the game is encouraged, which stops people from just sticking with their favourite setup forever. It worked especially well on me, as I’ve become quite the completionist, rotating characters, weapon setups and maps to fill as many challenges as I can. It’s a good combination of being involving and accessible, meaning it’s my favourite challenge/award system of any game I’ve played (with the possible exception of the one in Black Ops II, which runs on much the same idea).

The only thing that ever bugged me about the system is that it was introduced after the game had been out for 6 months, so everything I had done before that would have counted towards a challenge didn’t count- considering the amount of work that making it retroactive would have required, that isn’t too big a deal.

The system also included weekly challenges that rewarded successful players with free weapon and equipment packs- this lasted until a year after the game’s release, and is probably the part I missed most about the game ageing.

Replayability

According to my online activity feed (from the game’s companion website), I’ve played 556 matches totalling over 176 hours of gameplay. This makes it probably my most-played game ever (the only exception to this might again be Black Ops II). Almost two years after release, the online community is still strong, and its easy to find matches online. It can also be easier to survive a match now, as the people left playing this late in the release cycle are either very new or very dedicated and skilled. Even playing against people with no headset on, and therefore without being able to communicate, 99% of people still revive their injured team-mates and protect each other.

All these reasons show why Mass Effect 3 is one of the most enjoyable and long-lasting multiplayer games I’ve ever played. Bring on ME4!

Crowds and Myths

13 January 2012 / Sinead

The weird thing for me about crowds is that while much of psychology focuses on how complicated individual humans are, they are even more confusing and complicated when they are put together into groups- there is an entire branch of psychology (known as, not surprisingly, crowd psychology) dedicated to understanding the difference between people as individuals and in a crowd.

The media, psychology, and sociology, have many stereotypes of crowds- most of these lead to the conclusion that crowds are irrational, suggestible and even dangerous, a sort of hive mind run by its collective not-quite-conscious. Most of these views, and the theories behind them, are taken from examples of destructive crowds, such as riots and demonstrations. (Annoyingly, the example of a riot and crowd behaviour used in my A-level textbook was actually about Bristol- not the best side of the city…).

However, looking at studies and observations of crowd behaviour, it is only a minority of crowds that become so destructive; non-violent crowds are researched much more rarely, which doesn’t seem fair.

One of the biggest stereotypes is that crowds are fuelled by their anonymity, as people lose their identities and rationales in the process of deindividuation– this is a popular notion, described in detail by social psychologists like Zimbardo. However, while this does sound like a good explanation, and is useful in some circumstances, it fails to take into account that most people in crowds aren’t anonymous- they normally go to events with friends or family, meaning their actions will be seen so they would be accountable for anything they did while part of the crowd.

A new theory of how people behave in crowds, and to me a more useful one, is Convergence Theory. This theory says that crowd behaviour is not caused by the crowd: instead individuals take their behaviours into the crowd, meaning crowd actions reflect beliefs that are already there. Using this theory, crowd behaviours stop being irrational violence, becoming a more sensible reaction to popular views.

So if convergence theory is true, then the media shouldn’t be so quick to declare crowds as violent and irrational and should instead look towards the reasons behind the crowd, for that will probably provide a much better picture of what behaviour to expect and why.

Is Psychology just common sense?

29 December 2011 / Sinead

When I tell people I’m studying psychology, one of the reactions I sometimes get (mainly, I’ve observed, from older people) is confusion: many seem like they can’t see the point of psychology as a subject. In this case, they will often say psychology doesn’t need to be studied as it is just “common sense” (something I apparently have nowhere near enough of).

Although I haven’t yet tried it, an easy way around their confusion could be to just asking them what common sense actually is, because it’s surprisingly difficult to get an agreed-upon definition.

Does Photographic memory exist? Pt.3

14 December 2011 / Sinead

Today’s topic of choice is another group of people with amazing memories- Mnemonists. Unlike the people with developmental disorders that I talked about a few weeks ago, mnemonists don’t often have physical brain differences to explain their memory abilities (apart from a small difference in the area linked to memorising long lists of numbers, which seems more of an effect than a cause).

Instead, their memories are so strong due to practice, and the use of Mnemonic techniques. Almost everyone has used some kind of mnemonic before; for example, SOHCAHTOA (for remembering when to use sin, cos, and tan in a triangle), or Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain (for remembering the colours of the rainbow).However, the method used by mnemonists are much more detailed and involved than this.

Does Photographic memory exist? Pt.2

30 November 2011 / Sinead

Part 2 is about how memory is affected by developmental disorders such as autism, Down’s syndrome, and especially savant syndrome, and how the abilities of people with these disorders could be linked to savantism.

People with autism spectrum conditions can often have memory and expertise that is described as “very deep but very narrow”. In other words, they concentrate obsessively on one small area and learn everything they can about it, even if that area is not needed or used. (For example, I once read about an autistic boy who loved to memorise camera statistics and model numbers, but had no interest in using a camera).

Does Photographic memory exist? Pt. 1

18 November 2011 / Sinead

Photographic memory is one of those concepts that is understood and shown by pop-psychology and the media a lot more than it is shown by academic psychology. Just think of how many films, books and TV shows you’ve seen featuring a character with perfect factual recall or full memory of almost every experience they’ve had.

But in real life, photographic memory cannot be easily found – scientists and researchers are still debating whether it actually exists. While people have often come forward saying they have an exceptional or photographic memory, they are found to be mistaken, and there are only a few cases where a person could genuinely have a photographic memory.

From my existing psychology education, I know of three reasons why someone can have a much better memory than average. For each of these, I have mini-theories of whether these could turn into photographic memory if it exists, and how they might work. The first condition, Hyperthymesia, is below the cut.

Where have all the genii gone?

31 October 2011 / Sinead

The title of this might sound a little unexpected, but to clarify,when I say genii, I’m not talking about very smart people. Rather, I’m on about polymaths – people who are experts, and even innovators, in many different areas. The obvious example for most people is Da Vinci, and it’s very difficult to name anyone recent who is like this- my question is, why is that?

Using my random theory from a few weeks ago, one idea for why less people are innovators and polymaths today is that we are forced by our culture and education to specialise what we want to do way too early in life. The idea of the connections is that as soon as we start narrowing down what areas we focus on, we increase the strength and regularity of the connections dealing with it, which makes connections for other areas weaker as they are used less. The fact they are weaker then means it is more difficult to use them, so they are used even less.

In England we have to start specialising from the age of 14, when we choose our GCSE options. Then, we pick A-Levels, which narrows us down again because the university admission system and syllabus criteria mean that when we pick one subject, we often have to pick others that are related- for example, people studying Chemistry will almost always want to, or be forced to, study Maths, Physics and/or Biology as well. Then there is university, where we have to choose just one subject to gain our knowledge and expand our thinking in.

Applying the theory to our education system means that from early adolescence teens are already made to focus down on a few areas, creating generations who excel at one subject, but cannot diversify or innovate as they cannot connect their subject to the majority of the other potential knowledge that is around them.

It’s blog-voting time again :)

4 October 2011 / Sinead

I’ve now finished the series of histories on some of the most famous psychologists, although it only scratched the surface of just how many influential psychologists there have been over the years. The only problem now is, I don’t know what to write about next. So, it’s over to you guys- what would you like to see next?

Option A- could be that you ask (either by comments, formspring, email etc) questions about psychology in general or specific parts, and I attempt to answer them?

Option B- I could write about some of the “unsung heroes” of psychology, the people that have done loads of studies and found interesting things about people, but for some reason have never been that well known.

Option C- something else entirely, so if you have any ideas, feel free to tell me them! =)

History of Psychology – Now for my favourite psychologist…

28 September 2011 / Sinead

I’ve been looking forward to writing this blog for ages, as it’s on one of my favourite psychologists; the humanist Abraham Maslow. The reason I like Maslow so much is that he was different from the psychologists before him: he did not use psychology for looking at people’s symptoms, but instead for looking at the healthiest and most whole people- for example, he studied only the healthiest 1% of college students in most of his experiments.

Maslow continued Rogers’ optimistic approach to psychology, seeking to understand what drove the most successful and productive people. His theory was that people were driven by needs at 4 different levels, which correspond with the 4 ways of seeing the world that Existential Psychology talked about. Unfortunately, I have no idea if this was coincidental or not. These levels formed his moderately famous Hierarchy of Needs, where the lower needs have to be met to enable later needs to develop and be met. However, there are flaws with this theory, such as why people who temporarily reach self-actualisation are able to ignore their other needs…a good example of this is the stereotype of the “starving artist”.

History of Psychology -Carl Rogers

20 September 2011 / Sinead

As I mentioned last week, Humanistic Psychology is based on aspects of life specific to humans, which borrows from Christian thoughts about the uniqueness of humans. The main areas of study include personal responsibility, values, and freedom, and it also studies the process of conscious experience (known as phenomenology, which is a very fun word to pronounce).

The Humanist psychologists believed that people were basically good, and everybody naturally wanted to be the best person they could. Rogers named this best version the “real self”, but later Humanists had different terms for it. For Rogers, people already have the ability to grow and solve their problems, they just need to be made aware of that. Related to that, he believed psychological problems weren’t inbuilt in a person but were caused by incongruence– the gap between their real self’s “I am…” and their learned views of “I should be…”.