I hate Battlefield 3. I hate Battlefield 3 so very, very much. So many people love it, including many of my best friends. I hate it with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. Why? Oh, where to begin...
Well, let's start with the single player, as it will take the least amount of time to talk about. Why did they even give this game a single player, much less and entire disc of single player? The story, from the few minutes I played of it, revolves around a terror plot that the Secret Service agent from "24" and some other guy are trying to get out of the player character through boring flashback sequences. It's like Call of Duty: Black Ops, but with even less heart. Everything looks so generic that I just couldn't find a way to get into any aspect of it. Hey, that building's blowing up. Isn't that pretty? Look at those particle effects. Boring.
Now for the reason this game exists; multiplayer. There is nothing less satisfying that spawn-killing; for the killed and, I would hope, the killer. Say what you want about Call of Duty multiplayer, but I have yet to be spawn-killed once in the four games or so since the first Modern Warfare. Not once. On the other hand, I have been spawn-killed at least once in every match I've played in Battlefield 3. Camping is also the order of the day, with snipers lurking in every dark corner of the map. I am in the small camp of people who legitimately believes that camping is a legitimate strategy. However, it makes the game really annoying. I don't camp because running around stabbing guys or blasting them with shotguns is significantly more fun. I just enjoy the twitch shooter, or at least the shooter that allows for both camping and speedy fun, over fifteen minutes of bullets flying into my skull from across the map.
Speaking of maps, do you like the same two maps over and over again? Well then you're in luck! Every map in the game seems to be smaller portions of the same two maps; a European city and an industrial area filled with crates. That's all you get. Every other game in existence in this first-person shooter style has at least three maps, usually significantly more. How lazy can they be? And don't even get me started on the menus in this game, which may feature the worst game lobby ever made. When a match is over, you can't mess around with your loadouts, I don't think you can invite friends to your match and you most certainly cannot quit from the match without quitting out of the entire game and going to the dashboard. I don't understand how this could be screwed up. I just don't understand the thinking.
At the end of the day, I hate this game because of what it stands for and how it was sold. I'm so tired of these modern military shooters that I'm actually pining for a good ol' fashioned WWII shooter. At least you got some interesting history out of those. These clandestine modern games set in fake conflicts that tend to simultaneously wish the Cold War was still on while figuring out a way to demonize as many different kinds of brown people as possible. Battlefield's the worst because they try to make it seem realistic, which brings us to the way it was sold. How many times did you hear the phrase Frostbite 2 associated with this game? Hell, they actually have Frostbite 2 alongside DICE, the developer, in the opening credits. Does anyone give a rat's ass about an engine? Video games are an interesting crossroads between art, entertainment and technology, but Battlefield 3 almost seems like a really long tech demo at this point. Everything was so poorly thought-out and executed in the game that I get the feeling that all of the work went into their stupid engine. And you know what? It looks ok. The particle effects are pretty. I like the lighting. However, why does it matter that a game has the capacity to be good-looking when the level design is so boring and generic? Frostbite 2 might make some great games, but this isn't one of them.
So why do I hate this game? It's soulless, boring and against everything I stand for as a gamer. It doesn't feel polished. It's not fun. There's just nothing to enjoy. Single player is stupid and multiplayer is one of the most annoying experiences I've ever had the misfortune of getting myself into. Then there's the little things, like the stupid glitch effect they use when transitioning between menus, or the stupid menus themselves. If you're going to play the game, play it online with a friend because it's really the only way it's fun. Otherwise, please ditch this game and support innovation rather than an inaccurate and boring war sim.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Limbo
The more I write these reviews, the more I am beginning to realize that it is damn near impossible to complete a game in a week. If it was all I did, maybe. However as it stands, I have a life outside of video games that seems to prevent me from totally finishing most of the games I play, especially when there are holidays and families around. I can still pick apart the flaws of a game and get a good sense about of its merits, but I am missing out on chunks of the game and I will try my very bestest to play more in the future. Are we good? Good.
I played Limbo this week, a haunting and beautiful 2D side-scrolling platformer from Danish developer Playdead. Platformers, if you don't know, are classically console games in which the player jumps around on platforms to reach some kind of goal. Platformers were all the rage in the 8 and 16-bit eras of gaming with Mario and Sonic games leading the pack, but they fell out of favor with the advent of 3D gaming. However, with the recent indie-gaming boom, 2D platformers with 3D backgrounds and setpieces have made a major comeback, and Limbo is easily the best I've played so far.
In the game, you play a boy who is traversing a bleak landscape to do...something. I've heard that the boy is looking for his sister; a development that is undoubtedly revealed past the choke-point on which I've been stuck for too long to say. Any kind of traditional narrative doesn't really matter in this game, though. Like minimalist films such as Meshes of the Afternoon, the story itself isn't the point of game. The game attempts to establish a mood and an emotion in the player. For all intents and purposes, this game is simply about a young boy trying to avoid death in a perilous environment.
The gameplay is as simple as can be. I bought it on Steam for my PC, so the controls for me were the left and right arrow keys to move side to side, the up arrow for jump and the control key to grab things. Those are really the only mechanics. However, much like the many uses for the portal gun in Portal, this simple gameplay leads to astonishing variety when combined with a physics engine. Pulling and jumping can only get you so far, unless things fall, slide and generally act in a way that is somewhat close to the real world. For instance, chains swing like they would in real life, so if a beam that you can pull is attached to a chain, you can pull it and use it to swing to a ledge or something. This opens up so many avenues through which developers can create fascinating puzzles.
Also, I can't move on without mentioning the beautiful art style of the game. Everything is in black and white, with varying shades of grey and strange depths of field creating a very dynamic environment. The visuals go so far in creating a sense of mystery and loneliness.
It's just so creepy and beautiful it's hard to explain. I don't know how Playdead made this game, but it is simply glorious.
One of the interesting and truly genius things that Playdead did in Limbo is make the player character a child. Ask anyone, especially Steven Spielberg, and they will tell you that children in danger will instantly cause the audience to pay attention. This is not a children's game. This is a very dark and very violent game. I don't know how many times I watched that boy impale himself on a spike because of a bad jump or fall off of a cliff. The interesting thing is that every time it happened, it hurt a little. I cared more for this character, who never speaks and has no real motivation, than most of the speaking characters I've encountered in dozens of other games. It's because I'm playing as a child, as well as the fact that the violence is so brutal and pervasive and the environment is so engrossing. This game hurts to play, but in a good way. It is a very simple story of survival, but also a very powerful one.
One of the most noticeable things in the game is the boy's eyes. They glow brightly and seem to always be the whitest thing on the screen. At first I thought the game developers threw that in there to make the game even creepier, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that they're a symbol for life. Whenever the boy dies, you can see that light drain from his eyes. It's heartbreaking. There are other people in the game, but they don't have the bright eyes that the boy does. He's a pure, wide-eyed child in a very dark and scary world; something everyone can connect to.
This is one of the best games I've ever played. It's simply stunning. I love the minimalism of the whole affair, from the visuals to controls, and how they evoke this feeling of dread, mystery and even excitement. There are some small problems, such as some inaccurate jump mechanics and the boy's tendency to hang onto boxes even when it causes him to drown or electrocute himself. None of that matters though and I suggest everyone buy it. It's beautiful, it's affecting and it may be one of the best games of all time.
I played Limbo this week, a haunting and beautiful 2D side-scrolling platformer from Danish developer Playdead. Platformers, if you don't know, are classically console games in which the player jumps around on platforms to reach some kind of goal. Platformers were all the rage in the 8 and 16-bit eras of gaming with Mario and Sonic games leading the pack, but they fell out of favor with the advent of 3D gaming. However, with the recent indie-gaming boom, 2D platformers with 3D backgrounds and setpieces have made a major comeback, and Limbo is easily the best I've played so far.
In the game, you play a boy who is traversing a bleak landscape to do...something. I've heard that the boy is looking for his sister; a development that is undoubtedly revealed past the choke-point on which I've been stuck for too long to say. Any kind of traditional narrative doesn't really matter in this game, though. Like minimalist films such as Meshes of the Afternoon, the story itself isn't the point of game. The game attempts to establish a mood and an emotion in the player. For all intents and purposes, this game is simply about a young boy trying to avoid death in a perilous environment.
The gameplay is as simple as can be. I bought it on Steam for my PC, so the controls for me were the left and right arrow keys to move side to side, the up arrow for jump and the control key to grab things. Those are really the only mechanics. However, much like the many uses for the portal gun in Portal, this simple gameplay leads to astonishing variety when combined with a physics engine. Pulling and jumping can only get you so far, unless things fall, slide and generally act in a way that is somewhat close to the real world. For instance, chains swing like they would in real life, so if a beam that you can pull is attached to a chain, you can pull it and use it to swing to a ledge or something. This opens up so many avenues through which developers can create fascinating puzzles.
Also, I can't move on without mentioning the beautiful art style of the game. Everything is in black and white, with varying shades of grey and strange depths of field creating a very dynamic environment. The visuals go so far in creating a sense of mystery and loneliness.
It's just so creepy and beautiful it's hard to explain. I don't know how Playdead made this game, but it is simply glorious.
One of the interesting and truly genius things that Playdead did in Limbo is make the player character a child. Ask anyone, especially Steven Spielberg, and they will tell you that children in danger will instantly cause the audience to pay attention. This is not a children's game. This is a very dark and very violent game. I don't know how many times I watched that boy impale himself on a spike because of a bad jump or fall off of a cliff. The interesting thing is that every time it happened, it hurt a little. I cared more for this character, who never speaks and has no real motivation, than most of the speaking characters I've encountered in dozens of other games. It's because I'm playing as a child, as well as the fact that the violence is so brutal and pervasive and the environment is so engrossing. This game hurts to play, but in a good way. It is a very simple story of survival, but also a very powerful one.
One of the most noticeable things in the game is the boy's eyes. They glow brightly and seem to always be the whitest thing on the screen. At first I thought the game developers threw that in there to make the game even creepier, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that they're a symbol for life. Whenever the boy dies, you can see that light drain from his eyes. It's heartbreaking. There are other people in the game, but they don't have the bright eyes that the boy does. He's a pure, wide-eyed child in a very dark and scary world; something everyone can connect to.
This is one of the best games I've ever played. It's simply stunning. I love the minimalism of the whole affair, from the visuals to controls, and how they evoke this feeling of dread, mystery and even excitement. There are some small problems, such as some inaccurate jump mechanics and the boy's tendency to hang onto boxes even when it causes him to drown or electrocute himself. None of that matters though and I suggest everyone buy it. It's beautiful, it's affecting and it may be one of the best games of all time.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Pure Laziness
I've been a lazy son of a bitch this week. I've been playing a bunch of games on and off for the expressed purpose of-gasp-having fun. I've been going back to Shogun, which is interesting to me, and Skyrim mostly. I bought Blue Dragon because it was exceedingly cheap and I want to do a JRPG at some point, but I am really not in the mood right now. I also bought Amnesia: The Dark Descent because Steam is going crazy with sales and my girlfriend wants to watch me play it, but I may kill myself if I ever have to open another goddamn drawer. There are a few others I could play, but now I don't have enough time. Really, what this boils down to is that motivating yourself during winter break is tough and making yourself play video games you aren't necessarily that into does not make that job easier. Still, it's what I've chosen to do, so I should have followed through. Next week, you will almost certainly have a new review. Hell, you might have one tomorrow, we'll see. I hope it suffices to say that I will be back soon and we will just call this my winter break from blogging, even though I'm writing this message now. This was all over the place, but there you go. Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, a most splendid Kwanzaa, festive Festivus and whatever other celebrations there are out there.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Alpha Protocol
Alpha Protocol, developed by Obsidian and published by Sega, is a game I'd heard absolutely nothing about. I don't know how it escaped my radar, but the game was a complete non-entity for me. I borrowed it from a friend of mine a month or two ago for the sole purpose of reviewing it, and it has been sitting on the cluttered table which holds my TV ever since. Between borrowing games I actually cared about from other friends and buying games I actually cared about from various retailers, there has been simply no room for Alpha Protocol on my docket. Then, I woke up on Tuesday morning and realized I didn't have a game to review. So Alpha Protocol it was.
At first, I was excited. Again, I had heard nothing about this game and the prospect of finding a hidden gem is always intriguing. However, from the second the title screen came up, I knew this was going to be bad. You cannot get more generic than the title on a three-color screen with a glitched-out theme song playing that sounds like it wants to be a Street Fighter song when it grows up. After I got past that screen and started playing, I realize that Alpha Protocol can best be described as Mass Effect without the squad, the sci-fi setting or the polish. It's a third-person action title with some RPG elements and dialogue options (but now in quick time!) Mass Effect in the real world isn't a bad idea, but everything in this game is executed so poorly.
The story is that your character works for the government and then the government betrays said player character because a weapons manufacturer said so. There may be more to it, but I stopped caring the second I realized that this game was going to be told in flashback. Telling an entire story in flashback is annoying, especially when it is so horribly written. Oh and video game writing does not get much worse than this. Besides the plodding plotting and an espionage story that feels more Michael Bay than Ian Fleming, the dialogue sounds like it was scraped off of the bottom of a giant vat of cliches that went bad in the 60's. If you try to be a stand-up guy, you sound wooden. If you try to sound casual, you sound like a smarmy prick. To be honest, I never went aggressive because...why? They say that being too nice might be a bad thing at the beginning of the game, but I never saw any proof. Maybe at the end of the game it becomes a factor or it affects what missions you you can play, but that isn't a punishment really. It's just silly.
Then, once you get past the ludicrous story, you've got a nice smorgasbord of technical problems to gnaw away on. In the interest of setting the mood, I can tell you that I was in the middle of a mission to do...something. I can't remember what, but it doesn't matter because the storyline and all of the situations are so generic that it seems like they just replaced nouns in other spy fiction to create their story, like the developers just filled-in a book of Mad Libs : U.N.C.L.E. Edition. To get back on topic, I was trying to get out of a room. This sounds simple, but there just didn't seem to be any way out. The room was a slightly more complicated box with seemingly two exits, but one was blocked by a gate I couldn't open and the other was just a big black spot on a wall in an area of no consequence that just looked like a door. After more time than I would care to tell, I realize a big black area that looked like a simple alcove was the way out, but I fell through the floor into a space I couldn't escape before I could finish the mission. I was pissed. This is just the most glaring in a series of technical problems. For one, the core system of the game, the upgrades, seem kind of pointless. You can put points into stealth, but sneaking is so hit or miss that you can crouch in plain sight and have NPC's miss you one minute and then have them spot you from across the map the next. The gun upgrades don't seem to do much, both in the character upgrades and the upgrades on the guns themselves. I've been told that martial arts are the most fun because you can simply run up and kick-punch the world into submission. Speaking of martial arts, the character animations are just too damn silly for a game like this. Hand-to-hand combat looks stupid, and whenever the player character is in sneak mode it looks like he is doing a weird version of the running man. Also, I don't like that game gives the player conversation choices, but times them and forces an answer. It's not a bad idea necessarily, but its handled poorly and showed me just how much I rely on conversations as natural bathroom breaks in Bioware games. Mix in poor graphics for this stage in a console's lifespan, very hit or miss shooting (no pun intended) and a general lack of polish and you've got a nearly broken game.
I realize I'm being hard on this game, but playing it is so infuriating because it could have been better. Obsidian promises choice, and in a lot of superficial ways it delivers. You can choose how you talk to people, who you let live, what guns you want to shoot, what to put on those guns, etc, but in the end it just doesn't matter. My friend played with pistols, fully upgraded them and said his character was never good with them. If you give someone a path like that, you need to let them succeed in that path. If you're pitching choice as the core aspect of your game and you allow players to choose to use pistols, then there should be doves flying around the screen from how much the game resembles a John Woo film. If they want to sneak around and be a debonair boss, like I did, then they should be able to, like I couldn't. Choice is a brilliant thing to have in games, but not delivering on the promise of choice is like shooting yourself in the foot. Yes, the shooting isn't totally broken in the game, yes the story is kind of fun in an extremely stupid way and you can certainly choose a lot of things, but when none of those choices really have any bearing on the game that has a myriad of technical problems, a forgettable story and atrocious voice acting (I forgot to mention that everyone in this game sounds like they were voiced by someone with a lobotomy), I have every right to be a little harsh.
At first, I was excited. Again, I had heard nothing about this game and the prospect of finding a hidden gem is always intriguing. However, from the second the title screen came up, I knew this was going to be bad. You cannot get more generic than the title on a three-color screen with a glitched-out theme song playing that sounds like it wants to be a Street Fighter song when it grows up. After I got past that screen and started playing, I realize that Alpha Protocol can best be described as Mass Effect without the squad, the sci-fi setting or the polish. It's a third-person action title with some RPG elements and dialogue options (but now in quick time!) Mass Effect in the real world isn't a bad idea, but everything in this game is executed so poorly.
The story is that your character works for the government and then the government betrays said player character because a weapons manufacturer said so. There may be more to it, but I stopped caring the second I realized that this game was going to be told in flashback. Telling an entire story in flashback is annoying, especially when it is so horribly written. Oh and video game writing does not get much worse than this. Besides the plodding plotting and an espionage story that feels more Michael Bay than Ian Fleming, the dialogue sounds like it was scraped off of the bottom of a giant vat of cliches that went bad in the 60's. If you try to be a stand-up guy, you sound wooden. If you try to sound casual, you sound like a smarmy prick. To be honest, I never went aggressive because...why? They say that being too nice might be a bad thing at the beginning of the game, but I never saw any proof. Maybe at the end of the game it becomes a factor or it affects what missions you you can play, but that isn't a punishment really. It's just silly.
Then, once you get past the ludicrous story, you've got a nice smorgasbord of technical problems to gnaw away on. In the interest of setting the mood, I can tell you that I was in the middle of a mission to do...something. I can't remember what, but it doesn't matter because the storyline and all of the situations are so generic that it seems like they just replaced nouns in other spy fiction to create their story, like the developers just filled-in a book of Mad Libs : U.N.C.L.E. Edition. To get back on topic, I was trying to get out of a room. This sounds simple, but there just didn't seem to be any way out. The room was a slightly more complicated box with seemingly two exits, but one was blocked by a gate I couldn't open and the other was just a big black spot on a wall in an area of no consequence that just looked like a door. After more time than I would care to tell, I realize a big black area that looked like a simple alcove was the way out, but I fell through the floor into a space I couldn't escape before I could finish the mission. I was pissed. This is just the most glaring in a series of technical problems. For one, the core system of the game, the upgrades, seem kind of pointless. You can put points into stealth, but sneaking is so hit or miss that you can crouch in plain sight and have NPC's miss you one minute and then have them spot you from across the map the next. The gun upgrades don't seem to do much, both in the character upgrades and the upgrades on the guns themselves. I've been told that martial arts are the most fun because you can simply run up and kick-punch the world into submission. Speaking of martial arts, the character animations are just too damn silly for a game like this. Hand-to-hand combat looks stupid, and whenever the player character is in sneak mode it looks like he is doing a weird version of the running man. Also, I don't like that game gives the player conversation choices, but times them and forces an answer. It's not a bad idea necessarily, but its handled poorly and showed me just how much I rely on conversations as natural bathroom breaks in Bioware games. Mix in poor graphics for this stage in a console's lifespan, very hit or miss shooting (no pun intended) and a general lack of polish and you've got a nearly broken game.
I realize I'm being hard on this game, but playing it is so infuriating because it could have been better. Obsidian promises choice, and in a lot of superficial ways it delivers. You can choose how you talk to people, who you let live, what guns you want to shoot, what to put on those guns, etc, but in the end it just doesn't matter. My friend played with pistols, fully upgraded them and said his character was never good with them. If you give someone a path like that, you need to let them succeed in that path. If you're pitching choice as the core aspect of your game and you allow players to choose to use pistols, then there should be doves flying around the screen from how much the game resembles a John Woo film. If they want to sneak around and be a debonair boss, like I did, then they should be able to, like I couldn't. Choice is a brilliant thing to have in games, but not delivering on the promise of choice is like shooting yourself in the foot. Yes, the shooting isn't totally broken in the game, yes the story is kind of fun in an extremely stupid way and you can certainly choose a lot of things, but when none of those choices really have any bearing on the game that has a myriad of technical problems, a forgettable story and atrocious voice acting (I forgot to mention that everyone in this game sounds like they were voiced by someone with a lobotomy), I have every right to be a little harsh.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Total War: Shogun 2
Strategy games are interesting. On one hand, they make you feel like a god. The Total War series is especially good at this, allowing you to fly above massive battles that you control, at least one side of it. You are sending thousands of young, virtual men to their deaths and you feel all-powerful. However, this feeling only lasts as long as you are winning. The second you start losing, you realize just how bad you are at strategy and why it's a good thing that those virtual men dying because you just cannot forgive something the leader of the Yamanouchi clan said are not real men.
Total War: Shogun 2 is something of a homecoming for the series. It started in feudal Japan and is now back with pretty graphics. I'm going to come out and say that I am truly terrible at this game. I am about as good with strategy as Ambrose Burnside; repeatedly sending my troops forward to meet the enemy head-on. That being said, it's still really fun. The battles are so dynamic and engaging that one can't help but be entertained by the massive slaughter.
The game is set in the mid-1500's, which is really when any game about samurai should be set. There are a few clans to pick from who all specialize in something. For instance, the Hojo specialize in buildings and firebombing people, the Oda specialize in using peasants and the Tokugawa are master diplomats. The goal of the campaign is to take over Japan and...that's it. Really you just need to capture twenty-five provinces, with some specific provinces that are assigned to each clan that must be taken, and you're done. Of course, this is more difficult than it sounds. This is only the campaign however. There are also historical battles like the one at Sekigahara or Kawanakajima (the fourth and best Kawanakajima, to be specific) and multiplayer. I haven't gotten into the multiplayer yet as I expect it to be like playing Starcraft online; I will instantly have my ass handed to me.
The game play in the campaign is an interesting mixture of a real-time strategy game and a turn-based strategy game. The turn-based stuff is all empire building, with the player deciding which provinces to attack, building up their provinces and castles, building units for their armies, setting tax rates, going into diplomatic discussions and a million other little things that one would expect from a game such as this. They even allow the player to marry off members of their daimyo's family (the daimyo is the leader.) Then, when two armies clash the real-time strategy takes over. The battles were really hard for me to get the feel for, but I also just got my computer a few weeks ago. It may be totally intuitive for everyone whose carpal tunnel-ridden right hand was born for a mouse. Still, even with my inexperience, I was lining up my armies and marching them toward victory in no time. Of course, by victory I mean I seized the shogunate and immediately quit the second everyone clan in the game turned on me. I'd won, in my mind.
I don't really have a lot to say here because there really isn't a lot to say. If you dig the historical period that this game is emulating, you're going to love this game. If you are really into the strategic elements of games or warfare, give this one a shot. It's only thirty dollars on Steam, which is why I have it. That being said, there's no real story, the game play is simultaneously deep and simple and I have yet to go online, though I think I will do that and write about that separately in the next few days. All in all, it's a fun game and that's it. There's no meat for my wormy, psuedo-intellectual brain to feast on. If you like chess, the Japanese or the righteous high of sending men to their deaths, definitely give this game a shot.
Total War: Shogun 2 is something of a homecoming for the series. It started in feudal Japan and is now back with pretty graphics. I'm going to come out and say that I am truly terrible at this game. I am about as good with strategy as Ambrose Burnside; repeatedly sending my troops forward to meet the enemy head-on. That being said, it's still really fun. The battles are so dynamic and engaging that one can't help but be entertained by the massive slaughter.
The game is set in the mid-1500's, which is really when any game about samurai should be set. There are a few clans to pick from who all specialize in something. For instance, the Hojo specialize in buildings and firebombing people, the Oda specialize in using peasants and the Tokugawa are master diplomats. The goal of the campaign is to take over Japan and...that's it. Really you just need to capture twenty-five provinces, with some specific provinces that are assigned to each clan that must be taken, and you're done. Of course, this is more difficult than it sounds. This is only the campaign however. There are also historical battles like the one at Sekigahara or Kawanakajima (the fourth and best Kawanakajima, to be specific) and multiplayer. I haven't gotten into the multiplayer yet as I expect it to be like playing Starcraft online; I will instantly have my ass handed to me.
The game play in the campaign is an interesting mixture of a real-time strategy game and a turn-based strategy game. The turn-based stuff is all empire building, with the player deciding which provinces to attack, building up their provinces and castles, building units for their armies, setting tax rates, going into diplomatic discussions and a million other little things that one would expect from a game such as this. They even allow the player to marry off members of their daimyo's family (the daimyo is the leader.) Then, when two armies clash the real-time strategy takes over. The battles were really hard for me to get the feel for, but I also just got my computer a few weeks ago. It may be totally intuitive for everyone whose carpal tunnel-ridden right hand was born for a mouse. Still, even with my inexperience, I was lining up my armies and marching them toward victory in no time. Of course, by victory I mean I seized the shogunate and immediately quit the second everyone clan in the game turned on me. I'd won, in my mind.
I don't really have a lot to say here because there really isn't a lot to say. If you dig the historical period that this game is emulating, you're going to love this game. If you are really into the strategic elements of games or warfare, give this one a shot. It's only thirty dollars on Steam, which is why I have it. That being said, there's no real story, the game play is simultaneously deep and simple and I have yet to go online, though I think I will do that and write about that separately in the next few days. All in all, it's a fun game and that's it. There's no meat for my wormy, psuedo-intellectual brain to feast on. If you like chess, the Japanese or the righteous high of sending men to their deaths, definitely give this game a shot.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Organic Vs. Inorganic
Maybe some spoilers.
Gears of War 3 can be described as, at best, ham-fisted. It's a fun enough game, but it really falls apart when it tries to be emotional (ie the hilarious ending) or say something other than shooting aliens is good (ie the hilarious energy crisis message.) No one is playing Gears of War to be told that we are being destroyed by the very fuel we use to survive. Gasp. However, there is something in this game I found interesting, which I'm sure they never intended to be in the game. All of the enemies in the game are organic. Of course, the humans in the game are technically organic in that they probably have organs, but the Locust and especially the Lambent are all inextricably linked to living tissue and a world outside of technology. The Gears of War franchise seems to be making a statement against organic life, in some ways, or at least makes it a point to cast it in a bad light. Sound a bit far-fetched? Don't worry, baby, I brought proof.
Let's start with the Locust, as the are the main villains of the series no matter what the last game says. The Locust, at first glance, are just like the humans. Well, ok, they look very different, but they use guns, are bipedal and even speak English so in the grand scheme of things they are very much like us. Yes, the ordinary Locust Grunt is very humanoid, but what about their heavy weapons. Where as humans use ships and artillery and all manner of technological achievements, the Locust fly around on Reavers and use giant plant-like creatures as AA guns. This is even more obvious as the series progresses, with the introduction of Blood Mounts and Gas Barges, both of which utilize organic life in their operation. It could be argued that The Locust then are subjugating these life forms, making them the real threat to organisms everywhere. However, it never seems that these creatures aren't choosing to help their overlords. The Reavers alone could easily turn on their masters and free themselves. Why not? They're huge, they fly and they're deadly. Nothing is stopping them except, perhaps, loyalty.
Even if you don't buy the Locust being a symbol of organic life, the Lambent have to be seen that way. Everything about them except for their guns is a twisting, writhing mass of tissue. The Stalks from which they are born are organic and die, the monsters themselves are these weird mutating pinnacles of evolution and even the Emulsion from which they are born is alive. Epic decided that the Emulsion, a fuel source, was actually a parasitic organism which was turning Locust and humans into Lambent. It seems to me that this is an unnecessary comment on the energy crisis, but it also would make Emulsion the single largest organism, or perhaps more appropriately the colony of organisms, of which humanity could know. The player alone has seen vast pools of Emulsion throughout the series. Emulsion and the Lambent kind of personify the idea of organic life. It is evolution sped up and given form. Of course it's parasitic and destructive, but organic life can be that way sometimes. It's just how the cards fall. The fact that everything about the Lambent expect the guns are organic makes it kind of difficult to ignore.
None of this would matter, however, if the humans in the game were...well...particularly human. If they showed more signs of being alive, it could be easy to see this as just a battle between two life forms. It almost seems as if Epic has tried their hardest to make them look engineered, though. Most of what you see of them are their suits because of the weirdly round back and the third-person camera that the game employs. Even when you can see their body, the proportions are so wrong that it's hard to identify with them as human. No human save the man who's arms exploded has ever looked like the characters in this game. Add on a robotic disposition and dialogue and you've got the makings of an automaton, even if they are technically human. It doesn't help that they are always employing tech. The Hammer of Dawn, the ships they live on, the lifeless cities they build; none of it seems very human. In the third game, you even climb into mechs despite the fact that The Matrix Revolutions proved that introducing mech battles into the third installment of a series is a bad idea. Of course, I've only focused on the Gears, I've neglected to talk about the Stranded. Stranded are civilians in the game who live in little communes. They have no technology, making them the most organic humans in the game, and they are total dickwads. They're always mean to the Gears for no reason; they're unhelpful, ungrateful and generally shifty. They are the worst characters in the game, and yet they're the only humans without a gun and who look like humans. It's a weird standard. The protagonists are murderous robots who barely count as people and the enemy are the almost too organic life forms who actually use their tissues as weapons.
Gears is not the first game to employ this strange motif, of course. The Necromorphs in Dead Space are like this as are the Zerg in Starcraft and zombies in the multitudes of zombie games. It's also appeared in movies like The Thing and most notably Starship Troopers. I don't know exactly why this is, but I'm not sure I like it. I get that it's easy to scale up enemies when you can make them small monsters or big monsters without having to worry about the difficulties of fighting advanced technology or something, but it's still a little Skynet-y to have a game tell me that living things are bad. Not all games are this way, obviously, and Mass Effect is actively opposed to this idea by making an inorganic life form the enemy. It's just a trend I'm noticing that seems odd.
As a side note, I love video games, but I will never be a traitor to organic life. Just wanted to make sure everyone knows that. Sorry Gears.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Gears of War 3
Well, it's finally come to an end. The trilogy of buff, grunting guys shooting buff, grunting aliens who don't like buff, grunting and glowing monster/aliens is over. It's been quite a ride. Remember that time that...or that one time that...
The first thing I noticed about Gears of War 3 was that I remembered next to nothing about Gears 1 or 2. I remembered a few names and some character relations but that's about it. I couldn't remember anything about the Lambent or the Locust or a million tiny things that seemed really important in this game. I was so lost. Of course, I just recently noticed that there is a cinematic which sums up the events of the past games, which would have been helpful. Too bad for me, I guess.
The game starts out on a ship. You are Marcus Fenix, Bender-voiced space-badass and player character for the past two games. Dom is back as well, sporting a well-earned sadness beard and a strange plant fetish. Cole, Baird and the new and improved Carmine weave themselves in and out of the story along with Anya who is strangely strong and not just a disembodied voice, Sam who is a new female character and strangely Australian, Jace who is the new black guy with no other distinguishing characteristics who strangely lives through the whole game. The story revolves around Marcus trying to find his father and other stuff. Really, that's the best I can give you. I never felt connected to the characters, I never got a sense of place or geography. With the exception of a few somewhat tropical locales, I remember a lot of dirt and broken buildings. The game goes by in the blink of an eye and all your left with is the weird image of Marcus and Anya (SPOILERS) holding hands. Nothing has ever looked so silly as Marcus's T-Bone-sized hand clasping Anya's circus midget hand.
I'm not totally down on this game, though, I'm not a complete douche. The game does have a few cool ideas. The gas barges, giant living airships, were cool. Of course I have a soft spot for zeppelins so I may be biased. I liked the non-twist about the origin of the Lambent that I won't give away even though it's super obvious. There were a lot of little moments where there were sparks of genius. The biggest pro I can think of is that, to be superbly superficial, it's fun. It's just a big, dumb bag of fun. There's vague allusions to the energy crisis, but this game doesn't have anything to say other than never follow Ice-T in the event of an apocalypse. In fact, the game is at its worst when it tries to transcend the standard of fun set by the 80's action movie. There is a death I won't give away in this game that everyone knows is going to happen from the very beginning of the game. When it finally happened, there was about two seconds where I almost felt something (mostly because of the song) before I didn't care again. Katie was actually laughing, but she may also just be very sadistic. The game's writers are not good enough to come up with dialogue that can convey the emotions necessary for me to care about these people, so all I wanted to do was go back to mindlessly shooting bad things.
I just don't have that much to say, really. It's a well done action movie of a game that feels exactly like the other games in the series. There's no real meat to it, although there is a strange issue I'll talk about in a later post, but it's still fun. I didn't get to the multiplayer because, frankly, I don't care. Multiplayer in Gears games has been awful in the past and I don't want to be hurt again. It's been a fitting end to the franchise with fun game play and a tidy ending which should make sure there is never another game in the series, which I really respect. If you've played the other games in the series, play this one too. It's probably the best one, even though they're all essentially the same awkward machismo-driven shootfest. I look forward to seeing what Epic does next. It will probably make me feel manly.
Now I can go back to playing Skyrim!
The first thing I noticed about Gears of War 3 was that I remembered next to nothing about Gears 1 or 2. I remembered a few names and some character relations but that's about it. I couldn't remember anything about the Lambent or the Locust or a million tiny things that seemed really important in this game. I was so lost. Of course, I just recently noticed that there is a cinematic which sums up the events of the past games, which would have been helpful. Too bad for me, I guess.
The game starts out on a ship. You are Marcus Fenix, Bender-voiced space-badass and player character for the past two games. Dom is back as well, sporting a well-earned sadness beard and a strange plant fetish. Cole, Baird and the new and improved Carmine weave themselves in and out of the story along with Anya who is strangely strong and not just a disembodied voice, Sam who is a new female character and strangely Australian, Jace who is the new black guy with no other distinguishing characteristics who strangely lives through the whole game. The story revolves around Marcus trying to find his father and other stuff. Really, that's the best I can give you. I never felt connected to the characters, I never got a sense of place or geography. With the exception of a few somewhat tropical locales, I remember a lot of dirt and broken buildings. The game goes by in the blink of an eye and all your left with is the weird image of Marcus and Anya (SPOILERS) holding hands. Nothing has ever looked so silly as Marcus's T-Bone-sized hand clasping Anya's circus midget hand.
I'm not totally down on this game, though, I'm not a complete douche. The game does have a few cool ideas. The gas barges, giant living airships, were cool. Of course I have a soft spot for zeppelins so I may be biased. I liked the non-twist about the origin of the Lambent that I won't give away even though it's super obvious. There were a lot of little moments where there were sparks of genius. The biggest pro I can think of is that, to be superbly superficial, it's fun. It's just a big, dumb bag of fun. There's vague allusions to the energy crisis, but this game doesn't have anything to say other than never follow Ice-T in the event of an apocalypse. In fact, the game is at its worst when it tries to transcend the standard of fun set by the 80's action movie. There is a death I won't give away in this game that everyone knows is going to happen from the very beginning of the game. When it finally happened, there was about two seconds where I almost felt something (mostly because of the song) before I didn't care again. Katie was actually laughing, but she may also just be very sadistic. The game's writers are not good enough to come up with dialogue that can convey the emotions necessary for me to care about these people, so all I wanted to do was go back to mindlessly shooting bad things.
I just don't have that much to say, really. It's a well done action movie of a game that feels exactly like the other games in the series. There's no real meat to it, although there is a strange issue I'll talk about in a later post, but it's still fun. I didn't get to the multiplayer because, frankly, I don't care. Multiplayer in Gears games has been awful in the past and I don't want to be hurt again. It's been a fitting end to the franchise with fun game play and a tidy ending which should make sure there is never another game in the series, which I really respect. If you've played the other games in the series, play this one too. It's probably the best one, even though they're all essentially the same awkward machismo-driven shootfest. I look forward to seeing what Epic does next. It will probably make me feel manly.
Now I can go back to playing Skyrim!
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Open-World Games
Open-World is a term used for a lot of games. It can be used to describe games as different as the Grand Theft Auto series and the Legend of Zelda series. An open-world, in the context of gaming, refers to a game space which is expansive and does not have a sequence of levels which the player must beat. Usually there are quests, but the player is rarely required to do them. If they were so inclined, the player could simply run from one end of the giant map to the other. Of course such interaction is possible to some extent in all video games, but open-world games seem to encourage this. Their main goal is to a create a large space to enjoy at the player's leisure. So what, then, is their point? Why would someone give up so much authorial control? How can the developer say anything if the player has all of the control?
I was playing Skyrim on the first or second night it was out. I was at a good friend's house (he has a blog of his own here) and we were having a manly night of pizza, soda and large-TV-video-game-playing time. Most of the night was spent either on a quest for a (mediocre) sword or just kind of wandering around. At one point, around three in the morning, I was very tired and, as I trudged over a snowy mountain pass, a great sky opened before me. The night was cloudless with an orange moon seemingly threatening to gobble up the sky. The most amazing thing, though, was the aurora borealis. Great streaks of light and color snaked through the inky black and I felt something like awe. This is a video game. This is a program made up of an untold number of lines of code which is projecting pictures onto a television screen. It was still unbelievably beautiful and made me really begin to wonder just what it was that this game was trying to accomplish. Why would a person put so much time into something so detailed? It was beautiful, but what purpose did it serve? Well, as I may have mentioned before, Skyrim isn't about combat or magic or smithing or any of the other myriad actions one can take within the game. Skyrim is about exploration and, from a development standpoint, creating a world. This is the most important aspect of an open-world game. The world is the reason for the game. It seems likely that Rockstar thought of creating a world which reflected a gritty crime drama when they made Grand Theft Auto 3 before they came up with any kind of story. The world is the most important thing. The game play, on the other hand, needs only to emphasize the freedom of the world itself.
What is it that you can do in Grand Theft Auto 4? Well, you can kill anyone you see in the city. You can hire a prostitute. You can steal vehicles. You can play darts and other bar games. You can play video games to create video game inception. There are plenty of other things, but the point is that you can do a lot. This is all that's required of these games because the player simply needs to be able to do what they want, when they want. In fact, one of my biggest problems with Grand Theft Auto 4 is that there's too much story. A Scorcese-esque crime story can't fit into a game this schizophrenic. The point is to emphasize the interactivity which is at the heart of games themselves. They allow the player to do whatever they want any time that they want, though for different effects. Grand Theft Auto's open-world scheme is to allow players to feel a sense of power, allowing them to feel as if they own whichever city in which the game takes place. Elder Scrolls games, especially Skyrim, emphasize exploration and a sense of wonder, encouraging players to search every nook and cranny for great loot and easter eggs.
The popularity of open-world games has lead to some weird speculation. I've heard from a few people who have suggested that virtual reality is the next step. We will one day have actual entire worlds to explore and be able to do literally anything within them. I don't think this is true. It seems to me that there will be a point where a player has too much they can do. At some point, when you can do anything, it ceases to be a game and starts to be an exercise in tedium. Imagine a game that is just like Skyrim, only it's almost two million square miles, like the Earth. In it, you can pick your skills and everything, just like an RPG, but you can do anything you want. You can shoot down airplanes, you can become President, you can marry a dog or whatever it is you want to do. You can manipulate the tiniest blades of grass and make yourself a bracelet if you wanted to. That game would be a chore to play if, for no other reason, it would be just like real life. Everything would be so spread out and disconnected that it would be hard to figure out everything you can do. Even if you set it in a fantastic realm, eventually there are going to be so many little tasks possible that the player is going to be bored out of their minds. This is extreme, of course, but what if a game was the actual size of the US? It would still be too large. Just like every other kind of game or even every other kind of media, open-world games are made possible by their limitations. If everything was truly 100% open, you would never find anything and you would be so caught up in tedium that you would quit. Instead, you have a large game world which allows you to do a lot of stuff, but doesn't bog you down in minutia (although smithing in Skyrim cuts it close.) This makes everything fun and rewarding.
So open world games can use their large area to create a sense of power or of awe, inspire mayhem or intrepid exploration. Though they can never be entirely open at the risk of losing all focus, they still allow players to be lost in a world which has been lovingly built by skilled artists. As graphics improve, so will the quality of these deep, rewarding games. As long as the world is well thought out and the game play is satisfyingly unrestrained, this genre will continue to impress.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Skyrim: The Basic Rundown
I don't know where to start is a statement that sums up both this game and this review. Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim is a ridiculously huge game that also happens to be exceedingly well done. It's entirely possible that I am too easily impressed, but this is one of the most fun, engaging and beautiful games I've ever played.
It's funny, because part of me wanted to hate it. Skyrim is the fifth in a string of successful first-person fantasy RPG's developed by Bethesda Studios and I agree with those that say we need more variety in video games. However when something is this finely crafted, who the hell cares if it's a little bit derivative? Yes there are Orcs and Elves and all of those other lovely Tolkien creatures, but there are also Mammoths which are herded by giants. There are dragon languages which result in awesome powers. There are seemingly and infinite amount of quests which I may never complete (especially if they are infinite. That's kind of how infinity works.) I've been unable to put the game down since I got it last Friday at midnight and it seems as if I've barely started.
In an attempt to tone down the fanboy in me, I do have to admit some problems with the game. There are glitches. Lots and lots of glitches, to be frank. Sometimes missions don't work or buttons don't work or mammoths just fall from the sky, which I believe is not supposed to happen. While this can be annoying, it can also be endlessly entertaining if you have friends in the room. A friend of mine fought a bear for twenty mintues or so because it kept using hit and run guerrilla tactics against him. Every time he tried to shoot it, it would run away only to return a second later from his side, claws slashing. Many posts have already been made on Reddit about the seeming indestructibility of the game's horses. Another small problem is that the voice acting isn't always the best. Really, though, that's it. I'm not very far into the game, to be sure, but those are the only real problems so far.
In terms of the good stuff, the short answer could be just about everything. As with the other Elder Scrolls games, Skyrim emphasizes exploration over combat. Of course, combat is a major part of the game, but walking will take up a much larger portion of the game. Part of the reason I love this game is my adoration for the beauty of cold climate. Every inch of this world has been lovingly rendered. I get a thrill whenever I wander through a snowstorm or a frosty forest. It's in my blood, I suppose. The combat is rewarding, the quests are entertaining and there simply isn't a moment wasted in this game.
I haven't mentioned the story because I'm really just around the beginning. I've killed my first dragon, but I immediately began wandering the snowy wastes after that. I know that the main conflict in the game is a civil war between the Stormcloaks, a Nord nationalist group, and the Empire. There is also a question about why dragons are coming back when they were all killed off one thousand years ago. However, there are also around five guilds to join, each with their own intense quest chain. There is a lot to keep a person going.
This has been a really short review because I really don't know what to say. Skyrim is a fantastic game. It's huge, and will take a long time to get anywhere near completion, so be ready to lose yourself in a large, detailed world if you buy this game. I plan on playing this for a while, so look for more articles on this game for the next...oh let's say month or two. I haven't even scratched the surface.
It's funny, because part of me wanted to hate it. Skyrim is the fifth in a string of successful first-person fantasy RPG's developed by Bethesda Studios and I agree with those that say we need more variety in video games. However when something is this finely crafted, who the hell cares if it's a little bit derivative? Yes there are Orcs and Elves and all of those other lovely Tolkien creatures, but there are also Mammoths which are herded by giants. There are dragon languages which result in awesome powers. There are seemingly and infinite amount of quests which I may never complete (especially if they are infinite. That's kind of how infinity works.) I've been unable to put the game down since I got it last Friday at midnight and it seems as if I've barely started.
In an attempt to tone down the fanboy in me, I do have to admit some problems with the game. There are glitches. Lots and lots of glitches, to be frank. Sometimes missions don't work or buttons don't work or mammoths just fall from the sky, which I believe is not supposed to happen. While this can be annoying, it can also be endlessly entertaining if you have friends in the room. A friend of mine fought a bear for twenty mintues or so because it kept using hit and run guerrilla tactics against him. Every time he tried to shoot it, it would run away only to return a second later from his side, claws slashing. Many posts have already been made on Reddit about the seeming indestructibility of the game's horses. Another small problem is that the voice acting isn't always the best. Really, though, that's it. I'm not very far into the game, to be sure, but those are the only real problems so far.
In terms of the good stuff, the short answer could be just about everything. As with the other Elder Scrolls games, Skyrim emphasizes exploration over combat. Of course, combat is a major part of the game, but walking will take up a much larger portion of the game. Part of the reason I love this game is my adoration for the beauty of cold climate. Every inch of this world has been lovingly rendered. I get a thrill whenever I wander through a snowstorm or a frosty forest. It's in my blood, I suppose. The combat is rewarding, the quests are entertaining and there simply isn't a moment wasted in this game.
I haven't mentioned the story because I'm really just around the beginning. I've killed my first dragon, but I immediately began wandering the snowy wastes after that. I know that the main conflict in the game is a civil war between the Stormcloaks, a Nord nationalist group, and the Empire. There is also a question about why dragons are coming back when they were all killed off one thousand years ago. However, there are also around five guilds to join, each with their own intense quest chain. There is a lot to keep a person going.
This has been a really short review because I really don't know what to say. Skyrim is a fantastic game. It's huge, and will take a long time to get anywhere near completion, so be ready to lose yourself in a large, detailed world if you buy this game. I plan on playing this for a while, so look for more articles on this game for the next...oh let's say month or two. I haven't even scratched the surface.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Rage
Rage is a game that has been in production for a few years now. It's been eagerly anticipated by Id fans and now it has finally been released. However, the game falls well short of greatness from a myriad of problems. There are some great aspects to the game that could have made it enthralling, but the game is bogged down by poor decisions.
From the very beginning of the game, the cliches are prevalent. Your character (no name given) awakens in a stasis chamber called an Ark. You see, there was this big asteroid that came down from the sky and destroyed all of civilization, with the exception of a few towns, raider groups that seem to have an infinite amount of members and hordes of mutants. For an asteroid that destroyed everything, it left a lot of people alive. Anyway, the Ark program was set in place to make sure that some people, such as the player character, survived. All of this is very similar to the vaults in Fallout, but much less compelling because everyone was just asleep. You don't have the interesting things that went on while everyone was cooped up in a little vault. The style of the game is also very similar to Borderlands from the faux-Western aesthetic to basic missions to the driving even.
The rest of the story isn't much better. In fact, for the first disc or so (there are three for the Xbox360) there doesn't seem to be a story at all. The player character is simply set out by forgettable characters to do...things. Usually it involves killing something. Eventually a conflict is set up between the Authority, which represents authority, and The Resistance, which is the...resistance to that authority. The battle is so archetypal that the two sides of the battle actually sound like terms someone would use to define those archetypes. I would go into more detail, but there really isn't any. Through some weird providence, Rage shares the same core complaint I had with The Saboteur in that they cannot make me care. There is just nothing to the story or the world that invested me in this game.
That's not to say that Rage was necessarily as boring as last week's game. Rage actually has moderately fun game play. The shooting feels very old-school-shooter, which is appropriate since this was made by Id (developers of Doom, Wolfenstein and Quake.) The guns feel powerful and can hold a seemingly endless amount of bullets. However, the foes are also quite powerful. In fact, the enemy AI in this game is some of the best I've seen. They actively seek cover, and even while bum-rushing you like a PCP freak they have the presence of mind to dodge the player's gunfire. This is what kept me playing the game; the sheer unpredictability of the enemies. It's really hard to get a bead on them and, since they can take more bullets than your average Call of Duty enemy, shootouts become frantic trigger-mashing parties as you scream obscenities at the screen. Also, the killing itself is very satisfying, as morbid and disturbing as that sounds. The animations for the enemy deaths are amazingly varied; its very rare that you see the same animation twice. There are also juggernaut-type enemies that take so many bullets that you feel a real sense of accomplishment when you take one down. However, the power and interest of these features becomes diluted after playing the fifteenth mission in which the player has to go into a strangely circular base, kill everyone and fetch item x. There is also a lot of driving, which is adequate but not particularly interesting, and races which were so easy that a racing-hater such as myself finished with ease. There's also a crafting system, but again, it's lackluster and usually amounts to creating some kind of ammo that you'll never use. Add in a save system that forces you to save every five seconds lest you be tossed back across the wasteland to three missions before you died and you've got a game that just barely avoids being a total mess.
Despite my cynicism, I cannot overstate how good this game looks. Id is, if nothing else, a company that knows its tech. Since they've been working on it for four or five years, it makes sense that the game would be gorgeous. As a tech demo, the game is flawless and I expect great things from the Tech 5 engine.
It seems like, more than anything, this game is confused. It doesn't know if it wants to be an RPG, with it's somewhat open world and crafting system, or a standard FPS. It also straddles the line between what shooters were and what they are doing now. Yes, you have big guns with lots of ammo, but you also have regenerating health thanks to nanobots in the player character's bloodstream (kudos to Id for actually explaining the regenerating health device for once) and cover is occasionally necessary. At the same time, cover can be hard to find without a prone position. It's a lot of broken ideas with not enough interesting missions or anything resembling a story to cover it up. The reason World of Warcraft players perform menial tasks over and over is because they are invested in the story to some extent and, much more importantly, the development of their character. When your character doesn't have a name and doesn't change more than a little, there had better be some ridiculously exciting things to do.
In the first twenty minutes or so of Rage, I thought it was a great game. After that, fatigue started to set in. There are some cool ideas here, and I applaud the old-school game play and graphics, but the poor save system, lack of missions and overall lack of interesting content kills this game. Id has a style that has some merit, but they definitely need to refine it if they want to stay relevant.
Edit: I forgot to mention that the female characters in this game are surprisingly attractive for not being real. Do with that what you will.
From the very beginning of the game, the cliches are prevalent. Your character (no name given) awakens in a stasis chamber called an Ark. You see, there was this big asteroid that came down from the sky and destroyed all of civilization, with the exception of a few towns, raider groups that seem to have an infinite amount of members and hordes of mutants. For an asteroid that destroyed everything, it left a lot of people alive. Anyway, the Ark program was set in place to make sure that some people, such as the player character, survived. All of this is very similar to the vaults in Fallout, but much less compelling because everyone was just asleep. You don't have the interesting things that went on while everyone was cooped up in a little vault. The style of the game is also very similar to Borderlands from the faux-Western aesthetic to basic missions to the driving even.
The rest of the story isn't much better. In fact, for the first disc or so (there are three for the Xbox360) there doesn't seem to be a story at all. The player character is simply set out by forgettable characters to do...things. Usually it involves killing something. Eventually a conflict is set up between the Authority, which represents authority, and The Resistance, which is the...resistance to that authority. The battle is so archetypal that the two sides of the battle actually sound like terms someone would use to define those archetypes. I would go into more detail, but there really isn't any. Through some weird providence, Rage shares the same core complaint I had with The Saboteur in that they cannot make me care. There is just nothing to the story or the world that invested me in this game.
That's not to say that Rage was necessarily as boring as last week's game. Rage actually has moderately fun game play. The shooting feels very old-school-shooter, which is appropriate since this was made by Id (developers of Doom, Wolfenstein and Quake.) The guns feel powerful and can hold a seemingly endless amount of bullets. However, the foes are also quite powerful. In fact, the enemy AI in this game is some of the best I've seen. They actively seek cover, and even while bum-rushing you like a PCP freak they have the presence of mind to dodge the player's gunfire. This is what kept me playing the game; the sheer unpredictability of the enemies. It's really hard to get a bead on them and, since they can take more bullets than your average Call of Duty enemy, shootouts become frantic trigger-mashing parties as you scream obscenities at the screen. Also, the killing itself is very satisfying, as morbid and disturbing as that sounds. The animations for the enemy deaths are amazingly varied; its very rare that you see the same animation twice. There are also juggernaut-type enemies that take so many bullets that you feel a real sense of accomplishment when you take one down. However, the power and interest of these features becomes diluted after playing the fifteenth mission in which the player has to go into a strangely circular base, kill everyone and fetch item x. There is also a lot of driving, which is adequate but not particularly interesting, and races which were so easy that a racing-hater such as myself finished with ease. There's also a crafting system, but again, it's lackluster and usually amounts to creating some kind of ammo that you'll never use. Add in a save system that forces you to save every five seconds lest you be tossed back across the wasteland to three missions before you died and you've got a game that just barely avoids being a total mess.
Despite my cynicism, I cannot overstate how good this game looks. Id is, if nothing else, a company that knows its tech. Since they've been working on it for four or five years, it makes sense that the game would be gorgeous. As a tech demo, the game is flawless and I expect great things from the Tech 5 engine.
It seems like, more than anything, this game is confused. It doesn't know if it wants to be an RPG, with it's somewhat open world and crafting system, or a standard FPS. It also straddles the line between what shooters were and what they are doing now. Yes, you have big guns with lots of ammo, but you also have regenerating health thanks to nanobots in the player character's bloodstream (kudos to Id for actually explaining the regenerating health device for once) and cover is occasionally necessary. At the same time, cover can be hard to find without a prone position. It's a lot of broken ideas with not enough interesting missions or anything resembling a story to cover it up. The reason World of Warcraft players perform menial tasks over and over is because they are invested in the story to some extent and, much more importantly, the development of their character. When your character doesn't have a name and doesn't change more than a little, there had better be some ridiculously exciting things to do.
In the first twenty minutes or so of Rage, I thought it was a great game. After that, fatigue started to set in. There are some cool ideas here, and I applaud the old-school game play and graphics, but the poor save system, lack of missions and overall lack of interesting content kills this game. Id has a style that has some merit, but they definitely need to refine it if they want to stay relevant.
Edit: I forgot to mention that the female characters in this game are surprisingly attractive for not being real. Do with that what you will.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
The Saboteur
Its seems appropriate that I'm reviewing The Saboteur on the day that Rockstar released their first trailer for Grand Theft Auto 5. The Saboteur shares many traits with that most famous and oh-glorious murder-simulation series. It's open-world, features car-jacking and third-person action and has car physics that make you want to pull your hair out. I'm getting ahead of myself.
The Saboteur, the last game from developer Pandemic, is a game set at the beginning of the occupation of France during WWII. The player character is an Irish bloke named Sean Devlin, a whiskey-drinking stereotype who is some what, kind of, not really based on an actual figure in the French resistance. He is a race car driver (one of the things that is actually true about the real man, I was surprised to learn) who's friend is murdered in a case of mistaken identity at a German motor race. Then Sean swears revenge and Germans start blowing up. The story is so standard and poorly executed in terms of pacing (it's slow) and voice acting (it's bad) that I stopped playing those missions altogether and started doing one thing the game executes extremely well; sabotage.
I love blowing up Nazi things. It is strangely satisfying to plant dynamite on a truck or a sniper's nest or even just a loudspeaker and watching it blow up. All you have to do is press a button, then hold a button while not being seen and you can blow up almost anything that the Nazi war machine is using. Sure, you get money for it that you can buy new weapons and ammo with from black market dealers, but who cares? While the WWII shooter genre was ridiculously over-saturated last decade, I do miss the simple joy of eliminating Nazis. They're like zombies; you feel little to no remorse for killing them. Of course the rank and file German soldier wasn't a super villain in real life so much as a commoner that had been caught up in a conflict they didn't fully understand, but not the ones in this game. No, they're ALL evil. And if you still feel a twinge of regret, there are generals that the player can pick off. They have to be evil. They're Nazi commanders; kind of like how Cobra henchmen may not be evil as they are just following orders, but Cobra Commander sure is as he is whose orders they are following. To make a long story short, killing Nazis is fun, blowing up the things Nazis is more fun and The Saboteur handles both of these aspects very well. I also like the feel and the setting of the game. The music is good and the idea of the color is cool. In the game, everything is in Sin City-style black and white until the player frees them from Nazi control. Then the color comes back into that section. It's a very cool visualization of the idea that the player is bringing hope to the French people and gives a real sense of progress. Then again, the black and white makes seeing difficult sometimes. There was more than one time that I got lost because everything looks the same.
Beyond the cool use of color and reckless destruction, however, the game is seriously lacking. The animations and controls are very clunky. Sean often engages in Assassin's Creed style climbing (and if anyone doesn't like that comparison, one of the cars in the game is called Altair, so Pandemic knew what they were doing,) but he doesn't enjoy that series' smooth mechanics. The player has to mash the jump button over and over again as he jumps clumsily around like a drunk monkey. He also has a habit of getting stuck on ledges where he thinks he can't climb higher, even though he clearly can , and forces the player to move him slightly to the side before he will climb up. There are the aforementioned driving mechanics that makes it feel as if the player is continually driving through deep mud. Perhaps this was on purpose, as cars in the 40's probably didn't have the best handling. This is also true of the climbing. Maybe Sean is intentionally bad at climbing, because why would a random Irish guy be a free-climbing master? If this is the case, then why is it in the game? Both of these things are maddening.
The thing that really kills this game, though, is that it's boring. The missions are all the same repetitive missions we've seen in every Grand Theft Auto game. The story is lackluster with forgettable characters. All of the controlling mechanics are sluggish. It just isn't interesting. To give an idea of how boring this game was, there is a sequence which takes place on a zeppelin that is simultaneously in the air and on fire and I was bored. I love zeppelins, Led and otherwise, and yet I could not wait to get out of the burning blimp simply so I could go around blowing up some more fuel depots. If that or boring GTA clones is your thing, then go out and buy this game right now. I usually try to talk about some of the meaning in the game and other such academic, smart Alec-y things, but this game is just too mediocre for consideration. Sometimes, games are just games and that's all.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Arkham City
I maintain that games do not need to be fun to be great games. They just need to be interesting. Children of Men is not a fun movie, but it's still a great movie. I think the same can be said for video games. However, it certainly doesn't hurt when a game is so fun you can't put it down. Arkham City is that game.
The game opens with a great intro, revealing that Hugo Strange knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman and a fantastic escape from custody. From there, the story and the game becomes increasingly intense. I will not reveal the ending, but it is a glorious piece of suspenseful game design. One thing that Rocksteady has proven is that they can characterize Batman villains like no other. The Penguin is a Guy Ritchie-style English gangster. The Joker is a strangely endearing psychopath. Zsasz is the creepiest serial killer in gaming history. Every character feels alive and appropriate for the environment. I think the dark and gritty story is a bit over-used, but every aspect of this narrative is so well-realized that I can certainly overlook that. It's so enthralling despite the fact that I have never read a Batman comic in my life. It's possible that they missed the mark on accurately portraying some of them, but I'd never know it.
Then there's the game play. There is something supremely satisfying about flying around Arkham's dilapidated skyscrapers. I'm not exactly sure what it is. I imagine it's the feeling of power, but whatever the reason it's enjoyable on a massive scale. For how sublimely filthy the environments are, the game play is squeaky clean. The predatory nature of Batman is still very much on display, bringing the amazing stalking mechanics from Arkham Asylum. That may sound creepy, but there is nothing more satisfying than silently taking down guards one by one without them ever knowing where you are. The fighting system works really well and, most importantly, makes the player feel like an unstoppable badass. Rocksteady has said that they didn't care if they made Batman overpowered because, well he's the Batman. He's supposed to be powerful. Whether flying like a silent sentinel or punching goons in the face, the player can get a real sense of the power of The Dark Knight. It's a real triumph and something that game designers need to use as a reference. It doesn't matter if the player character is very strong if the point is that the player character is supposed to be the biggest badass on the playground.
Of course nothing in the world is perfect and the game isn't without its flaws. I personally had occasional problems with the fighting system. While it works well, like I said above, I had problems hitting the specific guy I was trying to pummel occasionally. I also didn't like some of the goons, like the shielded henchmen, simply because it broke the free-flowing beauty of the normal fights. The joy came from effortlessly moving from one bad guy to another with few impediments and the shield guys interrupted this. Both of these problems could be attributed to my n00b status, but they were still problems. The variety of missions wasn't always the best, as is the case with many open world games. This is not to say they were all the same; they weren't. However, there were a few too many ring-flying missions. After a while, I felt like I was playing Superman 64. When that happened, though, I just went to the next Riddler trap (a Saw-esque death puzzle) and got back to the enjoyment.
Arkham City is a game about power. It's about the men who use and abuse their power whether it's political, criminal or magical. It's also a fantastically fun game that melds game play and story-telling in fantastically compelling ways. Even when the game gets difficult, you never feel powerless. Rocksteady never takes away the player's feeling of being the best of the best. It's fantastically fun and deep to the extent that I could write a whole paper on it. In the interest of brevity, I will leave it at this; if you have any interest in Batman or flying or beating up thugs, this is game for you.
Also, sorry this is a little late. The day got away from me between school and my next game for review. Thanks for reading and any feedback would be much appreciated.
The game opens with a great intro, revealing that Hugo Strange knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman and a fantastic escape from custody. From there, the story and the game becomes increasingly intense. I will not reveal the ending, but it is a glorious piece of suspenseful game design. One thing that Rocksteady has proven is that they can characterize Batman villains like no other. The Penguin is a Guy Ritchie-style English gangster. The Joker is a strangely endearing psychopath. Zsasz is the creepiest serial killer in gaming history. Every character feels alive and appropriate for the environment. I think the dark and gritty story is a bit over-used, but every aspect of this narrative is so well-realized that I can certainly overlook that. It's so enthralling despite the fact that I have never read a Batman comic in my life. It's possible that they missed the mark on accurately portraying some of them, but I'd never know it.
Then there's the game play. There is something supremely satisfying about flying around Arkham's dilapidated skyscrapers. I'm not exactly sure what it is. I imagine it's the feeling of power, but whatever the reason it's enjoyable on a massive scale. For how sublimely filthy the environments are, the game play is squeaky clean. The predatory nature of Batman is still very much on display, bringing the amazing stalking mechanics from Arkham Asylum. That may sound creepy, but there is nothing more satisfying than silently taking down guards one by one without them ever knowing where you are. The fighting system works really well and, most importantly, makes the player feel like an unstoppable badass. Rocksteady has said that they didn't care if they made Batman overpowered because, well he's the Batman. He's supposed to be powerful. Whether flying like a silent sentinel or punching goons in the face, the player can get a real sense of the power of The Dark Knight. It's a real triumph and something that game designers need to use as a reference. It doesn't matter if the player character is very strong if the point is that the player character is supposed to be the biggest badass on the playground.
Of course nothing in the world is perfect and the game isn't without its flaws. I personally had occasional problems with the fighting system. While it works well, like I said above, I had problems hitting the specific guy I was trying to pummel occasionally. I also didn't like some of the goons, like the shielded henchmen, simply because it broke the free-flowing beauty of the normal fights. The joy came from effortlessly moving from one bad guy to another with few impediments and the shield guys interrupted this. Both of these problems could be attributed to my n00b status, but they were still problems. The variety of missions wasn't always the best, as is the case with many open world games. This is not to say they were all the same; they weren't. However, there were a few too many ring-flying missions. After a while, I felt like I was playing Superman 64. When that happened, though, I just went to the next Riddler trap (a Saw-esque death puzzle) and got back to the enjoyment.
Arkham City is a game about power. It's about the men who use and abuse their power whether it's political, criminal or magical. It's also a fantastically fun game that melds game play and story-telling in fantastically compelling ways. Even when the game gets difficult, you never feel powerless. Rocksteady never takes away the player's feeling of being the best of the best. It's fantastically fun and deep to the extent that I could write a whole paper on it. In the interest of brevity, I will leave it at this; if you have any interest in Batman or flying or beating up thugs, this is game for you.
Also, sorry this is a little late. The day got away from me between school and my next game for review. Thanks for reading and any feedback would be much appreciated.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
I'm not going to lie, I played this because I can't wait for Skyrim. It's an everyday obsession of mine. I'm counting down the days and cursing the God who didn't invent time travel. I've considered freezing myself like Cartman or accidentally raising a demon who possesses and kills all of my friends, forcing me to open a portal back to the Middle Ages and then fight a horde of skeletons and take a potion that sends me forward in time, but I'll drink a little too much and go too far ahead to a point when Skyrim has finally, FINALLY debuted. I really want the game is what I'm saying, and Oblivion is a good band-aid until I can get my grubby hands on a copy.
Oblivion was a launch title when the Xbox 360 debuted all the way back in 2005. Six years is a long time for a video game, and yet it still looks fantastic. Yes, there's pop in, the character models are all ugly as sin and a lot of the environments look similar, but it was made back when Halo 2 was a wildly popular and attractive-looking game. It ushered in that new generation with style, and still looks good. Normally I don't talk about graphics because normally I don't care. Of course you need to be able to see what is going on in the game, but beyond that it isn't really that important. There's the surface aesthetic value, which is very nice but it wears off. You may be entranced by a game's brilliant graphics for the first hour, but the six after that degrade the "wow" factor somewhat. Oblivion and game like Oblivion are an exception, however, because the aesthetic is necessary to the game play.
When you think of game play in Oblivion, you probably think of the swordplay or the magic or the speechcraft system that doesn't work very well. All of that is actually a very minor part of the game play. Oblivion's main driving game play is walking, or more specifically exploring. It's about discovering places and looting them. It's about sinking into this world and learning every nook and cranny. It's this weird repetitive cycle where you go to caves to level up and find loot so that you can kill bigger things in different caves. This is the core game play of the open-world RPG (as well as most MMO's) and its so much fun.
I love exploration and it's handled so beautifully here. There are so many places to go and so many things to see. There's a guy named Goblin Jim and he lives in a cave with a bunch of goblins. Why? If there's an answer, I never found it. You get quests out of the blue just because you happened to wander into an invisible town or you talked to a guy who's having trouble catching fish. Now, the freedom isn't what makes this intoxicating, but the accomplishment. You are doing things in the world. There's a main story about demons breaking out of Hell (I'm sorry, daedra breaking out of Oblivion,) but no one I've talked to cares. This is not a game driven by narrative, it's a game driven by the environment. It's a game driven by mystery. There are small narratives and one big narrative, sure, but you can ignore those and search every cave, like I did, for the best sword around. This isn't Hamlet on the Holodeck, but that doesn't mean that it is without feeling and meaning. I was actually quite moved the first time I played Oblivion. I was just walking along a river near the city of Leyawin and I ran into a cottage. The moon was big and it was all really beautiful. This game is about exploration. It's about getting outside and finding things. Every time I play it I want to walk across the country and possibly kill a wolf.
In terms of nitty-gritty mechanics, I love that using whatever your skill is actually raises that skill. For example, using a sword makes you better at using a sword. They make you choose major and minor skills at the beginning. Major skills get a boost and raise your overall level as they develop which in turn raises our stats. It's all very roundabout and I'm glad they're getting rid of it in Skyrim. The animations look silly now, but that's unfair. I don't like that the difficulty of the enemies gets higher as you level. It's frustrating because part of the fun of leveling your character is becoming this unstoppable badass that can fell a goblin in a single blow. Player characters in RPG's are tied more to the player than in any other genre, which is why you want them to feel powerful. Who cares if it make the game a little unbalanced? I'm not saying there shouldn't be difficult enemies in the game, but I should be able to kill a goblin with one swing once I get to a high enough level. These are minor gripes in a game that really holds up after all of this time.
I've heard people complaining about Skyrim, which I haven't mentioned is the next game in the series, but I hope I don't have to. The main complaint is that its the same thing that Bethesda has been doing forever. I understand the whining, but at the same time I just don't care. I agree that the game industry has been a little stale in terms of innovating in their triple-A titles, but we still have tons of indie games being made. Even if they weren't, though, the Elder Scrolls series is not the issue. These are games which have game play actually benefits from better graphics and larger disc space. These are worlds to be explored and immersed in, and worlds have all sorts of polygons. So let's ease off of Bethesda and their beautiful worlds and put a little more pressure on the faceless Marines shooting at the color brown.
First Post
This is my new blog. New video game reviews will be posted every Wednesday at the same time that I post it on Mason's blog. Read it here, though, because it's better for some reason. Check back later.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)