2009 has produced some of the finest experiences to date in games, along side some absolute turds. Though many of the games I have played or finished here is a run-down of how I spent my time this year:
REPEAT OFFENDERS-Games I started last year (or earlier) and have not yet finished. Not surprisingly most of them are RPG's.
Witcher:Extended Edition-In August of this year a patch failue destroyed my install so I am taking the advantage of this week's sale at www.steampowered.com to re-buy the game so I can finally finish it. Extraordarily compelling, it is a long form RPG with truly mature content.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-This rpg shooter is still on my drive, though I have played some recent marathon sessions to blaze through the story. It remains a graphically striking game and I have finally figured out how to play it, I think. Like Far Cry 2, emergent gameplay happens throughout the eco-system of fauna and factions.
Titan Quest: This Diablo clone is clicker's paradise but not quite compelling enough to keep me hooked. I am thinking of finally ditching it, and installing Torchlight.
Supreme Commander: This massive RTS measures its victories in inches, not miles, and each encounter is a pleasant if time consuming slog.
Oblivion (360): Over 80 hours into this game and I haven't completed a fifth of the main story quest.It has become a perennial favorite, though I don't get back to it often enough.
Condemned 2 (360): Having beaten Condemned this year I tried for the too-fer but haven't yet finished this moody, scary brawler.
Grand Theft Auto 4 (360): Imagine my surprise when I played both branching paths of what I thought was the ending and traded the game, only to find out later there is still one mission to go. Combined with the lure of the well-reviewed DLC, I have it again and intend to finish it.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Expansion of IP: Halo 3: ODST, Halo Wars & Dead Space: Extraction
Original Intellectual Properties are the holy grail of any media endeavor. At their best, they allow the IP holders the opportunity to continue to expand on the concepts originally presented while hopefully growing the value of the franchise. At their worst, they are annually exploited revenue streams that devalue the brand and eventually saturate the market, leading to diminishing returns.
As a launch title for the original Xbox, Halo immediately established itself as the hardware’s killer application, with tight (for a console) FPS controls, a compelling and enigmatic main character and an epic battle to be fought. Two sequels would follow, pulling the franchise across into the new console generation with Halo 3 on the Xbox 360 and driving massive revenue. Halo has truly become Microsoft’s golden goose for their hardware, and though developer Bungie would eventually buy back their independence, more Halo games appear to inevitable, with or without them.
Halo Wars is the first non-Bungie developed title in the franchise expansion. No tentative first step, the game takes the iconography and back story of the original trilogy of games to flesh out a solid Real Time Strategy experience. Sporting the best RTS controls for a console ever, the game leverages the mythology to great effect, pushing the narrative forward while maintaining enough RTS gameplay staples to comfort the non-Halo player. Technical issues amount to unit pathfinding problems at best, which is negligible given the terrific presentation and unending polish.
Set five years before the original Halo, the war with the Covenant is fresh, and armies of Spartans still populate the galaxy. The proliferation of the Spartans leads to some memorable cinematics and allows for their use as “hero” units in the game but it also serves to dilute to power of the first three games. As the last of his genetically engineered kind, the Master Chief was the stoic bad-ass main character that has long been the staple of action games. However his relationship to the A.I. Cortana provides a human vulnerability that lends the character some depth and sympathy usually lost in FPS games. This prototypical dynamic relationship is also explored cinematically in the story moments of Halo Wars but to lesser effect. The wise-cracking ass-kicking Forge is a reject from the cast of Predator as is his hard-bitten but soft on the inside lady scientist side-kick. To add insult to injury, the Spartans are presented in a late game cinematic as a group of unstoppable fighting machines, executing maneuvers one could only dream of doing while playing as the Master Chief. Not only does the game make him one of a crowd, he is no longer even the best, he is now just the one who survived.
Halo 3: ODST sidesteps the issue entirely. By removing the Spartans and the Master Chief from the game it attempts to create a new look at a familiar setting. Unfolding during the events of Halo 2, a group of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers are flung into the battle for New Mombasa, an African city devastated by Covenant attack. Separated during the insertion drop into the city the shockwave generated from a Covenant warship jumping into slip-space (don’t ask), the game opens with the player taking on the role of the Rookie. Waking hours after impact, the player must navigate the ostensibly open-world of the city, searching the night for his team. No longer playing as the Master Chief, the player quickly becomes accustomed to being an under-powered under-protected soldier facing the same enemies fought in previously games. As each team-mate is located, playable chapters unlock, allowing each character to be played in turn through daylight missions. Essentially a well-meaning attempt to expand the franchise, Halo: ODST is an experiment gone wrong. The single biggest flaw is also its initial selling point: this is a Halo game, so much so that is looks and feels like dropped levels from previous releases circling the noir-ish core. With only the patina of the new splattered on the game, it feels like Halo Lite and that is just not satisfying.
Halo Wars is a far more compelling and evolutionary step for the franchise, taking the concepts in the new and different directions while staying true to the mythology, much as Dead Space: Extraction does with this nascent IP.
Unlike its progenitor which debuted on Ps3 and XB360, Extraction is Wii-exclusive prequel to the events of the first game, Dead Space. A third-person action horror game set on a massive planet cracking spaceship ravaged by monster creating infection, Dead Space tread new ground in its visuals, but had a hoary and tired story. To crack the nut of emulating the spectacular visuals of the next-gen consoles on the under-powered Wii, Extraction is a first-person “rail shooter”. Like a light-gun game, the player uses the Wii-mote to controls the aim and firing of weapons, while all else is scripted in the game engine. This was a bold and wise move on the part of developer Visceral, as this is the easily the best looking Wii game in a long time, if not since launch. The only graphical flaw I found was the lack of anti-aliasing, something not as noticeable in standard def but grossly irritating on an HD display.
Telling the story of the infection overtaking the planet’s colony as well as the ship itself, the narrative plays like an interactive movie, filling in the pieces left out of the first film. The gameplay is tightly paced, the writing sharp, and the narrative supremely executed.
Gory and violent, Extraction is a text-book example of expanding an IP without diluting the original concept.
As a launch title for the original Xbox, Halo immediately established itself as the hardware’s killer application, with tight (for a console) FPS controls, a compelling and enigmatic main character and an epic battle to be fought. Two sequels would follow, pulling the franchise across into the new console generation with Halo 3 on the Xbox 360 and driving massive revenue. Halo has truly become Microsoft’s golden goose for their hardware, and though developer Bungie would eventually buy back their independence, more Halo games appear to inevitable, with or without them.
Halo Wars is the first non-Bungie developed title in the franchise expansion. No tentative first step, the game takes the iconography and back story of the original trilogy of games to flesh out a solid Real Time Strategy experience. Sporting the best RTS controls for a console ever, the game leverages the mythology to great effect, pushing the narrative forward while maintaining enough RTS gameplay staples to comfort the non-Halo player. Technical issues amount to unit pathfinding problems at best, which is negligible given the terrific presentation and unending polish.
Set five years before the original Halo, the war with the Covenant is fresh, and armies of Spartans still populate the galaxy. The proliferation of the Spartans leads to some memorable cinematics and allows for their use as “hero” units in the game but it also serves to dilute to power of the first three games. As the last of his genetically engineered kind, the Master Chief was the stoic bad-ass main character that has long been the staple of action games. However his relationship to the A.I. Cortana provides a human vulnerability that lends the character some depth and sympathy usually lost in FPS games. This prototypical dynamic relationship is also explored cinematically in the story moments of Halo Wars but to lesser effect. The wise-cracking ass-kicking Forge is a reject from the cast of Predator as is his hard-bitten but soft on the inside lady scientist side-kick. To add insult to injury, the Spartans are presented in a late game cinematic as a group of unstoppable fighting machines, executing maneuvers one could only dream of doing while playing as the Master Chief. Not only does the game make him one of a crowd, he is no longer even the best, he is now just the one who survived.
Halo 3: ODST sidesteps the issue entirely. By removing the Spartans and the Master Chief from the game it attempts to create a new look at a familiar setting. Unfolding during the events of Halo 2, a group of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers are flung into the battle for New Mombasa, an African city devastated by Covenant attack. Separated during the insertion drop into the city the shockwave generated from a Covenant warship jumping into slip-space (don’t ask), the game opens with the player taking on the role of the Rookie. Waking hours after impact, the player must navigate the ostensibly open-world of the city, searching the night for his team. No longer playing as the Master Chief, the player quickly becomes accustomed to being an under-powered under-protected soldier facing the same enemies fought in previously games. As each team-mate is located, playable chapters unlock, allowing each character to be played in turn through daylight missions. Essentially a well-meaning attempt to expand the franchise, Halo: ODST is an experiment gone wrong. The single biggest flaw is also its initial selling point: this is a Halo game, so much so that is looks and feels like dropped levels from previous releases circling the noir-ish core. With only the patina of the new splattered on the game, it feels like Halo Lite and that is just not satisfying.
Halo Wars is a far more compelling and evolutionary step for the franchise, taking the concepts in the new and different directions while staying true to the mythology, much as Dead Space: Extraction does with this nascent IP.
Unlike its progenitor which debuted on Ps3 and XB360, Extraction is Wii-exclusive prequel to the events of the first game, Dead Space. A third-person action horror game set on a massive planet cracking spaceship ravaged by monster creating infection, Dead Space tread new ground in its visuals, but had a hoary and tired story. To crack the nut of emulating the spectacular visuals of the next-gen consoles on the under-powered Wii, Extraction is a first-person “rail shooter”. Like a light-gun game, the player uses the Wii-mote to controls the aim and firing of weapons, while all else is scripted in the game engine. This was a bold and wise move on the part of developer Visceral, as this is the easily the best looking Wii game in a long time, if not since launch. The only graphical flaw I found was the lack of anti-aliasing, something not as noticeable in standard def but grossly irritating on an HD display.
Telling the story of the infection overtaking the planet’s colony as well as the ship itself, the narrative plays like an interactive movie, filling in the pieces left out of the first film. The gameplay is tightly paced, the writing sharp, and the narrative supremely executed.
Gory and violent, Extraction is a text-book example of expanding an IP without diluting the original concept.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
A Tale of Two Franchises- Batman: Arkham Asylum & X-men Origins: Wolverine
Unfair comparison or not these two comic book licensed games share so many things, lining them up against one another seems inevitable. Both games are based on pre-existing media characters that stem from comic books but have crossed over to virtually every form of mass entertainment most notably live-action films and animated television shows. They also share the same engine, Unreal 3, and the same high-level design philosophy of drawing and referencing all incarnations of the characters in order to populate the game world. One game was developed by a veteran developer of high caliber, Raven, the other from a relatively unknown young house with a single previous title released, Rocksteady and therein lays the difference.
Mining the past media appearances of both characters leads to memorable moments in the games, but Rocksteady’s freedom to create an amalgam that is familiar yet unique frees it from the shackles that tie Raven’s creation to the identically titled film. Quality aside, the Wolverine film explores, appropriately, his origin and clumsily explains how everything came to be, including how he got his signature jacket. Forced to reinterpret scenes from the movie and work them into the story of the game hinders the developers, as does the inclusion of Jackman’s voice and likeness. Unlike most licensed properties where the onscreen talent will demur to participate in the game, Jackman fully commits to the role, voicing it spectacularly. Unfortunately it creates a cognitive dissonance as the game explores material previously found only in comics and cartoons, and is far more fantastic in it enemies than the movie could even imagine. The game is expressly out of sync in tone with the film and this does the game a disservice.
Arkham is not tied to any specific property other than the characters than have populated the Batman universe for over 50 years. Seeking inspiration in all of the media that has come before, the game references the Christian Bale movies, the Tim Burton movies, all of the animated series and the comics themselves, weaving these details into a claustrophobic, atmospheric story.
Penned by animated series and comic creator Paul Dini, the pitfall found in Wolverine is avoided by casting voices from the animated series, namely Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as the Joker. As fully committed to the performances as Jackman, they create familiarity to fans of character without jeopardizing the verisimilitude of the presentation. Had Arkham been tied to Dark Knight, it may well suffer from some of the issues facing Wolverine.
The seemingly ubiquitous Unreal 3 engine makes a spectacular appearance in both games, rendering large colorful worlds that appear open but are quite limited in scope. Once again, the decision to set AA on an island and solely within the facility grounds serves the game well, motivating the linear aspect of play. The dichotomy of Wolverine referencing the live action movie locations is at odds with the game locations, especially in the mid to late game when the story shifts to a mountain-side robotics facility full of Sentinal prototypes. The epic scale of the design is striking (and a direct nod to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance) but totally at odds with the strangely limited set-pieces of the film. One of the issues many developers have seen in the past with Gears of War era Unreal tech is a limited ability to rendering massive non-linear streaming worlds, i.e. Mass Effect or Rise of the Argonauts. Both Wolverine and Batman are side-step these issues either through clever level design or updated engine code.
I found it amusing that expositional scenes revealed through off camera radio transmissions are in full force in both games, as apparently that is a feature built into the engine. The animations for these sequences are identical to the ones uses in Gears.
What I found most striking in the difference between these very similar games was the presentation of the main character and their interaction with the environment through gameplay. Batman uses his familiar bag of tricks from his utility belt, resulting in a cavalcade of gadgets and upgrades. Platforming is restricted to using a grapple gun and a glide ability, referencing both the movies and the animated shows. Puzzles are integrated into a detective mode as Challenges left by the Riddler. Wolverine succeeds using role-playing elements to upgrade his healing and attack abilities, but the limitations of the character make the limited puzzle moments feel like unnecessary filler. Platforming in Wolverine is a unmitigated disaster, rendering the sensation of a kitchen sink attitude to development, where all genre tropes are touched upon.
In the end, Wolverine should never ever double jump.
Combat is an integral part of the games, whereas Wolverine uses his claws to rip, shred, and tear through enemies, resulting in combo-kills that graphically separate enemies from their limbs or heads, in essence the game devolves into button mashing with some counters mixed in. The enemies quickly become repetitive as does the combos. Batman’s combat is a far more nuanced and cerebral experience, playing much like a real-time Bruce Lee movie. Counters are used to intercept attacks, allowing the player to chain together attacks and build up multipliers, which unleash finishing moves. Strategy must be employed and it is a far more satisfying experience.
Against the odds, junior developer Rocksteady created a tour-du-force experience in AA, while Raven managed what appeared to be impossible prior to AA’s release: create a good comic book game. Wolverine is a very entertaining game but it pales in comparison to the masterwork that is Arkham Asylum.
Mining the past media appearances of both characters leads to memorable moments in the games, but Rocksteady’s freedom to create an amalgam that is familiar yet unique frees it from the shackles that tie Raven’s creation to the identically titled film. Quality aside, the Wolverine film explores, appropriately, his origin and clumsily explains how everything came to be, including how he got his signature jacket. Forced to reinterpret scenes from the movie and work them into the story of the game hinders the developers, as does the inclusion of Jackman’s voice and likeness. Unlike most licensed properties where the onscreen talent will demur to participate in the game, Jackman fully commits to the role, voicing it spectacularly. Unfortunately it creates a cognitive dissonance as the game explores material previously found only in comics and cartoons, and is far more fantastic in it enemies than the movie could even imagine. The game is expressly out of sync in tone with the film and this does the game a disservice.
Arkham is not tied to any specific property other than the characters than have populated the Batman universe for over 50 years. Seeking inspiration in all of the media that has come before, the game references the Christian Bale movies, the Tim Burton movies, all of the animated series and the comics themselves, weaving these details into a claustrophobic, atmospheric story.
Penned by animated series and comic creator Paul Dini, the pitfall found in Wolverine is avoided by casting voices from the animated series, namely Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as the Joker. As fully committed to the performances as Jackman, they create familiarity to fans of character without jeopardizing the verisimilitude of the presentation. Had Arkham been tied to Dark Knight, it may well suffer from some of the issues facing Wolverine.
The seemingly ubiquitous Unreal 3 engine makes a spectacular appearance in both games, rendering large colorful worlds that appear open but are quite limited in scope. Once again, the decision to set AA on an island and solely within the facility grounds serves the game well, motivating the linear aspect of play. The dichotomy of Wolverine referencing the live action movie locations is at odds with the game locations, especially in the mid to late game when the story shifts to a mountain-side robotics facility full of Sentinal prototypes. The epic scale of the design is striking (and a direct nod to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance) but totally at odds with the strangely limited set-pieces of the film. One of the issues many developers have seen in the past with Gears of War era Unreal tech is a limited ability to rendering massive non-linear streaming worlds, i.e. Mass Effect or Rise of the Argonauts. Both Wolverine and Batman are side-step these issues either through clever level design or updated engine code.
I found it amusing that expositional scenes revealed through off camera radio transmissions are in full force in both games, as apparently that is a feature built into the engine. The animations for these sequences are identical to the ones uses in Gears.
What I found most striking in the difference between these very similar games was the presentation of the main character and their interaction with the environment through gameplay. Batman uses his familiar bag of tricks from his utility belt, resulting in a cavalcade of gadgets and upgrades. Platforming is restricted to using a grapple gun and a glide ability, referencing both the movies and the animated shows. Puzzles are integrated into a detective mode as Challenges left by the Riddler. Wolverine succeeds using role-playing elements to upgrade his healing and attack abilities, but the limitations of the character make the limited puzzle moments feel like unnecessary filler. Platforming in Wolverine is a unmitigated disaster, rendering the sensation of a kitchen sink attitude to development, where all genre tropes are touched upon.
In the end, Wolverine should never ever double jump.
Combat is an integral part of the games, whereas Wolverine uses his claws to rip, shred, and tear through enemies, resulting in combo-kills that graphically separate enemies from their limbs or heads, in essence the game devolves into button mashing with some counters mixed in. The enemies quickly become repetitive as does the combos. Batman’s combat is a far more nuanced and cerebral experience, playing much like a real-time Bruce Lee movie. Counters are used to intercept attacks, allowing the player to chain together attacks and build up multipliers, which unleash finishing moves. Strategy must be employed and it is a far more satisfying experience.
Against the odds, junior developer Rocksteady created a tour-du-force experience in AA, while Raven managed what appeared to be impossible prior to AA’s release: create a good comic book game. Wolverine is a very entertaining game but it pales in comparison to the masterwork that is Arkham Asylum.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Late to the party
Goozex (on the sidebar) has been a valued service of late. Enabling gamers to trade games with one another in an organized feedback driven manner has been mostly pleasant, save for a couple of occasions where traders have tried to work the system on my dime. Recent fruits of this labor include last year’s Mirror’s Edge on PC, my preferred platform of choice for anything FPS.
Having played the demo on XB 360 last year I finally installed and fired up what had been described as one of the most original IPs from last year. The install was painless, through the initial options are sparse to say the least. The expected ability to tweak the games settings for the best FPS given one’s hardware is absent, requiring alteration of the .ini file. Even without custom settings, it ran fairly flawlessly at 1680*1050 with 4X AA and looked spectacular. The unique design choices and use of color make the game instantly identifiable and also serve the gameplay well.
An FPS exploration of parkour, Mirror’s Edge follows Faith, a runner in the not distant dystopian future where technology has replaced personal freedom. Electronic communication can no longer be trusted so runner carries packages to and from client’s in the underworld. Faith’s sister, a cop, is framed in a prominent murder, leaving Faith to work outside the system to help her. The story and character archetypes are hoary and cliché, but purposeful momentum of the game play is immersive and meaningful.
By using the first-person point of view and a select set of colors to identify the world, the game quickly becomes an immersive excerise in the joys of movement. Linking acrobatic combos with the the linear drive of finding the fastest uninterrupted route to a goal is immensely rewarding, quickly becoming the entire focus of play. The open cityscape is a white-hued glory, and while missions drive some of the action underground into grimy bump-mapped and light-refracted sewers, the majority thus far have been above, under the blazing sun.
The story plays out both through in-game voice via radio and anime style cutscenes between sections though what story there is exists only as a vehicle to drive the player from one set-piece to another. As weak as the story and character moments are, weaker still are the choices made to force the player into more tradtional shooter territory, diluting a truly original experience.
I look forward to plowing through to the end.
Having played the demo on XB 360 last year I finally installed and fired up what had been described as one of the most original IPs from last year. The install was painless, through the initial options are sparse to say the least. The expected ability to tweak the games settings for the best FPS given one’s hardware is absent, requiring alteration of the .ini file. Even without custom settings, it ran fairly flawlessly at 1680*1050 with 4X AA and looked spectacular. The unique design choices and use of color make the game instantly identifiable and also serve the gameplay well.
An FPS exploration of parkour, Mirror’s Edge follows Faith, a runner in the not distant dystopian future where technology has replaced personal freedom. Electronic communication can no longer be trusted so runner carries packages to and from client’s in the underworld. Faith’s sister, a cop, is framed in a prominent murder, leaving Faith to work outside the system to help her. The story and character archetypes are hoary and cliché, but purposeful momentum of the game play is immersive and meaningful.
By using the first-person point of view and a select set of colors to identify the world, the game quickly becomes an immersive excerise in the joys of movement. Linking acrobatic combos with the the linear drive of finding the fastest uninterrupted route to a goal is immensely rewarding, quickly becoming the entire focus of play. The open cityscape is a white-hued glory, and while missions drive some of the action underground into grimy bump-mapped and light-refracted sewers, the majority thus far have been above, under the blazing sun.
The story plays out both through in-game voice via radio and anime style cutscenes between sections though what story there is exists only as a vehicle to drive the player from one set-piece to another. As weak as the story and character moments are, weaker still are the choices made to force the player into more tradtional shooter territory, diluting a truly original experience.
I look forward to plowing through to the end.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
crash bang boom
Played Fallout 3 for about fifteen minutes before freezing and a hard reboot-then switched to Vista to update and play World In Conflict. Crashed 3 times. Suspect heat and humidity has something to do with as massive thunderstorm exploded moments later.
RT
RT
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Games-In-Brief: Spring/Summer 2009
A massive slew on ongoing personal stuff including moving my family 3500 km has been distraction. I am working to keep them under better management to prevent further distraction.
I rotate through a pile of games, as I usually get to play in chunks, and when I get frustrated, I quit. Here is a list of the games currently plaguing my shelves and hard drives:
The Witcher: Extended Edition- A visual feast of an RPG with truly adult themes and content (without being gratuitous), the combat is a bit wonky. Unfortunately the most recent patch destroyed my install so I am re-installing and re-patching.
Supreme Commander- This epic RTS has been a blast to play but the biggest impediment is that the missions grow massive and timely as you play. I am wary of starting what appears to be an end-game, as the initial mission space is massive and looks to only get bigger. I also suck at RTS’s
World in Conflict- I left this game behind a while ago on an abandoned Vista partition-Win 7 is spectacular, and leaves me thinging I will be nuking that partition so I should finish the game. A tight, accessible RTS, it is visually enthralling and can really push a system. Great story too.
Far Cry 2- Visuals again lead the pack in this game, as does the dynamic weather, day/night and fire propagation systems. The open ended nature of the game leaves the experience entirely to the player, which can be daunting. Like Supreme Commander, this game has a potential to be a massive time –sink as the exploration of the world is far more compelling than any story missions. More annoying is the compressed and apparently time-adjusted dialogue, which makes everyone, talk as if they are running at 1.5X.
F.E.A.R.: Extraction Point – A reasonable expansion pack to the original, it builds on the atmosphere of the first game, bumps up the weapons, but still leaves the player fighting inside warehouses and corridors. The A.I., while more cleverly scripted than actual A.I., is challenging and exciting.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Not yet graduated to the Clear Sky prequel, this game, while initially buggy, has finally been patched to a tight, unique experience. As much RPG as shooter, it has a vibrant exciting world with threats from all side and looks fantastic.
Age Of Conan- I have jumped back into this ultra-violent yet striking MMO with renewed vigor, as new content has been released, opening areas of the world previously unexplored. Recent patches addressed balancing issues, which required me to re-outfit my avatar with new skill trees, but the new far more granular feedback on stats is welcome.
Titan Quest- A pretty Diablo clone RPG is accessible and entertaining, though driven solely through mouse-clicks. The resounding thud of a shield bash is satisfying, though I feel like I am not leveling properly. Distribution of skill points is a bit obtuse and unlike as to potential benefits.
Fallout 3- Though I have not purchased or played any DLC, I continue my quest through the capital wastes, avoiding the game ending mission in order to finally and fully explore the map. Now essentially overpowered and able to walk through (almost) any enemy in the game, especially accompanied by weaponized companions, I am playing to explore, and discovering new and weird things every time.
Xbox Live Arcade has gotten my attention with two game demos: Shadow Complex and Trials HD. Shadow Complex is a gorgeous side-scroller rendered in 3D, following the old-school vibe of the original Metroid. The Unreal Engine is stunning as ever and this massive arcade download comes complete with full rendered cut scenes. Ridiculously fun and might in fact pry $20 from my cold hands in the form of 1200 Microsoft points. Trials HD is a physics based 3D almost-isometric view of a motorcycle stunt driver who the player has manipulate through a serious of ever more challenging jumps and tricks. Controlled only by acceleration, braking and leaning back or forward, the bike and rider are sent hurtling through the air into flips and ramp slide, often culminating in a massive ragdoll crash. Deliriously entertaining, it looks like a steal as well.
I rotate through a pile of games, as I usually get to play in chunks, and when I get frustrated, I quit. Here is a list of the games currently plaguing my shelves and hard drives:
The Witcher: Extended Edition- A visual feast of an RPG with truly adult themes and content (without being gratuitous), the combat is a bit wonky. Unfortunately the most recent patch destroyed my install so I am re-installing and re-patching.
Supreme Commander- This epic RTS has been a blast to play but the biggest impediment is that the missions grow massive and timely as you play. I am wary of starting what appears to be an end-game, as the initial mission space is massive and looks to only get bigger. I also suck at RTS’s
World in Conflict- I left this game behind a while ago on an abandoned Vista partition-Win 7 is spectacular, and leaves me thinging I will be nuking that partition so I should finish the game. A tight, accessible RTS, it is visually enthralling and can really push a system. Great story too.
Far Cry 2- Visuals again lead the pack in this game, as does the dynamic weather, day/night and fire propagation systems. The open ended nature of the game leaves the experience entirely to the player, which can be daunting. Like Supreme Commander, this game has a potential to be a massive time –sink as the exploration of the world is far more compelling than any story missions. More annoying is the compressed and apparently time-adjusted dialogue, which makes everyone, talk as if they are running at 1.5X.
F.E.A.R.: Extraction Point – A reasonable expansion pack to the original, it builds on the atmosphere of the first game, bumps up the weapons, but still leaves the player fighting inside warehouses and corridors. The A.I., while more cleverly scripted than actual A.I., is challenging and exciting.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Not yet graduated to the Clear Sky prequel, this game, while initially buggy, has finally been patched to a tight, unique experience. As much RPG as shooter, it has a vibrant exciting world with threats from all side and looks fantastic.
Age Of Conan- I have jumped back into this ultra-violent yet striking MMO with renewed vigor, as new content has been released, opening areas of the world previously unexplored. Recent patches addressed balancing issues, which required me to re-outfit my avatar with new skill trees, but the new far more granular feedback on stats is welcome.
Titan Quest- A pretty Diablo clone RPG is accessible and entertaining, though driven solely through mouse-clicks. The resounding thud of a shield bash is satisfying, though I feel like I am not leveling properly. Distribution of skill points is a bit obtuse and unlike as to potential benefits.
Fallout 3- Though I have not purchased or played any DLC, I continue my quest through the capital wastes, avoiding the game ending mission in order to finally and fully explore the map. Now essentially overpowered and able to walk through (almost) any enemy in the game, especially accompanied by weaponized companions, I am playing to explore, and discovering new and weird things every time.
Xbox Live Arcade has gotten my attention with two game demos: Shadow Complex and Trials HD. Shadow Complex is a gorgeous side-scroller rendered in 3D, following the old-school vibe of the original Metroid. The Unreal Engine is stunning as ever and this massive arcade download comes complete with full rendered cut scenes. Ridiculously fun and might in fact pry $20 from my cold hands in the form of 1200 Microsoft points. Trials HD is a physics based 3D almost-isometric view of a motorcycle stunt driver who the player has manipulate through a serious of ever more challenging jumps and tricks. Controlled only by acceleration, braking and leaning back or forward, the bike and rider are sent hurtling through the air into flips and ramp slide, often culminating in a massive ragdoll crash. Deliriously entertaining, it looks like a steal as well.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Return To Form
I have split off my ranting blog (ragingcanuck) from my gaming blog (game-a-day-ish) because it was getting too muddled. Hopefully this works better and allows me to get back into blogging.
For a laugh, check out whyicantpark as well, its my log of parking denials.
For a laugh, check out whyicantpark as well, its my log of parking denials.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Condemning Manhunt
Still fresh for me was the controversy surrounding Manhunt, the only game to have been rated “R” in Ontario. Given I ran an EBgames during that period imagine my shock and horror when I discovered (while at the hospital no less) that I had been “stung” by the local tv crew selling it to a “minor” (girl was 18 in less than a month and made up to look like an adult, then put on camera in pigtails).
Lo these 5 years later I have finally played and beaten the game, and honestly I don’t get it. Hindsight tends to clarify most things and though I can understand the brouhaha, unfairly directed at Rockstar specifically due to the GTA series, the game just isn’t that bad. Other games made around the same time or soon after are far more graphic, an issue that plagued Manhunt 2. Clearly the subject matter and “execution” gameplay mechanic were the tipping points in this issue, but I found the game to be entertaining and reasonably fun. Perhaps more importantly I appreciated the unflinching depiction of human filth and the depravity people are capable of expressing. Not unlike the 24 hour exposure our world receives of horrible images often without context on the news, this game expresses a singular vision of exploitation.
The sneaking mechanics of the game are now well-worn and the limitations of the hardware available at the time are apparent in the graphics and A.I. That aside, 2/3rds of the game make for reasonably varied play, only to collapse into stop and pop shooting mechanics which fail the central conceit. The ending is singularly unsatisfying but again, very little in this game was truly unnerving or disturbing (except for Pigsy’s junk dangling, lovingly).
Comparatively, Condemned, released on the Xbox 360 not long after Manhunt, is a far more visceral, graphic and disturbing game. An FPS driven on what appears to be an early build of what would become the F.E.A.R. engine is brutally violent, and also contains execution style mechanics. However, the player character is a cop tracking a serial killer rather than a serial killer tracking and killing cops (amongst others). This distinction along with the “snuff-film” plot is what drove the controversy against Manhunt. Context, as with all media, appears to be everything
Lo these 5 years later I have finally played and beaten the game, and honestly I don’t get it. Hindsight tends to clarify most things and though I can understand the brouhaha, unfairly directed at Rockstar specifically due to the GTA series, the game just isn’t that bad. Other games made around the same time or soon after are far more graphic, an issue that plagued Manhunt 2. Clearly the subject matter and “execution” gameplay mechanic were the tipping points in this issue, but I found the game to be entertaining and reasonably fun. Perhaps more importantly I appreciated the unflinching depiction of human filth and the depravity people are capable of expressing. Not unlike the 24 hour exposure our world receives of horrible images often without context on the news, this game expresses a singular vision of exploitation.
The sneaking mechanics of the game are now well-worn and the limitations of the hardware available at the time are apparent in the graphics and A.I. That aside, 2/3rds of the game make for reasonably varied play, only to collapse into stop and pop shooting mechanics which fail the central conceit. The ending is singularly unsatisfying but again, very little in this game was truly unnerving or disturbing (except for Pigsy’s junk dangling, lovingly).
Comparatively, Condemned, released on the Xbox 360 not long after Manhunt, is a far more visceral, graphic and disturbing game. An FPS driven on what appears to be an early build of what would become the F.E.A.R. engine is brutally violent, and also contains execution style mechanics. However, the player character is a cop tracking a serial killer rather than a serial killer tracking and killing cops (amongst others). This distinction along with the “snuff-film” plot is what drove the controversy against Manhunt. Context, as with all media, appears to be everything
Monday, February 23, 2009
Retro_active
A brutal holiday season followed by busy work stuff prevented me from having time or energy to write about anything, hopefully that has now changed.
Whatever the distractions life has presented I continue to persevere, playing a stupid amount of game,rotating through my stock, and goozexing what I no longer have need of.
In the interim I have stepped away (mostly) from the most current crop of games to reach into the past and beat those not yet defeated. The exception to this is Crysis Warhead, a dumb blonde of game. Pretty but stupid, the game takes everything that was good about Crysis and tosses it out the window, making this Crysis-lite. Emulating the successful COD 4 format of level design the game is entirely unsuccessful in replicating the intensity of that experience, leaving the player with a mish-mash of half-baked ideas. Focused on the character Psycho's misadventures on the island in the same time frame as the first game, Warhead dumbs down the A.I. and level layout, without ramping up the visuals or story to any significant level. The end result is a game that unlike it's predecessor will likely run on a mid-range system but leave the player unsatisfied. She's pretty but she ain't got much to say.
Viking:Battle for Asgard is a reasonably fun yet repetitive title, filled with gore and an unintelligible story that assumes moderate knowledge of Norse myth. A checkered past plagues your character as a cursed leader who needs to prove himself as he frees his people with the aid of dragons and some really big armies. Lather-rinse-repeat is the crux of the gameplay as you conquer areas, freeing your warriors and completing tasks that will allow you to lay siege on the enemy positions. The combos are reasonably satisfying and brutally graphic (spines make lots of appearances as you cleave bad guys in two). The most rewarding aspect of the game is the massive sieges, where hundreds upon hundreds of NPC's battle around the main character. The game engine chugs during these moments but it does not take away from the intensity of being in the middle of a massive hand-to-hand engagement. Dragons are limited air support, called in via dragon-gems and of little real use as they can only be activate once or twice during a siege. The repetetive nature of the game diminishes it greatly, however the singularly beautiful art direction and engaging combat make it tolerable.
Whatever the distractions life has presented I continue to persevere, playing a stupid amount of game,rotating through my stock, and goozexing what I no longer have need of.
In the interim I have stepped away (mostly) from the most current crop of games to reach into the past and beat those not yet defeated. The exception to this is Crysis Warhead, a dumb blonde of game. Pretty but stupid, the game takes everything that was good about Crysis and tosses it out the window, making this Crysis-lite. Emulating the successful COD 4 format of level design the game is entirely unsuccessful in replicating the intensity of that experience, leaving the player with a mish-mash of half-baked ideas. Focused on the character Psycho's misadventures on the island in the same time frame as the first game, Warhead dumbs down the A.I. and level layout, without ramping up the visuals or story to any significant level. The end result is a game that unlike it's predecessor will likely run on a mid-range system but leave the player unsatisfied. She's pretty but she ain't got much to say.
Viking:Battle for Asgard is a reasonably fun yet repetitive title, filled with gore and an unintelligible story that assumes moderate knowledge of Norse myth. A checkered past plagues your character as a cursed leader who needs to prove himself as he frees his people with the aid of dragons and some really big armies. Lather-rinse-repeat is the crux of the gameplay as you conquer areas, freeing your warriors and completing tasks that will allow you to lay siege on the enemy positions. The combos are reasonably satisfying and brutally graphic (spines make lots of appearances as you cleave bad guys in two). The most rewarding aspect of the game is the massive sieges, where hundreds upon hundreds of NPC's battle around the main character. The game engine chugs during these moments but it does not take away from the intensity of being in the middle of a massive hand-to-hand engagement. Dragons are limited air support, called in via dragon-gems and of little real use as they can only be activate once or twice during a siege. The repetetive nature of the game diminishes it greatly, however the singularly beautiful art direction and engaging combat make it tolerable.
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