Overstaying its welcome and tonally dysfunctional, Bulletstorm is a brash, crass and colourful shooter. Created by Painkiller developers People Can Fly and executive-produced/published by Epic, Bulletstorm attacks the dour grey-brown colors of modern military shooters with an explosion of environmental palettes. The Unreal 3 engine is used at its best with funnel driven corridors limiting player exploration to long pretty lanes swarming with berserk enemies.
Playing as alcoholic rogue Grayson Hunt, the story swerves from low comedy to “drama” in fits and starts, like a high school play staged by tourettes-laden epileptics. Hunt heads a squad of military assassins, who have be mislead into executing innocent voices of dissent rather than the criminal scourge they had been told. Forced to run, Hunt finds his crew and ship nose to nose with the ship of the man who betrayed them. Suicidally attacking the overwhelming force of the enemy, Hunt brings both ships down on a ravaged resort planet.
Showing posts with label Epic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Epic. Show all posts
Monday, April 4, 2011
Monday, December 22, 2008
You're not the boss of me:Gears Of War 2, Rise of the Argonauts & Brothers in Arms 3
When did boss battles go from being a means of ramping up the players experience to culminate in a hopefully satisfying use of the skills learned, to being game-breaking punishments?
Boss battles come in a gazillion different forms ranging from escaping ever-increasing hordes of enemies in a ever-decreasing area (COD 4), to a big alien dude you shoot stuff at its weak spots to make it roll over and die (Lost Planet). Shadows of the Colossus is an example of a game made of nothing but boss battles as the player finds way to attack an kill massive creatures, all with unique weaknesses and behaviors. All of these games create these battles organically withing the story, using them as storytelling elements to drive to plot as well as engage the player.
Gears of War 2 has one of the worst boss battles I have ever played, to the point that I actually quit playing. The battle is not only achingly repetitive and tiresome, it actually breaks the immersiveness of the game and violates the physics engine. Facing the locust villian Skorge, the player has to avoid grenades, falling rocks, explosive "tickers" and finally, massive wood columns that Skorge chainsaws through, causing them to topple.
Directly on the player.
Even if they are behind the column when it starts to fall.
I screamed cheap at the screen more than once because the developers were so unrelentingly lazy making this game that they broke the gameplay in order to make the battle more difficult. This is unacceptable. Gears 2 is a mediocre rehash of the first game at best and its makers are clearly resting on their laurels.
Rise of the Argonauts uses the same engine, as does Brothers in Arms as Gears 2, the Unreal 3 engine. Epic has often been labeled as the only developer capable of manipulating the engine to its fullest (including a lawsuit from Silicon Knights) and I am starting to get an inkling why. They are the only ones who don't try to make the engine do something its not good at. Of the the three Epic games made on the engine, they are rely on tightly controlled, small,linear environments surrounded by lush, but unreachable, visuals. Rise, Brothers, Mass Effect, etc etc, use the engine to create massive environments where you can usually go to what you can see. This engine is not made to do this, resulting is massive amounts of texture pop-in, frame-rate issues and general glitches. It makes one wonder if other developers were sold a bill of goods on the capabilities of the engine, specs that Epic itself does not have the engine do, only to have it fall short.
Rise of the Argonauts, in direct comparison to Gears 2, is receiving an entirely unfair critical drubbing compared to Gears, which I consider to be an inferior single-player game. Rise has a compelling emotional plot that drives the player forward. It does exhibit a lack of final polish in its animations, voice work and gameplay, but overall the game is fun and tells a great story. It seeks to engage the player emotionally rather than viscerally, using Mass Effect inspired dialogue trees and some very clever writing. Any fan of Greek myth should rent this game. It too has a boss battle that frustrated the snot out of me but I finally beat it, because I wanted to see what happened next. I didn't care with Gears 2. Argonauts also has babes in it, which is nice. I beat Rise of the Argonauts in 2 days of non-stop play, I liked the game that much.
Brothers In Arms 3 also draws the player in emotionally, asking us to invest in the characters, including a "Previously on..." cutscene that shows the first two games. Using a linear layout, like Gears, BIA drives the player and their squad forward against the German defenses.Reasonably smart AI (other than when it runs down the middle of the street rather than following you through back yards) drives the squads and they follow commands well. The control scheme is smart and intuitive and the cover system allows the player slightly more protection from the hail of bullets.
Satisfying and challenging without being stupidly difficult, BIA 3 is fine game that deserves more attention than it is getting from consumers. I am looking forward to beating it soon.
Boss battles come in a gazillion different forms ranging from escaping ever-increasing hordes of enemies in a ever-decreasing area (COD 4), to a big alien dude you shoot stuff at its weak spots to make it roll over and die (Lost Planet). Shadows of the Colossus is an example of a game made of nothing but boss battles as the player finds way to attack an kill massive creatures, all with unique weaknesses and behaviors. All of these games create these battles organically withing the story, using them as storytelling elements to drive to plot as well as engage the player.
Gears of War 2 has one of the worst boss battles I have ever played, to the point that I actually quit playing. The battle is not only achingly repetitive and tiresome, it actually breaks the immersiveness of the game and violates the physics engine. Facing the locust villian Skorge, the player has to avoid grenades, falling rocks, explosive "tickers" and finally, massive wood columns that Skorge chainsaws through, causing them to topple.
Directly on the player.
Even if they are behind the column when it starts to fall.
I screamed cheap at the screen more than once because the developers were so unrelentingly lazy making this game that they broke the gameplay in order to make the battle more difficult. This is unacceptable. Gears 2 is a mediocre rehash of the first game at best and its makers are clearly resting on their laurels.
Rise of the Argonauts uses the same engine, as does Brothers in Arms as Gears 2, the Unreal 3 engine. Epic has often been labeled as the only developer capable of manipulating the engine to its fullest (including a lawsuit from Silicon Knights) and I am starting to get an inkling why. They are the only ones who don't try to make the engine do something its not good at. Of the the three Epic games made on the engine, they are rely on tightly controlled, small,linear environments surrounded by lush, but unreachable, visuals. Rise, Brothers, Mass Effect, etc etc, use the engine to create massive environments where you can usually go to what you can see. This engine is not made to do this, resulting is massive amounts of texture pop-in, frame-rate issues and general glitches. It makes one wonder if other developers were sold a bill of goods on the capabilities of the engine, specs that Epic itself does not have the engine do, only to have it fall short.
Rise of the Argonauts, in direct comparison to Gears 2, is receiving an entirely unfair critical drubbing compared to Gears, which I consider to be an inferior single-player game. Rise has a compelling emotional plot that drives the player forward. It does exhibit a lack of final polish in its animations, voice work and gameplay, but overall the game is fun and tells a great story. It seeks to engage the player emotionally rather than viscerally, using Mass Effect inspired dialogue trees and some very clever writing. Any fan of Greek myth should rent this game. It too has a boss battle that frustrated the snot out of me but I finally beat it, because I wanted to see what happened next. I didn't care with Gears 2. Argonauts also has babes in it, which is nice. I beat Rise of the Argonauts in 2 days of non-stop play, I liked the game that much.
Brothers In Arms 3 also draws the player in emotionally, asking us to invest in the characters, including a "Previously on..." cutscene that shows the first two games. Using a linear layout, like Gears, BIA drives the player and their squad forward against the German defenses.Reasonably smart AI (other than when it runs down the middle of the street rather than following you through back yards) drives the squads and they follow commands well. The control scheme is smart and intuitive and the cover system allows the player slightly more protection from the hail of bullets.
Satisfying and challenging without being stupidly difficult, BIA 3 is fine game that deserves more attention than it is getting from consumers. I am looking forward to beating it soon.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Eat my testosterone
Gears of War 2 is the follow-up to the gorgeous, yet thinly plotted, spectacularly linear Gears of War and thus far, is exactly the same as the first, but up-sized. More enemies thrown at you, larger vehicles on larger rail sequences. And more Brumak, way more Brumak.
People often wonder why the Gears and Unreal games running the Unreal 3 engine all look better coming from Epic than virtually anyone else using the engine (a lawsuit is pending about this very issue). The answer is pretty simple a)they designed the damn thing b)they cheat.
By cheat, I mean in the traditional film jargon sense, as in "cheating" the camera over a few inches, or using forced-perspective. The idea is to cheat the eye into seeing something that really isn't there and Epic have always excelled at this.
By creating vistas that you can never actually explore and funneling gameplay down narrow path surround by the appearance of beauty, Epic games seem like they look better. They are simply better optimized for the gameplay, whereas a game like Mass Effect uses the engine to show vistas that you can actually walk up to. That makes the engine work harder and it doesn't have the sheen Gears does. It's smart design, if limiting, which seems to be Epic's trademark.
From the intial Unreal, Epic has thrilled with visual tricks and story ideas that never live up to the potential. Epic has become the new ID, with their games standing more as entertaining tech demos than immersive experiences. The story sessions seem to have been frat-boy keggers where Cliffy B continually asks "what's cooler than..", ie. "Hey what's cooler than a shitload. (beat) Ten shitloads."
That there is some fine writing Cliff.
What does appear to be true is that the games are not purchased for the single player experience, which is simply the gravy to the online experience of curbstomping your pals.
Thus far I am underwhelmed by the story, but the game mechanics are as compelling as ever
People often wonder why the Gears and Unreal games running the Unreal 3 engine all look better coming from Epic than virtually anyone else using the engine (a lawsuit is pending about this very issue). The answer is pretty simple a)they designed the damn thing b)they cheat.
By cheat, I mean in the traditional film jargon sense, as in "cheating" the camera over a few inches, or using forced-perspective. The idea is to cheat the eye into seeing something that really isn't there and Epic have always excelled at this.
By creating vistas that you can never actually explore and funneling gameplay down narrow path surround by the appearance of beauty, Epic games seem like they look better. They are simply better optimized for the gameplay, whereas a game like Mass Effect uses the engine to show vistas that you can actually walk up to. That makes the engine work harder and it doesn't have the sheen Gears does. It's smart design, if limiting, which seems to be Epic's trademark.
From the intial Unreal, Epic has thrilled with visual tricks and story ideas that never live up to the potential. Epic has become the new ID, with their games standing more as entertaining tech demos than immersive experiences. The story sessions seem to have been frat-boy keggers where Cliffy B continually asks "what's cooler than..", ie. "Hey what's cooler than a shitload. (beat) Ten shitloads."
That there is some fine writing Cliff.
What does appear to be true is that the games are not purchased for the single player experience, which is simply the gravy to the online experience of curbstomping your pals.
Thus far I am underwhelmed by the story, but the game mechanics are as compelling as ever
Monday, December 4, 2006
GEARS OF SNORE
"Gears of War" for the XBOX 360 has been the most highly anticipated 360
game for this holiday season. From EPIC, the makers of Unreal, and
boasting to have truly next gen graphics, Microsoft has positioned this
game as a killer app for this Christmas. It has garnered rave reviews
across the board for its visceral gameplay and astounding graphics.
And I just don't get it.
To put this in perspective, Gears is one of the few games I have managed
to play prior to reading any reviews (Half-life 2 is one as well) so
beyond pre-release hype I didn't really know what to expect from the
game. Almost any other game, including the fantastic but not
earth-shaking Splinter Cell Double Agent, I have made my renting or
buying decision based on reviews and my own personal tastes. Knowing
that the true cusp of next-gen hardware was at hand with this second
generation 360 game alongside the release of the PS3 and the WII I
wanted to see for myself what the big deal was about.
Now don't get me wrong, the graphics are beautiful, but it took until
the end of the first "act" of the game for me to be truly astounded.
Perhaps my expectations were too high, perhaps it's the lack of a high
def tv, or over a decade of staring at computer screens, playing games
at high resolutions that is the problem.
The gameplay itself is entertaining but I find it lacking in immersion.
I never feel I am part of the story, because there doesn't appear to be
one. Behind the flash and sizzle of the graphics, there is essentially a
duck and cover repetition to the game, wherein the onslaught of "smart"
enemies (who bellow out when they are vulnerable, most conveniently)
forces the player to duckwalk from cover to cover, popping up
frantically to fire back. While this forced used of cover is
interesting, but not entirely innovative, it is the cornerstone of the
gameplay. This, in and of itself, would not be a bad thing was there
anything else to hang one's hat on, but there isn't. Enemies spawn in
wave after wave, like FPS's of old (something both Quake 4 and Doom 3
were derided for), and meander back and forth in scripted patterns and
animations. Both FEAR and Half-life 2 on PC demonstrate the same kind of
linear run and gun gameplay, but with far more organic and reactive AI
enemies, leading to more immersive gameplay and greater tension.
Rather than an organic world that leverages the power of the 360 to its
hilt, this is an old-school shooter wrapped in a prettier package.
game for this holiday season. From EPIC, the makers of Unreal, and
boasting to have truly next gen graphics, Microsoft has positioned this
game as a killer app for this Christmas. It has garnered rave reviews
across the board for its visceral gameplay and astounding graphics.
And I just don't get it.
To put this in perspective, Gears is one of the few games I have managed
to play prior to reading any reviews (Half-life 2 is one as well) so
beyond pre-release hype I didn't really know what to expect from the
game. Almost any other game, including the fantastic but not
earth-shaking Splinter Cell Double Agent, I have made my renting or
buying decision based on reviews and my own personal tastes. Knowing
that the true cusp of next-gen hardware was at hand with this second
generation 360 game alongside the release of the PS3 and the WII I
wanted to see for myself what the big deal was about.
Now don't get me wrong, the graphics are beautiful, but it took until
the end of the first "act" of the game for me to be truly astounded.
Perhaps my expectations were too high, perhaps it's the lack of a high
def tv, or over a decade of staring at computer screens, playing games
at high resolutions that is the problem.
The gameplay itself is entertaining but I find it lacking in immersion.
I never feel I am part of the story, because there doesn't appear to be
one. Behind the flash and sizzle of the graphics, there is essentially a
duck and cover repetition to the game, wherein the onslaught of "smart"
enemies (who bellow out when they are vulnerable, most conveniently)
forces the player to duckwalk from cover to cover, popping up
frantically to fire back. While this forced used of cover is
interesting, but not entirely innovative, it is the cornerstone of the
gameplay. This, in and of itself, would not be a bad thing was there
anything else to hang one's hat on, but there isn't. Enemies spawn in
wave after wave, like FPS's of old (something both Quake 4 and Doom 3
were derided for), and meander back and forth in scripted patterns and
animations. Both FEAR and Half-life 2 on PC demonstrate the same kind of
linear run and gun gameplay, but with far more organic and reactive AI
enemies, leading to more immersive gameplay and greater tension.
Rather than an organic world that leverages the power of the 360 to its
hilt, this is an old-school shooter wrapped in a prettier package.
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