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
Friday, November 28, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
FU I am done
Beat Force Unleashed despite constant screams of CHEAP and resisting the urge to toss my controller through the window. The story is simply amazing and though the cutscenes are available on youtube, it is somehow more satisfying to have slogged through the messy gameplay for the sweet reward of story. Very Pavlovian. I only wish the gameplay was of the same caliber of every single other aspect of this game, then it would truly be one of the greatest games ever made.
Now its just mediocre.
Now its just mediocre.
Friday, November 21, 2008
The Force Unleashed
Force Unleashed or as I like to call it, FU, is like dating a person whose personality you can't stand but when you occasionally have sex, its like the best ever.
The game is beautiful to look at and has the single best Star Wars story (outside of Kotor) since return of the Jedi. It is however, horribly marred by lazy and/or plain stupid design decisions making getting to the story the time before you have done the crime.
Platforming is essential to the gameplay, but unlike other games it has taken many many cues from, FU fails to provide the player with simple courtesy's, like designing a platforming level with narrow ramps and bridges, but building in auto-catch animations should the player accidentally and often FALL OFF THE EDGE. You don't see Kratos falling to his death too often and he doesn't even have a lightsaber.
Sloppy controls, brutal camera and bad level design don't quite drive this game into the ground as the visuals and the story have enough heft to almost carry the player through. Almost.
After spending an hour engaged in an act that should have been the ultimate expression of pure unbridled power I was ready to toss my controller through the window. The developers had managed to reduce the ridiculously cool act of yanking a Star Destroyer from orbit using the force into a tedious series of minigames.
Par for the Force (Unleashed)
The game is beautiful to look at and has the single best Star Wars story (outside of Kotor) since return of the Jedi. It is however, horribly marred by lazy and/or plain stupid design decisions making getting to the story the time before you have done the crime.
Platforming is essential to the gameplay, but unlike other games it has taken many many cues from, FU fails to provide the player with simple courtesy's, like designing a platforming level with narrow ramps and bridges, but building in auto-catch animations should the player accidentally and often FALL OFF THE EDGE. You don't see Kratos falling to his death too often and he doesn't even have a lightsaber.
Sloppy controls, brutal camera and bad level design don't quite drive this game into the ground as the visuals and the story have enough heft to almost carry the player through. Almost.
After spending an hour engaged in an act that should have been the ultimate expression of pure unbridled power I was ready to toss my controller through the window. The developers had managed to reduce the ridiculously cool act of yanking a Star Destroyer from orbit using the force into a tedious series of minigames.
Par for the Force (Unleashed)
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Game-a-day-ish:Premature Endings
Finished both Dead Space and Fallout 3 within 48 hours of one another-both games represent in the own way the best and worst of the artform.
Dead Space left me (after a ginormous boss battle and an ending stolen from FEAR and a gazillion japanese horror films)with more questions than answers and feeling empty. Either purposefully or as an accident of omission the game never digs deeper than the surface regarding the plot and the character's relationships therein. Character setup early are eventually killed off arbitrarily, while the fates of other characters are foreshadowed so blatantly that the final reveal is more of a "meh" than a "doh!".
Having created such a beautifully rendered world as well as innovated in terms of the user interface it feels as if the story was left behind, where it had the potential to be something extraordinary as well. Worth renting.
Fallout 3 is entirely a game made of the journey not the destination. The final mission and the lead up to it is so abrupt you don't realize the game is about to end until it does. This is hampered by a late game character that is introduced as a deus-ex-machina solution to an earlier problem but then unable to be used in the same situation within the endgame. The emotional commitment made to building this character as it travels through the wasteland encountering some remarkably creative and unique situations is given short shrift in the resolution. While the mechanics of the plot ends, the emotional payoff is absent and there is no satisfying resolution to your character's story. Fallout 3 is in essence all foreplay and no climax.
Started and quit World of Warcraft last night after about 20 minutes of killing little fluffy animals. Don't get it, the essence of the game appears to be grinding. Was that ever fun?
Dead Space left me (after a ginormous boss battle and an ending stolen from FEAR and a gazillion japanese horror films)with more questions than answers and feeling empty. Either purposefully or as an accident of omission the game never digs deeper than the surface regarding the plot and the character's relationships therein. Character setup early are eventually killed off arbitrarily, while the fates of other characters are foreshadowed so blatantly that the final reveal is more of a "meh" than a "doh!".
Having created such a beautifully rendered world as well as innovated in terms of the user interface it feels as if the story was left behind, where it had the potential to be something extraordinary as well. Worth renting.
Fallout 3 is entirely a game made of the journey not the destination. The final mission and the lead up to it is so abrupt you don't realize the game is about to end until it does. This is hampered by a late game character that is introduced as a deus-ex-machina solution to an earlier problem but then unable to be used in the same situation within the endgame. The emotional commitment made to building this character as it travels through the wasteland encountering some remarkably creative and unique situations is given short shrift in the resolution. While the mechanics of the plot ends, the emotional payoff is absent and there is no satisfying resolution to your character's story. Fallout 3 is in essence all foreplay and no climax.
Started and quit World of Warcraft last night after about 20 minutes of killing little fluffy animals. Don't get it, the essence of the game appears to be grinding. Was that ever fun?
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Game a Day-Ish:Demo-itis
Played a few demos in the last couple days, Left 4 Dead, Tomb Raider:Underworld, & Mirror's Edge. Demos for me are an important part of the gaming experience, because hopefully the demo is truly representative of the gaming experience. Like a trailer for a film, it should attract the consumer into parting with their money to have that experience, and like film, a good ad does not always denote a good game. However I have found that the percentage of "psych" in game demos are a lot smaller than in film trailers.
Some demos (though increasingly rare these days) are their own self contained experience that afford the gameplay, graphics and sense of story without actually being drawn directly from a level in the game. The legendary Half-Life demo remains one of the single best examples of this as it revealed the relationship the player would have with the NPC Barney, as well as the environments, enemies and gameplay in a rich intense but brief experience.
Left 4 Dead is from the same publisher as Half-Life, Valve (they bought the original developer and brought the game in-house). A stripped down multiplayer (either online or off,using bot's) the game is a series of encounters between four survivors of a zombie apocalypse and the aforementioned zombies. The sheer amount of bodies flung at the player is astounding as is the speed and intensity of the encounters. Graphically the game runs on the Source engine and while I was playing on the Xbox 360 I have to admit disappoint at the look of that version of the game. Like many PC 1st games (Fear, Half-Lief 2) the console ports just don't have the scalability or graphical fidelity of the the PC counterpart on a decently spec'd system. I am looking forward to trying the game on PC.
Tomb Raider:Underworld is a gorgeous looking game that shares the same developer Crystal Dynamics, as TR:Legend and TR:Anniversary, two games I like a lot. The gameplay and controls are tight and the level designs look to be as fiendishly platformy are the previous games. I am looking forward to playing the whole game.
The Mirror's Edge is an original IP from the maker's of the Battlefield series, DICE. Set in a dystopian future where information is controlled by corporations, "runners" like the player character "Faith" move documents and packages back and forth through the city by free-running across rooftops. Using a first-person view, the game provides vertiginous experiences as the player flings themselves on and around the tops of skyscrapers, precariously balanced on pipes and ledges. A fiercely original vision for a game, the gameplay is exhilarating, but if one is prone to motion sickness this game will kill you.
Some demos (though increasingly rare these days) are their own self contained experience that afford the gameplay, graphics and sense of story without actually being drawn directly from a level in the game. The legendary Half-Life demo remains one of the single best examples of this as it revealed the relationship the player would have with the NPC Barney, as well as the environments, enemies and gameplay in a rich intense but brief experience.
Left 4 Dead is from the same publisher as Half-Life, Valve (they bought the original developer and brought the game in-house). A stripped down multiplayer (either online or off,using bot's) the game is a series of encounters between four survivors of a zombie apocalypse and the aforementioned zombies. The sheer amount of bodies flung at the player is astounding as is the speed and intensity of the encounters. Graphically the game runs on the Source engine and while I was playing on the Xbox 360 I have to admit disappoint at the look of that version of the game. Like many PC 1st games (Fear, Half-Lief 2) the console ports just don't have the scalability or graphical fidelity of the the PC counterpart on a decently spec'd system. I am looking forward to trying the game on PC.
Tomb Raider:Underworld is a gorgeous looking game that shares the same developer Crystal Dynamics, as TR:Legend and TR:Anniversary, two games I like a lot. The gameplay and controls are tight and the level designs look to be as fiendishly platformy are the previous games. I am looking forward to playing the whole game.
The Mirror's Edge is an original IP from the maker's of the Battlefield series, DICE. Set in a dystopian future where information is controlled by corporations, "runners" like the player character "Faith" move documents and packages back and forth through the city by free-running across rooftops. Using a first-person view, the game provides vertiginous experiences as the player flings themselves on and around the tops of skyscrapers, precariously balanced on pipes and ledges. A fiercely original vision for a game, the gameplay is exhilarating, but if one is prone to motion sickness this game will kill you.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Game a dayish-Fallout 3
While this should be called game a week and I going to try and post something, even a few sentances regarding whatever I am playing at the moment. Today’s subject is the new multi-platform release, Fallout 3. Based on the original isometric RPG Fallout, Fallout 3 is an FPS-RPG and is a stunningly beautiful game. The RPG elements are a successful amalgam of the original post-apocalyptic world of Fallout blended with the dialogue tree sensibilities and scripted scenes of Oblivion.
Borrowing a page from the Metal Gear Solid design book, Fallout 3 leverages the graphics engine by using a carefully chosen limited color palette for the outdoor sequences. It makes for a wonderfully stylized yet gorgeous visual experience with a wide open world, outside of the urban environments.
Set in the ruins of Washington D.C most of the game is a literal “if you can see it, you can walk to it” experience outside of the city proper. Once inside the urban sprawl, environments are still expansive but limited in terms of accessibility. Load times are virtually non-existent but I long for the day when I can dynamically open a door and walk into a building without a load screen.
Due to repeated textures and elements artfully re-arranged in the world, the game runs at a solid 60 FPS on my PC, which is a small miracle in and of itself in these days of big budget, big buggy PC releases. This game runs some very tight code given the open nature of the gameplay and the non-linear world.
Exploration is rewarded but unlike Oblivion, enemies do not level dynamically with the player, so when you are in a place you shouldn’t be, you know it. However, once a zone is cleared, enemies do not respawn (at least not rapidly) allowing for a sense of accomplishment. This non-linearity can lead to moments where the flow of the gameplay is broken such a moment where I stumbled across a quest area that I was not meant to find for some time later in the game. My sense of discovery was tinged with a regret as I had now closed off who know how many side-quests I was meant to find prior to finding this area. It does add to replayibility as the engine does a fine job of modifying the world as you work through it, responding instantly to the unpredictability of the adventurous player.
The morality system of the game is simple but the moral choices presented are complex. There are always at least two solutions to an issue and the illusion of a living breathing world that will function with or without the player exists here as it did in Oblivion. I do find myself making a mental checklist of things I would do differently next time and that is always a good thing.
Finally the VATS combat system is a exciting way to spruce up the standard FPS play. A twitch shooter this is not, but VATS allows the player to stop combat in a frozen moment, allowing them to target specific body parts and also showing the stats on hit chances as well as damage already done. Strategy becomes a part of the shooting experience and it is a refreshing change.
Fallout 3 is easily once of the best games this year if ever, and a welcome return to that world.
Borrowing a page from the Metal Gear Solid design book, Fallout 3 leverages the graphics engine by using a carefully chosen limited color palette for the outdoor sequences. It makes for a wonderfully stylized yet gorgeous visual experience with a wide open world, outside of the urban environments.
Set in the ruins of Washington D.C most of the game is a literal “if you can see it, you can walk to it” experience outside of the city proper. Once inside the urban sprawl, environments are still expansive but limited in terms of accessibility. Load times are virtually non-existent but I long for the day when I can dynamically open a door and walk into a building without a load screen.
Due to repeated textures and elements artfully re-arranged in the world, the game runs at a solid 60 FPS on my PC, which is a small miracle in and of itself in these days of big budget, big buggy PC releases. This game runs some very tight code given the open nature of the gameplay and the non-linear world.
Exploration is rewarded but unlike Oblivion, enemies do not level dynamically with the player, so when you are in a place you shouldn’t be, you know it. However, once a zone is cleared, enemies do not respawn (at least not rapidly) allowing for a sense of accomplishment. This non-linearity can lead to moments where the flow of the gameplay is broken such a moment where I stumbled across a quest area that I was not meant to find for some time later in the game. My sense of discovery was tinged with a regret as I had now closed off who know how many side-quests I was meant to find prior to finding this area. It does add to replayibility as the engine does a fine job of modifying the world as you work through it, responding instantly to the unpredictability of the adventurous player.
The morality system of the game is simple but the moral choices presented are complex. There are always at least two solutions to an issue and the illusion of a living breathing world that will function with or without the player exists here as it did in Oblivion. I do find myself making a mental checklist of things I would do differently next time and that is always a good thing.
Finally the VATS combat system is a exciting way to spruce up the standard FPS play. A twitch shooter this is not, but VATS allows the player to stop combat in a frozen moment, allowing them to target specific body parts and also showing the stats on hit chances as well as damage already done. Strategy becomes a part of the shooting experience and it is a refreshing change.
Fallout 3 is easily once of the best games this year if ever, and a welcome return to that world.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Game a Day: Dead Space
In the hopes of getting a lot of the nonsense rattling around my head out into some kind of record I am starting what I hope can be a daily blog about one of the bunch of games I always have running.
Dead Space first hit my radar over a year ago in the pages of Game Informer (the single best overall gaming mag out there). The graphic design of the game leapt off the screen shot loaded pages and I knew this was a game I needed to play.
The setup for the game is nothing new, a rescue team is sent out to investigate radio silence from a massive "planet cracking" spaceship and havoc ensues, seperating the player character Issac (the engineer) from his shipmates. Borrowing heavily from the influences of Alien, The Thing and Resident Evil 4, Dead Space improves on some of its sources in areas while taking two steps back in others. In the holy trinity of gameplay, visuals, and plot, Dead Space manages a 1 1/2 out of 3.
Visually it has moments of stunning dreadful beauty, where the claustrophobic linear progress of bland metal-grated corridors will suddenly open up on a massive chasm in the ships bowels, or force the player into the vacuum of space on the ship's exterior.
The gameplay is RE4 sped up, with the same tank controls but a slightly more nimble protagonist and a camera butted up tight to the leads shoulder. Dominating the frame with the main character forces tension in the player mechanically making it harder to see what threats may lurk just off screen. The "dismemberment" aspect of the gameplay creates a diversionary method of playing, forcing the player to avoid the normal aim-for-the-head approach and rather cut the limbs off the enemies in order to stop them. While this forces a different method of play initially, again it is a mechanical method of creating tension, relying on hampering the player's abilities rather than innovating. In between skirmishes with varying creatures, the player is sent on seemingly endless "errand" quests of the "go there find this fix that" variety. while the gameplay is passable and the visuals often gorgeous, the story is laughably bad.
Cut off from the survivors of his crew, Issac meanders about the monolithic planet cracking ship, following directions from holo-projected crew-mates as they shock/horror! discover various technical issues plaguing the ship beside the mutant killers running around. Strangely enough this issues are only discovered one at a time, further reinforcing the heavily linear aspect of the game. At one point, one of the support characters even states how ridiculous it is for these things to keep happening, a moment guaranteed to break any immersion.
While Dead Space does a have a few genuine "scare's",it loses any emotional cohesion with its by the numbers plot. In terms of pure visual design the game is a triumph, something apparent from those first screenshots so long ago, but this is truly a game made of style over substance.
Dead Space first hit my radar over a year ago in the pages of Game Informer (the single best overall gaming mag out there). The graphic design of the game leapt off the screen shot loaded pages and I knew this was a game I needed to play.
The setup for the game is nothing new, a rescue team is sent out to investigate radio silence from a massive "planet cracking" spaceship and havoc ensues, seperating the player character Issac (the engineer) from his shipmates. Borrowing heavily from the influences of Alien, The Thing and Resident Evil 4, Dead Space improves on some of its sources in areas while taking two steps back in others. In the holy trinity of gameplay, visuals, and plot, Dead Space manages a 1 1/2 out of 3.
Visually it has moments of stunning dreadful beauty, where the claustrophobic linear progress of bland metal-grated corridors will suddenly open up on a massive chasm in the ships bowels, or force the player into the vacuum of space on the ship's exterior.
The gameplay is RE4 sped up, with the same tank controls but a slightly more nimble protagonist and a camera butted up tight to the leads shoulder. Dominating the frame with the main character forces tension in the player mechanically making it harder to see what threats may lurk just off screen. The "dismemberment" aspect of the gameplay creates a diversionary method of playing, forcing the player to avoid the normal aim-for-the-head approach and rather cut the limbs off the enemies in order to stop them. While this forces a different method of play initially, again it is a mechanical method of creating tension, relying on hampering the player's abilities rather than innovating. In between skirmishes with varying creatures, the player is sent on seemingly endless "errand" quests of the "go there find this fix that" variety. while the gameplay is passable and the visuals often gorgeous, the story is laughably bad.
Cut off from the survivors of his crew, Issac meanders about the monolithic planet cracking ship, following directions from holo-projected crew-mates as they shock/horror! discover various technical issues plaguing the ship beside the mutant killers running around. Strangely enough this issues are only discovered one at a time, further reinforcing the heavily linear aspect of the game. At one point, one of the support characters even states how ridiculous it is for these things to keep happening, a moment guaranteed to break any immersion.
While Dead Space does a have a few genuine "scare's",it loses any emotional cohesion with its by the numbers plot. In terms of pure visual design the game is a triumph, something apparent from those first screenshots so long ago, but this is truly a game made of style over substance.
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