So, the pursuit of reviewing games on the regular has proven both futile and irrelevant, but I don't really want to waste yet another blog roll with my name on it, so I'm just going to start using this to document whats going on with me gaming wise. At the very least, I'll be able to look back weeks at a glance and remember how much I hated a game without having to have the kind of experience I did this weekend with Street Fighter 4.
You see, a situation on that site I run required someone to do some SF4 research, which involved not only popping the game but actually playing enough matches to identify the absurd win quote behavioral patterns. I even took it online for a few rounds to make sure that every base was covered in my search. The good news is, I was able to get to the bottom of the mystery for FAB, the bad news is I still don't like Street Fighter 4.
You see, I was never into Street Fighter 4. Ever, not during its arcade release or for its home port. Oh yeah, I got excited about all the new characters they were adding, and the promise of a competent story and functional online play, but I was never "on board". It just looked to stupid to me. The entire unchanged cast of every game named Street Fighter and a bunch of newly designed failures wrapped in a "basic" gameplay package just different enough to stand out, but not enough to really be noteworthy. Then a bunch of my friends bought it and said it was marvelous and could not wait to put me in my place. So, I bought it, and for a time, I can honestly say I enjoyed it. Something kind of new, and also kind of familiar, some funny animations, and pretty graphics, even a few songs I didn't hate. But the more I played it, the more all those initial nags started to get to me, and when all my friends moved on to their brand new sports games, and shooters, and rpgs, SF4 just lacked the legs to hold me up.
And now that I look back on SF4 with the smug self-satisfied knowledge of being right about Capcom's compulsive need to fleece their supporters, I see that my enjoyment was never actually from SF4. It was at beating my friends face in" which, to be perfectly honest, I would rather being doing in an interesting game like Facebreaker, than Capcom's desperate attempt to dry hump a few more dollars out of the Street Fighter 2's legacy.
So, SF4 sucks and also BlazBlue has worn out its welcome. It is not so much that BlazBlue is bad. Flawed in many of the ways fighters are typically flawed, but not bad to the core. When my wife posed that question I replied simply that BlazBlue is like a roll, or biscuit if you must. Now there is nothing wrong with a good roll, or biscuit, but you can certainly do a lot better. BlazBlue has a bunch of characters that I'm sure appeal to somebody, a plot that sucks but at least is involved with the fighting, and fairly masterable gameplay that grants enough satisfaction in felling your opponents that you don't easily realize every character really only has one card to play competitively. My problem is, Guilty Gear already did all that and did it better, and then did it again and again-again each time with varying degrees of success.
If the thought of doing more of the same kind of stuff with dust loops and tech traps and roman cancels that you've already done is just so exciting you're going to die without it, then BlazBlue is probably a good idea, but that's all that's there. More of the same gatling combos to jump installs to tech trap loops to oki resets. Oh sure, this time around Jam has gigantic boobs and a stick, and Sol has vampire powers, but when the action gets going it still all blends together in a hail of glowing shields, remote projectiles, horribly unsafe supers, and gigantic full screen collision boxes. Suffice to say, as soon as I finish this particular FAB homework assignment, BlazBlue is going back to gamefly.
Other than that, there was some gears (still awesome), worms (still awesome), and even some Turok (still sucks) online play this weekend, but nothing really new to report. Turns out the Star Trek Blu Ray has an Xbox 360 demo (way to go, marketing geniuses) of the Star Trek DAC game, but that game sucks a whole lot so who cares. Finally, I brought down and bought Shadow Complex because it was on sale, but I haven't played it yet. I don't need anything else keeping me from sending BlazBlue back, so it will have to wait.
-F.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
King of Fighters XII
I don't normally like to review a game after a single night of play, much less a fighting game that can take months to truly appreciate, but I'll make this exception for KOFXII because it really only offers about one night worth of entertainment.
In its long life the KoF series has seen its fair share of drama. It was advertised (damned near prophecised) that with King of Fighters XII the series would see its way back into prominence, leading the charge with a breath taking 2d graphical facelift, the first in almost twenty releases. The reality though, is that thats the only thing they led the charge with and the rest is just an incomplete and uninspired mess.
Now, the game IS quite a sight to behold. You can almost taste the characters and their respective pyrotechnics in motion, and while the animation counts don't rival such epic achievements as Street Fighter 3 or Mark of the Wolves, its no slouch. The first problem, however, is that its totally under utilized. Even beyond the move list reductions, there's a distinct lack of anything that might be considered graphically showing off. There are no prefight animations or intros at all, no taunts, extraneous standing cycles, or exaggerated animations to speak of, and not more than a single win pose per character. No fancy pants super effects or stage changing effects, and none of the backgrounds are any more interesting than having a bunch of people or pigs or snakes jiggling around in the back. Outside of battle is even more barren, as there are no endings or cinematics anywhere, just an obnoxious faux news presenation that frames what the game calls a single player mode.
Said single player mode is a major sticking point for me. Matches are still fought in the series staple team format, but there are no defined teams and no boss to call a finale. The mode itself is just a time trial, consisting of 5 bouts against random arrangements of characters until the credits roll. It feels criminally short compared to 7 or 8 team + boss affairs of yester year, and shines a big spotlight on the games tiny cast. You can retry each match once if you're intent on stretching it out or scoring a good time, but the pathetic AI grants no sense of satisfaction, and seems most interested in jumping around and making it difficult for you to score a good time than actually competing. Turning the difficulty up or down doesn't seem to have any effect on its tactics either, just rendering the damage higher or lower. The only silver lining here is that its tremendously easy to knock out all the "beat arcade mode with a single character" achievements, but the 30 or 40th time you jump kick low sweep your way to victory you'll probably decided the gamerscore isn't worth another couple hundred.
I will admit to having some fun with the versus mode though, as this is still KoF we're talking about. If you've ever played one, it will take you about 30 seconds of play to settle into the XII playstyle, but the comfort is bitter sweet. Many notable cast members are in the game, but others you've come to love and adore are missing or had their movelists hideously disfigured. Its even hard to deduce if the culprit is the staggering cost / difficulty of high res 2d development or just lazyness because there's inconsistency in its disappointment. Main characters are pretty much complete, missing some things you might want and never need but still solid enough to strategize with. Others have been whittled down to optionless one trick ponies who must feed on opponents who lack basic kof skills like blocking and dashing and rolling. The truly damned characters are so stupid and inneffectual they might as well not even been included, which is a shame because they are most of the ones who got the biggest graphical overhauls and redesigns!
The gap bridger to the gross character inconsistencies are the new gameplay features, old hat and new. Stand bys like ab rolls and cd knockdowns help put you in the KoF mood, while the ability to punch out fireballs and the new way that hits are traded create interesting new outcomes to otherwise mundane scenarios. The new Critical Counter system takes all that and turns it right on its head though. Taking a page of the SF4 revenge meter book of failure, critical counters reward turtling players with the ability to score a devestating counter attack that opens up a world of hurt for the former aggressor. After a successful counter, you get a free pass to chain whatever basic attack you want together and juggle indescriminately for big damage. In just a few minutes of toying around in vs we clocked a 50% damage combo with Shen Woo, and a 60% or so with Ralf off a well timed standing hard punch. I suspect this system, more than any of the character changes, decides ultimately what is effective and isn't in XII, and that sucks because I hate the system totally.
The bottom line is that if nothing else, KoF XII is horribly undercooked. With another few months or maybe a year of development this would all have been mind blowingly impressive, with the new graphics, personality, and gameplay tweaked to back it up. But this release is so shallow it only took me a couple hours to grow bored of it. The single player effort is laughable, the online code is a joke, and the vs intrigue only last as long as someone stays away from character win buttons like Ash, and Terry, and Kim, and Robert. The training mode gets the job done, but no survival or generic exhibition mode just allows you to square off against the cpu, without the absurd time trial rule. The new gameplay is neat to mess with, but if you start to take it seriously, it only sheds light on problems KoF has always had with broken short sighted balance. Without all the extraneous soul the games are usually packed with to compensate for their shortcomings, the enjoyment is simply not there. I will give them credit for trying to sweeten the deal by tossing two extra characters into the home ports, but they, like the crappy online code, unimaginative achievements, and generally underwhelming presentation are too little, too late for the main game.
-F.
In its long life the KoF series has seen its fair share of drama. It was advertised (damned near prophecised) that with King of Fighters XII the series would see its way back into prominence, leading the charge with a breath taking 2d graphical facelift, the first in almost twenty releases. The reality though, is that thats the only thing they led the charge with and the rest is just an incomplete and uninspired mess.
Now, the game IS quite a sight to behold. You can almost taste the characters and their respective pyrotechnics in motion, and while the animation counts don't rival such epic achievements as Street Fighter 3 or Mark of the Wolves, its no slouch. The first problem, however, is that its totally under utilized. Even beyond the move list reductions, there's a distinct lack of anything that might be considered graphically showing off. There are no prefight animations or intros at all, no taunts, extraneous standing cycles, or exaggerated animations to speak of, and not more than a single win pose per character. No fancy pants super effects or stage changing effects, and none of the backgrounds are any more interesting than having a bunch of people or pigs or snakes jiggling around in the back. Outside of battle is even more barren, as there are no endings or cinematics anywhere, just an obnoxious faux news presenation that frames what the game calls a single player mode.
Said single player mode is a major sticking point for me. Matches are still fought in the series staple team format, but there are no defined teams and no boss to call a finale. The mode itself is just a time trial, consisting of 5 bouts against random arrangements of characters until the credits roll. It feels criminally short compared to 7 or 8 team + boss affairs of yester year, and shines a big spotlight on the games tiny cast. You can retry each match once if you're intent on stretching it out or scoring a good time, but the pathetic AI grants no sense of satisfaction, and seems most interested in jumping around and making it difficult for you to score a good time than actually competing. Turning the difficulty up or down doesn't seem to have any effect on its tactics either, just rendering the damage higher or lower. The only silver lining here is that its tremendously easy to knock out all the "beat arcade mode with a single character" achievements, but the 30 or 40th time you jump kick low sweep your way to victory you'll probably decided the gamerscore isn't worth another couple hundred.
I will admit to having some fun with the versus mode though, as this is still KoF we're talking about. If you've ever played one, it will take you about 30 seconds of play to settle into the XII playstyle, but the comfort is bitter sweet. Many notable cast members are in the game, but others you've come to love and adore are missing or had their movelists hideously disfigured. Its even hard to deduce if the culprit is the staggering cost / difficulty of high res 2d development or just lazyness because there's inconsistency in its disappointment. Main characters are pretty much complete, missing some things you might want and never need but still solid enough to strategize with. Others have been whittled down to optionless one trick ponies who must feed on opponents who lack basic kof skills like blocking and dashing and rolling. The truly damned characters are so stupid and inneffectual they might as well not even been included, which is a shame because they are most of the ones who got the biggest graphical overhauls and redesigns!
The gap bridger to the gross character inconsistencies are the new gameplay features, old hat and new. Stand bys like ab rolls and cd knockdowns help put you in the KoF mood, while the ability to punch out fireballs and the new way that hits are traded create interesting new outcomes to otherwise mundane scenarios. The new Critical Counter system takes all that and turns it right on its head though. Taking a page of the SF4 revenge meter book of failure, critical counters reward turtling players with the ability to score a devestating counter attack that opens up a world of hurt for the former aggressor. After a successful counter, you get a free pass to chain whatever basic attack you want together and juggle indescriminately for big damage. In just a few minutes of toying around in vs we clocked a 50% damage combo with Shen Woo, and a 60% or so with Ralf off a well timed standing hard punch. I suspect this system, more than any of the character changes, decides ultimately what is effective and isn't in XII, and that sucks because I hate the system totally.
The bottom line is that if nothing else, KoF XII is horribly undercooked. With another few months or maybe a year of development this would all have been mind blowingly impressive, with the new graphics, personality, and gameplay tweaked to back it up. But this release is so shallow it only took me a couple hours to grow bored of it. The single player effort is laughable, the online code is a joke, and the vs intrigue only last as long as someone stays away from character win buttons like Ash, and Terry, and Kim, and Robert. The training mode gets the job done, but no survival or generic exhibition mode just allows you to square off against the cpu, without the absurd time trial rule. The new gameplay is neat to mess with, but if you start to take it seriously, it only sheds light on problems KoF has always had with broken short sighted balance. Without all the extraneous soul the games are usually packed with to compensate for their shortcomings, the enjoyment is simply not there. I will give them credit for trying to sweeten the deal by tossing two extra characters into the home ports, but they, like the crappy online code, unimaginative achievements, and generally underwhelming presentation are too little, too late for the main game.
-F.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad
The most shocking thing I can say about Onechanbara is that its actually kind of good. It is perhaps the closest equivalent to an old school beat'em up in 3D I've played since Godhand, and despite the fact it makes almost no effort to actually improve or impress the genre, it manages to go from start to finish without tripping over its own feet too much.
The basic premise is scantily clad teenagers with swords knee deep in zombies, and this game provides no more or less than that. The levels are absolutely straightforward affairs where the half naked woman of your choice runs from room to room mowing down waves of zombies. Frequently, you won't even run, they'll just cage you in on all sides and spawn enemies until you've long since lost count of how many you've killed. A couple of times they try to get clever with key collecting backtrack nonsense, but they never get stupid with puzzles or item combination or hidden rooms or anything like that. The most imaginative level they put together is one where you ride on a motorcycle mowing down zombies while being chased by flaming dogs. Unfortunately, that reads a lot more exciting than it is, the net gameplay result was holding down the gas and mashing on the sword button until the level over screen popped up.
That's a theme that kind of plague the game, in that most of it is just not very imaginative. It lacks any sort of DMC style air combos or GoW style QTEs or other action game gimmicks, but at this point, its actually kind of refreshing to wage war without having to engage too many brain cells. Moreover there are at least a couple advanced tactics in the mix that can keep you from falling asleep at the wheel, even if you don't really need them. They mostly involve simple complexities like timing your button presses or manipulation of the d-pad mid combo, but can turn you into an unstoppable murdering machine if invoked.
On the simple side you have a combo with the sword, a combo with kicks, and an auxiliary attack like knives or dashes or grabs depending on what character you're using. You can mix them up a bit if you lock on to your enemies and hold directions before pressing, but you only really need the lock on for bosses, and that's because its the only way to dodge. The dodge is a good example of one of those advanced tricks I mentioned earlier. Normally, you can dodge around any attack without too much effort but with perfect timing you get a matrix style slowdown and a big damage counter attack. Granted, most enemies are slow and felled with only a few basic strokes, but the "Clear Sight" dodge adds an extra layer for perfectionists (and you'll need to master it if you're an achievement hunter).
Being a zombie game, BSS is pretty gorey and the devs have found a couple neat ways to tie that to the gameplay. Not only will you, your enemies, and the environs be painted and dripping red by your actions, there are no less than three meters governed by bloodletting. One for your sword which degrades it quality, one for your body which automatically unleashes "Blood Rage" when filled, and one for your overpowered Ecstasy attack. The management of the three meters is right at the core of the gameplay, and will frequently be the source of your providence or doom. A bloody blade is useless and gets stuck in enemies, so you have to manually clean it from time to time. Blood Rage increases your damage and speed, but drains your life. And while your Ecstasy attack is all powerful, it vanishes if not used quickly so you kind of have to time it.
The game gives you the opportunity to play split screen co-op, but if you don't have any friends you still get to switch between two characters on the fly. The main sword sisters play almost identically as I've documented above, but there's a third (and fourth, in freeplay) character that uses guns and kind of violates the games rules. Gun girl doesn't have the bloody sword or blood rage meters, her gameplay is less technical and more run away and rain bullets from afar, and she has to reload constantly instead of cleaning a sword. Its pretty obvious she wasn't very thoroughly tested as her effectiveness varies between absolutely untouchable in some places, and completely helpless in others, where as the sword girls are more or less jack of all trades. You could make some argument about balance or diversity in your character selections, but it all goes out the window on the few stages where you are forced to use one girl on her own. In those cases, you just have to pray that you've leveled up the characters appropriately and if not, go grind on some free play levels or hit up survival mode.
Ultimately, its the repetitiveness that hinders BSS the most (as it does all Beat'em ups). You will expose your self to most of the moves within the first 4 or 5 levels, and there are still 15 more to go (although thankfully a couple of them are just boss fights). Killing zombies never gets more complicated than "hit them with your sword" if you don't want it to and with the exception of a few special ones that shoot rifles (!) or throw grenades (!) they never do much more than shuffle about and take it. The bosses too are pretty uninventive, being either other girls with swords, martial arts men in suits, or big slow things you have to hit a lot. The game makes an effort to stretch it all out with Quests to unlock different Dress Up / Recolor options for performing certain tasks in a level, but if you don't care what your character looks like or don't care about achievements this will do little to spice it up. Being a licensed achievement whore, I actually found the game quite facilitative to my obsessive nature, allowing you to free play replay past levels with your powered up characters, or simply start the story over on a higher difficulty with them, but its not like anything new happens, enemies just take more and give more damage.
Still, despite the abuse its taken from the critics and its poor pedrigree, I recommend at least a rental spin around the block or a budget priced purchase. If you're a fan of the beat'em up genre or get your kicks on dressing up school girls and drenching them in blood, it won't disappoint you, at least not for a little while.
-F.
The basic premise is scantily clad teenagers with swords knee deep in zombies, and this game provides no more or less than that. The levels are absolutely straightforward affairs where the half naked woman of your choice runs from room to room mowing down waves of zombies. Frequently, you won't even run, they'll just cage you in on all sides and spawn enemies until you've long since lost count of how many you've killed. A couple of times they try to get clever with key collecting backtrack nonsense, but they never get stupid with puzzles or item combination or hidden rooms or anything like that. The most imaginative level they put together is one where you ride on a motorcycle mowing down zombies while being chased by flaming dogs. Unfortunately, that reads a lot more exciting than it is, the net gameplay result was holding down the gas and mashing on the sword button until the level over screen popped up.
That's a theme that kind of plague the game, in that most of it is just not very imaginative. It lacks any sort of DMC style air combos or GoW style QTEs or other action game gimmicks, but at this point, its actually kind of refreshing to wage war without having to engage too many brain cells. Moreover there are at least a couple advanced tactics in the mix that can keep you from falling asleep at the wheel, even if you don't really need them. They mostly involve simple complexities like timing your button presses or manipulation of the d-pad mid combo, but can turn you into an unstoppable murdering machine if invoked.
On the simple side you have a combo with the sword, a combo with kicks, and an auxiliary attack like knives or dashes or grabs depending on what character you're using. You can mix them up a bit if you lock on to your enemies and hold directions before pressing, but you only really need the lock on for bosses, and that's because its the only way to dodge. The dodge is a good example of one of those advanced tricks I mentioned earlier. Normally, you can dodge around any attack without too much effort but with perfect timing you get a matrix style slowdown and a big damage counter attack. Granted, most enemies are slow and felled with only a few basic strokes, but the "Clear Sight" dodge adds an extra layer for perfectionists (and you'll need to master it if you're an achievement hunter).
Being a zombie game, BSS is pretty gorey and the devs have found a couple neat ways to tie that to the gameplay. Not only will you, your enemies, and the environs be painted and dripping red by your actions, there are no less than three meters governed by bloodletting. One for your sword which degrades it quality, one for your body which automatically unleashes "Blood Rage" when filled, and one for your overpowered Ecstasy attack. The management of the three meters is right at the core of the gameplay, and will frequently be the source of your providence or doom. A bloody blade is useless and gets stuck in enemies, so you have to manually clean it from time to time. Blood Rage increases your damage and speed, but drains your life. And while your Ecstasy attack is all powerful, it vanishes if not used quickly so you kind of have to time it.
The game gives you the opportunity to play split screen co-op, but if you don't have any friends you still get to switch between two characters on the fly. The main sword sisters play almost identically as I've documented above, but there's a third (and fourth, in freeplay) character that uses guns and kind of violates the games rules. Gun girl doesn't have the bloody sword or blood rage meters, her gameplay is less technical and more run away and rain bullets from afar, and she has to reload constantly instead of cleaning a sword. Its pretty obvious she wasn't very thoroughly tested as her effectiveness varies between absolutely untouchable in some places, and completely helpless in others, where as the sword girls are more or less jack of all trades. You could make some argument about balance or diversity in your character selections, but it all goes out the window on the few stages where you are forced to use one girl on her own. In those cases, you just have to pray that you've leveled up the characters appropriately and if not, go grind on some free play levels or hit up survival mode.
Ultimately, its the repetitiveness that hinders BSS the most (as it does all Beat'em ups). You will expose your self to most of the moves within the first 4 or 5 levels, and there are still 15 more to go (although thankfully a couple of them are just boss fights). Killing zombies never gets more complicated than "hit them with your sword" if you don't want it to and with the exception of a few special ones that shoot rifles (!) or throw grenades (!) they never do much more than shuffle about and take it. The bosses too are pretty uninventive, being either other girls with swords, martial arts men in suits, or big slow things you have to hit a lot. The game makes an effort to stretch it all out with Quests to unlock different Dress Up / Recolor options for performing certain tasks in a level, but if you don't care what your character looks like or don't care about achievements this will do little to spice it up. Being a licensed achievement whore, I actually found the game quite facilitative to my obsessive nature, allowing you to free play replay past levels with your powered up characters, or simply start the story over on a higher difficulty with them, but its not like anything new happens, enemies just take more and give more damage.
Still, despite the abuse its taken from the critics and its poor pedrigree, I recommend at least a rental spin around the block or a budget priced purchase. If you're a fan of the beat'em up genre or get your kicks on dressing up school girls and drenching them in blood, it won't disappoint you, at least not for a little while.
-F.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
This just in, Assassin's Creed still sucks.
I thought that if I 1k'd Assassin's Creed, if I cast it from my list of gaming chores and healed the 300 point scar it represented on my gamercard I'd feel better, accomplished... clean. But all I feel is dirty. My gaming soul caked with the mud I had to trudge through to satisfy that game. But it was an entry fee I forced myself to pay in order to play Bionic Commando, and pay I did, the unshrinkwrapped Bionic Commando case staring me back in the face. Taunting me. Haunting me. So its done now, and I never have to play Assassin's Creed again. But because I had to play Assassin's Creed again, I'm going to talk about Assassin's Creed again.
You see its not so much that Assassin's Creed is a shitty game (like Silent Hill Homecoming) or that its just a bad idea (like Too Human) or even that its unfinished and glitchy (like Alone in the Dark), no Assassin's Creed is actually a marvelous game that just happens to be so full of itself, so mired in its own arrogance that you can never enjoy any part of it. You keep saying to yourself; "X would be so much better if I didn't have to Y" or "Why do I have to Y when all I want to do is Z?" Its as though the game was pieced together by a number of individually talented people who never knew each other existed, so when you put all their talent together it just interfered with itself.
Nowhere is this as prevalent as it is with the story, or rather, the heavy handedness of it. The basic premise is stupid, but just good enough for a game. Unfortunately, you can't skip it. You can't skip any of it. Even if you've already seen a part. Even if you've already seen ALL the parts. You're forced to sit through every agonizing conversation (and most of it is just that, conversation) when all you want to do is stab people. But then they jump out of the real story to the meta story in the future, which you are also forced to sit through without skipping, and here you are even robbed of satisfying gameplay to mix it up. In the future you just akwardly walk from the same two rooms and listen to the same 3 people talk before you finally get to do the stabbing. You do this over and over again for no reason. The plot certainly isn't good enough to warrant it. You're the victim, they're the bad guys. If all you're doing is setting up for the sequel, why not save it for the sequel?! I'M STILL TRYING TO PLAY THIS GODDAMNED GAME. And why are the play mechanics so awful in the modern day parts anyways? Just how late was this bullshit tacked on? How come Altair can navigate all manner of buildings and people and junk with a single button but Desmond gets stuck on the edge of bed's and tables, and can't talk to people or grab items unless he's perfectly lined with them without having to back up 10 yards and then trying again? A couple of menus and a picture slideshow would accomplish just as much in a fraction of the time!
Then there's the game itself. Is it stealth? Is it action? It seems kind of clear at the beginning, but by the games' end, the notion is lost. Its as though they created a character so effective at stealth and killing that it was possible to simply play through the game and never once see the engaged combat engine they had so expertly crafted, so they enacted a bunch of senseless limitations to deter you from stealthing too much. Don't ever run or climb ladders or ride a horse or stand around on rooftops, these things will alert the guards. Learn to tolerate the mercenaries, madmen, and beggar women who interfere with your affairs alone or they will alert the guards. Don't plan and execute your murders with assassin's precision and then escape totally unnoticed, this will alert the guards. In the beginning, this is perfectly fine. Pick pocket some maps, stab a guy in the back, kill a few guards, hide in the shadows until the coast is clear. Cool. But by the 4th or 5th kill, this has all become very repetitive and very difficult what with more and more lepers shoving you into the block breaking, counter attacking legions of guards. You will be (inexplicably) stripped of the ability to escape wrath by simply running away and hiding long enough, forced instead to find a hay or another hiding spot which will be conveniently placed next to another guard cache. Should you persevere through all of this, the entire final act of the game allows no stealth at all. A non-stop sword fight through waves of the same guards and goons you've been killing with the same tactics throughout the entire game.
And that's just the main game. An achievement whore/hunter's plight is far worse. Even if you were a good little murderer and did all your killing the way you were supposed to and stole enough knives and climbed all the buildings and found enough ways to kill guards and threw enough beggar women out of the way, you will be forced to endure not one, not two, but FIVE (if you combine the masayef flags and templars into one) meaningless scavenger hunts of 100 items a piece over the games various maps for the final 200 or so points. Every game nowadays has some sort of sound or visual cue or even reward to encourage you to indulge the sadistic scavenger hunt du jour, but Assassin's Creed just did it to say they did it, and then did it 4 more times over because it hates you. Not only are these objects hard to find, plot irrelevant and have no bearing on the gameplay, but because Assassin's Creed is either a game about sneaking around and stabbing people and not dicking around the tallest buildings and darkest alleyways looking for flags, you will draw no end of attention from the guards in your pursuit of the damned things. Many times you will be forced quite literally into a crowd of enemies to collect one, then forced to either fight them all off or run away before proceeding to the next, either choice adding tedium to an already tedious process. Eventually I resigned myself to operate my search with a cache of 10 or 20 guards in tow, eventually allowing them to eventually kill me so I could make use of the respawn teleport. And woe betide you if you miss an achievement the first time through. Punishment ranges from having to repeat an entire memory block (and all the cinema conversations and investigations their in) for most, to having to repeat the ENTIRE game for a select few. And Assassin's Creed doesn't give a shit if you want to keep your existing save to dick around if you start a new one, oh no. You are allowed only one save, and only one set of progress and NOTHING carries over.
Ironically, PS3 and PC players probably get a lot more fun out of Assassin's Creed because without achievements and g, there is no reason to endure any more than the very bare minimum of Assassin's Creed, and that's actually a pretty functional experience. The investigations are still repetitious as hell and the story still sucks, but you get to stab a whole lot of people along the way and you never have to collect a single flag or perform an optional mission because there's no reward on those platforms. But if you're a 360 player and you have that cursed gamerscore addiction but not the iron will to simply take game design abuse on the chin, Assassin's Creed will rake you over the coals again and again.
You see its not so much that Assassin's Creed is a shitty game (like Silent Hill Homecoming) or that its just a bad idea (like Too Human) or even that its unfinished and glitchy (like Alone in the Dark), no Assassin's Creed is actually a marvelous game that just happens to be so full of itself, so mired in its own arrogance that you can never enjoy any part of it. You keep saying to yourself; "X would be so much better if I didn't have to Y" or "Why do I have to Y when all I want to do is Z?" Its as though the game was pieced together by a number of individually talented people who never knew each other existed, so when you put all their talent together it just interfered with itself.
Nowhere is this as prevalent as it is with the story, or rather, the heavy handedness of it. The basic premise is stupid, but just good enough for a game. Unfortunately, you can't skip it. You can't skip any of it. Even if you've already seen a part. Even if you've already seen ALL the parts. You're forced to sit through every agonizing conversation (and most of it is just that, conversation) when all you want to do is stab people. But then they jump out of the real story to the meta story in the future, which you are also forced to sit through without skipping, and here you are even robbed of satisfying gameplay to mix it up. In the future you just akwardly walk from the same two rooms and listen to the same 3 people talk before you finally get to do the stabbing. You do this over and over again for no reason. The plot certainly isn't good enough to warrant it. You're the victim, they're the bad guys. If all you're doing is setting up for the sequel, why not save it for the sequel?! I'M STILL TRYING TO PLAY THIS GODDAMNED GAME. And why are the play mechanics so awful in the modern day parts anyways? Just how late was this bullshit tacked on? How come Altair can navigate all manner of buildings and people and junk with a single button but Desmond gets stuck on the edge of bed's and tables, and can't talk to people or grab items unless he's perfectly lined with them without having to back up 10 yards and then trying again? A couple of menus and a picture slideshow would accomplish just as much in a fraction of the time!
Then there's the game itself. Is it stealth? Is it action? It seems kind of clear at the beginning, but by the games' end, the notion is lost. Its as though they created a character so effective at stealth and killing that it was possible to simply play through the game and never once see the engaged combat engine they had so expertly crafted, so they enacted a bunch of senseless limitations to deter you from stealthing too much. Don't ever run or climb ladders or ride a horse or stand around on rooftops, these things will alert the guards. Learn to tolerate the mercenaries, madmen, and beggar women who interfere with your affairs alone or they will alert the guards. Don't plan and execute your murders with assassin's precision and then escape totally unnoticed, this will alert the guards. In the beginning, this is perfectly fine. Pick pocket some maps, stab a guy in the back, kill a few guards, hide in the shadows until the coast is clear. Cool. But by the 4th or 5th kill, this has all become very repetitive and very difficult what with more and more lepers shoving you into the block breaking, counter attacking legions of guards. You will be (inexplicably) stripped of the ability to escape wrath by simply running away and hiding long enough, forced instead to find a hay or another hiding spot which will be conveniently placed next to another guard cache. Should you persevere through all of this, the entire final act of the game allows no stealth at all. A non-stop sword fight through waves of the same guards and goons you've been killing with the same tactics throughout the entire game.
And that's just the main game. An achievement whore/hunter's plight is far worse. Even if you were a good little murderer and did all your killing the way you were supposed to and stole enough knives and climbed all the buildings and found enough ways to kill guards and threw enough beggar women out of the way, you will be forced to endure not one, not two, but FIVE (if you combine the masayef flags and templars into one) meaningless scavenger hunts of 100 items a piece over the games various maps for the final 200 or so points. Every game nowadays has some sort of sound or visual cue or even reward to encourage you to indulge the sadistic scavenger hunt du jour, but Assassin's Creed just did it to say they did it, and then did it 4 more times over because it hates you. Not only are these objects hard to find, plot irrelevant and have no bearing on the gameplay, but because Assassin's Creed is either a game about sneaking around and stabbing people and not dicking around the tallest buildings and darkest alleyways looking for flags, you will draw no end of attention from the guards in your pursuit of the damned things. Many times you will be forced quite literally into a crowd of enemies to collect one, then forced to either fight them all off or run away before proceeding to the next, either choice adding tedium to an already tedious process. Eventually I resigned myself to operate my search with a cache of 10 or 20 guards in tow, eventually allowing them to eventually kill me so I could make use of the respawn teleport. And woe betide you if you miss an achievement the first time through. Punishment ranges from having to repeat an entire memory block (and all the cinema conversations and investigations their in) for most, to having to repeat the ENTIRE game for a select few. And Assassin's Creed doesn't give a shit if you want to keep your existing save to dick around if you start a new one, oh no. You are allowed only one save, and only one set of progress and NOTHING carries over.
Ironically, PS3 and PC players probably get a lot more fun out of Assassin's Creed because without achievements and g, there is no reason to endure any more than the very bare minimum of Assassin's Creed, and that's actually a pretty functional experience. The investigations are still repetitious as hell and the story still sucks, but you get to stab a whole lot of people along the way and you never have to collect a single flag or perform an optional mission because there's no reward on those platforms. But if you're a 360 player and you have that cursed gamerscore addiction but not the iron will to simply take game design abuse on the chin, Assassin's Creed will rake you over the coals again and again.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Street Fighter 4: But the kid in me loves the frosted side!
Its symbolic of the internal I've fought with myself since Street Fighter 4 was first revealed 2 years ago. The first trailer showed instant promise with Ken and Ryu squaring off in a hyper stylized bout that quite obviously wasn't game engine and the conflict was born. The grown up gamer in me, embittered by a decade of remakes, re-releases, and false promises scoffed and folded his arms while the kid gamer in me, still waiting in the arcade line 4 or 5 victims back rubbing two coins together, wet himself with excitement.
For a time, Capcom made it easier to decide the victorious personality. The arcade release of Street Fighter 4 was a game that made no effort to win back the hearts of fans that were lost, cradling those souls that still prayed regularly at the SSF2T altar. The old characters were utterly unchanged holdovers from SSF2T, while the far less explored and exploited Alpha and SF3 casts were completely overlooked. The new characters were quite idiotic, illustrating everything thats wrong with exploiting popular trends in favor of real character design. The plot was non-existent and the audio was but a shadow of the epic heritage nigh twelve games calls for. The sole saving grace of SF4 was that the gameplay, lifted from the most "functional" member of the Street Fighter family and augmented with a few "safe" competitor embellishments. Many would argue that all that matters is gameplay, but a series as long winded as Street Fighter deserves better. It deserves more than a fresh coat of paint and some Bloody Roar style super moves after a 10 year hiatus. The point is I hated it, I hated myself for hating something called Street Fighter, and I hated Capcom for making me hate myself.
Then, without warning the conflict heated up again. The release of a home port was inevitable, but the release with DLC, competent netplay, revamped audio, a strong emphasis on plot, and an expanded roster of characters was unexpected. I found myself scrutinizing every little detail released, each time my normally vocal cynic reduced to muttering in the face of some feature that simply could simply not be hated.
And he we are. On release date. Entirely undecided. Is it right not to swing?
For a time, Capcom made it easier to decide the victorious personality. The arcade release of Street Fighter 4 was a game that made no effort to win back the hearts of fans that were lost, cradling those souls that still prayed regularly at the SSF2T altar. The old characters were utterly unchanged holdovers from SSF2T, while the far less explored and exploited Alpha and SF3 casts were completely overlooked. The new characters were quite idiotic, illustrating everything thats wrong with exploiting popular trends in favor of real character design. The plot was non-existent and the audio was but a shadow of the epic heritage nigh twelve games calls for. The sole saving grace of SF4 was that the gameplay, lifted from the most "functional" member of the Street Fighter family and augmented with a few "safe" competitor embellishments. Many would argue that all that matters is gameplay, but a series as long winded as Street Fighter deserves better. It deserves more than a fresh coat of paint and some Bloody Roar style super moves after a 10 year hiatus. The point is I hated it, I hated myself for hating something called Street Fighter, and I hated Capcom for making me hate myself.
Then, without warning the conflict heated up again. The release of a home port was inevitable, but the release with DLC, competent netplay, revamped audio, a strong emphasis on plot, and an expanded roster of characters was unexpected. I found myself scrutinizing every little detail released, each time my normally vocal cynic reduced to muttering in the face of some feature that simply could simply not be hated.
And he we are. On release date. Entirely undecided. Is it right not to swing?
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Gamestop Chronicles: The Naruto Switch
A couple years ago I abandoned Naruto on account of it being elevated to Dragonball Z levels of irritation by the mainstream anime fanbase (read: children), but I been hungry for a new game lately and it seemed like a nice segue. Now a new game came out for 360 a few months ago, Broken Bond, and the reviewers are giving it fair marks, but it costs 60 bucks and it jumps into the series plot further down the line than I can remember. It seemed to me that its predecessor, Rise of a Ninja, priced at 15 bucks, similarly rated, and starting at the beginning of the series was a win win, even if it sucked.
Now I've turned my back on Gamestop entirely, but Best Buy and BlockBuster don't carry anything older than a couple months unless its hot and Circuit City is dead, so for a 2 year old licensed game with a brand new sequel, I was stuck. Gamestops website said the Gamestop closest to me had none, so I stepped into one on the other side of town. The idiots inside were too busy talking about how awesome Transformers 2 and G.I. Joe are going to be to help me, so I found a $15 used Rise of a Ninja case on the shelf and brought it up.
At this point let me remind you that Gamestop has this dumb policy where anything that isn't the sales hotness gets its disc unwrapped, decased, and stored in a paper sleeve in a drawer. The dumber extension of this policy is that store employees get to take said games home and preview them for days at a time and scratch the hell out of them, potentially fucking customers who pay actual money, but thats another story for another day. "New" games (it's not really new once you take it out the box, assholes) a lone box remains on the shelf as representative. Used games get these awful generic black cases that are simply recycled as are needed.
Point is, the "case" for Rise of a Ninja is destroyed. Warped, cracked, and broken to the point where I'd be embarrased to have it sitting on my shelf. I wade through their dumb conversation and request another case. The employee facilitates me, swapping it with a less broken case. I pay, I leave, I get in my car. Now The Stranglehold Incident and The 300 Incident have taught me to check every cd/dvd/game case before leaving the parking lot, and its a good thing I did because my less broken (but still lame) case was totally empty. Granted, I didn't expect an instruction booklet or map or registration card, but I at least expected a game.
So I go back into the store and interrupt another highly stimulating conversation (this time about the merits of Star Wars Episode 1) to present my predicament. After an apology and a moment of shuffling the employee draws a cd from the counter into the case and hands it back to me. I leave again, but seconds later in the parking lot, I realize he didn't even look at the game he shoved in the case, and when I'd seen it, it was face down. I decided maybe I should check.
I am now the owner of a "brand new" copy of Naruto: Broken Bond that I only paid 15 dollars for.
Now I've turned my back on Gamestop entirely, but Best Buy and BlockBuster don't carry anything older than a couple months unless its hot and Circuit City is dead, so for a 2 year old licensed game with a brand new sequel, I was stuck. Gamestops website said the Gamestop closest to me had none, so I stepped into one on the other side of town. The idiots inside were too busy talking about how awesome Transformers 2 and G.I. Joe are going to be to help me, so I found a $15 used Rise of a Ninja case on the shelf and brought it up.
At this point let me remind you that Gamestop has this dumb policy where anything that isn't the sales hotness gets its disc unwrapped, decased, and stored in a paper sleeve in a drawer. The dumber extension of this policy is that store employees get to take said games home and preview them for days at a time and scratch the hell out of them, potentially fucking customers who pay actual money, but thats another story for another day. "New" games (it's not really new once you take it out the box, assholes) a lone box remains on the shelf as representative. Used games get these awful generic black cases that are simply recycled as are needed.
Point is, the "case" for Rise of a Ninja is destroyed. Warped, cracked, and broken to the point where I'd be embarrased to have it sitting on my shelf. I wade through their dumb conversation and request another case. The employee facilitates me, swapping it with a less broken case. I pay, I leave, I get in my car. Now The Stranglehold Incident and The 300 Incident have taught me to check every cd/dvd/game case before leaving the parking lot, and its a good thing I did because my less broken (but still lame) case was totally empty. Granted, I didn't expect an instruction booklet or map or registration card, but I at least expected a game.
So I go back into the store and interrupt another highly stimulating conversation (this time about the merits of Star Wars Episode 1) to present my predicament. After an apology and a moment of shuffling the employee draws a cd from the counter into the case and hands it back to me. I leave again, but seconds later in the parking lot, I realize he didn't even look at the game he shoved in the case, and when I'd seen it, it was face down. I decided maybe I should check.
I am now the owner of a "brand new" copy of Naruto: Broken Bond that I only paid 15 dollars for.
Friday, January 30, 2009
listen up goddamnit.
I don't ask for much from the gaming industry. I sat through the death of the arcades, I endure the unending popularity of the wii, I drown in scores of pompous adolecents gumming up online play, and I've accepted the fact that a truly creative game only comes along once a year. It all paints an elaborate picture of the entropic suck thats consuming my beloved hobby and by some herculean effort I've learned to live with it. But goddamnit; If this game sucks, someone is going to have to pay.
I implore you Eidos / DC / Rocksteady / any god that will listen. Hulk did it. Spiderman did it twice. The Xmen? They've done it a couple times. This is Batman's chance. All Batman's done right in 30 years of digital game development is some crummy beat'm ups, crap fatalities and a playful romp through legoland. Please please please please please let this game be good.
Please?!
-F.
I implore you Eidos / DC / Rocksteady / any god that will listen. Hulk did it. Spiderman did it twice. The Xmen? They've done it a couple times. This is Batman's chance. All Batman's done right in 30 years of digital game development is some crummy beat'm ups, crap fatalities and a playful romp through legoland. Please please please please please let this game be good.
Please?!
-F.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
This whole Battlefront III thing.
First off, digest this;
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/946/946024p1.html
Long story short, the third row iphone blurry cam footage circulated the net about a week ago and was championed by fans of the Battlefront series. Shortly thereafter, Star Wars fans in general got a chubby because apparently we just can't get enough of having our hopes and dreams and fond memories of the series shit upon. Now the entire internet community is up in arms because the EVIL CORPORATE GAMES INDUSTRY HATE MACHINE put a bullet in the brainpan of the developer who made it all happen.
Now, I'm a little bit late to the party. I remember reading something about a Battlefront III footage last week on some site or blog or twitter or something, but I passed over it. Why? Because the Battlefront series is so so at best. I don't think there's a Star Wars fanboy in the world that wouldn't admit that star wars as a whole is tired, but a series of half cooked over the shoulder shooters that do nothing but retread the same tired territory that other games have done far better has never been the solution.
You see, a new game, with a new story, with new characters (See: The Force Unleashed) is interesting, even if a little flawed. Mowing down storm troopers with rebels, jedi, clones, or even other storm troopers for the thousandth time is not. Who cares about a game that just barely pulls together the shootey, adventurey, flyey, forcey excitement of Star Wars when so many others have done it so much better, lately? X-Wing? Rogue Anything? Dark Forces? KOTOR? Any of these games ring a bell?
So you can understand how I may have glossed over the news that there was some footage of yet another shoulder mounted trip down desert ice planet coruscant memory lane. But then a trusted associate of mine pointed me to said footage and said I had to look at it, and so I did. And you know what? I'm not impressed. I've jumped around the net now a couple times, read a few impressions of it, and the only thing it appears to do that hasn't been done before (outside of allow people to play as Jar Jar and an Ewok, for some reason) is the ground to space to orbit free form thing. Now, don't get me wrong. That is in fact awesome. But does it change the fact that the rest of the trailer looks as boring as that series has led us to be?
Mindless running around in open spaces shooting / forcing at whatever with a variety identically playing characters. Boring ship to ship combat that makes Star Fox all range mode look like . . well, Star Wars oughta look. And a really well laid out jedi fight segment that looks like a cinema at best, and a quick time event at worst. I mean honestly people. These are the guys who made HAZE. You could argue in favor of Timesplitters. Those are actually moderately entertaining, but HAZE. . . really.
Don't get me wrong. I love hating the machine, I especially like fighting for games that get killed by "the man." But this wasn't going to be some grand redemption for a metric truckload of terrible Star Wars games. This was going to be another reminder that Vista sucks a big one because you can't run real dos games (X-Wing series) or N64 emulators (Rogue Squadron) on it.
You want to know what really excited me about this footage? This;
I am evil obi wan!
I am evil obi wan!
Sure, it wasn't going to be the main plot of the thing. Hell it was probably just going to be an extra that got chucked on the obligatory behind the scenes dvd of cutting room crap you would have much rather played than what was actually in the game, but at least it was something interesting. And thats a sad thing to say, considering its just the old "take a real good guy, and make him bad play". I don't care. Thats how lame star wars was.
You want to know what the best part about Force Unleashed was? Being able to run around the star wars planets, using star wars powers, with star wars music, without running into Han Solo or Chewie or goddamned Yoda for the seven hundredth time. I mean, does the entire Long Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far Far Away revolve around the action of a group of about 10 people?
Bah, I digress. The point is. Don't cry for this game, because it was going to disappoint you anyway.
-F.
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/946/946024p1.html
Long story short, the third row iphone blurry cam footage circulated the net about a week ago and was championed by fans of the Battlefront series. Shortly thereafter, Star Wars fans in general got a chubby because apparently we just can't get enough of having our hopes and dreams and fond memories of the series shit upon. Now the entire internet community is up in arms because the EVIL CORPORATE GAMES INDUSTRY HATE MACHINE put a bullet in the brainpan of the developer who made it all happen.
Now, I'm a little bit late to the party. I remember reading something about a Battlefront III footage last week on some site or blog or twitter or something, but I passed over it. Why? Because the Battlefront series is so so at best. I don't think there's a Star Wars fanboy in the world that wouldn't admit that star wars as a whole is tired, but a series of half cooked over the shoulder shooters that do nothing but retread the same tired territory that other games have done far better has never been the solution.
You see, a new game, with a new story, with new characters (See: The Force Unleashed) is interesting, even if a little flawed. Mowing down storm troopers with rebels, jedi, clones, or even other storm troopers for the thousandth time is not. Who cares about a game that just barely pulls together the shootey, adventurey, flyey, forcey excitement of Star Wars when so many others have done it so much better, lately? X-Wing? Rogue Anything? Dark Forces? KOTOR? Any of these games ring a bell?
So you can understand how I may have glossed over the news that there was some footage of yet another shoulder mounted trip down desert ice planet coruscant memory lane. But then a trusted associate of mine pointed me to said footage and said I had to look at it, and so I did. And you know what? I'm not impressed. I've jumped around the net now a couple times, read a few impressions of it, and the only thing it appears to do that hasn't been done before (outside of allow people to play as Jar Jar and an Ewok, for some reason) is the ground to space to orbit free form thing. Now, don't get me wrong. That is in fact awesome. But does it change the fact that the rest of the trailer looks as boring as that series has led us to be?
Mindless running around in open spaces shooting / forcing at whatever with a variety identically playing characters. Boring ship to ship combat that makes Star Fox all range mode look like . . well, Star Wars oughta look. And a really well laid out jedi fight segment that looks like a cinema at best, and a quick time event at worst. I mean honestly people. These are the guys who made HAZE. You could argue in favor of Timesplitters. Those are actually moderately entertaining, but HAZE. . . really.
Don't get me wrong. I love hating the machine, I especially like fighting for games that get killed by "the man." But this wasn't going to be some grand redemption for a metric truckload of terrible Star Wars games. This was going to be another reminder that Vista sucks a big one because you can't run real dos games (X-Wing series) or N64 emulators (Rogue Squadron) on it.
You want to know what really excited me about this footage? This;
I am evil obi wan!
I am evil obi wan!
Sure, it wasn't going to be the main plot of the thing. Hell it was probably just going to be an extra that got chucked on the obligatory behind the scenes dvd of cutting room crap you would have much rather played than what was actually in the game, but at least it was something interesting. And thats a sad thing to say, considering its just the old "take a real good guy, and make him bad play". I don't care. Thats how lame star wars was.
You want to know what the best part about Force Unleashed was? Being able to run around the star wars planets, using star wars powers, with star wars music, without running into Han Solo or Chewie or goddamned Yoda for the seven hundredth time. I mean, does the entire Long Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far Far Away revolve around the action of a group of about 10 people?
Bah, I digress. The point is. Don't cry for this game, because it was going to disappoint you anyway.
-F.
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