So, I put Batman's plot down this weekend, capping 2 week long nightly gaming binge and leaving only the side missions, riddler trophies, new game plus, and challenge rooms left to do. Thom has already bailed on the 1K, so its up to me to claim the highest Arkham City % on my friends list. Its a shame that an excellent game so effectively packed with content and unlockables has to be mired by some of the most predatory cockpunch style dlc tactics in use these days, but that's the way it is. In the long run, knowing there's two more full characters and seven costumes already done that are just being held back to make an extra buck really tarnishes the games majesty, no matter how many kitchen sinks they dropped into it.
Still, despite whatever insults Warner Bros. may lay at my feet, Rocksteady, I take my hat off to you. Twice in a row now you have made the concept of action games, licensed games, DC comics games and Batman games all shine at once, a feat only Spiderman has otherwise achieved, and only because Activision is just gonna keep slamming him into the wall annually until they get a hit. Wherever it is you decide to take your talents next, I will happily follow.
Meanwhile, Deus Ex waits patiently in its Gamefly sleeve praying that I will accidentally knock it off the shelf and into my Xbox one of these days. Days ago, it seemed likely that Deus Ex would be next, a cyberpunky shooty distraction to keep me from immediately diving back into Dark Souls and getting my feelings hurt. Now, I have an angry space marine revving his chainsaw gun, and the Third Street Saints breathing down my neck in addition. And that's disregarding Hydrophobia, Trials, Outland, and whatever else I got lying around the living room unplayed.
The good news is, barring a Gamefly send, I'll have nothing new in my queue until I wrestle with the decision to buy Anarchy Reigns next year, and after that, probably nothing until SFxT, which flip-flops between guaranteed buy and waste of space with each new tidbit of information Capcom eeks out onto the internet.
Here's hoping that craving I had for some multiplayer demon slaying action stays just a craving, and doesn't blossom into another month of grinding in Castlevania: HoD.
-F.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
I'll post something better after Batman, I promise.
I told myself I was going to make Monday my official write about video games day, but then the only thing I did last week was play Batman. At current, I don't really have anything better than Llinrac (or anyone else on the internet) to say about it, but maybe after I 100% done on it. In the mean time I thought I'd look back and round up some of the gems between now and the last time I lost interest in this. It was either this or hate on Capcom some more and really, they're making that so easy its not even fun anymore.
Saints Row 2: Now Llinrac already gushed about this, but I want to say if you're a fan of dicking around in sandbox games, BUY SR3. If this game is any indication, the guys at volition could care less about narrative or theme or pacing but good god do they know what tickles your inner twelve year old.
Outland: An action platformer infused with a lot of Limbo's minimalist personality. You don't do much more than race around shadowy environs and swing your stick at things, but its so well done, you don't really feel like you're missing out. The games real depth comes from its light dark system, where the player can hot swap (in)vulnerabilities to color coded platforms, enemies, and bullets. Truth be told, I've only scratched the surface of what it has to offer, but I can already tell the frantic red/blue switching is going to get incredibly complex.
World of Keflings: You know, underneath the years of twitch gaming and torture trained reflexes, I've got a soft spot for any game that presents me with nothing more than a canvas and a loose set of goals. This low rent fusion of Sim City (90%) and Starcraft (10%) gives you a couple flowcharts worth of construction and resource management framed around rebuilding the absurd lives of the Keflings. There's a lot of buildings, resources, and a small chores to motivate you through its "plot", but by and large you just put troops to work and turn a map of trees and stone into houses and towers. The icing here is that you get to stomp around in your own avatar's low res boots, putting your adoring fans to work with a slightly more personal touch than the standard disembodied "God's Hand". More to the point, resources never seem to run out and there's no rigid quick do this then do this or you can't do that mission structure. The worst thing that could happen is you put to many people on crystal duty and have to reassign some units to logging and take a potty break.
Trials HD: Simply put, this is the closest anyone has come to capturing the magic of Excitebike without slapping on a bunch of stupid modern gaming features. I played the demo for Trials on a whim (because it was on sale) and after about 15 minutes worth of jumps, spins, and crashes I happily surrendered my wallet. Its nowhere in the neighborhood of say, Super Meat Boy in terms of soul crushing trial and error, but if you want to put your loose understanding of motorcycle physics to the test (or just take your frustrations out on a disposable non-descript motorcyclist) you can't do much better than this.
-F
Saints Row 2: Now Llinrac already gushed about this, but I want to say if you're a fan of dicking around in sandbox games, BUY SR3. If this game is any indication, the guys at volition could care less about narrative or theme or pacing but good god do they know what tickles your inner twelve year old.
Outland: An action platformer infused with a lot of Limbo's minimalist personality. You don't do much more than race around shadowy environs and swing your stick at things, but its so well done, you don't really feel like you're missing out. The games real depth comes from its light dark system, where the player can hot swap (in)vulnerabilities to color coded platforms, enemies, and bullets. Truth be told, I've only scratched the surface of what it has to offer, but I can already tell the frantic red/blue switching is going to get incredibly complex.
World of Keflings: You know, underneath the years of twitch gaming and torture trained reflexes, I've got a soft spot for any game that presents me with nothing more than a canvas and a loose set of goals. This low rent fusion of Sim City (90%) and Starcraft (10%) gives you a couple flowcharts worth of construction and resource management framed around rebuilding the absurd lives of the Keflings. There's a lot of buildings, resources, and a small chores to motivate you through its "plot", but by and large you just put troops to work and turn a map of trees and stone into houses and towers. The icing here is that you get to stomp around in your own avatar's low res boots, putting your adoring fans to work with a slightly more personal touch than the standard disembodied "God's Hand". More to the point, resources never seem to run out and there's no rigid quick do this then do this or you can't do that mission structure. The worst thing that could happen is you put to many people on crystal duty and have to reassign some units to logging and take a potty break.
Trials HD: Simply put, this is the closest anyone has come to capturing the magic of Excitebike without slapping on a bunch of stupid modern gaming features. I played the demo for Trials on a whim (because it was on sale) and after about 15 minutes worth of jumps, spins, and crashes I happily surrendered my wallet. Its nowhere in the neighborhood of say, Super Meat Boy in terms of soul crushing trial and error, but if you want to put your loose understanding of motorcycle physics to the test (or just take your frustrations out on a disposable non-descript motorcyclist) you can't do much better than this.
-F
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Forza Win!
Remember the good old days when Gran Turismo was the most amazing game ever? We kept wondering when the next great racing game would come out and be the "Gran Turismo Killer", I'm sure we never thought it'd be Gran Tursimo huh? I'm happy to say that the days of riding along the wall and AI that just runs a line around the track (while not giving a shit if you are there or not) are long gone.
Forza on the original Xbox was an amazing game that many people passed over. Forza 2 on the 360 was even better; more tracks, more cars, more to do. I thought Forza 3 was pretty much the perfect racing game, from jaw dropping graphics to jaw dropping physics. Forza 4 is down right RIDICULOUS!
First off, graphics. While not leaps and bounds above Forza 3, they are an improvement. More colorful backdrops, better textures, and the cars seem to "pop" more. Tracks have an amazing sense of depth, and an unreal draw distance. You can literally see a mile down the road, Cars have more factory paint colors to choose from than ever before, and panels can be painted individually so you can rice as much as you can race. In addition to all the on-track eye candy, you can now set your home space (backdrop) from many different on-track locations to the set of Top Gear. You are doing something right when even the asphalt looks good.
On to sounds and music. I read that they re-recorded pretty much everything, but the engine noises dont really sound all that much better or different than Forza 3. Everything sounds like it should, except when I hear a Honda Civic driving near me on the highway it usually sounds like a bumblebee. Music remains a weak spot for this series, the good news is you can load up your own MP3s and race around the track to those instead of whats included on the disc. Ironically I typically race with no music, so you have more than one option here. All the voice over work is done by Jeremy Clarkson, of top gear fame, and you can tell this man loves cars and was a great choice.
Most importantly, game play. I know what you're thinking, this is a race game, all you do is race. Thats not exactly true. They have great mix of different race type, way more than just doing laps around a track. There are modes where all you do is , for example, try and pass 50 slow moving cars in 2 laps; another where you are doing a point to point race against 1 other car with traffic in the way. They really mix up the types of races, the car restrictions, and the objectives. Driving around the Top Gear track while knocking down bowling pins? Yes please! Getting back to my point with AI in racing games, Forza really shines here. On the easier difficulties the computer's cars aren't handicapped, they just drive differently. They'll brake too early into turns, not take the best lines, and even bump one another and you. On the higher difficulties their cars aren't artificially improved and there is no "rubber band AI" , they just take the best lines are the best speeds and race super clean. Only the very best can turn off all assists and best the CPU on expert; and I think that's the way it should be. If you want to see a big difference between the AI in Gran Tursimo and Forza, park your car on a straightaway blocking as much of the track as you can and see what happens.
Last and least, achievements. This has the best mix of achievements in a Forza game so far. I really only have an issue with 2 of them. 1 involves importing a save game from Forza 3 and the other involves running a race with a Kinect. Neither one involves skill and both require a purchase outside owning the game itself, not cool.
To sum it up, this is the best racing game available for consoles. Its not perfect but its close. If you haven't ever played a forza, go pick up a used copy of 2 or 3 and see what you've been missing.
~M
Off topic: I finally 1k'ed Mercanaries 2, I guess that's kind of on -topic.....cause that game had some retarded AI. I Don't think I'm gonna be able to crack 100k this year, Im 13k short with 2 months to go. Tonight I wipe the dust off of Hitman:Blood Money and maybe chip away at OneChanBara. Don't judge me, Ive been working on my arcade racing cabinet (a converted Pole Position) and I was in Taiwan for 2 1/2 weeks :)
Forza on the original Xbox was an amazing game that many people passed over. Forza 2 on the 360 was even better; more tracks, more cars, more to do. I thought Forza 3 was pretty much the perfect racing game, from jaw dropping graphics to jaw dropping physics. Forza 4 is down right RIDICULOUS!
First off, graphics. While not leaps and bounds above Forza 3, they are an improvement. More colorful backdrops, better textures, and the cars seem to "pop" more. Tracks have an amazing sense of depth, and an unreal draw distance. You can literally see a mile down the road, Cars have more factory paint colors to choose from than ever before, and panels can be painted individually so you can rice as much as you can race. In addition to all the on-track eye candy, you can now set your home space (backdrop) from many different on-track locations to the set of Top Gear. You are doing something right when even the asphalt looks good.
On to sounds and music. I read that they re-recorded pretty much everything, but the engine noises dont really sound all that much better or different than Forza 3. Everything sounds like it should, except when I hear a Honda Civic driving near me on the highway it usually sounds like a bumblebee. Music remains a weak spot for this series, the good news is you can load up your own MP3s and race around the track to those instead of whats included on the disc. Ironically I typically race with no music, so you have more than one option here. All the voice over work is done by Jeremy Clarkson, of top gear fame, and you can tell this man loves cars and was a great choice.
Most importantly, game play. I know what you're thinking, this is a race game, all you do is race. Thats not exactly true. They have great mix of different race type, way more than just doing laps around a track. There are modes where all you do is , for example, try and pass 50 slow moving cars in 2 laps; another where you are doing a point to point race against 1 other car with traffic in the way. They really mix up the types of races, the car restrictions, and the objectives. Driving around the Top Gear track while knocking down bowling pins? Yes please! Getting back to my point with AI in racing games, Forza really shines here. On the easier difficulties the computer's cars aren't handicapped, they just drive differently. They'll brake too early into turns, not take the best lines, and even bump one another and you. On the higher difficulties their cars aren't artificially improved and there is no "rubber band AI" , they just take the best lines are the best speeds and race super clean. Only the very best can turn off all assists and best the CPU on expert; and I think that's the way it should be. If you want to see a big difference between the AI in Gran Tursimo and Forza, park your car on a straightaway blocking as much of the track as you can and see what happens.
Last and least, achievements. This has the best mix of achievements in a Forza game so far. I really only have an issue with 2 of them. 1 involves importing a save game from Forza 3 and the other involves running a race with a Kinect. Neither one involves skill and both require a purchase outside owning the game itself, not cool.
To sum it up, this is the best racing game available for consoles. Its not perfect but its close. If you haven't ever played a forza, go pick up a used copy of 2 or 3 and see what you've been missing.
~M
Off topic: I finally 1k'ed Mercanaries 2, I guess that's kind of on -topic.....cause that game had some retarded AI. I Don't think I'm gonna be able to crack 100k this year, Im 13k short with 2 months to go. Tonight I wipe the dust off of Hitman:Blood Money and maybe chip away at OneChanBara. Don't judge me, Ive been working on my arcade racing cabinet (a converted Pole Position) and I was in Taiwan for 2 1/2 weeks :)
Monday, October 31, 2011
The other Dark Night
While the rest of the gaming world gorges itself on Batman and drools uncontrollably at the latest incremental update to military warfare simulation, I have been drooling uncontrollably in response to a different sort of dark night, the one that imprisons your soul after a few hours alone with Dark Souls.
If you care about gaming and your don't know the scoop on Dark Souls, let me just cut to the chase and say its hard. Like that's it, that's what it is. Its hard. And surprisingly, its enough. Plot? Meh. Music? So so. Graphics? Alright, I guess. But make no mistake, Dark Souls is chock full of every uncompromising middle finger japanese game design has given over the past 30 years or so of modern gaming. Ever been shot at from multiple directions while platforming? How bout enemies that don't recoil? Single use power ups you can waste? Enemies that block even while attacking? Save points that restore dead enemies? Ranged attacks you can't aim? Invisible enemies? Bosses with instant kill attacks? Loss of unspent experience points / money upon death? Illusory floors? All these dick moves and more can be yours for the low low price of an almost excellent romp through a desolate third person action adventure game.
And make no mistake, "almost excellent" isn't any sort of slam on the difficulty, or even the premise of a game hinged upon difficulty. I am no slouch when it comes to difficult games, and truth be told, this game is often so unforgivingly cheap, that it frequently borders on entertainment. You see, there's no concession to it. This isn't like some artificially puffed up difficulty mode or a "hardcore throwback" game that presents you with a world you should be able to dominate and then whips you with an unfair damage : health ratio.
Dark Souls is a desolate and unpleasant game, filled with scenarios that are commonly and obviously beyond your means. A knight in obsidian armor with a sword as big as you stands directly in front of the only available doorway or A rickety bridge crosses a giant expanse, enemy archers cocked and ready on both sides or a crumbling stone staircase leads down to a pitch black cellar with growling in it or A giant blood red dragon sits perched on a tower, staring dead at you with hungry eyes. Dark Souls never says "come on in, you'll be fine.", it never gives you the impression you're going to be alright. It says "I don't know what you're doing here, you are going to die repeatedly for whatever it is you are trying to accomplish, and you are going to lose way more than you gain in the process."
Its a kind of game that makes you bitter and cynical about playing because there's isn't just an ambush up ahead, there's an ambush up ahead that explodes and has spikes and spews acid and transports your entrails to hell. Unfortunately, Dark Souls is also sitting on you shoulder, daring you to risk what little you've earned on the foolish notion of progress. Do you go just a little bit further and peek around the corner into oblivion or take the long back track to re-up your health and supplies, regenerating every non-boss thing you've encountered thus far. There's no status screen or mission log to tell you where to go next, and no map to tell you where you've been. Just that greedy gamer intuition that nags; "I know the next save point is around the corner" or "There's something good in that chest, I know it." or "you can kill this boss with only two healing drinks, trust me."
Its made up of all those wonderful feelings the adventure genre has lost in the last 15 years or so, because it is truly up to you. Its liberating, in a way few other games have been, to stand there at any given moment and time and have no idea what you're supposed to do next. Should I go this way? Can I kill this guy? Do I need a new sword or more magic? Its all up to you, and whether you fail or succeed the game is never going to say "good job, here's a cookie". Nope, its just going shrug and drop you off at the next overwhelmingly unfair situation and see what you do next.
Despite all this thematic genius, Dark Souls greatest failing is its arrogance. At times it is clear that the design staff was so caught up in making a tough game, they forgot it still had to be a playable game underneath or people wouldn't keep coming back for abuse. Not quite to the degree that some other games have tripped over their own premises, but enough to frequently sour the (already pretty dour) mood. Player controls are clunky, and in many cases outright stupid. The real time menu system does not utilize your combat controls, but still disables them anyway. You can't strafe or back up unless locked onto a target, so fleeing from ranged enemies is a chore. At merchants, you can't compare what you're buying to what you're wearing. And how bout the ability to use healing items that you don't need? A tiny inventory screen without an auto arrange. Are these deal breakers? No, but these are easy fixes / concessions that have been around since the psone. Wolfenstein 3D had a strafe lock, why can't this? You can almost hear the dev saying "We took it out because that would've made the game easier."
And the ai? Can only be classified as juvenille. True story; I never even got to fight the games first real boss because he knocked me off a cliff and then jumped off himself, giving me the kill for free. Some enemies can hit you through walls, while others will keep swinging / shooting at you even when you're hiding behind a wall because they never forget your position. Many can get themselves stuck in walls or accidentally / walk off cliffs. And for all their giant imposing terror, most bosses can be killed by simply staying as close as possible and circling them with light attacks. Sure, they have one obligatory "get off me" attack and practically kill you if you make a single mistake, but once you figure out how to compensate? There's no strategy, just a test of reflexes.
But, for all its arrogance I would not disparage Dark Souls too much. Even with a myriad of minor flaws (that I understand plagued its predecessor as well) the game presents an experience that is truly rare, an actual adventure. That sort of wonder a large open world used to inspire in players before Mario 64 taught devs how to paint giant arrows into the background, and GTA taught us how fantastic waypoint paths over maps could be, and MGS gave us endless radio chatter to remind us whats going on and who the bad guys are. Provided of course you have played a game with a shitty camera and questionable backstab mechanics before and that you can live with the words "YOU DIED" on screen every few minutes, Dark Souls has a lot to offer. There's even a multiplayer component which I have deliberately left out of this review because a) to spoil it would tarnish its genius implementation and b) I still don't 100% understand it.
-F.
If you care about gaming and your don't know the scoop on Dark Souls, let me just cut to the chase and say its hard. Like that's it, that's what it is. Its hard. And surprisingly, its enough. Plot? Meh. Music? So so. Graphics? Alright, I guess. But make no mistake, Dark Souls is chock full of every uncompromising middle finger japanese game design has given over the past 30 years or so of modern gaming. Ever been shot at from multiple directions while platforming? How bout enemies that don't recoil? Single use power ups you can waste? Enemies that block even while attacking? Save points that restore dead enemies? Ranged attacks you can't aim? Invisible enemies? Bosses with instant kill attacks? Loss of unspent experience points / money upon death? Illusory floors? All these dick moves and more can be yours for the low low price of an almost excellent romp through a desolate third person action adventure game.
And make no mistake, "almost excellent" isn't any sort of slam on the difficulty, or even the premise of a game hinged upon difficulty. I am no slouch when it comes to difficult games, and truth be told, this game is often so unforgivingly cheap, that it frequently borders on entertainment. You see, there's no concession to it. This isn't like some artificially puffed up difficulty mode or a "hardcore throwback" game that presents you with a world you should be able to dominate and then whips you with an unfair damage : health ratio.
Dark Souls is a desolate and unpleasant game, filled with scenarios that are commonly and obviously beyond your means. A knight in obsidian armor with a sword as big as you stands directly in front of the only available doorway or A rickety bridge crosses a giant expanse, enemy archers cocked and ready on both sides or a crumbling stone staircase leads down to a pitch black cellar with growling in it or A giant blood red dragon sits perched on a tower, staring dead at you with hungry eyes. Dark Souls never says "come on in, you'll be fine.", it never gives you the impression you're going to be alright. It says "I don't know what you're doing here, you are going to die repeatedly for whatever it is you are trying to accomplish, and you are going to lose way more than you gain in the process."
Its a kind of game that makes you bitter and cynical about playing because there's isn't just an ambush up ahead, there's an ambush up ahead that explodes and has spikes and spews acid and transports your entrails to hell. Unfortunately, Dark Souls is also sitting on you shoulder, daring you to risk what little you've earned on the foolish notion of progress. Do you go just a little bit further and peek around the corner into oblivion or take the long back track to re-up your health and supplies, regenerating every non-boss thing you've encountered thus far. There's no status screen or mission log to tell you where to go next, and no map to tell you where you've been. Just that greedy gamer intuition that nags; "I know the next save point is around the corner" or "There's something good in that chest, I know it." or "you can kill this boss with only two healing drinks, trust me."
Its made up of all those wonderful feelings the adventure genre has lost in the last 15 years or so, because it is truly up to you. Its liberating, in a way few other games have been, to stand there at any given moment and time and have no idea what you're supposed to do next. Should I go this way? Can I kill this guy? Do I need a new sword or more magic? Its all up to you, and whether you fail or succeed the game is never going to say "good job, here's a cookie". Nope, its just going shrug and drop you off at the next overwhelmingly unfair situation and see what you do next.
Despite all this thematic genius, Dark Souls greatest failing is its arrogance. At times it is clear that the design staff was so caught up in making a tough game, they forgot it still had to be a playable game underneath or people wouldn't keep coming back for abuse. Not quite to the degree that some other games have tripped over their own premises, but enough to frequently sour the (already pretty dour) mood. Player controls are clunky, and in many cases outright stupid. The real time menu system does not utilize your combat controls, but still disables them anyway. You can't strafe or back up unless locked onto a target, so fleeing from ranged enemies is a chore. At merchants, you can't compare what you're buying to what you're wearing. And how bout the ability to use healing items that you don't need? A tiny inventory screen without an auto arrange. Are these deal breakers? No, but these are easy fixes / concessions that have been around since the psone. Wolfenstein 3D had a strafe lock, why can't this? You can almost hear the dev saying "We took it out because that would've made the game easier."
And the ai? Can only be classified as juvenille. True story; I never even got to fight the games first real boss because he knocked me off a cliff and then jumped off himself, giving me the kill for free. Some enemies can hit you through walls, while others will keep swinging / shooting at you even when you're hiding behind a wall because they never forget your position. Many can get themselves stuck in walls or accidentally / walk off cliffs. And for all their giant imposing terror, most bosses can be killed by simply staying as close as possible and circling them with light attacks. Sure, they have one obligatory "get off me" attack and practically kill you if you make a single mistake, but once you figure out how to compensate? There's no strategy, just a test of reflexes.
But, for all its arrogance I would not disparage Dark Souls too much. Even with a myriad of minor flaws (that I understand plagued its predecessor as well) the game presents an experience that is truly rare, an actual adventure. That sort of wonder a large open world used to inspire in players before Mario 64 taught devs how to paint giant arrows into the background, and GTA taught us how fantastic waypoint paths over maps could be, and MGS gave us endless radio chatter to remind us whats going on and who the bad guys are. Provided of course you have played a game with a shitty camera and questionable backstab mechanics before and that you can live with the words "YOU DIED" on screen every few minutes, Dark Souls has a lot to offer. There's even a multiplayer component which I have deliberately left out of this review because a) to spoil it would tarnish its genius implementation and b) I still don't 100% understand it.
-F.
Friday, October 28, 2011
The Goddamned Batman
Arkham City is quite fantastic. Pretty much everything I hated about the first game (that I didnt even bother to finish) got fixed and I ran through the story in this one in just under 10 hours. Side stuff has its own intertwined stories and uses part of the Riddler side quest to unlock them (solving riddles, not collecting trophies.Speaking of, Riddler trophies are a bitch goddess. Its great that you dont just walk over them and pick them up, you need to solve a little puzzle. The down side? 400 of them. That's just too many.
Voice acting is top notch; Kevin Conroy returns as the voice of Batman and of course Mark Hamill does just an amazing job of playing the joker. Most of the other voice acting is pretty good, especially Harley Quinn, but I'd love to punch the guy in the face who thought it would be good to add all the goofy break up and other cheesy effects to the Riddler's lines, especially in the pause menu. The random chatter in the city is a nice touch, but you will hear the same thing said over and over eventually but most of it is pretty hilarious.
Graphics are improved over the previous game, and not being in the confines of 1 fairly small island (which you can see off the west coast of Arkham City) is a huge plus. Some sections of the game feel very borrowed from the first one for example the part where you walk on ice feels exactly the same as the sewer section of the first one but the boss battles are all very unique and . The models are definitely more detailed but the thugs themselves still look pretty generic.
I wasnt mad that I spent $60 on this, but I dont like the fact you almost have to buy a strategy guide to get all 400 riddler trophies
Voice acting is top notch; Kevin Conroy returns as the voice of Batman and of course Mark Hamill does just an amazing job of playing the joker. Most of the other voice acting is pretty good, especially Harley Quinn, but I'd love to punch the guy in the face who thought it would be good to add all the goofy break up and other cheesy effects to the Riddler's lines, especially in the pause menu. The random chatter in the city is a nice touch, but you will hear the same thing said over and over eventually but most of it is pretty hilarious.
Graphics are improved over the previous game, and not being in the confines of 1 fairly small island (which you can see off the west coast of Arkham City) is a huge plus. Some sections of the game feel very borrowed from the first one for example the part where you walk on ice feels exactly the same as the sewer section of the first one but the boss battles are all very unique and . The models are definitely more detailed but the thugs themselves still look pretty generic.
I wasnt mad that I spent $60 on this, but I dont like the fact you almost have to buy a strategy guide to get all 400 riddler trophies
Friday, July 15, 2011
No More Madness
So, I sent Alice: Madness Returns back early yesterday. Early being defined as before I finished it / farmed it for achievement points. Truth be told the game isn't . . . terrible, it's just not good. If this were a just and fair world there would be a second release tier for games like this, not quite budget / indy, but not quite blockbuster either. It would be priced somewhere between $30-$40 instead of $50-$60, come with some sort of freebie (like a soundtrack) to sweeten the deal, and a disclaimer that it's not a top flight title.
Alice is the kind of game that used to come out in droves back in the early psx days, the kind of game that was loved by its designer, but not necessarily its developer or its publisher, so it got released early, or got its budget slashed, or just generally lacked the kind of resources necessary to make it what it should have been.
Its functional enough, you go from room to room via platforming and switch hitting, dispatch waves of enemies with at least a couple different weapons, all the while waiting for the next cinematic to happen and explain whats going on. The downside is the camera's not great, the combat is pretty boring, and the way the game flows is disjointed and confusing. And not confusing in the clever way its trying to be, with charming flowery dialogue or cryptic and interesting characters. No its confusing in that, wait a minute, I was just there now I'm here for no reason sense, or the what they're talking about has absolutely no relevance to whats going on, and my personal favorite feeling: if anyone actually played this, it might actually work right.
I might be able to see past some of it if I was a huge fan of the source material (alice) or even its predecessor (american mcgee's alice), but I'm really not. I was just looking for a trippy game, with an interesting protagonist, and gameplay that wasn't all take cover and shoot (western), or double jumps and air combos (eastern). Alas, while I wouldn't say Alice is a total failure, nothing is going to happen in the last 4 chapters that is more interesting or entertaining than what happened in the first that I did complete.
Which is a shame, because from what I've read its one of the few games with a proper attitude towards replayability and achievements. After a level is completed you can go back any time to get more secrets and collectibles, and its even broken down into little dvd like chunks so you don't have to play through the whole level to get that one thing you missed inches before the boss. I can certainly appreciate that, and believe me as I was sealing up the gamefly envelope I gave serious consideration to powering through it just for the 1k. Fortunately that version of me was killed and buried in the Afro Samurai dvd sleeve.
-F.
Alice is the kind of game that used to come out in droves back in the early psx days, the kind of game that was loved by its designer, but not necessarily its developer or its publisher, so it got released early, or got its budget slashed, or just generally lacked the kind of resources necessary to make it what it should have been.
Its functional enough, you go from room to room via platforming and switch hitting, dispatch waves of enemies with at least a couple different weapons, all the while waiting for the next cinematic to happen and explain whats going on. The downside is the camera's not great, the combat is pretty boring, and the way the game flows is disjointed and confusing. And not confusing in the clever way its trying to be, with charming flowery dialogue or cryptic and interesting characters. No its confusing in that, wait a minute, I was just there now I'm here for no reason sense, or the what they're talking about has absolutely no relevance to whats going on, and my personal favorite feeling: if anyone actually played this, it might actually work right.
I might be able to see past some of it if I was a huge fan of the source material (alice) or even its predecessor (american mcgee's alice), but I'm really not. I was just looking for a trippy game, with an interesting protagonist, and gameplay that wasn't all take cover and shoot (western), or double jumps and air combos (eastern). Alas, while I wouldn't say Alice is a total failure, nothing is going to happen in the last 4 chapters that is more interesting or entertaining than what happened in the first that I did complete.
Which is a shame, because from what I've read its one of the few games with a proper attitude towards replayability and achievements. After a level is completed you can go back any time to get more secrets and collectibles, and its even broken down into little dvd like chunks so you don't have to play through the whole level to get that one thing you missed inches before the boss. I can certainly appreciate that, and believe me as I was sealing up the gamefly envelope I gave serious consideration to powering through it just for the 1k. Fortunately that version of me was killed and buried in the Afro Samurai dvd sleeve.
-F.
I spent $170 on the new mortal kombat
srsly. And no, Im not bragging, Im actually kinda pissed at myself for it.
I got the one that came with the fight stick, that has a button layout just like UMK3 that doesn't make any sense for MK9. I use it to play UMK3 and a lot of the Live Arcade games, so its not a total loss. That was $150 right there. Last night I got the Season Pass amd Klassic Skins DLC (Disc Locked Content) since Gamestop gyped me out of my Scorpion outfit
I need to start playing that game more cause Ive gotten way more value out of CastlevaniaHD.
Short post, next week end I get back in the the swing of things, gonna have my gamerscore at 90K by Aug 1st.
~M
I got the one that came with the fight stick, that has a button layout just like UMK3 that doesn't make any sense for MK9. I use it to play UMK3 and a lot of the Live Arcade games, so its not a total loss. That was $150 right there. Last night I got the Season Pass amd Klassic Skins DLC (Disc Locked Content) since Gamestop gyped me out of my Scorpion outfit
I need to start playing that game more cause Ive gotten way more value out of CastlevaniaHD.
Short post, next week end I get back in the the swing of things, gonna have my gamerscore at 90K by Aug 1st.
~M
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