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Red Dead Redemption (360) by dkirschner (Jun 15th, 2013 at 14:14:33) |
I was not expecting Red Dead Redemption to be so incredible. Mind = blown. I don't have the words right now to talk about everything I loved, but:
+ big open world
+ Wild West setting is just storybook perfect
+ Stranger quests are often really interesting and unique (I'm looking at you, "I Know You")
+ the story is amazing. not only is the story itself amazing, but the storytelling is practically flawless. the long conversations that characters have while riding horses or in a wagon from place to place are utterly absorbing.
+ in most games, traveling from Point A to Point B is an annoyance. in this game it is sublime, with the mixture of conversation, scenery, simple bass guitar music, sounds of animals and hoofbeats...and if you don't want to travel, you can skip it.
+ main characters are very well-voiced and fleshed out. they're all so wonderfully flawed.
+ the ending OH MY GOD the ending.
I thought that the game was over at the climax, which you know when you come to it. I figured after that, it would just go into the typical post-story free roam mode where I could explore and finish challenges and whatnot. But it threw me for a loop and had an epilogue, which I stayed up for another hour or two to finish, having no clue how long it would go on for or what it was leading toward. And not only was there an epilogue, but it did NOT go down the way I thought it would.
The way they ended the game is freaking brilliant. I think this is the best game I've played the whole year. It edges out Far Cry 3, which was so obviously influenced by Red Dead in terms of the wildlife and hunting. Everyone should play this.
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Max Payne 3 (PS3) by jp (Jun 10th, 2013 at 22:10:02) |
I finished part 1 of the game and Max has now lost his hair and gained a beard. It usually takes me a while to get into the game, but I think I've got things (mostly?) figured out. Cover is important and I never seem to get much use out of bullet time. Mostly because my aim isn't all that good and it results on my getting shot up more than I want.
While the game's story is incredibly implausible, it's still quite fun. I'll admit that I (still) get an extra kick from mostly understanding the Portuguese. I'll also admit that I was quite surprised to unexpectedly run into some...well, I guess you could call it a "adult movie scene" with careful camera placement and blocking. Max is wandering around a favela and decides to cool his heels for a while...as you wander in you can almost see things you might not have wanted to see in the first place.
I guess this might have been the point during which Brazilian players really got offended? (assuming it didn't happen earlier, of course).
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Gravity Rush (VITA) by jp (Jun 6th, 2013 at 22:06:20) |
I've been playing this a fair amount and making good progress. I'ts a surprisingly good game even though - at least on paper, there are so many things that could go wrong. Actually, there are a lot of things that aren't "perfect", but I'm more than willing to turn a blind eye simply because the game's setting is so intriguing and interesting. In a nutshell, the game's main mechanic is a nightmare (on paper). It works well enough, and where it doesn't, that's ok - because there's plenty of "leniency".
So, here's what I've enjoyed...
1. I'm having a hard time describing the game's art style. It's sort of anime, sort of steampunk. I'm reminded of studio Ghibli movies (and also Otomo) because of the distinct style and detail there is in the surroundings.
2. The setting is quite neat. It's not incredibly detailed, but it has a lot of character, and that counts for a lot. The game takes place in a world that's both familiar and alien. Rather than use a real language, they've invented a new one (I presume just for this game?) including an alphabet for the signs in the game and so on.
3. The game is mostly about manipulating gravity in order to fly around the environment. The environment (generally a city) is a lot more detailed and "convoluted" than you might imagine. It makes it quite interesting to fly around. You also have to fight baddies, and many of the attacks have a soft-lock-on which really helps with the (frequent) disorientation.
4. Getting disoriented is actually fun. Most environments are actually interesting to look at from all angles, which is neat. And the game has a very workable "beacon" system (an arrow telling you where to go and how far you are).
And the story? Also interesting! But I'll write about that later...
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Zen Bound 2 (PC) by dkirschner (Jun 6th, 2013 at 04:23:11) |
Neat concept. You wind a rope with paint on it around various objects. You have a certain length of rope and have to coat x% of the object with paint. The objects have all kinds of crevices and twists and extensions so it's not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes there are little paint blobs on the object that you can pop by winding a rope over it, and sometimes there are paint blobs on the rope itself that you can strategically pop on the object to coat it.
Unfortunately playing the game with a mouse is pretty terrible. It's obviously developed for touch/tilt devices first and either one of those modes of input would be way cooler.
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Syberia II (PC) by dkirschner (Jun 5th, 2013 at 06:44:37) |
Started & finished Syberia II in a short time, 6.3 hours according to Steam. I spent at least twice that on the first one, probably 3x because I played a lot of it without a walkthrough and struggled some. This one I just played it right alongside a walkthrough. Whenever I didn't get something within a couple minutes, I checked it. Totally the way to play. The story and setting are way better than pixel hunting and trial and erroring everything to death.
Syberia II is a direct sequel to Syberia. Still beautiful, still enchanting. It didn't begin as great as the first one though I guess because I'd already been sensitized to the fantastic story. Also in the first one you get dropped into the bizarre little French Alps town of Valadilene, and in this one the game begins when your train stops at a relatively dull outpost on the edge of the Siberian waste, the last civilized place before snow is all you see forever. This outpost was at least 1/3 of the game.
In the outpost you meet the 'bad guys,' who are really cheesy and definitely the one drawback to the game. Not a huge drawback mind you, but just they felt out of place. They are two brothers, one of whom is mentally challenged, so you just kind of feel bad for him, and the other of which is a perverted jerk. At one point he tries to kill you with a whale bone and keeps calling Kate a whore. It's discomforting, which I guess is good because it made me dislike him all the more, but it's a bit out of place too. Their names are Igor and Ivan, by the way. Ivan, the not mentally challenged one, decides that he should hijack the train and claim all the ivory from Syberia for himself and get rich from it. OK...that's a terrible plan and really makes no sense. But I'll go along with it. Train ends up stalling, Igor leaves and Ivan, well, I thought Ivan died or was stranded somewhere or something after I escaped from him trying to kill Kate with the whale bone.
Fastforward to 30 minutes from the end of the game. Kate and Hans are sailing to Syberia on a ship that's been frozen in ice for centuries. Who should appear on that ship? Ivan! Where the hell did he come from? There is no way on earth that he could have gotten there. Like, it is utterly impossible. And the whole sequence there with him is also utterly pointless. The ship briefly runs aground, and as you go try to free it, he appears. So the whole point of the sequence, which was really short, was just to unstuck the boat and shoo him off again, when he shouldn't have been there in the first place.
HOWEVER, Ivan meets his demise. He gets attacked and killed by penguins. Yes, I shit you not. The ice shelf that the boat got stuck on had hundreds of big penguins on it. Kate knocks Ivan off the boat with the mast of the ship, and he falls onto the ice shelf. He picks up a penguin egg and...shakes it at Kate as she sails off (OK...)...and the penguins swarm around him and he yells, "no..no! NO!!" and screams and you hear clothes ripping and the mad squawking of penguins, and Kate goes "Ugh" and covers her eyes and turns away, and then the scene ends with a penguin like triumphantly looking insane and holding a piece of Ivan's tattered jacket in its mouth.
WHAT.
Then the game pretty much ends.
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GameLog hopes to be a site where gamers such as yourself keep track of the games that
they are currently playing. A GameLog is basically a record of a game you started playing. If it's open,
you still consider yourself to be playing the game. If it's closed, you finished playing the game. (it doesn't matter
if you got bored, frustrated,etc.) You can also attach short comments to each of your games or even maintain a diary (with more detailed entries)
for that game. Call it a weblog of game playing activity if you will.
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1663 registered gamers and 1795 games. 5604 GameLogs with 9925 journal entries. 4335 games are currently being played.
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Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas (PS2) by Lela9 |
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most recent entry: Sunday 5 October, 2008
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Since my last session playing the game I have completed another five missions. In doing so, I have gained respect from my gang and therefore more money and weapons. However, I still do not see how this game is anything but a perpetual cycle of stereotypes, gang violence, and crime. Some of the non-violent activities seem pointless, but do in fact have ulterior motives. For example, when you have to go to the gym it is so that you can build muscle and therefore win fights. When you go to get a new wardrobe it is so that you can blend in with your posse, in this case that means getting clothes that sport the green color that represents the characters' gang.
When I explored wardrobe options I was shocked to find out that you can wear nothing but your underwear in public and no one says anything about it, not even cops. This says a lot about the realistic elements in the game. If I were to go outside naked, I would be not only be reported my neighbors but arrested and put in jail were the cops to see me. I also noticed that I can commit a crime in front of a police officer and not get in trouble for it. My wanted status only goes up if I directly hurt a cop. This almost makes it seem if the cops are just another gang in the game; they certainly seem to act like any of the other gangs, minus the drive by shooting effect.
As I played the game I kept looking for anything that might be considered moral, by any ethical theory. However I was unsuccessful. Utilitarianism seemed to totter on the line between amoral and moral, simply because doing something like killing the crack dealers might bring more happiness than unhappiness but happiness is not quantifiable and therefore hard to measure. Also it was a good idea to stop crack dealing, but, then like everything else in the game, it was gone about in the worst possible way, by killing them.
The biggest problem I had with this game, however, was that the immoral objectives, the violence, and the vulgarity were all made to seem normal because nothing else was present. It reinforces stereotypes of blacks and Latinos in areas that are presumed to be concentrated with them. Impartiality is not even an issue in this game, because it is very clear that no one is of equal importance or value.
All in all I find this game quite immoral and a detriment to society. On a gaming level, it's unrealistic and repetitive, making it a not enjoyable game for me.
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