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May 13th, 2020 at 21:25:38 - Gears of War 4 (PC) |
Done. Great continuation from new series developers. The Gears of War games have always been super solid third-person cover shooters. This doesn't change much in the formula, generally playing it safe, but what it does change, I really like.
The games' stories have been getting better and better as the evermore likable characters get fleshed out. This game takes place a generation after the last game and you play as Marcus's son. He's got his own appropriately diverse crew (there's a woman, a Hispanic guy, and a black guy to round it out) that deliver one-liners and rib one another in between dangerous firefights with the Locust and new human baddies (for the first act or so). You do join up with Marcus and some older former COGs that you'll remember from previous games, which is awesome, so family is quite the theme here.
Another narrative element of the game I thoroughly enjoyed is that it toned down the macho-ness of previous games (which, as I recall, had been moving along these lines anyway). Early Gears of War entries were so military macho rah rah rah it wasn't even funny after a while. The series has finally become self-aware. The new main characters don't wear any big armor until they meet up with Marcus, who makes them wear it. They complain say it's so heavy and big and bulky and Marcus says that's the point. Why did the Gears always wear such ridiculous armor? There is no reason; they just did. That's the point. There is no point. There's a little feminist streak going on in this one as well, which was a bit cheesy or forced sometimes when deployed, but they got the tone right by the end. Finally, the game is really funny. I loved listening to the characters banter back and forth. The game's tone has changed so much that it ends with a joke. Imagine the earlier games ending with a joke. No way. This one? Great sense of humor.
Gameplay wise, I'm not sure I remember the other games being as melee focused as this one feels at times. I completed whole chapters with the Lancer's chainsaw. Ripping Locus grunts in half with that thing is one of the best feelings in videogames. It. Never. Gets. Old. Gears of War 4 adds a melee grab attack. If you are on the opposite side of cover as a Locust grunt, you press X to reach over and pull them to your side, then Y to execute them while they are disoriented. This led to a lot of bravery on my end as I sprinted to cover opposite Locust to attempt this move. It usually works, but watch out because the Locust can do the same thing. If you miss, they'll pull you over and pummel you!
This game (series) is funny for making the world into grids of chest-high cover. You know you're walking into a fight when you exit a door and see an area with loads of chest-high cover in front of you. Enemies often attack in waves, and it did get repetitive during the first chunk of the game when you are fighting humans and robots to hear "Another dropship!" for the 100th time.
Two more things...I don't remember if previous Gears games did this, but Gears of War 4 incorporates Horde mode into the Campaign. Early on you find a "fabricator," which can make turrets and barbed wire and other stuff to slow down and attack swarms of enemies. Every so often (maybe 4 times) you'll have to defend a point and you get to play with the Fabricator. These parts felt like a commercial for Horde mode because you get just a taste, and can usually only build two or three things. I played a ton of Horde mode in one of the earlier entries and, although these were novel diversions from the regular business of moving from area to area, they usually felt forced, really like I was being marketed to. Couple the few "Horde mode" parts of levels with the title screen urging you to play that mode and complete all your daily quests or whatever they called them.
Finally, a very cool audio feature that I noticed--When you're near your squad, you hear them normally; they're within earshot. If you sprint ahead, their voices actually get softer. Keep going, and the voices switch to coming from the walkie talkie. It's seamless, a great use of contextual and proximal audio, and conveys useful information (how far away from your squad you are) all at the same time. So clever!
I didn't even know there was a Gears 5 out, but now I'm going to play that (thank you Microsoft Game Pass) and this new Gears Tactics game just game out (thank you Microsoft Game Pass) that is supposed to be quite good.
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May 13th, 2020 at 15:56:56 - Pikuniku (NSW) |
We finished Pikuniku on Monday. This is just a cute little puzzle adventure game where you kick things to solve most of the problems you encounter, which generally involve helping villagers or putting an end to mad capitalist Mr. Sunshine's scheme to turn the world's material resources into profits. The humor is consistently amusing and silly. It's got a lot of personality and is quite easy. If you ever wanted to spend a game kicking your problems, this is the one.
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May 3rd, 2020 at 09:08:27 - Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii) |
It is done! According to HowLongToBeat.com, this is the 9th longest game I've ever played: 67 hours and 30 minutes. That's right around average for the main story. I maintain that this game's side quests are garbage and the "social" affinity content is pointless. Apparently all that pushes the gameplay time to upwards of 100 hours. The game could have wrapped up earlier, but kudos to the writers for making a story that keeps on going deeper and deeper. There's always another bad guy after the current bad guy, and this story traces all the way to the beginning of the universe. They really covered all their bases.
In the one other angsty entry for this, I had been slogging through the biggest, worst designed town full of the most annoying creatures, and I was struggling with remembering all the combat controls (mostly when to use all the various Monado skills and getting overwhelmed by the fact that all the characters play differently). I was ready to hang it up. Then I think I played for 8 hours straight and the game was redeemed.
Regarding my previous gripes:
1. The "kid" is special, as I should have imagined. His friends, however, are another story. How they wind up strong enough to fight gods, I don't know.
4. Regarding "too many skills," it doesn't matter. I realized that there are better and worse skill and party combinations, but as long as you have some basics covered (a tank, someone who can heal), then most skill and party combinations are valid.
5. The party AI is awful through the entire game. It does an okay job with tanks, but characters with healing abilities will inexplicably not use them until someone is almost dead, and some of the characters the AI seems to not know how to control at all (looking at you Melia). In my last session tonight, as an example, I was in a banquet hall with tables and chairs. Sharla (ranged DPS and healer) was between a table and a wall. The enemy I was fighting killed me and Reyn (tank). Sharla needed to come resurrect either of us. The enemy came toward her and blocked her from one direction. Instead of turning to go around the table, I watched as she futilely ran against the monster trying to go through the way it was blocking. She ran in place until she died and we wiped. Go around the table! Actually that's not an example of the AI not knowing how to play a character. That's just an example of the AI having bad pathfinding, which is unfortunately a more general problem.
6. I never became enamored with the controls, but I got used to them. One thing that sucked is if I played for a long time, my left hand would start cramping because of constantly holding the joystick up while pressing C to rotate the camera and move at the same time. Regarding the action bar, on a PC you would have had abilities assigned to 1-8. With the Wiimote though, you scroll, constantly scroll. Left left left left A. Right Right Right Right Right A. Forever.
Those were things that stood out a month ago. After continuing, I realize that the game’s tone is really hit-or-miss. For example, when it aims for light-heartedness, it’s really cheesy. When it aims for seriousness, the feeling is evident but it’s often marred by voice acting and repetitive dialogue. The game is not funny at all, though it tries. The requisite JRPG cute comic relief character, Riki, sucks so much. Characters, while possessing plenty of backstory, typically have a single-minded reason for fighting from which they never waver. The connections between all the characters, races, worlds, and so on make the story complex, but characters themselves are simple. Over this long of a game, that gets tiring. Shulk (main character), for example, is motivated to fight for the girl in his village who he had a budding romance with. There’s love in the air. After they save the freaking universe, the two of them sit on the beach, she makes a comment about her haircut, he awkwardly compliments it and stutters over his words and they don’t bring up the fact that they like one another. The scene should have faded with them holding hands or literally anything except them social distancing in front of a beautiful sunset. Apparently even after you save the world, you aren’t mature enough to express a romantic notion.
The environments in this game are top notch. I was left with my jaw on the floor many times, and this is a 2010 Wii game. They’re fun to run through and have branching paths, optional areas, mini-bosses, (shitty) side quests, and more. One of the final areas had me pulling my hair out though. You have to go inside the Bionis (old god) and reach its heart. It’s a vertical level so you’re walking up narrow paths. The problem is that there are a lot of enemies with knockback who will shove you off the path to the poison water far below. There’s no way to get up from the poison water, so you die. This happened to me about 20 times. If your NPC allies get knocked off, they materialize back at you and continue fighting, but if you get knocked off, it’s a wipe. The paths are so narrow that it’s really hard to avoid being knocked off. You just have to do your best to avoid engaging enemies on the paths. The level boss did the same thing. You fight her in a room with these poison pools, and she had an awful tendency to shove my tank into the pools. After a few tries at this though, I realized I could make smart use of the “focus attack” and “come to me!” commands. If my NPC allies got shoved into the poison pools, I’d run to the center of the room and use “come to me!” Sometimes it would take them a minute and they might still die (see “bad pathfinding” above), but it did the job.
That boss fight and numerous others (including minibosses and even regular enemies in the world, especially if you pull a lot of them) are tough and can last a long time (~10-15 minutes). Sometimes, boss fights just last until you realize you’re woefully under-leveled. After playing a while, I learned that this is 5 levels under the boss. In MMO fashion, if the enemy’s name icon is gray, they are too easy; blue = easy; white = about your level; yellow = 3-4 levels above you; red = 5+ levels above you and certain doom). Especially toward the end of the game, you will have to grind. Out of the 67 hours, I bet 7 were grinding, roughly 10% of my play time. Even if you explore everywhere, you’ll still have to grind. Take the Bionis level I mentioned. I entered there at level 69. Enemies in the previous area were in the high 60s and low 70s. Enemies in this area were 72-76, and I saw some minibosses wandering up to 78. I gained a level on the way to the boss, but she was red. Great. Even her little trash mobs were yellow, level 73. She was probably 75 or 76. So back I went to grind out, at minimum, 2 levels. I got up to 73 and tried again. Still a challenging fight, but I beat her at that level. This kind of thing happened several times in the latter half of the game. I wound up just muting the volume and putting headphones on to listen to music.
That is it! The last Wii game I own too. I have a few more Wii U games to play and then I can sell it all (but these are shelved until I exhaust the Microsoft Game Pass). I’m glad to have played this epic JRPG. It’s been a while since I’ve played one. It was long and it has its faults, but it was endearing, the combat was sublime, music and environments were stunning, and it pushed my RPG progression and loot buttons. I wouldn’t play it again, but I’d recommend it if you’re hankering for something in the genre. I’m also not sure I would call it one of the greatest RPGs ever—the thing got rave reviews—but I could just be playing too late to be as impressed. I have the sequel sitting here and suppose I’ll delve into it with some idea of what to expect in the future!
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May 1st, 2020 at 19:21:07 - Ori and the Blind Forest (PC) |
Wow, worth the wait! I should mention, I'm in gaming heaven now, not only because I have more free time and the semester is almost over, but because Microsoft has a deal on their XBox Game Pass for PC (which is in beta). It's $1 for a month, and only $4.99 monthly after that. Holy crap. I went through the 200 games in the catalog and found 16 that are on my wishlist. 16 games for $1? Or $5.99 for two months? Or $11.99 if it takes me three months? YES PLEASE.
Ori and the Blind Forest is the first thing I downloaded to play (sequel, coming soon!). I always remember the first time I heard the game's title. I was teaching Sociology of Disability, and I was talking to someone from an organization serving people who are visually impaired. I mentioned that I had students play video games about disability and she said, "Oh like Ori and the Blind Forest?" I was like, "noted, a game about something to do with blindness." I read about it soon thereafter in PC Gamer or somewhere and that is NOT what this game is about!
Ori and the Blind Forest is a challenging 2d platformer about restoring a "blind" (dead) natural world. It's enchanting in a Studio Ghibli way. The presentation is immaculate in every way. It's claim to fame for me will be that I had fun hunting for extra power-ups. I usually hate doing that, but traversing the world was a blast. I spent my ability points in the exploration-type skill tree branch first, which is also unusual. It's because toward the end, experience you pick up is increased. I thought, "well if I can get that quickly, then I can unlock even more skills." Sure enough, I had two of three trees maxed out by the end and the other halfway there.
The odd thing is you don't really need many of the abilities in the skill tree. They enhance damage, or give you extra life for creating a save point--all nice things--but the abilities you need are the ones you find in the world. Even then, I didn't unlock them all. I think I was missing something called "light burst" and something that would let me activate chains that lower barriers. I did notice a chunk of the world (one area maybe) that I didn't explore, so I'm sure something useful was down there.
So the coolest ability by far lets you propel yourself off of enemies or projectiles in the air. You can use it to get into all sorts of nooks and crannies in the map. Say a spider shoots an energy orb at you. You jump and press triangle when you're near it. An arrow appears. Ori will fly in the direction of the arrow and the energy orb will fly in the direction opposite the arrow. This means you can redirect projectiles with the move too. All the movement abilities work in conjunction; the synergy is smooth. If you're trying to reach a height, you can use this arrow move to chain propel higher. Often, you will need to slow your fall after a boost while you wait for another projectile to be shot at you so you can propel off it. So, press LT and float with your leaf as you wait to be shot at.
There is a variety of platforming on display. Some sections focus on killing enemies, some are "outrun the water/lava/wind," some are slow and thoughtful puzzles to traverse. By far the most impressive thing about some of these platforming segments are the "single-shot" ones. Like a long scene in a movie shot in one take, these see you going from the beginning of, say, a chase sequence (the final battle with the bird is the standout) to the end in one beautiful fluid performance. You will die in this game A LOT. Death in these sequences means you've learned something to go farther next time. "Okay, next time I need to float on the wind to the right and hide under this rock while the bird swoops past." Then you die 10 seconds after that on the next attempt. "Okay, hide under the rock, then I've got to quickly propel myself up the abyss on the plants; if I go too slow, the fire spreads and kills me. Just go fast, straight up!" Repeat 20 times to beat the encounter. I loved it.
I hope my computer will run the sequel. A lot of these Microsoft developed or published games that I can play with Game Pass are newer (Ori and the Will of the Wisps was just a month or two ago!). I'm usually playing something a few years old, so it'll be weird to play new things...if I can run them. New computer? Hopefully not yet...but I'll have Game Pass games on hold for that time if the ole' Alienware isn't up to par any time soon.
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