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Dec 8th, 2014 at 08:00:52 - Sonic Adventure DX (PC) |
I've been plowing through games from Humble Bundles, the Team17 one (Worms) and the Sega one. This is obviously from the Sega one. Apparently the game was hailed upon release as demonstrating what was aesthetically possible in video games in the late 90s. Visually, it has aged well. Although this is, I believe, a port of a port remastered in 2003, it looks great. It's a very colorful game with an interesting soundtrack.
Like every Sonic game, you stop Eggman, or Dr. Eggman, or whatever his name is, from carrying out his nefarious plans. This was the first 3D Sonic game and even has open world elements. You control Sonic and have limited abilities. You can run around, spin, jump, and do a jump attack. Given how good the world looks, it's a shame there's not more interactivity available...but I have to remember this was 1998. I played a couple of the "levels" where Sonic is racing around getting coins. Although the game is 3D, the levels function essentially as 2D levels. Like, although you can move along X, Y and Z axes, you're stuck on a rail doing so.
The set pieces for these levels are really awesome. In the first one, Sonic was racing along a boardwalk. The camera moves in front of him and you see whales jumping and crashing through the boardwalk behind him. The sense of speed is fantastic and still impressive today. It was cool to watch, but like I said, I didn't feel as if I was doing much to control Sonic besides pressing forward and doing the occasional spin.
You can play as different characters. Each has some different abilities (i.e., Tails can hover and float), and from what I read, they all have slightly different storylines, sort of like 5-6 perspectives on the main Eggman narrative. Sounds pretty cool and ambitious.
But, I never made it that far because I am stuck in the 'open world.' It is very difficult to navigate because the camera sucks. I can rarely see where I am going and have little control over the camera. You can move it in 45 or 90-degree increments, but like Alien Breed that I recently played, this is difficult to do while also trying to run and spin and attack, especially as fast as Sonic is. And the camera is slow to respond when you do try and move it. It's just unnecessarily difficult, the kind of thing that would be so much easier with a controller and the ability to freely rotate the camera with a stick. I ran around the open world section for 15 minutes without ever figuring out anything that I could do. I found some ledges, some mysterious orb that I released from a waterfall, some NPCs, but I couldn't DO anything. I thought I may be able to reach some ledge by jumping, but the camera position at that point makes it so I can't see where I'm jumping.
Anyway, neat game to poke around with. Made me nostalgic for old Sega Sonic games that I used to play as a kid!
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Dec 5th, 2014 at 18:02:59 - Alien Breed: Impact (PC) |
I got this out of a Team17 Humble Bundle so I could get all the Worms games. Worms is/are awesome. Alien Breed is not awesome. Apparently it's a remake of an old Amiga game. You play as Conrad, a marine guy on a ship into which another ship crashed. I guess the other ship was full of ALIEN BREEDS. Because there are aliens now on Conrad's ship.
The game begins with a neat comic book style narrative scene showing the crash and Conrad lamenting over his dead wife. A cyborg saves Conrad and I think she is the one giving him mission objectives. Conrad is armed with standard guns and some other items (grenades, health packs, sentry guns). He goes around the space ship as new objectives constantly flash on the screen. Nothing goes right for Conrad.
Disable the reactor! [walk to the reactor] The panel is broken! Find a new panel! [go to the door behind which is the new panel] Keycard required! [go to the door behind which is the keycard. the room is on fire] Doors cannot open due to fire! Activate fire control mechanism! [find and activate control mechanism] Fire extinguished! Find the keycard! [find the keycard] Find the reactor panel! [find the reactor panel] Activate the reactor! [go to reactor and replace the panel. attempt to activate it] Reactor core too hot! Find the cooling bay! [ETC...]
Oh yes, there are aliens. After an hour or so, I saw a few different types. A small one that rushed at me. Another small one that rushed at me and exploded sometimes. A bigger one that rushed at me. Another bigger one that rushed at me and sometimes healed the other ones. I read that there isn't much variety. Seems accurate.
The game feels claustrophobic, which fits the setting. I enjoy the sound design with its nice ambient tracks with "horror movie" noises thrown in everywhere, such as skittering aliens, bursting pipes, and creaking doors. I read that the environment never changes though, so apparently this hour is what the game will look like to the end (and in the next two sequels).
The loot system detracts from the experience. You don't really see items or searchable bodies and lockers and things until you're close by. This means you have to wander through each room and make complete passes looking for useful stuff. Since you can only sprint for a brief time, it's a lot of slow walking. The map doesn't help either. There's no map hotkey. To get to the map, you have to hit Enter to open the PDA, then click on Map, then click the minus button a bunch to zoom out so you can adequately see your surroundings.
That's about it. I may give this a whirl on consoles for the hell of it. On consoles, it must be a twin stick shooter, which would have better controls. Oh yeah, the camera is horrible. You use Q or E to shift the camera in 45-degree increments. Very disorienting, especially while trying to kill aliens coming from three sides and run Conrad around the screen from the top-down perspective. If the shoulder buttons on console controllers shifted the camera, I think that would feel more natural. Anyway, we shall see. Alien Breed 2 and 3 going in the dumpster. Neeext Humble Bundle game!
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Dec 5th, 2014 at 17:41:10 - Dragon Age: Origins (PC) |
Finished it! Yaaaay! I did enjoy it a great deal. The story, setting and characters were wonderful throughout. But, as happens with long games (nearly 70 hours for this one), some things start to grate and drag. DA:O has too many inventory items. I spent hours just sorting through my inventory, trying to figure out which items to keep, sell or stash in the vault. With like 8 or more companions, you wind up having to do a lot of equipping and rearranging. Looting also became incredibly tedious by the end. Not as bad as Bioshock Infinite, but bad.
One funny thing I did was woo two romantic partners. I'm not sure I've played a game that let you have two. Usually either the second one won't be interested until you're monogamous or the first one will get pissed and break up with you if you make a pass at a second person. In this game, neither Morrigan nor Leliana mentioned the other one. Sort of weird.
For a while, I thought DA:O was very difficult. This was partly because I may have chosen some harder quests first, and partly because I think mages begin relatively weak. About 1/3 of the way through, my party became a powerhouse. I stomped enemies and steamrolled questlines for most of the rest of the game. For whatever reasons, my party ruled. I stuck with Shale (tanking golem), Sten (berserker), Leliana (rogue...because playing a game without being able to pick locks sucks!), and my mage, which I specialized in fire and healing. I became a great healer and kept all my melee companions alive.
There were definitely key skills that I learned which made combat noticeably easier. One was when my mage finally learned healing magic. The Group Heal spell is amazing. Another was when my mage began learning mana replenishing spells. This made me able to rely less on potions and more on better healing spells. Sometimes when I'd find a great weapon or get some end-of-the-skill-tree talents, my characters seemed to jump in usefulness.
The final fight wasn't even that hard. Epic, by the way, doesn't begin to describe the end of Dragon Age. The "final fight" is spread over a couple hours of gameplay (maybe an hour if you don't die as much as me) and involves killing darkspawn generals, fighting through Denerim, and finally facing the archdemon, which was a fun battle.
Story choices, Bioware, outcomes, blah blah blah...roll credits.
I've got whatever DLC came with the Ultimate Edition, plus the Awakening expansion. I've already downloaded Dragon Age II as well. I'll burn through some random Humble Bundle games for a change of pace first, then return to Fereldin to clean up the remaining darkspawn. Great game, totally lives up to all the hype five years later.
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Nov 3rd, 2014 at 17:04:25 - Dragon Age: Origins (PC) |
Alright, I have played a good amount of Dragon Age since that last entry and finally feel like I've had time to get into it.
In looking at my previous entry, I definitely was doing the main quest out of order. You're supposed to go to check on Arl Eamon, not go check on the Elves. But it is cool that the game didn't block me from exploring what I wanted to. The difficulty of the Elven forest was all the sign I needed to realize I should go somewhere else first. After having corrected myself, I'm working on the second part of the Arl Eamon quest line to find Brother Genitivi, I've completed the Elven quest line (and got some surprise allies!) and the Magi quest line, and done a bunch of DLC and side quests.
The game is still not easy, but it is no longer punishingly difficult. Encounters vary widely, and their difficulty is certainly influenced by your party makeup. For instance, I found myself in one battle against a bunch of Greater Rage Demons and some other powerful demon. Apparently these were all immune to physical damage, or took very little and regenerated health to make up for it. I had 3 melee classes and myself (wizard/healer). Two of my melee characters died, and it was all I could do to constantly heal the remaining one, but the enemies were taking no damage. I finally figured this out and activated Flame Weapons, so my warrior's weapon began dealing fire damage and he killed the enemies. Other battles/enemies are stronger or weaker against ranged, magic, specific schools of magic, and so on. The variety is great.
Once I realized that a varied party is a strong party, I began to favor party members with multiple specialties. I use myself as a healer (last time I played I *finally* found a tome that let me specialize in healing, so I will have some powerful new healing spells soon!). I also have all the fire spells, so I can lob fireballs and create an inferno if need be, as well as cast an insect swarm. I use a rogue. You've always gotta have a rogue to pick locks, disarm traps and find treasure. My rogue also is good with a bow, so she can be melee or ranged depending. I use a pure two-handed weapon warrior for tons of damage. Finally, I did a DLC where I got a stone golem. This golem is an utter badass. It has tons of health, and it can, at any moment, switch from being a tank to a melee DPS to ranged DPS to a support caster. I use it as a tank, replacing my previous human tank, who has sadly been on the sidelines ever since. The other two mages you get are cool, but I find they tend to pull aggro and get killed too easily. I'd rather just heal beefy warriors than micromanage another mage on the field. Then I have a war dog, which I guess is like a warrior. I never really used it, but I did put a neck cone on it, which lowers its morale. Haha.
Your party members banter back and forth. Some of them are quite funny, most notably the stone golem, Alistair and Morrigan. I used to put Alistair and Morrigan in a party together just to listen to them make fun of one another. They started repeating themselves though, and I got the golem anyway. The golem hates birds. It spent 30 years sitting in a field in the middle of a village getting pooped on by birds and stared at by villagers, and it always mentions "demon birds" and "winged fiends" and whatnot referring to birds. It's hilarious. There have been many, many laugh-out-loud moments. The writing is excellent. In particular, I remember Sten, the qunari warrior, talking about cookies being his favorite thing in Ferelden. They don't have cookies where he is from. He is a very serious character, so hearing him answer that "the food..it is crumbly and sweet..yes, cookies, I love cookies" is unexpected and charming. There was another scene I remember. When you're preparing Redcliffe against the attack from the castle, you can basically steal ownership of a local tavern. There's a waitress there you can flirt with, and eventually you can steal a kiss from her. When you do, all the other men in the bar can't believe it and they have very shocked expressions on their faces as they watch her plant a kiss on your lips. Pretty funny.
I'm not sure what else I intended to write about...I just wanted to note my progress and how my thoughts about the game have changed since my earlier hours. The story is still riveting and there are tons of quests to do. I really enjoyed the few DLC campaigns I did off the beaten path. I hear one is supposed to reward me with like a base inventory, like a chest to hold my extra items. I cannot wait to get that because Dragon Age is sometimes too much of an inventory management sim. I often run out of space to hold things. I have all these extra special items now from DLC and have a lot of gifts (of which I thin many are DLC items), so I think I have extra stuff clogging my inventory that I wouldn't have had playing the vanilla game. I've discovered most of the Codex entries, which contain fascinating lore. Sometimes it is best to read the entry when you get it because it contextualizes whatever is currently happening. Other times, it would probably be best to just save up until you found all parts of a particular story and read them at once. But still, the world and history are very elaborate. I particularly like all the myths, folklore, and religious stories. Those really build up people's beliefs about the world.
So yeah. That's about it for now! I will just continue on! OH YEAH. I found a dragon. It demolished me. Dragons are the most scary creatures in the game so far. Yay dragons!
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