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Apr 1st, 2014 at 13:29:01 - Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3) |
Gotta say, I was a bit underwhelmed by this first Uncharted game. I'm sure I would have been more impressed when it came out. I enjoyed it overall, but at times I found it boring and tedious.
Favorite stuff:
- the smartass characters bantering back and forth. I liked Drake's perpetual sarcasm. The writing is great, the Indiana Jones-ish story is cool, with a couple good twists. I especially enjoyed near the end when (dun dun dunnnnn) there is a real curse on El Dorado.
- the beautiful vistas, and exploring ruins and caverns was pretty cool too.
Stuff I didn't like:
- the environments did all start to look similar after a while, and you do some backtracking. This is compounded with the repetitive combat. In the first couple hours of playing, I spent 30 minutes hiding behind pillars and shooting bad guys, and 30 minutes hiding on fortress walls shooting bad guys and 30 minutes hiding behind trees in the jungle shooting bad guys. All these combat locations have very similar layouts. I would also like to see more puzzles and more exploration and less combat.
- combat is lame. There is nothing exceptional about it, and it becomes quickly tedious. The new enemies toward the end do spice it up a bit, but on the whole, I wish there were more weapons and strategies to utilize. Basic guns, basic grenades, and fight a few waves of enemies at each location and move on. Sit behind cover, pop out and shoot, go back behind cover, if enemies move too close, melee them. Most of the guns work fine from any range too. I learned this by dying from shotgun blasts 1000 feet away, which pissed me off every time. And I spent most of the game sniping with a pistol.
I think the overarching problem is that the dull combat and the interesting environments were mostly divorced from one another, so you have this game where exploring and platforming around is pretty cool, but fighting sucks you into a boredom void. I was thinking about this because I was watching behind the scenes footage of God of War 3’s development. The level designers were talking about the importance of integrating the combat and the puzzles so that you didn’t feel like you were playing two different games. Uncharted, so far, you explore, puzzle, explore, then fight, fight, fight. The combat doesn’t add to the exploration, doesn’t progress puzzles. I will point out one example where it did, but it’s one of the few I can think of. At some point, you’re platforming across some waterfall ruins, and a jeep pulls up to a cliff and enemies start shooting at you. You blow up a barrel on the jeep, killing the enemies and sending the jeep crashing down the waterfall. It gets stuck between two pillars and serves as a bridge for Drake to walk across and continue. That’s great integration of combat and platforming/puzzling/exploration.
Yep. Probably going to hit up a longer game, then play Uncharted 2.
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Mar 28th, 2014 at 23:54:11 - Silent Hill (PS) |
I don't know where my file with Silent Hill notes went. I probably erased it and wrote different notes without realizing it. Oh well! My girlfriend and I have been slowly playing through the original Silent Hill on Playstation for the last couple months. Neither of us had ever played it. I think I played 2 and 3, which we will replay at some point.
I vividly recall hating the controls with a burning passion at first. By the end of the game I merely had a resigned dislike for them. You have very little control over the camera, and your character moves like a car missing a wheel. He turns slowly, the camera usually won't get behind him, it's really hard to turn and track enemies that run around you in circles. You oftentimes aim and shoot at nothing. It can be maddening just trying to get the character to do the simplest of actions like running up some stairs or standing in front of an object to interact with it.
I got better at the controls after an hour or so. My girlfriend gave up on them and made me play the rest of the game. By the end of the game, I realize that although the controls are objectively terrible, it does add to the game's horror. Not only are there demons everywhere, the town is turning back and forth from nightmare mode to relatively normal, and so on, but your character can't run straight or aim a gun to save his life. He's just your average dad looking for his daughter, completely out of his element. The bad controls honestly make the game scarier, made me panic more than usual and fit the overall mood.
Character control is pretty much the only downside to Silent Hill. Some other aspects feel old, like the laughable voice acting (which was admittedly good for 1999). The majority of the game is brilliant and holds up great. The sound in particular is a highlight. We loved the music. It picks up when you are near something important, the radio turns to static when there are monsters nearby, the mechanical hissing of generators, the grinding of machines, the creepy noises that enemies make, your character's out-of-breath panting, and all the other atmospheric noise really imbue Silent Hill with a dread feeling. We were constantly on the edge of the seat because of music and sound effects wondering what was about to happen or turning (or trying our best to turn) and running upon hearing the scraping of difficult enemies across the ground in the darkness ahead.
Another great thing about the game is that it is hard. Very few games are made like this these days, especially in the survival horror genre. Silent Hill does not hold your hand. We were constantly almost out of ammo and health packs. We always had to make decisions whether to use precious ammo and health packs, whether to risk it with slow and unreliable melee weapons, or, my favorite, whether to just attempt to weave through and outrun enemies to save ammo and make it to the next location.
Puzzles were also pretty great. We were able to figure almost all of them out, save one at the end, which I think was cheap. But for the vast majority, they were logical, you could figure them out by looking and analyzing. The puzzles were well integrated into the messed up story too. I really don't know what was going on by the end, very strange stuff. I see now that the first movie was largely a rewrite of the game, with the female cop character and a mother substituted for the game's husband. Really the movie illuminated some of the things I just didn't get from the game. Doesn't really matter though how clear it was. The creepy town of Silent Hill is king here.
Yeah, overall great old game. I'm glad to have gone back and played it.
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Mar 24th, 2014 at 23:10:28 - Resistance 3 (PS3) |
Resistance 3, semi-real-time gamelog…
There are already a bunch of really dumb story bits going on. The setting is cool, and I accept that there are hidden human communities living in fear of the Chimera, who have wiped out ~90% of Earth’s population and occupy most of the planet. The game has a distinctly different feel than Resistance 1 and 2. This one is post-apocalyptic moreso than sci-fi. Some of the buttons have been changed around, the weapons now have levels. It feels more like Fallout. Firing the Chimeran pulse rifle no longer feels like futuristic pew pew pew but like rugged, parts-hardly-working clanka clanka clanka with the sight swerving around because of kickback.
Okok, I wanted to talk about the story. You play as the guy who killed Hale in Resistance 2. He’s married and had a kid. The kid is sick. In the middle of a Chimeran invasion, he seems predominantly worried about his kid, and his wife, although she is in charge of communications for the whole town, also seems predominantly concerned with her kid. Honestly, the Chimera are invading, your kid is sickly and like 3 years old, you really need to be worrying about staying alive and defending the town more than “Susan! Has Jack’s fever gotten better?” “Susan! How’s Jack? Did he sleep?” There are more important things afoot…
I found a terrible incongruency. Malikov, the Russian scientist from Resistance 2, who I am 99% sure killed himself, just appeared in this hidden community one day. Seriously, you find his suicide note in Resistance 2 and he’s never heard from again. He definitely killed himself. Why is he here? How is he here? How did a 60-something year old man survive in a Chimera-infested wasteland traveling from like New York or Chicago or wherever all the way to Oklahoma? How did he know where I am and to come here?
So Malikov shows up and has this crazy story about how the Chimeran tower in New York opened a wormhole and now the earth is freezing and I have to go with him to NEW YORK from OKLAHOMA in 1957 when the Chimera have annihilated every city on Earth and 90% of the population is dead because he is the “only person who knows how to stop the Chimera” and presumably I am the “only hero alive who can help him.” WHAT?! How does he know about this tower, or that the earth is freezing? Was he in New York? I doubt it because New York was annihilated. Do you really think there are any humans in the center of the Chimeran invasion? No.
Rightly, my character calls Malikov crazy and tells him to go away. But not my wife! No! She says something idiotic and relates it to their child. “If there’s any chance Jack can have a better life...” She wants me, her husband, to travel 2000 miles with an old man through Chimera-infested USA to the center of the invasion to the super tower that is supposedly freezing the earth so that maybe…just maybe…my sick 3-year-old can have a better life. She wants me to go! Who would do that!? How is this a good idea?! This isn’t even like video game crazy type of good idea. It’s just stupid!
My favorite part so far is when my character does what his wife says and goes with Malikov. As he is telling his son he loves him, I started wondering why his son Jack never said anything. He looks like he’s 3 or 4 years old, but he doesn’t talk. Then in this moment that is supposed to be super emotional and dramatic (many of these moments feel really contrived) as Susan is carrying him away, he reaches over her shoulder at my character and cries “Daddyyyyyyyy!” in this hilarious deep 60-year-old woman smoker voice. What?!?!? Who okayed that voice for a child? Seriously, old woman smoker voice. “Daddddyyyyy!” I laughed my ass off.
My thoughts after an hour and a half: At least the gameplay is good.
My thoughts after four hours: Okay, the story is throwaway. At least there haven’t been any bad new parts. I’ll focus on gameplay then, which is quite fun. As usual, and this is something I really enjoy about the Resistance series, there are more new enemies, and modified versions of old enemies. My favorite so far are the stealth snipers. You can spot them with the auger vision and either use that gun or then snipe them. If they hit you though, it’s like 25% of your health, so watch out! There are also new drones that hover over enemies granting them a protective shield. Take out the drones, then hit the enemies.
The guns leveling up is pretty sweet. Of course my Chimeran pulse rifle hit level 3 (max) almost immediately because it’s the most versatile gun. Now it shoots exploding rounds and tags 3 targets at a time. My sniper rifle and marksman can now zoom. The sniper rifle also highlights enemies’ heads. The augur now fires a 3-round burst. Pretty handy stuff!
Right now I’m in Pennsylvania in a religious town. It’s quite strange. God this and god that, and when people die, it was their time, blah blah. It’s a(n) (exaggerated?) representation of old small town church communities. Makes the town weirder.
After six-and-a-half hours:
Oooh, the prison level was cool, definitely my favorite location in the game. It’s good that I liked it because the train sequence before it was trying really hard to be neat, but it fell flat. The prisoners go Mad Max style on your train, trying to hijack it. There’s a 15-minute long battle for the train, which involved me standing on one end aiming through my scope, only moving when Malikov told me that the rear cars in turn were coming loose and I had to go detach them. Dull. It reminded me of the end of Resistance 2 where I could just sit there doing nothing and progress the fight. Anyway, the prison level is supposed to show the ugly side of human nature. It’s worse than Chimera-infested areas, and it’s up to you and another guy there to lure the Chimera to the prison so that they will destroy it and you can escape. One of my favorite things about the prison was you get the Mutator, a gun that shoots humans with the Chimera virus and infects them right there on the spot. It’s fun to use, especially the alt fire which shoots a big blob in a radius and infects lots of humans at once.
After the prison, there is more silly story. The prison is in Pennsylvania. When your character leaves, he sets off on foot. Flash forward. “Hey, I’m in New York, right under the main Chimera tower!” What? How did he travel there? I assume he walked. That would have taken him weeks. It’s like 300 miles away. Did he eat? Sleep? It’s like below freezing and snowstorms. How did he stay warm? Every other location in the game it’s been clear how he traveled there – boat, plane, train – but how is he going to walk from Pennsylvania to New York City? And the first thing Joseph does in New York City? Find a radio and whine into it to no one about missing his wife and kid. Come on, you’ve got bigger things to worry about.
I was thinking how it was more okay that Nathan Hale was doing all this action hero stuff, taking on the Chimera all by himself. He was infected and had superpowers. Joseph is just a regular dude. Why would he be able to do anything that other people can’t? Malikov on the train says something like “This is going to be dangerous assaulting the tower. Four years ago we tried and lost 1000 men.” Great! So now let’s go in with one normal military dude. Good idea.
One more note for this portion – this game has some annoying bugs. I’ve had AI allies get stuck and not advance the action forward and have had to restart areas a couple times for that. The Lurkers, little scorpion enemies, constantly (seriously like 30 times already) disappear, reappear behind you, sting you through walls and ceilings, seemingly teleport around, disappear in other objects…those things are programmed like crap. I’ve lost so much health and even died to them. Really frustrating! There have been audio bugs where Joseph’s “I’m being injured” sound gets stuck on a loop: “UH! UH! UH! UH! UH! UH! UH!” Other enemies have been stuck in various places, including a big hard one that got stuck on a car. I just stood there and killed him easily. I’ve fallen through the level and died a handful of times, especially on the bridge part where you have to kill the dropship. Lots of annoying little bugs.
While the credits are rolling:
I figured out the problem. The feel-good family story got substituted for the kill-the-bad-guy story. I don’t think this game was really about defeating the Chimera. Joseph’s goal is to reunite with his wife and child and live happily ever after. In the beginning, he and everyone else were dealing with living under the threat of the Chimera, and his big problem was that his boy was sick. His problem throughout the whole game isn’t really the Chimera. It’s that he’s worried about his family. There should have been more emphasis on Joseph’s motivations and the story around defeating the Chimera instead of on family. The family angle felt contrived to me.
There are more dumb plot points and various impossibilities toward the end of the game too. Blah. I guess I had it pegged after the first hour. At least the gameplay is solid. This series for me goes, best to worst, Resistance 2, 1, 3. I would actually suggest skipping this one unless you are a huge fan. There’s no boss. No big bad guy, nothing to direct your “yeah, I’m gonna beat the Chimera once and for all!” toward besides just the whole alien species. Not very satisfying.
On to the next Playstation exclusive series…
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Mar 24th, 2014 at 07:32:09 - God of war 3 (PS3) |
God of War 3 is epic. It approaches perfection as an action game. I've played all the main trilogy and this one is by far the most memorable. Kratos is still a badass, showcased perhaps more than ever here. There is a part where Kratos is trying to rescue someone, and on the way, you find one of Poseidon's (topless) mistresses. You shove her through the level and then chain her to a wheel that opens a gate so that you can go through. She's screaming the whole time, and halfway to the gate you hear a really loud scream and the gate lowers halfway. I went back to see what happened, and there was just a bloody mess on the ground. I was like "whoa." Kratos isn't as...aimlessly (?)...pissed off anymore. It's all directed at Zeus, and his goals are always crystal clear. As old gods, demigods and titans enter and exit the story, I realized that it has been long intervals between playing these games, as I frequently didn't remember what transpired between Kratos and [character], why Kratos got along with Pandora, why his relationship with Athena was ambivalent, why he hated so-and-so. I wish there'd been an in-game compendium describing old relationships and story events.
The main reason GoW 3 feels different than the other two are its coherent world and its sense of scale. The other games exist on massive scales too, but GoW 3 makes them look like Kratos on Cronos (ha-ha, bad God of War jokes..). You keep revisiting old areas through new entrances, modifying the old areas in some way, and finding new secrets and new paths. For example, at some point Kratos gets this super strong melee weapon that can destroy onyx. When I figured that out, I thought, "Hey, there was this onyx stuff blocking my way somewhere else." Sure enough, you'll end up going back, and it is very satisfying to see areas becoming discovered and modified throughout the game. All these areas are also linked together. You don't just magically transport anywhere. You actually climb a giant chain to get from Hades to the Judges to Olympus. You actually ride drafts of air with your Icarus wings. Each "hub" room actually connects to many places you go, and one by one, you're able to reach the different doors and portals that get you to new places.
The size of things in the world blew my mind. This is imprinted on you the moment the game begins, where the first section takes place ON THE BACK OF A TITAN CLIMBING MOUNT OLYMPUS. Yes, you run around on Gaia as she and other titans attempt to reach the summit to destroy Zeus. You fight a giant battle against Poseidon all the while, scampering around Gaia, going inside Gaia's wounds, all the while Gaia is moving, your freaking ground is shifting, talking to you. It was incredible. There's another amazing titan battle when you get to the Pits of Tartarus where you are actually trying to kill a titan. I remember in God of War 2, there was a part on a titan, but it was NOT like this. This is something I've never seen in a game before. The epic sense of scale is also apparent outside these combat situations. Climbing the chains that bind Olympus and Hades, for example, the camera zooms out in parts, showing tiny, tiny Kratos. The sequences in and around the Labyrinth have Kratos platforming and fighting on just massive box structures that move in an enormous cavernous room. For me, the scale has a humbling affect on how I perceive Kratos. In this game, he is still an angry badass, but there's some hesitation there, part of which is because I realize (and he must) how small he really is. I think this shows in his interactions with Pandora as well, and certainly plays out in the end.
God of War 3 didn't feel as repetitive or samey as the others for reasons I've stated, and also because there is less combat, which is a good thing. God of War 3 doesn't seem to throw as many endless waves of enemies at you. The ratio of platforming to major encounters to moving the narrative to regular fighting is more even.
The combat didn't feel as difficult this time around. Even the final battles I only died from screwing up quicktime events. I'll say that the hardest part of God of War 3 were the quicktime events, especially rotating the left stick. Platforming also caused a handful of deaths, just because I wouldn't know what was coming and would have to try a few times to learn the sequence. But combat itself, not as difficult as usual. Twice as brutal though! Kratos rips out eyes, pops off heads, disembowels, slices off tails and legs and arms, bashes in faces, and performs all manner of grizzly finishers. Loved it.
But Kratos isn't just a fighter. He's a lover too! There's another sex scene in this game. I thought the one in GoW 1 was funny, and apparently the designers did too, because this one is written to be funny. Instead of you seeing the action happening or looking at a bedside table, you see two other girls rubbing on each other watching. The first time you go through the scene, they say such things as "Oh my! This is mature content, for adults only!" "You should definitely not let your children watch this!" I loved how they made fun of the controversy like this. If you do the scene again, they comment on it more, like "Oh wow, if it looks that good from here, just imagine...!" and "[gasp] He's going to...! Oh my!" It cracked me up. Maybe next time they'll push the envelope and have two naked male commentators.
Finally, there are substantial extras on the disc. I watched about an hour-long documentary on the making of the game that spanned 2-3 years of development, showed the team preparing for their first media event, for E3, for alpha and beta and release. It was exceptionally cool to see. When you beat the game, you unlock about 20 more shorter videos showcasing every aspect of development, from animation to streamlining code to user experience to quality assurance. BADASS. I wish more games included things like this.
Phenomenal game, can't say it enough. 1 and 2 were great, but this blows them out of the water.
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