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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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Mar 19th, 2014 at 11:17:20 - Folklore (PS3) |
Folklore -- interesting game, great premise, started off strong, but I think this is a case of it not being up to par with other similar games I have to play and have recently played.
It seems that for every cool thing there is an equal and opposite uncool thing.
There are two playable characters each with a different perspective on the same story. That's cool from a storytelling perspective. That's uncool from a gameplay perspective. What this means is that you can play each chapter in the game from one, then the other, character's perspectives. You go through the same areas, fight the same monsters, capture mostly the same folks, talk to mostly the same NPCs who tell you the same things. You do everything twice!
You capture enemies' ids (like souls here) to "tame" them and use them to fight. Sounds cool. It's pretty fun to do. But again, you have to do it all over again with each character in each area. It becomes repetitive quickly. I'm in chapter 2, and I sort of can't stand the thought of capturing the same folk, leveling them up twice, once for each character. The game does make sweet use of the Sixaxis controller. To capture a folk's id, you have to tilt the controller up I guess to "pull" the id out of the folk. It's fun.
Combat itself is pretty cool for a while. You assign different folks that you capture to the four action buttons, and you call them out in battle to attack. Great. Problem is that you start accumulating so many folks, you are going back to the menu a lot to switch them out for situational relevance. There is really irritating loading time each time you enter the menus, so switching out folks takes you right out of the action. It's also become repetitive and I've lost patience with it. Still a cool idea, still fun when you're on a roll, but not grabbing me.
The comic book cut scenes and the music were both really enjoyable at first, but now after 2 chapters, I'm noticing the lack of voice acting, the static dullness of the comic book scenes (which is how 90% of the story is presented) and the music that doesn't always seem to fit the situation.
The map is also pretty bad, with no indicator of your location. I frequently don't know where I am and get a little turned around in areas, which sucks because enemies respawn as soon as you leave an area. So you just fight fight fight forever. Then you do it AGAIN with the second character.
I really want to like this game more. I loved it for about an hour, and I think there are some genuinely cool gameplay mechanics like capturing folks and using them for battle, but there are just a lot of little tedious and annoying things about it. I would like to know what happens in the story, but I'm also okay just stopping, saving the time, and moving on to something else. For example, I know I will be playing God of War 3 next. I'm sure it has an excellent story and I'm sure the action combat is like 10000x better than Folklore's, so I'll just play the more enjoyable game!
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Mar 18th, 2014 at 11:01:57 - Resistance 2 (PS3) |
Resistance 2: Better than Resistance 1: Hopefully not as good as Resistance 3: The Game: The Movie: Based on the Best-selling Novel
Hooray! Resistance 2 was pretty great, highly highly action-packed and with more juicy story bits. In this game, as compared with Resistance 1:
- Nathan Hale, the main character, is no longer a silent protagonist. Now he is a gruff military type who yells at people over the radio and occasionally punches squadmates for insubordination. He does what he wants, with no inhibitors, and damn the Chimera virus inside of him turning him slowly into a monster.
- There are many new enemy types, and several good boss fights. Except the last boss fight, which is beyond boring. My favorite new enemy is the Chameleon. These things, which remind me of the Demons from Doom, are completely invisible until they get about 8 feet from you. You can sort of hear them breathing and then bounding from somewhere, and then they materialize and leap at you, giving you…literally…a fraction of a second to react and kill it. Chameleons are terrifying creatures. Luckily, they are very fragile and it only takes a couple bullets to kill them, although they also kill you in one hit. I hated them for a while because I felt my deaths to them were cheap since I couldn’t see them. I’d make some progress through a level, and then all of a sudden “huff huff huff [running noises getting closer] rooooooar” and I’d be swinging around wildly trying to figure out which direction it was coming from, and it’d pounce and kill me. Once you die to a couple of them, you learn where they are and then they are real easy to handle. I also learned to move through areas where Chameleons seemed likely with my back or side to a wall, minimizing the directions they could attack me from.
- This game has super scary moments. The horror elements in Resistance 1 fell flat, but they nailed some stuff here. Alongside the above-mentioned Chameleons, there were also zombie-like Chimera in pods that these giant spider-like enemies (Webbers, I think) encased. In Resistance 1, there were some pod-encased creatures, but all the pods always opened if you walked by, so it was predictable. These pods are scripted to open and they don’t all open. So there are a few areas that are just damn full of pods and you never know when and where they will open. These areas are often dark, so you’ve got out your flashlight. Then you’ll start to hear the bursting of some pods and the zombie-screams of the creatures sprinting toward you (they are very fast) and it’s freakin scary.
- Perhaps the best scary moments and best boss fight come from this weird energy mass enemy. It's like a swarm of bad vibes that looks sort of like tomb beetles from The Mummy, and you see it throughout its level moving and pulsing through corridors, killing people. Super creepy. It's smart too, and it realizes where you have to go to escape its facility, so it starts blocking your exits, forcing you into some kind of power generator room. Fortunately for you, electricity hurts it, so you have to lure it into these generators and this scientist NPC with you will cut the power on and hurt it. So to lure it, you have to let it get almost right next to you, then at the last minute dive into the generator and run out the other side. If it touches you, you die, and it won't follow you into the generator unless it's riiiight beside you. That part was extremely intense and my favorite boss battle of them all.
- There are some updated guns and alt firing modes. My favorite new addition is to the Auger, which is that gun that fires through walls. It’s back, but you can now SEE enemies through walls, in addition to just firing through them. It makes the gun much more useful. It sometimes feels sort of cheap to just shoot enemies through walls, but with the difficulty of the game, if you have an Auger, you need to use the Auger! I also figured out how to use the Chimeran pulse rifle’s homing beacon. Never really figured it out in Resistance 1, but it’s pretty useful. You tag an enemy with alt fire, then for 5 seconds or so, all your shots just zoom around obstacles and hit the tagged enemy, useful for taking out tough bad guys behind cover.
- Hale’s life now regenerates like a standard FPS, no partial regen and no health packs. There’s also far less ammo scattered around, which makes the environments much less cluttered with crap to pick up. Also, improved checkpoint system with checkpoints after pretty much every big firefight. The last game would kill you and you’d have to play through big chunks of the level again.
That’s about all that’s different. The difficulty is still higher than average. There are a lot of cool set fights with big enemies that feel amazing to win. There was one in particular that I remember where you and some squadmates were holed up in a bombed out building and around the perimeter of this town square, which you had to clear for a landing zone. There were like 5 Stalkers, big huge spidery mechs. Once you killed one, then about 5 Drones came out too, flying heavy machine gun turrets. You have to kill that entire missile-launching, machine gun firing horde with limited ammo, first from behind cover, and eventually out in the open to get the remaining Stalkers on the far side of the landing zone. Tough stuff. There were also more than a few parts with multiple of those big giant fireball-launching enemies. Those parts could be damn hard too, especially when you were like on a ramp or some narrow place where it was hard to find cover or dodge the fireballs. There was also an Armored Drone enemy, which was so hard to kill. One level had two of those, with two of the fireball-launching dudes in the background. Hard hard hard, but very cool setups.
Finally, let me bitch about that lame final boss battle, because it really did suck. You have to run through a series of domes. Once you get inside each dome, the doors will seal, and the boss will start ripping off the ceiling and slashing into the room to hit you. You just shoot him and stay out of his way. I can’t convey how simple this was. It’s easy not to get hit, and actually I’m unsure if you even have to shoot him at all, because he moves around until he rips the whole roof off, then the door opens and you can run to the next one. In between domes, there are a handful of enemies to kill, and the boss will fling ripped out ceiling tiles at you. Easy enough to stay behind cover. Though if you do die, which I did a couple times, once by falling off the edge (oops) and once by getting smashed with flying ceiling tiles (that’s how I learned to stay behind cover), you have to sit through the whole boring part of the boss ripping up tiles from every dome you go into again. There were 3 domes I think, and it took like 3 minutes per dome of you just standing there watching the boss go through the motions of ripping off ceiling tiles and futilely swiping at you.
You eventually reach the center power core, where the boss is tethered to some power conduit. Around the core there are a bunch of electric nodes, and electricity will extend from the core to the boss to one of the nodes. You have to shoot the node to damage the boss. Then the electricity will move to another node and you shoot that node, and on and on until he’s dead. It takes FOREVER. You just run around in a circle with the boss chasing you, shooting nodes. He will every now and then stop to swipe at you, but like the domes, unless you are literally right in front of him, he won’t hit you, and staying away from him is super easy. You just have to wait and wait and wait and repeat the same actions, running around the circle with the boss trailing you, shooting at electric nodes, until he dies. It look like 10 minutes and sooo boring and took no skill. I think it was so lame because in general the game plays on a high difficulty level with lots of tough encounters. I expected something epic at the end and it was a big letdown.
No worries though, bad boss battle didn’t mar the experience. Looking forward to Resistance 3 after I finish Folklore.
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Mar 18th, 2014 at 11:10:45.
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Mar 11th, 2014 at 15:23:40 - Card Hunter (Web) |
This is a free-to-play miniatures/card game made by a bunch of people from Irrational Games who were integral in creating Bioshock and System Shock, and some other people, and a couple Magic: The Gathering experts/consultants. Nice pedigree.
I've been screwing around with the game for a couple weeks and really enjoying it. They did a great job figuring out how to emulate the experience of playing a tabletop miniatures game on the computer. It's a really fun, charming game. There are a couple "characters," which are this sarcastic leet dungeon master, his little brother, their mom, and a pizza girl. Their interactions and the things they say are really funny. If you've spent any time at all playing D&D, Magic or any other game with a gaming group, you will totally get and love the humor. It's funny because obviously it's a card game, but just seeing what the characters say and do next is a large part of why I want to play it.
It's set up like you're playing a campaign at the DM's house, all the art drawn to look like tabletop figures playing on a map on a table, with dice and Cheetos and sodas on the table. The DMs talk to you, the older sarcastic one is always putting his little brother down in funny ways, and getting mad he loses, and the little brother likes the pizza girl and she is always asking what they are doing in the basement and he tries to be cool by telling her they are working out. I think eventually she'll see they're playing fantasy games and will be into it. The mom offers them drinks, tells you it's late and you need to leave.
Right, so the GAME, huh? It's a brand new system, familiar if you've played Magic or D&D and stuff. It would be pointless for me to go into all the rules, but useful to outline basically how it's set up. You get a team of 3 characters. Each character has a set of equipment. Each piece of equipment has several abilities, which are represented on the cards which make up your deck. So, if you equip no weapon, your bare fists, you might have 3 Weak Strike cards. Then a small sword might have 1 Weak Strike, 1 Stab and 1 Lunging Strike, so equipping it gives you those 3 cards instead of the 3 Weak Strikes that you had with bare fists. It's cool. There are, in general, weapons, armor, boots, trinkets, and racial/class skills (you can mix races -- dwarves [slower, more HP], elves [faster, less HP] or humans [normal] and classes -- fighter [melee DPS focus], priest [healing, defense focus] and mages [range DPS, pestering enemies focus). As far as I know, you can get (buy) a bunch of different character combinations. I have the basic free starter pack of human fighter, dwarf priest and elven mage.
As you level up your characters, which gain XP for being alive at the end of battles in campaigns, you unlock more equipment slots. Right now, I think my party is all level 10, and I've unlocked all the equipment slots (I think.) Now I get 'power gems' or something like that. Equipment of higher levels requires these, so each level each character gets another one to portion out into his/her equipment. So, level up characters, get stronger equipment from winning battles and campaigns, start to customize characters as you get a variety of skills and spells and abilities on your ever-improving equipment.
Battles are set up like tabletop campaigns, and you move your characters on a big world map. Select an available campaign for your level, read the module, listen to some dialogue by one of the GMs or watch the pizza girl deliver a pizza or whatever little character interaction, and then go fight. Battles are fun and strategic and by this point (level 9-10) are requiring me to tailor equipment for different battles/campaigns to be successful. You usually can't just rush in and bash enemies to death and survive anymore. You want to use piercing attacks against enemies with armor, keep away from strong enemies, not let Attack Dogs get behind you, shield your mage...there's a ton to consider!
There's also laddered multiplayer, where you can win items every day by winning matches. I played one match once and won (hooray), but have been sticking to single player mostly because in multiplayer, you have to build a separate set of characters and they start at max with tons of equipment, which is still a little bit of an information overload for me.
Their free-to-play model is really nice. It doesn't much affect single-player. If you sign up as a paying subscriber, you get an extra item at the end of every battle. You get so many items though, it doesn't seem to matter that you miss it. There are locked campaigns that you can't do unless you pay. These provide specific items, and I guess if you want the item, you have to buy and win the campaign. But regular campaigns can be played once per day, so instead of buying another campaign for your level, you can just wait a day and play the same one again to get XP and items. They do give you some pizza (in-game currency you buy with real dollars) to buy a few campaigns or character packs, so that's nice. Then, like I just said, you can buy more characters. I'm stuck with my 3 forever if I don't pay. You can also buy multiplayer character packs.
I think there's a ton to be had for free, and I'm nowhere near done. I'll probably try some more multiplayer at some point, once I get more used to having so many abilities and equipment to choose from, but for now, just enjoying the single-player campaigns, and looking forward to each character interaction!
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