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Feb 19th, 2013 at 02:52:06 - Canabalt (PC) |
Sitting at work feeling tired and like I've been reading too much. Went to get some tea and decided to boot a game for a bit for some stimulus. Apparently Steam needs an update, and won't update at work anymore. I know I haven't been able to download new Steam games since forever, but I haven't tried to run Steam here in at least 3 months. Must update at home then...
So I decided to try one of the little non-Steam games I got from a Humble Bundle called Canabalt. I don't know why it was in a Humble Bundle because it is a free Flash game online. I usually avoid all Flash games because there are a trillion of them and I'd rather play bigger games. But since I technically paid a tiny amount of money for Canabalt in a bundle, I'm playing, dammit.
Canabalt is an endless running game, and is apparently (from reading a little) quite revered. I can see why. It's got a ton of style. It's grayscale pixel graphics and a nice futuristic electronic soundtrack featuring a couple songs. The backstory appears to be something about robots attacking, and I'm running, running across rooftops. I was surprised that, upon my second run, the spot I died was not in the same spot. The levels are randomly generated! This is awesome because upon that second run, I was like, ok, this sucks, I have to start memorizing where windows are...but I didn't! Instead I had to quickly react to every new rooftop.
My #1 killers were said windows. Those are hard because you have to accurately judge how hard to press the jump button. All you can do in the game is jump, and you can hold it for a longer jump or tap it for a shorter jump, and whatever in between. As you run, you build up speed, making your longer jumps really long. When windows suddenly appear, and you're flying across a rooftop, getting that light touch on the jump key is tough, after 15 minutes of playing at least - I was already getting better at it. Other obstacles include these things that pop up from the (middle it seems) of rooftops that kill you, grind you to dust or whatever the death message says. Just jump over those. Then there are boxes and chairs that, if you hit them, slow you down. I found these are actually real useful to manage your speed. I'd run into them sometimes on purpose to slow down a bit. It seems the distances between buildings are determined (when I don't know) based on how fast you're going. So the slower you are, the easier the windows are to jump into because you have more time to see them coming and gauge how hard you need to jump. But if you hit too many boxes (sometimes there will be 2 right next to, or on top of, one another), that's bad because you slow down too much and might not be able to jump far enough. The goal of the game is to get as high a score as possible. I made it to over 3000, my personal best after 15 minutes.
Problem is that once I looked up from the game (after halfway through my session and at the end) the back of my desk, all my books, my other monitor, it was all moving left to right like my Canabalt character. Uuuungh, my head and stomach said. I got up and walked around a minute after the first time, and put my head down after the second. I started feeling better about 10 minutes after turning it off. What nonsense is that? So, as cool as I find Canabalt to be, I'll have to let that poor guy die by robots because I'm not going to get nauseous to run him across rooftops to safety (or quick and painful death, in my case). And that's too bad.
This is the...third notable endless running game I've played. This is like a genre now, right? Canabalt, Mirror's Edge (loved), and Temple Run (didn't care much for). I'm sure there are a ton more. What is it? Endless running games? Always running? Newton's First Law games? Jumpjumpjump games? Or swipeswipeswipe on phones and tablets?
Unnngh. This game did nothing help me get back to work!
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Feb 16th, 2013 at 19:40:00 - Halo 3 (360) |
I sure am glad I played the Bungie Halo trilogy. These are top notch FPS games. Halo 3 was fantastic. I would rank them, Halo 2, 3, 1. The story is fantastic, and the shooting is tons of fun, fast, guns a-plenty. The games did remind me especially of Gears of War. It seems Microsoft has a penchant for kickass sci-fi FPS exclusives.
There were a couple new/different things in Halo 3. They added items and a new grenade type. The new grenade type is a flare, and just seems to be a really weak grenade. I never used them. The items are cool I guess, but again, I never used them. You can drop a health regen field, various shields and cover, go invisible, and so on. I tried to play the game like Halo 1 and 2 without those things and did fine. Though I'm sure if you play on a harder difficulty, items become indispensable. I actually began the game on 'heroic' because it said 'this is the way Halo was meant to be played,' but I was getting slaughtered five minutes into the game and did not want that to continue, so I switched it back to normal. Like all the other Halos, this was still hard enough. But there are noticeable differences! In the beginning, there's no tutorial on heroic. It just drops you in. On normal, oddly, it just asks you to look up and down. I wonder if on easy it walks you through movement, controls and so on. After that, in heroic, the first groups of enemies have grenade launchers, there were extra enemies, snipers on cliff tops, and they all fire like bam bam bam bam! and do a ton of damage. I noticed on normal, those enemies didn't have grenade launchers yet, they fired slower, there was no sniper in the cliffs, etc. They way Halo was 'meant' to be played then is really hardcore!
The main difference between Halo 3 and the previous ones is that you can no longer just sprint from checkpoint to checkpoint. 90% of the time I tried this, I died. It worked a bit toward the very end of the game, but that's all. It's because the enemies will punish you for doing that! They run after you more in this game, they seem to do more damage, and...yeah, you just aren't going to make it. So the game must be played more thoroughly than the others. You have to be more methodical in clearing out rooms, killing everything, and so on. This was hard at times, and I got stuck on a few places. One was this part where you have to kill two...I don't remember the name...big giant walker robots. While you're trying to to that, there are enemies flying all over the place in vehicles shooting you. One part in particular took me like 30 minutes to finally get. You had to kill these two anti-air guns so your ally's ship could land. To get to the guns though, you had to go through a friggin deathtrap. There was a big bomb-lobbing vehicle ahead and to the right, a guard tower with a deadly plasma turret and some tough enemies on the left, a bunch of enemies flying on their little vehicles, another plasma turret tower and snipers and other enemies past the bomb-lobbing vehicle. The placement of things was such that if you went after anything besides the bomb-lobbing vehicle, it was hard not to get hit by it, if you didn't die by the other vehicles or plasma turret. If you went after the bomb-lobber, the little vehicles usually came and killed you as soon as you blew it up. If you tried to run for the anti-air guns, the second plasma turret and snipers would get you. I just had to try a million different approaches, even backtracking to find new vehicles to bring with me. Finally got it though, but man, tough.
That's about it. Great game, great trilogy. I have Halo Reach, but I'll pass on that for now. On to something else!
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Feb 12th, 2013 at 03:31:55 - Halo 2 (XBX) |
WOW. Halo 2 is awesome. Infinitely better than Halo 1. I beat it over this 4-day weekend that is (sadly) ending. Every single issue I had with the first game was addressed. The level design is no longer repetitive. They were well done, interesting and fun to play. Many environments had space for flanking, some had cover and some didn't, and the enemies were much more varied, with tough guys being thrown at you early and easy guys still being used in numbers late. Also in the late game were hordes of really tough enemies. These battles were epic.
The sparse story was fixed. This game dove into what was going on within the Covenant, what their goals were, and how they were internally divided and betrayed. You actually spend 1/2 the game as Master Chief, the human hero, and 1/2 the time as The Arbiter, who isn't the Covenant hero, but in digging through the lies of their leaders and being hunted by seemingly everyone, ends up inadvertently helping the humans. The story was *excellent,* and it ends smack on a cliffhanger where I assume Halo 3 picks up, which I will be playing next.
In Halo 2 you can dual wield! My favorite thing was to dual wield plasma rifles. In Halo, it was the Needler, which was still fun. There are also a bunch of other guns, including a shotgun, sniper rifle, missile launcher, rocket launcher, beam laser, and energy sword. The energy sword is iconic, and I remember it from multiplayer. There was always some guy at the top of the ranking who ran around slaughtering me with that sword. But it's fun to use! It was especially fun to use, as were most weapons, with The Arbiter's stealth ability. You can activate it for about 10 seconds, then it takes at least as long to cool down again. Usually, I could just run past enemies while stealthed, but occasionally I used it for a from-behind sword kill.
Halo 2 uses the same checkpoint system as Halo 1 did, which is sort of unfortunate because again I found myself just sprinting for the next checkpoint. These suicide runs were extremely challenging and fun though! It's like playing the game a different way. You can shoot your way through, or try and sprint (and stealth on and off with The Arbiter). I dare say I got very good at jumping, strafing, dodging, and one-shotting enemies as I darted around looking for a way through each area.
Halo 2 had a bit more/fun vehicle sections than the first game, which was welcome. I like that you usually get your choice of whatever is laying around, and the same with weapons. You're quite the scavenger. But it gives you choices of what guns to equip and which vehicle to drive almost all the time, and that's a nice feeling.
One thing I thought might be an issue is that the game would look dated, being 2003 or 2004 on Xbox. But this must have been one of the best looking Xbox games ever because I barely noticed. It looks great. I did have this odd issue where the game would burn an image on the top 1/2 of my TV screen, and keep that image there as the game continued. It was hard to see through, and I ended up having to reset my console every so often if it didn't go away after a few minutes. I imagine that's just something to do with playing it on the 360, or with my TV, but I have no idea.
Anyway, top notch stuff. After Halo 1, I was sure Halo 2 would be better. But now after the excellence of Halo 2, I am *hoping* I am not let down by Halo 3!
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Feb 10th, 2013 at 03:34:56 - Halo Anniversary (360) |
Finished up Halo Anniversary last night (happy Lunar New Year!). It was a good game, but I didn't have my mind blown or anything. 13 years does make a difference, even though the graphics and sound were enhanced by this new edition. I'm sure it was incredible in 2001. There were a couple big issues I saw. One was the terribly repetitive level design. I eventually recruited my friend to help me play toward the end, and in our first session together, he said at least 10 times, "Wait, haven't we been here before? Where are we (going)?" You fight down the same hallways with the same numerous waves of enemies forever and ever. This isn't bad in like the first half of the game, but it picks up as the enemies get harder. But one thing this repetitive level design/enemy onslaught led to was me/us just sprinting through levels to the next checkpoint. Tons of enemies in your way? Run run run to the next checkpoint! If your shields get damaged, find a place to hide for 10 seconds, then continue your sprint to the checkpoint!
The other issue was the lack of detail in the story. It just alludes to this and that. There seem to be big reasons and machinations behind everything that is happening, but it's all very cryptic. I understand what Halo is and what I'm doing there, and what the Covenant is doing and who the Flood are, but especially 343 Guilty Wheatley is mysterious. I hope all this gets cleared up in later games. What is Covenant culture like? What is their religion that I am so offending? What's the origin of the Flood? What's up with all the other Halo worlds? 343 Guilty Wheatley alludes to like 100,000 years of backstory, but I don't get any of it.
Besides these things, the gameplay itself is quite fun. It's fast, frantic, and the weapons are a blast to use. I especially enjoy the Needler because it shoots like mini sticky bombs that explode after a few seconds. That coupled with the Covenants' silly screaming and ranting is hilarious. I had anxieties about the vehicles because in my experience in multiplayer years past, as well as with other Halo engine games like Stubbs the Zombie, the vehicle controls are abysmal, and they act like they're floating on the moon. But, and maybe this was because it was the enhanced Anniversary edition, the controls weren't that bad. Floaty, yeah, but manageable and wacky fun. Also, the game's difficulty is excellent. I played on normal and I had a nice challenging time.
I'm starting Halo 2 now, which is the proper original Xbox version. My biggest hopes are that the story will become clearer in the details, the level design won't be so repetitive (surely they learned!) and that the older graphics won't be a hindrance to my enjoyment. Let's go Master Chief!
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Feb 10th, 2013 at 03:35:24.
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