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Sep 25th, 2012 at 11:41:10 - Plants War (Other) |
This is a little MOBA game on my Android. It is free and had high ratings with a ton of reviews. I'm not a big fan of MOBAs mostly due to the communities (a little too competitive and hardcore for me). I tried some LoL and DotA in times past and didn't care for either, even playing with friends. So anyway, I figured I'd try this highly rated single player one.
Verdict: It's fun enough for a while, but falls into one of the traps that other MOBAs fall into with me. It gets hella repetitive. Every match, same skills, same build order, same creeps spawning, same pushing, same same same. And in this game, the map is the same every time up to where I'm at (level 16 on Normal), which is halfway through the map. So I don't expect it to change. The differences are that each team has two towers instead of one now (maybe they ramp to three later) and the enemy periodically upgrades its hero and creeps. Every time it upgrades the hero, I get a grudge against it because it's noticeably harder. Right now I'm cursing "Damn polar bear!" Before that it was "Stupid penguin!"
So the key is to get boss kills. Their hero inevitably runs away when it takes damage, and you can't chase it down because the towers will kill you/the hero will heal and then turn around and kill you with the towers. But if you can chain some special attacks on the hero, you can get him down. You can also work the space by walling him behind some creeps so he can't take a straight line back to heal. This is great because heroes stay dead for like 30 seconds, which is more often than not enough time to push forward and kill a tower.
You can upgrade your own hero and creeps with gold that you receive after battles. There's another currency, leaves, that are really rare, but you need them to unlock stuff. That's where they get people at the cash shop I suppose. Basically, upgrades are few and far between. The last time I played just now I finally got a different hero, my second one, who is much stronger and has some different special attacks. I have like 4 different creeps, one tank-like one, one ranged one, and a couple regular melee ones. Since upgrading is so expensive, it contributes to the samey feeling of the game. And since the computer upgrades far more frequently (4 times now to my 2!) it definitely gets harder. But it also begins to feel unfair. Their creeps spawn at least twice as fast as mine now, or at least twice as many. I'm constantly outnumbered, which gets annoying because I end up getting walled in. That's supposed to be my trick, not theirs! Except they don't do it on purpose. They just bunch up around me and I can't go where I want and end up being shot to death.
Anyway. It's free and fun for a while.
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Sep 23rd, 2012 at 09:10:01 - Dear Esther (PC) |
This was an interesting tour of a secluded island. I've mixed feelings. I played the 1.4 hours of this earlier in the week and have been thinking about it since then, mostly trying to figure out the story. No conclusions have been forthcoming. As everyone has no doubt read, Dear Esther is less of a game and more of an interactive story. I would argue that when you play it you quickly develop a goal - explore the island - and the game quickly provides you with a reason to do so - listen to the story. If you consider navigation an obstacle, then there are constraints too. You can't wander anywhere you like, and are quite funneled toward where you're supposed to go. I say this because I never got 'off track' for more than a few minutes. So off you go, exploring the island and getting random story bits at predetermined spots.
The story made no sense to me until about halfway through when the narrator finally drops something that sounds factual and unambiguous, though whether it was is anyone's guess (actually, lots of people have been guessing over on the Steam forums and elsewhere). Lots of things in the story I'm unsure of, and I'm not even sure that I am sure of the things I thought I was sure of earlier. I thought I might trek over the island again, but after a week of mulling over my first experience, I don't really care to. It's a sad story, and the way I read it it's a cathartic ending, kind of uplifting but in a tragic way. Make sense? I have a feeling there's a lot of metaphor. The scribbling on the rock across the island is some indication of this, but I don't understand most of those references. I'm unsure of the characters and their relationships. Even that basic understanding is lacking for me. I thought I knew for a moment, but whatever I've come up with doesn't hold up when I think about it.
The island itself is gorgeous. Actually I felt like a tourist more than anything, F12 Steam Camera around my neck. I took about 40 screenshots. And although wandering the island was nice, I fully admit I was bored. Looking at scenery and listening to sparse artsy narration is only so exciting. So thumbs up for the length of it, appropriately short. IF you were to play through a second time, I expect it would be slower, paying more attention to detail and actively looking for story hints scattered around the island.
It would have been funny if there was a zombie. Just one zombie. It would have wrecked the mood and made no sense, but I would have been amused.
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Sep 17th, 2012 at 10:19:47 - Homefront (PC) |
Homefront, Homefront, Homefront. At first I thought, Wow, you are a serious game. This will pull my heartstrings and make me hum the national anthem as I shut down the computer post-play. I will break out my American flag bed sheets and go to bed warm knowing that I am safe and that North Korea will never invade the country I love...
And then I got to what I will refer to as the Product Placement level, which was the most ridiculous piece of crap I've ever had to put up with. The Product Placement level is otherwise an interesting level, as is most of the game, except that there are approximately 5 blatant product placements. Let me list the ones I caught (both up to and including the Product Placement level):
1. At least 2 Pabst Blue Ribbon ads
2. White Castle billboard
3. NOS energy drink machines
4. I'm pretty sure there was a different energy drink earlier that I don't remember, before I started writing these down.
5. Fender billboard
6. Coffee Beanery building
7. The Product Placement level takes place in and around a GIANT TigerDirect.com megastore and a Hooters. A HOOTERS. Are you kidding me? My FAVORITE part of the game was in this level when my squadmate continues to yell at me, "ENEMIES IN THE HOOTERS!" The first time I heard it I almost fell out of my chair laughing. "ENEMIES IN THE HOOTERS!" I just wanted another character to yell so bad, "I HEAR THEY HAVE GOOD CHICKEN WINGS!"
Like, the number and prominence of the ads was just stupid and I almost quit the game right then. I'm okay with small ads in games here and there, like on a can or like a small thing. But these were giant billboards and buildings, the only things on the horizon, and the freaking level took place in the freaking TigerDirect.com store with like 1000 TigerDirect.com decals plastered everywhere. For like 20 minutes I looked at TigerDirect.com and listened to "ENEMIES IN THE HOOTERS!"
But I powered on through my ill feelings about the ads and beat the level. Oddly, there isn't hardly any product placement after that level. They just got it all out of them right there.
So this game was quite fun. It's an extremely guided experience and the set events were really exhilarating at times. You get to take control of several vehicles and use a couple special weapons throughout, all of which I enjoyed. The chopper mission guarding the oil tankers was probably my favorite of all. I actually got a special achievement on it for not dying once! It feels very old-school because there is no cover system, no RPG elements, no sound or line of sight mechanics. For there to be no cover system, there sure is a lot of cover. You just crouch and pop out and shoot and crouch again. It's like Homefront ignored many of what I consider advances in the FPS genre over this generation of games. Same thing for no RPG elements. In a day and age where like every game has something that levels up, Homefront feels oddly pure. And for the sound/visual mechanics, what I mean is that you don't sneak. One mission, we were 'sneaking' up a tower, and I didn't even realize it until my squadmate assassinated an oblivious guard. I was like, wait, we were sneaking? There's no sneak button! Shouldn't he have heard us? But that doesn't concern Homefront. There is another mission, the stealthy farm mission, and several instances in other missions, where you must make your way from A to B without being detected. In the farm mission, I CLEARLY made eye contact with numerous enemy soldiers, but because the whole of Homefront is so completely scripted, it seems that if they weren't supposed to see me, they wouldn't. The scripting is sometimes irritating because it so limits the player's freedom. You pretty much can't move anywhere unless the game says "go there," but even then 95% of the time you're following an ally and you inexplicably HAVE to follow. You will hit all kinds of invisible walls if you try to go ahead of them, or climb a ladder before them. So it's a hell of a simple game. The plus side is the shooting feels awesome.
My least favorite part of the game, gameplay-wise, was going through the Utah farm. This level was very slow-paced compared to the rest, and rubbed me the wrong way like the Product Placement level. I will call this one the Southern Redneck Stereotype level. In this stereotype, most Americans who love guns and are kind of crazy will be given a Southern accent and portrayed as a racist hillbilly, especially in games. This is why Southern accents are way overrepresented in military games. So even though this farm was in UTAH, at least 1/2 the characters there talked like they were from Georgia. "We gon' kill them stupid Norks y'all. Jes gimme my gun and watch 'em dance!" Like seriously, so annoying. As someone from the south, I hate it when Southerners are portrayed this way. Yes, we are all dumb, racist, gun-toting, freedom-loving backwoods retards who wear flannel and talk funny. Thank you Homefront for reminding me of my roots.
The game is quite graphic too with its depictions of violence, in the beginning especially. It totally preps you with a school bus ride through occupied Main Street where you watch a lot of civilians die in various disturbing ways. There is also a scene later on that is definitely one of the most disturbing scenes of a game ever, somewhere up there with sticking a needle in Isaac's eye in Dead Space 2, except more of a genocidal kind of way. But I'll let it surprise you...
It also attempts to have you empathize with the characters, but doesn't do a very good job. It's mostly a little laughable, in part due to all the cursing and the far far stretch that is the story. It's a cool idea, don't get me wrong, but come on. The little home away from home in suburbia was a notable eye-roller. "It's our little piece of America" the guy says as the kid swings on the playset and the woman cooks a meal in the kitchen. Makes me all teary-eyed! Hey wait a minute, all the children in the game look like Bobby Hill. And the (adult) characters curse like sailors. It's a little over the top. But I won't lie. I felt oddly patriotic running through suburbia defending Joe Everyman from the invaders, and finally at the end, assaulting the Golden Gate Bridge. That's a whole different question too. What exactly did my rebel group accomplish? We blew up a couple tanks, one Goliath, a helicopter, and killed maybe 100 troops on the Golden Gate Bridge...and freed America? Ummm. I thought North Korea had a bigger army than that...
And seriously, a big 'what the hell' goes out to the length. I beat this sucker in under 4 hours. What a joke! You want to make a AAA FPS and you're going to have a 4-hour campaign? Fail. Did they run out of time? What happened there? I would have been pissed if I'd paid more than a few bucks for this. Oh well. I don't not recommend Homefront. If you want a short, action-packed, scripted shooter, grab it on the cheap. It's got some cool things going for it.
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Sep 16th, 2012 at 03:52:18 - Total War: Shogun 2 (PC) |
I booted up Total War: Shogun 2 yesterday afternoon to check out this deep strategy game. It has been sitting installed and dormant on this computer since the summer sometime. A bit about my large-scale strategy game history: I've never played a Total War game. When I was younger, like probably in my teens, I spent time with one of the Civilization games (maybe #2) and Age of Empires. I always liked Civilization a lot, but Age of Empires was borderline. I enjoy building cities. I enjoy making alliances and trading. I enjoy getting rich.
RTSes are generally a good fit for me IF they are not too heavy on the military aspect. Oddly, I can do fantasy just fine. Starcraft and Dawn of War games I absolutely adore. Company of Heroes and other more militarily realistic games I just go over my head. It's all the units and the strong-against-this/weak-against-that, cover, tons of formations and abilities, gun types, ammo types, tank types, all this military jargon. I don't understand it. I don't have much interest in playing real Army. Squad-based shooters go the same way. Something about the realism and the tactics I don't like. Again, somehow I can do fantasy just fine.
So Total War unfortunately for me falls under the 'too militaristic' side. It's set in feudal Japan in like 1545 or something when a bunch of clans were warring over supremacy. Cool idea. But there's no story. Just: become shogunate. Bad idea. I wasn't compelled by any narrative. The game does give you context-specific objectives, like if the citizens in one of your towns are becoming unruly, an objective may appear that says to garrison the city by building a couple units. And there are a shit ton of units and things to build. Each city, as far as I got, can be upgraded with 3 additional buildings, which can all be upgraded several times, plus you can upgrade roads, farms, markets, and all kinds of other stuff. All of the upgrading serves one purpose or another, bringing in more money, making this or that kind of unit have some melee resistance, and a hundred other possibilities. So I was trying to learn what was the importance of each type of unit. There are a bunch of different types of archers, spearmen, cavalry, gunmen, bomb-tossing men, siege weapons, ships, swordsman, and on and on, then special units like ninjas and monks. And they all use the Japanese names, and I just wasn't memorizing them all.
I guess my biggest problem with the game was information overload. Right from the beginning, during the 2-hour tutorial campaign, I was just overwhelmed. The adviser ('help' NPC who explains menus and functions to you) basically talked at me the entire time. Then when I started a regular campaign map, she just started talking at me again, everything I clicked on. It was like "Here is a ton of information! Here is some more information! Here, have even more information! I hope you're remembering all this -- oh look, more information!"
I sucked at the battles, so I was happy when I could autoresolve them all, which seems to be more or less a numbers game. In the battles, you control squads of like 100 or so units of whatever types you have on a giant battlefield. They move real slow, and you're supposed to be able to plan tactics to flank with cavalry, send your spearmen in front of your archers to protect them and stab enemy cavalry charges, bombard with catapults, etc. etc. It's neat for sure, but I just hated playing the battles.
On the contrary, the special units were quite fun to play with. See, I always liked Civilization because I think there was less emphasis on fighting and more on culture or diplomacy or other methods of doing things (if I remember correctly). So if you build the proper building, you can recruit a ninja. Ninjas sneak around the map and you can have them attempt assassinations against enemy generals to weaken an army's morale, or have them open city gates before you charge in with your army so it's easier to take. Monks can be sent to cities to convert the population to Buddhism. I played some of one campaign before giving up in frustration. The #1 problem I had was that I discovered a European trade route, and from that point on Christianity spread though my cities like a damn plague. Since I was Buddhist and didn't want to convert, my citizens got all uppity and kept revolting. I tried to quell them with troops and new castles and pubs, and eventually tried to send monks around to bring them back to the Way, but their splinter religious rebel armies ended up sacking a bunch of my towns. I never even got off my little starting island in the campaign. Which was set on 'easy' by the way.
Shogun 2 also has massive technology and skill trees that you start learning at the beginning of the game for your clan and for individual generals and special units as they gain rank through battle and use. That was also overwhelming. I could see trying to pick on strategy, like "I will be very strong with melee fighters and have a strong economy to back up mass production," and having that focus my play some, but this time it was just hectic. There is also a diplomacy menu where you can make alliances, declare war, trade hostages, and so on. It's a lot of stuff.
I wish I hadn't uninstalled the game already because I would copy all my recent activity to show how much I was getting my butt kicked. It was something like this each turn by the end:
"Citizens revolting in X City"
"Christians feel oppressed and revolting in Y City"
"Trade route is being attacked!"
"Trade route is being attacked!"
"Citizens revolting in H City"
"The enemy has destroyed your supply lines in D City!"
"Christian rebel forces defect to enemy army!"
"Tagashi clan has declared war on you!"
"Murakami clan has broken your peace treaty and declared war on you!"
...
..
.
And for the record, I never lost. I QUIT!
Seriously though, it really is a neat game especially if this kind of strategy game is your thing. It's obvious that a ton of research into historical Japan went into this, and the militaries, cultures, music, visuals, etc. are really well done. But this type of strategy game isn't my thing, and now I know to avoid the Total War series!
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