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Jun 5th, 2012 at 10:41:20 - Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas (360) |
Feel like closing a couple of these...
Typically not a fan of squad-based tactical shooters, but Vegas was pretty sweet. Picked it and Vegas 2 up last year due to some really high reviews, so thought I'd give them a shot. I haven't played one of these types of games in a long time, since the first SWAT (I think that was squad-based...), and immediately I noticed how intuitive the controls were. That's an issue I always had with squad games, too many menus and commands and micromanaging AI. But this, this control scheme is magical. If you want to change add-ons for a gun, you just hold the gun's button and hit left, right, up or down to select whichever add-on. It's SO EASY. And giving orders is just done with the D-pad, and when you see a context-sensitive object, a rope or door or something, the D-pad commands change so your squad interacts with that object. There are clear pictures and it's just very very easy to understand and use.
There's also not the prerequisite of years' worth of interest in weaponry and military gear to understand the guns and grenades and tactics. It's simple enough for me, which I really appreciate. I actually think about my loadout and use most of the options available to me, which I rarely do even in games that I fully understand.
My AI teammates are also not suicidal or (too) dumb, which I also really appreciate. Sometimes they won't listen to move commands or one will get stuck somewhere, but generally they listen up, take good cover, make good decisions, and don't aid the enemy in bringing about my demise. They are especially useful for sending into the middle of a firefight because they can hold their own. If I'm scared to go forward, like if I think there is an enemy hiding, I'll just send them out in the open. Sure, they get shot, but they'll draw fire, and if they don't see the enemy and shoot him, I can. Usually my two guys are an even match for any outnumbered situation. But a weird thing, if they get shot down, I can go heal them or order one to heal the other, but if I get shot down, I die and it's game over. Why can't they heal me on their own? Reminds me of Gears of War, perks of playing with others (even if they're AI) -- you can heal them.
The level design is excellent. All levels have multiple pathways, flanking routes, many are vertical with 2 or 3 levels. I mean, staging a shooter in Las Vegas is just brilliant! The first time I had to infiltrate a casino that the terrorists took over was incredible, blasting enemies and slot machines, money flying everywhere, the ding ding ding of jackpots, the blinking casino lights, smoke grenades temporarily obscuring vision, AI yelling to one another...seriously cool stuff. I must say I could care less about the story, but the game is so fun and urgent that I was happy to go rescue a scientist, and then go rescue another scientist, and then save a hostage, and then infiltrate another glitzy casino like I cared about saving Las Vegas from terrorists instead of wreaking havok throughout it myself.
Unfoooooortunately I got stuck :( I'm kinda near the end and I still have Vegas 2, so I don't really care, but it's too bad I'm not good enough to beat this part! I'm in a theater. One of my squad mates needs to hack this computer there on the stage while the other squad mate and myself defend him from incoming enemies who pop out from the balconies to snipe (which I shoot like whack-a-mole) and who stream in from the hallway outside. Those are the deadly ones since they all just run and take cover behind the rows and rows of chairs, tossing smoke grenades so I can't see them. My hacker teammate just keeps on dying every time. I went to walkthroughs for tips and I still couldn't get it. The walkthroughs make it sound like an easy enough fight (and all refer to some ominous 'hardest part of the game' later on), just hide behind a box and shoot enemies, maybe throw a grenade here or there. I really can't do it though. So on that note, I'll just put Vegas back on the shelf and pull down Vegas 2 when I feel like some more Sin City shooting.
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May 20th, 2012 at 14:35:53 - Batman: Arkham City (360) |
Started and finished Arkham City over the weekend. I thought the game was supposed to be longer. The previews went on and on about it being five times the size of Arkham Asylum, but it was all just space! There wasn't any more content, and probably even less buildings to go in. The campaign on the whole took me I don't know how long, but like a few hours Friday night, most of the day Saturday and like an hour to wrap up Sunday...maybe 12 hours or so. But it doesn't matter because it was awesome. The space wasn't a bad thing at all, as it let Batman focus on one thing he does well -- flying through Gotham. The controls and movement are way better in this game (or is it on Xbox vs PC?). Everything was tight and fluid, and the fighting is incredible. I didn't get it as much in the first one, but this one the combat really did it for me. I think it is mostly the Xbox controller, but there were also a lot of new moves, like practically endless combat techniques to master, and it looked and felt better.
Other than the larger amount of space with which to play in, the rest of the game is basically the same and sequel to the first one. All the characters are great, story is really interesting, game feels gritty as hell. This one was different in that Joker isn't like THE bad guy. There are a few villains prominent, and most of the ones you take down last time show up in side quests or just briefly -- Killer Croc, Bane, Victor Zsasz, to name a few -- and there are a bunch of great parts and story tie-ins with characters who weren't in the last one. My favorites were OF COURSE the ones that make Batman trip. Since the Sandman isn't in this one, and he was by far my favorite last time (besides Joker), I was thrilled to see that Batman still trips thanks to the Mad Hatter and Ra's al Ghul, both sequences of which were great, and both of whom turn out to be integral to the storyline.
I have to compare Arkham City to Assassin's Creed 2, which I recently played. They are both free-form movement/fighting action/stealth games. I like Assassin's Creed, I really do. But seriously, it has nothing on Arkham City (or the previous Arkham Asylum). Batman and Joker and all the rest are just infinitely more interesting than Ezio and faceless conspirator bad guys. Rich Venetian merchant bad guy vs. oh, I don't know...Victor Zsasz. Florentine nobleman vs. Mr. Freeze. Seriously, which are more interesting? Arkham City basically kicks the crap out of Assassin's Creed in most categories. The controls are tighter, the fighting is more fun, the location and characters are more interesting, the extras are more interesting and more fun to find and relate to the story better...on and on. The one thing I love about Assassin's Creed are the assassinations of course. Batman doesn't actually kill anyone, so there understandably aren't many of those badass moments when you've been hunting said Venetian nobleman for an hour and finally get him. However, what makes a Batman story a Batman story are the moral dilemmas he faces, such as what's it worth to stick to your guns and never kill. Then again Ezio's storyline revolves around him becoming an assassin, so they both work great. I'm glad I played AC first because I might have been disappointed if I'd played it after Batman...I do still have AC: Brotherhood, but I swear I will wait a good long time on that one to forget about Batman for a while.
Regarding the extras, good lord is there a lot of additional content here. I thought Assassin's Creed 2 had a lot with its 300 treasure chests and storyless sidequests to get you to assassinate someone or deliver a letter. Batman has REAL sidequests with stories that aren't just pretenses to get you to run through the city and deliver mail. Find Mr. Freeze's wife. Track down a sniper as he kills again and again. Answer Victor Zsasz's incessant phone calls as he leads you deeper and deeper into his homicidal beginnings. Oh yes, and bigger than all of them again is the Riddler. I love the Riddler. He placed 400...yes 400...Riddler Trophies across Arkham City. I found about 1/4 of them through the game. Wow. Many of them you just go into detective mode and find weak spots in walls or go the opposite direction of where you're supposed to or explore like usual, but a lot too are real brainteasers. He stepped up his game this time around. You have to make use of like ALL your gadgets and brains to get these Riddler Trophies. I have half a mind to keep going with my post-game to collect some more. Bonus: collecting Riddler Trophies unlocks Riddler hostage events, where you have to go solve a riddle before he kills his next victim. The last one I couldn't figure out because he cheats! Silly me, trusting that the Riddler would play by the rules. It's the only time I turned to a FAQ and when I read it I was like...wtf! Of course! All this is SO much more interesting than Assassin's Creed's "buy a treasure map. ok, now they're all marked on your map. go methodically search for them to fill your capitalist need to accumulate wealth." Games with Batman's type of extra content make me want to keep playing. Games with Assassin's Creed's type of extra content make me annoyed and want to finish the main game ASAP and never pick it up again. This is a really important lesson in game design for real. Putting things all over the map for players to collect because they are compelled to collect is cheap. Give them a better reason to collect, one that is meaningful, and not just in terms of in-game money. Batman is a great example.
The game looks incredible like the last one did. Gotham's skyline, seriously, great job. Arkham City is divided up into districts, but I liked the way Arkham Asylum was set up better. So in City, there's basically Joker's district, Penguin's district, and government offices, and the TYGER zone. They're not too distinct and they're always infiltrating each other's space. Anyway, in Asylum, one of my favorite things about the game was the way the environment changed over the course of it. I particularly remember that as Joker gained more control over the asylum, he did some interior decorating and began leaving his marks everywhere, changing signs, painting walls, laying traps. The other transformation was Poison Ivy's base. That was incredible. Like that entire part of town got taken over by plants. There wasn't anything like that in City. The closest thing was when the steel mill got flooded, but that was nothing like the game-long transformations of Joker's and Poison Ivy's domains in Asylum. Oh, well I guess near the end there is one, but you're not really in the city like you were the rest of the game. It's still cool, but different.
So to wrap up, there are all these extra Riddler trophies to get. There are like 80 special levels where you fight and get points for leaderboards, including levels you can customize, fighting challenges and 'predator' challenges, and like 180 Riddler campaigns to play where you choose mutators in each level and have to play through like 3 levels using all the mutators they give you. Looks challenging! If I wanted to try and hone my Batman skills, I would have plenty of opportunity. And it's tempting, but unfortunately, as usual, I have a billion other games waiting. Perhaps I'll come back to it later to complete some more extras. There is also some Catwoman DLC with apparently a totally different storyline (and her own Riddler trophies!). I'm not big on DLCs, especially if the normal game didn't feel finished enough, but Arkham City rules, and I'm borrowing it from a friend, so I haven't paid anything, and am therefore looking into buying my first non-bundle-sale-pack DLC. We shall see if it appears worth it!
Play this game!
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May 20th, 2012 at 05:09:43 - Dead Space 2 (PC) |
Another excellent game, right up on par with the first one. There's really not much to say, especially if you know anything about the Dead Space games. It's like Dead Space 1, but...again. There are a couple new things, a couple new enemies, some anti-grav boots and more anti-grav flying sections that were cool. There were definitely more power nodes to upgrade weapons too. I mostly maxed out my suit, stasis, pulse rifle, and flame thrower. Last time I remember using the bolt thrower gun and the buzzsaw a lot. I changed it up this time and by the end was going with pulse rifle and flame thrower, with some javelin gun and line cutter tossed in for certain situations. The flame thrower was definitely my favorite.
The game is scary as hell and not an easy trip. It still masterfully lures you into rooms only to fill them with Necromorphs. A couple memorable moments include the elevator and the Ishimura. In the elevator sequence, you're riding up and up and up, and...queue giant enemies on the outside of the elevator! One after another, they bash windows and swing their claws at you, so you've got to dodge out of the way, shoot its weak points, turn to find the next one, and again and again, like 10 or 12 times. When I finally beat it my heart was racing and I realized I was gripping the mouse really tight. Seriously intense sequence. The other memorable moment is going back through the Ishimura, specifically the beginning. The Ishimura was the poor ship from the first game, and when I found out I had to go back in this game, oh man, I got anxious already. Then when you go in the Ishimura, it's just quiet. Just dead silent. There's hazard plastic up and it's obviously in the process of being cleaned and checked out to find out what went on last time, and it is SO SO SO creepy in there. And did I mention that it's silent? You go through rooms and corridors and nothing happens. You keep expecting something to happen but nothing will come for you. Then it gets a little less silent, and a little less, and still nothing happens. It's like 5 or 10 minutes of dread building up. I will probably remember that forever. There's stuff from the first game I still think about sometimes, like the asteroid blaster sequence where the gunshots form the drums to the soundtrack. That part was incredible. And of course the ending of DS1...the ending of DS references it. It's pretty funny and (spoiler) doesn't make you jump.
I love these games. These are two of my favorite survival horror games ever. I have a Wii one sitting around but haven't had the chance to play it. DS3? Please?
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May 20th, 2012 at 04:44:15 - Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana (PS2) |
I've been burning through games faster than I can think much about them. Just trying to get this massive list shrunk a bit. I could have skipped this one though. Oh well! It was fun enough, but nothing special. I thought it would have some neat item/crafting system but that part, which was one of its unique bits, was just lame. The other unique bit that I did like was that you get Mana (otherwordly spirit-type beings) on your journey, and when you get one, sometimes it comes with a skill, like the Earth mana you can summon as a stepping stone, one of the others gives you a barrier to protect you from fire and other things on the map that hurt you, and at the end you get one that lets you fly some, which actually kind of renders most of the others useless. Each dungeon and area is a navigable map with obstacles and things that you need to jump and use your mana skills to get around. There are items and treasure everywhere to get you to try and reach places.
I'll explain the item system briefly. So there are like 15 or so different types of mana (fire, earth, dark, light, etc., etc.). In order to get mana, you can extract it from enemies, and more often, from items in the environment. So if you use extract element on a rock, you get some stone mana. Each mana you can hold up to 99. Ok so there are the obvious things like rocks giving you stone mana or fire giving you fire mana. Then there are like 100 other items, like various foods and plants, that also give you different types. These items respawn every time you leave a map screen and come back, so you have infinite mana of most types, basically. You use this mana to create items, which you find recipes for throughout the game. So your basic healing potion takes some water mana. You've got to use a Mana (creature) with a water attribute to help you make the potion. Some mana are more efficient with whatever mana type (water Mana is more efficient with water mana than the spirit Mana is with water mana, and the fire Mana can't even use water mana).
Does this sound needlessly complicated? It is. I think it just adds steps to getting a damn healing potion! Why can't I just find a healing potion? Why do I have to extract mana first, then tell my Mana to use the mana to make the potions. And I can only have 9 of each item in my inventory? Come on! You have to constantly go through menus and make potions...it gets old.
Atelier Iris has item shops where you can synthesize items. This is part of its whole "alchemic RPG" theme. You can create items for sale in shops. I didn't see literally any benefit to doing this. I did it a handful of times in the beginning. Shopkeeps will tell you what they want and provide you a list of ingredients. Very quickly after the beginning, the ingredients required to make things are themselves things you need to synthesize first. So then when you do make something, which is usually just some other ingredient, you can actually deviate from the recipe to make a better quality version. So for example there might be like worm-infested apple, dry apple, apple, sweet apple, or apple pie. Right, different versions. These have some bearing on the outcome of the synthesized item, like how good it is or something. Each item has a % and if you look at the shop it will tell you what the 'hot items' are and why. So like, the worm-infested apple I made might be the hot item because it's 'wormy' or something. There are lots of weird 'reviews' of the synthesized items...deadly odor, sweet and sour, heavy, adult...etc. Random townspeople will then tell you like 'i love the bread crumbs at mojo's bakery. i make them a part of my daily routine. i love the bread crumbs because it is deadly odor.' Seriously. The NPC comments on the items I made were kind of funny because they were usually horribly out of context. Anyway, this whole item synthesis served no purpose whatsoever that I could tell and I quit doing it almost as soon as I started.
I also didn't bother with 'mana synthesis,' which is where you can augment your weapons with mana to add attack or defense or fire resist or whatever. I didn't do it mostly because I didn't know if I could remove the mana once I attached it, and also because you can't augment equipped weapons. So you have to unequip your weapon first, then augment it. One step too many to care!
So all these things I didn't care about. I could afford not to care because this was the easiest game I have played in forever. I didn't do hardly anything extra and I breezed through it. There was one boss that killed me twice I think. Otherwise, no deaths and generally didn't even come close. It helped too that you can switch in alternate characters during battle with no penalty and they get to act immediately. And you can switch characters out when they die. So basically I had 5 attackers instead of the 3 on the screen.
This game would have been much better if it were more difficult. They could have helped with with more interesting battles. The game tags itself as a 'strategic RPG,' but it is hardly strategic. It is very mindless. 99% of fights were 'x, x, x, x, dead.' Just plain attack all the time, even on bosses! The only reason I did anything else (besides a couple bosses) was (a) to hit more enemies at once since some characters' attacks (the useful characters) hit multiple enemies at once, and (b) to hit enemies immune to physical attacks. There were a lot of REALLY annoying enemies who were immune to physical attacks. Two of your characters attack with magic, and they are both weak, so you have to bring in one of your other characters and waste mana just to kill these stupid physical-immune creatures.
Oh man, and maybe the worst of all is that at the end of the game I was still fighting enemies from the beginning! And there are like 10 enemy types with like 4 variations each. The notorious 'Puni' enemies had so many different types and they all looked the same with a different color. My god, it was so stupid. So yea, like level 50 at the end of the game, and here comes an army of level 1 punis. Will I win?! Why is this a random battle?! And the game makes you travel over a horrendous world map all the time, so even if you're not in the difficult areas mysteriously encountering simple enemies, you're in early easy areas encountering the same simple enemies.
I really sound like I hate this game huh? It really wasn't that bad, just some annoying things. The story wasn't anything special. There were forced romances, a couple 'what, you're my SISTER?!' moments and other things typical of dull stories. The high point though was the silliness of it. I liked the game in that it didn't take itself seriously at all. The characters were enjoyable. There was a cat girl, and I expected to hate her, but she was actually cute. I especially ended up liking her voice. And there were a lot of little side missions/side stories involving shopkeeps and other townspeople that I enjoyed.
Yeah, anyway, glad to get it off my shelf, but too bad it wasn't better. I think when I heard it was focused on items and it was strategic, I was somehow thinking of a non-grid-based Disgaea. Not even close!
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