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Sep 19th, 2011 at 09:01:22 - Gears of War (360) |
This has got to be one of the best possible games to christen my new Xbox 360 with. What an incredible one this is! I am completely blown away. I realize this might be as much to do with playing it on my also new HD TV, something I've never experienced before. HD is the way to go, even if I am many years late to the party.
A friend recommended this Gears of War pack with 1 & 2 + an expansion. Since GoW 3 comes out in a few hours, this is a good way to move units and get more fans. I know they got at least 1 in me, plus 2 more in my roommates who have gone through co-op with me. Said friend is currently standing in a long line at some game store waiting to purchase a copy of GoW 3...
GoW is not what I thought it would be. I didn't have much knowledge of what the game was about, just figured generic super soldiers battling aliens stuff, pretty straightforward FPS with a cover system. Well first, it's third-person, not first-person, which goes perfectly with the cover system gameplay presented. Second, it's not so generic as I had assumed. The soldiers work in a squad of 4 to save some planet from alien domination. What's great about it is the characters have got personality. They jock each other, have some interesting back story that ties in (Cole Train's former football career), and just really act as if they're a team of soldier dudes taking on impossible odds and orders. Most games fall terribly flat presenting 'badass' characters, but this is done extremely, convincingly well. The story alone isn't terribly in-depth, but it's so mired in thrilling action that it seems more exciting than it is. The game hasn't let up, and I love it for that.
The visuals are amazing, and the thing is what, 5 years old. Again, I'm sure it's partly the TV. I can't imagine how good GoW 3 would look if GoW 1 is so stunning. Everything's really detailed. The environments are fantastic. So far I've played in three acts in unique settings. First...uuuuh...I can't remember the first one. Okay who cares, the second and third were awesome and totally memorable! The second act takes place throughout a ruined section of the city, bombed out buildings and rusty-car-strewn streets. There's a light/dark mechanic. These bats of death, some type of nocturnal flying and swarming alien, come out and kill whatever is alive in the darkness. So you have to stay in the light to avoid being swarmed and killed near-insta-death style. There are long scary stretches of darkness which you can alight by shooting propane tanks. Often, the propane tanks are not easy to spot, so you'll think you can maybe sprint through the darkness. Sometimes you barely make it; sometimes you die and notice you ran by a propane tank that you can shoot next time around.
This propane tank level was excellent for co-op play. I do wonder how my experience is different playing co-op rather than single-player. I guess this will be a new thing for me, playing games co-op or in the same room together with folks. I definitely enjoy it, the teamwork, the high-fiving...it's great. But I can't help but wonder what it's like for me to sit with headphones getting totally absorbed in it. I suppose introducing variety in who I play with (versus playing alone) will be cool and open me up to new gaming experiences. Anyway, back to the propane tank level. Having two pairs of eyes looking out for tanks, looking for how to create paths through the darkness, was better than one pair of eyes. I played act 1 on casual with H, and acts 2 and 3 on hardcore with J, who had played the game way back when. J and I were able to cover each other's backs against both aliens and darkness. There were some parts where we'd move through the level, me on the left, him on the right. We'd look out for propane tanks on each other's sides, so I'd shoot the ones on his side that he couldn't see, and he'd shoot the ones on my side, making it so we were laying out paths for one another to follow. It was very cool. Since we were playing on hardcore, and we aren't pro console shooter players, we ran into some trouble here and there and had to practice some areas a bunch of times before moving on. I really enjoyed how we developed strategies to deal with problem areas.
There was another part where we were split up, each with an AI squad mate, moving through a section of act 3, which was set inside an old factory and then inside some mines below the factory. That act, by the way, was really creepy because the game introduces these screeching enemies that crawl on ceilings and leap at you. They glow and when you shoot them they blow up. They are really fast-moving. If they hit you once, then you shoot them and get hit by their explosion, that's it. Two shots like that to die. It's rough when they swarm at you, very hectic. So this part of act 3, I went right and J went left through these two narrow corridors. Those glowing exploding runner aliens would jump down out of vents and stuff onto us, in front of us, and behind us. We figured out something about the nature of the enemy encounters in the game then, at least of this type. There seem to be a certain range, or possibly exact number, of enemies that the game tosses at you. Since you're split up on two sides, it appears random as to how many appear on each side. Sometimes J got almost every single alien while I only had 1 or 2; other times it was more even. This led to a gleeful unpredictability. We could pretty much learn where the aliens would come from, but couldn't know when and how many, or if they would come at all. So we were both watching both our screens. If I didn't have any for a while, I'd tell him so: Watch out! I haven't gotten any, they're all coming to you! Then he could prepare (or was already under attack) for the onslaught. The unpredictability kept us thinking on our feet. Really cool stuff.
The other crazy thing about that particular section of act 3 was that there wasn't any place to hide. Most of GoW features a great cover system whereby you advance on enemies by running and vaulting from cover to cover. It's a lot of fun and allows for some strategic advancing and plenty of flanking, by you and the enemies. But this section of act 3 was just a claustrophobic venting system, no cover to be had, with aliens that were extremely fast and dangerous bounding down the hall at you. Very scary.
The boss battles are also pretty damn cool so far. I remember two vividly that each required teamwork, or were at least made easier with teamwork. One was this giant spider monster in the mines. It defends itself with its legs, then every so often, when you shoot its belly, lifts its legs and opens its mouth to roar. Shoot it in the mouth and it backs up. Every time you shoot it in the mouth, a wave of those glowing exploding guys comes out of this lava stuff, so you've got to deal with them. Eventually you push the spider back onto this platform with destructible latches clasping it to the main part of rock above the lava. When the spider gets here, the waves of glowing exploding enemies continuously come. When we both tried to fend off those small enemies, neither one of us had time to try and kill the spider. After killing a few waves and realizing we were getting nowhere, with me seeing something about those destructible latches, J said he'd deal with the little enemies, and I said I'd figure out what the hell the latches were for. He held the little guys off, and I figured out that the spider needs to attack me on the latch, thereby breaking the latch. Break both latches and bye-bye spider.
There's another boss, I think it was near the end of act 2. Actually I don't think it was a boss, just a monster type, a berserker. But we haven't seen another and it was really involved, so maybe it was. Who knows? Anyway, the berserker was blind, and could only tell where we were by smell and hearing. Its attack was a charge, destroying all in its path. The goal was to lure the berserker outside by getting the berserker to destroy doors in successive rooms. Finally once it's outside, you can kill it with this laser satellite-targeting gun. Boom. But this required a good deal of coordinated movement between me and J. One (or both) of us had to stand in front of a door, lure him with gunshots, move out of the way, have him crash through the door, then we both run through to the next room. Usually one of us would mess up and not make it through the door in time, so that person would have to face off with the berserker one-on-one when it came charging again, avoid it, and run through the doorway successfully. It's harder than it sounds!
In co-op GoW, when one player dies, the other can revive him (or her). This system is awesome, in that it gives players a lot of opportunity and motivation to help one another off the ground. After all, you want your buddy fighting alongside you. It led to a ton of heroic rescues too! I can't count how many times J or I sprinted across a battlefield to revive the other one, narrowly avoiding rockets, nearly dying in the process.
All in all, I think EPIC is a good word to describe the game. I am so looking forward to playing more when I get a chance, probably next weekend. Then after that, we have GoW 2!
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Sep 12th, 2011 at 07:56:43 - Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse (PC) |
I got real bored of this one. It's not bad...just old I think. Maybe if I'd played this 6 years ago when it came out I would have been more impressed. It uses the old Halo engine, which you can definitely tell in the vehicle portions because they have terrible handling.
In Stubbs the Zombie you play as Stubbs the zombie.
Your entire objective is to eat brains.
While the setting is neat (futuristic 1950s "city of the future"), the characters are funny, and there are some cool weapons, it doesn't stop the fact that all you do is eat brains. There are some amusing brain-eating animations, including my favorite, which is eating brains in front of a mirror so you can watch yourself eat.
The victims scream and yell silly things, a very light-hearted approach to a zombie game. But...you just eat brains and run through corridors and down streets, eating more brains along the way. Sometimes you have to possess someone with your idle hand, at which point you control them (a cop with a pistol or whoever).
There are a few unique sequences in the game that, if there were more of them, I may have stuck around. I played at least through the dance-off at the end of Ch. 3 or 4. You get arrested and the police chief says he is going to 'dance all over your grave.' After you brain-eat your way through the police HQ, you get to the chief, and indeed, he challenges you to a dance-off. It is bizarre, and awesome. It's just a Simon Says game, but it's so ridiculous and accompanied by some modern covers of classic oldies (the soundtrack is cool!).
So yeah, this game's been on my list for years and years, and I finally buy it and play and don't even make it 2 hours before getting bored. Sad!
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Sep 11th, 2011 at 08:29:50 - Angry Birds (Other) |
When I got my new (first) smartphone last month, I was excited to be a part of the app-using world. I also figured I'd check out the few games that I keep hearing about over and over and over, the #1 of which is definitely Angry Birds (complete with t-shirts, plushies, and I heard even a TV show?!) I didn't know a thing about it besides you launch birds for some reason or another. I didn't know that it had a physics system, for example, or that there were a few different types of birds with different abilities.
After playing it at lunch or dinner here and there, I really don't get it. Part of me feels like I should hide under my desk after saying that I don't get it, to save myself from the gasps and dirty looks of the general public. But, it's what I said after the first time I played it. You just fling birds at stuff. I understand what people like about it. It's not un-fun, but I can't imagine ever playing it outside of some situation where I had nothing else to do, like if I'm eating by myself or forgot my book to take on the train. Anyway, flinging the birds is neat to watch. I like crossing my fingers hoping I hit the planks just right and hoping they collapse just right. I find that sometimes all the thinking and planning I can do to get a level just right simply does nothing for me. Then almost randomly the nth time I play a level I'm stuck on, everything will fall into place. It makes each fling of a bird exciting, but I feel like I get (un)lucky and that that's really the motivating force. It's like bowling. I'm not that good at bowling. I throw the ball and then the mystery of physics carries it down the lane and knocks some pins over. It's going right down the middle! It might be a strike! Awww, 7/10 split, damn! Then the next round I toss the same ball the same way and it's a strike and I get all excited and high five everybody.
I can't believe I compared Angry Birds to bowling, but it's accurate for me. And the general issue is that the times I would play a game like Angry Birds, those 'casual gaming' times on a train or at lunch or whatever, I much prefer reading. So I only have been using it as a "eh, I don't feel like carrying a book around." I've got a handful of other games on my phone. I tried one other one yesterday, Star Traders, which appeared to be a really complicated space RPG with a ton of factions and stars and a giant universe to explore...but I deleted it after 15 minutes because there's honestly no way I can get into that casually. And there were lots of typos. I made my friend laugh showing him some. At one point my crew and I landed on a planet, and I decided to explore with 17 crew members. It said something like "It was a very dangerous journey. You survived, but 16 of your crew members were killed by fell into a hole. You survived, but you were attacked and now you are blind in one eye." Sweet! 16 crew members killed by "fell in a hole" and now I'm a one-eyed space captain. I guess that makes me a space pirate. I got some other one called Everlands that looks like a badass card game that reminds me of the one in FFVIII or IX. I actually have high hopes for that one.
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Sep 11th, 2011 at 07:56:37 - Zeno Clash (PC) |
Really interesting game. The first thing that struck me was its unique look. I would describe it like...Mad Max meets dinosaurs meets sci-fi alien planet meets genetic freaks of nature meets lots of punching. The game looks beautiful, and yet the style reminds me of a nightmare. Think Elephant Man or a circus or Pigsy from Manhunt. The story is bizarre too. It's quite anthropological, as in, it's about family and kinship, in a way, and about freedom and reality in another. Basically, you killed your Father-Mother, and now your family is pissed as hell, and coming to kill you. You and this girl (girlfriend?) escape before being killed. You discuss with her where you've been the last month and what led you to kill Father-Mother, and much of this explanation is played in flashback segments as the narrative bounces back and forth from flashback (getting closer to Father-Mother) to present escape (running from your brothers and sisters). It's quite interesting and flows very well, from story to fighting, back to story.
The gameplay is all about punching people. You get a nice story-embedded tutorial in the beginning that totally piques your interest in plot. The punching feels awesome. It feels like you're really hitting someone hard. You can do various combos, block, dodge, throw, counter, and so on. There are also weapons, rudimentary pistols, crossbow, shotgun, grenades, and giant mallets, all of which are pretty handy at the right time. You can't just go around shooting everyone because if you get hit hard enough, your weapon flies out of your hands. Same thing for the enemies, and they'll run for guns sometimes, which can be deadly. Much of the fighting is about control. Say there are 3 enemies and a shotgun on the ground. Maybe two of them come after you and one goes after the shotgun. If you ignore the shotgun guy, he'll just stand back and shoot at you, which hurts. So you've got to switch targets a lot and control the gun. It's pretty fun. My only real complaints with the fighting are that blocking is really difficult to do right (for me at least), and sometimes trying to cancel or switch targets is wonky and gets you beat up or killed.
Boss fights are generally easy, with the exception of the very last boss. The game itself has a pretty good difficulty level. It ramps up by tossing more, smarter enemies at you, tossing more weapons out, and on a couple fights, really giving you a disadvantage in terms of environmental layout. This one that took me a while to beat was in a narrow town street. There were two enemies with guns up in the rafters above the street, then two enemies in the street, one with dual pistols. It took a lot of patience to learn how to manage all 4 of them...keep moving, keep the pistols and other gun(s) that was laying on the ground away from the two on the ground, and kill them while trying your hardest to stay out of sight of the snipers. I finally got that far after 20 times or so. Then just take out the snipers with a gun, which was the easy part. There were def some frustrating battles, but just keep trying and you'll get them.
I'm positive the fighting would have gotten very repetitive after much longer because there are only so many moves and guns, and the game repeats enemies like crazy, like the main sister and the main brother you have to fight at least 5 times, kind of like *sigh* after the 3rd time. Same thing with this one boss. You have to beat him 3 times. So in that sense, I'm glad the game was short, like real short, just 4 hours. In the other sense, the sense that there was so much creativity packed into that 4 hours, I wish it were longer. Sequel maybe? Or another game by the same team? The credits were real short. It looked like it was basically made by 3 brothers and a handful of other people helping.
Good stuff, seriously spend $5 on this if nothing else than to look at for a couple hours.
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