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May 8th, 2011 at 10:46:39 - The Witcher (PC) |
There are A LOT of great things to say about The Witcher. It has exceeded my expectations in every department. Coming into it, I was hesitant from the slew of negative things I'd read about it (alongside the positives of course), but it seems the Enhanced Edition and patches have polished it up big time. My current verdict is that it's damn good. I played all day today and got just into Chapter 2. What to say, what to say...
The Witcher is based on some Polish medieval fantasy novel(s), which I now want to read, because the game world is realized with great detail in a kind of setting I enjoy being fictional in, and the story, characters and presentation of it all are phenomenal so far. The main character is a Witcher (a monster bounty hunter) named Geralt. There's a cool intro cinematic as a prelude, in which Geralt gets hurt and suffers convenient amnesia (phenomenal story besides amnesia ploy), and is rescued by other witchers and taken to their home. The Prelude chapter serves as an action-packed and meaningful tutorial, and ends with the event that spurs on the remaining chapters. A mysterious sorcerer stole the alchemical and magical secrets of the witchers, and is using them (for now) to begin creating mutant dogs and such. You can imagine the mutations will get much scarier to fight. The remaining witchers scatter to the four corners of the earth to track the sorcerer and the Salamandra, this cult/order/guild group full of thugs and assorted villains.
Geralt heads south to the city of Vizima, the capital of the country. Chapter 1 exists on the outskirts of the city. There's a plague, so the city is quarantined. And outside the city, there's the Beast, a terrifying hellhound and its ethereal pack, which collectively maul townsfolk. Obviously this is a problem, and it's up to Geralt to fix it. This involves figuring out where the Beast came from, who summoned it, and how to kill it. The outskirts are big and there's a lot of running, and lots of fairly interesting quests. One main quest was to go at night and light 5 shrine flames to try and banish the hellhounds (doesn't work), but it was a neat quest because you had to take advantage of Meditation and it forced you to wander at night, which is more dangerous because the Ghouls, Drowners, and Barghests (the dogs) come out to play. In the end, I reasoned, given the evidence, that the Beast was a manifestation of the sins committed by the townsfolk. This was one of two choices, the other being that the town witch summoned the Beast. It's interesting because neither one was right or wrong. Evidence was there to interpret either way, and neither character ('townsfolk'/high priest vs. witch) were morally good characters. This is a major reason I'll call this game realistic.
Back to the point I was making, the world has a day/night cycle with four points: dusk, midnight, dawn, noon. NPCs have schedules, will be at different places doing different things. There are also nice weather effects, and NPCs actually react to weather, something I don't think I've ever seen before. I noticed when it rains, they huddle under shelter, except kids, who apparently like playing in the mud. It's almost endearing to watch. So, you can manipulate the time by 'meditating,' which is the same thing as resting in any other RPG. You meditate at a campfire or a bed or inn. The unique thing about mediation is that it's during meditation that you can level up, perform alchemy, or configure your witcher medallion.
Leveling up is normal, with an XP bar and a little twist on the talent tree idea. When you level you get 'bronze' points, or silver or gold later, which you spend on bronze (or silver or gold, respectively) talent points. These increase damage, add a knockdown effect, improve a spell range, etc. etc., basic stuff. The witcher medallion you can configure to track either enemies or magic. It starts glowing and shaking whenever whichever is near.
Alchemy gets its own paragraph since it's an important aspect of the game and story. Witchers become witchers through a series of grueling trials, training, and mutation by imbibing potions. The potions enhance combat abilities, defense, grant night vision, alleviate drunkenness (you can get SERIOUSLY drunk, and often have to to talk to NPCs -- think 'drinking buddies'), and so on. To create potions, which are incredibly useful, you need ingredients, which you loot off corpses or pick from plants. To pick plants, you need to have read about the plant in a book. There are also monsters in books, but I forget why you need to read those. I know you can't do bounty quests without having read about the monster first, but I dunno if for anything else. Anyway, this is not as tedious as it sounds and as I feared it would be (Oblivion flashbacks!). Herbs are scattered around, and you just go pick them up or loot materials off corpses that you would loot anyway. You've got a whole separate backpack for alchemy stuff, so it doesn't take up space. Then when you meditate, just make some potions. To make the potion, I forgot to say, you need to learn recipes, so look out for recipe books or NPCs who will teach you. You can also experiment to figure out how to make your own potions, but I haven't been successful yet. There are like 5 or 7 elements that ingredients contain that you need for whichever potion in some combination, plus always alcohol as a solvent. Then you can also create weapon oil, like poisons, and explosives. It's a neat system, and I like how it's tied into the lore.
So, alchemy is useful for fighting. Fighting itself looked a bit dull initially, but I'm enjoying it now. There are three 'stances,' strong, quick and group. You can change stance on the fly, and each stance is suited for particular enemies (or groups of enemies) depending on their strengths and weaknesses. You've also got two types of weapon, steel and silver. Steel is ideal for humans and animals, whereas silver works best on monsters and magical creatures. You can also swap between these on the fly, plus you have extra weapons (a torch/small one-handed weapon slot, a mighty 2-h weapon slot that you can't change stances with, and something else I forget). Then defending is fun too. Double tap a direction to roll or jump that way and avoid damage. There's also a fistfighting minigame that involves blocking and punching (duh), and a dice poker minigame, both of which hopefully will stretch the entire game because they're fun little diversions.
Aside from swordplay, you use 'signs,' which is magic. Right now I've got a telekinesis spell that knocks down enemies and destroys weak blockades, and a fire blast spell that deals damage and lights fires. I think there are 4 spells total, maybe 5. You also use signs on the fly. The combat feels very fluid with all the things you can swap between. You basically get combo moves with your swords, and it's a matter of button timing to execute. They're easy enough and add some variety to combat. If you time it right, you can execute enemies by stabbing them when they're down or doing one of various hilariously cheesy decapitation moves.
One last thing for now -- I had read this game was incredibly masculine, like its sexism would be appalling, specifically regarding the sex minigame throughout. I definitely think the game's content is mature, and applaud it for that, and for not being too over-the-top about it, but it does offend me a bit, makes me look sideways and cock an eyebrow. I've been trying to think of the sex in the context of the story and game world. A female character named Triss helps Geralt recover from his wounds...tenderly. However, they had a thing going on in the past, so explained. And witchers are infertile, so it's not like his lasciviousness is making babies and single moms. He's just a really sexual guy. What I don't like about it is that he will hit on and try to sleep with A LOT of female characters, whether they're named story characters or simply waitresses or women walking down the street. This is the kind of thing in real life that would piss me off, the guy who feels the need to hit on every girl he sees. Girls don't walk around waiting for dudes to try and sleep with them, but lots of guys seem to believe this is the case, or that they can at least try their luck, which is arrogant and assuming and sexist. So while I understand that Geralt at least can't knock anyone up, the game makes women out to be easy if you just say the right thing. Also, when you sleep with a girl, you're rewarded with a sex card, yes, a sex card, which is like a photo of the girl nude and provocative. The first one I saw, I was like what?! But yeah, it's like a collect-em-all thing, kind of ridiculous. It's like a more adult version of Fable.
So, overall Day 1, I'm very impressed with the polish. This is a great product.
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May 7th, 2011 at 00:54:25 - The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (PC) |
Finished this just now. It's not the masterpiece I remember it being like 6 years ago, but it's still pretty fun. I remember it as more gritty, some of the best graphics I'd ever seen, and a more thick prison atmosphere. It's still gritty and got character, graphics of course look a bit dated now, but still nice.
The voice acting is awesome, what little of it there is. I'm glad Vin Diesel had a hand in making the game and starred in it. Unlike most action/stealth games, Riddick isn't scared of anything. All the guards, even the warden, everyone is terrified of him because he's a ruthless killer. When you start the game, this officer, Johns, has captured you (again?) and brought you to Butcher Bay to get a fat bounty from the warden there. The warden is on a power trip and has Butcher Bay on serious lockdown. He doesn't pay the bounty and instead mistreats Johns and tosses Riddick in a cell, from which he promptly escapes, starts a prison riot, and wreaks havok on the prison in an attempt to escape, which he finally does, with Johns. They have a cool relationship, one of those where the cop always catches the criminal, but they both revel in the chase and help each other at the end of the day.
The first chunk of the game is rather RPGish. Riddick has to escape general population, so he either wins some pit fights or gets caught with drugs, and has to run around doing favors for the inmates. That part was cool because you get to talk to the inmates and watch them interact. Some of them are crazy, some are mean, some are nervous, etc. etc. There's a decent amount of interesting extraneous dialogue to eavesdrop on. I stumbled on a repairman at one point improvising a song as he was working by himself. He was fixing an electrical panel. Something like "Oh yeah, gonna fix your panel baby. Mmmm, yeah, I'm fixin it good, gonna put it in place and fix your panel baby." Silly and random, and fun to stumble on. Unfortunately I had to break his neck for a key card.
The game relies on light and shadow. Riddick can see in the dark due to some ocular implants, so it's in his advantage to shoot out lights and be stealthy. Guards aren't so good in the dark. Their guns have flashlights though, and they'll sometimes wise up and use them. Usually the dark really does provide serious advantage, and I figured this out at some point, to stop trying to run & gun. I died a lot from doing that, but probably even more from trying to play the light & dark game. Why? Because the enemies like to cheat and see you in the pitch blackness. They like to suddenly open fire on you. They like, after you shoot a light or shoot one of them, to run right next to you and shine their light on you and alert all the other guards. And they like to shine their light from completely across the room, in your general direction, and then pump bullets into you from impossibly far away. And they run around like chickens with their heads cut off sometimes if they're alerted, which makes it really annoying to get rid of them. For the most part, this actually made the game fun and challenging because the guards and their cheating was so unpredictable, but after replaying some parts 20, 30 times it could get old.
Another highlight was getting to drive mechs. I like mechs. I like being overpowered and shooting missiles at guys with pistols. The final sequence in the game involves a mech, and is like a gauntlet. Very fun romp through the warden's offices for some payback.
I tried to get on the multiplayer to check it out, but as I figured, no one was playing. Oh right, there are extras, cigarette packets you can pick up. Each one is some fake brand of cigarettes with some punny health warning on it. I picked up maybe half, and they were a strange diversion that were fun to read, but really didn't fit in the game world. You can argue about cigarettes being contraband in prison, but random packs lying around in the caves, the mines, in the oddest places. How did they get there?! A couple: "MBryo - Don't smoke while getting pregnant." "Charlie's Chocolat Cigarettes - Emits toxic gas if heated." "Lung Busters - Tracheotomy tickles." Yeah, anti-smoking campaign?
Anyway, fun stuff. Played it because I found it and Dark Athena on Steam and never played Dark Athena. So refreshing myself on Butcher Bay and will get to Dark Athena soon!
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May 1st, 2011 at 02:00:07 - Supreme Commander 2 (PC) |
I'd been hesitant to try this one because 1)I'm not a huge RTS fan, and 2)I was particularly intimidated by this one's scale and seeming hardcore-ness. I played through the informative tutorial first, which teaches the basics of camera functionality, troop movement and attack orders, building and researching. I then began the campaign, which basically served as more tutorial levels, introducing units and letting me further into the research tree. The campaign was boring though. Each of the 4 levels I played went like this:
"Hey stupid nice-guy commander with a pointless back story. I'm going to sound masculine and army tough and yell at you and at the enemy. Then you're going to complete an objective. Then more enemies will appear on a different spot on the map and you go kill them. Then more enemies will appear on a different spot on the map and you go kill them. Then more enemies will appear on a different spot on the map and you go kill them. Then I'm gonna sound tough some more and you go to the next mission."
The characters suck and aren't interesting at all, and the story so far seems like a budget sci-fi novel, a very thin one. I pretty much had to stop playing because I couldn't bring myself to care what was going on.
The gameplay is pretty fun though. It's fairly standard RTS with some neat things thrown in that I'm not used to. For one, things build FAST. Within like 5 minutes you can have your super units researched and on the assembly line. It makes them feel not very hard-earned, but they sure are cool. The scale of the game is massive, and these experimental units tower over buildings and all other units. I ended up playing some skirmish matches to see some of these behemoths. One team gets a giant mech with big guns. That team also can build a structure that launches smaller units anywhere on the battlefield. I haven't yet built all the experimental units for all 3 factions, but I will check them out. You get 'research points' by building research stations, and spending those on a tech tree is how you upgrade units and unlock experimentals and other abilities. It's quite RPGish and works well, but feels very fast.
Right, so the scaling, you can zoom way in for pretty fireworks or zoom way out for a strategic view of the whole terrain. Order large armies around and manage multiple fronts from the strategic view. It works pretty well from what I can tell.
That's really about all I have to say. I'll do a couple more skirmishes to see experimental units, but I'm not playing the campaign, and I don't plan on getting that into it to play online, so the game is fairly pointless for me. Still, it seems entertaining enough, and I imagine people more into RTSes may have a longer relationship with it than me.
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Apr 25th, 2011 at 13:48:05 - Mirror's Edge (PC) |
Alright alright, done with Mirror's Edge. Short game, didn't really like it at first, but definitely grew on me. I played two long sessions, 3 hours or so each. In the first half, I basically got used to the controls, the running, jumping and melee combat. I got used to the flow of running across rooftops, runner vision, and the cutscene story -> mission -> cutscene story -> mission format. Learning can be frustrating, but playing well is satisfying. In the second session, I played well. I beat up enemies with gusto and ran with finesse. I was also more adept at intuiting which direction to run. Also, I feel the level design was actually better in the second half and the missions were more exciting.
So what is Mirror's Edge? Mirror's Edge is dystopian parkour. You play as Faith, a runner, in a police state urban environment. Runners are subversive elements who relay political messages, illegal packages, etc. from place to place in the city, gliding on rooftops, using the urban environment to their mobile advantage. An up-and-coming politician was murdered, Faith's sister framed. Faith has to find out the circumstances of the murder, who really did it, clear her sister's name, put the killer to rest, and ultimately save her sis. The story was pretty cool, and mostly delivered in anime-style cut scenes dividing missions.
Levels involved Faith running from point A to point B, basically, then receiving instructions to get to point C, and so on, via Merc on a radio transmitter. Running is of course the main mechanic of the game and what sets it apart from anything else I've played. Now, it's not totally as original as it sounds because at its heart, it's just a platformer without puzzles. Reminded me very much of the Prince of Persia series. The difference, like I said, is the emphasis on running and 'flow.' There's flow in Prince of Persia and other platformers of course, but Mirror's Edge makes a big deal out of it by giving you 'runner vision,' which highlights important spots in the environment bright red. So as you're running to the edge of a building, you'll see a plank sticking out turn red, or a pipe on the side of the opposite building fade into red, meaning "Hey, go there." At first, I wasn't feeling this supposed flow very much, but as I played, I got a better feel for the controls. Say you have a big box in front of you. If you run right up to it and then jump, Faith will slowly pull herself up. If you come at the box with speed and time your jump, Faith will gracefully scale it. It's all about speed and timing. If you navigate in the best way, Faith's movements are quick and efficient, and it's really graceful. Despite how cool it can feel to get a hot streak of running, the mechanic is super basic and feels a little boring at times, saved though by the excitement of jumping across the tops of buildings at high speed. You basically hold W (forward run) and push space bar (jump/climb) over and over the whole game.
At the beginning of the game, I got frustrated at this one jump, literally right at the beginning, that almost made me quit immediately. There were a couple other relatively minor areas that were frustrating because I couldn't find the precision to make Faith do what I wanted her to do. In all the rest, I ended up working on the controls and getting the move down. But that first one, I think was just ridiculously punishing and a bad spot to locate it in first thing. There were some other sections later on where I was a little stuck as to where to go, and then figured it out, but the path wasn't anything I would have thought to do. Like "Oh, I can climb on this? I haven't had to do that before." There was another part where you have to do this running wall jump, but jump halfway because the space wasn't big enough for an actual wall jump. I couldn't figure it out for the life of me, so I went to a walkthrough, which noted that the tutorial, instructions, controls, nothing tells you this (and a couple other) move is possible, so I guess I was just supposed to magically figure it out. Ah yes, and there was a bug that caused the game to freeze. Luckily I was able to patch it away early.
I have two favorite things about Mirror's Edge. First is the general visual aesthetic. The game is whitewashed, bright, bright whites and pastels. I mentioned the red of runner vision. There is also yellow, blue, lime green, orange, and a couple others. It's really pretty and really cool-looking. The graphics themselves are really nice too. At one point I emerged onto a boat deck and saw the cityscape across the ocean. I went "whoa" out loud and looked for a minute. And since you're in a city scaling buildings, the game is vertical. You go up and down, up and down, instead of the typical side to side. A couple levels were practically nothing but finding your way up 8 or 9 stories of a building, and then maybe back down.
My other favorite thing was a specific sequence where you must jump on a train and avoid fans and support beams as it goes. Then you come to a low-hanging ceiling and have to jump trains, and avoid more stuff. It was just really intense and unexpected. There were other cool sequences too, notably anything involving chasing/being chased.
So, neat game. Loved the style, and the platforming was done pretty well. I'd like some more variety in acrobatics and a longer story because I felt like it was over as I was really getting the hang of it. I think a sequel to this game could be really great. The story totally leaves it open for one.
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