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Oct 12th, 2012 at 09:48:05 - Dishonored (PC) |
The game Dishonored was recently released by Bethesda, and developed by Arkane Studios. This game is a first person RPG, which takes many cues from games like Bioshock and Deus Ex. The goal of this game is pretty straight forward; you have to save the recently assassinated empress’ daughter, while also overthrowing the illegally established military government, by assassinating key political figures. You can do this by which ever means you see fit. The game gives you the ability to sneak past your foes without them ever seeing you, knock them out so they can’t alert other guardsmen, or kill them to permanently end their threat. Will all three options are more than viable, the game heavily tailors to the sneaking paths. Killing guards increases your chaos rating, which in turn brings more guards, where sneaking will lower the amount of guards, and increases your rating at the end of every level. Like Deus Ex, the game allows your character to upgrade his abilities like blink, which allows you to teleport a short distance, and ability to see guards through walls. You get these upgrades by obtaining runes which are scattered throughout the maps. This game has the same problem that I am seeing with games that ‘allow you to play the way you want to’; they all tend to focus one way or the other. This game along, with Deus Ex: Human Revolution, focus on the side of sneaking. Both sneaking and attacking are viable, but one is clearly better than the other. I would love to see a FPSRPG that has both sneaking and attacking as equal ways to approach the level, but until then I don’t have much of a problem with sneaking around.
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Oct 5th, 2012 at 09:35:51 - Black Mesa (PC) |
After eight years in development, the Half-Life 1 mod for Half-Life 2, Black Mesa, finally released last month on September 14th. The game was received to seemingly unanimous praise. It improved may things about the original game. The most noticeable was the graphical overhaul. The game looks great! The set pieces were also made much bigger. Due to limitations at the time Half-Life 1’s development, many of the areas you traverse are not awe inspiring in size. Take for example the dam in the first game. It was big for 1998, but now day’s looks like cinderblock in comparison to set pieces features in triple A games on the market. With Black Mesa the dam is huge. You truly feel like the dam could power the entirety of the Black Mesa Facility. The mod developers have done nothing to change the story of the game, which is what the player base wanted naturally. They have however changed some aspects of the games environments and pacing. Some rooms that felt tedious the first time around have been shortened, and some that had great mechanics to them were expanded, and the game feels great. Nothing added feels out of place, and nothing taken away feels missed. It was very risky for them to do that. People don’t like it when you mess with things they love, and so many people love Half-Life. This brings me on to another thing that we are seeing more of in the video game industry: HD remakes. Movies have been doing this more and more for a few years now and where it was once a novelty it has, in some peoples opinions, overstayed its welcome. With triple A games costing more to make than movies generally, this is a safe way for the developers to make money. They have been doing this for years with sequels, and it only seems natural to do it with remakes. One question that I often thing about the situation is, when no new IP’s are being made, with the developers make and HD remake of an HD remake?
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Sep 27th, 2012 at 13:31:56 - Spec Ops: The Line (PC) |
Spoilers!
Spec Ops: The Line on the surface seems like a run of the mill shooter where you cannot die and terrorists are trying to blow something up. It’s a fair thought to make seeing how that was how the game was advertised and presented. Even the demo only showed off its mediocre shooting mechanics and plot. Spec Ops is so much more than that however. When I started the game for the first time I was having a decent amount considering it was the first shooter I have played in a while, and the main character, Walker, was relatable enough to feel a connection to the plot, which at this point was to find survivors and then get out. Walker, however, pressed on, even though his orders did not require or want him to. After thinking that a ‘rouge’ group, called the 33rd, had taken civilians for hostage, Walker decides to shoot white phosphorous onto their camp. What Walker did not know was that the 33rd had not taken the civilians as hostages, but as refugees. After seeing the damage and death he caused to innocents, Walker begins to go insane, which is only revealed at the end of the game. From this point on Walkers mission is to find the 33rd’s leader, Konrad, who you are in contact with via walkie-talkie. Konrad begins to put your character in increasingly tough scenarios, where you have to make tough, life or death decisions. You begin to feel distant from the character but remember in the back of your mind that there is no god, easy decision in war, so you press on. Walker gets both members of his infantry killed and murders countless American soldiers on his way to become a hero. Before the final cut scene, when you still think that he’s killing all these soldiers because he has to, you still feel some sort of connection to Walker. You been with him the whole ride, you've watched both of your friends and companions die, and have made tough decisions that save one group while often letting other die. Then the game forces a knife into your chest. Walker has been making all the decisions himself, not Konrad who has been dead for months, and has been killing innocent American soldiers. No game I've ever played before has made you lose all kind feelings for a character like Spec Ops. As the credits you sit there and thing about all the decisions you've made, and all the people you've killed. You think about how in Walker’s position, you might have done the same. You almost feel sick.
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Sep 20th, 2012 at 15:04:13 - Guild Wars 2 (PC) |
The MMO genre has become very appealing over the past few years. People want more bang for their buck. They see that for the price of one game they can essentially get 5+ games to play. Take, once again, Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 offers a variety of different experiences for the player. Just about every element of play is represented in this game. Of course you have health. This health can improve over time and you’re free from a life system. I don’t know of many MMORPGs that have a life system, but I wouldn’t expect it to be all that intuitive. It has a currency system for those players that would rather be e-Rockefellers than have a real bank full of gold. Money is obtained from pretty much everything, rewards from quests and looting, or selling items in the trading post or with NPC’s. And with a currency system, the game also has an inventory system. While not as in-depth or as fun as other currency systems, such as Resident Evil 4, it is present and important. Like with any RPG, there is an upgrade system. Guild Wars 2’s upgrade system is, like most MMO’s, talent tree based, armor based, and uniquely cosmetic based, which is focused on just as much, if not more, than armor stats at end game. There’s even special terrain in Guild Wars 2. They come in two main forms. In World v World you have camps, towers, and fortresses to control that give the controllers server special boosts, and terrain that only certain foods grow on to collect for the coking profession. Last but not least Guild Wars 2 features an action system. The action system I this MMO is different from most where the main strategy is standing and clicking a button. While button clicking is present, it’s a much more engaging system of combat. You can move while attacking with all spells, save for a few odd balls, and dodge attacks. While many games only feature a handful of these elements, Guild Wars 2, along with may MMOs, feature most, and occasionally all, of the core elements of play.
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JordanC has been with GameLog for 11 years, 7 months, and 25 days |
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