Amount Completed: Entire single player game
I sought out this game not because I thought it would be a great game but because of the negativity directed towards it. I was not surprised with what I found. I can see why there are a lot of complaints about how there isn't much in the way of choice as you play. It's a fairly rigid directed experience that runs you through the narrative and given events along the way.
The sequence that received a lot of criticism was the artillery shelling of a city where the lives of the targets are reduced to blips (hmm much like the lives of characters killed in video games). As a sarcastic/caustic reminder of what military actions are far from the front lines of battle I was not exactly offended. I was a bit disappointed that they called back to it for the ending credits... oh well.
The story did take an interesting route with dual plot lines. Not everything went perfectly so that was a nice break from most shooters where things are generally fine in the end. Unfortunately except for one event I hardly recall what else happened in the game.
Gut: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a fine shooter. The story is nothing too exciting to me and the general gameplay is what I would expect of a shooter.
Monday, July 1, 2013
Call of Duty: World at War [Game][PC]
Amount Completed: Entire Single Player Game
Call of Duty: World at War is yet another first person shooter that takes place in World War 2. The experience is very much on rails and often times requires a whole lot of repetition to figure out exactly how to get through certain choke points. I felt I was playing a first person shooter equivalent to VVVVVV.
The game spans a few different plot lines but none of them feel like the main story. The switches between the plot every few missions was disruptive to the flow and occasionally caused me to lose track and or interest in the given storyline. There wasn't much depth and there was little of interest that happened to keep my attention.
As a general fan of the original 2 Call of Duty games this one was quite lackluster.
Gut: Call of Duty: World at War feels like a collection of DLC missions sets glued together to make a game. It was more frustrating than fun. It was a bit of slog.
Call of Duty: World at War is yet another first person shooter that takes place in World War 2. The experience is very much on rails and often times requires a whole lot of repetition to figure out exactly how to get through certain choke points. I felt I was playing a first person shooter equivalent to VVVVVV.
The game spans a few different plot lines but none of them feel like the main story. The switches between the plot every few missions was disruptive to the flow and occasionally caused me to lose track and or interest in the given storyline. There wasn't much depth and there was little of interest that happened to keep my attention.
As a general fan of the original 2 Call of Duty games this one was quite lackluster.
Gut: Call of Duty: World at War feels like a collection of DLC missions sets glued together to make a game. It was more frustrating than fun. It was a bit of slog.
Monday, April 8, 2013
Sleeping Dogs [Game][PC]
Amount Completed: Main storyline and most of the side missions (?)
Sleeping Dogs is definitely a welcome and worthy entrant to the arena of crime-city-sandbox games. GTA4 and Saints Row 3 each have their own positives. Sleeping Dogs brings a much richer hand-to-hand combat experience than the other two games and seemed to do a better job of giving reason to fetch or travel missions. While not perfect, the writing and overall story were fitting. The missions supporting the police were an interesting aside the other two crime-heavy games lacked.
The game looks great and has a very fitting atmosphere. There is a lot to do and see. The characters have just enough depth to pass but in many cases deserved a bit more. The same could be argued for some of the plot points. A bit more time to play things out would have helped the overall experience.
Cheater racing invaded my gaming experience though. This is where the AI magically seems to always be ahead or able to surpass your own maximum speed for 90% of a race to keep you moving forward... and then at the end they drop off and you can pass them. I hate this. The (apparently DLC) Enduro motorcycle race required a good six minutes of near perfect driving to complete. While I finished it after a couple tries I was disappointed that the AI seemed to have such an easy edge.
Gut: Sleeping Dogs is awesome. It is well worth whatever price it is at now. I would have been happy to have paid full price for it at release.
Sleeping Dogs is definitely a welcome and worthy entrant to the arena of crime-city-sandbox games. GTA4 and Saints Row 3 each have their own positives. Sleeping Dogs brings a much richer hand-to-hand combat experience than the other two games and seemed to do a better job of giving reason to fetch or travel missions. While not perfect, the writing and overall story were fitting. The missions supporting the police were an interesting aside the other two crime-heavy games lacked.
The game looks great and has a very fitting atmosphere. There is a lot to do and see. The characters have just enough depth to pass but in many cases deserved a bit more. The same could be argued for some of the plot points. A bit more time to play things out would have helped the overall experience.
Cheater racing invaded my gaming experience though. This is where the AI magically seems to always be ahead or able to surpass your own maximum speed for 90% of a race to keep you moving forward... and then at the end they drop off and you can pass them. I hate this. The (apparently DLC) Enduro motorcycle race required a good six minutes of near perfect driving to complete. While I finished it after a couple tries I was disappointed that the AI seemed to have such an easy edge.
Gut: Sleeping Dogs is awesome. It is well worth whatever price it is at now. I would have been happy to have paid full price for it at release.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic [Game][PC]
Amount Completed: Entire game multiple times as light/dark.
My most recent play through as a dark side character was my third. Revisiting Knights of the Old Republic was a bit of a slog due to my memory of the first planet (Taris) dragging on way too long. My save game confirmed my suspicion. It was 6+ hours when I finally left. Taris, while arguably a bit long, is actually fairly interesting. I just started exploring with a negative attitude (a bit like how I recalled Manaan as well). One major issue is that there are times where your experience is limited to just running around for minutes at a time. Even with quick loading between sections you are just running to/from various points.
Fortunately my memory had a few gaps from my previous experiences so I was surprised occasionally by events/locations within the game. In addition to not recalling story elements I actually forgot some other critical things: If you are a dark side player then using light side skills costs additional force. While understandable who is going to ignore critical light side force abilities like Cure/Heal?
The story and characters provide plenty of entertainment. It is especially humorous to see them react in horror after you make a terrible comment/decision. The opposite is not really true. As a light player the reactions of "negative" characters are not as interesting. HK-47 might be an exception as he becomes very disappointed in the meatbags.
While the combat is fun I find it to be a bit rough around the edges. After my first play through I decided that there is no point to making combat difficult so I just default to easy so I can continue through the story without too much concern for having to repeat battles (though some can still destroy you if you are too lazy). There are too many problems with characters becoming caught on walls/objects/enemies for combat to be taken too seriously. This is not a hard core combat-strategy game.
Gut: Knights of the Old Republic is a great adventure with entertaining combat, characters, music, and choices. I am sure the third is not my last play through.
My most recent play through as a dark side character was my third. Revisiting Knights of the Old Republic was a bit of a slog due to my memory of the first planet (Taris) dragging on way too long. My save game confirmed my suspicion. It was 6+ hours when I finally left. Taris, while arguably a bit long, is actually fairly interesting. I just started exploring with a negative attitude (a bit like how I recalled Manaan as well). One major issue is that there are times where your experience is limited to just running around for minutes at a time. Even with quick loading between sections you are just running to/from various points.
Fortunately my memory had a few gaps from my previous experiences so I was surprised occasionally by events/locations within the game. In addition to not recalling story elements I actually forgot some other critical things: If you are a dark side player then using light side skills costs additional force. While understandable who is going to ignore critical light side force abilities like Cure/Heal?
The story and characters provide plenty of entertainment. It is especially humorous to see them react in horror after you make a terrible comment/decision. The opposite is not really true. As a light player the reactions of "negative" characters are not as interesting. HK-47 might be an exception as he becomes very disappointed in the meatbags.
While the combat is fun I find it to be a bit rough around the edges. After my first play through I decided that there is no point to making combat difficult so I just default to easy so I can continue through the story without too much concern for having to repeat battles (though some can still destroy you if you are too lazy). There are too many problems with characters becoming caught on walls/objects/enemies for combat to be taken too seriously. This is not a hard core combat-strategy game.
Gut: Knights of the Old Republic is a great adventure with entertaining combat, characters, music, and choices. I am sure the third is not my last play through.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Dead Island [Game][PC]
Amount Completed: Entire campaign with my spouse. (most, if not all side quests)
This was the second cooperative-quest game I played through with my spouse. The first was Borderlands. Dead Island brought more of an edge and different survival experience than Borderlands.
The joy of decent teamwork and coordination of attacks was rewarding and challenging at times. When split up it was especially difficult. It really reminded me how critical a teammate in Dead Island can be. Just having another person watch your back (and the obvious pick you up when you are on your way to death) is very important! Zombies like to run from out of nowhere and chomp on you.
The lack of ammo (and/or ability to carry much) meant that this game was very heavy on melee combat. I was initially put off on the concept but as I played the game I found it worked well enough for me. The ammo problem was really stupid... you basically could take down a set (small) number of zombies and then you had to switch to melee.
After many hours of trying weapon types I found only one that was reliable and not dangerous to my partner. Electrified one-handed weapons were the way to go. Anything else was too risky.
The ongoing plot was a bit muddled by so many side quests. I literally lost track at one point... I did not even understand what was going on in the plot because we had done so many distractions and so much exploration.
Gut: A lot of fun! While it has a couple of issues related to easily tracking quest locations and occasional spawn point problems, all of them were forgivable as the experience was fun and kept us challenged.
This was the second cooperative-quest game I played through with my spouse. The first was Borderlands. Dead Island brought more of an edge and different survival experience than Borderlands.
The joy of decent teamwork and coordination of attacks was rewarding and challenging at times. When split up it was especially difficult. It really reminded me how critical a teammate in Dead Island can be. Just having another person watch your back (and the obvious pick you up when you are on your way to death) is very important! Zombies like to run from out of nowhere and chomp on you.
The lack of ammo (and/or ability to carry much) meant that this game was very heavy on melee combat. I was initially put off on the concept but as I played the game I found it worked well enough for me. The ammo problem was really stupid... you basically could take down a set (small) number of zombies and then you had to switch to melee.
After many hours of trying weapon types I found only one that was reliable and not dangerous to my partner. Electrified one-handed weapons were the way to go. Anything else was too risky.
The ongoing plot was a bit muddled by so many side quests. I literally lost track at one point... I did not even understand what was going on in the plot because we had done so many distractions and so much exploration.
Gut: A lot of fun! While it has a couple of issues related to easily tracking quest locations and occasional spawn point problems, all of them were forgivable as the experience was fun and kept us challenged.
Homefront [Game][PC]
Amount Completed: Entire single player campaign.
I was reminded of the edginess attempted in Spec Ops: The Line when playing Homefront. Unfortunately I felt like it was a bit rammed in. North Korea taking over everything and invading the US... and you need to fight back and experience the atrocities of a horrible occupation first hand. It was a bit too heavy handed for me to take seriously at times.
The game plays like a standard on-rails FPS with lots of scripted events and activities along the way. While the campaign was short it does remain fairly interesting throughout. In many cases I felt the game required the Call of Duty style "rush ahead and everything will work out" game play. I can understand the design decision but I am not sure so much of it was required. The game really punished you whenever you were separated from your squad. In particular there was a sequence requiring you to enter a church to reach the bell tower. Without the squad around I died numerous times to memorize where the enemies were as I took each step. It was brutal to get through it. I could be terrible at this game... or I was too spoiled by my squad taking a lot of bullets for me.
Gut: Not bad. It's nothing too incredible. Everything is certainly not roses for the Americans for the sake of the plot. Unfortunately it came across a slight bit cheesy in comparison to Spec Ops: The Line. As the first in a likely series of games I have to say they did well for an original IP.
I was reminded of the edginess attempted in Spec Ops: The Line when playing Homefront. Unfortunately I felt like it was a bit rammed in. North Korea taking over everything and invading the US... and you need to fight back and experience the atrocities of a horrible occupation first hand. It was a bit too heavy handed for me to take seriously at times.
The game plays like a standard on-rails FPS with lots of scripted events and activities along the way. While the campaign was short it does remain fairly interesting throughout. In many cases I felt the game required the Call of Duty style "rush ahead and everything will work out" game play. I can understand the design decision but I am not sure so much of it was required. The game really punished you whenever you were separated from your squad. In particular there was a sequence requiring you to enter a church to reach the bell tower. Without the squad around I died numerous times to memorize where the enemies were as I took each step. It was brutal to get through it. I could be terrible at this game... or I was too spoiled by my squad taking a lot of bullets for me.
Gut: Not bad. It's nothing too incredible. Everything is certainly not roses for the Americans for the sake of the plot. Unfortunately it came across a slight bit cheesy in comparison to Spec Ops: The Line. As the first in a likely series of games I have to say they did well for an original IP.
Warhammer 40k: Space Marine [Game][PC]
Amount Completed: Entire single player campaign.
This is an awesome game.
30 minutes later...
This is getting old.
5 hours later...
This could be getting better... (this is when you stop fighting orcs as much)
1 hour later...
When does this end?!
Space Marine has fun combat marred by the inclusion of a heal method via slaying your enemy in awesome-dramatic-animation-slow mode. Unfortunately the rest of the game continues on so you might be covered in grenades and filled with holes by the time you get your heal from slaying the given enemy. The combat and running around gets old fast... the environments do look good, but they just were not all that interesting. The plot was acceptable but it was way too long. I would have enjoyed multiple small campaigns over one huge one.
Gut: Nope. Sorry this game was cool in concept but the campaign was a long slog.
This is an awesome game.
30 minutes later...
This is getting old.
5 hours later...
This could be getting better... (this is when you stop fighting orcs as much)
1 hour later...
When does this end?!
Space Marine has fun combat marred by the inclusion of a heal method via slaying your enemy in awesome-dramatic-animation-slow mode. Unfortunately the rest of the game continues on so you might be covered in grenades and filled with holes by the time you get your heal from slaying the given enemy. The combat and running around gets old fast... the environments do look good, but they just were not all that interesting. The plot was acceptable but it was way too long. I would have enjoyed multiple small campaigns over one huge one.
Gut: Nope. Sorry this game was cool in concept but the campaign was a long slog.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)