(no subject)
its been a few months since my last game notes post...
Alan Wake
Did not like.
It's not scary. It has several scary moments, but they fade quickly. It relies on monster closets, and they lack lasting freak out factor.
The story is a giant WTF. I don't think its possible to know what the hell is going on until around 70% through the game where it's all explained for you. The achievement you get after that chapter is even called "So THAT'S what happened".... mmmhmm
Total dissonance with Barry. I hate Barry. Barry is the main characters friend. Barry almost dies. A lot. You have to rescue him, etc etc. Throughout all of his almost dying and whatnot, he's making jokes. Yes jokes. It sooooooooooooooooo did not fit.
The combat mechanics didn't really seem to change, or even get spiced up by some random factor. You weaken the enemies with light, then kill them. Some weapons like flare guns, kill them outright. Cars have lights, and you can run them over. Inanimate objects just hit with your flashlight and they 'die' or whatever. Would have liked to see SOMETHING different thrown in there, but then I'd probably be complaining about them throwing in random mechanics that don't fit the rest of combat...
On the 'it's not scary' bit... I always had enough ammo. I always had enough batteries for my light. I never felt rushed. I was never lost. The controls aren't restrictive. Good practices in game design make being scared hard to pull off. This game didn't do it for me.
Environments were great looking.
Liked the mechanic of seeing the messages that only show up when hit with flashlight.
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Army of Two 2 (the sequel? whatever... the second one they made)
thank god i finished this game, so i never have to play it again...
i did not like this game. at all. there were a few kinda cool bits to it, but i didnt like the other 97% of it.
it takes like 8 button presses to get into your last game save. what is so technologically difficult about a 'continue your last save' option on the front end?
difficulty spikes during the game.. i ran into a mini boss guy that i spent about 10 tries getting past, had to bump difficulty to easy to get past it. didnt have any problems back on normal for the rest of the game
checkpoints were too sparse. maybe biased due to the above problem, but everytime i died to that mini boss, i had to replay like 8-10 minutes of stuff to get another attempt at the boss. did not like
the game had a 'go this way' kind of mechanic so if you're lost, you could toggle on something and it would tell you where to go. problem is, it was just a painted line through the entire game. so if you're in some out of the way corner, and try to find out where you're going, you would still miss the painted line.
lack of player training. got 80% through the game before i saw a loading screen tip for double tapping the d-pad to give your teammate commands and it had a passive/aggressive state for each command. greeeeeeeat... apparently there's some way to do a co-op sniper thing while shooting unaware enemies, but after i tagged enemies, my partner would never hit the guy... also you can do a fake surrender (you put your hands up, and kneel, and then shoot people... like bruce willis at the end of die hard) and get some co-op kill thingy, but it doesnt tell you HOW to do all that stuff...
enemy AI felt pretty static. there were some cases where heavily armored guys would be way more aggressive about getting up in your face, but the other 98% of enemies all just hung back and shot at you from cover. the gameplay felt hella repetitive due to this.
weapon customization is possible, but feels almost irrelevant except if you switch out, say, a sniper rifle for a rocket launcher. then it gives a clear gameplay difference. upgrading from sniper_rifle_01 to sniper_rifle_02 didn't feel any different.
the game feels like a co-op/multiplayer game, where single play is tacked on. maybe thats why i feel short changed just playing single player. oh well.
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Folklore
Seems generic. Looking for dead mother type of story.
Holy load screens Batman!
Sure wish I knew where the hell I was supposed to go. Ran into an invulnerable boss... Seems, odd. General mission text says I'm supposed to talk to someone, nobody telling me where he is. No objective markers on the map. Been running around in circles for 40 minutes. THIS IS TERRIBLE.
Ok so the game didn't really explain the whole invulnerability bit... only ONE ability had any effect on the boss. Hurray for trial and error gameplay.
All of the girls animations during the comic book thing cutscenes are all like shes cowering or recoiling in fear. It doesn't seem to match the gameplay aspects where she's using familiars to fight monsters in an unknown world...
I returned this game to the person I borrowed it from. I didn't really like it. Combat felt too binary. The split storyline seemed interesting but it felt like I was playing through the game twice so I stuck with 1 character to go as far as I could.
Some of the environments looked nice (relatively... this was a PS3 launch title, I believe)
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Metro 2033
Typical post apocalyptic FPS. Really great at mood setting in the environment. Which I loved. Environments were the best part, but it was still pretty much an 'on rails' shooter.
Threw in some stealth based gameplay, which I absolutely hated. It's almost completely binary. If you get seen, your chance of success goes down to maybe 5% (and I was playing on easy...) This, coupled with some forced events that determined AI waypoints (eg. You enter an area, 2 guards are chatting for a minute, then they go in opposite directions letting you pass through unseen), really REALLY made me frustrated at times. Pretty much all of the stealth areas made me quit playing for some time.
Enemy selection is sparse. You fight maybe 5 or 6 different things. They don't really have any special AI other than the normal "KILL YOU!" mode
At times, the game puts you in a box with nothing to do for a couple minutes before being able to proceed. eg, you and your buddy arrive at a new station. He goes off to talk to someone else, leaving you in a small area with guards. Then he comes back and you proceed. I have no idea why they did this. The game has enough loading screens so it's not some behind-the-curtains process of streaming in assets.
Some parts of the game had some fairly crappy visual language. I got lost in a few areas and had absolutely NO idea where to go. You have this little map/compass thing that I used frequently, but the pathing in some areas didn't seem to be working since it was pointing to an area I didn't need to go. Frustrating
I was finding ammo for guns I never saw, or never had the opportunity to buy. /ponder
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Red Dead Redemption
Fun and great. Surprisingly so... since the gameplay doesn't really change THAT much through the entire game. But it never felt like it was getting stale for me.
So many minor bits of environmental narrative going on in the world made it feel like a living world that YOU were in, not that it was a world FOR you. eg. Man walking down a road with a shotgun on his shoulder. A little bit down the trail, a dead horse. It's easy for your mind to fill in the blanks and create a small story for that stuff. That example, along with a man randomly crying over a dead woman, were the most poignant bits for me.
The story is a big ridiculous, since the main character single handedly kills hundreds, nay, THOUSANDS of people. Including igniting the mexican revolution, killing half the mexican army, then later killing tons of american army. Suspension of belief is required for this game.
The ending of the game is great. I almost saw it coming, but it was still fairly shocking when it happened. And the 'ending' was nice too...
World design was ok. Lots of sparse open space with towns dotting the area. Environment was almost purely identical, dry dusty desert environment. There's a bit you get to late in the game that has sort of foresty area and even snow. Geographically fourth wall breaking, but it was a nice change of pace.
Fun to continue playing after the story is done. I'm working on some achievements and still enjoying it.
Just really great gameplay, can function as one of those games you just pick up for 20 minutes and run around doing stuff and actually accomplish something ingame.
Some of the village level design layouts are really interesting spaces (unfortunately, the ones i liked best were never used in any combat setups)
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Uncharted 2
Some day i will actually play this game and analyze it instead of just having so much goddamn FUN with it and forgetting to write notes... today is not that day.
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Gratuitous Space Battles
indy game i bought on steam during some weekend sale when i was on a space game kick.. didnt play how i thought it would play
gameplay is pretty much entirely automated. you have scenarios you fight, where you're allowed X amount of ships. X is a variable that can span different ship classes. You choose all your ships, the AI enemy chooses their ships, and you watch them beat the crap out of each other.
you earn XP to upgrade ships, get different loadouts for ships, can create new ships, etc etc. felt like a really deep customization mechanic for a, technically, 'gameplay absent' game. maybe the customization was meant to BE the game. im not sure... it was interesting, but i was sorta expecting something different, so i didnt play it very much
still (STILL!) need to replay mass effect 2. ive already beaten it once, but i want to go back through again on a dick hat playthru. still need to beat bayonetta, dantes inferno (gag), god of war 3 and a rachet n clank game.
Alan Wake
Did not like.
It's not scary. It has several scary moments, but they fade quickly. It relies on monster closets, and they lack lasting freak out factor.
The story is a giant WTF. I don't think its possible to know what the hell is going on until around 70% through the game where it's all explained for you. The achievement you get after that chapter is even called "So THAT'S what happened".... mmmhmm
Total dissonance with Barry. I hate Barry. Barry is the main characters friend. Barry almost dies. A lot. You have to rescue him, etc etc. Throughout all of his almost dying and whatnot, he's making jokes. Yes jokes. It sooooooooooooooooo did not fit.
The combat mechanics didn't really seem to change, or even get spiced up by some random factor. You weaken the enemies with light, then kill them. Some weapons like flare guns, kill them outright. Cars have lights, and you can run them over. Inanimate objects just hit with your flashlight and they 'die' or whatever. Would have liked to see SOMETHING different thrown in there, but then I'd probably be complaining about them throwing in random mechanics that don't fit the rest of combat...
On the 'it's not scary' bit... I always had enough ammo. I always had enough batteries for my light. I never felt rushed. I was never lost. The controls aren't restrictive. Good practices in game design make being scared hard to pull off. This game didn't do it for me.
Environments were great looking.
Liked the mechanic of seeing the messages that only show up when hit with flashlight.
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Army of Two 2 (the sequel? whatever... the second one they made)
thank god i finished this game, so i never have to play it again...
i did not like this game. at all. there were a few kinda cool bits to it, but i didnt like the other 97% of it.
it takes like 8 button presses to get into your last game save. what is so technologically difficult about a 'continue your last save' option on the front end?
difficulty spikes during the game.. i ran into a mini boss guy that i spent about 10 tries getting past, had to bump difficulty to easy to get past it. didnt have any problems back on normal for the rest of the game
checkpoints were too sparse. maybe biased due to the above problem, but everytime i died to that mini boss, i had to replay like 8-10 minutes of stuff to get another attempt at the boss. did not like
the game had a 'go this way' kind of mechanic so if you're lost, you could toggle on something and it would tell you where to go. problem is, it was just a painted line through the entire game. so if you're in some out of the way corner, and try to find out where you're going, you would still miss the painted line.
lack of player training. got 80% through the game before i saw a loading screen tip for double tapping the d-pad to give your teammate commands and it had a passive/aggressive state for each command. greeeeeeeat... apparently there's some way to do a co-op sniper thing while shooting unaware enemies, but after i tagged enemies, my partner would never hit the guy... also you can do a fake surrender (you put your hands up, and kneel, and then shoot people... like bruce willis at the end of die hard) and get some co-op kill thingy, but it doesnt tell you HOW to do all that stuff...
enemy AI felt pretty static. there were some cases where heavily armored guys would be way more aggressive about getting up in your face, but the other 98% of enemies all just hung back and shot at you from cover. the gameplay felt hella repetitive due to this.
weapon customization is possible, but feels almost irrelevant except if you switch out, say, a sniper rifle for a rocket launcher. then it gives a clear gameplay difference. upgrading from sniper_rifle_01 to sniper_rifle_02 didn't feel any different.
the game feels like a co-op/multiplayer game, where single play is tacked on. maybe thats why i feel short changed just playing single player. oh well.
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Folklore
Seems generic. Looking for dead mother type of story.
Holy load screens Batman!
Sure wish I knew where the hell I was supposed to go. Ran into an invulnerable boss... Seems, odd. General mission text says I'm supposed to talk to someone, nobody telling me where he is. No objective markers on the map. Been running around in circles for 40 minutes. THIS IS TERRIBLE.
Ok so the game didn't really explain the whole invulnerability bit... only ONE ability had any effect on the boss. Hurray for trial and error gameplay.
All of the girls animations during the comic book thing cutscenes are all like shes cowering or recoiling in fear. It doesn't seem to match the gameplay aspects where she's using familiars to fight monsters in an unknown world...
I returned this game to the person I borrowed it from. I didn't really like it. Combat felt too binary. The split storyline seemed interesting but it felt like I was playing through the game twice so I stuck with 1 character to go as far as I could.
Some of the environments looked nice (relatively... this was a PS3 launch title, I believe)
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Metro 2033
Typical post apocalyptic FPS. Really great at mood setting in the environment. Which I loved. Environments were the best part, but it was still pretty much an 'on rails' shooter.
Threw in some stealth based gameplay, which I absolutely hated. It's almost completely binary. If you get seen, your chance of success goes down to maybe 5% (and I was playing on easy...) This, coupled with some forced events that determined AI waypoints (eg. You enter an area, 2 guards are chatting for a minute, then they go in opposite directions letting you pass through unseen), really REALLY made me frustrated at times. Pretty much all of the stealth areas made me quit playing for some time.
Enemy selection is sparse. You fight maybe 5 or 6 different things. They don't really have any special AI other than the normal "KILL YOU!" mode
At times, the game puts you in a box with nothing to do for a couple minutes before being able to proceed. eg, you and your buddy arrive at a new station. He goes off to talk to someone else, leaving you in a small area with guards. Then he comes back and you proceed. I have no idea why they did this. The game has enough loading screens so it's not some behind-the-curtains process of streaming in assets.
Some parts of the game had some fairly crappy visual language. I got lost in a few areas and had absolutely NO idea where to go. You have this little map/compass thing that I used frequently, but the pathing in some areas didn't seem to be working since it was pointing to an area I didn't need to go. Frustrating
I was finding ammo for guns I never saw, or never had the opportunity to buy. /ponder
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Red Dead Redemption
Fun and great. Surprisingly so... since the gameplay doesn't really change THAT much through the entire game. But it never felt like it was getting stale for me.
So many minor bits of environmental narrative going on in the world made it feel like a living world that YOU were in, not that it was a world FOR you. eg. Man walking down a road with a shotgun on his shoulder. A little bit down the trail, a dead horse. It's easy for your mind to fill in the blanks and create a small story for that stuff. That example, along with a man randomly crying over a dead woman, were the most poignant bits for me.
The story is a big ridiculous, since the main character single handedly kills hundreds, nay, THOUSANDS of people. Including igniting the mexican revolution, killing half the mexican army, then later killing tons of american army. Suspension of belief is required for this game.
The ending of the game is great. I almost saw it coming, but it was still fairly shocking when it happened. And the 'ending' was nice too...
World design was ok. Lots of sparse open space with towns dotting the area. Environment was almost purely identical, dry dusty desert environment. There's a bit you get to late in the game that has sort of foresty area and even snow. Geographically fourth wall breaking, but it was a nice change of pace.
Fun to continue playing after the story is done. I'm working on some achievements and still enjoying it.
Just really great gameplay, can function as one of those games you just pick up for 20 minutes and run around doing stuff and actually accomplish something ingame.
Some of the village level design layouts are really interesting spaces (unfortunately, the ones i liked best were never used in any combat setups)
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Uncharted 2
Some day i will actually play this game and analyze it instead of just having so much goddamn FUN with it and forgetting to write notes... today is not that day.
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Gratuitous Space Battles
indy game i bought on steam during some weekend sale when i was on a space game kick.. didnt play how i thought it would play
gameplay is pretty much entirely automated. you have scenarios you fight, where you're allowed X amount of ships. X is a variable that can span different ship classes. You choose all your ships, the AI enemy chooses their ships, and you watch them beat the crap out of each other.
you earn XP to upgrade ships, get different loadouts for ships, can create new ships, etc etc. felt like a really deep customization mechanic for a, technically, 'gameplay absent' game. maybe the customization was meant to BE the game. im not sure... it was interesting, but i was sorta expecting something different, so i didnt play it very much
still (STILL!) need to replay mass effect 2. ive already beaten it once, but i want to go back through again on a dick hat playthru. still need to beat bayonetta, dantes inferno (gag), god of war 3 and a rachet n clank game.