In the excitement of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, I walked away with 4 new games, one of which was Batman: Arkham Asylum. I'd heard universally good things about it, both from friends and from game journalists. Despite the positive reviews, I was definitely skeptical, especially since I'm not a huge Batman fan. I mean, I like it as much as the next guy, but I was both tired and bored by the time Dark Knight was over. Regardless, I'm happy to admit now that I was wrong. Really, really wrong.
Arkham Asylum is AMAZING. Draenoth calls it the best licensed game he has ever played and I think it's hard to disagree with that point. They took everything that is great about Batman and put it into this game. They took everything that makes games like this boring and some how took it out. Case in point: combat.
The game routinely throws groups of unarmed goons at you to fight. Despite a couple of unlockable special moves and Bat gadgets, combat is pretty much a one button affair. You push the attack button, then push it again in the direction of a different guy and repeat. By any measure of game design, this seems like it would a recipe for tedium, but it just isn't... and I don't know why. Maybe it's the cinematic nature of the combat or the slow motion power swings, but every time I land a debilitating blow on the final thug, I both make a smashing noise and jump up in my chair a bit. Sometimes I giggle. It's just wildly fun in a way that few games have ever been.
Outside of combat, there are tons of collectibles that unlock Batman back story, Riddler riddles that you have solve, and lots of little puzzles that require you to use your Bat tools to the best of their abilities. When you play this game, you feel like a bad ass, which is pretty much all I could ever ask of a game.
The only hiccups I've had at all with the game so far was the install process: it seems to require some Visual Studio redistributable, .Net and PhysX drivers that it didn't install on it's own, even through Steam. All of the installers came with the game though, so after finding and running them, it seems to work fine. Also, the game pretty much requires a gamepad, so don't pick it up for PC without one (if you don't have an XBox 360 gamepad for your PC, just go get one).
I'm super excited to finish this game; as far as pure fun goes, I honestly haven't played ANY other game this year that compares.
Showing posts with label Initial Impressions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Initial Impressions. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Aion Initial Impressions
I must admit that playing large quantities of MMOs has really messed up my regular blog writing. I start playing one, then play it for 2-3 weeks during which I seldom have anything more interesting to write than "we killed 10 turtles, then gathered 8 shells, then..." Furthermore, the "end" is usually so far off that I feel ridiculous trying to write anything resembling a review. So, 3 weeks into Aion, I'm going to drop down some of my initial impressions as that's about the only thing that feels "right."
How would I describe Aion? It is definitely a game that seems to borrow a little bit from lots of various MMOs. Its general feel has a lot of WoW in it, the grindy nature of combat and crafting reminds me of FFXI, the PvP is reminiscent of Dark Ag of Camelot (or so I'm told), and the whole wings/ability to fly seems most like Champions Online (probably only because I had a winged flier there). As seems to be the case with most MMOs that come out these days, it does a pretty good handful of things right and some things wrong. I'm going to analyze various things one at a time:
Combat. I really have no complaints with the combat. It's very WoW-like with the addition of some skill chains and the addition of movement based bonuses/penalties, e.g. if you move forward while swinging you gain offense and lose defense, if you move backwards the reverse is true. The game has a very standard array of taunts for the tank, heals for the healer, and damage dealing moves for everyone else. In general I would say that combat is more interesting that most other MMOs I've played, but that's probably like saying that Return of the Jedi was more interesting than Empire Strikes back. It's still basically the same despite the differences.
Crafting. Crafting is a place where I think they got it half right and half wrong. The part I really like is that you generally level your crafting skill exclusively from doing work orders. You pickup a work order, buy whatever mats you may need from the nearby vendor and start crafting. Doing a work order requires creating a certain number of items (6 in the lower tiers) and usually grants you a single skill up point (a 1 to 450 scale) and a random item (more mats, designs, etc). The advantage of this model is that people are not creating armor/swords/necklaces to level up and thus completely devaluing the market for said items. Furthermore, those items are not worthless and easy to make (pointing finger squarely at WoW). That means that the items you craft are not only semi-decent (you'd actually use them), but there is actually a market for making and selling them. For that to happen with the lowest tier of items is quite remarkable in my opinion. The problem with this model is that doing work orders is spectacularly boring. You can only get a single work order at a time, which means you need to: get your work order, buy mats for 10ish work orders (this saves time), move 5 feet to the crafting table, craft your six items (while waiting/doing something else), move the 5 feet back to the work order NPC, turn the quest in, get another quest, and then repeat your crafting/turn in motions 9 more times. Once you do this (assuming you actually got your 10 points from the 10 work orders), you get the next tier of work order and start over. Even doing 10 work orders feels really boring. I kept feeling like I should have been able to just pay for my mats and have it give me the points automatically. You would literally spend dozens of hours doing nothing but what I just said to raise a crafting skill to max.
Quests. The quests are very much like the combat here. It's okay, but nothing really sticks out. At any time, you have a set of "Campaign" quests to do and regular side quests. The campaign quests generally have more steps required, or even a group, but the item and XP rewards are often phenomenal. While there are some small cut scenes that take place in the campaign quests, the majority of the quests are presented in the time honored MMO fashion of dense blocks of rather pointless text. I actually made a sporting effort to read a lot of the quest dialog, but there just really wasn't much point. I could see someone really getting into the lore here, but there really isn't enough here to get me overly excited.
Grinding. Aion is a grindy MMO. That's pretty much all there is to it. The XP and item rewards from grinding are nearly always better than doing quests. In fact, some of the quests are even grindy, like the group quest we did where each person had to collect 50 "Krall Marks." (Luckily, each mob dropped one for each of us, so we only had to kill 50 mobs, rather than 300). While that may very well be a deal breaker for some (go play Champions Online; that game has NO grinding), I actually think it's part of the game's charm. Of course, in all fairness, I spent around 5 hours hunting a rare mob that dropped a shield I really wanted (I got it!). I personally don't think it's a very big deal, but may be to other people.
PvP. PvP in Aion doesn't really start until level 25. After 3 weeks of not very heavy play, I'm barely level 20. I've heard that the PvP reminds people of DAoC, and supposedly it's quite decent, but I can't speak to it at this time.
Wings. If I had a disappointment in Aion, it's the wings. First off, you don't even get them until level 10. That wouldn't really be a problem, however, if they were more interesting. You can only fly in a very small number of areas. In the level 10-20 zone that I've mostly been in, there are only two relatively small flying areas that surround quest hubs/cities. The game gives some sort of random excuse for why you can't fly everywhere, but it felt pretty flimsy to me. The border between the flight and the non-flight areas is often just this invisible wall in which the game informs you that you can't fly there. When you are outside of a fly area, you can still pull your wings and glide downhill/across flat areas, but it's really not much of a mechanic. I could probably overlook these problems, if flight time was infinite, however, it is not. At level 10, you get 1 minute of flight time that takes 2 minutes to recharge. At higher levels (30, 40, 50) you get new wings with longer flight times (I think up to 2 minutes) while the 2 minute recharge remains. There are also items/potions/food that increase your flight time, but nothing very significant. I generally found flight to be little more than a gimmick or something that I had to sit around waiting for so I could gather more Aether (a resource that you gather out of the air). In all fairness, flight apparently plays a lot bigger role in the Abyss (level 25+), where there are even rings in the sky that increase your flight time, but as a whole, I am very unimpressed with flight.
I'm not quite sure how I would sum up my overall feelings. So far, I'm liking it well enough. Draenoth expressed his concerns (and he'll probably quit over them), mostly the fact that the story/lore is not at all interesting. I'd really like to get another ten levels or so in at least and see some of the instances/abyss content... just to give it a fair shake. Aion is definitely not a game for everyone, and certainly not a game for the average WoW player, but I think there are plenty of people out there who will really find something to enjoy.
How would I describe Aion? It is definitely a game that seems to borrow a little bit from lots of various MMOs. Its general feel has a lot of WoW in it, the grindy nature of combat and crafting reminds me of FFXI, the PvP is reminiscent of Dark Ag of Camelot (or so I'm told), and the whole wings/ability to fly seems most like Champions Online (probably only because I had a winged flier there). As seems to be the case with most MMOs that come out these days, it does a pretty good handful of things right and some things wrong. I'm going to analyze various things one at a time:
Combat. I really have no complaints with the combat. It's very WoW-like with the addition of some skill chains and the addition of movement based bonuses/penalties, e.g. if you move forward while swinging you gain offense and lose defense, if you move backwards the reverse is true. The game has a very standard array of taunts for the tank, heals for the healer, and damage dealing moves for everyone else. In general I would say that combat is more interesting that most other MMOs I've played, but that's probably like saying that Return of the Jedi was more interesting than Empire Strikes back. It's still basically the same despite the differences.
Crafting. Crafting is a place where I think they got it half right and half wrong. The part I really like is that you generally level your crafting skill exclusively from doing work orders. You pickup a work order, buy whatever mats you may need from the nearby vendor and start crafting. Doing a work order requires creating a certain number of items (6 in the lower tiers) and usually grants you a single skill up point (a 1 to 450 scale) and a random item (more mats, designs, etc). The advantage of this model is that people are not creating armor/swords/necklaces to level up and thus completely devaluing the market for said items. Furthermore, those items are not worthless and easy to make (pointing finger squarely at WoW). That means that the items you craft are not only semi-decent (you'd actually use them), but there is actually a market for making and selling them. For that to happen with the lowest tier of items is quite remarkable in my opinion. The problem with this model is that doing work orders is spectacularly boring. You can only get a single work order at a time, which means you need to: get your work order, buy mats for 10ish work orders (this saves time), move 5 feet to the crafting table, craft your six items (while waiting/doing something else), move the 5 feet back to the work order NPC, turn the quest in, get another quest, and then repeat your crafting/turn in motions 9 more times. Once you do this (assuming you actually got your 10 points from the 10 work orders), you get the next tier of work order and start over. Even doing 10 work orders feels really boring. I kept feeling like I should have been able to just pay for my mats and have it give me the points automatically. You would literally spend dozens of hours doing nothing but what I just said to raise a crafting skill to max.
Quests. The quests are very much like the combat here. It's okay, but nothing really sticks out. At any time, you have a set of "Campaign" quests to do and regular side quests. The campaign quests generally have more steps required, or even a group, but the item and XP rewards are often phenomenal. While there are some small cut scenes that take place in the campaign quests, the majority of the quests are presented in the time honored MMO fashion of dense blocks of rather pointless text. I actually made a sporting effort to read a lot of the quest dialog, but there just really wasn't much point. I could see someone really getting into the lore here, but there really isn't enough here to get me overly excited.
Grinding. Aion is a grindy MMO. That's pretty much all there is to it. The XP and item rewards from grinding are nearly always better than doing quests. In fact, some of the quests are even grindy, like the group quest we did where each person had to collect 50 "Krall Marks." (Luckily, each mob dropped one for each of us, so we only had to kill 50 mobs, rather than 300). While that may very well be a deal breaker for some (go play Champions Online; that game has NO grinding), I actually think it's part of the game's charm. Of course, in all fairness, I spent around 5 hours hunting a rare mob that dropped a shield I really wanted (I got it!). I personally don't think it's a very big deal, but may be to other people.
PvP. PvP in Aion doesn't really start until level 25. After 3 weeks of not very heavy play, I'm barely level 20. I've heard that the PvP reminds people of DAoC, and supposedly it's quite decent, but I can't speak to it at this time.
Wings. If I had a disappointment in Aion, it's the wings. First off, you don't even get them until level 10. That wouldn't really be a problem, however, if they were more interesting. You can only fly in a very small number of areas. In the level 10-20 zone that I've mostly been in, there are only two relatively small flying areas that surround quest hubs/cities. The game gives some sort of random excuse for why you can't fly everywhere, but it felt pretty flimsy to me. The border between the flight and the non-flight areas is often just this invisible wall in which the game informs you that you can't fly there. When you are outside of a fly area, you can still pull your wings and glide downhill/across flat areas, but it's really not much of a mechanic. I could probably overlook these problems, if flight time was infinite, however, it is not. At level 10, you get 1 minute of flight time that takes 2 minutes to recharge. At higher levels (30, 40, 50) you get new wings with longer flight times (I think up to 2 minutes) while the 2 minute recharge remains. There are also items/potions/food that increase your flight time, but nothing very significant. I generally found flight to be little more than a gimmick or something that I had to sit around waiting for so I could gather more Aether (a resource that you gather out of the air). In all fairness, flight apparently plays a lot bigger role in the Abyss (level 25+), where there are even rings in the sky that increase your flight time, but as a whole, I am very unimpressed with flight.
I'm not quite sure how I would sum up my overall feelings. So far, I'm liking it well enough. Draenoth expressed his concerns (and he'll probably quit over them), mostly the fact that the story/lore is not at all interesting. I'd really like to get another ten levels or so in at least and see some of the instances/abyss content... just to give it a fair shake. Aion is definitely not a game for everyone, and certainly not a game for the average WoW player, but I think there are plenty of people out there who will really find something to enjoy.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Chronicles of Riddick Initial Impressions
Never one to pass up a good deal, I recently picked up the Chronicles of Riddick from Direct2Drive for $5 as part of their five-year anniversary sale. While my previous experience with Direct2Drive wasn't great, it really wasn't that bad this time. Turns out they use the Fileplanet download manager which I had installed to obtain the Fallen Earth and Champions Online betas. With that installed properly, I must admit the experience was much smoother. However, given equal pricing, it offers me NOTHING that Steam doesn't already provide, with a loss of a friends list. In fact, I enjoy the friends chat there so much, that I actually added Riddick into Steam so I could still use the overlay.
As for the game itself, I must admit I was pleasantly surprised. Movie-licensed games are often notoriously bad (as my own game, The Tale of Despereaux, can attest); however, I'd heard good things about Riddick. I was not disappointed.
The version I purchased came with the original game, Escape from Butcher Bay, as well as the sequel, Dark Athena. Escape from Butcher Bay is a five-year-old game at this point, nevertheless, the graphics have held up surprisingly well. I instantly turned the settings most of the way up and found the game to not only look quite nice, but also run smoothly. Furthermore, the game doesn't even have any annoying graphic glitches on my ATI card... something that has become increasingly common lately.
The basic premise in Escape From Butcher Bay is that you have been captured by a bounty hunter and are dropped off at the high security prison, Butcher Bay. The game plays from a first person perspective, with all the typical trappings you'd expect from a shooter. There is a decent variety of ranged weapons (shotguns, assault rifles, etc), as well as melee weapons (shivs, clubs, screwdrivers, knuckledusters, etc). Additional, there are some basic stealth elements in which you can sneak around and perform some "stealth" kills. I've been quite pleased with the combat variety so far, and the overall difficulty also seems pretty good.
The place the game really shines though, is in its "adventure" features. Besides being able to fight, you also get opportunities to talk to other inmates and guards, taking quests for them or just being snarky. You can collect cigarette cartons to unlock extra features, collect money from hidden caches, and even gamble in a simple craps game. My favorite thing so far is when one drug addicted inmate asked me to gather some moths for him that were flying around the yard. When I got back to him, he was VERY happy; I must admit I chuckled a bit. While it's certainly no Fallout 3, it does provide quite a few interesting diversions and even some alternate solutions at times.
I honestly can't think of any real complaints I have with the game so far, but will definitely point them out in my final review.
As for the game itself, I must admit I was pleasantly surprised. Movie-licensed games are often notoriously bad (as my own game, The Tale of Despereaux, can attest); however, I'd heard good things about Riddick. I was not disappointed.
The version I purchased came with the original game, Escape from Butcher Bay, as well as the sequel, Dark Athena. Escape from Butcher Bay is a five-year-old game at this point, nevertheless, the graphics have held up surprisingly well. I instantly turned the settings most of the way up and found the game to not only look quite nice, but also run smoothly. Furthermore, the game doesn't even have any annoying graphic glitches on my ATI card... something that has become increasingly common lately.
The basic premise in Escape From Butcher Bay is that you have been captured by a bounty hunter and are dropped off at the high security prison, Butcher Bay. The game plays from a first person perspective, with all the typical trappings you'd expect from a shooter. There is a decent variety of ranged weapons (shotguns, assault rifles, etc), as well as melee weapons (shivs, clubs, screwdrivers, knuckledusters, etc). Additional, there are some basic stealth elements in which you can sneak around and perform some "stealth" kills. I've been quite pleased with the combat variety so far, and the overall difficulty also seems pretty good.
The place the game really shines though, is in its "adventure" features. Besides being able to fight, you also get opportunities to talk to other inmates and guards, taking quests for them or just being snarky. You can collect cigarette cartons to unlock extra features, collect money from hidden caches, and even gamble in a simple craps game. My favorite thing so far is when one drug addicted inmate asked me to gather some moths for him that were flying around the yard. When I got back to him, he was VERY happy; I must admit I chuckled a bit. While it's certainly no Fallout 3, it does provide quite a few interesting diversions and even some alternate solutions at times.
I honestly can't think of any real complaints I have with the game so far, but will definitely point them out in my final review.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Champions Online Initial Impressions
Draenoth and I preordered Champions Online last week and started playing last Friday as part of their head start weekend. I've now put in 4 evenings of play time and have leveled 3 characters all the way through the tutorial zones (takes a couple of hours).
While this isn't a review per se, I'm going to structure it similar to my reviews as it seems to make the most sense.
Love
So far, I'm definitely having a pretty good pile of fun with the game. Other than the retconning issue (which it sounds like they are working on), I don't have any big beefs with the game. I'm really curious to see how it progresses as I level up and will definitely be back here filling you all in.
While this isn't a review per se, I'm going to structure it similar to my reviews as it seems to make the most sense.
Love
- Being a hero. The game does a remarkable job at making you actually feel heroic... at least in certain builds. City of Heroes never really seemed to grasp this for me; I'm not quite sure why. I always just sort of felt like I was playing an MMO with super heroes as the characters rather than actually being a super hero. Champions definitely steps it up a notch and has some really heroic powers (the AoE force blast is definitely one of my favorites).
- Character creation. Champions is made by Cryptic, which is same studio (new name) that made City of Heroes. And it shows. They basically pulled every good feature from City of Heroes, especially the character creator. It is ridiculously rich in features and allows you to create all kinds of different looking heroes. Of the three I've made so far, one is a skeleton with wings (that actually flap when he flies!), the other is a very traditional looking hero with a cape, and the third is some sort of amphibian looking character than actually moves on all fours. I'm blown away by the number of different options there are (this coming from somebody who played CoH), however I will say that same categories are really limited, such as cowls and neck pieces. Generally speaking though, you can make a hero who looks like just about anything or anyone.
- Power house. The power house is one of those things that once you understand it, it makes so much sense that you wonder why nobody has ever had something like it before. Basically, when you need to level up, you go there and purchase your powers/advantages/stat boosts, etc. Then, you can test out your powers on various levels of dummys, lasers, obstacle courses, etc and decide if you like them. If you don't, you can undo the purchases and try something else out. Once you find something you like, you leave the power house and lock in your purchases. I can almost guarantee that this is a feature most future MMOs will borrow (if they're smart). It is amazingly good at helping you find things that work and are fun.
- Travel powers. The travel powers in Champions are excellent. There are also quite a few more than in City of Heroes. They range from various types of flight (normal, fire, hover discs/earth/ice) to tunneling and even include things like teleportation (my personal favorite) and swinging Spider Man style. Also, they give them to you at level 5, which means you only play the game for about an hour before getting them. I've never understand why games make you play for so long before giving you traveling powers/mounts. This is something that Champions definitely did right.
- Retcon (respecs). I have NO idea what they are thinking here. The respec system in its current form is completely broken. First of all, there are no full respecs. You can only undo the last 10 choices you have made. These include not only powers, but all stat and advantage choices. You can VERY easily mess up your build and not realize until it is too late. If that was the only problem, however, it wouldn't be that big of a deal though. The absolutely game breaking issue here is the cost. In my opinion, respec costs are about 10x what they should be. For example, you get new powers every 3 levels. I went to the power house at level 8 and checked the respec costs. Respeccing just one skill was 500+ resources. Then they increased backwards from there. At this time my total net worth was right around... 500 resources. Basically, in all the time I've been playing, I've never had a character that could afford to respec more than 1 to 2 powers. While I would hold out hope that I could do it later, the respec costs increase as you level, and you still can only go back 10 actions. Cryptic promised to drop the prices of respeccing when the game officially launched (yesterday), however the changes were so minuscule, most people couldn't even tell the different. The respeccing system is so bad, it makes every choice you make a time of actual stress and has actually caused people to call customer support and cancel their lifetime subscriptions. (NOTE: Looks like they patched this again just today. I'll write another post tomorrow with my new impressions on it).
- Tutorial zones. Every character you start plays through about 6 levels in the first tutorial zone, then the next 3 or so levels in one of two "Crisis" zones. While it is nice to have some option between the crisis zones, that very first zone gets old VERY fast. I've only taken 3 characters through it so far, but I'm already absolutely bored by it. When you compare this to a game like WoW that has so many different starting areas, it really doesn't stand up well. Also, Champions is a game that sort of begs you to make alts. The power sets are so different and the character creator is so fun, that I think everyone will have at least 3-4+ characters, even people who are generally anti-alt like me. They desperately need to give you some other tutorial zone options or at least let you skip that first zone altogether and spit you out in a Crisis zone at level 5.
- Where are my villains? It took a standalone expansion to get villains in the City of Heroes universe, and it was something I REALLY thought they should have done at launch here. It would have provided some more starting zone options, helped out the overly simplistic PvP quite a bit, and even just allowed for some variety in general. I've got a horrible feeling that they will add villains in an expansion, but quite honestly, I don't think I'll still be around when that happens.
So far, I'm definitely having a pretty good pile of fun with the game. Other than the retconning issue (which it sounds like they are working on), I don't have any big beefs with the game. I'm really curious to see how it progresses as I level up and will definitely be back here filling you all in.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Killing Floor
Sometime last week, my friend (Draenoth) and I, picked up Killing Floor on Steam. Killing Floor is a co-op zombie survival game that was originally a mod for UT2004. It's now a standalone game still using the UT2004 engine. As you'd expect for a mod turning full game, it isn't the most amazing piece of software. However, for what it is, it's surprisingly enjoyable.
The game play quite strongly reminds me of Nazi Zombies from World at War. Basically, you play through a set number of waves where each wave has a set number of zombies. Unlike Nazi Zombies, there are a variety of zombies in Killing Floor -- some of which are absolutely brutal. In the early waves, you see nothing but Clots (your basic plodding, melee zombie), Bloats (VERY similar to Boomer's from L4D in that they spray you with bile), and Goreclaws (zombies that plod along, get close, then rush at you with some nasty blades). As the levels progress, you eventually encounter Crawlers (spider looking zombies who jump on you), Sirens (slow moving but have a stunning "scream" ability), Stalkers (mostly invisible right up until they start swiping at you), Scrakes (similar to Goreclaws but instead of blades, they wield very mean chainsaws), and finally Gorepounds (very tough zombies who chase you down and have the ability to kill you VERY fast). The variety of zombies makes for some ridiculously fast paced matches that are often quite frantic.
Also different from Nazi Zombies is the fact that there are a set number of waves. Survive them all and you enter a final wave where you must take down a Patriarch (big, tough and has a chaingun, rocket launcher, and a serious melee attack). He's definitely nasty and requires some actual strategy to defeat. The patriarch battle is a good capstone to the rounds and has satisfying feel to it that Nazi Zombies lacks, even when you go through 20+ rounds.
As far as weapons go, Killing Floor has a pretty decent variety. There are a handful of melee weapons including an axe, a katana, and chainsaw. The guns include dual wieldedDesert Eagles Hand Cannons, machine guns, shotguns, rifles, and even a crossbow, rocket launcher, flame thrower. Additionally, you have the ability to pull out a syringe and heal yourself (or teammates) and even a welder to seal doors to slow the flow of zombies. I'm pretty pleased with the gun selection in Killing Floor and find it to be substantially better than either Left 4 Dead or the Nazi Zombie mode.
The thing I most like about Killing Floor, however, is its perk system. You can choose from one of 6 (I think) different perks. Each of these boosts a specific weapon class. There is one for healing, one for the shotgun, one for melee, one for pistols/rifles, one for machine guns, and one for the flamethrower. They provide a boost to your damage, your reload speed, and even provide weapon discounts (you buy weapons from a trader between waves). Each perk levels from 0 to 5. To level them up, you merely use the related skill/weapon. The best part is that you don't need to be that class to level up the perk, e.g. if you are a Firebug, you still level up your medic perk by healing your teammates. The perks level up in a matter resembling a quadratic curve, i.e. they level a LOT slower after the first few levels. So far, they've started to get really amazing at just level 2, so we're pretty anxious to see how they end up.
My biggest beef with the game so far is definitely how buggy the graphics are. While Draenoth reports that things seem okay for him, I have some really annoying problems with textures that seem to disappear. I even filed a bug on the official forums (it's still in moderation, I'll link it when it's up).
The final, most interesting thing we noticed about the game is just how challenging it is. We started playing on Normal (2 difficulties above it, 1 below) and found ourselves dying quite consistently in only the second round. After spending some time in Beginner, with a mutator turned on that only spawns Clots, we managed to level up our perks enough so that we were able to finally get through a game on Normal. I think it's actually pretty cool that the game has such a wide range of difficulty options.
I'm going to wait until we play the game more to write up final thoughts, but so far I'm relatively pleased. It's not amazing, it probably won't be something I'll play for a really long time, but it was easily worth the $20 I paid for it. Oh, and if any of you pick it up, let me know as it supports up to 6 people.
The game play quite strongly reminds me of Nazi Zombies from World at War. Basically, you play through a set number of waves where each wave has a set number of zombies. Unlike Nazi Zombies, there are a variety of zombies in Killing Floor -- some of which are absolutely brutal. In the early waves, you see nothing but Clots (your basic plodding, melee zombie), Bloats (VERY similar to Boomer's from L4D in that they spray you with bile), and Goreclaws (zombies that plod along, get close, then rush at you with some nasty blades). As the levels progress, you eventually encounter Crawlers (spider looking zombies who jump on you), Sirens (slow moving but have a stunning "scream" ability), Stalkers (mostly invisible right up until they start swiping at you), Scrakes (similar to Goreclaws but instead of blades, they wield very mean chainsaws), and finally Gorepounds (very tough zombies who chase you down and have the ability to kill you VERY fast). The variety of zombies makes for some ridiculously fast paced matches that are often quite frantic.
Also different from Nazi Zombies is the fact that there are a set number of waves. Survive them all and you enter a final wave where you must take down a Patriarch (big, tough and has a chaingun, rocket launcher, and a serious melee attack). He's definitely nasty and requires some actual strategy to defeat. The patriarch battle is a good capstone to the rounds and has satisfying feel to it that Nazi Zombies lacks, even when you go through 20+ rounds.
As far as weapons go, Killing Floor has a pretty decent variety. There are a handful of melee weapons including an axe, a katana, and chainsaw. The guns include dual wielded
The thing I most like about Killing Floor, however, is its perk system. You can choose from one of 6 (I think) different perks. Each of these boosts a specific weapon class. There is one for healing, one for the shotgun, one for melee, one for pistols/rifles, one for machine guns, and one for the flamethrower. They provide a boost to your damage, your reload speed, and even provide weapon discounts (you buy weapons from a trader between waves). Each perk levels from 0 to 5. To level them up, you merely use the related skill/weapon. The best part is that you don't need to be that class to level up the perk, e.g. if you are a Firebug, you still level up your medic perk by healing your teammates. The perks level up in a matter resembling a quadratic curve, i.e. they level a LOT slower after the first few levels. So far, they've started to get really amazing at just level 2, so we're pretty anxious to see how they end up.
My biggest beef with the game so far is definitely how buggy the graphics are. While Draenoth reports that things seem okay for him, I have some really annoying problems with textures that seem to disappear. I even filed a bug on the official forums (it's still in moderation, I'll link it when it's up).
The final, most interesting thing we noticed about the game is just how challenging it is. We started playing on Normal (2 difficulties above it, 1 below) and found ourselves dying quite consistently in only the second round. After spending some time in Beginner, with a mutator turned on that only spawns Clots, we managed to level up our perks enough so that we were able to finally get through a game on Normal. I think it's actually pretty cool that the game has such a wide range of difficulty options.
I'm going to wait until we play the game more to write up final thoughts, but so far I'm relatively pleased. It's not amazing, it probably won't be something I'll play for a really long time, but it was easily worth the $20 I paid for it. Oh, and if any of you pick it up, let me know as it supports up to 6 people.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Press A to not die
I've been a little lazy in writing blog posts lately, and as such, I have a backlog of three different things I need to write about. Hopefully I can put them all together and then actually get ahead a few days.
Over the weekend, I started playing Prince of Persia. This new one is sort of a series "reboot." The prince is less gritty, the art style is more cartoony, and the gameplay is more... easy.
The game starts off with the prince running into Elika, this game's princess/damsel. While running after her, you get a basic tutorial in moving and combat. The first thing I noticed is how dumbed down the the climbing/moving is. In previous Prince of Persia games, you would run towards a wall and hold down a trigger button on the gamepad to wall run. Here you simply jump into the wall. To run up a wall: jump into it. To climb a wall: jump into it. I'm semi-convinced you could play through most of the game by just pushing the gamepad forward and pressing the jump button at the appropriate time (the game even swings you around poles automatically). While it does provide some variety (sometimes you have to press B, and every once in a while, Y), the game is just really simplified. A friend of mine said that they "Assassin's Creed-ed it." That felt like a fitting description to me. It actually seems to be a growing trend in games, i.e., making the player feel more awesome while requiring them to do less. While I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of it, I can at least understand it.
Combat in this game is pretty standard fare for Prince of Persia games. There do seem to be fewer combos, although perhaps that's just my imagination. Also, Elika is always right behind you, and by pressing the Y button, she'll perform a magic attack on whatever you are targeting. Perhaps I'm missing something awesome, but stringing acrobatic magic combos together seems to be the easiest and fastest way of killing pretty much everything. You basically just mash the Y button, then push the A button once, then mash the Y button some more. In Warrior Within, the combat felt really satisfying. If I vaulted over an enemies head and stabbed them in the back, I felt like I had earned it. Here, I mostly feel like I'm just mashing buttons and watching enemies die.
As far as difficulty goes, this game isn't. Difficult, that is. If you fall, Elika will fly down and save you. If you get knocked down in battle, Elika blasts the enemy away so you can get up. While the game mechanic is at least partially fitting, it is in no way fulfilling. If I fell in Sands of Time, I rewound time. I was still safe on the ledge before my jump, but I actually had to expend some energy/effort to save myself. This game has no such satisfaction. While I don't think the game designers need to be our enemies like they were in the old NES games, I'm not retarded and I don't need to be coddled ALL the time.
My final big beef with the game so far is the collecting that is required. The game sends you to a specific area, where you kill a boss and then "cleanse" the region. Afterward, Seeds of Light appear that you must collect. You need to collect enough of them so that you can unlock powers which enable you to get to new areas. The mechanic feels really artificial to me, something the designers sort of tacked on to force you to play through the areas more or even something they could tie Achievements/Trophies too. Needless to say, I will be collecting the absolute minimum number of seeds required to finish the game.
The one good thing about the game so far is the art style. The game has a delightful cel-shaded 3D style, something I haven't seen since the game XIII. I'm definitely a fan of it.
This is the first game I've played this far into in a while where I wasn't really looking forward to finishing it. The game isn't THAT bad, so I probably will finish, but there just isn't anything about the game that I'm excited about. I'm pretty sure it'll just be more of the same. I only wish this game's designers had been as creatively awesome as its artists.
Over the weekend, I started playing Prince of Persia. This new one is sort of a series "reboot." The prince is less gritty, the art style is more cartoony, and the gameplay is more... easy.
The game starts off with the prince running into Elika, this game's princess/damsel. While running after her, you get a basic tutorial in moving and combat. The first thing I noticed is how dumbed down the the climbing/moving is. In previous Prince of Persia games, you would run towards a wall and hold down a trigger button on the gamepad to wall run. Here you simply jump into the wall. To run up a wall: jump into it. To climb a wall: jump into it. I'm semi-convinced you could play through most of the game by just pushing the gamepad forward and pressing the jump button at the appropriate time (the game even swings you around poles automatically). While it does provide some variety (sometimes you have to press B, and every once in a while, Y), the game is just really simplified. A friend of mine said that they "Assassin's Creed-ed it." That felt like a fitting description to me. It actually seems to be a growing trend in games, i.e., making the player feel more awesome while requiring them to do less. While I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of it, I can at least understand it.
Combat in this game is pretty standard fare for Prince of Persia games. There do seem to be fewer combos, although perhaps that's just my imagination. Also, Elika is always right behind you, and by pressing the Y button, she'll perform a magic attack on whatever you are targeting. Perhaps I'm missing something awesome, but stringing acrobatic magic combos together seems to be the easiest and fastest way of killing pretty much everything. You basically just mash the Y button, then push the A button once, then mash the Y button some more. In Warrior Within, the combat felt really satisfying. If I vaulted over an enemies head and stabbed them in the back, I felt like I had earned it. Here, I mostly feel like I'm just mashing buttons and watching enemies die.
As far as difficulty goes, this game isn't. Difficult, that is. If you fall, Elika will fly down and save you. If you get knocked down in battle, Elika blasts the enemy away so you can get up. While the game mechanic is at least partially fitting, it is in no way fulfilling. If I fell in Sands of Time, I rewound time. I was still safe on the ledge before my jump, but I actually had to expend some energy/effort to save myself. This game has no such satisfaction. While I don't think the game designers need to be our enemies like they were in the old NES games, I'm not retarded and I don't need to be coddled ALL the time.
My final big beef with the game so far is the collecting that is required. The game sends you to a specific area, where you kill a boss and then "cleanse" the region. Afterward, Seeds of Light appear that you must collect. You need to collect enough of them so that you can unlock powers which enable you to get to new areas. The mechanic feels really artificial to me, something the designers sort of tacked on to force you to play through the areas more or even something they could tie Achievements/Trophies too. Needless to say, I will be collecting the absolute minimum number of seeds required to finish the game.
The one good thing about the game so far is the art style. The game has a delightful cel-shaded 3D style, something I haven't seen since the game XIII. I'm definitely a fan of it.
This is the first game I've played this far into in a while where I wasn't really looking forward to finishing it. The game isn't THAT bad, so I probably will finish, but there just isn't anything about the game that I'm excited about. I'm pretty sure it'll just be more of the same. I only wish this game's designers had been as creatively awesome as its artists.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Indie Games Smorgasbord
As has been a recurring trend lately, I picked up some new games in the Steam weekend deal. This one is particularly good, containing 10 top quality indie games for a measly $30. Since most of them run $10-$20 EACH, the value is phenomenal. After a bit of deliberation, I decided to start with Crayon Physics Deluxe.
Crayon Physics Deluxe is based on (surprise!) Crayon Physics, which was a five-day rapid prototyping project released back in 2007. More a tech demo than a game, I could see that it definitely had potential; however, the drawing wasn't very good, as all shapes were translated into primitives (rectangles, etc). When I heard that the creator was creating a "Deluxe" version with proper physics and collision detection, I was definitely excited. I've been meaning to pick it up since the beginning of the year, but just never got around to it. As part of this super deal, I couldn't resist.
The game is pretty simple: push/guide a ball around various stages while trying to get it to collide with one or more stars. You accomplish this by using your mouse (this game would ROCK on a tablet PC) to draw various shapes. You can make simple platforms, ropes, pulleys, and all kinds of other shapes. Setup a path for your ball to follow and then either drop something on it to get it moving, push it by clicking on it, or use some sort of basket to catapult it to victory.
As you collect stars, you unlock additional islands and stages to play in. I haven’t even played half the stages, but so far I am very impressed. The level design is interesting and forces you to use a variety of tactics.
After you manage to collect the stars, you can go back and try to get both the “elegant” and the “old school” solutions. These involve using either a specific number of objects (elegant) or doing it without using strings and pulleys (old school). It adds even more variety to an already stellar game.
While playing this, I couldn’t help but compare it to World of Goo – especially as both are puzzle games where physics play a big role. While I LOVED the setting, art style, music, and even the gameplay of World of Goo, Crayon Physics has a charm and inventiveness to it that just isn’t matched. I’m definitely looking forward to playing the tail half. I’ll be sure to post any interesting stages or solutions I come upon.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Call of Duty: World at War First Impressions
Last Tuesday, I was sitting at work watching the tweets pop up like always, when I saw that Direct2Drive was about to have a trivia contest. The first five people to answer correctly would get a free game of their choice from the D2D catalog. I decided to go to the Twitter website directly to get a better chance. As soon as I got there, I saw the question... it had been posted only 10 seconds previous. A quick Google search allowed me to reply with an answer not 30 seconds after the question had been posted. I was so convinced I was going to win, I actually started looking through their catalog. Well, 10-15 minutes later, I got a message congratulating me and asking me what game I wanted. I decided on Call of Duty: World at War for a couple of reasons:
The short version: it sucked.
I've purchased a handful of games on Steam, mostly when they were cheap and on sale, and each time the experience was exceptionally painless. I start it downloading, can pause it, and just wait for it to finish. When it gets done, it's ready to play and fully patched.
But with D2D, you have to go to their website, login, then find the my account link (it was a bit hidden in my opinion). After that, you can download your game. While they seem to have a download manager that may ease the process (I generally HATE 3rd party download managers), it didn't just "work" in Firefox for some reason and I found myself downloading the game manually. 15+ hours later, I had all 7 GBs downloaded. The file I downloaded was a .zip file, which I then tried to extract. Just using the Windows 7 zip tools, I was absolutely unable to extract the zip file; the last file in the pack just wouldn't extract properly. If I was an "average" computer user, I would have given up right then and there. I, however, quickly pulled up 7-zip and was able to extract the last file. The install process was simple enough, but I was absolutely shocked when I discovered I was installing what was basically version 1.0 of the game. In a digital format like that, I saw no reason I couldn't have just downloaded a complete and final version. I quickly discovered that it would take 3 patches and 2 MORE GBs of downloading to get up to date. One more day elapsed, and I finally had the game downloaded and up to date. While I didn't mind jumping through hoops for a free game, it didn't exactly make me want to go buy a bunch more from their store.
With the game finally working, my friend and I started up a co-op game. The game actually does this pretty well as it has an integrated friends list and you can use that to invite each other to games. We didn't have to monkey with port forwarding or Hamachi or anything crazy like that. In today's age of NATs and shared internet connections, it's good to see somebody get something like that right.
In co-op play, both you and your friends play the role of the same character (even sharing the same viewpoint during cutscenes). In combat, the game plays basically exactly as it would in single player, but with two (or more of you). In short, it works really well. In addition, the game has a unique set of challenges for the co-op mode. This means that you can actually level up your multiplayer profile in co-op play, something I think is a REALLY nice touch. At the end of each chapter, we were able to compare kill counts, headshots, deaths, etc. This was fun as it allowed us to play and work together, while still maintaining a bit of competitiveness to the game. At the end of our three-hour play session, I knew one thing: ALL GAMES NEED CO-OP.
As for the actual game play, it was familiar and more or less exactly what I was expecting. For better or worse (in my opinion: for better), the game is basically Call of Duty 4 (same engine, etc) set during World War II. While the WWII market is already pretty saturated, they manage to make it fresh, mostly by focusing on some less played scenarios like the Americans fighting the Japanese in the Pacific. The game hasn't had many surprises so far, playing more or less exactly as I'd expect. All told, it's been a lot of fun, and I can't wait to finish the rest of the missions in co-op mode.
In conclusion: Direct 2 Drive = not great. World at War = a blast in co-op. Free games = AWESOME.
- I didn't care if I had a boxed copy or not
- It was still $50 in store and was unlikely to drop in price soon
- I knew it had some really good co-op play
The short version: it sucked.
I've purchased a handful of games on Steam, mostly when they were cheap and on sale, and each time the experience was exceptionally painless. I start it downloading, can pause it, and just wait for it to finish. When it gets done, it's ready to play and fully patched.
But with D2D, you have to go to their website, login, then find the my account link (it was a bit hidden in my opinion). After that, you can download your game. While they seem to have a download manager that may ease the process (I generally HATE 3rd party download managers), it didn't just "work" in Firefox for some reason and I found myself downloading the game manually. 15+ hours later, I had all 7 GBs downloaded. The file I downloaded was a .zip file, which I then tried to extract. Just using the Windows 7 zip tools, I was absolutely unable to extract the zip file; the last file in the pack just wouldn't extract properly. If I was an "average" computer user, I would have given up right then and there. I, however, quickly pulled up 7-zip and was able to extract the last file. The install process was simple enough, but I was absolutely shocked when I discovered I was installing what was basically version 1.0 of the game. In a digital format like that, I saw no reason I couldn't have just downloaded a complete and final version. I quickly discovered that it would take 3 patches and 2 MORE GBs of downloading to get up to date. One more day elapsed, and I finally had the game downloaded and up to date. While I didn't mind jumping through hoops for a free game, it didn't exactly make me want to go buy a bunch more from their store.
With the game finally working, my friend and I started up a co-op game. The game actually does this pretty well as it has an integrated friends list and you can use that to invite each other to games. We didn't have to monkey with port forwarding or Hamachi or anything crazy like that. In today's age of NATs and shared internet connections, it's good to see somebody get something like that right.
In co-op play, both you and your friends play the role of the same character (even sharing the same viewpoint during cutscenes). In combat, the game plays basically exactly as it would in single player, but with two (or more of you). In short, it works really well. In addition, the game has a unique set of challenges for the co-op mode. This means that you can actually level up your multiplayer profile in co-op play, something I think is a REALLY nice touch. At the end of each chapter, we were able to compare kill counts, headshots, deaths, etc. This was fun as it allowed us to play and work together, while still maintaining a bit of competitiveness to the game. At the end of our three-hour play session, I knew one thing: ALL GAMES NEED CO-OP.
As for the actual game play, it was familiar and more or less exactly what I was expecting. For better or worse (in my opinion: for better), the game is basically Call of Duty 4 (same engine, etc) set during World War II. While the WWII market is already pretty saturated, they manage to make it fresh, mostly by focusing on some less played scenarios like the Americans fighting the Japanese in the Pacific. The game hasn't had many surprises so far, playing more or less exactly as I'd expect. All told, it's been a lot of fun, and I can't wait to finish the rest of the missions in co-op mode.
In conclusion: Direct 2 Drive = not great. World at War = a blast in co-op. Free games = AWESOME.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Mirror's Edge Initial Impressions
Having finally finished Twilight Princess, I installed Mirror's Edge on my PC last night. The first thing I noticed was how unbelievably long it took to install; it was seriously in excess of 20 minutes. The installation progress bar was also VERY uninformative. I'm going to throw one point (they were bound to get one eventually) to the console crowd for no/few installs.
Once in the game itself, I was immediately impressed by the visual style. The world itself has a relatively blank/white coloring scheme. The game uses strong colors to showcase certain features of the game. Anything related to the player character or "running" shows in a strong red. Police related events/areas are blue, offices show in strong greens and yellows. I don't think anybody could really do it justice just by explaining it, but it works VERY well. It feels like a realistic world with sort of a comic book drawn over the top of it.
Additionally, all the in-game cutscenes are done in a cartoon/comic style that is brilliant. Once again, it is a perfect fit for the game world and does the game a lot more justice than cutscenes done with in-game assets would. I definitely have to give the art/game designers at Dice props here, I think they put together a beautiful game.
The prettiness aside, the gameplay is a BLAST. I opted for a gamepad, as the game is mostly platforming, which I feel was a wise choice. It's a pretty basic left stick move, right stick look setup, with most of the action buttons (jump, slide, turn) on the various triggers. I'm not a huge fan of having jump as the left bumper (should probably change it), but it isn't that bad. I looked at the mouse/keyboard options, but most of them looked pretty bad in comparison.
The game does a remarkable job of marking you feel fast and/or coordinated. Once you get the hang of the controls, it's really easy to run from rooftop to rooftop jumping, leaping, and diving as required. My only real complaint in the acrobatics is the relatively slow speed at which you climb (either game designers in general set this too slow or I'm just impatient). When I found myself vaulting around the rooftops only to slow down dramatically when I grabbed onto a pipe to climb it, my sense of momentum was greatly impacted. I really feel like somebody as fit as Faith would be able to climb up a ladder/pipe a little bit faster.
The other main element of the game is combat. So far, I've had to do relatively little. Without a doubt, it is the weakest thing in the game. It's fun/easy to run a "blue" down and disarm him, but when I then have to deal with half a dozen other cops, the game definitely slows down. The gun combat feels weak and clumsy (especially with a gamepad). I'm hoping that it doesn't become too big a part of the game, although I've heard otherwise.
Regardless of my minor quibbles, I'm VERY impressed by the game so far. It's a lot of fun and definitely a breath of fresh air after slogging through Zelda. My initial recommendation is to go pick it up (it's super cheap on all systems) if you haven't already played it.
Once in the game itself, I was immediately impressed by the visual style. The world itself has a relatively blank/white coloring scheme. The game uses strong colors to showcase certain features of the game. Anything related to the player character or "running" shows in a strong red. Police related events/areas are blue, offices show in strong greens and yellows. I don't think anybody could really do it justice just by explaining it, but it works VERY well. It feels like a realistic world with sort of a comic book drawn over the top of it.
Additionally, all the in-game cutscenes are done in a cartoon/comic style that is brilliant. Once again, it is a perfect fit for the game world and does the game a lot more justice than cutscenes done with in-game assets would. I definitely have to give the art/game designers at Dice props here, I think they put together a beautiful game.
The prettiness aside, the gameplay is a BLAST. I opted for a gamepad, as the game is mostly platforming, which I feel was a wise choice. It's a pretty basic left stick move, right stick look setup, with most of the action buttons (jump, slide, turn) on the various triggers. I'm not a huge fan of having jump as the left bumper (should probably change it), but it isn't that bad. I looked at the mouse/keyboard options, but most of them looked pretty bad in comparison.
The game does a remarkable job of marking you feel fast and/or coordinated. Once you get the hang of the controls, it's really easy to run from rooftop to rooftop jumping, leaping, and diving as required. My only real complaint in the acrobatics is the relatively slow speed at which you climb (either game designers in general set this too slow or I'm just impatient). When I found myself vaulting around the rooftops only to slow down dramatically when I grabbed onto a pipe to climb it, my sense of momentum was greatly impacted. I really feel like somebody as fit as Faith would be able to climb up a ladder/pipe a little bit faster.
The other main element of the game is combat. So far, I've had to do relatively little. Without a doubt, it is the weakest thing in the game. It's fun/easy to run a "blue" down and disarm him, but when I then have to deal with half a dozen other cops, the game definitely slows down. The gun combat feels weak and clumsy (especially with a gamepad). I'm hoping that it doesn't become too big a part of the game, although I've heard otherwise.
Regardless of my minor quibbles, I'm VERY impressed by the game so far. It's a lot of fun and definitely a breath of fresh air after slogging through Zelda. My initial recommendation is to go pick it up (it's super cheap on all systems) if you haven't already played it.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Exactly the same only different
This morning, I found myself sitting on my couch watching my daughter and exceptionally bored. Without many other options, I decided it was finally time to start Zelda: Twilight Princess. The fact that I haven't played the game until now is borderline criminal, as it was basically THE game I purchased a Wii for. Furthermore, I've owned the game since Christmas. I'm really not sure I have any excuse here other than playing the Wii forces me to oust the wife from the TV, which, while possible, isn't a trivial undertaking.
That all being said, I'd have to say I'm enjoying it so far. My biggest complaint so far is just how slow the game starts out. It's a very classic "screw around in the fairy/elf town getting a feel for the game" Zelda start. It took me well over an hour before I even really did any fighting. Additionally, just when I thought the game was really "starting," it introduced the twilight realm to me, including my twilight form, which further delayed the game really getting going. Now, don't get me wrong, the story is interesting and it has all been quite enjoyable, but I really just wanted to get in the meat of the game.
Eventually, I found myself in the first dungeon: the Forest Temple (*yawn* seriously guys? Starting with the Forest Temple again?). Not far inside, I had a rather annoying thing happen to me.
The first real room in the temple has a big "I'll break if you throw a bomb at me wall," which I realized existed as the cutscene was playing that showed me raising a stair case right in front of it. I probably spent a good 5-10 minutes looking around trying to figure out if I could still get at it; I couldn't. I contemplated reloading a previous save, then realized I just didn't care that much.
Let me diverge for a brief period here: I HATE it when game doesn't allow me to go back (especially in an open game like this) to get stuff I missed. If you ever read a FAQ for a game and it says, "MAKE SURE YOU DO THIS BEFORE YOU DO THAT," you've encountered a game feature I think is stupid. Okay, end rant.
I continued through the temple, freeing monkeys, which were used in an interesting way to help me cross some no-bridge areas (they would hang from a rope in a line and I would swing from monkey to monkey). Shortly afterward, I found myself fighting the mini-boss, which in class Zelda fashion meant I was going to be getting a new weapon. As much as I was pretty sure I was about to get the boomerang (don't you ALWAYS get the boomerang first?), it looked like I was going to get some sort of cool wind blowing device as there were obvious places to use it. To my semi-surprise, I got the "wind" boomerang. I decided to give them half points for that, only because the wind mechanic actually turned out to be really cool. Of course, anybody who has played the game knows that the wind from the boomerang can be used to put out flames, which allowed me to make that wall covering staircase disappear and then use a bomb flower/insect to enter therein (it was a yellow rupee or something similarly worthless, *sigh*).
The rest of the temple was relatively uneventful. The end boss was interesting enough even if the kill mechanic was pretty obvious (wind boomerang + bomb + flower head = boom). With the boss dead, I picked up my first heart container... about 4 hours into the game.
So how is it? It's fun. It's a Zelda game; if you like Zelda games, you'll like this. It rehashes pretty much ALL the Zelda cliches (horse, trapped kids, Forest Temple, the weapons, etc, etc) which definitely put me off a bit initially, and it definitely takes a while to get going, but all-in-all I'm impressed so far. The twilight world and the wolf form are both great ideas and work quite well I think (probably more on both in the future). I probably won't rush through the game, but I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of my play through.
That all being said, I'd have to say I'm enjoying it so far. My biggest complaint so far is just how slow the game starts out. It's a very classic "screw around in the fairy/elf town getting a feel for the game" Zelda start. It took me well over an hour before I even really did any fighting. Additionally, just when I thought the game was really "starting," it introduced the twilight realm to me, including my twilight form, which further delayed the game really getting going. Now, don't get me wrong, the story is interesting and it has all been quite enjoyable, but I really just wanted to get in the meat of the game.
Eventually, I found myself in the first dungeon: the Forest Temple (*yawn* seriously guys? Starting with the Forest Temple again?). Not far inside, I had a rather annoying thing happen to me.
The first real room in the temple has a big "I'll break if you throw a bomb at me wall," which I realized existed as the cutscene was playing that showed me raising a stair case right in front of it. I probably spent a good 5-10 minutes looking around trying to figure out if I could still get at it; I couldn't. I contemplated reloading a previous save, then realized I just didn't care that much.
Let me diverge for a brief period here: I HATE it when game doesn't allow me to go back (especially in an open game like this) to get stuff I missed. If you ever read a FAQ for a game and it says, "MAKE SURE YOU DO THIS BEFORE YOU DO THAT," you've encountered a game feature I think is stupid. Okay, end rant.
I continued through the temple, freeing monkeys, which were used in an interesting way to help me cross some no-bridge areas (they would hang from a rope in a line and I would swing from monkey to monkey). Shortly afterward, I found myself fighting the mini-boss, which in class Zelda fashion meant I was going to be getting a new weapon. As much as I was pretty sure I was about to get the boomerang (don't you ALWAYS get the boomerang first?), it looked like I was going to get some sort of cool wind blowing device as there were obvious places to use it. To my semi-surprise, I got the "wind" boomerang. I decided to give them half points for that, only because the wind mechanic actually turned out to be really cool. Of course, anybody who has played the game knows that the wind from the boomerang can be used to put out flames, which allowed me to make that wall covering staircase disappear and then use a bomb flower/insect to enter therein (it was a yellow rupee or something similarly worthless, *sigh*).
The rest of the temple was relatively uneventful. The end boss was interesting enough even if the kill mechanic was pretty obvious (wind boomerang + bomb + flower head = boom). With the boss dead, I picked up my first heart container... about 4 hours into the game.
So how is it? It's fun. It's a Zelda game; if you like Zelda games, you'll like this. It rehashes pretty much ALL the Zelda cliches (horse, trapped kids, Forest Temple, the weapons, etc, etc) which definitely put me off a bit initially, and it definitely takes a while to get going, but all-in-all I'm impressed so far. The twilight world and the wolf form are both great ideas and work quite well I think (probably more on both in the future). I probably won't rush through the game, but I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of my play through.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Penumbra: Overture - First Impressions
My most recent video game purchase was the Penumbra series (Overture, Black Plague, and Requiem) on Steam for the tidy price of $5. I had heard relatively little about the series, only having a basic idea of what it was about, but for $5 I figured I couldn't go wrong. What I ended up with is a delightful little first person action adventure horror game (that's a lot of adjectives).
Penumbra begins with your character, Philip, on a boat for Greenland to investigate some of the mystery concerning your father (I don't think I was paying attention carefully enough here as I've already forgotten the exact details). I quickly found myself inside an "abandoned" mine of some kind.
I was immediately impressed by the interface. While it has traditional WASD first person shooter controls, the majority of interaction is actually done with a little hand cursor. It instantly reminded me of countless adventure games I've played. You can either directly enter interaction mode in which the mouse controls your cursor rather than your looking direction, or use the mouse to look around which moves your center point (I turned on a cross hair) over stuff until the cursor appears. Again, in classic adventure game style, the right mouse button performs a "look" and provides more information (often witty and sarcastic) about whatever your cursor is over while the left mouse button picks things up. The place the game really shines, however, is in its physical interactions.
Penumbra has a pretty decent physics system and forces you to use it to interact with the environment. To open a door, for example, you click on the door and drag the mouse until the door opens... the same goes for opening drawers and chests, even for flipping switches or turning cranks. It works surprisingly well and adds a nice level of immersion to the equation.
It also features another adventure game staple: combining inventory items. In one area, I had to find some string, combine it with a coating of some kind I had picked up, then dip it into some black powder I had found by breaking open a barrel. All to make a wick which I eventually stuck into a barrel of TNT and used to blow open the way to the next part of the game.
While combat exists in Penumbra, so far the game has more or less discouraged it. I've yet to find any enemy except for some zombie-like dogs. So far, it has been rather easy to either avoid them outright or lure them away using the plethora of stale beef jerky I've been finding. The few I have fought have been in melee combat with a pickaxe I found. Instead of just pushing the button to equip your axe and then clicking to swing it, the game actually forces you to swing your mouse back and forth (or up and down) to swing the pick. It adds a bit of difficulty to the attacks, but again, also adds some immersion.
So far, I must admit I'm relatively impressed. The puzzles have been pretty interesting without being
impossible (I really liked the one where I had to listen to a Morse code message being played over the radio and then figure out the numbers involved which became the pass code for a gate) and the setting is reasonably creepy. My only big problem has been some graphical issues (see my screenshot) which seem to be limited to ATI cards... however the problem isn't constant and usually goes away if I restart the game. I'm anxious to see where the game goes (a friend of mine promised me a "wow" moment) and will be updating you all as I continue to play.
Penumbra begins with your character, Philip, on a boat for Greenland to investigate some of the mystery concerning your father (I don't think I was paying attention carefully enough here as I've already forgotten the exact details). I quickly found myself inside an "abandoned" mine of some kind.
I was immediately impressed by the interface. While it has traditional WASD first person shooter controls, the majority of interaction is actually done with a little hand cursor. It instantly reminded me of countless adventure games I've played. You can either directly enter interaction mode in which the mouse controls your cursor rather than your looking direction, or use the mouse to look around which moves your center point (I turned on a cross hair) over stuff until the cursor appears. Again, in classic adventure game style, the right mouse button performs a "look" and provides more information (often witty and sarcastic) about whatever your cursor is over while the left mouse button picks things up. The place the game really shines, however, is in its physical interactions.
Penumbra has a pretty decent physics system and forces you to use it to interact with the environment. To open a door, for example, you click on the door and drag the mouse until the door opens... the same goes for opening drawers and chests, even for flipping switches or turning cranks. It works surprisingly well and adds a nice level of immersion to the equation.
It also features another adventure game staple: combining inventory items. In one area, I had to find some string, combine it with a coating of some kind I had picked up, then dip it into some black powder I had found by breaking open a barrel. All to make a wick which I eventually stuck into a barrel of TNT and used to blow open the way to the next part of the game.
While combat exists in Penumbra, so far the game has more or less discouraged it. I've yet to find any enemy except for some zombie-like dogs. So far, it has been rather easy to either avoid them outright or lure them away using the plethora of stale beef jerky I've been finding. The few I have fought have been in melee combat with a pickaxe I found. Instead of just pushing the button to equip your axe and then clicking to swing it, the game actually forces you to swing your mouse back and forth (or up and down) to swing the pick. It adds a bit of difficulty to the attacks, but again, also adds some immersion.
So far, I must admit I'm relatively impressed. The puzzles have been pretty interesting without being
impossible (I really liked the one where I had to listen to a Morse code message being played over the radio and then figure out the numbers involved which became the pass code for a gate) and the setting is reasonably creepy. My only big problem has been some graphical issues (see my screenshot) which seem to be limited to ATI cards... however the problem isn't constant and usually goes away if I restart the game. I'm anxious to see where the game goes (a friend of mine promised me a "wow" moment) and will be updating you all as I continue to play.
Friday, June 5, 2009
The hay bale is mightier than the sword
Yesterday, I began in earnest my play through of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. Yes, I know this game is like three years old, but I just bought from one of GoGamer.com's 48 madness sales for about $6. For those of you not familiar with the game, it's built using Valve's source engine of Half Life 2 fame.
After reading around and asking a friend, I decided that I wanted to play through as a mostly melee class with a little bit of support magic. After some cutscenes and an intro chapter or two in which you don't really fight anything, I finally got to some real action in chapter 2.
My first impression: this game is hard.
Now, let's be clear: I'm no slouch when it comes to video games, and I'm quite good at shooters, but this game is rough. It had three difficulty levels, Normal, Hard, and Insane/Difficulty/Don't play here... I'm pretty sure I picked the middle one (which in all fairness is called Hard, so maybe it makes sense).
You start the second chapter being awoken by a servant who informs you of an attack. A lone guard comes up the stairs; he is wearing full armor and has a shield and sword. This first fight didn't seem to cause me too much grief, although I did take quite a bit of damage. From there, you go down the stairs and out the door... that's where the craziness began.
Here, it threw me against a archer and three more of those melee soldiers. I literally replayed this section over a dozen times. The enemies constantly block your attacks and manage to get in plenty of their own (each of which deal at least a 1/4 to a 1/3 of your total life). If you do manage to land blows, it can take 4-5 full power swings to kill something.
As I continued to play through this section and the next, it READILY became apparent that I failed at fighting. I even pulled out my bow (which was RIDICULOUSLY underpowered) and my one spell (fire arrow) which was similarly pathetic. In the tutorial, the game taught me how to kick enemies to knock them off guard, kick them into fires, etc. Also, that I could pick up stuff and throw it at them as well. As it turns out, these are not helper abilities, but REQUIRED abilities.
Example: in chapter 3 (4?) I "infiltrated" a warehouse and found myself fighting an archer and a swordsman I'd already maimed. Upon killing the swordsman, two more swordsmen would spawn and join the fight. At some point, an archer ran in from the roof on the other side of the square and started shooting. Cue another 10-20 attempts. I FINALLY passed this section by figuring out the spawn order of the guys (kill the archer THEN the limping swordsman) and decided to enter the warehouse.
At this point, I'm sort of fed up with the ridiculousness, so after running into the warehouse, I pickup a bale of hay and throw it at the first guy I see. I then proceed, for the next minute or so, to repeatedly throw this same bale of hay at EVERYONE that appeared. When the dust settled I was surrounded by 5+ swordsman/archers and was standing next to my apparently lead-filled hay bale. I had now learned to let the rocks/barrels/hay bales do the fighting for me.
As I proceeded through the rest of this section, up until I left on the ship for an island (and quite honestly there as well), I would repeat the same basic process:
1) Find guys
2) Run around with my shield up until I found something to throw at them
3) Throw it at them and knock them down
4) Stab them while they were down
5) Find more things and throw them
6) Repeat
At the end of this section (Chapter 4, I think), I had gotten a new sword, I had leveled up my abilities a bit, and I actually got to a point where I felt like I was doing real damage to these guards. Of course shortly after that I started fighting orcs... but I'll save that one for my next post.
After reading around and asking a friend, I decided that I wanted to play through as a mostly melee class with a little bit of support magic. After some cutscenes and an intro chapter or two in which you don't really fight anything, I finally got to some real action in chapter 2.
My first impression: this game is hard.
Now, let's be clear: I'm no slouch when it comes to video games, and I'm quite good at shooters, but this game is rough. It had three difficulty levels, Normal, Hard, and Insane/Difficulty/Don't play here... I'm pretty sure I picked the middle one (which in all fairness is called Hard, so maybe it makes sense).
You start the second chapter being awoken by a servant who informs you of an attack. A lone guard comes up the stairs; he is wearing full armor and has a shield and sword. This first fight didn't seem to cause me too much grief, although I did take quite a bit of damage. From there, you go down the stairs and out the door... that's where the craziness began.
Here, it threw me against a archer and three more of those melee soldiers. I literally replayed this section over a dozen times. The enemies constantly block your attacks and manage to get in plenty of their own (each of which deal at least a 1/4 to a 1/3 of your total life). If you do manage to land blows, it can take 4-5 full power swings to kill something.
As I continued to play through this section and the next, it READILY became apparent that I failed at fighting. I even pulled out my bow (which was RIDICULOUSLY underpowered) and my one spell (fire arrow) which was similarly pathetic. In the tutorial, the game taught me how to kick enemies to knock them off guard, kick them into fires, etc. Also, that I could pick up stuff and throw it at them as well. As it turns out, these are not helper abilities, but REQUIRED abilities.
Example: in chapter 3 (4?) I "infiltrated" a warehouse and found myself fighting an archer and a swordsman I'd already maimed. Upon killing the swordsman, two more swordsmen would spawn and join the fight. At some point, an archer ran in from the roof on the other side of the square and started shooting. Cue another 10-20 attempts. I FINALLY passed this section by figuring out the spawn order of the guys (kill the archer THEN the limping swordsman) and decided to enter the warehouse.
At this point, I'm sort of fed up with the ridiculousness, so after running into the warehouse, I pickup a bale of hay and throw it at the first guy I see. I then proceed, for the next minute or so, to repeatedly throw this same bale of hay at EVERYONE that appeared. When the dust settled I was surrounded by 5+ swordsman/archers and was standing next to my apparently lead-filled hay bale. I had now learned to let the rocks/barrels/hay bales do the fighting for me.
As I proceeded through the rest of this section, up until I left on the ship for an island (and quite honestly there as well), I would repeat the same basic process:
1) Find guys
2) Run around with my shield up until I found something to throw at them
3) Throw it at them and knock them down
4) Stab them while they were down
5) Find more things and throw them
6) Repeat
At the end of this section (Chapter 4, I think), I had gotten a new sword, I had leveled up my abilities a bit, and I actually got to a point where I felt like I was doing real damage to these guards. Of course shortly after that I started fighting orcs... but I'll save that one for my next post.
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