Medal of Honor started as a series that defined the World War 2 shooter. For a long time it was the only good WW2 game out there. Then Call of Duty came along and took all the great stuff Medal of Honor did and improved on it. After COD took over the reigns from MOH it focused on the modern times and many other franchises tried to catch up to them. Eventually Medal of Honor followed along and with that we get the new Medal of Honor.
The 2010 edition of Medal of Honor takes place during the War in Afghanistan and it never pulls any punches about that fact. You play as several different characters over 2 days during the conflict but for the majority of the game you'll control "Rabbit" a member of the Tier 1 APO Neptune squad. You also spend a good part of the game playing as "Deuce" a Sniper for AFO Wolfpack who runs along the guy from the cover of the game whose name I can't remember and I don't really want to look up.
From the story prospective the game isn't ever really clear on what's going on. You just seem to be going along killing guys and getting extracted but I'll go into that more later on.
Gameplay wise MOH is a modern wartime first person shooter. It's plays a lot like the other Modern FPS games on the market. You can carry two guns at a time and have an assortment of grenades to use. You use all the modern weapon hotness through out, M-14s, shotguns and the .50 caliber sniper rifle. At it's core it is a really by the numbers shooter, if you've played any other modern shooter you know what you're getting into.
The game does control decently, mouse aiming feels good and I didn't really have any issues with killing guys. The one complaint about the control set up is so many things are spread to far around the keyboard. I had to do a ton of rebinding on my keys to get stuff closer to my movement keys and that to me just screams lazy PC port because they just threw the keys where ever. It is cool in this time of not letting us bind keys they allowed us to do so, so we do have that.
I really liked the way the game looked. Danger Close did a great job making the game look pretty. The sand and mountains look really nice as you're playing. One of my complaints about Black Ops was the guns looked like crap while the rest of the game looked good. It is not the case here the guns look good, the environments look good. I have an older PC and I could play this at max settings no problem.
It may feel like I just kind of glossed over most of the game but it really is a by the book military FPS. With that said I have some complaints and they're the big focus of this review.
First up the story, it never made any sense. I'm guessing there is a story here somewhere but for the most part it's just a squad of soldiers killing dudes and trying to get somewhere. The first level looks like it's trying to set up an attempt at a narrative but after that it never goes anywhere. I can see a military game without the big time Call of Duty type story just being about some guys and doing their jobs over a couple days but this isn't it. MOH keeps trying to make everything you do a big deal but it isn't important to me when it's not really explained or fleshed out.
MOH also suffers from repetition and I mean a lot of it. Here's the game broken down in a few words. First off you need to go somewhere, you get there and need to hold that point, you "Paint" a target which is always "Danger Close" and BOOM! Then you need to wait for extraction and you do this for almost the entire game. It's broken up with some sniper parts and a riding a quad runner but that's the whole game.
The two biggest gripes with this game, it's too short and it's WAY too easy. I beat the game on the hard mode in about 4 hours! What the hell? Hard mode is suppose to be hard but this game's hard mode wasn't even tough, it had a few tricky parts but it still only took 4 hours. It's inexcusable that a game would come out and cost 60 bucks and only be 4 hours long. That to me just says this game was released for multiplayer and the single player was an after thought. Boo-Urns to Danger Close and EA for doing that! I paid 10 bucks for this in the last Steam sale and I feel a little ripped off, I would of been furious if I'd paid the full 60.
So I mentioned the multiplay, what did I think? I didn't even bother. I played the Beta and it was bland as hell and I didn't want to waste anytime with it.
In the end Medal of Honor is fun but we've all seen what it does before. It doesn't really try anything new and I fear this will not bode well for the series. If Danger Close (Who are working on a sequel) try to make a more original game instead of trying to be the next COD then I think they can make a great shooter. If you can get this cheap or rent it you'll have fun. It will scratch your FPS itch but again it will feel like deja vu.
Medal of Honor - 5 out of 10
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Call of Duty: Black Ops - The Review
Due to unemployment (I now have a job) I had to put off playing the newest entry in the Call of Duty franchise. Thanks to a friend gifting me the game on Steam I was finally able to play Black Ops.
The middle of last year when Black Ops was announced I was really excited to play it. I came away from Modern Warfare 2 with a bad taste in the my mouth. I think Infinity Ward really dropped the ball on that one and I was hoping Treyarch could right the wrongs that were done in MW2.
I'm going to skip all the stuff every Call of Duty games has, if you're reading this then I'm going to assume you know the series and what it's all about but I will sum it up. You go to war, shoot dudes and then you save the day and that's about it.
Black Ops takes place in the 1960s a time frame not really explored by FPS games or really game in general. You play Alex Mason a super secret black op soldier who does all the dirty work the US government doesn't want people to know is going down. The game starts out during the Bay of Pigs invasion you and you're group are sent in to kill Castro, that goes sideways and then it's full throttle for the rest of the game.
Two things I think Black Ops gets right are the story and the overall action of the game.
The story is really well told and the time frame is actually fresh for a war FPS game as many people haven't messed with it in the past. You start out in an interrogation chair being tortured about Alex's past. Through that series of interrogations we learn all the stuff Alex has done over the years, I liked the way it was presented it felt fresh for the series.
After Modern Warfare 2 was basically a walk through the park Black Ops tries to bring the series back to the brutal difficulty it's known for and while it's a tough game it's not as brutal as COD2 or 4. As you go through the levels the fighting feels really nice, the enemies are well placed and the levels are all pretty cool. This game does suffer from Call of Duty's version of war where you poke your head out and the entire enemy army turns on you and begins to fire, it feels really unrealistic, all the COD games do it but I think it's garbage.
As we follow Alex's missions we go to very different locations and times. As I said above you start in Cuba and eventually make your way to Vietnam and onwards. When Black Ops was first announced it was rumored it was all going to take place in Vietnam. Vietnam hasn't had a really good showing in video games with only a handful of mediocre to downright crappy games and I thought this was going to be the one to be awesome. Now the Vietnam levels are the best levels in the game with some of the most brutal things like the sneak assassination of some Vietcong soldiers. It really should of been the full focus of the game. I know the Vietnam war is a soft spot for a lot of people but I think if done right it's time for a good full on Vietnam game.
The one thing I took away from Black Ops was one of the characters, Frank Woods. Frank Woods was an awesome character and one of the most believable the series or really any game has every seen. As I was playing I felt like this was a guy I could follow into hell and no matter what we'd both make it out. James C Burns did his voice and it was an outstanding performance. I'd have to put Woods easily in my top ten list of best video game characters, no question.
Finally the multiplayer. It's Call of Duty, it's an almost exact copy of Modern Warfare 2, it seems like they shoehorned guns that aren't from that era so they could include them in the multiplayer. One gun is the Steyr AUG, the game doesn't go any later than 1968, the AUG wasn't in service until 1979. It's a nitpick but they shouldn't of had it for continuity sake but I guess I'm expecting to much from a Call of Duty game. So really, if you like the MW2 multiplayer you'll like this, if you hated the MW you'll hate this too. And as far as Zombies go I didn't really spend a lot of time with it but I liked World at Wars better and of course you have Left 4 Dead which is way better, so go with those for Zombie killing fun.
I know a lot of people don't like COD after 4 but this one is actually an decent game. It does somethings the series hasn't done before but it does keep with it's traditions. So take that into account if you decide to pick this one up.
Call of Duty: Black Ops - 7 out of 10
The middle of last year when Black Ops was announced I was really excited to play it. I came away from Modern Warfare 2 with a bad taste in the my mouth. I think Infinity Ward really dropped the ball on that one and I was hoping Treyarch could right the wrongs that were done in MW2.
I'm going to skip all the stuff every Call of Duty games has, if you're reading this then I'm going to assume you know the series and what it's all about but I will sum it up. You go to war, shoot dudes and then you save the day and that's about it.
Black Ops takes place in the 1960s a time frame not really explored by FPS games or really game in general. You play Alex Mason a super secret black op soldier who does all the dirty work the US government doesn't want people to know is going down. The game starts out during the Bay of Pigs invasion you and you're group are sent in to kill Castro, that goes sideways and then it's full throttle for the rest of the game.
Two things I think Black Ops gets right are the story and the overall action of the game.
The story is really well told and the time frame is actually fresh for a war FPS game as many people haven't messed with it in the past. You start out in an interrogation chair being tortured about Alex's past. Through that series of interrogations we learn all the stuff Alex has done over the years, I liked the way it was presented it felt fresh for the series.
After Modern Warfare 2 was basically a walk through the park Black Ops tries to bring the series back to the brutal difficulty it's known for and while it's a tough game it's not as brutal as COD2 or 4. As you go through the levels the fighting feels really nice, the enemies are well placed and the levels are all pretty cool. This game does suffer from Call of Duty's version of war where you poke your head out and the entire enemy army turns on you and begins to fire, it feels really unrealistic, all the COD games do it but I think it's garbage.
As we follow Alex's missions we go to very different locations and times. As I said above you start in Cuba and eventually make your way to Vietnam and onwards. When Black Ops was first announced it was rumored it was all going to take place in Vietnam. Vietnam hasn't had a really good showing in video games with only a handful of mediocre to downright crappy games and I thought this was going to be the one to be awesome. Now the Vietnam levels are the best levels in the game with some of the most brutal things like the sneak assassination of some Vietcong soldiers. It really should of been the full focus of the game. I know the Vietnam war is a soft spot for a lot of people but I think if done right it's time for a good full on Vietnam game.
The one thing I took away from Black Ops was one of the characters, Frank Woods. Frank Woods was an awesome character and one of the most believable the series or really any game has every seen. As I was playing I felt like this was a guy I could follow into hell and no matter what we'd both make it out. James C Burns did his voice and it was an outstanding performance. I'd have to put Woods easily in my top ten list of best video game characters, no question.
Finally the multiplayer. It's Call of Duty, it's an almost exact copy of Modern Warfare 2, it seems like they shoehorned guns that aren't from that era so they could include them in the multiplayer. One gun is the Steyr AUG, the game doesn't go any later than 1968, the AUG wasn't in service until 1979. It's a nitpick but they shouldn't of had it for continuity sake but I guess I'm expecting to much from a Call of Duty game. So really, if you like the MW2 multiplayer you'll like this, if you hated the MW you'll hate this too. And as far as Zombies go I didn't really spend a lot of time with it but I liked World at Wars better and of course you have Left 4 Dead which is way better, so go with those for Zombie killing fun.
I know a lot of people don't like COD after 4 but this one is actually an decent game. It does somethings the series hasn't done before but it does keep with it's traditions. So take that into account if you decide to pick this one up.
Call of Duty: Black Ops - 7 out of 10
Thursday, June 23, 2011
15 Years Ago... Quake
I can still remember it, I came home to find the newest issue of PC Gamer in my mailbox. This was back when the magazine still came with a CD with a couple game demos on it. The month I'm remembering had something I was so shocked to see and I had no previous knowledge of it being included on the disc.
PC Gamer came with a demo for the first Quake.
I was so excited to finally have a chance to play id's newest first person shooter. I like many others was a gigantic Doom fan and couldn't wait to sink my teeth into their first truly 3d game. A quick install and I was into it. It all passed by way to fast but I ended up playing that demo over and over again as the next few weeks passed by.
Eventually June 22nd 1996 came and the full version of Quake was unleashed on the world. Just a couple days after my senior year of high school I was spending the first nights of my adult freedom playing the living hell out of Quake. At the time I only had a 75mhz Pentium 1 with 4 megs of ram and no 3d card. I ended up getting 4 more megs of ram to help run the game better but without a 3d card I was unable to experience Quake in it's full graphical glory but the game was still amazing.
I spent the next month going through Quake several times, finding secrets and mastering the various enemy types. Eventually my playing took me into the realm of online playing.
Quake was the first game I played online and even though my 56k connection and my weak PC made it a chore at times to play I still had a blast. Reaching out and killing guys in other states from the comfort of my bedroom, it was amazing.
The first Quake holds a special place in my gaming history and it was a game that got everything right. The single player was great, it was for many their first online experience and it set the stage for how online gaming would be for a long time.
For me though the Quake series began and ended with Quake 1. I didn't really care for Quake 2, I wanted more demon's and Lovecraft influenced monsters but what we got with Quake 2 and 4 was a typical space alien enemies shooting game. I never cared for them. And as far as Quake 3 was concerned I liked it but at the time I'd rather of played Unreal Tournament and that's usually what I did.
In a recent interview John Carmack mentioned that id was thinking about doing a "remake" of the first Quake with the Cthulhu inspired demons and gothic setting and I am so excited to hear about that. It's the direction I've wanted to see that series go and I hope we'll finally see it happen.
I recently replayed Quake about 2 or 3 months ago and it still holds up. It's a timeless game in an age when many older games have a hard time holding up as the FPS genre evolves but Quake can still stand side by side with the best of them. If you've never played Quake (shame on you) do yourself a favor and grab it off of Steam, you will not be disappointed.
PC Gamer came with a demo for the first Quake.
I was so excited to finally have a chance to play id's newest first person shooter. I like many others was a gigantic Doom fan and couldn't wait to sink my teeth into their first truly 3d game. A quick install and I was into it. It all passed by way to fast but I ended up playing that demo over and over again as the next few weeks passed by.
Eventually June 22nd 1996 came and the full version of Quake was unleashed on the world. Just a couple days after my senior year of high school I was spending the first nights of my adult freedom playing the living hell out of Quake. At the time I only had a 75mhz Pentium 1 with 4 megs of ram and no 3d card. I ended up getting 4 more megs of ram to help run the game better but without a 3d card I was unable to experience Quake in it's full graphical glory but the game was still amazing.
I spent the next month going through Quake several times, finding secrets and mastering the various enemy types. Eventually my playing took me into the realm of online playing.
Quake was the first game I played online and even though my 56k connection and my weak PC made it a chore at times to play I still had a blast. Reaching out and killing guys in other states from the comfort of my bedroom, it was amazing.
The first Quake holds a special place in my gaming history and it was a game that got everything right. The single player was great, it was for many their first online experience and it set the stage for how online gaming would be for a long time.
For me though the Quake series began and ended with Quake 1. I didn't really care for Quake 2, I wanted more demon's and Lovecraft influenced monsters but what we got with Quake 2 and 4 was a typical space alien enemies shooting game. I never cared for them. And as far as Quake 3 was concerned I liked it but at the time I'd rather of played Unreal Tournament and that's usually what I did.
In a recent interview John Carmack mentioned that id was thinking about doing a "remake" of the first Quake with the Cthulhu inspired demons and gothic setting and I am so excited to hear about that. It's the direction I've wanted to see that series go and I hope we'll finally see it happen.
I recently replayed Quake about 2 or 3 months ago and it still holds up. It's a timeless game in an age when many older games have a hard time holding up as the FPS genre evolves but Quake can still stand side by side with the best of them. If you've never played Quake (shame on you) do yourself a favor and grab it off of Steam, you will not be disappointed.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
I don't really get scared watching movies. For me watching a horror movie is just to see what they've done from a gore stand point. Jump scares and all that are to easy to see coming whenever I watch something so I usually don't bother. Now games on the other hand, they can scare the living crap out of me. From some NES games to Resident Evil and more recently Cryostasis when a game has good jump scares they floor me. I don't know if it's something about the interactivity of it that makes me scare so easy but it does happen and will probably always happen.
When I first heard about Amnesia I was interested in playing it. It was being called the, "Scariest game of all time" and it would make grown people break down and cry. I knew it would be something that would be hard for me to play as I scare so easy when it comes to games so it did take me awhile to actually get around to playing it.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent was released in late 2010. Brought to us by Frictional Games who had made the Penumbra series before this. It was first released as a digital download and later saw a retail release.
This takes place in 1839, you play as a man named Daniel. You awake in this castle unable to remember why he's in said castle and really not a whole lot about who he is. You set off to explore and you eventually find out that you're after something and that something is hunting you down, I'm keeping this vague as to not spoil any of the story.
Amnesia plays out in a first person perspective but it is not a FPS, in fact there isn't any combat in this game at all. You walk around solving puzzles and trying to reach your overall goal. It really made me think of it as a first person adventure game, as if something like Kings Quest or Phantasmagoria were in the first person. You find items and usually need to use them in some puzzle later on.
The controls for this are extremely tight. I absolutely love the feel the mouse has when you're looking around, it just feels so right. When some of the sanity stuff comes into play you get this neat sway effect that again just feels right with whats going on on the screen. If I could have anything to complain about the overall movement Daniel feels like he jumps way to high for the type of game it is.
Light plays a big role in your journey. Then you're in the darkness you start to lose sanity the lower your sanity goes the more crazy stuff you start to see. It reminds me of Eternal Darkness but I never saw it get super extreme like that game did, it never fakes a format of your hard drive and any of that breaking the fourth wall type of stuff. To fight back the insanity you need to be in the light and this can be handled a few ways. Sometimes candles and lanterns and such are already lit when you find them. You can find tinderboxes to light additional candles and the like. You also come into possession of a lantern you can carry around with you. The catch there is you need oil to keep it going which you'll find in all sorts of nooks and hidey holes around the castle.
Darkness can be your friend at times, it helps you hide from the monsters. Since you have zero combat options whenever a monster comes along you need to duck behind something and hope to hell it doesn't see you. Even with that there is a catch, you can't look at the monster. If you look at it your sanity drops quickly and eventually the thing you're looking at will see you and well, kill you dead. You have to balance hiding and you sanity to make sure you stay hidden but don't got all bat shit crazy from the darkness.
Now I do want to say, Amnesia is a good game. It has a great atmosphere and the story and setting are all really well done. But I do need to say this the game isn't that scary. It's creepy and there are some really messed up stuff going on in the world of Amnesia but I didn't really get scared much. It has one really good jump scare near the beginning of the game and after that, not so much. The tension can build up when you're being chased which I will say is thrilling but not really scary.
One of the things that doesn't really make this game scary to me is the lack on monsters. You really only encounter two types of monsters through out and for about ninety percent of the game it's only one type you see. For me horror is about the unknown and after you're seen the first monster there isn't really anything left unknown. They all look the same when you hear that sound that tells you a monster is coming you know what to expect and it just takes away from the horror. Now don't get me wrong the two monsters you see most in this are really cool looking (But still very similar looking) I would of loved to see some other messed up things, a little more variety would of been great.
The other thing I really didn't care for were some of the puzzles. Some of them were not easy to figure out, I'm not one to shrug off a challenge, while some of the puzzles required a little thinking to figure out some were not intuitive to figure out at all. The solution would be so abstract it took away from the overall experience. I had to look up the solution to one puzzle and the still didn't get it after I knew the solution I just sat there and wondered how anyone would figure it out on their own.
In closing I want to say it again. Amnesia is a really good game and yeah you should probably play it but don't believe all the hype, it's not that scary. Everything about the game comes together to make a great experience but it's just not an overall scary one. After playing this I really want to check out the Penumbra games as I've never played them but I am expecting more of the same in the "horror" department but I do think they'll be fun to play.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent 7 out of 10 (It's not scary)
When I first heard about Amnesia I was interested in playing it. It was being called the, "Scariest game of all time" and it would make grown people break down and cry. I knew it would be something that would be hard for me to play as I scare so easy when it comes to games so it did take me awhile to actually get around to playing it.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent was released in late 2010. Brought to us by Frictional Games who had made the Penumbra series before this. It was first released as a digital download and later saw a retail release.
This takes place in 1839, you play as a man named Daniel. You awake in this castle unable to remember why he's in said castle and really not a whole lot about who he is. You set off to explore and you eventually find out that you're after something and that something is hunting you down, I'm keeping this vague as to not spoil any of the story.
Amnesia plays out in a first person perspective but it is not a FPS, in fact there isn't any combat in this game at all. You walk around solving puzzles and trying to reach your overall goal. It really made me think of it as a first person adventure game, as if something like Kings Quest or Phantasmagoria were in the first person. You find items and usually need to use them in some puzzle later on.
The controls for this are extremely tight. I absolutely love the feel the mouse has when you're looking around, it just feels so right. When some of the sanity stuff comes into play you get this neat sway effect that again just feels right with whats going on on the screen. If I could have anything to complain about the overall movement Daniel feels like he jumps way to high for the type of game it is.
Light plays a big role in your journey. Then you're in the darkness you start to lose sanity the lower your sanity goes the more crazy stuff you start to see. It reminds me of Eternal Darkness but I never saw it get super extreme like that game did, it never fakes a format of your hard drive and any of that breaking the fourth wall type of stuff. To fight back the insanity you need to be in the light and this can be handled a few ways. Sometimes candles and lanterns and such are already lit when you find them. You can find tinderboxes to light additional candles and the like. You also come into possession of a lantern you can carry around with you. The catch there is you need oil to keep it going which you'll find in all sorts of nooks and hidey holes around the castle.
Darkness can be your friend at times, it helps you hide from the monsters. Since you have zero combat options whenever a monster comes along you need to duck behind something and hope to hell it doesn't see you. Even with that there is a catch, you can't look at the monster. If you look at it your sanity drops quickly and eventually the thing you're looking at will see you and well, kill you dead. You have to balance hiding and you sanity to make sure you stay hidden but don't got all bat shit crazy from the darkness.
Now I do want to say, Amnesia is a good game. It has a great atmosphere and the story and setting are all really well done. But I do need to say this the game isn't that scary. It's creepy and there are some really messed up stuff going on in the world of Amnesia but I didn't really get scared much. It has one really good jump scare near the beginning of the game and after that, not so much. The tension can build up when you're being chased which I will say is thrilling but not really scary.
One of the things that doesn't really make this game scary to me is the lack on monsters. You really only encounter two types of monsters through out and for about ninety percent of the game it's only one type you see. For me horror is about the unknown and after you're seen the first monster there isn't really anything left unknown. They all look the same when you hear that sound that tells you a monster is coming you know what to expect and it just takes away from the horror. Now don't get me wrong the two monsters you see most in this are really cool looking (But still very similar looking) I would of loved to see some other messed up things, a little more variety would of been great.
The other thing I really didn't care for were some of the puzzles. Some of them were not easy to figure out, I'm not one to shrug off a challenge, while some of the puzzles required a little thinking to figure out some were not intuitive to figure out at all. The solution would be so abstract it took away from the overall experience. I had to look up the solution to one puzzle and the still didn't get it after I knew the solution I just sat there and wondered how anyone would figure it out on their own.
In closing I want to say it again. Amnesia is a really good game and yeah you should probably play it but don't believe all the hype, it's not that scary. Everything about the game comes together to make a great experience but it's just not an overall scary one. After playing this I really want to check out the Penumbra games as I've never played them but I am expecting more of the same in the "horror" department but I do think they'll be fun to play.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent 7 out of 10 (It's not scary)
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Some "Flawed" Games From This Generation I Really Enjoyed
I was over on Giant Bomb and they had a thread about "Favorite Flawed Games." I really liked what I wrote about it so I wanted to put my response here.
You can check out the thread here - Giant Bomb Thread
I can think of a few games as I usually find myself enjoying the "flawed" games over the triple A super polished ones.
Far Cry 2 is probably the top of my list. With everything it got right the flaws are still present. Guard post respawns, broken stealth and for me at least the lack of co-op in a game that is just screaming for it. I can't think of another game recently that was just begging to have co-op. So many things are already there that make you wish you could play with someone else, it's like Ubisoft was teasing us with them. Instead of tacking on a competitive multiplayer they should of taken that time and effort and made co-op.
Next one I think of is Stalker: Clear Sky, that game is still buggy as hell. The first time I tried to play it I got stuck in an endless death loop because the game decided to kill me as I saved and I have no idea why. It wasn't radiation or an enemy attacking I was standing in an open field and just dropped as soon as the save did it's thing. I finally ended up using Clear Sky: Complete to play through it and then even ran into that Limansk crash bug. While I think Shadow of Chernobyl is the superior Stalker game when I was done with Clear Sky I had really enjoyed playing it and would consider giving it another go when it's time for me to replay a Stalker game.
I saw a lot of mentions of Too Human on here and while I don't really think that game is "flawed" in the since of it being broken it just didn't live up to the hype. Me, I absolutely loved it, I spent 60 something hours playing the living hell out of it until I found or traded for all the Elite armor pieces. I think at its core Too Human was a good attempt to bring a Diablo type loot gathering games to consoles, I liked the analog stick combat and the overall feel of the game. I just think when people hate on this one it's that they were expecting a game as unbelievably amazing as Diablo 2 and what we got was just a pretty good game.
A game I didn't see mentioned here yet is the newest Turok. While not the same Turok we know and love from the N64 days I still thought it was a fun simple FPS game. Every shooter we get doesn't have to be super military Call of Duty like shooter. Turok was like a throwback to the FPS games from back in the 90's and that was the main reason I loved it.
I guess the last game I want to mention is Cryostasis and really for the following reason. When I got to around level 12 the game would constantly crash on me until I messed with settings and worked through it. I've never had a game work better for me after I've turned the settings UP. Besides that another brilliant game more people should get a chance to play.
You can check out the thread here - Giant Bomb Thread
I can think of a few games as I usually find myself enjoying the "flawed" games over the triple A super polished ones.
Far Cry 2 is probably the top of my list. With everything it got right the flaws are still present. Guard post respawns, broken stealth and for me at least the lack of co-op in a game that is just screaming for it. I can't think of another game recently that was just begging to have co-op. So many things are already there that make you wish you could play with someone else, it's like Ubisoft was teasing us with them. Instead of tacking on a competitive multiplayer they should of taken that time and effort and made co-op.
Next one I think of is Stalker: Clear Sky, that game is still buggy as hell. The first time I tried to play it I got stuck in an endless death loop because the game decided to kill me as I saved and I have no idea why. It wasn't radiation or an enemy attacking I was standing in an open field and just dropped as soon as the save did it's thing. I finally ended up using Clear Sky: Complete to play through it and then even ran into that Limansk crash bug. While I think Shadow of Chernobyl is the superior Stalker game when I was done with Clear Sky I had really enjoyed playing it and would consider giving it another go when it's time for me to replay a Stalker game.
I saw a lot of mentions of Too Human on here and while I don't really think that game is "flawed" in the since of it being broken it just didn't live up to the hype. Me, I absolutely loved it, I spent 60 something hours playing the living hell out of it until I found or traded for all the Elite armor pieces. I think at its core Too Human was a good attempt to bring a Diablo type loot gathering games to consoles, I liked the analog stick combat and the overall feel of the game. I just think when people hate on this one it's that they were expecting a game as unbelievably amazing as Diablo 2 and what we got was just a pretty good game.
A game I didn't see mentioned here yet is the newest Turok. While not the same Turok we know and love from the N64 days I still thought it was a fun simple FPS game. Every shooter we get doesn't have to be super military Call of Duty like shooter. Turok was like a throwback to the FPS games from back in the 90's and that was the main reason I loved it.
I guess the last game I want to mention is Cryostasis and really for the following reason. When I got to around level 12 the game would constantly crash on me until I messed with settings and worked through it. I've never had a game work better for me after I've turned the settings UP. Besides that another brilliant game more people should get a chance to play.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Some Thoughts On Far Cry 2
With rumors swirling around this week at the possibility of a Far Cry 3 being announced at E3 it made me think about Far Cry 2.
Far Cry 2 was a major departure from the the first game, no longer being developed by Crytek as that studio had moved on to Crysis it was instead made by Ubisoft Montreal. Ditching the man vs monster elements and the tropical island of the first game we're taken to a war torn Africa, on a mission to kill an arms dealer known as the Jackal. After a brief introductory/tutorial section you're presented with an open world to explore and find your way to your target.
Now this isn't really a review as I'm just writing down my thoughts on the game which I freaking loved. At a time when I was just tired of open world sandbox games Far Cry 2 was able to pull me in and every second of the entire month I devoted to playing this game was an amazing experience.
Now some people didn't really care for FC2 and yes I admit, it did have it's issues. It had some bugs and some glitches and some of the game mechanics could of been better but they're just some little things that I feel need to be looked past to enjoy what this game does right.
The one thing for me that FC2 had going for it was the immersion. Every step of the way I felt like I was in the deserts of Africa hunting diamonds and shooting fools. The little details like the barely there hub and the map you had to hold in your hands to use were so well done it helped bring you into the game. All this was presented with amazing graphics, I played the game on the PC and it is one of the best looking games out there, rivaling Crysis is parts. The Dunia engine really shines in this game as I think the only other game that uses it in full is the Avatar Movie Game.
I love the way the weapons work in this, they degrade as you use them and eventually jam and break down. It adds tension to a firefight when your gun is on it's last legs and you need to scramble to grab a fallen enemies' gun to finish off his friends. You can ambush supply lines to get access to new perfect condition weapons which will eventually break on you but for the real fun of it just use the guns the enemies drop. They only drop weapons in the worst condition and it ups the challenge and again the tension of the combat.
There is one thing I do not like about how they handled the weapons, they're broken up into three possible types. Primary, Secondary and Special. Primary are the basic assault rifles, shotguns and sniper rifles. Secondary are pistols and sub machine guns (Uzis and such) and finally the special weapons are rocket launchers flamethrowers and the like. I absolutely hate not being able to carry an assault weapon with a sniper rifle. You can get by with the dart gun in the special slot but really who wants to just put guys to sleep, I want to split skulls with a Dragunov and still be able to clean up with an AK-47.
Fire is very important in this game, you can use it to help in combat and that is really cool. Let's say you have a group of enemies in the field you can light said field on fire and kill them with that or use the same fire to corral them into an area for you to pick off easier.
I do want to mention that stealth in this game is just straight up broken. Enemies can see you from a mile away if you shoot one of their friends, you can barely sneak around and if someone lets out the slightest gasp when you shoot them in the face the whole area knows exactly where you're at. For a game that stressed how you could sneak and all that stuff for it not to work is really lame.
When you're wounded to your final section of life you get a severe wound. When you fix this wound you're treated to a gruesome animation of your character fixing the wound. You'll push bullet through your arm, reset broken fingers and pull sticks out of your leg. It's all really cool, I like how it's handled and I really wish more games would use this mechanic.
As I said in the article I did about more games needing co-op Far Cry 2 is the prime example of this. Most of the vehicles have multiple places to sit, namely the boats with a driver seat and then the gunner stations. It would of been great to cruise down a river with a friend, drop them off near the target then coordinate a strike on the target with them. This game sorely needed co-op and I think this is one of the biggest things it suffers from.
I also need to bring up the guard posts. When you pass through a guard post it's usually stocked with enemies, you kill them and move on. If you come back to the guard post they have respawned which is okay but you can just go barely out of sight of the post and turn around to be greeted with a full group of guards, all ready to kill you dead. It would of been cool if sometimes the posts are guarded by friendly units depending on you doing missions. The respawn rate on the guards should of been drawn out, you couldn't repair and restaff a guard post in a few minutes, it should take at least 24 in game hours for a post to respawn or even more depending on how far it is from the faction's main base.
The last thing I can say about Far Cry 2 that I didn't care for was the lack of mod support. Ubisoft didn't release the SDK for this one so the modders didn't get to have their way with the game. I imagine some amazing things would of been done to this one and I would of loved to see what people would of come up with.
I do list a lot of negatives here but don't get me wrong Far Cry 2 is amazing and it didn't deserve the hate it was getting by some reviewers and my fellow gamers. The game is one of my all time favorites any praise it gets it deserves but I see room for improvement in Far Cry 3. I hope Ubisoft takes some of the legitimate negative aspects of part 2 removes them and molds what's left into an even more amazing game.
Far Cry 2 was a major departure from the the first game, no longer being developed by Crytek as that studio had moved on to Crysis it was instead made by Ubisoft Montreal. Ditching the man vs monster elements and the tropical island of the first game we're taken to a war torn Africa, on a mission to kill an arms dealer known as the Jackal. After a brief introductory/tutorial section you're presented with an open world to explore and find your way to your target.
Now this isn't really a review as I'm just writing down my thoughts on the game which I freaking loved. At a time when I was just tired of open world sandbox games Far Cry 2 was able to pull me in and every second of the entire month I devoted to playing this game was an amazing experience.
Now some people didn't really care for FC2 and yes I admit, it did have it's issues. It had some bugs and some glitches and some of the game mechanics could of been better but they're just some little things that I feel need to be looked past to enjoy what this game does right.
The one thing for me that FC2 had going for it was the immersion. Every step of the way I felt like I was in the deserts of Africa hunting diamonds and shooting fools. The little details like the barely there hub and the map you had to hold in your hands to use were so well done it helped bring you into the game. All this was presented with amazing graphics, I played the game on the PC and it is one of the best looking games out there, rivaling Crysis is parts. The Dunia engine really shines in this game as I think the only other game that uses it in full is the Avatar Movie Game.
I love the way the weapons work in this, they degrade as you use them and eventually jam and break down. It adds tension to a firefight when your gun is on it's last legs and you need to scramble to grab a fallen enemies' gun to finish off his friends. You can ambush supply lines to get access to new perfect condition weapons which will eventually break on you but for the real fun of it just use the guns the enemies drop. They only drop weapons in the worst condition and it ups the challenge and again the tension of the combat.
There is one thing I do not like about how they handled the weapons, they're broken up into three possible types. Primary, Secondary and Special. Primary are the basic assault rifles, shotguns and sniper rifles. Secondary are pistols and sub machine guns (Uzis and such) and finally the special weapons are rocket launchers flamethrowers and the like. I absolutely hate not being able to carry an assault weapon with a sniper rifle. You can get by with the dart gun in the special slot but really who wants to just put guys to sleep, I want to split skulls with a Dragunov and still be able to clean up with an AK-47.
Fire is very important in this game, you can use it to help in combat and that is really cool. Let's say you have a group of enemies in the field you can light said field on fire and kill them with that or use the same fire to corral them into an area for you to pick off easier.
I do want to mention that stealth in this game is just straight up broken. Enemies can see you from a mile away if you shoot one of their friends, you can barely sneak around and if someone lets out the slightest gasp when you shoot them in the face the whole area knows exactly where you're at. For a game that stressed how you could sneak and all that stuff for it not to work is really lame.
When you're wounded to your final section of life you get a severe wound. When you fix this wound you're treated to a gruesome animation of your character fixing the wound. You'll push bullet through your arm, reset broken fingers and pull sticks out of your leg. It's all really cool, I like how it's handled and I really wish more games would use this mechanic.
As I said in the article I did about more games needing co-op Far Cry 2 is the prime example of this. Most of the vehicles have multiple places to sit, namely the boats with a driver seat and then the gunner stations. It would of been great to cruise down a river with a friend, drop them off near the target then coordinate a strike on the target with them. This game sorely needed co-op and I think this is one of the biggest things it suffers from.
I also need to bring up the guard posts. When you pass through a guard post it's usually stocked with enemies, you kill them and move on. If you come back to the guard post they have respawned which is okay but you can just go barely out of sight of the post and turn around to be greeted with a full group of guards, all ready to kill you dead. It would of been cool if sometimes the posts are guarded by friendly units depending on you doing missions. The respawn rate on the guards should of been drawn out, you couldn't repair and restaff a guard post in a few minutes, it should take at least 24 in game hours for a post to respawn or even more depending on how far it is from the faction's main base.
The last thing I can say about Far Cry 2 that I didn't care for was the lack of mod support. Ubisoft didn't release the SDK for this one so the modders didn't get to have their way with the game. I imagine some amazing things would of been done to this one and I would of loved to see what people would of come up with.
I do list a lot of negatives here but don't get me wrong Far Cry 2 is amazing and it didn't deserve the hate it was getting by some reviewers and my fellow gamers. The game is one of my all time favorites any praise it gets it deserves but I see room for improvement in Far Cry 3. I hope Ubisoft takes some of the legitimate negative aspects of part 2 removes them and molds what's left into an even more amazing game.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
For The Grey Wardens! - Dragon Age: Origins - The Review
I first played Dragon Age: Origins at the end of 2009. I had picked it up on a Steam sale and was interested in trying it out. I wasn't very happy with Bioware after playing Mass Effect (Which I loathed) but I was willing to give them another chance. DAO was suppose to be the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate which I loved so I thought, "Why not?"
Well, upon first playing it I actually did not like DAO. I played as a Human Noble Warrior and from the start it felt like Mass Effect again, a bunch of characters I just couldn't stand in a cookie cutter fantasy story (The Human Noble Origin I mean) and I just didn't want to deal with it. I made it through the Origin story and a little further but couldn't bring myself to play it much more.
I had been feeling the need to give DAO another chance over the last few months, I don't know why, maybe it had something to do with the sequel coming out, I'm not sure. But I ended up reinstalling it and last night after 63 hours of game time I finished DAO.
I went into DAO this time with a different attitude, what if I was wrong? What if this game was as good as everyone else said it was and I was to hasty in my initial judgement? Well I can tell you right here that I was to quick to judge and DAO is not only one of the best RPGs I've ever played it's one of the best games.
The story, taken from the Dragon Age Wiki...
"The player character—'the Warden'— is a new grey warden recruit within Ferelden, and begins his/her journey to halt the inevitable blight as one of the six origin stories. The origin chosen determines who the Warden is prior to the main events of the game's story. By the same measure, it also affects how NPCs (party and non-party) will react to the Warden. Elves, for example, are often viewed as second-class citizens. The last warden will be given the task of building an army to match the blight and gather companions along the way to support him/her on this onerous task. As the last grey warden within Ferelden, the actions taken, both indirectly and directly, will decide over the course of one year, which factions align with the warden to build this army and halt the blight, as well as the fate of those met on your journey."
Bioware did not use the Dungeon and Dragons license for this one, instead going with a well made world and fiction of their own. The world of DAO is very dark, the game takes place during a possible invasion and under the possibility of civil war but you get the feeling that even before all this is was a "dark" place to live. Mages are looked down upon as freaks of nature and are closely controlled, Elves are seen as second class citizens and often times are slaves to the Humans. Dwarves aren't really concerned with the surface problems, only what happens down in the underground. Those are just some of the bigger examples but there's more and it all comes together to make a world of it's own.
You start out at the beginning of the game able to choose from three races and three classes, Human, Elf or Dwarf then you can choose from Warrior, Mage and Rogue. Dwarves cannot be Mages as there resistance to magic does not let them use it. Depending on the combination you pick you'll get a different Origin story to go through. In total six Origins are available to go through, Human Noble, Dwarf Outcast and what I did, a member of the Circle of Magi. Personally the Circle of Magi origin was pretty good but the only other one I went through was the Human Noble and that one was garbage.
AS you progress through the game you'll learn specialties that you can use to customize you characters even further. Think of them as sub classes for each of the main three. I went through the game as a Mage but my subclasses were Arcane Warrior and Blood Mage, those together are almost to the point of being over powered it was great.
DAO is a pause and fight RPG, if you've played Baldur's Gate 1 or 2 you will be familiar with most of the mechanics presented here. You control a party of 4 all of whom you can choose from a pool of people you pick up during your travels. No matter what class you choose to play as you'll get a good group of people to complement your abilities in combat. You can view the battle field from a number of different perspectives with the PC version (The version I played) allowing you to pull the camera way up for a birds eye view of the fight. Space lets you pause combat to issue orders to your party but you can only issue one order at a time, you can't queue up a few attacks like you could in other games like Knights of the Old Republic. You have a hot bar at the bottom of the screen, numbered 1-0 then the rest are only clickable. The bar can be increased to the entirety of the bottom of your monitor which I really liked, I never had to leave abilities off the hotbar.
I had some problems with the combat though and I don't think that was a fault of the game but it was the game just not clicking with me. I had a problem getting the flow of combat and I don't feel like a ever fully grasped it. After finishing it I felt I could eventually master it if I played again but who knows. I had problems with Baldur's Gate when I played it too so I'm not surprised by this one.
Even with that said I did have some issues with the game that weren't my fault. The main thing was the areas of the game are meant to be gone through in a specific order as this game doesn't really have scaling level enemies like a lot of newer RPGs. Each area has a range of levels the enemies can be and if you go to a higher level area and you're not powerful enough you'll get slaughtered. Now I don't have a problem with this as a mechanic but the game doesn't really make any effort to tell you thing, I only learned about it reading the wiki after I was having such a hard time in one area. I wasn't in the right place for my level and I was paying for int hardcore. I don't want to game to hold my hand but a little hint would of been great or just don't let me go to the hardest area first because the player may not figure out that's why they're loosing. Another thing with the combat is you can destroy the enemy one time then reload and nothing really changes and you get slaughtered. It's just sometimes the fights get away from you, it happens through out the game, so while you're in a tough as nails area you may not know that's why you're losing.
Another thing to note are some of the NPCs. I know this in a RPG and talking to people for information is core to the game but it seems like Bioware's writers are getting a little full of themselves. Some of the basic NPCs take forever to get to the point, when you go to a shop the shop keeper shouldn't give a huge speech every time you visit. Some shopkeepers make you go through two or more dialog trees before you can get to the goods and this is on follow up visits not just the first time. Also some people just take to long to say what they need to, I can't remember the amount of times I thought they could of cut big chunks of dialog out and still get the same point across. You can skip the dialog if you finish reading before the NPC is done speaking but it can ruin the experience.
And lastly I hated it when you'd go through a long talk with an enemy and it would end in a fight without a save point. So if you lose the fight you need to go through the whole conversation again. Sometimes it saves right after the talking so you can just get back to the fight if you lose but it doesn't do it all the time and it should.
Dragon Age: Origins is an amazing game, I didn't think so at first but as I played through it recently it was just so much fun. The world and story with the help of awesome characters really bring it all together. If you're a fan of old school Bioware and you've been on the fence about this one do yourself a favor and buy it!
Dragon Age: Origins - 9 out of 10 The way the game handles enemy levels and forces you down a path without telling you and some of the extremely long winded NPCs is really what keeps this from being a 10.
Well, upon first playing it I actually did not like DAO. I played as a Human Noble Warrior and from the start it felt like Mass Effect again, a bunch of characters I just couldn't stand in a cookie cutter fantasy story (The Human Noble Origin I mean) and I just didn't want to deal with it. I made it through the Origin story and a little further but couldn't bring myself to play it much more.
I had been feeling the need to give DAO another chance over the last few months, I don't know why, maybe it had something to do with the sequel coming out, I'm not sure. But I ended up reinstalling it and last night after 63 hours of game time I finished DAO.
I went into DAO this time with a different attitude, what if I was wrong? What if this game was as good as everyone else said it was and I was to hasty in my initial judgement? Well I can tell you right here that I was to quick to judge and DAO is not only one of the best RPGs I've ever played it's one of the best games.
The story, taken from the Dragon Age Wiki...
"The player character—'the Warden'— is a new grey warden recruit within Ferelden, and begins his/her journey to halt the inevitable blight as one of the six origin stories. The origin chosen determines who the Warden is prior to the main events of the game's story. By the same measure, it also affects how NPCs (party and non-party) will react to the Warden. Elves, for example, are often viewed as second-class citizens. The last warden will be given the task of building an army to match the blight and gather companions along the way to support him/her on this onerous task. As the last grey warden within Ferelden, the actions taken, both indirectly and directly, will decide over the course of one year, which factions align with the warden to build this army and halt the blight, as well as the fate of those met on your journey."
Bioware did not use the Dungeon and Dragons license for this one, instead going with a well made world and fiction of their own. The world of DAO is very dark, the game takes place during a possible invasion and under the possibility of civil war but you get the feeling that even before all this is was a "dark" place to live. Mages are looked down upon as freaks of nature and are closely controlled, Elves are seen as second class citizens and often times are slaves to the Humans. Dwarves aren't really concerned with the surface problems, only what happens down in the underground. Those are just some of the bigger examples but there's more and it all comes together to make a world of it's own.
You start out at the beginning of the game able to choose from three races and three classes, Human, Elf or Dwarf then you can choose from Warrior, Mage and Rogue. Dwarves cannot be Mages as there resistance to magic does not let them use it. Depending on the combination you pick you'll get a different Origin story to go through. In total six Origins are available to go through, Human Noble, Dwarf Outcast and what I did, a member of the Circle of Magi. Personally the Circle of Magi origin was pretty good but the only other one I went through was the Human Noble and that one was garbage.
AS you progress through the game you'll learn specialties that you can use to customize you characters even further. Think of them as sub classes for each of the main three. I went through the game as a Mage but my subclasses were Arcane Warrior and Blood Mage, those together are almost to the point of being over powered it was great.
DAO is a pause and fight RPG, if you've played Baldur's Gate 1 or 2 you will be familiar with most of the mechanics presented here. You control a party of 4 all of whom you can choose from a pool of people you pick up during your travels. No matter what class you choose to play as you'll get a good group of people to complement your abilities in combat. You can view the battle field from a number of different perspectives with the PC version (The version I played) allowing you to pull the camera way up for a birds eye view of the fight. Space lets you pause combat to issue orders to your party but you can only issue one order at a time, you can't queue up a few attacks like you could in other games like Knights of the Old Republic. You have a hot bar at the bottom of the screen, numbered 1-0 then the rest are only clickable. The bar can be increased to the entirety of the bottom of your monitor which I really liked, I never had to leave abilities off the hotbar.
I had some problems with the combat though and I don't think that was a fault of the game but it was the game just not clicking with me. I had a problem getting the flow of combat and I don't feel like a ever fully grasped it. After finishing it I felt I could eventually master it if I played again but who knows. I had problems with Baldur's Gate when I played it too so I'm not surprised by this one.
Even with that said I did have some issues with the game that weren't my fault. The main thing was the areas of the game are meant to be gone through in a specific order as this game doesn't really have scaling level enemies like a lot of newer RPGs. Each area has a range of levels the enemies can be and if you go to a higher level area and you're not powerful enough you'll get slaughtered. Now I don't have a problem with this as a mechanic but the game doesn't really make any effort to tell you thing, I only learned about it reading the wiki after I was having such a hard time in one area. I wasn't in the right place for my level and I was paying for int hardcore. I don't want to game to hold my hand but a little hint would of been great or just don't let me go to the hardest area first because the player may not figure out that's why they're loosing. Another thing with the combat is you can destroy the enemy one time then reload and nothing really changes and you get slaughtered. It's just sometimes the fights get away from you, it happens through out the game, so while you're in a tough as nails area you may not know that's why you're losing.
Another thing to note are some of the NPCs. I know this in a RPG and talking to people for information is core to the game but it seems like Bioware's writers are getting a little full of themselves. Some of the basic NPCs take forever to get to the point, when you go to a shop the shop keeper shouldn't give a huge speech every time you visit. Some shopkeepers make you go through two or more dialog trees before you can get to the goods and this is on follow up visits not just the first time. Also some people just take to long to say what they need to, I can't remember the amount of times I thought they could of cut big chunks of dialog out and still get the same point across. You can skip the dialog if you finish reading before the NPC is done speaking but it can ruin the experience.
And lastly I hated it when you'd go through a long talk with an enemy and it would end in a fight without a save point. So if you lose the fight you need to go through the whole conversation again. Sometimes it saves right after the talking so you can just get back to the fight if you lose but it doesn't do it all the time and it should.
Dragon Age: Origins is an amazing game, I didn't think so at first but as I played through it recently it was just so much fun. The world and story with the help of awesome characters really bring it all together. If you're a fan of old school Bioware and you've been on the fence about this one do yourself a favor and buy it!
Dragon Age: Origins - 9 out of 10 The way the game handles enemy levels and forces you down a path without telling you and some of the extremely long winded NPCs is really what keeps this from being a 10.
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