Hello!
I thought that I'd already written something about DotP12, but it appears I've only ever so briefly mentioned it, so here are a few short words about it. It's basically the same game as the first one only a bit updated. The decks now each have a planeswalker associated with it, and there is a multiplayer "Archenemy"-mode. The AI has been slightly improved, the amount of incredibly stupid plays it does has been cut down significantly. The Archenemy mode works fine, I've only played it with computer allies so I think this one would be a lot more fun with other people. One of my biggest gripes with the game is that the decks are not varied enough.
While it's good that you now can take any card out of the decks (not just the ones you unlock like in the first one) and that the lands are changed automatically based on how many other cards are in the deck, they are all basicly aggro decks where you play creatures and attack with them. This means you get tired of them quickly, the only real fun deck that does something different is the Kiora Atua's blue-green manaramp deck. It however has some bad matchups, if you play against the illusion deck you are basically going to win one out of ten games. Speaking of Jace's deck, that one should not have been in the game to start with. The illusions are stupid creatures to base a deck around since if your opponent has access to removal they suck, if not you are just going to straight up win. Worst of all though is that Jace always seems to have the Lord of the Unreal which just makes the game very non-interactive which in Magic is never fun. All in all I would still very much recommend the game to new players and old alike, even though it is simple it's fun and worth the money.
Later!
torsdag 28 juli 2011
onsdag 27 juli 2011
Mirror's Edge
Hi!
It's slower than slow on the video game front right now, I guess it's the time of the year. You're supposed to be outside and play in the sun, not be indoors and play vidya gaems. The next game I'm interested in won't be out until September, and that's Dead Island (talk about an unfortunate title considering the terrible recent events that took place in Norway). Gotta keep busy somehow though, so I downloaded Mirror's Edge from Steam. I've always been hesitant about getting this game from the reviews and what I've heard about Mirror's Edge, but it was cheap and like I said I have no other game right now to play.
When playing the game it becomes clear that it was advertised completely wrong (I believe most of the reviews touched upon this as well). If you've seen the movie Fight Club, it was advertised as an action film in the trailers, even though it's more of a psychological thriller/drama with a very small numbers of action scenes in it. In a similar fashion, Mirror's Edge was wrongly portrayed as an FPS, when it's really Le Parkour-the game. If you're not familiar with Le Parkour, it's a kind of urban "sport", where the participant jumps from buildings to buildings and do flips and other crazy stunts, originating from France. And that's what you do in this game, as a "runner" -- a sort of unlawful Robin Hoodesque character, although you are gathering information instead of riches.
In the game you are Faith, who lives in a 1984-inspired heavily controlled world, a sort of police state. Most buildings and surfaces in the city are white - supposedly heightening the feeling that everything is ordered and under control - although the feeling it creates to me is more that it feels like you are in a hospital or a big playground with bright colors (not just the whites). In fact I think that if the city was more gritty and grey, it would feel more realistic and heighten the tension because as it is now you never really take the game seriously since the world it takes place in feels so plastascene.
Personally I really liked the game, it was a pleasant surprise. As mentioned I was very hesitant after having read the reviews for the game, but I don't really agree with the points that seemed to be the consensus of the reviews. That's a first right, me not agreeing with professional reviews of computer games? First of all, this game never claims to be an FPS, it just so happens there are guards that try to stop you and sometimes you have no other choice than to unarm them and use their gun against them. Faith is not supposed to be professional at handling weapons, so it's only natural you can't aim down the sights, that the accuracy of the weapons is not perfect and so on. The game was made by DICE after all, the creators of the Battlefield franchise, so if they wanted perfect weapon handling they would have no problem implementing it, that's for certain.
Another common critisism was that the game is too short, and while it's certainly not Heroes of Might and Magic-length, eight hours is fine. Most games today are a lot shorter - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, CoD: Black Ops and Portal are all much shorter and they have never gotten much of any critisism for that. And speaking of Portal, that's one game this one really reminds me of which makes Mirror's Edge flopping even more confounding. Portal has absolutely zero gunplay, but still was a huge success and has a big following on the Internet. DICE probably almost literally shot themselves in the foot by including guns in ME at all, if they wouldn't have, maybe the puzzle fanatics would've found this gem instead of being turned off by the huge FPS-stamp on its figurative forehead. Because to me ME is everything Portal ever wanted to be and then some.
When playing Mirror's Edge it felt like a breath of fresh air in a more and more homogenic video game market, which is probably one of the reasons why it supposedly didn't sell that well. It was just too different in a way that its supposed target audience (FPS-fans), did not know what to make of. I also think that it lies in the nature of people who like this genre that running away is not what you want to do, you want to have a weapon and confront every danger with your own lethal force. Oh well, I sure hope they make a sequel. And now I'm going back to thinking what the hell I'm going to spend my spare time with until September. Emulators I guess?
Until next time, signing off.
It's slower than slow on the video game front right now, I guess it's the time of the year. You're supposed to be outside and play in the sun, not be indoors and play vidya gaems. The next game I'm interested in won't be out until September, and that's Dead Island (talk about an unfortunate title considering the terrible recent events that took place in Norway). Gotta keep busy somehow though, so I downloaded Mirror's Edge from Steam. I've always been hesitant about getting this game from the reviews and what I've heard about Mirror's Edge, but it was cheap and like I said I have no other game right now to play.
When playing the game it becomes clear that it was advertised completely wrong (I believe most of the reviews touched upon this as well). If you've seen the movie Fight Club, it was advertised as an action film in the trailers, even though it's more of a psychological thriller/drama with a very small numbers of action scenes in it. In a similar fashion, Mirror's Edge was wrongly portrayed as an FPS, when it's really Le Parkour-the game. If you're not familiar with Le Parkour, it's a kind of urban "sport", where the participant jumps from buildings to buildings and do flips and other crazy stunts, originating from France. And that's what you do in this game, as a "runner" -- a sort of unlawful Robin Hoodesque character, although you are gathering information instead of riches.
In the game you are Faith, who lives in a 1984-inspired heavily controlled world, a sort of police state. Most buildings and surfaces in the city are white - supposedly heightening the feeling that everything is ordered and under control - although the feeling it creates to me is more that it feels like you are in a hospital or a big playground with bright colors (not just the whites). In fact I think that if the city was more gritty and grey, it would feel more realistic and heighten the tension because as it is now you never really take the game seriously since the world it takes place in feels so plastascene.
Personally I really liked the game, it was a pleasant surprise. As mentioned I was very hesitant after having read the reviews for the game, but I don't really agree with the points that seemed to be the consensus of the reviews. That's a first right, me not agreeing with professional reviews of computer games? First of all, this game never claims to be an FPS, it just so happens there are guards that try to stop you and sometimes you have no other choice than to unarm them and use their gun against them. Faith is not supposed to be professional at handling weapons, so it's only natural you can't aim down the sights, that the accuracy of the weapons is not perfect and so on. The game was made by DICE after all, the creators of the Battlefield franchise, so if they wanted perfect weapon handling they would have no problem implementing it, that's for certain.
Another common critisism was that the game is too short, and while it's certainly not Heroes of Might and Magic-length, eight hours is fine. Most games today are a lot shorter - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, CoD: Black Ops and Portal are all much shorter and they have never gotten much of any critisism for that. And speaking of Portal, that's one game this one really reminds me of which makes Mirror's Edge flopping even more confounding. Portal has absolutely zero gunplay, but still was a huge success and has a big following on the Internet. DICE probably almost literally shot themselves in the foot by including guns in ME at all, if they wouldn't have, maybe the puzzle fanatics would've found this gem instead of being turned off by the huge FPS-stamp on its figurative forehead. Because to me ME is everything Portal ever wanted to be and then some.
When playing Mirror's Edge it felt like a breath of fresh air in a more and more homogenic video game market, which is probably one of the reasons why it supposedly didn't sell that well. It was just too different in a way that its supposed target audience (FPS-fans), did not know what to make of. I also think that it lies in the nature of people who like this genre that running away is not what you want to do, you want to have a weapon and confront every danger with your own lethal force. Oh well, I sure hope they make a sequel. And now I'm going back to thinking what the hell I'm going to spend my spare time with until September. Emulators I guess?
Until next time, signing off.
fredag 8 juli 2011
Games on mobile devices
Hello!
I've recently given in to temptation and bought myself an iPhone 4. Like any computer nerd worth his salt, I've always reviled Apple and their products (namely Mac's), but I guess even my self-imposed restrictiveness when it comes to electronic gadgets has a limit. To be fair I've owned an iPod for quite some time, since my previous mp3-player by Sony did not like when you played *cough* *cough* "home-made" mp3-files on it (i.e. ones not downloaded legally or ripped from a CD you own). Not to mention that the iPod had a much better interface than my previous mp3-player.
This is a blog about video games so that's what I had in mind writing about, believe it or not! I've downloaded Resident Evil 4 Lite for my iPhone, as well as Mega Man II Lite. Now, my favorite genre when it comes to video games is without a doubt games that include some sort of action component. For example Mega Man is an action game where timing is of the outmost essence. This becomes a bit of a hassle when it comes to playing a game like this on a mobile device which - unlike the 3DS for example - has no buttons. You instead need to use the touch screen to control the game, and it's not perfect since you can never really tell when you've "pushed" the right button, and it doesn't always respond. Unlike on a real console where pressing a button always nets you the same result. Games like Angry Birds work fine on an iPhone since it's a slower kind of game, but trying to jump in Mega Man and failing is equal to dying instantly.
Some people on various discussion forums on the Internet claim that the iPhone and its imitators is going to take over the handheld gaming scene completely, which I think will not be the case because of the reasons I've discussed in this post. The library of games available might be very extensive, and downloading a game sure is cheap (although at least on my iPhone I have to download it to the computer via iTunes first, because of limitations imposed by my operator (I think)), but a console like 3DS is made purely (well) for gaming and it shows.
Laters!
I've recently given in to temptation and bought myself an iPhone 4. Like any computer nerd worth his salt, I've always reviled Apple and their products (namely Mac's), but I guess even my self-imposed restrictiveness when it comes to electronic gadgets has a limit. To be fair I've owned an iPod for quite some time, since my previous mp3-player by Sony did not like when you played *cough* *cough* "home-made" mp3-files on it (i.e. ones not downloaded legally or ripped from a CD you own). Not to mention that the iPod had a much better interface than my previous mp3-player.
This is a blog about video games so that's what I had in mind writing about, believe it or not! I've downloaded Resident Evil 4 Lite for my iPhone, as well as Mega Man II Lite. Now, my favorite genre when it comes to video games is without a doubt games that include some sort of action component. For example Mega Man is an action game where timing is of the outmost essence. This becomes a bit of a hassle when it comes to playing a game like this on a mobile device which - unlike the 3DS for example - has no buttons. You instead need to use the touch screen to control the game, and it's not perfect since you can never really tell when you've "pushed" the right button, and it doesn't always respond. Unlike on a real console where pressing a button always nets you the same result. Games like Angry Birds work fine on an iPhone since it's a slower kind of game, but trying to jump in Mega Man and failing is equal to dying instantly.
Some people on various discussion forums on the Internet claim that the iPhone and its imitators is going to take over the handheld gaming scene completely, which I think will not be the case because of the reasons I've discussed in this post. The library of games available might be very extensive, and downloading a game sure is cheap (although at least on my iPhone I have to download it to the computer via iTunes first, because of limitations imposed by my operator (I think)), but a console like 3DS is made purely (well) for gaming and it shows.
Laters!
fredag 17 juni 2011
L. A. Noire
Hi!
Even though L.A. Noire has gotten a lot of praise in the review department, and I recognize it as a very good game, it's interesting that there are far less points to talk about in it, compared to Duke Nukem Forever. The controversy surrounding all the negative reviews gives you a lot to talk about and discuss when it comes to DNF, whereas L.A. Noire is "just another game".
The game borrows much from the motion picture L. A. Confidential, one of my absolute favorites. That movie also happens to be based on a book written by my favorite author: James Ellroy. So you can imagine I was stoked about getting to play this game.
The graphics are really nice and detailed, much like the GTA games that use the same engine. The most interesting part is of course the hyped "motion captured" faces, that express more than any other game has done before. This is crucial because the core of the gameplay is trying to guess whether people you are interrogating are lying or not. To me it feels like Team Bondi, the developers of the game, put a little too much faith into their new fangled toy. Because, even though it looks awesome, it's still really hard to tell whether an animated character in a video game is lying or not. That is unless of course you can figure it out by logic and prove that they are lying with a clue that you've found. As mentioned, this guessing game is the core of the game which proves a bit problematic since it's just too damned hard. Of course, you can't really fail a case, you will progress further even though you end up killing an innocent person, and you can even restart the cases to try again. Since you already know at least one wrong answer, trying again just seems like a chore of coming up with the right answer by trial and error. Another problem with failing to guess the correct answer, is that once you do you will get less clues which turns into a downward spiral of failure. Except for the interrogations, there is nothing to complain about when it comes to gameplay. Searching for clues and trying to figure out whodunit is a nice relaxing exercise, and for once you actually have to think while playing a game which is nice.
The story is everything you would want from a game like this, ridden with clichés/genre conventions - whatever you want to call them. A highly recommended game if you are a fan of noire/crime fiction in general.
Later!
Even though L.A. Noire has gotten a lot of praise in the review department, and I recognize it as a very good game, it's interesting that there are far less points to talk about in it, compared to Duke Nukem Forever. The controversy surrounding all the negative reviews gives you a lot to talk about and discuss when it comes to DNF, whereas L.A. Noire is "just another game".
The game borrows much from the motion picture L. A. Confidential, one of my absolute favorites. That movie also happens to be based on a book written by my favorite author: James Ellroy. So you can imagine I was stoked about getting to play this game.
The graphics are really nice and detailed, much like the GTA games that use the same engine. The most interesting part is of course the hyped "motion captured" faces, that express more than any other game has done before. This is crucial because the core of the gameplay is trying to guess whether people you are interrogating are lying or not. To me it feels like Team Bondi, the developers of the game, put a little too much faith into their new fangled toy. Because, even though it looks awesome, it's still really hard to tell whether an animated character in a video game is lying or not. That is unless of course you can figure it out by logic and prove that they are lying with a clue that you've found. As mentioned, this guessing game is the core of the game which proves a bit problematic since it's just too damned hard. Of course, you can't really fail a case, you will progress further even though you end up killing an innocent person, and you can even restart the cases to try again. Since you already know at least one wrong answer, trying again just seems like a chore of coming up with the right answer by trial and error. Another problem with failing to guess the correct answer, is that once you do you will get less clues which turns into a downward spiral of failure. Except for the interrogations, there is nothing to complain about when it comes to gameplay. Searching for clues and trying to figure out whodunit is a nice relaxing exercise, and for once you actually have to think while playing a game which is nice.
The story is everything you would want from a game like this, ridden with clichés/genre conventions - whatever you want to call them. A highly recommended game if you are a fan of noire/crime fiction in general.
Later!
torsdag 16 juni 2011
"I'm from Las Vegas and I say kill 'em all!"
Hi!
It's busy times now when it comes to video games for me. Got L.A. Noire on release date but I got sick so I didn't play it until a few weeks later. Yesterday I downloaded Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012, which doesn't seem like it adds that much but still is enjoyable. However, I'll save those two for other entries since I want to talk about something that is hot off the presses right now; namely the Dukester himself's return to form (?): Duke Nukem Forever has finally been released!
I'm an old school gamer and for sure I played Duke Nukem 3D back in the day, in fact I even played the 2D-ones. Duke 3D took the Doom-engine in a whole new direction with the interactive enviroments, much more advanced level structuring and probably most of all, letting you play an actual defined character. The Duke has always been a walking stereotype, much like the borrowed movie quotes he keeps yapping; a mish-mash of various campy 80's and 90's action flicks' mary-sue-like anti-heroes. It really feels wrong calling the Duke mary-sue, but he sure is the male variant of that, even more so in the new game since his health regenerates (sadly) and it takes a lot before he dies. Even though D3D was fun and enjoyable for its time, I still have a feeling that most people remember it as much better than it actually was. Most of the hype concerned how innovative it was, not so much about the quality of the game itself. The game shone in the first episode, the other were more of the same and the gameplay became rather tedious (a bit like Doom in that the first episode - Knee Deep in the Mud - is hands down the best.
The fact that it's been 14 years is most assuredly a contributing factor to people (well video game reviewers, it's not confirmed that you can call them people) forgetting that D3D was not the paragon of gaming people remember it as, greatly influencing their confounding stellar expectations of DNF. It reminds me very much of the Star Wars-prequels that - all things considered - were never going to live up to people's expectations. DNF has gotten awful reviews, the meanest one being the one on Gamespot where the X-box 360-version got 3.0. When reading these reviews it feels like the reviewer has decided what to think about this game before even playing it. Big parts of the texts is just downright bashing, far from any sort of constructive critisism. The reviewers are really scrutinizing the game with a magnifying glass looking for even the smallest detail to hate on. It's rather embarrassing to be honest, but I suppose the 14 year wait warrants it, not to say calls for it. It feels like the reviewers are mad that George Broussard didn't invite them to his birthday party when they were kids or something, and this is their long in coming way of getting back at him.
I bought this game expecting very little. Through the years I've read the reports and seen the screenshots of the latest engine they've used for the game. The last one was the video that a guy who worked on the game leaked right about the time when 3D Realms said they pulled the plug for good. I really liked the look of that video, and judging from the final game that's exactly the graphics they've used in the end. They've sort of stitched together what they had as best they could in order to make it as coherent of a game as possible. And with me, that is perfectly fine.
At the time of writing this I've played through probably around 3/4's of the game, and the bottom line is that it's FUN. Period. I am actually enjoying myself playing this video game. There's a challenge and I want to continue playing and exploring the area that comes next. And to be fair, I don't think you can ask for more from a game. It is sad, if not deplorable, that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare part ad nauseam is the measuring standard for a good FPS game today. In my opinion, by now CoD is not much of a game, it's more of an interactive film. And like I've said before I get the CoD's on release, but when all FPS-games just have to be CoD that really puts a hampering limitation on the genre.
There are a lot of problems with DNF. DNF is not a great game, by any means. The graphics are fine but dated, especially certain parts. Coming from the extremely advanced facial animation in L.A. Noire and playing a supposedly brand new game with barely any facial animation at all like in DNF, is not very nice. There's a strange blur effect on all textures that are far away which I think they could've gotten rid of all together. But the graphics are still functional and do what they need to, I mean look at Minecraft! Graphics have never been everything in a game and it sure as hell rings true for DNF as well.
The sound is not more than OK. It was a part of D3D that was really good, the weapons sound a bit weak here and overall it's not as spot on as in the predecessor. The intro version of the Duke Nukem-theme rocks, but the rest of the music is quite forgettable.
The game plays like an ancient relic from the Half-Life 2-era. A lot of water has passed under the bridges since then, which poses a bit of a problem. The regenerating health and two weapon-limitation is a Cod/Halo-era feature that they've jammed into the game with brute force. It clashes with the HL2-era mechanics like a high speed train into a rock wall. I'm just going to say that I hate the aforementioned two alterations to the Duke formula and leave it at that, they add nothing and just take away from the experience. The Half-Life games brought scripted events into the world of gaming, which were at the time considered the best thing since sliced bread, but now just feel unendingly stale. My hope is that the reason the game reviewers are not aware why the scripted events exist in the game, is because they simply didn't play games back then. Because if they did and still can't make the connection there is simply no excuse for what they are writing in their reviews. There is no question that if DNF was released a couple of years after HL2, the reviewers would praise the scripted events and how they provided a nice pause from the action at points in the game - instead of them being a negative. Of course, today we live in the CoD-land where the action has to be in warp nine at all times, otherwise it's a bad game. I for one think the variety of the gameplay in DNF feels like a breath of fresh air, as weird as it sounds, compared to the on-rails feeling of games like CoD. And don't get me started on the turret sequences, CoD has TONS of turret sequences yet the ones in DNF get all the bad rap? You have to be kidding me.
People should play this game and judge for themselves, it's possible I like it mostly because of the nostalgia. But that doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing, the old school gamers who played D3D is the target audience Gearbox should've gone for, not the CoD/Halo-kids with ADHD who have not taken their pills. Next up: I will discuss L.A. Noire and trying to detect lies successfully.
Later!
It's busy times now when it comes to video games for me. Got L.A. Noire on release date but I got sick so I didn't play it until a few weeks later. Yesterday I downloaded Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012, which doesn't seem like it adds that much but still is enjoyable. However, I'll save those two for other entries since I want to talk about something that is hot off the presses right now; namely the Dukester himself's return to form (?): Duke Nukem Forever has finally been released!
I'm an old school gamer and for sure I played Duke Nukem 3D back in the day, in fact I even played the 2D-ones. Duke 3D took the Doom-engine in a whole new direction with the interactive enviroments, much more advanced level structuring and probably most of all, letting you play an actual defined character. The Duke has always been a walking stereotype, much like the borrowed movie quotes he keeps yapping; a mish-mash of various campy 80's and 90's action flicks' mary-sue-like anti-heroes. It really feels wrong calling the Duke mary-sue, but he sure is the male variant of that, even more so in the new game since his health regenerates (sadly) and it takes a lot before he dies. Even though D3D was fun and enjoyable for its time, I still have a feeling that most people remember it as much better than it actually was. Most of the hype concerned how innovative it was, not so much about the quality of the game itself. The game shone in the first episode, the other were more of the same and the gameplay became rather tedious (a bit like Doom in that the first episode - Knee Deep in the Mud - is hands down the best.
The fact that it's been 14 years is most assuredly a contributing factor to people (well video game reviewers, it's not confirmed that you can call them people) forgetting that D3D was not the paragon of gaming people remember it as, greatly influencing their confounding stellar expectations of DNF. It reminds me very much of the Star Wars-prequels that - all things considered - were never going to live up to people's expectations. DNF has gotten awful reviews, the meanest one being the one on Gamespot where the X-box 360-version got 3.0. When reading these reviews it feels like the reviewer has decided what to think about this game before even playing it. Big parts of the texts is just downright bashing, far from any sort of constructive critisism. The reviewers are really scrutinizing the game with a magnifying glass looking for even the smallest detail to hate on. It's rather embarrassing to be honest, but I suppose the 14 year wait warrants it, not to say calls for it. It feels like the reviewers are mad that George Broussard didn't invite them to his birthday party when they were kids or something, and this is their long in coming way of getting back at him.
I bought this game expecting very little. Through the years I've read the reports and seen the screenshots of the latest engine they've used for the game. The last one was the video that a guy who worked on the game leaked right about the time when 3D Realms said they pulled the plug for good. I really liked the look of that video, and judging from the final game that's exactly the graphics they've used in the end. They've sort of stitched together what they had as best they could in order to make it as coherent of a game as possible. And with me, that is perfectly fine.
At the time of writing this I've played through probably around 3/4's of the game, and the bottom line is that it's FUN. Period. I am actually enjoying myself playing this video game. There's a challenge and I want to continue playing and exploring the area that comes next. And to be fair, I don't think you can ask for more from a game. It is sad, if not deplorable, that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare part ad nauseam is the measuring standard for a good FPS game today. In my opinion, by now CoD is not much of a game, it's more of an interactive film. And like I've said before I get the CoD's on release, but when all FPS-games just have to be CoD that really puts a hampering limitation on the genre.
There are a lot of problems with DNF. DNF is not a great game, by any means. The graphics are fine but dated, especially certain parts. Coming from the extremely advanced facial animation in L.A. Noire and playing a supposedly brand new game with barely any facial animation at all like in DNF, is not very nice. There's a strange blur effect on all textures that are far away which I think they could've gotten rid of all together. But the graphics are still functional and do what they need to, I mean look at Minecraft! Graphics have never been everything in a game and it sure as hell rings true for DNF as well.
The sound is not more than OK. It was a part of D3D that was really good, the weapons sound a bit weak here and overall it's not as spot on as in the predecessor. The intro version of the Duke Nukem-theme rocks, but the rest of the music is quite forgettable.
The game plays like an ancient relic from the Half-Life 2-era. A lot of water has passed under the bridges since then, which poses a bit of a problem. The regenerating health and two weapon-limitation is a Cod/Halo-era feature that they've jammed into the game with brute force. It clashes with the HL2-era mechanics like a high speed train into a rock wall. I'm just going to say that I hate the aforementioned two alterations to the Duke formula and leave it at that, they add nothing and just take away from the experience. The Half-Life games brought scripted events into the world of gaming, which were at the time considered the best thing since sliced bread, but now just feel unendingly stale. My hope is that the reason the game reviewers are not aware why the scripted events exist in the game, is because they simply didn't play games back then. Because if they did and still can't make the connection there is simply no excuse for what they are writing in their reviews. There is no question that if DNF was released a couple of years after HL2, the reviewers would praise the scripted events and how they provided a nice pause from the action at points in the game - instead of them being a negative. Of course, today we live in the CoD-land where the action has to be in warp nine at all times, otherwise it's a bad game. I for one think the variety of the gameplay in DNF feels like a breath of fresh air, as weird as it sounds, compared to the on-rails feeling of games like CoD. And don't get me started on the turret sequences, CoD has TONS of turret sequences yet the ones in DNF get all the bad rap? You have to be kidding me.
People should play this game and judge for themselves, it's possible I like it mostly because of the nostalgia. But that doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing, the old school gamers who played D3D is the target audience Gearbox should've gone for, not the CoD/Halo-kids with ADHD who have not taken their pills. Next up: I will discuss L.A. Noire and trying to detect lies successfully.
Later!
onsdag 18 maj 2011
Red Ring of Death
Yo!
I've had my X-box 360 for more than six years and it has worked like a charm all those years, up until now. All the talk about "Red Ring of Death", I mostly wrote off as a hate campaign from jealous Sony-fanboys, but last week reality hit me when my 360 froze during the intro animation, and promptly RRoD'd when I tried to reboot it. The warranty lasts for three years, so the alternatives were to either send it in to Microsoft and wait one to four weeks for them to repair it, use some home-made reparation kit, or simply buy a new one. Sending it in for repairs seemed like the cheapest alternative, but since L.A. Noire is going to be released on friday I don't really want to wait a month to play that game. So I figured I'd buy a new console, a 360 Slim with a 250 gig hardrive. One of the biggest upsides of this one is that it looks way better than the old version.
I bought the bundle that comes with Halo: Reach and Fable III. Yes, I actually bought a Halo-game, but the guy who sold it to me was very convincing. Unfortunately, as I played it all my fears were realized as it was a highly mediocre game. The graphics look pretty bad, grey and brown with few details. Gameplay is as poor as you would expect an FPS-game on a console to be, except pretty much worse since the auto-aim which console FPS's rely heavily on in order to be playable, is turned way down. The enemies look boring, the story and gameplay plays very much like Call of Duty in space (well, technically on another planet). This game got a 9.5 on Gamespot which is unbelievable, I know I go on about this, but I just can't get over it. Fantasy RPG-games are not really my cup of tea usually, so I haven't had the time to check Fable III out, but I will when I get around to it.
Laters!
Yo!
I've had my X-box 360 for more than six years and it has worked like a charm all those years, up until now. All the talk about "Red Ring of Death", I mostly wrote off as a hate campaign from jealous Sony-fanboys, but last week reality hit me when my 360 froze during the intro animation, and promptly RRoD'd when I tried to reboot it. The warranty lasts for three years, so the alternatives were to either send it in to Microsoft and wait one to four weeks for them to repair it, use some home-made reparation kit, or simply buy a new one. Sending it in for repairs seemed like the cheapest alternative, but since L.A. Noire is going to be released on friday I don't really want to wait a month to play that game. So I figured I'd buy a new console, a 360 Slim with a 250 gig hardrive. One of the biggest upsides of this one is that it looks way better than the old version.
I bought the bundle that comes with Halo: Reach and Fable III. Yes, I actually bought a Halo-game, but the guy who sold it to me was very convincing. Unfortunately, as I played it all my fears were realized as it was a highly mediocre game. The graphics look pretty bad, grey and brown with few details. Gameplay is as poor as you would expect an FPS-game on a console to be, except pretty much worse since the auto-aim which console FPS's rely heavily on in order to be playable, is turned way down. The enemies look boring, the story and gameplay plays very much like Call of Duty in space (well, technically on another planet). This game got a 9.5 on Gamespot which is unbelievable, I know I go on about this, but I just can't get over it. Fantasy RPG-games are not really my cup of tea usually, so I haven't had the time to check Fable III out, but I will when I get around to it.
Laters!
lördag 30 april 2011
Now I am thinking with portals!
Yo!
I have now completed Portal 2 and Pokémon Black Version. I've already spoken a bit about PBV, and pretty much what I said earlier still held true throughout the game. The developers of the game have upped the difficulty a few notches from Pearl/Diamond for example, which is a big plus in my book. Instead of just leveling the hell out of your starter pokémon, you now have to have good reserves in your team of other types. Some trainers you meet have pokémon that can use attacks of completely different types, or simply use different pokémon like one fire type, one grass and so on. Still, leveling your starter pokémon a lot works for most fights since it will outclass your opponents because of the higher level, but all in all the game is a lot harder. I also like that they've done away with some of the more unnecessary elements of the game, like baking your pokémon a cake (it's a lie, ECKSS DEE ECKS DEE), planting seeds in order to harvest berries or having to enter it into a beauty contest... This makes the game flow nicer but also makes it a bit less interesting I guess.
As far as the design of the new pokémon goes it's probably the most dissapointing part of the game. It seems as if they are running out of ideas since most of the pokémon are uninspired, bland or plain boring. I mean, who wants to have a pig as their starting pokémon? Nothing rivals the pokémon in the original game, Pearl/Diamond was fine bit a bit too strange and outlandish in general I think. The question is whether we'll see something as good as the first game in this department, time will tell, as long as the franchise keeps selling like butter on a hot day there is still a chance.
I got the original Portal when I bought the Orange Box a while back. I bought that bundle of MODS (because that's what it is), since I wanted to play Team Fortress 2 to see what all the fuss was about. I was severely unimpressed by TF2, and played Portal only since I got it too with the aforementioned hot deal. Portal 1 was a pretty fun and nice puzzle game (I do love me a the Adventures of Lolo), but my major gripe was that it was too short. It's amazing what a following it has gained considering you can easily finish it under four hours and there's just not much in terms of substance, in every level you do the same thing.
Portal 2 is more of a real game, at least that's what it tries to be. It has a different tone, where Portal 1 had a mostly humoristic tone, Portal 2 is more grim and goes for a more post-apocalyptic feeling not different from the one found in Half-Life 1 and 2. The game certainly is longer than its predecessor, but it's still not "long" by any means. I finished it in seven hours which is an eon compared to how long it takes to finish the Call of Duty games' single player modes, but it's just not enough for a full-priced game. There's little to no replay value to be found here unlike the CoD games' multiplayer modes for example. All the major game review sites like Gamespot and IGN have given the game raving reviews and 9+ ratings. This is baffling to me to be honest, and I think this might just be the final nail in the coffin for me to ever trust these bought sites again. There is just so much trust you can give these people and it's used up for me. And that's not even taking into account the inflation in the review scores, for this to get a 9.5 rating on IGN is beyond retarded. There is just no way to justify that score, no matter how much you twist, turn or use portals on it.
What I expected from the game, which I don't think is too much to ask for, is some sort of juicy backstory or tie-in to the Half-Life universe. There is a part - minor spoiler alert I guess - of the game which takes place in the lower levels of Aperture where stuff are from the 1950's and the company's beginnings (clearly heavily inspired by the Bioshock games), but Black Mesa is just very briefly mentioned and that's it. Portal 2 plays just like the first one except it's easier, which is not very good. It has more of an overworld feeling where you get to see how the puzzle rooms look from the outside, a bit like looking at the Cube in the movie with the same name. There are more afterconstructions in this game than in the Star Wars prequels combined, and this feels like one of them. Accompanying you on your trip is a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-inspired british robot called Weasley. This is a matter of preferences, but I hated this guy from the beginning and just thought he was very annoying. For me, the game would've been better of without him (like the first game). Glados is a more interesting character, especially as you get to know more about her origin.
The graphics look awesome and epic, they really do. Looking at the neverending expanse of cubes that Aperture sience consists of is something else, but there is still something about the source engine that makes everything look unnatural and plastasene. Now granted that's perfectly fine for a game like Portal 2 considering where it takes place, the graphics just don't look as good as in Resident Evil 5 which is not even that recent of a game, or games like Modern Warfare 2 or Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Which brings me to my next point. Just like in Portal 1, what the game does more than anything is make you want to play a new Half-Life game. And with that I mean a new game, not a modification like Episode 3. They've pushed the source engine as far as it goes now, the next Half-Life needs a new graphics engine.
That turned out much longer than I intended, but oh well might as well use this space to "review" games I play. I'd rather do it here than at the fascistic censoring bought websites that have one hand in the pocket of the game companies.
Laters!
I have now completed Portal 2 and Pokémon Black Version. I've already spoken a bit about PBV, and pretty much what I said earlier still held true throughout the game. The developers of the game have upped the difficulty a few notches from Pearl/Diamond for example, which is a big plus in my book. Instead of just leveling the hell out of your starter pokémon, you now have to have good reserves in your team of other types. Some trainers you meet have pokémon that can use attacks of completely different types, or simply use different pokémon like one fire type, one grass and so on. Still, leveling your starter pokémon a lot works for most fights since it will outclass your opponents because of the higher level, but all in all the game is a lot harder. I also like that they've done away with some of the more unnecessary elements of the game, like baking your pokémon a cake (it's a lie, ECKSS DEE ECKS DEE), planting seeds in order to harvest berries or having to enter it into a beauty contest... This makes the game flow nicer but also makes it a bit less interesting I guess.
As far as the design of the new pokémon goes it's probably the most dissapointing part of the game. It seems as if they are running out of ideas since most of the pokémon are uninspired, bland or plain boring. I mean, who wants to have a pig as their starting pokémon? Nothing rivals the pokémon in the original game, Pearl/Diamond was fine bit a bit too strange and outlandish in general I think. The question is whether we'll see something as good as the first game in this department, time will tell, as long as the franchise keeps selling like butter on a hot day there is still a chance.
I got the original Portal when I bought the Orange Box a while back. I bought that bundle of MODS (because that's what it is), since I wanted to play Team Fortress 2 to see what all the fuss was about. I was severely unimpressed by TF2, and played Portal only since I got it too with the aforementioned hot deal. Portal 1 was a pretty fun and nice puzzle game (I do love me a the Adventures of Lolo), but my major gripe was that it was too short. It's amazing what a following it has gained considering you can easily finish it under four hours and there's just not much in terms of substance, in every level you do the same thing.
Portal 2 is more of a real game, at least that's what it tries to be. It has a different tone, where Portal 1 had a mostly humoristic tone, Portal 2 is more grim and goes for a more post-apocalyptic feeling not different from the one found in Half-Life 1 and 2. The game certainly is longer than its predecessor, but it's still not "long" by any means. I finished it in seven hours which is an eon compared to how long it takes to finish the Call of Duty games' single player modes, but it's just not enough for a full-priced game. There's little to no replay value to be found here unlike the CoD games' multiplayer modes for example. All the major game review sites like Gamespot and IGN have given the game raving reviews and 9+ ratings. This is baffling to me to be honest, and I think this might just be the final nail in the coffin for me to ever trust these bought sites again. There is just so much trust you can give these people and it's used up for me. And that's not even taking into account the inflation in the review scores, for this to get a 9.5 rating on IGN is beyond retarded. There is just no way to justify that score, no matter how much you twist, turn or use portals on it.
What I expected from the game, which I don't think is too much to ask for, is some sort of juicy backstory or tie-in to the Half-Life universe. There is a part - minor spoiler alert I guess - of the game which takes place in the lower levels of Aperture where stuff are from the 1950's and the company's beginnings (clearly heavily inspired by the Bioshock games), but Black Mesa is just very briefly mentioned and that's it. Portal 2 plays just like the first one except it's easier, which is not very good. It has more of an overworld feeling where you get to see how the puzzle rooms look from the outside, a bit like looking at the Cube in the movie with the same name. There are more afterconstructions in this game than in the Star Wars prequels combined, and this feels like one of them. Accompanying you on your trip is a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-inspired british robot called Weasley. This is a matter of preferences, but I hated this guy from the beginning and just thought he was very annoying. For me, the game would've been better of without him (like the first game). Glados is a more interesting character, especially as you get to know more about her origin.
The graphics look awesome and epic, they really do. Looking at the neverending expanse of cubes that Aperture sience consists of is something else, but there is still something about the source engine that makes everything look unnatural and plastasene. Now granted that's perfectly fine for a game like Portal 2 considering where it takes place, the graphics just don't look as good as in Resident Evil 5 which is not even that recent of a game, or games like Modern Warfare 2 or Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Which brings me to my next point. Just like in Portal 1, what the game does more than anything is make you want to play a new Half-Life game. And with that I mean a new game, not a modification like Episode 3. They've pushed the source engine as far as it goes now, the next Half-Life needs a new graphics engine.
That turned out much longer than I intended, but oh well might as well use this space to "review" games I play. I'd rather do it here than at the fascistic censoring bought websites that have one hand in the pocket of the game companies.
Laters!
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