Extra Credits just released a video about music in games. As is to be expected from those chaps, it was very well thought out and made some good points. The key one being: embrace simplicity.
It was great, though, listening to them reel off a massive list of music they consider to be classics. I think the Americans must have grown up with consoles in the same way my friends and I grew up with PCs. What are the pieces of music I most fondly remember from the 80s? That's easy.
You start HERE with a game from the BBC. Go through Jazz Jackrabbit, hit the 90s with Doom.
What was interesting, though was how much the boys (and girl) at Extra Credits were talking about old themes (Zelda et all) updated to be played by orchsestras.
I hate orchestral music. Years and years of bad hollywood films has made most orchestral themes blend together. They played the Halo theme and I honestly heard nothing to seperate it from the music of films from Johnny Nemonic up to From Paris With Love.
In all fairness, that's not the games fault, it's my own prejudices. It does interest me, though, that what I consider to be a great piece of game music strays so far from what they were talking about. Take the Deus Ex theme synthesised yet modern. Isolated from the Vampire Bloodlines soundtrack beautifully summs up the slightly unnerving new world you step into playing the game.
I also love some updated themes. Take Command and Conqor: Red Alert, A fantastic, thumping rock song. The updated version is even better...
The point about simplicity is a very good one. Blueberry Garden is, by all respects, a pretty bad game but its music is so fucking good it pretty much turns the game into art by itself. And I surely don't need to mention Braid or World of Goo.
To their credit, Extra Credits did mention Portal at the end, which is probably the most iconic bit of game music we've had in the last ten years but other than that, I do love how there is no real overlap between their opinion of iconic game music and mine. Console gamers are from mars, PC gamers are from venus...
Thursday, 23 September 2010
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Strong Women in games
The Gamer Overthinker recently did a video about Metrod: Other M, which apparantly has been getting people all hot and bothered about Samus Arran. As someone who only knows this character from the Smash Bros series, most of it went over my head but it did get me thinking about some of the points he raised and had me returning to the age old question of... are there any really great female characters in games?
Yes. Of course there are. Just not as many as I'd like.
If you want strong female characters, you just have to go to the RPG's. Mass Effect 2 has Jack, Miranda, Liara, Tali and Shepherd herself if you chose to play as a girl.
Vampire Bloodlines has Teresse and Jenette and VV (although how much you consider her to be a strong female character depends on how you feel on the whole Sex As A Liberating Weapon thing).
The Witcher has Triss and Shani - who are both really great, strong, empathetic characters.
Dragon Age has too many to count.
The thing is, RPG's main strength is in charcter and story so it's not surprising that they should have many great female characters. When you look at other games, though, things are much less favourable.
Let's look at First Person Shooters. The game equivelant of a Hollywood Action film.
I've just had a quick look through my Steam Library and this is what I found:
Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena has an excelent female villain. The fact that she was played by Admiral Cain probably helped though.
There's Alyx Vance in the Half Life 2 saga.... I never really saw her as a character, though. She professes her love for Gordan in one of the games and it just comes across as silly. This is maninly because Gordon never says anything which was still one of Valve's stupider ideas when making Half Life 2. The thing is, she does do a fair amount of stuff - getting you through barriers etc. but I really struggle to say she has a *character*.
There's an old way of telling if a character is good or not: Describe three of a characters attributes without mentioning anything physical about the character. I struggle to do this with Alyx. Really badly.
I have the same problem with Zoey and Rochelle in Left 4 Dead 1 and 2. They're both better characters than Alyx but the time spent on characterisation is understandably low. They get as much as the men, though, which is at least even handed.
And finally, we have Unreal 2's Aida. Aida was one of gaming's great characters anyway. I feel a bit ashamed about this, actually, but I was mentally compiling a list of great female characters before writing this article and I completely forgot about Aida. Stupid me. Granted, the game is nine years old but Deus Ex is older than that and I've memorised almost every frame of that...
So, from my steam library of 106 games, I've managed to find 16 good, strong female characters. And that includes the RPG's in there.
That's pretty damn terrible.
Yes. Of course there are. Just not as many as I'd like.
If you want strong female characters, you just have to go to the RPG's. Mass Effect 2 has Jack, Miranda, Liara, Tali and Shepherd herself if you chose to play as a girl.
Vampire Bloodlines has Teresse and Jenette and VV (although how much you consider her to be a strong female character depends on how you feel on the whole Sex As A Liberating Weapon thing).
The Witcher has Triss and Shani - who are both really great, strong, empathetic characters.
Dragon Age has too many to count.
The thing is, RPG's main strength is in charcter and story so it's not surprising that they should have many great female characters. When you look at other games, though, things are much less favourable.
Let's look at First Person Shooters. The game equivelant of a Hollywood Action film.
I've just had a quick look through my Steam Library and this is what I found:
Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena has an excelent female villain. The fact that she was played by Admiral Cain probably helped though.
There's Alyx Vance in the Half Life 2 saga.... I never really saw her as a character, though. She professes her love for Gordan in one of the games and it just comes across as silly. This is maninly because Gordon never says anything which was still one of Valve's stupider ideas when making Half Life 2. The thing is, she does do a fair amount of stuff - getting you through barriers etc. but I really struggle to say she has a *character*.
There's an old way of telling if a character is good or not: Describe three of a characters attributes without mentioning anything physical about the character. I struggle to do this with Alyx. Really badly.
I have the same problem with Zoey and Rochelle in Left 4 Dead 1 and 2. They're both better characters than Alyx but the time spent on characterisation is understandably low. They get as much as the men, though, which is at least even handed.
And finally, we have Unreal 2's Aida. Aida was one of gaming's great characters anyway. I feel a bit ashamed about this, actually, but I was mentally compiling a list of great female characters before writing this article and I completely forgot about Aida. Stupid me. Granted, the game is nine years old but Deus Ex is older than that and I've memorised almost every frame of that...
So, from my steam library of 106 games, I've managed to find 16 good, strong female characters. And that includes the RPG's in there.
That's pretty damn terrible.
Saturday, 4 September 2010
Mafia 2's story
I've been thinking about the plot of Mafia 2 and I've got a nasty suspicion that it doesn't actually make any sense. There are a fair number of incongruities... None of them exactly ruin it, they just don't quite work and hint at a development team making plot twists for their own sake. Spoilers follow:
1) The cops show up during a drugs run
So you and some mates are going to smuggle some drugs. You've handed over the money, picked up the drugs and OH NO! The cops show up. About thirty of them. You think you're screwed but one of your mates notices their shoes - they're very clean and well made. WAIT! They aren't the shoes of a cop, they must be a rival gang! A firefight ensues.
The problem is, we're never given any explanation for who these people are. Given that no-one was supposed to know about the deal, it doesn't quite work.
2) The fed
One of your mates turns out to be a fed. This is fine, he's been infiltrating your group. The problem is, this mate a few chapters before he is revealed as a fed had planned, initiated and been the primary driving force behind a massive cocaine distribution operation. I really don't get why a fed would do this. It's not as if he hasn't got enough evidence to hang everyone in the game. It could be the money I suppose but he's a fed, they're not supposed to be after the money. As far as I see it, it's an incredibly dangerous thing to do which can (and does) blow his cover for very little reward. It doesn't quite work.
3) A friend who you helped disappear pops up at the end.
So you're supposed to kill this chap but you help him escape. He disappears, never to be heard from again. But he turns up at the end to help you out of a bind. This one does sort of work... helping out old friends and all that, but there are an enormous mesh of co-incidences at the end including a triad leader who this guy somehow knows and has agreed not to kill you for reasons never fully explained. Other than loyalty, which is a bit tenuous considering your characters actions during the last act of the game, this bit really doesn't ring true.
As you can probably tell, Mafia 2's plot isn't exactly bad. There are just a lot of bits that, on closer examination, make you go "hang on a second...." much in the same way Inside Man did...
1) The cops show up during a drugs run
So you and some mates are going to smuggle some drugs. You've handed over the money, picked up the drugs and OH NO! The cops show up. About thirty of them. You think you're screwed but one of your mates notices their shoes - they're very clean and well made. WAIT! They aren't the shoes of a cop, they must be a rival gang! A firefight ensues.
The problem is, we're never given any explanation for who these people are. Given that no-one was supposed to know about the deal, it doesn't quite work.
2) The fed
One of your mates turns out to be a fed. This is fine, he's been infiltrating your group. The problem is, this mate a few chapters before he is revealed as a fed had planned, initiated and been the primary driving force behind a massive cocaine distribution operation. I really don't get why a fed would do this. It's not as if he hasn't got enough evidence to hang everyone in the game. It could be the money I suppose but he's a fed, they're not supposed to be after the money. As far as I see it, it's an incredibly dangerous thing to do which can (and does) blow his cover for very little reward. It doesn't quite work.
3) A friend who you helped disappear pops up at the end.
So you're supposed to kill this chap but you help him escape. He disappears, never to be heard from again. But he turns up at the end to help you out of a bind. This one does sort of work... helping out old friends and all that, but there are an enormous mesh of co-incidences at the end including a triad leader who this guy somehow knows and has agreed not to kill you for reasons never fully explained. Other than loyalty, which is a bit tenuous considering your characters actions during the last act of the game, this bit really doesn't ring true.
As you can probably tell, Mafia 2's plot isn't exactly bad. There are just a lot of bits that, on closer examination, make you go "hang on a second...." much in the same way Inside Man did...
Spiderman is rubbish
I recently swore off comic book films. They're not grounded in reality and often don't follow the conventions of film, tv etc. Physics? Psh. Who needs physics. Realism? PAH.
But I thought there may be hope for the 90s Spiderman cartoon. I watched this in my teens and loved it. So a few weeks ago, the GF and I downloaded it and began working through it.
I quickly reached the conclusion that it's not very good. This may well be because of Sam fucking Rami. Since those awful spiderman films it's hard to ignore bits where Aunt May guilt trips Peter or Peter starts going randomly emo for no aparant reason.
My biggest problem was a bit of a revelation for me, though. I've come to the conclusion that Spiderman is a really shit superhero.
Austin Powers had a lot to do with this. Specifically this famous exchange from International Man of Mystery:
Dr. Evil: All right guard, begin the unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism.
[guard starts dipping mechanism]
Dr. Evil: Close the tank!
Scott Evil: Wait, aren't you even going to watch them? They could get away!
Dr. Evil: No no no, I'm going to leave them alone and not actually witness them dying, I'm just gonna assume it all went to plan. What?
Scott Evil: I have a gun, in my room, you give me five seconds, I'll get it, I'll come back down here, BOOM, I'll blow their brains out!
Dr. Evil: Scott, you just don't get it, do ya? You don't.
Why is this relevant to Spiderman? Because he keeps getting captured. His captors always strap a bomb to his arm, want to hold him to ransom, try to reveal his identity or something that leads to him escaping in a really contrived fashion. Why does this keep happening? Because fake peril is a great way of concealing the fact that Spidey can't really do anything.
Let's run through Spiderman's powers quickly:
1)Spiderman can stick to walls.
This is.... fairly useful. I suppose. I can't really see many real world applications. The creators seem to be aware of this as well and have to create a load of flying villains and fights on rooftops to compensate.
2) Spiderman can shoot webs from his wrists.
This used to swing around the city. In much the same way as a normal person would use... a car. It's also used to tie up bandits. I suppose that's... sort of useful but most other superheros don't appear to need to do this. Admittedly, the webbing is often used to stop falling debris and things, which is the one instance where it does something that couldn't also be done by a normal person.
3) Spiderman is hyper agile
Know who else is hyper agile? Gymnasts and martial artists. Spiderman's hyper agility is never really portrayed as anything other than being really gymnastic. Although he tends to do a lot of pretentious flipping all over the place.
4) Spiderman can sense danger
This is a tricky one because it *could* be a game breaking power because depending on how you define "danger" it allows you to sense villains, bullets speeding towards you, people who don't like you etc. etc. The problem is sensing danger can't actually happen so it's not a power based in the real world. As a result of this, the writers of Spiderman pretty much make up what the Spider Sense can and can't detect as they go along. There's one bit where Venom blocks his Spider Sense because the Venom symbiote has bonded with Spidey previously. It doesn't block Spidey's ability to see him so why is it affecting this other sense?
Basically the only things the Spider Sense is ever used for is to notice when he's about to be shot at or a missile is about to explode nearby or something. In other words, this potentially game breaking power could be replaced by the Keeping An Eye On Your Surroundings power.
So, to sum up. Spiderman never really does anything useful that couldn't be done by a talented gymnast/martial artist other than catch falling debris with his webs.
Now.
As a direct result of this, all the normal people in New York are... kind of scaled down, competance wise. The villains always capture Spider Man rather than killing him (which they always have ample oppertunity to do.) Also, buildings always fall on people who never run or dive for cover, they always just look up at the building falling on them with a blank look on their face.
Mostly, though, no-one ever does anything in the Spiderman universe other than Spider Man and the villains. No civilians ever push a mate out of the way when they're about to be crushed by a building. No-one else ever tries to tackle the Shocker (because if they did, they'd win. The Shocker is a monumentally terrible villain) no-one does... anything.
This was all sparked, by the way, by watching bits and pieces of Daredevil, who everyone knows is a terrible superhero. He's blind! He's so blind he can see! He has magical seeing powers! Oh, and he can... use sonar. I suppose. Which is sort of useful... I suppose.
Marvel superheroes are just shit, aren't they...
But I thought there may be hope for the 90s Spiderman cartoon. I watched this in my teens and loved it. So a few weeks ago, the GF and I downloaded it and began working through it.
I quickly reached the conclusion that it's not very good. This may well be because of Sam fucking Rami. Since those awful spiderman films it's hard to ignore bits where Aunt May guilt trips Peter or Peter starts going randomly emo for no aparant reason.
My biggest problem was a bit of a revelation for me, though. I've come to the conclusion that Spiderman is a really shit superhero.
Austin Powers had a lot to do with this. Specifically this famous exchange from International Man of Mystery:
Dr. Evil: All right guard, begin the unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism.
[guard starts dipping mechanism]
Dr. Evil: Close the tank!
Scott Evil: Wait, aren't you even going to watch them? They could get away!
Dr. Evil: No no no, I'm going to leave them alone and not actually witness them dying, I'm just gonna assume it all went to plan. What?
Scott Evil: I have a gun, in my room, you give me five seconds, I'll get it, I'll come back down here, BOOM, I'll blow their brains out!
Dr. Evil: Scott, you just don't get it, do ya? You don't.
Why is this relevant to Spiderman? Because he keeps getting captured. His captors always strap a bomb to his arm, want to hold him to ransom, try to reveal his identity or something that leads to him escaping in a really contrived fashion. Why does this keep happening? Because fake peril is a great way of concealing the fact that Spidey can't really do anything.
Let's run through Spiderman's powers quickly:
1)Spiderman can stick to walls.
This is.... fairly useful. I suppose. I can't really see many real world applications. The creators seem to be aware of this as well and have to create a load of flying villains and fights on rooftops to compensate.
2) Spiderman can shoot webs from his wrists.
This used to swing around the city. In much the same way as a normal person would use... a car. It's also used to tie up bandits. I suppose that's... sort of useful but most other superheros don't appear to need to do this. Admittedly, the webbing is often used to stop falling debris and things, which is the one instance where it does something that couldn't also be done by a normal person.
3) Spiderman is hyper agile
Know who else is hyper agile? Gymnasts and martial artists. Spiderman's hyper agility is never really portrayed as anything other than being really gymnastic. Although he tends to do a lot of pretentious flipping all over the place.
4) Spiderman can sense danger
This is a tricky one because it *could* be a game breaking power because depending on how you define "danger" it allows you to sense villains, bullets speeding towards you, people who don't like you etc. etc. The problem is sensing danger can't actually happen so it's not a power based in the real world. As a result of this, the writers of Spiderman pretty much make up what the Spider Sense can and can't detect as they go along. There's one bit where Venom blocks his Spider Sense because the Venom symbiote has bonded with Spidey previously. It doesn't block Spidey's ability to see him so why is it affecting this other sense?
Basically the only things the Spider Sense is ever used for is to notice when he's about to be shot at or a missile is about to explode nearby or something. In other words, this potentially game breaking power could be replaced by the Keeping An Eye On Your Surroundings power.
So, to sum up. Spiderman never really does anything useful that couldn't be done by a talented gymnast/martial artist other than catch falling debris with his webs.
Now.
As a direct result of this, all the normal people in New York are... kind of scaled down, competance wise. The villains always capture Spider Man rather than killing him (which they always have ample oppertunity to do.) Also, buildings always fall on people who never run or dive for cover, they always just look up at the building falling on them with a blank look on their face.
Mostly, though, no-one ever does anything in the Spiderman universe other than Spider Man and the villains. No civilians ever push a mate out of the way when they're about to be crushed by a building. No-one else ever tries to tackle the Shocker (because if they did, they'd win. The Shocker is a monumentally terrible villain) no-one does... anything.
This was all sparked, by the way, by watching bits and pieces of Daredevil, who everyone knows is a terrible superhero. He's blind! He's so blind he can see! He has magical seeing powers! Oh, and he can... use sonar. I suppose. Which is sort of useful... I suppose.
Marvel superheroes are just shit, aren't they...
Monday, 30 August 2010
Worst Game Plots
This is quite a tricky one.
Often, having a bad plot will completely spoil a game. Usually to the point where I refuse to play the damn thing. I really enjoyed the first Star Trek: Elite Force, for example. I was quite young at the time, it's not my fault. Anyway, the sequel came out and I was quite looking forward to it, right up until the end of the opening cinematic which was so trite and badly written I couldn't bring myself to play it.
This is the case with a lot of games. Singularity is a more recent example. However, there are some good games out there with utterly dire plots. Here are a few of them:
1) Half Life 2
This one is a particular bug bear of mine. The plot here isn't exactly bad so much as it is *completely* absent. This was okay in Half Life 1 because you always had the general objective of escaping. Here, though, you're just blundering from one set piece to another with no real idea why you're doing anything or who the hell all these people bossing you around are.
2) Far Cry 2
This one would slip into the -completely absent plot- box with Half Life 2 were it not for the end. Spoiler warning. At the end of Far Cry 2, you meet up with the Jackall who explains that his overall objective was always to get the civilians out of this horrible war torn country. You spend the last act of the game helping him evacuate the civilians.
Anyone who hasn't played Far Cry 2 will think that sounds reasonable but it's important to point out that The Jackall is pretty much entirely responsible for arming the two waring factions in this nameless African state. To put it simply, the civilians wouldn't have needed to evacuate if he hadn't flooded the country with cheap, reliable firearms. This is such a pathetic attempt to tag a HAPPY ENDING on to what was gearing up to one of the most depressing games of all time that the person responsible should be slapped. In the balls. Hard.
3) Assassins Creed 2
Admittedly, AC 2 isn't a stunning game - there's far too much faffing about - but it is solid in many ways. The plot, however, isn't. At the start, your family get murdered in the standard - Trusted Family Friend Sells You Out For Power - way that even I saw coming. From there, things just disolve into a gigantic mess. Leonardo Da Vinci is your mate and makes you stuff and there's some conspiracy where people are trying to do... something... I was never really clear who the people I was assassinating had done or were planning to do but they all did the evil voice so they must have done something...
4) Assassins Creed 1
Doesn't have an ending
5) Crysis
Ditto
6) AVP
Cracked recently lamented the business practaces of Weyland-Yutani but AVP is the height of bullshit Corperations Are Evil nonsense.
Now, I'm a massive anti capitalist. I occasionally describe myself as an anarchist, although I'm well aware that anarchism can't work as a system without a series of very, very small non-interlocking comunities. Films/games bashing on about the dangers of corperations are preaching to the choir as far as I'm concerned but in AVP it just *doesnt make any damn sense*. Why have they captured the aliens? What do they hope to gain from their research? Why are they doing any of this when they have combat mechs with miniguns?
These questions are present in Alien, Aliens and the less good follow ups but they're never more inescapable than they are in AVP because there so little else going on to distract you from how shitty the plot is.
Often, having a bad plot will completely spoil a game. Usually to the point where I refuse to play the damn thing. I really enjoyed the first Star Trek: Elite Force, for example. I was quite young at the time, it's not my fault. Anyway, the sequel came out and I was quite looking forward to it, right up until the end of the opening cinematic which was so trite and badly written I couldn't bring myself to play it.
This is the case with a lot of games. Singularity is a more recent example. However, there are some good games out there with utterly dire plots. Here are a few of them:
1) Half Life 2
This one is a particular bug bear of mine. The plot here isn't exactly bad so much as it is *completely* absent. This was okay in Half Life 1 because you always had the general objective of escaping. Here, though, you're just blundering from one set piece to another with no real idea why you're doing anything or who the hell all these people bossing you around are.
2) Far Cry 2
This one would slip into the -completely absent plot- box with Half Life 2 were it not for the end. Spoiler warning. At the end of Far Cry 2, you meet up with the Jackall who explains that his overall objective was always to get the civilians out of this horrible war torn country. You spend the last act of the game helping him evacuate the civilians.
Anyone who hasn't played Far Cry 2 will think that sounds reasonable but it's important to point out that The Jackall is pretty much entirely responsible for arming the two waring factions in this nameless African state. To put it simply, the civilians wouldn't have needed to evacuate if he hadn't flooded the country with cheap, reliable firearms. This is such a pathetic attempt to tag a HAPPY ENDING on to what was gearing up to one of the most depressing games of all time that the person responsible should be slapped. In the balls. Hard.
3) Assassins Creed 2
Admittedly, AC 2 isn't a stunning game - there's far too much faffing about - but it is solid in many ways. The plot, however, isn't. At the start, your family get murdered in the standard - Trusted Family Friend Sells You Out For Power - way that even I saw coming. From there, things just disolve into a gigantic mess. Leonardo Da Vinci is your mate and makes you stuff and there's some conspiracy where people are trying to do... something... I was never really clear who the people I was assassinating had done or were planning to do but they all did the evil voice so they must have done something...
4) Assassins Creed 1
Doesn't have an ending
5) Crysis
Ditto
6) AVP
Cracked recently lamented the business practaces of Weyland-Yutani but AVP is the height of bullshit Corperations Are Evil nonsense.
Now, I'm a massive anti capitalist. I occasionally describe myself as an anarchist, although I'm well aware that anarchism can't work as a system without a series of very, very small non-interlocking comunities. Films/games bashing on about the dangers of corperations are preaching to the choir as far as I'm concerned but in AVP it just *doesnt make any damn sense*. Why have they captured the aliens? What do they hope to gain from their research? Why are they doing any of this when they have combat mechs with miniguns?
These questions are present in Alien, Aliens and the less good follow ups but they're never more inescapable than they are in AVP because there so little else going on to distract you from how shitty the plot is.
Friday, 27 August 2010
Mafia 2
Mafia came out way back in the day, at around about the same time GTA 3 came out. I loved it at the time. I found the realism really charming - I think I'm pretty much the only person who enjoyed driving under the speed limit, stopping at reds and then waiting for the cops to move out of eyeshot and gunning my engine. The plot was nicely mature as well. It's always impressive when a script manages to write about the Mafia and doesn't have the main characters come across as *total* dick heads.
So I just completed Mafia 2....
Hm.
On the one hand, I completed it, which is pretty impressive considering it's:
1) Set in the 1940's and 1950's
2) a third person cover shooter
3) an open world game
All three of those elements usually work severely against a game on their own, in my mind, when all three are present, I thought it would have spelt the kiss of death for the game.
I don't know if it was a sense of nostalgia about the first game or whether it was the fact that, once again, the main characters were generally quite likable and had decent motivation but I found myself liking it.
What did help was that it's not *exactly* an open world game. There aren't really any random subquests you can do. You can't get in a cop car and catch criminals or any of that other bollocks GTA and the like have you doing. This means that the focus of the game is very clearly on the main plot and the gameplay.
There are a few problems with it, though.
The big one is the AI. It's completely broken. Cops often couldn't see me stealing a car from across the street, enemies would occasionaly stand there and gaze lovingly at me whilst I shot their mates... At no point did I think that the enemies were in any way inteligent.
Then there's the problem of the realism... The murderous difficulty from the first game has been kept, as has the thing about keeping under the speed limit. Sadly, you can run red lights as much as you like. Most annoyingly, though, if you commit a crim in front of a cop, like killing someone, all the other cops magically know about it. In the first game, they had to get to a phone to call it in. Now, not being an expert in history, I don't know when cop cars were outfitted with radios but I suspect it wasn't the 50s. As a result, it feels pretty damn cheap.
Lastly, the plot is... a bit... meh. The broad plot is quite well done, there are a nice number of twisty bits but I felt the lack of any definite baddie... for most of the game my character was just bumbling through the game world with no real plan or ambition other than getting cash, cars and broads.
It was a fun game and given how little else is out at the moment it's probably worth an investment but... there are a good number of things wrong with it. If it'd come out six months ago, I'd have completely ignored it but it had the good fortune to come out in the anual june-november computer games drought.
So I just completed Mafia 2....
Hm.
On the one hand, I completed it, which is pretty impressive considering it's:
1) Set in the 1940's and 1950's
2) a third person cover shooter
3) an open world game
All three of those elements usually work severely against a game on their own, in my mind, when all three are present, I thought it would have spelt the kiss of death for the game.
I don't know if it was a sense of nostalgia about the first game or whether it was the fact that, once again, the main characters were generally quite likable and had decent motivation but I found myself liking it.
What did help was that it's not *exactly* an open world game. There aren't really any random subquests you can do. You can't get in a cop car and catch criminals or any of that other bollocks GTA and the like have you doing. This means that the focus of the game is very clearly on the main plot and the gameplay.
There are a few problems with it, though.
The big one is the AI. It's completely broken. Cops often couldn't see me stealing a car from across the street, enemies would occasionaly stand there and gaze lovingly at me whilst I shot their mates... At no point did I think that the enemies were in any way inteligent.
Then there's the problem of the realism... The murderous difficulty from the first game has been kept, as has the thing about keeping under the speed limit. Sadly, you can run red lights as much as you like. Most annoyingly, though, if you commit a crim in front of a cop, like killing someone, all the other cops magically know about it. In the first game, they had to get to a phone to call it in. Now, not being an expert in history, I don't know when cop cars were outfitted with radios but I suspect it wasn't the 50s. As a result, it feels pretty damn cheap.
Lastly, the plot is... a bit... meh. The broad plot is quite well done, there are a nice number of twisty bits but I felt the lack of any definite baddie... for most of the game my character was just bumbling through the game world with no real plan or ambition other than getting cash, cars and broads.
It was a fun game and given how little else is out at the moment it's probably worth an investment but... there are a good number of things wrong with it. If it'd come out six months ago, I'd have completely ignored it but it had the good fortune to come out in the anual june-november computer games drought.
Friday, 20 August 2010
Salt
I'll be very surprised if I get through this without severe plot spoilers.
I want to see some Chinese TV shows. Or films. Something.
The reason for this is... America is one of two superpowers in the world. The other is China.
We're swamped by American media, over here, and one thing pops up over and over and over again: The Superpower Victim Mentality.
To explain:
In the world today, the USA is safe. Safe safe safe safe. They get the odd act of terrorism but hey, don't we all. It's nothing compared to what they're doing to other countries throughout the world, either through military or economic means.
In the world of films, though, the USA is constantly under attack from Muslims, communists or white supremacists. The country is never more than a few explosions away from being successfully invaded by all those nasty foreigners.
Why? What are you talking about? They're foreigners, they're jealous of us. We haven't done anything to deserve the hatred of... probably half the countries on the earth.
Put simply, the USA of Hollywood sees itself as a victim. A blushing belle who does no wrong, always under threat from those BASTARDS who speak a different language.
That's why I want to watch some stuff from China. I want to know if all Superpowers have this ridiculous doublethink going on. The "Nothing can hurt us" of Bill O'Riley and the "We're seconds away from those BASTARDS bringing our country down" of the films...
As a direct result of this, we get films like Salt. Salt, and films like it, are convinced that the cold war is still going. They truly believe that Russia still intends to invade the USA. Watching Salt is like watching a film from the 2010's with a script written in the 1950s. It really is that jingoistic.
Okay, so the plot goes:
Salt is a CIA agent. A Ruskie enters her CIA office and says she's part of a Russian scheme that planted agents throughout America to blow it up. He then escapes. Salt does too, to try and find her husband. Salt then "kills" the Russian President (she actually doesn't. It's all a clever trick), finds her Russian Handler (the chap who outed her) kills him and averts a nuclear disaster almost set off by her mate at the CIA, who was also a Russian Spy.
Okay, so the one bold move this film made was having Salt actually be a Russian Spy. Everything else was tedious and predictable. The action scenes were actually pretty good but it was hard to enjoy them because the plot was so terrible.
Anyway, I was sitting there, bored, watching this xenophobic piece of crap thinking - I wonder why I think it's bold that Salt is actually a Russian spy?-.
Then it struck me... it's because, plot wise, it doesn't make any damn sense.
The Russian plan does work, up to a point. You get sleeper agents to infiltrate the CIA then, at a point decided by their handler, get one of them to assassinate the president of Russia. It'll spark tension between the nations. I'm really not sure what Russia gets out of this other than a dead president but whatever, we'll run with it.
Where it all breaks down is... Literally any other way of activating the agent would have been preferable to what they actually did. The handler tells Salt that it's time to kill the Russian president by walking into her place of work, identifying himself by name, telling the CIA all about this secret program, telling them that his operation is going to try and kill the Russian President and fingering Salt as the one that's supposed to do it.
Here's some things he could have done instead that might have worked better:
1) Used a contact in the news services to broadcast a fake news broadcast that would trigger the agents
2) Written Salt a letter
3) Spoken to her on the phone
4) Talked to her in a Starbucks
5) Written "time to kill the Russian President, chaps" on the moon.
None of those things I've listed would have been half as damaging to his plan as what he actually did.
The film does attempt to explain this away, in the final act, where Salt's CIA mate says that he persuaded the handler to out Salt as a spy so the CIA mate would get all the glory and Salt would get all the blame. There are three problems with this:
1) It doesn't make any sense
2) Russian operatives attempting to destroy the US really aren't in it for the glory
3) The CIA mate, for some reason, doesn't kill the US president. This means that the president would be able to finger the CIA mate as the real perpetrator anyway.
So yeah, the entire premise of the film doesn't work.
I would have been able to run with this if the film had had any courage of its convictions. I was praying the entire way through for the Russians to succeed - for the nukes to go off. Why? Well it would be something not entirely predictable, which is a plus. There are several other reasons but most of them involved me wanting to jolt this stupid fucking film out of its self satisfied tone.
There's something really *nasty* about this sort of film. It's the whole race against time aspect where everything's so hopelessly predictable. The baddies have everything set up so perfectly the way their plans are foiled have to be ridiculously contrived. In this case, the nukes don't go off because the time from the CIA mate selecting the targets till the launch button being available for use is (and I wish I was kidding here) ten sodding minutes. Nothing is happening in these ten minutes, just a percentage bar of encryption, or something, creeping from 0% to 100% like some hideous parody of a windows operating system. Die Hard 4 had a similar problem.
In Salt's defense, the AV club has reviewed it and said that whilst the plot is *completely* ridiculous, the action scenes help save it. I suspect if you're an American you'll be able to stomach the jingoism a lot more than the rest of us. As for me, I wish I'd gone to see The Expendables instead...
I want to see some Chinese TV shows. Or films. Something.
The reason for this is... America is one of two superpowers in the world. The other is China.
We're swamped by American media, over here, and one thing pops up over and over and over again: The Superpower Victim Mentality.
To explain:
In the world today, the USA is safe. Safe safe safe safe. They get the odd act of terrorism but hey, don't we all. It's nothing compared to what they're doing to other countries throughout the world, either through military or economic means.
In the world of films, though, the USA is constantly under attack from Muslims, communists or white supremacists. The country is never more than a few explosions away from being successfully invaded by all those nasty foreigners.
Why? What are you talking about? They're foreigners, they're jealous of us. We haven't done anything to deserve the hatred of... probably half the countries on the earth.
Put simply, the USA of Hollywood sees itself as a victim. A blushing belle who does no wrong, always under threat from those BASTARDS who speak a different language.
That's why I want to watch some stuff from China. I want to know if all Superpowers have this ridiculous doublethink going on. The "Nothing can hurt us" of Bill O'Riley and the "We're seconds away from those BASTARDS bringing our country down" of the films...
As a direct result of this, we get films like Salt. Salt, and films like it, are convinced that the cold war is still going. They truly believe that Russia still intends to invade the USA. Watching Salt is like watching a film from the 2010's with a script written in the 1950s. It really is that jingoistic.
Okay, so the plot goes:
Salt is a CIA agent. A Ruskie enters her CIA office and says she's part of a Russian scheme that planted agents throughout America to blow it up. He then escapes. Salt does too, to try and find her husband. Salt then "kills" the Russian President (she actually doesn't. It's all a clever trick), finds her Russian Handler (the chap who outed her) kills him and averts a nuclear disaster almost set off by her mate at the CIA, who was also a Russian Spy.
Okay, so the one bold move this film made was having Salt actually be a Russian Spy. Everything else was tedious and predictable. The action scenes were actually pretty good but it was hard to enjoy them because the plot was so terrible.
Anyway, I was sitting there, bored, watching this xenophobic piece of crap thinking - I wonder why I think it's bold that Salt is actually a Russian spy?-.
Then it struck me... it's because, plot wise, it doesn't make any damn sense.
The Russian plan does work, up to a point. You get sleeper agents to infiltrate the CIA then, at a point decided by their handler, get one of them to assassinate the president of Russia. It'll spark tension between the nations. I'm really not sure what Russia gets out of this other than a dead president but whatever, we'll run with it.
Where it all breaks down is... Literally any other way of activating the agent would have been preferable to what they actually did. The handler tells Salt that it's time to kill the Russian president by walking into her place of work, identifying himself by name, telling the CIA all about this secret program, telling them that his operation is going to try and kill the Russian President and fingering Salt as the one that's supposed to do it.
Here's some things he could have done instead that might have worked better:
1) Used a contact in the news services to broadcast a fake news broadcast that would trigger the agents
2) Written Salt a letter
3) Spoken to her on the phone
4) Talked to her in a Starbucks
5) Written "time to kill the Russian President, chaps" on the moon.
None of those things I've listed would have been half as damaging to his plan as what he actually did.
The film does attempt to explain this away, in the final act, where Salt's CIA mate says that he persuaded the handler to out Salt as a spy so the CIA mate would get all the glory and Salt would get all the blame. There are three problems with this:
1) It doesn't make any sense
2) Russian operatives attempting to destroy the US really aren't in it for the glory
3) The CIA mate, for some reason, doesn't kill the US president. This means that the president would be able to finger the CIA mate as the real perpetrator anyway.
So yeah, the entire premise of the film doesn't work.
I would have been able to run with this if the film had had any courage of its convictions. I was praying the entire way through for the Russians to succeed - for the nukes to go off. Why? Well it would be something not entirely predictable, which is a plus. There are several other reasons but most of them involved me wanting to jolt this stupid fucking film out of its self satisfied tone.
There's something really *nasty* about this sort of film. It's the whole race against time aspect where everything's so hopelessly predictable. The baddies have everything set up so perfectly the way their plans are foiled have to be ridiculously contrived. In this case, the nukes don't go off because the time from the CIA mate selecting the targets till the launch button being available for use is (and I wish I was kidding here) ten sodding minutes. Nothing is happening in these ten minutes, just a percentage bar of encryption, or something, creeping from 0% to 100% like some hideous parody of a windows operating system. Die Hard 4 had a similar problem.
In Salt's defense, the AV club has reviewed it and said that whilst the plot is *completely* ridiculous, the action scenes help save it. I suspect if you're an American you'll be able to stomach the jingoism a lot more than the rest of us. As for me, I wish I'd gone to see The Expendables instead...
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
Star Wars
I recently pirated 87 gigabytes of Rifftrax because I got fed up with trying to sync the audio files I got off their site up to the films manually. Thankfully, they're sensible chaps and leave a donation button on their website precisely for people like me.
Anyway, I was watching the Rifftrack of Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope and something struck me:
Star Wars is easily the least Sci Fi film I've ever seen that is still set in space.
I'm not even talking about the difference between soft and hardcore sci fi. I'm not enough of a sci fi geek to know the difference but I assume it's like the difference between Firefly and Battlestar Galactica.
Anyway, I'm supposed to be talking about Star Wars.
I was watching the bit where Han Solo's ship gets nabbed by the death star. Several things happen that made me go -hang on a minute-
The guys hide from the imperial soldiers by hiding under the floorboards of their ship.
They then sneak around the death star by beating up a couple of stormtroopers and stealing their uniforms.
The officers in charge don't notice because they're trying to confirm that the stormtroopers are okay over the fucking RADIO.
Now, I don't know about you, but that all stinks to high hell of a World War 2 film, to me. Switch the words "death star" for "nazi destroyer" and you're there.
This really annoys me. I don't like Star Wars, and haven't done since I re-watched eps 4 and 6 a few years ago but... I don't know. It seems that every time I re-watch bits here and there they've gotten even worse.
It just annoys me how there is no technology on this amazing battlestation. Where are the devices that allow the empire to track their stormtroopers? Where are the life sign readers? Where are the scanning devices that can detect organic objects within an object like the Millenium Falcon? Why are they still using fucking RADIO?
Now, a reason for this could be that it was made in the 1970's but I don't accept that. Issac Asimov wrote his I, Robot stories between 1940 and 1950, they're all much more well thought through and sci fi than this piece of crap.
Of course, Star Wars geeks (or idiots stuck in the past, as I like to call them) are keen to point out that Star Wars isn't Sci Fi, it's a Space Opera. A genre they made up to try and make Star Wars seem more important/legitimate as an art work than it is. There's no such thing as Space Opera, guys, you can't just make up genres to suit yourself.
I'm willfully ignoring the fact that Star Wars is so popular (or was, at least. It's popularity is weining slightly these days, in spite of the Internet's constant claims that it's still relevant and THE BEST THING EVARR) because it's essentially a fantasty film. Polorised good vs bad, no real complexity or morality. I just wish people would leave it alone. Yes, they were good films in the 70's and yes, they are still good childrens films now but for people who have seen a good few films? They're terrible. Just terrible.
Oh, and one more thing. Vader says:
"The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the force."
Let's just have a look at the things the force is used for in the films, shall we?
It let's Luke shoot an exhaust port with a missile.
It lets Luke sense where a droid is going to shoot him.
It lets Vader choke a man.
It lets Obi-Wan astrally project.
None of that stuff seems even a tenth as useful as the ability to destroy a planet.
Even in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed where the entire point was that this was The Most Powerful The Force Has Ever Been and it's all really overblown and over the top, the most impressive thing The Apprentice does is pull a star destroyer (which, incidentally, are very poorly named) out of orbit. That, likewise, is no-where near as impressive as the ability to destroy a planet.
Anyway, I was watching the Rifftrack of Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope and something struck me:
Star Wars is easily the least Sci Fi film I've ever seen that is still set in space.
I'm not even talking about the difference between soft and hardcore sci fi. I'm not enough of a sci fi geek to know the difference but I assume it's like the difference between Firefly and Battlestar Galactica.
Anyway, I'm supposed to be talking about Star Wars.
I was watching the bit where Han Solo's ship gets nabbed by the death star. Several things happen that made me go -hang on a minute-
The guys hide from the imperial soldiers by hiding under the floorboards of their ship.
They then sneak around the death star by beating up a couple of stormtroopers and stealing their uniforms.
The officers in charge don't notice because they're trying to confirm that the stormtroopers are okay over the fucking RADIO.
Now, I don't know about you, but that all stinks to high hell of a World War 2 film, to me. Switch the words "death star" for "nazi destroyer" and you're there.
This really annoys me. I don't like Star Wars, and haven't done since I re-watched eps 4 and 6 a few years ago but... I don't know. It seems that every time I re-watch bits here and there they've gotten even worse.
It just annoys me how there is no technology on this amazing battlestation. Where are the devices that allow the empire to track their stormtroopers? Where are the life sign readers? Where are the scanning devices that can detect organic objects within an object like the Millenium Falcon? Why are they still using fucking RADIO?
Now, a reason for this could be that it was made in the 1970's but I don't accept that. Issac Asimov wrote his I, Robot stories between 1940 and 1950, they're all much more well thought through and sci fi than this piece of crap.
Of course, Star Wars geeks (or idiots stuck in the past, as I like to call them) are keen to point out that Star Wars isn't Sci Fi, it's a Space Opera. A genre they made up to try and make Star Wars seem more important/legitimate as an art work than it is. There's no such thing as Space Opera, guys, you can't just make up genres to suit yourself.
I'm willfully ignoring the fact that Star Wars is so popular (or was, at least. It's popularity is weining slightly these days, in spite of the Internet's constant claims that it's still relevant and THE BEST THING EVARR) because it's essentially a fantasty film. Polorised good vs bad, no real complexity or morality. I just wish people would leave it alone. Yes, they were good films in the 70's and yes, they are still good childrens films now but for people who have seen a good few films? They're terrible. Just terrible.
Oh, and one more thing. Vader says:
"The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the force."
Let's just have a look at the things the force is used for in the films, shall we?
It let's Luke shoot an exhaust port with a missile.
It lets Luke sense where a droid is going to shoot him.
It lets Vader choke a man.
It lets Obi-Wan astrally project.
None of that stuff seems even a tenth as useful as the ability to destroy a planet.
Even in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed where the entire point was that this was The Most Powerful The Force Has Ever Been and it's all really overblown and over the top, the most impressive thing The Apprentice does is pull a star destroyer (which, incidentally, are very poorly named) out of orbit. That, likewise, is no-where near as impressive as the ability to destroy a planet.
Sunday, 25 July 2010
My Re-return to Dragon Age
Some games, you stop playing because they're bad. Some games you stop playing because you don't like them. There is a crucial difference. I'd describe the difference as Fallout being the former and Dragon Age being the latter.
As I've blogged previously, I'm prepared to admit that the plot/characters of Fallout 3 are good but the game is so overwhelmingly bad that it suffocates everything it comes into contact with. I go back to it occasionally in the vain hope that I missed something the first three times and I never make it more than a few hours in because the game pisses me off so much.
Dragon Age has a similar problem but it's much reduced. As far as I'm concerned, the only real problem with Dragon Age is the grinding. The levels are just too long and there is a hell of a lot of faffing about. Seriously, you see one dungeon, you've seen them all. I solved that problem this time around, though. I played it on easy and made my character immortal. You'd be amazed at the amount that cuts down the grind.
But why am I going back to Dragon Age anyway? Well, I'm bored. I'm bored, there's nothing else out and, let's face it, there is *something* about Dragon Age that keeps me coming back for more.
So, a week ago, I finally completed it. After it's original release about a year ago.
One of the things I've found about Dragon Age is... the characters I originally liked this time around ended up being the least interesting. I'll go through them:
Morrigan:
I found Morrigan the most interesting when I first played through Dragon Age. She's got a fun little side quest involving Flemmeth and she's... independent. Games (that aren't Overlord or Mirrors Edge) are written by men and so there are two usual types of females that pop up: Femme Fatales and simpering milksops. Morrigan is neither. She is strong and doesn't really care what anyone thinks.
The slight problem arises when we consider Morrigan's morality. She's not exactly dark side but she's definitely not a paragon either. When I first played I could never really guess what actions she would approve of. On the one hand that's kind of a good thing - Bioware created a character who isn't entirely predictable. On the other I kind of suspect that Bioware had two characters in mind when they created Morrigan and forgot to seperate them.
The thing that finally made me pissed off with Morrigan's character, though, is she doesn't change. The other characters you can influence for better or worse but Morrigan's story is tied into the games to the point where the other characters have ten endings, depending on your actions, she has a grand total of three, one of which is a very slight variation of ending #2.
Dragon Age is an RPG. It's all about the characters interaction with the PC. If you can't change or manipulate the characters, a crucial element has been lost and leaves the player (or me, at least) extremely unsatisfied.
Alastair:
Alastair is the quote unquote funny character. How funny he is depends on your point of view, naturally, but it's fair to say he's far from one of the great comedy characters. He has a few really good lines but they're mainly in the random banter between the NPCs whilst you're wandering around and almost all the characters get some good lines there.
Part of my problem with Alastair arose when I played Awakening, the expansion to Dragon Age. There, you meet Anders. A mage who you are introduced to shooting flames from his hands into the face of a darkspawn. He then shakes them with a look of shock on his face. He never says "hothothothot" but you can see he wants to. Anders is clearly the character they meant for Alastair but, for whatever reason, they never quite managed it.
I did end up quite liking Alastair this time around, though. Why? Because my female elf romanced him.
For all of Alastair's sarcasm and confidence, as soon as your lady starts flirting with him he turns into a 15 year old boy - it's revealed he's never had sex and it's doubtful if he's kissed anyone before. This is a pretty damn bold move to make, IMO. It's really rare that anyone is revealed to be a virgin unless there is a *very* specific (usually religious) reason for it. With Alastair, it adds a really nice dimension to his character and makes the choices you have to make at the end of the game that bit harder.
Leliana:
The Innocent Looking Woman With A Secret is one of those stock characters that pop up every once in a while. Leliana doesn't really subvert it that much. I did think they were going to do something interesting with having her being a completely insane religious fundamentalist but that never really materialised. Sadly.
Wynn:
Wynn at first appears to be an incredibly boring stock character. As you progress, though, and if you use her a lot you start getting a better feel for her character. Spoiler warning but she's dying and she's fine with it.
Having a character with death hanging over their head isn't exactly a new thing - Bioware did exactly the same thing with Fish Boy in Mass Effect 2 but it's done really well in Dragon Age. Part of the reason for this, I think, is that it doesn't turn up in conversation. There is no heartfelt confession that "this might be my last days on earth" or whatever. You get ambushed, fight off the attackers and prepare to leave. On the way, though Wynne just collapses.
It comes so completely out of no-where, I was really shocked. I was also pissed off. I liked Wynn. She was sweet, she had established herself as a mother figure/MILF to most of my team and she was touchingly concerned about my relationship with Leilana (I was shagging her at the time. I'm an NPC slut). I didn't want Wynne to die, I liked her. I then talked to her about it.
Now, a little backstory about me. I'll keep it brief I promise. I've been terrified of death since I've been very young - not exactly death but the idea of oblivion. My conciousness being extinguished. I'm terrified of it. Occasionally pacing round my room, punching walls, terrified. So yeah, it's fair to say that I occasionally get a bit freaked when death is openly discussed. This one conversation with Wynn really struck a chord with me, though.
My character was talking to Wynn, asking if there was anything that could be done. She said no. My character said that was awful. She said, why? My character said: Because everyone always wants more.
This one conversation has made me think that my attitude is childish. Very childish. Why am I terrified? I want more. I want more, I want more, I want more. Why? Shut up and leave me alone. I find it amazing that a piece of writing to cut through this attitude so simply and in such a low key way. This wasn't a grand dramatic conversation held at a key point in the game, it was just a chat between two friends.
That, I think, says a lot about the general quality of the writing in Dragon Age. Even the conversations they don't really expect people to get to on their first or second play throughs are brilliantly constructed and delivered. And she gives your doggy a bath. It's hilarious.
Ogrehn:
I pretty much ignored Ogrehn on my first two playthroughs. He was a berserk dwarf. Be still my beating heart, I've never come across a character that original.
Once I started talking to him a bit more, however, I found he was fucking hilarious. Admittedly, they save his funniest moment for Awakening but he gets plenty of great laughs in Origins. He tries, at various points, to pick a fight with you, thinking you were someone else, sleep with you, and yell at your dog - all whilst completely drunk. He's quite sweet as well, in that he has a very simple view of the world. He wants two things, beer and things to kill. So long as he has those, he's happy. In some hands, that would be a simplistic character. It's tiny touches that stop that being the case with Ogrehn. Part of this is his weird relationship with Brankha - his ex-wife. Part of it is how much he likes the PC. Either way, Bioware did well to take a stereotype and make him something much more fun and interesting.
Sten:
Sten is incredibly boring and I could never be bothered to talk to him.
Zevran:
Zevran wins the prize for Most Stupid Way Of Getting A Companion To Join Your Party. Long story short, he and a bunch of chaps try to ambush and kill you, he's not quite dead so you let him join you. Not a formula for a trusting relationship.
Zevran has his moments but most of the interesting stuff about him is centred around the group of Assassins he uesd to belong to - The Crows. I was fully expecting to hunt down and kill his employers at some point in the game and was pretty disappointed when I didn't. Other than that, he's not massively interesting.
So yes, as far as the characters go:
Good!
Ogrehn
Wynn
Alastair
Meh!
Leilana
Zevran
Bad!
Morrigan
Sten
Bonus character: Shale
Shale is awesome and wants to kill every pigeon in the world. I'm with him on that.
As I've blogged previously, I'm prepared to admit that the plot/characters of Fallout 3 are good but the game is so overwhelmingly bad that it suffocates everything it comes into contact with. I go back to it occasionally in the vain hope that I missed something the first three times and I never make it more than a few hours in because the game pisses me off so much.
Dragon Age has a similar problem but it's much reduced. As far as I'm concerned, the only real problem with Dragon Age is the grinding. The levels are just too long and there is a hell of a lot of faffing about. Seriously, you see one dungeon, you've seen them all. I solved that problem this time around, though. I played it on easy and made my character immortal. You'd be amazed at the amount that cuts down the grind.
But why am I going back to Dragon Age anyway? Well, I'm bored. I'm bored, there's nothing else out and, let's face it, there is *something* about Dragon Age that keeps me coming back for more.
So, a week ago, I finally completed it. After it's original release about a year ago.
One of the things I've found about Dragon Age is... the characters I originally liked this time around ended up being the least interesting. I'll go through them:
Morrigan:
I found Morrigan the most interesting when I first played through Dragon Age. She's got a fun little side quest involving Flemmeth and she's... independent. Games (that aren't Overlord or Mirrors Edge) are written by men and so there are two usual types of females that pop up: Femme Fatales and simpering milksops. Morrigan is neither. She is strong and doesn't really care what anyone thinks.
The slight problem arises when we consider Morrigan's morality. She's not exactly dark side but she's definitely not a paragon either. When I first played I could never really guess what actions she would approve of. On the one hand that's kind of a good thing - Bioware created a character who isn't entirely predictable. On the other I kind of suspect that Bioware had two characters in mind when they created Morrigan and forgot to seperate them.
The thing that finally made me pissed off with Morrigan's character, though, is she doesn't change. The other characters you can influence for better or worse but Morrigan's story is tied into the games to the point where the other characters have ten endings, depending on your actions, she has a grand total of three, one of which is a very slight variation of ending #2.
Dragon Age is an RPG. It's all about the characters interaction with the PC. If you can't change or manipulate the characters, a crucial element has been lost and leaves the player (or me, at least) extremely unsatisfied.
Alastair:
Alastair is the quote unquote funny character. How funny he is depends on your point of view, naturally, but it's fair to say he's far from one of the great comedy characters. He has a few really good lines but they're mainly in the random banter between the NPCs whilst you're wandering around and almost all the characters get some good lines there.
Part of my problem with Alastair arose when I played Awakening, the expansion to Dragon Age. There, you meet Anders. A mage who you are introduced to shooting flames from his hands into the face of a darkspawn. He then shakes them with a look of shock on his face. He never says "hothothothot" but you can see he wants to. Anders is clearly the character they meant for Alastair but, for whatever reason, they never quite managed it.
I did end up quite liking Alastair this time around, though. Why? Because my female elf romanced him.
For all of Alastair's sarcasm and confidence, as soon as your lady starts flirting with him he turns into a 15 year old boy - it's revealed he's never had sex and it's doubtful if he's kissed anyone before. This is a pretty damn bold move to make, IMO. It's really rare that anyone is revealed to be a virgin unless there is a *very* specific (usually religious) reason for it. With Alastair, it adds a really nice dimension to his character and makes the choices you have to make at the end of the game that bit harder.
Leliana:
The Innocent Looking Woman With A Secret is one of those stock characters that pop up every once in a while. Leliana doesn't really subvert it that much. I did think they were going to do something interesting with having her being a completely insane religious fundamentalist but that never really materialised. Sadly.
Wynn:
Wynn at first appears to be an incredibly boring stock character. As you progress, though, and if you use her a lot you start getting a better feel for her character. Spoiler warning but she's dying and she's fine with it.
Having a character with death hanging over their head isn't exactly a new thing - Bioware did exactly the same thing with Fish Boy in Mass Effect 2 but it's done really well in Dragon Age. Part of the reason for this, I think, is that it doesn't turn up in conversation. There is no heartfelt confession that "this might be my last days on earth" or whatever. You get ambushed, fight off the attackers and prepare to leave. On the way, though Wynne just collapses.
It comes so completely out of no-where, I was really shocked. I was also pissed off. I liked Wynn. She was sweet, she had established herself as a mother figure/MILF to most of my team and she was touchingly concerned about my relationship with Leilana (I was shagging her at the time. I'm an NPC slut). I didn't want Wynne to die, I liked her. I then talked to her about it.
Now, a little backstory about me. I'll keep it brief I promise. I've been terrified of death since I've been very young - not exactly death but the idea of oblivion. My conciousness being extinguished. I'm terrified of it. Occasionally pacing round my room, punching walls, terrified. So yeah, it's fair to say that I occasionally get a bit freaked when death is openly discussed. This one conversation with Wynn really struck a chord with me, though.
My character was talking to Wynn, asking if there was anything that could be done. She said no. My character said that was awful. She said, why? My character said: Because everyone always wants more.
This one conversation has made me think that my attitude is childish. Very childish. Why am I terrified? I want more. I want more, I want more, I want more. Why? Shut up and leave me alone. I find it amazing that a piece of writing to cut through this attitude so simply and in such a low key way. This wasn't a grand dramatic conversation held at a key point in the game, it was just a chat between two friends.
That, I think, says a lot about the general quality of the writing in Dragon Age. Even the conversations they don't really expect people to get to on their first or second play throughs are brilliantly constructed and delivered. And she gives your doggy a bath. It's hilarious.
Ogrehn:
I pretty much ignored Ogrehn on my first two playthroughs. He was a berserk dwarf. Be still my beating heart, I've never come across a character that original.
Once I started talking to him a bit more, however, I found he was fucking hilarious. Admittedly, they save his funniest moment for Awakening but he gets plenty of great laughs in Origins. He tries, at various points, to pick a fight with you, thinking you were someone else, sleep with you, and yell at your dog - all whilst completely drunk. He's quite sweet as well, in that he has a very simple view of the world. He wants two things, beer and things to kill. So long as he has those, he's happy. In some hands, that would be a simplistic character. It's tiny touches that stop that being the case with Ogrehn. Part of this is his weird relationship with Brankha - his ex-wife. Part of it is how much he likes the PC. Either way, Bioware did well to take a stereotype and make him something much more fun and interesting.
Sten:
Sten is incredibly boring and I could never be bothered to talk to him.
Zevran:
Zevran wins the prize for Most Stupid Way Of Getting A Companion To Join Your Party. Long story short, he and a bunch of chaps try to ambush and kill you, he's not quite dead so you let him join you. Not a formula for a trusting relationship.
Zevran has his moments but most of the interesting stuff about him is centred around the group of Assassins he uesd to belong to - The Crows. I was fully expecting to hunt down and kill his employers at some point in the game and was pretty disappointed when I didn't. Other than that, he's not massively interesting.
So yes, as far as the characters go:
Good!
Ogrehn
Wynn
Alastair
Meh!
Leilana
Zevran
Bad!
Morrigan
Sten
Bonus character: Shale
Shale is awesome and wants to kill every pigeon in the world. I'm with him on that.
Monday, 19 July 2010
Inception
I was going to try and talk about this film without spoilers but that's going to be impossible. I'll try and tag them but it's best not to read this unless you've seen Inception.
Okay, so I think what you do on the walk home from the cinema is incredibly important. Especially when you've just seen a 10/10 film. After Zombieland, I listened to classic metal (Iron Maiden & Saxon) on the way home whilst fighting off imaginary zombies. After Whip It, I kept laughing and smiling like an idiot, remembering all the fun little touches that film had.
After Inception, I walked home with no music at all and tried to work out what the fuck just happened.
Inception is a briliant film. The acting, editing and so on are all fucking briliant. There's no way to go into everything, besides. I need to see it again. I saw the Dark Knight when my girlfriend was really ill. She didn't feel like going. I saw it and then, when the GF felt better five hours later that day, I went to see it again with her. I kinda wish I could do that again but I've got work tomorrow and it's 1am now.
Christopher Nolan likes his complex films. I really, really hope this is as succesful as it deserves to be. I hope it's the most successful film of the year because that will mean:
1) The Most succesful film of the year is and original Interlectual Property
2) The most succesful film of the year is a *total* mindfuck.
Ok so the most important thing I can say about Inception is - It's been a very long time since I've gasped or bitten my fingers in the cinema. The biting was because the film was so goddamn tense.
As far as the plot goes - there are three major interpretations of what happened and... I like all of them. Usually I'd prefer it if the film came down on one side or the other because *normally* when there are multiple interpretations of what happened, the film makers come down slightly on one side, which makes it a bit annoying and pointless. Here, as far as I can work out, it's EXACTLY 50/50.
So what did I like?
Well, all the main actors were, frankly, briliant. My personal favourite was Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He was charismatic, funny and kicked a hell of a lot of arse. Marion Cotillard definitely deserves a mention as well. She walked the line perfectly between fucked up and fucking creepy.
The action was briliant - it was never exactly gratuitous but there was a definite sense of danger. It never really got better than Joseph GL fighting in the hotel though - the gravity sections were.... astonishing. I'm a massive film geek and I have no idea how they did the majority of those gravity effects.
Basically, the main strength of Inception is it constantly has you questioning the nature of the world you're presented with but it doesn't do it in a pretentious "What does this all MEAN?" way. It does it in an awesome headfuck way.
It moves at an incredible pace - covering a lot of time and a lot of really complex ideas but at the same time it knows when to take time.
Essentially, Christopher Nolan is a fucking genius and absolutely deserves the money Hollywood are throwing at him. He made something so original and so brilliantly done- stuff like that is *so* rare. We should be very, very happy with it.
Oh, and Leo DiCaprio does tortured very well doesn't he. He did it better here than he did in Shutter Island but Nolan is a much better director than Scorsese is...
Okay, so I think what you do on the walk home from the cinema is incredibly important. Especially when you've just seen a 10/10 film. After Zombieland, I listened to classic metal (Iron Maiden & Saxon) on the way home whilst fighting off imaginary zombies. After Whip It, I kept laughing and smiling like an idiot, remembering all the fun little touches that film had.
After Inception, I walked home with no music at all and tried to work out what the fuck just happened.
Inception is a briliant film. The acting, editing and so on are all fucking briliant. There's no way to go into everything, besides. I need to see it again. I saw the Dark Knight when my girlfriend was really ill. She didn't feel like going. I saw it and then, when the GF felt better five hours later that day, I went to see it again with her. I kinda wish I could do that again but I've got work tomorrow and it's 1am now.
Christopher Nolan likes his complex films. I really, really hope this is as succesful as it deserves to be. I hope it's the most successful film of the year because that will mean:
1) The Most succesful film of the year is and original Interlectual Property
2) The most succesful film of the year is a *total* mindfuck.
Ok so the most important thing I can say about Inception is - It's been a very long time since I've gasped or bitten my fingers in the cinema. The biting was because the film was so goddamn tense.
As far as the plot goes - there are three major interpretations of what happened and... I like all of them. Usually I'd prefer it if the film came down on one side or the other because *normally* when there are multiple interpretations of what happened, the film makers come down slightly on one side, which makes it a bit annoying and pointless. Here, as far as I can work out, it's EXACTLY 50/50.
So what did I like?
Well, all the main actors were, frankly, briliant. My personal favourite was Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He was charismatic, funny and kicked a hell of a lot of arse. Marion Cotillard definitely deserves a mention as well. She walked the line perfectly between fucked up and fucking creepy.
The action was briliant - it was never exactly gratuitous but there was a definite sense of danger. It never really got better than Joseph GL fighting in the hotel though - the gravity sections were.... astonishing. I'm a massive film geek and I have no idea how they did the majority of those gravity effects.
Basically, the main strength of Inception is it constantly has you questioning the nature of the world you're presented with but it doesn't do it in a pretentious "What does this all MEAN?" way. It does it in an awesome headfuck way.
It moves at an incredible pace - covering a lot of time and a lot of really complex ideas but at the same time it knows when to take time.
Essentially, Christopher Nolan is a fucking genius and absolutely deserves the money Hollywood are throwing at him. He made something so original and so brilliantly done- stuff like that is *so* rare. We should be very, very happy with it.
Oh, and Leo DiCaprio does tortured very well doesn't he. He did it better here than he did in Shutter Island but Nolan is a much better director than Scorsese is...
Friday, 16 July 2010
PC Zone
PC Zone is dead.
For those who don't know, PC Zone magazine has run for 17 years - is English and is only eight years younger than I am. I've been reading it pretty consistently since my age reached double figures. It was much loved by its readers for its impartiality, wicked sense of humour and knack for finding writing talent in unlikely places including Charlie Brooker and David McCandless. Rhianna Pratchett also wrote for them but not very much.
Now, their demise comes as no great surprise to me. Their readership has only been about 11,000 per month. I was one of those readers but the mag was monthly. The problem with that was that literally everything they printed... I all ready knew. I knew about everything in the news and reviews section weeks before the magazine hit my post box. This has been the case for the past year and I've only continued to subscribe up to now because it's easier than working out how to stop.
But the news that they're folding does sadden me. It's a part of PC gaming heritage dying right there. More than that, though, it's a part of my childhood. Like most geeks, I had a pretty shitty time of it at school and games really helped me get through the bad bits. How did I find out about games? How did I work out which games to buy? Where did I get the game demos? And that's even before we get onto the purile humour (which was awesome, by the way) of the Cybertwats and the like.
So yes. I don't really have anything particularly original to say other than that. PC Zone were great when they were great. Recently they became slightly redundant but for a good 15 years of their 17 year run, they were absolutely peerless. This is my equivalent of speaking at their funeral. Normally I don't like saying things that have all ready been said a billion times on the internet but... I just wanted to let the internet know that Zone will be missed.
For those who don't know, PC Zone magazine has run for 17 years - is English and is only eight years younger than I am. I've been reading it pretty consistently since my age reached double figures. It was much loved by its readers for its impartiality, wicked sense of humour and knack for finding writing talent in unlikely places including Charlie Brooker and David McCandless. Rhianna Pratchett also wrote for them but not very much.
Now, their demise comes as no great surprise to me. Their readership has only been about 11,000 per month. I was one of those readers but the mag was monthly. The problem with that was that literally everything they printed... I all ready knew. I knew about everything in the news and reviews section weeks before the magazine hit my post box. This has been the case for the past year and I've only continued to subscribe up to now because it's easier than working out how to stop.
But the news that they're folding does sadden me. It's a part of PC gaming heritage dying right there. More than that, though, it's a part of my childhood. Like most geeks, I had a pretty shitty time of it at school and games really helped me get through the bad bits. How did I find out about games? How did I work out which games to buy? Where did I get the game demos? And that's even before we get onto the purile humour (which was awesome, by the way) of the Cybertwats and the like.
So yes. I don't really have anything particularly original to say other than that. PC Zone were great when they were great. Recently they became slightly redundant but for a good 15 years of their 17 year run, they were absolutely peerless. This is my equivalent of speaking at their funeral. Normally I don't like saying things that have all ready been said a billion times on the internet but... I just wanted to let the internet know that Zone will be missed.
Sunday, 11 July 2010
Film in 2010
Okay, so in 2009 I moaned that there weren't any decent films coming out.
I should have kept my mouth shut because this year looks like it's going to be even worse.
Granted, Inception is coming out next week and that should be really good. Christopher Nolan hasn't let us down for a while. And we've also got Knight and Day coming up which might be good. It got a pretty bad write up from the AV club but film reviewers often get it completely wrong when it comes to silly action films.
Those are literally the only films I'm looking forward to in 2010 or 2011. Reh.
So what have we had this year?
In the order I saw them:
From Paris with love (5/10)
Now. This is in no way a good film. What it is is *incredibly* silly. One of the characters carries around a vase full of cocaine for most of the film. Why? Fuck you, that's why. It's loud, crude, stupid and quite fun. As long as your brain is well and truely off, you might enjoy it.
Shutter Island (7/10)
So you know where I stand, I have never seen a Martin Scorsese film that I liked and I've only seen Leo DiCaprio in Romeo & Juliet and Titanic. I went in with suitably low expectations, therefore. I was pleasantly surprised. Granted, the music was so over the top it usually took me completely out of the moment and there is one particular scene at the end which was completely impossible to act well. It should really have been cut. Ignoring those two slight problems, it was very good. But I can't help think you should really read the book instead.
Green Zone (6/10)
Now, the problem with Green Zone is that whilst everything about it is pretty good, the plot is bollocks. I say bollocks, the plot is exactly what happened in the iraq war. The Americans went in expecting to find WMD (because the bosses had lied about them being there) they don't find them, they go WTF, they try to find the truth, the truth gets hushed up. We all know this is what happened and we really didn't need a film set four years after the "end" of the war to tell us this. Other than that, it's perfectly fine.
The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo (6/10)
Sadly, another case of People Should Just Read The Book. In many ways, it's a very good adaptation of Stieg Larrson's book and if you're not a big reader, you should probably see the film. There is one major problem with it, though. TGWTDT focuses on a 30 year old murder mystery. A disgraced journalist is brought in to have one last stab at it. In the book, he spends about six months getting no-where and then he has one lucky break, follows it up with a lot of *really* hard work and starts making headway with the mystery. The problem is, the film is a film. It has to move at a fairly quick pace or the audience get bored. As a result, they cut out the really hard work and just have the bits where he makes headway through luck or deductions that seem really obvious. Also, we don't really spend much time with the suspects in the case as the film (rightly) focuses on other stuff so when everything comes to a head, a character rears their ugly head and you have no idea who they are or what the significance of their role is. These are problems that were inevitable and would only have been solved if it had been made into a TV show instead. Which would have been a much better idea, sadly.
Kick Ass (3/10)
Kick Ass was boring, made little sense and had a very annoying main character. This would have been forgiveable if it was funny but far too often replaced wit with swearing. Having a little girl say Cunt is funny a couple of times but you can't stretch this to a 90 minute film.
Whip It (10/10)
I judge a film a lot based on how I feel on the walk home from the cinema. After Zombieland, I felt the need for classic rock music. After Whip it, I couldn't stop grinning. Whip It is a funny film, it's got a lot of heart, a plot that makes sense, great characters and it passes the Bechtel Test with flying colours. I recommend it to everyone. And it has maybe from Arrested Development in it.
Iron Man 2 (2/10)
Iron Man 1 was a fun action film that happened to be based on a comic book. Iron Man 2 was a comic book come to life and I don't mean that in a good way. Iron Man 2 made me realise I hate comic books with their terrible dialogue, villains with incredibly sketchy motivation, action scenes that completely defy all known laws of physics... Iron Man 2 has made me swear off all comic book films that aren't being directed by Christoper Nolan or someone similarly talented. And it has Scarlett Johansen in, which is never good. She's not the worst thing in the film, though. Which is, frankly, astonishing.
If I had to list the films wrong with it from most to least severe, I'd start with the action sequences which are on a stupidity par with those of Terminator 4. That's the early ones. The ones at the end of the film actually bored me. Like the ones in Public Enemies did. Look, I'm an action geek, ok? I love action films. Even the silly ones. Especially the silly ones. Crank? Awesome. Shoot em Up? Fantastic. An action sequence has to be really bad for me not to see any merit in it at all.
Then we've got the plot which is just one huge trailer for the Marvel Franchise Avengers thing, which I don't give a shit about and am definitely not going to see after this, thank you very much.
Then we have Scarlett Johansen.
Then everything else.
Bah.
So yeah, 2010. Much worse than 2009 so far.
And 2011 isn't looking too hot either.
I sound like a grumpy old man. I just want some good films. Is that too much to ask? For it to be like 2008 again?
/cries
I should have kept my mouth shut because this year looks like it's going to be even worse.
Granted, Inception is coming out next week and that should be really good. Christopher Nolan hasn't let us down for a while. And we've also got Knight and Day coming up which might be good. It got a pretty bad write up from the AV club but film reviewers often get it completely wrong when it comes to silly action films.
Those are literally the only films I'm looking forward to in 2010 or 2011. Reh.
So what have we had this year?
In the order I saw them:
From Paris with love (5/10)
Now. This is in no way a good film. What it is is *incredibly* silly. One of the characters carries around a vase full of cocaine for most of the film. Why? Fuck you, that's why. It's loud, crude, stupid and quite fun. As long as your brain is well and truely off, you might enjoy it.
Shutter Island (7/10)
So you know where I stand, I have never seen a Martin Scorsese film that I liked and I've only seen Leo DiCaprio in Romeo & Juliet and Titanic. I went in with suitably low expectations, therefore. I was pleasantly surprised. Granted, the music was so over the top it usually took me completely out of the moment and there is one particular scene at the end which was completely impossible to act well. It should really have been cut. Ignoring those two slight problems, it was very good. But I can't help think you should really read the book instead.
Green Zone (6/10)
Now, the problem with Green Zone is that whilst everything about it is pretty good, the plot is bollocks. I say bollocks, the plot is exactly what happened in the iraq war. The Americans went in expecting to find WMD (because the bosses had lied about them being there) they don't find them, they go WTF, they try to find the truth, the truth gets hushed up. We all know this is what happened and we really didn't need a film set four years after the "end" of the war to tell us this. Other than that, it's perfectly fine.
The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo (6/10)
Sadly, another case of People Should Just Read The Book. In many ways, it's a very good adaptation of Stieg Larrson's book and if you're not a big reader, you should probably see the film. There is one major problem with it, though. TGWTDT focuses on a 30 year old murder mystery. A disgraced journalist is brought in to have one last stab at it. In the book, he spends about six months getting no-where and then he has one lucky break, follows it up with a lot of *really* hard work and starts making headway with the mystery. The problem is, the film is a film. It has to move at a fairly quick pace or the audience get bored. As a result, they cut out the really hard work and just have the bits where he makes headway through luck or deductions that seem really obvious. Also, we don't really spend much time with the suspects in the case as the film (rightly) focuses on other stuff so when everything comes to a head, a character rears their ugly head and you have no idea who they are or what the significance of their role is. These are problems that were inevitable and would only have been solved if it had been made into a TV show instead. Which would have been a much better idea, sadly.
Kick Ass (3/10)
Kick Ass was boring, made little sense and had a very annoying main character. This would have been forgiveable if it was funny but far too often replaced wit with swearing. Having a little girl say Cunt is funny a couple of times but you can't stretch this to a 90 minute film.
Whip It (10/10)
I judge a film a lot based on how I feel on the walk home from the cinema. After Zombieland, I felt the need for classic rock music. After Whip it, I couldn't stop grinning. Whip It is a funny film, it's got a lot of heart, a plot that makes sense, great characters and it passes the Bechtel Test with flying colours. I recommend it to everyone. And it has maybe from Arrested Development in it.
Iron Man 2 (2/10)
Iron Man 1 was a fun action film that happened to be based on a comic book. Iron Man 2 was a comic book come to life and I don't mean that in a good way. Iron Man 2 made me realise I hate comic books with their terrible dialogue, villains with incredibly sketchy motivation, action scenes that completely defy all known laws of physics... Iron Man 2 has made me swear off all comic book films that aren't being directed by Christoper Nolan or someone similarly talented. And it has Scarlett Johansen in, which is never good. She's not the worst thing in the film, though. Which is, frankly, astonishing.
If I had to list the films wrong with it from most to least severe, I'd start with the action sequences which are on a stupidity par with those of Terminator 4. That's the early ones. The ones at the end of the film actually bored me. Like the ones in Public Enemies did. Look, I'm an action geek, ok? I love action films. Even the silly ones. Especially the silly ones. Crank? Awesome. Shoot em Up? Fantastic. An action sequence has to be really bad for me not to see any merit in it at all.
Then we've got the plot which is just one huge trailer for the Marvel Franchise Avengers thing, which I don't give a shit about and am definitely not going to see after this, thank you very much.
Then we have Scarlett Johansen.
Then everything else.
Bah.
So yeah, 2010. Much worse than 2009 so far.
And 2011 isn't looking too hot either.
I sound like a grumpy old man. I just want some good films. Is that too much to ask? For it to be like 2008 again?
/cries
Saturday, 26 June 2010
Singularity
I suppose warning lights should have come on in my brain when:
1) We didn't hear anything about Singularity at this years E3
2) It was quietly released a couple of days ago with no adverts, previews or pre-release hype at all. When that happens, it's likely that the publishers know the game is shit and they're trying to slip it to the punters before the press notice.
But whatever, I thought, I'm not paying for it, I may as well see what it's like.
Singularity is... a fantastic example of everything that's wrong with games.
For example, your character doesn't talk. This *has* worked in the past, notably with Portal & COD4: Modern Warfare but it's usually a lazy device used by games who are trying to cover up the fact that they don't have a plot.
Then there's the plot.
The Russians invented an awesome piece of weapons tech back in the 50s. It exploded and the Island has been sealed off since then. Sixty years later the US military decide they want to know what that was all about so they send in two helicopters full of troops. Onto Russian Soil.
I'm pretty sure that's technically an invasion...
Anyhoo, the helicopter is stuck by a mysterious device, you black out and wake up on a pier (gaming cliche #332, used by every unoriginal game since Half Life). Then there are some generic zombie monsters and gameplay which is very, very like FEAR but not as good. Then the Russian Military turn up.
It's at this point that I have to talk about the gameplay a little bit. Apart from one thing, which I'll come to in a moment, there's nothing especially wrong with the gameplay, it's just that it's highly generic. Everything's instantly familiar. There was something slightly wrong, though, so at one point when me and my AI buddy were outnumbered 30:1 by the Russian Military, I stopped shooting at them and just watched.
They were all spraying our hiding spot with bullets but they were all bouncing off the window frames to create cinematic ricochets.
Now, even ignoring the fact that I was so disengaged with the game after half an hour of gameplay I chose to see how the underlying mechanics of the game worked, it's not a good sign when the game has the AI purposely try to not kill you.
Then you and your mate get captured and the EVIL RUSSIAN VILLAIN turns up (not so much a gaming cliche but a callback to bad films form the 1970's and 80's - that's worse than a gaming cliche - that's something the entire world accepts is cliched). Incidentally, we know this Russian is evil because he's wearing a huge fur coat and spits when your buddy mentions the Geneva convention.
Yeah, I'm not even going to bother analysing that any further.
It turns out, by the way, that the Russians are there to grab a time manipulating device, which you then get their hands on.
The more astute of you will now be wondering: "So this Island's been unoccupied for 60 years and yet the Russian Military chose to come and get the device... now. Just when there HAPPENS to be a US military expedition to the island."
Seriously, the plot is so contrived and rubbish that it makes the incredibly shoddy gameplay look half decent.
The time manipulation stuff doesn't really work either. You're supposed to be able to age or revert anything using your magical glove so if you see a ladder that's broken, you simply reverse time around the ladder so it reverts to a state when it wasn't broken.
The problem is, that's a mechanic that's clearly open for abuse so they limit it to only working on very specific things. I couldn't, for example, reverse time on a caved in tunnel to when the tunnel was no longer caved in.
As I understand it (I never actually played it) this was the problem Red Faction had - they wanted to make everything destructible but you can't make *everything* destructible so they put a load of really arbitrary and annoying restrictions in there.
This is understandable but it's not handled with any of the skill that the portals are in Portal. The places you can place the portals in Valves masterpiece are really rather limited but it feels natural - it all makes sense.
Not here, though.
So yes, Singularity is really, really bad in every quantifiable way. I'd like to give them marks for effort but I'm not sure I can even do that. The graphics are quite nice I suppose. There's a really nice bit *right* at the start when you're approaching the island and you fly past the remains of a Soviet Statue - which is just a hand holding a sickle poking out of the sea. That was quite nice.
There we go, ended on a positive note.
1) We didn't hear anything about Singularity at this years E3
2) It was quietly released a couple of days ago with no adverts, previews or pre-release hype at all. When that happens, it's likely that the publishers know the game is shit and they're trying to slip it to the punters before the press notice.
But whatever, I thought, I'm not paying for it, I may as well see what it's like.
Singularity is... a fantastic example of everything that's wrong with games.
For example, your character doesn't talk. This *has* worked in the past, notably with Portal & COD4: Modern Warfare but it's usually a lazy device used by games who are trying to cover up the fact that they don't have a plot.
Then there's the plot.
The Russians invented an awesome piece of weapons tech back in the 50s. It exploded and the Island has been sealed off since then. Sixty years later the US military decide they want to know what that was all about so they send in two helicopters full of troops. Onto Russian Soil.
I'm pretty sure that's technically an invasion...
Anyhoo, the helicopter is stuck by a mysterious device, you black out and wake up on a pier (gaming cliche #332, used by every unoriginal game since Half Life). Then there are some generic zombie monsters and gameplay which is very, very like FEAR but not as good. Then the Russian Military turn up.
It's at this point that I have to talk about the gameplay a little bit. Apart from one thing, which I'll come to in a moment, there's nothing especially wrong with the gameplay, it's just that it's highly generic. Everything's instantly familiar. There was something slightly wrong, though, so at one point when me and my AI buddy were outnumbered 30:1 by the Russian Military, I stopped shooting at them and just watched.
They were all spraying our hiding spot with bullets but they were all bouncing off the window frames to create cinematic ricochets.
Now, even ignoring the fact that I was so disengaged with the game after half an hour of gameplay I chose to see how the underlying mechanics of the game worked, it's not a good sign when the game has the AI purposely try to not kill you.
Then you and your mate get captured and the EVIL RUSSIAN VILLAIN turns up (not so much a gaming cliche but a callback to bad films form the 1970's and 80's - that's worse than a gaming cliche - that's something the entire world accepts is cliched). Incidentally, we know this Russian is evil because he's wearing a huge fur coat and spits when your buddy mentions the Geneva convention.
Yeah, I'm not even going to bother analysing that any further.
It turns out, by the way, that the Russians are there to grab a time manipulating device, which you then get their hands on.
The more astute of you will now be wondering: "So this Island's been unoccupied for 60 years and yet the Russian Military chose to come and get the device... now. Just when there HAPPENS to be a US military expedition to the island."
Seriously, the plot is so contrived and rubbish that it makes the incredibly shoddy gameplay look half decent.
The time manipulation stuff doesn't really work either. You're supposed to be able to age or revert anything using your magical glove so if you see a ladder that's broken, you simply reverse time around the ladder so it reverts to a state when it wasn't broken.
The problem is, that's a mechanic that's clearly open for abuse so they limit it to only working on very specific things. I couldn't, for example, reverse time on a caved in tunnel to when the tunnel was no longer caved in.
As I understand it (I never actually played it) this was the problem Red Faction had - they wanted to make everything destructible but you can't make *everything* destructible so they put a load of really arbitrary and annoying restrictions in there.
This is understandable but it's not handled with any of the skill that the portals are in Portal. The places you can place the portals in Valves masterpiece are really rather limited but it feels natural - it all makes sense.
Not here, though.
So yes, Singularity is really, really bad in every quantifiable way. I'd like to give them marks for effort but I'm not sure I can even do that. The graphics are quite nice I suppose. There's a really nice bit *right* at the start when you're approaching the island and you fly past the remains of a Soviet Statue - which is just a hand holding a sickle poking out of the sea. That was quite nice.
There we go, ended on a positive note.
Sunday, 11 April 2010
Assassins Creed 2
So I've finally gotten around to playing the PC versions of Assassins Creed 2. And I don't think it's very good. The reasons for this are very closely linked to the first game so let's briefly recap on what was good/bad about AC1:
GOOD!:
The free running.
It felt original, smooth and great fun.
The swordplay
Assassins Creed 1 is one of the only games where melee combat is implemented well. Mainly because the most effective strategy is countering your opponents moves and choosing when to attack.
The cities all felt very different
From the sandy uniform rooftops of Jerusalem to the raggedy decaying stone of Acre, you could always tell where you were just by looking around you. Each of the four cities had real personality.
You felt like an assassin
You did little that wasn't involved with killing people. You always knew what you were doing: Hunting down and killing nine Templar's who were trying to take over the region. There was a fair amount of faffing about but it was assassin related faffing about like killing archers or grilling informants.
BAD!
The plot
Was pretty damn terrible. Especially the main character, who was an unlikable prick for 70% of the game. There also wasn't an ending.
Unskippable cutscenes
Grrr.
Ok, so the sequel.
My thoughts on the sequel have moved about a lot so I'll present them in a list:
1) The improvements to the swordplay are a mixed bag.
It's nice to have more weapons but the swordplay itself is gimped somewhat. In AC1 you could chain your sword strokes to create a one hit kill finishing move. You can still do this in AC2 but they've either changed the way you do it without telling me or it's much, much harder to do this time around. As a result, the swordplay feels a lot less precise and brutal than it did in AC1.
2) The cities all feel exactly the same
Apart from Venice, which is filled with fucking canals. In case you hadn't guessed, canals are the anathema to free running. An odd choice for a game where free running is one of the main selling points.
3) The plot is rubbish
I've been playing for roughly ten hours now and I couldn't really tell you what's been going on. I've killed some Italian noblemen/Templar's but I'm not really sure why or what I'm supposed to be preventing them from doing. At least in AC1 I knew that the merchant I killed was hording food and overcharging the people etc. There's none of this in AC2, just generic interchangeable fat rich/old sinister people.
4) You barely spend any time out of the animus
Granted, when you do they're some of the best bits in the game but I'm 80% of the way through the game and have been outside the animus precisely twice. Including the prologue, which shouldn't really count. I can't help thinking this is a tragic waste of one of the most intriguing (albeit very badly handled) elements of AC1
5) There's so much faffing about
In AC1 you lived in an assassin city, met other assassins constantly and generally got the impression that you were a cog in a massive machine. In AC2, you're the only assassin in the game apart from your uncle, who doesn't do anything.
As a result of this, you have to do a *lot* of side quests. These weren't too bad for the first few cities but things came to a head in Venice.
In Ubisofts defence, they've clearly spent a lot of time working on Venice. It looks very pretty. The problem is, they want you to spend as much time there as possible so you hook up with a group of thieves there who insist on you doing a shitload of recognisance before every mission, essentially tripling the prep needed for every assassination.
An example:
Some minor spoilers follow.
You have to kill a guy hosting a party at the Venice carnival. He's hosting a private invite only party. You can't sneak in, you can't pickpocket a guest to get an invite.
You have to win one.
You win one by competing in four tasks at some sort of fait thing. You have to feel up a lot of girls to get some ribbons, win two rooftop races and beat up some guys in a boxing ring.
After that, you get cheated out of winning the invite anyway.
So you go and pickpocket the guy who won it. Why the fuck didn't you do that in the first place?
There's then a lot of stuff where you try and remain undetected at the party which is half excellent, half gameplay padding bollocks.
To finish off, I found that my target was hosting the party from his boat. So I swam out and stabbed him in the back.
So, to recap, I killed the guy by swimming out into the canal (which was unguarded) climbing onto the boat (by killing one guard) and stabbing the guy in the back. I didn't even need to sneak into that cunting party...
This isn't an isolated example either. There are innumerable sequences where you have to escort an NPC through one of the four cities (at walking pace, naturally). If this sounds boring, it fucking is. In some of these boring escort quests, they're attacked by guards but I'm not really sure that improves things.
Oh, and from a narrative point of view, it's annoying when you character is given *constant* opportunities to knock off the five main baddies (he meets the uber baddie about six times, by my count, and has three definite opportunities to assassinate him) and he doesn't because he has to FIND OUT WHAT THEY'RE PLANNING.
I hate call bullshit but AC2 is set in the 19th century. You know what will happen if you just kill them before they can enact their plans? Nothing. Sure, you won't find out what their plans were but no buildings will blow up, no documents will get emailed to lawyers, they'll just die.
So, to sum up. Assassins Creed 2 does improve in some areas over the original. The main character is very slightly better and there are some nice new weapons to play with. On the other hand, there's even more arbitrary game lengthening bullshit this time around, the fighting's a bit gimped, the plot is still rubbish, the free running in the last half of the game is always being interrupted by canals, the game is far too long, there's no sense of danger, it's too easy and it's got no-where near as much character as the first one.
Wow, I didn't realise how many things had annoyed me about AC2 until I'd put them all in a list.
I'm gonna go play something else...
GOOD!:
The free running.
It felt original, smooth and great fun.
The swordplay
Assassins Creed 1 is one of the only games where melee combat is implemented well. Mainly because the most effective strategy is countering your opponents moves and choosing when to attack.
The cities all felt very different
From the sandy uniform rooftops of Jerusalem to the raggedy decaying stone of Acre, you could always tell where you were just by looking around you. Each of the four cities had real personality.
You felt like an assassin
You did little that wasn't involved with killing people. You always knew what you were doing: Hunting down and killing nine Templar's who were trying to take over the region. There was a fair amount of faffing about but it was assassin related faffing about like killing archers or grilling informants.
BAD!
The plot
Was pretty damn terrible. Especially the main character, who was an unlikable prick for 70% of the game. There also wasn't an ending.
Unskippable cutscenes
Grrr.
Ok, so the sequel.
My thoughts on the sequel have moved about a lot so I'll present them in a list:
1) The improvements to the swordplay are a mixed bag.
It's nice to have more weapons but the swordplay itself is gimped somewhat. In AC1 you could chain your sword strokes to create a one hit kill finishing move. You can still do this in AC2 but they've either changed the way you do it without telling me or it's much, much harder to do this time around. As a result, the swordplay feels a lot less precise and brutal than it did in AC1.
2) The cities all feel exactly the same
Apart from Venice, which is filled with fucking canals. In case you hadn't guessed, canals are the anathema to free running. An odd choice for a game where free running is one of the main selling points.
3) The plot is rubbish
I've been playing for roughly ten hours now and I couldn't really tell you what's been going on. I've killed some Italian noblemen/Templar's but I'm not really sure why or what I'm supposed to be preventing them from doing. At least in AC1 I knew that the merchant I killed was hording food and overcharging the people etc. There's none of this in AC2, just generic interchangeable fat rich/old sinister people.
4) You barely spend any time out of the animus
Granted, when you do they're some of the best bits in the game but I'm 80% of the way through the game and have been outside the animus precisely twice. Including the prologue, which shouldn't really count. I can't help thinking this is a tragic waste of one of the most intriguing (albeit very badly handled) elements of AC1
5) There's so much faffing about
In AC1 you lived in an assassin city, met other assassins constantly and generally got the impression that you were a cog in a massive machine. In AC2, you're the only assassin in the game apart from your uncle, who doesn't do anything.
As a result of this, you have to do a *lot* of side quests. These weren't too bad for the first few cities but things came to a head in Venice.
In Ubisofts defence, they've clearly spent a lot of time working on Venice. It looks very pretty. The problem is, they want you to spend as much time there as possible so you hook up with a group of thieves there who insist on you doing a shitload of recognisance before every mission, essentially tripling the prep needed for every assassination.
An example:
Some minor spoilers follow.
You have to kill a guy hosting a party at the Venice carnival. He's hosting a private invite only party. You can't sneak in, you can't pickpocket a guest to get an invite.
You have to win one.
You win one by competing in four tasks at some sort of fait thing. You have to feel up a lot of girls to get some ribbons, win two rooftop races and beat up some guys in a boxing ring.
After that, you get cheated out of winning the invite anyway.
So you go and pickpocket the guy who won it. Why the fuck didn't you do that in the first place?
There's then a lot of stuff where you try and remain undetected at the party which is half excellent, half gameplay padding bollocks.
To finish off, I found that my target was hosting the party from his boat. So I swam out and stabbed him in the back.
So, to recap, I killed the guy by swimming out into the canal (which was unguarded) climbing onto the boat (by killing one guard) and stabbing the guy in the back. I didn't even need to sneak into that cunting party...
This isn't an isolated example either. There are innumerable sequences where you have to escort an NPC through one of the four cities (at walking pace, naturally). If this sounds boring, it fucking is. In some of these boring escort quests, they're attacked by guards but I'm not really sure that improves things.
Oh, and from a narrative point of view, it's annoying when you character is given *constant* opportunities to knock off the five main baddies (he meets the uber baddie about six times, by my count, and has three definite opportunities to assassinate him) and he doesn't because he has to FIND OUT WHAT THEY'RE PLANNING.
I hate call bullshit but AC2 is set in the 19th century. You know what will happen if you just kill them before they can enact their plans? Nothing. Sure, you won't find out what their plans were but no buildings will blow up, no documents will get emailed to lawyers, they'll just die.
So, to sum up. Assassins Creed 2 does improve in some areas over the original. The main character is very slightly better and there are some nice new weapons to play with. On the other hand, there's even more arbitrary game lengthening bullshit this time around, the fighting's a bit gimped, the plot is still rubbish, the free running in the last half of the game is always being interrupted by canals, the game is far too long, there's no sense of danger, it's too easy and it's got no-where near as much character as the first one.
Wow, I didn't realise how many things had annoyed me about AC2 until I'd put them all in a list.
I'm gonna go play something else...
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Drunk review of Max Payne 2
-Note: I was originally doing this as a video but didn't in the end. Basically I wanted to review a game purely for how it was to get drunk to-
Chosing a game to get drunk to is a long and complex process and one I solved by falling back on an old favourite – Max Payne 2.
The reason I chose Max Payne 2 is it comprises of the optimum balance of the two elements needed for drunken gaming: fun action sequences and lots of cut scenes to continue the drinking in.
I’ve previously considered Max Payne 2 the ideal game to get drunk to but I haven’t tried this in over a year so I thought I’d dust it off and share the experience with an unsuspecting public.
To replicate this experience, you will need vodka, mixers, glasses, Max Payne 2 cds (CDs! OLD SCHOOL!), giant Princess Liea Headphones because your girlfriend is asleep and A CAN DO ATTITUDE.
The install process took eight minutes and forty two seconds, during which I was able to consume 42 mililitres of Vodka. Your results may vary.
It was nesecerry to spend thirty seconds setting up my graphics settings but if you’ve engaged in rigorour pre-drinking, this may not be nesecerry.
I picked Max Payne 2 because there are plenty of cut scenes and story sections where you can catch up on valuable drinking time denied you by the need to shoot people in the face during the action sequences. It seems that attention spans have decreased significantly since Max Payne 2 was first released, though, because it seemed to me that the number of cut scenes had tripled since I’d last played it. Whatever, though, more drinking for me.
I hit a major problem with this game, though. The first few levels are, not to put too find a point on it, shit. Max Payne 2 comes from the era when every FPS was an entirely corridor based affair but for the first few sections they’re such badly designed levels and you’re given such little ammo that I found myself dying constantly and for highly unconvincing reasons.
Thankfully, things pick up after half an hour or so, after roughly 200 mililitres of vodka had been consumed.
If you haven’t played Max Payne 2... I won’t even both explaining the plot. Suffice to say that it was considered one of the best games ever made back in 2003 but a lot has changed since then in gameplay tastes. I’m hoping most of you will have played it, though, and are watching this review simply for instructional purposes regarding how ideal it is to get drunk to.
The answer is... It’s not ideal but it does the job.
The problem with many modern games is they’re so focused on GAMEPLAY GAMEPLAY GAMEPLAY that they don’t give the player a chance to relax and you need time to relax to drink in. Max Payne 2 gives ample oppertunity for drinkage but the game does have several problems which sulley the experience slightly.
For a start, there aren’t any quicksaves so when you trip over your own feet in a drunken stupor you can get sent back unceremoniously to the start of the level. It also pulls one of the great old school gaming dick moves of not giving you any decent weapons until you’ve been playing for an hour and a half.
For me, the game doesnt’ realy kick in until the second hour of play and by then you’d hopefully be too drunk to properly appreciate it.
Aside from Mass Effect 2, there aren’t any modern games I’d recomend getting drunk to over Max Payne 2, which is an issue. Of the classic drinking games like Vapire Bloodlines and KOTOR, I’d say that Max Payne 2 is still the best, sadly, it’s not quite as good to pulverise your brain with as it was.
Monday, 1 March 2010
The Void
I read a review of The Void on Eurogamer. The conclusion was basically that The Void is a brilliant game... it's just practically impossible to make any headway.
I get what they mean.
So basically, The Void is set in a world between life and death. You have died but are *just* clinging onto enough life to have another shot. I say life, I mean Colour - the currency of The Void.
You need colour for pretty much everything - movement, combat, creating more colour- even survival in certain places.
I'm not really explaining this very well...
Okay. So The Void has a massive hub thing - this is the titular void. You can travel around this and visit certain locations where you will find plot bits, friendly colours, enemy sanctuaries and gardens filled with dead trees you can infuse with Colour in order to create an awesome garden thing which will then give you more Colour down the line.
There's a lot more to it than that but that's the basis of it.
The Void is deeply, deeply unfair. You need to spend a lot of Colour to get anything done and even surviving past the first chapter is a massive challenge.
For once, I think this is actually a good thing. The whole atmosphere is based around the idea of one tiny glimmer of hope in the midst of despair and nothingness. A few crucial mistakes will cripple you and you'll find yourself unable to recover. If such a place as The Void exists, this is pretty much exactly what it'll be like.
The graphics are fucking beautiful - especially the contrast between the greys and browns of The Void against the stunning pastells of Colour. The Voice acting is serene and, whilst occasionally dodgy, generally pretty solid. The gameplay is.... interesting. Mostly pretty good, if very unfair, but there are moments of extreme dodginess.
There's nothing else in the world like The Void. It's... in many ways a horrible game that will punish you for making the smallest mistake, but this is part of the charm. It all builds to an oppressive and horrible atmosphere where even the smallest moment of solace and respite is to be treasured. It's basically Goth: The Videogame.
I find it hard to recommend The Void, even though it's unique, artistically briliant and generally pretty damned innovative. It's just so fucking hard... I haven't come anywhere near to completing it and I've just given up in the hope of finding something more fun to play. If you can commit to your games and fancy trying something new I'd really recommend trying it, just be prepared for frustration...
I get what they mean.
So basically, The Void is set in a world between life and death. You have died but are *just* clinging onto enough life to have another shot. I say life, I mean Colour - the currency of The Void.
You need colour for pretty much everything - movement, combat, creating more colour- even survival in certain places.
I'm not really explaining this very well...
Okay. So The Void has a massive hub thing - this is the titular void. You can travel around this and visit certain locations where you will find plot bits, friendly colours, enemy sanctuaries and gardens filled with dead trees you can infuse with Colour in order to create an awesome garden thing which will then give you more Colour down the line.
There's a lot more to it than that but that's the basis of it.
The Void is deeply, deeply unfair. You need to spend a lot of Colour to get anything done and even surviving past the first chapter is a massive challenge.
For once, I think this is actually a good thing. The whole atmosphere is based around the idea of one tiny glimmer of hope in the midst of despair and nothingness. A few crucial mistakes will cripple you and you'll find yourself unable to recover. If such a place as The Void exists, this is pretty much exactly what it'll be like.
The graphics are fucking beautiful - especially the contrast between the greys and browns of The Void against the stunning pastells of Colour. The Voice acting is serene and, whilst occasionally dodgy, generally pretty solid. The gameplay is.... interesting. Mostly pretty good, if very unfair, but there are moments of extreme dodginess.
There's nothing else in the world like The Void. It's... in many ways a horrible game that will punish you for making the smallest mistake, but this is part of the charm. It all builds to an oppressive and horrible atmosphere where even the smallest moment of solace and respite is to be treasured. It's basically Goth: The Videogame.
I find it hard to recommend The Void, even though it's unique, artistically briliant and generally pretty damned innovative. It's just so fucking hard... I haven't come anywhere near to completing it and I've just given up in the hope of finding something more fun to play. If you can commit to your games and fancy trying something new I'd really recommend trying it, just be prepared for frustration...
What went wrong with AVP 3
So it's two weeks after AVP 3 was released onto the intertubes. Two weeks after everyone looked at it and thought:
"...is this it?"
They were working on that game for two years. We got a very short, very generic single player campaign which I consider to be nothing but a waste of bandwidth. Everything else in the game is lifted straight from AVP 2, with the exception of the co-op survival mode. Which is pretty rubbish.
The only fun game modes are Infestation - where everyone starts off as a marine, one person is randomly selected to be an alien and every marine killed turns to a xenomorph. There's also Team Species deathmatch, which is fairly amusing.
There are many vids and articles on the internets going on and on about what's wrong with AVP 3 so I won't go on about it. To sumerise:
1) The single player is shit
2) Marines can block the aliens attacks which is as stupid and game breaking as it sounds
3) The predators are gimped
4) The focus jump system for the predators is a good idea, but it's broken
5) It's worse than the original AVP, let alone AVP 2
6) The multiplayer server system is broken
We should have all been somewhat suspicious in the lead up to AVP 3's release. Why? Well, all the articles were comparing it to the original AVP, not AVP 2. I know that's because both 1 & 3 were done by Rebellion but why is that a good thing. I've looked at the list of games they've developed and it's a sorry sight. Aside from the original AVP, their games range from bad to utterly terrible.
I wasn't even really a fan of AVP when it first came out. Sure, it was okay but it got completely eclipsed when Monolith released AVP 2.
So how did AVP 3 end up in this sorry state?
1) Rebellion tried to re-invent the wheel
This blocking stuff is ridiculous. To sumerise, Rebellion tried to impliment a melee combat system, politely ignoring that fact that this has only ever worked in ONE fps before. There is no reason for this to be there at all. If a predator or an alien gets close to a marine, that marine should be dead, no questions asked. The whole point of the humans is that they're deadly at long range but vulnerable up close.
You could just about post-rationalise this stupid decision regarding scraps between the predator and alien if you'd forgotten that the reason the predator/alien scraps worked so well in AVP 2 was that the predators almost never engaged in close combat. I spent all my time in AVP 2 as a pred using the Speargun to kill marines and the pistol to kill aliens. I kept my distance, knowing that if an alien got close to me, I was dead.
In changing the predator from a ranged fighter to a close range fighter by removing their weapons (you can pick weapons up but they're gimped and you can only carry one at a time) Rebellion essentially created one ranged character - the marine - one close combat fighter - the alien - and a bullshit hybrid that was as effective as neither.
2) At the same time, they hardly changed anything
It's really odd, this. Rebellion changed things that didn't need changing - like the melee system and introduced a lot of stuff that didn't really work - like focus jumping but they didn't really change the game.
The single player is the same series of cliches plagued by every aliens/predator itteration since Aliens. The stories are these:
Marines - Aliens and predators are scrapping. They kill all of your friends before you get to them, forcing you to fight on your own. There is an evil corperation trying to profit from the alien technology. Somehow.
Alien - you are a captured alien. You escape. You eat people.
Predator - humans are dicking around with your mayan temple. You kill shit.
I'm begining to wonder if it's possible to do an Aliens story without having a bullshit generic evil corperation capture an alien queen and perform experiments on her offspring. The number of times this has happened in this universe seem endless and it *never ends well for anyone*. You'd think the corperation would have noticed some sort of pattern.
The multiplayer shows a similar lack of originality. All the good bits are lifted straight from AVP 2 - and these are hampered slightly by the fact that the game is just that bit worse, despite being made nine years later.
I'd like to give Rebellion points for trying but I'm not entirely convinced that they even tried very hard. I didn't see any evidence of real effort anywhere. There were no briliant weapons, there were no incredible levels which spoke of hundreds of hours spent in designing and playtesting...
So yes. I'm going to re-install AVP 2 and play that with my friends over Hamachi. Fuck you Rebellion, Fuck you Sega.
"...is this it?"
They were working on that game for two years. We got a very short, very generic single player campaign which I consider to be nothing but a waste of bandwidth. Everything else in the game is lifted straight from AVP 2, with the exception of the co-op survival mode. Which is pretty rubbish.
The only fun game modes are Infestation - where everyone starts off as a marine, one person is randomly selected to be an alien and every marine killed turns to a xenomorph. There's also Team Species deathmatch, which is fairly amusing.
There are many vids and articles on the internets going on and on about what's wrong with AVP 3 so I won't go on about it. To sumerise:
1) The single player is shit
2) Marines can block the aliens attacks which is as stupid and game breaking as it sounds
3) The predators are gimped
4) The focus jump system for the predators is a good idea, but it's broken
5) It's worse than the original AVP, let alone AVP 2
6) The multiplayer server system is broken
We should have all been somewhat suspicious in the lead up to AVP 3's release. Why? Well, all the articles were comparing it to the original AVP, not AVP 2. I know that's because both 1 & 3 were done by Rebellion but why is that a good thing. I've looked at the list of games they've developed and it's a sorry sight. Aside from the original AVP, their games range from bad to utterly terrible.
I wasn't even really a fan of AVP when it first came out. Sure, it was okay but it got completely eclipsed when Monolith released AVP 2.
So how did AVP 3 end up in this sorry state?
1) Rebellion tried to re-invent the wheel
This blocking stuff is ridiculous. To sumerise, Rebellion tried to impliment a melee combat system, politely ignoring that fact that this has only ever worked in ONE fps before. There is no reason for this to be there at all. If a predator or an alien gets close to a marine, that marine should be dead, no questions asked. The whole point of the humans is that they're deadly at long range but vulnerable up close.
You could just about post-rationalise this stupid decision regarding scraps between the predator and alien if you'd forgotten that the reason the predator/alien scraps worked so well in AVP 2 was that the predators almost never engaged in close combat. I spent all my time in AVP 2 as a pred using the Speargun to kill marines and the pistol to kill aliens. I kept my distance, knowing that if an alien got close to me, I was dead.
In changing the predator from a ranged fighter to a close range fighter by removing their weapons (you can pick weapons up but they're gimped and you can only carry one at a time) Rebellion essentially created one ranged character - the marine - one close combat fighter - the alien - and a bullshit hybrid that was as effective as neither.
2) At the same time, they hardly changed anything
It's really odd, this. Rebellion changed things that didn't need changing - like the melee system and introduced a lot of stuff that didn't really work - like focus jumping but they didn't really change the game.
The single player is the same series of cliches plagued by every aliens/predator itteration since Aliens. The stories are these:
Marines - Aliens and predators are scrapping. They kill all of your friends before you get to them, forcing you to fight on your own. There is an evil corperation trying to profit from the alien technology. Somehow.
Alien - you are a captured alien. You escape. You eat people.
Predator - humans are dicking around with your mayan temple. You kill shit.
I'm begining to wonder if it's possible to do an Aliens story without having a bullshit generic evil corperation capture an alien queen and perform experiments on her offspring. The number of times this has happened in this universe seem endless and it *never ends well for anyone*. You'd think the corperation would have noticed some sort of pattern.
The multiplayer shows a similar lack of originality. All the good bits are lifted straight from AVP 2 - and these are hampered slightly by the fact that the game is just that bit worse, despite being made nine years later.
I'd like to give Rebellion points for trying but I'm not entirely convinced that they even tried very hard. I didn't see any evidence of real effort anywhere. There were no briliant weapons, there were no incredible levels which spoke of hundreds of hours spent in designing and playtesting...
So yes. I'm going to re-install AVP 2 and play that with my friends over Hamachi. Fuck you Rebellion, Fuck you Sega.
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Daybreakers
The trailer for Daybreakers intrigued me. I've never seen anything to do with vampires before where they have been anything other than a secret minority preying on humans. This has been done very well and sometimes done very very badly. But anything that bucks this trend has to be worth a look, right?
Well, in the world of Daybreakers, humans make up less than 5% of the population. The population of what, we're never told but it's assumed they mean the world. The problem with this is obvious, there's not enough blood to go around.
I'll get the actual film out of the way quite quickly: It's not very good. Other than the nice premise it lacks any real soul. It's too slow, the acting is... pretty dodgy and the plot isn't as clever as it thinks it is. It's not exactly bad but it's definitely not something you should go out of your way to see. In my opinion.
I still find myself intrigued by the concept though. Sadly, it's not really a concept that can stand up to extended viewing.
Vampires taking their place in society *can* work. That whole tension was one of the only good things about True Blood (which I think was fantastic, apart from the main characters, who were universally uninteresting) but when the blood starts running out...
Well, let me tell you what would happen if the blood started running out.
If the entire world (or 95% of the real world) has turned into vampires, there would be nothing to be done. Other than use animal blood but that's besides the point.
I think, though, things would never get that far. Let's say, for example. there's an outbreak in America or Russia or China or any of the countries that are slightly dubious about the research they conduct with viruses or biological warfare or whatever. The point there is all of those countries are industrialised.
If the virus spreads to the point where people at the top of the various pyramids get infected, you know what will happen? They'll control the spread of the infection. But not in the way you're thinking.
They'll control it so it doesn't spread outside the industrialised countries. The vampires in Daybreakers are thinking but amoral individuals who chose who they feed on and, therefore, infect.
So what would they do? They'd leave Africa untouched, as well as the other fucked up bits of the world. They would, essentially, do what they've been doing for the last 500 years - fucking over bits of the world that are less fortunate than them for their own gain.
There would undoubtedly be vampires in these countries but they'd be the ones in the government or in organised crime, involved in trafficking.
What I'm essentially saying is:
Imagine the scene. The president of the US, congress and the senate meet. They discuss distributing the virus to Africa.
"Shall we spread the joy of imortality?"
"What? For free?"
I may sound like I'm banging this drum pretty hard but I can't help but think this would have been a much more interesting film if it was set in a country which has much more ethnic tension than the USA - South Africa would be good, Australia would be interesting. The problem is, films in America tend to be about America and... they tend to kind of assume that the rest of the world is behaving more or less like they are. Which is just plain wrong.
But yes, once I'd thought of that I couldn't even enjoy the premise.
Ah well.
Well, in the world of Daybreakers, humans make up less than 5% of the population. The population of what, we're never told but it's assumed they mean the world. The problem with this is obvious, there's not enough blood to go around.
I'll get the actual film out of the way quite quickly: It's not very good. Other than the nice premise it lacks any real soul. It's too slow, the acting is... pretty dodgy and the plot isn't as clever as it thinks it is. It's not exactly bad but it's definitely not something you should go out of your way to see. In my opinion.
I still find myself intrigued by the concept though. Sadly, it's not really a concept that can stand up to extended viewing.
Vampires taking their place in society *can* work. That whole tension was one of the only good things about True Blood (which I think was fantastic, apart from the main characters, who were universally uninteresting) but when the blood starts running out...
Well, let me tell you what would happen if the blood started running out.
If the entire world (or 95% of the real world) has turned into vampires, there would be nothing to be done. Other than use animal blood but that's besides the point.
I think, though, things would never get that far. Let's say, for example. there's an outbreak in America or Russia or China or any of the countries that are slightly dubious about the research they conduct with viruses or biological warfare or whatever. The point there is all of those countries are industrialised.
If the virus spreads to the point where people at the top of the various pyramids get infected, you know what will happen? They'll control the spread of the infection. But not in the way you're thinking.
They'll control it so it doesn't spread outside the industrialised countries. The vampires in Daybreakers are thinking but amoral individuals who chose who they feed on and, therefore, infect.
So what would they do? They'd leave Africa untouched, as well as the other fucked up bits of the world. They would, essentially, do what they've been doing for the last 500 years - fucking over bits of the world that are less fortunate than them for their own gain.
There would undoubtedly be vampires in these countries but they'd be the ones in the government or in organised crime, involved in trafficking.
What I'm essentially saying is:
Imagine the scene. The president of the US, congress and the senate meet. They discuss distributing the virus to Africa.
"Shall we spread the joy of imortality?"
"What? For free?"
I may sound like I'm banging this drum pretty hard but I can't help but think this would have been a much more interesting film if it was set in a country which has much more ethnic tension than the USA - South Africa would be good, Australia would be interesting. The problem is, films in America tend to be about America and... they tend to kind of assume that the rest of the world is behaving more or less like they are. Which is just plain wrong.
But yes, once I'd thought of that I couldn't even enjoy the premise.
Ah well.
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