The game is just called Mechwarrior, since its a series reboot. It still isn't too clear to me why a series reboot is justified in having a name that allows it to be easily confused with the original Mechwarrior game. That just sounds stupid to me.
"Hey lets reboot Spiderman and give him a new image that will rejuvenate the franchise"
"Alright, so we want to make it different from the original Spiderman right?"
"Yea, for sure. The old Spiderman is too boring, so we're making him different. This way fans can't even complain about inconsistencies."
"Uh okay. So what do we call it, if we want to make it differentiable?"
"How about... Spiderman?"
"..."
Seriously, that must be the conversation that occurs in Hollywood or wherever reboots may be made. Only God knows what is wrong with these people... And how they should be punished in hell accordingly.
So anyway, I will be referring to this new upcoming 2009 game as Mechwarrior 5, since it makes far more sense. Here is a trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl4eI3htAuA
It uses the UT3 engine. Cool that they were able to adapt the UT3 engine; it looks good. Not so cool that I can already bet that many sacrifices to gameplay were made to cater to this engine. Also, when a developer reuses an engine, they save development time and money. I fully expect that these resources are reinvested to the game itself, and the game should be even better than if it had its own engine. So, the bar has been raised, even though the game hasn't even been released. Well, they brought it upon themselves.
So whats the problem?
There is no problem! Yea! What a surprise, coming from me, the pessimist of the century. I am actually glad they are doing this game, as I am a big fan of Mechwarrior, and although I hate unfaithful adaptations, Mechwarrior's franchise was dead because its original IP holder, FASA had been liquidated. Microsoft held the rights, but they weren't going to touch the money-losing franchise with a 10 feet pole. Basically, the Mech fans had lost hope of having another game for ages... And here we have an opportunity to restart it... And its on PC! Man that sounds great way to bring back some old memories. Considering how I've been waiting on a MW mod that has been in development for years (and still is)... You can see how eager I am to play MechWarrior again.
With my optimism though, there are some things that bother me, although I won't really mind either way. Just think of it as a wishlist.
- I don't think that MW5 will support fully customizable mechs like in MW4. It may be following more of the boardgame rules in this sense, and only allow pre-set variants. That's a shame, because it makes it a little less fun, but it comes with the benefit of cutting out cheap variants that can abuse certain aspects. The gameplay will be more well balanced instead. I can appreciate both results in this case, although having full-customization for unranked or offline play would be the best of both worlds.
- The date in the trailer says 3015. The clans invaded in 3050 (late 3049 if you're really anal) so clan tech will probably not be in the game. That's a shame, since a lot of my favorite mech designs were from clans, and some of the best weapons in the game were also clan weapons. While this is alright from a lore perspective, clan weapons have always been plain superior upgrades relative to standard weapons. It made standard weapons instantly obsolete and redundant. I can understand the advantages to having clan weapons in the game, but also not having them. Like I said above, having the option in unranked/singleplayer would be amazing. However, I doubt clan chassis will be in, since that requires a lot more work for the developers. A friend though notes that the Atlas-C in the trailer is a variant made in 3080, so it could be possible that the reboot cheats the standard lore a little bit, and clans could be in anyway. How's that for geekdom?
That's really it for my wishlist. I'm really excited about this game, like I have not been for a game in a long time. I hope it'll have a larger and more tightly knit multiplayer community than the previous games.
Edit: Apparently the game is being called MechWarrior 3015 by the community. Fair enough.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Command and Conquer 4: The Revenge of Tiberium!
Well, I admit. EA is just better than I am.
AT MAKING SHITTY SUBTITLES.
Yeah, considering their previous publications - BFME2: Rise of the Witch King, CNC3: Tiberium Wars, CNC3: Kane's Wrath, then RA3: Uprising, and just Tiberium (for their first person shooter title) - EA has me beaten by a mile when it comes to cliche, angry and spiteful underdog avenger titles. Ooh. So scary.
So, no. CNC4 isn't called the Revenge of Tiberium. I'm sure it'll be much worse though, so just stay tuned. But it'll be pretty hard for Tiberium to have revenge on anybody... You know why? Tiberium is now a tame and easily accessible resource that has no infringement on human health or lifestyle. What the fuck.
For those who don't know the lore being Tiberium, I will do a quick recap, as the story was revealed by Westwood, the original developers. Not long ago, a meteor fell from space and crashed in Italy. It brought with it a strange biological plant growth called Tiberium that leeched minerals out of the ground and sprouted it as a green plant on the surface. While this made harvesting the plant quite lucrative, the plant emitted poisonous gases and rapidly spread, destroying Earth's habitat, killing off other plants and animals. Tiberium's growth was so dramatic that much of the world was covered in it, even the seas were clogged with it, and the only places that could slow its growth were icy artic regions or areas with steep rocky terrain. The world was being split into two factions, GDI and Nod, the former trying to restore peace and order and quell the advance of Tiberium, and the latter trying to undermine GDI (and the current world order) to embrace Tiberium, the secrets it may hold, and usher forward a new race of enhanced beings. While GDI and Nod slugged it out with each other, they stumbled upon the bizarre. Some wild animals, humans and even plants adapted with excessive exposure to Tiberium, becoming much stronger and more resilient. Furthermore, Tiberium was obviously alien, but unnervingly hinted at the existence of an invading intelligent alien race.
Unfortunately, as Westwood's rights to the franchise were passed to EA, the story began to crumble in inconsistency. Tiberium became some crystalline lifeform, and resembled the minerals in Starcraft. Alien artifacts that were found in earlier games were 'refound' at an even earlier date. Alien arrivals were poorly explained, and Nod's enigmatic and visionary leader, Kane, began to operate in a questionable manner with incomprehensible objectives. But worse... Tiberium is no longer the plague that is encompassing the globe. It is now of no threat to anyone, safely locked away underground, and mined by large vertical drilling shafts. Tiberium no longer is on the surface to destroy civilian respiratory systems, give severe skin burns and cancers, corrode the armor off of vehicles, mutate biosystems, or uproot and level cities. What's going on? The main element of the game... The resource you NAMED the game after, has been so drastically altered, there is really no point in trying to continue this franchise. Worse, EA drops the guillotine: they claim they will be concluding the story and wrap up loose ends with this final installment. Considering how they bullshitted the story for both CNC3 and the expansion pack, they have so many plot holes and loose ends that they will never be able to piece the thing back together in just a single game.
EA tried to write the story as it pleased them in CNC3, and it lead to inconsistencies and fans asking well-deserved questions, often about the characters or incomplete events from the previous titles. But since it was plainly obvious that EA did not even play the previous games themselves, they had no idea who or what the fans were talking about. So... what did they do? They made an expansion pack to try fill in the gaps. So the fans received 5 second explanations during FMVs, often just saying that so-and-so died before the game events occurred, or that Tiberium underwent a mysterious overnight transformation and that researchers could not come up with any answers. Wow. Lame. If by 'filling the gaps' they meant just acknowledging their poorly written inconsistencies in an official FMV... then EA sure succeeded. And worse, they tried to bring back old characters and factions to do fanservice... even when these things had no right to return. Now with factions like Cabal, a previously rogue AI commander, back in his throne, EA has plot holes the size of dump trucks to fill. And yet they think they can complete a convincing story in just ONE game? Get over yourself, EA.
So that's enough about the plot. They fucked it up, and it isn't going to get unfucked any time soon. But what really pisses me off is that they're selling the same fucking rehash gameplay and engine. This engine has been used for 11 games, not including expansions! 5 of these games were ancient, and used a very very old basic version of this engine, fair enough... But the earliest one was from 2001! Way to milk a dry cow. Or in this case, a dry and half-eaten-by-vultures carcass. Now just reusing engine code isn't bad... But its the way it is used is important. Some games show noticable engine upgrades and improvements that make the engine recycling well justified... But EA does not make that sort of game. Currently, the CNC4 screenshots look like a game from 2004... But I will give them the benefit of the doubt since it's still in alpha: CNC4 at release will look about as sharp and clean as CNC3, but no better. Why is this? Because EA has no incentive to improve it past that, and CNC3 already consumed a ton of memory in high-res textures. On top of that, RA3, based on the same engine, showed diminishing graphics relative to CNC3, a game that is its predecessor.
Graphics aside, CNC4 doesn't have any gameplay innovations to speak of, only concepts borrowed from other games. Instead of having a construction yard and building around it like other CNC games, you have a walking mega unit that is pretty much your base all in one package. Not only has this been done before in Universe at War, and Dawn of War, but it isn't anything like what the franchise is like. Instead of harvesting fields of rapidly growing Tiberium, you capture and hold Tiberium control points that give you a steady stream of income. Done by Dawn of War and other capture-point based RTSes like Demigod, Company of Heroes, and World in Conflict. This is not anything like any CNC game either. They've introduced a population cap. If I wanted to play a Blizzard game, I'd play a Blizzard game. There's also no more base building, another feature taken from modern tactical RTSes. Everything that made CNC unique is gone, we only have some pathetic trend following, courtesy of sloppy and uninspired EA developers. Instead of unlocking units by teching up to new tech tiers, you level up your commander level by killing or losing units. Your commander level is a consistent stat that carries across games. Not only is this RPG element completely unnecessary, but it is so poorly integrated that it will throw a wrench in any RTS mechanic that remains in the game. Players will be limited to what units they can build because of their level. That limits build orders, strategies and even the opponents they can fairly fight and counter. Why even bother? This is a terrible idea just at conception. Scrap the damn thing.
Now someone may ask... The game isn't out, why are you so harsh and so certain it will fail? These words were spoken to me every single time a EA CNC game was on the horizon. It came about for CNC3, for KW, and for RA3. Yet unsurprisingly, every time, I was justified in my criticism. EA is truly a company that you cannot let out of your sight, as when they are given creative freedom, they are bound to failure and disappointment. So, I know without a doubt that EA will screw up CNC4, and like their previous releases, I refuse to purchase it. And you know what is sad? I was happy when EA announced the cancellation of Tiberium, their first person shooter rendition of the CNC universe. I thought they came to their senses and decided to not pursue developing a genre and universe that they did not understand and instead moved their investment to something they do better... Like sports or something. But no. They put their money here, in this other abomination of a RPG-Squadbased-Tactical-RTS game. Jumping from one sinking ship to another. There is no doubt that EA will fuck up. The only question on my mind is between the unfinished Tiberium project and CNC4, which one would have been the lesser of two evils? Ultimately, the answer to this is moot; both of them are destined to be a shit stain on gaming.
AT MAKING SHITTY SUBTITLES.
Yeah, considering their previous publications - BFME2: Rise of the Witch King, CNC3: Tiberium Wars, CNC3: Kane's Wrath, then RA3: Uprising, and just Tiberium (for their first person shooter title) - EA has me beaten by a mile when it comes to cliche, angry and spiteful underdog avenger titles. Ooh. So scary.
So, no. CNC4 isn't called the Revenge of Tiberium. I'm sure it'll be much worse though, so just stay tuned. But it'll be pretty hard for Tiberium to have revenge on anybody... You know why? Tiberium is now a tame and easily accessible resource that has no infringement on human health or lifestyle. What the fuck.
For those who don't know the lore being Tiberium, I will do a quick recap, as the story was revealed by Westwood, the original developers. Not long ago, a meteor fell from space and crashed in Italy. It brought with it a strange biological plant growth called Tiberium that leeched minerals out of the ground and sprouted it as a green plant on the surface. While this made harvesting the plant quite lucrative, the plant emitted poisonous gases and rapidly spread, destroying Earth's habitat, killing off other plants and animals. Tiberium's growth was so dramatic that much of the world was covered in it, even the seas were clogged with it, and the only places that could slow its growth were icy artic regions or areas with steep rocky terrain. The world was being split into two factions, GDI and Nod, the former trying to restore peace and order and quell the advance of Tiberium, and the latter trying to undermine GDI (and the current world order) to embrace Tiberium, the secrets it may hold, and usher forward a new race of enhanced beings. While GDI and Nod slugged it out with each other, they stumbled upon the bizarre. Some wild animals, humans and even plants adapted with excessive exposure to Tiberium, becoming much stronger and more resilient. Furthermore, Tiberium was obviously alien, but unnervingly hinted at the existence of an invading intelligent alien race.
Unfortunately, as Westwood's rights to the franchise were passed to EA, the story began to crumble in inconsistency. Tiberium became some crystalline lifeform, and resembled the minerals in Starcraft. Alien artifacts that were found in earlier games were 'refound' at an even earlier date. Alien arrivals were poorly explained, and Nod's enigmatic and visionary leader, Kane, began to operate in a questionable manner with incomprehensible objectives. But worse... Tiberium is no longer the plague that is encompassing the globe. It is now of no threat to anyone, safely locked away underground, and mined by large vertical drilling shafts. Tiberium no longer is on the surface to destroy civilian respiratory systems, give severe skin burns and cancers, corrode the armor off of vehicles, mutate biosystems, or uproot and level cities. What's going on? The main element of the game... The resource you NAMED the game after, has been so drastically altered, there is really no point in trying to continue this franchise. Worse, EA drops the guillotine: they claim they will be concluding the story and wrap up loose ends with this final installment. Considering how they bullshitted the story for both CNC3 and the expansion pack, they have so many plot holes and loose ends that they will never be able to piece the thing back together in just a single game.
EA tried to write the story as it pleased them in CNC3, and it lead to inconsistencies and fans asking well-deserved questions, often about the characters or incomplete events from the previous titles. But since it was plainly obvious that EA did not even play the previous games themselves, they had no idea who or what the fans were talking about. So... what did they do? They made an expansion pack to try fill in the gaps. So the fans received 5 second explanations during FMVs, often just saying that so-and-so died before the game events occurred, or that Tiberium underwent a mysterious overnight transformation and that researchers could not come up with any answers. Wow. Lame. If by 'filling the gaps' they meant just acknowledging their poorly written inconsistencies in an official FMV... then EA sure succeeded. And worse, they tried to bring back old characters and factions to do fanservice... even when these things had no right to return. Now with factions like Cabal, a previously rogue AI commander, back in his throne, EA has plot holes the size of dump trucks to fill. And yet they think they can complete a convincing story in just ONE game? Get over yourself, EA.
So that's enough about the plot. They fucked it up, and it isn't going to get unfucked any time soon. But what really pisses me off is that they're selling the same fucking rehash gameplay and engine. This engine has been used for 11 games, not including expansions! 5 of these games were ancient, and used a very very old basic version of this engine, fair enough... But the earliest one was from 2001! Way to milk a dry cow. Or in this case, a dry and half-eaten-by-vultures carcass. Now just reusing engine code isn't bad... But its the way it is used is important. Some games show noticable engine upgrades and improvements that make the engine recycling well justified... But EA does not make that sort of game. Currently, the CNC4 screenshots look like a game from 2004... But I will give them the benefit of the doubt since it's still in alpha: CNC4 at release will look about as sharp and clean as CNC3, but no better. Why is this? Because EA has no incentive to improve it past that, and CNC3 already consumed a ton of memory in high-res textures. On top of that, RA3, based on the same engine, showed diminishing graphics relative to CNC3, a game that is its predecessor.
Graphics aside, CNC4 doesn't have any gameplay innovations to speak of, only concepts borrowed from other games. Instead of having a construction yard and building around it like other CNC games, you have a walking mega unit that is pretty much your base all in one package. Not only has this been done before in Universe at War, and Dawn of War, but it isn't anything like what the franchise is like. Instead of harvesting fields of rapidly growing Tiberium, you capture and hold Tiberium control points that give you a steady stream of income. Done by Dawn of War and other capture-point based RTSes like Demigod, Company of Heroes, and World in Conflict. This is not anything like any CNC game either. They've introduced a population cap. If I wanted to play a Blizzard game, I'd play a Blizzard game. There's also no more base building, another feature taken from modern tactical RTSes. Everything that made CNC unique is gone, we only have some pathetic trend following, courtesy of sloppy and uninspired EA developers. Instead of unlocking units by teching up to new tech tiers, you level up your commander level by killing or losing units. Your commander level is a consistent stat that carries across games. Not only is this RPG element completely unnecessary, but it is so poorly integrated that it will throw a wrench in any RTS mechanic that remains in the game. Players will be limited to what units they can build because of their level. That limits build orders, strategies and even the opponents they can fairly fight and counter. Why even bother? This is a terrible idea just at conception. Scrap the damn thing.
Now someone may ask... The game isn't out, why are you so harsh and so certain it will fail? These words were spoken to me every single time a EA CNC game was on the horizon. It came about for CNC3, for KW, and for RA3. Yet unsurprisingly, every time, I was justified in my criticism. EA is truly a company that you cannot let out of your sight, as when they are given creative freedom, they are bound to failure and disappointment. So, I know without a doubt that EA will screw up CNC4, and like their previous releases, I refuse to purchase it. And you know what is sad? I was happy when EA announced the cancellation of Tiberium, their first person shooter rendition of the CNC universe. I thought they came to their senses and decided to not pursue developing a genre and universe that they did not understand and instead moved their investment to something they do better... Like sports or something. But no. They put their money here, in this other abomination of a RPG-Squadbased-Tactical-RTS game. Jumping from one sinking ship to another. There is no doubt that EA will fuck up. The only question on my mind is between the unfinished Tiberium project and CNC4, which one would have been the lesser of two evils? Ultimately, the answer to this is moot; both of them are destined to be a shit stain on gaming.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Velvet Assassin - I CAN'T OPEN DOORS!
I haven't finished this game. I don't intend to. What is Velvet Assassin exactly? Well, its a stealth game where you play as Violette Summers, a British spy in WWII. When you first start the game you see Violette lying on a hospital bed from a "mission gone wrong" and is stuck in some kind of coma. Then you start replaying missions based on her memories. It doesn't sound so bad right? Except the entire stealth system is flawed. Not a minor flaw, but huge flaws like how the enemies won't open the door and shoot you.
The first mission you start off by sneaking into a base. Pretty standard stuff. You get a purple glow when you are in the shadows meaning, no one can see you. But you step into the light or touch broken glass then people see you. You get a knife and a pistol with a silencer with 6 rounds. Once these rounds are gone you don't get any more. Shooting a guy in the head means he dies in a single shot anywhere else, nope. So this means you need good aim. Which is fairly easy and most of the enemies in this game stand around being retarded. So you're going around sneaking in the shadows and when they turn their back you sneak over and silent kill them with a knife.
Simple stuff. Then you get to parts and Violette will suddenly point out "I remember, I had to turn off the electricity here. This is an electric fence." Thanks... Like I can't tell with the high voltage signs plastered all over the walls. So you sneak over and break the power. Then OH SHIT THE ENEMY SAW ME WHAT DO I DO? Well if you get caught you have two options. Fight or Run. Running is the easiest. Once you hide in the shadows the enemy will walk over and look straight at you but you're glowing purple right? Yeah. So you pull out your gun, point that thing at his head and bang he's dead. Or if you're too lazy to do that you can hit MORPHINE MODE. What is morphine mode? Well the thing is Violette is struggling in her hospital bed and the nurse gives her a shot of morphine. Morphine must be found throughout the stage and it has a one time use. Using it the whole world slows down, kinda like F.E.A.R. You run around in your undergarments and the whole world is pink with fluffy flowers floating everywhere. And if you get close to an enemy you get a instant kill move. After killing someone. The morphine wears out and the other guy beside him will kill you.
The stages are pretty straightforward. Violette explains the situation at the start of every stage. Then you get thrown in and you finish it. Sneaking around you shoot a guy then the other guy comes over looks at the body goes "oh shit he's dead!" and walk back to his spot and smokes a cigarette to ease the pain of a dead comrade and then you stab him in the back. I also like to point out that after each stage your ammo and health magically replenishes itself. I understand if its like a whole different time and you get to restock but if its like a sub-stage you still get ammo. Then you keep going and you go into a room. Oh crap bad mistake! There's like four guys standing around. You take your gun you shoot one in the head and quickly run out the room. You then look through the keyhole and you see three guys walk up the door and starts yelling in German. Then they go "she went behind the door! I CAN'T OPEN DOORS!" and then they go back to the spots and you go in and shoot them all and continue forward.
Climbing up the bell tower you meet your first boss Colonel Schnitzel or whatever aka the butcher of Paris. You grab a bulletproof vest and a shotgun which happens to be lying there for no apparent reason. Then you climb up. You start hearing the guy start yelling "GET THE BITCH. TURN ON THE LIGHTS AND FORCE THE BITCH TO COME OUT" and then all the lights are open and you take out your shotgun and blast all the guards in the face. You then see Schnitzel and he pulls out a pistol. NOT SO FAST ASSHOLE! You point your shotgun in his face point blank and BAM RIGHT IN THE FACE BITCH. But wait! He's not dead! So he shoots at you and you go BAM RIGHT IN THE FACE BITCH AGAIN! Wait, he's not dead yet! THEN AGAIN YOU GO BAM RIGHT IN THE FACE BITCH. And finally he dies but not before a cutscene where you see Schnitzel lie on the ground with a bloody nose and Violette walks over points a shotgun to his head then the screen changes and you hear a BAM and all the birds fly away.
I don't know about you but I'd love to be able to take a shot or three in the face and walk away with just a bloody nose. Isn't this supposed to be realistic? Like you're actually stealthing around killing people? Not watching retarded enemies run around and blasting people in the face with shotguns which doesn't kill them. That was were I stopped. It sucks. That is all.
The first mission you start off by sneaking into a base. Pretty standard stuff. You get a purple glow when you are in the shadows meaning, no one can see you. But you step into the light or touch broken glass then people see you. You get a knife and a pistol with a silencer with 6 rounds. Once these rounds are gone you don't get any more. Shooting a guy in the head means he dies in a single shot anywhere else, nope. So this means you need good aim. Which is fairly easy and most of the enemies in this game stand around being retarded. So you're going around sneaking in the shadows and when they turn their back you sneak over and silent kill them with a knife.
Simple stuff. Then you get to parts and Violette will suddenly point out "I remember, I had to turn off the electricity here. This is an electric fence." Thanks... Like I can't tell with the high voltage signs plastered all over the walls. So you sneak over and break the power. Then OH SHIT THE ENEMY SAW ME WHAT DO I DO? Well if you get caught you have two options. Fight or Run. Running is the easiest. Once you hide in the shadows the enemy will walk over and look straight at you but you're glowing purple right? Yeah. So you pull out your gun, point that thing at his head and bang he's dead. Or if you're too lazy to do that you can hit MORPHINE MODE. What is morphine mode? Well the thing is Violette is struggling in her hospital bed and the nurse gives her a shot of morphine. Morphine must be found throughout the stage and it has a one time use. Using it the whole world slows down, kinda like F.E.A.R. You run around in your undergarments and the whole world is pink with fluffy flowers floating everywhere. And if you get close to an enemy you get a instant kill move. After killing someone. The morphine wears out and the other guy beside him will kill you.
The stages are pretty straightforward. Violette explains the situation at the start of every stage. Then you get thrown in and you finish it. Sneaking around you shoot a guy then the other guy comes over looks at the body goes "oh shit he's dead!" and walk back to his spot and smokes a cigarette to ease the pain of a dead comrade and then you stab him in the back. I also like to point out that after each stage your ammo and health magically replenishes itself. I understand if its like a whole different time and you get to restock but if its like a sub-stage you still get ammo. Then you keep going and you go into a room. Oh crap bad mistake! There's like four guys standing around. You take your gun you shoot one in the head and quickly run out the room. You then look through the keyhole and you see three guys walk up the door and starts yelling in German. Then they go "she went behind the door! I CAN'T OPEN DOORS!" and then they go back to the spots and you go in and shoot them all and continue forward.
Climbing up the bell tower you meet your first boss Colonel Schnitzel or whatever aka the butcher of Paris. You grab a bulletproof vest and a shotgun which happens to be lying there for no apparent reason. Then you climb up. You start hearing the guy start yelling "GET THE BITCH. TURN ON THE LIGHTS AND FORCE THE BITCH TO COME OUT" and then all the lights are open and you take out your shotgun and blast all the guards in the face. You then see Schnitzel and he pulls out a pistol. NOT SO FAST ASSHOLE! You point your shotgun in his face point blank and BAM RIGHT IN THE FACE BITCH. But wait! He's not dead! So he shoots at you and you go BAM RIGHT IN THE FACE BITCH AGAIN! Wait, he's not dead yet! THEN AGAIN YOU GO BAM RIGHT IN THE FACE BITCH. And finally he dies but not before a cutscene where you see Schnitzel lie on the ground with a bloody nose and Violette walks over points a shotgun to his head then the screen changes and you hear a BAM and all the birds fly away.
I don't know about you but I'd love to be able to take a shot or three in the face and walk away with just a bloody nose. Isn't this supposed to be realistic? Like you're actually stealthing around killing people? Not watching retarded enemies run around and blasting people in the face with shotguns which doesn't kill them. That was were I stopped. It sucks. That is all.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Fahrenheit - 9/11 was better than this shit
I didn't want to talk about this game because it was so bad but, since I just heard someone talk about how it was awesome I had to write this. First of all you probably never heard of this game, and that's a good thing. Its name was changed to Indigo Prophecy in the US because of the documentary called Fahrenheit 9/11. It is supposedly an action game, made by a french company about a series of murders in NY. And I use game loosely here because according to Quantic Dream, the creator of this monstrosity, it is actually an "interactive film." You're probably thinking what the hell is an interactive film? I want a game not a film. Well that's what I said as well.
You start off the game with the developer appearing in front of you and start bragging his face off about how great his game is and how everyone should make a solid gold statue of him to worship him for the rest of humanity. This guy starts talking and there is no way to just skip this. He goes on and on and then he tells you to do something. If you do it wrong you'll hear "No, no, no, try again" or something like that in his french accent. After about 20 minutes of that you'll finally begin playing the game. Oh wait no, you watch a movie. Then after the 6 hour opening you find yourself standing in a diner bathroom with blood over your hands holding a knife with a dead guy on the floor. All right! Action! Or... wait...
Well it looked promising at the beginning. It reminded me of Hitman, and that is a good thing. You have a load of options to do. You can just run out the building, clean up the mess drag the body away ditch the weapon, even clean up pay your bills and leave normally. There is also the split screen thing like in Hitman where when someone comes close you can see. Yeah a cop is making his way into the washroom to take a leak and you're fighting the clock. I hate to say, but this is the only part in the game where this happens. So enjoy the first 5 minutes of the game because that'll be the most fun you will get. After getting out of the diner and taking a cab home you switch to the point of view of someone else.
You get a black cop, Tyler, and his white cop partner, Carla, who has to walk around finding clues that you have or have not hidden as Lucas Kane. Also no matter what action you do, the story will still follow its linear line. There will be no difference in the end no matter what action you choose. You have to get all the clues before you can move on. Half the time though, the characters are talking to themselves, aka you. So you can know a little of what they are thinking and you can do stuff depending on what they are thinking. Tyler and Carla will always be together so you'll have to switch between them to get things done. For example, Tyler could be at the office and you need to call Carla, then you hit the switch button and have Carla pick up the phone from her house. Yes it is very annoying. Yes you have to do this everytime. No if you don't switch the guy won't hang up.
So you keep doing stupid things like this. You control Lucas and choose to screw him over or let him remain innocent a bit longer. In the end, he has to get caught so there is no difference. As the story progresses the storyline starts turning into a train wreck. Not that it wasn't a train wreck before but now its like they know there is a wreck so they send more trains in to see what happens. So you keep having visions of a weird little girl, kind of like F.E.A.R but without the "scary" aspect. Not that F.E.A.R is scary at all but this is about Fahrenheit so that's for another time. Then Lucas Kane starts seeing things like giant bugs appear everywhere and starts going ape shit. NOW YOU SEE ACTION RIGHT? No. You start playing Simon Says with the keyboard. If you don't know what simon says then here's a link for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVzZVYtt64I
That is literally what you do for all the action scenes in the game. It's long, its tedious, and its boring. Its also more corny and lame than the commercial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYEHtFVLqzk
Yeah... I wish I youtubed it before I started playing it. Anyways the story goes on and it sorta pulls a Xenogears where the second half you don't get to play though it you just hear what goes on. Then you find out about the "oracle" who is a mayan oracle who controls you to kill people. The "indigo child" which is the little autistic girl who will speak and say something that will give the person the power to rule the world. The orange clan who is after the indigo child for over 2000 years. They know every thing in the world and what everyone is doing, kinda like big brother. Then theres the purple clan made up of A.I from the internet who is after the indigo child as well to gain world domination over humans. Then theres the invisibles who are homeless bums who are fighting against the other clans. Yeah homeless people... Theres like 5 of them... yeah....
Anyways the whole game is about mini games. And by mini games I mean annoying pointless shit that gives you high blood pressure. Watch a few scenes then you have a mini game such as Carla having claustrophobia and must go into the dark lonely basement to find tapes. She will have a panic attack and you must control her breathing by pressing left and right constantly or she'll go crazy and you game over. Its not over in like 2 minutes. No. It takes 15 minutes to finish that not counting the times you screw up and have to start over. After that you get a few scenes then you get another mini game! Now you're Tyler and you have to find a book in the library. Holy shit is the library huge. Theres four floors with like three sections and you can only take one book off the shelf at a time and give it to the dude and if its wrong he sends you back. Since I didn't give a shit about the stupid riddle which was impossible, I just ran around and found the book by accident. It was on the top floor in the corner by the way. So this just repeats endlessly until the second half of the game.
The second half reveals that Lucas Kane is the "chosen one" or whatever the shit it is. They pull a matrix and he turns into some super god. The Carla meets him and bangs him in the amount of time it takes to read this sentence. And you find out Lucas Kane is dead and he was revived by the AI to trick him into their side but he has the "Chroma" which was leftover by UFO's or some shit and he was able to fight back and the game ends he becomes a god and Carla is pregnant with his child. He just sits there on a rock going "I know all the answers to the universe. Carla is pregnant. I am going to kill myself for being in this piece of shit game."
He said that last sentence. Or at least in my mind he said that. Thats it. This is the shittiest game that is ever created. Do. Not. Play. This. Shit. Ever. If you want to play a less shitty game I'd start with Persona 3 and make your way down here. If you play this game you'll never want to game again in your life. It's that shitty.
You start off the game with the developer appearing in front of you and start bragging his face off about how great his game is and how everyone should make a solid gold statue of him to worship him for the rest of humanity. This guy starts talking and there is no way to just skip this. He goes on and on and then he tells you to do something. If you do it wrong you'll hear "No, no, no, try again" or something like that in his french accent. After about 20 minutes of that you'll finally begin playing the game. Oh wait no, you watch a movie. Then after the 6 hour opening you find yourself standing in a diner bathroom with blood over your hands holding a knife with a dead guy on the floor. All right! Action! Or... wait...
Well it looked promising at the beginning. It reminded me of Hitman, and that is a good thing. You have a load of options to do. You can just run out the building, clean up the mess drag the body away ditch the weapon, even clean up pay your bills and leave normally. There is also the split screen thing like in Hitman where when someone comes close you can see. Yeah a cop is making his way into the washroom to take a leak and you're fighting the clock. I hate to say, but this is the only part in the game where this happens. So enjoy the first 5 minutes of the game because that'll be the most fun you will get. After getting out of the diner and taking a cab home you switch to the point of view of someone else.
You get a black cop, Tyler, and his white cop partner, Carla, who has to walk around finding clues that you have or have not hidden as Lucas Kane. Also no matter what action you do, the story will still follow its linear line. There will be no difference in the end no matter what action you choose. You have to get all the clues before you can move on. Half the time though, the characters are talking to themselves, aka you. So you can know a little of what they are thinking and you can do stuff depending on what they are thinking. Tyler and Carla will always be together so you'll have to switch between them to get things done. For example, Tyler could be at the office and you need to call Carla, then you hit the switch button and have Carla pick up the phone from her house. Yes it is very annoying. Yes you have to do this everytime. No if you don't switch the guy won't hang up.
So you keep doing stupid things like this. You control Lucas and choose to screw him over or let him remain innocent a bit longer. In the end, he has to get caught so there is no difference. As the story progresses the storyline starts turning into a train wreck. Not that it wasn't a train wreck before but now its like they know there is a wreck so they send more trains in to see what happens. So you keep having visions of a weird little girl, kind of like F.E.A.R but without the "scary" aspect. Not that F.E.A.R is scary at all but this is about Fahrenheit so that's for another time. Then Lucas Kane starts seeing things like giant bugs appear everywhere and starts going ape shit. NOW YOU SEE ACTION RIGHT? No. You start playing Simon Says with the keyboard. If you don't know what simon says then here's a link for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVzZVYtt64I
That is literally what you do for all the action scenes in the game. It's long, its tedious, and its boring. Its also more corny and lame than the commercial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYEHtFVLqzk
Yeah... I wish I youtubed it before I started playing it. Anyways the story goes on and it sorta pulls a Xenogears where the second half you don't get to play though it you just hear what goes on. Then you find out about the "oracle" who is a mayan oracle who controls you to kill people. The "indigo child" which is the little autistic girl who will speak and say something that will give the person the power to rule the world. The orange clan who is after the indigo child for over 2000 years. They know every thing in the world and what everyone is doing, kinda like big brother. Then theres the purple clan made up of A.I from the internet who is after the indigo child as well to gain world domination over humans. Then theres the invisibles who are homeless bums who are fighting against the other clans. Yeah homeless people... Theres like 5 of them... yeah....
Anyways the whole game is about mini games. And by mini games I mean annoying pointless shit that gives you high blood pressure. Watch a few scenes then you have a mini game such as Carla having claustrophobia and must go into the dark lonely basement to find tapes. She will have a panic attack and you must control her breathing by pressing left and right constantly or she'll go crazy and you game over. Its not over in like 2 minutes. No. It takes 15 minutes to finish that not counting the times you screw up and have to start over. After that you get a few scenes then you get another mini game! Now you're Tyler and you have to find a book in the library. Holy shit is the library huge. Theres four floors with like three sections and you can only take one book off the shelf at a time and give it to the dude and if its wrong he sends you back. Since I didn't give a shit about the stupid riddle which was impossible, I just ran around and found the book by accident. It was on the top floor in the corner by the way. So this just repeats endlessly until the second half of the game.
The second half reveals that Lucas Kane is the "chosen one" or whatever the shit it is. They pull a matrix and he turns into some super god. The Carla meets him and bangs him in the amount of time it takes to read this sentence. And you find out Lucas Kane is dead and he was revived by the AI to trick him into their side but he has the "Chroma" which was leftover by UFO's or some shit and he was able to fight back and the game ends he becomes a god and Carla is pregnant with his child. He just sits there on a rock going "I know all the answers to the universe. Carla is pregnant. I am going to kill myself for being in this piece of shit game."
He said that last sentence. Or at least in my mind he said that. Thats it. This is the shittiest game that is ever created. Do. Not. Play. This. Shit. Ever. If you want to play a less shitty game I'd start with Persona 3 and make your way down here. If you play this game you'll never want to game again in your life. It's that shitty.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
I'm a genius.
I'll keep this one pretty short.
http://liti4.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/kid-couldnt-tell-the-difference-between-re-spawn-and-reality/
The article is nothing new though; its another gamer/writer (or more likely... a writer pretending to understand gamers) with the same repeated message: don't blame games, blame the lack of medication/supervision/love for screwed up children. Oh how very trite. Certainly writing something that has already been written thousands of times before for Columbine-related incidents is very brave and ground-breaking, no? It doesn't matter that the stereotype persists-further 'supportive' writing won't do anything but dilute what is already a strong argument. I'm sick of hearing about how its not gaming's fault, especially when the same article tries to pin the blame on another factor of which they know nothing about. Is this a game of hot potato, where the participants are any member of society that COULD have had any remote relationship with the kid? Let's blame The Muppets. He must have watched those as a kid. Those things are evil and sow the seeds of destruction into the minds of children at an impressionable age, and their lessons cannot be uprooted by anything but capital punishment. No, it's far too boring to try to round-robin blame onto someone.
Instead, I have a better idea. The kid didn't realise that people couldn't respawn in real life. This is such an easy problem to remedy. Ban respawning in all games. Why not? Diablo had hardcore mode... And that was awesome! Not only do we prevent the deaths of real people by the hands of morons, but we also improve gaming experiences everywhere! If that's not win-win, I don't know what is. I'm a genius.
http://liti4.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/kid-couldnt-tell-the-difference-between-re-spawn-and-reality/
The article is nothing new though; its another gamer/writer (or more likely... a writer pretending to understand gamers) with the same repeated message: don't blame games, blame the lack of medication/supervision/love for screwed up children. Oh how very trite. Certainly writing something that has already been written thousands of times before for Columbine-related incidents is very brave and ground-breaking, no? It doesn't matter that the stereotype persists-further 'supportive' writing won't do anything but dilute what is already a strong argument. I'm sick of hearing about how its not gaming's fault, especially when the same article tries to pin the blame on another factor of which they know nothing about. Is this a game of hot potato, where the participants are any member of society that COULD have had any remote relationship with the kid? Let's blame The Muppets. He must have watched those as a kid. Those things are evil and sow the seeds of destruction into the minds of children at an impressionable age, and their lessons cannot be uprooted by anything but capital punishment. No, it's far too boring to try to round-robin blame onto someone.
Instead, I have a better idea. The kid didn't realise that people couldn't respawn in real life. This is such an easy problem to remedy. Ban respawning in all games. Why not? Diablo had hardcore mode... And that was awesome! Not only do we prevent the deaths of real people by the hands of morons, but we also improve gaming experiences everywhere! If that's not win-win, I don't know what is. I'm a genius.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Herding Gold and Item Farmers into FPS Games.
Lately, many of my recently played FPS games have notoriously capitalized on RPG-like elements, such as the strengthening of your character over time with acquisition of experience and collected items; statistically represented progression in specific objectives, usually in the form of achievements.
Now I'm not against the evolution of gaming, but a particular question keeps me from embracing the changes: are gamers having more fun when they have steady and statistical representation of their accumulation of experience and skill?
Optimistically, gamers play games for entertainment, but it is necessary to see the darker side of gaming as well: competition and egoism - gamers play to get better. Undeniably, much fun is derived from getting and being better. Achievements, milestones and levels certainly give gamers a better reflection of their current strength and ability, rather than a nebulous idea of where they stand, and often reward the gamer with a boost of extra strength for attaining said accomplishments. While statistics don't necessarily mean the player is better, it does give them confidence and a definite ego boost.
RPG leveling elements can help counterbalance the gaps of player skill, as it rewards a skilled level 20 player and an unskilled level 20 player by the same indiscriminate amount, as opposed to a traditional method where a better player can quickly amass and horde all the best weapons and vehicles on the map, denying others of the opportunity. It also lets players feel rewarded for spending a great deal of time and effort in a game, even if they were often losing and having an unpleasant experience while playing. The achievements give the player a sense of accomplishment that would let the player know not all their time was wasted, and the hope that with enough time, they too would reach greater milestones that will award new bonuses.
However, would adding something like achievements to a real life sport, like tennis result in tennis players having more fun? Certainly people play sports to have fun, but they also do it to better themselves at the game. Would they benefit from having a statistical measurement of their estimated ability, outside of tournament ranking systems? What do you say to them? "Congrats, you have reached the 200 hour milestone for tennis training"... Or maybe, "You have earned achievement: Rocket ball straight into opponent's face." Or perhaps, on low random chance of defeating an opponent, you obtain rare purple tennis shoes, that adds +3 to your dash speed. Is this going to make tennis more fun? Would that even make a tennis VIDEO GAME more fun?
When we isolate the RPG elements to their core, we can see that they can help smoothen out a game experience... But there is a proper method of when and where to use it. The problem that is cropping up in the game industry is that developers are starting to use RPG elements as a cure-all to bolster their game and give it a new shine without contemplating how they could actually IMPROVE the genre of their existing game. Just adding a new leveling feature or touting an achievement pack is not worthy of being mentioned as a selling enticement. Not all games need to be like a RTS, and in fact, it will be soon a breath of fresh air to not have to think about leveling in our games. FPSes were always great for being a game where you could jump in and play, and there were no levels to think about that would inhibit your ability to kick ass. Developers should focus on how to build on the current aspects of their games, while introducing new exciting concepts that were not just hastily borrowed from other genres. Not only are these ideas often poorly translated across genres, but they also do not match the current gameplay, are not forays of originality, and alienate the original player base. And think about it this way: As soon as people have to start grinding for levels or items in whatever game it is, you're going to have the same band of notorious gold-farmers or botters that follow in the wake of every evil RPG. Only this time, the developers are inexperienced with RPG dilemmas and have no idea of what proper countermeasures to employ to safeguard against these corrupters, and the problem only spreads from there. Bottom line: don't play with fire.
Addendum:
Recently, Command and Conquer 4, a RTS in development by EALA, was announced... Yet one of its main features is commanders gaining experience from their battles and leveling up after matches regardless of the outcome, and slowly unlock units and abilities in their arsenal in a manner identical to Call of Duty 4. This is an example of where leveling elements were entirely unnecessary, but as the game was revealed much after the majority of this article was composed, I will save my comments related to it for another time.
Now I'm not against the evolution of gaming, but a particular question keeps me from embracing the changes: are gamers having more fun when they have steady and statistical representation of their accumulation of experience and skill?
Optimistically, gamers play games for entertainment, but it is necessary to see the darker side of gaming as well: competition and egoism - gamers play to get better. Undeniably, much fun is derived from getting and being better. Achievements, milestones and levels certainly give gamers a better reflection of their current strength and ability, rather than a nebulous idea of where they stand, and often reward the gamer with a boost of extra strength for attaining said accomplishments. While statistics don't necessarily mean the player is better, it does give them confidence and a definite ego boost.
RPG leveling elements can help counterbalance the gaps of player skill, as it rewards a skilled level 20 player and an unskilled level 20 player by the same indiscriminate amount, as opposed to a traditional method where a better player can quickly amass and horde all the best weapons and vehicles on the map, denying others of the opportunity. It also lets players feel rewarded for spending a great deal of time and effort in a game, even if they were often losing and having an unpleasant experience while playing. The achievements give the player a sense of accomplishment that would let the player know not all their time was wasted, and the hope that with enough time, they too would reach greater milestones that will award new bonuses.
However, would adding something like achievements to a real life sport, like tennis result in tennis players having more fun? Certainly people play sports to have fun, but they also do it to better themselves at the game. Would they benefit from having a statistical measurement of their estimated ability, outside of tournament ranking systems? What do you say to them? "Congrats, you have reached the 200 hour milestone for tennis training"... Or maybe, "You have earned achievement: Rocket ball straight into opponent's face." Or perhaps, on low random chance of defeating an opponent, you obtain rare purple tennis shoes, that adds +3 to your dash speed. Is this going to make tennis more fun? Would that even make a tennis VIDEO GAME more fun?
When we isolate the RPG elements to their core, we can see that they can help smoothen out a game experience... But there is a proper method of when and where to use it. The problem that is cropping up in the game industry is that developers are starting to use RPG elements as a cure-all to bolster their game and give it a new shine without contemplating how they could actually IMPROVE the genre of their existing game. Just adding a new leveling feature or touting an achievement pack is not worthy of being mentioned as a selling enticement. Not all games need to be like a RTS, and in fact, it will be soon a breath of fresh air to not have to think about leveling in our games. FPSes were always great for being a game where you could jump in and play, and there were no levels to think about that would inhibit your ability to kick ass. Developers should focus on how to build on the current aspects of their games, while introducing new exciting concepts that were not just hastily borrowed from other genres. Not only are these ideas often poorly translated across genres, but they also do not match the current gameplay, are not forays of originality, and alienate the original player base. And think about it this way: As soon as people have to start grinding for levels or items in whatever game it is, you're going to have the same band of notorious gold-farmers or botters that follow in the wake of every evil RPG. Only this time, the developers are inexperienced with RPG dilemmas and have no idea of what proper countermeasures to employ to safeguard against these corrupters, and the problem only spreads from there. Bottom line: don't play with fire.
Addendum:
Recently, Command and Conquer 4, a RTS in development by EALA, was announced... Yet one of its main features is commanders gaining experience from their battles and leveling up after matches regardless of the outcome, and slowly unlock units and abilities in their arsenal in a manner identical to Call of Duty 4. This is an example of where leveling elements were entirely unnecessary, but as the game was revealed much after the majority of this article was composed, I will save my comments related to it for another time.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Rule of Rose - If virtual scavenger hunt was a game, this would be it
You've probably not heard of Rule of Rose but you know it was banned. Why was it banned? Well I wasn't really sure until I did some research for the sake of this post. It was banned in the UK along with some other countries. I was thinking "This must be the scariest game in the world!" But I was wrong. It was banned for Psychological torture. You're thinking what the hell is that supposed to mean? Violence and torture by kids towards other kids. Also underage lesbianism as well. The psychological torture isn't the game characters, its on you for playing this game. Its torturing you with its boring running around.
Rule of Rose is a very short horror game by Atlus, yes another Atlus game. I'm not bashing on Atlus games or anything it just happen to be Atlus that made these games. For example, I thought Disgaea to be fairly fun even though the story was crazy and the council system stupid and the whole thing was annoying as hell. You know what, that game sucked. How about Rhapsody: A musical adventure then? Your a girl rescuing the prince with an army of stuffed animals. Cutest game in the world. Not something you'd want to admit to playing though. Anyways enough about Atlus games.
Its one of those horror games where you are a helpless girl instead of someone with a gun shooting hordes of zombies. Only exception is that those games you're actually scared. The difference between those games is that there is something chasing you. You're actually running away. You're in a panic. In rule of rose it has none of that. If its a horror game without horror then what exactly is it? It can't be something and not something at the same time. If I had to describe it as something else then I'll say its like a virtual scavenger hunt and a fairy tale. Doesn't' sound very scary does it. Its not meant to be scary.
The game is set in the 1930's somewhere in Europe. It's made for people with European fetishes. I don't blame them because Europeans are hot, but since this is Japan most of them are 12. You start off the game as Jennifer, a 19 year old young woman on a bus and some boy asks you to read him a story. Then he runs off and you chase him for some odd reason and end up at a orphanage. Off the start you can see some kids with paper bags on their head bashing an animal tied in a bag to death with sticks. Sets the mood of the game because that's you in the bag and those sticks are the game play and those kids are the developers. After you get past the bloody mess you open the door and its mysteriously locked. I was thinking "Ohh typical haunted house game?" No you just wander around and start digging at a grave and some girls come and pour water all over you and push you inside the coffin. Now you wake up on an airship and the kids ask you to join the "Aristocrats club" Every month you need to give them a gift or they kill you.
I just want to point out how much I hate Jennifer. She's absolutely frightened of everything. She'll faint randomly or get scared and start shaking and scream all the time and break down crying. Everything makes her yelp and everything scares her to the point of going insane. She's probably already insane.
The story is divided into chapters and each chapter is a different month. The chapters are not always chronological either. Now you're untied you get to walk around the airship that is like four times the size of Russia. You go to the Aristocrat Club door and the poster says "This month's gift is a butterfly." Now you have to find a butterfly. You walk around the huge airship looking for a butterfly but half the doors are locked or unopenable. Eventually though as you talk to people or see scenes more of these doors will be open. But you have no indication of what will be opened and what will be locked next. So you'll have to keep looking around. If you have a bad sense of direction you'll probably be stuck lost running around in circles. The good thing is 90% of the game you are in the airship. Its just different sections are open and closed during different months and people move around. Eventually even if you suck at directions you'll memorize it since you'll be bashing the walls with your fist if you can't find a door or room.
Near the start you'll find your pet dog "Brown" and the game gets much easier. You are able to let him search for items by looking at your inventory. If the item says "Find ??????" Then you can let brown smell it and he'll go looking for the ?????? item. Nothing is in plain sight. If you know where it is, you can't find it unless brown smells it and barks. But at least you have a dog now right? Well sometimes it wants to go into locked rooms so you're stuck finding things out yourselves. Unfortunately Brown isn't of much use in combat. In fact he just stands there blocking your way.
Combat in this game sucks. I know they are trying to make the game a little realistic with you being a helpless girl. I thought something like Clock Tower series made it right where when you run your panic meter rises and you start running more and more wildly. In here you pretty much just "run" around and when you attack its slow and awkward. Jennifer closes her eyes and turns the other way while waving whatever weapon she finds in front of her. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be closing my eyes while waving whatever I have in front of me hoping it'll fall dead. Because chances are they'll miss if I'm not looking and I'm dead. Well that's exactly what happens. You're accuracy is terrible. If you miss it takes a long time for you to stop the attack and "run" away. And by running I mean walking. You don't exactly run even though the animation shows you running. Its like someone trying to run as slow as they can. Your weapons can be anything you find. For example the first combat you see is a weird child and you're armed with a fork. You stab the thing to death with your fork.
Another thing is that items have no indicator on how powerful it might be. You would have to guess the lethality on the weapon and then actually test it out. Combat is awkward as your goal is to walk behind them and stab them then run away. This pretty much is the only way to fight as getting hit about 2-4 times means you are dead and you'll need to hit them around 6-8 times to kill something. Most things come in packs and when you get hit you're stuck which means if you get ganged up on you're dead by just one hit. Bosses are different. It's much easier because they are alone but they are an endurance fight. It'll take you five minutes just to kill something repeating the same thing over and over again. Most combat can be avoided though, until you get to ones where its like a pack of mobs inside a small room. The room is locked until you clear the enemies. That's the hardest part of the game. The game itself is confusing as there is not a lot of combat and there is no scare at all. You're just mindlessly running around talking to people finding items. At the end of every chapter though you'll get tortured.
The game itself is about you remembering a lost memory. Everything is something that happened in the past and all the people are ones you knew. It starts to build up slowly and slowly until you get to the ending. Its like a suspense movie that stopped halfway and said "hey movie is over! Haha suck it up we're not telling you the rest go home and bitch." It never really explained what happened. The enemies are things from your past that comes back to haunt you. The whole game has a fairy tale vibe from the very beginning with the chapter Once upon a time... to the enemies and even the narration. If you're looking for horror this is not it. If you are looking for combat this is not it. If you're looking for a story this is not it. What is it then? What exactly is it?
The story might be the main point of the game but the combat and the searching is so frustrating it really grates on your sanity. Not only that its a slap in the face as it ends without telling you anything at all. You're still lost in the end as everything is just a messed up fairy tale like Alice in Wonderland. I love fairy tales. But this story is like a hole in your head being filled with vomit. Also if you happen to finish the game you get a special key that lets you go into a room where you can change your costume. You can switch to things such as, nurse costume, tennis costume, gothic lolita costume, octopus costume, and even a chair. Yes a chair. Your dog brown also changes too and you get matching weapons that are super powerful. For example as a Octopus your dog becomes a crab and you get to wield a frozen tuna. Check it out on youtube if you don't believe me. It's completely stupid though. Who'd want to play it a second time?
A good thing about the game is the graphics, the music, and the feel. The graphics you can set to have a grainy effect. I especially like this effect. It feels like you're in a old movie. The music is amazing. I can sit there and listen to it all day. Its mostly string instruments and piano. The feel of the game with the music and the graphics makes it really feel like the 1930's. Unfortunately, this is all that is good about the game. If you like to be tortured by playing a boring game then go ahead.
Rule of Rose is a very short horror game by Atlus, yes another Atlus game. I'm not bashing on Atlus games or anything it just happen to be Atlus that made these games. For example, I thought Disgaea to be fairly fun even though the story was crazy and the council system stupid and the whole thing was annoying as hell. You know what, that game sucked. How about Rhapsody: A musical adventure then? Your a girl rescuing the prince with an army of stuffed animals. Cutest game in the world. Not something you'd want to admit to playing though. Anyways enough about Atlus games.
Its one of those horror games where you are a helpless girl instead of someone with a gun shooting hordes of zombies. Only exception is that those games you're actually scared. The difference between those games is that there is something chasing you. You're actually running away. You're in a panic. In rule of rose it has none of that. If its a horror game without horror then what exactly is it? It can't be something and not something at the same time. If I had to describe it as something else then I'll say its like a virtual scavenger hunt and a fairy tale. Doesn't' sound very scary does it. Its not meant to be scary.
The game is set in the 1930's somewhere in Europe. It's made for people with European fetishes. I don't blame them because Europeans are hot, but since this is Japan most of them are 12. You start off the game as Jennifer, a 19 year old young woman on a bus and some boy asks you to read him a story. Then he runs off and you chase him for some odd reason and end up at a orphanage. Off the start you can see some kids with paper bags on their head bashing an animal tied in a bag to death with sticks. Sets the mood of the game because that's you in the bag and those sticks are the game play and those kids are the developers. After you get past the bloody mess you open the door and its mysteriously locked. I was thinking "Ohh typical haunted house game?" No you just wander around and start digging at a grave and some girls come and pour water all over you and push you inside the coffin. Now you wake up on an airship and the kids ask you to join the "Aristocrats club" Every month you need to give them a gift or they kill you.
I just want to point out how much I hate Jennifer. She's absolutely frightened of everything. She'll faint randomly or get scared and start shaking and scream all the time and break down crying. Everything makes her yelp and everything scares her to the point of going insane. She's probably already insane.
The story is divided into chapters and each chapter is a different month. The chapters are not always chronological either. Now you're untied you get to walk around the airship that is like four times the size of Russia. You go to the Aristocrat Club door and the poster says "This month's gift is a butterfly." Now you have to find a butterfly. You walk around the huge airship looking for a butterfly but half the doors are locked or unopenable. Eventually though as you talk to people or see scenes more of these doors will be open. But you have no indication of what will be opened and what will be locked next. So you'll have to keep looking around. If you have a bad sense of direction you'll probably be stuck lost running around in circles. The good thing is 90% of the game you are in the airship. Its just different sections are open and closed during different months and people move around. Eventually even if you suck at directions you'll memorize it since you'll be bashing the walls with your fist if you can't find a door or room.
Near the start you'll find your pet dog "Brown" and the game gets much easier. You are able to let him search for items by looking at your inventory. If the item says "Find ??????" Then you can let brown smell it and he'll go looking for the ?????? item. Nothing is in plain sight. If you know where it is, you can't find it unless brown smells it and barks. But at least you have a dog now right? Well sometimes it wants to go into locked rooms so you're stuck finding things out yourselves. Unfortunately Brown isn't of much use in combat. In fact he just stands there blocking your way.
Combat in this game sucks. I know they are trying to make the game a little realistic with you being a helpless girl. I thought something like Clock Tower series made it right where when you run your panic meter rises and you start running more and more wildly. In here you pretty much just "run" around and when you attack its slow and awkward. Jennifer closes her eyes and turns the other way while waving whatever weapon she finds in front of her. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be closing my eyes while waving whatever I have in front of me hoping it'll fall dead. Because chances are they'll miss if I'm not looking and I'm dead. Well that's exactly what happens. You're accuracy is terrible. If you miss it takes a long time for you to stop the attack and "run" away. And by running I mean walking. You don't exactly run even though the animation shows you running. Its like someone trying to run as slow as they can. Your weapons can be anything you find. For example the first combat you see is a weird child and you're armed with a fork. You stab the thing to death with your fork.
Another thing is that items have no indicator on how powerful it might be. You would have to guess the lethality on the weapon and then actually test it out. Combat is awkward as your goal is to walk behind them and stab them then run away. This pretty much is the only way to fight as getting hit about 2-4 times means you are dead and you'll need to hit them around 6-8 times to kill something. Most things come in packs and when you get hit you're stuck which means if you get ganged up on you're dead by just one hit. Bosses are different. It's much easier because they are alone but they are an endurance fight. It'll take you five minutes just to kill something repeating the same thing over and over again. Most combat can be avoided though, until you get to ones where its like a pack of mobs inside a small room. The room is locked until you clear the enemies. That's the hardest part of the game. The game itself is confusing as there is not a lot of combat and there is no scare at all. You're just mindlessly running around talking to people finding items. At the end of every chapter though you'll get tortured.
The game itself is about you remembering a lost memory. Everything is something that happened in the past and all the people are ones you knew. It starts to build up slowly and slowly until you get to the ending. Its like a suspense movie that stopped halfway and said "hey movie is over! Haha suck it up we're not telling you the rest go home and bitch." It never really explained what happened. The enemies are things from your past that comes back to haunt you. The whole game has a fairy tale vibe from the very beginning with the chapter Once upon a time... to the enemies and even the narration. If you're looking for horror this is not it. If you are looking for combat this is not it. If you're looking for a story this is not it. What is it then? What exactly is it?
The story might be the main point of the game but the combat and the searching is so frustrating it really grates on your sanity. Not only that its a slap in the face as it ends without telling you anything at all. You're still lost in the end as everything is just a messed up fairy tale like Alice in Wonderland. I love fairy tales. But this story is like a hole in your head being filled with vomit. Also if you happen to finish the game you get a special key that lets you go into a room where you can change your costume. You can switch to things such as, nurse costume, tennis costume, gothic lolita costume, octopus costume, and even a chair. Yes a chair. Your dog brown also changes too and you get matching weapons that are super powerful. For example as a Octopus your dog becomes a crab and you get to wield a frozen tuna. Check it out on youtube if you don't believe me. It's completely stupid though. Who'd want to play it a second time?
A good thing about the game is the graphics, the music, and the feel. The graphics you can set to have a grainy effect. I especially like this effect. It feels like you're in a old movie. The music is amazing. I can sit there and listen to it all day. Its mostly string instruments and piano. The feel of the game with the music and the graphics makes it really feel like the 1930's. Unfortunately, this is all that is good about the game. If you like to be tortured by playing a boring game then go ahead.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
The Last Remnant Part 2 - Overglorified Coin Tossing
Last time, we finished talking about the horrid battle system that turns TLR into a coin tossing nightmare, where the game developers have assumed that a system of chance and sheer luck would fairly even the playing field between skilled players who could strategically plan ahead and those who just mashed buttons. The fun has only just begun.
One thing that becomes tediously unmanageable is the method in which the game tries to add layers of complexity and detail. Players can collect materials and components from their battles and use them to upgrade existing gear (instead of just selling the loot like vendor trash). In addition, often times monsters will drop 'eggs' which can be broken down into more components at the end of the battle in which they were acquired. Eggs can be sold for a greater amount of cash at vendors if they aren't broken down, so we can see that Square wanted to give their players a choice, and put their decision making abilities to the test. One thing you will notice is that the eggs can be disassembled into individual materials immediately after completion of a battle, but whatever decision you choose will be permanent; disassembled eggs cannot be reassembled, and eggs you have not disassembled cannot be disassembled later. While this is a frustrating mechanic that limits the player to making an immediate choice, I can sympathize, as allowing the player the freedom to disassemble later on removes any possible shortcoming of holding onto as many eggs as possible.
What is worth complaining about is the lack of information given. When presented with the egg disassembly screen, you are told what materials the egg is comprised of, but you are not told what the materials are for. As there are thousands of upgrade materials, you have NO idea whether or not you should disassemble the egg as you do not know if you even need the disasembled materials or not. The only method is to have previously WRITTEN DOWN the materials and quantities required while at the Blacksmith, PRECEDING and OUTSIDE of battle. You absolutely need a notepad to play this game. Worse, your party members will need upgrade materials as well to upgrade their own equipment. While you do know what items they are looking for, you will have no idea how much of each component they need. If your party member has 5 of 6 Feathered Skull Husks required to reach his next upgrade tier, you will not be told that he needs 6, nor will you be told how many are remaining before he reaches his next tier, nor will you be able to control how many he gets the next time the material drops. So if 20 Feathered Skull Husks (yes the component names really are that long) drop the next battle, either your teammate with 5/6 gets all 20 or nothing at all. If your 20 party members all require a common material... Good luck getting it for them, as it'll take five times as long to gather the components because of the wasteful loot distribution system. Once a party member receives an item, you can no longer take it away from them; it's gone forever.
In the same vein of taking control away from the player in the dumbest way possible, you cannot control the equipment your party members equip. This is silly, since you are capable of picking up, creating and purchasing equipment that is strictly confined to certain races (most of which your main character is not). So how do you get your party members to equip this epic item that you found for them? You have to enter and exit the world map repeatedly until your party member ASKS you to lend the item to him or her. Once they have it equipped, again, you will not be able to repossess it or assign it to someone else, unless you provide them with even better equipment that will overwrite that slot. What was Square thinking? How does this better gameplay in any aspect but convolute something that should be damned simple? You never get to see how the comparison of your party member's stats before and after the item is equipped, so it's really hard to tell who should get what in the first place! But once you fuck up, it's over; there's no going back, you mind as well reload your save. Hey I have a great idea, how about if when the game starts, you get a totally unrelated decision of which you have not gotten any information about how to answer correctly, and if you make the wrong choice, your game turns off! More coin tossing, anyone?
What about the game's skill trees? As your character (or your party members) starts to level up, you will gain access to new skill trees, such as potion abilities, herbal abilities, magic abilities, melee... etc. In the same way as mentioned above, on a random chance of entering the world map, you will be confronted with the daunting question 'Shall I focus on melee skills or diversify into magic?'....... Wait, is the character melee based or magic based? What are his stats like? What skills will he learn in the future for either tree? Is diversifying going to slow his leveling? How many other casters do I already have in my 20 man team? None of this is answered, but you must make a decision right away, which invariably, irreversibly and ultimately affects the outcome of the rest of the game. Once you answer, there is no going back, even if the character in question has not actually placed any experience into their new tree yet. TLR is a game of uneducated decision making where tossing a coin is as effective as trying to understand the mechanics of the game intimately.
The last thing that annoys me severely is Square's attempt to move away from the traditional by eliminating the level system. Instead of having levels to represent character strength, it is now apparently the cool thing to have no levels. When has this ever been a good idea, especially in a method that is as poorly implemented as in TLR? While no levels appear on any of your characters, your character does indeed have individual hidden levels. You will notice a drastic difference in skill between unleveled members of your party, versus leveled ones. Ones that die often in combat, or are benched often will be drastically weaker than those who survive and fight on. However, Square does away with the leveling system, so you have no idea whether or not your party members are the most fit for battle of the lot of fighters at your disposal. You may be fielding severely weak and underleveled party members and not even realise it until you see them get one-shotted by a boss. Yet, you do see an aggregate level called 'Battle Ranking' that rates the aggregate strength of your entire party... So then what the hell is the point of having this awkward no-level system when ultimately, in the background of it all, there IS a level count, and the AI sure as hell knows what it is, but they aren't going to tell you. Talk about pointless.
Seriously, Square needs to understand that if they want to be original and innovative, they have to actually incorporate some brilliance and sensibility into the design. By changing the outlying appearance of the game, they've implemented half-assed features that do more to cripple the game than enhance it. And it's not just Square that is guilty of this as many other developers have taken the idea of being ground breaking to the level that they would have done much better by sticking to what they know. Not everyone in this universe is a brilliant genius, and out of the hundred people who jumped off a cliff with a prototype parachute, only one managed to deploy it. Square is one of the many who ended up as a bloody splatter in their blind approach to finding a winning formula. Innovative ideas may sound mad at conception, but it's the ones with method in their madness that find success... TLR is an exercise in sheer idiotic lunacy.
One thing that becomes tediously unmanageable is the method in which the game tries to add layers of complexity and detail. Players can collect materials and components from their battles and use them to upgrade existing gear (instead of just selling the loot like vendor trash). In addition, often times monsters will drop 'eggs' which can be broken down into more components at the end of the battle in which they were acquired. Eggs can be sold for a greater amount of cash at vendors if they aren't broken down, so we can see that Square wanted to give their players a choice, and put their decision making abilities to the test. One thing you will notice is that the eggs can be disassembled into individual materials immediately after completion of a battle, but whatever decision you choose will be permanent; disassembled eggs cannot be reassembled, and eggs you have not disassembled cannot be disassembled later. While this is a frustrating mechanic that limits the player to making an immediate choice, I can sympathize, as allowing the player the freedom to disassemble later on removes any possible shortcoming of holding onto as many eggs as possible.
What is worth complaining about is the lack of information given. When presented with the egg disassembly screen, you are told what materials the egg is comprised of, but you are not told what the materials are for. As there are thousands of upgrade materials, you have NO idea whether or not you should disassemble the egg as you do not know if you even need the disasembled materials or not. The only method is to have previously WRITTEN DOWN the materials and quantities required while at the Blacksmith, PRECEDING and OUTSIDE of battle. You absolutely need a notepad to play this game. Worse, your party members will need upgrade materials as well to upgrade their own equipment. While you do know what items they are looking for, you will have no idea how much of each component they need. If your party member has 5 of 6 Feathered Skull Husks required to reach his next upgrade tier, you will not be told that he needs 6, nor will you be told how many are remaining before he reaches his next tier, nor will you be able to control how many he gets the next time the material drops. So if 20 Feathered Skull Husks (yes the component names really are that long) drop the next battle, either your teammate with 5/6 gets all 20 or nothing at all. If your 20 party members all require a common material... Good luck getting it for them, as it'll take five times as long to gather the components because of the wasteful loot distribution system. Once a party member receives an item, you can no longer take it away from them; it's gone forever.
In the same vein of taking control away from the player in the dumbest way possible, you cannot control the equipment your party members equip. This is silly, since you are capable of picking up, creating and purchasing equipment that is strictly confined to certain races (most of which your main character is not). So how do you get your party members to equip this epic item that you found for them? You have to enter and exit the world map repeatedly until your party member ASKS you to lend the item to him or her. Once they have it equipped, again, you will not be able to repossess it or assign it to someone else, unless you provide them with even better equipment that will overwrite that slot. What was Square thinking? How does this better gameplay in any aspect but convolute something that should be damned simple? You never get to see how the comparison of your party member's stats before and after the item is equipped, so it's really hard to tell who should get what in the first place! But once you fuck up, it's over; there's no going back, you mind as well reload your save. Hey I have a great idea, how about if when the game starts, you get a totally unrelated decision of which you have not gotten any information about how to answer correctly, and if you make the wrong choice, your game turns off! More coin tossing, anyone?
What about the game's skill trees? As your character (or your party members) starts to level up, you will gain access to new skill trees, such as potion abilities, herbal abilities, magic abilities, melee... etc. In the same way as mentioned above, on a random chance of entering the world map, you will be confronted with the daunting question 'Shall I focus on melee skills or diversify into magic?'....... Wait, is the character melee based or magic based? What are his stats like? What skills will he learn in the future for either tree? Is diversifying going to slow his leveling? How many other casters do I already have in my 20 man team? None of this is answered, but you must make a decision right away, which invariably, irreversibly and ultimately affects the outcome of the rest of the game. Once you answer, there is no going back, even if the character in question has not actually placed any experience into their new tree yet. TLR is a game of uneducated decision making where tossing a coin is as effective as trying to understand the mechanics of the game intimately.
The last thing that annoys me severely is Square's attempt to move away from the traditional by eliminating the level system. Instead of having levels to represent character strength, it is now apparently the cool thing to have no levels. When has this ever been a good idea, especially in a method that is as poorly implemented as in TLR? While no levels appear on any of your characters, your character does indeed have individual hidden levels. You will notice a drastic difference in skill between unleveled members of your party, versus leveled ones. Ones that die often in combat, or are benched often will be drastically weaker than those who survive and fight on. However, Square does away with the leveling system, so you have no idea whether or not your party members are the most fit for battle of the lot of fighters at your disposal. You may be fielding severely weak and underleveled party members and not even realise it until you see them get one-shotted by a boss. Yet, you do see an aggregate level called 'Battle Ranking' that rates the aggregate strength of your entire party... So then what the hell is the point of having this awkward no-level system when ultimately, in the background of it all, there IS a level count, and the AI sure as hell knows what it is, but they aren't going to tell you. Talk about pointless.
Seriously, Square needs to understand that if they want to be original and innovative, they have to actually incorporate some brilliance and sensibility into the design. By changing the outlying appearance of the game, they've implemented half-assed features that do more to cripple the game than enhance it. And it's not just Square that is guilty of this as many other developers have taken the idea of being ground breaking to the level that they would have done much better by sticking to what they know. Not everyone in this universe is a brilliant genius, and out of the hundred people who jumped off a cliff with a prototype parachute, only one managed to deploy it. Square is one of the many who ended up as a bloody splatter in their blind approach to finding a winning formula. Innovative ideas may sound mad at conception, but it's the ones with method in their madness that find success... TLR is an exercise in sheer idiotic lunacy.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Odin Sphere Ending - Prophecies are 100% true! (spoilers below)
I like how that every book is moving at its own pace but it all sort of fits into place and meets in the final book the Armageddon. It was nicely done but a let down because all the good characters are dead and all the shitty ones remain. Now about the ending, to get the real ending, you must read the poem in Velvet's book you get from Lord Gallon to understand what is happening.
THE land sinks into
the cauldron's fire
THROUGH blades and
arrows are unleashed,
the flooding fire
cannot be stopped
IT can only be chained
A FIERY 6-eyed beast
speeds the guiding
hand of salvation
THE one who removes
the torment is mine
own son
THE Lord of the
Netherworld emerges in
a triumphant march of
death
ONE that threatens
the darkness is the
shadow of the lost
master
THE looming blaze
cometh, burning
down the forests
THE flood of fire that
man cannot withstand
is halted by the world
tree and vanishes
THE Lord of Snakes
consumes all left behind
BORN in chaos and fire
SLEEP in mother's arms
LIFE disappears from
the land
ALL comes to an end
THE ring shall be lost
THE birthing cry of
newborn souls
WELCOMING two
crownless lords that
shall survive the
Armageddon and
lead the revival
HOLY SHIT!? WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN!? Yeah that's what I said too. But luckily for you a NPC helped decipher the poem for you and dropped a ton of hints. But unfortunately, the NPC is in Velvet's book therefore he does not know about the fate of the people in the other books. So you're going what the hell? Who do I pick for the bosses ahead? Well here is something shitty for you. If you happen to pick something wrong and go "oh wait it must be that other guy!" You're locked in the book and you must finish it and get the bad ending and redo the book all over after you're done. Every ending is a bad ending except the true ending if you follow that poem above.
At first I didn't realize I had to look at the poem as you have to go back into a book to read the text you've collected in the game. The book itself is painful. Because you didn't get the good things from the later books for the earlier books you'll have to go back and replay your books to level up if you didn't and to get some potions and such. The bad thing is, you'll have to start from chapter 1. Yes, you have to go through the whole book AGAIN. How can it get any worse right? Well it can because everything kills you in 1 hit in the final book. So you'll have to stock up on Elixirs and Painkillers. That's a lot of time spent on your characters going back and everything. I guess this is their strategy. Make you repeat the same shit over and over to rack up on game time. The good thing though is that all the bosses in the final book are unique. With the exception of one.
I assume most people will get the bad ending, realize they have to read the poem and get another bad ending because its vague then get the real ending. That is an average of three tries of the book! The worst part is you need to do every boss with every character to get every scene in the archive. Every character has a unique scene for the boss. This just makes everything longer than it has to. I'm not surprised though, considering we had to do everything in the game at least five times through. It is not after you are done that you understand what it means.
The most annoying part of the poem is that you don't know until after you picked the right character and finished it that you go, "oh so this is how it is! What a twist! Let's all go and vomit blood out of our throats!"
After you managed to get through that train wreck of a poem you get the ending. Which is like five minutes long and 4 and a half minutes of it is the credits. It was disappointing because I thought it would continue on and finish off the books but it didn't as the book itself is just a part of the bigger picture, aka the final book. For a game that focuses on storyline, the story itself is really minimal in this game. If you skip the combat you can go though a book in like ten minutes.
THE land sinks into
the cauldron's fire
THROUGH blades and
arrows are unleashed,
the flooding fire
cannot be stopped
IT can only be chained
A FIERY 6-eyed beast
speeds the guiding
hand of salvation
THE one who removes
the torment is mine
own son
THE Lord of the
Netherworld emerges in
a triumphant march of
death
ONE that threatens
the darkness is the
shadow of the lost
master
THE looming blaze
cometh, burning
down the forests
THE flood of fire that
man cannot withstand
is halted by the world
tree and vanishes
THE Lord of Snakes
consumes all left behind
BORN in chaos and fire
SLEEP in mother's arms
LIFE disappears from
the land
ALL comes to an end
THE ring shall be lost
THE birthing cry of
newborn souls
WELCOMING two
crownless lords that
shall survive the
Armageddon and
lead the revival
HOLY SHIT!? WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN!? Yeah that's what I said too. But luckily for you a NPC helped decipher the poem for you and dropped a ton of hints. But unfortunately, the NPC is in Velvet's book therefore he does not know about the fate of the people in the other books. So you're going what the hell? Who do I pick for the bosses ahead? Well here is something shitty for you. If you happen to pick something wrong and go "oh wait it must be that other guy!" You're locked in the book and you must finish it and get the bad ending and redo the book all over after you're done. Every ending is a bad ending except the true ending if you follow that poem above.
At first I didn't realize I had to look at the poem as you have to go back into a book to read the text you've collected in the game. The book itself is painful. Because you didn't get the good things from the later books for the earlier books you'll have to go back and replay your books to level up if you didn't and to get some potions and such. The bad thing is, you'll have to start from chapter 1. Yes, you have to go through the whole book AGAIN. How can it get any worse right? Well it can because everything kills you in 1 hit in the final book. So you'll have to stock up on Elixirs and Painkillers. That's a lot of time spent on your characters going back and everything. I guess this is their strategy. Make you repeat the same shit over and over to rack up on game time. The good thing though is that all the bosses in the final book are unique. With the exception of one.
I assume most people will get the bad ending, realize they have to read the poem and get another bad ending because its vague then get the real ending. That is an average of three tries of the book! The worst part is you need to do every boss with every character to get every scene in the archive. Every character has a unique scene for the boss. This just makes everything longer than it has to. I'm not surprised though, considering we had to do everything in the game at least five times through. It is not after you are done that you understand what it means.
The most annoying part of the poem is that you don't know until after you picked the right character and finished it that you go, "oh so this is how it is! What a twist! Let's all go and vomit blood out of our throats!"
After you managed to get through that train wreck of a poem you get the ending. Which is like five minutes long and 4 and a half minutes of it is the credits. It was disappointing because I thought it would continue on and finish off the books but it didn't as the book itself is just a part of the bigger picture, aka the final book. For a game that focuses on storyline, the story itself is really minimal in this game. If you skip the combat you can go though a book in like ten minutes.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Odin Sphere - Where playing once isn't enough
Odin Sphere is made by Vanillaware and published by Atlus. It is considered to be the spiritual successor of Princess Crown. Although I never played it, I've been told it was enjoyable. The entire idea of this game is you are a little girl in a room and there are books laying around. As you pick up a book and read the story, you control the main character as he or she goes on their adventures. As one book is completed, more books open up. This game is kind of like the Tales series meets Valkyrie Profile. Yes, this actually is like the Tales series! You are wondering how I got to know this game. Well, it's Cent. Do I wish horrible death upon him for this game? Not really. I enjoyed the story of this game.
First off each book is divided the same way:
Prelude - Introduction
Chapter 1 - Plot
Chapter 2 - Plot
Chapter 3 - Plot
Chapter 4 - Plot
Chapter 5 - Plot
Chapter 6 - Plot
Epilogue - Ending
And every chapter has a few acts too. Every chapter starts the same way. You are in town, which allows you to move like a side-scroller, Valkyrie profile style. You press up to enter buildings to exit places. Then when you exit you are at the world map and you can choose where to go. Visit old places or continue with the story. If you choose to continue the story it will change acts and a small cut scene will happen. After the cut scene you are thrown into the dungeon. After clearing the dungeon towards the boss you are met with a cut scene and then you fight the boss. After the boss is another cut scene. After that you are onto the next chapter in town. Repeat until after the epilogue.
Each book focuses on a specific hero who is related to one of the few royal families in the story. All books are set in the same world and at different time frames which overlap. Characters overlap each other and their stories are intertwined. Here are the five main books and their characters. I included a small introduction
Book 1: Valkyrie - You play as Gwendolyn, daughter of the Demon Lord Odin, king of Ragnaviel. You follow your father's plans to fight against the fairy army and to claim the cauldron that annihilated the kingdom of Valentine. You are eventually wed to Oswald the Shadow Knight, also the enemy's greatest fighter. Afraid at first, but soon you realize his kindness.
Book 2: The Pooka Prince - You play as Cornelius, the prince of Titania, who has a relationship with Velvet the princess of Valentine against the wishes of your father and his advisers. One day you wake up being cursed and transformed into a Pooka. You must find a way to change back, and help Velvet while hiding your identity as you are afraid of her reaction.
Book 3: Fairyland - You play as Mercedes, the princess of Ringford, the fairies. Your mother, the queen was brutally murdered by the Demon Lord Odin and you are now the queen. You must lead your army to victory and stop Odin from taking the cauldron as if it is ever activated, it will absorb all the psyphers and all faeries will be wiped from the world.
Book 4: The Black Sword - You play as Oswald, the shadow knight. You are an orphan that was adopted by the fairies and used as a tool for victory. You are the greatest fighter but cursed to a fate of death by your adoptive father. You move from one person to serve to another until you finally met Gwendolyn.
Book 5: Fate - You play as Velvet the princess of Valentine. You and your twin brother Ingway were cursed to death by your mother who had the ability to see into the future. You must find a way to defy your destiny.
Book 6: ??? - The final book. Won't spoil it.
That's a lot of books isn't it. But the story itself isn't very long as 90% of the game is in the combat. Combat itself is like the Tales series. Real action side-scrolling. It's fun as the characters are all different, have their unique style, and strength and weaknesses. Sometimes, its just downright frustrating. Every dungeon has a few stages and mini-boss stage and the boss stage. Each stage is the same you are in a side-scrolling map and the entire map itself is a circle so if you keep running in one direction you'll never reach an end. Monsters will spawn, you kill them and when they are all dead it will calculate a rank based on your speed, damage, and damage taken. Depending on your rank you will get better rewards from the chest that spawns. After you are done grabbing the chest you move to another stage and repeat the process.
That doesn't sound so bad. It sounds enjoyable. Well it is, the first time around. Unfortunately for you, you need to play though the game five times over just for the main storyline and about...11 times for the final book if you want to get every scene. I want to point out that, every dungeon is the same, every map is the same, every mini boss is the same, and every boss is the same. For all five books. You don't fight them in the same order and you don't fight every boss but most bosses you need to fight 3-4 times in the game. It was fun the first time, they could have thought of something new right? Depending on the character the bosses might get harder or easier. For example, Gwendolyn and Cornelius are pretty rounded characters. Mercedes has a bow that's fast but you need to take around 5 seconds to reload once you are out of ammo. Oswald is fast but his air attack sucks and his close range attack is weak. Velvet is the slowest, hits the weakest, and has the worst POW out of any character, but she dominates anything in the air.
For example, Wagner the dragon. He flies around and breathes fire. When you fight him with Cornelius, you have a hard time getting to him and hitting him because you're hopping on the ground. If you are Mercedes, you can fly up and shoot him with your bow and dodge every single attack he does. Its like shooting a fish in a barrel. The most amazing one is Velvet. She just jumps up and swings her chain and it drops in seconds. Then there are times where bosses are completely frustrating because your character does horrible against them. Every boss there is a few ways to beat it. First way is to learn their combos and avoid their attacks and kill them without taking much damage. This will be the way everyone will go for. The second way is to have a ton of healing items and spam them constantly when you get hit and wear out the boss. This will the the way people will pick if they are horribly under leveled or bad at combat. The final way is to grind endlessly until you learn Overcharge, a skill that allows you to do double damage for the duration. This will make boss battles end so fast they don't have time to hit you.
All characters have the exact same skills and Overcharge is usually the final if not the second final skill they will learn. Probably something you wouldn't need right? Well, lets just say this game has the tendency to lag. If there are many projectiles or things on the screen. Everything will slow down. This usually means you are not able to dodge attacks. So you would spam more potions than you would normally do right? That's ok right? No. Some bosses have the ability to kill you in one hit. This includes regular monsters too. While combat itself is not hard, the occasional hit from one of those can be frustrating. A good thing is if you die, you restart the stage. If you happen to lag and is unable to dodge these hits then even potions cannot help you there. You must resort to using Overcharge. While Overcharge alone isn't a instant win. It helps you finish the fight faster before it can lag and kill you.
Another thing about this game is not only does it lag a lot when there are a ton of stuff. The loading times are terrible. Every stage you need to sit there while your playstation loads for about a minute. Then you enter the stage. The stage doesn't start right away though, it usually takes up to 20-30 seconds to start. Even then some monsters don't spawn right away. One example is Revenant, the mini-boss. It took me exactly 58 seconds running around before it finally spawned on me. Why won't they spawn right away? To give you time to prepare? Not exactly. Sometimes when you think you have time and you're busy doing things on your PC when you get attacked by a mob of monsters. You're going "What? Instant battle?" If it can spawn instantly sometimes why not do it for every battle? The loading time is long enough at it is, you shouldn't need another wait time. If you revisit cleared stages it becomes a safe map and the music changes. If you were to wait there and go do something else. When you come back you might find yourself dead. Why? Because shit will spawn and kill you. Yes, monsters spawns in safe spots.
Combat may be frustrating and repetitive but the storyline is always different for every character. Sometimes you know whats going to happen because of a previous storyline you met that character before as an enemy or such, But this time you are on the opposite side, you know why they are doing what they are doing. Neither side is wrong, they all have their reasons to do what they are doing. Maybe it was the wrong place at the wrong time, maybe it was coincidence, and perhaps they were waiting for you. Each of the characters are very like able and well developed. I particularly liked the story of Cornelius and Mercedes the best. Mercedes I started off hating her because she was this frightened spoiled child that became the queen. But as the story progressed she became strong and she really did feel like a real queen. The story of Gwendolyn and Oswald was a little disappointing but good nonetheless. There is not a story that I would say is bad. Now Velvet there is mixed feelings. Parts of the story I didn't like her, parts of the story she was alright.
I like to point out that the voice acting in this game is pretty bad. Almost as bad as the voice acting for the cut scenes of Persona 3. A good thing is that you can change the voices to Japanese. It may not be any better but because you don't understand Japanese you can remain oblivious.
Sexism is also everywhere in the game. Although mostly in Gwendolyn's chapter. Women are used to bear children for the men. If a Valkyrie is unable to fight, she will be brainwashed and when she is woken up by a kiss, she will fall in love with the man that wakes her up and bear his children. Its like slavery. Just wanted to point that out.
If you thought Okami was repetitive you haven't seen anything yet. This game redefines being lazy. The bosses are the same, the characters are the same, the dungeons are the same, the maps are the same. I also am wondering, like for example, Odin. You fight him with every character except Cornelius. How is he still the king? He gets his ass kicked by every single random character in the game. He has the strongest Psypher as well. Although it was shattered by Mercedes near the end of the game. This includes every other boss as well. If we were to combine all the story lines together, you'd notice how much they get their asses kicked. Sometimes story lines are a little weird too. Like some scenes happen to both characters but when you read the book of the other character, things are a little different.
Another annoying thing is if you wish to revisit an old book, you need to go through all the chapters and the story. That's not bad if you don't ever go back but in the final chapter you need to use characters from all books. Unfortunately, the characters in the early books did o't get the powerful items from the later books. You will have to play through the books again to reach the end to upgrade your characters. Only then are you prepared for the final battle.
If you can stand lag, fighting the same laggy bosses over and over again, the long loading times, and the sometimes frustrating combat, then you should try this game for the story. People will say, this game is about the story. I know it is, but that doesn't change the fact that 90% of the game is combat. I probably typed more text in this post than the whole game combined.
First off each book is divided the same way:
Prelude - Introduction
Chapter 1 - Plot
Chapter 2 - Plot
Chapter 3 - Plot
Chapter 4 - Plot
Chapter 5 - Plot
Chapter 6 - Plot
Epilogue - Ending
And every chapter has a few acts too. Every chapter starts the same way. You are in town, which allows you to move like a side-scroller, Valkyrie profile style. You press up to enter buildings to exit places. Then when you exit you are at the world map and you can choose where to go. Visit old places or continue with the story. If you choose to continue the story it will change acts and a small cut scene will happen. After the cut scene you are thrown into the dungeon. After clearing the dungeon towards the boss you are met with a cut scene and then you fight the boss. After the boss is another cut scene. After that you are onto the next chapter in town. Repeat until after the epilogue.
Each book focuses on a specific hero who is related to one of the few royal families in the story. All books are set in the same world and at different time frames which overlap. Characters overlap each other and their stories are intertwined. Here are the five main books and their characters. I included a small introduction
Book 1: Valkyrie - You play as Gwendolyn, daughter of the Demon Lord Odin, king of Ragnaviel. You follow your father's plans to fight against the fairy army and to claim the cauldron that annihilated the kingdom of Valentine. You are eventually wed to Oswald the Shadow Knight, also the enemy's greatest fighter. Afraid at first, but soon you realize his kindness.
Book 2: The Pooka Prince - You play as Cornelius, the prince of Titania, who has a relationship with Velvet the princess of Valentine against the wishes of your father and his advisers. One day you wake up being cursed and transformed into a Pooka. You must find a way to change back, and help Velvet while hiding your identity as you are afraid of her reaction.
Book 3: Fairyland - You play as Mercedes, the princess of Ringford, the fairies. Your mother, the queen was brutally murdered by the Demon Lord Odin and you are now the queen. You must lead your army to victory and stop Odin from taking the cauldron as if it is ever activated, it will absorb all the psyphers and all faeries will be wiped from the world.
Book 4: The Black Sword - You play as Oswald, the shadow knight. You are an orphan that was adopted by the fairies and used as a tool for victory. You are the greatest fighter but cursed to a fate of death by your adoptive father. You move from one person to serve to another until you finally met Gwendolyn.
Book 5: Fate - You play as Velvet the princess of Valentine. You and your twin brother Ingway were cursed to death by your mother who had the ability to see into the future. You must find a way to defy your destiny.
Book 6: ??? - The final book. Won't spoil it.
That's a lot of books isn't it. But the story itself isn't very long as 90% of the game is in the combat. Combat itself is like the Tales series. Real action side-scrolling. It's fun as the characters are all different, have their unique style, and strength and weaknesses. Sometimes, its just downright frustrating. Every dungeon has a few stages and mini-boss stage and the boss stage. Each stage is the same you are in a side-scrolling map and the entire map itself is a circle so if you keep running in one direction you'll never reach an end. Monsters will spawn, you kill them and when they are all dead it will calculate a rank based on your speed, damage, and damage taken. Depending on your rank you will get better rewards from the chest that spawns. After you are done grabbing the chest you move to another stage and repeat the process.
That doesn't sound so bad. It sounds enjoyable. Well it is, the first time around. Unfortunately for you, you need to play though the game five times over just for the main storyline and about...11 times for the final book if you want to get every scene. I want to point out that, every dungeon is the same, every map is the same, every mini boss is the same, and every boss is the same. For all five books. You don't fight them in the same order and you don't fight every boss but most bosses you need to fight 3-4 times in the game. It was fun the first time, they could have thought of something new right? Depending on the character the bosses might get harder or easier. For example, Gwendolyn and Cornelius are pretty rounded characters. Mercedes has a bow that's fast but you need to take around 5 seconds to reload once you are out of ammo. Oswald is fast but his air attack sucks and his close range attack is weak. Velvet is the slowest, hits the weakest, and has the worst POW out of any character, but she dominates anything in the air.
For example, Wagner the dragon. He flies around and breathes fire. When you fight him with Cornelius, you have a hard time getting to him and hitting him because you're hopping on the ground. If you are Mercedes, you can fly up and shoot him with your bow and dodge every single attack he does. Its like shooting a fish in a barrel. The most amazing one is Velvet. She just jumps up and swings her chain and it drops in seconds. Then there are times where bosses are completely frustrating because your character does horrible against them. Every boss there is a few ways to beat it. First way is to learn their combos and avoid their attacks and kill them without taking much damage. This will be the way everyone will go for. The second way is to have a ton of healing items and spam them constantly when you get hit and wear out the boss. This will the the way people will pick if they are horribly under leveled or bad at combat. The final way is to grind endlessly until you learn Overcharge, a skill that allows you to do double damage for the duration. This will make boss battles end so fast they don't have time to hit you.
All characters have the exact same skills and Overcharge is usually the final if not the second final skill they will learn. Probably something you wouldn't need right? Well, lets just say this game has the tendency to lag. If there are many projectiles or things on the screen. Everything will slow down. This usually means you are not able to dodge attacks. So you would spam more potions than you would normally do right? That's ok right? No. Some bosses have the ability to kill you in one hit. This includes regular monsters too. While combat itself is not hard, the occasional hit from one of those can be frustrating. A good thing is if you die, you restart the stage. If you happen to lag and is unable to dodge these hits then even potions cannot help you there. You must resort to using Overcharge. While Overcharge alone isn't a instant win. It helps you finish the fight faster before it can lag and kill you.
Another thing about this game is not only does it lag a lot when there are a ton of stuff. The loading times are terrible. Every stage you need to sit there while your playstation loads for about a minute. Then you enter the stage. The stage doesn't start right away though, it usually takes up to 20-30 seconds to start. Even then some monsters don't spawn right away. One example is Revenant, the mini-boss. It took me exactly 58 seconds running around before it finally spawned on me. Why won't they spawn right away? To give you time to prepare? Not exactly. Sometimes when you think you have time and you're busy doing things on your PC when you get attacked by a mob of monsters. You're going "What? Instant battle?" If it can spawn instantly sometimes why not do it for every battle? The loading time is long enough at it is, you shouldn't need another wait time. If you revisit cleared stages it becomes a safe map and the music changes. If you were to wait there and go do something else. When you come back you might find yourself dead. Why? Because shit will spawn and kill you. Yes, monsters spawns in safe spots.
Combat may be frustrating and repetitive but the storyline is always different for every character. Sometimes you know whats going to happen because of a previous storyline you met that character before as an enemy or such, But this time you are on the opposite side, you know why they are doing what they are doing. Neither side is wrong, they all have their reasons to do what they are doing. Maybe it was the wrong place at the wrong time, maybe it was coincidence, and perhaps they were waiting for you. Each of the characters are very like able and well developed. I particularly liked the story of Cornelius and Mercedes the best. Mercedes I started off hating her because she was this frightened spoiled child that became the queen. But as the story progressed she became strong and she really did feel like a real queen. The story of Gwendolyn and Oswald was a little disappointing but good nonetheless. There is not a story that I would say is bad. Now Velvet there is mixed feelings. Parts of the story I didn't like her, parts of the story she was alright.
I like to point out that the voice acting in this game is pretty bad. Almost as bad as the voice acting for the cut scenes of Persona 3. A good thing is that you can change the voices to Japanese. It may not be any better but because you don't understand Japanese you can remain oblivious.
Sexism is also everywhere in the game. Although mostly in Gwendolyn's chapter. Women are used to bear children for the men. If a Valkyrie is unable to fight, she will be brainwashed and when she is woken up by a kiss, she will fall in love with the man that wakes her up and bear his children. Its like slavery. Just wanted to point that out.
If you thought Okami was repetitive you haven't seen anything yet. This game redefines being lazy. The bosses are the same, the characters are the same, the dungeons are the same, the maps are the same. I also am wondering, like for example, Odin. You fight him with every character except Cornelius. How is he still the king? He gets his ass kicked by every single random character in the game. He has the strongest Psypher as well. Although it was shattered by Mercedes near the end of the game. This includes every other boss as well. If we were to combine all the story lines together, you'd notice how much they get their asses kicked. Sometimes story lines are a little weird too. Like some scenes happen to both characters but when you read the book of the other character, things are a little different.
Another annoying thing is if you wish to revisit an old book, you need to go through all the chapters and the story. That's not bad if you don't ever go back but in the final chapter you need to use characters from all books. Unfortunately, the characters in the early books did o't get the powerful items from the later books. You will have to play through the books again to reach the end to upgrade your characters. Only then are you prepared for the final battle.
If you can stand lag, fighting the same laggy bosses over and over again, the long loading times, and the sometimes frustrating combat, then you should try this game for the story. People will say, this game is about the story. I know it is, but that doesn't change the fact that 90% of the game is combat. I probably typed more text in this post than the whole game combined.
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