Thursday, December 22, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
SC On Escape from Bug Island (Wii)
Not a Universal Studios ride.
In my never-ending quest to find a survival-horror Wii game worse than Calling, I now come face-to-face with a rather infamous title.
Ha! I wish.
Let's get this over with. Escape from Bug Island is known as Necro-Nesia in Japan. I'm not sure why they changed the name, but I'm guessing whoever is responsible only watched the first few minutes of the game and said "The island has bugs on it! The characters must escape from this place- HEY WAIT A MINUTE!"
That's my best guess because Escape from Bug Island, while it has giant bugs, also has flying fish, bear trap-like plants, spiders, giant frogs, and giant gorillas, all of which are most definitely not bugs. How do you- fuck it, moving on.
The game centers around Michelle, a woman (I'm assuming) who is studying insects and came to this island to find a few rare species that only live there. She's... over-enthusiastic about it, to the point where I fear she may have the brain of a sugared-up five-year old.
HOLY SHIT A FLY IS THAT A FLY I'VE NEVER
SEEN A FLY LIKE THAT ONE!
Mike is the token tough guy douche bag who totes a shotgun and is supposedly Ray's best friend. He constantly aims the shotgun at everyone and everything and, at one point, it sounds like it fires mid-dialogue and no one acknowledges it. He's on the island because... uh...
Not this shit again.
And then there's Ray. Ray came to the island with his smilie-faced backpack despite his crippling fear of insects, wearing shorts might I add, because he has a crush on Michelle and Mike is a friend of his. Mike, however, uses his horribly written/translated dialogue to make advances on Michelle right in front of him, to which Ray mopes around and falls asleep.
I want you to guess which of these three characters ends up in the camp alone and we have to play as in this game. Keep in mind which one has the best and worst reasons to be there, as well as the most and least knowledge of the surroundings and the best and worst physical abilities.
I want you to guess which of these three characters ends up in the camp alone and we have to play as in this game. Keep in mind which one has the best and worst reasons to be there, as well as the most and least knowledge of the surroundings and the best and worst physical abilities.
If you said Ray, congratulations! You get to suffer like I did!
"With limited skills and ability..."
You might think it would go without saying that, since this is a Wii title, the graphics aren't that great. However, I am going to dwell on this. The visuals are on par with an early Dreamcast title, and even with the flashlight on you'll rarely see more than forty feet in front of Ray. Turning the flashlight off helps Ray not get noticed by enemies as fast, but it also turns most of the environment into a blurry gray blob.
In fact, before I go any further let's get one thing out of the way: controls.
In fact, before I go any further let's get one thing out of the way: controls.
May or may not be a better control scheme.
Despite having a massive tutorial at the beginning of the game which explains absolutely everything Ray can (sort of) do, the controls are still rather hit and miss. Movement, while it takes some getting used to, works okay. However, shaking either the wiimote or the nunchuk too hard (read: slightly) causes Ray to roll left or right. The motion-sensitive three-hit melee combo is sometimes sketchy about detecting the final attack, and almost always reads one swing as two.
The worst part, however, is trying to do anything in first-person view. It's set up so that wherever you point the wiimote, Ray looks in that direction, and pointing directly at the TV has him look straight ahead. The downside of this design choice is that the looking is extremely sensitive and makes using ranged weapons (which must be used in first-person view) unnecessarily difficult, especially since throwing weapons depend on how hard the wiimote is swung.
The one thing I will give the controls credit for is having a left-handed option (despite Ray always holding a weapon in his right hand). Thanks for realizing not everyone is right-handed.
The worst part, however, is trying to do anything in first-person view. It's set up so that wherever you point the wiimote, Ray looks in that direction, and pointing directly at the TV has him look straight ahead. The downside of this design choice is that the looking is extremely sensitive and makes using ranged weapons (which must be used in first-person view) unnecessarily difficult, especially since throwing weapons depend on how hard the wiimote is swung.
The one thing I will give the controls credit for is having a left-handed option (despite Ray always holding a weapon in his right hand). Thanks for realizing not everyone is right-handed.
YOU TURNCOAT MOTHERFUCKER!
That's assuming you can see what you're doing, which isn't always guaranteed. There's a flashlight Ray carries which lights up everything, including things that the light isn't pointed at. When it's off, everything becomes a dark grey amorphous blob about twenty feet in front of Ray. I understood why they limited the draw distance in games like Silent Hill 1, but this game from the last 2000's not only uses the same trick, but does so worse than those early titles on far less powerful systems?
And the environments aren't detailed or complex enough to warrant this trick, as they consist largely of the same three trees and a few different ferns most of the time.
And speaking of variety, the enemies are varied enough to stay interesting, as the section-by-section progression introduces one or two new enemies at a time, usually as the same over-dramatic music starts, stops abruptly, then starts again. However, these enemies tend to be named incorrectly. I'm quite phobic of insects and usually don't bother learning specific names for things, but I can tell the difference between a roach, an earwig, and a centipede, which this game can't.
SCXCR 1, Escape from Bug Island who cares?
And the environments aren't detailed or complex enough to warrant this trick, as they consist largely of the same three trees and a few different ferns most of the time.
And speaking of variety, the enemies are varied enough to stay interesting, as the section-by-section progression introduces one or two new enemies at a time, usually as the same over-dramatic music starts, stops abruptly, then starts again. However, these enemies tend to be named incorrectly. I'm quite phobic of insects and usually don't bother learning specific names for things, but I can tell the difference between a roach, an earwig, and a centipede, which this game can't.
SCXCR 1, Escape from Bug Island who cares?
Look! It's a wild Beedrill!
More importantly, they aren't even strong enough to be a threat. The "centipedes" are understandable because they're smaller, crawl on the ground and can be killed with one whack of a stick. The giant mantises though? Just hit them with a stick five times and they'll go down. Hell, they recoil after every shot so there's no risk of getting hit either. And this is assuming you didn't use the hunting knife found at the beginning of the game, which kills them even faster.
Giant crickets? Throw a rock at them. One rock. That's all it takes to kill them despite their being much bigger and allegedly tougher than the shoebox-size "vampire" moths, which take two to four rocks to kill.
Spiders? While they do move at Sonic-esque speeds, they are easily foiled by the wildly-swinging-at-the-ground-until-they-jump-into-the-melee-weapon-face-first strategy.
And even if the enemies do hit Ray, they don't do that much damage and there are enough healing items laying around that dying is almost never an issue. Whether they're in cabins or boxes or growing at the base of or in the canopies of trees, healing items like mangoes, cans of food, red mushrooms, brown mushrooms, purple mushrooms, and oranges are everywhere. Playing through on normal I had over a dozen oranges, a few mangoes, four red mushrooms, a brown mushroom, and two cans of food by the time I hit the second "boss" fight, enough to refill my entire health bar about five times.
Spiders? While they do move at Sonic-esque speeds, they are easily foiled by the wildly-swinging-at-the-ground-until-they-jump-into-the-melee-weapon-face-first strategy.
And even if the enemies do hit Ray, they don't do that much damage and there are enough healing items laying around that dying is almost never an issue. Whether they're in cabins or boxes or growing at the base of or in the canopies of trees, healing items like mangoes, cans of food, red mushrooms, brown mushrooms, purple mushrooms, and oranges are everywhere. Playing through on normal I had over a dozen oranges, a few mangoes, four red mushrooms, a brown mushroom, and two cans of food by the time I hit the second "boss" fight, enough to refill my entire health bar about five times.
Oranges 1, Bugs- *dramatic music*
Other characters are introduced either in cutscenes or via journal entries found around the island, though these characters are even less developed than the leads. Additionally the cutscenes are voiced over, but cut off and tell the rest of the story in text, accompanied by the same 7-second loop used for the in-game menu, for no apparent reason other than to keep the game under budget and/or on schedule for release.
Oh yeah, this was released on Wii launch day in Japan. How would you have liked this to be your introduction to the system?
Oh yeah, this was released on Wii launch day in Japan. How would you have liked this to be your introduction to the system?
Dynamic entry!
The funny thing is, this game has multiple endings. All involve Ray escaping the island, but I just find it funny that someone thought this game would be worthy of multiple playthroughs to find everything. This game is Resident Evil-like in terms of unlockable extras; unlimited ammo for weapons, a "samurai" weapon (a sword, not the Samurai Edge), and even game endings are grades up to A and S-rank like in most survival-horror games. Heaven forbid they try something different.
This could very well be one of the worst games on the Wii I've played so far...
HOWEVER
I'd say that Escape From Bug Island is still better than Calling. The only reason I say that is because things happen on a more consistent basis. That and the game in general has a tendency to be hilariously bad as opposed to Calling's "watching competitive fishing in real time is more exciting than this" bad. As such this is now my favorite game to play on streams.
"What is this?!" -Blondeguygamer
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Adventures with Eyes: Contacts
The following is a self-indulgent log of my attempt to wear contacts.
I never thought I'd wear them, but for the sake of convenience and being able to see when doing things like riding rollercoasters and/or cosplay, I'm giving them a shot. This is no small feat for me as I A) Have never used eye drops, or put anything in my eye, and B) had a bad experience when I was 4 where I got a cinder stuck in my eye on a train ride, and then C) several years later got gnats stuck in my eye. Gnats! And you wonder why I hate bugs so much!
I never thought I'd wear them, but for the sake of convenience and being able to see when doing things like riding rollercoasters and/or cosplay, I'm giving them a shot. This is no small feat for me as I A) Have never used eye drops, or put anything in my eye, and B) had a bad experience when I was 4 where I got a cinder stuck in my eye on a train ride, and then C) several years later got gnats stuck in my eye. Gnats! And you wonder why I hate bugs so much!
May or may not be a dramatization.
I'm going to try and update this as things do or don't develop.
Friday, October 21st 2:55 pm
Friday, October 21st 2:55 pm
-Visit the doctor's office and am given a walkthrough on how to put in the contacts.
-Spend about fifteen minutes trying to get one contact in, and failing. Secretary/current contact coach tells me to put the contact down and get used to touching my eye with my finger. Do so after "what the fuck" feeling passes.
-Spend another ten minutes trying to get one contact in, eventually succeeding. Now my vision is all kinds of screwed up with one eye that can see and another that's still legally blind.
-Try getting the other contact in for about twenty minutes, then discover I was supposed to use my dominant hand (left) to put them in. Great!
-Secretary leaves the office saying to come out if I get the contact in. Fifteen minutes later, I still don't have it in.
-Five minutes after she comes back I finally get the other one in. Now I have to take a contact out and put it back in. this takes another ten minutes to get it out and five minutes to get it back in.
-Total time in contact training: 1 hour 15 minutes.
Could be worse I guess...
-Drive home without wearing glasses for the first time. Put my finger between my eyes to try and adjust the glasses I'm not wearing twice on the way home.
-Make that four times by that evening.
-Need to take out contacts after 5 hours as my eyes aren't used to wearing them yet. 7 the next day, 9 the next, and so on.
-Successfully take out contacts after about eight minutes of trying. That didn't take as long as I thought it would.
Saturday October 22nd
-Get one contact in after about six tries, but it's folded on my eye and off-center. Holy shit that hurt. Eventually get the lens nudged into position and unfolded.
-Attempt to put in other contact and realize it's not on my finger anymore. Fear for a moment that it dropped down the sink, only to find it sticking to the mirror. The hell?
No, after you!
-Get the other lens in after a bit. Total time getting lenses in: about... 15 minutes? 20? I forgot to check the clock before trying it. Either way I need to keep them in a bit longer than yesterday while my eyes adjust to them.
-Take out both contacts later in the day in under ten minutes. Only problem is I put both contacts in the same storage thing and don't know which one is the left lens and which is the right. Considering my eyes are different not just in prescription but in shape and the lenses reflect that, this could end badly.
Sunday October 23
-Call the doctor's office and confirm that putting the lenses in the wrong eyes won't do anything worse than potentially blur long-distance vision a bit. Hey, I like to be absolutely sure, okay?
Monday October 24
-Don't put the contacts in at all. Didn't wake up soon enough to put them in and didn't remember to do it after (eventually) getting home.
I'm here to sell you Oops Insurance!
-Take out both contacts later in the day in under ten minutes. Only problem is I put both contacts in the same storage thing and don't know which one is the left lens and which is the right. Considering my eyes are different not just in prescription but in shape and the lenses reflect that, this could end badly.
Sunday October 23
-Call the doctor's office and confirm that putting the lenses in the wrong eyes won't do anything worse than potentially blur long-distance vision a bit. Hey, I like to be absolutely sure, okay?
Monday October 24
-Don't put the contacts in at all. Didn't wake up soon enough to put them in and didn't remember to do it after (eventually) getting home.
Tuesday October 25
-Forget to time how long it takes to get the contacts in, but get them out in a little over five minutes. Most of getting them in was me dropping the left contact and trying to find it. For some reason it takes longer with the left eye than the right. Cosidering I'm left-handed, that means I'm struggling with what should be the easier eye.
Wednesday October 26
-Decide to wear contacts to classes. Only takes about five minutes to get them in and, again, the left eye takes longer. Debating calling mom and asking if it was the left eye I got a cinder stuck in when I was a kid. The thing is, the contacts don't hurt to put in at all, they just feel a little odd at first. But when I try to put one in my left eye, it keeps closing almost every time the contact makes... well, contact with it.
Wednesday November 2
Have been wearing contacts on and off lately. Mostly off. I can't look at things close up in detail like I can by taking my glasses off. Considering the amount of cosplay work I've been doing, that discourages wearing contacts.
Thursday November 3
I head to Youmacon today. Put in my contacts before heading to class/work. I admit that a big reason I got contacts is so I wouldn't be blind when in cosplay. I have no shame.
Could be worse, I guess.
It only takes a few minutes to get the contacts in now, and again, the left eye is harder than the right despite my using my left hand to put them in. How work does?!
Friday November 4 through Sunday November 6
Successfully got contacts in and out the entire time in under five minutes in spite of sleep deprivation. Now the only bad news is, I have no idea where my regular glasses went.
Oops.
Monday, October 31, 2011
My Show at NerdPow! 2011
-Wow, I have the stage presence of a sheet of cardboard.
-I screwed up a lot.
-I'm amazed there was any audience at all.
-Can say that I was the only act to perform a jazz song that entire weekend.
-Quote of the Night: "Your puddi scared me."
Unrelated to the video above, apparently someone got one of my CDs and played it for some of the other artists. As a result, I wound up giving out all but about five of them, amazing considering I brought about fifteen "just in case."
Overall, not a bad weekend. No idea if I'll do this again, though.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
SC On Alan Wake (360)
And that's when the chuds came after me...
The game centers on famous writer Alan Wake, who is suffering from a two-year long case of writer's block. His wife Alice takes him on vacation to Bright Falls, Maine to try and get him past it only for a strange dark presence to kidnap her when he steps out of the cabin they stay in. Alan's first attempts to rescue her lead to confusion about where he is and what's going on as the locals don't know what he's talking about. He also discovers several pages lying around of a manuscript he doesn't remember writing which details events that have happened or will happen as the game progresses, as well as the thoughts and motives of the people around him, indicating that his story is coming to life as he tries to find a way to get himself and his wife out of it.
So to recap, the game is about a writer (red flag) who travels to a small town in Maine (red flag!) and is met with a long-dormant supernatural force (RED FLAG!) that has been ingrained into the town to the point where the locals largely don't realize it's there or write it off as an old wives' tale (RED FLAG!!!) which kidnaps his wife. (RED FUCKING FLAG!!!)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Stephen King: The Video Game!
The only things missing are a cemetery for pets and Tim Curry.
The bulk of the game is spent running around Bright Falls, usually through the woods, in the dark. Thankfully there are enough stops either in town or at construction sites/farms/gas stations/other places to break up the potential monotony. During this time various townspeople warped and possessed by the darkness called Taken attack Alan in ways similar to, but more threatening than the villagers from Resident Evil 4, because even though they have similar weapons like axes, sickles, sledgehammers and chainsaws:
1. Taken exercise group tactics more effectively. Attacking a couple Taken in front of Alan only to get blindsided by another one is fairly common.
2. Taken are much, much faster. If Alan tries to run away, not only will he get tired before getting away from them, they can chase him down at a full sprint anyway. Some of the smaller ones can even turn into Predator-like blurs and dart around the screen almost at random.
WOOHOO!
These enemies are complimented by several poltergeist items, which hover and fling themselves at Alan and range in size from trash cans to bulldozers, to several reoccurring murders of crows (Hitchcock much?). When all of this is combined with the swirling darkness that occasionally envelopes the town at night, making it difficult to do anything but hear approaching Taken, it can be a little unnerving at times to play.
There is however one thing far more frightening than the enemies Alan faces in the game:
His wife's smile.
Why didn't Alan write a story about his wife's creepy smile?
I have to think that this was some kind of accident, or different people directed the art for every scene she was in, because Alice smiles way too goddamn much. In fact, it was only in searching for the image above that I was able to remember a time I didn't see her smile.
But there's another level of creepy on top of that thanks to the facial animations. Simply put, they are sporadically Muppet-like and will go out of sync at random. That and when people smile while talking in this game, 95% of the time their upper lip doesn't move. This becomes unintentionally creepy to watch, and unintentionally funny when Alan is screaming something as I hear him yell "ALIIIIIICE" but it looks like he's saying "HAW HAAAAAW!"
This is the picture I got when searching "Alan Wake HAW HAW." I won't question it.
The idea is to run from light source to light source (usually generator-powered lamps) during the night, fighting through areas blanketed in darkness to recover Alan's manuscript and find a way to end the story so that he and his wife escape. Despite the usually wooded environment, I almost never got lost because of the "radar" in the upper left. Taken and other enemies are defeated by being doused in light to penetrate the shadows around them, then taking them out with one of a limited amount of guns: a revolver, shotgun, hunting rifle or flare gun, as well as flares and flash bangs.
Hey, I'm not complaining about the weapon variety. Rocket launchers are pulse rifles wouldn't exactly fit.
Besides, the light ends up being more important most of the time. Alan gets several different flashlights from standard store-bought ones to heavy-duty lanterns, all of which can have their light focused on Taken to not only drain their shadows faster but also stun and/or slow them down, allowing him to bolt for the next checkpoint/light source and save ammo. This drains the battery pretty fast, but there are batteries (at least on Normal) laying everywhere from the cafe at the beginning of the game to the blatant product placement down the road. As a result there's not much of a challenge unless you go to the highest difficulty.
Combat is generally fast-paced and requires the player to be able to dodge attacks and constantly be aware of the surrounding area, as Taken will climb down from rooftops or appear from the shadows. This, however, is usually preceded by an orchestra sting and a slow-motion shot of the enemy approaching Alan, usually giving just enough time to spin around, hit it with the light and put it down.
Good thing they do this, too, otherwise I'd get really tired of being ninja'd every two minutes.
Control-wise there isn't much to complain about, even in the driving sequences almost entirely on dirt roads. Like most of the Silent Hill games the idea was to have an average person thrust into this largely-dark world and largely that feel is there. Alan is not very athletic as he can't sprint very long and his dodging, while effective, is also clumsy-looking. There's no crosshair or laser sight for aiming (unless you use the flashlight with it. Holy crap, a game that finally does that!) so his shots aren't always on-target.
Nor does it seem to matter, as I didn't notice headshots or limb shots doing any more/less/specific damage. Whatever, I don't expect beings composed of darkness to function by the same logic as a typical FPS.
And no, aiming down the sights wouldn't help this game.
For a game about a writer getting lost in one of his stories, though, the dialogue is unusually poorly written at times, to the point where I thought it might fit better in the original Resident Evil. See, one of the oldest (and most frequently broken rules) in writing is the old "Show, Don't Tell" rule. Breaking this rule in a video game cutscene basically means you're explaining things that we just saw happen. It's ham-fisted, unnecessary, and to a degree insulting to the player.
Hey, I'm not complaining about the weapon variety. Rocket launchers are pulse rifles wouldn't exactly fit.
Besides, the light ends up being more important most of the time. Alan gets several different flashlights from standard store-bought ones to heavy-duty lanterns, all of which can have their light focused on Taken to not only drain their shadows faster but also stun and/or slow them down, allowing him to bolt for the next checkpoint/light source and save ammo. This drains the battery pretty fast, but there are batteries (at least on Normal) laying everywhere from the cafe at the beginning of the game to the blatant product placement down the road. As a result there's not much of a challenge unless you go to the highest difficulty.
Verizon: We never stop working for you, even when your town is being consumed by evil.
Combat is generally fast-paced and requires the player to be able to dodge attacks and constantly be aware of the surrounding area, as Taken will climb down from rooftops or appear from the shadows. This, however, is usually preceded by an orchestra sting and a slow-motion shot of the enemy approaching Alan, usually giving just enough time to spin around, hit it with the light and put it down.
Good thing they do this, too, otherwise I'd get really tired of being ninja'd every two minutes.
Control-wise there isn't much to complain about, even in the driving sequences almost entirely on dirt roads. Like most of the Silent Hill games the idea was to have an average person thrust into this largely-dark world and largely that feel is there. Alan is not very athletic as he can't sprint very long and his dodging, while effective, is also clumsy-looking. There's no crosshair or laser sight for aiming (unless you use the flashlight with it. Holy crap, a game that finally does that!) so his shots aren't always on-target.
Nor does it seem to matter, as I didn't notice headshots or limb shots doing any more/less/specific damage. Whatever, I don't expect beings composed of darkness to function by the same logic as a typical FPS.
And no, aiming down the sights wouldn't help this game.
You know who you are.
For a game about a writer getting lost in one of his stories, though, the dialogue is unusually poorly written at times, to the point where I thought it might fit better in the original Resident Evil. See, one of the oldest (and most frequently broken rules) in writing is the old "Show, Don't Tell" rule. Breaking this rule in a video game cutscene basically means you're explaining things that we just saw happen. It's ham-fisted, unnecessary, and to a degree insulting to the player.
Alan does this all the goddamn time. And God help you if there's a movie reference in a cutscene, because it tends to go like this:
(actual example from the game)
*Taken with an axe attacks a door Alan just went through. Camera angle is almost exactly like the one scene in The Shining*
Me: Oh hey, that's just like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.
Alan: blah blah blah Jack Nicholson in The Shining blah blah escape.
Me: STOP DOING THAT!
In fact, let's pretend for a moment that every obvious allusion to something is one punch to the face.
Alan's name can be abbreviated A. Wake. Best attempt at subtlety since Other M. *punch*
In fact, let's pretend for a moment that every obvious allusion to something is one punch to the face.
Alan's name can be abbreviated A. Wake. Best attempt at subtlety since Other M. *punch*
This game themed around light -vs- darkness takes place in a town called Bright Falls. *punch*
Alan's wife, who is taken by the darkness which she has a crippling fear of, is named Alice. Wonderland aside, they're both named A. Wake! *punch*
One of the antagonists is an FBI agent named Robert Nightingale. Sorry, let me retype that: Robert Nightingale. *punch*
Several times Alan needs to turn on generators or restore power to places to get the lights on. Did I mention one of the other protagonists is the town's sheriff, Sarah Breaker? *punch*
For the sake of brevity I'll stop there, but it can become grating rather quickly. Or maybe it's because I'm an English major?
Alan's wife, who is taken by the darkness which she has a crippling fear of, is named Alice. Wonderland aside, they're both named A. Wake! *punch*
One of the antagonists is an FBI agent named Robert Nightingale. Sorry, let me retype that: Robert Nightingale. *punch*
Several times Alan needs to turn on generators or restore power to places to get the lights on. Did I mention one of the other protagonists is the town's sheriff, Sarah Breaker? *punch*
For the sake of brevity I'll stop there, but it can become grating rather quickly. Or maybe it's because I'm an English major?
TKO!
Aside from those mentioned earlier, the game also references things like H.P. Lovecraft (directly by name), The Twilight Zone (a TV show and easter egg game called Night Springs), Twin Peaks (see: everything), and perhaps unintentionally, other survival-horror games such as Deadly Premonition (similar characters, some enemies reminiscent of the Raincoat Killer), Silent Hill (can't say without spoiling parts of the game), and Resident Evil. I mean, what else am I supposed to think when it turns out one of the supporting characters, Alan's agent, is a protective guy in a red jacket who helps Alan in various ways named Barry?
WHAT?! What is this?
In terms of replay value, the game tries to add elements that can only be found either through obsessive exploration or multiple playthroughs. There are collectibles like coffee thermoses scattered all over town, as well as radio broadcasts to listen to, the aforementioned TV show to watch, boxes of flares and other supplies to find, and beer can pyramids to knock over (seriously).
And yes you whores, there are achievements tied to all of these.
There are also some manuscript pages that can only be found by playing on Nightmare mode, so a second play is necessary to see everything in the game. In addition there are a couple DLC chapters, but my problem with them is that, just like the game's ending (which I won't spoil), it seems blatantly set up as sequel bait. Say what you want about Stephen King shelling out books at the rate he does/did, at least he knows when a story should end!
In fairness though, the developers have said in interviews that the game's story was "bigger than one game" and there would be a follow-up to Alan Wake, beyond the aforementioned DLC. Given the open-ended conclusion, this surprises me very little.
Still, I'd be lying if I said I didn't like this game. It's by no means bad, it's just lacking in some areas that, given the subject matter and the main character, seem like they should be better than they are. If they ever do create a follow-up that isn't only on X-Box Live Arcade (I don't have X-Box Live) I'll most likely check it out.
Eventually.
And yes you whores, there are achievements tied to all of these.
There are also some manuscript pages that can only be found by playing on Nightmare mode, so a second play is necessary to see everything in the game. In addition there are a couple DLC chapters, but my problem with them is that, just like the game's ending (which I won't spoil), it seems blatantly set up as sequel bait. Say what you want about Stephen King shelling out books at the rate he does/did, at least he knows when a story should end!
I'm not good with this thing called subtlety.
In fairness though, the developers have said in interviews that the game's story was "bigger than one game" and there would be a follow-up to Alan Wake, beyond the aforementioned DLC. Given the open-ended conclusion, this surprises me very little.
Still, I'd be lying if I said I didn't like this game. It's by no means bad, it's just lacking in some areas that, given the subject matter and the main character, seem like they should be better than they are. If they ever do create a follow-up that isn't only on X-Box Live Arcade (I don't have X-Box Live) I'll most likely check it out.
Eventually.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Mail Time!: The Return
Not trying to go Phoenix Wright or anything, but this was the letter I got back from Nintendo:
Nothing to see here... right?
It's the same letter that everyone who sent something to Nintendo asking about any of Operation Rainfall's big three titles (and even some people who never mentioned the games) have gotten. Nothing is unusual about the message itself, as it's the usual ambiguous PR talk that no one likes to say or hear.
Look closer, though. At the bottom of the letter is some faded discoloration which, upon closer inspection, is the same message from the middle section of the letter upside-down and backwards. Then I checked the inside of the envelope and found the letterhead had rubbed off on the inside of it:
I think part of it says "odnetniN"
Obviously the ink on the letter wasn't even dry when the letter was sent out. That leads to several assumptions, not all of which may be true:
1. Nintendo's customer service has a very specific, streamlined way for dealing with this particular message.
2. This arrived a week after my letter was sent, which considering I'm in Ohio and it was mailed to Washington means it would have taken about three days to arrive. The method is so efficient time-wise that letters go straight from the printer to the envelope,and this needs to be the case because, possibly,
3. They're getting a lot of messages like this.
What I imagine the consumer service reps look like after
a few thousand letters.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Mail Time!
Dear Reggie,
As a Nintendo fan since my parents first got my brother and me a Nintendo Entertainment System, as well as an owner of every Nintendo home console, including a Virtual Boy, I implore you to localize Xenoblade, The Last Story, and Pandora's Tower.
Please take my money,
SCXCR
Hope this finds you well, Reggie!
Operation Rainfall
Thursday, August 11, 2011
SC On Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon (Wii)
Sure, why not?
The game revolves around a post-apocalyptic world in which most of humanity has disappeared and the world as we knew it has fallen into desolation and disrepair... except for some kid voiced by the green ranger (no joke). After a short and somewhat eerie monologue about burying his dead grandpa in front of the house, he sets out to find anyone else who might still be alive.
Right off the bat it's apparent that basic movement tends to be sketchy. It's the simple enough scheme of move with the stick and point with the Wiimote where you want to face for turning, but with the third-person perspective it means:
A. You can end up pointing the flashlight behind Seto, suddenly stopping him,
B. At times the detection of each turn for some reason causes Seto's character model to briefly (and I mean split-second briefly) glitch and end up staring back at you while leaning to the side Smooth Criminal style,
C. Navigating narrow pathways (which you'll have in several underground/ruined locations) becomes harder than it needs to be.
A. You can end up pointing the flashlight behind Seto, suddenly stopping him,
B. At times the detection of each turn for some reason causes Seto's character model to briefly (and I mean split-second briefly) glitch and end up staring back at you while leaning to the side Smooth Criminal style,
C. Navigating narrow pathways (which you'll have in several underground/ruined locations) becomes harder than it needs to be.
This sequence? With Fragile Dreams' controls? That'll replace the whale in me nightmares.
Combat also tends to be a bit off at times as the majority of it involves Seto swinging things like sticks, bamboo swords, pipes, butterfly nets (yes really), staffs, and other melee weapons at various ghostly enemies like dogs, jellyfish (?), crows, and later on robots. Thanks to the viewpoint most of combat is spent aiming off to either side of Seto to try and judge distance and, you know, be able to see what you're trying to hit.
This and movement still functionally work, especially with ranged weapons, but both tend to fall into the "could be better" category.
Killing said enemies gains experience for leveling, thereby becoming stronger and getting a larger health bar (always good), and yields "mystery items" which are usually health items or things that can be sold for money to the randomly-appearing chicken man with a stroller.
No, really.
This is done at small fire barrels that are found all over the land which completely refill Seto's health, keep away enemies, and reveal what any and all mystery items are, assuming he can Tetris them into his backpack-which-is-actually-dangling-in-front-of-him-for-some-reason. Why can't Seto figure out what they are when he picks them up considering he has a goddamn flashlight he can use to see what it is?
Oh look, a minor inconsistency!
Seto meets all kinds of different characters along his journey, including several ghosts of deceased people, a talking computer, a robot, an old woman, and others. Most of them tend to come and go (read: "die" in some fashion) and at times it is a bit emotional. Not to me since I'm only programmed to express emotion six times daily, but when their scenarios play out in environments littered with several drawings, mementos, and last wishes of the people who lived there, combined with a piano-heavy beautifully-composed score of music, coupled with the constant themes of loneliness, death, and the search for companionship, this experience became the main reason I played the game to completion instead of tossing it aside at the halfway point.
The dialogue however tends to range from unintentionally creepy, to unintentionally funny, to unnecessarily wordy. The latter is particularly true for the Personal Frame character, a backpack-style computer which goes so far into detail it- you know what? Here's a conversation from the game between the frame and Seto. I am directly copying this word-for-word:
This and movement still functionally work, especially with ranged weapons, but both tend to fall into the "could be better" category.
Killing said enemies gains experience for leveling, thereby becoming stronger and getting a larger health bar (always good), and yields "mystery items" which are usually health items or things that can be sold for money to the randomly-appearing chicken man with a stroller.
No, really.
Back away slowly...
This is done at small fire barrels that are found all over the land which completely refill Seto's health, keep away enemies, and reveal what any and all mystery items are, assuming he can Tetris them into his backpack-which-is-actually-dangling-in-front-of-him-for-some-reason. Why can't Seto figure out what they are when he picks them up considering he has a goddamn flashlight he can use to see what it is?
Oh look, a minor inconsistency!
The aforementioned merchant is a bit creepy at first, but once you realize that (A) he will buy all the otherwise useless shit you pick up, including buying certain mystery items (read: gems) the moment Seto sits in front of a fire whether he's there or not, and (B) he's voiced by Kakashi, he just becomes a goofy-sounding money flow. Of course, that's assuming you didn't change the voices to Japanese because you want to have Johnny Yong Bosch's voice rattling in your head endlessly while playing the game for the Internets.
Got some rare things on sale, stranger!
Seto meets all kinds of different characters along his journey, including several ghosts of deceased people, a talking computer, a robot, an old woman, and others. Most of them tend to come and go (read: "die" in some fashion) and at times it is a bit emotional. Not to me since I'm only programmed to express emotion six times daily, but when their scenarios play out in environments littered with several drawings, mementos, and last wishes of the people who lived there, combined with a piano-heavy beautifully-composed score of music, coupled with the constant themes of loneliness, death, and the search for companionship, this experience became the main reason I played the game to completion instead of tossing it aside at the halfway point.
The dialogue however tends to range from unintentionally creepy, to unintentionally funny, to unnecessarily wordy. The latter is particularly true for the Personal Frame character, a backpack-style computer which goes so far into detail it- you know what? Here's a conversation from the game between the frame and Seto. I am directly copying this word-for-word:
(after finding a key)
Seto: Whoa! Is this what I think it is?
PF: It is a key. After analysis, I can report that there is a 75% chance that it is the key to the turnstile shutter.
Seto: Great! Then that means we can open the shutter now!
PF: Wait. Please hold on. At a probability of 75%, that means there is a 25% risk that it will not open it for us.
Seto: I'm sure it'll work. I mean, 75% is way more than 25%.
PF: I suppose that is a valid statement. Yes, it might work. Indeed. A 75% probability.
Seto: Yeah. We'll be fine!
PF: Yes! We will be fine!
After hearing various forms of this same conversation over and over, or hearing the Personal Frame continually state the obvious and/or what a tutorial window has already explained, and not even getting past the first section of the game, this becomes grating. Fast.
I don't have your dividend resulting in a
remainder of two, and FUCK YOU ANYWAY!
If there's one sticking point for me in the rest of the game, it would be the ending. I won't spoil it directly, but I am going to mention specific themes. Skip the next paragraph to avoid them.
********
You essentially beat the final boss, (Yes, there are bosses. I probably should have mentioned that earlier) find something you were looking for almost the whole game, are given a severe downer of a monologue from the future, then the ending continues as it was. The game all but says, 'You won the prize, but in the end the prize will be gone. Then you'll be right back where you started.' While I get how that applies to real life and don't expect the happiest of happy endings for a game like this, it is a bit of a buzzkill.
********
Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon. I'd say I've played better JRPGs, but that would be one hell of a cop out excuse to not play this. You should at least try it if you're an RPG fan, especially if you're looking for one on the Wii. And no, I'm not just saying that because there's a storm cell brewing near Nintendo of America with an unknown amount of rainfall imminent.
No, I'm not making an Operation Rainfall reference. I just checked the five-day forecast for Redmond, Washington and it says there's a chance of rain next Monday. Really.
I'm just saiyan...
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Remembering My Game Party Experience
Hey, it's time for shitty Wii party game number 1! That's right, it's time for the most generically-named party game you've ever seen, Game Party!
wiiviewr liked this? What the fuck was he thinking?
This is not a review so much as a recount of my experience playing the game. Let's face it. Any gamer worth their salt knows that this is a horrible title. So let's not waste any time as I go over my last conscious memories from when I played this with the following people:
WellUnreal007 (owns the game, played at his house)
Blondeguygamer
Wizwar100
AngelHalo
ShadowSnake123
-Note the obscene amount of characters that can be chosen from. None of them add anything to the game aside from a different face in the crowd, however.
-Consider having a moment of silence for Midway, then decide against it.
-Realize that Wizwar is recording all of this on his camcorder set up at the back of the room. Any attempt to win any of these games is almost entirely replaced with an urge to break them in as many ways as possible.
AIR HOCKEY
-Note that the Wiimote needs to be held parallel to the ground and pointed forward the whole time. This is so awkward I can't even begin to describe it properly.
-Movement is waaaaaay too sensitive, making lining up and blocking shots needlessly difficult.
-Puck moves very slow, possibly to try and offset the overly-sensitive controls.
-The A button traps the puck. Trapping the puck is a foul every time. Why is this option even available?
This is how air hockey works, right?
-Spent a good minute or so mashing the A button to drum rhythms on the table between shots. This is how I'm forced to entertain myself.
-The puck went off the table. Don't ask me how because the puck just disappeared in one frame and that message popped up.
-It happened again! How the fuck am I doing this?!
-Finished a game to 7 (losing 7-5). All but two goals were scored by knocking the puck into our own nets.
HOOP SHOT (aka basketball)
-Game is 4-player, but doesn't allow having 4 Wiimotes synced at the same time. What the fuck, game?
-Having watched someone play before me, I can see that you just need to flick the Wiimote forward while holding A, and release to shoot the ball. Despite this I still can't score a single basket with only 30 seconds remaining in the one-minute game.
-Panic and resort to flinging as many basketballs at the hoop as I possibly can. I didn't see if any went in because I was facing backwards, swinging myself into circles, or running laps around the room while shooting enough projectiles to make a Japanese bullet hell game blush.
Sort of.
-End up with a score of 0, despite shooting at least 100 shots.
-See from other players that swishing a shot counts as a 3-pointer instead of 2. None of them seem to get how to consistently do it either, as both shooting normally and pelvic thrusting the Wiimote have gotten shots to go in.
-Several balls fly into the way-too-excited-and-yet-randomly-apathetic crowd around the game, phasing right through them.
-Several people get high scores, only to discover that the high scores are populated with user names like "fuckthis" and "mangina." Apparently no one in Unreal's family liked this game even when they did well at it.
DARTS
-Sat out for most of this game, as it had the same damn problem with not being able to sync 4 Wiimotes at the same time. Instead, two Wiimotes are synced and people need to trade them. This is so stupid I don't know where to begin.
-So you lock onto a spot on the board by pointing and hitting A, then hold A, push the Wiimote forward in a dart-throwing motion, and release A to throw the dart. Congratulations, you've made playing darts way more complex than it should be.
-Note that throwing strength is taken into account as no one actually hits the spot they lock on to. Most don't even hit the board on the first try.
-Just watched two well-thrown darts bounce off the center of the board. I guess it means they hit the metal rims around each section, but having played real-life darts several times before I've never once seen this happen.
-I get a few tosses and discover that throwing too hard causes the dart to fly to the top of the screen and disappear through the top wall, never to be seen or heard from again. Someone call NASA and see if they can find my darts.
100% accurate photo of my dart throw.
-Even the people who did horrible at this game got high scores somehow. Game Party: because your expectations weren't low enough already.
SKILL BALL (aka ski ball, aka THE QUEST!)
-Think Wii bowling, only with a throwing motion so picky half your rolls end up as little wuss shots that barely make it to the edge of the ramp before rolling back down to you.
-See that any ball which rolls back down the ramp, including balls thrown too hard that bounce off the back of the cage and/or holes, don't count and can be done over.
-My turn. I can't get any weird throwing motions to work so I try to get at least one ball in the elusive 100-point holes in either corner. Apparently Unreal's never done it or seen anyone do it.
-The frame-rate dips into single digits every time the ball gets near the score holes. I'll repeat that. The frame-rate dips into single-digits. When the ball goes near the holes. The ball is the only moving object on the screen. And the frame-rate drops. HOW?!
-With three balls to go, I get one in the 100-point slot. For some reason I celebrated like I'd just won the final match of Wimbledon.
-ShadowSnake somehow throws a ball which bounces off the side of a different lane, ricochets back into his lane, and goes in the 50-point hole. And I thought MY shot was lucky!
ShadowSnake123's got such a supple wrist...
-As usual, bastardized user names are the high scores. This is dragging on so long I'm considering busting out Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular. That's how bad it's gotten!
SHUFFLEBOARD
-This one seems to work, sort of. I still can't get anything to stop and count for points without divine intervention, though. That and my shots seem to go to the left and the right at random. I say that because when I actually tried hooking a shot to the left and it went right.
-Not much else to say. Maybe I'm just waiting for this to end at this point?
TRIVIA
-Divided into several sections like General, History, Sports, Music, etc.
-Wait, you can use 4 Wiimotes now?! Why didn't this work for the other games?!
-Okay, fuck this. In the Kids section there's a question about the head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves basketball team. HOW DO YOU FUCK UP TRIVIA?!
Even the coach is confused!
PING CUP (aka beer pong)
-Unreal is the only one who can play this game, and even then he had issues with it. It took about 15-20 minutes to finish one round in which he got a ball to bounce into a cup five times.
-Sometimes if you miss the ball flies right through the people in the background, and sometimes it doesn't.
-Nobody else got a single ball in. I'm not sure anybody cared enough to get at least one. It's like no one wanted the controller for the next turn.
That's it. I'm done. Now to go back to editing videos and playing another shitty Wii game which I will not name. And no, it isn't Fragile Dreams. I said it's a SHITTY Wii game!
Monday, June 20, 2011
Duke Nukem Forever: My Thoughts
Yes, I got it. Here's what I think of it. You may (not) be surprised.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
SC On Rogue Trooper: Quartz Zone Massacre (Wii)
Oh dear...
Ho boy, where to start with this one. Let's get a few things out of the way:
-The game is based on a British comic strip series called Rogue Trooper which has been around since the early 80s.
-Quartz Zone Massacre is one of the novels based on Rogue Trooper, released in 2006. Good luck finding information on it.
-This is the third game made around Rogue Trooper. The first two were an 8-bit PC game and an Amiga title. This specific version is actually a port of the Rogue Trooper game on PS2, XBox, and PC from 2006, updated with Wii controls.
-It's apparently popular enough to warrant having a Rogue Trooper skin in Little Big Planet 2.
-It's an over-the-shoulder shooter. The last one of those I played was RE5 and I've skipped most of them, including Gears of War (yeah, blasphemy, whatever).
-This song has been stuck in my head since I first played it.
Hey wait a minute...
Everybody got that? Good.
Rogue Trooper (the game and the comic) centers around the planet Nu Earth where two groups, the Norts and the Southers are in conflict. They're fighting because... uh...
WAR IS ETERNAL... I guess?
Actually I think it's because of some "strategic point in the universe" bullshit. Whatever. The planet becomes so polluted from all the chemical warfare between the two sides that the Norts have to wear a special breathing apparatus and chem suit to go outside, while the Southers develop G.I.s, or Genetic Infantrymen. These guys (and girls) are specifically designed to be able to survive in Nu Earth's environment, resist a myriad of toxins, and be able to cosplay Dr. Manhattan with relative ease. How have the Southers not completely and utterly dominated the Norts with these guys? Well...
1. The game starts with someone betraying the Southers, resulting in most of the G.I.s being destroyed as they try to land on the planet, and
2. None of the G.I.s wear armor. Apparently they forgot that the Norts' guns fire, you know, bullets.
Guns? Bullets?! IN A WAR?! Since when?
So after several more parallels between the Civil/Second World/Almost Every War, Rogue lands with his friends Gunnar, Bagman, and Helm. They all die and their brain-chip-things get attached to his gun, bag, and helmet where they stay alive and serve their own special uses, like acting as a sentry gun, hacking computers or generating ammo.
Yes, they're actually named Gunnar, Bagman, and Helm when they're alive. They might as well be named Dead, Dead, and Dead.
To the game's credit, it handles decently. Running, climbing, aiming, scoping enemies, and even getting into and out of cover all work well. The parts where it gets bogged down in the Wii release are turning, weapon switching, and grenade use.
Turning is done the usual way in Wii games like this; by pointing to the sides of the screen. This works okay most of the time, but sometimes going to the corners of the screen to look up and to the side or down and to the side are extremely sensitive, to the point where Rogue ends up spinning in a circle for a moment or two.
Weapon switching is done with the D-pad. Specifically, switching guns is done by hitting up, and grenades are switched with left. This is an awkward trade-off made during the porting process because down on the D-pad is for switching to the sniper scope.
Why couldn't they make it slightly less awkward by having gun switching be right instead of up? Because... uh...
Throwing grenades is, by far, the most awkward thing to do. While you can easily throw a grenade in front of you or blindly from cover by flicking the nunchuk, To aim a grenade throw you need to hold the nunchuck "vertically" until a throwing line appears, aim with a combination of tilting the wiimote and using the joystick, and flick the nunchuk forward.
I've had just about everything go wrong trying to do this, from badly overshooting a target to lobbing the grenade a whole foot in front of Rogue and having to dive away from the explosion.
Thankfully the other abilities are much easier to use (and abuse). Gunnar can create a silencer for the rifle or turn it into an automated turret while Rogue runs around with his infinite-ammo pistol. Helm can hack computers and create a visual decoy of Rogue. Bagman is a nigh-endless supply of ammo and health packs and can also create new weapons and grenade types as the game progresses, such as shotguns, rocket launchers, chaff grenades and proximity explosives.
These are created using salvage, which can be picked up from damn near everything that dies or is already dead. Nort soldiers of all types, disabled turrets, dead Southers, and even abandoned droids which are (sort of but not really because you can see them on the radar) hidden away. The grunts and Souther units don't count for as much, but are still worth picking up for the long run, especially on the two higher difficulties.
Speaking of which, "Normal" is the easy difficulty. I feel like I've been lied to.
-Being able to shoot through parts of the environment you shouldn't be able to, e.g. solid steel doors.
Yes, they're actually named Gunnar, Bagman, and Helm when they're alive. They might as well be named Dead, Dead, and Dead.
To the game's credit, it handles decently. Running, climbing, aiming, scoping enemies, and even getting into and out of cover all work well. The parts where it gets bogged down in the Wii release are turning, weapon switching, and grenade use.
Turning is done the usual way in Wii games like this; by pointing to the sides of the screen. This works okay most of the time, but sometimes going to the corners of the screen to look up and to the side or down and to the side are extremely sensitive, to the point where Rogue ends up spinning in a circle for a moment or two.
Will it go 'round in circles?
Weapon switching is done with the D-pad. Specifically, switching guns is done by hitting up, and grenades are switched with left. This is an awkward trade-off made during the porting process because down on the D-pad is for switching to the sniper scope.
Why couldn't they make it slightly less awkward by having gun switching be right instead of up? Because... uh...
YOU AGAIN!
Throwing grenades is, by far, the most awkward thing to do. While you can easily throw a grenade in front of you or blindly from cover by flicking the nunchuk, To aim a grenade throw you need to hold the nunchuck "vertically" until a throwing line appears, aim with a combination of tilting the wiimote and using the joystick, and flick the nunchuk forward.
I've had just about everything go wrong trying to do this, from badly overshooting a target to lobbing the grenade a whole foot in front of Rogue and having to dive away from the explosion.
Thankfully the other abilities are much easier to use (and abuse). Gunnar can create a silencer for the rifle or turn it into an automated turret while Rogue runs around with his infinite-ammo pistol. Helm can hack computers and create a visual decoy of Rogue. Bagman is a nigh-endless supply of ammo and health packs and can also create new weapons and grenade types as the game progresses, such as shotguns, rocket launchers, chaff grenades and proximity explosives.
These are created using salvage, which can be picked up from damn near everything that dies or is already dead. Nort soldiers of all types, disabled turrets, dead Southers, and even abandoned droids which are (sort of but not really because you can see them on the radar) hidden away. The grunts and Souther units don't count for as much, but are still worth picking up for the long run, especially on the two higher difficulties.
Speaking of which, "Normal" is the easy difficulty. I feel like I've been lied to.
I can explain only about 2% of this image and why it's here.
There are a few sequences where Rogue is either protecting a train or flying around in a ship and trying to keep it intact until it reaches a certain point. Like anything involving a protection mission, this is a pain in the ass. There are checkpoints, but they save both progress AND the current condition of whatever you're trying to protect. If you hit the first checkpoint and the train you're on is about to explode, you need to either be flawless the rest of the way or start the whole mission over.
Oh, and the train blew up and/or crashed once the mission was finished anyway. What was the point of doing that mission again?
I swear to God if you do that one more time...
One more thing I should add before I forget is that the storytelling is all over the place. Like I said, I've never read any of the comic and am not familiar with the story beyond what's in this game. That being said, the characters that aren't Rogue or the traitor general might as well just not exist. Gunner, Bagman and Helm are given next to no build-up before there are unceremoniously killed.
Hell, Helm was captured and poisoned to death by a Nort officer with a Russian accent, (whose name escapes me right now) but she is killed off-screen by Rogue before anything is established about her other than what side she fights for. The storytelling is single-minded and incapable of building up anyone other than Rogue and the traitor general, and even then I'd say Rogue is an overly-simplistic personality that we're supposed to sympathize with simply because we're forced to follow him for the whole game, kind of like that one other guy...
OH NO YOU DIDN'T!
The biggest issue I have with the game, though, is that it's buggy. Very buggy. While I haven't experienced any game-killing glitches or freezes, I have seen the following:
-Being able to shoot through parts of the environment you shouldn't be able to, e.g. solid steel doors.
-Audio for cutscenes getting out of sync to the point where it looks like Steve Oedekerk hijacked Rogue Trooper to make another Kung Pow movie (which I'd be okay with).
-Getting stuck while crouching near cover, causing Rogue's legs to flail around like he's Russian dancing backwards. Actually, Rogue will do this just about any time he's near any sort of wall or obstacle.
-Having Rogue shake uncontrollably while looking around in cover. Sometimes it's so bad I want to find him a blanket and some hot cocoa.
-Having Rogue shake uncontrollably while looking around in cover. Sometimes it's so bad I want to find him a blanket and some hot cocoa.
-Dead enemies getting stuck in mid-air.
I'm the only person who knows what the music is, aren't I?
This, to me, is one of those games that's just sort of there. It's not bad, it's not good, it's just sort of there. It feels like there could have been a lot more done with the source material than what was done here. There had to be more for the comic to run as long as it did. The excessive linearity (even by shooter standards) and blandness of the environments, except for places like the petrified forest and the piers, are really underwhelming, even for the time it originally came out. It was, unfortunately, pretty forgettable.
How do you manage that with what is otherwise a pretty interesting concept?
You're dead!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)