Videogames

29 posts
Videogames

The Lonely World of No Man’s Sky

This may be one of the most hyped media properties of the last two years. There was no way the finished product would live up to expectations, especially when those were built on unrealistic assumptions.

This isn’t an outer-space shoot ’em up. Players looking for a fast-paced action game are going to be disappointed. Is it the fault of the developers? No. They promised an exploration game built on a dynamic, procedurally-generated universe. On that score, they delivered.

What we do get is a haunting, quiet experience. It rewards, well, just walking around and enjoying the world it creates. There are no easy answers, and the player is expected to figure out the mechanics and lore himself. Its only presumption is that we simply live in it, which is a brave design choice on its own.

Videogames

Borderlands 2

Bandit SMG

It’s out, and it’s good.

Little of Borderlands 2 will come as a surprise to those who played the first. The graphics and environments are slightly improved, but they aren’t a departure. The interface is simplified, particularly regarding inventory management, and the mini-map is a welcome addition. Other than that, it’s Borderlands, except it’s Borderlands 2.

That’s in no way a bad thing. The original game was phenomenal, but it could have used a few tweaks, which is what we’ve got here. There’s more variety in weapons and locations, and the new classes are more versatile, particularly in weapon choice (my siren is a heck of a sniper). Co-op matchmaking is smoother, and while there’s an interface for trading guns between players, it’s a bit clunky.

If there’s a plot to speak of, I haven’t really found much of it. The Hyperion corporation has taken over Pandora, and they’re mining the planet for Eridium.

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Humor Videogames

Skyrim

Balgruuf

As much as I’m enjoying this game, there’s one thing that keeps poking in to that whole “suspension of disbelief” thing for me.

The entire cast talks like Motörhead roadies.

No, really. Half the characters speak in an accent just like this, and the native people are called the Nords. One of the towns is named Hrothgar, after the Danish king of the Scylding line. Whiterun is ruled by a Jarl, and one of the mead halls is called Jorrvaskur, which basically means “spunky pony.”

It quickly becomes obvious that Skyrim is little more than a thinly-veiled piece of anti-Scandinavian propaganda and defamation.

Brütal Legend was offensive enough, but this just crosses the line. Thanks for the hate crime, Bethesda. Our attorneys will be in contact shortly.

Civil Rights Videogames

Teabagging=Protected Speech

2 comments

The Supreme Court has ruled [pdf] against the state of California in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, striking down AB 1179 as an unconstitutionally vague restriction on free speech.

The law at hand provides for a fine of $1000 to be levied against retailers who sell or rent violent video games to minors. Using a modified version of the Miller test, the state would determine which games contained the necessary quotient of violence to qualify.  The majority opinion of the Court states that California’s law does not address a “compelling” interest, and thus does not meet strict scrutiny.

Rejecting the notion that depictions of violence in video games are more vivid or dangerous than those in literature, Justice Scalia writes:

Reading Dante is unquestionably more cultured and intellectually edifying than playing Mortal Kombat. But these cultural and intellectual differences are not constitutional ones. Crudely violent video games, tawdry TV shows, and cheap novels and magazines are no less forms of speech than The Divine Comedy, and restrictions upon them must survive strict scrutiny-a question to which we devote our attention in Part III, infra.

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Videogames

Mass Effect 2: Life in the Margins

Mass Effect was the story of a plucky commander uniting an oddball crew to save the galaxy.  Sure, there was a seedy underbelly, and folks tended to do some pretty shifty stuff at the fringes of civilization.  Part of the game involved confronting that from time to time, but we were led to expect a Gene Roddenberry happy ending for the most part.

That’s certainly not the case in the sequel.  While the first game encouraged the player to navigate a fairly well-defined good/evil moral course, Mass Effect 2 forces us to wade through some fairly gray areas.

Spoilers ahead.

Videogames Visual Media

Flower

Flower

I can see why some folks wouldn’t care for this game. You can’t dual-wield weapons, the team deathmatch mode is sorely lacking, and the final boss is a pushover.

If that last sentence meant nothing to you, then you’ll likely enjoy it.

Videogames

TF2: the Sniper

Now, back to the Sniper. Sure, everyone wants to play the Sniper. It’s a class designed for the antisocial gamer. Sit on a hill, line up the scope, and nail someone who never saw it coming from half-a-mile away, right?

Not in this game. Most of the maps have you moving quickly, and at close-quarters. The Sniper’s usual methods are actually a liability here. He needs to get solitary and keep his distance, and that’s a hard thing to do in TF2.

Videogames

TF2: the Pyro

Speaking of the Pyro, he’s an odd one. His flamethrower is not only incredibly gratifying (“I’m on fire! Doktorr!”), it’s a devastating weapon that covers a wide area. In a way, he’s the opposite of the medic. The Medic dispenses a short-range defensive buff to teammates, while the Pyro spits out a close-quarters dose of pain to the opposition.

Videogames

TF2: the Medic

Next, let’s consider the Medic. Your team does have one, right? If not, get one of the 4 guys playing Sniper to switch. More on that later.

You have three sets of classes: offense, defense and support. Use your Engineers to lock down vulnerable areas in your base, and leave the offensive stuff to the classes meant for it. That means Heavies and Soldiers. They take point, which means soaking up damage, and the Medic’s place is at their side.

Videogames

TF2: the Engineer

Ah, the sentry: the gift that keeps on giving. In the hands of a good engineer, this little number is a mechanized fountainhead of suppressing fire and mayhem. Managed by an incompetent, it’s a just a big paperweight.

Videogames

For great justice…

Of course, I’m playing Halo 3. The single-player campaign, while entertaining, really isn’t anything more than a training ground for the real meat of the game, which is the multiplayer.

There’s a mishmash of a story involving the Covenant’s invasion of Earth to retrieve the Ark, Cortana’s imprisonment with the Gravemind and of course, the great question: how is it Master Chief can fall from space at escape velocity and survive, but he dies if he slips off a 30-foot embankment?

Well, that last one is never answered, but the rest wraps up nicely. Stick around after the credits for a nice little bit of closure.

Videogames

Jack’s Back

Tonight marks the release of Halo 3. I’ll risk the possible lynching by a crowd of angry, pitchfork-toting fanboys and say it: I never really got what the hype was about.

Sure, it’s a competent first-person shooter, and the online capabilities are excellent, but c’mon, it’s pulpy space opera with guns. It’s good, but it’s not exactly the reinvention of the wheel or anything.

Anyhow, Master Chief’s back, riding a wave of advertising hype and testosterone into the videogame equivalent of Return of the Jedi. And, of course, Jack Thompson’s back as well.

Info Dump Videogames

Xbox 360 repaired

Well, I’ve got the 360 back. It took Microsoft a bit longer than expected, but three weeks isn’t bad. Of course, I had the misfortune of having it malfunction just before they acknowledged the prevalence of the problem and extended the warranty to three years. As a result, mine was only one unit being returned in a deluge of others, so this was to be expected.

Still, three weeks or so isn’t too bad of a wait considering I was dealing with what amounts to a massive corporate recall.

Videogames

“I can see my house from here.”

Crackdown has gone through an odd life-cycle. It didn’t get much of a promotional push, and first impressions didn’t help it, either. On the surface, it appears to be a Grand Theft Auto clone with slightly better graphics (of which there are only 46,178 titles available). What’s more, Microsoft chose to bundle the Halo 3 beta key with it. That kind of move usually smells of desperation, and it’s usually reserved for titles that just can’t hack it on their own merits.

Despite all these things, it’s turned out to be one of the most enjoyable titles on the 360 at the moment, and it’s garnered itself a certain amount of worthy dark-horse status.

Civil Rights Videogames

If video games cause violence…

Image by Scott Ramsoomair

Ah. Killer 7. In gaming circles, this title is highly controversial. It embodies the “game-as-art vs. game-as-entertainment” debate more than any other. Sure, games like the worthy Okami and Ico both qualify as “artistic,” while also being engaging, but no other game I can think of wears the look-at-me-I’m-art-with-a-capital-A badge with such brazen pride as Killer 7. You either love it for its loopy, entrancing story and its quirky graphics, or you hate it for its weird control mechanics and obtuse nature.

Of course, it didn’t sell very well. You can still find it in the used bins, and I highly recommend at least trying it for the sake of experiencing something unique. That’s probably where it would have ended for Killer 7, as a weird cult title with major stylistic ambitions.

That is, until Jack Thompson got ahold of it.

Videogames

Games we need to see

Over the last couple of decades, there’s been a discernable cycle of creativity (or lack thereof) in Hollywood. It goes like this:

  • Find a director or a screenplay with some degree of originality
  • Throw some money at the project and hope it pays off
  • If a=yes, make as many clones of said project as the public can stomach

When GOTO 1 is no longer an option, the Hollywood establishment falls back on the tired practice of “remaking” old movies and television shows, often with no respect for the original property. We’re then treated to a few summers of half-baked retreads until something new and bankable comes along.

In some respects, the videogame industry is quite similar. Sequels are easier to make than new concepts, and it’s far safer to fall back on proven formulas than risk it on new ideas. If you’ve got a movie license, then it’s even easier: just smack some tired old game mechanics together and string along the story.

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Videogames

Gears of War and the Gaming Industry

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I’ve made no secret of my fondness for this game. The hype (and delays) for this game reached something of a fever-pitch over the last year, and usually, the end product can’t hope to live up to the anticipation.

But Gears of War does just that, and then some. I’ll spare the lenghty review, as there are plenty elsewhere. I’d like to focus on what this game does to audience expectations for the future. (In some circles, it’s called “raising the bar.” Meh.)

First off, if you haven’t read the Gamer’s Manifesto, go ahead and do so. I’ll wait.

Videogames

The Next-Gen Fallout, Concluded

I’d really planned to sit out the whole 7th generation rush for at least a year. The PS3 doesn’t offer anything that I need, and the Wii…well, let’s see how developers adapt to the new hardware scheme. I wasn’t ruling out either, but I wasn’t in a rush to blow a few hundred bucks anytime soon.

Then fate intervened, and I got an Xbox 360 for Christmas. This was a huge surprise, as these things aren’t cheap, and it certainly wasn’t something I had planned on buying. Still, there are a number of games (Dead Rising, Gears of War, Halo) that are only available for the unit, so I was pretty enthusiastic about it.

Videogames

The Next-Gen Fallout, Part Two

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The launch of the Nintendo Wii stands in stark contrast to Sony’s campaign for the PS3. Sony is banking on their status as an industry giant to sell a piece of hod-rodded hardware at Sharper Image prices to the elite, while Nintendo’s goals are far more modest at first.

The Wii won’t draw anyone in on its merits as a graphics powerhouse; in fact, it can barely keep up with the aging PS2 in that department. Nor does it do HDMI or play DVDs. It doesn’t have a hard-drive. In fact, from a technical standpoint, it’s nothing impressive at all.

Videogames

The Next-Gen Fallout, Part One

“We want for consumers to think to themselves, ‘I will work more hours to buy one’. We want people to feel that they want it, irrespective of anything else (…) The PS3 will instill discipline in our children and adults alike. Everyone will know discipline.”

—Ken Kutaragi

Videogames

PS3: let the carnage begin.

I just can’t get worked up about Sony’s new console. I own both of the previous incarnations, and I still spend about six hours or so with the PS2 every week, but for some reason, the PS3 doesn’t arouse much interest for me.

It could be the $600 (or more) price tag. Or the fact that games (of which there aren’t many at launch) are around $60 each (with rumors of higher prices in the future). Or the fact that there are already some serious backwards-compatibility issues already popping up.

I suppose the main thing is that slightly-better graphics and faster hardware just don’t cut it anymore.