4 those who see(k) the art in games
Featured
Bulletstorm – quick impressions
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+ fantastic visuals
- too many waves of waves of waves of enemies
+ superb colors
+ ingenious change of settings: sure, they crash a lot, BUT this game brings back what games in the 90s used to have better than today: a lot of change of scenery, radical changes… great excuses for new views, new shapes…
* it has that thing with numbers flying on the screen, but the good news is that you can disable it so in the end it was okay
- some portions dragged on, and you could feel the linearity. For example the remote controlled dinosaur was fun as an idea but after a while i just wanted to move on and didn’t know what to do (another catch in waves of enemies triggering and end event)
+ the level design is brilliant, the changes, the environment, even the use of the environment is pretty fun, though sometimes it seems a bit too convenient
+ unlike what i had heard the story i thought was pretty decent. I mean yeah, sure they were mercenaries not philosophers, but at least they stayed in character
- too many military elements, barking orders and that kind of stuff, ‘macho’ jokes and whatnot.
+ looks fantastic, great level design, pretty fun weapons, fantastic level design/scenery… some of them feels like you’re moving through concept art! Sci-fi meets destruction, meets plants meets a lot of variety! Worth it even just for the visuals!
Dead Space 2 – quick impressions
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Okay, just finished, quick, before I forget them:
- EA forced me to make an account with them and connection issues. It sucks to pay for something and not be able to play it! What if my internet hadn’t worked? What about the customer wasted time! Bad corporate move! Major bad points for EA
+ the graphics was amazing
+ a lot of attention to detail in geometry and lighting
* the story is okay, not fantastic, not bad
- a missed opportunity with the audio logs as there’s not a lot of them and not particularly interesting
+ very nice cool deaths, and brilliant animations
- a bit too much dying
- way too many monsters, wave after wave even on the easy level. I mean it was okay in terms of difficulty but an abuse to your ears in terms of screaming without a deeper meaning
+ some nice quiet surprising nostalgic moments where the game shows a bit of character depth
+ a couple of brilliantly design gameplay ideas, like mixing cinematics with gameplay in a very natural and surprisingly delightful way (a moment where a tentacle grabs you and you think it’s a cinematic but you end up shooting while dangling upside down)
All in all, on a -5 to 5 scale i’d give the game a 1.5: quite good, high production values, a bit repetitive though. Some fascinating visuals and great engine.
Mass Effect 2 – quick impressions
0+ a lot of dialogues, and well done in multiple languages (useful for me in learning french and german)
+ pretty big story
- the music is often quite generic (lack of themes/soul/feeling and instead often semi-random orchestral noises), and sometimes even distracting pausing in cinematics strangely
+ a lot of different worlds, each with nice bystander stories as bystanders talk
- but they’re often very linear
- it’s a very army-like story. I was looking forward to playing a character but instead it’s a very “for the team” type military experience, all in a pretty generic ‘the universe is in danger’ type of story (reminds me personally of Halo stuff)
+ they make some nice attempts at sci-fi tv type cinematics
+ dialogue choices are nice, though the morality system is pretty simple, 2 sided… though it did have the occasional nice moral grey choice that made me think!
Am I looking forward to ME3? Not particularly. Military experiences are a dime a dozen. I play rpgs for the worlds to explore, and in this game like in ME1 the open world seems to me more of an illusion, everything feels scripted and linear (yeah, sure, you can choose the order, but still feels constrained). The world doesn’t feel alive. And most importantly I didn’t feel so much it was MY experience, it was Sheppard’s. I was just going through the motions. A few times I was hoping they’d indeed enable me to find and explore galaxies, to discover planets and interesting things, but instead I found just mini-games and no real or interesting out-of-main-story places worth visiting or discovering. Okay, so i may seem like i’m totally criticizing the game, I’m not really: obviously I only finish good games, others I just abandon or don’t even start, and indeed this game has very high production values… it’s just that I had much higher expectations of a RPG (really playing your OWN character), particularly one that teases you wit ha whole universe, planets and galaxies… you think you’re gonna actually go and explore planets… not really :P
Risen – quick impressions
0- getting into the island, awesome sense of discovery
- the dialogues have ABSOLUTELY no choice, you click through all of them
- the island is quite cool (on the surface… literally, the under ruins I didn’t like)
- no first person view :(
- no gamepad support :(
- the ending part was quite bad, none of the exploration, no new island, just revisiting and overly complicated unimpressive ruins
- the end boss (like all bosses?) was just hooorible… a lot of needless deaths, if for no other reason than this i would not recommend this game (more than the first hours?). Such immersion breaking is impermissible in an RPG!
- the first disappointment of the game was when i was instant-killed by a trap i could not have known was there. Very bad for immersion. You should at least have a chance/warning that such areas are instant deaths.
- it manages to be a perfect Gothic 1-2 clone without any of the words/stories repeated: a camp for bandits, one for mages, and militia, there’s even a new form of scavengers… this is not necesarely a bad thing: there’s a certain amount of location based choice in there.
- there’s some very cool secrets… which would have been mindblowingly awesome BUT they are mandatory… which nullifies any bonuses it’d get for that. Stuff for which in any other game you’d be SUPER rewarded (a secret room, a secret mountain pass, a very hard puzzle) here you MUST do it…
Overall impression, on a -5 to 5 scale i’d give it a 1: the exploration and island is indeed awesome, but the lack of more choices and the very punishing immersion breaking deaths are a major no-no! Still if you wanna play a Gothic 2 game this is pretty close replica without being the same… though i don’t think it’s as elegant or immersive …
hmmm… i don’t wanna end on a bad note. I’m still under the close influence of the unpleasant last couple of hours of gameplay through mazes and time wasting hard puzzles (would be okay if they weren’t mandatory) and the very frustrating boss fight BUT there’s obviously a reason I did play it and finish it: I hope the developers and others will make more games with it’s medieval and exploratory atmosphere… the settings are very cool, the geography is fascinating, from swamps to awesome mountain places… very cool stuff! If i’m being so critical about it is obviously because I care so much about the world… it’s this kind of a world (but with much more choices including ones to allow you to not die even once) I have the highest expectations of. So, despite my complaints: a thumbs up to the developers, I hope they make more games and improve on the recipe! And I hope other developers join the genre… hopefully with first person view options.
Darksiders – impressions
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He he, a 3rd ending this weekend :D the months of effort have payed off :D so, while it’s still fresh:
- the artwork is just fantabulously good
- great comic book story, heaven, hell, war, council in between, riders of the apocalypse… delightfully twisted. Fabulously complex and interesting characters.
- boss battles stink: you die a lot, have to learn patterns, then die some more, then retry a lot of times, and sometimes u get lucky
- towards the end of the game you are forced into backtracking a LOT … a loooot!
- did I mention the artwork is super mega awesome! It’s like straight out of the best concept art + the best sculptures and architecture all rolled into one yummy ball of visual delight!
- I often thought of this game as “the god of war game for PC only people”. It borrows heavily from that game and a bunch of others… but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. For example it was a huge surprise to see Portals :D (though at that particular section there were a bit toooooooo many puzzles!)
- there are a lot of very ingenious puzzles, but slightly too many and sometimes VERY hard to figure out. Got stuck a bunch of times!
- did I mention the visuals were aaaamazing?
- and as a last goodie that I’m sure has been mentioned much less than the God of War similarities: this game is the closest I’ve seen any game step in the footsteps of the fabulous Legacy of Kain games! From artwork style (even visual symbolism) even down to puzzles in the real-spirit world jumps :D
Call of Juarez – impressions
0
Okay, just finished it, so, while it’s fresh:
- The artwork in this game is just aaaamazing.
- Falls into the frequent trap of making scripted moments where you die a lot (timed, duels, defense), breaking the flow of the story and immersion
- The outdoor environments are mindblowing… I wish they had made it an open world to explore all that natural mountain beauty!
- The story is VERY well told, strong characters, superb story twists… truly top writing!
- Fantastic ending!
Assassin’s Creed – impressions
2Okay, i just finished it, random thoughts
- great settings
- great feeling of navigation in the environment
- the hero can’t swim (just like past GTA heroes). Super silly! Here’s a guy that’s super athletic and does a ton of impressive moves and yet drowns like a baby. Not just nonsensical but also highly frustrating as it resulted in tens of immersion breaking deaths.
- towards the end the game completely changes and you are forced to battle a lot in tight quarters. Highly immersion breaking dying tens of times, just waiting for luck on retry.
- I was expecting an unsatisfying ending, but it was even worse than I expected… it just felt like a cut… and left me wondering if there’s something I can do (locked in some rooms but can walk around)
- I got the feeling from other books that far from being the killers/criminals often portrayed (most) the crusaders were actually people who at great personal price (selling of property, long trip and risking life) went to try to save abused peoples… obviously there were some bad apples, there always are when there’s more than 10 people… after a couple of books on the subject I still don’t feel I know enough facts… on my personal to-learn
- the secrets and mythos and the whole conspiracy elements are quite cool. I liked integration of Mayan references. Seems on it’s way to become a cult classic a la LOST
- they have timed events… those are NEVER good: if you’re fast u don’t care about them and they add nothing, if you’re not it’s a guarantee of frustration
- so, obviously the game wasn’t bad, since i finished it, on the contrary that means it was quite exceptional… and it’s possibly exactly that the reason that you have higher hopes… for example at no point in the story did I feel i had a choice… not even in the WAY of doing things…
- cities look too similar architecturally. Though each house is looking good, and overall they look good, there’s a clear sense of reuse and not enough character to streets.
I have very mixed feelings about the next ones… normally after these failings and the frustrating many deaths towards the end I’d totally put them on “someday maybe” list but if they get super super great reviews and many promise they’re much better… who knows… at a low price I may try them out.
Hopefully my impressions were useful to you. If you have a choice I’d advise you skip the first one… or just play 2-3h to get the atmosphere. On the other hand as far as historic period this one for me far outstrips in interest factor 15th century Italy. Also I suspect of the 3 heroes of the series Altair is to me a much more interesting one.
Limbo
15
Developed exclusively for Xbox 360, Limbo is the first production of the independent game studio “Playdead”, grounded 2006 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The game revolves around the central figure of a boy who embarks upon a long, dark and dangerous journey in the quest of his lost sister. The Limbo actually represents the horrible world that he must silently trespass overcoming puzzles and challenges in order to reach what he looks for. It is no random fact that producer and game director Arnt Jensen chose this title for the game: in the Catholic theology, Limbo refers to the edge of Hell, a temporary state of those who died prematurely but not freed from the Original Sin. Also, Dante in his masterpiece Divine Comedy describes Limbo as the first circle of Hell, whereas medieval theological beliefs assigned Limbo as one of the 4 parts of the underworld.
This strong background of meaning can therefore explain the film-noir appearance of the game, dominated by deep blur and a fabulous range of gray tones, meant to convey solitude, uncertainty and danger of the gloomy world of the boy`s itinerary. The silhouette of the main character is the only one that appears to be alive under the heavy, smoky sky that covers everything. What is particularly strange about this game is the lack of a soundtrack in the common acceptance of the concept, compensated just by ethereal echoes and ambient sounds; the resulting silence makes you feel even closer the suspense and the atmosphere of the game.
Among the compact shades that dominate the scenery, white sparkles often appear in the foreground, creating a beautiful contrasting picture; and, as a significant detail, the boy`s eyes are always shining, like a small light in the dark. This black and white technique of the game is inspired from the German expressionism, a trend at the beginning of the 20th century, marking cinematography with black and white usually very abstract and suspenseful elements, e.g. Alfred Hitchcock` s movies. Concerning the game puzzles, Limbo combines the beautiful imagery with a unique, challenging and brain teasing collection of puzzles to be solved, ranging from simple to difficult and even hostile, but all of them equally fun to solve.
Based on all this extremely unique set of elements and features, the game has won the Excellence award in Visual Art and Technical Excellence last year. The bad part is that for now, the producers refuse to extend it on further platforms, although there are numerous requests for PC and Mac versions. Let`s hope they will eventually change their mind, because Limbo offers a very distinct and beautiful game experience.
Shadow of the Colossus
2I shall do like the game, and say few words, though this is a GREAT masterpiece and one of the handful of games that deserve to be at the forefront of the games as art movement! To me it always made me think of some kind of mythical poetry. The game is so full of space to think, so charged with emotional atmosphere… and don’t even get me started about the music. Or the places, the guilt about the colossi who more and more feel like peaceful creatures and you’re the one …oh, and i’m not even one of those who have filled pages and pages of debates about the moral choice/sacrifice of it all and if it can be justified/was worth it, or the fantastic personality of the horsy… So, i’ll leave you with the folow-up beginning movie:
Types of Horror
3In terms of horror I have a pretty big theory. Basically i think there’s like 3 main types (ordered from least to most interesting to me)::
1) monsters (Resident Evil comes to mind )
2) supernatural/unknown (Fatal Frame 3 or 2 are prime examples)
3) psychological/guilt/human horrors (play Silent hill games. Everybody loves the 2nd in the series, i liked the 4th)
There’s of course a 4th type of horror for many but i don’t find them scary at all. Eg. a lot of games have “horror” elements in the sense of some monsters you encounter (not scary though if you’ve got a rocket launcher that can blast 5 of them) and others have a certain art style and many call horror, but again i wouldn’t call them that. So you could go with
5) pretty much every game in which an enemy is some kind of creature
E.g. there’s a ton of shooters out there which pull out “scary” creatures…. without really being frightening
6) the “horror” style, gothic elements…
now i don’t think 5 & 6 are horror games per se, i think they’re more like atmosphere or tool set elements that can be sprinkled onto any other genre. As a type of style i tend to love 6, without finding it at all scary. For example the two Vampire the Masquerade games might be classified by many as horror though i never found them frightening, it was just exploring a more dark type universe. Similarly it is in many games a sort of art style, like say you pull in some cathedrals, ruins, some zombies for the setting… this I don’t think makes the game a horror but is rather like a certain art direction (by art meaning not just 2d or 3d but even music & story). Take for example many settings in Fallout 3, Bioshock or even some scenes in Oblivion: they’re like slices of the game, and the game doesn’t change THAT radically, yet for the section when you’re experiencing that it pulls quite a lot of elements from so called “horror” literature & visuals.
PS: a quick note: while Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines remains one of my favorite games of all time, and I still wouldn’t call it horror despite the dark vampire modern universe, there’s the visit to the haunted hotel which is one of most sublime experiences in eerie/supernatural/scary, but that is exactly because most of the game you’re not scared, you’re playing this otherwise quite powerful vampiric character of your own devising, yet in this section, exactly because you’re so used to reacting it feels particularly strange.