4 those who see(k) the art in games
Reviews
Deus Ex : Human Revolution – quick impressions
0+ nice atmosphere
- – - Boss battles. Particularly annoying if you happen to have played most of the game as a not so strong stealthy-hacking game like I did… this is a trap I see in many games: they say they offer you the choice to play any way you want, but if you happen to want to play the game without shooting everything in sight everything is okay right until the moment when they lock you into a room with a boss and suddenly you, the person who had trouble even with normal enemies in the open have nowhere to hide, nothing to hack and it feels like no alternative solutions (or if they are there, they’re unintuitive and you only find them out after dying many many times in frustration).
+ original story (I think probably we should see more games like this in the next decade, the theme of bioengineering should come soon)
+ nice hacking element
- very little content
- feels like the old game engine, just with a higher resolution… the textures are very bland, feels like no details. Content wise this feels like a 2004 game, a deus ex 2, more similar to the 2000 game… yes, that’s a good thing in some ways… but not 12 years later :P
+ whistling and pieces of the cool Deus Ex music
- but they didn’t hire Alexander Brandon to make some new one :P
+ split finish
+ some surprising choices, but fewer than I would have hoped
+ multiple ways of doing many things
Skyrim – quick impressions
0(prepare for a very subjective viewpoint)
Well, this was a long play. I wish I could be super impressed with the game, but I’m afraid the excitement isn’t proportional to the time I spent playing it:
+ a lot of content
- a lot of the content is recycled (eg the first time you see a cave/dungeon/ruin it’s super new and exciting, but soon it doesn’t feel so fresh)… the exception to this is that ‘soon’ may mean many hours later
- as I was afraid from the start it doesn’t have the same warm mood as Oblivion: I’m keeping with my first intuition of it all, I suspect it’s the setting: the nordic realms predispose to a certain ‘snowy’, non-sunny look
- you can no longer travel the landscape easily and in a straight line because of all the mountains… I guess this is understandable but it did force me to actually even use fast travel… which I consider a cheat and I tried hard not to… but you could feel the game was not meant for that… all seriously aggravated by the next one:
- in a game where everything grows by doing they took out the one most important to me class: athletics: no longer will your running speed and jumping heights improve. This basically means they killed onfoot travel for me. That and the walking feels slower and the sprinting only happens for very short distances (relative to the size of the landscape) and in a game oriented towards choice they killed my choice not to use the horses (which are not that great btw)
+ a lot of quests
+ a lot of side stuff
+ many dialogues
+ new big scenarios
+ first person :D :D
+ magic :D
+ a lot of content in many languages (learned a lot of german through the many dialogues)
- the dialogues still haven’t passed the level of a shallow list html… I was really hoping this time around they’d have some branches. Yes, they compensate some by having spacial choices… but I would have liked dialogues about which it actually matters what you choose. I don’t think I ever felt that anxiety of a real choice in a dialogue.
+ some very interesting quests.
All in all I obviously liked the game, since I spent more than 170h playing it… but I’m saying it could have been better in some ways. It did so many things good though that it totally redefined the playing field for many games to come… and hopefully it showed other developers too what an open world can be, how big it can be and that first person is a great choice for an RPG.
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
Two Worlds 2 – impressions
0
Well, this game has a lot of mixed stuff.
+ artwork is fantastic, I’m talking about the sculptures (general geometry not so much, landscape & especially caves feel rather generated)
+ there are a lot of minigame type things, and a lot of complexity under the hood (so much so that I couldn’t figure out how to use the magic system without online tutorials), I’m amazed they put so much work for example in an original alchemy system, or even mini-music games
- the character choices are pretty much non-existent, it felt to me: the dialogues are very linear, no branching, as feels the story, though there are many quests spread out… though I can’t say I was attracted to them
- the difficulty is was for me super frustrating. I decided to abandon the game though I would so love to get the story. yet another one on the long list of games that don’t know the meaning of the word “easy”. Or maybe it’s just annoyingly super hack&slashy, or at least playing as a mage was super frustrating: a battle consisted of what felt like tens of repetitious clicks to do tiny ammounts of magic… and this in a world where monsters are copy-pasted everywhere … I decided it’s not worth my time. Sorry. I would have loved to at least get the main story…
Ace Combat: Assault Horizon [gt review]
0Though I’m not one for simulators I must say this game seems to me to have a certain temptation judging on the video/review. The flying and stuff…
On another note I had a bit of nostalgic/amazement moment realizing people today are actually complaining about being able to move the camera a bit during the cinematic moment, as opposed to exploring: goes to show how far we’ve progressed. I was totally impressed and blown away in Shadow of the Colossus and especially Metal Gear Solid 3 by the little moments of first person control even if it was just to turn/twist a bit… though then again maybe that’s what made them special.
Dark Souls [gt review]
0To be honest the visual artwork seems a bit dry to me, but I must say I suspect the story and atmosphere might make up for it. Color me curious about this one… hope it comes to steam!
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
6
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.