Well, I'm still plugging away at On the Rail-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode 1, but I hope to have it finished by the next time I post (which won't be next Saturday, by the way, I'll be out of town and away from the Internet from Wednesday until Sunday night). I think that I'll take this opportunity to discuss why I look at games from the particular perspective that I do.
That perspective, first of all, is that of a literary critic. If you haven't noticed by now that I look at games as one might look at a movie or even a book, then I have failed or you are very dumb (I'm sure, gentle reader, that it would have to be the former rather than the latter). In any case, I attempt to look at a game as another means of telling a story, one for which there is still some vast, untapped potential.
There is a term in literary theory called reader involvement. This is a relative term describing how deeply a reader involved or wrapped in the story and characters of a work. This is important because according to literary theory, books have a much higher potential for reader involvement than movies have for viewer involvement. This is because movies and television are passive mediums in that the viewer sits back, relaxes and allows all the images and sounds to be fed to him/her. Books, on the other hand, require the reader to... well... read. Reading, by it's nature, is active. The reader must follow the symbols on the page, interpret them into words and complete thoughts and then form not just the visual and auditory image, but the olfactory, tactile, and gustatory. While much of this is done subconsciously, it still requires active participation by the reader and forces him or her to be more involved in the plot and characters than something strictly viewed or heard.
This is where video-games come in: while the images portrayed in games are still only audio and visual (and in a very small way, tactile if you count the rumble features on most controllers, which I don't), and therefore do not offer the same kind of immersion as written literature, The fact that video-games are played, and not just watched adds much potential to the art (yes, art) than to movies. Note here, that I say potential because I find myself digging much deeper into an episode of Firefly than I do into Eragon (It's great the Paolini wrote it when he was seventeen, but it looks like a novel written by a seventeen-year-old. Imagine that). There are more factors in literature and participant immersion than just the potential. The characters in Firefly are much more real and interesting than those found in Eragon and the writing is more interesting, therefore, the viewer of the former will care not just about finding out what happens next in the story, but also what happens to the characters and how they will grow and change. This also means that tension can be more easily established, and when one of those characters is in danger, or arguing with another character, or doing just about anything, really, it draws the viewer in and makes them (keyword:) immersed in the action.
What all this long-winded rambling boils down to is this: I believe that with proper writing, a video-game can be just as, or even more artistic, and enjoyable as a story than any movie or television show because the player, as the initiator of the action of the story, has no choice but to be involved.
I believe that there is much more to be said on the subject, but I'll leave it at that for the moment. In the future, when I don't have a game to talk about, I might just delve into more on this topic and leave you, gentle reader, to come up for a breath.
Now go immerse yourself in a game,
-Zac
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Gears of War 2: Just Almost There.
I feel that I have to apologize for the lateness of this post. I, unfortunately, had a lapse in judgment and allowed school to get in the way of what's really important. But now I hope to set the schedule straight and post again this Saturday, though what I will be posting about is up in the air. Today, however I have a shiny new game review for you approval or seething scorn.
I was impressed with Gears of War 2. It fell into a happy medium that many sequels miss in that the sequel is so changed from the original that all the things that made the original good are tragically absent (Devil May Cry 2), or they don't change at all and fail to take the chance to improve on a good game (Fable 2). Gear of War 2 keeps the core gameplay much the same. Anyone who has played the original game can pick up the controller and know exactly how to play. In some games, that isn't a good thing, but Gears of War was fun in great part because of how it was played. The duck-and-cover, over-the-shoulder shooting aspect worked really well and has remained untouched as well as the nifty active-reload system. Divisions of good and evil remain pleasantly polarized. The good guys are the humans and the bad guys are the Locust. It's even easier to tell than in the westerns where the good guy always wore a white hat.
Included in the changes however, are new weapons, enemies, and fun things to do with downed enemies, including using them act as a, and I quote: “bullet sponge.” Any one who has played the first game may wonder why no one ever mentions Marcus' mystical ability to close his allies' bullet-wounds by simply picking them up; such an observant player may also think to him/herself that it would be quite convenient if the rest of Delta Squad could emulate this almost magical touch. Well, congratulations: now anyone can revive a downed character, although if you are playing by yourself, you've got about a fifty/fifty chance that a computer-controlled character will bother trying to revive you before you bleed out. In one notable bit of gameplay, I was downed just after killing the last enemy on the field. I crawled pathetically around Dom who was just standing there, not shooting at anyone, for several seconds until I died. Apparently Dom really wanted to be sergent of Delta (God knows why).
The story, likewise is a very good evolution from the original game with some hiccups. It takes place some time after the Light-Mass Bomb went off, but the Locust are not dead and they seem to be attacking more voraciously than ever. In the fist game, everything centered around Delta Squad, and the player never hears about anything else going on in the war. It is very much as if Delta are the only four fucking soldiers fighting the damn war. Gears 2 expands its viewpoint so that the player sees that there is other shit going on, but Delta (through luck and bureaucracy) seem to end up doing all the most important (read: deadly) missions, including staging a four-man raid on the Locust capital city. What is more important, however, is that there is some really good character development going on. Marcus has settled into his position as Delta's sergeant. Dom's quest to find his wife takes a larger role and works its way into the events of the war. Anya becomes more than just a voice that feeds Delta Squad tactical info and there appears to be some subtle sexual tension between she and Marcus. There is also Carmine. This character is never seen without his helmet obscuring his face, which means that he will die. The player may notice that his name is Carmine, which is the same name of the first guy to die in the original Gears. This Carmine is his brother (which makes for some amusing dialog during the tutorial) but really, he's the same fucking person. Carmine appears to be there so that the sadistic people of Epic games can have someone to kill in interesting ways (I counted two instances where I was sure he was dead, but it was the third that got him. He's much tougher than his brother was). Tai, however is included in the game to be one tough son-of-a-bitch to kill until he gets tortured by the Locusts and kills himself. His role in the game is to show the player how fucked-up the Locust torturing techniques are and also so that the player will understand what has been happening to poor Maria.
One thing that was done really well was the use of some concern. Anya actually appears to worry about Marcus' well-being and at one point, Dom asks Marcus to keep looking for Maria if he doesn't make it. This makes sense since everything the do should be fucking suicide. It makes me wonder why that kind of talk wasn't included in the first game.
The voice-acting and dialog is alright. Dom has a few unconvincing “God damn its” toward the beginning, but the fact that John Di Maggio (the voice-actor for Marcus) gargles a nice, big glassfull of rocks before every voicing session works to the character's advantage. Some of the cutscene lines are pretty lame (Couldn't Marcus come up with anything better to say to Dom after he euthanizes his own wife other than “She's in a better place”) but others are damn good (“Well lets go chunk some bullets at them grubs”) Many of the other in-game one-liners are really good. Just about anything Baird says is classic and Cole is... Well, he's Cole.
Any grievances that I have voiced until now are really very minor. The game, overall is very good and I look forward to many playthroughs. What very nearly breaks the game for me, however, is the ending. While the ending cutscene is really good, the actual climactic battle and the setup to it are unacceptable. In the previous game, the player is introduced to the lambent wretches that explode violently when they die. Apparently emulsion fluid (no, I don't know what the fuck that is either) exposure causes living things to either get cancer (or “rust lung”) or to glow in the dark and go boom. So when the bomb they were brining into the Locust Hollow gets destroyed before detonating, the the solution is to detonate a lambent Brumak, which is a big monster to which emulsion exposure acts as the virus from Resident Evil. Let's look at what we have here: the lambent wretches didn't look any different other than they were glowing in the dark, and their explosions were only about the size of their bodies. The lambent grubs seen in one cutscene looked like grubs that glow in the dark. Why would the lambent Brumak's jaws outgrow its mouth and why would it suddenly sprout tentacles? Neither does it make and fucking sense that it's explosion would be so great as to match the Light-Mass Bomb which is the rough equivalent to a nuke. The last part of the game just doesn't make sense and is anti-climactic. Even the gameplay here is lame. The final boss of the last game was Raam, who carried a turret and had a cloud of angry bats to protect him from gunfire. Raam wasn't hard to beat once the player figured out how, but there was still the figuring out how that was the trick. One would think that a giant monster would prove a harder fight than a relatively big guy with a pretty big gun. It isn't. Even on the hardest difficulty all one has to do is point at the lambent brumak and fire. It will then die and explode and the game will be won. There is no real challenge here and it's anti-climactic. Simply put: there is no excuse for the ending of a game that is so good to be this bad.
Gears of War 2 is a really good game. It's fun to play, the dialog is entertaining, and there are some really nice literary things beginning to develop. I would recommend getting it, playing it, enjoying it, and when it gets to that last fight, choke that crap down so you can watch the final cutscene, and don't forget to listen to the message after the final cutscene.
Oh, and the multiplayer is fun too,
-Zac
I was impressed with Gears of War 2. It fell into a happy medium that many sequels miss in that the sequel is so changed from the original that all the things that made the original good are tragically absent (Devil May Cry 2), or they don't change at all and fail to take the chance to improve on a good game (Fable 2). Gear of War 2 keeps the core gameplay much the same. Anyone who has played the original game can pick up the controller and know exactly how to play. In some games, that isn't a good thing, but Gears of War was fun in great part because of how it was played. The duck-and-cover, over-the-shoulder shooting aspect worked really well and has remained untouched as well as the nifty active-reload system. Divisions of good and evil remain pleasantly polarized. The good guys are the humans and the bad guys are the Locust. It's even easier to tell than in the westerns where the good guy always wore a white hat.
Included in the changes however, are new weapons, enemies, and fun things to do with downed enemies, including using them act as a, and I quote: “bullet sponge.” Any one who has played the first game may wonder why no one ever mentions Marcus' mystical ability to close his allies' bullet-wounds by simply picking them up; such an observant player may also think to him/herself that it would be quite convenient if the rest of Delta Squad could emulate this almost magical touch. Well, congratulations: now anyone can revive a downed character, although if you are playing by yourself, you've got about a fifty/fifty chance that a computer-controlled character will bother trying to revive you before you bleed out. In one notable bit of gameplay, I was downed just after killing the last enemy on the field. I crawled pathetically around Dom who was just standing there, not shooting at anyone, for several seconds until I died. Apparently Dom really wanted to be sergent of Delta (God knows why).
The story, likewise is a very good evolution from the original game with some hiccups. It takes place some time after the Light-Mass Bomb went off, but the Locust are not dead and they seem to be attacking more voraciously than ever. In the fist game, everything centered around Delta Squad, and the player never hears about anything else going on in the war. It is very much as if Delta are the only four fucking soldiers fighting the damn war. Gears 2 expands its viewpoint so that the player sees that there is other shit going on, but Delta (through luck and bureaucracy) seem to end up doing all the most important (read: deadly) missions, including staging a four-man raid on the Locust capital city. What is more important, however, is that there is some really good character development going on. Marcus has settled into his position as Delta's sergeant. Dom's quest to find his wife takes a larger role and works its way into the events of the war. Anya becomes more than just a voice that feeds Delta Squad tactical info and there appears to be some subtle sexual tension between she and Marcus. There is also Carmine. This character is never seen without his helmet obscuring his face, which means that he will die. The player may notice that his name is Carmine, which is the same name of the first guy to die in the original Gears. This Carmine is his brother (which makes for some amusing dialog during the tutorial) but really, he's the same fucking person. Carmine appears to be there so that the sadistic people of Epic games can have someone to kill in interesting ways (I counted two instances where I was sure he was dead, but it was the third that got him. He's much tougher than his brother was). Tai, however is included in the game to be one tough son-of-a-bitch to kill until he gets tortured by the Locusts and kills himself. His role in the game is to show the player how fucked-up the Locust torturing techniques are and also so that the player will understand what has been happening to poor Maria.
One thing that was done really well was the use of some concern. Anya actually appears to worry about Marcus' well-being and at one point, Dom asks Marcus to keep looking for Maria if he doesn't make it. This makes sense since everything the do should be fucking suicide. It makes me wonder why that kind of talk wasn't included in the first game.
The voice-acting and dialog is alright. Dom has a few unconvincing “God damn its” toward the beginning, but the fact that John Di Maggio (the voice-actor for Marcus) gargles a nice, big glassfull of rocks before every voicing session works to the character's advantage. Some of the cutscene lines are pretty lame (Couldn't Marcus come up with anything better to say to Dom after he euthanizes his own wife other than “She's in a better place”) but others are damn good (“Well lets go chunk some bullets at them grubs”) Many of the other in-game one-liners are really good. Just about anything Baird says is classic and Cole is... Well, he's Cole.
Any grievances that I have voiced until now are really very minor. The game, overall is very good and I look forward to many playthroughs. What very nearly breaks the game for me, however, is the ending. While the ending cutscene is really good, the actual climactic battle and the setup to it are unacceptable. In the previous game, the player is introduced to the lambent wretches that explode violently when they die. Apparently emulsion fluid (no, I don't know what the fuck that is either) exposure causes living things to either get cancer (or “rust lung”) or to glow in the dark and go boom. So when the bomb they were brining into the Locust Hollow gets destroyed before detonating, the the solution is to detonate a lambent Brumak, which is a big monster to which emulsion exposure acts as the virus from Resident Evil. Let's look at what we have here: the lambent wretches didn't look any different other than they were glowing in the dark, and their explosions were only about the size of their bodies. The lambent grubs seen in one cutscene looked like grubs that glow in the dark. Why would the lambent Brumak's jaws outgrow its mouth and why would it suddenly sprout tentacles? Neither does it make and fucking sense that it's explosion would be so great as to match the Light-Mass Bomb which is the rough equivalent to a nuke. The last part of the game just doesn't make sense and is anti-climactic. Even the gameplay here is lame. The final boss of the last game was Raam, who carried a turret and had a cloud of angry bats to protect him from gunfire. Raam wasn't hard to beat once the player figured out how, but there was still the figuring out how that was the trick. One would think that a giant monster would prove a harder fight than a relatively big guy with a pretty big gun. It isn't. Even on the hardest difficulty all one has to do is point at the lambent brumak and fire. It will then die and explode and the game will be won. There is no real challenge here and it's anti-climactic. Simply put: there is no excuse for the ending of a game that is so good to be this bad.
Gears of War 2 is a really good game. It's fun to play, the dialog is entertaining, and there are some really nice literary things beginning to develop. I would recommend getting it, playing it, enjoying it, and when it gets to that last fight, choke that crap down so you can watch the final cutscene, and don't forget to listen to the message after the final cutscene.
Oh, and the multiplayer is fun too,
-Zac
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Final Fantasy X-2: It's better than you think
Unfortunately, school work has gotten in the way of what's really important and I haven't been able to play anything to conclusion this week. However: fear not, gentle reader, I have Gears of War 2 which I hope to finish by next week, and On a Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness which I'm sure I can complete by the week after. In the meantime, I feel that an older game needs to be brought to your attention and submitted for your approval.
If your views coincide with mine, and you like games to have a compelling story, then you have probably played a few RPGs and you know that the most popular series of that genre is Final Fantasy. Setting aside all the games that bear the name Final Fantasy yet are not really Final Fantasy (Crystal Chronicles, Tactics, Dirge of Cerberus, etc) the bastard step-child of the series is the only RPG sequel to be made from a previous game. I am of course talking about (if the title didn't give it away already) Final Fantasy X-2.
This is a good game. I know what you think, gentle reader, but I maintain that it is more than simply playing dress-up with Final Fantasy characters. It is playing dress-up with Final Fantasy characters then destroying things. The fact is that the Dress Sphere system is just another form of the Job Class system. The only characters that the player uses are Yuna, Rikku, and Payne. These three girls level up independently of whatever dress-sphere (I.e. job-class) they are using but the more a character uses a dress-sphere, the more abilities they can use with it. This means that if Yuna puts on a Warrior dress-sphere at the end of the game, she is still a high-level character, but she will not be as effective as Payne, who has been using that dress-sphere since the beginning of the game.
I suppose the best way I have to explain how well the combat and leveling systems work would be this: I like RPGs in theory, but I don't usually finish them. Since the combat is almost always strictly tactical, it tends to get boring before the end of the game. This problem is compounded by the fact that RPGs are notoriously long games. I have played all of the Final Fantasy RPGs and the only ones I have beaten myself are VII, XII, and X-2. The gameplay was good enough that I never really got tired of playing it, which is quite an accomplishment for an RPG.
The story takes place a year after the events is Final Fantasy X. The world is changing and there is a lot of hostility over it. Embroiled in this change is Yuna, the famous summoner that finally defeated Sin and dethroned Yevon. Yuna is attempting to live a carefree life as a sphere-hunter (think treasure-hunter, but with other people's home movies) but what she really wants is Tidus. With the people of Spira left without the guidance of Yevon, they have broken into factions that are on the verge of war and something is stirring underground that threatens to destroy the world.
Considering that it is Final Fantasy game, the story is pretty common, but the idea behind the story is compelling. The end of Final Fantasy X is not the end of the story of Spira. There are more stories here, just like there are many, many stories in Middle Earth. In any setting where an entire world is created to tell a single story, there are an infinite number of stories that have never been told. Final Fantasy X-2 reminds the player that just because Sin is defeated doesn't mean that Spira is suddenly going to become a utopia. There are still monsters to kill and stories to tell.
Now go forth and play,
-Zac
If your views coincide with mine, and you like games to have a compelling story, then you have probably played a few RPGs and you know that the most popular series of that genre is Final Fantasy. Setting aside all the games that bear the name Final Fantasy yet are not really Final Fantasy (Crystal Chronicles, Tactics, Dirge of Cerberus, etc) the bastard step-child of the series is the only RPG sequel to be made from a previous game. I am of course talking about (if the title didn't give it away already) Final Fantasy X-2.
This is a good game. I know what you think, gentle reader, but I maintain that it is more than simply playing dress-up with Final Fantasy characters. It is playing dress-up with Final Fantasy characters then destroying things. The fact is that the Dress Sphere system is just another form of the Job Class system. The only characters that the player uses are Yuna, Rikku, and Payne. These three girls level up independently of whatever dress-sphere (I.e. job-class) they are using but the more a character uses a dress-sphere, the more abilities they can use with it. This means that if Yuna puts on a Warrior dress-sphere at the end of the game, she is still a high-level character, but she will not be as effective as Payne, who has been using that dress-sphere since the beginning of the game.
I suppose the best way I have to explain how well the combat and leveling systems work would be this: I like RPGs in theory, but I don't usually finish them. Since the combat is almost always strictly tactical, it tends to get boring before the end of the game. This problem is compounded by the fact that RPGs are notoriously long games. I have played all of the Final Fantasy RPGs and the only ones I have beaten myself are VII, XII, and X-2. The gameplay was good enough that I never really got tired of playing it, which is quite an accomplishment for an RPG.
The story takes place a year after the events is Final Fantasy X. The world is changing and there is a lot of hostility over it. Embroiled in this change is Yuna, the famous summoner that finally defeated Sin and dethroned Yevon. Yuna is attempting to live a carefree life as a sphere-hunter (think treasure-hunter, but with other people's home movies) but what she really wants is Tidus. With the people of Spira left without the guidance of Yevon, they have broken into factions that are on the verge of war and something is stirring underground that threatens to destroy the world.
Considering that it is Final Fantasy game, the story is pretty common, but the idea behind the story is compelling. The end of Final Fantasy X is not the end of the story of Spira. There are more stories here, just like there are many, many stories in Middle Earth. In any setting where an entire world is created to tell a single story, there are an infinite number of stories that have never been told. Final Fantasy X-2 reminds the player that just because Sin is defeated doesn't mean that Spira is suddenly going to become a utopia. There are still monsters to kill and stories to tell.
Now go forth and play,
-Zac
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Sneak King: "Amusing" doesn't mean "Entertaining"
Apparently I take commissions for game reviews. The other day, my friend Derek of “From Out of the Dream” handed me Sneak King and told me that I should review it. He also said that I would find it “amusing.” I had my reservations about writing a review about a game that was made by a fast-food company, but the man was willing to loan me something from his collection. I'm not gonna say no.
Sneak King is not a good game. You probably knew that already and so would I have, but I mistook the word “amusing” for the word “entertaining.” The game is amusing, but it isn't much fun to play. I really should have known that a company that fails at making decent hamburgers couldn't pull together a full game.
As I said, that game is, indeed amusing. When the player successfully sneaks up on a hungry person (not a difficult task since as their sight range is roughly equivalent to a bat's with blinders on) the King does a little dance and gives them a burger or coffee or fries or a handjob (if only). It is amusing because the King isn't actually holding anything at first. He does his little dance, then reaches behind himself and pulls out a plate with food on it. One can only assume that he pulled it directly from his cavernous rectum.
That being said don't bother playing Sneak King unless you happen to be younger than twelve (and if that's the case, you shouldn't be reading this blog, I use filthy words) I only played about fifteen minutes of it before I decided that that was plenty of my life wasted on it. I doubt very much that there is any real story (and if there were, it would likely be trite and shoehorned in). The gameplay is simplistic and extremely easy, even when you want to make a good grade on a mission, all that really needs to be done is hide somewhere instead of just sneaking up on someone. This means that it isn't difficult, it just requires patience. Unfortunately, my society has taught me that waiting for anything is akin to torture (which is why we have fast-food restaurants like Burger King, the irony kills me) so I'm not very good with patience, especially when I'm doing something that is supposed to be fun.
To be fair, this is a game designed for children, and it shows. Sneak King can't be expected to stand up to the same standards of expectation as The Force Unleashed or Gears of War. It is a game made for children by a burger joint. For all I know about kids, this could be an extremely entertaining title. For the rest of us, we'll just have to settle with amusing which probably isn't even worth the two dollars one can get this game for.
Sneak King is not a good game. You probably knew that already and so would I have, but I mistook the word “amusing” for the word “entertaining.” The game is amusing, but it isn't much fun to play. I really should have known that a company that fails at making decent hamburgers couldn't pull together a full game.
As I said, that game is, indeed amusing. When the player successfully sneaks up on a hungry person (not a difficult task since as their sight range is roughly equivalent to a bat's with blinders on) the King does a little dance and gives them a burger or coffee or fries or a handjob (if only). It is amusing because the King isn't actually holding anything at first. He does his little dance, then reaches behind himself and pulls out a plate with food on it. One can only assume that he pulled it directly from his cavernous rectum.
That being said don't bother playing Sneak King unless you happen to be younger than twelve (and if that's the case, you shouldn't be reading this blog, I use filthy words) I only played about fifteen minutes of it before I decided that that was plenty of my life wasted on it. I doubt very much that there is any real story (and if there were, it would likely be trite and shoehorned in). The gameplay is simplistic and extremely easy, even when you want to make a good grade on a mission, all that really needs to be done is hide somewhere instead of just sneaking up on someone. This means that it isn't difficult, it just requires patience. Unfortunately, my society has taught me that waiting for anything is akin to torture (which is why we have fast-food restaurants like Burger King, the irony kills me) so I'm not very good with patience, especially when I'm doing something that is supposed to be fun.
To be fair, this is a game designed for children, and it shows. Sneak King can't be expected to stand up to the same standards of expectation as The Force Unleashed or Gears of War. It is a game made for children by a burger joint. For all I know about kids, this could be an extremely entertaining title. For the rest of us, we'll just have to settle with amusing which probably isn't even worth the two dollars one can get this game for.
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