Some Assembly Required

 So like so many others right now, I've bought the Avengers game. I've not played much so far, but I have observed something: this game doesn't know who it's aimed at. Combat is crowded and a little frantic but instead of plowing through like you'd think for a game with mass appeal, you are supposed to dodge and parry based on fairly short warnings that are almost constant when surrounded by enemies. Fail to do so and you are not only injured (as one would expect) but your attacks are interrupted. You're supposed to play like an expert or you'll just keep stumbling around feeling far from a super powered hero.

Then there are the skill trees and gear systems. Playing the story missions requires a "power" level otherwise you'll be unlikely to succeed, but gear and skill management is one of those annoying things that gets in the way of pursuing the story. And you have to constantly manage gear, because you have so little inventory space, most equipment will just become fodder for deconstruction, because multiple resource systems are also another thing that is present but interferes with the average person who just wants to play the story.

The game keeps throwing this and tutorial missions at you to teach you the systems you'll be diving into when you "finish" the game and focus on grinding the multiplayer. But why does the multiplayer need to intrude on the story for a single player experience? It seems like a lot of the multiplayer is recycled missions and assets from the story anyway, but in an effort to drag out the content and squeeze it for all it's worth, the game has an unintended (or perhaps not) side effect of alienating someone who just wants to see a story and feel like a superhero.

Perhaps it's just me, but it seems like games are being designed now where the closest to "fun" you can get is just picking the lowest difficulty and hoping it's not too aggravating.

Limited Functionality Is My Nemesis

Well, it's been a while. I wanted to take a little time to complain a little more coherently than I did during my live streams of Resident Evil 3. This does concern more than that game specifically however. My thoughts are a but scattered but the essential point to make is about functionality. Although it could also fall under that derided gaming attribution: "accessibility".

I've personally found RE3's dodge mechanic to be inconsistent, rather like that of Bayonetta, which I went back and forth about during streams pointing out how late it needed to be then suddenly getting a perfect dodge way earlier than I expected, only to find myself then dodging too early then pushing for late dodges then getting hit, and so on. Some people seem to have no trouble perfectly timing a dodge in RE3, good for them. But to me that only draws attention to the problem, that the dodge is ineffective.

By which I mean that pressing the button for "quick step" does indeed step quickly, but in most circumstances it is useless. One exception that springs to mind is the sequence when fleeing from Nemesis while shoots you with a rocket launcher. Otherwise, using the dodge can actually cause harm rather than evade it. Try dodging past a zombie and they grab you, even successfully timing a perfect dodge away from one enemy can send you into the clutches of another. There appears to be no invincible frames of the animation when used normally and you still have some recovery before you can move normally or dodge again.

The perfect dodge on the other hand, evades the attack, provides some invincible frames, gives you an opportunity for a counterattack, and recovers faster. The regular dodge is largely pointless save for being a vector for perfect dodges. Frankly, this is a terrible idea. Rather like games by From Software (which I haven't played, this is going off of observation not experience) or some fighting games, function for the average player is rudimentary, with most of it being reserved for more expert players.

This itself is not quite the problem, for instance I understand there aren't many ways to make some things easier such as learning a musical instrument (that one is from personal experience). The problem arises when packaged in an entertainment format, such as a video game, that is sold to all. This is not a skill that one learns to be able to produce creative expression, this is someone paying to be entertained and instead being frustrated. If your response is along the lines of "get good", I would offer the frustrated a better piece of advice: get a refund.

It brings to mind the "controversy" that arose around Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, last year. From Software made a game for expert players, but sold it to everyone. I don't want to delve into all that nonsense here, I bring this up mainly to point out why there was bad press and negative feedback about the game - because it was not made for the average player, but they were certainly willing to take the average player's money. Due to that, they have to take that criticism, because the skill of the player doesn't invalidate their experience. Not to mention there are so many other aspects to a game than just its difficulty, but gamer elitism is also not the point of this post.

Function was limited for average players. Rather than being something that worked for everyone, but was more rewarding for those using it effectively, it was something that had little practical value for a non-expert player. Personally, I found myself trying to avoid using the dodge in RE3 and falling back on my RE2 experiences of keeping distance and wearing enemies down. Unfortunately, the game isn't designed to let you do that most of the time.

If instead the dodge worked as some sort of action-roll with some invincible frames, but if timed perfectly allowed for a follow-up attack with higher or guaranteed critical chance, then at least it would have universal function but reward expert use. Even in such a situation there are ways to limit the practicality of spamming the dodge and never being hit, since of course you'd be spending all your time not attacking. For a game that really seems intent of having you avoid regular enemies anyway, it sure does restrict your ability to do so. And not just with the dodge, but also the environment.

Sorry it took so long to get to the main point I wanted to make; I do try to explain myself and the situation, and also it's been a while since I did a lot of writing. What it boils down to is: you can ignore all my ravings and complaints made while enraged if you want, but they are my experiences with the game, and they're no less valid than your own. Whether you think it's a good game and I think it's a bad game is irrelevant to the fact that I'm not going to say that I like this game, certainly not when compared to its predecessor (by which I mean RE2 remake, not the original RE3).

As I found with a second playthrough on a lower difficulty, my complaints from that first run were not because of the difficulty setting, because I had the same complaints on standard as I did on hardcore. I'm not even attempting nightmare mode until I've unlocked some good bonuses. Which means, yes, I'll still be playing the game - but I didn't call my channel Joyless Gaming for nothing.

Shameless Self-promotion Ahead

Hey all you people who aren't reading this: I'm on YouTube now.

Yeah it's not that exciting, but if I get about 9,500 more views I can apply for AdSense revenue on my crappy videos of me sucking at games and complaining about it.

What more could you want?

MEH - a Mass Effect retrospective (I couldn't think of a better title that also included the initials "ME")

So it's that long awaited thingy I was going to write about the Mass Effect series, and it's going to be a disappointment... I think that was meant to be a joke about the reaction to Mass Effect 3. It's not going to be detailed or well researched since I'm barely mustering the effort to do anything these days, but it will be done. Also not going to bother recapping story or anything like that, too much effort.

EFFECT THE FIRST

Mass Effect was at the time something quite different from what I'd played before. Not wholly unfamiliar, but it was not the kind of game I'd been playing. In retrospect it's rather like a throwback to old 80's and early 90's types of role-playing computer games: epic story, underdog hero, gear progression, lots (and lots) of talking (but now fully voiced like living in the future). Oddly enough, while I think there is merit in older RPG styles and implementations, I must be getting old because Mass Effect now just feels so bloated.

Most of it is busy work - the story itself is fairly long and the side stuff usually quite short, but all that side questing feels necessary since you need the XP otherwise you'll have a hard time getting through the story since you'll not be a high level. Example: early part of the story where you get to choose which mission you take, well to me the obvious first choice was to go get Liara (daughter of early confirmed villain Beneziah). However, after going through all the stupid crap to actually rescue Liara you then have what I guess amounts to a boss fight against some mercs led by a Krogan who will kick all manner of excretions out of you unless you've levelled up sufficiently (or put it on the lowest difficulty setting, which is another nuisance these days where it seems like you (I) need to play in the lowest difficulty for it to be fun; like "easy" = fun, "normal" = hard).

So the game can really drag on which kind of sucks, since a lot of the side stuff is where the fun actually is - exploring a planet's surface in the Mako, scouting uncharted worlds for resources and information; not always essential to the plot, which is why it's fun, but when you must to do it to level up, well it becomes a chore rather than an indulgence.

I didn't mind the gearing up, or even the skill selection since it allowed you to play a certain way and support strengths/weaknesses with gear and squadmates. But again, when you must do this, it gets annoying. Combat was... well it was there, at least. About the only thing that made it interesting to me was that guns never run out of ammo, they just heat up, so it was a different kind of weapon control rather than just "empty the mag". They killed that for the sequels, but at least they also streamlined the combat ("streamlined" doesn't necessarily mean "improved").

Oh yes, the talking. So. Much. Talking. Again, the number of options available in dialogue (also reduced in the sequels) would not normally bother me if it weren't for the fact that most of it is irrelevant. There's such a simplistic karma system (and it's not alone) that you'll stick to the "Paragon/Renegade" choices to ensure that there's a point to your even bothering to talk in the first place. At least the streamlining of the dialogue for the sequels works, since it was unlikely they were going to make that many variables be accounted for in character interactions.

In sum: fun at the time. Now I'd like the notion of replaying it, but not the reality.

ME TOO

Well they kill you in the opening sequence, that was unexpected (unless you watched all the promotional material, I guess).

The story here seems so much more focused, not so much in a good way, because it makes you and all your actions seem smaller. Hell, the environments feel smaller (most of them actually are, too). The importance of your mission is relentlessly hammered into you, yet the game and it's world (well, galaxy) seem so much smaller than in the first game. I'm not quite sure how this happened, maybe it's just because you spend less time on the Citadel and interacting with the Council than in the first, coupled with the smaller environments.

Pretty much no gear progression here, there are slightly better versions of each weapon type that you can purchase going through the game, but they're not so spectacular that it matters. Your own progression matters a little more because of this, despite the reduced number of skills and that all active powers now share a cooldown rather than have their own. This I think was supposed to make you rely more on your squad, since they introduced power combos here, but they didn't really get that right until ME3. So combat is a lot more cover-based action shooter than the first, even though the first was still technically a third-person cover based shooter as well.

They did make your class selection more significant for combat though, with each class getting a unique power that was supposed to define them and their playstyle. So you cloak your sniper, or warp your Vanguard into your enemy's face before shotgunning them into oblivion. It worked better than class distinction in the first game, but was again something that was more refined in ME3.

A little less conversation, a little more shooting people in the face. The Paragon/Renegade system got an upgrade with the "interrupts" that can occur during dialogue. They were heavily scripted, usually it was one or the other, not many places where you could use either one, and those situations usually presented the interrupt that tied with your preceding dialogue choices (the immediately preceding choices, it wasn't so sophisticated as to recognise your entire persona, but given that you would be going all good or all bad for the most part, it doesn't really matter). Generally, the Renegade options were more fun and entertaining, even if it does reveal your inner sociopath.

And the tedious resource collection that was essential for upgrading the ship which was essential for not letting all of your crew members die during the final mission. The crew loyalty missions were fine, there was character development and backstory contained within them. But instead of exploring worlds for fun and seeing what was there, you're firing probes at them to get minerals. NOT ENOUGH MINERALS! It's like playing Starcraft again...

ME2 really focused on the one mission that is stated from the beginning, the only reason the game is as long as it is, is because of recruiting your team and then gaining their loyalty. The actual "story" is really short this time around, and with a larger cast of characters, the world feels smaller? It's strange, but BioWare accomplished it here.

In sum: more "fun" to replay, but damn does it take a long time to make sure no one dies in the final mission.

MASSIVELY EFFECTING

I actually like Mass Effect 3 a lot more than my original review would let on. Probably because, more than the previous two, it actually made me feel something. Or maybe it just happened to come along when I was suffering emotional instability. The Paragon/Renegade thing is so far streamlined in this game that there aren't really any "neutral" responses any more. But beyond that, this time around being a Renegade actually feels like you're the bad guy. All Renegade decisions (and Renegade decisions inherited from the previous games) feel like the wrong choice. Sure the game still lets you go on after doing it, but instead of making you feel like a badass or even just a likeable dick, now you feel like a supervillain, abandoning many to die, condemning species to extinction, classy stuff.

Needless to say, this did not aid my mental state. On the other hand, being the good guy felt overwhelming emotionally as well, but at least I wasn't sacrificing all my friends to a damn near impossible to see "greater good". So, it actually feels like your choices matter in this game, until you get to the ending, which is why everyone hated it. The two complaints about the ending that I usually see are that it was perfunctory, which was addressed (somewhat) by the "Extended Cut" free DLC; and that after three games worth of stuff, everything came down to the "war assets" counter in the third game and a simple dialogue choice of which ending you'd like. Without enough war assets then you don't get to choose the ending, but you'd have to speed-run the game to not accumulate enough, especially after the Extended Cut reduced the required amount for maximum readiness.

But everything, story-wise, up to the ending was, as stated above, massively effecting, at least to me. Game-wise, well...

Combat was more finely tuned here but still much like ME2 in style. Powers still share a cooldown but now your weapons (or lack of) affect cooldown reduction, meaning you can play more powers-based classes (tech, biotic) more effectively on your own, and the return of weapon mods means you can just run around with a pistol boosting your powers, or armed to the teeth with high-powered guns and forget about powers altogether. I'd not recommend the second approach though, since you need to be in cover quite a lot otherwise you die a lot. Higher difficulties are actually easier with powers rather than guns, at least for me.

As mentioned in my first review though, combat it really just filler for continuing the cut-scenes or getting to new conversations. The fact that you can win a fight, nay, you must win a fight in order to witness a cut-scene where you get the crap kicked out of you is really galling.

Interactions are a hell of a lot more limited, there don't seem to be as many "interrupts" as before, and not quite as many charm/intimidate dialogue choices. They also seem to be tied to the generic "reputation" counter rather than the specific Paragon/Renegade meters, meaning that for the most part, you can play either way you want in a single play-through if the mood takes you. I was attempting such with my recent play-through, but haven't mustered the will to keep playing it, which leads me to...

TRILOGICALLY

There are so few real variations between character interactions that you end up replaying really long games to see minor differences or hear a few different lines of dialogue. The series, as a whole, is a real slog to replay, I'm surprised I managed it as many times as I have, but most of that has not been recent, so it's probably a combination of personal issues as well.

The music was great across the series, interesting to hear the progression there (I'm fairly certain they all had the same composer).

The scale of the games went up and down, ME3 really did manage to get back to a real sense of significance and large scale impact.

The characters were always a high point, well written, well acted, fun to have around and chat with.

One place they really botched it was with the Reapers and their origin. Apparently there were different ideas but then certain people left the company so they came up with something else, which happened to be quite stupid. Original ideas aside, with what was included with the Leviathan DLC for ME3 you could of still made it somewhat logical: instead of them being machines created by the apex of biological evolution to prevent the loss of lesser "thrall/tribute" species to their own machines which, surprise, then turned on their own creators to prevent them being destroyed by machines (and the Reapers are too dumb to realise that they turned on their own creators and thus actually failed their task but they think it's OK because they've preserved every species they've harvested)  - just make it so that they were just trying to preserve those species from natural attrition, and the machines had the insight that they should "preserve" their creators as well, just in case.

But no - "hmm, these organics keep getting destroyed by their own machines, let's make some machines to destroy them first, but preserve their genetic code, and hope that those machines don't then do what we seem to think all machines do, which is to turn on their creators and destroy them". My way is using the exact same setup and framework, yet manages to be infinitely less stupid. Hell, even if it were just a rip-off of the Borg where they were using other organisms to further improve themselves it would've been less stupid.

So yes, I'd prefer not to have to sit through another "machines will destroy us all" story, they are mostly garbage, pandering to people with technophobia, in a computer game... I'm all ironied out.

Overall, everything is still a straight line and it gets more noticeable every time I play it. I mean, I'll play new ones if/when they make them, but I don't know if they'll generate the same enthusiasm for replay like they did originally.

TACKY

The multiplayer for ME3 was alright I guess. Could be fun, short-form so not necessarily a huge time investment. Bastard hard sometimes though. And tying it to the single-player war readiness thing was kind of annoying, but it does mean that I've got so many assets available that I don't need to do the small side missions any more.

But EA will pull the servers soon enough and you'll never be able to play it again, who knows, that may inadvertently pull the authentication servers and you won't be able to play the game at all. And I bet even after that, EA will still leave the ME trilogy available for purchase through their crappy Origin shop.

A SHORT AND DISAPPOINTING ENDING

That was it, you waited two and a half years for it. Enjoy.

Windows Hate

So I found myself realising that my current computer is definitely dying and I'd rather prolong it's suffering by not using it for gaming anymore. Having not so much money available, I went affordable and grabbed a laptop - which came with Windows 8 installed. I thought: "Not too much of a problem, apparently this 8.1 thing is supposed to be a marked improvement for non-tablet users, and they'll be supporting it for much longer". Note that this is the same rationale I used when I got Windows Vista, self-delusion basically.

Got it home, fiddled a bit, looked around for 8.1, spent the afternoon waiting for it to download, then hooray, install time. Except it won't let me. It seems others have had this issue, and still others refuse to make/use a Microsoft account and provide contact information (one person was even paranoid enough to think they were giving this info to the NSA, which is silly because it's more profitable to sell it to direct marketers, and they're far less discreet with it). But not I, you see. I got to the step that says "Help us protect your account" - which is where they ask for further contact details - and while there is a "skip this step for now" button that just reloads the same screen, it won't actually let me provide further information. I enter an alternate email and it says it will send a code to it in the next step - a step I can't get to because the "Next" button just reloads the same screen. Try a phone number for text (or call), same thing.

This is a new level of incompetence here. They go to all the effort of making the damn thing only to screw up the part where people get to use it.

PAYDAY 2 - the sequel to a game I only played on a free weekend and didn't really like all that much (now with more pointed complaints)

So random crashes aside, which by the way when the suggestion for fixing a crashing game involves uninstalling the game and video drivers and supplementary software and disabling features of the launch system it was designed to run through, well that just isn't right and says that all this technobabbling nonsense we are relying on daily is really, well, unreliable.

Anyway. Issues, in reverse order of my normal reviews I'm starting with what I don't like. Bloated file size for one, apparently PAYDAY 2 takes up heaps of disk space because the developers are generously endowing us with assets that they aren't currently using but think they may want to some time in the future so can we just hang on to them for a while, as a favour? If you're saying I need to reinstall to fix your mistake, I had better not blow half of my monthly download quota and spend half a day doing so. Especially since Steam decided to go and make its game data immune to substitution - a recent need to reinstall Steam also deleted most of my game data and it seems that the games that survived will not be permitted to be copied from the remaining data. Computers suck. And they lie, Steam tells me that it's a 6GB download that takes up 20GB of disk space, go figure. Oh and it seems that the game may have been built on Mac and then ported to PC, because that's a great idea (something about .bundle files being a Mac thing that some person said on a forum post).

Infinite replay value means grinding for what you want from a random drop at the end of every heist, because letting the player get away with "millions" needs to be restricted for some reason so that they can't simply get what they want out of a game that they paid money for. The "offshore account" is insulting, sure you can spend it all getting the missions you want - because that part is random as well, of course, why would you want to be able to consistently choose from one of the very few available missions anyway - but otherwise it has no value, no purpose. You have spending cash with which you buy guns and apply mods (which are randomly attained from the end-heist-drop) and buy skills, because why not have two currencies for character improvement? (skill points and money). Offshore money would have been a reasonable way to acquire weapon mods and masks, but no, let's randomise.

About 90% of the time you will end up in combat. One of the things that made me actually buy and try PAYDAY 2 was the lure of being able to approach missions with stealth. In reality we're left with a stealth component tacked on to a first-person shooter. Even the stealth "class" Ghost has combat improving abilities. Every class is geared for combat, because the slightest little thing can turn your stealth run into a relentless police assault. And if you didn't gear or spec for combat, you're going to die. The Enforcer class is ostensibly the combat focused class, and even then it's mainly because they can get the heaviest armour, which they can only acquire but taking a particular skill, which is top tier, meaning that you can't get the heavy armour for quite some time. In fact you don't gain any armour until you reach a certain level. The levels required aren't all that high, but it does mean that you are seriously screwed as a noob unless you play with some really good or at least high level players.

A nitpick for the combat is that you are not provided with any notion of a gun's range, only its accuracy. I suppose the idea is that higher accuracy means you can hit targets further away and you're just missing them with poor accuracy guns. Except that effective range is actually a component of the game. Up close, you can kill someone in one hit with a shotgun blast, especially to the head. Go a short distance away and it can take three or four headshots with a shotgun to get a kill. So having some kind of range indicator would have been nice. And as a corollary to the class combat system, it mainly associates different classes with different weapon types. There are a few skills that give a general buff, but Mastermind is pistol focused, Enforcer shotgun, Technician rifles and Ghost sub-machine guns (with a general buff to "silenced" weapons).

Armour gives a massive speed reduction the heavier you go, but on higher difficulties you're still going to die in a few hits. A beat cop with a pistol took out my heavy armour in one shot on overkill difficulty. And they never miss, I hate that games like this sabotage the player so heavily, first by greatly outnumbering us, then by making enemy skill so proficient that there is no learning curve. They either kill you in a few hits, or kill you in one hit. The best you can aim for is to shoot them before they shoot you, that's the only margin you're given. So you can't move very fast and you can't take many hits and they still expect you to sit in one place guarding a damn drill while you wait for it to get you into the vault where you still have to bag the loot and then get it to the escape van without dying.

And why does everyone always bang on about the graphics. I'd make this a separate post but I'd probably never get around to writing it but when I was a kid we had an Atari 2600, and today I would still play Joust or Pitfall because they were awesome. One of my favourite games of all time is X-COM: UFO Defense (or UFO: Enemy Unknown in some parts of the world, and I think it's a way better title) and people today would probably puke at the sight of it, because they're so used to CGI rendering in movies and complain if a game doesn't have high resolution textures. What about the game part of this that somehow escapes your attention? Early 3D games do tend to look rather ugly compared to recent ones but I've seen people complain about Mass Effect 3 looking like it came out in 2011. It's running on an engine that came out in 2007, retard, most of these games are built to run on consoles that are using fixed hardware from the time of their manufacture, get over the graphics already and pay attention to the game in video game. System Shock 2 is not pleasant to look at by today's standards but it is one of the best games of all time, and you'd be missing out on that if you simply turned away after glancing at some screenshots.

Anyway. You know what I do like about this game. It's fun. I won't be playing it for the next week or so because I don't want to use up all my download quota to reinstall it, but aside from that... It is exemplary of all the design issues endemic to the current mode of thinking about video game development; but when you successfully escape after clearing out a bank vault, it feels good. It feels like an actual accomplishment. We're Pavlov's dogs in this instance, drooling at the mere thought of an intangible reward related to whatever conditioned behaviours we willingly entangle ourselves in to distract ourselves from the vast mind-numbingly pointless existence we have been thrust into without our consent and we'd do anything to turn off awareness of abstract concepts just to escape the creeping madness in our consciousness.

Or at least that's why I play games, what's your excuse?

Marvel at it

So, Marvel Heroes.

Not heaps to the story of this one, save that they went with their go-to guy Doctor Doom as the main villain. Not that there aren't plenty of other villains along the way. Free-to-play, so most of my complaints should be offset by the fact that not only did I not pay for it, but the developer is still working on the game. Seems to me that there are plenty of people paying for characters and costumes. Characters are unlocked with rare item drops, so you could effectively play the game totally free. Plus, this game does right what DC Universe Online got wrong - namely, you play as the famous (some not so famous) heroes from the comics.

Gameplay - much like Diablo, but with Wolverine and The Punisher. Isometric view and randomised dungeons crawling with enemies and the occasional boss enemy. Loot grinding is the name of the game here. Random maps, random loot, level up and keep going. Most games try to hide the fact that you're really doing a simple repetitive task, this one can't hide it. Click, click, click. Over and over. Just keep clicking. Then click some more. Story mode is fairly short and straight forward, that's where the repetition comes in - with daily challenges and of course levelling up your other characters. Or if you really really want to, you can reset the story and play it again.

The microtransactions I can forgive - free-to-play after all - it's that the in game currency is so hard to come by. You can sell your loot, obviously, but in order for the vendors and crafters to have better stuff available you need to donate you gear to them in order to level them up. That takes a loooooooooooong time. I've racked up over 50 hours playtime, and I've got the crafting vendor to rank 10 (of 20). Other vendors nowhere near that high, and the most suckiest thing about it, is that the crafters require components and credits and they demand a HUGE PILE OF MONEY just to put a fairly ineffective low grade randomised buff to your costume. That's just ridiculous - play the game and you'll soon see what I mean. 150000 credits for a grade 4 affix. Even the 25000 needed for a grade 3 is too much of an ask, because instead of selling your loot, you'll need to donate it in order to have access to the upgrades.

What I liked: I like the simple clicking gameplay - provided I'm in the right mood. The character personalities are fleshed out with random banter based on other nearby characters, or combat taunts and whatnot.

What I didn't like: In game currency, just so poorly handled. Maybe they'll fix it, since they seem to be interested in feedback. They are also apparently into updating the balance issues you come across while playing. They've already patched a few times and it's only been out for a few weeks. Also, the free-to-play model only has a few characters to select from at the start - and whichever one you pick, that will be your only character for a while. I did receive a new character token fairly early on, but I'm not sure if that's the standard or not. At least Daredevil was one of the free characters, the others were not some of my favourites (I'm looking at you, Hawkeye).

Play or not, I don't think I'm that persuasive a writer. If you try it free, at least you've only spent time instead of money. Unless you like it, then you can go nuts if you want.

Awake

A short review of Alan Wake.

Short because it's not all that great and also because it's not a brand new game. Astute readers will have noticed that I discuss little of the story and here will do less so due to the fact that this game is all story. Well, mostly plot anyway. Big maps, nice scenery, but generally a straight line. Slight deviations for collectibles but despite some open looking areas, exploration is not really rewarded. You'll follow a path towards a pool of light, where you get a checkpoint save. Normally I hate checkpoint saves, but at least here you get plenty of them.

The game is really aiming for atmosphere, which it does well but still can't really frighten the player with much other than jump scares, though it has some creepy moments. But there is plenty of darkness and the game features an excellent lighting engine. Seriously guys, make Pitch Black into a game with this engine. As much as they touted the "light as a weapon" though, it's really "use light, then a weapon" most of the time. The light has to burn off shadow to make enemies vulnerable. Thematically this is somewhat coherent, but I really get the feeling that it was "I have this story in mind, and here's how we can make a game out of it". And I don't recall, but was this game released in episodes? Because it plays as episodes. This means that you start over fresh as far as weapons go, every time you have an episode break.

Combat just feels really jarring at times, even though it looks cool when you fire a flare gun (the game's super-weapon). Part of my issue with the combat is that the controls aren't always responsive; try to dodge and you get hit, dodge too much and you can't run away and jumping doesn't always happen. And enemies spawn all around you most of the time, so you'll be lighting up baddies in front and get hacked at from the side. What's weird though is that the camera is positioned so Wake is always running at an angle to the centre of the screen, but seems to back off a little when enemies are around.

What I like: The lighting is fantastic, the graphics in general are great and despite playing out mostly in darkness, this game features more colour than Tomb Raider did. I kind of like the story, but I definitely like the in-jokes and Max Payne references (Sam Lake is not above self-satire).

What I didn't like: The camera and controls. Combat. Huh, that's about it really, although combat makes up a fair amount of the game.

So far the Nightmare mode pages haven't been hard to find, but it doesn't really lend itself to repeats. I got it very cheaply, so a few (OK, several) moments of frustration during combat and occasionally falling off a ledge can be overlooked somewhat. And this came out about as long as my other game reviews, hmmm.

Tomb Raiding (optional)

A review of the latest Tomb Raider game from Square Enix.

This is from the perspective of someone who has never played a Tomb Raider game, so I have no opinions on how this reflects on the series. I don't mind platform games, which I understand most of the series were, and there are elements of the platform style here, at least when it comes to moving around environments. However I find there to be a startling lack of depth in both the story and the gameplay.

So after being shipwrecked on a mysterious magic island (which is kind of Lara's fault since she's the one who led everyone there) we get to see the systematic breakdown of Lara's character. Everything gets taken away from her, friends, mentors and of course her humanity. Because after coming to terms with the need for survival (the overarching theme of the game) Lara fairly quickly becomes a mass murderer. That is not a joke. While there are attempts (at least early on) to show Lara struggling with her new found blood lust, she fairly quickly gets over it in the name of survival. I'm stressing the survival because the game uses this as an excuse for lots of violence. Technically all the bad guys are out to kill you and technically you could call it self-defence, but I don't think you can call it realistic to have your character kill a few hundred people and not come out as a stone cold psychopath.

General madness aside the game handles the motion of exploration and combat fairly well. Most of the time it's preferable to stealth kill so as to avoid enemies alerting the swarm of guys hanging around. Open combat is a little unusual in that it utilises a soft cover system - there's no "enter cover" button, but Lara will hunker down next to objects and pop out to aim. Of course you could try charging in, but you can die pretty quickly.

Speaking of quick, Quick Time Events are something you'll have to get used to. This is not handled very well because you can't always tell when they're going to appear and when they do, they can go by fast. So at least at the beginning, expect to see Lara die a few times while you sort out which buttons to push and when. Also there are button mashing episodes, which I'm sure everyone can't get enough of. I mention both of these because I find it annoying that in a game with a fairly decent control system for third-person movement also throws in the occasional button mash or QTE. At least in games that use heaps of QTE you know to expect them; here they just pop up at inconvenient moments.

As my review title suggests, most of the "tombs" you'll discover aren't the primary objective, which even for me makes the game title rather misleading, serving simply to tie it to the series despite being a prequel/reboot. Most of the plot is about the crazy cult inhabiting the island and an undead queen, so yes there is supernatural magic involved in this game which is ostensibly about archaeology.

What I like: The graphcis are good but very bland - mostly grey, even Lara's tank top is grey. I don't understand why everyone wants newer and better ways of rendering grey. Graphics have been pretty good for several years now, can you start focusing on something else? The controls are easy to use, movement is good and doesn't screw you over most of the time. The weapon modding/upgrading system is nice, letting you focus on your preferred weapon to save on "salvage".

What I didn't like: Button mashing, QTE, lacklustre visual style, lacklustre voice acting, lacklustre story. The open world exploration is also lacking in depth, all of the documents that give back-story only give fragments. I suppose they were going for suggestion of detail rather than having to come up with reams of text on the history of the island. Despite the open world, exploration is not really necessary and also not very rewarding unless you really want to get skill points and weapon upgrades.

This isn't a bad game, it's just rather bland. Not much about it stands out. It's also rather short, about 10-15 hours depending on how much exploring you do. Really though the exploration isn't necessary because if you focus on one weapon and the appropriate and related skills, you can just play through only picking up the relics and so on that you come across along that path. I haven't tried the multiplayer, so maybe that might add some longevity, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Buy it cheap and you shouldn't be disappointed.

MULTIPLAYER

So I've tried the multiplayer and I would suggest that you think long and hard about whether you enjoy being killed repeatedly. It seems wildly imbalanced towards higher level players since they have better weapons and abilities unlocked. Plus it's a bit jumpy so you may find yourself dying for no apparent reason because you have no idea where the enemy is. There are a few game modes but I found myself in team deathmatch most of the time, but at least when I saw another mode, people were going for the objectives rather than just kills. One saving grace is that one of the starting skills gives you more XP for kills, I guess it's to give a leg up to new players.

Finite Shock

A Bioshock Infinite review, as will be obvious to anyone who continues to read this post...

Anyway, still figuring out how I'm going to format this thing, but given that it's going to be my opinion and impressions of the game, not a thorough description or recap of the plot.

Anyway, the opening has little in common with the majority of the game, although it does establish the Luteces and their confusing banter, which makes a little more sense towards the end of the game. While it's made very clear that you must succeed or face dire consequences, the most prevalent theme related to the player character (Booker DeWitt) is that of guilt over past actions. You don't find this out right away, rather your first experience is the whole " the South will rise again" attitude of the inhabitants of Columbia - which is a flying city held up by science-magic (quantum physics is the new magic, it seems). I initially thought (and was somewhat correct) that the theme of the game would be an examination of the cult of the USA, as "founding fathers" are worshipped by the locals. There is even a quote from the antagonist (Comstock) that "no animal is born free, except for the white man": subtlety in action. While this theme does carry through most of the game, it wanes in influence towards the later stages to make way for alternate realities and time travel. Like I said, science-magic.

Aside from this, most of the game is plot driven - go here, do this, go there, shoot things, run around, throw magic at people. Most of the game has you "escorting" Elizabeth, the girl you were sent to retrieve. I say "escorting" because you mainly follow her, she even runs faster than you do. And unlike the usual escort mission in games, Elizabeth is entirely immune to damage and enemies don't shoot at her. So in that regard, the game separates itself from the pack by not punishing you for failing to protect your companion. There is also a fair amount of self-awareness in the game, something of a hallmark of the series, that draws attention to the lack of real choices in the narrative. Highlighted in this case by the "infinite" in the title, there being infinite possibilities, but of course not displaying all of them to the player.

Speaking of choices, there were only a few here, unlike the previous titles which had a cumulative effect over the course of the game (which will be discussed in a different article I have planned). Your only choices are who to target at the raffle, which pendant to give to Elizabeth and whether or not you kill Slate after he requests it. Otherwise you really only choose how to engage in combat, whether to mainly use guns or vigours or some combination of the two, or to just swing your sky-hook around and carve people up. Having only played through once, I mainly focused on guns, which is done in a rather old-fashioned run-and-gun style most shooting games avoid these days, mainly because it's rather bland. But at least it's not some cover-based shooter that would be equally bland in gameplay. You're limited to only two guns at a time, and two active vigours, but at least you can always swap vigours around. This makes the weapon upgrade system a little useless, as you'll always need to pick up other weapons which may not have been upgraded. Either that or you can spend your money on ammo every chance you get. I didn't, but that's because I wanted to try the upgraded guns, and that costs a lot.

Well that covers story and gameplay, though not as thoroughly some readers might prefer. So I'll follow up with a simple "what I did/didn't like".

I liked the design, rather futuristic looking for 1912, but that was obviously intentional. Bright and colourful for the most part, getting darker as the game progresses, and eventually the nice looking city becomes cracked and ruined as revolution hits the streets. I liked the self-awareness, considering that most of the game is combat in various shooting galleries, the game introduces you to the combat controls by having you visit carnival shooting galleries. And the explicit reference to the previous Bioshock games was neat.

I didn't dislike much of the game, mainly just some little annoyances. It seems to be more linear than it's predecessors, which is saying something. And the few choices you can make have more obscured outcomes than the prior games as well. Even though I made a separate post about achievements, they have become somewhat integral to the way developers build their games - and here, the collection achievements bugged me because I thought I was quite thorough in my exploration, yet I failed to complete any collections. And I missed quicksaves the entire time I was playing this. Checkpoint saves on a PC game? Really?

Well there, not quite how I imagined the review might turn out, but the game wasn't quite how I imagined either. Perhaps it could have been more detailed, but I can't retain details of gameplay for all that long, so I'm left with impressions, which I have passed on here. Plenty of other places are discussing the game in more detail and laying out more of the plot/story. If you want the game ruined for you, go read them, of you want a recommendation, play the game, it's fun for the most part.

Dishonest

Over the weekend, I made the seemingly rational choice to purchase an new game to play, to break the monotony essentially. The mistake however was that I purchased Dishonored [sic](yes, that is not how you spell it). I was sold on the promise of player choice and the opportunity of engaging in a stealth based game - something I've not really seen or tried since Thief: The Dark Project. This is not a stealth based game, this is a serial killer training simulator.

Hyperbole aside, one might think that in a stealth game where there is an achievement for not killing anyone and for remaining undetected, that one would be able to actually do either of those things. Without resorting to swear words, let me just say that in this instance, it actually is an achievement to accomplish these. Because you will spend a ludicrous amount of time replaying short sections and quick loading or reverting to the most recent auto save. I used one restart and a couple of auto saves in the first sequence (escaping from prison) and that gave me a sense that perhaps it wasn't beyond my abilities - limited though they may be sometimes. However after spending 4 hours attempting the first mission trying to be undetected and non-lethal, to be told that I was detected, even though I'm certain I wasn't and moreover that it won't even tell you when you were detected so perhaps it was in the early stages, perhaps it was during the constant retries of sneaking past the 10 or so guards in a tiny section of the map who were looking for me even though they hadn't seen me, I've decided to use swear words:

Fuck this game. Fuck the people who made it so shitty. Fuck the people who sold it as something that might be enjoyable. Fuck you for every time I had to slaughter those who spotted me even though they didn't and fuck you for charging people money for this frustration-fest.

Crap Effect

Finally I decided to buy Mass Effect 3 and I thought I'd take this opportunity to share with my audience (i.e. me) my initial impressions of the game:

It sucks.

I don't know how often the damn servers go down, but it is apparently frequent enough for there to have been several months backlog of forum posts complaining about it. I am aware that most people started complaining about the ending almost immediately (haven't got anywhere near that myself), and apparently Bioware responded with a free DLC to extend the ending - and you need to access the EA servers to validate this FREE extra content. You also need to be constantly connecting to their servers for cloud storage and every time you return to the main menu; in my case this has been frequent, as I took the opportunity to try the multi-player while the servers were running, only to have the game crash once after I tried to make my first character and twice more after I'd managed to play - not finish - for a few minutes and losing all the XP and credit I had earned...

Incidentally, multi-player seems to be necessary for you to have a chance at getting the best ending in the single player... WHY? I don't object to the notion of multi-player, and what little I was able to play of it so far seems like fun. But why make it a critical part of the single player story? Does Bioware hate people who like to enjoy a story based game that they can play on their own without being subjected to forced contact with other entities?

I will suggest that yes, Bioware hates their customers; how dare they pay money and expect to be able to play the game on their own! The very idea is absurd.

I haven't advanced very far into the single player either, but so far it's not really engaging me like the previous two did. Perhaps there was a shift to focus on the multi-player at the expense of the single player, in which case I might not care that I can't save the whole galaxy because it's not worth fighting for. Certainly doesn't seem worth paying full price for as yet - I'm glad I didn't.

ADDENDUM

Reaching the extraction for the first time on a silver challenge to have the game crash seems to be part of an ongoing attempt by the game to make me want to kill everyone involved in its creation. This is not a new experience; the game crashes randomly during play, even in single player. I now hate Bioware for this garbage that they seem to enjoy unleashing upon their paying customers. Never buy anything from them ever again, it will enable you to maintain your sanity, if only a little.

ADDITIONAL ADDENDUM

As far as the single player is concerned - meh. Most irritating point was the fight against Kai Leng on Thessia - a boss fight that you are meant to lose. So if you die, you fail; if you win, or at least deplete his shields, he knocks you on your ass and then leaves you crawling out of the rubble. Stupid idea. As for what I imagine was the issue with the ending - would you rather have another stupid boss fight? Did you not like the idea of being able to make a choice other than where to aim your gun?

And multi-player - EA obviously feels like they haven't made enough money or that they're running over budget, because the servers are unreliable at best, and waiting five minutes for the main menu to load up after waiting five minutes trying to load the multi-player means that it's quicker and easier to Ctrl+Alt+Del and click "end task". Whoever is in charge of those servers - you're doing it wrong.

ADDITIONAL ADDITIONAL

Must connect to servers to access online content like single player DLC and FREE multi-player DLC, which it can't validate at the moment even when it can connect to the servers. This game came out in March and you incompetent morons still haven't fixed it, and this constant connection is required as a countermeasure to piracy which only irritates your paying customers because the pirates find a way around it anyway. You make a profit off of what you sell and you think you're losing money to piracy? You're driving people to it, at least a pirated copy is playable.

And back to the single player... what an ending that was incredibly stupid (only seen the "synthesis" ending so far). I wonder if there was a different set of writers involved. And all of those decisions that added up over the series amount to maybe one mission relating to it in ME3. And there are still only three endings? I suppose you can have a variance in the final battle depending on the resources and assets you've acquired, but only three endings? Plus they were lying when they said you could carry over a save from ME2 where Shepard died, because I couldn't. Probably because everyone died in that one, Garrus and Tali seem to be essential for the story in ME3.

Stupid as it was though, I've seen worse. Anyone ever play Fahrenheit (AKA Indigo Prophecy)? Also had three endings, which branched from decisions made right near the end of the game, rather than a summation of all activity up to that point. And there was a mechanic in play where you had to keep the characters from becoming too stressed, but when it comes time for a decision with one character - leave with his girlfriend or stay and work the case - you must leave with the girlfriend, otherwise it's game over, go back and make that decision the way you were supposed to. And the first scene requires hiding the bloody knife, only to have a requirement that you find it again as the detective... Why bother? (Plus it wasn't even finished when it shipped).

I know programming and coding must be difficult, but when the supposed professionals make so many mistakes, it seems like they're never learning anything.

FREE EXTRA CONTENT

So if you killed the rachni queen in Mass Effect, you didn't kill it for the purposes of Mass Effect 3. Also, if you recommend Anderson as Councillor, that only endures for Mass Effect 2, as he returns to the navy and Udina becomes Councillor. Again, for the purposes of Mass Effect 3. Way to kill the illusion of agency, Bioware. I don't want to know how many more "choices" turn out this way; why bother? And going to all this trouble with the rachni results in them providing one of many, many assets for the war effort, meaning that it could have been left out if the rachni queen died. But then again, the mission features Grunt, which also means that he's probably another one of those "must survive Mass Effect 2" characters. Weird, considering that you didn't even have to let him out of the tank in the first place. That would make for an awkward conversation...

MORE FREE EXTRA CONTENT

Random crashes, connection issues, poor writing, these things we start to expect from big game developers, because they suck at their job and the publishers don't give them enough time or resources to fix their many, many mistakes. But at some point in the development of Mass Effect 3, they decided that the PC version should play like a console game and designated the space bar as the all-in-one button. Use space for sprinting, dodging, taking cover, vaulting cover, activating objects, picking up objects and reviving teammates. The PC keyboard has lots of keys, guys. You don't need to make it like a control pad.

And on those rare occasions when the multi-player servers are working, there is this odd chance occurrence of placing you in a game that doesn't match your search parameters; like placing you in a gold level game when searching for bronze or silver. The AI has enough BS on its side, you don't need to make it tougher than it already is.

EVEN MORE FREE EXTRA CONTENT

I cannot overstate the nuisance of the EA server problem. If it's an issue with the servers being overloaded then EA only has themselves to blame for forcing the game to re-validate itself and all DLC every single time it starts up. Why should anyone pay you for the privilege of not being able to play the game when they could play it for free AND gain the satisfaction of denying you a sale? I have validated my copy of Mass Effect 3 at least 50 times since I purchased it, and the only DLC I have for it are FREE! If I haven't already mentioned it, I'll say it here - the only money you lose to piracy is the money you spend on anti-piracy measures. The pirates will find a way around your copy protection, and they were never going to give you their money in the first place.

And Origin? You want to keep a larger slice of the profit for yourself yet you don't want to spend all that outlay and preparations for support that others go to (let's face it: they envy Steam). Origin prices aren't cheaper, they still have the same mark-up, but more of it goes to EA, and less goes to the customer.

Also of note is the behaviour of game publishers compared to other industries. White goods, electronics, vehicles - all are sold (new) with warranties; games, we get the End User License Agreement. Nowhere is there any mention of the responsibility of the publisher to ensure their product works and is supported - all we have is some bitching about piracy and how everyone paying for their games should expect less for their money. If publishers are under no obligation to provide a functioning product, I don't see why the customer is under any obligation to pay for it.

In conclusion (because it would just be even more complaining about the same topic if it continues):

FUCK YOU, ELECTRONIC ARTS!

MUST HAVE LAST WORD

My previous conclusion bears some revision - all of a sudden there are no connection issues and I can play at any time of day. Hooray you might think, but no. The game can't stop crashing every 5-10 minutes, so a further FUCK YOU to the people responsible for not fixing this game even though it's been out for 10 FUCKING MONTHS - you are worthless and incompetent, and I hate you.

Die in a fire.