Saturday, January 26, 2013

Magicka and Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2

So I quickly "gave up" on these two games.  I'm going to forgo the normal format, and just make a few comments on each.

Magicka

I originally bought this with Cody on the cheap so we could coop it up.  I don't remember much about those few days, but I remember having some fun.  When I went back to try and finish the campaign by myself, I was bored out of my mind.  The problem I have with this game is the combining of spells is much more complex than it needs to be.  Here however, lies the rub.  The fun of this game is the needless complexity, it is fun to move your fingers really quick to cast big spells.  Once you get over the fun of the complexity, which wore out quickly for me, you find that you only need a few selection of spells.  I bound those spells to various macro keys on my keyboard, and that basically killed the game for me.  Blasting through enemies quickly became tedious.  The game lost all the fun.  The art style is cool and the spell effects are really fantastic

All in all, I think you need to play this game in coop.  

What did I pay:   $11.88

How long did I play:  3 hours

Dollars per Hour:  $3.96

What would I pay?  $5

Why?  I remember having having when I played with Cody, so I think that's worth something.   Five bucks is worth a night of fun if you ask me, so I think that's about right.


Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II

I tried really hard to like this game.  I love love love love love the Warhammer universe, and I think I need to start reading those books.  Beyond the franchise, I really like leveling the heroes.  Gearing them up is fun, and they have a ton of personality.  However, I just get bored going through doing the same thing in each level.  The single player campaign has a boring story, and it just isn't fun.  The encounters are all very similar, and again, I find myself just doing the same few actions with my heroes over and over.  Perhaps this is a valid criticism for most games.  I don't care, I felt it in this one.  The other problem with this game is I can't tell if the game wants to be about the heroes or about the troops.  The units are cool too, but I just don't care to use them.  I wonder if the direction for this game would have been better if it was more similar to how Warcraft 3 was originally, squad based RTS with heroes.  *shrug* maybe its just not for me.  I don't know.

I tried Last Stand mode, which is basically horde mode with a single hero for each player.  This mode confused the hell out of me.  I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to play it.  The only method that worked was using my teleport ability to kite enemies around while other players shot at them.  This was incredibly boring.  I don't get why its hard to make this mode work.  Make weaker enemies that are easy to kill, but they eventually will overwhelm you if you don't properly use your abilities.


What did I pay:   $4.29

How long did I play:  3 hours

Dollars per Hour:  $1.43

What would I pay?  $2

Why?    Basically I would only pay to support the franchise.  I don't really care for this game, and  I think it maybe that I just don't care for RTS games in general.  More on that later though.   I wanted to like this game a lot though, I just couldn't get into it.

Amnesia


What I expected:  Simply the most terrifying game ever created.

What I got:  Not just the most terrifying game, but the most terrifying experience of my life.  Perhaps this says more about my life up until this point, but regardless, this game is insane.

What I liked: Basically everything.  The technical aspect to the graphics is very low, like Quake 2.  This doesn't get in the way of anything though.  Their art style is that strong.  They know exactly what they needed in order to terrify the player.  The most advanced aspect to their game is the post process effect.  It changes depending on your sanity level.  The puzzles are fairly well done.  They are clever, but not hard.  The pacing of the game is nigh perfect.  There is always something to do, and they keep you on the edge of your seat.  They have some hub rooms that are very well lit, and they give a great sense of security after being scared out of your mind.  The story is also really interesting, and I found myself going into  dark rooms just in hopes to find more bits of the story.


What I didn't like:  In hind sight I didn't like how many tinderboxes and oil there is.  I horded them for a long while, and found out that I couldn't possibly use them all.  There is a lot more security in this game than it appears.  Obviously this is a very minor complaint.

Final thoughts:  Honestly, this game scared the crap out of me.  I put off playing this for a long time because the DEMO scared me to no end.  I could tell I had a significantly higher heart rate through most of the game. I could only finish it by reminding myself, out loud  that it is only a game.

How much did I pay:  $1.42

How many hours did I play:   7

Dollar per Hour:  $0.20

How much would I pay for this game in perfect hindsight:  $20.00

Why?:  Incredibly well done.  They deserve a lot more than the pitiful few bucks I gave them.  Their next game I will probably pay full price for even if it takes me a long time to actually sit down long enough to finish it.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Trine 2


Soooo Amnesia scares the crap out of me, so I've been playing Trine 2 in the background....well it turns out I beat Trine 2 and the DLC Goblin Menace or whatever it's called.

Trine 2

What I expected:  Trine 1, but prettier.

What I got:  Trine 1, but prettier and a bit more depth.  Ultimately, what I think most sequels should be.

What I liked: Dear lord the art direction is fantastic.  Additionally it's a very beautiful game from a technological perspective.  There is a very healthy amount of organic objects in this game, and they all feel exactly as they should.  The DLC especially has some incredible vistas and environments.  While we're on the subject of the DLC,  this is exactly how I imagine DLC should be, a mini-expansion pack.  It gave new talents to the talent trees, and gave brand new environments and enemies.  One level inparticular, takes place inside a giant worm.  Holy crap it is amazing.  Everything feels like a giant worm's insides.  Almost everything moves, and drips with slime.  I almost wish there was a whole DLC pack dedicated to this level.  The DLC also was much harder than the main game, this is also what I like to see in DLC.

Some Trine does very well is the feeling of cheating the game.  There were many puzzles where I felt like I hacked my way through it, by building a very weird contraption that got me through it.  It didn't *feel* like I beat it how they intended, but perhaps that's exactly what they intended.  One of my favorite feelings in my gaming life has been world 1 level 2 of Super Mario Bros, when I jumped up on top of the level and zoomed past it.  I felt like I broke the game, and that was awesome.  Of course that was completely intentional, and that's how you warped ahead.  Not enough games recreate that feeling.

What I didn't like:  How I felt like I cheated the game....often.  I felt like I was doing something wrong half the time.  Every once in a while the feeling of cheating was great, but it happened multiple times in almost every level.  Each time I felt like I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to do it.  Maybe this is a minor gripe.

I also hated how it basically requires you to play through the game more than once to 100% it.  That's a major frustration for me in current games.  It seems like people like to introduce artificial replayability by making you play the game again to 100% something.  Look, I don't think replayability is all that important.  I think if your game is fun, people will replay it.  Consider movies, there is zero reason why you should ever watch a movie again.  Nothing has changed, no achievements to unlock by watching it again. Yet, we all watch movies more than once, because the feeling we get is great.  I think great games recreate that great feeling without gimmicks.

Final thoughts:  I really enjoy puzzle platformers that are quick to play and aren't very punishing.  This game delivered on all points, and was gorgeous to boot.

How much did I pay:  $4.37 (included dlc cost)

How many hours did I play:  13

Dollar per Hour:  ~$0.34

How much would I pay for this game in perfect hindsight:  $15 (including DLC)

Why?:  Incredibly pretty and solid game play.  Good length too (I like games to be 12ish hours).  No major complaints.  What else is there to say?  I didn't touch coop, but that's because I'm forever alone.





Tuesday, January 8, 2013

007 Legends, A.R.E.S. and Ace of Spades

Ok I'm going to combine these three games, as the comments will be very short.

007 Legends

Wow, it is hard to imagine how you could make a worse Bond game.  The premise is solid, I think.  Basically the concept is to create a game where you go through all the cool moments of Bond movies.  Forget plot, forget meaning, just a roller coaster.  I vomited.  This game is terrible.  I spent 30 minutes in the game before I couldn't take it anymore.  The graphics are terrible.  Flat textures, low polygon counts, even the art direction is terrible.  If you looked at screenshots of this game, you wouldn't be able to tell me what game it is.  It's the very definition of bland and uninspired.


How much did I pay:  Zero Dollars.  I got it for free from a lovely marketing woman.

How many hours did I play:  0.5

Dollar per Hour (a common trait I hope to rate all my games with):  n/a Free game

How much would I pay for this game in perfect hindsight:  -$50

Why?:  Because playing this game is a waste of time.  It's terrible on every level.  It's even a bad console port.  The controls feel all sorts of wrong.  I really would need to get paid to spend another 30 minutes with this game.  I wish I could delete this from my Steam list.

A.R.E.S.

Cool little side scrolling game.  Nothing really unique about it actually.  You can upgrade weapons and grenades, which I always like, but it seemed like none of the guns were effectively all that different.  Supposedly if you play it on hard there are secrets to find.  I find this feature really dumb, as I now have to play it through again.  F that.  I did beat this though

How much did I pay:  I bought this game as part of a Indie Royale bundle for probably about $5.

How many hours did I play?:  106 minutes.

Dollar per Hour:  $2.83

How much would I pay?:  $1.00

Why?:  Ultimately forgettable, if not entirely unenjoyable, experience.  Super short.  At first glance it would seem that I over paid $1.83, but we'll have to see how the bundle totals up.  Other games in that bundle:  Gemini Rue, Sanctum, and Nimbus.

Aces of Spades

An interesting idea for a game.  It's basically Minecraft with guns.  Fun little experience in short bursts.  Honestly, I'm not done with the game, but it will probably be a while before I return, as Hawken consumes my multiplier itch.  The only mode I've played is where you have to destroy the enemy base.  Fairly easy to do if left untouched, but hard to stay hidden.  No real innovations in weaponry as you have your standard minigun, sniper rifle, etc.  Not much to say about this game, but it is fun.


How much did I pay:  Got it as a gift (THANKS CODY!), but it was $5 at the time.

How many hours did I play?:  2 hours.

Dollar per Hour:  $2.50

How much would I pay?:  $5

Why?:   I like supporting new little ideas, and this definitely has a unique twist with being able to drill into mountains.  Even at right now, I think it was a good purchase.  Hopefully I get to play a bit more in the future.


What game is next?  Half-Life 2: episode 2 review (random list picked it first), and I will finish a game I stopped playing on purpose...Amnesia.  I quit playing that game, because I was honestly scared to death.  This is going to be interesting.

Darksiders II

Ok so I finished my first game with the new blog.  I'm going to experiment a bit on style, so please comments are very welcome on just the format.  Here goes nothing...

Darksiders II

What I expected:  Darksiders I in purple instead of red.  Bigger and badder.

What I got:  Darksiders I in purple instead of red, but there is more!  An actual loot system complete with gear with stats, a boring talent tree, and a very lengthy survival mode.  Well it certainly is bigger, but I'm not sure if its more bad or simply more bad ass.

What I liked:  The art style.  Joe Madureira's direction is pretty amazing.  Everything has such a wonderful grand sense of scale.  At one point I came up to an undead human, and I said, "Wow this guy is small."  He is literally the same height as my character.  I was so used to fighting things so huge, it was jarring to find something the same size as me.  Every environment is interesting, but the angel's area is one of my favorite.  Everything there is just so massive and thick.  It really gives the impression they've been there for a very long time.  Controls were also pretty good.  I could customize hot-keys for different abilities, which worked very well.

Something I thought was really interesting was the lack of quick time events.  (Well there is one place at the end you have to quickly press "B" once.)  A common debate among my ex-coworker Drew and I was  "is it better finish off a boss with a QTE or a long animation that you naturally go into?"  I'm not sure this game solves that argument.  Most bosses go into a very long (and cool as hell) animation of you executing the boss.  There is no QTE at all involved.  To support Drew's idea that QTEs are stupid, it was very nice not having to worry about hitting a certain button.  I was able to actually enjoy the animation.  In fact I found myself wanting to rewatch them.  (IDEA:  Boss execution gallery).  To support my idea that QTEs however annoying, do bring you somewhat closer to feeling like you are actually killing the boss.  I think that was the case here as well.  Once these animations started I didn't feel like it was me doing it.  Well, it wasn't, it was automatic.  All in all, I think Drew is more right.  I would rather feel slightly disconnected and be able to enjoy the wonderful animation.  There might be a better way to do these types of things.  This is probably a subject worth talking about later.

Combat felt good.  Death is very quick and nimble.  There is no block button like War had in Darksiders, so you have to rely on dodging.  I've been playing Hawken....a lot, so dodging came very naturally to me.  This was a very minor thing, but it did make it feel slightly less similar to Darksiders.  Combos were also simplified a great deal from what I remember in Darksiders.  Combos are now more about timing than memorization of silly button combinations.  Different combos now typically do different style of attacks, rather than more powerful attacks.  This was a very welcomed change, and I wish more brawlers would do this.

The idea of having different builds with the great variety of stats that gear offers you.  More on this in the next section....

What I didn't like:  The gear system was a bit odd.  The idea of it is pretty great, as there are actually quite a lot of options for you.  However you quickly find out that gear is quickly out leveled, so there is no reason to search for that one perfect piece.  However, that's the other problem, there is no way to actually search for loot outside of the Crucible, which is a survival game mode.  You end up just taking gear based on a few stats that you decide are important (for me DPS and STR), and just kind of deal with whatever else.  I think I would rather have a system that involved some type of crafting, or some way to get gear that I want easier.  There is no auction house either, but I'm not sure that's a good idea after seeing what happened in Diablo 3.  There are merchants you can buy gear from, but they just have a random selection of gear.  It's basically the same as the merchants in Diablo 3, sure they can have good gear, but they probably don't.

While the art style is incredibly imaginative, everything else is very uninspired.  Let's take this piece by piece.

Your tool chest is very limited, and mostly the same from Darksiders.  They do have 2 new tools, which are pretty neat (time travel portal and soul split), but the rest are the same, and just kind of left me wondering why they couldn't think of new things.  I personally think a hook-shot is a good device, and I would have left it in.  On second thought they only have 4 tools total, which now seems incredibly small compared to what I remember in Zelda.

Story, probably my biggest complaint.  I never felt any sense of urgency at all.  I know my brother War is in trouble, and I want to help him, but we never see the trouble he is in, we never hear why I need to go right this second.  There really isn't a big bad guy in the game, which is annoying.  Something I loved about Wrath of the Lich King, was Blizzard discovered that you should be introduced to the Big Bad immediately, and often.  I beat this game, and I'm still not sure who the enemy really was.  I know I know it's this dude I killed, but really? He showed up only once before and said I was a jerk.   At one point in the game, I was actually wanting this game to be over, so I could move on.  This is probably the most damning thing I can say about this game, which I generally liked.

Talent Trees are also boring.  You have to spend so many points to make an ability great, and with that you can only really level up 2 abilities, which seems kind of lame.  I'm sick and tired of games doing piece meal talent trees.  Give me the entire ability damn it!  Don't make my spend another point to get an extra 5% damage.

The dungeons were kind of lame too, there are many side dungeons that you encounter in the early game that you can't 100% without tools from very late in the game.  I hate this type of design.  Lock off the entire dungeon, not just half of it.

Final thoughts:  I literally just finished the game, and I can't help but feel a bit disappointed.  I'm not sure if its the sub-par (compared to the first one) story, the uninteresting talent tree, or the unimaginative tools.  I can't stress how great the art style is though, I really enjoyed most of this game despite its flaws.

Now I'm going to try an experiment Cody and I talked about....

How much did I pay:  $60/50  (whichever it was when it released)

How many hours did I play:  30

Dollar per Hour (a common trait I hope to rate all my games with):  ~$2.00

How much would I pay for this game in perfect hindsight:  $40

Why?:  It is a lengthy game.  I spent 30 hours in it, and I hardly touched the crucible, which could extend the life of the game for many many hours, and I didn't have the time to do New Game +.  I do wonder how good the gear situation gets once you hit the cap.  I did think of some really interesting wrath on critical based builds.  For all the complaining I did, I did enjoy the game.  I just wish they focused more on making a great story, like Darksiders.

So I over payed, but not by a terrible lot.  I honestly hope they get to make Darksiders III, as I can't wait to play Pestilence or Famine.  Sales seem to imply they won't though.  Sad.






Thursday, January 3, 2013

O and BEER! (Mendocino's Blue Heron)

So I've decided I'm also going to post my reviews on beer here as well.  My cousin and aunt have very graciously signed me up for a beer club, and this is as good as place as any to put my ramblings here.  While I love beer a lot, I'm not very knowledgeable in a lot of the flavors.  This means, that most of my reviews will be quite...stupid.

First out the gate:   Mendocino Brewing Co.  Blue Heron Pale Ale

It's not bad.  It tastes like a decent pale ale.  Not very hoppy at all, but has some boldness to it.  Kind of surprising given how mild the spices are.  A question I always ask is "Would I order this again or try something new?"  Given how much I like to try new beers, this is quite a difficult measure.  The Blue Heron does indeed fail to reach this bar.  This might be due to the fact that if I'm going to order a pale ale, I'm probably going to order an IPA.  Overall its drinkable, but very forgettable.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

What's the plan?

Alright so my current plan is to go down my Steam game list, alphabetically, and play every game I have.  There are going to be exceptions, for instance, I'm not going to replay games I've already played.  I will however write a post about them, or rather, what I remember about them.  For games that are never "done" like Skyrim, I'll write about my thoughts about it at the time when I get to it.  Additionally, I'm going to skip over some games I own, but don't really care to play (e.g. Arx Fatalis).

Now I am starting out of order.  I am currently playing Darksiders II, and I plan on finishing it before moving on to Ace of Spades.  Expect a post about Darksiders II soon, as I'm like 2/3 of the way through.

It begins!

Well it's about time I start a blog to document all my opinions and whatnot.  I think this will be mostly about gaming, so be prepared to hear my opinions on things!  Matt Moore, I'm going to give you all the info you need to be good at your job.