Game Curmudgeons

Penny-Arcade Adventures:On the Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness:Episode 1, known to the common man as “That Penny-Arcade game”, is out for PC and Xbox Live.

It is, in a word, pulpy.

In two words, thick pulp.

In yet more words, this is hyperfruit, a juiceless, rindless orange, composed entirely of flavorful flesh, magically held together by forces unknown, the essence of pulp.

It’s a good thing.

Moar! »

I don’t think they’ve done anything wrong myself, but that’s because I’m having such a good time running them.

There’s going to be a longer review up tonight we expect, but we’re having some issues with a post system. But it needs said that if you like 4x games, or RTS, well, this is the game for you. It manages to walk the line perfectly in slowly passing time with very few qualms to be had(and those are already being addressed for the next major patch). It’s a lot of fun, it has good AI, a good challenge, and all that wonderful Stardock replayability and customization. Not to mention an amazingly clean and effective interface to control astounding numbers without any scrolling at all.

Go ahead and get it, it’s a 5/5. We’ll tell you why tonight, what sets it apart from Galactic Civilizations and other space based RTS, to make a fine blend.

God damn it, who did this?

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic wasn’t game of the year by any means when it came out in 2006, but it was pretty damn good anyway if you could look past the flaws or somewhat repetitive nature of the game. Of course, to look past those, you had to see something at all, and the game tended to drop to 15 FPS for no reason at all, but that’s another issue, now isn’t it?

Well, imagine all the good elements of the gameplay got cut in favor of a process so streamlined you don’t get to make any choices except “What class will you pick?” at the start. Oh, I’m sorry, did you enjoy how the PC version had three skill trees, letting you use big fucking weapons, staves, arrows, nasty stabby daggers, or flaming death from your fingertips? Too bad now. Not only are you shoehorned into the class of “warrior”, “archer”, “assassin”, or “mage” at the start, you don’t even get to choose how to level up within them. You get experience for killing things, and at a certain point you level up, getting the next skill in the line, whether you want it or not.

And to keep up with that theme of extreme linearity, levels have been shortened or simplified quite a bit. The opening level is, in fact, entirely different(save for some recycled voices and keys). The second level, which was previously an intense rush to figure out where to go while being attacked by an undead cyclops, is now a 2 minute affair that never fails to hold your hand. I can’t define everything that’s been changed, sadly, but I can say far too much in terms of design. This is the essence of dumbed down. You can’t even pick up another type of weapon now. Hey, did you happen to somehow find frost daggers? A bow which launches exploding arrows? Oh, I’m sorry. You’re a warrior. You only get to use the occasional sword you find.

Even for non-warriors, too much of the game comes down to smashing the attack button. The previous careful tactics allowed by the flexibility of the game are gone. No more warriors getting out a bow and arrow to hit a weak spot or trigger a trap to avoid combat. Now they just have to walk on into the fight. And archers who get caught off guard? Well, that’s too bad, they won’t be pulling out a nice dagger or staff for protection. Not that arrows matter. It’s apparent immediately that the hero weilds a 10 foot sword, at least when of the warrior class. It’s far too easy to strike targets that are clearly on the other end of the great hall you happen to be pillaging.

Of course, there are other things than gameplay. Graphics, for example, and sound. Both are terrible. Muddy textures, poor animation, unstable framerates. The sound? Also muddy and skipping heavily. I’m not sure if swords have collided or someone dropped the fine china half the time. Even the FMV cutscenes, which are ripped straight from the prior version, look worse off. Poorly compressed with bad framerates.

This is an absolute failure of a port. A game that was previously quite good, if flawed has been considerably downgraded over the last 17 months. All good elements of the original have been stripped entirely, leaving lackluster combat with poor collision detection, little strategy, and no variety. Far too often sections have been stripped from levels, and the new ones are simply awful. From the very beginning of the game, with the near total redesign to the end where the flexibility that made things so good has been removed, the whole thing is simply awful.

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic:Elements gets 1 star, because even if you never get a chance, it’s fun to kill enemies with the environment, and certain moments still work well, and the story is still fine. Everything else, ugh. Ruined.

John Mullins would not be pleased. Neither would Raven Software, I’d imagine.

Soldier of Fortune:Payback has almost nothing to do with the previous games, and the entire list is as follows.

1. The Shop is still your outfitter.
2. You’re a mercenary.
3. There’s a system for enemy dismemberment.

I suppose we could count “It’s an FPS” as number four, but it’s not a good one, as much as I’d hoped it would be.
Graphically, Payback is pretty average. No nasty texture seams, nothing blurry or obviously low-poly. But nothing ever stands out, particularly very flat, artificial feeling buildings and enemies that never feel real. Lots of slowdown, for some reason, plagued the game, despite the fact it should be optimized fully for the console. Some texture pop-in is present as well, which annoys but is ignored by those of us who loved Mass Effect so much. The gore is over the top, and too much so even given the series roots. Previously extreme damage would remove limbs or decimate them, and that was certainly fun. However, now one low caliber pistol round blows an entire arm off, and it’s clear the game can’t decide if it wants to be tactical or arcadey anymore in looks or gameplay.

Stay in cover too long, and enemies will charge you. Step into the open, get blasted by an RPG. It’s hard to make the right move without already knowing where enemies are, and that’s not to mention the way they tend to spawn behind you, and how bad the AI is. Silently spawning behind you, they’ll walk up and melee you often. The rare times they flank you, they still don’t shoot, they run up and melee. It seems the only time they ever shoot is from your front, or above you on a rooftop. That is, when they shoot instead of just charging ahead and beyond you. Yeah, that happens too.

The game never really becomes intense, just annoying sometimes. Manning a machine gun is almost suicidal, enemies seem to have pinpoint aim when you’re on one, and good luck getting a hit on them. They seem to take less damage from .50 cal round than a Beretta to the hand. Fortunately it’s easy to let go and duck behind cover to regenerate health, but it shouldn’t be such an effort to mow down enemies in a game that’s all about blasting people into teeny bits.

The audio at least was good enough. Weapons do sound good, and the explosions are pleasing to the ears(even though grenades do fuck all against most enemies). The voices all come across clearly, and the acting is fine. Sadly, the audio just can’t carry the game’s lack of entertainment value.

Lots of weapons that you’ll barely get to use, lots of mods you’ll never use for them, and a lot of slogging about defines Soldier of Fortune:Payback. It’s a long way from the creeping around subway tunnels of the original, or even the hazmat assaults of the second. The multiplayer has dropped out severely and the GHOUL engine is looking pretty poor these days. It’s gone from intricate details like slicing off someone’s earlobe with a good shot to a head or arm blowing off with any damage in that general area.

Soldier of Fortune:Payback gets 2 out of 5 canes. It’s not an awful game, but it’s certainly not good, and the novelty wears out fast, even as short as the single player campaign is.