Game Curmudgeons

If you’re a regular reader, you know I’m a fan of GOG.com already, but this weekend has something spectacular. Beyond Good and Evil and  Prince of Persia:The Sands of Time for $9.99 together, or for $6.99 separately.

PoP was excellent, make no mistake there, but Beyond Good and Evil is among the all-time greats, and I’d easily call it among my all-time top three games, beside Lunar-The Silver Star and Lunar-Eternal Blue.

I’ll be taking a spin through BG&E today, and I’ll have a full review for you. GOG has, as always, made the game XP/Vista(32/64) compatible, and it looks like this version avoids the central hall bug that affected 1.01. I’ll certainly have a report on that too, though, if I run into it. Comes with the manual, artwork, wallpapers, and soundtrack!

Go, buy! It’s 10 well spent dollars. http://www.gog.com/en/page/ubiaction_promo/

I know, I know, everyone else does. Maybe it just wasn’t my thing, but I couldn’t bring myself to love Infamous. In fact, I couldn’t even get myself to finish it. I even tried it again before writing this review to be sure, from the good guy angle. No good for me.

I know that’s a cardinal sin with good games, as the end can turn to suck, and bad games it’s still a sin, just in case there’s something amazing at the end. And I’m sure there could be, but I couldn’t care less now.

InFamous is a third person shooter, essentially. It’s got some platforming elements which are reasonably well done, though not nearly what I expected from Sucker Punch. It’s uneven, unbalanced, and the pace is absolutely dreadful. Not just the story and escalation, the movement. Cole, the game’s hero, moves at the speed of a brooding, angry, electric tortoise, only without the hard shell. It’s strange, he can fall 1000 feet with no effects, but three bullets put him out. And those bullets will be fired at players far far far out of their retaliatory range initially, and later to an extent. The player does get the chance to clear areas of enemies, zone by zone, but the tasks, particularly the stealth ones, just become arduous at a rapid pace. Of course, it also becomes damn near essential to clear ahead to make some missions possible. The uneven difficulty curb, once again, provides problems here. Enemies spawned normally within mission areas aren’t too bad, but when you’re constantly being sniped from rooftops, they can become frustrating nightmares.

That is, frankly, my biggest problem with InFamous. It’s so easy to get ganked from nowhere, and it’s constant. Considering I’m supposed to be a superhero or villain, I never feel like a badass. I feel like a guy hiding behind a concrete block in terror of the AK-47 in front of me. Sure it gets a little better later on with a shield power, but even then enemies just show up beside or behind. And god help you on an escort mission, where you’re going to die several times, and if you hide to regen you’ll usually miss the critical target that’s attacking your ward. Even grabbing wonderful healing electricity can be too much time, resulting in a failed mission. There are, thankfully, plenty of checkpoints, and you can beat escort missions through painful memorization. I guess that’s a good point, compared to a total restart.

InFamous comes with a big block of cheese, too, in its desire for you to be the bad guy. One evil act, and your lighting turns red, for example (and looks crappy, to be honest). Cole’s appearance and clothing starts to look washed out, grey, generic smoldering evil rage, that kind of thing. The game certainly starts interestingly, but the protagonist honestly lacks appeal. His excuses for bad behavior are pretty weak, but he just keeps charging ahead mindlessly.

Now, I will say this. The game’s story does unfold very well, though naturally the overall story arc is going to be the same journey to the ending. And it is a good story, though it takes a while to start and there’s an annoying sidekick (and hey, I’m biased against annoying sidekicks named Zeke). The problem is getting there. Platforming that just never feels right, loose shooting, tremendous inconsistency, constant ambushes. Getting around is certainly a pain as well, even once you get movement upgrades like rail and power-line grinding. Jumping line to line is tricky and usually involves flying very far in a direction you didn’t intend on. And players are unable to outrun the trains on the tracks, so it’s easy to get smacked from behind by one of them, or in front thanks to an occasionally rough draw distances.

Unfortunately, it just wasn’t enough. Climbing buildings can be arduous, and doubly so for the missions that involve removing devices from the sides of buildings. The combat is often frustrating, getting around is slow, and power growth feels arbitrarily limited. There’s plenty of good things in the game, honestly, and it’s easy to see how a lot of people love this one. But for me, it just didn’t grab me, it just became an average third person shooter when I expected crazy lightning action. Call it the Prototype effect.

Infamous gets 2.5 out of 5 from me. I know there’s a good game there for a lot of people to enjoy, but I just couldn’t get into it.

Here’s the good news. Right now, on Xbox Live Marketplace, Games on Demand are available with this morning’s system update. Everything is was $29.99 (Update:Just under half have been reduced in price since the initial post. Bad Company, Burnout Paradise, and Mass Effect are notable drops). Assassin’s Creed, Bioshock,  Oblivion, Mass Effect, there’s some really great games in there at a pretty solid price. Mostly they seem in line with new retail price, though a few are down to $20 by now at brick and mortar without matching on Live Marketplace.

There’s also Sonic The Hedgehog, Meet The Robinsons, and Karaoke Revolution:American Idle Encore. This post isn’t about quality, though, someone will like just about anything even if my job is to tell people not too. It’s about price.

Rockstar Table Tennis, a solid retail buy and very fun game is $29.99 (yes, still). Why retail? The game debuted with the Xbox 360 for $19.99, retail, and can easily be found from $5-10 new or used now. Just about anyone serious about gaming knows this, and most 360 owners have the game, particularly casual players, due to price alone. But for the privilege of downloading? 30 bucks is too damn much.  I love digital distribution, but part of the idea is that you pay LESS than retail for the lack of packaging, not more.

And then, there’s also the avatar items that are horribly overpriced. Granted most of us didn’t expect things on the cheap, but this is gouging for as little use as avatars see. It’s a nice idea, game themed clothing, but, just as an example, Clone Trooper Armor and a Helmet, bought separately, cost a total of seven dollars. A lightsaber? Five bucks. Doesn’t even look that good, frankly. Would I be tempted at two dollars? Sure. Seven? Fuck no. COG armor and helmet? 6 bucks. Full Fable 2 highwayman gear? $11.50.

Adidas t-shirts for two dollars, Monkey Island shirts for one. This feels like Microsoft’s attempt at creating Playstation Home except that, minus 1 v 100, nobody will be seeing your avatar, unless your friends tend to visit the dashboard friends tab often and scroll. So it’s a lot of money to spend for you to look at it yourself, without much benefit even in terms of standing out. Most of the items would be reasonable at one dollar, or even fifty cents for most t-shirts. Fancier items, like full armor sets or big accessories could be worth two. But five and up is way too much for an avatar people have so little investment in, as demonstrated by people dressing them once and never touching them again, mentioned in the Avatar Marketplace introduction video.

Fix it, Microsoft.

This one goes out to all the people on Xbox Live, when you’re using your headset.

The microphone has an OFF switch.

Use it when you’re not actually saying something. Something worth saying. You know, team communication, “hey, nice shot” even.

Nobody wants to hear you breathing heavily in their ear for the round, nor the random sounds that come out of you or the fan blowing on your headset. Nor do we care about the random “OMG BULLSHIT WTF” you’re yelling every time you die.

Everyone leaves it on accidentally sometimes, but most games will cue you that you’re speaking. So when you see that little speaker, shut that shit off.

Thank you,

Management

Oh yeah. It’s good stuff.

It’s no secret I really dug Bookworm Adventures, so when a sequel was announced, I started twitching in anticipation. I’m currently looking at every word I type to consider how much damage it can inflict upon my foes. Granted, this isn’t particularly different from the previous game, but Bookworm Adventures 2 features the same fun gameplay, new enemies, a new story, new settings that are tons of fun, and an adventure replay mode, which was, frankly, the only thing I thought was really missing from the first.

Maybe I should assume people don’t know what the game is, and explain as such.

Bookworm Adventures 2: Lexiconographical Boogaloo (okay, not really, but come on) combines elements of two genres, RPGs and word puzzles. Players face off against enemies with pre-defined attacks that can inflict raw damage, status effects, and have various strength and defensive stats. Meanwhile, the players get 16 word tiles of varied values to put together the best words they can. Better words do more damage (better being longer and with letters used less often), and award gems. Gems are letters with special effects they inflict when used in a word. It’s easy enough to consider them the magic/overdrive/limit breaks and what have you, the reward you get for good performance.  And once you get one, it’s easier to get another in the next word. You’ll never get more than two in a turn (one for a word, one for overkill), but you can use as many as fit into a word. Skilled wordsmiths will be able to stack together three or four in a word, dealing out fire and poison damage over time (yep, DOTs!) as well as a %400 bonus to the initial attack. Even a single word can fell the end boss, done properly.

In addition to that, there’s items to use and carry, as well as companions to aid you. Defeating enemies can result in potion drops, health restoration potions, strength enhancements, and status effect nullifiers. Those alone are quite useful, but then after most levels players gain an item which confers a constant effect, with two carried at any time. A few examples are that types of words do more damage, status effects last one less turn, potions drop more, etc. And then, companions, of which you bring one per level and who activate every four turns. Some drop potions, some stun enemies, some purify, and the list goes on. There’s quite a combination of items and companions to be had, and most are quite useful. It’s also, while easy to do, not necessary to horde the potions one gets. Plenty drop, and if players lose, they can easily get a few more via the mini-games presented.

There are now six of them, the original three and a new one included with each book. As much as I enjoyed the originals, I’d say these three are superior and rarely went back except for a bit of fun. Minus, naturally, Word Master, a mini-game where getting the best reward required guessing a 5 letter word on the first try. It’s fun in the mini-game section, but not as a way to earn prizes due to too much random luck being involved. That aside, the other five games are a lot of fun and good for earning extra potions and gems.

The three new books are tons of fun, and the last book is far less frustrating than the last time around. No more over-armored enemies, just moderately, which results in a lot less playing the same chapter twenty times in a row to stockpile potions. And the settings, well, excellent. Bookworm Adventures took players to some fun places, no doubt, with Greece, Arabian Knights themed tales, and of course a journey into classic horror. Bookworm Adventures 2 takes a more modern approach, starting off with Mother Goose, and moving into (highlight for slightly spoilery bits) Journey to the West, followed by Sci-fi elements with a big dose of cyberpunk.(all clear!)

The presentation of these elements, as well as Lex and friends, remains as charming as ever. There’s a touch of childrens’ storybook, a bright, crisp palette on top of paper doll style designs, indeed looking as if the enemy just came right off the page. They do suffer a little from the game’s low resolution (it’s not bad, by any means, windowed, but becomes obvious fullscreen), but the animations are amusing and the way they’re drawn is great. Sounds and music fit right in too, with simple effects and a bit of voice from Lex. All very friendly, with flavor text and amusing attack names. It’s got that PopCap charm, no doubt.

That charm is a part of what pulls you in over and over, too. You just can’t quit this damn game. Even when it frustrates the hell out of you with tile warps (a truly vicious attack that changes your letters, and if you’ve been slaving away, preparing a truly devastating word, only to have a key letter ripped away and turned into a q…it’s hard to describe that pain after unleashing ten 3-4 letter words so you could drop 14). But, that’s just part of the game. It wants you to think on your feet and dig deep, especially in the later stages, and it damn well forces you.

I didn’t mind.

Bookworm Adventures 2 gets 5 out of 5. It’s pure, simple tremendous fun, well polished and in my experience, bug free. A little low res, but that’s the only real complaint I have.