Game Curmudgeons

Or at least someone who didn’t do the research. While the gangrape that occurred in Richmond California is terrible, maybe we should take a look at the real causes, and the real reasons the witnesses didn’t react.

But Drew Canberry of the National Crime Prevention Council sure didn’t think it through.

I’m not sure of the answer, but I think when you think about something as prolific as internet porn, which really distorts what a human sexual relation is about, if you think about a video game-I just heard an ad for a video game, a game called “Left 4 Dead.” That kind of uh, a culture, and that kind of media has to distort what a, what a young person is going through determining what’s right, what’s real, what can I just, what do I have to concern myself with. I, I’ve thought about this, I heard one report where this  bystander effect was some folks were coming and going and wandering in and out and being recruited to come see this. I think of it in terms of how I might forward an email. Uh, and I might say something like “You gotta see this”, and I press send. And I wonder if that’s not the same kind of mindset that’s in place when that happens.

Further on, Jeff Gardere, criminal psychologist declares his agreement.

I see it all the time working with young people in my practice…There’s a tolerance effect. A lot of these kids have seen so many things through CG, through the virtual reality, through fantasy, that when it comes to real life, their tolerance level is so high that they now must see something absolutely much more horrific in real life for them to realize that this is the reality.

Fortunately enough, Phil Harris, criminal justice professor, takes the time to downplay the effect of media and puts the issue on the environment kids grow up in. He doesn’t deny that it can feed into it, but wisely suggests the real issue comes from peoples’ real lives.

For those who are unaware-Left 4 Dead is a game where four players cooperate to survive a zombie apocalypse. The game utterly lacks sexual elements or human targets. If you’re shooting, it’s at a zombie. I’m not seeing the connection here to gangrape, myself. Sure there are some pretty awful imports out there, but I have a hard time believing a japanese rape game is being played by everyone around and causing them to ignore reality. I’m pretty sure even most of the players aren’t going to ignore a rape in reality because of it.

But hey, I’ve only been playing video games since I was 2, and I’ve yet to murder or rape anyone. Hell, I haven’t even had an assault or molestation charge.

I’ll try to get some followup, here, if I can get ahold of the talking heads from this interview and comment from Valve.

Yeah, it was only a minor thing in the past, when it was small bits of swag and only one or two games.

But now more and more real content is becoming exclusive, for more and more games. And it’s bullshit. And I’m not alone, I’ve seen a ton of complaints about it.

Skins and such things? Would be nice to have, but whatever. Actual content? Ridiuclous, particularly in multiplayer situations. It’s one thing if I have a guitar with a Tenacious D design. Or a golden lancer. But why does this other player get a top level weapon in multiplayer for buying from the right store? Why does this guy get to play as Juggernaut? Why don’t I get to explore the Palazzo Medici level for buying from Amazon? Why do I not get to be the Joker?

And why are companies going along with this? Why ruin the integrity of the game, or limit content that took hard work from the programmers and designers to people who picked the right store? And on top of that, one the gaming industry isn’t fond of due to its habit of acting as a pawn shop, dragging down sales of new games. If I don’t have one close, or find a better deal, or even don’t get to pre-order (Oh, darn, I can’t afford the game until a week after release), I shouldn’t be punished for it, especially if I’m buying a new copy.

Hell, even DEMOS have gone exclusive. I know Madden 10 is a pretty sure seller, but why not give the full sized demo to players who are on the fence, instead of only ones who pre-order there?

I ask a lot of questions, yet have no answers.

So I’m going to start asking. It’s always been one thing to have swag go to a store, or in-game items that don’t anything, They’re just reskins. Now that it’s real content, though, it’s like every game is pulling a Shaun White, with less locked away content at least.

When I have a company that actually answers, I’ll post here. I’m sure Gamestop is paying the producers for the content. Maybe there’s an advertising deal. Gamestop handles it, producers don’t have to. Maybe the numbers show more pre-orders and seem to suggest higher sales, or fewer resales if the content is downloaded from a promo code. Makes people hesitate to trade it in, maybe, lose that content?

Well, we won’t know until we get answers. To the internet! Let’s find out if there’s good reason and we can forgive, or see if we’ll have people with Gamestop content in exile.

Email me!

Zekedms@gamecurmudgeons.com gets you a coupon code, I have two to give out. Mail me with the funniest word you can think of, and the two that make me laugh hardest get the codes, which expire on November 1st.

Not bad. It’s pretty okay.

So, great by movie port standards. Not bad by the rest. Buggy, mediocre combat, overly-simplistic puzzles, but the atmosphere and acting are great.

Do I have to write more?

I guess so.

Saw is its own story within the series, taking on the story of Detective Tapp, one of Jigsaw’s early hunters. His game is held in an asylum, filled with people trying to kill him to retrieve a key planted in his body. He’s put face to face with past victims and forced to save them, similar enough to Saw III really. His test is, ultimately, one of his ability to let go of his obsession, but that means rather than others experiencing their own games in the standard way, Tapp has to save them. Through puzzles. Mostly recycled.

Alright, come to think of it, the good parts of the game really aren’t the game itself, they’re the movie-themed aspects and setting. Storywise, this one fits with the first three splendidly. Thank god, because IV was “meh” and V sucked out loud.  Unfortunately, the game itself tends toward repetition and bugs. Tension is created rather artificially. Combat is initially annoying as the blocking mechanism is terrible, and the combat itself is unresponsive, but it quickly becomes a good block and instant kill for every enemy you run into, or an easy run into a tripwire. So while most enemies are a non-threat, the game resorts to a lot of instant kills via tripwire, and that results in an annoying amount of returns to checkpoints which are just a little too sparse, but that’s typical for survival horror, which I’m pretty sure this qualifies as. Theoretically limited weapons and utility items, though really most enemies drop a weapon and the traps you can build are never, ever needed. The one time they’d be useful, they have virtually no effect on the enemy, so there’s no real reason to bother with them.

Aside from that annoyance, the tension comes purely from the story and environment itself. The dilapidated asylum is a great setting. Dark, and the player’s light sources are of limited utility. There’s lots of broken doors, corpses, busted steam pipes, and notes left over from the asylum’s last days in the 1980s.  Players even bust down a few cracked walls, and the game does create an excellent feeling of survival at any cost (though quickly they’ll yawn at reaching into ANOTHER acid barrel or syringe filled toilet). Unfortunately some of the walls are bugged and will take three or four minutes to bust if players don’t hit at just the right spot. Oops.

A lot of the environment is distracted from by the object pop-in, too. Konami clearly didn’t put its best programmers on this, as whole televisions will come into appearance suddenly. Texture streaming is one thing, and pop-in of distant items isn’t a rare thing. But these are low-object environments in close quarters. A TV shouldn’t suddenly show up when I’m four feet away, and the other five are already there.

The puzzles are, mostly, “been there, done that.” Generally the traps are things you fix by handling puzzles you’ve already done. Gear placements, pipe twistings, and…another form of pipe twisting. In one particularly bad one, it’s a memory game. You know, flip two cards, do they match? Oh, well try again! If they’d have gone with puzzles more based on the workings of the machines, or even more twisting turning controller interaction, it would have worked better. Instead it just felt very disconnected, minus the first person you rescue, which was an interesting enough puzzle. But since Saw isn’t about puzzles, it’s about sacrificing to survive…well, it doesn’t work as well as it should.

There’s also an odd level of censorship. Of all the games I expected to not shy away from blood, this would be the one I expect to revel in it. Instead, it’s very, very muted, particularly head trauma. I know that’s a big thing, but the game is m-rated anyway. Why shy away? And the enemies are too damn recycled. You see a few models far too often, and they all have the same few trap types on them when you fight. It’s never particularly gory when they go off. You do get an exploding head or two thanks to shotgun collars, but the way it’s done is…well, minimal. Particularly odd when a nailbat to the face does NOTHING to someone, at least visibly.

Yet the desire to finish the story was enough to push me forward through the game, which did run on a little longer than it should have, particularly when it got to key hunts and combo lock code searches, along with too much backtracking and replay due to instant-kill tripwires and door traps. Jigsaw sure owns a lot of shotguns. And has a lot of time on his hands. And for someone who wants people to survive, if damaged horribly, there’s a lot of instant killing that doesn’t come from breaking the rules of the game.

The more I think about it, the more “eh” I feel about the game elements. Mediocre models, nice texture work, great environments, lame traps, lame enemies, lame combat, mostly lame puzzles. But the story pushed me forward, seeing Detective Tapp’s influence on the world and the game he’s caught in. Maybe they should have stuck with that, because the game they made doesn’t play like one would want for Saw. It watches like one, at least, but it should have been a comic or movie, rather than a game.

Saw gets 2 out of 5 stars. Weak when it comes to the gameplay, but for fans of the series, the series will be pushed forward by the story, which fits quite nicely between the first two films. Otherwise, it’s a half-hearted effort, and probably not worth the rental.

Brütal Legend is fucking awesome. My friend demanded a haiku about it. Here it goes.

Brutally awesome

Tim Schafer makes comedy gold

And spills lots of blood.

There you go. Brütal Legend is awesome, and god damn you all if you don’t buy it after what you did to Psychonauts, you ungrateful pricks. It’s got comedy, blood, incredible music, great acting, and great cutscenes. It’s a game brilliantly put together from a few different elements that always comes back to a brawler core, backed by heavy metal. Great metal. Hell, even Dragonforce is used in an acceptable way, even a GOOD use of them, and I’m far from a fan of theirs.

But hey, you need more than that, right? So I’ll give it to you.

Brütal Legend is a brawler at its core, with lots of free exploration, some RTS elements, some RPG-ish elements even. Most of the time is spent with the player driving or running around alone, taking on enemies and looking for secondary missions. Most of those are ambushing enemies, point defense from a turret, and races. But there’s a few other things to be done, and a few twists on the standards one expects from those missions, and they’re mostly fun (the point defense from a turret is less so, depending on the weapon used). Between that, missions! There are a few base types, escorts and stage battles, with a bit of variety in between, and those are all excellently done.

Aside brawling, there’s lots of driving, lots of exploring, and lots of secrets to find. None are essential, but they include new special abilities, attribute boosts, flame tribute (the currency used to buy upgrades), all of which are damned useful, some easily capable of turning the tide of a battle. Or, and they look really cool. I mean really, who doesn’t want a flaming axe or one that sprays blood when you swing it, even when you haven’t hit anything recently? Nobody I want to know, that’s for damn sure.

It’s not a complicated game for the most part, but it does include sections that are reminiscent of Battlezone, where the player commands forces as well as fights. Follow, attack, and defend orders can be issued, territory is fought for (specifically, resource points that emit fans), units are recruited. The overall execution is simple, but a lot of fun and can be a really intense experience, being on the battlefield you’re issuing commands to, defending your fans and trying to make new ones.

Even in the midst of battles, comedy and heavy metal galore. Over the top violence is standard, lots of dismemberment, harsh language, and fire. Just like the game’s cutscenes and…hell, most of the game, to be honest. Particularly out of Ozzy’s mouth. Oh yes, Ozzy and Lemmy both feature heavily in the game, as do other metal icons and some who just have plenty of cred, like Brian Posehn. It’s a game played as much for the story as anything, and it’s a mostly excellent, despite an unfortunate rush at the end, where a little more story progress would have been great. But hey, there’s always DLC, right?

The game really succeeds in the style department as well. Great dialogue, great sound editing, and amazing visuals. Not for being high polycounts or exceptional models and textures, though they are excellent. Mostly it’s the style. Everything is just…so damn metal. Especially scenery. It all looks like it’s from a heavy metal album cover, every single thing, but hey, so do most characters, most enemies, everything, really. Some from power metal, some speed, some thrash, some black, some death metal. The visual themes all fit different aspects, the various factions get their own musical styles, and everything comes together in an amazing way.

It’s not flawless, of course. Sometimes it gets repetitive. There’s some occasional jumps or oddities with in-engine cutscenes, models can lose accessories they had in an earlier piece only to magically regain them. The turret missions are…eh. The plot rushes a bit at the end, as said earlier, but…well, it just never seems to matter. The only complaint is the game is too short, clocking in at 11 hours with a light amount of exploration. But that was missing a LOT of hidden items, frankly, and there’s plenty of those.

Brütal Legend is an absolute 5/5. There’s a few small issues, but the game is fun, funny, and tremendously creative. It’s a game with definite replay value, a fun multiplayer mode based on the single-player game’s more climactic RTS-Brawler combo battles, and hell, it’s not hard to just sit in a safe place in the Druid Plow listening to the spectacular soundtrack. Go get it.

Yeah, it really is as hard as you’ve heard. And as Atlus has requested information be sent around, if you’ve gotten yourself an early copy, or even right on the release date, don’t panic when the servers aren’t working. They’ll come online on October 6th for sure, but this is apparently one of Atlus’s biggest releases, and as such, they need a little extra time to work on things.

Oh what to say about this game now that the news is out.  Beyond the fact that it has a strange name, and probably should be Demons’ Souls, unless it’s referring to the collected souls by one demon as an example.

Okay, grammatical complaints aside, Demon’s Souls is excellent. There’s a strange addictive quality in this dungeon crawler that does its best to isolate, horrify, and kill you constantly.

It also incorporates some wonderful sort of disjointed multiplayer effort, where occasionally a player gets yanked into another’s world, is attacked by another, or pulls someone in. These are short ventures, always, never lasting for more than a boss battle. On top of that, players can leave each other messages. Warnings, hints, suggestions, occasionally tricks and pleas for help. Bloodstains too, when they die, which can offer a hint of what’s coming up to players moving through a new area. Players can also suggest messages, and an upvoted message gets your health restored to full. Very, VERY useful since it’s a precious resource indeed, and damn near any enemy can kill you in two hits or less. It’s certainly the kind of game where you’re constantly holding a shield up and ready to dodge. When a normal enemy can kill you in three hits, and there’s quite a few enemies who can kill you in one that you’ll come across while on the normal path to the boss, you’re dealing with a tense game.

But, that’s the essence of the experience, tension. Nasty enemies, nasty traps, and isolation. Players will see maybe one friendly face in a given area, usually a merchant loaded with overpriced items that players will most assuredly need to survive the poisons, cuts, and plagues that can kill in seconds. It’s a strange kind of game where boss fights can be easier than getting to the boss by leaps and bounds, but careful players who strike cleanly and methodically will find themselves well rewarded. Careless players who run ahead will fall off cliffs, get stabbed in the back, burned alive, and chopped in half, finding themselves in soul mode more often than not. But hey, that’s when you can go kill someone else’s boss and regain your body.

And once you have your body you’ve got more health and can equip another beneficial ring for enchantment, as most players will use the Cling Ring that gives spirits 3/4 health instead of 1/2 when they’re dead. Spirit form players see others pass by occasionally too, sometimes providing a warning of imminent danger.

Helping players stay alive are the souls they collect, which are both experience points AND money. Items can’t be sold, but enemies respawn whenever a player comes back to an area, so there’s an unlimited supply to be had, if players stay alive. When players die, they leave a bloodstain behind, which can be touched to recollect lost souls. Simple enough, in theory, but die on the way back, and the first stain disappears. Only the last death can be recovered, and it really forces players to decide if they want to save the souls for something big (like a spell to warp back to the Nexus, the game’s hub/only real safe point), or to spend them on smaller immediate upgrade and repairs to equipment, which degrades at an alarming rate at points.

Like I said, the game is brutal. High level enemies intended for later players will show up in the first level, even tutorials. The game’s skill based approach means, fortunately, players will learn from past encounters and get further along each time, as well as learning when to retreat.

The game isn’t a complex one, focused entirely on dungeon crawling, but it has things that really set it apart from other things in the genre. And unmitigated atmosphere of horror thanks to the isolation, constant demon attacks, and the fact most anyone you see is rampaging batshit stabhappy insane. The level of detail is superb all around, too. Weapons have weight of varying amounts and styles depending on the hand used, left, right, or two hands, some can parry offhand, some just swing or thrust a little harder, and some will require certain levels of strength to use with just one hand or the off-hand. They’re also quite sensitive to the environment. Large swords and axes will take wide swings primarily, and are capable of hitting multiple enemies, but will hit walls in a tight corridor, leaving players unable to attack. But switching up the attack type or hand use can provide an attack that fits the situation, and sometimes the speed or power needed to break a defense or hit before an enemy recovers from a missed attack.

Topping that off is the amazing amount of detail to the visual and aural presentation. Solid clangs and clashes, enemies that sound ferocious and/or crazy, heavy impacts, thumping footsteps, all part for the course. Not to mention some amazing roars. The environment, while tending toward darkness, is thoroughly well crafted, with a genuine appearance of decay and chaos, seemingly locked in the moment when everything went wrong with the world. Enemies have nice high resolution textures, plenty of polygons, and bosses are truly a sight to behold. Particularly as they tend to be quite large with no loss of that visual fidelity. The game keeps a solid framerate to match and nary a jaggy to be seen.

It all ends up greater than the sum of its parts, despite seeming like any other dungeon crawling brawler at first. The steep difficulty is NOT going to be for everyone, and it’s not flawless by any means. There’s times where an ambush really feels unfair, and when played in offline mode the game definitely loses some fun by a lack of bloodstains and messages to help. The lack of a pause feature can really grate as well, but enemies will rarely chase a player down, instead only becoming active when a player is on the move. Stay in place after killing the local enemies, and they won’t be an issue. Of course, that’s not to say invading black phantoms can’t be a risk for players with a body, so it’s definitely best to return to the nexus before walking away. It’s understandable to avoid the pause function in a multiplayer section to avoid griefing and keep the tension up, but when a player is in a single-player situation it’s something that needed to be allowed. Real knights may have crapped in their armor on the battlefield, but let’s save the inability to stop for a good poo for the hardcore sims, not demon hunting expeditions.

Demon’s Souls still gets a 4.5 out of 5, despite the occasional issue and the definite moments of frustration. A steep difficulty curve isn’t for everyone, nor is the game’s brutal, punishing nature, but for those who persevere and enjoy a serious dungeon crawl with roguelike elements, this is one of the best things to hit the PS3. There’s a truly addictive quality despite the hardships, and once you start, the odds are good you’ll come back over and over.

Well, I’m a little disappointed.

There’s no clear way to know who’s going to get what fusion (a high-powered clearing or targeted attack), the models and animation tend to jump right into the uncanny valley. And not in that Uncanny X-men way. In the “Man, that’s just…I don’t know. Something ain’t right” way. And what’s up with Reed Richards’ thunder thighs? Seriously, he has some amazing childbearing hips.  Broad chest, anorexic stomach, massive hips. 38-24-40. Hourglass figure, particularly the Ultimates costume. At least that’s easily blamed on Greg Land, who gets far too many costumes in this.

There’s a lot of bugs, and while they won’t be a big issue most of the time, on Legendary mode, they mean certain doom. Even moreso with the generally awful camera, that’s usually too far out or too obstructed to be of any use.

There aren’t nearly enough voice snippets for each character, and I can only hear Green Goblin say “Are you just going to watch me die?” so many times.

There’s damn near no difference between the levels for the pro or anti-registration sides, and some areas are blatantly copy pasted, including a boss battle. Then after a short period of Civil War action, the game turns to its own plot devices, creating a new enemy and story from the roots of the civil war that, while not bad, isn’t particularly memorable.  It feels like a real bait and switch.

A lot of the mechanics have been dumbed down, the cast isn’t as strong, unlockables feel fewer, and there’s a distinct feeling of repetition, particularly on a second play that should have been, and was really advertised as, a completely separate experience. Instead, it’s at least 2/3rds rehashed.

There’s nothing wrong with a “what if?” story in a game based off of comics, especially when it’s the “what if?” series that can be best. But this is no Old Man Logan, it’s an okay at most rewrite that just wasn’t what I signed up for, and that’s a real disappointment. So is a lot of MUA 2, though, and tomorrow I’ll elaborate on all these points. And even talk about the upsides that still made me enjoy the first playthrough, and trudge through the beginning and end of the second.