Game Curmudgeons

Mount and Blade: Warband has a spectacular addition to the combat of the first.

Kicking.

This doesn’t seem like a huge deal at first, but when you’re locked blade to blade in close combat, it can give you the space you need to swing a bigger weapon, or get a good thrust.

Or you could be like me and accidentally drop your two handed sword in the last round of a tournament facing an opponent on horseback with a lance. Which sounds like a recipe for disaster, of course. But it wasn’t.

I got off my horse, let him run into a corner, and buddy, I kicked that horse hard. I kicked and kicked until it buckled as my foe launched thrust after thrust, unable to hit me. He hit the ground and started dodging, using his superior speed as best he could, but I wouldn’t give him a target. He’d wind up, and I’d step to the inside, around the lance, and I’d fucking KICK.

I kicked him into a corner of the arena, mercilessly delivering boot after boot to the nethers.

It was a drawn out battle, and he landed a few true strikes between the weak blunt taps at face to face range, but was almost completely unable to use his weapon.

If Mount and Blade: Warband had a crowd, it would have been cheering. Women would have been throwing handkerchiefs and, dare I say it, entire corsets at me.

Wercheg would have erected a bronze statue in my honor. It would show me in mid-kick, steel booted foot in the air. My opponent’s face was hidden by his helmet, but his eyes would show terror and pain, a confusion as to how he started in this noblest of tournaments and ended up in a world without dignity. His spear would be thrust outward, under my arm, effectively harmless. His shield facing down, but unable to lower enough to protect him.

It would be inscribed as such.

“HERE STANDS MONUMENT TO THE GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS OF SLASH OF CALADRIA, WHO FELL KING RAGNAR IN THE FINAL ROUND OF THE GRAND TOURNAMENT OF WERCHEG WITH NAUGHT BUT THE SOLES OF HIS FEET AND THE ENDLESS DETERMINATION OF THE HEROES OF LORE. FROM NOW UNTIL THE END OF TIME SHALL HIS EXPLOITS BE KNOWN, UNTIL THE LORD GOD DOES END THE WORLD SHALL CODPIECES WITHER AND FOLD MERELY BY HIS PRESENCE.”

Okay, I haven’t actually played Dark Athena yet, but I’ve spent all day playing Butcher Bay.

I woke up at 6 am or so. My copy arrived at noon. It’s now 4 am, and minus 3 hours or so of break time, it’s all been Riddick.

While it has a few small technical issues (occasionally an enemy is hard to hear when speaking, sometimes a little bit of polygonal overlap shows on models), the gameplay is superb, the presentation excellent, the story intense, and the acting great. Butcher Bay itself is definitely a 5/5 game. More detail to come.

The galaxy is a big, big place. And when you can explore this much of it, things take a while.

The general policy here is to get to the end of any game with a linear objective, and to get a significant dose of sandboxes and sports games.

Well, there is an end goal to Mass Effect, and there’s a lot of sidequest. I’m at 22 hours, and I believe I’m halfway done at most. It’s not too early to recommend the game, however, and this is the point where I do so.

In summary, the game is awesome. I’m going to go over my weak points, in a nice bulleted list, so you know what to watch for, because the rest is just great.

• Loading. Lots of it, and if you’ve been playing for a while and your Xbox is getting hot, you’ll see more of it. It’s never a long load, often just a little 2 second popup. But god damn, elevators are slow. So very slow, and a few times I’m sure that if I could have taken some sort of stairs, I’d be there already. Upside is elevators often have sounds playing that are relevant to dealings in the area, or even galaxy.
• Combat can be really hard at points, and is tricky to get the hang of at first. It’s best to think Rainbow Six:Vegas, frankly. The control is a bit different, but the idea is the same, even if it’s a bit simpler, or seems such. Taking cover, directing the squad to points, and occasionally using a grenade to clear enemies, that’s what keeps you alive and gets combat won. Rambo usually gets killed in this game, but the game DOES allow for sprinting from point to point, and bashing anyone in the way.
• Textures pop-in a lot, but it’s not usually notable unless in conversation with a character still wearing a low-res skin.
• Once in a while, frames drop, this usually is worse with a hot Xbox. Only at one point have I consistently had a bad framerate due to a vey high number of enemies and NPCs in that exact location.
• The AI pathfinding can have a few quirks. Allies can’t open doors that close between them and you, but will magically teleport back to the player at certain points. They sometimes have issues in combat, like trying to steal the spot you’re using for cover, or getting caught in the open. Otherwise, not too bad, and they’re perfectly capable of shooting things and not dying too much.

That’s the big stuff. The rest, it’s great. Once you’ve got combat down, you’ll feel like a bad motherfucker, even specializing in pistols(and for a while, I had a much easier time finding stronger pistols than sniper rifles). There are a few spots that can result in death several times until the player figures out what’s the right way to handle a situation, but they’re extremely rewarding, and for people who just hate dying in combat, the game’s easy settings are very forgiving.

Go on now, go buy Mass Effect. It’s absolutely outstanding and a brilliantly refined and polished game. And expect to replay it, because there will be plenty of times that make you say “Oh, damn it, I wish I had that character with me!” when things turn a certain way, plotwise.

Continuing with the previous theme, Mass Effect is pretty god damn awesome. Tiny nitpicks are the worst of my complaints(and so far, they’re all featured on Penny Arcade). The game likes to load. A lot. The loading screens tend to be very pretty though, full of nice graphics and sound. Nothing more than a few exquisitely animated frames with sound effects, but I can’t complain at all about them. The elevators, well, they’re slow, but often provide audio that reflects recent player achievements, or has information opening new missions.

Combat is NOT a snooze affair like Jade Empire’s could be. Players won’t get the equivalent of Storm Dragon(a fighting style that stunned the majority of enemies opening them up for easy big damage attacks, followed by another stun, etc.), and making a bad move can prove highly fatal. Charging into a room, not knowing where cover is, or just sloppy positioning of teammates will get you killed, particularly when fighting a boss battle or side quest. Combat is, in a weird way, realistic. It’s not hard to compare to Rainbow Six: Vegas when playing, though R6 didn’t have long distance hacking or psionic attacks. Cover, teamwork, and judicious grenade use, along with a good choice of weapons, go a long way still, and taking a rocket to the face can put you all the way back.

Of course, when you pull off a really dangerous assault through a nasty enemy infested room, bunker, cave, or what-have-you, it feels so good.

Tomorrow, some thoughts on uncharted worlds and exploration, along with the most un-rollable troop transport ever.

Is it too early to say “Holy shit wow”?

The Witcher is an RPG which drips atmosphere like nobody’s business, with great character design and some really great systems. Great graphics, an involving combat system(no more click and wait, for maximum effect, players will need to press the attack with good timing, maneuver themselves into optimum position, and good use of magic), and a hell of a story. Which isn’t surprising, given the extreme amount of source material to draw from.

It’s hard to say a lot surprisingly, as the game is just plain good. Even the voice acting is solid.

It’s premature to judge, but if you’re a fan of old school CRPGs with depth that doesn’t allow you to become the alpha and omega, and has real consequences for your actions, but has a truly modern method and responsiveness, there’s a good chance this game is for you. More to come after a few more days of obsessive play.

Portal-Short, super sweet, incredibly funny. Like TF2 it drips with style, and despite the short length of the first run-through, it features a good number of bonus levels, AND a second set of advanced test chambers once players finish the first The first playthrough for me clocked in at 3 hours, and was pure fun.

The early verdict is if you enjoy puzzle games, you absolutely need this.

More to come after I play some Episode 2, and advanced/bonus puzzles. As usual, Valve has chosen to include some great developer’s commentary, accessible after players finish a section.

DRIIIIIIFTIIIIIIIIIIIIING

Okay, that’s out of the way. Jesus H. Christ, I can’t stop drifting in this game. I’m not that far in, and I’ve hit a level where I get to drive a 1950s race car, and it’s a level in the snow which would take most cars 4 mintues to run. But because those things are notorious for sliding, AND it’s in the snow, I get 10:30. It’s still not enough, because the second I get to a decent speed, I start sliding to one side or the other, and then, the drifting returns rather involuntarily.

Everything in this game drifts. Motorcycles do it the least, and high end sports cars the most. The game is one big constant drift. And I have to admit, it’s fun.

PGR4 is managing to walk the fine line between arcade and simulation racer still. You can’t just go balls-out full speed into every turn, or you’ll smack into walls and lose your bonus points which are used to buy new and better cars or even places to race.

It keeps a good speed though, and a fair amount of tension, at least in street races. Events tend to be much easier.

Only, at this point, two real complaints. 1-Editing my paintjob is limited to picking a pattern and picking the colors, and rotating/scaling the pattern. Forza 2, as boring as the game is to me, really raised the bar for designing a paint job. I’ve seen cars with Harley Quinn perfectly recreated, and I expect that level now in my racers that go online.

Beyond that, motorcylces don’t have seperate front and rear brakes. Yes, I know, being bothered by this makes me one of the three people who bought Tourist Trophy, and one of two who cranks the Moto GP simulation setting all the way up. It’s not the end of the world, but as a result, motorcycles feel like they’ve lost a lot of their ability. No crazy slides and turns from manipulating the brakes individually. It’s stupidly hard to drift with a bike, in fact, the opposite of the rest of the game. Really ends up being a disadvantage in races that are scored by getting lots of points instead of speed.

Oh, I’m not fond of the music. It’s rare licensed tracks work for me, though the PGR tracks aren’t nearly as bad as, say, anything from EA Trax(excepting for Skate, which managed to avoid the usual emo and indie pitfalls for the most part). Lots of bad techno, bad rock, bad, well, everything. PGR4 is the poster child for custom soundtracks, but even if the one included wasn’t so bad, I’d be playing Dethklok over it. And really, I think we’ve all come to accept that My Chemical Romance does not belong in the Alternative Rock category. Microsoft, Bizarre Creations, please take note. My Chemical Romance does not belong in the same category as Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters.

More thoughts and a real review to come, after some time with the online functions and trip through career mode.

Update!: Apparently I just drifted so hard my TV couldn’t handle anything that fucking extreme. This morning it’s turning on, attempting to warm up, and shutting back down. I suspect I drifted the fan into oblivion, it makes a rather horrid noise then silences. Which is too bad, I was really looking forward to more career time. I guess that’s a good sign for the game’s eventual score.