#715 Just Cause

Posted: 18th August 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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263rd played so far

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Genre: Action/Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 2006
Developer: Avalanche Studios
Publisher: Eidos Interactive

Some games seem to just pigeon hole themselves. An action sandbox game like Saints Row 2 (because, well, we’ve not yet played the original big name in the genre, GTA3 and beyond, yet), set on the islands of some South American dictatorship. You are (presumably) to overthrow them.ย  It also gave rise to a whole line of humour: “Why you playing that?” “Just ’cause”.

We’ll get to the game that reminds us of in a moment.

Part of the notability in the book is how the game is partially fairly buggy and seems to always be ‘teetering […] on the edge of a devastating nervous breakdown.’ Oh dear.

Our Thoughts

Here’s the thing. Anything that matters in this game, most of the areas we’d touch on, overall, in all that matters, Far Cry 2 did it better. It’s a sandbox game set in a foreign, jungle-like environment. Less island-like in the comparison game, but for quite a part of it that doesn’t matter.

Here’s the thing. This game feels rushed. It seems as if it was developed for the PS2/XBox generation, but then they discovered the PS3 and XBox 360 were coming out and they had to rush to get it out to still be for the right platform. There was a port to the XBox 360. This shows in a few ways. First, the graphics (at least for the PS2 version that we played) were crap. We initially thought we were looking more at a PlayStation 1 game. This seems better on the 360 and PC versions, but it’s still off. It’s probably because of the size of the world, but there’s no real excuse for grey blocks of buildings. Cut scenes don’t look much better, but are prerendered – the change in style is jarring.

And then there’s the bugs. I’ve not seen some of the worst ones mentioned, but we’ve been hit by some too. Probably the most annoying were the randomly disappearing boats. Here you are, trying to take over one (god knows how – you press the button at the right time, and you’re magically on it. Or near it. No clue what happens to those on the boat) and you turn away for a moment, seeing where to go to hide. You turn back to look where the boat went… and bam, it’s gone. A big, 3 tonne ship just disappears. On other occasions, during certain invasion missions, people just won’t spawn for ages, or get stuck in a place they should never be in. It just feels lazy. It is known that in the PS2 version of this game (i.e. the version we are playing) there are a number of pretty lethal bugs that mean levels can never be finished. Okay, lethal is an overstatement but in my hands it would mean a very gnawed controller (I did bite the hell out of a controller when I was playing Crash Bandicoot at the tender age of 7).

On those cut scenes we mentioned earlier, and the story from before, they just don’t really seem worth it. It’s a flimsy story, barely explained, and just doesn’t seem to matter much. Yeah, I got bored partway through them. It might have introduced some later night changes, but they didn’t do much for us.

The world design is mixed. There’s a few nice places and sidequests – it has the same find random stuff sidequests other games like it tend to have. There’s some nice design features. There’s some good ideas. However, just as many things seem to be repetitive. Each village has the same ‘take control of this area’ sequence, which is a case of kill people, blow up barricades, kill more people, until you get to the flag and raise it. Cities have the same, but with less barricades and more people to kill. But that last bit… you raise a flag, everything goes away and you’re safe? It just feels a bit too lazy somehow. Sure, put in an end-goal where you’re not attacked. Don’t make it just ‘race to the flag’. Or rather, race there at the right time.

Beyond that, the meta game is fun enough – conquering areas, slowly taking control of the island. And even if it doesn’t look that gorgeous, that are some interesting sight and variation in the places where they’ve tried. The game just feels too unpolished and unfinished for that to keep having appeal. A world to get back too… but probably better to get back through with a more polished game like Far Cry.

Final Thoughts

I want to do more sandbox games! I love the idea of the game. I want to play more like it. I just can’t get past all the issues here – the unpolished graphics, the bugs, the wooden voice acting, the repetitiveness of a few too many sections that seriously don’t make sense.

For a game trying to be this size, wanting to rush it and get it out at the end of a generation just seems like a waste. With these results, it might not have been worth it, especially when it means the reason your game is notable is that it’s about to crash.

In retrospect it would have probably been better to play this on the PC but you can’t say no to a ยฃ2 second hand version from Gamestation.

#819 Braid

Posted: 14th August 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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1

262nd played so far

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Genre: Puzzle/Platform
Platform: PC/XBox 360
Year of Release: 2008
Developer: Number None Inc.
Publisher: Number None Inc., Microsoft Game Studios

Some games have an initial concept and description that make the game more interesting from that alone. Braid is one of those. While essentially a platformer, the game introduces manipulation of time as a second gameplay mechanic.

It’s critically lauded – the best on XBLA according to some measurements (and one of the best on Steam)– so a good time to give it a go.

Our Thoughts

So here’s one of those games I don’t want to say too much about as so much of it needs to be experienced to really be appreciated. In particular, story details beyond ‘you’re rescuing the princess’ are best left unspoilered. Trust us when we say it’s a good one.

The game itself is as enigmatic, with the gameplay mechanics at least partially down to you to discover and make full use of. Beyond the standard platform options, time is centered around these. Initially (and in particular for the first world you play, number 2), this is about reversing time. Partially an easy way to escape your death and get your jumps right, later worlds evolve this mechanic, from having creatures (or yourself) be immune to it to having time move in a different direction – not just forwards – or at different speeds.

These make for some interesting and tough puzzles – it’s quite possible to get stuck for a while if you don’t see the trick and we needed to get some help. Worth trying at all times though. In those terms it can be like one of those really esoteric RPG games (I love you Time Gentlemen, Please) where sometimes you do need a little nudge to help or even some consoling that you ARE doing the right thing but the controls are too damned fiddly.

These time effects affect the story too, which is even more interesting. Not as normal, where you see how you pick up a power in a cutscene or there’s some references. And not even Planescape Torment‘s powers having effect on bits of story telling. No, a core bit of gameplay itself tells part of the story. I won’t spoil it, but it’s impressive and deserves to be held up as an example of storytelling. You’ll know it when you get there.

The last level really ups in the ante in terms of difficulty. If you make a wrong move you will be burned by an ever approaching wall of flame. There is a section where you need to time your jumps over a piranha plant and it took us ages and a lot of attempts to get through this tiny bit. However, the pay-off in terms of the overarching story is amazing so you can quickly forget the irritation.

The game’s mood, its slightly Victorian mood and such, is enhanced by the handdrawn graphics. They’re at times grotesque and often beautiful. They, and the short pieces of text that lay out parts of the story, combine to form what’s best described as an experience. A fascinating experience couple with an at times devilishly difficult game.

Final Thoughts

Without spoilering things, the game is one to play through to the end. Use help with the puzzles, you’ll need them, but see where things end up. You’ll never forget it.

#703 Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords

Posted: 10th August 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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261st played so far

GC2TA_Terran Alliance_1361639637Genre: Strategy
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 2006
Developer: Stardock
Publisher: Stardock

We like 4X-strategy games, Civilization and its successors. I also like Sci-Fi. Galactic Civilizations II, which pretty much combines the two, sounds like a good game for that very reason.

Despite possible appearance, this game has little in common with Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. It’s not Civ on a futuristic planet, it’s Civ spread out of lots of planets, more like, for example, the Master of Orion series (which we sadly will not get to blog about).

Our Thoughts

So let’s start with our elephant in this write-up. While playing the game, we had a few crashes (locking up our PC), which rather soured us on the game. Based on our investigations, this seemed to be because we were playing on an immense map – the game eats up too much memory that way sometimes. Considering the specs we’re running on, this seems to be a game bug that’s been observed by others, but gone unpatched. A shame, really.

Not only did it crash then but whilst trying to play on my own to get a grip of this game it crashed twice whilst I was on the main selection screen. So I just thought ‘screw this’ then sat in the corner and pouted.

The frustrations this caused meant that we didn’t play the game as in-depth as we could have – we normally would have tried to at least finish a game. After three or four crashes, it was too much for us and didn’t feel worth it.

So now that’s said, what about the game? First of all, it’s a gorgeous game. The ships are lovely and detailed, with options we’ll go into later. Deep space is beautiful, and the stars and planets are a treat – exploring and finding different ones is enjoyable on their own. You can see a number of them in the screenshots on top, the variety inside the game is even greater.

So about those ships. Like other games in the genre your units (space ships here) are customizable. This is more than just combining vehicle options though (although mechanically that is what it comes down to). Aside from your useful added modules having different places where they can appear on the ship, you can also pick your own hull and pick other sorts of accessories. You turn, size and place them where you want them and with that you can create your own personal ships. It’s a neat feature to allow you to make your fleet your own and we spend some time just playing around with it.

Gameplay then. The basics of the genre are there. Build buildings, build structures, explore, deal with people you encounter and so on. One of the main things I noticed, however, is that of scarcity. First, there’s the trivial – your planets get limited slots to build stuff in, less than most games, which means that on all but your most prosperous planets, you really need to think about what to focus on.

More important, however, is the scarcity in resources. Everything runs off the same money counter, which is quite stringent early on – everything seems to cost money and it’s difficult to balance research (which you want to be able to do anything – you can’t even build military ships early on), ship building (to colonize and gather resources) and planet development (including buildings that improve your profit). It’s a tough balancing act that we hadn’t quite managed to pull off yet.

The amount of options, though, is amazing, making it even more difficult to decide what to focus on. The victory conditions sort of outline some of the styles although you’ll be familiar with most of them and combine them during your playthrough. There’s the standard military victory and the research route. You can get your diplomatic victory and your influence one. Later expansions add the ascension victory, won by keeping control of particular resources for long enough (we actually were about a 100 turns in on that by the time we left the game).

But the most fun for me really was just sending my survey ships around, exploring the galaxy and finding out what else was out there. If only that had been a bit more stable…

Final Thoughts

We’ll get to this game’s sequel, Sins of a Solar Empire, at some point, which will hopefully cause us less problems.

When we got into playing the game, it was deep and frustrating. The extended focus on economics and world building we encountered was interesting and fun, more frustrating, but meant we had to pay a lot more attention than when you steamroller through in any Civ game. Commendable for that alone, with the setting just adding lovely flavour (thanks Cilan).

Playing this just reminded me how much I want to play Spore and once we leave Jeroen’s 50 this will be a game we will be playing this very soon.

#890 Bonsai Barber

Posted: 6th August 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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260th played so far

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Genre: Role-Playing
Platform: Wii
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: Zoonami
Publisher: Nintendo

This is a game where you play a barber, giving haircuts to vegetables and fruit.

While I’d like to give a longer introduction, there is just no way I can top the above. When we first got this book Bonsai Barber was the first game that I looked at and instantly looked at and thought “this looks so crazy, I have to play it”. In fact it was the ‘swing vote’ that made me agree to this insane undertaking. It was the carrot that kept me going knowing that we were one day going to be shaving swearwords into radishes… then I became a teacher and had to stop being immature… or something.

Our Thoughts

This is one of the stranger games we’ve played so far – I mean , that’s what you’d expect from the single barber game out there, or one of the few at least. It’s just not something that seems that suitable for it.

But in this game, they’ve managed to pull it off. Using talking vegetables (and some fruit) while you cut their foliage in your lighthouse (why not?).

Beyond the interesting idea of shaping a carrot’s foliage, this actually has some further implications for gameplay, in particular on how to keep it playable. After all, normally a haircut is pretty one-way – what’s gone can’t be glued back on – but we’ve got a shortcut for that with vegetables. One of your tools is a spray bottle, which regrows the leaves. This makes a lot more things possible – even if it’s time consuming.

Most of the others are fairly straightforward tools – scissors, trimmers (leaves only), combs and, for your own artistic expression, paint to colour the leaves. The idea is to cut the vegetable’s foliage into a shape the customer decides on, with these tools at hand (and indirectly, your Wiimote). This is not as easy as it seems. First, the Wiimote isn’t as accurate as you would want. Probably just my fault, but also making things a bit more complicated. It really is a game that would benefit from the Plus add-on, just like Okami… but we’ll get to that.

Second are the branches and leaves. First, they’re sturdy – you can’t just comb everything into place. Second, the branches might support leaves further up – ones you do want to keep. A wrong cut will remove half the haircut, frustrating if you are nearly there.

The gameplay aspects, then, are absolutely playable despite the occasional fiddliness. Where the game really starts to shine, then, is in everything surrounding this. First, the vegetables have their own personalities, needing a haircut for their own purposes and happily chatting away as you make them look good. Even those things will come back to you – the game remembers the haircuts and you may need to update them with their latest wish.

The haircuts themselves are vaguely varied too. They start off with simple circles, but become more complicated, from hearts and bowler hats and so on. Each of these have varying degrees of looking good. To pass, you need three. A perfect haircut gives you five. We’ve managed four with some work, but getting them perfect is quite difficult. When you consider this is part of full completion and unlocking everything, this is quite scary and adds length to the game. Few of the styles actually make use of the different paints when it comes to tabulating the scores; one of the, obviously, being the heart which needs to be painted red for you to have the chance at a five star rating.

What also adds longevity, but in a less obvious sense, are the limits on how many haircuts you get each day. Only five vegetables show up. When you’re done with them, you have to wait for the next day to do more haircuts. It may be another way to spread out the game, but gets in the way of proper completion. Still, the gameplay is simple enough that spreading it like this is probably better to keep it more interesting.

Final Thoughts

In a way, this game is a novelty – a casual time waster that has a neat trick that isn’t expanded much. And with that, it doesn’t compare to today’s triple-A blockbuster. What this is more alike to – both in scope and, more important in this analogy – limited chance to play the game – is an old arcade game. It’s not as flashy and loud, but it’s the sort of game to keep coming back to – see whether you can make it to the end (and get to five stars) each time, leaving you just enough and cutting you off just as you’re getting into it.

#153 Forgotten Worlds

Posted: 2nd August 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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259th played so far

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Genre: Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Arcade
Year of Release: 1988
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom

When playing the most recent three games (we spent a Sunday afternoon catching up with some smaller games), we somehow managed to play through a chronological progression of shoot ’em ups. Both Gorf and Juno First were of the basic Space Invaders vertical shoot the alien type, each with its own innovations.

Forgotten Worlds, meanwhile, jumps five years ahead and is a side-scroller. Originally the first game for a now-forgotten arcade system, it was marketed as bosses that were ‘larger than the screen’. Its main characters also apparently make frequent appearances in other Capcom titles, so surely there’s some legacy there. All in all, an interesting entry to move to now.

Our Thoughts

There is quite a large number of these sort of side-scrolling shooters that were released around this time. For a large part, it plays similar to other horizontal scrollers – shoot stuff, get out of the way and so on. There’s the usual weapon upgrades with some nice but fairly predictable effects.

As always, a game like this divides into two different gameplay parts – normal levels and bosses. Sure, the basics are the same, but they play differently.

The bosses, first. Yeah, they’re impressive – big, taking up the full screen (and more) with many different parts you can destroy – often disabling attacks or defenses even if it doesn’t directly harm the boss. It’s mostly a matter of shooting lots and avoiding the attacks.

Despite their gameplay simplicity, they look and act awesome. They’re big, they’re detailed in their design and it’s satisfying to break them up blow by blow, see different parts explode or break down and fight your way through. Maybe not too tactical, but incredibly convincing.

The levels are almost the opposite. Enemies (as so often) tend to die pretty quickly. Dealing with their swarms and patterns, however, is more complicated. While this is partially lots of rapid fire, positioning and paying attention matters as much. Add to that wanting to collecting the money floating around after killing the enemies (zennies, a name Capcom continues to use even now).

This is going to sound a little bit sad but my favourite part ofย Forgotten Worldsย was the shop. It just seemed a little bit random that it would pop-up as if from nowhere with an insanely peppy looking blonde girl selling her merchandise to similarly peppy music. A non-point really but it always made me smile.

The game’s bosses don’t seem as special now, but I can see how the whole would have been impressive in its day. Even if some sections are less impressive now, the game is great fun to play. With some additional extra life help, I played through it (yeah, sorry, I needed that bit of assistance) to the end, which I happily did. The variety in environments and enemies is great and the bosses are great to try to beat. Brilliant.

Final Thoughts

Apart from the fact that you will need multiple restarts to get that far (it’s very similar to manic shooters in that way) this game is incredibly immersive. The worlds and are beautifully drawn and the Duke Nukem lookalike makes for a great hero (as does his partner but you don’t really meet him in single-player mode). We will later be seeing references to this in SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash when my favourite shopkeeper will be making an appearance. Yay!

#60 Juno First

Posted: 29th July 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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258th played so far

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Genre: Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Arcade
Year of Release:1983
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami, Gottlieb

Time for a bit more shoot ’em up action today. While I’m hesitant to call playing these games checkbox exercises, when starting out a game like this – a shooter with increased controls – is one we start because we have to. Sure, the experience tends to be worthwhile, but I won’t deny that our primary reason for playing Juno First is that we don’t want to be left with all of these at the end of the journey.

I can’t say much more for an introduction then, since even the book and Wikipedia have little to add. Probably best to judge it after the fact instead.

Our Thoughts

Gameplay improves in small steps sometimes, and Juno First‘s addition certainly seems to be one. While the basic game is of the familiar ‘aliens fly at you’ type, as seen from Space Invaders onwards, there’s one change here – you can fly backwards (and forwards). As the field effectively loops, this strategy has its risks, but it makes the game more interesting.

To help handle the scrolling field, aside from the rows you can see, you can also see the aliens’ icons approach on further rows, setting up some quite long term assaults. It rather excitingly speeds up the game and creates its own specific (and fun) challenge.

Beyond that, the game gets straightforward. Several levels, each with differing enemies starting in different formations. Enticing and addictive. Just… look at what we said about Space Invaders, Galaxian, or more recent Gorf for other examples like it. It’s fun and addictive and the moving back and forth adds its own dimension, with some additional planning necessary. But in this case, it’s just the small steps that count.

Final Thoughts

I hate these older games where is very little to say. We were able to scrounge up some opinions for these sorts of games 100 games ago or so but right now we are beginning to run out… hopefully we will have more for the next game.

#31 Gorf

Posted: 25th July 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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257th played so far

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Genre: Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Arcade
Year of Release: 1981
Developer: Dave Nutting Associates
Publisher: Midway

When starting on some of these older games, it’s quite humbling to see what they brought to the field.ย  Gorf, for example, was the first to have synthesised speech – the first with voice acting, so to speak. Not on the level that we know it as, but considering how amazing it was to have that years later in Gauntlet, it seems like it’s still a major achievement.

Then again, it was barely imitated for some time, so maybe it wasn’t that impressive yet.

(We’re ignoring the book’s comment that it is the first game with distinct levels. Looking at, say, Eamon, it’s clear other games did that sort of thing earlier and Donkey Kong was released in the same year. True, but graphically each level is graphically distinct unlike those two games you mentioned)

Our Thoughts

The influences of this game are clear. The first level is clearly Space Invaders, the second Galaxian. That also describes the remainder of gameplay – the enemy patterns change and there’s a warp tunnel style effect at one point, but not a lot of the game is actually different.

It’s not a bad thing, really. Leaving alone the age, it’s a simple concept that has the right sort of difficulty curve and can get addictive quickly. More time than Space Invaders, sure, but that makes it more fun.

Another part that helps is the ranking system. While the game keeps repeating the same five levels, they speed up each time. This is indicated nicely by the ranks you gain – I believe the voicing will change to address you using that same rank too, which is a sliver of awesome.

There’s not much to call out about that game – it’s a fairly standard shoot ’em up and a lot of the gameplay is seen again. The things marked as innovation are special, but not as notable, with it affecting the game only indirectly. It will have been awesome at the time, but isn’t as notable.

There’s one control issue we noticed. While you may be used to firing multiple shot in these games, this game doesn’t have that. More annoying though, pressing ‘fire’ a second time doesn’t just prevent you from firing – instead it cancels the shot and refires it. This is a feature, and it sort of makes sense as it allows you not to get in too much trouble from accidental firing, but it’s annoying when you’re used to multi-shots or get your timing wrong and cancels that shot just before it’s hitting the enemy.

At the same time, however, the game does it well. It is clearly influenced by other games, but the developers took that and made it more awesome. The gameplay is tight, with only a slight controls annoyance, and the variety in levels does make the game fun.

Final Thoughts

Seeing how this game really is a product of identity theft rather than influence it is an interesting that this was allowed to be produced for the arcade. The fact that the home ports had to remove the Galaxian rip-off really speaks to that. As usual it’s an interesting game but for me the lack of originality made me question its place on this list.

#830 Dead Space

Posted: 21st July 2013 by Mulholland in Games
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256th played so far

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Genre: Survival Horror/Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Xbox 360/Playstation 3/PC
Year of Release: 2008
Developer: EA Redwood Shores
Publisher: Electronic Arts

Sometimes you encounter a gem solely by chance. I originally obtained Dead Space before we started this blog, mostly on a whim. It was cheap, it looked interesting and different, and I wanted to try and see what it was like. It went onto the ‘to play’ pile, which was more or less put on hold with the blog… but at least I get to play and experience it now.

Dead Space combines two of our most worrying genres – it’s a survival horror (which is always interesting for us to play) and a shoot ’em up, the large category of games that we really think of playing. That tells us one thing, at least – we don’t need to worry about ammo conservation as much. We do want to shoot.

Our Thoughts

Due to my secondary vocation as a professional gaming chicken I am writing this whilst Jeroen is playing the game on the PC beside me. I am tense enough as it is watching this game without being the person being attacked by Necromorphs. I mean I thought zombies were bad (I still find the cartoon zombies in the first level of Timesplitters 2 to be suitably freaky) without having to deal with zombies produced by an alien virus.

Yes folks this is space-mutated-alien-virus-zombie game Dead Space where your task is to go about a newly derelict ship and fight these Necromorphs whilst making needed repairs in order to discover more about the fate of the USG Ishimura. Well there is more to to the story bringing in religion and hallucinations but I think that is more something to be experienced in the game. Call my old fashioned but I really do not like spoilers.

The version we played was the PC version which is known to be the lesser of the three releases. To be fair to us this was the cheaper version (and seeing how many computer games we have bought in order to do this legally I hope you’ll forgive this). This has therefore given rise to some control issues that was probably not present in the console versions. The controls to aim can (at times) feel sluggish and not entirely responsive enough for a game were danger can fall from an air-duct above your head. We shall assume that they were better on the XBox 360 and the Playstation 3 so this is where we’ll end that line.

To expand on that, one part of this is solved by using an XBox controller, one part isn’t. First, the mouse, from the moment you start in the main menu, is very sensitive. It’s jittery and unresponsive. The second part is looking around – this just doesn’t feel responsive, which means the camera gets in your way when you really don’t want it.

The first thing that I have to praise this game for is the atmosphere it creates. Not only are there corpses littering the Ishimura but also it is clear from the word go that this was a place where many people lived. A nice touch are the advertisement at the tram stations. Something that makes sense since the whole purpose of this ship is to crack planets open in the name of corporate profiteering. It also has taken major inspiration from Ridley Scott’s Alien film, right down to the look of the medical bay. There are obviously many other things that have influenced this game but that was really a major one that comes to mind.

This plus then bleeds into the graphical style. Contemporary games, such as Killzone 2, took fighting off of Earth to a place that was graphically dull. I mean sure it looked good from a technical standpoint by the palette of colours was incredibly limited to the browns and the other types of brown. Here they are not afraid to throw in other colours since (after all) this was a lived in spaceship. So whites and blues are used often alongside the traditional greys, browns and blood red.

On a more technical level, what’s as amazing in creating the atmosphere is the use of the setting itself. You’re in space, in a half-demolished space ship, and there are sequences where it happily show. Two scenes are close together that demonstrate this perfectly. First, you walk through a vacuum. Part of the ship’s hull has been blown off, meaning that you walk around in an area exposed to space. There’s no sound, even when you’re dealing with an attack, and you feel completely isolated.

The second has more of a ‘wow’ factor. There are zero gravity sections. You have the obligatory magnet boots, but you can disengage them to jump around the room. For once, this gives you an advantage as monsters can’t keep up as easily, making for some truly fun gameplay where I spend some time simply bouncing from side to side.

Another interesting point is the look of the aliens themselves. It is often said that the scariest enemies are those that are humanoid with a twisted element. Sometimes it works well but there are times (such as the acid flinging babies) where it almost segues into parody… something unintended I’m sure. Still, the idea of the scientists inflicting this virus on a bunch of babies in suspended in a green liquid. That’s getting towards the better side of grotesque.

It makes the game that more horrible, though. While the game doesn’t go for scary (most of the surprise attacks are introduced through musical cues and other warning signs), its horrors are all the more frightening. The babies suspended in green fluid, mentioned above, are one good example, another is seeing someone turned into a zombie in front of your eyes. It has you on the edge of your seat – especially as it leads into a boss fight at a point where you are low on resources already.

The aliens lend itself to the best part of the game, the dismemberment. For years I have been mastering the headshot (since my first taste of a blood fountain in Grand Theft Auto 3. The fact that the Necromorphs actively change tactics (even the coquettish ones hop from foot to foot) to compensate for their recently lost limb is nothing short of impressive. I think many will remember the cheat in GTA 3ย that allowed you to blast off limbs with an assault rifle, well here it’s the best way to fill enemies and it never gets old.

As a survival horror game the use of horrible creatures jumping out at you at any given opportunity. The fact that you are not even safe when you check your inventory screen is a stroke of genius (something that always felt artificial in Resident Evil where you could quick-reload by accessing whatever you could find in your pockets). Even as a professional gaming chicken I have to say just how impressed I was with this game.

Quickly running through a last few features: The shop interface is a nice addition to handle some of your upgrades, leaving your weapon choices fairly open ended and giving you a chance to replenish (although upgrades fight with resources for this). The main upgrades go in through a fairly simple skill tree, but again the interactions are nice – both inside the skill tree where you need to worry about unlocking later paths or focusing on quick wins that don’t unlock much – and outside, where you can use your power nodes to open locked doors instead to get you other items and storyline items. They aren’t a big part of the game, but their trade-offs are just as interesting.

Final Thoughts

This game felt too intensive to play for too long in one sitting. After an hour and a half of deaths, scares and running away to survive, I had to get away from it for a while to let myself calm down. It’s not as creepy as, say, The Path, but the tension involved is still high and leads to something amazing.

#462 Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance

Posted: 17th July 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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255th played so far

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Genre: Action/Role Playing
Platform: PlayStation 2/Gamecube/XBox
Year of Release: 2001
Developer: Snowblind Studios
Publisher: Interplay Entertainment

Now for something interesting. We all know I love Baldur’s Gate II – so surely I must enjoy the more actionny spin-off? Well, all it shares is the name and vague setting, beyond that there’s not much of a link between the two. I’ve always had mixed feelings about it for that reason. Sure, it might be good (although I was surprised to see it in the list), but can it really live up to the name?

Our Thoughts

Dark Alliance is part of an interesting subgenre of RPGs. Mostly influenced by and based on Diablo, it focuses on dungeon exploration and loot gathering, while barely having an overworld – the latter being good for selling stuff and getting some quests, but not giving you much, if any, gameplay.

It is similar here. In Baldur’s Gate, it’s a shortcut to and from the tavern where you pick up your quests and such. It’s very simplistic and while there’s some story there, it’s not too complicated. You have the option to play with a friend (something that I figured would be enjoyable) but a nice touch would have been to have there be some reference in the story to there being a second party. Either way in this we decided to go as an elf spellcaster and a dwarf.

Unlike Jeroen I have no real loyalty or in-depth knowledge of the Baldur’s Gate world to call upon when playing this game. Sure, I’ve played Baldur’s Gate II for the blog but I am nowhere near well versed in the mythology. That’s fine though since I am approaching this game how most of the people who bought it would have, from a near neutral perspective. It’s the best way to do so – the two don’t share much in gameplay.

I will be the first to say that I am not the biggest fan of dungeon-crawling RPGs. It was the thing that began to bum me out during Final Fantasy VII (which felt dungeon crawly in many places despite the complete lack of dungeons). The thing that really bummed me out about this game was the lack of a party. Since this is the area that Baldur’s Gate comes from I was half-expecting a world populated with recruitables and was disappointed when this was not the case. It makes sense in hindsight with people reporting a 10 hour playtime (not too dissimilar to Bayonetta) so this feels rather brief compared to the original games.

This came through in other parts of the game as well. One thing that annoyed us was how little multiplayer seems to have mattered when developing the game – us playing together seemed possible only as an afterthought. Dialogue and story went on as if the second player didn’t exist, while the balance seemed off too – there were more enemies to compensate for the added power, but that wasn’t balanced in item drops and such, meaning we always felt behind on that. It’s as if they doubled the number of enemies to compensate, but didn’t take into account reduced XP rates or item sharing.

One thing I did appreciate was how much more action oriented this game was. No pausing the moment you see a monster, instead you may have to fun away as green blobs throw goo in your direction. Combining this with a hell of a lot of pick-ups and a rather large bestiary there is a lot to be enjoyed here, even if the initial motive of the character is to get their stuff back. Obviously more ‘end of the world’ type stuff kicks in later because… well it wouldn’t be fantasy otherwise.

In the end though, this did not feel like a natural extension to the franchise but a bit of a cash-in. Personally I know I liked this more than Jeroen and that was probably because of our different gaming backgrounds and that I am more used to fantasy games with this non-pausing element in it. Or maybe it was because of my lack of expectation. Who can say really. Then again, I didn’t get frustrated by it at all.

Final Thoughts

If you’re expecting a Baldur’s Gate or Bioware-inspired game when playing this, you’ll be disappointed. As it stands, the game is an enjoyable Diablo-rip off, probably amongst the better ones out there. Just… maybe not multiplayer.

#700 Earth Defense Force 2017

Posted: 13th July 2013 by Jeroen in Games
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254th played so far

Genre: Shoot-Em Up
Platform: Xbox 360
Year of Release: 2007
Developer: Sandlot
Publisher: 3D Publisher

Some games just don’t have things going for them. If it wasn’t for the book, Earth Defense Force 2017 would be a game I skipped. It sounds and feels cheap – the title alone is fairly generic, it’s made by people unknown to me, and the storyline – aliens invade the earth – sounds generic enough that it wouldn’t grab my attention. For heaven’s sake, it features giant ants, how much more cliched can you get?

Still, it’s on the list, which means we want to start paying attention to it. No clue why, but it’s co-op, so if nothing else, it makes for a fun few hours, right?

Our Thoughts

(For the sake of the review this is pretty much how our thoughts went during our first playthrough… minus the swearing… I need to control that)

Here we go. Start the game. Go through the usual motions. New game, two players, sure, all fine. Select two weapons to go in? Yeah, no choice there yet. Still looks fairly standard to be honest – assault rifle and rocket launcher. Cool. Loading explains tanks and such – that’ll be interesting to try and play with.

Starting the game… sure, mostly common controls. Ah, switch weapons, okay. Nothing to shoot though, let’s walk forward. Rocket launcher fired… wait did that building just collapse AWESOME! I think that was meant to be a hospital.

Oh enemies. Wait, what, ant? They’re giant ants? What. The. Hell. Well, we’ll kill them, but it’s odd. Let’s kill a few more. The corpses are a little weird, apparently on death these ants just seize up and become so light that they can be moved by gusts of in-game wind.

I’m done? Not bad, that ended out of nowhere though. What’s next? Upgrades? Hmmm, lots of HP boosts, I suppose that’s useful. And new weapons? Ooooh, let’s see what they’re like. Okay, stats aren’t as great as I was expecting, maybe stick with what I’ve got. What’s the point of an in-game flamethrower if it’s going to be that useless against giant ants, might as well equip myself with a toy snake.

A few more levels of ant killing later, new enemies come in. Or rather, opponents. Ants landing? Take down the UFOs that bring them. Bit annoyingly tricky, but possible. And from there it ramps up to the more awesome enemies. Walking mechs, flyers and such, all more challenging and, well, more awesome than ants.

Right, this game is great to play. Its graphics are middling (looking a generation out of date), gameplay comes down to shooting, with some strategy in the way of staying out of the way, but mostly just killing things and, for fun, blow up buildings. It’s the most fun we’ve had in co-op for quite a while. Sure, the game looks trashy, but it’s awesome.

Final Thoughts

This game is awesome in a way that War of the Monsters made for an awesome fighting game. It’s over the top and is heavy on you being able to blow up whatever the hell you want. It’s menus are slightly reminiscent of Steel Battalionย (not a great thing) but on the whole this is basically a pulp fiction game.

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