tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-271764672024-03-23T14:35:55.334-04:00Culture kills... wait, I mean cutleryPop Culture is mercurial... that's why it is poisonous and should only be handled and manufactured by trained professionals and people society hates.MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.comBlogger2204125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-30673310068353873072015-01-01T22:05:00.000-05:002015-01-01T22:05:45.969-05:00My Year In Gaming 2014I don't know how many people will ultimately read this post. It has been a long time since I've written anything down here, and I know my audience, which was already dwindling, has virtually evaporated over the past 8 months. A lot of things have happened, both in my personal life and within the gaming community which made blogging, especially about games, seem both not that important and more than a little dangerous this year. After seeing the things that happened to a lot of the people I follow on Twitter, people I consider friends, peers and mentors, and a number of people I look up to, getting pushed out of their jobs, their industry and yes in some cases, their homes, I'm very much on the opposition side of a <a href="http://www.pcgamer.com/the-pc-gaming-lows-of-the-the-year/" target="_blank">particular</a> <a href="http://www.polygon.com/2014/12/30/7460777/gamergate-2014-just-the-worst" target="_blank">hashtag</a>. The fact that I don't even want to mention it by name, and yet I'm still afraid random people might show up here to try to "debate" the merits of said hashtag. I'm saying that knowing that I would financially benefit if they did though.<br />
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But that all shouldn't prevent me from doing my recap post for 2014. If I had been smarter, I would have written this throughout the year, but I wasn't so I'm going through my recent game list on Steam to get the order of everything right, and for the most part, it should be accurate.<br />
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<a href="http://rantocracy.blogspot.ca/2014/01/my-year-in-gaming-2013.html" target="_blank">Last year,</a> I played 24 games across 12 months and this year I played 30, but I played one game for 4 months, so it is more like I played 29 games in 8 months plus one more for the rest of the year. With those kinds of stats, you know that this is going to be another LONG post.<br />
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<b>Don't Starve</b>: Traditionally, the first game I start in the new year is a rogue-like/procedurally generated game, since they fit with the theme of restarting and putting a new spin on things with every new iteration. <i>Don't Starve</i> was much in keeping with that same theme. The premise is you wake up in the wilderness and you have to gather resources to craft things and feed/protect/shelter yourself. I found the experience of playing it largely enjoyable, but in the end, I was terrible at surviving. But it was fun trying, and that's all that I can ask of the experience really. And I love the art style so much. It has a wonderful art style, and to me, that is its most memorable feature. This was also the first of two games released by Klei Entertainment that I played this year.<br />
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<b>Planescape: Torment:</b> I tried... I really did. But I just didn't click with this game. I can understand why it is such a beloved game even now from my relatively short playtime, but I just couldn't get into it. The world had just started to open up for me, but by that point I had felt overwhelmed for quite some time trying to figure out how to make progress in the world, and knowing that every decision might have consequences made me really, really have to think about every thing that I said to every NPC I met. I know someone on Twitter who seemed to have the same experience I did, which makes me feel a little better. I have a sense that if I played this game back in the early part of the 2000s, I would have loved it, but I think that time has passed. It also made me a little fearful about trying to play some of the other older isometric RPGs I have, both of the Dungeons and Dragons variety and the old <i>Fallout</i> games which I think is a shame. <br />
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<b>Euro Truck Simulator 2:</b> This is very much one of those games that people think of as a joke until they play it... and a lot of people have played it now. This year, I had two separate experiences with this
game this year. I played it in January and found the experience largely
enjoyable, and much of my pleasure was derived from just seeing how
Europe was recreated in the game since I've never been there, so it was
something that appealed to my love of exploring spaces and seeing new
things in games. When I had seen most of the map, I started to lose
interest in the game. But I have to say, the driving was oddly satisfying, and building up my little company was sort of fulfilling. I then revisited the game again in November,
partially as a transitional game after a long, long experience with
another game, and partially because since I had played it in January,
the developer had added Steam Achievements and additional content to the
game, and I wanted to see how things had turned out since I
had played it previously. Strangely enough, I have a bunch of memories attached to
the music that was playing on the radio as I was driving. Like every
time I hear Kajagoogoo's Too Shy, I think about driving into Paris from
the east at sunset and having to go through toll booths, and Lily
Allen's The Fear makes me think of driving north from Plymouth to
Glasgow at night through construction zones and dodging speeding
tickets, and U2's New Year Day reminds me of driving outside of Metz on route to Rotterdam in mid-afternoon... and I have so many memories/associations like this in my mind. I discovered a lot of great music, and for that alone, it was worth my money. <br />
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<b>Super Hexagon</b>: This is a hard game. It has 6 achievements, one for each of the levels, awarded for staying alive in the game for 60 seconds. I did not get one of them. And it is frustrating because it looks so deceptively simple. I wish I was better at it, I really do.Then again, Terry Cavanaugh is known for making hard games. <br />
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<b>Wargame: European Escalation</b>: I really liked the presentation of this game. It is a tactical war game which presents a series of scenarios/campaigns based on hypothetical ways that the Cold War in Europe during the 1970's and 80's could have erupted into a full-fledged hot war, and each campaign is prefaced by a short cut scene explaining the situation that led to war... and as someone who studied a lot of these events in the past, most of the setup is stuff that actually happened and it is just the very end, the final flashpoint that ends up different. Like the setup for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h81tbO6M7jE" target="_blank">Able Archer</a>... every thing that they mention except the actual outbreak of war happened. The game itself is also very nice to look at, and extremely detailed. Like you can pull all the way back to see the whole map of the engagement, and then zoom in level by level until you are looking at a specific unit, with a model moving around in real time in a detailed environment that is deforming under the conditions of battle. From the technical side alone on this, I was pretty impressed. I know the later games in the series have more dynamic campaigns and such, but I think I like the idea of these tightly designed scenarios put together as campaigns better. <br />
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<b>Beat Hazard Ultra</b>: This was the second time I played this game
for a sustained time period. The first time I really played it, it was a time in my life when I was
amongst the best players in the world at this game... a couple of my scores were
in the top 20-30 in the world (and my old scores are still pretty highly ranked even years later). So, when Cold Beam Games announced that there was going to be new DLC coming and they needed late beta testers, I felt like I was someone who was very qualified to test that content out. While I didn't get the old feelings back for the game (since it was DLC that allowed people to play/build their own ships, so it felt like a different game), it was an enjoyable process. I don't generally like to see how the sausage is made when it comes to games testing, but this was a rare exception, and a couple of my suggestions made it into the final product to make the experience better for everyone, and I think that is a good thing.I created some popular ships for the workshop too, and while I had a lot of fun playing it, I can also tell that I will never be as good as I once was at it. <br />
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<b>Guacamelee! Gold Edition: </b>A wonderful lucha-inspired Metroidvania, with a visual style that is bright, cartoonish and yet totally fitting the feeling and story of the game. In keeping with that theme, the combat is more like a beat em up rather than using the shooting mechanics that these games typically use and it was an interesting design choice which I think enhanced the game. It recently received another edition with more content, so if you are thinking of getting this game, it would probably be better to get that version rather than the Gold Edition, which is roughly the same price of the new version. <br />
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<b>The Walking Dead Season 1:</b> A gut punch of an experience. I don't read the comic and I don't watch the show based on it either, so I was largely coming into the universe completely fresh. While the larger events are almost all set in stone, it is the smaller decisions and mistakes that haunt you and I respect that. And some people would complain that your interaction with it is minimal, so it isn't really a game, but I don't subscribe to that view. I legitimately cried while playing this game, and I'm glad that I played it with all the episodes available, since I don't think I could have waited to see what happened between chapters. I had doubts that an episodic game could be this good, but I totally understand now why this made so many GOTY lists last year. Stunning, simply stunning.<br />
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<b>Sword of the Stars: The Pit:</b> A traditional rogue-like with turns and randomized layouts, multiple classes and races etc that takes place in the universe of Sword of The Stars. And like its fore-bearers, it is a very hard game, and after a few good runs, I had made it to the 15th floor a few times, which sounds good, but I'm led to believe that you have to get down to the 25th-30th floor and then fight your way back up the way you came. Yeah, I'm not good enough to do that, and I don't know if I ever would be. <br />
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<b>One Finger Death Punch:</b> The genius of this game is it is literally designed with just two inputs, basically hit left and hit right and yet it works so well. It is basically a rhythm game, with an art style that is basically stick figures fighting in front of Asian-theme backdrops in short stages, but somehow it works brilliantly. And you'd think with only two inputs that it would be easy, but no, like a rhythm game, you have to hit those two inputs at exactly the right time for what you want to do... you can't button mash... it is designed to be precise and tight, while allowing for some improvisation. It is very good at what it does, and when you get it right, you feel like such a badass.<br />
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<b>Pinball FX2: </b>The post right before this is <a href="http://rantocracy.blogspot.ca/2014/04/review-pinball-fx-2.html" target="_blank">about this game</a>, so I am not going to write a lot about it here. In short, I really liked it. The flipper action felt good, the tables are interesting, and I like the business model where they let you try tables before you buy them, and you only have to buy the ones you like in most cases, so you get the experience you want at a price you are willing to pay. <br />
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<b>Mark of the Ninja: </b>A magnificent 2D stealth game. Mechanically, it is solid as a rock, the difficulty is perfect, and the atmosphere and design choices are sublime. I don't generally like stealth, but the way Klei did it in this game made it a joy to play. The game even felt like the perfect length as well. Everything worked. This is the second Klei Entertainment game I played, and as you can tell, I really liked it.<br />
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<b>Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic:</b> When I tell people that I started but did not finish the game, they seem very disappointed in me.And it turns out, it was the second Bioware game this year that I abandoned in the middle of a playthrough. There are a couple of reasons this happened. One was a technical issue where the cutscenes (and there are a lot of them) would change my monitor resolution to play, and there were times when it somewhat crashed my game... and that soured me on the experience. Another thing was, I didn't like the combat.... it just rubbed me the wrong way and it felt weird. The story was good from what I played of it and as I'm playing this many years later, I have had a rough idea of where things were headed towards the end of it, but I wish those two major issues didn't get in the way of my overall enjoyment of this title. <br />
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<b>Risk of Rain: </b>Another procedural generated rogue-like game (I played a lot of them this year it seemed). This one is a side scrolling, sci-fi shooter/platformer and it was quite appealing to me. I had quite a few runs that seemed poised to end in victory, but they were all dashed. One of the interesting mechanics in this game is the fact that you are punished with harder difficulty if you dawdle too much, so you have to balance looking around for loot and moving on in the game so you can face the bosses and higher level creatures when they are easier. I think of the four of these kinds of games that I played this year, this would be the one I recommend the most.<br />
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<b>Ring Runner: Flight of the Sages</b>: Simply delightful. This is a strange little ship-based RPG, with a quirky story, awesome soundtrack and a lot of customization. The controls are a little odd, as they don't work the way you would think they would for a top down shooter type game, but you will pick them up quickly. Basically, you play as someone who wakes up from unauthorized surgery that has left you with amnesia and an AI talking to you in your brain, and you are looking for answers about what just happened to you in a picaresque kind of narrative. It really tickled my fancy. It was a labor of love by the crew at Triple.B.Titles, but they released a game I loved, so I was very much pleasantly surprised. I liked it so much, I helped fund their next game by preordering it on Kickstarter. <br />
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<b>Hearts of Iron III: </b>This one was more of a lark, since I have experience playing Paradox games and some experience with this particular franchise. I just wanted to see if I could do anything as Turkey as a member of the Allies. The short answer is no. Even after getting overrun by the Nazis, I continued to watch things play out and what ended up happening is Russia took over EVERYTHING in Europe and Asia by the end. Yeah... that was certainly an unintended consequence of me losing as Turkey. It was fun watching it happen though.<br />
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<b>Graviteam Tactics: Operation Star</b>: Also known as Achtung Panzer: Operation Star. I remember reading about this game in a PC Gamer editorial by Rob Zacny, and it got me really interested in it. However, it has a really steep learning curve, and I didn't fully grasp how to play... I probably didn't help that I didn't read the manual, because it has been a long time since I've had to. I think I will eventually go back and give this game a second chance because I think the fault really was with me not understanding how to play it rather than it being a badly designed game. <br />
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<b>Mount and Blade: Warband: </b>I played the original Mount and Blade a few years ago, and I really enjoyed it. <i>Warband</i> is supposed to be an updated version of the original and all the things that I loved about the first game are still here. The combat is as satisfying as ever, and I enjoyed building my own personal army. The strategy aspects are fun too, as you really get to determine how you are going to engage the enemy when you are at war. <br />
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<b>Just Cause 2:</b> I was not really a fan of the first game, but I had heard good things about the sequel and at first it was a very fun, over the top experience.The first time you do some of the crazier stuff, you really get a kick out of it, but that feeling fades away by the 50th time you have to do something. I didn't care about the characters or what they wanted, and most of the things they wanted me to do were boring. I started rushing to finish it, which is never a good place to be with a game, but I had committed so much time to it at that point, I just wanted to see it through to the end. Suffice it to say, I thought I wasn't going to play any open world games for a long time afterwards.<br />
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<b> Shadowrun Returns: </b>When I first heard about this game, I was hoping that it was going to be like the version that was released on the SNES, and while it does have a narrative connection to that, the combat is more akin to something like XCOM, which isn't a bad thing. My major complaint is it is relatively short, but in buying it, you are also getting a toolset to create and play other people's scenarios and stories, so that vastly increases the content that is available to you as a player. I'm hoping to play a much longer story that someone has created with those tools in 2015, as there are a lot of assets and I know the modding community for most games can create amazing things. <br />
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<b>Ikaruga</b>: When they said this was a hard game, they weren't joking. It doesn't mess around. Given my prowess at Beat Hazard Ultra, I thought that I might be better at this game, but nope. It kicked my ass. I made it to the second level a few times, but I was never able to advance beyond it. But it was still an experience worth having, even if I was unable to master it.<br />
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<b>Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+: </b>This is a great short session game, and just watching the trailer makes me want to play it again. The speed of the game is exhilarating, as it slowly ramps up, and you start doing things faster than you thought you were capable of at the beginning. The way I played it, it was more like a side dish to another, more substantial game... the kind of game you play to refresh yourself, to take a break with and it's really good at filling that role. It's a fitting successor to Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man for sure. <br />
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<b>Tomb Raider</b>: This was my first real experience with the Tomb Raider series, and I have to say, it made quite the impression on me. I enjoyed it very much, and I loved the fact that in many ways, it felt like I was playing through a horror game rather than a pure action adventure one. I felt much the same way playing this game that I did last winter playing <i>Batman: Arkham Asylum</i>. It was the perfect difficulty for me, so when I failed to do something, it was entirely my fault, and the construction of the world and discovery of each part of it felt natural. If it wasn't for another game on this list, I would probably have said it was my game of the year. <br />
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<b>A Wizard's Lizard: </b>Another rogue-like, procedurally generated game that was released this year. This one feels a lot like A Link to the Past in terms of your movement speed and the way levels are designed. And like Rogue Legacy, as you play it, you can slowly build up resources which make the game easier and more varied as you go through the dungeon, so with every new life, you have more options to work with, and you can start to find a playstyle and loadout that really work for you.<br />
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<b>Scribblenauts Unlimited</b>: A fun little game. If you've never played a Scribblenauts game, the object is basically to solve people's problems by using your magic notebook to write down something that will help them. The database of things you can use is huge, so your solution will likely be very different from someone else's, which is great. And it is fun to play around, just thinking of the craziest thing you can and seeing if your collection of adjectives and nouns will pop into existence. However, like my experience with <i>Lego Marvel Super Heroes</i> last year, I don't really feel the need to revisit this franchise as I've gotten my fill of the mechanics and humor from just one game in the franchise.<br />
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<b>Super House of Dead Ninjas: </b>A procedurally generated action platformer with an 8/16-bit aesthetic with short, fast games in mind. It was fun (and as one of the first Adult Swim games released on Steam, my description seems to match a lot of the kinds of things that their games are known for), but ultimately, it didn't keep my attention for long. Good mechanics and charming retro feel for sure though.<br />
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<b>Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed: </b>A Kart-style racer featuring mostly Sega characters. It is a great game, though again, the Mario Kart franchise is still the king. But for a game that appeared on every other non-Nintendo platform, it is really good. I enjoyed the fact that the game wasn't limited to just driving, as most courses also had air or water elements, which allow for different racing techniques. I especially loved the inclusion of Wreck It Ralph, and while they didn't get John C. Reilly to relive the part, the substitute is pretty good. I think the fact that the stages were all based on Sega properties hurt the title a little bit though, since some of the properties didn't lend themselves to that particularly well, and some non-licensed tracks would have added some variety and spice to the game. But I still had fun, and that is the important thing. <br />
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<b>Skyrim</b>: Wow, what an experience. The fact that I waited so long to play this game makes me sad now. How much did I like this game? I played it and only it for 4 months and I loved every second of it. And this wasn't the first time I had visited Tamriel since I had played Morrowind a few years back, and I was deeply enthralled by that, but it did not prepare me for this experience. It was completely engrossing, and any time I might have gotten bored, there was always something new to try, someplace new to explore, and it kept finding ways of taking me in new directions. Put it simply, t wasn't just the game I enjoyed most this year, but <i><b>it is arguably the best game I've ever played</b></i>. I'm saying that without hyperbole. Usually when I play a game, there is a moment where my enjoyment starts to trail off, a moment which tells me that perhaps I should start playing another game or start moving towards the end of the narrative so I can stop playing. I never had that experience with <i>Skyrim</i>. After playing it so long, I made a decision that after I accomplished certain things, I would stop playing. But I didn't. I kept finding new things to do and new experiences to try and I kept getting achievements (I ended the run with 72 out of 75 of the possible achievements). I decided that I would rather stop playing it having loved it so much than ruin the experience by playing it until I finally got sick of it, and I think it is healthier that way. I could always go back if I want to experience that world again, but parting with it was hard, but it is better this way. <br />
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<b>Olli Olli: </b>For my first game after <i>Skyrim</i>... it wasn't going to go well for any game that came right after that. But Olli Olli did act like a good palette cleanser for what was to come next. It is a 2D skateboard game with tight time windows to do tricks and it starts difficult and just gets tougher from there. I respect it, but it didn't wow me... but again, the circumstances could have been better. It was like a rebound game. I played more <i>ETS2</i> right after this, and that helped me get ready for the next game on this list.<br />
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<b>Payday 2:</b> I generally don't play multiplayer games, so when I bought Payday 2 and most of the DLC during the Steam Summer Sale, I was actually mad at myself because I thought I would never play it and I had wasted my money (my other concern was the install size, which at the time of purchase looked like it was around 25-31GB, something that was also tweaked so it takes up a lot less hard drive space). But still, I wasn't convinced... but the new DLC kept being on sale, and I told myself, well, if it was on sale for another day, another week, maybe I would buy it... and inevitably, it kept doing just that. So, when everything for the game was on sale during the Fall Sale, I was keyed up... I was ready and excited to play this game. How excited? I played over 100 hours of it in 2 weeks. How insane is that for me? I don't think I played a game that much in such a short period of time since I was in high school. To put that in perspective, I played Skyrim for 4 months and racked up around 240 hours and I did 150 hours of Payday 2 in about a month. <br />
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<b>Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition</b>: I bought this in the summer sale with the belief that Namco-Bandai would ultimately drop Games For Windows Live and migrate it fully to Steamworks, and that came true, so my only objection to playing it disappeared by the end of the year. I was prepared for this to be a punishing game, and I'm slowly making progress in it. I don't know if I will ultimately beat it, but it certainly is fun trying at the moment, and satisfying when you do make progress or discover the secret to beating an enemy you thought was almost impossible to harm, let alone defeat. But we'll see how well my resolve holds up when I can no longer make progress... because that will likely be a breaking point for me. It seems like a good game to finish the year out with as well.<br />
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This year, I think I have to grade the list of my favorite titles on a curve in a way because I loved <i>Skyrim</i> so much that it doesn't seem fair to pick it and then 4 other games, because again, I'm on the record saying it was arguably the greatest game I've ever played and that is using a long, long history of playing games to judge it against.<br />
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What I'm going to do is make a list my top 5 games aside from <i>Skyrim</i> and I think how it shakes out in that context is this:<br />
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1. <i>Tomb Raider</i><br />
2. <i>The Walking Dead</i><br />
3. <i>Payday 2</i><br />
4. <i>Ring Runner: Flight of the Sages</i><br />
5. <i>Euro Truck Simulator 2</i><br />
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Number 5 was sort of a toss up between <i>Euro Truck Simulator 2</i> and <i>Mark of the Ninja</i>, but I gave the former the edge because of the number of hours I played it and the fact that I revisited it after Skyrim and it held its own for a decent amount of time in that slot. <br />
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So how did I do on my to-play list for this year? Pretty good I'd say.<br />
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From the end of last year's post (I've bolded all the games I did get to) <br />
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And what are a few games that are going to pop up on next year's list
from the games I have at my disposal at the moment? Probably at least
one older D&D game, like <b><i>Planescape Torment</i></b> (at least this one), and maybe a <i>Baldur's Gate</i> or <i>Neverwinter Nights</i> game. <b><i>Don't Starve</i></b> is definitely on the playlist, and I will probably get around to the new <b><i>Tomb Raider</i></b> and season one of <b><i>The Walking Dead</i></b>. I'm also interested in trying <b><i>Euro Truck Simulator 2</i></b> (with no irony attached, I've heard it is really good) and maybe, maybe <b><i>Just Cause 2</i></b>.
</blockquote>
I did so well on that initial list during the first half of the year, I had to make a second list of new goals... which I was slightly less successful at achieving:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTVd3bY3DDsz5J3yhsrGhk2W3OVlu74_MW4jd78iyzJp_Os-aenPAerrlFHArQiN8EguXTbI0G4i4WGQiiPLTJjxCMJRl4R3SCdbqoTRUoTpLwX44EeiaiNBOqOWkssjjjl_VifA/s1600/secondhalfshortlist.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTVd3bY3DDsz5J3yhsrGhk2W3OVlu74_MW4jd78iyzJp_Os-aenPAerrlFHArQiN8EguXTbI0G4i4WGQiiPLTJjxCMJRl4R3SCdbqoTRUoTpLwX44EeiaiNBOqOWkssjjjl_VifA/s1600/secondhalfshortlist.PNG" height="276" width="400" /> </a> </div>
<br />
So, for 2015, in addition to <i>Pixel Piracy</i>, <i>Long Live The Queen</i> and <i>Batman Arkham City</i> (I'm taking the <i>Bioshock</i> games off the list for the moment), I also want to get to <i>Ultimate General: Gettysburg</i>, <i>Steam Marines</i>, <i>The Walking Dead Season 2</i>, one of the <i>King's Bounty</i> games, probably <i>A Wolf Amongst Us</i>, one of the EA arcade-racing games I have (either <i>Burnout Paradise: Ultimate Box</i> or <i>Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit</i>), and if <i>Gnomoria</i> finishes development and comes out of Early Access, I'm probably going to play that too. <br />
<br />
If <i>Bulletstorm</i> or <i>FUEL</i> dropped GFWL/Securom, I'd play them in a second. But I don't think that is going to happen this year or any year.<br />
<br />
And looking at that list above, it seems to be a lot less AAA-oriented than some of my lists in the past, and I'm ok with that, especially since I never know how a year is going to turn out, because I pick up a lot of games during any given year, so the games I absolutely love in 2015 might not even be on my list of things to get to right now. My game of 2015 might not be out yet, or it could be sitting in my library, an acquisition from a long forgotten bundle that I know nothing about at this moment, but which for any number of reasons, I discover to be a masterwork in its genre, something that just have to play.<br />
<br />
That is half the joy in playing games... finding something unexpected and new... and the more people who make games and the more voices there are in the industry across the board from developers, producers, writers and artists to reviewers, critics and academics, the easier it will be to find that strange, entertaining new thrill, and I don't want that to go away. It vexes me that 2014 is tainted because so many voices were silenced and pushed out of industry and I think about all the games I won't be able to play or hear about because of it.<br />
<br />
One hashtag left the gaming industry poorer this year in so many ways. MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-43856883741703364532014-04-02T22:39:00.000-04:002014-04-02T22:39:08.858-04:00Review: Pinball FX 2When I was a kid, I loved pinball. I was always excited when I'd go to an arcade or a convenience store and they had a new pinball machine to play. The sounds and music from classic tables are still implanted in my brain even now, and I remember all the good times I had back then.<br />
<br />
But the last time I really played a pinball game on a console or PC, it was way back in the days of the Atari 2600 with a game called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCz8ETnZ4YM" target="_blank">Midnight Magic</a>, released in 1986-7. I missed out on Space Cadet on Windows too, since it was a separate installation on Windows 98. <br />
<br />
So now seemed like as good a time as any to try my hand at the ever-popular <i>Pinball FX 2</i> for the PC (which is also available on XBLA, and on PSN/WiiU under the name <i>Zen Pinball 2</i>)<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje8VHFnQNhZdnMJtDQeHDqA4mlEXCWyOwsdoGtqcn6tru90gRIzZjIrjLGHVYnSht5wPV_kfXH2van8xoHCFuGxe5P0ETCItxHXRbFMLudp6gstM_h87TkYC7rm5lBUHh2p4CPcQ/s1600/2014-03-19_00001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje8VHFnQNhZdnMJtDQeHDqA4mlEXCWyOwsdoGtqcn6tru90gRIzZjIrjLGHVYnSht5wPV_kfXH2van8xoHCFuGxe5P0ETCItxHXRbFMLudp6gstM_h87TkYC7rm5lBUHh2p4CPcQ/s1600/2014-03-19_00001.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I played the game with a Logitech F310 controller, which is arranged like a PS2/3 controller, but which has Xbox color coding and inputs, so this review should be relevant to console players as well. <br />
<br />
I've also played 36 of the tables, so at this point, I feel like I have a good understanding of both the mechanics of this particular game and the design principles that Zen Studios uses in making their tables. <br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFaykd1cPdNPfdvNycrugCDa10VnVR9WFvdyuc9WoLwKic3isTns5EdqBguLt1d3LHk7CyDKsMAlTCXCClT5bvkQGwnO42QSgGW4zO8CfAZ_hhUBgjv5v3LyVg7T3Kxjqhgc3-xw/s1600/2014-03-19_00002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFaykd1cPdNPfdvNycrugCDa10VnVR9WFvdyuc9WoLwKic3isTns5EdqBguLt1d3LHk7CyDKsMAlTCXCClT5bvkQGwnO42QSgGW4zO8CfAZ_hhUBgjv5v3LyVg7T3Kxjqhgc3-xw/s1600/2014-03-19_00002.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
At its heart, <i>Pinball FX 2</i> is designed to be fun and challenging rather than being a 100% accurate pinball simulation, and I'm okay with that. That philosophy allows events to happen that could only happen in a game, like having two realistic 3D characters battle and move around the playing field while you play through a table event. It also means that when you encounter events that require magnets to hold balls and such, they work perfectly every time, which to me is a plus, but other people might not like that. These are not real tables, and I think the whole experience benefits from that. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaHoSJiUUQYkwXW4E6zt_QKdV5PpgU74xAg5dDJwCvyRDV3tH02Dmf9z-53ZQHfAwyRM0fspHACPjbM595C2dCLqEz5vFgFL2M7HY4bGTMyXBKDjhQvY4l2cbqR5Esm-Kwz_xyjw/s1600/2014-03-19_00003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaHoSJiUUQYkwXW4E6zt_QKdV5PpgU74xAg5dDJwCvyRDV3tH02Dmf9z-53ZQHfAwyRM0fspHACPjbM595C2dCLqEz5vFgFL2M7HY4bGTMyXBKDjhQvY4l2cbqR5Esm-Kwz_xyjw/s1600/2014-03-19_00003.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Avengers Table</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Every table I've played so far has been fun and visually pleasing to me while maintaining the illusion of reality and verisimilitude in most cases. I've been especially drawn to the Marvel licensed tables, especially the ones from Avengers Chronicles pack, which is four tables which cover The Avengers movie, and the Fear Itself, World War Hulk and Infinity Gauntlet story lines. I'm also a fan of the Star Wars tables. Given the fact that most of the licensed tables are from now Disney owned properties, I wouldn't be surprised to see either tables linked to their animated movies or perhaps the Muppets in the future.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaqpYIi3Pgp7uKtnm3rfv1TUhqj3Xsmy2NV0-Dc8CY1Lh5VUeJCqhFKLzRRkoXrPhslqNXvabUT2-WWlXUVH2UDl6WB_flHRR0fb4LCeHe1o8vS9wsbP0rXJExSH5rl7D3hvE01Q/s1600/2014-03-19_00004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaqpYIi3Pgp7uKtnm3rfv1TUhqj3Xsmy2NV0-Dc8CY1Lh5VUeJCqhFKLzRRkoXrPhslqNXvabUT2-WWlXUVH2UDl6WB_flHRR0fb4LCeHe1o8vS9wsbP0rXJExSH5rl7D3hvE01Q/s1600/2014-03-19_00004.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Iron Man Table</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The sound design is also quite impressive. Along with the normal sounds that you'd expect from the bumpers, flippers and other staples of pinball, each table has its own individual music and voices, though with the licensed tables, they usually use stand-ins in place of their more famous counterparts, which is understandable. The sounds for the tables not attached to a property also feel fitting for older pinball tables in real life. They are subdued but thematically appropriate and I appreciate that. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlZN-TxOZdQ51EZQdlamN7KQUVY3iWlvjmEOVDQiuQurLtsdLivHudTtQaRK8dJkNogOU46Rw0iywEGMEezM-uBasRizpexvndrk06_7ldJdmWp8UfOTSuBKC-VQUdez1VxAa7xQ/s1600/2014-03-19_00005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlZN-TxOZdQ51EZQdlamN7KQUVY3iWlvjmEOVDQiuQurLtsdLivHudTtQaRK8dJkNogOU46Rw0iywEGMEezM-uBasRizpexvndrk06_7ldJdmWp8UfOTSuBKC-VQUdez1VxAa7xQ/s1600/2014-03-19_00005.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Empire Strikes Back Table</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The controls are also very responsive, and even though I don't often apply english to the table, I like the fact that it is available and it responds to direction. The flippers also trigger instantly and powerfully, which matches my memories of playing classic pinball. A lot of the tables also have mini-subtables that you might get access to after doing a particular set of actions. These mini games are fun and challenging, and at times bring new kinds of experiences (like I remember playing a Breakout-like sequence on the Fear Itself table involving Mjolnir) that a traditional pinball game couldn't provide. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGUV8cj8XVygojf9voVGyZRhPwS2OLOLy6FEbcuVdUghlEPJ8rVzGaQs1nduA8rhjesPhEwTqz2PT8sFujFLcYIzWlqwNWiHEMONA4XEX9K44DgefdDBZny5OO8iSmqDfKSvCezg/s1600/2014-03-19_00006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGUV8cj8XVygojf9voVGyZRhPwS2OLOLy6FEbcuVdUghlEPJ8rVzGaQs1nduA8rhjesPhEwTqz2PT8sFujFLcYIzWlqwNWiHEMONA4XEX9K44DgefdDBZny5OO8iSmqDfKSvCezg/s1600/2014-03-19_00006.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pasha Table</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I am also a fan of the way they sell their tables. The base game (at least on the PC) comes with one table for free (Sorcerer's Lair), and you can start and play that one as much as you want. You can also try the other tables and decide if you like them before buying them. By selling them individually, or in bundles of themed tables, you can commit to just the content you enjoy, which for this game is a model that works very well.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
In the end, it is very easy for me to recommend <i>Pinball FX 2</i>. It has been an entirely enjoyable experience and it is the kind of game I can both pick up and play when I have a few minutes to spare and one which I could devote a lot of individual time to. It is hard to find a game that scratches both those itches for me, but this is definitely one of them.MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-83994487110076872432014-03-08T20:18:00.000-05:002014-03-08T20:20:02.281-05:00MultiplayerphobiaI've had a bit of a problem the last few years, one which I rarely if ever talk about. You see, I am generally uneasy playing multiplayer games online. <br />
<br />
Don't get me wrong, local co-op and competitive gaming are both amazing and I love doing that, and in fact, they represent some of the best times I've ever had playing games. And I'd love to pick up a real world table top/pen and paper RPG some day, and I am genuinely excited by that prospect. But when it comes to playing games online, those experiences have not been as fun, and I don't even mean for the usual reasons people cited when talking about this subject.<br />
<br />
I am not afraid of getting yelled at or abused by my fellow players, or receiving threats after a game. No, in my case, and I may be unique in this appraisal of things, playing games online with other people, even friends, gives me the same kind of introverted reaction that I would get if I was at a party with a lot of people I didn't know. It is stressful for me and it makes me tired. It is draining, and I feel like I need to stop and recharge rather quickly. When I started having this reaction, I didn't fully understand it. I
thought it was strange and unprecedented, especially given the amount of
time I spent playing MUDs in the late 1990's and again in the early
2000's. <br />
<br />
And the strange thing is, I don't have anxieties about anything else online. I'll email anybody and I'll talk to anyone on Twitter/Facebook/chatroom/forums. it doesn't matter who it is. I have no fear about that sort of thing, and I really have never been shy online. It is as if being online has given me a persona which is an extroverted version of myself, one that is only available in this space.<br />
<br />
But after having given the matter some more thought, it occurred to me that it was the pressure of failure, of screwing up, of letting someone else down, that has been weighing on me all these years. In those situations, you are making a commitment to another person and if you mess up or have to leave, you are wrecking <b>their</b> fun. That was the thought in the back of my head, and/or the pressure I felt while playing games with other people online.<br />
<br />
I also think my play style isn't conducive to a lot of multiplayer games. When I play games, I like to explore, experiment and mess around and a lot of games predicated on multiplayer are more goal oriented. My play style is very much geared to the single player experience. The game that I immediately think of when discussing this is <i>Torchlight II</i>. I wanted to explore every nook and cranny looking for loot... but playing with other people, that isn't realistic. They want to get through the game in a reasonable amount of time, so I always felt rushed. I have a feeling that <i>Borderlands</i> would have been the same way. I want to look around, find everything I can and then move on. That's a problem online.<br />
<br />
I've always loved playing games by myself, and talking about those experiences with other people, usually people who had themselves played those games, in chatrooms and forums for well over a decade. It is how I enjoyed games, a world where I would write AARs, tell anecdotes about the strange things I saw or just talk about strategies or the story/characters. I would almost call the way I play/talk about games, especially with the growth of the internet, I don't know.... single player plus? All the comforts of social networking, without the anxiety. <br />
<br />
Come to think of it, the only game that I felt entirely comfortable playing with other people the past few years has been <i>Team Fortress 2</i>,
and I think that was for a few reasons. Firstly, it felt casual so I could just jump in a game if I felt like it and leave the same way. There were also so many
people playing on a single map that my overall contribution would likely
not be the game changing factor in any match. Lastly, there were no feelings
of social obligation for me. If I played, I played... and if I didn't,
well then too bad, because if I didn't, there was always going to be another game for my friends to join. <br />
<br />
Now I am wondering what I should do. Should I try to force myself through these anxieties, especially given the fact that developers/publishers are increasingly shifting their focus away from single player games towards multiplayer experiences to increase the lifespan of their games and soften trade-in numbers, or should I be content to stay in this nice little box of comfort I am currently in? MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-59121359864408969542014-02-19T00:18:00.001-05:002014-02-19T00:18:50.372-05:00Two Types of Geek Friendships?A few weeks ago, a thought struck me, one which I presented to a couple of friends who told me that perhaps I was on to something. I am just spitballing this here because I <br />
<br />
Basically, I think there are two general types of geek friendships based on the nature of the individual geekdoms.<br />
<br />
On one hand, there are the geekdoms which are predicated on not just enjoying things yourself, but by sharing them with your friends and colleagues. And then there are geekdoms in which you have to go outside of your peer group and seek out others who have an affinity for that type of thing and thus cultivate new friendships because of that shared interest.<br />
<br />
For example, there are a lot of aspects of my geekdom that I am very public with, and I encourage my friends to experience them too, oftentimes evangelically. Off the top of my head in terms of games, I have tried to get a lot of people into things like <i>Beat Hazard Ultra</i>, <i>A.I. War: Fleet Command</i> and <a href="http://rantocracy.blogspot.ca/search?q=god+hand" target="_blank">God Hand </a>unapologetically. And I am recommending <i>Brooklyn Nine Nine</i> to everyone I know in an admittedly hardcore way. <br />
<br />
And then there are things like <a href="http://rantocracy.blogspot.ca/2011/01/football-manager-2011-my-cruel-and.html" target="_blank">Football Manager</a>, which I really enjoy, but it's something which had limited appeal amongst my friends, given the fact that it is a menu/spreadsheet driven game about soccer. So to find people to talk about that particular interest, I had to seek out new friends based around that game online.<br />
<br />
Most of those people lived in Britain and were significantly younger than me, and because of that, I wonder if in their lives, <i>Football Manager</i> falls more in that first kind of geekdom, since even stand up comedians make jokes about playing it there, so it is likely a very different geek culture for that across the pond, like there may be regional aspects to this theory as well.<br />
<br />
Come to think of it, I had a little bit of a similar experience with <i>Euro Truck Simulator 2</i> as well. <br />
<br />
I am imagining one of my friends who used to play Warhammer 40K had similar kind of thing with that game, since he made friends who were already into it by competing in local tournaments rather than trying to convert me or his other friends into players of the game. The barriers for adopting the hobby are the high cost in terms of both money and time in building your model army, the relatively small community, and the nature of gameplay which wouldn't appeal to everyone. By making friends amongst the existing player base, those barriers were eliminated. <br />
<br />
Again, this is something that occurred to me recently, and I could totally be off, but does something I am talking about here seem anecdotally true for any of you as well?MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-36215357761014046172014-02-07T20:18:00.001-05:002014-02-07T20:18:20.250-05:00I Am Going To FightI think this has been a long time in coming, though I can see hints that this was a decision I was moving towards for months now. I've been writing this post for well over a month as well, and I kept putting off posting it because I've been a little afraid to say this, to come right out and say it rather than have it just sitting in my brain. <br />
<br />
I have resolved that I will no longer turn a blind eye to how certain vocal segments of the gaming community treat women.<br />
<br />
What really crystallized this decision for me was what happened to developer Zoe Quinn recently after her free game <a href="http://depressionquest.com/" target="_blank">Depression Quest</a> entered the Steam Greenlight system for a second time and <a href="http://storify.com/SeeBeeWhitman/depression-quest-harassment-campaign" target="_blank">she was attacked mercilessly online and over the phone</a>.<br />
<br />
After
seeing what happened to Zoe Quinn, I made the decision that me being silent was helping those
who bully my fellow geeks. I was bullied as a kid, and let me tell you, I hate that crap. As a community, we all got enough of that stuff when we
were kids, and we shouldn't be doing that to other people who share our
interests, and we shouldn't be making it easier for the kind of people
who do. It is like if at the end of <i>Revenge of the Nerds</i>, the Trilambs,
having won control of the Greek council, start acting exactly like the
Alpha Betas to everyone, because they are merely doing what had been done to them. If we want a better community, more people have to be willing to fight for it and I think I am finally ready to do that.<br />
<br />
The
reason this kind of thing is increasingly important to me is that core
of male geeks are pushing back very hard on segments of the
population that by default have been deemed not geeks... especially
women. When I made the decision to just blog about
video games, I started follow a lot of prominent women in the industry
on Twitter, and I've been hearing a lot more stories and seeing male geeks
trying to push women geeks out of our community, so it is becoming more visible to me now. <br />
<br />
I am thinking of all those stories of girls going to conventions and
having to vet themselves again and again because they do not conform
with this image of what a geek is... and being told that they are fake
if they screw up. Imagining myself in that scenario, I would hate that. Or the stories of being <a href="http://kotaku.com/she-was-harassed-by-a-games-reporter-now-shes-speakin-1510714971" target="_blank">sexually harassed</a> again and again and again as both developers and members of the press. <br />
<br />
I had known about things like this in the past, but I never really understood how endemic it was.<br />
<br />
I would like to say that it is because of my time spent in the early 00's on a couple of web design forums that had vocal and prominent female members and founders, and it was through those outlets that I ended up playing my first real online multi-player FPS, <i>Unreal Tournament</i> with a group of men and women from that site, where there wasn't any push back on the women because we all knew each other and they were also some of the best players. And then I played a lot of years of single player PS2 games. Then, when I returned to multi-player gaming, it was in <i>Team Fortress 2</i> on Steam, and I never heard or read anything in any of the games I played that was really problematic... not even rage when you were on a losing team. It was a playing experience that seemed ideal to me, and rather divorced from the horror stories of abuse in games like <i>Battlefield</i> and <i>COD</i>... <br />
<br />
...you know, scratch that. The truth is, I've been a coward. This is a problem that has been here all along and I just didn't want to see it or confront it. I was willfully ignorant. <br />
<br />
I had an indication in the late 1990's, within <a href="http://rantocracy.blogspot.ca/2007/09/i-was-online-female-impersonator.html" target="_blank">my first 2 years of using the internet</a> that it was a problem. And in retelling the story, I had someone who I deeply respect basically tell me the same thing. <br />
<br />
Yet, I didn't want to really understand.<br />
<br />
When I learned about the site <a href="http://fatuglyorslutty.com/" target="_blank">Fat, Ugly or Slutty</a>, I asked my female friends about it, and they recounted stories about things that happened to them that were very much in keeping with the things that were said and posted on that site.<br />
<br />
And again, I didn't really want to understand. <br />
<br />
Sure, I was sympathetic and horrified by the stories of dick pictures and awkward, gross and actively hostile messages sent their way... but in the end, I didn't say or do anything to try to make things better, and that is all on me. <br />
<br />
If I am going to be honest, when I look back at some of my earlier posts when I was writing
about pop culture as a whole, I do notice that young female celebrities
got a lot of negative attention from me, a disproportionate amount. At
the time, I didn't see the problem with it since they were prominently
featured in entertainment news, but in retrospect, it wasn't entirely
fair of me to do so. If I am going to be a vocal part of this solution,
then I have to acknowledge that I haven't always been entirely without
sin when it comes to these matters.<br />
<br />
It is so easy to criticize or make fun of a celebrity, since they are likely not going to see what I wrote about them. It feels harder to go after the kind of people who make life hell for others in the gaming community because you are often confronting them directly. I am generally non-confrontational, so even though I am resolving to fight, part of me is still telling me not to.<br />
<br />
Back before I started Culture Kills, I used to blog somewhere else in a community that was largely conservative. I am very much the opposite of that. For a time, I was the second most popular blog in that community (and even when I was not, I was still in the top ten), but being a voice that was relatively moderate in amongst a larger group of people who were fighting over politics wore me down. I didn't enjoy fighting. I was good at it, really good, but it left me feeling angry all the time. <br />
<br />
And for the most part, when I left there to start this blog, I largely sidestepped the fighting. I was part of a larger group of other pop culture bloggers and in general, we were all pretty polite and cool with each other, even when we disagreed, and I liked that. It is something that made blogging enjoyable for me. <br />
<br />
But in fighting against this entrenched, sometimes anonymous group of people, I know I have to be prepared for, at the very least, some unpleasantness and I think I finally am. So I am going to be calling that stuff out here, and if I see it out in the wilds of the internet, I am going to be pushing back against it there too. MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-81016147978985213812014-01-21T22:39:00.001-05:002014-01-24T12:41:14.735-05:00I Am Trying To Understand Gamer Rage Over GOTY ListsWhen the PC Gamer Game Of The Year selections were slowly being posted, I'll admit that I took a perverse glee in reading the asinine and outraged comments beneath each one. Like how dare PC Gamer come to a consensus about some games they enjoyed and share those conclusions with the world.<br />
<br />
For example, I am a subscriber to the magazine, so when they decided that <i>Spelunky</i> was their Game of the Year, I had remembered that in an earlier issue, that they had given it a score of 96/100. Looking at Metacritic, there are only a few games that they have given equal or higher scores to: <i>Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri</i>, <i>Half Life 1 </i>and <i>2</i>, <i>Minecraft</i>, <i>Civilization II</i>, <i>Crysis</i> and <i>The Sims</i>. So it should have been no surprise that PC Gamer gave the award to <i>Spelunky</i>.<br />
<br />
Some people didn't agree: <br />
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And that one is a rare comment that actually mentioned other games that it should have been instead. Most do not. They simply complain about the choice without offering up an alternative. <br />
<br />
Part of the humor for me comes from the fact that I really don't understand the anger. It makes me seriously ask, does a website or magazine picking a title that they didn't like somehow invalidate these people's entire existence? It is someone or a group of people saying they liked something... it isn't a personal affront to you or your way of life. <br />
<br />
The game that ended up being the gold standard of this kind of angry denunciation by gamers in comments this year was <i>Gone Home</i>. It was ugly... it is the only way to put it. It was a perfect storm of a game that was relatively short, had a female protagonist and told a story in a non-violent way through the exploration of a house in a non-horror setting. It won a lot of awards, and certain segments of the gaming community hated not just the fact that it won, but that it even exists. They went out of their way to spoil key plot points of the narrative and say things like it was destroying gaming, or that it wasn't a game at all or other awful things. These comments were flowing as the lists were being announced, so it was a long term process. (And don't get me wrong, there are an exceedingly large number of people who enjoyed and loved <i>Gone Home</i> in the fan community as well).<br />
<br />
Again, no one is forcing you to play it. No one. You like something else? That's great. That is your game of the year. Because there is a definite difference between having a respectful disagreement and setting out to wreck the future experience of other players by deciding to tell everyone what the story is of a short game. It's not cool. That is beyond the bounds of spoiler etiquette. <br />
<br />
I am invested in the games and other things I love doing well and getting critical recognition. There are genres of games that I don't like. If a game from one of those genres won a Game Of The Year award over a game I loved, I'd be still okay with it. I wouldn't spend my time ripping on the game that won in the way a lot of these commenters do.<br />
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And I am saying that as someone who wrote <a href="https://twitter.com/culturekills/status/424331933623914498" target="_blank">a twitter diatribe against the RoboCop remake</a> to the official account for the movie... so I still have moments of geek rage.<br />
<br />
EDIT: Well, someone wrote an article recently for the International Business Times which seems to answer this very question. The article is titled <a href="http://Why Do Gamers Obsess Over Review Scores?" target="_blank">Why Do Gamers Obsess Over Review Scores?</a>MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-71544476753943484002014-01-13T19:24:00.000-05:002014-01-13T19:29:52.302-05:00Digital Backlogs: Don't Be AshamedRecently, <a href="http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/6/5279722/steam-sale-stack-of-shame" target="_blank">Polygon</a> and <a href="http://kotaku.com/were-buying-more-pc-games-than-we-can-play-1493402988" target="_blank">Kotaku</a> posted articles about a problem that a lot of people ruminate on... that of the digital backlog people who use Steam and other digital services develop as they use them. <br />
<br />
Whenever this kind of topic gets brought up, especially when it comes to digital libraries, the question that a lot of commenters tend to ask is: why do you buy all these games that you don't play?<br />
<br />
From someone who has quite a collection of digital games, I have a few answers for those people.<br />
<br />
But the first thing we have to discuss is how people get large libraries in the first place. There are three real factors in terms of library inflation that people who aren't part of the community wouldn't really understand, because they haven't really experienced it. <br />
<br />
<b>Indie Game Bundles </b><br />
<br />
This is a huge culprit in library inflation. So many times, even with "beat the average" pricing, paying for a full bundle just to get 1 or 2 titles ends up being cheaper than getting those titles individually, even when they are on sale. And in buying the bundle, you end up with a group of games you never really wanted in the first place, but which are now part of your library. You never wanted it, you didn't put your money into the bundle to have it, but now you own it, and I am sure there are other people who have huge libraries would tell you the same story about a sizable amount of their collection. It is like you are buying dinner at a restaurant, and you just want a burger at a reasonable price, but with the meal you end up with a huge platter of fries as well, most of which you will never eat, and you'll just bring it home, stick it in your fridge and never think about them again. Well, not until you look at your fridge and wonder how it got so full so fast.<br />
<br />
<b>Digital Store Game Bundles</b><br />
<br />
At Steam this sort of thing used to be more common but in recent years, the number of bundles that they offer has been greatly reduced. However, they still tend to offer franchise bundles, which can end up being very tempting. For example, during the most recent Steam Winter Sale, the most recent <i>Tomb Raider</i> game had a few days when it was 80% off, making it 10 dollars. There was also a package that was the reboot plus every other <i>Tomb Raider</i> game on Steam for 4 dollars more, so if you had any interest in playing the older titles, well, paying a little more to have them all seems to make sense. Even off of Steam this happens. Recently I bought a D&D bundle from Good Old Games, which was 10 games, 7 of which I wanted. When I tried to remove one of the games I did not want, the price of the remaining games skyrocketed, so it was in my financial interest to buy them all. So in this scenario, you are buying a number of games to get most or all of them for future play. There was another short-time sale during the most recent Steam sale where there was a game (<i>Toki Tori 2</i>) which was more expensive by itself than the bundle it was also included in by a decent margin. Would you pay 4 dollars for a game or 2 something in a package that has 3 other games in it when confronted with a choice like that? I have a feeling nearly everyone would pick the latter. <br />
<br />
<b>One Game, Multiple Listings</b><br />
<br />
Then there are times when you buy a game, and you end up with multiple game listings for it in your library, each of which count as a different title. Sometimes it is a game and its expansion, sometimes it is the game and then its beta version, but each time that happens, it inflates the size of the library, making it look like there are more games than there actually are. The most egregious example of this kind of thing in my own library was the <i>Arma X Anniversary Edition</i> which I bought in December. It is basically 2 games... but every expansion that came with it ends up with its own listing in my library, ballooning it to 8 games. Telltale Games' Back To The Future game has individual listings for each of the chapters of the game. These are just two common examples, and because a not statistically insignificant number of games do this, the number of games most people have in their library is smaller than what Steam counts them as. <br />
<br />
--<br />
<br />
When you take these factors into account, I think it is likely that for the average Steam user, if they were to eliminate titles that fit into these three categories and merely counted games that they willingly bought, their library size would shrink by at least 40% if not more. <br />
<br />
Now, I am not going to say how many games I have on Steam, but I will say that it is a substantial number. Even when you filter for the factors I've discussed above, I still have a sizable library of games that I've purchased willingly and that I have not yet played. <br />
<br />
My own rationale for having so many games is really a matter of choice. I like having options, if I am looking for something to scratch a particular itch and only a new experience will do it. So if I am looking for a hard platformer, I have a few just waiting to be played. If I want a RPG with choices and morality, I have a few of those. If I want racing, grand strategy, management, fighting, open world... I have games on hand that I can just install and play any time I am in the mood.<br />
<br />
If a game is sitting in my library unplayed, it also means that I bought it on sale, likely at 75% off. I've done the rough math on this and it turns out it isn't that bad. If I bought all the games that I've played so far at full price and compared that price to the amount I've spent on amassing my library, I've spent about 20% more to have these options. I think that is a more than fair trade-off really. <br />
<br />
As I was writing this piece, it occurred to me that many of the same people who ask their fellow players why they buy so many games that they don't play likely use a service which gives them access to vast amounts of content that there is absolutely no expectation they are going to get through in its entirety.<br />
<br />
I'm of course talking about Netflix and Hulu Plus (amongst other services). And what about people with DVR's full of shows they haven't watched? They are paying a fee every month for those services Why are using those services socially acceptable and encouraged, but somehow having the same kind of freedom in terms of a video game library, especially in the digital realm, is not? <br />
<br />
In essence, we are both paying for entertainment, but somehow the person with a digital game library with unplayed titles is looked at with a little bit of derision, like somehow we are all doing something silly at best and completely idiotic at worst. I think that is a profound disconnect. <br />
<br />
Even the language we use to describe having a gaming backlog works to perpetuate that same disconnect, because think about how often the word <i><b>shame</b></i> is used. You don't just have a backlog, you have a pile/stack of shame or shameful backlog. If you have a lot of unwatched movies, TV shows or unread books, one very rarely refers to that as something you should actively be ashamed of. If you put "pile of shame" into Google, you get almost 1.4 million results, with all the top results being about games. Movies and books pop up once in a while, but it is usually about games. <br />
<br />
To me, a pile of shame sounds like the phrase you would use to tell someone who had, in a drunken fit, defecated or vomited on your carpet that they did so... that they left you a pile of shame. It shouldn't be used to describe some entertainment products that you haven't yet experienced.<br />
<br />
Having a backlog shouldn't be a bad thing. Having options shouldn't be a bad thing. I think it is time for people to stop apologizing and feeling defensive about having more than a few games they haven't played. We have them and we shouldn't feel ashamed about them anymore.<br />
<br />
And yes, the irony that I am finishing a post where I defended having a backlog with a statement about not feeling defensive about having one is not lost on me. MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-65381964011198468312014-01-01T21:14:00.000-05:002014-01-01T21:14:02.458-05:00My Year In Gaming 2013Once again, we are at the start of a new year, and I am feeling a little retrospective. Since this is now a gaming blog, and I did this <a href="http://rantocracy.blogspot.ca/2012/12/my-year-in-pc-gaming.html" target="_blank">last year</a>, I thought it would be fun to do it again.<br />
<br />
I don't play a lot of different games comparatively speaking, and I generally am sort of picky when it comes to the games I install. I have to really want to play it, and for the most part, I never really follow a game with another one that is similar, and you will probably notice that.<br />
<br />
This year, I also had to do a full wipe of my hard drive and then buy a new one, so I had two fresh starts in terms of my installed library, and with a fresh start, I was willing to try games that I had previously never thought to play because they were such big downloads, or my specs were closer to the requirements rather than the recommended ones. I liked having that freedom.<br />
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This is a long post. I am just giving you that warning right now. <br />
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<b><br /></b>
<b>FTL: </b>This was literally the first game I installed this year, and after finagling my way into getting it to work fullscreen on my monitor, I had many a tense game trying to outrun the rebel fleet. The game it reminded me of the most is <i>Oregon Trail</i> which, like a lot of kids who grew up in the 1980's, is a good nostalgic memory. While I have never been able to beat it, I have been close on a few occasions, and given the length of each individual game, it seems to be appealing for both casual and hardcore gamers. I am also not surprised that it is coming to the iOS soon, since it seems to be the kind of game that is perfectly suited for that platform. I've read a lot of stories about people naming their crew members after friends and family and getting upset when bad things happened to them, but that was not the game this year that had that effect on me.<br />
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<b>Out Of The Park Baseball 2013: </b>I am not a fan of baseball. At all. But I am a fan of games like <i>Football Manager</i>, so I thought it was worth trying this game to see if it could get me to love baseball. It did not, as I really don't have the background to fully understand managing, and while I did enjoy reading a bunch of books about sabermetrics around the same time to see if I could pick up the finer points of building a team, I was not entirely successful with that either. And then I decided I was going to start an entirely new league full of fictional players in 1871 and act as the commissioner, and that is where I found joy in this game. I found the zen of it all, and I marvelled at all the details. But at that point, I wasn't really "playing" the game. Sure, I was manually doing expansions, naming awards, franchises and stadiums and such, but I wasn't really experiencing the game the way others would, but nonetheless, it still ended up being enlightening.<br />
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<b>Retro City Rampage</b>: This is a love letter to 8 and 16-bit gaming as filtered through the lens of the first two <i>Grand Theft Auto</i> games. I think that is the best way I can describe this game. I love the art style (especially since you can choose between a lot of different console and arcade styles and color schemes), and I was a big fan of the references sprinkled throughout this game, and it had solid controls, but I just didn't finish it, and with my first hard drive wipe, my progress was gone.<br />
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<b>Saints Row The Third</b>: I loved this game. Loved it. In the past, I've expressed a fondness for the <i>Grand Theft Auto</i> series, but after playing this game, I am firmly on Team Saints from now on. I appreciated that it revelled in audacity, and every time I thought that it had become as crazy as it possibly could, it seemed to always top itself, and there seemed to be new wrinkles and toys popping up mission after mission. I played it through twice in a row, and if you know me and open world sandbox games, I never do that, but it was such an enjoyable experience that even after I got my achievements, I wanted to keep playing. I did a lot of stupid stuff... the kind of stuff I love doing in these kinds of games, and it always seemed like there was always more things to try around every corner. It had a great cast and a stellar soundtrack and a wacky story with some dark edges to it. If my computer could run the fourth installment of the series, I probably would have been an early player of that as well. This was the first game I installed after I wiped my drive, and I likely wouldn't have installed it if I hadn't had to do that, because I sort of figured at that point, I had nothing to lose by trying it and I absolutely do not regret that. <br />
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<b>Unity of Command</b>: I used to try to play games like this in the past, and then get frustrated because at times I play way too aggressively, and the computer would beat me. This game proved to be no exception. I can tell it is a well-crafted game, and the AI was very solid, but in the end, the experience wasn't the most enjoyable for me. That is totally on me, and not the fault of the game. Additionally, when I first installed the game, I was repeatedly getting false flags from my anti-virus software about the game executable, and I had to really do some digging to fix that problem, which further alienated me from the game.<br />
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<b>NBA 2K13</b>: I played a few of the <i>NBA 2K</i> games back in the PS2 era, but I had never finished a season on one until I bought <i>2K13</i>. But in those other editions, I didn't have the opportunity to play as just one player.At the beginning, my skills as a player were lacking, and I sort of messed up the Rookie Showcase, so I ended up going 19th in the draft, ending up on Orlando. If you are familiar with what happened with Orlando in the <a href="http://espn.go.com/nba/standings/_/year/2013" target="_blank">2012-13 season</a>, you know that that was not the ideal place to start out as a rookie. We had a little bit of a rocky start, and I was still learning the game, so I wasn't getting a lot of minutes every game, but I started to figure out what my role was, and I began to become a real contributor to the team, especially as a 3-point shooter. And then we really started to get on a roll, and soon I was carrying the whole team on my back (no word of that a lie), and I had some epic games. How far could we go? Could we make the playoffs? Could we win it all if we made it? At every turn, I was surprised and thrilled with how the story turned, and on the whole, it was a great journey, and this game reaffirmed my belief that while games with designed narratives are beautiful, there is also beauty in the narratives sports games spin based on the circumstances and your own actions as well.<br />
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<b>The Witcher Enhanced Edition</b>: This is a game that I kept putting on the short list to play, and then picking something else instead. Off the top of my head, I know in 2012, I played the first two <i>Mass Effects</i> and <i>Fallout 3</i> instead of playing this, and in retrospect, I don't regret that at all. That being said, I was really enjoying this game, especially the way the morality system worked (since there could be unforeseen negative consequences for every decision you made in game), and I was willing to give the sometimes wonky combat a pass because I was engrossed by the story and the world that surrounded these complex and surprising characters. However, I happened to be playing this game when I had to replace my hard drive, and when I reinstalled it, I didn't really get back into it which is a shame because I know there was a lot to like here. But in general, if I stop playing a game with a narrative, I am probably not coming back to it, and I have a feeling in this case, I am really going to regret that. <br />
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<b>La-Mulana</b>: This game is certainly a tough little slice of nostalgia. It is a 2D metroidvania that was designed from the beginning to be hard and really something that pushes back against how easy a lot of modern games have become. I was totally sold on this game just from the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1yP_be9IyI" target="_blank">music in the trailer</a>, and I bought a copy in a bundle before it was released on Steam, and got an activation code when it made it through the Greenlight process. It certainly lived up to the hype as well. But it's difficulty made me <a href="http://rantocracy.blogspot.ca/2013/07/im-not-gamer-i-was-as-kid.html" target="_blank">question my abilities</a> as a modern gamer vs how I played as a child.<br />
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<b>Total War: Shogun 2</b>: This was the first major game I installed on my new hard drive. I loved the original <i>Shogun Total War</i> when I played it back in the early 2000s, so I fully expected to have the same kind of experience with this iteration. However, it seems like I moved away from this kind of game in the past decade. It is a well designed game, and really good at what it does, especially in the battles, which still look and feel glorious... but I guess I built my expectations up a little too high and it just could never live up to my expectations or even my memories of the first game. I don't know if I will ever go back with some many other games to explore. In fact, if I was running low on space, this would likely be the first game I would remove from my drive because it takes up a lot of space, and I could probably install 20-40 indie games in its place. This was another one of those games that I would have never installed if I wasn't making a fresh start. <br />
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<b>Distant Worlds Shadows</b>: It took me a little bit of time to get
into this game, and the relatively high price was definitely a issue for
me getting into it, but I love the ideas and scope of this game series.
I wrote a <a href="http://rantocracy.blogspot.ca/2013/06/review-distant-worlds-shadows.html" target="_blank">rather long review</a> earlier this year that sums up my feelings
quite well. I think I am going to play this again in 2014. If it was cheaper, I'd recommend everyone who likes 4X games play it with no hesitation. But at the price point it is at, even on sale, that makes it a far more difficult thing for me to do. <br />
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<b>Crusader Kings II</b>: I loved this in 2012, and I loved it again in
its return appearance this year with the added content and expansions
that Paradox had given the game. After a few short and brutal games, I
finally started one which I was able to play for the long term. As I had
some experience, and I was playing with about 50% more time on my side,
I decided to start as the lowly Count of Schwyz and just see what happened. As it turns out, my dynasty climbed the ladder pretty well, with
the Hunfridings ending up first as the rulers of Denmark and eventually
the Holy Roman Emperors. I witnessed the destruction of the Byzantine
Empire, the kingdoms of Hispania and the embryonic princedoms
of Russia, and the rise of Hungary as a superpower before it was torn
asunder by the Mongols and Timurids. It was a fabulous experience, and I
have a feeling that it is going to be something I play every year for
80-100 hours every late summer/early autumn, because there is a lot more meat left on the bone for me. I still haven't really played as a Muslim, Orthodox or Pagan ruler yet, and I haven't played a game with the Aztec invasion DLC activated yet either. And the fact that I can now export the world that was created from this game into another game from the same developer makes playing another round much more tempting. <br />
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<b>Rogue Legacy</b>: I had heard so many good things about this game
that I bought it for almost full price during the Steam Summer Sale,
which is something which, up to that point, I had never done on Steam
(though I did preorder Torchlight 2 the previous year). I still more
than got my money's worth and I really enjoyed playing it from beginning to end. I wrote a <a href="http://rantocracy.blogspot.ca/2013/08/review-rogue-legacy.html" target="_blank">longer review</a> for the game a few months back, so I will keep this brief. This was the first game I ever got all the achievements for, which is sort of a milestone for me. But I don't know if I will go back and play it again, even with the additional content Cellar Door games has added recently. But there will always be a soft spot in my heart for the <a href="http://youtu.be/zAoCaXwu1bg" target="_blank">theme to the Dungeon</a> section of the castle.<br />
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<b>Legend of Grimrock</b>: A grand old throwback to 3D tile-based dungeon crawlers like they used to build in the late 1980's and early 1990's. I really liked the minimalist story and the art style, and I look forward to checking out the sequel when it is released in the future. I also liked projecting some of my own back story onto my characters, though that was of course an optional feature. Again, I wrote <a href="http://rantocracy.blogspot.ca/2013/09/review-legend-of-grimrock.html" target="_blank">a review</a> with some of my thoughts about the game, so I can keep it short here. <br />
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<b>Droid Assault</b>: 99 minutes. That is how long I played this game. It wasn't bad... it was just the developer gave everyone who bought the game a code that temporarily unlocked a very powerful robot and I got really far while I had access to it, and after it disappeared... well, the game suddenly didn't seem as fun as it once was. It is very much in the tradition of those old school arcade games where you are trying to wrack up a high score, which is the kind of game that Puppy Games loves to make, as they do a lot of work re-interpreting and updating older game concepts. In the case of <i>Droid Assault</i>, the premise is you are a robot fighting your way through levels filled with other malfunctioning robots. You move with the keyboard and aim with the mouse, and you can take over some of the robots you are fighting and add them to your squad. It is good for quick play sessions, but I didn't really feel committed to it. <br />
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<b>Wizardry VI:</b> When it was released on Steam earlier this year, I was intrigued by the idea that I could take the characters that I built in the sixth game and take them through the following two games of the series. I had wanted to play a Wizardry game ever since I read about the version that was released on the NES back when I was a kid. It was soon on sale at GOG, and I was determined to try it. But the long and short of it is, I ended up spending more time <a href="http://rantocracy.blogspot.ca/2013/10/paralyzed-by-in-game-choices.html" target="_blank">planning out my party</a> on paper and such than I did actually playing the game. My major problem was basically down to limitations of the time period. You see, every room looks pretty much the same, and the only way to the developers added some color to the experience is by using a little bit of text here and there to tell you that there was something in the room (outside of enemy encounters I mean). Even with making your own maps, this made the game far more difficult that I had originally anticipated. This is a game that beat me, and proved that I am a little too superficial at times.<br />
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<b>A Valley Without Wind</b>: A procedurally generated 2D platformer where you are tasked with taking down an Overlord by destroying his lieutenants and slowly building up a base on a continent. It wasn't a great game I have to admit but the concept got me interested, and it looks like Arcen Games did a lot of post-release tweaking to make the game better than it was when it first came out. It is still a little rough around the edges (and there are some segments that are ugly and garish), but I had quite a bit of fun playing it, and with the way it is designed, you could in theory play it almost indefinitely, but I couldn't see myself doing that. One continent was enough for me. <br />
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<b>Joe Danger</b> and <b>Joe Danger 2: The Movie</b>: I bought these two games during the Steam Halloween sale and started playing them about the same time as each other. While on the surface they look like racing games, they certainly share a lot of characteristics with hardcore platforming games like <i>Super Meat Boy</i> as well. I know my hands certainly hurt the same amount after sessions playing it. It was a little frustrating, but in the end ultimately satisfying, even though I didn't put an epic amount of hours into them. At one point, I was the #1 player in the world on Raptr for the PC version of <i>Joe Danger 2</i>, which is just bizarre to me. These games also gave me an opportunity to dip my toes into the Steam Workshop as a creator, and in doing so, it made that aspect of the service seem a lot less daunting.And because of my experiences with these games, I was especially saddened to hear about the offices of Hello Games, the developer of these games, was flooded recently and their insurance won't cover the damage. <br />
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<b>Deathspank</b>: I have to admit that before I got it in a bundle, I thought it was some
naughty game in the same vein as something like <i>Leisure Suit Larry</i>
based on the title, but it is just cartoony and silly. This was a game that I decided to play while I was waiting for the next game on this list to come out. It was a fun little action RPG with a quirky story and sense of humor, but it wasn't very long, so it was perfect for the purpose I had in mind. I ended up getting all the achievements and completing the game in about 12 hours, and if I am ever in a situation where I need a quick interstitial game between longer games, I will likely play the sequel, <i>Thongs of Virtue</i>. It was a nice palate refresher. <br />
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<b>XCOM: Enemy Within</b>: It had been a long time since I had played a turn based tactical game, but <i>XCOM: Enemy Within</i> was the perfect choice to break that drought. <i>EW</i> is an expansion to Firaxis's 2012 reboot of the <i>XCOM</i> series <i>Enemy Unknown</i>, and I am glad I waited to play this until <i>Enemy Within</i> was released because it is an augmentation to the original story rather than a new scenario, so I got to experience the game completely fresh and see everything as new. This was the game I was referring to in the <i>FTL</i> write-up above. Even though my squad was made up of a random group of soldiers, I started to feel attached to them, so when I would lose someone, it hurt and not just because the squad had been weakened by the loss. There was a story behind every death and every victory. I had an Argentinean Heavy who had survived the whole campaign, starting with being the sole survivor of a tutorial based massacre, an Italian sniper who thrived in the early game, but again was a sole survivor of another meat grinder mission, and I always felt that if there were spelled out interrelationships, she would have developed a relationship with the Heavy. There was also my promising Assault who was gravely wounded in a mission, and volunteered to become a mech, and she made it almost through the entire game before being mortally wounded on the last mission. I am sure if you talked to anyone who played <i>Enemy Within</i> or <i>EU</i> for any length of time, they would have a war story or two to share, filled with lucky escapes and tragic losses. It is one of those games that really draws you in. <br />
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<b>Spelunky</b>: This was a game that I was ready to buy its first week
of release on Steam, but my computer didn't meet the minimum
requirements on the site, and at the time, it seemed like the port had some problems. However, there was a thread in the discussion forums
for the game that led me to believe those requirements may be higher than what was really
necessary, but I wasn't willing to take the risk on buying a full price
game that I might not be able to run, or may have had unresolved bugs. So I waited, and when I was 75% off during
the recent Autumn sale at Steam, it seemed a much safer
risk. And I am happy to report that it runs rock solid on my
computer and there have been no issues at all. What's more, it is a very well-designed game, and one
which is very compelling to me because of its difficulty. If you are
unfamiliar with <i>Spelunky</i>, it is a roguelike platformer where your
character is trying to collect as much treasure as they can before they
die. It is a very difficult game, but it has always felt generally fair
to me. Knowing how tough it is, seeing some of the <a href="http://www.polygon.com/2013/12/23/5227726/anatomy-of-a-spelunky-miracle-or-how-the-internet-finally-beat" target="_blank">amazing runs</a> that people have had this year makes me want to keep playing it. I have a feeling I will never beat it, but I think I am going to keep trying, especially since there is something called the Daily Challenge, which is a level that everyone has access to and can play once, with the goal being getting a high score. It is a brilliant marketing and design philosophy to keep people coming back to play, and it is a selling point of the PC version.<br />
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<b>Lego Marvel Super Heroes</b>: I've played Lego games in the past and they never really grabbed me. But when I saw the trailers for this game, I really wanted to play it, probably because I was a big fan of an earlier game with a similar premise called <i>Marvel Ultimate Alliance</i> on the PS2 (which back in 2009, I named my <a href="http://rantocracy.blogspot.ca/2009/09/25-best-playstation-2-games-ive-ever_17.html" target="_blank">9th favorite PS2 game of all time</a>). Basically, this is the Lego version of the post-<i>Iron Man 3</i>/<i>Thor: The Dark World</i> Marvel Cinematic Universe if Marvel Studios had access to the characters from Spiderman, the Fantastic Four and X-Men franchises that are held by competing film studios. Turns out, it is a lot of fun. It is full of great little references, especially to the film career of Samuel L. Jackson (and there is an achievement for playing co-op as Captain America and the Human Torch called "Don't I Know You?" so clearly there are a lot of in-jokes throughout this game. As it was a game geared towards both kids and adults, it wasn't that hard, which some people might find annoying, but which I found refreshing, especially since I was playing this around the same time I was playing the previous game on this list. There is a lot of things to do in this game and a lot of items and characters to collect, so it will take a dedicated gamer quite some time to get everything, and with over 100 characters to pair up, and hidden items that are only accessible by playing the story missions with different characters, there is quite a bot to explore even after you've seen the end credits (and before you ask, yes, it fits into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in that way as well). It is certainly non-canonical, but it was still fun for the audience. <br />
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<b>Batman Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition</b>: I bought this game back in mid-2011, but I had never played it because it was saddled with Games For Windows Live and Securom, but with the end of GFWL coming in 2014, the Batman games are now completely Steamworks, and I no longer had any excuse for not playing this title. I was not disappointed. I can say that <i>Arkham Asylum</i> is the best Batman movie I've ever played. It has a great story, uses the voice talent from the animated series, the gothic touches from the Burton films along with a lot of the grit of the recent Nolan movies. It is also one of those rare games that I would be hard pressed to find something negative about, and that never happens. The combat is great, the stealth is compelling and the pacing and difficulty were perfect for me. It just hit every note just right. It was one of the first games in a long time with collectibles that I decided I wouldn't consult a walkthrough to help me find some of the trickier items, and in a way, that helped me feel like I was playing one of those great SNES metroidvanias from my youth. This is a GOTY Edition that truly lives up to its name. It was an entirely enjoyable experience for me. But I don't want to play it through again, or at least not at the moment. <br />
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<b>Europa Universalis IV</b>: I have to admit when I started playing this last week, I wasn't entirely digging it. I had a lot of hours in the second game of this series, so it definitely had some big shoes to fill in my mind. Another minor issue was the fact that the UI was a little too big on my monitor, which is pretty much the exact opposite problem other people are having. But I stuck with it, and I discovered a game that had the kind of depth that I am used to from a Paradox game with an added layer of accessibility. It is a beautiful blend of features. The fact that I am continuing my old <i>Crusader Kings II</i> game through a converted file is merely the icing on the cake. It is early in my playtime with this game, but it does have a lot of interesting angles to pursue for me, and I could see a few long playthroughs in my future which, given my history with the series, is an easy prediction to make. <br />
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<br />
So it was a pretty good year for games for me. Even the games that were disappointments for me were still well-executed and designed experiences. When I can clearly state that the problem was with me in terms of those games, you know it has been a decent year. There were no real duds here, though if I was going to have to pick one regret, it would be <i>Wizardry VI</i> because I should have known better based on my experience playing games that it might have been problematic for me. <br />
<br />
And if I was to pick the top 5 games I played this year, it would probably be:<br />
<br />
1. <i>Saints Row The Third</i><br />
2. <i>Batman Arkham Asylum</i><br />3. <i>Crusader Kings II</i><br />
4. <i>XCOM: Enemy Within</i><br />
5. <i>NBA 2K13</i><br />
<br />
And what are a few games that are going to pop up on next year's list from the games I have at my disposal at the moment? Probably at least one older D&D game, like <i>Planescape Torment</i> (at least this one), and maybe a <i>Baldur's Gate</i> or <i>Neverwinter Nights</i> game. <i>Don't Starve</i> is definitely on the playlist, and I will probably get around to the new <i>Tomb Raider</i> and season one of <i>The Walking Dead</i>. I'm also interested in trying <i>Euro Truck Simulator 2</i> (with no irony attached, I've heard it is really good) and maybe, maybe <i>Just Cause 2</i>.<br />
<br />
I think 2014 is going to be another awesome year for games... well, at least in my little sphere. Hopefully gaming was good for you in 2013 as well and that trend continues for you in 2014. MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-20794953149600055532013-11-06T01:07:00.002-05:002013-11-06T01:07:46.570-05:00A Double StandardWhen the whole controversy about so-called fake geek/gamer girls started, I always took the position that someone shouldn't be forced to provide their credentials every time they have a social interaction with another person who shares that same fandom.<br />
<br />
And I've been of the opinion when this subject comes up that anyone showing appreciation of any geek subject is generally a good thing, and rather than seeing it as a challenge and an affront to my own fandom, it is something which enriches the community as a whole. It is not an all-or-nothing kind of thing... fandom is a spectrum after all. <br />
<br />
But in thinking about this, I discovered I had a mental disconnect and I've been a bit of a hypocrite.<br />
<br />
You see, I have judged a group of people unfairly.<br />
<br />
In general, whenever I'd see someone very young relative to me (someone in their teens and early 20's) and they were wearing something with NES or old, old arcade images on it, or see pictures of people getting tattoos of the Triforce, the Konami code or Super Mario Brothers and I would sort of get pissed off. <br />
<br />
I would assume that they hadn't played those games, and I felt irritated that they seemed to be co-opting my childhood by wearing/getting tattooed with symbols and characters from that time in my life without having really experienced them. <br />
<br />
It is like in my mind, it felt inauthentic to me. But given my thoughts about those that demonize women who like geeky things and video games, that is clearly the wrong position to take and I've been in the wrong for at least a few years. I never vocalized it, I never said anything to any of these people, but it was always there, and it has colored my judgment. <br />
<br />
Because, really, who am I to judge someone else for their commitment to gaming or anything. Someone getting a tattoo or wearing a t-shirt doesn't hurt me at all and it never did. It has no negative effect on me whatsoever, and that is the position I should have always taken. <br />
<br />
In retrospect, I really don't know why I have been getting bent out of shape such things all these years. MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-84927993277338116522013-10-03T23:46:00.001-04:002013-10-03T23:46:08.438-04:00Paralyzed By In-Game ChoicesI think we've all been there. You start a game you've just bought, and you are immediately presented with a lot of choices, and not knowing which ones are important, you either stumble through them or you stop and maybe look up what you should probably do. <br />
<br />
Don't get me wrong, I like having some choices and options when I start a game, and I am sure most people do, but when there is too much choice, it makes starting a game a lot more difficult. It is like you have way too much of a good thing. <br />
<br />
I will give you a recent example.<br />
<br />
I recently bought the <i>Wizardry </i>Dark Savant Trilogy, a set of old RPGs that allow you to take your created characters from the first installment (VI) all the way through to the end of the last one. Interesting side note, they came out in 1990, 1992 and 2001 respectively, so as a series, it was ahead of its time. <br />
<br />
Anyway, you have to make a party of 6 created characters from 11 races and, depending on your chosen gender and the initial roll you get for bonus points, up to 14 different classes. Now, that is a lot of choices to make at the beginning of the game.<br />
<br />
It ends up being 686,339,028,913,329 different combinations.<br />
<br />
Of course, that is further compounded by the fact that you can have your characters switch classes so they can pick up additional skills, and you sort of have to know that you are going to do that before you roll the character so you can put stats points into things so you can make that transition when the time is right. So you can't just wing it, you have to know what you want before you start.<br />
<br />
Not to mention the fact that there is equipment that you get from starting with certain classes that you can't really find until later in the game, so you also feel pressure to include them as well. And this is really me scratching the surface of the kinds of decisions you have to make when starting these games.<br />
<br />
Ultimately, it took me 6 days to figure out how I was going build that party.<br />
<br />
To put that in perspective, I started <i>Mass Effect</i> the day I installed it with no real issues in terms of character creation. I made a few errors when I started playing <a href="http://rantocracy.blogspot.ca/2013/09/review-legend-of-grimrock.html" target="_blank">Legend of Grimrock</a>
in terms of distributing skill points, but it ended up being no big
deal and I had commended the game for having a simple 3 class/4 race
system, and again, I started it the day I installed it. And <i>Crusader Kings II</i>/<i>Europa Universalis</i> etc have
lots of playable nations, and a lot of starting dates, but again, it
isn't that hard to start a game right wherever you choose. <br />
<br />
So again, I've played a lot of games where I may have made a small error at the beginning or made a slightly less than optimal choice, and everything worked out fine in the end... like over time that poor early decision ended up becoming a mere bump on the road to greatness and didn't really affect the game as a whole. <i>Wizardry</i> is not that kind of game.If you make a mistake, it is going to punch you hard in the face.<br />
<br />
There are other games where I've had that kind of experience at the beginning, which I may write about in the future, but thinking about this topic has made me wonder if anyone else has experienced this kind of thing.<br />
<br />
So have any of you ever played a game that intimidated you from the beginning because there were too many decisions and choices at the start. MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-45485890416410783772013-09-21T23:55:00.000-04:002013-09-21T23:55:02.480-04:00Review: Legend of Grimrock<i>Legend of Grimrock</i> is very much a throwback to an older way of making role playing games, and that is a good thing.<br />
<br />
Four prisoners are taken to the top of Mount Grimrock and given a pardon for their alleged and
unspecified horrific crimes before being tossed into the gaping maw at the top. The mountain is filled with a sprawling dungeon, and while many have been pardoned upon that mountain top and thrown below to fight their way down through the mountain to freedom, no one has ever emerged from the other end.<br />
<br />
And from that opening, your adventure begins. <br />
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<i>Legend of Grimrock</i> is a 3D tile-based RPG that has been clearly influenced by the 1991 Dungeons and Dragons game <i>Eye of the Beholder</i> and the game 1986 game <i>Dungeon Master</i>, and it is almost a love letter to those two earlier games, using modern technology, so it looks lovely too. <br />
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At the beginning, you build a party of four members, which can be made from 4 races (human, minotaur, insectoid and lizardman) and 3 classes (the classic warrior, rogue and mage). Other games have come out where you have a lot more choice in this regard, but I think having slightly limited options led to a stronger experience overall because there is a nice crisp difference between them. <br />
<br />
In game, there are no shops and no NPCs to talk to... it is basically just your party vs. the dungeon.You may find a note here in there giving you advice or maybe relaying a bit of story from someone who was thrown into the dungeon before you, but in general, the setting is very lonely aside from the monsters that want to kill you, and there is no healing magic, so most of the time, you will have to rest while you aren't hungry to replenish your health and mana, which means that keeping some food in your inventory is essential, which again is in keeping with those older dungeon crawling games. <br />
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The visual design of the dungeon is consistently well done, as is the creature design, and each element contributed well to the overall aesthetics of the game. I was also a fan of the way the game uses light, whether it is the flickering of the torches around you to the way distant lights cast long shadows. <br />
<br />
I also applaud the sound design. Rather than load the game full of music, Almost Human made the decision to let you explore the depths with ambient sounds and the sounds of enemies as your guide, giving the journey a lot more tension and it provides you with valuable information since each enemy has a specific movement sound, and from the volume and direction, you can tell where they might be when you can't see them, and hear things like teleporters, trap doors and floor switches which helps you figure out some of the puzzles.<br />
<br />
Speaking of which, the puzzles themselves were tough, but completely fair, with most of the tougher one giving better weapons and equipment rather than advancement in the dungeon and were therefore optional. You still feel the pull to solve them though, especially since the rewards are so good for figuring them out. <br />
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<br />It took me about 30 hours to complete the game, but if you really enjoy it, there is a lot more adventure waiting for you. You see, the team behind the game gave their players the tools to make new content for it, and boy, has the fanbase ever delivered. There are so many new user created dungeons, as well as projects to recreate older games with those tools, like the aforementioned <i>Eye of the Beholder</i> and <i>Dungeon Master</i>. The first <i>Legend of Grimrock</i> was so successful, Almost Human is currently working on a sequel as well. <br />
<br />
So if you like this kind of game, or you have never had the chance to play one of those old tile based RPGs and you want to try one out, this is certainly the game for you. It goes on sale a lot it seems, so there are a lot of opportunities to get it for a great price. MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-65221830204289656142013-09-18T18:26:00.000-04:002013-09-18T18:26:41.643-04:00GTA 5 Makes 800 Million Dollars In A Single DayThat is a lot of cash, and I am sure that soothes some of the losses Take Two has had with their sports game licensing costs over the years. <br />
<br />
I think if a movie studio made a movie that cost over 250 million dollars and they recouped their investment that quickly.... they'd be ecstatic to say the least.<br />
<br />
But of course it was going to make money. I just did not expect it to be that much, that fast.<br />
<br />
I am doing the math on that, and that is over 13 million copies.<br />
<br />
In a day. <br />
<br />
To put that in perspective, Skyrim has sold somewhere around 15 million copies across the 360, PS3 and PC since it came out in 2011. <br />
<br />
And I don't know if the game is available digitally on the consoles, because if its not, that is 13 million disc copies of the game, because it is not available for the PC yet. <br />
<br />
Those sales figures also make Deep Silver's decision to release <i>Saints Row IV</i> last month seem a little smarter (and I am sort of more on the <i>SR</i> side of things these days), since they got all their good reviews and a lot of sales (for them) before the Rockstar sucked a lot of money out of the market for sandbox games.<br />
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Part of me wonders if the movie studios moved their big movies away from this weekend too, since the new releases seem smaller. MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-48182552490615123702013-09-13T23:30:00.001-04:002013-09-13T23:30:45.071-04:00What I've Been Working OnOK, I haven't posted in a while, but I am working on stuff for you all.<br />
<br />
I am working on an entry about DLC, which I've been going back to and changing for a couple weeks. <br />
<br />
I have a response to that whole "Citizen Kane of video game" thing that keeps coming up whenever the conversation of whether games are or can ever be considered art is brought up, and which was recently the topic of a <a href="http://tay.kotaku.com/citizen-whine-1300558694/1308242599@tinaamini" target="_blank">Talk Amongst Yourself column</a> at Kotaku. <br />
<br />
Oh and I have 3 reviews in the works and another article which I don't really want to spoil.<br />
<br />
<br />MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-35432744270738359982013-08-22T21:50:00.000-04:002013-08-23T15:33:14.136-04:00Maybe I Was Wrong About That GT Movie After AllApparently that <i>Gran Turismo</i> movie is going to be about <a href="http://youtu.be/Oyy5iIVdYFU?t=1m13s" target="_blank">Spanish driver Lucas Ordonez</a> who learned how to race playing <i>Gran Turismo</i> before becoming a world-class race driver after winning a <i>Gran Turismo 3 </i>sponsored event. <br />
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<br />
So maybe I was wrong. I am willing to admit that. That is actually an excellent concept for a movie in general and a good use of the license since it is a story in which the game itself is integral to the plot. MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-57669522614784155892013-08-19T20:41:00.000-04:002013-08-19T20:42:57.780-04:00Pre-Release ReviewsIt occurred to me this evening that there is a certain amount of complacency from video game consumers when it comes to reviews. I've made arguments like this in the past, but in this case I mean a specific thing.<br />
<br />
We've become accustomed to this system where we usually have to wait for a game to be released before we get to see reviews. A lot of this is due to an unwieldy system of exclusive reviews that get to go up a little sooner, resulting in higher page counts while the rest suffer under embargoes, and we suffer as consumers. <br />
<br />
The thing that made me start thinking about this issue is the upcoming releases of <i>Saints Row IV</i>, <i>Splinter Cell Blacklist</i> and <i>The Bureau: XCOM Declassified</i>, all of which come out tomorrow. <br />
<br />
It is like Deep Silver sent <i>Saint Row IV</i> to everyone they could to have it reviewed and have those reviews all published before it came out, and Ubisoft has done a pretty good job of getting <i>Splinter Cell Blacklist</i> for the 360 reviewed in a number of places before its release, with a few for the PS3 and none for PC.<br />
<br />
And <i>The Bureau</i>... well, no one has reviewed it yet, and it makes me feel like 2K Games doesn't want anyone to read about their game before it is released, and in light of the other two games that are coming out tomorrow, it makes me wonder why. Is there something wrong with it... is there some problem they are hiding?<br />
<br />
For all I know, a bunch of reviews could come out tomorrow and it could end up with high scores and a lot of praise, but at the moment, I am suspicious of the game, like there is a flaw in the game that they are trying to hide from the public. Because think about all those people who got burned really bad by games like <i>Aliens: Colonial Marines</i>, which didn't get reviewed until after the damage had already been done. <br />
<br />
But think about it this way. If games were films and a studio made it clear that they didn't want
critics to review a movie before it came out, the absence of reviews
would likely lead you to believe that it was a piece of crap and likely
not worth your time. And in most cases, the studio doesn't have
expectations that a certain percentage of their potential audience is
going to preorder tickets for their movie, whereas game studios really
try to sell their customers on this very thing. <br />
<br />
It just seems like game publishers have no faith in their games if they want to make sure people don't have an opportunity to read reviews before it is released. I am mainly tarring triple-A titles with this brush, since in a lot of cases, indie titles seem to get different treatment with their games getting reviewed later in many cases. <br />
<br />
I think as consumers, we should make it clear to game publishers that we expect more from them in terms of transparency, and tell them that we want them to allow more reviews to come out before their games are released. It seems like a reasonable request. MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-14593635546764078102013-08-16T23:50:00.002-04:002013-08-16T23:50:14.287-04:00Casual Friday On Big Franchises They've Missed Out OnI really enjoy the Casual Friday series on Revision 3, and I've been thinking about my backlog recently, and this video explores some of the things I've been pondering over the past week. <br />
<br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="267" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/u-90mWTGyRM" width="475"></iframe><br />
<br />
I've missed out on a lot of franchises over the years, and I am trying to catch up on things, but there are just too many great games to get through, and there are more coming out every week. MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-62090992869865272492013-08-08T17:17:00.002-04:002013-08-08T17:17:32.729-04:00Review Copies and Timely ReviewsEarlier today, <a href="http://www.rhiannapratchett.com/" target="_blank">Rhianna Pratchett</a> posted a message on Twitter asking if there were any game journalists looking for Steam codes for <i>Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians</i>, which looks like an amazing game. <br />
<br />
I had thought about putting in a request, even though with the neglect and change of focus and the resulting loss quite a bit of my former audience, I likely wouldn't have gotten a code.<br />
<br />
However, in thinking about the whole thing, I also realized a few things about myself.<br />
<br />
One thing is, I don't like to rush through a game, and in general, I don't tend to play games in long sessions anymore, but because of the timely nature of a review, I would feel a lot of pressure to get through the game and get something written up. I like to take games slow, smell the roses and take things at my own pace, and rushing just doesn't appeal to me. I could conceivably play a game I was reviewing at my own speed, but I think I would feel stressed out thinking that I should be working on that game all the time. <br />
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And what if I couldn't finish it... because honestly there are a lot of games that I don't finish for one reason or another, and that is certainly a valid concern since it is a medium which gains a lot of its value from difficulty. <br />
<br />
If I didn't like it, I would still feel obligated to play it until the end, and unlike movies and books which take a relatively short time to complete, a game could stretch on for hour after hour after hour, and if I was reviewing a new title, I'd have to keep going and see it through.<br />
<br />
And truth be told, when I've spent my own money on a game, I think I may be inclined to review it more honestly and have a greater willingness to point out the flaws. I am going to tell you a story. Back in university, I was a reviewer for the paper there, and I was assigned someone's first novel, and it was terrible. Like no glimmer of hope that they were going to get better and it was a real slog reading it even though it was very short, and I was ready to give it a completely and brutally honest review. But I just happened to see my editor right before I was going to start writing it and she told me that the author was really looking forward to reading my review, and at that very moment, I was put in a position where I could not write the review the way I had planned. I went totally wishy-washy and didn't go for the jugular.<br />
<br />
Because of that, I am worried that when presented with a situation where someone offers me a review copy, I may feel that same internal pressure to not go full-bore into something I really don't like because I know the developer is waiting for my review. And my last two reviews were for things that had come out relatively recently, so I think it hasn't been too bad. <br />
<br />
At the moment, if I review a game here, I've finished it and likely enjoyed it, and looking back, that seems to be the general pattern of how I've written reviews for things in other media, like movies and such under the term "remembering". I don't think that is really a bad way to go.<br />
<br />
Am I categorically saying I would never take a review copy? No. But I won't aggressively pursue one either. MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-69777951692032744702013-08-06T18:44:00.000-04:002013-08-06T19:01:56.321-04:00Dragon's Crown, Polygon and Selective Anger: How One Review Riled Up EveryoneI think I should preface this whole thing by stating two things: a) I love beat 'em up and hack and slash games and b) I own and have played previous Vanillaware games.<br />
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Now with that being said, let's get down to business.<br />
<br />
There is quite the furor in particular segments of the gaming community over a July 31st <a href="http://www.polygon.com/game/dragon-s-crown/9102" target="_blank">review of Dragon's Crown</a> on the Polygon site by Danielle Riendeau, which she gave a score of 6.5. In said review, amongst other criticisms, she talked about the art style and how it depicted women in a negative, unrealistic and sexist light.<br />
<br />
The outcry was seemingly almost immediate. Despite the fact that just about every other score is very high for this game, and there is loads of praise elsewhere for it, somehow the vocal part of the fan community became fixated with this review, and just this review. <br />
<br />
At every other site I've been to that has comments on reviews, someone brings up the Polygon review almost immediately, and that becomes a big part of the conversation.<br />
<br />
And the thing I don't understand is, if you don't like the review, why are you telling everyone about it? Why are you bringing attention to it? I mean, I probably would have never read the review myself since I play games on a PC, and it probably isn't coming out on that platform. And people who say that the review was written with a feminist agenda and who truly believe that and are angry about it are the ones who are most guilty of spreading this review, which seems counterproductive. <br />
<br />
The argument that the review was written with an agenda in mind seems sort of ridiculous too. After watching the video review, I can see exactly where Danielle Riendeau, is coming from when it comes to the art style, and I can understand the issue. Whether I agree or disagree with that perspective doesn't change the fact that it is a valid criticism.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgexX0cYnxEuWfHx1nIzXjy4AsO8M70u-IXHlAacLXDbIYr0R_x8OybAs6-AUoribnWTz_UxAt2V3VQeszwbQOkqdjMNIT90NA6vxwhrl_RV8C3RHXwowOZm5-mloUHMVeYqHx_QA/s1600/ku-xlarge.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgexX0cYnxEuWfHx1nIzXjy4AsO8M70u-IXHlAacLXDbIYr0R_x8OybAs6-AUoribnWTz_UxAt2V3VQeszwbQOkqdjMNIT90NA6vxwhrl_RV8C3RHXwowOZm5-mloUHMVeYqHx_QA/s400/ku-xlarge.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
And really, if you don't like the argument that she is making in her review, it should still have no effect on you as a player. None.<br />
<br />
I love a game called <a href="http://rantocracy.blogspot.ca/2010/05/remembering-god-hand.html" target="_blank">God Hand</a>. IGN gave it a 3 out of 10. That did not make me stop loving the game. If I read a review that called out the game for <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV_a8snA2Rw" target="_blank">Mr Gold and Mr Silver</a>, two stereotypically gay characters, I wouldn't be angry about it because again, that is a valid criticism. It wouldn't change the experience I had with the game.<br />
<br />
I also have the option to stop reading a review as soon as it becomes apparent to me that the person who wrote it has a vastly different outlook on the world or a particular genre than I do, but on the other hand, my world isn't totally rocked when someone disagrees with me or takes a position that is different than mine. <br />
<br />
Her review doesn't take the game away from you. It will never take the game away from you. If you like or don't like it, then why does it matter what Danielle Riendeau or anyone else writes or says about it. If you've already made the decision about how you feel about something, why are you so threatened by the opinion of someone else? <br />
<br />
I've also noticed it is like people involved in this argument are, I don't know, skipping over the fact that Riendeau also talked about how the game has a lot of grinding and repetition after you've beaten it the first time, and to me, that aspect alone is the thing I take away from the review long term, and that was valuable information for me. If it came to the PC, I would remember that criticism.<br />
<br />
There is also the argument floating around out there that it is just
fantasy art and fantasy art is like that... which when you think about
it, is sort of a stupid statement. If someone made a game that took
place in a cartoon world of the 1940's and characters of color were
drawn in that style, there would be controversy and those artistic
choices would certainly be commented upon in reviews and negatively so
in most of them. <br />
<br />
If hypothetically, there was another beat 'em up/hack and slash game made in super retro graphics and the other criticisms applied outside the ones of sexism, so it was the same kind of game, the same kind of setup, but the reviewer in question bashed that chunky retro art style instead of the one in <i>Dragon's Crown</i>, and it received the same score, there wouldn't have been the amount of outrage there is now, and that is what tells me this controversy is being churned up and kept going by a small minority of the community that wants to set up a situation that their own put upon value system is being attacked... by one particular review out of many. <br />
<br />
These people are driving this controversy like Riendeau's review was a shot in a culture war that is seeking to destroy everything they hold dear in gaming, when clearly that isn't the case. Unless cartoon boobs and comically sized asses that could be the subject of a Sir-Mix-A-Lot song are the only thing you are looking for in a game..<br />
<br />
When I read confessions of people in comments saying they bought the game out of spite, just to show the mean lady who had the audacity to talk about the over-the-top art style of the game in a negative way, that tells me that is the wrong side of the argument to be on.<br />
<br />
I don't swear too often here, but I think in this case, it is appropriate. For those people who are turning one review into a fundamental attack on gaming and men and everything else, I have four words for you:<br />
<br />
Grow the fuck up. MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-75162092983014224972013-08-01T21:09:00.002-04:002013-08-06T22:50:12.979-04:00Review: Rogue LegacyFrom the first time I had heard about <i>Rogue Legacy</i>, I knew that I wanted it. <br />
<br />
To put it in perspective, this is the game that was making me cranky during the Steam sale, since it was the one I most wanted to play and I couldn't bring myself to buy it if it was going to have a better sale price at some point during said sale.<br />
<br />
And I regret waiting until the last day to buy it. But even if it wasn't on sale, I would have still paid full price for it.<br />
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<i>Rogue Legacy</i>, created by Cellar Door Games for the PC, is by the studio's definition, a rogue-"lite" which tells you that this is a procedurally-generated game with permadeath. It is also very much a <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Metroidvania" target="_blank">Metroidvania</a>-type game with platforming, hidden areas, weapon upgrades and the like.<br />
<br />
The way the game comes together is basically you play as members of a single family trying to conquer an ever-changing castle, one generation at a time. You are given a choice of three warriors from each generation, one of which is going to enter the castle and try to fight their way through it. If and when they die, you choose one of their three offspring to try to do the same.<br />
<br />
Now there are two major complications. One is the fact that the money you gained your previous attempt at the castle which isn't spent on upgrades and equipment is forfeited when your offspring enters the castle, meaning you can't save money between runs. The second and more interesting twist is that each heir has a class, a spell and up to two additional traits, which can lead to some weird combinations, and some really tough runs if things don't fall your way. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk4UKagtOHe6TDkBPtoqL4EHqgodIiXmSXZ0aRkc4XmNEPO3MOxifO51RhqLolecYi-NSt3VvIC7lOqGwDJXCbXF_exoAT0_9wKsenb-6OfKzXyqO4COI-XPWwzywvZtkDUQ_lRQ/s1600/2013-07-30_00004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk4UKagtOHe6TDkBPtoqL4EHqgodIiXmSXZ0aRkc4XmNEPO3MOxifO51RhqLolecYi-NSt3VvIC7lOqGwDJXCbXF_exoAT0_9wKsenb-6OfKzXyqO4COI-XPWwzywvZtkDUQ_lRQ/s400/2013-07-30_00004.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There were a lot of dead heroes before this one.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
For instance, there are some beneficial traits, like Hypergonadism which makes enemies fly back further when hit, and Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD) which means you don't have a foot pulse and therefore you don't set off spike traps... but there are also some nasty ones too like Vertigo, which means you have to play that life upside down with the controls still mapped for right side up (so everything is reversed), or being Far/Near Sighted which makes part of the screen blurry, making it difficult to see enemies, projectiles and hazards. But that is half the fun too, seeing what weird things will pop up in your descendants, though it is purely random and not the results of in-game DNA.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyqRDM1d5bExSF6kMdhhnzkAGlLDkc2Hc9vRL_KBDiy594tQWOuIyYvHbYsYNP1y_R26fTkg7DG7RzQKorYQ2XTHlXmw8adVBxo_TJnZrolJ9ptA9GPH_HR1PDuM8WG8r1Huxx4A/s1600/2013-07-28_00001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyqRDM1d5bExSF6kMdhhnzkAGlLDkc2Hc9vRL_KBDiy594tQWOuIyYvHbYsYNP1y_R26fTkg7DG7RzQKorYQ2XTHlXmw8adVBxo_TJnZrolJ9ptA9GPH_HR1PDuM8WG8r1Huxx4A/s400/2013-07-28_00001.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oh Colorblindness... </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
And to make it through the castle, you have to buy
upgrades at your manor and from people you have in your employ. For
things like armor, weapons and runes, you have to find the designs in
the castle first before you can buy them and use them. Your manor also
has a rudimentary tech tree, as a lot of the different hero classes and
upgrades have to be unlocked by getting levels in other skills first to
make them available.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitYze6LbcSd5vS5JRs5kaNHGskvB9wihEyaBr-xfWoROTn_TAxFVZjq_NxgwyNTU68iV5ntFCQrYBKckUMunjJeV0BDXunqyjEA_zFzLGr94YF7eYNtherCo3-Be2WKoN2dEVRXw/s1600/2013-07-28_00004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitYze6LbcSd5vS5JRs5kaNHGskvB9wihEyaBr-xfWoROTn_TAxFVZjq_NxgwyNTU68iV5ntFCQrYBKckUMunjJeV0BDXunqyjEA_zFzLGr94YF7eYNtherCo3-Be2WKoN2dEVRXw/s400/2013-07-28_00004.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At death, you see all the enemies you killed on that run.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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While playing with a keyboard is an option, this is definitely a game
that is designed with a controller in mind. It has responsive
controls and a nice set of jump physics allowing a lot of control while
you are in the air, making the platforming and attacking mechanics
excellent. It feels very natural, and it is something that most people
with any experience with a platforming game will pick up quickly. It is very solid in this regard, although I have occasionally had a slight problem doing a downward thrust while jumping. <br />
<br />
It is at times a frustrating game, but for the most part, I felt like
the problem was me and not the game, and it kept drawing me in to play
more.Yes, there are a few times that the castle presents you with rooms
that are really brutal in an almost punishing way, but like I said
earlier, most of the time, if your character gets hurt or killed, it was
entirely your fault, and you know I respect that in a game.Failure is
an option, but it isn't a crippling one, and in fact it is part of the
whole mechanic of the game (since you can't spend money or change gear
until your current hero dies). <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSHXdXTwpUeQRYeoASFTleI_dVpdMa76BlerpPIId2C_ezqb6SNBc0t2cc6g64hGKTZkZgu0FfJ1a2KXlLRwQv-7-XBrZ-s2sO_GJKqF3C0n1jRsgbdQRuHMag2NfkWa8VYp0rrw/s1600/2013-07-21_00001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSHXdXTwpUeQRYeoASFTleI_dVpdMa76BlerpPIId2C_ezqb6SNBc0t2cc6g64hGKTZkZgu0FfJ1a2KXlLRwQv-7-XBrZ-s2sO_GJKqF3C0n1jRsgbdQRuHMag2NfkWa8VYp0rrw/s400/2013-07-21_00001.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What happens when you upgrade a class.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There is a wonderful sense of progression between the lives of your various heroes as well. As I got better as a player from learning how enemies fought, along with the constant upgrades that my manor provided, I felt like I was getting closer to the end. At no point did I feel like I would never be able to conquer the castle... I just couldn't do it on that life, but I got farther or I killed more enemies or made more money or I found blueprints for a piece of armor, and it was like the game spurred me on to beat it, and I did so joyfully. I didn't feel like I was grinding, but that any particular run could be the one that would end up leading me to the end. <br />
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I liked the design decision to make killing a boss a persistent element of the castle... that unlike other enemies, killing the boss of one of the areas is permanent on that playthrough, again adding to the feeling of progression. <br />
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I was also a fan of the fact that the game doesn't show you all the content it has on your first playthrough. There are weapon and armor pieces that you cannot get on your first run through of game, and because the enemies scale with your hero, there are higher level enemies that you are very unlikely to see until you start going through the game in successive New Game+ runs with a hero that you've leveled up. And you after each time you beat it, you can get a New Game+ with even harder enemies so it is always going to challenge you. I've been reading about people who are playing in New Game+12, so there is a high degree of replayability in this title. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSz3NlsMWb0DuBQQGxFneI5fK40R37UmOy36HPt_kNSV_vkBd_NNIQGATT7TL33nq-_63vzX-gIUmtZdp5BArDKtH3i1Ff5_3NV2j8TpjtutBPd2b6CvvXFy5yL3CUokJkSRI0hg/s1600/2013-08-01_00001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSz3NlsMWb0DuBQQGxFneI5fK40R37UmOy36HPt_kNSV_vkBd_NNIQGATT7TL33nq-_63vzX-gIUmtZdp5BArDKtH3i1Ff5_3NV2j8TpjtutBPd2b6CvvXFy5yL3CUokJkSRI0hg/s400/2013-08-01_00001.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The automap</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I was also a big fan of the presentation. The graphics, music and sound design come together nicely and complement each other well, and nothing seems out of place. I have a soft spot for sprite-based games too, and the art style appeals to me on a deep level as an older gamer.<br />
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All in all, it is a great game that I can't recommend highly enough. I have more than gotten my money's worth from it, and even as I type this, I am tempted to play a few more lives in my second playthrough in my New Game +. It is just so good, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was nominated for some awards at the end of the year (it was already chosen as a <a href="http://www.gamezebo.com/news/2013/07/30/here-are-year%E2%80%99s-pax-10-picks" target="_blank">PAX 10 selection</a>). It is a quality title and it is well worth buying. <br />
<br />
The game is currently only for PC, but Cellar Door Games is working on having ports out for Mac and Linux in the future. The game was very stable for me in its current build as well. <br />
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So check it out.<br />
<br />MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-56610696897753085132013-07-27T23:38:00.001-04:002013-07-27T23:38:27.080-04:00Phil Fish Cancels Fez IIPhil Fish, the designer behind the acclaimed indie game Fez who also got a lot of exposure from being one of the subjects of <i>Indie Game: The Movie</i>, apparently had a busy day today.<br />
<br />
You see, he got into a war of words with a guy who makes videos for Gametrailers under the moniker the Annoyed Gamer, and after some further acting out between the two of them and some others, Fish decided to cancel development of <i>Fez II </i>and lock his Twitter feed so that only people who were already following him could read it.<br />
<br />
But in the reporting, pictures of some of his earlier tweets were posted and I noticed something interesting. <br />
<br />
He uses Andy Kaufman as his twitter avatar. And I can't help but to think back on the life of Andy Kaufman and to all the blowups he had which made his reputation, almost all of which were well-crafted acts of performance art. <br />
<br />
There is one arc that particularly interests me, which was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmHCx8lCl8Y" target="_blank">Andy Kaufman vs Jerry Lawler</a>.It feels very familiar. <br />
<br />
Of course, I am not the first person to make this observation. <br />
<br />
I wouldn't be surprised if the special edition of <i>Indie Game: The Movie</i> being released a few days ago had something to do with Phil Fish's current behavior, since people talking about him not only gets press for his game, but for the documentary as well. MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-55481536106700200622013-07-24T16:14:00.001-04:002013-07-24T16:14:22.019-04:00That Gran Turismo MovieSo someone thought it was a good idea to take a game that has no characters and make it into a movie... and I remember another movie that was based on a game that had no characters in it and how well that went over, and I am sure you've heard of it too.<br />
<br />
It was called <i>Battleship</i>.<br />
<br />
Now I'm okay with the second half of <i>Battleship</i>, but honestly, that was a movie where it was clear that from the outset, they didn't have any characters to actually run with and they decided to wing it, and that is never a good idea.<br />
<br />
And that is what I am afraid is going to happen here.<br />
<br />
Yes, it is a very lucrative series, but come on... off the top of my head, I can think of at least 10 racing games that have a narrative structure and characters that would probably work better in the context of a Hollywood movie. Especially since the thing that they are chasing is the success that the <i>Fast and Furious</i> franchise has, which is moving away from racing and Gran Turismo is no where near illegal street racing. <br />
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<br />
I think if they really wanted to get the essence of <i>Gran Turismo</i>, it would be a 3 hour movie about someone trying to pass one of the super hard license tests, because that is the first thing I think of when this series comes up.<br />
<br />
I think the producers just want the name to attach to their anonymous racing picture. In any case, while I did like the games in the past, no matter how badly this movie turns out, I can't be really upset because like I said, there are no characters that I associated with the games so they can't ruin something it never had in the first place.<br />
<br />
Of course, I think the real question is which movie is going to end up being worse, this or <i>Hot Wheels</i>. MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-7273015541064263272013-07-23T21:19:00.000-04:002013-07-23T21:19:14.146-04:00I'm Not The Gamer I Was As A KidBack in April, I finally had the opportunity to play <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/230700/?snr=1_7_15__13" target="_blank">La-Mulana</a> on Steam and it was a very enjoyable experience that was designed to replicate many of the conventions of the platforming adventure games from the 8 and 16-bit era, a modern <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Metroidvania" target="_blank">Metroidvania</a> that was built as a labor of love, and I really appreciate the effort.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/o1yP_be9IyI" width="480"></iframe><br />
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However, as a modern gamer, it also totally stymies me. I tried to play it without getting help or hints, and for days I did just that, but I reached a point where I needed a hint or two to point me in the right direction... and then a few hours later, I needed far more than just a hint.<br />
<br />
Now, I know that this game was designed to be very hard but sort of fair, so some difficulty is par for the course, but it made me think about playing games as a kid and I really don't know how I beat a lot of the games I did when I was younger in those dark days before the internet and the instant availability of hints and walkthroughs. <br />
<br />
Like how did I figure out how to beat <i>Metroid</i> and <i>Super Metroid</i> when I was younger without help. I somehow managed to figure out where the powerups and bosses were and finished them in a decent amount of time, and I wonder if I was presented with either of those games as a fresh experience if I would be able to do the same today.<br />
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<br />
Or what about the <i>Legend of Zelda</i>. I beat the original, almost beat <i>The Adventure of Link</i> and aside from needing one little hint (from a little booklet Nintendo provided with the game), I beat <i>A Link To The Past</i> without a major hitch. I rented <i>Shadowgate</i> 6 times, a very old graphical adventure game that had so many different takes on instadeath it isn't even funny and only one way to pass all the different challenges... and I managed to beat that. <br />
<br />
I think somewhere along the way, my ability to figure out the kind of puzzles these games present degraded, probably because I had easy access to the answers that I would need to solve them rather than spending the time exhausting every possible way I could come up with a solution before giving up. I know part of my earlier successes in beating games was based on the fact that like many kids, I had a finite number of games at my disposal at any time, and even the most complex ones weren't extremely long, so I had both the inclination to beat them and since there was less content, I could better explore it with the ample amount of spare time I had then. <br />
<br />
Now I have super long, and/or extraordinarily complex games to occupy my time, and with adult finances, digital distribution that has enormous sales and a series of systems that I've acquired since I was a kid, each with a library of their own, I no longer have the time to adequately tackle those kinds of puzzles, and frankly games have generally gotten easier over the years as well, which is a good thing for the most part. At TVTropes, they even call particular kinds of hard games <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NintendoHard" target="_blank">Nintendo Hard</a>. <br />
<br />
Or that could just be something I am telling myself so I feel better about the difficulties I have with some games these days because I feel like I've lost a lot of the pluck I had as a kid to keep trying stuff until I overcame a challenge. <br />
<br />
And I know there are a lot of games that I can play well as an adult that I know that as a child I couldn't play. For one, I know that <i>Super Meat Boy</i> would have broken me as a kid (especially with old NES rules of limited continues/lives and such), no doubt about that in my mind, and I wouldn't have had the patience or acumen to play games like <i>Crusader Kings II</i> or <i>Football Manager</i>, where you have to wait for the long term payoff of decisions you made this second.<br />
<br />
I don't know if in the end that has been a good trade-off. <br />
<br />
If you are an older gamer, have you noticed this sort of thing too. Like are there games that you played as a kid that you don't know how you beat them now?MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-23259322585883368672013-07-21T15:24:00.001-04:002013-07-21T19:05:38.228-04:00Steam Summer Sale 2013 Final DayAs predicted, it is the encore sales day, so everything is a repeat today.<br />
<br />
The Daily deals are <i>Skyrim</i> (again... is that 4 times now), <i>Borderlands 2</i>, <i>Torchlight 2</i>, <i>Bioshock Infinite</i>, <i>Civilization V</i>, <i>The Walking Dead</i>, <i>Dishonored</i>, <i>Tomb Raider</i>, <i>Kerbal Space Program</i> and <i>Chivalry</i>. <br />
<br />
The first round of Flash deals are <i>GTA IV</i>, <i>Dead Space Riptide</i>, <i>Fallout New Vegas</i> and <i>The Cave</i>, which seems like the only new sale. <br />
<br />
As I said yesterday, I am going to be discussing some other things that weren't daily deals that are still really good buys this sale.<br />
<br />
<i>AI War: Fleet Command</i> with all the DLC is 4.24, which includes DLC that just came out.<br />
<br />
<i>Beat Hazard Complete</i> is 3.24, and it is a twin stick shooter that builds levels off your music collection. <br />
<br />
<i>Cave Story+</i> is a well-reviewed Metroidvania and it is 75% off at 2.49.<br />
<br />
<i>The Divinity Anthology</i>, which contains the action RPGs <i>Divine Divinity</i>, <i>Beyond Divinity</i> and the director's cut of the third person action rpg <i>Divinity II</i>, is 66% off at 10.19. and considering just Divinity II is 9.99, that is a solid deal.<br />
<br />
<i>Space Pirates and Zombies</i> is 80% off making it 1.99, along with <i>Rock of Ages</i>. <br />
<br />
<i>Psychonauts</i> is 75% off (2.49) <br />
<br />
<i>The Operation Flashpoint Collection</i> is 5 bucks. <br />
<br />
<i>Joe Danger</i> just came out and each of the two games by themselves are 33% off <br />
<br />
I am posting this now, but I will be updating it through the day. <br />
<br />
<b>-- </b><br />
<b>My Steam Summer Sale Running Total:</b> $101.24 - <i>Euro Truck Simulator 2, </i><i>Scribblenauts Unlimited, RPG Maker VX Ace</i> and the addons, <i>To the Moon, Deadlight</i>, <i>Strike Suit Zero</i> and <i>Sword of the Stars: The Pit</i>, 20 Summer Sale card earned, 3 sold, 2 bought, 3 traded, 2 badges made
and a Football Manager Summer Sale background bought for 3 cents.
MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-55105383226965202262013-07-20T15:30:00.001-04:002013-07-21T12:19:36.202-04:00Steam Summer Sale 2013 Day 10Well, it has been a long road, and we are nearing the end. 10 days of reporting on this sale, and we only have 1 more left. <br />
<br />
But the past 10 days have also been a learning experience for me. <br />
<br />
For instance, maybe I shouldn't have almost exclusively written about this Steam Sale for 10 days. It is a mistake I am not going to repeat.<br />
<br />
And speaking of repeats, tomorrow outside of a rare item in the Flash sales is likely going to be 100% repeated stuff, so depending on what pops up as dailies, I may highlight some items which are on sale tomorrow that didn't get the spotlight. <br />
<br />
Today's theme (and final one) is Prison Architect.<br />
<br />
<b>Daily Deals</b><br />
<br />
<i>Prison Architect</i> 34% off (19.79) Another game that is in alpha. But I've been reading about this thing for months too, so it has a good buzz going. <br />
<br />
<i>KOTOR II</i> 66% off (3.39) It has been at a lower price.<br />
<br />
<i>Assassin's Creed III</i> 40% off (23.99) I am still wary about that price. <br />
<br />
<i>Omerta City of Gangsters</i> 75% off (9.99) I've heard very bad things about this.<br />
<br />
<i>Starforge Alpha</i> 50% off (9.99) This is as the title suggests an alpha build of a game, one that looks like a Minecraft kind of game with better graphics. If that is your thing, have at you (and the normal price is half the price the final game is going to cost, so technically, it is 75% off the finished price).<br />
<br />
<i>Worms Revolution</i> 75% off (3.74) I saw a 3D Worms game being played in a versus video for Rooster Teeth... and it piqued my interest. It is a definite maybe for me.<br />
<br />
<i>Natural Selection II</i> 75% off (6.24) I've heard really good things about this game. It is like a blend of an RTS and a first person shooter, which sounds very intriguing. <br />
<br />
<i>Saints Row The Third</i> 75% off (4.99) Just pure open world craziness. I love it. Love it. It made me love urban open world games all over again. Buy the version with all the DLC though... it adds a lot of content. <br />
<br />
<i>Counter-Strike GO</i> 66% off (5.09) Counter-Strike isn't my game. But it is a good price. <br />
<br />
<i>Sonic All-Star Racing Transformed</i> 75% off (7.49) I've heard a lot of great things about this kart racing type game, and I almost bought it at this price point <br />
<br />
<b>Flash Sales</b><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<i><b>Round 1 1PM-9PM</b></i><br />
<br />
<i>Deadpool</i> 33% off (26.79) A game that just came out, and has mixed reviews with no really good ones. I'd wait. <br />
<br />
<i>Zeno Clash II</i> 50% off (9.99) A unique little fighting experience, again with mixed reviews, but this one has some really good and a few really bad ones. Be cautious. <br />
<br />
<i>Sword of the Stars: The Pit</i> 75% off (2.50) I sold myself on this game in doing this write up. It is a top down, space-based roguelike, and it has some decent reviews. I am probably going to pay full price for the DLC too. It just looks pretty cool to me. <br />
<br />
<i>Strike Suit Zero</i> 85% off (2.99) I can't run this space-based third person shooter at its recommended specs, it has a bad story and a number of other issues. And yet, I am probably going to buy it.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Round 2 9PM-5PM </b></i><br />
<br />
<i>Final Fantasy VII</i> 33% off (8.03) I know people love this game. I am not one of them. However, this rerelease came out this week, so this is a good discount.<br />
<br />
<i>Payday the Heist</i> 75% off (4.99) A first person bank robbery game, designed for coop. <br />
<br />
<i>Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition</i> 33% off (20.09) This too just came out recently, and it is a game the brings together almost everyone from the history of the series into one game. <br />
<br />
<i>Transformers Fall of Cybertron</i> 66% off (20.39) That is a hefty chunk of change for a game that came out last year. <br />
<br />
<b><i>Round 3 5AM-1PM</i></b><br />
<br />
Repeats of <i>Max Payne 3</i>, <i>Terraria</i>, <i>Sleeping Dogs</i> and <i>Dark Souls</i>.<br />
--<br />
<br />
<b>My Steam Summer Sale Running Total:</b> $92.75 - <i>Euro Truck Simulator 2, </i><i>Scribblenauts Unlimited, RPG Maker VX Ace</i> and the addons, <i>To the Moon</i> and <i>Deadlight</i>, 18 Summer Sale card earned, 3 sold, 2 bought, 3 traded, 2 badges made and a Football Manager Summer Sale background bought for 3 cents.
MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27176467.post-4800605526102888682013-07-19T15:49:00.001-04:002013-07-20T10:27:40.416-04:00Steam Summer Sale 2013 Day 9Finally, a day in this sale that I might actually buy something. How did that happen?<br />
<br />
Today's theme is Skyrim, though at the moment they don't seem to be getting the postcards right. <br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Daily Deals </b><br />
<br />
<i>Skyrim</i> 40% off (35.99) Third time it has been on sale in the past 8 days. <br />
<br />
<i>Monaco</i> 50% off (7.44) One of the games I may buy from today's sale. This is a simple looking coop heist game with a lot of character and variability. It looks like a lot of fun. <br />
<br />
<i>Metro Last Light</i> 40% off (29.99) A great shooter. Tough on hardware I've heard. Maybe you should wait for a slightly better price though. <br />
<br />
<i>Grid 2</i> 40% off (29.99) Repeat from a flash sale. <br />
<br />
<i>Trials Evolution Gold Edition</i> 50% off (9.99) A port of a challenging console bike game which presents you with nearly impossible courses to try to master. In some ways it reminds me of Line Rider. <br />
<br />
<i>Eve Online</i> 75% off (4.98) Starter pack for an MMO with a subscription fee. <br />
<br />
<i>Train Simulator 2013</i> 80% off (10.99) The DLC is how they make their money on this... 1200 dollars of it so far and that is the sales price. Then again, I don't know how much model train stuff costs these days. <br />
<br />
<i>Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition</i> 75% off (4.99) Another game I may buy today or tomorrow, although I have heard that getting a non-enhanced version from somewhere like GOG and adding mods myself ends up being a better game than this particular release. I guess it depends on how lazy I am. <br />
<br />
<i>Civilization 5</i> 75% off (7.49) Well, I said it would be a daily deal at some point in the sale. <br />
<br />
<i>Awesomenauts</i> 66% off (3.39) A side scrolling MOBA game with decent reviews. None of the characters are behind a paywall and the DLC is purely cosmetic. A maybe for me. <br />
<b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>Flash Sales</b><br />
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<i><b>Round 1 1PM-9PM</b></i><br />
<br />
<i>Fable III</i> 75% off (4.99) I've read it is the weakest of the series and the Steam page says it installs Securom. Pass for me. <br />
<br />
<i>Star Trek</i> 75% off (7.49) Avoid. This is a bad game. A bad, bad game. <br />
<br />
<i>Rayman Origins</i> 66% off (6.79) A highly recommended platformer with a whimsical sense of humor and lovely color palette. <br />
<br />
<i>Portal 2</i> 75% off (4.99) A great game that you should buy if you don't own it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><b>Round 2 9PM-5AM</b></i><br />
<br />
Repeats of <i>FTL</i>, <i>Hitman Absolution</i> and <i>Fallout New Vegas</i> and a 40 dollar pack for a FTP game called <i>Star Conflict.</i><br />
<br />
<b><i>Round 3 5AM-1PM</i></b><br />
<br />
Repeats of the <i>Tomb Raider, Stardrive</i> and <i>Kerbal Space Program</i> sales. <br />
<br />
<i>Towns</i> 66% off (5.09) I was genuinely interested in this game. But I've found out that for all intents and purposes it is still a beta and it seems to be getting worse not better. The review scores are pretty bad too. It was supposed to be a game like Dwarf Fortress, so it is complex, but apparently it is also very buggy. <br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
--<br />
<br />
<b>My Steam Summer Sale Running Total:</b> $92.75 - <i>Euro Truck Simulator 2, </i><i>Scribblenauts Unlimited, RPG Maker VX Ace</i> and the addons, <i>To the Moon</i> and <i>Deadlight</i>, 17 Summer Sale card earned, 3 sold, 1 traded, 1 badge made and a Football Manager Summer Sale background bought for 3 cents.
MChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16984793682474594967noreply@blogger.com0