Games! Well, One Game and Two Demos really.
MOAR BlazBlue Continuum Shift~
-CS has pretty much-- between online play, versus and her actual storyline-- solidified Taokaka as basically the only character I completely and unreservedly LIKE in this series. Bang is fun, and I like Tsubaki all right save for her being shoehorned into a... ship I really cannot like in ANY WAY (more on that later), but from lighthearted personality to blithely calling alot of the other characters on their bullshit to her playstyle... damn, the kid just clicks with me in a way I haven't with a character in a fighter since Seong Mina in Soulcalibur 2. Something that does really endear itself to me about BB for all its narrative claptrap is how each and every fighter is made distinct, from moveset to handling to approach, and Taokaka works for me mostly because her playstyle is very instinct-friendly. She's not as powerful as alot of the characters and even the matches I've won have mostly been close calls, but she's fast, building and wrapping your head around combos is easy, she can cover alot of ground and she has a great pressure game. Oh, and now the "imma beat the crap outta you!" special attack has been reworked from a short hop to the middle of the screen to a heat-seeking nigh-undodgeable grab move. Good times :)
-Makoto is... pretty good, though I think she may be a bit technical for me. She's basically if Tao and Talim from SoulCali had a kid-- a speed player with alot of branching attack paths and evades. Overall, the Dangerous Library Ladies as I have opted to call Noel/Tsubaki/Makoto are fun to play as, but I can't really see either of them maining for me. There's always shipping though XD
-Speaking of which, the "Teach Me Miss Litchi!" segments in BB1 were pretty fun but GOOD LORD ALMIGHTY are the ones for Continuum Shift (thusly dubbed "Teach Me Miss Litchi! Reloaded") are so super yuritastic it's not even funny XD Well okay, it is, but in a good way. In addition to the first one basically fueling Tao/Litchi/Makoto/Tsubaki/Noel MORE, there's also enough in this particular one that I finally 'get' the Noel/Litchi fanship XD
All very lulzy and cute and G-rated (kinda), so presumably we'll have to wait for "Teach Me Miss Litchi! Revolutions" to get the explicit chibi yuri XDDD
-Okay, onto things that are less fun, like the Story. Just as this cemented Tao as mah fave, this ALSO confirmed the suspicion that I pretty much hate all the other characters. They hit alot of my issues with anime (or rather with shounen in general); Carl, Jin, Ragna, and Rachel can all pretty much go DIAF, with Hazama being too utterly generic and predictable a bad guy to care about or take seriously (come on people would you REALLY trust a guy whose default facial expression is "creepy evil sneer?" YEAH PROBABLY NOT). Hell, half the time I was surprised by the "gag reel" endings to individual story parts not because of how LULZY they got but because the characters involved were actually expressing emotion beyond "Edward Cullen" or "Bella Swan" depending on who it was.
-Oh, and speaking of which this brings me to the thing that bothered me most about CS-- the inexplicable shoehorning of Tsubaki/Jin. Not just because the very idea of Jin being heterosexual is almost enough to send me into keysmashing levels of amusement, but because I CAN SEE EXACTLY WHERE THIS SHIT IS GOING.
Their whole 'relationship' (which by the way, mattered so much that neither party or any of their close friends even remotely hinted at anything like this in BB1 but then again I guess 'coherence' is asking way too much for this game along with 'actual cutscenes' or 'better storytelling' so whatever) is basically characterized of DAWWW ADORABLE CHILDHOOD FRIENDS BUT NOT REALLY LAWL moments and their friends suddenly being all WOW THEY'D MAKE A GROOVY COUPLE BRAH I SURE HOPE THEY STAY TOGETHER AND DONT DO ANYTHING CRAZY LIKE SAY TRYING TO FIGHT EACH OTHER IN GAME 2 CUZ THAT WOULD SUCK, and Tsubaki being all "GRR I HAET YU NOEL CUZ YOU GET TO HANG OUT WITH CREEPY GUY ALL THE TIME AND I DON'T NOW I KILL YEW" and coupled on top of Tsubaki 'suddenly' turning evil at the end and going to play Nintendo at Hazama's house cuz his Dad has a really awesome home theater system dood or something (Oh, SPOILER WARNING THE BAD GUY FINDS SOME BULLSHIT LOOPHOLE "SHOUNEN JUMP" STYLE AND SURVIVES SO WE CAN DRAG THIS SHIT OUT LONGER) I think most of us at least slightly familiar with anime tropes know where this is going--
Tsubaki is either going to get killed by Jin or is going to use HER DYING BREFF to save Jin and die herself. And then he'll be all "OH SNAP NOW I SUDDENLY SHOW EMOTION DESPITE ACTING LIKE A PRICK THIS ENTIRE SERIES"
and Tsubaki is all "OH JIN I HAD TO SAVE YOU CUZ YOU'RE MORE IMPORTANT AND I HAVE NO VALUE WHAT WITH MY HAVING A VAGINA AND ALL AND IT'S A WOMAN'S JOB TO LAY DOWN EVERYTHING FOR SOME ASSHOLE WHO WON'T THINK TWICE ABOUT HER LOL"
and then Jin'll be all "NO NO, TSUBAKI WHY, INSINCERE AND MANIPULATIVE DISPLAY OF EMOTION OOOH OR WAIT, HE TEARS UP BECUZ THAT'S WHAT YOU DO IN THESE SCENES WHEN YOU'RE TRYING TO MANIPULATE THE AUDIENCE INTO FEELING SOMETHING!!!1!"
And of course she'll be all "JIN, I....I....DRAMATIC PAUSE AS I MAKE IT LOOK LIKE I'M GOING TO SAY I WUV U BUT THEN I JUST DIE INSTEAD BECAUSE HEY, ISN'T IT MORE TRAGIC AND MOVING AND TRAGIC THAT WAY WHEN IT LOOKS LIKE A CONFESSION AND BESIDES LOL DON'T WANNA BE A BURDEN ON THE BIG TOUGH MAN WITH MY PATHETIC HUMAN EMOTIONS LOLOLOL"
And then the fangirls who are inundated by enough shitty anime to believe this is a good story are all ZOMG TSUBAKI/JIN FOREVAH SO BEAUTIFUL SO TRAGIC I KRYED WHUT HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE HOW BEAUTIFUL AND TRAJIK IT ISSSSSS and I die a little more inside. :D
Medal of Zuko's Motivation In "Avatar" Season One Honor Beta~
It's... okay. Technically speaking and in terms of the gameplay itself it's perfectly functional, but I reeaally can't see this being the Modern Warfare killer it's clearly trying to be, or even that there's much of a place for it amongst the already oversaturated Military Shooter genre. There are some things I really don't like (having to level up in the Sniper class before you can get an actual sniper scope strikes me as a flat-out stupid design choice, and there's a really awkward pause between when you die and when you ACTUALLY die) and it's annoyingly strict about weapon ranges-- some longer distance shots that were tough but possible in COD4 given enough skill are flat out impossible here because bullets seem to practically evaporate if you try to shoot too far. Still, I kept coming back to it for some reason, and I suppose that's because it feels a little more... well, arcadey than MW or Bad Company, from the satisfying way kill points stack atop each other in real time to remarkably high accuracy when shooting from the hip. Alot of this is the beta though, so I suppose there's still a chance these things could change between now and release time. Not as bad an impression as I got from the next game, but it didn't suck me in the way Blur or even War for Cybertron did, so I guess we'll see.
Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days Demo~
I HATED the first Kane And Lynch. Oh, the characters seemed interesting enough in a very Guy Ritchie-meets-Tarantino sorta way, but dear Jesus, for a supposedly thrilling game about criminals on the run the gameplay just bored me to tears, though I suppose the awkward-ass combat did nothing to help that.
K&L2 seems to be an improvement right away, since it's given me a clear idea of how much it's going to suck just from its demo, a pretty remarkable feat seeing as the whole point of a demo is to sell the game. Bravo.
The gunplay is remarkably bad-- I swear I shot more than a few people in the head several times before they finally died (if there's actually a reveal later on that there's a big alien takeover and everyone's being replaced with invincible pod people than disregard that, though it seems unlikely) even ignoring the shitty accuracy that your enemies don't seem to have; the bland environments, the fact that enemies can swarm you way too fucking easily, the insta-kill melee attack that all your opponents get while all you have is a finicky human shield grab that doesn't shield fuck all, and the camera. OH DEAR FUCKING GOD THE CAMERA.
See, someone at Eidos got a piece of shrapnel lodged in their head and decided that the best thing they could come up with to make K&L2 'unique' would be to give it a 'home video' feel, or rather a 'cell phone camera' feel, punctuated by splashes of pixellation whenever ANYTHING happens and the default setting for the camera to be swaying around drunkenly "Cloverfield" style.
How bad is this effect? It's bad enough that I do not and HAVE NEVER GOTTEN MOTION SICKNESS, and by about five minutes in I was feeling disoriented and nauseous. It is that bad.
It may not be the absolute stupidiest, pointless and most pretentious design choice ever applied to a video game that didn't need it, but goddamn if it doesn't come REALLY FUCKING CLOSE. Yes, you can turn off the 'shakycam' effect in your Options but considering that someone thought it was a good enough idea for it to be your DEFAULT option-- well that's pretty unsettling.
Shame too, since the Fragile Alliance multiplayer concept definitely is something I would've supported.
-CS has pretty much-- between online play, versus and her actual storyline-- solidified Taokaka as basically the only character I completely and unreservedly LIKE in this series. Bang is fun, and I like Tsubaki all right save for her being shoehorned into a... ship I really cannot like in ANY WAY (more on that later), but from lighthearted personality to blithely calling alot of the other characters on their bullshit to her playstyle... damn, the kid just clicks with me in a way I haven't with a character in a fighter since Seong Mina in Soulcalibur 2. Something that does really endear itself to me about BB for all its narrative claptrap is how each and every fighter is made distinct, from moveset to handling to approach, and Taokaka works for me mostly because her playstyle is very instinct-friendly. She's not as powerful as alot of the characters and even the matches I've won have mostly been close calls, but she's fast, building and wrapping your head around combos is easy, she can cover alot of ground and she has a great pressure game. Oh, and now the "imma beat the crap outta you!" special attack has been reworked from a short hop to the middle of the screen to a heat-seeking nigh-undodgeable grab move. Good times :)
-Makoto is... pretty good, though I think she may be a bit technical for me. She's basically if Tao and Talim from SoulCali had a kid-- a speed player with alot of branching attack paths and evades. Overall, the Dangerous Library Ladies as I have opted to call Noel/Tsubaki/Makoto are fun to play as, but I can't really see either of them maining for me. There's always shipping though XD
-Speaking of which, the "Teach Me Miss Litchi!" segments in BB1 were pretty fun but GOOD LORD ALMIGHTY are the ones for Continuum Shift (thusly dubbed "Teach Me Miss Litchi! Reloaded") are so super yuritastic it's not even funny XD Well okay, it is, but in a good way. In addition to the first one basically fueling Tao/Litchi/Makoto/Tsubaki/Noel MORE, there's also enough in this particular one that I finally 'get' the Noel/Litchi fanship XD
Click to viewAll very lulzy and cute and G-rated (kinda), so presumably we'll have to wait for "Teach Me Miss Litchi! Revolutions" to get the explicit chibi yuri XDDD
-Okay, onto things that are less fun, like the Story. Just as this cemented Tao as mah fave, this ALSO confirmed the suspicion that I pretty much hate all the other characters. They hit alot of my issues with anime (or rather with shounen in general); Carl, Jin, Ragna, and Rachel can all pretty much go DIAF, with Hazama being too utterly generic and predictable a bad guy to care about or take seriously (come on people would you REALLY trust a guy whose default facial expression is "creepy evil sneer?" YEAH PROBABLY NOT). Hell, half the time I was surprised by the "gag reel" endings to individual story parts not because of how LULZY they got but because the characters involved were actually expressing emotion beyond "Edward Cullen" or "Bella Swan" depending on who it was.
-Oh, and speaking of which this brings me to the thing that bothered me most about CS-- the inexplicable shoehorning of Tsubaki/Jin. Not just because the very idea of Jin being heterosexual is almost enough to send me into keysmashing levels of amusement, but because I CAN SEE EXACTLY WHERE THIS SHIT IS GOING.
Their whole 'relationship' (which by the way, mattered so much that neither party or any of their close friends even remotely hinted at anything like this in BB1 but then again I guess 'coherence' is asking way too much for this game along with 'actual cutscenes' or 'better storytelling' so whatever) is basically characterized of DAWWW ADORABLE CHILDHOOD FRIENDS BUT NOT REALLY LAWL moments and their friends suddenly being all WOW THEY'D MAKE A GROOVY COUPLE BRAH I SURE HOPE THEY STAY TOGETHER AND DONT DO ANYTHING CRAZY LIKE SAY TRYING TO FIGHT EACH OTHER IN GAME 2 CUZ THAT WOULD SUCK, and Tsubaki being all "GRR I HAET YU NOEL CUZ YOU GET TO HANG OUT WITH CREEPY GUY ALL THE TIME AND I DON'T NOW I KILL YEW" and coupled on top of Tsubaki 'suddenly' turning evil at the end and going to play Nintendo at Hazama's house cuz his Dad has a really awesome home theater system dood or something (Oh, SPOILER WARNING THE BAD GUY FINDS SOME BULLSHIT LOOPHOLE "SHOUNEN JUMP" STYLE AND SURVIVES SO WE CAN DRAG THIS SHIT OUT LONGER) I think most of us at least slightly familiar with anime tropes know where this is going--
Tsubaki is either going to get killed by Jin or is going to use HER DYING BREFF to save Jin and die herself. And then he'll be all "OH SNAP NOW I SUDDENLY SHOW EMOTION DESPITE ACTING LIKE A PRICK THIS ENTIRE SERIES"
and Tsubaki is all "OH JIN I HAD TO SAVE YOU CUZ YOU'RE MORE IMPORTANT AND I HAVE NO VALUE WHAT WITH MY HAVING A VAGINA AND ALL AND IT'S A WOMAN'S JOB TO LAY DOWN EVERYTHING FOR SOME ASSHOLE WHO WON'T THINK TWICE ABOUT HER LOL"
and then Jin'll be all "NO NO, TSUBAKI WHY, INSINCERE AND MANIPULATIVE DISPLAY OF EMOTION OOOH OR WAIT, HE TEARS UP BECUZ THAT'S WHAT YOU DO IN THESE SCENES WHEN YOU'RE TRYING TO MANIPULATE THE AUDIENCE INTO FEELING SOMETHING!!!1!"
And of course she'll be all "JIN, I....I....DRAMATIC PAUSE AS I MAKE IT LOOK LIKE I'M GOING TO SAY I WUV U BUT THEN I JUST DIE INSTEAD BECAUSE HEY, ISN'T IT MORE TRAGIC AND MOVING AND TRAGIC THAT WAY WHEN IT LOOKS LIKE A CONFESSION AND BESIDES LOL DON'T WANNA BE A BURDEN ON THE BIG TOUGH MAN WITH MY PATHETIC HUMAN EMOTIONS LOLOLOL"
And then the fangirls who are inundated by enough shitty anime to believe this is a good story are all ZOMG TSUBAKI/JIN FOREVAH SO BEAUTIFUL SO TRAGIC I KRYED WHUT HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE HOW BEAUTIFUL AND TRAJIK IT ISSSSSS and I die a little more inside. :D
Medal of Zuko's Motivation In "Avatar" Season One Honor Beta~
It's... okay. Technically speaking and in terms of the gameplay itself it's perfectly functional, but I reeaally can't see this being the Modern Warfare killer it's clearly trying to be, or even that there's much of a place for it amongst the already oversaturated Military Shooter genre. There are some things I really don't like (having to level up in the Sniper class before you can get an actual sniper scope strikes me as a flat-out stupid design choice, and there's a really awkward pause between when you die and when you ACTUALLY die) and it's annoyingly strict about weapon ranges-- some longer distance shots that were tough but possible in COD4 given enough skill are flat out impossible here because bullets seem to practically evaporate if you try to shoot too far. Still, I kept coming back to it for some reason, and I suppose that's because it feels a little more... well, arcadey than MW or Bad Company, from the satisfying way kill points stack atop each other in real time to remarkably high accuracy when shooting from the hip. Alot of this is the beta though, so I suppose there's still a chance these things could change between now and release time. Not as bad an impression as I got from the next game, but it didn't suck me in the way Blur or even War for Cybertron did, so I guess we'll see.
Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days Demo~
I HATED the first Kane And Lynch. Oh, the characters seemed interesting enough in a very Guy Ritchie-meets-Tarantino sorta way, but dear Jesus, for a supposedly thrilling game about criminals on the run the gameplay just bored me to tears, though I suppose the awkward-ass combat did nothing to help that.
K&L2 seems to be an improvement right away, since it's given me a clear idea of how much it's going to suck just from its demo, a pretty remarkable feat seeing as the whole point of a demo is to sell the game. Bravo.
The gunplay is remarkably bad-- I swear I shot more than a few people in the head several times before they finally died (if there's actually a reveal later on that there's a big alien takeover and everyone's being replaced with invincible pod people than disregard that, though it seems unlikely) even ignoring the shitty accuracy that your enemies don't seem to have; the bland environments, the fact that enemies can swarm you way too fucking easily, the insta-kill melee attack that all your opponents get while all you have is a finicky human shield grab that doesn't shield fuck all, and the camera. OH DEAR FUCKING GOD THE CAMERA.
See, someone at Eidos got a piece of shrapnel lodged in their head and decided that the best thing they could come up with to make K&L2 'unique' would be to give it a 'home video' feel, or rather a 'cell phone camera' feel, punctuated by splashes of pixellation whenever ANYTHING happens and the default setting for the camera to be swaying around drunkenly "Cloverfield" style.
How bad is this effect? It's bad enough that I do not and HAVE NEVER GOTTEN MOTION SICKNESS, and by about five minutes in I was feeling disoriented and nauseous. It is that bad.
It may not be the absolute stupidiest, pointless and most pretentious design choice ever applied to a video game that didn't need it, but goddamn if it doesn't come REALLY FUCKING CLOSE. Yes, you can turn off the 'shakycam' effect in your Options but considering that someone thought it was a good enough idea for it to be your DEFAULT option-- well that's pretty unsettling.
Shame too, since the Fragile Alliance multiplayer concept definitely is something I would've supported.