Jericho / Hellgate London
so i picked it up as it seemed like the thing to do prior to Halloween. it's a game with a concept/story drawn up by Clive Barker, after all. it's gotta have quite the scare/disturb the fillings out of your teeth to it.
unfortunately, the game has been more frustrating than scary. they expect you to do PRECISION shooting from the get go. hit these two spots on this monster while it's convulsingly lurching towards you along with 3-5 of it's buddies. btw, better hit those 2 spots before they reach you or else they'll EXPLODE and seriously injure/kill you/your squad members.
speaking of squad members, perhaps it's because i haven't had to micromanage npcs in a while but ugh...such a bother and it seems like they don't listen to me half of the time. i'll tell them to hold position, yet i'll see them running next to, if not AHEAD of me when i start moving. wtf? one good thing is while there's friendly fire, they don't seem to die from you shooting them. even in the head. of course, this might be because i currently have it on easy.
speaking of 'easy', i know there's generally a learning curve for any game but usually on EASY, it's like...EASY. this kinda goes with the 2 previous paragraphs but inbetween commanding the squad, shooting oncoming monsters, trying to hit those points on the splodey monsters, having to heal injured/fallen squad members as you're 1 of 2 people in a squad of 7 that can do so and hoping one of the splodey monsters doesn't feel like coming up behind you during the healing animation, it's feeling...not so easy. i like a challenge but typically, i'll go through a game on easy the first time through to see story/character development stuff, then go back to play it on normal/hard for the challenge. but yeah, it took me 4 or 5 tries to get past this one fight just because of all the splodey monsters, just...grrr...
a few other things that annoy is the utter lack of a map/compass/objective list to tell where the fuck i'm going/what to do. 'this is omega! we need help in the northeast sector!' cool! ass kickin' time! ...which the fuck way is northeast?! at the moment, i'm stuck at some big arena of sorts with 4 sphinx-like statues just...staring at them and the walls. i have no idea what to do. i even tried shooting all of my squad members in the head. yes, i really did. just...guh...
it's a shame because i do enjoy the stories that Barker comes up with but so far, Jericho isn't impressing me. if i can ever get past the stupid statues, maybe it'll improve but for now, i ain't holding my breath.
i'm tired as hell so i'll be slacking off on the paragraphs but i had to say that Hellgate London is made of absolute win. now that the NDA isn't in effect, i can freely gush about it. so far, i've tried out blademaster, marksman, engineer and evoker. blademaster is pretty snooze, evoker is alright but marksman and engineer are friggin' win. marksmen is better for teams while engineer is kinda like a marksman but with a small army of robots to help you kick ass. it's kinda like being a mastermind on CoV but without having to micromanage. at first, it worried stormdragon and me that engineers and summoners didn't really have control of their pets but after Jericho, i'll be sure not to take that for granted anyhore. also, NEVAR ENDING CLIP IS RABURII DESU! we'll be losing our beta characters but thankfully, leveling isn't that much of a pain, nor is raising money. it's pretty easy for anyone to farm for parts/money so hopefully there won't be an economy problem except for unique items. getting around is pretty easy as well. as stormdragon said, it really is what we were hoping to get out of Tabula Rasa but that got fairly convaluted pretty fast. so yeah, i'll likely be playing that along with CoH/V. inbetween homework, of course.
unfortunately, the game has been more frustrating than scary. they expect you to do PRECISION shooting from the get go. hit these two spots on this monster while it's convulsingly lurching towards you along with 3-5 of it's buddies. btw, better hit those 2 spots before they reach you or else they'll EXPLODE and seriously injure/kill you/your squad members.
speaking of squad members, perhaps it's because i haven't had to micromanage npcs in a while but ugh...such a bother and it seems like they don't listen to me half of the time. i'll tell them to hold position, yet i'll see them running next to, if not AHEAD of me when i start moving. wtf? one good thing is while there's friendly fire, they don't seem to die from you shooting them. even in the head. of course, this might be because i currently have it on easy.
speaking of 'easy', i know there's generally a learning curve for any game but usually on EASY, it's like...EASY. this kinda goes with the 2 previous paragraphs but inbetween commanding the squad, shooting oncoming monsters, trying to hit those points on the splodey monsters, having to heal injured/fallen squad members as you're 1 of 2 people in a squad of 7 that can do so and hoping one of the splodey monsters doesn't feel like coming up behind you during the healing animation, it's feeling...not so easy. i like a challenge but typically, i'll go through a game on easy the first time through to see story/character development stuff, then go back to play it on normal/hard for the challenge. but yeah, it took me 4 or 5 tries to get past this one fight just because of all the splodey monsters, just...grrr...
a few other things that annoy is the utter lack of a map/compass/objective list to tell where the fuck i'm going/what to do. 'this is omega! we need help in the northeast sector!' cool! ass kickin' time! ...which the fuck way is northeast?! at the moment, i'm stuck at some big arena of sorts with 4 sphinx-like statues just...staring at them and the walls. i have no idea what to do. i even tried shooting all of my squad members in the head. yes, i really did. just...guh...
it's a shame because i do enjoy the stories that Barker comes up with but so far, Jericho isn't impressing me. if i can ever get past the stupid statues, maybe it'll improve but for now, i ain't holding my breath.
i'm tired as hell so i'll be slacking off on the paragraphs but i had to say that Hellgate London is made of absolute win. now that the NDA isn't in effect, i can freely gush about it. so far, i've tried out blademaster, marksman, engineer and evoker. blademaster is pretty snooze, evoker is alright but marksman and engineer are friggin' win. marksmen is better for teams while engineer is kinda like a marksman but with a small army of robots to help you kick ass. it's kinda like being a mastermind on CoV but without having to micromanage. at first, it worried stormdragon and me that engineers and summoners didn't really have control of their pets but after Jericho, i'll be sure not to take that for granted anyhore. also, NEVAR ENDING CLIP IS RABURII DESU! we'll be losing our beta characters but thankfully, leveling isn't that much of a pain, nor is raising money. it's pretty easy for anyone to farm for parts/money so hopefully there won't be an economy problem except for unique items. getting around is pretty easy as well. as stormdragon said, it really is what we were hoping to get out of Tabula Rasa but that got fairly convaluted pretty fast. so yeah, i'll likely be playing that along with CoH/V. inbetween homework, of course.