Games I've Played ...
(Yes, I'm a bad man who never writes in his LiveJournal. I hope to be catching up with everyone soon. Or soon-ish. In the meantime, here are my thoughts on some of the electron-drug I've dosed myself with lately ...)
I picked up InFamous this week and I've been enjoying the hell out of it. I don't, as a rule, tend to like open world games because I usually find they lack either focus or authenticity but I should have known that the Sucker Punch boys would change my mind. Empire city is a hell of a place (sometimes literally!) and two thirds through the game I'm dying to know how the last act plays out. There are some really clever design choices that have been made regarding the mechanical effects of being 'heroic' or 'infamous' and, even aside from that, great incentives attached to the enabling mechanics of the game. The first upgrade to your grinding power, for example, makes it restore your energy and health. That makes the train tracks and power lines not only the funnest and quickest way to get around, but also infinite sources of health and ammo. Brilliant! I'm also digging the writing. Some parts of it ('Oh, I'm a skanky, over-sexualised female boss enemy!' or 'I'm bitter about my childhood and I blame you!') are fairly standard but they've also managed to hit me with one or two complete curveballs that, when I look back over the things characters have said and done up to that point, are still totally consistent. I just sat there thinking 'You dickface! And yet ... I should have seen that coming.' Perhaps the only bit that's really rung false for me so far is one of the 'karma moments' where your actions have a strong bearing on your alignment. They hit you with the good old 'save one person you know or ten anonymous doctors' bit, which makes perfect sense given the motives of the character putting you in that position, but I have to admit that it bugged me a little that they labeled one side of that choice 'good' and the other 'evil'. That situation is a hell of a lot more complex than is often looked at and given that (I'd bet, I haven't played the other choice to check ... yet) the same people die no matter what you do I would probably have let the sequence rest with just the cutscene. I mean, things can be effecting without a message flashing up on screen indication you've lost alignment points. That one incident aside, it's been a really good game so far, and I'm certainly looking forward to my second run through, where I'll be evil and get access to the upgrades that seriously *FUCK SHIT UP*.
The other game that I'm (slowly) making my way through is Dead Space, and it's ... fine. That's probably not doing the game justice, for my money it's a very well executed survival-horror-ish game with current level graphics and some neat unique mechanics. It's just incredibly difficult not to look at it and think 'This is pretty much System Shock 2, but without SHODAN constantly mocking my meat-based existence'. Which is a minus, by the way. SHODAN's ability to be both mentor and enemy while rigorously belittling every little thing you achieve really made Shock 2, that and the constant dull moan of The Many around every corner. For a little while I took to answering my phone 'We are, We are.' Confused a lot of people. Startled the hell out of one or two. As of halfway into the game none of the characters in Dead Space has even close to that much characterisation, which is a pity because if one of the poison pods on hydroponics had been made out of someone whose log I'd been following (just for example) it could have made the whole business much more creepy. The game has a lot to offer on a mechanical level though, the whole dismemberment business being both a departure from the typical zombie rules and an unreasonable amount of fun. It goes far enough to have tactical considerations, pretty much everything is slower once you cut its legs off, and there are some really fun weapon designs that wouldn't be nearly as good without it. All in all it's a solid game, one that I'll enjoy stepping through one chapter or trophy at a time, but which really won't ever be my 'A' game.
(Horribly, I've just bought a copy of Final Fantasy 7 which works on my PSP and PS3. Only time will tell just how deep that particular strain of infection will run.)
I picked up InFamous this week and I've been enjoying the hell out of it. I don't, as a rule, tend to like open world games because I usually find they lack either focus or authenticity but I should have known that the Sucker Punch boys would change my mind. Empire city is a hell of a place (sometimes literally!) and two thirds through the game I'm dying to know how the last act plays out. There are some really clever design choices that have been made regarding the mechanical effects of being 'heroic' or 'infamous' and, even aside from that, great incentives attached to the enabling mechanics of the game. The first upgrade to your grinding power, for example, makes it restore your energy and health. That makes the train tracks and power lines not only the funnest and quickest way to get around, but also infinite sources of health and ammo. Brilliant! I'm also digging the writing. Some parts of it ('Oh, I'm a skanky, over-sexualised female boss enemy!' or 'I'm bitter about my childhood and I blame you!') are fairly standard but they've also managed to hit me with one or two complete curveballs that, when I look back over the things characters have said and done up to that point, are still totally consistent. I just sat there thinking 'You dickface! And yet ... I should have seen that coming.' Perhaps the only bit that's really rung false for me so far is one of the 'karma moments' where your actions have a strong bearing on your alignment. They hit you with the good old 'save one person you know or ten anonymous doctors' bit, which makes perfect sense given the motives of the character putting you in that position, but I have to admit that it bugged me a little that they labeled one side of that choice 'good' and the other 'evil'. That situation is a hell of a lot more complex than is often looked at and given that (I'd bet, I haven't played the other choice to check ... yet) the same people die no matter what you do I would probably have let the sequence rest with just the cutscene. I mean, things can be effecting without a message flashing up on screen indication you've lost alignment points. That one incident aside, it's been a really good game so far, and I'm certainly looking forward to my second run through, where I'll be evil and get access to the upgrades that seriously *FUCK SHIT UP*.
The other game that I'm (slowly) making my way through is Dead Space, and it's ... fine. That's probably not doing the game justice, for my money it's a very well executed survival-horror-ish game with current level graphics and some neat unique mechanics. It's just incredibly difficult not to look at it and think 'This is pretty much System Shock 2, but without SHODAN constantly mocking my meat-based existence'. Which is a minus, by the way. SHODAN's ability to be both mentor and enemy while rigorously belittling every little thing you achieve really made Shock 2, that and the constant dull moan of The Many around every corner. For a little while I took to answering my phone 'We are, We are.' Confused a lot of people. Startled the hell out of one or two. As of halfway into the game none of the characters in Dead Space has even close to that much characterisation, which is a pity because if one of the poison pods on hydroponics had been made out of someone whose log I'd been following (just for example) it could have made the whole business much more creepy. The game has a lot to offer on a mechanical level though, the whole dismemberment business being both a departure from the typical zombie rules and an unreasonable amount of fun. It goes far enough to have tactical considerations, pretty much everything is slower once you cut its legs off, and there are some really fun weapon designs that wouldn't be nearly as good without it. All in all it's a solid game, one that I'll enjoy stepping through one chapter or trophy at a time, but which really won't ever be my 'A' game.
(Horribly, I've just bought a copy of Final Fantasy 7 which works on my PSP and PS3. Only time will tell just how deep that particular strain of infection will run.)