Day 2 of Enslaved improves some. There are two nice gameplay scenes: one set piece and one fairly open-ended sequence. The game is growing on me, but it’s still not as fluid as I want it to be and it’s stiff compared to its obvious models in Uncharted 2 and God of War. The characters maintain a good relationship though, and I remain impressed by their animations and their connection even though the narrative is nothing particularly interesting. Spoilers within.
Enslaved Day#1: Escape from New York
Long time since I’ve posted, but busy-ness has finally subsided and I’m getting back into the playing of the hardcore games. Today’s sample: Enslaved, the new game from Ninja Theory. The beginning is a mixed bag. On the one hand, the characters are pretty great: well rendered and animated with an interesting relationship and some good potential. On the other, there’s a stiltedness to the gameplay that’s just inescapable. The jumping around and stealthing which are such a central part of the game are just too stiff, guided, and unclear. I’ll keep playing as nothing in the game is that bad and I’m curious to where this game is going, but boy will Assassin’s Creed 2 and Uncharted 2 look good after you play this. Spoilers within.
Posted in Hardcore.
– November 1, 2010
ME2 Lair of the Shadow Broker Day#2: The Real Broker
Day 2 completes this DLC, and it remains solidly awesome. Hats off to Bioware for making a great product in this new chapter. There’s another great set piece in the middle and it ends with a very nice tie up. The story is very strong and completely relevant the whole way through, and the gameplay remains generally fun, although there’s an old fashioned boss battle at the end that’s sort of cool and sort of contrived. Still, the game is a winner visually, narratively, and playwise, and it is completely worth your ten dollars to spend a few more wonderful hours in the shoes of Commander Shepard. Spoilers within.
Posted in Hardcore.
– September 27, 2010
ME2 Lair of the Shadow Broker Day#1: The Need to Know
(A big shout out to Margaret M for recovering these. A thousand times thank you.) As you may have seen in previous posts, I really liked Mass Effect 2. It wasn’t perfect, but the story was quite good and I found the gameplay quite fun. So when downloadable content came out for the game that tied to story, I was all over that. And I am very happy to say that I am very pleased with new content. The narrative ties together in tighter and better ways than I could possibly have imagined, and the gameplay was simple more Mass Effect goodness. Spoilers within.
Posted in Hardcore.
– September 26, 2010
Lair of the Shadow Broker Posts Coming!!!!!
Hey there. Sorry everyone. WordPress is being really weird and deleting posts on me. I somehow, without doing anything at all, I ended up with both of my Lair posts permanently deleted. The good news is that this blog serves its purpose, and I could recreate both posts from memory. I can’t bear to rewrite them both right now (losing 3000 words is HARD), but I’ll have them back up in a couple of days. Sorry about any inconvenience.
Posted in Hardcore.
– September 25, 2010
Stocastic Thought: On Give Up Robot, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love (Well-Made) Masocore
I play a lot of casual and core games on line as part of my job, and most of them are par for the course and not particularly worth commenting on. And then there are game such as Give Up, Robot. Give Up, Robot is an amazing simple game by Matt Thorson. The aesthetics, the level design, and the play make it one of my favorite games of this year. And it’s hard. Very hard. Smash your keyboard with your fist in frustration hard. But it’s wonderful for that, and it taught me some interesting lessons about how games can be very, very challenging without losing their audience, and how that very challenge can be the thing to make a game addictive and fun. Details (and not really any spoilers) within.
Posted in Core, Game Design.
– September 17, 2010
Deadly Premonition Day#3: My Reply is No
My final day with Deadly Premonition. The game is nowhere near finished, mind you. I just can’t take it anymore. This session just continues the parade of horrible the game has been. Literally every element of the game is bad and there is nothing even instructive here. It’s just a collection of terrible decisions. I have no idea why anyone continued to stick with this game, because five hours in, I cannot think of a single reason to go on. Just stay away. Very far away. Spoilers (not that you should care!) within.
Posted in Hardcore.
– September 12, 2010
Now for Something Completely Non-Digital: League Basketball
On my way home from Central Park, I walked past a series of local league basketball games. I stayed and watched and got a fascinating dose of neighborhood game culture. I stayed for something like an hour, in part because the games were quite good but more because this was a pure instance of a natural community of play and it was amazing to see. If you can forgive my amateur anthropology, details within.
Posted in Non-Digital.
– August 21, 2010
Deadly Premonition Day#2: Very Doubtful
Day 2 and this game is just fascinatingly terrible. I literally can’t remember when I’ve played a game with this many bad design decisions. The male characters are all ugly, and all of the controls from the basic move to the newly-introduced driving which is truly awful. I do not understand how people like this game. Even in town past the deeply broken prologue, the game just makes the wrong choice every chance it gets. Spoilers within.
Posted in Hardcore.
– August 19, 2010
Deadly Premonition Day#1: Outlook Not So Good
Deadly Premonition is a bargain-bin, long-time-in-development game that has a lot of cult interest, so I decided to try it to see what the hype is about. Day 1 can only be summed up in one word: awful. The art is bad, the music is completely inappropriate, the controls are wonky, the story makes no sense, and I have no connection to any of the characters or anything in the world. It is frankly impressive how bad this game is. I’m giving it two more sessions to see where it goes, but wow is this a poor start. Spoilers within.
Posted in Hardcore.
– August 14, 2010
