Me and my level 36 Soldier finished Borderlands early Sunday morning, and after selling off my excess loot and giving my skills a re-spec, I decided to screw around with the Playthrough 2 mode and see if it would really be worth playing through a second time, and about two hours later I forced myself to turn off the 360. That shit is dangerous; I was getting ridiculously awesome loot drops just outside the very first town.
I remain totally amazed at how much I enjoyed Borderlands, especially considering that I have absolutely no idea what the story was about, or who anybody was, or what I was ultimately supposed to be doing. I'm even more amazed that I never really cared about any of that stuff. My main focus was leveling up and getting better gear, and that remained constant even as I began my 2nd playthrough. The story is ultimately irrelevant. It would be nice if a sequel addressed this specific flaw, but the mechanics of the game itself are so well-designed that I'm not entirely sure I'd notice, one way or the other.
***SLIGHT SPOILERS***
The only time I was bummed out by the lack of story was at the game's ending, which can't even be called "ambiguous", as that would imply that something actually happened. And it's really only a bummer because it was the first time since I'd started the game where I wasn't engaged in some sort of forward motion, towards something. The game's promise of the Vault was just vague enough to keep me somewhat interested, even though I couldn't really tell you what of the game's missions were actually about, besides going to point A and killing a bunch of people, or going around the map to collect certain items. I never really questioned why I was doing any of that stuff, as long as it meant that I was getting XP and new guns. If the game had even touched upon that element, in a sort of meta/Portal/Bioshock way, that would've been nice. Instead, the game's ending just felt obligatory, as in: the game is over now.
If Modern Warfare 2 weren't arriving tomorrow, I could easily see myself spending another 10-12 hours playing through again, and even more than that if I somehow didn't hit level 50.
Also spent a little time with the 360 version of Dragon Age: Origins, which is... a little disappointing, although to be fair I haven't really sat down with it and allowed myself to get sucked in. I will say, though, that it feels awfully weird; I keep expecting it to have real-time combat, and it most certainly does not, and I suppose I'd be more into it if I were playing it on the PC.
Showing posts with label wiptw. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wiptw. Show all posts
Monday, November 9, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
WIPTW: World Series edition
I am incredibly superstitious when it comes to the Yankees in the postseason, and the incredibly annoying feature is that the superstitions are always changing from year to year. During the 2004 meltdown against the Red Sox, I feel like I let us down; the first three games I'd listened to on the radio, and because I was traveling on the 4th game I ended up watching it on TV, which is where everything fell apart. This year's winning formula is apparently that I cannot watch any of the game on television, or even be in the same room if the game happens to be on. I'm serious. Within 5 seconds of me turning the game on, something bad happens to the Yankees; I turn the game off; they end up winning.
As a result, I've been able to get a bit more quality time on the 360. This weekend was all about Forza 3 and Borderlands, with a tiny bit of GTA4: BOGT on the side.
Forza 3 is definitely the best in the series. All the pre-release hype made special mention of Turn Ten's desire to make the game as accessible as possible for all kinds of gamers, not just driving sim enthusiasts, and to that end they have succeeded. The single-player campaign is long, robust, endlessly customizable, and thoroughly rewarding; just about every single race ends up giving you something new. And since I know nothing about cars, I feel much freer to simply buy cars that I'm somewhat interested in, since I can always auto-tune them up before a race if they're underperforming. The franchise is really only guilty of two things; recycling content and less-than-spectacular graphics. I suppose I can forgive the graphics; they're certainly not bad, they're just underwhelming compared to, say, DiRT 2. The recycling of tracks, though, does get a bit annoying; I feel like I've been driving the same tracks for years.
Ultimately, Forza reminds me a bit of the Tiger Woods franchise, in that they're both great time-sucks and, simultaneously, great for just a quick dip. If only Tiger Woods could make the same sort of advances in terms of keeping the game fresh.
Borderlands continues to be the game that keeps on giving. My soldier is now up to level 28, I think, and I feel like I just can't put the damned thing down. I have absolutely no idea what's going on in the story, and I couldn't care less; I pick up a bunch of missions in a particular area, I clear 'em all out, I score tons of loot, I cash them in, I level up, lather, rinse, repeat. That the game does a pretty terrible (i.e., nonexistent) job of letting you know which of your 10-15 missions is actually essential to moving the story along ends up freeing you to explore more of the world because, well, why not - there's loot in them thar hills, and sticking to the main questline would render a lot of it unexplored.
One can't help but be reminded of Fallout 3 when playing Borderlands, as post-apocalyptic first-person RPGs aren't really a dime a dozen. And yet the two games could not feel more different. Leaving aside from the drastically different art styles - which I don't really want to do, as Borderlands looks absolutely incredible and utterly unique - they move at completely different paces. Fallout 3 was slow, ponderous, and dark - and it absolutely worked in that particular context. Borderlands might as well be a first-person shooter, on the other hand, as it plays fast and furious. It's dark as well, but it's also zany. I think I enjoyed the overall experience a bit more in Fallout 3, and yet I'm probably having a bit more fun playing Borderlands.
Ultimately, Borderlands is clear-cut proof that a game - specifically an RPG - doesn't need a great story in order to be fun. That kinda sucks to admit, because I wouldn't at all mind being a bit more emotionally invested in what's going on in Borderlands, and it flies in the face of what Tim Schafer and Valve and GTA represent. We'd all like to see better writing and storytelling in games. And yet even without a clear motivation to get from one side of the game to the other in terms of story, here I am, compulsively doing missions and killing dudes and exploring and wanting to turn the game off after just finishing up this last thing and then holy shit, another hour has gone by, and look at all the cool stuff I have now.
I almost feel bad that I barely gave The Ballad of Gay Tony any time this weekend; I did a few missions, got a feel for the story and the characters, remembered how to get in and out of cover, and more or less left it at that. It's still good old GTA4, even though the game is starting to look a little rough around the edges.
Which reminds me - there's a lot of driving in both GTA4 and Borderlands (and Forza), and the controls are totally different for each game, and it takes more than a few minutes to remember which is which. I do wish there was some sort of control scheme that all game developers could agree on when it comes to driving in 3rd-person action games.
Jeez, I almost forgot - I also tried out the first hour or so of the new Ratchet & Clank game. It's good, fun, solid, and I just don't have the time for it right now.
As a result, I've been able to get a bit more quality time on the 360. This weekend was all about Forza 3 and Borderlands, with a tiny bit of GTA4: BOGT on the side.
Forza 3 is definitely the best in the series. All the pre-release hype made special mention of Turn Ten's desire to make the game as accessible as possible for all kinds of gamers, not just driving sim enthusiasts, and to that end they have succeeded. The single-player campaign is long, robust, endlessly customizable, and thoroughly rewarding; just about every single race ends up giving you something new. And since I know nothing about cars, I feel much freer to simply buy cars that I'm somewhat interested in, since I can always auto-tune them up before a race if they're underperforming. The franchise is really only guilty of two things; recycling content and less-than-spectacular graphics. I suppose I can forgive the graphics; they're certainly not bad, they're just underwhelming compared to, say, DiRT 2. The recycling of tracks, though, does get a bit annoying; I feel like I've been driving the same tracks for years.
Ultimately, Forza reminds me a bit of the Tiger Woods franchise, in that they're both great time-sucks and, simultaneously, great for just a quick dip. If only Tiger Woods could make the same sort of advances in terms of keeping the game fresh.
Borderlands continues to be the game that keeps on giving. My soldier is now up to level 28, I think, and I feel like I just can't put the damned thing down. I have absolutely no idea what's going on in the story, and I couldn't care less; I pick up a bunch of missions in a particular area, I clear 'em all out, I score tons of loot, I cash them in, I level up, lather, rinse, repeat. That the game does a pretty terrible (i.e., nonexistent) job of letting you know which of your 10-15 missions is actually essential to moving the story along ends up freeing you to explore more of the world because, well, why not - there's loot in them thar hills, and sticking to the main questline would render a lot of it unexplored.
One can't help but be reminded of Fallout 3 when playing Borderlands, as post-apocalyptic first-person RPGs aren't really a dime a dozen. And yet the two games could not feel more different. Leaving aside from the drastically different art styles - which I don't really want to do, as Borderlands looks absolutely incredible and utterly unique - they move at completely different paces. Fallout 3 was slow, ponderous, and dark - and it absolutely worked in that particular context. Borderlands might as well be a first-person shooter, on the other hand, as it plays fast and furious. It's dark as well, but it's also zany. I think I enjoyed the overall experience a bit more in Fallout 3, and yet I'm probably having a bit more fun playing Borderlands.
Ultimately, Borderlands is clear-cut proof that a game - specifically an RPG - doesn't need a great story in order to be fun. That kinda sucks to admit, because I wouldn't at all mind being a bit more emotionally invested in what's going on in Borderlands, and it flies in the face of what Tim Schafer and Valve and GTA represent. We'd all like to see better writing and storytelling in games. And yet even without a clear motivation to get from one side of the game to the other in terms of story, here I am, compulsively doing missions and killing dudes and exploring and wanting to turn the game off after just finishing up this last thing and then holy shit, another hour has gone by, and look at all the cool stuff I have now.
I almost feel bad that I barely gave The Ballad of Gay Tony any time this weekend; I did a few missions, got a feel for the story and the characters, remembered how to get in and out of cover, and more or less left it at that. It's still good old GTA4, even though the game is starting to look a little rough around the edges.
Which reminds me - there's a lot of driving in both GTA4 and Borderlands (and Forza), and the controls are totally different for each game, and it takes more than a few minutes to remember which is which. I do wish there was some sort of control scheme that all game developers could agree on when it comes to driving in 3rd-person action games.
Jeez, I almost forgot - I also tried out the first hour or so of the new Ratchet & Clank game. It's good, fun, solid, and I just don't have the time for it right now.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
What I Played This Weekend: ALCS edition
It always seems like whenever there are a ton of great games coming out all at once, I'm usually really busy doing lots of other things, and yet I feel compelled to own them all anyway. In any event - the little gaming time I had this past weekend was divided up pretty evenly between trying my hardest to enjoy Brutal Legend, and being very pleasantly surprised by Borderlands, with a little bit of Uncharted 2 online co-op, and a tiny taste of Demon's Souls for the hell of it.
I don't quite know how to express how bummed out I am about Brutal Legend. The art direction is stupendous, and the world itself is just fantastic. I love driving around and exploring the world and seeing all the incredible stuff there is to see, and my compulsive need to seek out hidden collectibles is very well satisfied. The dialogue and cutscenes are fantastic, and even though the sidemissions are incredibly repetitive, they almost never last more than a few minutes, and the rewards generally result in neat stuff in Ozzy's Garage.
But goddamn, the stage battles completely suck all my enthusiasm out of the game. It eventually got to the point where I had completed every side mission and found every hidden thing I could possibly find, just because I wanted to play the game as much as possible without having to go through the stage battles. And, of course, the story can't progress unless you do those stage battles, and therein lay the tragedy.
I don't necessarily hate real time strategy games, I'm just not very good at them, and Brutal Legend's brief tutorials don't really help me in terms of figuring out what the hell is going on, and the game does such a terrible job of providing adequate feedback, especially when I'm on the ground trying to kill people because my army refuses to move. Once you start getting wounded, and the screen starts turning red and the heartbeat starts pounding louder, you're almost always dead, and I've yet to figure out why. Even when I try to fly away, I die. And even though I've eventually won every stage battle I've participated in, I really don't understand why, and the whole thing just feels shoddy and poorly implemented.
I have all the respect in the world for Tim Schafer; I'll play anything the man works on. But I'm starting to feel that there's more to a game than art direction and funny dialogue; ultimately, a game either succeeds or fails based on how much fun it is to play, and Brutal Legend is not very much fun at all.
Meanwhile, Borderlands is fun as hell. It starts a little slow, but once you finish the first round of missions and get a vehicle, it really starts to open up. I dinged up to level 15 pretty quickly, and have been itching to get back to it ever since. Haven't tried online co-op yet, though, since none of my real-life friends have been able to find a copy in stores.
Speaking of online co-op, I did a few levels with Gred in Uncharted 2, and while they're pretty much taken wholesale from the game, they're still a lot of fun. It really shows just how improved the combat is; the mechanics are rock-solid and it's arguably even more fun when you're shouting out positions and scrambling for cover and ammo and trying to heal each other.
Finally, more out of morbid curiousity than anything else, I tried Demon's Souls for 20 minutes yesterday. I can see why the game gets good reviews; the game is hard but it's fair, and I eventually died because I was being impatient, not because the game cheated. And then, of course, I saw where I respawned from, and saw how far I'd have to go to reclaim my lost souls, and I said "fuck this." I don't have the time or the masochistic tendencies to really put it through its paces.
Tonight: Forza 3.
And coming soon, we're going to be doing a big GAMES OF THE DECADE feature, featuring a special guest or two. Stay tuned.
I don't quite know how to express how bummed out I am about Brutal Legend. The art direction is stupendous, and the world itself is just fantastic. I love driving around and exploring the world and seeing all the incredible stuff there is to see, and my compulsive need to seek out hidden collectibles is very well satisfied. The dialogue and cutscenes are fantastic, and even though the sidemissions are incredibly repetitive, they almost never last more than a few minutes, and the rewards generally result in neat stuff in Ozzy's Garage.
But goddamn, the stage battles completely suck all my enthusiasm out of the game. It eventually got to the point where I had completed every side mission and found every hidden thing I could possibly find, just because I wanted to play the game as much as possible without having to go through the stage battles. And, of course, the story can't progress unless you do those stage battles, and therein lay the tragedy.
I don't necessarily hate real time strategy games, I'm just not very good at them, and Brutal Legend's brief tutorials don't really help me in terms of figuring out what the hell is going on, and the game does such a terrible job of providing adequate feedback, especially when I'm on the ground trying to kill people because my army refuses to move. Once you start getting wounded, and the screen starts turning red and the heartbeat starts pounding louder, you're almost always dead, and I've yet to figure out why. Even when I try to fly away, I die. And even though I've eventually won every stage battle I've participated in, I really don't understand why, and the whole thing just feels shoddy and poorly implemented.
I have all the respect in the world for Tim Schafer; I'll play anything the man works on. But I'm starting to feel that there's more to a game than art direction and funny dialogue; ultimately, a game either succeeds or fails based on how much fun it is to play, and Brutal Legend is not very much fun at all.
Meanwhile, Borderlands is fun as hell. It starts a little slow, but once you finish the first round of missions and get a vehicle, it really starts to open up. I dinged up to level 15 pretty quickly, and have been itching to get back to it ever since. Haven't tried online co-op yet, though, since none of my real-life friends have been able to find a copy in stores.
Speaking of online co-op, I did a few levels with Gred in Uncharted 2, and while they're pretty much taken wholesale from the game, they're still a lot of fun. It really shows just how improved the combat is; the mechanics are rock-solid and it's arguably even more fun when you're shouting out positions and scrambling for cover and ammo and trying to heal each other.
Finally, more out of morbid curiousity than anything else, I tried Demon's Souls for 20 minutes yesterday. I can see why the game gets good reviews; the game is hard but it's fair, and I eventually died because I was being impatient, not because the game cheated. And then, of course, I saw where I respawned from, and saw how far I'd have to go to reclaim my lost souls, and I said "fuck this." I don't have the time or the masochistic tendencies to really put it through its paces.
Tonight: Forza 3.
And coming soon, we're going to be doing a big GAMES OF THE DECADE feature, featuring a special guest or two. Stay tuned.
Monday, July 27, 2009
What I Played This Weekend: "Oh right, I own a Wii" edition
I've said this before, but in the context of this particular post it bears repeating - there once was a time when my hunger for a Wii was all-consuming. My heart and wallet may have belonged to Microsoft, but I yearned for something more; I ached to waggle. And, most importantly, I wanted to get my wife interested in gaming - or, at least, gaming with me. She was never going to get into Halo or Portal, but at least we could play tennis or bowling for a little while.
The irony, of course, is that once the novelty of the Wii's control scheme wore off, the crushing disappointment started to sink in. There were no games to look forward to, at least to someone in my demographic; Nintendo saw their revenue streams coming in from non-gamers and you can hardly fault them for trying to make money, especially in this shitty economy. That said, my enthusiasm for the Wii didn't drop off as much as it entirely evaporated, and I know I'm not the only one - when people came over to my apartment for birthday parties and other such gatherings, we would always pull out Rock Band instead of Wii Sports. It is true that my wife and I had started to use the Wii again in recent months, but only as a goddamned exercise machine. This was not my beautiful game console.
So why the hell did I buy Wii Sports Resort yesterday? Why did I succumb to Nintendo's charms, again? Why did I enable Nintendo to continue to ignore me?
I can't really answer that without offering at least one rationalization: I didn't actually spend any cash in order to get it. I traded in my PSP and all 7 PSP games I owned specifically so that it could be a cashless transaction. Because as disappointed as I'd been in the Wii, I was even more disappointed in the PSP, and there was even less to look forward to on that platform.
Anyway. Wii Sports Resort is what Wii Sports should've been. It's yet another collection of mini-games, in both single- and multi-player configurations, and the big difference in this collection is that the Wii Remote's new add-on makes the Remote... more sensitive? It's hard to explain what's different about the Motion Plus controller add-on thing until you try the frisbee mini-game. Suffice it to say, it is as close to throwing an actual frisbee as one can get. Similarly, the ping-pong mini-game is remarkable, especially in terms of how you can throw different kinds of spin on your returns. I was as big a fan of Rockstar's Table Tennis as anyone, but I must admit that the ping-pong game in WSR is arguably more engaging.
The rest of the mini-games are pretty hit or miss. Archery is certainly interesting; the sword-fighting game is fun but not particularly deep; bowling feels pretty much identical to the previous iteration, and golf is actually much harder now that the remote is more sensitive to wrist positioning. I suspect that I'll play this just as long as my wife remains interested, and then that'll probably be it.
----------------------------
As long as the Wii was powered up, though, I figured it would maybe be a good time to get back into Super Mario Galaxy. I had been enjoying it thoroughly at first, but got hung up after getting my 15th star or so; then I tried to go back to the earlier levels to stock up on some easy 1-ups, and found that the game (smartly?) makes that prospect a bit trickier than I'd anticipated. In any event, I got past whatever it was that had gotten me stuck before, and now I guess I'm back in it. I'm up to 21 stars now, and I'm continually impressed with each new world's mechanics. I suppose it could be argued that if the Wii produced nothing of value except SMG, it would still be worth a purchase. It could also be argued that the first half of the previous sentence is actually, literally true.
The irony, of course, is that once the novelty of the Wii's control scheme wore off, the crushing disappointment started to sink in. There were no games to look forward to, at least to someone in my demographic; Nintendo saw their revenue streams coming in from non-gamers and you can hardly fault them for trying to make money, especially in this shitty economy. That said, my enthusiasm for the Wii didn't drop off as much as it entirely evaporated, and I know I'm not the only one - when people came over to my apartment for birthday parties and other such gatherings, we would always pull out Rock Band instead of Wii Sports. It is true that my wife and I had started to use the Wii again in recent months, but only as a goddamned exercise machine. This was not my beautiful game console.
So why the hell did I buy Wii Sports Resort yesterday? Why did I succumb to Nintendo's charms, again? Why did I enable Nintendo to continue to ignore me?
I can't really answer that without offering at least one rationalization: I didn't actually spend any cash in order to get it. I traded in my PSP and all 7 PSP games I owned specifically so that it could be a cashless transaction. Because as disappointed as I'd been in the Wii, I was even more disappointed in the PSP, and there was even less to look forward to on that platform.
Anyway. Wii Sports Resort is what Wii Sports should've been. It's yet another collection of mini-games, in both single- and multi-player configurations, and the big difference in this collection is that the Wii Remote's new add-on makes the Remote... more sensitive? It's hard to explain what's different about the Motion Plus controller add-on thing until you try the frisbee mini-game. Suffice it to say, it is as close to throwing an actual frisbee as one can get. Similarly, the ping-pong mini-game is remarkable, especially in terms of how you can throw different kinds of spin on your returns. I was as big a fan of Rockstar's Table Tennis as anyone, but I must admit that the ping-pong game in WSR is arguably more engaging.
The rest of the mini-games are pretty hit or miss. Archery is certainly interesting; the sword-fighting game is fun but not particularly deep; bowling feels pretty much identical to the previous iteration, and golf is actually much harder now that the remote is more sensitive to wrist positioning. I suspect that I'll play this just as long as my wife remains interested, and then that'll probably be it.
----------------------------
As long as the Wii was powered up, though, I figured it would maybe be a good time to get back into Super Mario Galaxy. I had been enjoying it thoroughly at first, but got hung up after getting my 15th star or so; then I tried to go back to the earlier levels to stock up on some easy 1-ups, and found that the game (smartly?) makes that prospect a bit trickier than I'd anticipated. In any event, I got past whatever it was that had gotten me stuck before, and now I guess I'm back in it. I'm up to 21 stars now, and I'm continually impressed with each new world's mechanics. I suppose it could be argued that if the Wii produced nothing of value except SMG, it would still be worth a purchase. It could also be argued that the first half of the previous sentence is actually, literally true.
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