"I am an American aquarium drinker /
I assassin down the avenue."
- Wilco, "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
According to Raptr, I've spent 15 hours with Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, and another 5 hours in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Both games are excellent and well worth your time.
Ah, but you want details! You want experiences! You want in-depth impressions! (Do you? I don't know who reads this thing anymore besides Russian search engines that keep bringing up my best guess at the Beatles set list in Rock Band.) (That sentence right there, the one you just read, will have already generated 20 more hits before I even finish writing this post, so let's move on.) (*Sigh* Remember Rock Band? I still really like RB3 but haven't touched it in weeks.)
Let's start with Need For Speed, then, since I got pulled out of AC:B and into a lot of NFS multiplayer this weekend with a lot of the same crew that used to play Burnout 3 every night for hours.
Yes, it feels a lot like a Burnout game. (Which is great.) But you know what? It also feels a lot like the old Sega classic Outrun, in that there's a shit-ton of drifting that you do, and all the cars seem to be superglued to the road, and they all have fat asses that always feel like you're about to spin out of control in a drift, but you never do.
The star of the show is clearly cops v. racers, and pretty much everyone that I've played with acknowledges that while both sides are fun as hell, it's playing as the cops that's really fun as hell. That's as close as you get to the classic Burnout style of craziness, but now with spike strips, roadblocks and EMPs. There's not a tremendous amount of depth to the gameplay, but that's OK - every race is different, and each track has a lot of side routes (as not all of the shortcuts are actually shortcuts) and, well, shit gets real crazy quick. (Or, alternately, shit gets crazy real quick. This game moves too fast for comma placement.)
The Autolog is also a pretty neat feature - it's essentially a real-time Facebook wall with all your friends' activity, so if someone beats your time in a race, you can very easily try to retake your position on the leaderboard. It's very easy to get sucked down that particular rabbit hole. At all times, you are aware of what your friends are doing (and have done) in relation to what you're doing, and before long another hour has gone by while you try to beat your friend's time. I haven't played a game with this much "just one more go" in a while.
Although, now that I think about it, there's a lot of that "just one more x" in Assassin's Creed, which is partly why I racked up 15 hours without even really meaning to play that much. And I'm not even a third of the way through the actual story. (!) If the first Assassin's Creed was (fairly) criticized for not having enough to actually do, AC:B is possibly guilty of having too much. My last 2 hours of gameplay yesterday was basically me trying to level up the 4 members of my brotherhood, which scratched my Farmville itch like crazy. Is this a spoiler? I don't think this is a spoiler - it's a feature, that's partly spelled out in the game's title. A few memories into the game, you start recruiting fellow Assassins. And you level them up by sending them out on all these little missions - you don't actually see them do this, and it doesn't affect you in any way, other than that your assassins will be unavailable for the 5-10 minutes it takes them to do their missions. And so, while they've been doing that, I've been finding hidden flags and hidden feathers and doing all sorts of sidequests, and once they are sufficiently leveled up - or, more accurately, once I'm bored of flag finding - I'm probably going to start burning down all the remaining Borgia Towers that I currently have access to. And then, maybe, I'll get back to the actual story.
The AC:B graphics engine isn't as bad as, say, the Gametrailers video review made it out to be. I mean, my Best Games of 2010 - Best Horses award will still be going to Red Dead Redemption, but there's a lot about AC:B that's simply staggering. The city of Rome is absolutely gigantic, and while it maybe lacks the variety that was a high point of AC2, it also feels a lot more cohesive. (That being said, the engine is a bit old - and the more I think about it, the more I'm curious to see what an AC game would look like in the Red Dead engine. Both games feature huge open worlds with wide open spaces - Red Dead doesn't have lots of buildings, of course, but its terrain is a lot more varied and textured.)
Anyway. You get the idea.
My rental copies of Donkey Kong Country Returns and Gran Turismo 5 will most likely arrive while I'm away for Thanksgiving; I don't know that I have any time in my life for either of these games, let alone Disney Epic Mickey next week. I'd very much like to be able to finish AC:B by the end of the year, and considering how massive the game is and how much there is to do, I wonder if that's possible, considering how busy I'm about to be...
Monday, November 22, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
AC: Brotherhood - a more apt comparison
This was obviously meant to go in the last piece, but I might as well bring it up now - if we're going to compare AC:B to anything, why not Inception? As long as you ignore the distinction between "dream" and "meta-history", you're more or less in the same conceptual ballgame, with layers upon layers of reality stacked on top of each other. I think there's even a flat-out "dream-within-a-dream" reference in Desmond's first extended sequence.
More to come on this, obviously, if it ends up being something worth pursuing.
More to come on this, obviously, if it ends up being something worth pursuing.
AC: Brotherhood - the first hour
Of all the big franchises out there that I'm proud to be a fan of, Assassin's Creed is the one that I have the strangest relationship with. There's only 3 games in the series, but the pattern has already evolved thus:
AC:Brotherhood took the phobia and hostility to new, unprecedented levels, however. First of all, I was not ready for a sequel this quickly - sequels that occur with this kind of pace rarely end up being great. (AC2 came out almost exactly a year ago, which itself came out almost exactly a year after the first one.) And, of course, the marketing for this game was totally screwed up - the initial coverage made it sound like it was multiplayer-only, which was definitely not what I wanted out of an AC game, and then when it was revealed that there was a single-player campaign also, I figured it was an obligatory tack-on, and then when it was revealed that it was still set in Italy, with Ezio, I was thinking that this was going to be some shitty quasi-expansion pack cash-in, and planned to avoid it at all costs.
And then the reviews started coming in, saying it was clearly the best in the franchise. And so my rental copy finally arrived last night, and I started playing, and now I'm totally hooked, again.
The most recent Giant Bombcast has an interesting bit of discussion regarding AC:B (starting at 1:05:22), with one point being that when you break down what it is you're actually doing in AC:B, it sounds an awful lot like Fable 3. Consider:
I feel silly even talking about AC:B at this stage in my initial playthrough; I've barely scratched the surface of what's there, and I already know too much about what is to come. I suspect that most of the rest of this blog's entries for the remainder of this year will be related to AC:B, and I can already tell that this game will make me rethink my top 10 of 2010.
- I get phobic and downright hostile towards preview coverage,
- I start dreading the game's release, thinking it's going to be terrible;
- The game comes out and gets rave reviews;
- I buy it immediately and end up being totally in love with it.
AC:Brotherhood took the phobia and hostility to new, unprecedented levels, however. First of all, I was not ready for a sequel this quickly - sequels that occur with this kind of pace rarely end up being great. (AC2 came out almost exactly a year ago, which itself came out almost exactly a year after the first one.) And, of course, the marketing for this game was totally screwed up - the initial coverage made it sound like it was multiplayer-only, which was definitely not what I wanted out of an AC game, and then when it was revealed that there was a single-player campaign also, I figured it was an obligatory tack-on, and then when it was revealed that it was still set in Italy, with Ezio, I was thinking that this was going to be some shitty quasi-expansion pack cash-in, and planned to avoid it at all costs.
And then the reviews started coming in, saying it was clearly the best in the franchise. And so my rental copy finally arrived last night, and I started playing, and now I'm totally hooked, again.
The most recent Giant Bombcast has an interesting bit of discussion regarding AC:B (starting at 1:05:22), with one point being that when you break down what it is you're actually doing in AC:B, it sounds an awful lot like Fable 3. Consider:
- You are attempting to overthrow an evil, corrupt government
- You buy property and shops, which help beautify each area and which contribute to your own personal wealth
- There is an impending cataclysmic disaster that you must prepare for
- It's a sequel that appeared rather quickly
- The combat is better than in the previous game, but still a little janky
- The graphics engine is a little old - still capable of great stuff, but, still, old
I feel silly even talking about AC:B at this stage in my initial playthrough; I've barely scratched the surface of what's there, and I already know too much about what is to come. I suspect that most of the rest of this blog's entries for the remainder of this year will be related to AC:B, and I can already tell that this game will make me rethink my top 10 of 2010.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Fable 3
I accidentally finished Fable 3 over the weekend. That wasn't my intention. I didn't know I was at the end of the game and had beaten the final boss until the credits started rolling.
I don't think I've ever been so torn on how to rate a game as I am with Fable 3. I don't even know where to start, to be honest, other than to say that it's pretty clear that Fable 4, should there be one, needs to be a complete reboot. The engine, the combat system, the map, the social interaction mechanic, the real estate management system, the pause menu, the controls; these are but a few of the major features that require a complete overhaul if this franchise is to stay relevant.
And that's leaving aside the surprising lack of polish that permeates the experience; the glittering trail that leads you to your destination is broken more often than not, and the mini-map that requires several button presses to access is more of an abstract representation of your current location than an actual, 1:1 reference, making it more or less useless - so if your glittering trail refuses to show up, and you're in a new location - or, indeed, in a location that you already know quite well - you can still get lost.
And yet... I still kinda liked it. I kinda liked enough to want to keep playing even though my campaign is over; and I must begrudgingly admit that, since my wife is out of town this week, I'm tempted to replay the entire campaign as a full-on evil bastard, since one of the few things that the game does remarkably well is adapt to the choices that you make. If you play as a good guy, you'll notice that the world will change; the city of Bowerstone, for example, is a filthy, foggy cesspool when you first enter it, but if you choose to make improvements to the city, it's actually a quite lovely place to stroll through by the time you're done.
And what's more, there are repercussions to being completely good, some of which are quite shocking once you see them in person. We're getting into spoiler territory here, so skip ahead to the next paragraph if you want to avoid them. The game starts with you, as the king's brother, escaping out of the castle and starting to lead a revolution. The revolution occurs at around the game's midpoint, and then you're the King, which means that in addition to your regular quests, you have several crucial decisions that you need to make; you learn that in exactly one year, a huge attack will descend upon your kingdom, and you need to make certain decisions in order to make preparations. Those decisions will also affect your alliances that you've made as you formed the revolution; the promises you made to rebel leaders will affect your ability to properly save up enough money to pay for your kingdom's defense. I was playing as a good guy, which meant that I kept all my promises, and which meant that I drained my kingdom's coffers completely dry in order to give my citizens a good life. I assumed that I'd have enough time to donate my own (rather substantial) stash to make up the shortfall; and, if I'd dillydallied enough, I probably could have. The problem is that the endgame arrived completely without warning; I thought I still had time to make some more money, but instead I suddenly found myself leading the final charge of the final battle. (And the final boss battle... ye gods, what a fucking joke.) Anyway, the point (the repercussions from being completely good) is that I had been a good king, but I didn't raise enough funds to protect my people; and so, after the final battle was over and I could continue playing, I decided to visit some older locations to pick up some loose threads from the campaign, and everywhere I went, nearly everyone was dead. So, obviously, I'm curious to see what happens if you're completely bad. End spoilers.
Can I recommend this game, knowing how many other great games there are right now? It's a very tough call. If you're a fan of the franchise, and you're willing to forgive the game's numerous problems, both technical and philosophical, you'll probably end up having somewhat of an enjoyable time. I know I did; there's just enough good in the game that made me feel like the experience wasn't totally worthless. But if you're unfamiliar with Fable, or if you're trying to shoehorn it in to your already busy gaming schedule, you may want to rent it, and nobody would blame you if you wanted to avoid it altogether. Life is about choice, after all.
I don't think I've ever been so torn on how to rate a game as I am with Fable 3. I don't even know where to start, to be honest, other than to say that it's pretty clear that Fable 4, should there be one, needs to be a complete reboot. The engine, the combat system, the map, the social interaction mechanic, the real estate management system, the pause menu, the controls; these are but a few of the major features that require a complete overhaul if this franchise is to stay relevant.
And that's leaving aside the surprising lack of polish that permeates the experience; the glittering trail that leads you to your destination is broken more often than not, and the mini-map that requires several button presses to access is more of an abstract representation of your current location than an actual, 1:1 reference, making it more or less useless - so if your glittering trail refuses to show up, and you're in a new location - or, indeed, in a location that you already know quite well - you can still get lost.
And yet... I still kinda liked it. I kinda liked enough to want to keep playing even though my campaign is over; and I must begrudgingly admit that, since my wife is out of town this week, I'm tempted to replay the entire campaign as a full-on evil bastard, since one of the few things that the game does remarkably well is adapt to the choices that you make. If you play as a good guy, you'll notice that the world will change; the city of Bowerstone, for example, is a filthy, foggy cesspool when you first enter it, but if you choose to make improvements to the city, it's actually a quite lovely place to stroll through by the time you're done.
And what's more, there are repercussions to being completely good, some of which are quite shocking once you see them in person. We're getting into spoiler territory here, so skip ahead to the next paragraph if you want to avoid them. The game starts with you, as the king's brother, escaping out of the castle and starting to lead a revolution. The revolution occurs at around the game's midpoint, and then you're the King, which means that in addition to your regular quests, you have several crucial decisions that you need to make; you learn that in exactly one year, a huge attack will descend upon your kingdom, and you need to make certain decisions in order to make preparations. Those decisions will also affect your alliances that you've made as you formed the revolution; the promises you made to rebel leaders will affect your ability to properly save up enough money to pay for your kingdom's defense. I was playing as a good guy, which meant that I kept all my promises, and which meant that I drained my kingdom's coffers completely dry in order to give my citizens a good life. I assumed that I'd have enough time to donate my own (rather substantial) stash to make up the shortfall; and, if I'd dillydallied enough, I probably could have. The problem is that the endgame arrived completely without warning; I thought I still had time to make some more money, but instead I suddenly found myself leading the final charge of the final battle. (And the final boss battle... ye gods, what a fucking joke.) Anyway, the point (the repercussions from being completely good) is that I had been a good king, but I didn't raise enough funds to protect my people; and so, after the final battle was over and I could continue playing, I decided to visit some older locations to pick up some loose threads from the campaign, and everywhere I went, nearly everyone was dead. So, obviously, I'm curious to see what happens if you're completely bad. End spoilers.
Can I recommend this game, knowing how many other great games there are right now? It's a very tough call. If you're a fan of the franchise, and you're willing to forgive the game's numerous problems, both technical and philosophical, you'll probably end up having somewhat of an enjoyable time. I know I did; there's just enough good in the game that made me feel like the experience wasn't totally worthless. But if you're unfamiliar with Fable, or if you're trying to shoehorn it in to your already busy gaming schedule, you may want to rent it, and nobody would blame you if you wanted to avoid it altogether. Life is about choice, after all.
Monday, November 1, 2010
feast or famine
I can't remember the last time I had so much good stuff to play, all at the same time. It's a little overwhelming, but I'm not complaining. AT ALL.
We covered Rock Band 3 and Fable 3 on Friday; RB3 is still excellent, and F3 is maybe not as excellent but certainly absorbing. It's very easy to get sidetracked, which is sort of the point, and even though it feels incredibly artificial and "game-y", it's the sort of thing where you get used to that feeling pretty quickly, and it ceases being a concern.
I finished the first mission or two in the Red Dead Redemption Zombie DLC; man, that game continues to be awesome. I've had RDR flip-flopping with Mass Effect 2 as my Game of the Year pretty much since the get-go, but RDR seems like it's the more complete package, at this point. Every time I fire it up I'm immediately back in the swing of things.
My Gamefly copy of Kirby's Big Yarn finally arrived, and it's as charming and adorable as can be. My wife is very much into crafting, and she took a shine to the art design immediately; I'm hoping I can get her to play it.
Your mileage will vary depending on your predilection towards video pinball, but if you're in any way inclined towards it, I would highly recommend FXPinball 2, which took up a number of idle hours this weekend. For my money, it's the best home pinball solution outside of actually owning a machine.
And I finally caved and bought Game Dev Story for my iPod Touch. I'm generally not one for these kinds of simulation games, or really any kind of sim game, but I'd heard too much good stuff about this one to ignore, and lo and behold, it's totally sucked me in. VosstonVisions is about 4 years in, now, and while we'd like to get beyond ninja adventure games, we're starting to make some money. Highly enjoyable, and highly recommended.
We covered Rock Band 3 and Fable 3 on Friday; RB3 is still excellent, and F3 is maybe not as excellent but certainly absorbing. It's very easy to get sidetracked, which is sort of the point, and even though it feels incredibly artificial and "game-y", it's the sort of thing where you get used to that feeling pretty quickly, and it ceases being a concern.
I finished the first mission or two in the Red Dead Redemption Zombie DLC; man, that game continues to be awesome. I've had RDR flip-flopping with Mass Effect 2 as my Game of the Year pretty much since the get-go, but RDR seems like it's the more complete package, at this point. Every time I fire it up I'm immediately back in the swing of things.
My Gamefly copy of Kirby's Big Yarn finally arrived, and it's as charming and adorable as can be. My wife is very much into crafting, and she took a shine to the art design immediately; I'm hoping I can get her to play it.
Your mileage will vary depending on your predilection towards video pinball, but if you're in any way inclined towards it, I would highly recommend FXPinball 2, which took up a number of idle hours this weekend. For my money, it's the best home pinball solution outside of actually owning a machine.
And I finally caved and bought Game Dev Story for my iPod Touch. I'm generally not one for these kinds of simulation games, or really any kind of sim game, but I'd heard too much good stuff about this one to ignore, and lo and behold, it's totally sucked me in. VosstonVisions is about 4 years in, now, and while we'd like to get beyond ninja adventure games, we're starting to make some money. Highly enjoyable, and highly recommended.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Impressions: Rock Band 3, Fable 3
OK, so. I had more or less written off the rest of 2010 in terms of "games to get excited about." And now, suddenly, I'm up to my ears in quality stuff.
Rock Band 3 is easily the best iteration of the franchise, and I say this even though I've only played one 14-song setlist with my wife, and without even owning the keyboard or trying out any of the "pro mode" stuff. I'm talking strictly nuts-and-bolts here; the game feels "smart." Being able to save a setlist is a fantastic idea, especially if you want to set something up ahead of time; having the game actually pause between songs is also something much appreciated, to give everyone a second to catch their breath, stretch their fingers, take a quick bathroom break. The stat-tracking is really interesting; it's keeping tabs on all sorts of cool stuff, which definitely scratches that "let me play one more tune so I can get the next achievement" itch. I've only seen a tiny fraction of what the game has to offer - I plan on messing with it A LOT over the weekend. And I still need to get familiar with the on-disc setlist; I've already merged my RB1, RB2 and DLC libraries, so I need to see what's actually new.
I can't quite tell if Fable 3 is the best iteration in its franchise; I'm maybe 30-40 minutes into it, and it basically feels like Fable 2 (which is not necessarily a bad thing, of course, as I very much enjoyed my time with F2). It does have some strange design choices, though, and I can already tell that some of them are going to get annoying.
For example: one of the bullet points of this franchise is that you can interact with anyone, and there's lots of ways to do that; so that's nice. Except here, if you want to interact with someone, you have to stand close enough to them that a button prompt appears; if you press the button, then the game momentarily stops, and then restarts with a new contextual button prompt; if you then press that button (shake hand, belch, etc.), then you're kicked back out into the first button prompt, and then you have to press another button to get back to the actual game. This is strange and needlessly cumbersome.
Also - the X button is both your melee attack and your block, which can be tricky, and the block really ought to have been mapped to one of the triggers, which are not used at all.
It's not really fair of me to criticize it just yet; again, I'm not even an hour into it, and there's so much more left to do. But every game's first impression goes a long way toward coloring your eventual verdict.
Rock Band 3 is easily the best iteration of the franchise, and I say this even though I've only played one 14-song setlist with my wife, and without even owning the keyboard or trying out any of the "pro mode" stuff. I'm talking strictly nuts-and-bolts here; the game feels "smart." Being able to save a setlist is a fantastic idea, especially if you want to set something up ahead of time; having the game actually pause between songs is also something much appreciated, to give everyone a second to catch their breath, stretch their fingers, take a quick bathroom break. The stat-tracking is really interesting; it's keeping tabs on all sorts of cool stuff, which definitely scratches that "let me play one more tune so I can get the next achievement" itch. I've only seen a tiny fraction of what the game has to offer - I plan on messing with it A LOT over the weekend. And I still need to get familiar with the on-disc setlist; I've already merged my RB1, RB2 and DLC libraries, so I need to see what's actually new.
I can't quite tell if Fable 3 is the best iteration in its franchise; I'm maybe 30-40 minutes into it, and it basically feels like Fable 2 (which is not necessarily a bad thing, of course, as I very much enjoyed my time with F2). It does have some strange design choices, though, and I can already tell that some of them are going to get annoying.
For example: one of the bullet points of this franchise is that you can interact with anyone, and there's lots of ways to do that; so that's nice. Except here, if you want to interact with someone, you have to stand close enough to them that a button prompt appears; if you press the button, then the game momentarily stops, and then restarts with a new contextual button prompt; if you then press that button (shake hand, belch, etc.), then you're kicked back out into the first button prompt, and then you have to press another button to get back to the actual game. This is strange and needlessly cumbersome.
Also - the X button is both your melee attack and your block, which can be tricky, and the block really ought to have been mapped to one of the triggers, which are not used at all.
It's not really fair of me to criticize it just yet; again, I'm not even an hour into it, and there's so much more left to do. But every game's first impression goes a long way toward coloring your eventual verdict.
Monday, October 25, 2010
so much candy
Here, let me blow the dust off of this blog and see if it's still working.
/kicks tires
OK!
Has it really been a month since the last update? That's just wrong. I'm trying to recall where the time went, exactly, or if there was some pressing reason why I've not been over here. Truth is, it's felt a little slow, games-wise. I've played several games to completion, and acquired an iPod Touch, and yet there hasn't really been anything that's made me say, "That does it, I'm blogging today." I'm writing today because, well, why not.
If my GoogleDoc is to be believed, here's what I've played since the last post, wherein I was obsessed with Civilization V.
I feel like I ought to start prepping for my year-end recap, although there are some notable titles left on my to-play list. I accidentally ordered the PS3 version of Fallout: New Vegas, and so I sent it back; I'd like to play it eventually, but I can wait until it gets patched. (And, frankly, I played a little Fallout 3 a few weeks ago just to check it out again, and that game feels positively ancient.) Fable 3 arrives tomorrow. I'm feeling aggressively ambivalent about Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, although I felt the same about AC2 and that game ended up being incredible. I need to play Kirby. I am curious about Star Wars: Force Unleashed 2, and I am unusually jazzed about the 360 version of NBA Jam. And I'd like to hope for the best for Epic Mickey.
And then I suppose I can get on with the recap.
/kicks tires
OK!
Has it really been a month since the last update? That's just wrong. I'm trying to recall where the time went, exactly, or if there was some pressing reason why I've not been over here. Truth is, it's felt a little slow, games-wise. I've played several games to completion, and acquired an iPod Touch, and yet there hasn't really been anything that's made me say, "That does it, I'm blogging today." I'm writing today because, well, why not.
If my GoogleDoc is to be believed, here's what I've played since the last post, wherein I was obsessed with Civilization V.
- DeathSpank 2: Thong of Virtue. In spite of the first game's faults (repetitive, mindless item fetching), I loved the hell out of it, and was eagerly looking forward to more. Sadly, this sequel suffers from a lot of I've been seeing this year, where it's basically more of the same, but it's no longer fresh or exciting. I finished it, but whereas I played the first game to 100% completion, I've still got a ton of side quests to do, and I don't care enough to do them.
- Dead Rising 2. I was hoping that the game had changed enough so that I could try to get through it; alas, I died about 20 minutes in and knew that I didn't have it in me. I understand why someone might get really into this franchise; the game is designed in a very specific, deliberate way that seems completely insane unless you submit to it, and I know that I don't have the patience to bother.
- Enslaved. This came out of nowhere to become one of my favorite titles of the year. I had a vicious headcold when this came out, and ended up spending my day of sick leave huddled up on my couch, plowing through it more or less in one go. Definitely reminded me of Uncharted 2, which is a great thing. Probably the best and most convincing facial animation I've ever seen - the relationship between the 2 lead characters is totally believable and real and palpable.
- Castlevania: LoS. Fuck this game. I'm not necessarily a Castlevania fanboy; I like the games, when they're good, but that's more or less it. That being said, there's nothing about this game (at least as far as I got) that has ANYTHING to do with the Castlevania franchise as I understand it. It is a God of War clone through and through, with frustrating controls and combat. It's true that it has a gorgeous graphics engine, but it's 2010 - if I can't have complete control over the camera, I get angry. Especially since the camera is, generally speaking, miles away from the action, making it difficult to see my dude; also, it's incredibly annoying when my dude gets hit by enemies that are off-screen, "under" the camera. I stopped midway through the "Lycan" area, and I'll tell you why: there's this one section where you have to tame this giant rat beast, which enables you to ride it and jump over huge gaps. I tamed the rat, jumped it over the gaps, and then got to this weird ledge area and couldn't seem to find anywhere to go, so I killed the rat. ONLY THEN did the game tell me that I needed the rat to climb up the suddenly-blinking vine. Which meant that I had to go back to the rat-taming arena, which was suddenly easy to do since all the gaps were jumpable by my puny human legs. This means that the game specifically intended me to have to do this fucking thing twice. Fuck this game.
- Costume Quest. I just finished this over the weekend, actually. It pains me to say this, but Double Fine has not yet made a truly great game. They make incredible worlds, with great characters speaking hilarious dialogue, and they tell great stories, but the game part is the part that can feel like the last thing they thought of. CQ gets past this by at least being relatively short, which makes the repetitive RPG-lite combat not terribly annoying. And the rest of the game is relentlessly charming and adorable and laugh-out-loud funny. I especially loved the Arrested Development reference in the 3rd act.
- Super Meat Boy. It is doubtful that I will ever finish this game, as it is beastly difficult. But it's also fiendishly addictive.
I feel like I ought to start prepping for my year-end recap, although there are some notable titles left on my to-play list. I accidentally ordered the PS3 version of Fallout: New Vegas, and so I sent it back; I'd like to play it eventually, but I can wait until it gets patched. (And, frankly, I played a little Fallout 3 a few weeks ago just to check it out again, and that game feels positively ancient.) Fable 3 arrives tomorrow. I'm feeling aggressively ambivalent about Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, although I felt the same about AC2 and that game ended up being incredible. I need to play Kirby. I am curious about Star Wars: Force Unleashed 2, and I am unusually jazzed about the 360 version of NBA Jam. And I'd like to hope for the best for Epic Mickey.
And then I suppose I can get on with the recap.
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