by mnemoidian
Showing 1-10 of 53 items
One of those games that have some cool ideas, but (to me) just felt like a cheap version of a better game. I feel like these kind of isometric action RPGs demand classes with identity whose abilities *do* things. Playing the caster class, I felt more like someone throwing firecrackers than a wizard: Weak and useless. Adding to this, I didn't really like the setting - not at all what I expected from something set in the Van Helsing mythos - less fantastical beings, more "[bad] super humans". But, there were some interesting ideas: like commanding NPCs to move forwards or pull back while defending a city - pushing your luck.
Not all of it - I played all of that through back when it was originally released. I just went back and played "Enter the Dominatrix" and "How the Saints saved Christmas." I quite enjoyed both, though enter the dominatrix was a bit too self-referential at times.
Conceptually very cool - but my enjoyment of the game was greatly diminished by a rare case of violent motion sickness. Urgh. I did enjoy the first half of the game way more than I did the second half. May have been that I had not yet discovered the constraints of the game, but it also felt more open, crazy and fun. While the second half was a lot more on-rails.
Good game - though when I played it, it felt a lot like it was missing a lot of content. But what was there, was really cool. It really got me hot for Star Citizen again, too!
Far Cry 4 can almost exclusively be summed up as "more Far Cry 3". That's not necessarily a bad thing, though, as FC3 was an amazing game, and FC4 is as well. The change of location gives the game a lot of variation that it needed, to distinguish itself from FC3. As for Pagan Min, I think he's one of the best new characters of 2014. He's not quite as amazing as Vaas was, but in his own way, he's just as good (and he lasts much longer through the story!). Some parts struggled, but... overall, I was left feeling quite positive towards the game.
Wow. This game looks amazing! It's one of those art-styles that I've always wanted to see in a game. I picked Apotheon up after watching the quick look, and found that I really liked the weight of the combat and the feel of the game. It's a pretty standard greek story - though it does remind you of the question "Why does anyone ever say anything good about Zeus?" He's really an asshole of godlike proportions. As most Greek mythological stories go - Zeus has been out partying. Hera found out and wants revenge. It's a very straight forward game, fairly short (6 hours for me), but kept a good pace throughout. I did struggle with 2 bosses, largely because the game was trying to do something outside of it's comfort zone, and immediately suffered for it.
While it's presentation is a bit stiff - I love a lot about this game. It's got this heavy Lovecraftian atmosphere permeating the entire thing, coupled with a pretty good "choose your own adventure"-style game with a LOT of options with competent, if a bit barebones exploration and combat. Oh, and there's a basic "Rogue-lite" system on top of everything to encourage replaying - while it allows you to carry on a fragment of the previous games' successes (if any) to your next game. The writing is excellent (as it would have to be, with this kind of game), but some parts get a bit repetative after a few restarts.
Dying Light shows that Techland listened to the complaints towards Dead Island. Unfortunately, it's fallen into a similar trap, in a different way. What's improved is the world - it's much smaller than the one in Dead Island, but it's far better than any area in Dead Island, though arguably, none of it is quite as interesting as the resort setting was. Unfortunately, it appears that Techland found the advanced combat mechanics difficult to port over - and they disappeared during the last few months of development. Very disappointing, but not really a huge deal. The main problem Dying Light is the same as most open-world games suffer from: Length. They always overstay their welcome. 32 hours is almost twice as long as the game should have been. I was still having fun, I was still exploring. But something happened, "Bombers" were introduced - which spent a significant part of the last half of the game serially trolling me by popping out of monster closets, spawning behind me, appearing in unfair places and other frustrating situation. Bombers are the least interesting enemy in the game - you can't interact with them, they don't really DO anything. But if they detonate on you - it's pretty much an instant kill. Making matters worse, they are not highlighted on the minimap, and their "special sound" is not very special. Further making matters worse, they have the same silhouette as normal zombies. It's very easy to get surprised by them. Compare this to a very similar enemy - the Hazmat Zombie - also detonates on death (if it's gas canister is ruptured), but has a very distinct sound (heavy wheezy breathing), wears a bright yellow suit, and has a different silhouette. (then there's the question why you can't break the bones of or stun Hazmat suit zombies...) Then there's the big goons. First they teach you how to dodge "back" from them. Then they change them, and now you have to dodge to the side. And then they just increase the range in all directions on their shockwave, and suddenly they want you to throw things at them. I did not enjoy that enemy at all. Then there's the matter of balance. By the end of the game, I was so powerful that I could even stand toe-to-toe with the night zombies - that did not feel very intentional at all. In a sequence in one of the missions you are being chased by ~10 of the night zombies. I decided to turn around, and succeeded in killing all of them. The game, of course, did not realize this. And then there's the story. Clearly trying to make a character out of the main character, but killing off all the characters that actually were adding anything to the story. And, of course, the entire ending sequence is so terrible it was just embaressing for everyone. Why anyone STILL thinks QTE sequences are good ideas, I don't understand. Anyway, yeah. Didn't hate the game, but would've been a lot happier with the game if I stopped playing it 15 hours ago. (total playtime: 32hours) (Also, seriously, I don't think I've been able to say the name of this game ONCE without looking it up first. It may be the most generic zombie-game name ever conceived!)
I feel like The Crew's been largely dismissed. Certainly, car/racing games aren't very popular at the moment, and it seems like there's a preference towards the more 'realistic' simulation racers. Me, however, I've got silly enjoyment of the more arcadey racers. For me, Need For Speed: Underground was one of the most enjoyable racing games in the last... 10 years? Even played as a singleplayer game (as I chose to do, despite quite a lot of players around), I quite enjoyed most of the game. The story's pretty basic - but I didn't expect much else. The one thing that bothers me, are how bad all the "raid-type" missions are. Takedown - terrible, because the takedown target cheats (when I'm going 300km/h and the enemy suddenly accelerated to what must be... 4-600 km/h in ~1 second and still managing hairpin turns... it just doesn't seem reasonable?). Offroad racing - not fun, you spend a lot of time crashing because you hit a small-ish rock. "Smashing crates" - Hit 80 out of a 100 crates, driving offroad in this terrible car!... not fun. But the rest of the game? Deliciously arcadey, great sense of speed.
I tried to stay away from Cities: Skylines at first - but I wound up getting it in the end. Fortunately - it turns out that this is largely the game that Sim City should've been. Unfortunately, it's also the game that Sim City burned me out on. Either way, pretty good city-builder. Though, to be honest, I'm still waiting for a city builder which delivers what Sim City promised.
