Letting Off Some Steam - February Edition

I'm a little later posting this week's blog than originally intended. I'll spare you the detailed reasons why, but suffice it to say some difficult family matters have dominated these last couple of weeks, and that, combined with a week of feeling under the weather myself, has resulted in me not really wanting to do anything this weekend. However, I have a tight blogging schedule to uphold, and I don't intend to let it slip this early in the year. So here's this month's instalment of...

February Edition - First-Person Shooters!

To the uninitiated, permit me to quickly explain - Letting Off Some Steam is a monthly blog feature in which I download and sample a handful of titles from my Steam account for about half an hour each. The idea behind it is to get a feel for which games in my ever-expanding digitally-distributed backlog are most deserving of my time, so I can start to prioritise this unwieldy collection and maybe even start playing through some of them. Last month's theme was platformers, and this month I've opted to check out four unplayed first-person shooters. First up:

DOOM 3

DOOM 3's first impression is a very mixed one. On the one hand, it still looks great, especially considering it turns ten this year. The environments and monsters are the game's best visual showcase, the characters slightly less so (they animate well, but they're all built like meat-heads). The couple of guns I had access to in the game's opening forty-five minutes were also incredibly satisfying to use, leading me to assume that the game's gunplay will at least be enjoyable. On the other hand, though, the entire thing smacks unashamedly of lazy sci-fi cliché, from the featureless steel corridors of its near-future Mars setting to the experiment-gone-awry premise. These things aren't necessarily bad things in their own right, but they seem at odds with the much more ambitious visual presentation of the game. I also found it difficult to get past the game feeling more like a horror title than the run-and-gun slaughter-fest I've come to associate with the DOOM name since playing the original in late 2012. I could see myself coming back to DOOM 3 in the future and playing through the whole campaign, but it certainly isn't a high priority for me.

Far Cry

I'm one of those weirdos who holds up Far Cry 2 as one of their favourite games of the last ten years. I know it was a deeply flawed game, but those flaws seemed insignificant to me when stacked up against the emergent nature of the combat and the impact of the buddy mechanic. I thought it would therefore stand to reason that I'd love the original Far Cry too, but the half-hour I spent with it today was pretty conflicting for me. Fundamentally the combat is the same, with the emphasis placed on using the natural cover of the environment and offering multiple ways to approach each combat scenario, but it lacks the ebb and flow of Far Cry 2's gunplay. The environments are gorgeous and the guns feel good to shoot, but the combat itself seems to be lacking something I can't quite put my finger on. Also, the voice acting is fucking terrible, and I can't work out whether it's in a deliberate, B-movie-ish kind of way or just a straight-up awful kind of way. Hopefully a little more time and perseverance will endear the original Far Cry to me a little more, but I'm not in any major hurry to find out.

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD

To date, Stranger's Wrath is the only Oddworld game I haven't yet finished. Having spent almost an hour with it earlier today, that's a fact I'm starting to feel ashamed of. In terms of its story, characters and presentation, it's a noticeably different beast from its puzzle-platforming predecessors, but there's still something quintessentially and comfortingly "Oddworld" about it all. Gameplay-wise it's part third-person platformer, part first-person shooter, with the latter being distinguished and defined by its unique 'live ammo' concept which brings an unexpected level of strategy to proceedings both in and out of combat. I had a lot of fun experimenting with the different kinds of ammo and their various effects, laying traps for unwitting outlaws and watching them unfold before bagging their bounty. Between its intriguing protagonist, mesmerising world and unique amalgamation of its various gameplay elements, Stranger's Wrath is a game I want to see more of, as soon as possible.

Red Faction II

I bought Red Faction II for pennies a little while back, an impulse purchase dictated solely by a lingering love and respect for the original Red Faction which I played years ago on the PlayStation 2. That game blew my teenage mind with its arsenal of crazy weaponry and literally earth-shattering GeoMod technology. Having now sunk some time into the first couple of levels of this sequel, I'm not sure whether I'm holding the first Red Faction in higher regard than it deserves, or if this is just a wholly disappointing follow-up (probably a bit of both, if we're being honest). It doesn't look great, the GeoMod stuff doesn't seem as well-implemented, and the shooting feels really underwhelming, especially hot on the heels of time spent with DOOM 3 and Far Cry. I think I can comforably put Red Faction II on my pile of games to ignore, and take solace in the fact that I didn't pay any more than a couple of quid for it.

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There you have it - another four games trialled and tested in this second instalment of Letting Off Some Steam. Out of these four I'm pretty sure it's Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath that'll be promoted to March's Gaming Agenda, with Far Cry and DOOM 3 taking up residence on the 'I'll Get Around To It Eventually' pile. Red Faction II is, sadly, very unlikely to ever be played at all.

I've literally just noticed, while checking back on last month's Letting Off Some Steam to make sure my formatting is consistent, that this is my three-hundredth blog post on Giant Bomb. Being as next weekend is my dedicated week for an opinion piece, I may try to find some special way to commemorate the milestone then. Until then, I'd like to say thanks for reading, take care, and I'll see you around.

Dan

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Currently playing - Final Fantasy VIII (PS3)