Weekly Roundup 02/12/2012

Rise of the Martian Bear isn't just "more" Iron Brigade, it's also "better" Iron Brigade.

This was a week of two halves. The first half was primarily spent playing Iron Brigade, wrapping up its Rise of the Martian Bear DLC. Honestly, I think I had even more fun with Iron Brigade this week than I did when I first played it. Some of that is because I was playing with four people this time instead of two, but I think a bigger reason is that Rise of the Martian Bear adds just enough extra depth and variables to the core game to make it substantially more engaging. It doubles the level cap, adds new weapons, turrets and new enemy types. That’s nothing super novel on its own, but when you combine it all together with the way the game’s core mechanics work, it increases the complexity by a good amount. It didn’t necessarily make a noticeable difference in the pretty mundane new campaign levels, but the new survival maps are a different story; this is where Rise of the Martian Bear really shines.

Iron Brigade was great already, but it reaches its full potential in the two new survival maps that Rise of the Martian Bear adds (Swamp and Settlement). All the campaign levels (from both the core game and the DLC alike) are certainly fun, but most of them tend to focus on one or two things. Survival mode brings everything together and ramps it all up to 11. The final map in particular (Settlement) is just crazy. You have three points to protect, which is a rarity already, and they’re spread just far enough apart that you can’t get away with just hunkering down at a single spot. Throw in all the combinations of enemy types that they throw at you, and the patterns that they can come in at, and it ends up being very exciting. It’s perhaps the only map that fully rewards stellar teamwork, and all told was my favorite part of the game as a result. If you haven’t played Iron Brigade, and have a group of friends who could join you, I highly recommend it.

Really not digging the overall narrative in Reckoning.

After we did everything we wanted to do in Iron Brigade, it was on to Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning for me. I had been looking forward to this game for quite a while, albeit with muted expectations. I knew there were big names and big money behind it, but I had yet to see anything suggesting it was all coming together perfectly. Now that I’ve sunk a good dozen or more hours into the game, I don’t think it does, but it isn’t a total mess either. Some things work well, and some things don’t. Perhaps the main thing that I’m not enjoying is the narrative, which is surprising given R.A. Salvatore’s role in all of this. Then again, he probably just laid down the basic framework; I bet the teams at Big Huge Games and/or 38 Studios filled in most of the details for Reckoning in particular. Anyway, it’s all pretty mundane to me; I have yet to run across a relatable character that I care about or even a quest with an interesting arc. It feels like a pretty straightforward fantasy world so far, which is a little dissapointing.

Most egregious is that it has spent a lot of time thus far talking without actually saying much. It’s all fluff and filler, as if the writers are constantly screaming “Look at our world and all the lore we put into it!” without actually giving me a reason to care. I personally prefer games that spend less time chatting at you, yet still manage to convey a lot of interesting information, which is the opposite of what Reckoning does. I end up skipping almost all of the dialogue as a result, which makes the game much better for me. It didn’t take long to realize that Reckoning’s big focus is its combat, which is fortunately both the most enjoyable part of the game, as well as what you spend the most time doing (unless you’re one of the crazies that has to read everything). I can fuss about the narrative not being something I’m into, but if the gameplay is good I ultimately won’t care that much, and Reckoning’s gameplay is just fine.

Combat is fast, furious, and satisfying.

It’s not as good as, say, Ninja Gaiden or God of War (which are clear inspirations), but Reckoning’s combat evokes a similar action heavy vibe. The weapons aren’t quite as nuanced, there aren’t quite as many moves and combos, the controls aren’t quite as responsive, the enemies aren’t quite as varied, and so on. But it does reward a similar level of precision, reflexes, and overall technical execution. A lot western style RPGs put so much emphasis on your character build that once you’ve successfully created a well designed character combat becomes kind of incidental; victory in battle is more or less determined well before the fight even starts. It’s almost like the idea of your character is more exciting than actually playing your character. Reckoning, on the other hand, puts just enough emphasis on raw skill that you can still win fights you shouldn’t win and lose fights you shouldn’t lose. It could certainly do it better, but it’s a welcome alternative to combat in western style RPGs, which is often my least favorite part of the genre.

Reckoning is still a RPG at it’s heart though, which means there is a lot of character customization, a lot of quests, and a lot of “phat lewts”. I’ll be playing it a lot more this week, and will have more to say on it after spending some more time with it; these are just my initial impressions. Anyway, that’s all for now, until next time!

Currently playing: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning