Recently in Games Category
Left4Dead, Valve's latest release, came out a few weeks ago, and while it's been on my list of things to get, I wasn't ready to pick it up yet, mostly because I was still messing with Fallout 3. However, the wonderful Deidei bought it for me off Steam a couple weeks ago for Christmas (thank you, Deidei!). I didn't get it installed until last week, since I didn't have the hard drive space for it. For the last few days I've been playing the hell out of it, and it is a heck of a lot of fun.
You've probably heard the basic premise of the game -- you are one of four survivors of the zombocalypse, and you need to fight through a series of levels in one of four scenarios, until finally you are rescued. Opposing you is a horde of more mundane zombies, as well as special types -- the Boomer, which can cause you to be mobbed by the normal zombies, the Smoker, which can lasso you with a ludicrously long tongue and pull you away from your friends, the Hunter, which pounces on you and tries to claw your intestines out, the monstrously huge Tank, and the Witch, which is completely harmless, until you wake her.
The game is made intentionally to evoke the feeling of a classic zombie movie, ala Night of the Living Dead, albeit with the more currently in vogue 28 Days Later-esque "fast zombies" (which, as we all know from The Zombie Survival Guide, are a complete Hollywood fabrication). They do this in a variety of ways -- each scenario's loading screen is a movie poster, listing the players "as" the character of the game (ie, "[RPGnet]BlackIsis as Zoey"), and during the game the characters exchange quips (like the one in the title of this article).
The best part, however, is how the game uses its mechanics, such as the "AI Director," which controls the zombies and the distribution of weapons, ammunition, and first aid items, as well as the various arenas that tend to host the main battles (especially in the showdowns right before your rescue) to force the players to work together cooperatively. The special undead are geared towards this -- the Hunter and Smoker especially, which immobilize one of the group and require someone else to rescue them. Unlike a lot of other FPSes, you're really forced to work together, or you won't succeed. Unlike, say, Day of Defeat, or even Team Fortress 2, your team cannot succeed with just one or two really good people.
While the AI Director does make every play through somewhat different, it isn't completely unpredictable -- Tanks, especially, tend to show up in the same general places, and there's a few places in every scenario where obstacles are set up that force you to alert the thronging masses of zombified humanity. While I am pretty happy with the experience so far, despite the fact that it tends to be fairly repetitive, it would be nice to see some new maps or a little more variation in the levels -- like Half-Life, there does tend to really only be one way to go through each level, so you'll get to know the maps pretty quickly. I'm really getting a little tired of the No Mercy scenario, for instance, which seems to be the default map everyone plays online.
Speaking of the online play, the game seems pretty good about adding players into a game in the middle, and dealing with people who drop out. This is extremely important in Left4Dead, where cooperation is key and being a man down can seriously screw over your team. While the bots that take over if a player drops out or goes idle are not as good as a real player, they aren't too bad. And when a character dies, they can rejoin the game within a short while (a couple minutes usually, not the 20 seconds of a TF2 game) by being rescued from a closet.
Versus mode I haven't played with as much; in this mode, two teams of up to four players switch off between being Survivors and Infected, and play through the stages of one of the scenarios, trying to do better at each one than the other team. The Infected players spawn as one of the special undead (with the exception of the Witch), and can decide where they appear in the level, as long as it is out of sight of the Survivors. They can also climb up a few things that the Survivors can't, like drainpipes and such, which gives them more avenues of attack. Actually, as Infected, it felt very much like Natural Selection, the old Aliens-esque Half-Life mod (albeit with far fewer players).
The game does fall a little short in some areas; while gunning down heaps of undead has a certain appeal, the fact that you blaze through scores of zombies in some places (especially the final showdowns) feels a little...lacking, in a way, especially since a common tactic in those types of fights is to hole up in a closet with two people crouching in front, constantly doing melee attacks, while the people behind blaze away and keep the special undead away, which tends to feel considerably less epic than what Valve is probably aiming for. I sort of wish the mechanics here worked a little differently, to encourage people not to hide in the tiniest space possible; part of the problem, I think, is that unlike the rest of the game, where you're trying to make progress forward, you're just holing up and waiting for ten or fifteen minutes.
The game is definitely a lot of fun; if Valve does as good a job as they've done with Team Fortress 2 lately of adding maps and new fiddly bits to the game, it can really rise to the level of a great game. As it is, I don't know if I agree with people trumpeting it as Game of the Year; it has some tough competition, and I think it's a little too early to know if it has the legs to stay fun for the long haul. However, I certainly recommend it, and I'm looking forward to playing it with people other than random strangers, since I know there's a couple other friends of mine who will be picking it up later.
You've probably heard the basic premise of the game -- you are one of four survivors of the zombocalypse, and you need to fight through a series of levels in one of four scenarios, until finally you are rescued. Opposing you is a horde of more mundane zombies, as well as special types -- the Boomer, which can cause you to be mobbed by the normal zombies, the Smoker, which can lasso you with a ludicrously long tongue and pull you away from your friends, the Hunter, which pounces on you and tries to claw your intestines out, the monstrously huge Tank, and the Witch, which is completely harmless, until you wake her.
The game is made intentionally to evoke the feeling of a classic zombie movie, ala Night of the Living Dead, albeit with the more currently in vogue 28 Days Later-esque "fast zombies" (which, as we all know from The Zombie Survival Guide, are a complete Hollywood fabrication). They do this in a variety of ways -- each scenario's loading screen is a movie poster, listing the players "as" the character of the game (ie, "[RPGnet]BlackIsis as Zoey"), and during the game the characters exchange quips (like the one in the title of this article).
The best part, however, is how the game uses its mechanics, such as the "AI Director," which controls the zombies and the distribution of weapons, ammunition, and first aid items, as well as the various arenas that tend to host the main battles (especially in the showdowns right before your rescue) to force the players to work together cooperatively. The special undead are geared towards this -- the Hunter and Smoker especially, which immobilize one of the group and require someone else to rescue them. Unlike a lot of other FPSes, you're really forced to work together, or you won't succeed. Unlike, say, Day of Defeat, or even Team Fortress 2, your team cannot succeed with just one or two really good people.
While the AI Director does make every play through somewhat different, it isn't completely unpredictable -- Tanks, especially, tend to show up in the same general places, and there's a few places in every scenario where obstacles are set up that force you to alert the thronging masses of zombified humanity. While I am pretty happy with the experience so far, despite the fact that it tends to be fairly repetitive, it would be nice to see some new maps or a little more variation in the levels -- like Half-Life, there does tend to really only be one way to go through each level, so you'll get to know the maps pretty quickly. I'm really getting a little tired of the No Mercy scenario, for instance, which seems to be the default map everyone plays online.
Speaking of the online play, the game seems pretty good about adding players into a game in the middle, and dealing with people who drop out. This is extremely important in Left4Dead, where cooperation is key and being a man down can seriously screw over your team. While the bots that take over if a player drops out or goes idle are not as good as a real player, they aren't too bad. And when a character dies, they can rejoin the game within a short while (a couple minutes usually, not the 20 seconds of a TF2 game) by being rescued from a closet.
Versus mode I haven't played with as much; in this mode, two teams of up to four players switch off between being Survivors and Infected, and play through the stages of one of the scenarios, trying to do better at each one than the other team. The Infected players spawn as one of the special undead (with the exception of the Witch), and can decide where they appear in the level, as long as it is out of sight of the Survivors. They can also climb up a few things that the Survivors can't, like drainpipes and such, which gives them more avenues of attack. Actually, as Infected, it felt very much like Natural Selection, the old Aliens-esque Half-Life mod (albeit with far fewer players).
The game does fall a little short in some areas; while gunning down heaps of undead has a certain appeal, the fact that you blaze through scores of zombies in some places (especially the final showdowns) feels a little...lacking, in a way, especially since a common tactic in those types of fights is to hole up in a closet with two people crouching in front, constantly doing melee attacks, while the people behind blaze away and keep the special undead away, which tends to feel considerably less epic than what Valve is probably aiming for. I sort of wish the mechanics here worked a little differently, to encourage people not to hide in the tiniest space possible; part of the problem, I think, is that unlike the rest of the game, where you're trying to make progress forward, you're just holing up and waiting for ten or fifteen minutes.
The game is definitely a lot of fun; if Valve does as good a job as they've done with Team Fortress 2 lately of adding maps and new fiddly bits to the game, it can really rise to the level of a great game. As it is, I don't know if I agree with people trumpeting it as Game of the Year; it has some tough competition, and I think it's a little too early to know if it has the legs to stay fun for the long haul. However, I certainly recommend it, and I'm looking forward to playing it with people other than random strangers, since I know there's a couple other friends of mine who will be picking it up later.
The first time I went to GenCon, back in 2003, I went to a presentation by a game designer from Interplay who talked about how to break into the game design industry and what he did; during the question and answer period, he was bombarded by questions about Van Buren, the not-so-secret codename for Fallout 3 in development at the time. He couldn't talk much about it (even though you could tell he sort of wanted to), but it was easy to see the enthusiasm in the room.
Not long after, Interplay abandoned development of Van Buren and sold the rights to Bethesda. For a lot of people, including me, this was followed by a sense of dread; Bethesda's games, to that point, had a reputation for being very wide open, but pretty shallow in many parts. Now they were taking over what was one of the most beloved franchises in computer RPGs, something with a reputation not only for having a huge world, but one with an incredible amount of depth. Trying to fill the late, lamented Black Isle's shoes would have been a tough job for anyone, but Bethesda's games had been very different -- first-person instead of isometric, focused on world-building instead of depth of writing.
Still, as the years wore on, things began to leak out that gave me some hope -- the first panoramas of the crumbling Capitol Building and the aircraft carrier that is Rivet City, the first trailers, Prepare For The Future, and other bits that made me think "hey...these guys might just get it." I allowed myself to be cautiously optimistic. I wanted to see what they finally made.
The game came out shortly before I left for Iceland, and so I had to sit through my brother and friends talking about it on IRC while I was busy elsewhere. Knowing that the game was sitting on my kitchen table did not help relieve the anticipation. When I finally got home, I didn't waste any time installing the game and jumping into it. And for the last two weeks, I have poured dozens of hours into the game. In short, the game is nearly everything I had hoped it would be. It is not perfect, and the ending falls incredibly flat, but up until that last minute or two, the game fires on all cylinders and it is just that good. I'm going to take a look at the nonspoiler pros and cons here; I will put spoilers for the plotline behind the cut, so if you want to be surprised by some of the story's twists and turns, just read this front part.
What stands out as good?
For all its flaws, Fallout 3 is probably one of the best games I have played this year -- it is an impressive feat of world-building and its plot, while it may not be the best ever, is strong enough to carry the weight of the expectations that have been placed on this title. You will feel like you have been dropped in a post-apocalyptic wasteland when you play and leave the real world behind -- it's one of those titles where you will look up at the clock and wonder where the time went. And really, that is all you can ask for from a game like this. Just do yourself a favor and don't rush through the main plot; take your time and explore, as the game is meant to be played; once you enter Vault 87, you sort of hit the point of no return -- so keep that in mind.
My spoiler-inclusive review of the plot is behind the cut, so if you want to know more about that, keep reading.
Not long after, Interplay abandoned development of Van Buren and sold the rights to Bethesda. For a lot of people, including me, this was followed by a sense of dread; Bethesda's games, to that point, had a reputation for being very wide open, but pretty shallow in many parts. Now they were taking over what was one of the most beloved franchises in computer RPGs, something with a reputation not only for having a huge world, but one with an incredible amount of depth. Trying to fill the late, lamented Black Isle's shoes would have been a tough job for anyone, but Bethesda's games had been very different -- first-person instead of isometric, focused on world-building instead of depth of writing.
Still, as the years wore on, things began to leak out that gave me some hope -- the first panoramas of the crumbling Capitol Building and the aircraft carrier that is Rivet City, the first trailers, Prepare For The Future, and other bits that made me think "hey...these guys might just get it." I allowed myself to be cautiously optimistic. I wanted to see what they finally made.
The game came out shortly before I left for Iceland, and so I had to sit through my brother and friends talking about it on IRC while I was busy elsewhere. Knowing that the game was sitting on my kitchen table did not help relieve the anticipation. When I finally got home, I didn't waste any time installing the game and jumping into it. And for the last two weeks, I have poured dozens of hours into the game. In short, the game is nearly everything I had hoped it would be. It is not perfect, and the ending falls incredibly flat, but up until that last minute or two, the game fires on all cylinders and it is just that good. I'm going to take a look at the nonspoiler pros and cons here; I will put spoilers for the plotline behind the cut, so if you want to be surprised by some of the story's twists and turns, just read this front part.
What stands out as good?
- Character creation. Character creation is done in a way that is a bit like an evolved version of the questionaire you fill out in Jagged Alliance 2 -- in other words, it's integrated into the actual tutorial and gameplay. You start out designing how you look, as a "DNA projection," and then move on through time to being an infant, where you pick your attributes, then you have your 10th birthday party where you get your Pip-Boy, then your 16th birthday, where you take a very JA2-like test to determine your tag skills. During each of these stages, you also interact with the other inhabitants of Vault 101, and the way in which you do so can impact events much further into the game. Then the game fast forwards to when you are 19, and the game really begins. However, just before you leave the Vault, you have the option to go back and change everything but your appearance, just in case you changed your mind about something. The game also autosaves at this point, so if you want to start over, you don't have to go through the entire character creation process (unless you want handle some of the stuff in Vault 101 differently).
- The art direction. Fallout 3 feels like a Fallout game. The Capital Wasteland feels like a barren wasteland. Yes, it's mostly brown and dirty colors, but that's how Fallout has been from the start. Irradiated craters are scattered about the wastes, and crumbling buildings (including a battered Washington Monument) are everywhere, many with the retrofuturistic art deco style that is a hallmark of the Fallout franchise. The ads you run into in the game, for everything from Nuka-Cola, to Vault-Tec, to Captain Cosmos serials, evoke that style perfectly as well. And Washington DC locations, while they might not be placed quite right (the world is somewhat compressed), for the most part look like their real-life analogues, down to the ceiling tiles in the Metro stations. It's not really a surprise, I suppose, when you remember that Bethesda is based, well, in Bethesda, so most of these locations aren't more than 20-30 miles away from their offices -- but it is still good to see.
- The music and sound design. The ambient music for the game is very similar to the music used in the earlier Fallout games (a bit less guitar than in Fallout 2, though), and the noises for the monsters and other inhabitants of the wastes are good as well (the ant noise is particularly memorable, for some reason), when you can hear them (a bit more on that later). The in-game radio stations, including the two "big" stations, Enclave Radio and Galaxy News Radio, and the various other beacons and minor stations, are well-done and era-appropriate (GNR, for instance, includes a variety of 40s and 50s tunes, such as The Ink Spots). The only complaint I can register about them is that they do get a bit repetitive after a while -- even the "news" that GNR talks about, which gives you feedback on how your reputation is going and plot hooks, repeats a bit much after you've been playing the game for hours and hours (but it hardly seems fair to criticize them for not providing dozens of hours of radio content).
- World-building. Fallout 3's Capital Wasteland feels like a living, breathing world. It's not just the art and sound design, but the open form of the game world that makes this a strength. In the previous Fallout games, the world was subdivided into zones; you traveled between them using a separate interface, and if you ran into something along the way, it was basically a random chance and spawned a special randomly-selected "zone" that was basically there for a one-time event (with a few exceptions, where the event would remain there in the game world). In Fallout 3, the whole game world is continuous, so there's much less of a feeling that everything is on hold until you arrived there. People come and go during the day and night, and you can watch them through their daily routine. Trade caravans move between towns on routes that you can wait on and have them run into you (or follow, if you'd like). People have their own (albeit short and generally shallow) conversations that you can overhear when you're near. When you run across a super mutant fighting a radscorpion, it doesn't feel like a randomly generated encounter -- it feels like you happened to run into two independent entities that also chanced into each other. There are tons of little scenes that tell a story, even though it's just a collection of objects. A wrecked Nuka-Cola truck, overturned outside a town. A long-abandoned relief camp outside a decrepit police station. A bathtub with a skeleton and a toaster. Each one tells you something about what once happened, even if there's no written record (and when you do find written records, it's often heartbreaking to read). They all feel unique, for the most part -- it doesn't feel like someone said "okay, we have to put something here -- let's spin the wheel and throw down a random shack." It's very well done, and gives you tons of stuff to explore that has absolutely nothing to do with the main storyline.
- VATS. When I found out Fallout 3 was going to be first-person, I was very apprehensive. My previous foray into first-person RPGs (Deus Ex) succeeded in frustrating me immensely because it felt like the RPG skills element was making me much worse at the shooter elements than I was used to. Fallout 3 strikes a much better balance; in non-VATS mode, I don't feel completely ineffective, and my FPS skills seem to translate fairly well, while in VATS mode, my characters skills are an advantage, rather than a detriment. I never felt like I'd be better off not using VATS. The things it lets you do -- snipe, destroy weapons, cripple limbs -- are very cool to watch yourself pull off (blowing the grenade up in someone's hand is especially fun). It's a perfect way to integrate the original Fallout aimed shot system into shooter-style combat.
- Set pieces. There are a few action sequences (not cinematics) that I really liked. I'll give more info in the spoiler section of the review, but there are two sequences (probably largely scripted, I'm sure) where you really feel like you're in an epic action movie.
- Kitbashed items. The weapons that you can build in the game, like the Rock-It Launcher and Railway Rifle, are pretty cool contraptions that are a lot of fun to make and use. Assembling them out of the junk you find on the road seems very fitting for a post-apocalyptic game where people are just scraping by, and I hope that in the upcoming downloadable content they add more things you can build to the game.
- Well, by far the most disappointing part is the ending -- even more than the ending of KotOR2, it feels like it was tacked on and railroady in the extreme. It's only the last two minutes of the game at most, and the sequence up until that point is hilariously awesome -- but the end of the game makes it very hard to really feel happy with how things turned out. You also don't get the ability, as in previous Fallout games, to keep playing and further explore the world, and the hallmark of the Fallout ending sequence, Ron Perlman's voiceovers telling you what happened in the various locales of the game, is only there in a vague and somewhat unsatisfying form. However, the fact that there is downloadable content being released which apparently continues the story makes me wonder if that is going to be changed. We'll see, I guess. The ending also comes up very quickly; I finished the game without really realizing I was that close. Vault 87 marks the beginning of the end, and you don't get much of a chance to deviate from the main plot after that point.
- The game seems to need some work in balancing the pace of advancement. The level cap is easily attainable well before getting close to the end, assuming you do even the smallest bit of exploring. It seems like it would have been better to adjust this so that you don't hit the level cap unless you do more exploring; that would encourage people to have a look around the world a little more, instead of going headlong down the main quest and missing most of the rich world that they've developed, like some people seem to have done (and then complained about how short the game is).
- If you're playing a good karma character, it's rather difficult to get a companion until quite late in the game. There's one character you can get towards the middle (at a hefty price), but after that there's no way to get one until the last third of the game. This is in contrast to evil characters, who can pick up an ally in the very first town you visit. It'd be nice if there was a bit more parity -- after all, in the first two games it was fairly easy to pick up a friend early on, and it's very nice to have one watching your back, though at times they can run off to engage an enemy upstairs or somewhere "close" but not easily accessible. This can result in them being trapped and killed while you hunt frantically for them.
- I'm not sure I liked the escalation of equipment in the game. In Fallout 1 and 2, you had to suffer with your 10mm pistol or a double-barrelled shotgun for a while in the game, and getting better armor took even longer. In Fallout 3, I managed to get a hunting rifle or an assault rifle pretty early on, and didn't have to wait too long to upgrade to combat armor either (thanks to the mercenaries coming after me). It almost seemed a bit too easy, and once you are running into super mutants you rarely have trouble keeping your weapons in good shape. Ammunition can be tight -- assuming you don't do much exploring. Once you find a couple bandit camps or hidden stashes, you won't have too much trouble finding ammo for small guns (assuming you have a couple different kinds on hand, just in case). I would have liked to feel like I was in trouble a bit more, stuck with pistols and sawed-off shotguns instead of assault rifles and combat shotguns.
- Some of the quests can get a little bugged if you do them out of sequence; for instance, early on you are told about Rivet City, which is in the downtown DC area. However, if you go there before completing part of the main quest in the middle, you end up breaking one of the set-pieces, forcing you to fight a super-mutant horde all by yourself, among other things! You can also pick up some quest items before actually getting said quest, and then get dialogue options to ask characters about the quest even before you know to ask them about it, which is a little weird. These are a relatively minor issue, but can be annoying; my advice would be to not delve into downtown DC until the main quest actually sends you somewhere in there, since that is where most of the problematic quests come up. There's plenty to explore outside the city anyway. The worst part about this problem is that you can end up missing out on a ton of good content without even knowing! I suspect for some people who've played the game and thought it was too short or unfulfilling, this may be their problem.
- Some of the extra dialogue options you get from having high attributes or skills don't seem to make much sense, and while it's nice that you're rewarded for having a high Speech skill in many places, the fact that you can bypass entire parts of the game simply from making a Speech check or having certain perks is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, you can progress along the quest faster -- on the other hand, you're missing out on some pretty fun game content that way. This could use a little work later -- Speech checks should give you an advantage, or a new way to finish the quest (a la the final showdown with The Master in Fallout 1), but I don't know how I feel about it basically cutting out an hour of the game.
- Your situational awareness at times is not the best. While your Perception stat determines how far away enemies (and locations) will pop up on your radar, if they aren't in front of you, you won't see them. Some of creatures don't seem to make any noise until they are right on top of you (notably Yao-Guai, Giant Radscorpions, and Deathclaws, some of the most dangerous creatures in the game). This means that you can be charged from behind and not know it until you're getting battered across the ground by giant paws. At times, I ended up sneaking everywhere, because at least then you get a "[CAUTION]" or "[DANGER]" warning when someone is shooting or coming after you, even if you can't see them. It'd be nice if you could hear the 700 pound mutant bear running through the grass behind you. This is one of the reasons I liked having a companion, because Dogmeat will growl or your other friends will say they hear something when there's hostiles near, giving you a chance to look around.
For all its flaws, Fallout 3 is probably one of the best games I have played this year -- it is an impressive feat of world-building and its plot, while it may not be the best ever, is strong enough to carry the weight of the expectations that have been placed on this title. You will feel like you have been dropped in a post-apocalyptic wasteland when you play and leave the real world behind -- it's one of those titles where you will look up at the clock and wonder where the time went. And really, that is all you can ask for from a game like this. Just do yourself a favor and don't rush through the main plot; take your time and explore, as the game is meant to be played; once you enter Vault 87, you sort of hit the point of no return -- so keep that in mind.
My spoiler-inclusive review of the plot is behind the cut, so if you want to know more about that, keep reading.
Continue reading Fallout 3, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Wasteland.
Wednesday marked the release of the new game from the Penny Arcade folks, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. Tycho and Gabe have been talking about the game in the Penny Arcade news posts for quite a while now, and I have to admit I've only been marginally interested. While I am a big Penny Arcade fan from a considerable while back, from the way they were talking about it it sounded like the game was going to be very much oriented towards the console crowd. I have been very wary of console games, and aside from social games like Guitar Hero, few of the games that are geared towards consoles have much in the way of appeal to me. Console-style RPGs have especially always struck me as very weak compared to more traditional computer RPGs (Knights of the Old Republic notwithstanding).
However, one of the things Penny Arcade has in spades over most webcomics is Tycho's sublime writing. Granted, the comics can be a bit...well, juvenile at times, but behind the dick jokes, it's obvious that there's some real thought being put into it. And, to be perfectly honest, I'm a sucker for good writing in a game. So, Thursday, I downloaded the demo of the first episode from Greenhouse, and played it through. I wasn't sure about it at first; the combat mechanics are very similar to Japanese console RPGs, and at the beginning, it seemed a bit overstuffed with the crate syndrome, both of which are warning signs to me. However, the writing was pretty much what I expected, and the plot was intriguing enough to pull me in. I bought the full game that night and ended up playing until 0100, which was considerably later than I really wanted to.
Needless to say, I thought the game was pretty good, though I do think it was a little short; it took me about six or seven hours to play through from start to finish, which is a bit short of what I expected for $20. The art style is very cool; it reminds me a lot of a cross between Psychonauts (which is awesome) and the Curse of Monkey Island (also awesome), with of course a heavy amount of Penny Arcade thrown in. Combat is a bit difficult to get the hang of at first, at least if, like me, you haven't played a lot of console RPGs, and the difficulty takes a considerable jump upwards after the tutorial section, which you may not be prepared for. However, you never get totally screwed for losing a fight, so if it takes a few tries to get the hang of it, don't worry too much.
The basic game consists of you solving "cases" with the Startling Developments Detective Agency, which is to say Tycho and Gabe, in a sort of steampunk/pulp/Lovecraftian setting, of course with the requisite Penny Arcade bizarreness mixed in (the two main plots involve a giant Fruit Fucker terrorizing the city and a diabolical cult of mimes). You, along with Tycho and Gabe, handle a bunch of these cases (or quests, if you prefer), some related to the main plots and some not, while fighting a variety of enemies, including anthropomorphic trash cans, villainous barbershop quartets, and hobos, and receiving help from some familiar characters. On the surface, these aren't really that much more than the usual "kill X numbers of bad guys" or "bring me the MacGuffin" style chores that have been the hallmark of RPGs since time immemorial, and there's not usually that much nuance to what you have to do (part of its console-style heritage, I suspect). However, as always, the devil is in the details, and Tycho's writing perfectly translates the Penny Arcade-style humor to what these quests are and how you go about them, putting the writing on a level near Psychonauts, though I will admit it is not nearly as family-friendly. If you don't want your kids reading Penny Arcade, don't let them play this game either.
If you like Penny Arcade, and you're reasonably okay with console RPGs, this game is definitely worth picking up, assuming you can accept the relatively few number of gameplay hours for the price. Unlike Portal, which was similarly short in length, it doesn't have a whole lot of replay value that I can see, unless there some subquests you missed on your first play-through. There's not a lot of different ways to solve the puzzles, and your character building is purely cosmetic (and at least for the female characters, pretty limited), so once you play through it once there's not a lot more to it. If you're kind of iffy on the price, I suspect once the rest of the episodes come out, the whole package will be offered for a lower price ($40 for 3 episodes, or something similar), at which point you might feel better about it.
However, one of the things Penny Arcade has in spades over most webcomics is Tycho's sublime writing. Granted, the comics can be a bit...well, juvenile at times, but behind the dick jokes, it's obvious that there's some real thought being put into it. And, to be perfectly honest, I'm a sucker for good writing in a game. So, Thursday, I downloaded the demo of the first episode from Greenhouse, and played it through. I wasn't sure about it at first; the combat mechanics are very similar to Japanese console RPGs, and at the beginning, it seemed a bit overstuffed with the crate syndrome, both of which are warning signs to me. However, the writing was pretty much what I expected, and the plot was intriguing enough to pull me in. I bought the full game that night and ended up playing until 0100, which was considerably later than I really wanted to.
Needless to say, I thought the game was pretty good, though I do think it was a little short; it took me about six or seven hours to play through from start to finish, which is a bit short of what I expected for $20. The art style is very cool; it reminds me a lot of a cross between Psychonauts (which is awesome) and the Curse of Monkey Island (also awesome), with of course a heavy amount of Penny Arcade thrown in. Combat is a bit difficult to get the hang of at first, at least if, like me, you haven't played a lot of console RPGs, and the difficulty takes a considerable jump upwards after the tutorial section, which you may not be prepared for. However, you never get totally screwed for losing a fight, so if it takes a few tries to get the hang of it, don't worry too much.
The basic game consists of you solving "cases" with the Startling Developments Detective Agency, which is to say Tycho and Gabe, in a sort of steampunk/pulp/Lovecraftian setting, of course with the requisite Penny Arcade bizarreness mixed in (the two main plots involve a giant Fruit Fucker terrorizing the city and a diabolical cult of mimes). You, along with Tycho and Gabe, handle a bunch of these cases (or quests, if you prefer), some related to the main plots and some not, while fighting a variety of enemies, including anthropomorphic trash cans, villainous barbershop quartets, and hobos, and receiving help from some familiar characters. On the surface, these aren't really that much more than the usual "kill X numbers of bad guys" or "bring me the MacGuffin" style chores that have been the hallmark of RPGs since time immemorial, and there's not usually that much nuance to what you have to do (part of its console-style heritage, I suspect). However, as always, the devil is in the details, and Tycho's writing perfectly translates the Penny Arcade-style humor to what these quests are and how you go about them, putting the writing on a level near Psychonauts, though I will admit it is not nearly as family-friendly. If you don't want your kids reading Penny Arcade, don't let them play this game either.
If you like Penny Arcade, and you're reasonably okay with console RPGs, this game is definitely worth picking up, assuming you can accept the relatively few number of gameplay hours for the price. Unlike Portal, which was similarly short in length, it doesn't have a whole lot of replay value that I can see, unless there some subquests you missed on your first play-through. There's not a lot of different ways to solve the puzzles, and your character building is purely cosmetic (and at least for the female characters, pretty limited), so once you play through it once there's not a lot more to it. If you're kind of iffy on the price, I suspect once the rest of the episodes come out, the whole package will be offered for a lower price ($40 for 3 episodes, or something similar), at which point you might feel better about it.
One of my presents for my brother this year was World in Conflict, a real-time strategy game about an alternate history where World War III is taking place in 1989, and the Soviets invade the United States. A few people have mentioned it on RPGnet as a good comparison piece to the Company of Heroes games, so I was curious to see what it was like after I gave it to him. Seeing him playing it on Christmas Day made me curious enough to check it out, and the demo was pretty good, so I bought the game last week. The Cold War-style technothriller was one of my favorite genres when I was in high school, with the Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising being some of my favorite books at the time, so there was some definite appeal here.
I think my favorite part of World in Conflict has been the storyline (by Larry Bond, co-author of Red Storm Rising) for the game, which is surprisingly compelling for a genre where the story often takes a back seat to the gameplay (though there have been notable exceptions, such as the excellent Homeworld series and Starcraft). Though the single player campaign is relatively short (14 missions), each mission unfolds in such a way that you become invested in the characters in the game and their plight, and there are a few places in the plot where I was somewhat shocked to feel some serious empathy for the three main characters (aside from "yourself"). Alec Baldwin's narration is excellent as well. Most of them were surprisingly layered, and the cutscenes between the missions that showed "slice of life" scenes among the resisting US forces in the Pacific Northwest were good as well; perhaps the most amusing had one soldier showing off his brand new portable CD player to an amazed fellow soldier.
Elements like that last one go a long way toward creating a feeling of verisimilitude. In the same vein, the first mission, with the Russian attack on Seattle and US forces fleeing the amphibious assault, has one plot point which focuses on evacuating civilians from the Kingdome (demolished in 2000 in reality), and a mission that takes place in New York City shows the two towers of the World Trade Center on the horizon. When you return to Soviet-occupied Seattle later, giant propaganda billboards are posted everywhere encouraging people to reject their capitalist oppressors (reminicent of pretty much every Cold War WW3 imagining, such as Red Dawn). While I can't speak to the accuracy of the Seattle maps in regard to 1989 Seattle, I have to admit that the area around the Space Needle didn't seem to match what I remembered from my visit there (but I imagine a lot changed in 16 years).
As far as gameplay goes, the game revolves around control of capture points, which are generally 2-4 areas that must be held at the same time to control some sort of landmark, such as a bridge, part of town, or building. In the most common multiplayer and skirmish games, the more capture points you control swings the control of the map in your favor, and the longer you hold it, the closer you get to victory (marked by a bar at the top of the screen split between a US/NATO flag and a Soviet flag). Capture points can be fortified by keeping a unit in the point for a period of time, though this leaves it vulnerable to artillery and air strikes.
Capturing capture points and inflicting casualties on enemy forces gets you tactical aid points, which can be used for a variety for special abilities. These range from free units, like airborne commandos or a light tank, to a variety of special purpose attacks, like napalm, antitank strafing runs, or bunker busters, to more general artillery barrages, including a tactical nuke. These can definitely turn the tide of battle (with a well-placed napalm strike wiping out a cluster of infantry holding off an attacking force, or knocking out a bridge) but it seems that they often lead to one side turning a commanding victory into an insurmountable one, which I'm not sure I'm so thrilled about.
The three available sides (US, NATO, and Soviet) are pretty much functionally identical, with the only differences being cosmetic, though there are a few units with differences, such as the heavy artillery. Honestly, this didn't bother me too much; it makes the multiplayer experience, which is the game's strength. In a welcome change from most RTS titles, there is no real base building aside from fortifying capture points and there is no resource gathering; reinforcements are pulled from a pool of points that is gradually replenished as units are lost on the field of battle. Games tend to be faster paced and the domination games tend to be heavily focused on offensive maneuvers, with "turtling" being effectively impossible. The multiplayer game style called assault incorporates a defensive element, with one side trying to hold off the other over a series of capture points, but in my experience an effective defense, when you can't push back and recapture points, is extremely difficult, with the goal of the defending force tending to be more delaying the inevitable than halting the advance.
Overall, I'm having a lot of fun with the game, and going for a random multiplayer game has given me some surprisingly good experiences, even though I've learned I'm not the greatest at the game (surprise, surprise). The interface for requesting help from teammates, the way each player takes a role (infantry, armor, air, or support), and the built in VoIP give a good "carrot" to encourage team play even among people you don't know at all. I'm really looking forward to playing this with some friends; if you've got the game and you're interested, I'm (what else) Black Isis on MassGate.
I think my favorite part of World in Conflict has been the storyline (by Larry Bond, co-author of Red Storm Rising) for the game, which is surprisingly compelling for a genre where the story often takes a back seat to the gameplay (though there have been notable exceptions, such as the excellent Homeworld series and Starcraft). Though the single player campaign is relatively short (14 missions), each mission unfolds in such a way that you become invested in the characters in the game and their plight, and there are a few places in the plot where I was somewhat shocked to feel some serious empathy for the three main characters (aside from "yourself"). Alec Baldwin's narration is excellent as well. Most of them were surprisingly layered, and the cutscenes between the missions that showed "slice of life" scenes among the resisting US forces in the Pacific Northwest were good as well; perhaps the most amusing had one soldier showing off his brand new portable CD player to an amazed fellow soldier.
Elements like that last one go a long way toward creating a feeling of verisimilitude. In the same vein, the first mission, with the Russian attack on Seattle and US forces fleeing the amphibious assault, has one plot point which focuses on evacuating civilians from the Kingdome (demolished in 2000 in reality), and a mission that takes place in New York City shows the two towers of the World Trade Center on the horizon. When you return to Soviet-occupied Seattle later, giant propaganda billboards are posted everywhere encouraging people to reject their capitalist oppressors (reminicent of pretty much every Cold War WW3 imagining, such as Red Dawn). While I can't speak to the accuracy of the Seattle maps in regard to 1989 Seattle, I have to admit that the area around the Space Needle didn't seem to match what I remembered from my visit there (but I imagine a lot changed in 16 years).
As far as gameplay goes, the game revolves around control of capture points, which are generally 2-4 areas that must be held at the same time to control some sort of landmark, such as a bridge, part of town, or building. In the most common multiplayer and skirmish games, the more capture points you control swings the control of the map in your favor, and the longer you hold it, the closer you get to victory (marked by a bar at the top of the screen split between a US/NATO flag and a Soviet flag). Capture points can be fortified by keeping a unit in the point for a period of time, though this leaves it vulnerable to artillery and air strikes.
Capturing capture points and inflicting casualties on enemy forces gets you tactical aid points, which can be used for a variety for special abilities. These range from free units, like airborne commandos or a light tank, to a variety of special purpose attacks, like napalm, antitank strafing runs, or bunker busters, to more general artillery barrages, including a tactical nuke. These can definitely turn the tide of battle (with a well-placed napalm strike wiping out a cluster of infantry holding off an attacking force, or knocking out a bridge) but it seems that they often lead to one side turning a commanding victory into an insurmountable one, which I'm not sure I'm so thrilled about.
The three available sides (US, NATO, and Soviet) are pretty much functionally identical, with the only differences being cosmetic, though there are a few units with differences, such as the heavy artillery. Honestly, this didn't bother me too much; it makes the multiplayer experience, which is the game's strength. In a welcome change from most RTS titles, there is no real base building aside from fortifying capture points and there is no resource gathering; reinforcements are pulled from a pool of points that is gradually replenished as units are lost on the field of battle. Games tend to be faster paced and the domination games tend to be heavily focused on offensive maneuvers, with "turtling" being effectively impossible. The multiplayer game style called assault incorporates a defensive element, with one side trying to hold off the other over a series of capture points, but in my experience an effective defense, when you can't push back and recapture points, is extremely difficult, with the goal of the defending force tending to be more delaying the inevitable than halting the advance.
Overall, I'm having a lot of fun with the game, and going for a random multiplayer game has given me some surprisingly good experiences, even though I've learned I'm not the greatest at the game (surprise, surprise). The interface for requesting help from teammates, the way each player takes a role (infantry, armor, air, or support), and the built in VoIP give a good "carrot" to encourage team play even among people you don't know at all. I'm really looking forward to playing this with some friends; if you've got the game and you're interested, I'm (what else) Black Isis on MassGate.
My brother bought Call of Duty 4 when it come out at the beginning of the month and promptly beat it (the single-player campaign is pretty short), so when I was over at my folks' place for Thanksgiving Thursday I borrowed the game from him to play through it after watching him for a bit. While my taste in first-person shooters usually tends to fall in either the very gritty, realistic shooters like the Red Storm games or very well written story-heavy games like Half-Life, the thing that struck me about watching my brother play Call of Duty was that it was very, very cinematic, and seemed to do a good job of treading the ground between the two. I was intrigued, so I took it home and I've played through the single player campaign in the last couple days. I've put my spoilerific review, as always, behind the cut.
Continue reading "Call of Duty 4 is the best movie I've ever played.".
