Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Sunday, 21 September 2008

Review time is finally here. After three days I've seen everything there is to see.

What did I see? Well, not much really. I completed the game on normal after about 5, 6 hours. And I hardly flew through it either. Various points were challenging and would keep me in the same place for 10 minutes. It was short! Really short! And with no real replay value, or online play that's no good for a game. I never sell my games, but if I did, this would no longer be in my collection.

Not because it's a particularly abysmal game. But because I've no further use for it.

So, to move away fro the time aspect, let's talk abot the good parts.

The game was fun! Essentially this is true. The ability to grab stormtroopers by the throat, fill them full of electricity and then throw them at other troopers to watch them explode is a great idea. The whole force system worked incredibly well, and, for once, there was a Star Wars game that wasn't obssessed with items. There is no way to complete this game without using the Force, using lightning, grab and push techniques in different ways. Having said this, it left a rather sore vacuum where the Lightsaber used to be. The Lightsaber is a favourite weapon and it seems to have been added at the end. The idea seems to be that a nightstick could do as much damage as this Lightsaber. Needless to say, the lightsaber was missed.

The system of levelling up was very effective in some ways. The idea that you get points for performing complicated combos was a good one, as was the idea of getting points by collecting holocrons in tricky to reach places (reminiscent of the Golden Feathers in Banjo Kazooie). Once levelled up you receive points to spend in three areas: Combos, Attributes and Force powers. The Attributes makes you regain health faster etc. and is an overall essential part to such a system. The Force Powers get stronger with every level up (out of three possible points each). The Combos, however, are absolutely bloody pointless. I didn't use half of the ones I bought. To be honest, didn't know how. And didn't need to either. As far as I can work out, combos just look cool, they don't do anymore damage. I'm sure some of them are good, but there are several thousand, and they're just a waste of time.

The storyline was... eh. It was poor. Despite some really good voice acting (surprisingly), as a Star Wars fan, I was disappointed with it, and disappointed that George Lucas had been partly responsible for it. I can't spoil the ending, but it's unbelievable beyond belief, and at least the very last resolution doesn't make the Apprentice some sort of Star Wars God. The Vader aspect of the story was nice though, and links in with his desire to kill the Emperor with Luke. Really happy to hear you'd play a bad guy for once, I was, again disappointed with the fact you very soon turn good. The romance aspect was rushed and surprising. It was just generally poor. And the idea that this Apprentice could drag a Star Destroyer out of the sky when Yoda struggled with an X-Wing is just laughable.

Then the graphics... An improvement on the demo for sure. But still... a lot of movable objects seemed pasted onto a basic background. The graphics on the whole were nice. Some of teh art design was really nice, but a lot of them, such as the force graphics were a little under done, and don't look as impressive as they should. A lot of the background graphics are good, and only occasionally succumb to overcomplicating. But the levels often have glitches in them, and end up with you falling to your death.

So as I mentioned, the Force powers have been slightly overplayed. Well, a lot. I can see why too, for dramatic effect. But if you're a Star Wars fanatic, you'll probably hate the idea that you are effectively walking around godmodding everything in sight. On a site I'm on, the Admin said the Force Unleashed would lead to huge amounts of godmodding noobs. They're probably right.

So.. yeah, a short review. But, my God, this game was short. Way tooooo short. Fun, but short. The Force based idea was a good one, and full of innovation. The gameplay was sometimes painfully glitchy, all too often. But despite all its flaws it was fun! I see this a stepping stone to a new type of Star Wars games, Force-centred, and not so clunky and RPG-ey. Were they to merge this system with a smooth Fable-type combat, and then add a decent and long storyline, this game would be a 9 or 10. As it is, we shall leave it at a 7.5. Which is still more hours than the game lasted.

Labels: 7.5/10, game review, The Force unleashed

Author: random dave | Comments: | Leave Your Response?

Very Long Too Human Review of Ironic Naming Conventions

Thursday, 4 September 2008

Too Human- the game that everybody and nobody wants to play. At once. Paradox? You'd think so, unless you saw the recent turd-flinging contest between developers, media, fans, and random people that was the Too Human release aftermath.

Too Human is indeed a strange beast, a game who's development I've followed for several years now. For those of you who don't have much background (how could you not?), Too Human is developed by Silicon Knights, the much-lauded developers of titles such as Eternal Darkness, MGS: Twin Snakes, and a Legacy of Kain title. It takes place far in the past, as a sci-fi re-imagining of Norse Mythology, offering a unique take on cyclic history and old Scandinavian tales. You play as the god Baldur, a member of the Aesir corporation, a Private Military Company specializing in cybernetic implants. You are charged with defending humanity's last vestiges from the impending robot invasion. Sound generic? Read on.

Let me start off with one of this title's hot subjects: the story. To put it in the simplest terms possible, Too Human's story is phenomenal. That being said, the storytelling and presentation is something you wouldn't expect from a game that was made after the year 2000. Silicon Knights, a development house notorious for its stiff and fairly emotionless animations, decided against Motion Capture use in Too Human. As a result, main characters often fail to convey their feelings adequately, despite generally admirable voice work. Ironically, it's two of the main characters, Baldur and the rambunctious Thor, who's voice talent needs to be changed before the next iteration of Too Human. Overall, cinematics fail to do justice to the writer's epic re-telling, often leaving you yearning for more, scratching at the surface to get at the beauty you can see just under its crust. The game starts to pick up and start getting things right just in the last level, with the last cutscene leaving you going “Why the hell wasn't the rest of this put in one game?”.

In terms of graphics, another catch-22 presents itself. The art style- is entirely magnificent. The large, open environments, gigantic backgrounds and detailed, interesting designs never cease to impress. The graphics themselves are (can you guess what's coming next?) a fairly large let-down. Average by all means, they don't do much other than show you how great things could have been. Polygon count is low, facial definition is spotty and oddly low on polish, although it's an area that you'd expect to see a story-driven game to excel in. Hair is the worst offender, looking flatter than Amy in Soul Calibur 4. Weapons and armor are designed beautifully, with detail and uniqueness enhanced by the color rune upgrades available on the cheap in the Weapon and Armor stores. Some skins can border on ridiculous, and there seems to be a mild case of “WoW Shoulders” going around town; but you can never say that you don't really feel bad-ass. The game does a great job of making you look like god from the beginning, and somehow manages to keep the feeling of awesomeness rising as you level up continually, all the while updating with more ridiculous names every time. Looking at screenshots of the game in '06 while it was still on the Unreal Engine 3 is an exercise in sadness, as you can clearly see much smoother models and what is apparently an actual head of hair for Freya; but I digress.

Gameplay is the real meat of Too Human, and that is where it tends to excel. Many harp the controls for their “unintuitiveness”, their tendency to be “too clunky” and “retarded man, like a button masher but WTF NO BUTTONZ NO WAI”. I have to chalk those complaints up to people who just can't get into something new, however. The controls work beautifully- allowing all the combat action of a button mashing game without the finger fatigue, allowing for long dungeon-crawl-style play sessions without having to get repeated Carpal Tunnel surgery. Targeting and locking on is all handled by the right thumbstick, movement with the left. Once close enough to an enemy, you may hit the attack button and perform a slide, speeding up and hitting the enemy with your godly... hoverskates? Who knows. It just looks cool. As you continue to build a combo count, your speed increases and you begin flying around the map with frightening speed. Shooting is done with the triggers- simply hold one or both down and point the stick in the direction of an enemy. Tap the right stick once (twice for pistols) to adjust targets and shoot multiple enemies. If you happen to have trouble with the guns targeting dead enemies repeatedly, take both fingers off the trigger and manually re-target your intended baddie. It works, but it takes skill. In addition to these main mechanics, you have special attacks. These consist of Ruiners, Spiders, Battle Cries, and Sentient Weapon Abilities. Ruiners are Area of Effect attacks, triggered with the right bumper. They use Combo Meter, the game's equivalent of Mana. You build Combo by battling, forcing a good mixture of combat and special moves that results in a well-rounded experience. Battle Cries are rather self explanatory, they are group skills that apply buffs for as long as they run, and they also require Combo. Spiders are another story. Press Y, and you have a little AI buddy come out and do something, whether it is deploying shields, attaching bombs, or being an amazingly bad-ass support turret. They have limited charge times, and have a long downtime. Sentient Weapons work by deploying a shadow version of Fenrir, your sword, which goes out and literally destroys anything in its path. It's amazingly fun to use.

Now that I've covered the 3 core components, let's discuss replay value. In a game like Too Human, a dungeon crawler with hybrid Action game combat, you'd expect to want to play the crap out of it. Not so. Although the level cap is 50, it is a tedious and rather boring journey to reach it. Completing the game gets you about halfway through, landing at level 26 or 27. The rest of the game is endgame exploring and looting, something that quickly becomes tiresome. The game has 4 large areas, of roughly 1-2 hours each. The second level is an anomaly, often taking more than 3 hours to complete. That would be all fine and dandy if it weren't for the annoying Token system. Collect tokens by playing through sections of the level, with the best boss loot only available if you've gotten every token in the level. Tokens are very annoying to gather, although you can do a section of a level, leave, and come back later still possessing that token, allowing you to break it into bits. The problem is environment variety. Only the Ice Forest is really distinctive, and even that is just another oddly bumpy floor with lights that takes you through the annoying door with more enemies. The only incentive is Epic loot, but even that fails to draw in your attention long enough to spend 100+ hours on the game (although people report having done exactly that already).

So overall, in conclusion? Too Human is a fun game. A good game. Not great, above mediocre, and certainly not bad (I'm looking at you, Jim Sterling). If you enjoyed the demo, this game is for you. If you thought it was ok at best, give it a rent. It's a good weekend-buster (averaging 12 hours of length) for the lull before the explosion that is the Fourth Quarter of Release Hell. The game certainly isn't without its design flaws, but several innovations shine through that leave me instilled with confidence in the second iteration in this trilogy. I would recommend a healthy background in Norse Mythology before you dive into this, if you'd like to get into the story. This game hits slightly between the 7 and 8 mark, so I'll leave you guys with a rousing 7/10. A solid addition to any library, it should be tried (in demo form) by anyone remotely interested.

Images courtesy of www.GiantBomb.com

Labels: game review, Too Human

Author: Jayge | Comments: | Leave Your Response?

Soul Calibur IV

Sunday, 10 August 2008

Sorry, this review has been a while after the game actually came out, but I've been busy. At any rate, here it is.

Firstly, I'd like to say this game, in a quick pleinary before we begin, is a lot of fun, and a good time to play. But that's all. It's not going to get nominated for game of the year (and if it does, it certainly shouldn't win it). It lacks imagination and innovation, though some of the techniques used aren't justified to change. The Soul Calibur formula is pretty untouchable.

Let's discuss that formula first off. The things that define the Soul Calibur series is beautiful graphics, topped with a good, simple fighting style and an imaginative inventory, varied, but easy to chop and change to suit your own style of play. To an extent SCIV has managed to maintain this: the fighting style is still simple, easy to understand and not chocked full of thousands of combos which you have to memorise. However, the simplicity of the fighting system can occasionally be marred by a slow catch up time. Often, whilst I was attempting an attack on the lower body of the opposition (performed with down and Y, B or X) it would, first time, do a mid attack, and not adjust until the next strike. Particularly frustrating when you're trying to get around the opponents block, and you just keep striking them with no damage.

The imaginative inventory I was discussing earlier has also been damaged. Back in SC2, I remember there was a great way of acquiring weapons which involved working your way through a map. There were hidden areas, and you defeating the inhabitants often meant you won some sort of weapon or item of clothing. This system was fantastic: in fact, it was one of the reasons I bought SCIV. However, SCIV has done away with this system. You acquire new sets of items when you get 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 achievments. And weapons are unlocked when you complete the story mode. However, you can also get items by unlocking them in the 'Tower of Lost Souls'. Though, there's little point to this, seeing as you can simply buy them, and they cost next to nothing. The items in the inventory have no explanation to them and seem just to have been created for the sake of them. One good part to this system, or so it seems, is the ability of a piece of armour to affect stat percentages and skill points. This way, both your overall attack and your special moves (which you can manually select with the amount of skill points you have) are decided by just the items you carry (levelling up has no bearing on it). This is a very clever system. A bit too clever: if you care enough, you will find yourself spending hours editing your character to get the right balance between different types of skill points, just so you can get the skills you want.

The character graphics are just as beautiful as they should be: the physics are sometimes a bit off with the hair, but the character models are very good, as are the cutscenes. However, many of the backgrounds seem rushed, with water detail looking flakey at best (when the difference between the texture of water and the texture of lava is difficult to decipher, you know something's wrong).

Now there were two big marketing points for this game: things that it built on to SC3. Firstly, was the inclusion of Star Wars characters. For the 360: Yoda and for the PS3: Darth Vader. With Darth Vader's Apprentice appearing on both platforms. Now, it's true that this seems a bit stupid, and they may be right. Certainly these characters seem to have been stuck onto the game with airfix glue. But, personally, I don't see why it should be such a problem. You don't have to play as them, and they aren't fundamental to any plot aside from their own. Also, Yoda and the Apprentice (I haven't played as Darth Vader yet) have been very tastefully done. The voice acting for them is spot on, and they fit very well into the Soul Calibur role, despite DW's accusations that they are broken characters. His grounds for this are that Yoda is too short to be hit, and that the Apprentice's throw always performs a ring out. However, I contest that. The two characters have some bonus attributes because, due to their nature, they can't have their costume edited, and so they can't be given skill points. Their bonuses are just to account for this.

The other marketing pitch was the new Create-a-Character piece. To be honest, Creating a Character should be fun, and in this game, it just isn't. There aren't enough settings, and all the characters just end up looking like one of the pre-mades anyway. And even when you've done this, you've still got to go through all the palava of kitting him out with the skills you want him to have, and the armour he needs for that.

The story mode gives you a lot to unlock. A lot of characters that can be purchased, and a lot of items to buy too. But the story mode itself lacks any sort of imagination. The opening screen for each character tells you what the characters wants with the Soul Blade/Calibur, you do five stages (mostly in the same locations) and then there's a cut scene telling you that the character got what they were after in the opening screen. Far too short, far too expected, far too shit. It is tricky doing stories and cutscenes and bits and pieces for 32 different characters (33 including both Yoda and Darth Vader), but if that's the case then there should be fewer characters. The game would not harm from having only 10 characters, possibly less, as long as the stories were interesting, and their fighting styles were varied. Instead, I was forced to slog through these 32 different stories to get full completion of the story mode. Luckily, it only took me 10 hours. But is that a good thing? If 32 characters only leave a story trail that last 10 hours?

Far more promising is the Tower of Lost Souls. You get a choice to ascend or descend (descending is only an option once you've gotten to the 20th floor of ascension). The Ascending is basically a more challenging version of the story mode, involving 1 or more stages of 1-4 enemies. You have to get through all the given stages in a slot with just your starting amount of health (though you are allowed, usually two or three characters). This is a challenge sometimes, but fun. A much better time than trying to complete story mode. The Descending is just a survival mode: two characters versus the hordes of time.

There are other points: an arcade mode that leaves much to the imagination (each time through, with all characters is the same), and a well-composed, but largely irrelevant, soundtrack. But the last point that needs to be made is about the online. The online system is incredibly simple, and very easy to play. In ranked or player it's fun, especially if you just want a quick game. Most people use customised characters (and win with them I've found). However, the game falls prey to the only Live problem that such a game cannot fall prey too: lag. The lag on this game, all too frequent, just spoils and ruins play, making it more or less impossible to play. It's not always a problem, but when it is, you may as well leave the room and go find somewhere else (I don't mean on the Xbox, I mean, literally, get up and just leave the room, come back when the servers are less crowded).

It's fun, there's a lot to complete, but it can be monotonous at times. It's great if you're on school holidays or whatever, and you've got nothing to do on the long boring days when no one's out, because you can just keep playing it. But it's not anything special, not worth buying if you can wait till September when some better games are coming out. I give it a 7.

Labels: 7/10, game review, PS3, Soul Calibur IV, Xbox360

Author: random dave | Comments: | Leave Your Response?

The Sims 2

Tuesday, 8 July 2008

Written by: Melaisis (back to blue!)


Mel's note: After the epic review which was ComradeJim270's Oblivion, I decided to opt for a less deep (but no less informative) entry by Hey Joe for those newly-found fans of 3scapism which are not quite used to our longer material yet. Enjoy.

It feels weird to pick up The Sims 2 again after all this time. After spending time playing manly games like Halo 3, Gears of War and Barbie's Pony Adventure. I say manly, because the neurotic nerd in me feels as if playing The Sims 2 is like a glorified session of playing dollhouse with distinct Cartesian undertones.

Yet, like a man in some sort of weird virtual sado-masochistic relationship, I return to my master and surrender my will, my time and ultimately my sanity.

As I fire up the game, I'm greeted with some sort of weird blue, cubed loading screen and music that will make your ears bleed, but something about it draws me ever closer like the Sirens near the rocks of my self-respect. I cycle through the neighbourhoods that I have made, and am surprised to see a few games still going. Man, those little Sims must be really pissed off at me after all this time.


I point my cursor over a particular Sim I was quite fond of, Mr Queegle Zomarian, and yes, his place was quite space-aged. I couldn't really remember in what state I left my Sim, so I decided to check it out. As it happens, he was eating spaghetti. I should have had dinner an hour ago, but I'm way too drawn in now. I hit the play button. One eating animation and I was in love again.

He was a slob, and he was eating like one. Bits of virtual food flew through the air in a ballet of sloppiness. Heck, he reminds myself of me, I like this little guy. Once he was done licking his plate (who among us has never done this?), he just stood there. Oh God. He was waiting for me to tell him what to do. This is dangerous territory for me, as all my obsessive-compulsive tendencies take over, and pretty soon it'll be 4AM and I'll still be gunning for Queegle's promotion.

Tentatively, I look down at his vitals. It would seem that he was quite bored with life. So, I decide like the benevolent player that I am that it would be a good idea for him to play on his brand-spanking new computer. As he does, I can't help but to notice the irony inherent in this situation, and wonder if Queegle is playing some sort of people simulator too.

I'm shocked out of my musings when I notice that his bladder 'need' is dangerously low. How did I let it come to that!? I used to be good at this game, I feel shame and regret. I whisper "Sorry Queegle," to my computer screen and send him on his way to bladder relief. I start to reflect on my own bladder when I notice he's done. All of his vitals are green, and there's nothing he needs to do, so he just stands around.

Oh crap. He can't just sit there and do nothing. He's got a career to worry about! Once he gets up in the world he's got to meet a nice girl or possibly be abducted by aliens, he's got to start a family. He's a family oriented sim after all. I glance over to his skills page, and notice that he could stand to get a few more cooking skill points, so I plonk his virtual arse in front of the television and make him watch a virtual Martha Stewart make a deal with a virtual Beelzebub.

Once he gets a point of cooking I look at his career page. He needs three more friends to get a promotion. He needs three more friends!? What kind of sick world is this where how many friends you have determines how successful you are in life? Upon reflection, I bet Alan Greenspan didn't have too many friends either...

He needs to get on that telephone pronto! He's got to chat like he's never chatted before! I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown thinking about the possibility of him being passed over again because some whore of a Sim slept her way up the ladder. He chats with one person for a while and gets his friendship bar just over 50, first goal accomplished. But now his social bar is full, and he doesn't feel like chatting for more than 4 virtual minutes.

"You stupid, stupid Queegle!" I yell furiously at the screen. "You're useless without me... useless!". After this, my mind goes into a dark place where all Sims players go sometimes. The place of the dark room.


I want to lure him on a vacant place on the lot and wall him in. No windows, no light, no doors, only the suffering of a Sim who could not follow orders. So in my malevolent rage, I tell him to go sit on the grass. Then, I wall him in.

"Take that!" I scream. "You don't follow orders, you get 10 hours in the box!" The first hour he's okay, I don't think Queegle knows he's trapped. Then, it begins. He starts to panic when he can't control his bladder, his vitals go down to red, he looks about frantically, wondering if he's doomed to this box for the rest of time. Then, something happens that reminds me why I love this game so much.

I swear to Will Wright, the Sim looks straight at me. I pause the game. I study the face for a while, I zoom in on it. It's pleading with me to stop toying with its existence, it's burning right into my soul. I can't possibly continue this, it's to scarring. I let him out, and I get his vitals back and hope to Will Wright that Queegle will ever be able to forgive me. Then, the true genius of this game hits me.

It's not about what happens in the game world, but rather what happens in front of screen, in the player's mind. The Sims 2 provides not just a peepshow of virtual beings, but into the very fabric of our morality.

Once you place the omnipotent power of complete control into a player's hands, there is no going back. You will be sent on a journey of self-discovery through your actions toward these virtual beings, and that, is where the final irony lies.

I thought I was controlling my Sims, but they were controlling me. Any game that makes you question the very essence of your soul is one worth a mere portion of your cash.


Hey Joe

Labels: game review, The Sims 2

Author: Melaisis | Comments: | Leave Your Response?

Oblivion

Sunday, 6 July 2008

Written by: Melaisis

I have made it no secret that I have a serious problem with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. More often than not, I will jump on any chance to make a negative comment on it, or those who developed it. But I have never gone into real detail about just how deep the rabbit hole goes, or where it leads. I have never explained the history behind and the nature of these feelings in full detail. Now that we have a forum specifically for user reviews, I see a new opportunity to do so.

Let me first explain that I didn't jump on the bandwagon with the Oblivion criticisms: I always at least try to finish a game before even discussing it, to avoid spoilers and the like, and to develop my own independent opinion. When I did finish Oblivion, and went online to discuss it, I instead found myself cursing the bandwagon for not being nearly big enough, as well as lacking some kind of horrific and murderous device on the front to aid in cutting a bloody swathe through the fanboys, whose lack of taste made my stomach churn.

This review is "Oblivion, As It Was" because I am stating the way I felt about it when it was still new... an easy task, as my feelings towards the game itself have not changed.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is, of course, the sequel to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, a game which I thoroughly enjoyed and praised, and for all its faults, was, in my self-righteous and freely-provided opinion, very good overall, especially with an active modding community to correct the aforementioned faults. True, the dialogue system was reminiscent of a visit to Wikipedia without using the 'search' function, and it wasn't the prettiest game around, but it's a bit silly to expect a steak will not have some gristle in it... and the non-gristly parts of this steak were juicy and delicious. With all the wondrous things Bethesda showed us and told us before Oblivion came out, I expected the next course in the Elder Scrolls meal would be just as yummy, if not more.


Starting up the game for the first time, I immediately found myself confronted by what I can now call a sort of cruel foreshadowing. The slow, moving, and epic theme of Morrowind was replaced by a perverted version of itself that made me imagine Jeremy Soule snorting crushed Ritalin while chugging triple espressos, the same thing it now seems everyone involved in making the game did. I suppose it was supposed to be more powerful, more urgent, more epic, but instead it sounds like the guy running the recording equipment had severe diarrhoea and could only let them have a few minutes at a time before running back to the crapper again. This is personal preference here, of course, but as I said... also foreshadowing, because this ADD-friendly characteristic does not end here.


Shrugging off this change to one of my favourite video game themes as lamentable but ultimately minor, I proceeded to make a new character. Since the unmodded faces in Morrowind looked like they had been worked on by a mildly retarded plastic surgeon with poor eyesight, I was pleased to see I could now customize my character's facial appearance. While my efforts to give my character a beard failed, due to the fact Bethesda apparently thinks making my character look like someone carefully cuffed him around the jaw with a baseball bat will work for that purpose, I was ultimately pleased with the result. I didn't start to subconsciously notice what would turn out to be further foreshadowing of Oblivion's craptasticness until I began looking around the jail cell I found myself in.


Everything around me appeared to have higher graphical quality than the face I had just spent... too damn long, I guess... working on. It all looked very nice, as I had expected from screenshots and video previews. Walls, objects, clothing - very good graphics, except my character's face, which appeared, in contrast, to be of the quality level which would have gotten the same reaction sometime in 2002 or so. I shrugged this off, and decided I had spent enough time indulging my autistic tendencies by fucking around with the face of a character I would mostly be playing as in first-person.


Next thing I noticed? Someone was speaking to me. This was cool, I thought, and preferable to Wikipedia at this point. But then I saw he was a Dark Elf. Why did he sound like C-3P0 with PMS, instead of the awesome "I just swallowed a handful of gravel and chased it down with a quart of gasoline" voice the male Dunmer had in Morrowind? Oh well, I've only seen one NPC so far, anyhow, I thought, and his silver-tongued insults were nicely atmospheric despite his voice being as it was. More characters arriving added to this delightful sense of atmosphere I hoped would continue for the whole game... the voice acting itself was well-done and believable, and made the NPCs feel more alive than the cardboard cutouts in Morrowind. They still looked like someone had assailed them with an ugly stick, but oh well. I don't play RPGs for flashy graphics, and they still looked way better than Morrowind characters.

Unfortunately, my enjoyment of the game couldn't even escape unscathed from that jail you start in. Though Patrick Stewart's voicing of the also ass-ugly Emperor was top-notch, I felt like I was talking to a senile old fart, not a respected leader of an entire continent. Yes, the Elder Scrolls lore says he was probably 80-something, but it's no fun when he acts like it by responding to my character in a manner that screams "We didn't bother to record him responding differently when you say different things", which left me worried the dialogue in the game would continue to be half-arsed and to rattle my suspension of disbelief. This was only in the back of my mind, though. I was still eager to play, mostly dismissive of my worries, and overall fairly impressed with what I had seen.

At the end of the dungeon, of course, an NPC recommended a class to me, at which point I followed in the grand Elder Scrolls tradition and told him to go fuck himself, because all the built-in classes were bogged down with useless skills and I wanted to make my own. This took me even longer than making my face, because now you could only pick 7 skills of equal importance, instead of 5 major and 5 minor ones like in Morrowind. I didn't mind too much, especially since they cut out some skills, and consolidated others into a single skill, I'm just indecisive.


After I finished with that guy, who would not let me take the Emperor's stuff in spite of the fact he had just entrusted me with a sacred imperial artefact and told me to haul my grubby, just-pardoned-from-prison ass off an a mission of utmost importance, I continued through the sewers, fighting suspiciously weak goblins with the game's improved but still underwhelming combat system (more on that later), I finally stepped outside, hoping to see the lush jungles of Cyrodiil described in previous Elder Scrolls lore, but instead getting generic fantasy shit. Oh well, I must have just not found the jungles and stuff yet, right? I didn't see them in the intro movie, and this is a developed area anyhow! Whatever... now to the Imperial City... oh boy, let's see this "Radiant AI" at work!


Oh, what disappointment. Remember when I said that the underwhelming faces were foreshadowing? They were foreshadowing the fact that Oblivion seems to expect you will spend more time looking at things than people... in a ROLE-PLAYING GAME. It's a game about playing the role of a character, interacting with other characters. But the NPCs aren't even half-arsed... more like... I dunno, quarter-arsed, at best. Despite all dialogue being voiced, they apparently fired a bunch of the voice actors at Bethesda, because there are FEWER voice actors now than in Morrowind, where they had a tiny fraction of the number of lines. All male elves sound like the first you see, with that fucked up, achingly stereotypical British accent (female elves lack a British accent, for some reason, just like male Imperials, and unlike female Imperials). Their social interactions are also unbelievably awkward and absurd, like they grew up in their abusive step-father's closet, so you basically hear the same few voices saying the same shit all the damn time. When YOU talk to them, it's still like Wikipedia, except now there are 90% fewer articles, voice instead of text, and each article is limited to one paragraph in length, probably so the 13 year olds apparently targeted by this game don't get bored.

The faces are ugly because you'll want to spend as little time as possible looking at them, and even if you didn't, they run out of things to say almost immediately... except to each other, because they love to make jarringly unnatural small talk. It's like listening to especially eloquent retards carrying on about stuff that doesn't even concern them.

Also, everyone walks like a woman in high heels, with their hips swaying wildly, but since my character did this too, I pushed it to the back of my mind, and reminded myself that in Morrowind, they walked like they were trying to goose-step but didn't quite know how, and ran like... I dunno, Flashdance. So it was still an improvement, and I'd play female characters in the future.

Understandably, I was quick to leave the city, perhaps to encounter something more socially adept, such as a starving, rabid wolf. Lucky for me, that's the first thing I ran into. I was frightened by this at first, recalling how simple wildlife in Morrowind would maul my starting character like he was made out of leftover meat by a deranged butcher whose favourite book was Frankenstein, but thankfully, combat in Oblivion is much better. If you swing a weapon at something, and you are close enough, it will hit. Rather than determining if you hit or miss, the corresponding skill determines how much damage is done. You also manually control blocking, and can do it with any weapon. A hit is assured, as is a block; so my craptacular weapons and blocking skill was sufficient to slay the wolf. I also tried some spells, which are actually very useful now that magicka (you use it to cast spells) actually regenerates, instead of waiting for you to take a nap when it runs out every 15 minutes, like you were 90 years old or something. Spells also work 100% of the time now, with the related skill determining how much it costs to cast them, and whether you are sufficiently skilled to use then in the first place. If you need to be level 50 in the skill to use a spell, it will work 0% of the time until you reach that level, and 100% of the time afterwards. Very cool, and it gives you a real sense of progress in these skills, at least.

Too bad that sense of progress doesn't extend far beyond this. The real reason I could kill wolves and such so easily is that the game makes itself easier for you. The first big battles I fought were disappointingly easy, because instead of nasty, apeshit, demonic invaders with swords as long as my leg, I fought bad guys who looked like the little fuckers in Gremlins... you know, that 1980's B-movie? The evil demon soldiers I faced were apparently interns or something, because I could have sneezed on them and killed them. All the NPCs were telling me "Oh shit, the evil demonic Daedra are invading, and you have to stop them with that rusty sword", instilling a sense of foreboding at a presumably difficult battle ahead, but after killing some gremlins and going TO A BIGASS FORTRESS IN HELL, ploughing through the bad guys (some gave me trouble, until I got used to the simplistic combat), and emerging victorious from a gigantic hell portal, all I could think was "That was it?".


I didn't know about the level scaling until a bit later, but I was righteously ticked off when I learned of it. Why can't I find better armour and weapons? Because nobody will drop them, and no loot container will have them until I reach an arbitrary level, then every bandit and his goldfish will head over to Honest Bob's Loot Emporium (We reserve the right to refuse service to player characters) for free shit (that costs YOU a fortune), then stuff it in chests, wear it, and wield it. Obviously, they will also use it against you, so the bad guys are always a match for you... no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to be powerful relative to the NPCs (the monsters level up too, weaker ones being replaced by more powerful ones), except by virtue of them having the intelligence and combat prowess of a slightly retarded Cocker Spaniel with severe cataracts. You will also never get really great loot before, say, level 20, because it won't exist. Even quest rewards are levelled, so you get the dollar store versions of them if you do the quest too soon... but I guess you could do the main quest in the meantime, right?

Wrong. Even stuff in the main quest is levelled. Some demonic invasion, their best troops are apparently AWOL until you hit level 20. Even their reservists patiently wait for you to enter their glowing orange gates of fiery doom and kill them, rather than overwhelming the cities of Cyrodiil. The NPCs cry about how, any day now, a bunch of evil motherfuckers will swarm over the city wall, and URGENTLY beg you, and only you, to do something, but you can take as long as you like. Goodbye, suspension of disbelief!

When you do go into the hell gates, of which there are MANY (nearly all are optional), you are teleported to one of a comparatively tiny number of "Planes of Oblivion" repeated over and over, which you will have to drag your ass through to get to a stone at the top of a huge tower to close them. You get to keep the stones, and make cool stuff with them, as they create powerful (again, for your level, so it's best just to kill monsters for 20 levels if you want the best stuff) enchantments you can't quite match, otherwise.

Speaking of enchantments, you have to join the Mages' Guild and advance to a certain rank to do them yourself. This is not a problem, because the factions in Oblivion apparently have very low standards, and don't require you to be in any way qualified. You can finish the Mages' Guild questline, and advance to the top rank, without casting a single spell. You can finish the Fighter's Guild questline without using a weapon. You can finish the Thieves' Guild questline with all the subtlety of a main battle tank driving through an art gallery displaying a blown glass collection. You can do all of this, and monopolize the fucking power structure of Oblivion. With one character. Especially since most of these quest lines are short, and you get a promotion after almost every mission, even though there are NPCs who are older than the fossilized dinosaur turd I used to have on my mantle, and have been trying to advance in rank for most of their lives.

Side quests, for the most part, are also a load of shit. Because Bethesda's writers apparently think diplomacy is for pussies, most quests, not counting the ones which you could more or less do in real life by getting a job with UPS, end in you killing someone or something. I suppose that's to be expected when most people in Cyrodiil are too stupid to actually speak... they have to stab each other instead.

That's another thing; there are NPCs you can't kill. Some of them are in escort missions (inexplicably, the hardest escort mission doesn't do this), but most of them are not. If you take their health down to 0, they faint, then shortly get back up. Just for kicks, I once shot about 30 arrows into an innkeeper (who went flying over tables and knocked stuff all over the place, showing off the Havok physics engine, one of the few good things in the game), until they were a walking pincushion, utterly unconcerned they had arrows sticking out of them from different angles all over their body. This is hardly immersing. What if I want to rob these arseholes? So what if they give a quest later on! Bethesda harps about the freedom given to players, but won't let them kill a damn innkeeper.


Back to the quests... to do them, you follow a magical arrow which appears on your mystical fucking Compass of Omniscience (well, they don't actually give you an item like this, it's just part of your HUD thingy), which always knows exactly where to go to proceed with whatever you are doing. No exploration or exciting searching for a landmark in a dangerous (Hah! Not in this game!) place is needed, it even alerts you to dungeons 500 yards away. I suppose this is because those exciting jungles I mentioned much earlier don't exist, and the game just has: generic fantasy mountains, generic fantasy grasslands, generic fantasy coniferous forests, with hills and water here and there so Bethesda can make a claim of some variety being present. Hard to tell one area from another when it's all like that. Or maybe the compass is there because the quests are also half-arsed, having about as much substance to them as a fart, from a role-playing perspective especially, but usually from a gameplay perspective, too.

You can't even decline quests, because your character is only marginally more verbal than most FPS protagonists. When offered a quest, you can only say (with minor variations here and there) "Yes" or "Maybe Later". When you eventually get bored with working for Ye Olde Fed-Ex, and say "Yes", your magical Journal of Telling You What to Do Because You Must Be Retarded will say exactly what's going on and what you're SUPPOSED to do in this game that is supposedly so big on player freedom. You want to turn in the Thieves' Guild? Too fucking bad. The journal says you should join them. Ignore it and do nothing, or obey it. The journal says missionary with the lights out, so you better listen, or you don't get anything. What a bitch!


Oh, you also get a horse. Your horse sucks. It can jump, but not very well, so you usually have to make several attempts to jump over anything, and you may as well try going around, instead. Enemies, no matter how fucking slow they are, will chase you and your horse for approximately the distance between New York and THE FUCKING MOON. If something gets in front of you, even if it's just a damn rat, your horse will run in place until it gets out of the way or you go around it, because apparently things that want to eat your toes have the right of way. Thankfully, there is a quick travel feature that lets you move in simulated real-time to places you have already been, or to cities and towns, though this is probably for the Ritalin-popping crowd, and not because Bethesda realized the horses suck. You can't do this if "enemies are nearby" (for instance, if a small crab is within 100 yards and aware of your presence, prompting a slow kamikaze charge because a huge Orc is invading it's turf, where non-crustaceans are pinched on sight), though, making the horse even more annoying. You could just skip the horse, because running doesn't even tire your Olympic athlete of a character, it only means that the fatigue of jumping and fighting wears off more slowly. Not sure if that's an improvement.


Now, it's not all bad. Like I said, most of the game looks good, and the combat is substantially better than in Morrowind. The few characters who have their own voice actors sound great. And on the rare occasions where I could manage suspension of disbelief, the main story was pretty good, with some really cool parts, and some which I'm sure would have been moving if not for the context (You can't fish a pie out of a cesspool and expect to enjoy it, no matter how nice a pie it would otherwise be). Some quests, particularly segments of the main quest, manage to shine through the dark river of Tdod Howard's excrement here and there, and are quite memorable. Skills and magic use have been tweaked or redone to be more fun and/or more useful, though the replacement of Speechcraft and Security skills being done by the game, to being mini-games, may annoy some, being too easy or too hard or simply unappealing. There's also a lot to do, though most of it is not terribly exciting or interesting, so you can at least get quantity in terms of gameplay, even if quality is generally lacking. You can also turn off the game, then go try to pick every berry off a blackberry bush, I suppose, but will getting jabbed by thorns until your hands are terribly swollen and infected with some horrible flesh-eating pathogen be worth the effort of getting said berries?

I would not say Oblivion is necessarily bad, at least not as a game. As an RPG specifically, it's a blight upon the whole genre, showing what I feel is precisely the wrong direction to go, but just as a game; it manages to have just enough going for it that it can be called decent, on the whole. There are many, many games you'd be better off playing, but it's not really an awful thing if you end up playing Oblivion instead. If you mod it, to at least try and fix the mistakes Bethesda still won't actually acknowledge. or to add some better quests and such, it may actually be quite good. I suppose part of my problem with it is just that I feel the whole thing is a big mistake that nobody will accept as such, but that's not the fault of the game itself.

In the end, I'm just one man with no say in the direction the gaming industry goes. I just hope that Oblivion is an evolutionary dead end... and that someday, I may be able to kick Bethesda in their collective balls and take all their wallets for tricking me into buying it with a mastery of bullshit that should impress even Peter Molyneux. Who knows? Maybe it will happen!

ComradeJim270

Labels: 3scapism reposts, game review, oblivion

Author: Melaisis | Comments: | Leave Your Response?

Medieval II: Total War

Friday, 4 July 2008

Written by: Melaisis

Moar 3scapismness.


The core question for the Total War series is, and always has been; Do you want to rule the world? The answer is also the answer to your question; should I buy this game?

[If_no;goto_"peggle"]

For those of us who have faithfully followed the series through it's three previous instalments - Shogun, Medieval and Rome - the core gameplay of M:TW2 will be immediately familiar. For the benefit of those who don't, the game offers you two meta-games in which you will prove your suitability to the throne of Emperor.

The strategic map, in which you start as one of five immediately available nations*, is where the big-picture game is played. It's not really complicated; the goal is your flag above their cities and castles. But, of course, that's their goal, too. And with the Pope about, telling everyone to just chill and be nice - and you'll quickly find a Crusade knocking on the door of your capital if you don't listen - you'll often find yourself treading a path on the subtle side of Hannibal in your quest.

To aid you in this, you are given four distinct ways of making this all easier; diplomacy, espionage, assassinations and, if all else fails, war. An enemy can often be talked into giving away a city if you offer him a suitable diplomatic incentive. However, if your neighbours remain stubbornly opposed to gentle assimilation, spying out their cities and having their leaders quietly toe-tagged will make your inevitable sieges and field battles dramatically easier.

And once that comes into play, we go into the second meta-game of M:TW2 (or is that M2:TW?)- the tactical map.


The tactical map, commonly known as the combat interface, is where the Total War series have traditionally split paths with other Risk-like games. This is where you start feeling like you decide the outcome of your bid for world control, your choices have consequences and it's your genius or idiocy that conquers the enemy. It distances you from the feeling that you're playing a numbers and odds game, like Civilization, and that's what makes the Total War series special.

(You are, of course, playing a numbers game, but it's one that doesn't wait around every corner to remind you by hitting you in the face with a baseball bat. And it's one that takes the luck and skill factor into account.)

So, as two armies clash on the strategic map, you'll be brought into a zoomed-in version of the map, placing you and your opponent into the context of the map. This is the above-mentioned and aptly-named tactical map, where you're given a bird's eye overview of your army's position and your enemy army's position. You manoeuvre to gain the advantage for your units and to counter your enemy's advantages. Broken down, it's a complicated game of chess with rock/paper/scissor-type units. However, the historically [largely] correct relative strengths of units as well as the impact of terrain and tactics serve to milden the edge of that design, and in some cases it even warps them. Remember; even a pike unit is defenceless against horse when they're charged into from behind.


Once you've grasped the inherent subtleties of the two meta-games, you'll also start getting an appreciation of the bonds between them. For instance, an unit of Sergeant Spearmen bloodied and experienced from a Papal crusade can bring back battle-bonuses like Damascan-steel armour and weapons, high discipline and strong morale. A unit like that will be absolutely brutal when deployed correctly in a battle in mainland Europe. It will also have strategic benefits, like an "honour" bonus to your law and order rating when used as part of a city or castle's garrison. And generals with the same background will become absolutely invaluable, strategically, and a fearsome thing to face on the battlefield.


Now, a lot of this might sound like tedium and details, adding to the already significant workload of micromanaging your cities, fleets and your campaign. And it is.

See, that's why I popped the question in the start of the review. Do you want to rule the world? If you don't - if you don't bring your own motivation - this very much open-ended, story-less game with close to zero explosions and naked chicks will quickly become boring. While you might find the battle sequences interesting and challenging, you'll quickly get bored of those, too, out of context.

And to top that, you can actually get beaten in this game. Trashed. Completely annihilated. Easily. Your kingdom will only be known in history books, as a footnote, misspelled and sadly so very, very alone. All alone. This game is mean.

But if you do bring that motivation - if you're actually genuinely interested in history, crave to try your hand at beating the world, or if you're a sadomachistic nutbag, this game will give you everything you can dream of. The contented sigh of watching opponent after opponent - empire after empire - crash down in a silent, unremarkable, unremembered thunderclap of flames. The visceral satisfaction of brutally tearing apart army after army by beating your opponent in a tactical game to the death - a game that might as well have been reality. The grin-inducing cheer of having conquered the world with Scotland.


And that's why I'll say that if you do, buy this game, if you don't, stay clear. It's pretty - the new graphics are neat and sometimes cinematically beautiful - and well-done, but if your spark just isn't there, find yourself another game.

*More are added to your list of choices once they're defeated in a campaign, or all of them if you manage to achieve world domination.

Pulsifer

Labels: 3scapism reposts, game review, medieval II, total war

Author: Melaisis | Comments: | Leave Your Response?