Checked-out Tomb Raider's multiplayer, and it honestly wasn't bad. I was mostly just checking it out to see if it would be possible to still earn the achievements (I'm a major achievement whore), and was rather surprised to find that there's actually a decent number of people still playing. Sure it's hardly into the numbers of something like CoD, but this is a game that mostly sells for it's single-player mode. It's surprising to find anyone in there in the first place. That's when I caught myself actually having a bit of fun with it; after I switched from the controller to the mouse, natch. I used the controller during the single-player mode because I consider the game a platformer first and the shooty bits to be a secondary feature (the sluggishness of the enemy AI would tend to agree with me). When playing against someone who can potentially kill you just as fast as you can kill him though? You better be bringing your A-game, and an analog stick just doesn't compensate for your aim getting kicked around nearly as well as a mouse can.
Apparently Ubisoft is running damage control by boasting about the number of women that will be in Farcry 4. "Packed to the gills" being the exact phrasing. Between that and the way that they were quick to announce that the playable character isn't a white dude (though he is still a dude) makes it seem like Farcry 4 is just one big effort to snuff-out their current image of publishing games that are filled with white dudes. It's to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if their next big game announcement features a female protagonist. Not because it's a game they actually care about, but because they're concerned about shaking-off that image. Not to say that it's a bad thing that they're adapting, just that I'd rather it not feel so token. Still, Ubisoft announcing a game with a female protagonist. Hm... I wonder if they have something sitting in the vaults that they could revive for just that occasion...
After long-last, EgoRaptor released a new Sequelitis, this time focusing on why he feels that Ocarina of Time was a very lackluster sequel when you really look at it. He also used Skyward Sword as an extreme example of how homogenized the Zelda series has gotten. Over-all, I rather agree with him. While I never really disliked Ocarina of Time, I never considered it to be that great. It was fair. Passable. It passed the time, with it's main redeeming feature being that it put an interesting twist on the story that was told in Link to the Past to put a little more emphasis on The Triforce than on The Master Sword. One measure of a good game, in my opinion, is to ask yourself this question: "What would I be left with if I stripped-out the franchise?" In the case of Ocarina of Time, if you removed everything that made it Zelda and replaced it with original characters/items? You'd have a bland adventure game that everyone would quickly forget about. How do I know this? Because I've played a lot of games that could easily have been a Zelda title if you just swapped-in the iconic characters and items, and most of them have been lost in the mix and basically forgotten. I think it's part of why I never picked-up OoT for the 3DS, because deep down, I just didn't want to play it again.
Well, thanks for joining me on today's PAD. Sorry that it had to end on a bit of a downer. Hopefully the next one will be a bit more jovial. Until then though, game well.
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