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.
Showing posts with label Tomb Raider. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tomb Raider. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
PAD #31: It Can't All Be Good
While I'm enjoying Tomb Raider over-all, I have to admit that I do have a few gripes. I think most of them focus around the fact that the game tries to wear a face of "realism", but then so-much about the game feels "video-gamey", so to speak. Here's an example; early in the game Lara realizes that she's going to need to get food somehow. The game conveniently drops a Bow on you with plenty of arrows around, but I'm willing to chalk that up to luck, so whatever. It then has you hunt a deer with the bow so that you can get used to aiming and firing it, but also so that Lara can get some meat from it. Goal achieved, Lara now has food, and you learn that you get experience from harvesting them. So at this point, rather than some form of hunger system, the game just has Lara waging this one-man war against all the fauna of the island. It stems this somewhat by sometimes saying that an area is "hunted out", and you get minimal experience for killing animals in that area, but it often quickly forgets this and you go back to getting full experience for every kill.
Another example of what I mean is in the way that you have to do certain things. Through-out the game, you find these storage nets that you can burn-down to find a crate that can be looted for "salvage" (which is used for upgrading weapons). Why Lara feels the need to burn these down instead of using an arrowhead or her axe, two much more rational techniques, the game never really explains. You burn them down because that's just how the game wants you to do it. Then there's the village early in the game where you find these containers hanging just a little bit higher than Lara can reach. To get these, you have to light the hanging sconces that are conveniently located right next to them, then use the rope arrow to get them swinging so that they swing up and ignite the nets. Why Lara can't just get up on her toes and reach up with the torch that she usually uses is an issue that the game tactfully avoids.
Then there's some of the barriers. Again, you would expect Lara to just use her prying axe that's been perfectly adequate for ripping doors open up until now, but instead for the sake of barring-off areas until you have the right tool, she just won't. Rather, you need to use things like the rope arrows to shoot doors and pull them open, or the shotgun of all things to blast-down another type of barrier. Granted in the latter case the barrier has barbed wire, but it still doesn't look like anything that should be too difficult to take down with her prying tool. The game does sometimes place these barriers in areas that would be out of reach, so you NEED the range afforded, but that's a case of using level design to excuse otherwise arbitrary barriers. When you first acquire both of the mentioned "keys" to their respective "doors", you're mostly using them against barriers where the axe would be fine, or you've even gone passed these barriers and need to backtrack and now need to backtrack now that you have the arbitrary key.
They feel like petty niggles, which is why I don't let them ruin the game for me (I did already say I'm enjoying the game), but when a game seems to be trying to go for a more realistic aesthetic with everything it does, it just makes these video-gamey barriers feel rather jarring in contrast. It's like the developers are trying to have their cake and eat it too, and the resulting paradox just causes me to get pulled out of the experience. Again though, I am enjoying the game on the whole.
Thanks for joining me on today's PAD, and I hope you see you come by again tomorrow. Until then, game well.
Another example of what I mean is in the way that you have to do certain things. Through-out the game, you find these storage nets that you can burn-down to find a crate that can be looted for "salvage" (which is used for upgrading weapons). Why Lara feels the need to burn these down instead of using an arrowhead or her axe, two much more rational techniques, the game never really explains. You burn them down because that's just how the game wants you to do it. Then there's the village early in the game where you find these containers hanging just a little bit higher than Lara can reach. To get these, you have to light the hanging sconces that are conveniently located right next to them, then use the rope arrow to get them swinging so that they swing up and ignite the nets. Why Lara can't just get up on her toes and reach up with the torch that she usually uses is an issue that the game tactfully avoids.
Then there's some of the barriers. Again, you would expect Lara to just use her prying axe that's been perfectly adequate for ripping doors open up until now, but instead for the sake of barring-off areas until you have the right tool, she just won't. Rather, you need to use things like the rope arrows to shoot doors and pull them open, or the shotgun of all things to blast-down another type of barrier. Granted in the latter case the barrier has barbed wire, but it still doesn't look like anything that should be too difficult to take down with her prying tool. The game does sometimes place these barriers in areas that would be out of reach, so you NEED the range afforded, but that's a case of using level design to excuse otherwise arbitrary barriers. When you first acquire both of the mentioned "keys" to their respective "doors", you're mostly using them against barriers where the axe would be fine, or you've even gone passed these barriers and need to backtrack and now need to backtrack now that you have the arbitrary key.
They feel like petty niggles, which is why I don't let them ruin the game for me (I did already say I'm enjoying the game), but when a game seems to be trying to go for a more realistic aesthetic with everything it does, it just makes these video-gamey barriers feel rather jarring in contrast. It's like the developers are trying to have their cake and eat it too, and the resulting paradox just causes me to get pulled out of the experience. Again though, I am enjoying the game on the whole.
Thanks for joining me on today's PAD, and I hope you see you come by again tomorrow. Until then, game well.
Monday, June 30, 2014
PAD #30: I Just Don't Know What I'm Suppose to Feel Anymore.
I actually had a bit of fun writing-up those Spoilerific posts. I might have to make that into a regular thing. I do tend to go see movies about once a week. Even on the weeks when I don't, there's a nearly limitless backlog of movies I could talk about. Spoilerific won't always be negative, of course. Just that I happened to start the series on a movie that didn't impress me. It'll basically just be an in-depth look at the movie: the plot, the characters, things I liked, things I didn't like; basically anything and everything about the movie that I feel is worth discussing or analyzing, with spoilers noted up-front so that I don't have to stress about what would or wouldn't be considered a "spoiler" since everyone has their own limit. In short, it'll be something for people to read after they've seen the movie, or if they don't care about spoiling the movie.
The Steam Summer Sale is done, and sadly my wallet did not survive unsullied. Most notably, I got the Tomb Raider Collection. I got it for a few reasons. Firstly, I always loved the first three Tomb Raider games (especially the second); and to a lesser degree, the fourth and fifth ones. Secondly, I always wanted to check-out the trilogy(?) of Tomb Raiders from when Crystal D took over and rebooted the series. Thirdly, I've always kinda wanted to see the newest one for myself. That's the one I started first, in fact, and it's left me rather confused. I think I'm actually enjoying it. The story is rubbish (or at least the story-telling), don't get me wrong, but the game itself is... not bad. That's not to say that I was going into it expecting to be disappointed, I just didn't expect to like it... if that makes any sense. It probably doesn't, but that's part of why liking the game (so far) has left me confused, because I'm not honestly not sure what I was expecting out of it.
I just got done reading a book called Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty (and the author name is important if you go looking for it, because that's apparently a surprisingly-common name for romance novels). It's a super hero novel that plays around with the idea of seemingly-useless super powers that turn-out to play vital roles in a massive struggle between the heroes and villains. I think my favorite thing about the story is that you never feel quite certain which side is good and which side is bad, and it's a question that's never adequately answered, even when the story reaches a point where it would seem cut-and-dry. Over-all, it's a very good story that I'd recommend to anyone looking for a different brand of Super Hero story.
I think that'll wrap-up today's PAD. Thanks for joining me today, and I hope to see you tomorrow. Until then, game well.
The Steam Summer Sale is done, and sadly my wallet did not survive unsullied. Most notably, I got the Tomb Raider Collection. I got it for a few reasons. Firstly, I always loved the first three Tomb Raider games (especially the second); and to a lesser degree, the fourth and fifth ones. Secondly, I always wanted to check-out the trilogy(?) of Tomb Raiders from when Crystal D took over and rebooted the series. Thirdly, I've always kinda wanted to see the newest one for myself. That's the one I started first, in fact, and it's left me rather confused. I think I'm actually enjoying it. The story is rubbish (or at least the story-telling), don't get me wrong, but the game itself is... not bad. That's not to say that I was going into it expecting to be disappointed, I just didn't expect to like it... if that makes any sense. It probably doesn't, but that's part of why liking the game (so far) has left me confused, because I'm not honestly not sure what I was expecting out of it.
I just got done reading a book called Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty (and the author name is important if you go looking for it, because that's apparently a surprisingly-common name for romance novels). It's a super hero novel that plays around with the idea of seemingly-useless super powers that turn-out to play vital roles in a massive struggle between the heroes and villains. I think my favorite thing about the story is that you never feel quite certain which side is good and which side is bad, and it's a question that's never adequately answered, even when the story reaches a point where it would seem cut-and-dry. Over-all, it's a very good story that I'd recommend to anyone looking for a different brand of Super Hero story.
I think that'll wrap-up today's PAD. Thanks for joining me today, and I hope to see you tomorrow. Until then, game well.
Monday, June 9, 2014
PAD #15: E3 Lethargy
Almost forgot that E3 was coming up, and suddenly here it is. Of course one of the first things I noticed was a Dead Island announcement. Anyone picking through the archives on this blog would know that I have a bit of love for zombie games, and Dead Island is no exception. It's a bit disappointing that there's going to be both a class and a level exclusive to the PS4, but hopefully that's going to be a timed thing. Still, it's something that's becoming more common that I don't really care for. I think a game should be the same from system to system. If you want a game to be system-exclusive, then make it system exclusive. I don't really like this practice developing content that's exclusive to another system, then charging me full price for the game anyway.
A new top-down Tomb Raider has been announced, and it still leaves the same funny taste in my mouth. Similar to the first game like this, I just feel weird calling it "Tomb Raider". Yeah okay, so these games are called "Lara Croft and the [Blank]", but it is what it is, and what it feels like is a completely different game where they just replaced the main character with Lara Croft and then called it a Tomb Raider game. It does sorta beg the question, though, of why a character like Mario can be in just about any game and feel natural, where this Lara Croft series of games just don't feel like Tomb Raider titles despite being thematically similar.
And naturally, since the "first" one sold so well, they're putting-out a sequel to the Tomb Raider reboot from a few years back. It has a completely laughable title, but I was willing to just ignore the game and move-on until Lara had to open her mouth. She harps-on about some "destiny" crap, to the point where you look at the title and suddenly "Tomb Raider" isn't just the name of the franchise, but apparently it's what Lara is "meant to be"? Like there's supposed to be a specific "Tomb Raider"? I dunno, I'm not buying it. Smacks of "We don't care about the series, but we gotta put together another one because the last one sold, so we'll just call it 'destiny' since that's certainly what it feels like to us."
Okay okay, that's enough complaining about E3. I do like to try and keep positive, so tomorrow I'll dig-up some stuff that I'm actually looking forward to seeing (aside from Dead Island 2). Until then, game well.
A new top-down Tomb Raider has been announced, and it still leaves the same funny taste in my mouth. Similar to the first game like this, I just feel weird calling it "Tomb Raider". Yeah okay, so these games are called "Lara Croft and the [Blank]", but it is what it is, and what it feels like is a completely different game where they just replaced the main character with Lara Croft and then called it a Tomb Raider game. It does sorta beg the question, though, of why a character like Mario can be in just about any game and feel natural, where this Lara Croft series of games just don't feel like Tomb Raider titles despite being thematically similar.
And naturally, since the "first" one sold so well, they're putting-out a sequel to the Tomb Raider reboot from a few years back. It has a completely laughable title, but I was willing to just ignore the game and move-on until Lara had to open her mouth. She harps-on about some "destiny" crap, to the point where you look at the title and suddenly "Tomb Raider" isn't just the name of the franchise, but apparently it's what Lara is "meant to be"? Like there's supposed to be a specific "Tomb Raider"? I dunno, I'm not buying it. Smacks of "We don't care about the series, but we gotta put together another one because the last one sold, so we'll just call it 'destiny' since that's certainly what it feels like to us."
Okay okay, that's enough complaining about E3. I do like to try and keep positive, so tomorrow I'll dig-up some stuff that I'm actually looking forward to seeing (aside from Dead Island 2). Until then, game well.
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