Well, I finished GoW3 a little while back actually, something like 2 months ago, give or take. I figured I'd still give it a jab though. Story-wise, it has it's good points and it's bad points. You finally find out why the Locust Horde attacked the humans, but you are still left hanging concerning the origins of the Locust. There are several things in the second and third game that seem to allude to a possible origin, but for some reason the good people at Epic Games decided not to develop it any further than that. Perhaps there were time or money constraints, or perhaps they simply got lazy. Who knows. I think the story that they did decide to go with has a lot of unexplored potential, but let's be honest, a lot of us probably didn't buy the game for the story as it is anyways. I will say that I was a little disappointed with some of the plot points near the end though.
What most of us probably did buy the game for was the fighting and the gore, which GoW3 gives plenty of. It still retains the same cover and run system as the second one as well as similar graphics, and adds some more enemies and weapons to the game, as well as adding in a few more characters to the story. I'll have to be honest, I would like to comment on the music, but I was too busy killing Locust to notice any. Maybe sometime later I'll play the game again and try to take note of it.
I think my favorite part of the game though, would be the new Beast mode. It's hilarious some of the things that can happen playing it with friends, and for once, you get to see things from the Locust point of view, even if that means all you really see is destruction and more destruction. The Horde mode now allows you to set up defenses such as turrets, razor wire, decoys, and a few others that I haven't unlocked yet. Each type of defense can be leveled up the more you build of that specific type of defense. For instance, the razor wire actually starts out as large caltrop-like spikes, and as you set them up more and more, you will upgrade to razor while, and eventually you will gain laser fences. The only set-back is that it takes a decent amount of cash to install and upgrade these defenses, and you only get so much cash in a round.
Overall, I enjoyed playing GoW3, but there are some points where they could have improved, most of it dealing with the story itself. As I stated earlier in this post, the story has potential, but for the most part it's left to the wayside.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Mistakes were made.
Alright, so after a bit more careful deliberation about the Zelda timeline bit, I have come to realize that it isn't quite as jumbled as I thought. However, I still stick to the opinion that, due to the fact that some of the games really can't be properly placed yet due to lack of connectivity to the rest of the games in the series, Nintendo should have waited before coming out with this timeline. At the very least until after other games came out that helped flesh out things better. So my rage is a little bit less after thinking this through a little bit harder.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Yay, Official Zelda Timeline! Wait...what?
For those who have not heard yet, The Legend of Zelda series of games by Nintendo has finally gotten an 'official' timeline, properly placing each game in their proper place. The reason I put official in quotations is due to the fact that the series' creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, doesn't appear to have had any hand in creating the timeline. As far as I can remember, Miyamoto has always maintained that there is no official timeline.
Now, I'm all for eventually having a coherent timeline of the Zelda series, but I have seen the timeline, and it is anything but coherent. The problem occurs when trying to tie together multiple games that, while they do have some small similarities here and there, don't have enough connecting points to really be able to pinpoint exactly where they should fall chronologically. Some of the games have very obvious connections, such as Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Some, such as the two Oracle games that came out (Oracle of Time and Oracle of Seasons), only have some characters and the Triforce in common with the rest of the games in the series, and are thus much harder to place. They may not even have a place as far as we know.
Even more problems arise when faced with the fact that it has long been theorized that there is a timeline split somewhere around the Ocarina of Time game. The 'official' timeline addresses this and shows three timelines. However, the placement of the games in each of those timelines seems questionable to me, such as the fact that A Link to the Past is placed in the timeline where the Hero of Time (your character in Ocarina of Time) is defeated by that game's antagonist. I would think that, considering the events of LttP, it would fall better in the 'Adult Hero of Time' line, and then perhaps Wind Waker. The reasoning behind that are the fact that LttP shows no signs of any major changes between OoT and LttP's time, such as the flood that occurs before the events of WW, thus we can safely say that WW comes sometime after both OoT and LttP. LttP makes mention of a war to seal away the series main antagonist, Ganon, using the power of the wise men.
Now, I know that in OoT it has sages, of both genders that seal away Ganondorf after he turns into Ganon, but this discrepancy can be explained by the tale having been told so many times, and over such a long period of time, that some details become garbled. Phantom Hourglass is obviously linked to WW and thus should come next. However, there is nothing to show that WW falls into the same timeline as LttP, meaning it may or may not belong in the Adult Hero of Time timeline.
What I just did there is, of course, mostly opinion-based, but they are opinions made through having played and observed what has gone on during these games. You can't just look at the games, pick out a few details that are similar only in passing, and then make a coherent timeline out of it. You need to play the games, observe not only the dialogues that are in them, but also the legends that are told in them, as well as the architecture, the ruins... there are so many things that may be possible clues that need to be looked at. I really don't get the impression that the timeline's creators actually did that.
The more I look at the released timeline, the more tenuous and fragile the connections that the timeline's creators have made seem to become. As a gamer and a fan of the series, I think it would have been more prudent to continue to let the players theorize on their own as to how exactly things play out chronologically. That was part of the fun of the games. Each new one added another piece of the puzzle, but it was a piece that you still weren't quite sure where it should go. You had small, subtle clues, and sometimes you were practically handed the answer, as was the case with OoT and MM. I, personally, will not be considering this timeline as canonical. If anything, I will view it as a jumbled mess that some people at Nintendo decided to compile to temporarily appease some of their customers while at the same time making a little profit off of it. Call me pessimistic, but that's just how I see this. I would like to post my own theory as to what the Zelda timeline may look like, but I should save that for another post so as to not make this one into a giant essay.
Now, I'm all for eventually having a coherent timeline of the Zelda series, but I have seen the timeline, and it is anything but coherent. The problem occurs when trying to tie together multiple games that, while they do have some small similarities here and there, don't have enough connecting points to really be able to pinpoint exactly where they should fall chronologically. Some of the games have very obvious connections, such as Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Some, such as the two Oracle games that came out (Oracle of Time and Oracle of Seasons), only have some characters and the Triforce in common with the rest of the games in the series, and are thus much harder to place. They may not even have a place as far as we know.
Even more problems arise when faced with the fact that it has long been theorized that there is a timeline split somewhere around the Ocarina of Time game. The 'official' timeline addresses this and shows three timelines. However, the placement of the games in each of those timelines seems questionable to me, such as the fact that A Link to the Past is placed in the timeline where the Hero of Time (your character in Ocarina of Time) is defeated by that game's antagonist. I would think that, considering the events of LttP, it would fall better in the 'Adult Hero of Time' line, and then perhaps Wind Waker. The reasoning behind that are the fact that LttP shows no signs of any major changes between OoT and LttP's time, such as the flood that occurs before the events of WW, thus we can safely say that WW comes sometime after both OoT and LttP. LttP makes mention of a war to seal away the series main antagonist, Ganon, using the power of the wise men.
Now, I know that in OoT it has sages, of both genders that seal away Ganondorf after he turns into Ganon, but this discrepancy can be explained by the tale having been told so many times, and over such a long period of time, that some details become garbled. Phantom Hourglass is obviously linked to WW and thus should come next. However, there is nothing to show that WW falls into the same timeline as LttP, meaning it may or may not belong in the Adult Hero of Time timeline.
What I just did there is, of course, mostly opinion-based, but they are opinions made through having played and observed what has gone on during these games. You can't just look at the games, pick out a few details that are similar only in passing, and then make a coherent timeline out of it. You need to play the games, observe not only the dialogues that are in them, but also the legends that are told in them, as well as the architecture, the ruins... there are so many things that may be possible clues that need to be looked at. I really don't get the impression that the timeline's creators actually did that.
The more I look at the released timeline, the more tenuous and fragile the connections that the timeline's creators have made seem to become. As a gamer and a fan of the series, I think it would have been more prudent to continue to let the players theorize on their own as to how exactly things play out chronologically. That was part of the fun of the games. Each new one added another piece of the puzzle, but it was a piece that you still weren't quite sure where it should go. You had small, subtle clues, and sometimes you were practically handed the answer, as was the case with OoT and MM. I, personally, will not be considering this timeline as canonical. If anything, I will view it as a jumbled mess that some people at Nintendo decided to compile to temporarily appease some of their customers while at the same time making a little profit off of it. Call me pessimistic, but that's just how I see this. I would like to post my own theory as to what the Zelda timeline may look like, but I should save that for another post so as to not make this one into a giant essay.
Monday, March 5, 2012
I'll have a Mass Effect with a side of fried brain.
Yeah, the title of this post pretty much sums up how I felt last night just before going to bed, having finally completed playing Mass Effect for the first time. I know, I know, it's a little odd that I haven't played it until now, but until my friend Chris convinced me last week to play it, I had simply passed it up. I must say, it's a wonderfully detailed game, and I definitely enjoyed it overall, but my god, does it have a lot of information packed into it. Hence the title of this post. To be honest, I'm still not quite certain just how many of the missions and story lines are actually relevant to the final product itself, but at least you aren't required to do everything just to get an understanding of the plot in general. Doing the side missions can give you small additional details to sort of flesh out the story line, but it isn't necessary to understand what the game is about.
Game mechanics-wise, I would have to say that it's fairly well done. There were a few times where I found myself getting highly frustrated, such as the time where there were small cut scenes during what would equate to a boss battle (which, if your character had been knocked down just prior to said cut scene, would cause your character to glitch afterwards and not be able to do anything until killed), but overall there weren't too many issues.
One thing that definitely sticks with me, and is probably more of a pet peeve thing for me, is the lack of a consistent auto-save on Mass Effect. It does have an auto-save function, but the few times it actually saves for you are when you land on a planet, or during crucial parts of the storyline, which really don't happen as often as one might think they would. I would have liked if, at the very least, they had implemented an auto-save function that activated whenever you were on a load screen, because, considering how often you are flying between planets and star clusters or enter a building, which subsequently activates a load screen, it would make sense. Now, I know part of the mantra for a gamer is, 'Save often', but to have to stop and save every five minutes gets to be a little tedious, especially for a game that has as many things to do as Mass Effect.
Another thing that struck me was the nearly-useless thrusters on the Mako, basically the Mass Effect equivalent of a Bradley or other similar vehicle. Supposedly it's supposed to be used for getting over rough terrain, but there are a few problems with it. For starters, it doesn't last long enough. At most, I think you can get maybe 2 or 3 seconds of flight time with it, which, considering the type of terrain most of the planets end up having, isn't enough to really do much. Even the times when it is enough, there is the issue that the thrusters will push the vehicle in whatever direction the top of the vehicle is facing, since the thrusters only shoot straight down from the bottom of the vehicle. Meaning that if you are trying to go up a slope that is, say, 60 degrees, you won't go forward and upwards when activating the thrusters (even if you do have decent momentum prior to activation). You will end up flying backwards and upwards, because that is the direction the top of the vehicle is facing. Now, while this may follow real world physics (momentum not-withstanding...), it comes off as rather poor implementation of something that would otherwise be very useful. Hopefully this has been changed in the second game, which at the current moment I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to play.
Other than those two (well, I suppose three technically) points though, the game was quite enjoyable. The combat was easy to get into, the varying abilities you get are also easy to use and fun to play around with in different combinations. I do think that the cover system could have been different, which I believe I read somewhere has been addressed in the second game of the series. Story-wise, I think it was very well done. The people who made this game definitely wanted you to feel as though you were actually part of the story, and that every action and decision you make has an impact upon how things play out. You have this entire galactic community, with different species that actually have backgrounds, culture, even reasons behind how and why they act and think in the game's present day. You even have planets that, while you may not be able to land on them, sometimes have little tidbits in their descriptions that hint at a larger, hidden story. It makes you feel as if the story came first, and the game was built around the story, rather than the other way around. I, personally, am one of those people who does tend to like games that have a well thought out story, and I wish more games would come out like this. That's not to say that I don't enjoy my fair share of shooter games, or just straight up pure destruction, but every now and then it's nice to find a game that actually tries to give you more of that immersive experience.
Game mechanics-wise, I would have to say that it's fairly well done. There were a few times where I found myself getting highly frustrated, such as the time where there were small cut scenes during what would equate to a boss battle (which, if your character had been knocked down just prior to said cut scene, would cause your character to glitch afterwards and not be able to do anything until killed), but overall there weren't too many issues.
One thing that definitely sticks with me, and is probably more of a pet peeve thing for me, is the lack of a consistent auto-save on Mass Effect. It does have an auto-save function, but the few times it actually saves for you are when you land on a planet, or during crucial parts of the storyline, which really don't happen as often as one might think they would. I would have liked if, at the very least, they had implemented an auto-save function that activated whenever you were on a load screen, because, considering how often you are flying between planets and star clusters or enter a building, which subsequently activates a load screen, it would make sense. Now, I know part of the mantra for a gamer is, 'Save often', but to have to stop and save every five minutes gets to be a little tedious, especially for a game that has as many things to do as Mass Effect.
Another thing that struck me was the nearly-useless thrusters on the Mako, basically the Mass Effect equivalent of a Bradley or other similar vehicle. Supposedly it's supposed to be used for getting over rough terrain, but there are a few problems with it. For starters, it doesn't last long enough. At most, I think you can get maybe 2 or 3 seconds of flight time with it, which, considering the type of terrain most of the planets end up having, isn't enough to really do much. Even the times when it is enough, there is the issue that the thrusters will push the vehicle in whatever direction the top of the vehicle is facing, since the thrusters only shoot straight down from the bottom of the vehicle. Meaning that if you are trying to go up a slope that is, say, 60 degrees, you won't go forward and upwards when activating the thrusters (even if you do have decent momentum prior to activation). You will end up flying backwards and upwards, because that is the direction the top of the vehicle is facing. Now, while this may follow real world physics (momentum not-withstanding...), it comes off as rather poor implementation of something that would otherwise be very useful. Hopefully this has been changed in the second game, which at the current moment I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to play.
Other than those two (well, I suppose three technically) points though, the game was quite enjoyable. The combat was easy to get into, the varying abilities you get are also easy to use and fun to play around with in different combinations. I do think that the cover system could have been different, which I believe I read somewhere has been addressed in the second game of the series. Story-wise, I think it was very well done. The people who made this game definitely wanted you to feel as though you were actually part of the story, and that every action and decision you make has an impact upon how things play out. You have this entire galactic community, with different species that actually have backgrounds, culture, even reasons behind how and why they act and think in the game's present day. You even have planets that, while you may not be able to land on them, sometimes have little tidbits in their descriptions that hint at a larger, hidden story. It makes you feel as if the story came first, and the game was built around the story, rather than the other way around. I, personally, am one of those people who does tend to like games that have a well thought out story, and I wish more games would come out like this. That's not to say that I don't enjoy my fair share of shooter games, or just straight up pure destruction, but every now and then it's nice to find a game that actually tries to give you more of that immersive experience.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
New Start
Alright then, so anyone viewing this may end up wondering to themselves, 'What is this? Why am I here?'. Well, I can answer the first question at least, and that would be: this is a blog I decided to start in order to post comments/reviews/rants (hopefully not too many of the last) dealing with video games that I have played/will play in the future. Part of the reason behind this is because
a.) I'm an avid gamer. I love playing video games, and often discuss with friends about my opinions on things such as gameplay elements, game mechanics, storyline, etc.
b.) My girlfriend is a little tired of hearing me go on rant tangents concerning certain things dealing with games.
c.) Well... C is mostly just the fact that I enjoy using tactics in games and may talk about such. Just because.
Hopefully I can make this an enjoyable experience for anyone that decides to take time out of their day to read this, and hopefully I will make some valid points dealing with whatever games I may end up posting about.
a.) I'm an avid gamer. I love playing video games, and often discuss with friends about my opinions on things such as gameplay elements, game mechanics, storyline, etc.
b.) My girlfriend is a little tired of hearing me go on rant tangents concerning certain things dealing with games.
c.) Well... C is mostly just the fact that I enjoy using tactics in games and may talk about such. Just because.
Hopefully I can make this an enjoyable experience for anyone that decides to take time out of their day to read this, and hopefully I will make some valid points dealing with whatever games I may end up posting about.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)