Duke Nukem Forever Demo
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Like everyone else who likes the Duke Nukem franchise, my love for it is because I grew up with it. I think Duke Nukem is something you only enjoy for nostalgia; while Duke Nukem 3D stood among the best gameplay-wise back in its time, games have grown since then, more than anyone can measure. So Duke Nukem Forever doesn't try to revolutionize anything or create an amazing gameplay experience, it tries to remind you of what all the better games are lacking: the history you have with Duke.
A friend of mine expressed surprise that I would actually like the Duke Nukem series, since it just doesn't seem like my kind of thing. Which is true, to an extent, except for two things. One, as I mentioned before, nostalgia. Two, it takes every opportunity to make fun of itself and everything around it and like it. I can forgive a lot of stuff if it has a good sense of humor, and that's something lacking in military shooters like Halo and Gears of War and Call of Duty.
The demo was released yesterday, and I played it for about 15 minutes. I died, horribly, and my overall opinion of the entire thing was incredibly negative. It sucked bad and I was just going to cancel my pre-order right then and there without even finishing it. I picked it up again today, determined to at least beat the demo before giving Duke the middle finger, and I came away a bit surprised. It still has a lot of sucky aspects, and there's no way in hell I'm spending $100 or even $60 on it, but on the second playthrough, there was a certain draw it had.
Many people have expressed their opinion of the demo by saying "My expectations were already realistically low, but damn this thing sucked", and I can understand that...but I think as much as they'd like to think their expectations were low, they actually weren't. Underneath it all, I think most everyone wanted this game to come out and surprise them, that the 12-year wait would actually be worth it, and even though it might look a little dated, there was a really amazing potential GOTY underneath it all. And there's no way it could have been that - it's impossible from something with about twenty developer studios and 12 years of botched work.
Playing the game the first time actually sets your expectations where they should be - rock bottom. Playing the second time, you aren't holding out hope for a great shining breakthrough moment, or a one-liner that will be as quotable as any line in Portal. And because of that, you start to see the good points in it a little more, because you've already experienced the bad.
That said, you should never ever ever feel that way about a game. I mean, you're spending $60, you shouldn't be saying "Well, the game was okay after I thought it was the most worthless piece of shit ever and I lost all hope in it". That's bad. But, Duke Nukem Forever is a unique case: it could never win. It had no chance, no hope, of ever trying to live up to any expectations anyone had of it, even the most modest ones. There was too much built up in it, for all parties, subconsciously and consciously.
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Torchlight
In an effort to reduce my backlog, I was paging through all my XBLA games that I've yet to finish. Since this was alphabetical, Arkadian Warriors was one of the first I came to. I had fond memories of it (even though I only ever got to level 2), so I started it up. About ten minutes later I shut it down in disgust and started up Torchlight, which is what Arkadian Warriors wished it could be. Those missing ten minutes are best left undescribed.
Torchlight is, at its heart, a Diablo clone; which makes sense since it was made by the same developers. The great thing about this game is that I can do a full write up of it 1 floor into its 35-floor campaign, and my reaction would be exactly the same as if I finished the whole thing. Aside from slight aesthetic changes in the walls and new spells you get, there is no difference in the game as you play on.
This is what you do:
L.A. Noire
I didn't know I wanted L.A. Noire until exactly 8 1/2 hours before it came out. A couple weeks before that, I was subjected to the same 30-second ad for it (the DLC from Gamestop to be exact) for every video of Catherine I was trying to watch. After watching this ad for the fifth time, Alex and I both swore a blood oath we'd never buy it. Not just because forcing your users to sit through the same 30 second ad for each and every 3 minute clip is the worst way to advertise, but also because the facial textures were hideous.
I should rephrase that - the textures are not hideous. How they lay on the overly flat facial skeleton is. In addition, "His head is way too big for his body," Alex commented, "He looks like an alien baby." And it was true. It was painfully obvious that a lot of love and caring went into this, but that same love wasn't put into connecting it realistically to a body, or keeping the proportions right.
Portal 2
After writing this piece, I was pretty disgusted with how it was nothing but unadulterated praise and sunshine glee for Portal 2. So I decided to go back in and put in a negative depressing image for every positive thing I said.
Given that I've finished Portal 2 five times (4 on PC, 1 on Xbox), I'm not going to use a score chart, because it would just be 20 out of 10 the whole way. That's not to say there aren't any issues with the game, just that the strength of the atmosphere, gameplay, story, dialogue and characters overshadow any other problems.
Ar tonelico: Qoga
Playtime: 6 hours (6 hours total)
I am completely obsessed with the Ar tonelico series. The first one hooked me on its style - part romance, part psychology, part music, part emotional catharsis, part dirty innuendo; it was such an incredible mix of everything I loved, and I'd never seen anything like it.
Then Ar tonelico 2 came out, and I was blown away. I was so taken in by this world and these characters that it became everything to me, and I set out to make a strategy guide for it. I played through the game about 6 times, detailing each and every item, talk topic, CG screen and Cosmosphere. Then I dropped it like a hot stone when I realized I couldn't do visual design worth a shit.
In the back of my mind, I thought I always remembered the series, but I was shocked when I got an e-mail about Ar tonelico: Qoga shipping, so in reality I had completely forgotten. And what I've played so far has been, while fun, nowhere near as good as the first two. While the world itself is still interesting, the main characters are not. Nor is the combat.
Dragon Age II
Playtime: 4.5 hours (4.5 hours total)
There's been a lot of heated debate on the internet about the disparity between official reviews of Dragon Age II (sitting at 8.4/10 as of this writing) versus user reviews (4.2/10). I don't really see how this is news-worthy, since there are critically-acclaimed films that flop commercially all the time, and I've yet to hear the public get up in arms about a giant film critic conspiracy. Also, the vast amount of negative user reviews seem to focus on the fact that 'Dragon Age II is not a role-playing game', which seems odd because although it's a very vague genre, it usually consists of the player taking on the role of a character (check) that they can customize (check), playing out that role, performing actions and choosing dialogue according to that character (check, check, check), lots of stats (check), a party (check) and too many items and equipment (check). If this isn't a role-playing game, I have no idea what is.
Now whether or not it's a good role-playing game is up for grabs, but the reviews never really seem to delve into that, they just tell Bioware to go back to making Baldur's Gate. What's funny is that Mass Effect 2, which went so far as to completely eliminate an inventory system (a relatively key component in any RPG), didn't get anywhere near this much of a backlash.
Dragon Age 2 Demo
Playtime: 1 hour, single play-through
I bought Dragon Age: Origins on the PC, and had never before tried it on the 360 since there was no demo. I heard the controls were completely different - while the PC version had a special top-down tactical view, the 360 had more of a hybrid real-time strategy feel that didn't quite work. I have no idea if that was true, but I was really happy I could try both versions with the Dragon Age II demo.
First thing I found out -- I can't keep up with the cutting edge of gaming PC specs. I have a decent machine that plays pretty much anything and it choked hard on the demo, not to mention throwing up a horrible yellow screen in the intro until I turned on DX11 shaders. Even with the resolution lowered and the quality set down, it was still a bit shaky at times. No fault on the game itself, but definitely a point for the ease of the 360 version.
The Witcher
Playtime: 28 hours
Before you ask, that upshot at the end was because the game was finally over, not because of an amazing ending.
The Witcher isn't a bad game, by any stretch. The combat is annoying, but acceptable...the world is well-realized, especially since it's drawn from a a series of novels. The sidequests can be interesting, and it's refreshing seeing the morality compass completely thrown out the window (though it gets a bit tiring to see that every nice person is secretly a rapist).
It's just incredibly long, and in the wrong way. I don't mind long games if it isn't a hassle to move around: Fallout is painfully long; much more than the Witcher, but it doesn't feel that way. Despite being sent on countless fetch quests, they make it EASY to travel. Even if you choose to physically walk from one side of the world to the other, you can jump, climb, take sewers, explore -- it's fun. And obviously you can fast travel, making it all incredibly convenient.
Perhaps this is because Witcher is based on a modified Aurora engine (used for top-down RPGs), but moving around is a serious pain. Quests are almost always resolved at the furthest possible point from their origin, and walking is a nightmare. There's no jumping, no vaulting, no anything...as I said in a previous post, if you come across a couple inch drop or incline, you have to go around. And since nothing is a straight shot, you end up having to weave through three quarters of the map just to get to the end. And then you have to go through 3 maps to get to the quest destination. Then you have to go back and tell the person you finished it.
Needless to say, after the first chapter or two, I skipped every single sidequest. Maybe it'll get better in Witcher 2, when they're coding their own engine.
I think the inclusion of the sex cards is why a majority of people like this game, and I'm all for in-game romances, but it gets silly. Every woman in the game wants to rip your clothes off; either for no reason at all, or because you treat them like a cheap hooker and give them a jewel. And afterwards they don't act any differently. They don't say or do anything else - it's basically a big checklist in an effort to see all the nudity in the game. There are two main romances, which are nice, but it goes from zero interest to total infatuation in no time (at least with Triss), with Geralt writing the most high school-y crush letter to her.
Which might be appropriate, who knows, because I certainly didn't see any character in him. I'm sure he is meant to be all cool and dark and brooding, but he just comes off like he had a lobotomy. Although there is a plus side to that; his complete lack of personality makes his quips, when given, a lot more amusing.
All in all, I would've liked the game a lot more with a bit more flexibility and a lot more believability. What the Witcher did do, however, was make me want to go play Neverwinter Nights 2 which uses the Aurora engine properly.
Heavenly Sword
Playtime: 6.75 hours (6.75 hours total)
Man oh man, did I love me some Heavenly Sword. You might notice that dip in the middle of the chart up there, though...that's because it's frustrating as hell at the end. But still REALLY fun. If you'd asked me at the time, though, I wouldn't have hesitated to tell you exactly where you could shove this game.
I have to admit, I was a bit confused from the beginning. My wife had almost finished the game under our mutual PS3 tag, so I started a new game. I had though that would, I dunno, treat me as a new player, and give me instructions and directions as necessary. Either the game remembered that someone had played before or the tutorial system sucks, because I got maybe 3 instructions on how to do things through the whole game. I was told how to hit things with my sword, and I was told how to do an air attack. Nothing else.
Machinarium
Playtime: 4 hours (5.75 hours total)
I finished Machinarium, and I have glee like a kid in a ball pit. The game is masterfully done, and while one or two of the puzzles stretched things a bit, it was satisfying hard and incredibly logical overall. If I'd known it would be about 6 hours, I probably would've had a tad more patience on some of the puzzles that I got hints for.
And it's images like the one below that made me fall in love with it. Look how unhappy he looks! It's so adorable!
