Finished
I'm kind of done with numbering the games I finish and writing up shitty little reviews. I've most recently finished Batman: Arkham Asylum and The Darkness, and there's been plenty said about both of them. I guess if I feel I have something significant to contribute I'll write something proper, otherwise you can listen to yammer on about crap on Facebook.
#33 – S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (PC)
Eighteen hours later, I have once again survived The Zone. I can't come up with the words to describe the experience without sounding scatterbrained so I'll say that it improved on the experience in Shadow of Chernobyl in nearly every way.
I spent over eighteen hours playing this throughout the last five days, and now it's over.
#32 – Bioshock 2 (X360)
Did you like Bioshock? Then you'll like Bioshock 2!
They're really rather similar. The biggest difference is that since you are playing as one of the first Big Daddies, instead of your options being "rescue" or "harvest" little sisters, your options are now "adopt" or "harvest", wwith adoption requiring you to either drop off the little sister at a port hole for a small amount of ADAM or you set them down near a corpse and defend them from splicers while they gather ADAM for you. I'm a nice guy with a thirst for ADAM so I saved all the little sisters and gathered all the ADAM that I could, so I spent a lot of time fighting off splicers.
I played on medium difficulty, and maybe I'm spoiled from recently replaying Bioshock 1 on easy, but Bioshock 2 seems significantly more difficult. You can't carry as many health kits as you could in the first game, and I seem to remember the first one auto-using health kits when your health bottomed out until you ran out of kits. No such luck this time, and the first-aid button is on the d-pad so you can either move around or heal. The tradeoff they made here is that every weapon can be used for a melee attack, rather than having to switch to the melee weapon, which in this game is a massive drill.
Now in Bioshock 1, the melee weapon was traditional Irrational Games wrench. With the electric jolt plasmid (the first plasmid in the game), and the wrench (the first weapon in the game), you could almost beat it without picking up a single other weapon. It was a super effective combo that only got better with support tonics. You have no such luck in Bioshock 2. In fact, as massive drills go, it takes a couple support tonics to make it feel like it's doing some real damage. It's kind of a bummer.
The plasmids got a healthy balancing. Winter blast is far more useful than I remember it being in the first game, and even insect swarm is more fun! I didn't really use some of the less hands-on plasmids, like decoy, or scout, or hypnotize. You get the same eight slots for them as in the first game. The tonics are better handled this time too, with no distinction being made between them. You just get a number of slots and you can fill them with whatever tonics you like without regard for their purpose. A lot of them return from the first game, with a handful of new ones suited for the changes in weaponry. Wrench lurker became drill lurker, and what not.
I won't get into the specifics of the plot. I got the gist of the first game but some of the details escaped me, and there's no change here. There was an achievement in the first for collecting all the audio logs, and it has been replaced in Bioshock 2 with an achievement for getting most of the audio logs that I find far more reasonable.
There's another for getting all of the weapon upgrades, and towards the end I was beginning to get nervous because I had a lot of upgrades unfulfilled but I found them all regardless. Apparently you won't get every weapon up to full upgrades by the end of the game, so you should be choosy with what weapons you want to use. The game has a nasty habit of giving you a new weapon right after you've come across an upgrade station, and that kind of sucks because you can't un-upgrade a weapon and then use that upgrade station on the new gun.
Hacking has changed for the better, unless you've got slow reflexes. Instead of being a game of pipe-dream, it's a simple needle that goes back and forth and you just need to hit the A button when it's over a green section. Sometimes you need to hit a number of green slots to succeed, and if you hit a red slot you set off the security systems, and if you hit a white slot you take damage. It's easier and faster than the first game, and from the start you're given a tool to hack machines from a distance, which replaces the need from the first game to shock them with electric jolt and then run up and hack them.
There's a multiplayer component this time. I haven't played it, but not for lack of trying. I setup my character and tried to join a game but none were going on. Within the first week of release, this, to me, is a bad sign. Hopefully I can get some friends to play with me because a lot of achievements are tied into the multiplayer. I really hate when games do that, especially in the xbox live climate where every game has a multiplayer component and all anyone ever plays is Modern Warfare 2.
If you've liked Bioshock 1, this one's a no-brainer. It's more of the first game, but better, with only a little cognitive dissonance from making a sequel to a game that wasn't made to have a sequel. If you didn't like Bioshock 1, you probably won't like Bioshock 2. It doesn't change enough from the original formula to make it a different game. If you never played the first game, I'd recommend going through it before hopping on Bioshock 2. It's a fantastic game, it's only $20, and Bioshock 2 basically assumes you played the first game and doesn't make an effort to explain the world of Rapture again.
#31 – Star Wars: Republic Commando (PC)
This is my third time through the entire game. I've owned it since release but just recently bought it on Steam for the convenience of being able to install and play it on a whim.
Here's my bottom line opinion on Republic Commando; it's the second-best Star Wars first-person shooter. Just below Dark Forces. It has the unfortunate distinction of being the best game to come out of the prequel trilogy, and doesn't escape the taint of the prequel's legacy. I may even like the ideas behind Republic Commando more than I like the game itself.
Let me drop some bombs on what's wrong with Republic Commando. The weapons sound and feel very weak. Your primary weapon is the DC-17 blaster, which is a modular weapon that is an all-purpose rifle, a sniper rifle, and a grenade launcher. Of those, I ended up using the rifle the most for it's accuracy and abundant ammo. It doesn't do a ton of damage, it sounds like a toy gun, and shoots way too fast. In fact, none of the weapons sound very powerful, even the powerful ones! I would have appreciated if they stuck to standard Star Wars weaponry and sounds, like they did with the enemies, who often sound more menacing than they are.
Speaking of enemies, they all kind of behave the same and there aren't enough of them. There are only three or four of each type. Battle droids, super battle droids, destroyer droids, spider droids. Fat Trandoshans, Trandoshan mercenaries, big Trandoshans, scavengers. Geonoshan warriors, elite Geonoshans, Geonoshan babies, yes, babies. General Grievous's guards. That's all of them! It makes the game feel more repetitive than it is. The Star Wars universe is teeming with life. There isn't much an excuse for this lack of variety.
So what does Republic Commando do right? The intro to the game is great. It details where you and your squad came from, all from the first person perspective. In fact, this game takes a page from Half-Life in that the entire game is played from the first-person perspective. There are a couple of scenes where you are not in control of your character, but they're limited.
The squad AI is not smart but it's competent. They'll kill enemies, heal themselves, heal you when you drop, take cover, etc. There are certain set pieces that you can order a squadmate to take position at for a specific purpose (like sniping or anti-armor) and they're meant to be used. Your squad dies less when they're in one of these ordered positions. The squad also has fantastic vocal banter. Each member is a personality, and I got attached to them as the game went along.
Though the levels are a little cookie cutter, there are plenty of objectives to them and no lack for fights. I was fighting in corridors, in small courtyards and hangers, on multi-level starship bridges, and in trees. They're not as varied as Dark Forces, but each environment is well made.
And now I can get to what stops this from being a great game. They can fix the sound effects and toss in a couple more enemies, but it's harder to change the setting. Republic Commando takes place at the onset of the Clone Wars. It starts on Geonosha even. And though it takes place over a two (three?) year span, it could have gone farther. This was a pre-Episode 3 game and it shows. It feels like a teaser leading up to Episode 3 and, ultimately, suffers for that. It doesn't deserve to be timely movie release fodder. It deserves to be treated like a game that can stand on its own two legs. Something that can be taken out of the context of the prequel release. It doesn't deserve to be lumped in with Episode 1 Racer, Star Wars Starfighter, Bounty Hunter, Obi-Wan, or any other godawful prequel game.
It doesn't carry the same tone as those games. The developers did their damnedest to give this game a fair chance. They go out of their way to make you know that you are playing an elite soldier. You're no jedi, and you're not fodder either. You see your share of ally deaths and the Clone War takes its toll. But you're fighting bugs on Geonosha. And battle droids, even if they're way more menacing than they ever were in the prequel movies. They may bleed oil, wear a metallic gray paint job (rather than the orange seen in the movies), and the super battle droids may be some tough motherfuckers, but they're still battle droids, which are inherently lame. There's a pitiful tie in with General Grieveous in the form of his bodyguards, which flip and hop around like Chinese acrobats, with electric sticks. They're not threatening in the slightest, more annoying than anything, and serve only to give General Grieveous an excuse to make an unwarranted appearance.
What I'm getting down to is that in Republic Commando you are playing, in essence, a proto super stormtrooper. I wish the devs would've been allowed to run with that rather than get tied to the time frame that stuck them between the two prequel movies. I hope we can get another Republic Commando game, but I'm not expecting it. This franchise has legs, that get cut out from beneath it by the movies it was made to support.
#30 – Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (PC)
Max Payne 2 is amazing. It is a huge improvement over the first Max Payne in nearly every way. One of my favorite, and most important, changes is that Max Payne himself no longer looks like he's smelling a rank fart. He looks like a human. The other characters also look like humans, rather than video game models wearing human faces. The bullet time is infinitely more useful as it replenishes faster and it gets a boost when you kill someone. The dodge-shooting also works better as it will let you keep firing from the ground, and doesn't immediately jump up and break the action until you stop firing.
The story is a lot more cohesive, and more interesting. It's not just a dude killing everyone in his way to get to the person who killed his wife and daughter. There are different motives and they change, and the characters change. The game is short as hell, but so was the first Max Payne, and with less frustration.
Max Payne 2 is a better game than the original and, for all intents and purposes, you shouldn't feel compelled to play through the first Max Payne before you play this one. It is a truly great game.
#29 – Max Payne (PC)
I was never really interested in this game, even though I know it had a huge following when it came out. I got it, and Max Payne 2, during Steam holiday sale. I've owned Max Payne 2 for a while but never got far in it and when I tried to install it recently either the disc was bad or it wasn't entirely compatible with Vista/7.
For being nearly 10 years old, it doesn't look that bad and the action still holds up. It's a revenge story told in noir style with slo-mo gunfights. That's pretty much Max Payne in one sentence. The slo-mo isn't as useful as it is in F.E.A.R. because you move just as slow but it gives you a better degree of control in your aim. You can actually see individual bullets or pellets in each gunshot. Still, I found it was often the case where just running around and circle-strafing were more reliable than going into slo-mo as the enemy AI didn't lead much when they shot and had a harder time hitting a moving target than I did hitting them standing there.
It's about 10 hours long but it'd be much shorter for a pro. A lot of that time was spent reloading and re-doing some tough gunfights. I never found ammo to be a problem but I used every single health item there was. There's no cheesy boss fights but there are certain character who can very obviously withstand a lot more bullets ripping through them than their common henchmen.
I'm loading up Max Payne 2 but who knows if I'll get to it before I move.
#28 – Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 2 (PC)
I was actually quite close to finishing this about three months ago but the way the game works is that your units have persistent levels and the game will randomly generate optional missions to accomplish for more experience points and loot. I saw an enormous list of missions and felt a little overwhelm and getting tired of the gameplay so I stopped playing. Matt got this last week and we played a 1v1 game and he totally stomped me so I suggested trying out coop mode, and after that I felt the desire to polish this off in the fastest manner possible. There were only two unique missions left anyway.
I loved the first Dawn of War so I was a little skeptical when I read that Dawn of War 2 was not only vastly different but also a better game. But it is! Rather than harvesting resources and building bases, which have no place in the tabletop game, Dawn of War 2 focuses on small unit tactics by giving you control of a small handful of hardy units and putting the emphasis on using cover and flanking and equipment loadout rather than throwing as many bodies as possible at the next encounter. The multiplayer is a little more traditional with the main objective being the capture and holding of victory locations, with unit building and resource harvesting.
The game looks and feels great. Weapons have appropriately powerful sounds and effects. When your assault marines jump into a fight, they send enemies and terrain flying outward from them. Grenades and artillery blast the landscape and buildings to pieces.
This all comes together to make Dawn of War 2 and more dynamic, and, ultimately, a more enjoyable game than its predecessor.
#27 – 1 vs. 100 (X360)
Now that I've gotten all the achievements in this and sunk enough time to get up to level 20+, this totally counts.
This is almost two games; the live game and the kind of live extended play. In the live game, one player is chosen as the one and a hundred are chosen as the mob, everyone else still plays along but they are in the crowd. The one and the mob are the only players who have a chance to win prizes. A round is finished when either the one gets a question wrong, the one eliminates all of the mob, or the one chooses to take however many points he's earned and quit. Then a new group is chosen and it starts all over. Live play is kind of exciting because you never know if you're going to be chosen for one of the special positions. Unlike last season, where Katie and I played a whole lot of 1 vs 100 and never got to be in the mob or the one, Katie has been in the mob once already and our friend Jake has also been in the mob, so it does actually happen to real human beings.
Extended play is a faster paced version of being in the crowd. No prizes are awarded but there's a leaderboard and what the game tells us is that extended play comes into account when the mob and the one are chosen. The questions in extended play sometimes have themes like cooking or commercials and are generally a lot more difficult than the live game's questions.
This is the second season of 1 vs 100 and the game has had a lot of its old quirks worked out. There's a level system where your score accumulates and unlocks different emotes, which have no practical value besides bragging rights. The achievements are new and another good way to encourage people to play longer. The themed question sets are more varied than last season's also.
The best part about the game, though, is playing with friends. It's not exciting at all to play alone unless you're really into pointless trivia but when you can get a couple friends together, either through Live or just in the same room, it becomes a lot more fun.
#26 – Quake (PC)
I can't remember the last time I played all the way through Quake, so this totally counts. Hey! Quake is 13 years old and it's still balls out insane! The level design kind of suffers towards the end (episode 4 outright sucks) but it's still totally fun to play through, if a little short! I may take a break to keep slogging through Max Payne or I may hop into the first Quake expansion. I haven't decided yet.
#25 – Borderlands DLC: The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned (X360)
DLC counts, right? Sure! Especially when it's in such a neat little package as Dr. Ned.
I blasted through this today. Do you like Borderlands? Do you like shooting the undead in the face with your shotgun? Do you enjoy a setting that mixes classic horror with humor? If you answered yes to any of these, you'll love The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned!
One word of advice though; as soon as you can get to Hollow's End, go straight to the shack in the most southwestern end of the map. There you will get a quest to collect zombie brains, of which you'll have probably already seen many of. Get started on this right now! And when you fill up on brains, go back and turn them in, because you'll be collecting more. You'll be making five brain runs in increasing numbers. I neglected to turn in my brains as soon as I was full of them and ended up having to chase down 100 more after I'd finished all the rest of the section's quests and I was quite aware of the necessity of completing these brain runs. If you don't start early you'll either be grinding for brains in areas you've already been through at least twice or you'll have to skip on getting that achievement.
I started on Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot and it's hard. It's all arena fighting with enemies tailored to your level. Going at it solo will probably be a lot harder than it has to be. I may hold out until a friend or two has it and we can grind through the arenas together.
The annual holiday Steam sales are killing me. I'm now the proud owner of Max Payne and Max Payne 2. I've never played the first and I barely started the second. So far the first is good if a little difficult!