Miracle and Late to the Party: Finished Review of BioShock

Would you kindly not be so frakkin amazing?!

::SPOILERS:: 
Come on, this came is six years old, you should have finished it by now.  If not, then don't read.

Yes, this game came out in 2007.  Yes, it's 2013.  But I've finally finished it!  This is two games I've finished in as many days.  It's been a long, drawn, tiresome way of finishing video games and I'll admit that some of the grandeur of this game was lost because of that.  But it's totally worth it.  I originally started the game back in 2010 (still very, very late to the party).  I played it on the hardest difficulty.  I died a lot.  I got frustrated.  I quit.  In 2011 I fired up Steam and clicked to play it, only my saved data had all been destroyed.  I had sunk four hours into it, yet all for not.  So I didn't play it.
Until I accidentally had it spoiled for me while browsing the interwebs, would you kindly.  So I said I have to play this game now, because that's just awesome.
So I did.
On Easy difficulty.
Man this game is a breeze!  I found an utter love for playing on Easy.  I said it would let me play and beat more games and I was right.  I will always play on Easy or Normal difficulty from now on.  I think I only died once the whole playthrough, and that was because I blew myself up.
I played the good guy route, saving the Little Sisters, because I'm such a sweet dude.  The ending was totally worth it when the Little Sisters stabbed Fontaine to death with their harvesters.  Such sweet innocence.  And the ending scene was short, but it was to the point.  Perfect in fact.  And then I didn't have to sit through the credits.  Pretty awesome.
I should probably talk about the game.  You get a bunch of weapons.  You shoot stuff (although killing big daddies with a wrench is super  satisfying).  You get superpowers like telekinesis, pyrokinesis, cryokinesis, magicbeeskinesis and you kill stuff with those too.  You can sneak.  You can use the environment to help you murder everyone in sight.  It's a great way to spend ten hours.
Plus, the story is amazing and very well written with a few a few surprises thrown in.  I think everyone compared it to System Shock 2 (I'm not fact checking), but I never got into that game so I won't.  I would compare it, storytelling-wise, to the Portal series, probably 2 more than 1.
Also, the atmosphere of this game is phenomenal.  Even though I was hardly in danger on Easy difficulty, I felt scared at points.  The sound engineers did a great job.  Bravo.  I think you guys don't get as much recognition as you should.
The point is, get this game and play it if you haven't already.  It's amazing and on Steam sales you can usually get it for five bucks.

Miracle: A Finished Game Review - Spec Ops: The Line

War.  War never changes.

So, I don't finish games.  Even short ones.
But I was feelings sick and my natural...chosen pick me up in the past has always been play video games.  So I fired up Spec Ops:  The Line again, deciding to see what was what.  Yeah I was pretty close to the end of the game.
At the end it tells you how much time you spent playing the game.  4 hrs 32.  Yeah that's about four hours less than I actually played it, because I die alot.  I almost switched to playing an easier difficulty (and the game asked me to many, many, many times) but I held strong and ended the way I started it.
I went back and played two missions because I had left some of the intel laying around.  I played them on FUBAR mode and didn't die once.  Crazy that I'm only bad when I'm trying to get through the game.
Anyhoo.  Man, this game rocks my socks off.  There are four endings to this game and I went through everyone of them, because they make it easy to do.  All four point to the utter horror that is war and this game shows just how ugly it is.  I talked a bit about that in my unfinished review.  I won't ruin it for anyone who hasn't beat it, but this game is very psychological.  As Captain Walker you get Post-Traumatic Stress and it doesn't go away, even by the happy ending.

So beautiful...Let's blow it up!

Which leads me to the main thing I want to talk about.  This game is more of a role-playing-game than any I have ever played.  It truly puts you in the role of Captain Walker and it doesn't let you go.  You HAVE to go through what he's going through.  Unless you just skip the cutscenes.  Then it's just a fun third person shooter.  But I was fully engaged even with all the start/stop I did along the way, and it's because Walker was so well written, and the story was laid out so well, that I couldn't help but remember all that had happened previously.  Much like Amnesia:  The Dark Descent (which I also haven't finished, although that's more due to me being too scared to finish it) this non-role-playing-game is one of the best role-playing-games ever.  While I loved Mass Effect (only the first one) I still felt like Shepard was just a puppet whose strings I was pulling, much like any of the Bioware/Obsidian/Black Isle games.  In Spec Ops:  The Line I truly felt I WAS Walker.  And that's hard to do, especially when I'm generally taken out of the immersive storytelling when I'm constantly being killed.

So bottom line, if this game is good enough for me to finish it, then it's good enough for you to go out and get it.

Actually that's not saying anything.  I hated Mass Effects 2 & 3 but I still beat them.

Regardless, play and beat this game.  Yager deserves your money.

Late to the Party: The Witcher

Okay, I wasn't actually late to the party in playing The Witcher.  I got it because I needed something to fill my time while I waited for Dragon Age:  Origins to come out.  I played it and I remember liking it but once DA:O hit, The Witcher was forgotten.

Forgotten at least until the recent Steam sale for The Witcher 2:  Assassin of Kings.  Now I didn't pick it up because I haven't beaten the first game.  I'm a little more responsible with my money nowadays.  But I decided to play the first one and get to the sequel and see why everyone was saying what an amazing game it is.

So I restarted The Witcher and the first thing I noticed was how clunky it is.  The cutscenes into gameplay are jarring and the scenario always starts before the fade in is even complete.  Animations are pretty poor, but that's to be expected, especially on the Aurora engine.  Also, animations shouldn't dictate the quality of a game.  But starting a fight should be as simple as pressing the attack button.  Instead Geralt waits for a few seconds and then as he's being attacked he'll lazily pull out his sword.  Then he'll get into a fighting stance.  Then, finally, he's ready to go.  This has caused me many deaths that could easily be avoided.  This is a big gameplay issue.  However, it's more a frustration than anything else.

The big thing with The Witcher is the atmosphere of the story.  I have no idea what's going on, and since Geralt has amnesia I guess this is intentional on the storytellers' parts (I hope it is).  But it's engrossing and I just want to know more about the world that I'm in.  I know it's based on a book series but since I haven't read those (yet) I am truly lost.  I can't wait to play this game and everytime I have to stop (for work, eating, bathroom breaks) it breaks my heart.

But one thing about this game is really bizarre.  If a female NPC has a name you can sleep with her.  At least so far.  I'm up to the beginning of Chapter II and the only woman that hasn't thrown herself at me is Shani, but if I remember right from the first time I played this game, that's pretty close to happening.  If I remember right, even a dryad wants what only Geralt can give her.  That's really weird and perhaps a little misogynistic.  So, if you're immature, this game is fantastic for that alone.  If you are very young, please stay away from this game until the site of boobies doesn't make you giggle or feel uncomfortable.  Or if you just know how to say "no."

Unfinished Review: Spec Ops: The Line

 
So I haven't  heard a lot about Spec Ops:  The Line but what I have heard was very good.  I got it on sale for just a couple of bucks because I was curious and $2.49 is perfectly within my price range for a game I'm not going to finish.

That's right, fellow gamers, it's time for another installment of Unfinished Re--

Spec Ops:  The Line is one very beautiful game.  I don't normally worry about graphics in video games as I believe gameplay should always trump anything else.  But sometimes the graphics are done so well that you can't help but notice it and in return comment on it, similar to my feelings on the movie Drive.  What I've played of the game, everything takes place in the desert, so you'd think brown would be the overall feel of the game.  But it's actually not.  The lighting is so awesome that the game has a vibrancy about it that is lacking in a lot of your typical action games such as Call of Duty or Gears of War.  It reminds me of Bulletstorm, actually (which I also haven't finished).

purple is the new brown

Which is actually quite funny because this is one dark game.  Not in lighting but in tone.  The opening sequence you shoot down a million helicopters with an endless supply of bullets and no cooldown, something that has been missing in action games for a long time now.  Fun, right?  Absolutely.  But then you get to the killing of people, up close and personal.  In this game there's something that makes the enemy feel very real and I genuinely feel bad every time I decapitate someone with a shotgun blast to the face.  But as the main character says if they shoot at you first, then you better shoot back (paraphrase).

So the story seems pretty cool if a little Apocalypse Now-ish, where a Colonel and his battalion, the Damned 33rd, have gone rogue.  But there seems to be more to it than that as a CIA agent comes into the mix and is helping insurgents kill me and more importantly the Damned 33rd.  Also, this game is really exciting and I can't wait to play more, where Apocalypse Now bored me to tears.

The play mechanics are pretty sweet.  It's a third person shooter, so cover is involved, but the cover doesn't make me angry like it does in the second and third Mass Effect games or Gears of War.  Cover is essential, because you will die without using it, but you can actually move from place to place pretty readily without immediately getting your head blown off.  Also, directing your squadmates seems to work better than in most games, although sometimes they shoot like Imperial Stormtroopers which can cause headaches and unnecessary deaths.

Despite the opening scene of unlimited ammo, the rest of the game is kind of sparse.  I found myself giving up my guns quite a bit in favor of less awesome guns, which had more rounds, which makes the battles more intense as I'm constantly pushing forward on the battlefield just to get to a weapon an enemy has dropped.

One mechanic that is just as annoying now as it always has been is the checkpoint system.  I understand certain ideas behind not having quick save and unlimited saves but I find that the older I get the less time I have to spend to repeat stuff.  I think I might start playing on easy modes from now on.  We'll see.  I'd probably finish more games that way.  But I have to say that the checkpoints are at least pretty close together.

Anyhoo, I highly recommend Spec Ops:  The Line as it seems very fresh.  Then again I don't play too many straight on shooters, so I'm not really sure if it's fresh or not.  But for me it is and that's what counts.

UPDATE:  Wow, I can't believe I forgot about this, but there are more intro movies on this game than I think I've ever seen.  It's truly insane. Here's a list of all of them which I found while trying to remove them:

2KDemo_Warn.bik
2KLogo.bik
blackscreen_3sek.bik
Legal.bik LegalScreen.bik
legal_DEU.bik
legal_ESN.bik
legal_FRA.bik
legal_ITA.bik
legal_logo_screen.bik
UnrealLogo.bik
YagerLogo.bik

Unfinished Review: Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP

I picked this little gem up in the Steam Canadian Indie Bundle along with some other sweet games which I don't remember.  I don't remember them because SB:S&SEP is the only game I played from the list.  Well I played Shank for about a minute before I realized it's meant for a gamepad and uninstalled it.

Considering I have a deaf roommate I will have two separate verdicts which I'll give to you right now.  If you're deaf I wouldn't suggest this game.  It might be cool with it's psuedo-Zelda-y/LucasArts-adventure-game-y gameplay, but the 'EP' on the end of the title kind of says it all.  The music by Jim Guthrie is amazing and I can and I have listened to the soundtrack for hours on end (which came with the game at no extra cost!).  It also has a really quirky art style which is enjoyable and quite unique.

I'm not really sure how to express how awesome this game is, because it truly is a sum of all parts.  The tiny things in it like clicking on the water to make splashes or the subtle musical changes or the expressiveness of a single pixel come together in just a fantastic mix of game.

Plus, it's full of video game mythos, which is always a plus.

From a technical standpoint, I have a few issues but it certainly doesn't detract from the experience of the game.  After each chapter has been finished it tells you to take a break and then sends you back to the main menu.  I'm alright with this if it only gave you the option of continuing on.  However, from a purely work ethic point of view this is quite good as once I'm back to the main menu I just quit and get back to doing what I should be doing.

Clicking isn't as intuitive as it should be for moving your character across the screen, but really it's a minor problem. 

A gameplay issue I have is that there is quite a bit of backtracking like in all adventure games, but really the visuals and the music make it seem like less of a chore, and more of the adventure.

One cool user interface thingy is the spinning record at the title screen.  If you click and drag the record, you can control the music that's playing.  Quite fun, but it would have been nice if going counter-clockwise played the music backward, and depending on the speed at which you spun the record would change the tempo of the song.  But any sort of interactivity on menus is always a plus.

So again, if you're deaf, this might not be such a fun game, but if you can hear music then check out this game.  It's short, only five hours or so (and I still haven't beaten it, being only at 54% clocking in around three hours), but I find that the shorter a game is the better the quality is, and that certainly holds true for SB:S&SEP.

Unfinished Review: Dark Souls (PC)

So I rarely finish games nowadays.  But I love writing game reviews.  So my dilemma was solved by just writing a first impressions review.  I'll get a lot more reviews out this way!

So for my first one I decided to write about the incredibly long Dark Souls:  Prepare to Die Edition.

I wasn't going to buy this game as I heard bad things about the keyboard/mouse set up, which is the main reason I play PC games over console.  But then it was on sale for $20 bucks and my roommate had a wired 360 controller so I took the bait.  And I'm glad I did.

From a purely technical standpoint Dark Souls on the PC gets a D+ (I put F- at first but that goes to the game Stolen which has an even worse set up for PC than Dark Souls; hmm, maybe I'll go back and try it with a controller...if I didn't throw the disc in the trash).  Almost everything is terrible, from the controls, to the resolution, to how many unskippable intro logos there are (which also appear if you quit your current game and head back to the menu; big user interface faux paus).  However, these things are easily fixed with a roommate's controller and a nice mod from Durante on the Nexus.

While the controls aren't as solid as they could be, it's very workable, and the gameplay simply makes up for that.  For those who don't know, the main concept is this:  you kill things and they kill you.  Alot.  I mean alot, alot, alot.  You will die more in this game than all others combined, even VVVVVV.  It's aggravating, it's frustrating, but unlike most other games, it's exciting and you can't wait to die again.

I think the biggest fun factor of countless deaths is this:  once you kill an enemy you get a certain amount of souls.  Souls are how you level up and buy things in this game.  They're pretty important.  But you can only level up at the checkpoints which are in-game bonfires, which also heal you completely.  Oh yeah, also once you rest at a bonfire, all the enemies respawn (except bosses).  That's right.  ALL.  RESPAWN.  ENEMIES.  ICE CREAM.  But if you die before you make it to the bonfire to level up you lose all your souls!  That sucks!  But if you make your way back to where you died you can retrieve your lost souls.  But if you die along the way, those old souls that you lost are gone.  Forever.  So far the biggest haul of souls I've lost is 10,000.  But I didn't get mad.  I didn't throw the controller.  I just thought of a different way of going about kill more bad guys.  This is genius.  

But let's diverge to the leveling system a bit.  I hate MMOs because they're nothing but grinding and it's unsatisfying because leveling up to 15 should give you more than just the ability to sprint.  Leveling up in Dark Souls honestly doesn't feel very important.  If you're not skilled at pressing buttons, or your finger slips, or something else grabs your attention for just a second, the simplest enemy can kill you.  Leveling will help you dish out more damage, making killing lesser enemies quicker, but dying is as easy at level 20 as it is at level 1.  So here's the thing.  In Dark Souls, there is nothing but grind.  But you're not grinding to gain more power.  You're grinding to best yourself at how quickly and efficiently you can kill the same enemies over and over again.  It truly is a skill based game, where the slightest mistake can cost you everything.

Let's talk about story, as usually the story is my favorite part.  I'm not sure if Dark Souls has a story.  You're an undead person.  You start off in a dungeon, or undead asylum.  Then you kill stuff.  And there's a dragon. And you have to ring two bells?  I don't know.

So, Dark Souls doesn't have a story.  But it doesn't need one.  I think it actually would have been nice if they didn't have those intro cutscenes or talking or anything.  The game just opens with you breaking out of the asylum and hacking things up, because that's what this game's is all about and that's the only thing it needs to be about.

I'm close to 20 hours into it.  My cool deaf roommate who loaned me his controller is about 100 hours into it.  He says he's only about one fourth of the way through though.  I will not finish this game if it's that long.  Just like I didn't finish Skyrim (funny thing, both Skyrim and Dark Souls run on the Havok Engine, and they came out one week apart).  But Dark Souls has been the most exciting game I've played in a very long time.  

So Final Verdict - GET THE GAME!!!!

If you have an Xbox 360, you should get this game.  If you're a PC gamer, get a hold of your roommate's Xbox 360 controller and plug that bad boy in and get Dark Souls.  You won't regret it.  Unless you don't like good games.

DISCLAIMER:  THIS GAME IS REALLY FRAKKIN HARD!