The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,600 times in 2013. If it were a cable car, it would take about 43 trips to carry that many people.
*Contains Minor Spoilers*
Something happened the other night that seldom happens when playing video games. This thing has only happened once before in a fairly recently released game. When this event happens, you find yourself amazed and dumbfounded by the profound effect it has over you, which in turn, makes you question if this thing was just a matter of circumstance or if what happened actually is grounded in reality. You begin to question the root of this event and the purity of its origin. This thing I’m talking about is emotion.
Not surface emotion either, not anger, not sadness, not happiness, but this amalgamation of different conflicting emotions. A deep seeded emotional connection you have with characters and their soothingly demented character defects that resonate on a personal level. A weird emotional relationship that you think is reserved only for real human interactions.
Naughty Dog pulls no punches with its latest release, The Last of Us. Within the first 10-15 minutes, the game draws you in, closes the door behind you and rips your heart out, only to chew it up, spit it out, and hand it back to you with a lollipop. The emotion it invokes within this brief amount of time is nothing short of miraculous. Rarely do movies or other avenues of media these days (which I guess really isn’t saying much) share this uncanny ability to play on your emotions in such a short amount of time as The Last of Us does. What happens in the first 10-15 minutes lays the emotional ground work for the next 15 or so hours.
The relationship between Joel and Ellie is classic. They begin their journey with a small amount of tolerance for each other and by the end of the game, their relationship blossoms into a love only shared seemingly by a father and his daughter. The story pushes and pulls the characters towards one another, always putting them in a position of helping each other out. This push and pull technique affords you the opportunity to become emotionally invested in both Ellie and Joel. Throughout the game, you are constantly helping each other with one task or another. Sometimes it’s just helping Ellie get to a higher position you wouldn’t normally be able to reach by yourself or Ellie helping Joel recover from a seemingly fatal wound by going out into the hostile world by herself and searching for food and medicine for Joel. Throughout the process you become invested not only in Joel and Ellie’s relationship, but invested in the story as well.
If you own a PS3 and have played any of the Uncharted games, then you know the pedigree of games produced by Naughty Dog. Their attention to detail is prodigious and meticulous. The staff at Naughty Dog develops every game with ornate detail – from environments to character expressions. Every little joint and body movement is handled with care.
Naughty Dog also gives their characters the human nuances you would only expect to find in real life. These minute nuances are best expressed in The Last of Us where Naughty Dog breathes life into the smallest animations of their characters faces. Somehow (and I’m sure this is a painstaking process) the faces of Joel and Ellie are peerlessly detailed. So detailed and animated to the point of almost being able to empathize with them on a human level any time they feel sorrow or joy. These facial details transplant the characters emotions into your own heart and mind, making for a wonderfully, and sometimes painful experience.
One of the most heart-wrenching experiences in the game comes at the very beginning of The Last of Us when Joel loses his daughter. The pain and anguish on his face is right there staring back at you and you can’t do anything but soak it in and try not to cry. Its moments like this that could only be done by giving Joel and Ellie a high level of true physical emotional expression and animation.
Another aspect worth mentioning is the voice acting. Usually when you play a game, you hear the same generic dialogue loop over and over and over again until you want to either throw the disc out of the highest window or play the game with zero sound. Not with Naughty Dog’s properties. This studio has done a wonderful job in its recent games by keeping the dialogue fresh and non-repetitive. You rarely hear the same dialogue twice.
This fresh dialogue also plays an integral role in how you relate with the characters on an emotional level. The high standard of voice acting produced by Naughty Dog adds that extra level of personality to the characters. Each line of dialogue is handled with care and tempered with the right amount of emotion that you feel it in your gut, twisting and pulling on those heartstrings. Just by adding tonal differences to the characters voice adds that extra human quality. The dialogue in The Last of Us feels, well, I guess, it feels real – as if two people were in a world decimated by infection and stranded with each other real.
I finished The Last of Us 3 days ago, in the wee hours of the morning and it has yet to release its grip on my mind (and my PS3), constantly provoking me and my curiosity for unlocking the emotional secrets this game holds over me. I’ve been trying to piece together what makes this game so good and why it has resonated with me on such a personal level. I’ve never had a daughter and I’ve certainly never survived a fungal apocalypse, so why the hell am I perplexed by this game? It’s because games aren’t made like this. Rarely is a game made with such care and poignancy that within the first few moments you automatically feel connected to the main protagonist and the loss he suffers. Rarely do you find yourself torn between wanting to put the controller down because the game is WAY TOO intense and thinking at the same time that there is no way I’m quitting because the story is WAY TOO good. This is why I play games and this is what The Last of Us has done to me. It sucked me in, chewed me up, and spit me out, leaving me only wanting more of what it has to offer – raw human emotion.
Gunslinger is the fourth game in the Call of Juarez series, developed by Techland (for which I’ve had an affinity for lately) and published by Ubisoft. Gunslinger was released this week on XBLA and PSN. Call of Juarez: Gunslinger in not a Latino rip off of Call of Duty, but a first person shooter set in the wild west of the late 19th century. Ubisoft and Techland describe Gunslinger as, “a real homage to the Wild West tales. Live the epic and violent journey of a ruthless bounty hunter (Silas Greaves) onto the trail of the West’s most notorious outlaws. Blurring the lines between man and myth, this adventure made of memorable encounters unveils the untold truth behind some of the greatest legends of the Old West.”
The game starts off with Silas Greaves, our dusty protagonist, entering a bar and being instantly recognized by a young man who has read about the mysterious Silas in dime magazines. After being offered a beer and prompted to tell his story, Silas agrees and plops himself down along side the young man and the other bar patrons to tell the story about how he met Billy the Kid. Enter, the game portion.
Gunslinger is comprised of uniquely crafted graphic novel style cut-scenes that have had motion applied to the varies layers of background that add a bit of depth. The in-game graphics are a mix of normal 3D and cell shading, which aren’t often applied to games. These graphics were instantly noticeable and demanded my attention. The draw back to the aesthetic, though, was that there was a real lack of variety with the color palette applied to the varies layers of the game and enemies were hard to spot amongst the background. If you like the color brown, than you’re in for a treat.
The action and shooting is where Gunslinger shoots the straightest. The controls feel top notch and on par with any first rate shooter. I was surprised by how fluid the controls felt because usually games that are sold on XBLA or PSN seem to fail in this area of game mechanics. More often than not, the acceleration on the X and Y axis starts off slow and gradually picks up speed which allows for shitty precision with shooters. Gunslinger does not have this issue.
The action in Gunslinger is paced nicely, always funneling enemies at you while Silas commentates on the kills and the task at hand. As you gun down the enemies, points are applied to your XP meter. The more precise kills you pull off (headshots, long distance headshots, explosive kills, etc) the more XP is gained. The XP is funneled into a gun on your UI and when you hit the RB or R1 button, deploys you into a slowed down state that turns the environment black and white and highlights the enemies in red for easier kills. There were also moments were the game launched me out of windows and automatically put me in slowed down state to allow for a more dramatic killing spree, gunning down the red-hued enemies like as if I were in a shooting gallery.
Gunslinger also has a skill tree and perk system. Your run of the mill skill points are accrued and applied to three different tiers, Gunslinger (Dual Wielding Desperado), Ranger (Long Distance Sharpshooter), and Trapper (Close Quarters Fighter). As usual, you have to put one point into the first perk in order to unlock the next perk in each respected tier. So, for example, I put one point in Gunslinger which gave the ability to dual wield revolvers, that in turn unlocked the second tier (duh). The skill tree is comprised of two six-shooter barrels and each point represents a bullet. This makes for a figure 8 pattern, allowing for multiple pathways and countless perk combinations.
The combat environments are open and non-linear. Gunslinger isn’t a truly open-world game but it definitely isn’t linear. This type of open environment allowed for more tactical shooting giving the player a little more freedom and creativity than your usual shooter.
The 30 minutes wrapped up with me squaring off in a one-on-one wild-west dual. The purpose of the dual is to keep your reticle on your enemy so you can keep focus on him. As you stare your opponent down and move the reticle over him as he moves back and forth, the reticle tightens its radius and when he draws his gun you pull the right trigger to draw your gun, using the right stick to square up where you want to shoot, and pull the right trigger again. The motion is fast and intense. After shooting your opponent, a score pops up. I’m assuming the more vital the shot, the higher the score. I acquired a score in the 1400’s and it looked like I hit him in the shoulder. I also received an, “Honorable Kill.” I guess maybe if you pull your gun before he pulls his and kill him, you get another title, probably “Dishonorable Kill” or something along those lines.
I haven’t found much about Gunslinger that I don’t like other than the color palette blending everything together. If Gunslinger continues to be as charming as it is with its semi-comical writing, far-fetched story, and tight combat mechanics, this will surely be game that shouldn’t be missed.
Gunslinger cost 1200 MS points and is $15 on PSN. I’m not sure if it is available on Steam, but I’m willing to bet it is or will be soon.
It’s not common these days we come across a game within the FPS genre where the narrative, tone, and setting play a central role. It’s usually the combat that is most notable within this genre and the story is as generic as white bread. Metro Last Light does an excellent job of breaking this ‘white bread’ mold by allowing the player to immerse themselves in this story-rich environment and well crafted setting. However, the story does lose steam by the end of the game, never really executing its landing and leaving me a little disappointed.
Metro Last Light puts you in the body of Artyom, also the protagonist of Metro 2033, one year after the events of its proceeding game. Although the events from Metro 2033 have been resolved, Last Light focuses more on the population and factions dwelling below the city of Moscow, throughout the tunnels, and in the various stations of the Metro. Last Light propels you into its environment where resources are still scarce and hostile creatures and factions still lurk about.
All throughout Last Light you wind up in small populated hubs that reminded me of floating through the ride, Pirates of the Caribbean. Environments are rich in low candle-lit dank hallways and crevasses where the shadows populate the walls of its transient occupants. At one station in the game I felt as if I had been transported in the game and living amongst the poor and malnourished, this was how visceral and detailed the environment became for me. Every station I visited throughout had its own economy and social mentality or faction. This allowed me to think that this game was larger than just a disc in my console, also allowing for my mind to expand and transcend the boundaries of my controller and couch. Combat environments vary but are limited to a linear combat experience or funneling you into a smaller hub-like environment encouraging you to use stealth to get from Point A to Point B. 
The combat in Last Light has been updated and streamlined, making for an accessible combat experience. The button mapping and UI have also been enhanced, allowing for an on-screen menu to help you navigate your way through the ins and outs of the game mechanics. For example, unlike in Metro 2033, when you hold down the LB or L1 button (depending on console) a pictured menu pops up from the bottom of your screen showing you the map of your tools and secondary weapons. These updated augmentations can be turned off if you have Ranger Mode downloaded on your console or PC. Ranger Mode turns off all HUD and UI prompts as well as beefing up the enemies.
Last Light does a excellent job of playing on the nuances of the game and the animations given to its protagonist. This is where I think Last Light shines the brightest. Last Light is not ground breaking by any stretch of the imagination. As a matter of fact, and as I stated before, it’s mostly a very linear combat shooter. However, the nuances given to Artyom as he crawls, jumps, and climbs his way through the halls and tunnels of Last Light are what caught my attention. Little cut-scene animations such as allowing Artyom to peek around corners or giving him a head tilt here and there while placing his hands in front of him at times where you least expect it, really resonated with me on a personal level. It was those little things that stamped a large impression in my memory bank. Also, the Metro series does of great job of implementing and giving you unique ways to manage your traversal through the environment. Managing your battery consumption by pumping your handheld electric converter so you can use your battery powered devices give this series a nice touch and don’t go unnoticed. These small nuances also transport the player far deeper into the environment and setting than the usual FPS.
Unfortunately, Last Light falls into the trappings of most ambitious story-driven games – lack of story fluidity. Metro Last Light starts off very strong, plowing the player through the story while drawing you into the setting and narrative. But by the middle of the game Last Light seems to try and juggle too many storylines while never really expanding on them. Side plots just fall flat and felt arbitrary, not really having a profound effect on the main story being told. This gave me a sense of disconnect with certain aspects of the story allowing me to scratch my head in wonderment and confusion as to why they threw those story beats in the game. Even though this flaw doesn’t exactly hinder the game from being good, it does hinder it from being great. By the end of the game and into its crescendo, I was also a little disappointed by they way they wrapped up the main story of the game. Without spoiling anything and having only one way to put it – it simply felt anti-climatic and disappointing. For a game mostly steeped in uniqueness, it sure morphed into a generic vanilla ending, never capitalizing on its strong intro.
I wasn’t going to write this review but something compelled me to do so. I wasn’t going to write it because it’s 2 days past launch and I don’t like to write a review after already reading bits and pieces of other reviews – I want a clean slate to process my thoughts. (Which is kind of stupid because this is a blog and I don’t have the early access privileges to games that large game internet sites do.) But this game deserves my time and recognition. Metro Last Light is a great game done by a smaller studio, who in their defense, had to endure publisher changes by the end of its development cycle and transplant an internationally acclaimed story into digital media form. This seems like a tall order by any standard, but executed quite well. I can’t imagine it’s easy to wrap up a novel into a 10 hour game, which is why I bet the game falters at times with its story. But where the story falters, the gameplay portion picks up. The combat and nuances play an equally large role in Last Light putting you in heart-pounding situations that implore you to implement all of the tools laid out before you. This kind of push and pull between the story and game allows Last Light to fall on even ground and this is why I found light at the end of the tunnel of Last Light.
Today 4A Games and Deep Silver released Metro Last Light, the follow up sequel to Metro 2033 released in 2010. Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light are derived from the internationally acclaimed novels, Metro 2033 and Metro 2034, written by Dimitry Glukhovsky in 2005 and 2009.
The stories follow Artyom, a survivor of an apocalyptic earth-scathing event in Russia that wiped out civilization and left mutated creatures in its wake. During this nuclear event and due to the high pollution and radiation on the surface, people have now sought refuge and built a new society in the tunnels of Moscow’s subway station, henceforth the title, “Metro.”
Metro Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033 and follows up with Artyom, who is now a Ranger – one of the factions down in the Metro. The game opens up with a cinematic of Artyom reminiscing about the days of him being a boy and the fact that he can’t recall his mother’s face. He also recalls the event that led his population down to the dank tunnels of the Metro and how hostile his environment has become. What struck me was the narrative and how descriptive the writing is. I have not read the books (I did just order Metro 2033 and it should be here any day) but one would assume that this dialogue was stripped straight from the pages of the novel. The narrative and opening dialogue made me anxious to read the books seeing as how dark and desperate the tone of the writing was.
After the opening cinematic you come to in a tunnel with other NPC party members recollecting to each other about the days on the surface and where they once lived. This scene spins out of control as Artyom is forced to aim the barrel of his gun and shoot wildly at what seems to be, “The Dark Ones” – a mutated race of savagely violent and dark beings. This is the first foyer into the game.
There doesn’t seem to be a stark contrast between the graphics from the first game to this game. The character models seem to look quite similar with maybe a light polish applied. The environment and guns also look and feel the same with a light touch up to its graphical integrity.
Following this freakish event, the game opens up in a similar fashion as the first. Artyom awakes in his room, this time with a guy standing over him telling him that he has found something Artyom maybe interested in. This was the point where I found my first glaring defect, the sound. I had my nice headphones strapped tightly to my ears so I could get a better feel for the sound of the game. As the NPC was talking to me, I couldn’t hear a thing. It almost sounded as if the guy was talking at a light whisper. I couldn’t tell if this was part of the game or if the sound was messed up somehow, so I ignored it.
As Artyom awoke and climbed out of his digital bed, I looked around the room and tinkered with the things I could tinker with in Artyom’s room and off I went through the bunker where Artyom now resides with the rest of the Rangers.
As I moved along, there are NPCs standing around talking to one another about arbitrary things happening within the game that really hold no significance to the main plot. But this is when I noticed that I was not getting sound though the center channel of my headset, only a left and right sound feed. Now this may be a defect of my head set or one of the game, but I have not had this issue before and one would only assume this had something to do with the sound of the game. Regardless, I turned my TV surround sound on and the problem had fixed itself.
For the rest of the 30 minutes, you lead your way through the bunker and end up at your first tutorial station – the shooting range. This is where you’re handed your staple gas mask, gas mask filters, currency (which in this realm is military grade bullets), and a med-kit. You are then led around and prompted to choose three guns out of 6 or 7 and try them out. After shooting down range at some mundane dummies, you choose 3 weapons you like and off you go through more of the bunker and ultimately end up at your quest point. Here is where I was given my first story task and partnered with a new NPC, Anna. We led our way to a train station, onto a train, and ending up at our destination. This concluded my first 30 minutes.
Metro Last Light doesn’t seem to do anything new within the first 30 minutes of the game. As a matter of fact, it does just about the exact same thing as the previous game – feeding you through the environment allowing you to take in the breaths of others and voyeur into the lives of the ones around you, never employing you into action but allowing you to realize your situation.
It’s also easy to see from the intro and opening game sequence that this game has a dark story to be told. From what I know about this story, other factions and mystical mutants lurk in your shadows awaiting you. Artyom is also plagued with the ability to communicate with “The Dark Ones.” If this game plays anything like the previous, I will be delighted. I really enjoyed the uniqueness of Metro 2033’s story and nuanced mechanics, so if Last Light builds on those same nuances with tighter controls, a more diverse bestiary, and better UI, this will surely shape up to be a great game.
Just a heads up guys and girls. No posts coming for the next couple weeks until my finger heals…video games on the other hand will still be played.
More often then not, I like to revisit older games and see if they have held up over time, or determine if they have oxidized and become stale. One original idea I had was, “Good-bye or Good buy.” In these posts I’ll write about my revisited or first time experience with the game and tell you if it’s a “good buy,” or if we need to send it off into the sunset and say “good-bye.” First up: Dead Island.
Developed by Techland and published by Deep Silver, Dead Island released in North America on September 9, 2011. Dead Island’s main focal point is a drop-in-drop-out 4-player co-op mode. This open-world RPG first-person game is about 4 people that survive the zombie apocalypse on a remote resort island. The gist of the game is that you have to help the other NPC survivors with menial (and often mundane) quests so that you can escape the island with all your limbs attached.
Each character has a their own specific specialty that allows for different abilities and tactics. These tactics and abilities range from knife specialist to stomping zombie brains to running through crowds and knocking zombies to the ground. All abilities ride the cusp of being totally outrageous and deeply hilarious — especially if you have deployed into the game with a group of friends. Also, the mechanics and physics allow for some fun glitches and gut-busting amusement.
I think I might need a Band-Aid?
Not only are the mechanics fun but the game does a good job of keeping you on your toes. As in any good zombie game there are some levels that absolutely play on the survival aspect. For example, running from car to car in a mad chaotic scramble in order to decimate zombies without getting hurt is crucial in one area of Dead Island. I’m not sure if the developer had intended for the player to use the cars in this way, but its an effective way to traverse the area while handling the zombies with reckless abandon.
I should also mention that the game does not allow for an all-out melee-fest. The bulk of the combat is hand-to-head and regulated by a stamina system gauged by a sliding blue HUD bar. There aren’t a lot of guns utilized in Dead Island and the player has to rely almost primarily on finding, maintaining, and modifying melee weapons. For example, these weapons can start as a baseball bat and after a few hours of game play and modifications, turn into a Ripper (a baseball bat with a running circular saw at the end) or a Nail’d Bat (a bat with nails littered throughout the barrel), but after a few swings and limbs later — you’ll need to find a workbench to repair and modify said weapons. If I recall, there are something along the lines of 40 mods ranging from electric to flamed to toxic elemental effects, as well as different rarities and levels of effects. The weapons throughout the game also have their own attributes, level system, and color rarity.
Dead Island is not without flaws. As a matter of fact, Dead Island is rife with flaws. But fortunately most of these flaws play into the charm of the game. Disappearing enemies and weird jump animations make for an absurd laugh-fest. Mostly, you are dealing with open-work jenkiness and glitched physics. Nothing game-breaking, but at times annoying. Glitches like the loss of weapons after throwing them at a zombie and the fact that other drop-in multiplayer characters could pick up your weapon after they have been thrown seem to have been fixed in my recent hours of playing but were definitely an issue when the game launched. Also, the NPC dialogue and accents are atrocious.
Heeeeeeeey, battah, battah, battah, battah! Swiiiing, BATTER!
For me, being a zombie fan for the last 20 years, a Dead Island day-one purchase was a no-brainer and proved to be a solid visceral experience flush with a plethoric zombie environment. I can see how people might be turned off by this game, though. The melee combat mechanics are not the easiest to champion and the story is a total throw-away. Luckily, last year Deep Silver released a Game of the Year (I don’t remember this winning any awards but, ok) edition that came packed with all the DLC — an exclusive mod, arena DLC, and a Ryder White add-on DLC. At the time of GOTY release, I believe this version was being sold at retail for $40 — today it’s being sold for $20 (well, that’s how much I paid for it).
If you have never played this game and were waiting for the right time to purchase this all-out-melee-zombie-smash-fest, now is the time. There isn’t too much on the horizon in terms of new big game releases and the next installment of Dead Island is just a week and a half away, so go out and get this amazingly stupid and wildly entertaining game. My diagnosis: Good Buy!
Tomb Raider was not on my radar in terms of a day one purchase, or a purchase at all. Even after seeing footage from E3 and other various developer diary footage, Tomb Raider just didn’t grasp my attention. Maybe it’s because I lived through the birthing of Lara Croft in the 90’s and to reboot a household icon from my adolescence just didn’t really appeal to me. Boy was I wrong. Tomb Raider does everything right in regards to this series and adds just the right ingredients to make this reboot in the running for my game of the year.
This origin story following Lara Croft in her archeological infancy has all the trapping of a great action/adventure game. The traversal is tight and satisfying, the shooting is devastatingly gruesome, the story is intriguing enough to keep your attention, and the level layout and design is sprawling and large enough to tug on your adventure strings. The quick-time events and utter beating Lara receives are a bit gratuitous and wear their welcome pretty quick though. Also, the lack of puzzle environments that the Tomb Raider series is known for fall short in this rendition, and the puzzles that are presented are underwhelming at best. Ironically, there aren’t too many tombs either.
The story starts with Lara and her crew getting wrapped up in a vicious storm that inevitably lands them on a mysterious island run by savages, cultist, and an ominous storm that allows no one to leave the island. As Lara and the crew try and escape the island, one of the crew members is kidnapped by the cultists and the adventure truly begins. Lara’s adventure through, up, and around the island is met with a ton of opposing force from the inhabitants. I never felt like the developers rushed her character development and at no point was I wondering how and why Lara was capable of doing some of the things she was — like headshots. I heard from a few reviewers asking how it is that Lara could pull off headshots if she is this supposed novice explorer. My answer is simple, she isn’t — the player is. I feel its a tad ridiculous to fault a game because your good at one particular aspect, but I digress. As in any good game that revolves around adventure and action, Tomb Raider definitely holds its own and has no problem running with the best of them — seeing as the original games broke ground in the gaming industry with their advances in this genre. This newly under sexualized Lara Croft starts off a novice and by the end of the game is transformed into the adventurer we commonly know from the 90’s.
In regards to weapons, Lara starts with a bow and ends up with a handful of upgradable weapons (four to be exact) by the end of the game but not so many weapons where you feel overwhelmed. Crystal Dynamics does a great job of balancing the progression of the weapons Lara gets and how they are upgraded. Lara never picks up weapons from enemies, but instead upgrades the 4 core weapons (pistol, bow, shotgun, and rifle) with salvage she finds on enemies and crates. The detail given to Lara and her utility belt as she picks up these weapons and upgrades are of the highest fidelity. Every time she is given a new device, weapon, or upgrade, Crystal Dynamics makes sure you see it on her person.
The combat in Tomb Raider is vicious and gruesome. Gruesome to the point where, if upgraded properly, Lara is pulling off executions with shotguns to the underside of enemies chins and unapologetically pulling the trigger. Some people might find this egregious (and rightfully so) but the amount of shit Lara is put through from the islands inhabitants would justify her brutality. The cover system I found to be organic, seeing as when Lara entered into a combat situation she automatically crouched behind walls and other objects without button prompts. This led to one of the most enjoyable cover systems to date.
Shhhhhh….I’m going to kill you…
Tomb Raider does an absolutely fabulous job at delivering tight controls and precise button actions that feel satisfying. Never did I find myself locked in an animation where a button press would simply get me out of. The climbing is simple and intuitive and at times when Lara was traversing, the camera would sweep over a cliff or ravine which conjured a great sense of danger and anxiety from the players aspect. The camera angles in Tomb Raider never led you astray as you were traversing and always nudged the player in the right direction. White paint clearly marks areas of climbing and if you ever found yourself confused, the game lends a hand with Survival Vision. This vision clearly marks points of interest in a yellow hue against a white smoky backdrop. This vision is also used to discover collectables and animals.
One of the things that did bother me about Tomb Raider was the overwhelming amount of collectibles, curios, and other documents that lend a hand in telling the backstory. The level design in Tomb Raider is diverse and expansive. Not quite true open-world, but definitely not linear. The collectibles are thoroughly littered throughout the environments, but I couldn’t help getting the sense that the developers didn’t know what to do with all their environmental real estate so they just placed collectables everywhere. Either they did it as a last ditch effort because they couldn’t come up with ideas on how to fill the level or intentionally put their for replay value. Either way, it has good tool for the backstory but Crystal Dynamics definitely could have toned it down with their barrage of useless collectables.
Lara also endures quite a beating throughout Tomb Raider. I mean, were talking every hour or so she is falling 30 feet to her near death. At one point in the game I thought — wouldn’t it be funny if she just landed on her feet and chuckled a little — unfortunately this never happened. So, it got to the point where you could almost time it where she would be falling and falling and falling and falling. It became repetitive and lost its impact after the fifth fall. By the tenth of eleventh fall it just became stale as hell.
Now is not the best time to take a nap, Lara.
Ultimately, Tomb Raider surprised the hell out of me. Around every corner was something new and different in terms of level design, traversal, and gameplay. The more I played the game, the more I found to like about it. From the sweeping extreme environments to the gruesome executions and even down to the small technical nuances like the myriad of character animations give to Lara from the developers, this game delivered on all fronts. The game does have you back track through levels, but at no point did I find this tedious or boring. As a matter of fact the game does a good job giving you tools and devices that allow you to get to places within the level not otherwise attainable your first passing through. Crystal Dynamics also does an impeccable job of telling the story of Lara’s origin and how she came about to be such a dominant force as an action/adventure icon. If you were questioning yourself about Tomb Raider and how much fun it would be, I can say without a shutter of a doubt that this game is definitely worth your hard earned money. You will not be disappointed.
It’s Saturday, I’m bored, broke, and not in the mood to play any games I have at my disposal. I told myself yesterday that I wasn’t going to hop on the computer seeing as I have become mildly obsessed with my blog and need to unplug, but what else am I going to do when I’m bored, broke, and not in the mood to play any games? So here I sit in my game room on a cloudy afternoon in the SF Bay Area writing about Crysis 3, again.
The Crysis franchise is built upon blending creativity with a sense of freedom in its game play as well as having some of the best feeling controls in its genre. So, It came as no surprise in this third installment that this winning formula was as solid as its predecessors. Crytek also does an excellent job, in Crysis 3, of creating lush visceral environments that juxtapose against a beautifully destructed New York. But, what Crytek seemed to neglect is to put any creativity into the boring and seemingly thrown-together story. Crysis 3 tells the age-old story where you, and only you, have the capacity and capabilities to overcome the ‘supreme’ being and save mankind from the depths of disparity. I get It — it’s one of the oldest storytelling arches in history — but one that is totally played out in the first person genre. It felt flat and just plain boring. At times the story really tried to pull you in and make you care about the supporting characters, which fall laughably short due to the fact the story never really sinks its teeth into you deep enough to conjure any kind of sadness. It’s just comes off as cheap and lazy.
What doesn’t feel so cheap and lazy is the core mechanics of Crysis 3. The gun-play is as solid as in the previous games and other large triple-A shooters. Some new additions to the game include the compound bow and alien weaponry. Within the first hour, or so, you are handed a compound bow which you always have with you and allows for a more stealthy approach to your combat situation. The alien guns are fun to toy with but I never found them significant enough to use more than the usual arsenal. Also, one of the things I feel Crytek should be proud of is bringing to the player a sense of creativity within the shooter genre, blending shooting with unique and interesting mechanics. Such as the slide-and-shoot, stealth/armor capabilities, and my personal favorite, ledge climb. There is something greatly satisfying about the automatic grab-the-ledge-and-pull-myself-up mechanic. I’m not sure why that it is, but I love it.
“Oh man! I was so drunk last night, I have no idea where I dropped my keys!”
The one glaring drawback I had with Crysis 3 is it’s one-dimensional implementation of having you constantly using the suit visor to scan an area before you entered it. It left the approach of the forthcoming room with zero surprise and spontaneity. I was constantly using the ‘nano vision’ and it just became second nature by the end of the game. At no point did I not want to use it. I felt like a lab rat that is trained to always pull on a mechanism to get the cheese. It also got to the point where I knew I was going to use ‘stealth’ 90% of the time and use ‘armor’ as a last resort if I got into a gunfight. The times I did throw the stealth approach out the window and go balls first into a room, I was quickly met with demise. It felt as if my game play was being funneled in a deliberate direction instead of giving me absolute freedom to approach situations at will.
The multiplayer seems to be strikingly similar to its predecessor. The only notable changes are the game modes, the compound bow, and some of the levels from Crysis 2’s multiplayer making a comeback appearance. This time with a overgrown motif attached to it. Most notably, “Skyline”
Crysis 3 does a lot of things correctly and it’s apparent that developers Crytek know how to make a game with solid mechanics and majestic environments. What they neglected, and this is not an easy task by any means for a first person shooter, is to draw the player into the story they are trying to tell. After I beat a level and I heard the achievement pop, I quickly focused my attention to my phone and the latest Facebook post or Tweet. The story lost me around the first 30 minutes or so never seeming to really grab my attention beyond that. All in all, Crysis 3 served its main purpose for me, to relinquish boredom until the barrage of games hit in March.
I’m going to be honest and this is going to sound bad, but it’s the truth. I really don’t remember the story from Crysis 2. I know I have played it and I know it was a fairly solid FPS, but I do not remember all the story beats. There were aliens, and CELL, and a part in the beginning where the suit was taken off of Prophet and given to another guy…jeez, I’m bad. So, judge if you want–or maybe dig deep inside your little gamer soul and succumb to the fact that the story was flat, mundane, and quite frankly not that good. I mean, who really cares about a FPS story. I rarely do. It’s there to provide content to you, the player, so you have something else to follow while you pump round after infinite round into the enemy. Who really plays FPS’ for the story, anyway, we want to shoot shit! As a matter of fact, I know that there are people out there that buy Call of Duty and never even touch the campaign. They just want to get their sweaty little prepubescent thumbs all over multiplayer so they can fling racist and homophobic remarks at upstanding law abiding citizens like myself. But, I digress. (I actually love playing multiplayer) This is about Crysis 3 and my first 30 minutes with the game.
The Crysis universe was developed by Germany’s own Crytek (also makers of the first Far Cry). Crysis was the first game to be developed in the series, obviously, and was exclusive to PC. It was the first game that I know of where a super computer was needed to run the game on all cylinders. It was a graphical behemoth. Crysis came equipped with open-world environments, suit enhancements, and on-the-fly weapon augmentations. Together, these components made Crysis stand out amongst the other FPS’. The game was ported to the Xbox 360 a few years ago and was well received (it also came free with my Amazon purchase of Crysis 3).
Crysis 2 went with a more linear approach with its level design and provided all the perks from the first game (suit enhancements, etc). This time some of the enhancements were integrating into the game play mechanics instead of having to activate suit enhancements like in the original game.The only enhancements you could manually activate in Crysis 2 was “armor” and “stealth.” This allowed for a streamlined combat system and made the multiplayer component more accessible. This was also the first game in the series to be developed for all consoles and PC.
In Crysis 3 you play as Prophet, the squad leader from Crysis and the man that gives the suit to the protagonist from Crysis 2. Prophet, who was being held by the evil captors, CELL, gets broken out of some form of stasis by another original character from the first game, Psycho.
Year of the Bow
The first thing I noticed about the game was the fidelity iof the graphics and the well rendered character models. Judging by the buzz generated by Crysis in regards to its graphical prowess, it came to no surprise that Crytek was able to add this amount of polish and shine from the Crytek 3 engine on their latest installment and it looks great even though it was running on console. The graphics slightly rivaled those of the first game bringing beautifully rendered facial graphics and a majestically ominous rainy backdrop. The character models pop out amongst the lighting and are beyond polished. They look comparable to those of the Far Cry 3 and Heavy Rain.
The frame rate seemed to stay consistent and I never saw any sort of screen tearing. This allowed for clear twitchy movements that are especially need during games like this where running and gunning are essential.
The combat, for the most, part has seemed to stay the same. The right bumper allows for stealth and the left bumper for armor. The only glaring difference that I found was that now Prophet come armed with a bow. In the other two Crysis games, anytime you shot your gun and had steath equipped, the stealth
Digital Humanoid 