Far Cry 2

I haven't played the original Far Cry but I do own Far Cry Instincts for Xbox. It was a fun game except the most ridiculous bug at the boss battle. I don't know if you know this but I'm gonna explain it anyway. So in the boss battle you see the main enemy on a cliff and you're being attacked by these mutant-whatever-soldiers. Keep in mind there's no way to know what you're supposed to do here. At first I was shooting the boss and killing the monsters every now and then but I was mainly focused on the boss. I thought the bulk enemies just kept on respawning and I never got very far with this tactic.

So it turns out that you have to first take out a few waves of these mutants and then they stop coming. Then you can start dealing with the boss. So the boss jumps down from the cliff and starts attacking you. Naturally I started to shoot the guy the very instant the last mutant-thing was dead. And I just kept dying and dying. Turn outs the game has a serious bug. You have to wait for the boss to jump down and WAIT for him to say a line. If you shoot him before he has delivered his awesome line he becomes invulnerable. I mean what the FUCK?!?! Who in their right mind will wait for the fucker to say anything?! He's the fucking hardest enemy in the game so of course you'll start to shoot the shit out of him at the first chance. This is definitely one of the most incredible bugs I've ever encountered. And I don't even know if it is an actual bug or did they just design it like this. Whatever the case that is fucking insane.

Okay so moving on to Far Cry 2. I wasn't planning on getting this game for a long time but I got a good deal on the Collector's edition so I had to buy it. Sadly the collector's edition isn't even very good. You get an artbook, t-shirt, map and a making of dvd. The artbook's kind of lame compared to the artbook from Fallout 3 which was awesome. Making of dvd is kind of boring because you just get to see some guys going to Africa to get reference material for the game. And a few trailers but that's about it. Also they somehow managed to write "enemies" as "ennemies" on one of the dvd menus. That's an accomplishment. I'm not really a big fan of these t-shirts either because the second I open the packing and wear the shirt it's not a collectible anymore. So I just have it lying around in a box like some other collectible game shirts. Yes I am a nerd..

I did like the atmosphere of the game. The graphics are good and gameplay is fine too. The guardposts which I've read a lot about in many reviews are really annoying. I can't figure what they were trying to prove by making the guards respawn ridiculously fast. So basically you just fight through them over and over again or at least take some hits while trying to avoid fighting. You are going to die a lot and you will become familiar with the loading screen. And the loading takes way too long. It's nice that world is open and you have to load it only once but apparently the console has to load the whole fucking thing again when you die. Not a very nice thing. Imagine if this would happen with GTA IV. Just fuck it.

I stopped playing this for a while but somehow it just crept in to my mind and I found myself playing it again. I guess that must mean something. The enemy AI is totally random and it's really impossible to try to take a tactical approach to fights. The enemy spots you at total random if you try to sneak up to them. Also the enemies are real fucking sharp shooters and you die a lot. That is until I turned the difficulty to the easiest possible and decided to play the game like Doom. So now it's way more enjoyable but obviously this isn't what the designers were trying to do. Anyways give the game a try if you see it at a bargain price..

PC versus Consoles Part 1

I switched my gaming platform from PC to game consoles a few years ago and I'm happy I did. I still do play some older games occasionally. But I just don't have the time or the money to constantly upgrade my machines so they can run the latest games smoothly. I also like to be able to play while I'm lying on my bed and relaxing. With PC you have to be hunched over right in front of the computer. Well all right I guess you can hook up your computer to a TV and get a wireless keyboard and mouse and somehow try to manage with that. But that's too much work.

Also installing games became such a chore to do. And it's not uncommon for something to go wrong and then you may or may not have to manually uninstall the parts already installed and then try again. It seems like a lot of trouble for trying to do something fun. Things were better when computers weren't very developed so most of the hardware were compatible and most games ran smoothly on any configuration unlike today. And installing was just copying the game from a floppy disk or just typing the start command and play the game from the floppy.

Installing (and the pricing and the game catalog obviously) is the reason why I haven't bought a PS3 yet, and I'm not likely to do so in the near future either. The mandatory installs are really the most fucking dumbest thing the winner of the last console generation could do. And still they did it. I guess it's because PS3 is a fucking blurayplayer-dishwasher-refrigerator-vacuumcleaner before it's a GAME CONSOLE. So good luck with that. And while on the subject, why the fuck did they drop the support of PS2 games? I have a ps2 game library of about 120 titles so no fucking way I'm going to have a PS2, Xbox 360 and a PS3 next to my TV.

And another thing that really fucked the game industry up is internet. No not the old piracy-blaa-blaa-blaa but because it enabled developers to publish unfinished products because "hey you can always update them later and maybe make them even work!". Sadly this seems to be a trend with modern consoles too. But in my books it's really unacceptable to publish half-finished products and maybe fix them later. I mean let's take Far Cry 2 for Xbox 360. The version on the DVD has some serious save game issues. So the saved games can become corrupt and you won't be able to continue. That's amazing. So now I can play the game fine because they published a patch that fixes the problem. But what the fuck am I supposed to do in 10 years when I wanna do a little bit of retro gaming and the current Xbox live system is dead and buried? So I just can't play the game then can I? What a piece of shit. Thanks Ubisoft. I'm pretty sure the name means you-be-soft in French. And boy are they soft...

Devil May Cry 4

I just finished playing through Devil May Cry 4. The game had been lying around for a couple of months and I finally had the time to play it. The game took about 10 hours to complete. It was an ok experience but nothing special.

One of the biggest complaints I have with this game is the fact that you have to play most of the levels twice. First you beat them with Nero and then you beat them with Dante in the reverse order. This is just boring because you've seen it all before and there's nothing new. It's just lazy level design or maybe the developer ran out of time. But anyways it's just not cool. It didn't bother me that much because I played the game through only once but imagine playing the game like 6 times with different difficulty settings and you would have seen everything 12 times! Luckily there's no way I'm gonna play this again in a few years.

The game and animation looks good except when your character is running on stairs. It doesn't look anything like climbing stairs. It's more like the guy's hovering above the stairs and running up and down a slope. Wasn't I supposed to notice that?! I mean come on! Also there are way too few different enemies. So the fighting becomes just a chore to do. You know how every one of the enemies act and what tactics you should use with them so there really isn't any challenge.

There are also these "special missions" peppered aroung the levels. At first I tried to finish them but they are just not fun. Every one of them has some strict time-limit and they are just stupid. Eventually I stopped even trying because they sucked. Also what's great about them is that if you died while on a "special mission" you died in the actual game too. So you had to go back to your previous checkpoint. What the fuck is with that? There were some other checkpoint issues with the game too. And some seriously annoying respawning enemies but enough about that.

The plot and the cut scenes are just ridiculous and the game knows it too. It's like nothing's even meant to be taken seriously. There are some cool maneuvers in the cut scenes but other than that they aren't very interesting. One thing that I did miss was Japanese audio track. I bet it would have been so much better than the English version. I just can't help but to wonder why in the fuck didn't they include the original audio.

This is just another basic ok game. Nothing special and really no reason to play again but I'd give it an 8 out of 10. Actually no... it's more like a 7.

Assassin's Creed

This is once again a game with huge potential that somehow manages to fuck it up. All the gameplay videos and trailers before the launch showed a sandbox game set in medieval middle-east. But what we really got was a monotonous and repetitive action game.

The whole DNA-memory shit basically ruins the whole medieval vibe. Why is it mandatory for the fucking numbers and other computer shit to be seen everywhere in the ancient world? It just ruins the immersion. I guess the game is trying to tell you that you are a guy who goes through his ancestors memories rather than that you are playing as the actual ancestor. But the point is I really don't give a fuck about this modern bartender who gets kidnapped and who walks slower than a turtle. I want to be the medieval assassin for fucks sake!!! How about renaming the game "Bartender's Problems" and I would have known to avoid it.

I have no complaints about the very streamlined and simplified jump and running system. It works for me and it's fun to just run around the rooftops without constantly falling down. Fight mechanics work quite well allthough it could have used some of variation. One major issue with this game is the story structure and how they use it to justify the development of the characters abilities. In the beginning he can us all of the abilities. Then he makes a mistake and is lowered in rank so he loses most of his abilities. And I can understand this with weapons for example. You can't use throwing knives or the hidden blade because they are taken away from you. But how the fuck can you make a soldier lose his ability to counter attack?!?! I mean really this is supposed to be the result of years of training and suddenly he just willingly doesn't want to counter attack untill his master gives permission for it. Are the cities filled with assassin spies who will report the big man if our character would counter attack someone? It's just fuckin insane!!!

This is a game that also brilliantly utilizes the environment twist. The end of the game is just killing dozens of enemies and there is nowhere to climb or hide. You just have to kill every one on the screen and then move a little bit further and do it again and again and again. Great way to really ruin the mood of the stealthy assassin you were supposed to be until this point. The boss fight is really stupid and not suitable for the game in any way.

I think the design went something like this. At first they had a great and innovative game concept and they managed to choose an awesome theme aswell. Then they started to hype the game. Reception was amazing obviously but then they realized there's no way they can finish the game in time. So they simplified the structure of the game and threw in a really fucking mess of an ending. And everybody's happy right? At least that's what metacritic says. The average score is 81. This game is barely worthy of 70 points let alone 100! It's nice to play the game through once but there's really no reason to every play it again. At first the game feels really good but soon it's limitations and repetitiveness kick in and you just have to force yourself to play if you actually want to finish it.

So the sequel is coming out this November. I really don't expect much from it because of the lesson learned with the first one. It's likely to be over-hyped and generally an ok game but I don't think it will blow my mind. Actually this is kind of a test for the series. The second one actually has to earn its place in my game collection because its older brother work it's way up there by cheating.

Call Of Juarez

I bought Call Of Juarez months ago and it has been just waiting to be played. So I had some spare time and thought I'd pop the game in. First of all the volume in the game is really low compared to any other game I've played on the Xbox 360. So at first I thought the dialogue was just some random mumbling that I wasn't really even supposed to hear. But yeah I was. Usually when I play a game the volume on my TV is at 10. For this game I had to put it up to 25. What the fuck is with that?

So at first you walk around at some forest and you do these tutorial parts. The second you get to a "gun tutorial" the game confuses me. You're at a farm and there are two buildings. A small house and a big decrepit building made of planks. You're supposed to find a box with a gun in it on the roof of the barn. Well guess which one is the barn? The fucking house of course!!!! I mean does Ubisoft have a different meaning for the word "barn" because I sure as fuck would have never called that shack a barn.

Then I advance to some town. I get a bunch of objectives that change just because I walk forward on a street and watch some short cutscenes. Is this really necessary? Don't give me objectives if I don't have to do them. They go something like this: "Find a gun", "Hooker has a gun, get to the hooker", "Can't get to hooker by using stairs, find another way", "Search the hooker's drawers for a gun". I mean just FUCK!!!

Another thing when I dropped a chair on some guy at the saloon the game gives me a message saying something like "You're not supposed to hurt innocents". Okay.. so this is the fucking wild west (you know the WILD is there for a reason) and I can't even choose who I punch or shoot. Not a very good start.

During the first hour of playing the game I get these idiotic time limits at least 6 times. DON'T PUT TIME LIMITS IN GAMES!!! They are not fun and they're not challenging. They are just fucking annoying. "You have 60 seconds to go through some hookers drawers to find a gun". I mean are you kidding me? How does this enhance the experience? The hooker comes in anyway the second you find the gun so what the fuck does it matter if i want to go through the drawers for 30 fucking minutes if I feel like it.

I also really expected the Reverend's voice to be much more ballsy. But I guess it will suffice. I also discussed the whip mechanics in an earlier post. But to sum up: it sucks. Then there are loading screens and auto-saving parts that constantly interrupt the flow of the game (if there is one).

So this really isn't a very good game. The things I described earlier aren't really major issues but when everything feels kind of half-assed and poorly executed the immersion falls apart. Once again a game with great potential but that just doesn't deliver any of it. Only reason I kept playing is the theme because the wild west is an interesting era but it's still not handled very well in video games. I'll keep my fingers crossed for future efforts though.

Poor game mechanics: swinging

I recently bought a pile of used games for the original Xbox. One of the games was the comic-based XIII. I had been looking forward to play this game mainly because of its distinctive visual style. So I played a few levels and while I wasn't stunned or anything but I thought the game was a mediocre shooter. Then came a part where I was supposed to use a grappling hook for the first time.

First of all the instructions the game gave we're really poor so at first I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Eventually I figured how to choose to grappling hook from the inventory. So I fired the hook to the spot it was supposed to and I climbed (or more like reeled with this really slow dumbass device) up. Then I thought I have to jump from the rope and I can grab a ledge that was in front of me. So I jumped and dropped to the ground and died. So I watched a loading screen. Another try with the same method. Dead again. Loading screen again. Then I figured maybe i should go all the way to the top of the rope so I can jump from a better angle. Well I couldn't go all the way to the top (I have no idea why) but I went as high as possible and saw the roof where I was supposed to go below me. So I jumped. Dead. Loading screen. So I tried a new approach. I climbed high and started to swing on the rope and jumped while the swing was at the apex. You guessed it. Dead on the ground again. So I said fuck it and turned off the Xbox. The final method I tried was probably the right one but I somehow managed to fuck it up too. I'm not very likely to spin that disc again.

This is just a very simple example of bad game mechanics of a really simple task in the game itself. On top of that the game didn't bother to give me good instructions so I tried all the normal approaches and everyone of them failed. This reeling or whatever isn't fun at all nor does it play a crucial part of the game. So why make a mundane on boring task fucking hard and even give a possibility for the player to die in a situation like that?

Another example of a bad swinging mechanics is Call Of Juarez. I died like ten times before I got the hang of swinging with a whip. And while I was supposed to be learning this I was constantly being shot. Pretty fun eh? And even when I know how to actually use the whip to swing it's still not fun. Also you have to stand in some very special distance to the object you're trying to swing from to activate the mechanic. Even though the whip clearly reaches the object from a considerably longer distance. And the fucking loading screen again every time you fail the swing. Goddamn!

Lego Indiana Jones and Bionic Commando actually manage to make swinging fun. Two very different approaches to the swinging but are both easy and smooth to execute. In Lego Indiana Jones you just have to stand in a right spot and press one button and there! You just executed a swing with a whip. Bionic Commando's mechanic is more challenging but it's still easy because you have an auto-aim for the spots you can grab and you can grab them from a varied distances. I mean if you can't make a game mechanic fun or valuable to the experience somehow then don't fucking implement it! I could have easily played happily through XIII without thinking "boy does this game need a swinging mechanic really bad".

Some observations of GTA IV

Last mission of GTA IV really ruined the whole game for me. Basically the game differs from the previous entries of the series by being more "realistic" and toned-down. And most of the missions are pretty believable (in the context obviously) where you drive to some place and kill somebody etc. But then the last mission just says "fuck it" to all of this. You follow some car for 10 minutes, you kill a hundred guys at some warehouse, you follow a boat with a dirtbike, you jump to the helicopter from a ramp, you duck rockets from the boat, you crash land the helicopter, and finally you get to kill the boss guy. I mean just what the fuck is this? Did they seriously say at some mission design meeting "Okay this is the last mission so let's just fuck the whole mood of the game and really make it as shitty action movie-like as possible". I would have loved to hear that discussion.

I really enjoyed playing GTA IV until that final mission. Obviously the game could have been more versatile and customizable but that really didn't bother me since I wasn't really into San Andreas at all. Allthough San Andreas was ruined by the hardware limitations of the last console generation. It could have been great but now it was just blah. But anyways I never forget to mention the shittiness of the ending when someone asks me about GTA IV. Nor do I recommend the game to anyone. It probably wouldn't be so annoying if the mission would have been put somewhere in the middle of the game. But being the last one it's the mission that leaves the final impression of the game and totally stains it.

I also don't like this DLC or downloadable content thing. I'm not ever going to buy a single add-on from Xbox marketplace (well I'm not putting my foot down on this one..). Basically it's a nice concept but the problem is that I like to actually physically own the product. And besides what happens if someone hacks into Microsoft's database and deletes some accounts or fucks it up somehow. Or someone just makes a human error that alters the information somehow. Everything you've bought just vanishes and you lost your money. So no thanks! I'll just have to wait until they release both of the DLC's for GTA IV on a disc sometime next fall. If I somehow manage to remember that I actually had some fun playing GTA IV..

Thoughts on environment "twist"

There's one design choice that really annoys me in most videogames. This happens in good games as well, but usually it is implemented a little differently from the bad ones. I am talking about the environment "twist" that will eventually happen (usually about 60-70 percent of the game walkthrough).

Let's use Bionic Commando as an example of this. This happens in a lot of games but Bionic Commando is still fresh in my mind. During the first half of the game you are gradually given all of your abilities. Some of these include throwing or punching objects from the levels at the enemies with your bionic arm. So you get used to using this method of taking down enemies when you want to preserve ammunition. Boxes, rocks and other stuff like this is scattered around the levels pretty generously at first.

Then at some point you'll start to get in to these "miniboss" fights where you're fighting regular soldiers and 2 or 3 different kinds of biomechas at once. So at first you have the boxes and stuff lying around so you can use them to take the mechas down. But as the game progresses suddenly when you meet these biomechas there just isn't anything to throw at them. This is frustrating as hell. Not because it's overwhelmingly difficult, but because now the game tells me how to play. So I can't choose my tactics anymore because my only option is to duck their attacks and try to attack their backs and wait for some heavy weaponry to drop from the sky in a pod. This feels unfair and it's like the designers are artificially raising the difficulty level. And it just isn't fun when one of your attack tactics gets taken away.

And you really can't even explain these with the environment design or something. This starts to happen in somekind of Harbour and Oil Rig levels. So there really isn't any boxes or other shit in real harbours? And it's really great that the levels are filled with all sort of pipes and ventilators and who knows what but you just can't grab them. I mean really? Why the fuck can't I grab anything small enough and rip it out with my bionic arm and then thrown it against the enemy?

Bottom line, JUST DON'T FUCKING DO THIS EVER AGAIN!

Random thoughts about games part 1

Is it just me or do modern games feel like they're just not quite refined as they should be. I really don't recall ever thinking that Deus Ex, Baldur's Gate or Diablo are lacking something. But now the thought pops up while playing just about any game. This lack of refinement can be seen in the amount of bugs but also in bad design choices. Some games don't know what they want to present the player with and some just mix as much stuff as possible together and suck at every part.

Let's take Mirror's Edge. The main concept of running around in and on tall buildings is cool as hell and different. But they decided to add a half-assed combat system that just isn't fun. So now even the basic running parts aren't all that fun because you're constantly being shot at and just waiting when is the next MANDATORY fighting sequence going to come along. This was really a game I wanted to like, but sadly it's just bad. And the most annoying part is that I can't help but to think how awesome this game could have been.

The only games that seem to be consistent are racing games. Take GRID or Sega Rally or PGR 4 or whatever but they are what they are from the beginning to the end. Not once have i thought that GRID would be better if it had like explosions and some quicktime events and some sexy dialogue. It's consistent so even if some parts are weaker than others they really don't stand out and it offers a wholesome experience.

Don't get me wrong, there has always been bad games but the difference is that now there are really bad prestige and AA-class games. And usually the concept of the game is great, but then it's just fucked up during the design and implementation. It reminds me of the movie industry and the serious emergence of independent movies from 60's onwards. I think there is a similar trend going on with games at the moment.

I guess we're living in a phase where videogames are evolving in their cultural and business context. It's like the business part forces games to be published unfinished and not fully thought through and the developers aren't really artistically ambitious enough to fight back. Hopefully this will be just a phase that can be set aside in the future. In the end it would be best for everybody that games would realize their full potential.

Bionic Commando

I just finished playing through the new game from Capcom called Bionic Commando. I'm sure you've heard about it so I'm not gonna go into any details. I purchased it right at the day of its release and got a cool Bionic Commando action figure with it yay! I usually don't buy games when they come out but rather wait a few months so I can get them cheaper. I am a student still so the money isn't really flowing. I did make an exception with this one since I got it at a great trade offer.

First impressions of the game were very positive. The menus look awesome and set the tone right from the start. About eighty percent of the game is really fun but the last twenty started to feel a little forced. The greatest and hardest bossfight comes right at this interval. The real bossfights of the game are boring and uninteresting and really not that hard. But this giant robot worm is really a stand-out point in the game. And propably the thing I'll remember first when I'll reminiscent this game somewhere in the distant future. The game also features two pretty useless parts. These are of course the plane-hopping and vulture-hopping parts of the game. They feel kind of out of place and are really uncalled for. So maybe the team should have spent the time implementing these to seriously improve the level design and the save-system.

Also I'm not really sure Mike Patton was the right choice for the voice of Spencer. I mean I really like Patton and he did a great job on The Darkness, but he comes off a bit weird in this game. It's like they didn't really tell him what they wanted from the character. Now Spencer sounds like a weird-funny-angst-filled teen or something where as everyone else (except the ridicilous german accent of Groeder) sound pretty convincing. So the contrast is quite striking.

All in all the game is pretty good but it's in no way awesome. It could have been much better but then again I really wasn't expecting a lot so it was a fun experience. On a scale of 1-to-fuckinghypercool this is a solid 8.