Games to Come
Sep. 29th, 2009 07:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynI'm still getting used to this whole 'online gaming' thing that everyone else in the universe appears to have twigged to about five years back. Given my lack of prowess with video games in general, this should come as no surprise to anyone. I have yet to ping anyone for a Halo 3 ODST game, largely because my current online friend group consists of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jeditigger and I've usually already been in the middle of wrecking the Covenant-occupied areas of New Mombasa when I've gotten the online notification there. I tend to skip right over the parts of game reviews that talk about the ONLINE MULTIPLAYER EXPERIENCE, or the IN-PERSON CO-OP EXPERIENCE. I'm still a geezer in that regard; for the most part 'multiplayer' means 'okay, I died, here's the controller, give it back when you die'. It happens.
I'm also not really entirely used to downloading video games. My brain still wants the box, the box art, the paper manual, and the CD. It can, however, be persuaded to let go of these childish demands for a downloaded game demo, largely because it seems like the games I'm interested in have cost $50 to $60 since my senior year of high school. (The first video game I bought for myself with my own money was a first release copy of Civilization, and it cost $55.I know I bought something else for a similar price at the time but I'll be buggered if I remember what.) $60 is too much to pay to find out whether a game is going to interest me or not, so if I see a demo available for something that looks interesting, I'm gonna download it and give it a whirl. Last night I finished two demo downloads, and so sat down to give them each a try: Brütal Legend, and the most recent incarnation of Wolfenstein.
I wanted to like Brütal Legend very much. I really did. The storyline has you as Eddie "Voiced by Jack Black" Riggs, a deeply dedicated roadie stuck working for a skinny little nu-metal band whose members think nothing of asking him to build them a set 'more in line with our tween demographic' before going out on stage and claiming to be heavy metal. When a disaster happens on stage, Eddie gets transported to another universe that gives the appearance of having been derived from heavy metal album covers, and immediately has to fight off a bunch of creepy skeleton guys in crimson robes, all armed with long wiggly swords and general demonic imagery. He gets a double-headed axe and his guitar Clementine to do it with, and this is where the game fell apart for me. I knew, I knew, that if I persisted I would get to the storyline about the evil demon emperor and the enslaved rockers and the musical rebellion, etc. etc., and I wanted to get there, believe me. I truly did. But... well, it's a fighting game. This part, at least. Press X to use this weapon, press A to use the other one, press A + X together for the combo move that brings down the temple, press B to block attacks, that kind of thing. And while I used to play FPSes and not do well because I sucked at them, I played fighting games even less. I'd mostly just watch other people play Mortal Kombat or what have you. Never could get myself out of the button mashing stage, or get myself into the mindset of thrashing the enemies who just kept coming in from just off stage. By the time I got rid of the red guys and encountered the screaming weird demon chick (Eddie had some great lines during that encounter), I just knew it wasn't gonna be for me. Someone else is going to have to play this and have fun with the story line. Sorry, guys.
Wolfenstein, now... Spear of Destiny was my first FPS. I was horrible at it. I got motion sick playing it. And I loved it. Yes, it was cheesy as hell, with the early 90s graphics and the restoration of health by randomly placed turkey dinners or chicken legs and the enemies screaming "MEIN LEBEN!" and the dead bodies whose feet were always pointed at you no matter what angle you were looking at them from- all of those things. But it was the first game that I played where I wondered what must be going through the protagonist's head as he got battered as hell, or how feral and half-crazed he must have been by the end of it (anyone who could consume that big of a turkey dinner that quickly had to be ripping it apart with his bare teeth, and you can't tell me that fighting those Frankenstein guys in the upper levels wouldn't mess with his head). I owe the Wolfenstein franchise for that. I pulled down the demo with fond memories in my head, fired it up, and...
... oooh, pretty graphics ....
... very nice cinematic fight animation...
.... the hell. THE HELL. How did- BJ, where the HELL did you get half of the Orb of Aldur? It was round, it glowed blue, and when he was about to be shot down by no fewer than eight Nazi soldiers it suddenly induced a NO SKIN FOR YOU, MR. NAZI! moment, followed immediately by YOU DON'T NEED BONES EITHER. What are you doing with-
Okay, gameplay's starting, it looks like the shiny is part of the whole 'this is a universe where Hitler paid the Occult Bureau good money and got good results' schtick, and oh, hey, you have the Resistance to join up with, and at least you start off with a gun instead of that little stabby knife from SoD, and OH MY GOD EVIL NAZI PROTON PACK. Okay, it looks like it's just a gun and it may be freezing things, but it's still huge and bulky and steampunky and it shoots a wiggly stream of bright shiny stuff that (now that it's in YOUR hands) makes really bad people explo-
WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED TO THE GRAVITY IN HERE, SERIOUSLY, I'M LEVITATING-
Oh. Okay. I got through the building having died and restarted from checkpoint about eight times and the demo is over. That's okay. I'm good with that. I, uh, have to go to Gamestop, I think. Yeah, the reviews from users are all 'nothing new to the shooter genre' and 'powers make it too easy' and 'these are all guns from Battlefield 1942: In the Glorious Company Of Bands Of Heroic Men, Who Are Also Brothers', but you know what? Don't care. I don't play those games. I don't want to play those games. I want to play this one.
So, if you're like me, and I know I am: Brütal Legend, not so much. Wolfenstein, hell yes. Further verdict will have to wait until I've played the game for realz, yo.
jeditigger and I've usually already been in the middle of wrecking the Covenant-occupied areas of New Mombasa when I've gotten the online notification there. I tend to skip right over the parts of game reviews that talk about the ONLINE MULTIPLAYER EXPERIENCE, or the IN-PERSON CO-OP EXPERIENCE. I'm still a geezer in that regard; for the most part 'multiplayer' means 'okay, I died, here's the controller, give it back when you die'. It happens.I'm also not really entirely used to downloading video games. My brain still wants the box, the box art, the paper manual, and the CD. It can, however, be persuaded to let go of these childish demands for a downloaded game demo, largely because it seems like the games I'm interested in have cost $50 to $60 since my senior year of high school. (The first video game I bought for myself with my own money was a first release copy of Civilization, and it cost $55.I know I bought something else for a similar price at the time but I'll be buggered if I remember what.) $60 is too much to pay to find out whether a game is going to interest me or not, so if I see a demo available for something that looks interesting, I'm gonna download it and give it a whirl. Last night I finished two demo downloads, and so sat down to give them each a try: Brütal Legend, and the most recent incarnation of Wolfenstein.
I wanted to like Brütal Legend very much. I really did. The storyline has you as Eddie "Voiced by Jack Black" Riggs, a deeply dedicated roadie stuck working for a skinny little nu-metal band whose members think nothing of asking him to build them a set 'more in line with our tween demographic' before going out on stage and claiming to be heavy metal. When a disaster happens on stage, Eddie gets transported to another universe that gives the appearance of having been derived from heavy metal album covers, and immediately has to fight off a bunch of creepy skeleton guys in crimson robes, all armed with long wiggly swords and general demonic imagery. He gets a double-headed axe and his guitar Clementine to do it with, and this is where the game fell apart for me. I knew, I knew, that if I persisted I would get to the storyline about the evil demon emperor and the enslaved rockers and the musical rebellion, etc. etc., and I wanted to get there, believe me. I truly did. But... well, it's a fighting game. This part, at least. Press X to use this weapon, press A to use the other one, press A + X together for the combo move that brings down the temple, press B to block attacks, that kind of thing. And while I used to play FPSes and not do well because I sucked at them, I played fighting games even less. I'd mostly just watch other people play Mortal Kombat or what have you. Never could get myself out of the button mashing stage, or get myself into the mindset of thrashing the enemies who just kept coming in from just off stage. By the time I got rid of the red guys and encountered the screaming weird demon chick (Eddie had some great lines during that encounter), I just knew it wasn't gonna be for me. Someone else is going to have to play this and have fun with the story line. Sorry, guys.
Wolfenstein, now... Spear of Destiny was my first FPS. I was horrible at it. I got motion sick playing it. And I loved it. Yes, it was cheesy as hell, with the early 90s graphics and the restoration of health by randomly placed turkey dinners or chicken legs and the enemies screaming "MEIN LEBEN!" and the dead bodies whose feet were always pointed at you no matter what angle you were looking at them from- all of those things. But it was the first game that I played where I wondered what must be going through the protagonist's head as he got battered as hell, or how feral and half-crazed he must have been by the end of it (anyone who could consume that big of a turkey dinner that quickly had to be ripping it apart with his bare teeth, and you can't tell me that fighting those Frankenstein guys in the upper levels wouldn't mess with his head). I owe the Wolfenstein franchise for that. I pulled down the demo with fond memories in my head, fired it up, and...
... oooh, pretty graphics ....
... very nice cinematic fight animation...
.... the hell. THE HELL. How did- BJ, where the HELL did you get half of the Orb of Aldur? It was round, it glowed blue, and when he was about to be shot down by no fewer than eight Nazi soldiers it suddenly induced a NO SKIN FOR YOU, MR. NAZI! moment, followed immediately by YOU DON'T NEED BONES EITHER. What are you doing with-
Okay, gameplay's starting, it looks like the shiny is part of the whole 'this is a universe where Hitler paid the Occult Bureau good money and got good results' schtick, and oh, hey, you have the Resistance to join up with, and at least you start off with a gun instead of that little stabby knife from SoD, and OH MY GOD EVIL NAZI PROTON PACK. Okay, it looks like it's just a gun and it may be freezing things, but it's still huge and bulky and steampunky and it shoots a wiggly stream of bright shiny stuff that (now that it's in YOUR hands) makes really bad people explo-
WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED TO THE GRAVITY IN HERE, SERIOUSLY, I'M LEVITATING-
Oh. Okay. I got through the building having died and restarted from checkpoint about eight times and the demo is over. That's okay. I'm good with that. I, uh, have to go to Gamestop, I think. Yeah, the reviews from users are all 'nothing new to the shooter genre' and 'powers make it too easy' and 'these are all guns from Battlefield 1942: In the Glorious Company Of Bands Of Heroic Men, Who Are Also Brothers', but you know what? Don't care. I don't play those games. I don't want to play those games. I want to play this one.
So, if you're like me, and I know I am: Brütal Legend, not so much. Wolfenstein, hell yes. Further verdict will have to wait until I've played the game for realz, yo.
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Date: 2009-09-29 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-29 01:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-29 01:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-29 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-29 01:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-29 02:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-29 02:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-29 02:25 pm (UTC)(This Old Fart Gamer moment is brought to you by
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Date: 2009-09-29 02:30 pm (UTC)I eventually stacked up Gunslinger, Sniper, and Commando perks and took to the 'boom! Headshot' approach, but before that, knees = privilege.
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Date: 2009-09-29 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-29 07:25 pm (UTC)Oh, they took out the ability to kill children, too. No Child Killer reputation for you, Mr. Lone Wanderer! ... well, other than the ones in Megaton, if you set off the nuke.
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Date: 2009-09-29 01:27 pm (UTC)And then the Hunters showed up and I went YAY I HAVE STICKY GRENADES AND A BEAM RIFLE, once I finally survived the !*&)(!&@)&!%$ Jackals.
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Date: 2009-09-29 01:57 pm (UTC)It makes me weep.
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Date: 2009-09-29 02:00 pm (UTC)It went a lot faster the second time, but still.
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Date: 2009-09-29 01:16 pm (UTC)Hee. I remember speedruns on Wolfenstein 3D...
Date: 2009-09-29 04:50 pm (UTC)-Traveller
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Date: 2009-09-29 11:08 pm (UTC)