Sandbox games, like Grand Theft Auto or Crackdown, only have a finite amount of greatness they can achieve. I enjoy these games when the urge strikes, but they'll never be remembered by me in the Hall of Favorites. That's not to say that early on these types of games didn't alter the face of videogames, but by the very nature of the great sweeping open-world you limit the emotional impact the story can have. You can't have an amazingly thrilling conclusion when at anytime you can go punch random people in the face or scour the city of hidden collectable pick ups.
But they're fun! Sometimes. What I enjoy most is the various modes of transportation. Grand Theft Auto has the dozens (hundreds?) of different cars. Yawn. But it also has motor cycles, helicopters, airplanes, boats, and, yes, sometimes, jet packs. Prototype had it's share of military vehicles which were farily fun, but I'm a sucker for people that can jump 100 feet in the air and glide halfway across the city on weird bio-matter glidey-wing things. Now I'm approaching the point. Spider-Man: Web of Shadows.
The last Spider-Man game I played to completion was Spider-Man 2 for PS2, so I don't touch these games often. That's mostly because I don't think they're very good. Spider-Man 2 was really flawed for reasons that no one cares about anymore. It's like 10 years old. But what they did correct was web-swinging throughout what I assume is a fairly accurate model of New York city. Web of Shadows kicked Spider-Man 2's web-swinging's ass! The combat is pretty tight too. All in all I was pretty impressed with Web of Shadows but in a fairly trivial way. I was wanting to go out and buy Prototype for a second time. Instead I got Spidey and was very fulfilled.
The story is not great and it's fundamentally flawed. They used Venom and the Symbiote (if you don't know what a symbiote is go ahead and stop reading, you won't care) as the major villians, but they screwed Venom up entirely. In the game Venom assults New York and tries to turn everyone into monsters. In the comics Venom just hates Spider-Man, but is all about protecting the innocent...not turning them into monsters. Regardless, the bottom line is the Spider-Man: Web of Shadows is really fun, if you like really superficial games.
Cataloging my gaming activities and occasional ventings about the mundane
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Pigs In Space!
Angry Birds. That's the topic.
Generally speaking, I don't like Angry Birds. It's fun...ish, but in a time-killing sort of way. Stick with me, the whole post isn't going to be Bird bashing. I admit that I play it, but I resent the ridiculous hype that it gets. Angry Birds is a flash game. Weather or not it's actually made using flash is incidental. It has the same complexity as any other flash game. There are hundreds of the exact same game out there. It's just a physics based catapult-destory-the-things game. All it has going for it beyond that is a unique artistic appearance and really good marketing. So I'm pretty emotionally chilly regarding the game.
Now for the good stuff. Basically none of what I just said is true about Angry Birds: Space. I am really impressed with the game. I takes the root of the previous games. It uses the same birds (with a few tweaks and additions) and more or less the same physics. But instead of the same flat levels most of the levels are in space. If you don't know this, there is no gravity in space, so if you shoot something, say with a slingshot, it just keeps going. Nothing to pull it down to the ground. But there is gravity around celestial bodies such as tiny meteors and planteoids covered in pigs. So you've got these objects in space with a gravity well around it. You can fire a bird just right and it will enter a planetoid's gravity well and orbit the little rock 2 and sometimes even 3 times being slowly pulled down. That, or you can shoot a bird directly into this aura of Newtonian physics and it will plummet straight to the planet's surface.
The gravity is definately the star of this game (no pun intended). What I find very gratifying are the wood and stone structures built around these tiny planets. If you destory these structures just right you can instigate a wave of destruction as the entire structure around the planet collapses in on itself. Crash after satisfying crash. Or if you're a fan of Star Trek you can use the gravity well to whip around the planet in a new direction much faster than you were going before. Or you can use gravity wells to weave in and out of smaller planets to reach your little green target.
They also added Boss battles! Instead of an incredibly irritating level that requires the most ridiculous degree of precision to kill the "King Pig" you now get to shoot birds at space junk, attempting to deflect it at a pig piloting some ridiculous "space machine".
But not all things are good. I am playing the game on my android Samsung Galaxy S II. So I was pleased when I finished a level and saw that, instead of being locked, I was able to play the next level that appears to be available only to people using a current gen high-end Samsung device. And I'll tell you, if I didn't have that I would have been Righteously indignant. Luckily I do.
Generally speaking, I don't like Angry Birds. It's fun...ish, but in a time-killing sort of way. Stick with me, the whole post isn't going to be Bird bashing. I admit that I play it, but I resent the ridiculous hype that it gets. Angry Birds is a flash game. Weather or not it's actually made using flash is incidental. It has the same complexity as any other flash game. There are hundreds of the exact same game out there. It's just a physics based catapult-destory-the-things game. All it has going for it beyond that is a unique artistic appearance and really good marketing. So I'm pretty emotionally chilly regarding the game.
Now for the good stuff. Basically none of what I just said is true about Angry Birds: Space. I am really impressed with the game. I takes the root of the previous games. It uses the same birds (with a few tweaks and additions) and more or less the same physics. But instead of the same flat levels most of the levels are in space. If you don't know this, there is no gravity in space, so if you shoot something, say with a slingshot, it just keeps going. Nothing to pull it down to the ground. But there is gravity around celestial bodies such as tiny meteors and planteoids covered in pigs. So you've got these objects in space with a gravity well around it. You can fire a bird just right and it will enter a planetoid's gravity well and orbit the little rock 2 and sometimes even 3 times being slowly pulled down. That, or you can shoot a bird directly into this aura of Newtonian physics and it will plummet straight to the planet's surface.
The gravity is definately the star of this game (no pun intended). What I find very gratifying are the wood and stone structures built around these tiny planets. If you destory these structures just right you can instigate a wave of destruction as the entire structure around the planet collapses in on itself. Crash after satisfying crash. Or if you're a fan of Star Trek you can use the gravity well to whip around the planet in a new direction much faster than you were going before. Or you can use gravity wells to weave in and out of smaller planets to reach your little green target.
They also added Boss battles! Instead of an incredibly irritating level that requires the most ridiculous degree of precision to kill the "King Pig" you now get to shoot birds at space junk, attempting to deflect it at a pig piloting some ridiculous "space machine".
But not all things are good. I am playing the game on my android Samsung Galaxy S II. So I was pleased when I finished a level and saw that, instead of being locked, I was able to play the next level that appears to be available only to people using a current gen high-end Samsung device. And I'll tell you, if I didn't have that I would have been Righteously indignant. Luckily I do.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Massively Effective
I played Mass Effect 3 to completion a couple days ago. I have one very important thing to say to all the people "hating" on the Mass Effect ending: "Get a Fucking Life!". The Mass Effect series has been a Huge part of my life over the last 4 years or so. It is probably my favorite game. Ever. Considering that Mass Effect has de-throwned Chrono Trigger and Metal Gear Solid as "My Favorite" should add some amount of legitimacy to what I'm saying .I didn't LOVE the end to Mass Effect, but I had no inherent problems with it.It was very Okay.
***There may be Implicit spoilers ahead, but I will not include any Intentional spoilers...careful***
The ending could not have been whatever you cooked up in your wildest Mass Effect dreams. That's just logic talking. Whatever specific things YOU wanted to see, I likely wanted to see them too, but didn't (or did) but you can't please Everyone. That is a fact. But people are pissed off that you couldn't "choose the ending". They feel that your choices are not meaningful. Here's my issue: The whole series is about Commander Shepard fighting the Reapers. The end of the game could not have ended with him/her letting the Reapers off the hook, so that ending should be off the table from the get-go. If we can agree that the Reapers should not be free to rule the galaxy with impunity, what else can be done?! Did it get (maybe) a little too esoteric at the end? Yes... I think. However, the majority of Star Wars fan seem to be unhappy with Episodes 1-3 but I never saw an on-line petition to George Lucas to re-make the ending of Episode 3. Grow the fuck up. Seriously. I feel a sad emptiness inside now that Mass Effect is over. But it's not because the ending is not everything I ever dreamed it could be, it's because a thing that I love is over.
I've read/watched/played the ending of many things that I hoped had ended differently, but my wish for them to end differently has not changed that fact that THAT is how they ended. I'm not writing petitions because I WISHED Anikin had thrown Obi-Wan into lava. Just stop. I hate you. I really do. Your hating of the ending took away from my own enjoyment of the Mass Effect 3 ending and I hate you for it forever. Forever.
***There may be Implicit spoilers ahead, but I will not include any Intentional spoilers...careful***
The ending could not have been whatever you cooked up in your wildest Mass Effect dreams. That's just logic talking. Whatever specific things YOU wanted to see, I likely wanted to see them too, but didn't (or did) but you can't please Everyone. That is a fact. But people are pissed off that you couldn't "choose the ending". They feel that your choices are not meaningful. Here's my issue: The whole series is about Commander Shepard fighting the Reapers. The end of the game could not have ended with him/her letting the Reapers off the hook, so that ending should be off the table from the get-go. If we can agree that the Reapers should not be free to rule the galaxy with impunity, what else can be done?! Did it get (maybe) a little too esoteric at the end? Yes... I think. However, the majority of Star Wars fan seem to be unhappy with Episodes 1-3 but I never saw an on-line petition to George Lucas to re-make the ending of Episode 3. Grow the fuck up. Seriously. I feel a sad emptiness inside now that Mass Effect is over. But it's not because the ending is not everything I ever dreamed it could be, it's because a thing that I love is over.
I've read/watched/played the ending of many things that I hoped had ended differently, but my wish for them to end differently has not changed that fact that THAT is how they ended. I'm not writing petitions because I WISHED Anikin had thrown Obi-Wan into lava. Just stop. I hate you. I really do. Your hating of the ending took away from my own enjoyment of the Mass Effect 3 ending and I hate you for it forever. Forever.
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