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Nov 5th, 2012 at 12:13:36 - Assassins Creed III (360) |
This past week was blessed with the release of the third numbered installment in the Assassins Creed series. It’s great. It’s huge. It’s beautiful. When I first started playing the game, I instantly noticed how amazingly fluid the game was. The previous Assassins Creed games have had a pretty expansive animation system, but Assassins Creed 3 took the animation system to a whole new level. It was the subtle things that got me really excited, like how the character’s walk changes ever so slightly when going up or down stairs or how the run at the very beginning is combination of different steps to gain momentum followed by the occasional burying of the head. And the tree climbing. I was quite skeptical as to how they would pull this off but after finally trying it out, I am extremely impressed.
To add to the super robust animation system, is a game that is so massive in scale that it is very intimidating at first. Think Skyrim big. I was initially shocked at how this game felt less like Assassins Creed and more along the lines of a Skyrim type RPG. It is an open-world action/adventure game that allows the player to travel between a massive frontier and big cities, with countless side quests, hunting, a trading/resource system, and many others. It is a bit overwhelming, much like Skyrim was at first. I was a bit disappointed at first because the Assassins Creed games have always had this feeling to the game that put them away from most other games, but it was pretty obvious that AC3 was heavily inspired by games such as Skyrim. But in the end, I won’t complain too much about that because Ubisoft put their own spin on it, and it is a fantastic game.
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Oct 28th, 2012 at 15:40:04 - Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts (360) |
This past week, I replayed a bit of Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, a game that, for me, is filled with huge amounts of nostalgia. Over the past two summers, my friend and I have played too many hours to count of this game. Much of the high playability of this game has to due with the fact that this game is based off of the players own imagination. Nuts & Bolts is a game where one of the main goals is just to create vehicles with various purposes to complete different kinds of missions. The game is supplied with a large enough palette of vehicle parts that the player is able to create countless different vehicles.
While the parts palette is quite big, I felt as though it was still lacking a few pretty important items. To get around this however, my friend and I just exploited glitches and other problems in the physics system and used it to our advantage. Most of the time, these exploits turned out to be hilariously awesome. For example, there is a part called the “tow bar”. This parts main purpose is to, as its name says, tow other objects by some magic beam that grows in length as it needs to. However, instead of towing objects, we somehow figured out a way to use it to emulate joints. We ended up creating a massive mech where the legs we’re attached using the tow bars. My friend and I were able to have this giant mech walk just by rotating/ turning the upper body. Did the developers plan for this to happen? Most likely not. It was awesome. On the topic of tow bars, many of the exploits we found in the physics engine revolved around the tow bars. Another example, which was not very beneficial, just fun to watch, resulted in a vehicle that we built which included multiple tow bars connected to each other in a very narrow tube. After a few seconds, the vehicle, without moving at all, would eventually destroy itself in a huge explosion of lights and parts. There was absolutely no reason for this at all.
Overall, the game is extremely fun. It was a huge step away from the typical Banjo Kazooie formula. However, I think I would rather have a typical Banjo Kazooie game rather than one that follows the formula for Nuts and Bolts.
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Oct 20th, 2012 at 15:49:04 - The Witcher 2 (PC) |
In these past few weeks, I have been playing a lot of the Witcher 2. It is a good game, and “good” is the most I can give it at the moment. I am not that far into the game and I feel as though this game has loads of potential. The problem is that the Witcher 2 is not performing at its highest potential. The Witcher 2 has its highlights such as a deep story and stunning visuals. The game’s story is actually based off of a series of books published years ago. So far, from what I can tell, it is an incredibly rich universe and the developers have done a great job adapting the stories into a game format. That being said, I’m completely lost. It might have to do with the fact that I stopped playing this game for a few months, or it might have to do with the fact that the story is presented in a way that is a tad overwhelming and I am inclined to believe the latter. The fact that this game is a bit hard to follow is definitely a turn off. Other than that, the only other problem I have with the game is that it often throws the player into dead ends, or situations where the player cannot continue. Of the few hours I have played, I have already come across two of these (the first was the reason I stopped playing and the second one I just came across before I wrote this). It is incredibly frustrating. To show an example, the one I just came across has me locked in a room where I only have the options of paying a guard, or being killed. Of course, unfortunately for me, I don’t have the money, so really my only option is to die or revert to an older save. Like…what? This isn’t fair. I could easily revert to an old save, even though I really do not want to, but the point is, a game should never put the player in these kinds of situations.
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Oct 15th, 2012 at 20:59:50 - Mirror's Edge (PC) |
I recently started playing Mirror’s Edge this past week, and I am really not sure how I feel about it yet. It is a game that is different from anything that I have ever played. It falls into the category of a first person platformer. It is a risky genre to approach as the game could either be disastrous or exceptional. However, I have not played enough of Mirrors Edge to come to a conclusion. I like the idea behind it, but I also have my doubts about it.
First of all, a first person platformer makes it very difficult to navigate, especially at higher speeds like in Mirror’s Edge. The game requires you to make quick reaction decisions based on your surroundings to determine where to go. The problem with this is that having a first person view limits how much of your surroundings you can actually see. Where in comparison, you can see a lot more in third person. This makes it extremely difficult to see where you have to go and decide quickly where you need to go at times.
Secondly, the first person view effects combat greatly. Not only is it difficult, but it also feels awkward, despite it being more “realistic”. The combat has the same problem as the navigating does. It is hard to fight quickly in situations where your sight is limited. Fighting in real life would be a lot easier if you could see in third person, but, alas, we can’t.
In theory, this game is great. It is a radical idea that could be presented very well. I just haven’t played enough to figure out if it does.
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Prodimator has been with GameLog for 12 years, 2 months, and 24 days |
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