Archives Under "game" (RSS)
gamekat is bored
2 May 2013 | game | make comment
almost identical cover art, almost identical games – symptomatic of the homogenuitification of aaa games to blend them all into one bland blockbusting vanilla flavour action shooter – most all former personality and/or cool cheesiness of these two games wiped away – gears just isn’t the same so it’s not the same anymore – admittedly i was getting bored by the last one so really i should have known there was nothing more for me here – but it looked pretty on youtube clips so i bought it – regrettably gameplay is mindless and terribly unengaging – go into a little area, clear out same boring enemies (literally a meagre 5 minutes or so), level over, view stats you couldn’t care less about, deep yawn, go to next similar little area – repeat 40 times! – the afterthought “aftermath” mini-campaign almost saves it (made it feel less of a complete waste of money) but really it’s a generic tired excuse for a game (critics loved it) – conversely the mainstreaming of army of two into a bog-standard assembly-line tried’n'tested shooter has actually resulted in an unassuming simple hellafun game (critics slammed it) – yes it’s the same 40 or more (not nearly so stupidly) short chapters, so-so story, “witty” (pfft) banter, token (macho)female, mandatory explosions, run-n-gun, slide into cover, kick in doors, “revive me!” syringe stabbings from y’buddies shit …BUT far better continuity and far better set-piece battles – scenery less remarkable but you can demolish it! (shoot off masonry etc) – an “overkill” mayhem mode heightens the destruction fun factor – and really, as everything’s apparently been seen’n'done already (or game-makers are now utterly devoid of imagination), “was it fun?” should be your criterion to assess by should it not? (heretic opinion!)
gamekat
2 April 2013 | game | make comment
reviewers have more “issues” than they claim this game has – in fact it’s been largely snubbed, held beneath contempt, deemed unworthy of reviewing at all? – you knew it stood no chances as soon as you see the subliminally 9/11 “city interactive” logo opening cg – among innumerable alleged faults, summarily dismissed for being a tightly-scripted waypoint-following mistake-punishing corridor game (i.e. no different from what max payne 3 was appraised for) – personally i much enjoyed the sneaking (unusually for me) and popping off the peekaboo-ing “hostiles” (like ducks on a fairground shooting range) and couldn’t give a toss it isn’t the greatest game ever and i’m supposed to hate it – this “brief four or so hour” game took me almost fourteen hours (coz i obviously suck at games)
and apparently professional gamers also suck at games, looking at the youtube confession of one reviewer admitting he couldn’t complete this game after spending six hours on a certain “impossible”/”insanely hard” level toward the end – in fact numerous players had complained about it resulting in it being nerfed in a patch (which also resulted in complaints of course) – rather interesting – even weebified it’s still a major roadblock – maybe i could do it if i tried but sod “gambatte”, i play games for fun not schoolboy machismo – i opted to replay on easy : ) – anyway, controversies aside, very much “more of the same” – but the staggering scale visuals and pulling the heads off your fellow man etc makes for some mighty fine entertainment
first bioshock was one of the greatest games ever (at the time) – second should never have been made – infinite happily goes back to what was great about the first game – not as groundbreaking but trumps it as far as the story is concerned – i avoided watching any snippets or reading anything about it before playing, the best way to go into it – it is difficult to enthuse about this without spoiling things – suffice t’say it plays out like a nicolas roeg film – and has a suitably mindfuck ending – how much you’ll really understand and how much withstands persnickety analysis is debatable but it’ll keep you up half the night thinking about it – sadly, despite inspired settings and visual style, the graphics are more forgettable – last gen even – and interiors get samey (especially with unnecessary backtracking) – but always fun killing enemies who spout numbers out the top of their heads when shot at – and replenishing health eating cotton candy fished outta trash cans
tomb raider
15 March 2013 | game | 7 comments
tomb raider / the descent / apocalypse now
i’m a big tomb raider fan so a little apprehensive about being betrayed with this “reboot” – but needn’t have feared, it’s quite amazing (mostly) and faithfully tomb raidery (mostly) – it does predictably go overboard on the scripted action qte sequences (with ridiculous explosions aplenty) – but generally a good back-n-forth balance between the gung-ho gun/bow battles and the quiet platforming exploration bits (us old fans love) – sadly the sparse token puzzles are dumbed down affairs – the not so “secret tombs” have big “HERE IT IS!” signs chalked in white with dozens of arrows pointing to the entrance – i was also amused that ALL the doors were jammed and needed to be crowbarred open – and like 10 minutes after peeing her pants over her first murder lara is performing stealth kills without a care in the world – and we learn she’s a pyromaniac! – graphics/environments/atmospherics all stunning – it’s also quite gritty and brutal: the pit of spikes trap of old updated with somewhat more shocking and horrific impalements here – so, yeah, highly enjoyed – i was done at a respectable 92% completion (skipping needle in haystack item searches) – the only thing letting it down for “game of the year” are the flimsy cardboard characters (tho lara herself is truly great thankfully) – and silly story – so the imminent the last of us likely to win those crucial points?
also played list: the cave, black knight sword (gratuitously weird), deathspank (all three played one after the other!), borderlands 1 dlcs (knoxx hugely overrated) – with some dogged persistence finally got into resident evil 6 – in view of the game becoming pretty much a shooter, gameplay consists much too much of running past things to shoot at – then when you do get something to shoot at, weapons do no bloody damage – but dropping to easy solved that and made it “enjoyable” (partially) – and lastly dmc – fan despised because hair wrong color (yes, really!!) – the dick van dyke school of cockney voice-acting turned me right off buying crysis 3 – next up for me god/gears of war
a hippopotamus
gamekat
6 January 2013 | game | make comment
hitman absolution
stealth games: hate ‘em : ) – hiding and waiting is scarcely a fun gameplay mechanic imho – but, like dishonored, this has been “dumbed down” for the likes of me – you can play it all “wrong”, you can rambo it – much to the ire of stick-in-the-mud hitman fanboys – ha!, i love everything everyone else hates about this game – of course i don’t deny it’s a gratifying feeling on the occasions when i did manage to cleanly pull off doing naughty things unseen – discovering the accidents waiting to happen (a la warner brothers cartoons) – but more often i got sloppy and gave up with the pernickety hiding of bodies in conveniently available boxes and stuff – it’s stupid when enemies spot you even if facing the other way – and somehow discover unboxed bodies even if they’re several rooms away – s’pose it makes sense as you can see thru walls – and be invisible just by covering your face with your hands! – and most peculiarly, if in an area with 200 cops, you are actually less conspicuous if disguised as a fluffy white angel rather than disguised as a cop – greatly enjoyed nevertheless – loved the cutscenes – great graphics and locations – and gotta love a game with sm nuns and a character covered in bird droppings – but never did learn what the barcode on the back of hitman’s bonce was all about
far cry 3
with such blanket (blinkered?) critical and gamebrat endearment, anyone better have a damn good reason for not liking this – dare i bitch about the annoying way the buttons are mapped – you’ll often be shooting baddies with your camera instead of your numero uno weapon of choice (on any lesser game this alone would assure a critical pronouncement of a “broken” game) – and the headache drone over the menus also (i find) really obnoxious – but, that aside, it is superb – dipshit turned rambo annihilating all adversaries, flowers and endangered wildlife in your path – who’d have thought that laying waste to acres of cannabis indica with a flamethrower could be so much fun – it does support a wide variety of gameplay you can refine to personal taste – i loved the exploration and relic stealing myself – quite tomb-raider-ish at times – speaking of which the new tomb raider sounds highly similar to this – lara as dippy lass turned rambo-ette in (semi?) open-world island survivalism (crafting her handbags from tiger skins no doubt)
resident evil 6
bad or badass? – most industry sites (the playstation mags etc) rated it highly (albeit peculiarly incongruous to their own criticisms) while most indie sites were more fully honest about it – a delightfully crummy survival horror turned depressingly crummy blockbuster action (i.e. “quick time event”) game – yippee for videogame homogeneity [insert sarcastic sad smiley here] – there’s a whole buncha issues that make this loathsome to play – chiefly for me it’s too damn dark, even at maximum brightness – the spazzy camera does nothing to help and can drive you nuts (at one point epilepticly flitting between two or three viewpoints) – but at least the field-of-view problems satisfactorily fixed with a patch – which i’d been awaiting before playing this – but wasn’t enough to offset further procrastination as, without getting very far into it at all, suddenly…
lego lord of the rings
…this looked far more appealing to play – i’ve not read the book(s) or seen the film(s) (filed by me under nerd nonsense?) – and a bit apprehensive re learning it was open-world and the characters now speak – but such developments make it the best lego game yet
gamekat
17 November 2012 | game | 6 comments
zombies courtesy of zombie island of dr ned, call of duty black ops 2 and resident evil 6 – none of which (yet) played : )
dishonored
another stealth game best enjoyed not played as a stealth game – why punish yourself?, why deprive yourself of all the fun? – given so many delicious options for eliminating the baddies, it’s silly to restrict yourself to boring non-lethal take-downs and fret over “consequences” and getting, omg, “the bad ending” – but it is still at heart an aggravating stealth game i lack patience for – unnerving sirens and insta-deaths and saving every two seconds kills enjoyment – but i liked the story and, when left unhindered, the world is interesting to explore – stylish design – reminded me of myst(!) actually – or a euro comic (“heavy metal” ilk) – the brat gamerz, who don’t know what they’re talking about, whine on re flat textures or whatever, which apparently warranted a bitter orchestrated hate campaign – to whit a user metascore rating of zero, until rectified (tho such petty juvenile metacritic sabotage has now become commonplace for every popular game) – it’s also not the game of the year the critics are tripping over each other to contend (sorry guys, already awarded unreservedly to borderlands 2!)
borderlands 2 : captain scarlett and her pirate’s booty
wot, no mysterons? – plenty of morons ahoy tho – another game (dlc) the petty pc-gamer maxed-out mentality children (who quite probably never even actually play the game) are hating on – because it offers nothing bigger and better, in the way of guns etc, than all the duped and modded crap they already got – “shouldn’t take you more than 2 hours to complete” sneers one sad “critic” (sack him!) – …why do i allow such stupid assholism to bug me? – and then you get those who veto buying it accusing the makers of piece-mealing little bits of extra content that should have been on the original game – in many cases they have a valid point (particularly re dastardly “pre-order incentives” f’rinstance, in which content is actually removed or locked for the standard release) – but such cheapskates can wait for the “game of the year edition” – the fact is, this 10 buck add-on is a fully-fledged ten hour game – and it’s great – i found captain scarlett completely hilarious (yes, okay, it’s the british accent!) where many borderlands characters can tend to slip over the edge from being funny as hell to being annoying as hell – plus it shortcutted the journey to level 50 in a second playthrough of the core game (solo, no cheats, no oranges!) – and made me go buy the first game’s “game of the year edition” for the unplayed dlc stuff – addicted – overdosing
the unfinished swan
i like games that tell you nothing and you must discover the rules of the world yourself – but overall this fell well below my expectations tbh – some good inspired ideas but lack of imagination to do much with them i felt – a handful of novelties spread thin and quickly wearing thin – and much too twee, a kids game
halo 4
was looking for something to play for a week before hitman absolution drops – i was debating either getting this or call of duty black ops 2 (which “shouldn’t take more than 2 hours to complete”) – plumped for this after assessing youtube clips (and coming to my senses?!) – cod-blops does indeed look complete codswallop – i was mostly only interested in the zombies supposed “campaign” anyway – and that looks disappointingly boringly inane (exactly like multiplayer – spazzy running in circles – braindead vs undead) – perhaps i should really start on resident evil 6…? (but awaiting the upcoming “camera field of view” patch on that) – unlike every other gamer, i’m not a halo fanboy – couldn’t care less about the story and multiplayer (needless t’say) – i was just interested in the pretty scenery – and the graphics, which i had very high expectations of, don’t disappoint! – truly exceptional – however, the gameplay, which i expected to be generic, also unfortunately lived up to my expectations – really nothing remotely new and falling way short of the fun robo-annihilation antics of borderlands and binary domain – most guns feel lame and have almost no visible effect until suddenly, after x bullets, enemies merely evaporate (fizzle out) in a most unspectacular and unrewarding manner – a ridiculously (suspiciously) overrated game – at one point along the way our hero (when not talking to his little hentai doll/figure with huge breasts) meets with a ship of fellow intergalactic saviors of planet earth – a female crew member looks at him and after a moment smiles and scoffs: “i thought you’d be taller” – sums it up really – but the graphics are pretty big
