Alone in the Dark Impressions

Don't you hate it when this happens? You're shown something so promising and spectacular, only to have it ruined. This is Alone in the Dark in summary, brilliance ruined by mediocrity. The game begins with your character waking up, fuzzy visioned and weak. You have to click the thumb stick to make him blink to clear your vision. Slowly you realize there's other people in the room, and another person in another bed. Then as you start paying attention you notice they're planning to kill you. You are then led, half life 2 or modern warfare style, to your own execution. Luckily all hell breaks loose literally and your would be executioner is eaten alive by some demonic tremors knock off.

After that you are introduced to some of the more innovative and frankly awesome physics mechanics. You're shown you can put out fires with fire extinguishers, or waggle the thumb stick to use them to bash open doors. The damage detection is spot on, as well is the fire fighting. But then after all this promising stuff they perform the cardinal sign of early 90's PC FPS games. They go and try to make you jump around. AND drive a car! Now I used to think that the best addition to a resident evil or silent hill game would be an awesome car scene where I can hit zombies. But that means that you have to perfect your driving physics. Ambition can kill a project as fast as a lack of it.

Then there's your inventory. You look at your inventory by opening your jacket. All the items you get are everyday things like bottles of oil, bottles of booze, health sprays, bandages, tissues, and double sided tape. But you can use those things to do ridiculous stuff. Pour a little bit of alcohol on your bullets to make them fire bullets. Wrap a plastic bottle of oil in double sided tape then stick a wick in it, light that an toss it on an enemy for a sticky bomb. Or why not just toss the bottle at an enemy and shoot it when it gets close?

There are limits to the interactions between items but the uses for them is only limited by your imagination. You could tape two bottles of alcohol together to make a doubly powerful bomb. But even this is broken. Like you get batteries to put in your flashlight but there is a situation where your flashlight can be in a state which is still equipped but not in your hand so you can't turn it off. There's a lot of good ideas but they're held down by broken and bad ideas.

It was released for Wii, PS2 (what?!), and xbox360,(the one I played) in June 2008. So there's no "We rushed this out the door for the holiday season" excuse. Also there's a DVD menu style "Skip stage" button. At any time you can skip ahead to the next section. But you don't get the cutscenes, and you can do this all you want. It would have been cool if the cutscenes were in, and you had to earn your fast forwards. In fact that shows the developers knew they messed up because in November 2008 they released it for PS3 as a new "Enhanced Edition" called "Alone in the Dark Inferno".

The most annoying part I played was a driving sequence where you had to outrun a fissure breaking the streets apart in a taxi cab. The part was terrible because you had no idea where you're supposed to go, and the fissure would catch you whenever the driving physics went retarded. And if you messed up, well all the way back to the beginning. Now read this quote from the Gamestop Page for "Alone in the Dark: Inferno".

"59th Street level tuning: one of the game’s most exciting sequences just got better. 59th Street has been tweaked for a more satisfying race against the fissure with difficulty tuning, an added checkpoint at Columbus Circle and clear voice directions given by Sarah"

Now first, yes that is hilarious. But it's also either really good or really bad. It could mean that the developer knew that scene was terminally broken and put it in anyway. Or they listened to their fans and found out it was way too hard to complete. The latter being the good one, of course.

In conclusion I'd like to tell a certain story about the game. All the humanoid walking zombie like enemies in the game are basically unkillable except with fire. Luckily you have a never runs out of fluid lighter and lots of bottles of oil and alcohol laying around to make bombs with. But once, I didn't have a bottle of anything, except a health spray, and I had to kill two enemies to clear a ramp to do a jump. I used the health spray like a blow torch with the lighter to catch one zombie on fire, who immediately died. But the other was still up, so I found a sledgehammer and knocked him over. I then spent about five minutes beating the zombie. He did not, amazingly, get back up. I like to think I broke enough things that it couldn't stand up. In the end, the game has moments of ingenious fun, but they're floating in a sewer of terrible awful broken crap.

Don't buy it, rent the PS3 version.

Two Games Enter, One Game Leaves

So at Family Video they have a rent one get one deal for older titles. I chose to take advantage of this and play two titles I've been meaning to play for awhile. These are: Alone in the Dark, and Guilty Gear 2: Overture. I'm going to write some stuff on them by Saturday and we'll see which one I have more fun with. I've heard both good and bad things about both these games, so we'll see which one wins the coveted cage match title "Game I didn't expect to be good" belt!

Well Crap

Ok, blog. I've been absent for awhile. I suppose this is my fault, but really I believe it to be yours. More specifically it's googles fault. They have recently changed their start page to make it difficult for me to find the link to take me here. It's their fault, blog. I am sorry your creators are so underhanded and rude to you. Perhaps it again is my fault. It would be easy for me to place a link to you onto my firefox bar, as I just did. But before now I have not.

I have made promises to you, blog. I have said I would do a retrospective analysis of the Clocktower series of games; I have not done so. I also claimed I would write an essay detailing the differences and similarities between Fable Lost Chapters and Fable 2. I have not played the DLC for Fable 2 nor have I finished it, that was my excuse. Again, I am sure I have failed you somehow, blog.

Know this though, blog! I have been thinking about the proposed Fable article and I have been conducting research on Clocktower! One day I shall write out my ideas and submit them to you for you to hold forever in your electronic archive. Oh yes, blog, we shall be spending much time together soon.

~H

Harlewards, Games of the Year 2009 Edition

Everyone's doing it, why not me too? This will be broken into three categories which are "Art is Games, Games is Art Award for Design Brilliance", "I Didn't Want to Do That Award for Games that Changed my Mind", and finally the "I am a HUGE NERD Award for Making me Nerd Up."
And now....

ART IS GAMES, GAMES IS ART
Award for Design Brilliance
I like games. Specifically I like narrative in games, the plot is often more important to me than what I'm doing. It doesn't matter what the game wants me to do as long as it's in service to the games plot. Which is why I'm giving this award to a new franchise that I hope goes on and expands and becomes bigger and better while not letting go of those core tenets that made it so good and comic book chocolate delicious in the first place. Of course I'm talking about INFAMOUS.

INFAMOUS wins for a number of reasons, mostly it's narrative. While yes, the story is comic book retarded, the characters are contrived cliches, and the hero is doing his best gravel throat Christian Bale Batman impression it still succeeds. And why it succeeds is all design from the combat system to controls down to mission structure and how the levels are built is informed by the narrative. Video game character having been dying from touching water since the golden old days, but it now finally makes sense. Your character is electric, he has electricity coursing through him. So naturally if he falls into water which is highly conductive he'll electrocute himself to death. He can't ride in a car for the same reason.

But that's not my point, my point is the developers were thinking of reasons why things happen and excuses for video game-isms beyond "A Wizard Did It". The narrative informs the game play, and as well the game play informs the narrative. At one point you get a special ultra specific lightning strike that works like a sniper rifle. You use this to shoot down UAVs that are flying far away. I really liked INFAMOUS and it made me want to actually go back and finish the side missions not just because I got more experience that way but because they had neat bite sized little stories. INFAMOUS is how story should work in video games, or at least is one giant step in the right direction.

Runner up: Borderlands, who did not win because of their silly art style change and the fact that they had a story, a neat one, and then they cut it all out to put in more randomizing guns.


I DIDN'T WANT TO DO THAT
Award for Games that Changed my Mind
The thing about me is, I hate multiplayer games. I don't like hearing other people being retarded and running off at the mouth about nonsense, and telling me how high they are or how awesome the game is or how their parents don't let them stay up as late as they'd like. Mute that crap, or tell me where the people we have to kill are or where the flag carrier is. HOWEVER, rarely a game will come along that makes me want to play multiplayer, and invariably I end up not being able to play with anyone. MODERN WARFARE 2 is the game this year that makes me want to suffer the hell of other people. The idea of customizing my loadout to better shoot people in the face sounds delicious. In the end it's the customization that makes me want to play any multiplayer game.

MODERN WARFARE 2 reminds me of GUNZ, the way you are playing and suffering other people only to earn more space bucks to buy better and faster and awesomer guns. And you level up also! I love leveling up! I have a friend who tirelessly played the same four levels in order to get himself to the highest level possible in PHANTASY STAR ONLINE. This award is not being awarded because I like the multiplayer, no don't mistake me. This award is being given because I WANT to play the multiplayer, understand?

Runner Up: Killzone 2 Who did not win because you have to finish a round before the XP is given out. With other people Rage quitting leveling just becomes a chore.

I AM A HUGE NERD
Award for Making Me Nerd Up
Now I admit I am a nerd, but I'm not as much of one as other people. There are nerdy things I don't do, and want to do, and don't want to do. But anyone whose played a Final Fantasy game for any length of time and enjoyed it has thought in the secret back of their brain hidden away "I wonder what Dungeons and Dragons is like." Well, DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS 4th EDITION makes it easier than ever to find out. All year I've found myself checking their website everyday reading adventures and articles trying to learn as much as I can about the process simply so when the time comes to DM I'll have a brain full of tricks.

I'm not even playing in a group anymore but I still want to play. I've been writing adventures in notebooks and filling Doc files with little notes. DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS 4th EDITION is easier that ever, and still as dense as ever. Now I've read past editions, and the fact that the spell list is the entire back end of the book has always held me back. There's so much to know it becomes unknowable. And if you just play a melee class you end up just swinging a sword every turn. DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS 4th EDITION gets past that by integrating power into each class and having them be by level. Granted with all the expanded content if you compiled all the classes into one book that book would be roughly phone book sized, just with classes and no rules. But that's the fun! DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS 4th EDITION makes the needless complexity fun and easy to manage. That's a real accomplishment, and worth a Harleward any day.

Runner Up: Risen and the Gothic Series of games Dammit you Europeans and your hard line stance to PC gaming, stop being so interesting over there. Not even that the story to Gothic is even any good, it's the open ended gameplay that's so fun.

That's all I want to type, and it's more than anyone will read I'm sure. So that concludes this years HARLEWARDS. Tune in 2011 for the HARLEWARDS 2010 edition.

Social Orbit

Face book is fascinating. Such self involvement in closed social circles.

So many people circling their own tiny little orbits of social inclusion. Just thinking about it makes my brain leap to so many philosophical conclusions. Just think about our perspective, we only get one head to see out of, we only get one set of organs to commit our rude biology with. Ancient philosophers and pioneer cosmologists believed that all celestial bodies orbited our planet. This was of course after we figured out that no, our world isn't completely flat and made of only what we could see in front of us. Ancient conquerors wanting to control the world only meant the "known world" which was usually just the majority of a continent, be it Europe or Asia or both with parts in between.

But the point, we live inside our heads. Even meeting other people doesn't always convince us of the existence of a life outside our brains. Everyone has had that "maybe no one else is real and I'm the only real person" thought. It takes time convincing us of the validity of other people. And if you've ever tried to convince someone else of your opinion you know how hard it is to make someone see things your way. Right now technology makes it so people on opposite sides of the planet can hold a conversation. Our lens is growing wider everyday. We have people fighting this, saying that if the focus gets to wide individuality will suffer. Only time will tell if we'll ever be able to reach outside our heads.

First Impression: Silent Hill: Homecoming

I remember playing Silent Hill alone in my room, scared out of my mind. I was so terrified when my mom came home from work I had her come in my room and sit with me a second. She of course suggested if the game was scaring me I should stop playing it. But I was engrossed by then, I had to know the ending. Maybe some background will help, when I was a kid I had a lot of nightmares. Maybe this is because I'd go to sleep after watching horror movies and science fiction with my brother. For a long time after that I decided I didn't like scary film and actively avoided them. I liked video games, and video games could never really scare me. Then there was Resident Evil, a game that was unintentionally hilarious because of the voice acting. Then Resident Evil 2, which let you blast zombies into splinters with a shotgun. Resident Evil 2 had it's scares but you had the assurance that whatever horrors you faced enough shotgun shells or grenade rounds would bring it down. Resident Evil, in the end, was more fun for it's action than it's scares. I started

But then in 1999 Silent hill was released. It had the same game play as Resident Evil but had another layer. Instead of fighting zombies you were fighting weird children with knives, skinless dogs, skinless flying bat things, and zombie nurses. And the simple fact that you're in a town and basically given free reign to run where you want. And the story wasn't about zombies over running a town, it was about a town being swallowed by some type of eldritch evil. And the most important part, it had atmopshere. The atmosphere was usually what gave the scares. You were always getting this idea that there was something just beyond your view waiting and watching. That the town itself was out to get you. It scared the hell out of me, and taught me to like being scared.

Now it's four games later and the game is in the hands of a new developer. It's interesting, seeing a game come out that's basically been handed to it's fans. Silent Hill: Homecoming has all the atmosphere and uneasiness that the series is known for, but frustratingly brought along many of the kinks, while adding some of it's own for posterity.

First, the story is ridiculous. You are a marine, come home to your small quaint little town of Shepard City, no wait, Shepard's Gate, oh wait it's Shepard's Glen. Sorry it's Shepard's Glen, my mistake. Anyway you are brought home by a trucker, and find the town full of fog, with many of the roads ending in seemingly bottomless cliffs, and the first person you meet is the judge, Holloway. She tells you that things are bad (duh) and that people have stopped caring for the roads. Also she tells you to speak with Elle. First of all, when you don't do road maintenance there's just more cracks, the roads don't spill away into the abyss. Second of all, no duh things are bad the towns empty of people and full of creepy mist. Third of all, who is Elle, maybe you should explain. We're left to assume that Elle is an old friend of protangonist Alex's. It's lazy, she says "You should talk to Elle." not "You should talk to your old friend Elle." And the voice acting is bad. It's not like funny bad, it's just actors being lazy bad. Or maybe it's actors struggling with bad writing.

I should mention you get dialogue options, a first for the series. Maybe this is why I don't like them. They're always so transparent, a virtuous, slightly dopey response, or a hilariously shitty response. For example I was looking for the town doctor, and I found him at the bottom of a creepy steel mill/hospital cutting himself, muttering "have to bleed out the sin, but it grows back!" You get the response of "stop I can treat those wounds." To which he yells at you OR the hilarious "What the hell are you doing you crazy fool, you're gunna hurt yourself!" Who calls people fool, let along a crazy fool? It breaks up the game, and while it gives you more control, it means there's less awesome cut scenes.

Also, this being an American developed game they had to revamp the action. So of course you have a combo system with light and heavy attacks, heavy attacks stunning and light attacks being fast and doing damage. There's a dodge button but the game can be a real jerk about whether a dodge worked or didn't. The enemies as well are ridiculous, the all have silly one word names. Like the skinless dogs are more like skinless bull dogs, and drip blood as they run around, but they're called "Ferals". Seriously, Ferals? Every enemy has a shitty little name, that the game tells you about in the between area loading screens, like "hit lurkers in the head, they're very weak there!" Lurkers by the way are weird guys who lay down and have claws with big metal hooks on them, they're heads are just one big mouth. I would enjoy naming them myself. One thing they do right is atmosphere, the game is genuinely creepy. The music is just lifted right out of the other games with some new stuff added for kicks.

Overall the fact that the game didn't see release on Japanese shores should be down right telling. It's not very good, but it's serviceable. Take it or leave it.

Assassin's Creed II First Impressions

I hated Assassin's Creed, well maybe that's too strong. I wanted to love Assassin's Creed, it had a neat story based on historical fact, cool setting, great artistic merit, and the combat and running jumping climbing up trees was easy without losing challenge. All that is very difficult to pull of together. But it was so repetitive! You had to go to point A to hear about this guy you gotta kill then do the same six side missions to get information. Well it was the same six missions but you usually only had to do three. Even with that, it was still repetitive and terrible. So what possessed me to buy the sequel, let along pre-order it? Well the videos showed something very important, something that set my soul on fire with a desire to play this game. They showed someone buying poison from a shop.

Now previously on this very blog I talked about Far Cry 2 not fully utilizing it's RPG elements. This game takes those ideas and runs home with them. I'm at about the ten hour mark maybe (being charitable) and I've come to a point where I'm frantically collecting money on side quests in order to build up my stronghold so I can get more money, so I can get better armor, so I can do better in the missions. That's the most interesting thing really, there are all the standard weapons from the other game, sword, knife, throwing knives, hidden blade, and armor upgrades. But you buy them, at stores, scattered around every city. And get this, your armor? It gets damaged so you have to go to the blacksmith and get it repaired. It's never very much but if you're running around with broken armor you get one less life jewel thing.

And how you get that money? Well you can do side missions, you can find treasure boxes scattered around the city, or you can just pick pocket people. And there's lots of statistics to watch but they're not presented as such. Like you have a notoriety meter that slowly fills with red the more you act like a murdering psychopath. When I got the double hidden blades I accidentally preformed unlicensed tracheotomies on two guys walking down the street. I immediately was given away to the guards and had to run away, quick and fast. Speaking of guards, there is both more and less you can do about them now. The limberer ones will follow you atop roofs, so that's not an instant get out of jail card anymore. And some will just block anything you throw at them. There's these big armored gorillas that just knock everything away and then smash you with axes.

That's all I can think of at the moment, I'll wait till my next update to talk about the story.