Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
Friday, November 16, 2007
I gave in to temptation and picked this up Assassin's Creed, and so far I'm not regretting my decision at all. Except for the occasional screen tearing (v-sync problems?) and small visual glitches, the graphics are amazing - what I've seen of the world they've created is really impressive, and really large - after around three hours I've just reached the gates of Damascus - the first of three large cities. What they've done with crowds, with populating the world, is something I've never seen done so well in a game before - the areas I've walked around so far do really feel alive.
The game so far feels very different from most of what has been coming out lately. A lot of the game play is about going slow and blending into crowds - which some people might not consider fun - but so far (because there's so much stuff to look at) I'm enjoying - and also just because it's different. Because you have no long range weapons (at least so far), what combat there has been has a much different feel than, say, Meat Gear Solid 3, because if you do fight, you always have to do it up close with blades or fists - there's no picking guys off from way across the map with head shots, leaving yourself free to explore a cleared out area - so pretty much you have to be sneaking around wherever your are, slow walking (or riding) and blending in - there seems to be too many guards to take out in most areas - so I've just been trying to avoid them - which makes climbing up buildings to collect flags or unlock the eagle view points a little bit more challenging.
The controls seems fine - the only slight hitch so far I've had is when climbing I keep somehow having a hard time making the transition from being on a wall to the little bumpy climbing things above doors. Everything seems simplified - kind of push your guy towards something holding the trigger and a button and he pretty much seems to do what you wanted him to do. I've not been in too many fights, so I don't have too good of a feel for it - but so far my impression is that it plays out a lot like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time - and unfortunately the combat was the worst thing about that game. Hopefully there won't be too much of it.
Definitely looking forward to having some time to get further into the game over the weekend.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
I've been meaning to write a little bit about how much I've enjoyed playing through the Orange Box (on the 360). This is a collection of five different games, two re-releases and three new games, but none of which I've ever played before.
So I started off with the first person puzzle game, Portal, which some have complained is too short, but felt like the perfect length to me - it actually took me quite a while, but not just out of stupidity, I wasn't rushing and was more than willing to spend time looking around and the well designed levels and thinking a bit. I found the game really mind bending - and it was a great feeling to arrive in a new level, completely stumped, ready to give up, then to eventually be able to figure out how to move on. I'm actually currently working my way slowly through the six advanced levels (level 5 is up next) that are unlocked after beating the regular game. It's really enjoyable to be in the puzzling world they created.
It's not so enjoyable to be in the world of Half Life 2 - in fact it's fucking terrifying and oppressive unlike any other video game I can remember playing... a vision easily equal to the most terrifying totalitarian worlds created in cinema, but you have to walk, drive, shoot and puzzle your own way out. It's an amazing game - really one of the best I've ever played. I especially liked the first few hours - as you arrive by train into City 17, work your way out of the train station, then through the back alleys to hook up with the resistance movement - the unarmed sequence, as you sprint away from the death masked cops, up and through apartments and over rooftops, was especially amazing. At sections, perhaps the game does drag on a bit, but maybe the game needs those sections to leave the player with a feeling like they've been on a real journey. I also appreciate the way they managed to switch up the game play once you get to the Citadel, while still having it fit with what came before. And I don't want to spoil anything for anybody, but the ending was one of the most surprising, audacious and perfect endings I've come across in a game.
Yet it's not really the end because the story continues in Half Life 2, episodes one & two. And I did feel why playing episode one, that, well, it was a little bit of just more of the same - as you kind of back your way out of the progress you'd made in HL2 and do a lot of the same kinds of stuff in a lot of the same kinds of environments. Fortunately things open up quite a bit in episode two, which is also quite a bit longer (six hours or so, as opposed to four). It was real nice to get out into the countryside and to see some different stuff, even to collect health in different ways. The final battle here is also the most challenging segment so far in the game. Even though it only took me about an hour to work my way through that spread out, crazy battle, it felt more like ten. At the time, I felt like it was too hard and I'd never make it, looking back, it feels better.
Finally, after all that, it was time to crack open the multiplayer portion of the package - the cartoony(!) Team Fortress 2. At first I had my doubts, because I'm more into deathmatch type games than team objective game types (which is all there is here), but I've grown to like this game quite a bit (though I wouldn't mind a few more maps and game types). Playing this game is sort of like being in the middle of the maddest Looney Tunes cartoon ever. The design work is just great - and the games are usually so much fun, that even losing doesn't really feel bad. It does seem like sometimes games stalemate a little too often, and over xbox live I've had more games than seem reasonable freeze up due to lag (maybe 1/4th?), but when you get on a roll and everything is running smooth, I've yet to find a multiplayer game that I've enjoyed more.
I'm very comfortable saying that The Orange Box is the best new game package I've bought all year.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
I've started a new blog, called The Comic Book Reader, just to focus on comic books. I'm also planning to be writing there every day or two, or at least much more frequently than this catch-all site, although I still plan to keep posting here as well. To visit the new site, you can click here.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Finished re-watching Night on Earth this weekend, for the first time in at least a decade, and I realized, in retrospect (I liked it when I first saw it in the theater, during its originally release - yes, I'm old), it's a pretty crappy movie. What I liked best about it was the transitions between each section - the programmatic way the movie cuts back to those clocks and rolls back time, then switches to a few trademark Jarmusch shots of rolling into a new city - it's great just to see the beat up scenery of Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki of 1990. On the other hand, the stories and humor now almost felt completely flat, and just too obvious, like the worst short stories you can read in a small press journal. The section in New York and Brooklyn I guess actually holds up okay - it's probably the sweetest of the batch (which is weird when you consider how much yelling its has in it) and seems to try a little less hard to have a message. The LA section always seemed flat and still does. The blind girl in Paris with the cab driver from the ivory coast is embarrassing in its PC stretch. The Roberto Benigni section in Rome now feels painfully unfunny - the priest slowly dying in the back of the cab is too horrifying - I felt like dying too. Although the story in Helsinki is kind of weak - you think your life is bad, well let me tell you about how bad my life is - I still find myself liking that section the best, 1. because I always love being able to watch Matti Pellonpää, and 2. because kindly drunks are one of my soft spots.
Friday, November 02, 2007
