Just for the record, I had finished a few of the games in my Steam library prior to starting this blog.
Aliens vs. Predator
Atom Zombie Smasher
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
COD: MW3
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike: Source
Defense Grid: The Awakening
Deus Ex: Invisible War
Dungeon Defenders
FEAR
Fallout: New Vegas (and all DLC)
Far Cry
Freedom Force
Frontlines: Fuel Of War
Half-Life
Half-Life 2
Kane & Lynch
Kane & Lynch 2
Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead 2
Max Payne
Max Payne 2
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
Plants vs. Zombies
Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic
Team Fortress Classic
Team Fortress 2
Warhammer 40k: Dawn Of War
X-Com: UFO Defense
X-Com: Terror From the Deep
Thursday 18 July 2013
Jamestown: Legend Of The Lost Colony (of crap)
Jamestown: Legend Of The Lost Colony
Vertical scrolling shooters were popular when I was growing up. Games such as 1942, 1943, Truxton, Twin Cobra, and Raiden consumed many childhood hours. However, since the 90s, these types of games seemed to be on the decline. Jamestown is supposed to be an homage to this old-school genre. It's even done with 8-bit graphics.
Frankly, this game was terrible. The graphics are passable, but nothing special. Forget about a story. The maps were too small. That is, there isn't a lot of room to manoeuvre your ship. When the screen fills with enemy ships, bullets and missiles, there has to be somewhere to go. Unfortunately, the view is zoomed in way too much. The ship takes up a large chunk of real estate and the enemy projectiles are also big.
There are 4 ships available to play and all of them are boring. The only power up is a temporary shield and increased damage. That's so lame. All of the old games I listed above have lots of power ups and bombs. This reeks of lazy design.
When I started, I wanted to get through the game as fast as possible so I choose Normal difficulty. The first couple of stages were no problem. Seems like I'd finish in a couple of sessions. However, the subsequent levels requires you to go back and finish the previous level on Hard. Ok, fine. The level after that required me to go back and finish the previous levels on an even higher difficulty setting. That's a cheesy and bullshit game "design" to get more replay out of the game. It's inexcusable that I'd have to replay the same levels 3-4 times each just to finish the game. What they should've done is add increasingly difficult maps.
I'm happy I never have to play this POS again. Congratulations Jamestown, you get my first 1/10 rating.
Vertical scrolling shooters were popular when I was growing up. Games such as 1942, 1943, Truxton, Twin Cobra, and Raiden consumed many childhood hours. However, since the 90s, these types of games seemed to be on the decline. Jamestown is supposed to be an homage to this old-school genre. It's even done with 8-bit graphics.
Frankly, this game was terrible. The graphics are passable, but nothing special. Forget about a story. The maps were too small. That is, there isn't a lot of room to manoeuvre your ship. When the screen fills with enemy ships, bullets and missiles, there has to be somewhere to go. Unfortunately, the view is zoomed in way too much. The ship takes up a large chunk of real estate and the enemy projectiles are also big.
There are 4 ships available to play and all of them are boring. The only power up is a temporary shield and increased damage. That's so lame. All of the old games I listed above have lots of power ups and bombs. This reeks of lazy design.
When I started, I wanted to get through the game as fast as possible so I choose Normal difficulty. The first couple of stages were no problem. Seems like I'd finish in a couple of sessions. However, the subsequent levels requires you to go back and finish the previous level on Hard. Ok, fine. The level after that required me to go back and finish the previous levels on an even higher difficulty setting. That's a cheesy and bullshit game "design" to get more replay out of the game. It's inexcusable that I'd have to replay the same levels 3-4 times each just to finish the game. What they should've done is add increasingly difficult maps.
I'm happy I never have to play this POS again. Congratulations Jamestown, you get my first 1/10 rating.
Tuesday 9 July 2013
All aboard!
Metro 2033
Ukrainian-developed, post-apocalyptic, FPS set in the Moscow metro system. This game was based on a book of the same name. I had never heard of it, let alone read it. I expected the story to be deep and involving. Instead, I was disappointed at how disjointed it was. The plot has your character going through the subway tunnels trying to find a way to beat The Dark Ones. The Dark Ones weren't shown very much until the very end but every time they were on the screen, it was scary! They were these ghostly shadows which blended into the environment very well. The problem was, The Dark Ones has so little screen time. It was mostly fighting mutants and Nazis (wtf, why?!). Cut out the unnecessary Nazi story element and focus more on the Dark Ones. The ending gave you a choice and I went with the obvious "kill everything" one. I read about the other ending and it made no sense to me. There was nothing in the preceding hours of gameplay that would lead me to that conclusion.
Each "station" was a mini-town and could've been an interesting setting, but they weren't given a lot of attention. No interesting characters. No cool places to hangout. Basically a vendor and the next quest giver. Boring!
The missions themselves were too short. 5-10 minute mission, followed by 3 minute cutscene. Repeat for a few hours. And the mission layouts were confusing. You don't get an in-game map so I figured there'd be multiple ways to finish a mission. Nope. Only 1 exit and you have a useless compass to help you navigate. Some maps were so frustrating because I couldn't find the damned exit. A compass doesn't tell you which floor of a building to go to. Bad, bad level design.
So what did this game do well? The graphics engine provided some of the best lighting and environmental effects I've seen on a PC game. Lots of great looking fog and shadows. It helped create a creepy atmosphere, but unfortunately, the story could not utilize it.
The other neat thing was the voice acting. A fellow gamer & friend recommended I switch the audio to Russian with English subtitle. It was nice little touch.
6/10
After Metro 2033, I was supposed to move onto Jamestown: Legend Of The Lost Colony, however, I get derailed and played Diablo 3.
Diablo 3
Ok, I had finished Diablo 3 a week or two after it came out. A pretty looking game without the brilliance of the first two (fuck you, Jay Wilson). It held very little replaybility value so I shelved it for a year. Only recently did I get back into it so I could solo it on the hardest difficulty level. I'll admit, Inferno is pretty hard with the crap gear I had. Instead of grinding endlessly for better gear, I just went to the AH and bought a set of kick-ass Legendary-class equipment. One I had my new gear, it didn't take much time to kill Diablo. Time to shelve it again.
7/10
Next: Jamestown (it's so bad)...
Ukrainian-developed, post-apocalyptic, FPS set in the Moscow metro system. This game was based on a book of the same name. I had never heard of it, let alone read it. I expected the story to be deep and involving. Instead, I was disappointed at how disjointed it was. The plot has your character going through the subway tunnels trying to find a way to beat The Dark Ones. The Dark Ones weren't shown very much until the very end but every time they were on the screen, it was scary! They were these ghostly shadows which blended into the environment very well. The problem was, The Dark Ones has so little screen time. It was mostly fighting mutants and Nazis (wtf, why?!). Cut out the unnecessary Nazi story element and focus more on the Dark Ones. The ending gave you a choice and I went with the obvious "kill everything" one. I read about the other ending and it made no sense to me. There was nothing in the preceding hours of gameplay that would lead me to that conclusion.
Each "station" was a mini-town and could've been an interesting setting, but they weren't given a lot of attention. No interesting characters. No cool places to hangout. Basically a vendor and the next quest giver. Boring!
The missions themselves were too short. 5-10 minute mission, followed by 3 minute cutscene. Repeat for a few hours. And the mission layouts were confusing. You don't get an in-game map so I figured there'd be multiple ways to finish a mission. Nope. Only 1 exit and you have a useless compass to help you navigate. Some maps were so frustrating because I couldn't find the damned exit. A compass doesn't tell you which floor of a building to go to. Bad, bad level design.
So what did this game do well? The graphics engine provided some of the best lighting and environmental effects I've seen on a PC game. Lots of great looking fog and shadows. It helped create a creepy atmosphere, but unfortunately, the story could not utilize it.
The other neat thing was the voice acting. A fellow gamer & friend recommended I switch the audio to Russian with English subtitle. It was nice little touch.
6/10
After Metro 2033, I was supposed to move onto Jamestown: Legend Of The Lost Colony, however, I get derailed and played Diablo 3.
Diablo 3
Ok, I had finished Diablo 3 a week or two after it came out. A pretty looking game without the brilliance of the first two (fuck you, Jay Wilson). It held very little replaybility value so I shelved it for a year. Only recently did I get back into it so I could solo it on the hardest difficulty level. I'll admit, Inferno is pretty hard with the crap gear I had. Instead of grinding endlessly for better gear, I just went to the AH and bought a set of kick-ass Legendary-class equipment. One I had my new gear, it didn't take much time to kill Diablo. Time to shelve it again.
7/10
Next: Jamestown (it's so bad)...
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