Monday, 26 August 2013

Last on the Shelf..

The Last on the Shelf, that one, you think 'Oh! wow! a 3D game for that cheap.. but still not sure if i should risk it.' It gathers dust on the bottom of the bargain bin, and haunts your thoughts as you leave the shop.

'maybe I should'a got it??'

Here are some games that gave me mixed feelings, spoiled by stupid things and some bargains I found & really liked.

Far Cry 2

My friend said to me when I was thinking about buying Far Cry 2* 'It's a good game..well I dunno.. it has this thing were the enemies KEEP re-spawning, even after you clear out a camp 5 minutes later they come back..' HE was soo right, it's FAR too large a map for the enemies to re-spawn AT ALL! The game itself is engrossingly beautiful* the game play and mechanics are of a industry standard, on a par with well made games of it's time.. but this one little thing.. ruined the game. one thing.

What a shame! this was to be my holiday in Africa, I had enjoyed Jerusalem and Hawaii .. but I could not bear this niggle, soo i can't comment on the story because i didn't get to know much of it, which is another shame, as I had enjoyed the story so far.


Rage

Rage was the kind of game that's for casual FPS players, not in anyway an RPG... hold on, this was a post-apocalyptic game done in conjunction with Bethesda and I WASN'T to expect some heavy RPG elements? oookay..

I was all whiny baby at the time due to the Interplay/Bethesda lawsuit.. the thought of losing a Bethesda Fallout tinted my glasses darkly to this game, if this was our backup for Fallout incase Bethesda lost..we were in trouble.

but the game itself was standard fair.. but had no story, I didn't own the game but had a LoveFilm subscription, I got to the second disc and sent it back. enough said I suppose.

Battlefield 3

okay so there ARE going to be fans of the game on here, I know that. but I bought this game in anticipation of HUGE maps, the use of interesting vehicles.. and unbeknown to me, reliable game mechanics.

I installed all 20+ GB on my Xbox, and set off for my adventure, the first mission is the sniper mission.. well, I happen to be the sniper for my group, ..I don't like another sniper beating me, no snipers do, I spent two hours trying to find him and take him down, only to find out it was 'part of the story'' no, no, no. I haven't played BF games before, this was my first one, I had heard of the big maps and reasonably assuming, or so I thought, it was 'open' like an Open World game, it wasn't.

For the remainder I played the game, my hand was held, which culminated in two things, I was coming out the church, faced with about 8 to 10 hostiles I took down the first few out in the open, with not too much of a problem, but I was noticing, a pull of 5 degrees to my right on every shot, it was ticking me off, but i just went with it, I came up to the end of the street and there was like 6 guys shooting at me and I died. respawn. ..'okay I'll flank them.' The game designers had bottlenecked me in the worst way I could think of..invisible walls and fake obstacles.

I have a little talent for flying.. but after this the bad taste in my mouth just wouldn't go away, so on the jet* mission, I was so disappointed all I could think of was selling the game. on the same day I got it.


Invisible walls are my pet hate in games, they go right up there with Norton AV for PC repair*, Invisible walls, show a lack of imagination, they were used, and rightly so by Devs in the 90's due to lack of powerful hardware, they were justified.. today its like 'What on earth were you thinking??' you have no excuse, stop being lazy! I could grief on this for a whole article but no. not here. not now.


Good Games.

I have had some surprises in the last year.

I bought Bioshock 2, then 1, and totally got into Steampunk FPS. I had been a Fallout fan a year since before Bioshock, soo around 2010. I had been wary of Bioshock because I had watched the film at the start BS1, it seemed anti-catholic (which I am) but I was mistaken.. to my delight it was an anti-secular game. but I'm not going to review Bioshock here, as it's well known, and one of my new favourites. The surprise find was 'Singularity'

Singularity

Wow what an amazing game! it contained two* of the things I dislike most in games but I was riveted to the story!

the toys were fun, if a little limited, but overall good time had by all. a mix of fierce and easy-going game play, I did this game on the hardest setting and didn't run out of ammo or weapons and kept wanting to come back. I didn't play anything else except a little Minecraft and kept wanting to know more about the story. Activision 's Steampunk FPS, might not be widely known, but it made quite a hit with me.

It's full of spoilers and I am very tired, so I won't go into the plot except to say.. Russia, Cold War, Time Machine.

Night Sky

This is a chillout/puzzle game*... if you own a PS3 and have played Flower it's very much in the chillout frame of mind, Flower is more chilled, but Night Sky has some amazing 'moods' in it. Like Flower you need to play it, to know it, so again, I won't say too much, the music is spot on, although the puzzles *can* become frustrating at times, for the most part they are easy enough and require more brains than skill.

I got this game as part of a Humble Bundle, and I played it on Ubuntu, the OpenGL version is much much better than the DirectX version, which does not allow you to Scale the res. or go full screen.

I think I need my bed, so I'll leave it there.

if you want to comment, please do so, it encourages me to write and lets me know this article was read wink.gif

Peace

Dava





Notes


*XBL version, not PC.

*(even on DirectX 9)

*(even though i could tell it was a fun mission)

*(that AV just will NOT uninstall if you have slow-ish PC!)

*invisible walls, having my hand held.

update/06/Aug/12:

I saw Rage on steam for £6.99, & bought it ..and I can see it is a beautiful game. closed in, but beautiful.

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