Blizzard piss away some money. Meanwhile Diablo 3 could use some work, fuckers.
It's been a quiet few months on the gaming front, save for some minor Guild Wars 2 beta action. But I have a hard time getting into betas, knowing that any progress will be wiped and anyway you only get one chance at the magical first impression, your first journey through the game world, and I'd rather save that for release. So while I'm debating whether to buy Max Payne 3 now or wait until the price drops (probably the latter) I got an itchy credit card and waved it in Blizzard's direction.
I was very, very late to the Diablo party, to the point that I didn't actually rate D2 that highly, what with its ancient graphics and clunky interface. So I thought D3 might be a good "in", and that I would benefit from not being burdened by the unconditional love many people have for the previous games, in the event that D3 dared to deviate from the formula.
But first things first, my experience of actually downloading and installing the game was fucking awful. Blizzard are one of these arrogant rich companies that think it's clever to have a peer-to-peer download system built into their installer. Hey Blizzard, if you want to use MY bandwidth to distribute YOUR fucking game, how about you pay me? What's that? You still want $60 for the game even though it's a digital download and you don't even have to provide sufficient dedicated bandwidth? Fuck OFF you CUNTS.
So yes I turned that shit off straight away. But it turned out that here in the colonies, with or without the P2P I was getting shit-all downloaded. It would start off at a healthy 1-2MB/s (yes megabytes) but then immediately drop off to nothing until I restarted the download. After about 24 hours and 2% downloaded I took the only sensible course of action and downloaded a torrent of the install disk. In fact I torrented it to a remote machine and copied it to my home machine before the installer had reached 3%. Good job Blizzard. This didn't bode well for a game which is notorious for requiring an always-on network connection.
Anyway it still took a while to install the game, as it presumably downloaded patches that had been released since the dvd went gold. But it got there eventually.
So, what about the game? Well to start with it's important to understand that D3 isn't so much a game as a tool to enable Blizzard to make money from their delayed-due-to-rampant-account-hacking (not that they'll admit it) Real Money Auction House. When you frame it that way, the design decisions start to make sense. This is a game about items, and you can (eventually) buy items from the RMAH, and Blizzard make money from those purchases, therefore it's in their interest to make you dependent on the RMAH if you want to advance to the highest levels by having absurdly stingy drop rates for the most part, at least when it comes to items your character can actually use.
Although in all honesty that doesn't really affect me. I couldn't give fewer fucks about "beating" the game on the higher levels. I'll be content to go through it once on normal difficulty, and maybe engage in a little (non-public) co-op action now and again. I'll be happy with whatever limited bling I acquire in the regular course of playing, and have absolutely no intention of giving Blizzard or Chinese farmers or some sweaty, masturbating basement-dweller any more money by using the auction house.
But I have to return to the always-on connection requirement. What a fucking load of shit. So many reports of connection errors, and I've had my share of being booted out immediately after logging in, not to mention rubber-banding and lag in game. Like I said, a load of fucking shit. I'm sitting there playing a single-player game, I don't care about PvP or the RMAH so cheating does not even factor into the game for me, and yet it's like playing an overcrowded MMO. Even the Guild Wars 2 beta had less lag, and there were thousands of other real life people in that game world.
It is so fucking stupid it's barely possible to describe the fucking stupidity adequately. And of course the real reasons are all to do with the RMAH. And Blizzard have just gone dark while they wait for the number of players to die down so that the server congestion becomes less of a problem, rather than offer apologies and provide adequate capacity for the paying customers playing right now. People like to point out how World of Warcraft subscriptions are on the decline, but Blizzard are still raking in hundreds of millions of dollars a year from that game. This is absolutely a company with the resources to do these things "right", but just not the motivation it seems. But it's ok because they spunked away thousands on celebrating the (financially) successful launch.
Given my so far limited time with the game I tend to agree with those who suggest that Diablo 3 could not possibly have taken the last decade to produce. More like a couple of years, while the actual talent at the company was siphoned into developing the RMAH and whatever inevitable paid DLC that's going to appear. D3 isn't so much a game as a glorified PayPal which only lets you send money to Blizzard Activision.
So here it is, the concluding part of the epic Mass Effect trilogy, in which Commander Insert-name-here Shepard saved the galaxy from the Reapers not once, but three times (sort of). At this point I would like to clarify that I will probably refer to Shepard as "her", because I've only ever played with a "femshep". She will always be a woman to me, no matter how many ads are produced pretending otherwise.
I predicted, and to some extent was wary that ME3 was going to be little more than a glorified ME2 expansion pack and to an extent I was right. Technically very, very little has changed since the previous instalment. Where ME2 offered significant visual improvements compared with its predecessor, 3 adds pretty much nothing. Even in terms of game play, the only real difference I can think of is that they brought back a degree of weapon micromanagement, which was very welcome as far as I was concerned. And they got rid of the fucking planet scanning, but only just, because you still have to perform a perfunctory scan in order to locate artefacts or whatever shit you need to locate for a lot of the tedious Citadel side-missions. Indeed, the stupid micro-machines galaxy map remains unchanged, including having to refuel the Normandy. Although now there's the added "feature" that when you scan a system for stuff to collect, you increase the Reapers' awareness of your presence. Raise it enough and they suddenly appear (in micro-machines form) and chase you out of the system until you complete another proper mission. Which really adds nothing to the game except minor annoyance.
But that's all just details. The important thing is that getting into the rhythm of ME3, assuming you're coming into the game having played the previous episodes, and preferably importing an existing Shepard, has that comfortable feeling of slipping on your favourite, snug coat on a cold day. There was something of a bump on the way in, however, as for some reason ME3 failed to reconstruct the look of my Shepard. What the fuck, Bioware? You managed perfectly well when I imported her into ME2, what's the problem? It took me 3 attempts to craft her look from scratch before I was satisfied with the likeness. It really irritated me that it was broken, though. And it also irritated me that she lost her all-important renegade scars from the previous game and I had to start over. They may sound like small issues, but these games are supposed to offer a certain continuity and it's not like there should be any technical limitations given that ME2 & 3 are basically built on the same engine and assets. Having these problems is like taking away "your" Shepard and replacing her with an imposter.
But once I was in, it was business as usual. And business is good. The ham-fisted, one-button-does-everything controls aren't great, there's still too much "no you fucking moron, I wanted you to take cover not vault over the rock". But there's action, and shooting things, and some talking, and some more shooting things, followed by more talking. It's definitely Mass Effect.
One thing I could have done without was Kai Leng, a tiresome token sword-wielding Asian assassin who is taken from the Mass Effect novels apparently. Every appearance was jarring and awkward, as they tried to crow-bar a new (to the game) character into the plot for no good reason. And in typical Batman/Joker style, he manages to slip away every time you've just about caught up with him, resulting in him massively outstaying his welcome. One mission would have been more than enough, thanks all the same.
And so the ending. Ah, yes. After many hours spent carefully guiding your personal Shepard through the complexities of galactic diplomacy and conflict, not helped by The Illusive Man's determined pursuit of his own agenda, whatever the fuck that might be, friends made and lost along the way, potentially whole civilisations reconciled or wiped out at the flick of a dialogue wheel.
And Bioware pissed it all away at the last moment.
I've read suggestions that the ending was "written" (or more likely, shat onto the page) by a couple of the leads working in isolation from the rest of the writing team, and I can believe it. I could also easily believe that those leads were two of the less talented of the writers, and that on top of that they were blinded by smugness and ego to produce something bafflingly disjointed from absolutely everything which had gone before it.
I can't even be bothered to describe it in detail, there are plenty of other sources for that, but suffice it to say that every decision you made on the long journey from Eden Prime in ME1 counted for exactly nought at the final reckoning. I bet the writers thought they were being clever and abstract and innovative, as if this was their "2001: A Space Odyssey". They really weren't.
And it was going quite well. I was having fun fighting through the tough final battles, especially against those teleporting Asari bitches which are the ME3 foes I love to hate, and I even liked the bit where Shepard is knocked out by an explosion, and comes to in a slow-mo scene reminiscent of the nuclear blast in Call of Duty 4. Except without the protagonist dying. And then you're (eventually, because Shepard's taking her fucking time at this point) beaming up to the Citadel like you did in the Mako near the end of ME1. And then, well you might as well switch the game off at that point. Naturally The Illusive Man shows up to spout some more pointless shit and argue with Shepard for a while. And it's all downhill from there.
At this point I would like to talk about so-called Indoctrination Theory, which is the height of fashion when it comes to attempts to rationalise the current end-game. In reality it's mostly a bunch of Mass Effect pseuds trying to twist and distort any and all insignificant plot details to justify a pathetic "it was all a dream" get-out clause. Ah, yes, the ending was shit, but don't you see? It was all an illusion created within Shepard's mind in response to the Reapers' attempts to control her. Fuck OFF. If you're going to dream away the ending, why stop there? Why not reveal that everything in all three games has just been a continuation of the Prothean vision Shepard had on Eden Prime? That way they can make (and sell) the whole series all over again! Hurrah! Even worse, people appear to be increasingly susceptible to the delusion that "Oh, ya, now that I've seen the evidence for the Indoctrination Theory I'm completely convinced and I, like, really understand the story on a profound level and so I see that the ending is, like, really clever and not actually shit, you know?". NO. The ending is shit. It doesn't fucking matter whether you can explain what was going on. It doesn't fucking matter how many bullshit little details you can twist and torture to fit whichever bullshit theory you subscribe to. "If you sort all the codex entries by length, and arrange them into a grid and rotate it by ninety degrees and then take every 12th letter on alternate lines, except every 8th line, it spells "indoctrination" in Taiwanese." "That pixel in that one texture map in that one cutscene was the same shade of blue as Saren's eyeballs in ME1!" The ending was SHIT. It was terribly written, terribly designed, and boiled down to a three-way choice of coloured explosions. Indoctrination Theory won't change that.
Personally I would have preferred for the game to have ended on a cliffhanger, to be continued in some other form further down the road. If they do bend to the will of the disgruntled rabble and put out some revised conclusion it will almost certainly fail to satisfy anyone. Not least if they rewind the current ending and then play it out differently, but in a paid DLC add-on.
The ending is a lazy load of old shit, but let's not pretend that PC gaming has a rich history of cleverly crafted game endings. Remember how System Shock 2 finished? You may have forgotten, despite the game being one of the mostly commonly cited examples of sci-fi gaming excellence of all time. But that was a game which went to hell in a handcart as soon as the action transferred to the alien ship, and the developers themselves admitted that the final cut-scene was a cheap piece of shit which was all they had time to produce.
Indeed it was. Although it's still arguably better than ME3, offering a more logical conclusion, even if it was a badly-written one. Half-Life, both 1 and 2, had annoying, frustrating endings which offered no closure. Valve's G-Man was the proto-Illusive Man, seemingly able to side-step any notion of narrative logic and appear whenever the writers ran out of ideas to offer idiotic faux-enigmatic nonsense in lieu of actual plot, turning what you thought was going on upside down at the last minute and then... well, nothing really. Half-Life 2's plot especially was always a big fat crock of shit, despite what the fanboys like to believe.
What ME3 does offer is the opportunity to reflect on your own personal journey through the exceptionally well-designed and presented universe, and think about what you would actually consider to be a satisfying conclusion. My femshep was always a renegade, no matter how many times I played the various instalments. Renegade didn't simply mean "bitch", it was quite often more a case of not taking the easy route, nor making the easy decisions, but still having good intentions. One of my favourite sections of ME3 was revisiting the moral questions regarding the Krogan genophage, a potential cure for which I had destroyed in the previous game for reasons I can't remember. But despite being given the option to fake a failed attempt to cure it this time round, it was immensely satisfying to take the position of "No, fuck you, I owe it to Wrex to fix this shit once and for all". But I digress. I'm not a big fan of stories which kill key characters in order to elicit tragedy. Like JK Rowling was overly fond of doing in the Harry Potter books. It's cheap and lazy and tiresome, and the notion of Shepard dying at the end of ME3, while seeming somewhat inevitable, is all the more ineffective as a result of that inevitability. I would have preferred an ending where, despite ultimately sacrificing herself for the good of the galaxy, Shepard survives in such a way as to have to live with that sacrifice, unable to rejoin (in any presently conceivable way at least - potential future DLC!) her friends and especially her girlfriend for any more steamy shower action. Perhaps she could have merged with the Reaper AI, the way she did with Legion and the Geth in an earlier mission, but her physical body is destroyed leaving her trapped, albeit able to control and/or destroy the Reaper threat. Sort of like when the protagonist of FEAR 2 ends up trapped in Alma Wade's disembodied psychological hell, but with more giant robots and less psychic rape. Shepard could become a ghostly digital presence. It addresses the Reaper threat, calls back to a previous mission so it doesn't come completely out of left-field like the ridiculous crucible catalyst child, and doesn't end with Shepard's death, while still offering closure with a pinch of tragedy and of course the all-important opportunity to reprise Mansell's "Leaving Earth" theme.
That's a lot of swearing and insults directed at a game I did, for the most part, enjoy enormously. It lost some of the fat that bogged down ME2, it brought back hints of the good things that had been lost from ME1, it had some interesting missions in interesting environments and some decent foes. Yes, the ending was poorly crafted and nonsensical, but it was at least relatively brief.
Some company that made a couple of console games which consisted entirely of quick time events puts out a tech demo masquerading as some sort of revolution in story telling; easily impressed internet idiots fall over themselves to gush praise.
Contrary to the evidence presented in this blog, I'm not really a "hater". If I see something which really does impress me, I'll happily say so, and I can sing praises with the best of them. After reading the hyperbole for the Kara demo I even went in expecting to be impressed, but I simply wasn't.
1. Theme
Oh yes, it's the "OMG I'm alive please don't kill me" robot story. Packaged in a "pretty" (because she isn't all that), vulnerable girly package to get the nerd hormones resonating with the white knight effect. Secretly, the fans just want a Kara of their own on which to perform unspeakable sex acts. Publicly, they pretend to feel proper grown-up sympathy for the poor, abused, helpless little creature, because this is serious story telling, and art, and not some worthless promo for a video game company.
2. Design
It might be impressive if it wasn't a second-rate Chris Cunningham rip-off. It's a blindingly unoriginal take on the sleek, sexy robot look. But all the nerds are too busy searching frame-by-frame for that Basic Instinct flash of TnA to notice.
It doesn't help that Valorie Curry over-acts like she's in some amateur dramatics production of a play written by a 12 year old. She would have been great in the Harry Potter movies. She does, however, have the same open-mouthed, squinty smile as Keira Knightly. Only less pretty. And with less acting ability.
Separated at birth: Kara, Keira and Boo
3. Writing
Describing this as "written by a 12 year old" is actually too kind. The dialogue is painfully trite and awkward.
4. Direction
What the fuck is up with the camera? Perhaps it's just my personal aversion to over-cooked digital camera work, but this demo is an exceptional example of how animators can get carried away with the freedom offered in the virtual domain, and throw away all the hard-learned rules of cinematic mise en scene. Yeah, let's suddenly swoop by the character with a stupidly short lens for no fucking reason.
5. Tech
It doesn't even look that good. The skin shading is pretty poor (especially in a demo with only one character). The mo-cap is, well, mo-cap so it's no better or worse than any other mo-cap. The facial animation is surprisingly mediocre for a demo which is supposed to push boundaries. It's not a patch on Rockstar's LA Noire capture tech, and looks slow and artificial by comparison. The eye close-ups reminds me of that Diablo 3 teaser, only not as good. See how we animated the small eye movements and eyelids, just like everyone else does!
Ok, it's running (allegedly) in real time on a PS3. But that is more of an excuse for its limitations than a reason to applaud the end result.
Funnily enough the developers secretly recognise this, which is why it's touted more as a story telling demo than a tech demo. It's also why there's a disclaimer in the small print claiming that the tech is a year old. Fine, put out an up-to-date version if it makes so much difference.
6. Cheesy, emotionally manipulative bullshit
I have actually read that some people claim to have shed a tear over this demo. What. The. Fuck. Do you cry when you see rainbows too, you fucking twats? Chopper Read would like a word.
Seriously, the Kara demo is so relentlessly mawkish it makes Spielberg's A.I. seem subtle and sophisticated. And it's not even well written. But it seems that if you bury something under enough sad strings and tinkly piano then some people will start bawling their crybaby eyes out.
I happened to find this when I was looking for a link to the video, and it echoes a lot of my own impressions (even if he does gush about the tech). So maybe not everyone on the internet is an easily-impressed idiot after all.
As a shiny new year begins, let's have a look at what happened to those predictions I made for 2011, and concoct some new ones for the coming year.
Crisis 2 "Don't expect CryEngine 3 to be nearly as revolutionary as its predecessor ... This game is definitely on the "meh" list."
Pretty much hitting the nail on the head, I'm sure you'll agree. Crytek wanted to become console stars this year, but with gameplay never being their strong suit and ancient console hardware not doing justice to their tech expertise, neither the console nor PC audiences were terribly impressed.
The Witcher 2 "it's looking good, and even if it's no better than the original, it will still be a great game"
The Witcher was always going to be a tough act to follow, and like Portal 2, TW2 suffers from following in its predecessor's footsteps rather than blowing up out of nowhere. But it managed to be a solid and entertaining game in its own right, as expected.
Mass Effect 3 "Personally I doubt that this will see the light of day in 2011"
Damn, I'm good.
Dragon Age 2 "it could be a vast improvement over an already serviceable game, or else it could be more console trash"
Not so much console trash, as it turned out, but a pretty uninspired and rushed game by most accounts. I didn't bother with it in the end.
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim "I guarantee old-school RPG players will find loads of shit to complain about"
Funnily enough I haven't really noticed many complaints about the actual mechanics of the game, although that might just be because (PC) players take it for granted that they will be able to modify the game to their heart's content. Of course I'm yet to play it myself so it's hard to judge but it appears to be a pretty solid effort, even if it features Bethesda's notorious (lack of) quality control with respect to bugs.
Rage "it will massively fail to live up to expectations"
Did it ever. As predicted, Rage was largely console trash. What was more surprising was how it suffered from a lack of Id's usual technical excellence, and the PC version had various issues at launch. Even the die-hards began to fear that they had lost one of the last bastions of hardcore PC gaming.
Diablo 3 "Another game which I'm not sure we'll see in 2011"
And we didn't, although there was various beta activity should you give a shit. I don't.
Guild Wars 2 "Who knows if we'll see anything from Arena Net in 2011"
We saw various profession videos, but as yet it has been all quiet with regard to an actual release, or even a beta.
So as usual, pretty much on the money. But what does the discerning gamer (and console monkey) have to look forward to in 2012?
Mass Effect 3
Slated for March, this is my big one for the coming year. As I recall, ME was supposed to be a trilogy so in theory this should tie up the central Mass Effect story arc, although I don't imagine for a second that they won't continue to milk this franchise for many years to come. As I suggested a year ago, I still suspect that there will be much less to differentiate ME3 from ME2 than there was with the first two games. But I'm a fan, and as I said when I covered ME2, I just want it to go on forever, so the more the merrier.
Max Payne 3
I initially dismissed this as a shitty cash-in on the original (and excellent) Max Payne games, but I'm finding myself strangely optimistic about this Rockstar-developed take on the MP series. I don't know much about it, but I'm tempted to support any game from Rockstar which is released on the PC (excluding the mediocre, and late, LA Noire).
GTAV
Which brings us to GTAV. The question isn't whether there'll be a PC version any time soon, so much as will there be a PC version ever? For some reason Rockstar thought it would be worthwhile porting the over-hyped LA Noire to the PC, even though it was long after anyone stopped caring about the game, but the potentially much more impressive Red Dead Redemption is still MIA, and will be indefinitely according to the developers.
I was a latecomer to GTA4, but it was a landmark gaming experience and one I'd be keen to continue.
Guild Wars 2
It looks likely there'll be some action on the GW front this year, although whether it's a succession of betas or an actual release remains to be seen. I don't really know any more about it than I did this time last year, but if they make it, I will come.
Alan Wake
Apparently there's going to be a PC version. Of the game which was originally supposed to be a PC exclusive and Windows Vista showcase title. Meanwhile Microsoft threw enough money at Remedy to make it a 360 exclusive, the game was seriously compromised to make it accessible to the console Neanderthals and so it'll probably be a load of old shit when it finally does make it to the PC. Too little, (much) too late, Remedy.
Diablo 3
Seems to be progressing towards an actual release, via closed betas. It'll be a colossal mountain of hype, expectation and now doubt disillusionment when it does arrive, but that's less to do with the quality of the game and more to do with idiot gamers and expert marketing.
Metro: Last Light
I think I have Metro 2033 in my Steam library after some sale or other, but I haven't got around to playing it yet. Sounds like some sort of STALKER-meets-Crysis linear shooter, but many people have good things to say about it. Some of the trailer footage for Last light looks pretty sweet, although that doesn't mean much. I would expect it to be serviceable as a game, and quite likely capable of bringing a high-end machine to its knees.
In fact there aren't really many noteworthy titles to look forward to this year. Maybe a few surprises will pop up out of the blue, and I already have enough of a backlog to deal with.
I have been somewhat remiss in my reviews/rants/porn of late, but even I won't let a New Year pass without bestowing my traditional honours. 2011 couldn't have been much worse for PC gaming than 2010, but in fact there were a few gems this year, scattered amongst the endless tide of console dross. With no sign of any next-generation consoles, even console gamers are starting to notice the cracks. Meanwhile increasingly few developers are bothering to create games which take advantage of the PC's advanced technology and the unquestionable superiority of the keyboard/mouse combination as a FPS controller.
But that's a rant for another time. Let's get back to the business in hand.
The Bennett Cross "... most conspicuous gameplay, or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice, or extreme devotion to entertainment in the presence of the enemy"
Serious Sam 3
In which Croteam gets out its pencil case and takes us back to the old school. Speaking of games developed for the PC, here comes a prime example. The game suffers from a slow start, something which has seemingly put off a lot of players (including reviewers), and really makes you work for each new weapon, but eventually you do get back to the classic SS hoards, and the game slips on like a comfortable old jacket. It's the first shooter I've played in a very long time where the mechanics just feel "right". The weapons have satisfying punch and each has value, so along with the carefully meted-out ammo you don't tend to just stick to one particular favourite.
SS3 features relatively subdued and more realistic, less cartoony environments than its predecessors (particularly SS2) but there's still humour and plenty of ridiculous, laugh-out-loud moments. There is perhaps too little variation in the environments (mostly being samey urban Egyptian streets and tombs), but apart from that it's just good old-fashioned fun. Too old-fashioned for some, but then SS3 walks a difficult line between being a proper old-school PC shooter, and incorporating the shiny innovations of more modern games. What exactly do you think it's missing, regenerating health? SS3 is easily the best single player shooter of 2011, although admittedly that's not saying much.
The Bennett Service Order "... acts of the greatest gameplay or of the most conspicuous entertainment in circumstances of extreme danger"
The Witcher 2
It may be a shock relegation to second place overall, but that's not to say that TW2 isn't a great game, and another PC exclusive (for a few months at least). It has been handicapped by the fact that I haven't managed to spend a great deal of time with it this year, but on the other hand it deserves to be penalised for the tiresome and lazy use of quick time events.
Still, it looks great, not including the unnecessary Geralt redesign, there are tits and swearing as befits a Witcher game, the combat takes a little getting used to but is slightly more involving than that of the original game, and the atmosphere and storytelling of the original remain intact.
The Bennett Medal "... acts of gallantry and devotion to game play under fire"
Saints Row: The Third
I bought this on a whim because Amazon had the digital download for $40 rather than the increasingly-common $60, and that's something I whole-heartedly support. I hadn't played a Saints Row before, so all I knew about the game was drawn from one or two slightly odd trailers which appeared to feature pro-wrestling moves and giant dildos. Turns out it's a more cartoonish and amped-up open world sandbox which can be compared with GTA4, but only slightly. It's not quite as polished as GTA4, and swings much more towards the arcade end of the spectrum, but there's some good variety, well-presented core missions and lots of opportunities to upgrade and customise.
Honourable Mentions
Perhaps a slightly unfair omission from The Big Three, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim shot itself in the foot by launching in the stupid and unjustifiable $60 price bracket and was barely discounted by any retailers. I vowed not to buy the game before it dropped to $40 or less, which only occurred during the Steam Christmas sales, so it's currently languishing in my Steam library, unplayed. Test Drive Unlimited 2 is a pretty good game, but suffers from some short-sighted development decisions (shitty stearing wheel support) and a mediocre physics model which is neither arcade nor simulation. However, graphically the engine received a nice overhaul, there's a proper day/night cycle and varied weather, fun and well-implemented off-roading, and if you were disappointed that Ibeza seems, if anything, smaller than Oahu then at least they included Oahu as well. Portal 2 is more Portal, with a slightly more prominent narrative angle and a few more puzzles than the first game. Stephen Merchant's voice acting deserved better writing, and overall the game seemed much easier than the original, but it still features the legendary Valve polish.
Dishonourable mentions Portal 2 may be a fun diversion, but it's not Game of the Year material, contrary to popular opinion. It's still too short for a full-price game, despite being maybe twice the length of Portal, and most damningly it still has absolutely zero replay potential. I haven't tried the co-op and I'm sure that adds a little to the initial longevity, but that's offset by the tiresome "humour" and surprisingly poor writing of the single-player campaign. Id Software are the kings of tech demos masquerading as games but with Rage they experienced something of a fall from grace even in the eyes of their more dedicated fans. Rage was an unashamed console game ported to the PC for the first time in Id history, and despite having "mega" in the name, the megatexture tech was designed more to work around console limitations than take advantage of contemporary PC hardware. If an Id game doesn't have impressive tech, then it has nothing at all. Oh and Crisis 2 came out in 2011, and while featuring some impressive tech, it ended up being just another console port from the PC point of view.
Neither Here Nor There Battlefield 3 looks pretty and is the multi-player game du jour for the self-styled armchair pro FPS crowd. The increased focus (a relative term: increased from virtually nothing to very little) on a single-player campaign didn't really pay off, as it is reportedly short, uninspired, full of quick-time events and predictably just like all the Call of Duty: Modern Warefares. But as any fans will fall over themselves to tell you, the SP is irrelevant. Which is why the Battlefield games are irrelevant as far as I'm concerned.
Another day, another drama in the world of video games. The latest controversy comes courtesy of fanboy wank-fodder Diablo 3, and the news that it will require a continuous internet connection in order to function, even for single-player sessions.
Now of course when a less popular company like, for example, Ubisoft, tries that sort of thing, the backlash is immediate and vocal and pretty much unanimous. But of course this is Diablo 3, and so naturally the apologists and sanctimonious, self-satisfied, smug shit-head multiplayer fucks come crawling out of the woodwork to make excuses and patronise anyone who dares to question the edicts of the almighty Blizzard. These are the people who only ever cared about the MP aspects of the game, which were obviously going to require an internet connection, so it makes no difference to them and they are incapable of understanding why people who aren't them, and who perhaps have their own preferences and priorities which may not include multiplayer gameplay, might be disgruntled. Suddenly the people who have the nerve to question these design decisions are simply suffering from acute nerd-rage, they are making mountains out of mole-hills and should "deal with it". They should vote with their wallet, and meanwhile those visionary individuals who wholeheartedly support Blizzard's courageous and progressive proposals will be busy enjoying the game while you miss out.
It's terribly easy to adopt that point of view when you are entirely unaffected by the issue at hand. And it's terribly easy to swallow anything without question when you have a company's cock rammed that far down your throat.
Blizzard for their part have apparently been "surprised" by the negative reactions. But that shouldn't come as a shock; this is a company which has been previously surprised by negative reactions to their plans to force their forum users to operate under real names. Blizzard are easily surprised, it seems. But then they operate in their rarefied world apart from the rest of the games industry, with a loyal legion of sycophants to fellate them while they roll around in the WoW subscriptions collected from millions of Chinese gold farmers.
Ultimately I don't even care. I was never into Diablo "back in the day", and by the time I was introduced to Diablo 2 it was already painfully dated and clunky. Without the benefit of the ever-popular rose-tinted specs of nostalgia it doesn't really stand up to modern scrutiny. Nevertheless I would have been interested in trying a contemporary sequel, although being as I am in possession of perfectly adequate genitalia I have no interest at all in the multiplayer, co-op or otherwise. I find it curious how obsessed many people are with the MP side of Diablo 2 when it had a perfectly serviceable single player campaign, aside from the flaws pursuant to the game's vintage. Unfortunately it seems that Blizzard are making a very conscious effort to move D3 towards a "primarily" MP experience, at which point what tenuous shadow of interest I might have possessed proceeds to dissipate entirely.
And let's not pretend that the always-on requirement is entirely for the benefit of the gamers. Let's not pretend that it will make the MP experience some sort of utopia of fairness and order and will prevent those devious individuals who might want to bring it down from implementing all manner of bots and exploits and hacks. How successful has that policy been for WoW? It's about DRM (not just in terms of piracy, but in the broader sense of managing how you use the software), and it's about additional monetisation of mandatory online features (the real money auction house, for example).
Meanwhile the fanboys can continue to pat themselves on the back for keeping the faith, and convince themselves that they will be enjoying something special and rare that the naysayers will be missing out on. Only we won't be missing out on anything except the bullshit posturing of a bunch of self-important fuckwits pissing away their lives trying to make the numbers on their screens higher than those of the idiot they're playing against. And all the while playing the special bonus mini-game of trying to one-up each other's encyclopaedic knowledge of obscure character builds in the chat window. How will I ever survive without that?
I've now spent a little time with the game, although it has been somewhat abbreviated by my PC's recent decision to start locking up randomly (which I hope a motherboard replacement will fix, because nothing else has).
By far the biggest disappointment has been the use of quick-time events during some combat scenes (generally fistfights rather than the regular armed combat). I hate QTEs, I think they're lazy and cheap and ruin any sense of immersion, and I'm not about to give TW2 a pass on them simply because I'm a Witcher fan. I don't know if this game has a similar boxing mini-game to the first Witcher, but if it does and they use the QTE mechanism, I'll be very disappointed. I know QTEs let the designers chain mocap or whatever into a more fluid and cinematic visual experience, but it is absolutely at the expense of gameplay. You definitely lose marks for it, CD Projekt.
Anyway I've only just reached Chapter 1, which is where the "proper" games appears to begin, after the extended prologue/tutorial section. The new combat system took a bit of getting used to; it's not really any better or worse than the old "click to chain" system but it took a while to learn the rhythm of it. Although at worst it just turns into a parry/strike/parry/strike loop. Once you get the hang of it (and the fact that you now have to meditate to drink potions) it feels fairly fluid and natural.
As I'm only just getting to the more open portion of the game there are a lot of aspects I have yet to encounter, like crafting, quests etc. It's definitely a pretty game though, and has the same authentic feel as the original. I'm still not sold on the Geralt redesign, he's too much of a lantern-jawed jock now, but at least it's the same voice actor as before.
Anyway, assuming I can get my machine to behave itself, and if I can tear myself away from a recent obsession with SWAT 4, I'm looking forward to getting stuck further in, QTEs aside.
A nice bit of bush, lorra lorra lovely couple blinda data
It appears that E3 was a bit of a console-fest, and not a particularly impressive one at that, and it has triggered the usual round of "PC gaming is dead" hand-wringing. Confirmation that Skyrim will be a console port didn't help, although some minor relief came in the form of the legendary John Carmack admitting that focussing on developing for consoles is a bad idea. Meanwhile, one thing which seems to be obligatory in any discussion of The State of Gaming is some mention of the forthcoming Battlefield 3.
I've watched the various videos, and I've reached 2 conclusions. Firstly, the game looks incredibly pretty. Not without exceptions, mind (the section where your character attempts to locate and diffuse an IED looked pretty mediocre), but in general the various demos have been very impressive, both technically and artistically. It's interesting to contrast that with Modern Warfare (the first one, since that's the only one I've played), where above-average art direction managed to compensate for a relatively limited engine to create an impressive game experience. BF3 appears to benefit from both nice design and a top-drawer engine to often stunning effect. Large environments, some great smoke effects, richly detailed environments and characters. It's all good.
The second conclusion I've reached is that despite all the good stuff, I haven't seen a single example of gameplay which hasn't already been done to death in all the other modern warfare shooters (or the WW2 shooters before them). Even the tank sequence, despite being blanketed in arguably excessive bling-bling effects like video distortion, just reminds me of whichever CoD or MoH or Crysis or whatever it was I've done that sort of shit in before. Not to mention the subsequent airborne sequence which is straight out of MW. There's also a surplus of scripted action evident, something which might well spark the furious crucifixion of lesser games. Of course this is the almighty BF3, so you're obliged to brush aside such trivial criticisms. Gamers are such fucking hypocrites.
Multiplayer monkeys will immediately start quoting shit like "ooo 64 player multiplayer" bla bla boring wank. I don't fucking care. I don't care about the multiplayer at all. I don't care how many of you fucking idiots can get together at one time and bitch about how everyone except you sucks at the game, and how everyone else should follow your orders, before all rage-quitting. Fuck you all.
And that's the thing. Outside of the multiplayer there is nothing new here in terms of gameplay.
I understand that the BF series is historically MP-oriented, but the fact is that the majority of promotional material currently available, the material upon which hordes of shooter nerds are building their masturbatory fantasies, is taken from the single-player campaign. It remains to be seen how much SP content there is, but you can bet that if it's on a par with other recent shooters (i.e. very short) you mustn't complain, because this is BF3.
I also find it bizarre that BF3 is being heralded as the latest saviour of PC gaming when it's a multi-platform release. I suspect DICE will be wary of making the common console-related mistakes when it comes to the PC version (fov, control issues, "press start" instructions etc) but the fact is, console gamers won't be sitting in front of their PS3 or 360 wishing they had the PC version. They won't care that there's a PC version at all. No matter how much prettier it is on the PC, no one will actually care except PC gamers.
It is inevitable, given the obscene hype, that BF3 will be a let down in some way to a large number of gamers. You idiots are only setting yourselves up for a fall. Even your beloved multiplayer will be plagued by the usual cheating and hacking within moments of the game's release. Don't get me wrong, if there's a decent-sized single-player campaign you can count me in, and I don't hesitate to applaud the technical quality of the engine and the impressive design. But in the meantime no forum thread is complete without someone name-dropping BF3 as an example of how it should be done (whatever "it" is), when the game is still months away from hitting the shelves. Not a year goes by without something suffering from this sort of obsessive hero-worship, and it always, ALWAYS ends in tears.
I'm currently waiting for the 1.1 patch (due any moment) to see if it fixes the main problem I have, namely having to reset my manly 30" monitor to 1920x1200 before starting the game. Otherwise it just "um"s and "ah"s and eventually drops back to the startup menu. If I do reset the screen res I can get it to start, and from what little I've seen it looks great, but I want the best possible experience and I'm happy to wait. I've also read that the shitty securerom drm is affecting performance (and massively increases the loading time) for non-GOG/Steam versions so hopefully that'll be something else which is addressed in the patch. When will publishers learn that hurting paying customers with stupid crap like that is not clever?
Still, I was impressed with how quickly the game makes up for the lack of tits in the packaging by having Triss show up very, very naked almost immediately.
And so to one of my most highly-anticipated games of 2011; the follow-up to the superb, 2007 Bennett Cross winner The Witcher has arrived.
In this first part of my review, I shall be setting aside such trivial matters as gameplay, graphics, storyline, dialogue, tits, soundtrack, tits etc and concentrating on the much more important issue of packaging.
That's right, it's a COLLECTOR'S EDITION!
And what a CE it is, too. It's a big fucker, about 3 times the size of the original Witcher CE. Heavy, too, for reasons which will become obvious.
Nicely understated box. No idiotic publicity hyperbole.
Even more (or less) so on the back.
Like with the WAR CE, a large proportion of the weight comes from the hardback art book. This is another classy tome like the original Witcher art book, although with a hard cover and less nudity (sadly).
Beneath the art book is some papercraft model or other. I hesitate to "spoil" the effect by actually opening it. Maybe I should have bought 2 copies - one to keep for best. Then again this isn't the cheapest CE in history, so perhaps not.
A couple of DLC armour codes and some stickers later, and we're into the real guts of the box.
The Geralt bust. The other major contributor to the package's extreme weight. I would have preferred a model of a naked Triss or similar, but you can't have everything. Not to mention I'm not a huge fan of the (in my opinion entirely unnecessary) Geralt redesign in TW2, and this rubs it in your (my) face somewhat.
Nice, chunky game box. This would constitute a CE in itself for many games.
Game, game guide and bonus stuff. More on that later.
"How to Play Cards and Dice". A cute little guide book. But why would you need that?...
...aha! A set of dice, in a nice little Witcher pouch. That's why.
And then when you're done with the dice, there are some Witcher playing cards.
They look very classy, although again I'm hesitant to break the seal.
Nothing left in the box except some authentic Witcher dust.
In fact the weight of the bust played hell with the moulding in the box. The weight, combined with some less-than-gentle shipping no doubt.
And so that's it. Or is it? I happened to break open the bonus dvd box.
Only to find another papercraft model, and a map (complete with some long-overdue tits).
The game DVD box has a weird letter thing, in a fancy envelope, and a little coin which I almost missed on first inspection.
Cute.
For completeness, a better view of the stickers.
And so this time that really is all. In fact the more I got into it, the more impressed I was. The dice and cards are my favourite elements, and overall this collection is firmly at the Tabula Rasa end of the spectrum (i.e. good) rather than the WAR end (promises much, ultimately disappointing). Definitely one of the best CEs I've encountered, let down only by the price and the lack of pictures (or models) of tits. 9/10.
It's a new Valve game and therefore PC gamers are obliged to bow down and worship at the feet of The One True Developer.
I played the original Portal through again recently. My main impression was that it was incredibly short; enough time had passed for me to have forgotten most of the finer details of the puzzles but it still only took a couple of hours to complete. And the first half of it was tedious tutorials. As far as I'm concerned it has minimal replay value, partly because it's ultimately a puzzle game and so once you've solved it there's nothing left to do, and partly because the "hilarious" quirky robot humour gets old very quickly.
And I know Portal 2 has a co-op mode, but how is that going to offer any more replay potential, other than twats trying to show off how good they are to players who are playing levels for the first time? Who gives a shit about finding alternate solutions to puzzles once you've already found one? No doubt there'll be a lot of downloadable levels, but that's just more of the same except without any sort of narrative layer.
Of course as a puzzle game it's riding the current gaming zeitgeist of everything being treated like a challenge and a competition, which is why so many people are blown away by it. That, and the Emperor's New Clothes appeal of Valve's so-called "storytelling", whereby players mistake the lack of narrative clarity for another layer of gaming complexity, where you somehow have to be good at the game to understand the story, just like with Half-Life 2. In reality there's simply not a lot there beyond the (admittedly well-constructed) atmosphere and polished gameplay.
I fully intend to pick up Portal 2, but I will wait for the inevitable Steam sale. Portal 1 was nowhere near a full-price gaming experience, and despite claims that the sequel has substantially more content I don't believe it has the lasting appeal of more conventional games. The forum hysteria has already died down, again because of the limited scope and longevity of the game.
So yeah, a new Valve game. And just like with L4D2, another "more of the same" sequel. Even the more oblivious gamers are beginning to notice the lack of any substantial new content coming out of Valve in recent years. Still nothing on the future of Half-Life, whether it's more HL2 episodes (so much for smaller chunks = faster turnaround) or perhaps HL3. I don't argue the fact that they're still putting out games with a massive degree of polish, they're just running low on innovation and substance. Their increasing focus on multiplayer, especially co-op which as I've noted in the past is several years too late given modern gamers' rabid sense of competition and basic inability to co-operate, is disappointing because it's resulting in increasingly vacuous gaming experiences.
Sad news by way of the recent winding up of classic, vaguely Sega-obsessed sarcastic commentary site UK:Resistance. I can't remember how I stumbled upon it, I suspect I was turned on to it in the late 90s by console-monkey friends. Anyone aware of the site will also be aware that it's been on auto-pilot for the last few years so it's not an especially shocking announcement, but in its heyday it was a go-to for gaming-related comedy. Run by Mr Gary Cutlack, who has gone on to write for proper gaming mags and sites, not to mention making a bunch of slightly odd youtube videos, UK:R was like Charlie Brooker with a bit less swearing. Cutlack also runs Idiot Toys, which is worth a visit unless he plans on shutting that down too. But first be sure to visit the UK:R archives while you still can. It's amazing how much work he put in back in the early years. Note the Employee of the Week posts, which no doubt influenced my very own Thought for the Days.
A few years ago Cutlack sold out to Shiny Media who promptly slapped its trashy branding and a million ads over his sites. Being a poorly-conceived blog portal wank-fest which I suspect was supposed to be some sort of nerd Gawker, Shiny spontaneously combusted shortly after. Cutlack was given back control of UK:R in lieu of money owed, and managed to grab back the idiottoys domain when whatever was left of Shiny forgot to renew it.
UK:R was also notable for its user forum. Based at boards2go and featuring a high-speed/low-retention policy, it often offered some jaw-droppingly funny contributions from regulars, not to mention impromptu porn dumps from mad-as-a-brick resident porn scene freak murphy "The Reverand DMark" or whatever his handle was back then. The original forums were nuked following a spectacular public breakdown and revelations of intra-forum infidelity from Cutlack's bit of fluff. Can't remember what she called herself now. Absolutely top-drawer entertainment, while it lasted.
The "official" forum was followed by a succession of indie spin-offs, before settling on the (theoretically) still-operational, if virtually flat-lined UKPersistance. Originally a lot of the old crew were regulars, before the community was eventually eviscerated by further dramas, including more infidelity revelations (this time featuring oversized yank pinball fanatic and long-time UK:R regular "Dork") and the leak of ill-advised nudie pics of genuinely-female "Frap", who also happened to be real-life UK Frag Doll "Jam". Or did that happen on the original board? Whatever, they're preserved on ED if you're interested. White-nightery and schism followed, and UKP was never the same again. DMark/Mark seemed to tire of people criticising his taste in forgettable Eastern-European heroin-addict skanks and disappeared, taking his endlessly amusing old-school racism and tales of crazed stalking and cleaning up various bodily fluids (if not producing them) at the family B&B with him.
UK:R itself was almost entirely Cutlack, although there were one or two guest contributors over the years. Ignoring the recent ones who were promoted from serial commenter as Cutlack gradually lost interest in the site, the one who sticks in my mind is The Swill Man. God only knows where Cutlack found him, he seemed to be some yank teenager and he didn't last long. I seem to recall Cutlack eventually revoked The Swill Man's posting rights with a vague shrug.
More recently UK:R has been your one-stop destination for monthly "Here's a picture of a spiral. The Dreamcast logo was a spiral!" updates as the site continued its long slide into obscurity. Meanwhile Cutlack has become something of an underground celebrity in the gaming world, and the (relatively) large volume of comments which followed the closure are testament to the fondness literally dozens of people have for what he has achieved. Good luck with your future endeavours, Mr Cutlack, I salute you.
And I'm sure that wherever he is now, Dork is a cunt.
Hey, you! Which game is this? No, it's not a Resident Evil sequel, or any of those interchangeable survival horror games. No, it's not Uncharted or one of those interchangeable adventure/thriller Tomb Raider clones, but you're getting warmer. I'll give you a hint, which iconic game character is it?
Of course it's from the Tomb Raider "reboot", and that's the new Lara Croft. Ah, yes, reboots, when a publisher doesn't have any new ideas and wants to lean on the security of an established and successful brand while pretending to be fresh and innovative.
Lara became iconic entirely because of her distinctive design. The big tits, the pony tail, the shorts, the dual pistols. You've seen her. The new design is so bland and homogenised and typical focus group toss that if you weren't told it was supposed to be Lara, you wouldn't have a fucking clue. Irrespective of whether you like the old design (or the new one), that doesn't seem to be a very clever use of a well-known and iconic gaming brand. In their clumsy attempt to leverage the Tomb Raider identity they've managed to throw away perhaps the most important aspect of it. What's left? The name? What have they actually achieved? What it's really saying is "we don't have a strong enough character or story or design to stand alone as a new property, so we'll slap the Tomb Raider name on it". Just like all of the recent movie reboots, it's sheer creative bankruptcy.
What I find tragic is when fuck-witted idiots start praising the redesign as some sort of right-on, politically correct feminist statement because they think it makes them look sensitive to women's issues and modern and mature and will get them laid. Dismissing the remarkably enduring appeal of the original Lara as childish wank fantasy just because they dared to give her a pair of tits and not make her look like a man. Why are you so afraid of the old design? More to the point, why do you prefer to play games which feature female characters who look like some sort of pre-pubescent David Beckham, you fucking paedophile?
The convergence of game design is sad and pathetic. Publishers are scared of creating anything which has a unique style or character lest some up-tight cunt finds it slightly at odds with their own preferences and doesn't buy the game. Slowly but surely the mainstream games are merging into one big indistinct mush, like that website where you can average pictures of people's faces and you end up with some sort of marketing wet-dream, a soul-less shop mannequin of indeterminate gender or race or age. The new Lara isn't Lara, she's "generic female protagonist". The only people she'll offend is those of us with a fucking clue, but we're an increasingly marginal marketing demographic.
How better to celebrate the long-overdue release of TDU2? If there was a Bennett medal for "Thought for the Day of the Year" (now there's an idea) this would have it sewn up, no doubt about it.
