Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Kibbles and Bits
A post for dogs.
If I would have written a post about Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando two weeks ago like I had originally promised, it would have a much different tone than this. Back then, before I actually finished the game, I was telling Nick how shocked I was that I had waited so long to finally play this game. I compared it to a Rare game, most notably Jet Force Gemini, with its polished gameplay and almost constant attempts at comedy. One quick note about that - for all the similarities it has with a Rare title, this had some of the most generic, bland music around. There were other things that kept it from reaching that most hallowed of levels, but most important was the complete lack of any effort in making an engrossing musical score.
Anyway, as I alluded to up there, I am now quite sour on this title. I finally finished the last level last night, a level which I have been sitting on for a number of weeks, and now wish I never played it. The level itself was fine - though the difficulty of the constant flow of enemies was neutralized by frequent save points and vendor stations. The end boss completely ruined this game, though. Well, that may be a tad harsh. It's more like eating a piece of tasty cake and finding a toenail in the last bite. You thought you enjoyed the cake while you were eating it, but looking back, the whole thing was probably full of toenails.
Anyway, in a previous post, Nick talked about how the final boss was so difficult. He said he had to fire every single scrap of ammunition in his arsenal to finally bring down the blue hell beast. He said the extreme difficulty caused him to replay the boss ten times. My experience couldn't be further from that. I killed him after a mere ten minutes, on my first try. I used most of the ammo... for one of my guns. I was only hit one time. In fact, he might have been the easiest boss I have ever fought. This is probably a first for any video game site, but Fable and R&C:GC have a lot of in common. They both lasted about 20 hours. They both got fairly repetive after a while. They are both home to two of the lamest, most easily defeated end bosses of all time. And they both have extremely short endings that neither satisfy nor entertain. And you said those games had nothing in common.
The end boss in R&C2 was so easy, in fact, that I actually called Nick afterwards to see if that was the actual ending. Not only did the end boss stink, but the story just kind of ended. There was no finality. No attempt at wrapping it up one bit. The last line was uttered as my robot pal Clank looked down at the broken remains of his female robot friend, "Don't worry, I'll fix her," said Ratchet. That's it, that's the ending of this game. I sat through five minutes of credits to make sure this was actually the real ending. I kept waiting for a screen to flash up "The real end boss is in another castle." But, alas, I was merely given the chance to compete in the Challenge Mode - a more difficult version of the main game. Boo to crappy endings, Insomniac.
If I would have written a post about Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando two weeks ago like I had originally promised, it would have a much different tone than this. Back then, before I actually finished the game, I was telling Nick how shocked I was that I had waited so long to finally play this game. I compared it to a Rare game, most notably Jet Force Gemini, with its polished gameplay and almost constant attempts at comedy. One quick note about that - for all the similarities it has with a Rare title, this had some of the most generic, bland music around. There were other things that kept it from reaching that most hallowed of levels, but most important was the complete lack of any effort in making an engrossing musical score.
Anyway, as I alluded to up there, I am now quite sour on this title. I finally finished the last level last night, a level which I have been sitting on for a number of weeks, and now wish I never played it. The level itself was fine - though the difficulty of the constant flow of enemies was neutralized by frequent save points and vendor stations. The end boss completely ruined this game, though. Well, that may be a tad harsh. It's more like eating a piece of tasty cake and finding a toenail in the last bite. You thought you enjoyed the cake while you were eating it, but looking back, the whole thing was probably full of toenails.
Anyway, in a previous post, Nick talked about how the final boss was so difficult. He said he had to fire every single scrap of ammunition in his arsenal to finally bring down the blue hell beast. He said the extreme difficulty caused him to replay the boss ten times. My experience couldn't be further from that. I killed him after a mere ten minutes, on my first try. I used most of the ammo... for one of my guns. I was only hit one time. In fact, he might have been the easiest boss I have ever fought. This is probably a first for any video game site, but Fable and R&C:GC have a lot of in common. They both lasted about 20 hours. They both got fairly repetive after a while. They are both home to two of the lamest, most easily defeated end bosses of all time. And they both have extremely short endings that neither satisfy nor entertain. And you said those games had nothing in common.
The end boss in R&C2 was so easy, in fact, that I actually called Nick afterwards to see if that was the actual ending. Not only did the end boss stink, but the story just kind of ended. There was no finality. No attempt at wrapping it up one bit. The last line was uttered as my robot pal Clank looked down at the broken remains of his female robot friend, "Don't worry, I'll fix her," said Ratchet. That's it, that's the ending of this game. I sat through five minutes of credits to make sure this was actually the real ending. I kept waiting for a screen to flash up "The real end boss is in another castle." But, alas, I was merely given the chance to compete in the Challenge Mode - a more difficult version of the main game. Boo to crappy endings, Insomniac.
Monday, November 22, 2004
I don't want to alarm you but...
Rare has unofficially released new info for their highly anticipated sequel to Perfect Dark. I know you have seen this lame dance number before but, based on the secretive way the information is presented, the theory the game is less than 12 months from release, and my need to know something about this game after playing the disappointing Halo 2 the last few weeks, has me believing these details are, in fact, real. Though the story of the new game, dubbed Perfect Dark 0, has been revealed, I will not talk about that at all. Heck, I do not even know the story of the first Perfect Dark, other than you befriend a tiny alien named Elvis. What I will talk about are the different features which appear to be in the new game.
Support for Clans, Leaderboards, Tournaments and Spectator Mode
Ho hum, what else is new? A brand spanking First Person Shooter is being released with an online mode? I never! Ok, so you expected this to be in the game, but now you know for sure that Rare is going online. And it seems like they are following the path Bungie laid down, what with support for clans and all. It seems they went a step forward (surprise surprise) by implementing a tournament system. I imagine it will be structured in such a way that 10 teams, for example, will all compete at the same time. Loser gets cut while the winner moves on. Eventually, a champion will be crowned and maybe given a new skin or voice sample as their reward. Seems like an idea that will build on what is already established.
On its surface, the Spectator Mode seems completely worthless. I imagine it will be implemented in the tournament mode, so you can watch the clan that trumped yours on their way to the championship. It is either that, or for player without hands. Either way, it does not sound like it will be quite as much fun as playing the game.
Now that I have broken down what everyone could have guessed on their own, I am sure you want my opinion of this. I am honestly a little scared. I like playing Halo 2 online, but I know the game will not still be in my rotation in a year or two. A game that is reliant on online deathmatches is doomed to an incredibly short life. Sure, there are exceptions like Counterstrike, that is still being played online some 6 years after release, but the vast majority of online intensive games are dumped as soon as something bigger and better comes along.
I honestly cannot imagine playing Halo 2 in a few months when the newness of the online mode is replaced by a been there/done that feeling. Halo 2 is so reliant on its online mode that I cannot imagine playing it offline like I did with Halo: CE. Most levels in Halo 2 are designed for 8-16 players, and, unless I get a LAN game going, I doubt I will want to fire this up to play Colossus with only 3 players. So, while Halo: CE may live for some time because it is designed to be great offline game with 4 or less players; Halo 2 will go the way of every other game that needs online to be fun. I just hope Rare understands this and makes a great offline mode before worrying about online.
Special Ops and Co-Op
For those that played Perfect Dark, you may remember a distraction called Counter-Op. In it, one player controlled Joanna Dark while the other spawned into various enemies throughout the level. It was not really fun because the enemies were so much weaker than Joanna. You were lucky to get one shot off before she shot you in the head. This lead to a lot of running through the levels to find Joanna instead of the combat that I so dearly wanted. But, on paper, the idea of controlling an enemy still seems quite fun.
This time around, with a longer development time and more people working on the project, I hope Rare fully fleshes out the idea they started in PD. I want to control enemies that are completely different from the solider grunts. As PD revolves around a world where aliens are the norm, I want Rare to take advantage of that. Let me control an enemy that can climb on walls and spit acid. Or how about an alien who can turn invisible and move lightning fast? Maybe they can let the second player control an enemy who is immune to bullets and you need to figure out some other way to kill them. The possibilities are endless and I hope Rare realizes this.
Co-op is also pretty standard at this point, but I have never seen it done right in an FPS. Most FPS, like Halo and the original PD, simply let a second player go through the normal missions, doubling firepower but adding little. Why not borrow from Lost Vikings (or, god forbid, Brute Force) and let players have completely different abilities. Once again, if Rare does what is expected people will be satisfied (see Halo 2) but there is so much more to do in this area and I think Rare can pull it off.
Vehicles
This one really scares me. I fear Rare is catering to the needs of the stupid mainstream (I am looking at you. Yes, you) with this one instead of trying to use their own creative juices to make something new and interesting. Vehicles have become standard at this point, but that does not mean it is a good thing. Level design needs to be changed completely to incorporate vehicles, and I fear this could hurt PD0 significantly. The levels in Perfect Dark and Goldeneye are corridor based. While there are some large, open areas such as the main room in Stack or the glass floored room in Grid, most levels are corridors snaking through the level. This keeps the action constantly moving forward. There is no standing around in PD because you gain nothing from being motionless.
By creating a huge, open level like in Halo 2, you leave the door open to dry gameplay. Far too often, players merely stand still and snipe opposing players. Or, you are forced to wonder through a level in search on an enemy instead of actively fighting. There is no down time in PD because it is structured so perfectly. While the addition of vehicles does not necassarily mean the levels will become too large for their own good, it does open up that possibility. Hopefully, the levels will be completely different than those found in Halo and will be used to compliment the gameplay, rather than design the fighting and the levels around them.
Challenges
From something horrible to something great just like that, PD0 is certainly an enigma at this point. The second best part of PD, after bots, is the many challenges in the game. They were almost as long as the normal campaign mode and much more difficult. I am quite happy Rare has decided to include them once more. This also gives me hope for bots. Challenges are simply runs through multiplayer maps, given certain objectives, against bots. If there are challenges, there is no reason to believe Rare would not open up those AI enemies for use in pure multiplayer as well. One can only hope.
So, there it is. Not much information and yet I gave you almost 1,200 words. This is the only announced game that actually has the potential to unseat Super Mario Kart as my favorite game ever. I hope, during the 5 years in development, Rare has thought up a ton of new features to add to this title. More than that, I hope they understand what made GE/PD so great and build on that rather than reinvent the wheel. The predecessors are still the best FPS around, and I hope this can continue the trend.
Support for Clans, Leaderboards, Tournaments and Spectator Mode
Ho hum, what else is new? A brand spanking First Person Shooter is being released with an online mode? I never! Ok, so you expected this to be in the game, but now you know for sure that Rare is going online. And it seems like they are following the path Bungie laid down, what with support for clans and all. It seems they went a step forward (surprise surprise) by implementing a tournament system. I imagine it will be structured in such a way that 10 teams, for example, will all compete at the same time. Loser gets cut while the winner moves on. Eventually, a champion will be crowned and maybe given a new skin or voice sample as their reward. Seems like an idea that will build on what is already established.
On its surface, the Spectator Mode seems completely worthless. I imagine it will be implemented in the tournament mode, so you can watch the clan that trumped yours on their way to the championship. It is either that, or for player without hands. Either way, it does not sound like it will be quite as much fun as playing the game.
Now that I have broken down what everyone could have guessed on their own, I am sure you want my opinion of this. I am honestly a little scared. I like playing Halo 2 online, but I know the game will not still be in my rotation in a year or two. A game that is reliant on online deathmatches is doomed to an incredibly short life. Sure, there are exceptions like Counterstrike, that is still being played online some 6 years after release, but the vast majority of online intensive games are dumped as soon as something bigger and better comes along.
I honestly cannot imagine playing Halo 2 in a few months when the newness of the online mode is replaced by a been there/done that feeling. Halo 2 is so reliant on its online mode that I cannot imagine playing it offline like I did with Halo: CE. Most levels in Halo 2 are designed for 8-16 players, and, unless I get a LAN game going, I doubt I will want to fire this up to play Colossus with only 3 players. So, while Halo: CE may live for some time because it is designed to be great offline game with 4 or less players; Halo 2 will go the way of every other game that needs online to be fun. I just hope Rare understands this and makes a great offline mode before worrying about online.
Special Ops and Co-Op
For those that played Perfect Dark, you may remember a distraction called Counter-Op. In it, one player controlled Joanna Dark while the other spawned into various enemies throughout the level. It was not really fun because the enemies were so much weaker than Joanna. You were lucky to get one shot off before she shot you in the head. This lead to a lot of running through the levels to find Joanna instead of the combat that I so dearly wanted. But, on paper, the idea of controlling an enemy still seems quite fun.
This time around, with a longer development time and more people working on the project, I hope Rare fully fleshes out the idea they started in PD. I want to control enemies that are completely different from the solider grunts. As PD revolves around a world where aliens are the norm, I want Rare to take advantage of that. Let me control an enemy that can climb on walls and spit acid. Or how about an alien who can turn invisible and move lightning fast? Maybe they can let the second player control an enemy who is immune to bullets and you need to figure out some other way to kill them. The possibilities are endless and I hope Rare realizes this.
Co-op is also pretty standard at this point, but I have never seen it done right in an FPS. Most FPS, like Halo and the original PD, simply let a second player go through the normal missions, doubling firepower but adding little. Why not borrow from Lost Vikings (or, god forbid, Brute Force) and let players have completely different abilities. Once again, if Rare does what is expected people will be satisfied (see Halo 2) but there is so much more to do in this area and I think Rare can pull it off.
Vehicles
This one really scares me. I fear Rare is catering to the needs of the stupid mainstream (I am looking at you. Yes, you) with this one instead of trying to use their own creative juices to make something new and interesting. Vehicles have become standard at this point, but that does not mean it is a good thing. Level design needs to be changed completely to incorporate vehicles, and I fear this could hurt PD0 significantly. The levels in Perfect Dark and Goldeneye are corridor based. While there are some large, open areas such as the main room in Stack or the glass floored room in Grid, most levels are corridors snaking through the level. This keeps the action constantly moving forward. There is no standing around in PD because you gain nothing from being motionless.
By creating a huge, open level like in Halo 2, you leave the door open to dry gameplay. Far too often, players merely stand still and snipe opposing players. Or, you are forced to wonder through a level in search on an enemy instead of actively fighting. There is no down time in PD because it is structured so perfectly. While the addition of vehicles does not necassarily mean the levels will become too large for their own good, it does open up that possibility. Hopefully, the levels will be completely different than those found in Halo and will be used to compliment the gameplay, rather than design the fighting and the levels around them.
Challenges
From something horrible to something great just like that, PD0 is certainly an enigma at this point. The second best part of PD, after bots, is the many challenges in the game. They were almost as long as the normal campaign mode and much more difficult. I am quite happy Rare has decided to include them once more. This also gives me hope for bots. Challenges are simply runs through multiplayer maps, given certain objectives, against bots. If there are challenges, there is no reason to believe Rare would not open up those AI enemies for use in pure multiplayer as well. One can only hope.
So, there it is. Not much information and yet I gave you almost 1,200 words. This is the only announced game that actually has the potential to unseat Super Mario Kart as my favorite game ever. I hope, during the 5 years in development, Rare has thought up a ton of new features to add to this title. More than that, I hope they understand what made GE/PD so great and build on that rather than reinvent the wheel. The predecessors are still the best FPS around, and I hope this can continue the trend.
Sunday, November 21, 2004
Four-legged leopard tongues
I finally tore through a rented Neo Contra earlier this weekend with Tom, and it was definitely good times while it lasted. And really, it lasted about an hour the first time through. We were almost done with it a second time when I had to take my companion to the train station, and we were at the half-hour point. So yes, it is a very, very short game. Five levels, usually book-ended by some of the silliest, most stunningly non-sensical cinemas you will ever see. They're pretty, especially the CG ones, but the slooooow voice acting and character design that wishes it were whimsical (three words - commander talking dog) makes the original Contra seem like a gloriously compelling sci-fi epic.
I might as well keep ranting about all of the ridiculous things in this game, even if I enjoyed it quite a bit. You can pick from three different weapon sets right off the bat, but the third choice is easily twice as good as the first two. The two playable characters look completely different from each other, but play exactly the same - not that any previous Contra has done otherwise, but you don't give a samurai from the future a gun, I'll tell you that much. The 'dodge' move works on some attacks and not on others - not fun to experiment with in a game when one hit kills you. The parts where you're not on foot are a nice change of pace, but are all way too short. There's not really any level design to speak of - simply different enemy types more or less dropped into linear, vaguely futuristic environments with the camera angles providing most of the variety.
Though like I said, none of these problems are really new to the series, and none really take away from the blistering run and gun gameplay. The boss fights are all unique and fun (and there are several per level), some of the creature designs (like the titular tongue-beast) are pretty freaky-sweet, and the basic shooting and new lock-on mechanics are rewarding enough. Also, they might say it's 3D, but all of the action happens on a 2D plane so it's kind of irrelevant how the levels are represented. The game is more or less the perfect rental - it's great fun playing through it in one session (despite all my nitpicking), especially with a buddy. It would assuredly wear thin after the third time through, and it doesn't present nearly the challenge (or variety, for that matter) that Shattered Soldier did, but hell, I had a good time.
I might as well keep ranting about all of the ridiculous things in this game, even if I enjoyed it quite a bit. You can pick from three different weapon sets right off the bat, but the third choice is easily twice as good as the first two. The two playable characters look completely different from each other, but play exactly the same - not that any previous Contra has done otherwise, but you don't give a samurai from the future a gun, I'll tell you that much. The 'dodge' move works on some attacks and not on others - not fun to experiment with in a game when one hit kills you. The parts where you're not on foot are a nice change of pace, but are all way too short. There's not really any level design to speak of - simply different enemy types more or less dropped into linear, vaguely futuristic environments with the camera angles providing most of the variety.
Though like I said, none of these problems are really new to the series, and none really take away from the blistering run and gun gameplay. The boss fights are all unique and fun (and there are several per level), some of the creature designs (like the titular tongue-beast) are pretty freaky-sweet, and the basic shooting and new lock-on mechanics are rewarding enough. Also, they might say it's 3D, but all of the action happens on a 2D plane so it's kind of irrelevant how the levels are represented. The game is more or less the perfect rental - it's great fun playing through it in one session (despite all my nitpicking), especially with a buddy. It would assuredly wear thin after the third time through, and it doesn't present nearly the challenge (or variety, for that matter) that Shattered Soldier did, but hell, I had a good time.
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