Gaming of 2012 ... so far

soundtrack - Brad - 'United We Stand'

Yeah, so I bit off way more than I could chew with that 'best of 2011' thing I was trying. I actually did lay out all the groundwork for it. I really did. I was just way more than effort on the execution side than I was willing to put in.

But, I already posted about that kinda stuff in my personal blog.

I'm here to talk about what I've been doing gaming-wise so far this year.

Star Wars: The Old Republic
To knock out over half of it, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Dude. Wow. I can't say enough great things about this game. Including the beta, I've put about 280 hours into this game. There is so much to do in this game, it's unbelievable. It plays a lot like a single-player Bioware game, and I've soloed nearly all of it. If you play it, though, let me know. I'd love to play with someone else for more than a handful of missions. I've got a Consular, Trooper, Sith Marauder, and Bounty Hunter, so let me know.

Really, your enjoyment level in this game comes down to one of two things.

First, did you enjoy Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic? If so, you'll love this.

Second, have you ever enjoyed any Bioware game? If so, you'll probably like this.

I've heard people say it copies a lot of things from World of Warcraft. I wouldn't know, since I've never played WoW, but if it does, it works really well.

Oh, and by the way, I tend to not enjoy playing MMOs, and I love this.

Here's the key thing: every mission is fully voice-acted with no text boxes and this makes everything you do feel meaningful. Period.

Anyway, if you're interested, I'm on the Darth Bandon server.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (PC)
I actually really dug this. For about 20 hours or so. It plays a lot like Jade Empire (PC), which I really, really liked, but a few things kinda bug me about KoAR.

First, the characters. The color scheme works very well, but something went wrong with the character models. They're all dead-eyed at all times, and the facial animations are barely there. They're like talking dolls. It really hurts the storytelling.

Second, the dialogue scenes. They're hindered greatly by the dead, talking dolls I mentioned, but the worst part is that you can't turn off the subtitles. I don't know about you, but my eyes are inexorably drawn to subtitles when they're on, so the dialogue scenes get real boring, real fast. I wonder, at times, if they realized that the character models were so badly animated that they forced subtitles on so people wouldn't stare at the horrid presentation.

Also, some really irritating accents and 'performance choices' by the voice actors don't help matters, either.

That being said, the rest of the game feels like pretty solid. It's really big, and makes me wish it was the only game I'd been playing when it came out.

I've really cut back on the number of games I buy, but games like this, which deserve attention, make me want to cut back more.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3)
Hmm. Kind of a mess. I got stuck in a very boring and terrible casino as Sazh and had to reboot in order to back out of it and swear to never go back. Kind of brilliant in terms of 'level structure' by using selectable time periods as ways to manipulate the overall hame a la Chrono Trigger. The problem is, it's nowhere near as compelling. Maybe the best Final Fantasy titles are all mutiples of three? I mean, FFVI, FFIX, and FFXII are in the discussion for 'best Final Fantasy,' right? After the PlayStation One era ended, this series has been a mess. FFXII is the only one that's really been a great game. FFX, FFXI, and FFXIV were all plagued by serious issues, and while FFXIII was better than all of them (except XII), it just never stopped feeling flat, especially after FFXII.

But this isn't a dissertation on what's wrong with the series. Final Fantasy XIII-2 has a lot of good things going for it, but it just isn't compelling. I just don't give a shit. I want to, but I can't. I think Tony actually had a much better experience with this one than I did.

If Squenix wanted to fix this series right now, they'd do the following: bring Sakaguchi-san back, point at Lost Odyssey, and say 'more like that.'

Guild Wars 2 (beta)
This is MMOs done right. Where SWTOR goes to great lengths to disguise its MMO-ness, Guild Wars embraces them and makes them fucking work. The world is dynamic, and feels huge and alive. I was running around some farms when all of a sudden I got a notification that a nearby farmer's crops were being burnt by bandits. I, as well as several other players, ran over there, fought off the bandits, dumped water on the crops, and earned some XP in the process. These kinds of events pop up every so often and are a nice optional way to do things like engage other players, or even grind, if you want.

Oh, and since I've been harping on story and presentation so much here, let me tell you how well GW2 handles it. It eschews the hyper-cinematic approach to which Bioware adheres, and puts the time and effort in that 38 Studios wouldn't, and instead creates their own very stylized approach, in which two characters are super-imposed over a nice-looking background. I know I've seen this kind of thing before in some JRPGs, but they don't immediately come to mind.

However, it moves the story along well and I actually laughed out loud several times. It's well-written, well-acted, and moves things along.

Okay, this turned into way more blabbing than I intended. I'm sure I'll be back with more game-blabbing soon.

Whatcha been playin'?

Blaine

Buy my book!

Early Games of 2011

If you want to make sure that you don't win any awards ever, then you must release your game in the window between late December and before September. No matter how good your game is, the gaming press has a memory that ends at Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI, and then resumes a month ago, regardless of the date.

Or make the game a PC exclusive. The mainstream gaming press and generic humans are terrified of PC games. It's like the game just working is more important than the overall quality of the release, or something.

That's a whole other post.

Anyway, I've chopped my 24 games of 2011 into four groups of six, and I'll go through them chronologically. Once I'm done, I'll highlight my favorites in another post and comment a bit more on them.

If you don't see your favorite game on here, all it means is that I didn't buy it. If you think it's good, and I didn't buy it, it's probably from a tired franchise or genre, or it's a whimsy-filled, story-free cutesy game for babies. I'm sure it's great, though.

Here's the first six, with comments attached.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
And this marks the first of several really great games that I barely touched this year, and have been tossed onto the pile of shame.

This is the next game from the Ace Attorney developers, and deserved a lot more attention than I gave it. I devoured each of the AA games, but for some reason, this one didn't quite grab me the same way.

I used to play these types of games at night, while in bed, but it seems my NookColor is winning that war. Or maybe I'm just having a LOT more sex now. No ... that can't possibly be it.

Anyway, I find that these games are perfect for end-of-the-day relaxation. They challenge the mind and tickle the intellect.

The visuals were gorgeous, the writing was solid, and these guys are great at really making games that use the DS well.


Dead Space 2
Wow. This is how to do a sequel.

I shouldn't like this series, since there are very few RPG aspects to it, but the storytelling is fantastic, and the action is reasonably good.

The first Dead Space startled me with how enjoyable it was. To prepare myself, I played the prequel PS3 Move game, Extraction, watched the first film, I read the comics and the novel, and found that I love the depth of this universe.

I blasted my way through the first game, loved it, loved everything about it, especially the story, then found myself tolerating the downloadable Dead Space Ignition, then found myself really enjoying the iPad Dead Space, then I watched the new movie, and then I found myself digging the new comic, and then it was time for Dead Space 2.

I wasn't sure how I'd feel about Isaac Clarke no longer being a 'silent protagonist' a la Crono or that retard Link.

It worked beautifully. I was surprised. In fact, I hope they keep it this way. Yeah, having him be silent raises the tension by making the player more invested as Isaac being 'me,' but I think Visceral realized that this isn't really a 'horror' series so much as an action-ish scary story.

This series nails 'immersive.' From the lack of a HUD to the way that the story is told through radio and video transmissions to the environments, everything feels 'real' in a truly unreal world.

Oh, and I never played the multiplayer. I'm kinda sad that money was spent on it, and sagged this game's budget unnecessarily, and then was built into the cost of my Limited Edition.

I haven't played the DLC, Severed, yet.

I haven't seen this game show up on any 'best of 2011' lists yet, and that's just wrong. This was the best game of the first quarter, but because of the way the gaming press's memory works, it's as if this game never existed. Idiots.


Marvel vs Capcom 3: The Fate of Two Worlds
Yeah, I've only played the multiplayer on this with my son (who is insanely good at this now.)

This game is fun, and I actually really do enjoy the fact that it's crazy imbalanced. And the art ... yeah, it's awesome.

This is the only fighting series that I own. My son and I love playing this.

Oh, and skip this game altogether and get Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 instead.


Bulletstorm
Sometimes, I make impulse buys.

This was actually kinda fun, though. It also made me realize how tired I am of the futuristic rough & tough guy.

This game reminds me of when a young guy takes a chance and starts dating / banging that girl that's clearly troubled and clearly high ALL THE TIME. You have a great time for a week or so, and then you start worrying about someone finding out about her or contracting a venereal disease.

In this game's defense, it did have a sort-of tongue-in-cheek over-the-top approach that was coupled with some pretty solid gameplay. I liked the sense of humor a lot and found the action fairly rewarding.

Actually, the more I'm thinking back to this game, the more I'm realizing that I actually really did enjoy my time with it. I may dust this off at some point, actually.


Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2 - Retribution
The longest title of the year, for sure.

I'm still working my way through the prior expansion, so I haven't done much with this, aside from the Last Stand mode, and a little multiplayer here and there.

This is a rock-solid series, though, from the best RTS dev in the world, Relic. If you like RTS games at all, check this series out.


Dragon Age II
Before the games that came out in 2011, I was ready to declare the 'Dragon Age' series as my new favorite series.

Let's get one thing straight right off the bat here: Dragon Age II is not a bad game. Fundamentally, it's a  solid RPG. It is. The writing is engaging, the gameplay mechanics that we loved in the first game are still intact, if de-emphasized, and while this title was skewed a bit more toward roping in the mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging Call of Duty crowd, the skeleton of what we loved about the first game was still intact. The problem was, the muscle and 'healthy fat' had been greatly reduced.

I consume everything that's Dragon Age-related, because I love the lore, the I love the world they've crafted, I love the characters, and I love the fact that it's fantasy tinged with the brutality of the real world. To take a series that is already known for its scope and to cram into one city is problematic at best. If the city had the life and vitality of a Shenmue, it'd be okay, but this is not the case.

Additionally, the whole game, much like Mass Effect 2, reeked of 'streamlining,' or in a more honest phrase, 'dumbing-down.'

Let's be real here. One need only look at TV ratings and game sales to see that most people aren't interested in intellectual challenges. Reality TV and 'modern war' games dominate the charts, and since there is no such thing as 'enough money,' every single franchise, from Star Trek to Dragon Age, has to be made less challenging to those who hate thinking and being patient. You're either the biggest, most saturated, most bloated intellectual property out there, or you're a horrid fucking loser.

In the attempt to curry the generic human, Bioware kept touting the 'action' aspects of Dragon Age II, and from what I've heard, the PS360 users greatly suffered on the combat side. PC users still had the same basic interface, which was a blessing. Well, if 'not totally sucking' is a blessing.

In any case, the game went from an emphasis on careful, considered approaches to twitch gaming. This started with the combat, but really trickled down to everything else. Like Mass Effect 2, the world and story felt much more constricted, and not a place in which I could lose myself for a few hours.

Where Ferelden felt like a sprawling, diverse world that contained multiple cities and multiple areas of adventure, Kirkwall felt like a boring prison that had some interesting stories that were artificially protracted by the 'story within a story' approach, as brilliantly narrated by Varric.

What gives me hope, though, is the DLC that was released. Each release has been incrementally better, and seems to have a little more soul.

Dragon Age II was rushed, dumbed-down, and the biggest disappointment of 2012. How can a good game be bad? By making the mistakes the developers made on this one. They traded market share for soul.

And that's the end of the beginning. Those are the first six games that I bought in 2011. Dead Space has been great, Dragon Age II was good, if disappointing, and the rest still need some attention.

What say you? What did you think of these games? What have I already missed? What else should be in further posts? TELL ME NOW! DON'T WAIT FOR THE TRANSLATION!

-Blaine

Best of 2011?

In a year that wasn't very good on the film, music, or TV front, I'm glad that gaming stepped up and dropped some truly kick-ass titles. No matter what machine(s) you play on, or what genre you love most, there was something good.

And, since we're obsessed with classification and pretending that we can have an objective 'best' in a subjective art form, I'll throw some titles out there, too, and contribute to the problem.

I will say, though, that one thing I love about reviews and 'best' lists is the discussion that can spring up. Sure, you have the 'my console is the only one I can afford and therefore it is the only true console' fanboys, and you have the anti-PC idiots, and the people that just get inexplicably defensive about a game that loved or hated (and still haven't played.) However, I've had some truly great discussions with other writers and fans, and have found that those discussions have informed my opinions and given me more to think about when playing a game.

To that end, I'm not going to provide a solid, numbered list. I'm going to just go through the year chronologically, and throw out some games that I really enjoyed, and some games ... about which I have some comments.

Before I kick things off, what about you? How do you feel about 'best of' lists in artistic mediums? How do you feel about reviews pretending to be objective? What games did you most enjoy this year, and why?

-Blaine