chronovore (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chronovore) wrote2011-02-15 04:00 pm
chronovore) wrote2011-02-15 04:00 pm
Grin has bared its disdain for consistent gameplay, and now they must grin and bear it.
Started playing WANTED: Weapons of Fate tonight. I heard it was short. Apparently, it's really short: I played for an hour and a half and am up to Chapter 4. I think there are 7 total.
The writing is at least interesting; the game takes place on the heels of the movie's events, with Wesley trained up, and the Chicago Loom in a post-explodo state. The story alternates chapters between Wesley dealing with a new Fraternity trying to destroy him for heresy, and flashback missions playing as Wesley's father, Cross, making his escape to America when Wesley is still a baby.
The game has tutorials which walk you through all the stages of the interesting things you can do: walk, aim shoot (ho-hum), use indirect fire to create an opportunity for discreet movement to flank enemies (WOOOO!), curve a bullet's flight (rawk!), and slo-mo traversal firing (meh; every shooty game since Max Payne 1 seems to have this).
Then it drops you in a turret for no good reason, and fails to explain that whenever you're not actively aiming or firing you've got perfect cover. Yeah, that makes no sense: put a guy in a turret and expect him not to be firing constantly? What about that indirect fire, about which you just taught me, that forces everyone to take cover? Me, blazing away with a 50 caliber emplaced weapon, actively aiming at them and mowing down legions of the bad guys doesn't make them defensive or distracted in the same way blind firing a pistol does?
So, yeah. The game's pretty inconsistent, but there are some badass Time Crisis-styled sequences that make up for it. These play like Quick Time Events, in that player input is kept to a minimum, but only successful input allows continuation of a scripted cinematic sequence. For instance, a scene where a jumbo jet is plummeting near vertically toward the ground, Cross has to climb up from the cockpit toward the rear cargo hatch to escape. Along the way he has to face many survival-instinct-challenged enemies.
Also played four fights' worth of EA Sports MMA during the double XP weekend. Had one fight against a blue belt with four white stripes who kept rocking me and then backing off to make the fight last longer, like a cat playing with a half-dead mouse. I didn't want the DNF so I kept trying, but it was like I wasn't even playing the same game. I suck, but that guy was a jerk. Final record: 1 win, 3 loss, 1 vote of "I'm never playing this again."
Picked up UFC 2010 again and decided I like the controls and pacing better overall, but it's probably just that I'm used to them. I suppose there's a lot of reason for that. ;-)
More than either of those, though, I'm still hooked on Red Dead Redemption. I played a bunch more multi, did pretty well, but was sad to find out there's no special unlocks for 100 Tomahawk or Dynamite kills. Headshots, sure, but not for just straight up kills. I've finally realized that I'm never going to play this game enough to get many more golden guns than I already own.
In singleplayer, I finally got enough Honor back so the Explosive Rifle came down to a "mere" $10,000, and since I'd been expecting to pay $15,000 I had enough for ammunition. Trying to Gold Medal finish the Social Club Challenges for singleplayer Gang Hideouts is fun. One interesting thing about the Explosive Rifle challenges, there's no auto-save on completing a level. Small bug, but kinda annoying.
Today I placed an order for Nier, since a kind soul posted its US$15 sale at Amazon. I also ponied up $19 for Dante's Inferno, though I'm unsure when I'll play either.
The writing is at least interesting; the game takes place on the heels of the movie's events, with Wesley trained up, and the Chicago Loom in a post-explodo state. The story alternates chapters between Wesley dealing with a new Fraternity trying to destroy him for heresy, and flashback missions playing as Wesley's father, Cross, making his escape to America when Wesley is still a baby.
The game has tutorials which walk you through all the stages of the interesting things you can do: walk, aim shoot (ho-hum), use indirect fire to create an opportunity for discreet movement to flank enemies (WOOOO!), curve a bullet's flight (rawk!), and slo-mo traversal firing (meh; every shooty game since Max Payne 1 seems to have this).
Then it drops you in a turret for no good reason, and fails to explain that whenever you're not actively aiming or firing you've got perfect cover. Yeah, that makes no sense: put a guy in a turret and expect him not to be firing constantly? What about that indirect fire, about which you just taught me, that forces everyone to take cover? Me, blazing away with a 50 caliber emplaced weapon, actively aiming at them and mowing down legions of the bad guys doesn't make them defensive or distracted in the same way blind firing a pistol does?
So, yeah. The game's pretty inconsistent, but there are some badass Time Crisis-styled sequences that make up for it. These play like Quick Time Events, in that player input is kept to a minimum, but only successful input allows continuation of a scripted cinematic sequence. For instance, a scene where a jumbo jet is plummeting near vertically toward the ground, Cross has to climb up from the cockpit toward the rear cargo hatch to escape. Along the way he has to face many survival-instinct-challenged enemies.
Also played four fights' worth of EA Sports MMA during the double XP weekend. Had one fight against a blue belt with four white stripes who kept rocking me and then backing off to make the fight last longer, like a cat playing with a half-dead mouse. I didn't want the DNF so I kept trying, but it was like I wasn't even playing the same game. I suck, but that guy was a jerk. Final record: 1 win, 3 loss, 1 vote of "I'm never playing this again."
Picked up UFC 2010 again and decided I like the controls and pacing better overall, but it's probably just that I'm used to them. I suppose there's a lot of reason for that. ;-)
More than either of those, though, I'm still hooked on Red Dead Redemption. I played a bunch more multi, did pretty well, but was sad to find out there's no special unlocks for 100 Tomahawk or Dynamite kills. Headshots, sure, but not for just straight up kills. I've finally realized that I'm never going to play this game enough to get many more golden guns than I already own.
In singleplayer, I finally got enough Honor back so the Explosive Rifle came down to a "mere" $10,000, and since I'd been expecting to pay $15,000 I had enough for ammunition. Trying to Gold Medal finish the Social Club Challenges for singleplayer Gang Hideouts is fun. One interesting thing about the Explosive Rifle challenges, there's no auto-save on completing a level. Small bug, but kinda annoying.
Today I placed an order for Nier, since a kind soul posted its US$15 sale at Amazon. I also ponied up $19 for Dante's Inferno, though I'm unsure when I'll play either.
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That being said, there's much more of a GTA, bad behavior for its own purpose feel to it. First time I unloaded a carbine in an unsuspecting player's face to steal his horse, I laughed like a hyena.
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Emptying a gun into a Free Roam peep to get his horse is fun, but retribution is sometimes harsh. I've heard tales of people following players from server to server in Free Roam just to exact payback and then some.
Bee-tee-double-you, Dead-Eye still works in multi', it just doesn't enter slow-motion, because dumping the other players into helpless-victim slow-motion is not fun for them. When you engage the state, you can paint targets until you release or max out your loaded bullets, at which point all of them fly directly at the target and hit at once.
It's really useful when people are not actively taking cover. If you shoot normally, people will try to run for cover, or do that defensive, ducking roll which removes lock-on. If you use Dead-Eye, the bullets all hit in quick succession, so there's no time to dive for cover, and even the roll can't dodge bullets which were ALL fired while locked.
Conversely, if your target was already running for cover and you release the shots late, all those bullets will simultaneously, gloriously, uselessly impact on that scenery instead. :-(
If you're up for some multi, I'd be stoked to go range ridin' with ya, pahdnah.
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I'll be your mirror. No, wait, that's Velvet Underground.
I'm yer huckleberry.
Much better.
I'm finding that the minigames in Red Undead Redemption are growing increasingly appealing. Admittedly, I've let Thieves' Landing fall, but it was pretty much a zombified hellhole before the zombies came. Rolling hither and yon, clearing the dead and then going on my way like a grim specter of vengeance has a lot of appeal.
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