In a previous post I mentioned how, around the year 2008, I started participating in forums and discussions on a popular video game website (for various reasons, I've stopped visiting that website nearly two years ago). Since that time, I've discovered many gaming websites, blogs, Youtube channels, magazines. My two main references for any gaming-related news, reviews, previews, random features, analysis, etc. today are the website GamesRadar and the magazine EDGE, although I still visit other websites from time to time and for a few years I read various publications on the gaming world.
Anyway, I realized recently that I've been spending quite a lot of my free time reading, listening, watching anything gaming-related instead of actually playing games. And it's not the first time something like this has happened. I remember that, when I was in university, I was very active on that gaming forum I mentioned earlier and I probably spent hours per day debating with strangers about games and sports (the website had a sports forum as well). Of course, I didn't have as much time to play games since I had to study, but even when I got home and had free time on my hands, I still spent many hours per week on that website instead of actually playing the games we discussed or argued about. And I didn't hate it at all. I loved reading other people's opinion on games, why they love or dislike certain games or genres (as long as the argument making some sense, not the "HAlo3 iz bettar than everyting it haz colord tanks you guyz al suk balz wit gay-ass Cal off doody" type of arguments).
It seemed to me illogical to talk about something more often than actually doing the thing. Then I started to think about it a bit more. There are certain subjects, hobbies or activities where it makes a lot of sense to spend more time talking about it than doing it. For example, if you like climbing, you might talk about it a lot with friends and people who do this activity with you, many hours per week, but you can't realistically practice climbing many hours per week if you have a regular job and other responsibilities (and it can get expensive). Another example is professional athletes. Certain sports, like American Football, require a tremendous amount of preparation per week for a 3-hour game, and a lot of it is off the field.
So the act of "talking more than doing" is not at all illogical in certain cases where the talking actually helps the doing a LOT. However, as far as gaming is concerned, it's kinda hard to justify doing so. But I honestly think it helped me being a "better" gamer. Not getting-high-kill/death-ratios-and-high-scores-better, but more capable of understanding gaming as an industry, as a "world" Understanding who the developers and publishers are, which games influenced others in the same genre and whether genres really should be a thing anymore, how JRPGs dominated a certain era, the development (a bit) of physics engines, etc. I'm certainly not pretending to know everything and anything gaming-related. Faaaaaaar from that, actually. Very far. I still consider myself a sort of novice regarding many aspects of the gaming industry, but I love to learn about it. I love reading interviews with Mark Cerny, the PS4 system architect, or Platinum Games founder Shinji Mikami. I think it's a fascinating, fast-growing and always-evolving industry.
Thinking about it, I kinda love the fact that video games are a bit more than a simple "hobby" for me. Considering all the time I spent on reading and watching all that stuff, I can safely say it's more of a passion, not unlike (even it's to a lesser degree) my lifelong passion for basketball. This situation kinda reminds me of what happened to me this week while talking to a colleague where I currently work (a bookstore). I was explaining to her what my field of study was (teaching), and while I was pointing out why I chose teaching as a career, it made me realize (even more) how much I love teaching. Same thing happened here. While trying to make sense of me spending more time talking/reading/watching games than actually playing them, I realized how much I like Gaming as a whole. A passion, if you will.
samedi 26 octobre 2013
samedi 5 octobre 2013
How "Bit.Trip presents Runner2 : Future Legend of Rhythm Alien" explains life
A while ago, I read an "article" on a video game website explaining how the legendary game Tetris can serve as a metaphor for life. At the time, I thought it was a pretty funny (and silly) piece of writing, but it still held some "truth" regarding modern human life.
But the other night, just as I was falling asleep, I had a life-altering revelation : the game that really explains life is not Tetris, it's actually Bit.Trip presents Runner2 : Future Legend of Rhythm Alien (and since that's a mouthful, let's just shorten it to Runner2).
Here are the several truths you can extract from Gaijin Games' side-scrolling platformer :
1. No matter who you are, life goes on at the same speed.
So far, humanity has yet to discover how to make time - here on our blue planet, forget the going-to-space stuff - stop, slow down or even go faster. An hour will last an hour for every human being walking the planet today, whether said human is rich, poor, Canadian, Ukrainian, Indian, black, white, gay, heterosexual, skinny, fat, etc. In Runner2, every character (man, woman, walking pickle, burger-headed guy, etc.) goes at the same speed. You can't stop. You can't go backwards. You can't slow down. You can't accelerate (there are speed pads at some point but you can't choose to go faster by yourself). Time and speed are the same for everybody.
2. Things start out pretty easy, but it slowly becomes tougher and tougher to cope with everything going on. Happily, you always learn new abilities and skills to deal with whatever life throws at you.
During the first few months of your life, you clearly had very few skills except for breathing, laughing, crying and pooping. But you didn't HAVE to do anything else just yet, so it all worked fine. Eventually though, you had to deal with social pressure and your entourage's needs and learned how to walk, to speak, to interact with other human beings. As you begin that huge challenge named "school", you learn how to count, to write, you become capable of reasoning to a certain extent, you learn a new language and/or a sport. Later on, in high school, as social and academic interactions become extremely more complicated, you develop any pertinent skill needed to survive the harsh environment of your school, be it sarcasm, sense of humor, understanding trigonometry, getting a driver's license or hitting 85% from the free-throw line. College is more of the same, only tougher and you often have to combine other skills to get by. But you're brighter (or at least you please yourself thinking so) so you learn how to deal with it. And finally the adult, who learns - often on the fly - many of life's more boring skills like taxes, mortgage, washing the windows because Good-Lord-these-things-get-dirty-fast, getting life insurance, saving money so your kid can get into private school, etc.. At least now you're a master in all the other basic skills you learned earlier in life, and they're now basically automatic. Even if sometimes you will inexplicably botch the easiest word ever in an awkward social situation or scratch your car wheel on the sidewalk for no apparent reason.
The same goes with Runner2. Starting off, easy, you don't even have to do a thing, the game propels you forward without you having any say at all. Then you face the first obstacles, which oblige you to react and jump. Good. Eventually other obstacles can't be avoided by jumping, but only by sliding. You learn how to slide. The you learn how to use a shield. Then how to kick barriers down. Then how to slide-jump, or jump-kick, or slide-kick, or jump-shield. Then combinations, which require thumbs-wizardry and good hand-eye coordination. Your newly learned skills serve you well. But you still have to do basic stuff sometimes, like a simple jump over a single obstacle. And even after clearing dozens of amazingly complicated obstacles like a boss, you might f*** up on a single, extremely simple jump. And you wonder what the hell just happened. A bit like hitting 23 fade-away three-point shots in a row with an annoying defender in your face to bring the score to 83-85, then missing the game-tying layup on a breakaway on next possession. Good God that's humiliating.
3. The big scary challenges you will face are actually a plethora of simple, small challenges bundled together. Take them apart, and everything will become easier.
Let's face it, life is hard. It is full of challenges, small like your jeans' zipper getting stuck in the denim, big like learning to drive a manual car at 16 or like preparing for that huge exam coming up in two weeks you still haven't started to study. We all deal with those small challenges on a daily basis, and while some are more annoying than others, we usually go through them in a matter of seconds or minutes. Sweeping the living room is annoying, but it rarely takes more than 10-15 minutes. Filling up your car is not the most entertaining endeavor in your week, but you're done in a few minutes and it's not hard. You don't fear the day you'll have to sweep or fill up your gas tank (unless you have a big-ass SUV). But you most likely dread those renovations you'll have to do in that house you just bought. It's such a big enterprise and it's kinda scary when you look at it as a whole : "I have to redo the whole kitchen and the living room. Everything!!". But take it apart and it's basically a ton of small, relatively easy tasks you have to do one after the other : painting a wall there, installing an electricity cable there, nailing a few 2"x4" here, bringing in and plugging that new shiny fridge, moving that couch over there, drilling a sheetrock panel here etc. Every basic task, all by itself, is relatively easy and can be done in a few minutes (painting is a tad longer, but it's pretty damn easy, so there). You don't have to do the WHOLE thing in one single "task", you do each step separately. When you look at it this way, it's still time-consuming, but it's not a "hard" project anymore. That's how I see it, in any case.
In Runner2, I'm pretty sure that if I could have, before starting a level, looked at what was ahead and every obstacle I'd have to go through, I would have put my controller down and walked away. Like you might have done in high school when seeing that 20-pages-long math exam you have to do in 3 hours (with a pencil, not a controller). But each obstacle will come in its own time and you'll deal with it when it comes. From far apart it would look like a wall of obstacles, but basically it's a bunch simple obstacles stacked together and you have to deal with each one separately. A jump there. A slide there. A jump-kick there. A slide-jump there. Individually, these little tasks are quite easy. I said earlier that it can sometimes require some "thumbs-wizardry", which is true, but you take them one by one as they come and not try to overdo everything, it's a lot simpler. That's how I got through the harder levels. I said to myself : "Yes it looks hard, but a bit of concentration will help you see each task on its own". And it worked, as I actually beat every single level on hard when I'm usually not that good in side scrolling platformers.
As you can see, Runner2 can really help understand life, its truths and how to cope with everything... All kidding aside, it's a very entertaining game and I strongly recommend you play it!
But the other night, just as I was falling asleep, I had a life-altering revelation : the game that really explains life is not Tetris, it's actually Bit.Trip presents Runner2 : Future Legend of Rhythm Alien (and since that's a mouthful, let's just shorten it to Runner2).
Here are the several truths you can extract from Gaijin Games' side-scrolling platformer :
1. No matter who you are, life goes on at the same speed.
So far, humanity has yet to discover how to make time - here on our blue planet, forget the going-to-space stuff - stop, slow down or even go faster. An hour will last an hour for every human being walking the planet today, whether said human is rich, poor, Canadian, Ukrainian, Indian, black, white, gay, heterosexual, skinny, fat, etc. In Runner2, every character (man, woman, walking pickle, burger-headed guy, etc.) goes at the same speed. You can't stop. You can't go backwards. You can't slow down. You can't accelerate (there are speed pads at some point but you can't choose to go faster by yourself). Time and speed are the same for everybody.
2. Things start out pretty easy, but it slowly becomes tougher and tougher to cope with everything going on. Happily, you always learn new abilities and skills to deal with whatever life throws at you.
During the first few months of your life, you clearly had very few skills except for breathing, laughing, crying and pooping. But you didn't HAVE to do anything else just yet, so it all worked fine. Eventually though, you had to deal with social pressure and your entourage's needs and learned how to walk, to speak, to interact with other human beings. As you begin that huge challenge named "school", you learn how to count, to write, you become capable of reasoning to a certain extent, you learn a new language and/or a sport. Later on, in high school, as social and academic interactions become extremely more complicated, you develop any pertinent skill needed to survive the harsh environment of your school, be it sarcasm, sense of humor, understanding trigonometry, getting a driver's license or hitting 85% from the free-throw line. College is more of the same, only tougher and you often have to combine other skills to get by. But you're brighter (or at least you please yourself thinking so) so you learn how to deal with it. And finally the adult, who learns - often on the fly - many of life's more boring skills like taxes, mortgage, washing the windows because Good-Lord-these-things-get-dirty-fast, getting life insurance, saving money so your kid can get into private school, etc.. At least now you're a master in all the other basic skills you learned earlier in life, and they're now basically automatic. Even if sometimes you will inexplicably botch the easiest word ever in an awkward social situation or scratch your car wheel on the sidewalk for no apparent reason.
The same goes with Runner2. Starting off, easy, you don't even have to do a thing, the game propels you forward without you having any say at all. Then you face the first obstacles, which oblige you to react and jump. Good. Eventually other obstacles can't be avoided by jumping, but only by sliding. You learn how to slide. The you learn how to use a shield. Then how to kick barriers down. Then how to slide-jump, or jump-kick, or slide-kick, or jump-shield. Then combinations, which require thumbs-wizardry and good hand-eye coordination. Your newly learned skills serve you well. But you still have to do basic stuff sometimes, like a simple jump over a single obstacle. And even after clearing dozens of amazingly complicated obstacles like a boss, you might f*** up on a single, extremely simple jump. And you wonder what the hell just happened. A bit like hitting 23 fade-away three-point shots in a row with an annoying defender in your face to bring the score to 83-85, then missing the game-tying layup on a breakaway on next possession. Good God that's humiliating.
3. The big scary challenges you will face are actually a plethora of simple, small challenges bundled together. Take them apart, and everything will become easier.
Let's face it, life is hard. It is full of challenges, small like your jeans' zipper getting stuck in the denim, big like learning to drive a manual car at 16 or like preparing for that huge exam coming up in two weeks you still haven't started to study. We all deal with those small challenges on a daily basis, and while some are more annoying than others, we usually go through them in a matter of seconds or minutes. Sweeping the living room is annoying, but it rarely takes more than 10-15 minutes. Filling up your car is not the most entertaining endeavor in your week, but you're done in a few minutes and it's not hard. You don't fear the day you'll have to sweep or fill up your gas tank (unless you have a big-ass SUV). But you most likely dread those renovations you'll have to do in that house you just bought. It's such a big enterprise and it's kinda scary when you look at it as a whole : "I have to redo the whole kitchen and the living room. Everything!!". But take it apart and it's basically a ton of small, relatively easy tasks you have to do one after the other : painting a wall there, installing an electricity cable there, nailing a few 2"x4" here, bringing in and plugging that new shiny fridge, moving that couch over there, drilling a sheetrock panel here etc. Every basic task, all by itself, is relatively easy and can be done in a few minutes (painting is a tad longer, but it's pretty damn easy, so there). You don't have to do the WHOLE thing in one single "task", you do each step separately. When you look at it this way, it's still time-consuming, but it's not a "hard" project anymore. That's how I see it, in any case.
In Runner2, I'm pretty sure that if I could have, before starting a level, looked at what was ahead and every obstacle I'd have to go through, I would have put my controller down and walked away. Like you might have done in high school when seeing that 20-pages-long math exam you have to do in 3 hours (with a pencil, not a controller). But each obstacle will come in its own time and you'll deal with it when it comes. From far apart it would look like a wall of obstacles, but basically it's a bunch simple obstacles stacked together and you have to deal with each one separately. A jump there. A slide there. A jump-kick there. A slide-jump there. Individually, these little tasks are quite easy. I said earlier that it can sometimes require some "thumbs-wizardry", which is true, but you take them one by one as they come and not try to overdo everything, it's a lot simpler. That's how I got through the harder levels. I said to myself : "Yes it looks hard, but a bit of concentration will help you see each task on its own". And it worked, as I actually beat every single level on hard when I'm usually not that good in side scrolling platformers.
As you can see, Runner2 can really help understand life, its truths and how to cope with everything... All kidding aside, it's a very entertaining game and I strongly recommend you play it!
jeudi 19 septembre 2013
What Am I Playing Now - Part IV
When I wrote Part III of this feature nearly 3 months ago, I mentioned how "early" 2013 games like Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite were contenders for the best game of 2013 crown. While both are still amongst the best games of this whole generation, they were up against such excellent competition this year they had no chance to stay on top. That "excellent competition", you will have guessed, is Naughty Dog's The Last of Us.
While I finished that game maybe 6 weeks ago, its impact is too important to be ignored here. I'm not going to drag on for too long here, but let's just say The Last of Us will have a prominent role on the upcoming "Best Games of the Seventh-Generation" list.
Since I finished that epic, hype-shattering masterpiece (I'm not even exaggerating), I turned my attention to the third/fifth installment in Ubisoft's Triple-A franchise Assassin's Creed. After finishing, earlier this year, the good-but-not-excellent Assassin's Creed : Revelations and being, at last, intrigued by Desmond's story, I went ahead and bought Assassin's Creed III for 19 dollars at Costco, thinking it was a bargain. It was not. ACIII is by far the weakest entry in the series so far. The hero, Connor Kenway, is painfully uninteresting and very hard to root for. In fact, halfway through the game, I found myself rooting for the Templars instead of the Assassins. That's kinda problematic. Not only that, but the pacing of the game is completely off, the transition between cutscenes and gameplay was horrific and made the storyline very difficult to follow. At many points during the game I thought about abandoning it, only to fight the urge because I wanted to see how Desmond's story would eventually end... The ending was very awkward and off-putting, and not in a good way. I probably would have been better off reading the plot on wikipedia. Anyway, the game was somewhat saved by the solid gameplay and by the impressive amount of content (side quests, hunting, naval missions). Overall this game could have been a 4.5 / 10 and somehow ended up in the mid-6s range. Not abysmal, but certainly a long way off the quality of Ezio's adventures.
After that I played a game offered for free on PS+ a few months ago : Sleeping Dogs. This GTA-like puts you in the shoes of an undercover cop operating working his way inside a Hong Kong triad named Sun On Yee (Fun fact : if you google it you will eventually come across the Wikipedia entry for Sun Yee On, a real-life Hong Kong triad). The cop's story is interesting enough to take you through the 30 main missions this game offers, but he's pretty much a one-man-show throughout the game. The only other two or three interesting NPCs aren't exploited enough to make them stand out as much as they could. Same goes for the setting. Hong Kong looks very pretty in Sleeping Dogs, with tall skyscrapers and bright colored neons highlighting the Chinese and Western influences on the city. However, it's a bit dull. Sure, there are a few side quests available, random events triggered and a few favors to complete for people, but they get old quick and very few are actually fun. As far as the gameplay is concerned, Sleeping Dogs does one thing very well : hand-to-hand combat. Apparently influenced by some Tony Jaa's movie, the melee combat system is excellent, one of the best I've experienced in a non-fighting game except maybe for the Arkham franchise. But I have to say some of the in-combat QTE prompts weren't as sharp as I would have hoped, making for a few frustrating encounters. You have two kinds of experience points for the missions throughout the game : triad and police. Both will net you new skills as you reach levels depending on how badass you were (triad) or how well-behaved you were (police). There's also a "Face Meter" which fills up and levels up as you do favors for people. It's pretty much useless from a story standpoint, but it does let you buy better cars and "cooler" clothes. Overall I'd say it's a very good game. Certainly it's not as deep and complete as Grand Theft Auto IV, but the interesting story and melee combat system make it an enjoyable experience.
While playing Sleeping Dogs, I also finished a PSN game with an amazingly inefficient, yes still kinda funny, name : Bit.Trip presents Runner2 : Future Legend of Rhythm Alien. As it names suggests, it's an endless runner, meaning the character goes forward (in this case he goes right as it's a side-scroller) automatically and you have to jump, slide, attack or block to evade incoming obstacles and make it to the end untouched, or you'll have to restart (there's a least one checkpoint midway through every level). I think it's some kind of achievement when you can include a start-the-level-over feature in a game, yet still make it very enjoyable. It'll make you come back for more as you hunt for "Perfect"(collecting all golds in a level) and "Perfect+" scores (all golds + hit the target's bullseye at the end). It's also a great game for gamers who enjoy high scores, leaderboards and the sorts. Superb game all-around.
The "biggest" news of the past few months (since last entry) is me selling my Xbox 360 to buy a Nintendo 3DS and Ocarina of Time 3D. I just wasn't playing anything on the 360 except Forza Horizon (and Gran Turismo 6 is coming.), so I figured I should sell it for another console.
I hesitated about buying a Wii U instead of a 3DS, but it'll have to wait since there are not enough games just yet (Only two come to mind. Yikes...) to justify a 350$ hole in my budget. Anyway, I just started OoT3D but I won't be writing about it just yet. I also bought classic SNES game Chrono Trigger for the DS to play on my new 3DS. In fact, that game could have made the "Best Games I've Never Played" feature, but it won't! I'm 2 hours in and enjoying myself a lot. I usually don't love turn-based combat, but this one is fluid enough to keep things interesting. Great stuff so far!
jeudi 15 août 2013
The most annoying things in video games - Part II
Every single gamer, at one point in his life, said aloud or wondered incredulously : "Why/How is this thing/man not dead??" while he was playing a game. In some cases, it will be for a simple enemy you cribbled with bullets or sliced a half-dozen times with your katana, and other times it will be a boss you squashed with a train, made fall down a 50-stories high building while on fire. And he or it is still alive. And you're mad because it doesn't make a lick of sense.
And this has become a bigger problem lately, with all the emphasis put on graphical fidelity, realism and the slow death of hubs, energy bars and other increasingly old-school gaming concepts. You play a game where an enemy will react accordingly to where the bullet hits, you expect a couple bullets to the head to make him drop dead. But no! He or it doesn't die!
Obviously, in games like Fallout 3, Skyrim, other RPGs and many retro games, where damage and health is calculated in "points" via numbers or a health bar, this is not a problem because it's part of the structure of the game. But when I shoot a guy in the head twice while playing a "realistic" military shooter (online or offline), I don't expect the guy to continue living and acting as if he didn't have a bullet lodged in his brain. When I stab a guy twelve times in Assassin's Creed, I don't expect him to continue fighting as though nothing happened.When I shoot a random thug four times with a shotgun standing five feet away in GTA IV, I don't expect him to stand up and shoot me with ease.
When I throw a monster off a tall skyscraper, set him on fire AND run a freaking train over him, I don't expect it to be alive and transform for the fourth time into something even bigger and even MORE annoying. Yes, I'm looking at you, Resident Evil 6. It's stupid, it's annoying, it screams "Well we can't think of anything else, so let's put this guy again, just a bit bigger with more disgusting features. And again here. And again here. And again here."
Anyway, that sounded a bit like a rant, but as a gamer I hate to feel cheated by a game and I really dislike pointless repetition (fighting the same boss over and over again is repetition, no matter how much he has transformed). It ruins the fun, and fun is the main reason why anyone plays games.
Obviously, in games like Fallout 3, Skyrim, other RPGs and many retro games, where damage and health is calculated in "points" via numbers or a health bar, this is not a problem because it's part of the structure of the game. But when I shoot a guy in the head twice while playing a "realistic" military shooter (online or offline), I don't expect the guy to continue living and acting as if he didn't have a bullet lodged in his brain. When I stab a guy twelve times in Assassin's Creed, I don't expect him to continue fighting as though nothing happened.When I shoot a random thug four times with a shotgun standing five feet away in GTA IV, I don't expect him to stand up and shoot me with ease.
When I throw a monster off a tall skyscraper, set him on fire AND run a freaking train over him, I don't expect it to be alive and transform for the fourth time into something even bigger and even MORE annoying. Yes, I'm looking at you, Resident Evil 6. It's stupid, it's annoying, it screams "Well we can't think of anything else, so let's put this guy again, just a bit bigger with more disgusting features. And again here. And again here. And again here."
Anyway, that sounded a bit like a rant, but as a gamer I hate to feel cheated by a game and I really dislike pointless repetition (fighting the same boss over and over again is repetition, no matter how much he has transformed). It ruins the fun, and fun is the main reason why anyone plays games.
jeudi 8 août 2013
Best Games I've Never Played - Part II
From 1998 up until 2008, I thought there was at least ONE universal truth in the gaming world : The best game of all-time was The Legend of Zelda : Ocarina of Time. In my head, it wasn't even a debate, it was a fact. An undeniable, solid and widely known fact.
When I first started to participate in gaming forums in 2008, I learned that some people actually had different ideas of what the best game of all-time was, and I was confused and somewhat frustrated at times, because I thought they were all wrong and that Ocarina of Time was better than anything else, period. I'm actually exaggerating, I knew that different people had different opinions and it's all a matter of taste, but I was surprised at the number of games "contending" for that basically-impossible-to-determine title of the best game of all-time. And there was one game that kept being mentioned, quite possibly even more than Ocarina of Time itself.
That game was Final Fantasy VII. On that particular forum, it seemed like FFVII was popping out everywhere, but that's not all. While reading people's posts, it occurred to me that other titles in the Final Fantasy franchise were mentioned by my fellow gamers, most notable FFIII. (Quick side note, I was also surprised that another Zelda game kept popping up : A Link to the Past. It's a superb game too, so it makes a lot of sense...)
And then it hit me : I had never played a Final Fantasy game in my life !!! I always knew the series existed, I knew it was popular if they had released at least 12 of them (I had no idea there were spin-offs as well), but it never occurred to me that it was as important for some people as the Zelda games were in my life. Obviously this can be explained by the fact that, when I was younger, my parents paid for things I bought and I only bought a few games and never ventured past the known pastures of Mario, Zelda, anything Nintendo made and a few other popular games like Sonic, GoldenEye or Street Fighter. And it has to be said that I never owned a SNES before 2008 (Made the jump from NES to N64 via a Sega Genesis, for some weird reason...) nor did I ever own a PSOne or a PS2, so it's not THAT hard to see how I never had the opportunity to try a Final Fantasy game.
I eventually tried FFXIII on the PS3, but I never could get into the game. Some people tried to explain by saying how FFXIII was too linear and that it never was a "real" FF game. Anyway, I got bored an hour in, because I never really liked anything with turn-based combat other than Pokemon games and the first Paper Mario. I also tried FFV or FFIV on the Playstation Store, but when I died without saving or knowing how to save for basically 90 minutes, I never touched it again... I kinda liked the game, but even then I could never get that much into it.
Perhaps one day I'll have the patience and courage to start a Final Fantasy game again - and I want to, if only for the fact that they're a staple in the gaming world - but until that moment I can't say I've ever PLAYED a Final Fantasy game.
mercredi 12 juin 2013
What I took away from E3
The title makes it seem like I actually went to Los Angeles and participated in the festivities. Sadly, nothing of the sort happened and I had to enjoy the experience via various video, livestreams and articles around the web to construct any sort of review/opinion on the matter.
First off, let's talk about the "new" hardware we've seen, the PS4. Let's just skip over the looks of the actual console, because while it does look good, a fine piece of design I'd say (I also liked the fact that they brought the mind behind the design on-stage. Nice touch), it hardly matters when you'll be putting a disc in and playing it. Anyway, the announcements that garnered the most applause from the audience were the "No Restriction on Used Games or on lending games whatsoever", the "No online verification needed to play", the "PS+ on all three PS3, PS4 and PSVita" and - the best part - the 399$ price tag. In that regard, Sony clearly knocked Microsoft out. Although rumors are circulating around the Internet about the fact that Sony's policy towards used games might not be as open as the conference led us to believe. But nothing has been confirmed yet, we'll see! Anyway, I was also excited at the number of indie developers Sony were getting along with, including Supergiant Games, of Bastion fame. The first-party exclusives (The Order : 1886 looks like an awesome steampunk game) in development also had me pretty pumped for the first year of this new console. Some multiplats were also showcased and looked quite appealing to me. Destiny looks and feels like a gigantic project undertaken by Bungie (read a good piece on it in EDGE lately) with amazing potential, while Ubi's Watch Dogs showed some spectacular depth in gameplay, a wildly interesting story setting (so far) and jaw-dropping graphics.
Overall, I was so happy during the conference I immediately pre-ordered the PS4 from two different places when it became available later that night.
I won't lie, I have a slight bias towards Sony's consoles. But to my defense, I went out of my way to try and defend Microsoft's position when talking to people. I'm not a big Microsoft fan, I work on a MacBook, my 360 is barely ever used at home and various stuff like that would make you think I hate Bill Gates' company. Which is not true. I try and be as objective as possible when arguing about consoles. I try not to fall in stupid, pointless arguments about the "better" choice and I will try to distantiate myself as much as possible from my subjective feelings when talking consoles.
Anyway, I haven't watched Microsoft's conference. I heard many negative things about it, except for the games which looked pretty impressive when I watched a few trailers. And when it's all said and done, for a gamer like me, Games should be and usually are the central focus of every discussion. If you have good games, your console will fare better. So that's why I went on and watched a few trailers, to get soaked in and better evaluate the console for the games it offers and not for some controversial marketing choices. Ryse : Son of Rome looks like promising take on a somewhat forgotten historical era (a least in video games) with visceral combat and tactical warfare, although I'm not sure how I feel about all the button prompts/QTEs... Games like The Witcher 3 and MGS V are no-brainer AAA titles. The only other one I saw was Titanfall, and I really liked what I saw there as well. It looks like a somewhat futuristic Battlefield with mechs and other neat concepts. So while everyone is shitting on the XBone for various reasons, they still had some very decent software to show for. And you can't go wrong with good games.
I haven't watched Nintendo's either, but I still took in a few trailers to see whether or not this console was worth it before the next Zelda game gets released. The trailer for Super Mario 3D World looked absolutely epic, everything you'd expect from a Mario game, like they've been doing at Nintendo for over two decades... just pure gold. Pretty much the same goes for Mario Kart 8, although I wish they had come up with a better name for it... I'm one of those who feels like "numbered" series are shooting themselves in the foot. Why? Not only you are saying to the audience you have no imagination, but you also make it seem like there was A LOT of games before it, which makes it seem like nothing more than a rehash of old ideas. Which is why, even if I'm far from being a Call of Duty fan, I appreciate their idea of not calling their games by the number since the first one. I know you'll find numbers like in MW3 or BOII, but at least we're not simply at CoD9 or something, which would make it even worse.
Anyway, back to Mario Kart 8, it seems to me like Nintendo could make 89 Mario Kart games and somehow still come up with new tracks, new concepts, new ideas. They're just THAT good. I'm not buying a Wii U for that game only, but holy crap it looks fun... The last thing I saw from Nintendo this week was The Legend of Zelda : Wind Waker HD. If I remember correctly, Wind Waker is in the top 10 of my favorite games of All-Time, amongst the legends of GoldenEye, Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil 4, Super Metroid and Bioshock. It tells you how much I loved this game. I think it's a great opportunity for the many who shunned the GameCube version for idiotic reasons like "It looks childish".
So I haven't been able to get through ALL the games yet, but I've seen enough to be excited about the next generation in gaming. Bring on the PS4!
Overall, I was so happy during the conference I immediately pre-ordered the PS4 from two different places when it became available later that night.
I won't lie, I have a slight bias towards Sony's consoles. But to my defense, I went out of my way to try and defend Microsoft's position when talking to people. I'm not a big Microsoft fan, I work on a MacBook, my 360 is barely ever used at home and various stuff like that would make you think I hate Bill Gates' company. Which is not true. I try and be as objective as possible when arguing about consoles. I try not to fall in stupid, pointless arguments about the "better" choice and I will try to distantiate myself as much as possible from my subjective feelings when talking consoles.
Anyway, I haven't watched Microsoft's conference. I heard many negative things about it, except for the games which looked pretty impressive when I watched a few trailers. And when it's all said and done, for a gamer like me, Games should be and usually are the central focus of every discussion. If you have good games, your console will fare better. So that's why I went on and watched a few trailers, to get soaked in and better evaluate the console for the games it offers and not for some controversial marketing choices. Ryse : Son of Rome looks like promising take on a somewhat forgotten historical era (a least in video games) with visceral combat and tactical warfare, although I'm not sure how I feel about all the button prompts/QTEs... Games like The Witcher 3 and MGS V are no-brainer AAA titles. The only other one I saw was Titanfall, and I really liked what I saw there as well. It looks like a somewhat futuristic Battlefield with mechs and other neat concepts. So while everyone is shitting on the XBone for various reasons, they still had some very decent software to show for. And you can't go wrong with good games.
I haven't watched Nintendo's either, but I still took in a few trailers to see whether or not this console was worth it before the next Zelda game gets released. The trailer for Super Mario 3D World looked absolutely epic, everything you'd expect from a Mario game, like they've been doing at Nintendo for over two decades... just pure gold. Pretty much the same goes for Mario Kart 8, although I wish they had come up with a better name for it... I'm one of those who feels like "numbered" series are shooting themselves in the foot. Why? Not only you are saying to the audience you have no imagination, but you also make it seem like there was A LOT of games before it, which makes it seem like nothing more than a rehash of old ideas. Which is why, even if I'm far from being a Call of Duty fan, I appreciate their idea of not calling their games by the number since the first one. I know you'll find numbers like in MW3 or BOII, but at least we're not simply at CoD9 or something, which would make it even worse.
Anyway, back to Mario Kart 8, it seems to me like Nintendo could make 89 Mario Kart games and somehow still come up with new tracks, new concepts, new ideas. They're just THAT good. I'm not buying a Wii U for that game only, but holy crap it looks fun... The last thing I saw from Nintendo this week was The Legend of Zelda : Wind Waker HD. If I remember correctly, Wind Waker is in the top 10 of my favorite games of All-Time, amongst the legends of GoldenEye, Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil 4, Super Metroid and Bioshock. It tells you how much I loved this game. I think it's a great opportunity for the many who shunned the GameCube version for idiotic reasons like "It looks childish".
So I haven't been able to get through ALL the games yet, but I've seen enough to be excited about the next generation in gaming. Bring on the PS4!
lundi 27 mai 2013
What Am I Playing NOW - Part III
To tell you the truth, the short answer to that question for the past two months would be "Not much..." But of course, there's a (somewhat) longer answer. Yes, I haven't had the time to play as much as usual for various reasons : being quite busy at work since the end of the school year is approaching fast, some never-seen-before high temperatures in late april and early may which called for a lot of basket-ball outside, more activities planned with friends and family, etc. But I still finished two 2013 Game of The Year contenders and started two other good/great games.
The In-Between-Games Game
I always have some games that I play "during" other games, usually a racing game or a sports game because there's usually no storyline (or one so uninteresting that I simply don't care about) so I can play without mixing up plots or characters or whatever. Plus I can play those game on mute or with a very low volume, which is practical for someone like me who listens to many podcasts per week (sports related, all of them). So during those past two months I've been playing a lot of Forza Horizon and a bit of NBA 2K12 and Shift 2 Unleashed.
The Early Contenders
Earlier this year were released two superb games I had preordered ages ago : Tomb Raider & Bioshock Infinite. Both lived up to the hype and one could even argue that Tomb Raider exceeded it (although it has to be said it wasn't as hyped as Infinite). Anyhow, Tomb Raider proved to be as good as the so-called Tomb Raider clone, the Uncharted series. Perhaps the story or characters, besides Lara herself, weren't as developed as the Uncharted cast, but the gameplay was simply superb and I was glad the developer didn't copy Uncharted's infamous "everyone is shooting at me from everywhere even from places I've cleared 1.5 second ago" moments which kinda infuriated me at times (I'm not hating though, that trilogy is hall of fame worthy). Also, I liked how they didn't feel obligated to follow Drake's globe-trotting expeditions and managed to exploit a small island and transform it into a semi-open world with tons of stuff to find, even the area to explore clearly was not that big. Great stuff!
The In-Between-Games Game
I always have some games that I play "during" other games, usually a racing game or a sports game because there's usually no storyline (or one so uninteresting that I simply don't care about) so I can play without mixing up plots or characters or whatever. Plus I can play those game on mute or with a very low volume, which is practical for someone like me who listens to many podcasts per week (sports related, all of them). So during those past two months I've been playing a lot of Forza Horizon and a bit of NBA 2K12 and Shift 2 Unleashed.
The Early Contenders
Earlier this year were released two superb games I had preordered ages ago : Tomb Raider & Bioshock Infinite. Both lived up to the hype and one could even argue that Tomb Raider exceeded it (although it has to be said it wasn't as hyped as Infinite). Anyhow, Tomb Raider proved to be as good as the so-called Tomb Raider clone, the Uncharted series. Perhaps the story or characters, besides Lara herself, weren't as developed as the Uncharted cast, but the gameplay was simply superb and I was glad the developer didn't copy Uncharted's infamous "everyone is shooting at me from everywhere even from places I've cleared 1.5 second ago" moments which kinda infuriated me at times (I'm not hating though, that trilogy is hall of fame worthy). Also, I liked how they didn't feel obligated to follow Drake's globe-trotting expeditions and managed to exploit a small island and transform it into a semi-open world with tons of stuff to find, even the area to explore clearly was not that big. Great stuff!
As for Infinite, I was expecting sooo much out of Irrational's masterpiece it was practically unfair. But, amazingly, it lived up to the hype. I wasn't that fond of Booker for the first few hours, but that was mainly because I was speculating on the man's story. When you learn a bit more about him, you have to like him. As for Elizabeth, nothing wrong can be said about her. Charming, useful, deeply attaching, she's basically the best A.I. partner a video game has ever seen. You simply care for her, not unlike this new Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. The story is a bit hard to follow, especially the ending, which had me spending 30 minutes on the Internet to be sure I actually understood the right thing. But it's truly excellent, many developers have something to learn from Irrational for story-telling. I wish we would have seen more of the Songbird, but that's a small price to pay for such a superb game. The gameplay is perfect, the variety of actions you can do during combat is impressive and the set pieces very, very fun. The combat is harder than I would have expected, but nothing out of the ordinary. Anyway, it's a great, great game, clearly among the best I've played this generation.
I would have to talk about Assassin's Creed, but I have a piece coming on the series.
I first started writing this more than two weeks ago, but never had time to finish because of work and other obligations. Since that time, I've started XCOM : Enemy Unknown, finished Braid in a few hours (old, I know, but I had to finish it at one point) and my PS3 broke down for the third time. So I had to bring it to this repair man I know. Meanwhile I play more Vita and other consoles, but not that much since summer is starting at last and I can finally play basketball, tennis and other sports.
I'll try to do this more regularly in the next two months.
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