Opinions over Time: Modern Warfare 2 (Midway Impressions)

I’m probably about two thirds of the way through MW2 now, rather than the half hour in I was last time I wrote about it. There hasn’t been anything remotely as crazy as the on rails sequence I mentioned. In fact the rest of the game has pretty much felt like Call of Duty, makes sense I suppose. There have been several of those moments, generally at the end of a level, where the game does something unique and cool with the first person camera while remaining playable, which is more than half the reason I was excited to begin with. Also, the now infamous “No Russian” level was a bit of a surprise, I had of course heard about it, but all I knew before going in was that it was the offensive mission everyone was talking about. I had no idea why.

I don’t really want to add more fuel to the fire, but since playing it I’ve done a bit of reading and was kind of shocked to find I’m in the minority in that I think it was a fairly effective level. The biggest issue I disagreed with was from Anthony Burch of Destructoid who claims that because games are an interactive medium he should not have been forced into playing the mission in the particular way you have too. Too that I say yes, this is an interactive media, but MW2, like most games is a linear narrative and is only interactive in the sense that you get to experience firsthand the story Infinity Ward is trying to tell. This style of storytelling is starting to be replaced, but it hasn’t been yet and I’ve heard some pretty compelling arguments as to why it should stick around in some form forever. Anyway, you don’t have to agree with Infinity Ward’s story, and having other options because you don’t agree with what you’re being forced to do goes against their point. Pvt. Allen (the player controlled character) feels the same way IW is trying to make us feel and based on the outcry I think they succeeded. Burch even acknowledges and is okay with most games being linear stories. I feel his only real reason for wanting a choice is because this time he didn’t want to partake in this particular story. The thing is IW was expecting people to not wanting to partake, if you really don’t want to experience it, there are plenty of opportunities to skip it, including during the mission itself if you happen to let curiosity get the best of you and then decide you do not want to finish. I applaud IW for their efforts, it may not have been the best way they could have conveyed their message, but every suggestion that I’ve heard so far to do it differently seems like a cop out because the person suggesting didn’t want to have to play by IW’s rules. It seems strange to me that after a game finally tries to do something mature and take advantage of some of its mediums unique abilities to resonate with its audience that there would be such a backlash.

Well this wasn’t supposed to turn into another “No Russian” post, but whatever. A six hour campaign that several million people have already purchased and possibly already played doesn’t really need three impressions articles written about it anymore.

Opinions over Time: Assassin's Creed 2 (Midway Impressions)

While Squash ignores Modern Warfare 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2, I on the other hand am making steady headway into both. I know MW2 has a very short campaign, but I’m currently quite engrossed in AC2. That and I’m currently at my parents house for the holiday and they don’t have a kickass sound system like I do. Assassin’s Creed 2’s sound is cool, but I think I can live without 5.1 and all that other jazz. MW2 though, really has memorable sound design, something the franchise has always gotten right, so I’m holding off. It really has more to do with AC2 than the sound system however, I’m not that big of an audiophile/douche bag.

So in my initial impressions, I said it felt like AC2 hadn’t even started. Well the next day I played for another hour and felt more or less the same. Still I wasn’t dissuaded however because once that third hour or so was done I was finally free to do whatever I wanted to with the world. Not only that, but Ubisoft Montreal throws so many options at you by that point that it is almost overwhelming. I could almost understand why the start of the game was so slow going for that reason except the majority of the things you can do aren’t slowly introduced over the three hours, they are all dumped on you about right before they give you free reign. So the slow start is basically just plot that could have potentially been told in a more interesting way, but if you can endure the beginning, I’m here to tell you it’s worth it.

I read a review the other day saying that if the original Assassin’s Creed was a proof of concept then the sequel is the full fledged game. I can totally see where that reviewer was coming from. The game still very much feels like the original, which was what was bothering me initially, but it eventually offers so much more. The first game gives you this giant sandbox, but gave you almost nothing to do in it. There were flags to collect if you were a masochist, but for the most part there was just the main campaign that consisted of climbing to the top of a tower, syncing and then using that to find and complete a few missions. There were only maybe five mission types and you had to do at least three before you could assassinate your target. After repeating this process nine times you had beat the game! Woohoo! Like I said before, I enjoyed the game, but I can totally see why others didn’t.

Assassin’s Creed 2 fixes that problem. There are so many things to do besides the main story that I am not going to even try to list them. This time around the developers took the sandbox approach more seriously and the result is a huge immersive world that I’ve spent hours exploring. The main missions are fun too, and they actually primarily consist of assassinating people. What a concept! There is still the occasional boring mission, but so far they have either been very short or part of what made the introduction so lousy.

I’ve found the plot a little difficult to follow, partially because I take so much time in between missions and partially because I can’t keep all the Italian named conspirators straight, but the menu has lots of documentation to help keep it all clear.

If it sounds like I’m bashing on the original despite claiming I loved it in the last post is because the sequel shows how good the first game could have been. It’s really what it should have been.

I can definitely say my midway impressions are a good deal better than my initial reaction. I’m excited to finish the game and write up my final thoughts. This game is huge however and I still have MW2 and Borderlands to finish as well as Brutal Legend waiting in my mailbox, so it may be a bit longer than I’d like. Luckily all the distractions are quite good. :)

Girls or Games

Tonight I sat down in my computer chair and began writing an essay for an advertising class. The assignment research lead me to an advertising website, which linked me to another advertising website, which linked me to Gamestop.com, which distracted me from the essay that within seconds I stopped writing to focus on this post. Yet again, there I sat. Thinking about video games. Avoiding my homework. And pondering the reason my video game play-time during the last three weeks was less than twenty minutes.

Girls. That’s right, girls. Well, one particular girl, anyway. Why is that? Why, when I start dating someone, do I forget about video games? I know they’re there, but they seem invisible. As though Katy—or Jenny—or Christina—or Michelle—whoever she may be—suddenly becomes a black hole in my video game universe, sucking all video game pleasure into her dark oblivion.

And the worst part? I love it. What kind of guy would I be if I didn’t? Sure, I have to relinquish a small amount of my “hardcore gamer” status. But it’s all in the name of love (or hormones (who really knows the difference?)). Any man, when presented with an opportunity for making-out, must take it. Even with titles out there like Modern Warfare 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2. Yes, in my mind, they compare to the passion of love. But I’d rather protect my masculine identity than encourage the nerd in me.

And so I do. Modern Warfare 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2, you’ll just have to wait. And I know you will. You’ll be there waiting for me when I’m ready. Girls may come and go. Flowers may live and die. But not you. Oh no, not you. You’ll be there in the end, until the end. Our bond is strong. Our relationship eternal. Until I’m single again, I bid you farewell. I’m sure plenty of other gamers will take advantage of your magnificence while I'm busy taking advantage of my dating life.

Opinions over Time: Modern Warfare 2 (Initial Reaction)

At the time of writing this I have only played the tutorial and the very first level of Modern Warfare 2. The tutorial, while seeming fun and refreshing in Call of Duty 4, just came off as annoying this time around. Especially since how well you do is far more influenced by memorization than skill with the Call of Duty franchise. I didn’t really think much of it though, complaining about tutorials is kind of redundant. They are designed for newcomers and if I was a newcomer I probably would have enjoyed it. I suppose they could have included an option to skip it, but I wouldn’t have anyway. Hell, maybe there was an option, I didn’t check.

Ever since I played Call of Duty 2 on the 360 (primarily since there wasn’t anything else worth playing on my shiny new 400 dollar console besides Geometry Wars) I’ve loved the intensity Infinity Ward has managed to capture. During some of the more action packed battles I really feel like a tiny part of a much larger offensive. I think they took that intensity one step too far with this particular game however, or at least the first level. I understand they want to capture the insanity of war, but the first level has an on-rails section that is such a clusterfuck that I pretty much let go of the controller and let the fact I’m practically invincible on normal carry me through. I was getting shot and blown up from so many directions that it would be almost impossible to deal with it on a clear screen much less with all the vision impairing damage indicators covering the screen. I suppose that is a great way to capture the intensity and craziness of battle, but it wasn’t very much fun and taking three rocket blasts to the face and living sort of kills the immersion a bit. Maybe I should play on Veteran, but I don’t think I have the patience to even attempt to survive that section without the Normal settings huge cushion.

So I guess, as with my Assassin’s Creed 2 initial impressions, I’m once again still excited to play the game, but disappointed by the intro. I saw the beginning of level 2, which starts in the middle of what I think is Siberia. It is definitely going to be a much smaller scale level, possibly a stealthy one, so the game is definitely going to offer up plenty of changes to keep things fresh. That is something Infinity Ward did flawlessly with CoD4, so I’m going to tread on with cautious optimism. If the story and first person narrative techniques are even half as cool as their last game then I’ll be happy. I can’t imagine they’ll top CoD4’s ending, but here’s hoping.

Opinions over Time: Assassin's Creed 2 (Initial Reaction)

I'm trying something new here that I'll hopefully be able to turn into a regular feature. The idea is I play a game for a little bit and write my immediate reaction to it. Once I'm a good deal farther into the game I'll write up another set of impressions, and finally once I'm finished with the game and have seen the credits roll, I'll post my final thoughts. We might find out that my gut reaction, final thoughts, and everything in between end up being the exact same, which is why I chose not to use Uncharted 2 for my first run at this. That game was fantastic right from the start and just got better and better. Instead I thought I'd give Assassin's Creed 2 and Modern Warfare 2's single player a try and see how varied each of the three articles are. If I end up saying the same thing three times for both games then I'll scrap the idea entirely. Hopefully though, I end up with an interesting progression, we'll see I guess. Let's get started.

So Assassin's Creed 2. I was one of the gamers that landed on the loving side of the Assassin's Creed 1 fence, I recognized it's flaws, but was willing to overlook them. That said, I am not willing to overlook them a second time. Everything I've read about Assassin's Creed 2, and the live demo I saw at PAX make me think I won't have to worry about that. However, I started the game up yesterday afternoon and played for about 2 hours. What I played sadly made me think it really is exactly the same, just in Italy 300 years later. The combat hasn't changed, the free running hasn't changed, and the missions have been a series of deliveries and boring escorts that involve nothing more than walking beside an NPC, at a crawling pace I might add. So I guess those two mission types are new....

Still, I have high hopes for this game. I had been avoiding the hype until I saw the PAX demo and have been super excited ever since. When I turned it off last night I still felt like the tutorial was just barely ending so I'm thinking the real game is about to kick off. I suppose that makes sense for such a huge open world game, but such a long intro was fairly tedious after so recently playing Uncharted 2's ridiculously engaging thirty second opening cutscene that ends leaving you in quite the precarious and playable situation. Hopefully when I give it another spin after work tomorrow I'll get to see all the cool stuff I saw at PAX, and more. I've seen hints of the all the good to come, but hints can only hold me for so long.

Anyway, there's the first thoughts, I'll post further middle impressions once I've had a bit more playtime under my belt. Expect an initial reaction to MW2 first though, since I already started that.

A Worthy Sequel

A few friends and I went up to the University's computer science lab last night and played some Left4Dead 2. We only played two campaigns, out of order, and shamefully were unable to finish the final onslaught of the second one, but I think I had enough time with it to form an opinion. It has a few problems, but all in all I'd say it is a well done sequel that added more to the franchise in a year than most hyped up two or three year dev cycle sequels do.

First off there are tons of new weapons, they were all right, but most were similar variations of each other, like three versions of a shotgun. The melee weapons felt kind of awkward, but work fantastically when surrounded by swarms of zombies. That and hearing a southerner randomly walk into an abandoned convenience store and yell, "Ninja Sword here!" never really gets old.

The first campaign we did was "Hard Rain" and even though it reused the first two chapters by making you backtrack through them for the next two, the rainstorm changed it so significantly that you could hardly notice. Also the horrible peaks of the storm happening every few minutes definitely kept us on our toes. The second campaign we did was "Dark Carnival" and that one had some pretty incredible environments, including running along a roller coaster track and a finale that I won't spoil. The level design for both campaigns were very reminiscent of some of the more memorable sections of the Half Life series and that's never a bad thing.

Where the game really has a head over it's predecessor however is the AI director. That bastard is harsher than ever before. If anyone happens to fall behind, within a minute he'll have to deal with a Jockey or some other special zombie. Same thing if you pull ahead, you'll find yourself face first in a Chargers giant palm in no time. The whole game just feels more frantic as well. You have to keep moving, dawdling just results in more zombies rushing you, but you also have to stick together. It's the same concepts from the first game, but with the pressure ramped up, combined with less ammo than before. It almost feels like a survival horror game in that respect. Valve turned it up to 11 and the result feels much fresher and newer than the Halo or Gears of War sequels ever did.

Still, the game is not without it's faults. For one, the bare bones emergent narrative structure of the game hasn't changed at all. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I seem to recall Valve saying they were going to put more effort into the story telling this time around. Aside from a few more snarky comments and references to their surroundings from the characters it really hasn't changed.

Also, not really a gameplay issue, but we ran into a number of bugs or glitches while playing. Every now and then, with increasing frequency, the game would temporarily freeze up for one of us while still going for everyone else. I'm not sure if this was a game issue or a lag issue, but it was fairly obnoxious by the end got us killed in more than a couple clutch moments.

The weirdest thing we saw all night was a Witch that would not die. My friend startled her with an incendiary shot, while I blasted her with a shotgun. We both went down, then she started to freak out after she realized she was on fire and wandered around twitching. She continued to do this fire induced animation long after the flames were gone and no longer seemed to have any interest in us. It was quite the glitch.

Faults aside, Left4Dead 2 was not a let down and would have been a pretty ridiculous content pack. The AI director really changed the pacing and the whole game felt kicked up a notch. It's nice to see Valve pushing out quality with some sort of frequency. Now I'd just like to know where the hell is Episode 3?

Breaking the Habit

A little less than a year ago, so during the Christmas holidays, I was thinking about all the games I had played that year. I realized that since just about every one of them was on the 360, which keeps track of not just when you last played them but when each Achievement was unlocked, I could fairly accurately construct a list of every game I played. This was also the year I got a GameFly subscription, so between the two sources I compiled a list of 63 games I played in 2008, 53 of which I finished, and 5 which I deemed unable to finish such as Warhammer Online. After showing Slevin the list, he constructed a list of his own. Upon further discussion we realized we could probably do the same thing for 2007. I did so and saw I had played significantly less games that year, only 25 that year, 20 of which I finished. There's actually a few reasons I played so few games in 2007, but I'd rather not get into them.

Since I was making this list at the end of the year, I naturally saw the increasing pattern and thought I could best 2008 in 2009. I wanted to finish more than 53 games, the goal I vaguely thought about was 60, but I would be content with anything over 53. As of now I'm at 48 and am quite confident I'll pass 53, but most likely won't hit the 60 I was originally on track for.

So now that I've had you read all that back story, let me get to the point. The combination of a GameFly account, which is most worthwhile when you beat games rapidly, and my goal to finish a fairly exorbitant amount of games has resulted in me plowing through about a game a week. That's fine, I have no problem with playing that much if I can find the time, but it also meant that any game I had a decent amount of time invested in had to be finished. I hated the idea of spending 5 or 10 hours on a game and not being able to add it to my finished list for any number of reasons. This of course led me to finish some games I thoroughly did not enjoy, such as Majora's Mask or Velvet Assassin.

Until one game finally made me realize how ludicrous this had all become. I have spent around 40 hours playing this game, and am on the final boss. I can't beat him without several hours of grinding, either leveling my current party or leveling a healer class I never needed until now to catch up to my current party. I can't do this very easily in the final dungeon without straying ridiculously far from a save crystal, and the game has a tendency to freeze on my Xbox. This basically makes grinding impossible and I think I'm finally willing to accept that I can't beat this game.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the game is absolute crap. I knew it wasn't for me early on, and discovered after about a third of the way through that it wasn't going to get any better. The story continued to get more and more ridiculous and incoherent while the pacing got more and more grueling. It pretty much turned into a few hour dungeon crawl followed by almost an hour of nonsensical plot revealing cutscenes with some of the worst dialogue and acting I've ever seen.

I know this just sounds dumb, but I've seriously been blindly determined enough (or maybe just stupid enough) to play games I've despised for several hours all year long. It's not as bad as it sounds, because I generally won't play a game unless I know I will like it, but I still have probably spent at least 50 hours playing crap. 80% of which was probably this game alone.

This raised an interesting question for me however. I've always been of the opinion that a game, book, movie or whatever should be judged as a whole. It's served me well in the past with games like Mass Effect and The Darkness. I didn't really like either game going in, but ended up really enjoying them by the end. Same with a few books, Dune in particular, which is now one of my favorite science fiction books ever. It starts off quite slow, but it's quite necessary and completely worth it in the end.

So where do I draw the line? The game that I decided not to finish was an easy decision because I knew pretty early on it was only going to get worse and sure enough, it did. I'm on the final boss and I can safely say I have no idea what's going on and no huge amount of boring cutscenes after the fight will make it any better, but what about the games like Mass Effect? With my new willingness to quit games when I don't like them I could easily quit potentially great games in disgust before I ever really figure them out, but if I want to quit the game in disgust, how can it possibly be worth finishing? Maybe disgust is too harsh a word, Mass Effect was never that bad, I just thought the combat was clumsy and the story wasn't terribly engaging, but by the end I really enjoyed both. Star Ocean 4 on the other hand, the previously mentioned game that I arbitrarily left nameless until now, was freaking terrible and it was quite obvious it wasn't going to get any better.

So I guess I should thank Tri-Ace for creating a game I hated so much that it broke my habit of finishing every game I start. Or maybe I should thank Microsoft for making their early Xbox 360's so shoddy that I can't play the shitty game for more than an hour without it freezing. I might have actually tried grinding in an attempt to beat the final boss if it weren't for the game freezing far more frequently than it's inconveniently placed save crystals.

Either way, it's crappy design that made this all possible, which I find fairly amusing.

Animation killed the Infected Super Soldier... Star

I encountered something in a game the other day that has never really been an issue for me before. The game was Prototype, and as my fairly cryptic title may or may not convey, its player character animations were often a problem when choosing my tactics. They all shared one common problem.

They were too damn long.

All the crucial animations such as absorbing someone to regain health wrench control from the player for a few seconds, but leave them vulnerable to attack during that time. Often times I would lose more health during the act of consuming someone than I gained from doing so. Even worse, sometimes I would be hit so hard that the animation wouldn't complete and I would be left with significantly less health than when I started.

I didn't really notice this as a problem early on, but the farther I got into Prototype, the more crap the game threw at me. By the end of the game I was often fighting off multiple helicopters, tanks, infantry, infantry with rocket launchers, and super soldiers or giant infected monsters called hunters. Most of these guys direct attacks will knock the player back and when enough are firing at once Alex (the player character) can quickly become what feels like a ping pong ball. This means stopping for even a split second can have pretty devastating results, yet several moves require three to five seconds of extremely vulnerable stationary actions. To make matters worse, all the best moves, the Devastator attacks, require a certain amount of health and then a charge period of a few seconds. If you are lucky enough to consume enough people to get your health up past the midway point, often times you'll take enough damage during the charge up to fail the attack completely.

This resulted in several missions devolving into me reusing the same move over and over again. For example, one of the very last missions had me chasing one tank, and destroying all his friend tanks whenever he stopped with to try to thwart me. Earlier in the game I would have just jacked one of the tanks, used it to blow the other three up and then moved on. Or maybe I would have used my Hammerfist power and pounded them into the ground. I could have jacked a helicopter and blown the three up that way as well. Devastator attacks also would probably end the entire confrontation and the rest of the city block in one foul swoop. Yet none of these were possible. The tank jacking animation takes so long that my character can only try it once before having to go hide and regenerate health. Everytime I tried ended with a rocket to the face knocking me clear off the tank and ending the jacking sequence. Helicopter jackings are a bit faster, but often times ended with the helicopter propeller first in a building with every enemy targetting it, meaning I'd have about three seconds before the damn thing explodes. Landing near the tanks to punch them with the Hammerfist power lends itself nicely to that whole ping pong effect I was talking about earlier and I've already explained why the Devastator attack was a no go.

I found one feasible option. Basically Alex dive bombs from a glide headfirst into the ground, damaging anything in a fairly small radius. It looks awesome and is really fun to do, but aiming it is quite difficult. Also, the novelty of the move wore off after the fifth attempt to blow up the twelfth tank of the mission. By the end I was able to run up a skyscraper and nosedive perfectly on top of a tank from a hundred stories above, destroying it and everything nearby, but doing the same pattern over and over again for ten minutes is just not fun.

It's obvious why Radical chose this route for Prototype. By allowing the protagonist access to as many awesome powers as he has, they almost made him invincible. Of course that may lead to some boring game design, running around as an unstoppable God is fun, but gets old fairly fast. To counter this they just threw more and more enemies into the mix until it was just unfair. If they had just made the animations for all the moves mentioned above twice as fast, or made the player invulnerable during them I think all my gripes would be solved. This would allow all the fun and useful moves to be actually usable during the times they were most needed, while still having the fear and danger of an entire army trying to stop you.

I never thought something as simple as animation length could have some a huge impact on gameplay, but Prototype proves it does.

P.S. Despite it's irrelevance to everything, I feel obligated to mention I think I liked Prototype better than inFAMOUS, but Red Faction: Guerrilla was better than both. ;)