Beaten: Wolfenstein 3D

Beaten: Wolfenstein 3D

System: PS3 (PSN Download)
Status: Beaten
Currently: Just finished on the 'normal' difficulty, which leaves hardest for completion.

This game definitely does not hold up to the test of time. I really hate to say that, because this was always a game I wanted to play since I could only rent it on the SNES (which was buggy and censored). The PSN collection came with all 6 episodes, but its rather clear that the first 3 have the best design out of all of them, and the other three, which seem to have been sold together, were of far lower quality. Its not like the graphics or anything were of lesser quality, but the first three episodes kind of had a nice flow to them, a new enemy in each one that you had to get used to (albeit any differences are minor other than how fast they kill you), and a steady progression in difficulty. Once you hit episode 4 though, the little things you hadn't really noticed before start to kick in.

The damage as I noted in a previous post, is all kinds of out of proportion, especially when you're right next to an enemy, and they can nearly take your head off with two shots (even the grunts). The enemies probably just deal more damage the closer they get to you, which means being able to see them first and not let them get close is very important. Once you get to the additional three missions, the designers seemed to realize the only way to up the difficulty was to make it much harder to see the enemies first...and thus follows about 27 solid stages of tight corridors with alcoves that you have to check every step, and even when you do, sometimes they'll pop out and blast you before you can reasonably react. This isn't challenge, its fake difficulty, and often I was blasted down to near dead and had to backtrack because of an enemy you couldn't possibly see unless you knew he was there beforehand. This is made even worse by the fact that one bad turn of luck kicks you back to the start of the stage with a pistol and hardly any ammo, which means you might have to reload or get really lucky depending on the stage. This design also means a lot of the stages are a lot of walking down very tiny corridors, looking for a key, and getting lost, hoping to not run into an enemy at the wrong time and get blasted. The rewards for finding secrets and exploring are not worth the hassle, since you can only find more health, ammo (with a max of 99), or points which give you extra lives. At no point did I ever feel necessary to go exploring for secrets.

Overall, it is a classic and its worth a play, but I would almost just recommend playing the first three episodes, they're a more solid game.

11/17: Quickfixes

Unfortunately, I've been stuck in one of those moods where I really can't get anything in particular done, so been pecking at a few games idly.

Name: Beyond Good & Evil
System: PS2 (Playing on PS3)
Status: Unfinished
Currently: Just finished the second story dungeon.

I feel really bad that I've never gotten to this game before, especially since I know it to be a solid game the few times I've booted it up and played it for a while. It also wasn't a big investment, and a great deal since I snagged it for 6$ from a Gamestop, like most of the later additions to my PS2 collection. I really have no complaints other than the strange graphical glitches that happen occasionally, which I have gathered come with the PS2 port of the game (and the PS3 may be making worse, I don't remember my PS2 doing the weird thing with the water). Overall the gameplay is solid, the partner system is fairly well implemented, there's nothing overtly annoying about any aspect of the game. The Pokemon Snap-like camera subquest is actually really fun, though once you get the radars that tell you where the animals you don't have are, it becomes rather trivial. Still, it seems a game that is full of collection sidequests, where the designers did their best to make sure they were not frustrating, which is always a good idea. Just need to put a few more hours into this and I can probably tick it off my completed list rather quickly.

Name: Wolfenstein 3-D
System: PS3
Status: Unfinished
Currently: Finished Episodes 1-3 on 'normalish' difficulty.

An oldie that I never got around to truly playing other than the horrendous SNES port I rented a few times back in the day. The PSN port does a pretty good job of capturing the game without mucking with it really at all. They even left in the old text screens after each episode advertising the next...along with all the cheesy text detailing you 'kicking Hitler's skull off'. Fun. My wife has all sorts of trouble watching me play this, and I have some issues as well, the game is smooth except when you start to turn (strafing and the like), where it gets a bit herky-jerky, and tends to give me motion sickness a bit. The damage also seems way out of line for the enemies even on the lower difficulty I'm on. One shot from pretty much any enemy can nearly kill you...or just nick you, and there doesn't seem to be much reason for the differences, not range or if you were moving or not. Still, the game is loaded with ammo (and all guns use the same type), along with plenty of health, so its really not that difficult. Taking it easy though so I don't make myself sick with the herky-motion. Twin-stick controls I think are the best way to play these old games though, its even how I prefer to play the original Doom 1/2 games now.

Name: RetroMUD
System: PC (Portal GT client)
Status: Null
Currently: Levelling up my Fallen alt, trying to get my Psi main money to train.

A real oldie for me, and a classic MUD, though the player base has shrunk in recent years due to a good solid year or so of crashes and unstableness. The core of the game is still great, with numerous classes, lots of options as to how to build characters, and all around freedom to do what you want. The community is always great for the game, and half the fun is chatting with the good people there. I really can't review the game much more than that, especially since a lot of it is personal experience, and not many people play MUDs anymore. Still, if I'm not playing something else, I'm playing this, much easier to cram in an hour or so of farming now that you don't have to worry about putting your gear in boxes if you carry it around.

Beaten: Parasite Eve

Beaten: Parasite Eve

System: PSX (Ps1 Classics)
Status: Beaten
Currently: Just beat the game, leaves Chrysler Building on Ex Game.

There are games that stand the test of time and are pretty much always great, no matter how far in the future you play them. The old turn based Final Fantasies still hold up, the original Super Mario Bros. still holds up. Parasite Eve...does not. To be honest, I've only played this on emulator, then finally purchased it from the Playstation Network PSOne classics category, and started to play it. I finally settled down this week and pounded out the rest of it in two game sessions.

The first big warning sign is the game is only 9 hours long, if you don't include the optional dungeon. For an RPG, that is insanely short, and you can tell this was an early playstation title. Clearly they were pushing disc space, but a two disc game is only 9 hours long? Too many FMVs, not enough game. I will pretty much wave off the ugly polygons, the odd looking FMVs (though still better than some of Final Fantasy VII popeye-armed FMVs), and the prerendered backgrounds that make finding boxes a pixel hunt. All of that pretty much came with the generation, and I enjoyed the old Resident Evils.

The second big warning sign is how clunky the combat is. It does 'cut' away to random battles, but they still show up on the prerendered backgrounds. Since the detection of where you can walk is so wonky, often times you are never quite sure where you can and can't go, especially in spots with odd angles. Since the game is an action RPG, and you have to actively dodge attacks, this can lead to you getting nailed by attacks where you had plenty of warning, but just couldn't move with the arena. Other times, you'll get nailed because Aya moves at a speed that suggests a leg injury (despite her animation insisting she is running full out), and the only time she can be called agile is when she casts Haste...which lasts maybe three attacks before wearing off, and uses up valuable healing magic points. Other times, you'll get nailed because...well, the monster just doesn't like you, and despite early monsters giving you nice warnings, sometimes the designers just coded a monster that'll nail you, nothing you can do about it. Bosses are really bad about this, they move much faster than your character, and will use attacks that hit nearly the entire screen...or just rush up and knock you down to one HP.

The game did something right in that you can customize guns by adding and removing attributes from them, and unless you're so stupid as to remove an ability from an armor you've bumped the attributes up insanely high on, thus losing those, you're never directly 'screwed' out of the defense/attack bonuses you add to your armor and weapons. There is an oddity that you get numerous weapons with multi-shot capabilities....when all that does is make Aya sit still for each shot, and get nailed by even more attacks (See above). Most of the game I went with a weapon with 1 or 2 shots, and that was it, sitting still any longer was an invite to use up even more heals. Still, if you find a great weapon but don't like the fact that it has 5 shots, you can always change it.

The final gripe has to do with the final boss fight, which surprise (Hi Squaresoft!) is a multi-parter. First part is fine, you can read his attacks, dodge out of the way, slide in to blast him, barring the cheap 'I'll knock you to 1 HP so fast you can't dodge' move. The second part splits, so you have one bird moving around like its on meth, and a beast shooting lasers across the whole map...difficult, but doable. Then the third, again, gains a 1 HP no warning attack, an attack that knocks you to half instantly, a melee attack that is near impossible to dodge, and a ranged attack which is your only chance to deal damage to him without getting hit...assuming you can move Aya under him fast enough so you don't get nailed several times. It's basically a roulette, if he spams the ranged attack, you can get numerous attacks off for free. After that? A chase scene, where one wrong turn is instant death...and repeating the whole boss fight over again. Whoever thought you could describe this as fun instead of 'controller breaking frustrating' was an idiot.

The games main sin though? It's dull, and it's boring. The story is gibberish (not literally), and they toss so much philosophy and pseudo-science babble that at some point you can just insert 'Mitochondria did it' into everything and be done with it. The random encounters are mostly waiting to shoot them, and running in circles till your gauge charges up so you don't get hit. Unless its one of the few random encounters in the game that does a decent amount of damage, you are at more risk of getting distracted and getting nailed a few times than actually dying. I had on a Youtube video of some other games music (By the way, music, not that great either, spent the game with it muted), and I got distracted by the videos, numerous times. Doesn't  help when you walk around a museum ten times looking for that one door you missed.

....Damnit, still have the Chrysler building to call this completed.