Beaten: Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (on 6/27/13)

System: PC
Status: Beaten

Unfortunately I don't have a lot to say about Episode 2. Not just because I finished it over a year ago, but because nothing about it really sticks out in the mind, other than the fact that it kept the story going for a bit more than the last episode. If you aren't interested in the continuing adventures of Gordon Freeman, episode 2 is basically the same game as episode 1 and Half-life 2, physics based shooting, aliens, rather smart AI for the human parts, and some decent set pieces that are fun/frustrating depending.

Really, no part of the game sticks out a lot in my memory, other than the last set piece, where you are defending the rocket installation from hordes of giant walkers that you can only destroy with bomb devices you attach to them. I must royally suck at this, or it was insanely hard compared to the rest of the game, because I found this part furiously frustrating, and had to crank the difficulty all the way down due to constantly being torn apart by all the mechs little friends. If I go through the game again, I'll likely need to look up what I was doing wrong, because it shouldn't have been that difficult.

Finished it on the easiest difficulty, so to complete would have to crank it up some, along with completing various achieves and challenges.

Beaten: Portal 2 (on 6/24/13)

System: PC
Status: Beaten (on 6/24/13)

Portal is one of my favorite puzzle games, for the sheer basic mechanics and taking the puzzles as far as they can go with those mechanics. Portal 2 really doesn't change the mechanics much, other than adding some gels at about the midpoint of the game that add new dimensions to the physics puzzles. However, Portal 2 definitely focuses more on the story aspects, where the first was pretty limited to voice overs, 2...still does voice overs, but its  more in depth, with many voice actors and more of the same dark humor.

Overall, the game is better and somewhat worse than the first game. The new gels add new dimensions to the physics puzzles, but in the end it really doesn't change the dynamics too much, and in the end, they are kind of forgettable. The story is definately the best part of the game over the original, but with a longer plot, the game does start to drag a bit, and some of the puzzles end up being a bit unintuitive, a problem I never had with the original.

Still, the gripes with the game are nitpicking, overall it is amazingly fun to play and I highly recommend anyone who can to do so.

I finished the main story, which leaves the co-op things, and small achievements in the game itself.

Completed: Borderlands (on 6/22/13)

System: PC
Status: Completed (on 6/22/13)

Borderlands is certainly a well reviewed and looked at franchise, so I doubt anything I say will be too new to people looking into it. On the surface, it certainly fills a niche that feels like it needs to be filled, an FPS RPG with randomly generated/dropped guns and equipment. The game fills that niche very well, and the game has a very unique sense of humor to it. It does an extremely good job at characterization of the world of Pandora, and I tended to mostly play through just to see what the next crazy thing to happen was.

Where the game does tend to slow down is the combat itself is very samey for most of the game. No matter what upgrades or new skills you get, they tend to not change the basic game mechanics very  much. You'll run up to an area of huts and houses, enemies will spawn from doors or be standing around, and you'll find cover, trying to get headshots for criticals or using your class skill to do extra damage, and the enemies will die. The strategies the enemies use change a bit, mostly when you get to the Crimson Lance enemies, or in the expansions, but most of the time you're fighting bandits, and everything tends to go the same way. You're not relying on your own skills too much though, as a huge factor is what gear you get in random drops, and sometimes you'll be scraping by on a too-low level gun, or find one that is so much better than your others that you'll only be using that gun for a long damn time.

Still, that was a long paragraph that basically boiled down to me as "I needed to take breaks from the game at times." It is still an amazingly fun game, it just tends to wear on you a bit when you go from place to place shooting the same guys. The personality of the game goes a long way to alleviating the annoyances.

The game and all of its expansions are completed, finished on second run. Don't have all the achievements, but many of them require multiplayer on the old Gamespy network, so...no dice there.

Beaten: Star Wars: Dark Forces (on 3/30/13)

System: PC (via DOSBox)
Status: Beaten (on 3/30/13)

For a while in the spring of 2013, I started on a small retro-PC game spree, mostly kicked off by a list of worthwhile DOS games I found (Link). I actually for a while was seeking to mark most of them off as played and beaten, though a few of them are not my sort of game at all, or are so dated compared to modern versions I likely won't bother. Dark Forces was one I actually got through, and have been meaning to ever since I bought it at a flea market in ages past...and it wouldn't run on my PC.

Dark Forces holds up in some aspects ok, it is still a decent shooter, and the story itself holds well as a Star Wars story, though not so much as some other games set in the universe (Force Unleashed, etc). However, a lot of the levels suffer from rather unintuitive design choices, and though you have multiple 'lives' so to speak, you'll find yourself save scumming so you don't waste them and ammunition, since often the stuff you need to get through a level are through tricky jumping puzzles, or completely strange and seemingly suicidal paths. This game has a lot of issues the original Half-Life has, they wanted to do something more, but the controls and design don't hold up to it.

I finished the game on normal, which leaves the harder difficulty for completion...which will be a long time in coming, that final boss is an asshole. At least you can replay individual levels on the higher difficulty, so when I get back to it I can check off levels.

Beaten: Half-Life 2: Episode 1

System: PC
Status: Beaten (on 2/11/13)

Now this is more like it. Half-Life Two is a major step up, and the episodes after do so much to improve on what they do with the story telling and action scenes. Half-life is a series that puts a lot of emphasis on set pieces, and this game has plenty of memorable ones. The main issues with the episodes being that they are well, episodic, and thus short. My only complaint with the half-life two line is the rather strange streaming content they do to make it run smoother, which causes my PC all sorts of headaches. I typically have to exit out after an hour or two of playing to let it clean itself out of memory, otherwise I get tons of stuttering. Have yet to find a way to fix the issue.

Beaten: Half-Life

System: PC
Status: Beaten (on 2/8/13)

Let's face it guys, fifteen year old shooters do not usually hold up well...and this one especially does  not. The game was groundbreaking in its time for how it approached storytelling, and the AI for the humanoid enemies not being as dumb as a box of rocks. However, this game has basically no indication of right path vs wrong path, or really what you should be doing/where you should be going next. That wouldn't necessarily be so bad, except that a wrong decision that you survive making can truly screw up your game. For example, for the longest time I was stuck in the launch center, where large tentacles swing at you when you run through. If you run through and go to the wrong place, or think that you could maybe kill one of them, you waste a lot of supplies doing so. I had to read a step by step fact to get any idea what I was supposed to do or where to go.

The platforming in the game is atrocious, and made only worse when you get to the end. Someone apparently thought a game with terrible jumping mechanics deserved an entire alien world where you have no indication which way to jump, and the slightest mistake kills you. You're not even sure whether you should save after each jump, as it might mean you saved in a spot where you are now stuck and have to die. I do not feel the least amount of regret in admitting I cheated my way past the last section of the game, as it very nearly ruined what little appreciation I had for the game. Thankfully, the sequels got way better.

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.

Post-Move Quick Fixes

So yeah, moving really puts a kink in your gaming schedule. It's also really hard to play enough of one game to come up with a full post for any one in particular. To get back in the habit, here's some quick fixes for what I've been playing:

 

Man, I really want to like this game, mostly because of its status as a classic, but its getting really hard to keep playing this and even finish it with how bad its getting at times. I've never had to check a FAQ for an FPS game before, but I have to do it near constantly with this one. One moment, you're supposed to avoid a mined area, and the next a guy with a shotgun near one means 'clear it out'. There is almost no intuitive 'you should go here next' going on, and choosing wrong could either waste supplies (some of which you -need- to keep going), or get you some more depending on your luck. The movement is still slippery, and yet at the same time I keep getting caught up in corners. To top it all off, the game itself uses a weird memory load procedure, and thus my playtime is entirely limited to when it starts to get jerky, then I have to either quit out and reload, or just stop for the night. The bugs are really getting bad, I'm at a point where you need to cross in front of a sniper, so obviously you're supposed to toss a grenade up into his nest (his netting for some reason is bullet proof). Except A) Gordon tosses like a girl and its near impossible to get any distance on the grenades, and B) A total of 8 grenades went in, didn't explode due to some bug. This is about where I stopped.

This is almost entirely a guilty pleasure now, considering how long I have to get to 'complete' status and how random any progression is. Still very fun and challenging though. Trying to get through the challenge mode so I can have some more options in the main game. As with all rogue-likes though, I feel bad playing them because it is never definite progress. Means the game is truly fun though.

I actually beat this game a long time ago, but 'beaten' for it is only beating the Elite 4 the first time, and there's so much more to do. Over the past two weeks, I basically beat all the Kanto Gym Leaders, beat Red (the hardest match in the game), and re-challenged the Elite 4. That leaves re-challenging the gym leaders, which is a pain due to them only being available to get their numbers at a certain time...then you can only challenge them again at another time. I may just sit for an evening and screw around with the DS clock so I can finish it. Other than that, need to snag all the legendaries and I can call this complete.

To this games credit, its a near perfect mobile game experience. You can pick it up, complete one or two missions, save, put it back down, and when you next pick it back up you really don't have to remember where you were. I'll do a larger one on this one later because there's far more to cover, but essentially they improved on everything from the first game, removed a lot of the annoyances, and made the class system more intriguing (and way less broken). Still some small little quibbles, but I've been enjoying it. Mostly doing sidequests, I -think- I'm almost finished with the story, based on the quest list.

I actually try not to mention this one, and I'm kinda avoiding doing a full review since so much has already been said and its constantly changing still. I do have to say though, I love this game. There are minor quibbles, but I do truly enjoy booting it up, killing some monsters, having shinies drop (even if they end up not being upgrades), then logging out without any requirements to log back in. I put it down for a month or two, picked it back up recently, and had no problems swinging back in. I think its going to be a 'pick up at patch to see whats new' for most people though.

Daily Review: Half-Life

Daily Review

Half-Life

System: PC (Steam)
Status: Unfinished
Currently: Silo area

I suppose it is only natural when you go back to a much older PC FPS that you run into things that will just irk you, especially if you've played the later ones. To be honest, I've always heard great things about Half-Life, but never being a bit PC gamer nor an FPS player, I never really picked it up. The summer sale on Steam was a great opportunity to do so.

Admittedly, I'm probably not even halfway through it, but it has aged...eh, fairly well. The controls are floaty, which is very bad in a game where they put so much emphasis on proper movement, jumping, landing, and not getting electrocuted or falling to your death. The environment has killed me far more times than the enemies. The use of 'cat scares' is so overdone at this point, but I suppose it was fair for its day, and the graphics still do a passable job of communicating what needs to be communicated.

My main issue is at times you can't tell where you're supposed to be going to progress, or if you're currently on a branch with extra ammo...or completely lost. Several times so far, I've gone down a branch that made every indication of being a main route (dialogue from enemies and a new area you hadn't been to yet that you could see), but had to backtrack for a minute or so and take another branch to actually continue. I'm currently in the Silo, which apparently you are supposed to test fire the rocket engine. I spent a few minutes around the fuel area, wondering why I couldn't go anywhere, till I finally took another path and turned on the power...and now am rather stuck trying to find the oxygen area since I still can't go to the fuel area. Each time I leave one of those areas of course, the big baddie with the grasping claws kills me several times trying to go through the middle, and I waste more ammo knocking it down for a few seconds to get clear. Putting it down for now to take a little break.