Wow. It has been a while since I've done one of these. I'm not really all that active on Gamespot anymore, am I?
Max Payne 3 Finished Max Payne 3 tonight, and while it didn't capture the same feel as the Remedy games (which was expected. It's not a Remedy game, it's a Rockstar game), I loved it. This game captures the essence of the bullet-time fuelled gunplay flawlessly. Fantastic controls, responsive movement and shooting, beautiful animations and great art direction.
I really do miss the Remedy touch though. This game doesn't really have the same charm or sense of humor. It takes itself a little more seriously, and doesn't really toe the line between self-serious and parody like the previous titles did. That said, Max is still Max, and while his monologues aren't as flowery or elegant as they used to be, he is still the Max we know and love. Rockstar did do a great job with the story and writing, but I miss Lake's style.
Oh, one more complaint. Cutscenes. This game frequently takes the reins from the player. To an irritating degree actually. Can't even open a single f***ing door without it being accompanied by a cutscene longer then the actual gameplay leading up to it. Almost everything that doesn't involve the player shooting up a room of dudes is displayed in a cutscene, and if a scene leads straight into a shootout the game has a habit of putting you at a s***ty disadvantage in placement. This kind of destroys replayability, because it creates such segmented gameplay that you don't really get a chance to appreciate the mechanics fully. This game is begging for a horde mode. I could use some completely uninterrupted bullet-time goodness.
Other Games I'm going to try to keep this short, but i feel compelled to cover all the games I've played since I last wrote a blog. Which was about a year ago.
Deus Ex Human Revolution - Loved it. 4/5
Rage - This game is perfection when it comes to the most important part of a shooter: The gunplay and AI. It melds these two elements together so perfectly and the encounters you'll have in this game are jaw droppingly good. Everything else sucks.
3/5 Skyrim - At surface level, Skyrim looks like an expansive ocean of possibility but when you jump in, you find out pretty quick that it's only about an inch deep. I had fun exploring Skyrim, Bethesda has always been great at world building, but 3/4ths of the game is killin' dudes and the combat design is bad. It's really bad. I want to love these games, but the whole jack of all trades master of none thing isn't working for me.
2/5 Gears of War 3 - Over the years the Gears formula has become stale in my eyes. There are some very cool, very memorable moments but when it comes down to the moment to moment gameplay I found that I was bored. You haul your refrigerator sized ass from battle arena to battle arena pumping a few oceans worth of bullets into mindless spongy bad guys along the way. It's a monotone experience. Save a few unique encounters, I never felt engaged by the enemies I was facing and, outside of the deliciously awesome finishers, the act of killing isn't nearly as satisfying as it should be. That said, the Multiplayer side of things is excellent. And while, the amount of bull**** I was exposed to awakens a level of anger I did not know I was capable of, it's still fun.
3/5 LA Noire - This is a weird one. I think LA Noire is pretty terrible in the execution of it's formula, It has a lot of problems, but for some reason I'm able to completely overlook all the terribleness because each case manages to catch my interest and makes me care about it.
???/5 Mass Effect 3 - Pretty alright.
3/5 DIIAABBLLOOO I'm thinking, that maybe, Diablo III isn't my kind of game. Don't get me wrong, it's fun, I really enjoyed playing through the game with my buddies, but as I move onto to my third playthrough on the Hell difficulty the game the fun is slowly draining away and is being replaced by frustration and tedium. This image really explains everything.
Makes me want to drive my fist through my f***ing monitor.
E3 Next Week 
It's that time of year again! Prepare yourselves for disappointment and hilarity! Things I'm looking forward to:
Gears of War Judgement - You might be saying, "yo, alex, didn't you just get done saying that Gears of Wars gameplay is stale". Yeh, I did, but I share the same attitude towards the Halo games, and the disappointment there hasn't stopped me from purchasing the next installment in hopes that I'll like it. But seriously, I'm interested because People Can Fly is developing, and there are rumors of the game having more freedom and player choice. If I remember correctly, after Gears released, CliffyB was banging on and on about how linearity is something he wish he cut down on in Gears 3, and players . So, I have hope that this game reflects his latest feelings on game design.
Here's his quote on this: "My favorite games lately are the ones when you come into a hallway and you are like, Oh, how did that dungeon instance turn out for you? Oh, well I went in as a mage and I did this or I snuck entirely through that one, or, I havent even seen that, where is that. As opposed to, Yes, I came around the exact same corner, and I saw the exact same tower fall, and I saw the exact same experience. And if you look at it from a production standpoint, the fancy falling tower in the scripted experience is actually much more expensive but it yields far less of the actual gameplay."
And I agree with him completely. There is still room for games that model themselves after roller coaster rides, but I'm far more interested in the games that allow me to have a bit of freedom in my course of action.
Crysis 3 - So, Cevat is saying they're going back to their roots with this, so I'm interested to see if this is true. I want them to prove it with this gameplay demo, and I'll be really disappointed if they try to show of some scripted set piece they crafted.
Tomb Raider - Again, please don't show us a ****ing set piece like you did last year, show us this exploratory, HUB based gameplay you keep talking about. I want to see platforming and tomb raiding, not Lara shooting fools in the face with a hand cannon whilst running across an exploding bridge.
Dishonored - This is probably my most anticipated game of Fall. Thief and Deus Ex mashed together and accompanied by some incredible art design. EMERGENT GAMEPLAY YO.
Unreal Engine 4 - This isn't a game, but I love beautiful graphics. They're important to me.
Thief IV - After seeing what Eidos Montreal did with Deus Ex HR, I'm really excited to see this.
New IPs - lol.
I'll probably throw another blog up here once E3 is over, or all the major conferences have aired. Also, looking forward to the GUFU irc madness during the conferences!
Well, I see that Gamespot's HTML formatting is still screwed up beyond belief.
Log in to comment