Best Of

@XGPHero said:
Myrmidon, I have been interested in trying the crysis series for a while, and i seem to remember you mentioning it in an earlier review of an unrelated game. any opinions on crysis?

I could write a dissertation, good sir. Here's the short version (lol).

Pros:
Beautiful. Absolutely, absolutely beautiful.
Good overall idea - I love the idea of a nanosuit, or any augmented character.
Good combat AI - sometimes a little unrealistically observant.
Interesting environmental interactions for its time.
Limited suit power forced tactical decisions instead of 'insta-god mode.' Meaningful, fast choices ALWAYS get a +1.

Cons:
Gameplay felt somewhat clunky. Addition of hotkeys for the suit helps, but you can really tell you're not on the unreal or source engine.
Existence of the 'invisible wall,' in the form of 'LOL U LEAVE DIS ZONE N WE SHOOT U' badly hampers the 'directed open world' that they were touting.
Terrible AI for stealth purposes - cloaking can really only be used for a quick tactical advantage, not for actual sneaking.
Storyline was... a little on the contrived side. Can't remember how I felt about the voice acting, but I'm always wary of military voice acting.
Cliffhanger. Fuck your cliffhanger.
Still follows the very-formulaic linear FPS model, despite trying to be open-world.

Most of my excitement is due to the imagination that the suit and the large map give me. I like to IMAGINE how I would proceed through a military compound. I know other folks really enjoyed observing how they handled environmental reaction - which interested me somewhat less, but IS definitely a factor in realism.

Most of my gripes from the awful approach to 'directed open-world.' The only thing 'open-world' about is that the maps are bigger. And 'directed' implies a little more subtlety than map edges that kill you and AI that only permits a run-and-gun approach. See the Left 4 Dead commentary for how to subtly direct players. It'll open your eyes.

I would say it's worth playing if you get it for cheap, but it won't exactly blow your socks off unless you're really into graphical detail - given the choice between Crysis and, say, Bioshock (both big-name augmentation/story driven linear FPSs), I'd take the latter every time.

Analogue: A Hate Story

I bought this game on a whim and spent about 3 hours going through it at Terin's parents's house. This is a text-driven game, so if you lose patience reading, this is not the game for you.

Now, I am not a great writing critic. I tend to pay attention to things I shouldn't pay attention to, and I tend to value the use of comic relief... which skews me toward books with tension that have actual NEED of comic relief. So anything I say about writing, feel free to ignore.

Also anything I say about games, because let's face it, I'm a grouch!

Moving along...

From a gameplay perspective, I actually enjoyed Analogue. I like to read, so the text-heavy stuff didn't bother me. The simplistic operating system setup was fairly interesting, and I liked the investigator's role that they threw you into. The static 2D displays made the use of dynamic effects (namely the signal static during the only tense part) particularly jarring, which was exactly what it was going for - a reminder that your role in the game wasn't just written in to give you a thin reason to read the story, but that you were actually doing something.

Unfortunately, your role in the game WAS just written in to give you a thin reason to read a story. The eventual choice you must make at the end is really the only other interaction you have with that role. However, I choose to look at Analogue not as a story-driven game, but as an interactivity-driven book - an outlook that IMMEDIATELY puts the game's innovation into focus.

From a WRITING perspective... well, I can take it or leave it. It isn't the best story I've ever read, but it's also not the worst. The AI characters were one-sided, but I tend to believe that's by design (as you're really listening to a snapshot of the characters AFTER the story, as they REFLECT on the story... well after any dynamic growth had taken place). The characters in the story don't have that excuse, though. Some of them were mildly dynamic, but most of them felt like afterthoughts.

The plot felt a little childish in more places than one. It was as if the writer had selected a social paradigm for everyone, then forced every character into that paradigm - effectively creating a stereotype and making it true. I don't feel like the plot utilized the characters for development, but merely dealt with the characters as obstacles. The dialogue also felt very childish - as if each character were talking with the same voice.

What really irritated me was the pandering to varying themes of "nerd relationships" and sexuality. No, I don't need to take a fembot AI girlfriend home who's going to gush and fawn over my every word. Nor do I need to play cosplay dress-up and put her in a french maid outfit while she winks and blows kisses. This girl is a

in a spaceship that wouldn't put up with the simplest feminine expression, much less cutesy cosplay tailoring pursuits, for fuck's sake! How in the hell does that fit the story, or the paradigm that shaped it?

Furthermore, the choices that decide whether the AI 'likes' or 'dislikes' me are so blunt, they might as well be a job application from the late 90's. You ever fill one of those out?

"Choose the response that best fits your attitude. When a co-worker upsets me, I:
A. Attempt to resolve the problem by talking it through.
B. Set fire to his car."

Look, there's a time and a place for this sort of programming, and hey, whatever gets your rocks off - I won't judge for your jollies. But this was such a tacked-on, poorly-done, massive distraction that I legitimately feel it was added late in the game in an attempt to appeal to a stereotypical lonely anime-loving gamer who wants a waifu SO BAD. And for what? More revenue? Stick to your ideals! You have a game that tells a story, with themes about feminism, societal pressure, and human evil. You make one of the main protaganists the 'straight man' in this anti-female world, someone that your readers could relate to, and what... she's willing to dress up for and fall in love with a total stranger and be some kawaii robot girlfriend over the course of a couple hours?

Theme undermining: complete.

Ranting aside, I enjoyed Analogue. I enjoyed it as an innovative look at the stuff we COULD do as a book. I enjoyed imagining the setup and the overall story paradigm. I mean, I disliked a pretty big part of the writing style and thought the delivery was childish, and I absolutely hated the tacked-on affection angle, but in reality, we need more games like this that try to break the same-old-formula mold.

Just... maybe with different writers and a more cohesive theme.

Crypt of the Necrodancer

Crypt of the Necrodancer is... it's something else, man.

The game is in Early Release on Steam right now. I don't usually buy ER games, but I played this at a friend's house... and my god. Prepare for a deviation from my normally crotchety reviews:

I am thinking very, very, very hard... and there is legitimately NOTHING that I can think of that is wrong with this game. This might be one of the best programs I've ever installed on a computer.

You know what? There is one thing - it's not done yet. I WANT TO PLAY FLOOR 4 SO DAMN BAD!

Okay, two - the review videos don't do it justice. At all. Not even mildly. Not even KIND of mildly. In fact, I watched them and I was LESS excited for the game - they're not bad, it's just that the game itself is so, so good.

Necrodancer is, at one of its hearts, a rogue-like. It checks everything on the list - dungeon crawling, loot, permanent deaths (more or less), spells, swords, dragons, minimalistic storyline - basically one big machine gun to the pleasure center of your brain. But it's that other heart it's got - that other heart makes it shine. You ready for this?

At its other heart, Necrodancer is a rhythm game. You play the game to a song. Each 'turn' of the game takes place in the beat of the song. Miss a beat? Skip your turn. You think ahead like a roguelike and you make tactical calls like a roguelike, but you have to do it fast.

And best of all? The whole time, you are rocking out. The music is so good, so fitting, and so dynamic that it really is one of the main characters. Deafened? The music leaves your side, but the bass comes with. Shrine of Rhythm? The music stops acting as your guide and starts acting as your judge, jury, and executioner. Nearing a delicious loot bonanza? The music gleefully warns you and drags in you the right direction. It keeps your foes in check, it leads you through the dungeon, it paces your heart - and if you don't believe in music as a character, you can choose a protagonist that is not bound by the beat. And when you do, you will feel like a traitor.

You NEED to play this. You need to put money down on this and play it, even in its unfinished state. This is innovation up and down the board. A simple plan, solid pixel art, good design ideas, and one great big twist that changes the ENTIRE genre.