It's been quite a while since my Diablo 3 rant and since then Blizzard has patched some of the terrible stuff about the game like they made Inferno relatively playable now. AND they admitted the game has no long term staying power the way it's made at this point. These are all GOOD signs, but thankfully the game isn't fixed yet. I say this because it has allowed me to play other games...many other games. So in a non-traditional event I am going to post my thoughts on those games as briefly as I can.
Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together
There was a time when I bought 4 PSP games for like $30 and this was one of them along with 3rd Birthday which I reviewed earlier. Tactics Ogre I played first assuming it was the longest one of the 4, and that I'd probably like it....Well I was right that it was the LONGEST, but I sure as hell didn't like it. This was one of those games where I couldn't find any redeeming value to it. It was overly long, terrible story, essentially non-existant characters (ie they had zero personality), terrible classes to use, bland graphics, forgettable music, and the most CUMBERSOME menus and equipping I have ever seen in my life. Basically the class system forced you to buy skills for each character and then equip them, but you only got a limited number of skills to equip at any given time so whenever you had to strategically swap out skills it was a painstakingly extensive process and entirely senseless waste of time. Of the 60 hours it took me to complete this game I'd argue 20 hours were spent mining the menus, equipping, skill buying and equipping, and just general management. Hours and hours were wasted on this very tedious process of ensuring my character's points were spent and skills equipped. I can't tell you how many times I would buy a skill and then move on to the next battle before I realized I did not equip it too and thus didn't have access to it. Friggin terrible system.
If the plot could have made up for it I would have forgiven a lot of that, but it was a downright snooze-fest. Plus it didn't make any sense. Your main character is trying to save his "sister" who you later find out isn't your sister and she hates you because you didn't pay enough attention to her. SERIOUSLY, she turns to the evil group of the game and LEAVES you because you "care more about the war than her." This made me just want to smack her and sit her ass down to get back in the kitchen, then I realized she's supposed to be my fucking SISTER and not wife....lol. Never the less I could not get behind any character's motivations in this game. The main character finds out she isn't his sister after a while but STILL she is used as an effective bargaining chip to be used to draw him out anyway. He still wants to save her even though she clearly backstabbed him and left! There's a way to cause a bad ending where she commits suicide after you confront her. And NOT because she admits she's WRONG either, but because she is STILL butthurt that you "don't pay attention to her..." Even though your ENTIRE quest is to get her back and SAVE her after she leaves you. Yeah I'm not thinking about YOU at all. Get shit on, honestly.
Jeanne D'arc
This being my 3rd PSP game in my 4 game purchase I have been off and on with this game for a LONG time. At first I was enjoying it quite a bit. For a strategy RPG there isn't much team management, or skill buying and grinding. It is very self contained and flows rather well. It definitely does a much better job at trying to be a fun game compared to Tactics Ogre. On those merits alone it's a better game. But it goes beyond that too. The game clearly gives a shit about its story and actually bothers to have MANY animated cut-scenes throughout the game unlike Tactics which had none. Sadly, the game's story is a mess. It's loosely based off of Joan of Arc who was a religious nutbag who thought god was telling her to lead an army to save France. A similar premise is seen here in this game where your main character thinks she hears the voice of god and uses this high and mighty stance to march armies into the fray. They never really question her either, and for the most part blindly follow her even though she's a total bitch. At one point in the game Jeanne is removed from the party and her best friend takes up the role and pretends to hear voices too. She turns out to be even MORE of a bitch and far less of a tactician eventually getting caught and burned to death. This is SUPPOSED to be a sad scene but I was like, good, burn you stupid bitch.
The game never writes any of the characters in a likeable way. They are very detached from the overall harm they cause or they are blank slates like the male lead who quite literally lost his memory. So you find yourself rooting for them ONLY because the opposition is clearly evil as they are demons and the undead. But otherwise these people are deluded morons. My other major complaint are the villains. The bulk of the people you fight are overly recurring opponents. By that I mean the game shows you killing the same characters after every encounter yet they still pursue you. It has this very Team Rocket (pokemon) feel to it after a while. Like, oh I just saw you get stabbed, commit suicide, executed by your own allies and oh? What's that you're fighting me again now? Hooooooow? The game never makes it a point to show these guys get resurrected, or say they are magical in some way because they aren't. The major offender here is this Knight named Talbot? I think it's Talbot....anyway you kill him roughly 10 times and he never dies...in fact he ends up helping you just before the final mission like the tool he is.
To cut this short, I'm ultimately glad I never have to play the game ever again.
Street Fighter x Tekken
A big stink swirls over this game, and that being the DLC characters are already on the disc and Capcom is going to charge us $20 to unlock them. This has caused a HUGE backlash over the game to such a point the fighting game community really actively hates this game. I am presently watching EVO the annual Superbowl of fighting games that spans 3 streams and hundreds of people in attendance and not ONE stream is covering the newest fighting game, Street Fighter x Tekken. But it's not completely because of this Capcom betrayal, but also because it's seen as an inferior game in general. And yeah it has issues. You can block stun opponents off of continues jabs which is annoying as fuck, the timer runs out more often than not because super moves eat up too much time and other various reasons, the gem system is pretty useless as is pandora mode, tatsus are + a billion on block which means they can be used for an automatic "get in" tool without any real punishment. There are cheap loops in the game, and initially there were some infinite combos but both of these are or will be patched out.
For me personally I enjoyed the game a lot. I loved the tagging system and the creativity that can be created off of it with the juggle system, and I especially love that Vega is a good character in this game FINALLY. At a casual level I feel the game is quite enjoyable, plus I am not butthurt by Capcom's choice to lock content on the disc. For me...what's the fucking difference if a company makes DLC and isn't on the disc but got completed before release anyway and sells it, or a company puts in on the disc and locks it away and charges you for it? For the consumer in one instance you are downloading a large file and in Capcom's method you are downloading a small file...that's really the major difference. Big whoop, quit bitching. A company is going to charge you for DLC whether you like it or not no matter the delivery method. I prefer this to buying a new disc. $20 for more content as opposed to the $40 Super Street Fighter was, or the $40 Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 was.
Still, SFxTekken is quite a good fighting game, and Capcom is working on fixing things the fighting game community has been complaining about. Is it too little too late? Probably. Will the game pick up again after the new characters release? Doubtful. But I'll still enjoy it.
Fallout New Vegas:
I FINALLY got around to finishing this game. It's not too shabby and I prefer the Fallout games over the Elder Scroll games just on combat alone being better in the Fallout games. Fallout New Vegas is basically the same as Fallout 3. The major difference to me is New Vegas offers A LOT more choices in how you go about the quests. There are multiple ways to complete everything and then multiple ways to complete those multiple ways....It's a double-edged sword in a way...on the one hand the freedom is nice but on the other you have trouble figuring out your consequences or who's evil and who's good....or rather who the GAME thinks is evil and who the GAME thinks is good. Since the game revolves around moral choice like the previous game, you set out to either pick evil options or good ones. The problem with this game is those choices are not so obvious. They aren't so obvious because the game is very faction oriented. There are like 4 different factions of people in New Vegas plus the guy that hired you to do stuff Mr. House. My initial impression of Mr. House was that he is an evil guy, so that was the motivation for many of my choices. Of the 4 factions most of them seemed evil too so I had mixed choices on helping them or wiping them out. Ultimately I ended up making mostly evil choices on accident in an attempt to be good.
This was quite annoying to say the least. On the plus side the DLC for New Vegas is meaty and pretty good. I'd say New Vegas has better DLC than Fallout 3, but my overall thoughts on New Vegas is that the whole game is DLC to Fallout 3, lol.
Penny Arcade Episode 1, 2, 3:
Penny Arcade Episode 3 recently came out and I didn't play the first 2 yet, so I plowed through all three in a week. There isn't a whole to say on these games but I will say Episode 3 is WORLDS better than the first two. The first 2 are done in 3D graphics with a point and click movement. The coding on the games is shoddy at best, there's a lot of lag time between searching loot in chests and then being able to move again, the battle system is point and click based which is irritating too. The enemies can often get in each others way and you can't click on what enemy you want, the super attacks aren't fun to do since they're a mini game...The story isn't well told in the first two games either plus they aren't very funny.
The third game does everything right by comparison. The battle system is VERY interesting and strategic with a super fun class system. The plot is much better told and many moments had me pausing the game in laughter. Though the graphics are only 16-bit style the game has way more charm and fun than the first two combined. I can't wait for episode 4 from these guys.
The Darkness II:
Played this a little while back. The new art style jogged me at first but after a while it fit the game better than the first. The plot was better since it centered around a central villain with pretty clear goals in mind. The gameplay was better too and there were many more fun ways to dispatch enemies. The game also features defined boss battles which the first game lacked. It's only real flaw is the game is like 4 hours long. But not much to bitch about here, quite a fun ride, I highly recommend it.
Saints Row 3:
I can't remember if I actually wrote a review of this game because I talk about it so much. It is quite literally the best game I've played in a LONG time. Normally I am not a fan of open world city games ala Grand Theft Auto because the gameplay is usually garbage and the enemies aren't any fun because they're just normal people. Saints Row 3 adds mutants and other oddities to fight making combat more interesting. It also helps that the 3rd person shooter gunplay of the game is the most effective I have ever seen. What sets this game apart mostly though is the writing is bar none the funniest I have ever seen in a video game. There were so many moments I was dying of laughter playing this game I can't count nor recall them all. Every bit of this game spoke to me as a human being though. From the wrestling references, to video game references to the clear digs on action movies and even B Space Opera movies this game has it all. Just when you think they can't push the envelope anymore, they do, and then they do it again. My first thoughts of Saints Row was a GTA knockoff, but frankly, Saints Row is what GTA wishes it could be, and that's fun. Realism does not a fun game make in my opinion, that is why they are video games. And NO game in my opinion recognizes that it is in fact a video game better than does Saints Row 3.
Deus Ex Human Revolution:
This game...sucked. It doesn't do anything particularly well. It doesn't have great combat, or good stealth, or a good plot. It's all very....meh. Add to that being forced into countless computer hackings made the game lag on way longer than it needed or deserved.
Alan Wake:
I briefly brought up this game in my Linearity defense article, but suffice to say this is a very good game. It conveys a very fun plot with entertaining characters. The atmosphere and sense of urgency is presented perfectly as well. The only minor complaints is it can be rather formulaic at times with each chapter presenting you a reason or excuse that Alan is traversing around at night which bugged me. Every chapter I kept wanting to tell Alan STAY PUT, WAIT TILL MORNING DIPSHIT! But no...he'd rather do everything at night....when there's evil. Whatever....
No More Heroes (PS3)
I played this game twice through almost immediately. It is a very good game filled with fun characters, interesting combat, and hilarious self referential humor. It's only major flaw is the PS3 port is GOD awful. Long ass loading times (even while saving) jittery glitchy overworld, and periods of non-responsiveness during battle. If a battle gets too intense the game literally stops reading your inputs. Do mission 20 and you see what I'm talking about in all its glory. Otherwise it's quite a good game.
Resistance 3
Good game, still not better than 1 but better than 2. More fleshed out plot than 2 which is what makes it better, also they brought back the health pack system which is a plus. They also let you carry more than 2 guns another plus. They fixed the issues of 2 essentially. Major flaw in the game is local co-op though which is how I went through the game. The AI turns retarded on local co-op not shooting at you, staying still, and generally not doing anything at all which isn't the case when you play single player. Also the multiplayer was pretty fun too from what I played.
Conclusions:
There are a couple more games I've gone through recently but they aren't that note-able plus I'm getting tired of typing, lol. But even after all those games I still have SOOO many more left to go through it's ridiculous.
*Fingers hurt now...*
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