Great Shit You Haven't Played: Nier
Posted on Friday, January 20 2012 @ 22:29:16 Eastern

So today, we’re going to hit up a game from about two years ago that’s now available for $15 used, Nier.
 
Nier is the last game made by the now defunct Cavia Inc. and published by Square-Enix. You’ll remember Cavia for the many, uh, games they’ve made like Bullet Witch and Drakengard, and I should probably stop mentioning their previous games. Anyway, remember Drakengard, because it’s important. See, Nier is a spin-off of sorts, with the story stemming from a secret joke ending from the first Drakengard game, which brings me into the first and arguably biggest point of why Nier is such a worthy game, its story.
 
Now, this is a sort of tricky matter to get into without giving too much away, so let me just say that Nier has one of the best stories of this generation, as well as some of the best storytelling and characterization. And the characters are really a major part of this. Despite being supernatural, the characters are all realistic in their progression and the ways that they act. The game is told from the perspective of the main character Nier, a scraggly old man who spends most of the game caring for his daughter Yonah in a world so post-apocalyptic that it’s borderline medieval. Now the first interesting part of the game is that it is told through his perspective. Things that are important to him get heavier focus, while the things he wouldn’t find so interesting are played more subtly, albeit with some importance still. An example of this is an unlikely character slowly falls in love with him, which is hard to notice unless you know what to look for. What this also means is that the game doesn’t spoonfeed you every little aspect about every little character. However, the information does exist, should you go to find it. This is something few video games do, despite this being a unique ability video games have in storytelling. So you need to read everything you get and talk to anyone important to get the full scoop.

Here’s where things get interesting. So you beat the game, read all the little files you get, and you think you know the entirety of the story. All done right? Well, not quite. The game gives you the option of starting a New Game Plus at about the 2/3rds marker, where it’ll take you maybe five or six hours to beat the game again, which is something you should definitely do. See, like I said, the game takes place through Nier’s perspective. So upon beating the game you get to experience the same events through and entirely different perspective, one radically unlike Nier’s. And upon completion of a second playthrough, you get another ending that gives you a deeper, greater look at the story. And then comes the next playthrough. See, neither of those endings are the “true” ending to the game. If you gather up all the weapons in the game (don’t fret, there aren’t many) and beat it once more, you get to go to one of the “true” endings. These are, easily, worth every minute spent trying to achieve them, as they are some of the best endings ever made. Simple as that. And since there are two true endings, it means you’ll have to beat the game three times to get what is probably the most powerful ending to any game in recent history. (In my opinion, I think this makes it a hard game to review, since you have to do so much to get the full story. But like I’ve said, it’s worth it.)
 
The other main aspect of glory is the music. It’s all brilliantly mastered and written, with the classic “foreign chanting” made to sound like an ancient civilization has passed by. Very well done, nuff said.
 
Of course, music and story aside, Nier does have its problems. First of all, the combat is about as average as it gets. It gets the job done, no more, no less. There’s really not that much I can say, because there really isn’t that much to it. There’s some bullet hell parts to it, but they’re easily avoided or blocked, and that’s about it. The only really interesting part is the word system, which powers up your weapons and magic depending on what you do with them. To put it simply, the combat works. It isn’t anything to write home about, and it isn’t the driving point of the game, but it works.
 
The other main problem of the game is there’s far too many little things in it. You can fish, you can hunt, you can grow crops, there are TONS of sidequests. But they really don’t do anything for the game. You only have to hunt and fish once in the beginning, and both times it pretty much does it for you, and that’s it. And when it comes to the sidequests, unless you’re doing it for an achievement (which I wouldn’t recommend until you’ve beaten the game a number of times) you’re going to want to skip all of them, or at least follow this chart. Basically, fishing and farming are there to fill up time, but they really do detract enjoyment from the game if you try to do everything in them.
 
Nier is an uncut diamond in the greatest way. If you were to chisel away the drier environments, polish the combat, and cut down on the sidequests, it would be one of the greatest games available. As it is, it’s a game definitely worth playing.
 
DO NOT play it if:
You don’t care for story/music/etc.
You want to focus entirely on combat
 
DO play it if:
The above don’t qualify
 
Also, fun fact: In Japan, there are two versions of Nier. The PS3 version has a young protagonist with his sister, while the 360 version is the old man and his daughter. Originally, only the old man version was planned, but the producers (Square Enix. Go figure) insisted on having a younger, teenage protagonist. Only the old man version was localized to the west.

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Lucy in the Sky with Dragons
Posted on Friday, December 16 2011 @ 22:18:25 Eastern

By now I’m sure we’ve all seen way too much on the new Elder Scrolls game, about how it is the greatest thing ever and all of that. And sure, it’s a good, solid game, but I’m going to cut to the chase. It does not deserve nearly as much praise as it’s getting. While being above average, it’s too much of a flawed gem, rushed into production and left with corners cut improperly. And the fact that it’s a possible GotY for many credible, professional sources is disappointing, since that means that it’s either been a bad year or they might not be so professional after all. Now I wouldn’t be making claims these big if I didn’t plan on backing them up, so let’s get to that.
 
Truthfully, the hard part here is where to start with all of this. As the game is first and foremost called an RPG, as well as being called one of the best RPGs of the year, let’s start there. To put it in quite simple terms, Skyrim is an inferior RPG to its predecessors, Morrowind and Oblivion, as well as games that use similar systems such as Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Again, heavy claims, but here’s why. Right off the bat, the big thing that drops it down points below the other games is the overall lack of attributes. Now this is a big loss because attributes do what skills alone cannot, and really help differentiate the RPG genre from the action genre. They are the growth of what your character is, not just what they can do. What this does, more than anything, is adds greatly to the “roleplaying” aspect of the game. It makes each character you make unique, and not just in what they can do. While I can go on much more on that, for time’s sake I’m just going to move on.
 
So right off the bat the lack of attributes can easily makes it an inferior RPG to its predecessors. However, that’s merely just the start. Another removal was the overall lack of classes, instead starting off all characters as a jack of all trades. In fact, when you start the game, the only choice you’re given is between race, which is hardly the choice it was in prior games. You see, what really defined the differences between the various races was their attribute, which as mentioned earlier has been removed from the game. So now, the only differences between races are a five level increase in a few skills and a single special power. This means that every race start out at almost the exact same skill level for everything. Orcs are just as good with bows as bosmer and just as good at spells as dunmer, and all three of them start with the same health, stamina, and magicka. And since there are no classes, there’s no real opportunity to get a leg up on any skill you plan to use in that playthrough.
 
Now let’s compare that to other games that’ve come out this year. In terms of RPG’s, the two biggest competitors are Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Dark Souls. While Deus Ex suffers many of the same pitfalls as Skyrim, it does one thing better. As you level up, your character is able to do more, rather than just be better. In Skyrim, everything you wish to do is available from the beginning, with the exception of the two crafting skills. Leveling up increases one percentage, be it damage or ability, and that’s it. New abilities, a greater use of weapons, and other things that create a variation are, for the most part, lost. The RPG system is simply enough to give a sense of progression and character growth, with the actual growth being very little. When compared to Dark Souls, both this and the lack of attributes become more pronounced problems. While Dark Souls has less in the way of new abilities, you can feel your character growth more directly. Increases in endurance allow you to move faster and roll more effectively in heavier armor, creating more dramatic changes to your playstyle. Your stats also dictate which weapons you’re able to use, as heavier weapons cannot be used without a high strength requirement, magic items cannot be used without a certain intelligence, etc.
 
Of course, the RPG part alone may keep it from really being the best RPG of the year, but that doesn’t mean there are other parts where it excels, right? Well, sort of, but not really. The thing about Skyrim is that it’s one step in ten directions rather than walking far in any direction, which really doesn’t put it so far forward. And because it’s spread so thin in so many different directions, no one part of it really excels.
 
For example, let’s look at one of the biggest aspects of the game, the quests. While there are a lot of quests to do, very few quests are really that spectacular or original. Most of the quests put you in one of the many linear caves to find an item, akin to quests in an MMO. Of the quests, there are also very few that offer a variance in outcomes or even ways to complete it. Few quests are especially memorable due to these two factors. And then there are the quest lines themselves, such as the Theives Guild and the Mages Guild. The problems plaguing these questlines are that they’re too short and have little to do with the focus of the guilds themselves. After you’ve completed a very simple entrance trial, you’re admitted into the guild, where the main quests involve going through dungeons rather than actually focusing on magic or thievery, as per those examples. In the Companions, you’re admitted into the reclusive inner circle within a few quests and become the head of the guild in a few more. These lines lack the real feel of actual progression through the ranks, instead just moving you from initiate straight to a position of total power.
 
Because the world and game is so spread out, it’s also much harder for them to tell an interesting story, causing them to mostly fail in that regard. The main quest exists almost solely to give a reason for dragons to exist in a world when they previously did not, without having a major climax or satisfying conclusion to it. The end boss is treated no differently from any other dragon in the game, and again, most of it is rather short.
 
These sacrifices in story and quests seem to have been made for the sake of the gameplay of the game, which, unfortunately, fails to dazzle. The actual combat is simplistic and somewhat mediocre. As there is no way to avoid damage except to block, you must tank all of the damage in the game while using whatever you use to attack. What this means, in more simple terms, is that every enemy is fought in the same way. The only real difference between enemies is how much damage they deal and how much health they have. There’s little need for any real tactics or altering in playstyle for most enemies save for the ones who can kill you in a single hit, which brings about another problem altogether since, as previously mentioned, there’s no real way to fight without tanking the damage enemies throw at you.
 
The other aspect of the gameplay is exploration, and while the main part of the world is well done and can be quite beautiful, everything below the ground really fails to impress, much in the same way as the combat. The first time one enters a dwemer ruin, for example, they may be impressed with the steampunk style. However, it becomes more and more evident as you advance through that each of these ruins in more or less the same, with little variation between them. The same can be said of the many other caves and dungeons that appear in the game. Most all of them are a linear path that goes around in a loop, with tiny branches off that lead to small bits of loot, and little else. There are few to no puzzles, with the few usually being either claw puzzles, each with the same, simple solution, or rotating stone puzzles, again each with a simple solution that’s given right to you.
 
Now most of this gets overlooked due to the fact that the game is entertaining or, for the most simple word, fun. However, it’s very important to remember that fun is a subjective quality, or one that is unique entirely to the individual. While I could easily write plenty on this alone, to put it simply this means that the amount of fun you have playing a game is indirectly proportional to the quality of the game, which is objective. So the amount of fun a game can be said to be really isn’t an indicator of how good the game is, since it’s very possible to have fun with any game.
 
So, then, let’s look instead at why the game is so addicting. The reason for the addictiveness is akin to that of an MMORPG, or potato chips. Rather than be set up in one continuous set, it’s a bunch of small bites. Each action you do rewards you just enough to placate you keep you interested without enough to keep you fully satisfied, causing you to want more. And it offers plenty, thus providing you with plenty of opportunities to repeat this process for hours upon hours. While this quality extends its longetivity, it cannot be held in the same regard as a higher class meal.
 
Truthfully, I’m really just touching the briefs on this for the purpose of time and effort on my part, so allow me to cut to the chase. The pointing out of all these flaws in the game wasn’t done to say that the game is bad. Far from it, in fact. Skyrim is a very good game in most regards. However, that’s the very point that I’m making. Skyrim is simply good, above the average. It’s hardly a breakthrough, is far from revolutionary, and is sure not the best game of the year.
 

Really, all of this comes down to a single statement.
If the best game of the year is really so flawed that someone like me can write nearly two thousand words on all of its shortcomings and faults and STILL have plenty to write about… this year sucked.

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My long-winded Mass Effect 2 rant
Posted on Wednesday, October 12 2011 @ 00:55:15 Eastern

With the announcement of the whole Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, I’ve said a few things I probably need to elaborate more. Mostly about Mass Effect 2, which I believe is a bit off the mark and really what invalidates any concerns about Mass Effect 3 that could come in. Because as the expression goes, once you’re at rock bottom the only way to go is up. And while it can go down further, since Mass Effect 2 is by no means a bad game, it’ll be hard to fall that far from the point twice.
 
But even then, every little problem is so connected with one another it’s hard to start without having to reiterate yourself several times. So let me just start with the why. Why Mass Effect 2 completely fails in regards to story is because of two reasons key reasons. One because they replaced the lead writer with a person with very different views on the way things should go, and two because they try to make it a standalone game instead of a sequel. Which, let me state, is the biggest problem here. Mass Effect 2 is a good game. Not exactly a great game, but a good game. While I may act harshly towards it that point must be made clear. However, Mass Effect 2 is not, in any regards, a good sequel. And that’s partly why I’ll draw so many comparisons between it and the Star Wars prequels. While it was a far better game than the prequels were movies, Mass Effect 2 gives the old midichlorians a few times too many.
 
Now if I don’t dive right into this, I’ll end up rambling like an old man going on about the Civil War and the damn punk kids, so let’s just start with the beginning. The game starts out perfectly. It is business as usual when suddenly BAM, ship’s under attack. At this point there’s very little you could do to mess it up, but things get a little wonky right before the title drop, as you’re expected to believe that someone can get blasted into space by something powerful enough to tear through both a space ship’s hull and the shields around it, float in the vacuum of space with a ruptured space suit, and then go through reentry of an ice planet (so an extreme heat and then an extreme cold) and still be in one recoverable piece when a team arrives god knows how long after. While this could be somewhat nitpicky, it’s FAR too crucial of a scene to be simply looked over or handwaved aside. This is what sets up the entirety of the plot: the two year time lapse and main antagonists are built from this encounter, as well as your character’s relationship with the entire galaxy. And of course, this sets up your relationship with Cerberus.
 
So let’s talk about Cerberus. This is probably Mass Effect 2’s biggest problem, as it’s more or less a total retcon. Cerberus in Mass Effect 1 is probably the second biggest antagonist of the game. Consider the events of Mass Effect 1 outside the Geth and Saren. In Noveria, the Rachni was found and had tests done on it, killing everyone involved. In Feros, the Thorian took over the minds of the colonists, killing almost everyone. Both of these events were orchestrated and backed by Cerberus. Outside of the main story, they trap you in a Thresher Maw hive, continued to conduct lethal experiments on live subjects. And so in the beginning of Mass Effect 2, when they conveniently have the means to bring your conveniently still intact body back to life, you obviously have no choice but to join them.
 
I know what you’re thinking right here. The real reason you join is because no one else is doing anything about the Reapers. And that’s true, but that’s also another failing of the story. You see, there’s no in-story reason why no one believes that the Reapers don’t exist. Let’s look at the facts here. This is something that Saren, a Spectre, believed so much in that he threw away his title, went rouge, and orchestrated an attack strong enough to wipe out half the combined fleet with. This is something he, Benezia, and Shepard, the three main players in this event, all claim to exist. The reason the council claimed they dismissed the idea was because they “analyzed the remains”. Now let’s think about this for a moment here. The ship was built fundamentally different from every other Geth ship. It possessed technology no other Geth ship had, despite it being able to be placed upon almost any ship only two years later. It was likely made out of a different material than any other Geth ship. It was at least ten times the size of any of the other Geth ships, which were all the same size. And from the battle it is notable that it was almost designed perfectly to be able to interact with the Citadel, possessing intimate knowledge of the structure that neither Saren nor the Geth would be able to know.
 
So that brings us to the main point of why. Why don’t the council believe it? Like I said, it has no in-story explination, but there are two main reasons outside of the story. The first is so that you have a reason to be forced to work with Cerberus, and the second is so that you can do a big “I told you so” to the stupid aliens later on. While this again is almost a nitpicky point in any other context, it is the main driving force of the plot of the game. The whole reason you’re sent to take out the Collectors all by yourself is because the council don’t believe you. This is a kin to the Star Wars prequels, where it’s painfully obvious that Palpatine’s orchestrating the whole thing but everyone is just too stupid to look at the facts of it all, though this is almost worse.
 
Now a good point was made that you can say that you aren’t actually a part of Cerberus and say that you don’t trust them. Well, while that’s a fine and dandy way of handwaving it all it still doesn’t make up for the fact that you have no choice in whether or not you obey their orders until the very end of the game.
 
And here’s a little nitpick. Why does no one react when they learn you were brought back from the dead? The most common excuse is that the technology is there but really costly. Still, so is a Lamborghini but I don’t think many of us can say we wouldn’t **** our pants at the sight of one.

While I could keep going on about that for longer, I have other grievances that need to be aired. So lets move on to the actual story itself. In Mass Effect 2, you assemble a team to battle the Collectors, a group of aliens probably working with the Reapers. Now I’ll outline my problem with the Collectors later on, but first let’s get to how the story is laid out. The majority of the game is spent assembling your team to fight the collectors with, and then dealing with their problems. In fact, the Collectors, the supposed main antagonist group, are seen in a total of THREE sections in the whole game, the first one not even happening until you’ve reached the approximate half way point. Now considering there are at least ten other required sections of the game, and ten more on top of that which are practically required, that’s anywhere from less than one quarter to less than one eighth of the game where the Collectors are even present.  So while you know they’re there, the actual threat of the Collectors is hardly felt. Considering the entire point of the game is to stop the Collectors, you can easily see why that can be a problem.
 
Now I’m going to nitpick a little bit here before I move on once more. Beyond the failings of writing the Collectors in, they are the least original enemies ever. Why, you ask? Because they are literally a copy of the Chimera from Resistance 1. Let’s just write a simple character description of them. They’re a group of alien creatures that are actually genetically mutated to be very different, like a different species, from their former selves. They possess advanced weaponry, but their biggest weapon is not their guns but instead the swarms of insects that they can release upon an area. These insects find people and put them into a sort of coma or stasis. While they’re in this stasis, the aliens gather them up and place them in cocoons and take them to a processing plant. At the processing plant, their matter is broken down and reformed in a way that works for the aliens. They also use people to create more mindless servants and soldiers for them, including more powerful and larger creatures made up of multiple humans. They also lack all free will on their own, instead controlled by a psychic link to their leader, whose presence can turn the tide of battle. Basically, every single one of those applies to both the Chimera and Collectors.
 
Regardless, back on topic. The big thing with Mass Effect 2 is that as far as the overall story for the trilogy goes, you do not advance from your original position at all. The entire point of the game was to assemble a team to stop the Collectors because they’re working for the Reapers. However, the team you assembled is more or less useless against the Reapers, and defeating the Collectors does absolutely nothing for the story. In the beginning of Mass Effect 2, the Reapers are coming and you have to get ready for them. In the end of Mass Effect 2, the Reapers are coming and you have to get ready for them. Considering the Reapers still arrive in a VERY short time after you defeat the Collectors, what did defeating them even accomplish? If you had let them continue their collecting, what difference would it have made?  The ONLY difference is whether or not Cerberus has possession of the Collector’s base. So once again, while this would’ve been amazing if it was a standalone game, considering it’s both a sequel to one and a prequel to three, it’s a waste of space. Now the main story of the game has to be done in two games instead of three.
 
And the last thing here (which I almost forgot to touch on and had to come back to AFTER I wrote everything following it) is the whole choices thing. Besides a few cameos here and there, the choices you made in Mass Effect 1 are mostly trivial in this game, meaning that they really aren’t going to make an impact until Mass Effect 3, again showing how unimportant the game is to the overall motion of the trilogy.
 
Now that’s just outlining the problems it has as a part of the trilogy and its story. I could keep going for even longer about the problems it has in regards to being a game. So I will, though this is a lot shorter of a section.
 
First problem the game itself has is the enemies in it. As I mentioned before, the Collectors, your main antagonists, are only seen for a tiny portion of the game, and the majority of the rest of the game is shooting enemies. So then who are the enemies? Well, to fill the gap we’ve been given two groups of enemies. The first is the Geth. There is no major problem with this. The Geth are established enemies who have probable motives. The second set of enemies are different groups of nameless, faceless mercenaries. They have no motives beyond money, and it’s very hard to get motivated to fight them as enemies, as they don’t really do anything except for shoot at you. Over half of the game is spent fighting these generic mercenaries with zero relevance to the plot.
 
There are also some issues with the characters. Since this is a more opinionated part, I’ll try to leave myself out of it and instead only post facts. Of the ten loyalty missions, five of them are directly solving one character’s parental (more specifically father) issues. Of the five that are not, two are about a lack of a childhood and one is about other family issues. So of the ten loyalty missions, eight of them are about family issues. Now I’m no detective, but that strikes me as a little obvious, and makes me wonder a bit about the lead writer. Oh, and the two that aren’t about family issues are about previously failing at their job and trying to fix it.
 
As far as the actual gameplay goes, it’s good. The issues with it are really the heat sinks, the smaller amount of biotic/tech powers, the lack of customization both of weapons and character stats. Now I know a lot of people didn’t like the way the weapon customization was done in Mass Effect 1, and I don’t blame you. It didn’t bother me, but I could see why it would. But rather than simply chuck it out the window, it would’ve been far better to improve it and build upon it, as it would allow a greater variation in gameplay and what have you. Same with the downgraded number of powers, and heatsinks were just not added all that well (why can I run out of them for one gun and not another if they’re universal?). That said, what they did do was fluid, fun, and worked well the way they did it.
 
Really though, as I said in the beginning I did enjoy Mass Effect 2, and I do believe that it’s a good game on its own. I don’t regret my purchase of it, and I had enough fun playing it. The problem with it, that I took 2,500 words to outline (OH GOD WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?), is that it’s a standalone game (without being a completely seperate game). If it was not a standalone game, it would be fine, but considering it’s the middle part of a trilogy but doesn’t advance the overall plot of the trilogy, the sequel to a game that it constantly retcons, a main enemy that isn’t important to the other games, and so on, well, it’s hard to say that it isn’t ****ed up.
 
Now let me just end with saying, considering all of that, it won’t be hard to completely forget Mass Effect 2 and go straight from 1 to 3. So that’s something good about Mass Effect 3 I guess. The only way that it could cause problems is if they decide to make it a standalone game also.
 
 
…Oh


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Motion controls suck
Posted on Wednesday, February 9 2011 @ 00:09:00 Eastern

In one of my technology for boneheads classes that I'm taking for extra credits, we recently talked about motion controls and games. All the responses were exactly the same, being like "OH IT'S GREAT BECAUSE IT'LL GET THEIR FAT ASSES...   read more...

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Dissection of a Video Gamer
Posted on Saturday, March 21 2009 @ 18:31:59 Eastern

The video gamer is an elusive creature, found often in the darkness of a basement, and subsists mostly on pizza and other cheese products. Stereotyping aside, the shiny, playful allure of video games has attracted quite a few cus...   read more...

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Rocket Propelled Game
Posted on Thursday, December 11 2008 @ 14:27:43 Eastern

When it comes to RPG games I haven’t played that many. A couple FF games, a few recent games by Bioware and Bethesda, and that’s about it. But even with my limited view, I noticed a few trends in the east and the west...   read more...

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Lets have some FUN!
Posted on Thursday, September 18 2008 @ 23:23:02 Eastern

So I just finished up playing Mercenaries 2 today. And by finished up, I mean I've run out of things to do. I've destroyed all the oil rigs. I've blown up almost every building. I've picked tanks up with a helicopter and then dropped them on various ...   read more...

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And now for something completely different.
Posted on Friday, May 30 2008 @ 13:42:58 Eastern

This blog will not be about the forums being down, which makes it a combo breaker since all the last four have been about the forums being down.

Instead, this blog will be about Mr. Zurkon. He is ****ing awesome. One time he was like &quo...   read more...

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I love Zelda-CDi
Posted on Wednesday, May 7 2008 @ 18:15:37 Eastern

I recently got a state of the art Philips-CDi for my birthday, and I have to say it is the best thing ever. I've been playing Faces of Evil for the past few hours, and it is without a doubt the best Zelda game I have ever played. First of all, Link a...   read more...

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Twist and Shout
Posted on Tuesday, March 11 2008 @ 02:38:25 Eastern

It is all my brother\'s fault. For Christmas this year, he gave me a $50 gift card to GameStop and promised an additional $20 cash if I could find a certain diamond of a game. You see, twelve years ago when he was in college he and his frat brothers ...   read more...

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