As an outsider looking in, Halo Reach grabbed my interest in a way the other Halos hadn't. Halo Reach would star a cast of Spartans, with individual personalities rather than an emotionless Avatar that was Master Chief. Master Chief was always my biggest problem with the Halo games, mind you I've never completed one, I always found I had no sense of who he was as a character. He was intended and built to embody the player, a phenomenon not new to video-games, and as such was an empty slate for the player to fill in the manner of a Gordan Freeman style character. Rather than fight the idea I accepted the fact that Master Chief's role was conducive to what the game experience was trying to convey, albeit an experience that was not geared towards me.
So after seeing the initial reach trailers I thought perhaps this was the Halo game for me, a Halo game not about a conflict, but a group of characters locked in such a conflict. However after reading several 'consumer' reviews of the game I have yet to see anyone go into depth on this aspect, to be more specific I have seen reviews that spend only a paragraph or two on the single-player and instead focus more on the core mechanics, now this is fully understandable the mass market wants to know these things, but am I not a consumer? Is there not a group of people wondering the same things? Am I alone in my questioning? I don't think so, it is disappointing to know that there is not an outlet for these style reviews at the time of the games release, I guess I'll have to wait a few weeks and see what the Critical Community (I hate these terms) has to say about the game...
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Playing With Myself
Unintended sexually explicit title aside, I'm a gamer whose never really enjoyed competitive multi-player. It is not that I have anything against online multi-player, I totally understand the appeal, much like sports the feeling of superiority upon defeating someone is a joy anyone would be lying to themselves if they said they did not enjoy. Yet for one reason or another I've never found myself heavily invested in a game primarily for the multi-player aspect, perhaps its because I'm not very good, maybe its because I can't invest the time to get good at a multi-player, maybe I can not be sucked into an experience so inherently repetitive or maybe it is the fact every competitive bone in my body died a few years ago.
This thought came about while playing Castle Crashers, which I recently purchased upon its PSN release. I enjoyed every moment in which we were a team and working for a cause, yet the second it became a competitive moment the joy was lost. This got me thinking about my experiences with multi-player last year. I did not enjoy Modern Warfare 2, somewhere between the dry caricatures and dull action movie plot Modern Warfare 2 is a game I'd never really mark as an incredible experience. Yet for one reason or another I put a healthy amount of time into multi-player, and I wondered why I had remained there so long. It wasn't the game, I quickly realized, that kept me coming back, I was there to play and talk with my friends, looking back all of my favourite moments weren't game-play related but moments when so and so said this. Had it been any other game these moments would have been translated over, so how do you quantify these kind of experiences. In a review I can't guarantee that the person reading has a group of friends similar to mine, and I can't reference something my friends said as a great part of a game.
Well just a thought, until next time.
This thought came about while playing Castle Crashers, which I recently purchased upon its PSN release. I enjoyed every moment in which we were a team and working for a cause, yet the second it became a competitive moment the joy was lost. This got me thinking about my experiences with multi-player last year. I did not enjoy Modern Warfare 2, somewhere between the dry caricatures and dull action movie plot Modern Warfare 2 is a game I'd never really mark as an incredible experience. Yet for one reason or another I put a healthy amount of time into multi-player, and I wondered why I had remained there so long. It wasn't the game, I quickly realized, that kept me coming back, I was there to play and talk with my friends, looking back all of my favourite moments weren't game-play related but moments when so and so said this. Had it been any other game these moments would have been translated over, so how do you quantify these kind of experiences. In a review I can't guarantee that the person reading has a group of friends similar to mine, and I can't reference something my friends said as a great part of a game.
Well just a thought, until next time.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Discovery, Mystery and Imagination. The Open World.
Influenced by excitement from many of my peers, I downloaded the Mafia 2 demo two weeks ago. Much to my dissapointment I did not share the same sense of satisfaction when playing it and I found myself wondering why. It then got me wondering what it is about an open-world game that I enjoy, what elements of games such as Bioshock and Red Dead Redemption retain my interest while Saints Row and Mafia do not.
The most notable difference is in setting, which is perhaps the most important element of an open world game.The urban and sub-urban environments of most open world crime games is far too familiar, they don't grasp my imagination and merely act as a background to a potentially strong narrative. Red Dead Redemption on the other hand placed you in the American West, a setting very much within the constraints of reality yet unfamiliar enough to still be exciting. A similar case in point was 2008's release or Far Cry 2 which took you to a horrifically war torn location in
Africa.
I treat open world games much the same way I would treat a vacation. If I were to choose a local to travel to I wouldn't choose a Sub-urban metropolis along the eastern coast of America, I would choose somewhere more tropical, exotic or full of history and wonder. Yet video-games offer a unique avenue in that they are not necessarily constrained to the confines of reality. Video-Games allow us to interact with imaginary worlds inconceivable in our modern reality, which is why experiences in games such as Bioshock and Shadow of the Colossus are so valuable to me.
Irrational Games 2007 release Bioshock was not an open world game in the sense of Saints Row or Red Dead Redemption. The world wasn't entirely open, although segments could be explored to your heart's content. Rapture, the game's fictional underwater Utopian setting, was a joy to take in. Even without the combat and collection elements of Bioshock, exploring Rapture could have held up as a game in of itself. The world was lovingly crafted, it was full of mystery and wonder, and it was there for the player to discover.
One of my favourite games; Shadow of the Colossus could fall into the open-world category. Shadow of the Colossus gave you a world that was substantially empty, yet imaginatively rich. So much of what made Shadow of the Colossus great was traversing the silent eerily abandoned remains of a world forgotten. Shadow of the Colossus captured the players imagination in a way few games can without falling into many of the trappings of modern games (ie: Enemy encounters substituting an engaging experience).
So this is what I look for in a video-game world; Mystery, Imagination and an every growing sense of discovery.
The most notable difference is in setting, which is perhaps the most important element of an open world game.The urban and sub-urban environments of most open world crime games is far too familiar, they don't grasp my imagination and merely act as a background to a potentially strong narrative. Red Dead Redemption on the other hand placed you in the American West, a setting very much within the constraints of reality yet unfamiliar enough to still be exciting. A similar case in point was 2008's release or Far Cry 2 which took you to a horrifically war torn location in
Africa.
I treat open world games much the same way I would treat a vacation. If I were to choose a local to travel to I wouldn't choose a Sub-urban metropolis along the eastern coast of America, I would choose somewhere more tropical, exotic or full of history and wonder. Yet video-games offer a unique avenue in that they are not necessarily constrained to the confines of reality. Video-Games allow us to interact with imaginary worlds inconceivable in our modern reality, which is why experiences in games such as Bioshock and Shadow of the Colossus are so valuable to me.
Irrational Games 2007 release Bioshock was not an open world game in the sense of Saints Row or Red Dead Redemption. The world wasn't entirely open, although segments could be explored to your heart's content. Rapture, the game's fictional underwater Utopian setting, was a joy to take in. Even without the combat and collection elements of Bioshock, exploring Rapture could have held up as a game in of itself. The world was lovingly crafted, it was full of mystery and wonder, and it was there for the player to discover.
One of my favourite games; Shadow of the Colossus could fall into the open-world category. Shadow of the Colossus gave you a world that was substantially empty, yet imaginatively rich. So much of what made Shadow of the Colossus great was traversing the silent eerily abandoned remains of a world forgotten. Shadow of the Colossus captured the players imagination in a way few games can without falling into many of the trappings of modern games (ie: Enemy encounters substituting an engaging experience).
So this is what I look for in a video-game world; Mystery, Imagination and an every growing sense of discovery.
SIDE NOTE: Now I've heard from many that Mafia 2 is a strong narrative game and I fully intend to give it a second chance. Perhaps Mafia 2 isn't the greatest example of what I am trying to convey, yet more of a jumping off point for this discussion.
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