Rapture

I haven't blogged anything about Bioshock, but for the record I did enjoy it very much, even though I found it a bit too easy and the DRM really pissed me off.

Eurogamer has this article which tries to defend Bioshock from the backlash that followed its release. It's a great read, but it doesn't get around to one of the problems which I think underlies the entire game review scene: hype.

Things have gotten bad enough that reviews for games aren't really informative anymore. Halo 3, which I thought was good but not near great, piled up dozens of perfect scores and drooling raves from reviewers. Any game that's hyped as hard as Halo 3 was (and Bioshock too) is going to have awesome reviews which don't really map to the quality of the experience for most gamers. Publishers can hype games almost to the point that it distorts the reviewer's critical thinking skills -- even the Gerstmann firing, which stinks to high heaven, implies that a publisher holds the review industry in such contempt that it can have people offed who don't toe its line.

So what is to be done? I don't know.

Aperture Science

We do what we must
Because we can.

Um. Sorry. Anyway, past time to mention Portal.

There's really not much I can say beyond how awesome it is. You've heard that from others by now, but I'll just add my insignificant voice to the chorus.

Bad points:

• Too short. Your first runthrough (there will be others) takes maybe three to four hours. Once you know the puzzles, you can speedrun the thing in maybe an hour. MOAR.
• Too easy. The extra puzzles you unlock after beating the main game are pretty hardcore, and the developer commentary (a feature that should be in EVERY game) explains that Valve were terrified of confusing the hell out of players; they were, after all, breaking new gameplay ground. Hopefully the deliriously joyful response will encourage them to take more risks.

Good points:

• Genuinely clever and funny.
• Addictive and really hard to stop playing.
• Simple yet pleasing art and level design.
• An honest attempt at something new.
• Jonathan Coulton.
• Voice acting -- Ellen McLain does an amazing job.
• A bargain at $20.
  

Basically, if you haven't played it, shell out the $20 for it and enjoy the hell out of it.

Rating: ***** (5/5); if I can't give five stars for an experiment in new gaming that succeeds beyond all expectations, I should just stop playing games entirely.

Guitar Hero III quick hits

Rather than writing a long and possibly sucky review, I'll just go with the important points. (I got the 360 version, if it matters to you.)

High fives

• The new wireless guitar controller is a big improvement. Yes, wireless is always better, but this baby has a more solid feel to it and a stout, thick neck that is actually a reasonable facsimile of a real Les Paul (one of which I happen to own). Much more comfortable to play and hold, and connects to the 360 with zero problems.
• Track list is well-rounded. There's something for everybody, and the bonus songs aren't writeoffs.
• It looks really good in HD.
  

Turn your head and cough:

• Battle mode is fucking retarded. You can throw powerdowns at the other player that you earn by hitting Star Power-like streaks. They range in effectiveness from mildly annoying (upping the difficulty level of the song) to bullshit and cheese sandwiches (double note, lefty flip, etc.) The game randomly picks which powerdown you get, introducing a very unwelcome element of luck into the nice pure game of skill. To make things even better, the three battles you're forced to do in career mode interrupt the flow; the AI never misses notes unless it's suffering a powerdown, and it always seems to know when to hit you with one. Frustrating as hell and zero fun. Fuck you, Neversoft.
• Art direction. There's a lot of color in this game. A LOT. Venues are bigger but not better; blinding wouldn't be a bad description. The character art ranges from silly to ridiculous, and not in the fun way. A new Japanese girl rocker wears eye-hurting shades of intense pink or green. Judy Nails has been turned into some kind of ugly-ass goth wannabe. Casey's now an anorexic Lindsay Lohan lookalike. Lars' spikes and shoulder pads are now bigger than he is. While Harmonix knew how to design for humor and silliness while still retaining a subtle sense of taste, Neversoft has adopted "louder is better" and thrown any sense of proportion to the winds. It's just lame.
• Co-op career is a nice touch, but why the hell can't we do it online?
• We're on Guitar Hero game #4, and pausing STILL split-second freezes in the middle of the song? Who thought this was a good idea? It makes pausing worthless, since you're forced to miss notes unless you're in a dead spot in the song. Would it kill them to give you a two-count back in or something? Of all the shit Neversoft chose to fuck with, they decided to leave in this idiocy.
• Is it really necessary to throw big wiggly "50 Note Streak!" and "100 Note Streak!" text at us while we're playing? All it does is distract you. Basic rule of interface here, people: a popup is designed to interrupt the workflow and get the user's attention. This is a GAME -- his attention needs to be on the note chart and should not be interfered with. If the user wants to know what his streak is, he can see it under his score. The popups don't need to be there.
• The approach is starting to get a bit old. The next game needs some serious rethinking. Maybe Rock Band is going to be that game, but since Guitar Hero is now a cash cow, Activision's interest in tweaking the game (and possibly annoying the legions of Don't-Change-It-Ever) is probably close to zero.
  

Well, who am I kidding really? When I'm not yelling at the screen for fucking with me in another battle, I'm enjoying the hell out of this game. If you're a Guitar Hero fan, it's a no-brainer purchase. If you're not one yet, it's hard to argue against this purchase, especially if you want a good controller to start with.

**** (4/5, irritating flaws and lack of anything really new remove perfection from its desperate clutch)

halo3.moveon.net

I just can't let it go.

Yahtzee's latest Zero Punctuation, to no one's surprise, takes aim at Halo 3. While it's gratifying to see that someone who actually gets paid to blather about video games takes a stance quite similar to mine, it also reinforces the lonely realization that the determined few of us who dare to question the orthodoxy of Halo 3's Supreme Greatness are not going to be seen as the cold-blooded geniuses we are for some time, if ever.

Aside from the world-against-us feeling, which is always invigorating, what do I care if some basement-dwelling fanboys rip anyone who suggests Halo 3 has not been the best game ever conceived and delivered to the sweaty hands of man?

Part of the problem is that 3's multiplayer, which apparently was what I was supposed to buy and use nonstop, has become an excuse for the shortcomings of the singleplayer campaign. This annoys the hell out of me. Several people have tried to explain this away in a few different tacks:

• "Oh, come on, Halo's really about the multiplayer anyway. No one cares about the singleplayer". Funny, that's not what the pre-release hype was all about. Anybody remember "Finish the Fight"?
  
• "You have to understand the backstory from the first two games in order to really appreciate what happens in the third". Weak. This is the first Halo game on the 360, and there are going to be people who haven't played 1 or 2 that want to try 3 just to see what all the fuss is about. Are we really expecting those people to play 20 hours' worth of backstory before we pronounce them ready to enjoy the current game? Why not craft a compelling story that can stand on its own but also rewards longtime fans? Valve does this with Half-Life, Bethesda does it with Elder Scrolls, and even Bungie did it with Halo 2 (a game that has been retroactively rising in my esteem these days). This argument smacks too much of navel-gazing comic book nerds who yell at you if you don't read all your comics in chronological order, and it deserves no more respect.
• "At least they tried to do a story, unlike some other games that don't even pretend to". They damn well better have a story, since Bungie has always had decent stories with their games (going back to Marathon and Durandal). They spent a lot of time in 2 developing characters, story arcs, and deepening considerably our understanding of the Covenant, the Arbiter, the Marines, and the Flood. Fanboy reaction to this was admittedly negative, so Bungie seems to have decided that time spent on the story was wasted since gamers specifically rejected that part of 2 while embracing the multiplayer. No, Bungie doesn't get points for trying here; they took the safe route and tried not to piss anyone off. When you do that, you get lackluster, uninspired gaming, no matter how pretty it looks.
  

Some game companies *coughidcough* have in the past succumbed to the temptation to write a multiplayer game, stick some bots into the multiplayer levels, and call the result a singleplayer game. This is the degenerate case of a singleplayer game -- a quick and dirty hack on top of the multiplayer that exists solely that the publisher can check off the "Features single player"/"No Internet connection required" bullet point on the Blockbuster Game Feature List™. Other examples include Unreal 2004; it's one of my favorite shooters, but it made little pretense of being a compelling singleplayer experience. Halo 1, by contrast, was specifically NOT about being a multiplayer game. In the days before Xbox Live, multiplayer was confined to splitscreen on usually tiny standard-def TVs. While it was fun for a group of friends in the same room, it sure wasn't any kind of "new standard" for other games.

Finally, I guess I'm just personally disappointed. I preordered 3 months in advance, I went to the store before midnight to get it, I took the day off work -- hell, Bungie (who all else aside are really awesome people who love their fans and try their damnedest to make them happy) came out in a party bus to sign autographs, shake hands, and dodge questions about Halo 4. I have to say it was one of, if not the best, experiences I've ever had at a public video game event. It's sad that the final product didn't live up to my expectations, but if the game makes $170 million in one day and scores dozens of perfect reviews from otherwise legitimate game sites, making me happy has got to be at the bottom of anyone's list.

P.S. I'm not ending on a "poor lil ol' me" kick here; it's my problem, I'm dealing with it, and video games are ultimately a stupid and pointless waste of time anyway. I may be emo over this, but I haven't lost touch with reality just yet. (Unlike those dumb bastards who forked over US$130 for the Super-Special Legendary Collector's Edition With Cat-Sized Helmet and Worthless Bonus Discs. HA-ha!)

Good things sometimes come to those who sit patiently: Halo 3 review

Having finished Halo 3 a scant few minutes ago -- and having taken yesterday off work in order to play uninterrupted by annoying responsibilities -- I figure this is a great time to write that crappy game review I've always wanted to write. So here goes!

Warning: There be spoilers ahead. If you care, come back here after you get a life.

Go ahead, I'll wait.

Hmm.

Everybody else ready? Let's begin.

I see no real need to start off in the standard review fashion of rehashing the game's history, the previous two entries in the series, or the jaw-dropping amount of money it's going to make. You know all that anyway if you're reading this. If you don't, allow me to summarize for you:

Microsoft buys small game developer, invests tons of money, and game developer creates better-than-average first-person shoot-em-up on Microsoft's somewhat dodgy console, singlehandedly legitimizing its existence.

As I write this, Metacritic has collected 33 "professional" reviews of the game, none of which I have read. As Bioshock did last month, the game is causing these esteemed journalists to soil their pants in the sort of way that would have earned them sound ass-thrashings for their incontinence in high school. I have to agree with Yahtzee's comment on how the insane and ridiculous level of hype for these games eventually backfires when you realize that, well executed and beautiful as they are, after beating them you're still not going to be any more attractive to hot women who currently go out of their way to avoid breathing your stink.

You see, before I say one word about the game I'm already slightly annoyed by it. Whether it's rational or not, it's a bias and therefore should be up front in any review that claims to be objective. On to the real deal.

Visually, Halo 3 is impressive, but not new. On my dying 27" standard definition TV, the water effects are cool, the lighting has gotten better, and the sheen is applied liberally to all surfaces. While many gamers are really excited by these kind of environmental effects, I really don't care that much. The game is what matters. I doubt anyone will be disappointed by what's here, but it's not the Twenty-third Coming (or whatever we're up to for game messiahs). The art direction has again been pushed from Halo 2 as that game did from the first one; new ships, new weapons (though some are redundant, like the fuel rod gun/rocket launcher, and we see far too little of the flamethrower), and what seems like a grim determination to not repeat settings from the previous games.

Halo 1 fans no doubt remember dragging themselves through gray corridor after gray corridor after gray corridor, except sometimes when they were purple. Precious little of this appears in 3, and it's not missed. Yet there are fewer large open spaces than in 2. The number of vehicle segments has been scaled back as well; you only get one go with the Scorpion tank, a couple of brief periods in the super-jetpack Hornet, and a few Warthog outings. Eventually the forced variety and lack of cohesion in the play begins to feel a bit forced, as if the novelty is what you're supposed to care about rather than solid and flexible play.

The story is weaker this time around. Halo 2 offered the innovative device of switching back and forth between the Arbiter's story and the Chief's story. In addition to offering two distinct styles of gameplay, this also helped the story by telling it simultaneously from two viewpoints. One gets a rich view of the Covenant world and mindview through the Arbiter's eyes that the Chief would never have a chance to understand. 3 abandons the switching and tells the story entirely from the Chief's perspective, relegating the Arbiter to an AI NPC that follows you around and basically distracts the big evil from focusing solely on you. It feels unsatisfying to remember how much time was spent creating the Arbiter's character and then see him turned into a walking turret. The final confrontation between the Arbiter and the Prophet of Truth can't help but feel like an anticlimax.

A few other things in the story annoy me. So first Guilty Spark finds you, apologizes, helps you through most of the story, and then suddenly turns on you just before his role in the story has to end? I knew he'd be useless in the story once the new Halo was activated, and so I knew they'd have to get rid of him at some point before that happened. When you get to the control room, the dialogue is so predictable you'll be able to finish their sentences. Apparently they knew they needed Spark to activate the Halo, but didn't bother to find a more believable path in the story. Then there's the Flood. Truth tries to activate the rings, so the Flood help you. The second the rings are off, the Flood turns on you. And who didn't see this coming? The Arbiter and Chief look around, their body language thick with anger at the betrayal. Don't they remember being sent back and forth by Gravemind in Halo 2? Wouldn't they expect some kind of underhanded dealings? Captain Keyes also shows up just in time for her convenient extermination. The plot seems to lurch from point to point without much thought on how to get there.

Finally, I'm glad I sat through the credits to watch the end cinematic. I was all ready to rip Bungie a new one for killing the player offscreen at the end of the game, but they managed to save it by exiling him in the middle of nowhere while setting up the inevitable Halo 4. Regardless, the ending is just unsatisfying in a way that's hard to describe. The war, which began as a struggle against the Covenant, turned into a war against the Prophets, who were then killed, which then turned into a war against the Flood, who were then wiped out. We never get to see the real effect of the war on Earth, nor of the personal toll borne by those who survived. There can't be anyway, since every important character other than the Chief, Cortana, and the Arbiter gets whacked. What's left to care about? Why am I supposed to get teary-eyed when this Lord Hood guy gives a weak Gettysburg Address paraphrase on a dirty hill?

To the next point: The AI is just godawful. Countless times I was manning a turret and gleefully plugging infinite ammo at the bad guys when my own squad would calmly and without hesitation walk directly into my line of fire. Of course I'd cut them down before I could stop firing, so it got to the point where I had to make sure I was shooting over their heads. This was almost always too high to hit the bad guys. At times in the game I saw soldiers jumping on top of boxes or sliding down a hill to get to a battle. So why is it so hard to code them to go around a friendly turret or at least crawl under it? It's not like it's advanced soldering you only learn after five years in the freaking army! Enemies sometimes fly into battle on slow-moving rocket packs, making perfect targets for the sniper rifle. Brutes will drop bubble shields and then walk out of them, making it easy to pick them off. Snipers will give away their positions while still too far away to hit you with any accuracy. Grunts seem not to understand the concept of cover. There were too many lapses to list, and all of them together add up to a constant annoyance during play.

The point about thumbstick control being inferior to the mouse and keyboard has been made before, so I'll just amplify here that it does in fact suck and that the mouse/keyboard is in fact better. The major culprit is just not being able to turn your firing direction fast enough, as well as making it too hard to rotate your view at a comfortable rate. This problem isn't really fixable, so no need to hash it out further, but it does suffer by comparison to the PC.

Finally, the checkpoint/save system, which worked pretty well in the first two games, takes a step back here as well. Most of the time, getting past one knot of enemies or one particularly tricky bit of vehicle maneuvering earns a checkpoint as soon as you're in relative safety; however, there are times when you'll be in near-constant battle for upwards of a minute and make it past one or even two checkpoint positions without the game crediting them to you. At that point you become panicked not because you're being shot at but because if you get ganked by some cheese-rific enemy placement you'll have to fight the entire damn sequence over again. Again, this takes you out of the flow and just pisses you the hell off, especially when you take the same path, aggro 10 less enemies, and are awarded a checkpoint only 30 seconds after your previous one. The inconsistency is maddening.

After all that ripping, did I like the game? Well, yes. It's a solid, if unspectacular, first-person shooter that looks great and offers at least a try at a serious scifi storyline where most other games are happy to get by on violence and tits. It's got more bugs than it should, and the execution is off in some key places, but Halo fans won't be disappointed, and shooter fans will definitely find the good points to outweigh the bad.

But it's definitely not the Forty-second Coming.

**** (4/5)