Hello all.
I figure as my introduction to the escapist forums I'd post a review I wrote in the winter of June last year on a game you probably never even noticed on the shelves called Stranger. I, for some reason decided to buy it. Please NOTE that despite the harshness of my tone, my Blizzard bashing only stems from the fact that I come from a long line of RPGs and Action RPGs come off to me as dull and repetitive, however well designed they may be, so if your a die hard Blizzard fan don't take the hate too personally, I like Starcraft in any case. Stranger fans on the other hand, well thankfully I doubt you even exist.
Stranger.
Is there a game you played that you found so incedibly shit house that you would refuse to play the miserable thing even if your life depended on it? Well for me that game is Stranger. The biggest reason that I hate this game is that I spend fifty bucks on this bucket of putrescent bile, and that was fifty bucks more than it was actually worth. Yes, you can say that Caverns of Bob is a game so insidiously malevolent in its design that it could only possibly have been conceived in the foulest corner of Satans demonic colon. But hey at least that game had a funny name and all it cost me was a piece of my soul which, as an atheist I was more than happy to give up. Stranger on the other hand cost me money, but not just money, it cost me a lot of money. I know games are a rip off in this country (Australia) but Jesus H. Fucking Christ on a pogo stick, the people who market these games should play them!
Where to begin.. Oh right, the game box; it tells you absolutly nothing about the game at all except that its a "Cutting blend of RPG and RTS" It sure is! If by RPG you mean Action RPG and by that I mean, Diablo and by Diablo I mean you have an inventory like diablo and stats like diablo. And by RTS I mean Warcraft3 the single greatest RTS of all time!! Not. Ok people so I know Blizzard Ent have made nothing but good games, seeing as how you all just looove mindless repetition and a game play system that is so easy a Phytoplankton need only understand basic computing to master the game, but don't you think its time you got your own fucking gameplay ideas? Ok fine you're an Eastern European game company struggling to make the grade and earn that extra buck and say to the world "Look at me, I'm creative too!" But theres a big difference between taking certain ideas and just plain ripping them off. Anyway, back to "Stranger".
There's a serious flaw in the games Cutting edge RPG RTS design as all they've seemed to do is take some badly thought out game ideas throw them into a meat grinder, shit all over the end product, mixed in an unhealthy dose of vitamin steep sloped difficulty curve, added a spell system which is unique to this game a fact which gamers everywhere should be thankful for, just a dash of crap dialogue, poorly translated for effect: voice acting best described as apocalyptically bad. Then finnally, shat all over it again just for effect.
I'm not kidding about the cutscenes when I say that they are the worst I have ever seen in a game. Not even Chase the Express or Dark Seed have worse performances. The graphics of the comic books strip effects look like it used the colour sceme of MS-Paint's default colours, the plot is shaky and so badly translated in borders on the point of indescipherable, and the voice acting... oh the voice acting! I've never heard somebody deliver the words "Thats what I'm talking about" with such, such unenthusiasm that it makes me wonder if the person who said it should consider taking anti-depressants. But enough of the riviting plot, onto the actual gameplay.
The games pacing is slow, very slow. The protagonist has this annoying habit of walking at the speed of a turtle, I'm sure this exciting new pickle of a world he's gotten himself into is worth taking a scenic saunter through but personally a brisk walk would have been nice. Our brave protagonist proceeds to rend foes asunder by offering the native population funny coloured gems, and the promise of more funny coloured gems to come if they'd just kindly fling themselves in front of the jaws of relentless hoardes of slavering beasts and monsters. Well... why not? Those gems seem worth it. Carry about 2 metric tonnes of them and you begin to notice that your characters begin to glow whatever colour you happen to be carrying and you begin dispensing spells at random. Thats right, at random! You don't get to choose when you cast the spells, you get to experience the feeling that gamblers get off on! The luck of the draw! One time you might be fighting a pack of ravenous what ever the hell those things are supposed to be the cameras to far away for me to say anything with all certainty and you might be so close to death that your head's only hanging on by sheer force of will, and then suddenly: poof! Your character then casts the heal spell and is slightly less worse for wear, or far more likely, the monster will just proceed to tear your limbs off.
This is mainly due to the fact that despite being a powerful mage or some such and master crossbowman, compared to your foes you are as weak as a athritic kitten with cancer... I cannot stress how unfair the difficuly curb is. You can't fight for shit! Your native gem hoarding mercenarys are only as useful as cannon fodder can be, and the enemy has an annoying habit of respawning until you've killed some commander or generator or some shit. Oh and heres the real kick in the balls: once your protagonist kicks the bucket, thats it! game over! You load the level again or if you have any common sense you proceed to snap the game CD in half. Unfortunatly for your protagonist, he's cursed to have a condition in which he is stronger than all of his worthless minions however patheticly moreso, and this makes him stick out like a sore thumb, a beacon if you will. Any enemy who has the will and the way will immediatly proceed to make his life, and by default your life a living hell. There are apparently two other protagonists that join our main guy along the road to futility, but I only ever made it to the third level before giving up in boredom and frustration. I tried to look for cheats but this game is thankfully not popular enough to produce enough hype to create even a slight hiccup of a response from anyone worth noting.
So, in short its basically WarCraft3, except instead of making solidiers you just press gang some local villagers, give them some shoddy weaponry and watch em get slaughtered. And its basically Diablo, because its shit! Hah! Well that and you've got stats and you can pick up weapons and junk... it's definately "a new kind of adventure that you will never forget". In much the same way that seeing your grandparents naked is "a new kind of adventure you will never forget".
Enjoy!
I figure as my introduction to the escapist forums I'd post a review I wrote in the winter of June last year on a game you probably never even noticed on the shelves called Stranger. I, for some reason decided to buy it. Please NOTE that despite the harshness of my tone, my Blizzard bashing only stems from the fact that I come from a long line of RPGs and Action RPGs come off to me as dull and repetitive, however well designed they may be, so if your a die hard Blizzard fan don't take the hate too personally, I like Starcraft in any case. Stranger fans on the other hand, well thankfully I doubt you even exist.
Stranger.
Is there a game you played that you found so incedibly shit house that you would refuse to play the miserable thing even if your life depended on it? Well for me that game is Stranger. The biggest reason that I hate this game is that I spend fifty bucks on this bucket of putrescent bile, and that was fifty bucks more than it was actually worth. Yes, you can say that Caverns of Bob is a game so insidiously malevolent in its design that it could only possibly have been conceived in the foulest corner of Satans demonic colon. But hey at least that game had a funny name and all it cost me was a piece of my soul which, as an atheist I was more than happy to give up. Stranger on the other hand cost me money, but not just money, it cost me a lot of money. I know games are a rip off in this country (Australia) but Jesus H. Fucking Christ on a pogo stick, the people who market these games should play them!
Where to begin.. Oh right, the game box; it tells you absolutly nothing about the game at all except that its a "Cutting blend of RPG and RTS" It sure is! If by RPG you mean Action RPG and by that I mean, Diablo and by Diablo I mean you have an inventory like diablo and stats like diablo. And by RTS I mean Warcraft3 the single greatest RTS of all time!! Not. Ok people so I know Blizzard Ent have made nothing but good games, seeing as how you all just looove mindless repetition and a game play system that is so easy a Phytoplankton need only understand basic computing to master the game, but don't you think its time you got your own fucking gameplay ideas? Ok fine you're an Eastern European game company struggling to make the grade and earn that extra buck and say to the world "Look at me, I'm creative too!" But theres a big difference between taking certain ideas and just plain ripping them off. Anyway, back to "Stranger".
There's a serious flaw in the games Cutting edge RPG RTS design as all they've seemed to do is take some badly thought out game ideas throw them into a meat grinder, shit all over the end product, mixed in an unhealthy dose of vitamin steep sloped difficulty curve, added a spell system which is unique to this game a fact which gamers everywhere should be thankful for, just a dash of crap dialogue, poorly translated for effect: voice acting best described as apocalyptically bad. Then finnally, shat all over it again just for effect.
I'm not kidding about the cutscenes when I say that they are the worst I have ever seen in a game. Not even Chase the Express or Dark Seed have worse performances. The graphics of the comic books strip effects look like it used the colour sceme of MS-Paint's default colours, the plot is shaky and so badly translated in borders on the point of indescipherable, and the voice acting... oh the voice acting! I've never heard somebody deliver the words "Thats what I'm talking about" with such, such unenthusiasm that it makes me wonder if the person who said it should consider taking anti-depressants. But enough of the riviting plot, onto the actual gameplay.
The games pacing is slow, very slow. The protagonist has this annoying habit of walking at the speed of a turtle, I'm sure this exciting new pickle of a world he's gotten himself into is worth taking a scenic saunter through but personally a brisk walk would have been nice. Our brave protagonist proceeds to rend foes asunder by offering the native population funny coloured gems, and the promise of more funny coloured gems to come if they'd just kindly fling themselves in front of the jaws of relentless hoardes of slavering beasts and monsters. Well... why not? Those gems seem worth it. Carry about 2 metric tonnes of them and you begin to notice that your characters begin to glow whatever colour you happen to be carrying and you begin dispensing spells at random. Thats right, at random! You don't get to choose when you cast the spells, you get to experience the feeling that gamblers get off on! The luck of the draw! One time you might be fighting a pack of ravenous what ever the hell those things are supposed to be the cameras to far away for me to say anything with all certainty and you might be so close to death that your head's only hanging on by sheer force of will, and then suddenly: poof! Your character then casts the heal spell and is slightly less worse for wear, or far more likely, the monster will just proceed to tear your limbs off.
This is mainly due to the fact that despite being a powerful mage or some such and master crossbowman, compared to your foes you are as weak as a athritic kitten with cancer... I cannot stress how unfair the difficuly curb is. You can't fight for shit! Your native gem hoarding mercenarys are only as useful as cannon fodder can be, and the enemy has an annoying habit of respawning until you've killed some commander or generator or some shit. Oh and heres the real kick in the balls: once your protagonist kicks the bucket, thats it! game over! You load the level again or if you have any common sense you proceed to snap the game CD in half. Unfortunatly for your protagonist, he's cursed to have a condition in which he is stronger than all of his worthless minions however patheticly moreso, and this makes him stick out like a sore thumb, a beacon if you will. Any enemy who has the will and the way will immediatly proceed to make his life, and by default your life a living hell. There are apparently two other protagonists that join our main guy along the road to futility, but I only ever made it to the third level before giving up in boredom and frustration. I tried to look for cheats but this game is thankfully not popular enough to produce enough hype to create even a slight hiccup of a response from anyone worth noting.
So, in short its basically WarCraft3, except instead of making solidiers you just press gang some local villagers, give them some shoddy weaponry and watch em get slaughtered. And its basically Diablo, because its shit! Hah! Well that and you've got stats and you can pick up weapons and junk... it's definately "a new kind of adventure that you will never forget". In much the same way that seeing your grandparents naked is "a new kind of adventure you will never forget".
Enjoy!