Hmm, I've been pretty disconnected from this gaming generation but I think I can wrangle together 5 games from the last 4 years and give a little write up...
5) Skyrim
I've never been the biggest Elder Scrolls fan, but sometimes it's nice to be a part of the conversation, rather than an outside observer. I tried on multiple occasions to get into Oblivion but it never felt natural playing it on my 360 and I could not get it to run on any playable setting on my laptop or desktop. So when I heard that Skyrim fixed a lot of the things I didn't like about Oblivion I was intrigued, and again, it was nice to be a part of the conversation, but once I hit my 70th hour I lost interest. The same thing happened with Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, I know that there's still lots to do, but it all feels so inconsequential that the only reason to do it is get more useless money or a weapon that's slightly worse then the one I'm already carrying. The breaking poing for me came when a dragon attacked when I was in Riverwood and the guards and I killed it. I was kind of expecting the guards to be talking about it for awhile, but it never came up, despite the skeletal remains of a dragan right in the middle of the village, a constant reminder of the dangers of the world as well as what we are capable of doing if we band together, but nobody talked about it. It was at that point that I decided that expansive world's just aren't worth the effort if the events that happen in them don't mean anything.
4) Darksiders
In early 2010 I bought a PS3 to replace my second broken xbox 360, and I decided to buy a brand new PS3 exclusive game where you get to play as the personification of War. Things seemed okay starting out, it really reminded me of the opening scene from [Prototype] but whatever, I'd roll with it. It was when I started collecting the souls of fallen enemies in order to get upgrades, while playing a fighting system that really reminded me of God of War, except worse than the game that was 5 years old at the time, and the general unlikable protagonist that I was just bored. I don't like to quite Yahtzee, but he put it perfectly in his review when he likened the game's design to a pile of popular games from the last 5 years all stitched together. It brought nothing new to the table and didn't provide me with any of the catharsis I thought playing as one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, so I ended up selling it and using the proceeds to buy a copy of inFamous which was a lot more fun.
I should also say this is more a disappointment because it was my first PS3 game and it didn't exactly set my world on fire.
3) Alan Wake
Despite Condemned: Criminal Origins proving me wrong, I was pretty much ready to declare the survival-horror genre done after playing Resident Evil 4 back in 2005. It managed to find that sweet spot of still being a little scary, but giving a nice action experience in ways I hadn't seen since Half-Life and System Shock 2 back in the late '90's. So I wasn't at all surprised to seeing this more or less become the default game play style for the new survival-horror franchise as seen in Dead Space the new Silent Hill games, and of course the rest of the Resident Evil series, and you know what, I was pretty much okay with that.
My problem with Alan Wake is that it wasn't scary. It embraced the action elements of the game and for the most part improved on what Resident Evil 4 laid down. I really liked how easily Alan moved, and how fluid it seemed, but there was very little horror or even any real psychological aspects to the game except the lake hospital thing, which is where the game's story got the most intriguing for me. That said though, the idea to have the camera zoom in on the shadow people things was just dumb and completely reduced any sense of dread, especially when they were easy to outrun and the regenerating health really destroyed any notion of survival. There was maybe a few scares where I'd go into a build and be immediately blindsided by a Fallen (I think that's what they were called), but it was pretty token.
It still hasn't stopped me from playing through it more than once because it's a good weekend game and I haven't collected all the manuscript pages yet, but it definitely left me feeling lukewarm after waiting so many years for it to come out.
2) Assassin's Creed & Condemned 2: Bloodshot
This one is a tie so I'll just go in alphabetical order
The original Assassin's Creed had a really cool concept to drive the story, and I have to admit the scenery was pretty amazing, but the gameplay really wasn't up to much. I was kind of expecting a cross between the Thief and Hitman series', with the former's setting and armament crossed with the latter's sprawling level design that encouraged multiple plays to learn all the different ways of assassinating your target. What we got was more or less these weird camera angle cutscenes, and then a big sword fight because I could never do it stealthily (which may be a failing on my part, but everyone else I know said the same thing). Coupled with the same three side quests and getting to all the viewpoints meant that for every hour or so I played I never really enjoyed it. I'll concede that Assassin's Creed II fixed many of my gripes, but it was a poor first part that really made me never warm up to the series enough to both keeping up with the yearly releases.
For those who have seen Yahtzee's review of Condemned 2: Bloodshot this may seem similar, but he and I have very similar tastes when it comes to gaming, and to be fair I played my copy before he did his review so for all I know he could have lifted this from my mind (or they're just common complaints). While the sequel definitely improved on the combat and the detective aspects of the game, it really did start to fall apart towards the middle (and even a little at the beginning as we're being told why the homeless have all gone psycho), but whatever, I was expecting an explanation at some point. While all the levels certainly did have their scary moments, the thrill really was gone by the time we're in the museum level using swords and axes. I mean it was a nice juxtaposition to the other levels in terms of design, a non decrepit modern building to explore, but the setting of each level was really what made it scary. The cabin level can kind of get a pass because that bear chase sequence was pretty pulse pounding, but when it gave way to just shooting enemies, I really felt let down. The final level was particularly confusing just given this massive structure on the outside of a massive metropolitan city that's kind of clumsily mentioned in one of the news reports to give it some context, but otherwise just feels really out of place. By that point it was hard to believe I was playing in the same setting as the creepy as fuck department store from the first one. Oh, also what the hell was up with the suicide doll robot things?
1) L.A. Noire
Besides Heavy Rain (which I didn't play long enough to form an opinion on before it was stolen), L.A. Noire is the only game in this console generation that I actually pre-ordered. I use to LOVE the Tex Murphy games as a kid and I'm pretty sure they served as the main inspiration for my aspirations of becoming a detective in real life. I wasn't expecting L.A. Noire to be an exact recreation of that game, but I also really wasn't expecting there to be as many action segments either. I mean yes, realistically police officers are more likely to get into a firefight with criminals than you or I, but when I got an achievement for killing my 100th enemy I was just... turned off. Even in the 1940's a cop with a body count in the triple digits would be pulled off duty and probably awaiting a civilian review board.
It wasn't just the action though, I found the crime scenes to be a little too easy, with the noise cues and vibration features helping too much. Interrogations started off being a little tricky, but I actually managed to ace the Leland Monroe interrogation by the end of the game. Then there was the Homicide desk where I was presented with two suspects who I knew were innocent, but still had to pick one of them. Some of the platforming also got a bit tedious, like on that decrepit old movie set, but at least there was that feature to skip some of those parts because they really added fuck all to the game.
Lastly, while the story was very true to the film noir genre, I really found it to be floundering towards the end. The introduction of the new character and the affair Cole had with that German singer both came out of nowhere and kind of got in the way of the narrative for me. I did like how whenever I thought I had the overarching mystery figured out there was something new thrown my way, but when I had a bunch of patrol officers out trying to kill me at the end of the game I was just done with everything and wanted it to be over.
So yeah, those are my 5 games, thanks for reading if you did. Sorry I don't get to talk about video games that much so I tend to get a little verbose.
ragon rising. PC
