Game Completionist Wrap-up

So I’m back to university in a few days which means available game time goes right down. So this is it for my completionist phase, which I didn’t do too well on, but was good to finally put what games I did manage to bed.

So last time I talked about comparing Prototype and Infamous. I’m not going to be as in-depth as I’d hoped. Mostly because Prototype kind of sucked and I don’t want to dwell on it too much. Also because there’s not much to talk about with Prototype. The story was pretty lacklustre (due to the ‘Web of Intrigue’ method of story telling I ended up having to read it up on a Wiki), and the game overall lacked depth. Much of the game was brought down by the repetitive nature and awkward combos. A fair few missions involved infiltrating the military which played out as:

  • Find regular soldier, stealthily absorb his body.
  • Enter Base perimeter, avoid Virus alarms
  • Locate the base leader (walking the same path in each base)
  • Absorb leader, enter base, absorb the mission target

Then after that you might steal a tank or a helicopter to wreak come havoc. But beyond that it doesn’t offer much. Most of the side-missions/challenges are variations of the same 5 tasks usually ‘kill x soldiers in 2 minutes’, ‘glide into target’, ‘run course as fast as possible’. So about the only variation to break the monotony are the ill-scripted boss fights (Elizabeth is a bitch to fight as the health resets to 90% full each time you die, and it takes about 4-5 phases to take her down)

Now because they’re all pretty mundane I skipped most of the side-challenges and instead made up my own micro-stories by absorbing random civilians and creating

IMAG0019

Super-Gramps. He’ll teach you not to have your sports too loud. (as well as throw the ‘disrespecting youth’ halfway across Times Square)

I kind of did this quite frequently during the missions. I didn’t want to be jumping from mission to mission without a pause, but not wanting to do the challenges (I cleared the bases though as I wanted the extra moves) I’m sure there’s probably some deep psychological issues that could be revealed by studying my actions with possessing people, but I don’t much care (or would want to know) Most likely all that will be revealed is I don’t like shit games.

The moves in Prototype, while OTT and satisfyingly gory, are awkwardly complicated to carry out. For the most part you end up sticking with only a few basic moves you can repeat, and randomly attempting to execute a ‘Devastator’ attack once in a while if you can manage. I’ve only seen fighters have as many moves available. I think keeping the list short, sweet n tight would of been much better. I know I ranted about contextual controls last time but I think it would of helped. Just 2 buttons for attack, have it so if you’re locked on a aerial target you use your whip, on ranged ground units your spikes, close targets your blade arm, etc. It keeps action snappy (no need to scroll between them all stopping the action) and reduces the move set you need to learn.

Overall Prototype was rather crappy, though may be a worthwhile game to rent on a bored gameless weekend.

InFamous I’ve not yet finished my Evil play through, but I’m very close to the end. I find the Evil play through is one of the first time I’ve found a morality choice effects how I play the game. Most just change how NPC’s will react for me or the cutscenes I get, but InFamous forces a completely different play style on you. And I really like it. When you play as Good or Evil it unlocks certain move sets for you. For example on Good the grenades will automatically imprison enemies. On Evil it’ll split into a cluster grenade causing more widespread damage. Good tends to give you the ability to regenerate battery power and health when using attacks, and Evil tends to cause more collateral damage. Good Cole will last longer, but Evil Cole will take out groups easier. It’s almost a basic RPG skill-tree sort of thing. For anyone with InFamous I strongly suggest a pre-InFamous 2 run through in Evil if you’ve yet to do it.

After 3 years since it’s launch I have now played and beaten Bioshock. I’d attempted earlier this year but as you may of guessed from my description of playing through Ravenholm, Bioshock wasn’t my sort of game. But with Ravenholm behind me and Infinite making me salivate I sat down and revelled in Rapture. Because I was wanting to get through the game ASAP, experience the story and gameplay I did it on easy so as not to cause issue. That may of been a mistake. I died only once during the whole game, and got a “tut” from Ben. Still I got to do some sight seeing, and if I’d played on hard I may of quit again. I wasn’t looking for a challenge. Overall I enjoyed the game. While it was clearly a linear game the levels were nice open and labyrinth in nature. The environments were pretty, and the Plasmids made for some interesting play (though there wasn’t much encouragement to experiment. It wasn’t until late in the game I found out you could make fire tornadoes). The dialogue and story of Bioshock was pretty damn good (even if I knew most of it already) and there was many memorable experiences. My favourite being taking a particular photo and being surprised with a little ding as I picked up one of my now top favourite Trophies. I think come 2012 I will definitely be popping it back in to play prior to Infinite. I won’t be getting Bioshock 2, not heard wondrous things about it. Maybe one day if it’s a few quid on Steam.

Future gaming looks to maybe be Fallout: New Vegas, Minecraft and my recent (as of a few hours ago) purchase of Duke Nukem 3D and Myst. Which those two I’ll try to get in a review or two on PressXorDie.

I have  also recently made a tumblr, which isn’t much active at the moment, but I’m going to try to get in the habit of posting to it.