Far Cry 3 - Thoughts

[contains spoilers]

After cleaning up the neon tropics of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon I immediately jumped into Far Cry 3, salivating for some more open world mayhem. I was stoked to run through a game that was bigger and more customizable than Blood Dragon's, eager to pick up my bow and get back to tearing the local regime a new one. Though a handful of the mechanics were quite different (there's a perk tree!), I felt right at home with a lot of it—even more than I did in its nostalgic cousin. And 40 hours later, what conclusion have I drawn after raiding every base and completing every side mission?

Far Cry 3 is a great game.

Most of my adoration for the series was pontificated on in my Blood Dragon review, but I'll briefly recap here—Far Cry is fantastic because it allows you to approach its world more or less however you want. When encroaching on enemy territory, you can snipe the guards from afar, plant mines along their patrol routes, go in loud with the shotgun, or just avoid the confrontation altogether (and more!). The sheer variety offered in combat keeps the game constantly entertaining; no matter what position you find yourself in, there's always a multitude of ways you can carve through it. Improv planning is a key component too, considering that enemies will fight with both the wildlife and resistance, leading to some unexpected interruptions in your best laid plans. But most importantly, the game rewards you for clever thinking with (besides XP) the sheer gratification that you're the king of this domain—this island is your home, and you are the most dangerous man on it.

You begin your journey to the top by being woefully underpowered, but soon you'll have a grip on the layout of the land, driving across mountains and hunting down wild animals. The fauna is far more valuable here than in Blood Dragon since you need their hides to craft better goodie pouches (with a reasonable number of pelts required), and some of the side missions throw you into pretty tricky situations (I played on the hardest difficulty so having an assortment of ability-boosting syringes on hand definitely helped). As you level up you can choose which skills you want to hone in on, though a few of became useless by the end of the game (why would you want improved pistol accuracy or to use a turret longer?). In the arms department there's a solid selection of weapons to choose from, and you'll definitely find favorites amongst the lot (like the absurdly dangerous Z93 with its sound suppressor attachment).

After I finished the main campaign I continued to explore the lush emerald paradise, yearning to test my skills further. The best parts of the game are some of the little moments you'll experience between destinations, like attempting to drive up a hill that is clearly not meant for vehicles and making long distance shots with explosive arrows. Perhaps because I enjoy the gameplay so much I'm more easily sucked into the world, but I feel that the Rook Islands are a fantastic, gorgeous setting that's never boring to run around in, striking a great balance between seaside coves and dense woods. Exploring this world is similar to that in an Elder Scrolls game, except it lacks the plentiful dialogue and slow pace, letting you mess around with the locale in a delightfully meandering-yet-meaningful way.

The game is fantastic but it isn't perfect. Like with Blood Dragon it falls apart when the story takes the wheel, unable to escape from becoming a disappointment by the end. I'm going to speak at lengths about the plot ahead, but keep in mind that the gameplay and visuals are so lively, elegant, and engaging that Jason Brody's adventure could've had no story at all and it still would be one of my favorite shooters.

The most obvious bummer is the loss of Vaas two-thirds through the campaign, resulting in Hoyt's ascension to the role of antagonist. The kingpin doesn't remain nearly as menacing as the pirate though, despite how often the game tried to peg him as such; Vaas commanded so much attention every time he was on screen while Hoyt only seemed able to mimic his creativity in somewhat boring, unconvincing ways. The plot shines with brilliance in a couple moments (like the dark nod towards Keith's sexual abuse and the infamous definition of insanity talk), but it does little to expand or develop those threads. Near the end, the game frantically chucks Alice in Wonderland quotes at the player in a Deadlight-esque attempt to add another layer of depth to the story, though all it amounts to is a simple "do you like killing dudes in the jungle or do you wanna go back to your inane life?". Honestly it's an intriguing question to ask (since it's essentially "do you like being a hyperactive killer in games or are you trying to play them realistically?"), but Far Cry 3 only touches upon this critique briefly in its cutscenes, instead being more concerned with scripted sequences and senselessly violent twists.

There's a myriad of other strange design decisions you'll wade through as well, consisting of missions that feel like bloated filler in a game already packed with content. All three expeditions to retrieve the golden compass pieces involve cinematic escapes that become terribly predictable, and the magical item is never seen again after Buck's death. Similarly, the entire Privateer's infiltration feels utterly pointless—you've spent the better half of the game shooting anyone that gets in your way, but suddenly it becomes best to curry favor with the bastard you're trying to kill? There's even a moment where you meet Hoyt face to face but can't do anything other than beat up your own brother in order to appease him (which, considering how bombastic the end of the game gets, feels very senseless). From a gameplay standpoint the last handful of missions are pretty abysmal as you go from turret section to turret section, throwing out stealth and forcing you to play it as a straight-up first person shooter. There were admittedly good ideas in the Privateer chapter, like the mission where you're allowed to walk around the enemy base and plan out your method of attack from within, but otherwise it largely feels like an insult after the great finale to Vaas' arc. At least Sam Becker was mildly entertaining, even if the only purpose his death served was just to shock the player.

If you jump into the jungle looking to write your own tales rather than listen to the ones told to you, the wilds of Far Cry 3 are certainly worth your time. I played it almost obsessively the week I bought it, enthralled the entire time by the beauty and massiveness of it all, the lows of the experience being overcast by the mountainous highs. I lost track of how many small, wild, unscripted encounters impressed me, and had a blast succeeding in my undetected base captures (in one of them I freed a bear to help me fight back against its captors, but then had to protect the bear from my allies in the resistance as they attempted to down it—all the while trying not to get mauled myself!). I was glad the game was everything I hoped for and more, and I'm genuinely curious if the other games in the series will outdo the precedent that Far Cry 3 has set.

I suspect if the writing is stronger, they just might.
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Logo obtained from: hdwallphotos.com

Fire 'n Ice - Thoughts

There's not too much I have to say regarding Tecmo's positively brilliant puzzler Fire 'n Ice. It's a game with some very simple mechanics that winds up getting insanely complex later on, demanding absolute mastery over its ice physics. Many aspects are handled excellently, from the clean visuals to the great map design to the catchy tunes to the perfect difficulty curve. Perhaps the story is far too puerile for such a cognitive experience, but the plot isn't integral to the overall package—Fire 'n Ice is all about the puzzles.

Dana's journey starts off deceptively easy, the first world serving as an innocent tutorial. You'll learn that your character's abilities are three-fold: you can hop a single block-high obstacle, you can push blocks of ice by walking into them, and you can create ice below you at a diagonal (bottom right & bottom left). The goal is to destroy all of the grimacing flames on a single screen, either by having an ice block fall on them or kicking a cube into its fiery face. That's it. Barring a few other mechanics, like angular pipes, burning jars and frozen stones, the game is solely about finding your way around tough layouts and determining how you'll extinguish each flame. That's why it's tricky to talk about Fire 'n Ice's component parts—deciphering your plan of attack is the real meat of the title.

The puzzles themselves are utterly fantastic, warming you up with the aforementioned tutorial where you push blocks around at a predetermined pace, teaching you to think about both ice creation and how you can traverse vertically with the aid of your chilly powers. It may begin nice and slow but ramps up into some utterly vicious levels later on, many of which you'll have to really mull over for long periods of time (or come back to after a full night's rest). There's a couple off the top of my head that stand out: 4-10's pest party, 6-9's claustrophobic stumper, 7-3's frozen labyrinth, and 9-4's tower of doom. Perhaps one knock against the design is that the last boss's stage is really lenient and simple, especially compared to the other autoscroller boss stages. But given that the game has some of the fiercest head-scratchers towards its final stretch that you'll ever experience (teaching you new tricks even at the penultimate level!), it's a minor chip against some already impeccable armor.

(Also, only after writing this review did I discover that there's 50 bonus levels included in the game! While most weren't as impressive as those in the main story [there were a handful of outright duds], there's still a lot of clever ones worth playing that continue to teach new tricks; it's amazing to me that an entire third of the game is left hidden behind a secret passcode.)

I feel a bit like a broken record for this entry, unable to expand upon my acclaim without getting into the nitty-gritty detail of each and every map. It's crazy just how much milage Tecmo got out of this game (and it has an edit mode too! [with no way to save unfortunately]), and if you're looking for one of the roughest, most entertaining NES puzzlers you'll ever play, you don't have to look any further than this. A fantastic entry that I unfortunately don't see lauded enough.

Shovel Knight - Thoughts

Indie games with a retro look are a dime a dozen nowadays, but retro-designed indie games are fairly uncommon. You may have a slew of Canabalt, Super Meat Boy and Flappy Bird pretenders wrapped up in an 8-bit coating, but there's not many games that explicitly emulate the likes of Mega Man, Ducktails, or Shatterhand. Yacht Club's crowd-funded Shovel Knight attempts to tackle this challenge, harkening back to NES gems in this turquoise knight's journey for redemption. The pixel appearance isn't only for show though—Shovel Knight is a highly competent platformer that joins the pantheon of classics that have birthed its design and mechanics.

Wayforward may be the premier studio in 2D sprite animations but Yacht Club undoubtedly took some of that talent with them; their kickstarter baby is sleek, gorgeous and vibrant, both in style and motion. Each area is bright and ornate without looking needlessly complicated, happily accentuating the energetic feel of the game. Regarding controls, they're tight and precise (once you get used to Shovel Knight's reach) which is perhaps one of the most important aspects the programmers nailed, since platformers live and die by how well their character handles. But taking center stage (besides the near-flawless soundtrack) is the excellent level design and amount of variety present in Shovel Knight.

Besides the towns and quick diversions, you have eight Mega Man-styled bosses to take down that occupy different thematic estates—each knight's keep includes about 2-3 new mechanics along with half a dozen new enemies, all unique to their respective fiefs. Concepts and baddies are introduced in an unthreatening, "get to know them" way, but are quickly used in conjunction with some trickier bits later down the road. Levels are long too, spanning around twice the length of a regular Mega Man stage, yet littered with plenty of checkpoints and side paths to keep the journey engaging. Giving the player unlimited lives is a wise design decision, as it allows the levels to be experimental but doesn't scare off newcomers from trying the game.

There are however a handful of quirks Shovel Knight has that grow more noticeable when you revisit the areas you've already beaten. Most significant is that the stages feel more packed with gems than they do dangers, often utilizing space for excavating rather than challenging the player—this complaint can pertain to the gimmicks as well. For instance the rainbow spewing platform in Polar Knight's level is a fantastic and strange mechanic for the stage, but it's not really used in heavy conjunction with many other enemies to make it more than just an odd traversal option (even when there are hammer-throwing ladder-hogs above you, they can be rammed with the contraption). A lot of the problems in the game can also be brute forced once you acquire enough health and magic, negating some of the more nuanced design put into certain encounters (like the griffin at the Tower Entrance). These are admittedly minor complaints for someone probably running through the game for the first time, and these gripes honestly do little to take away from an already adventurous outing packed with fun and danger.

To those wary of the difficulty, the game is easier in comparison to it's predecessors, though that's largely due to the repertoire you can build for yourself. There's a heap of side arms you can equip, running the gamut from mildly entertaining to absurdly useful (and abusable). Even without those items it's a relatively easygoing quest, though if you actually want to make the game harder there's plenty of ways to do so: you can destroy checkpoints for gold, opt out of using the full healing chalices, refuse to upgrade your equipment and even skip out on expanding your health bar. New Game+ doubles the damage you receive and removes most of the checkpoints if that idea sounds appealing to you, but the main game should likely fit most players; it strikes a healthy balance of being classically trained while never veering into Sunsoft levels of ruthlessness and rigor.

Bosses also deserve a good mention since they're one of the biggest drawing points of the game to me. Each colored knight has a semi-elaborate pattern and arsenal of attacks, making the fights very kinetic, frantic, and tense—on three separate occasions I killed a boss on my final sliver of health! Special commemoration for the best battles go to Spectre Knight and Plague Knight, the former basically being Castlevania's Death pumped up with Quick Man's mobility, and the latter being an absolutely chaotic encounter full of arcing projectiles and disintegrating platforms. King Knight is an unfortunate pushover but every other fight is a sheer joy to partake in. The final boss also deserves a mention for being quite creative, only containing a misstep in conveying the way to damage said boss, but splendidly closing out the game with a struggle and ending that—in some ways—Team Ico would have been likely to make in the 80's.

To design a classic NES platformer but sprinkle in a variety of modern touches is a tricky thing to accomplish, but despite your thoughts on how detrimentally close Shovel Knight plays to its progenitors, it is an unequivocally solid game. I feel that its presentation, design, pace and heartwarming story all come together to form a complete, wholesome package, deserving of its widespread praise. It's unfortunate that the bonus modes weren't included upon its release, but the content here makes it well worth the purchase... and I hope Shovel Knight allows the newer generation to look back and understand what made the 8-bit games so endearing as well.

ilomilo - Thoughts

For me, the best puzzle games are those that stump you so mercilessly that you're forced to put the controller down and just stare at the screen, thumbing your chin in befuddlement. The answer is usually somewhere within your grasp—so very close to the plane of your comprehension!—yet dancing outside that border, eluding you. With the help of some curious mistakes and acute observations, you can painstakingly piece together the solution, achieving the sweetest sensation of relief. It's a cumulative process that I feel made the 2D games of yore so appealing, except here it's about cognition & perception rather than precision & execution.

Puzzles that lack the aforementioned "aha!" moment (termed as such by Jonathan Blow) can leave a very weak impact. I can appreciate an intriguing story or sidesplitting script tied to puzzle mechanics, like with Thomas Was Alone and Portal 2 respectively, but neither of these games felt as fulfilling as I had hoped they'd be, the answer always somewhere nearby, laid within reach. So when I was perusing through my Xbox Arcade backlog, Southend Interactive's ilomilo stuck out like a tastefully sore thumb; I had half-finished it due to the stumper that was "blank paper", and I wanted to try the game once more, from scratch. Diving back in to its charming, block-based world and vowing to complete every level was a journey I was excited to undertake, as well as one full of some of the best challenges I've had in a while.

Aesthetics in the puzzle games are far from the main draw of the experience, but can work as a very subtle boon (or hinderance), as they're often the first thing that you'll notice about any entry. Being a grid based, axis-shifting mini-adventure, ilomilo could've gone for a look similar to something like English Country Tune but instead developed a warm, hand-crafted art style, filled with airy sound effects, plush character models and some of the most wholesome music composed for a puzzle game (it could easily be listened to by people that detest video game soundtracks). The quirky amalgam that emerges from the garbled voices, chipper tunes, and sock-puppet puppies give the world more flair, adding richness to the already potent Scandinavian flavor.

Yet the sublime visual style is only a part of what makes ilomilo so amusing. The brief backstory fills out why you'd want to get the titular ilo and milo back together again and it's a lot of fun thinking about how you're going to achieve that... as well as quite confusing. You'll have to think in three dimensions as the two buddies traverse multiple faces of a cube, using helpful blocks to bridge gaps or flip to the underside of a structure. It's one of those games that's hard to describe what exactly the mechanics are until you see it in person, but as long as you can wrap your brain around 3D space and objects, it's really thrilling to maneuver the lost friends about their imaginative world.

The only bummer to come out of my time with the game was playing the expansion, Autumn Tale, after the exceptionally strong finish of the primary story, First Adventure (especially after figuring out the mind-bending bonus level that was "space flight"). That's not to say that the Autumn Tale didn't have some of it's own confounding moments, but the difficulty curve was a very gentle slope in comparison. For example, the final three Autumn Tale levels were more or less of the same "toughness", which meant that by the end I didn't reach a satisfying climax of brilliance as I had done with the final bonus section of the First Adventure (though this may also be due in part to the lack of additional mechanics to learn).

But seeing as the worst aspect to gripe over is that the First Adventure was better than the already-enjoyable DLC, ilomilo has a lot going for it. It introduces you to it's mechanics slowly and carefully, handing the player new objects to interact with in multiple ways over four chapters until you're using each of them tandem without even thinking about it. So much of the game feels very thought-out and heartfelt, extending past the puzzles and seeping into the very design of the world—the parable of the Hunter and the Fox (something snuck into the bonus levels) has a strangely haunting conclusion, one that stands in strong juxtaposition to the childlike wonder the rest of the game exhibits (though the collectable polaroids do bridge the tonal nature of these two). It's a small cord that resonated with me, and I'm very glad the developers chose to include this.

The game is both entertaining and endearing, carving out a very unique niche for itself on the Xbox Arcade. I had a fantastic time collecting every trinket in ilomilo, and for fans of games like Braid, Antichamber and The Swapper, I cannot recommend this delightful entry enough. It's cute, curious, pleasant, and above else, constantly engaging with its world and design, asking for the player to truly grasp its mechanics in order to succeed... which is pretty much the best you can ask for.

And my goodness, that music!
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Images obtained from: ilimilo.wikia.com, gamingtruth.com wegotthiscovered.com, canardpc.com

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon - Thoughts

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon was the first Far Cry game I played, as strange as that may sound. During the Steam Summer Sale I saw it priced low and was hungry for a light-hearted FPS that I could finish in a handful of hours. The prospect of running around an open island to do primarily whatever I wanted was perhaps the biggest selling point of the series to me, and I reasoned that this little chunk of stylized DLC could handle that fix. Though the opening hour was somewhat underwhelming, once I got into the groove of the game I was thoroughly impressed—rare few shooters can compare to the sense of satisfaction you get when everything goes right during a mission.

First though, I'll touch upon the most notable aspect of this content—the distinctive 1980's aesthetic.

Boiled down, Blood Dragon contains a superb idea—take an intentionally niche and goofy remembrance of a single decade and mix it with the AAA production of a Ubisoft franchise, baking it until it forms bite-sized DLC. Thankfully the game is a standalone entry so people apathetic towards Far Cry 3's plot and setting can jump right into the neon paradise (though at its core it remains a tropical island entrenched in gorilla warfare). There's a variety of stupidly awesome details added to the game to accentuate the mood: the main character is a cyborg equipped with glowing shurikens, enemy mobs speak in bitcrushed tones and are decked out in futuristic biker gear, and there's wild Tyrannosaurus-like beasts called "dragons" that fire explosive optical lasers. One of my favorite flourishes is the way the the screen shakes and the visuals become chromatically distorted when the shotgun fires, giving the weapon a really satisfying kick (and the reload animation for each armament is hilariously flashy).

Despite the noteworthy effort the designers and animators put into making the game as radical as possible, Blood Dragon doesn't always hit its mark. This problem is exemplified best during the cutscenes—long discourses that slow down the action for lengths at a time, containing only a few good laughs here and there. I think the core issue is that the dialogue aims for a serious satire that comes across as mostly haphazard, rather than a bombastic display that hits you fast and hard with dumb 80's jokes. If you watch the opening cutscene I think it'll give you a good idea of what I mean, and how the writing drains the fun out of the ridiculous premise.

But the greatest offender is the opening tutorials—they're given as splash screens of text accompanied by a robotic voice over, which pokes fun at the hand-holdy nature of modern games but unfortunately succumbs to its own mockery by putting you through an extremely boring process. When I started the game I just wanted to run around a wreak havoc, and the length of the first few tasks alone, combined with the plodding pace, linearity, and constant reminders on "how to do side missions and buy stuff" made me question my purchase... but luckily my fears were alleviated.

When the game gets going, it really hits the spot. Perhaps Blood Dragon's greatest appeal is the variability in the encounters; there were a few times where I would jump into enemy territory and the operation would go terribly wrong, forcing me to camp a doorway and mow through any living creature that takes one wrong step across my shotgun-guarded rubicon. After the carnage settled and I could explore the base freely, I realized how many options I had open to me before they had all been squandered on a noisy approach: perhaps I could've slid in via a cable overhead, or lured the nearby dragon in for a frantic feast, or taken an underground path to slowly chip away at my opponents one by one from the shadows. This is especially prevalent during the main missions, where entire concrete playgrounds can be wasted if you don't proceed patiently.

Of course the mechanics are far from perfect—there's a handful of irksome design choices, like certain hostage rescue assignments where enemies tightly patrol an open area, meaning stealth becomes far less viable than running in guns blazing. This is further compounded by the inability to quietly take out heavy troops until you reach a certain level, meaning you have to use loud, lethal force to subdue them (unless you enjoy plunking arrows playfully against their armor). Other issues are small but remain prevalent, like the pointlessness of the island's non-dragon wildlife and the cost of supplies often outgrossing the reward you get at the end of each mission. All of the main missions are pretty long too, so if your game crashes mid-level (as it happened once in my case), expect to spend another twenty minutes or so trekking over familiar territory just to get to the spot you were previously at.

Luckily the game is so much fun that I didn't mind redoing most missions from scratch; each replay provided an opportunity to make sure I performed flawlessly this time around. One of my favorite memories was during the northwest base infiltration, where I sniped the pilot of a standing helicopter only to draw everyone in the compound over to that position. I snuck around the back and stabbed a guard, which was yet another reckless move on my behalf as it caught the attention of his nearby cohort. I planted a mine beside the corpse as I backed out the door and once it triggered on his curious companion, three more enemies were pulled into the corridor. A quick toss of C-4 and an instant detonation later, the base was all but taken care of—and no one knew where I was the entire time. It's these situations, where your impromptu reactions are put to the test during a sudden kink in the plan, that feel so fulfilling, as your success is entirely due to your crafty thinking and not merely left up to some lame QTE that you passively mashed X through. Essentially, it went well because you played well.

Early on it was quite apparent that I wasn't interested in what the story had to offer; the lively locale was my true calling. I drew much entertainment from the adaptive insanity that ensued as I attempted to save each hostage and dismantle every stronghold. Player creativity in each situation isn't just Blood Dragon's greatest strength from what I gathered, but the Far Cry series itself. In that sense I came to understand the draw of the franchise, and I decided to purchase Far Cry 3 after the credits rolled... but not before the techno resort was free of biker mooks. Boy howdy it was one hell of a vacation while it lasted.
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Logo obtained from: bloody-disgusting.com

Halo 4 - Thoughts

There was little love lost when I heard the Halo franchise was switching hands from Bungie Studios to 343 Industries. Some people swear by Bungie's work while they were still attached to Microsoft, revering the Halo games as the pinnacle of console FPSs, but the sci-fi shooter has never... clicked with me. I've rarely been interested in competitive multiplayer games and the Halo series was no exception; the scant few times I've played against others did little to change my mind. Therefore my experience with the games (1,2,3 and half of Reach) has been colored foremost by the campaign, and each entry has honestly left me feeling lukewarm at best.

The release of Halo 4 brought forth a bundle of criticism and controversy from fans that piqued my curiosity (although I wouldn't pick up the title until two years later). I was optimistic in what I assumed would be a significant change to the series, after hearing wild accusations that the mechanics had being CoDified and the new enemy designs were too Metroid Prime-y (neither of which stood out as particularly egregious for me). I was hoping to find myself thoroughly enjoying the campaign rather than shrugging off the experience as I had done with the previous entries, but what I played felt very much like Halo, though of a slightly different flavor.

Perhaps I should preface this section by explaining that I've never played any of the games to completion on Legendary. A common argument against the series' detractors is that they should engage with the combat on harder difficulties in order to discover the deeper systems behind gunplay and enemy behavior, but the issue for me has always rested on the fundamentals. I felt that the weapons had no weight or impact, the enemies were too bulky, the Chief felt sluggish, and the vehicles were incongruous to the on-foot fighting. The sections of combat that stuck out to me as entertaining were veering around in a Ghost sideways while peppering scrambling foes, and thrusting an energy sword into an elite for instant evisceration (such fancies were often short lived). And here in Halo 4, my impressions felt very much the same.

This is largely due to a common face seen in the game that I thought had run its course. You see, I'm tired of fighting the Covenant. I haven't fought them just once—I've fought them over four times across about 35 hours. If I wanted to fight more of the Covenant and use their purple weapons and drive their purple vehicles, I'd go back and play any of the other five entries prolifically featuring the humanoid zealots. When I met them once again in Halo 4, I think I was understandably unenthused to engage in rote combat; I hoped the additional race of enemy aliens would provide a much needed change in these encounters I knew all too well.

When the Prometheans showed up I was definitely excited—they were strange new foes pulsating with resplendent energy, and I was eager to test out their weapons and challenge their ranks. But rather than encountering a different army with a different style of play, I found rough analogs to the Covenant in these electronic abominations: Crawlers are wall-scaling Grunts and Knights are less nimble Elites with a couple of tricks of their sleeves. Even their arsenal mirrored both the UNSC and Covenant archetypes (pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, sniper rifle, rocket launcher), though there were slight changes for each one. Nevertheless, I did prefer to fight the Prometheans as opposed to their cool-colored cousins, since it felt like a fresher experience thanks to both the visuals and audio effects (especially on the weapons). To some it may be a case of "if it ain't broke don't fix it", but for me the similarities drew out a staleness in the battles that had worn gossamer thin.

That's not to say I didn't have fun—there were plenty of times where I found myself gleefully enchanted as I perforated the face of an Elite with a Promethean rifle, and smiling every time I killed a Watcher as it was attempting to resurrect its host. Yet most of the game was spent in a lull, being unmoved by the lore and annoyed at how plentiful & durable the enemies were (higher difficulties would serve to stimulate that irritation I think). There were even a few scenarios that became outright grievous, like a section near the end littered with Banshees and turrets that took forever to chew through, until the game started quicksaving me as I hid curled against a corner looking for rockets. The Hunters further stirred this agitation into anger as the tanky meatshields ate up all of my ammo and forced me to backtrack and scavenge for energy pistols while they brainlessly patrolled a small circular area.

Gadzooks does the game look gorgeous though. 343's artists employ a wide use of colors, smart handling of bloom and they build some of the largest, sleekest structures to have ever graced a console FPS. Many of the vistas tend to blur together (as the backdrops and architecture in Halo usually has [other than the iconic ring]), but it's still fun to run around and gawk at the enormity of it all. The game also runs wonderfully on the aged hardware, a testament to the team's technical prowess... it's just a shame the rest of the game didn't impress me enough to allow full immersion in the experience.

Take the story for instance—good lord, that story. I'm a big fan of narrative and character development in video games (admittedly a foolish plight at times), but akin to the combat, Halo wasn't something I could get my fix at. It often prioritized military lingo and objective discussions over plot commentary on the situation or interesting developments between characters (the Arbiter was mildly fascinating, but the cutscenes barely gave me more than a glimpse into the Covenant culture). I know there's a lot of lore there for the series, but each game—especially this one—had done nothing to pull me in.

In fact, sometimes it does the very opposite. Midway through Halo 4 there's a plot dump akin to the one at the end of Matrix Revolutions, filled with unexplained jargon like "Reclaimer", "Mantle of Responsibility", "Contact Essence" and "Genesong". People lambast Final Fantasy XIII for its expansive lexicon but at least I could check the datalogs to buff up on what each of the terms meant (which, once you get past the repeated use of Cie, it's relatively easy to keep track of). Here I spent the entire game unsure if Forerunner, Precursor and Promethean were the same thing, or how the Prometheans were related to humans, or why the Covenant were even here (were they drawn into the planet, or looking for the Didact, or hunting after Master Chief?). My questions went wholly unanswered by the end; the game was more intent on looking inwards towards Master Chief and Cortana's relationship and how it was changing with her dwindling state. But since the Chief has the in-game personality of a plywood board and Cortana pathetically referred to herself as a "girl" any time she needed help in order to stroke the male ego, the relationship was quickly lost on me (while it concluded competently, by then it was too little too late).

Overall, I don't even know if I enjoyed this entry any more than the other Halo titles (I think I did but it's been years since I touched 2 or 3). It's likely I should distance myself from the series to avoid burning out on the franchise, similar to how I've treated Call of Duty and Gears of War since each installment feels like a minor adjustment on its predecessors' legacies rather than a revision. I'm not skilled enough to spot what 343 Industries has done to sully Microsoft's most prestigious IP, though I guess I would've had to sink days and nights into both Halo Reach and Halo 3 well before I could make that kind of assessment. For now though I feel I can only shrug and resume saying that Halo is too far from my tastes, and that my time is best spent elsewhere.
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Images obtained from: gotgame.com, gameinformer.com, wired.com, gamingbolt.com

Killer is Dead - Thoughts

[contains slight spoilers]

Killer is Dead is a title I really, really wanted to love. It features an engaging art style pulsating with strong colors, quirky Suda 51 characters jesting with a riddled tongue, and aims for more Killer7 than Chainsaw Lollipop. Hell there's a woman named Moon River in the game, a princess from the moon that commissions the main character for the price of a kiss! The outset appears promising enough but eccentricity couldn't outlast the nagging issues that plagued the title—by the end I had to admit I was disappointed with the outcome. But first, let me gush over the visuals.

Above is a screenshot from a playable part in the game. Granted this is an ability-specific moment that applies a unique filter, but I think it illustrates well what I revere about the aesthetic. Every big budget video game this (previous) generation aims for an easily understandable and readable interface, yet Killer is Dead champions color over convention. Objects and scenery are ruthlessly saturated with vivid hues that bleed over into blacks to maintain it's stylized atmosphere. Even with such beautiful games released in 2013 like Super Mario 3D World, Bioshock Infinite, and Battlefield 4, I still think this is the title that mesmerizes me the most. It showcases a certain look and madness that I feel only Grasshopper could make work with such adroit craftsmanship.

Combat on the other hand, is mostly serviceable. You can slice n' shoot but it's a far cry from something as potently complicated as Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden, only letting you string together a handful of combos. The action can also get far too hectic at times due to visual complexity, making it so you can't exactly tell who or what is winding up to strike you next. Holistically the mechanics belong more to a 3D beat-em-up rather than a character action game, especially since the game largely demands that you master evasion and little else, as dodging is (unfortunately) the single most useful ability in the game. Even the outlandish final boss fight, a feast for the eyes and ears containing the lunacy you'd expect from a Grasshopper title, becomes dodge->mash X->dodge->mash X etc., as the conventional means of attacking are more suicidal than viable.

And of course regarding gameplay there's the infamous dating segments, where you ogle and seduce women in order to gain additional firearms from them as presents. While being an obviously empty sexist activity (you treat your suitors as literal missions), they're absolutely vapid and boring to play. You just hold the left trigger to stare at their "goodies" and stop only when your voyeuristic gaze is caught, a five minute activity that should've been relegated to a thirty second minigame instead. While wholly optional, there's interesting and useful gun upgrades hidden behind these asinine portions of the game, which means you'll likely slog through them just to spice up basic combat. These gigolo missions felt like the designers were aiming for a parody of James Bond but wound up implementing something more akin to a MAD Magazine jape.

Visual fluidity and mediocre combat aside, the enigmatic plot was the feature presentation that drew me in. I'm a massive sucker for a continual use of metaphors and symbolism (like kidney stones, alcohol & Paul of Tarsus in Dear Esther), so having Earth's celestial pearl in the night sky be a pillar of the game's lore was a delight. Robotic monsters came from the moon, there's a muscular man clad in a gold thong ruling it, and a skeletal maestro yearns to fill it's rocky core with malice. Writing that sentence caused me to chuckle at just how utterly bizarre those scenarios are, but I truly enjoy when a game aims for something out of the ordinary rather than relying on thinly veiled tropes. There was something special about the moon and its relation to the main character, and I was determined to discover just what that was.

I failed though; what bubbles to the top of this confusing bog is miscellaneous and befuddling. Characters come and go, prior memories are explored and abandoned, and the game finishes flatly with a series of baffling, unexplained twists. Perhaps I had too high of hopes with Killer7 still in mind (this extensive exposition on GameFAQs is proof that Suda 51 can make something quite inspiring), and I will admit I was hoping for something more... fulfilling compared to previous Grasshopper titles. Yet the story remains just as pale and flat, being neither bombastic satire like No More Heroes nor a dopey B-movie action title like Shadows of the Damned. It's not completely devoid of meaning, but what meaning is there lacks proper context or explanation to emerge as "sophisticated" rather than "zany"; the game breaks the fourth wall three times for no reason, introduces a sentient locomotive and colossal alien just to be different, and has its characters exchanging odd quips over dutch angles for the sole purpose of "being cool".

Killer is Dead is by no means a bad game, but it's unfortunate that you've experienced the best the title has to offer just by looking at these screenshots (although it's worth a gander in motion too). I wish I enjoyed it more, as there were plenty of signs within the first couple of hours that it could be a personal favorite from 2013, but when I sit back and stare at its lunar metaphors ripe with misleading dialogue and strange nonsense, it feels more... crazy than it does brilliant.
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Images obtained from: pixelrelated.net, co-optimus.com, hobbyconsolas.com, vg247.com