2+ Hours with Bioshock 2

Bioshock 2

Being a Big Daddy

http://gamefiles.alphacoders.com/fanart/original/649-9.jpg

I was able to play Bioshock 2 for a few hours. I tried the first game a while ago. The horror-ish aspect, minimal resources to manage efficiently, and abilities were cool but the main character being human made the game feel odd to me. How was he expected to survive in such an environment? I like games where there is definitely a challenge and the sense of uncertainty but also the sense of being powerful.

Bioshock 2 has a much different feel from the original. The original set the pace and tone of the magic circle that was the retro world but the gameplay was lacking some mechanics and consistencies. In Bioshock 2 the player is a Big Daddy that is unique and out on his own agenda. 

As a Big Daddy you feel powerful but not unstoppable since there are other newer models of Big Daddies and the introduction of Big Sisters. The same mechanic of managing limited resources, such as ammunition, health, energy, and the like is still essential to survival in the second game.

The "magic" ability mechanic feels much less tacked on in this game and more essential. It is also more consistent with your character wince you are clearly a person who has been through a lot of experimentation and experiences in this crazy undersea world. You can increase the power of abilities, health, hacking skills, and other traits through adopting little sisters from other Big Daddies that you defeat. While the challenge of fighting them can be hard and use up a lot of valuable resources, the coherent reward is always worth a successful fight with another Big Daddy.

Little Sisters can be harvested for a set amount of ADAM to upgrade your abilities right when you kill their companion Daddy or you can adopt it and have it harvest more ADAM. This is one of the many decision trees within the game that make the outcome of the game uncertain the the challenge vary. After choosing to save a sister and harvest more ADAM you will have to fight off waves of Splicers (type of drug user in Bioshock world) and any other enemy that wanders by. After collecting more ADAM from two bodies you again have a choice: Save the little sister or harvest her for even more ADAM? I have not played enough to know the reward or punishment for saving little sisters but the extra ADAM is very handy so it should be something significant if the player sacrifices such an oppertunity.

Other decisions in the game are attached to the plot. Like deciding to let someone live or die that has been hindering your progress and trying to kill you for the beginning of the game. At first saving someone may seem almost meaningless but later they may be grateful and in such a tight space underwater, connections are good to have. Other decisions are more minor, such as deciding to hack a camera to use for your own defense or just destroy it and save the hacking dart since it is a valuable resource.

http://www.slashgamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/2bigsister2.jpg  (Big Sisters)

 

The introduction of the new enemies known as Big Sisters is a very cool development for the series. They are much faster than Daddies and have a similar aesthetic. They are just as irritating to fight but in a different way. I used a similar amount of resources fighting a Big Sister as I did a Big Daddy because I missed my shots too often where as the Daddy would take more damage.

The retro Steampunk-esque world is very intriguing. I am excited to play more. The controls are relatively simple and intuitive and the item management is straightforward, which is very good for a game where resources are scarce and very useful. I am glad this game universe has expanded to things like Bioshock Infinite and will explore more Bioshock soon.

2+ Hours with Borderlands 2

Borderlands 2

After the first Borderlands, I knew I would someday get the second. I loved the first game. It appealed to the Achiever and Adventurer gamer in me. Free range of the land (of open lands that is) and the ability to collect, sell, and continually find new weapons and accessories.

Borderlands 2 feels a lot like an extension of the first game. The classes to chose from at the beginning are new from the old ones and the enemy is different, he is after "Vault" hunters (which you happen to be). Your objectives are to survive, complete missions for money/story progression/experience, and collect newer and better weapons as you beat harder and harder foes.

The open world of Borderlands 2 feels like it improves upon the first game in the series. The monsters feel more natural and aggressive, map design limits backtracking (as does fast travel locations), and overall the experience feels even more immersive than the first, which seemed to rely more on the visual aesthetics being the experience than the second game of the series.

The characters in the world are fun and lively thanks to their creative direction/mature concept and their creative voice acting. While the quests they give you are relatively typical of an RPG (go kill this many of these, get a reward) there are often enough quests that tie into the lore of the world and that add to the complexity of the bock-story.

But I'm not a fan of the game solely for the back-story, the looting and treasure hunting is the biggest draw of Borderlands. In Borderlands 2, the weapons are new and unique compared to the earlier game. There are always some new awesome finds of weapons that are rare and do a lot of damage in ways other than just physical bullet damage, some of the best weapons I got in m short playtime were corrosive damage based weapons and explosive pistol round weapons.

While the loot IS awesome, the inventory problem from the first game persists. It is part of the limitations of game-play that the player can only carry so many items at certain levels but it makes it very hard to tell what weapons to pick up and try out, price and rarity don't always tell the whole story about how effective a weapon may be for your character.

Enemies seem harder in Borderlands 2. This is not a big deterrent because fast travel and vehicles make up for some lost time when defeated by a horde of enemies or an unfortunate hit to the head.

The HUD (heads up display) while playing is pretty minimal, at least in the PC version I was playing. I think it feels very clean while providing valuable information. The only problem I have with it is that it is not always obvious that your shields are low or gone, with a better indicator on screen it would help to warn players to take cover (if possible, not always likely in Borderlands).

The leveling system in the game feels a little slow and somewhat insignificant. the powers feel like a secondary mechanic and not necessary to play through effectively,, though I may be too early in to tell.

I really enjoy the vast world and various AI interactions. I look forward to see how the game mechanics develop as the game progresses. Right now all I can say is I enjoy finding the new weapons they added from the original set in the first game and the world feels just as unique.

1.5hours with Knytt Underground on PS3

Knytt Underground

1.5hours

Free for PlayStation Plus Subscribers

http://insideplaystation.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Knytt-Underground.jpg

Knitt Underground was free for PlayStation Plus subscribers in a recent week. I had no interest in buying it before and knew little about it but since I was able to get it for free I decided to try it out on my PlayStation 3.

Knitt is a 2D side scrolling game that is visually interesting. The design focuses on light to show path areas. Black is areas of the "underground" that are typically not traverse-able. The very vibrant backgrounds are nice but do not disguise the level design to me, it is much nicer than a simple 2D or simplistic 3D plane in the background though. It gives a strange sense of space and scale to the underground world that is the magic circle for Knitt Underground.

The very beginning of the game starts with no menu screen or instructions, you have to traverse a small area to get to the screen pictured at the top of this blog post. The next screen to the right lets the player chose a chapter (I believe there are 4) and a couple other areas of game exploration.

I entered the first chapter and the core mechanics became very apparent quickly. Since this game is a 2D sidescroller, Movement is a key mechanic. Timing jumps, landing jumps, exploring the land, and climbing walls deliberately are all key movement related actions in the game that the player needs to succeed.

There are some glowing orbs in the world that when picked up can be used within a short time limit to use a magic ability. These abilities are often movement based, such as "move linearly in this direction until the character hits a wall/surface in a section of the map".

Enemies are simple enough and have very readable patterns. They feel like part of the puzzles, much like in Zelda games.

The character moves relatively fast and most surfaces are climbable, this combination lead to a lot of accidental wall climbing, which got frustrating. This could in part be related to my use of a new 3rd party controller I purchased for my system.

There is nice ambient music in the game, it is relaxing and changes with the environments. My problem was that the music made my mind wander and I began to get tired relatively early on in gameplay. There is no voice acting or noise-voice substitutes, it is all text. The text is relatively short and digestible.

The game seems to be great for people who enjoy platformers/2D side-scrolling games. Explorer type players will enjoy how free the world feels despite its constraints.

In order to unlock doors (they look like totem poles) the player collect parts from temples and/or complete tasks for people in the game world. The puzzles, treasure seeking, and map exploration all reminded me of older Zelda games. Other elements reminded me of Megaman. This mix is popular among a decently sized target audience, but personally it is not my forte.

Some Minor Pitfalls:
-Some solid black areas can be walked behind, making it hard to guess where to go, even with the map open. but this adds to the explorer aspect of the game and feels somewhat old-school.
-dramatic elements/back-story are not always clear and coherent.
-decent amount of backtracking with little else to find the second time through with such a simple world design.
-can be overly mind-numbing/repititious.

Nice Elements:
-beautifully simple world.
-nostalgic.
-geeky/nerdy.
-freedom to chose open paths.
-puzzles/movement puzzles.
-hints to secondary things and pathways that can't be easily seen (water dripping for example).

-Will N.

2Hours with The Witcher

The Witcher

2 Hours with an RPG

Lovely Aesthetic World

I decided to try out The Witcher. I was tempted to play the sequel for this review but decided that the first is a better starting place for someone new to the game and I knew I could only do so much in an RPG with such a short playtime. It best to not play RPGs and expect to know their systems within an hour or two but I was excited to try this game and I knew I could get a sense of some of the mechanics in the short amount of time I had to play.

One of the things that these game reviews has made me appreciate more is the opening videos of games. They can help give a sense of what is to come in the game, especially if you know you will be playing for a very limited time. The Witcher's opening cinematic is very comprehensive and helps to set the tone for the magic circle of which The Witcher resides. It does a good job of concisely stating that the overall dramatic elements of the game.

At the beginning of the game you are allowed to chose the "Game Mode". While this can be nice for replay value, terms like "The Witcher" and "New Adventurers" doesn't explicitly tell me anything about either mode, especially since I interpreted them as "The Witcher Narrative" and "New Adventure Type Players (who perhaps still want the Witcher Narrative?)". I would have liked a little more insight, but I chose "The Witcher" since I assumed that would be less free-form and better for time constraints.

It is nice that you also get to chose whether to use the mouse and keyboard or just the mouse for controlling the character. It reminds me of StarCraft II. While a player can control most everything with the mouse,thanks to an elegant solution to SCIIs plethora of interface controls, it is less efficient and less enjoyable but easier in terms of learning curve. I chose to use both keyboard and mouse. I am not looking for a point and click 3D game on my PC most of the time.

Voice acting is not so great, it can break the experience for me from time to time but the world is still immerse.

Relatively Compact HUI (1080p)

Most on screen actions are hidden and rely on the "click to interact" mechanism, which reduces on-screen GUI clutter.

In combat there are different types of enemies. Some attack from a distance, some are quick, and some are slower and more powerful. The main character has multiple fighting stances to fight using different techniques to counter any type of enemy combat style. This mechanic intrigued me and I enjoy swapping stances to get critical stunning hits and hearing less metal clashing. If the right style is used against an enemy it is possible to get multiple strikes in against them and hit a timing with each strike which grants you combo attacks that are very important to taking down enemies much faster than longer one on one skirmishes.

There appear to be dungeons, so dungeon crawling is an element of the game. It definitely has appeal to both Achiever and Adventure type players, though I am not sure how much there is to venture out and find outside of the main plot, it is too early to tell.

The Witcher employs the use of a pause system when switching combat stances. It seems like a hard balancing decision for developers. I personally love it when they include the option to take a break and not make mistakes.

Some cut scenes could have been left out, they did not add to the atmosphere or magic circle. The auto pathing to clicked object is very good in this game, it seems some great coding and predetermined paths went into this. It helped to make movement a little less tedious and helped to emphasize combat and quest completion.

I accidentally skipped a scene that seemed crucial to understanding dramatic elements and conflict within the game but there seemed to be no reasonable way to re-watch it. It would be nice to have a "are you sure you want to skip?" text-box but that is perhaps a luxury I have been spoiled with. Because of the missed plot in the cut-scene, the plot felt less dimensional and I worry decisions I make will need information from what I did not hear. Granted, the chatter can be a little slow and the voices can be emotionally flat so I didn't miss too much socially.

After 1.5hours of playing I reached chapter 1... Which I had thought I was in! Combat has picked up a little and curing a fallen ally is one of my trivial tasks. unfortunately, I was unable to explore much more of the mechanics outside of the early game.

The game has a lot of potential, I just need to play past the first few hours. Though I can here the sequel calling my name...

-Will

2+ Hours of Game Dev Tycoon

Over 2 Hours with Game Dev Tycoon

Game Dev Tycoon Title Screen, TanGent is my company name.

A Game About Game Development... In a Sense.

 After reading about the interesting situation that Greenheart Games went through when releasing Game Dev Tycoon, I was intrigued. They released the game for sale on their site and on torrent sites around the same time, the torrent version slightly altered so that mid-game the players company would fail due to piracy for some nice irony. (http://www.greenheartgames.com/)

Since I am studying Game Development in school, I decided to buy the game and see what it was like. My hopes were low and my expectations were that it would be depressing. In the beginning of the game, you start out as a game developer in the early game era developing in your garage.

As the game goes on, you move out of your garage and establish a business location in a commercial building. This is done once you successfully create one hit game. While I am sure there is a formula for successful games, I have yet to figure it out with 3 or fewer people. It seems that you have to expand and keep squeaking by until later in order to figure out the hit games formula, perhaps I am mistaken though. There are few hints though. Trends and sequels seem to be the few guiding factors.

I obviously did not do so well with this #

The game lets you create your own games and balance game elements to try and make a great mixture that will sell well. You have to chose the audience, platform, game type, and style. Games are rated as you create them by a Technology score and Design score. Little bubbles/circles rise from above the developers heads and accumulate in a count at the top of the screen, as do bugs in the game and research points.

Each employee can also train to get better at design, technology, research, and speed. This takes some time, I am not sure how early on you are supposed to utilize this training since weeks go by very fase and every month you obviously lose money for operating costs. If you get too far in debt your company can get a loan or declare bankruptcy.

Below the sales on the right is the monthly costs/income

Despite spending so much time playing Game Dev Tycoon, I am not sure what I think of it. It is a little mind numbing. While I do enjoy it, it seems like it would be a better mobile/passive game since it is mostly waiting and making limited choices. The amount of player agency feels limited, there is no where to go and the timeline is very linear since it follows the gaming industry of the past. The control I have over the outcome of how a developed game does when I make it and release it. This may be to simulate the real market but taking control away from players is a risky choice.

I would need to spend more time with the game and play the end game section to know how it plays out, I am curious to see what happens after the current generation systems!