Monday Musings - 28 March 2011

It's Monday and i got introduced to some new games this week. Let's get ready to muse!


Final Fantasy XIII

I'm on Gran Pulse now. The game completely opened up. Most everything can kill me and there are missions. I completed a couple but pretty much made a b-line to continue the story. Crystarium points have risen substantially. It takes a lot of them to buy anything, but luckily i'm gaining a good amount from my battles.

The story seems to have broken down a little (or at least i need to check the datalog for extra info), but i am interested to see how the whole thing is going to end. Perhaps i'll complete it this week (though most likely not)


GTA IV - The Lost and Damned

I finally had enough. I looked up some codes, and with the help of guns, armour, and the police leaving me alone being a phonecall away, i plowed through the rest of the game.

There was some fun to be had. The final mission for Elizabeth where you're shooting cops while an NPC drives the motorbike all around town was quite exhilarating. Most of the missions were your general 'kill lots of people and escape' affair.

So now with the game saved after the story, i have all of Liberty City as a playground. Last night i loaded up the game and just had fun acting like a brutal psychopath (don't knock it till you've tried it... ingame). I'll get to The Ballard of Gay Tony sooner or later, but just having that world open to run around in is great.


Risk Factions

I spent Friday evening at my friend James' house. We played NES games on my Dreamcast and he showed me a couple PC games he'd been playing. The first was Risk Factions. Now i have never played Risk before (i have played a couple videogame versions so knew the basics), but i was very impressed by this title.

It's the basic game surrounded by bonuses, a pretty decent ui system (although the slider to add troops is a little maddening), and a lot of charm and humour conveyed by a great cartoon art style (and some hilarious animated shorts before each campaign map). I'm sure multiplayer is a blast, but probably will wait a while to buy it (i bought 2 other games this past weekend... which i will now discuss).


Atom Zombie Smasher

This was the 2nd game James showed me (as he wanted to try out the local co-op). It's a realtime strategy game based in procedurally generated cities, where you have to rescue as many survivors by evac helicopter as possible while killing zombie hordes with the troop types you're given. If you can wipe out all the zombies, you capture that section of the overworld map and gain more points each round towards winning (games are based off a point total, and if you reach the total before the zombies, you win). You can also rescue scientists to aid in research, you gain different troop types over time, and your troop types level up after missions. Finally, everything is visually represented by coloured pixels over the backdrop of surf rock, and the game is easily modable.

I thought this was a lot of fun. Co-op is basically 2 - 4 people playing the single player, so in 2 player, i controlled the evac helicopter, barricades, explosives, and marines, while James took care of artillery and snipers. Single player is made easy by a pause button to enact orders (well it doesn't pause, but game speed drops to 10% so it's just as good really). I played a short game by myself, but i must say, after seeing what the game has to offer, even with all the options, things can get a little dull. I might have to search the modding community for ways to spice things up, cause i really like what's on offer here (plus i payed for the game, i don't want to get just one playthrough for it).


Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West

It was $2.50 this weekend on steam. It boasted teamplay in the wild west. I thought, "What the hell?". It has a lot of good ideas. There are 4 class types each with their own weapons, and special talent. Each class also has a synergy so while they're around team members, everyone gets a boost (as well as healing). As you play the game and complete objectives, you gain experience and level up. Each level boosts the power of your synergy. All up, it's an interesting take on multiplayer.

It's a pity though that the game is a bit laggy and buggy. Compound this with that online people tend to be lone wolves, and not team players, and the game can lose its shine. Also, the combat doesn't have the right feeling. You're just aiming, moving and shooting, and there's no real viscerality there (yes, viscerality). When you die, you don't die. You fall to the ground and until more bullets are put in you, you can shoot with your pistol at others. This sounds like a neat feature, but having to kill people twice is a bit of a drag. One other neat addition though is the ability to respawn next to a teammate or where you died (although this can be inopportune).

All in all, for $2.50, i got my money's worth and will probably give this a go every now and then.


Final Thoughts

Sigh... i had written a big post about steam and indie titles, but it somehow got cut off when i posted. I will write about it again some other time. Sorry all

Till next time, happy gaming all!