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The Last of Us Day#5: Rugged Survivors

I feel like I’ve been a bit hard on Last of Us. There are issues with the gameplay and good lord, the save points at times are terrible. But the characters in this game are truly amazing. It’s not just that the game features interesting types of people, but the game handles them with truth and subtlety. That and the fact that when the gameplay lines up correctly, there are some fun scenes. The game is warming on me, and while the annoyances are still very annoying, the strengths are quite strong. Spoilers within.

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The Last of Us Day#4: Runaround

Day#4 of Last of Us is just more of what I’ve come to expect from the game. The relationships between the characters are good, but the plot is just so derivative of every other zombie story that I keep wanting to write walker instead of infected. And there are just fundamental problems with the gameplay that I can’t ignore. I have a lot of respect for Uncharted 2 for what it did for interactive cinema, but this game is just taking this way too far with pointless interactivity, loss of agency to cut scenes, and a pure lack of information about what to do in a given scene. I actually can’t imagine how this game is going to improve, but there’s just so much GOTY hype I want to see if there’s going to be at some major twist to redeem this. Spoilers within.

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The Last of Us Day#3: Telltale Symptoms

This game is really walking the line for me. On the one hand, the narrative is improving a bit. The characters are pretty good and the incident dialogue is great, but the main points of the plot are so obvious that it’s insulting my intelligence. The gameplay on the other hand remains stubbornly not gameplay. It gets a little better when some of the stealth scenes get stronger, but there’s still a tremendous lack of information at the start of every scene that makes me have to replay scenes over and over just to understand them, the reloading points are just awful, and there are just so many times where I’m not allowed to control the action it makes me want to scream. I’m going to stick with this game because of how much everyone talks about it, but it has a long way to go before I feel like it’s living up to what I expected. Spoilers within.

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The Last of Us Day#2: Am I Delirious?

So Day#2 of Last of Us after a LONG delay due to work, but my feelings are the same. The game is just not that good yet. It’s certainly pretty in the models and the settings, but the main thing is that I don’t feel like I’m playing a game. The characters just do things and I have no control over it. It’s not just that I don’t get to decide how it goes; I often don’t even get to PERFORM the action. That couple with that fact that I currently find the characters repellent and the plot obvious. Things get a little better as the core dynamic of the two main characters (Joel and Ellie) is established, but even that holds no surprises for me yet, because the main story is just so self-evident to me I feel like I’m going through the motions. I seem to be making good time in this game, but I need it get MUCH better for it to live up to the hype. Spoilers within.

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The Last of Us Day#1: Something in the Air

Well, why not start back up big? After a few months of insane travel, I’m now back to gaming for realz and getting back on track with Naughty Dog’s newest, The Last of Us. There has been much hype about this game in terms of its narrative, so I begin cautiously optimistic. And my impressions so far? Honestly, underwhelmed. It’s basically Uncharted with a different story at this point, so the gameplay is very cinema-based and the everything else rests on the quality of the narrative. That hasn’t impressed me yet. The beginning is too standard for the genre to impress me, and then I’m honestly a bit turned off by the violence up to this point. If there’s emotional power in this story, I haven’t seen it yet. Still, there’s enough quality that I’m curious to see if it gets better. Spoilers follow.

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Stochastic Thought: GDC 2013

Wow — five months since a post, and I have a backlog of notes on the games I’ve played during that time. That’s pretty intimidating, which makes me think there’s no time like the present to write my take on GDC and the themes for games going into 2013. So, without further ado, here are my big takeaways  from the 2013 Game Developers Conference. And if I had to some it up with a sound bite, it would go something like, “We’re HERE, We’re [QUEER/WOMEN/INDIE/NOT TRIPLE-A WHITE MEN], GAMES ARE OURS TOO!!!!!!” That made it the most heartwarming if uncertain GDC I’ve ever been to. Details within.

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Spec Ops The Line Day#2: Into the Pit

Day#2 of Spec Ops is how I’m spending my time while trapped in the hurricane. (I was thankful to still have power, and I feel for those who don’t. Stay safe.) The game continues to be interesting subversive. It’s a very pretty game to start, in the sense that the level layouts are regularly new and striking. The narrative remains weird and disturbing amidst the fairly traditional (and sometimes unrealistically cheap) military shooting. I’m still curious about where this game is heading. Spoilers within.

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Spec Ops The Line Day#1: Fighting Blind

So long travel hiatus from console-style games; planes are only conducive to things such as Super Hexagon and hotels are for web games mainly. But I’m back now and back on it. I will get back to Uncharted, but I decided to go for a shorter game first and picked up Spec Ops: The Line. I’ve heard nothing but positive things about the narrative in this military shooter, and that is a weird enough combination (see my comments on Modern Warfare) that I had to check it out. So my shorthand verdict: it’s a military game with a fascinatingly weird story. I mean both parts of that. It’s a pure military shooter, and the story is very weird in a so-far very good way. The story weaves strange disturbing stuff in between completely conventional gameplay. It’s disconcerting, and I like it. Spoilers within.

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Stochastic Thought: Lost is a -3 (Why I’ve been away)

Hey there. You may have noticed a conspicuous lack of posting from me lately. Again, I fell into a television black hole. This time it was for Lost. I did this purely because I felt that it was too important a show for me not to have seen. I think I was right that I should have watched it, but it’s an uneven series overall. There are strong points and weak points. But Season Six is absolutely a miss and makes the whole series a -3 on my Midi-Chlorian Ruination Scale. I’m going to spoil like crazy right now, but I want to justify my selection here and also give people who are interested a forum to reflect or disagree. Spoilers (obviously) within.

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Uncharted 3 Day#1: Revisiting the Past

So, another long time away due to travel, work, prolonged illness, general life chaos, and frankly, boredom with Arkham City, but we’re back with a vengeance with Uncharted 3. You’ll remember what I said about Uncharted 2 in a previous post, and I had no reason to believe that 3 will be anything but the same exciting, limited-agency, roller coaster thrill romp. And what did I find? Well, it’s basically the same as before. It looks good, the voice-acting is good, the writing is witty enough, and the game is still an only quasi-player-controlled thing. I like it so far, but very very often I wonder if I’m doing anything to influence the game at all. Spoilers within.

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