Crysis 2: You are here

December 1st, 2011
There’s a moment in Crysis 2 whenever a massive explosion separates you against the Marine unit you have been assisting. The fight continues, but, unusually for any video game, it continues without you. In the the distance you hear gunshots echoing from the skyscrapers, the thumping artillery occluded by steel and concrete. The smoke has drifted in to the air above you, and also the reflection of the streetlights casts an orange veil within the street. If not for that barely perceptible sounds of battle, you may think you were the last part of New York left alive.

Unreality intrudes. A goal pops up onscreen. REJOIN THE MARINES.* A blue arrow in your HUD leaves no question about where they’re. And your surroundings, that are nothing more than a long, narrow street without any doorways, leave without doubt about how to get there. You’d no control over the explosion that stranded you here, and you’ve got barely more control over how you can return to the action. You’ll need only to hold on the left stick within the right direction.
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Yakuza 4

November 27th, 2011
Above: The crooked police commissioner can wait. I’m buying these ladies some champagne.

Trying to sum everything up in under 600 words was impossible, as well as attempting to present a vertical slice still missed a great deal. For instance, there’s a whole area of the game set in an underground city populated through the homeless, which has its very own economy based on trash. You can become a garbage tycoon in that area, if you wanted. It’s not necessary to. But you could.

For those that you can do in Yakuza 4, will still be restrictive in many ways. The main reason comparisons to Grand Theft Auto games slip isn’t about ambition, depth, or storytelling mastery. In the book Dave Barry Does Japan, Dave Barry describes visiting a bunch of Tokyo’s marginalized citizens chilling out at the park. The people in each group are dressed identically one to the other, and perform coordinated dances once it’s their turn. This is the approach this game takes to the “go anywhere, do anything” philosophy. Inside a Grand Theft Auto game, you would be able to enter the Pachinko parlor and rob it, place it on fire, or jump the window. In a Yakuza game, you are able to only play Pachinko. By the rules.

Guess what happens else is missing out of this review? Just how much fun it’s to play. This has not changed because the first Yakuza game. Your characters are accosted every few blocks by street punks, low-level gangsters, along with other assorted miscreants, and you have no choice but to conquer the stuffing from them using anything you can get your hands on. Which means you grab whatever is handy — milk crates, traffic cones, bicycles, even motorcycles — and smash everyone up good.

All the characters have a Heat meter that accumulates and allows them to unleash much more devastating attacks, that are truly painful to look at. And there’s a lot more variety than in the past, thanks to the four protagonists’ different fighting styles. The cop will ascend an opponent’s body just like a monkey up a tree, grab his arm inside a bear hug, and snap it. I never stopped wincing.

To use the superlatives grab bag, Personally i think comfortable saying that Yakuza remains the best series you aren’t playing. There’s no better starting point than here!

inFamous 2

November 20th, 2011
Above: Betty Draper’s weaselly brother IS Cole McGrath.

This is one of those games which makes me question reality, because I’ve not read one bad word about this, and I could barely are in position to play it. Remember after i talked about how great Outland felt during my hands? inFamous 2 may be the opposite. Nothing relating to this game feels to me.

I don’t such as the way Cole McGrath moves, this is not on the ground or in the environment. I don’t appreciate the way in which he clings to things automatically. I don’t realise why the crosshair seems an impression off from where my shots wind up. I resent not being able to lock your camera on to bigger enemies, who is able to fire devastating ordinance at me when i stumble into walls, searching for a safe place to hide but inexplicably grabbing a window ledge instead. Playing inFamous 2 feels as though having a long, drawn-out argument with my controller.

I’d estimate that my inFamous 2 experience stopped working like this:

10% failing to run inside a straight line
20% climbing something I did not mean to climb
5% neglecting to to climb something I designed to climb
10% not damaging the enemy during my crosshairs
5% getting killed out of the blue for no reason
10% doing unfun story missions
20% doing unfun side missions
20% searching for blast shards

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L.A. Noire

November 15th, 2011

Warning: This long-ass post contains major spoilers about the plot of L.A. Noire.

Short version: I thought that the non-interrogation stuff was generally terrible, while the interrogations were a mixed bag. That’s what the review focuses on. For a much longer and more complete review that echoes my thoughts almost entirely, I recommend Tom Chick’s review at Honest Gamers.

Since I didn’t have much more space to devote to the story, I will do so here. Like the gameplay, the story is incredibly uneven. It’s got high highs and low lows, and its most impressive storytelling feat is that sometimes those peaks and troughs occur simultaneously.

Although the details of each mystery often stay mysterious, the broad strokes are clear from the start. Of the three larger crimes that you eventually unravel, only the first — the true identity of the Black Dahlia killer — comes as any sort of a surprise at its conclusion. The final saga, about greedy property developers, crooked politicians, and a generous interpretation of eminent domain, is the most well-written and absorbing of the three, but it’s also evident from the first five minutes of the first case what the conspiracy is. Read more »

Portal 2

November 1st, 2011

High praise, naturally, and that’s why I say it’s unnecessary. The critical consensus about this one is unusual, even just in an industry where heretics are swiftly and severely punished. Don’t allow me be the someone to dissuade you: Portal 2 is damn good. Nevertheless, I find myself within the strange position of liking the sport a smidgen less than just about everyone else I read and speak with. Not a problem when writing for any more general audience, but on Twitter as well as in my own inner monologue, I focus more about the few stuff that separate us, as opposed to the numerous things that unite us.

My complaints are subjective, for what that’s worth. The largest: no matter what kind of nutty things Valve contained in the sequel — and you know, if you have completed it, they included some nutty goddamn stuff — the novelty factor continues to be diminished, if not entirely gone. The leap from absolutely nothing to Portal 1 was much more than the leap from Portal 1 to Portal 2, and just how could it be otherwise? I felt exactly the same way when I played Portal 2 when i did when I played Guitar Hero II and Left 4 Dead 2. It should be the better game in each and every way that should matter, nevertheless its predecessor gave me a brand-new experience, and that is invaluable.

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