Category: First Impression

Serious Sam – The Other Ones
by LepcisMagna

The Second Encounter

I loaded this up, started out, and thought: “Hmm…this looks suspiciously familiar.  Like, exactly the same as the first game.  Hmm…yep.  Same desert, same oasis.  Though it’s raining this time.  Or maybe I just didn’t notice that the first time.”  Turns out, the Second Encounter was much like a DLC pack for the First Encounter.  And (on Steam at least) if you own both, the First Encounter levels are imported into the Second Encounter game.  Since The Second Encounter is basically more of the same, I’m sticking with my original assessment for this one – Tier One.

That being said, I do have one complaint I didn’t mention in my impression of the First Encounter that has grown to irritate me quite a bit while playing: most enemies teleport in – which means that you’ll frequently be attacked from behind by things that weren’t there five seconds ago.  This feels like a cheap way of increasing difficulty without really making things more challenging.  Having a single type of enemy do this or having it happen on certain levels would make sense.  But when it is the primary method of fighting, it grows tiresome after a while.

The Random Encounter

This is a 2D, turn-based RPG based on Serious Sam.  It’s a parody of Serious Sam, which is itself a parody – and it just doesn’t need to exist.  It isn’t particularly fun.  There are better ways to spend your time.  Don’t play it.  It goes to Tier Three, narrowly escaping Tier Four only because it isn’t aggressively bad all the time.

Serious Sam 2

The First and Second Encounters have a classic charm to them.  Sam makes occasional one-liners that are atrociously bad, but intentionally so – and it’s forgiven because it only happens sometimes.  Somewhat like old Duke Nukem.  There’s real challenge to be found (even ignoring the stupid teleporting monsters).  But in the SS2, there’s an inexplicable return of the lives system which hasn’t made sense since you could save your game.  The art is cartoonish and suffers from what I can only call early-2000s 3D syndrome, where everyone was trying to make things look cool and new, but ended up making games that have aged terribly – worse even than Classic Serious Sam.  This one, too, must be sent to Tier Three – though I may look at it again if I beat all the other games.

Serious Sam: Double D XXL

Why?  Why does Croteam think licensing Serious Sam out for cross-genre games is a good idea?  This time, it’s a sidescrolling shooter.  It doesn’t work well either – though better than the Random Encounter.  Within five seconds, I’m given two tutorial messages that completely stop gameplay.  I’d like to imagine Serious Sam from The First Encounter punching the robot telling you these things, especially when the robot even admits that it’s something Sam would already know.  It doesn’t make it better just because you’re being self-aware about it.  I know the things can teleport.  They just did.  Right in front of me.  Just let me shoot the things.  Tier Three again, but mostly because it pushed my game-hating buttons.  The actual gameplay might not actually be terrible.  I didn’t care to play long enough to find out.

Serious Sam Classics: Revolution

This is an indie remake of the original Serious Sam First and Second Encounters.  It’s different than the HD remasters.  No, I don’t know why there’s another one – though this one is in Early Access.  Once again, I find myself in a desert with a hidden area at an oasis.  It’s also raining this time.  It’s going into Tier Two because at this point, I’ve played the First and Second encounters enough, and this remake just doesn’t capture the same charm as the original for me.  Or I’m just tired of playing through Egypt.  The HD remasters are what you should play.

Serious Sam 3: BFE

Having played Doom, I was totally wrong in my guesses about what BFE meant, though I honestly couldn’t figure out the E (Egg? Echydna?  Exarch?  Eyes?).  Then I learned it was a prequel – so it stands for Before First Encounter.  That’s less entertaining than I was expecting.  Much like the game itself.  I started up a new game and was greeted by … Call of Duty?  Did I start the wrong game?  Oh.  oh…  On the plus side, after it got rolling, things improved and I was soon bashing and shooting my way through thick waves of classic monsters.  While I’m not sure I agree with the inclusion of such powerful melee attacks (almost prescient to DOOM, even), the early fights were satisfying and sufficiently challenging to pique my interest.

Of course, there’s a problem when they introduce the screaming fellows.  You know the ones.  If you don’t, you’ll soon come to love them (if you play this game).  The problem is, it’s the EXACT same moment as the First Encounter.  I believe Sam has the exact same dialogue.  And that’s really the problem I’ve been noticing with these games.  Croteam made 1.5 good Serious Sam games (since the Second Encounter was expanded DLC) and have just been repeating the same game ever since.  First they made SS2, but went too far afield.  Now, they are trying a return to form, though I’m not sure if it succeeds.  So for now, this too will go into Tier Two – since I think it’s probably worth picking up later, after I finish the HD remasters.

On an entirely unrelated note: Croteam’s later release, The Talos Principle, is worth a shot if you like puzzle games – very different than Serious Sam, but even better in its genre than the First Encounter.

Steam Links

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
by Chezni

 

Completed Review

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic took me by surprise. When I think of the MM series, I typically think of party-built dungeon crawlers and tactical army-based strategy games. What I don’t think of are first-person RPGs—and yet not only is DMoMM (can we just call that DM?) a first-person RPG, it’s a great first-person RPG.

DM has everything a great game needs. Excitement, adventure, enough dialogue to keep things interesting, not too much dialogue to make things boring, mechanics that don’t just push the game forward but mechanics that are fun—for instance, one interesting feature is that you can always deliver a good strong kick in front of you with the F key. What can this be used for? What can’t this be used for! I’ve kicked people into fireplaces. I’ve kicked people into spikes. I’ve kicked zombies off of cliffs. I’ve drop-kicked pottery into a town guard’s head just for fun! Kicking isn’t just a strictly combative mechanical feature of the game, it’s built into the way you can interact with the world around you. A good strong kick (or a series of the same) will destroy a large portion of the architecture in the game and a majority of the objects are able to interacted with, or at least picked up and thrown. This means that the traditional combat of “block and strike” opens up into a wide range of feats in a 3-D world. You can do something as simple as throw a barrel at a knight, or find some oil, break it on the ground near a chokepoint and when in danger ignite it while running past to cover your retreat. You can lure guards to unstable storage structures and break the supports when they are underneath. You can pick up a teacup and chuck it at a ghoul because… well darn it, sometimes you just have a desire to throw the good china at the undead!

While progress in the game is linear, the levels are designed with enough secrets and multiple paths that in many instances you can choose your route. Combined with the destructive environment, and simple but distinct choice of weapons and skill paths, I felt encouraged to explore unique ways of fighting because the game seems to reward it all in an equally potent manner. Usually when I play a game, I find specialization in traps to be an overwhelmingly tedious task with underwhelming rewards. In DM though, I’ve not only discovered how to effectively use my fire trap spell, I’ve found that I love it! I feel excited when I’m running away from a pack of thugs and in my haste I have the presence of mind to throw down the trap in the middle of the doorway. The sound of explosions behind me usually signal that its done its job well. The collateral damage caused by the explosion just adds more fun to the chaos. Once, I found myself in an attic whereupon with each trigger of the trap spell, another portion of the floor boards were blown completely away, making combat with the remaining enemies a dance upon the remaining shifty rafter floorboards.

The environments of the game are nice, and despite being over 10 years old, the game largely avoids uncanny valley by not overstepping the bounds of its graphical design. The story and characters, while not particularly profound or engaging, are likewise not bad and provide sufficient motivation for the player while having a few interesting twists here and there. If I had one complaint, it’s that in spite of the well-designed nooks and crannies containing hidden treasure, I feel that too often the treasure is healing or mana potions. I would have enjoyed more unique rewards for my exploration (something along the lines of Lands of Lore II where almost every secret reveals something unique or rare) but the limited pool of weapons and equipment does keep the game from becoming a gear hunt and more of a check against your skill as a player with the equipment you have on hand.

From what little of DM I’ve played, it’s been a well-paced and simply a fun experience. Whether it’s finding the next hidden terrace I can leap onto through a window, or the next sweet explosion from a fire trap that destroys half the environment, I look forward to my future exploits in the game.

 

Steam Link

 

 

 

 

Serious Sam: The First Encounter
by LepcisMagna

Sure, it’s basically Doom (no, not DOOM) crossed with Duke Nukem.  But you know?  Those were good games (well, mostly Doom).  Serious Sam: The First Encounter is a worthy successor.  Distinctive enemies (even if a couple of them are palette swaps), satisfying weaponry, and amusing dialogue make for a solid, fun game.

I want to briefly tell you about my first ten minutes: I have a habit of always trying to go the opposite way when a game starts.  Results range from the acceptable break from reality (the screen just doesn’t scroll that way) to the frustrating (Assassin’s Creed desync, I’m looking at you).  But Serious Sam?  I walk 45 seconds in the opposite direction.  A bunch of tough enemies spawn.  Ten minutes later, I’ve killed them all with my pistol and there’s a secret stash waiting at a desert oasis.  I was rewarded for trying something different (there was a slow health drain another minute out, but at least there wasn’t an instakill for not doing what the developers expected).

Before I even felt like I started, my hour was up.  I will definitely be playing more.

Hyper Light Drifter
by LepcisMagna

This game seems a cross between Bastion and Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP.  What luck – those are both great games!  Except…Bastion has the epic combination of sublime narration and blissful soundtrack, while Superbrothers has some clever puzzles backed by fantastic sound and visuals.  Conversely, HLD seems almost mediocre in all respects except the art.  Combat is simple, the goal beyond killing things seems to be entirely item collection, and the story is minimalistic – none of those are necessarily bad by themselves, but a good game needs something to distinguish itself.  It pains me to say it, but this feels like the indie equivalent of many AAA games – it looks pretty, but everything else is milk toast in order to offend the fewest people.  It’s not bad, but there’s nothing motivating me to play it.  I believe I’ve seen similar problems from other Kickstarted games where there’s a pull to please your backers – one which few games escape.  Perhaps I would feel differently had I played its inspiration (I know – it’s gaming heresy that I haven’t – though… I’ve always been more a Chrono Trigger guy).

Fallout Tactics
by Chezni

The Fallout series (much to the dismay of my peers) has never been my cup of clam chowder. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the game franchise for what it is and what it provides its players–it’s just that I’ve never really liked the Wasteland setting for my post-apocalyptic games. Maybe the series is just too dry for me–or maybe I don’t like the way that the ever looming presence of the desert, radiation, and a less than plentiful supply of bullets constantly weighs down upon my weary desert-traveling soul. Don’t count my credentials out though–I’ve beaten Fallout 1, and I’ve even beaten its spiritual ancestor “Wasteland” (let me tell you, that was a trip) but at no point did I ever feel the special connection that so many seemed to have with this kind of game. As I loaded up Fallout Tactics, the third in the Fallout series, I expected to be met with the same wall that before had segregated my enjoyment of the series and was surprised to find… that I think I actually like this game.

Just as the other two Fallout games, Fallout Tactics begins with you building your character with the exact same stats, perks and skills as before. What makes this game different, is that instead of being kicked out of your vault with a knife, a pistol and a handful of bullets with the expectation that you survive in the harsh wasteland, you instead are injected into a series of scenarios that you must tackle, each with their own objective. The story goes, that you are in-training for the Brotherhood of Steel, and as a new recruit you are being sent on a series of missions to test your metal. In each mission you’ll get a handful of party members to assist you; thus the tactical portion of Fallout Tactics.

I’ve heard complaints about this game from fans of the others, and I can see why. Gone are the sections of exploration. Gone is the need for extensive role-playing with NPCs or grueling survival through the desert. It’s these absences that are probably the source of many’s complaints about this game–but it is the source of my enjoyment. I no longer feel like I’m wasting my time, wandering from town to town because I didn’t use the right dialogue option on a random NPC. Gone are the hours spent trying to pierce The Glow’s radiation without the proper equipment, or trying to track down a damn water chip. Instead, you focus much more on equipment management and party tactics in combat.

Does it deserve to be a Fallout game? …Probably not. If Fallout lore or role playing isn’t that big of a deal for you and you enjoy mini-scenarios involving strategy and party management then you might find something in this title. It’s nothing spectacular, but it’s less frustrating than trying to unearth the next piece of plot in Fallout 1.

 

Steam Link

 

  

Sid Meier’s Ace Patrol
by Chezni

“Oh, a game by Sid Meier with planes? So, a plane builder/simulator I’m guessing?” *clicks on game* “Oh… dear. What is this.”

SM’s Ace Patrol is surprisingly a hexagonal strategy game involving the command of up to 4 planes in a take-turn simulated dog-fight experience set in… some war… sometime. Over in Europe or something. Er, maybe it was WWI. I dunno. I didn’t pay attention… to the game or my history classes. (Also, if you want this to get weirder, it was made by 2K–the same people who brought you BioShock and Borderlands.)

Recently I’ve been in a pattern of embellishing my reviews, but I’m just gonna give you this one straight up. Don’t play this game. It’s not worth your time.

The game starts out with you picking a pilot… but it wont’ really matter because you’ll get them all anyway. It then throws you into some tutorial missions, and then onto the campaign screen where you can manage your planes, pilots and missions. I also found that for some reason, someone had set the difficulty to the easiest setting which I raised. Each mission was an interesting yet simple simulation of what grid-based aircraft piloting would look like, with easy-to understand accounting for elevation, G-Force, and other factors, but in the end, you’ll probably just end up clicking arrows on whatever lets you deal the most damage to an enemy plane, without really thinking about what you’re doing.

 

Your pilots will gain levels and skills, with a wide variety of plane techniques, but I’ll be honest–I didn’t read any of them or try to figure out what they did, because in the end, I knew it would matter, so I just clicked on random ones for each pilot when it came time for upgrades. Also, is it me, or do you just want to punch each of the pilots in the face too?

 

 

 

I played enough levels to get to what I assume was a milestone mission where I had to take down a Zeppelin, upon which I was showered with more upgrades and skills that I scattered about my pilots without rhyme or reason. All I did to win the mission was click on arrows and make sure that my pilots were focus-firing. The game is somewhat amusing but has little substance and is a time waster in the strictest sense. Lightweight gamers may enjoy this, but it’s barely above the complexity of a Facebook game.

 

Steam Link

 

ICEY
by LepcisMagna

If you haven’t played ICEY, you probably have one of two reactions: “ICEY?  Never heard of it.” which isn’t surprising, since it seems to be a somewhat small title.  But, as is more likely if you keep up with games news: “ICEY?  That’s the Anime Fighter Stanley Parable, right?”  And indeed, it is.

I went into ICEY expecting quite a bit based on the hype.  Initially, I was underwhelmed.  As a fighter, it’s not terribly difficult (though it does use a dual WASD and IJKL control scheme, which I think is kinda nice).  The Stanley Parable bits weren’t terribly exciting; though I probably wouldn’t have said that before the Stanley Parable came out, but now all games must suffer underneath the quintessential decision simulator.

As my hour progressed, I changed my mind – it’s still not terribly difficult (though a few boss fights have been challenging), but it’s a fine addition to the Parable-esque games genre: the hype having washed away, I was able to enjoy it for what it was.  And I ended up playing twice as long as I meant to: which is the whole point of Tier One, no?

Steam link

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
by Chezni

As gaming history progresses, it has always become more and more difficult for me to assess what a “good game” is, partially due to my own pre-established biased getting in the way, but moreso because the complexity and variety of video games increases with each year. Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood (as well as the entire Assassin’s Creed series) had me sitting here, scratching my head for just that reason. Is Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood a good game?

 

If I may digress just a touch, I will say that I was and still am to some degree a huge fan of the original Assassin’s Creed game. Back when I had played it for the first time, I was completely blown away–never before had I played a game with such a massive draw distance where not only was everything explorable, but where every building had been hand built so that it was scalable in a (somewhat) realistic manner. Buildings and characters looked good, the setting was not an overdone one, and the story was interesting. Add to that the controls were unique, smooth, and yet complex enough to perform some pretty exciting parkour moves. I was immediately hooked.

 

My memories of the original AC still live on fondly in my memory to this day.

Two games later and I’m sitting here playing Brotherhood with a sickening sensation building up in my stomach, all the while I’m asking myself bewilderedly, “Where did it all go wrong?” I believe I have the answer, but it is not a simple one, and as I must address the question with some tact, I beg your patience as I assess a few different concepts.

 

First, there is the concept of a mechanical transition from one game to another. I’ll be brief, but usually when producing games in a series, the mechanics of a new game should be relatable enough to feel like a continuation of the previous games, but also possessing signs of growth and improvement. Super Mario 1 and America’s Super Mario 2 are perfect examples of this. In SM2, you run with the B button and jump with the A button just like before, only now you need to learn how to pull turnips up from the ground, enter doors and clay jars, pick up weird objects and utilize them, as well as learning the difference between the 4 playable characters. SM2 is similar enough to SM1 to not be a foreign concept, but introduces new growth to the game that causes the players to think and grow themselves in the way that they interact with the game. Right from the beginning of Brotherhood I know exactly how to play the game, because the controls and mechanics are exactly the same as they’ve been for the last two games. Nothing is new, nothing will be new (this I know as I’ve played Revelations, the next game in the series) and the player will interact with the world in the exact same way they did in AC1. The difference is, that now instead of somewhat having your hand held in what you’re allowed to do, you *really* get your hand held in what you’re allowed to do. Fun.

 

Brotherhood is less a game and more of an interactive experience where you are meant to believe that you are freely playing the role of a character, but the moment you move a couple feet away from where the game wants you to be, it jerks hard on the invisible chain around your neck and forces you to follow the rails that were laid for you. Near the beginning of the game, you ride a horse with Ezio’s uncle. In what was a comical sight, I moved what must have been relatively 10 feet away from the uncle and the game desynced me because I wasn’t  walking along beside him like it cinematically wanted. After meeting with Ezio’s sister, you’re left to wander around freely to discover the estate–except you’re not. You’re demanded to go to three completely random locations and talk to three random people to perform three random acts that are completely pointless. I believe that they are meant to be a sort of tutorial, but do I really need to do a quest to figure out that pushing “B” gets me on a horse? Do I need to do a quest where I learn that pushing B lets me pick up boxes? What the heck?

 

And sex. Ooooh, the sex. The first female character I met in the game that wasn’t my sister, implied about three different ways how she would provide Ezio with sexual favors because he carried a box of flowers for her–all the while Ezio is soaking it in, playing the role of “put yourself in my shoes, adolescent boys and play out my fantasies.” Not more than 10 minutes later, there is sex scene between Ezio and a different woman than the flower lady. Cleavage flops about everywhere and butts are taut on every female character except Ezio’s mother. Is sex inherently bad? No, of course not. Is an attractive female body wrong? Not at all. My issue stems from the reason for its use–which I know is only there to titillate the heterosexual male gaze and nothing more. I must stress again, that sexualized characters are not inherently bad–as long as there is a purpose beyond cheaply appealing to the chemical nature of a segregated portion of the gaming community. My wife and I love playing a game–it’s called “White man with stubble.” If the character of a game is a white man with stubble, then 9 times out of 10, the title is a shallow pandering to a male power fantasy, disguised as a game and cashing in on the straight desperate man-child. Brotherhood more or less falls into this category.

Classic victim of White Man with Stubble Syndrome:

 

The pandering doesn’t really stop there either, as the game is filled with achievements for the most mundane of things. You literally get an achievement for watching the opening cinematic. Read that again. The game deems sitting on your butt and watching a cutscene, worthy of award. Is that how little faith they have in their own product? That they have to bribe the player into continuing to play their game through the use of cheap stickers for the most basic of tasks? What’s even better (or worse) is that every achievement you get, you gets displayed twice–once for Ubisoft’s joke-of-a-Steam-ripoff called Uplay, and once for what I assume is the actual game. Double gimmick points!

 

Now, with all this being said, to say that Brotherhood (and the AC series) is unsuccessful would be ridiculous. Ubisoft has turned the AC series into a powerhouse franchise that *has* to be raking in the dough. Do I fault them for that? No, not at all. It is simply that, just as each person has beliefs in what a video game should be, I as an individual also have beliefs in what a good game should be, and the AC series beyond 1 is not it. Instead of expanding their universe, mechanics, gameplay and ideas, it decided to focus more on a production of rapid-fire games in quick succession. Instead of growing a new genre of gaming that they nearly created single-handedly, they squandered it in order to play it safe. Instead of relying on the power of the entertainment value that they provide to their players as a catalyst for future game purchases, they instead rely on cheap gimmicks, sexual attraction, and hand-holding rail-roading so that they can appeal to the lowest common denominator. A game needs consequences, adventure, risk/reward and growth–both of the player-character and the player themself. Anything less is a manufactured product wearing the mantle of a good time.

 

I’m glad Ubisoft is releasing an AC movie. I think that’s where this kind product belongs (similar to my Kane and Lynch review). It belongs in a medium where the user is *expected* to sit around and do nothing. But to use video games as a medium into tricking the players that they are involved in something amazing, when truly all they’re doing is stagnating their own growth and imagination? No thanks. I’ve got indie games in my library that were created with a fraction of the budget that Brotherhood was made with that are more worth my time.

Steam Link

 

Vagante
by LepcisMagna

I struggled with where I should put this game.  From my hour of play, it didn’t seem to be anything special – simply another roguelite set in a Spelunky-esque environment.  I died a few times – sometimes to spikes (an aggravating insta-kill – the only one in the game), sometimes to gigantic monsters, and sometimes due to my own ineptitude.  But while this has the usual trappings of a roguelike – e.g. Permadeath, constant danger, and randomly generated levels -it doesn’t have the same feel as you get from, say, Golden Krone Hotel.  I haven’t played enough to confirm this, but at a glance I would say that Vagante doesn’t have the same meaningful choices a roguelike needs to remain entertaining.  I was ready to put this into Tier Three, since I didn’t feel much motivation to continue to play this game.

Two things stopped me: First, this is an Early Access title.  I read some of the Steam reviews, and one fellow had over 1,000 hours into Vagante, proclaiming it one of the best roguelikes ever.  But near the end of his review, there was a note that it had changed since the time he had put in his time – mellowing it out and taking some of the special-ness from it, but making it more accessible.  That saddens me, but it also means that it’s possible it will improve just as much before it leaves Early Access – so it might be worth waiting.

Secondly, it seems to be a Co-op focused title.  My experiences were below par, but part of that may have been playing solo.  If you have a solo mode, good co-op isn’t an excuse for poor solo play – but it’s enough to make me want to revisit this sometime.

Steam link

Golden Krone Hotel
by LepcisMagna

A roguelike set in a castle filled with vampires, monsters, and humans – and you can play as all three (sometimes in one playthrough!).

What makes this worth playing are the few unusual mechanics:

  • Windows let in sunlight and moonlight, hurting or healing you if you are a vampire or werewolf, respectively.
  • The humans are friendly if you are a human, and the vampires are friendly if you’re a vampire. You can get different bits of story from each.
  • Unidentified potions have three possibilities so you have some control over your risk-taking.
  • If an item you find is better, you equip it and sell the old one. If an item isn’t better, you just sell it – ridding the game of tedious inventory management.
Unfortunately – because it is a roguelike – it is a long and difficult journey. I had a lot of fun playing this for an hour and I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes roguelikes… but there are enough of those on my list that I’m going to have to put this one on the back burner until I clear out more of my Steam inventory. It’s also still in Early Access, so coming back once more polish has been added might not be a terrible idea.