Title: God Of War
Genre: Action/Adventure
Platform: PS2
Complete: Yes
Price Paid: $49.99
Would Pay: $24.99

sigh The search for a game worth the standard initial release price continues.

Technically, there's little to fault in this game. The graphics are gorgeous, bordering on next-gen. There is almost no clipping, something practically unheard of in any of the other 3D games I've played over the years. The camera is automatic, not user controlled, something in other games I would roundly slam. It's implemented near perfectly here.

Then comes the game itself. For the most part, it's a blast. Wielding the blades of chaos through hordes of enemies, ripping off Gorgon's heads, all loads of fun. However, at times the game is very, very unbalanced - too many of too powerful monsters, horrendous traps some of which have to be tried over and over again to finally get right. These segments just sucked the fun out of it for me, dulling the rest of the game. If those segments weren't there, I would've been incredibly pleased with the game, ranking it up there with my favorites. Instead, I'm considering selling it back and that's something I have yet to do with any game I bought.

I bought God Of War Friday, and just got around to downloading the free soundtrack mentioned on the box. Or rather, trying to download. Nice lovely redirection to a page saying "IE 5.5, with Administrative access only"

Goddammit, Windows is *not* the only fucking OS in the world, and there's no mention of requiring Windows on the box or docs anywhere. Never mind the idiocy in requiring admin access.

Title: Beyond Good And Evil
Platform: PS2
Genre: Third Person Action Adventure
Complete: Yes
Price Paid: $4.99
Would Pay: $17.99

This game is the bastard child of Zelda and Jak II, with Zelda play mechanics and a Jak II storyline. This should not be seen as a negative, the game was a blast. And miracle of miracles, the main character is a normal female - no inappropriate clothes, normal proportions. I can't think of any other game I've played where this is the case, not off the top of my head anyway.

I had played the demo, and decided not to get this game. A large portion of the demo was a sneaker, one of the genres I don't like, and it had also crashed on me. The reason I finally picked it up is that I could snag it for $5 at a sale. It was definitely worth it. There is a large proportion of sneaking in the game, but it is well implemented. It is easier to do than in the demo, since by the time those areas are hit in the real game, the controls are second nature. Failing at the sneaking is not such a big deal, most of the time. You can usually run away and wait for the heat to die down, or much, much more commonly, die. Dying is not a big deal and usually only places you at most a few rooms back.

The story was interesting, having to photograph all the animals was fun, but some areas really did take away from the enjoyment of the game. A few of the sneaking areas were downright hard and required perfect timing and positioning and many, many retries. Ditto with the final phase of the final boss, where the phase would be reset every time you got hit. These areas almost made me toss in the towel a couple of times.

<rant> And Ubi, I know you published this game. There's no need for an unskippable video of your logo. Almost every (if not every) one of my other games lets you skip the logos. And why do I have to select the game's language every single time? Look at my freaking memory card. </rant>

Title: Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2
Genre: Third Person Action Adventure
Platform: PS2
Completed: Yes
Price Paid: $9.99 - 10%, Used
Would pay: $14.99

Raziel's back to kick some more ass and suck some more souls. This game is much like the original, Tomb Raider with teeth and more violence. Unfortunately, this game did not capture the feel of the original. Where the original felt large and open, this was confined. You kept tramping back and forth in the same areas, sometimes in different time periods, but the only noticeable differences were the weather, enemy models, and some slightly different paths.

The story and the puzzles in the forges made up for the other portions. These were similar in idea to the temples of the first game, but there were no optional ones granting additional powers. The spells gained from the temple in the first game would have been welcome at times, but I understand why they weren't included. What surprised me about this game, and something that I really liked, is that there were no traditional boss battles. The difficulty ramped up, but at no point was there the massive/powerful boss monster. Every place I expected one was only a cutscene that advanced the story. The only creatures that could be considered "bosses" were trivial because of another story event.

I have two major complaints with this game. First, it's save points. I would've finished this sooner (real time, not game time) if they were better placed or if there was at least a "save and quit" option. There were quite a few times I wanted to play some, but knowing that the next save point was probably 45 minutes away or more kept me from even starting to play since I didn't always have the time for more than ten or fifteen minutes. Which brings me to the next problem - even without playing as much as I really wanted to, I finished this game quickly. The same area was repeatedly backtracked over, and not much of the map on the map screen was really used, less than half. I was not expecting something this short, especially with the epic story.

ARRRRGGHHHH

Why did some idiot programmer/company decide that making a non-network program network bound is a good idea?

If you have a Mac and have been having trouble expanding files with StuffIt, here's a fix:

If you're scared of the command line:
Start StuffIt Expander
Wait
....
Wait
....
Wait some more
....
When it finally comes up, go to the preferences panel, go to "Version Checking", uncheck "Allow Version Checking"

If you don't mind the command line:
Start a Terminal

defaults write com.stuffit.expander allowVersionChecking false


While looking for jenbooks new Palm at Comp-USA, I decided to get Tron 2.0 for the Mac. This was the first Mac game I have purchased, with almost all my recent purchases being console games and one PC (a whole $0.25!) game.

So I start installing the game. Not once are any administrative privileges used by the installer. And after the install was done, all 2.5 G copied to the drive, the install CDs get put away. No need to use one to play.

Contrast this to the average PC game, where you oftentimes have to be administrator to run, never mind install. And need disks even after going through multi-gigabyte installs. And how long have NT class OSes been out so that permissions can be sorted out properly? And what valid (to me) reason does a game *ever* need administrative privileges?

Title: Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon (aka Broken Sword III)
Platform: XBox
Genre: Adventure
Complete: Yes
Paid: $12.99 (used)
Would Pay: $24.99

Adventure gaming is not dead. Unlike Leisure Suit Larry, George and Nico made the transition to 3D just fine. Unfortunately, there's no control of the camera, something I've grown to expect in 3D games. The gameplay is largely "point and click" adventuring, with objects automatically getting a cursor when you are near them, and actions and the buttons they map to being shown on the lower right of the screen. This interface actually works quite well, not quite as seamless as Grim Fandango, but very functional.

There are quite a few box puzzles, and this was considered a strike against it in many of the reviews I read when it came out. After Soul Reaver, I barely noticed these puzzles and walked through them like they weren't even there for the most part. The parts that brought the rating down for me was all the sneaking that was required in the last third of the game or so. I am not big on sneakers and that really bugged me. Especially since the "loading" screen after deaths in these sections was much longer than it should've been.

There are also some bugs in this game, which is annoying since console games can't be patched. Fortunately, none of them were permanent gamestoppers. I had one crash, at one point one of the NPCs was simply a black blob, no texturing of any sort applied, he was just a hole in the background, and one problem wasn't solvable until a reboot even though I was taking the correct actions.

<rant>
This was one of those games that I was originally planning to get when it came out, as I have completed Broken Sword II (PC) and have played Broken Sword I (GBA). However, I was thwarted at every turn, all by short sighted publishers.

The PC version has a copy protection from hell, and there was no way I was going to install that on my work computer, and copy protection tends to break compatibility with WINE for no good reason.

OK, so let's get the PS2 version. Whoops, not released in the US and you need a mod chip to run imports. So much for that.

So I finally get the XBox version, used. You listening publishers? Because of your ill thought out protection, you didn't get a single penny from me where you would've gotten full retail. This is far from the only game that I'm not bothering with because of your idiocy *cough*HL2*cough*
</rant>

Edit: Corrected price, added bugs

Title: Legacy of Kain - Soul Reaver
Genre: Third Person Action/Adventure
Platform: PS1
Price Paid: $6.99 (used)
Would Pay: $24.99
Complete: Yes

Now this was what I was expecting with Hellboy - a supernatural creature opening a can of whoop ass on other supernatural creatures. This game was more violent then I was originally expecting, with the ability to impale other vampires or set them on fire, but in retrospect it shouldn't have been that much of a surprise with the M rating. I don't know why I was expecting something not as violent. Despite all the violence, the main focus of the game is the puzzle solving. Many of the enemies, especially the bosses are just there as puzzles or impediments to the puzzles.

The world just feels huge, with several castles and citadels to explore and clean out. By the end of the game, you know how to roll blocks to get the right side out and up without thinking about it :D. Although the levels are sprawling and feel free, you are forced down one path for the most part. It doesn't detract from the game, since it's the illusion of freedom that matters, not the actuality. Very rarely are you ever unsure of exactly what you need to do next. I had to hit a FAQ three times, two were "*doh* I should have known that", and only once was it something I wouldn't have figured out.

Title: Leisure Suit Larry - Magna Cum Laude
Platform: PS2
Genre: Adventure/Minigame
Price Paid: $5.99 (Rental)
Would Pay: $9.99
Complete: 2/3

To quote a lament from Larry Laffer in the game "Whatever happened to old fashioned point and click?". Gabriel Knight made the transition to 3D fairly well, but the same can not be said for poor old Larry and his nephew. There is not much to this game, there is a world you can wander around as in most adventure games, but there are little to no actual puzzles. Everything happens in minigames. The selection of minigames is rather small:

Press the right button at the right time

Press the right button to music (aka DDR lite with horizontal scrolling instead of vertical scrolling)

Steer the sperm to the right conversation choice

Tapper clone

Collect items and don't get caught

Deliver items in a time period

Quarters

Aim a squirt gun

Pong clone

That's the entire game. Play those games to get money, and play those games to advance. Later in the game it starts costing money to play, at which point I said forget it. Make a mistake and you have to go around collecting money to play again. It feels like something done to stretch the game out (I played about 10 hours and was 2/3 done. If I wasn't trying everything, it would probably have taken less time). Without having to bother with collection, I would guess there's maybe an hour left. With money collection, five or six.


The only thing that kept me playing this was seeing what they were going to do next. I never thought I'd say this, but Al Lowe must have been a moderating influence on the original Leisure Suit Larrys. Those contained a lot of innuendo, but this was bordering on soft core porn. I don't know how this ended up with an M rating over an AO. There's lots of toplessness (strip line dancing anyone? How about strip trampolines?), a manically masturbating monkey, and a fountain to the "greek goddess" bukkakis (what she's the goddess of and what the fountain looks like is left as an exercise for the reader).