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Tomb Raider

Sep30
by Douglas Bushong on September 30, 2013 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Comics

While I had to put away the violent console games when the family returned from their summer trip, I’m still able to play some of them on the PC (away from the kids).  I recently completed Tomb Raider, and thought I’d give it a proper review.

The Character: Lara Croft

In Tomb Raider, you join Lara Croft on an archeological expedition.  The journey is interrupted, however, when her ship crashes on an island where she and her crew are attacked by the islanders.  You’re objective is to help Lara rescue her friends and get off of the island. This is the story of Lara Croft’s origins, and can even be seen as a “coming of age” story for Lara. As such, it gives you a Lara Croft that isn’t quite as confident and adventurous as we are used to seeing.

During an interview, the executive producer of the game said that players won’t generally project themselves into Lara’s character, but will instead visualize themselves with her and want to protect her. I have to agree; I found myself worrying for Lara in a way that I did not worry for Nathan Drake or other similar characters.  Every time she keyed the radio, I thought “don’t say where you are, or someone will be able to find you.”  When she built her first campfire, all I could think was “keep that fire small or you’re going to be seen.”

On the point about the campfire I felt particularly conflicted, as my mind went back to my Boy Scout days.  I remember a scout master once saying “the bigger the fire, the better you feel.”  This feeling applied to the game as well; I enjoyed seeing the campfire, even as I felt concerned for Lara’s well-being.

Storyline

A few years ago, I remember a friend characterized the film “The Passion of the Christ” as a 3-hour butt whuppin’.  I think the same description fits the first three hours of Tomb Raider.  Her ship crashes, she gets beat up, stabbed by a sharp stick through her kidneys, caught in a bear trap, and so on.  I suppose this established her toughness from the beginning, but at some places, it seemed over the top.

That said, as the story evolves and the mysteries of the island are revealed, it becomes less of a survival game and more of an action adventure.  The game uses some elegant story-building mechanics, such as audible reflections from Lara as you visit campsites, and artifacts of past visitors to the island.  The interaction with these artifacts reminded me of the audio recordings from the Batman games.  It’s a good device.

Gameplay

While the game tended to flow nicely from one plot point to the next, I found mechanical devices to be somewhat jarring.  For example, occasionally you would come across a camp site, and could “fast travel” from that site to a previous site if you wanted to go back and gain some XP (more on that below).  This really took me out of the game, and probably shouldn’t have been provided until the end of the game when you wanted to go through and complete everything.

The game also uses an experience system similar that of the Batman Arkham games where you can take on extra combat on the side to level up and learn more skills.  Unfortunately, while it made sense for Batman to occasionally swoop down and beat up some thugs that were harrassing an innocent victim, it doesn’t make as much sense in this environment.  I literally found myself killing rats, chickens, and rabbits with my bow to get additional XP.  I found myself killing a lot more than I could possibly eat, and killed enough deer to make Ted Nugent blush.

In addition to having a lot of animals to hunt, there were a lot of hidden gems and collectables.  For this reason, I would say that Tomb Raider really caters to people with completionist sensibilities.

Controls

Generally, the controls of the game made sense, and I didn’t run into too many problems.  Occasionally Lara would turn around and hang from a ledge when I intended for her to jump off, but I can’t complain too much about that; for every time it annoyed me, there were about 5 times that it prevented me from walking off of a cliff.

I only had one real beef with the controls.  I like quick time events, and I tolerate button mashing events, but the two should never come together.  I can’t count the number of times Lara died because I had to quickly transition between button mashing and a quick time event.  I’m not ashamed to beg game developers: please stop using button mashy quick-time events, and if you simply must use them, stop butting them up against regular QTEs.

Interface and Graphics

It’s easy to compare this game to Uncharted (I’ve done it twice already in this review), but I think Tomb Raider is much more gritty.  The beauty of Uncharted was in the gorgeous set pieces and scenes, and that was something that Tomb Raider lacked. As I reflect on the game, I think better graphical and gameplay comparison might be made to Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.

One of the things that immediately jumped out at me was the aiming mechanic.  For most games, the act of aiming your weapon shifts your perspective from third-person to first person so you can look down the barrel of the weapon.  For Tomb Raider, however, they maintained the third person perspective, but used a Hitchcock zoom to enlarge the enemies/targets.  If I hadn’t recognized the technique, I probably would have found this disorienting, and I suspect that was part of their intention when they used it.

If you aren’t familiar with Hitchcock Zoom (sometimes called Dolly Zoom), here is a short video on the topic:

Summary

On the whole, I loved the game.  At certain points, I remember thinking that a survival simulation using the same engine and mechanics would be a lot of fun.  Perhaps this engine could be used for something like the Hunger Games?  I don’t know, but I would love to find out.

└ Tags: Hitchcock Zoom, Lara Croft, Tomb Raider
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Standing at the Edge

Sep23
by Douglas Bushong on September 23, 2013 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Comics

I had a strange dream a few nights ago.  I don’t remember the full context of the dream, but I remember something bad had happened.  I remember thinking that the bad thing was so ridiculous that it must be a dream.  “Soon enough I will wake up.  If this isn’t a dream, I am screwed.  This can’t be real.”  But, in the dream, I wasn’t waking up, and my terrified mind thought, “that’s it.  It’s over.  I can never recover from this.”

Imagine, for a moment, that you are standing at the end of a cliff.  At the bottom, you can see waves gently smacking against the stones, and behind you there are people afraid to come near the edge.  You are considering a cliff dive, but you are not sure if you should.  The people behind you are playing life completely safe.  Nothing bad will happen to them.  Others will teter on the edge, and could potentially fall off if they aren’t careful.  Some will fall off, or jump off and but not commit to the jump, and will splat against the rocks.

In my dream, I had the feeling that I was on the cliff and that I had gone over.  Not that I jumped; I just fell.

As I reflected on the feeling that I had at the end of the dream, I thought this was a good representation of life.  In life, bad things happen.  You can play it safe and be fine.  If you don’t play it safe, you might get too close to the edge and fall. If this happens, you might be able to climb back up to the 9-5 life, but even that can be tough.

But if you take a running leap, and you can make it far enough away, you can have a simply amazing experience.  The question is whether or not you are willing to take the plunge.

Games tend to encourage you to take the plunge by limiting the consequences of failure and pressuring you until mastery is achieved.  I wonder: what would it take to make the world like that?  If we could, wouldn’t it be really awesome?

└ Tags: Games and Life, Reflections, Taking chances
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Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

Sep16
by Douglas Bushong on September 16, 2013 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Comics

Every once in a while, a game comes along that deliveres a beautiful experience, not just through the storyline, but through the game mechanics.  Brothers is a very simple game: you control two brothers who are searching for medicine to cure their father.  That’s all the game involves, and the game involves ALL of that.  Much like Braid, PB Winterbottom, or Portal, Brothers gives you a simple premise and then squeezes everything it can out of that premise.

The difficulty in reviewing puzzle games (though I question whether it is a puzzle game. See below) is trying to explain circumstances without spoiling the puzzle.  The example for this game that I have heard in various podcasts was a point in the game where the two characters lift an object and moving it around like a couch.  Now, the moment you, the reader, read that statement, it planted the seed into your mind. Whether you’ve played the game or not, you’ve already started working it out.  This hasn’t spoiled the puzzle per se, but has started the juices flowing.

I’m not sure that this is a bad thing.  I knew the fundamental premise of Braid long before I had ever played the game, so when I sat down to play I was primed for it.  I think this helped me to get through the game relatively quickly because it put me in the appropriate mindset.

The interesting point of discussion, then, is the distinction between a primer – a good thing that prepares the pallet for the game – and a spoiler – a bad thing that ruins the experience.  Where is the line drawn?  I don’t know the answer, and it might be worth exploring in future discussions and future blogs.

As I wrote above, I question the characterization of Brothers as a “Puzzle Game.”  I haven’t quite worked out exactly why or where the line is drawn, but when I think of puzzle games, I tend to think of games that have “stages,” and the objective of the game is to beat the puzzle to complete the stage.  I didn’t feel that in Brothers.  Instead, I just felt like I had two characters – or possibly a single character with two heads – with special abilities, and I had to use those abilities to complete the adventure.  Brothers has things that you have to do at certain points that require you to execute on what you already know.  These aren’t necessarily puzzles; they’re just obstacles.  Based on this description, it is as much like God of War or Kingdom Hearts as it is like a puzzle game; it just lacks the combat.

An interesting note: there was one point in the game where I had forgotten about one of the brothers’ abilities (that’s all I’ll say about it), so I was struggling to figure out what I had to do.  This lasted until I used the ability by accident, and I quickly “solved” the problem.  Again, this didn’t feel as much like a puzzle as it did just the completion of a task.

Thematically, the experience that I had with the game may have stemmed from the fact that I am the youngest son with three older brothers.  I had one brother that I was probably closest to growing up (by virtue of our closeness in age), so the relationship between the brothers really drew me into the game.

This game is similar to To the Moon in that, emotionally, the player is run through the full gamut of emotions.  You experience fear, loss, joy, playful silliness, compassion, and betrayal.  Unlike To the Moon, however, you aren’t just clicking on objects to progress through the story.  Instead, Brothers asks you to trade a complex storyline for a simple one, and in return givens you interesting and thought inspiring tasks to complete.

There’s not much more I can say about the game without spoiling it.  I hope that these reflections serve as an adequate primer without giving anything away.

I think the thing that I will take away from Brothers is food for thought on game definitions. It could be that further defining “puzzle game” might be a worthwhile topic for a future blog entry, but I’ll need more time to work it out.

└ Tags: A Tale of Two Sons, Brothers, Puzzle Games, To the Moon
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Free Megaman Games for PC

Sep09
by Douglas Bushong on September 9, 2013 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Comics

While researching the Megaman comics at Dueling Analogs for my last post, I came across some free Megaman games on the internet.  I thought I’d post them here so you could give them a try.  If you haven’t played Megaman, these do a pretty good job of summing up the experience.

Rokko Chan

I’ve been using a girl-robot model for my Megaman posts for a long time, but it never occurred to me that there might be a Megaman game that follows Rule 63 of then internet. In Rokko Chan you play a girl version of Megaman.  The game plays in the browser in Flash.  While the button scheme is not very intuitive, the gameplay is pretty good:

Rokko Chan

Here’s a walkthrough video, but don’t let it spoil your experience: go play the game.

Street Fighter X Megaman

I actually played and beat this game months ago, and I can’t believe I didn’t post about it until now.  In this game, you play Megaman in all of his 8-bit goodness, but the bosses (and themes for their corresponding stages) are Street Fighter characters.  This game was made by a fan developer from Singapore, but eventually received official support from Capcom.  Apparently, they liked the idea so much that they put their stamp on it.  You can read more about it here.

The game can be found here: Street Fighter X Megaman

Again, here is a short video.

I love living in a time where the art of the game is inspiring young designers to make their own products.  They’re not waiting for some studio to tell them they can make a game; they’re just doing it.  This is the video game equivalent to fan art or fan fiction, but the time and effort required to make it work means they are taking it to a whole new level.  In addition to creating fine products for the market, it’s giving programmers an outlet to explore their own creativity.  As Martha Stewart would say, “it’s a good thing.”

└ Tags: Capcom, Megaman, RokkoChan, Street Fighter
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New Megaman-ish Kickstarter

Sep02
by Douglas Bushong on September 2, 2013 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Comics

I’ve cut back a bit on my Kickstarter contributions.  I still like hanging out on the site and helping people with their projects, but there’s only so much money to go around.  Also, when it comes to video games, it seems that I can just buy the game after market once the Kickstarter is successfully funded.

I did notice a Kickstarter, however, from the maker of the original Megaman.  Check it out:

Mighty Number 9

I don’t think I will be contributing to this one, but I will likely follow it anyway to track its progress and release date.  If you are a Megaman fan, you might want to do the same.

UPDATE: One of my favorite webcomics, Dueling Analogs, does a lot of Megaman related comics.  If you like Megaman and want a laugh, just look up “Rejected Megaman Villains.”  They made this one about Mighty Number 9.

└ Tags: Kickstarter, Megaman, MIghty Number 9
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