Games I Liked: 2012

Games I Enjoyed in 2012

This is the third annual installment of games (new or old) that I first played in the last year and would recommend.  In alphabetical order: 

Bulletstorm

Bulletstorm is absurdly profane, overly violent, and that's the joy of it.  While the usual length for the genre, the ludicrous humor and interactive combat keep the player entertained.

Dear Esther

There's really nothing else like this one.  It's not a shooter.  Plot-driven, combat-free, and, in the end, just plain mysterious.  Dear Esther is an exceptionally well made experience, with small changes each play.  Beautiful to look at, a solid score, and a wonderfully haunting quality.

RAGE

A lot of people criticized this one.  The graphics aren't Crysis 2.  There isn't a plot.  This is'nt Fallout 3.  Who cares>  Between the AI variety, racing, and weapon choices, RAGE has a lot to offer.  I have had more fun with the RAGE combat system than most other shooters in recent years.  The 2-player co-op mini-campaigns, and up to four-player racing, combine with the single player mode to make the game two to three times the length of the twelve hour standard   This game also has one of my favorite opening cinema tics.

Sanctum

This one is on the fence.  The single-player mode is not done very well, due to a lack of story and a horrible tutorial.  For a single player, it's not good.  And while all my friends don't agree, I think Sanctum is a nice, alternative, casual game to play with others.  

Serious Sam 3: BFE

Take Duke Nukem 3D, remove the sex, and multiply the number of enemies by 10.  Alone, the game is an incredibly challenging old school shooter, with some memorable funny lines.  With friends, the game offers a variety of co-op and versus game types for up to sixteen players.  

Killing Floor Review

Game:  Killing Floor
Year (s):  2009
Company:  dev. Tripwire Interactive
pub.  Tripwire Interactive
Engine:  Unreal Engine 2.5 (modified)
Type:  Survival Horror, Shooter, Multiplayer oriented
Viewpoint:  First-Person
Metacritic Score: 72
My Score:  Mindless killing spree on easy!  Too hard to survive on harder modes.

Price (as of November 11, 2012)

Regular price on Steam:  $19.99
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (new, with shipping):  $15


Obligatory Trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKUb8KSZVPY


Plot

Zombies (known in this as specimens) are running amok.  Kill 'em all.  There is no campaign mode, no real dialogue, and no story here.


Save System

Manual Save?  No
Quck Save?  No
Auto Save?  No
Checkpoint Save?  No

Either you survive all the waves on a level, or you die and go back to the level selection screen.


Combat/Gameplay

There are a handful of character classes, each with their preferred weapon class.  While you can use any weapons you like, if you focus on one you can gain permanent perks that make you better at that class.  Anyone can weld doors shut or heal teammates, but engineers and medics weld and heal the best, respectively.  

While difficulty and number of waves can be adjusted, there is only one game type.  Survive a wave, try to get to the store for better gear (you have only a short time to reach it), and then repeat.  

With 200 achievements, Killing Floor could fill a lot of time for completionist gamers.


Expansions / DLC / Sequels

There are a number of DLC that add maps and character skins.  If you like the base game, everything Killing Floor goes on sale fairly regularly.


Final Thoughts

I figured this would be a knock-off of Left 4 Dead, but it's not great.  The perk system is really interesting, but no story and only one game type is tedious.  Easy mode lives up to its name, while anything else is impossible for an un-perked solo play.  This may be one of those games that flops alone but shines with others, but I'm not enough impressed to recommend it.

The Thing About Red

I haven't written anything about magic in a while, for various reasons.  Figured it was about time to do so.


Red has strong early game and can dominate in many two-player formats.  Unlike other colors, red has few options later in the game and a lack of consistency in multiplayer.  

As far as tribal decks, Goblins are strong early but weak afterward, and can't compete well against multiple targets.  The mountainwalk ability of Goblin King is arguably the worst tribal ability, as red has no way to change land type.  Soldiers, Slivers, Merfolk, and others have an edge over goblins in games with several players.

As to abilities, Red's favorite is haste.  Haste is unique compared to other static abilities.  Haste is potentially useful once per creature, while other abilities can give an ongoing advantage.

Red has decent weenies, but not the best.  Red has big flying dragons, but, except for green, every color has big flyers.  I have had success with dragon-themed decks, when I had mana to cast them.

Red has some neat global enchantments, and I have had fun using Manabarbs, Confusion in the Ranks, Power Surge, Smoke, and Mudslide (often paired with global artifact abilities).  These decks were fun but unreliable.  These types of utility global enchantements aren't seen in red much now.

Red occasionally has a presence in mass destruction.  These usually cost a great deal of mana, and are rarely competitive against alternatives.  While red makes a show of land destruction, black's Sinkhole and white's Armageddon have lower mana costs.

There are a few sets that seemed to specifically shaft red.  The Mirage block gave every color except red a tutor for one mana.  Years later Urza's Saga finally gave red a one-mana tutor (Gamble) requiring a random discard afterward.  Ouch.

Urza's Saga had a legendary land for each color.  Three could generate huge amounts of mana, and are still popular in type one.  The lands for red, and black, were crap by comparison.

I conclude.  Red is good at two things: being fast and dealing direct damage.  Chaos is mostly a thing of the past.  This focus really limits my options for reliably successful mono-red decks in 3-4 free-for-alls, and I wish there was more variety in the color.  As it stands, I almost always pair red with other colors (most often with blue) to build the kind of decks that work for me.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

Game:  Tom Clancy's Slinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Year (s):  2005
Company:  dev.  Ubisoft
pub.  Ubisoft
Engine:  Modifired Unreal Engine 2.5
Type:  Third-Person Stealth Shooter
Metacritic Score: 94
My Score:  Not my cup of tea.

Price (as of October 9, 2012)

Regular price on Steam:  $9.99
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (new, with shipping):  $8.50


Obligatory Trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVRs8xezo1Y


Plot

You are Sam Fisher, black-ops agent.  Infiltrate hostile premises, recover intel, and eliminate bad guys.


Engine

This one uses a modified Unreal Engine 2.5, so it looks more or less like UT 2K4.  Maybe a little bit better.


Combat/Gameplay

This is of the stealth genre.  Nightvision, infrared vision, binoculars, and EMF goggles help greatly to locate hostiles while you crawl around in the dark.  Limited ammunition makes things more difficult.

I have done some sneaky fighting in games, mostly in the RPGs.  Chaos Theory had some design choices that caused me to lose interest almost immediately.  First, you can't run.  You can crawl, or you can walk (the speed difference between the two is negligible).  If you're gun in in your hand, you are immobile.  While that may make some sense as far as aiming, it also makes the player an easy target, and it's not very fun.


Expansions / DLC / Sequels

"In 1996 Clancy co-founded the video game developer Red Storm Entertainment..." (Wikipedia).  Red Storm was later acquired by Ubisoft.  Dozens of games have the Tom Clancy name attached, and that's why I bought this one on a sale.  If I liked it, there was a lot more where that came from.


Final Thoughts

There are people that like stealth games, and I'm not one of them.  For me the game was ten minutes of mission briefing, ten minutes of walking obnoxiously slow, using all my bullets to kill a few guys, then mashing buttons trying to change weapons while being riddled with bullets.  I'm glad I didn't pay much for it.

Final Doom Review

Game:  Final Doom
Year (s):  1996
Company:  dev.  TeamTNT, Casali brothers, id Software
pub.  many
Engine:  id Tech 1
Type:  First-Person Shooter
Metacritic Score: Not Available
My Score:  ker-BLAM!

Price (as of September 18, 2012)

Regular price on Steam:  $9.99
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (used, with shipping):  $10-15

Game Time: 15-20 hours on default, cheating whenever things got stupid

Obligatory Trailer:  http://www.videodetective.com/games/final-doom/144391

See Also

Doom/Doom 2 Review:  http://fpsandmtg.blogspot.com/2010/12/doom-doom-2-reviewed.html


Plot and Engine

Final Doom is comprised of two 32-level episodes, each utilizing monsters, weapons, and textures from Doom 2.  Both have minor plots of, "portals, demons, blah blah blah."  Final Doom was built on the Doom engine (id Tech 1), so there's no surprises in appearance.


Developers and Gameplay

Plutonia Experiment was developed by the Casali brothers, who were chosen to develop half of Final Doom after sending some of their levels to American McGee.  The first half of Plutonia almost exclusivly featured only the hardest enemies, and ranged in difficulty from "challenging" to "possibly impossible."  The latter half of had a more balanced monster selection, and the closest-to-Doom feel of Final Doom.

Evilution was developed by TeamTNT, a group of WAD-making fans that were active on the Doom editing mailing list.  Their contribution was going to be released for free, but the project was acquired by id before that happened.  Evilution favored large numbers of enemies, the majority of which are humans and imps.  Compared to Plutonia, these were easy.  Evilution uses midi files that I hadn't heard before.


Not to be Confused With...

Thy Flesh Consumed was an additional, damn-hard episode added to the edition of Doom entitled, "The Ultimate Doom."

Master Levels for Doom 2 was an expansion pack for Doom 2.  This contained 21 new levels, which were contracted to third-party developers by id.

Maximum Doom, commercially sold, had nearly 3000 levels.  These were mostly a compilation of amateur WADs found on the internet, so quality was not guaranteed.


Final Thoughts

This is very dated.  I would have played it to death when released, but this was my first time playing it.  While I still appreciate it for what it is, I've become spoiled with more recent games, and have little patience for finding, "that damn switch."

Level design was inconsistent, and the programmer's fondness for a select handful of enemies made progression tedious.  All in all, Final Doom is more Doom gameplay with subpar design.  I find nostalgia in the originals and felt that this (which I first played about fifteen years after release) fell flat.

Corinne Yu: Someone You Should Know

Corinne Yu: Someone You Should Know

Currently, Yu works for Microsoft as a principal engine programmer for the Halo team. That's pretty great in a field where Lara Croft is the best-known female. But that's not all!

Here's a short game programming resume:

-Lead Engine Programmer for Prey, published by 3D Realms

-Director of Technology for ION Storm, the developers of Deus Ex

-Director of Technology for Gearbox, developers of Borderlands

As you can see, Yu has been at several companies, working with diverse engines and approaches. But that's not all!

Corinne Yu has contributed to the space shuttle program, and has been involved with US particle accelerators. The Department of Energy honored her with a national award for her nuclear physics research. She has also earned accolades from the Game Developers Conference.

But that's not all! On top of all that, she's cute, married, and raising a daughter.

I don't need to say anything else. An amazing individual: Corinne Yu is a name you should know.

Tribes: Ascend Reviewed

Tribes: Ascend
Year (s):  2012
Company:  dev.  Hi-Rez Studios
pub.  Hi-Rez Studios
Engine:  Unreal Engine 3 (modified)
Type:  First-Person Multiplayer Shooter
Metacritic Score:  87
My Score:  A solid release for the Skiing/Jetpack genre.

Price (as of September 4, 2012)

Regular price on Steam:  Free To Play
Lowest Buy-It-Now on eBay (new, with shipping):  More Than Free

Game Time:  Ad Nauseum

Obligatory Trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oevWde_F-yU


Plot

Like most multiplayer-oriented shooters, there is no apparent plot.  There's nothing to say about the engine.  I will have an entry in the next month concerning engines.


Combat/Gameplay

Two things attracted me to this.  One, it was free.  Two, I'd heard good things about Tribes games ten years ago and wanted to get a taste.  It didn't taste like much.

This follows the Free To Play ("Freemium") model of sale.  The basics are free, but if you want access to every weapon and character class, you'll either have to cough up some coin or play like it's your job.  Personally, I prefer to pay upfront instead of being nickel and dimed.

The gameplay itself is multiplayer focused, with the usual gametypes.  Instead of having to run, players can quickly ski downhill, and maintain momentum by activating the jetpack at the hill's trough.  Momentum accumulates, so masters of the game zip around like crazy.  I didn't have access to everything, but some classes seemed clearly superior, at least to a casual noob.

Combat resembled children playing soccer.  Two dozen players swarm a spot, flying and skiing and blasting away.  The largess of movement hinders aiming.  After spawning, players try to find that nugget of action on the large, otherwise uneventful, maps.  

Learning the basics is aided by a crazy amount of tutorials.  Unfortunately, these buffer from the internet instead of drawing from the downloaded game file.  Not ideal.


Expansions / DLC / Sequels

For this, DLC are content that will be unlocked if purchased.  I don't care to look if there are sequels.


Final Thoughts

I like the skis + jetpack movement, but I felt the game was inept chaps on huge maps, with what seemed like uneven (and sometimes indistinguishable) classes.  Team Fortress 2 is superior for your freemium multiplayer needs.