Spec Ops : The Line

It's a shooter.  Room after room after room of guys to shoot and collect bullets and new weapons from.  No better or worse than anything current in that regards, it uses all the shooter standards like flashing red screens when you take a bullet, but everything heals if you don't get hit for a few moments.

So really you would have to rate Spec Ops by the story, which is told through the cutscenes between these kill rooms.

You are the leader of a squad, I think you were sent to either investigate what was going on - or communicate with some lost troop in Dubai, which was hit by the mother-of-all sandstorms.  The city is devastated, much of it buried under a mountain of sand.

As you are discovering what happened to the city - you are placed in increasing uncomfortable choice situations, like allowing civilians to be killed in order to save someone you are trying to rescue.  This is reinforced by your squadmates who occasionally bitch you out about the choices you make.  They even force you to burn a whole troop of enemies by raining mortar fire, and then show the charred civilians they made you blow up.

The connected people in Dubai knew of the impending doom of the storm, and kept it secret from the public - evacuating themselves.   A hardcore general and his faithful legions stayed to help evacuate, but got stuck and the place went all Lord of the Flies.

You fight your way through his legions and desperate bands of survivors - but when you make it to him, he is already a desiccated corpse - so presumably this all has been your descent into madness.  You invented a dark nemesis to excuse your actions, thinking back to early memories where reality flickers back and forth between what you saw.  ... "The horror!  The horror!"

This game tricked me into thinking I was going to play as a soldier, not a Marlow in some downer art project.  I never got a sense I was going crazy - I thought my buddies were losing it, and I was getting pissed off at the stuff they were making us do.  I tried and died so many times to do the right thing in this game, they force you to push terrible buttons and then guilt trip you for doing it.


If it wasn't so forced, it really could have been epic though.  Have your choices affect which of the three of you go completely nuts would have made me play this multiple times.

XBOX One

I was given an XBOX One for attending a developers conference recently and jumped at the opportunity.

This was before doing the math, now I realize that being given an XBOX One is like being given a Skylanders toy, it's only the beginning of the investment... I got past the first obstacle, but now I'm in for a penny, in for a pound.

After turning it on and having it discover my wireless, it proceeded to molest my internet - first downloading a 650 MB (!!! someone forgot something big) patch, then the 36 GB (!!!!) racing game that came with it.    Forza Five.  ..  yep, like an Italian Maître d trying to count your dinner party size.

I'll give it a true review after I've put in my hours, but initially - it's pretty.  But it's .. racing.  Super detailed ... but racing.  Very accurate cars (probably?) ... but racing.  There are probably some really really cool features to it, but - it's plain old racing.  I've played very fun racing games in the past, at times I enjoy blasting through towns at breakneck speed, most often being chased by police in Need For Speed, or exploring the world in Test Drive Unlimited 2.  This is racing circuits, only.  Racing, only.

I need a second controller and a game now (no backwards compatibility?  Seriously?).  Cha-ching says M$.

FTL: Faster Than Light

FTL is a game that has you fleeing across multiple galaxies with important intelligence information, hounded by an overpowered "Rebel Fleet".  You move stop to stop across the randomly generated system, each planet a randomly generated event - fighting pirates, rescuing research stations, escaping asteroid fields and purchasing upgrades.  You want to touch as many locations on a map before the fleet catches up to your exit point and you can warp to the neighboring galaxy.

Scrap is your currency from combat and events, spent on upgrades for you ship - hiring crew members, purchasing weapons and upgrading systems.  Not only do enhanced ship systems help you directly in combat, but adding devices like a crew transporter might be important for certain scripted events (for example if you encounter a space station being overrun, you might be given an additional option to rescue a crew member).

If you make it all the way across the galaxy to deliver your information, you have to fight the mother ship a few times.  I have never destroyed it utterly, I beat it down once and didn't realize it would reconfigure and I would have to attack it again, my second attack was pretty pathetic.

Once your ship is destroyed, you have to start completely over - it's not debilitating, and I find a vicious cycle of wanting to take care of the easy first galaxy and get the maximum upgrades to my ship or see if the shops have my favorite weapon stocked (BM2 laser).

I like this game so much that I purchased it for iPad.

Sins of a Solar Empire

This game is probably one of the best RTS 4X games out there (explore, expand, exploit, or exterminate to win) out there.  "Probably" because I just don't get these games.  The way I play - 4X is exxxxterminate and RTS ends up becoming a long drawn out ordeal.  I can't help but build the maximum number of ships and slow march across the map, leaving a wake of either supporters or corpses.
 
The learning curve was steep, the tutorial could have used a  few "applied knowledge" missions to get novices like myself going.  I was building and upgrading with no clue as to any benefits or limits or requirements - oftentimes looking through multiple trees of potential upgrades for things like how to colonize hostile planetary types.  The ship research trees were even more complicated, between ship designs, additional weaponry and enhancements.  Thankfully, research is based on time/resources rather than having an escalated cost like a leveling system.

I ended up becoming a master of rapid expansion, and claimed huge amounts of resources early on.  Even if the enemy attacked one of my controlled planets, oftentimes I could distract them long enough to extract a huge toll or bring in support from each of the neighboring planets.  Meanwhile my expansion crew has claimed half of the galaxy.  Cue music, begin slow march.

I've seen the beautiful screenshots for this game, but I think that's more fan service being able to zoom in that close - that's just now how it plays out in the game.  I never drifted much closer than 50,000 feet above them looking straight down the flat plane of the galaxy.

Here is the view I typically had.

Now that I've committed the required hours to the game, and even though I only played as TEC Rebels, I'm pretty sure I won't play this again without a smack-talking rival.  Solo matches end up being a 2 - 4 hour ordeal, not a quick fix.

Darksiders 2

I loved playing as the Horseman War in Darksiders 1, and though it was pointed out to me that the game is similar to "Zelda" I was caught up in the story, mainly because I was deeply involved in it -- someone cracked the seals and released me to wreak havoc and mass destruction, but I was punked?  It was time to go to town, recover my powers, find who framed me - and make him pay.

.. and I did.

The final scene leaves you speaking with Uriel, and feeling epic and SO ready for Darksiders 2:

Darksiders 2 ... You play as Death, and though the idea is badass - the implemenation is dumb-ass.  You are a sass talking goofball little brother to War, with a mission to rescue your brother by resurrecting humanity.  Albeit not a bad motivation for a character, but again - the implementation made it a stupid video game, not an epic struggle.  You are a worker bee for every person you encounter and each has an agenda or task for you to complete before they offer you aid.  Almost invariably you end up getting double-crossed and having to kill the person you just got the Thingofmightypowerup for.

If I'm Death - and my focus is to rescue my brother from the corrupt Charred Council, and you offer me a mission of retrieving the Stone of Whocares from the Valley of Notonmypath, you can stuff your mission in the cavity left behind by my reaper blades, I've already walked past your corpse.

Though it has some epic looking bosses, the mechanics of fighting are a bit too button mashy.  The early creatures are easily dodged, but eventually you become reliant on gear upgrades rather than skill because they set so many creatures at once against you that there isn't a way to avoid damage at all, which turns it into an AOE / DPS race.

The game is Zelda on steroids, every section has a locked door, or the perfect combination of awkward weight plates to step on for gates to raise and lower, you have to traverse of the same section numerous times as various pathways open.  They try to add different mechanics to add to your navigation puzzle solving experience, like a portal gun and the ability to split yourself into two people.  Navigation and climbing puzzles just .. isn't .. fun, without the mechanics of climbing and navigation being fun itself.

One of the things they did brilliantly in the game, however, is the way you restore your saved game.  While loading, you are given a number of scene sketches while the Crowfather summarizes the recent game accomplishments and reminds you what you are to be doing -- leaving the start screen as an idle Death animation, once you click start - the scene simply pans back and you begin in the correct area.  Seamless.

I'm glad I played it, but I'm not planning on any DLC.  I'd play a sequel, because I enjoyed #1 so much and I'm invested in the characters -- War really was "Leonidas badass".  But then, that is the same reason I saw Highlander 3 in the theaters ...

Dark Souls 2

Victory Achieved!

I have an obsession with this game.

Dark Souls 2 doesn't so much as continue the story of the first, as much as it is another "turn of the wheel" so to speak.  Much like Elric of Melnibone or any of the Eternal Champions, you are there when the pendulum of the ages swings - from order to chaos, or vice versa.  Though I suppose as champion, you would always see yourself as the agent of light ...

It is an interesting thought one should always consider, hero and villain are defined by your notions of their motivations.  A necromancer is perceived as "morally wrong", so it would be okay for the brutish warrior to kick down his doors and steal his treasure or worse.  You'd be obligated if you were a necromancer (merely trying to unlock the secrets of the universe) to invest time in protecting your lair with an undead army from all these foolhardy home-invaders!  "The greatest evils are often perpetrated in the name of good."

Anyways, the ending of the first game had the player choosing whether to embrace the fire, essentially burning your soul as fuel to keep things how they are, with mankind in power - or reject it, ushering in an age of darkness as the new Dark Lord.  The ending for Dark Souls 2 was far less epic, I felt like I discovered a series of bosses, which led to the end boss - who I challenged to sit on the throne.  The story is once again told through slow dialog acted as if people were completely bored and depressed, which I guess fits the environment.  I didn't follow anyone's story in particular, I'll have to read a fanboi summation soon.

That said, the journey there was fraught with some of the most heart yammering, hand sweaty game play.  Boss fights with amazing creatures, learning to deal with impossible situations - it was crazy fun.  A few things were changed to make it more accessible in the long run - brilliant choices in fact.  There is a limit to the number of times a creature will spawn after you kill it - so if you struggle in an area, you can work at it like a pick axe, as you learn the fights and get better - fewer of the initial creatures spawn so you are better equipped to learn and deal with the later fights in an area.

Also, you're not restricted to restoring your humanity (becoming human again so you can summon assistance) at a bonfire, which would in turn respawn all the enemies.  So now you can fight your way to a boss area and then restore your humanity to summon multiplayer or NPC help.  Alternatively you can volunteer to help others with a boss - victory of which might give rewards of potential humanity, restoring your Estus Flask charges, or bonus supplies depending on other game factors.

I played through "almost" blind, allowing myself usually 20+ attempts at a boss before investigating anything.  This usually afforded me the ability to finish it by learning myself and helping others.  I am also guilty of looking up the location of a few bonfires that I was sure had to be nearer a boss than I had come from, I wonder if they were aware of the cruelty they were doing to people who didn't play online and get orange hints... so many bonfires were hidden by odd paths or behind illusory walls.

I will play again when it releases on PC, and I have some time on the 360 to try and not be so terrible at PVP ... but this time I'll be shining a flashlight in every corner and probably following a guide to make sure I've collected it all.  I'll also probably target a lower end level completion ...

The Walking Dead - Season 1

This TellTale engine is perfect for a story game, I'm really happy for them to have gotten this license - they worked gold in these first 5 episodes.

Early on I established my motivation when I met a young girl hiding out in her house, "I'd murder the world to save this little girl."  There's no way to be 100% hero in a well done dystopian future, this game does a great job of putting you in those uncomfortable situations where you have to make a rapid decision.

You play as Lee Everett, recently convicted of a crime of passion that you did/didn't commit?  You escape when the patrol car you are being transported in crashes in attempt to avoid an early zombie.  Clementine's parents were out of town during the outbreak in Savannah, providing you with motivation and destination.  You soon encounter other survivors and are put into somewhat of a leadership despite your apparent checkered past.  True to form of the Walking Dead comic, the zombies are a backdrop to the real story of twisted survivor interaction.

The story takes a John Marston'ish turn in the final episode when Clem is kidnapped and while searching for her, Lee is bit.  In that moment, the story became a short story -- and my motivation turned from "protect the girl" to "find her a group I can trust and help her become a survivor".  The penultimate scene in partially blurred vision as I help her realize she can take care of herself, pushing the bat towards her with my foot - no energy to take out the crawler.  Tell her she's strong, and get her to put a bullet in my brain.

Fade to black.  Hell yeah.  ... way to tell a story!

The final conversation with Clem: