In Defense of the QTE

Ever since they came into prominence (somewhere around the release of God of War) Quick time events have been taking flack. The general complaint that I tend to hear is that QTE's "take you out of the action", or "distract you from what's happening on screen". Here's the thing, as far as distracting you, if you, most games make a point of either placing the prompts on the action (God of War typically places the prompt on top of or above the monster you are killing) so that you don't have to look away, or making the prompts large and color coded so that you can more or less determine what they are without having to focus on them directly. Now I do understand that there are some games that do a piss poor job of this, it's not uncommon for the button prompt to be a tiny colorless dot at the bottom of the screen such that you really do have to just stare at it in order to catch the command in time, but this does not make up the majority. But the main complaint is usually being taken out of the action. Ok guys. This doesn't even make sense. QTE's with VERY FEW exceptions, take place during what would otherwise be a cutscene. And they typically allow the executions of moves that are too intricate and complex to be implemented in normal gameplay, we just don't have the technology, you would need a controller with hundreds of buttons to handle that kind of input. So what most of these QTE's are doing, is not taking you out of the action, they are giving you a chance to participate in things that you would otherwise just stare at and watch. I can understand that some of you just don't want to have to do anything during a cutscene, you'd rather just watch, that's a fair opinion and I can understand it. But I can't understand people who make the complaints that I have mentioned above. To me a well done QTE just gives the player a chance to experience what his character is supposed to be capable of, like pulling a cyclops's eye out of its socket, or cutting a hell beats rider in half and taking the creature for yourself. Hell, if we WERE capable of putting that kind of stuff into standard gameplay, then yeah, I'd love to see QTE's fade away, but until then, I'm ok with them. And if you're going to bitch about them, at least try to make your complaints make sense eh?

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (I give it an 8.75)

Well, I'm a bit late on the wagon here but I finally got my hands on the much anticipated 3rd person action title. I've been playing the actual table top game since I was quite young, and the game itself is all good fun but really the lore and characters involved is what grabbed my interest. And besides the Dawn of War games (Both of which are classics) a 3rd person action approach just seems the most sensible. The most notable thing about the Warhammer universe is it's unrelenting brutality and violence. You don't just kill your foe's, you eviscerate them, cleave them in half, or leave their boots sitting alone in a smoldering crater. And Space Marine has captured that over the top brutality perfectly.

You take the role of Captain Titus of The Ultramarines (the preeminent chapter of the Space Marines in 40k lore) as he is en route to a forge world (a planet devoted to the creation of the imperiums instruments of war) to quell an Ork invasion, and secure the most valuable strategic assets on the planet, the titans. The plot from there is a straight forward affair, and well it should be, Warhammer 40,000 is, and likely never will be about deep webs of intrigue. From a Space Marine's point of view, he exists to destroy the enemies of man. And that, is exactly what you do.

At first glance it's a standard over the shoulder shooter but without cover. You run around firing the many weapons at your disposal, the bolt pistol, plasma pistol, bolter, storm bolter, stalker bolter, vengeance launcher, lascannon, melta gun, and plasma gun, but only until you move into melee range, and that's where things get truly gruesome. There are several melee weapons in the game, but probably the most viscerally entertaining of them is the Chainsword. The Chainsword is exactly what it sounds like, a massive sword with a chainsaw in place of a blade. Other weapons include, the combat knife, the power axe, and the Thunder Hammer. In melee you have several attack options, standard swings, stunning blows, and horrifyingly brutal executions. You can chain swings and "kicks" as the game often refers to them for various effects. For example, 3 swings with the chain sword followed by a kick, causes the captain to slam his foot down with enough force to send everyone around him flying, and enough to stun the target directly in front of him, leaving the target vulnerable to an execution. Executions aren't just grizzly fun though, they serve a purpose as well, not only do they take an opponent quite definitively from the battle, but they also restore a portion of Titus' health, proportionate to the strength of the enemy. Executing an elite, for example, will restore Titus to full health, while executing a standard Ork Boy will reward you with about half of your health. You are vulnerable while performing these moves however, so often the health you gain from doing it, doesn't outweigh that which you gain. So your best course of action is often to save these for a last resort, or to keep one enemy alive to harvest once his friends are dead.

Yep, that's a chainsaw, through his mouth.

There is a portion of the game, a little bit past the half way mark, where things get abruptly more difficult. For the first half of the game I was able to bull rush my way into melee and cut apart my enemies with nary a scratch on me in the end. But after the half way point I found myself getting killed left and right. Thankfully the checkpoint system is (usually) very good, and it's rare that you're set back more than 5 minutes or so after death.

And that brings us to graphics, which in this case are a bit of a mixed bag. Don't get me wrong, nothing looks outright bad, this isn't another COD MW3 or Duke Nukem Forever. But the environments feel a little bit flat on occasion, they aren't all that well textured. Artistically they are accurate and true to the source material but in execution they came out somewhat wanting. Character models however are ridiculously well detailed. As you carve apart your Orkish and Daemonic enemies you will find yourself coated in their blood, even seeping into the recesses of your power armors ornate carvings. To be fair though, character models are all you're likely to take note of, combat simply moves too quickly to be able to stop and appreciate your surroundings. And the pace of the game itself is such that you are constantly fighting for your life. It's only on a few rare occasions that you actually walk, talk, and have a chance to look around. Most dialogue is given either in cutscenes or, shouted over the roar of chainswords and bolter fire.

Did I mention it's violent?

Another thing that Relic and co got right once again is the personality of the separate factions in play. The bullheaded, stupid Orks, who really only want a good fight. The forces of Chaos, as pure an evil as exists, who want only to subjugate or kill every living thing. And the Space Marines, whose single purpose is to stop the marauding forces of evil, by any, and I do mean any, means necessary. Their greatest success with this game though, was probably the personality of the Orks. When the space marines arrive and begin tearing their friends into little christmas colored pieces, rather than screaming and running they simply shout things like "It's a fight now!" or "It's the space marines! Get em' boys!". Things like this are probably the only lighthearted moments in the game, which is fitting, because in 40k, the only team with any kind of a sense of humor, is the Ork's (I'm not spelling that wrong by the way, the Ork's are just stupid and have always spelled their own name wrong to the extent that it's now the right way to spell it.)

What story exists is typically quite simple, it does have one or two fairly solid twists that don't feel too contrived or forced. But it's a fairly straight forward save the world from evil type of romp. And I won't say more than I already have for fear of ruining the few high moments the story presents. I've heard many people actually complaining about the simple story, but I can only assume that these are people who have never had knowledge of the source material. And as usual I never gave the multiplayer a real try so you'll have to look elsewhere if you want to hear about it, sorry. But all in all Space Marine is exactly what a fan of the source material could want in a game, (unless you're a fan of the Ork's or Daemons) it's brutal bloody and unrelentingly violent from beginning to end, it's fun to play, and the story provides just enough of a vehicle to keep the bullets and chainswords flying. I give it an 8.75 out of 10. THPATHE MUREEEEEEEENS

Space Marine is property of Relic
All else is ©Alex Jenkins 2012

The Scourge Project.

Well, it's been a while since I uploaded anything to the pain and suffering section of the site. Guess that had to change eventually. And you might be wondering why it is that I rarely put stuff in that section. It's because I don't like to post anything about games that I haven't actually beaten (WITH THE EXCEPTION OF FUCKING DARKSIDERS). But most of the games that I would normally toss into this forsaken section, are honestly so bad, so difficult, or so both of those factors, that they are almost impossible to really complete with sanity intact. So that said I'm going to forgo that condition and just get to the heart of the matter.

Looks like you've got yourself a pretty bad case of blood-crotch there bud.

The Scourge Project is bad. Really. Really. Really. Bad. And that's disappointing because on paper it sounds solid. It's a team based 3rd person cover shooter, intended to be played online with friends. You play the role of one of 4 mercenaries each with their own special ability, and you investigate the activity of a corrupt corporation. Standard stuff but it sounds like it would be hard to mess up right? HA. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh God.

So you start the game off being dropped outside of one of this corporations major facilities. You are given the most pathetic pea shooter of a gun ever conceived and are sent head long into battle. Here's where things go wrong! Aiming is nearly broken, remember the first Army of Two? Remember how hard it was to effectively aim your shots at first? Think of that times at least 2,000. You will spray wildly until you finally get locked onto your target, it's a little like the end of the night with your old lady but far less enjoyable and with bullets instead of... ahem, well anyways. The next issue rears its horrific misshapen head when it dawns on you that your enemies have far more health than you do, you might unload an entire clip into a bad guys head and he doesn't even twitch. Then a stray bullet clips your toe nail and you drop dead on the spot. But wait, what's that? You aren't dead? Your team could revive you? Well that doesn't sound too bad then! And so you watch as one by one your AI partners walk up to you with zero cover, lean down to revive you, and get fucking shot. If it weren't so frustrating, it would make a good Monty Python skit. One after another they will march forward and die. Even when there is only one enemy left, and they could easily dispatch him and revive you safely, they will do everything in their power to revive you immediately and your entire squad will cease fire because they all want to revive you at the same fucking time.

See the circle in the upper left? All the red things in there are enemies. Notice that my friend there isn't even close to in cover, And also please note the other asshole standing directly behind him doing nothing. Jesus.

You may be saying to yourself now, "why is this asshole bitching about friendly AI in a game that is intended to be played with multiple people?". Well shut up. I played this alone because I don't want to play online with anyone who would play this game for actual enjoyment, and I would never wish ownership of this game on my friends. I would even hesitate to send this to my worst enemy, but I'd prolly do it anyways. And honestly, just because your game is meant for multiplayer, doesn't mean you can just ignore the single player AI and say "meh! No one's gonna see that anyways!" I saw it you lazy assholes, I saw it. And the thing is, were it not for that horrendous AI and the inordinate difficulty combined, this might be a passable if extremely clunky and generic game. It would at least be playable for an afternoon of mindless fun. But those two factors are like a flood light drowning out the tiny half-burnt out incandescent bulbs that are the high points of this game.

Oh and did I mention the checkpoint system? It's a real hoot. I personally can't play a game unless it sends me back at least 15 minutes every time I get killed. And I love it even more when that 15 minutes is laced with painfully boring and completely unskippable (ITS A WORD NOW BITCH) cutscenes. This wasn't too much of a problem until I got to the first "boss" fight. Which was only difficult because the "boss" hid on the other end of the room and generic enemies spawn constantly until you kill him (often springing into existence directly behind you, from nowhere!). So anyways I got killed several times, and every time I got launched back to the beginning of that portion of the game, left to slog back through, and watch every god damned piece of shit cutscene over again.

Oh, the graphics are pretty ok I guess?


The Scourge Project is the property of it's respective owner. And I'm really sorry about that.
All else is ©Alex Jenkins 2011

Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days

Well I've been MIA for a while, a pretty long while, mostly due to being busy with school but also because I haven't been able to afford new games, as I have previously mentioned. So anyways, a steam sale popped up recently and they were giving away Kane & Lynch 2 for 3.50, so I figured what the shit, why not. And now here I am, to tell you about what MIGHT be the most underrated game of all time.

I didn't play the first game, I never had a reason to, thankfully that didn't come back to bite me here because the only consistent factor seems to be the 2 lead characters. Whatever happened in the first game isn't ever brought up in any concrete fashion, there are just a few events mentioned here and there, generally of no real consequence. So now that that's out of the way, we'll move on.

KL2 starts off fast, and it NEVER slows down, for those of you who have played Army of Two: The 40th Day, think of that game, but on crack. It even takes place in the same city. The plot essentially breaks down as follows, Kane and Lynch are reunited in Shanghai, where Lynch has been living the past few years, in order to pull a major arms deal. Before the deal Lynch needs to go rough someone up, to "teach him a lesson", the man is waiting for them, and a protracted gun battle ensues that sprawls out across the crowded streets of Shanghai. SPOILERS BITCHES A mistake is made and a girl is inadvertently killed. Turns out this is the daughter of the most powerful crime boss in all of Shanghai, who has not only the police, but the Chinese military in his pocket. As a result, nowhere is safe, Kane and Lynch can never stop moving, and they quite literally never find themselves in a position where someone ISN'T trying to kill them. Even their own partners betray them eventually, leaving them quite literally alone to fend for themselves, and to scramble for a way out of Shanghai.

This is obviously a fairly thin plot line, but what really carries you through the game is the characters, Kane and Lynch have this bizarrely charismatic air about them despite neither of them being a particularly likeable individual on the surface. Lynch is quite literally out of his mind and will frequently suffer breakdowns mid-firefight, and he has a murderous streak 5 miles wide. Kane is a bit more redeemable of a figure, he is the typical ex mercenary who wants to get out of the game and just wants to pull this one last job so he can give his daughter something when he dies. But it's the constant bickering and bantering between these two that elevates the game above others of the genre. They really feel like friends, as much as Kane seems to hate Lynch he can't bring himself to just ditch him, and Lynch genuinely likes Kane, but is a little bit too insane to express it in words.

The second really great thing about this game is it's absolutely brutal adherence to realism. This is a dark, honest, violent depiction of the seedy underbelly of the world that we all know exists in some extent. SPOILERS AGAIN YO There is a scene about half way through the game, in which the two leads are captured, along with Lynch's wife. They are tortured, graphically, and Lynch's wife is killed (it is also implied that she is raped). This is horrific and honestly fairly hard to watch, and for a short period thereafter Kane and Lynch are forced to run through the city naked, covered in truly horrific looking cuts, in search of clothing. And that brings me to my next point, the art direction.

Kane & Lynch 2 is awesome to look at, the graphics themselves are competent, but the real draw is the presentation. Everything is tailored such that it looks like you are viewing from the perspective of a documentary crew running around with cell phone cameras trying to capture the life of these two psychopaths. The screen is covered in mpeg compression artifacts, lights cause dramatic flare on the screen, and the more brutal moments of violence are concealed by on screen pixelation. An especially cool moment comes at a point early in the campaign when you blow up several propane tanks, the force of the blast and volume of the detonation cause the entire screen and all audio to distort to the point that you have no idea what's happening for a few moments. These small touches are really pretty awesome when you're playing the game. When you're watching someone else play it all seems kind of disorienting, especially the shaky cam that accompanies sprinting, but when you're in control of it yourself it feels much less like watching a drunken cameraman sprint through a hurricane, and more like you're just directly involved with the action on screen.

As far as gameplay goes it's a fairly standard 3rd person cover shooter. You move from cover to cover shooting your enemies when they make the mistake of sticking their heads out. It can be very difficult at times, as you have just about the same amount of health as your enemies on normal difficulty. I had a few moments where I made the mistake of running around a corner without looking, and my head would very abruptly go from normal to pixels as someone took a shotgun to it. It's typically not too frustrating though, as the checkpoint system is fairly solid and rarely sets you back more than a room or two upon death.

In final I think anyone who is looking for a dramatically more mature take on crime thrillers, and video games in general, there is really no reason not to pick this game up next time you find a used copy or it goes on sale, it's worth mentioning that the average gamer will finish the solo campaign within 4-6 hours. But I've already started replaying it and it does have the standard multiplayer modes with a few others added in, one of which places a double agent in the midst of the criminal team, whose job is to kill all of his team mates before they find out who is doing it. I haven't played the multiplayer, but it sounds like a really cool concept that I'd like to try out. All in all I'd give it an 8 out of 10, but those 2 points are deducted solely because of the relative brevity of the game. But to be fair, in comparison with the average 3 hour campaign of your standard call of duty game, I can't see why so many people are complaining about it being short.




Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is property of IO interactive, Eidos and Square Enix.
All else is ©Alex Jenkins 2011

Demo Impressions: Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

Being that I've been a Warhammer 40K fanboy since I was a little kid, you'd have to assume that I've really been looking forward to the day someone made an action game out of it. Now obviously this isn't Games Workshops first outing in the video game world, they have actually had several really great games. There were a few I can't even remember the names of back in the 90's, then there was Fire Warrior, a first person shooter affair from the perspective of a Tau Fire Warrior repelling an imperial invasion. It didn't do so well but it was still pretty fun. Then of course came Dawn of War and its sequel, both of which are in my top 5 for strategy games. But the Warhammer 40k universe has been just begging for a good 3rd person action title since it was first created. And Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, seems to be prepared to deliver it in spades.

I just got my hands on the demo yesterday and sat there furiously playing through it over and over again. Once probably 2 hours went by I sat back in my chair and said "fuck Gears of War 3". And I meant it. This is for several reasons, one is that the world of Warhammer has some of the richest lore ever written. And the material has been written over the course of decades, and that lore leaves room for so much within the universe. So there is virtually no way to really mess up your story as long as you don't ignore the lore. And Relic has proven extensively that it understands and respects the source material with which it is working. But I'm starting to ramble so I'm going to get straight to the mini review of the demo for Space Marine.


The demo gives you access to two different missions out of the campaign. One of these "The Inquisitor" is what I assume to be the games standard fare. You march from place to place fighting with orks. After that mission is another mission wherein your marine dons a jump pack. Both of these brief missions do a great job of showing off what the game is capable of. First off the graphics are gorgeous. This is where you can really see how faithful Relic is to its source material. The crumbling buildings of the forge world are truly oppressive and even though I had no idea what the situation was, I felt like the situation was completely hopeless. And the character models are just so clean and sharp it's hard to complain about them. Especially when your Space Marine is coated in the blood of the orks that he cut apart (quite literally) in battle. As his armors shields are beaten down electricity crackles across its surface giving you a warning of impending danger even if you aren't paying attention to your life bar. The only graphical short coming that I saw, was in a few of the environments. Some textures looked a little bit muddy up close. But that's just nit picking, the overall look of the game is brilliant in its unrelenting bleakness.



The next thing I really want to stress is the sound design. Shitty sound effects can really kill a game. Look at Duke Nukem, yeah yeah I know, Duke didn't need bad sound effects to be a shitty game. But honestly the guns just sounded pathetic. This was also a shortcoming in the game Garshasp Monster Slayer. But in Space Marine, every bullet you fire lets loose a blast like a grenade in any other game. They did a wonderful job giving the impression that any normal human trying to fire those guns would have his arms taken off by the sheer force of it. And the melee sounds are awesome too, your chainsword revs and roars with every swing, and blood and gore spatters every time you make contact. It makes the combat audibly just as satisfying as it is visually.

And finally the combat. Think if you were playing Gears of War, but you can't take cover, because Space Marines are WAY too badass to cower behind conveniently placed cement blocks. And when you get to melee, instead of just throwing a random gun butt, or killing them with a chain saw if you get lucky, you pull out a fucking sword. But it isn't just a normal sword. It's a chainsaw, shaped like a sword. And then, all of a sudden, the game just turned into Devil May Cry. The speed and brutality with which you dispatch your enemies in melee would be disturbing if it wasn't so god damn fun and awesome. Whenever an opponent is stunned you can use an execution move on him. These both look AWESOME and serve a purpose besides taking enemies out of the fight, every time you execute an enemy it heals you. So it's not just the standard "OH EXECUTIONS THOSE LOOK BALLER LOLOLOLOL LETS PUT EM IN" they serve a strategic purpose. But, unlike most games, you aren't invulnerable while caving in an ork's head or Sparta kicking him off the end of your chain sword. So the risk sometimes outweighs the benefits.

The jump pack essentially adds another layer to the melee combat. The way it works is similar to the DOW2 assault squad. You jump up in the air, choose your extremely unfortunate target, and come crashing down on him and his friends. It puts you right into the fight and kills about half of the enemy while they are distracted shooting at your friends. My only drawback while using the jump pack was that it started to feel very repetitive. The slam attack was so lethal that it made it a waste of time to use anything else. So it just turned into, jump, slam, jump, slam, jump, slam. It was fun for a while but eventually I just ignored the fact that I had it and fought as normal.


I have extremely high hopes for this game now. I was already looking forward to it but talk about making a good first impression. It's like meeting your girlfriends parents while wearing a tuxedo and driving a brand new Mercedes that you named "Commitment". Unfortunately I won't be able to afford the game for a while but when I do a full review will be soon to follow.


Copyright Alex Jenkins 2011

Back to College

Well I'm back at school. Hopefully this means that I can get myself back on a regular schedule and throw those regularly scheduled updates at you that I've been talking so much about. This of course banks on me getting hold of a job so I can afford to buy games that I can review. Until then I do have a few older games sitting around that I could give a play to refresh my memory. But no new releases anywhere on the near horizon. And unfortunately no more news to share within the gaming world. Thanks to those of you who do actually read this, I'll do my best to keep you updated.

Alex

Bethesda. Yah done goofed.

As everyone knows, big established developers like to shit on the little guys who may some day represent competition in the market. So I can't say I'm entirely surprised by the recent news that Bethesda, or I guess more appropriately, Bethesda's parent company, Zenimax, is attempting to sue Mojang. Mojang, if you don't know, is the company responsible for the indie hit Minecraft. Turns out Mojang is planning another game titled "Scrolls". OH GOD, SOMEONE RING THE FUCKING ALARM BELL. Clearly because the word Scrolls is in the title of a few of Bethesda's games they must own all rights to the word! Just like how Gears of War should have to give up all of its profits, after all, Warcraft came out first! Although, wait, wasn't there a game that used the word "The" prior to the Elder Scrolls games? OOPS. Guess ol' Zenimax didn't think that far ahead.

This seems like an astoundingly stupid move, especially considering the upcoming release of Bethesda's flagship title TSE V: Skyrim. It may simply be that they didn't take bad publicity into mind when they came up with this brilliant scheme. But honestly this wouldn't be smart even if they didn't have any impending releases. Mojang is a beloved company by millions of people. Seriously, Minecraft, has sold over 3 million copies to date, and one of those copies went to yours truly. I'll take a small innovative company over a money guzzling corporate whore of a company any day. Bethesda isn't even staying true to its fanbase with Skyrim, everything about it is stripped and dumbed down to appeal more strongly to the FPS crowd. Much in the same way Bioware has filed the intellectual value of its games down to a nub in recent years. So to effectively screw over your own fan-base, and then make absurd attacks against other more valuable franchises and developers just seems ridiculous. Now I want to make it clear I'm not trying to attack Bethesda here, even though I am disappointed in some of their recent decisions. The people responsible for what has to be the most ridiculous lawsuit since the people who sued McDonald's for making them fat, are the people who own Bethesda, Zenimax. And I can't stress that enough, this is Zenimax's doing, not Bethesda's.

All that said. I wouldn't get too worried about Mojang. I really have never heard of a corporate lawsuit based on such paper thin material. Maybe Zenimax ought to look into hiring a new "crack" legal team. One that realizes you don't actually own the rights to a single word just because it's in your game. And one that doesn't time its unbelievably stupid lawsuit to coincide with the release of their main title. We can only hope this hurts the games sales figures enough that these idiots (the lawyers, not Bethesda) wind up on the streets.

All above titles and trademarks are property of their respective owners. Bethesda, Epic Games, and Blizzard.

All else is ©Alex Jenkins 2011