🚀 go-pugleaf

>What Have You Been Playing... IN OCTOBER 2016?

Resident Evil 6
Quantum Break

Resident Evil 6
Taken in isolation, this is a deeply flawed game.  By no means is RE6 a 'bad 
game'; I enjoyed it more and more with each succeeding character campaign, 
ultimately becoming very satisfied with the experience and wanting more 
Resident Evil:  That is one definition of a successful game -- and I harken 
back to _The Thing_ videogame; deeply flawed and incomplete in execution, 
yet it left me with the desire to see Carpenter's movie once more, and I 
recall fondly that game's attempt to recapture the film's cold horror and 
menace.

But the transition from a tank-controlled slow-moving RE0/1 to this hectic, 
globe-trotting, run & gun, 3rd-person cover-shooter is jarring and 
confusing, especially at first.  I'll try separating my thoughts into Plot 
and Gameplay.

Plot
A big issue for the designers of RE6 had to simply be the *quantity* of 
material to attempt to organize and somehow present to the player.  With 
only a passing familiarity with the series, the flurry of characters, shell 
companies and acronyms, shifting relationships, and frequent, often obscure, 
references to gameworld events spanning 20yrs of releases is bewildering. 
They chose separate inter-locking campaigns to express this material, which 
in itself introduces additional complexity and deliberate plot holes --  
meant to be filled in via the other campaigns -- and requires additional 
player mental involvement in keeping track of both the action and plot 
details, both low- and high-level, and filling in missing information.

For example:  One scene drops you into eastern europe with various zombies, 
some of which can mutate, when a giant monster zombie is air-lifted in out 
of nowhere, and the BSAA suddenly appears.  In the ensuing chaotic battle 
keeping track of plot details is important to overall enjoyment:  Why is my 
character here and where am I trying to get to?  Why the variations in 
zombie mutations?  Why is a giant monster being air-lifted in?  BSAA?  Many 
games would take the time to explain to the player in-game, often more than 
once -- I'm thinking of RE4, and being able to click on an object and seeing 
an informational popup.  RE6 assumes the player has both played past games, 
and is willing to read related material, e.g., _RE6: Marhawa Desire_, a 
prequel Manga series, published before the game came out (I was unaware of 
this manga).  The result is a fragmentary experience that doesn't gell 
*while playing the game for the first time*.

The designers did add one hand-holding concession, and a very important one: 
Emblems tucked away in remote corners of level maps, that unlock explanatory 
blurbs in an Extras sub-menu, including important ones summarizing the 
background for the preceding action, or detailing characteristics of 
protagonists and enemies and their genesis.  But head-shakingly, these 
emblems are both easy to pass by unawares, and their unlocked plot blurbs 
hidden away in the UI.  I was unaware that emblems unlocked plot information 
for almost the entire game :), having assumed they were simple collectibles 
as in RE4, and only found a handful in any case.

So, to summarize:  A pretty deep and involved plot; many characters, with 
history between them; told in a highly fragmented and convolved manner, with 
abrupt transitions, that requires way more investment in the franchise to 
fully tease out enjoyment from than the average gamer is willing to put in, 
but which after completing all the campaigns and reading both wiki plot 
articles and reading all the Emblem blurbs (they are collected for each 
campaign in youtube videos), I'm very impressed.  The Chris campaign in 
particular told a good story.

Now, let me add one GLARING WTF eye-roll comment about the direction of the 
Leon campaign, that I still find jaw-droppingly incomprehensible in the 
release of a AAA title.  And that is the verbatim re-use of the entire 
opening scenario of the campaign -- with a distinctive helicopter ride and 
crash -- much later on in the same campaign.  This was so jarring, that it 
had me pausing and questioning if I'd missed something:  Was this a 
flashback somehow?  Nope:  They'd just cut-and-pasted a complete 
15-minute-long plot segment.  Unbelievable.  Thankfully I saw nothing like 
that done in the other campaigns.

Gameplay
The 1) somewhat awkward control scheme, of this 2) 3rd-person-cover-shooter, 
probably comprise most players initial complaints about RE6:  "This Is Not A 
Resident Evil Game!!"  Heehee.  No, it's not survival horror, certainly.  I 
got over that, is about all I can respond to that criticism.  But it most 
definitely is a RE title, deeply imbedded in the lore of the series.  They 
wanted to tell their story in a different manner this time and that's fine 
by me.

I was still fumbling with the control scheme in this game, even after 20hrs 
of play.  In particular my heavy-handedness on the R stick and it's builtin 
button kept shifting my over-the-shoulder perspective back and forth in 
tense encounters.  It never occurred to me to try m+kb, as....RE games are 
built for controllers, right?  But playing on Amateur difficulty I didn't 
have any enduring issues.  Oh, one annoying problem did crop up:  My Elite 
xbox controller would disconnect in tense gameplay moments:  I'm not clear 
if this is a windows issue or game issue, but I've turned off all USB 
power-saving settings to no avail.

The game looks good, with many different environments and non-repetitive 
gameplay, and ran fine at 1440p.  I enjoyed it, and look forward to playing 
the few back titles in this series I've missed.


Quantum Break
Wow!  Forget the pre-release hype, post-release let-down, UWP outrage, 
floaty mouse and stuttering complaints:  Just let it all go!  Quantum Break 
today is a smooth-performing, great-looking, incredibly fun shooter, with 
high production quality, A-list actors, and a story that enthralled me from 
start to finish.

I hadn't touched it since buying a code soon after release, when a wandering 
mouse, delayed action controls, and a frustrating low framerate -- even 
after fooling with the useless settings -- left me shaking my head and 
disinclined to even leave the starting area.  And so it sat for 6 months, 
until a friend said he'd played and enjoyed it.  I reinstalled -- with no 
hardware changes except for a larger faster SSD, but of course dozens of 
patches & drivers & win10 updates later -- and immediately it clicked.

Panning was smooth, controls responsive.  The slightly blurry look --  
in-game scaled to 1080p on a 1440p monitor -- inconsequential, especially 
given the highly detailed facial expressions and animations.  It even 
accepted bumping up some detail levels without complaint.  And with 
performance complaints behind, I was free to enjoy the story and gameplay.

Both of which are wonderful.  The shooting is fast-paced and immersive, with 
good-feeling standard projectile weapons and an array of time-manipulation 
powers which are meted out and upgradable as the game progresses.  Battles 
are short but intense, with objects flying and shimmering graphics effects, 
and never play out the same way.  Between battles are simple traversal and 
time-manipulation puzzles, for some variety.  And then there's the movies.

The first of these 15-20min(?) live-action film segments hit me with a bit 
of a shock:  They want me sit here and watch a movie in the middle of a 
videogame?? Come on I want to shoot something!  They are well-shot and 
acted, the props believable.  But the neatest thing about these clips is the 
effect of the transition back to the game:  First you see the real actors 
playing the game roles, then a short game-engine clip with these same -- now 
mocapped -- actors to introduce the next act, followed with the 
near-seamless transition to the player-controlled character; I find it very 
effective in involving me with the plot and making me care about the 
characters.

So if you're still holding a grudge against Remedy for not churning out a 
comicbook Max Payne sequel, my advice is:  Just let it all go!  Enjoy it! 
Quantum Break is highly recommended

rms