🚀 go-pugleaf

It's March, and they say that Winter is over. That means that I should
be spending more time outdoors, enjoying the longer days and warmer
weather. Well, the days are definitely longer but they certainly
aren't warmer - this month has been rainier (and snowier) and far
colder than all the rest of this Winter combined. But at least that
means I have an excuse to huddle indoors staring at a computer screen;
better that than muddling about outside in the icy rain and wind.

So another month; time to share our playlists. It's all about the
games in this thread, as you know; PC games, console, hand-helds, even
tabletop. If you played it, we want to hear about it.

Here's my list.

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Short and Sweet
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* Deus Ex Mankind Divided (new)
* Star Wars Dark Forces II Jedi Knight (replay)
* Star Wars Dark Forces II Jedi Knight Mysteries of the Sith (replay)
* ARMA 3 (new)
* Neverwinter Nights 2 w/ Pool of Radiance Remastered mod (replay/new)


TL; DR 
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* Deus Ex Mankind Divided (new)
One of the few criticisms leveled at "Deus Ex: Human Revolution" was
that it - in many ways - felt like a beat-for-beat re-creation of the
original game. Yes, the specifics varied but the general pacing and
plot were extremely similar. Personally, I didn't find this a major
issue; the familiarity probably allowed players to more gracefully
accept the changes that were made, while at the same time offering a
useful baseline for the developers working on to reboot a much-beloved
franchise. But if we accept that "Human Revolution" was "Deus Ex
2012", does that make its sequel, "Mankind Divided" to be the 2016
equivalent of the much derided "Deus Ex" sequel, "Invisible War"?

Unfortunately, it seems the answer to that question is yes. Now, it
should be stated that from a gameplay and story standard, Mankind
Divided is far superior to "Invisible War", which suffered from a
gross simplification of its mechanics and level design due to the
limitations of game-consoles; compared to the original game,
"Invisible War" was shallow and disappointing. This definitely cannot
be said of "Mankind Divided"; its gameplay is a virtually untouched
replica of "Human Revolution". 

Where "Mankind Divided" fails, however, is in its scope and direction.
It is a far smaller game than its predecessor, both mechanically and
narratively, forced as it is to squeeze its storyline into the
increasingly narrow time period between the original and "Human
Revolution". Unable to add anything significant to the backstory - the
plot feels like a shaggy dog story; a pointless addition that doesn't
really go anywhere (in this one area, at least, "Invisible War" was
superior as it advanced the storyline significantly). It feels like a
game added simply to cash in on the franchise's marketability rather
than a necessary continuation of the tale.

Like "Invisible War", much of "Mankind Divided" takes place in one
single locale - Seattle in IW, Prague in MD - with short diversions to
other areas. Prague is, at least, impressively large; although nowhere
near the size of maps seen in games like Grand Theft Auto 5 or
Watch_Dogs, the amount of detail is high. However, compared to the
world-spanning conspiracies of the earlier games, this focus on just
one city makes it feel less like fighting against a global conspiracy
and more like busy work. It doesn't help that the game has terrible
pacing, both in the overall narrative and the individual missions;
it's really not until the last few levels that there's any intensity
at all. 

The gameplay, as mentioned, remains a solid re-creation of that
introduced in "Human Revolution", albeit with a few new powers. On the
surface, this might sound intriguing - who doesn't want more powers? -
but these new additions seem to be added more to add tick-marks to the
back of the box than to significantly change-up the gameplay and for
the most part I stuck to the older abilities; the new powers seemed
unbalanced and unnecessary. 

All in all, "Mankind Divided" was an average game but it felt
pointless and rushed - in development, if not pacing. It probably
could have used another year just to hammer out the story, and more to
build out the world.


* Star Wars Dark Forces II Jedi Knight (replay)
I've been on a bit of a Star Wars kick recently - I've re-watched the
movies, watched the TV shows, and read the comics and novels.
Obviously I had to play some of the computer games too, and since I
haven't played it in a long time I decided on "Jedi Knight".

Although it's hailed as a classic, I do not actually have such fond
memories of "Jedi Knight"; it always brought to mind huge interminable
levels, terrible polygonal graphics and clunky light saber combat. On
the other hand, I did have a soft spot for its live-action video
ct-scenes; it was, after all, the first live-action Star Wars since
Return of the Jedi and - coming out before Episode One this was a
major draw. 

Replaying the games, I found the levels a mixed bunch. Some of them
were as dull and endless as I remembered - especially the later ones
in the ruined Jedi temple - and far too reliant on platforming puzzles
(over bottomless pits, naturally) to be fun. Others, however,
adequately captured the scale and feel of the movies well enough,
especially considering the limitations of the technology of the day.
The game remained as ugly as I remembered; even the original Dark
Forces, with its blocky 320x200 graphics and sprites looked far
better. The controls are equally clumsy and while there wasn't quite
as much endless enemy respawning as I remembered, there was still
enough to annoy me. 

Still, it was a Star Wars game and that - combined with its few
moments of brilliance - made the game an endurable, if not entirely
enjoyable experience. The live-action was as wonderfully hammy as the
original movies and that made up for a lot of the flaws in the
gameplay too. Otherwise, a rather forgettable game.


* Star Wars Dark Forces II Jedi Knight Mysteries of the Sith (replay)
Having worked my way through the main game, I of course had to
continue the adventure with Jedi Knight's sole expansion pack,
"Mysteries of the Sith". I had only played the game once before and
remembered almost nothing of it, so this pl ay-through was almost a
new experience for me. Sadly, this freshness did little to improve
things, largely due to some terrible level design. The developers
double-down on the hated platforming from the main game, and then only
made things worse with the addition of huge chunks of underwater
exploration. The levels were also far less intuitive to navigate, with
the correct path almost never being the obvious one. "Mysteries" was
also far buggier than the original, most obvious when it played cut
-scenes which always dropped me to a tiny window on my desktop (rather
than playing full-screen like the main game), but also in its
scripting errors and crash-to-desktops. It didn't even benefit from
the nifty live-action video that saved its predecessor, instead
relying on cut-scenes created using the low-polygon in-game models
(and then, strangely, rendered to video). Overall, a terrible game and
it is no surprise I've forgotten it; I'll be doing my best to wipe my
memory of this pl ay-through as well.


* ARMA 3 (new)
Playing ARMA 3, I kept thinking of Falcon 4.0, the 1998 flight
simulator. Like the ARMA series, the Falcon simulators claim to fame
was their incredibly realistic fidelity. "Falcon 4.0" aimed to improve
on this with the addition of a dynamic campaign; rather than simply
flying pre-determined missions, it dropped you into a virtual warzone
that reacted to the player's actions. It never worked quite as well as
the pre-release hype promised but - considering it came out in a time
when computer speed was measured in Megahertz and RAM in Megabytes, it
was still an impressive attempt. 

I mention Falcon 4.0 because the addition of a similar virtual warzone
seems a perfect fit for the ARMA series, and ARMA 3 in particular.
Older games of the franchise were still playing around with the
underlying technology and gameplay, but neither of these areas
received significant advancement in ARMA 3; in many ways, it feels
like a re-skin of ARMA 2. The addition of a reactive campaign would
have been a logical iteration. Instead, we got its rushed
single-player campaign.

Now, I know "ARMA 3" was intended to be played in multiplayer, with
large groups of like-minded people role-playing war-game fantasies in
player-made battles. Its single-player mode feels like a technology
demo; a sampling of what the mission-creator - and game-engine - can
do rather than a real attempt to craft a strong story or gameplay. But
that campaign was so rough and unfulfilling that it did more to turn
me off the series than want to further explore the game's
capabilities. The missions were short - one of the earlier missions is
little more than you driving down a road for a few minutes - and too
frequently interrupted by badly scripted cut-scenes. The actual
gameplay isn't very fulfilling; although arguably realistic, getting
sniped by a 'bot hiding in the forest a mile away that you don't even
know is there until you fall over dead isn't much fun. Too much of the
game has me blindly the following friendly AI, where I was more intent
on watching where they were going than keeping an eye out for enemies.
It's also a fragile game; don't do what the game expects and the
scripting breaks, forcing a mission restart. It's unsatisfying and
restrictive; exactly the opposite of what I'd expect from a game with
such a huge open world. And don't even get me started on its awful
control scheme...

The underlying technology of the ARMA games is incredibly impressive;
I just hope that one day they manage to make an entertaining game with
it.



* Neverwinter Nights 2 w/ Pool of Radiance Remastered mod (replay/new)
I consider the old "gold box" "Pool of Radiance" game to be one of the
great classics of computer role-playing and, in fact, one of the few
CRPGs that is a real RPG rather than a glorified
adventure-game-with-stats. In an era where games came on 360KB floppy
disks, it presented a surprisingly detailed open world where you could
make your own way to fame and fortune. Although there was an
over-arching plot with requisite evil nemesis, it wasn't until the
very end that the game started to railroad you towards the inevitable
final conflict and until that point, "Pool of Radiance" offered an
amazing amount of freedom to the player. Unfortunately, I find it very
hard to replay the original game due to both its technical and
mechanical limitations; the graphics are an eyesore, the controls are
awful and the game relies far, far too much on pitting you against
hordes of enemies in slow and cumbersome combat.

So when I learned there was a fan-made "Pool of Radiance Remastered"
mod for the "Neverwinter Nights 2" game, it is no surprise I
downloaded it immediately; I mean, a chance to re-experience the
classic game with modern(ish) graphics and controls - how could I say
no to that?

Overall, I found the experience enjoyable if not entirely what was I
expecting. Rather than simply recreating the game with the modern NWN2
toolset, the developer "rebooted" the game, adding a far more linear
plot structure. On the one hand, this did give the game a stronger
story and it was fun to see how my heroics were affecting the
beleaguered city of Phlan; there was a real ebb and flow to the
struggle to rebuild the city from the ruins. I'd liberate the slums in
one mission, and in the next find the townsfolk re-settling those same
slums, putting up new buildings and shops. It really made the world
feel reactive to my actions. On the other hand, it totally stripped
away the freedom that made the original so compelling; as in too many
CRPGs, I wasn't as much finding my own role as playing out somebody
else's adventure. 

Far more annoying was the underlying Neverwinter Nights engine and
specifically its camera. I was constantly trying to find a satisfying
camera angle; I never found one. Nominally, the game could be played
in a top-down view or an over-the-shoulder view; neither was very
good. The top-down view was the more playable viewpoint, but at a cost
to the intimacy of the game-world; the over-the-shoulder gave you a
down-n-dirty viewpoint that felt more real and intense, but the game's
awful controls made it virtually unplayable there. The tiny maps and
lack of any real interactions with the game-world did it no favors
either. Nor did the fact that too often the game simply froze when
trying to load the next level, costing me hours of gameplay since the
last time I saved (because of course it didn't auto-save). The combat
wasn't much fun either; it was too fast moving to make adequate use of
the vast number of options unless you instructed the game to autopause
after every event, tediously dragging even the tiniest of battles out
to hour-long conflicts. Yet at the same time it required too much
micro-managing to make up for the AIs deficits.

Still, it was fun to re-visit the ruins of Phlan again and - for a
fan-made mod - it was a surprisingly good effort.  

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And that's how I spent my March. What about you... 

What Have You Been Playing... IN MARCH 2017?