🚀 go-pugleaf

Argh, late again. It's not even that I'm playing so many games or am
otherwise so busy that I cannot get this thread started on time; it's
just laziness and procrastination. So I'm rushing this post out -
again - just so I can say it's done.  

I love summer, don't get me wrong. Warm weather, long days and
exciting outdoor adventures - beach, kayaks, lovely hikes through
dappled woods - make for a great season (alas, homestead repairs mean
there's no opportunity for a barbeque, but I've made up for this lack
by visiting a number of fine eateries). But damn it, there is one
thing I hate about summer, and that's how the bright sunlight makes it
almost impossible to play games during the day (or even early
evening). Even with the shades drawn, I'm too often squinting at the
glare bouncing off the screens. Plus, even when the sun isn't
overwhelming my monitors, the summer heat - especially combined with
the energies radiating from all the computers - often exceeds the
capacity of the air-conditioning to keep me cool. As it is, I'm forced
to relegate most of my gaming time to the few hours late at night when
it's properly dark and cool. No wonder I'm barely playing any games
any more!


Ah well, I still managed to work my way through a few titles this
month. Here's my list.

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Short and Sweet
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* Medal of Honor Airborne (replay)
* Just Cause 3 (new)
* Shadow Warrior (2013) (replay)
* Witcher 3 (replay)


TL; DR 
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* Medal of Honor Airborne (replay)
Has ever a franchise fallen so far as the Medal of Honor series? Once
the king of first-person shooters, I know that many consider the 2010
iteration the nadir of the franchise, but for me Airborne Assault was
always the worst game of the series. While the 2010 game was a
cookie-cutter clone of the Modern Warfare games, it at least was
competently done and halfway fun to play; Airborne Assault isn't even
that.

In fairness, the developers did try to iterate on the formula with the
addition of the eponymous airborne drops; parachuting down from a
plane, the player can choose where to start each level. In practice,
however, this completely strips the level of any pacing and intensity.
I've no love of the overly-scripted sequences of other modern FPS
games, but some direction is desired. Never sure where the player was
coming from (or headed towards), the level design is unexciting, with
a great deal of repetition in appearance and mission goals. There's no
good flow; no rise and fall of action that kept me emotionally
invested. It was just one nearly identical room after another filled
with a too-limited variety of enemies. Perhaps had the developers
invested even further into the concept - had the game larger levels
and a more open-world sandbox experience - they might have created
something worth playing. Unfortunately, they were not quite so
innovative and the end result was a shallow and mediocre experience.

 

* Just Cause 3 (new)
I wasn't a big fan of Just Cause 1 or 2. The first game caught my
interest because - released in 2006 - its huge world and addition of
flying and driving mechanics were still novel additions to the FPS
genre. Its gameplay wasn't particularly well done and its world was
fairly shallow, but the scale and newness of the franchise were enough
to carry the game. Just Cause 2 upped the ante with an even larger
world and the addition of a grappling gun (a feature singularly
uninteresting to me, but apparently a fan favorite). The story and
characters were even more ridiculous than the first but it kept me
interested enough to invest the necessary 30 hours or so to complete
the game.

I tired of Just Cause 3 in less than two hours.

I know there are a lot of people who get undue joy from the
destruction and chaos they can wreak on the virtual world and I will
be the first to admit the game utilizes some impresses technology.
It's not quite up to the high-water mark set by the Red Faction games,
but I quiet enjoyed being able to blow apart guard towers, fortress
walls and giant dish antennas. The action can get quite frenetic and
the gunplay is solid, if not particularly noteworthy. But beyond that,
there really wasn't much to keep me invested in the game.

That the characters would be annoying caricatures was evident just
from the introduction, and they did little to improve themselves
during gameplay. The setting remained as superficial as ever; for all
its vast scope, there's little to differentiate one tiny village from
the next; they are all hollow shells whose only purpose is to serve as
liberation points. Too much of the game is locked behind in-game
challenge modes, few of which were enjoyable and all broke the game's
feeling of immersion. Odd control choices and unequal game performance
didn't help, nor did the brain-dead AI. The game feels far more a
chore than a fun experience. 

I'll admit, the two hours of blowing shit up and killing the moronic
AI weren't completely without merit, but - even at the sharp discount
I received - it's not enough. I purchased the game at an 80% discount
and I still don't think I got value for my money.



* Shadow Warrior (2013) (replay)
I wasn't a fan of this 2013 reboot when I originally played and -
while I can't say I'm a huge fan of it today - I definitely warmed up
to the game during this second play-through.

Graphically, the game is still quite good looking, even after four
years. While the game lacked any jaw-dropping set-pieces, a few scenes
were surprisingly beautiful. It's game-play is less appealing, and was
greatly hampered by the unsophisticated AI. The gun-play specifically
I found lacking, but that may have been intentional on the part of the
developers to encourage you to use the katana. Fortunately, melee
combat - while simplistic - is visceral and energetic and while not in
anyway sophisticated, is enjoyable enough. 

Alas, the game suffers from an uneven tone, jumping from campy
irreverence to hard-boiled revenge story from one level to the next.
There's also an unfortunate lack in the variety of enemies, and of the
handful that are used, at least half of them are more annoying than
fun to fight. The control scheme - especially the
double-tap-move-then-charge-power actions - are clumsier than they
should be and weapon and power progression is slower than I would have
liked. The level design is a mixed bag - some of the earlier maps are
quite fun, but as the game progresses things become more trite and
predictable. I did quite like fighting the giant bosses however, even
if they too were rather cliche.

Shadow Warrior isn't a great game; it might even be a bit excessive to
call it a good game. But it's not as terrible a game as I remember,
and it had a moment or two of adequacy. That's better than I
remembered it to be, at least.



* Witcher 3 (replay)
I haven't finished my replay of the Witcher 3 yet, though I've sunk at
least 40 hours into the game already. I've barely started the main
plot, in fact, much preferring just to wander around the densely
detailed wilderlands taking up random side-missions I come across and
searching for treasure. But I'm in no hurry; I love the grungy fantasy
feel of the setting, with its convoluted politics and character
inter-relations. It's even more fun now that I'm utilizing a 3rd party
mod that lets me drop into a first-person view and see the
hyper-detailed world from Geralt's eyes.

But it's not really the vast scale of the game that is keeps me from
finishing the game; I finished larger games in less time, after all.
But it's an odd paradox; the more engrossed I am with the game's
world, the less I want to play in it.  Every time I start playing the
game, I - envious of the detailed world with which I am presented - I
get an itch to create something similar. I can't play the game for
more than an hour or two before I quit the program and find some
outlet for my own creative juices, whether it's constructing something
in Minecraft or world-building for my own table-top RPG setting. Would
that I had the knowledge, skill and patience to use the Witcher 3
toolset! 

Actually, the gameplay itself is possibly the least engrossing part of
the game; I've never warmed up to the combat, and - for all its
apparent complexity - the game still travels along the same tropes
common to every other CRPG. There's only so excited I can get these
days about finding another magic sword or taking a job to kill yet
another village-threatening monster.

Still, kudos to any game that can inspire an inflame my weary and
flagging imagination. 


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And that's the handful of games I played this month. How about you;
did you let summer fun cramp your video game time? That is to say: 

What have you been playing... IN JULY 2017?