I finally beat: Assassin’s Creed
This was a flagship, high profile game; it was met with mixed reviews. This has confused a lot of people, and caused those people to start defending one perspective or the other. I would like to address some of the common things I’ve seen, and some aspects that no one seems to discuss. Continue reading
I finally watched: National Treasure 2 – The Book of Secrets
I saw a movie recently. It was still in theaters. In fact, it is even new. It’s a shame I didn’t like it more.
Avatars
Quick Post:
On the right side you should see a quick link to Globally accepted Avatars offered from http://site.gravatar.com/
While I would recommend creating a wordpress.com account and logging in, this is another way to “pretty up” the comments area. Just a one time thing: associate your email with an icon and you are done.
It certainly isn’t required, but would be nice.
don’t tell me the ending to: Bioshock
I’m part way through Bioshock. It is starting to get a little dull with some fetch quests. At the same time, it is becoming a bit too easy.
This is a problem many RPGs face. In order to give a sense of progression, your character must gain new abilities and become more powerful. Despite new trials arising to challenge you, your character steadily becomes better than these enemies to instill that sense of progression. This leads to the game becoming easier the longer you play, without needing to increase skill. Combined with learning a combat systems patterns, this can turn a game into almost an automated process. Most great RPGs make this progression very slight, almost unnoticeable. They also have excellent presentation, to make sure that as the experience transitions from a game you play to a game you watch, it becomes more interesting to watch.
Bioshock so far lacks the extra “umph” other RPGs express by making you look extremely cool while you bowl over the average bad guy. The extra abilities are fun to use, but are not exciting to behold. Instead, it is exploring the exquisite, changing environment and engaging characters propel you forward. While that is certainly enough, I have played RPGs that have gotten all of these aspects correct <cough>Baldur’s Gate (2, especially)</cough>. Missing any particular part of this equation (exploration/environment + story/characters + progression/combat) will stick out.
One aspect I should mention is I love the steampunk influence on weapon upgrades. A new weapon upgrade sufficiently increases its visual appeal even if its actual use does not. I find it fun to simply look at a recent upgrade’s idle animation awhile.
First Post
Alright, Let’s test some of the waters with a Mission Statement of sorts.
Why do I need a Mission Statement? I don’t. There’s only a committee of one here. But it may give you an idea of what I plan for this to become. This is a place where you and I can talk about things that other sites don’t talk about, where I can rant without being banned, and (most importantly) chat about aspects of the games, movies, etc. without necessarily spoiling it for everyone.
Sure there will be spoilers here and there, but I will try to maintain discussion threads for general and vague review, rather than always citing specific instances. I don’t believe I need to beat the game in 4 days in order to be able to talk about it on the internet and not have the ending ruined or twist revealed.
I believe we can talk about Bioshock’s wonderful art design and somewhat bland levels without talking about the ending.