NieR, Splinter Cell Conviction and Alan Wake
I've been meaning to write several entries for all of the above 3 games, but never seem to get myself to actually do it, so I might as well just throw 'em all together.First off: NieR Gestalt.
NieR is an action RPG, published by Square Enix, but developed by a company called Cavia which is the most awesome name anyone could ever possibly hope to create when naming their company after a rodent, and in Japan it comes in 2 flavors: Gestalt (on 360) and Replicant (on PS3).
Replicant has the generic effeminate 15-year-old boy with spiky hair for a protagonist, and Gestalt has a more unusual middle-aged ugly man trying to look after his daughter.
Understandably, the West will only get Gestalt (on both 360 AND PS3), and that's probably a wise choice.
It's nice to play with a middle-aged guy once in a wh...
Holy crap, I don't like where that sentence is going.
It's refreshing to see a middle-aged man as the protagonist of a JRPG, and it works really well. I've been playing the game in English (because I can't be bothered to switch my system language to Japanese) and the voice acting and localization in general are pretty damn good.
It is for all intents and purposes a generic Action RPG.
You fight monsters, collect items, defeat bosses, do quests, the works!
To make up for what is perhaps rather uninspired gameplay, the game regularly throws some really weird and funny things at you. You WILL be surprised by some of the things in here, including references to Resident Evil and the Legend of Zelda among others, as well as some really clever and cute deviations off the beaten action RPG path.
Also, the game seems to think it's a Bullet Hell shooter at times. Make of that what you want.
This game has also once again reaffirmed the suspicion that I am getting sick and tired of SAVE THE UNIVARSE stories with budding wannabe heroes going on and on and on and on and on about how much they want to protect everyone and his goddamn DOG from everything and its goddamn evil hound.
So yeah, Final Fantasy XIII was pretty crappy, and it made me wary of the age-old Band of Heroes theme.
NieR, however, is much more like End of Eternity in that you follow a small group of people (3) that are all kind of social misfits, just trying to deal with their own problems.
Admittedly, there is an overarching story about some evil presence that doesn't like humans too much, but it's never blown out of proportion and most certainly not shoved down your throat.
Even the presentation itself is down-to-earth. The game world isn't very big and consists largely of rural environments and small towns. The game's visuals seem to take a cue from the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus palette, with grassy, mountainous environments and plenty of bloom effects. The soundtrack is composed largely of ethnic music with lots of chanting and minstrel songs in a made-up language, that only serves to enforce the calm, quiet, laid-back agraric atmosphere the game is going for.
I like that.
Secondly, Splinter Cell Conviction.
Now, I love the Splinter Cell series. They've always been the true stealth-based Yin to Metal Gear Solid's ridiculous action-based Yang. I liked how getting caught too many times, or just taking out enemies with your gun would result in instant mission failure. It forces you to use your head instead of just running through every situation guns blazing, and it worked great.
And now Conviction is upon us! The, what, fifth instalment in the series!?
And what does it offer us!?
Uh...action, lots of guns and a Quick Take Out system.
Blegh.
Christ, Ubisoft, try NOT fucking up one of your IPs for a change!
You actually have several good ones, but you keep raping them!
Now to be fair, SC Conviction is still one hell of a ride.
The graphics are great, the presentation is top notch (love how the game reminds you of your objective by projecting words on the environment), the interrogation sequences are really awesome, and there's a very well-executed chase scene that has to be, well, the BEST chase scene I've ever witnessed in a video game, like, EVER (not counting QTEs, cos they're just glorified cutscenes anyway).
There is still some good stealth to be had, but there is far too much of an emphasis on action. One level, based in the Middle East, is nothing BUT shooting and really feels out of place (perhaps a left-over idea from the Rainbow Six series, Ubisoft!?).
Most missions are frightfully short as well, and very easy because violence will get you pretty much anywhere.
I would still recommend you try out the single player mode, it does offer a great experience, but it feels like, once again, the 1P mode got the shaft in favor of a fleshed out Multiplayer mode.
If I've said it once, I've said it a billion times: the Internet is going to ruin videogames forever.
Last but maybe possibly not quite totally unleast: Alan Wake.
Apparently this game has been in development for quite some time, although I didn't hear about it until fairly recently.
Alan Waka is a survival horror game with very obvious Silent Hill influences mixed with a liberal dose of Stephen King (which the game is only too happy to remind you of hamfistedly, time and time again), starring a writer called Alan Wake (that may NOT have been a spoiler) who visits a small suburban American town, where soon strange things start happening and an eerie fog, sorry, darkness hides hideous monstrosities and generally gives Alan a bad time.
Oh, and did I mention he's looking for his wife?
Cos he is.
Homage, or ripoff?
YOU DECIDE!
Anyway, this is a 360 game, not some last generation CRAP, so if anything, it looks a lot better than Silent Hill ever did (including, er, the current generation ones), and in fact, it looks drop-dead gorgeous.
The night scenes (which are the majority obviously) aren't anything special, although the fog and darkness effects are very well done, but during the daytime scenes, the game can be VERY pretty indeed. Even more so during cutscenes which, for some reason, look a billion times better than the gameplay scenes, even though they also seem to be real-time.
Alan Wake is constantly being hounded by the darkness for whatever reason (haven't finished the game yet!), and whenever you get to a dangerous area, the fog and darkness will start swirling and eddying all around you, which makes for one of the creepiest effects in the game.
Overall though, the game fails to actually become very scary.
Checkpoints are extremely liberally doled out, the action is really rather easy, you tend to have plenty of ammo and flashlight batteries and enemies never take that much damage.
There are some edge-of-your-seat moments, but the game has these clearly defined areas where you are in danger, so there's very little in terms of surprises.
Enemies do tend to pop up out of nowhere though, and this is my biggest gripe with the game. When a group of enemies appears (and it's ALWAYS a group), the camera pans out to show one guy approaching you.
What it does NOT show you is that that is the guy FURTHEST away from you, and that, in the meantime, at least 2 others will have popped up behind you to bash your skull in with an axe.
Enemies will CONSTANTLY be popping up from somewhere off camera, almost always managing to get a couple of hits in if you're not fast enough, which is a really cheap way of adding tension or difficulty to a game, especially considering that you can't take all that much damage. Most of the deaths I've suffered were completely unnecessary and cheap, because of a mean design decision.
But, like I said, plenty of checkpoints to go around, so it's not so bad.
The story is told largely through pieces of a manuscript scattered about the place.
These are pages that Alan Wake himself has apparently yet to write, and as such, they contain information on what's going to happen, as well as viewing past events through the eyes of other characters, which is pretty cool, even if the actual writing itself isn't all that clever.
That might be on purpose though, since I have the impression they're trying to make Alan Wake look like a bit of a B-grade writer.
It's pretty fun so far though, and it does have some nice "WTF" and "woah" moments.
Oh and it does look really really nice, did I mention that?
Well, it does.
posted by Ingen! @ 3:11 PM
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