Heralded upon its release in 2002, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is a game that has a dubious honor I will call "the middle child syndrome."
Despite voice acting from Hollywood megastars like Ray Liotta (protagonist Tommy Vercetti), Burt Reynolds (real estate mogul Avery Carrington), NFL tough guy Lawrence Taylor (car salesman and former football pro BJ Smith), Dennis Hopper (porn movie auteur Steve Scott), Debbie Harry (taxi controller) and more, in the years since its release Vice City has been overshadowed by its predecessor GTA3, which rocketed the franchise into 3-D, and its follower San Andreas, heralded at the time for its massive, realistic world.
The high-definition era of Rockstar's signature franchise has revisited Liberty City and San Andreas, but never returned to the sandy, satiric shores of the GTA universe's Miami doppleganger. Some would argue that's because the pastels and excess that made sense in a game set in the 1980s wouldn't work with the new approach Rockstar has taken with the franchise. But many of those themes were present in Grand Theft Auto 5, set in southern California, and Michael De Santa was the closest thematically to Liotta's Vercetti that we've seen inhabiting the shoes of a GTA protagonist since 2002 (white man w/ ties to organized crime).
After achieving 100 percent completion in GTA3 recently, I fired up Vice City, a game I spent a lot of time with in the early 2000s both on my Playstation 2 and PC. The game's look and feel were immediate hooks, but many of the game's missions weren't as memorable as GTA3's were when I was replaying that game. At first, I thought this might be another reason Vice City gets lost in the shuffle of Rockstar's GTA history. But the truth is, it's because Vice City offers greater freedom, while at the same time funneling the player toward a satisfying conclusion to the main storyline, something that subsequent GTA games haven't been able to recapture.
An early mission in Vice City has you attending a yacht party thrown by Colonel Juan Cortez (voiced by 'Goonies' alumnus Robert Davi). At this party, you meet every character of consequence you'll see/work for later in the game: Carrington, Ricardo Diaz (Luis Guzman), Scott, Smith, members of the fictional rock group "Love Fist." Rockstar sets the table for the story of revenge and conquest you're about to embark on.
Then, the first portion of the game has you learning Vice City's new mechanics, like changing outfits, driving motorbikes and piloting helicopters. While these tutorials aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination (can you say 'Demolition Man'?), the early missions serve as a stepping stone to the freedom that opens up once you waste Diaz.
From there, the decision falls to the player how to proceed. Which assets do you want to acquire? Do you go after the flashy Malibu club and pull off the series first true "heist" sequence (a mission structure revisited in just about every GTA game since)? Do you work for Scott, and find out some secrets about conservative congressman Alex Shrub? Do you spend the most money, but also attain the greatest reward, completing the missions for the Print Works, essential to unlocking the final showdown with mobster Sonny Forelli (Tom Sizemore)? Maybe street racing is your deal. Smith's Sunshine Autos is for you.
In a game series that emphasizes player choice, the way your reach the end game in Vice City is perhaps the most revolutionary that was seen in the franchise until the introduction of heists into GTAV. You choose what story elements you want to unlock first, rather than being guided through a series of missions that will ultimately result in the final confrontation. Not even San Andreas, voted the best GTA game in a fan poll just before the release of GTAV, had that kind of freedom. It's also a callback to the early 2D roots of the GTA series, which required only that you attain a "high score" (cash in the GTA universe) to progress through the game.
Vice City is an imperfect game, to be sure. It's targeting system is still awful, compared to later GTA titles, and the motorbikes just don't handle as well as they could. Many of the game's missions fall prey to the constricted structure of early 3D GTA titles: go here, kill some guys, pick this up, return.
But in terms of player choice, GTA: Vice City is perhaps one of the earliest and most successful experiments in the franchise. And it's still a blast to have that freedom at your fingertips, 14 years later.
Showing posts with label Xbox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Xbox. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Virtual Dork: Stay indoors
Tomorrow's Independence Day in America, that wonderful holiday when we gorge ourselves on processed meat, blow up our cousins with gimmicky packages of gunpowder and watch Rod Serling introduce the macabre as only that chain-smoking, suitjacketed man can.
For the gamers among us, July 4th also provides the opportunity (if we haven't cheated) to pocket some of those nagging achievements and trophies from video games that viciously tease us to play on a certain day. Here's my checklist:
Game: You Don't Know Jack (2011)
Platform: Multi
Achievement: Turncoat
Description: Play on July 4th instead of celebrating America
Gamerscore/Trophy level: 10G, Bronze
You know you want some Cookie Masterson in your life on Friday, anyway.
Game: Batman: Arkham City (2011)
Platform: Multi
Achievement: Story Time
Description: Have 12 murderous dates with Calendar Man
Gamerscore/Trophy level: 10G, Bronze
So, technically you have to have also visited Calendar Man in his cell on 11 other occasions, so if you start tomorrow and don't want to cheat you won't get the points. But one of Batman's oddest villains would sure appreciate the company.
Game: Watch Dogs (2014)
Platform: Multi
Badge: A More Perfect Union
Description: Check into the John Hancock Center on the fourth of July (system date).
So it's not technically an achievement, but if you want all those damn check-in badges in Watch Dogs tomorrow's your day. Just drive by the John Hancock Center, and be sure to sign your name.
For the gamers among us, July 4th also provides the opportunity (if we haven't cheated) to pocket some of those nagging achievements and trophies from video games that viciously tease us to play on a certain day. Here's my checklist:
Game: You Don't Know Jack (2011)
Platform: Multi
Achievement: Turncoat
Description: Play on July 4th instead of celebrating America
Gamerscore/Trophy level: 10G, Bronze
You know you want some Cookie Masterson in your life on Friday, anyway.
Game: Batman: Arkham City (2011)
Platform: Multi
Achievement: Story Time
Description: Have 12 murderous dates with Calendar Man
Gamerscore/Trophy level: 10G, Bronze
So, technically you have to have also visited Calendar Man in his cell on 11 other occasions, so if you start tomorrow and don't want to cheat you won't get the points. But one of Batman's oddest villains would sure appreciate the company.
Game: Watch Dogs (2014)
Platform: Multi
Badge: A More Perfect Union
Description: Check into the John Hancock Center on the fourth of July (system date).
So it's not technically an achievement, but if you want all those damn check-in badges in Watch Dogs tomorrow's your day. Just drive by the John Hancock Center, and be sure to sign your name.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Virtual Dork: My most memorable Grand Theft Auto missions
I recently spent a pleasurable few weeks reading David Kushner's love letter to the Doom generation and its two mastermind's Kleenex-like level of influence on the video game world. The nonfiction work was littered with anachronisms like modems, Usenet groups and "freeware," but perhaps the most glaring and oft-repeated outdated reference to this reader was the use of the word "levels" to refer to chunks of gameplay. Today's gamers simply don't think in terms of levels as they used to in the days of coin-op and the gameplay design that put Johns Carmack and Romero on the map in the mid-1990s.
The prevailing theory would be that the prevalence of narrative-based gaming, console hard drives and solid-state memory devices (remember those 8MB memory cards for your PS2?) has blended the experience of playing a triple-A title to the point where we think little of gameplay chunks when we jump into an immersive game world. In other words, our experiences are defined by the time between when we, the gamer, push the "on" and "off" buttons on our gaming devices, not pre-determined periods of time decided by a developer.
While this has turned the notion of playing a video game on its head immeasurably since the late 1990s (personally, I'll blame the advent of anytime saving in Half-Life and checkpoint saving first available - to my knowledge - in Halo: Combat Evolved on the original Xbox), there's something to be said for relishing the work video game developers put into crafting a perfect mini-experience into a more cohesive whole.
In no game does that passion for mission design continue so unabated as in the games of the revolutionaries of free-form mission design, the folks at Rockstar Games. It's defining franchise, Grand Theft Auto, features three console generations (and soon to be a fourth) of unforgettable experiences through its timeless missions. Below are a list of my ten absolute favorite, as I prepare to double-dip with the gorgeous-looking PS4 update to Grand Theft Auto V. Enjoy.
10. "The Exchange"
Game: Grand Theft Auto 3 (2001)
Mission Given By: Catalina
Rewards: A cool $1 million, a Rhino tank available at Phil's gun shop, and you get to shut Maria up
The capstone of Rockstar's "mafioso masterpiece," as it was proclaimed on the in-game poster shipped with my Playstation 2 copy of Grand Theft Auto 3, "The Exchange" saw Claude Speed rushing to enact revenge against Catalina, who was flying away from the Shoreside Vale dam with a kidnapped Maria awaiting her rescue. You had to fight your way through Catalina's goons armed with an extensive array of automatic weaponry in enough time to fire a few well-timed blasts with your rocket launcher at the fleeing heli, all with that damn clock running. As the credits then rolled, you were treated to Claude shutting up a nattering Maria with a shotgun blast. Bliss.
9. "Rub Out"
Game: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002)
Mission Given By: Lance Vance
Rewards: $50K, Ricardo Diaz's mansion becomes your own personal playground
In retrospect, Ricardo Diaz (voiced by Luis Guzman) would have been a much cooler sidekick than Lance Vance (Philip Michael Thomas), who is in fact a backstabbing, murderous traitor who you will later have to off along with Sonny Forelli (Tom Sizemore). Oops. Spoilers. Rub Out is a much more satisfying (and in fact carbon copy) of Vice City's final mission. You have to fight your way through Diaz's goons, eventually popping a cap in the fat man himself, all the while making sure Lance doesn't turn into Swiss cheese. Bonus points for that final view from Diaz down the barrel of your guns. "Good NIGHT, Mr. Diaz!"
8. "The Green Sabre"
Game: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004)
Mission Given By: Sweet
Rewards: That dick Tenpenny takes your weapons, imprisons your brother and leaves you in the middle-of-nowhere
Sure, you could make a case San Andreas' final "Training Day"-inspired mission, End of the Line, was one of the most involved and cinematic in the GTA series up until that point. But "The Green Sabre" gave us a common enemy, beside those bustas the Ballers, and turned the narrative of San Andreas on its head. Fighting alongside a mortally wounded Sweet for Grove Street could have served as a nice crescendo for the final act of a Los Santos GTA adventure. As it was, we were just getting started.
Rockstar found the source material so compelling it repeated the theme in GTAV's "Hood Safari."
7. I Scream, You Scream
Game: Grand Theft Auto 3 (2001)
Mission Given By: El Burro
Rewards: $6,000, mafia goons flambéed
Rumor has it, this mission was so controversial it got overhauled in the 9/11 edit of GTA3 that delayed its release for several months. Originally, Darkel was supposed to call Claude and have him take out random passersby with explosives secreted in an ice cream truck. Instead, El Burro wants you to target mafia members who are cutting in on his business, which if his banter is to be believed involves selling burritos and fiendishly difficult to collect pornographic videotapes. Jingle jangle, KABOOM! Proving that GTA hadn't left its sophomoric streak of violence and humor in the 2D generation, I Scream, You Scream reminded us why it was good to be bad. And it wasn't the first time violence and junkfood mixed in the series, as we'll see later...
6. Boomshine Saigon
Game: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002)
Mission Given By: Phil Cassidy
Rewards: $4,000; ability to buy weapons from Phil; seeing Gary Busey in his natural element in video game form
Vice City gamers would remember Phil Cassidy as that mysterious one-armed man who hawked weapons in north Staunton Island. For its prequel, it would take that character, add a mullet, Gary Busey and some illegal liquor, and convince us Phil was actually a nutjob out to dismantle the U.S. government. It does a great deal of that exposition in Boomshine Saigon, which explains the disappearance of Cassidy's arm in the 2001-set Grand Theft Auto 3. As Tommy Vercetti (Ray Liotta), you have to drive Phil to the hospital before he bleeds out. Of course, you've sniffed some of the intoxicating fumes of...whatever the hell Phil was cooking, sending you careening into other cars as the timer ticks down. This mission would be higher if it didn't introduce that hazy screen and wonky controls that would make another appearance in San Andreas' Are You Going to San Fierro? and to much more annoying effect in GTAIV and V after a night of drinking.
5. Hot Dog Homicide
Game: Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999)
Mission Given By: Russians
Rewards: $40,000, respect, and a copy of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle
The brilliance of GTA's mission design is not confined to the 3D era. Hot Dog Homicide is another of the inexplicable reasons GTA2 received a "Teen" rating, as you play Claude Speed once again. This time, you're picking up fresh meat for a diner by stopping for passengers at various bus stops. That's not a mistype. You then herd the unsuspecting masses into a meat grinder and drive a hot dog van to the dropoff. Mission complete. But yeah, you probably shouldn't let your middle-schooler read Catcher in the Rye.
4. Vertical Bird
Game: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004)
Mission Given By: Mike Toreno
Rewards: $50K, respect, a Hydra at your hideout and James Woods' undying love
Mike Toreno (James Wood) has Carl Johnson (Young Maylay) do some ridiculous things in San Andreas. Perhaps the most ridiculous is infiltrate a government warship to steal a high-powered, futuristic jet fighter. "Vertical Bird" had everything that made San Andreas bigger, better and more involved than the gameplay of its predecessors. There was even the opportunity for a bit of stealth as you stalked the Hydra on the off-limits real estate of the San Fierro military base. Some will say they prefer the assault on Area 69, Black Project, is their favorite San Andreas mission because it yields the game-changing jetpack. But Vertical Bird combines all the elements that make the game so fun.
3. Three Leaf Clover
Game: Grand Theft Auto IV (2008)
Mission Given By: Packie McReary
Rewards: $250K, achievement, your roommate feeding you Verbal Kint references
Three Leaf Clover provided the groundwork for GTAV's heist missions, and it was the first (and arguably only) glimpse of what the next generation of hardware could do to amp up the intensity of the GTA mission structure. Packie McReary provided a nice, light-hearted (but still deadly) counterpoint to brooding Niko Bellic, and it was nice to see Rockstar open up its mission structure to provide for some spirited gunplay and a truly impressive bank heist that has its routes as early as Vice City.
2. Caida Libre (or "Freefall")
Game: Grand Theft Auto V (2013)
Mission Given By: Martin Madrazo
Rewards: Achievement, the stunning brilliance of GTAV on full display
As the most recent iteration in the GTA franchise, V suffers from what I'll call "mission envelopment." The story arcs in GTA have become more grandiose through the years, with the game's narrative often supplanting the simple tasks at hand in recent versions of the game. In V, you're always working toward a bigger score, or a heist, or a hit, so that when you do finally achieve your ultimate goal, it feels more of a process than one long, extended chunk of gameplay.
Not so in "Caida Libre," which is a self-contained masterpiece showcasing the best of what GTAV had to offer - character switching, larger-than-life stakes and a trip through the sprawling dustlands of north Los Santos. Shooting aircraft out of the sky has been a feature of GTA since the aforementioned "The Exchange" in GTA3. But whereas all other versions were falling with style, "Caida Libre" showed just how far the series had come.
1. Bomb da Base
Game: Grand Theft Auto 3 (2001)
Mission Given By: 8-Ball
Rewards: $150K, Staunton Island, and 13 subsequent years of GTA gaming
"Alright, let's do this thing." 8-Ball was ready, and so were you, Claude Speed, for the mission that would define the next decade of GTA gaming. Armed with a sniper rifle, you were tasked with protecting 8-Ball as the AI-controlled character moved his way through a heavily guarded tanker to place a bomb. His hands were still pretty messed up, so you had to drive and take that adrenaline pill to slow time down long enough to stop the goons' automatic weapons from riddling your bomb-making friend.
When Rockstar began working on the sequels to GTA3, this was the mission they used as their guide. For good reason. Bomb da Base served as a bombastic (no pun intended) end to the Portland saga, and would have been a fitting end to the GTA3 story. But you had much crime ahead of you, none of which captured those sweaty palms of trying to pull off a headshot before 8-Ball bit the dust.
The prevailing theory would be that the prevalence of narrative-based gaming, console hard drives and solid-state memory devices (remember those 8MB memory cards for your PS2?) has blended the experience of playing a triple-A title to the point where we think little of gameplay chunks when we jump into an immersive game world. In other words, our experiences are defined by the time between when we, the gamer, push the "on" and "off" buttons on our gaming devices, not pre-determined periods of time decided by a developer.
While this has turned the notion of playing a video game on its head immeasurably since the late 1990s (personally, I'll blame the advent of anytime saving in Half-Life and checkpoint saving first available - to my knowledge - in Halo: Combat Evolved on the original Xbox), there's something to be said for relishing the work video game developers put into crafting a perfect mini-experience into a more cohesive whole.
In no game does that passion for mission design continue so unabated as in the games of the revolutionaries of free-form mission design, the folks at Rockstar Games. It's defining franchise, Grand Theft Auto, features three console generations (and soon to be a fourth) of unforgettable experiences through its timeless missions. Below are a list of my ten absolute favorite, as I prepare to double-dip with the gorgeous-looking PS4 update to Grand Theft Auto V. Enjoy.
10. "The Exchange"
Game: Grand Theft Auto 3 (2001)
Mission Given By: Catalina
Rewards: A cool $1 million, a Rhino tank available at Phil's gun shop, and you get to shut Maria up
The capstone of Rockstar's "mafioso masterpiece," as it was proclaimed on the in-game poster shipped with my Playstation 2 copy of Grand Theft Auto 3, "The Exchange" saw Claude Speed rushing to enact revenge against Catalina, who was flying away from the Shoreside Vale dam with a kidnapped Maria awaiting her rescue. You had to fight your way through Catalina's goons armed with an extensive array of automatic weaponry in enough time to fire a few well-timed blasts with your rocket launcher at the fleeing heli, all with that damn clock running. As the credits then rolled, you were treated to Claude shutting up a nattering Maria with a shotgun blast. Bliss.
9. "Rub Out"
Game: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002)
Mission Given By: Lance Vance
Rewards: $50K, Ricardo Diaz's mansion becomes your own personal playground
In retrospect, Ricardo Diaz (voiced by Luis Guzman) would have been a much cooler sidekick than Lance Vance (Philip Michael Thomas), who is in fact a backstabbing, murderous traitor who you will later have to off along with Sonny Forelli (Tom Sizemore). Oops. Spoilers. Rub Out is a much more satisfying (and in fact carbon copy) of Vice City's final mission. You have to fight your way through Diaz's goons, eventually popping a cap in the fat man himself, all the while making sure Lance doesn't turn into Swiss cheese. Bonus points for that final view from Diaz down the barrel of your guns. "Good NIGHT, Mr. Diaz!"
8. "The Green Sabre"
Game: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004)
Mission Given By: Sweet
Rewards: That dick Tenpenny takes your weapons, imprisons your brother and leaves you in the middle-of-nowhere
Sure, you could make a case San Andreas' final "Training Day"-inspired mission, End of the Line, was one of the most involved and cinematic in the GTA series up until that point. But "The Green Sabre" gave us a common enemy, beside those bustas the Ballers, and turned the narrative of San Andreas on its head. Fighting alongside a mortally wounded Sweet for Grove Street could have served as a nice crescendo for the final act of a Los Santos GTA adventure. As it was, we were just getting started.
Rockstar found the source material so compelling it repeated the theme in GTAV's "Hood Safari."
7. I Scream, You Scream
Game: Grand Theft Auto 3 (2001)
Mission Given By: El Burro
Rewards: $6,000, mafia goons flambéed
Rumor has it, this mission was so controversial it got overhauled in the 9/11 edit of GTA3 that delayed its release for several months. Originally, Darkel was supposed to call Claude and have him take out random passersby with explosives secreted in an ice cream truck. Instead, El Burro wants you to target mafia members who are cutting in on his business, which if his banter is to be believed involves selling burritos and fiendishly difficult to collect pornographic videotapes. Jingle jangle, KABOOM! Proving that GTA hadn't left its sophomoric streak of violence and humor in the 2D generation, I Scream, You Scream reminded us why it was good to be bad. And it wasn't the first time violence and junkfood mixed in the series, as we'll see later...
6. Boomshine Saigon
Game: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002)
Mission Given By: Phil Cassidy
Rewards: $4,000; ability to buy weapons from Phil; seeing Gary Busey in his natural element in video game form
Vice City gamers would remember Phil Cassidy as that mysterious one-armed man who hawked weapons in north Staunton Island. For its prequel, it would take that character, add a mullet, Gary Busey and some illegal liquor, and convince us Phil was actually a nutjob out to dismantle the U.S. government. It does a great deal of that exposition in Boomshine Saigon, which explains the disappearance of Cassidy's arm in the 2001-set Grand Theft Auto 3. As Tommy Vercetti (Ray Liotta), you have to drive Phil to the hospital before he bleeds out. Of course, you've sniffed some of the intoxicating fumes of...whatever the hell Phil was cooking, sending you careening into other cars as the timer ticks down. This mission would be higher if it didn't introduce that hazy screen and wonky controls that would make another appearance in San Andreas' Are You Going to San Fierro? and to much more annoying effect in GTAIV and V after a night of drinking.
5. Hot Dog Homicide
Game: Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999)
Mission Given By: Russians
Rewards: $40,000, respect, and a copy of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle
The brilliance of GTA's mission design is not confined to the 3D era. Hot Dog Homicide is another of the inexplicable reasons GTA2 received a "Teen" rating, as you play Claude Speed once again. This time, you're picking up fresh meat for a diner by stopping for passengers at various bus stops. That's not a mistype. You then herd the unsuspecting masses into a meat grinder and drive a hot dog van to the dropoff. Mission complete. But yeah, you probably shouldn't let your middle-schooler read Catcher in the Rye.
4. Vertical Bird
Game: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004)
Mission Given By: Mike Toreno
Rewards: $50K, respect, a Hydra at your hideout and James Woods' undying love
Mike Toreno (James Wood) has Carl Johnson (Young Maylay) do some ridiculous things in San Andreas. Perhaps the most ridiculous is infiltrate a government warship to steal a high-powered, futuristic jet fighter. "Vertical Bird" had everything that made San Andreas bigger, better and more involved than the gameplay of its predecessors. There was even the opportunity for a bit of stealth as you stalked the Hydra on the off-limits real estate of the San Fierro military base. Some will say they prefer the assault on Area 69, Black Project, is their favorite San Andreas mission because it yields the game-changing jetpack. But Vertical Bird combines all the elements that make the game so fun.
3. Three Leaf Clover
Game: Grand Theft Auto IV (2008)
Mission Given By: Packie McReary
Rewards: $250K, achievement, your roommate feeding you Verbal Kint references
Three Leaf Clover provided the groundwork for GTAV's heist missions, and it was the first (and arguably only) glimpse of what the next generation of hardware could do to amp up the intensity of the GTA mission structure. Packie McReary provided a nice, light-hearted (but still deadly) counterpoint to brooding Niko Bellic, and it was nice to see Rockstar open up its mission structure to provide for some spirited gunplay and a truly impressive bank heist that has its routes as early as Vice City.
2. Caida Libre (or "Freefall")
Game: Grand Theft Auto V (2013)
Mission Given By: Martin Madrazo
Rewards: Achievement, the stunning brilliance of GTAV on full display
As the most recent iteration in the GTA franchise, V suffers from what I'll call "mission envelopment." The story arcs in GTA have become more grandiose through the years, with the game's narrative often supplanting the simple tasks at hand in recent versions of the game. In V, you're always working toward a bigger score, or a heist, or a hit, so that when you do finally achieve your ultimate goal, it feels more of a process than one long, extended chunk of gameplay.
Not so in "Caida Libre," which is a self-contained masterpiece showcasing the best of what GTAV had to offer - character switching, larger-than-life stakes and a trip through the sprawling dustlands of north Los Santos. Shooting aircraft out of the sky has been a feature of GTA since the aforementioned "The Exchange" in GTA3. But whereas all other versions were falling with style, "Caida Libre" showed just how far the series had come.
1. Bomb da Base
Game: Grand Theft Auto 3 (2001)
Mission Given By: 8-Ball
Rewards: $150K, Staunton Island, and 13 subsequent years of GTA gaming
"Alright, let's do this thing." 8-Ball was ready, and so were you, Claude Speed, for the mission that would define the next decade of GTA gaming. Armed with a sniper rifle, you were tasked with protecting 8-Ball as the AI-controlled character moved his way through a heavily guarded tanker to place a bomb. His hands were still pretty messed up, so you had to drive and take that adrenaline pill to slow time down long enough to stop the goons' automatic weapons from riddling your bomb-making friend.
When Rockstar began working on the sequels to GTA3, this was the mission they used as their guide. For good reason. Bomb da Base served as a bombastic (no pun intended) end to the Portland saga, and would have been a fitting end to the GTA3 story. But you had much crime ahead of you, none of which captured those sweaty palms of trying to pull off a headshot before 8-Ball bit the dust.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Virtual Dork: South Park Stick of Truth Review
There is a moment, after you've vanquished a member of a rival faction using an arsenal of farts, Cheesy Poofs and magic 8-ball-handed weapons, when you, as the "new kid" in South Park, witness a familiar cast of characters bickering over how to take down their greatest foe.
"Suck my e-e-e-elven dick, Butters," Jimmy Valmer says on the screen in front of you, perfectly framed as only the construction-paper inspired animation of Trey Parker and Matt Stone can be.
It is these moments that elevate South Park: Stick of Truth above a normal licensed game. The script was written by Parker and Stone. The game was made using resources from South Park Studios' animation team. All of the voice actors (including Isaac Hayes in a brief cameo) are here. This looks and sounds exactly like an episode of South Park should.
It's only a pity that, under the hood, Stick of Truth is an exceptionally easy title with little reason for multiple playthroughs. While the South Park fan in you will squeal with joy as you battle Al Gore and try to beat back the flaming farts of Wizard Cartman, the nonsensical ending and shallow gameplay keep Stick of Truth from being a truly great video game, although it's undoubtedly a wonderful narrative experience (with some caveats).
You begin the game as the "new kid," moving in to a home on the same block as series regulars Eric Cartman, Stan Marsh, Kenny McCormack and Kyle Broflovski. You quickly join forces with Butters Stotch, who informs you of the game du jour in the neighborhood. The conceit, a mystical RPG quest with fantastical elements, is drop dead similar to the narrative sheen that ran through last fall's "Black Friday" trilogy on the show. Cartman and Butters are members of the human guild, while Stan and Kyle do battle as knights of the elven faction.
After creating your character, you learn from parents (who share your physical traits) that there is something just not right about you. Unfortunately, what is one of the most interesting and novel story quirks in the game gets dismissed in a trivial and surprisingly uninteresting and unfunny cutscene toward the end of the game featuring an eye-patched, shadowy government figure.
Your journey will take you to all the staple locations in South Park: Skeeter's Bar, Jimbo's Gun shop, City Wok, Tom's Rhinoplasty and the abortion clinic. Throughout the game's roughly 15-hour playtime, you'll run into all the classic characters, who you can "friend" through the game's Facebook system. As you gain friends and experience points, you'll be able to add perks and abilities that increase your powers in turn-based combat that hearkens back to the old days of Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy.
Unfortunately, that combat is relatively uninspired. While there are some fun elemental quirks to the game that you can use to turn the tide in your favor when the combat screen does appear, most of the fights are winnable using a simple pattern of actions, and because there is no limitation on the amount of items you can carry and stockpiling combat potions is merely an exercise in searching for cash, strategy goes out the window in the second half of the game.
As a thief, I was granted a basically game-breaking ability early on to stun the most powerful enemies while I picked off minions. Using Butters' "Healing Touch" ability, I was able to win almost all fights in the game following a relatively simple pattern once I had a level 10 weapon. Combat becomes a slog to get to the next brilliantly written cutscene.
That is, until the end of the game, when you're forced into a series of battles that increasingly make little sense and the difficulty factor is artificially inflated. Without spoiling the ending, I can say that the final climactic scene can be seen coming from a mile away, something that is relatively unconscionable for a series and writers known to toy with the absurd in pursuit of satire.
Despite my poo-poohing, Stick of Truth is an extremely fun romp through America's finest source of scatological satire. Fans of Matt and Trey's work should not miss the opportunity to visit this quiet little redneck mountain town and relive some of their favorite experiences from the long-running series. However, I would advise against paying the full price. Wait for a discount for your trip to Colorado.
Verdict: 3/5 stars
"Suck my e-e-e-elven dick, Butters," Jimmy Valmer says on the screen in front of you, perfectly framed as only the construction-paper inspired animation of Trey Parker and Matt Stone can be.
It is these moments that elevate South Park: Stick of Truth above a normal licensed game. The script was written by Parker and Stone. The game was made using resources from South Park Studios' animation team. All of the voice actors (including Isaac Hayes in a brief cameo) are here. This looks and sounds exactly like an episode of South Park should.
It's only a pity that, under the hood, Stick of Truth is an exceptionally easy title with little reason for multiple playthroughs. While the South Park fan in you will squeal with joy as you battle Al Gore and try to beat back the flaming farts of Wizard Cartman, the nonsensical ending and shallow gameplay keep Stick of Truth from being a truly great video game, although it's undoubtedly a wonderful narrative experience (with some caveats).
You begin the game as the "new kid," moving in to a home on the same block as series regulars Eric Cartman, Stan Marsh, Kenny McCormack and Kyle Broflovski. You quickly join forces with Butters Stotch, who informs you of the game du jour in the neighborhood. The conceit, a mystical RPG quest with fantastical elements, is drop dead similar to the narrative sheen that ran through last fall's "Black Friday" trilogy on the show. Cartman and Butters are members of the human guild, while Stan and Kyle do battle as knights of the elven faction.
After creating your character, you learn from parents (who share your physical traits) that there is something just not right about you. Unfortunately, what is one of the most interesting and novel story quirks in the game gets dismissed in a trivial and surprisingly uninteresting and unfunny cutscene toward the end of the game featuring an eye-patched, shadowy government figure.
Your journey will take you to all the staple locations in South Park: Skeeter's Bar, Jimbo's Gun shop, City Wok, Tom's Rhinoplasty and the abortion clinic. Throughout the game's roughly 15-hour playtime, you'll run into all the classic characters, who you can "friend" through the game's Facebook system. As you gain friends and experience points, you'll be able to add perks and abilities that increase your powers in turn-based combat that hearkens back to the old days of Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy.
Unfortunately, that combat is relatively uninspired. While there are some fun elemental quirks to the game that you can use to turn the tide in your favor when the combat screen does appear, most of the fights are winnable using a simple pattern of actions, and because there is no limitation on the amount of items you can carry and stockpiling combat potions is merely an exercise in searching for cash, strategy goes out the window in the second half of the game.
As a thief, I was granted a basically game-breaking ability early on to stun the most powerful enemies while I picked off minions. Using Butters' "Healing Touch" ability, I was able to win almost all fights in the game following a relatively simple pattern once I had a level 10 weapon. Combat becomes a slog to get to the next brilliantly written cutscene.
That is, until the end of the game, when you're forced into a series of battles that increasingly make little sense and the difficulty factor is artificially inflated. Without spoiling the ending, I can say that the final climactic scene can be seen coming from a mile away, something that is relatively unconscionable for a series and writers known to toy with the absurd in pursuit of satire.
Despite my poo-poohing, Stick of Truth is an extremely fun romp through America's finest source of scatological satire. Fans of Matt and Trey's work should not miss the opportunity to visit this quiet little redneck mountain town and relive some of their favorite experiences from the long-running series. However, I would advise against paying the full price. Wait for a discount for your trip to Colorado.
Verdict: 3/5 stars
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Virtual Dork-Top Video Games of the 00s
Here's a list I compiled for Facebook a few years back that I'm unearthing for the Shallow End. I've included a few games from the past couple of years to make the post a bit more current. These titles will likely show up somewhere on the inevitable 2010s list that will follow sometime in my late 20s and early 30s, which would put my nerd-dom level between "hopelessly desperate" and Val Kilmer in "Real Genius." You've been warned.
If there's one thing I love more than movies, it's sitting in a darkened room by myself on Saturday nights screaming obscenities at ten year olds on Xbox Live. At least, in the past ten years, the medium has become a bit more socially acceptable, stereotypes furthered in Grandma's Boy notwithstanding. While no game will ever dethrone Galaga's place in my heart, here are the titles from the 2000s that attempted that feat.
Honorable Mention: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002), Manhunt (2004), Guitar Hero (2005), Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (2005), Gears of War (2006)
20. Black (PS2, 2006)
Predating the Xbox 360/PS3 generation by only a couple of months, this drop-dead gorgeous FPS for the PS2 and original 'Box was gun porn, eye candy, and frustratingly sparse narrative action all rolled into one. The game only lasted a few hours even on the hardest difficulty setting, and the story (I use the term loosely) wasn't anything to write home about, but damn if it didn't look simply stunning, and continues to inspire awe visually today. The lack of a sequel due to what I have to believe were sour sales (I didn't buy the thing, even the draw of fighting with gold-plated weapons couldn't convince me to shell out fifty bucks for a few hours of entertainment) is a crime against humanity.
19. Shadow of the Colossus (PS2, 2006)
Another late classic for the PS2, Shadow of the Colossus was the spiritual successor to the excellent Ico. Where Ico bucked the traditional action/adventure/platformer trend, Colossus went all tabula rasa and rewrote the rules of design-specifically, that you needed an environment filled with enemies. Instead, in this game you only fight a handful of foes-all of which occupy an area about 3,000 times that of your character. The developers did an astounding job of making you care about the characters and introducing moral quandaries to gameplay years before Bioshock did it most famously.
18. Borderlands (360, 2009)
I put this game on the list despite the fact that I've only played it for about three hours now, that's how damn good it is. Gearbox has managed to take a formula that has paid dividends in the past few years-mixing RPG elements with FPS action-and introduced a looting system in a beautiful, post-apocalyptic cel-shaded environment that arrests your attention both while playing and otherwise. There are definitely some minor kinks in hit detection, and the complete lack of narrative is a bit troubling, but these are quibbles for an open-world, loot-heavy RPG shooter that promises hours of fun during several thrilling playthroughs.
Note: I completed the game about two weeks after posting this list originally, and it's payoff more than made up for the potential on display in its first several hours. This game is so hopelessly deep and addictive that I was afraid the cable repair van down the street had bugged my room.
17. Timesplitters: Future Perfect (PS2, 2005)
As I, using the character model shaped most recognizably like the Hamburger Helper mitt, swung a baseball bat into a crowd of zombie monkeys in a beat-crazy disco while chased by several other human-controlled characters online for the seventh time in an hour, I realized just how incredible this particular iteration of Timesplitters was. To be sure, the Timesplitters franchise has hit the mark every single time with a shooter experience that is both responsive, fun, and downright hilarious. Future Perfect added online multiplayer to the mix, and it was pure heaven. Here's hoping Crytek gets down to making a worthy successor to Future Perfect very soon.
16. Psychonauts (PS2, 2005)
Tim Schafer's look into the minds of several troubled individuals at a summer camp for children with psychic abilities was disturbing, hilarious, and perfect platforming action all rolled into one. Though the gaming public at large overlooked this gem, I look back with fond memories on this title. I wasted most of my own summer trying to clear censors from the minds of the troubled inhabitants of Camp Whispering Rock.
15. Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (PS2, 2003)
I'm not a huge of film noir, or pinot noir for that matter. However, the insane gunplay of the Max Payne series drew me into the first game. In the second, the formula is perfected as the gamer plunges deeper into the perturbed mind of Max Payne with flurries of bullets, action reloads involving flowing leather jackets, and deeply reflective (to the point of nausea) inner monologues. I knew Max would end up with Mona, but I can't wait to see what's happened to him in the meantime when Max Payne 3 releases this year.
14. The Warriors (PS2, 2005)
Rockstar brought back the visceral thril of beat 'em ups like River City Ransom with this adaptation of the cult classic film. The look and feel of the game is identical to that of the iconic movie as Rockstar showcases its ability to set a mood through storytelling for seemingly the 90th time of the decade. I loved the flashback sequences that allowed you to garner some real emotional attachment to each of the members of the titular gang, and then replay the escape sequence from the film in the second half of the title. The fact that the backwards compatibility of the 360 has not extended to include the original Xbox version of this game is a crime against humanity.
13. Freedom Fighters (PS2, 2003)
From the guys who would eventually bring us the underwhelming Kane and Lynch: Dead Men came what amounted to an imagining of the plot of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 six years earlier. The Soviets, who dropped an atomic bomb on Berlin before the Americans could do so in the Pacific, eventually invade the Americas in the early 20th Century. You play an unlikely hero, Chris Stone, a plumber (aren't all video game heroes?) who starts out trying to save his brother from the invading Ruskies but ends up liberating most of New England from the Commie threat. The squad-based shooting mechanics were fantastic for a PS2-era game, and the story had some real weight to it. An unacknowledged gem.
12. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii, 2009)
Take a classic 2D platforming formula, thrown in simultaneous four-player support and some motion controls, and you've got yourself a fantastic throwback title. NSMBWii will make you hate all of your roommates for bumping you off a platform while trying to grab some coins, even though you both are seemingly attempting to save the princess, who's been kidnapped again. Who cares that we've seen it all before? The fresh coat of paint both graphically and gameplay-wise make this an incredible, can't miss nostalgic title.
11. Bully (PS2, 2006)
Take Grand Theft Auto, throw in equal parts schoolyard charm and adolescent mischief, and you've got yourself a very impressive and focused open-world title. Jimmy Hopkins is both a sympathetic and fiendish protagonist, emotions Rockstar is used to fostering with its main characters. The highlight for me, of course, was the Halloween night pranking, but the whole game-which spans one school year at a strict New England boarding school, is entertaining from start to finish. Think interactive "Wonder Years."
10. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2, 2004)
Quite possibly my most anticipated game of the decade, I still remember driving to the store after cross country practice to pick this game up. Gamestop was having a cookout and giving away tons of free shit, but I went in, grabbed, the game, and got the hell out of Dodge, because I knew what was waiting for me. Over 100 hours of pure, unbridled open-world crime goodness. I played the hell out of this thing well into 2005 (I had to get all of the graffiti tags in Los Santos, right?) and the only complaint I have to this day is that the focus of the narrative was lost in the sheer vastness of the world in which the game took place. But can that really be considered a complaint?
9. Bioshock (360, 2007)
There are so many images from this game that will never, EVER leave my head. One involving a putter comes to mind immediately. The team behind the incredible System Shock 2 (which missed topping this list by about 4 months) brought that gameplay into the 21st Century with a gut-wrenching morality play you participated in. The atmosphere, the gunplay, the RPG elements...it all blended beautifully to create a truly breathtaking experience.
8. Batman: Arkham Asylum (360, 2009)
You know the Joker is going to break out. That's about the only thing you can expect in this incredible game adaptation of the Batman universe. There's a focused story here, incredible stealth elements, and a truly maniacal Joker voiced by Mark "I Almost Had Sex with My Ficitional Sister" Hamill. Oh, did I mention the game looks absolutely beautiful? The combat mechanics are inspired and the inclusion of hidden messages from all of Batman's most sought-after villains makes this a nerd's (like myself) paradise.
7. Assassin's Creed 2 (360, 2009)
Ubisoft took everything that was wrong with the first game, scrapped it, and left the incredibly intriguing conspiracy story intact to create a historical panorama that the gamer can't help but be sucked into. Combat is still very satisfying and the villas of the Italian Renaissance are truly breathtaking. Bravo to the developers for making a sequel that surpasses the original in almost every single way.
6. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (360, 2007)
The game that may have given me stomach ulcers. I still know my way around Wetwork blindfolded and I hear shouts of "Tango Down!" in my sleep. Though this year's iteration continued to incite ravenous multiplayer hunger in my mind, it did little to build upon the inspired setup of the first game, which clearly had superior single-player set-pieces and built the foundation for the FPS juggernaut that everyone will have to try to dethrone in the next decade.
5. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, 2007)
Whereas Mario 64 had everyone's favorite plumber moving to the 3D plane for the first time, this title gave us the first glimpse of the potential of motion controls in a platformer while creating mind-bending gravity puzzles and gameplay that challenge gamers of all persuasions. That must be the reason Galaxy is the first game getting a true sequel since Super Mario World on the SNES. I can't friggin' wait.
4. Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox, 2001)
I didn't own an Xbox, but thanks to the popularity of LAN parties that didn't stop me from logging probably over 100 hours on this game. I remember hours of CTF games on Chill Out with shotguns the night before high school cross country meets, and the thrills of sticking newbs with grenades and pistol whipping them in the back of the face. Halo also sported the most satisfying weapon-the scoped pistol-in all of gaming. Who didn't love spawning with that thing, watching your opponent's shield disappear with two shots, and then finishing them off, sending their body falling limply to the ground? Did I mention my violent streak began around 2001?
3. Fallout 3 (360, 2008)
The Fallout series was great in its own right in its isometric RPG PC days, but Bethesda took the formula, instituted its Morrowind first person touch, and created an instant genre-bursting classic. What begins as a search for your father becomes a struggle for survival in the irradiated Wasteland created by, what else?, nuclear Armageddon. The final chapter of the game, with a giant Commie-hating robot laying waste to guys you would have no chance of killing in the beginning of the game with your puny 1st-level rank, is up there in terms of all-time satisfying video game moments. Can't wait for the sequel (PLEASE make it an online MMORPG).
2. Half-Life 2: The Orange Box (360, 2007)
Half-Life 2 on its own is an incredible achievement in the first person genre, mixing puzzle, driving, and shooting elements together with a story and characters that have real emotional weight, but you throw in Team Fortress 2, Portal, and the episodic content that continues the Half-Life 2 story and you've got an incredible title that really gets you bang for your buck. Gordon Freeman, world's greatest physicist, awakes from stasis to find that creepy guy with the suitcase needing more help in the near future. As you save mankind, you realize just how fucked up all those Combine bastards really are. The tease at the end of Episode 2 really isn't fair, especially when you consider it's been two years and we still haven't heard anything about Episode 3's release date. Let's finish this fight, please!
1. Grand Theft Auto 3 (PS2, 2001)
I remember popping this game in the PS2 disc tray, the first time I'd played the system, and being completely overwhelmed by the world that surrounded me. I wasted days playing GTA2 on my original Playstation in my late-90s gaming frenzy, but nothing compared to the fully 3D world filled with seemingly endless possibilities that lay before me. Consequently, I wasted months driving around Liberty City as Claude Speed, the mute psychopath who probably killed over 100,000 inhabitants of the city during my reign of terror. There was so much to do...I remember wasting days just trying to get the game's clipped-wing plane to fly around the city, seeing which buildings were solid, which were transparent, and warping myself to different places in the city during my pursuits. When the glitches in a game become sources of entertainment, you know you have a contender for best game of the decade.
The Best of the '10s (so far):
Red Dead Redemption (360, 2010)
As you can probably tell from the list compiled above, I'm a bit of a Rockstar Games fanboy. I divulge this information with no shame whatsoever, when the studio consistently produces titles of stellar quality. RDR was no different, taking gamers through a Wild West adventure that nailed the shooting mechanics in a third-person action game to an unprecedented degree and toyed with notions of storytelling in an industry-revolutionizing way. Seriously, the final two or three hours you spend during the campaign will make you appreciate everything that has come before, and presents a protagonist that pulls at the heartstrings in a way Rockstar just couldn't do with its other big-budget, open world title of this generation (you may have heard of Grand Theft Auto IV). Redemption (in a way its predecessor, Red Dead Revolver, couldn't dream of doing) made the Western a viable platform for an action-packed adventure in the medium, and further proved the stellar pedigree of its publisher.
Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii, 2010)
As a child of the Donkey Kong Country generation, I watched the first few gameplay videos for DKCR and swooned in anticipation. A stunningly beautiful game that, as a kid who grew up playing the SNES titles can attest to, just feels right as a platformer, DKCR takes the model provided by New Super Mario Bros. and adds pizzazz, speed, and the right amount of nostalgia to create not only one of the greatest re-imaginings in the history of the medium, but perhaps the greatest platform game to date on any system. The drop-in drop-out co-op ensured that my memories of rollicking through the jungle with my dad and brother as a grade-schooler could be relived in the living room of my college home. And that's to say nothing of the ridiculous soundtrack, which manages to both retain the sound of the original while bringing the score up to date for a new generation. Bravo, Retro Studios, bravo.
If there's one thing I love more than movies, it's sitting in a darkened room by myself on Saturday nights screaming obscenities at ten year olds on Xbox Live. At least, in the past ten years, the medium has become a bit more socially acceptable, stereotypes furthered in Grandma's Boy notwithstanding. While no game will ever dethrone Galaga's place in my heart, here are the titles from the 2000s that attempted that feat.
Honorable Mention: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002), Manhunt (2004), Guitar Hero (2005), Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (2005), Gears of War (2006)
20. Black (PS2, 2006)
Predating the Xbox 360/PS3 generation by only a couple of months, this drop-dead gorgeous FPS for the PS2 and original 'Box was gun porn, eye candy, and frustratingly sparse narrative action all rolled into one. The game only lasted a few hours even on the hardest difficulty setting, and the story (I use the term loosely) wasn't anything to write home about, but damn if it didn't look simply stunning, and continues to inspire awe visually today. The lack of a sequel due to what I have to believe were sour sales (I didn't buy the thing, even the draw of fighting with gold-plated weapons couldn't convince me to shell out fifty bucks for a few hours of entertainment) is a crime against humanity.
19. Shadow of the Colossus (PS2, 2006)
Another late classic for the PS2, Shadow of the Colossus was the spiritual successor to the excellent Ico. Where Ico bucked the traditional action/adventure/platformer trend, Colossus went all tabula rasa and rewrote the rules of design-specifically, that you needed an environment filled with enemies. Instead, in this game you only fight a handful of foes-all of which occupy an area about 3,000 times that of your character. The developers did an astounding job of making you care about the characters and introducing moral quandaries to gameplay years before Bioshock did it most famously.
18. Borderlands (360, 2009)
I put this game on the list despite the fact that I've only played it for about three hours now, that's how damn good it is. Gearbox has managed to take a formula that has paid dividends in the past few years-mixing RPG elements with FPS action-and introduced a looting system in a beautiful, post-apocalyptic cel-shaded environment that arrests your attention both while playing and otherwise. There are definitely some minor kinks in hit detection, and the complete lack of narrative is a bit troubling, but these are quibbles for an open-world, loot-heavy RPG shooter that promises hours of fun during several thrilling playthroughs.
Note: I completed the game about two weeks after posting this list originally, and it's payoff more than made up for the potential on display in its first several hours. This game is so hopelessly deep and addictive that I was afraid the cable repair van down the street had bugged my room.
17. Timesplitters: Future Perfect (PS2, 2005)
As I, using the character model shaped most recognizably like the Hamburger Helper mitt, swung a baseball bat into a crowd of zombie monkeys in a beat-crazy disco while chased by several other human-controlled characters online for the seventh time in an hour, I realized just how incredible this particular iteration of Timesplitters was. To be sure, the Timesplitters franchise has hit the mark every single time with a shooter experience that is both responsive, fun, and downright hilarious. Future Perfect added online multiplayer to the mix, and it was pure heaven. Here's hoping Crytek gets down to making a worthy successor to Future Perfect very soon.
16. Psychonauts (PS2, 2005)
Tim Schafer's look into the minds of several troubled individuals at a summer camp for children with psychic abilities was disturbing, hilarious, and perfect platforming action all rolled into one. Though the gaming public at large overlooked this gem, I look back with fond memories on this title. I wasted most of my own summer trying to clear censors from the minds of the troubled inhabitants of Camp Whispering Rock.
15. Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (PS2, 2003)
I'm not a huge of film noir, or pinot noir for that matter. However, the insane gunplay of the Max Payne series drew me into the first game. In the second, the formula is perfected as the gamer plunges deeper into the perturbed mind of Max Payne with flurries of bullets, action reloads involving flowing leather jackets, and deeply reflective (to the point of nausea) inner monologues. I knew Max would end up with Mona, but I can't wait to see what's happened to him in the meantime when Max Payne 3 releases this year.
14. The Warriors (PS2, 2005)
Rockstar brought back the visceral thril of beat 'em ups like River City Ransom with this adaptation of the cult classic film. The look and feel of the game is identical to that of the iconic movie as Rockstar showcases its ability to set a mood through storytelling for seemingly the 90th time of the decade. I loved the flashback sequences that allowed you to garner some real emotional attachment to each of the members of the titular gang, and then replay the escape sequence from the film in the second half of the title. The fact that the backwards compatibility of the 360 has not extended to include the original Xbox version of this game is a crime against humanity.
13. Freedom Fighters (PS2, 2003)
From the guys who would eventually bring us the underwhelming Kane and Lynch: Dead Men came what amounted to an imagining of the plot of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 six years earlier. The Soviets, who dropped an atomic bomb on Berlin before the Americans could do so in the Pacific, eventually invade the Americas in the early 20th Century. You play an unlikely hero, Chris Stone, a plumber (aren't all video game heroes?) who starts out trying to save his brother from the invading Ruskies but ends up liberating most of New England from the Commie threat. The squad-based shooting mechanics were fantastic for a PS2-era game, and the story had some real weight to it. An unacknowledged gem.
12. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii, 2009)
Take a classic 2D platforming formula, thrown in simultaneous four-player support and some motion controls, and you've got yourself a fantastic throwback title. NSMBWii will make you hate all of your roommates for bumping you off a platform while trying to grab some coins, even though you both are seemingly attempting to save the princess, who's been kidnapped again. Who cares that we've seen it all before? The fresh coat of paint both graphically and gameplay-wise make this an incredible, can't miss nostalgic title.
11. Bully (PS2, 2006)
Take Grand Theft Auto, throw in equal parts schoolyard charm and adolescent mischief, and you've got yourself a very impressive and focused open-world title. Jimmy Hopkins is both a sympathetic and fiendish protagonist, emotions Rockstar is used to fostering with its main characters. The highlight for me, of course, was the Halloween night pranking, but the whole game-which spans one school year at a strict New England boarding school, is entertaining from start to finish. Think interactive "Wonder Years."
10. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2, 2004)
Quite possibly my most anticipated game of the decade, I still remember driving to the store after cross country practice to pick this game up. Gamestop was having a cookout and giving away tons of free shit, but I went in, grabbed, the game, and got the hell out of Dodge, because I knew what was waiting for me. Over 100 hours of pure, unbridled open-world crime goodness. I played the hell out of this thing well into 2005 (I had to get all of the graffiti tags in Los Santos, right?) and the only complaint I have to this day is that the focus of the narrative was lost in the sheer vastness of the world in which the game took place. But can that really be considered a complaint?
9. Bioshock (360, 2007)
There are so many images from this game that will never, EVER leave my head. One involving a putter comes to mind immediately. The team behind the incredible System Shock 2 (which missed topping this list by about 4 months) brought that gameplay into the 21st Century with a gut-wrenching morality play you participated in. The atmosphere, the gunplay, the RPG elements...it all blended beautifully to create a truly breathtaking experience.
8. Batman: Arkham Asylum (360, 2009)
You know the Joker is going to break out. That's about the only thing you can expect in this incredible game adaptation of the Batman universe. There's a focused story here, incredible stealth elements, and a truly maniacal Joker voiced by Mark "I Almost Had Sex with My Ficitional Sister" Hamill. Oh, did I mention the game looks absolutely beautiful? The combat mechanics are inspired and the inclusion of hidden messages from all of Batman's most sought-after villains makes this a nerd's (like myself) paradise.
7. Assassin's Creed 2 (360, 2009)
Ubisoft took everything that was wrong with the first game, scrapped it, and left the incredibly intriguing conspiracy story intact to create a historical panorama that the gamer can't help but be sucked into. Combat is still very satisfying and the villas of the Italian Renaissance are truly breathtaking. Bravo to the developers for making a sequel that surpasses the original in almost every single way.
6. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (360, 2007)
The game that may have given me stomach ulcers. I still know my way around Wetwork blindfolded and I hear shouts of "Tango Down!" in my sleep. Though this year's iteration continued to incite ravenous multiplayer hunger in my mind, it did little to build upon the inspired setup of the first game, which clearly had superior single-player set-pieces and built the foundation for the FPS juggernaut that everyone will have to try to dethrone in the next decade.
5. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, 2007)
Whereas Mario 64 had everyone's favorite plumber moving to the 3D plane for the first time, this title gave us the first glimpse of the potential of motion controls in a platformer while creating mind-bending gravity puzzles and gameplay that challenge gamers of all persuasions. That must be the reason Galaxy is the first game getting a true sequel since Super Mario World on the SNES. I can't friggin' wait.
4. Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox, 2001)
I didn't own an Xbox, but thanks to the popularity of LAN parties that didn't stop me from logging probably over 100 hours on this game. I remember hours of CTF games on Chill Out with shotguns the night before high school cross country meets, and the thrills of sticking newbs with grenades and pistol whipping them in the back of the face. Halo also sported the most satisfying weapon-the scoped pistol-in all of gaming. Who didn't love spawning with that thing, watching your opponent's shield disappear with two shots, and then finishing them off, sending their body falling limply to the ground? Did I mention my violent streak began around 2001?
3. Fallout 3 (360, 2008)
The Fallout series was great in its own right in its isometric RPG PC days, but Bethesda took the formula, instituted its Morrowind first person touch, and created an instant genre-bursting classic. What begins as a search for your father becomes a struggle for survival in the irradiated Wasteland created by, what else?, nuclear Armageddon. The final chapter of the game, with a giant Commie-hating robot laying waste to guys you would have no chance of killing in the beginning of the game with your puny 1st-level rank, is up there in terms of all-time satisfying video game moments. Can't wait for the sequel (PLEASE make it an online MMORPG).
2. Half-Life 2: The Orange Box (360, 2007)
Half-Life 2 on its own is an incredible achievement in the first person genre, mixing puzzle, driving, and shooting elements together with a story and characters that have real emotional weight, but you throw in Team Fortress 2, Portal, and the episodic content that continues the Half-Life 2 story and you've got an incredible title that really gets you bang for your buck. Gordon Freeman, world's greatest physicist, awakes from stasis to find that creepy guy with the suitcase needing more help in the near future. As you save mankind, you realize just how fucked up all those Combine bastards really are. The tease at the end of Episode 2 really isn't fair, especially when you consider it's been two years and we still haven't heard anything about Episode 3's release date. Let's finish this fight, please!
1. Grand Theft Auto 3 (PS2, 2001)
I remember popping this game in the PS2 disc tray, the first time I'd played the system, and being completely overwhelmed by the world that surrounded me. I wasted days playing GTA2 on my original Playstation in my late-90s gaming frenzy, but nothing compared to the fully 3D world filled with seemingly endless possibilities that lay before me. Consequently, I wasted months driving around Liberty City as Claude Speed, the mute psychopath who probably killed over 100,000 inhabitants of the city during my reign of terror. There was so much to do...I remember wasting days just trying to get the game's clipped-wing plane to fly around the city, seeing which buildings were solid, which were transparent, and warping myself to different places in the city during my pursuits. When the glitches in a game become sources of entertainment, you know you have a contender for best game of the decade.
The Best of the '10s (so far):
Red Dead Redemption (360, 2010)
As you can probably tell from the list compiled above, I'm a bit of a Rockstar Games fanboy. I divulge this information with no shame whatsoever, when the studio consistently produces titles of stellar quality. RDR was no different, taking gamers through a Wild West adventure that nailed the shooting mechanics in a third-person action game to an unprecedented degree and toyed with notions of storytelling in an industry-revolutionizing way. Seriously, the final two or three hours you spend during the campaign will make you appreciate everything that has come before, and presents a protagonist that pulls at the heartstrings in a way Rockstar just couldn't do with its other big-budget, open world title of this generation (you may have heard of Grand Theft Auto IV). Redemption (in a way its predecessor, Red Dead Revolver, couldn't dream of doing) made the Western a viable platform for an action-packed adventure in the medium, and further proved the stellar pedigree of its publisher.
Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii, 2010)
As a child of the Donkey Kong Country generation, I watched the first few gameplay videos for DKCR and swooned in anticipation. A stunningly beautiful game that, as a kid who grew up playing the SNES titles can attest to, just feels right as a platformer, DKCR takes the model provided by New Super Mario Bros. and adds pizzazz, speed, and the right amount of nostalgia to create not only one of the greatest re-imaginings in the history of the medium, but perhaps the greatest platform game to date on any system. The drop-in drop-out co-op ensured that my memories of rollicking through the jungle with my dad and brother as a grade-schooler could be relived in the living room of my college home. And that's to say nothing of the ridiculous soundtrack, which manages to both retain the sound of the original while bringing the score up to date for a new generation. Bravo, Retro Studios, bravo.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Virtual Dork-E3 2011
The geek in me has always wanted to attend E3. Getting paid to write about (and let's not forget play!) the upcoming blockbuster titles in the video game industry gets me all hot and bothered like Tony Gwyn on his way to Ryan's Steakhouse. Watching the off-screen videos posted by IGN and other gaming resources across the internet just isn't the same as actually being there and getting your hands on the software. Having said all of that, this year's show by proxy from Missouri has so underwhelmed me that I have decided to, in the vain of Will Ferrell's brilliant James Lipton impression, invent a word to convey my indifference.
Hohumsillery.
I'm going to try to forget in this post that two of my most anticipated games for the future (Half-Life 3 and Grand Theft Auto V) were nowhere to be found. I'm going to try to get out of my mind the haunting faces of those Miis playing Hide and Seek as "revolutionary" for the video game industry. I'm going to try to overlook the fact that the standout titles of the show were games we've already seen in the media hundreds of times. In other words, I'm going to try to be objective.
That's going to be difficult, what with Microsoft's "big reveal" of features for Xbox Live being limited use of Youtube on the console (a feature also of Nintendo's woefully-titled new "WiiU") and the ability to call up my Lady Gaga music videos I purchased off iTunes using my voice. The only exclusive announced for Xbox that even remotely interested me was Minecraft. The Halo 4 CG trailer only shows me that 343 Studios is scared stupid that they actually have to do something with Bungie's brainchild and are worried the gameplay they introduce will split the fanbase over a year and a half before the game is released. So, they rendered a video with countless nods to fanboys to gloss over the fact that they're probably going to butcher one of the most beloved franchises in shooter history. The Halo: CE remake looks like a lot of fun, with online co-op and classic map support, but until I can be assured that I can split some heads old-school Magnum style on Chill Out I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic at most.
As I haven't been a fan of Sony since the PS2 days, I didn't pay a ton of attention to their press conference. If the Vita alone was supposed to distract people from the fact that they couldn't play games online or purchase content for over a month, some marketing executive needs to lose his job. The PSP Go was an unmitigated disaster, and while there are several better-than-decent games that will be available for the Vita at launch, the same was true for the original PSP before the unit eventually began to lose steam. Why should consumers believe anything different will happen in this age of sophisticated smartphones that offer countless sources of gaming-on-the-go distraction? The biggest blunder of the conference, in my estimation, was Sony refusing to include Twisted Metal (perhaps a sleeper for Game of the Year) during their press conference, as it is clearly one of the system's finest exclusives that will be available this Fall.
Today, Nintendo unveiled some 3DS software (some good, some meh) during their press conference and closed with the official unveiling of the "WiiU." It, of course, sounds like perhaps the second least enviable college campus in the world (I'm still making Ohio State jokes). The control pad looks cumbersome, and the obvious emphasis placed upon third-party support for the console at launch only served the purpose of causing me to question why I can't play games like Assassin's Creed and Batman on the system Nintendo released six years ago, like the 360 and PS3? Why do I have to purchase a new console to play games that will almost certainly be ports of games I can play for $60 on my other system? Oh, sure, there will be "controller-connectivity," but I don't play shooters like Call of Duty so I can look down and access my inventory on some screen in front of me. I want a traditional controller without clutter for my hardcore titles, and Nintendo is going to have to do some major convincing if they expect the hardcore crowd to flock back after the Wii essentially shunned the entire community (don't believe me? Look at sales for MadWorld and Manhunt 2).
As a disclaimer, I understand that all of this is speculation, and it's difficult to develop reasoned decisions without the hardware and software in my hands. This is just one passionate gamer's opinions based upon an almost obsessive desire to make it out to California one year to see these games in person.
Hohumsillery.
I'm going to try to forget in this post that two of my most anticipated games for the future (Half-Life 3 and Grand Theft Auto V) were nowhere to be found. I'm going to try to get out of my mind the haunting faces of those Miis playing Hide and Seek as "revolutionary" for the video game industry. I'm going to try to overlook the fact that the standout titles of the show were games we've already seen in the media hundreds of times. In other words, I'm going to try to be objective.
That's going to be difficult, what with Microsoft's "big reveal" of features for Xbox Live being limited use of Youtube on the console (a feature also of Nintendo's woefully-titled new "WiiU") and the ability to call up my Lady Gaga music videos I purchased off iTunes using my voice. The only exclusive announced for Xbox that even remotely interested me was Minecraft. The Halo 4 CG trailer only shows me that 343 Studios is scared stupid that they actually have to do something with Bungie's brainchild and are worried the gameplay they introduce will split the fanbase over a year and a half before the game is released. So, they rendered a video with countless nods to fanboys to gloss over the fact that they're probably going to butcher one of the most beloved franchises in shooter history. The Halo: CE remake looks like a lot of fun, with online co-op and classic map support, but until I can be assured that I can split some heads old-school Magnum style on Chill Out I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic at most.
As I haven't been a fan of Sony since the PS2 days, I didn't pay a ton of attention to their press conference. If the Vita alone was supposed to distract people from the fact that they couldn't play games online or purchase content for over a month, some marketing executive needs to lose his job. The PSP Go was an unmitigated disaster, and while there are several better-than-decent games that will be available for the Vita at launch, the same was true for the original PSP before the unit eventually began to lose steam. Why should consumers believe anything different will happen in this age of sophisticated smartphones that offer countless sources of gaming-on-the-go distraction? The biggest blunder of the conference, in my estimation, was Sony refusing to include Twisted Metal (perhaps a sleeper for Game of the Year) during their press conference, as it is clearly one of the system's finest exclusives that will be available this Fall.
Today, Nintendo unveiled some 3DS software (some good, some meh) during their press conference and closed with the official unveiling of the "WiiU." It, of course, sounds like perhaps the second least enviable college campus in the world (I'm still making Ohio State jokes). The control pad looks cumbersome, and the obvious emphasis placed upon third-party support for the console at launch only served the purpose of causing me to question why I can't play games like Assassin's Creed and Batman on the system Nintendo released six years ago, like the 360 and PS3? Why do I have to purchase a new console to play games that will almost certainly be ports of games I can play for $60 on my other system? Oh, sure, there will be "controller-connectivity," but I don't play shooters like Call of Duty so I can look down and access my inventory on some screen in front of me. I want a traditional controller without clutter for my hardcore titles, and Nintendo is going to have to do some major convincing if they expect the hardcore crowd to flock back after the Wii essentially shunned the entire community (don't believe me? Look at sales for MadWorld and Manhunt 2).
As a disclaimer, I understand that all of this is speculation, and it's difficult to develop reasoned decisions without the hardware and software in my hands. This is just one passionate gamer's opinions based upon an almost obsessive desire to make it out to California one year to see these games in person.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Raging Video Game Nerd-Thoughts on the Gears of War 3 Beta
At about this time last week, I was knee deep in a seven killstreak on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and clearing out Radscorpions in the Mojave Desert in Fallout: New Vegas. I had no interest, nor desire, to shell out five bucks at Gamestop to play the Gears of War 3 beta. Competitive multiplayer in previous Gears games had always been an exercise in frustrating futility for me. I took a Lancer chainsaw to the gut one too many times in the previous iterations, and as a result I have an oily-residue taste in my mouth for the game. So, when a friend tossed a beta code my way on Monday morning, I downloaded the trial version with a healthy dose of skepticism. My fears were realized immediately upon joining a game of Team Deathmatch. Sprinting for the ink grenades on Thrashball, I was stopped dead in my tracks by a Retro Lancer bayonet sticking me from behind. The gore was beautiful...the language that spilled out of my mouth as I threw my controller across the room in frustration was not.
Yet, as I continued playing, a funny thing happened. I started enjoying myself. And...I got good. I don't mean MLG good (I'm pretty sure a couple twelve year-olds had a headshot Gnasher field day with me on Thursday afternoon), but at least better than your average Grandma. As a result, this skeptic was turned into a believer. I'm definitely looking forward to the fall release date with just as much anticipation as that swelling for Modern Warfare 3 and Batman: Arkham City.
It's not all Milky Way fun-sizes and rainbows, however. There are still some major issues I found with the game. Hopefully Epic employees decide to troll moderately-successful (okay, disappointingly-obscure) blogs for some criticism on their product. If Gears of War 3 competitive multiplayer is going to hold my attention, I demand the following three tweaks:
1. Nerf the Gnasher! There's no reason I should be downed from fifteen feet away with a shotgun that has half the range (on the statistics page) of the Lancer. The addition of the Sawed-Off shotgun, with maximum damage but limited range and increased to levels of absurdity reload time, makes close quarters combat a more interesting affair with two styles of play dependent upon the kind of shotgun. When you make the Gnasher as effective as the Sawed-Off within five feet, however, you negate the subtle nuances you're trying to introduce to the standard roll and fire gameplay. Nerf the Gnasher slightly (you can keep the stupid amount of headshot detection the gun seems to possess!) and you'll make CQC way more entertaining and cerebral.
2. Fix the spawns in Capture the Leader! Thrashball, Trenches, and Checkout all have inexcusable spawn shifts once the leader has been taken as a meatshield. There's no reason five members of the opposing team should spawn directly behind the guy that just made the capture. Even if you have to add additional spawn points at certain areas around the map, in the open, specifically for the CTL game mode, it will be better than having the timer click down to 4-5 seconds and seeing Marcus and the calvary magically appear in the perfect position to stick a Lancer bayonet in your backside.
3. Make the Hammer of Dawn an overtime-only weapon! I mean, seriously, on Trenches the team that can take the Hammer gets a match win probably 85-90% of the time. The first thirty seconds of every match I played on the map from Friday on consisted of every member of the opposing teams sprinting to the middle, wildly blasting their shotguns, and a big pile of human and Locust debris lying everywhere. Normally, really awesome. But once that Hammer was acquired, the rest of the match turned into, DUCK AND COVER! I counted the number of wood splinters on the scaffolding near the spawn on Trenches. 1,273. Count them. They're there. Simply change the spawn time for the Hammer to the end of the round, when there is a clear stalemate going on. That will cause the same amount of chaos, but at the end of the match and keep people from bunkering down in the late stages of a CTL match.
There you have it. My statistical, scientific analysis of a game that encourages you to curb stomp your enemy. I always knew I was destined for greatness. If these changes were to occur, competitive multiplayer could be the cream cheese icing on the delicious cake of gaming awesomeness that Gears of War 3 should be. I've got my fork and dessert bib ready.
Yet, as I continued playing, a funny thing happened. I started enjoying myself. And...I got good. I don't mean MLG good (I'm pretty sure a couple twelve year-olds had a headshot Gnasher field day with me on Thursday afternoon), but at least better than your average Grandma. As a result, this skeptic was turned into a believer. I'm definitely looking forward to the fall release date with just as much anticipation as that swelling for Modern Warfare 3 and Batman: Arkham City.
It's not all Milky Way fun-sizes and rainbows, however. There are still some major issues I found with the game. Hopefully Epic employees decide to troll moderately-successful (okay, disappointingly-obscure) blogs for some criticism on their product. If Gears of War 3 competitive multiplayer is going to hold my attention, I demand the following three tweaks:
1. Nerf the Gnasher! There's no reason I should be downed from fifteen feet away with a shotgun that has half the range (on the statistics page) of the Lancer. The addition of the Sawed-Off shotgun, with maximum damage but limited range and increased to levels of absurdity reload time, makes close quarters combat a more interesting affair with two styles of play dependent upon the kind of shotgun. When you make the Gnasher as effective as the Sawed-Off within five feet, however, you negate the subtle nuances you're trying to introduce to the standard roll and fire gameplay. Nerf the Gnasher slightly (you can keep the stupid amount of headshot detection the gun seems to possess!) and you'll make CQC way more entertaining and cerebral.
2. Fix the spawns in Capture the Leader! Thrashball, Trenches, and Checkout all have inexcusable spawn shifts once the leader has been taken as a meatshield. There's no reason five members of the opposing team should spawn directly behind the guy that just made the capture. Even if you have to add additional spawn points at certain areas around the map, in the open, specifically for the CTL game mode, it will be better than having the timer click down to 4-5 seconds and seeing Marcus and the calvary magically appear in the perfect position to stick a Lancer bayonet in your backside.
3. Make the Hammer of Dawn an overtime-only weapon! I mean, seriously, on Trenches the team that can take the Hammer gets a match win probably 85-90% of the time. The first thirty seconds of every match I played on the map from Friday on consisted of every member of the opposing teams sprinting to the middle, wildly blasting their shotguns, and a big pile of human and Locust debris lying everywhere. Normally, really awesome. But once that Hammer was acquired, the rest of the match turned into, DUCK AND COVER! I counted the number of wood splinters on the scaffolding near the spawn on Trenches. 1,273. Count them. They're there. Simply change the spawn time for the Hammer to the end of the round, when there is a clear stalemate going on. That will cause the same amount of chaos, but at the end of the match and keep people from bunkering down in the late stages of a CTL match.
There you have it. My statistical, scientific analysis of a game that encourages you to curb stomp your enemy. I always knew I was destined for greatness. If these changes were to occur, competitive multiplayer could be the cream cheese icing on the delicious cake of gaming awesomeness that Gears of War 3 should be. I've got my fork and dessert bib ready.
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