Yes, StarCraft II is officially out. And yes, this god awful intermission that's been plagueing us will come to a close at some point in the not to distant future.
But not today.
It's a little complaint. My name on StarCraft II is simply 'Spectre', unfortunately missing what I've come to call my trademark '4802' stamp on the end of it.
You can't have numbers when your putting in your username for StarCraft II when you first sign up. Keep that in mind if you eventually get it.
I know a lot of New Zealand and Austrailia gamers are pissed off about being put into the SEA bracket, which impairs thair ability to play online or something. I don't keep up with the bicker about that, but it's stirring up quite a hornets nest.
Right now, I'm plowing through the campaign, and then I'm going to immerse myself in the Galaxy Editor, so online play is something I'm going to consider when I've had enough of either the campaign or the Editor for a while, and want to play with what i'd reservedly call 'people'.
Actually, that's a little unfair. I assume they're a certain breed of person who communicates through insults and the "word" lol. Someone who's mother had been messing around with the internet on a forum one too many times and ended up getting pregnant.
Either that, or the majority of the people who play multiplayer games like this (specifically on Battle.net) have the maturity of an eight year old.
Because, the StarCraft II beta wasn't the only place I've seen the kind of behaviour exhibited on Battle.net. I still sometimes go into Battle.net with Warcraft III, usually for an online tower defence game, and the people there can be charitably described as a bunch of complete dicks.
And let's not even go to online first person shooters, specifically the likes of Halo and Counter Strike. I mean, the whole screaming at your opponent was practically invented by John Romero of id fame when they came up with Doom multiplayer. (At least I think it was Doom multiplayer.)
The last thing that pisses me off about StarCraft II is the people who say "oh, it's just StarCraft v2.0, not 2 (or maybe it's just StarCraft with better graphics)" and "I regret getting my copy because of X (usually online problems)".
To the first group, get out. SC II has an awesome campaign (and a much better campaign experience), plenty of new units, even things like different music (certainly for the terrans, anyway) and a few changed mechanics (resources, for example, have been tweaked).
Blizzard set out to make it a new and interesting enough without making it feel completely different, and they made damn sure the game retained it's nostalgic feel when you played it.
But maybe we should give those people what they want. Maybe Blizzard should release a third expansion set, which it's simply names "StarCraft II, not 2.0", which has very little of the original units, factions, characters or 'details' (resources, environments, ect), and a story very loosly based on the previous one. That should make those people happy.
As for the second group, StarCraft II has been out for no less than 48 hours. You can't seriously expect me to believe that everything was going to be fine and dandy on release date, did you? In my eyes, July 27 was the start of the unofficial StarCraft II beta test.
P.S. Yes, I insist on calling it "StarCraft II".
P.P.S. If you're really that utterly desperate that you want to know what I think of the game right now, I'd give it a 8.5, probably a 9.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Intermission: Gish (part 3)
I promise to try not to bitch about this game any more after this post. I'll try my darnedest.
I've been thinking hard about what really, really pisses me off about Gish. I've been trying to nail down the one thing that makes me think it's so excrementally bad. Good news is I think I may have found it. Bad news is there's more than one.
#1. Gratuitously frustrating gameplay
I've come to the conclusion that Gish was designed to be as frustrating and difficult as possible, especially in the later stages.
If you cock up one small thing, best case scenario is you have to slowly get back into the starting point to try it again, like in that church stage where you need to gather enough momenteum and hit the right movement keys at the right time for the right length of time to pass, otherwise you'll just miss it, and then you have to crawl all the way up to start again.
And of course, worst case scenario is starting the level from scratch, and let me tell you, fighting your way through the same section of level for the seventh time in a row doesn't make me any less likely to go to my nearest Ammunation and let loose inside my local mall with a fully automatic firearm.
The very last level requires you to punt a block up two or three levels. I tried this, and it's really, really hard. The physics and the certain states of compression Gish needs to be in for it to be punted a certain height make it nearly impossible, and most of it's got to do with pure chance.
All of that wouldn't be that bad, except you have this psycho Gish clone that will give you a maximum of two chances to screw that up before you have to restart the level.
I'd hate to see anybody do the game on normal difficulty (if you lose all your lives it's back to the begining of the stage, X-1, not the level). Or the state of the local post office afterwards.
#2. Brutal and evil dickmoves
A "dickmove" can be described (in gaming terms) rather easily.
Hypothetical situation - say your character has just undergone a very hard level, where he had to traverse from rickety platform to rickety platform, most of which were already crumbling before he even stepped on them.
A dickmove in this situation would be where the final platform, the one after the rickety, cumbling ones that looks anything but, gives way and the character dies.
THAT is a dickmove. And Gish is full of them. Some of them are small, some are reasonably large, and all are evil one way or another.
For example, in one of the 7 Planes of Hehenna levels (level 5, I believe) you have to grab onto the back of a big block in order to get past a tight corridor of spikes. Spikes kill you very fast and you stick to them, even if you don't have sticky mode on.
Anyway, you have to click to the back of this block, while trying not to get too high or two low for fear of latching onto some rust and death flavoured spikes. Then, you have to very carefully move from one block to another that's quite a respectable distance apart in the space of about two seconds, otherwise it's back to square one.
So, once you do get onto the other block and eventually to the platform at the end, said platform starts getting pulled up and a bunch of walking mouths get quite literally dumped on top of you.
Another example is one of the church levels (the hardest by far, but they are the last so it's understandable) where you're forced to gain a considerable amount of momentum (holding down the down arrow key) and plummet down one shaft (on Heavy and Slippery modes), then very quickly change gears two times (coming around the corner, you hold down whichever arrow key seems logical (left for left curves, right for right curves) and then take off Heavy and hold up, and as you reach for the top, turn on Sticky so it gives you that little bit extra traction to try to reach the very top bit) all before doing it again.
At least three more times.
[Of course there is a hidden secret to bypass all but one tunnel, and it's under the stairs - the ones that keep rising and falling.]
Then, once you get to the end of the course (in this room with half the floor on a slant), you think "thank god, now time for something reasonably relaxing to ease me into the next level".
Except you won't think that, because you'll get to "thank go-" before the walls dissapear and thousands of diabolical walking mouths come pouring out, devouring your poor, confused, and above all, exhausted blob of tar while you presumably rage quit.
Turns out you're supposed to leap up and Sticky onto the rising block the very second you hit the ground. Not that they tell you that.
Then there are the little things. The pebbles they throw at your window in between the big rocks like that. But, while still pebbles, they make an awful racket and eventually leave that window all scratched to hell, and the stones make it look like a swiss cheese maker has gone to town on it.
#3. The "Airship" campaign
Saying this "campaign" is mean kind of like saying Hitler was a bit wacky.
I have a particular grudge against this "campaign". It's more brutal and evil than the main story, something I thought quite literally impossible. I don't know what designed it, but obviously whatever it is is an amalgimation of the most evil people in the history of the human race with a little Lucifer mixed in.
One level will kill you if you don't press anything in the first second or two. To quote Yahtzee, "That's the sort of gameplay I'd expect from a f&#%ing ROM hack. Designed by Hitler."
Almost all of the levels are ruthless in difficulty. I'm shocked that it made it past playtesting.
Of course, there's nothing to say that it did.
The only level in that cesspit I've been able to pass is level 4, and I could only get that by finding it under "Start > Custom levels > Load level".
#4. Gish
Actually, no. Gish is kind of cool. He never speaks, even when he's being torn apart by a pack of ravenous mouths, and he's always mute when being taunted by bosses. In fact, the conversation before the final boss goes something like this:
Hera: Hello Dave Gish.
Gish: ...
Hera: I'm a psycho. I've been thinking about you ever since highschool.
Hera: MARRY ME! MAAAARRRRRRRRRYYY MEEEEEE! OR DIIIEEEEE!
Gish: ...
Hera: RAAAAARRRGH HERA SMASH
#5. The map editor
As frustrating and annoying to use as the real game.
First, you have to hit F1. Only in a forum post on the designer's website does it actually tell you. Because, you know, putting it in big letters up the top of the screen would be too easy for these guys.
Selecting tiles is also very fiddly. I think what you're supposed to do is click and drag the tile you want onto itself. if you click and drag it onto another tile, it'll replace it.
Why? I don't know. Pretty sure the designers don't know either.
And how exactly do I cycle through the list of availible tiles? Well, I have two sets (again, not sure why) and they're moved by two sets of different buttons.
Bonus points for anyone who guessed that they don't tell you what those buttons are.
They probably tell you in the forum post, but frankly, not packaging the controls with a text document was just bloody stupid.
Yeah, Gish doesn't come with a "manual" on all the controls. I always thought that was sort of important.
#6. Impossible platforming challanges
Ok, Gish developers - making me jump from bouncing suspended block to higher bouncing suspended block is nearly impossible. The physics engine makes it so.
That example is most prolific in the Airship "campaign", but it also rears it's hidiously deformed head in the main story campaign and it was hard enough there. But tying all the bouncing suspended blocks together? Thats just not funny.
Thats. Just. Not. Funny.
#7. Give me something - anything - that tells me what or how to do something
In Gish, there is a serious communication problem. The tutorial actually tells you how to do things pretty well, but you never see that again. What I would really like to know is what sort of strategies I need to defeat the boss.
Even somewhat cryptic clues would be nice, but that doesn't happen. Sometimes, you can justify making the challange greater by telling the player what to do. That way, the player already knows how the beast will die. All he needs to know now is what he's going to do to get to that point.
In Gish, you need to fogure it out for yourself. Sometimes, the simplicity of the map will make it sort of obvious, but there could be two or three ways to kill a said boss, and you'll spend a life or two (or more) investigating that option, and when it turns out to be false you spend another life or two (or more) trying another.
#8. Indie game = amazing, innovative game that's awesome, always
It's the rule of Indie games, isn't it? If there's some bright eyed young group of people, usually a designer, a artist and one other person who fills in for all the other roles where nessesary, often their game will be given lots of positive reviews and be hailed in some way as "innovative" or some other buzzword.
It will win awards, too. Lots of awards.
And after playing Gish and seeing how immensly frustrating, difficult and evil it is, it makes me seriously wonder whether the award givers and reviewers actually took time out to play the full game.
Maybe they were given a demo. The demo would probably include the first stage, and I'd say that's pretty easy. Yeah, it's cool and really nice and it has good graphics and a cool physics engine ect ect. Never mind the later levels, we're only looking skin deep here.
Or maybe it's just a case of "a brand new indie game design company just sprang up, let's make them feel really kick ass and awesome by giving them tons of accolades. We'll actually look at their games once they come in a box."
I think that's all of it. I think it's out of my system now.
Let me make this clear - Gish isn't bad. And I know that sounds counter intuitive, but hear me out;
It's extremely frustrating, difficult, and some parts are truely evil, whether by design or by accident, but the game itself isn't bad.
I would probably say to anyone who wants to play it, "Yeah, go for it, but keep an eye on your blood pressure and stay away from any loaded weapons."
I've been thinking hard about what really, really pisses me off about Gish. I've been trying to nail down the one thing that makes me think it's so excrementally bad. Good news is I think I may have found it. Bad news is there's more than one.
#1. Gratuitously frustrating gameplay
I've come to the conclusion that Gish was designed to be as frustrating and difficult as possible, especially in the later stages.
If you cock up one small thing, best case scenario is you have to slowly get back into the starting point to try it again, like in that church stage where you need to gather enough momenteum and hit the right movement keys at the right time for the right length of time to pass, otherwise you'll just miss it, and then you have to crawl all the way up to start again.
And of course, worst case scenario is starting the level from scratch, and let me tell you, fighting your way through the same section of level for the seventh time in a row doesn't make me any less likely to go to my nearest Ammunation and let loose inside my local mall with a fully automatic firearm.
The very last level requires you to punt a block up two or three levels. I tried this, and it's really, really hard. The physics and the certain states of compression Gish needs to be in for it to be punted a certain height make it nearly impossible, and most of it's got to do with pure chance.
All of that wouldn't be that bad, except you have this psycho Gish clone that will give you a maximum of two chances to screw that up before you have to restart the level.
I'd hate to see anybody do the game on normal difficulty (if you lose all your lives it's back to the begining of the stage, X-1, not the level). Or the state of the local post office afterwards.
#2. Brutal and evil dickmoves
A "dickmove" can be described (in gaming terms) rather easily.
Hypothetical situation - say your character has just undergone a very hard level, where he had to traverse from rickety platform to rickety platform, most of which were already crumbling before he even stepped on them.
A dickmove in this situation would be where the final platform, the one after the rickety, cumbling ones that looks anything but, gives way and the character dies.
THAT is a dickmove. And Gish is full of them. Some of them are small, some are reasonably large, and all are evil one way or another.
For example, in one of the 7 Planes of Hehenna levels (level 5, I believe) you have to grab onto the back of a big block in order to get past a tight corridor of spikes. Spikes kill you very fast and you stick to them, even if you don't have sticky mode on.
Anyway, you have to click to the back of this block, while trying not to get too high or two low for fear of latching onto some rust and death flavoured spikes. Then, you have to very carefully move from one block to another that's quite a respectable distance apart in the space of about two seconds, otherwise it's back to square one.
So, once you do get onto the other block and eventually to the platform at the end, said platform starts getting pulled up and a bunch of walking mouths get quite literally dumped on top of you.
Another example is one of the church levels (the hardest by far, but they are the last so it's understandable) where you're forced to gain a considerable amount of momentum (holding down the down arrow key) and plummet down one shaft (on Heavy and Slippery modes), then very quickly change gears two times (coming around the corner, you hold down whichever arrow key seems logical (left for left curves, right for right curves) and then take off Heavy and hold up, and as you reach for the top, turn on Sticky so it gives you that little bit extra traction to try to reach the very top bit) all before doing it again.
At least three more times.
[Of course there is a hidden secret to bypass all but one tunnel, and it's under the stairs - the ones that keep rising and falling.]
Then, once you get to the end of the course (in this room with half the floor on a slant), you think "thank god, now time for something reasonably relaxing to ease me into the next level".
Except you won't think that, because you'll get to "thank go-" before the walls dissapear and thousands of diabolical walking mouths come pouring out, devouring your poor, confused, and above all, exhausted blob of tar while you presumably rage quit.
Turns out you're supposed to leap up and Sticky onto the rising block the very second you hit the ground. Not that they tell you that.
Then there are the little things. The pebbles they throw at your window in between the big rocks like that. But, while still pebbles, they make an awful racket and eventually leave that window all scratched to hell, and the stones make it look like a swiss cheese maker has gone to town on it.
#3. The "Airship" campaign
Saying this "campaign" is mean kind of like saying Hitler was a bit wacky.
I have a particular grudge against this "campaign". It's more brutal and evil than the main story, something I thought quite literally impossible. I don't know what designed it, but obviously whatever it is is an amalgimation of the most evil people in the history of the human race with a little Lucifer mixed in.
One level will kill you if you don't press anything in the first second or two. To quote Yahtzee, "That's the sort of gameplay I'd expect from a f&#%ing ROM hack. Designed by Hitler."
Almost all of the levels are ruthless in difficulty. I'm shocked that it made it past playtesting.
Of course, there's nothing to say that it did.
The only level in that cesspit I've been able to pass is level 4, and I could only get that by finding it under "Start > Custom levels > Load level".
#4. Gish
Actually, no. Gish is kind of cool. He never speaks, even when he's being torn apart by a pack of ravenous mouths, and he's always mute when being taunted by bosses. In fact, the conversation before the final boss goes something like this:
Hera: Hello Dave Gish.
Gish: ...
Hera: I'm a psycho. I've been thinking about you ever since highschool.
Hera: MARRY ME! MAAAARRRRRRRRRYYY MEEEEEE! OR DIIIEEEEE!
Gish: ...
Hera: RAAAAARRRGH HERA SMASH
#5. The map editor
As frustrating and annoying to use as the real game.
First, you have to hit F1. Only in a forum post on the designer's website does it actually tell you. Because, you know, putting it in big letters up the top of the screen would be too easy for these guys.
Selecting tiles is also very fiddly. I think what you're supposed to do is click and drag the tile you want onto itself. if you click and drag it onto another tile, it'll replace it.
Why? I don't know. Pretty sure the designers don't know either.
And how exactly do I cycle through the list of availible tiles? Well, I have two sets (again, not sure why) and they're moved by two sets of different buttons.
Bonus points for anyone who guessed that they don't tell you what those buttons are.
They probably tell you in the forum post, but frankly, not packaging the controls with a text document was just bloody stupid.
Yeah, Gish doesn't come with a "manual" on all the controls. I always thought that was sort of important.
#6. Impossible platforming challanges
Ok, Gish developers - making me jump from bouncing suspended block to higher bouncing suspended block is nearly impossible. The physics engine makes it so.
That example is most prolific in the Airship "campaign", but it also rears it's hidiously deformed head in the main story campaign and it was hard enough there. But tying all the bouncing suspended blocks together? Thats just not funny.
Thats. Just. Not. Funny.
#7. Give me something - anything - that tells me what or how to do something
In Gish, there is a serious communication problem. The tutorial actually tells you how to do things pretty well, but you never see that again. What I would really like to know is what sort of strategies I need to defeat the boss.
Even somewhat cryptic clues would be nice, but that doesn't happen. Sometimes, you can justify making the challange greater by telling the player what to do. That way, the player already knows how the beast will die. All he needs to know now is what he's going to do to get to that point.
In Gish, you need to fogure it out for yourself. Sometimes, the simplicity of the map will make it sort of obvious, but there could be two or three ways to kill a said boss, and you'll spend a life or two (or more) investigating that option, and when it turns out to be false you spend another life or two (or more) trying another.
#8. Indie game = amazing, innovative game that's awesome, always
It's the rule of Indie games, isn't it? If there's some bright eyed young group of people, usually a designer, a artist and one other person who fills in for all the other roles where nessesary, often their game will be given lots of positive reviews and be hailed in some way as "innovative" or some other buzzword.
It will win awards, too. Lots of awards.
And after playing Gish and seeing how immensly frustrating, difficult and evil it is, it makes me seriously wonder whether the award givers and reviewers actually took time out to play the full game.
Maybe they were given a demo. The demo would probably include the first stage, and I'd say that's pretty easy. Yeah, it's cool and really nice and it has good graphics and a cool physics engine ect ect. Never mind the later levels, we're only looking skin deep here.
Or maybe it's just a case of "a brand new indie game design company just sprang up, let's make them feel really kick ass and awesome by giving them tons of accolades. We'll actually look at their games once they come in a box."
I think that's all of it. I think it's out of my system now.
Let me make this clear - Gish isn't bad. And I know that sounds counter intuitive, but hear me out;
It's extremely frustrating, difficult, and some parts are truely evil, whether by design or by accident, but the game itself isn't bad.
I would probably say to anyone who wants to play it, "Yeah, go for it, but keep an eye on your blood pressure and stay away from any loaded weapons."
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Intermission: Gish (part 2)
Saying Gish is hard is kind of like saying George Bush comes across as a wee bit daft. Or that Microsoft is a tad evil. Or that Captain Price from Modern Warfare 2 "does not have situation under control!"
But even so, the game is still possible. I trudged my way through that cesspool of frustration. I endured the many, many dick moves it pulled throughout each level; I put up with the difficult-to-handle enemies; I withstood all the bosses, killing them only after a good hour of trying to figure out how.
And then the game was over. In fact, it's officially over at level 5-6, or "Church stage, level 6".
No. Do not try to contact me to tell me how you beat it, because you can't. It's impossible. The game is over by then anyway - I'm pretty sure that's the very last boss fight.
Here, you meet Hera. Hera being Gish's ex-girlfriend. She's a blob, just like Gish, and shows just how terrifying she is when she begs Gish to marry her. Which is funny, because she's constantly trying to kill you. And I'm pretty sure you can't marry a dead person, let alone a dead blob of tar.
Anyway, the game ends here because Hera is impossible to kill due to programming, and the dickiest of all dick moves is pulled on the final level.
You've got to grab a block of stone and very expertly punt it up to the upper level. Why? So it can hold down the button you need to hold down so you can A) rescue the love interest and B) kill the crazy b!*@# who wants your blobby hand in marriage and is trying to kill you at the same time.
Here's the problem, though: Hera can easily kill you. all she needs to do is crush your tar like body with her... whatever the hell she's made out of. It's like a light grey/white colour, and a few unsavoury things come to mind when asked to think of anything that colour.
Anyway, you can't kill Hera because she goes into heavy mode whenever you touch her. In Heavy, you can't be crushed unless something with an anomalous amount of pressure is being pressed onto you. Thus, Hera = invincible.
As I've mentioned earlier, you need to grab a bit of stone and 'punt' it up to the level above. Only problem is getting Hera off you for long enough to do that, which is near to impossible. Once she is on you, it's all over because you have to be out of Heavy mode to build up enough of a bounce to launch the block of stone. Unfortunately, no Heavy mode = able to be crushed, and crush you she will.
The conditions of getting that block of stone up to the second level have to be absolutely perfect, and I can guarantee they won't be. And even if they are you only have one shot at getting said block of stone up the level before Hera finds you and screws everything up, and that's too much of an unreasonable goal.
I don't know. Maybe the designers intended this to be impossible. Maybe they intended it so only two or three people could possibly finish the (presumably) final boss fight, most of which would be sheer luck.
But for everyone else, game ends at the last boss fight.
By now, you may be wondering whether or not to even consider looking at the game. Well, personally, I think getting the game is worth it. Yeah, the last stage isn't worth the time and blood pressure, but the rest of the game, while making the level 3 times more difficult than it should be, is still possible to get through. After all, I did them. Took me a while, but I eventually got through them.
If you don't mind never seeing the conclusion to Gish's tale, go right ahead and download that sucker. If you like to see a game reach closure, with out hero rescuing his girlfriend from the pit of lava she's about to be dunked in, Gish will disappoint.
Oh yeah, and what the hell is with the "level editor", guys? Didn't even package a readme to explain what you're supposed to do.
But even so, the game is still possible. I trudged my way through that cesspool of frustration. I endured the many, many dick moves it pulled throughout each level; I put up with the difficult-to-handle enemies; I withstood all the bosses, killing them only after a good hour of trying to figure out how.
And then the game was over. In fact, it's officially over at level 5-6, or "Church stage, level 6".
No. Do not try to contact me to tell me how you beat it, because you can't. It's impossible. The game is over by then anyway - I'm pretty sure that's the very last boss fight.
Here, you meet Hera. Hera being Gish's ex-girlfriend. She's a blob, just like Gish, and shows just how terrifying she is when she begs Gish to marry her. Which is funny, because she's constantly trying to kill you. And I'm pretty sure you can't marry a dead person, let alone a dead blob of tar.
Anyway, the game ends here because Hera is impossible to kill due to programming, and the dickiest of all dick moves is pulled on the final level.
You've got to grab a block of stone and very expertly punt it up to the upper level. Why? So it can hold down the button you need to hold down so you can A) rescue the love interest and B) kill the crazy b!*@# who wants your blobby hand in marriage and is trying to kill you at the same time.
Here's the problem, though: Hera can easily kill you. all she needs to do is crush your tar like body with her... whatever the hell she's made out of. It's like a light grey/white colour, and a few unsavoury things come to mind when asked to think of anything that colour.
Anyway, you can't kill Hera because she goes into heavy mode whenever you touch her. In Heavy, you can't be crushed unless something with an anomalous amount of pressure is being pressed onto you. Thus, Hera = invincible.
As I've mentioned earlier, you need to grab a bit of stone and 'punt' it up to the level above. Only problem is getting Hera off you for long enough to do that, which is near to impossible. Once she is on you, it's all over because you have to be out of Heavy mode to build up enough of a bounce to launch the block of stone. Unfortunately, no Heavy mode = able to be crushed, and crush you she will.
The conditions of getting that block of stone up to the second level have to be absolutely perfect, and I can guarantee they won't be. And even if they are you only have one shot at getting said block of stone up the level before Hera finds you and screws everything up, and that's too much of an unreasonable goal.
I don't know. Maybe the designers intended this to be impossible. Maybe they intended it so only two or three people could possibly finish the (presumably) final boss fight, most of which would be sheer luck.
But for everyone else, game ends at the last boss fight.
By now, you may be wondering whether or not to even consider looking at the game. Well, personally, I think getting the game is worth it. Yeah, the last stage isn't worth the time and blood pressure, but the rest of the game, while making the level 3 times more difficult than it should be, is still possible to get through. After all, I did them. Took me a while, but I eventually got through them.
If you don't mind never seeing the conclusion to Gish's tale, go right ahead and download that sucker. If you like to see a game reach closure, with out hero rescuing his girlfriend from the pit of lava she's about to be dunked in, Gish will disappoint.
Oh yeah, and what the hell is with the "level editor", guys? Didn't even package a readme to explain what you're supposed to do.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Intermission: Gish
I swear, this game was built to frustrate the player. At least, in the stages later on.
Having just got past the "7 planes of Henenna" stage (which, personally, whoever happens to beat that part of the game deserves a goddamn trophy and possibly a purple heart), and moving onto the Egyptian stage, I've come to the realization that Gish is hard and frustrating.
Not that that's entirely a surprise. This is a platformer, and by nature platformers have to have at least one level in every 5 or so that are frustratingly difficult.
But Gish takes it a step further by implementing a frustratingly difficult bit of platforming or a damn annoying puzzle every single level. For example, it literally took me a good day or two to get past level 3-3, and another day to get past 3-5 due to a brutal bit of platforming. Whats worse is that in the case of level 3-3, that godawful bit of platforming was the very end of the level. Yeah, thank god for that, right?
Well, when you die you get catapulted back to the beginning of the level. Do that enough times to the player (as it happened to me) and he or she will start questing their own self worth and, more importantly, wonder why they're playing your game at all.
Another thing that pisses me off about Gish is the implementation of "lives".
Some of you older readers may remember lives from the old days of arcade gaming where, if they ran out, it was game over.
Well, when you die in Gish your off to the beginning of the level. Same thing happens when you run out of lives. There's no visible disadvantage to running out of lives, and you get a batch of five fresh from the game's oven every time you run out, which just raises the question of why the hell they're there in the first place.
It would make sense if you had checkpoints, and every time you ran out of lives you got sent back to the beginning of the level, but dying normally sent you back to the last checkpoint. But that doesn't happen in Gish, so really it's a mind bogglingly confusing feature that has no purpouse.
Having just got past the "7 planes of Henenna" stage (which, personally, whoever happens to beat that part of the game deserves a goddamn trophy and possibly a purple heart), and moving onto the Egyptian stage, I've come to the realization that Gish is hard and frustrating.
Not that that's entirely a surprise. This is a platformer, and by nature platformers have to have at least one level in every 5 or so that are frustratingly difficult.
But Gish takes it a step further by implementing a frustratingly difficult bit of platforming or a damn annoying puzzle every single level. For example, it literally took me a good day or two to get past level 3-3, and another day to get past 3-5 due to a brutal bit of platforming. Whats worse is that in the case of level 3-3, that godawful bit of platforming was the very end of the level. Yeah, thank god for that, right?
Well, when you die you get catapulted back to the beginning of the level. Do that enough times to the player (as it happened to me) and he or she will start questing their own self worth and, more importantly, wonder why they're playing your game at all.
Another thing that pisses me off about Gish is the implementation of "lives".
Some of you older readers may remember lives from the old days of arcade gaming where, if they ran out, it was game over.
Well, when you die in Gish your off to the beginning of the level. Same thing happens when you run out of lives. There's no visible disadvantage to running out of lives, and you get a batch of five fresh from the game's oven every time you run out, which just raises the question of why the hell they're there in the first place.
It would make sense if you had checkpoints, and every time you ran out of lives you got sent back to the beginning of the level, but dying normally sent you back to the last checkpoint. But that doesn't happen in Gish, so really it's a mind bogglingly confusing feature that has no purpouse.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Intermission: Bloons Tower Defence 4
Bloody hell, this is a long intermission.
Anyway, Bloons Tower Defence 4 has caught my eye. NinjaKiwi, the guys who made it, have always done good games. But I fear Mochigames, the guys they decided to integrate their game with, have screwed them over a bit.
For one, MohciGames is evil. Very evil. But we'll get to that later.
Bloons Tower Defence has always been a reasonable sort of game. It doesn't pull too many "dick moves", like having a special sort of balloon that can't be killed by anything else apart from one or two towers.
...ok, metal ballons. But frankly, if you didn't have a cannon tower by then you were doing something wrong anyway. And it tells you to get your act together and make one at least two levels before that stage anyway.
But Bloons Tower Defence 4 has got me a little worried.
There's this new balloon called a Camo Balloon. Camo Balloons can't be targeted, so all your towers are useless. Tacks and Mortar Towers are your only hope, but it doesn't specifically say that the Mortar Towers are good against Camo Towers, and I don't remember seeing much of a warning either, although that might be because I'm playing on a laptop and the team didn't design their game for a small screen.
But you won't spend any money on Mortar Towers because A) they've never been implemented before and you automatically distrust them and B) you have to aim them so there's a micromanagment issue.
So once you get to the stage where there are a ton of these guys, it's all over. It's just annoying that they can't be killed by anything else.
I can't help but think that these guys have a new fresh faced designer that thought a new balloon was a good idea. And it was. But maybe it shouldn't have been the Camo Balloon.
MochiGames, though. It has Mochicoins that you can use to upgrade your game. Which is super cool, until you realise that you need to pay for the bloody things.
With real money.
Screw that. I do not pay real currency for false currency. That'd be like buying gold for your character in WoW, but this time the Mochi team actually encourage it.
You know what would have been great? Giving me coins for activity on the site. Finishing levels in games could give me, say, 20 coins. It's nothing compared to what you could buy, but it's something little that, with a little more activity on the site, you could build up quite a lot in a reasonably short amount of time.
But maybe that's the point. These guys need to money through Mochicoins to pay for the site. Makes sense - these guys don't use ads on their site.
But so much of the game is for sale. In Bloons Tower Defence 4, you can "buy ranks", letting you access new towers early if you give them money. That's almost exactly like buying levels for your character in WoW; and what if Blizzard would let you do that? Well, it would take the fun out of the game. All you would need to do to get a character up to level 80 is, I don't know, a hundred or so dollars.
That means you get no experiance playing the character all the way up to 80, and thats a serious problem because, well, you don't know how to play it. You don't grow attached to your characters either, and you end up giving up because it's "too easy". Being forced to claw your way up means you get to see the world and get used to your character, and also get satasfaction out of doing so.
Yahtzee, in his Scribblenauts review, said the same:
...sometimes I get the urge for a grilled cheese sandwhich and after going through the trouble of digging the Breville out, chewing up my knuckles on a rusty cheese grater and finding that my special Brandston Pickle has solidified, the struggle makes it all the tastier. If I could just wave my hands and conjure not just a grilled cheese sandwhich but two grilled cheese sandwhiches, being worn as a bra by a swimsuit model constructed from grilled cheese sandwhiches, it'd take all satasfaction out of life.
Anyway, Bloons Tower Defence 4 has caught my eye. NinjaKiwi, the guys who made it, have always done good games. But I fear Mochigames, the guys they decided to integrate their game with, have screwed them over a bit.
For one, MohciGames is evil. Very evil. But we'll get to that later.
Bloons Tower Defence has always been a reasonable sort of game. It doesn't pull too many "dick moves", like having a special sort of balloon that can't be killed by anything else apart from one or two towers.
...ok, metal ballons. But frankly, if you didn't have a cannon tower by then you were doing something wrong anyway. And it tells you to get your act together and make one at least two levels before that stage anyway.
But Bloons Tower Defence 4 has got me a little worried.
There's this new balloon called a Camo Balloon. Camo Balloons can't be targeted, so all your towers are useless. Tacks and Mortar Towers are your only hope, but it doesn't specifically say that the Mortar Towers are good against Camo Towers, and I don't remember seeing much of a warning either, although that might be because I'm playing on a laptop and the team didn't design their game for a small screen.
But you won't spend any money on Mortar Towers because A) they've never been implemented before and you automatically distrust them and B) you have to aim them so there's a micromanagment issue.
So once you get to the stage where there are a ton of these guys, it's all over. It's just annoying that they can't be killed by anything else.
I can't help but think that these guys have a new fresh faced designer that thought a new balloon was a good idea. And it was. But maybe it shouldn't have been the Camo Balloon.
MochiGames, though. It has Mochicoins that you can use to upgrade your game. Which is super cool, until you realise that you need to pay for the bloody things.
With real money.
Screw that. I do not pay real currency for false currency. That'd be like buying gold for your character in WoW, but this time the Mochi team actually encourage it.
You know what would have been great? Giving me coins for activity on the site. Finishing levels in games could give me, say, 20 coins. It's nothing compared to what you could buy, but it's something little that, with a little more activity on the site, you could build up quite a lot in a reasonably short amount of time.
But maybe that's the point. These guys need to money through Mochicoins to pay for the site. Makes sense - these guys don't use ads on their site.
But so much of the game is for sale. In Bloons Tower Defence 4, you can "buy ranks", letting you access new towers early if you give them money. That's almost exactly like buying levels for your character in WoW; and what if Blizzard would let you do that? Well, it would take the fun out of the game. All you would need to do to get a character up to level 80 is, I don't know, a hundred or so dollars.
That means you get no experiance playing the character all the way up to 80, and thats a serious problem because, well, you don't know how to play it. You don't grow attached to your characters either, and you end up giving up because it's "too easy". Being forced to claw your way up means you get to see the world and get used to your character, and also get satasfaction out of doing so.
Yahtzee, in his Scribblenauts review, said the same:
...sometimes I get the urge for a grilled cheese sandwhich and after going through the trouble of digging the Breville out, chewing up my knuckles on a rusty cheese grater and finding that my special Brandston Pickle has solidified, the struggle makes it all the tastier. If I could just wave my hands and conjure not just a grilled cheese sandwhich but two grilled cheese sandwhiches, being worn as a bra by a swimsuit model constructed from grilled cheese sandwhiches, it'd take all satasfaction out of life.
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