Ahh, the summer doldrums. Every year, I get to about this time and I cannot figure out what to play, which of course leads to not posting in a blog I made about gaming. I mean, what can I post when I am not playing anything all that interesting? I could have posted about how shocked I am that Mortal Kombat has gotten such a wonderful reboot, but I was not feeling it.
I could have posted about Fable 3 and how disappointing it was, but eh, I might not have given it enough of a shot. Same with Fallout: New Vegas, though that one did not work for me at all. The problem with both of those is I felt I had played them before, I played a ton of Fable 2 and Fallout 3, and these sequels did not change much in terms of gameplay. I wanted something new, something original. And that is where Catherine comes in.
This is just not something I think I would ever buy normally. I have never been an Atlas fan, so while they do make quality games, they have not been for me. And a game described as being an adult-oriented horror-puzzle game, I can honestly say that normally I would not go for this.
But, I was bored, and I needed something new. And, yes, this is new. Something very different. And a lot of fun.
I would recommend this to the 2 people that might read this blog. It is the odd game that does not just make you think with the game play (actually, the puzzles are not as hard as you might think) but with the questions they ask about relationships. They make you think about where you are in love and in life.
For once, a summer game was completely original and fun. Hopefully we will get more of these in the future.
It’s that I get to play games I was too cheap to buy when they first came out, and not feel bad about only playing them for 20 minutes. Thank you Valve!
Back when Square-Enix announced Final Fantasy XIV, I posted here (granted that post is lost for all time) that they could not possibly hit their target release date. Square-Enix is notorious for endless delays, and the fact that they had a successful MMO could allow them to basically sit around and ‘get it right’, at least that is how I thought. It was a great theory. Then, they had to go prove me wrong. Square-Enix actually held on to their release strategy, they released the full, retail version of this game last year. The result was, quite simply, less than desired.
This game was not just awful, it was unplayable. I was in the Beta for it, and the Beta was horrible. The general feeling in the Beta was that this game was nowhere near release, it had far too many bugs and the like. But, alas they released it. And the reviews went as expected. Subscriptions plumetted, and eventually, as happens when there is a gigantic screwup like this, Square-Enix pretty much fired the entire production team and had the game not collect subscription payments for the foreseeable future. In fact, it is still, to this day, not collecting a dime. Since this games release, the amount of changes has been extrodanary.
In short, this last YEAR has been an extended beta. A beta that everyone had to pay money to get into.
So, the next time you complain about Blizzard for taking their time to release Diablo III, or the time Valve is taking for Half-Life 2: Episode 3, then look at the entire debacle of Final Fantasy XIV. When a game is released too early, it is ruined, and it costs people their jobs. Allow these guys the time to create something good (and by time, I do not mean Duke Nukem Forever time, cause that is just as bad as what Square-Enix did.)
Back a few years ago, back in the GameCube days, people were really looking forward to the next Legend of Zelda game. Seeing as how, at that time, the last console Zelda game was Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, the anticipation was high. Then this anticipation was ramped up at Space World 2000 when, upon demo’ing their new GameCube console, Nintendo showed this video.
Apologies for the low quality, it was the best I could find.
So, of course upon seeing that, people went insane. Not nuts, insane. The anticipation went from ‘this is gonna be great’ to ‘THIS IS GONNA BE THE BEST THING EVER!!!1111′ which is always fun to watch. Well, what people did not quite get was that that was a tech demo, nothing more. That was not a game, it was a demo of what something could look like.
Then, this happened:
When Nintendo showed off Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, the reaction was, shall we say, tepid. Many people did not like the bright world that this showed, nor the cell shading, nor the cutesy graphics. They wanted dark, and foreboding. They wanted that Space World demo, damnit! While Wind Waker was a great game, many just dismissed it due to how it looked.
Which brings me to this year. In recent years, the Bioshock series has been one of the best. In fact, the original Bioshock is a favorite of mine. Dark, foreboding, and downright creepy, these games oozed atmosphere.
However, with the story in Bioshock 2 being what it was, people expected a major change in the next game, Bioshock Infinite. What people did not expect was this:
Holy cow that’s bright! I mean, look at the trailer, it is super bright!
Now, I think this looks fantastic, and I welcome the change. Yeah, it might not be as creepy as the first game, but that is fine. It looks like it will be fun! But, and here is what gets me, the same people, those ‘hardcore gamers’, that complained about Windwaker looking too ‘kiddy’ are cheering Bioshock Infinite’s look. Why?
Part of this makes no sense to me. I mean, Nintendo makes games for all ages, they are not a company to make a Call of Duty-like game. So, them making a bright, cartoony Zelda game is cool, that is what the series was founded on. But a bright, almost cartoony Bioshock game, which this is, is getting rave reviews. And this is cartoony, just take a look at the character model for Elizabeth:
That has an almost anime feel to it. Now, again, I am not complaining about the look of Bioshock Infinite, I am just amused that people were so pissed about the look of Wind Waker, swearing off Nintendo due to that, yet those same people are cheering Bioshock Infinite.
If I have a concern with Bioshock Infinite, it’s that the general creepyness of the original games will be lost in this bright new world. In my eyes, what made Bioshock work for me was the fact that the entire world creeped me out. For me, FPS’s are all similar, so a game that has that creepy factor will stand out more than another ‘hey look, New York is destroyed’ game. Bioshock had that up until now. Now, I get a bright new world in airships that won’t creep me out, but might give me this sense of wonder while travelling between airhips. Will it be the same? No. And that is the point. This might or might not work for me, but I hand it to 2K Games for trying.
So, with that said, can people finally get over the fact that Wind Waker was cell-shaded? It was an awesome game, just like Bioshock Infinite looks like it will be. Graphics do not make a game, gameplay does.
