My own personal Multi Game Pileup

OH THE HUMANITY

I've seen a backlog of games as long as my leg, thanks to Scotty.  He's a very dedicated purchaser of games that pique his interest.  Needless to say, he has a wide range of interests.

But I never thought I would have a backlog of games myself.  Sure, I have games that I have bought for the occasional time I'm feeling the mood, like Quake II or Endless Space.  And there are games I just own for the sake of owning, like Commander Keen.

But then there are games that I really want to play.  And given the discount, or enough incentive and motivation, I would snatch that up quick smart.  Like Fallout 3 that I picked up the other day for $5.  Or The Orange Box that I picked up for $5.  Or the numerous games that I have gotten for free over the last month.

It's starting to get a little out of hand, and I think I'm going to have to start a Schedule on what games I'm to play before it gets out of hand.

I know there are those who scoff at me, for my relative handful of games that I've left unplayed or unfinished.  Like I said, Scott has a pile as long as my leg.  Probably longer since I last saw him.  Lets hope I won't let it get that out of hand, and before I get more games.

Current List as it Stands

• The Orange Box (Half Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2)
• Borderlands the Pre-Sequel
• Fallout 3
• Hitman
• Tales from the Borderlands
• Metro 2033
• Final Fantasy Tactics

List for Achievement Completion

• Borderlands 2
• Xcom Enemy Within

Nothing Rhymes with Orange (Box)

Needless to say, I have a catalogue of games that I haven't even touched.  Quake 4 was untouched until a few months ago, and so was Doom 3, though I do have to return to that.

But when I woke up morning to drudge through the tedium of Destiny to find a $5 deal on what is considered a religious experience in video games, I had to have it.  What is $5 after all when you're buying five games at once?

I haven't played Half Life in decades.  It's been so long that I can't even remember what platform I actually played it on.  I think it was Playstation, but it could've been an Xbox.  But I do remember that it was fun and challenging.

I don't know much about Half Life 2 except that it was very VERY popular when Scott and Aaron had played it those decades ago, and that it has spawned a cult which involves creating a hidden announcement about Half Life 3 from the most pedantic details, and run through a Rube Goldberg machine of mathematics and pop culture references until it results in the number 3, with possibly more coming to provide dates and times.  Kinda like the coming of the apocalypse.

So I dove into the game and found myself feeling like the game has actually aged really well.  Conversations and animations are all really quite good.  Not blocky, not cheap.  A real production value hampered only by the ability of a household computer.

It's a good day when a game can actually do that to you, whether it's frustrating you by how tiny and agile those fucking headcrabs are and making you waste far too much of your ammunition to warrant killing them, to making you really panic when other characters are giving you the fear of God.  Or better yet, making you want to flip the bird to who you think is the antagonist (At least I think he is, you know, the guy providing the scientific propaganda?).

I'm yet to finish the first game and move onto Episode 1 and 2, because I've either been binge watching Raising Hope and My Name is Earl, or playing through some Borderlands the Pre-Sequel while wishing Destiny had the same effort put into it without the plans of exploitation of their devoted fans, but I'm pushing through chapter by chapter.

I might just load it up now, actually...

Self Blindness

What has been seen cannot be unseen

I was looking at a Kotaku post about the ideal shooter and it struck me as pretty true.  The points of being a shooter were spot on, and the biggest thing I agreed with was the lack of verticality that Valve apparently implored other developers in past interviews.

The thing that stuck with me was the point about Feedback, where shooting something did more than just an arbitrary "You hit" notice.  You had a visual impact, whether it was the shattering of a pane of glass, to the flinch and limp of an enemy on their last legs.  And it got me thinking about another post about Number Games.

I've been playing Half Life 2 and I've gotten back to actually tracking how much ammunition it takes to drop an enemy.  It's something I've done for ages, all the way back to playing Doom.  It made the difference between knowing I have the right weapon and having to back pedal out of dodge.

Some other games I've played don't have to worry about that because of Health Bars and Digits.  You get to know if you've clocked someone in the head and how much that should impede them.  If you get one lucky sniper shot into someone's head and it only takes off 25% of that bar, you already know you're in for a bad time.

So how much of a difference would it make to just drop the bar entirely?

Borderlands The Pre-Sequel is my latest game to have this.  They've always had the digits jump out on a successful hit and it's bothered me a little because it would get in the way of what I was aiming for, especially if I had a bee line for someone's head.

On top of that, it provided the information of what I could use to counter it. Red Bars required Fire.  Blue required Shock.  Yellow required Corrosive.  After that, you could explode them or freeze them.  Sometimes it was pretty obvious what was required to take down whatever behemoth or minion was throwing themselves at you, but occasionally it didn't.  That was what make me think.  If I had to figure out what I had to use, then that'd make the game very different.

Sure, the game provides those visual effects to show that "Hey, they've lost shield" or "this element is super effective against such and such", but it's a bit overshadowed by the cacophony of digits jumping out from the guy like hordes of rats from a sinking ship.  The only thing that doesn't is when the enemy is on about 15% health and is limping their way towards you.

I look back at Xcom: Enemy Unknown.  There's an option that I'm going to use on it's next expansion which removes the Health Bar from enemies, so you have to guess how hard you have to hit something before you move on.  It's a little thing that can change how you play.

Do I want that for other games?  Not necessarily.  But I would like the option.

The Dark art of Video Game Resurrection

Click the pic for the original site

A long time ago I was somewhat excited about HD Remakes of games for multiple reasons, the biggest two reasons were that I would be able to get games that I hadn't been able to get before, and games that I did have but couldn't play would be made available.

But after picking up a handful of them, I came to a realisation that they weren't putting in any effort into it.  Take Splinter Cell for example.  It's a good game in it's own right.  But the FMV's were literally torn from the original game and put in the remake.  No buffering, not even an upscale on resolution.  It looked like crap.  Even in-game, one could tell that little effort was put into it except for reskinning various awkward polygons.

Same with the Halo Anniversary Edition.  They advertised that the only thing that would be changed about the game is the environment details would be significantly updated.  And yes, they granted that, but I felt it was a bit dumbed down by the experience of fighting an AI that was about 10 years old.

It was disheartening to say the least.

Mind you, there were a few remakes that I haven't been disappointed in.  One of which is Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together.  It was rebuffed in style, fixed in a few areas and provided a few extras here and there.  Subsequently, I've spent over 150 hours on it.  Probably another 10 on top if you include the times that I deleted the save file to start again after a few months time.

But it's what you would want from a remade game.  It's like a sequel, it's cleverer, it's cleaner, it's smoother, and it's a more entertaining experience.  And remakes like that are few and far between.

One of which that came out sometime in the last month was Black Mesa.  It was a fan made remake of the first Half Life game, and they look to have done a fantastic job re-imagining the game with an up to date game engine.

And they admitted to performing a few tweaks to the game itself, and they were based on the changes made for Half Life 2.  That gets a massive Thumbs up in my opinion.  Rather than just buffering the visuals, empower the entire thing.

Returning to Halo Anniversary Edition, I voiced my opinion on how different the game would be like if the enemies reacted the same way as they do in Halo Reach, the last addition to the series, and how nice it would have been to simply have the option to go into the game thinking "I'm playing a game that started an era.  But not as I know it."

I had the same perverted thought with Borderlands.  When I started playing Borderlands 2, I picked up on all the little things they did to improve the game.  Like certain enemies zig-zagging around as they approached you; the Rock-Paper-Scissors effect of weapon elements and enemy types are more significant; the need to actually take cover because you're not as effective of a bullet sponge as you were in the first game.

The thought occurred that the developers of Borderlands could release a patch, an update with some of these changes, for the first game.  I for one would happily return back to the game and start playing again  Especially if they rehashed the Skill Trees.

But the point remains the same: Question whether the remake is worth it.  Because you could just be suckered into buying disappointment, rather than what you want: A steadier, cleaner reintroduction into familiar territory.