I’ve played almost every Final Fantasy game released in the United States. I bought Final Fantasy VI a second time just so I could play it at work on my Game Boy Advance. There’s an army of Final Fantasy action figures on my desk. I have twenty-nine versions of the chocobo theme on my iPod. I have a plush tonberry doll. I named the plush tonberry doll.*
And even I think the Dissidia story is completely bonkers.
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While talking to someone recently about real time strategy games, I was trying to explain the distinct appeal of Company of Heroes as opposed to Starcraft II. They’re both excellent games, they both look fantastic, and they both reward skilled gameplay. But they’re hugely different in an important way.
Starcraft II is designed as an e-sport. It rewards skill above all else. It’s based on the placement of a sentry shield, the crucial seconds spent moving drones between resources, and the timing of a chronoboost. It’s a gorgeous game, to be sure, but it was built primarily for its long and arguably infinite learning curve.
Company of Heroes is a war movie game to end all war movie games, and it captures the feel of World War II action as well as any shooter. You can’t help but be awed by the destructible terrain, the animation, the voice acting, the explosions, and the spectacle of it all. It requires skill, to be sure, but it’s one of those rare RTSs that lives in your gut more than your head.
This idea of a skill vs. spectacle is a spectrum. I can’t think of any RTS that doesn’t appeal to both skill and spectacle. It’s just that some lean one way or the other.
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Stalker Call of Pripyat is a gorgeous game. All the graphical elements are top-notch, but of particular note is the art direction, which evokes an incredibly bleak environment and still manages to be mysterious and beautiful at the same time. Sure, the grass sort of appears around you as you walk, and some of the objects in the world are a little chunky, but overall the game is totally gorgeous. Most importantly, it does a fantastic job of placing you in the blasted, worn out world of the Zone, making it feel lived in and picked over and rusted and real. It’s a gorgeous game.
After the jump, something may or may not happen Continue reading →
At one point in the co-op action game, Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, the players drift down a river on a round raft. The raft has four motors on the edges. When a player uses one of the motors, the raft drifts in the appropriate direction. This being a raft floating on water and physics being physics, it is liable to turn as it moves. So that can get messy. Then there are the other three yahoos on the raft who might have their own ideas about where the raft should go. I once went canoeing with my buddy Kevin when I was a kid. I was awesome at paddling the canoe. But he kept screwing us up by paddling different from me. Canoes, man. It’s a wonder humanity ever made it across the Bering Strait.
Anyway, while you’re spinning and drifting down this river, you’re trying to pick up flaoting loot boxes. And did I mention that there are bombs floating all over the place? Also giant turtles with spiky shells. I suspect it will be one of those levels I’ll be driven to finish solely because I never want to have to play it again.
During a demo of the level, the game’s developer, Chad Dezern, calls the raft “an extremely democratic vehicle”. And, yeah, I’d say that’s a pretty good approximation of the contemporary political process.
(In case it’s not clear, the raft represents Barack Obama, the port motor is Harry Reid, the starboard motor is John Boehner, the turtles are Rush Limbaugh, and the bombs are Glenn Beck’s tears. The river itself is stuff Fox News says. The loot boxes are the state parks that didn’t have to close this past week.)
Sims Medieval was a real revelation to me. I expected some sort of cheap EA add-on. Instead, I got something brilliant. Just when I think I’m over The Sims, it’s pulls me back in.
Thumbs up. Way up.
