Skip to main content

Quick Gaming Update: Splinter Cell Conviction, Alan Wake, From Dust

Splinter Cell Conviction: I enjoyed this for the most part. It is the first splinter Cell game I have actually played through to the end although the campaign is short so that isn't as significant as it sounds. Minor gripe: Much of the game is on very tight rails. General objection: Why do I have to kill everyone? Why can't I stealth past most obstacles?  Major Gripe: Auto difficult adjust continually pissed me off. On several occasions I came to a difficult section and died a few times working out a strategy. Then, just as I was about to put my master plan into place the game would halve the number of enemies trivialising the obstacle and destroying any feeling of achievement for overcoming it.

Alan Wake: I am half way through this game (3 out of six episodes). Thumbs up for the spooky atmosphere and strong storyline. Thumbs down for the dreadful combat. Combat in this game really stinks. In general you have to shine a torch at an enemy to make it vulnerable and then shoot it with bullets. Given that you almost always face several enemies coming from different directions, given that you have only one narrow torch beam and given that the controls are awkward and non responsive makes combat an exercise in frustrating tedium.   I much prefer the parts where you have no weapons because it means you get to do some exploring of a spooky environment. As soon as I pick up a gun my heart sinks because I know I am in for more of the stupid torch game.

From Dust: This It seems to me like a paper thin game built on a very clever engine. That engine allows you to morph the landscape of the game world moving sand rock and water around at will. You use these powers to help your human minions achieve certain goals, generally getting from A to B while avoiding certain environmental hazards along the way. It looks beautiful and really does give you tremendous freedom to shape the game world but I found the missions quickly become tiresome. The look and feel of the game strongly remind me of Spore but the gameplay lacks Spore's depth.

Interesting side note: I played all of the above games on my PC using an Xbox 360 controller despite the fact that they have perfectly adequate mouse and keyboard control options. Partly this is because these games were originally designed for controller and it feels like the most natural control scheme for them. Partly it is because I like being able to put my keyboard which I use for work aside and pick up a controller for play. I still believe that mouse and keyboard is a better control scheme for many types of games: First person shooters, anything that requires precise aiming and complex games like RTS with lots of buttons. One of my biggest peeves with the controller is how many games use context sensitive buttons which do different things depending on where you are. For example the same button is used for running and jumping depending on whether or not there is an obstacle in front of you.  It is no doubt a response to the limited number of buttons on a controller but I find it very immersion breaking and it robs my sense of in game freedom. Sadly most games which do this copy the same limitation to a mouse and keyboard control scheme so there is no advantage to be gained from switching.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My First Gaming Mouse: Logitech G300

I bought a gaming mouse yesterday a Logitech G300, here my initial thoughts. What is a gaming mouse?  There are a wide variety of devices available classified as gaming mice but a few features  seem common: 1. Wired rather than wireless: Although some high end models are wireless wired connections are just better and faster than wireless so most gaming mice stick with wired. As a bonus wired mice don't need batteries so the mouse is lighter.  2. High response rate: 1 to 2ms response rate so the mouse immediately responds to input.  2. High DPI. Gaming mice invariable boast high DPI numbers from 2,000 DPI upwards. This makes the device very responsive to the smallest movements.   3. Adjustable DPI . High DPI improves responsiveness but reduces precision so gaming mice generally allow you to adjust the DPI down for precise work such as pulling off headshots in sniper mode. Generally the mouse allows dpi to be changed on the fly by pressing a button.  4. Extr

Portal 2 two screen coop on one PC.

I mentioned before that I intended to try Portal 2 in "unofficial split screen co-op mode. Well split screen on a small computer monitor is a recipe for a headache especially when the game defies gravity as much as portal. However a minor bit of extra fiddling allowed us to drive two seperate screens from one PC. The Steam forums describes a complicated method of doing this that I couldn't get working so this simpler method which worked for me might be of use to someone. 1. First I followed the instructions in this post to get split screen multi-player working: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1847904 A minor issue not mentioned is that you need to enable the console from the keyboard/mouse options menu I am using keyboard and one wired Xbox360 controller as suggested. Getting the controller to switch to channel 2 was tricky at first but as Chameleon8 mentions plugging it out and in again during loading works. The trick for me was to do the plug / p

Return to New Eden and a Secret Confession

I feel a growing temptation to return to EVE but having been away from mmos for quite a while I am not quite ready to resubscribe.  Instead I started a disposable character on a free trial to test my resolve.  Knowing that this character will be thrown in the bin in a couple of weeks is actually quite liberating. Freed from the fear of gimping my character I feet no necessity to min max anything. I picked a Gallente because I think they have cool looking spaceships and went from there. First obvious change since I last played is being able to walk around my Captain's quarters. Its a nice idea but hardly a game changer. Can you decorate your quarters I wonder and if so do these home improvements move around with you wherever you go? The second obvious change is the much improved tutorial. I managed to make it through the first steps introduction without having to resort to on-line help or the  chat channel which is a first for me in EVE. Even better once you have finis