I have had lots of time to play video games the last few days, and I've gotten to wondering why I like some games so much, and really disliked other similar games. Obviously what makes a good video game is rather subjective, but I will compare two games to maybe find out more about what I am looking for in video games.
I'll consider three games that I finished in the last day: Fallout 3, Gears of War, and Braid.
I loved Fallout 3. It was just the right mix of humor, gravity, role playing, first person shooter. It required no reflexes... maybe I'm getting old, but I thought VATS was amazing. Even when I had The Drifter's sniper Rifle, I was using VATS to target super mutants and Talon assassins alike. It felt a lot like Fallout 2, which I also loved. The game was a bit too easy, I had it turned up to the hardest setting at the end, and the only time I really came close to dying was when 4 or 5 Enclave solders would flank me when I was out in the open and I would fail to get a critical on one in VATS mode on the first couple. But then again, I focused on all good Perks, no silly ones like "Here and Now" or "Daddy's Girl". Maybe I would have been less overpowered if I didn't have like 75 points in VATS with Grim Reaper Sprint? It was fun playing as a good person in a wasteland of evil. It was awesome that I could do whatever I wanted and could ignore the storyline for a good 40 hours before I decided to go looking for my dad.
I love love loved Braid. That game was amazing. I don't want to say too much about it, but it was the best $15 I've ever spent on a game. I beat the game (no speed runs yet) in probably 4 hours with no hints or help from the web. I had to sleep on one of the puzzles, but came back in the morning and instantly saw how to do the puzzle. The last level was just twisted an was a better ending than 90% of games out there. (Bioshock, *cough* *cough*) Why did I like Braid? It was not stressful, you can rewind most things away. It was unique, it felt totally fresh and I don't think I've liked a puzzle game that much since The Adventures of Lola. (I bought that new.) The controls were spot on. At first it is weird not being able to run faster or jump higher, but once I got used to rewinding time, it was second nature.
I hated Gears of War. I'm not sure why, I really wanted to like Gears of War. It is not that I hate first person shooters... I thought CoD4 was the best game last year, and Halo 3 was lots of fun too (but maybe only multiplayer). Was Gears of War was maybe just too hard for me? The last game I hated this much was Code Veronica... I have never met a Resident Evil game I liked. I borrowed Gears of War from my cousin Adam, and his brother Brody has been trying to get me to buy Gears of War 2 to play multiplayer with them online... but the first game was just so frustrating and tedious that I can't see myself plunking down $60 for more frustration. I hear the sequel is better in multiplayer.
But what exactly do I dislike?
The controls are irritating. This can be said for Halo 3 and CoD4 too, but it is really annoying when a monster runs past me, and I just want to turn and shoot him with my Shotgun but I turn so slow that I can watch him take 4 bites out of my back before I die. Okay, so it is a console and you can't turn on a dime like you can with a mouse... well why can the monsters turn around and eat my head faster than I can turn and shoot them in the head?
I don't like cover systems? I actually like cover, that was a neat part of the game. But every so often you would get flanked and instead of diving for appropriate cover, you are stuck moving from cover to similar cover until the new enemy blows you up because you are not hiding from threats in his direction. This is probably the main reason I hated Metal Gear Solid 4... bad control. But GoW controls are easily 10 times better than MGS4, so I'm not sure that is it. And 95% of the time Fenix picked the correct cover.
The weapons are hard to manage. I really only liked a couple of the weapons in the game, but I had to keep putting them down to pick up a Hammer of Dawn or a Torque Bow for certain tasks... and I wouldn't get the weapon I like back afterward. I got stuck going through an entire chapter with no chain saw on my gun since I accidentally swapped out my main gun for a stupid Shot Gun just before a checkpoint. I would have loved a torque bow against the last boss, but I dropped it to pick up a hammer of Dawn and never thought to get another.
The bosses are random and not fun. I love good boss battles. Lately most games have wimpy bosses that fall over dead if you sneeze at them wrong (Zelda, I'm looking at you)... but the final boss in GoW was just silly. He had these bat things all over him so you can't hurt him, and he randomly sent them to attack you, and only then could you hurt him. But they could not hurt you if you were in the light. So you have to stay in the light. But the boss will walk towards you and eventually blow your head off with a Torque Bow or something point blank if you don't run away for cover... but if he releases the bat things while you are running for different corner you just die, they eat you. Oh, and there are other things randomly flying by that will occasionally kill you if you don't take cover from them too. It felt like when I finally won, I just got lucky and had him send his bats at me more than usual. No sense of accomplishment.
Why was CoD4 fun on Veteran while GoW was tedious on Casual (I beat half the game on Hardcore, then decided I didn't care)? I'm not sure. Maybe CoD4 just looked and felt happy while GoW feels ugly and sad? I seriously disliked my Black and Yellow Lynn Fury yoyo... but I love my Yellow and Green Lynn Fury Yoyo, and 50% of it is exactly the same yoyo!
Maybe I would have liked GoW if I could have saved like in Fallout 3 or had twice as many checkpoints like in CoD4? I think I'm just getting too old and slow to play newfangled first person shooters that require reflexes?
Oh well, at least I still have games like Fallout 3 expansions and the next drug induced game like Braid or Space Giraffe to look forward to.
God's Catch 22
10 years ago
