Mass Effect is the best movie I’ve ever played. Many would read that as insulting (still having the “interactive movies” in memory), and I would mean it as insulting due to lack of interactivity in many other cases, but this is only in a positive way. From camera angles during dialogue sessions and the dialogue itself to the scenery, level-design and art direction it all goes with a very movie-like feeling, but it never takes the power away from the player. The Dessing Story The following section will contain spoilers, so skip it if you haven’t played the game. The movie, considered as such, is perhaps not the best I’ve “seen” from a dramatic perspective, yet still very engaging. Act one starts out as a fetch-mission turned battleground, following to an investigation to convince the council (the board of the galaxy) to accept one of their top agents is the enemy, which then lets the player become such an agent. Act two then follows several clues of the enemy’s presence, cleaning up the chaos he’s caused. This ends up in a frontal assault on one of his bases, the big plot-twist and the first encounter with the enemy himself. Act […]
Game
I made a “review” about both Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR, or just K because I’m going to write it a lot)-games almost a year ago, and said something along the lines with “the first has better atmosphere, the second has a few technical advantages” (that’s not a quote). After having played KotOR2 again one, and almost two, times more, I have really changed opinion about the game, so a new review feels like a good thing. And that I’ve learned a lot about game design since last year has it’s effects, as well. K2 starts off five years after K1 ended in the player either saving or dooming the world. From such a starting-point, you have to wonder how you can have one starting point in what should be two completely different worlds. The developers, Obsidian Entertainment, decided to give you a character who was missing from the galaxy during K1, and starts the game outside of current galactic events. From a “make sense”-perspective, that’s a smart move, but from an interest curve-perspective, it makes the game start off with a lack of bang. And it takes a long time until the plot starts to have a real […]
New KotOR2 “review”
I’ve noticed, as I’ve written, that some of my reviews have been a bit unfocused and fell into what my history teacher used to call the “fact trap”. I’ll try to solve this by focusing on about three things, probably features of some sort, and quickly get to my opinion and arguements why I think that. So, Eternal Darkness. Google it up for some general info, this review will focus on three things: The sanity system, the magic system and how you heal. The sanity system, to start with, is a clever idea. As monsters see you, your sanity decreases. As you finishes monsters off, it goes back up. When your sanity is low, you start to get hallucinations of different sorts. If the meter is empty, you get damaged if monsters see you. This is a cool idea – the hallucinations can make you doubt if what you see before you is actually happening or not, making you suspicious to every action while playing. But it has a lot of oddities: Firstly, it decreases if the monsters see you, not the opposite (if I see monsters). Secondly, it takes on the health-bar if there’s no sanity meter (how can […]
“Review”: Eternal Darkness
As you might have spotted, I’m doing something a bit different this time – I’ve put two games to review in the same article. That might sound odd, but in this case it’s possible – the games are very similiar design-wise, yet I find the feeling of playing them vastly different from one another. Let’s begin at the ground-level – KOTOR is an abbreviation for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, a series of two RPGs (made by different devs, so I’ll avoid typing them out not to step on some random google-user’s toes). As with any RPG (that I’ve played, which counts out the Final Fantasies), the story can be played like a good book – you play a bit now and then and think abouthow the story may progress when not playing – that in itself is a good opinion. But unlike books, you have a bit more power of the story’s progression – you can often choose from a pool of replies to most comments, which gives different results. For instance, they may push you on the Light-Dark scale, which only real effect is making some spells more expensive and others cheaper. But I didn’t notice […]
“Review”: The KOTORs
Next up on my review-list is a newer game then F-zero GX, but still not new enough to be smoking hot. I haven’t played this in awhile, which means I can only really comment on what I remember thinking about the game. Which means I won’t get into small details. So, the newest Legend of Zelda. Actually, I could end the review right here, because I’ve already summed it up. It’s just another Zelda-game which doesn’t do too much differently from it’s other incarnations. The big pencil-strokes are very predictable: Ganondorf is evil, Zelda is your standard kidnapped princess, and you are the Hero who goes off and fixes the world, and meets a dark gnome who turns out to be the “Twilight Princess” the game’s named after. It’s the smaller strokes that impresses the more. The friend that turns out having lost her memory which you have to find things that are connected to her to make her regain it. The Zora prince who’s mother got executed and who’s health conditions are grave. The Gorons who refuse to face anyone as their leader have gone nuts which they see as dishonouring to them. The kids who chase the monkey […]