God, this game is awful. Don't buy it or play it, ever.
Now that that's out of the way, some comments.
This game really looked promising. It was being developed by tri-Ace, who also created the Star Ocean series and Radiata Stories (awesome game). The graphics looked amazing in previews, and it looked like tri-Ace was going to step into the big leagues of RPG development.
Wrong.
All of the focus was, apparently, on the graphics, and they completely forgot to make a good game. Right from the get go, you are thrust into fighting without any indication of why or how to do anything. Supposedly you look EXACTLY like some knight guy. And you don't even know who YOU are. And the dialogue/voice acting is LAME. Really Lame. Then, the game DUMPS tutorial screen upon tutorial screen on you. There is no gentle easing into the gameplay mechanics, like most well designed would do. You get 5 screens of text, and then they say, ok, go do it. This might beOK if the test weren't IMPOSSIBLE to read. They forget people still have normal, 27-inch, tube TVs. The text was beyond blurry, and even walking right up the the TV, I could not make out what buttons I had to press when they were talking about the L and R triggers. Luckily, the face buttons on the Xbox controller are colored, so at least I can see that. Bad engineering on that part.
Back to the bad design, this game is an action RPG. Actually, it is mostly a hack'n'slash. No turned based battles or even going to a different screen to fight. All the fighting is done right there on the game field. At first, it kind of reminded me of Zelda... only in no way was it good. it is an action-RPG that feels way to clunky. It was hard to maneuver may character effectively, and I also had to just rely on hacking everything in sight and hoping my party member healed me. Oh right, we have someone tagging along. At certain parts of the game, it forces you to control you other party member. This is an incredibly frustrating experience, since the tutorials do a horrible job of explaining how to control them. So you are left guessing, and usually end up dead. Again, terrible design.
Then, before you can even being to get your bearings with the combat system, you are put into a chase segment, where you have to run from a big fat monster thing. However, on the way, you have to kill people in your way. So, backing up a second, you press R2 to draw and sheath your sword. You can't loot treasure while your sword is out, nor can you inspect things or open doors. Frustrating. Also, you run faster while you have your sword sheathed. So, take it out to fight, put it away to run. So you run up to enemies to kill them, then you start running away from the fat guy. Oh right, I need to put away my sword to run faster. Your character has to FUCKING STOP and do this slow animation of him putting away his sword, and the while the monster thing is beating on you with his belly or large club. Frustrating. Oh there are more enemies and barricades I have to fight through. Start the whole annoying process over again.
Me and Meghan stopped playing after an hour. It was just too bad to warrant any more time wasted. Terrible game all around. It is a shame too, it would have been nice to see some of those awesome graphics. Guess they will be left.... undiscovered. (I'm sorry.. I just had to).
Dec 15, 2008
Video Game Awards
Last night was Spike's Video Game Awards. I was pretty excited to see what they did with it. I know that any kind of award show relating to video games is going to piss me off, but I was at least excited to see people talk about games.
This thing was a horrible mockery. Not only was it terribly managed by Spike (there were so many stupid mistakes....), but it was terribly managed AND utterly out of touch with anything related to video games. There was an endless parade of completely UNNECESSARY celebrity morons including LL Cool J, Mike Tyson, various UFC fighters, and some fucking horrible band filled with half-starved retarded children that I don't even want to know the name of. I mean, I could deal with the mistakes and the laid back approach as long as they kept it simple and kept it about the games. But the games were just an afterthought to the award show. Which means it was just a giant medium to sell advertising and for Spike to plug its other shows (nudge nudge UFC nudge nudge). I mean, I know games have been going towards the abyss of mainstream crapdom for a while, but it was just hard to watch what it has become. I should have expected it but, it was just sad.
Speaking of the games itself, all of the nominees were the equivalent of phoning it in. Not one intelligent thought or surprise pick was there. All we had were the blockbusters, the sequels, and the well-established series sludge. I'll admit that a lot of these were good games, but at least at the Oscars we see some actual artistic films filled with actual acting nominated, not just the blockbusters. Nope, we just get the Gears of Wars, the Grand Theft Autos, and the Rock Bands. No surprises. Hell, none of the games even nominated for Best RPG were actual RPGs. Come on, why not at least give a nod to games like Persona 4? Oh right, its just a mega-game from a major studio. Sorry I mentioned anything. Even Tales of Vesperia would be a nice nomination. Nope.
Uggggg. I hate to be one of those people but games were certainly of better quality when they weren't "mainstream". Games certainly have benefited in a way that they are no longer seen as some horrible thing only weird geeky people do. Nope, we are no longer lumped in with LARPers, and games like World of Warcraft and Guitar Hero (and the damn Wii) have certainly helped in that regard. But now, people only care about the blockbusters and the money making franchises. Smaller game studios keep getting eaten up, and the games industry is pretty much like the music industry now (but not quite as bad yet). You have those few giant corporations, and some smaller developers trying desperately to stay afloat.
And Jake Black wasn't even a host. More like a sideshow attraction.
Complete List of Nominees
List of Winners
/jaded
This thing was a horrible mockery. Not only was it terribly managed by Spike (there were so many stupid mistakes....), but it was terribly managed AND utterly out of touch with anything related to video games. There was an endless parade of completely UNNECESSARY celebrity morons including LL Cool J, Mike Tyson, various UFC fighters, and some fucking horrible band filled with half-starved retarded children that I don't even want to know the name of. I mean, I could deal with the mistakes and the laid back approach as long as they kept it simple and kept it about the games. But the games were just an afterthought to the award show. Which means it was just a giant medium to sell advertising and for Spike to plug its other shows (nudge nudge UFC nudge nudge). I mean, I know games have been going towards the abyss of mainstream crapdom for a while, but it was just hard to watch what it has become. I should have expected it but, it was just sad.
Speaking of the games itself, all of the nominees were the equivalent of phoning it in. Not one intelligent thought or surprise pick was there. All we had were the blockbusters, the sequels, and the well-established series sludge. I'll admit that a lot of these were good games, but at least at the Oscars we see some actual artistic films filled with actual acting nominated, not just the blockbusters. Nope, we just get the Gears of Wars, the Grand Theft Autos, and the Rock Bands. No surprises. Hell, none of the games even nominated for Best RPG were actual RPGs. Come on, why not at least give a nod to games like Persona 4? Oh right, its just a mega-game from a major studio. Sorry I mentioned anything. Even Tales of Vesperia would be a nice nomination. Nope.
Uggggg. I hate to be one of those people but games were certainly of better quality when they weren't "mainstream". Games certainly have benefited in a way that they are no longer seen as some horrible thing only weird geeky people do. Nope, we are no longer lumped in with LARPers, and games like World of Warcraft and Guitar Hero (and the damn Wii) have certainly helped in that regard. But now, people only care about the blockbusters and the money making franchises. Smaller game studios keep getting eaten up, and the games industry is pretty much like the music industry now (but not quite as bad yet). You have those few giant corporations, and some smaller developers trying desperately to stay afloat.
And Jake Black wasn't even a host. More like a sideshow attraction.
Complete List of Nominees
List of Winners
/jaded
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