What a Year For Video Games
The last time I remember getting this excited about all of the great games coming out was the golden age of the SNES heyday.
I've had a chance to play through most of the titles that made my list this fall and I haven't been disappointed yet.
It seems like everyone's buzzing about Half-Life 2 Orange Box, and with good reason. Half Life 2 is one of the most solid and entertaining games ever made. The game itself is actually 3 years old but somehow still manages to outshine most of its contemporaries. The story is intriguing and complex, but not overreaching. The voice acting and facial animation are so fluid and natural that you don't really notice them until you view them in comparison to newer games like Halo 3 and wonder why the rest of the game industry is still 3 years behind Valve (Half-Life 2's creator). Visually the game is gorgeous with its dynamic lighting, particle-filled explosions, realistic textures and shading. Aurally this game outshines anything I've ever experienced - the sound of weapons firing is somehow more visceral than in any other game I've ever played. Ambient noise in most games feels like an afterthought, but here it powerfully and convincingly draws you into the story. The controls are the best I've ever used in an FPS. They seem tuned perfectly for the XBOX. And if Half-Life 2 wasn't good enough by itself, the Orange Box comes with two more "episodes" to the story - each is about 5-6 hours long, giving you essentially an entire new game. The set also includes one of the most original twists on an FPS that I've ever seen - the puzzle solving adventure, Portal. Portal was a complete surprise and even at only 5-6 hours long, it provides enough problem-solving fun to be worth nearly the price of the whole set by itself. If you only get one game for your 360, it should be Orange Box. By far the best value and most fun. I have little interest in the PC version of this game because I don't like Steam, or more the the point, I don't like the idea of not being allowed to play an offline game without an Internet connection and a spyware account. From what I'm hearing, the PS3 version has some noticeable flaws that the PC and 360 versions do not, but I don't have first hand knowledge of that.
Super Mario Galaxy was a riot. As addictive, fun and challenging as any game in the Mario proper series, Galaxy truly takes everything Nintendo has learned from its previous games and improves on it. As with any Mario game, the worst part is getting to the end, finishing every challenge and realizing that there is no more. I spent a good 30 hours with this gem and finished it begging for more. The game seems to perfectly balance the needs of both first-time gamers and long-time veterans without resorting to things like difficulty settings. Nintendo provided enough low-challenge stages to allow unskilled players to complete enough of the game to defeat Bowser and enjoy a sense of accomplishment. At the same time, they provided enough challenge and incentive for veteran players to feel the same sense of accomplishment by getting all 120 stars and getting the special ending - and, believe me, some of those bonus stages are nearly impossible. This game has more story than most of the games in the series. Personally, I preferred it when Mario games left most of that to the imagination, but that's hardly an unbiased observation. The controls were natural, and although the gravity twisting and dramatic perspective shifts (like walking upside down or on the side of an object instead of on top of it) were a bit disorienting at first, after an hour or two, I felt perfectly at home with them. My wife really got a kick out of using a second Wii-remote to help me gather stars and stun enemies. Graphically, it is beautiful. I'm using the best setup available - component cables connected to an HDTV and playing the game in progressive scan mode, so your mileage may vary, but overall it's very impressive, with brilliant use of color and dynamic lighting. The music wasn't quite as memorable as that of its predecessors. It was standard fare, but I enjoyed the remixes of older tunes moreso than any of the newer material. Maybe I'm just getting crusty in my old age. Overall, though, I'd say that this is a definite must-have for Wii owners. Hopefully Nintendo will start bundling it with the Wii and we'll have come full circle to the days when the system shipped with the premier Mario title.
Assassin's Creed kept me entertained for a good 35 hours. Let me start off by saying, do not buy the PS3 version of this game. If the PS3 is all you have, just skip it - it's not worth ruining an otherwise thrilling experience with horrible frame-rate and lighting problems. I can't believe that some quality assurance team looked at the 360 and PS3 versions of this game side by side and thought that the PS3 version was okay to unleash on the public. Ubisoft must have expected that the positive press over the 360 version would muffle any complaints from the poor shafted PS3 owners. If someone tells you the difference isn't that big, then they have no idea what they're talking about. So, this impression is on the 360 version which I was lucky enough to replace my nasty original PS3 purchase with. The game had a very procedural feel to it - from the way that the story progresses, to the objectives, to the crowd behavior. I've seen some reviewers trashing the game for being repetitive, but I don't see a problem with vaguely repetitive tasks as long as they're fun. Plus, most of the repetitive elements are optional anyway. Stealing a page out of other A-list titles like Symphony of the Night, or Metroid Prime, you start the game with all of the powers and abilities available, and then you lose them. As you regain each one, you are compelled to appreciate its place in your arsenal, and this provides a natural learning process. By the end of the game, you'll be using nearly every one of the skills you've learned as instinctively as the main character should. Visually, the game is gorgeous. It has set a standard by which I'll judge every 360 and PS3 game in this generation. The controls are fluid and responsive, and the story is very interesting, if a bit predictable. When the game starts, you are presented with a disclaimer of sorts saying that the game was created by members of a lot of different faiths. After discovering the more controversial elements of the story, I have to admit I was offended by some of the fictitious implications about Christianity, or more directly about Christ himself. Not being a Muslim, I cannot surmise whether it is nearly as offensive to Muslims. It's a good thing I don't get my theology from a game. As laughable as that notion sounds, the frightening reality is that the same people who lent credence to The Davinci Code will probably adopt attitudes from the story in this game.
Mass Effect was, in many ways, a disappointment. The game has greatness in its soul, but it can be very difficult at times to see past its gaping flaws and shortcomings to really enjoy it. Graphically it's very pretty, and thank God Bioware added an option to remove the annoying film grain effect. But for all of its beauty, the game is extremely glitchy. After a while you learn to tune out the minor jumps and pops as the camera struggles to follow you while the game is loading - and it is nearly always loading something. About 10 hours into the game, the inventory system becomes an annoying and unintentional mini game because your inventory is limited to an anemic 150 items. The problem isn't so much not having enough space, it's sorting through the equipment and deciding what to keep and what to sell or melt down. Looting is automatic - once you kill someone, any loot they were carrying just becomes part of your inventory. Unfortunately the game will allow you to exceed the 150 item limit, say during a firefight, and not tell you until you unwittingly try to open the equipment menu, at which point you are mercilessly forced to melt down all of the new loot (and newer is almost always better) to get your item total beneath the 150 item threshold. You are unable to cancel out of this screen until you have melted down everything you just got. Very poor design choice. What's worse, there's no way to look at your entire inventory on one screen unless you're at a vendor. In order to assess your inventory you often have to dig three menus deep to see what's available. This may sound petty, but it actually becomes an immensely annoying chore that distracts from the fun of the game. The side games are also extremely repetitive. There are basically two different layouts used for buildings and bunkers for the side quests, and aside from the junk scattered throughout the rooms are exactly identical in every respect, from the layout down to the color of the soil visible through the glass tubes connecting identical boxlike rooms. Every ground mission is basically the same wash-rinse-repeat operation. Some of the skyscapes visible from the planets are quite beautiful, but there is otherwise very little variety. Leveling up is basically identical to Knights of the Old Republic, except there seem to be fewer abilities available to each class, and the Dungeons and Dragons style descriptions of abilities are replaced by somewhat more straightforward terms. The combat is decent and neither impresses, nor leaves room for complaint; I didn't find anything particularly satisfying or annoying about it. Its faults aside, however, the music and story are the areas in which Mass Effect really excels. The main story arc of Mass Effect is extremely entertaining and there are a few "wow" moments culminating into one of the best "last two hours" I've spent with a game in a very very long time. Filled with dramatic synth, the music often reminded me of 80's sci-fi like Terminator and created a very unique mood throughout. When the action heats up or is about to heat up, the tempo and volume rise slightly to get your blood pumping and it's a very effective tool. All in all, Mass Effect was a good game, and the ending makes up for its shortcomings, but only just. It could definitely have used more polish, and BioWare shouldn't have been so frightened of spanning it across two discs. RPG players not only don't mind this, but we sort of like it. I suspect that a good deal of the incessant loading has something to do with the compression required to keep the size down to one 9GB disk.
Crysis was the best option I could find for testing out my new PC. My machine specs read like the recommended system on the Crysis box, but the game still wouldn't run at full speed with the settings on high. The game requires some obscure November update to DirectX that evidently didn't garner its own version number, nor was it something the developers thought they would need to include with the game itself. After the obligatory hour of installing and hour of troubleshooting that always reminds me why I avoid PC games like the plague, I finally got Crysis up and running. Another twenty minutes of tweaking controls and switching to 64-bit mode and I actually had the game working rather passably with my XBOX 360 controller. My impression of the first half of the game was pretty meh. Nothing really stood out from any other FPS I had played, except maybe the fact that the designers do not share my opinion that vehicles should be fun or easy to use. The suit functions are neat, but the stealth mode is really the only one that's really useful, and it is so limited that it was more difficult than fun to use. But after a while I fell into a rhythm and it started to get fun. At about the halfway point in the game, the gameplay changed radically and for the better. (Spoiler Alert) When gravity went bye-bye in the bowels of the alien complex, I really started to have respect for the game. It was unique and fun and challenging, visually and audibly stimulating and spooky all at once. Unfortunately that section only accounted for about a quarter of the entire game. The last quarter of the game was spent on unimaginative, contrived missions and frustratingly limiting vehicular combat. I could have forgiven it but that was also the quarter of the game that seemed most unfinished, as evidenced by numerous glitches that forced me to reload previous saves and replay the same section just so I could move the game forward. Important events would just simply fail to happen. The crown jewel of this glitch fest was when the game gave me a shiny new gun to kill the end boss with that just mysteriously decided not to work on the end boss. I had to back track nearly 90 minutes into older saves, spending over 2 hours playing through the same set of events over and over until I found a save prior to whatever glitch made the magical gun decide not to fire. Maybe most PC gamers are okay with beta software like this, but I'll stick with 95% finished games on my consoles, thank you very much.
I've had a chance to play through most of the titles that made my list this fall and I haven't been disappointed yet.
It seems like everyone's buzzing about Half-Life 2 Orange Box, and with good reason. Half Life 2 is one of the most solid and entertaining games ever made. The game itself is actually 3 years old but somehow still manages to outshine most of its contemporaries. The story is intriguing and complex, but not overreaching. The voice acting and facial animation are so fluid and natural that you don't really notice them until you view them in comparison to newer games like Halo 3 and wonder why the rest of the game industry is still 3 years behind Valve (Half-Life 2's creator). Visually the game is gorgeous with its dynamic lighting, particle-filled explosions, realistic textures and shading. Aurally this game outshines anything I've ever experienced - the sound of weapons firing is somehow more visceral than in any other game I've ever played. Ambient noise in most games feels like an afterthought, but here it powerfully and convincingly draws you into the story. The controls are the best I've ever used in an FPS. They seem tuned perfectly for the XBOX. And if Half-Life 2 wasn't good enough by itself, the Orange Box comes with two more "episodes" to the story - each is about 5-6 hours long, giving you essentially an entire new game. The set also includes one of the most original twists on an FPS that I've ever seen - the puzzle solving adventure, Portal. Portal was a complete surprise and even at only 5-6 hours long, it provides enough problem-solving fun to be worth nearly the price of the whole set by itself. If you only get one game for your 360, it should be Orange Box. By far the best value and most fun. I have little interest in the PC version of this game because I don't like Steam, or more the the point, I don't like the idea of not being allowed to play an offline game without an Internet connection and a spyware account. From what I'm hearing, the PS3 version has some noticeable flaws that the PC and 360 versions do not, but I don't have first hand knowledge of that.
Super Mario Galaxy was a riot. As addictive, fun and challenging as any game in the Mario proper series, Galaxy truly takes everything Nintendo has learned from its previous games and improves on it. As with any Mario game, the worst part is getting to the end, finishing every challenge and realizing that there is no more. I spent a good 30 hours with this gem and finished it begging for more. The game seems to perfectly balance the needs of both first-time gamers and long-time veterans without resorting to things like difficulty settings. Nintendo provided enough low-challenge stages to allow unskilled players to complete enough of the game to defeat Bowser and enjoy a sense of accomplishment. At the same time, they provided enough challenge and incentive for veteran players to feel the same sense of accomplishment by getting all 120 stars and getting the special ending - and, believe me, some of those bonus stages are nearly impossible. This game has more story than most of the games in the series. Personally, I preferred it when Mario games left most of that to the imagination, but that's hardly an unbiased observation. The controls were natural, and although the gravity twisting and dramatic perspective shifts (like walking upside down or on the side of an object instead of on top of it) were a bit disorienting at first, after an hour or two, I felt perfectly at home with them. My wife really got a kick out of using a second Wii-remote to help me gather stars and stun enemies. Graphically, it is beautiful. I'm using the best setup available - component cables connected to an HDTV and playing the game in progressive scan mode, so your mileage may vary, but overall it's very impressive, with brilliant use of color and dynamic lighting. The music wasn't quite as memorable as that of its predecessors. It was standard fare, but I enjoyed the remixes of older tunes moreso than any of the newer material. Maybe I'm just getting crusty in my old age. Overall, though, I'd say that this is a definite must-have for Wii owners. Hopefully Nintendo will start bundling it with the Wii and we'll have come full circle to the days when the system shipped with the premier Mario title.
Assassin's Creed kept me entertained for a good 35 hours. Let me start off by saying, do not buy the PS3 version of this game. If the PS3 is all you have, just skip it - it's not worth ruining an otherwise thrilling experience with horrible frame-rate and lighting problems. I can't believe that some quality assurance team looked at the 360 and PS3 versions of this game side by side and thought that the PS3 version was okay to unleash on the public. Ubisoft must have expected that the positive press over the 360 version would muffle any complaints from the poor shafted PS3 owners. If someone tells you the difference isn't that big, then they have no idea what they're talking about. So, this impression is on the 360 version which I was lucky enough to replace my nasty original PS3 purchase with. The game had a very procedural feel to it - from the way that the story progresses, to the objectives, to the crowd behavior. I've seen some reviewers trashing the game for being repetitive, but I don't see a problem with vaguely repetitive tasks as long as they're fun. Plus, most of the repetitive elements are optional anyway. Stealing a page out of other A-list titles like Symphony of the Night, or Metroid Prime, you start the game with all of the powers and abilities available, and then you lose them. As you regain each one, you are compelled to appreciate its place in your arsenal, and this provides a natural learning process. By the end of the game, you'll be using nearly every one of the skills you've learned as instinctively as the main character should. Visually, the game is gorgeous. It has set a standard by which I'll judge every 360 and PS3 game in this generation. The controls are fluid and responsive, and the story is very interesting, if a bit predictable. When the game starts, you are presented with a disclaimer of sorts saying that the game was created by members of a lot of different faiths. After discovering the more controversial elements of the story, I have to admit I was offended by some of the fictitious implications about Christianity, or more directly about Christ himself. Not being a Muslim, I cannot surmise whether it is nearly as offensive to Muslims. It's a good thing I don't get my theology from a game. As laughable as that notion sounds, the frightening reality is that the same people who lent credence to The Davinci Code will probably adopt attitudes from the story in this game.
Mass Effect was, in many ways, a disappointment. The game has greatness in its soul, but it can be very difficult at times to see past its gaping flaws and shortcomings to really enjoy it. Graphically it's very pretty, and thank God Bioware added an option to remove the annoying film grain effect. But for all of its beauty, the game is extremely glitchy. After a while you learn to tune out the minor jumps and pops as the camera struggles to follow you while the game is loading - and it is nearly always loading something. About 10 hours into the game, the inventory system becomes an annoying and unintentional mini game because your inventory is limited to an anemic 150 items. The problem isn't so much not having enough space, it's sorting through the equipment and deciding what to keep and what to sell or melt down. Looting is automatic - once you kill someone, any loot they were carrying just becomes part of your inventory. Unfortunately the game will allow you to exceed the 150 item limit, say during a firefight, and not tell you until you unwittingly try to open the equipment menu, at which point you are mercilessly forced to melt down all of the new loot (and newer is almost always better) to get your item total beneath the 150 item threshold. You are unable to cancel out of this screen until you have melted down everything you just got. Very poor design choice. What's worse, there's no way to look at your entire inventory on one screen unless you're at a vendor. In order to assess your inventory you often have to dig three menus deep to see what's available. This may sound petty, but it actually becomes an immensely annoying chore that distracts from the fun of the game. The side games are also extremely repetitive. There are basically two different layouts used for buildings and bunkers for the side quests, and aside from the junk scattered throughout the rooms are exactly identical in every respect, from the layout down to the color of the soil visible through the glass tubes connecting identical boxlike rooms. Every ground mission is basically the same wash-rinse-repeat operation. Some of the skyscapes visible from the planets are quite beautiful, but there is otherwise very little variety. Leveling up is basically identical to Knights of the Old Republic, except there seem to be fewer abilities available to each class, and the Dungeons and Dragons style descriptions of abilities are replaced by somewhat more straightforward terms. The combat is decent and neither impresses, nor leaves room for complaint; I didn't find anything particularly satisfying or annoying about it. Its faults aside, however, the music and story are the areas in which Mass Effect really excels. The main story arc of Mass Effect is extremely entertaining and there are a few "wow" moments culminating into one of the best "last two hours" I've spent with a game in a very very long time. Filled with dramatic synth, the music often reminded me of 80's sci-fi like Terminator and created a very unique mood throughout. When the action heats up or is about to heat up, the tempo and volume rise slightly to get your blood pumping and it's a very effective tool. All in all, Mass Effect was a good game, and the ending makes up for its shortcomings, but only just. It could definitely have used more polish, and BioWare shouldn't have been so frightened of spanning it across two discs. RPG players not only don't mind this, but we sort of like it. I suspect that a good deal of the incessant loading has something to do with the compression required to keep the size down to one 9GB disk.
Crysis was the best option I could find for testing out my new PC. My machine specs read like the recommended system on the Crysis box, but the game still wouldn't run at full speed with the settings on high. The game requires some obscure November update to DirectX that evidently didn't garner its own version number, nor was it something the developers thought they would need to include with the game itself. After the obligatory hour of installing and hour of troubleshooting that always reminds me why I avoid PC games like the plague, I finally got Crysis up and running. Another twenty minutes of tweaking controls and switching to 64-bit mode and I actually had the game working rather passably with my XBOX 360 controller. My impression of the first half of the game was pretty meh. Nothing really stood out from any other FPS I had played, except maybe the fact that the designers do not share my opinion that vehicles should be fun or easy to use. The suit functions are neat, but the stealth mode is really the only one that's really useful, and it is so limited that it was more difficult than fun to use. But after a while I fell into a rhythm and it started to get fun. At about the halfway point in the game, the gameplay changed radically and for the better. (Spoiler Alert) When gravity went bye-bye in the bowels of the alien complex, I really started to have respect for the game. It was unique and fun and challenging, visually and audibly stimulating and spooky all at once. Unfortunately that section only accounted for about a quarter of the entire game. The last quarter of the game was spent on unimaginative, contrived missions and frustratingly limiting vehicular combat. I could have forgiven it but that was also the quarter of the game that seemed most unfinished, as evidenced by numerous glitches that forced me to reload previous saves and replay the same section just so I could move the game forward. Important events would just simply fail to happen. The crown jewel of this glitch fest was when the game gave me a shiny new gun to kill the end boss with that just mysteriously decided not to work on the end boss. I had to back track nearly 90 minutes into older saves, spending over 2 hours playing through the same set of events over and over until I found a save prior to whatever glitch made the magical gun decide not to fire. Maybe most PC gamers are okay with beta software like this, but I'll stick with 95% finished games on my consoles, thank you very much.
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