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Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Demos, demos, demos! Bayonetta, Divinity, Dante and Left 4 Dead 2

Quickie: Ignore the Bayonetta, Divinity, Dante, but check out Left 4 Dead 2

I have to say Microsoft is genius for having downloadable demos available because they have to compete with Gamefly somehow and sucker you into paying 40-60$ for a new game. So, I tested out Bayonetta: First Climax, Divinity II, Dante’s Inferno and Left for Dead 2 to find the best game of the bunch based purely of their demos, which are supposed to make want to buy the game.

Bayonetta: First Climax

The first laughable issue I noticed was the title. First Climax a very sexual message to the player and was a precursor to the big-boobed, glasses wearing dominatrix ready to experience her first gunfight in barrel wielding heels. Yes, this game was a sex fantasy made into a game.

Then the opening movie, with reel holes, appears on the screen, explaining that there is some sort of church like power who condemned your parents for having sex with an angel and there was a revolt and you were freed by someone….to be honest it was so confusing, I had to watch it 3 times to understand it. There was a line between mysterious and confusing and Sega crossed it.



Ok, so the story was a little ‘say what?’, but at least the graphics were sweet and the battle system was button mash friendly, but dodging can be a little difficult with multiple enemies. There was also this ring/ halo collection which I did not understand, perhaps you have to earn angel points to be good enough for heaven.

Furthermore, the characters entire costume and posture say sex fantasy woman. Even when there was no wind her hair blew and she just looked so uncomfortable just standing there. Also, I could not stop picturing her leg blowing off because she broke a heal on her gun-shoes. Honestly Sega has inventive thoughts, but they were ruled by their peckers in this game.



The game looks fun, but it made me laugh too hard and the basic premise was fantasy dominatrix.

Divinity II

Yes another RPG game. The graphics are nice, the story was classic, ‘become a dragon slayer’, but the controls threw me off at first.

I understand video games need to be slightly different from each other, but there are just some buttons designated for certain actions. A or X is for social actions, B is for cancel, LT is for shooting the hell out of something….these are just examples, but most controls follow this basic pattern. This game threw me off by making LT a social action and even talking to people was a pain, they move too much and half the time the action doesn’t work.



Besides that, it really wasn’t unique from any other RPG I’ve played, except for using words like ‘willie-nilly’. Talk to people, earn points, attack things, it left me better off than Dragon Age did, but it really didn’t provoke me to buy the game.


Dante’s Inferno


Again, why does a mature rating on a game automatically mean uncovered boobage and graphically nasty gore. I’m not anti-gore, just when it’s excessive it makes me gag and wonder why logically the producers through it would add to the gameplay.

The scene, in the demo mind you, which bothered me the most was when the warrior sews his crusader cross to this own chest. This was not needed, it added nothing but shock value, especially because he was returning home to his wife, after defeating death, why would she sleep with him with that nasty infectious cross on his chest? But doesn’t matter, she’s dead.



This was where there were excessive boob-shots. No offense, but she was dead and her boobs didn’t look too hot with those blue veins. Otherwise the graphics were sweet and my eyes were in awe of how they were beginning to make Hell come alive.

The battle system was relatively simple, but you need some precision if you were going to survive through the demo. So it’s kind of half and half friendly to button mashing.



Lastly, the story seems a little weak to me. I can see the anti-middle-age crusades oozing though the pixels, but I fail to see why his wife was taken to Hell, especially when the Christian religion makes you pay for your own sins, not of others. Anyway, going to Hell to save your wife’s soul was darkly romantic, but a very heavy price to pay.

Furthermore, it showed the game would only have once setting, Hell. That’s it, dark, gloomy, fire and brimstone…to be honest I hope the game will be relatively short, because I could only handle so much of Hell and maybe that was the point.




I do like the inventive interpretation of the famous poem and hope it has more to offer in story and gamplay than the dark visions of Hell and no more dead-woman bobbies please!

Left for Dead 2

From what I head this game was mostly a glorified expansion pack, but I never played the first game, so it has a fresh view.

When I played this demo I noticed there was a option to play online and multiple versions of the game like realism, scavenge, versus, of course all the options weren’t available, but it was nice to see the verity.

It was fun, the graphics were sweet and the story was classic, zombie apocalypse, why not, this was way better than any Resident Evil game I’ve played. Mostly because it doesn’t rely on any cheesy antics it’s just survive or die with NPCs or friends.



However, as with most online games there are jerks out there but just report them and move on.

I am addicted to this game, it soothes my nerves, infuriates me with blood splatter and who doesn’t want to mindlessly fight zombies. Sure the characters chatter gets a little annoying after a while, but that is why you have an i-pod. Fun, fun, fun, it’s the only one I bought.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

I Didn't Like Dragon Age Origins



For an added Christmas gift to myself I decided to buy a highly anticipated game, Dragon Age Origins. I’ve played many classic RPGs in my time and most of them seem very flat, difficult to control and riddled with clichés.

Unfortunately, Dragon Age meets most of the repeated disappointments in RPGs. One, customizing your character is a tedious task because it really doesn’t matter what you look like because it hardly effects the game and all of the choices are plain ugly.

In addition, there was only the plain human, pointy eared human, and short-stocky human to choose from.

I don’t know why realism transforms the game into a muddy brown mess of hardship, but it adds little to the enjoyment of the game and makes me sigh in disappointment at the graphics.



The blood splatter on characters just made me laugh and say ewww. I don’t understand why a Mature rating in a fantasy RPG means dark theme, with cussing and head to toe blood showers.

To further the laugh I thought the Darkspawn looked like Lord of the Rings orcs with a horrible skin condition. Seriously, they couldn't think of anything more original, at least add some thing outside of the generic fantasy spectrum. There are winged-wolves, stayers, giant puffer fish, giant eyes that can shoot lasers, cat people! Anything to at least stand out from the basic Dungeon and Dragons thought up by an eight year old.



The plot also made me question the writing skills of the team because at one point Alistair describes his character as the bringers of bad news and witty one liners. Honestly I liked him compared to Morrigan whose lack of social contact with people made her an annoying-sarcastic-monotone filler.

All the characters were flat, annoying and looked like they smoked pot from the bags under their eyes. I could not connect with any of them effectively to care if they lived or died.

The story itself has many choices, personally, I chose the Mage path and I hated how if you chose the wrong phrase to answer certain questions you would become stuck. No offense to the sandbox, but I rather have a guided game than dig through the sand only to find cat turds.



This plan would especially be useful in quelling tedious quests like Kill the Bears or Find Me a Pretty Pansy were used for filler and not the progression of the story itself.

The battle system was well planned for an RPG, but I hated having to understand how to play every character and develop them. Honestly I just wanted to focus on my own character and let the computer do the work for the other party members.

When I did return the game the employees at the store ragged on me for disliking one of the “best RPGs ever” and dictated to me how I chose the wrong story to play the game with. Excuse me, but shouldn’t any character choice be well rounded and written? All it lead for me to believe was there was just sheer laziness from the development team.


How was reusing classic enemies, redundant race and class choices, filler quests and flat character development counted as a fantasy RPG? There was little innovation in any of the storytelling aspects and it just made me yawn and hope for skip buttons. I think writers and game developers have reached a rut in fantasy RPGs. There needs to be come true creative inspiration to save this game genre and it has to be more than changing enemy names and adding a dragon.