Re: Games Discussion Thread
I am ashamed of all of you. Nobody's actually discussed Dead Rising 2 yet? I got a month of Live just to play it online. It's so much fun. Tenderizers are awesome, by the way.
I haven't talked about it yet because I'm still not sure where I stand on the game. I'm probably about half way through the story but I keep getting distracted by Civ V and next week will be Medal of Honor (I'm a sucker for FPS games it seems).
It's fun so far, but at the same time my enjoyment with it gets ham stringed by a few things that just frustrate the hell out of me.
A) The Time - I know this is a key part of the game and what makes it original and its own thing, however I will keep finding myself rushing against time to do certain things, then right when I'm getting into the story and want to know more... I have a few hours to go out and kill zombies and... psychopaths (more on them later). I also don't like the bars on the side that tell you how much time you have left. They go down in chunks rather than gradually shrink with each second. This can leave me with an illusion that I have plenty of time left and so I go across the mall to save a couple of guys fucking around in a god damn knife store. Suddenly, just as I reach them my timer starts flashing red warning me to get back to the damn safe house to save my daughter. I had to rush back, pushing and sprinting through crowds of zombies, while the two guys behind me slowly start to fall behind, going backwards at some points to attack a zombie or simply curl in a corner and cry. I didn't have the time to save them and they died, and that was fucking frustrating.
B) Leading off from my first point, Survivors - this time around I was told the zombies would concentrate more on the player character so they wouldn't attack the survivors as much and hence it would be easier to get some of the dumber/weaker/annoying ones back to the safe house. I have yet to notice this very much as they still get grabbed as I'm rushing through a casino and have to go back and jump kick the zombie off of them, and they still do little to help you out. You still have plenty of idiots who cry, whine and even drunkards who puke everywhere and you have to carry else they just stumble around. I don't know why but I seem more annoyed by the fuckers this time around.
C) The Psychopaths - I have good and bad points about them, but first I'll mention the bad points. Still fucking annoying as hell. A deranged protester can suddenly jump around like a spider monkey swinging a piece of broken mirror hard enough to send me stumbling to the bathroom floor. A crazy contestant from the 'Terror is Reality' show can take 5 magazines of assault rifle ammunition to the head. It's times like these that I wonder how the fuck the zombies are an issue in the first place; if human beings can take that many rounds when wearing a damn t-shirt and a horrible hair cut how the fuck did the zombies take over? Apparently it gets easier as you level up, and you should go back for a second play through to get more enjoyment out of the game because you'll be more powerful. No! This is not an MMO, I do not want to grind saving idiots and mashing zombies until I'm powerful enough to take on these guys only to get a bit of cut scene and more experience. I should be able to get full enjoyment out of the game on my first play through, and if I really enjoy it I'll come back.
D) The Save System - The developers said this was being fixed and made much better. Not so much. All we really got was 3 save slots and the ability to save after a major plot point. While this is an improvement, it's still a pain in the ass when you're rushing across the "city" (It's really just a series of indoor casinos and shopping centers), and if you get killed then there could be a long amount of game time lost... unless you start from scratch. From fucking scratch but with a few extra levels. A checkpoint system would have been nice, or a save anywhere and any time would have been best.
E) Some Graphical Issues - Graphics are not too huge a deal for me, and they do not make or break a game for me. However there were a few moments when graphics and visual design choices took me out of the moment. When Chuck is hacking his way through hordes of zombies, the blood splashing on him can look rather... flat. It just doesn't fit with the rest imagery, or even the blood spattering on the ground or spraying through the air for that matter. It just looks like you have your avatar painted a solid red. The other moment that really took me out was in a cutscene. Chuck gets shot at by a guy with a pistol. The pistol does not move at all during this scene, no recoil no moving slide, just a random muzzle flash. The guy's finger wasn't even moving, everything was still except that muzzle flash. To make it worse the guy's finger was nestled safely behind the trigger... wow.
Those are my major complaints. However the game does do some things right, oh so very right.
A) Killing Zombies - Nailed this one right on the damn head. Even the shooting is made much better, but that's not even close to how cool it can get. Throwing spears, tomahawks, lawn mowers... a big purple dildo. They're all amongst the many many weapons you can find, pick up and use against the undead. As has been mentioned before, the combos. Some great shit: Machete and broom make a polesword, fire axe and sledgehammer, 2X4 and lawnmower, spray paint and traffic cone (makes zombie heads go pop). While I wish the system was a little more expansive letting players make their own creations rather than "Item B goes with Item V and nothing else" it's still fun to see what comes out of these combos. Not to mention the visceral carnage that follows.
B) The Main Character - I always though Frank West was a bit of a dick and was never able to connect with him. Chuck Greene however I feel is a much more likable character. Hell I even like some of the major characters that he deals with. However I do feel the story is a bit silly, but it's not bad and I still want to know what happens next, so the writers did something well there.
C) Levelling Up - Even though I trashed this a bit earlier I still think it's a neat system. A level 1 character can still easily kill zombies, but the cool skills to kill them in fascinating ways throughout make for some awesome views. I also like the transfer of a finished character to go through the game again. Yes I know I mentioned this earlier, however if I want to go through it again, not having to start the game like I just picked it up from the local game store is nice. However, with Dead Rising 1 I found it almost impossible to play a new character after having gone through the game as so much is taken away from him, and I fear that something similar will happen here.
Like I said, I still don't know where I stand on the game as a whole. I feel let down because I had such high hopes after Case Zero. I wish I had some more outdoor environments like there was in that mini-prequel where I could climb up on buildings and find interesting ways into the stores. A full town like that would have been awesome... but in many ways Fortune City feels a bit too much like the Mall from the first game. I also didn't have as big a problem with the survivors in Case Zero. Strange that I pulled much more enjoyment out of the "demo" then I have the full game so far.
Still, we'll see what more play time brings to me. Hopefully the story doesn't spiral further into silliness.
