Back in the day, I played Baldur's Gate II on Mac but never had an opportunity to play the first one because it was only on PC. When Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition came out, it seemed like a good opportunity to fill that hole in my gaming history.
Baldur's Gate II is pretty much my favorite game, and the first one was pretty much along the lines of what I expected. Isometric RPG style that I love, focus on story, and it kept my interest like whoa. When I started out, I did every side quest and searched every inch of every map. My Labor Day weekend consisted of playing this game and only playing this game. That next day at work, my forearms hurt. I temporarily carpal tunneled myself.
This madness kind of ended after a timed quest screwed me over. In my enjoyment of every side quest and every map, I had dicked around too long, and there was a timed quest I didn't realize was counting down. One of my NPC buddies, Minsc, wanted me to rescue a woman from gnolls. After completing a bajillion side quests beforehand, I showed up to the place to rescue Dynaheir, and Minsc flipped his shit, saying I took too long. He then attacks the party. The 20 in-game hours it took to travel to that location put me over the time limit. I had to load a saved game from way before to make it in time, which made me lose a ton of playtime.
Most of that lost progress was spent on fluff, extra maps. I kind of stuck to the main quest line after that. I was paranoid that any one of my companions could have been a ticking time bomb.
It took me about 40 hours to finish, but I could have spent far more if that whole Minsc thing hadn't put a damper on my funtimes. Baldur's Gate II is still better, but this one's certainly worth the play.
Monday, September 22, 2014
Friday, September 19, 2014
Papers, Please
Your choices affect the lives of the people you interact with. How well you do your job and what you're willing to do to make an extra buck will affect your ability to provide for your family.
My first playthrough was a disaster. I was thorough in my job at the expense of speed. Each day, you only have so many hours in the day, and it's in your best interest to go fast to process as many people as possible. You get more money the more people you process, but if you go too fast, you're going to start making mistakes. Make too many mistakes, and they'll penalize you with fines, and you might let a dangerous person through unwittingly.
My slow ass didn't make enough money to pay for heat AND food, so my family was cold and hungry and eventually sick. I had to spend what little I made on medicine, but without food and warmth, assholes still died. Eventually, wife DEAD, son DEAD, uncle DEAD, mother in law DEAD. Since I couldn't take care of my family, they assumed I couldn't be trusted to perform my work duties, so I got fired. Whoops...
The second time, I realized how important it was to make as much money as possible in order to keep my family alive, so I whored myself out at any opportunity. Detain people to get a bonus? SURE. Advertise jobs to all engineers you meet? SURE. Accept mystery money you have no idea where it came from? SURE. This was an interesting departure from my normal game playing M-O. In all games, I try to make the "right" moral decision. I'm the good guy, but here, I chose to do things that weren't very moral in order to help my family. The one I felt the worst about involved a guy trying to bribe me to let him through. He placed some money and a nice watch on the counter. I had him detained and still took his shit. WHAT HAVE I BECOME?!
That particular strategy did not serve we well in the end. That mystery money got me thrown in jail, and who the hell knows what happened to my family.
This game required you to make tough decisions. Most times I needed all the money I could get. On one occasion a woman begged me not to let a certain person through that was waiting in line after her. She feared he was going to sell her into slavery. When he came to the window, all his papers checked out. Do you deny him entry and take the hit to your paycheck, risk getting fined, and lose that money you need to buy medicine for your dying son, risking his life...or do you let the guy through and endanger this frightened woman? These types of debacles are an interesting balancing act, and you'll have to make these decisions frequently.
To add moral dilemma on top of moral dilemma, this game makes you feel kind of icky about the whole process. On occasion, the potential immigrant will have a discrepancy where their gender on their ID doesn't seem to match. This requires a search, and when the nude photos that were taken pop up, it's pretty horrifying. Sometimes searches are also required if the person's weight doesn't match. Sometimes that reveals nothing. Dude probably just ate too many cheeseburgers. Other times that will reveal motherfuckers with grenades strapped to their thighs. I can't be sure and therefore I must check.
Prior to playing this game, I had never thought too much about either party involved in this kind of situation, but after playing, you can't help but look with some compassion to both sides. Things are not always black and white. There's a shit ton of grey.
Whether or not I "won" was even hanging out in this grey zone. My gauge for success was that I wasn't in jail, wasn't executed, my 5 family members that depended on me were still alive, and I get to keep working a horrible job that barely supports me. #thisshitisreallife
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Pokemon 2048
I don't normally talk about mobile games here, but when one monopolizes my thoughts and time as much as this one did, it's worth mentioning.
Pokemon 2048 is a clone of a clone of a tweak of a clone. It was the theme that made me want to play this one though. The standard 2048 game is a sliding tile puzzle game where you combine like numbers together to form the square of that number. Match the numbers to make bigger numbers. Turn bigger numbers into bigger numbers until you get a tile that reads 2048.
The goal in Pokemon 2048 is exactly the same...except, you know, Pokemon. Match two Bulbasaurs to make a Ivysaur, two Ivysaurs make a Venusaur. The Bulbasaur evolution is followed by the Charmander evolution, which is followed by the Squirtle evolution, and finally the Pikachu evolution. Once you reach Raichu, you win.
My friend that's all hot for math is obsessed with the classic 2048, but turning 2s into 4s just isn't as fun to me as turning Charizards into Squirtles. Call me crazy.
It may not sound exciting but it's addictive for sure. I played it on the train, during any second of downtime at work, while eating... I am tired today because I stayed up later than I should, trying to see that elusive Raichu. It even screwed with my brain a little bit. While I was driving, I would see similar cars and match then in my mind, like that was going to make them get the hell out of my way. (Apparently my friend who likes 2048 also had this experience, so I'm not certifiable or anything.)
Today at lunch, I finally saw a Raichu.
And now I'm done.
Fairwell, Pokemon 2048. May we never cross paths again.
Pokemon 2048 is a clone of a clone of a tweak of a clone. It was the theme that made me want to play this one though. The standard 2048 game is a sliding tile puzzle game where you combine like numbers together to form the square of that number. Match the numbers to make bigger numbers. Turn bigger numbers into bigger numbers until you get a tile that reads 2048.
The goal in Pokemon 2048 is exactly the same...except, you know, Pokemon. Match two Bulbasaurs to make a Ivysaur, two Ivysaurs make a Venusaur. The Bulbasaur evolution is followed by the Charmander evolution, which is followed by the Squirtle evolution, and finally the Pikachu evolution. Once you reach Raichu, you win.
My friend that's all hot for math is obsessed with the classic 2048, but turning 2s into 4s just isn't as fun to me as turning Charizards into Squirtles. Call me crazy.
It may not sound exciting but it's addictive for sure. I played it on the train, during any second of downtime at work, while eating... I am tired today because I stayed up later than I should, trying to see that elusive Raichu. It even screwed with my brain a little bit. While I was driving, I would see similar cars and match then in my mind, like that was going to make them get the hell out of my way. (Apparently my friend who likes 2048 also had this experience, so I'm not certifiable or anything.)
Today at lunch, I finally saw a Raichu.
And now I'm done.
Fairwell, Pokemon 2048. May we never cross paths again.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Prison Architect
I've just sat here for the past 5 hours, building a prison. I guess I was having fun. I'm still not quite sure.
"Prison Architect" is not the kind of game I play too much anymore, a build it and watch what happens/design on the fly type game. You build a prison, prisoners arrive at regular intervals, and you have to make room for them and fulfill their various needs or you'll have riots on your hands. It kind of reminded me of the game "Theme Park" that I used to play as a kid. There's no real end or way to win, you just keep accommodating more and more people and upgrading your facility until you get sick of it, which I have.
You have to build spaces for the prisoners to sleep, eat, exercise, visit family, etc. And as you research and unlock new abilities in your...it's not technology, but it's like a technology tree...you can build rooms in which to give medical attention, do laundry, press license plates, etc.
The game is still technically in alpha, so some of the tech tree options don't work 100% quite yet. There were some issues I ran into that I wasn't sure if it was a bug or if I just did something wrong. For example, I could never get people into my workshop to do the license plate pressing thing. I couldn't assign people to work there for some reason. Also, I could only assign 2 workers to the kitchen and laundry room when I needed to have three to fulfill the objective of one of my grants. Not sure if I needed a bigger room...or if shit was just broke.
Speaking of grants... The grants system is probably what kept me playing as long as I did. You can have two grants active at a time, and to get all the grant money, you have to fulfill the objectives outlined within it. For example, the Health and Wellbeing grant required you to build an infirmary, hire at least two doctors, and hire a psychologist. An infirmary requires medical beds and a psychologist requires an office to work out of, which has to be at least 4x4 and contain a filing cabinet, office desk, and chair. Grants kept me busy building new things.
Keeping with this example, having a psychologist opens up one of the reports tabs that was previously empty. With a psychologist, you can see what the prisoners are generally pissed about and do something about it. In my prison, everybody was pissed and fighting each other at one point, and it turned out it was because all the guys I was keeping together in a holding cell weren't getting any sleep. I was building individual cells for them, but that was taking a while. Dudes were getting cranky because the only requirements of a holding cell is a bench and a toilet. They were getting "Deadliest Catch" style sleep debt rage. I threw some beds in there, and they were happy as little clams.
Trying to complete the grant requirements keeps you moving forward and building all the various specialty rooms, and the constant inflow of prisoners keeps you building more and more cells. Kept me busy for about 8 and a half hours total.
I finally called it quits when I encountered problems with one of my grants. I had unlocked most of my research options, built most of the different types of rooms, and this grant required me to research mealtime preferences by serving a meal in which the quantity and quality of the meal both were set to low. Meal time came and went, and the objective didn't complete. I wasn't sure if it was because all the prisoners didn't get to eat it... If that was the reason, I wasn't sure if it was because my dining hall was too small and had too few tables to sit at to accommodate everyone, or if there needed to be more serving tables, or if I needed more cooks in the kitchen, or if the cooks needed more stoves, or if I needed to make the scheduled mealtime longer... There were just too many potential reasons why that mechanic was fucking up, and I had experienced enough of the game that I felt done.
"Prison Architect" is worth giving a try if you like that management/simulator style of game, but I'd probably wait until they're out of alpha to give them a chance to iron out all the kinks.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
The Last of Us
Daaaamn, Naughty Dog... You're rull good at making games. "Last of Us" puts story first and accompanies it with great gameplay, excellent sound design, and it's a very pretty game for a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Like the "Uncharted" series, which Naughty Dog also makes, this game has excellent characters, writing, and voice acting. You become immediately invested in these characters and their plight.
In Last of Us, the world has basically gone to shit. Most of the population has fallen victim to infection. And those victims are creepy as fuck. They come in three flavors: Runners, Clickers, and Bloaters. Runners are the newly infected. They're quick, scream like banshee's, and if you call attention to yourself, you're likely going to get 5 of them in your face. Clickers are...well, horrible. They've been infected for a while, and as a result, they've got these crazy growths that cover up their eyes. So, good news, they can't see you, but bad news, they can hear you, and they make this awful clicking/gurgling noise to echolocate your sneaky self. It's kind of terrifying to hear a bunch of Clickers in a dark room. Fabulous sound design...I give this game so much credit for this. Stressed. Me. Out.
The third member of this creepy family are Bloaters. Giant motherfuckers...fat ass infected that huck spore bombs at you and will rip the top of your head from your jaw if they get a hold of you. It's quite unsettling.
The manner at which you deal with these baddies can be via beating the hell out of them with crowbars and such, shooting em in the face with shotguns and such, or stealth killing them via choke out or a shiv to the neck. Melee doesn't work so good against Clickers, and nothing but fire works all that well against a Bloater, so they all require different tactics, and their concentration in one area becomes a major factor with how you deal with them. Alerting any of them to your presence is generally ill advised, as they'll call all their buddies to have a go at you. So..sometimes guns are kind of a bad idea. You don't want to go wasting your ammo if you don't have to either.
Resource management is very important in this game, with ammo and with the crafting system. You can craft med kits, shivs, molotov cocktails, nail bombs, and smoke bombs to give you an added edge. You make these items by finding their components throughout the environment, and boy...do they come in handy. Molotov cocktails are my jam.
In addition to infected, you're also going to have to deal with regular folks trying to murder you too because people can be dicks. The game is very good about balancing the encounters and changing up the scenarios so you're not just constantly hiding and wetting your pants trying to evade infected. There's sneaky combat sections, there's running and gunning, there's puzzle sections, there's perfectly safe areas that you'll probably sneak around in the entire time all stressed out because paranoia, and cutscenes interspersed with some damn fine voice acting and animation. These feel like real characters going through real shit. I'm not going to go into the plot at all because spoilers, but this game will probably make you have some feels.
But the feels are worth it. Go pick it up. You will like.
In Last of Us, the world has basically gone to shit. Most of the population has fallen victim to infection. And those victims are creepy as fuck. They come in three flavors: Runners, Clickers, and Bloaters. Runners are the newly infected. They're quick, scream like banshee's, and if you call attention to yourself, you're likely going to get 5 of them in your face. Clickers are...well, horrible. They've been infected for a while, and as a result, they've got these crazy growths that cover up their eyes. So, good news, they can't see you, but bad news, they can hear you, and they make this awful clicking/gurgling noise to echolocate your sneaky self. It's kind of terrifying to hear a bunch of Clickers in a dark room. Fabulous sound design...I give this game so much credit for this. Stressed. Me. Out.
The third member of this creepy family are Bloaters. Giant motherfuckers...fat ass infected that huck spore bombs at you and will rip the top of your head from your jaw if they get a hold of you. It's quite unsettling.
The manner at which you deal with these baddies can be via beating the hell out of them with crowbars and such, shooting em in the face with shotguns and such, or stealth killing them via choke out or a shiv to the neck. Melee doesn't work so good against Clickers, and nothing but fire works all that well against a Bloater, so they all require different tactics, and their concentration in one area becomes a major factor with how you deal with them. Alerting any of them to your presence is generally ill advised, as they'll call all their buddies to have a go at you. So..sometimes guns are kind of a bad idea. You don't want to go wasting your ammo if you don't have to either.
Resource management is very important in this game, with ammo and with the crafting system. You can craft med kits, shivs, molotov cocktails, nail bombs, and smoke bombs to give you an added edge. You make these items by finding their components throughout the environment, and boy...do they come in handy. Molotov cocktails are my jam.
In addition to infected, you're also going to have to deal with regular folks trying to murder you too because people can be dicks. The game is very good about balancing the encounters and changing up the scenarios so you're not just constantly hiding and wetting your pants trying to evade infected. There's sneaky combat sections, there's running and gunning, there's puzzle sections, there's perfectly safe areas that you'll probably sneak around in the entire time all stressed out because paranoia, and cutscenes interspersed with some damn fine voice acting and animation. These feel like real characters going through real shit. I'm not going to go into the plot at all because spoilers, but this game will probably make you have some feels.
But the feels are worth it. Go pick it up. You will like.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
LEGO Lord of the Rings
When the topic of LEGO games comes up, unanimously, I have heard nothing but good things. Therefore, I was pretty excited to see a Lord of the Rings one come out. I have never played any of these, so this would be my first foray into LEGO land.
There is a certain charm to seeing movie scenes play out with LEGO characters, I'll give it that, but the actual gameplay sadly wasn't really all that fun. Leaving the Shire, there wasn't really anything to do. You just follow the blue stud trail to your next destination. You can mosey around and beat the hell out of random rocks and plants so little LEGO studs come out, but since that is not fun, I just left. After you're out of the Shire, the four hobbits meet up, and you can control each of them. Considering they're LEGO people and very similar looking, I couldn't tell who the hell was who. This was only really a problem with the hobbits since the others are fairly distinct with their beards, blonde hair, or dwarfism.
Each character has unique abilities that you use to get around blockages and solve puzzles. These unique abilities are a little weird though... Merry can fish, Pippin can collect water in his bucket... Sorry to break it to you, Pip, that was a pity ability. Any motherfucker can do that. No one's playing you. Sam's abilities are more prolific. He can dig shit up, start fires, and grow plants. However, I kind of had a problem accepting the use of these abilities during gameplay and especially during combat. No problem was ever solved in Lord of the Rings by digging holes or fishing. Problems were solved by stabbing it right in the problem.
I encountered more brain resistance when I came across any side quest. While in Bree, for example, some guy had apparently lost his cooking pot and would be ever so grateful if we went back out in the woods and found it. Umm...no. There's a sense of urgency to this tale. We gotta go meet Gandalf at the Prancing Pony. No way I'm traipsing back in the woods to look for some asshole's cooking pot. In that same vein, I ran across an Uruk-hai that lost his weapon and wanted me to find it. Heeeelllll no. How about I try to kill you instead?
Pity...it won't let me. Whatever, I'm still not looking for your shit, and even if I happen to run across it, I'm not bringing it back. Deal with it.
I skipped quite a bit, actually. There are many side quests, items, and collectibles that you can't even get until your second playthrough. Each level has items that are unreachable unless you have a certain character with you. For example, Gimli's special ability is to break cracked LEGO tiles. These tiles exist throughout the game, even in places where Gimli never actually was, like Osgiliath. You'd have to play Osgiliath again after it's been unlocked, bringing Gimli the second time. Fuck that shit.
There's a lot of that though. I played through the main storyline completely, and at the end, it said I had only completed 24% of the game. I'm only a completist when I'm enjoying myself. 24% is just fine when I'm not.
Now hold on, I wasn't hating my life the entire time. I did quite enjoy the Helms Deep section. There were lots of orcs to kill, and you had to keep the different ladders off the walls in different ways which kept it interesting. Some you had to shoot down, others you smashed, so you had to switch between Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. It was also kind of cool to use the tossing a person mechanic to throw Gimli across at the orcs carrying the battering ram, just like in the movie. The "LEGO humor" was pretty good in this section as well. I remember specifically enjoying that when they were bracing the gate with various things, they pushed a piano in front of the doors. Being an ent and smashing the shit out of Saruman's machinations was also quite enjoyable. Hooray for joy!
For the most part though, I was just waiting for it to be over. It was very repetitive overall. Once you figured out what to do, you had to do it like 12 more times. I was going through the motions for most of the game. I know these LEGO games skew younger, but I had heard all these positive things from grown ass people. I've now decided that they're all liars.
There is a certain charm to seeing movie scenes play out with LEGO characters, I'll give it that, but the actual gameplay sadly wasn't really all that fun. Leaving the Shire, there wasn't really anything to do. You just follow the blue stud trail to your next destination. You can mosey around and beat the hell out of random rocks and plants so little LEGO studs come out, but since that is not fun, I just left. After you're out of the Shire, the four hobbits meet up, and you can control each of them. Considering they're LEGO people and very similar looking, I couldn't tell who the hell was who. This was only really a problem with the hobbits since the others are fairly distinct with their beards, blonde hair, or dwarfism.
Each character has unique abilities that you use to get around blockages and solve puzzles. These unique abilities are a little weird though... Merry can fish, Pippin can collect water in his bucket... Sorry to break it to you, Pip, that was a pity ability. Any motherfucker can do that. No one's playing you. Sam's abilities are more prolific. He can dig shit up, start fires, and grow plants. However, I kind of had a problem accepting the use of these abilities during gameplay and especially during combat. No problem was ever solved in Lord of the Rings by digging holes or fishing. Problems were solved by stabbing it right in the problem.
I encountered more brain resistance when I came across any side quest. While in Bree, for example, some guy had apparently lost his cooking pot and would be ever so grateful if we went back out in the woods and found it. Umm...no. There's a sense of urgency to this tale. We gotta go meet Gandalf at the Prancing Pony. No way I'm traipsing back in the woods to look for some asshole's cooking pot. In that same vein, I ran across an Uruk-hai that lost his weapon and wanted me to find it. Heeeelllll no. How about I try to kill you instead?
Pity...it won't let me. Whatever, I'm still not looking for your shit, and even if I happen to run across it, I'm not bringing it back. Deal with it.
I skipped quite a bit, actually. There are many side quests, items, and collectibles that you can't even get until your second playthrough. Each level has items that are unreachable unless you have a certain character with you. For example, Gimli's special ability is to break cracked LEGO tiles. These tiles exist throughout the game, even in places where Gimli never actually was, like Osgiliath. You'd have to play Osgiliath again after it's been unlocked, bringing Gimli the second time. Fuck that shit.
There's a lot of that though. I played through the main storyline completely, and at the end, it said I had only completed 24% of the game. I'm only a completist when I'm enjoying myself. 24% is just fine when I'm not.
Now hold on, I wasn't hating my life the entire time. I did quite enjoy the Helms Deep section. There were lots of orcs to kill, and you had to keep the different ladders off the walls in different ways which kept it interesting. Some you had to shoot down, others you smashed, so you had to switch between Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. It was also kind of cool to use the tossing a person mechanic to throw Gimli across at the orcs carrying the battering ram, just like in the movie. The "LEGO humor" was pretty good in this section as well. I remember specifically enjoying that when they were bracing the gate with various things, they pushed a piano in front of the doors. Being an ent and smashing the shit out of Saruman's machinations was also quite enjoyable. Hooray for joy!
For the most part though, I was just waiting for it to be over. It was very repetitive overall. Once you figured out what to do, you had to do it like 12 more times. I was going through the motions for most of the game. I know these LEGO games skew younger, but I had heard all these positive things from grown ass people. I've now decided that they're all liars.
Friday, May 16, 2014
Saints Row 2
Welp, I did this in the totally wrong order... I played Saints Row 3 first, then Saints Row 4, and now Saints Row 2. While it seems a stupid way to have played it, I'm glad I did it this way because 2 would have never hooked me on the franchise like 3 did. I very well could have tried this game and not come back to the franchise. Not that it was bad...it just wasn't great.
My first issue was a technical one. This was an Xbox game originally, ported to PC. My copy I got from Steam had a known flaw in which everything was sped up to an uncontrollably fast tempo. I spent about 5 minutes attempting to just drive a car around, accidentally crashing into everything, and wondering why everything looked like an episode of Benny Hill. To fix it, I had to download some files to shove in the game folder and edit the speed to something tolerable.
After that was out of the way, the theme to this playthrough was "Man, I'm glad that's better in 3." Granted, if I'd played this one first, I wouldn't know what I was missing...in the future...
Anyway, there were plenty of these moments:
THE PIDLY STUFF
1. There is a mechanic where you can tag walls with some Saints graffiti. You have to spray within the lines, and if you go too far outside the lines, the tag fails, and you can try again. It's lame and not fun, and it would have been better if they'd just say Press "E" to tag like the photo-ops and whatnot in the later game.
2. That lovely mechanic in which you can jump through a windshield to hop in a car is not in this game. I'd run full speed at a car and just bounce off and roll on the ground, forgetting that I have to stop the car like civilized folks before I jack it. Lame.
3. The stores that are for sale are not shown as For Sale on the map like they are in 3. I only bought stores that I happened to see had a For Sale sign as I drove by. Pretty sure I missed 60% of them.
4. In this same vein, there's no way to know how much a place costs without going there. I took many wasted trips to a $50,000 crib that my broke ass couldn't afford at the time.
5. The ability to get your cash from anywhere via your phone was a wonderful addition to 3 because in 2, you have to go to one of your cribs and find the little money icon, which brings me to my next complaint...
THE FUCKING ANNOYING STUFF
6. Horrible level design... I could not find anything in my larger cribs, most frustratingly, my money stash. Sometimes I'd drive to my shithole crib just because it was only one room, and I wouldn't get lost in it. Bad level design was a problem in many of the mission locations, where you'd have to go through multiple floors of a building. The worst of these was a mall. Like a real mall, I couldn't find what I wanted, and I couldn't find a way out. I probably spent 20 minutes trying to get out of that place one time.
7. This could have been avoided if at the end of a mission I was just whisked to the front door of the building. I wouldn't mind. Truly. I don't need to walk down 30 flights of stairs to get out of this high rise. I walked up here, and it was much more entertaining on that trip because I was shooting people along the way, and as such, I was too preoccupied to take notes on how to get back out.
8. Fall damage is ridiculously high. I know jumping off stairs would probably break my legs for real real, but you're also allowing me to get shot like 27 times before I die. Give me some slack, man. Sometimes you gotta jump off a building.
9. I'm forced to do the side activities in order to gain enough respect to unlock missions. I don't know if this was removed in the next game, but I never encountered it as problem because I gladly played those side activities. Not so here because...
10. The activities all kind of suck, and to make things worse, each activity location has 6 levels of that one activity. I don't want to play the same bullshit 6 times in a row... Shit can stay incomplete. I ain't care.
THE "IT IS WHAT IT IS" STUFF
11. Saints Row 2 is a little more serious than the later titles. The over the topness is one of the things I adore about its sequel, so this tamer incarnation isn't exactly gripping. Yeah, my character's a bad motherfucker, but I prefer my bad motherfuckers with a side of humor.
12. Continuing with the lack of over the topness, there's no big set pieces or big built up boss fights. They all kind of fizzle out, and they're not very interesting. I shoot through a bunch of guys to get to the main guy who is pretty much just like those regular guys except it takes a couple more slugs to put him down.
13. And when they did have a different mechanic, they were usually obnoxious in some way. Example: While fighting Veteran Child, who was using Shaundi as a human shield, you had to huck flashbangs at him to get him away from her and THEN shoot him. The obnoxious part was that he would step away from her occasionally without flashbang, and he would be invincible during that period. Why do?!
14. Voice acting. In Saints Row 3, I loved Laura Bailey voicing my main character. She was great throughout and made me laugh out loud plenty. Saints Row 2 voice actor...eehhhh...it was fine. Not too many laughs, just your standard hard ass chick.
THE ACTUALLY GOOD STUFF
15. There were a couple missions that really were impactful. The loss of an important character, the creative takedown of an enemy's main squeeze... Those few memorable moments drew me in and made me more invested in finishing the game.
16. I got to see the introduction of Pierce and Shaundi, who I love in the following game. They're not quite fully formed characters in this one, but you can see the beginnings of their eventual personalities.
So yeah...there was way more bad than good, but whatever lessons they took from making this game, they obviously used them to improve the next one, so kudos. The moral of today's story is, if you're gonna Saints Row, just start with 3. You'll thank me.
My first issue was a technical one. This was an Xbox game originally, ported to PC. My copy I got from Steam had a known flaw in which everything was sped up to an uncontrollably fast tempo. I spent about 5 minutes attempting to just drive a car around, accidentally crashing into everything, and wondering why everything looked like an episode of Benny Hill. To fix it, I had to download some files to shove in the game folder and edit the speed to something tolerable.
After that was out of the way, the theme to this playthrough was "Man, I'm glad that's better in 3." Granted, if I'd played this one first, I wouldn't know what I was missing...in the future...
Anyway, there were plenty of these moments:
THE PIDLY STUFF
1. There is a mechanic where you can tag walls with some Saints graffiti. You have to spray within the lines, and if you go too far outside the lines, the tag fails, and you can try again. It's lame and not fun, and it would have been better if they'd just say Press "E" to tag like the photo-ops and whatnot in the later game.
2. That lovely mechanic in which you can jump through a windshield to hop in a car is not in this game. I'd run full speed at a car and just bounce off and roll on the ground, forgetting that I have to stop the car like civilized folks before I jack it. Lame.
3. The stores that are for sale are not shown as For Sale on the map like they are in 3. I only bought stores that I happened to see had a For Sale sign as I drove by. Pretty sure I missed 60% of them.
4. In this same vein, there's no way to know how much a place costs without going there. I took many wasted trips to a $50,000 crib that my broke ass couldn't afford at the time.
5. The ability to get your cash from anywhere via your phone was a wonderful addition to 3 because in 2, you have to go to one of your cribs and find the little money icon, which brings me to my next complaint...
THE FUCKING ANNOYING STUFF
6. Horrible level design... I could not find anything in my larger cribs, most frustratingly, my money stash. Sometimes I'd drive to my shithole crib just because it was only one room, and I wouldn't get lost in it. Bad level design was a problem in many of the mission locations, where you'd have to go through multiple floors of a building. The worst of these was a mall. Like a real mall, I couldn't find what I wanted, and I couldn't find a way out. I probably spent 20 minutes trying to get out of that place one time.
7. This could have been avoided if at the end of a mission I was just whisked to the front door of the building. I wouldn't mind. Truly. I don't need to walk down 30 flights of stairs to get out of this high rise. I walked up here, and it was much more entertaining on that trip because I was shooting people along the way, and as such, I was too preoccupied to take notes on how to get back out.
8. Fall damage is ridiculously high. I know jumping off stairs would probably break my legs for real real, but you're also allowing me to get shot like 27 times before I die. Give me some slack, man. Sometimes you gotta jump off a building.
9. I'm forced to do the side activities in order to gain enough respect to unlock missions. I don't know if this was removed in the next game, but I never encountered it as problem because I gladly played those side activities. Not so here because...
10. The activities all kind of suck, and to make things worse, each activity location has 6 levels of that one activity. I don't want to play the same bullshit 6 times in a row... Shit can stay incomplete. I ain't care.
THE "IT IS WHAT IT IS" STUFF
11. Saints Row 2 is a little more serious than the later titles. The over the topness is one of the things I adore about its sequel, so this tamer incarnation isn't exactly gripping. Yeah, my character's a bad motherfucker, but I prefer my bad motherfuckers with a side of humor.
12. Continuing with the lack of over the topness, there's no big set pieces or big built up boss fights. They all kind of fizzle out, and they're not very interesting. I shoot through a bunch of guys to get to the main guy who is pretty much just like those regular guys except it takes a couple more slugs to put him down.
13. And when they did have a different mechanic, they were usually obnoxious in some way. Example: While fighting Veteran Child, who was using Shaundi as a human shield, you had to huck flashbangs at him to get him away from her and THEN shoot him. The obnoxious part was that he would step away from her occasionally without flashbang, and he would be invincible during that period. Why do?!
14. Voice acting. In Saints Row 3, I loved Laura Bailey voicing my main character. She was great throughout and made me laugh out loud plenty. Saints Row 2 voice actor...eehhhh...it was fine. Not too many laughs, just your standard hard ass chick.
THE ACTUALLY GOOD STUFF
15. There were a couple missions that really were impactful. The loss of an important character, the creative takedown of an enemy's main squeeze... Those few memorable moments drew me in and made me more invested in finishing the game.
16. I got to see the introduction of Pierce and Shaundi, who I love in the following game. They're not quite fully formed characters in this one, but you can see the beginnings of their eventual personalities.
So yeah...there was way more bad than good, but whatever lessons they took from making this game, they obviously used them to improve the next one, so kudos. The moral of today's story is, if you're gonna Saints Row, just start with 3. You'll thank me.
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