It's been well over a month since the last time I blogged about video games. Not since the last time I blogged (though it's almost been a month since then), but that was a one time deal. I mean, I can only come out once, right?
Anyway, as is often the case with me, I go through lengthy periods where I'm either not playing anything, or not playing anything deserving of more than a passing reference in a blog. Mercenary Kings is all right, but I don't think I could write a whole blog about it. If it wasn't obvious enough already, then I'll be blunt and say that I do now have some things to write about, which is why you're reading this thing I wrote about video games that I played.
Spec Ops: The Line.
When this game was released, it fell under the category of, "I'll buy it if I see it on sale, which really means I'll probably never play it because by the time it does I'll have stopped caring about it." But then it was $5 on PSN, which was a price that I couldn't refuse. I played it, I'm very glad that I did play it, and I think this is very much one of those games that everyone should play at some point in his or her life.
This is a difficult game to write about. Usually when I write these blogs, I try to avoid talking about the story too much, and focus on the game part of the games. But I feel like doing that here would be doing this game a disservice, and also missing the point. I'll do my best to talk around the story, and if I do run into spoiler territory, I'll white it out, classified government document style. I will say this though: If you have not played this game, and have any inkling at all that you might want to, go play it now, before reading anything I have to say about it. It's fairly short, and probably mad cheap on Steam, because as a non-PC player, I just always assume that everything is mad cheap there all the time.
Spec Ops presents itself, at least within the game, as a pretty standard third person, cover based shooter. About the only things it does differently from any generic third person shooter are that it has three grenade types (regular, sticky, and flash), and that it has light squad mechanics. It's basically just, push a button when aiming at a dude to have your squad focus on that dude. So far as I could tell, there's no way to direct them to specific cover points, which I would have liked. It does have a neat feature where the lines that the characters say when doing things like reloading, or telling your squadmates to focus on specific targets change over the course of the game. Up front they're very professional things that soldiers should say, but by the end, well, let's just say that they sound like the things these people would say after going through the stuff that they have.
But in a way, the game is almost intentionally generic. Up front, it's so standard and generic that by the time the game starts going outside the box with the story, that it makes it that much more impactful. This game isn't like The Last of Us, which opens with (spoiler for the beginning of The Last of US) Joel's daughter dying. This isn't a game that would lead you to believe that it's going to have strong emotional resonance, or be doing anything other than having some dude-bro soldiers fighting generic "Middle-Eastern" terrorist type enemies.
By the end, it's clear that it's really about the toll that war takes on soldiers, especially those placed in command. The ones that not only have to commit horrible acts, but can't even use the, "I was just following orders" excuse to help justify it. Which is not to say that Walker (the protagonist) does not spend most of the game trying to justify his actions. He certainly does, and how his rational changes and morphs throughout the game is definitely an important part of the story.
Part of the way that the game helps make these choices that Walker makes in the story feel more impactful is that a handful of them are either in the hands of the player, or at least presented in such a way that it feels like there's a choice, even if in reality there isn't actually a choice. I mean that both in the, "this is a video game and choice never really matters" sense, and in the sense that...Well, you'll have to play the game to see what I mean. Unless you have played it and still don't understand.
This game's also really brutal. Brutal in ways that games rarely get. I don't want to spoil anything, but take my word for it. This game is brutal. Maybe the most brutal game I've ever played. Not in the sense of the literal amount of gore shown on screen. If that's your standard, then something like Mortal Kombat 9 would be your high point, or maybe REVENGEANCE.
The difference here, if I really need to state it, is that Spec Ops is a dark, serious, and most importantly, grounded game. I'm not saying it's a completely realistic game. Even outside of regenerating health, and other game mechanics, there's definitely plenty of times when this game operates under "action movie physics" (like exploding barrels) rather than real world physics. But at the moments when it matters most, the game is as realistic as it needs to be to FEEL real, regardless of whether it actually adheres to the laws of physics.
The game has really great voice acting to back up all this stuff too. Nolan North gives one of his best performances as Walker. At the very least, I'd say it's his best "serious" performance, as there's still a part of me that thinks his work as Steven Heck in Alpha Protocol remains his finest work. The rest of the cast is great as well. I particularly liked that Jake Busey (son of Gary Busey) was in this game, and I didn't even realize it was him until I saw the credits, and laughed. If you've never seen anything with Jake Busey in it, then take my word for it when I say that he looks and sounds almost exactly like a younger Gary Busey. Or at least he did in Nazis at the Center of the Earth, because like I said, I didn't realize it was him until the credits.
That's probably about all that I really have to say about the game, at least without going into massive spoiler territory. If you haven't played this game, then please do. It's honestly one of my favorite games of the last generation, and like I said before, a game that I think everyone should play. We don't get many games like this, and frankly, I don't want there to be a ton of games like this. I still like mindless shooters that don't make me think about morality, or mental illness. But I'd definitely like there to be more games like this. Maybe two or three a console generation. I think that sounds about right.
If you have played the game, and didn't listen to the spoilercast that GameSpot did closer to the game's release (in 2012), I recommend you give it a listen. Jeff Gerstmann and the guy who wrote the game were guests for it. Even if you've played the game, I think it's safe to say that the writer drops some stuff that you probably would never have realized. If you haven't played the game, and are serious about not playing it, it's still worth a listen. Just consider playing it first. Or after, you'd still get a lot out of it.
Oh, one last thing. This game has loading screen tips about cognitive dissonance. Yup. I probably should have included a picture of one that actually said that, but this isn't a PS4 game where I have a screenshot button, so sorry!
Stick it to the Man.
After Spec Ops, it was nice to have something lighthearted and goofy to play. And this happened to be free on PS+ for PS4, and thus I played it. If you have absolutely no idea what this game is, then you could start by (re)watching the Unprofessional Fridays video where Vinny played some of the PS3 version (assuming you're a premium Giant Bomb member). Or, I could tell you that it's a "platformer-adventure" game. Yup, video game genres are still broken.
Stick it to the Man is one part side scroller (though there is a little bit of z-axis movement, Little Big Planet style), and one part puzzle solving adventure game. More specifically, it's the "find the right items and use them in the right places" type of adventure game. It's not a pixel hunt, thankfully, because the game is always very clear about what items you can grab, and where you can use items (though not about what item is to be used on which spot).
Most of that is built around the main character (Ray) having the ability to read minds, and by doing so, often create a physical representation (as a sticker, thus the "stick it" in the title) of said item. He can also stick items to people's thought bubbles to make them think of a specific thing, also for use in puzzle solving. And at least in the PS4 version, when you listen to people's thoughts, their thoughts play through the controller's speaker. I know I saw a thread on GB where some people were complaining about that, and the "tinniness" of the speaker, but I think the audio quality is fine. Maybe I'm just used to the terrible in-controller speaker on Wiimotes, but I like the DualShock 4's speaker.
For the most part, it's pretty simple and straightforward. I did get stuck once, not because I didn't know what to do, but because an NPC that I needed to follow me literally got stuck. I had to reload the game, and thankfully she had gotten unstuck, and I was able to proceed. Aside from that though, I never had much trouble with the puzzles, and if anything, I wish they had been a tad more challenging.
The other aspect of the game are the stealth sequences. For story reasons, the government (or, "The Man," if you will) is after Ray, and occasionally he has to get past government agents. These parts aren't especially difficult, but they're also not fun. The only thing they do that is remotely interesting is that occasionally you can read the thoughts of the agents and attain stickers to use against them. If one is thinking about how sleepy he is, then you can get a "ZZZ" sticker, and use it to put an agent to sleep for a few seconds. Or if an agent is trying to remember what Ray looks like, you can get a "Ray's face" sticker, stick that onto an agent, and other agents will chase after him. It sounds more interesting than it actually is in practice.
Luckily all the stealth parts of the game are short, and not very hard, otherwise it would have been a serious drag, and really lowered my overall opinion of the game. But as it is, I enjoyed it, and I think the game is just funny enough often enough that I'd say it's funny. If you have a PS4, and PS+, then you have absolutely no reason not to play the game, it's only a few hours long, and I think worth your time.
Also, I think the art style is fantastic. I probably should have gotten a screenshot of my own to use, but the game is so linear, and didn't really have any funny glitches, so I wasn't hitting that Share button very often.
It's also a very strange game, especially toward the end. Don't read the following whited out bit if you have any intention of playing this game. There's a part in this game where the solution to a puzzle is to move a pregnant woman's pregnant belly into a man, and make him pregnant. No, I'm not joking, that is literally a puzzle solution in this game.
Mercenary Kings.
This game's all right. I dunno, I don't really have a ton to say about it. The weapon customization stuff is cool. The part where bosses can just run away is lame. I tried playing it in co-op, but local two player still splits the game into quadrants, and it didn't let player 2 have any access to my unlocked gun parts. That meant we had to either play the early game missions (where I was wrecking stuff) or mid game stuff where his early game weapons were way too weak to be effective against most of the enemies.
I still haven't beaten the game. I think I've put 10-12 hours into it. I'm not opposed to playing more, I've definitely enjoyed most of what I've played. It's just a really repetitive game, and I haven't been in the mood to play long stretches of it. Or any of it, on most days. I'll probably finish it at some point.
That's it for the games I've been playing. And probably will be it until Watch_Dogs comes out. I dunno, I might play Transistor, but I literally know nothing about that game, other than it being the next game from Greg Kasavin and the other people that worked on Bastion. People seem to be excited about it, but I dunno.
Not much else has been going on lately. I saw The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which I didn't think was great. There's a new Godzilla movie coming out, which is rad. It's gotten me watching the old Godzilla movies on Netflix, which are not of high quality, I'll say.
I've somehow gotten into a situation where I am going to watch local lacrosse games, despite not enjoying watching lacrosse at all. I'll just say it's a family thing, and leave it at that.
Still working on my novel. Making progress, slowly but surely. Nothing else to report on that front.
I've often made passing references to feeling depressed and whatnot in these blogs, but I've been feeling a lot better since the last time I wrote up one of these things. I can't say with 100% certainty that it's because I came out (as bi), both in that last blog, and outside that blog (to my parents and friends), but I'm going to say that certainly didn't hurt.
And that's all I've got to say. Since I still don't feel like I have a proper replacement for Luigi pictures, and I did mention Nolan North, I'm going to go back to the days of including a picture of Nolan North, at least in this one blog.
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