The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Watched The Watchmen, PoP DLC.

Avatar image for oni
Oni

2345

Forum Posts

5885

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 26

User Lists: 12

Edited By Oni

Good

  • I saw Watchmen yesterday.

It's been a while since I've read the book, but I liked it well enough. It dragged in a few spots, but it was pretty much a panel-for-panel recreation, with a few ommissions and fewer changes. The actors were mostly well-cast, except I didn't like Ozymandias. Accent felt off, and I felt he should've been more muscly. He looks a bit wimpy, really. Man, Laurie (Silk Spectre II) is a fox, really gorgeous woman.


I liked it. It's not gonna blow your mind, but I had low expectations, and I like me some brawlers. Check out my review here.

  • I made my first guide, for Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection.

I forgot to mention this, but I knocked out an Achievement guide for the UGC. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, as I had gotten all the achievements myself in one day, and figured I could help Giant Bomb out with a guide, as there wasn't one. If you want to do me solid, head on over to it and rate it! It's gotten a bunch of views, but not ratings yet.

Bad


I'm writing reviews for a Dutch XBOX website now (www.xbw.nl), and they sent me this atrocity. Good lord, it's the worst game I've played this console generation. Whatever you do, do not play this. Not even for ironic lulz. It will make you want to kill yourself.

Ugly


I finished the Dawn of War II campaign the other day. I loved it, it's a great game, I might write a review later. But the achievements for beating the campaign didn't unlock. Quite annoying. Then yesterday, I downloaded (and completed) the new Prince of Persia Epilogue DLC, which should've gotten me 150 points, but the new achievements haven't been added to www.xbox.com yet, so they don't actually show up on my gamercard. Great. So that's kind of a bummer.

Speaking of which...

The new DLC for PoP is kind of disappointing. It's pretty short (I obtained the achievement for completing it in two hours without even trying, or indeed knowing about it, as it's Secret), and boy, let me tell you, they weren't kidding when they said they were going to make it more challenging. In fact, it's really just more frustrating. A lot of time will be spent watching for the patterns of the black, lethal blobs on the walls, figuring out when to go, and the gaps between actually being on solid ground are much longer. The pacing is just kinda off, and sometimes the camera is hideously unhelpful in pointing out where you should be going. The fights are also a yawnfest, as the "new" enemy is just a shapeshifter who is either The Warrior or The Hunter, and every time you have to lure The Warrior to the edge so you can get him to transform into The Hunter, whereupon you can actually hurt him. It's needlessly laborious and the same fight is repeated several times. You also fight Elika's dad, who I thought was dead, a bunch of times. They also don't do a great job of explaining the ending. Elika is pissed, of course, but The Prince pretends like he did it for good reasons, whereas he really did it for selfish reasons, but he still can't bring himself to say he cares for, or indeed loves, Elika. It ends on another cliffhanger that does nothing to resolve the actual plot.

So there you go. Thanks for reading, comment below!

Avatar image for oni
Oni

2345

Forum Posts

5885

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 26

User Lists: 12

#1  Edited By Oni

Good

  • I saw Watchmen yesterday.

It's been a while since I've read the book, but I liked it well enough. It dragged in a few spots, but it was pretty much a panel-for-panel recreation, with a few ommissions and fewer changes. The actors were mostly well-cast, except I didn't like Ozymandias. Accent felt off, and I felt he should've been more muscly. He looks a bit wimpy, really. Man, Laurie (Silk Spectre II) is a fox, really gorgeous woman.


I liked it. It's not gonna blow your mind, but I had low expectations, and I like me some brawlers. Check out my review here.

  • I made my first guide, for Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection.

I forgot to mention this, but I knocked out an Achievement guide for the UGC. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, as I had gotten all the achievements myself in one day, and figured I could help Giant Bomb out with a guide, as there wasn't one. If you want to do me solid, head on over to it and rate it! It's gotten a bunch of views, but not ratings yet.

Bad


I'm writing reviews for a Dutch XBOX website now (www.xbw.nl), and they sent me this atrocity. Good lord, it's the worst game I've played this console generation. Whatever you do, do not play this. Not even for ironic lulz. It will make you want to kill yourself.

Ugly


I finished the Dawn of War II campaign the other day. I loved it, it's a great game, I might write a review later. But the achievements for beating the campaign didn't unlock. Quite annoying. Then yesterday, I downloaded (and completed) the new Prince of Persia Epilogue DLC, which should've gotten me 150 points, but the new achievements haven't been added to www.xbox.com yet, so they don't actually show up on my gamercard. Great. So that's kind of a bummer.

Speaking of which...

The new DLC for PoP is kind of disappointing. It's pretty short (I obtained the achievement for completing it in two hours without even trying, or indeed knowing about it, as it's Secret), and boy, let me tell you, they weren't kidding when they said they were going to make it more challenging. In fact, it's really just more frustrating. A lot of time will be spent watching for the patterns of the black, lethal blobs on the walls, figuring out when to go, and the gaps between actually being on solid ground are much longer. The pacing is just kinda off, and sometimes the camera is hideously unhelpful in pointing out where you should be going. The fights are also a yawnfest, as the "new" enemy is just a shapeshifter who is either The Warrior or The Hunter, and every time you have to lure The Warrior to the edge so you can get him to transform into The Hunter, whereupon you can actually hurt him. It's needlessly laborious and the same fight is repeated several times. You also fight Elika's dad, who I thought was dead, a bunch of times. They also don't do a great job of explaining the ending. Elika is pissed, of course, but The Prince pretends like he did it for good reasons, whereas he really did it for selfish reasons, but he still can't bring himself to say he cares for, or indeed loves, Elika. It ends on another cliffhanger that does nothing to resolve the actual plot.

So there you go. Thanks for reading, comment below!

Avatar image for bog
BoG

5390

Forum Posts

42127

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 3

User Lists: 5

#2  Edited By BoG

So, how is the story of the PoP DLC? You gave a little info, said it was a good explanation, but overall, how does it rate? I guess you can't really say much in two hours, but it can happen. Also, I'm curious to know if the difficulty improves or inhibits the game. For something that was criticized for being too easy, yet had to be for that experience, I wonder how it turned out. It seems to me that, from what you said, this particular game just wasn't meant to be challenging, as the camera just doesn't work for observing the patterns of those traps.

Avatar image for oni
Oni

2345

Forum Posts

5885

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 26

User Lists: 12

#3  Edited By Oni

Yeah, in my opinion, the game isn't meant to offer that kind of challenge, and shoehorning it in did it no favours. It just feels more frustrating and repetitive, as you're navigating lots of slightly different obstacles in a short timespan. There are two pretty cool platform puzzle areas in it, which is exactly the thing it should have more of. These two parts are everything I like about PoP, and as good as, if not better, than anything that was in the main game. They were remeniscent of Sands of Time more than anything, which is good.

The story doesn't really develop much. If you don't want to be spoiled, don't read: Ahriman is out, of course, Elika is alive again and pissed at the Prince, saying he had no right. He says he was gonna escape anyway, and that Ahriman is afraid of her because she has the power to stop him. She still has her powers even though the temple is gone. Yet Elika believes Ormazd has abandoned them. This is the only interesting part of the story, but it's very underplayed. You basically have to trigger these dialogues yourself with the trigger, as in the full game.

If you really liked PoP, I still think it's worth getting, just know that it's quite short and a bit of a cop-out in several ways (no notable new features to speak of, not doing much for the story). But I still really like the Prince-Elika dynamic.

Avatar image for jamesf
JamesF

1546

Forum Posts

1337

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 19

User Lists: 3

#4  Edited By JamesF

Can't wait to see Watchmen, but I just can't see myself paying $20 for a lowly-rated XBLA game.