So I managed to borrow a copy from a friend who somehow finished it alarmingly quickly and was, oddly enough, more than eager to lend it to me. Anyway, I'm at the point right after finding out about the doctor inside the bottle ship and I want to share my first impressions so far. Fortunately, I was right that I might actually enjoy the actual gameplay and that has been the only thing keeping my interest in the game so far. For all it's weirdness, the concept is still pretty fun.
The story, however, is not something I'm quite fond of. Not because it is bad, per se, but because it's poorly delivered. The presentation of everything I've seen thus far is reminiscent of a poorly made book-to-film adaptation where narrations are over extended rather than letting the visuals present most of the conflict and characterization. It also doesn't help that Samus' voice is completely dull most of the time. I'm sorry but when it comes to stories that rely on a good amount of internal narration, even Ace Combat 5 did a better job presenting its story than this game.
These are all just my first impressions though. Maybe later cutscenes may actually have better direction for all I know. It would probably be best if I could simply skip the entire story and just focus on the gameplay though... >_>
I see. No wonder Challenger and every other map in the intial folder that I tried made no sense to me. Good thing I switched to Lost Temple then because, as unbalanced as it is, at least I can learn stuff on a semi-proper level.
So I take it that every serious tournament ever made all used custom made maps then?
Just to be clear, I don't mind inserting flaws to a character. After all, pulling the right string can actually make a better more likable person than little miss perfect. I just want to know if Other M truly went overboard with it as to what I've been reading about it lately or did they do it at a tolerable level. Also, I don't regard her as just some soulless badass who likes to blow stuff up so please don't mistake me of giving that impression. I simply have an affinity for soldier type characters that can stay professional and combat efficient regardless of internal conflict and also do not spout out shitty one-liners every 5 seconds.
I don't really consider myself a Metroid fan but I do respect the character that Samus Aran has projected in all the previous Metroid games. She's a bounty hunter that's incredibly proficient in combat and always gets the job done. Also, the most interesting thing about her, in my opinion, is that the fact that she doesn't talk all that much was probably the very thing that saved her from simply becoming another generic female rambo. In a way, the main character was probably the biggest reason I tried my hand at the Prime games even though I couldn't really care less about the entire franchise.
Now I've seen the Quick Look and have read the review and I actually find the weird gameplay structure to be quite intriguing. However, I've also heard and read from other reviews that Samus' character was changed quite drastically and not exactly for the better too. If I were to summarize everything I've read about this game, it would be that the developers basically took the bounty hunter that saved the galaxy countless times before, overdosed her with the 'human flaw' serum, and transformed her into a codependent 'delicate flower' of a Bella Swan that constantly hesitates in the middle of combat. That....really came out of left field if I may say so myself.
Granted, I haven't really played the game because, being a person that relied almost solely on the character to keep interest in playing through the games, this information has really shied me away from buying Other M. So I would like to ask, is this information about Samus' character change accurate? and if so, what are your opinions about it?
In all honestly, even after owning the first game for more than 10 years now, I've only started learing how to play it just 3 days ago so forgive me if I'm completely in the dark about anything that has been happening in the multiplayer scene.
Anyway, while watching the SC2 TNT, I noticed that most if not all of Brad's matches happened on maps with pretty similar formats. All starting bases are placed on a highground with one ramp and there's always a nearby natural expansion at the bottom. Has this always been a staple of multiplayer maps? I'm pretty curious because I remember most of my old skirmish experiences in SC and Brood War to be a bit different. All my starting bases rarely had any form of chokepoint and resource placements weren't exactly what I would consider organized as compared to how I see them these days.
" I could understand not being familiar with the flow of the game. But I really can't believe that prior knowledge to level layout is an important thing - Helpful? Yes. But not vital by any means, I mean, that would be pretty crazy. Anyway, I could point out that I did actually have a similar problem when I played Deus Ex a year or two ago, didn't make it more than a few hours into it, but I was hopelessly lost and inherently overwhelmed quite often. And also that when I actually did finish it recently, I was playing stealth significantly, so things just about always progressed slowly, could that have something to do with it? Maybe, I don't know. Actually, in retrospect, I think the summation of your problems is perfectly embodied into one specific scenario late into the game. Okay, yeah, THAT PART is pretty brutally complicated at first. To the point of me actually being relatively frustrated and overwhelmed. But the rest was pretty smooth sailing, apparently. So I'd recommend keeping with it, and hopefully in the process gain a kind of understanding of the structure, priority and pacing. Something like that. "
I'm not saying it is significantly important but prior knowledge to locations and patterns can make people play a game a bit differently compared to their first time through if only because they can more easily put the tiny and subtle missing pieces together at an almost subconcious level even without being given any form of hint or direction simply due to past experience when a first-timer can easily be lost because of those same little things.
One time, I tried playing the earlier levels of Deus Ex and Invisible War over and over again just for the heck of it and was surprised at how easier they got the more I played them. It wasn't because I became more observative or anything but because I always had a clear and general idea on where I want to go no matter how vague the objectives get. However, I only noticed these kinds of differences whenever I stop and think about it. Perhaps the free-form nature of the game masks this somehow.
@ShiftyMagician said:
" This will be an interesting thread. I want to hear more experiences of new players trying to play the classics, and see how much different the game experience is to them. I played some old games, but I also have not played Deus Ex. I should get around to doing that someday. "
For an old game, the controls and interface in Deus Ex are surprisingly not as clunky as something like Rogue Spear. The worst you'll probably have to deal with are the bad graphics and wrestling with the Function keys when switching augmentations in the middle of a firefight. The best advice I can give for the later is to simply do it RE4 style, basically putting the Aug Menu key nearest to your left hand and do your micromanagement there.
The voice work is also horrendously bad except for maybe 1 or 2 guys but...hehe...it's an old game right? XD The soundtrack does not disappoint though but I'll probably be one of the very few to admit in liking Invisible War's a bit more (except for the main theme anyway).
@Kovie: Well, since I'm still pretty new to the game, it could be that my lesser knowledge of the levels and gameplay flow in general means that having the game blank out on me for even just a second can leave me clueless pretty easily as compared to someone who's already played and finished it for more than once or twice.
@Kovie: It's not that level designs can get unintuitive sometimes but it's just that there are rare occasions where the game suddenly falls into complete dead air and you are left on your own for a very brief period until the game suddenly decides to flow normally again.
Anyway, the only reason I made this thread is because I never found anything when I did my own searching. So now I'm under the impression that I'm really supposed to go postal whenever the game stops telling me anything and if that's what the developers intended, then it's fine with me.
Log in to comment