10 Completely Irrational Or Unfair Ways I Judge Games

1. Whether or not it blacks out or freezes my second monitor while playing in fullscreen

I have no idea how games handle this, and a lot of games this only happens sometimes when I load it up.  But my addiction to information requires that I watch something while playing games depending on my mood and the game I'm playing.  If I load up a game and my second monitor goes black, I suddenly like the game less.

2. How long it takes to Alt-Tab out and into the game

If the alt-tab takes longer than two seconds, I'm going to judge you.  This is mostly dependent on my current RAM commit but for some reason I take it out on the game.  How dare you not take into consideration that my six firefox windows are using 3 gigs of ram right now?  I should uninstall this shit right now.

3. How long the game takes to install

I'm going to watch the install bar the entire time because I really don't have anything better to do.  If you get my hopes up and then have to install nine other fucking things like DirectX 9c FUCKING AGAIN, I'm going to hate you.

4. In game font choice

I get that you have to justify hiring that graphic design student with a focus on typography, but if your ingame font choice doesn't match what I want it to be, I will think less of you.  This is especially true if I'm playing with the subtitles on and the font looks like a high school essay, I'm going to be upset.

5. The number of clicks required to change the resolution

Games always start in the worst possible resolution.  Your monitor is 1920x1080?  How about we start the game in 1024x800?  How does that work for you?  No?  Well, it's nine clicks to fix it, and the resolution selector only goes one way, don't miss yours!  I'm going to break your face.

6. Default mouse sensitivity

It's easy to change and no two people have the same preference, but if my mouse goes off the pad while I'm trying to change it I'm in rage mode.

7. Slider bars in menus

Seriously, what's wrong with numbers?  If I use anybody else's computer to play something and there's no number, it's going to take me forever to get it back to where I want it and then my friend is going to have to do the same when they want it back to normal.  Just give me some fucking numbers.  Slider + Numbers?  Fine, just slider?  Fuck off.

8. How loud/how hot it makes my computer run

This is mostly my fault, graphics aren't where I want them, but if a specific game makes my computer run hot, I run hot.

9. How nice the title screen looks

...Yeah, really, kind of a thing.

10. How active the wiki is

If the wiki is empty I just don't feel as involved with a game.  Sometimes I don't even bother with the wiki so I'm not sure why this bothers me, but it does.

Metro: Last Light: Part 2: I may have been a bit hasty...

Go home angry mob, I fucked up

So I actually did go to restart the game, I was actually being truthful when I said that at the end of the last post, amazing, I know.  Well, it turns out you can select chapters from the main menu, I somehow missed this when I rage quit my first time around as I was rather upset, I apologize Metro, I should have never of doubted you.  I'm only a little upset that it's still possible to get stuck, but having to replay 30 minutes of the game is an okay compromise I guess.

So here's the short post about the end of the game.  After the awful boss section which turned out to be incredibly easy once I knew what to do, the game really start to solidify the story while turning it upside down and bringing back Kahn to, once again, do some freaky weird ass shit, but I would have been upset if he didn't.  Most of my complaints about the game seemed less awful in the latter parts.  There's less, "Defend the shit." section and the ones that are there give you plenty of ammo to deal with it, the stealth sections became more open ended and I felt more accomplished as I got through them and then a very interesting section involving the least intrusive escort quest since Bioshock Infinite.

A lot of the plot threads get tied up nicely, if a little Deus Ex Machina in feel, it still fits in given the circumstances and the weird bits of Metro that I loved from the first.

Look to the left

And the ending was everything I could have hoped for.  It wasn't quite as cinematic as the first but it fit better.  I was waiting for some other Deus Es Machina to show up, but it never did, the game ends nicely and poetically, it's very fitting.  I'm hopeful for another game in the series, but it's going to be tough to live up to these two, but I'll remain hopeful.

Later days, Artyom

Metro: Last Light: Why is all the ammo in the sink?

You had to know this was coming, since I professed my love for the first one so much, but I feel this one might not be so glowing.

I promise not to draw too many things back to Metro 2033, but as it's really the only other game in it's genre, it's going to be a bit hard.  Metro: LL starts off almost exactly at the end of Metro 2033.  Everything is "happy"ish, kinda, better than it was before, I guess, maybe, it's tough to tell, the world is still on radioactive fire so how good can shit really get?

The first thing that kind of upsets me is the title screen, it's more or less unskippable, which is really not necessary, after the first time just let me get into the game for fuck's sake, I know who made it, I get it, stop showing me this shit.  But, whatever, on to the game.

The game has the same controls as Metro 2033, which is to say the same controls as damn near everything else, but it's not broken, don't try to fix it.  Ranger difficulty is back, get excite!

You start the game off as Artyom again, which I was very excited about.  I was worried they were going to have me play as someone else and I don't think I would have liked that quite as much.  I seem to bond with silent protagonists, especially ones that are thrown into situations beyond themselves and forced to adapt.  The only slight problem is after the events of the first game, Artyom is kind of a badass, but so is Sam Fisher and I still love him, so not a deal breaker.

Off to a good start

The game makes the assumption that you got the standard ending in the previous game, not the, "Good"/hidden ending, I think this is fine, I mean the first two times I played through the first one I didn't even know the "good" ending was a thing, you kind of have to try for it and it leaves the world in a place were a sequel wouldn't really be that interesting.  I mean, they could go with a Prey style game, but I'd much prefer that I actually made the world a little worse at the same time I made it a bit better.

The atmosphere is essentially the same, which is to say amazing.  They managed to change enough but not miss what actually made the first one great.  There's still random conversations to listen in on, still the same silent protagonist, it feels right.

The story is better written this time around.  The first one focused a lot on settings and gameplay and let the script slip a bit in terms of depth.  It had some really good moments, but everything feels like it has more depth to it, although it won't be immediately apparent.  Old characters make good cameos and the story still has the same, "Is this a cutscene?" type of flow to story elements and dialogue in that you just fall into story elements with no break in the action.

The setting has changed a bit since the first one.  In Metro:LL, the surface is where you'll spend far more time than the first time around.  But it's a little better this time around.  The analogue watch is replaced with a digital one that actually reads the down to the second amount of time left on your filter which is a god send, truely.  It makes exploration on the surface possible rather than a terrified speedrun.  Also the watch reads the actual time your computer is set for, I just thought that was cool.

The interior sections are more threshed out and more varied.  From populated towns, to Bioshock inspired scenery, to swamps to busted metro tunnels, it changes things up nicely.

The right side seems nice

The weapons are much nicer this time around, there's more mods, more weapons, more styles of weapons, I felt compelled to check out weapon stores everywhere they were even if I had gotten comfortable with my current set, just to see what crazy shit they came up with. 

Stealth is back, and, much to my delight, you can use a knife to one shot kill enemies you sneak up on, it feels a lot like Dishonored which is a good thing.

And, saving the best for last before I talk about what pissed me off, how scary the game is.  The game is terrifying, absolutely terrifying.  I've reached a new peak for how scared I've been during a game.  It beat out amnesia, it beat out the dark tunnel with the non-stop animals in the first game, it's beat out every horror game I've bothered to play, all with one room.

Sure, there's bits where stuff jumps out, but this room doesn't do that, and if you do find this room, make sure to look everywhere, search every corner, and play with headphones on, you'll get it.

In addition, I don't consider myself afraid of spiders, pretty much at all.  I kind of like them because they get rid of the fucking flys in my house which I hate much more.  But if you are afraid of spiders, you may want to pass on this game unless you really want to face that fear because they are god damn everywhere and they are scary as fuck.

And you can hear them in the walls and the ceilings and everywhere, it's unnerving and an awesome use of sound.  Most of the time, nothing happens, it's all in your head, but every once in a while it all goes to hell.

But now I must talk about the shitty, possibly game-breaking part of the game, ammo sinks.

Ranger mode in the first game was kind of like a mod.  It didn't come with the game originally and it was quite a bit of luck that it just slid into the game without changing anything and it worked.  The ammo was scare, sure, but the game didn't make you waste too much of it save one or two sections.  But Metro: LL insists that you blow most or all of your ammo on pretty frequent occasion.  There's boss fights which seem unnecessary, tons of rail shooter sections that last a little too long and a number of "defend the shit" points which send waves of enemies at you.

This would be okay if you could get ammo afterwards, but I got stuck because of this.  And not, "I have to reload a save from 45 minutes ago." stuck, "I have to restart the whole game because it's not possible to progress." stuck.  There's a two part boss fight a fair ways into the game.  In the first section, shooting it does nothing, the game does not tell you this.  I wasted all of my ammo, then figured out what I was supposed to do, the game autosaved past the point where my ammo is gone and now I'm supposed to shoot it.  GIVE ME SOME FUCKING INDICATION OF THIS SHIT!  Seriously?  Why the fuck would you let this happen?  The worst part is there's no way to get back to the checkpoint where I had ammo, it's just gone, so that's where I ended the game.  That is where it currently sits.  I'm a little mad about it.

But, writing this made me realize I liked the game enough that I want to start over and fix all the mistakes I made, it's seriously good, just a little broken, but it won't fool me twice.

Thomas Was Alone: But they're just rectangles!

Yes, I'm alive.  Rather busy, but alive.  Crunch time at work, lots of hours, none of you care so here is Thomas Was Alone.

Storytelling.  That word needs to be more often used in the games industry.  It's a bit of a lost art form to be fair.  We like our information very fast and very concise these days, no mucking about with details and sublties!  There's nazis to kill!  Why is this guy talking to me?  I need to kill more people!

It's not entirely developer's fault.  Storytelling is often overlooked in lew of better graphics, keeping the pace fast and delivering a fun product that's easily accessible to pick up and play.  I'm guilty of buying into it as well, my opinion on Just Cause 2 was that it was a really fun game and it had terrible storytelling to the point where it probably would have been better off not existing at all in the game.  But then along comes a game that reminds you that stories are nice and characters that you can relate to creates better atmosphere and it makes you realize a need for something you thought you lost long ago, to connect with something.

I connected with rectangles, I'm still a little confused on how that happened.

Thomas Was Alone is a puzzle platformer with the world's most simplified graphics, all the characters are rectangles.  Sure they're different colors, but really, they're rectangles. 

Mechanically it plays just fine.  The controls make sense, although it had been a very long time since I used the arrow keys for a game.  Platforming is tight, insanely simple and it all works very well.  That's about it, it's a platformer, you... platform, no explanation required.

 But controls are not what makes this game, that would be the story.

Thomas Was Alone now sits nicely up in the top three of "Best Indie Game Storytelling" keeping it company up there is Bastion and To The Moon so it should be very proud of it's position.  The story is told by a third party narrator in the style of an impassioned British radio broadcaster reading his son a bedtime story, with all the inflection that would come with it.  It's very pleasent.

Despite none of the characters ever talking, these rectangles have personalities, fears, hopes, dreams, it's rather astounding.  I remember at one point I was playing and my girlfriend came home, asked me what I was playing and I was able to rattle off the names of all of the "characters" in the game as well as what they were like.  I was amazed, I sometimes forget the name of the main character in larger titles even if they constantly shout it at me.  Let alone knowing what the personalities of anyone other than the main character but I remembered that Chris was kind of a dick and John liked being helpful.

Play this game, that's the short of this post.  It's just so... nice.  The design is great, the puzzles are fun and challenging, the music is wonderful and the storytelling is top notch.  I'm hoping to see more, but for now, I'm just glad Thomas is no longer alone.

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