Complacent Gamer reviews

Laptop’s wouldn’t be the same without a browser to play addicting web games. The Flash game Robot Unicorn Attack adds hours of fun to my mobile computing experience. Like many successful Flash games, Robot Unicorn Attack uses simple controls. The entire game requires two actions: dash and jump. The game immerses the player in an autorun, platformer experience. Surprisingly addictive, Robot Unicorn attack has simple gameplay and a haunting soundtrack. The background music nags at the player, but with the music muted the game seems to lose a key element. To waist plenty of time playing Robot Unicorn Attack swing over to Adult Swim Games.

With less than 6 hours before I need to wake up for work, the time presented itself as one in which a new post should arise. Since I started this site I have let it wander into a ‘post’ wasteland and need to bring it a glass of thirst quenching game opinion. Weighing in on my thoughts of my Xbox, currently acting as a giant paperweight, seemed like the perfect opportunity to spring an oasis in front of this blog.

Xbox. Oh Xbox. I slowly realized many console games rarely seem worth sixty dollars. I feel the increasing number of games released recently and slated for the near future with increasingly high numbers attached to the ends of the titles makes me reluctant to purchase anything. Fortunately I missed out on a plethora of great titles when originally released without the numerical onslaught. Unfortunately Steam recently drained my wallet by offering titles for less than the price to fill my gas tank; Wait, that comparison no longer seems to convey the same idea. Which brings me back to the reason my Xbox does not appear in an ad on Craigslist. The arcade keeps me interested. The Indy game scene allows me to play simple games and for around 2 dollars the challenge of finding a game worth the price lessens.

The Xbox does however point me toward the Indy game devs gone pro. Many of these guys feel the need to charge almost twenty bucks. I’m down for paying twenty, but most of these devs have yet to prove their worth to me. Releasing free games or even charging a buck or two works great for getting publicity. I play 10 minute demos that color my expectations and never really get a feel for the game. I fork over big bucks for replay value, or at least a few hours of solid game play. Demos tell me nothing. So until these developers climb off their horses I will continue abstaining from spending the money.

If an award existed for a game that could make a single repetitive task fun for hours, Miner Dig Deep would receive my vote. Miner Dig Deep has the ability to keep me entranced and entertained for hours even with the incredibly repetitive game play. The miner starts with a lantern and a pickaxe. With these tools one must dig deep into the depths of the narrow strip of land beneath a tent and a single store.

With only a lantern to light the way, the miner digs through the land in search of the hidden precious materials valued greatly at the store above. One may ask, “What can I purchase with said money?” The answer to that question is simple. The money buys a plethora of tools to make the mining easier. There are tools to mine through harder dirt, tools to dig faster, tools to go deeper faster, tools to return to the surface faster, and upgrades to the lantern to allow one to stay under the surface longer. The only benefit to the continuing excavation is the ability to do it faster and better.

Even though the game play is repetitive, there are hours of enjoyment to be had. Miner Dig Deep was well worth the 80 points on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

While ranting in my head about video games, I decided to take such thoughts and transcribe them somewhere for everyone else’s enjoyment. The first:

While pondering over whether or not I should play through Mirror’s Edge on hard I couldn’t help but wonder why I had to play through the game once to unlock this difficulty setting. Then I began to realize all of the video games I have played that offer unlockable difficulties as a “feature.” I guess unlocking a harder difficulty adds replayability, but it seems more like a hurdle for gamers to jump over. Creators must be full of themselves to think that I would want to play through the game again on “Super-Insane-Bats’-Shit-Crazy” mode simply because I couldn’t on the first go. I do want to be challenged, but at the same time I don’t want to play through a game two times to experience said challenge. Does it really matter if I play through the game again? I already forked over the money. Seems like the least game developers could do would be to unlock the feature for me. I understand unlockable content, but difficulty levels don’t appear to me as content. Can’t I play through the game on the hardest difficulty the first time around so I can get the full experience in one go.

Alright, I played through the first mission and this is my first thoughts or my “at a glance ” critique.

The movement and weapon firing seems rather realistic. The realism is nice, but it makes the movement frustrating. Walking and holding weapons/gear is rather intuitive to me in real life, however the translation isn’t so well when I put a keyboard between me and the rest of my body. I don’t really feel immersed in the game, the realism in movement makes me feel more disconnected. The game creates the feeling of guiding a blind soldier with a webcam attached to his head. Several times when I ran into something I half expected my character to fall over instead of just stopping dead in his tracks. I am also trying to figure out how they decided which objects I would be able to jump over because I ran into several different objects that were of almost identical proportions and found that I could leap over one and not the other. This is rather frustrating when I leap over a stone wall, run up to another and expect to be able to leap over it to run to the next bit of cover only to find out that the wall I am leaning against is for some reason unsurpassable and I must trot around to the end of the wall all while I’m being shot at, hit and bleeding, and trying to tell my squad that it is in fact a good idea to find cover when they are being shot at. Which actually leads me to my next point.

Commanding the squad is rather frustrating in the game as well. Tap the quick commands button and up pops a circle with commands to give your squad. The commands seem rather easy to give as the menu uses your movement buttons to navigate/select, which would be great were it not for that fact that there are several sub-menus to navigate through which means excess time that my movement keys are disabled for actual movement. I also just assumed that if I issued the order “Follow Me” my squad would continue to follow me until I issued another command. I was mistaken. Near the beginning, after completing the first objective I was so fascinated by the idea of calling in artillery that I lost track of my squad. In my defense, I did tell them to follow me and then began walking. To my surprise, they were almost dead after I called in the artillery because they walked off to go shoot at people. I like the idea that they don’t need to be told what to do all the time, but I also expect them to stay close to me if I tell them to. Which brings up another complaint about my squad. Why is it that they seem to only have a mind of their own when it puts them in danger? They like to wander off without me and shoot at crap, but they don’t have the mind to find cover when they are being shot at. It should also be noted that it is a good idea to move them well away from a placed C4 charge because they are, in fact, not smart enough to move away themselves.

The vehicles are kind of sluggish and weird to maneuver as well. The only vehicle available in the first mission was a jeep, so my vehicle experience is based solely on that. I just cannot figure out why I can’t turn my head while I’m driving. Sure it is safest to keep your eyes on the road, but every now and then I like to look slightly left to keep an eye out for enemies or to look toward the area that I am about to turn to see if there are any objects to obstruct my path. The driving frustrated me so I switched to being the gunner. The gunner position was fun, but it turns out my squad doesn’t know that the general direction we should be moving is toward the objective, not sitting still, or that it is a good idea to get in the vehicle when I do and get out when I do. The other thing to note is that the AI makes for terrible drivers. I opened the map and pointed out the objective and told my squad to move there all while in the gunner seat. The driver then proceeded to the objective at an average speed of, oh I don’t know, 4 miles per hour. We would stroll forward a bit at a slow speed, then basically stop for a few seconds then move forward again. After about 45 seconds I gave up and got back in the driver seat, unable to look to either side.

I play video games to relax and unwind, it shouldn’t frustrate me in the first mission. My other complaint thus far is the keyboard mappings. Most games fit a very standard keyboard layout/convention, and Dragon Rising seems to avoid sticking to standards. The game kept popping up with messages telling me what to do and not telling me how to do it so I was constantly opening up the game menu and checking what keys perform different actions. It also mentioned that I could change fire modes by holding down the reload key, which seemed to be more of a lie than anything because nothing happened when I was holding down the reload key. I was just standing there trying to switch to my M203 to launch a round into the tightly packed group of enemies until I finally decided that holding ‘R’ wasn’t gonna work. I also don’t really like the idea of having three separate keys to change stance. I would like standing, crouching, and prone to be selectable from the same key or at least switch me back to my last stance when I tap that key again. I went through the whole first mission crouched because I didn’t realize I had to press spacebar to stand up. I just kept wondering the whole time wondering why I didn’t stand up after tapping the crouch key again.

I could see the hard work they put into the game to add another level of realism. The damage system is creative and is another step towards realism, but also very annoying. I don’t like the methods of other video games where all you have to do is find cover and magically heal yourself. Flashpoint requires that you find cover, pull out your field dressing kit, and dress your wounds, which essentially is the same thing, because both methods require cover and time. It does seem to have a more permanent damage system as well, but I haven’t fully discovered it because I didn’t get hit too many times while I was stumbling around for cover. Realism seems to be a selling point now for FPSes, but me I think I prefer a little less realism. If I wanted realistic weapons, firing, and movement I think I may do something else with my time… like join the military.

All in all I think it may amount to being a playable game that I can slightly enjoy for some time. It is at least a fairly original idea with a lot of effort put into it… And a decent story, even if they were to cheap to hire voice actors to tell it or create some sort of cool video to explain it.

Remember, this is my “At a glance” review and these opinions are based on less than an hour of game time and may or may not reflect my opinions after prolonged gameplay. The purpose if this review is to have something to look back on after I make a full review succeeding completion of the game.

Finally got everything server-side set up so I can use the cool features in WP. This puts me one step closer to having everything fully functional. Woohoo!

The Complacent Gamer blog is finally up and running. Special thanks to Zach for helping me get it set up.