Games Beaten 2012

[Luke]

Lost two lives on 5-4, lost another two on 6-4, and lost a life on 8-3. No cheats, no funny stuff, no warps.

[Gamerforlife]

No, the most effective strategy is to drive a car into the alleyway and run over everyone at the drug bust.

Oh I did plenty of that LOL. I love killing three guys at once with the car. It's like getting a strike in bowling

[Gamerforlife]

I can't say that I agree with the shooting segments though. I do think the brawling was better executed than the shooting, but I liked running from cover-to-cover and shooting people, and using the slow-motion "face" moves where you vault from cover and take guys out in slow-mo, which continues to stay in slow motion as long as you can keep maintaining headshot accuracy. It was a cool way to make it ok to take gunplay risks and look like a badass leaping through the fire fight and taking out guys left and right, though the game never really required it so you had to bother to learn this technique just for the hell of it rather than due to gameplay demand. I think it may not have translated well to a controller though. I played with a mouse and keyboard and it required such fast and precise movement that I know I would have been dead in the water if I was using an analogue stick instead.

Problem is though, even taking all that into account, the shootouts are just so sloppily designed. Like the wedding, they don't even give you a gun in that part. You have to kill someone and take his gun. Conveniently for the enemy though, they're pumping bullets into you WHILE you're doing that. The game doesn't even give you a chance at taking cover before you being shot at. It's sloppy and stupid. In an actual movie, that would be the part where the main character dies. It's a video game though, so you take a few shots and shrug it off like it's nothing.

Plus, I've been hit with bullets even while in slow mo. So, you never get the kind of refined perfectly choreographed action scene you get in a movie like Hardboiled where Chow Yun Fat goes through a whole fight without getting hit by a single bullet. That's what always disappoints me with games like this. You never get to play through a gunfight that looks as good as anything in the movies because of sloppy design.

[J T]

That's a good point, but I'm not sure if that's a criticism of Sleeping Dogs specifically, or every shooter ever. Any game I have ever played that did have one hit kills was maddeningly difficult. I think that "bullet time" slow motion effects like what Max Payne started might provide a potential solution.

Though you used the word "choreographed" and that's one of the big differences between watching a movie and playing a game. The actors have spent plenty of time making everything look perfect before you see it on screen, whereas a player is learning the "choreography" of the action sequence as they play it. That means, if you're going to have one-hit-kills, then the character is going to die a lot, which is also potentially story breaking. Nevertheless, this is exactly why I'm excited for the upcoming Hotline Miami though: judging from the gameplay videos, it looks like a game where you run into a hostile situation with guns blazing and you can die very easily, so you have to be smart, quick, and know what you're doing. You'll die a hundred times, but by the time you finally get it right, it will look like a well choreographed gunfight. I've read from people doing previews of the game that it is immensely satisfying to complete a level for that very reason.

[emwearz]

Problem is though, even taking all that into account, the shootouts are just so sloppily designed. Like the wedding, they don't even give you a gun in that part. You have to kill someone and take his gun.

I loved that scene and I love the idea that you don't start with a gun. It feels a bit more realistic that not every time you get into a gun fight you have a gun with 20 clips of ammo ready.

[Gamerforlife]

That's a good point, but I'm not sure if that's a criticism of Sleeping Dogs specifically, or every shooter ever. Any game I have ever played that did have one hit kills was maddeningly difficult. I think that "bullet time" slow motion effects like what Max Payne started might provide a potential solution.

Though you used the word "choreographed" and that's one of the big differences between watching a movie and playing a game. The actors have spent plenty of time making everything look perfect before you see it on screen, whereas a player is learning the "choreography" of the action sequence as they play it. That means, if you're going to have one-hit-kills, then the character is going to die a lot, which is also potentially story breaking. Nevertheless, this is exactly why I'm excited for the upcoming Hotline Miami though: judging from the gameplay videos, it looks like a game where you run into a hostile situation with guns blazing and you can die very easily, so you have to be smart, quick, and know what you're doing. You'll die a hundred times, but by the time you finally get it right, it will look like a well choreographed gunfight. I've read from people doing previews of the game that it is immensely satisfying to complete a level for that very reason.

Okay, now I have to go look up Hotline Miami. I get lots of good game suggestions from your posts (like Escape Goat). I guess the reason I come down so hard on gunfights is that when you get into a brawl in Sleeping Dogs, you can get through without taking a single hit with a little skill. I like being able to finesse my way through fights like that, but it's much harder to do that in the shooter sections. Like you said though, that's sort of how all shooters are, so I'm probably being a bit harsh towards Sleeping Dogs. I don't mean to bash it so much. I genuinely enjoyed the game and I loved all of the other gameplay elements, including the really cool on foot chases, the car races, car hijacking(reminds me of Pursuit Force) and even the different mini-games for hacking, planting bugs, tracing calls, etc. That karaoke game got a bit annoying though

Problem is though, even taking all that into account, the shootouts are just so sloppily designed. Like the wedding, they don't even give you a gun in that part. You have to kill someone and take his gun.

I loved that scene and I love the idea that you don't start with a gun. It feels a bit more realistic that not every time you get into a gun fight you have a gun with 20 clips of ammo ready.

I don't disagree with you. I just wish you had a chance to get the gun in your hands before guys are already shooting you. I discovered a little trick with that part though after replaying it. In the melee fight prior to it, I made sure not to use the one knife that you can get your hands on the enemies I was fighting since that would wear it out and make it no longer usable. When I got into the next room with the firefight, I dashed towards the first guy with a gun and one hit killed him with the knife. Then I quickly took cover and the gun he dropped was just close enough that I could get my hands on it without getting out of cover. I probably got lucky though, but I was able to get my gun and get into cover without getting hit by a single bullet. Then I just Max Payned my way through the rest of the guys with bullet time.

[Luke]

Finished Jackal on NES without losing a life.

The last level has one relentless area with a backwards conveyor belt and six cannons firing at you at the same time. I usually creep forward in Jackal, but you basically need to run n' gun the last level. Getting to the final boss without losing a life gets the blood pumping as you know you are so close to a perfect game. This is when I usually blow it. But the last boss is simple if you calm down a bit and realize that all you have to do is basically shoot, move left a little, shoot, move right a little, repeat.

I've had Jackal since it was first released, have played it at least a few times every year and I never tire of it. If you can play a game well over one hundred times and still love it, that really says something about the gamee

[J T]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution (1/12) PC
Mirror's Edge (1/18) PC
Medal of Honor [2010] (1/23) PC
Puzzle Agent 2 (2/2) PC
Dinner Date (2/15) PC
NyxQuest (2/19) PC
Dear Esther (2/20) PC
The Stanley Parable (2/21) PC
To The Moon (2/26) PC
Escape Goat (6/16) PC
Rayman Origins (6/17) PC
Robot Pinball Escape (6/18) PC
Offspring Fling (7/16) PC
The Darkness II (7/30) PC
Thomas Was Alone (8/22) PC
Thirteen Flights of Loving (8/23) PC
Corril Slayer (8/27) PC
Sleeping Dogs (10/02) PC
Alice: Madness Returns (10/16) PC
Duke Nukem Forever (10/19) PC

This is a stupid game.

It has some decent gameplay moments though, so I stuck it out until the end. The escape sequence near the end is really impressive. The constant juvenile and sexist humor is not.

[Gamerforlife]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution (1/12) PC
Mirror's Edge (1/18) PC
Medal of Honor [2010] (1/23) PC
Puzzle Agent 2 (2/2) PC
Dinner Date (2/15) PC
NyxQuest (2/19) PC
Dear Esther (2/20) PC
The Stanley Parable (2/21) PC
To The Moon (2/26) PC
Escape Goat (6/16) PC
Rayman Origins (6/17) PC
Robot Pinball Escape (6/18) PC
Offspring Fling (7/16) PC
The Darkness II (7/30) PC
Thomas Was Alone (8/22) PC
Thirteen Flights of Loving (8/23) PC
Corril Slayer (8/27) PC
Sleeping Dogs (10/02) PC
Alice: Madness Returns (10/16) PC

Alice: Madness Returns has some of the best art direction I've seen in a game yet. The visuals are just stunning throughout the game and range from bright and magical to dark and disturbing. The melee gameplay is also quite good. The platforming is ok, though with a triple jump and float ability, you are almost too powerful. And for things to be out of reach, they have to be really far out of reach, which means the levels are huge. It was kind of a strange experience playing this game because I loved the artwork, I loved combat, and I liked the music. I just somehow frequently felt that the game was too long. It feels padded, or something. There's just an awful lot of walking around and solving little non-challenging puzzles, and airy platforming. Ultimately, I like the game, but I'd have to give this one a 4/5 stars despite having some of my favorite graphics in the modern era.

Here's a ton of screenshots I took while playing.

I didn't really notice you posting this until now. I completely agree with you about the game feeling padded. I think it hurt the game a bit, because it has some creatives ideas, but they kept getting repeated over and over and over again. About the art style, I love how they switched the look of the game between Wonderland levels and real world levels. Something about the visual style used when Alice is in the real world really appealed to me. I liked the combat. I felt like it was Zelda with a dash of third person shooter gameplay. What I liked was that there was a certain strategic element to the fights. I managed to find a way to get through every fight in the game without a single hit.

What did you think of the disappearing platforms? I thought that was a clever approach to platforming. Also, did you find the easter egg with Raz from Psychonauts? There seems to be some Psychonauts influence in the game artistically. By the way, don't know if you tried the DLC weapons. I love the upgraded tea cannon. It shows the image of a smiling Cheshire cat every time an explosive round connects with a target, like he's reveling in your slaughter. I thought that was awesome and never went back to using the regular teapot cannon after that.

[J T]

What did you think of the disappearing platforms? I thought that was a clever approach to platforming. Also, did you find the easter egg with Raz from Psychonauts? There seems to be some Psychonauts influence in the game artistically. By the way, don't know if you tried the DLC weapons. I love the upgraded tea cannon. It shows the image of a smiling Cheshire cat every time an explosive round connects with a target, like he's reveling in your slaughter. I thought that was awesome and never went back to using the regular teapot cannon after that.

I liked the appearing platforms on the card level. The disappearing ones that you had to crouch to see... I had mixed feelings about. The gameplay always felt kind of awkward since you can't jump when crouched. It's also a little glitchy on PC and I died a lot due to hiccups in the game, not to my failures while playing. I didn't know Raz was in the game, but certainly the kids in the Dollhouse looked like grotesque versions of the Pyschonauts kids though. I didn't know the game had any DLC so, I have never seen that cannon with the Cheshire cat.