Thursday, June 9, 2011

Too Human

HOW NOT TO MAKE A VIDEOGAME
STATUS : [INCOMPLETE]
RATING : [1/5]

Disclaimer, I only played this game for about an hour before I quit. Therefore, my opinion might not be fair. However, I couldn't handle playing any longer, so, whatever.

In my opinion, this game is a perfect example of how NOT to make a game.

My first furstration bloomed when I realized they had I didn't have camera control. Now, I've played many games where the camera was static. However, in these games, the camera angles were planned out, and so I was sure to see everything I was supposed to see.  This was an open environment where the camera followed me on an unscripted path.  With only a 'camera reset' to aid me, I became quickly frustrated with the lack of control.

The second wave hit me as soon as I found out what the camera controls were taken my right thumbstick in order to make room for: the main combat control. Simply push the thumbstick at the enemy you want to hack and slash, and huzzah! You attack the bitch. It makes for incredibly boring gameplay. I never thought I would enjoy hitting 'a' repeatedly over something else, but this game opened a whole new door of boring. Not only is it boring, but its jarring. If your opponent is close enough, you jump toward him when you push the thumbstick toward him, and start attacking. However, if they're not close enough, you just stand there and swing, momentarily frozen. So, you will be attacking an oncoming hoard, dashing from person to person, and then all of a sudden, you're standing there swinging at nothing. Same thing happens when you're running about and forget that the right thumbstick isnt the camera. You become awkwardly frozen, swinging at nothing.

You can also use ranged attacks, shooting your pistols at your enemies. If an enemy is close enough, a target appears around it and you begin shooting at it. You can switch targets using the right thumbstick, but the target doesn't stick to where you change it. If you let go, it goes back to the primary target.

There was no mini map. You were dropped into the middle of a story that attempted to pull you in by switching back and forth between the present and the past, as well as switching you between 2 different realms. It fails, and is instead, simply confusing. I leveled up 6 times in less than an hour, and leveling up was annoying rather than exciting. The equipments screen was confusing... I could go on for a very long time about how many things I found frustrating about this game.

The last straw was the first miniboss battle:

I ran in and started slashing at the beastie. Unfortunately, he stomped and swung a few times and I found myself dead. After pretty scene involving an 'valkyrie' dropping down to fly away with me, I'm back at the entrance to the map while my soldiers are still whacking away at the monster. So, I run back to join the battle. I run in close, and notice an icon in the corner encouraging me to press the 'a' button.  Doing so resulted in me jumping on his back. Not knowing what to do next, I pushed around the melee thumbstick and... nothing. I soon fell off the beast's back. I tried repeatedly to jump on this back and do SOMETHING using several different button combinations, but it always resulted in me eventually falling off. I eventually noticed that he was tipping from side to side, and if I used the movement stick to lean in the opposite direction, I could stay on longer.  However, after about a minute of surfing on the back of the monster, I couldnt figure out any possible reason I'd want to stay on top of him, so I gave up and jumped off. As soon as I hit the ground, I was bludgeoned, and dead. Watching the Valkyrie drop from the ceilling, I realized that the 'B' button, which was described as the button I could use to skip cinematics, had no effect on this show-stealing angel. Back at the start of the map, I run in to join the throng once again.  At a distance, I noticed that when the brute hit the ground, it created that recognizable expanding ring of impact that any experienced gamer knows by instinct that they have to jump over to not take damage. So, I stood at a distance and started shooting at it, giving myself room to be able to jump over these things. It went fairly well for a while, I shot at a target, and jumped over the bands of danger... however I soon realized that I was taking damage, even when I was completely clearing the ring. I was soon dead again. Frustrated at the stupid angel descending once again to laboriously hoist my carcas back to the start of the map, I marched back into battle, furious that I was misunderstanding how I was supposed to win. I began shooting again, avoiding the impact rings as best I could. Soon, the health bar wrapped around the target ring was depleted, but the beast was still standing. Fantastic.  I realized that the thing had multiple targets. Unfortunately, they in order to switch targets, you have to hold the thumbstick toward whichever you want to shoot at, which means when your thumb is required for jumping, you can't be shooting at your target.  All of this frustration is compounded by the lack of control over my camera which, at this point, I was really really wishing I had.  After several more deaths and several more of the enemy's hp rings depleted, I frustratingly charged in and started swinging my sword wildly. No targest were active, and I didn't care. I just kept swinging.  He was dead in a few swings, and I was furious. 

Sure. Maybe I sucked at the game. However, it was the first miniboss battle, and if a game is designed correctly, you shouldn't be able to fail that epically that early on in the game. I put the game down, and I'm not going back.

Now I'm cranky.  I'm going to try something else, and hope it goes better.


[TLDR] I disliked it, and quit. I wouldn't suggest it.

End

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