Le Saboteur said:
I haven't played a FPS since '02. That was Medal of Honor: Frontline after which I largely stopped gaming aside from the odd game of FIFA. Fast forward to '09 when I caught up to the current generation, I missed that glut of military shooters everybody hates.
I'd say it's a bit unfair to say that everybody hates 'em, given how they still seem to sell like hotcakes (otherwise they wouldn't bother making them in the first place). But a thinking man's games they're not.
Still, I didn't want to trash the game based on a handful of YouTube vids I watched, but thanks for confirming my initial impressions. One to pass, no question. Now, if somebody could give me a similar assessment on
Black Ops 2... even if the academic in me is still somewhat interested in it. CoD is such a huge IP that it makes ripples all around the gaming realm, and therefore is a good case study on the evolution of video games. Plainly a huge part in making gaming a truly mainstream pastime, instead of something the geek squad used to do once the sun went down.
Le Saboteur said:
Thus, Sleeping Dogs was unfairly shelved. The eight or so hours I spent on MoH's campaign would have been better spent guiding Wei Shen up the ranks of the Sun On Yee.
This one's on my to-do list as well, actually has been for a fair few weeks now. Given my peculiar habit of attempting to finish a single game at a time from the beginning to the end, I figured I might jump into it once I'm done with ACIII. Will be back with impressions then.
Sleeping Dogs (along with
Far Cry 3, for example) is a good example of another trend I noticed during the gaming year of 2012. I mean, we seemed to have quite a handful of titles that, despite being AAA in production values to begin with, were somewhat overlooked in the gears of the hype machine. But once they hit the shelves, they turned out to be excellent games, true sleeper hits.
Or maybe it's simply another indicator of what an embarrassment of riches 2012 was. On a leaner year, some of these would probably have received more hubbub than they did now.
Le Saboteur said:
My two forays into the FPS-genre this year have been decidedly refreshing. If future releases can capture as much personality as Dishonored and Far Cry 3, then I might be inclined to pick up another title or two.
It's a semantical issue, but
Dishonored is hardly a FPS. Well, unless you get technical. The best term to describe it would be a First Person
Sneaker, something coined up during the heyday of the original
Thief games. Between those and the original
Deus Ex, the work Warren Spector was doing ten years ago is simply outstanding. It's a minor wonder that no one has been able to fully replicate their gameplay aspects in the more contemporary times, despite having the technological edge.
Le Saboteur said:
Unfortunately, Borderlands 2 doesn't interest me. Bioshock Infinite, on the other hand, shows some promise.
With all the other stuff waiting its turn, it's not very high on my list at the moment either. But I'll get around to it eventually, and urge you to give it a look when everything else has been exhausted. The first one was a delightfully wacky open-world ordeal despite having some bad structuring at places. The reviews I've read indicate that Gearbox has done away with most of the teething problems the IP had, so it should be well worth one's time.
Le Saboteur said:
Heard about this recently, too. Might be worth looking into if Lost Horizon was your thing.
Stop adding stuff to my platter, it's already overloaded as it is. Though I have to say that while I adored the setting of
Lost Horizon (which self-respecting Indyfan wouldn't?), I didn't find it to be nothing special in its genre from the design standpoint. Too many puzzles that in no way fit the flow of the story. So FoA or
Broken Sword it was not.
But I've already given it a piece of my mind, so no need to repeat all that here.
Reminds me, a handful of pure adventure games on the backlog as well, such as
The Book of Unwritten Tales and
The Testament of Sherlock Holmes. Also, it seems like
The Longest Journey is finally coming back, seven years after the abrupt end of
Dreamfall. The format will be episodic, in the vein of Telltale. Funny how this form of releasing seems to have blown new breath into many classic adventure IPs. (Just get around to Indy already, dammit.)
For the record, after totally falling in love with the original, I totally loathed
Dreamfall. Apart from serious shortcomings in the gameplay department, some story elements also seemed direct contradictions or retoolings from the first outing. Still, this is something to look forward to, regardless.