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archives may.2006
Pimp my blog
(May 30th, 2006 - 2:48PM)
I pimped Richard's blog. I don't think it's my finest work, and Richard made several decisions that I personally agree to disagree with, but overall I think it turned out well.
I was going to put a spoiler on the bottom of the page and draw flames down the sides, but I didn't think that would turn out well.
Review: SiN Episodes: Emergence
(May 28th, 2006 - 12:35AM)
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| BOOM headshot |
(4.5 / 5 stars)
One sentence summary: A great new method of game production delivers a great new game.
SiN Episodes: Emergence probably makes history as the first first-person shooter ever delivered incrementally. Valve is calling this episodic gaming. Instead of packaging and releasing full-length video games, Valve is now releasing shorter "episodes" over their Steam service. So rather than releasing a large game every several years, developers can release a shorter episode every few months.
Ritual Entertainment is clearly on the Valve bandwagon, as SiN Episodes: Emergence uses Valve's Source engine, and is released over Steam.
As a software engineer, I think this is so cool! It's basically iterative development, but on a large commercial scale. Instead of developing an entire game and then selling it, developers can develop part of it, sell that part, develop the next part, and sell the next part. Developers can then adapt to user feedback a lot quicker and more effectively than with full releases.
So does episodic gaming work? If SiN Episodes: Emergence is any indication, then yes. Yes it does.
Things I liked about SiN Episodes: Emergence:
- The combat is fast, frantic, and fun. This game is what Halo could have been.
- The weapons are so much fun to use! Granted, there are only three: a magnum, a shotgun and a machine gun. Some people might complain about the lack of variety here, but each of the weapons is implemented so well that you don't feel like you're missing out.
- I don't think I've ever seen a game that scales difficulty this well. When you start a new game, you set two difficulty options: the overall difficulty, and how quickly the game re-adjusts the difficulty if you're having trouble. As you play, the game adapts to the difficulty level you're comfortable with. It's a great system. My only complaint is that you can't change your difficulty settings part-way through the game, so if you realize halfway through that you set the difficulty too high, then you have to start over from the beginning.
- The headshots in the game are gruesome and satisfying. Shooting an enemy in the head is like smashing a watermelon. Some of your enemies wear helmets that make headshots more difficult. No fair!
Things I didn't like about SiN Episodes: Emergence:
- It's short. Of course, I knew that going in: this isn't a full game, it's just an episode. And for the $20 price tag, I guess I can't complain. But it's still short.
- It's a Steam game. Anyone who's had experience buying or activating a game on Steam knows why this is a bad thing. I had quite a time getting Steam to accept my credit card.
- This game was made using the Source engine, and it really, really looks like it was made using the Source engine. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but the game is visually very similar to Half-Life 2. A little variety would have been nice. Which brings me to my next point.
- Compared to Half-Life 2, the graphics just aren't up to snuff. They're good, but they're not spectacular. From a visual standpoint, the game looks like Half-Life 2 but without some of the sizzle.
- Each weapon has a secondary fire option, which is almost useless in most cases.
Review: Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
(May 25th, 2006 - 11:52PM)
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| Row, row, row the boat... |
(3.5 / 5 stars)
One sentence summary: Despite some graphical and audial shortcomings, it manages to create an immersive environment.
Dark Corners of the Earth is a new survival horror game from Bethesda Softworks, the makers of Oblivion. Funny how "survival horror" is a game genre now. What ever happened to the good old days of "action," "adventure" and "puzzle?"
Things I liked about Dark Corners of the Earth:
- It's not your usual horror game. Instead of fighting an army of demons or zombies, you battle fishmen. Yes, fishmen. And despite such a strange premise, the game still manages to be frightening. For its uniqueness alone, this game is worth checking out.
- It's got a great story. I understand that this game is based on the work of H.P. Lovecraft, author of The Call of Cthulhu and related writings. Maybe that's why it's so good.
- It manages to scare. Although there are far more frightening games, this one has at least one very memorable scene. I won't discuss it in detail here. If you want to know what I'm talking about, play the game.
- You're unarmed for quite a while at the start of the game. Instead of dropping you into firefights from the beginning, the game emphasizes story. That might drop replay value a bit, but it makes for a good first time.
- The weapons are fun and satisfying, especially the magnum and the rifle.
- Despite graphical problems that we'll discuss later, the environments are very well-rendered and engaging.
- The game is just the right length. Not too long, not too short. It ends when it should.
Things I didn't like about Dark Corners of the Earth:
- It looks dated. I understand the game was in development for a long time, which explains why its visuals look several years old. I know graphics shouldn't be a key factor in an overall gaming experience, but unfortunately sometimes they are. When you're playing a survival horror game you're expecting to be scared, and the imagery goes a long way toward making that happen. What would Doom 3 have been like without the excellent shadow effects? Dark Corners of the Earth's lack of such effects really makes it difficult to be drawn in.
- Some of the voice acting, particularly that of your enemies, is just awful. Also, many times during the game I heard my character say two things at the same time. In some cases, he'd say one thing in a frightened voice and something else in a confident voice at once. That makes it hard to suspend disbelief.
- The AI is some of the worst I've seen in years.
- You have to monitor your sanity in the game, which feels phony. Exposure to disturbing images causes your character to lose his sanity, which makes the screen wobbly and blurry. You know what? If a game is really scary, it should feel scary to me, not the character in the game. Just because my character is losing his sanity and having difficulty aiming doesn't mean I'm scared.
- There's no quick save feature, just save checkpoints. I'm normally fine with this, but some of the save points are placed in annoying locations where you're forced to sit through lots of unskippable dialogue every time you load a game.
- There are a lot of puzzles in the game, and some of them are just stupid.
- The ending sucks. As I played the game, I was impressed by how the plot was understandable despite having no exposure to H.P. Lovecraft's writings. However, the ending made no sense to me. Apparently it makes more sense if you're familiar with the books. Unfortunate.
Book reviews in a nutshell
(May 21st, 2006 - 1:25PM)
Over the past few months, I've been quite the bookworm. Here are brief reviews of some of the books I've recently finished.
Ambient Findability
(4 / 5 stars)
One sentence summary: An interesting - but ultimately not too useful - history of how humans find their way around.
The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web
(2.5 / 5 stars)
One sentence summary: It proposes a clever model for the many discplines of Web development, but ultimately the entire book revolves around a single diagram that's readily available on the Internet.
Foundations of Ajax
(4.5 / 5 stars)
One sentence summary: An extremely useful and thoughtfully written book that provides Web developers with all they need to know about Ajax.
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
(3.5 / 5 stars)
One sentence summary: A collection of odd economic studies that find patterns you wouldn't expect.
How to Win Friends and influence people
(5 / 5 stars)
One sentence summary: This classic is a crucial guide to human relations that everyone should read.
The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way We Live With Technology
(2 / 5 stars)
One sentence summary: Although there's some definite insight here, it's a dry read and seems more about the author's attempt to make himself famous than to impart large quantities of useful knowledge.
permanent link - digg this post - 0 commentsParallel universe?
(May 15th, 2006 - 11:41PM)
That's just silly.
Yeah, Arnold.
View Steve Kwan dot com under a different lens.
Have you ever been to the CSS Zen Garden? It's a great site; basically it's a chunk of HTML that has been styled to look totally different by various artists.
That's what I did to Steve Kwan dot com. By changing nothing but the stylesheet, I was able to overhaul the look and feel. See the screenshot below.
Review: Condemned: Criminal Origins
(May 12th, 2006 - 2:58PM)
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| Your character, FBI agent Ethan Thomas, is modeled with such low-resolution textures that he looks like Mr. Hanky in a plastic bag. |
(3.5 / 5 stars)
One sentence summary: A brief but engrossing horror game.
Condemned: Criminal Origins is the latest attempt from the makers of F.E.A.R. It's a short game, but it'll keep you entertained for a few hours.
Things I liked about Condemned:
- The melee combat's very well done. And that's important, because you don't have much access to firearms. You arm yourself with a collection of everyday-things-turned-weapons, which mainly consists of stuff you ripped off the wall. Whacking your enemies over their heads with a 2 x 4 - or even better, the dreaded 2 x 4 with nails in it - is vicious and satisfying.
- It's tense and frantic right through to the end.
- Its excellent use of the first person perspective. I like FPS games, because they feel more intimate; it's almost like you're really there. Condemned takes that to the next level. There's a place in the game where you get kicked down an escalator, and you tumble down the steps in first person. It's a fantastic touch.
- I'm not easily scared, but this game has at least one memorable moment that I won't soon forget.
- The sound is positively excellent. For example, if you're in an old house and someone else is prowling around, you can hear floor panels creaking.
- The voice acting is pretty good. Not outstanding, but it doesn't detract from the game.
- The final boss fight is amazing.
- The name "Condemned" isn't a stupid acronym like "F.E.A.R." "First Encounter Assault Recon?" Come on.
Things I didn't like about Condemned:
- The textures are awful. Really awful. I suppose this is because the game was also released on console. Take a look at the screenshot above. Your character looks like a pile of shit wrapped in Seran Wrap.
- Just like F.E.A.R., Condemned has a confusing plot and leaves many unanswered questions.
- Although the melee combat is fun, sometimes it doesn't behave as expected. There were many occasions where I meant to take a long swing with a shovel and wound up trying to poke things with the handle.
- The game's a bit short. Perhaps that's a blessing in disguise, because the gameplay is kind of simple and might have gotten tiresome after too many hours.
Review: Mission Impossible 3
(May 8th, 2006 - 12:01PM)
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| In the immortal words of Ben Stiller, "This mission just got a whole lot more impossible." |
(2.5 / 5 stars)
One sentence summary: It's better than the first two, but that's not saying much.
Things I liked about Mission Impossible 3:
- Slick, slick action sequences.
- Philip Seymour Hoffman is a huge improvement over the lame stereotypical bad guy from MI2.
- Tom Cruise gets beat up a lot.
- Tom Cruise invades a wide variety of locales.
- Bombs in people's brains.
- Laurence Fishburne. "I know it's Hunt."
Things I didn't like about Mission Impossible 3:
- Tom Cruise's relationship with his wife in this movie is way too similar to his relationship with Katie Holmes. The actress even looks like Katie Holmes. So I couldn't watch this movie without thinking about Tommy jumping on a couch and looking like a moron.
- Ving Rhames.
- Philip Seymour Hoffman doesn't have nearly enough screen time. The movie is about two hours long, and PSH is only in it for about half an hour.
- A somewhat awkward plot twist occurs near the end.
- "Impossible Mission Force?"
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