Year: Publicly announced Oct. 13, 2010. Development is ongoing.
Developer: Icefrog, Eul, Valve
Publisher: Valve
Pros:
-SO MUCH CONTROL
-Shiny graphics
-Customization! (Sort of)
-Bots (Hon, Dota2, and LoL actually)
-So many items/heroes
Cons:
-Community
-Learning curve from hell
-Way too many items/heroes
-No, seriously, the community is terrible
For such a well-documented game, what is there new to be said? Nothing.
The meta-game for the commoners (everyone below the top-tier) changes every few weeks to a month to mime the top ladder of players who are constantly altering their strategies. Rather than spend any time describing the amount of heroes (playable characters) or the tiers and types of items, I'll be able to keep this really short.
Dota2, and all current MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)/ARTS (Action Real-Time Strategy) for that matter, are games of relative skill and encyclopedic knowledge of the underlying mechanics. Basically stated, the person with a better understanding of the game will win. This expands into timing and situational awareness, but all stem from having the time and interest to memorize everything. After that it's just getting comfortable with the highs and lows of a match while staying calm and collected.
The game is most well-known however for the way the game plays out. Over the course of 30-45 minutes for the typical match, the game is designed to favor one team many fold over the other due to accrued levels and item advantage. The result of this is unbelievable highs on a good run to soul-crushing defeats when things don't line up for you. Rarely does a game play out evenly, but the addiction and allure to the genre is entirely the search for that next rush from stomping your opponent--the way you were probably stomped not too long ago.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Monday, December 3, 2012
Prototype
Year: 2009
Developer: Radical Entertainment
Publisher: Activision
Three years into the game's life I finally picked it up.
Of the 30 story missions I finished 26 before uninstalling it.
Anyway, in Prototype, you play Alex Mercer, a grimacing (seemingly) white male with no memory, a stylish hoodie, and insane super powers that involve black tendrils that form whips, blades, boxing gloves and disguise powers, also letting you glide and jump over many buildings. Basically you're Carnage from Marvel Comics with an enhanced version of Venom's clothing ability that can alter your face too so you can face swap away enemies. The game is third-person power fantasy with you destroying Manhattan as an all-powerful god among squishy and bleedy mortals.
It sounds really good and the core gameplay is rather amazing to be honest. The character's mobility to leap up and over buildings, run at high speeds, glide between buildings, smash things up, and eat people for health are all amazing. However there's a pesky/awful campaign mode that mainly unlocks all the fun abilities to buy with your score later on, which range in price from 10,000 to 1.5 million--not that the game doesn't throw tons of points at you later on, but it's a real drag nonetheless. Oh, and it has multiple escort missions. Those are never bad!--disclaimer: they are always bad and developers should feel bad for using them.
So, that campaign. Before that: The real meat of the game is the free roam mode where you just wreak havoc on Manhattan as a nearly immortal serial killer and rarely have any repercussions outside of awe inspiring explosions and the corpses of the weak littering the streets. But you'll be limited in your combating and murdering options if you don't play through the story missions that progress the campaign. The first 11 missions are rather fun to boot, 12 is an awful boss fight, and then the game trips up and, for as far as I had patience for, never recovered.
For missions 13-16 you lose all of your combat abilities for the sake of the plot, and in mission 20 you spend almost the entire mission flying a helicopter for the sake of the plot. These go completely against the logic of a game based around aggressive melee combat and the entire game suffers horribly for it.
The problems with the second half of the game can be summed up with Grand Theft Auto 3. GTA3 had escalation of police activity up to six stars where the national guard was summoned with tanks on top of helicopters chasing you at three. But GTA has a paint shop where you can buy your way out of trouble and timer respawning items that drop your rating by 1-star. This game has the faster aggressive response to your actions without those options. Oh, and the helicopters are faster than you, can summon air strikes, and come in roaming packs of 2-5. I'd like to think they just were cut short on development time and couldn't iron problems like that out.
To heal quickly in this game, you eat someone. If you experience any knockback from an attack during the meal the heal is negated. Or if a nearby explosion kills the snack before you do, the heal is negated. The animations are showy and a bit too long for this to be of any use past the first half of the game given how many units are chasing you down.
While most of this is complaints, Prototype is still an entertaining game worth a few hours of sandbox mode. But for reasons above and others I don't care enough to blather about, the actual story missions are just frustrating trash from mid-way on.
Small nitpicks:
- "Hard attack" and "interact" are on the same button.
- "Pick up/throw" works the same on people, enemies and objects, and while in combat. Want to pick up and eat for a heal, but a non-consumable enemy jumps at you or knocks an object closer to Alex than your food? Guess what!
- Helicopters are almost always too fast to disguise yourself to safety from. Who designed this crap?
Suggestions:
-Difficulty: easy
-Command line argument "Level=manhattanTest"
--Supposed to Start the game at the beginning with all powers unlocked. Uninstalled it without trying.
Developer: Radical Entertainment
Publisher: Activision
Three years into the game's life I finally picked it up.
Of the 30 story missions I finished 26 before uninstalling it.
Anyway, in Prototype, you play Alex Mercer, a grimacing (seemingly) white male with no memory, a stylish hoodie, and insane super powers that involve black tendrils that form whips, blades, boxing gloves and disguise powers, also letting you glide and jump over many buildings. Basically you're Carnage from Marvel Comics with an enhanced version of Venom's clothing ability that can alter your face too so you can face swap away enemies. The game is third-person power fantasy with you destroying Manhattan as an all-powerful god among squishy and bleedy mortals.
It sounds really good and the core gameplay is rather amazing to be honest. The character's mobility to leap up and over buildings, run at high speeds, glide between buildings, smash things up, and eat people for health are all amazing. However there's a pesky/awful campaign mode that mainly unlocks all the fun abilities to buy with your score later on, which range in price from 10,000 to 1.5 million--not that the game doesn't throw tons of points at you later on, but it's a real drag nonetheless. Oh, and it has multiple escort missions. Those are never bad!--disclaimer: they are always bad and developers should feel bad for using them.
So, that campaign. Before that: The real meat of the game is the free roam mode where you just wreak havoc on Manhattan as a nearly immortal serial killer and rarely have any repercussions outside of awe inspiring explosions and the corpses of the weak littering the streets. But you'll be limited in your combating and murdering options if you don't play through the story missions that progress the campaign. The first 11 missions are rather fun to boot, 12 is an awful boss fight, and then the game trips up and, for as far as I had patience for, never recovered.
For missions 13-16 you lose all of your combat abilities for the sake of the plot, and in mission 20 you spend almost the entire mission flying a helicopter for the sake of the plot. These go completely against the logic of a game based around aggressive melee combat and the entire game suffers horribly for it.
The problems with the second half of the game can be summed up with Grand Theft Auto 3. GTA3 had escalation of police activity up to six stars where the national guard was summoned with tanks on top of helicopters chasing you at three. But GTA has a paint shop where you can buy your way out of trouble and timer respawning items that drop your rating by 1-star. This game has the faster aggressive response to your actions without those options. Oh, and the helicopters are faster than you, can summon air strikes, and come in roaming packs of 2-5. I'd like to think they just were cut short on development time and couldn't iron problems like that out.
To heal quickly in this game, you eat someone. If you experience any knockback from an attack during the meal the heal is negated. Or if a nearby explosion kills the snack before you do, the heal is negated. The animations are showy and a bit too long for this to be of any use past the first half of the game given how many units are chasing you down.
While most of this is complaints, Prototype is still an entertaining game worth a few hours of sandbox mode. But for reasons above and others I don't care enough to blather about, the actual story missions are just frustrating trash from mid-way on.
Small nitpicks:
- "Hard attack" and "interact" are on the same button.
- "Pick up/throw" works the same on people, enemies and objects, and while in combat. Want to pick up and eat for a heal, but a non-consumable enemy jumps at you or knocks an object closer to Alex than your food? Guess what!
- Helicopters are almost always too fast to disguise yourself to safety from. Who designed this crap?
Suggestions:
-Difficulty: easy
-Command line argument "Level=manhattanTest"
--Supposed to Start the game at the beginning with all powers unlocked. Uninstalled it without trying.
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