Quick Time Review: Half-life

Over a year ago I picked up the the Half-Life Complete collection from the greatest digital video game distribution service on the INTERNETS. No not Origin, fucking Steam. Of course that was around the time Skyrim (of Elder Scrolls fame) was released so it wasn't until recently I got to sit down and play Valves' freshmen title. I chose vanilla Half-Life because I had read the Source version didn't take full advantage of the company's signature engine. Plus I wanted to experience the game in it's original form like I'm some kind of gaming purist. As for Half-Life: Black Mesa , the Source-built, fan-made, remake, it is on my radar but I got another game to lap dance through. (That's a not too clear hint to my next review.)

I liked Half-life. Was it the best game I've ever played? No. Did it impress me? No. Was I entertained? Well, yeah. It was fun when not frustrating. The first thing I noticed after my 5 minute train ride was how floaty and clumsy it felt to move. It was like Freemen was wearing a pair of roller skates with rockets on the back. Which wouldn't be that big of a problem if it wasn't for all the jumping.

Oh god, the platforming is terrible. How is it that Mirror’s Edge got so must shit for being a first-person platformer, but no one seems to remember that a quarter of Half-Life (Eighth-Life?) was spent jumping onto shit. I think I might have died more times from missing a jump then by enemies. Scratch that. It was about half, because this game is hard. I mean, I played this game on NORMAL mode (Cuz dats how I roll) and I was constantly dying. Thank Gabe's right tit for quick saves. In fact I should call this post Quick Save Review: Half-Life. About half way through the game I found myself saving before I walked into a room. It's not just that the soldiers can shake off an entire clip or the previously mentioned platforming that lead to my many deaths. Most enemies liked to materialize behind me or parts of the environments would blow up taking a nice chuck my life with it.

The worst part of the game for me was the helicopter sequence. At one point I came to a bridge that I thought I needed to cross, but the choppa was circling the area and on the other side sat some ass-tard behind a torrent. Needless to say I died a lot. I even managed to shoot down the helicopter only to get mowed down when hopping side to side attempting to dodge bullets. I finally realized I had to jump over the side of the bridge into giant tuna infested water. But even then I had to turn a valve to enter the water filtration system leading back into the facility, only to die from a whirling propeller of insta-death I was supposed to turn off.

I explained all this because Half-Life is a throw back to the days where games told you almost nothing. Whether it was a spawning alien, a collapsing floor, or just where to fucking go, you were given no hints, no warnings. I bring this up because I normally hate when games do this (Link to the Past), but in half-life I found it tolerable. Despite the numerous frustrations I faced, I just want to play more. I wanted to get the drop on an enemy that had killed me. Or figure out a puzzle that had a simple solution, I just hadn't seen it yet. And despite the lack of hand holding, I never got lost for more then a few minutes. The facility's many areas flowed together very naturally, and I never found myself wishing for a map or some kind of a Fable 2 style golden bread crumb trail.

I had already finished the review, at the time of writing this sentence, but after reading it over I remembered I forgot something. I wasn't sure where to insert it and I didn't what to ruin the reviews ending (If you have beat the game you'll get it). So I thought I'd just squeeze it here with a short explanation seeing as how I don't really have to much to say about it anyway but whatever. I noticed that the game really wasn't too music heavy and I often found my self listening to my own footsteps. And it occurred to me that the sounds of each step sounded like music. I know it's strange and maybe the headphones where too loud, but there was something more there than simple foley. I don't know. If you've noticed let me know. Please? I'm crazy, aren't I?

 Getting back to the core of the experience, the game play is very floaty and took some getting use to. I don't know how many times I died climbing up or down ladders, and even if I did, I wouldn't say. I don't understand why you can't just hit E and attach to the ladder. And why is auto-aim enabled by default? I guess it's because the crowbar can't hit shit. Yeah, I know. I best watch my mouth when speaking of Freeman's Trademark skull-cracking, crate-exploding steel, but Christ, I'd rather have Sesshomaru's Sword. At least then I could bring all the security back to life so the enemies had someone else to shoot at. For the most part I likes all the guns. Especially the revolver. I hated the hive arm or whatever it's called (I hate it so much I'm not even going look up the name). Like the Needler from Halo, I found it useless in my hands and cheap as hell when in enemy hands.

Now I have to talk about the “most important” part of Half-Life's legacy: It's story. Well, not even the story but how it's presented. In reality the story is not very complex or ground breaking. After a failed experiment, a rip between dimensions is formed, causing aliens to materialize wherever and whenever it is most inconvenient for you. The military shows up, kills people, gets killed by you and by the things from dimension weird. Turns out the Researchers in Dark Mesa had been experimenting with the alien technology and- You know what?. Who cares? What made the game so loved, is how it's told. Not just how you never leave the first-person perspective of the voiceless, personalityless (I know it's not a word. The spell check told me so) Gordon Freeman. But what makes this story so engaging to me, and many others, is what Freeman represents. He just a normal guy that goes to work one day and it just so happened all hell broke lose. Before the accident, Gordon (Him and I are on a first name bases now) was just a four-eyed, nerdy ginger that was told to put on a Hazmat suit and stand extremely close to large machinery that shoots lightning like Cole from Infamous. He wasn't some hard ass like Duke Nukem. Or a genetically engineered killer like Solid Snake. But when he was thrown into an incredible situation, Gordon did what he had to do. And that's why the man is a gaming icon. He's what we all truly want and hope to be. He was a fighter. He was a survivor. Gordon Freeman was Hired.        

Quick Time Review: Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

Warhammer 40,000 was a strategy board game played by nerds who grew tired of role playing as a single hero in Dungeons and Dragons. So instead they role played as a General sending hundreds of other heroes to their deaths. Then in the early 90, realizing how lame painting dozens of tiny figures is, Warhammer was adapted into a series of Real Time Strategy games. Mostly.

About a year ago when THQ, the publisher on many W40k games, went belly up, the magical land known as Steam, with it's infinite bounty of love and video games slashed the catalog of the bankrupted company. I scored about a dozen games for $24.99, including a game call Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. Knowing a little about the series and having played a demo for the console exclusive twin-stick shooter genre shitfest, I decided to give the series a chance and after randomly picking between the 4 W40k games in my Steam library I settled on Space Marine despite my retardation of the strategy genre (I'll leave that for another time). But praise Jesus, holly David Blaine, the game was a fucking 3^rd Person shooter... with melee!

I know what you're thinking: Why abandon the RTS/RPG elements of a well established and beloved franchise for a gears of war/zelda hybrid? And my only answer to such a justified question is that the game rocks like a geodude. No joke, Space Marines is a surprisingly fun game. Its starts with the gunplay. Like in most 3^rd person games you have your hip shot and then a zoomed in, over-the-shoulder shot. Two of the guns have scopes that gives you a first-person view, but that's pretty standard. What isn't standard is that a hip shot is just as accurate as over-the-shoulder. Which probably sounds kind of cheap. But you're Tidus of the Ultramarines! Of course you can hit an Ork between the eye without your fucking sight.

Unlike Gears of War, there is no cover-based shooting. Well you can and will hide behind shit but there's no button that stick's your ass to chest-high walls. Hell. There's not even a duck button. Early in the campaign, guns are used to thin out the herd of stampeding Orks and close the gap for some melee-in'. You get 4 options: A knife, a chainsaw sword, the Power Ax and the WarHammer. The knife is quickly replaced and the next two are pretty interchangeable but the last weapon is a beast. The Warhammer can takeout lower and mid-strength enemies pretty quick but the downside is that you're limited to two gun types from the standard four: the infinite ammo pistol and the assault rifle. Later in the game, not using a sniper rifle or an energy based rifle isn't an option, so I mostly stuck to the Power Ax. Melee, honestly, has style and no substance. Watching Orks explode red is a hoot but with a primary attack and a stun attack, close range combat is a Dynasty Warrior style button masher. An on-screen tutorial did mention something about checking my combo list but obviously, I never needed to do so.

As you may remember about 2 sentences ago I said there is a stun attack in Space Marines. And I'm sure that you are scratching your nuts wondering: What the hell is a stun attack supposed to do? Well, it's simple dumb-dumb. For your health! Thats right. To recover health, you must stun an enemy, hit the action button (E on PC) and watch an execution animation during which you still take damage. Oh yeah. Tougher enemies require you to repeatedly tap the attack button (left-click on pc) for that sweet rejuvenating Ork nectar. It's not even a real quick time event, with the tapping of the same button every time. There is, however, another way to recover health. After dealing out enough damage Tidus can go Super Saiyan and his health bar will automatically refill. This is the primary way I healed him. As a back up, The Ultramarine's armor has it's recharging shield much like in Halo.

The best part of combat was the sections in which you get...A Fucking Jetpack. Flying up in the air and landing a massive power slam in the middle of a group of enemies

felt so satisfying. And I think that gets to the main reason for my love of this game: You feel like a fucking badass. Sure. You run head first into a hoard of Orks or (spoiler) Heritics sporting the same Ultramarine armor, you're fucked in about 5 seconds. But when you're smart and cautious, there is nothing that can stop you.

My biggest problem wasn't even anything gameplay or story related, it was the setting. And by setting I mean two different things: the Warhammer universe and the actual locations the battles took place. My problem with the Wahammer's take on the human race's migration into space is by their embrace of imperialism. Tidus' almost brainwashed devotion to the honor of the Imperiaum and constant spewing of crap about how lives are the currency of the Emperor, kind of took me out of the experience. Maybe I just hate the idea that humans would devolve to such a philosophy or the fact Tidus would bring it up every five minutes, especially when you die.

As for the level design, all the environments looked good but after a while its all just sort of blended together. They're very linear, with next to no exploration, yet the developers still felt the need to point the player in the right direction. “Really? I need to walk though that door? I thought I needed to jump off this ledge. Oh wait, thats right. There's no jumping.” Hell you can't even run off a ledge thanks to the invisible walls.

Just to reinforce my earlier statement, I really liked this game. It's flaws are few and the action is fun. The story not so subtly hints at a sequel and I would diffidently like to take another trip in Tidus' giant metal pants.