Bits and Pieces

Time for a short rant. Actually several. And they all won't really be rants.
OK, my opening line is just plain wrong now, but I'm too lazy to delete. I'm not an editor after all!

(1) Is anyone else sick of games trying to be movies? It's embarrassing, yeah? I downloaded the teaser for Gears of War 2 recently. I was hoping for gameplay but was instead treated to one hyper-pretentious "cinematic" experience: silhouettes of Marcus Fenix and a Locust engaged in a chainsaw-duel, complete with the requisite war-is-hell-I'm-so-gritty monologue.

I guess that's fine and dandy if it's a film or something (a crappy film), but if one wants to tease a game, some in-game screens might be warranted. Of course now people are clamoring at the idea of engaging in chainsaw duels in the actual game. Is that a selling point?

Jesus, I'm already off-topic. This is supposed to be a short rant; don't get off the tracks. Anyway, I just finished Gears of War on hardcore (I know, I'm slow, sue me) and it really is a great game; tons of fun. It's everything around it, the total package as it were, that messes up the experience. So much went into the acting, dialogue, and cut scenes and for what? It's not like they told a story, it's not like we got any insight into characters, for as much as they spoke (Cole is just embarrassing. who wrote him?) nothing of importance was said. Of course, the cinematic cut-scenes were the most embarrassing: a threadbare story told through cut-scenes employing techniques from the worst from cinema (rapid-fire editing and "slick" filters).

Why not just make a game. Don't ape concepts and techniques from movies; don't tell a "cinematic" story, tell a story one can only tell through a game. Hell, do away with cut-scenes all together. They break immersion. One should not be "watching" a game. If games are "art" (as many game bloggers and journalists want to claim), why not develop game-based story techniques. One of the aspects that made Half-Life 2 so amazing to play was that the story never breaks; the player is always in control, even when listening to dialogue. It doesn't play like a movie, the story unfolds in the form of a game.

I picked on Gears of War here, which as i stated above is a really good game, it's just a shame that it weighs itself down with groan-inducing "cinematic" crap. A fun game becomes a lowest-common-denominator-movie. No fun. Maybe I'm off base, What do you all think?

(2) On a different note, I'm obsessed with playing through Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (bad cut scenes notwithstanding, ugh); it's a ton of fun at the later levels and once players unlock a bunch of higher-tier powers for their characters. I'm always up for multi-player and I think I'm going to run through the game a few times (seriously, that fun) before firing up Mass Effect.

(3) I still have 6 unplayed games; Aside from possibly Lost Odyssey (Susan, I needs the reviews from you), I want to pull a Brendan and not buy any game until I finish them. I'm slow though, but I have until the fall (Fable 2, Fallout3, and Sacred 2, oh my!) to accomplish this feat.

(4) Oh god Ironlore, we hardly knew ye! Titan Quest was the only game after Diablo II to get the rogue-like style of RPG down in such a spectacular and fun package. The expansion to Titan Quest was such a step in the right direction in terms of quality that a sequel would have been brain-meltingly good. It really is a shame this company folded so quickly.

Titan Quest is a phenomenal game and can run well on even modest machines. I highly recommend checking out. I've a crap load of Boddingtons at home, I'm going to get wasted and kill Harpies, woooooo

Drinking and gaming make my wife hate me.