Do Kids Nowadays Care About Graphics?

Short answer with no evidence or even an anecdote: No.

Longer answer with anecdotal evidence:

My 11-year old son is currently playing 1997's Dungeon Keeper and 2000's Nox. I picked up both when Electronic Arts' Origin service had "on the house" games and ever since my Alienware's graphics card bit the dust 5 years ago these are the kinds of games that run best. Objectively, put against the current generation of graphics these two games are terrible to look at, Dungeon Keeper's first-person mode is particularly hard to look at. Everything is smeared, blocky, stretched even with the resolution jacked to 640x480:

Source: Moby Games

Nox fairs slightly better, but the graphics -- if I may drag out an old phrase and utter it once more -- are shit.

Couple Hours of BioShock Infinite

Hidden message in the title?

Besides getting a feeling of déjà vu a number of times during the opening hour or so of BioShock Infinite, I was struck by the repetition of character models.

Really, Irrational? This is the best you could come up with? Most games will hide the repetition of character models or mask it somehow, but BioShock Infinite does zero to hide the fact they’re all the same. The kid selling papers is the exact same kid sitting on the garbage can a couple dozen feet away! After having “rescued” Elizabeth from the tower and splash landed on a beach, the same issue appeared. Of the couple dozen NPCs going through the motions on the sand, there were maybe three different characters to see.

Brutal Menu

Playing Brutal Legend again on PC reminded me just how awesome the main menu navigation is. I'll be posting a clip of this somewhere for sure. Feels like a lot of creative energy was poured out to get this just right.

A "Planetside 2" Smack to the Face

Geez, Planetside 2 really drops the player into the thick of things without explaining a lick of what is going on.

I played for an hour or so last night and it's obvious that I should have spent some time watching some of the suggested "How To" videos because I was completely mystified for all but the last five minutes.

As an engineer class, some of the "skills" I honed from Battlefield: Bad Company 2 I was at least able to help out by repairing tanks, but since the battle rages far and wide I felt a little inadequate, particularly because I'd sprint out into the open and be blown to smithereens and have no idea why.

Prototype 2 Screens

The opening moments of P2.

More "Killing Floor"

Man alive, Killing Floor has really impressed me of late.

I should have drawn comparisons between it and Counter-Strike much, much sooner. Ten years ago, I put in many, many hours with Counter-Strike and Killing Floor might be the first game I've played since then that has done a good job of nailing that upwards upgrade progression during the course of a match. Do well in a round (survive, at the minimum) and the player is rewarded with additional funds to purchase bigger and better weapons or equipment. And if you don't do so well, you need to rely on the generosity of your comrades to drop some money on the ground so you might be able to put down the next wave of zombies together.

Killing Floor - 6 Hours In

The game has been around for ages, but I'm finally getting around to playing Killing Floor with the recently released Gold Edition. And in a lot of ways, it's showing its age. Graphically, it's well behind what's currently available in the multiplayer shooter genre on PC and the world is extremely static as there doesn't seem to be much of anything in the way of physics.

The lack of respawn reminds me of the run I did with Counter-Strike back in the early days of The Armchair Empire, 12 years ago. Once you die, you just have to wait until the start of the next round! That's unheard of in most multiplayer shooters that are measured in kills-per-minute and things exploding.

And the menus... it took me more than a dozen rounds to figure out how the store worked. If it was found in any other game, it would receive a round of critical invective.

Max Payne 3 Screenshots

It's hard not to keep pressing the F12 key again and again with Max Payne 3. See below for the reason! Nice work on the visuals, Rockstar!

Alan Wake's American Nightmare Screenshots

Just a handful of hi-res screenshots from the PC version of Alan Wake's American Nightmare. Playing through this version is much more enjoyable than the 360 version for a couple of reasons. The obvious graphical upgrade, but also aiming with the mouse! Review should be posted on ae-infinite.com this week. *WARNING: Possible spoilers ahead.*

Alan Wake's American Hair-Trigger Aiming

Alan Wake's American Nightmare was recently released for PC and playing through it again... egad, this game nails ambience and setting like nobody's business. And yes, it looks better than the 360 version.

It also has hair-trigger controls, especially in comparison to the 360 gamepad.

Even turning the mouse sensitivity all the way down, there's always the danger of overshooting the mark.

Imagine sneezing, opening your eyes, and finding that you've spun yourself 180-degrees and are looking at the floor. That's what it feels like. It feels a little strange to have to use such a steady hand. I didn't find this with Saints Row: The Third -- I made a minor adjustment and I was good. No further changes required.

This over-sensitivty comes in handy during fights with swarming enemies because aiming is so quick and accurate, but I so far I've felt like I'm walking a tightrope being quick and not knowing which direction I'm facing.

The full review should be posted on www.ae-infinite.com next week.

Diablo III Screenshots

"Hard Reset: Extended Edition" Early Impressions

Hard Reset showed up in my mailbox unannounced and even though the game has been out for a while -- original release was September 13, 2011 -- I didn't know anything about it, so I went into the experience completely blind.

A couple hours in and it's safe to say it plays in same neighbourhood as Painkiller and Serious Sam and the early Doom games, only with a cyber/sci-fi sensibility.

Enemies most often run straight at you with no regard for tactics or cover. They simply converge. And, at least so far, it typically happens in some kind of "kill room" where the entrance slams shut the moment you enter the area and the exit won't open until you've killed everything that moves. Aim's important, of course, but Hard Reset also includes plenty of exploding barrels and electro-shock outlets to activate for at least some kind of planning to slow the attack of the robotic horde.

The graphic novel "cutscenes" got me thinking of the classic Dynamix title "Rise of the Dragon." But that's about all they've done so far.

Gotham City Imposters: Actually Played It!

There was a recent patch (a big one) for Gotham City Imposters. I put a lot of hope into that patch -- that the connection issues and finding a game would make it playable. With actual people. And for longer than five minutes.

From my brief play time last night -- full rounds of team deathmatch for a stretch of 30 minutes -- it seems the patch has cleared up the problems I was experiencing. I played for 30 minutes, went from level 4 to (almost) level 8, unlocked a bunch of stuff, but had to to call it a night because the patch took so long to download. (Some of us have to get up and go to work in the morning!)

But the most important aspect is that after that initial rush of "Yay, it's working!" I was actually having some fun with it. And all those ""Team Fortress 2 with grappling hooks and skates" reductions aren't completely out of line, it does feel like the game is trying to carve out it's own identity. At least, so far.

Gotham City Imposters: No, Seriously, How Do I Review It?

 Steam tells me that I've spent about 9 hours "playing" Gotham City Imposters.

"Playing" is misleading as that word would tend to make a reader think I was, you know, actually playing the game rather than watching the match making screen continually cycle. I spent just over 20 minutes last night connecting to a solitary game. And you know, it was fun for the ten minutes it took to win the Fumigation map. But then it was back to watching that same old match making screen.

I've seen other players on the "experience level" in the 50 range. I'm at experience level 4. The ratio of experience to hours played is ridiculous. It should not look like me kill/death ratio in Call of Duty.

So, I come back to this same question I posed weeks ago: How do I review this game fairly?

March 3, 2012 - “Bread, Justice, Freedom”

This week The Armchair Empire brought you Reviews of:

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (360)
Jagged Alliance: Back in Action (PC)
SSX (360)

The trio marks the successful "revival" of the SSX series, the seeming implosion of the Jagged Alliance series, and the first instalment of what is likely the first chapter of the Kingdoms of Amalur series. It's a good way to kick of March, which is shaping up to be another packed month for gamers.

Alan Wake: Played It, Finished It, Looking Forward to Playing it Again

Bright Falls has never looked so good.

As a game, Alan Wake really got under my skin. The combat wasn't always spot-on as Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (by Alan Wake developer, Remedy) but the setting, the psychological X-Files, Twin Peaks aspects sunk its hooks into me in a big way. If I wasn't playing it, I wanted to the be playing it. I burned through the two DLC "episodes" -- "Previously on Alan Wake" still makes me feel good -- and started playing the again from the beginning. Not on a harder difficulty or anything, but just to experience the game again. This wasn't something like Heavy Rain, where I've had the urge to replay but never followed through because I'm not sure I can stand the emotional roller-coaster again. Plus, I know "whodunnit."

I'm slowly burning through the entire series of X-Files -- I should write something about Netflix -- and there are a few episodes, particularly "Darkness Falls" -- Wikipedia describes the episode: Mulder and Scully travel to a remote area of Washington State National Forest after an entire group of thirty loggers goes missing. They soon discover that an unseen force that was lying dormant has been awakened -- which really made me want to stop watching and start playing again.

Alan Wake releases on PC today (in North America) and I finally have a bulletproof reason to dive into the lake again!

Fortune Summoners on AE's YouTube Channel

Mr. Nash recently took a look at "Fortune Summoners." Pop some popcorn, pour a drink, and pull up a chair. Now you're ready to watch and learn!

Couple of Old Republic Screens*

* "Couple" meaning "three" in this case.

Old Republic: It's Losing My Interest

I really would like to spend more time playing Star Wars: The Old Republic. But almost every time I've had a spare hour to devote to the game, I watch the game download and apply a patch or update rather than actually play it. This is exactly why I would get frustrated if I had to review a Playstation 3 game. If I hadn't had the console on in a while, I'd have to wait out the time consuming update process. This meant I wouldn't actually play whatever game I was supposed to be reviewing and slip into bed instead.

So, while these software updates are good for a restorative sleep, they're playing hell with my review schedule.

From Blizzard, With Love

So, some sections of the Internet are crying today about the latest news from Blizzard: Diablo III will be available on consoles. I was pretty sure the company had announced this ages ago so I'm not sure what the big deal is. I'm sure that for a few days there will be some very vocal whining and complaining from some segments of the gaming public, but these guys need to spend their time on more fruitful pursuits, like say, horticulture or cleaning up a river.

Dollars to donuts, the same people flipping out about this recent announcement were the same individuals that went a little off the deep end when it came to the art style. I remember when Blizzard showed off Diablo III for the first time and the voices called the art direction terrible, the grittiness had been replaced by a Care Bear sensibility, and so on.

I'm not sure how small your world has to be to care about stuff like this. More players getting a chance at a Diablo game?

That's good news.

Not just for Blizzard, a company that needs to have its gold-plated silverware re-finished, but for those gamers that have to listen to "old timers" beat the drum about how awesome those old Diablo games were. Finally, they'll be able to experience the "killing and shopping" of an RPG series that is still labelled as one of the best ever even though the last game was released more than a decade ago!

ADDITIONAL: Blizzard has actually denied confirmation of a console version. I'd still say it's likely to appear though.