Portal, World in Conflict
I've done a lot of gaming in the past six weeks or so--just not a lot of writing. Among the games that I've finished recently are BioShock, Halo 3, Skate, and Stranglehold. I'm not going to go nuts on trying to cover everything here. Remarks may leak out about various games gradually, but to be honest, my interest in writing is waning lately and I'm not sure how long it'll be before I feel like blogging again.I've tweaked my blog template to include a Flash version of my Xbox Live gamercard courtesy of mygamercard.net. As unexciting as that may be, it's a fairly convenient way to tell what I've been playing lately (on Xbox 360) even if I don't bother to post about it. Here's an image embedded version:
So, Orange Box. Team Fortress 2 is awesome. Half-Life 2 is old news, but still awesome. I haven't played Episode 2 yet. What exceeded my expectations the most, however, is Portal. What I expected was a clever and very polished puzzle game with mind-bending physics tricks. What I got was something of a psychological thriller.
Portal hinges on narrative. You aren't merely playing yourself trapped in a twisted lab experiment turned puzzle game: you seemingly play a specific, yet unknown character. Unexpected twists in the setting reveal that much more is happening plot-wise then you might first think. I don't want to go into specifics because it would be a terrible shame to ruin this experience for anybody with spoilers, but suffice to say that it really draws you into the world that it creates.
In a way, it's a shame that Portal is so short. Assuming you don't get stuck for too long on any given level, your first play-through will be over in three or four hours, not including the optional challenge levels provided under the Extra Content options. However, I thought that the game's brevity was one of its strengths: it leaves no room for filler, which makes the setting and plot all the more potent. Portal is to a regular game what a short story is to a novel, or what a short film is to a feature length production, and in some ways this is definitely a benefit.
I feel so strongly about Portal that I would call it a perfect game. It doesn't fuss around with trying to be everything to everyone, thereby avoiding any awkward attempts to be something that it's not. It has all of the atmosphere, attention to detail, and innovative design work that went into Shadow of the Colossus, and I think that both games appeal to the same type of audience. Portal absolutely blew my mind, and it left me wanting more, which is something that not nearly enough games these days do.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have World in Conflict. As is documented in this blog, I was completely won over by Company of Heroes--it went so far as to revive a great deal of interest in RTS games that had been dormant in me since I finished WarCraft II years ago. It was with this attitude that I approached World in Conflict, and in many ways it didn't disappoint, but in some crucial ways it has.
I haven't gotten very far in World in Conflict and my opinion is certainly in flux, but one immediate let-down was the heavy-handed storytelling in the game. It tries very hard to be epic and seems to land in the same camp as the movie Independence Day that way. The single player campaign for World in Conflict ends up feeling nearly as cheesy as the one in Command and Conquer 3.
I haven't been impressed by the UI either. It's not bad, but it's not as good as what I've become accustomed to from Company of Heroes and Dawn of War. It's easy enough to select units by type and get them to move in formation, but don't expect them to be particularly smart without your constant attention. Several times I've found myself wanting to form task groups of, say, some light armor, one heavy armor, and a repair vehicle for support, and it can be frustrating trying to cherry-pick individual units out of the mob for something like that. Some innovation here would have been welcome.
One thing that struck me as kick-ass in World in Conflict is the use of artillery in the game. Off-map artillery plays a huge tactical role (as it should) and is graphically very appealing as well. The smoke effects in particular are nice.
Further mini-reviews to come, maybe.
posted by Parappa @ 5:13 PM
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