Monday Update! Sick Family, More of the Saints, and Lots of Rain

This is another Update blog, which is to say I've missed a couple and have no content lined up as yet. Last week was a hectic work week as co-workers were out on vacation and I was pulling double duty in other departments I don't normally dabble in if I can help it (even if I am the boss; knowing when you don't know something is an important part of the job). Then as work returned to normal I and my entire family came down with some hideous virus simultaneously, with myself, my wife and my son all equally sick. Plus, on top of everything it's been pouring cats and dogs in New Mexico, which is amazing (and needd). What a weekend! Lacking much energy or time I did not get much blogging done.

I did, however, play a lot of Saints Row the Third, and actually finished all the story arcs and primary campaigns. I got to about 78% completion, with only a smattering of the miscellaneous missions and challenges incomplete. All in all I got about 45 hours out of the game, which was not bad. The storyline remained as crazy as one could expect right to the end, albeit with the caveat that SR4 due out next month will top even the craziest storyline in SR3 right from the opening, a tradition now for this franchise, it seems.

After finishing SR3 I started a new campaign on hardcore mode with a male character using the gravelly Statham voice option (as my wife puts it) to see if playing a second gender made a replay worth trying. Aside from the entertainment value of seeing and hearing a dude go through everything it appears to be an identical experience, but the visceral enjoyment of replaying the game is pretty strong, stronger than many other recent titles I completed (i.e. Diablo III, Max Payne 3 and Star Trek, to name the last games I completed). There's also an advantage to replaying SR3 in hardcore mode, too: it's a tougher challenge, but I know that the accrual of reputation (leveling) and accompanying perks will lead to game-changing superiority over time, and this might make for a more challenging experience with a greater sense of reward when those really amazing perks start being acquired.

A week or two ago I pitched an idea about using SR3 as inspiration for a supervillain campaign, maybe powered by Mutants & Masterminds. As it turns out, one of the final missions for SR3 actually ends up giving you a range of superpowers, with which you proceed to trash Steelport. It was a great deal of fun, and a hint of things to come in SR4 if some of the trailers are anything to go by. Apparently Volition toyed with the idea in this once DLC pack (the one with Clone Gat) and realized that there was a great deal of additional potential by elaborating on it. I'll be curious to see if SR4 makes it a more integral portion of the game, or restrains it to a specific set of missions. In SR3 it's a temporary effect that lasts for an hour or less (more use burns it out). They could do something similar in SR4, but make it possible to purchase or find more doses, I imagine. One of the trailers shows Gat running up a building, though...Prototype style....so maybe they'll expand on the power options, too.

Speaking of Prototype, I snagged that plus Prototype 2 on the Steam Sale and got a few hours in. It inspired me to also resume playing more of InFamous, to contrast the two. Both are very decent games, worth playing, and I'll talk more about them in weeks to come, thanks to my newfound fascination for the wacky world of Open-City Sandbox/Theme Park GTA-clone titles. Prototype is especially interesting because it is best summed up as, "You start the game playing as the end boss from a Resident Evil title." InFamous has an interest good/evil moral quandry mechanic, which means you can be a suitably villainous menace or a misunderstood hero, depending on how you play your cards. Many of the quandries are sufficiently nuanced that it is actually easy to see why choosing the villain path might be smarter, if not kinder, which is interesting.

You know what the biggest threat to the next generation of consoles is right now? It's the last generation of consoles.....at least it will be, for the first couple of years. There were so many amazing and well done titles released over the last seven years that it's impossible to to have kept up for most people, and for gamers who aren't obsessed with the new and shiny (and I would postulate that most of the aging gamer base eventually become more concerned with games they can enjoy on a decent time:money ratio, as opposed to whatever is brand new) being able to pick from such an amazing selection of discounted titles is a real boon.

This is why the Xbox One and PS4 aren't offering backwards compatibility....they know their greatest enemy out the gates is everything that has come before.

I'll try to have more content out this week....been blogging about video games a lot lately, but I concede that my focus lately has been on gaming and also catching up on reading (especially some Wade Davis books I have been enjoying). I really should do some more book reviews soon, and maybe put more of an effort into blogging about all the interesting stuff going on in archaeology and anthropology in general. There are some blogs out there which I admire for their quality over quantity approach; maybe I'll try focusing on fewer but more substantive blog entries....we shall see!

Monday Musings...Saints Row: The Third as a Premise for a Modern Day RPG (mildly NSFW)

This was the NSFW one!

I realized as I was playing Saints Row: The Third this weekend that the D20 Modern system would work really well for this sort of game. You'd have level progression, hit point mechanics, a rule set just buff enough to handle some weirdness....

I suppose it goes without saying though that Hero System or GURPS could both do the "Saints Row" genre (because it really is its own weird thing) rather well, too....GURPS especially if you do it with every possible cinematic rule and quick-use short cut turn on (i.e. the group skills and such). Not sure how fun such a game would be, though....Saints Row: The Third has the distinct advantage of being so wild because of it's medium (open-world GTA-esque game in which you run around causing trouble for a virtual city) which not only allows for characters with remarkable resilience, but in a break from convention it sort of assumes that the game universe really is a "game" universe, the sort of place where the rules can and are broken Just Because There Are No Limits. Hyper deadly Japanese game show? Sure, why not! Gun which fires mind-controlling cephalopods? You got it. Gun which sprays targets with chum, attracting ferocious burrowing land sharks? Absolutely! There are no bad ideas in Saints Row: The Third, only fully realized dreams and madness. Hell...it's sequel (#4) features an all-out alien invasion of the city....so there ya go.

Anyway...the thing I get from playing this game is that sometimes it pays not too take one's fantasy realms too seriously. Also, internal logic is only as reality based as you care to make it. I am definitely considering how I can apply these lessons in some future game campaign...

Okay, the SR3-inspired idea I have: a world in which the most flamboyant and over-the-top super villains won, and society has been operating for decades (or longer!) based on some principles (such as they are) established by those winning villains long ago. While society madly plunges along into a state of increasing anarchy, it turns out that the super villains won so long ago due to the meddling of clever aliens, who are pulling strings behind the scenes; the aliens have a massive ship in space powered by a reality-warping engine, which is accidentally responsible on occasion for especially strange and bizarre manifestations on Earth, up to and including worm holes to other times and dimensions (pulling in everything from dinosaurs to cowboys and zombies). Meanwhile, the heroes --okay, protagonists-- are out to profiteer from the whole sordid mess....

One game I haven't considered, but which I really should: Mutants & Masterminds 3E. Seems like this sort of crazy would be very easy to execute in MnM!

Humble THQ Bundle

Usually they're Humble INDIE Bundles, but it turns out the Humble Bundle system can work for big publishers in serious financial trouble, as well. Either way, this is an amazingly good deal, and I wish I didn't own all of these games already. Instead, I point it out to those of you who might not already own all of these games (going for 5.60 as of the time I write this):

Metro 2033 (Best Russian post-apocalyptic shooter/adventure out there)

Titan Quest (an aging but very good hack and slasher that kept the torch burning during the dark years between Diablo II and Diablo III)

Saints Row The Third (you know how much I love this off-beat parody of the GTA Sandbox style games)

Three Company of Heroes Titles (okay I don't own these but I don't play RTS's either)

Red Faction: Armageddon (and it's DLC pack; a decent if unoriginal alien space marine shooter accidentally grafted onto a setting known more for being a "humans on Mars with hammers and highly destructible environments" style of game, thus why it flopped)

Darksiders (a game that many people seem to like but which I was unable to personally get any joy out of)

And a bunch of soundtracks.

Six days left as of 12/6/12....$5.60....hard to beat!

Summer of Steam Mini Reviews: Saints Row The Third, Gotham City Imposters, Serious Sam 3 BFE

Continuing my week of the "Summer that Steam Took All My Money," I thought I'd offer some mini-reviews based on the first few hours of gameplay for three of my purchases. These are just "first impression opinion pieces," as I haven't sunk more than 2-4 hours into each game, but I figure that if a game doesn't captivate you in that period if time maybe its got issues of a bigger nature later on.....so read on!



Serious Same 3 BFE
 
I actually bought Serious Same 3 BFE a couple weeks back using a 75% off coupon through Raptr, but its on sale through Steam now and i just got around ot trying it out (also to see if it merited further investigation or should be deleted and placed in the "someday" realm of games I will get around to when I feel like it).
 
I wasn't a huge fan of the old Serious Sam games but I did play them (back on the PS1/2 iirc) and I do own some dirt cheap copies of the HD versions from a prior Steam sale. They're mindless shooter fun, nothing to write home about, and definitely require you to be in the mood for some brainless run and gun gameplay that is decidedly old school.
 
A public shame of mine (because I don't hide my love for it) is that I love Duke Nukem Forever. It's just new enough and just old school enough to be entertaining, and for whatever reason I find that the game has smooth controls and decent gameplay. The humor is crass at times, but a quick reload of the original was enough to remind me that this is what Duke Nukem was all about--the newest game was true to its roots, and that above all else was part of its downfall. So with that in mind, I decided to use that coupon and see if Serious Sam's latest offering worked in the same way. 
 
As it turns out, yes and no. Yes Serious Sam 3 seems to be following faithfully in the footsteps of its two prior games (of which this one is a prequel) albeit with better graphics and a slight nod toward the need for more narrative framework typical of modern shooters (but only slightly). Otherwise, its still about moving through various maze-like environments, periodic open arena areas, and being swarmed by hordes of monsters that you shoot and beat up. I didn't get too far. I reached a midpoint around the third level and hit a nigh-unstoppable wall of cyclops monsters that was enough to convince me I should play this game in the far future when I was really, really in the mood for frustration. Which may be never....we'll see.
 
Verdict from a couple hours of play? If you liked the first two games this one should appeal. If you like old school shooters this is definitely in their ranks, with only a few caveats to modern shooter design. If you prefer to avoid frustrating combat situations that demand more twitch and less strategy, then avoid at all costs.
 

 
Gotham City Imposters
 
Once I got it connecting this game blew me away with how fun it was. It's a lot like playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare, in that the controls and "feel" are very close to that franchise. However, unlike CoD, this game has a sense of humor and a ludicrous but somehow workable premise. Basically, it's somewhere in Gotham City, and Batman is too busy to handle what is effectively a gang war on the streets between two groups: the Jokerz and the Batz, self-styled groups of maniacs who are pretending to do the work of or actually be their respective costumed idols. They do this with lots of weaponry, and some ludicrous gadgets such as gliders, spring-heeled boots, grappling lines, trampolines, roller skates and other bizarre contraptions. There's lots of conventional weaponry and (as is typical with the FPS multiplayer genre these days) level-ups and unlocks through XP gain. The game also offers loads of customization features for calling cards (what shows up when you off an opponent), mascots (floaty chibi-style "things" that look like popular Batman franchise characters) and other bizareness. One could imagine that the Jokerz and the Batz have been injesting a few too many mushrooms before going to war against each other.
 
Anyway, the result of all this is a game with all the gamification bells & whistles of progression-based game play, smooth and effective run and gun combat mechanics, weird and interesting movement options, a pervasive sense of humor that provides levity to a style of game known more for its serious military trappings, and a generally welcoming feel that I don't always get from multiplayer games. In fact, I was doing pretty well in my multiplayer matches so far, and the matchmaking was pretty quick. I never found myself feeling like a punching bag for the level 50 dog rapist, basically. Which is very good.
 

 
So who should play this, aside from me? Anyone who likes a clean, inviting and almost effortless multiplayer run-and-gun game experience with a sense of humor.
 
Saints Row The Third
 
I thought Gotham City Imposters was the surprise game from my Steam purchases. Nope! It was one, yes, but Saints Row The Third crept in and occupied the same space, rather unexpectedly. I almost didn't get this game. I couldn't quite bring myself to buy a game with shark attack guns, sex-toy clubs and other bizarre items trumpeted so markedly as core features of the seemingly psychedelic gameplay. But, after some deliberation, I decided that maybe, just maybe, if I enjoyed the quirky nature of Gotham City Imposters so much maybe I ought to give SR3 a try.
 
As it turns out, this game is almost a deconstructionist approach to the action game/GTA sandbox genre, with a bit of dadaism* thrown in for good measure. Saints Row 3 starts you with a giant over-the-top bank heist performed by the Saints Row core gang (presumably from SR2, which I tried long ago but couldn't get into) on their own bank (or something like that)...but it all a mock heist, apparently, until real enemies show up and turn it into a blood bath (mostly for the real enemies). Before long you're on a bank safe being carried by a helicopter duking it out with dozens of armed SWAT guys while shooting at enemy helicopters. Then before you know it you're on an airplane....then off the airplane on a parachute in free-fall duking it out with dozens of foes while dodging falling cars. Then you're in the city, a city which has the highest crime statistics, accident rates and mortality rates in the freakin' world.
 
Every tiny bit of this game is over the top so far, in a way that basically says, "This is a video game, not a life simulation. Do what you will, it's okay. See? Shoot this gun. It fires chum, which then attracts sharks which come boiling up from the ground to eat the chum-covered foes. We can do that, because this is a video game world. The rules of logic are ours to determine, and you shall live by them."
 
So Saints Row 3 is the first game I've played in ages that has left me surprised and keen to see what happens next. It's all built in a GTA-style sandbox framework, so it's a world of "do as you will, and here are some plots in case you're interested." I got the franchise pack so I have all the sundry DLC that came out. For the price I paid ($25) it was well worth it....not entirely sure I'd have been willing to buy all this DLC if it wasn't on sale, although I am sure the three mission packs are worth it. I tried one of them, chasing after a clone of "Gat," the Saints Row leader or something....a lot of rocket-shooting passenger mayhem, but a bit tough for me at this early stage so I went back to the main plotline.
 
The shooting element of Saints Row 3 is third-person based and is mostly about killing them before absorbing too many bullets. It's not as refined as more dedicated shooters, and there's not a lot of cover use going on. It does, however, feel very solid and the game looks very good. And its hard to dispute the value-added element of having a gun which attracts sharks on land and another gun that fires sprakly mind-controlling cephalopods that take control of your foes. Seriously.
 



*The irrational element of dadaism....this game is definitely an irrational trip through chaos. However, the wellspring of anti-war feelings from which dadaism sprang are decidedly not a component of SR3, which embraces violent chaos with more gusto than Leatherneck at a lawnmower convention.