Six Post Steam Sale Micro Reviews Part I

Yes, it's that time of the year again, when the Steam Sale at last ends, proving once and for all that the holidays are over and a new year has begun. I bought more than a few games on this Steam sale, and in fact relished an opportunity to to do thanks to my new snazzy computer lowering the bar of playability for my home rig once more.

Rather than elaborate on any particular game, I thought I'd try.....six micro reviews in one shot. These are of games I've played at least enough of to tell you whether they are worth one's time or not (and whether or not a sale is necessary to make them worth your time). Viciously honest opinions ahead!

35MM

35MM is ostensibly a tale of two men who have survived an apocalyptic plague, and now struggle through a beautifully rendered woodland and rural environment on a journey to unknown locales. Unfortunately, the reality is that this is a game about a very slow walking simulator paired with the worst escort quest ever, and after about forty minutes I couldn't take it anymore and requested a refund. Great graphics and ambience, though. An F for gameplay direction (or lack of it) and some poor design decisions but a B+ for the ambiance and environments.

Steep

This is actually a big budget production from Ubisoft, so if you have issues with Ubisoft or their Uplay environment then move on. For me, this is a fascinating experience in snowboarding, skiing, paragliding and wing-suiting across a vast snowy mountain landscape with a bewildering array of entertaining challenges and races. It's an open world style game, though trudging through the snow is not that thrilling...but it's otherwise a pretty fun game, especially if you enjoy similar types of games in which you get to control the actions of someone much, much more physically fit and crazy than you. Only thing that would make this game better is if it were an actual open world exploration experience full of wolves, bears and yetis. A solid A for me. I was glad to get this on sale but would have paid full price for it, had I realized how much I would enjoy it. I even found the season pass on sale and picked that up, too.

Dead Effect 2

A game which shocks you by being a port/derivation of a portable shooter designed for the Android and iOS environments, which is actually made enjoyable to play on PC, too. It's hammy and involves Space Marine Dude on a space ship overrun with the undead and other monsters, and is broken up into a series of escalating quests ....but short quests, which is welcome. Handles shockingly well on PC with a keyboard and mouse or controller, and would have looked state of the art about six or seven years ago. A decent B. Worth finding on sale.

Radiation Island

Just like Ark: Evolved except it runs just fine. I kid! It runs better, actually.

Seriously...it's like a $3.50 cent game with a complete survival experience packed in. If you've played even a handful of the seemingly endless Early Access survival titles on Steam, this game will shock you with several features you've never seen before: functional graphics, stable engine, it's complete and a full release title, and it has an actual plot and direction. My wife is much, much more in to these weird survival titles than I am and she finds it a fun diversion when Ark flakes out on her, Graphics are nice, and the worst I can say is that they are "Unity Engine" quality as this was an iOS game originally....but don't let that deter you, for the price it is absolutely a steal. Solid B+. And if you solve the island mystery it apparently unlocks a multiplayer edition, too.

Necropolis

It's kinda like if Dark Souls and Torchlight were grafted together into an amusingly entertaining chimera. You pick one of two stylish adventuring types and dive in to a procedurally generated dungeon, seeing how long you can go before you die. When you die....you are dead, time to start a new adventurer. It's a surprisingly compelling approach, and the only punishment for death in this game is to start over, which paper and pencil RPGers should be quite familiar with. Fun game, especially fun since I found it on sale. Solid B, would be higher if it offered more character types.

Case Animatronics

So, this is a game about a guy in a large building after hours when weird stuff happens. There's a ghost girl and a gruesome but copyright-avoiding animatronic murderbear in the game that is most definitely not, precisely, Freddy Fazzbear, Unlike a similar game series, Case Animatronics is built on the Unreal Engine and looks quite nice. You wander around solving the growing mystery and finding pieces of the puzzle as to why you are frequently subjected to jump scares and being killed by murderbear animatronics. It was sufficiently good at all this that my son was riveted the whole time we played (he, like so many kids, is riveted by the whole Five Nights at Freddys phenomenon), and I was about out of my seat with every horrifying and oddly unexpected jump scare. Not sure I even want to try playing it again (it's too good at the jump scares!) but deinitely an A game and I'd have paid full price for this one, honestly.

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.

Yet Another Summer of Steam Sale Sickness

I like to think of it as "stocking up on entertainment" in case I get laid off, I suppose...but sure enough, the Steam Sale is underway this week and I have indulged mightily. I don't really think of it as "buying games I am going to then play" so much as "buying games I will one day think I might get to play." Either way, I own waaaay too many games on Steam thanks to these stupidly fun sales.

Case in point: a Batman package with Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, and Gotham City Imposters. My first thought was, "I can buy Arkham City at last, and all the DLC." When you total up the sales cost it works out to $21 for the game plus all the DLC. But wait! There's a Batman bundle pack for only $25 available, which for $4 more includes the original Arkham Asylum along with Gotham City Imposters and all of the DLC released to date (and there's a lot of it). Sort of hard to resist...I mean, Gotham City Imposters was one of those "Hmmm, sounds fruity" sort of games, but for $4? Sure!*

And so it goes with Steam. So far I've snagged Max Payne 3, all the above mentioned Batman games, Hunted: The Demon's Forge, Star Wars: the Force Unleashed 1 and 2 (I played 1 long ago, but that was before this "Sith Edition" so...yeah), Trine 1 and 2, Bastion, Alan Wake's American Nightmare, some small and poorly received (yet still tempting to me) game called Deep Black: Reloaded, and (last but not least) Ridge Racer: Unbounded, the only Steam sale game I was anticipating, as I love racing games** but hate paying full price for them. So I don't.

I also snagged Spec Ops: The Line at Amazon for $25 so I guess that ought to be included in this list. Oh, and of course Secret World at a discount on Green Man Gaming. Now to find some time play it...

When you count the last two, that totals about $170 in game purchases in the last week. Ugh! I've done worse, though. Remember, I had over 400 games on Steam before this ever started....

When will I find time to play all this stuff? Who knows. I predict the first time many get played will be far in the future, when my son will be playing all these "retro games" on dad's accounts in a decade or so. We shall see...



I grew up with tabletop RPGs side by side with computer gaming. I had an Atari 2600 ordered straight from the Sears catalog. I acquired a TRS 80 (Trash 80) and was programming games in Basic and feed-loading text games from tape casettes. Over the years, tabletop gaming has remained consistent, and while its hard to deny that art and production values have gotten better over time, the overall quality of game system design more or less peaked somewhere in the early 90's and has remained a consistent but subjectively engaging experience....all RPGs are worth playing on their own merits, even if specific tastes may run a certain way. There's really no objectively "better" way to play than another (though one can of course still design a bad RPG).

With computer and console games, the experience is decidedly different. Graphic and interface design is through the roof in terms of performance, value, immersiveness and general satisfaction. The good ol' bad ol' days of PC gaming in the 80's is a thing of the past for all but some GOG releases, and I am happy it remains that way. The industry has created its own problems, of course, with AAA titles costing so much that major studios and publishers can't afford to fail, thus limiting what we see each year in terms of top notch designs, but even so indie and smaller publishers/studios still manage to slide in and fill the void with games that still prove worth playing.

Anyway, I have always found it interesting the extent to which players on both sides of the gaming fence have some crossover (or lack thereof). Likewise, I've also found it interesting just how many people look back on the "good ol' days" of PC gaming or tabletop gaming with a rosy glint in their eye while looking disdainfully upon today's big budget, deluxe graphic-intensive space-marine laden productions. I can say this much: if tabletop gaming had stopped evolving sometime in the mid-80's I do feel I'd likely still be playing those games today (probably still playing Runequest, Dragonquest, DC Heroes and of course AD&D), but if buying old fond-memory games on GOG has taught me one lesson, it is that I can't say the same for PC gaming. If PC games had stagnated in the mid 80's, I'd be done with the medium, completely. On the other hand, that nostalgia vision does seem to be making some much-needed comebacks happen (such as Wasteland II), so I guess some good is coming out of all that "way back when it was better" sense of perspective.




*After first downloading I couldn't figure out how to find any games on Gotham City: Imposters. It seemed to have an active community but there was something wrong with its default pnp protocols, near as I can tell. Very annoying. That said, it finally started working (no idea how or what I did that worked) and this game which was a mere "rider" on another deal turns out to quite possibly be one of my top favorite surprises....seriously fun run'n'gun gameplay with a lot of humor and weirdness.

** I found out I was good at racing games two summers back when I was severely sunburned (couldn't even walk!) and was out of commission for two weeks, right during the Summer Steam Sale. I bought the Flatout Series, then quickly added Fuel, Dirt, Grid and others. It has since become a sickness. My personal all-time favorite game that does not involve space marines, zombies or elves is Burnout: Paradise, a game best described as "A tale of a haunted city terrorized by insanely suicidal cars that have no drivers, because they are all driven by crazed phantoms desperate to crash into just about anything and everything. So hide the children and lock up the cats, Paradise City is on the fast track to hell!"