Infamously Deceptive

I need to be more frequent with these posts, probably, but apparently I got shit to do!!

Between school, and work, and just a slew of shit games, I don't have much to talk about apparently.  But I have 3 games to talk about today, and a movie.


First up, we have InFamous 2.

I really liked the first game, so I was looking forward to the sequel, and the game did not disappoint.  The biggest improvement to the game is the option to switch powers on the fly, which is useful as hell because some enemies don't give a damn about some of the powers you use on them.  Also good is how they just have regular powers, and then powers that you get dependent upon choices you make in the game.

There was a lot of talk in the previews of the game about Fire and Ice powers you could get in the game, and its important to note that you only get one or the other in a playthrough.  Neither is better than the other, as both have some powers that are less than desirable, and some that are insanely good.  I haven't tested it yet, but once you beat the game going down both the good and the bad path, you gain access to all available powers, but I don't know if this applies to an entirely new playthrough, or just to the endgame that you get to run around and do after the credits roll.

The downsides to this game are noticeable though, and they happen frequently.  Most common problem comes from targeting, where for one reason or another, something you are aiming directly at, you just wont hit, and this problem gets more and more pronounced the closer enemies get to you, which becomes extremely annoying in large crazy battles.  If enemies are right up on you, your attacks will just completely miss them, of if it is mean as an area effect attack, like the alpha blast attack.

Other problems include things like movement, cheap deaths by enemies, and just strange geometry issues.  The movement is much more fluid, and quicker, than it was in the first game, and it took me a little while to get used to it.  It never was a hindrance, but it just didn't feel right, all the way until the end of the game.  Cheap deaths are whatever, every game has them, it just felt like there were too many.  And the geometry, well, you'll come across any of them I could mention, and there aren't very many, but they are annoying all the same.

The story though, sadly, is pretty much just a direct ripoff of Watchmen.

The next game I'm going to talk about is one that I have been waiting for for a while, and that is Dungeon Defenders.  This game is so much better on a console.

I first played this game near a year ago when it was released on Android and iOS devices.  It was fun as hell then, and I played it all the time, but the screen size and the limitations of the device made the game awkward and difficult to play in the higher difficulty levels.  But its out on PS3, and I think XBox and PC as well, so that isn't much of an issue now.

The game is a tower defense game, at its core, but you also have an avatar what you can run around with and attack with, as well as place and upgrade defenses.  The avatar you play as ultimately determine the difficulty of the game, as they function differently and have different types of defense towers and traps they can lay.

If you know how a tower defense game plays you know how this game plays.  The only thing really to say about it is the options for the controls are kind of lacking, and the camera control options are even worse.  The game is fun as hell though, and playing it only is even better.

The downside though, is that when you play online, anyone has control over everyone else's defenses, and to further upon that, you only get experience for enemies you or your defenses kill.  So if you are playing the game with a cocksucker who goes around selling all your defenses and building his own, what I say you should do is wait until a lot of enemies spawn, sell all of theirs, and then quit the game, or wait until you lose the level, then quit the game.  Fun times.

Last of the games is one I love, not for its story, or its graphics, or anything like that.  I love it for how it makes you assess things as a gamer.  I'm talking about Dark Souls.

I loved Demon's Souls, and all its sparsity.  Everyone talks about how difficult the game was.  I never saw it.  Did I die a lot playing the game?  Yeah, absolutely.  They designed the game so that would happen.  But the game wasn't difficult.  It required thought and strategy, and patience.  Which is something that the bulk of games made today completely forget about.  Dark Souls is no different.

They made a few changes to the game, some of which I love, some of which I am curious as to why they made them, some of which I feel both about.  They added in some new controls, such as the ability to jump.  And when I say the ability to jump, I mean, the ability to cause more players to die more often.  The jump is usually only implemented in accessing secret areas, where you can find souls and weapons and the like.

A change I am curious about is the change from using the grasses as a means of healing, to using what is called an Estus Flask.  with the grasses in the first game, you could hold up to 99 of them, and there were 5 different types, so you could have plenty of healing items on you at all times, which you needed because you took damage often.  In this game, you start off with having 5 charges in your Estus Flask, which can be gone through quit fast.  You can up grade it so that they restore more health, and have more charges, however.  The only reason I can see for this change is to kind of force players into less reckless, more calculated play styles.  I like this change, because its more suitable to the game.

A change that I both love and am curios about is the removal of item burden, and only having an equip burden.  In the first game, everything you carried counted towards an encumbrance, and if you carried too much, it slowed  your movement.  In addition to this, there was the equip burden, which affected how you performed in combat, by hindering your evasion skills.  Only the latter is present in Dark Souls, which is very welcomed by me, as I carry shitloads of arrows.

I'm about a third of the way through the game, currently, so I'm eager to find out what it still has in store.  I'm in the Blighttown area right now, and I Fucking hate it.

Lastly, movies.

They have been pretty shitty lately, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.  One that came out this week that I was looking forward to was The Rum Diary.  When I saw the trailer for it, I was slightly bummed out, as it looked to deviate too far from the book, but when I watched it, it didn't really matter.

The book was really about nothing.  It was just a chronicle of what happened to the character in his time in Puerto Rico.  The movie changed things, combined characters, eliminated some, but it didn't really matter, because when it was all said and done, the movie was about the exact same thing as the book:  nothing.  It was just shit that happened.  I liked it.