Video Game Assessment: Deadly Premonition (2010)

Deadly Premonition is a fantastic survival horror video game, easily one of the best I've ever seen, seemingly heavily inspired by such great works as Silent Hill for the atmosphere, Twin Peaks for the setting and most of the characters, and Resident Evil 4 for its gameplay. It takes a lot from each and every one of those other horror-related media, but it stands on its own for its content, its plot, and its amazing way of telling its story from beginning to end. It gave me a reason to believe in video games and it gave me a reason to see that there can be quality in anything if given the chance.

This game is a cult classic, and don't mistake it for anything else. It has horror, suspense, unforgettable characters, and a plot that is like nothing else out there.

The game starts off with a murder of a young woman and an FBI agent named Francis York Morgan goes to Greenvale, Washington to investigate her murder. It sounds similar to Twin Peaks already, with a kooky FBI agent and a small town in the Northwestern United States... but that's when the game takes a turn for the weird. The FBI agent crashes his car into the woods and proceeds on a nightmarish journey through the woods to civilization. The player is left wondering if the nightmarish world actually happened or if it was all in York's mind.

Eventually after coming out of the forest, York meets up with some of the townsfolk, a gruff sheriff with the name of George, and his beauty of a deputy, Emily. After they all get acquainted, the investigation starts and more of the nightmarish sequences follow as York tries to understand how the young lady was murdered and who it could be that murdered her. As he delves into the case, he finds a quirky town full of very odd inhabitants each with ties to the case or each other, and a horror underlining everything in the town and its history.

The game starts out as a very different one than it ends up being. I could compare it to titles like Indigo Prophecy and Silent Hill because of the similarity in tones and settings, but really this game stands all by itself with its unique ideas, dialogues, characters, and settings. It has an open-ended world in which the player can do many things, go on many adventures, and chat with people who may or may not have anything to do with the case, all while trying to solve the case in turn.

Trying to figure out who the killer is and why the killer did it is the real point of the game. There are several early clues as to who is the murderer and who York can trust and who he should not. Trying to solve the case faster than York does becomes something of a challenge, and a challenge that I actually failed at. The game went a long way to pointing many possibilities for the murderer and tries to confuse both York and the player until neither are quite sure what is reality and what is fiction. And the murderer, the killer, in the end it is such a surprise, and a heart-wrenching surprise at that. SWERY made a beautifully unforgettable game that is both horrific and wonderful in almost every way.

Agent York, please stop smiling, you're terrifying the children.

The blend of a realistic world and a psychotic nightmare world where York kills demonic evil citizens and outruns the ominous Raincoat Killer is the best part of this game, becoming a very unique experience. Neither the player nor York are quite sure what's really going on until the very end and even then, the player is still left a little dazed and confused, wondering how much was real and how much was in York's head all along.

The ending was both disturbing and heart-wrenching. The story itself feels real, with situations so distressing that sometimes the player just doesn't want to look at the screen even when the game forces one to look lest the player misses something. The characters are both funny and lively, but also serious when they need to be. They feel like real people and act like real people, sometimes even to an alarming degree.

The music and sounds are surprisingly good. The vocal work is much better than I would have ever expected from such an inexpensive game, although none of the characters are fully voiced, which was a tad disappointing. The music makes the game though. At first it seems WAAAAAY out of place and you might be left wondering why the hell a happy song is playing right after some gruesome murder, but it works weirdly enough... and the tone is set. There is a dissonance in the game that can be quite jarring, and you really start to wonder after a while if you're going insane or if the game is just that peculiar and different.

I would say that I did not like the enemy sections though. Although the nightmare world was pretty awesome, fighting the same five or six enemies (not including bosses) throughout the entire game became tiring after a while, especially when it took so long to actually take them down... and the freaking things that come out of the ducts in the walls are by far the most irritating enemies... usually taking five minutes to take out and being a very popular enemy in the second third of the game or so. I dreaded those things showing up. They were incredibly easy to take out sure, but they were also just so annoying and time-consuming... and they made you waste an incredible amount of ammo on them... just an annoying enemy all around. Despite this though, the enemy sections (although annoying) had a certain amount of dread attached to them. The enemies did get progressively harder and sometimes they would just keep spawning forever... and you know once you get into a room that has the enemies just keep spawning that all you want to do is run away screaming like a scared, crying child. So, these sections really were quite effective at using scares, annoyances, and guile to move you to keep continuing the actual storyline.

I can't stress how good this game really was despite some of its flaws. It doesn't have the marketing of some games and thus is not as well known and will probably never be popular. Some of the gameplay is actually pretty terrible as well, and things like the driving mechanics (which make you feel like you're a drunk driver all the time) and the shooting mechanics (which are incredible tough to control in the beginning) can be very frustrating to a person who has never played a survival horror game. To me though, the survival horror fan that I am, the gameplay feels like a lot of the older survival horror games, some of which I dare to say are some of the best video games of all time. The whole game feels like a throwback to the pinnacle of the days of survival horror games with a twist of its own all the same. Also, this game... let me start a new paragraph because this will start a rant.

Well, I can easily compare this game to another game, A PSYCHOLOGICAL ACTION THRILLER game to be be precise. Yes, yes. Alan Wake. I hate you, Alan Wake. I revile you. I think you are a piece of filth that should be forced into the nether regions of Hell for all eternity, but Deadly Premonition was what Alan Wake should have been. It was exactly what I was expecting from that game. And if you tell me that Alan Wake with all of its resources, with its stellar graphics and lackluster everything else... if you tell me that that piece of excrement even compares to a gem, a diamond, a ruby like Deadly Premonition, then you are wrong, and also probably deranged and should be locked up for copious mental deficiencies. Where that game defeated me, hurt me, tore me apart, Deadly Premonition succeeded, becoming one of my favorite video games of all time in the process.

I can't help recommending this game to anybody who likes fun, survival horror, and intelligent games full of questions that you need to answer yourself. Check it out if you have the gonads for it... and it is best played whilst alone... at midnight... in the dark... on a stormy night... then you'll really understand just how much this game can mess you up. Check it out. I recommend it highly in these October Nights.

Video Game Assessment: BioShock (2007)

Okay, I'm seriously very sorry for doing this, but this is a game I've been wanting to review for a very long time and I only just remembered it existed while I was going through a pile of games I finished. I say that I'm sorry because I'm sure there are people out there who really like this game. There are probably even people (perhaps) reading this review who REALLY like BioShock. Well, I'm going to say something that's probably going to make me very unpopular to those people.

I hated this game.

I hated it with a severe passion I usually only reserve for Dark City, Finnegans Wake, and The Martian Chronicles.

I'm not even kidding. This is my least favorite video game OF ALL TIME. You may think I'm going way overboard with that statement or something... but I'm not. I cannot think of a single video game worse than this piece of absolute crap. I'd rather play anything instead. I'd rather play a freaking Barbie game, or one of those freaking Pet Vet games or whatever they're called where the vet goes and pets the animal a lot until it gets better, or whatever the hell those games have in them. How should I know what's in them? I don't play them for a reason and if I did play them I'd kind of know what to expect.

This game is a pile of turds. Why? Well, because of what it claimed to be and what it turned out to be, of course. I mean, if you tell me this'll be the game that innovates first-person shooters with many elements of horror for years to come, I'd understand what you're saying... then I'd play the game and slap you in the face for this affront to humanity.

Did I say "affront"? I meant blight.

Seriously, this game is terrible. And I'm sure all these people who are into "mainstream" games like the Halo crowd are probably slobbering all over this game calling it a masterpiece of horror, sci-fi, and video games themselves... but those people are idiots. They have no idea what's going on at the best of times, and even though I consider myself quite mad most of the time, I'm not mad enough to call a turd a piece of gold. I'm sorry, it's just not something I feel comfortable with. It goes against the basic rules of everything.

BioShock feels like a game that wants to be something better. It wants to be the older kinds of games with a great plot and some puzzle elements and a WHOLE LOT of horror... but what it comes off as is pretentious bullcrap.

I love great stories. Love great twists and turns. Look at my Silent Hill 2 review or my Deadly Premonition one if you don't believe me. Seriously. Those show that I love great stories, even when the game is ultra-hyped. Silent Hill 2 is often called the scariest game of all time, and you know something? Despite my insistence on hating most things well-loved by the populace, I love Silent Hill 2. I think it is the scariest video game of all time without a doubt in my mind. And saying that makes me hurt a little knowing that I agree with so many other reviewers out there... but it's true and I cannot deny the truth despite my obvious mental defects.

But this game... oh, this game... I can't even like it. Sure, I tried to like it. I played levels and had a little fun from time to time. I killed weird people stuck in the underwater city of Rapture, and I didn't feel anything. The scares WEREN'T SCARY! How can a horror game not be scary? How is that even possible? How can people like this game?

I'm so angry I could spit staples out of my teeth as hard and fast as my staple-gun. I don't think any game has ever made me this angry before... no, I know that no game has ever made me this angry. I can't believe how many people liked this game. I can't believe enough people liked it so that there was an even more terrible sequel made which I will never play even under threats of death and bodily destruction. I'd rather die painfully than play a game that hurts my pure visions of video games.

I played this game for about an hour on my first playthrough. It seemed a little tense from time to time and I didn't hate it. I thought it was all right. I thought that maybe I'd like the game even... but after a little time playing through the game, I found that instead of liking it more I was just bored. I knew what was coming before it came. I could kill everything without a blink of my eyes. I don't even like first-person horror games all that much because they make me nervous, but this game just made me sigh for the game to throw some kind of challenge at me... anything to keep me from falling asleep in front of my television.

I mean, there are some good ideas... like the plasmids and everything, but they're implemented so poorly. It's like a rip-off of the Fallout series or something with all the little cutesy 1950's era doodles. It just makes me angry. Nothing here feels original. Nothing here even feels good. It's like vomit in video game form and that... well, that just isn't right in any circle.

The big twist is stupid and happens way before the end of the game. I couldn't care less. I might not have seen it coming exactly, but I didn't care about these characters I never saw except when I listened to them talking over a radio at me and saw a little picture in the corner looking at me. How stupid is that? Show me a cutscene if you're going to try to be Half-Life... I mean, Half-Life did that whole playable cutscene thing perfectly, showing me the characters involved without feeling distant from everything. It made use of the special weapons (e.g. The Gravity Gun) and used them effectively. This game instead goes for the whole, "Yeah, go use this fire plasmid to melt some ice. Yay!"

Whoopdee-doo... A one-year-old child could figure that out. A dog could figure out that warmth is bad for ice. What the hell kind of game is this that treats me as if I have the intelligence of a one-year-old child dog thing? IT MAKES ME ANGRY!

And the worst part is the ending... well, that and the item collection to become a BIG DADDY, which has to be one of the most hyped up easy enemies ever. I mean, when I first saw the trailer I was all like, man those things are going to rock!And then they didn't. It was quite the let down. It was like somebody telling me they were going to give me a puppy, and then instead they ritually sacrificed the puppy there in front of me and gave me the poor thing's fur as a final gift. I don't want dead puppy fur, I want a living puppy that will make me giggle and be happy! BioShock, why did you have to give me a dead puppy's fur? (Yes, I'm going to go with this analogy as long as I can. Hopefully you're getting a fraction of the amount that I abhor this game.)

Why does this game exist? Why is it so popular? Has the mainstream become so hopeless that this is seen as GAME OF THE YEAR material? I can think of many better games of 2007 right off the top of my head: Assassin's Creed (which I didn't even like all that much), Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, The Orange Box, Lost Odyssey, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Peggle, even Silent Hill: Origins, which was absolutely terrible mostly! I can't even think straight... This game is making me so angry...

I will admit one positive aspect of this game just to calm my absolute rage. It has outstanding visuals. The graphics are outstanding mostly, and the water effects are beautiful. Okay, that's about it... and you know what? I guarantee that almost everybody who loves this game love it for its "innovative weapons" and "cool graphics" and that's sad. Games should be measured by more than just what they look like and how you kill the enemies. But no... stories don't matter... characters don't matter. The only things that matter are graphics and gameplay and if that's all that matter than yes, this game is a fricking gem among an ocean of gems. ALL GAMES ARE PLAYABLE OR THEY WOULDN'T BE GAMES! GOOD GAMEPLAY IS LIKE SAYING A MOVIE SHOULD BE WATCHABLE! OKAY!? AND GRAPHICS SHOULD BE TOPNOTCH ON NEW CONSOLES, BUT THAT'S NOT ALWAYS THE CASE, ALL RIGHT!? AND IF IT ISN'T THEN THAT GAME THAT DOESN'T SHOULD HAVE SOMETHING EXTRA SPECIAL LIKE A REALLY GOOD STORY! Okay... take a deep breath...

My point is that games should have all these things... just because this game has some decent graphics and gameplay doesn't make it GAME OF THE YEAR. What made it GAME OF THE YEAR are douchebags who consider it art rather than seeing it as pretentious bullcrap that should be flushed down the nearest toilet.

Video Game Assessment: Alpha Protocol (2010)

Alpha Protocol, developed by Obsidian Entertainment and produced by Sega, is an excellent example of a beautifully crafted RPG. I've actually found it quite funny how many bad reviews this game has gotten from seemingly "respectable" sources, mostly because the people reviewing games are complete and utter morons who only want to shoot things and play games like Halo or Gears of War rather than an intelligent game that redesigns how people look at games.

Now, I can just say it right here: I hate Halo. I hate everything about it. I hate its smug face and its stupid gameplay, and most of all, I really dislike people who think it's just about the best thing there ever was. I love intelligent stories. I love playing a game that says something, that can change depending upon what I do, or at least a game that makes me think.

Alpha Protocol is that kind of game. It is a thoughtful ride. When I say thoughtful I mean, full of thought. The developers thought of everything, from characters commenting on what clothing your character, Michael Thorton, wears, to how you play out ever mission, to how you interact with characters. Everything changes depending on how you play the game. As one of the blurbs for this game points out "YOUR WEAPON IS CHOICE!" and it really is.

What I find most refreshing about this game is its attention to detail and how it does things differently than even most RPGs. The comparisons between this game and the Mass Effect series (especially the second Mass Effect)are pretty straightforward. Both are over the shoulder third person shooters. Both use "choice" as a selling point, both have a large cast of interesting characters, both have "hubs" and mission debriefings and multiple choices for where and what to do next. My only comment on all of that is that Alpha Protocol does almost every one of those things better than Mass Effect 2 to the point where Alpha Protocol is a much more solid game despite the reviews.

Now, you may accuse me of being a Mass Effect hater, but that is actually not true. I love the Mass Effect games. The first one had a compelling story even if the gameplay and RPG elements were suspect, and the second one has solid gameplay and a decent story, even when the RPG elements were awful. Both games had incredibly good characters as well. And I enjoyed both game immensely.

So, that being said, when I say Alpha Protocol is comparable to the Mass Effect series (and the second game especially), I mean it as a compliment. And I mean it as even more of a compliment when I say that Alpha Protocol is equal or greater than Mass Effect 2 as a wonderful experience.

Well, let me explain Alpha Protocol then without raising too many spoilers. The game is hailed as "THE ESPIONAGE RPG", and I think the point the developers tried to make there is that this is one of the few, if not the only, espionage RPG even made. And being made by Obsidian Entertainment known for their wonderful take on Star Wars in Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords and Nerverwinter Nights 2, as well as the upcoming Fallout: New Vegas, it's a game that comes off as one of the best quality games around.

If you know anything about games and Star Wars and Obsidian, you'll know that KotOR II: TSL, was about seventy-five percent finished or thereabouts at release because of LucasArts trying to rush out the game by Christmas. That being said, and I'll go on record with this, KotOR II: TSL is my FAVORITE VIDEO GAME OF ALL TIME. And that had terrible reveiws by some people because the game WAS UNFINISHED. And yet, an unfinished game is my favorite of all time even compared to actual finished games that just can't hold my interest for long enough for me to care.

My point is that because of Obsidian's wonderful work on my favorite game of all time, I was excited for Alpha Protocol hoping it would be every bit as compelling as KotOR II: TSL. And you know what? It's not quite at the favorite level of video games, but it is awesome and fun, and I've enjoyed it immensely.

Obsidian knows how to make a quality game with excellent dialogue and characters. And they do it so well that playing any other game just makes that other game seem shallow and uninteresting.

So, now, instead of talking about other games, I'm going to get down to talking about Alpha Protocol. You are Michael Thorton, a man with a multiple choice past who is chosen for a secret government agency that's working on dealing with the fallout from a missile launch on a plane in the Middle East. Thorton needs to find the evidence to see who is responsible for American missiles getting into the hands of terrorists. Along the way he meets a ton of interesting characters, ranging from the sweet, professional girl who is always on Mike's headset, to the suave snake CEO of Halbech, to the German cougar, to the psychopath who really likes dry cleaning fluid.

I just have to mention how good the characters are. Steven Heck, a character met in Taipei, and the man who really has a thing for dry cleaning fluid, is one of the most interesting characters in the game. Everything he says is absolutely hilarious and it's hard not to like him even though he is an absolute psychopath. SIE, the German cougar, and I don't mean large cat, gets another honorable mention for humming "Flight of the Valkyries" during one of your missions. I burst out laughing when she did that and I just couldn't stop. I was so impressed by the developers to be able to come up with everything.

The enemies in the game are sometimes hard to distinguish. Each character has motives for doing what they're doing and nobody is one-dimensional. No character is "evil" even though some can be degrees of ruthless, psychopathic, righteously angry, or crazy in the head. You can align with any of the characters and I'm pretty sure almost every character can die (or at least get very hurt) over the course of the game.

The gameplay is perfectly fine. It reminds me a lot of Mass Effect except it's a little bit less flashy than Mass Effect, and much more based upon stealth, being a spy game and all.

The voice work and music is sometimes particularly memorable and other times not so much. More of a hit or miss than anything else. Some characters are beautifully done, like Steven Heck, SIE, Mina, Marburg, Leland, Albatross, and arguably Sis (who has no voice actor at all), whereas some of the other voice work is just not as good... especially the Chinese accents in the Taipei missions. Anyway, this game is excellent, easily one of the best games I've played recently (along with Deadly Premonition, which was also very good but in a very different way), I am going to keep this game around with me for a long time, and I'm going to play it again and again. It's not a long game after all, probably only 15 hours long or so. And it's so much fun. I can't stress that enough.

So, if you get a chance, pick this game up and play it. It's one of the few game I've played that actually deserves a sequel or DLC or something. This game is too good not to have more added to it. But that's what I said about KotOR II: TSL, and what did I get from that? No KotOR III, that's what.

Video Game Assessment: Red Dead Redemption (2010)

Red Dead Redemption is an open-world sandbox game developed by Rockstar Games, known for their wonderful Grand Theft Auto series which I have never played and have no desire to play. Red Dead Redemption is a game set in the final years (around 1911) of the wild west of gunslingers and cowboys. The railroad is coming in and nothing can stop the road to modernity that comes from the railroads. This game sets a record for two things for me. The first is enjoyment. I've never played a game set in the wild west that was as fun as this game and I really liked playing Red Dead Revolver and GUN. The game is a spiritual successor to Red Dead Revolver, pretty much better in every way than it, and more like GUN in content, except that GUN only lasts five hours if you're lucky and has a pretty good storyline, whereas Red Dead Redemption lasts at least 20-25 hours, and has a bit of a weak story. The second is that this game gave me so many headaches, I can't even begin to count them. I'm not sure if it was the realistic environments, something always happening, or the lack of a truly coherent storyline, but this game was headache central for me.

Let me say the the plot to this game is pretty weak all around. John Marston (the player character)starts off the game getting on a train and going to a little crapsack town called Armadillo. He then goes almost directly to confront an old friend of his and is shot for the trouble. The rest of the game goes to show how John Marston has gotten in the middle of a government man and the outlaws of the Old West. The government man wants to pave the road of modernity over the "wild" west, and the outlaws like it just the way it is, lawless and harsh. The game encompasses a lot of areas, from a generic west setting that shows gangs harassing a noble ranch, to the Mexican Revolution and all the psychotics in Mexico at the time, to the mountainous west that seems much tamer in its people, but also much wilder in its climate. The plot is fairly weak, but the characters you meet in the first part of the game at least, come off as the best part of the main plot. Each one of the characters seem to have their own personalities and it's fun to see the quirky west done in a video game medium. The latter two-thirds of the game really holds little interest for me. There are some neat characters and settings, but the feeling doesn't quite live up to what one would desire it to be. The Mexico campaign especially feels more like a political statement (Although I'm not sure what they're trying to say.) than an actual main story plot. It comes off as silly and a little contrived, which doesn't make the game better in my opinion.

Since once the story is done, all the other main characters disappear and die, the game has a very empty feeling to it in the end. It's a sandbox with nobody to talk to and nothing to really do but kill a town or two, kill some buffalo, kill some bunnies, and throw yourself off of a cliff.

Maybe it's just me, but I really have an issue with these sandbox games full of a lot of nothing. I'd rather have good characters and plots than a fully opened game that gives me a headache. Now that I've gotten that off of my chest, I actually did have fun riding around the realistic landscape on my horse for long periods of time. It was fun to just ride and shoot things that got in my way. But it also got old pretty quickly.

Anyway, I did like the game. I thought it was fun for the most part, but I kind of wished the plot was stronger and the characters existed out of the main plot, but those are little gripes to a genuinely good wild west game that will keep you entertained for hours.