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Monday Gaming Diary: Deus Ex HUD Issues

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Deus Ex Human Revolution HUD

Not having a HUD sucks

I’m not going to lie; Deus Ex: Human Revolution really does push the boundaries of my comfort zone, and it doesn’t do so where I thought it would. I thought I would have the most problems with the first-person perspective, but that’s honestly the least of my problems. The stealth elements really put me on edge, and some of the “thinking-outside-the-box” really pushes me. I like that the game forces me to be creative on occasion, but at the same time, it reminds me how uncreative I am with this kind of problem solving. Once in awhile, I’ll get a revolutionary idea, but it doesn’t strike me as often as a game like DXHR requires. Couple that with my extreme lack of patience, and you get why I’m using the strategy guide.

However, none of these aforementioned reasons made me want to rage quit the game over the weekend.

In the middle of the Cloak and Daggers side missions, at the part when I need to take down a gangbanger, I kept running out of ammunition and I had no idea why. Shouldn’t I get a notification about such things? Shouldn’t I know how much ammo I have? And hey, where is my cross-hair? I kind of need that for aiming. Now that you mention it, where’s my health bar? Aren’t I supposed to have a mini-map in one corner that shows where NPCs are?

In a nutshell, my HUD had disappeared. I swore it was something I did in the settings or with a button press, so I spent a good 10-15 minutes going over and over my options in an attempt to see what I switched off. Nothing I did worked, and I was livid. I’m not good enough of a gamer to survive a FPS without a HUD, especially in those stealth zones. Not to mention, I like knowing my ammo levels at all times and I need the cross-hairs for aiming assistance. Just because I’m from Texas doesn’t mean I automatically know how to aim a gun with expert precision and direction.

I started to wonder when this happened, so I reloaded my last checkpoint. And then past saves. I finally pulled out the iPad and did a Google search, and I found nothing but bad news. It’s a glitch in the game, something that doesn’t happen often, but it requires reloading of past saves to fix. In other words, there is no fix. Oh and it occasionally corrupts past saves, forcing you to go back even further. Guess who had to do that? The one save that didn’t have the glitch was the save I used TO START MY GAME SESSION. I lost 2 hours of gameplay, and I was FURIOUS.

I quit playing that night, and when I played the next night, I swore that if it happened again to that extent, I would be done with the game. No, I don’t want to trade it in for a PS3 version. I want Square Enix and Eidos to acknowledge this problem and release a patch. I’ve seen complaints in their forums as well as the Xbox forums. This is ridiculous, and you must fix!

So far, saving after every little checkpoint with my five save files has prevented it from happening again. I will be so sad if it kills my game. So far, I’m really digging the story and the gameplay, and I really want to get this game done before November, when I will lose my soul to so much greatness.

Gears of War 3 Mini-Review

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Gears of War 3 box artChances are, if you had any inkling to buy Gears of War 3, you’ve already bought it or are planning to buy it, no matter what reviews say. The Gears franchise kind of has that Halo stigma about it; if you loved the first games, you’re going to buy the next. If you’ve never looked at Gears of War before, you probably won’t look at the third, no matter what reviews say.

However, that’s not going to stop me from spilling what I think, or in this case, pointing you towards where I spilled my thoughts on Gears of War 3.

I reviewed the game for Gaming Angels, and as you can see from the following excerpt, I raved about it.

To say that the first Gears of War was a bit lacking in story is a gross understatement. The second game was vastly improved, and this final game was light years of improvement even upon that. Instead of Delta squad sort of falling into various missions throughout the game, this time they have a clear mission: rescue Adam Fenix from a stronghold known as Azura and help him implement his weapon that will “solve” the Lambent problem. They don’t know what or where Azura is or how they will get there, but at least they have some direction as to where they need to go. It’s definitely an emotional rollercoaster for all involved, and the ride is a bit longer than it has been before, but the story is a brilliant sendoff and closing chapter for the series.

Of course, the storyline isn’t the only improvement for Gears 3. This time, the action always occurs with parties of four, which allows for four-player co-op for the first time in the series. One of the best parts of this new feature is that the groups of four are not always the same, so players, even those playing as “Player 1,” will have the chance to play as different characters. Different characters don’t have different abilities, so the experience isn’t that different, but at the same time, it’s refreshing to occasionally play as someone other than Marcus or Dom. For me personally, I was ecstatic to be able to play as Anya and Sam, just to have something different from the usual four Delta Squad members.

Yeah, I loved it just a teensy bit; enough to play the game twice within a week–once co-op and once solo. This is also the first time I have ever, EVER joined in a multiplayer game. I played Horde mode with some random people a few times and found it to be more fun that I would imagine. I still haven’t ventured into the Versus mode yet, but I think I will eventually since I’ve been told that’s the best multiplayer to play by yourself. I’m also wanting a solo run-through on Arcade Mode and some four-player co-op action. And I rarely play games more than once.

I could sit here and rave about it all day. If you want to see more of what I have to say about it, please go check out my review on Gaming Angels. Hopefully I’ll see you online!

Gears of War 3 Collector’s Edition – Why Would I Buy?

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If you’re a die-hard fan of a series, you often need little reasons to buy a collector’s edition of anything. Take me, for example; I bought the Kingdom Hearts 2 collector’s edition strategy guide and that was one of the most worthless guides in my collection. Why do I have it? I love the Kingdom Hearts franchise just that much. It’s a little pathetic, yes, but I’m willing to live with that. So chances are, if you’re just as hardcore of a Gears of War fan, you’ve already bought the CE guide.

But just in case you’re on the fence, here are the differences between the two guides.

The Covers

Covers of the Gears of War 3 Strategy Guides Inside covers of Gears of War 3 strategy guides

The Bonus Material – Comic Book

 Gears of War 3 strategy guide tables of contents Gears of War 3 strategy guide tables of contents

Gears of War 3 strategy guide bonus material
Personally, I’m stoked for the comic book, but I know this probably won’t be enough to appease other fans. I’ve started to read the books and comics, so naturally, I’m quite pleased.

Bonus Material – Soundtrack Sampler

No picture, sorry, but the back of the CE guide does contain a sampler CD of the Gears of War 3 soundtrack. The sampler contains 9 tracks that are roughly a minute long apiece. It basically solidified something I already knew–I’m going to be buying the soundtrack. I adore video game soundtracks, and after listening to the Gears of War 2 soundtrack on Spotify, I knew both soundtracks would appear in my collection.

So there you have it. Are there enough bonus goodies to make the $15 price difference worth it to you?

Monday Gaming Diary: Is it the plan where we build a catapult out of plastic spoons?

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deathspank-thongs-of-virtue-logoLast week I finished my solo-run of one of my favorite games this year–Gears of War 3–and while I know it’s high time I get back into Deus Ex, I really wanted to play something from my stack of shame over the weekend.

Since my PS3 hasn’t had an ounce of love since inFamous 2, I rifled through that stack, even though it’s definitely the smaller of the two. I settled on Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. I had heard great things about it, and many people told me I would be fine with it even though it’s technically a platformer game. In that aspect, they were right. The platforming is actually easier than the inFamous games, which makes me not want to call it a platformer at all, but that’s beside the point. After playing for two hours, I realized that the only reason why the game was even tolerable to me was because I had the strategy guide.

I’m not a fan of stealth, I really don’t like the combat, and I don’t like constantly telling Trip what to do–seriously, that’s why I never played Ico. I can see why so many people liked the game, however. It’s vibrant, the gameplay is unique, and it has a compelling story. It’s just most definitely not for me. I have so many games on my plate that I really can’t waste time on one that I don’t find fun in the first two hours, so out of the PS3 it came and onto Amazon.com it went. (I have my Enslaved strategy guide for sale there too, if you’re interested.)

After that debacle, I flipped through my PSN games to see if I had anything in there I hadn’t finished. Surely I had something that wasn’t a Final Fantasy game. And lo, I did: DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue. I loved the first game to pieces, and I bought the sequel shortly after it released but I got caught up in who knows what. The third one has been out for awhile now too, and I really want something short and light and fun, so really, what game could be better? I can’t think of anything.

I’m such an idiot for not playing Thongs of Virtue sooner. I laughed so hard within the opening seconds that I was wiping tears. The game is so ridiculous and witty, not to mention fun. I know I’m not saying anything anyone doesn’t already know; it’s more of a repeated smack to the head as to why I wasn’t playing it sooner. I cannot make the same mistake with The Baconing.

Lunch needs to get here sooner today so I can have lunch DeathSpank. Oh yes, that is my plan for the next few weeks.

Gears of War 3 Strategy Guide Review

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Gears of War 3 Strategy Guide ReviewThe Gears of War franchise is not known for being overly complicated in terms of gameplay, and Gears of War 3 is no different. However, those dead Gears sure do hide their COG tags in some quirky spots, and some of those bosses seem to take longer than they should. Here is where the beauty of the Gears of War 3 strategy guide comes in. As a result, you will find all the collectibles in one go and cut down on potential frustration levels with some odd sequences, thereby opening the doors for finding more time for multiplayer, Arcade, and 4-player co-op modes.

I played Gears of War 3 twice over the last week–once with a friend and once by myself. When I played with my friend, I only consulted the guide once because 1) he didn’t care to stop and look for every collectible and he wasn’t going to restart a chapter if I missed one and 2) I was really curious to see how different playing the game would be with our strategies vs. the guide’s strategies. The answer is: we made it very hard on ourselves.

I dreaded fighting certain areas alone because my partner and I had some struggles with them; struggles that I thought could only really be easily overcome when you had another real brain playing along with you. While I’m convinced that the game had some amped up difficulty with the more live bodies playing along with you, I owe a lot of my success to the guide’s strategies.

For example, I would never have figured out how to break into the Locust base using stealth in Act 3 without the guide. The only way to do it is with the Hammerburst rifle, something Marcus didn’t have. The guide suggested that I should try to trade weapons with Dom, which was something I had no idea I could even do. That was definitely not in the tutorial! Once I swapped out the Hammerburst, it was a snap. When I played co-op with my friend that night, I told him to let me handle the stealth part, and he thanked me profusely. He even admitted that he wouldn’t have thought of using the Hammerburst (and why would you? It’s a least favorite weapon).

The same goes for all of the collectibles. I never would have looked in some of these odd places for half of these collectibles or even a couple of the COG tags. In other instances where I did notice where to pick up collectibles, I couldn’t have gotten them because I missed where to find a hidden Silverback. Taking time to hunt down all of these collectibles added a bit of time to my solo-run campaign–especially when I realized too late I missed them and had to restart a chapter–but it is nice to have it done without needing to go back and replay some chapters. Now I can save additional replays for Arcade mode and playing 4-player co-op.

Page from Gears of War 3 strategy guideThe strategy guide’s design was absolutely flawless in presenting not only the guide’s strategies, but also callout notes for the collectibles, extra tips just for co-op play, and tips for Arcade mode (see image to the right). Thanks to the placement of the notes for collectibles and their coordinating screenshots, there is little doubt as to where these elusive tidbits are hiding. Even if you get a little confused as to their exact location, there are always the maps to at the start of each chapter to show the way–which also nicely pinpoint all weapon caches and hidden Silverbacks. In addition, any game artwork that was included in the main walkthroughs was kept separate from the rest of the content, so it was never fringing upon the text or strategy screenshots. It’s another fine example of how artwork doesn’t have to impede on the overall usefulness of a strategy guide’s design.

The Gears of War 3 game was a fine sendoff for Marcus and Dom’s story, and the Gears of War 3 strategy guide couldn’t have done it any better justice. This is the perfect accompaniment to the game for completionists and for hardcore collectors of the series. The guide is beautiful on the outside and inside and contains sound strategies. One really can’t ask for anything more in a strategy guide.

SGR Rating: 5/5

Authors: Doug Walsh, Phillip Marcus, and Michael Owen
Publisher: BradyGames
Editions Available: Limited Edition and Signature Series
Acquired via Publisher

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