A Strategy Guide for your Strategy Guides
As all part of my attempt to really play through Dragon Age: Origins very, very soon, I purchased a copy of the strategy guide for Dragon Age: Origins Awakening, as I’ve been told that’s a must-play as well.
It came in yesterday, and it looks to be in awesome shape for a used book.
I’m super pleased. Maybe now I’ll have a bit more motivation to play this game. But only after I finish my review for Valiant Hearts: The Great War.
Murdered: Soul Suspect has gotten rather unfairly beaten up in reviews. It’s essentially an exploration game, one that reminded me a lot of Gone Home but with a far more interesting story, because this one really was about solving a murder. As the recently deceased Detective Ronan O’Connor, the player has to run all over Salem, Massachusetts to uncover clues and solve the Bell Killer murder mystery that has plagued the town. I fully admit that it sounds a lot like the movie Ghost, but that’s no reason to preemptively hate it. Fact is, Murdered: Soul Suspect is the perfect game for the story-gamer.
The only action the player has to participate in is executing demons that roam the afterlife. The demons are former spirits that were never able to move on, so they’ve become demonic beings that do nothing but absorb other wandering souls. Of course, they can only be taken out via stealth, so running and hiding in other ghosts’ residues and patience are the only ways to defeat them. These things terrified the ever-loving bajeezus out of me. Every time I walked through a wall and heard one scream, my heart stopped and I made Ronan back track as fast as ghostly possible.
Here’s a bit from my review on ActionTrip.com:
Gameplay is roughly 90-95% exploration. You’re a detective, and that means doing detective things. You search for clues. You interrogate people, whether it’s by talking to ghosts or eavesdropping on police interrogations. You sort out the pieces of the puzzle, figure out what which clue is most important–not all of them are relevant, after all–and unravel what really happened in each situation. Sometimes Ronan will do this for the main story, and sometimes he will do this to help other ghosts solve their own predicaments.
Solving a case question is not difficult, especially if you do gather all of the available clues. But even if you guess wrong, you will not get a fail state. Instead, you have to try again, and you lose points for each guess. The fewer guesses you have to make, the more proficient Ronan’s detective skills become, making finding clues and drawing conclusions a slightly easier task. However, like I said, it’s not really difficult, so I couldn’t tell you if a severe deficiency in points significantly affects Ronan’s abilities. Considering that the primary focus of the game is to tell an interactive story, featuring a fail state of this type would remove the player too much from the experience and would be, if you think about it, kind of pointless.
Of all the clue hunting there was in the game, I loved the collectible hunting the most. Each area had its own set of collectibles, and if you found them all, you learned of a murder mystery or ghost story that occurred in that location. It had absolutely nothing to do with the story, but they were very entertaining tales, much like the stories told in Lost Odyssey, but at least I didn’t need a box of Kleenex for these.
And you know, I loved the collectible-hunting so much, I went back to the game and found all of my missing collectibles for that Platinum trophy. That’s how much fun I had with this game.
But don’t think that because I’m praising it that it doesn’t have any faults. The game isn’t perfect at all, and there were problems that drove me insane, such as the lack of an in-game map. I cannot tell you how much this would have been helpful.
If you like exploring and games that focus on story, then I cannot implore you to check out Murdered: Soul Suspect enough. It was such a welcome break from all of the action games available right now, and as a story-gamer, this was an absolute paradise for me.
It’s the summer, and I have that most-coveted reprieve in between game reviews. That means the time is ripe for getting through that horrid, horrid stack of shame. With Dragon Age Inquisition looming in early October, I have a supreme mission to finish up Dragon Age Origins before that time. I have my last save, and friends have said I’m somewhere between halfway and two-thirds of the way through. Obviously I’m going to need more time than I want to just get back into the groove, but this should be more than enough time, I would think.
I just have to actually sit down and do it.
Instead of restarting DAO last week, I instead spent gaming time replaying Murdered: Soul Suspect so I could find those last few collectibles I was missing to get a Platinum trophy. Since the final save doesn’t allow you to go back out into Salem (grrrrr), I had to start a whole new game. Fortunately, the collectible counter does not reset with a new game, so I didn’t need to play the entire game again. I had to play about half thanks to where some of these wayward collectibles were, but I didn’t have to do the last couple of levels again that I loathed because I’m so terrible at defeating demons in an efficient manner. But I did get the Platinum trophy in just a couple of days, which prompted me to dance around my office like I just won the lottery.
Over the weekend, I fully intended to play DAO, but it would have helped if I didn’t have Bravely Default downstairs on the couch. After putting the kids to bed, I played just a little bit of BD to wind down. Next thing I knew, it was three hours later and well past midnight. Somehow this happened every night. I have no idea how.
I feel a bit of the E3 haze lifting, so maybe I can get back on task this week. Do not let me go to Toys R Us and pick up my own copy of Skylanders SWAP Force for the PS4. I want to, but that is such a bad, bad idea. Dragon Age won’t play itself. Must stay focused. Must stay on target.
I had an absolute blast at E3 to say the least. I was incredibly busy, and if you want to see most everything I saw at the show, my boss at Action Trip has compiled a nice list that I believe he is still updating as he adds more of my previews.
One thing that did happen at E3 that I did not expect was excitement about games I previously had zero interest in. A few I was able to either play at the show or see at an appointment, but even those I did not still had me pumped.
I’m a fan of Insomniac Games. While I never played any of the R&C games because, well, platforming, I greatly appreciate what Insomniac did with the franchise. I also loved the Resistance series and I was one of the few who loved Fuse. However, when they showed off Sunset Overdrive last E3, I was less than impressed. Oh yay, another zombie-apocalypse-like shooter that just has brighter colors. Another Resistance that has more than brown in it. Yeah, the Microsoft press conference showed me just how wrong my assumptions were.
Upon seeing the very first word effect in the trailer, I knew I had to have this game. I love it when a game incorporates this type of humor and is willing to make fun of itself. It may be another zombie-apocalypse game, but at least it’s one that has humor AND bright colors.
I have sworn off Assassin’s Creed after my horrific experiences with both Revelations and Assassin’s Creed III. I couldn’t finish Revelations due to pure boredom, and my copy of AC3 was so broken, by the time they fixed it, I stopped caring. I didn’t even attempt Black Flag after I heard about all of the sailing, as I loathed that part the most in AC3. So yes, I was ready to be very against Unity prior to E3.
And then they announced co-op gameplay, bringing the multiplayer-style play that I originally wanted when they announced multiplayer for Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood.
Not to mention, all of the crowd elements that they’ve incorporated for you to use as you see fit…to use as a distraction or to complete side quests…it’s completely mind boggling and I must play it.
Just as I get out of AC entirely, they rein me back in! Curses!
I never played Far Cry 3, and I never really wanted to. I heard great things about it, but I was afraid it was more about stealth than anything, and I would of course masterfully fail. I knew a Far Cry 4 announcement was coming at E3, but I didn’t expect to have any interest in it at all. What did it? Well, two things: 1) co-op play and 2) the ability to ride elephants.
I love the idea of playing the game along with a friend to help with a mission, and wait, you can ride elephants to wreck shit? Oh sign me UP.
After playing the hands-on demo on the showroom floor, now I really want to play Far Cry 3. Not sure when I have time, but I’ll have to try to figure it out somehow in my schedule.
Here’s another series I feel that has been played to DEATH over the course of several years. I haven’t been back to CoD since MW3, and I wasn’t planning on it anytime soon. Thanks to E3 pressers and my appointment with Activision, I see so much potential and, well, FUN. For the first time since probably CoD III, the focus appears to be back on the single-player campaign, which of course makes this story gamer really happy.
I’m a little nervous about the stealth-only portions they showed, but hey, BradyGames confirmed at E3 that they will publish a strategy guide for it. Hooray for stealth hand-holding! This chick needs it badly, like a wizard needs food.
An action-RPG that takes place in the world of LOTR? Snoozefest! No matter how many great news stories I read and had to write about, it took seeing it at the show to get me pumped up about it. I now see the potential that the game has and I’m eager to get my hands on it and see how many awful decisions I make.
The crux of the game lies in two places: 1) the decisions the player makes and 2) procedural generation. Everything is procedurally generated, and I mean everything. The NPCs, the bosses, the maps, it’s amazing how much different your game can be compared to someone else’s. During the demo, the presenters said they hadn’t even had the same demo all day long, and I saw it in the late afternoon, after several presentations. That’s insane.
On top of it all, you can play the game how you want to, whether it’s stealth, action, or a mix. It’s a fantasy RPG that should have my name written all over it. I just hope they don’t screw up Tolkien’s world too much, even though the game takes place centuries after Return of the King.
It has been an insane last couple of weeks for me, review-wise. I put out two game reviews last week, and I’m fervently working on one more before I head off to LA. The second game I reviewed last week was Transistor, a game I had a lot of high hopes for after loving what I saw at PAX East in 2013.
I’m not sure if it is because this is the second depressing game I’ve played in a row or what (Wolfenstein was so depressing), but Transistor didn’t resonate with me at all. I get that the story was supposed to be “told” in a manner where the player had to piece the puzzle together, but when it was all spread out before me, it fell flat. The gameplay didn’t do it for me, the story didn’t do it for me, and I really wasn’t happy with how linear it was with no side questing options.
Here’s a bit more from my review on ActionTrip (ignore the hateful comments…or jump in, whatever):
The gameplay is quite fun at first, but near the end, you know what the magic combination is for the last few enemies, introducing a strong level of monotony. It’s briefly interrupted by the final boss, but it doesn’t take long to figure out how to crack his code either. The emphasis in the game is obviously on the art direction, story, and overall presentation, with which I’m normally just snazzy, but this time, I needed more with the gameplay, even if that meant side quests or seeking collectibles. Keeping the path so linear with relatively simple gameplay did not make me eager to continue my gaming sessions; it only made me want to get to the end sooner.
At least the game’s visual and audial effects were quite aesthetically pleasing. You can’t help but be mesmerized by the beautiful, painting-esque art style and the dulcet tones of Darren Korb’s melodies. The sword provides all of the dialogue, save for a few of Red’s songs, and his narration fits in with the flow of the game better than any other narration attempt I’ve heard with a game. He’s never overbearing, annoying, or that repetitive, and unlike some narrators or talking heads in games, he knows when it’s best to keep quiet. Most importantly, he knows how to make subtle suggestions that maybe you’ve already gone this way before or you’ve been dallying one area for too long without making the player want to duct tape his mouth (if swords had mouths).
I know I’m vastly alone in this opinion, and I’m okay with that. I didn’t like BioShock Infinite either, and I was really alone in that too.
Well, we can’t agree on everything, or how boring would the world be?