Changing things.
I don’t really make good use of this blog, mainly because I find most bloggers to be really annoying, and I don’t really think I can add anything of value. However, I did pay good money for this domain name and a year’s worth of hosting, so usefulness be damned.
Obviously, the whole daily update thing just isn’t me. I’m hopeless at being on the cutting edge of news – that’s the kind of stuff I’d rather just read than write. Also, my work is posted at inconsistent times on varying days, so I thought that maybe I could write some sort of topical rant here each Sunday, and accompany it with links to all of my work that has been posted over the last week. Everybody wins.
This week has all been about Grand Theft Auto IV. I had to rush through four reviews this week in order to get time to play it, and I’ve now put in about 24 hours worth of play over the course of four days, so everything’s sunk in a little. I’m not doing a review of the game for any of the sites I write for, but I will say that I do not agree with the critical consensus.
This critical consensus is something of an emerging problem facing the writing side of the industry. It’s almost like game reviews are written on the basis that they are kept within a certain range dictated by a hive mindset (usually the first few reviews to hit the internet). Any deviation from this hivemind rating will earn you the scorn of readers and PR people alike. Gamerankings and Metacritic are used on the corporate side of things to determine various factors – if you are not in a standard deviation of the meta score, then obviously, you’re full of shit.
Grand Theft Auto IV is not worth a 10. It is a fantastic game, with a great story and solid gameplay, but in focusing on the story, Rockstar North has lost a lot of the freedoms previously presented in the preceding three games (or five, if you count the PSP games). While players can still roam Liberty City at their whim, there is not the wealth of other play options. Cab, Courier and Vigilante missions are back, but work on a one at a time system, while missions for the fire service, ambulance and such are nowhere to be seen. I expected a certain level of cutbacks, but this game keeps you much more tightly bound to the story than before.
There are a lot of little things that are very frustrating. The most frustrating one comes in the form of SMS retries – sure, it’s nice that the game lets you keep all of your equipment in the event that you die (which is now bloody expensive), but most missions start with a ridiculously long drive to a certain point, really negating the point of a retry option. I’m really feeling the length of some of these missions too – would it kill them to have a checkpoint in some of the larger missions (like Three Leaf Clover)?
I’m getting towards the end of the game, and I’m finding many of the missions to be really difficult. The odds really get stacked up against Niko; I’d compare these missions to the Area 52 mission or the final mission of San Andreas, based on the sheer number of enemies you come up against. Fortunately, the game’s greatly improved mechanics make it much less frustrating than it could have been. I want to wrap the game up today so I can get on with my work for this month.
Reviews
Time Crisis 4 (PS3) at Internode Games Network
Turning Point: Fall of Liberty (Xbox 360) at Internode Games Network
Condemned 2: Bloodshot (Xbox 360) at Internode Games Network
Features
The Warp Pipe at Internode Games Network