Unfinished Games:
Unfinished Games of 2019: Part 1
Unfinished Games of 2019: Part 2
Unfinished Games of 2020: Part I
Unfinished Games of 2020: Part II
Last week I wrote about four games I'd tried this year, but didn't consider worth spending more than even a few hour.
This article riffs on the
same theme, but with a variation. Each of these games was good, but
for one reason or another I stopped playing. See for yourself.
NEO Scavenger:
Time Played: Seven
Lives
Designed by the one
man team Blue Bottle Games,
otherwise known as Daniel Fedor, NEO
Scavenger is a very low budget
strategy survival game. Before beginning the game the player chooses
a number of skills and weaknesses for the unnamed protagonist.
Unnamed, because the character wakes up with amnesia in an abandoned
science facility. Without anything but a patient's robe they stumble
out into a world abandoned by civilization. Cities are in ruins,
wild mutant dogs and cultists roam the wastelands and the forests.
What is the player supposed to do?
The answer is explore, and
what a vast world! It is packed with events and collectible,
craftable objects, recipes, locations, and enemies. NEO Scavenger
includes a story, but the deadly environment may prevent the player
from ever following it to a conclusion. With seven attempts my
protagonist lasted a total of twelve days, with his longest life
measuring two days and twenty hours. The protagonist can die from
hunger, dehydration, exhaustion, cold, or physical injury. The hope
is each death teaches the player a bit more about how to survive.
The problem is death only teaches one, one-thousandth of the
necessary information to live. The next life one collects the
correct equipment and avoids the cause of their last death. Then a
new threat appears and kills them.
Gameplay takes place on a
grid map, where the player moves from location to location; forest,
field, ruined city, hill, and lake. Each location is searchable,
which expends time, the most valuable resource. Every hour spent is
measured in food, shelter, water, and rest. By day the player seeks
out supplies, while avoiding creatures, and night is spent hiding in
a protective shelter.
Combat artfully recreates
the brutality of a scrabble between two humanoids (or a human and an
animal) in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, where punching the enemy is
nearly as harmful to the attacker as it is to the victim. Artfully
here does not refer to the visual appearance of NEO Scavenger, which
at best can be called economical, and worst, unappealing. Players
who immerse themselves in the game will be able to ignore this defect
in favor of the mechanics.
A short summary of seven
deaths. Killed by a Bad Mutha after killing his companion. Poisoned
by untreated water or food, and died of dehydration. Abandoned
sleeping bag to escape Mellonhead and froze to death. Killed by
cultist. Played hide and seek with cultist for twelve hours before
being killed (again) by cultist. Killed by Dogman. Chased and
killed by three Dogmen.
In conclusion, it isn't
that I disliked NEO Scavenger, but that it was unexpectedly too much,
and therefore too difficult. The games, and reviews of others hint
at a real gem of a game, but an inability to survive more than two
days prevented me from finding it. I learned a bit more each time,
but even when I thought I had learned enough to survive, I'd die a
different way.
Battlerite
Time Played: Two Hours
I've written more articles
about Dota than any other game, and Battlerite is part
of the same genre, the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA), so
technically I could never beat it. One friend who I played Dota
for awhile with didn't enjoy some of the core aspects, especially (I
think) farming. I agree, and I find I play support or cores that
fight to make space for other cores to farm. After Dota he
started playing Battlerite, and I tried a few matches. In
Battlerite the player controls a hero much like Dota.
But unlike Defense of the Ancients, Battlerite lacks
the large map, featuring only a moderately sized arena. Two teams of
two or three duel to the death in a best of five.
Battlerite doesn't
have farming like Dota, no gold, and no leveling up from
farming either. The player can augment their Heroes slightly before
battle by choosing specific buffs, unlocking more in the latter
rounds. The argument for Battlerite is it skips the ten
minute laning phase where heroes build their power. A Dota
game is often determined by the first ten minutes, but requires the
players to continue for another twenty to forty minutes to finish.
Battlerite jumps to the end of the laning stage and allows
players to battle with powerful heroes immediately, and five matches
last at most twenty minutes with minimal down time.
One minor issue is heroes
are locked, unlike Dota where all heroes are free.
Battlerite
is a well made game. It looks good, especially the abilities, and it
communicates information well. It's easy to follow the path of
battle, even though it is fast paced. The heroes seem more similar
than Dota, but are
different enough to allow diverse playstyles.
It's not that I dislike
Battlerite, but that I've played Dota so long, and
enjoy it, that I am used to a certain feeling. Two changes left me
underwhelmed. One, the lack of a large map. Not the absence of
farming, but the lack of strategic movement across a wide area, with
vision and terrain advantages.
The other issue is the
abilities. I appreciate that Battlerite includes more skill
shots than Dota. A significant number of abilities in Dota are point
and click, while Battlerite requires more skill to land its
spells. What I don't enjoy is the of oomph in the spells of
Battlerite. They don't deal the damage, or have as powerful
effects as the abilities of Dota. Of course this makes sense,
if Battlerite included abilities similar to Dota,
matches would only last fifteen to twenty seconds. The abilities of
Battlerite are quicker to use, more difficult to land, but
don't have the impact of the spells of Dota, and because I am
used to one, I find the other disappointing.
In conclusion, I know I
have a deficit of knowledge when it comes to Battlerite
compared to other long time players, but I find it an enjoyable game,
though not worth leaving Dota for.
Zelda: Breath of the
Wild
Time Played: Many
Mountains, One Divine Beast
Ever since gaming websites announced Zelda: Breath of the Wild
as the best game of 2017, I wanted to try it. Two of my favorite
games are The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and The Legend
of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (in
that order). I eventually found the opportunity to play when my
brother lent me his Switch and a copy of the game.
In
many ways Breath of the Wild still feels like Ocarina of
Time. But it's much bigger, stuffed with unnecessary stuff, and
space to contain it. Unlike previous games, Link is granted
additional freedom to explore, and the world includes even more
collectibles than past games. Sure, Ganon is waiting for a fight,
but the player has 120 shrines to visit. These locations replace the
temples of the past. Instead of a sprawling area with a new item to
find, puzzles to complete, and a final boss to defeat, shrines are
small enclosed spaces with a single puzzle. Breath of the Wild
does include four Divine Beast Temples, but even these are
dramatically shorter than the temples of Ocarina of Time or
Majora's Mask. They don't include special items, but they
have a boss at the end.
Instead,
most of the game time is spent exploring. To make exploring more
difficult, Link includes a stamina meter, is an exceptional free solo
rock climber, and knows how to jump at the player's command. Time
passes in the world, and impacts events. When it rains, climbing is
impossible. In addition to foot traffic, Link can ride horses or use
his glider. He can also unlock locations to teleport to them
immediately. Horses aren't very useful, because either the player
wants to travel cross country, and horses can't handle inclines, or
the player can fast travel to most locations. They would be better
if they could be summoned from thin air, but the must be picked up
and dropped off at specific locations. Horses are only useful if the
player knows where they are going, doesn't want to explore on the
way, and hasn't been their already.
The
most infuriating mechanic in Breath of the Wild
isn't the horses, but the inventory. Weapons, shields, and bows can
only be used a few times before breaking. They can't be repaired.
Some early weapons break after killing a single enemy. Even better
weapons are remarkably fragile, and their repeated shattering is
infuriating. In the early game Link can only carry a limited number
of weapons, and to expand his inventory, Breath of the Wild
forces the player to search the environment for collectibles.
Hyrule's
an enormous world, but the story fails to breath life into it. The
dialogue can be cringe inducing at some parts. Even when it tries to
be heartfelt, it asks a lot of the player. How can one care about a
supposed romance Link doesn't remember, and only receives two or
three minutes of screen time, before his love passes away. Aspects
like this fall flat.
Another
change impacts combat. I remember Zelda games weren't Dark
Souls difficult, but they weren't absurdly easy. The player
had to collect the proper healing potions (or fairies), and equipment
to advance, but Ocarina was fair. In the early part of Breath
of the Wild the player can enter an area (when they still have
only three or four hearts) where a tough enemy kills Link with one
hit. But beyond that the game becomes immensely easy. Breathe of
the Wild features the crating of food items. Meals, combining
multiple food items, can be cooked and eaten later. Eating food
restores hearts along with other benefits. During a boss battle Link
can restore health instantly by eating. Food is eaten at any time by
pausing the game and accessing the inventory. The action of eating
happens during the pause screen so Link restores his hearts
instantly. No animation occurs after unpausing, so health is
restored without leaving Link vulnerable while he gobbles down that
twenty day old crab stew he cooked. I'm not really upset at the
absurdness of the cooking mechanics, but the ease of healing during
combat. Meals are abundant, and Link can eat meal after meal without
penalty, rendering healing immediate and infinite. The outcome is an
invincible hero.
I
liked Breath of the Wild, sorta. I played quite a bit, even
though I didn't accomplish much. Instead, I explored everything.
The map wasn't too helpful, as it didn't let the player know where
they had been, a la Morrowind. I climbing every peak searching for
the Korok, but in the final outcome exploring was exhausting,
repetitive, and boring work. I would have finished Breath of the
Wild out of a sense of duty (and it was ok), but I wasn't too
upset when my brother asked for his Switch back. I doubt I'll finish
Breath of the Wild, and I don't feel to upset about that,
though I do wish I liked it more.
That's
it for unfinished games. Next week, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.
Recent:
Relevant:
Comments
Post a Comment