Unfinished Games of 2019: Part 2

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