barely fatal

Saving the galaxy is hard work. Ignorant, whiny people cry for my help wherever I go. Sometimes, you have to roll the hard six. On my last trip, I let the rachni queen live, and the krogan. I played games with a self-aware console.

No more games. The council had to die to make space for human advancement. I was dead and it wasn’t an experience I want to go through again. I wear my scars with pride for they show what we endured to accomplish survival. No man or alien is going to hold me back, let alone order me or my loyal, hardened crew around – illusive or not. Sometimes a boot to the head is all the universe can understand. So be it.

Still playing the Star Trek Online beta. Liking it a lot when it doesn’t crash, or is buggy, or laggy, or annoys with loading screens and unfinished content. No idea about the longevity, though. Will (at minimum) wait until the release rush is over and servers have stabilized. Also, MMOs need special consideration, they basically force you to forfeit playing any other games … and that would be so sad, considering the March line up.

It’s been a while that I played a game demo. Tonight I tried Bayonetta and Dante’s Inferno on the PS3, and what can I say: Thank you, thank you for these demos, as they saved me a lot of money and brain cells.

Bayonetta is everything I hate about Japanese action games. Yes, you may call me conservative, boring and European, but I like stories and characters that make sense, thank you very much. The graphics are technically up-to-date. However I can’t stand the style, or the  walking/running/fighting animations. And the music is unbearable.

Dante’s Inferno is a God Of War clone (and that coming from someone who has never played GOW) with some terribly obnoxious design problems. Timed scripts that you can’t know to be timed the first time you play are always an endless supply of agony, especially when the checkpoint of course lies before the last horde of imps you slew. I won the boss fight in the demo by holding Block 98% of the time. And it’s not even that pretty.

I think I’ll wait for the God Of War 3 trilogy ultimate HD prestige collection edition or whatever they’ll call it.

Oh the demo for Lost Planet 2 was dull at first, but the boss fight really was a giant boss fight – you could get swallowed – and keep fighting inside. Shame I didn’t understand the rest, is that a single player, skirmish, coop, or multiplayer only game?

Liberty City is a big, busy place. You walk down an alley, shoot at some passerby, who consequently run away screaming. You blow up a row of cars, po-leece turns up, you jack their car. The next day, you return to the same spot: New people, new cars, a never-ending supply of targets, which make up well for a realistic city.

When my party of four sword and magic-wielding weirdoes left whatsitsname-forest, there was no single living being left to find. All bears, spiders, bandits, wannabe orcs exterminated, the last herb harvested. And none of them will ever return.

The forest wasn’t very lively to begin with, despite the beautifully orchestrated ambient sounds. No D&D inspired squirrels. Its size seemed rather underwhelming too, and its tracks narrow, the boundaries of where my band of tragic figures could step rather artificial-feeling. And its texture … a little lo-fi.

The last thing I could do away with by installing a high-definition textures pack, which luckily did not have any impact on my frame rate. But that didn’t help with my hero’s long-breathed companions in arms. They just won’t stop talking. Like, ever. The game’s a nightmare for any honest borderline OCD personality. I have to check every dialog option. And every single crate, box, book, bookstand, … it hurts my brains if there is a strongbox which I cannot open due to my guy’s “insufficient skills”. It makes me swear. There could be great loot in there. And I can’t get to it. It doesn’t help either that the other rogue in my party consistently offers “Let me try, maybe I can help” every single time my adequately specced hero fails to open a lock. Because that character does not have any lock picking skills at all. I really wonder what my neighbors think when they hear me shout angrily “No, you can not, fuck head” every once in a while.

Right, that’s one accomplice to hate, but there are many. They are so witty, and thoughtful, and full of stories ohmegoshwillyoucometothepointalready – and there are the romance options. That should make them dear to your heart, flirting with them and all. If there wasn’t the “like-meter”. Your “friends” like or “dislike” you for your actions, however, they tend to react slightly erratic at times. Ok so they are just humans … elves … whatever, so that is bound to happen. But you influence them most by giving them gifts. So, just like in real life, you quick save, give them a gift, see if they like it enough, and if not, you reload, rinse, repeat. You gotta do it …. you want romance! Move the like-indicator from left to allllll right and bang! – you get a demure American-friendly sex scene. Still covered in blood from your last decapitation finishing move.

At least that’s what I hope I’ll get, ’cause apparently I’m not very popular amongst my friends. Maybe that’s because I kill them too often. In some random and insanely difficult encounter. Which you can only win by pausing time every half second to give new orders to the imbeciles, which basically turns the game into a very nice 3D slide show.

Now I’ve found a mod which lets me respec my hopelessly slow leveling insufficiently skilled lock cracker sociopath wannabe romancer. The fights are less painful now. But deciphering the stats bores me, the like-meter separates my real me from my henchmen companions, I never wanted to be a Grey Warden in the first place, and the pseudo-orcs can have all the Deep Mushrooms I have found in the biggest treasure chests (more than the mushroom kingdom and the smurfs together could ever dream up). Oh, and I hate DLC.

Jade Empire had me, Mass Effect had me. Dragon Age has something, maybe my OCD, but not my soul. Right. Now I have a dwarven kingdom to rescue, some heads to bash in, another gift to find for the bard, and Zevran to tell that No, he cannot try to open the fucking chest himself.