The Last Remnant

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 03:39:30 GMT

I'm trying to play through The Last Remnant at the moment, but am having a love/hate relationship with it. The graphics look fantastic on PC (full frame rate at 1080p with all the effects turned up), but the load times are horrendous! The difficulty spikes are really getting to me, in so that I end up playing for a couple days, then hit a wall and stop for a few days.

There are a number of things I have issue with in Last Remnant. The more I think about writing them out, the more it sounds like the game is a total pile of shit. But, really, I am enjoying the game... strangely!

As I mentioned before, the load times are absolutely atrocious. It takes about 4-6 seconds to load a typical battle, and then takes another 5-15 seconds to get back to the map screen afterward. One cutscene I came across took 45 seconds to load (I sat there and counted...), and only lasted about 10 seconds with one line of dialog. What the shit? I was sitting there with my mouth agape at that one. It suffers from some serious memory leak, too. If I alt-tab out, once in a while when I come back, the game will start pausing for one to two seconds at a time. It reminds me of playing Mortal Kombat 3 on Playstation with Shang Tsung morphing into other characters, and then spamming morph. I have to restart my PC to fix it. Very annoying.

The difficulty spikes in the game are absurd. I have never seen a Game Over screen so much in an RPG before. For instance, I got stuck at The Gates of Hell boss. The scaling enemies make leveling up pretty much worthless, so it's not like I could really go and level up to make it easier. I had completed every side quest (sans one) available (that I could find, at least, but I scoured every screen of every town for red-bubbled NPCs), and every party member that I spot-checked needed upgrade items from areas I didn't yet have access to. So, really, there was nothing I could do but try the boss over and over... and over again until I won. It ultimately took me about a dozen attempts.

Which brings me to another issue I have. The semi-randomized battle commands. I would have easily been able to get past The Gates of Hell after one or two attempts if I had access to all the normal commands. The problem I had with the boss was that its attacks were doing about 60-75% damage. Because of the battle commands I was limited to, all three of my unions were being forced to engage. Since it's a boss and a multi-deadlock enemy, it was getting one attack round of its own, plus an additional attack for each engaged union. Couple that with a lack of being able to heal (or heal on time), and it was taking out unions in two or three rounds. Once it did that, it would resurrect them and turn them against me. Game Over. If I could have had control so that only one union was engaged, another was attacking from long range, and another was focused on healing, it would have been a much less frustrating fight. Additionally, the actions tied to the battle commands are randomized. "Use Mystic Arts." OK. Depending on which mob I pick (regardless if they're all the same class or not), the spell used will be different. FOR GOD'S SAKE I WANT TO USE CAUSTIC BLAST ON THE GROUP OF FOUR MOBS, NOT THE SINGLE MOB!!! If I want to use Battle Arts and have a shit-load of AP, some times only one unit will use a Battle Art and the rest just attack. WHY IS THIS?!

But that's not all. The main beef I have with the game is the fact that it doesn't tell you jack shit about mechanics, and this is probably contributing to why I'm finding the game so difficult. The manual is even pretty sparse. When I exit to the world map and a party member pops up saying, "Should I learn psionics?" Psionics?! What the fuck? I have no clue what the hell "psionics" would even pertain to, let alone whether or not they should learn it. There are a ton of arts that I have absolutely no fucking clue what they do. The game doesn't tell you. The manual doesn't tell you. Yet, my members are popping up asking if they should learn it. I HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE! Honestly! Should I say yes to everything? This shit isn't explained one bit. I mean, if I say yes to learning "Lotions," is it going to prevent this character from learning something else? If not, then what possible reason could there be to saying "no?"

But still, the mechanics issues aren't a huge problem if I can progress. I really am having fun roaming around doing quests, item-hunting, and advancing the story. It's just when I get my ass handed to me by a rare mob or a boss over and over that I really get annoyed and have to take a break.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 06:12:54 GMT

Ahh yes. I do love to bitch and whine. This generation of consoles has been the most disappointing for me since the N64 (of which I only owned one game in the two years I had it). I'm not good at action games. This generation is overflowing with action games. A good, slow-paced, story-driven game is apparently taboo nowadays. It's pissing me off.

In any case, I figured I'd give Uncharted a whirl, since I heard so much praise about the game. I'm okay with the "action/adventure" genre. I really enjoy the recent Tomb Raider games and Arkham Asylum. After the opening scene, with the pirates attacking your boat, I knew I made a mistake purchasing this game, however.

This wasn't an "action/adventure" game. This was an action game; a third-person shooter. I like the auto-aiming in Tomb Raider and Batman. I can do that. I can't do aiming reticles; it's why I don't play shooters. The first real firefight in the game (after the plane crash) took me about four or five tries to get through. These motherfuckers kept coming and coming. I kept running out of ammo, or some dick would flank me to where I couldn't find cover. It was frustrating. And this is on easy mode. It most certainly wasn't "easy."

Still, I pressed on. The graphics are pretty. Water effects are neat. But good fucking god.... How many fucking enemies are there?! Oh look, some abandoned ruins with 500 dudes coming after you. The ammo situation was fucking retarded. I get two weapons with limited ammo. Guys I kill drop more ammo, but half the time if I need to rush out and grab more, I'd die from the enemy's 100% accuracy. The shitty-ass Tomb-Raider-style climbing was not even close to as fun as Tomb Raider. The camera gets fixed into position, and there were times I couldn't gauge distance or tell what was below me (if I needed to drop down) due to it. But still, those sections were few and far between the wave after wave of henchmen to fight (whoever the fuck they are; I have no idea).

But still, I kept going. The breakout from jail was great. Elena driving the car and me, as Nathan, operating the gun in the back was fun. There were a couple times I died and had to restart (mainly when we turned around and had a car coming at us and I couldn't aim quick enough), but I still enjoyed that level. After that, OH LOOK MORE HENCHMEN TO FIGHT! Seriously, what the fuck?! WHERE DO THESE GUYS KEEP COMING FROM?! WHY ARE THERE SO MANY OF THEM?!

Anyhoo, after more shitty fighting and dying and restarting from these assholes with 100% accuracy from the other side of the map, I get to another vehicle stage. This time, on a jet-ski. Only problem, now I'm controlling driving AND shooting. So, I try it like the jeep stage. I just go. Bad move. Three guys shooting at me and I'm dead instantly. Round two. Oh, hey, look. WHEN YOU GO TO SHOOT, YOU CAN'T DRIVE ANYMORE. So, basically, you have to STOP AND AIM WHILE THESE ASSHOLES ARE SHOOTING AT YOU WITH 100% ACCURACY (by the way, did I mention this is "easy" difficulty?). So, in any case, I make it a bit further. I've got the stopping and shooting down. Pass under this bridge. Oh, hey, some invisible jackass hit me with a rocket launcher. And I have to start all the way over. Neat. Round 3. Taking it even more slow, now. I didn't even see which direction the dude with the rocket launcher came from, so I am moving at a crawl as I go under this bridge. Whoosh. Rocket just barely misses me. Basically, as I go straight under this bridge, the guy with the rocket launcher is to my right. Unfortunately, when you aim your weapon, it turns the whole fucking jet-ski. So I go straight, aim, look right, turn back to the left, go straight, aim, look right, turn back left, etc. Boom. Asshole hit me before I could find him. Yay. Round 4. Finally, I get past the asshole with the rocket launcher, but yay, die again: three fucks shooting rifles from where I can't see and I can't turn around fast enough. Round 5, I finally make it to the next point. Oh, look, more droves of henchmen. Yay.

At this point, I've about had it. This is way too much shooting. I can't aim without getting shot, and these asshole move around too much for my inadequate reticle-moving skills. Nevermind their pinpoint grenade accuracy (I can't do grenades at all, my brain will not function with the fucking sixaxis movements), too. Regardless, I'm still moving on. I thought the "are you kidding me" lines from Nathan were funny at first when enemies came on screen. Now, I'm sitting here screaming it myself. There's just no end to this shit. So, as I'm reaching the end of this building and watch some helicopter fly over, I look below and see the arena for my next firefight. Ugh. I make my way down, and am assaulted by four henchmen. These dicks make a beeline straight for me, so I'm frantically trying to shoot the ones closest to me, but am missing because they're moving so fast. But that doesn't mean the ones in the rear can't hit me while I'm trying to aim.

One other thing that pisses me off is how these fucks come at you. It's great AI, but good fucking lord, THIS IS ON THE EASY SETTING. In any case, these assholes kind of come toward the cover I'm hiding behind, but when they get near, they circle off to the side so they can fire at me with their weapon (oh, by the way, these dudes have unlimited ammo while I don't). So yeah, back to this last firefight. This cock-knocker is getting near me, and pulls the circle-off-to-the-side maneuver. There's no way I'm going to be able to shoot this guy before he starts getting off headshots on me. So, I just decide to punch him. However, because he did that circle-around maneuver, I have to completely expose myself, thus letting the other three henchmen waste me with bullets before my first punch lands.

And that's it. I'm done. I canceled my Uncharted 2 preorder. But really, this is not a fucking "action/adventure" game. Uncharted is a god damned third-person shooter. Just because you throw in some shitty Tomb-Raider-ripoff climbing aspects does not mean it's not a third-person shooter. 1) Aiming with a reticle; and 2) wave after wave of henchmen = shooter.

What's really fucking retarded is how hard the game is ON THE EASY SETTING. That's great if some people love the super-ultra-gouge-my-eyes-out hard difficulty setting in games. That's fine. I personally don't. That's why I pick the Easy setting. My inadequacies with aiming and shooting and quick-thinking add enough to the challenge for me. The "easy" mode in Uncharted is just a load of horse shit. It's like the game was made for the break-my-arms-first hard difficulty people, and then they were like "eh, just cut down the hit points on enemies and label it easy." Fuck that. I really need to get back into just renting games. I don't want to support bullshit like this.

Palom's Journal

The Last Remnant

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune