Game Review: Resident Evil 7 Demo
While I realize this is a only demo and may not resemble the real game all that much, what I will say about it is, I’m not terribly fond of it overall. I’m hoping the game is far different from this. Let’s explore.
Story
Your character ends up stuck in a creepy old farmhouse and must figure out a way to get out of it. Along the way you find things that may or may not help your character. Can you actually get your character out of the house alive?
Game Mechanics
Whether or not you can actually get out of the house is not really the question. The question is, are the game mechanics good? First, it is a preliminary game demo. So, in that aspect, it’s a little dumbed down.
On the one hand, it is somewhat better than Resident Evil 5 and 6… meaning, there aren’t zombies running and jumping at your character at every step. On the other hand, there are no zombies at all. In fact, the entire house is devoid of enemies entirely (other than when you answer the phone or find the back door key and try to leave). And then, the enemy is a cut scene that you can’t fight. So, in effect, this is more or less a puzzle questing game… and not a very good one at that.
Second, the only redeeming factor is the video tape. Because watching the video tape is also player interactive, you can do things with the characters on the tape (in the past) that open things up for the player in the future. This is the one and only one cool gimmick about this demo, but it is so underused as a game gimmick that it’s almost hardly not worth mentioning.
Graphics
Plainly and of what you can see of them, the textures, wood, roaches, character models and environments are supremely well done. Unfortunately, you’re hindered by having to roam the house using a flashlight. This means you can only see what you can illuminate with the flashlight. Otherwise, it all ends up dark. It reminds me a little of the way that Bioshock was lit in terms of the dark undersea lighting that gets brighter as you approach walls and items. Not so much the textures, but the lighting concept. In some ways this works, but it gets old and tiring after about an hour of play. I was hoping the fuse box would have actually let me flip the lights on in the house. But no, the only thing the fuse box does is let you drop down the attic stairs. And, that’s just a little weird. In such a decrepit old farm house, why would the owners have installed a drop down electric set of stairs that lead to the attic? Doesn’t really make any sense.
Puzzles
Unfortunately, other than the video tape gimmick mentioned above, the puzzles are mostly weak. Worse, the puzzles are tied to successfully completing events. Meaning, unless you do a very specific thing in the house, you can’t progress to and find the next puzzle piece (i.e., it simply won’t appear). If you cannot figure out what the game wants you to do, you’re stuck. Too many games offer puzzles like this. Some puzzles are glaringly obvious what you need to do. Though in this game, many of the puzzles are so obscure that you can run around for hours and never figure it out. That doesn’t make a game fun, it makes it tedious.
Game Development / Demo / Beta Testing
The game devs have a whole lot of work ahead of them to get this game right. I’m assuming this demo was released to test the waters with gamers. RE4 was a spectacular achievement for the Resident Evil series. But, as much as RE4 was an achievement, RE5 and RE6 were not.
I’m one of those people who firmly believes, “Once Bitten, Twice Shy”. In fact, I’ve been bitten one too many times with this series… both with RE5 and RE6. Shame on me. I won’t be bitten again. This is the reason I’m playing this demo. I was, in fact, hoping that this would have been another Leon game like RE4. After all, it’s been well long enough to finally get another Leon game.
Commentary
While Capcom seems to be on the right track with Resident Evil 7, assuming it can expand on this puzzle questing and video tape idea, I’m still very skeptical. This game has all of the hallmarks of tricking gamers into a decent opening puzzle level only to convert the game into yet another dual player zombie shooter (like RE5 and RE6 turned into) once you exit the house. If Capcom can keep this puzzle questing survival horror idea on-track throughout the entire game (throwing in some zombie apocalypse battles here and there), it might turn out to be a decent game. Unfortunately, it has a little too much of the telltale signs of converting into a completely different game once you leave the house. For this reason, I will wait until the game is fully released into the stores before I plop down $60 for this title. I simply don’t trust Capcom.
Though, I absolutely love the video tape idea of going back in time and opening doors, finding hidden secrets, leaving things behind, etc, for future characters to find and use. This is probably one of the freshest ideas in this game. Unfortunately, it’s way underused in this demo and I’m not certain exactly how much it could be used unless the main character carries around a camcorder and finds tapes along the way.
Movie Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
[Alert: This review may contain spoilers. Though, I have done my best not to reveal critical plot points and only discuss the technical merits of the film as a whole. If you are interested in seeing this movie, you should stop reading now. I have also written a deeper dive critical plot analysis article separately from this review.]
Let’s just start by saying that I’m usually very critical towards films, just as I am towards any other technology, device or game. I also don’t review every film I see. I only review those films that I feel deserve a review and Star Wars: The Force Awakens does deserve a review. Since The Last Jedi is out, please check out my new review. Let’s explore.
Disney and Lucasfilm and Star Wars
This is the first in a series of films to be produced by Disney in their newly purchased Star Wars franchise. How many total films that will be in this series is as yet unknown. However, I’d expect the current storyline to run at least 3 total films with The Force Awakens being the first in this trilogy. Why is this important? It’s important to understand the place of this film not only in relation to the past 6 films, but to future films that have yet been created. In other words, this film is only a small part in a larger story. So, even after seeing the film, there are still many questions unanswered… and this is as it should be for a first part in a larger set of films.
Star Wars Redefined
Star Wars is a much beloved series. Episodes 4, 5 and 6 set the tone for this series with iconic likable characters that have become a huge part of pop culture. Though, cracks did begin to appear as early as Return of the Jedi with George introducing the saccharine cuteness of the Ewoks in Episode 6. However, we could forgive George this one blemish in an otherwise amazing universe. Unfortunately, by episodes 1, 2 and 3, those beloved icons were no where to be found and the films ended up disappointing on so many levels. With unnecessary characters like Jar Jar Binks, wooden acting, badly cast child actors, horrible screen chemistry and the inclusion of a storyline about political satire that could bore your dog, we were less than enchanted with the prequel series by the end of episode 3. Though, I will admit that episode 3 was much better than episode 1 by a long stretch. In other words, the prequels set the bar pretty low for Star Wars films. That’s all in the past, thankfully.
With this newest episode, JJ Abrams has brought a film to the screen that is at once both fresh, new and exciting and looks and feels like that old pair of amazing fitting gloves that just never seem to wear out. In other words, Disney, Lucasfilm and J.J. should be commended on the restraint used in producing The Force Awakens and in keeping the universe look and feel fully intact. Also, it seems that someone kept JJ’s wild fantasies in-check and out of the film such as lens flare city and odd story changes that really wouldn’t have enhanced this franchise. Disney also managed to keep their disneyfication to a minimum. Keeping JJ’s fanciful, but unnecessary additions at bay and limiting disneyfication to a bare minimum has helped to solidify this film as easily one of the best for 2015. Though, BB-8 might have been a disneyfication.
This newest Star Wars installment has firmly set the tone for the things to come. Yet, the film is far from perfect.
The Opening
The film opens identically to all other Star Wars films with the exception of the missing THX deep note (which was getting tired anyway) and the missing 20th Century Fox fanfare (this is Disney now, remember?). Though, it was also oddly missing the familiar Disney castle logo. There is little fanfare in the opening. More or less, it was just the same as all other Star Wars films. The film segues nicely into its first scene, but this is where the pacing is off. Instead of opening to a rousing battle scene or some other rush of action, blaster fire and lots of people or ships shooting one another, we are treated to a much slower paced opening. In fact, it’s so slow of a pace, for a short time I was beginning to wonder if it would ever pick up. No need to worry, it does.
The Characters
Other than saying that Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill are all in the film along with Chewbacca, this film is about the new guard taking over the reigns from the old guard.. and that’s exactly what this film does. This is a transitional film. The cast is unknowns who do a decent job with their parts, but nothing spectacular. Though, I will say the on-screen chemistry between the new characters has yet to congeal. Not so much because there is no chemistry, but because there are few scenes were they are all actively together for more than a few minutes at a stretch. So, it’s difficult for me to judge the full chemistry between these actors as yet. They always seem to get separated within moments of coming together.
Stormtrooper Gone Bad
This is an interesting concept introduced into this film that has not been in previous installments. In previous Star Wars, whatever process the Empire had used to indoctrinate Stormtroopers seemed entirely solid and without question of loyalty after the process was complete. In The Force Awakens, the whole thread of indoctrination (and failure of said indoctrination) is explored and discussed explicitly and somewhat in-depth. I hope this concept makes a resurgence in later installments as a wider story arc. In fact, I would love to see it used as a linchpin in the entire destruction of the First Order and the Supreme Leader.
Questions and Answers
The Force Awakens both asks and answers old and new questions. One of them is the Stormtrooper Gone Bad motif. This is a new question that has yet to have a full answer. I’m anxious to see where that thread goes or if it’s just dropped. However, just as we have new questions, we have many old questions answered. Questions like “Did Leia and Han have a kid?”, “Where is Luke Skywalker?” and “What happened to Han Solo?”. There are many other questions answered in this film as well. Just as many questions were answered, there were just as many questions asked that have no clear answer. With The Force Awakens, JJ has perfectly straddled the line of balance between the answers to old questions with asking new questions. Questions we won’t get answers to until future installments. Because this is the first of many installments, it was inevitable that there would be cliffhangers and unanswered questions.
Death Star on Steroids
Yes, there is a Death Star story in The Force Awakens. In fact, like A New Hope and like Return of the Jedi, the Death Star makes a reappearance and on a much more grand scale. You’ll have to watch to find out what happens. Suffice it to say that this Death Star is far more destructive than anything ever built by the Empire. But, this isn’t the Empire. This is the New Order.. and likely if the New Order built one of these massive death machines, they likely built two or more of them. So, I’d expect to see another one or possibly a fleet of them in the next installments.
WYSIWYG story
While I realize this applies to computers, it also applies here. JJ didn’t put anything behind a veil. It is what you see. Yes, there might be subterfuge at work that we won’t realize until later installments, but in this film people take off their masks so we get to see them. There is little to be hidden behind masks for a 3 film story arc to reveal. It’s all revealed right here, right now, which is immensely satisfying. Who really wants to wait 3 films to finally see someone peel off their mask or find out who is really behind it all? In this film, it’s all put right out there immediately. No hiding. Limited use of masks. No hidden identities. No cloak and veils. What you see is truly what you get.
Though, we’ll have to wait and see in the next installments exactly what ‘points of view’ changes have yet to reveal themselves… and yes, there are questions that have yet to be answered.
Pacing
If there is anything here to fault of this film is its pacing. It starts out almost unbearably slow. Lots of scavenging scenes. Lots of random shots of conflicted moments of this failed Stormtrooper. An opening scene with the stormtroopers that while intended to garner some sympathy from the audience is mostly extraneous to the plot. We get that the New Order is to be feared. There is no need to beat us over the head with it. There were some scenes that even failed to advance the plot of the story and also failed to offer much in character development. In short, the opening is slow. After we finally leave Jakku, the pacing picks up and boy does it ever pick up. Once Han Solo is here, it’s a rollercoaster ride that lasts almost until the very end.
And then later… in the middle of the Death Star starship battle, we get interrupted by a longish lightsaber battle that leaves the Death Star scene hanging. Meaning, The Resistance (Rebels) trying to deal with how to bring down the death star and for the next 10-15 minutes, the pacing is killed with an awkward lightsaber battle that ends weirdly and doesn’t really conclude much. So, what were those X-wings up to the whole time the lightsaber battle was going on? Were they like on pause or something?
I would have expected to have more intercutting between the X-Wing battle and the lightsaber battle (like the lightsaber scene between Luke and Darth in Return of the Jedi and the space battle). The pacing between the space battle and the light saber battle in Return of the Jedi was amazing to behold. George didn’t always do everything right, but his editing skills were amazing. Unfortunately, JJ didn’t really seem to get the pacing or the tension here correct. So, the tension is almost completely killed while we watch this lightsaber battle unfold. I was hoping that these scenes would have been intercut better to keep the tension between both events high.
Overall
I enjoyed the The Force Awakens and want to see it again in 3D. I wouldn’t necessarily rate it a 93% that Rotten Tomato viewers have given or the 95% the critics have given it. I’d rate it more like 85%. It’s a good film and worth seeing. It especially ties up loose ends from what happened after Return of the Jedi nicely, but the pacing problems left me feeling less than impressed. Because TFA had nothing to do with the prequels, we can forget all about those films entirely and focus on what happened in episodes 4, 5, 6 and now 7. Well done Disney, JJ, Lucasfilm and George. Now, let’s see if we can keep this up and improve it for 8, 9 and beyond.
Elder Scrolls Online: What were they thinking?
[Updated: 8/30/2018 to cover Fallout 76]
[Previous update: 7/4/2014 to cover Cyrodiil and Craglorn]
I’m done playing the Elder Scrolls Online. What is it? It’s the newest installment to the Elder Scrolls video game series as a massive multiplayer online game (MMO). Though, my first question that comes to mind is, “What were they thinking?” This game is a huge step backwards for the Elder Scrolls Franchise in so many ways. I know a lot of players ‘like‘ the game (which is all subjective), but in this article we’ll try to understand why this game is not the caliber of a game that it should have been for an Elder Scrolls installment. Let’s explore.
Console Version — Delayed
The Elder Scrolls Online game was available on the PC first and eventually made its way to consoles such as the PS4 and the Xbox One. For the PC, the game was released on April 4th, 2014. For the consoles, the game had planned to release on June 15, 2015 . Zenimax originally announced a six month delay for the release of the console versions, but it took much longer. In lieu of that release, they have made an offer to let you play sooner. If you bought the PC version before the end of June, you were able to transfer your leveled character over to your console. This, of course, assumes everyone has a PC to play it on. Zenimax attempted to build a unified ESO universe where all players from all platforms are using the same world. It didn’t work. This explains the six month extension required to attempt a unified MMO across all platforms has never been attempted by any game developer to date. That Zenimax attempted this unified world was both ambitious and risky. It also meant trying to get Sony and Microsoft to allow this. It didn’t work. It was ultimately wasted time and effort.
It’s also worth noting that if you’re buy the Xbox One version, you will be required to buy an Xbox Live subscription ($59 for 12 months). If you’re playing on a PS4, you don’t pay anything extra. The PC game formerly required a credit card to enroll in a subscription to unlock that included 30 days. As the game has aged, Bethesda has changed its policies. Also note that many players whose time has expired have lost the ability to play when their credit card declined for unknown reasons. On consoles, it’s free to play.
Console vs PC
After having played this game nearly to completion, I definitely had second thoughts about marrying the console release and the PC release players together. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize it’s a really bad idea and a recipe for disaster. Why is that?
Consider that it takes at most 2 months to complete the game and obtain veteran rank 1 (level 50). Yes, it’s a relatively short Elder Scrolls by comparison to previous installations. To obtain further veteran ranks, you simply have to grind, grind, grind. Most of this grinding is done by hanging around with groups of other people and doing laps. This means you’ll go from one battle to another (maybe 3 or 4 total) in a loop. This loop battling is, well, boring. It does level your player up, but it’s not really much fun after you’ve done it for a while.
If they had married the environments, it would mean that by the time the console players are eligible to get to Cyrodiil, all of the VR12 players will be picking off these ‘newbie’ console players one by one in PvP mode. It’s going to be quite a bit unfair to all of these new console players. In fact, I believe that it would be better at this time to completely isolate the console players into their own servers separately from the Mac/PC edition. Let the Mac/PC players continue in their own world but without the console players. It already is unfair when newbies try to even enter Cyrodiil if you try to play after the game had already existed for 2 months..
In fact, it would be a whole lot more fair to weed out the veteran ranked players from being able to see or interact with non-veterans.
Released too early?
The PC version? Yes, unfortunately. In fact, I played it on a quad core Mac mini (which has its own set of problems.. some related to the game, some not). That said, the game has lots of bugs, glitches and problems. Some quests have characters speaking German when the dialog printed to the screen is in English. There are times where parts of the environments don’t render correctly. The quests are sometimes haphazard and don’t appear to be in any way linked. Gaining skills and experience is random, though somewhat structured around these random quests. The game lag can get quite annoying at times. The script kiddies are already at it mining for gold, loot and experience.
Immersive Experience? Not quite.
In Skyrim, the environments had been working towards full interactivity and more realism. It wasn’t quite there yet, but you could pick up apples, heads of cabbage, weapons and armor. You could carry them around in your inventory, wear items or even move them around in the environment. It was a fully interactive and immersive experience. While some of this carried over to the Elder Scrolls Online (like crafting) far too many things didn’t (list below).
In Elder Scrolls Online, too much of that interactivity is missing. Sure there are containers to open, but you can’t kick the containers around, knock them over, break them, pick up apples or cabbages or weapons and move them around or even place things into the containers. In fact, far too much of the interactivity that was beginning to show in Skyrim was completely abandoned in the Elder Scrolls Online. So, what’s up with that?
Defiance
What does Defiance have to do with the Elder Scrolls Online? ESO seems to use the same MMO engine. Granted, Zenimax tailored the engine to its own purposes (within limits), but the underlying basics (things that cannot be easily changed) are still there. So, while this MMO engine provides relatively pretty environments, they’re static. You can’t do anything to the environments. The plants are fixed, the boxes are fixed, everything is fixed. There is nothing that the player can do to move anything around. The only thing that’s movable in the game is the player and a horse (and enemies).
One of the things I always enjoyed about Oblivion, and to a lesser degree in Skyrim, is that there are wandering enemies and friends. In fact, you don’t know which is which until you come upon them. One of the things I had been hoping for is a less ‘enemy’ based game. Meaning, no one should be an enemy until you make them so. Which means, nothing should attack you until you pick a side or provoke them. Alas, not here.
Based on Zenimax’s questionable choice of choosing the same engine that Defiance uses, that leaves the Elder Scrolls Online with less than satisfying in-game play. In fact, for some of the same reasons I abandoned playing Defiance, I abandoned playing the Elder Scrolls Online.
Game Mechanics
While the combat mechanics are similar enough between ESO and Skyrim, they are also different because multiple network players can jump in and help. Though, as I said, in some dungeons, multiplayer is not possible.
On the flip side of that, though, the multiplayer experience is weak and uninspired. The whole running around without collision is way less than realistic. Network players don’t collide and simply walk through one another like ghosts. I’d prefer a much more realistic collision detection. I’d also like an experience where people can participate in commerce, like owning shops and running them at a fixed location. I would also like to see network players be able to create quests, dungeons and bosses. Yes, player created content should be clearly labeled and excludable via preferences. But, it should be part of the universe.
Voice acting and the like
I’m not terribly impressed by this installment of the Elder Scrolls series. In fact, the choice of Michael Gambon (or a very close soundalike) was not a good one. His lines are inconsistent even between the same dialog in the same paragraph of spoken dialog. It sounds amateur and rushed. This is something I would never have expected from Zenimax/Bethesda.
Graphics
It’s funny. This game looks great in some places, and really bad in others. The landscapes, for the most part look spectacular with the sun shining. In the dark, however, it’s just flat and dull. There’s almost no lighting in most places when there’s no sunshine. Interiors are dull and lifeless. The lighting model used in this engine is, at best, fair. Again, this is what you get when you buy into an off-the-shelf engine. Instead, I would have preferred them modify a Crytek engine which has about the most realistic lighting model I’ve ever seen in a game. Unfortunately, this game suffers from the lack of quality lighting in far too many places.
For example, armor on knights looks great when in direct light or in sunlight, but in the dark there’s nothing to make it look volumetric. It just looks flat and dull.
Multiplayer Gaming
Because this is an MMO game, there are plenty of network players. Unfortunately, much of the game is focused on single player questing. Sure, your comrades can join you in defeating some monsters, but there are also plenty of dungeons where this is not possible. This is the same as Defiance and this is the single reason I stopped playing Defiance. You can easily wander into an unbeatable boss dungeon and simply have to abandon that quest leaving it unfinished. If that quest is part of a chain of quests, that whole quest-line is also dead. This is entirely frustrating and I won’t deal with games that do this.
More than this, the single most frustrating thing is that people leave their characters logged in all of the time and clutter up the environment. You’ll find hordes of network players hanging around banks, clothing creation tables, armor creation tables and other similar workbenches. Sometimes there are so many people that you can’t even get to the table to use it. Sure, you can walk through the players, but if you can’t get visible view of the table with the camera, you can’t target the table to work on it.
One of the other frustrating network player problems is that you’ll tend to find network players hovering around key quest giving NPCs trying to do the same thing you’re doing. The problem that falls out of this is trying to determine what character is actually the quest giver. Having hordes of people around something also gives away where that thing is. Also, it’s really stupid to hear a quest giver NPC saying something like “You’re the first person I’ve seen in ages.” Really? Like how many other network players are logged in right now playing this exact quest in this same dungeon? Stupid dialog such as this amazes me in a network multiplayer player game. Who at Zenimax didn’t get the memo that this is a network multiplayer game?
Which leads to one more problem… shared resources. Some items in the environment are basically ‘one player at a time’. That means if you find a Water Hyacinth and someone grabs it ahead of you, they get first dibs and it’s gone. This means you have to go find it somewhere else. This problem has happened far too many times during quests leading me off on scavenging tangents. In fact, a similar issue is when I’ve just started a quest and a minute later, the quest ends saying the quest is completed. I’m like, what the hell? Then I realize, someone else just finished that quest and it gave me the completion notice also. This is bad. You should always be required to finish whatever quests you start on your own unless that quest is explicitly labeled a multiplayer quest.
Cyrodiil
At the original time of writing this article, I hadn’t yet ventured into Cyrodiil. However, I now have. Unfortunately, the gameplay doesn’t get any better in Cyrodiil. In fact, it really takes a turn for the worst. While all of the non-Cyrodiil zones are standard questing and dungeon crawler types, Cyrodiil is the antithesis of what Elder Scrolls has always been.
Yes, Cyrodiil offers a huge map that encompasses all of the cities we’ve come to know from Oblivion, but instead of being thriving quest giving communities, it’s a barren landscape of forts and castles, few and far between. In between these military installations is a whole-lotta-nothin’. Really. There is nothing there. While there are quests that are placed onto your area quest map, the quests are all campaign related. Things like, taking over a fort, capture the Elder Scroll, etc etc.
ZeniMax degrades Cyrodiil into yet another version of Hasbro’s board game Risk, only in MMO video game format. I’d liken it to another game like Civilization, but it’s less like Civilization and more like Risk. There are 3 factions: Red, Yellow and Blue. Depending on which faction you join, you’re responsible for making sure your ‘team’ captures the most stuff during any campaign.. with the idea being to capture the entire game area, just like Risk.
No, I’m not avert to playing a game like Risk, it’s just that I’ve already played Risk many many many times over the years. Risk is not what the Elder Scrolls series should become. Yet, here we are. The Elder Scrolls games should always be about questing and dungeon crawling, first. There are so many better multiplayer ideas that could have been used on the Cyrodiil land, but unfortunately we get Risk instead. This Risk game is not bad for what it is, but it’s just not creative nor in keeping with what I would expect from an Elder Scrolls title. It’s also far less than impressive than what I would expect from Bethesda.
Castles and Rebuilding
The worst part of Cyrodiil’s Risk is its castles. The other teams can build catapults and other weapons to use against your castles. As the castles get bombarded, they break and fall down. If the castle falls down enough, the other team can capture it. To keep this from happening, all of the players must not only continually rebuild the castles, they must also use their own ‘money’ to rebuild it. If you want to rebuild a wall, you have to pay for it out of your own stash of money. No money? Can’t rebuild. Personally, I found this minutiae to be just too over the top and unnecessary.
Winning
Yes, while it’s important that your ‘team’ wins Cyrodiil during the campaign, there are a lot of sub-game types also embedded in the area like capture-the-flag and death-match all wrapped into this single area. It’s also worth noting that Cyrodiil is almost entirely PVP (Player vs Player). There is very little PVE (Player vs Environment) in Cyrodiil.
The problem with Cyrodiil is that it is far too sprawling with literally devoid of anything other than PVP gameplay. Seriously, this land is so big, trying to find enemy players in it can be as challenging as fighting the battles when you finally find them. The sore point when your player dies is that the spawn points are so few and far between, you’ll end up spending literally 10 minutes just trotting back to where you were on a horse simply to try that battle again. Because there are so few spawn points, it makes Cyrodiil a truly painful experience when battling. Definitely not a battle-friendly environment. This is a pretty huge fail on ZeniMax part. The spawn point is also entirely dependent on who kills you. If you’re killed by an environment NPC, then you spawn like you normally do. If you’re killed by another player, you’re forced to respawn at very selective spawn points owned by your faction… which could be on the other side of the map.
Worse, they’ve turned the Elder Scrolls themselves (the actual Elder Scrolls) into a game of capture-the-flag. Instead of being useful as scrolls, now they’re just tokens to carry around. It’s now the job of other teams to grab your team’s ‘Elder Scroll’ and take it back to their own land. It’s then your responsibility to go get that scroll and put it back into its home area. Yes, it’s degraded the Elder Scrolls into Capture The Flag. I mean, I don’t know how much more degrading it is to see the actual Elder Scrolls, which are supposed to be some of the most coveted and sacred of magical artifacts in Tamriel, treated like play toys.
If the Elder Scrolls themselves are such prized artifacts, why are they floating on an alter sitting out in the open under a dome? Shouldn’t they be in a library or underground protected? Who thought this would be a good idea?
On top of the derivative problems present in the Risk-like strategy aspect, it’s just far too sprawling to really make this area of any real value. The campaigns in Cyrodiil literally last 90 days. That’s 3 months. And it would take every bit that 3 months just to even try and take over the entirety of Cyrodiil. I guess if the only thing you’re trying to do is level your character up to Veteran Rank, then it’s worth it. Oh, and the only way to get Veteran Rank is to have taken part in Cyrodiil actively. Yes, that means rebuilding castles, as boring as that activity is.
Unfortunately, Cyrodill literally doesn’t thrill me. First, it trivializes the Elder Scrolls. Second, because the area is so sprawling with nothing else to do there but focus on taking buildings over, it’s really way outside of what I consider an Elder Scrolls game. I mean, the idea behind the battles is interesting. However, using a board game derivative to build your implementation is far less than impressive, Bethesda. It seems like the game developers just didn’t have any better ideas than ripping off the Risk board game.
Instead, I would have preferred to see several types of campaigns. Instead of 3 factions all working against one another (PVP), that they all work together towards a common goal… like taking the area back from the Daedra. I don’t mind PVP and I’m glad there’s an area here, but ZeniMax should at least offer up other methods of conquering Cyrodiil than simple-minded and derivative PVP gaming. If you really want to do PVP, I’d rather just have an arena somewhere. I mean, a small location with limited map sizes where gamers can simply go in and battle in an arena. In fact, Arena was one of the early Elder Scrolls titles. Why not offer an area as an homage to the earlier Arena battles? With multiplayer, it makes perfect sense. Yet, they give us the Risk-derived Cyrodiil. I continually find myself venturing back to the questing areas over being in Cyrodiil. I find myself bored to tears after spending even 15 minutes in Cyrodiil. Just give me the standard quests and don’t force me to rely on Cyrodiil to advance my player character.
Faction Lands
When you begin the Elder Scrolls Online, you will become part of a faction such as the Daggerfall Covenant, the Ebonheart Pact or the Aldmeri Dominion. Depending on which faction you end up in, certain parts of Tamriel will open and others remain locked. However, once you complete Cyrodiil as a veteran, you will be able to go through all of the rest of the closed lands. Personally, I think this is rather stupid. If, as a designer, you’re going to create a world with many lands, let all players go through all of the lands. Don’t selectively exclude gamers based on a faction. This is stupid. Of course, we can create and level up other player characters who end up on those other factions, but that’s means you have to manage 3 players all leveling up together. This is something I don’t want to do. I play a game no more than once, never three times.
Craglorn
After having recently reached Veteran Rank 1 (VR) — AKA Level 50, I was ‘invited’ to be transported to Craglorn (the recently released Veteran Rank area). Don’t expect Craglorn to be like any other land you’ve visited. Oh, no no no. Zenimax has once again changed the rules of the game. When you reach VR1, you might think you’re now reasonably strong. Again, no no no. Reaching Craglorn is like starting ESO all over again at Level 1 with no armor or weapons. In Craglorn, ALL of the enemies and I mean ALL of them are VR 11 or higher. Oh, but there’s one more change to this area. ALL of the enemies in Craglorn swarm. There is no way to get a single enemy alone to grind and rank up. Nope. If you hit one enemy, at least 4, 5 or more VR11 enemies come charging at you. Think about this for about 30 seconds and you’ll realize the problem… I’ll wait….
So, having thought through the problem, you quickly realize there is absolutely no place to grind here. None. The only way to grind here is to group with others and grind together. Even then, grouping VR1s together probably won’t be that successful. Effectively, you cannot quest solo in Craglorn until you’ve reached at least VR 12. Worse, the first quest given in the area has you fighting VR11 bosses… which are, in fact, VR20-somethings. Even worse then that, it takes killing a shit ton of enemies just to move the VR experience bar even a nudge. So, yeah. It’s unlikely a VR1 character is going to step into this area and win at anything let alone rank up fast. Expect to spend some gold on new VR ranked weapons before entering this area.
Craglorn is probably one of the worst ZeniMax fails around the entire ESO game. Though, I have to admit that ripping off the board game Risk is right up there with Craglorn’s design. But, setting your character up as VR1 in a primarily VR11 area is just simply insane. Again I must ask, “What were they thinking?” This is not challenging. It’s just an exercise in frustration. I’d have to say that Craglorn is probably game designing at its worst. Every other gaming area, they’ve had general enemies no more than 1-2 ranks higher than where you are. But, throwing a VR1 ranked character into a VR11 territory is just stupid.
About the only thing I have found to do is loot treasure in this area and join in on some world battles whenever I can find them. This way I can at least try to rank my character up very slowly. But, finding world battles around the area is fairly difficult because there aren’t that many people here questing and world battles are few. Even dolmens aren’t in Craglorn. Oh, there are dolmen’s marked, but they don’t work like the regular dolmens. Again, Zenimax changed the way this area works. Inconsistent to say the least.
Craglorn is really designed for grinding, pure and simple. If you go in there, expect to grind, grind, grind.
Gameplay Differences
Let’s understand some of what I consider broken between the Elder Scrolls Online compared to Skyrim. Some of you might like some of the changes listed below, but I preferred where Skyrim was heading. That is, moving towards making everything interactive and more like our reality with real physics. Taking a step back in gaming is never a good idea. Here’s my list (note this is not comprehensive):
ESO: Horses appear out of thin air and disappear into thin air
SKY: Horses are stabled, must be found, can die
ESO: Horse animation is stilted and cartoony
SKY: Horse animation looks at least more realistic than ESO
ESO: Containers are fixed and contain gold 1 max or food (not necessary)
SKY: Containers can contain jewels, gold > 20 or potions.
ESO: Food is unnecessary because magicka, health and stamina regenerate almost immediately after combat ends
SKY: Food is necessary until you get armor or enchantments that increase health regeneration which is typically very slow.
ESO: Objects are fixed and cannot be moved
SKY: Objects are movable in the environment: Apples, weapons, ingredients, etc
ESO: Defeating an enemy yields 1 gold and possibly a glyph or quest item (rarely armor and never armor the NPC was wearing)
SKY: Defeating an enemy yields gold sometimes and whatever armor and weapons they had. Their armor and weapons can be stripped.
ESO: Bows automatically come equipped with arrows. The bow holds the damage.
SKY: Bows and arrows are separate and have separate damage levels. Couldn’t craft arrows. They were always found.
ESO: Unknown if you can own a house
SKY: You can not only own houses, with Hearthfire you could build one from scratch.
ESO: 60 max slots for items and every item (including each ingredient) requires 1 slot (excluding some quest items). If you run out of slots, you have to use the bank which gives you only 60 more. Then you have to buy more with gold.
SKY: Expandable slots for items and unlimited items can be stored in containers in owned houses. Granted, houses cost at minimum 5000g, but once you buy a house the storage space is unlimited. You could get more slots by finding the Horse stone, scrolls, casting a spell or by wearing enchanted items (which can be found or created).
ESO: Soul Gems are very very scarce. Basically only available from sellers.
SKY: Soul Gems are easy to find. Specifically, they are usually found in dungeons with mages or necromancers.
ESO: Once in battle mode, there’s no way to sneak. The game simply won’t let you. If you do manage to hide in battle mode, the game takes you out of battle mode as though you had run away. The enemy’s health resets requiring you to start the battle over from the beginning. This includes bosses.
SKY: Once in battle mode, if you hide behind a rock or container you can usually hide. If you crouch and hide in battle mode, the game does not reset the enemy’s health unless they have regenerative capabilities or you leave the area.
ESO: An arrow’s range is a 5-6 feet. If you’re out of range, an arrow does nothing.
SKY: An arrow’s range is at least 50-100 feet. If you can see the enemy and you can aim, you can hit them.
ESO: If you’re in sneak and attack an enemy, you’re immediately taken out of sneak and the enemy knows exactly where you are and begins attacking you. The best you get is 1 sneak attack.
SKY: If you’re in sneak and attack an enemy, the enemy will come search for you, but you can move and avoid being found. You can continue to sneak attack as long as you remain undetected.
ESO: Equipping a new weapon is cumbersome.
SKY: Equipping a new weapon is through the weapon wheel (as long as it’s set up in advance).
ESO: Entering a menu to switch weapons or consume a potion doesn’t pause the action. Enemies continue to attack while trying to switch weapons or consume potions. You need to have them on hot keys.
SKY: Entering a menu during battle pauses the battle to allow switching or consumption of a potion.
ESO: Dying reduces durability of all equipped items.
SKY: Dying ends the game and you have to reload. Durability of items is determined by its use, not by player death.
ESO: Boss battles inside a dungeon trap you in the dungeon until the battle is done, you quit out of the game or you die. There is no way to flee an interior battle as exit doors aren’t usable.
SKY: You can always exit a dungeon even when in battle.. excluding certain bosses which lock you into an area (i.e., arena battles).
ESO: Swimming yields no skill improvement.
SKY: Swimming improves strength
ESO: Diving in water not possible.
SKY: Diving not only possible, but required to reach some quests.
ESO: Mouth movements with dialogue are simple open close like a puppet
SKY: Mouth movements with dialogue use mouth phoneme animation to seem like they’re actually talking
ESO: Sneaking costs stamina, does not level up
SKY: Sneaking levels up as you use it near enemies, costs no stamina
ESO: Repairing armor is at least 5x more costly in comparison with the gold you obtain. Repairing all items might be 200G-300G and you might have 500-800G or so.
SKY: Gold is plentiful and repairs are 10G or so per item. It might cost 200-300G for all items, but you probably have 2000-5000G
ESO: Bots and script kiddies => a side effect of multiple players
SKY: No bots => no online play
ESO: Some dungeons don’t allow network players in. You’re left alone to complete the boss which can be challenging because you cannot sneak or hide in battle. Basically, you need to be a mage or warrior for these dungeons. Rangers and Thieves won’t easily work.
SKY: N/A.. but you can use alternative tactics like sneaking and sneak attacks which are not available in ESO once battle starts.
ESO: Map is tiny (about a quarter of the screen) and looks like a cartoon.
SKY: Map is full screen, makes it much easier to find things.
Though neither have a search feature which would make finding places on the map a whole lot easier.
ESO: Custom waypoints not available on map
SKY: Custom way points possible
ESO: No stealing, no pickpocketing
SKY: An intrinsic part of every other ES game since at least Morrowind
ESO: Fast traveling costs gold (costs more as game progresses)
SKY: Fast traveling is free
ESO: Books cannot be taken or stored. Though, Lorebooks disappear after reading them and end up in a ‘library’ on your character.
SKY: Books can always be taken (unless it’s specifically stuck to an area).
ESO: Can’t sit in chairs
SKY: Could sit in any chair
ESO: Can’t kill any NPCs
SKY: Can’t kill some NPCs (critical characters, kids, etc), but can kill most.
ESO: Items cannot be dropped and picked up later. They can only be destroyed.
SKY: Items cannot be destroyed, but can be dropped or sold to free up slots.
ESO: Travel only to waypoints at any time. Traveling not from a waypoint costs gold. All territories are infested with large numbers of constantly spawning enemies. Dungeons are not always set to the player level and are frequently set higher to encourage network co-op, otherwise it can be impossible with a single player.
SKY: Travel to any city at any time. Occasional enemies can be easily avoided. Dungeons were set at or close to the level of the player making some levels too easy to play. Though, some dungeons aren’t.
Frequent Updates
While I do realize this is a multiplayer game, some of the updates can be especially big and have long download times. For example, some updates are as large as 8GB (nearly the same size as the full game). Download updates are frequent at intervals usually once a week. So, expect to wait to play while the updates are downloading and installing.
If they’re planning on this many updates this frequently, then the game should come with a background updater to automatically download updates during idle times.
Overall
The Elder Scrolls online is, at best, a mediocre game. The choice of the Defiance MMO engine to drive ESO leaves a lot to be desired. I was actually hoping Zenimax wouldn’t use that engine as there are many problems with it. While Zenimax was able to customize some pieces better than Defiance was able to, there are simply some pieces that still don’t fit with the concept of an Elder Scrolls game. In fact, using this engine is far and away a step backward for an Elder Scrolls technology advance. It’s unfortunate too because I was actually liking where Skyrim was heading. And, taking what Skyrim was to a Next Gen console would have made the next installment spectacular. Instead, with the Elder Scrolls Online, what we’re getting is not the next step, but a lateral move that’s about as compelling to play as Morrowind.
Though, at the time Morrowind released, it was very compelling. Today, Morrowind seems antiquated, as does the Elder Scrolls Online. Unfortunately, Zenimax tried using something off-the-shelf and the result is less than stellar. It’s unfortunate too, because I was just getting into the Elder Scrolls series. If this is what we can look forward to in Elder Scrolls games, Zenimax, you can count me out.
As for Cyrodiil, it is basically boring empty space with mostly nothing to do. There is effectively no standard questing in Cyrodiil. All quests are military quests such as grabbing the Elder Scroll and moving it somewhere else or spying. Unfortunately, Cyrodiil is basically such an uninspired area, I find myself bored often and frequently leaving to find quests in other lands. Unfortunately, at level 46, I find myself actually running out of standard quests and no way to get to the other unopened territories. So, I’m actually kind of stuck for more stuff to do in the Elder Scrolls Online.
In fact, what I’ve been doing as of late is just finding resources and putting them up for sale in guild stores. At least there’s pretty much a never ending supply of resources, except on Cyrodiil where, again, there’s literally nothing but a huge and a big game of Risk.
Fallout 76
This section has been added here to discuss Bethesda’s newest MMO, Fallout 76. It’s highly likely that Bethesda/Zenimax has simply taken the ESO engine and used it to build Fallout 76. I haven’t played or seen any play of Fallout 76, but I’m not holding out hope that FO76 will be substantially better than ESO.
I’m certainly hoping that they have abandoned the Risk board game PVP mode. It was totally unnecessary and out of character even for an Elder Scrolls game. It will definitely be out of character in a Fallout game.
I will have to reserve my judgement of Fallout 76 until its release later in 2018.
↩︎
Game Review: Defiance MMO on Xbox
While I really want to like Trion’s Defiance on the Xbox 360 and in some ways I do like it, it also has some highly annoying design ideas, features, levels and quirks. Before I begin, you need to know that Defiance is an online multiplayer game only and requires a subscription to Xbox Live Gold. Don’t buy this game unless you plan to buy or already have a subscription to Xbox Live (which, of course, requires broadband Internet access). Additionally, this game is completely dependent on Trion’s servers being continually available. If Trion’s servers go down (and they do regularly), you cannot play the game AT ALL. Anyway, grab a cup of coffee and let’s get going.
Disclaimer: Be careful buying used copies of Defiance. If Trion folds or they shut down the Defiance servers, the game disk will become a coaster. The game disk has no standalone content. The Defiance game relies 100% on Trion to operate the servers and stay in business. The business of gaming is fickle. If this game doesn’t last longer than a year in operation or the TV series is cancelled, don’t be surprised if you can’t play the game. If you are reading this review a year (or later) since it has been written, do some research before investing in a used copy of the game.
What is an MMO?
MMO stands for massive mutiplayer online. Basically, it’s a multiplayer game. It isn’t really a single player campaign game. Basically, what Defiance is to 3D gaming, a MUSH is to text-based gaming. Basically, it’s a large map environment with a load of players from all over all playing the game together.
What’s good about Defiance?
Defiance is not your standard third-person 3D Campaign based shooter or even a standard 3D death match style multiplayer game. Defiance mixes both single player campaign with multiplayer coop seemlessly. In fact, it’s really the first game I’ve played to do so. Granted, I have not played World of Warcraft, so this game may offer that level of play, also. Basically, you and your friends can join in and all defeat an enemy or boss together… at least, sometimes. Yes, there are missions where coop is not possible. It really is a pretty cool idea. The trouble is, the idea of it is pretty much where the coolness ends. The way it’s designed could be way better.
What’s bad about Defiance?
It’s highly repetitive.
As you’re driving around, you see a whole bunch of different missions on the roads. But, you’ll see the same drive-by road side missions time and time again. These drive-by missions are distinctly different from those that appear on your map as an exclamation point in a diamond. Once you’ve played several of those drive by missions, you don’t really want to do it again… and again.. and again. It’s not cool. Also, it’s the same enemies over and over. So, even though it’s a new mission, it’s the same enemies with all of the same tactics. Tactics, I might add, which can be highly boring after defeating them several times. It’s okay when you’re doing it for the first time. But, after you’ve played the same enemies and tactics about 5 times or more, it gets old really fast.
Leveling up is very s l o w.
As you level up, you get more and bigger weapons and perks. So, at least you do get stronger weapons as time progresses. But, expect that progression to go very s l o w l y. Don’t expect to get the biggest weapons really quick unless you play the game non-stop. However, even getting to Level 650 doesn’t seem much different than being at level 200 or even level 0 in terms of health or shield. You character still becomes incapacitated just easily. So, effectively all you are really getting out of leveling up is somewhat stronger weapons, maybe.
Boss Levels have no checkpoints
Single player boss levels have no save points during battle. If your character becomes incapacitated, you start the entire boss over from scratch just outside of the room. In other words, you could lose up to 30 minutes of play time whittling the boss’ health down only for one missile to incapacitate you and you have to completely redo the whole thing again and again and again. This is entirely frustrating and time wasting. Basically, you are forced to play the boss level on the game designer’s terms, not yours. If you decide that you want to use stealth and sniper tactics, you can’t. The only strategy given is the one forced upon you by the designers… which usually entails running away from the enemy in hopes you can strike them with enough to kill them before they incapacitate you. It’s all trial and error and timing. There’s no strategy involved.
No way to change weapon load out quickly
Due to the frustrating menu system, you cannot change your weapon load out while in the middle of any battle, let alone a boss battle. Otherwise, you will be incapacitated. If you don’t load out correctly before going in, expect your character to die early and often.
Scrip and other currency types
Scrip is one type money in this game. There are vendors that sell cars, weapons, weapon mods, shields and lock boxes. Unfortunately, there are other forms of currency in this game which include bits, resources, reputation and keys.
- Scrip is obtained by completing any mission or selling goods at vendors
- Bits are obtained by buying them with Microsoft Points (i.e., real world money)
- Resources are obtained by completing missions or by breaking down objects into resources
- Keys are obtained by completing arkfalls and other missions
- Unfortunately, there is a severe limit on how many keys you can hold (my limit is 75)
- Reputation is obtained by completing multiplayer co-op missions (requires 4 players to participate)
Some items for purchase require a mixture of the above currencies to obtain that item from a vendor. So, some specialized weapons may require 200 reputation plus some Scrip to get that item. Getting that many reputation points requires participating in many 4 player coop missions.
Main Missions
The main missions consist of a story that seems to be leading someplace, but I’ve not yet figured out exactly where. Sure, your character is being ‘groomed’ for something big, but who knows really what. At a point early in the game, you meet a character that looks very similar to a Borg (and sounds like one, actually) named Nim Shondu. Later on, you have to kill him. Believe me, this boss level is nearly impossible to beat unless you come into it with the correct weapons dealing a high amount of damage combined with overcharge. Even then, expect to spend loads of time with this room. There’s no hiding place in the room, so you can’t get away from his sword and special attacks or his EGO moves. He moves so fast that you can’t block his attacks. So, the best you can do is try to stay away from his attacks just long enough to kill him. Worse, you have to kill him 3 times. Good luck with that unless you are equipped correctly. Worse, you won’t know his tactics until you enter the room. And, by then it’s too late to go find the right weapon let alone equip it. Even worse than all of this, the game still charges you an extraction fee each time you die and can’t self-revive. Truly, a poorly designed level
So far, this story has been about rag tag missions that seem to just open up more missions and more side missions. I don’t really see where the story is going at this point. Let’s hope the writers have a cohesive story arc in mind.
Weapons and Shields, but no Armor
Unlike other military games which allow you to level up and find weapons, armor, shields and clothing modifiers, Defiance only offers shields and weapons, which isn’t really enough for this type of game. Of the shields you can find, they are all weak. Basically, there are two types of shields you can find:
- A shield with a low threshold for damage (1000 points or less) and recovers fast (1-3 seconds)
- A shield with a high threshold for damage (1500 points or higher) and recovers very slowly (delay 7-9 seconds)
Some shields are augmented with other traits (like better protection from fire damage, your own weapon damage, biodamage, etc). I’ve yet to find a shield that has offers a high threshold for damage and recovers quickly. There might be one in the game somewhere, but I’ve yet to see it or find it. Even still, it only takes about two Dark Matter troops firing their weapons at you to completely wipe out your shield with about 5 shots and another 5 will wipe out your health and incapacitate you. Worse, you cannot augment shields with any mods at all, even though the game lets you mod weapons.
Arkfalls and Side Missions
There are basically three types of side missions. Random encounters, marked side missions and Arkfalls.
Random Encounters
Random encounters are basically roadside missions. That is, you drive by and see something blocking the road. It might be Raiders, 99ers, Dark Matter, Scrappers or Hellbugs. That’s basically the list of enemies in the game. So, it will be one of these enemies that pops out of a road side mission. In fact, it’s the only type of enemies that will pop out of any of the missions including Arkfalls.
Side Missions
These mission types are marked on your map with an exclamation point in a diamond shape. These give small amounts of scrip (money) and small amounts of experience points. They usually ask you to locate and obtain something and sometimes drop it off. It might ask you to plant explosives. It might ask you to clear out a Hellbug nest or kill all of the Raiders in a camp.
Arkfalls
Other than multiplayer coop maps, these are the truly massively multiplayer experiences in this game. When an ‘ark’ falls and hits the ground, ark hunters swoop in and scour it for parts to be sold. In the game, when an ark falls, it’s just a mechanism to create a huge Hellbug or Scrapper to kill. Each Arkfall starts off small (destroying crystals in two or three waves) or killing the enemies in an area. As the smaller arkfall crystals are destroyed, this leads up to the big boss arkfall. You might have to do two or three small arkfalls before the big boss appears. Once the boss appears, all of the online players congregate and use whatever weapons they have to whittle the health down of the boss until it’s destroyed. At the end of the arkfall, a panel appears showing who did the most damage in an ordered list.
These usually give about 6500XP experience. So, if you want to gain experience and scrip fast, join arkfalls regularly. Also, do the main missions. These gain you a lot of scrip.
Incapacitation
This is one of the sore spots in this game and is poorly designed. I understand what they were trying to achieve with this part of the game, but it just doesn’t really work. So, you’ve lost all your shield and your health is now drained. Once this happens, you fall to the ground and become incapacitated. Sometimes you get two options (self-revive or extraction). Self-revive is as it states, you revive in place and pick up right where you left off. Extraction means you start over at the extraction point. Self-revive only becomes available after 5 minutes or so of playtime after the last self-revive was used. Thus, if you fall quickly after a self-revive, you have to pay scrip to get extracted.
When you’re in the world, extraction is generally cool (other than you lose a percentage of your ‘Scrip’ for being extracted).. except when your closest extraction point happens to be halfway across the map. I’ll discuss extraction points next. However, when you’re at the boss level in a dungeon, it’s not fine. In fact, it’s damn right annoying and frustrating. Worse, when you’re on a boss level, the game doesn’t even give you the option of using self-revive. You are forced to defeat the boss in one complete perfectly executed go or you fail and start over. There’s no help, no reviving, no one there to help you revive. In the case of the Borg, you’re have to completely kill him in one single go with the weapons you have in hand or you start the boss level over again. Worse, if you abandon the mission, you have to completely replay the entire intro of the level over again to get back to the boss level inside the dungeon. That may involve 20 minutes of lead-up to get into the dungeon again.
But, if you didn’t enter the level equipped with the correct shield or weapon load out, don’t bother trying to do that in combat. We’ll discuss weapon load outs shortly.
Extraction points
This game ‘binds’ your character to an extraction point that are post-like markers with a purple light (and an ammo dispenser near it). Once you get close to one of these markers, your character will become bound to it. If you extract, your character will end up back at one of these markers. As you drive by the markers, your character will become bound to them. Note, however, that these markers only appear on major roads. So, if you drive off-road all of the time or fast travel, you could leave yourself vulnerable to an extraction point that is a very long way away from where you presently are. If you’re doing an arkfall and you extract, you’re going to end up a very long way away from that arkfall and will have to spend the time to drive all the way back over there.
This is really one of the sore points of this game. There should be twice as many extraction points as there are. In fact, when an arkfall goes up, an extraction point should appear for the duration of the arkfall. So, if you have to extract, you end up somewhere close to the arkfall again. Better, if you’re in an arkfall, it should bind you to the arkfall until it’s done. Just extract me into the arkfall location where I previously was. Why force me to drive a huge distance just to get back to it? Not very well thought out.
Weapon Load Outs from the Menu
The menu system in this game is also poorly designed. In most games like this, you would have a weapon wheel where you can assign your favorite weapons for easy access during active combat. Not in this game. You have to open a menu (which can take 10-20 seconds to completely draw), then you have to select the slot and dig through a scrolling list of weapons to place into the weapon slot (another 5-10 seconds). The entire screen is completely covered with the menu so you cannot see any live action at all. Yet, everything remains live. There is no pause. So, your character is completely vulnerable while you diddle in the menu.
Bad bad BAD. This is one of the worst combat menu systems I’ve seen in a game like this. If you need access to weapons/grenades and shields easily and quickly, you NEED a selection wheel that pops up right inside the game over the top of the live gameplay. Sure, let us fill this wheel with our own weapons of choice, but after that, we can easily choose the weapon we want to use. Instead, you have a completely cumbersome menu system that completely obscures live combat and that takes 30 seconds (or longer) to walk through. Even then, you can only get easy access to two weapons at a time.
The game offers alternative weapon load outs by pressing Y in the menu and will cycle through 3 different loadout presets, but even that isn’t fast enough to work. This game desperately needs a weapon wheel preset overlay.
Inventory and Menu
Menu System
The menu includes everything to manage your weapons, weapon features, and everything in your inventory. The menu system is really overloaded. Once you get into the menu, you have the base menu which is what appears when you press the start button. But, there’s even another menu when you press the left trigger. That pops up a wheel that contains more submenus to get to things like the Defiance Store, Social, Stats, etc. Then there are the RB and LB sub menus of the main menu which cycles you through weapon modification, EGO powers, and more stats. Why they needed both the wheel menu and the RB menu system, I don’t know. It’s not intuitive and it’s confusing.
One thing, though, is that even with all of these menus, once you have created the look of your character, you’re stuck. You can’t easily change that look if you don’t like it. If it’s in the menu system somewhere, it’s well hidden. Suffice it to say that I’ve not found it.
Inventory
Inventory is severely limited. When you first start out, you get something like 12 slots which you quickly fill. Note, anything you hold takes an inventory slot (shield, weapon or mod). I don’t understand why there’s even a limit in this game. But, it’s here and it severely limits what you can pick up. I’m forever destroying objects to be able to pick up something that’s fallen from an enemy. It’s highly frustrating and highly annoying to constantly have to destroy things to get new things.
Additionally, there is no lock box, locker or any kind of storage system for extra stuff. You constantly have to carry everything with you. You can’t offload your stuff into something you own (a house or a locker or any kind of personal offline storage). The closest you get is the ‘Claim Items’ in the Defiance Store. But, that only holds stuff that won’t fit into your inventory at the time that some quest tries to give it to you. You can’t place anything into the claims item area. It only takes overflow items so you don’t lose it.
No Armor, Only Shields (and they’re limited at that)
This game has no concept of armor; only shields. Once your shields are drained, your health starts draining and then you become incapacitated. With any combat game, armor and armor rating should be a huge part of this game. Even at level 650, your character incapacitates as easily as a level 1 character. The shields you find just really do nothing. Worse, you cannot modify shields by augmenting their protection levels. This game completely fails for character protection. There’s nothing you can do to help fortify your character’s health or protection. You’re completely at the mercy of the game to provide this protection which it does not do.
Multiplayer and Chat
Don’t bother to try and text chat in this world. The chat window is complete junk. The chat system in this game is never used by anyone because you simply can’t use it. To bring up the chat, you press the D-Pad to the right which opens a small menu, then you have to select the chat window which takes over the whole screen. Then you have to use the Xbox controller chat pad (if you have it) to enter your text. Otherwise, you’re limited to that horrible move-the-cursor-and-press-letters-thing (which is even worse).
If you do decide to chat in the Xbox version, get the controller chat pad. Even that is not enough to make this system work. Instead, grab a headset and plug that in. Voice chat is the only way to do this game. Even still, there aren’t that many people using that. So, what you end up with is most people doing their own things without discussions (except where clans are involved).
TV Show Defiance Tie-In
After the shows air, the game is supposed to change its play in-world to accommodate the changes to the series. So far, I’ve seen none of this. Granted, we’re only 2 episodes in as of this writing, still I see no changes in the world or in any of the missions. So, I’m still waiting for these changes to show. Personally, it looks like hype to me.
Audio and Graphics
The graphics are reasonably decent in most cases but there are a few brilliant places. Mostly, the graphics are average. The lighting is adequate, but not spectacular. The surface textures are good, but could be better. The graphics can be glitchy, especially where other online players are concerned. Players disappear, jump from place to place or just don’t work correctly when other online players are doing their thing. The graphics are mostly smooth when it comes to your player, but it can be glitchy and jumpy at times even then.
The audio soundtrack works quite well. The audio voiceovers are mostly well done, but there are some bugs. For example, EGO says ‘Shoot it in its hideous Moths’ (you know, those white things that fly around at night) when it specifically means the word Mouth (which is printed on the screen). Trion has not yet corrected this audio track. When dealing with side missions, EGO’s phrases are so generic they sometimes don’t make sense. EGO also pops in at very inopportune times to say things. Sometimes, I wish she’d just shut up. Also, there are audio drop outs where EGO is supposed to chime in and doesn’t, but the audio volume lowers for up to 5 minutes until something else brings the volume back up. You also get these audio dropouts when entering and leaving buildings.
Overall
Defiance on the Xbox 360 is fun to a point, but is a bit too clumsy and has too many quirks and problems. After you’ve played it for about a day, it gets old and repetitive really fast. The terrain is small and there’s really very little to do other than arkfalls which also become repetitive and boring. The menu system is cumbersome and annoying. The inventory system is overblown and convoluted, but doesn’t hold nearly enough. There are no long term storage lockers, so you have to destroy items frequently. The lack of a weapon menu wheel severely hampers the combat playability in Defiance. The lack of checkpoints makes playing the game a chore in places, especially boss levels.
I’m giving this game 4.5 stars out of 10. Defiance needed a whole lot more careful design treatment with playability testing and didn’t get it.
Note: As was predicted in the opening of this article, Defiance and Defiance 2050 have permanently shut down as of April 29, 2021. If you find a game disc, don’t buy it. There is no way to play this game as the servers are permanently offline.
↩︎
Bioshock Infinite: Crap game design 101?
[Update 10/27/2015: This update note is way overdue. Irrational Games closed their doors in Feb 2014. Ken Levine decided he needed to work on smaller projects and closed Irrational Game Studios. In reality, Bioshock Infinite’s continued development problems and final released result are likely what directly led to Irrational’s closure. This game will ultimately go down in history as the game that sank the Bioshock franchise.]
Seriously, I don’t get big gaming companies like EA and 2K. Do they seriously hire pre-teen game designers to build their games? What makes anyone think that levels like the Prophet’s First Lady Airship level in Bioshock Infinite is in any way fun?
First Lady Airship
So, here’s a major game design faux pas. Even above the fact that Bioshock Infinite is clearly a 4.5 out of 10 star game, the levels are so trite, cliche and predictable that they’re not really even a challenge. Oh, they’re challenging from the point that you have limited ammo, limited health, your character dies at the drop of a hat and they keep throwing wave after wave of enemies at you. The enemies are just so lame. The trouble is, when you get to the Prophet’s airship, the whole game completely unravels into an unmitigated disaster.
The Airship level is stupid long and seemingly unending. Here is one of those levels where you are ‘traveling’ (or basically just waiting) to get some place and wave after wave after seemingly infinite wave of enemies just continue to bombard your ship’s health and you. I mean, who thinks this crap up? Worse, what person in their right mind would even think that this type of level is the remotest bit fun? It’s not like this type of level hasn’t been done before and done better in older games. Essentially, all you’re doing is continually running out of ammo, running out of health and being revived and the level is practically impossible (even on easy). There’s absolutely no strategy here and, for whatever reason, your character keeps falling off of the deck. Worse, you’ve got annoying Elizabeth constantly and inexplicably interrupting the game play to throw you salts and ammo (which forces the camera to turn away from the action making it impossible to keep your focus on completing the level). And, her interruptions usually happen at the most inopportune times, but not when you really need it.
Then, trying to use the Song Bird to complete the level only seems to make the game spawn even more enemies at once. And it’s not like the Song Bird is that much of a help with that stupid slow timer. What’s the point in the timer anyway? Just let me use that blessed bird any time I want!
Silly Stupid Levels
On some levels, there’s a vending machine about every 2 steps. On other levels, there is not a vending machine to be found. The game designers have no concept of how to place things around the levels. It’s all hapazard and randomly placed. They might as well just let you spawn them at your own choosing.
Unexpected from 2k / Irrational Games
This type of crap gaming is not something I’d expect at all from 2k Games. But, here we are. I’m willing to forgive some stupidity in a game, but this just so trite, cliche and asinine that this is it for my involvement in this franchise. I will not be buying any more Bioshock games. The last few Bioshock games taxed my patience, but I never felt like I do with Infinite. This game is just intentionally stupidly designed. Did the designers rip a page from the ‘Video game book of crappy design’ or something?
Gone are the familiars
Looking for Big Daddy? Gone. Looking for Splicers? Gone. Looking for Little or Big Sisters? Gone. Nothing of the familiar remains from Bioshock. Not even ADAM. This is an all new incarnation, a rewrite or, as some might say, a prequel. Although, if it is a prequel, it has almost no elements that tie this to the underwater environments of Bioshock. Unfortunately, the familiar is what made Bioshock into Bioshock. Removing all of these elements and the dark moody watery environments for a sunny blue sky carnival atmosphere just doesn’t really work. It tries to be creepy, but it fails. It tries to feel like the old Bioshock, but it tries way too hard and fails. The Rollercoaster rails are just not sufficient to replace the familiars. In fact, the rails just didn’t really even work that well as a travelling method. You can’t do much with them or on them.
The story is haphazard and fractured throughout the game. Instead, the designers rely way too much on the gameplay itself to carry this Bioshock wannabe. Unfortunately, the gameplay is far too generic of a shooter to really hold up to the Bioshock standard. 2k and Irrational should have just left well enough alone and closed out this series with a Bioshock 3 (set in Rapture). This game should have been called something entirely new. They should have just let Infinite stand as its own name, game and brand. Tying Infinite to the Bioshock franchise was just a money play in hopes that gamers wouldn’t see through this ploy. I’m definitely here to say that this ploy didn’t work. Although, I can definitely understand the need to tie Infinite to the Bioshock brand because this game would have failed on its own.
Overall
The best part of this game is the Steampunk ambience. Unfortunately, that’s where it really ends. The game is so amazingly repetitive and stupidly designed, I just can’t believe that someone at 2K even gave the green light to this turd. Basically, the only resemblance to Bioshock is the name and the Vigors. Everything else is so foreign, it just doesn’t work. Then, when you get to levels like the First Lady airship and the ghost cemetery level, you’ll feel like you’ve played this game already at least 3 times before. Worse, you probably have!
There is no originality in this game and the levels are so bland and uninspired, it’s not even worth playing. While Bioshock 1 and 2 felt unique and had at least some cool features, all of that was tossed completely out the window when they designed Bioshock Infinite. I’m hoping this is the last in this franchise as this game feels like a game designed by a company where this is their first title ever published. It doesn’t feel like a big name company produced this game or spent any real amount of time or care on this title. It really just feels like a quick throw-together to make quick cash.
If you’re a Bioshock fan, this game might be worth renting. However, if you’re not a fan of this franchise, I’d urge you to steer clear of this disaster. There’s nothing fun here and the story is just not really compelling. In fact, the game feels so much like Fallout New Vegas in style, you’d swear they ripped off most of their ideas from both Obsidian and Bethesda. But, beyond the style of it, that’s where the similarity ends. Fallout New Vegas is a much much better game than Bioshock Infinite has any hope of being.
[Update: If you haven’t played the game, I’d recommend not playing the following video as it will spoil the game ending]. Since it’s been sometime since I have updated this review, I think it’s time to show the ending of this game (such that it is), of which I personally think is one immense fail on the part of the writers. The ending happens right after the lame airship level is completed. It took the game designers about 15 minutes to explain off the entire plot premise and even then it wasn’t very successful. I’ll leave it up to you to watch and decide, though… I’ve also written another Randosity article entitled Bioshock Infinite: Or, why circular time paradoxes suck! that explains why this ending (and this game) sucks so hard and rightly deserves the 4.5 star rating.
Recommendation: Rent, don’t buy. Skip if you’re not a fan.
Stars: 4.5/10 (needs a lot of work)
Game Studio: Irrational Games / 2K
Why Nintendo’s Miiverse is already dead
Miiverse is Nintendo’s newest gaming social network only available on the Wii U console. While it has some benefits, it also has many drawbacks. These drawbacks will become Miiverse’s ultimate failing and why it will ultimately fail to gain traction as a lasting social network.
What exactly is Miiverse?
Miiverse is a gaming social twitter-like network available exclusively through the Nintendo Wii U console and only available by using a Nintendo Network ID (which is also created exclusively on the Wii U console). The Nintendo Network ID (NNID) is much like an Xbox Live ID used on the Xbox. However, unlike Xbox, you cannot access your Nintendo Network ID from the Internet. It is only and exclusively available strictly through the Wii U console. This is one of the major failings of this network and only one of the major reasons why this social network will ultimately fail.
No Internet access to content?
[Update: Miiverse is now available on the Internet in a limited fashion. However, at the time of this article’s publish date, it was not yet available. You can now visit the Miiverse Web Site and see your posts. The below paragraph is here for historical reasons.]
Nope. There is no web access or any other external access to any of the content placed in Miiverse or, indeed, anything else related to your NNID. So, you cannot review anything about your NNID until you have access to your Wii U console again. This is one of Nintendo’s bright ideas that is ultimately a bad idea. Even Microsoft has learned that you have to allow access to at least pieces of your Xbox Live ID content on the Internet so you can at minimum login and get some information about your Xbox Live account. So, while you can’t get access to the exclusive content on the Xbox, you can at least see your gamer points and profile and set up things about your Xbox Live ID.
This exclusive access via the Wii U console will ultimately be the failing of this network. Basically, if you don’t buy a Wii U, you can’t have access to Miiverse content. If your console breaks, you have to buy another one to gain access again. There is no way to get access to this content from the web or in any other way than through a Nintendo device. Even Apple produced iTunes so you could at least buy things on the iTunes store without owning an iDevice. Nintendo just doesn’t get it.
Miiverse is limited
Instead of Nintendo providing something more useful like game Achievements, they thought that having a half-baked social network would take the place of this. Well, as a gamer, I’m here to say that this is not an adequate replacement. Being able to post for help and gain access to it quickly is cool, but you can easily get help by using Google and posting to open forums available on the Internet. I don’t need Miiverse for this. Yes, the screen shot feature is cool, but it is limited and the Nintendo admins are strictly fascist with reports of content problems.
Worse, you can’t even edit your posts. So, if you forget to mark something as a ‘spoiler’, then you cannot fix that. You can only delete your post and start over. Worse, there’s a 5 minute timer on posts, so if you delete a post and want to repost, you have to wait 5 minutes to fix it. So, even if the admins mark a problem with your post later, you can’t correct the problem as there’s no way to edit it. Seriously, if you’re going to flag posts as problems, at least have the decency to add editing tools to modify and correct the problem.
Miiverse administration is stupidly designed and poorly operated
If your content is reported, you can expect that you are always in the wrong. It doesn’t matter whether or not you really are, it matters what the admins say. And clearly, the admins always side with the person who reports the content and not with the person who created the post. So, be warned that if someone reports your content, you are always marked as being at fault. Worse, the whole administration piece is stupidly designed.
There is a ‘Messages’ area where if your content is reported, you will receive a canned response from some anonymous moderator stating that you have violated Miiverse ‘terms and conditions’. If you want to dispute the process, you can’t. Your options for response are limited to about 6 different canned responses, none of which are at all appropriate to getting a proper response back from the admins. No, you cannot write an email or send a text response to someone to ask a question or get clarification. In fact, if you do need to contact someone in person regarding an issue, you have to go to Nintendo.com, submit their general web form case and then wait for them to provide you with a pin number and the phone number to call in. That phone number being 1-877-803-3676. But, don’t try to call it blind. You will need the pin code provided by a Nintendo staffer to call in. Note, they don’t tell you this anywhere in any documentation or even on the Wii U in Miiverse. You have to somehow just ‘know’ this.
Worse, there is little the admins can really do short of removing the post which they should really be doing anyway. If they delete your NNID, you can simply create another one. Sure, you might lose all your content associated with the old ID, but it’s not like you had achievement points associated with it anyway. You will lose any posts you made, but no big deal there either. It’d basically be like losing a private twitter feed that no one but Wii U users have access to. It would not be like losing your Twitter account which would be a much bigger deal. Although, you might lose money you’ve built up in the Nintendo store, but that’s something I’m not sure of yet.
Yeahs vs Spoilers
There is a ‘Spoilers’ flag that can be set on a post. Unfortunately, you cannot mark something as a spoiler after the fact and it only takes one report by some random schmo for your post to be thrown into question as being a spoiler. This then throws the content into some random admin’s queue who really doesn’t care and will always side with the person who reported. You can’t dispute this process at all. So, your only action left is to delete the post which the admins could have done anyway.
Posts can be marked with a ‘Yeah’ (which is akin to Facebook’s Like feature), but these have no bearing on whether or not it’s a spoiler. With spoilers, you have to report it through a form. Once reported, an anonymous moderator makes the decision whether it violates terms. But, it doesn’t matter if it does or doesn’t. You’re already guilty and you will always be in the wrong. Nintendo is not taking any chances, so the poster of the content will always be dinged on the content. So, how exactly does any of this in any way incent any gamer to want to participate in this network knowing they’re going to have run-ins with admins? Nintendo, you’re biting the hand that’s feeding you.
With any game, any still image is considered a spoiler. If you’re showing game content, that’s a spoiler for someone. So, it doesn’t matter what image you’ve posted, if someone reports it as a spoiler, it is a spoiler (at least according to Nintendo). This is the wrong approach for a social network. Nintendo shouldn’t be making the decisions about spoilers. Social networks need to operate on likes or thumbs down features. Instead of taking the word of only one person (which is currently what it takes for Miiverse), it should be self-policed by the software based on the consensus of a number of people participating in the social network. If a number of people tag something as a spoiler, then mark it as a spoiler automatically. Problem solved with no personnel intervention involved. Don’t flag an account as in ‘violation of terms’ with this silly and stupid canned response system. Just automatically take action by allowing the users to self-police the content. Again, if more people mark it as not a spoiler than those who do, it remains visible as not a spoiler. Social networks should be governed by those participating in the social network, not by Nintendo employees. Nintendo clearly doesn’t understand the concept of a social network or how it should operate.
Deleting Content
If you decide to delete all of your Miiverse posts, you might as well just go delete your entire NNID. It’s a whole lot faster. Trying to weed through your old posts on Miiverse is like watching paint dry. This entire process is majorly botched, hugely time consuming and barely works. I had about 170 posts and it took me nearly 2 hours to delete most of them. Suffice it to say that you have to refresh the entire list of posts each time you want to get to the next post to delete. And, because they only load a screen at a time, you have to wait when you pull the screen up for it to load more posts in. Worse, you have to basically unfriend and unfollow everyone in your list to limit this list to just your posts so you’re not scrolling through tons of other people’s posts to get to your own. Worse, there’s no way to see, at a glance, who you’ve friended or followed. So, you have to just weed through the ‘Activity Feed’ to find the people you’ve friended and followed. Note, I’m not even filling in half of the details here for deleting content, but suffice it to say that Miiverse was not designed to delete your old content.
No opt-out
If you don’t want to participate in Miiverse, there is no way to do this on the Wii U console. Basically, you have to disconnect your Wii U from the network to not participate in Miiverse. There is no option on the Wii U console to turn it off or in any other way opt-out. Note that as long as you have an NNID associated with your Wii U, your console will log into the Miiverse service and show you content on the carousel screen even if you don’t want to participate.
Overall, Miiverse seems like a good idea, but it’s badly designed, poorly implemented and poorly operated. Yes, the one thing that it does is allow for quick access to help, but that one feature is completely overshadowed by how poorly the entire software is conceived and implemented. I personally cannot recommend this social network for any use other than for a quick ‘Help I’m stuck’ kind of question. Even then, I would suggest using Google first as it will likely be faster.
If you are a parent and don’t want your child participating in this social network, you have no option to turn it off from within the Wii U console. So, if you’re thinking of buying a Wii U console for your child, you should be well aware of this fact before you consider that purchase. If you would prefer your child to not participate in this poorly run social network, then you should probably consider a different console purchase. Additionally, considering that Nintendo is having major troubles even roping in developers to put their AA titles on the Wii U, I’d say purchasing (or, rather, not purchasing) the Wii U is pretty much a no-brainer.
Done with Miiverse
I’ve given Miiverse a fair shake and have come to conclusion that because of its limited usefulness and Nintendo’s fascist moderators and ‘terms and conditions’ coupled with bad software design, I can’t be part of that community. This is the reason I deleted all of my content on there. I may yet delete my NNID and just be done with it.
Until Nintendo can figure out that this social network design is crap and until they redesign it from the ground up, my suggestion is to avoid using Miiverse as its sole value is extremely limited and may actually cause more harm than good for some people. Nintendo, you need to figure this out fast.
Movie Dissection: Tron Legacy
To start off, I am a reasonably big fan of the original Tron film. Yes, the first Tron story was a bit of a letdown, but it worked for what it was. After all, it was the first film to use computer graphics to that level within a film. Definitely a ground breaker.
Achievements
Tron Legacy is also a ground breaker once again, but much less so. Its technological advancements in film are much more subtle. A lot of people may not have thought about this, but Tron Legacy is the first film to use an actual actor’s likeness in a film to play the actor at a younger age using a CG head and real body. I had predicted that this would happen eventually, and here we are. Tron Legacy now opens doors up to creation of new films by Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. Granted, the animation on the face is a bit stilted and unnatural, but it works for the CLU character. It doesn’t work so much for Kevin Flynn’s younger self. Nevertheless, the character works in most instances. If they had spent just a bit more time on the face, they could have made it look and act even better. Avatar is proof of that.
Story
While I really wanted this story to work well, it doesn’t come together as I had hoped. Basically, the CG is so strong that the story has to be twice as strong to overcome the incredible visuals. The trouble is, it doesn’t. But then, the same can be said of the first Tron film.
However, the two main problems with this film are 1) lack of a formidable villain and, by association, lack of a real payoff at the end and 2) Tron is not the main character and is visibly absent most of the film. After all, this film is named ‘Tron’. Tron is the character we expect to see. We do see him in flashbacks and, without spoiling the film, in other places as well. However, for 95% of the film, Tron is absent. In the small parts he’s in, Tron really contributes little to the overall story.
I realize that this one is about the ‘Legacy’ aspect of Kevin Flynn (i.e., Sam Flynn). So, Sam takes the front stage in this production. That’s okay were Sam Flynn a super likable character. Unfortunately, he’s not. I liked him well enough, but not nearly as much as I liked Kevin Flynn in Tron. In the first Tron film, we the viewers felt just like Kevin who was plopped into this fantasy world unexpectedly. So, we’re experiencing it all for the first time just like he is. With Tron Legacy, the audience already understands much about the world having seen the first film. So, wasting time on the introductions of the world isn’t really necessary. To their credit, the producers/writers did try to skip much of it. But, the whole clothes cutting and redressing scene was a bit overkill and kind of showed us just how cheesy the costumes were. Like the first film, it would have worked better and saved lots of time if Sam had awoken in the world fully costumed. That whole costuming scene could have been skipped (which was awkward anyway). I understand the setup between him and one of the female dressers, but that meet-and-greet could have happened in a different way.
Tron original film rules ignored
I also keep thinking more and more about Tron Legacy vs Tron and I keep coming up with more and more holes. Holes that are big enough to drive a truck through. It’s really very obvious that the writers (former writers from Lost, I might add) just didn’t consult the original film before writing this story. Without consulting the original film, they just arrived at an idea that didn’t really take into account all of the previous rules that had been established in Tron. Worse, it seems like the writers and producers thumbed their noses at the fans by not following these rules. Following the rules, however, would have made Tron Legacy much more complete and true to the original film. It would have also made Tron Legacy far better than it is now. And, it would have shown that the writers were committed to providing a full experience to not only the casual viewer, but also to the die-hard fans of Tron. Instead, this film only appeals to the casual viewer and completely ignores and, worse, insults the die-hard fan.
First example, the whole reason the game grid exists in Tron is as a result of the arcade video games in real life. The game grid is a virtualized, but identical active game as what the gamer sees on the arcade CRT. Just as the gamer plays the game in real life in an arcade, so the game progresses identically in the virtual world with 3D people. As a result, the game grid exists because of real life gamers. As the gamers play games, so too do the game grid games. In 2010, with games like World of Warcraft, Halo 3 and Assassin’s Creed, the writers could have had a field day with such an updated game grid. Yes, it might have ruined the aesthetic of the game world to see people dressed as Master Chief or Ezio, but it would have made Tron Legacy far more true to what’s going on today in gaming and, at the same time, make Tron Legacy a lot more fun to watch.
In Tron Legacy, this entire arcade to game grid aspect was either forgotten or intentionally dropped. The trouble is, this rule has already been established. So, the movie should have at least popped out to the real world to see gamers playing on mobile phones, computers and Xbox 360s to show that the virtual game grid is still tied to a real world game.
Second issue… although, I have to admit I didn’t initially think of this one and don’t necessarily agree with the thinking behind it. Some people have surmised that the Encom mainframe had been shut off the whole time between Tron and Tron Legacy and thus the virtual world wouldn’t have existed. The reality is, there was a computer in Flynn’s Arcade that appeared to contain the virtual world. So, while Encom’s computers may have been shut off, it appears Flynn had moved the entire world into his own personal server. So, while some people seem to find this part of the film a problem, I don’t. Flynn was the CEO of Encom and easily had enough money and power to build a hugely powerful computer system in the basement of Flynn’s arcade to manage this world. Sure, it might have been shut down for a time, but it certainly appears that Flynn had successfully transferred both the world and the computer into the arcade’s basement. He certainly had enough money to do this. It also appears that this computer is fully functional when Sam arrives at the arcade. So, I don’t see an issue with this part of the movie.
Third issue (see Encom below for more of this). When Flynn took control over Encom after Tron defeated the MCP and released the files incriminating Ed Dillinger, I full well expected Flynn to drive Encom to become a game development company. In fact, had this premise been realized, this would strengthen the idea behind the game grid and the existence of the virtual world. Instead, for whatever reasons, the writers decided to turn Encom into an operating system company like Microsoft. Now, that doesn’t mean that Encom doesn’t make video games, but it does mean that it is not Encom’s core business. If that whole board room meeting had been related to a new video game title, the whole Tron Legacy story would have been dramatically strengthened. Also, in Tron, Encom was an R&D group think tank. That is, they designed extremely cutting edge prototyping products, like the digitizing laser. The very same laser technology that digitizes and transports both Sam and Kevin into the virtual world. Again, the writers ignored this part of Encom’s business completely to the detriment of Tron Legacy. Considering that that digitizing laser was designed in 1982, I would have expected to see that digitizing system being sold on the market and people entering into their own virtual worlds (separate from Flynn’s world) by 2010. Yet another lost opportunity for the writers to create an interesting spin on what happened with Encom.
Fourth issue, after Sam ends up back in the real world at the end of Tron Legacy, he’s fully dressed in street clothes. As far as I know, he didn’t pack an extra set of clothes. So, the whole costuming process inside the virtual world (where his clothes were cut off and discarded) doesn’t make sense. Worse, Quorra, who isn’t even human, also pops out into the real world fully clothed in street clothes. Again, where did these clothes come from? I’m quite sure that Sam didn’t expect to be leaving Flynn’s with a female companion. So, I’m quite sure that an old dusty arcade wouldn’t have such clothes stashed away. So, again, this is a problem. Although, some people surmise that Quorra didn’t actually make it out. Instead, Sam is somehow having a delusion or an hallucination of Quorra and she’s not actually there. I don’t know that I agree with this. I have my suspicions as to what’s going on, but I’ll leave that for Tron 3 to fully explain.
[Updated 1/16/2011]
Fifth issue is that the original digitizing laser consumed the space of at least 2-3 building stories and at least one football field. This is a huge laser equipment laboratory. In Tron Legacy, this digitizing laser is now located in the basement of Flynn’s Arcade? Unfortunately, I just don’t think that this sized laser equipment fit within Flynn’s arcade basement space. So, the question is, where is the rest of the huge laser infrastructure? Just not thought out well enough. However, if one of Encom’s newest products had been a self-contained USB digitizing laser (for home use) and that had been what was being discussed in the board room, then having this laser in Flynn’s basement would have made a lot more sense. And, it would have made sense from a time perspective (all technology gets smaller). But no, this issue was not addressed at all.
Sixth issue.. this is not so much an issue, but an observation about how the laser works. According to the first film, the molecules are digitized and then suspended in the laser beam. When the molecule model is played back, the object reintegrates. With Quorra, it actually does make sense that she could end up in the real world. How? Well, there were two users in that world: Kevin and Sam. Two real world users with real world molecules. Kevin’s molecules would still have been suspended in the laser beam. When Kevin explodes after reintegrating with CLU, those molecules are still trapped in the laser beam. There’s nothing that says that those molecules have to play back out as Kevin. In fact, Quorra could use Kevin’s suspended molecules to play back into her form and become human. Of course, that would leave no more suspended molecules for anyone else to exit the grid. That also means that for someone to leave the grid with a real form, that a real person would have to enter the virtual world. I’m assuming that as long as that person lives, those molecules are tied to that individual. If the user dies in the grid, then an ISO or another program could exit into the real world using that dead user’s molecules. Another issue is that Kevin’s molecules would be suspended in Kevin’s form when he went in. It would take at least Yori to reconfigure the laser beam protocol to play out Kevin’s molecules into Quorra’s form. Yori was the program designed by Lora to manage parts of the digitizing system. Unfortunately, Yori isn’t in Tron Legacy. So, Quorra should have exited the virtual world in Kevin’s form and clothing.
Encom 2010
Other than the bored room meetings (pun intended), we really get very little of what Encom does in the present. With technologies like the digitizing system that are displayed in Tron, I would have expected Encom to be a lot farther along in technological breakthroughs than selling ‘the latest greatest operating system’ (ala Microsoft). Clearly, this part of the film is an afterthought. It wastes screen time without really telling us much about Encom. It is really used as a vehicle to set up Sam Flynn’s character. However, even that vehicle falls flat. Honestly, the film would have been served better by not knowing or seeing that specific Sam Flynn escapade.
Villainy
Unfortunately, CLU isn’t the appropriate ‘Program’ to be a villain. First, CLU is supposed to be Kevin Flynn’s helper program. So, it seems odd that he has gone rogue anyway. Secondarily, he isn’t really designed to be a villain. So, turning him into one just seems somehow wrong. Worse, he really isn’t a worthy adversary in the games. If he is as good as he is supposed to be (along with his black guard henchman), they both should be able to best Sam Flynn easily. So, this whole part of the film just doesn’t really work. But then, Quorra interrupts the games early. Kind of convenient, but at the same time gives us no payoff.
Adversary
Unlike Tron, which has the MCP, we have no such villain in Tron Legacy. CLU is it, but CLU just doesn’t come across as a proper villain. He seems more like a henchman for something bigger. Yet, that something bigger just never materializes. I actually expected to see Kevin Flynn emerge as the villain in this film. That would have been something. It would have really justified the ending of this film, showed us a completely different side to Kevin and, at the same time, have given us a huge payoff at the end. Alas, that doesn’t happen.
Action
The movie definitely starts the pacing off on the right foot and continues at a pretty solid pace until just after Sam Flynn exits the game grid. After that, the story comes to a crawl, as does the action. So, unfortunately too, this leads to a lack of payoff. It also doesn’t give Sam Flynn any screen time to kick butt and take names which this film so desperately needs. The wins we see with Sam are more out of luck and accidents than out of skill. Sam never does get enough screen time to show that he has any skills that are translated from the real world. Even his lightcycle skills don’t show through no matter how much Ducati footage is included in the opening. We need to see Sam win at something where the stakes are substantial. Something that at the end of it, we cheer for him and his win.
Visuals and Audio
What’s to say about the visuals other than, “stunning”. The music by Daft Punk and the audio effects are superb at doing what movies do best: set the mood and tone.
Payoff
In the end, there really is no payoff. In the first film, Tron’s first goal is to get a message to his user. So, Tron fights his way through to a communication tower. In Tron Legacy, Sam’s and Kevin’s only objective is to get to the exit portal (not unlike the communication tower in Tron). When they finally get to the portal, it seems trivially easy. There is really no opposition along the way. Just a quick trip with a Solar Sailer and they’re basically there. No grid bugs, no hidden Mickey Mouse heads, no Recognizer chases, etc. Just a trip without any incidents. In Tron, getting to the communication tower is only half the way through the story. Tron still must battle the MCP. At the end of Tron Legacy, there was no battle. In fact, there was nothing to battle at all, other than Kevin’s own guilt.
Unfortunately, the ending was really explained by Quorra about 20 minutes before the end. So, I won’t give it away, even though Quorra does. But at the portal, there is no real payoff with CLU or Tron. In fact, there is no real positive payoff at all. The ending leaves more questions than answers. So, unless Disney plans on Tron 3, we may never know what happens. This really feels like half of a film. It feels like we’re missing the other half of this film.
Overall
The story could have been far better. However, the producers rely on the visuals and the music (which, granted, both were very impressive) to carry this film. Again I say, the plot could have been far far better. We need at least one payoff and we don’t get it. I was even hoping for a little payoff with Sam on the game grid, but even that doesn’t happen. Sam, like Kevin in Tron, also needed to befriend someone in the virtual world besides Quorra. He needed another companion to travel around the virtal world and show him the ropes. For a split second, I thought it might actually happen when one of his lightcycle mates almost gets his bike wand back. That is until CLU runs him over and Quorra steps in.
Also, there are lots of subtle things that just don’t work or are missing. For example, as a user in Tron (first film), Kevin is able to absorb energy and use it in unusual ways. Clearly, he is still able to do that to create CLU in Tron Legacy. He also uses this power to steal a non-working Recognizer in Tron. However, the writers don’t explore this aspect with Sam at all. It could have helped out in several instances and would have made for a more cohesive film. There was also no comic relief element like the ‘bit’ in the Recognizer in Tron. Not that we need ‘bit’ in this film, but I think that humor could have helped in places.
Even though the story is a bit weak in the film, the story for Tron Evolution (video game) is much stronger than this film. In fact, it has many of the elements and payoffs that the movie lacks, including a proper villain with Abraxas. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s the best game of 2010. Far from it. However, the story is definitely better than the Tron Legacy story. If you’re really into Tron lore, you should check out Tron Evolution to fill in the story gaps that the movie doesn’t fully explain (i.e., the ISOs). I am disappointed that the film glosses over the ISO storyline and, instead, leaves it to the video game to fully explain these concepts.
I like the film, but the story really needed to be far stronger to match the visuals. Overall, I rate this film 7.5 out of 10 stars.
Thoughts: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
After getting back from seeing this film (twice), I felt it needed some discussion. So, let’s go. Note, this may contain Harry Potter spoilers.. so do not continue if you haven’t seen or read. You have been warned.
Conversion
The book to movie conversion was done reasonably well. This movie, like most that have preceded it, have missed the mark on certain aspects. What makes a Harry Potter book good is all of the nuances that J.K. Rowling includes. Most of these nuances and subtleties just can’t be placed into the films and Half-Blood Prince (HBP) is no exception. You would think that by 6 films into this series that the die-hard critics would understand and be used to all of the missing things. Unfortunately, they aren’t and they are still complaining about this same aspect. Critics, get over it. If you want an exact conversion, do it yourself or wait for a TV series version.
Yes, there were a lot of small subtleties that were left out of the movie. Some of them can’t easily be filmed and others just don’t work for the story. However, there were some things that were left out of the films that I felt were important to understand. Like, for example, the apparation classes in Order of the Phoenix (OOTP) that were completely left out of that film. By leaving it out of OOTP, it means that this can’t be easily taken advantage of in HBP. So, when Harry apparates with Dumbledore, it’s a surprise to everyone. Yet, we would have already seen this in OOTP if it had been in the film.
The one thing that is noticeably absent from HBP is the Dursley family. Gone is Little Whinging. Other than cursory mention of it and a background street scene, there is nothing in the film. Granted, I haven’t read the HBP novel since it came out, so I don’t even really recall how much of the Dursley’s were in the novel. Note that I haven’t re-read the novel because I wanted to go into the film without having recently read the book. I find that I enjoy the films more this way. I will now re-read the novel having seen the film.
Thoughts
While I generally liked HBP, I felt that the movie wasn’t as thrilling or as much a rollercoaster as OOTP. The Order of the Phoenix was one of my least favorite books in the series, yet it turned out to be one of my top favorites in HP films. Why? Because they were able to turn the lackluster pacing of the book into a spectacularly paced film. Half-Blood Prince’s pacing is a bit too even and, frankly, slow. There was not enough going on in most of the scenes, even when there was something going on. Instead, HBP relies more on cinematography to pull off the slow paced scenes. In most cases, it does so quite well. This film was beautifully filmed for the most part. For the same reason that many critics filmatically liked Prisoner of Azkaban, I’d say those cinematography critiques also fit with Half-Blood Prince.
Unfortunately, the pacing was far too lackluster throughout most of the film to give the necessary emotional power needed after Snape does his deed in the Astronomy tower. So, you really don’t feel emotional at a time when you need to. The whole thing feels very detached. I think part of the problem is that Dumbledore wasn’t given enough character build-up throughout the films to provide the necessary emotional attachment in this film. In other words, we really needed to see just how dear Dumbledore was to everyone to really get the sense of loss. Even still, this film should have been able to set it up enough to give that emotional punch at the end even when the previous films failed in character building. I also believe that this is part of the reason so many people weren’t completely convinced of the death at the end of the HBP novel.
Because of the lack of the emotional ending and the lack of the necessary rollercoaster ride needed for this film, it leaves the experience a bit on the flat side. There was plenty of teen angst moments throughout much of the film and that is probably the thing that carries this film. We definitely needed to see that part of the story to fully understand what is about to happen in films 7 and 8 (assuming book 7 is still planned as a two-part film), but we also needed the emotional impact to feel for the character we’ve just lost (and that didn’t happen).
Overall
I liked Harry Potter and Half-Blood Prince, but not as much as the Order of the Phoenix. OOTP is better primarily because the intensity level was much higher than HBP. There were a few tense moments in HBP, but nowhere close to OOTP or even Goblet of Fire. I also felt that for what’s about to happen in Deathly Hallows that this film needed to ratchet up the intensity and failed to do so. Whomever is directing Deathly Hallows will have to ratchet up the intensity in that film rather than relying on HBP to do it.
Random Thoughts - Randocity! 
leave a comment