I have been playing video games almost as long as I can remember. I know we had an Intellivision growing up, but a lot of those games were just weird. Also, a high percentage of the time I had no idea what I was doing, which made things more confusing. I remember there was this submarine game where you had to blow up other boats or something, but the controls were so ridiculous that it mostly came down to luck. Maybe that's cause I was like 4 years old.
Things really took off when I had my first experience with the Nintendo Entertainment System. I remember seeing Punch-Out!! at my friend Mike's house, and it was on. We were a Nintendo house (remember those days of Nintendo vs Sega?) up until we turned into a multi-console family. NES, SNES, Gameboy, N64, Playstation, Gamecube, PS2, Wii, DS, PS3. Never an Xbox house. And still not to this day. Still, I'd consider myself something of an experienced gamer.
And that brings us to today's topic. Why is there so much annoying crap, even in good games? It's like they are trying to stop me from playing. I am on something of a run right now, completing games left and right. And since I only play good games (now anyways; I can't speak for things like Milon's Secret Castle or other youthful transgressions), anything I mention here can be considered a major flaw.
Fallout 3 - This game was ridiculous! I logged something like 70 hours, and I still didn't do everything that was available. Combined with the fact that I got the game for like $26, that is some serious bang for your buck. (Bang For Your Buck sounds like deer porn.) Great game.
Major annoying flaw? This game has to be the most glitch-filled piece of programming that I've ever encountered, short of maybe any version of Windows. People in missions randomly disappear, items will just be floating randomly in the air, quests will just halt in the middle because some line of code doesn't execute properly. . . . It's absurd! Just one example: I rescued some idiots who had gotten caught by Super Mutants (don't worry, they are really just regular mutants) and they wanted me to teach them how to protect their town from future attacks. Ok, I'm a nice guy, so why not. I go back to their loser village and find a couple of defense robots in the trash pile. Yahtzee. I repair the robots and everything's good right? Give me some money for helping you. Wrong. The game decides that, even though the robots are walking around patrolling the town, I did not, in fact, repair them so the quest never ends. Cut to a couple days later, the town is empty except for the robots. Where the hell did everyone go?!? What a load of crap.
GTA IV - Mostly the expansion pack that I was playing recently, as the original game has long since been completed. However, there are some issues that are in both. Everyone knows the GTA franchise at this point, and probably is in either the "love it" or "hate it" camp. I like the games, although I frequently ignore the story in favor of jacking some sort of large vehicle (SWAT truck, armored car, tractor trailer, etc) and going happy-go-jacky like a donkey eatin' a waffle in a crowded area. Or finding a nice roof spot to snipe some fools until the cops show up and make me take out their helicopters via the rocket launcher. I did finish the main story as well as the "The Ballad of Gay Tony" expansion pack, so I'm pretty much done with this game.
Annoying crap in this game? Cars flip a lot. I am pretty sure that if you hit a cardboard box, your car is not going to flip over. It's not a big deal when I'm just goofing around, but when that baloney happens during a mission, it's enough to fling a controller somewhere. It's also really hard to target someone if they're nearby. I can pick someone off with an assault rifle from 30 meters while they are hiding behind a dumpster, but if they get within 3 feet of me, I'm toast. That seems pretty foolish to me.
Also, why is it so hard to fly the helicopters in this game? It's like trying to shave while wearing snow gloves and blindfolded while you're drunk. Actually, that might be easier than flying a helicopter here. As soon as you know there's a helicopter mission, get ready for some frustration. Or queue up some luck.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 - I like Mario games. For instance, I may enjoy Mario 2 an unhealthy amount. And I used to play Mario 3 when I was home sick with the goal of beating the game with 99 lives left. Usually I only ended up in the 70s though. And Super Mario World? That's a top 3 SNES game if I've ever seen one. I also enjoyed the first Super Mario Galaxy, so there were high expectations for this one.
Overall? It's really good. Good enough for me to try to get the 120 hidden green stars after I earned the first 120. And that's saying something, since I didn't bother finding the second set in the first game. That's because in the first game, the second group of stars were exactly the same as the first, you just got them as Luigi instead. Luigi is great in Mario 2. In these? Eff him. In the second Galaxy game, the second set of stars are hidden in the original levels, but they're in tricky spots or out of the way so you need some skill to get them. That's a pretty cool idea.
Not so cool is the control system. Everyone is so in love with this game, so I would think that someone else would have had these issues. I understand that there are difficulties with implementing control in 3-D. I also understand that part of the challenge of the green stars is making them difficult to acquire. I do not understand that once I've found the star, why the game feels it's necessary to make things extra difficult with bullshit like not letting me move the camera or making it impossible for to gauge Mario's distance from the star or height above/below it. That's just mean.
Metal Gear Solid 4 - I'm risking a verbal assault with this one, assuming Matt reads this. I loved Metal Gear Solid. I liked Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. I played Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. So it's not like I'm new to the series. Also, I am not completely finished with the 4th installment, so maybe I will change my views later. I doubt it though.
This game has way too many cutscenes. Long ones. Like, I can make and eat a sandwich and clean up during a cutscene. And they are frequent. This may be because there have been a whole bunch of loose strings from the first three games and they need to clean up, but at some point it's just too much. Half of my playtime is probably occupied by watching these things. It's like half game, half movie. Give me a break.
Also, I don't like how slow the targeting is. If a real soldier moved this slow, he'd be super dead. Like 4 times. I can move faster, and I don't have any kind of training whatsoever.
There will probably be a more detailed review of Super Mario Galaxy 2 once I've gotten the rest of the green stars. Or not. I like promising things more than I like fulfilling those promises.
-Jon
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