2015. Sze. 13.

As it is appropriate, I had read over what I wrote about The Witcher 2 (TW2). To sum it up: In spite of being short and bugged, it renewed the CRPG genre. The graphics was so wonderful, and the story was so immersive that even the pipe-like paths in the wild areas were not irritating. And there was a really branching story that made replay not just possible but almost mandatory. So, it is clear why that game was so popular. And it is totally clear, why such a strong sequel arose overly high expectations for the third installment. You know, it really fills the bill, but exactly that caused certain flaws in it. My first impression about The Witcher 3 (TW3) was that it is like a free roam version of the second installment, but bigger and more beautiful. The freedom factor is enormous; with the exception of a few story-related places you can go anywhere, talk to anyone, and get almost anything independently of character levels. You get all these on such big landscapes that give you limits only if you are a fanatic explorer like me, and only after hours of sailing, running, riding on various areas like seas, prairies, forests and hillsides. The terrain is really diverse and picturesque. Maybe this is the reason why the story is not perceptively branching as in TW2. It simply didn’t incited a replay, and I missed this kind of motivating force. It is true that the consequences of your decisions may become evident after a time, and this helps to make the setting more life-like, but I simply did not regret any one of my decisions, so I was not motivated to play the game again from the first steps. In general, the witchers’ famous neutrality and Geralt’s principles are close to me, so I didn’t kill sensible creatures, and I did not care if the fanatic population of a whole village was killed by their own idols. I tried to persuade them to leave the Ladies of the Woods (three especially ugly and ruthless witches), but they didn’t do it, so they caused their own doom. This was typical in every quest:...

2015. aug. 15.

There are two types of people: One likes the point’n’click genre, the other does not. There are two types of people: One knows the work of Tim Schafer, the other does not. And there are two types of people: One already discovered the Broken Age, the other did not. Because, we shan’t expect everyone to find logic puzzles entertaining. If you do, you certainly played some “clicking adventure” games, namely some point’n’clicks, and if you got into the habit of it, you might meet the Monkey Island series or the Grim Fandango. I admit—ash on my head, my name should be cursed—I missed this latter one yet. But I know the game popped out of Tim Schafer’s shaggy head, so I will buy it without further questions. Of course, even if you are not about clicking adventures, you can still know Tim. Besides the abovementioned games there are others tagged with his name, for example the Psychonauts, the Brütal Legend (I wrote about this earlier), the somehow unique Costume Quest, and the Stacking. What’s more, his name was enough to bring money to the crowdfounded Broken Age. Besides all these I could theorize a lot about the common beginning of fantasy and sci-fi genres, named speculative fiction (SF), and about them melting together again in our modern era. But, I more like to write a little about the game itself. The Broken Age is the newest SF point’n’click adventure game from Tim Schafer. And now you should read it again and feel how much this short sentence means. It seems almost natural the developers could scrape the money up on Kickstarter. And it is totally clean-cut why they advertised the game with this. Of course it piqued my attention. The story is kind of a modern tale with two locations and main heroes in the same time. Vella was born and raised in a little village, where young girls are sacrificed for the monster of the ocean on every 14 years, according to the tradition. At the beginning, Vella is among the sacrificial victims, but as a likely main heroine she does not resign herself to the inevitable, and does what she can to...

2015. Júl. 2.

I never was a big fan of XCOM. I haven’t got the faintest idea why, because basically I like all the SF sub-genres, the tactics and the turn-based combat. The XCOM-series simply did not catch me, even if I know it got famous by its own rights. But, when some years ago news and first trailers got published about a TPS-TBT XCOM, I felt I wouldn’t be disinterested. And I was not. In this form XCOM perfectly fits for me. The Bureau: XCOM Declassified (in short: The Bureau) finely gives you one of my favorite settings; the atom-scared years of cold war, when Russians are blamed for every attack on the USA, even if it is squarely alien by origin. The setting of The Bureau is a post-apocalyptic 60s, but there are no wastelands yet, because you can watch the process of destruction. Or not the process, rather the destruction itself, caused by an abruptly attacking extraterrestrial army. In this environment you play the great adventure of the uncharacteristically named veteran special agent of the CIA, William Carter. By controlling him you exterminate the aliens, collect their technology, give commands to the companions, and discover the secret behind the power leading the extraterrestrials. Okay, summarized this way The Bureau seems not a big deal, but it is a fine tactical shooter, and has an overwhelming atmosphere, in spite of the story being strongly average. Some says the AI of the teammates is very weak, but it seemed to me that I saw people disoriented by the chaos of the battle, doing the best they can in this state. This is the point of leading a team: The boss (namely YOU, the player) can reason the battlefield, estimate the situation, and find solutions by active, proactive or defensive reactions. The others are doing as ordered, or the team falls apart. The definition of “tactical game” includes the fact that your companions are dead without your commands. If they would be independent, there would be no need for tactics, because the AI would solve the situations without you. Maybe I am too protective of this game, even if I must admit that its story is not...

2015. máj. 12.

If George Orwell did not write the 1984, then a lot of other artworks would not exist today. Bradbury: Fahrenheit; Lem: Eden; Terry Gilliam: Brazil; David Bowie; Eurythmics – and the list is not exhaustive. Oh, and of course, there is the video game titled Remember Me. Jean-Maxime Moris, creative director of the game said in an interview that originally they wanted to work on the topic of global warming with a story placed in a seaside city, but in the end (he did not say this, but he should) they renewed the cyberpunk genre. Cyberpunk was based on the technological development seen from the 1980s, and Dontnod Entertainment made it fitting for the 2010s. The style elements are very clean-cut. Neo-Paris could be Night City with its giant holo-ads, surveillance camera drones, cyberpolice and vertically differentiated social classes. This is the city you get to know in a linear story, and I must admit it enthralled me. I was fascinated not just by the orgy of visuals and the perfectly built cyberpunk environment, but everything else that strengthens these. You continuously get information about this brand new world in which guns are banned, mammoth corporations and “freely” elected dictators rule, the middle class vanished, and memories worth more than gold. The main elements of every action-adventure game are atmosphere, game mechanism and combat. I would not write more about the world setting, because I would only go into raptures over it, because the atmosphere, let’s say, carries the whole game on its back. Of course, the visuals are greatly supported by the eerie music of Olivier Deliviére, and I felt that every design element is on its proper place. Bad criticism the game received was mostly about the mechanism. It got lots of cold; in a linear story you travel between battle scenes by unmissable platform jumps, and combat almost always means fighting against more than one enemies. But I ask: Really? Are these the biggest problems? How much games do have the same mechanism? OK, you need no dexterity for climbing walls, and that means you get help in continuing the story. Platforming is simply not important here; in my opinion, it...

2015. ápr. 8.

Ha nem lett volna George Orwell és az 1984, akkor sok másik műalkotás sem születhetett volna meg. Bradbury: Fahrenheit; Lem: Éden; Terry Gilliam: Brazil; David Bowie; Eurythmics – a teljesség igénye nélkül. Ja, és persze ott van még a Remember Me videojáték. Jean-Maxime Moris, a játék kreatív igazgatója elmondta egy interjúban, hogy eredetileg a globális felmelegedés témájával akartak foglalkozni egy tengerparti városban, de végül inkább (nem így fogalmazott, de akár ki is mondhatta volna) megújították a cyberpunk műfajt. Az 1980-as évek technológiai alapjaira született cyberpunkot nagyjából ráigazították a 2010-es viszonyokra. A stílusjegyek nagyon határozottak. Neo-Párizs akár Night City is lehetne az óriási holoreklámokkal, a térfigyelő drón kamerákkal, a kiber-rendfenntartókkal, és a vertikálisan megkülönböztethető társadalmi osztályokkal. Ezt a várost járhatjuk be egy meglehetősen lineáris történeten belül, és be kell valljam, hogy lenyűgözött. Nem csak a látványorgia, a tökéletesen felépített cyberpunk környezet, de minden más is, ami ezt erősíti. Folyamatosan kapod az információkat erről a szép, új világról, amelyben betiltották a lőfegyvereket, mamutcégek és „szabadon” választott diktátorok uralkodnak, a középosztály eltűnt, és az emlékek többet érnek az aranynál. Minden akció-kalandjáték három legfőbb eleme a hangulat, a játékmenet és a harc. A világképről nem szeretnék többet írni a fentieknél, úgyis csak áradozni tudok róla, mondhatni a hangulat erőfeszítés nélkül elviszi a hátán az egész játékot. Természetesen, a látványt gyönyörűen alátámasztja Olivier Deliviére hátborzongató zenéje, és egyetlen apró dizájnelemet sem éreztem oda nem illőnek. A legtöbb kritikát a játékmenet kapta. Elmondtak róla minden rosszat; a lineáris történet során elronthatatlan platformugrásokkal közlekedsz a harcterek között, ahol mindig többes számban jönnek az ellenfelek. Tényleg ez a baj? Hány ilyen játék van? Az, hogy nem kell nagy ügyesség a falmászáshoz, csak segít továbbhaladni a történetben. Nem fontos játékelem; számomra inkább az az idegesítő, amikor egy-egy nehéz ugrálós résszel megakasztanak a folyamatosságban, értelmetlenül növelik a játékidőt, és úgy érzem, hogy órák alatt alig haladtam egy kicsit a történetben. De mutatok egy másik nézőpontot: nem szokás kritizálni az akciójátékokban felbukkanó RPG-elemeket, sőt, ezek miatt szoktak szerepjátékoknak nevezni egyébként teljesen más műfajú játékokat (például az inkább taktikai kalandjáték Mass Effect 2-t, vagy a hack’n’slash Diablót). Ha ez teljesen elfogadott, akkor miért baj, ha egy történet- és világkép-központú kalandjátékban felbukkan néhány platformer elem? Nem várom...

2015. ápr. 5.

It may seem a bit irregular to write about a game pack for consoles on an overly PC-centered site, but there are ports and adaptations, so they are not too far from each other. I started as a PC-gamer,an I still avow myself one, but I never was stuffy enough to hate something just because… Well, you know your reasons. (Haters gonna hate anyway — Garcius) Even in my ancient PC-days certain console games piqued my interest, although I could only dream about them. Then came an age of ports (Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy 7-8), as well as the age of emulators. I would say there is no console emulator on PC I did not try. I grew up on classic PC games, but I was always seeking the extraordinary, and I was not interested only in PC games but Video Games in general, so I evidently got into the world of consoles too. To sum it up, I know almost everything from the ancients like C64, Amiga and Atari, through NES and N64 to PS2, Xbox360, PSP, Gameboy, DS, etc. Well, consoles was always ruled mostly by the Japanese game market with two main streams. There are the brain damaged stuffs made only for Japanese people, and it is not a shame that they rarely appear elsewhere than East. And there are the big shots made for a western audience, for example the rightly appreciated Metal Gear (Solid) series. When I tried Metal Gear Solid on PC (I played it through in 3 sessions), I decided I will never write console games off. Look, MGS1 was a console game, and it was ported to PC only because of its great success. This article gives an overview of a game pack that can force whole planetary systems to their knees. The Metal Gear Solid HD Collection contains three full game giants with more than 100 hours of gameplay in each of them. They are excessively meaty, and till now, they were not available for such console big boys as Xbox360 and PS3. But how this HD-thing made the grade? There were really screwed up setups like the Silent Hill...

2015. feb. 20.

Kissé rendhagyónak tűnhet, hogy egy konzolos játékcsomagról írunk egy javarészt PC-s oldalon, de a két platformtípus közötti átiratok és portok is részét képezik a PC-s játékvilágnak. Én is PC-s játékosként kezdtem, és ma is annak vallom magam, de sohasem voltam olyan begyöpösödött és morcos, hogy csak azért utáljak valamit, mert… legyen bármi oka. (És a GD maximálisan támogat ebben — Garcius) Már ős PC-s koromban is érdekeltek bizonyos konzolos játékok, bár egy ideig csak álmodoztam róluk. Végül csak eljött a portok kora (Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy 7-8), illetve az emulátorok kora is. Szerintem nem létezik olyan konzol-emulátor, amit nem próbáltam ki. Klasszikus PC-s játékokon nőttem fel, de mivel abban is mindig a különlegességet kerestem, illetve mert nem a PC-s játékok érdekeltek, hanem maga a Videojáték, törvényszerűen megismertem a konzolok világát is. Mindent összevetve, majdnem mindent ismerek, kezdve a C64, az Amiga és az Atari ősöktől a NES-en és az N64-en keresztül egészen a PS2-ig, az Xbox360-og, a PSP-ig, Gameboyig, és a DS-ig… A konzolokat mindig is jobbára a Japán piac, a japán játékok uralták, ebből is két fő csapásirányt lehetett (és lehet máig is) megkülönböztetni. Vannak a csak japánoknak készült, agybeteg cuccok, amelyek csak ritkán jutnak el nyugatra, és az alapból nyugatra szánt nagyágyúk, amilyen az azóta minden részével újra és újra méltán világhírűvé váló sorozat, a Metal Gear (Solid)! A Metal Gear Solid volt az a játék, amit (3 ülésből végig vittem) PC-n kipróbálva eldöntöttem, hogy sohasem fogom leírni a konzolos játékokat. Hisz az MGS1 is az volt, és csak az óriási sikerre való tekintettel portolták PC-re. A cikk egy olyan csomagot vesz górcső alá, amellyel bolygórendszereket lehetne térdre kényszeríteni. A Metal Gear Solid HD Collection 3 teljes értékű játékóriást tartalmaz, három egyenként akár 100 órás játékidőt is adó, rendkívül tartalmas játékot, amelyek eleddig egyáltalán nem voltak elérhetőek a nagyfiúsabb konzolokra, azaz xbox360-ra és ps3-ra. Na, de sikerült-e ez a HD-dolog? Merthogy bizony szépen el lehet baszni, gondoljunk csak a Silent Hill HD kollekcióra, ami esetlenségével és rondaságával nem csak kiásta a széria két klasszikus részének sírját, de az újraszinkronizálással meg rá is köpött egy jó nagyot. Szóval, érdemes szkeptikusan állni általában az egész remake-reboot forradalomhoz, legyen szó...

2014. nov. 19.

Much water was flowing down on any river of Lordan or even on a gutter of glorious Anor Londo, and this time was filled with as much blood, defeat, victory and experience. And with four playthroughs, which, in the case of Dark Souls, is a really big thing. Chiefly, because one has less and less time for games, especially when they require such deep immersion as Dark Souls. The first try was hard, yes? Did you do it? Did you sweat through the hardest game of all time? (In fact, it is the hardest of the new generations.) Furthermore, do you dare to say it wasn’t so hard? Well, adventurer, there is a New Game+ option for you, in which you can restart the whole game with your achieved levels, acquired skills and items. You are the hero, you are strong, brave and hard to defeat, so let’s go! Then think it over again after the seventh defeat from one of the first opponents in a corner of the first dirty dungeon. Do you really need this? Is this what you wanted? But really, how could a lvl100 hero bleed out in a place where you were the merry butcher earlier? If the answer is yes, then you started Dark Souls for real. Take the whole first playthrough as a tutorial, training, or as an easy walk in the park, because the “Prepare to die” motto just got its meaning. I will never forget the feeling when a stone-hard critter chased me over three areas (when you normally play, it takes several hours to get through an area), it came after me through stairs and ladders, and nothing could stop it. Finally, when I thought I shook my pursuer off, it finished me with one blow from behind. Hello, Dark Souls, hello Death! Well, the point is taken. Dark Souls is hard for the first time, makes you sweat mercilessly. But for the second time, moreover, the third and (God saves us) the fourth time it becames so hard that may be called inhuman. But I wanted this, really, and I do not want to polish myself. I sought this: a meaty, bloody, raw...