Andrew had still hard 4 games from his xbox360 - he plays games on PC now - so I borrowed them to test out. The games were not on my radar but popular none the less. Here are my first impressions.
Dark Souls
Released in 2011. This game is has bad frame rate, I mean really bad frame rate. The worse I have seen on the xbox so far. The game is creepy and you die very easily. No difficulty mode so I guess everyone is playing at the same level. The controls were simple enough but are very left-brain right brain compounded by being sluggish. Maybe I should not have chosen a battleaxe person. Right at the start regular enemies were killing me within seconds. I beat the first boss after getting confused and lost walking around the dungeon Saved and quit. I am going to test out Dark souls 2 to see if it has better frame rate and start segment. I am glad I did not buy this game.
Lost Odyssey
Considering that it was released in 2008 this is probably the oldest game I have played so far. The game feels like final fantasy 8 from the ps1 with its "cartoony trying to be realistic" art style. I did not like FF8. The game is spread across 4 disks probably because of all the FMVs I dont think I will be playing this for long.
Dark Souls 2
DS2 released in 2014 is much better right off the bat. The framerate is better, the tutorial is better. The controls are the same but they feel better. I have yet to see the first big boss but the game is better overall. I installed it right away. I definitely would recommend this over the first game simply based on the first 30 minutes of game play. I played a bit more so that I could find the first boss and 3 hours later and I say that this game is unforgiving - lovely but terribly unforgiving. You will walk into a room and get ambushed by arrows or go the wrong way and fall to your death. I probably died 5o times trying to kill this boss. Its annoying and fun. In a self torture kinda way.
Reckoning
Currently on sale for 2$ online so this should be fun.
Conclusion
You will be surprised how many people have games gathering dust in their homes.
It is a new year. New in the sense that the numbers have changed but we and I are still moving ever forward. Alive, maybe not totally well, but we can still shift the particles so as to put pen to paper, order to the chaos. Or better yet create sound using the air in our lungs. I take a sip of water from the bottle on my desk and I appreciate its taste. I have probably done this a million times or approximately that amount. It doesn't matter. I must do it again.
We still have alot to do. Miracles to witness. Struggles to overcome. The question of whether any of it matters is still up in the air. In any case we must burn. We must do our projects. We must continue. We not merely to survive but to contribute to the sum of the things we accrue to give away. Eventually you will reach a point of completion or some kinda resolution.
I see some people trying to leave social media. On twitter people write "good bye" posts heading to bluesky - a website that looks and works exactly like twitter. Then return 2 months later saying that they are only doing it to keep the account alive, wondering why people are still tweeting. We welcome them back in solidarity, our fallen brother. We never left, just passing through, checking the numbers. But you feel a disdain, a subtle loathing, the dreck through the computer screen. It is as if they took the wrong bus up the road.
I did play the game for 2 hours until my xbox 360E turned itself off (I think I have a bad power supply) but I did enjoy the gameplay. I played on easy following my pre-established play strategy. The shooting felt good but the aim speed was very quick which luckily is adjustable in the settings. The mega textures are definitely stylized-impressive though they are probably suited for rocks more than anything else. As I went further into the game they do mix up the environments and the game does come into its own.
The game is a classic fetch quest looter shooter. The enemies are not bullet sponges at least while I played it on easy. They react when shot and hop around the level effortlessly. I installed disc one and will play it some more to see if the environment changes at all (which it does). The story seems very thin so I don't expect this to be a long game. It's one of those games where you can save anywhere and you should because you never know when an enemy will run up on you and hack you to death.
I enjoyed the game even more when I got the dune buggy allowing me to drive around and blow up other cars in classic Mad Max style. It turns into a mini racing game of sorts, really loose and chaotic but fun nonetheless. It is around this time I realized that the Xbox360 does not save the current time in its bios. if you unplug it time resets to 2005 - tsk tsk tsk.
Hardware aside and the fact that the save games are stored in newest first order causing the wrong save to load from the continue screen (based on how long to played in the last sitting) when I click continue. I do enjoy the game and its world. Five hours into the game I am wondering if I should put it down or continue to the estimated 11 hour end point.
Playing the game on easy was definitely a good move as I approached the harder enemies towards the end of the game. They get really tough as the game progresses. I am still on disc one, it will be interesting to see how the disc 2 "cut over" happens. Every time I pick up the game I make progress and I see something new - which is how games should be.
I am itching to go back to Hitman:AB but don't want to lose the muscle memory I built up for the controls in this game.
Conclusion
Finally finished Rage after 17 hours. The game ended a bit abruptly but its was good fun, simple clean shooter without adding too much on the tail end to pad out the length. 8 out of 10. Lovely graphics, simple game. AB shooter, play it on easy but you can change the difficulty at any time. I did not complete everything or use every gun but the game does not really force you to do everything which is good. Sound scape is nice as well. Would recommend to shooter fans. Better than halo 4.
