Flames of Vengeance
Hamburg/Germany, March 04th, 2010 – Aleroth, once a war-torn city, now holds the next challenges for computer role playing gamers. Rivellon, the world of Divinity II: Ego Draconis, is still not safe. In Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance, the game’s official add on, players must face the evil once more.
Soon they’ll recognize that many of the characters they met in the main game aren’t who they pretended to be. Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance continues where Divinity II: Ego Draconis left off. "In Flames of Vengeance, the player picks up the story of the Dragon knight and guides him to his ultimate destiny. Along the way several accounts are settled, and the answers to many questions in the Divinity universe revealed. We've also taken the opportunity to give the engine a solid overhaul, improving performance and graphics quality along the way", Swen Vincke, Creative Director and CEO of the development team Larian Studios, explains.
Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance, the official add on to Divinity II: Draconis, offers more than 30 questsand about 15 hours of gameplay.
Coming August 2010. Link to Announcement
LSN: (major spoilers for Divinity II)
Can I get a 'thank gawd?' The ending to Divinity II was pitiful - the entire game felt like 1/3 of an awesome game.
An example of this: When you become a Dragon Knight, your previous mentor, a Dragon Slayer, gives you a sword, tells you to kill yourself, and then orders three veteran Slayers to kill you if you can't do this. She leaves, supposedly because watching her previous protégée die is too hard for her. Instead, you kill the three Slayers. Later, she pops up again, furious at your betrayal and blaming her own weakness for the death of her men. You’re in a major city though and the Captain of the garrison orders her sent to a cell. She leaves, but vows she’ll find you again to avenge her fallen comrades.
Compelling stuff… and we never see her again. Divinity II is fun, but it has about a half-dozen plotlines that abruptly end with no closure.
Which leads to a question: Shouldn't this have been in the game to begin with?
I often think that I'm too easy with game companies. The ending to Divinity II made me unhappy. It's remarkable similar to the endings of the first two games in that 1) your hero's efforts are for naught, and 2) there's obviously more to the story. Moreover, the ending was abrupt. In the first two games, I felt like I’d gotten an entire story, abet one that didn’t end as I’d like.
As soon as I saw the ending to Divinity II, I knew that the next game would be a continuation, not a new story. I sat there wondering if the developer’s funding had just run out – and I still suspect that’s exactly what happened.
So, how do I feel about Flames of Vengeance? I want it. I want the closure the first game didn’t give me, but should have. This makes me an idiot. I should in no way, shape, or form encourage developers to rush a game out the door and then finish the story in an expansion. At the same time, I understand. Making a game is not cheap; it’s very expensive and it takes time. I would rather a developer release half a story with the time and money they have, than go into debt and possibly lose their business.
What *actually* bothers me the most about this is that one of the best elements of the game is now gone. I’m speaking about the Dragon Knight Talana who jumps into the PC’s head at the beginning of the game. She was a helpful companion who I never had to check the inventory of, control in combat, or give gifts to in order to increase her loyalty rating. I consider Talana up there with GLADoS in the acerbic running commentary department, but now she’s gone.
I might as well download the 1.03 Patch and play through with another character. I did a two-handed warrior my first play-though and want to explore the magic spells.
Oh, I could even take screen shots and do a review this time if I were so inclined.
From that other blog: A positive review of World War Z.
Hamburg/Germany, March 04th, 2010 – Aleroth, once a war-torn city, now holds the next challenges for computer role playing gamers. Rivellon, the world of Divinity II: Ego Draconis, is still not safe. In Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance, the game’s official add on, players must face the evil once more.
Soon they’ll recognize that many of the characters they met in the main game aren’t who they pretended to be. Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance continues where Divinity II: Ego Draconis left off. "In Flames of Vengeance, the player picks up the story of the Dragon knight and guides him to his ultimate destiny. Along the way several accounts are settled, and the answers to many questions in the Divinity universe revealed. We've also taken the opportunity to give the engine a solid overhaul, improving performance and graphics quality along the way", Swen Vincke, Creative Director and CEO of the development team Larian Studios, explains.
Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance, the official add on to Divinity II: Draconis, offers more than 30 questsand about 15 hours of gameplay.
Coming August 2010. Link to Announcement
LSN: (major spoilers for Divinity II)
Can I get a 'thank gawd?' The ending to Divinity II was pitiful - the entire game felt like 1/3 of an awesome game.
An example of this: When you become a Dragon Knight, your previous mentor, a Dragon Slayer, gives you a sword, tells you to kill yourself, and then orders three veteran Slayers to kill you if you can't do this. She leaves, supposedly because watching her previous protégée die is too hard for her. Instead, you kill the three Slayers. Later, she pops up again, furious at your betrayal and blaming her own weakness for the death of her men. You’re in a major city though and the Captain of the garrison orders her sent to a cell. She leaves, but vows she’ll find you again to avenge her fallen comrades.
Compelling stuff… and we never see her again. Divinity II is fun, but it has about a half-dozen plotlines that abruptly end with no closure.
Which leads to a question: Shouldn't this have been in the game to begin with?
I often think that I'm too easy with game companies. The ending to Divinity II made me unhappy. It's remarkable similar to the endings of the first two games in that 1) your hero's efforts are for naught, and 2) there's obviously more to the story. Moreover, the ending was abrupt. In the first two games, I felt like I’d gotten an entire story, abet one that didn’t end as I’d like.
As soon as I saw the ending to Divinity II, I knew that the next game would be a continuation, not a new story. I sat there wondering if the developer’s funding had just run out – and I still suspect that’s exactly what happened.
So, how do I feel about Flames of Vengeance? I want it. I want the closure the first game didn’t give me, but should have. This makes me an idiot. I should in no way, shape, or form encourage developers to rush a game out the door and then finish the story in an expansion. At the same time, I understand. Making a game is not cheap; it’s very expensive and it takes time. I would rather a developer release half a story with the time and money they have, than go into debt and possibly lose their business.
What *actually* bothers me the most about this is that one of the best elements of the game is now gone. I’m speaking about the Dragon Knight Talana who jumps into the PC’s head at the beginning of the game. She was a helpful companion who I never had to check the inventory of, control in combat, or give gifts to in order to increase her loyalty rating. I consider Talana up there with GLADoS in the acerbic running commentary department, but now she’s gone.
I might as well download the 1.03 Patch and play through with another character. I did a two-handed warrior my first play-though and want to explore the magic spells.
Oh, I could even take screen shots and do a review this time if I were so inclined.
From that other blog: A positive review of World War Z.
It’s the snowy season, which means LSN spends most of her time huddled under snowy tarps in the forest or running across ice covered lakes. It’s also the New Year despite the fact that it’s the DEAD OF WINTER, and it doesn’t feel as though anything new has begun at all. This is because about two-thousand years ago, the Roman consul assumed their position in January, then the eleventh month. The Romans originally celebrated New Year in the spring and that makes far more sense to me, but I’m not a Roman consul so my opinion on the matter is meaningless.
The best part about the New Year is sitting down and budgeting my expenses for the coming year. When it comes to video games, I like to think of this as listing all the cool stuff I look forward to getting this year! (It doesn’t work so good for utility, rent, and car insurance. )
My list so far looks like this:
January –
Mass Effect 2
Divinity 2: Ego Draconis
February –
BioShock 2
Splinter Cell: Conviction
March –
Assassin’s Creed 2
May –
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Spring –
Alpha Protocol
Unknown –
Arcania: A Gothic Tale
Fallout: New Vegas
Star Craft II: Wings of Liberty
Star Wars: The Old Republic
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
Mass Effect 2 is coming about twenty days! I just finished a paragon FemShep run to import into the game. I don’t know if I should do another run and try to get to level 60, or if I should dust off Splinter Cell: Double Agent and finish it.
What cool games are you looking forward to playing this year?
The best part about the New Year is sitting down and budgeting my expenses for the coming year. When it comes to video games, I like to think of this as listing all the cool stuff I look forward to getting this year! (It doesn’t work so good for utility, rent, and car insurance. )
My list so far looks like this:
January –
Mass Effect 2
Divinity 2: Ego Draconis
February –
BioShock 2
Splinter Cell: Conviction
March –
Assassin’s Creed 2
May –
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Spring –
Alpha Protocol
Unknown –
Arcania: A Gothic Tale
Fallout: New Vegas
Star Craft II: Wings of Liberty
Star Wars: The Old Republic
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
Mass Effect 2 is coming about twenty days! I just finished a paragon FemShep run to import into the game. I don’t know if I should do another run and try to get to level 60, or if I should dust off Splinter Cell: Double Agent and finish it.
What cool games are you looking forward to playing this year?
... ain't bad.
From a great tribute to E. Gary Gygax.
"Back before fangirls existed anywhere but our imagination"
Eh, I know fangirls in their early fifties who played the blue box dude.
From a great tribute to E. Gary Gygax.
"Back before fangirls existed anywhere but our imagination"
Eh, I know fangirls in their early fifties who played the blue box dude.
A new study led by Dmitri Williams, a professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication, revealed that in some cases every male geek gamer's fantasy may be true -- some girls really are closet gaming freaks.
The study, published in the Journal of Communication, and available here (PDF), examined the gaming habits of females and males playing the popular Massively Multiplayer Online RPG (MMORPG) EverQuest II.
The sample group was quite large, consisting of responses from 7,000 logged in players. There were many surprises in the results. First, the gaming wasn't dominated by kids -- in fact the average age was 31. More interestingly still, older gamers tended to spend more hours on the game per week.
And female gamers spent, on average, far more hours than their male counterparts. Top female players logged 57 hours a week, while top male players only logged 51 hours a week. And on average, girls logged 29 hours a week versus 25 hours for males.
Age isn't the only thing women tend to lie about, according to the survey. More women than men responded that they lied to their friends and loved ones about how much time they played.
Other dark elf slayers/professors and grad students that participated in the study included Mia Consalvo, Scott Caplan, and Nick Yee.
Original article
LSN: Not that anyone gives a damn about Everquest. But yah! Women can waste more time than men on the monotonous grinding that is MMORPGs.
Squeenix CEO Calls Out Japanese Gamers on Western Bias
The relationship of Japan and the West when it comes to video games is a strange one, and Square-Enix CEO Yoichi Wada has spoken at length on the subject more than once. Wada clearly admires the Western game industry, mentioning that he wants to see his native Japan follow suit with more games made for adults, and - like many other Japanese developers - has obviously been mulling over how Japanese game makers can market their titles to Western gamers more successfully instead of dealing with a relatively small, insulated market.
But for the moment, Wada isn't concerned with how to market his company's games in the West, but with the exact opposite: In an interview with Japanese TV posted to YouTube, Wada expressed frustration with Japanese gamers' resistance to Western titles, in part due to the country's collective "meh" to Modern Warfare 2, which Activision handed off to Square-Enix to publish in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Specifically, Wada has an issue with the Japanese term youge- (洋ゲー), the word used to refer to titles made in the West as opposed to Japanese-made games, or geimu (ゲーム - yeah, it's just the word "game"). By differentiating between the two, Japanese gamers are essentially saying that Western games aren't actually games, and the Square-Enix boss doesn't like it.
"Even now, there have been people in Japan using the label youge- (Western games) with a terribly discriminatory meaning," said Wada. "I'd like them to try it once. If they play it once, they'd realize how incorrect that label is."
There's no doubt that Wada has a bit of a personal investment in the matter considering that strong sales of MW2 would benefit his company's coffers, but considering his previous statements on the matter it's not hard to believe that the man genuinely wants Japan's gamers and game makers alike to broaden their borders in more ways than one.
The Escapist
LSN: And after this fair-minded and progressive message, the Escapist encourages people to play a Ching Chong Beautiful, a really damn racist browser game for the holidays.
The study, published in the Journal of Communication, and available here (PDF), examined the gaming habits of females and males playing the popular Massively Multiplayer Online RPG (MMORPG) EverQuest II.
The sample group was quite large, consisting of responses from 7,000 logged in players. There were many surprises in the results. First, the gaming wasn't dominated by kids -- in fact the average age was 31. More interestingly still, older gamers tended to spend more hours on the game per week.
And female gamers spent, on average, far more hours than their male counterparts. Top female players logged 57 hours a week, while top male players only logged 51 hours a week. And on average, girls logged 29 hours a week versus 25 hours for males.
Age isn't the only thing women tend to lie about, according to the survey. More women than men responded that they lied to their friends and loved ones about how much time they played.
Other dark elf slayers/professors and grad students that participated in the study included Mia Consalvo, Scott Caplan, and Nick Yee.
Original article
LSN: Not that anyone gives a damn about Everquest. But yah! Women can waste more time than men on the monotonous grinding that is MMORPGs.
Squeenix CEO Calls Out Japanese Gamers on Western Bias
The relationship of Japan and the West when it comes to video games is a strange one, and Square-Enix CEO Yoichi Wada has spoken at length on the subject more than once. Wada clearly admires the Western game industry, mentioning that he wants to see his native Japan follow suit with more games made for adults, and - like many other Japanese developers - has obviously been mulling over how Japanese game makers can market their titles to Western gamers more successfully instead of dealing with a relatively small, insulated market.
But for the moment, Wada isn't concerned with how to market his company's games in the West, but with the exact opposite: In an interview with Japanese TV posted to YouTube, Wada expressed frustration with Japanese gamers' resistance to Western titles, in part due to the country's collective "meh" to Modern Warfare 2, which Activision handed off to Square-Enix to publish in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Specifically, Wada has an issue with the Japanese term youge- (洋ゲー), the word used to refer to titles made in the West as opposed to Japanese-made games, or geimu (ゲーム - yeah, it's just the word "game"). By differentiating between the two, Japanese gamers are essentially saying that Western games aren't actually games, and the Square-Enix boss doesn't like it.
"Even now, there have been people in Japan using the label youge- (Western games) with a terribly discriminatory meaning," said Wada. "I'd like them to try it once. If they play it once, they'd realize how incorrect that label is."
There's no doubt that Wada has a bit of a personal investment in the matter considering that strong sales of MW2 would benefit his company's coffers, but considering his previous statements on the matter it's not hard to believe that the man genuinely wants Japan's gamers and game makers alike to broaden their borders in more ways than one.
The Escapist
LSN: And after this fair-minded and progressive message, the Escapist encourages people to play a Ching Chong Beautiful, a really damn racist browser game for the holidays.
I picked the Void in response to a thread raving about it on a forum. It’s very much an ‘art house’ video game like the Path and Machinarium, and I’m less than an hour into it. Brief summary of the gameplay/story so far:
You are dead and in an afterlife that is desolate and surreal. A ‘Sister’ contacts you and tell you that to survive, you have to gain Color, otherwise you fall into Absolute Death. This realm was once full of Color, which the Sisters feed on, but it all withered and waned. Now is a series of chambers surrounded by the Void, which constantly sucks the color from you.
The guardians of this realm are the Brothers, and they are terrifying figures that will toss you into the Void. ‘You’ are a male soul called Doppleganger, and the first Sister wants you to make offerings of Color to the Sisters and protect them, which will convince the Brothers you’re one of them.
The Sisters hide in trees – at least the first one does. When you talk to them, they appear as naked women surrounded by sparkly bits and floating in water. I haven’t met any of the Brothers yet, but they all have names like ‘Ironside’ and ‘Wolfsbane.’ As you wander, you hear various whispers, and the masculine ones are ominous and difficult to make out. I picked up a glowing, gold plant and suddenly heard a man mutter, “You will find no safer place than this.”
It’s a first person view. You interact with the word by painting symbols on the screen with your Color. You have to give Color to dead trees and every turn they’ll give you a harvest of raw Color once a turn. You have to collect hearts that process raw lymphomia into Colors.
It *seems* as though originally the Brothers did the planting, harvesting, painting, and protecting while the Sisters consumed the harvest and… that seems to be it. Something bad happened, and now the Brothers appear to be corrupted and you’re a replacement.
The Sisters/Brothers seem locked into traditional gender roles, but this is a corrupted environment. I assume the male Guardians aren’t supposed to be threatening, so that the Sister seems bound to her Chamber and reliant on ‘you’ might also be a problem.
Have to say though: it’s a tough game. As much as I’m interested in exploring the story and game, the combination of unusual gameplay elements and the difficulty curve doesn’t inspire me to play on despite the very imaginative elements.
I tend to run hot and cold. I tend to obsessively do something until I cannot longer stand it and then I’m indifferent to it. And I don’t mean this in a mild, healthy way. I mean this in a ‘must force herself to stop and do something, anything else.’
This is what causes me to hop onto World of Warcraft every 3 to 5 months, start a new character, rush them to level 58/62/76 and then just drop them. This is how I read a 1,000+ book in a single sitting. This is why on the new BioWare Social Network, I’m the third most active poster with over 700 posts in 17 days.
My gaming happens in spurts and spikes. I played through Jade Empire and both Knights of the Old Republic in a single sitting. I played through Baldur’s Gate II in three days. It’s frightening how quickly I can transform into a creature whose only thoughts are ‘game, shower, game, sleep, game.’ I’m a consumer in the purest sense of the word; not the robotic, rational decision makers of economics, but a person that gorges themselves on a product.
But it doesn’t last. After hitting level 62 in two weeks, I’m worn to a nub. I could not force myself to log-on. After finishing with Risen, I’ve tried to get into Machinarium. It’s a good game. I want to finish it, take lots of pictures, and tell you all about it. Only every time I start the game, I look at the playful and artistic backgrounds, listen to the great music, and start thinking about the interesting puzzles, and somehow will be incredibly, unaccountably bored.
This might be hard to imagine, but if I try to force myself to play a game after I hit my saturation point, I experience physical discomfort. My insides ache. If I’m excited about a game, I crave it. I will find myself obsessively thinking about it while trying to read, write, work, or study.
You might be saying to yourself, “That sounds unhealthy.”
Yeah, that it is. As mentioned above, it’s not something that applies just to games. I once sat down and watched the first three seasons of Babylon 5 in one sitting (66 hours). I finally crashed, and when I woke up, I had no interest in the rest of the story. Two years later, the DVD collection still sits in the back of my cabinet gathering dust.
I desire stability; I’m not fond of obsession or mental exhaustion. I put limits on my gaming, mostly, and push myself to game more when I don’t want to.
As to what prompted this entry, look at the picture at the top. Dragon Age: Origins. I’m an administrator on the wiki. I’ve been on the forums for five years now. It’s my favorite gaming genre by my favorite company and it looks to be one of the best games this decade.
This is me, hands folded in my lap, saying that I’m not that excited about the game. Lies. To say I’m excited would be an understatement. To say I’m foaming at the mouth might be closer to the truth. A month ago, I learned that the game could last 120 hours and my gut churned so hard, I could have crapped butter.
I’ve worked out for about an hour and thirty minutes each day this week, gotten a full nights rest, and will stock up on raw vegetables and fruits to munch on. Thankfully, my cats will walk in front of the screen if they get hungry.
1 day, 19 hours, and 25 minutes. That’s the time it shows on my last save for Risen, it’s entitled ‘Final Boss Fight.’ During that time, I’ve managed to finish 250 quests, but not 2,000 monsters even though I searched the island up and down looking for more stuff to kill.
There’s no time indicator on my Batman: Arkham Asylum game, but on my final save I’ve gotten all the Riddler statues (240), upgrades (20), character bios (42), and am 78% complete. The game has non-story challenge modes where you try to get X score while beating up thugs or various achievements while sneaking around and picking them off, which I’m not that interested in.
Let’s skip back to Saturday night/Sunday morning. I’m playing Risen and have run all over the island twice making sure I have every teleport stone, have killed all the truly nasty creatures like thunder lizards, scorpions, and ashbeasts. I’ve managed to find the two broken swords of the game and repair them as well as search through every temple and ruin I could find. I have on the super-duper armor with the very awesome weapon and shield combo that only comes at the very end.
I have 124 minor healing potions, 73 healing potions, and 53 major healing potions. I have 10 scrolls of protection, 5 scrolls of ashbeast transformation, 10 scrolls of skeletal guardian summoning, and 10 of berserker strength. I also have the highest strength possible and the highest skill in my weapon possible. However, that’s not hard as my awesome weapon gives me +6 to weapon skill.
I am ready to rock.
I rush to where I know the final boss is waiting for me, and first meet the [spoiler], who I bat aside easily. And then I… fail a quest? A quest that I’m just about to complete? Okay, that sucks. You didn’t tell me there was a time limit to this quest, you douche. I’ve only failed two quests in this game, and both times it’s be because of a hidden time limit.
But whatever, eyes on the prize. It’s about 5:30 am, and the sun is rising behind me. I step pass the Great Gate to the fiery hall of the [spoiler].
And I die.
And I die.
And I die.
Why? Because my health potions, strength, weapon skill, and scrolls are utterly useless. The boss battle is basically a giant jumping puzzle in a tiny room against an opponent that is immune to regular attacks. If the player has the right skills, they could beat [spoiler] at level 1. If the player lacks the skills, they can’t win no matter how much time and energy they’ve poured into making the uber killing machine.
I close the game down in disgust, head to bed, sleep, and try again in the morning. Well-rested, my hand-eye coordination is good enough that I win on the first try after about two minutes.
As victories go, it’s not very satisfying.
Now, Risen is a combat centered RPG. The first Chapter has a large number of side-quests, Chapters 2 and 3 are 90% running around and killing things, while Chapter 4 is centered on dungeon delving and killing things. The combat is real time and you control each swing, step, and block.
Despite this, I found the game interesting enough that I finished it. The combat was frustrating at times, but the exploration and secondary skills (alchemy, smithing, and lock picking) all proved rewarding, and the dungeon delving was better than any other game I’ve played. Each dungeon felt like its own puzzle.
My experience playing Batman: AA was similar. I loved the exploration and searching for secrets. The stealth combat (‘predator mode’) was great fun. What did they do at the end? Trap me in a small room with dozens of opponents. No stealth take downs, no using my explosives, or my upgraded triple batarang.
Again, after dying many times, I gave up and started something else. I don’t feel compelled to beat a game, only to play it, and it’s obvious that I’d reached the end.
I think game developers try too hard to make the boss fight the most memorable part of the game, often by changing the nature of the gameplay, making previous skills and abilities useless, or by making the last battle far more difficult than any other.
One of the better end fights I’ve played this year was the one from Prince of Persia. The battle had you utilizing all the skills you’d learned, and was moderately harder than previous fights, but the boss battle was not the emotional climax. The climax came afterward when the Prince decides that there is something more important than defeating the bad guy.
There’s no time indicator on my Batman: Arkham Asylum game, but on my final save I’ve gotten all the Riddler statues (240), upgrades (20), character bios (42), and am 78% complete. The game has non-story challenge modes where you try to get X score while beating up thugs or various achievements while sneaking around and picking them off, which I’m not that interested in.
Let’s skip back to Saturday night/Sunday morning. I’m playing Risen and have run all over the island twice making sure I have every teleport stone, have killed all the truly nasty creatures like thunder lizards, scorpions, and ashbeasts. I’ve managed to find the two broken swords of the game and repair them as well as search through every temple and ruin I could find. I have on the super-duper armor with the very awesome weapon and shield combo that only comes at the very end.
I have 124 minor healing potions, 73 healing potions, and 53 major healing potions. I have 10 scrolls of protection, 5 scrolls of ashbeast transformation, 10 scrolls of skeletal guardian summoning, and 10 of berserker strength. I also have the highest strength possible and the highest skill in my weapon possible. However, that’s not hard as my awesome weapon gives me +6 to weapon skill.
I am ready to rock.
I rush to where I know the final boss is waiting for me, and first meet the [spoiler], who I bat aside easily. And then I… fail a quest? A quest that I’m just about to complete? Okay, that sucks. You didn’t tell me there was a time limit to this quest, you douche. I’ve only failed two quests in this game, and both times it’s be because of a hidden time limit.
But whatever, eyes on the prize. It’s about 5:30 am, and the sun is rising behind me. I step pass the Great Gate to the fiery hall of the [spoiler].
And I die.
And I die.
And I die.
Why? Because my health potions, strength, weapon skill, and scrolls are utterly useless. The boss battle is basically a giant jumping puzzle in a tiny room against an opponent that is immune to regular attacks. If the player has the right skills, they could beat [spoiler] at level 1. If the player lacks the skills, they can’t win no matter how much time and energy they’ve poured into making the uber killing machine.
I close the game down in disgust, head to bed, sleep, and try again in the morning. Well-rested, my hand-eye coordination is good enough that I win on the first try after about two minutes.
As victories go, it’s not very satisfying.
Now, Risen is a combat centered RPG. The first Chapter has a large number of side-quests, Chapters 2 and 3 are 90% running around and killing things, while Chapter 4 is centered on dungeon delving and killing things. The combat is real time and you control each swing, step, and block.
Despite this, I found the game interesting enough that I finished it. The combat was frustrating at times, but the exploration and secondary skills (alchemy, smithing, and lock picking) all proved rewarding, and the dungeon delving was better than any other game I’ve played. Each dungeon felt like its own puzzle.
My experience playing Batman: AA was similar. I loved the exploration and searching for secrets. The stealth combat (‘predator mode’) was great fun. What did they do at the end? Trap me in a small room with dozens of opponents. No stealth take downs, no using my explosives, or my upgraded triple batarang.
Again, after dying many times, I gave up and started something else. I don’t feel compelled to beat a game, only to play it, and it’s obvious that I’d reached the end.
I think game developers try too hard to make the boss fight the most memorable part of the game, often by changing the nature of the gameplay, making previous skills and abilities useless, or by making the last battle far more difficult than any other.
One of the better end fights I’ve played this year was the one from Prince of Persia. The battle had you utilizing all the skills you’d learned, and was moderately harder than previous fights, but the boss battle was not the emotional climax. The climax came afterward when the Prince decides that there is something more important than defeating the bad guy.
