Update: Rage; Burning Man; Sandbox Games.

I’m not dead. Really. I’ve just been very, very busy.

I’m currently installing Rage, the newest game from iD (the crew who brought us such games as DOOM and Quake). Look forward to a review very soon.

I’ve also got a Burning Man article coming (eventually) as well as a half-written discussion on LA Noire and sandbox games in general (there will be charts!), but again, it comes down to finding (or making, as the case may be) time. A little more patience, and I should be back in business soon. Thank you, please drive through.

10/06 Recap; Sandbox Games.

• (+) Yogg-Saron down!
• (-) Due to the need to cut costs, my hours at work have been cut. It is still manageable, but certainly far more scary now.
• (+) My enjoyment with Prototype continues with little obstruction. I find this interesting enough to discuss briefly, below.
• (-) Despite my awesome new gear, due to my spec still being 2h-Unholy, my dps still kinda sucks.
• (+) Not only did [Justicebringer] finally drop for me, so did [Greaves of the 7th Legion] and [Death’s Verdict]. Three BiS items in one night (four, if you count my new [Thassarian’s Shoulderplates of Triumph]). I am so happy.
• (-) This week’s Rock Band 2 DLC is of no interest to me.
• (+) I just discovered my friend Mandy’s blog – check it out.

I have a general rule about sandbox-style games, a certain manner in which I approach them. First and foremost, while I fully recognize the awesome idea of an open world, I generally find that sandbox games claim to be far more open-ended than they really are. Sure, you might be able to go many places, but we have yet to even develop the hardware, let alone the software, to be truly lifelike, to give true immersion. I’ve certainly read a dozen other blogs talk about current limitations/failings of sandbox games, and that isn’t really the point of all this, so allow me to skip to the point or, at least, the theory, the general observation. Here it is:

General Sandbox Game Rule:

On average, I find that as I play a sandbox-style game, the longer it takes me to commit genocide, the better the game is.

Am I missing something? I mean, most “OMG YOU CAN GO ANYWHERE!!111!” games offer the “kill everyone on a whim” option; most, however, end up penalizing you for it, either immediately (via harder and harder/more and more plentiful opponents, a la Grand Theft Auto) or later (via endgame moral judgments/”bad” endings, a la Fallout 3/Bioshock/Fable). Granted, two out of three of the “later” examples are less “sandbox” games and more “moral judgment” games, and that’s an entirely different rant. The point remains, though – even with games like Overlord, where “omg you’re the bad guy lol”, it’s still really, really rare to find a game that gives you the option to kill everything around you without punishing you in some way for it.

Prototype, though? They dodge it completely.

Granted, I haven’t beaten the game yet, so who knows, maybe there’s like forty seven endings, all based around how many aging English teachers I’ve consumed for a disguise or for a little sustenance while slaughtering zombie and special ops marine alike. Believe me, if there is, I’ll rant about it soon (’cause I seriously can’t put this game down – Batman: Arkham Asylum is still sitting in its case, going “dude, wtf; everyone says I’m awesome, at least TRY me” – and that pretty much means that unless this game gets really lame really fast, I’ll probably beat it soon). But so far? Kill this, kill that, pick this guy up, throw him at that guy, pick up a car, throw it through a crowd of civilians – it’s all good.

I love it. I love it a lot. I love it enough to keep playing even though the movement controls can be such a goddamn pain in the ass, and I don’t mean “oops I moved too close to the edge and fell” pain in the ass (although that happens a lot too), I mean like “holy shitting crap I just spent like twenty minutes trying to catch one damn glowing landmark sphere between two smokestacks because it’s fucking impossible to run up one correctly” pain in the ass. Yeah, really. *bangs head into keyboard*

But seriously – after I got that fucking thing, what did I do? I blew up a military base and killed like 400 people with mutant tentacles, razor-sharp claws, and random acts of dismemberment and carnage. Fucking clutch.