Thoughts on Gameplay
Video games, that is.
I've been playing bioware RPGs (Jade Empire, Knights of the Old Republic, and Knights II) lately. Jade Empire really requires a separate post: it's a brilliant game in a lot of a ways that utterly fails to live it to its promise, and also a pretty good example of how to do Chinese-ness as a western creative group.
This is more of an observation about the first half hour of the Knights games.
In the first half hour of KOTOR I have: battle sith soldiers, fought in a variety of styles, been introduced to almost every mechanic that the game has to offer, cleverly defeated a large group of soldiers by setting a trap, tried out both ranged and melee fighting, got a companion, seen that companion sacrifice himself to save me, gotten hints as to the rest of the plot, interacted with tons of people on a new world, etc. I have a character, a direction, an overview of most of the mechanics, and a story.
In the first half hour of KOTOR II I have: blundered around a hard-to-navigate and dark spaceship, without any action or serious challenge, wandered around an abandoned colony where I am not allowed to use ranged weapons (for no real purpose), and not figured out who the heck I am or what the heck is going on or what I should be doing. I am still alone. I don't have any strong character, no directions, I have not seen many of the mechanics, and I have no idea what the story is. I want to be engaged with the game but it's not letting me.
Instead of playing KOTOR II I think I may just replay the first game on the dark side.
I've been playing bioware RPGs (Jade Empire, Knights of the Old Republic, and Knights II) lately. Jade Empire really requires a separate post: it's a brilliant game in a lot of a ways that utterly fails to live it to its promise, and also a pretty good example of how to do Chinese-ness as a western creative group.
This is more of an observation about the first half hour of the Knights games.
In the first half hour of KOTOR I have: battle sith soldiers, fought in a variety of styles, been introduced to almost every mechanic that the game has to offer, cleverly defeated a large group of soldiers by setting a trap, tried out both ranged and melee fighting, got a companion, seen that companion sacrifice himself to save me, gotten hints as to the rest of the plot, interacted with tons of people on a new world, etc. I have a character, a direction, an overview of most of the mechanics, and a story.
In the first half hour of KOTOR II I have: blundered around a hard-to-navigate and dark spaceship, without any action or serious challenge, wandered around an abandoned colony where I am not allowed to use ranged weapons (for no real purpose), and not figured out who the heck I am or what the heck is going on or what I should be doing. I am still alone. I don't have any strong character, no directions, I have not seen many of the mechanics, and I have no idea what the story is. I want to be engaged with the game but it's not letting me.
Instead of playing KOTOR II I think I may just replay the first game on the dark side.