Stallion Free's Month in Review: January 2016 Completions
Lego Jurassic World
I'm getting pretty tired of every Lego game having an open world. They have yet to do anything even slightly interesting with them in the series and they always look uglier than the story levels and are devoid of life. Lego Jurassic World continues this fine tradition unfortunately. The story levels don't fare much better. While I think the effort made to include all of the movies in one game is commendable, they took it too far here and the gameplay loop is really tired by the time you reach the final set of levels. I think the sweet spot for these games is in the 15-level range and this game has 20. The devs devs are a bit too content to drag areas out that aren't cool from the movie perspective and are on the dry side from the gameplay perspective. I don't think the game offers much for fans of the movies other than a sort of cute re-telling and there are better Lego games out there for Lego game fans. The port is solid and the visuals look great at times. The sound is a little weird as they didn't put much effort into isolating the movie lines from the other sounds in those scenes of the film.
Verdict: Pass.
Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars
I shouldn't have finished this game because I hated it. My brother who I co-oped the whole thing with hated it as well. We were actually sort of excited to play it too after working through the entirety of The Clone Wars show in November/December. I didn't think Lego games had changed too much over the years, but this game changed my stance on that. There were just so many awkward moments of level design that left my brother and me bewildered as to what the devs actually wanted us to do to progress forward. They also did this half-ass RTS level experiment that is simultaneously dumbed down for the age-group of the target demographic and bit too complicated and irritating for that same age group. As an adult it's hard not to wonder what the hell they were thinking when they put those levels together. They also decided to dump them all into one of the level arcs too, leading to some bizarre pacing where we were stuck playing a bunch of them back to back (boy were tempted to co-op the delete button there). The game makes almost no effort to make good use of the source material- they skipped over a lot of episodes that had good potential and opted for some of the weakest ones. I do recommend checking out the show on Netflix though. It is the proper 2:35 presentation and has a lot of story arcs that are the some of the best Star Wars stories out there.
Verdict: Hard pass.
Oxenfree
This game's trailer really grabbed me from the get-go and I have been feeling generous with indie devs again if they successfully arouse my interest prior to release. I was really pleased with my first pick of the year. It has a similar design vibe to Life is Strange- there isn't a lot of conventional gameplay and it relies a lot on you buying into the atmosphere and presentation. I think it nails both of those. The island is an intriguing place to explore. I always felt excited to see what weird/spooky thing I would encounter next. The other half of the game design is the dialogue system. I really liked it overall. The character arcs were nice, the writing was consistent and didn't have any of the awkwardness of LiS, and the voice-acting sold it pretty well. The timing of the selecting your dialogue option was weird at first, but once you get used to confirming your choice as the options start to fade the conversations have a very natural pace to them. I beat the game in 2-3ish sittings and the pacing was almost perfect. The game never dragged and the story wraps up just as the island starts to feel familiar.
Verdict: Check it out. Play it if you are in my Steam Family and liked LiS.
Just Cause 3
This game was in a weird place for me. Initially I was excited for it's release since I loved my time with JC2 (with grapple extension obviously) and there were several points where I contemplated pre-ordering it, but it ended up on the backburner as gaming time was limited and there were higher priority games hitting around it's release. Boy am I glad that happened and that I just played a friends copy over Steam Family Sharing. It was such a disappointment. I don't think Avalanche learned a single lesson from any of JC2's criticisms and they had an ridiculous amount of time to figure out how to fix them. The mission design is completely barebone (whoever thought all those "defend this AI" objectives should not be a game designer), the open-world is completely lifeless and the enemies are still completely tedious to fight. Oh they inserted one of the most moronic upgrade systems seen in modern gaming too. I'm not one to skip cutscenes in games (not that I think game stories don't deserve the derision they receive- I just tend to like the breaks in gameplay), but I just skipped everything in this game after the first hour or so. It was all just so bizarre and painful to watch. I think the only truly redeeming thing about the product is the wingsuit challenges. They are mostly well-designed and the thrill of zipping just feet off the ground doesn't get old. That isn't enough to save the experience though, not a bit.
Verdict: Hard pass.
Zombi
I bought this on Steam release despite owning and never playing it on the WiiU... mostly just because I was shocked that they didn't try to charge more than $20 and because they confirmed a FOV slider. Of course I promptly left it on the pile just like I did with the original release until now. I definitely feel bad for doing that since the game is just as cool as so many Gaffers say it is. The developers did a really smart job of borrowing some Souls game design and wrapping it into a slow-paced zombie survival horror game. While the run back to regain your weapons and supplies isn't quite as punishing as the Souls games, a death does feel more fittingly punishing than just a checkpoint restart. The level design is surprisingly clever and does a really nice job of feeling just layered enough to make revisits to areas interesting (being able to mark locked doors on the map is really handy). The combat feels just the right level of clunky. The melee weapons are pretty poor for mobs, while the guns feel slow and weak unless you nail headshots consistently. The balance works well and keeps each engagement interesting as you weigh your options. I loved the mood of the game too. It's aggressively British and the fog and grime help out the weaker aspects of the visuals.
Verdict: Give it a shot.
