Stallion Free
Cock Encumbered
Stallion Free's Month in Review: February 2016 Completions
Prior Months: January
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Rise of the Tomb Raider is just more of the same, but bigger, slightly better, and with some padding you didn't ask for. They kept the exact same formula and polished it a bit and added a little more to the various mechanics. Did you like crafting and upgrading? Well there is even more to craft and upgrade/craft this time! Did you want more tombs? There are more tombs! Did you want more platforming? There are some new climbing mechanics! But none of those additions make any of those mechanics any deeper or more interesting. The tombs are the best example of this. There are maybe two in the entirety of the game that are more involved than the ones in 2013 and while there are more of them they barely any longer or meatier. It's just a "here take more of it" without any real effort put into addressing the fan requests from the last game.
I'm a big supporter of vicious murderer Lara when it comes to these new games and I like they she isn't afraid to get her hands dirty, but you kill an insane number of people in this game. It's just tedious towards the end and actually breaks the immersion. I was playing on the hardest difficulty and in the final portion of the game you are basically and unkillable goddess who barely blinks while ending the lives of 5+ highly trained mercs every 30 seconds. It's becoming really jarring and I think the games would benefit from reigning it in on the enemy count to something slightly less absurd. The player is so overpowered at that point that numbers have zero impact on the difficulty anyways.
I was pleased with how short the exclusivity period on this game lasted. That was a huge plus.
Verdict: Check it out if you loved Tomb Raider 2013, otherwise pass.
Resident Evil Zero
This is such a weird game, but it is a wonderful port that deserves to be supported as much as other recent late ports from Capcom. The devs had access to the source files for the pre-rendered backgrounds this time around and the result is a stunning difference when compared to the admirable attempt made with REmake. Gone are are sketchy upscaled room renders and in it's place are crisp re-renders that hold up spectacularly at 1080p (though I do still believe the game should be played in 4:3 mode).
The two character setup is really bizarre at first and takes a while to get used too, but in the end it actually had me convinced that I wouldn't have minded Chris and Jill sticking together in the same manner in RE1. Having a total of twelve item slots for a large chunk of the game while the characters are together is a huge boon and so long as you don't play too stupidly, the segments apart aren't too bad. I also found the lack of the item box to be frustrating at first, particularly with the puzzle items, but the map tracking every item you have touched in every room works as a solid alternative. Continuing the trend of weirdness was the pure anime villain. RE games have always been pretty goofy, but I think they actually crossed a line here and lost all ability to make the game creepy. Despite all of the oddness, I think my only two serious complaints about the game is that the areas feel too similar to REmake and the lame bosses. The train makes for a strong opening, but the game falls back on a lot of tropes immediately afterwards. I played REmake roughly a year ago, but I still felt a lot of deja vu. That sense of deja vu carries over to the bosses and the ones that don't feel like retreads are just uninteresting designs.
Verdict: Check it out if you loved REmake/Resident Evil in general. Give it some breathing room though.
SUPERHOT
Superhot is pretty much perfect. It doesn't overstay it's welcome, but it does feel like it thoughtfully explores all of it's gameplay elements. Each scenario pushes your abilities to use those elements a little further than the last and every so often they add a new wrinkle. It never stops feeling fresh and they really manage to make the most of some tried and true shootout locations. Bars and stairwells in half constructed buildings have never come to life quite the way they do here when you have such control over every element in the play space. The primary gimmick of time (almost) stopping whenever you stop is perfectly implemented. It's clear the devs spent a lot of time on it. I loved that it's not a complete stop as bullets do still move and while it is significantly slower it forces the player to make decisions in a timely manner. I love that the weapon functions of the player are also heavily tied to the time stop. Pulling the trigger moves time forwards just slightly, but you have to move time a bit further for the gun to chamber the next round. It all comes together really well and seeing your actions play out in real time after finishing a level is a great reward.
The narrative the devs came up with to make sense of the art direction and game itself is just as slick as the game mechanics. They put everything into selling the player on a specific mood for the game and they do some clever things once they pull you into their world.
Verdict: Check it out ASAP.
Broken Age
I'm glad I supported the creation of this game and received such an intimate look at the creation of it. It's too bad the game itself was ultimately underwhelming. I played Act 1 of the game when it first released in the flurry of controversy and quite enjoyed it overall. I had intended to play Act 2 as soon as it released, but ended up distracted and didn't give it a shot until now. I think my biggest disappointment with the game was the overarching narrative. The first half builds a lot of intrigue and potential and the second half just falls apart in delivering on all of that. The villain is underdeveloped and, frankly, lame. The motivations for all of the actions are explained, but are never really sold to the player in a convincing manner. The player barely sees any of the climactic location and the ending really suffers from it. It really does feel like they ran out of money and time and had to make do with what they had. I enjoy adventure games most for the stories they tell and this one left me feeling hollow. I felt like I deserved more from the build up of Act 1.
On the (sort of) upside: the characters are a lot of fun to interact with and I liked almost all of them. Some of objects/robots had a ton of charm and the humans had some rather clever lines that left me smiling. The art is usually stunning. There are some bits that look rough, but not enough to hold back the vision of the art director. The puzzles are inoffensive, with the exception of the wiring puzzles that grow tedious quickly.
Verdict: Soft pass.
Prior Months: January
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Rise of the Tomb Raider is just more of the same, but bigger, slightly better, and with some padding you didn't ask for. They kept the exact same formula and polished it a bit and added a little more to the various mechanics. Did you like crafting and upgrading? Well there is even more to craft and upgrade/craft this time! Did you want more tombs? There are more tombs! Did you want more platforming? There are some new climbing mechanics! But none of those additions make any of those mechanics any deeper or more interesting. The tombs are the best example of this. There are maybe two in the entirety of the game that are more involved than the ones in 2013 and while there are more of them they barely any longer or meatier. It's just a "here take more of it" without any real effort put into addressing the fan requests from the last game.
I'm a big supporter of vicious murderer Lara when it comes to these new games and I like they she isn't afraid to get her hands dirty, but you kill an insane number of people in this game. It's just tedious towards the end and actually breaks the immersion. I was playing on the hardest difficulty and in the final portion of the game you are basically and unkillable goddess who barely blinks while ending the lives of 5+ highly trained mercs every 30 seconds. It's becoming really jarring and I think the games would benefit from reigning it in on the enemy count to something slightly less absurd. The player is so overpowered at that point that numbers have zero impact on the difficulty anyways.
I was pleased with how short the exclusivity period on this game lasted. That was a huge plus.
Verdict: Check it out if you loved Tomb Raider 2013, otherwise pass.
Resident Evil Zero
This is such a weird game, but it is a wonderful port that deserves to be supported as much as other recent late ports from Capcom. The devs had access to the source files for the pre-rendered backgrounds this time around and the result is a stunning difference when compared to the admirable attempt made with REmake. Gone are are sketchy upscaled room renders and in it's place are crisp re-renders that hold up spectacularly at 1080p (though I do still believe the game should be played in 4:3 mode).
The two character setup is really bizarre at first and takes a while to get used too, but in the end it actually had me convinced that I wouldn't have minded Chris and Jill sticking together in the same manner in RE1. Having a total of twelve item slots for a large chunk of the game while the characters are together is a huge boon and so long as you don't play too stupidly, the segments apart aren't too bad. I also found the lack of the item box to be frustrating at first, particularly with the puzzle items, but the map tracking every item you have touched in every room works as a solid alternative. Continuing the trend of weirdness was the pure anime villain. RE games have always been pretty goofy, but I think they actually crossed a line here and lost all ability to make the game creepy. Despite all of the oddness, I think my only two serious complaints about the game is that the areas feel too similar to REmake and the lame bosses. The train makes for a strong opening, but the game falls back on a lot of tropes immediately afterwards. I played REmake roughly a year ago, but I still felt a lot of deja vu. That sense of deja vu carries over to the bosses and the ones that don't feel like retreads are just uninteresting designs.
Verdict: Check it out if you loved REmake/Resident Evil in general. Give it some breathing room though.
SUPERHOT
Superhot is pretty much perfect. It doesn't overstay it's welcome, but it does feel like it thoughtfully explores all of it's gameplay elements. Each scenario pushes your abilities to use those elements a little further than the last and every so often they add a new wrinkle. It never stops feeling fresh and they really manage to make the most of some tried and true shootout locations. Bars and stairwells in half constructed buildings have never come to life quite the way they do here when you have such control over every element in the play space. The primary gimmick of time (almost) stopping whenever you stop is perfectly implemented. It's clear the devs spent a lot of time on it. I loved that it's not a complete stop as bullets do still move and while it is significantly slower it forces the player to make decisions in a timely manner. I love that the weapon functions of the player are also heavily tied to the time stop. Pulling the trigger moves time forwards just slightly, but you have to move time a bit further for the gun to chamber the next round. It all comes together really well and seeing your actions play out in real time after finishing a level is a great reward.
The narrative the devs came up with to make sense of the art direction and game itself is just as slick as the game mechanics. They put everything into selling the player on a specific mood for the game and they do some clever things once they pull you into their world.
Verdict: Check it out ASAP.
Broken Age
I'm glad I supported the creation of this game and received such an intimate look at the creation of it. It's too bad the game itself was ultimately underwhelming. I played Act 1 of the game when it first released in the flurry of controversy and quite enjoyed it overall. I had intended to play Act 2 as soon as it released, but ended up distracted and didn't give it a shot until now. I think my biggest disappointment with the game was the overarching narrative. The first half builds a lot of intrigue and potential and the second half just falls apart in delivering on all of that. The villain is underdeveloped and, frankly, lame. The motivations for all of the actions are explained, but are never really sold to the player in a convincing manner. The player barely sees any of the climactic location and the ending really suffers from it. It really does feel like they ran out of money and time and had to make do with what they had. I enjoy adventure games most for the stories they tell and this one left me feeling hollow. I felt like I deserved more from the build up of Act 1.
On the (sort of) upside: the characters are a lot of fun to interact with and I liked almost all of them. Some of objects/robots had a ton of charm and the humans had some rather clever lines that left me smiling. The art is usually stunning. There are some bits that look rough, but not enough to hold back the vision of the art director. The puzzles are inoffensive, with the exception of the wiring puzzles that grow tedious quickly.
Verdict: Soft pass.
