On originality (and cover based shooting)

[Netrigan]

Yet somehow Gears is universally praised, while Wanted gets nary a mention. Since when did having an original idea become more important than well refined gameplay (not to mention, Gears didn't invent cover shooting), and given that notion, why the hell doesn't Mirror's Edge get more love?

Got Wanted in the mail today. Played the first couple of missions... and my opinion really hasn't changed from my reaction to the demo.

Firstly, it's really easy. My first death came nearly the start of the third mission where I opted to avoid dealing with a guy with a SWAT shield and just run past him... and was surprised by two guards coming through a door. Instead of taking cover, I stupidly tried to fight them in the open. And I very nearly survived the experience despite piss-poor tactics. And this is on Assassin.

Still finding the cover mechanics a bit sticky. When I want to walk away from cover, I have to hit the A button to unstick, but when dealing with the SWAT guy in the first mission, I found myself coming unstuck during flanking maneuvers repeatedly. This is really one of my biggest problems with cover-based combat games, as it's never as fluid as I want them to be. Going into cover when I don't want to, killing immersion by thinking about controls when unsticking, and failing to go into cover either due to not being in the right place to enter cover, the character picking the wrong side of cover to enter into, or said cover not actually being cover.

While the quick moves from cover is nice, the bullet curving (once they arbitrarily decide to turn on a power that you obviously picked up during the movie that this game is a sequel to) makes it not terribly important. Same for the flanking maneuvers, which have really only come into play against the SWAT shield guys... SWAT shield guys having magically quick reflex that can block incoming curved bullets.

Too damn many cutscenes disrupting the flow of the levels. Enslaved did the same thing, but at least had a better quality of cutscene. There's really not a whole lot to Wanted's story so far, but they seem hellbent on throwing these little moments in constantly. Worse, most of them could have been done Half-Life style or with a pre-scripted sequence. Such as, the opening bit where the cops break into your place. Instead of giving me my first opportunity to shoot a gun, control gets taken away from me so he can *ahem* shoot a couple of guys before one of them jumps through a window. Just need a scripted sequence so the guy with the item jumps through the window upon getting shot... then let *you* jump down after him, instead of doing it all in cut-scene.

Some decent attempts to break monotony with other combat modes. Although only the rail-shooter sequence in the first mission really worked for me, thanks to a cool bit with a round table that would have been impossible to do in-game. The mounted gun and sniper rifle sequence in the second mission suffer from a wide kill range and poor visibility.

Having already played the Tutorial in the demo, I was not exactly pleased to *have* to play it at the start of the game. Would have made a certain amount of sense to add tutorial pop-ups to the first mission, since most of this is pretty basic stuff. First time you have to shoot at someone (press LT to aim, RT to shoot). First time you have to use flanking maneuvers to take out SWAT shield guy (use RT to blind fire from cover to pin him down, then maneuver around cover to flank him). That sort of thing. The Tutorial levels should be there for the trickier ability just to give people a bit more time to practice.

You know it's short when there's an achievement for beating the game in one hour and 12 minutes. They say that like they're proud of it.

But over-all, it's a nice bit of fun but the execution is a bit off. The flow-disrupting cutscenes are the biggest reason I don't have a more favorable opinion of it so far. Why give me control after the opening dream sequence if you're just going to take control away from me before I can shoot someone? Either make the entire sequence a cutscene or let me play the shooting bit. Just basic game narrative mistakes.

 

[Wargamer]

The problem I have with Gears 2 is that it feels so damn heavy. Uncharted 2's multiplayer, by contrast, feels so joyously free-form. The fighting is heavily dominated by the use of cover (charging at a guy behind a wall very rarely works), but at the same time it never feels like your only option against a dug in opponent is to hurl grenades at them. In Gears, you have to (veeeeerrryyy slllloooowwwllyyy) trudge around to try and flank them, giving them plenty of time to line up on your new position. In Uncharted, you can sprint round for a flanking maneuver... but why not try the roof? The three dimensional nature of the combat adds so much more variety!

So yeah; as much as I enjoyed Gears 2, now that I've seen it done (far) better, the game has lost its appeal. Plus I hated the single player - Marcus Fenix is one of the most pathetic attempts at characterisation I've ever had to put up with.

 

[Valkyrie101]

As for GTA IV... I found the game had a perverse sense of humor in how it decided to attach me to cover. Quite often putting myself between the cover and the person I was trying to take cover from... then playing silly buggers with me as I try to unstick from it before getting shot to death. But mostly the problem with GTA IV is that cover + auto-aim = the most amazingly easy combat system you'll ever experience in a AAA game. Good thing it doesn't have regenerating health or it would officially be the easiest combat system known to man.

Most of the time, it worked well enough (well enough, not well) at long distances from the enemy, where it was quite easy to drop into straight, regular cover. The problems come with more varied and difficult cover (e.g. the corner of a house or shipping crate) at close range, because it was awkward to manoeuvre. Actually, it was awkward to manoeuvre no matter what at close range.

That's my main issue with cover-based games: it's so damned difficult to control properly a lot of the time. Gears managed it well, and had easily the slickest cover system of any game I've played. On the other hand, this meant that most of the fights were relatively similar, because changing it up radically would be hard with the system's limitations.

 

[Netrigan]

And I finished it. Let's see got it in the mail around 11 o'clock. So that's 6 hours to finish the campaign... and I took time off to go to the store and grab a shower.

I'd recommend it for the $10-15 it costs these days. Fun, but nothing extraordinary. The story is just kind of there, dividing its time between Wesley and his father... and the father's story is the only one I understood. Wesley's is about an assassination order on him that's been in play since he was born, the Loom Of Fate being moved, Zod (Terrance Stamp) showing up to say hi, and revenge on the man he blames for the death of his mother.

Combat mechanics are reasonably well, but I think needs some polish. And, seriously, why is it so impossible to go along cover that turns 90 degrees. Not a single one I've played lets you change the side of cover, unless it has a nice gentle slope.

The final mission is really the only one that's difficult. Second to last one has its moments, but that's mostly because of the Quick Time Assassins (push stick in a certain direction and spam the B button to win the knife fight). Yes, it's the really cheap type of difficulty. Last couple of missions introduces these bullet dodgers, which, quite frankly, should have been there from the start. You can either kill them with a close-range knife attack or in bullet time when jumping between cover. So, of course, as you're making your way up this never-ending bell tower, there's two or three places where you have to do a mad rush because there's only one piece of cover and no way to use the dive move to kill them.

These last couple of missions are also the only place where you genuinely have to watch your ammo thanks to most of the baddies being of the multiple hit variety. But early missions have cheap ammo scarcity as they start you off with 40 rounds and under attack. Depending on what sort of cover they're behind and how tough the enemies are, you can run through that fairly quickly. But once you clear an area... ammo scarcity is a thing of the past.

And I think I know why they chose the airplane level for the demo... it's the only one that doesn't look like your standard issue gray shooter. The rest of the game you're moving through warehouse and rustic brown streets and a ruined church and the like. Something else I wouldn't have minded seeing a bit more of are the rail shooter pieces. These are the only places where the game lives up to the look of the movie and they're usually pretty cool.

 

[migo]

Yet somehow Gears is universally praised, while Wanted gets nary a mention. Since when did having an original idea become more important than well refined gameplay (not to mention, Gears didn't invent cover shooting), and given that notion, why the hell doesn't Mirror's Edge get more love?

Got Wanted in the mail today. Played the first couple of missions... and my opinion really hasn't changed from my reaction to the demo.

Firstly, it's really easy. My first death came nearly the start of the third mission where I opted to avoid dealing with a guy with a SWAT shield and just run past him... and was surprised by two guards coming through a door. Instead of taking cover, I stupidly tried to fight them in the open. And I very nearly survived the experience despite piss-poor tactics. And this is on Assassin.

I consider this a good thing. I found it to be the same in the demo, stick to cover and you pretty much don't die, come out of cover for too long and you get shot and die quickly. Something that really rips my immersion out of a game is repeatedly dying and having to reload, or even just make use of regenerating health. It's one of the things I liked about the Thief games - you could actually finish the whole thing reliably without dying once. Deus Ex was actually like that too - I hardly ever died. It's not that I mind dying, but I prefer death in games like UT, rather than in games with a single player narrative where dying would obviously mean the story is over, so you just pretend it never happened.

Still finding the cover mechanics a bit sticky. When I want to walk away from cover, I have to hit the A button to unstick, but when dealing with the SWAT guy in the first mission, I found myself coming unstuck during flanking maneuvers repeatedly. This is really one of my biggest problems with cover-based combat games, as it's never as fluid as I want them to be. Going into cover when I don't want to, killing immersion by thinking about controls when unsticking, and failing to go into cover either due to not being in the right place to enter cover, the character picking the wrong side of cover to enter into, or said cover not actually being cover.

In general I'd agree with that, Kill Switch seemed to do it really well by having you just crouch when you're behind something that gives you cover, and leaving the cross hair there the whole time, but at the same time the quick moving between cover is something that couldn't really be done without it (Brink might actually mix the best of both worlds though).

While the quick moves from cover is nice, the bullet curving (once they arbitrarily decide to turn on a power that you obviously picked up during the movie that this game is a sequel to) makes it not terribly important. Same for the flanking maneuvers, which have really only come into play against the SWAT shield guys... SWAT shield guys having magically quick reflex that can block incoming curved bullets.

OK, I agree that would be annoying.

Too damn many cutscenes disrupting the flow of the levels. Enslaved did the same thing, but at least had a better quality of cutscene. There's really not a whole lot to Wanted's story so far, but they seem hellbent on throwing these little moments in constantly. Worse, most of them could have been done Half-Life style or with a pre-scripted sequence. Such as, the opening bit where the cops break into your place. Instead of giving me my first opportunity to shoot a gun, control gets taken away from me so he can *ahem* shoot a couple of guys before one of them jumps through a window. Just need a scripted sequence so the guy with the item jumps through the window upon getting shot... then let *you* jump down after him, instead of doing it all in cut-scene.

Gears really has the same problem though, and not just with cutscenes, but it actually takes control of your character away while you're still playing the game. At least Dead Rising let you interrupt Otis if you had to fight.

Having already played the Tutorial in the demo, I was not exactly pleased to *have* to play it at the start of the game. Would have made a certain amount of sense to add tutorial pop-ups to the first mission, since most of this is pretty basic stuff. First time you have to shoot at someone (press LT to aim, RT to shoot). First time you have to use flanking maneuvers to take out SWAT shield guy (use RT to blind fire from cover to pin him down, then maneuver around cover to flank him). That sort of thing. The Tutorial levels should be there for the trickier ability just to give people a bit more time to practice.

I suppose they expected only one playthrough, although with 3 difficulties that doesn't make as much sense. I'm quite fond of having separate tutorial modes, so that is a knock against it, and Gears 2 does let you skip teaching Carmine.

 

[Vern]

What I like in cover based gameplay, is when it lets you actually decide where you take cover. I don't like sticking to an object, and the first person shooter had already done this. If you don't want to get shot, you walk behind an object. If you want to advance, see things in front of you that will allow you to close on the enemy, and hide behind them. Using the things that are available in front of you to hide and return fire, as opposed to magically 'sticking' to certain objects, and not being able to use other objects for cover because you can't stick to them.