I am watching Star Trek: Enterprise

Why would I lie about that?

It’s true, I am watching Star Trek: Enterprise, the only Star Trek series to ever be canceled. I can sort of see why they canceled it, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad show.

Ever since I discovered that Netflix has all the Star Trek series (but not the movies, to my dismay) I made it a goal to watch every episode of every series. So far I’ve watched the entirety of the Original Series, Next Generation, Deep Space 9, and Voyager. That basically just leaves Enterprise, and I guess Star Trek: The Animated Series, but I’m not so sure about watching that last one.

Of all the series, I think that Enterprise has the most interesting premise. Going by the series’ timeline, Enterprise takes place first, chronologically. The show follows the first ship that Earth builds that can travel at Warp 5, the – wait for it – Enterprise. This is the first time that humans travel very far beyond their local space, so it’s kind of interesting to see what they came up with as far as species for them to meet and situations for them to be put in.

I’m enjoying it for now, but I find a lot of the characters unlikeable, so there’s a possibility I could get annoyed with the show and stop watching. We’ll see how it goes. Don’t let me down, TV shows.

I Played This Game: Crysis

On the highest settings, even. It’s true.

What’s going on here?

This is a review of this game. Well, I guess review isn’t the proper term. It’s more of a “revisitation” of the entire game, where I go through the game piece by piece and say what I liked or didn’t like about it. It’s not meant to be a comprehensive scene-by-scene replaying of the entire game, but I will discuss the plot of the game as I understand it.

Just to be clear about the intent here, this is not a traditional review, where I evaluate the game as a whole and assign it some arbitrary score. It is also not a walkthrough, so don’t expect gameplay tips or a blow by blow set of instructions unless I specifically feel that they merit mentioning. Perhaps most importantly, it’s definitely not spoiler free, so if you care about the plot of the game in question, bookmark this page and come back later, when you’re finished with the game.

If all this is fine with you, read on.

[NOTE: Crysis is a M rated game, and some of the screenshots might be a little spooky. Fair warning.]

Turns out it actually *can* run Crysis

If you’ve spent much time on the internet, you’ve probably encountered some variation of the “Can it run Crysis?” joke. The joke goes something like this:

“Check out this new computer I got! It’s the fastest ever!”

“Yeah, well can it run Crysis?”

(implied answer: “No.”)

The basic idea behind the joke is that no computer exists that is powerful enough to run Crysis on its highest graphical settings. Indeed, at the time that it was released (November of 2007), only the most expensive of the high-end computers were able to run it, and then it was a struggle to get it to run on the highest settings. Lower end machines ran the game at slideshow speed.

That has changed somewhat today, with computer components getting significantly more powerful, but your computer’s ability to run Crysis is still a good benchmark as to whether your computer qualifies as a proper gaming machine or not. It’s a demanding piece of software, and decent framerates are at a premium once you start toggling all the graphical options and ramping up the anisotropic filtering levels.

So, with all this said about the graphical demands of the game, two questions really stand out to me:

1. Is the game actually as good looking as you’d think with all these system requirements, and
2. Is the game any good?

For the first question: HOLY CRAP YES. This game looks so good that it’s hard to believe that this game is over four years old at this point. Here’s some screenshot candy for your eyes.

As good as it looks in stills, the game looks even better when you see it in motion. I don’t think I’ve ever seen water graphics that look as impressive as they do in Crysis, the motion blur adds a nice effect, and foliage actually looks realistic.

Now, is the game any good? Well, yes and no. I suppose if I divide the game into two parts, I could say that the first part is great, but the second part ranges from good to mediocre. Without spoiling anything, there is a point where the game kind of strays away from what makes it good, and the story kind of goes off the rails.

That’s not to say it stops being fun, it just changes the focus of how the game is played. For the first part of the game, it’s all about you. You are a special ops super soldier with a nano-augmented power suit that gives you incredible powers. You get dropped on an island and given objectives to complete, and in a Deus Ex sort of way you can accomplish them in any manner you see fit.

This freedom of choice makes the opening acts of the game a blast to play. Want to activate your super-speed and dash into the camp of enemies before they even see you coming? Go for it. How about switch on your armor abilities and move through the forest with your shotgun like a juggernaut? Not a problem. Are you the stealthy type? Just switch on your cloak mode and the enemies won’t have a clue that you’re even there until it’s too late.

This freedom of ways to approach situations, along with various paths to take and a massive, free-exploring environment for you to play around with make the first part of the game an incredible experience that I have trouble not recommending. It’s too bad the game doesn’t keep it up until the end.

I’m not going to discuss specifics that spoil the story here (although my opinion is that the story isn’t important and you could just as easily skip it), but the later parts of the game get much more… directed. You are focused down a specific path to take, given situations where there is really only one solution, and fight enemies that are frustrating and difficult. Most disappointingly, though, they hamstring you and make it so that, although you still have your super-suit powers, they don’t really matter.

They don’t matter, you ask? Yes, that’s the case. You can still switch to stealth mode, but enemies either can detect you easily, and you won’t be able to accomplish anything of value while cloaked. You are almost constantly under attack, so you’ll likely want to be in armor mode for the bulk of the time, but I found myself frequently switching to speed mode simply because it takes too long to walk from place to place, which would end up with me getting killed because enemies would come up and I’d forget to switch to armor mode.

The environments change from being beautiful island vistas to being primarily boring, indoor, twisty little passages (all alike?). This gets rid of one of this game’s big strengths, its graphics. Regardless of how many polygons you’re pushing, or how incredibly detailed your textures are, a grey corridor can only look so interesting.

They also change up the enemy types. Gone are the challenging yet fun enemies of the first half of the game, where you can take them out in whatever way you see fit. They have been replaced by enemies that move fast and hit hard, who cannot (reasonably) be hit by short range weapons and melee attacks. They also cannot really be caught unawares by your stealth mode, since they will see you the instant you uncloak and you can’t get close enough to them to do much before then. It’s kind of a messy disappointment.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think the game is worth playing, but primarily for that first part. If you don’t mind the later parts, that’s great, it’s just that they don’t show the brilliance that the earlier parts do.

And you were doing so well, too.

Reminiscing: Strategy Guides

I purchased a strategy guide for Final Fantasy XIII-2.

I’m going to be clear about this: I don’t typically buy these. I have purchased a total of three of these, ever, including this one. The first was for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and the second was for Pokemon Yellow: Special Pikachu Edition. So including this one, that makes three strategy guides out of hundreds (thousands? I really should count one of these days) of games that I have played.

I have distinct memories of buying the guide for Ocarina of Time. Well, actually only one memory of the actual purchase, and it’s actually a little vague. I remember when I purchased the guide (probably for full price, and also probably at the same time as buying the game) I said something to the effect of “This is the type of game where I’m going to need the help of the guide, so I’d be silly not to get it.” This was before the FAQ community became good enough that you could load up GameFAQs around launch day (sometimes on launch day, if the right people got the game early) and get answers to pretty much any question you might have.

I remember using that guide quite a lot, enjoying the pictures on its pages, gasping as I read spoilers when I read too many pages ahead, and thinking that the map and directions they provided for the infamous and insidious water temple weren’t quite good enough for me. I was glad when it led me to the hookshot in the graveyard (it would have taken me forever to figure that out on my own), and appreciated that it offered tips on how to defeat Bongo Bongo. The thing that it helped me the most on, though, was collecting all the Golden Skulltulla tokens and all the heart pieces. I thought it was so rad that I was rolling (in this case, quite literally, as I preferred it to walking most of the time) around Hyrule with all the best equipment and the maximum possible amount of life.

My memories of Pokemon Yellow are a bit different. I remember specifically lying on my  couch in the sun (because on those old Game Boys you couldn’t see what you were doing unless you were in extremely bright light), playing my way through the first forest before you fight Brock the gym leader. I was training up a Caterpie so I could get a Butterfree to win the battle.

Pokemon Yellow put you in a unique situation compared to Pokemon Red and Blue, since it starts you out with a Pikachu (electric-type) instead of a choice between Bulbasaur (plant-type), Squirtle (water-type), or Charmander (fire-type). The first gym leader uses rock-type Pokemon, which, in most cases, are also paired with the ground element. This causes a problem in  Pokemon Yellow because at this point Pikachu only can reasonably know electric-type moves (0% damage vs. ground-type Pokemon) and normal-type moves (50% damage vs. rock-type pokemon).

Because of this unusual (unfair?) setup, the strategy guide suggested catching a Caterpie and spending a little time grinding to evolve it into a Butterfree. The idea was that Butterfree learns Confusion, a psychic-type attack that would tear through most of the gym battles without trouble. So at its urging I spent a half-hour and leveled my Caterpie.

Then tragedy struck.

I was playing on my Game Boy Color, and at that time I didn’t have rechargeable batteries. My parents didn’t buy me batteries, so I had to provide my own. I would go to the dollar store and buy dozens of the four-packs of batteries they sold there. These were the cheapest, no-name, four-for-a-dollar batteries that you could come across, and I only used them because the total playtime to dollar ratio was pretty good, even if individual batteries didn’t last very long at all.

The batteries died, and I hadn’t saved.

When I say that I hadn’t saved, I mean that I hadn’t saved at all. Not once, since starting the game, so I was back at Professor Oak asking me what my name is and what his grandson’s name is, since he can’t be bothered to remember unimportant details like that. To the fourteen year-old me, this was devastating. It was a full day or two before I could bring myself to start over again, and this time I made sure to watch the batteries.

I loved those books, and I still have them today (well, at least the Pokemon one. I’m not sure about the Zelda one). I hope that I wind up forging similar memories here with this new one. We’ll see how it goes.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Autosave

I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIII-2 for the past few days, and I have really been enjoying it. However, I have a couple complaints about the game. Listen carefully as I list them off.

Noise

So, I replayed Final Fantasy XIII and just finished yesterday, and boy, I gotta say that that game looks great. Cutscenes are gorgeous, characters are rendered beautifully, and I absolutely love the graphical style of the monsters, machines, and various critters and such in the game. However, one thing bothered me. Noise.

I like to think that I am a smart guy with an attention to detail and an above average attention span, but during some of the more exciting cutscenes I found it difficult to focus on details. Sometimes, all the excitement and business of the scene just gets to be too much and turns into noise. There are a couple of cutscenes in particular that bothered me, like the ending cutscene.

It's too bad, since it looks so good, I almost want to step through frame-by-frame and savor all the delicious graphics-ness, but I guess I'll just have to make do with watching it full-speed and missing so many of the great looking animations.

Or, you know, I could do something else, since I've already played that game to completion twice. Maybe I'll do that.

Today for lunch I had…

Trick question. I skipped lunch today.