If you've been listening to my radio show or the clips of it I've been posting here, there's really not much to add. Just enjoy. Happy New Year!
...It's not too late for one of these, is it?
(Note: There's a loud bit near the beginning, so you might want to keep your finger near the volume knob.)
Friday, January 29, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
If I Had Creamers, I Could Make Sugar Shooters
I'm back at school again, and I've got a few writing-heavy courses, so I likely won't be blogging as much as I once was, or at least, not as much as the last month. There are definitely some things lined up in the chute though, so be sure to keep an eye out for all of that.
In the meantime, I asked a friend (Katie Sekelsky, I'm pretty sure I've talked about her before... Oh yeah, here) about tea. It's a beverage that I've never really enjoyed before, particularly since most of my experiences have been with nasty iced tea. In conjunction with her webcomic Magpie Luck, she created a tea blend at Adagio Teas, and is, as far as I'm concerned, my go-to authority on teas. I wanted to know what she would recommend for someone who wanted to "get into" tea (in the way that one "gets into" drinking warm beverages). This is what she had to say:
---
I am assuming you have mainly only had instant iced tea (and not iced tea brewed by making hot tea w/ loose leaf and then chilling). And so you should expect a much different taste with hot tea.
You can go all out, as I have, with loose leaf tea and infusers. It is not really that expensive to get into, but I would definitely recommend starting out with bagged tea, since you aren't sure yet if you're going to like tea at all and you won't want stuck with a bunch of gadgets and bags/tins of tea.
In general, though, bagged tea is considered inferior to loose leaf. But I am not yet snobby enough about tea to not drink bagged tea sometimes myself or to not recommend it to others. I would recommend against Lipton hot teas, though, as they are probably the lowest end for bagged tea you will find at the store (though they are still totally drinkable).
Now, you might want to start out with an herbal tea. Which is not actually tea! It just infusing herbs/fruits into water (and therefore inherently decaf). But it will get you started on the whole "drinking a hot beverage with a lighter taste" thing. I would recommend either a mint or a fruit. But really, go for wherever your tastes lie. You can find a decent variety of bagged herbal teas at the grocery store (and actually, for herbals, Lipton should be just fine).
When you get into actual tea, there are a few varieties (and sub-varieties and so on). And I would recommend trying a variety, because they are quite different and you might hate one but like others, and it's not really a matter of weening yourself from one to another.
Here are the main types of tea:
Black tea: The most common type in the States. Odds are, if it does not specify another sort of tea, it is black. It is typically stronger, and the hardest to mess up (other types of tea can get bitter if brewed too long).
Green tea: A lighter, earthier type of tea. Much different from the types of iced tea you've likely had.
White tea: Also lighter. I've not had as many varieties of this tea, though, as I don't like it that much. Except when paired with mint.
Red tea: Actually an herbal tea made from the rooibos plant which grows in Africa! And also decaf. It has a very distinct taste that I like a lot, but is very hard to describe.
You can get all those varieties in different flavors as well, which you will probably want to do before trying an unflavored variety. There are fruity teas, spicy teas (see: chai), minty teas, flowery teas, etc. Again here, go with the sort of thing you like!
You can also add things to your tea, which you may want to do at first. Such as sugar (though if you dislike sugary iced tea, you may want to play it light here), honey (same goes), and milk (which I would only recommend for stronger chai blends).
So, in summary:
Try an herbal tea. Then try a flavored tea (probably black). Then try some non-black tea. Then try unflavored teas. If any of the above are too bland, add sugar or honey. If any of the above are too strong/spiced, add a little milk or cream.
---
So I went to Walmart and got some tea.
Is it something I would continue trying? I guess so, although I'm still not convinced I wholly like the taste of it or not yet. Maybe my tastes will grow over time, or I'll put those sugar packets to good use some other way. (Actually, adding one sugar packet did make a difference. It tasted a lot better.) In any case, it was a fun trial, and shows I really need practice with webcams. (Eventually, I'm going to have to stop doing these irrelevant conclusions.)
In the meantime, I asked a friend (Katie Sekelsky, I'm pretty sure I've talked about her before... Oh yeah, here) about tea. It's a beverage that I've never really enjoyed before, particularly since most of my experiences have been with nasty iced tea. In conjunction with her webcomic Magpie Luck, she created a tea blend at Adagio Teas, and is, as far as I'm concerned, my go-to authority on teas. I wanted to know what she would recommend for someone who wanted to "get into" tea (in the way that one "gets into" drinking warm beverages). This is what she had to say:
---
I am assuming you have mainly only had instant iced tea (and not iced tea brewed by making hot tea w/ loose leaf and then chilling). And so you should expect a much different taste with hot tea.
You can go all out, as I have, with loose leaf tea and infusers. It is not really that expensive to get into, but I would definitely recommend starting out with bagged tea, since you aren't sure yet if you're going to like tea at all and you won't want stuck with a bunch of gadgets and bags/tins of tea.
In general, though, bagged tea is considered inferior to loose leaf. But I am not yet snobby enough about tea to not drink bagged tea sometimes myself or to not recommend it to others. I would recommend against Lipton hot teas, though, as they are probably the lowest end for bagged tea you will find at the store (though they are still totally drinkable).
Now, you might want to start out with an herbal tea. Which is not actually tea! It just infusing herbs/fruits into water (and therefore inherently decaf). But it will get you started on the whole "drinking a hot beverage with a lighter taste" thing. I would recommend either a mint or a fruit. But really, go for wherever your tastes lie. You can find a decent variety of bagged herbal teas at the grocery store (and actually, for herbals, Lipton should be just fine).
When you get into actual tea, there are a few varieties (and sub-varieties and so on). And I would recommend trying a variety, because they are quite different and you might hate one but like others, and it's not really a matter of weening yourself from one to another.
Here are the main types of tea:
Black tea: The most common type in the States. Odds are, if it does not specify another sort of tea, it is black. It is typically stronger, and the hardest to mess up (other types of tea can get bitter if brewed too long).
Green tea: A lighter, earthier type of tea. Much different from the types of iced tea you've likely had.
White tea: Also lighter. I've not had as many varieties of this tea, though, as I don't like it that much. Except when paired with mint.
Red tea: Actually an herbal tea made from the rooibos plant which grows in Africa! And also decaf. It has a very distinct taste that I like a lot, but is very hard to describe.
You can get all those varieties in different flavors as well, which you will probably want to do before trying an unflavored variety. There are fruity teas, spicy teas (see: chai), minty teas, flowery teas, etc. Again here, go with the sort of thing you like!
You can also add things to your tea, which you may want to do at first. Such as sugar (though if you dislike sugary iced tea, you may want to play it light here), honey (same goes), and milk (which I would only recommend for stronger chai blends).
So, in summary:
Try an herbal tea. Then try a flavored tea (probably black). Then try some non-black tea. Then try unflavored teas. If any of the above are too bland, add sugar or honey. If any of the above are too strong/spiced, add a little milk or cream.
---
So I went to Walmart and got some tea.
Is it something I would continue trying? I guess so, although I'm still not convinced I wholly like the taste of it or not yet. Maybe my tastes will grow over time, or I'll put those sugar packets to good use some other way. (Actually, adding one sugar packet did make a difference. It tasted a lot better.) In any case, it was a fun trial, and shows I really need practice with webcams. (Eventually, I'm going to have to stop doing these irrelevant conclusions.)
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Spaß an einem Samstag Nachmittag
Photo: http://www.farmshow.state.pa.us
I don't watch much television, and when I do, it tends to be very odd selections. For example, right now I'm watching the Pennsylvania Farm Show Sheep to Shawl Competition. If you're not familiar with the most amazing sport on the face of the planet, teams of five have about two and a half hours to shear a sheep, spin the wool, and weave it into a shawl (over six feet long, minimum). I don't know why, but this is absolutely gripping television to me. Between the race to the judges' table and the following auction (one sold for $3400 last year), I just can't not watch it.
Honestly, I can't say I have any "favorite" television show, although I've admitted that the only television show I've ever cleared my schedule to watch was The Mole. It was probably one of the very few reality television shows that had a true play-along element (as compared to a phone-in element), and the entire setting of espionage in a foreign country sucked me right in. Sadly, ABC never really respected this show and always shoved it to late hours, then wondered why it never got higher ratings.
I have a tremendous aversion to German, by the way. (Really, this is leading somewhere.) I don't know where exactly my phobia of the German language began, but I'd like to think it has something to do with my former life as a Music Ed major. German is "an incredibly easy language to understand" to everyone except me, apparently. Memorizing German is almost impossible for me, which is a shame, because some German art songs are stunningly beautiful. I've noticed that lately though, I've been spouting random German phrases to people, like "nein, das ist verboten" or random German counting (for numbers less than ten). Perhaps this aversion is slowly wearing off.
This may or may not explain my recent fascination with a little show called Schlag den Raab (Beat Raab). In it, a contestant (selected by a live vote) faces off against German television personality Stefan Raab in a serles of challenges. The first challenge is worth one point, the second is worth two, and so forth to game 15, worth 15 points. The first to reach 61 points (out of 120 possible) wins. If the contestant wins, they receive a jackpot that starts at €500,000 and increases by €500,000 every time Raab wins.
The challenges widely vary in nature, from traditional sports (volleyball, handball, ping pong) to trivia or puzzle challenges (identifying the title of a book by its cover, buzzing in as soon as an item that doesn't fit a category shows up on a screen, naming a celebrity that's reading a passage by listening to their voice) to more extreme challenges (driving ATVs on an outdoor course, egg-and-spoon races on beams suspended off the ground) to more ridiculous stunts and things you'd challenge a drunk person to do in a bar (hammering nails into a board 2 feet above one's head, flicking a coin into a glass, combining five keyrings into one keyring)... Pretty much anything's up for grabs.
Photo: http://www.prosieben.de/tv/schlag-den-raab/
One trend of shows I've noticed in Germany (possibly in other countries, I'm not sure) is the popularity of periodic shows such as Schlag den Raab, which only air a few episodes per year, and take up the better portion of an entire night. Wetten, dass..? is another show that follows this trend, and is watched by well over half of German speaking folks across Europe. Schlag den Raab usually runs for at least four hours (think about it, there's a minimum of 11 games to play, plus commercials and musical guests) and starts airing at 8:15 on Saturday nights (in Germany, obviously), so it's an evening pretty well based around the television set.
The next episode airs this Saturday, January 16, and starts 2:15pm EST with a contestant playing for a €1,500,000 jackpot. I plan to watch the show as I finish packing to return to school. There's just one hitch... There's not really any legal method to watch it live in the US. There's a bit of hunting involved to find a website that's streaming the channel live. If I find something then, I'll be sure to post a link to it on Saturday, and I'll admit that I'll most likely be obtaining the link from Bother's Bar, so you'd be best off watching for a link there.
That said, keep watching this space for an update, and we'll see you Samstag.
Update: Show over, yanking this link. Yikes, that was a smidge embarrassing for the contestant. For those of you who missed it, Stefan won 63-15, after round 12. The contestant, Torsten, won only rounds 1, 5, and 9. A definite highlight worth noting: A game where some bread was loaded into a toaster, and the first to buzz in started a timer. If the toast popped before ten seconds, whoever buzzed gets a point. My definite favorite though was the backwards music game. Give it a shot, it's a lot of fun. For a bit of a play-by-play/commentary on everything, I will again link you to the Bother's Bar discussion.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Print This Out and Put It Where A Loved One Might Find It
Dear Honey,
Hi, it's me, ________________. I know you're probably still searching for the perfect gift for me for Christmas. Time's running out, you know! However, my good friend Steve recommended a very good list of games that I think you should buy me. And everything's on sale on Steam until January 3! After all, that jewelry/sweater/other: ________________ you already bought is really ugly, and I was going to take it back to the store and use the money to buy Borderlands anyway.
Steve Strongly Recommends I Get These Games:
Braid - $2.49 - Steam - JiG review
Steve said that this was one of his favorite puzzle games that he played this year. The time-based puzzles are fun, and quite a challenge to wrap one's head around. Plus, the music and artwork are soothing and gorgeous (respectively), and the ending could change how you see life. Deep stuff.
World of Goo - $4.99 - Steam - JiG review
Steve said that we are basically unawesome until we've played this game. World of Goo was the winner of several indie gaming awards, and rightfully so, as its innovative gameplay and riotous sense of humor have made it a tremendous joy for Steve to play. Seriously, we're behind the ball on buying this one. I think that's why the neighbors have been letting their dog pee in our garden.
Audiosurf - $2.50 - Steam - WLWLOH review
I hate going to the company Christmas party because my coworkers all make fun of my ability to get down to the music. Audiosurf would be an excellent game for helping me find my inner groove while jamming out to the music I already love. Okay, this game might not help me learn to dance, but Steve said it's fun, a'ight?
Chains - $.99 - Steam - JiG review
Oh, come on, this one's only a buck! Steve said that Chains has a very interesting twist on the match-3 and samegame genres, and a variety of challenges to match. He also said that he had french toast for breakfast this morning. (Irrelevant, but I'm having a hard time coming up with any other quirky things to put at the end of these mini-reviews.)
The Wonderful End of the World/AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA! Combo - $11.24 - Steam - JiG review of TWEotW - A! review forthcoming
Steve said that the fine folks of Dejobaan Games have outdone their previous 75 years of video game design with these two astonishing games in one convenient, bite-sized package. We both said we liked those Katamari games on our son's PlayCenter thingy, and TWEotW captures all the fun we had with that and put into a computer-able game. And AaaaAA! is probably the closest we'll come to going skydiving considering our age. I wonder if there really are floating buildings up there?
Steve's Friends Who Are Also Very Knowledgable About Games Would Probably Recommend These Games As Well:
Machinarium - $9.99 - Steam - JiG review
Trine - $7.99 - Steam - WLWLOH demo impressions
Time Gentlemen, Please!/Ben There, Dan That! Combo - $2.49 - Steam - JiG reviews for BTDT, TGP
Crayon Physics Deluxe - $9.99 - Steam - JiG Review
Hope this gives you some ideas!
XOXOXO
--Yours
Hi, it's me, ________________. I know you're probably still searching for the perfect gift for me for Christmas. Time's running out, you know! However, my good friend Steve recommended a very good list of games that I think you should buy me. And everything's on sale on Steam until January 3! After all, that jewelry/sweater/other: ________________ you already bought is really ugly, and I was going to take it back to the store and use the money to buy Borderlands anyway.
Steve Strongly Recommends I Get These Games:
Braid - $2.49 - Steam - JiG review
Steve said that this was one of his favorite puzzle games that he played this year. The time-based puzzles are fun, and quite a challenge to wrap one's head around. Plus, the music and artwork are soothing and gorgeous (respectively), and the ending could change how you see life. Deep stuff.
World of Goo - $4.99 - Steam - JiG review
Steve said that we are basically unawesome until we've played this game. World of Goo was the winner of several indie gaming awards, and rightfully so, as its innovative gameplay and riotous sense of humor have made it a tremendous joy for Steve to play. Seriously, we're behind the ball on buying this one. I think that's why the neighbors have been letting their dog pee in our garden.
Audiosurf - $2.50 - Steam - WLWLOH review
I hate going to the company Christmas party because my coworkers all make fun of my ability to get down to the music. Audiosurf would be an excellent game for helping me find my inner groove while jamming out to the music I already love. Okay, this game might not help me learn to dance, but Steve said it's fun, a'ight?
Chains - $.99 - Steam - JiG review
Oh, come on, this one's only a buck! Steve said that Chains has a very interesting twist on the match-3 and samegame genres, and a variety of challenges to match. He also said that he had french toast for breakfast this morning. (Irrelevant, but I'm having a hard time coming up with any other quirky things to put at the end of these mini-reviews.)
The Wonderful End of the World/AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA! Combo - $11.24 - Steam - JiG review of TWEotW - A! review forthcoming
Steve said that the fine folks of Dejobaan Games have outdone their previous 75 years of video game design with these two astonishing games in one convenient, bite-sized package. We both said we liked those Katamari games on our son's PlayCenter thingy, and TWEotW captures all the fun we had with that and put into a computer-able game. And AaaaAA! is probably the closest we'll come to going skydiving considering our age. I wonder if there really are floating buildings up there?
Steve's Friends Who Are Also Very Knowledgable About Games Would Probably Recommend These Games As Well:
Machinarium - $9.99 - Steam - JiG review
Trine - $7.99 - Steam - WLWLOH demo impressions
Time Gentlemen, Please!/Ben There, Dan That! Combo - $2.49 - Steam - JiG reviews for BTDT, TGP
Crayon Physics Deluxe - $9.99 - Steam - JiG Review
Hope this gives you some ideas!
XOXOXO
--Yours
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
This Rule of Thumb Actually Involves Thumbs
And it's quite handy too. You're welcome.
Any game in which a glitch is formed where your thumbs become fused together inside a chain-link fence is generally not a good game.
Mirror's Edge, then. I downloaded it over Thanksgiving break because it was on sale, I'm probably going to give up on it over Christmas break. Why? Because it's just starting to irritate and bore me.
Okay, you have to admit, it's a sexy game. The developers have paid a lot of attention to visual details, and the result is clear. The world is drop-dead gorgeous, although very white, which really should be considered cheating since they can fall back on simple gradients rather than trying to create intricate artwork, but we'll forgive that. But beyond the eye-candy of all the intricate levels to explore, there's a sense of aggravation looming in the darkness.
For those of you unfamiliar with Mirror's Edge, a plotline summary in 50 words or less: Faith is a "Runner" who uses parkour to try to clear her sister's name. Oh dear, that was only 14 words...
First off, I understand that in a certain sense, Mirror's Edge is a puzzle platformer, although not in the same sense that Portal and Braid are puzzle platformers. You've got to get from Point A to Point B, lather, rinse, and repeat. Usually, your Point B becomes the new Point A, and you've got to work out where the next Point B is. This is all fine and dandy, except either certain levels are designed to obscure your target destination in whatever ways possible, or I'm generally too stupid to figure out the ways to get there. There's a "Runner's Eye" system where objects that you need to use turn red to catch your attention, but this does not occur in all instances, and sometimes finding the way to a red object is half the battle. I kid you not, there have been times where I've sat putzing around in a corridor trying to find a way up onto a higher platform for literally half an hour, only to find that the answer was in a one-inch ledge on a wall that I never really realized was there before. I mean, who could have missed! the one inch ledge on a wall above me. Naturally. Unrelatedly, this Faith girl clearly has the strongest fingertips known to mankind.
If it's not the puzzle aspect that seems a bit unintuitive to you, maybe it's the combat system that seems a bit off-kilter. Occasionally, you will encounter police officers (of varying levels of experience or expertise, apparently) that you must disarm and/or kill. Since your character is unarmed, you've got to use only fists and feet to get the job done, unless you manage to rip a gun away from someone trying to shoot you (although there exists a statistic for your save file that counts the number of people you've shot, which I want to believe is significant later in the game, so I've been trying to avoid that route). However, Super Smash Bros. this ain't, as all you can really do are kick, punch, flying kick, sliding kick, and that's pretty much the lot of it. Thus, my melee strategy is just to mash buttons whenever I meet someone in SWAT armor. (Oh wait, it IS Super Smash Bros.!)
However, the kiss of death in this game seems to be how long it is. Or rather, how long the chapters are. One key thing about gaming and me is that I can't stand long sessions of the same thing over and over again. Team Fortress 2 is incredibly tolerable, because the game is constantly changing, and if it's not, you can change your character as you see fit. Half Life 2 is painful, because the chapters are incredibly long, but at least you can save and walk away at any time during the level. (Still, I've been wandering around in Ravenholm for hours now, and I'm wondering if that level ever ends.) Mirror's Edge is particularly painful in that there are checkpoints to return to if you die, but you can't save in the middle of chapters. Some chapters are stupidly long to begin with, not to mention the fact that I'm clearly too thick to get certain puzzles, so they take twice as long for me, so having to quit in the middle of any level is tremendously aggravating. I can't stick around for long periods of time to finish a single level, and I can't be bothered to return any time soon when after an hour and a half in a level, you get a glitch like the one above.
I will concede that Mirror's Edge is visually stunning, and that it does turn a lot of conventional platformers on its ear with a versatile parkour-style navigation theme. There's just too many things that drive me batty about the game to make me want to continue, and that's a bad thing. Did this make sense at all? It's late, which is part of the reason why I'm not bothering with links this time. In a nutshell: Mirror's Edge, not worth it unless if you've got a higher tolerance for this sort of aggrevation than me.
------
Edit: I think it's only fair that I include this little addendum. The post above was written while incredibly tired, which I think I mentioned. However, in fairness, I should also mention that the only reason for writing the post was to vent rage about a glitch at an irritating moment in the game. In other words, you could call the post the equivalent of writing emails to your boss while drunk. In no way does it end well, except it's something your co-workers can laugh at the next day.
Now that that's out of the way, and now that I'm a little less tired, I can tell you in good conscience that the above negative review stands. I think I can justify it a little more coherently now.
I understand that there's a certain amount of skill to play any sort of game, and the skill required varies from game to game. In the case of Mirror's Edge, you could say it's about half coordination/skill/timing and half puzzle/problem solving, and the reason that I put them at a 50/50 split is because there are parts where both are required and parts where one definitely trumps the other.
On the puzzle/problem solving side of the coin, much of the challenges involve figuring out how to get from Point A to Point B, as I mentioned above. The main problem that I have with this is that the solution for getting there isn't always clear, and at that, you might not even know where you're going to begin with. You can get a little help by tapping the Left Alt key, which automatically turns your head to look at where you need to go/what you need to do. (By the way, don't do this while moving, you might accidentally walk off a ledge because of the sudden turn of your motion.) The (other) problem with this is that the guiding system doesn't always respond to your cries for help (as if to say, "C'mon, the solution should be obvious, just go down this hallway"), or it tries to show you the solution too many steps in advance. This is often the case with trying to climb upward in narrow corridors, like mentioned above. Hitting Alt pretty much makes you look straight up, which doesn't help much when you need to figure out which wall to wallrun-jump off of to grab on to which pole to swing to which ledge and so forth. Similarly, there are instances (particularly outdoors) where hitting Alt points you to a building far away, where your goal is to get to a door on the other side of the building (but you don't really know that until you get there). To sum it up, when you need help the most, it's not likely you'll be able to get it.
Then there's the coordination/skill/timing side of things. Once you figure out what you need to do, doing it is a completely different matter. You occasionally have to make large jumps over certain-death heights, and these jumps always seem to require that you get enough speed and jump at the exact right moment, or else you plummet downwardly. Even when I've had to repeat certain jumps due to dying shortly thereafter, I still find myself missing the previous jumps due to the accuracy needed to complete them.
In the same category of skill/timing, I need to cite this example of another frustrating thing about this game. In a certain level, which I forget, you encounter a certain character, whom I forget, and have basically a mini-boss fight. To start the fight, the character delivers a surprise blow as you arrive at the top of a flight of stairs, grabs you, and throws you down to a lower roof on the building. The character then jumps down, charges you, and attempts to beat you with a pipe. If you fail to disarm the man just before he strikes you with the pipe, he hits you, then grabs you again, holds your helpless body up for a moment while he flashes another evil smile, and throws you to the street below where you die. An exciting scene, yes, but it becomes significantly less exciting when you realize that every time you die, the exact same sequence starts again. From stairs to concrete, it's about 40 seconds (estimate from memory, sorry if I'm off). To beat the boss, you're supposed to (1) realize that you need to disarm the man when he charges you, (2) find the exact moment to disarm him (which can be aided by using the R key, which slows time down for a bit), and (3) actually do the disarm. Prior to this stage, I had never disarmed a man in the game, nor had I used the R key, so it took me quite a while to even remember how to do either. The sad bit is, after at least 20 tries (and I'm not exaggerating that), I finally managed to disarm the man, and watched carefully for the next part of the fight... but disarming him also disoriented him, and he basically ran off the edge of the roof. Boss fight over, and I only had to click once at the right time. What the heck? After wasting way too much time figuring out what to do, it all came down to one well-timed click? Sloblock, that. It's instances like this that make this game frustrating, and you actually feel for a moment as though you've been wasting your time.
There are other instances of ire which I won't go into (as it's once again becoming late, and I'll just slip into my incoherent place once again), but just know that these moments of frustration and helplessness and illogic make Mirror's Edge an unpleasant experience for me. Maybe your mileage will go farther, but it just wasn't my cup of tea. I don't know if I'll be returning to it anytime soon, but if you feel so inclined to give it a try, you might as well download it now on Steam, as it's now on sale... More on that later. I've got a cold, so sleep is a higher priority than last night. Stay tuned...
Any game in which a glitch is formed where your thumbs become fused together inside a chain-link fence is generally not a good game.
Mirror's Edge, then. I downloaded it over Thanksgiving break because it was on sale, I'm probably going to give up on it over Christmas break. Why? Because it's just starting to irritate and bore me.
Okay, you have to admit, it's a sexy game. The developers have paid a lot of attention to visual details, and the result is clear. The world is drop-dead gorgeous, although very white, which really should be considered cheating since they can fall back on simple gradients rather than trying to create intricate artwork, but we'll forgive that. But beyond the eye-candy of all the intricate levels to explore, there's a sense of aggravation looming in the darkness.
For those of you unfamiliar with Mirror's Edge, a plotline summary in 50 words or less: Faith is a "Runner" who uses parkour to try to clear her sister's name. Oh dear, that was only 14 words...
First off, I understand that in a certain sense, Mirror's Edge is a puzzle platformer, although not in the same sense that Portal and Braid are puzzle platformers. You've got to get from Point A to Point B, lather, rinse, and repeat. Usually, your Point B becomes the new Point A, and you've got to work out where the next Point B is. This is all fine and dandy, except either certain levels are designed to obscure your target destination in whatever ways possible, or I'm generally too stupid to figure out the ways to get there. There's a "Runner's Eye" system where objects that you need to use turn red to catch your attention, but this does not occur in all instances, and sometimes finding the way to a red object is half the battle. I kid you not, there have been times where I've sat putzing around in a corridor trying to find a way up onto a higher platform for literally half an hour, only to find that the answer was in a one-inch ledge on a wall that I never really realized was there before. I mean, who could have missed! the one inch ledge on a wall above me. Naturally. Unrelatedly, this Faith girl clearly has the strongest fingertips known to mankind.
If it's not the puzzle aspect that seems a bit unintuitive to you, maybe it's the combat system that seems a bit off-kilter. Occasionally, you will encounter police officers (of varying levels of experience or expertise, apparently) that you must disarm and/or kill. Since your character is unarmed, you've got to use only fists and feet to get the job done, unless you manage to rip a gun away from someone trying to shoot you (although there exists a statistic for your save file that counts the number of people you've shot, which I want to believe is significant later in the game, so I've been trying to avoid that route). However, Super Smash Bros. this ain't, as all you can really do are kick, punch, flying kick, sliding kick, and that's pretty much the lot of it. Thus, my melee strategy is just to mash buttons whenever I meet someone in SWAT armor. (Oh wait, it IS Super Smash Bros.!)
However, the kiss of death in this game seems to be how long it is. Or rather, how long the chapters are. One key thing about gaming and me is that I can't stand long sessions of the same thing over and over again. Team Fortress 2 is incredibly tolerable, because the game is constantly changing, and if it's not, you can change your character as you see fit. Half Life 2 is painful, because the chapters are incredibly long, but at least you can save and walk away at any time during the level. (Still, I've been wandering around in Ravenholm for hours now, and I'm wondering if that level ever ends.) Mirror's Edge is particularly painful in that there are checkpoints to return to if you die, but you can't save in the middle of chapters. Some chapters are stupidly long to begin with, not to mention the fact that I'm clearly too thick to get certain puzzles, so they take twice as long for me, so having to quit in the middle of any level is tremendously aggravating. I can't stick around for long periods of time to finish a single level, and I can't be bothered to return any time soon when after an hour and a half in a level, you get a glitch like the one above.
I will concede that Mirror's Edge is visually stunning, and that it does turn a lot of conventional platformers on its ear with a versatile parkour-style navigation theme. There's just too many things that drive me batty about the game to make me want to continue, and that's a bad thing. Did this make sense at all? It's late, which is part of the reason why I'm not bothering with links this time. In a nutshell: Mirror's Edge, not worth it unless if you've got a higher tolerance for this sort of aggrevation than me.
------
Edit: I think it's only fair that I include this little addendum. The post above was written while incredibly tired, which I think I mentioned. However, in fairness, I should also mention that the only reason for writing the post was to vent rage about a glitch at an irritating moment in the game. In other words, you could call the post the equivalent of writing emails to your boss while drunk. In no way does it end well, except it's something your co-workers can laugh at the next day.
Now that that's out of the way, and now that I'm a little less tired, I can tell you in good conscience that the above negative review stands. I think I can justify it a little more coherently now.
I understand that there's a certain amount of skill to play any sort of game, and the skill required varies from game to game. In the case of Mirror's Edge, you could say it's about half coordination/skill/timing and half puzzle/problem solving, and the reason that I put them at a 50/50 split is because there are parts where both are required and parts where one definitely trumps the other.
On the puzzle/problem solving side of the coin, much of the challenges involve figuring out how to get from Point A to Point B, as I mentioned above. The main problem that I have with this is that the solution for getting there isn't always clear, and at that, you might not even know where you're going to begin with. You can get a little help by tapping the Left Alt key, which automatically turns your head to look at where you need to go/what you need to do. (By the way, don't do this while moving, you might accidentally walk off a ledge because of the sudden turn of your motion.) The (other) problem with this is that the guiding system doesn't always respond to your cries for help (as if to say, "C'mon, the solution should be obvious, just go down this hallway"), or it tries to show you the solution too many steps in advance. This is often the case with trying to climb upward in narrow corridors, like mentioned above. Hitting Alt pretty much makes you look straight up, which doesn't help much when you need to figure out which wall to wallrun-jump off of to grab on to which pole to swing to which ledge and so forth. Similarly, there are instances (particularly outdoors) where hitting Alt points you to a building far away, where your goal is to get to a door on the other side of the building (but you don't really know that until you get there). To sum it up, when you need help the most, it's not likely you'll be able to get it.
Then there's the coordination/skill/timing side of things. Once you figure out what you need to do, doing it is a completely different matter. You occasionally have to make large jumps over certain-death heights, and these jumps always seem to require that you get enough speed and jump at the exact right moment, or else you plummet downwardly. Even when I've had to repeat certain jumps due to dying shortly thereafter, I still find myself missing the previous jumps due to the accuracy needed to complete them.
In the same category of skill/timing, I need to cite this example of another frustrating thing about this game. In a certain level, which I forget, you encounter a certain character, whom I forget, and have basically a mini-boss fight. To start the fight, the character delivers a surprise blow as you arrive at the top of a flight of stairs, grabs you, and throws you down to a lower roof on the building. The character then jumps down, charges you, and attempts to beat you with a pipe. If you fail to disarm the man just before he strikes you with the pipe, he hits you, then grabs you again, holds your helpless body up for a moment while he flashes another evil smile, and throws you to the street below where you die. An exciting scene, yes, but it becomes significantly less exciting when you realize that every time you die, the exact same sequence starts again. From stairs to concrete, it's about 40 seconds (estimate from memory, sorry if I'm off). To beat the boss, you're supposed to (1) realize that you need to disarm the man when he charges you, (2) find the exact moment to disarm him (which can be aided by using the R key, which slows time down for a bit), and (3) actually do the disarm. Prior to this stage, I had never disarmed a man in the game, nor had I used the R key, so it took me quite a while to even remember how to do either. The sad bit is, after at least 20 tries (and I'm not exaggerating that), I finally managed to disarm the man, and watched carefully for the next part of the fight... but disarming him also disoriented him, and he basically ran off the edge of the roof. Boss fight over, and I only had to click once at the right time. What the heck? After wasting way too much time figuring out what to do, it all came down to one well-timed click? Sloblock, that. It's instances like this that make this game frustrating, and you actually feel for a moment as though you've been wasting your time.
There are other instances of ire which I won't go into (as it's once again becoming late, and I'll just slip into my incoherent place once again), but just know that these moments of frustration and helplessness and illogic make Mirror's Edge an unpleasant experience for me. Maybe your mileage will go farther, but it just wasn't my cup of tea. I don't know if I'll be returning to it anytime soon, but if you feel so inclined to give it a try, you might as well download it now on Steam, as it's now on sale... More on that later. I've got a cold, so sleep is a higher priority than last night. Stay tuned...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
