Rio de Emocion

Time to review in short some of the games I've started playing this week. Because it's better to start off with the bad news, Crysis 2 is up first, followed by Super Meat Boy, Sim City 4 and Unreal Tournament 2004. That's right we're also gonna do some retro gaming!

also kudoz to mr. Yeargdribble for this format

Crysis 2 is the sequel to the game that shocked the gaming world in 2007 with it's awesome graphics. The open gameplay was pretty good too, although people probably wanted an even more open and accessible area for the sequel. After all sequels are supposed to improve on the first one right?!

I don't wanna spend too much words in Crysis 2 because it sucks balls. At the risk of being called an "elitist" (which I don't mind because frankly, I do strive to be part of the elites of society), I'll start right off by saying they ruined the concept of the original game by completely, as I like to call it, consolizing it. No more open island to explore, no more multiple tactical options, no more destructible environment and awesome physics. They turned the game into another uninspired tunnel shooter in the Call of Duty style because it's an easy sell. The urban environments reminded me of some of the levels of the singleplayer campaign of Bad Company 2, which I didn't like because it was too bland and uninspired. But at least you could blow up in that game, like you also could in Crysis 2.

No more of that now. At best you'll be able to destroy minor objects like computer screens and radios. Even the graphics are of lower quality than the original (they tried to cover up the lowres textures with lots and lots of motion blur and a reduced FOV, but who's falling for that?), although it does run smoother than the Cryengine 2. Also, the guns do look better which is probably the only good point I can find about the game. They even removed the tactical options of the nanosuit from the first and put it all together. You don't have to switch for your Power or Speed or Stealth mode, they're all like separate powerups you can activate by pressing a button and they all drain energy when used like the Stealth Mode did in the first.

Also Crytek really smurfed it up by treating the PC gamers like 12 year olds by giving us a grand total of 3 graphical options: "Gamer", "Advanced" and "Hardcore". Wtf? And don't even get me started on how they consolized the interface by having these stupid "Press X for Y" tooltips popping up every time, like we're too retarded to remember what button to press to jump to get over an obstacle after the first time or the way every interactable object glows in this game.

Damnit now I spent more words on that ty game than I wanted to. On to the next! Super Meat Boy is a fun, challenging platform game. Yeargdribble has already said a lot about it in his blog so I'll just add it's a great game that brings a level of challenge that we're not used to seeing on games these days.

Retro time: I started playing SimCity 4 again on my MacBook Pro. It's a pretty extensive management game and also the last game in the series that wasn't simplified to cater to inferior minds (see Crysis 2). For some reason I can only manage to make my SimCity profitable on "easy" mode. Manufacturing and services industries just don't seem to want to settle. Wonder what I'm doing wrong. I also don't like how the game isn't completely realistic about things. Why don't I receive any money from the national government? Why does my increased spending get me in debt but doesn't increase economic growth? Etc.

I've also discovered the little gem called Unreal Tournament 2004. I played UT and Quake 3 a few years ago. I've always liked how these games require nothing but super fast reflexes and have these exotic guns that are all different. For some reason they don't sell as well as Call of Duty knockoffs with realistic guns that all feel the same. This game does exactly the same thing as its predecessors (with an added 'Onslaught' mode which adds vehicles and big maps) and it still has a dedicated community playing it which of course is great.

Because it's cool I'm considering picking up Unreal Tournament 3 because after all I'm a sucker for good graphics, but from what I've heard the online community isn't much larger than 2004's even though the game is only like 3 years old.

That's all for today. Still have to read lots of taxpayer-funded retarded sociology papers that are 50 pages long yet have absolutely nothing relevant to say, but I'll probably have more to say about that later!

No screenshots because I cba.