The Subjective Gamer is a website with reviews of videogames, books, movies, board games and more! http://www.subjectivegamer.com Sat, 04 Sep 2010 16:02:13 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.subjectivegamer.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=98&Itemid= First impressions: After several hours in-game, I've come to a few conclusions: 1) The game is very unrefined. You'll actually look at placeholder descriptions, you'll have very limited character customization options, there will be spelling and grammatical errors, and so on, so forth. 2) The game lacks solid quests. Sure, there's some starter-NPC nonsense in the vein of: "Go fetch that, go cook this, go kill that", but nothing too inspiring. 3) The graphics are decent, at best. They chose a realistic style, and as usual, all this does is highlight the flaws of the graphics engine. However, there's some definite atmosphere. 4) The game is completely unmoderated -- you'll find people on (very expensive) mounts camping the newbie areas and murdering all those whom dare to try and play the game. In 5 hours of playtime, I've been ganked 3 times, and had 6 -attempts- on me. The first time I didn't care, but the second 2 times I was killed trying to fulfill the same quests, which is on a timer. The problem is: unlike many people who play MMO's, I simply don't have the time to keep playing until I finish the quest; I should have been done hours ago, and been snoozing. This last death was simply the end of my evening, play-wise. That's something MMO designers should start keeping in mind a little bit more: not everyone has the time to keep going at it, some of us are more casual than others. It's really worth it to cater to -both- groups of gamers, and yes; that should be possible. By no means am I advocating PvE servers or any such things, but perhaps the timer on timed quests should reset if you get PvP'd. Just a suggestion. That said, I'm enjoying the game, but as usual I find myself wishing human nature was better ;) I'll keep you updated! Tue, 26 May 2009 05:40:21 +0100 http://www.subjectivegamer.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=97&Itemid= I have just purchased Darkfall Online, and because of the scope of MMO's (which makes writing a single review very difficult), I'll keep a bit of a journal, instead. Below is the first entry. Day 1, the Preamble (May 25th, 2009)I'm downloading Darkfall. While waiting, I've decided to do the smart thing and read several little strategy guides online. Although there is one for sale, I'll be damned to spend 30 dollars on an Unofficial Strategy Guide, so instead, I stuck with this guide: http://www.dfguide.com It's clear that Darkfall is a game unlike other MMO's; this is all about PvP, and I'm somewhat nervous about it, as I -do- tend to care a lot about my hard work that I put into a character. However, I've decided to stick to a few rules: It's only a game, don't get worked up over it. The game is released as-is, anything in the game is free play, which includes what I'd call “dishonorable” behavior in other MMO's. Don't expect others to follow some moral code, and just join them. Find a nice guild of like minded people, and just play the game with them. I'm very psyched about playing the game, but alas! An hour and 30 minutes of waiting remains, in the absolute best-case scenario of maintaining a good speed on this torrent. Mon, 25 May 2009 20:45:03 +0100 http://www.subjectivegamer.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=96&Itemid= The latest review is in! Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor has been reviewed. Go and check out the review here (http://www.subjectivegamer.com/component/option,com_simple_review/Itemid,60/review,8-Company-of-Heroes-Tales-of-Valor-Real-Time-Strategy-Relic-Entertainment/). Currently, we can only offer low-resolution gameplay footage, due to the simple webspace constraints we have. If you happen to own a webserver, and you wouldn't mind hosting our videos for us, please drop us a line at: admin (at) subjectivegamer (dot) com. Any offers would be greatly appreciated! In other news: the famous time-manipulation-indie-platformer Braid (http://braid-game.com/) has been released for the PC, and is now available on Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/app/26800/) for $15 USD. I'm not going to get into the debate whether or not that price tag is too high, simply because I haven't played enough of the darn game to make that judgement. If you have any thoughts or feelings on the matter, do leave a comment, or post on our forums (http://www.subjectivegamer.com/index.php?option=com_jfusion Itemid=55)! Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:40:37 +0100 http://www.subjectivegamer.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=95&Itemid= I have just finished putting up the review for Wheelman, a game which I'd urge you all the read my review of. Not just because I wrote it, but also because it might surprize you quite a bit! So definitely give it a read. (http://www.subjectivegamer.com/images/stories/reviews/pcgames/wheelman/wheelman.jpg)If that didn't pull you over the line in wanting to read it, maybe the following will: I have said my goodbye to screenshots. That's right: the Subjectivegamer will now, instead, have mostly clips of gameplay footage. Here-and-there you'll find a stray screenshot, where a video would simply be overkill, but those instances should be few. You might be wondering why we've made this move, and it's really quite simple: a screenshot gives very limited information, and does little to tell you, the reader, about what's going on. Think about those pictures on the boxes of games: what do they tell you? Short videos, typically about a minute long, should illustrate the reviews quite nicely. Furthermore, this caters to a different crowd: those who prefer either video reviews or those who don't like reading large amounts of text. Of course, every review will still have a large amount of screenshots, in a slideshow at the bottom of the review. I hope you'll all consider this an improvement, and might even post your thoughts on the matter in the comments section! Sat, 11 Apr 2009 22:36:20 +0100 http://www.subjectivegamer.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=94&Itemid= By all that is good and holy -- don't buy this game. I know, this is a rather exaggerated request to make, but let's face the facts: 1) Recently, we've seen very few new games that were not based on either a franchise, or part of a series. A notable exception is the waves upon waves of indie games Steam is publishing recently, but those are not full games. 2) The installments we have recently seen have all been disappointing. Yes, this is a sweeping statement, but none of them grip the player and pull them in. The big well o' games seems dry. 3) Tomb Raider. Seriously? This series is still running? There must be some economic benefit here, otherwise it wouldn't be developed, but I honestly don't know anybody who has played many in this series. Post a comment if you do actively play the series. Don't buy Tomb Raider, no matter how cheap it is, and instead, send an email to Eidos asking them whether they remember the word innovation. In a time long, long ago, these guys made Commandos, and Deus Ex, and Hitman. Those games were innovation embodied! Where has that creative energy gone? I know, I know, "gamers are boys, and boys want boobies", that principle is what made Tomb Raider, and the world hasn't changed. If you ascribe to this notion, answer me this: why won't Eidos make a different game with a woman with big, jiggly boobies? Maybe, gasp, a game that is also fun to play? Sat, 04 Apr 2009 13:23:08 +0100 http://www.subjectivegamer.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=93&Itemid=112 I’m surprised nobody has thought of this before, really. There are plenty of people in the world who know how to make moulds. There are even more people who know how to make soap. There are yet more people who have found themselves with old controllers whose buttons no longer function. Yet I have never before seen something like digital soaps. The creator of DigitalSoaps (http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6721867) had some punny comments on their merchandise: “Fight viruses and malicious spyware with my super duper soaps. I specialize in the manufacture of PCs - Personal Cleansers - in unique geeky shapes.” Sat, 28 Mar 2009 19:37:46 +0100 http://www.subjectivegamer.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=91&Itemid= After several issues with the comments system, I now finally have it all working appropriately. Should you still encounter any issues, please drop me a line at: admin (at) subjectivegamer (dot) com. Happy commenting! Sat, 07 Mar 2009 17:46:04 +0100 http://www.subjectivegamer.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=90&Itemid=77 After having purchased Empire: Total War (review pending) I found myself on Steam quite frequently (to launch Empire). While doing this, my eye caught the logo of World of Goo, a game I have many fond memories of and which I've observed people playing that ordinarily don't play computergames. It holds a particularly good place in my heart because of its creators 2D Boy (http://2dboy.com/). Not only are they just 2 guys whom like making games, they also have a position of "generally yucky" about DRM. As a matter of fact, the interview with them (http://thereticule.com/2008/12/2d-boy-interview-part-2/) gave me a load of new thoughts on the matter. See, people who advocate DRM use the argument that without DRM, piracy would run rampant and nobody would pay for their games. This theory holds a few not-so-obvious flaws, the first of which going back all the way to the early days of Napster and even before then the kids sampling candy in the candy stores: does this harm or increase sales? Well, we finally have an answer, thanks to Nine Inch Nails: sales go up. (http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/11947)As a matter of fact: although the music is free, it's a best-selling record. In other words: Nine Inch Nails made tons of money. Why? Well, instead of viewing all the people on the planet as people, let's see them as "sales potential", just like businessmen do. Every person out there is a potential sale of whatever product you have, and all you need to do is get them to make that purchase. This is the classical view, which is patently wrong. There are many games that I will simply never buy, for a plethora of reasons, and therefore I am not an "untapped sale potential". Were I to pirate one of those games, which I would never buy anyway, I am not a lost sale. No harm has been done. As a matter of fact, all this piracy has done is turn things around and give the product a chance to convince me it's good enough to buy! Time after time it gets proven that people do want to pay for the products they use, by and large, yet the arguments for DRM never change. Right! World of Goo! It's a fantastic indie puzzler, in which you stack gooballs in various ways, making use of a really fun physics engine and with enormously high production value. This is definitely not a typical indie game with "unrefined quality" at all. This is pure quality, and for the $5 it's on sale for right now it's a steal. Think about it: a movie is generally around 10 - 15 bucks, and keeps you entertained for 2 hours or so. Or think of it in terms of renting a movie. Or, alternatively, you stop thinking about it and buy it now, and also purchase it for someone as a gift. Gooballs make for a great gift. Sat, 07 Mar 2009 14:36:40 +0100 http://www.subjectivegamer.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=89&Itemid=   Is it just me, or have the past few months (since about November, I would guess) been extremely scarce, in particular for PC gamers? And when we got games, it's been mostly ports, and not the good kind. I've seen more lazy ports in the past few months than I care for. Seriously, developers and publishers need to stop this; these things do not sell. We've seen myriad examples of bad ports not selling well, and getting poor reviews, and the list is growing steadily. Let's start with Saints Row 2; an absolutely phenomenal game and hilarious fun, especially co-op. But what have they done for PC? Botched it entirely. The game is riddled with bugs. A recent patch added between 10 and 20 % increase in framerate, yet still it's nigh-unplayable. There's strange pauses in the game because of some bug with the way the system reads and writes to drives. Although the game is fantastic, I would advise anyone not to buy the PC version simply to show the developers that this won't fly. Then, if you happen to own an XBox 360, buy it for that platform because it's worth every penny. Additionally: shame on you, THQ; you're ordinarily such a great publisher, and you let this kind of nonsense bear your logo? Tsk. Now, this is an overly long intro to the actual point I am making: Lost Planet is fantastic proof that good games deserve good ports, and will not sell if ported poorly. This game is fundamentally great, originally developed for the XBox 360 where it scored an impressive metascore of 79 (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbox360/lostplanet?q=Lost%20Planet). It got good reviews, and although the intro sequence was mocked by Unskippable (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/unskippable/394-First-Place-Unskippable-01-Lost-Planet) (click Read More to watch the video right here) it got generally good reviews. Succesful game, all around. Insert bad PC port: Bad (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/r_lostplanet_pc) reviews (http://pc.ign.com/articles/800/800283p1.html)which even seems to make reviewers forget the XBox 360 game is pretty damn well-received. Capcom gets punished for their lazy porting and attempts to cash in easily by receiving a Metascore of 66 (http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/lostplanet). This caused sales to be so poor, apparently, that Steam is now throwing the game into the bargain bin: $5 for a premier XBox 360 title on PC. Sure, it's not exactly a new title, but Steam isn't known for giving big discounts for old games, I refer you to their "reasonable" price for Doom II (http://store.steampowered.com/app/2300/), released in 1994, which is $10. That's 5 dollars more than Lost Planet, released in 2007 (which is apparently equally valuable as Commander Keen (http://store.steampowered.com/app/9180/)). Do I recommend you pick up Lost Planet for PC? Yes, for the simple reason of its pricetag. There's very few titles that would not be worth 5 bucks, and for the money you do get a bad execution of a good game. I, for one, remember the good old days when storylines were allowed to be paper-thin, as long as the action was remotely decent. The days of the Genesis, Doom II and Commander Keen... Click "Read More" for the Unskippable video. Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:23:07 +0100 http://www.subjectivegamer.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=88&Itemid= Words fail me, there is simply nothing I can add to its glory: Behold, the Jetlev. Water-jetpack. Fri, 20 Feb 2009 04:40:47 +0100