Verbose Curmudgeon

While most of the videos I’ve posted from E3 2012 have gotten or kept me interested, this one’s another story. This is the demo Ubisoft played for Far Cry 3. I loved Far Cry 2, but I can’t bring myself to get excited about this one.

The tag line for this game is shaping up to be “Step Into Insanity,” and it feels less like an inevitable mindfuck as it does like a cheap George Lucas third act twist. The turn loses its kick if you’re up front about the insanity aspect. That’s why Far Cry 2, like its obvious inspiration Apocalypse Now, were interesting. The insanity is written between the lines, not in bold block letters on it.

Thematic awkwardness I might put aside and try it, because I could be completely off base. There are other things here that are pushing me away.

I’m not inherently opposed to nudity in video games, but I am when it’s cheap (and it almost always is). Here in the E3 gameplay demo, some NPC is not only showcasing the goods but giving the player character the guided tour. It’s female objectification at its worst, but Hitman: Absolution already stole the show for blatant, gratuitious sexism at E3.

I suppose the worst thing for me is that the game, while shaping up to be gorgeous, is not compelling. I’ve yet to see any reason why I should care about any of the central characters of the game. Neither the protagonist’s plight nor the antagonist’s anything are interesting in the slightest.

I’m saddened to see the follow-up to a game I really enjoyed echo so hollow.

Please tell me you’re acquainted with Penny Arcade. If you’re not (and FYI, we aren’t friends), go directly to their website and don’t return until you are thoroughly acquainted with them. The PA crew are easily the most important people in gaming who aren’t making games.

Except, well, they kind of do make games. They’ve made two already - the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness (and Episode 2) were made in cooperation with Hothead Games, Ron Gilbert’s former company. They didn’t do too well in the money department, because the planned third episode never got made…

Until now. Now partnering with Zeboyd Games, best known for indie darling RPG Cthulhu Saves The World, the PA crew returns this month with On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode 3 and the promise of a fourth chapter down the road.

I’ve enjoyed the first two games. The third is a more cost- and pixel-consciously developed title and draws loads of inspiration from the 16-bit classic RPGs from the mid-to-late 1990s. So, get out your wallets and give them your money already.

I’m not alone in that Watch Dogs came at me from out of the blue. It’s new IP, which puts it in a class with few peers in the marketplace (let alone E3), and new IP at the AAA level is risky.

I can’t say I’m a believer in Watch Dogs. Not yet; it’s too early in the product cycle to get out the big foam #1 finger. You can’t deny this demo turns heads, though, so I won’t try. I’m interested. I want to see more. That’s a big Mission Accomplished for this team at E3.

What I see here reminds me quite a bit of CBS’ Person of Interest. You’ve got a high tech bag of tricks, a point man with the skills to back up the toys, and a penchant for operating outside the law. If you’ve not checked out the show, you should. It features Jim Caviezil being very un-Jesus-like as the show’s star, and it might just hold you over until more information on Watch Dogs emerges.

This trailer paints the Firaxis crew as super-heroes.

For the uninitiated, X-COM is an old franchise. Old in the sense that it dates back to heady days of the early 1990s, before first person shooters and 3D graphics engines were even holding hands. Back then, the best PC games were usually turn-based and experienced from an isometric perspective. X-COM fit this mold perfectly. Rather than harp on the past, fire up your trusty Steam engine if you want to learn more.

X-COM was a dead (or dormant) franchise since 2001. Then, not too long ago, 2K Games announced the return of the series with XCOM, developed by 2K Marin. To many old school gamers’ horror, they revealed that XCOM would be a first-person shooter and, bewilderingly, set in the 1960s. In short, the new installment wouldn’t share a genre or even the setting as the original. X-COM was becoming a zombie franchise. I tried to reserve judgement, but after watching the game play trailer from E2 2011, I found it to be uninspired and derivative and it fell off my radar for good.

I think someone at 2K realized that they were holding onto a damp turd with XCOM, because in the last year they decided to try to do something worthwhile with the license. They were able to secure Firaxis, developers behind the Civilization franchise, to build XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

Now we’re talking! This isn’t some franchise reboot, this is an honest-to-god strategy game made by the masters in the vein of what longtime fans would expect. Everything about this oozes excellence, and it brings the X-COM name back onto my radar. Firaxis, I raise a glass to you.

Ubisoft announced the next installment of the popular Splinter Cell franchise (in the Tom Clancy brand) at E3 this year, and its first showing left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. You could say that I’m cautiously optimistic about it.

From a story/continuity angle, things are starting to unravel. After the end of Conviction - wherein the leadership of secret black ops agency Third Echelon goes rogue - the President disbands the agency entirely. She immediately regrets this decision, mostly because a whole bunch of people still hate America. The geopolitical situation changes again, and the President decides that we need a secret black ops organization with a license to kill. Naturally, she wants to prevent the problems from the last version, so she puts complete authority over the new organization in the hands of just one man: Sam Fisher. He’s loyal; he saved her personally from the last bad guy! Certainly, there’s no way she’ll ever regret that decision, right?

There’s some cognitive dissonance at work here that gives me grave doubts about this title already. The icing on that cake is the fact that the new black-ops organization that Fisher leads is called “Fourth Echelon”. I’m sure no one will connect those dots.

Oddly enough, Sam himself appears to be much younger in Blacklist than he was in Conviction. Expect in-game advertising for Just For Men.

Finally, Splinter Cell has always been about stealth game play. Stealth isn’t something I see a whole lot of in this announcement trailer. It looks like Ubisoft is copying pages from the Assassin’s Creed playbook into the Splinter Cell book.

I’ve been following Dishonored since it was first announced, but it’s a title that’s been easy to overlook until now because it’s a new IP. Let that sink in: amidst a storm of sequels and reboots in the gaming industry, here we’re seeing a truly new idea walking into the gale.

Dishonored is a simple revenge story, and that’s not where Arkane Studios is spending the midnight oil. The game is, in essence, a simulation and things within the world are intended to behave by the rules of that simulation. Except for the player character getting to bend the rules, of course. Summon a horde of ravenous plague rats, they’re going to go after anything with a pulse, even you.

They’re showing off gameplay that reminds me of the lead-up to Bioshock — play your own way. This looks to be more open-worldsy than the undersea classic, which could be either boon or bane. I’m very excited to see what comes from this.

Tomb Raider has been slowly and steadily climbing my interest chart since this installment was first announced. Rather than a hollow empowerment fantasy, the game is being portrayed, if jocularly, as a “disempowerment fantasy”. I think it’s an interesting angle to play it from, not because I derive sadistic pleasure from the disempowerment of women but because it sets aside the hollow invincible buxom brunette that’s been half of the coin that is Lara Croft and delivers the trial by fire that forges the self-empowering icon people have always wanted her to represent. The gameplay (see also) is looking more and more solid, which is a relief; though, the presence of quicktime events might grow wearying.