Game Journal

Where'd my flames go?

2008-12-26T09:33:00.003-05:00

For Xmas, I got time to play more GTA3:SA. Grabbed my Broadway from the garage, but the flame paint was gone! Wack. Also ran into the basketball save bug where saving in Mad Dogg's mansion makes all the basketballs in the game disappear. Aggravating. I've been running a number of the asset missions, as up until now I'd only gotten the Roboi Food Mart and Vendant (sp?) Meadows airstrip. Found out I needed to finish driving school to buy Wang's Cars (har har), so did that in an hour or so. Had left it without finishing earlier, as the tasks are pretty tedious. Now have Wangs, the Valet, Meadows, and Roboi. Also finally shelled out for high respect clothes.

Was surprised to see a decent amount of character development happen within a non-required mission set. That's either bad design for minimalist gamers like me, or a good reward for completists. I'm coming down on the bad design side; it was only boredom and luck that had me start these missions back up, and the bonding between Caesar and CJ and the development of Kindle (CJ's sister) is pretty important context for the last few missions I'm running.

One part of the game that I was upset I didn't take advantage of fully before moving on was the gang war "minigame". I'm happy to see the game ends with it, give or take, as you grab your brother out of prison and start taking back the neighborhood. Like I just mentioned, doing the Wang's Cars missions helps set up a Sweet vs. Kindle, hood vs. escapism tension in the proverbial plot. Sorta fortuitous that I came back to those missions now (about two real-life years after playing San Fiero the first time).

GTA:SA remains the best alternative to my WoW addiction, as I can play for a week without shelling out for a month. Wish I had a ready platform for GTA4 when I finish, but neither of my computers quite make the minimum cut.

MGS4: Finished

2008-07-06T01:06:00.001-04:00

Final score:

MGS4 Notes

2008-06-28T13:59:00.002-04:00

These could be spoilers. You've been warned.

If I'm going to play a Brother's Keeper mission, and said brother at one point tries not to get in trouble, but later goes out of his way to get in trouble for no apparent reason, then I hate it. Seriously.
Also, if said brother follows a space-filling curve when there are obviously better paths that he should be able to see with his own eyes, then I hate it.
Too many sick people at the end of Act 3/beginning of Act 4. What the heck?
I don't think this is just poor translation, but the conversations are even more stilted than ever. Not one bit of this sounds like two people having a conversation. It sounds like two people reading lines. Spontaneity is zero.
Partitioning the game into 4+ acts has really broken the game into pieces that make it feel like a series of set pieces instead of a continuous adventure. At this point, MGS3 is winning.
Is this just the culmination of the gameplay ideas (when you do play, it is at least entertaining) across a patchwork of pieces that Kojima felt were needed to tie the whole sprawling story up with a bow? That is, because it wants to be the end, it has no choice but to go from place to place to make it coherent ... and fails to be as coherent as the previous games precisely for that reason.

Asus XG Station Approaches Availability - Tom's Hardware

2008-05-14T09:26:00.000-04:00

This, from January 13th of this year:

Announced around a year ago, Asus' external graphics enclosure is nearly production ready, according to company sources.

The XG Station houses a single or double-slot PCI-Express x16 graphics card, using a notebook's Express Card interface to provide x1 bandwidth. This allows an included (unspecified model) mainstream graphics card to exceed Intel's 965GM performance by over 6.7 times, according to Asus.

Crimminy, release it already. I'm not to the point that I need it; I doubt I will for some time with my tower sitting at home with the same slot. But man, this is a cool piece of hardware. If you game with a laptop, this would extend its gaming life by a year or three, albeit in a somewhat clunky fashion [as you need an external monitor]. Still, sounds great for home gaming, and if you got a socketed processor on the motherboard, would nearly eliminate my ~~need~~ desire for a tower.

Rock Band (PS2): Da Wife Loves Drums

2008-05-12T11:18:00.002-04:00

Got Rock Band for the PS2 yesterday evening. Once she got the hang of it, Rebecca was very keen on the drums.

Which is good, because the song list doesn't appeal to her vocally -- about half the songs neither of us know, and nearly all the songs are hard rock sung by growly men. So the original scheme -- Rock Band as Guitar Hero for me and simultaneously Karaoke Revolution for her -- isn't working out. Maybe by the time the second Track Pack comes out the PS2, they'll have Blondie and the B-52's on there.

But the drums she likes. Although the foot pedal is still tricky. Tricky to get comfortable, tricky to figure out how to work effectively, and then just tricky. She would really like the "easy" difficulty to not include the foot pedal, so she could get comfortable with the other stuff first.

It certainly seems like "easy" guitar is much easier than "easy" drums. As established in Guitar Hero, "easy" for guitar means it only uses the first three fret keys. I don't have crazy fingers, but on "easy" I effortlessly stay at the top of the fan meter. It seems that "easy" drums means using the blue drum is rare or nonexistent, but red, yellow, green, and orange foot pedal are generally all represented. Some "Act I" tracks use the foot pedal barely at all, but others use it nonstop. Some more tutorials on drums, or an easier-than-easy level, seem warranted.

Another "feature" of the drums is that they're loud. That is, Rebecca can't really hear the music or drums from the game over the noise of her slappin' the skins. (The obvious answer for this is to crank up the volume, but it's notable that I can hear it just fine and she can't.) The guitar strumbar was redesigned for quietness, so having the drums so noisy is a little weird. I don't remember practice pads being so loud, but then again, I played trumpet. (Better put quotes around "played".)

Of course, _I_ want to get headphones hooked up to the audio out so Rebecca'll look like a real studio drummer. But that's just me.

Despite these issues, Rock Band does indeed rock. The drums open up the gameplay to a broader range of players, and the cooperative feel is electric. If the song list were also more accessible to the Karaoke crowd, it could be even better. I know the downloadable songs of the current-gen versions ameliorate this somewhat, but even those feature only a handful of female vocalists and barely any pop, none from this decade.

Okami (PS2): First 12 hrs

2008-05-12T11:09:00.002-04:00

Innovative and with an artistic style all its own, but the user interface sometimes disrupts an otherwise excellent game. Dialogue can sometimes be "clicked through" to hurry it up, but often not. Painting challenges punish the player for losing by suffering through the long lead-up sequence again. And no, you can't get out of the challenge entirely -- once you're in the "Konohana Shuffle" challenge, the only ways out are to succeed or power off. (Note: this is the sort of poor interface problem that might be overlooked by a reviewer -- so far, Okami is fairly easy, and if you don't screw up one of these challenges, you'll never see how annoying it is.) "Helpful hints" from the dino-buddy are sometimes timed so poorly as to be laughable -- suggesting you practice with a new weapon, for example, when immediately thereafter you are forced into the most challenging battle thus far with no opportunity for such practice. (This guy is called Waka, and he is by far the most annoying Tao master I have ever met, fictionally or otherwise. And I suffered through Confessions of a Taoist on Wall Street.)

Nevertheless, the style is distinctive, the play mechanic is unique, and the emphasis is on exploration and discovery, not twitch skills or resource management. If you're a fan of Ico, this is a very different game that I think will equally appeal to you.

MMORPG Extraplayinganza

2008-04-12T14:50:00.003-04:00

One month of UO two years after one month of UO years after years of UO:
I believe the guy writing The Worst Ninja has things down pretty well. He's approaching UO for the first time, making all the too-contrived conventions appear that much more obviously. Here's a quote from my favorite part of his descriptions of his 14-day trial.

[The bank, where long-time players discard items they can't fit in their bank box on the ground] is a treasure trove. Armour, weapons, magic talismans, mysterious keys and, best of all, a complete, joyously humiliating jester outfit, which I duly don and prance about in for the benefit of my silent patrons. And then, there it is. Thank you, thank you, thank you, kind strangers. An axe. A huge, magic axe, several orders of magnitude more powerful than my geeky claws. I don’t care about its magic, though. This could be a one-of-a-kind ancient elven heirloom for all I care. All I care is that it can chop down bloody trees. At last, I can be the ninja-jester-lumberjack I’d always dreamt of becoming.

The picture of the guy's worth a look.

It is much easier to kill things now. Mobs drop lots more magical loot than before as well. Kingdom Reborn's interface would be much nicer if the sys reqs weren't so high and it didn't crash my box at least once an hour. I did enjoy the special moves you can pull off in combat, which is also a new feature, but this is still no game for the soloer with so many more enjoyable options out there. The majority of the interface still stinks, and for the first time I can ever remember I wasn't able to retrieve my corpse in time and lost some gear. No big deal, but I was upset to see that the stuff I'd dropped on the ground was still there though my adventuring gear disappeared with my body.

Oh well. I like that it's still around.

EVE Online

14 day trial wasn't bad. The game looks great, that's for sure, and they're able to pull off the simulation-first goal of UO very well. For instance, you will almost certainly be buying all your new gear via contracts with other players. When I bought a new ship, it was player made. This is good -- a true economy. I'm sure there are drains somewhere, but for the most part it appears to be about as closed a economic loop as you can get. I've also read a number of interviews with EVE folk that show that their push was to build a good, persistent, impressive simulation rather than just the tired cartoon that is WoW (which I'll still be playing soon).

My only gripe is that fighting seems to be pretty much a big dice-roll fest. I'd rather have Elite-like dogfights, and those aren't found here. You control your ship with the mouse, afaict, making it move to points, or you select targets and orbit (including combat) or get within x meters and stop. There's no real evasive action, though until you learn to target sans mouse, it sure feels like there is.

Even with the older client, it's a gorgeous game. Really, it is. That I enjoyed quite a bit. If I was going to play two MMORPGs at a time, this would be a great change of pace from UO/CoH/WoW. It's very tempting, but the complete lack of twitch play turns me off.

City of Heroes

There's a certain type of game engine that makes me puke. This is one. I get green playing it. In my first shot, I didn't interact with other players much at all, ran through some very boring missions (not unlike ones "real" heroes in comic books do, but without the character development/exploration), and ran away from some of the tougher two-bit street crooks between mission goals. The engine is very dated, with 2-D textures on walls, eg. Reminds me of Tek Wars, another game that made me puke, and, yes, Perfect Dark (yet another pukefest when someone actually commented that I looked green after playing on the floor for a few hours). But the reminder wasn't just the queasiness, but the tech in the engine. Tired engine, bland missions, and large headaches means they likely won't be getting my dough. I'd like to play more to give it a longer chance, but my personal, physical reaction will probably nix that.

Malas in UO remind you of anywhere?

2008-03-15T17:53:00.000-04:00

Boy this sure looks familiar.

It's a land introduced by the Age of Shadows expansion to UO that has continents floating in stars, breaking up into tiny piece, not at all unlike what happened in the Burning Crusade expansion for WoW.

God of War: Chains of Olympus Update #1

2008-03-07T23:29:00.003-05:00

I just finished off the Basilisk, first real boss of the game. So far, so good. The controls do get very natural, and even dodging isn't horrible although it does require a slightly higher level of concentration than it did on the PS2.

This game should have been distributed on the PlayStation Store. The win for Sony would be (a) big name game on the store and (b) sell more memory stick hardware. Seriously, that would have been a huge hit.

Graphics are beautiful. There is a bit of glitchiness when you sleep the PSP, mostly in the sound, but that's mostly understandable.

Going to play this on the HDTV in a bit with the PSP-2000 component cable. Hoping to see how well it looks on the "big" screen.

PS3 God of War can't get here soon enough.

UO:KR -- What's old is, well, still old.

2008-03-03T01:08:00.007-05:00

I guess it's fun that they kept Thopas around, but Ultima Online's new Kingdom Reborn update brings me right back to where I was when I was playing on a 333 MHz AMD K6. My Core 2 feels insanely sluggish and, in a grand irony, I'm only able to access those same portions of the UO world I was able to access a decade ago; there are *no*, count 'em, *no* new expansions built into the fancy new interface.

I just installed UO: Second Age again. Hopefully the old 2D client will be a little snappier. EA claimed it'd make the 2D clients obsolete/incompatible once 80% of the users went to KR. Hopefully they're keeping track of the number that switch to KR and back. Of course with the delay the expansion slated for summer 2007 has undergone, I don't see many major changes happening any time soon even if everyone had made the switch.

There are some nice additions to the new client, like a tool bar stolen straight from WoW [which I'm sure stole it from someone else], a quest log [ditto], and a world map with tons of spoilers, like dungeon locations. Was annoying that my house got nabbed by someone. Logging in had the unfortunate effect of popping me out in the middle of nowhere, mobs aggro'd.

In any event, here are the proverbial proofs of life.

... and, of course, your Resource Monitor on Vista + Kingdom Reborn. Memory-a-Plenty it ain't.

EDIT: You know, honestly, I feel pretty badly about my tone here. There is something neat (special?) about hearing that "You've entered Britain, here's the happy music" music that's hard to beat. It reminds me of when UO's Britain was bustling with players who weren't in UO for "character advancement" and were more interested in creating an enjoyable simulation, a MUSH even. It used to be that the fanciest armor was player-made, and people were proud to show off color-matching sets that could only be made by craftsmen intent enough to find, mine, or trade for a rainbow of ingots, and that's just one example. Players used to be proud to have made an item well enough that their name was inscribed onto it, and when you saw the person who'd made your gear in Britain, you'd give a quick bow.

That MUSH feel is likely gone from UO now, I think, and was certainly gone from Britain when I was there tonight, where I only saw two other characters during my quick visit when I used to see scores. Still, the potential UO had and, I suppose, has is incredible. It was, initially, a wonderfully designed game. Perhaps if they'd let me into the new expansion material without shelling out $30, which I'm more than a little loath to do, I'd know if it continues to be as wonderfully developed. I've got my doubts, and today's (yesterday's?) UO players are partially to blame. It's so much easier to run from one NPC with a question mark over their head to the next with a bright yellow "!" before teaming up with warlocks played by 13 year-old boys for hours to run through dungeons so linear they might as well have been set up by [the 32X's] Admiral Ackbar. *sigh* Ye olde halcyon times of yore.

Super Mario Galaxy

2008-02-23T00:32:00.006-05:00

I received this game for my birthday and with it I have ventured into Super Mario's world for the first time since SMB3. After playing for about 90 minutes, I am still getting used to the awkward Katamari-like controls. Also, it took me a while to realize that I could shoot stars at enemies, since I wasn't actively pointing the WiiMote at the screen. The spin attack is neat, but I want more range. I am not a fan of Princess Peach, so I like the addition of Rosalina, who bears a slight resemblance to Namine from Kingdom Hearts II. Finally, I am looking forward to being able to control the camera. Except for the very beginning of the game, the player is unable to rotate the camera, which is especially frustrating when Mario is standing on the bottom of a planet.

Guitar Hero II PS2: FImp

2007-12-26T22:06:00.000-05:00

Finished up the Medium difficulty. Did get booed off of the stage once in the next to last set list, otherwise ran straight through. The Free Bird encore was cute... about five yes/no screens wondering if I really wanted to play it. UFO animation was a little out there, though.

One thing I don't get about the game is why someone would pour so many hours into the game instead of learning to play guitar. I mean, the medium difficulty was enjoyable and didn't require, for me, any practice time, but I get the feeling the more difficult levels will, as would getting five stars in every Medium song. Having played just enough drums, piano, and bass to know what that time wasted would get one on a "real" instrument, I have to question why I'd put in the time. Sure, the rewards for the first few hours are much greater than the first few hours on a traditional instrument, but how long before the returns are much lower than the additional investment?

Past that, however, there were times when playing felt awfully close to how jamming on the guitar should feel, scare quoting the "should" there. It's well done. I'll complain that the graphics are absolutely wasted on anyone, as I doubt they have time to watch. The songs aren't always exactly favorites. Looking forward to Rock Band.

Aside: Did try Frets on Fire, which would seem to have the potential to be the first OSS game worth a rat's behind... okay, beyond say FreeCiv, the Privateer port, Marathon updates, we'll add angband for Matt, a few built off of ids' engines, and perhaps a few others. Still, if done right, FoF would be a really nice addition, potentially the sort of game that would help sell Linux on the consumer desktop. Unf. it takes over 500 megs of memory, which on my poor box with Vista and only a gig means no go. I tried twice. Oh well. Time to hook the tower back up, I guess.

UDF #4

2007-11-27T23:40:00.000-05:00

My basic complaints so far:

1. "Waves" of bad guys. Lame. Given how organic the environment of the game feels, there needs to be a less obvious way of introducing bad guys.

2. The movement when jumping/climbing a la Tomb Raider needs to be just a hair more smooth. They've got some decent environments to work in, that don't look entirely contrived with ledges and whatnot, but there needs to be a little smoothing out of the diagonal jumps.

3. Don't be afraid to let people explore some dead ends or provide more than one path through the environment. Vines are all over this jungle, but only a few are climbable. Let the others be climbable, but lead nowhere. Or let them lead to other parts of the environment but be essentially useless. Something.

Finally caught up with Elena, the female sidekick. The game is much more interesting with her around. And I have a nemesis in the game now too. That's also helpful.

There is also a Smith & Wesson that is awesome. Single shot kills like in Resident Evil.

UDF #3

2007-11-27T00:15:00.000-05:00

Much more combat tonight, well-mixed with climbing and jumping around the jungle and later in a fort. The story has slowed down, mostly because there is a lot of action while Drake catches up with his female sidekick. Hopefully things will get more lively when the two are together.

This isn't Tomb Raider. So far, there really aren't any ways to explore an area and puzzle out how to get from point A to point B. There is always only one way forward, and you can find very tiny niches to explore along the way, but that's it. Tomb Raider would at least throw you into a big room that acts as a hub and you explore different areas from there, possibly in an order of your choosing.

New weapons: RPG and an Uzi. Liked the Uzi. RPG go boom, but loooong reloads.

Spectacular scenery.

One thing that's a little weak about the jumping and climbing is that when you're scaling a wall there really is only a direction and a button push to go where you want to go. There isn't any timing, except when you get onto a breaking ledge. There isn't any figuring out which ledge to go to, since there is always only one direction forward and one back.

I'd like for level designers to feel a bit more free to put in some dead ends or means to make the climbing challenging. Here, I think the right thing to do would be to copy MGS2 and have Drake be limited in how long he could hold on by his fingers. That pressure would make the climbing sections a lot more tense, I think. If not that, then something.

If Tomb Raider went for the killing, you should see this game. I got a reward in the game for 30 headshots. Since I'm usually firing like mad, you can imagine that 30 headshots only happens after a hundred guys or more have died. Oh, and I got a 50-kills-without-dying reward, so that gives another measure of how many generic bad guys have died at my hand. I know it's not feasible to record 30 different actors doing bad guy voices, but would it hurt to use some modest modulation on 2 or 3 actors to make those voices sound slightly different every now and then? That way when I hear "I'm going to get you, airplane man!" for the 20th time, it doesn't sound like the previous 19 times...

UDF #2

2007-11-25T22:06:00.001-05:00

I just finished a fairly long section of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I'm more impressed than ever before.

- The animation really is top-notch.
- The next Tomb Raider team better be taking some good notes. Drake is smoother than Lara in her last two games, and he's doing many of the same moves.
- As a side note, Drake is scripted kind of like Lara, but so far I haven't feel constrained by it. That is, I haven't found a situation where I wanted to do something natural and the scripting (i.e. magic) kept me from doing it. I think this really is a bit closer to the simulation than Tomb Raider Legend and Anniversary were.
- Game starts with gunplay, but then I played for probably a good hour without a single shot being necessary (except one or two places where you can use it for a puzzle). Lots of exploring.
- I can't tell if I think the little hidden treasures along the way are a bad idea or not. It does take me out of character because I don't press ahead with the story's implied urgency...instead I loiter around and look for special stuff. I think I'm going to stop doing that and enjoy the story.
- Speaking of the story, it's great. And the dialogue and characters are entertaining.

"I'm in the captain's quarters [in a ruined ship]. And the captain's still here."
"What does that mean?"
"He's dead. And it looks like he was ripped to shreds. A bad way to go."
"That's too bad. [brief pause] Check his wallet!"

- Got a bit of the ol' Tomb Raider vertigo while playing. Very happy.
- Playing the demo made me a good combatant in the game. I'm suspicious that I'd've not liked the game so much had I not practiced so much on the demo. (I beat it four times, twice on hard.)
- That said, once you get the gunplay down, it really does become quite enjoyable. You think about where and how you're going to use cover, reloading on the run to save time, switching between your two weapons (nice touch...you can only take your pistol and one of shotgun or AK-47) as the situation warrants. No other 3D third-person action game with guns has been this fun for me. (God of War is great, but doesn't use guns.)

Feeling like GOTY. We'll see if it keeps up.

UDF #1

2007-11-20T23:05:00.001-05:00

I just started Uncharted: Drake's Fortune for PS3.

- Really, really good looking. Immersion is relatively easy because of that.
- Characterization is awesome. Conversations are more natural than most game dialogue. I love the actor for Nathan Drake (main char).
- The woman playing Elena is good too, and they've made a woman who's attractive without looking like a model. Good job. I still would have preferred a brunette.
- There appears to be a fraction of a second lag between audio and video. Not distracting while in the game, but during longer cut scenes, can take my attention away.
- Not a whole lot new in terms of interaction. Lots of stuff familiar from Tomb Raider Legend and Tomb Raider Anniversary.
- Main interactions other than climbing/jumping are push/pull and shoot.
- Did find one hidden treasure. Woohoo for me. Only 59 more to go.
- Summary of story: Found Sir F. Drake's "coffin" which had a secret diary. Shows location of El Dorado. Attacked by pirates and escaped when Sully rescued us in his plane. Ditched Elena and headed off with Sully to find El Dorado. Made it into a deep underground temple/tomb and found where El Dorado, a solid gold statue and not a city, used to be.

Good stuff so far. Not much gunplay at all, which I like. Won't mind some shooting occasionally if plenty of TR-like stuff.

Xbox360: NCAA 2008

2007-07-31T17:55:00.000-04:00

If the distinction hadn't already existed between "evolutionary" and "revolutionary," it would have to have been made based on my experience playing NCAA 2008 football on the Xbox360. Why would I pay hundreds to play on this instead of the PS2 again? Yuck.

The change between EA football options available on the N64 and PS1 compared to the games on the PS2 was an impressive one, scary ghoul-eyes excepted. Can't say we've taken another leap like that since then.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary Update 10

2007-07-05T22:15:00.000-04:00

Obelisk of Khamoon

This was a real let-down after the previous level.
This level was pretty much all movement puzzles and no thinking puzzles.
Some of the puzzles are really quite bad. There is one involving three crushing walls, one after another, with balancing posts in the middle of each. So Lara has to jump from post to post while avoiding the crushing walls. If Lara has to rebalance herself on one of the posts (using the triangle button) she can still make it through, but if it happens twice over the course of the three posts, then you're screwed. The game screwed me over time after time. I don't mind losing for poor skills, but the rebalancing appeared completely random. I hate dying for the random number generator's sake.
The obelisk itself was pretty unimpressive. I remember being completely floored by the one in the original game, and this one was lame. I think it's a size thing. (I'll refrain from comments about what an obelisk might symbolize).
The enemies were really just cannon fodder. I offed most of them easily from a distance.
The spinning blade traps are horrible in this game. If you're going to copy Prince of Persia (the modern games), then at least give Lara enough ability to avoid those traps as easily as the Prince does.
I'm now onto the Sphinx level. Let's hope it's better.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary Update 9

2007-06-26T22:26:00.000-04:00

Temple of Khamoon

Quite possibly the best level yet.
Part of the joy here was that I aced it -- every artifact and relic, on my own.
This is one movement puzzle after another, which made it very intense.
Despite following the original level's outline fairly closely, the puzzles felt very different. This is where Lara's new movements helped push the game beyond the original in an essential way.
I'm fairly certain that the block/key puzzle at the end was snatched from the beginning of the old Obelisk of Khamoon level. It will be interesting to see if anything else has changed in the next level.
Biggest letdown: ambushes by cats all over the place. These suck.
The first pressure-sensitive retracting floor is pretty annoying. I will need to look up how others dealt with it.
If the levels can stick to this standard of quality, then the final half of the game should be gold.
Thinking back to the original, it also had a ramping up, but I'd say that most of that was the deviousness of the puzzles -- which I equated with quality back then. The standard is a bit higher now: puzzles must be good and the level must look coherent while doing it.
I think the coherence is why (as noted last night) the Cistern and Tomb of Tihocan were combined. It would have taken some serious reworking to make it all flow in a natural way. That they didn't want to put in that effort perhaps says something about how this game was made.

Next up: Obelisk of Khamoon. The game has me hooked now -- I may be in for sleepless nights of playing, as I experienced with TR1 so many years ago.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary Update 8

2007-06-25T22:56:00.000-04:00

Palace Midas

As before, there are three bars of lead which must be converted to gold, each with its own puzzle room.
Puzzle Room 1 is a block/movement puzzle. It took a while to figure this out because all the columns appeared to move down when I stepped on the first one. Later, I got the hang of it because the columns were only going down as I stepped on them -- and the columns you hang from never go down. Or something.
More than once I missed a jump/catch that seemed close enough that the game's "good magic" should have made it happen.
Regardless, not an exciting room.
Puzzle Room 2 is like the breaking column and sandpile puzzle from the first game, with added rope use. Pretty run of the mill and uneventful.
Puzzle Room 3 is a water/fire column puzzle which is much, much improved from the first game. You might recall that this was three (or four?) flame columns in the first game that required very tight timing of runs, jumps, and catches. This would have been trivial to complete with Lara's new moves and timing wouldn't have mattered.
The new puzzle involves a much larger room, more types of movement puzzles, and a few infuriating places where I'm not sure Lara can get by unscathed.
Regardless, I count this as distinct improvement over the original, perhaps even a bit too baroque.
Lara can still turn to gold. Glad that still made it.
I did not find this new version of Palace Midas to have the charm of the original. The original actually felt larger and more interesting, if I'm remembering everything correctly

Tomb of Tihocan (and Cistern)

So Cistern from the original gets folded into Tomb of Tihocan. I'm not sure I agree with that design choice. I hope I'll learn something about the decision to make the change if I play through with commentary turned on.
The puzzles here really are a bit more three dimensional. The main room is essentially a cube with niches along the walls and some platforms in the open space in the middle, all of which must be navigated at some point.
The real 3D part is realizing that you need to move a floating platform from one place to another and then to another and this requires different water levels in the room. It is similar to the puzzle in the Posiedon Room from St. Francis Folly.
While not mind-busting, it is a welcome innovation over the usual push-a-block-open-a-door puzzle.
Tihocan's tomb itself is pretty spare.
The showdown with Pierre was only two QTE moves. Weak.
Also, Lara's now been relieved of killing Pierre. I am a bit alarmed at that move.
Perhaps it is ironic that after all these years of talking about Lara being a mass murderer (see: Tomb Raider II, III) I don't like that she doesn't kill someone. But I think this could be an important point: Lara from TR1 was a more complicated figure precisely because she appeared a bit mercenary at times. She killed Pierre both because she had to (he was trying to kill her) and out of pride. Now he just gets trampled looking like a fool.
She's become a less interesting character because she's doing what she's doing to prove that her dad wasn't crazy, to complete the quest he left unfinished. You'll pardon me if I find that a bit trite. I think a case could be made that the backstory was more interesting in, of all things, Angel of Darkness. In that respect, I think that Core understood the original Lara and Crystal Dynamics has now rewritten her.
It's not just that Angel of Darkness is being ignored -- the story's being rewritten to make it less likely to ever be accepted as canon. The Lara in AoD simply seems like a different person from the Lara in TRA. At least, that's where I think this is headed.
Flashback cut scene explaining a bit about the Scion and its history was less impressive than the original. I think CD is faltering on capturing some of the drama of the original.

Addendum: I just watched a speedrun of the original Tomb of Tihocan to see what it was like. I can see someone saying "this was just a mess of puzzles", let's cut right to the chase. On the other hand, I think it is a pretty good precursor for the kind of devious puzzles that the followed in Egypt and Atlantis. If they fundamentally changed the puzzles in the upcoming levels, then that lead-in isn't necessary any more, I suppose. I'll know more soon.

That finishes the Greek levels. I'm now at the Egypt levels. Some of the most dramatic parts of the original are at hand, but we'll see if the remade versions work as well.

PC: Video card price watch

2007-06-24T12:46:00.000-04:00

(original, 6/4)

Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100166L Radeon X1650XT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - Retail: $114.99

Well, better than integrated graphics, I guess. WoW occasionally reported framerates of 2 (yes, two frames per second -- while flying into Shattrath City) on the Mac Mini-in-law. Haven't yet measured on the integrated graphics white box, but I could use an upgrade.

Update 6/24: Since this post, the card has gotten a $20 rebate, making it $94.99, then hit $149.99 for a while, $129.99 with rebate on the last day that rebate was valid, and is now $104.99, $84.99 with the new rebate offer. Wacky.

Unless I talk myself into an 8500 GT now, I'm getting it. Hope I don't need DX10 soon.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary Update 7

2007-06-14T11:31:00.000-04:00

Colosseum

This was much better than St. Francis Folly, I believe.
I did not think much of the combat, however. I should have played that a bit smarter.
Key problem I'm having in combat: I keep using the D-pad instead of the left analog stick during the scripted moments. Yuck.
The puzzles weren't terribly devious and the contrived room structure from the original is gone completely. What remains is believable and interesting.
I got some new guns here, sneakily hidden in a little niche. Always enjoyable when the careful snooping I do pays off.
The level is huge feeling, being mostly a shell with lots of interesting points on the inside surface of the shell. It's memorable because it's so open and visible, tempting you with ledges and nooks you can see, but not access immediately.

Now on to Palace Midas, which will have to happen a few days from now.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary Update 6b

2007-06-13T16:01:00.000-04:00

St. Francis Folly

I finished the Damocles Room. I probably spent around 2h in total time getting through it. That's far longer and I don't think I'm completely to blame.
Ok, here's what I figured out: Lara can jump backward away from a wall when using her grapple. That was what I wanted to do, but couldn't get her to do.
The answer is to read the manual. As far as I've seen this was never explained in the game. and I have the tutorial text on, so I hope I would have seen it.
In the manual, it explains that you can first let go of the grapple (i.e. let go of the square button) and then push the left analog joystick in the direction you want Lara to jump while pressing X, the jump button.
Even knowing this, it's tricky to get the timing right.
I blame the designers. If you don't make me learn a move that's (a) not obvious and (b) required to exit a room, then it's your fault, not mine.
That said, I did try to come up with a novel approach that I was disappointed wouldn't work. Since Lara's new cool move (other than the one I didn't know about with the grapple!) is standing on top of poles, I figured I might be able to jump across the tops of the sword hilts that were buried in the ground around the room. They were nearly tall enough for Lara to possibly get somewhere new, but I didn't find any way to get on top of them. She can nearly get on top of them and if the game were going to use its magic to help her out, I think it would have.
The balancing on top of poles is a new and interesting move for Lara -- except when there are poles around and the designers don't want to you balancing on them!
Poseidon Room - This was perhaps my favorite of the new rooms, but was one of my least favorite in the original. It requires true three dimensional thinking (although the third dimension is really limited to only two or three discrete values instead of a continuum) and is downright soothing.
How does the classic St. Francis Folly compare to the new? I think I like the old one, but I'm having trouble separating my nostalgia from my reasoning there. The old puzzle rooms were more contrived, for sure, but also somewhat more focused. Just like I didn't care for the new Qualopec tomb, I didn't come away as impressed as I'd hoped.
That said, there are some good points here. The four doors each having to be handled (mostly) differently is a nice touch. Except for the Damocles puzzle, everything was very straightforward, but not necessarily easy.
And the game brought back some of that "I have to be careful or I'll have thrown away a lot of good work" feeling that I had in the original. Mostly this stems from being in a huge vertical chamber with ledges all over and a fatal fall only inches away.

I'm at the Colosseum now, which is an exciting prospect. I am reasonably hopeful.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary Update 6

2007-06-12T00:45:00.001-04:00

St. Francis Folly

I made my way to the third room in this level. Required figuring out how to push some boxes embedded in the room's wall, which ended up being a reasonably nice mini-puzzle.
Damocles Room - Swords everywhere. As with the original, you trip the puzzle by taking the item you came for, and then have to work your way out.
Much harder than the original -- lots of different elements come together here: dodging swords, pulling levers, dodging sword blades up out of the floor, climbing poles, and apparently swinging from your grapple cord.
I'll admit I'm stuck right now. I've gotten across to a place where I can use the grapple, but I don't see what that gets me. I've tried a few crazy things, but nothing is moving me forward.
I'll look at this again tomorrow.

According to the manual, you have to set the game difficulty at the beginning. It gives no indication what changes with difficulty levels. Nice job, guys.

Tomb Raider: Anniversary Update 5

2007-06-11T06:04:00.001-04:00

St. Francis Folly:

Did the original level also not have an apostrophe somewhere in the name?
The beginning is ok, I suppose. Got mauled a bit on the way to the movement puzzle. I'm still using the pistols, as is my habit. I should probably look into the shotgun since it used to make big animals go down in one or two shots.
Maybe I'm the only one, but I found the "push around a huge globe" puzzles to be more frustrating than rewarding in Legend. Not really feeling the fun here either.
Shooting jewels = keys? Yuck. I hope they didn't screw up Palace Midas like this.
Never did figure out how to open the gate to the secret in the first area. I have some ideas now, but will have to replay it later.
The main room with its huge central column has been mostly straightforward. I'm still working on how to access the last two rooms, but haven't been completely stymied anywhere.
Hephaestus room - This is the old Thor room with its electric orb and giant hammer. The puzzle is not that elaborate. The magic disco floor is really kind of annoying, but passable. The hammer bit was amazingly easy.
The trickiest part was getting out, but I figured the trick out by just standing and looking at what was happening instead of actually attempting to go through the door. That might be a point in favor of the game there -- observing and thinking wins the day.
I was amused when I pulled the switch and the door fell down instead of opening. Cute, but I hope it only happens once.
Atlas room - Ok, I admit I didn't see the *ahem* the first time and got squished. Instead I tried to jump under the trap the other direction, thinking this might be a place where leaping into apparent danger would pay off. Wrong. When I did go the right direction, so to speak, I still got squished but saw where I should have been on the way down to my death.
Also found a secret, which was barely concealed at all. Guys, it is not much of a secret when it glows and the glow shows through obstacles.
I've unlocked the Damocles room but haven't accessed it.
The movement up and down the column and along the walls has been quite reasonable, I think. I've gotten the nasty twist in my stomach when I've almost fallen off a ledge or let Lara stray too far in a jump. That's precisely the sense of danger I wanted to feel, and the checkpoints are just about far enough to make falling a deterrent to letting Lara die capriciously. I think they could be a bit less numerous, but that's just me, I suppose.
They could have fewer checkpoints as a way to change difficulty. I wonder if I'll ever read the manual to see what it says about difficulty levels?