• 20Feb 09

  Steam

  Steam is a pain in the ass.

  I haven't been a PC gamer for a long time now, but I figured I'd sign up for Steam and check out some older PC games that I missed out on.

  Basically, I spent an hour battling the capcha nonsense before realizing that the capcha on the register page is case-sensitive (every other capcha on the steam website is not). So after frustrating attempt after frustrating attempt to enter the capcha letters accurately -- even going so far as to mess with my java blocker and switching to different browsers -- I finally figure out that the capcha is case sensitive. Frustration. Then, to make things even better, I enter all of my information for the umpteenth time and Steam gives me an error message that simply says that my registration has failed and that I'd have to try again later. No reason why or timetable of when to return.

  Does Valve actually want to make money? I've never had this much trouble signing up for a pay service of any kind before. Functionality issues like these are the reason that I left PC gaming in the first place. Now I realize that the decision was a sound one, and that I should just stick to console gaming. If it's this much of a headache just to sign up for the service then I can imagine how fun actually using it to acquire games must be

  No thanks.

  • Posted Feb 20, 2009 5:43 pm PT
  • 0 Comments
  • Tag
  • Print
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Digg
• 13Jan 09

  Not worth playing.

  Finally finished up Prince of Persia, and unfortunately my fears were true. This game wasn't worth playing in the first place. The gameplay overall is far below average, and the ending drops the characters arcs straight off a cliff without giving the player any sort of satisfaction whatsoever. In fact, without spoiling anything, the entire story is a total non-event. Nothing is solved, and the characters are not developed in the slightest.

  Skip this game and buy the sequel when it comes out.

  There are really no worthwhile reasons to play this game. It looks extremely pretty, and it has a few good moments as far as platforming, but the overall package suffers greatly for various reasons.

  5.5/10

  • Posted Jan 13, 2009 11:38 am PT
  • 0 Comments
  • Tag
  • Print
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Digg
• 12Jan 09

  Prince of Persia (2008)... Awful, just awful.

  I can't believe how bad the combat is in this game. I'm struggling to finish this game so I can trade it into Gamestop and at least get some value back for my suffering.

  If you check my reviews then you can already see that I'm an enormous Prince of Persia fan since the Sands of Time reimagining. You can also see that I really don't care for the latest installment. The ONLY thing, and I mean only thing keeping me playing this game is to see how the relationship between Elika and the Prince unfolds. The platforming is good, but the goals have become extremely repetitive and the combat has been extremely frustrating and not at all fun since the first enemy I faced.

  The goals, especially. Collecting light seeds? I mean, come on. That is such a cheap, mundane gameplay-extending gimmick to up the hours of gameplay in player reviews. I don't want to have to go through an entire level again to collect little balls of light in order to advance to the next area. It's boring, it's mundane. As soon as I hit 540 light seeds I completely stopped working toward getting any that weren't in my immediate path. (For those unaware, you needs 540 light seeds to unlock the four necessary abilities to beat the game. There are a total of 1001 light seeds in the game.)

  The combat, though, is without a doubt the worst part of the game.

  One fight that had real potential were the Hunter boss fights in the Ruined Citadel. I mean they reek of potential. It's basically a deflect-off to see who can deflect the others shots and counter more effectively. Real good stuff. Then the developers saw fit to give the Hunter the ability to spit ink at you, which blackens the entire screen and renders you to holding block while backpedaling for a full ten to fifteen seconds.

  Are you serious? I thought the objective of a boss fight was to amp up the player and get his adrenaline going. The whole ink spitting tactic not only destroys any momentum or pacing of the fight, but the Hunter also overuses it to the extent that I turned the game off right after defeating him in order to go back to Little Big Planet.

  This game just continues to disappoint me. I'm considering lowering my review score from 6.0 already, the only thing stopping me is that I've yet to finish the game. I just hope I can drag myself back to it in order to actually finish it, which at this point is doubtful in itself.

  • Posted Jan 12, 2009 4:43 pm PT
  • 0 Comments
  • Tag
  • Print
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Digg

See Previous Blog Posts »