Doom (2016)

January 13, 2017September 4, 2018 / stephensopinions / Leave a comment

In an age where video games have a heavy focus on the narrative aspect, Doom hearkens back to the days where it was all about the action. It was a refreshing experience to load up the game and immediately jump into the action. I thought killing hell-spawn would grow old after a couple of hours, but the constant additions of new enemies, weapons, and upgrades kept the game feeling fresh throughout. These factors combined with the overall polish made Doom extremely entertaining. While I really enjoyed Doom, I do not think it is for everybody.

Doom was extremely well made, but there was nothing really groundbreaking or super innovative about. To me it was just a modernized version of the classic Doom from 1993. That is fine if you are satisfied with just moving from room to room killing hordes of enemies, but many players want a little more from games these days. I could see how people may feel that it is repetitive or a worn out concept. Doom is all about one thing, but it does that one thing very well.

There is a level of polish on Doom that indicates that it was heavily tested before it was released. I played on the hard (ultra-violence) difficulty and nothing about the game seemed unfair or unjust. The arenas were intelligently designed to flow and never feel stagnant. Items and power-ups were placed strategically throughout the rooms, and all the different enemies were manageable once I got the hang of it. With the amount of different enemies in the game I expected at least one of them to be frustrating, but they all had clearly defined strengths and weaknesses. What really makes Doom great is the speed at which it is played. The game forces you to move around the arenas that you fight in, which is definitely refreshing after playing military shooters in which you just sit behind one piece of cover for an entire battle. In Doom, if you stand still for more than a couple of seconds you will be overrun. As long as you keep on the move you will be able to dodge most of the damage coming from the demons, and you can constantly refresh your ammo, armor, and health with items scattered across the maps. Also the glory kill system was great at incentivizing fast paced gameplay: executing low-health enemies at melee range would have them drop health and ammo. I needed to constantly utilize this mechanic to keep my health and ammo topped off. You need to keep on the move to have a hope of surviving. The constant action kept the game very intense and energetic. This was complimented by the soundtrack and how it matched the mood and intensity of the game.

While in between action packed arenas Doom did have some other things to offer that did not involve slaying hell-spawn. There were plenty of hidden nooks and hallways to find secrets. Finding these secrets was actually rewarding, as they allowed me to upgrade my weapons and suit to be better prepared for future encounters. There were even some mini-games that would allow me to equip special power-ups. The weapon upgrade system was pretty great as well. Every weapon had two unique upgrade paths, for example the shotgun could be upgraded to have a grenade launcher or have a tighter spread of bullets. You could further power up these upgrades and you could switch between them at any time to fit a particular situation. To earn tokens to upgrade these weapon systems there were certain tasks to complete in every level, like glory killing five enemies or killing two enemies with one bullet. You also earn upgrade points just by killing enemies, so there was always a sense of progression as I quickly powered up my character and his arsenal of weapons.

All in all, I really enjoyed Doom for what it was. I loved the constant action and just bad-ass feeling of the game. I also enjoyed taking a breather in between arenas to explore and find secrets and upgrades. Doom is really good at what it does, which is being high energy arena shooter focused on taking on hordes of hell-spawn. Do not expect anything groundbreaking or anything that is not blasting through swarms of demons. For these reasons I give Doom a 8.5/10. It is a really great action game, but that is all that it is.

Pokémon Sun and Moon (2016)

December 15, 2016December 15, 2016 / stephensopinions / Leave a comment

Pokémon Sun and Moon are the most recent addition to the famous franchise. Sun and Moon take the player to the tropical islands of Alola which was a refreshing experience. As a whole, these games make some big changes to the series that I believe were desperately needed. The past couple of years the series has been getting stale; Pokémon has recently celebrated its 20-year anniversary and in twenty years the games have remained the same. Of course there has been some nice changes over the years, but the basic formula has been the same. Sun and Moon do a great job of breaking the stagnation and in my opinion they are the best Pokémon games in awhile.

The innovation is apparent from the start of the game as the region of Alola is a chain of tropical islands, which is radically different than any of the other six regions. Instead of Pokémon gyms and collecting badges, the player must complete various trials. These trials can be anything from searching for hidden items, playing spot the difference, or listening for a specific sound. The only similarity in these trials are the Totem Pokémon which are exceptionally powerful Pokémon that the player must battle. There is also a Kahuna on every island, a trainer chosen by the guardian deities of the islands, that the player interacts with and eventually has to battle. Another big innovation was the addition of regional variants of different Pokémon. These are variations of classic Pokémon with changed types, abilities, and appearance. I believe this was a very clever idea as it allowed Game Freak to make some tweaks to some older Pokémon to make them stronger and more appealing to use. It also added some great variety and it was interesting to see how different Pokémon adapted to Alola. Outside of regional variants, most of the new Pokémon introduced were also well designed and had some new abilities to play around with. The change of format in the games was a huge step forward and it allowed for a lot more creativity and variety.

When it comes to variety, I believe that the Pokémon series is held back by its desire to keep using the same couple of Pokémon in every scenario and game. This is by far my biggest gripe with the series and this game as a whole. It is incredibly frustrating that there are over 800 Pokémon in total and yet every game is plagued by the same couple of species. Every ocean is overflowing with Magikarp, and every cave is filled with mostly Zubat. This has being going on for years and I would really appreciate seeing some other Pokémon. I am fine with the occasional appearance of Pokémon from Generation I, but as a long time player of the series it gets extremely tiring and boring to see the same couple of Pokémon all the time. I would just like to see more Pokémon from Generations II-VII. There are also a couple of minor issues that I had with this game. The first being that frame rate does tend to drop when in chaotic battles. There is also the issue of strange move-set and evolution complications that were probably unintended by the developers. For example Kadabra does not learn a damaging move until level 28. Or the fact that many species of Pokémon do not have the ability to evolve until right before the end of the game. There were also a couple of big level spikes at the end of the game, going straight from a level 45 Totem Pokémon to a trainer with five level 50 Pokémon is kind of strange. The tutorial was also a bit lengthy and could have been slimmed down a bit. Lastly, leveling up Pokémon in the post-game is a painful process. Overall I feel most of these issues were pretty small but they do add up and hurt the quality of the game a little bit.

I cannot talk about Sun and Moon without mentioning the story quality. The past couple of generations Pokémon has had a larger focus on the story than it has in the past. I was not a huge fan of this approach in Generations V and VI as I just did not care much about the stories being presented. In Sun and Moon I believe this narrative-heavy approach was executed much better than it was in the past. This is mostly due to the constant interaction with the games characters and their lively dialogue. Characters such as Kukui, Hau, and Lillie are actually memorable and likable. Even the supporting and side characters were great; the hilarity of Team Skull and their ridiculous antics were certainly a welcome addition to the game. While I did enjoy more interaction with the characters, it did have a drawback. I felt a little overwhelmed and occasionally frustrated with how often my adventure was put to a halt to read some dialogue. There just was not enough time in between these story interactions and it made the game just feel slow.

There were a number of small changes in Sun and Moon that improved the experience. The new Pokédex made it easy to use the map and see where to catch different Pokémon. The battle interface was also greatly improved as it allowed the player to see more detail for each move. Poké Pelago was nice addition that made it easier to grow berries, collect items, and hatch eggs. It also lets the player interact with Pokémon that they have caught but are not currently using. The game also had a fairly good difficulty level; I turned the Exp. Share off and the game provided a couple of decently challenging battles. The PC storage system was also streamlined and made a lot simpler to navigate. One of my favorite changes was the disposal of Hidden Machines and their obnoxious existence. Overall these small changes really improved the game and I hope they keep these features in future generations.

Pokémon Sun and Moon brought some desperately needed innovation to the otherwise stagnant series and it was really a refreshing experience. There were some issues like lack of generational variety, the overall slow pace, as well as a couple of minor issues, but it is much more important to me that the series finally took a step out of its comfort zone and attempted to create a new experience. I am going to give Pokémon Sun and Moon a 8.5/10 as it breathed new life into the series. The region of Alola was unique and enjoyable and it felt like a breath of fresh air after years of stale and repetitive games. Sun and Moon for me are the best Pokémon games in years.

Wolfenstein: The New Order (2014)

September 21, 2016July 3, 2018 / stephensopinions / Leave a comment

Wolfenstein: The New Order is a continuation of the classic shooter franchise. I have not personally played any of the other Wolfenstein games but I was able to easily jump in as the game was somewhat of a reboot for the franchise and built a new story. The game was solid and had plenty of qualities that I really enjoyed but there were also a lot of flaws in this game. I have played a lot of first person shooters (FPS) and this game attempts to differentiate itself but falls just a little short of creating an entirely new experience. The basic premise of the Wolfenstein games is that the main character, William Blazkowicz, is an American soldier fighting the Nazis. This installment of the franchise takes an interesting twist where the Allied powers lose the war and Nazis now control the world. The story was, in my opinion, the strongest portion of this game.

I was very surprised at the strength of the story in this game. The first thing that surprised me was how quickly and without hesitation the characters are killed off. It always seemed ridiculous to me that in other FPS games how infrequently characters actually died, but this game is not afraid to do so. The story starts off very depressing and makes the player make a difficult choice and at the same time builds up the villain, General Deathshead, to be one of the most evil and sadistic character in any game. I usually do not feel such hatred for a character, but the game really did a fantastic job at actually making me want to kill the villain. Despite starting strong, I feel like the game is unevenly paced in which most of the story is packed in the beginning and the end of the game. The theme of the game was pretty unique, as it was futuristic and had plenty of advanced technologies but it did manage to keep the gritty feel of World War II. I do not want to spoil anything, but the ending of the game was a bit open ended and I feel like it tries to set up a sequel. On one hand this is a good thing as it leaves you wondering, but on the other hand some people could see it as a cop-out. Most of the major characters are fleshed out well, and the game does give you some small character biographies if you want some more information on any character. Also, there are two alternate timelines in the game that make very minor changes in the story and gameplay. I like this feature as it allows people to replay the game but have a slightly difference experience, but everyone who plays the game is going to have a very similar experience regardless of which timeline they choose. Overall I felt like the first couple missions and the last couple missions had phenomenal story telling but I just wish that the middle bits were also as strong.

The gameplay I also felt mirrored the story in which it started strong but faltered around the middle chapters. While the first thirty minutes of the game are slow and serve as a tutorial, once I began the first mission I was sucked in. The game gives the player four different ways of tackling it and has different perk trees to reflect these choices. While perk and ability trees are not a unique concept, what was interesting about this game was that the perks were not earned through experience or just giving you a skill point to distribute into whatever perk you want, but instead they were achievement based. For example if you stealth kill five commanders you get a perk that reveals the location of all the commanders on the map. I really liked this system as it gave me alternate objectives and tasks during missions as I attempted to complete the main goal. There are four different perk trees, Stealth, Tactical, Assault, and Demolition. Stealth was based on sneaking up behind enemies and taking them out silently. Tactical was about smartly engaging the enemy from a distance and from behind cover. Assault was just DOOM style running and gunning. Lastly, Demolition was all about using explosives to clear spaces. This mix of gameplay options led to some epic moments, for example when I snuck up behind a commander and stealth killed him, then took over the mounted mission gun and mowed down the rest of the enemies from behind before they could react. Unfortunately I felt like there were too many missions that limited all the options that there were supposed to be. Some of map designs felt really lazy and linear, making a lot of missions play out like every generic FPS where I entered a room, posted up behind some cover, kill all the enemies, rinse and repeat until the mission is over. Another issue was the lack of ammunition, there was a plethora of different guns and tools at my disposal but the only guns with reliable amounts of ammunition to find were the Assault Rifle and the Laserkraftwerk. Despite the fact that some missions were limited in the options to tackle it, there were also a lot of really well designed levels that had many different pathways that allowed me to use a mix of the perk trees. Chapters 1, 2, 3, 8, and 13 are in my opinion what the rest of the game should have been when it comes to level design. All five of those missions were very entertaining and allowed me to use a mix of all the different tactics.

Apart from the five fantastic chapters, the rest of the levels were either just too linear or just blatant filler. Chapters 5, 7, and 9 were the most obvious examples of this and they should have just been cutscenes instead of full chapters. All three chapters play out in a very similar fashion and really serve no purpose at all, there are no enemies to fight, no stealth, no puzzles, just walking around to pick up some random item. Some of the other chapters also had some filler sections but these three missions did nothing but lengthen the game. This is really unfortunate because Wolfenstein: The New Order only has sixteen chapters so at least 18% of the game is just filler.

While the level design of the game left something to be desired, the difficulty scaling of the game felt just right to me. I played on the second hardest difficulty “I am death incarnate!” and while the game started off pretty easy it did quickly ramp up and provide some challenge. At no point did I feel like the difficulty was unfair or the game was asking an unreasonable task, but at the same time I knew that if I screwed up I would be punished for it. Unfortunately, a lot of the difficulty in the later stages of the game comes from the overwhelming amounts of “bullet sponges”. These are enemies that have a lot of health and required me to shoot at them for a minute of two to kill a single enemy. I feel like bullet sponges can be implemented properly, but they were not in this case. Since enemies have no health bars I could not even tell if I was damaging the enemies, and since I was shooting at some enemies for a couple of minutes I questioned if some enemies were even killable with bullets or if I needed to find another way to defeat them. Fighting these bullet sponges was occasionally entertaining as I needed to dip and dive out of cover to try to out maneuver them, but they are used way too frequently and there needed to be some sort of indicator that they were actually taking damage. Also, a lot of the enemies just felt inconsistent to me. Some enemies could not spot me when I was standing right in front of them, but I remember in one mission where I was hidden in a vent and a guard twenty feet away spotted me while facing the other direction. Despite the amount of bullet sponges and inconsistent enemies, I really enjoyed the two late game boss fights. Both fights had a cat and mouse feel to them and they did not drag out to long like a lot of video game bosses do. All in all, the difficulty was solid and while it was challenging, it never felt unfair.

The last thing about Wolfenstein: The New Order that I want to talk about is the collectible system. I am somebody who loves getting all of the collectibles in a game, and this game had plenty of them, but I did not get even close to getting all of them. The game has the weird system in which it reveals some of the hidden items locations on the map, but not all of them. So if I wanted to find all of the items I would have to comb the entire map and break open every box and look in every cabinet for items that were frankly tough to spot. I do not mind if the collectibles are hidden and do not show up on the map, but they should at least be easy to spot if that is the case. Despite this issue I really did appreciate how many things there were to collect if the player chooses to do so.

I did not expect much when I first started this game, but it certainly did surprise me with the first couple of chapters in terms of the strength of the gameplay and the impact of the story. If these aspects were carried out through the rest of the game it would have been a phenomenal game, but it does fall flat in the middle, has too much filler, and it has some smaller gameplay issues. For these reasons I give Wolfenstein: The New Order a 6/10. It was extremely fun, engaging, and emotional for a couple of chapters; I just wish that the entire game was like that.