Today was....in all honesty, a completely uneventful day. Not enough of anything happened to warrant a lot of discussion on it, but there's a lot of little things I could bring up to touch on, but not really speak on them at length, which is honestly a pretty frustrating experience. I'm sitting here with topics in my head, swirling them around and figuring how many paragraphs I could get for each on, and it's just.....not really a lot. But, in lieu of trying to force one to be any longer than any others, I figure I can just touch on them. It'll be a pretty good reflection of this week, really, as I didn't do enough for it to make a big to-do, but I did enough.
I had considered another Weekly Wrap-Up in Gaming post, briefly, but when I recalled that my only exposure to games this week were the same as last week, I figured a retread wouldn't be in my best interest. I have made enough progress into Darksiders that I feel I can speak on it a little more, but it's not all positive, and I'm still not done with the game of course. But what I can say on it isn't enough for its own post, at least in my head I don't think it is, so it'll just be topic number one here.
First off, I'm seeing more and more what this "Rip-Off vs. Homage" debate was all about and while my position remains the same (pleasant homage), I'm getting a little fed up with the parts of other games that Darksiders tried to, er, show off or give some sort of flattering imitation of. Namely, the Voidwalker. Now, the game has started to grate on me a little (which I'm fully attributing to playing on Apocalyptic), but prior to getting the Voidwalker, it was a mere annoyance here and there. But with this homage to Portal, I'm not....really that happy of a camper. I mean, I liked Portal and all, but I didn't think it was a religious experience and I didn't beat it because fuck that goddamn Turret room in the last test before the...er....reveal? It's not really a reveal if it's foreshadowed the entire game is it? Bah, you probably know what point I'm talking about.
The problem with the Voidwalker sections is that they're simply not fun. And even if they -were- fun, I've had to play with the Voidwalker for two hours. I'm beyond sick of it by now, and I'm nowhere near done. I still have one more leg of the 'dungeon' left at minimum before the boss itself, and I'm just....ragged from my experience with it. I'm practically begging for Enemy Gauntlet rooms even though the enemies at this point can literally take off a third of my HP with one hit if they tried. But at least I have some sort of semblance of control with the fighting, since I can really choose just how I go about it. The puzzle sections really take that out of my hands, or at least they feel like they do, and it's really just....doing nothing positive.
Still, it's one bad section in an otherwise fun game. I'm sure when I'm finally done with it, the game will remind me why I liked it in the first place and why it has so many vocal fans about.
Second, and I already touched on this Friday, but with my internet woes (which, if you haven't noticed seem to have cleared for now), I couldn't really look into it as much as I had wanted to. A few places have said it, but it caught my eye specifically at Joystiq, but with confirming that the Metal Gear Solid 3 in The Metal Gear Solid HD Collection was the Subsistence version, I could only question about the status of Metal Gear Solid 2. Joystiq confuses me even more by pointing out that Kojima said MGS2 would be 'based' on Subsistence which raises multiple other questions. Namely, he meant Substance, right? And secondly, what the hell does "Based on" mean? Will it only feature some of the content? Will it really be 'based on' Subsistence and just be MGS2 with a fully manageable camera ala MGS3:S? (Or did it have that already...?)
I haven't really seen any answers to these floating around. Suffice to say I'm not worried, just a little frustrated. While I would love MGS2 to be the Substance version, if solely because I like the 'complete' feel, Metal Gear Solid 2 in HD is just about all I could want anyway. But still, some answers would be nice.
And finally, I just want to, y'know, reiterate something I've been saying for a while now. Nier is a fantastic game, and you would do well to go get yourself a copy of it. After getting to the point in the game where I stopped playing (Just before the last ending of the game because of...personal issues) in the Let's Play I've been reading of the game, I just feel all these....well, feelings being stirred up again. And it's not how much I hated this boss or this part of the game, or how fun it was when I killed this thing, but rather the impact the game had on me and still continues to do.
I lose man-cred saying this here, but Nier made me cry. Several times. And while I venture to say that that's not necessarily a hard task, it's hard enough that I can assure you that it's real. The game, at points, is so tragic and beautiful and even touching that, looking back if I were to reshuffle my Games of the Year, Nier would have been number 2 for sure. While God of War 3 was the better game, Nier was by and large the better story and had the better presentation, which I'm growing to learn is what I really care about in a game.
Like most games, I can say that it's a flawed game, especially so with some of the sidequests and where some of the cracks in design show, but unlike most games, I can say without hesitation that Nier is an important game. Much like how some people hold Ico or Shadow of the Colossus dear because of the story (or the implications of one for the latter), Nier will always hold a spot in my heart because of the impact it had.
Well....that went on longer than I expected it to. But, hey, more the better, right? And I got to say a few things I've been meaning to say, anyways.
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