MMXI Week 9–Once more, and this time with Zealotry

This is most likely (in theory) going to be a more brief blog entry, as this past week has been quite uneventful. The main landmark on the chronological topology of my week was completing Dead Space 2. Now I don’t want to spoil the ending for those of you that haven’t played it yet, so I’ll just say that it’s amazing and a very powerful climax. But what I really want to talk about is some of the things that Dead Space 2 got right.

• Quick time events: Most people (rightly) loathe QTE’s. The ‘press A not to die’ mentality can be frustrating and imbalanced. But in DS2, the managed to pull it off. Rather than the usual single press required in a two second window, you are required to furiously mash A in order to survive. This really lends weight to your flurried attempts to prevent a ghostly apparition from shoving a needle in your eye!
• Making the player jump: Don’t get me wrong, DS2 isn’t ‘scary’ in the sense of giving you nightmares. But it does keep you on the edge of your seat. Never before have I been so terrified of an empty corridor, or a cylinder rolling down a hall.
• Mixing it up: DS2 isn’t all shooting. There are some great breaks in the gameplay, the best of all being the zero-g sequences. There are various little puzzles involving solar arrays, derailed lifts and even ocular needles! All in all, they mix up the game play nicely

But what DS2 does best in my opinion is replay value. You see, I’m not one for replaying any story heavy game. Once I know the plot, I’m pretty much done, and even going back for achievements is a chore for me. But DS2 changed all this, the moment I completed the story, I went back and started a new game on Zealot (the hardest difficulty). What inspired this was the New Game+ mode, where you get all your gear from your previous play through. This levelled the playing field a bit more so that even though I’m on the hardest setting, it’s not impossible (but still a challenge).

Oh, and a special mention for the Achievement ‘Clever Girls’. Any Jurassic Park reference is alright in my books.

The other high point of my week was a back to back viewing of Tron and Tron Legacy. It was quite interesting to not only see how special effects have come along in the years between the films, but also the little references to the former in the latter. But the one thing that truly struck me was how Tron feels so much longer than Legacy, even though Legacy is 30 minutes longer and, according to my friend who had never seen it before, a lot more ‘talky’. This is a fair observation, there is a lot more exposition in Legacy, characters often taking moments to ‘develop’ and ‘bond’. But the film is still more steadily paced than the original Tron. Maybe this has something to do with the style of film making in the 80’s, particularly science fiction. I’ve noticed that a lot of classic sci-fi films feel drawn out and tedious by comparison to current films, even when they contain ostensibly more action and activity.

On a side note, a little goal update. Not done much progress towards my level, but have been doing some art work, which will work in my portfolio. Gamerscore is almost at 21,000. Still don’t know any useful Cantonese. Running a short DnD session in a couple of weeks. Planning on picking up a couple of Discworld books soon, along with the last 2 Scott Pilgrim.

Peace