Gaming Weekend: Gamerscore Challenge Edition
I signed up for one of those Old Spice Gamerscore Challenges run through the 360 Voice site. In this case it was instituted by some folks on Goozex’s forums and the reward is a $100 Best Buy gift card, which isn’t shabby. The competition is measured by the greatest gamerscore increase over the course of the tournament time frame (through the end of January).
As such it has been a mad rush to accomplish as many cheap and easy achievements as possible: You can interpret that as 15 people racing around trying to wrap up games like TMNT, King Kong and other launch titles created before developers had a clear idea of what could be done with the system. Since there is $100 on the line, I figured I’d join the reindeer games. As such, this week is going to feature a strange mishmash of questionable games and some other, more substantial stuff. I should also mention my birthday was yesterday so there are some new developments present and forthcoming as well.
Cheese Boosting
One of the participants got off to a gangbusting start posting something ridiculous like 5,000+ in the first week of the competition. In an effort to catch up I hit up my local Hollywood (remember that I don’t have the GnF subscription to fall back on anymore) and rented Gun and Avatar. It turned out that Gun was a half decent (if somewhat ugly) game. Of course the rental disc has a flaw that causes it to freeze at a certain point every time, but it was amusing enough that because I received a gift card for GameStop as a birthday gift and found it for a song, I actually bought a copy.
Avatar, on the other hand, is either the saddest excuse for achievement design or just a comical misunderstanding. I literally “earned” all 1,000 points by “playing” the game for a grand total of four minutes. The part they show you on the YouTube clips? That’s the first section of the first level of the game. As soon as you fire it up, you can start earning these ridiculously over-valued achievements for doing essentially nothing but spamming the B button. I realized as I popped the game out of my disc tray having done nothing more than pad my score with four minutes of tedium that I had essentially traded cash for gamerscore: The $6 rental fee did nothing more than put 1,000 points on my profile. I’m trying not to think about how incredibly sad that is.
It helps a little that I feel like I’m making a serious run at the $100 prize, but too much of this and I’m going to end up without much net profit even if I do end up winning.
Just so you don’t think I’m aping out on the whole thing though, I’ll have you know that the last bit of my gift card went toward buying a used copy of Madden 06 ($3.99). So my dignity remains nonexistent.
The Real Thing
It wasn’t just crummy score-boosters this weekend, though. Oh no.
Assassin’s Creed
A curious bird indeed, this Assassin’s Creed. The mixed reviews the game has received has nearly universally been attributed to the theorized phenomenon described by Gabe of Penny Arcade where game reviewers often have to complete games in a “non-fun” fashion just to meet a deadline. I don’t know if that’s precisely true, but I think my experience with the game suggests that the developers of Assassin’s Creed made some decisions that I think results in a game with a certain amount of variance to the experience depending on how the player chooses to approach it.
I suppose this is always the case with games that aren’t highly scripted and tightly designed experiences. I mean, there’s really only one way to play Tetris, right? But as games get more expansive and offer less explicitly crafted progressions, the ability for a developer to know what kind of experience his players are having dwindles. They can put all the elements there and hope the player engages them, but once you give that choice, you can’t fault them for exercising it.
As such, Assassin’s Creed takes a bit more effort to be engaging than other games you may have encountered. The story, for example, is quite compelling but is presented in a way—through all the optional elements—that requires a deliberate attention in order to continue to engage. This is hardly a unique aspect of the game. I think because of this I have only recently hit my stride with the game now that it’s about half over and I’m wondering if it might be the kind of game I would play a second time to get a better appreciation for what it offers. I suppose it depends on how it plays out for the last half.
Rock Band
I had mostly only played the guitar portion of the game as of last week. Since then I’ve put a significant amount of time into the game. In addition to completing the Hard level in the Solo Guitar tour, I also played through most of the Solo Drum tour on Medium and got about halfway through the Solo Vocals tour on Easy.
Yeah, I’m singing by myself.
I picked up the vocals portion because I was mostly curious and as I played I found it strangely compelling. Of course there are a lot of songs in Rock Band’s roster that I’m familiar enough at to fake on the guitar or even drums but struggle with trying to sing. In truth, the vocals mode really highlights (to me) the weakness overall of the Rock Band track list. It’s not that it’s bad so much as it has to contend with the fact that a lot of golden material has already been mined through two Guitar Hero games and some of the obvious stuff has yet to materialize (AC/DC, Led Zeppelin). Plus Rock Band developer Harmonix clearly leaned toward in-house faves rather than going for the most universally recognized tunes. This is a blessing and a curse because it results in The New Pornographers (a personal favorite) getting some unexpected love but also means we get Molly Hatchet’s “Flirtin’ With Disaster” (a disaster of a song) and R.E.M.’s worthless “Orange Crush.”
It’s a bit frustrating really because while the songs look good on paper, I find that even when they included an artist I’m interested in, they often chose strange songs to feature (”Black Hole Sun” was the best Soundgarden song you could find? Was “Highway Star” really the Deep Purple song people wanted?) so at least 50% of the time I’m feeling a little disappointed. The other thing is that, depending on the instrument you’re working with, in solo mode you may find that certain gigs are just chock full o’ your least favorite songs. Which means, yep, there are other gigs you don’t want to leave because they have all the good tracks in them.
But generally speaking, the vocals are great fun. I did find that they induce a certain sense of self-awareness that’s not entirely comfortable, however. Your voice is actually amplified through the mic into your system speakers so there’s no hiding behind the game audio and plus, well, you’re singing into your game. It’s not really something that the average non-gaming individual is going to see and understand.
What brings it all home is the co-op mode. Now, everyone says that Rock Band was designed to be a group activity and I can see how they’re absolutely correct. Thursday night we had friends over and after dinner sat down to propel our band (Joey Big Hat is a Bit Much) into superstardom. It didn’t actually happen but there is a lot more support from your peers when they’re working on keeping toy drums in time while you warble into a microphone to the roughly approximate tune of “Wanted Dead or Alive.”
I do find it exasperating that while Harmonix and EA are to be commended for keeping the Rock Band Special Edition to a reasonable price considering, the logic behind giving wannabe bassists the bone is deplorable. Not only are they left out of the Solo tour mode (a crime in itself especially with several bass-friendly tunes including possibly the best bass breakdown committed to tape in the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage”) but there is no second guitar included. So we had to trade off (well except for me since no one else was willing to embarrass themselves on vocals as badly as I was) which is just… crummy.
My only other real complaint is that my makeshift drum noise solution (mouse pads, a razor blade and some double tape) seems so obvious and yet had to be a DIY situation. It would be nice if I had the room and means to include a soundproofed Rock Band studio in my home, but I don’t so I have to be courteous to my family and neighbors. Surely one of the developers must have had a similar situation?
Other Games
- Zuma - In another vain attempt to boost the ol’ gamerscore I cracked open Zuma again, thinking there had to be some points in there I could get with just a bit of luck. Unfortunately I was unsuccessful in getting anything other than a headache.
- Contra 4 - Still a great game, but still maddeningly difficult.
- Desktop Tower Defense - Despite MTV’s Multiplayer Blog giving this the Game of the Year award, I think it’s only so-so. It is addictive but I find the lack of detailed documentation annoying (how do you kill Dark enemies for Pete’s sake?) and the art is just awful. I mean, what? No one can whip up a few tower tiles real quick? What are we savages now?