999 and Borderlands
May. 11th, 2011 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tao_te_trickStick to what you are best at. Correction. Find what you can be best in the world at, and do that. It's my first big takeaway from "Good to Great" by James C. Collins. Today, we are discussing two games that won accolades for doing nearly, if not exactly, that.
999 - or more exactly Nine Persons, Nine Hours, Nine Doors. The game is honestly reason enough to by a Nintendo DS. The DS handles "Room Escape" puzzles as well as any mouse and keyboard, but it is also immensely portable. Cheaper than a good smart phone, the DS is just a really good venue for such a quirky point-and-click adventure. However, there are many such adventures already on the platform.
Where 999 really sets itself apart is in the intricacy of the storytelling. Not only is the game internally a web of intrigue, but the mythos is shrouded in so much real world shenanigans that it becomes difficult to parse truth from fiction. If you've ever wanted to see the theories of Rupert Sheldrake mingle with the Titanic in a crazy death-game: 999 is totally for you. If you could not be bothered to click those links, you should probably seek more instant gratification.
Speaking of Borderlands, it isn't easy to make a Game of the Year quality game. I know. I understood the appeal immediately. Take Diablo and Halo and slam them together. It sounds like a winning combination right from the get go, but the real trial is finding what parts are really important. You need to know what RPG elements to stick with and what to keep from the first person violence. When I first picked up the game, I was immediately disappointed. I could not tell what was special about my class, the firefights did not have the AI I'd come to expect from Gearbox products. I was simply disappointed.
Almost a year later, I picked it up again. I took some advice and did two things.
1) I gave it an hour.
2) I gave that hour a beer or two.
Now, I'd forgotten how much instant gratification benefits from alcohol. Shortly, I was teleporting around the battlefield with my shockingly bloodthirsty, psychic spelunker and having a grand old time. Sure there was a lot of down time, and the car is one of the worst cars I've ever driven in any game ever, but popping the heads off of ugly, foul-mouthed loot-piñatas was a blast.
There were problems. Big, glaring problems rounded their ugly heads all the time. Enemies were dumb as bricks sometimes, the car was awful, and 99% of the millions of guns were just terrible. (Though, admittedly, they all actually look just fine.) Worst of all, Gearbox seemed to have no idea of what in their game was actually un-fun. There is an entire hour long or more section of the game dedicated to the car which I'm certain that no sane person actually enjoyed. Inventory management becomes a chore, just like in the first Diablo, and most of the missions have no personality at all. In other words, the game is, quite possibly for most of its duration, tedious.
However, The game comes together some times. Sledge's Safe House is one of the first time this happened. The game goes from pedestrian to unique and exquisite in a matter of footsteps. This area and places like the bandit base in Rust Commons West really explore what the game is best at, and, oddly, what Gearbox is best at. They force players to make rapid tactical decisions about how best to use their resources. One does this by making space a commodity, and the other does so by making open space incredibly dangerous. This makes the play RELY on the powers unique to their characters and therefore on the decisions they have made to improve their character throughout the game. Suddenly, all those old decisions become significant.
The transformation is magical. I highly recommend you check it out. Give the game an hour and a beer, or glass of wine, or whiskey. You won't be disappointed. If he have a discerning eye, you might even learn something.
999 - or more exactly Nine Persons, Nine Hours, Nine Doors. The game is honestly reason enough to by a Nintendo DS. The DS handles "Room Escape" puzzles as well as any mouse and keyboard, but it is also immensely portable. Cheaper than a good smart phone, the DS is just a really good venue for such a quirky point-and-click adventure. However, there are many such adventures already on the platform.
Where 999 really sets itself apart is in the intricacy of the storytelling. Not only is the game internally a web of intrigue, but the mythos is shrouded in so much real world shenanigans that it becomes difficult to parse truth from fiction. If you've ever wanted to see the theories of Rupert Sheldrake mingle with the Titanic in a crazy death-game: 999 is totally for you. If you could not be bothered to click those links, you should probably seek more instant gratification.
Speaking of Borderlands, it isn't easy to make a Game of the Year quality game. I know. I understood the appeal immediately. Take Diablo and Halo and slam them together. It sounds like a winning combination right from the get go, but the real trial is finding what parts are really important. You need to know what RPG elements to stick with and what to keep from the first person violence. When I first picked up the game, I was immediately disappointed. I could not tell what was special about my class, the firefights did not have the AI I'd come to expect from Gearbox products. I was simply disappointed.
Almost a year later, I picked it up again. I took some advice and did two things.
1) I gave it an hour.
2) I gave that hour a beer or two.
Now, I'd forgotten how much instant gratification benefits from alcohol. Shortly, I was teleporting around the battlefield with my shockingly bloodthirsty, psychic spelunker and having a grand old time. Sure there was a lot of down time, and the car is one of the worst cars I've ever driven in any game ever, but popping the heads off of ugly, foul-mouthed loot-piñatas was a blast.
There were problems. Big, glaring problems rounded their ugly heads all the time. Enemies were dumb as bricks sometimes, the car was awful, and 99% of the millions of guns were just terrible. (Though, admittedly, they all actually look just fine.) Worst of all, Gearbox seemed to have no idea of what in their game was actually un-fun. There is an entire hour long or more section of the game dedicated to the car which I'm certain that no sane person actually enjoyed. Inventory management becomes a chore, just like in the first Diablo, and most of the missions have no personality at all. In other words, the game is, quite possibly for most of its duration, tedious.
However, The game comes together some times. Sledge's Safe House is one of the first time this happened. The game goes from pedestrian to unique and exquisite in a matter of footsteps. This area and places like the bandit base in Rust Commons West really explore what the game is best at, and, oddly, what Gearbox is best at. They force players to make rapid tactical decisions about how best to use their resources. One does this by making space a commodity, and the other does so by making open space incredibly dangerous. This makes the play RELY on the powers unique to their characters and therefore on the decisions they have made to improve their character throughout the game. Suddenly, all those old decisions become significant.
The transformation is magical. I highly recommend you check it out. Give the game an hour and a beer, or glass of wine, or whiskey. You won't be disappointed. If he have a discerning eye, you might even learn something.