Report #36
I usually try not to post exactly at the end of a month, but I can’t decide what I want to play next, so let’s make some reviews instead!
Reviews
Far Cry 2
22.9 hours, no achievements
★★★☆☆
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Release Date: 2008
Far Cry 2 is a FPS set in an unknown African nation, which is currently torn apart by a civil war. First the bad: Enemies respawn really quickly, so when you clear out an enemy checkpoint and revisit it 5 minutes later, the checkpoint is guarded again. Which is really pesky in an open world game, where you need to go from A to B and back to A again a lot (-★). Another thing that got on my nerves was the vocalization of the NPCs. They talked without any regard of punctuation marks or natural pauses in a sentence. It's so different from the natural prosody that it sound laughably/awfully fake. Immersion = Zero! (-★) On the other hand, there was much fun to be had with different weapons: After some acclimatization the gunplay was immensely enjoyable. Since the jungle is really dense you're often having a hard time spotting the enemies. Getting shot at and not knowing where the shooter is was frustrating at first, but after some time I enjoyed the challenge. I would say, this is my biggest pro for the game.
Achievements: None.
Verdict: Recommended.
Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance
12.9 hours, no achievements
★★☆☆☆
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Release Date: 2007
SC: Forged Alliance is an expansion to Supreme Commander from back in the day, when expansion were real expansions, not just some kind of cosmetic DLC. It immensly improves on the main game in points of UI and general smoothness of the game. I still don't like the game's main concepts (hence the low rating, see my last post), but it is definitely a worthwhile expansion to the main game.
Achievements: None.
Verdict: If you enjoyed Supreme Commander this expansion is a must. Otherwise no recommendation.
Release Date: 2016
Silence is the sequel to The Whispered World, though only loosely connected to it. Silence not only looks gorgeous but is also lovely written and dubbed. I addition it has one of the strongest intros I've recently seen in any game. I enjoyed it much more than The Whispered World. This is not to a small part due to the lovely main characters Renie, Noah and Spot, as opposed to the first game's MC Sadwick, which I hated. So when Sadwick reappeared I was naturally appalled again. I can't point my finger on why it's specifically this character, but I find Sadwick absolutely unbearable. Things I did not like about the game include the achievements (-★) and that you cannot skip most of the cutscenes and text during the second playthrough (-★).
Achievements: Enervating, since you have to play through the game at least twice and on top of that they are kind of bugged. I was lucky enough to get them all, but definitely read up on the achievements beforehand, if you're a completionist!
Verdict: Yes.
Currently playing
I’m currently between games.
I tried to tie up some already started series of games this month, which included some average choices, hence the low ratings this time. While I own the second Supreme Commander game at least the first one is finished. Silence concludes the Whispered World games and Far Cry 2 is the last Far Cry game I own that I hadn’t played.
I tried to make my rating more transparent, i.e. to better point at the reason why a game lost one or more stars, by adding (-★)’s where applicable. Let me know what you think of it. Does it help the review or do you think it’s redundant?
Happy backlog-clearing to everyone,
Vito
I personally had no problem with Sadwick apart from his awful voice acting in The Whispered World. I’m glad he was much better voiced in Silence. Spot is definitely the highlight, I got badges for both games showcased on my profile solely for his cuteness <3
I may be in the minority here but I don’t even check the ratings/stars/scores of games. I solely deal with the content of the review itself.
Oh, now I remember the voice…Maybe that’s what I disliked so much about Sadwick in Whispered World and when he reappeared, I was anything but impartial. He was more bearable than in the first part, I can agree on that. Spot definitely stole the spotlight (haha) from everyone else! I liked Renie very much as well.
Thanks for the feedback as well :)
It might have easily been the voice. Everytime he sighed in The Whispered World I felt like someone was scratching my brain. If a voice is capable of physically hurting someone, it has to be Sadwick from the first game.
Spot definitely stole the spotlight (haha) from everyone else!
Oh that’s precious :D
I like the stars! That’s an interesting idea. ;)
I hope I won’t fogret to plan my playthrough of Silence as I would probably have to play it three times. X)
Thanks for the feedback!
If you want to complete it, I definitely would advise to look at the discussions about achievements, since a few are kind of bugged and easy to miss.
Yeah, weird voice acting in Far Cry 2 always struck me as odd when I played it years ago. It’s as if the voice actors were trying to get their lines out as fast as possible or something. Also, game is supposedly improved a great deal if you mod it because it apparently tackles issues like bullet sponge enemies, instant respawns and such. I really want to get around to it some day because Far Cry 2 was really when that series acquired its identity proper despite the sequel being the one that hit it big with audiences.
I’d somehow signify part of the text the star mark refers to. The way I read the text I come upon a star and then backtracked to see what specifically was covered by it. Which, in all honesty, could just be me.
Oooh, I didn’t even think of looking for mods… Well, it’s too late now, I’m not going to revisit the game probably ever. Still, thanks for the heads up, I definitely got to keep that in mind for older games.
That makes sense to me. I’ll think about it, maybe boldface would be enough, but maybe I can come up with another solution. Very good, now I’ve already got something to think about for my next review :)