A Gaming Diary
Fahrenheit
I’d been looking forward to this.
Oh dear.
It seemed okay when I played it last night and I was looking forward to spending the day with it today, having nothing better to do.
The adventure bits are clunky, but fine. The real-time conversations just make me panic and choose an option randomly, but I guess that’s okay. The rhythm action style prompt-following action sequences are slightly annoying. I tend to avoid them, if possible.
So I could cope. The story’s interesting, though it seems to be a lot more linear than I expected. Quite enjoyable overall.
But then there was a flashback bit which I couldn’t work out how to do. It went like this.
10. RUN FOR TWO SECONDS ACROSS A MILITARY INSTALLATION
20. CLOSE UP OF GUARD SHOUTING “STOP, OR I’LL SHOOT”
30. GAME OVER SCREEN
40. GOTO 10
I eventually figured it out, thinking I must have just got past the most annoying part of the game.
But… but… then there are the trigger pulling bits. You have to hit the left and right triggers alternately as fast as possible. And I have always, always hated games that made me do that with buttons. With triggers it’s even more painful. Literally. The first few were quite short and I grumbled through them. But then they got longer and harder and my fingers started to feel like they were going to fall off…
So, I was on the edge after having to do SIX of those events in a row.
And then I got to a bit where I had to keep a line in the middle of the screen at the same time as doing adventurey bits. My brain and fingers and thumbs can’t cope with that sort of challenge, especially when sore and annoyed. And I’ve got the bloody game set on EASY, for fuck’s sake.
So I turned it off, my head full of CAPS RAGE, fully intending to track down the person responsible for those sections and express my displeasure in a physical fashion… but in the hour or two since that happened something odd has happened. I want to go back and try again. I have no idea why. The game just keeps annoying me. But I want to go back.
| Print article | This entry was posted by That Rev Chap on September 24, 2005 at 10:57 am, and is filed under Xbox. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 6 years ago
Hi. this is Mary, not Zo, just so you know. There are a lot of right/left triggery bits. I’m not very good at button bashing but I’ve discovered some techniques that help with this. Firstly, when using index fingers to pull triggers, bring the controller up to your mouth and rest your top lip on the controller, this helps you forget the pain somehow and you can bite on the controller if the pain becomes too much. Secondly, when playing sitting up, rest the controller so that it’s flat and use your thumbs to push the triggers. Experiment with using different fingers when you become tired. During the breathing bit, the cursor always moves to the left so wait until it does before using both triggers to keep it even. This game sure makes you wish that Xbox triggers weren’t analogue. Particually when you have to balance at the end. This game is weird, and as such you must play differently. It’s rubbish in the conventional sense of the word but somehow keeps drawing you in. I hate it and love it at the same time. I love the QTEs but they distract hugely from what’s actually happening on screen.