A Gaming Diary
Archive for September, 2005
Fahrenheit
Sep 24th
Ah, and another good thing about Fahrenheit is that the following conversation can now take place -
Friend: “Have you head of Theory of a Deadman?”
Me: “The band? Yeah.”
Friend: “What are they like?”
Me: “Shit.”
Fahrenheit: edutainment at its finest.
Fahrenheit – COMPLETED!
Sep 24th
“I love you, Lucas.”
Where the fuck did that come from? Is someone on the team a Kevin Smith fan? Did they just want to throw in a Clerks reference?
Talk about love at first sight. Well, second sight, I suppose. Possibly third. But you know what I mean.
It makes no sense at all.
Anyway, I completed it. Fucked up a trigger torture section right at the end and got a bad ending, but went back in afterwards and got a better one. Not sure if there’s a super-great-mega ending.
Anyway, despite my moaning, I think the good outwieghs the bad. It’s pretty short – I played it for a couple of hours last night at most, and then today for… um, seven or eight hours, I suppose. And while there are some really, really annoying parts… a lot of annoying parts… so… what the hell is so good about it? It must be the interactive story stuff. It can’t just be the story, because if it were a TV mini-series it would be laughed out of town. And I suppose some of the action sequences aren’t annoying and can be quite exciting.
Phew. I’m glad I’m not a games reviewer, because I’d be stuck with this one. Maybe I could just rewrite the press release a bit and shove 8/10 at the end. Would that work?
Fahrenheit
Sep 24th
Okay, imagine playing Metal Gear Solid.
Now take away the radar.
“Ah, they did for that Metal Gear Solid 3!” <- Reader's voice.
Yes, but then take away all your gadgets for tracking the position of guards.
And then make the guards invisible.
And then play it blindfolded.
That’s what these sections of Fahrenheit are like. Apart from the blindfolded bit. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think it makes any difference whether I keep my eyes closed or open, it’s all utterly random.
So, all I’ve done today is moan about this game. And yet I’ve been playing it most of the day and I’m still going. Why? Because I want to know what happens. And when it’s good – Tyler visiting the bank, say – it’s very, very good indeed.
I can’t help but feel that the whole “the story is under your control” thing is bollocks, mind. Apart from a few choices that probably don’t make much difference – such as which character to send to the bank – it all seems very, very linear.
Fahrenheit
Sep 24th
Oh dear lord.
Another random-as-fuck “Don’t move or I’ll shoot” bit.
Did anyone actually play these fucking sections before they were released in our homes?
Won’t somebody please think of the children!
Fahrenheit
Sep 24th
Well, I got past the book puzzle. I didn’t complete it, no way, I just left the building. The game asked me if I was sure I wanted to go, which is rather like asking a drowning man if he’s sure he wants the life belt thrown to him.
(Did I just make ‘life belt’ up? One of those round floating things on string, anyway. You know.)
(Maybe it’d better if I’d used a man in the desert and a drink of a water as an analogy.)
(Eh, whatever.)
Anyway, I’ve just got past some terribly annoying action sequences and I’m still playing.
Fahrenheit
Sep 24th
I’ve gone back to it.
But I’m now stuck. Completely and utterly stuck.
Some sterotyped Chinese chap wants me to find him a book. In a huge building full of books. I think I’ve found a code number to identify it, but I can’t see any way of applying that code to the environment in order to find the book.
I’ve been taken random books of shelves and giving them to him, just on the off chance, but he keeps telling me it’s the wrong one. Which isn’t a surprise.
I’ve just been walking around the building hoping inspiration will strike. But that doesn’t look like happening any time soon.
I almost dozed off just now, which isn’t a good thing to do while playing a game.
The controls are shit, there’s an enforced first-person bit where it ignores your invert settings for the camera, the lip-syncing is awful and now this.
What am I missing? Nobody else seems to have had problems completing the game. What. Am. I. Missing?
Fahrenheit
Sep 24th
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.
