Monday, June 18, 2018

Things that aggravate me in computer games...


Well, it's probably just one, really.

It's the situation in a game where the creators force you to play it *their* way, as opposed to allowing me to go at it *my* way.

Especially bad when you don't even know what you're doing at first. 

Cases in point:

Because I'm leading up to playing Wolfenstein 2...on Xbox:

1) Wolfie: New Order -- I played up to the point where you come back from the moon, and end up facing Mr Stompy. This is an arena fight, your ability to aim and do some other funky controller things that I am not good at, really it's the run+slide+shoot = too many things at once. So that's where I had to stop. My patience for these things is getting lower. I did, however, play through this successfully on the PC a few years ago, although I remember that being tricky then too.

2) Wolfie: Old Blood: You have to fight Jager, in the tavern. It's another arena, and it's tiny. Jager is in power armor. It turns out that you have to shoot the blue power nodes on his shoulders a few times; he powers down for a short bit, you have to go pry a piece of armor off while he's in that state. Then you have to do it again, several times. There's really not enough cover of significance to work with, the power armor seems to have dual-wield miniguns with infinite ammo, and he's in motion all the time. And this is after he smashes down the front door, but it's still blocked so you can't run outside where there's better cover--because you know he's going to come after you: you killed his dog.

3) Wolfie: Old Blood: Just before Jager, you fought the big mechanical dog out at the end of the bridge. This is really contrived, because you have to either be doing run-n-gun as soon as he shows up, or you have to find the one hiding place where he doesn't attack (except for the part where he does, and can hurt you *thru the walls*. I watched a couple youtube videos about this, and it turns out (at least on super-easy) that it takes two measly shots with the kampfpistole (which is essentially the single-shot grenade launcher). But I had to try various weapons a bunch of times to figure that out.

4) DOOM: there is the spot where, even on super-easy, there are two of those great big demons, it's an arena fight...

5) on PC: Wolfie: Return to Castle W: I'm in this cathedral thing, have to climb a ladder up a tower, and there's a grenade-girl at the top who is going to kill me before I get in position to aim at her. It's basically an arena except that it's really a tube, and the cover works against me. If I could actually turn around further...but you can't, your range of motion is explicitly limited.


OK, you get the picture, it's these arena fights. The arena is *always* a "locked room" and it won't unlock until your opponent(s) is dead. Mostly what I'd prefer is to be able to draw the opponent's attention and then run away. 

The problem on my end is of course that (1) *I* am not quite good enough to do this their way, and (2) the xbox controller isn't either, and finally (3) on PC I have to play left-handed for RSI reasons. That's less an issue on xbox, actually, b/c there IS NO left-handed-ness...on Windows, well, that's an imperfect modified key-mapping (but at least you can do that, which wasn't always true in the past).


This results in my preferring the Bethesda RPG vs FPS games, where I can fight and run away. 


The current situation with Wolfie is that I'm done playing those games. And not coming back to them later. Which is too bad, because I was near the end of (1), but not even halfway through (3) and (5).

Wolfenstein 2 is coming up, but I'm not sanguine about my chances there--it seems entirely too likely, in advance, that there will be some of this arena-battle stuff that I can't get through. (Later: yep, there was. The "courtroom" battle is an arena. With A LOT of opponents, and the scenery/furniture is destructible, which means you can't really hide behind it for very long.)

I played all the way through all of these things (exc Doom) on my PC when they came out. Mostly that was a few years ago and now I'm older.

Related to the "have to do it *their* way is the "I want to climb up to *right there*" but I can't. In (2), you're in the tavern, there is clearly a "trap-door" up some stairs to the second floor, but it's locked. (actually, it isn't even a door that *could* be opened, it's a visual decoration).

The visual aspect of "town" in (2) and (3) is fabulous--this is some really good-looking surface texture art.

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Later that night: played Wolfie 2 some. After the point, still on the flying platform, where you get the super-suit, you end up in an arena battle against *something* that is big, clearly tough, has dual-wield *something* that looks like big laser or railgun (well, not railgun, really seemed energy weapon, has a charge time with an associate noise). I've no idea how you take this one out, but it seems fairly stupid, and it certainly isn't fast--easy to outrun, but there's not really a safe spot. (OK, this is the "laser cannon", kinda like the minigun, you can't keep it). You need this weapon to burn a hole in a wall, so there's no way out of this battle. (At least it's not Jager in the tavern again). Ah, apparently there's a second one, a little later, before you get to leave the airship.



There's a play-style dichotomy in this game (as with the predecessors):
"You will see some icons with numbers appear on the screen. They indicate the positions of special enemies - the commanders - who are able to call in reinforcements. You should always prioritize these targets (preferably take them down quietly) first to avoid troubles."

This game is about killing nazis. Why would you want fewer of them? 

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Also: I hate "jumping games" where your jumping has to be perfectly timed/aimed/something in order to get around. You try to do that with wireless kbd/mouse...yeah, not so much.

I'd be more or less ok doing such jumping IRL, if I was, you know, 25 years old still (but I'm nowhere near)

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