Playing A Game Closure PC

It took me a while, but I finally did "get" the name: light sources create their own little, enclosed bubbles of reality around them. This becomes more poignant in levels with water, where you'll literally float within the light, but cease to exist outside it.

Anyway. Closure's light mechanic is devilishly clever, and the game does a pretty satisfying job of finding new twists to put on it, through all 82 of its puzzles. Some are a bit of a cakewalk (a few levels are, in fact, just an arty show-off where you walk to the exit), but the puzzle design on display here is really top-notch.

What dulls that notch, though, is the game's lack of forgiveness in some excessively complex puzzles. Restarting a level seems easy enough at first, but later puzzles involve painstaking, meticulous setup to solve, which can be irrecoverably ruined with a single misstep, like dropping an item in the wrong place. On a few occasions, it even seems like the game's physics are working against you, as the carefully-planned drop of a box results in said box bouncing off into the nether. If any puzzle game was ever in need of a Sands of Time-style rewind feature, Closure would be it.

The only other disappointment I have with Closure is its story, which I'm not really sure exists. The art style hints at some deeper meanings behind your character, and behind the themes of some levels, but there's no ... well, no closure on these ambiguous concepts; just self-referential callbacks. It's pretty, but seems hollow.

But these shortcomings can only do so much harm to the game's brilliant design and pleasant style. Closure is a fulfilling puzzle challenge, and artistically striking as well. Really, it's nice to have a platform-puzzle game that isn't all happy-go-lucky, for a change.

Better than: Unmechanical
Not as good as: Offspring Fling!
Really, what's up with the character theme: is it about a workaholic dad and a pill-head/insane mom, whose daughter turns to dark fantasy? Seriously, I don't get it.

Progress: Finished all puzzles, collected 7 light moths.

Rating: Good

Not that I have a terrible amount of experience with the sub-genre -- but Gunslinger, to me, represents the epitome of the arcade-style shooter. The action is quick, and combos and special shots have you shooting for a high score; not for its own sake, but for improving your character's abilities. And it's all driven by a tightly-written, rapid-fire narrative that - predictable as it can sometimes be - keeps the moment-to-moment thrills coming. This isn't the best writing in games, but it's got plenty of good going for it, and Silas Greaves tells it with inimitable character.

Granted, the order in which Greaves's stories are told doesn't always feel right, hinting that some segments were left on the cutting room floor. But the whole affair is paced quickly enough that you'll hardly have time to notice. This is the game's true victory: it doesn't waste your time. (Except in the duels, which are pretty much a total waste of time themselves.) Take Call of Juarez: Gunslinger for what it is - the video game version of a great and fanciful western movie - and you'll be hard-pressed to find better.

Better than: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Mac, PC, PS3, X360)
Not as good as: BioShock
You'll know the game is something special: when you wonder if Silas Greaves was inspired by Jeff Bridges in the True Grit remake.

Progress: Finished on Hard.

Rating: Awesome
Playing A Game Mercenary Kings PC

So a buddy of mine, who backed their Kickstarter, got me into a two-player co-op of the Mercenary Kings beta. And, wow -- for a game that's still in development, I'm pretty damn impressed. There were two crashes during our lengthy session (which is better than many released, AAA games I've played), and some playability features like item-trading are missing; but the core gameplay, and depth of content, is commendable.

Imagine if Metal Slug had a home-base hub, from which you could craft weapons and accessories, using materials and cash you've picked up in missions. You rank-up as you complete missions and progress the story, which unlocks more craftable equipment. There's also a limited inventory, so you can pack healing items, and explosives, to take with you into a mission.

So the shoot-dudes, avoid-death gameplay is pure fun, and the character growth and mission progression gives the game some serious legs. But the icing on the cake is how crazy your customized weapons can get: not only is there a healthy variety of parts available, you can combine disparate parts to great effect. Right now I'm using a magnum with a rifle stock and a sniper scope. Oh, and a barrel shaped like a trombone, because you can also build a shotgun that's in the shape of a trombone.

Sure, there are some areas of the design that definitely need more polish - like the unclear stats when buying parts, and the incredibly small backpack - but the game is fun nevertheless. Certainly more so with friends -- which, and I'm not sure if this works yet, but there's clearly going to be online play and matchmaking. I'm super looking forward to playing more of this in the future.

Progress: Rank Private.

Rating: Good

The previous Call of Juarez games completely failed to ignite my interests -- well, I was interested in The Cartel before it came out. To me, the series has been characterized by rote mechanics, uninteresting narrative elements, and shoddy controls. So imagine my surprise when, upon trying the Gunslinger demo, I found that - in addition to having a really clever and satisfying storytelling framework - it's a relatively well-polished and fun shooting experience.

Gunslinger uses an arcade-style approach rarely seen in first-person shooters (though Bulletstorm comes to mind as a similar example). You'll get point bonuses for headshots, for shooting a moving target, for making distant shots, and for rapid-fire kill combos -- and these points are actually experience points, which you'll use to learn new skills and upgrade your weapons. It's a fun system, and it's balanced well; survival is still your primary interest, and the experience skills still aren't as important as your playing ability, so the game doesn't devolve into some mechanical point-optimization exercise unless you really want it to.

There are some parts of the gameplay formula that don't work well, though, most notably the quick-draw duels. As boss-style encounters, duels can be counted on at the end of most levels, and it's complicated enough to feel awkward without also feeling rewarding. What really stinks about the duels is that, after an excruciating preparatory phase of trying to maximize numbers and gauges, the outcome is decided in near-imperceptible fractions of a second. And failure means that you have to prepare all over again. Lame. At any rate, duels are a fortunately-minor part of Gunslinger.

And what helps drive the game along, even through these less-than-enjoyable moments, is its thrillingly creative approach to storytelling. Gunslinger opens with the bounty hunter Silas Greaves strolling into a saloon, and the other patrons begging him to tell his story; the game itself is that story, of Greaves's exploits and a mysterious vendetta. I can see the ending from miles away, which is a bit unfortunate -- but things are kept interesting in the interim, with unpredictable twists and turns in how the narrative affects the gameplay.

For example, at the end of the first level, one of the saloon-goers interrupts Greaves's story, excitedly describing the version of it he read in a dime novel: Greaves faces down and defeats a crooked lawman. After the duel, Greaves explains that, no, that's not how it happened; so the game rewinds, and you play it the way he describes instead. The omniscient narration is reminiscent of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, but with a really enchanting western panache. Despite the ending being telegraphed, I'm very much looking forward to hearing more from Silas.

Incidentally, although I know of a few games that will detect if you're doing poorly, and ask if you want to lower your difficulty setting -- Gunslinger is the first game I know of that will actually do the opposite, and ask if you want to increase the challenge when you're doing well. Good on you, Gunslinger. Good on you.

Progress: Finished the Gunfight at the Sawmill.

Rating: Good

Giant bird monsters? A criminal prosecutor who's actually a criminal? Yeah! I am into this!

As with Gods & Kings before it, Brave New World brings a host of improvements to Civilization V, while preserving the spirit of the original game's design. Like a fine marinade, Brave New World both adds to and enhances the flavor, but doesn't change the texture -- so in this case, the steak is still slow to start and dauntingly intricate. In other words, if you didn't like steak Civ V already, this won't change your mind. But if you did like it, this expansion will give you a lot of new toys to have fun with.

First off - because it can actually happen relatively early in the game - are trade routes, which can be plotted to a friendly city (including your own) over land or sea. This is, frankly, my favorite new feature: in addition to making the otherwise-slow starting eras more interesting, it adds a layer of strategic depth that Civ V didn't previously have. The Caravans or Cargo Ships you deploy to carry out a trade route, are not only unarmed, but also don't reveal the map around them as military units do. So to keep them from being waylaid by pirates or hostile nations, you'll have to place protective units all along the route. Prior to Brave New World, there was little purpose to having a defensive army -- it's refreshing to have a reason to invest in military might, that isn't outright hostility.

Which brings me to the expansion's next major improvement: diplomacy. Most of the core game's basic systems are left untouched, but the AI is less ... of a dick, than it once was. The game has more precise and helpful indications of your international relationships, such as when you've "fulfilled" a promise not to infringe upon a neighbor's borders; and city-states have more plentiful missions for you to curry their favor with. And, in general, the AI's diplomatic behavior seems less irrational than it once was. Granted, AI players will still become needlessly belligerent if an otherwise-friendly player has a high score; but, progress.

The biggest part of the diplomatic improvements though, is the World Congress, which supplants and expands upon the United Nations. The World Congress can be founded much earlier in the game - at or slightly before the Industrial era - and has two basic roles: leaders and voters. While voter states are limited to voting on proposed resolutions, based on the number of delegates they control, the host nation (initially the founder, later an elected position) and the nation with the most delegates (more on this in a bit) can each propose resolutions for voting. These resolutions range from banning a particular luxury resource, to setting an embargo on unliked nations, to establishing international projects like a World's Fair. Delegates are generally based on the same criteria as votes in the old UN; so, there's a bonus for the host, and you can get extra delegates for having city-states as allies. Furthermore, if you send a Spy to a nation's capital, you can change his role to a Diplomat, which opens up some vote-negotiation options in the trade window.

If you're in a position to propose World Congress resolutions, this is a really satisfying mechanic that allows you to influence the flow of the game -- and to play around with international intrigue, gauging and influencing other nations' votes. Unfortunately, if you're only a voting member, the mechanic is a lot flatter. You can try to influence vote outcomes with Diplomats; but chances are you won't be able to defeat whoever has the most delegates. And trying to get into one of the leadership positions - either by bribing other nations to vote for you as host, or by bribing city-states to be your new ally - is similarly unrealistic. The World Congress is a really cool feature, but isn't as effective as it could be with a little more balancing.

The culture system has been refactored in Brave New World, with a more competitive (in theory) victory condition. Tourism is the centerpiece, with great writers and artists, and archaeological discoveries - based on real events from earlier in the game, such as Ancient-era battles - adding to your nation's cultural influence. Like the Religion mechanics of Gods & Kings, your goal is basically to get other nations interested in your own; although in this case, it's (mostly) done not by sending units abroad, but by building internal infrastructure. I have to say though, that I didn't do a whole lot with the Tourism mechanic, nor was I driven to -- as a victory condition, getting other nations to admire your culture seems extremely difficult. While the previous culture system encouraged small empires, and culture points are still more effective this way, the new system muddies this focus by requiring a large number of Great Person units, and a supply of buildings with Great Work slots.

These are the big items, but there are plenty of other, smaller improvements in Brave New World. There are Ideologies, which are a lot like cultural Policies, but with an added diplomatic dimension (you're more likely to have good relations with a nation that shares your Ideology). There's a new Airport building, which allows you to quickly move units between distant cities. And of course, there are a bunch of new civilizations to play with. Also - and maybe this is just a coincidence - my experience thus far with Brave New World has been much more stable, technologically speaking, than its predecessors; the UI only behaved weirdly once or twice, and I didn't encounter any irritating usability issues.

There are a lot of improvements, both major and minor, in Brave New World -- and for what it's worth, I think this is a better refinement of Civ V than Gods & Kings was. But it's still just a refinement, so keep your expectations tempered.

Better than: Sid Meier's Civilization V: Gods & Kings
Not as good as: I dunno. A game that starts more quickly, I guess.
Also worth mentioning: the new endgame infantry unit is an XCOM Squad, which can para-drop from way far away, and has green laser guns.

Progress: Finished a campaign on Warlord (Easy).

Rating: Good

My anticipation for all of this is palpable, while also burning, and frothing.

The only thing I want more than GTAV, is a PC version of GTAV.

Playing A Game Oil Rush PC

I was immediately interested in Oil Rush's macro-management approach. What turns me off of expert-level play in other strategy games (be it StarCraft II or Civilization V) is the endless level of micro-management those games demand: tuning, and paying acute attention to, every individual element of your army/empire. Oil Rush, through a combination of smart design inventions (like minimap-oriented controls!) and intuitive AI, obviates the need for most of these details, in favor of high-level "Send dudes here" commands. So, yeah: I really liked this, at first.

But as it turns out, Oil Rush also neglects any kind of micro-management, to the gameplay's detriment. You can only select units that are around/at a building; you can only select either 25%, 50%, or 100% of those units at a time; and you can only order them to move to another building. Want to send out a single unit to scout? Nope. Balance the number of units stationed at your bases? Nope. Redirect units en route to A, and send them to B instead? You can recall them to where they came from, but otherwise -- nope! Send units to unoccupied water to intercept enemy forces? Move units to take proper advantage of attack range? Focus fire? Patrol, escort, or stop? Nope on all counts.

I'm not going to even bother getting into the game's god-awful writing or lackluster art style, because they don't matter. The game isn't - what I would consider - playable.

Much as I'll disparage Oil Rush, though, I have to give credit to its developers -- for making a cross-platform engine with some relatively impressive capabilities. Nice work on the tech, guys. Shame about the game design.

Progress: Finished "Wild West" (mission 3).

Rating: Bad
Playing A Game Unmechanical PC

I tried the demo back when it came out, and Unmechanical seemed like a nice little bit of sidescroller puzzling. The full game turns out to be a nice, little more of it. About one to two hours more. What I'm saying is, the game's short; but it's still nice.

If there's something in Unmechanical to complain about (well, other than its brevity) it's the game's pacing, which falters a few times. The first two-thirds or so, your goal is finding keys to unlock a central, quasi-hub chamber, which you'll backtrack to (well, be guided back to) after collecting each key. So it feels a bit awkward when there's a considerable amount of puzzle content after this chamber. And there are a couple of times where, to solve a puzzle, you'll have to go back to the previous room - or skip ahead to the next room - to pick something up.

But these seem like minor complaints, when the game in general is a pleasant, stimulating-while-relaxing trip through an imaginative, well-detailed game world. There's a great variety of puzzle types, all manipulated by a single control mechanic -- and only one or two of them require real-time action, so you can take as much time as you want.

Unmechanical isn't very complicated, but it doesn't need to be.

Better than: Quantum Conundrum
Not as good as: Antichamber
About as good as, while distinct from: Q.U.B.E. -- weird, no, it was not my intent to compare Unmechanical solely to other Unreal/UDK games.

Progress: Complete.

Rating: Good
Playing A Game Puzzle Agent PC

In Professor Layton and the Curious Village, I was disappointed that the puzzles were so far divorced from the narrative, and that they tended to be of the "placemat puzzle" variety. Puzzle Agent's puzzles are designed to more closely integrate with the game's story, but... they have other issues.

Can you help Agent Nelson Tethers decrypt this encoded number?

IT'S NINE

Of the - admittedly, few - puzzles I've done so far, most have been criminally stupid, like this. The remainder take the form of logic puzzles, and are more difficult only because they rely on a number of unstated assumptions -- like that a tournament is single-elimination format, or that a "midnight to midnight" security service means there's no replacement security after midnight.

The story itself hasn't done much of anything to keep me interested, either: it's clearly inspired by Fargo, resting heavily on the theme of an isolated, snowed-in Minnesota town and its terse, hermitish inhabitants. But the action moves excruciatingly slowly, and foreshadows its leads with the subtlety of a dump truck.

Oh, and just to continue kicking Puzzle Agent while it's down: the production values are dirt-poor. Animations are missing frames, and zoomed-in art shows lots of artifacting. The whole thing plays out like a cartoon-pitch storyboard. Although the voice acting is pretty good, which is a bit weird, everything else considered.

Progress: Solved 7 puzzles.