Pandemic Catch-up 3: Three Kinds of Sci-Fi
Halo Reach
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| Real pandemic vibes, even without a pandemic. |
The fourth main title in the Halo franchise but the chronological prequel, Halo Reach was the first title in the Master Chief Collection to release. For some reason they decided to release the Halo games in chronological order, which was frustrating since I bought it for the collection only to find out that they were (for the moment) locked away. Truth be told, I found Halo Reach to be a bland and too-brief experience. I became aware of the franchise with the release of Reach, and I grew up hearing about how serious, tragic, and grim the story was, but experiencing it I found the story lacked those very feelings that were touted as strengths. Essentially, the game begins with you joining a squad of visually distinct Spartan infantry, who over the course of the game die in the defense of the titular planet. Their deaths elicited little emotion in me, though I was frequently bemused at how bewildering a good number of these deaths were. For instance, over the space of a single load screen, the gunship we were able to nab went from intact to barely flying, the pilot (the captain of the squad) mortally wounded. I could have sworn that I must have missed something, but I did not. Otherwise the game played reasonably well, a very short campaign (about six hours long) notwithstanding, with its console origins showing through floaty controls and point-in-the-general-direction accuracy of weapons. I found it pretty mediocre and forgettable, and the multiplayer didn't hold me for longer than a couple hours. If it weren't for the the insane value of the Master Chief Collection, I'd strongly advise skipping this one, I only hope that the other games are better, I feel pretty wary after this entry though.
System Shock 2
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| It was around the 2/3's mark where I realized that I could handle anything the game threw at me, and so I threw caution to the wind. Thus a survival game became an action film. |
System Shock 2 was a welcome surprise to me, especially 21 years after its initial release in 1999. There's still the expected jank from that era that's present, but surprisingly the gameplay can reach modern levels of run-and-gun a fair number of times, and the butter-smooth performance of the game really helps. This game handles level traversal quite well, with each deck of the ship beginning as cramped and limited, but it never takes long to unlock the next section (the game is able to get a surprising amount of content packed into a relatively small space). There's a good deal of back and forth you have to do aboard the ship, which at times feels a tad excessive, but once you get past each roadblock these back and forth trips become little more than a minor detour, especially as you get further in the game. The build system was pretty intimidating at first, and I felt limited at the beginning, doubly so with my conventional weapons with limited ammunition (the wrench is your best friend here). However, in the last few stages I was unstoppable in my marine/repair/tech guy build, running through the hallways, firing quick snap-shots at the comparably sluggish mutants and robots. I never touched psionics or exotic weapons, but I feel that they definitely could have helped in some circumstances, so there's room for a decent number of playstyles if you'd like to experiment. The story is pretty cool, but admittedly the lion's share of its strength comes from the fantastic voice acting and occasionally impressive visuals (on the whole the character models, especially humans, are poor to hideous). I very much recommend System Shock 2, even though its a fossil, it's a fairly accessible and easily-playable one (with all due respect).
Forges of Mars
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| When you dislike talking to people, replacing those pesky emotion processors with more memory storage and processing power doesn't seem so crazy. |
Not quite a fair review as it's an omnibus of three books for fifteen bucks, which already makes it a good deal without mentioning that I got it for three dollars at a used bookstore in Brantford Ontario. That aside, it's a good book, and I say that because the three books that it contains (Priests of Mars, Lords of Mars, and Gods of Mars) form a single story arc with the same cast of characters, so no hunting for the rest of the set required. I'm not really a fan of the Mechanicus in 40K, but this book changed my opinion on them, mostly through the strong characterization/humanization of these essentially insane engineers and mathematicians. The entirety of the plot is unexpectedly quite emotional, with the leader of the expedition putting everything, including an irreplaceable relic of a ship, on the line in order to explore the unknown. The main cast are quite enjoyable (though they are more than a little foolhardy and too trusting, in the grimdark future of all places), and if the Mechanicus and their mad science isn't your jam, there's representatives of each major branch of the Imperium of Man (and some Eldar plus Necron(?) present to root for as they vanish off the face of the galaxy into uncharted stars. It has its fair share of combat (this is 40K), but most of the book is taken up by drama, meetings, and mystery, which I found compelling, though the 80's horror movie twist ending did disappoint me. That blemish in mind, I really liked this story, not nearly as much as the Greek tragedy of the first trilogy of the Horus Heresy, but it's still easy to recommend, even if you don't know/care much about 40K.
If I had to pick one among these as my favorite, I'd say that Forges of Mars is my favorite (I couldn't put it down), though System Shock 2 would also be a good game for both younger and older audiences.
Next up is a bit more sci-fi, though this time they're a bit more cyberpunk as opposed to straight sci-fi. I also got the gallery of miniatures all sorted out (painting will probably have to wait until I have another desk, moving and all), and tomorrow I'll upload some map stuff I made. Have a good one!
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