This is another post in my series about the odd games that I have decided not to complete, although I will at least try them out for up to an hour or two.
Short Sessions, Part 15
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Tag: 3PS
Typically third person shooters, but I actually use this abbreviation for all kinds of over-the-shoulder gameplay that doesn’t necessarily involve shooting.
Sable
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Developer: Shedworks | Released: 2021 | Genre: 3PS, Adventure
This relatively fresh third person adventure game had a really stylish drawn style that reminded me a lot of European graphic novels, particularly those by Moebius.
In fact, that was the reason I got interested in it.
I controlled a teenager coming of age as she achieved the ability the float slowly downwards, which came in handy when climbing things and jumping across long distances. I was given a hover bike to navigate the big desert, looking for points of interest to explore. There was no combat of any kind, but RPG-style quests.
And it wasn’t just quests about obtaining a specific object or finishing some kind of collection quest. Some of the later quests involved the trope investigation chain and even breaking someone out of jail.
Short Sessions, Part 14
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This is another post in my series about the odd games that I have decided not to complete, although I will at least try them out for up to an hour or two.
The First Three Hitman Games
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As preparation for playing a couple of modern Hitman games in the near future, I’ve decided to transfer my diary sessions of the three first Hitman games which I completed about 20 years ago. This is part of a nostalgic series of the games I played many years ago, but this time it will be adaptations rather than direct transcriptions.
There will be spoilers in these diary sessions.
Hitman: Codename 47
Developer: Io-Interactive | Released: 2000 | Genre: 3PS, Stealth
I completed this game in February 2002. I hesitated before starting it as I had heard it was supposedly very hard, and it was true. The game often had long and complicated missions with no in-game saving of any kind, and it was generally merciless. One mistake and all hell could break lose.
The game was quite original at the time. I had not seen anything quite like it before. Instead of going in guns blazing or just camping with a sniper rifle, I had to research the surroundings of the levels, learn some of the hints for bypassing security and preparing the assassination, then orchestrate an ingenious way of killing the target. And preferably without being detected.
It was a great idea in theory and the game series have always had its stalwart fans. I was never one of them. I quickly disliked the way these games required me to constantly restart and research the same missions over and over, until it was possible to complete it with as little commotion as possible. I never liked having to repeatedly sit through the same sequence in a game, and this game did that in abundance.
Nevertheless, I just had to try out the game. It was the first really big game produced in Denmark, my home country, and it had music by Jesper Kyd, whom I had briefly met at an Amiga demo party. His music was often a bit too minimalistic for my taste, but it was good in this game. It fit nicely.
Short Sessions, Part 13
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This is another post in my series about the odd games that I have decided not to complete, although I will at least try them out for up to an hour or two.
Just Cause 2
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Developer: Avalanche Studios | Released: 2010 | Genre: 3PS, Sandbox
This is a post in a nostalgic series with transcriptions of my diary sessions of the games I played many years ago, translated and adapted from Danish. There will be spoilers in these diary sessions.
February 22, 2013
I finally started the sequel to the Swedish open world agent-style game – now from 2010. I ended up playing three hours over two turns. Although the game was basically just a strong embellishment of the same game rules as in the first one, the gameplay, the graphics and the atmosphere were still improved so much that I thought significantly better of it and even seriously considered playing it through properly.
The 3D engine in particular was unparalleled. It had a totally unobstructed view to all horizons and no immediate corner cut to achieve this. Huge mountains and volumetric clouds with beautiful sunsets, foaming waves on the beaches, detailed forests and palm trees, large cities with skyscrapers but also small villages with huts on stilts. Cars and people were finely detailed, and textures were of a reasonable high quality. There was a world of difference since the first game from 2006. The music was also of a more symphonic and professional quality – although I still missed the furious Spanish guitar a bit.
Just Cause
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Developer: Avalanche Studios | Released: 2006 | Genre: 3PS, Sandbox
This is a post in a nostalgic series with transcriptions of my diary sessions of the games I played many years ago, translated and adapted from Danish. There will be spoilers in these diary sessions.
This is about the first game in the series.
February 10, 2013
It actually surprised me a bit when I discovered that the game developers were Swedish, as the game was set in some fictive Spanish/Mexican/Colombian republic and had a lot of furious Spanish guitar mixed with modern rhythms. The description of the game made it sound like the bright green islands from Far Cry meets the typical game rules from the Grand Theft Auto series.
You get missions and side missions to kill targets or to dust something important, targets in the form of icons on the mini map and the larger map, and you can steal cars, motorcycles, jeeps, trucks, speedboats, police cars, even later helicopters and airplanes. There was a solid road network on the islands – more than I had thought, complete with quite a bit of traffic on the roads. As an added spice of its own, Just Cause and its sequel were notorious for the many stunts you could do. Jumping from car to car, throwing a grappling hook at other cars and helicopters, hang gliding with a parachute, even throwing yourself off high cliffs and popping an always available parachute. And there is probably much more still possible.
However, the game turned out to be too similar to the Grand Theft Auto series for my taste. No saves anywhere but only checkpoint saves at the end of a mission or in a hideout. The latter was much like in Far Cry 2, with the possibility to renew weapons, ammunition, heal, and obtain a new vessel.
Murdered: Soul Suspect
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Developer: Airtight Games | Released: 2014 | Genre: 3PS, Adventure
I’m going to bring the pros and cons in the end back again. I actually like writing them, and also reading them at a later time to remind me what I originally thought about the game in few words.
This was a really pleasant surprise. I’ve had it in my backlog for years but always postponed playing it. I had seen videos of the gameplay, and although the adventure part did look very appealing (that’s why I bought the game in the first place) the patrolling demons looked like they could be frustrating. Luckily, at first the demons were not that hard to deal with, and I really liked the smooth adventure puzzles.
The game started with a police detective being thrown out of a window and subsequently shot and killed by a masked killer. The detective became a bluish ghost and was shocked to see himself dead. Shades of that movie with Patrick Swayze, no doubt about that. I then had to investigate and solve my own death. Along the way, I sometimes found other ghosts with side cases about figuring out how they died too.
I liked the voice actor for the detective – a really good film noir fit.
The pure adventure part of the game was prevalent and absolute bliss. As soon as I got close to something, an action word was shown along with one or more hotkeys shown as actual keyboard buttons or a mouse with a highlighted button. It may sound simple, but it worked really well, especially as some hotkeys were automatically disabled if an action didn’t make sense in the given situation.
Spec Ops: The Line
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Developer: Yager Entertainment | Released: 2012 | Genre: 3PS, Military
I’ve heard a lot of about this game since the game was released now more than a decade ago. About how the story was supposed to be extraordinary and really surprises you in the end. But I always imagined that it would be rock hard and for that reason I’ve always skipped it. Until now. And I’m happy to say that it’s quite playable on the easy difficulty level – even for a shooter klutz like me.
In fact, the gameplay is terrific. It’s one of the best cover shooters I’ve played.
As captain Martin Walker, I was one of three military soldiers in a squad that I commanded, dropped in Dubai after a catastrophic sandstorm, looking for survivors and also a guy named John Konrad. Turns out there was a lot alive in the ruins of Dubai – but they were not survivors. They were hostiles. And so most of the game went through buildings, cellars, parking lots, sometimes bothered by sandstorms, sometimes using a zip line to enter the next skyscraper. It was all linear too, with ammo refills in the corners.
Even in 2023 I was satisfied with the graphics. The facial animations were excellent and the voiceovers even better. The sandstorms were very convincing when they blasted through the windows.
Brütal Legend
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Developer: Double Fine Productions | Released: 2013 | Genre: 3PS, RTS
This is another one I should have played ages ago but kept postponing – mostly because I was worried about the real time strategy elements that pops up later in the game. Now, that I have finally visited it, I can only slap myself silly for not having tried this truly original heavy metal game some time earlier. So many things to like – Jack Black, the humor, well directed cutscenes, lovingly weird ideas…
…and then they just had to put those dreadful RTS elements in it. More about that later.
I was playing as the roadie Eddie, voiced by the marvelous Jack Black. He got sent to sort of a heavy metal heaven, an open world landscape with dark themes everywhere, as inspired by the best heavy metal vinyl covers you can imagine. It was third person hack-and-slash to begin with, using a big axe and a guitar for attacks, later teamed up with a hot girl, and assembled an equally hot car for racing the roads.
I got a map of the world with primary and secondary objectives. Tab slabs – sort of shrines – could learn me new solos to be activated with a hot key, after which I had to hit the right notes for a few seconds to fire it off. It could be to e.g. summon the car, awaken supports, etc.