Fez

Fez. Fez fez fezfezfez.

Fez initially presents itself as a 'simple' platformer, where a 2D world suddenly becomes a 2 and-a-half D world. There it is in a nutshell. You play as Gomez, a cute little character who (surprise!) happens to be the hero of this universe and time in history. He is bestowed a fez (a cube!) and the wonders of a 2 and-a-half D world become apparent to him. Where everyone else lives in a 2D world, Gomez now has the ability to rotate his environment on a single axis and traverse the world in new exciting ways in an effort to ...save the universe again, or something. I'm not sure. There's a lot going on.

One of the most captivating elements of Fez to me surprisingly was the lore. There is a ridiculous amount of evidence to suggest a rich lore to the Fez universe(s), but as I sometimes feel whenever I go onto a game's wiki following completion I sadly get the feeling that I largely missed the point. I like what I had conjured up with in my mind regarding Fez and although I knew it was only a pitiful percentage of the overall picture, it really grasped my interest in a way few games have done before and I wished to know more while playing. Phil Fish put a stupid amount of effort in this game and I can understand why instead of going grey with stress he just went crazy. There are games where you bumblingly trundle along a corridor without explanation as to why you are doing the things that you're doing, other than competing in a game of assigned bad guys vs. assigned good guys. (Which is in-tune as to why Star Trek is vastly superior to Star Wars). Fez does start out like that, and it is possible to end it not knowing anything more about it other than 'jump puzzles'. I only got the generic/first ending (that is worth playing for as it is a total visceral trip) which didn't answer any of my questions, only create more regarding what was going on in the universe(s), but getting to that point was one of the best gaming experiences I've had in a long time. I actively felt like I wanted to know so such more, but was also infinitely satisfied with what I had been presented with up to that point.

Fez's mechanics, sound design, pacing, art style and its music (Disasterpiece produce a beautiful soundtrack) are all incredibly considered and delicate, and when put together form a series of incredible vivid and atmospheric worlds for you to traverse, each with their own unique spin and story that I eagerly lapped up. The game encourages absorption of the environment that you're immediately in, and also a sense of leisure in the ways that you set about completing each puzzle. There isn't an abrupt 'level completed' or anything, instead a little visual cue that lasts a few seconds and then gameplay returns to normal. To further highlight that leisure aspect is there are no lives or health in Fez. You can 'die' but that's just from falling too high a distance and you just revert back to the platform where you last fell from. I'd dare say it shares some similarities to Proteus in how calming and enjoyable an experience it is traversing through each world.

A small thing that again complimented that sense of leisure (and this is only really relevant for the generic ending of Fez), but in a sense everything is completable the moment you first come across it it. There is a lot of back tracking (although not in your typical linear way), but if there is a clear 'goal' evident for that world, then in that point and time it is achievable. I really despise games where there's a blocked door or something that I awkwardly button mash or try and glitch through, and by doing so temporarily break immersion. I never experienced that with Fez*. That's not to say there were a few moments where I didn't jump back and forth in front of a locked door or wondering why I was stuck, but it didnt bug me that it wasn't accessible because there were 3 or 4 other doors to take that would eventually lead me to an answer, whether it be the discovery of a new mechanic or whatever object I needed to open that previous locked door.
That is the charm and magic of Fez. There is a lot going on if you look closer, but only if you want to, you don't have to.




*Having said that, hardcore Fez players who are seeking that elusive 206% total completion (?!) have encountered a few puzzles that are only known to have been completed by brute force at this point.

Sleeping Dogs

I found this difficult to write and not address the obvious parallels that Sleeping Dogs and the GTA series share. Both games are Open World/Sandbox? I guess Sandbox fits better in that you only really have sand to play with... but then you can bring your cool matchbox cars and maybe some water to make a lumpy castle if you want - but in the end you're not going to get much out of it without a dash of imagination.
In GTA all I ever found myself doing separate from completing the main quest line was racking up my police stars to 6 and seeing how long I could survive for. This still is a tremendous amount of fun but it's not really accessing all the available content, or being creative or imaginative with what the game offers - since that act is the title of the game after all. Sleeping Dogs offers up similar sort of sidequests, games and silly little things to get involved in, but like in GTA my exposure to this pablum was the brief forced introductions to them as I continued my journey through the main quest. I dun givvve a fuuuuuck about these things most of the time, which just leaves this reflection being about the core game.

The most notable difference besides the setting - and THE reason why I prefer Sleeping Dogs - is the inclusion of the 'martial-art' fighting system. Similar in execution to the Batman games (Asylum, City, Origins), long melee combos are able to be strung together while taking on sometimes upwards of 15 enemies at once in an all out brawl. As you progress throughout the story you learn different 'martial art' combos that are increasingly devastating and satisfying to pull off. There is accompanying gunplay and it's pretty simple. Infact it's GTA simple; meaning idiotic AI leans behind cover with the tops of their heads poking out and you can pick them off from a far with no threat. (That style of gunplay is cleverly utilised in Spec Ops: The Line and is intentionally bland to highlight what exactly you're doing as the protagonist in that sort of setting). GTA and Sleeping Dogs don't share a similar purpose behind it being bland, yet the shooting, especially in GTA is a core element of the game, and a very boring core at that. Sure shooting can get 'overwhelming' when you are picked off by helicopters or maybe 100 police officers, but never is it 'challenging'. Sleeping Dogs has a welcome alternative by incorporating the fighting system, which fits in nicely into the games setting (which I'll get into in a sec). I couldn't imagine Niko or CJ running into a group of thugs (what's a group of thugs/gangsters called? A gang of gangsters? A posse?), starting a brawl and performing multiple flying knee kicks into dudes faces. Sleeping Dogs is allowed this because the setting is appropriate for it, but by having multiple ways of to approaching a conflict it actually is interesting and satisfying to play, and a welcome change. I think the satisfaction ties in with the quote from The Joker: "Do you wanna know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick(!)".

The story is frustratingly cliché, especially when it had so much potential. You play as a Wei, a positively charming yet dangerous individual who is probably a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Wei is an undercover police officer who has infiltrated the Triad gang scene seeking revenge for his deceased sister. It's all set up for there to be conflict both for Wei and you as the player, potentially deciding what path you choose, as Wei is good at being a police officer, but very, very good at being a criminal. Unfortunately the game just follows a single, obvious (boring) narrative that increasingly began to scare me wasn't going to capitalise on it's potential as missions trickled on.
A dark section of the game involves you 'assisting' an old lady in taking a meat clever to a few select 'bad' people, which is definitely a moment where Wei's affiliations to being a police officer are blurred (right?), and I felt things were about to get quite complex for me and Wei. But then a few missions later I'm running shopping errands for some spoilt singer chick, that I guess the game is using to try and show off it's inbuilt dating sim minigame with (I dun givvve a fuuuuuck). She flirtingly says "Wei is the most decent gangster I know" at the end of your shopping date... singularly crushing any hopes that I might have had for Sleeping Dogs to be brave and actually have some actual character development, with Wei perhaps being torn whether to legitimately join the Triads or not.

Lacking story aside... the city of Hong Kong is fantastic. A lot of care has been giving to creating a living world and I was quite content to just stroll around in it during my time playing. If there was minigame or achievements involved with exploration then I would have gotten all of them. There are many varying areas from warehouse districts, mansions and large open gardens, monasteries, small sewer systems, tight alleyways that are riddled with debris and many more areas that all came together to create an incredibly vibrant and authentic feeling to the landscape. I found audible conversations around me were fairly typical, or a little bit quirky, but nothing like the brash, 'notice me' interruptive style of the GTA games. It was always a pleasure to complete a mission in an area I hadn't been to before and then wander around and just check out the architecture and layout of the land and it's inhabitants.

From afar, I thought when I was getting into Sleeping Dogs it was just going to be a tweak upon the GTA way of doings things, but thankfully it pulls off enough unique twists and turns to to be its own lovable, enjoyable games. A fun experience through gameplay and the unique mechanics, the only blaring disappoint is the story, which is a confused, bumbled mess. Worth playing.

*Spoiler*
You can earn/buy different outfits as you progress through the game. All whole range of things from being in your underwear to full body tattoos, Bruce Lee's famous yellow suit, mostly whatever you can imagine. The best costume of all is this suit you get after a certain disastrous wedding. (The story sucks so Im not really spoiling anything here).

That's a blood soaked white suit. Specifically the blood of your friends. It's beautiful. I wore it for the whole game. For being introduced to the Triad bosses, single handily beating the absolute shit out of 20 gangsters, handing in my police reports, checking out the sites on one of my walking trips, sleeping, going on dates and talking to little old ladies, all in my gorgeous blood soak white suit. Bless you Sleeping Dogs, you made me feel (hilariously) bad-ass.

Sleeping Dogs becomes Crysis:Warhead

So I decided I’m Gonna Play Sleeping Dogs. Upon loading this game up I do what any self-respecting PC gamer does and head straight into the graphics options. When selecting ‘high’ for textures, I got a message asking to download ‘free DLC high textures’. Which I find weird. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anything like that before. Anyway, slightly deterred I load up the inbuilt benchmarking and get flown through what I assume is an (in-game) market set in Hong Kong. I just finished playing Deus Ex for the first time about a week ago and instantly get swept up in thoughts on what a HD remake of Deus Ex would be like… Which would be incredible if it’s anything like the benchmarking sequence in Sleeping Dogs... Anyway, so now I’m going to download these damn high-def textures and after they’re done I’ll get around to actually playing Sleeping Dogs.

Soooooo while that happens I’m gonna play Crysis: Warhead - which in my opinion the best of the crysises, although I am yet to play Crysis 3. I have been meaning to play this again for a long time now.

This intro video is so boss. Pew pew pew, BzzzzrkBOOM. Just a good showcase/reminder of the suit functions, developments(?) in the story(?!???) since crysises 1 - gets ya’ll all hyped for what’s about to start.

Okay here we go…

First thoughts - what’s a precursor? And can you have multiples of them? I’ll have to look that up.

So you start off the game gaining consciousness in a crashed mini plane-troop transport-hoverthing. In the cutscene you unstrap yourself, check out the guy sitting slumped opposite you who is still unconscious and proceed to throw his limp body over your shoulder. You carry him to the doorway of your planething and all the other troops that were also involved in the crash are outside waiting for you….jees thanks guys. Thanks for getting me out of a fucking burning wreckage and thanks for helping this other motherfucker out too, your fucking comrade. Jerks. 
Upon reflection I see that this is done on purpose by Crytek, serving as a commentary on modern AAA shooters and the 'you-do-everything' style of gameplay and the typically crappy A.I of my teammates/accompanients/brain-dead escorts.

Christ, it is pretty. So pretty. I think I’m going to try and find a mod that eliminates the HUD as I’m expecting it to be pretty linear gameplay - so going for full immersion. Also playing on Delta difficulty which increases A.I awareness, disables the crosshair, (human)enemies speak in Korean and you can actually die(!) due to general enemy fire.

(Nope, cant eliminate the HUD from what I can tell, oh well.)

Crysis was a real treat for me. I have played it through about 3 or 4 times, but only once using guns. I found putting on the hardest difficulty and going full jungle-assassin (fists only) was such a deeply gratifying way to play the game. I felt I was actually in the enemies head, that (if it was possible) the A.I would be afraid as they would have no idea where I was coming from. Whether darting from bushes, grabbing a single guy from out of a group of say 5 or more, punching him in the face and throwing him skyward and then disappearing again into the bushes. Or jumping into groups and just punching them to pieces while being showered with bullets and surviving by the skin of my teeth, or sprinting at guys 150m away in half a second, grabbing and then throwing one of them into a clustered group, getting a few valuable seconds while I one-punch-KO the rest of their teammates to death.Or just picking them off, one by one. Now that is fun. And it is a challenge too, especially on the hardest difficulty. Warhead has been such a bore challenge wise so far playing it as a regular FPS, (even on the hardest difficulty) through the first level that I think I’m going to play it the same way that I did for my multiple replays of Crysis. I am not sure whether this is a note that the gunplay in the game is boring or not. Perhaps it is my fault, but each fire fight just feels like a terrible shootout where I kill everyone from behind a rock, lose a bit of health, collect their guns/dropped ammo and then seek out the next confrontation. It is linear with an asterisk, as you can sneak by enemies if you wish due to the width of the corridor you’re travelling down and activating stealth on your suit, but since there’s no challenge in each firefight why not just kill everyone. With this jungle-assassin approach there’s a lot more waiting/consideration as to each fight and how to go about it. This way/style of playing certainly explains why I enjoyed Dishonored so much.

- I took a recording of this style of gameplay and posted it at the end. -

And awwww yis, confirmation of fun style mentioned above. I just took on 8 guys, changing between the suit abilities quickly on the fly, using stealth and throwingyourcomradeinyourface approaches simultaneously and laughing the whole time at the sequence of events. I didn’t survive, last two guys caught me out in the open but mmm, this is such a (better?), incredibly fun way to play. Good game so far, once I began playing it this way.

Good one Sleeping Dogs. I planned for my first in I’m Gonna Play post to based around you but instead I’m still waiting for these textures to download and so that glorious title goes to Crysis:Warhead.