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Popular reviews
Below cumple con todas las marcas prototípicas del Soulslike, pero añade un par de elementos que lo diferencian radicalmente. El primero es que los controles y el combate son mucho más sencillos, mucho más cerca de un Zelda que de otra cosa. Con ese esquema, la sensación de peligro se ve menos acrecentada por los enemigos y más por las trampas del mundo, que se sienten verdaderamente crueles y malintencionadas de un modo que la premeditada y controlada indiferencia de los Souls nunca evoca. El segundo es que, cuando morimos, uno de nuestros compañeres/descendientes ocupa nuestro lugar de inmediato. En los niveles más complicados y severos, esto da a Below una capa de gestión cruel sobre mandar a tu gente a morir mientras recoges los fragmentos almacenas las armas más potentes. Ni siquiera Darkest Dungeon te invitaba a ver a tus avatares de una forma tan inhumana.
En resumen, diría que este juego es muy logrado, pero frustrante de un modo que no termina de conectar conmigo. Irónicamente, el elemento que más me desconectó fue la necesidad de grindear para la última sección de la mazmorra.
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Games like Below invite us to ask what kind of void did Dark Souls reveal to players so that many roguelikes would try to fill it in later years. It superficially meets all the expectations of the genre: exploration of unknown, desolated lands, the looming closeness of death, and a hostile and indifferent world that means nothing to us except how can we control it (spoilers for the end) finish it.
Below checks every proverbial Soulslike checkmark, but has a couple of elements radically set it apart. The first is that the controls and combat are much simpler, closer to Zelda than anything else really. With those mechanics the sense of danger is incentivized less by enemies and more by the traps, which feel truly cruel and malicious in a way that the Souls titles never attempt to evoke. The second is that when we die one of our companions/descendants will take our place. In the more difficult areas, this gives Below a layer of cruel management vibe about sending people to their death while you collect the shards and stash the better weapons. Not even Darkest Dungeon invited you to view your avatars so inhumanly.
To sum up, I would say that this game accomplished everything it set out to do, but frustrating in a way that didn't connect with me. Ironically, the element that turned me off the most was the need to grind for the last section of the dungeon.
On its own, RDR2 leaves me with pretty ambivalent feelings. The most obvious place to start is with the technical aspects. RDR2 is probably one of the most impressive technical achievements of the medium when it comes to photorealism. Especially as I start to learn more about photography and lighting in my own game dev career knowing all that goes into it, I could genuinely spend hours just standing in the middle of a field looking at the clouds and the beautifully rendered rays of sunlight. This is especially impressive because for the most part I'm really not that obsessed with this sort of thing as I think the average gamer is, considering the rave reviews it received aided in large part by this technical marvel. Really, I think photorealism is a fool's game, and later on I'll explain how RDR2 kinda proves me right in that sense, but its so disarmingly beautiful that I'll forgive its too high cost and relatively unimaginative art direction. As Joseph Stalin once said : "the boundless beauty of planet earth has an art direction all of its own".
As I walk through a meticulously researched, faithful recreation of NOT New Orleans full of fully modeled, textured and lit representatives of the era overhearing conversations in different languages, greeting strangers who I can at any point stick up and start a micro story of my own with a high speed chase with the law ending with me blowing them all up with dynamite, well I start to understand why people of 1998 would poop their pants when they realized they could open up their grandma's cupboard and pick up an orange and rotate freely about Ryo Hazuki's hands. I'm actually working on a game set in a similar-ish time period and a week or so ago I was struggling to figure out how to model a particular victorian street lamp, whose exact model I found in the game in one of the towns and went "ohh so thats how they did it". It was not even the last time I saw something in the game which I had done something similar to, which was pretty cool to see.
Spoilers for RDR2
The problem though, with the world of RDR2, is that I don't think it wants to BE an open world. I think maybe this type of thing made more sense in GTA, from 3 onwards where seemingly the campaign was there to both tutorialise all of the toys but also to provide a break from the unstructured mayhem to a more structured set of goals. This might work better when the sandbox is the focus, and the story mostly taking the piss with its tongue-in-cheek satirical tone. In RDR2 though, this structure is at odds with itself. For all the meticulously crafted, reactive playset being created here, it cannot be allowed to mess with the critical path on the one hand, with a lot of the games' progression gated off (like the guns) by story missions and conversely the story is undercut by the freedom allowed by the open world. It makes me feel as if every chapter was at one point supposed to be a contained open world section before moving to the next, but was simply stitched together into one big mess. "Here's Saint Denis Arthur, a monument to the current transition to industrialised capitalism and urbanisation in the wake of manifest destiny having been fully realized, this world of technological wonders contrasted with the poverty, pollution and discrimination of the Jim Crow era". "Yeah I know Dutch, I was here last week". A police chief greeted me in the game's epilogue and told me "Welcome to Town" even though I had just completed like 2 main story missions where he hired me to hunt a bounty.
There was a bit during the game's 2nd chapter (which is incidentally the chapter with the highest drop off in players on Steam on account of its length most likely) where I was getting inmersed in the camp, greeting the well realized colourful cast of characters interacting with each other when one of them said something along the lines of "well this sure beats being in those mountains" and "yeah it feels like we're getting back on our feet" and it stuck out to me because this was at a time where I was still doing sidequests and exploring for its own sake, added to the fact that this was a torturously long chapter of the game, it felt so incongruous. This is something you say when its been a week since we left the mountains, but it felt like it would have been like 3 months. Maybe this is just my own fucked up perception of time, but its hard not to notice how drawn out a lot of the chapters are. There is also the matter of the mission structure, which involves mostly riding back and forth with another character and then getting into a token shootout. Its almost comical considering how much of the narrative seems to focus on the grey morality of the gang and their seeming downward spiral from semi robin hood figures (criminals with a heart of gold maybe) into common thugs, when just in the cause of regular gameplay Arthur has killed enough people to populate a small country. Its another point at which the open world and missions clash, getting roped into a massacre in a mission leaves me with a massive bounty in a particular part of the map, but no worries, I can just pay off the bounty that came from me murdering 30 peoplein cold blood! Not the bounty from the inciting incident that kickstarts the game's plot mind you. It even undermines the thematic arc of the game of the days of the old west being over, the land now "tamed" (a nice detail being that there are several tourist attractions with the owners speaking of their clients from new york coming to "Experience the wild west" as the sanitized version of myth which was quickly capitalised upon by the likes of Buffalo Bill irl) with Arthur remarking that back in the old days one could simply escape trouble by moving to the next town, but in the logic of the bounty system, thats still the case! And for all that the gang is chased across america, this seems mostly to come from their continued attempts at killing and robbing people, rather than the law catching up with them all that much. The pinkertons show up once in a while but even then.
The game's story, whilst compelling, feels unsure of whether or not it wants a player, given how closely choreographed and railroaded the mission structures are. Much of the game feels like a designer trying to figure out how to cram in character dialogue whilst the player is actually doing something. Its another case where a game borrows so many cues from television that you start to wonder, what is the point of it all? Why make this and not just a season of HBO Presents : Arthur Morgan. What is it the game adds beyond the need to have token shootouts every 5 seconds, undermining the realism the game's systems and aesthetics are trying so hard to achieve? Well, for the most part the answer lies in the camp. If there is one thing that has kept me coming back to RDR2 for a whole 50 goddamned hours its the camp, the home base that the game is built around. The opportunities for roleplaying and really getting inmersed into this world, with a dozen or so well rounded, well realized characters interacting with the player and each other, catching glimpses of their lives and hopes and fears. Its great. As much as the game is far too long and the gameplay uninspired, the excellent dialogue and the roleplaying aspect where enough to keep me going to the finish line. So much so I reread Arthur's journal at the end and genuinely caught myself reading it in his particular cadence and voice in my head. He's a compelling character and if there had been more of the moments where Arthur interacts with Mary Linton, or walking around helping Rains Falls, maybe this would be the best game ever, but for everyone of those there are missions where you go a place and shoot a bunch of people, and another submission where a passerby begs you to help them and it involves riding on your horse for 10 minutes as they verbally explain their entire life's story and personality to you. Understandable that the quality of the game's writing would vary this much considering that by the look of the credits, more people worked on this game than on the Pyramids.
So much of the game's story feels like token, unfocused filler, a means to an end with the end being "Arthur gets closer to realising that Dutch is a complete fuckhead who doesn't know what he's doing". The Epilogue especially feels unnecessary except for perhaps the final confrontation but even then. I admit that I haven't played 1, but I am almost sure that all that bullshit in building the ranch and going clean and reconciling with Marston's wife ends with his wife and kid getting murdered within the first 15 minutes of that game. Its the prequel issue I suppose, like how much of BCS is spent on building the superlab even though its entire purpose is to exist for Walter to cook in and then destroy. At the end of it all though, I think the biggest failing for me is that after all that, despite Arthur Morgan's compelling character arc as he tries to do some good with what little time he has left, he died and I didn't really feel all that sad, nor did I cry, which is rather embarassing because I'm very easy to get to cry with sad stories. Added to that 6 hours of a goddamned epilogue have dampened even that. Idk man, Shenmue I felt disconnected to because I fundamentally couldn't really understand or relate to Ryo Hazuki or give much of a shit for his quest, but with RDR2 I just don't even know what to make of it. Maybe that's okay.
If you have been keeping up with my reviews for a while now, you would know that I generally am not a fan of sports games in the slightest, as most of the time, they are usually not only incredibly similar to each other, but also have zero effort put into them to make one stand out from another, and are just pumped out non-stop for poor souls to waste their time and money on. There are obvious exceptions to this, but that is usually the case when it comes to a lot of these titles, and I had a sneaking suspicion that this game would end up like most of the others. I had heard from many YouTubers and others in the past that, out of all of the basketball games to be released back in the day, or just sports games in general, this was one of the best of the bunch, which made me very curious to try it out for the longest time. I figured it was about time that I do give it a fair chance, and it may not come off as a surprise to some of you, but I actually ended up having way more fun with it then I thought I would. It isn’t anything more than what it is advertised as, so you won’t be seeing anything too groundbreaking from it, but for what it is, it is some of the most fun I have ever had with a sports game in such a long time.
The graphics are pretty good, featuring good recreations of what a lot of the players here look like in real life, and the sprites for the players on the court do look… off, but still well done enough to where you can have a great time watching all of the action take place, the music is pretty good, not being there for a majority of the main game, but for all of the menus and segments, there are some enjoyable tunes to listen to that get you ready to play another round, the control is pretty solid, with you being able to do plenty with so little in order to score points, although it can take a little getting used to, in my case anyway, and the gameplay is pretty much what you would expect, but with all of the personality and energy that you would want from one of these games, which makes it worth checking out above all the rest.
The game is a basketball game, where you take control of one of many, MANY different basketball teams from 1992-1993 and 1993-1994 NBA seasons (depending on what version of the game you play), take on another team in a two-on-two game on the court, get the ball whenever you can to pass to your teammate and shoot it into your hoop whenever you can, use the turbo feature to keep up with the other players and shove them out of the way to make sure they never get the chance to score either, and enjoy all of this without any of the dumbass rules that really basketball has to keep you from going too buckwild… except for goaltending and 24-second violations, because you can’t have too much fun with this. A lot of it is pretty generic for a basketball game, so you wouldn’t really think too much of it on the surface, making you question why you would play it over any other basketball game released at the time or ever since, but if there is one thing that makes this game stand out from the rest, it is the energy and personality that it brings to the sport as a whole.
The game is already flashy and engaging enough with its appealing visuals and sound quality, but then there are plenty of other elements added to spice up the gameplay even more to make it that much more fun and exciting. While the game mostly sticks to the realistic movements and maneuvers one would typically see in a basketball games, there are also a lot of other movements that are over-the-top and greatly exaggerated, making a lot of the actions you can perform throughout the game feel exciting and extremely satisfying. Of course, a lot of that comes from whenever you shoot or dunk the ball into a hoop, and a lot of these movements can be pretty basic, but some of them get so incredibly ridiculous that you can’t help but love them, such as when you are able to not only set the net ON FIRE because of how awesome you are, but you are also able to straight up break the backboard of the hoop, and it is just the most glorious thing that I may have ever seen in any NBA game ever.
In addition to this, you also have an announcer that will be commenting on everything you do in the game, and while he doesn’t really do much to change up the gameplay, I just love listening to this guy talk. He adds a lot of the charm and personality that a game like this needs, and many of the phrases that he does say have become just as iconic as the game itself, with lines like “Boomshakalaka!”, “He’s heating up!”, and “He’s on fire!” being just some of the few most noteworthy ones you can hear. Seriously, how can you not love hearing that whenever you manage to score a perfect shot in the basket? Not only that, but whenever the announcer does say “he’s on fire”, you get an infinite turbo meter for a limited amount of time, making it easy to keep up with opponents, take the ball, and score even more points.
But of course, what would one of these games be without the many, MANY easter eggs that you can find? Throughout the game, you can see plenty of different ones that not only relate to the NBA and the players found in it, but also from Midway themselves and whatever whacky shit the devs thought of including in here. Depending on what version you play, you can enter different cheat codes to play as different characters, such as other players from the NBA, some of the devs that made the game, and even some pretty out-of-nowhere characters that you would never expect, such as the mascot for the Charlotte Hornets and even Bill fucking Clinton! I mean, c’mon, you can’t hate a game that allows you to dunk on basketball players as a former president. Aside from that though, there are also other codes that change up the game itself, such as one that gives everyone huge heads, one that makes all of the floors slippery to where you can fall down if you go too fast, and there is even a secret tank game that you can access just for the sake of it. All of this is incredibly stupid and unnecessary, and yet, it makes the game so much better just by being there, not only for the novelty of being there, but also allowing you to experiment with the many different modes and characters you can play as for many more matches.
At the end of the day though, it is still a basketball game through and through. You run around, shoot hoops, and try not to let the other team score as many points as you do, with there being no other modes to try out, so if you are not someone who enjoys these types of games, or you just aren’t a fan of basketball or sports in general, then you probably wouldn’t enjoy this game as much as others. Not to mention, in terms of the original version of NBA Jam, the one that I played for this review, there have updates to it made over the years which does add more content to the game, so if you are going to play this game, you would be better off sticking to one of those versions over this one. That doesn’t make this version bad whatsoever, but that is still something to consider if you want to play the game for yourself.
Overall, despite how simple it is and how it is outdated when compared to future editions of the game, NBA Jam may just be the best sports game that I have ever played from this era, and it may even be the best basketball game I have ever played in general, having the exact energy that a game like this should have, along with plenty of personality and extras for you to try out that make it truly one of a kind. I would absolutely recommend this game, not just for those who are fans of basketball or sports games, but for anyone to try out in general, because even for someone like me who avoids sports games like the plague, this managed to give me one hell of a good time regardless, and it will probably do the same for you. You see that, modern sports game designers? THIS is what more sports games should be like, alright? Not whatever shit EA usually pulls out of their ass for all the sport cucks to throw their money at every year.
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