On th’Eleventh Day of Blogmas…

Merry Blogmas!

We are back with our chorus of bloggers, singing our own version of “12 Days of Christmas.” Instead of leaping lords and turtle doves, we’ll be giving you 364 great gaming and blogging gifts. Check out our previous days, too, if you’re just joining us!

Thanks to OverthinkerY, LightningEllen, The Gaming Diaries, Shoot the Rookie, and Later Levels for striking the harp and joining the chorus!

And now, without further ado…

(To the tune of “12 Days of Christmas”):

On th’eleventh day of Blogmas, the gamers said to me:

Give two games you’d improve (and 3 good things to know, 4 dramatic moments, 5 replay gems, 6 resolutions, 7 favorite posts, 8 beloved characters, 9 games to play, 10 reasons you’d play, 11 games you love, and don’t forget to link to gaming memories!)

Everyone has a game or two they’d improve. Here are two of mine:

1. Spec Ops: The Line – I wanted to like this game. I really, really wanted to. And there were moments I did, but there were a lot of bits that really ground my gears, and I talked about all those issues in another article after playing the game.So what would I fix? First of all, I would fix the controls. There are apologists who will say that the unresponsive controls are actually intentional, and indicative of the main character’s state of mind and… No, the controls are not consistently responsive, un-intuitive, and at times multiple actions are mapped to one button so it’s a crapshoot as to whether the main character is going to crouch over a wall or vault over it.
   
   Alternatively, you could stand there for a second, getting shot at, so the game definitely registers that you aren’t moving before you press X to – hopefully – crouch.

   The second, and more important, issue I would fix is the way it handles the so-called moral choices, insofar as I would make the pivotal moment in the game an actual moral dilemma. It might take a little changing of some other events, but the game smugly reprimanded me for playing it, and playing by its rules, which is not the way to make a moral “point,” in my opinion. Also, check out Red Metal’s full review here if you are looking for a good write-up of the experience.

2. Dragon Age: Inqiusition – I did enjoy this game, and dumped a whole bunch of hours into it, so unlike the first entry in this list, I would never say that this is a bad game. It’s just big and… sort of empty at times. Having played Skyrim earlier this year, and having used the fast-travel a lot in that game, as well, I am willing to say that wide open, beautiful, but sort of empty countryside is not really my thing.
   Both games do have “unexpected” things that the player may stumble across if you decide to traverse the expanse, but the difference, for me, was that Skyrim asked me to build a life for my character, and Inquisition was really trying to tell me a story. And, again in my opinion, it got clouded by the expansive world, possibly as it tried to win over Skyrim fans.

   How would I fix it? Make the world a little smaller in scope, if not quite in size. Dragon Age: Origins had the main character running around an entire country, but the sections didn’t feel overly large. Baldur’s Gate is another large world, and one that needs to be walked across, but never felt empty. Dragon Age II, despite the copy/paste environments, took place in one city and yet didn’t feel overly small. So I would want to harness the feelings from those games and fix the problems I had with the sprawling map.

There we go! A brief snippet of the games that I care enough about that, had I the power, I would make adjustments to. But of course, there are other games that could benefit from some TLC, so I ask…

What about you? What game or games would you improve, and how would you change them? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll see you soon!
~Athena

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