(no subject)
Nov. 27th, 2009 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickUpdates on Thief (yes, still playing).
Unlike gaming magazine game reviews, which are written by marginally competent video game players who don't actually suck at the games they are reviewing, in this effort you get a mission-by-mission review because it takes me two or three hours to get through a given mission. Partly this is because, as I've mentioned, I suck at maps and directions. My navigational skills mean there's a lot of backtracking. *sigh*
Previous level was eVASE-ive Thief Theft. We were to sneak into the Thieve's Guild and locate and steal (a) key to get into where vase was hidden and (b) vase. I finally managed that but I had to read online HELP for finding the freaking vase safe. Now, I do not need a neon blinky sign to tell me where the vase safe is, okay? I'm fine with looking. But I did look. A lot. I eliminated every damn enemy on the level. Every freaking one. And I went over the level *again* and *again* looking for the vase safe. I could not find it. It's supposed to be in whosie's quarters. I searched. A lot. Finally I gave up and looked at the internet for instructions.
As the internet contains absolutely everything including level instructions for a ten year old video game, I was able to discern the following information: The vase safe is hidden behind the blue tapestry in between the two red ones on the second floor of whosie's quarters. Thanks, internet! I appreciate knowing htat.
The thing is, most of the time, you cannot do anything with the tapestries. They're solids, attached to the wall. You can't even swing the sword at them because they don't cut, they just make clanging noises like the stone walls do. When the game is trying to use the tapestries as actual tapestry functional elements instead of just colored stone that doesn't cut or slash or have any fabric-osity to it, the game should DO SOMETHING to tell me that these are not just regular, run-of-the-mill tapestries. I *tried* slashing tapestries earlier in that mission. They didn't cut or anything. It was very unsatisfying. Nothing was ever behind them. Well, until the game-ending item that I was supposed to find. Until then.
I am not happy that I had to read about where the damn vase was on the freaking internet. I should be able to solve the problem by careful study of the game environment. Maybe I did not study carefully enough. Maybe other people who do this more often are better at it than I am and just randomly start trying shit. I dunno. Just... when I've been presented with like a hundred tapestries which do not cut or slash and cannot be removed from the wall, I go start to think that the game is not designed with any "real" tapestries and that they are like the stone walls and the wooden walls and so forth -- they are not a moveable item. My curiousity and inquisitiveness vis a vis the tapestries extinguishes pretty quickly if they don't *do* anything the first umpteen times I try to do things with them.
Anyway, so I'm angry about that.
Next mission was to steal Constantine's Sword, from Constantine, on his orders. It was called "The Sword" by the game designers. I'm calling it Insurance Fraud, myself. Constantine's contractors were on acid. Seriously. The house is built a little crooked. This was a fun mission -- there were the requisite number of guards but second and third floors of the house had numerous ways to kill yourself out of sheer stupid. That was almost as much fun as sapping guards in dark parts of the hallways. (I generally tend to hide the bodies -- keeps suspicion low.) There was not much difficulty at all locating the sword -- that was fairly simple. The irregular and confusing architecture made navigation more interesting than usual for me, but it was also visually amusing. I enjoyed this mission, partly because I did not have to go read up on the internet for how to solve it.
After completing the vase mission, Garrett meets up with Viktoria, who introduces him to Constantine. While Garrett is a brave man, the rest of you would do well not to accept a drink from Constantine -- I saw a Tales From the Cryptthing with everything all growing green over Stephen King. It's a drink like that, it is. So don't drink it. Constantine, who fancies himself a sorcerer of sorts, wants the Eye of Squick (or whatever) which is stored in theThree Jolly Luck Takeaway ... er... the abandoned Hammerite Cathedral in the walled off part of town that nobody goes into anymore because of what happened, something about the dead rising up. My bet on what happened is that the Hammerites built their church on the bones of infidels. Zombies, anyone? (When the mission equipment starts out with holy water, you are going to encounter zombies or some other flavor of undead.) God, I hate zombies.
Anyway, that's where we are at in Thief.
In other news, son of Brother-the-younger is busily tearing through Gundam Wing as fast as he can watch the episodes. Then he tells me about them. It's like he does not really *get* that they're my DVDs. After all, I'm the forty year old aunt. Why on earth would I have cool giant fighting robot anime? (I don't think I am going to explain my rational for buying the series* to him any time soon. Or ever.)
*While To improve my understanding and appreciation of the vast amount of fan-written homoerotic porn featuring characters from the series is, indeed, a reason and possibly even a GOOD reason for owning a series of anime, it is not one I want to try to explain to an eight year old boy. I think we'll go with I thought it was cool instead.
Unlike gaming magazine game reviews, which are written by marginally competent video game players who don't actually suck at the games they are reviewing, in this effort you get a mission-by-mission review because it takes me two or three hours to get through a given mission. Partly this is because, as I've mentioned, I suck at maps and directions. My navigational skills mean there's a lot of backtracking. *sigh*
Previous level was eVASE-ive Thief Theft. We were to sneak into the Thieve's Guild and locate and steal (a) key to get into where vase was hidden and (b) vase. I finally managed that but I had to read online HELP for finding the freaking vase safe. Now, I do not need a neon blinky sign to tell me where the vase safe is, okay? I'm fine with looking. But I did look. A lot. I eliminated every damn enemy on the level. Every freaking one. And I went over the level *again* and *again* looking for the vase safe. I could not find it. It's supposed to be in whosie's quarters. I searched. A lot. Finally I gave up and looked at the internet for instructions.
As the internet contains absolutely everything including level instructions for a ten year old video game, I was able to discern the following information: The vase safe is hidden behind the blue tapestry in between the two red ones on the second floor of whosie's quarters. Thanks, internet! I appreciate knowing htat.
The thing is, most of the time, you cannot do anything with the tapestries. They're solids, attached to the wall. You can't even swing the sword at them because they don't cut, they just make clanging noises like the stone walls do. When the game is trying to use the tapestries as actual tapestry functional elements instead of just colored stone that doesn't cut or slash or have any fabric-osity to it, the game should DO SOMETHING to tell me that these are not just regular, run-of-the-mill tapestries. I *tried* slashing tapestries earlier in that mission. They didn't cut or anything. It was very unsatisfying. Nothing was ever behind them. Well, until the game-ending item that I was supposed to find. Until then.
I am not happy that I had to read about where the damn vase was on the freaking internet. I should be able to solve the problem by careful study of the game environment. Maybe I did not study carefully enough. Maybe other people who do this more often are better at it than I am and just randomly start trying shit. I dunno. Just... when I've been presented with like a hundred tapestries which do not cut or slash and cannot be removed from the wall, I go start to think that the game is not designed with any "real" tapestries and that they are like the stone walls and the wooden walls and so forth -- they are not a moveable item. My curiousity and inquisitiveness vis a vis the tapestries extinguishes pretty quickly if they don't *do* anything the first umpteen times I try to do things with them.
Anyway, so I'm angry about that.
Next mission was to steal Constantine's Sword, from Constantine, on his orders. It was called "The Sword" by the game designers. I'm calling it Insurance Fraud, myself. Constantine's contractors were on acid. Seriously. The house is built a little crooked. This was a fun mission -- there were the requisite number of guards but second and third floors of the house had numerous ways to kill yourself out of sheer stupid. That was almost as much fun as sapping guards in dark parts of the hallways. (I generally tend to hide the bodies -- keeps suspicion low.) There was not much difficulty at all locating the sword -- that was fairly simple. The irregular and confusing architecture made navigation more interesting than usual for me, but it was also visually amusing. I enjoyed this mission, partly because I did not have to go read up on the internet for how to solve it.
After completing the vase mission, Garrett meets up with Viktoria, who introduces him to Constantine. While Garrett is a brave man, the rest of you would do well not to accept a drink from Constantine -- I saw a Tales From the Cryptthing with everything all growing green over Stephen King. It's a drink like that, it is. So don't drink it. Constantine, who fancies himself a sorcerer of sorts, wants the Eye of Squick (or whatever) which is stored in the
Anyway, that's where we are at in Thief.
In other news, son of Brother-the-younger is busily tearing through Gundam Wing as fast as he can watch the episodes. Then he tells me about them. It's like he does not really *get* that they're my DVDs. After all, I'm the forty year old aunt. Why on earth would I have cool giant fighting robot anime? (I don't think I am going to explain my rational for buying the series* to him any time soon. Or ever.)
*While To improve my understanding and appreciation of the vast amount of fan-written homoerotic porn featuring characters from the series is, indeed, a reason and possibly even a GOOD reason for owning a series of anime, it is not one I want to try to explain to an eight year old boy. I think we'll go with I thought it was cool instead.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-11-29 01:33 am (UTC)That's a fairly fundamental rule of game design -- the game universe doesn't have to make sense but it does have to be internally consistent. If it's been made clear that, say, tapestries and paintings are just scenery and can't be interacted with, that's fine -- but it's no fair hiding something behind one for the very first time halfway through the game.