Mirrors Edge fight! What the hell??

That mmmmmmmm noise of consternation is me disagreeing with Jeff about ME. In general I find that Mark baiting makes for good radio, and I am happy to oblige when served the opportunity. Like most of the Squad I too apparently share a deep fondness for Mirror’s Edge — who knew? Maybe it helps that I played the campaign through without ever firing a gun into a person-shaped object, so I have a degree of distance between me and whatever wonky rifle mechanics were in there. Once I discovered first person fighting controls (slide! Jumpkick!) I didn’t go back. It made the final area difficult but I don’t remember much grief aside from that.

SPEAKING OF, finished STALKER last night in a straight run from Pripyat to Chernobyl. According to the Interwebs we were successful in seeing the true ending, not to be confused with the “true” ending or any of the 6 other endings you can get when finally penetrating into the heart of the NPP. 2 Extra areas of supreme toughness and a suitably Soviet-ey conclusion.

Thoughts: I loved STALKER as a whole but was deeply frustrated with the final hours of the game. Pripyat? Fantastic. Great stuff. Chernobyl? Well… Unfortunately once I got into the NPP itself the entire experience turned into Dead Space 2 all over again. Move forward for five seconds, die, look at loading screen, repeat, die, look at loading screen for ten seconds, repeat. I must have spent a half an hour AT LEAST trying to make it up a 200m long stretch of road with some blasted armored vehicles on it because I was getting the holy hell blown out of me by circling HIND-D helicopters shooting missiles and miniguns at me from high in the sky. Of course I was defenseless against helicopters and absolutely unable to do anything about them while fleeing for my life totally exposed on the road. Not cool. Thank whover made that red bull energy drink stuff. It turned into (SPRINT -> DRINK ENERGY DRINK -> SPRINT -> DRINK ENERGY DRINK), none of which can be mapped to a shortcut key. The number of times I was killed flailing around in my inventory screen for the next drink was deeply troubling.

Perhaps my difficulty setting (‘regular’ hard) was to blame here, but when you’ve got a small area with THIRTY guys hiding in it, all of whom can kill you in less than a second, you’re doing it wrong. This is a real shame because atmospheric-wise, environment-wise, and everything-else-wise they were doing it all right. Lynette made things better by constantly reminding me that Eastern Europe laughs cruelly at my suffering which is probably a true enough statement. STALKER delights in not caring about the fact that you’re upset and frustrated at the number of assault rifle rounds piercing your flesh. Suck it up chelovyeka. I guess it made reaching the finish line that much sweeter, but honestly by that time I was tapped out. It was past midnight and I just wanted it to be over. Also, there is a serious “What the hell am I doing here again?” factor to the whole affair.

Liked:

  • The whole Pripyat sequence. They just keep changing up those environments and flavors.
  • “(unintelligible booming Russian voice! Basso profundo, like the voice of Mephistopheles)”
  • Things happening to the NPP during the final area.

Liked?

  • Earthquakes screwing with my ability to aim? Every time I wanted to shoot something?
  • The Ending(s)?

Did not like:

  • Die respwawn die respawn die
  • No hotkeys for life saving items
  • Seriously dudes that’s like a hundred guys in one corridor and they just keep pouring out and I just keep killing them and they just keep pouring out and I just keep killing them
  • What the hell are these blue warp things doing here? Why am I on the roof again? Where am I going? Who are these guys? What’s going on?
  • C-Consciousness