Thursday, March 30, 2006

My next purchase.

I can never decide if I'm a first person shooter (FPS) kinda guy or a fella who prefers the top-down view of a real-time strategy (RTS) game. If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, you're not a video game nerd like me. Stop pulling up my underwear.

Age of Empires III would be great if it worked.

I love games that put you in the management of a castle or city, as long as that at some point you either attack other castles or cities, or defend against invading forces. The Age of Empires series is perhaps the best example of a great RTS game. Except the latest one, which never loaded right on my computer. That one, and everyone involved in making it, sucks.

Car jacking: One of the joys of the GTA series.

On the other hand, I love the immersiveness of first person strategy/shooter games, like Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Hitman, Max Payne and Grand Theft Auto. The last two on the list are from Rockstar Games, a maker of controversial titles that are among the most expansive, nonlinear and just plain fucking cool FPS games out there.

Anyway, I go back and forth between the RTS and FPS genres. In my last post I talked about Spore, a first-person game that evolves into an RTS. Really, though, I think of it as an RTS. It has all the hallmarks: a top-down view, large scale planning and management tasks and sprawling environments. I'll definately be buying that.

But my next purchase will be an FPS. A few days ago, EA released "The Godfather," a stunningly faithful-looking FPS/strategy video game version of the film. Lest you smell the stink of past VG/Film failures (ie, Doom), remember that typically it is Hollywood, in its ever cynical and robotic quest for content, that cribs from video games. The result is almost always bad -- with all the complex problem-solving, freedom and originality of the game replaced by a Write-Your-First-Screenplay-In-30-Days-style script, dull actors, blatant attempts at "brand synergy" and represhensible CGI.

This is why I'm buying this game.

But a video game version of a great movie? I'll bite. Especially after seeing this video clip.

3 comments:

MO'SH said...

Thanks for the FYI. I can always count on QII for the DL on RTS and KCM. What can you tell me about FDS?

Brian Kunath said...

Turns an August seaport into an August seaport sprinkled with baby powder.

MO'SH said...

I read that three times. And after the third time I did I spit-take that would've made Danny Thomas proud!