Mu Complex, The Wolf Among Us
I need to talk about this "puzzle" game, Mu Complex, that Kongregate thinks I needed to play today. The premise is that you are a random hacker who has gained access to a server in an 50-year-old abandoned facility and get guided through by some unknown (obviously rogue A.I.) source. The puzzles, as they are, are very easy, and the plotline is so basic as to be almost completely ridiculous. Oh word? An A.I. managed to gain sentience in the early 1960's, a couple of years before the idea of intergrated circuits was even common? I totally believe this! Man the camera equipment at this abandoned lab sure is sophisticated. Pretty incredible that they had infrared digital cameras several decades before they were commercially available!
ANYWAY, the puzzles in this game are insultingly easy. A good fourth of the puzzles were simple number-to-letter transposition, 1=A, etc, and even then they gave numerous hints to make sure we "got" it. Also a couple of Bible verse puzzles, because those are impossible to solve on the Internet. Frankly the hardest part was typing in the commands to solve the puzzle exactly as they wanted, and they gave several helpful menus to work our way through the puzzles. Myst was goddamn harder than this, because at least that required trial and error. I will not be playing Chapter 2, is what I'm saying.
I also played through the first chapter of The Wolf Among Us, because I heard it was pretty good and...it was perfectly fine. I really enjoyed the world and the character building was pretty great. Do you want to know EXACTLY what happens? Well then, you need to click a button, son...
If you are not aware of the basic idea of Fables, all the classic fairy tales (plus a few not-so-classic, in my opinion) were forced from their realm and have been living in New York City, hanging. Things haven't gone happily ever after, and everyone is getting by the best they can, either working for the main office or living in poverty, as you do in '80s NYC. Bigby Wolf is the sheriff of Fabletown, and has to deal with a lot of bullshit, like the Woodsman, who is roughing up a prostitute, because he's a cretin. You have a prolonged fight scene with that guy, and then decide how you will handle the lady of the night, whether to give her money or so forth.
But it doesn't matter because she ends up dead. Her head is dropped on your doorstep by a creep, and you begin investigating, finding out who she is, who her husband is, dealing with the Incorrigible Mr. Toad, spending a fair amount of time building character with Snow White, who it is implied you have a crush on. The scenes build really well; all the characters are written well, the things you have to do are fast and frenetic, it's very unclear where the seams are (most of the time). My favorite part was when the Prince you need to talk to apparently committed suicide a week ago, but because death just doesn't take easily with Fables, you get to interview him and also interrupt a potential homicide. You also have the option of slapping the shit out of Mr. Toad, so if that was on your bucket list (it was on mine), then this game has that going for it.
Anyway, there's a VERY well-written cab ride with Snow White, and then there's another dramatic-ass fight scene in a bar, against Grendel (you know, Grendel?) of all people, and after finally bringing someone in for questioning, it turns out there's another murder and...it's Snow White. I really didn't like this part. I know how noir works, and I know you have to build tension, but Jesus Christ you spend so much time building character and making such a sympathetic character the player wants to have around and you shove her into a goddamn refrigerator at the end of Act I? It is manipulative and shitty. We had all the motive in the goddamn world; there is no reason to just shit on ANOTHER female character. It's not cool. I give The Wolf Among Us my infamous Not Cool Award.
I'll probably keep playing though. The writing is pretty good, if retrograde as fuck.
I need to talk about this "puzzle" game, Mu Complex, that Kongregate thinks I needed to play today. The premise is that you are a random hacker who has gained access to a server in an 50-year-old abandoned facility and get guided through by some unknown (obviously rogue A.I.) source. The puzzles, as they are, are very easy, and the plotline is so basic as to be almost completely ridiculous. Oh word? An A.I. managed to gain sentience in the early 1960's, a couple of years before the idea of intergrated circuits was even common? I totally believe this! Man the camera equipment at this abandoned lab sure is sophisticated. Pretty incredible that they had infrared digital cameras several decades before they were commercially available!
ANYWAY, the puzzles in this game are insultingly easy. A good fourth of the puzzles were simple number-to-letter transposition, 1=A, etc, and even then they gave numerous hints to make sure we "got" it. Also a couple of Bible verse puzzles, because those are impossible to solve on the Internet. Frankly the hardest part was typing in the commands to solve the puzzle exactly as they wanted, and they gave several helpful menus to work our way through the puzzles. Myst was goddamn harder than this, because at least that required trial and error. I will not be playing Chapter 2, is what I'm saying.
I also played through the first chapter of The Wolf Among Us, because I heard it was pretty good and...it was perfectly fine. I really enjoyed the world and the character building was pretty great. Do you want to know EXACTLY what happens? Well then, you need to click a button, son...
If you are not aware of the basic idea of Fables, all the classic fairy tales (plus a few not-so-classic, in my opinion) were forced from their realm and have been living in New York City, hanging. Things haven't gone happily ever after, and everyone is getting by the best they can, either working for the main office or living in poverty, as you do in '80s NYC. Bigby Wolf is the sheriff of Fabletown, and has to deal with a lot of bullshit, like the Woodsman, who is roughing up a prostitute, because he's a cretin. You have a prolonged fight scene with that guy, and then decide how you will handle the lady of the night, whether to give her money or so forth.
But it doesn't matter because she ends up dead. Her head is dropped on your doorstep by a creep, and you begin investigating, finding out who she is, who her husband is, dealing with the Incorrigible Mr. Toad, spending a fair amount of time building character with Snow White, who it is implied you have a crush on. The scenes build really well; all the characters are written well, the things you have to do are fast and frenetic, it's very unclear where the seams are (most of the time). My favorite part was when the Prince you need to talk to apparently committed suicide a week ago, but because death just doesn't take easily with Fables, you get to interview him and also interrupt a potential homicide. You also have the option of slapping the shit out of Mr. Toad, so if that was on your bucket list (it was on mine), then this game has that going for it.
Anyway, there's a VERY well-written cab ride with Snow White, and then there's another dramatic-ass fight scene in a bar, against Grendel (you know, Grendel?) of all people, and after finally bringing someone in for questioning, it turns out there's another murder and...it's Snow White. I really didn't like this part. I know how noir works, and I know you have to build tension, but Jesus Christ you spend so much time building character and making such a sympathetic character the player wants to have around and you shove her into a goddamn refrigerator at the end of Act I? It is manipulative and shitty. We had all the motive in the goddamn world; there is no reason to just shit on ANOTHER female character. It's not cool. I give The Wolf Among Us my infamous Not Cool Award.
I'll probably keep playing though. The writing is pretty good, if retrograde as fuck.
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