Happy Halloween! Have Some Spoilers

Halloween is here, and Hurricane Sandy has passed my home, leaving it at least 99% intact. Meanwhile, I haven't much to write, since I already posted this week. So maybe I'll do what a lot of other bloggers do and comment on the news.

Where do I start? Well, Assassin's Creed III came out yesterday... for consoles. For some reason, PC players have to wait until November 20. Suddenly I feel like a second-class citizen. No doubt, if asked about this, the publishers would mutter something about piracy. But even if they were being sincere, I'd have no sympathy for them, since they've already gotten more money than they likely deserve.

Remember when I mentioned Assassin's Creed III in my tirade against the entire concept of pre-ordering video games? I can't shake the feeling that you've all let me down, since the game has broken Ubisoft's pre-order records. I can see why this might happen; it's a highly anticipated sequel in a popular franchise. Furthermore, by offering a "season pass" for upcoming downloadable content at a modest 25% discount, Ubisoft was clearly doing its best to make "buy it now and ask questions later" sound a lot less crazy than it is. But it's still crazy, especially when Ubisoft refuses to release a playable demo.

And then there's news that the game will feature microtransactions (which, in this case, seems to mean trading real-life money for in-game currency which may or may not provide players with an unfair advantage in multiplayer matches). The same people who pre-ordered the game at full price without even trying it first, and then pre-ordered a bunch of DLC packs without even knowing what they would contain, probably won't be able to resist partaking in this final moneygrab... that is, unless they very quickly become disappointed in the game after they've played it.

The critics' reviews are mostly positive, of course, but when the game's ending was (predictably) uploaded to YouTube as early as two days before the official release date, a lot of potential customers found at least one reason not to buy the game. Some fans of the series, even without taking the time to play through this final act, seem to be upset about how the story turns out, and there are plenty of comments along the lines of "wow, that sucked, I'm so glad I didn't spend $60 on this."

For the record, I haven't watched the video below in full, because I might yet decide to play this game (once all the reviews are in and a bribe-free consensus on its quality has been reached, once the price has dropped to a reasonable level, and perhaps once there's some kind of special edition for PC with all that silly DLC included). Needless to say, however, it does contain spoilers.

The conclusion of Desmond Miles' story arc has prompted not only a lot of complaints, but also some comparisons to the ending of Mass Effect 3... which, by the way, was poorly received, largely because the game's multiple endings were so similar. (The video below explains the frequent jokes about the different endings being the same except for the choice of color.)

From what I've heard, Assassin's Creed III doesn't have multiple endings, and the reasons that some people hate its singular ending are accordingly much different. Although (as I've pointed out) I haven't watched the ending myself, it sounds like part of the problem is another ridiculous plot twist out of left field. In a way, this isn't surprising. When a story like that of the Assassin's Creed series relies so heavily on plot twists and cliffhangers, two things happen. First, the story ends up feeling too random or inconsistent, usually after some "grand-finale" plot twist employed in a last-ditch effort to truly surprise players; second, the writers get so attuned to raising questions and leaving things unresolved that they forget how to answer all those questions without resorting to some stupid cop-out.

The one constant here — besides, of course, each game being the conclusion of a trilogy — is that hardcore fans of each franchise felt cheated. After sinking so much money into a series, that hurts.

A similar thing happened recently with Halo 4, whose ending wound up on YouTube a couple of weeks ago, despite the game's official release date of November 6. Microsoft has been scrambling to take the videos down for obvious reasons, and it looks like they've been somewhat successful, because I can't seem to find a high-quality version. (The videos below, which I found and embedded in a playlist, are likely to vanish soon.)

An allegedly sub-par ending, combined with the most banal and corny tagline of all time, has drawn a lot of laughs at the expense of this futuristic shooter. (An Ancient Evil Awakens? Seriously? Correct me if I'm wrong, but that was a cliché long before the Halo 4 marketing team got a hold of it.) I'm not sure if I can fully grasp just how good or bad this ending is, because I haven't played a Halo game since the second installment, but some fans were upset about it. (Perhaps too upset, considering that, with Halo 5 and Halo 6 supposedly in the works, it's not really an ending at all.)

Ultimately, none of this really matters, as long as the bulk of the gameplay is enjoyable... at least, that's the theory. But video game sequels are almost always advertised as continuations of a story, with cinematic trailers featuring minimal gameplay footage. Perhaps the assumption is that we already know what the gameplay is like, since we played the previous game, or that we shouldn't need to ask about the gameplay because any product with a sufficient amount of hype is worth pre-ordering, no questions asked. In any case, the result is a game advertised on the basis of its plot, and purchased primarily by owners of the previous titles, who want to know how the story ends. A bad ending, therefore, is pretty hard to ignore.

So how does the industry avoid disappointing fans with bad endings? Simply to write better endings might not be the answer; that's easier said than done, and the quality of an ending is ultimately a subjective thing. (A vocal minority, at least, will always complain, no matter what.) I think a better solution is to stop making so many sequels — to create more stand-alone games to be judged on their own merit rather than allowing so many new releases to ride on the hype generated by their predecessors — and, by extension, to stop making games that end in cliffhangers in anticipation of sequels that haven't been written. They should stop deliberately writing stories that span multiple games, thereby forcing players finish an entire trilogy (tetralogy, pentalogy, hexalogy, etc.) to find out if the final "ending" to a given story arc is any good.

They won't listen to me, though; cliffhangers are a fantastic way to make money.

In other news, Painkiller: Hell & Damnation is out today. Unfortunately, given that it's just about the newest game on Steam, it hasn't joined the rest of the Painkiller series as part of their Halloween Sale. That's not really a big deal, though, since they've set the standard price at a reasonable $20 instead of jumping straight to $60 regardless of quality like most publishers/developers do.

Sandy & Steam Sale

While a deadly hurricane named Sandy lays waste to the east coast of the United States, threatening to rain all over my favorite holiday (which is now only two days away), Steam has begun its Halloween Sale. Sadly, it lasts only from now until Wednesday, and surely many affected by the storm will be without power for the entirety of the event. I'm still fortunate enough to have power where I am, but the weather has been getting steadily worse since late last night, so that might not last.

For those who can shop online this week, there are some nice discounts. I'm seeing a lot of "-75%" tags. The games currently "featured," however, don't seem to have greater discounts than the other five dozen games on sale. Perhaps the word "featured" just means new or popular, or maybe the featured games are chosen randomly and cycled throughout the sale. After all, the games on the "featured" list make up about a third of the games that are marked down for the duration of this three-day sale.

In any case, you'll want to make sure you check out the "All Halloween Games on Sale" list, located just below the "Featured Games on Sale" list on this page. Otherwise you might miss out something good.

While I'm here, I might as well come up with my own list of noteworthy games, based on my own crazy and possibly worthless opinions. First, I'd like to point out that some of the games on sale are those I mentioned in my last post on Wednesday:

• F.E.A.R. (with its two expansion packs included) is only $2.49, which is just painful for me to look at, since I paid $50 for the game back in 2005, and then bought the expansions separately for at least $30 each. Still, I loved the game so much that I have no buyer's remorse, not even after seeing it go for two bucks and change. Needless to say, I'd argue that F.E.A.R. is worth buying right now, if you're into paranormal first-person shooters. (The rest of the F.E.A.R. series is on sale as well, but I'm not so crazy about those sequels.)
• The Painkiller Complete Pack is going for $7.49. That's a bit more than I paid for the Complete Pack a year ago, but there were fewer games included at the time.) Strangely, only a couple of the games — Resurrection and Recurring Evil — are on sale individually. The result is that buying the whole pack is actually cheaper than buying the first game, Painkiller: Black Edition, alone.
  

  Update: Scratch that. It looks like all of the individual Painkiller games are now 75% off, which means Painkiller: Black Edition is only $2.49. I still think the bundle is a fair price, but if you're unsure of how you feel about this particular brand of first-person shooter, I'd recommend buying only the original game, since most of the sequels are mediocre at best.

• Killing Floor is $4.99, which is normal during any Steam sale, so I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for it to get much cheaper. It's also in the middle of its Hillbilly Horror Event for Halloween, which goes until November 6, so all of the zombies are dressed up like... well, hillbillies. It's a lot of fun, especially if you have some friends with whom to team up and play.
• Alan Wake is marked down to $14.99, and Alan Wake's American Nightmare is only $7.49. I've seen them go for cheaper, but you might have to wait until the winter sale for that to happen again.

And a few other things worth mentioning:

• The Walking Dead is down to $14.99. It's not a huge discount, but I've only heard good things about this game, and I've been seriously thinking about adding it to my collection.
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent is currently $4.99, while each of the Penumbra games are $2.49. (Oddly, the Penumbra Collector Pack is $4.99, which is one cent more than the combined cost of the two included Penumbra games.)
• Magicka is $2.49. It's a hilarious game and I love it. I just wish it were better optimized. It tends to run like crap on my computer while much prettier games work perfectly.
• Zombie Driver HD is marked down to $4.99 after a 50% discount. The original Zombie Driver, which I got for $2.49 a while ago, is a lot of fun, and I can only assume that this updated version is at least as good. Unfortunately, it really is just an updated version of the original — not a sequel — so you might want to think twice about getting it if you already have the standard edition. Owners of the original game are supposed to get a 50% discount, but that doesn't seem to stack with the Halloween Sale discount, which is really a shame.
• I wanted to buy Rage, but even with the current discount, it's still $9.99. I'll be waiting a little longer for the price to drop below $5, but I don't expect everyone to be as stingy as I am.
• Each of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games — which are fantastic if you have a decent computer and don't mind installing a couple of bug-fixing mods — are on sale as well: Shadow of Chernobyl for $9.99, Clear Sky for $4.99, and Call of Pripyat for $7.49. (As with the Penumbra series, there seems to be a bug in the pricing of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Bundle, which costs one cent more than the price of the included games, Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat.)
• I've been waiting for the Overlord Complete Pack to go on sale for a while, so I just might pick it up now for $4.99. (I've never played it, but it kinda reminds me of a more diabolic Pikmin.)
• The Dead Space games are each $4.99, which seems pretty cool. I've never played them, but you can't go horribly wrong for five bucks. Just make sure you don't buy the Dead Space Pack, since, again, it costs one cent more than the combined price of the individual games. At first I thought this was a bug, but now I think it's just plain carelessness.
• Predictably, the Left 4 Dead series is on sale, as is just about every game with the word "zombie" in the title — and there are far too many to name. Some of them look cute, others look like shovelware. Just beware the deceptive power of tempting discounts on awful products.

I should mention that there are Halloween deals on Amazon and Origin as well. I haven't checked them out in detail just yet, so I can't say whether they're better or worse than the current steam sale, but every option is worth considering. While I might be slightly biased in favor of Steam (because my friends are on it), I encourage you all — as always — to shop around before spending any money.

Games to Play on Halloween

The best holiday is coming up in only a week, and if you're looking to get hyped for Halloween, the only thing better than a cheesy horror movie is a spooky video game. I'm going to list a few of my favorites here, in no particular order.

Of course, the most obvious can go first.

Resident Evil

I'm not sure what to say about the series as a whole. The franchise itself is nothing short of legendary, but I wasn't fond of the prequel Resident Evil Zero, and I've heard bad things about both of the most recent releases, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City and Resident Evil 6. This shouldn't be a surprise; any series that stays around as long as this one has is bound to go sour at some point. I did, however, enjoy the hell out of the GameCube remake of the original. It was the first Resident Evil game I ever owned, and on my first playthrough, it scared the crap out of me.

The controls were awful, as they were in every installment in the series prior to Resident Evil 4. The pairing of character-relative controls and fixed camera angles is truly one of the worst things ever to happen to video games — but I have to say that it did, in a pretty stupid way, make the game scarier. Avoiding or shooting a small number of slow-moving zombies probably doesn't sound like a frightening ordeal to anyone who plays the likes of Left 4 Dead, but with such clumsy controls, what would be a walk in the park becomes a nightmare. The character turns too slowly, and aiming for the head involves more luck than skill. The camera angles are uniformly bad, as well. It's frustrating, but effective at making the player feel helpless even with a gun.

What makes Resident Evil most effective, however, is that it doesn't rely on cheap "jump scares" to startle the player. The game is scary because of its expert control of suspense, because you don't know what's around the next corner, and because you don't know how much ammunition you can spare. It's the definitive survival horror, and it does almost everything right. As far as horror games on the GameCube go, the Resident Evil remake is second only to...

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem

I've already written quite a lot about Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, another GameCube masterpiece. It's not the scariest game I've ever played — not even close — but it's got a creepy atmosphere, a fantastic story, and some clever gameplay mechanics.

Eternal Darkness is a psychological horror, so it's a bit more subtle and slow-paced than most other horror games, which tend rely on sudden, loud noises and simple shock value to scare the player. It's only going to startle you in a couple of places, and there isn't a lot of blood and gore, but the sanity system will do its best to freak you out in a variety of (occasionally hilarious) ways. More importantly, the game doesn't do a bad job of creating an overwhelming sense of impending doom.

Overall, it's a nice game to get you in the Halloween spirit, especially if you're a big fan of H. P. Lovecraft. And speaking of Lovecraft...

Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare

I almost didn't include this game on the list, but alas, the power of nostalgia is too great. It's been years since I played it, and I must admit that I never quite got to the end. Maybe I got stuck, maybe it was too hard, or maybe I was so creeped out by my first survival horror experience that I couldn't bear to go on. In any case, I was a lot younger at the time, and I wasn't as enthusiastic about PC games as I am now.

The New Nightmare is the 2001 sequel to the Lovecraft-inspired Alone in the Dark trilogy from the early 1990s — which, unfortunately, I've never had the pleasure of playing. (Or maybe it's more of a spin-off, since another sequel in 2008 apparently retcons The New Nightmare out of existence.) My memory of the plot is somewhat fuzzy, but what I do remember is that the game creeped me out more than a little. While I'm sure the graphics have aged poorly, I'd like to give the game another try, if I can ever find the discs.

The New Nightmare suffered from the same clunky controls that plagued the early Resident Evil games. And, like Resident Evil, it has two protagonists, takes place in a mansion, and involves a lot of puzzles. The similarities are hard to ignore, but there are some differences, namely the replacement of zombies, zombie-dogs, zombie-snakes, zombie-sharks, and zombie-birds with a slightly more creative variety of creepy crawlies, as well as the use of a flashlight to fend off the baddies. Actually, that last part kind of reminds me of...

Alan Wake

I wrote more than enough about Alan Wake in my earlier post on cinematic games, so if you're no stranger to this blog, you're probably aware that I enjoyed the game immensely. The transparently Stephen King-inspired psychological horror/action game earns its place on this list with a spooky atmosphere and a superb story. The two short DLC expansions, truth be told, were a bit weird, and I can't say I really enjoyed the sequel, Alan Wake's American Nightmare (of which the only redeeming quality, in the absence of a decent story, is the intense arcade mode), but the original game is definitely worth a try.

Like many horror games, it's not so scary once you get the hang of killing the bad guys, nor is it as thrilling once you know every plot twist and the location of every precious box of ammunition, but the first playthrough will have its share of potentially unnerving moments.

And those bad guys — whom, in the beginning of the game, consist largely of possessed, axe-wielding lumberjacks in the woods at night — can be really frightening. I think it's mostly in the way they move. Even when you dodge their attacks, you can almost feel the power behind every swing. The way they stumble when they miss, and the way Alan ducks out of the way just in time... there's a real sense of momentum that's absent in the awkwardly animated combat of a lot of video games.

Now just wait until you're surrounded by those guys, low on bullets, with a long way to run to the next safe haven. As in any good horror game, simply running away isn't an option. The bad guys are faster than you, and you can only escape them for as long as you can successfully dodge their attacks without running into a corner. At some point, you'll need to turn around and fight. The same is true of...

Killing Floor

Unlike every other game I've mentioned, Killing Floor is primarily a multiplayer game. In fact, you might say it's exclusively multiplayer, since playing the solo mode is essentially the same as going online and joining an empty server, and since playing alone isn't nearly as fun.

Generally, I prefer single-player games, but Killing Floor — a stand-alone game based on a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004 — has become one of my all-time favorites, for two reasons. The first is that it's cooperative. Up to six players team up against a horde of computer-controlled zombies, so unless someone makes a boneheaded move that inadvertently gets the whole team killed, there are no hard feelings between human players. For the most part, everyone you'll meet online is rather friendly. The second reason is that, unlike most multiplayer games, Killing Floor requires a lot of coordinated teamwork.

Forget about spooky ambiance and creepy music. Killing Floor is scary because it's hard. The easiest setting is a joke, but anything above that can be a serious challenge, depending on the collective skills of the team. And with the number of zombies in each wave increasing as more players join, there's little room for weak links. You need to be able to count on your team, and you need to keep them alive, because there's no worse feeling than being the last guy alive with a bunch of monsters chasing after you. Killing Floor is one of the least forgiving video games I've played in recent memory, and it's not for the faint of heart. But I love it. The only first-person shooter I've spent more hours playing is...

F.E.A.R.

Some would argue that F.E.A.R. falls flat on its face as a genuine horror game. It's got a somewhat spooky story, and occasionally you'll hear voices or see the ghost of a little dead girl, but there aren't a whole lot of monsters that jump out at you... at least, not for most of the game. But as a first-person shooter, F.E.A.R. excels and exceeds expectations. A horror-themed game doesn't need to make you crap your pants in order to be fun, and F.E.A.R. certainly is a lot of fun.

The enemy AI is very good; while the bad guys occasionally show their stupidity, they do attempt to flank you, and they're pretty good at flushing you out of hiding with grenades if they know where you are. The way they talk to each other while attempting to take you down also adds a lot of realism. The slow-motion feature, while a bit gimmicky, does add a little something extra to the gameplay, and is genuinely useful (perhaps too useful) even in the most dire of circumstances. The "scary parts" are all scripted, but if you're playing on the highest difficulty, the fear of being shot to death should keep you on the edge of your seat through most of the game.

There are two expansion packs and a couple of sequels, if you want more, but I don't have anything good to say about those. The story stopped making sense in the expansions (which were later retconned), and it became downright silly by the end of the first sequel. Also, be advised that the second sequel is meant to be played with two people. While there is a single-player campaign, it's really just cooperative mode without the second character, who mysteriously and nonsensically shows up nonetheless during cutscenes. If you just want to shoot things, go ahead and play the whole series, but don't expect any of the unanswered questions leftover from the first game to be adequately resolved. Speaking of great games with mediocre sequels...

Painkiller

A moderately fast-paced shooter with a demonic theme and an old-school style, Painkiller is easily one of the most solid purchases I ever made on Steam. The "Complete Pack" (which, at the time, included fewer games than it does now) was marked down to $4.99, and the first game alone is worth at least that much to me. The story is truly awful, and the voice acting is atrocious, but the gameplay is good enough to make up for that. Painkiller is pure; it's a first-person shooter without all the pointless fluff. It's nonstop carnage. It's all you could ask from a first-person shooter unless you really care about character development, and I know you don't.

If you're a fan of classic shooters like Doom, and more modern throwbacks like Serious Sam, this game is highly recommended. I enjoyed the first installment so much that I played through a couple of times before moving onto the others. Unfortunately, I soon came to realize that none of the other games in the series, thus far, were nearly as good — but by then I had already gotten my money's worth.

As of one week from today, there will be half a dozen standalone games in the Painkiller series, plus one expansion to the original, but there still hasn't been a Painkiller 2, or anything which might resemble a proper sequel. Worse yet, none of the continuations I've played have been worthwhile. Painkiller Overdose, apparently a fan-made mod that eventually became an official stand-alone expansion, was decent, but a step down from the original. Painkiller: Resurrection, which attempted a more open-world experience, was sloppy, buggy, and generally awful. Painkiller: Redemption, another fan-made mod that was turned into an official release, more closely followed the style of the previous titles, and was more enjoyable, but it was more of the same, at best. This is also what I expect of Painkiller: Recurring Evil, which I have yet to play. Then there's Painkiller: Hell & Damnation, which comes out on Halloween day, and while it looks promising, it seems mostly to be a (much prettier) remake of the original game.

To make a long story short, I highly recommend getting the first Painkiller, usually sold with its expansion as Painkiller: Black Edition, as soon as it goes on sale. The rest of the series is questionable. You might want to buy the Complete Pack, if you really love old-school shooters, but if you're not sure, you should probably stick with the first one for now. It's a great game to play on Halloween, and while it's easy to pick up and play, it requires some serious practice to master. (You'll want to learn how to bunny-hop, constantly, at all times, forever. The alternative is frustration and death.)