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Some more reviews
Jan. 12th, 2009 08:25 amBecause I'm bored but not yet bored enough to go do anything really constructive :p
Brisingr, by Christopher Paolini
The latest in the Eragontrilogy series. It's been so long since I read the first two that it was largly an exercise in remembering who the characters were and what the heck was going on and stuff. As such, I feel like I can't do a proper review. Instead I will rely on arbitrary point scores to point out what I did and didn't like. +10 points for turning into more than just a Star Wars clone. -30 points for turning from a trilogy into a four-parter. +20 for decent characterisation, especially Eragon, although I found myself wanting to slap the leader of the rebel forces for being such a control freak. -40 for really horribly done foreshadowing near the end that led to a really predictable outcome about 10 pages later. +20 for Elva, the not-so-little girl cursed by Eragon to help everyone else (the resolution of that subplot is pretty cool imho). -20 for having dragons sound so retarded when he's narrating from their point of view. +10 for narrating from dragon point of view at all, so that we get to see what Saphira thinks about events.
Summary: It wasn't bad, it wasn't brilliant. At this point I'm still reading because I'm invested, rather than because I particularly enjoy Paolini's writing/plotting/characters.
Megarace 3: Nanotech Disaster, PS2
I picked this racing title up sometime around the Christmas/New Year period, hoping that it would be like Wipeout. Instead I got one of the worst gaming experiences I've ever encountered. It's completely single-player (in a battle-racing game). The track isn't distinctive enough against the background, leading to me frequently bouncing off the walls purely because I couldn't see the track clearly. There's no sense of friction or speed while you're racing. Inertia only rarely comes in when you deliberately choose a vehicle with lousy handling. The Arcade mode is so easy that at one point I crashed 3 times in a row and was still comfortably in the lead when I finally got back into the race. I can't comment on the Career Mode because it's mysteriously greyed out and nothing I do seems to unlock it (and I refuse to look online, because this should be basic). Your racer can switch between using it's energy for attack, defense or speed but to switch between them you have to press the direction stick, leading to many accidental changes of module. Furthermore, they don't even use most of the regular buttons so it's not like they couldn't have located it there.
Summary: This game fails on just about every level it's possible for a game to fail on. I'm sorry that I paid for it at all, and now have no idea how I'm going to offload it.
Brisingr, by Christopher Paolini
The latest in the Eragon
Summary: It wasn't bad, it wasn't brilliant. At this point I'm still reading because I'm invested, rather than because I particularly enjoy Paolini's writing/plotting/characters.
Megarace 3: Nanotech Disaster, PS2
I picked this racing title up sometime around the Christmas/New Year period, hoping that it would be like Wipeout. Instead I got one of the worst gaming experiences I've ever encountered. It's completely single-player (in a battle-racing game). The track isn't distinctive enough against the background, leading to me frequently bouncing off the walls purely because I couldn't see the track clearly. There's no sense of friction or speed while you're racing. Inertia only rarely comes in when you deliberately choose a vehicle with lousy handling. The Arcade mode is so easy that at one point I crashed 3 times in a row and was still comfortably in the lead when I finally got back into the race. I can't comment on the Career Mode because it's mysteriously greyed out and nothing I do seems to unlock it (and I refuse to look online, because this should be basic). Your racer can switch between using it's energy for attack, defense or speed but to switch between them you have to press the direction stick, leading to many accidental changes of module. Furthermore, they don't even use most of the regular buttons so it's not like they couldn't have located it there.
Summary: This game fails on just about every level it's possible for a game to fail on. I'm sorry that I paid for it at all, and now have no idea how I'm going to offload it.
