I've been playing two video games recently - well, more than that, but these are the new ones. They are: Drawn to Life, a DS game, and Halo 2, a... well, I'm sure you've heard of it.
In Drawn to Life, you play the role of a benevolent Creator, who shaped all things, yet abandoned his people. The game begins as you return at last, called back by the prayers of your desperate followers. To aid them in their plight, you shape a Hero from a mannequin and set out to destroy the evil that has covered the land. (I will note that my Heroes tend to look rather more like monsters than heroes. GRR ARR)
And the thing is? You draw everything. As the opening narration begins, you draw the earth and the forests and the people. When you create your Hero, you literally draw him; hands, arms, torso and head. And he runs around by your will, animating whatever silliness you drew. As you progress, you run into obstacles, items, scenery; and all the most interesting things, you draw. As you play, you unlock various things to buy; new color palettes, 'mixed-color' options (like stripes or waves), stamps, and so forth. The main gameplay is a basic platformer. It's okay, especially once you get wings, but it's nothing special. The special part is when you're riding on a yellow-and-purple striped whale (that you coloured) holding a ray-gun (that you drew) while attacking evil shadow-bats. Now that's something.
It's hella neat, and I've been having a great deal of fun with it. Could barely tear myself away to write this, in fact.
And of Halo 2, you ask? It's actually a fairly old game; I think it came out in 2004, but I only recently got the chance to play it. Here's the thing. It's old. It's a console game – not my preference, I find the controls awkward and odd. And, on the difficulty my insane brother chose to start it on, it is completely impossible. We must have died together fifty times before he gave up and downgraded it from 'LEGENDARY' to merely 'Heroic' difficulty.
My thoughts on weapons: The Beam Rifle is the Sniper Rifle. (I think it's slightly better, Ethan thinks that it's slightly worse.) The Sentinel Beam is only okay, but it feels utterly right using it to take out Flood, smashing their scuttling hordes with an orange beam of fury. The Carbine and Battle Rifle are fun, though being a compromise between the sniper weapons and close-range weapons, they tend to have problems at both extremes. In general: I dislike the Covenant (evil alien side for the uninitiated) getting weapons with ammo - it's sort of against their motif - but I won't complain too much. Non-energy-based weapons isn't exactly something Humanity can have a monopoly on - especially given the rather heterogeneous nature of the Covenant.
On our first night of playing after the difficulty switch, we covered ten times the ground and died perhaps five times.
So, in conclusion: My brother is insane, Halo 2 is still pretty fun, and drawing things is neat.
If people complain enough, this will not become a new feature.
1 comment:
I hereby register my complaint. There are gazillions of video game reviewers out there, and we really don't need another. Not that your thing is bad—it's good—but the genre has been recycled to Utah and back.
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