Don't get me wrong: I enjoy myself some good action. in fact, I almost thrive on it. But the market is just WAY saturated right now.
So I was linked to DW: WIT. http://doctorwhowit.com I'll mention some stuff I liked about it, here:
the art style is VERY cute. almost like AQW. The clothes store in the game pleases fans of the series, with options such as the tenth doctor's suit (color customizable, of course) and various other garments from doctors of long ago. As far as i've gotten into the game, it was NOT AT ALL like an MMO i've played before.
The mechanics of this game are heavily co-op and mini game driven. To the point if you're an anti-social guy like myself, The Doctor will assign you 2 mindless AI drones at your beck and call. It was highly suggested you form your own party before engaging in any missions.
Before I go on any further, it should be on the record half an hour into this game, as much as my love for DW tried, I rage quit and have no forseeable plans to continue the game. Here's why:
MINI-GAMES
I was told at a seminar once about familiarity. Sure, you wanna design an alien race with a jet: but you have to let them somehow know its a jet. You can't make a flying bagel and say "this will break the sound barrier!". In retrospect, a supersonic bagel is awesome. I digress.
The short version of the following rant is that the minigames are various, and sometimes a little overdrawn. Also, they make good use of familiar concepts.
The game relies HEAVILY on mini-games. Your first one is door unlocking. anyone who's played Fairypop (or something like that) on Neopets will be familiar with this. various colored objects, you have to shoot the right one at the right location to make them all disappear. For some reason, though, you repeat this a LOT of times, to the point you want to take a sonic screwdriver to your head and wish it could kill you. which it can't.
Unlocking doors? still mini-game worthy. I get it.
The next bit, you have to fix some wires. Re-wiring, on the other hand, is the same hacking minigame from the first bioshock. connect pipes from point A to point B before the timer runs out. when you screw up, it gets progressively harder. The first time I had to do this, I was lost. But this wasn't as overstretched like the lock picking was. And to be honest, this still makes a little sense. Especially with the bioshock background.
From here on, it gets downhill. I finished my quest and was rewarded with my 2 mind slaves. My next part, I had to question a guy. I thought, "okay, point and click dialogue. Simple, right?"
WRONG.
They made me play bejewelled with the guy. BEJEWELLED. I mean, anyone who watches Doctor Who would agree that dialogue is one of the gems of the show. and i'm denied the chance to talk to the guy, with it being phased over instead for a game of freaking BEJEWELLED. I couldn't lie to you if I wanted, people. What's worse was that there was this weird tutorial-hint-thing that made NO sense that kept interrupting me. Thanks, one word tutorials.
So after regrouping with my mindslaves who bejewelled the other witness, it turns out my guy was an Auton. Go figure. Now they're introducing to me the combat system. Knowing the good Doctor to be a bit of a pacifist, I wasn't expecting much from combat. Maybe a simple turn-based thing. or even the 3x3 click thing. Are you ready for it? I promise you you're not.
they made me play
TETRIS
Combat is translated into Tetris. and by "translated", I don't mean in the way BBS "translated" card games into real life combat. I mean they CALL it combat, but what they MEAN is tetris.
"psh. tetris. Piece of cake"
actually, the blocks I knew too well looked more like ice cream. Before I rage quit, I'd started referring to them by flavors. But color coding OR filling up a space perfectly (no gaps) does not get rid of their ice creamy goodness. No. apparently, you need a special glowy ice cream (color coded to match respective flavors, of course) to come in contact with a chain and blow them up. I'm not sure for how long, I never got that far.
So no. It wasn't EVEN tetris, it was SUPER TETRIS TARDIS EDITION.
I'd died so many times in this 'kombat' that I finally closed the game. And unless a strange man in a fez comes up to me and changes my mind, I doubt it'll ever be open again. I bring your attention to my supersonic bagel: the combat system is so distorted from what you're used to, you don't know if you want to call it combat or not.
Verdict:
I have to applaud the makers of this game for not conforming to typical MMO. However, the over-reliance on minigames is a double-edged sword: on one hand, using familiar concepts makes tutorials less important. On the other, we've seen it before. The answer, however, was not ST:TE.
Congrats, Doctor. you have out-WITted me. Or maybe free MMOs just won't be good.
***
On the less recent front, I tried my hand at an older game today: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. I'll have to say, I'm not sure how to describe it. You've probably played it or at least heard of it by now. It's a courtroom game where you play a lawyer named Phoenix Wright. I won't spoil the storyline, as its VERY story-driven.
The game makes you look for evidence, talk to people, building up until the big court case (which is the combat equivalent).
I must salute CAPCOM, the courtroom (while the reading is tedious) really feels like a verbal boxing match. Twitter followers would notice my many tweets while I complained about my ass getting handed to me by Miles Edgeworth. you really need to watch what you do, and not piss off the judge (although that usually only happens by giving him crap evidence).
Unfortunately, as in DMC, when my wits fail me, my solution is to whip out the biggest sword I can and ctrl+kill_all. and that's not an option here. the odds of you doing the right thing by luck are very poor, and you'll have to spend a lot of time reviewing statements.
I'm still early into the game, but as the chattiness of this game is necessary (you're a lawyer, for crying out loud), there's not much to complain on it.
It should be noted that this game throws you straight into an anime. Everyone's reactions are rather exaggerated, for some reason the murderer is usually a witness and anyone old enough for "other courtroom activities" has not-surprised-its-an-anime giant-sized fukushima reactors under their necks. I can't imagine they go to the beach much, seeing as they'd probably cause ANOTHER Tsunami. This of course leads to funny side thoughts when they bring up wire-tapping [ e.g: "You tapped the victim?" "I would"]. I won't mention that they focus on this A LOT. But I just did.
Phoenix Wright is a nice refreshing pace, and their not-combat system still has an almost combat-y feel to it. Before I go back to sleep with thoughts of supersonic pastries and other baked goods in mind, I have one last thing to say:
TAKE THAT!
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