Enemy Power Scale for All Video Games

Not every gamer knows all the tropes and cliches that someone like me is used to. So sometimes I feel the need to organize my thoughts into crappy guides. But this isn't just for noobs, this is kinda like a philosophical reflection on the "society" of videogameland. It's also pretty funny to me because video games are freaking silly.

This is a scale I've devised for determining the levels of strength enemies can have. Hey, maybe some developer out there needs a way to measure this stuff! Never know! Here we go!

10. Escorts

Oh, dreaded escort missions. We all understand that these guys are weak and the player character is a bad ass, but why do they always seem so suicidal? This is why I consider them to be the enemy!

9. Mega Giants

If you ever see a bad guy that's bigger than the entire level, you can immediately take a breath of relief. These guys insist on throwing easy mini-games at you instead of just smashing you and the 50 feet around you into oblivion.

8. Defenseless Critters

Don't be fooled, these guys are tactical geniuses. You'll try to take a shot at them with your machine gun, but then they'll skitter away and you'll miss... ten times. Before you know it, you've wasted precious ammo and got the attention of the real bad guys in the room!

7. Shield guys

For some reason blocking is often a waste of time. Unless it's a bad guy doing it. And goodness help you if said enemy has a shield. You'll have to drop everything and dedicate all your attention to getting around that thing.

6. Fat guys

Every male in video games is super buff, and every female is super hot. So when these oddities come around, you better believe they got a lot of hit points and can't be staggered and what-not. How do they even get fat, though? If even book worm mages are totally ripped, does that mean you have to work out and train to become fat? How strong they are compared to musclemen would certainly suggest so.

5. Anyone with a Funny Hat

In movies, if you see a guy with a scar or a missing eye then you know he's a mean customer. In video games, faces can be too far away (or other technical reasons) for you to see stuff like that. But a hat is an easily distinctive trait. Somewhere along the way things went awry and the hats started trying too hard to get your attention. By video game logic, the Pope must be a master martial artist!

4. Small birds/bats

Trying to make a tough jump? Expecting to be able to keep your eyes on the targets in front of you without something swooping down from above to distract you? Too bad!

3. Dogs

Little four-legged creatures can't be grabbed because they're not human shaped. They don't use cover because they're dumb animals. They just charge in super fast- faster than you can strafe or run and turn- and dig into your blind spot, staggering you with their non-assault-rifle-bullet-shooting-mouths-that-are-somehow-more-powerful.

2. Cutscene enemies

It doesn't matter how skilled you are or how decked out your character is, when a cutscene comes up then you can DIE. In one hit!

1. Children

They're invincible! Don't make them mad or they'll destroy the entire world!

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time

Rating: 2 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)

Genre: Platformer; Sub-genre: Stealth

ESRB: E10+ (use of cartoon guns and anthropomorphic cleavage)

Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 24/16

Developer: Sanzaru Games

Wiki page

The ESRB is flawed. The concept that blood and gore are acceptable while anything remotely sexual is automatically a no-no is nothing new to anyone living in the States. But I don't want to get into that argument. I bring this up because the rating of this game makes no sense. It's too soft for a 10+ kid. When I was that age, I had already outgrown Contra. By 12, I was sneaking in some game time with some blood-soaked first person shooters. What effect that may have had on me is debatable, but the point is that games like this one weren't terribly exciting to me. I can only hope parents pay attention to these ratings, but if this is inappropriate for 5-10 year olds what does that even leave? Bejeweled?

Sly reminds me of cartoons of my childhood. Particularly this one.

Here's where the rating starts to matter: the story and tone. This game has such long cutscenes filled with over-redundant dialogue and slow moving actions that it feels like it's for really little kids. And nothing of consequence ever happens; IE no one dies. Sorry if that's a spoiler. But come on. Anyway, when I was 10+ I was at a stage where I would have skipped every long cutscene I could. The game is definitely made of child-proof cushioning so it's hard to find any depth in anything. Every character just wants to steal something and only has to fear being sent to jail (from which they can immediately break out). There's a lot of creativity given to establishing each villain, but the motives and powers/abilities attributed to them are completely arbitrary. Why would an armadillo be able to grow in size? I have no idea. And that's something I can't stand: using "it's for kids" as an excuse to be lazy. Having wacky ideas is nice, having wacky ideas that click and are clever is better.  I will give points for the conflicts of the love interests. The two relationships in this game are simplistic, like everything else in this game, but they are surprisingly human at times. It's funny that such an obvious thing is barely touched by video games, but movies lean on it like a crutch 100% of the time. The use of boobs could have been toned down a little, though. But it doesn't shine through in subtle jokes that only the adults will get. Sly 4 sticks to acting silly, making light of serious situations, and word puns. Although one time Carmelita turns down Sly's help during an ice age level and explains that her Shock Pistol will keep her warm. Ladies? Is that a thing? Do you ever call your "best friend" a Shock Pistol? Pretty sure I'm just stretching... mostly sure. One last thing: Sly never gets to go to the future! That could easily be explained with more nonsense!

She's actually wearing more clothes than the other characters. So... something.

I really couldn't get into the gameplay on this one. There were glimpses of challenge and diverse tactics needed, but too many things were watered down to Prince of Persia-style auto-pilot. And, as I mentioned, the lack of any consequences or connection with the action going on on-screen dimmed the value of it. For the beefy gameplay hours, this game relies on two things: hard to find collectables being spread out across large sandbox-type levels along with many of them requiring late-game upgrades to reach and long, numerous cutscenes. To sum up, this game is too dumbed down. Which is a mistake because anyone who's played a multiplayer game over XBox Live knows that kids are really freaking good at video games these days. Add that to some missed opportunities for fine tuning- like the camera fighting me when I try to point it down to make hard jumps and the clunky combat- and the end result is two stars: good, but not extraordinary. Ugh, the combat. I understand you want us to use stealth, Sanzaru, but why is the brawler (Murray) victim to the awesome uber timing and priority of all the enemies? I had to kite and pick at a certain boss with the edge of my elbow drop explosions because he couldn't go toe-to-toe with another boxer. And Sly himself is the world's greatest beat-'em-up character (he only attacks by swinging side to side and has no downtime because his combo is infinite AND he can attack while walking and sprinting), but every enemy has unbeatable priority! You're just taunting us, Sanzaru!

The 2D animated cutscenes are the real deal.

Conclusion:

I'm not sure who this game is for. It's well-made, but the ESRB is misleading. I'd say it's a great game for the little ones and anyone with more patience for kiddie stuff than me. You'll need a PS3 to play it, though.

Farcry 3: Blood Dragon

Rating: 3 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)

Genre: First Person Shooter; Sub-genre: Sandbox

ESRB: M (excessive profanity, neon blood spray, unnecessary sex scene)

Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 10/3

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal

Wiki page

I want to start off by pointing out that this DLC is a stand-alone item. So that means you can get it WITHOUT having to get Farcry 3. No tricks or mods or whatever. It just runs by itself. Which is super great because after watching a majority of the gameplay in Farcry 3, I have zero desire to play it. It's completely overrated. So how does a boring game end up making a good DLC game? It's not because it's completely different. The gameplay is identical, just with a bunch of neon lights on everything. It certainly helps that this is an inexpensive and short adventure because the original has just as much content that Ubisoft just repeats over and over for four times longer gameplay.  It's more than that, though. And it's simple to explain, really.

The cutscenes run a little long and are too advanced for 8-bit, but that's just nit-picking.

Maybe there's something wrong with me. I watch games like Farcry 3 and Bioshock Infinite and hear about how good the story is. I see certain elements are good: characters, premise, arc potential. But the same thing always happens and I can only think to refer to it as "video game stuff." It happens too often when I'm playing a game and I get to a point where I roll my eyes and sigh, "So now I guess video game stuff is gonna happen." Like in Farcry 3, there are these weird hallucination scenes that stab HUGE plot holes and jump the player around the world like a tornado. And the latest Bioshock starts off with a Han Solo type guy extracting a well-read lass but then the whole world becomes at stake and several twists and continuity jumps later, I stop paying attention. You can assume I just like simple stories. But the thing is... I understand Rex Colt's character, motivation, arc, and how he gets from point A to point B in the story. It's a remarkably STUPID story, but at least it's meant to be stupid. I can't understand the pretentiousness of some writing in video games. I do have a criticism on it, though. It tries WAY too hard to be funny. I really, really would have appreciated this game more if it was just played straight-faced. We all got excited when we saw this throwback to 80's sci-fi movies. We get it. You didn't have to throw a hundred dick jokes and 4th wall breakers at us to make us laugh, Ubisoft. The end result is good, though. Being able to cheer on a character and enjoy each note of a story and smirk at the ending... yeah, that's all that matters. Don't be afraid of schlock, I say.

I do wish there was fully animated stuff like in the trailers.

While the story and tone are completely different from Farcry 3, the gameplay is the same. The stealth, gunplay, and upgrades all fit well but being on an island liberating bases and doing the EXACT same side quests as Farcry 3 is where things felt awkward. This would have worked better as a purely linear story. All the side stuff just serves to beef up the gameplay hours given. Granted, it's kind of got a cute John Carpenter feel when I think about the dev's throwing a bunch of filters onto a Farcry level and calling it "post apocalyptic." But that's rather meta to be thinking about things like cutting corners and making it look good. The bottom line is, I hated moving about on the island because the hilly terrain slowed me down. And I could tell it was a tropical island under all that jazz. Which didn't have the same feel as a planet nuked into a barren wasteland. It doesn't matter, though, because as I said the side quests are boring. Once you get into the story quests, that's where you'll get to tear through a bunch of 80's labs and bad guy bases.

The guy on the left (main antagonist) and the love interest have no in-game models. Cutting corners, indeed.

Conclusion:

If you want a cheesy 80's movie transformed into a modern video game, this is the place to go! Just don't let yourself get too dragged down by the superfluous sandbox content.

Tomb Raider 2013

Rating: 2 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)

Genre: Third Person Shooter; Sub-genre: Survival

ESRB: M (profanity, very high levels of gore and gritty visuals)

Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 12/8

Developer: Crystal Dynamics

Wiki page

Sometimes the difference between a good game and a great game is incredibly slight. Before I was even done with my playthrough, I was already thinking of things that would have improved the game. I'm sure many other critics have as well, too, because they are kind of obvious. While certain things like "be as good as Uncharted" can be a tall order for any developer, the criticisms I have for this game are simpler. Although I would have loved if this game was as good as Uncharted, heh. Before I start, I should mention that I am not a fan of this franchise. I briefly played the first Tomb Raider for about 30 minutes. Probably still as a kid wandering around Wal-Mart's displays in their electronics section. I found it to be another case of a game that's victim to the clunkiness of the transition into 3D graphics. So I'll only be able to talk about this game by itself. What I do know, though, is that this game is about a thousand percent darker than the originals.

Tomb Raider or Slayer album cover art?

Lara Croft is no longer a seasoned bad ass slayer-of-man-and-beast that she once was. At least she isn't for the first few seconds of the game. Both the character and the player adapt to becoming killing machines in about as much time as it will take one to get accustomed to the controls and physics of the game. That sounds like a good thing, and it definitely is good because a game should be understandable, but it does detract from the story. Couple her innocence with the fact that she is a tiny, TINY girl and it just elicits laughter when I watch some of the cutscenes. The reason this is a problem is because this game is so serious. If it were silly like the other ones? Sure, it's fine that a 5'2" skinny teenage girl (early 20's?) can overpower a six foot, burly, psychotic killer MAN. For all the grit and realism the game builds, some wacky action hero scene shows up and destroys the mood. This is consistent with the gameplay. By that I mean the gameplay is inconsistent. At first glance it seems like scavenging, exploration, and problem solving might be an important factor in a survival game. But almost immediately the game turns into a normal action game. I feel this way because the exploration and skill ups are so capricious in depth and length. Most skills and upgrades come in two flavors: "more damage" and "things you can already do but are now highlighted." And there's no decisions to be made. If you are diligent, you can just buy everything. And how does she turn a WWII submachine gun into an AK47? That is some Army of Darkness level silliness right there. Exploration devolves into finding collectables and backtracking. Each "zone" is only as big as a standard video game level, just less linear.

When I think "gritty realism," scenes from Army of Darkness come to mind. CLEARLY.

So what. So it's another dumb video game after all. I guess I'll just have to live with that. I shouldn't question the logic of the game so long as it's fun, right? Right. But backtracking isn't fun. Especially when strange respawn bugs occur for doing so (I once killed the same guy three times in a row because he kept popping into existence right in front of me!). Why can't I just access all these sub-areas right away? Why must I come back once I have a late-game upgrade? Because they're just beefing up the gameplay hours. Okay, so maybe it's my fault for being thorough then. I should just play the game straight through. Well, then I'm just doing another video game story where the player character keeps surviving explosions and giant falls in order to uncover some absurd megalomaniac's plan to rule the world with his small army and easily-defeated-by-machine-gun magic powers. My point is this game is confused. It sold me on the idea of Lara Croft as a survivor but then it gave me "Uncharted with more backtracking and less fun." But really I'm more disappointed than anything. It's still a good game and a successful reboot.

Lara's friends are quite alright with her descent into becoming a murderbot.

One last thing: apparently there's a multiplayer mode! I really had no idea or expectation for such a thing in this game. And the design of it is in the same thought process as me, which I'd describe as: "Huh? Sure, whatever." It's not the worst tacked-on head-to-head mode I've seen recently. That title goes to Spec Ops: The Line. But it definitely isn't as stellar as Fall of Cybertron. There are two factions to play as, and they are different from one another in ways that are stupid and pointless. One side are the "Survivors" (or "Dorks", which is what I call them) and the other are the Solarii (who I call the "Bad Guys" or "Psychos"). A good example of these bemusing changes is that the Dorks start with submachine guns while the Psychos use assault rifles. Huh? And the matches have rounds and respawn timers for no reason. I can understand in a game mode where one side defends and the other attacks that you could switch back and forth, but why have that in team deathmatch or free-for-all? It just makes the game take longer and adds more loadscreen time to wait through. Guys, just give us a good ~10 minute deathmatch. The spawning uses bases rather than random locations, so that means an uneven match will result in indefinite camping. That coupled with powerful late-level upgrades makes this game very unfriendly to newcomers. There's also feats and setbacks, which are only explained if you browse around a few menus. Those are killstreaks and deathstreaks... important! Lastly, no icons come up when you hit resistant enemies (there are perks that make you take less damage from things like bullets... bullets for crying out loud!) so that pretty much sums up how freaking bewildering these matchs can be with all these concepts flying at the player to learn and figure out. It's still a touch unique and interesting, so if you want to try it my advice is to do so sooner rather than later. I doubt people will play enough to keep the servers full for too long.

Every game should have multiplayer... apparently.

Conclusion:

Lara Croft is still a sexy, squeaking, action hero. If you want to see her in a decent action game with triple A graphics, go right ahead. You'll have a good enough time. If you want a stealth game with exploration and survival, well... I've been meaning to play that Farcry 3 game. I'll get back to you on that.

Bonus note:

Hey, Crystal Dynamics! I can't change the buttons to your game! That's fine and all, so long as you're willing to piss people off when you make changes from the norm. It's mostly fine in single player, but in multiplayer you've screwed up royally. Clicking the left stick and holding it to switch shoulders? B to run? What is this?! Here's what you do:

-Running and aiming are exclusive. So there is no reason you can't put sprint on clicking the left stick. Just make aiming transform the button to "switch shoulder." Also, don't require the player to hold that click down to run continually. That is kinda hard to do. One can stop running by easing off from pushing forward.

-B is now crouch.

-Aiming and melee are also exclusive. There is no reason clicking the right stick can't be melee. When aiming, this is now transformed to zoom.

-Second option! There is no hipfire in this game. When not aiming, R trigger could become melee. Just like Dead Space.

-Either way, Y is now switch weapon.

How easy are these changes? How much less clunky does this make your multiplayer? Come on!

Singularity

Rating: 3 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)

Genre: First Person Shooter

ESRB: M (machine gun violence and profanity)

Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 10/6

Developer: Raven Software 

Wiki page

Here's another in my "just a good game" category. This one went somewhat overlooked back in 2010, but it's not the most underrated game ever made; it's derivative and doesn't shine as brightly as the other stars out there. In fact I'm having trouble remembering some details since it wasn't entirely memorable. But it definitely was a satisfying and well-made adventure. I sometimes wonder what makes a game like this go relatively unnoticed while something like Bioshock Infinite makes people lose their damn minds. My own answers are simply marketing and game setting, since this did not get advertised nearly as much and looks drab and generic on the surface. I also personally feel people don't play enough games. There are lots of good games out there! Try to get excited over something that isn't a triple A franchise, people!

This game has a lot of similar concepts as Bioshock. Now the latest Bioshock is similar to this!

I do remember a good portion of the story and the ending, too. It is all rather silly and video game-y, but it all makes enough sense. Which is something of an accomplishment when we're talking about a confusing time travel adventure. The enemy design and events all tie into the plot to logically compliment one another. Which is great because I hate when a game gets overly "creative" with its design ideas that it holds no boundaries and feels like a mish mosh of gibberish. I wouldn't say it excels in this department but rather that everything fits together well enough. And I found that having both monsters and regular human enemies offered some variety in the types of combat encountered. Speaking of which, this game plays like a combination of Bioshock and Call of Duty by offering an assortment of powers, consumables and upgrades along with some militarism and familiar controls and pacing. Oh, and there are zombie-like things and Soviets. Everybody loves those two things.

Powers! Soviets!

A healthy dose of variety keeps the gameplay fun throughout: both practical and wacky guns (although I used the assault rifle through most of it) are employed against both monsters and mortals. This also continues on into the player versus player side of things. Like Left 4 Dead, the sides are actually humans versus monsters. The monsters are all different shapes and sizes with different functions and the humans are different classes of soldiers as well. Unfortunately the servers stopped functioning shortly after my play time with it years ago, so I doubt they'll ever let me in now (I tried to get in for about 10 minutes with zero progress). If they did, I would definitely recommend this part of the game just for being a different take on a Call of Duty type multiplayer. Who doesn't want to play as the monsters? No one!

Zombie man just wants a hug, machine gunner!

Conclusion:

Just a solid, fun game. Nothing incredibly outstanding, but something that left me with all positive feels for it.