I finally got my hands on Stronghold 3. Dissapointment doesn't even describe it.
I didn't have incredible expectations but damn, is this game unpolished. There are bugs here and there. It was lower than my low expectations.
The gameplay is incredibly hard and seemingly unbalanced. They changed the popularity vs. population growth system from the last game. Loss of food (which happens too often) impacts your popularity instantly leading to the frustrating downward spiral where people don't move to your castle because there's no food and there's no food because no worker will move into the castle.
Walls can't seem to stop arrows which kind of defeats the whole purpose of walls. The game is way too slow. It takes forever in real time to get the economy up and running. Maybe there's a speed increase option but there cetainly is no mention of it in the tutorial. The tutorial is way too simplistic and woefully unprepares a beginner for the micromangement necessary in some missions. I'm not being pretentious but the missions here have been frustrating so far and so SLOW. There's new music but hearing the same songs from the previous games is a bit tiresome.
Ta-Da! As promised, here's an article about a game so obscure, I won't even explain the joke.
Obscure II is obviously a sequel. I haven't played the original but judging from the name, its probably lost to the mists of time now. To give a brief overview of Obscure II, its a survival horror game set to the style of a teen slasher flick. I don't know if the "dead teenagers" theme was intentional or not but the evidence suggests so. There's also not-so-subtle messages about the dangers of drug use and teenage sex and by not-so-subtle, I mean mutants and killer flying vaginas with teeth. (more on this later)
So the intro tells us that shit happened in the first game but the talking voice is like so over that now, so those past incidents will in no way affect or tie-in with what's gonna happen later. Cool. The game actually begins with a nightmare of one of the main characters, Corey. The nightmare in no way foreshadows the future...ah screw it. He has a girlfriend named Mai Wang (lol) and they both plan to go to some kind of frat party or something. Guess what happens.
Anyway, there's this fantastic new drug that all the cool kids are using that's created from this mysterious flower. The flower is evil. It is so damn obvious, it cannot be a spoiler. The other characters are Sven, the Norwegian who loves hockey and getting high. There's Amy, the young blonde girl. (she is so screwed) There's Mai's sister Jun who's just dead weight and lastly, there's Kenny, a survivor of the first game who needs medication to cope with the experiments done to him in the past. Of course, Kenny doesn't tell the others that he's a danger to himself and others because, well, what kind of dead teenager "movie" game would this be if he did that? Enough story, let's get to the gameplay first.
Standard survival horror stuff really. Third person view, relatively fixed camera angles, et cetera. Monsters run up to you so you whack em' with a big stick and so on and so on. Nothing remarkable. The only interesting part was that two characters are on the field at any one time but the player can control only one. Think of it as an ally...a really stupid ally. There's puzzles too. So yeah. What else... Ah yes, some puzzles can only be solved by using certain characters so you must switch between them. For example, Mai can "hack" stuff because she's Chinese or at least some kind of Asian. Kenny is the muscular type so he and only he can truly comprehend the physics and deep philosophical underpinnings of pushing a large crate next to an obstacle so we can climb over it. Seriously, if you were at least able to obtain the first floor map in Resident Evil, you're all set. Speaking of Resident Evil, there's also a library puzzle here too. God, does every survival horror game have a library puzzle?
So that's about it when it comes to gameplay. Now, we get to the plot which is the only amazing thing about this game. Its amazing because its completely batshit insane, dark, brutal, violent and over the deep end.
Get this, at the frat party, things happen as you would expect. People scream and die and our heroes are in trouble! They run into this scientist experimenting on the spores. The scientist is evil. It is so damn obvious. Scientists are always evil. So they run around some more. The game switches you to different characters pursuing different storylines so I kind of can't remember very well.
Anyway, you need to rescue Jun, the stupid, damsel-in-distress, dead weight, fat, ugly bitch. So they try to find her in the obligatory hospital level or something. On the way, you are assaulted by killer flying vaginas. I cannot find a picture of them but please let me explain. They are basically flying harpies. They have humanoid shapes but no leg below the knee. There's teeth from their thighs to the vagina and they try to squeeze you between their...aww come on!
Back to the story. Kenny can't control it anymore and becomes the demons. He attacks the party and crushes Mei's head with his giant monster hands in front of her lover Corey. Seriously, it was fucking disturbing, I'm not kidding. In fact, I decided not to post a video of it.
Sven inexplicably blunders into a house which, by sheer coincidence, is occupied by a chainsaw wielding murderer. What are the fucking odds? Sven dies, some kind of mutant tree from the first game, Kenny rapes Amy and she's now carrying his demon seed, the games is now officially FUBAR. This game is so dark and depressing. It totally caught me by surprise. It is so depressing, Corey kills himself. The game ends with two survivors from the first game you hardly even played as. Amy kills herself and her demon baby but its not certain if she succeeded. God, I need a drink and I don't even drink.
Well, to summarize, Obscure II was a mediocre survival horror game with a twisted story. Its a strange fit; a crappy game with a plot that makes me want to slit my wrists. Did I enjoy it? Yes! The gameplay was shit but I found myself playing it more and more just to see how deep into hell the story would go. Everyone fucking dies. The teens are subjected to such incredible cruelty its just like...my God...a teenage slasher movie! That's the reason those movies exist in the first place; so we can see annoying teens get their heads crushed in front of their loved ones! I guess this game is alright after all. It combines two of my favorite things: shitty, violent movies and video games.
After struggling about what topic to write about, I decided to fall back on my favorite topic, video games. I don't like the idea of video games defining my personality, but nevertheless, I promise to write about an obscure game tomorrow.
So that's about it when it comes to gameplay. Now, we get to the plot which is the only amazing thing about this game. Its amazing because its completely batshit insane, dark, brutal, violent and over the deep end.