Thursday, November 10, 2016
Sunday, June 5, 2016
Get Paid when you Work
There will always be people with chutzpah, and some who will have so much that they expect you to work for them for free. Not only do people need to stop agreeing to do this, but they also need to name and shame the people and companies who dare to even ask for it.
There is no reason anyone should work for free, and it doesn't matter whether the one asking is just a dinky start-up trying to get a game idea off the ground, or a huge multinational with millions in profits every year. They'll all ask, and the answer should always be no.
I mostly see the complaints about this coming out of fields like graphic design and marketing, but this is not limited to creative fields (though I think they see the worst of it). Sadly, in most fields now there are people who will ask you to work on spec, for the "exposure", for the "great experience" you'll be getting, or for equity (if their idea ever makes money). Don't do it.
On one side of it, people don't value what they don't pay for and if you work for free, they won't value you, either. On the other side: you often get exactly what you've paid for. I have some personal experience on both sides of this.
A while ago I worked for a small company whose management decided to have the marketing plan drawn up (for free) by a group of students who were doing "real world" marketing plans for their MBA marketing project. The final plan was late, incomplete, disjoint, and inaccurate. It completely ignored the briefing materials we'd put together for them. It was a prime example of a school-based group project. It was cover-to-cover trite phrases and worn-out jargon. It was -- make no mistake -- utter garbage, and they should have received a failing grade for it (but I doubt that they did). We'd really have been better off asking an eight year-old to focus our marketing efforts because at least they may have come up with something novel we hadn't yet thought of ourselves. That eight year-old might also have been considerably more forthright and left out all the padding and bullshit, which would have been pretty refreshing by that stage of the game.
(Later, the same manager also asked a graphic designer to work on spec; the designer sent work that I could only perceive to be a giant "eat shit" message considering the level of the other work in their portfolio. Seriously: the image was of a man covered in brown smears surfacing out of a toilet. The manager remained clueless.)
And I've also worked, essentially, for free. Twice I've been involved with very large MMOs that had programs by which regular users could assist other players. We were given rudimentary training; a toon with extra powers to reset quests, load a few objects, and shift players who were stuck in the scenery; and access to the CSM system the players used to file help tickets. We were to spend a few hours every day deciphering the kinds of notes frustrated players write when they think no one will ever read them, then trying to assist them (or trying to methodically reproduce the bug and write a report for the devs).
In exchange, we were "given" the prestige of being in the program which, technically, we weren't actually allowed to tell anyone about. (No joke: for one of the programs I was asked to sign an NDA that specified I could not even tell my spouse that I was in the program. The NDA was so ridiculous that I was also prohibited from keeping a copy of it for myself. Definitely sounds legit!) For a mere 5 to 15 hours a week of customer support (depending on your "rank" in the program), we were "given" subscription-free access to the game, and free expansions when they came out. So, for 20 to 60 hours a month, we were compensated with something that would otherwise have cost us $19.99 a month, and, about once a year, a bonus equivalent to about $40.
Now one of those programs gave me lifetime, subscription-free access to the game after I spent a year in it, and I still have that (but I have also not used since leaving the program). The other has gone "freemium" in the mean time so basic play is always free in it now, anyway.
The carrot that was always dangling here was an actual job with these companies, doing something you loved doing. There was always the implication that if you did a great job, there was the possibility that you'd eventually be hired, when they had the budget to do that. The truth is that they always had the budget to do it, but they had no plan to ever hire for positions they could get filled for free by dumb-asses like me. That horrid piece of patriarchal advice about the cow and the free milk? Turns out it's not so true with dating, but totally true with jobs. If that company can get you free, why the hell would they go to the expense of hiring you? You've already told them, in no uncertain terms, that what you do isn't worth a paycheque.
And it can be hard to say no. Last term in school, another student in my class emailed the professor asking for help with their project and the professor told them that I knew how to do it, so they should email me. I said no -- because I'm not being paid to instruct the class. Yes, I felt bad about it and I think he genuinely needed some help, but I wasn't being paid to instruct the damned class, and I had enough on my plate as it was. The help I gave him was "make her tell you what she expects from you on this -- that's her job."
It happens everywhere. I'm active in gaming spaces where requests to provide tech support are rampant. This is support that, frankly, the game maker should be providing but doesn't -- the current state of affairs is that, instead of support, game publishers set up a "community" that's supposed to help each other because we all paid our real money for the same broken game and that makes us all comrades-in-arms or something. These companies would do better to pay a few sensible people to answer actual questions from actual users with actually useful information and advice, but meh -- crowdsourcing is so much cheaper!
And hell, I'm guilty here too. After I troubleshoot a problem, I write down how I fixed it and make the solution available to others, for free. But of course, the means that two or three times a week (no kidding) I get requests for real-time voice chat support to help someone troubleshoot a game or hardware problem. They often seem angry, upset, or baffled when I ask how much they're paying. I am supposed to schedule a block of time with a stranger to hold their hand through troubleshooting a technical issue, for what? Love of the game? No, sorry, I'll be over here playing the game, instead.
No matter what it is: If it's worth getting someone else to do it -- either because you can't or because you don't want to -- then it's worth paying them to do it.
There is no reason anyone should work for free, and it doesn't matter whether the one asking is just a dinky start-up trying to get a game idea off the ground, or a huge multinational with millions in profits every year. They'll all ask, and the answer should always be no.
I mostly see the complaints about this coming out of fields like graphic design and marketing, but this is not limited to creative fields (though I think they see the worst of it). Sadly, in most fields now there are people who will ask you to work on spec, for the "exposure", for the "great experience" you'll be getting, or for equity (if their idea ever makes money). Don't do it.
On one side of it, people don't value what they don't pay for and if you work for free, they won't value you, either. On the other side: you often get exactly what you've paid for. I have some personal experience on both sides of this.
A while ago I worked for a small company whose management decided to have the marketing plan drawn up (for free) by a group of students who were doing "real world" marketing plans for their MBA marketing project. The final plan was late, incomplete, disjoint, and inaccurate. It completely ignored the briefing materials we'd put together for them. It was a prime example of a school-based group project. It was cover-to-cover trite phrases and worn-out jargon. It was -- make no mistake -- utter garbage, and they should have received a failing grade for it (but I doubt that they did). We'd really have been better off asking an eight year-old to focus our marketing efforts because at least they may have come up with something novel we hadn't yet thought of ourselves. That eight year-old might also have been considerably more forthright and left out all the padding and bullshit, which would have been pretty refreshing by that stage of the game.
(Later, the same manager also asked a graphic designer to work on spec; the designer sent work that I could only perceive to be a giant "eat shit" message considering the level of the other work in their portfolio. Seriously: the image was of a man covered in brown smears surfacing out of a toilet. The manager remained clueless.)
And I've also worked, essentially, for free. Twice I've been involved with very large MMOs that had programs by which regular users could assist other players. We were given rudimentary training; a toon with extra powers to reset quests, load a few objects, and shift players who were stuck in the scenery; and access to the CSM system the players used to file help tickets. We were to spend a few hours every day deciphering the kinds of notes frustrated players write when they think no one will ever read them, then trying to assist them (or trying to methodically reproduce the bug and write a report for the devs).
In exchange, we were "given" the prestige of being in the program which, technically, we weren't actually allowed to tell anyone about. (No joke: for one of the programs I was asked to sign an NDA that specified I could not even tell my spouse that I was in the program. The NDA was so ridiculous that I was also prohibited from keeping a copy of it for myself. Definitely sounds legit!) For a mere 5 to 15 hours a week of customer support (depending on your "rank" in the program), we were "given" subscription-free access to the game, and free expansions when they came out. So, for 20 to 60 hours a month, we were compensated with something that would otherwise have cost us $19.99 a month, and, about once a year, a bonus equivalent to about $40.
Now one of those programs gave me lifetime, subscription-free access to the game after I spent a year in it, and I still have that (but I have also not used since leaving the program). The other has gone "freemium" in the mean time so basic play is always free in it now, anyway.
The carrot that was always dangling here was an actual job with these companies, doing something you loved doing. There was always the implication that if you did a great job, there was the possibility that you'd eventually be hired, when they had the budget to do that. The truth is that they always had the budget to do it, but they had no plan to ever hire for positions they could get filled for free by dumb-asses like me. That horrid piece of patriarchal advice about the cow and the free milk? Turns out it's not so true with dating, but totally true with jobs. If that company can get you free, why the hell would they go to the expense of hiring you? You've already told them, in no uncertain terms, that what you do isn't worth a paycheque.
And it can be hard to say no. Last term in school, another student in my class emailed the professor asking for help with their project and the professor told them that I knew how to do it, so they should email me. I said no -- because I'm not being paid to instruct the class. Yes, I felt bad about it and I think he genuinely needed some help, but I wasn't being paid to instruct the damned class, and I had enough on my plate as it was. The help I gave him was "make her tell you what she expects from you on this -- that's her job."
It happens everywhere. I'm active in gaming spaces where requests to provide tech support are rampant. This is support that, frankly, the game maker should be providing but doesn't -- the current state of affairs is that, instead of support, game publishers set up a "community" that's supposed to help each other because we all paid our real money for the same broken game and that makes us all comrades-in-arms or something. These companies would do better to pay a few sensible people to answer actual questions from actual users with actually useful information and advice, but meh -- crowdsourcing is so much cheaper!
And hell, I'm guilty here too. After I troubleshoot a problem, I write down how I fixed it and make the solution available to others, for free. But of course, the means that two or three times a week (no kidding) I get requests for real-time voice chat support to help someone troubleshoot a game or hardware problem. They often seem angry, upset, or baffled when I ask how much they're paying. I am supposed to schedule a block of time with a stranger to hold their hand through troubleshooting a technical issue, for what? Love of the game? No, sorry, I'll be over here playing the game, instead.
No matter what it is: If it's worth getting someone else to do it -- either because you can't or because you don't want to -- then it's worth paying them to do it.
Saturday, May 21, 2016
B is for Block'hood
I generally try not to buy games that are in the Steam "Early Access" program. They are, after all, just what they sound like: unfinished, with no promises that they won't cease development entirely or that they won't become a different game completely, and yet ballsy enough to still ask for cash from the people who are, essentially, troubleshooting the game. But I was feeling whimsical the other day and took a chance.
Block'hood is a city builder - well, more accurately, a neighborhood builder - in a limited amount of space. It looked quite pretty; the reviews to date were "Very Positive"; it was only $9.99 US.
I wish I could say that I got $10 of enjoyment out of it. I still might, but as it stands right now, I've little desire to play.
It's in very early stages right now. There is a tutorial, a sandbox mode, and short series of challenges to play through. But the game is hampered by a lack of clear instruction and a definitive description of game mechanics.
Access and Decay matter a lot in the game. Access is whether the block as it has been placed has a clear path to at least one edge of the surface it's built on, but clear path actually means a connected path of other blocks which also allow access. Some are obviously for that - such as the Corridor blocks - and some just function that way. Access also doesn't mean what one might assume - that people need to be able to get from this block to other important blocks (e.g., from their apartment to the cafe); it only seems to mean that the blocks are "connected" in the right way which is no more than matching up the arrows on their sides to flow in the right direction.
Decay is a scale between zero and eight. As near as I can tell, a block begins to decay when it does not have the resources it needs; if it decays eight times in a row, it falls in a heap and is destroyed and useless. A fully decayed block can't be recovered - it has to be deleted. (This is a problem if your decayed block is under another block, because blocks which are under other blocks can't seem to be deleted.)
This is where it becomes frustrating. Blocks begin to work and so to decay (if their needs are not met) immediately upon placement. If a block has multiple dependencies, getting those up and going (each with their own dependencies) before the block decays and becomes useless can be a real challenge - especially since you can neither place a block, nor browse the block catalog, while the game is paused. Best to plan well ahead, I suppose.
But that mechanic robs me of quite a bit of fun. It means I can't really place things in an attractive way a lot of the time, nor re-arrange things once I've got the basics going. Other things which niggle at me include a number of misspellings and the like in the game text, and some graphical issues. For example the "Wind Mill" which I'd really call a wind turbine, is two blocks tall, but does not stop you placing another block atop it; instead it merely sends its blades whirring through that apartment upstairs.
There choices I'd never make (fine, it's not my game), but which feel sloppy to me as well - for example, the "Small Apartment" is actually called a "Small Apt". It just seems that, you know, that might be spelled out since it's an important game piece. That's me though; I despise abbreviations and acronyms where they seem to be wholly unnecessary.
The devs of the game do seem to care, and do seem to be active, though, so I will keep an eye on it. As for providing bug reports and the like from my play, I doubt that I will - I think that's a one of those jobs that should be a paid one, or for which, at the very least, the testers shouldn't have paid to play the game they're working to improve.
 |
| working on a challenge to create Consumers in Block'hood |
I wish I could say that I got $10 of enjoyment out of it. I still might, but as it stands right now, I've little desire to play.
It's in very early stages right now. There is a tutorial, a sandbox mode, and short series of challenges to play through. But the game is hampered by a lack of clear instruction and a definitive description of game mechanics.
Access and Decay matter a lot in the game. Access is whether the block as it has been placed has a clear path to at least one edge of the surface it's built on, but clear path actually means a connected path of other blocks which also allow access. Some are obviously for that - such as the Corridor blocks - and some just function that way. Access also doesn't mean what one might assume - that people need to be able to get from this block to other important blocks (e.g., from their apartment to the cafe); it only seems to mean that the blocks are "connected" in the right way which is no more than matching up the arrows on their sides to flow in the right direction.
Decay is a scale between zero and eight. As near as I can tell, a block begins to decay when it does not have the resources it needs; if it decays eight times in a row, it falls in a heap and is destroyed and useless. A fully decayed block can't be recovered - it has to be deleted. (This is a problem if your decayed block is under another block, because blocks which are under other blocks can't seem to be deleted.)
This is where it becomes frustrating. Blocks begin to work and so to decay (if their needs are not met) immediately upon placement. If a block has multiple dependencies, getting those up and going (each with their own dependencies) before the block decays and becomes useless can be a real challenge - especially since you can neither place a block, nor browse the block catalog, while the game is paused. Best to plan well ahead, I suppose.
But that mechanic robs me of quite a bit of fun. It means I can't really place things in an attractive way a lot of the time, nor re-arrange things once I've got the basics going. Other things which niggle at me include a number of misspellings and the like in the game text, and some graphical issues. For example the "Wind Mill" which I'd really call a wind turbine, is two blocks tall, but does not stop you placing another block atop it; instead it merely sends its blades whirring through that apartment upstairs.
There choices I'd never make (fine, it's not my game), but which feel sloppy to me as well - for example, the "Small Apartment" is actually called a "Small Apt". It just seems that, you know, that might be spelled out since it's an important game piece. That's me though; I despise abbreviations and acronyms where they seem to be wholly unnecessary.
The devs of the game do seem to care, and do seem to be active, though, so I will keep an eye on it. As for providing bug reports and the like from my play, I doubt that I will - I think that's a one of those jobs that should be a paid one, or for which, at the very least, the testers shouldn't have paid to play the game they're working to improve.
Monday, March 28, 2016
Only Mostly Dead
I've not been dead, I swear. Only mostly dead. I have 21 credits this term, so that's roughly 21 contact hours per week plus a supposed 63 hours per week spent out-of-class on reading, papers, assigned busy-work, and projects. That "projects" category is the worst: it includes seven group projects this term, two of which involve "short" (i.e. 15 and 30 minute) presentations.
And of all the projects, I think only one qualifies as a proper "group project". I wrote one of my papers (for which I got to choose any topic I'd like) last term on how to properly structure group projects so that they do what's intended, that is, get students working collaboratively and better learning the materials. (Note that, of course, this presumes that the real purpose of the project is to help students learn, not to reduce the number of papers the instructor needs to grade by roughly 80%. I suspect most projects actually fall into this latter category for one reason or another.)
Anyway, that one project is a comprehensive financial plan. That's actually challenging and takes us working together to get done since not a one of us is an actual CFP. Meanwhile, everything else is "group paper", "group paper", "group paper", zzzzzzzzzzz. To quote one of my sources for that paper about properly-structured group projects: “writing is inherently an individual activity,” and in a group paper, “the only real group activity will be deciding how to divide up the work."
I also caught a horrid flu in week 6 of this term. Had a little bit of a ticklish throat set in at 8:00 on a Wednesday night, and woke up at 5 AM Thursday with a fever, vomiting like crazy. I had two mid-term exams on that Friday, which I somehow managed to take (all hail anti-emetics!) and which I should likely not have gone to, considering how contagious I'm sure I was. But with the college policy being "no misses without a doctor's excuse" my choice was either: go out on public transit for a while and then sit in a doctor's waiting room for an hour or two to get the excuse and then have to arrange make-up exams and the whole rigmarole, or go out on public transit a while and sit in a testing lab for an hour or two and be done with it all, I took option two. It took nearly a month for the cough and chest congestion from that thing to finally clear up. I'm clearly too old for this shit.
Anyway! Been playing Borderlands 2 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution lately, alternately, depending on whether I'm on the Steam Link (Borderlands 2) or the actual desktop (Deus Ex). This switch is mostly because I've been wanting to play through Deus Ex but I find it too difficult to play with the controller, and its interface is insanely difficult to read on the huge TV across the room, even if I adjust the resolution downward.
It's funny: I've been PC gaming so long that while I'd assume a controller is a much easier way to game, I'm finding it ridiculously difficult to re-learn. (I've not had a console for 20 years now.) The Steam controller has at least 15 different input methods (some buttons, some triggers, some touch-pads, a stick, &c.), and some of those are context-sensitive (e.g., in Borderlands 2, the X button is variously "use" or "reload" depending on what the camera's pointing at) as well as having different inputs themselves (such as the stick, which in this game is directional movement, but is also the button for "mark inventory item trash/favorite" when pressed; or the right trackpad which is camera or, when pressed, "trigger special skill").
All up, though, I love my controller and Steam link. If I'm totally wiped out by a day of death-by-PowerPoint in-class, and group meetings out-of-class, sitting down to a few sniper shots as Zero really helps brighten my day.
And of all the projects, I think only one qualifies as a proper "group project". I wrote one of my papers (for which I got to choose any topic I'd like) last term on how to properly structure group projects so that they do what's intended, that is, get students working collaboratively and better learning the materials. (Note that, of course, this presumes that the real purpose of the project is to help students learn, not to reduce the number of papers the instructor needs to grade by roughly 80%. I suspect most projects actually fall into this latter category for one reason or another.)
Anyway, that one project is a comprehensive financial plan. That's actually challenging and takes us working together to get done since not a one of us is an actual CFP. Meanwhile, everything else is "group paper", "group paper", "group paper", zzzzzzzzzzz. To quote one of my sources for that paper about properly-structured group projects: “writing is inherently an individual activity,” and in a group paper, “the only real group activity will be deciding how to divide up the work."
I also caught a horrid flu in week 6 of this term. Had a little bit of a ticklish throat set in at 8:00 on a Wednesday night, and woke up at 5 AM Thursday with a fever, vomiting like crazy. I had two mid-term exams on that Friday, which I somehow managed to take (all hail anti-emetics!) and which I should likely not have gone to, considering how contagious I'm sure I was. But with the college policy being "no misses without a doctor's excuse" my choice was either: go out on public transit for a while and then sit in a doctor's waiting room for an hour or two to get the excuse and then have to arrange make-up exams and the whole rigmarole, or go out on public transit a while and sit in a testing lab for an hour or two and be done with it all, I took option two. It took nearly a month for the cough and chest congestion from that thing to finally clear up. I'm clearly too old for this shit.
Anyway! Been playing Borderlands 2 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution lately, alternately, depending on whether I'm on the Steam Link (Borderlands 2) or the actual desktop (Deus Ex). This switch is mostly because I've been wanting to play through Deus Ex but I find it too difficult to play with the controller, and its interface is insanely difficult to read on the huge TV across the room, even if I adjust the resolution downward.
It's funny: I've been PC gaming so long that while I'd assume a controller is a much easier way to game, I'm finding it ridiculously difficult to re-learn. (I've not had a console for 20 years now.) The Steam controller has at least 15 different input methods (some buttons, some triggers, some touch-pads, a stick, &c.), and some of those are context-sensitive (e.g., in Borderlands 2, the X button is variously "use" or "reload" depending on what the camera's pointing at) as well as having different inputs themselves (such as the stick, which in this game is directional movement, but is also the button for "mark inventory item trash/favorite" when pressed; or the right trackpad which is camera or, when pressed, "trigger special skill").
All up, though, I love my controller and Steam link. If I'm totally wiped out by a day of death-by-PowerPoint in-class, and group meetings out-of-class, sitting down to a few sniper shots as Zero really helps brighten my day.
Friday, February 26, 2016
Things I Learned This Week
I hadn't really realized it before, but it turns out Canada actively prevents a two-tier health care system (such as the one Australia has). It's illegal to provide private services or insurance for anything covered by the universal system. Let me just say: !!!!!
I really had no idea, but I've had to research it all for a project.
In essence: Australia and Canada have what are (at the root) very similar systems - federally-funded, regionally-administered universal health care coverage.
But Australia allows (and encourages) a private system alongside that federally-funded system, so people can get private insurance to do things (such as) have more control over what doctors they see and have shorter wait times for elective care. Canada actually prohibits that. The numbers aren't looking (as) good for Canada either, results-wise, but I'm still reading.
Meanwhile, the #2 thing I learned this week is that it's entirely possible to enter a three-question, short-answer midterm for a class with an overall 96%, and come out of it with an 86% for the course and ... have no idea why as there is no feedback (at all, whatsoever) on the exam. Grrrr and >:-[
I really had no idea, but I've had to research it all for a project.
In essence: Australia and Canada have what are (at the root) very similar systems - federally-funded, regionally-administered universal health care coverage.
But Australia allows (and encourages) a private system alongside that federally-funded system, so people can get private insurance to do things (such as) have more control over what doctors they see and have shorter wait times for elective care. Canada actually prohibits that. The numbers aren't looking (as) good for Canada either, results-wise, but I'm still reading.
Meanwhile, the #2 thing I learned this week is that it's entirely possible to enter a three-question, short-answer midterm for a class with an overall 96%, and come out of it with an 86% for the course and ... have no idea why as there is no feedback (at all, whatsoever) on the exam. Grrrr and >:-[
Sunday, January 31, 2016
A is for Apotheon
I've had a problem lately - admittedly a "first world problem" as they say. I have too many games piled up on my game list that I've never really played. Some of them I've installed and looked at the opening sequences; others have never even been installed.
I look at my Steam library and just get lost in the possibilities, and end up doing nothing at all.
So, when you have some problem (even if it's a really stupid one), the thing to do is to break it into smaller parts and chew each portion before going on to the next. And that's what I'm doing with my Steam library. I'm going to play my Steam games A to Z - at least one from each letter (if I have one for each letter) and I'll write something about them here - a review, or mini-review, at least.
First up: Apotheon.
Apotheon is a 2-D side-scrolling platformer released in 2015 by Alientrap.
The first thing to really notice about Apotheon is the art: the aesthetic choices for the game are truly superb. The whole game looks like it's taking place on the side of an ancient Greek vase, and the lines and composition are frequently beautiful. The soundtrack is quite good, and the voice acting is above par to boot, making for a great experience overall. The game incorporates snippets of Greek mythology, from the writings of Homer to various Orphic hymns, producing an unusual atmosphere for a video game, let alone one of this category.
Mechanically - well, it's a side-scrolling 2-D platformer. That isn't one of my favorite genres by a long shot (in fact, I usually avoid them). This category inevitably means a bit of frustration for me with the de rigueur boss fights, the lack of any choice in how the story plays out, and so on.
Apotheon got quite a bit better for me, though, once I moved from keyboard-and-mouse to Steam controller to play, with a minor exception (as I'll explain below). With mouse and keyboard, it's just too hard to be facing the right direction when fighting, but controller play deals with that considerably better. Except when you need to, say, aim down a long tunnel to hit a target with an arrow. Then I pretty much had to go back to mouse and keyboard for that specific trick - no amount of fussing with my Steam controller settings could get the aiming to work with any amount of sensitivity, and there is no way to address sensitivity or to re-map the controller in-game at all.
(It's worth noting that I have played other 2-D side-scrollers with mouse and keyboard without this problem and I have played other 2-D side-scrollers with the Steam controller without these problems. These issues seem to be something very particular about how Apotheon works, and it is the worst aspect of the game.)
Many players also complain that the combat is clunky, and I can honestly say that I find it terrible - but that is with the caveat that I frequently find the combat in these sorts of games terrible, so I can't tell if it's genuinely wonky, or I just do not enjoy this sort of thing and since I am only trying to get through the silly boss fights to see where the story actually goes. Just know that in Apotheon, strikes must be aimed and they must be relatively precise; meanwhile enemies will dodge - and will often spring around crazily like mad frogs - which I found to be somewhat disconcerting, and which did not seem to fit well with the game's other artistic choices and tone. Bottom line though: if you're looking for someone to appreciate unusual or varied combat in game of this genre, it's definitely not me, so take what I say with that grain of salt here.
I got best into the game by floundering through the opening level, mashing buttons until I had (slowly) sublimated attacking, dodging and rolling, and switching weapons, and then I started over in order to pay attention to the story and scenes instead of being focused more on "Oh damn it, I didn't mean to throw that! Bwah! Why am I facing the wrong direction?!?" That generally provided a better experience for that secondary start and subsequent play.
Otherwise, though, the game is an interesting experience, and looking around provided me a ton of entertainment. I'd definitely buy and play follow-ups to this game in the vein of Egyptian, Japanese, Sumerian, Aztec, and so on just to see the art and experience the mythology, honestly. It's worth the admission price for that alone.
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