Wednesday, February 8, 2012

NCIS Ubisoft Style

Some of you may likely think that I've finally lost my mind here. Please bear with me; there's a logical explanation.
As you may recall, my significant other is not much of a gamer. However, I haven't abandoned my efforts to convert her and with Valentine's Day coming up I'm going to attempt to "kill two birds with one stone" as they say. NCIS is one of the few shows we each can actually tolerate watching together, so maybe Ubisoft's version could end up being a game that we could have in common?
I'm thinking that this might actually work out because the gameplay here is actually rather pedestrian by my standards. For one who often needs her reflexes and hand-eye coordination at their peak to avoid being slaughtered by Arch-viles, NCIS could become boring fairly quickly; for my girlfriend who seems unable to use the mouse and keyboard simultaneously, this might actually be a fun game.
From what I've seen thus far, the entire game can be played with just the mouse. Click spots on the floor to move a character around, when the cursor changes to a magnifying glass click to look at a piece of evidence, when a meter changes color click to perform a given action... well, you can see where this is going. Furthermore, the constant on-screen instructions and icon cues like the magnifying glass or a pointing finger could lead even the simplest of children through the game I would think. Sounds like just the thing for my non-gaming GF.
Probably the only major selling point of the game that will save it with NCIS fans will be that the characters are reasonable (though in my opinion imperfect) rendered facsimiles of the actual actors.
But Ubisoft screwed it up, most likely because they're simply too cheap to pay what the stars required to do the job. They actually managed to get David McCallum and Robert Wagner to do the voices for their characters from the show, yet the rest of the characters are voiced by stand-ins that don't even attempt to imitate the voices of the actual actors. This lack of continuity in the voice actors was thus frustrating to me; I would rather have heard all impersonators rather than two of the actual actors mixed in among a cast of stand-ins.
Anyway, that's the plan for Valentine's Day. I'll come back and let you know how it goes and whether or not I was able to get away without actually buying flowers.

5 comments:

  1. So... you're getting your non-gamer girlfriend a video game for Totally-not-a-manufactured-holiday!-day; rather than flowers, candy, and/or shiny shiny rocks... and you're not expecting to end up sleeping on the couch or otherwise in the metaphorical doghouse?

    I guess girl/girl relationships really do have a different dynamic.

    ...I kind of want to study you, now. Where's my sociology notebook...?

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  2. @Nos:

    The idea sounds a lot worse the way you phrased it than it originally did in my head. I'm counting on her love for the show to make her oblivious to the irony. Now, if I was foolish enough to give her something like SKYRIM and declare it a Valentine's Day gift, my next blog entry would likely get submitted from my new room at the hospital...

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  3. "The idea sounds a lot worse the way you phrased it than it originally did in my head."

    Yeah, sorry -- I have a... particular talent for making things seem their absolute worst.

    I use it to my advantage: I figure if I expect the worst possible outcome from every situation, I can never be disappointed; and yea, will often be pleasantly surprised.

    Jokes aside, I'd assume it would depend largely on the significant other in question. If she's not a stickler for "tradition", then it'll probably turn out fine. Just seems like so many young ladies are programmed these days that unless Valentine's Day involves taking out a bank loan she isn't actually loved.

    Have you considered a plan B? Maybe learn to sing? Serenades are supposed to go over well for such "holidays".

    ...Then again, given your taste in music... I'm not sure how well a Six Feet Under romantic serenade would go...

    I know! You can borrow my copy of GWAR's We Kill Everything. It's got this great romantic track about necrophilia...


    ...Why is everyone looking at me like that...?

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  4. LOL... been a while since I listened to any GWAR...

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  5. "I'm so sick of yooooouuuuu! I'm so sick, so sick of you!"

    Hmm, I'm thinking that one leads to the aforementioned new hospital room ;)

    You have managed to warn me off of another new game Herculine. I am a big fan of NCIS myself, and could most likely deal with the game play and the not quite spot on character renderings, but not having the correct voices for the characters? Not touching it with 3 meter/10 foot pole. >.<

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