Metroid: Other M
Hot Damn, my Wii is doing overtime!
And I don't mean in the Ashley vs. Leon kind of way either.
I'm STILL playing Xenoblade, which has just given up counting my play time and stopped at 99 hours and 59 minutes (kinda stupid for a game that big) but I'm guessing I'm around 130 hours or something.
I hope I'll get some kind of report at the end of the game but it's doubtful.
Anyway, Metroid: Other M.
I haven' finished it yet, but I'm kinda torn on it, I guess.
On one hand, I really like what they've done to the combat, it's very fast-paced and action-packed, and you really have to stay on your toes.
You can tell it's by Team Ninja since it kinda feels like they want you to fight in close quarters, instead of staying at a distance shooting.
You can also tell it's by Team Ninja because it's kicking my ass into next week. I don't even want to think about how many times I've died.
On the other hand, I don't like how it's paced.
Far too many times you'll hit a dead end, and you'll have to track back only for some event to happen in a room you already visited.
It keeps confusing me by locking me into rooms to fight enemies and then NOT giving me something but just expecting me to walk back the way I came. It seems counter-intuitive and, frankly, kinda boring.
I also HATE the bits where you are forced into First Person to look for something really damn tiny in the environment. They totally take the speed and fun out of the game.
And that's pretty much all there seems to be to the puzzles as well.
I can recall the Prime series doing some really great and clever stuff with the morph ball, but in this game the morph ball is just a way to move through narrow corridors and nothing more. It feels like there's something missing...
So in other words, yeah, great combat, some awesome boss fights, but lousy pacing and puzzles.
Kage no Tou / Lost in Shadow is...
A gimmick that never reaches its true potential, probably because Hudson isn't that good at making videogames.
I'm sorry, but I'm having trouble liking it.
The aesthetic is definitely heavily borrowed from Ico, which in itself isn't bad, but it doesn't win you any originality points either.
Now the gameplay, it's definitely a really original concept and it has some really clever ideas but it doesn't really take them anywhere.
You learn the basics right at the start, and the rest of the game is built around 2 or 3 gimmicks that quite honestly aren't interesting enough to carry a 10-hour game.
The puzzles are staggeringly easy, I think I haven't actually needed to use my noggin for a single second, because, like I said, they fail to realize the true potential of what they have here and they get stuck rather soon in the game just repeating the same kind of puzzle over and over.
One of the most blatant examples of this are the Shadow Realms, those areas you enter through a big gate in the normal levels and that you have to escape from by finding the exit. The majority of these areas are based around a gimmick where you have to shift the level itself left or right pivoting around the main character, which is a really cool and clever idea in itself UNTIL you realise that the puzzles are never more than a simple trial and error case of "you have to push either Left or Right" which noone above the age of 2 could possibly find fun or challenging.
Moreover, the control themselves are rather clunky and akward. There's too many times when the character's momentum is halted (I hate the fact that he has momentum in the first place) or where he has to SLOWLY crawl up edges (pretty much every vertical jump).
I was going in expecting something really clever, but the more I played the less I enjoyed myself and the more it started feeling like a chore.
It's a clever gimmick, but it's not interesting enough to built an entire game around.
This should've been a 3-hour Wiiware game or something.
Red Seeds Profile is...
otherwise known as Deadly Premonition in the West!
I just started playing this game, because it actually came recommended to me by people whom I trust more than IGN (there's people living in cardboard boxes whose opinion I'd value more, mind you), I'm about 2 hours in and I have to say...
It's f*cking
awesome.Don't listen to the retards at IGN who don't know quality when it comes up to them and pisses in their skulls. Instead, read the Destructoid review!
Deadly Premonition ReviewThey're right.Well, maybe that's exaggerating a little, but it's DEFINITELY a lot better than most people will have you believe.
Yes, it has a low budget so you get crappy graphics and lousy car controls and whatnot, but right from the get-go it is obvious that this game was made by people with passion, heart, and a great sense of humor.
Fans of Twin Peaks will LOVE it.
Fans of campy 80s movies will LOVE it.
People who understand that videogames do not have to be about state-of-the-art graphics, Hollywood-style production and lots of explosions will LOVE it.
People who love "different" will LOVE it.
The game's been a pretty straight roll of (intentional!) LOLs, and it's pretty fun to play as well (aside from some control issues, mostly relating to vehicles).
It was made BY and FOR people of "my generation" (ie early thirties), and there's shitloads of (optional) conversation/trivia on 70's/80's movies which is a total blast to listen to.
It's a shame the game only goes for full retail price in Japan. I love it, but I still wouldn't feel comfortable recommending it for 6000 yen...
It is, for all intents and purposes, a Budget Title: simple graphics, iffy voice-acting, completely warped directional audio and there's only 12 (!) achievements, so asking full price is a bit of a rip-off.
I'm guessing this one's going to win in the "Best Game Noone Played" category this year.
Xenoblade
I'm probably talking to myself here, but let's assume that there are some people here who are still using their Wii (is NOONE playing Mario Galaxy 2!?) and, God forbid, even into JRPGs.
You (and that's probably a singular 'you') will be happy to know that Xenoblade is, in fact, a very good game. It's been likened to Final Fantasy XII, which is understandable since the character design was done by the same guy and the battle system is rather similar.
Although you could just as well say the battle system is like most MMORPGs, indeed, it's quite close to World of Warcraft, with auto-attacks and a set of rechargeable skills that can be activated at will.
The game features large and lushly detailed environments, full of enemies and items and whatnot. It's not going to win any originality awards for its setting, but there are lots of tiny gimmicks in the system to make it stand out as an interesting and entertaining RPG.
What I like most of all so far is how low-stress the game is.
There's a quick-travel feature, and you can change the in-game time at any moment you please (to hunt for those elusive monsters/items that only appear at night), regardless of whether there are any enemies around, although obviously not during actual combat (still a great improvement over Oblivion/Fallout 3).
If your party gets wiped out, you will be automatically sent back to the nearest Landmark, keeping any progress you've made, so you don't have to worry about when you last saved, or anything else for that matter.
Saving, by the way, can be done anywhere and at any time, which is quite unusual for a JRPG I'd say.
Other than that, there's a trading system, a Bond system that keeps track of how close you are to your party members and to other people in cities (and how close they are to each other), loads of quests (the first city alone has dozens upon dozens, so I haven't even left the first area yet after 4 hours of gameplay) most of which, thankfully, are short and easy, although they are likely to increase in difficulty later on in the game, skill trees, item manufacturing, an in-game 'achievement' system that rewards you for fulfilling tasks by granting you EXP and the like, and loads more.
It's a very fleshed out, grand-schale RPG, and they managed to squeeze a lot out of the humble Wii. Also, no gimmicky motion control, so you can just relax your hands in your lap, WHERE THEY BELONG.
I've been having a blast with it, and it's already shaping up to be one of my favorite RPGs of this year.
Platform Peril: Prince of Persia the Forgotten Sands and Super Mario Galaxy 2
That's a long ass post title, right there.
Maybe it would help if I split them into 2 posts?
Yes, but that ain't happenin'!
So, let's start with Prince of Persia - The Forgotten Sands, the latest addition to the long-running wall-climbing pole-vaulting parcours games starring the Prince of Persia.
Man, it must be sweet to be the Prince of Persia. You never actually seem to do a lot of governing from what I can tell.
It's another decent romp through the kingdom of Persia, which seems to be perpetually plagued by some kind of disaster that involves sand at some point (not much else there, is there? Hur hur!), but there are some new gimmicks for the Plucky Prince to work with.
For one, there is the ability to freeze water in order to change waterfalls into walls and fountains into poles to run off and jump from. Secondly, there's the ability to create platforms that were there before but not anymore, but only 1 at a time!
Both new abilities require lots of switching back and forth in mid-jump/run/fall/whatever and it can get pretty hectic and challenging later on in the game.
The problem is though, the game's creators don't give you any of these new abilities until you're already several hours into the game. They must've figured the 5 people who've never played an Ubisoft Prince of Persia game before needed some time to get a hang of the controls, so in the beginning you spend your time pulling off some very basic moves which will be all too familiar to most people for what feels a bit too long.
Christ, if you've never played one of Ubi's PoP games before, there's better games to start out with, so you shouldn't be bothering with this one in the first place.
The new abilities add some new twists though, so it's definitely a fun adventure, but I'm starting to think that the formula is perhaps groing slightly stale.
The scene leading up to the final battle is pretty awesome though.
Second up, is Super Mario Galaxy 2.
And Super Mario Galaxy 2, like Super Mario Galaxy 1 before it, is all kinds of Awesome.
I never thought I'd say it, but they've come to the point where Mario just works BETTER in 3D than in 2D, which is insane enough in and of itself.
It's going to be hard to top this in the category "Wii Game of the Year", but unfortunately that's not saying all that much.
The only question I have is, whereto next!?
We've had Mario Land, Mario World and Mario Galaxy, WHAT NEXT!?
Where could they possibly take the plumber next, that is going to be better than Super Mario Galaxy!?
FOOD FOR THOUGHT.
NieR, Splinter Cell Conviction and Alan Wake
I've been meaning to write several entries for all of the above 3 games, but never seem to get myself to actually do it, so I might as well just throw 'em all together.
First off:
NieR Gestalt.
NieR is an action RPG, published by Square Enix, but developed by a company called Cavia which is the most awesome name anyone could ever possibly hope to create when naming their company after a rodent, and in Japan it comes in 2 flavors: Gestalt (on 360) and Replicant (on PS3).
Replicant has the generic effeminate 15-year-old boy with spiky hair for a protagonist, and Gestalt has a more unusual middle-aged ugly man trying to look after his daughter.
Understandably, the West will only get Gestalt (on both 360 AND PS3), and that's probably a wise choice.
It's nice to play with a middle-aged guy once in a wh...
Holy crap, I don't like where that sentence is going.
It's refreshing to see a middle-aged man as the protagonist of a JRPG, and it works really well. I've been playing the game in English (because I can't be bothered to switch my system language to Japanese) and the voice acting and localization in general are pretty damn good.
It is for all intents and purposes a generic Action RPG.
You fight monsters, collect items, defeat bosses, do quests, the works!
To make up for what is perhaps rather uninspired gameplay, the game regularly throws some really weird and funny things at you. You WILL be surprised by some of the things in here, including references to Resident Evil and the Legend of Zelda among others, as well as some really clever and cute deviations off the beaten action RPG path.
Also, the game seems to think it's a Bullet Hell shooter at times. Make of that what you want.
This game has also once again reaffirmed the suspicion that I am getting sick and tired of SAVE THE UNIVARSE stories with budding wannabe heroes going on and on and on and on and on about how much they want to protect everyone and his goddamn DOG from everything and its goddamn evil hound.
So yeah, Final Fantasy XIII was pretty crappy, and it made me wary of the age-old Band of Heroes theme.
NieR, however, is much more like End of Eternity in that you follow a small group of people (3) that are all kind of social misfits, just trying to deal with their own problems.
Admittedly, there is an overarching story about some evil presence that doesn't like humans too much, but it's never blown out of proportion and most certainly not shoved down your throat.
Even the presentation itself is down-to-earth. The game world isn't very big and consists largely of rural environments and small towns. The game's visuals seem to take a cue from the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus palette, with grassy, mountainous environments and plenty of bloom effects. The soundtrack is composed largely of ethnic music with lots of chanting and minstrel songs in a made-up language, that only serves to enforce the calm, quiet, laid-back agraric atmosphere the game is going for.
I
like that.
Secondly,
Splinter Cell Conviction.
Now, I
love the Splinter Cell series. They've always been the true stealth-based Yin to Metal Gear Solid's ridiculous action-based Yang. I
liked how getting caught too many times, or just taking out enemies with your gun would result in instant mission failure. It forces you to use your head instead of just running through every situation guns blazing, and it worked great.
And now Conviction is upon us! The, what, fifth instalment in the series!?
And what does it offer us!?
Uh...action, lots of guns and a Quick Take Out system.
Blegh.
Christ, Ubisoft, try NOT fucking up one of your IPs for a change!
You actually have several good ones, but you keep raping them!
Now to be fair, SC Conviction is still one hell of a ride.
The graphics are great, the presentation is top notch (love how the game reminds you of your objective by projecting words on the environment), the interrogation sequences are really awesome, and there's a very well-executed chase scene that has to be, well, the BEST chase scene I've ever witnessed in a video game, like, EVER (not counting QTEs, cos they're just glorified cutscenes anyway).
There is still some good stealth to be had, but there is far too much of an emphasis on action. One level, based in the Middle East, is nothing BUT shooting and really feels out of place (perhaps a left-over idea from the Rainbow Six series, Ubisoft!?).
Most missions are frightfully short as well, and very easy because violence will get you pretty much anywhere.
I would still recommend you try out the single player mode, it does offer a great experience, but it feels like, once again, the 1P mode got the shaft in favor of a fleshed out Multiplayer mode.
If I've said it once, I've said it a billion times: the Internet is going to ruin videogames forever.
Last but maybe possibly not quite totally unleast:
Alan Wake.
Apparently this game has been in development for quite some time, although I didn't hear about it until fairly recently.
Alan Waka is a survival horror game with very obvious Silent Hill influences mixed with a liberal dose of Stephen King (which the game is only too happy to remind you of hamfistedly, time and time again), starring a writer called Alan Wake (that may NOT have been a spoiler) who visits a small suburban American town, where soon strange things start happening and an eerie fog, sorry,
darkness hides hideous monstrosities and generally gives Alan a bad time.
Oh, and did I mention he's looking for his wife?
Cos he is.
Homage, or ripoff?
YOU DECIDE!
Anyway, this is a 360 game, not some last generation CRAP, so if anything, it looks a lot better than Silent Hill ever did (including, er, the current generation ones), and in fact, it looks drop-dead gorgeous.
The night scenes (which are the majority obviously) aren't anything special, although the fog and darkness effects are very well done, but during the daytime scenes, the game can be VERY pretty indeed. Even more so during cutscenes which, for some reason, look a billion times better than the gameplay scenes, even though they also seem to be real-time.
Alan Wake is constantly being hounded by the darkness for whatever reason (haven't finished the game yet!), and whenever you get to a dangerous area, the fog and darkness will start swirling and eddying all around you, which makes for one of the creepiest effects in the game.
Overall though, the game fails to actually become very scary.
Checkpoints are extremely liberally doled out, the action is really rather easy, you tend to have plenty of ammo and flashlight batteries and enemies never take that much damage.
There are some edge-of-your-seat moments, but the game has these clearly defined areas where you are in danger, so there's very little in terms of surprises.
Enemies do tend to pop up out of nowhere though, and this is my biggest gripe with the game. When a group of enemies appears (and it's ALWAYS a group), the camera pans out to show one guy approaching you.
What it does NOT show you is that that is the guy FURTHEST away from you, and that, in the meantime, at least 2 others will have popped up behind you to bash your skull in with an axe.
Enemies will CONSTANTLY be popping up from somewhere off camera, almost always managing to get a couple of hits in if you're not fast enough, which is a really cheap way of adding tension or difficulty to a game, especially considering that you can't take all that much damage. Most of the deaths I've suffered were completely unnecessary and cheap, because of a mean design decision.
But, like I said, plenty of checkpoints to go around, so it's not so bad.
The story is told largely through pieces of a manuscript scattered about the place.
These are pages that Alan Wake himself has apparently yet to write, and as such, they contain information on what's going to happen, as well as viewing past events through the eyes of other characters, which is pretty cool, even if the actual writing itself isn't all that clever.
That might be on purpose though, since I have the impression they're trying to make Alan Wake look like a bit of a B-grade writer.
It's pretty fun so far though, and it does have some nice "WTF" and "woah" moments.
Oh and it does look really really nice, did I mention that?
Well, it does.
Darksiders is...
...a total rip-off of God of War mixed with a total rip-off of Zelda, that somehow manages to end up less than the sum of its parts.
Which is not to say it's a bad game, mind you!
Because it's not!
It's very enjoyable, just don't expect anything new or surprising.
Also, Ulthane is awesome.
Man, I've been so busy working this month that Darksiders is the only game I've had time to play so far (>_<)
Need...more...slacking...time!
It's all for a good cause though!
I'm making sure the English version of King of Fighters XIII is going to be TOTALLY AWESOME ;)
