Category: _General

I Feel So Old…

There was almost no gaming for me to report this week; only on Friday did I recover from perhaps a little too much Mario Galaxy the previous week, and start a completely new instance of Panzer Dragoon Orta. Two playthroughs have been completed, and I’m dropping into the groove of it again – figuring out Gene Bases, boss tactics, all the fun stuff.

And it’s not hard to become immersed in the world of Orta – it’s absolutely beautiful, with the original Xbox upscaling to widescreen component with ease. The sound, too, is delightful, and the gameplay’s tighter than a gnat’s chuff. I’m loving it (again) so far, and can’t wait to start cranking the difficulty and push my play into more defensive directions.

The other big reason for minimal gaming this week was AVCon… and, as with last year’s event, it’s left me feeling old again.

Last year saw me bullied via PictoChat by a bunch of youngsters; this year, my advancing years were highlighted in the Retro Gaming Panel. The younger members of the audience mercilessly mocked older games that actually were piquing my interest, and their constant stream of criticism and loud-mouthed buffoonery just made me feel sad. Apart from that, though, the panel itself was pretty good, covering a handful of consoles from the nineties (including the CD-32 & PC Engine), though the Jaguar section was a little soft – Cybermorph and Aliens vs Predator? No T2K or Zero 5?

The gaming side of AVCon is getting bigger and better – as well as the plethora of consoles set up for free play: current gen all evenly represented, with a smattering of older consoles (NES, SNES, Dreamcast, N64) for nostalgia, and a bunch of booths for music games (Donkey Konga – or one of its ilk – got a fair old hammering all weekend). The LAN setup was pretty big, too, though I saw the odd connection errors during Quake III(!) play. The Indie games room was a bit of a gem – they had a massive amount of space, and with the increasing popularity of gaming on the iPhone and XBLIG, there were a couple of really professional looking titles on display. Look out for inCline on the iPhone… it’s a one-touch game (like Canabalt) that feels absolutely wonderful. Should be in the App Store in a couple of weeks, they reckon.

Yes, I splurged on anime and manga again; but at least I indulged in sweet, sweet irony by making sure that Halo Legends was the first Blu-Ray I ever purchased. Didn’t attend either cosplay competition, but I did see an amazing Midna (from Zelda: Twilight Princess) wandering the halls.

And… that’s about my week. Next week: more Orta! More Crackdown 2! And, perhaps, the start of the only thing approaching a JRPG I have outstanding… Chrono Trigger…

AfterGalaxyCrackdown

Something I neglected to mention last week was that I’d managed to ignore my previously steely resolve regarding the purchasing of perhaps (retail therapeutically) unnecessary games in purchasing After Burner Climax when it was on sale on XBLA recently. Post-blogging last Sunday night, I sat down and played it for the first time… and bugger me if it wasn’t a barrel of fun. Lots of things flying about at breakneck speed, Achievements popping left and right, and an extras system that frequently unlocked ways to make the game more explodey and… easy.

Yes, ABC is one of a select group of games that seems intent on making it significantly easier for the gamer the more they play… and it’s not just a matter of practise making perfect. The EX options steadily add options that make the task at hand (at worst, a fifteen minute run through a dozen stages) a doddle: auto-fire, increased lock-on capabilities, decreased damage rates. So, after a handful of runs though the game, all the EX options are unlocked, the Achievements on offer are cleaned up, and I’m ready to knock ABC off The List almost as quickly as it appeared on it…

…until I dug around the Score Attack section of the game. More specifically, the Medals awarded for various events in Score Attack mode. The Score Attack mode which, in the interests of fairness, doesn’t allow any of the EX options to be enabled when blasting through the game. And – to be quite honest – I’m fucking rubbish at After Burner. My aiming reticule zips across the screen with no semblance of control, my fighter plane is rolling almost constantly, and the enemy appear to just hang out in the distance, giggling at my inept piloting.

And those Score Attack medals… they mock me. My OCD is terrified of them now, and I have that bitter taste of disappointment in my mouth that I usually get when I make a rash purchase that lingers, goading me.

In short: another game on The List that will take ages to cross off, even with all the GamerSmarties acquired.

Crackdown 2 also got a bit of a hammering this week, with a little elbow grease yielding decent progress. I was pottering along at a comfortable rate of an Achievement-a-day, which was nice; a few clever exploits coughed up all the Renegade Agility Orbs, and then I started on a few races, a few Renegade Driving Orbs. But on Friday, I went chasing one particular Orb; scooting around canyons, in all manner of vehicles, frustration rose… and then something snapped. The experience was, quite tangibly, not fun. I turned off the 360, and fired up the Wii…

…for a return to Super Mario Galaxy 2. I was already well into the Green Star Challenge, which I was lock-stepping with my Luigi playthrough – finishing a level with Luigi unlocks a staff ghost, just the kind of content I love. And in the last couple of days I have absolutely caned SMG2; the Luigi playthrough is complete, all the Green Stars have been obtained, and the Grandmaster Galaxy opened up as a result.

Now, Star 241 – The Ultimate Test – wasn’t too difficult; sure, a lot of lives were lost exploring the worlds contained therein, but that was just practise, really. Star 242 – The Perfect Run – was a return to the same worlds… but in a one-hit, no checkpoint, daredevil format. And I don’t mind admitting that I attempted that level upwards of 150 times – lots of little mistakes ending promising runs – before finally managing what was, indeed, The Perfect Run.

And, just like that, Super Mario Galaxy 2 was off The List.

Somewhere along the line, the ability to display the Death Count on the SMG2 save file is unlocked; when I saved after acquiring that 242nd Star, the Death Count read 1257. That’s a lot of deaths… but a hell of a lot of fun. Not once during this weekend’s onslaught did the game feel like a chore, or an impossible challenge; I was always aware of what was required of me, and all the mistakes were my own. Compare and contrast to Crackdown 2, where I constantly feel like I have to exploit the game to garner any progress from it; compare also to Uncharted, which I fired up to celebrate SMG2‘s passing… and quickly switched off again.

That’s the thing about Great Games, isn’t it; they may not be the prettiest, but they’re always upstaging their shinier cousins.

CrackdownGalaxy

The past week began with me wholly immersed in Super Mario Galaxy 2; I was anxious to get through the first batch of 120 Stars before the arrival of Crackdown 2 later in the week. Tuesday night saw the final two stars (including the terrifying cousin of Luigi’s Purple Coins) succumb; a replay of the divine final level then unlocked the Green Star Challenge, another 120 collectible stars. Then I discovered that playing through levels as Luigi unlocks staff ghosts, full of nifty tricks & techniques… so now the target is to play through the whole game again as Luigi, collect all the Green Stars, and polish off whatever else gets in the way.

So – a long term project, then.

Thanks to JB Hifi reliably breaking street-date again, Crackdown 2 was welcomed into The Moobaarn… and first impressions were mixed. The opening cutscenes felt muddled, and first steps were disappointing; the once cheery and vibrant Pacific City was now decaying, decrepit. The distinct gangs of the original were sorely missed, replaced by an anonymous night-time foe that annoyed me so much in my early progress that I feared the in-game darkness.

But, technically, the game looked amazing; the graphics harken back to those on display during the original Crackdown‘s development, a gorgeously solid cel-shaded-lite. And the draw-distance is incredible… incredible. Looking from atop the Agency Tower, it’s possible to spot details of action within each of the three islands… it’s really quite an amazing achievement.

The gameplay, though…

Oh dear.

Initially, I was nonplussed – run here, cause some damage, open up progress to the next little bit. But then comes the first big Freak battle, defending your beacon from the oncoming hordes – and I’m lost. I get mercilessly pummelled, confidence shattered, and my desire to continue evaporates.

So I decided to sidestep those particular battles and play the rest of the game instead. Orb collection, rooftop races, stunt rings… all the side-quests that are so memorable from the original. And that was genuinely enjoyable – my OCD kicked in, I started collecting away like a busy little bee, and the hours flew by.

Strength was my first attribute to max out at Level 5, unleashing a wonderful ground-pound that has since become my signature get-out-of-trouble move. Agility soon followed, allowing all the freedom associated with unrestricted bounding around the city… but it also allows access to the biggest gamebreaker in Crackdown 2: the helicopter.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love the helicopter, I really do, but its inclusion in this game (along with the new “orb-sonar” ping that can be performed using the minimap) butchers the OCD-aspects that made the original Crackdown so satisfying. It’s now possible to cruise around the world eyeballing for Agility Orbs, making the quest to find all 500 quite straightforward (it took me less than four days, maybe less than 20 hours game-time). Hidden Orbs are a little trickier, but a regimented scan-and-sweep dug them up without too many problems.

So – with most of the game done (except for those loathsome beacon protection battles), OCD thirst quenched, and my head sore from beating it against the wall from the frustration of some of the later rooftop races, I was pretty down on Crackdown 2. I considered it a passable attempt at carrying on the legacy of the first game (my game of the year from 2007, I remind you), but bits had been changed for the worst without any improvements being added. Kinda like No More Heroes 2 in that regard, I guess, but nowhere near as disappointing…

But still disappointing.

And then a friend of mine popped online – he’d snaffled Crackdown 2 last Tuesday. I ping him; his world or mine? He joins my game, and all of a sudden everything changes. We leap into beacon defence situations and blast through them with barely a scratch. We fall back into old Crackdown habits of attempting a silly stunt then failing then blowing the crap out of each other with rockets, then attempting the stunt again. It’s brilliant with a partner by your side; all the depressing bits about the game are forgotten, you revel in the fun. My game gets finished in short order, so we switch to his, more objectives conquered and Orbs sought and experiments performed. Give me a pair of mag grenades, a helicopter, and an SUV, and I’ll show you two men laughing their arses off at the result.

I’d be hard pressed to think of a game that manages to change so drastically with the presence of a second person; Crackdown 2 manages to transform from a grind-to-the-finish experience into something that I wish I was playing right now. Sure, there’s still a stack of Achievements that need achieving, races to be run, and rings to be leapt through, but what I really want to do is grab a UV Shotgun in one hand and Cluster Grenades in the other, sitting in a car suspended beneath a helicopter until the pilot takes a turn too quickly tossing my SUV into the heli blades destroying them both, resulting in a five minute rampage around Pacific City while I try to stuff a grenade down his throat. Then we beat up bad guys.

What a great week :)

A New Era…

Last night I had cause to look something up on this blog – a quip I’d made at some stage – and happened to notice that it was nearly three months since I’d posted an entry here. That caught me a little by surprise, really; and now it’s time to make amends, and time to get back to writing. And I’ll open with a grandiose statement:

It’s a new era at The Moobaarn.

Indeed, it’s a new Moobaarn.

In the three months since my last post on this blog, I’ve moved house, bought my first new TV in over 15 years, and – gasp! – acquired a brand spanking new PS3. Luckily, those last two events were linked, thanks to Sony’s latest promotion; I’ve not assisted SCE’s ledger by actually purchasing one of their now-profitable bits of gaming hardware. And the out-of-box experience is great; it’s a lovely chunk of kit, and was set up with no real drama.

Turning the PS3 on yielded another story. It strikes me that the XMB at the core of the PS3’s interface is every bit as cumbersome as the original blade interface of the 360, and completely at odds with the ten-foot interface paradigms of the Wii and the NXE. I reckon the interface – like the DualShock controller, something I’ve never really got on with – was designed by engineers, for engineers; the organisation and design is very clean and regular (symmetrical, in the case of the DualShock), but it fails to compensate for the volume of information… it just doesn’t feel fit-for-purpose, lumbering under the load of the options forced upon it by the opportunities afforded by the hardware.

Anyway, enough bitching.

Having a big HD telly for the first time led me to crack out some of the more graphically impressive 360 titles; Bayonetta‘s arse looks spectacular, Prince of Persia a cel-shaded work of art, and Space Giraffe even crazier than I remember. I tried getting my eye back into the twin-stick-shooter genre with little success (Mutant Storm Reloaded and Geometry Wars Evolved^2 both rebuffing my advances), and there was even some Halo 3 multiplayer during a zombie-themed Double-XP weekend that netted a few new achievements. Yes, the acquisition of a HD TV certainly performed wonders for my flagging gaming mojo.

Prior to delivery of my new TV, though, I was stuck in my new Moobaarn with most of my possessions trapped away in a barely stable structure of boxes. Sure, my old TV had been setup, but the 360 and Wii were buried underneath scores of books and old videotapes that had (perhaps mistakenly) also made the move. Desperate to make some impact on The List, I dug out my original Xbox and started flicking through the pending titles there; Panzer Dragoon Orta got a bit of a bash, but surprisingly I spent a fair wodge of time playing TimeSplitters 2. Now, I’ve ranted at length at this game on various internet fora, especially targeting those that recommended that game to me; as the second console FPS I ever played, it was a woefully abysmal experience compared to Halo. In fact, the in-game stats indicated that I’d spent a scant six hours playing TS2, completing it on the easiest difficulty setting, before running away to play something that felt right. I really didn’t like it at all.

Those same in-game stats, however, indicated that I’d only “completed” 10% of the game on offer… and that just doesn’t sit well with my OCD. So I started churning through some of the Arcade and Challenge modes, determined to attain Gold Trophies in all events… and, lo and behold, I found myself actually enjoying the game! What a pleasant surprise. Anyway, the percentage had crept up to about 34% by the time the new telly arrived and the old Xbox was consigned to a disused part of the entertainment unit; I will return to play more TimeSplitters 2, though, you mark my words.

My sole PS3 purchase so far has been the original Uncharted, and… well, colour me unimpressed. Woolly controls, glaringly shiny teeth, and paint-by-numbers action has done little to warm me; it really does feel like a prettied-up Tomb Raider clone with an awful lack of precision. In its defence, I’m only about half-way through the game, but my favourite bits thus far have been the oft-maligned jetski sections. Sure, Uncharted 2 may have been the critic’s choice for 2009, but on the strength of its predecessor I’m not sure I’ll bother.

But the good thing about this experience is that I think I’m starting to crystallise what appeals to me as a gamer. Without wanting to sound patronising in any way, Uncharted conjures up the same feeling, the same approach and mood, as Gears of War did for me; not in the gameplay (though there’s certainly some similarities there too), but in the way it’s presented: linear progression with well-defined set-pieces. And, just as GoW irked me massively (co-op hijinks with friends notwithstanding), I think Uncharted is going to pan out the same way.

Ummmmm, what else have I been doing in the last couple of months? Well, I’ve knocked two Wii games – The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Super Paper Mario – off the list, the latter being a paniccy weekend completion of one of my aforementioned In Case Of Emergency games when I realised that I wasn’t getting my skills together to complete Wii Play. Yes, the best part of five grand dropped on a nice new HD telly, and I’ve spent most of my time playing Wii games. And that continues even now, with the local release of Super Mario Galaxy 2 last Thursday… a couple of days solid play has allowed me to gather 118 Power Stars, enough to access one of the finest levels of gaming I’ve ever encountered… but more on that later.

Next week? Crackdown 2… and I cannot fucking wait. Which makes me reflect on the fantastic world we live in; only a fortnight ago, I wandered into my preferred vendor of gaming goodness and slapped down pre-orders on Super Mario Galaxy 2, Crackdown 2, and Halo: Reach, and two of those are released within a week of each other. How awesome is that?

BrütalTexasShadowPrincess

Well, my Gaming Mojo still appears to be missing a little bit, with distractions like my upcoming move into a new Moobaarn and a certain girl commandeering huge chunks of my time. But I’m forcing myself to push on with my gaming; luckily, my current selections lend themselves to that particular absent-minded approach.

Zelda: Twilight Princess is the main focus at the moment, and it’s proving to be perfect brain-off, plodding-progress gaming. I’m about 34 hours in on my second playthrough, halfway through the second “quest” of the game, and it’s proving to be enjoyable enough – though, almost necessarily, not nearly as emotionally engaging as my first encounter. Though, surprisingly, it’s proving to be much easier than I remember; I wonder how much of this is due to my familiarity with the Wii controls now, as opposed to launch-day nervous excitement?

My good mate Spencer finally got a free night for some Achievement whoring, so we organised an interstate Xbox Live play-date and managed to rack up a plethora of ranked online wins to clean up my online Achievements for Brütal Legend. A spot of single-player AI battling, a perusal of all the Tour Diary and Concept Art entries, and boom – that’s another one off The List. Sixty-nine to go.

A bit of sporting – and hilarious – card divulging saw my penultimate Texas Hold’em Achievement fall, thanks to Spencer’s help. And there was a little single-player thrashing of Shadow Complex, too, leaving me just one-and-a-half XP levels shy of my final Achievement there; unfortunately, that one has a series of “internal” Achievements which I feel I must satisfy before crossing it off The List, and those tasks are… daunting.

So – an uninspired entry, this one. I may well ease up over the next few weeks; the Big Move is about a month away, there’s much fussing to be done before then, and every entry is likely to read “Mopey. Did a bit of grinding. Got some stuff done. Hurrah.” Christ, even I don’t like reading that sort of stuff over and over, and it’s my bloody blog! ;)

FroggerTwilightPlay

As I noted last week – between the lines – my gaming mojo’s been a-wandering post-Fringe. Initially, I thought this was the usual post-Fringe malaise but, as this week drew on and I still had no yearning for any gaming at all (save my brain-waking sudoku, which surprisingly works wonders for my concentration at work), I began to think something else was wrong. Maybe it was the French Film Festival, patchy in quality and attendance, or maybe it was the running around associated with fitting my new abode out prior to my arrival. Or maybe it’s a distraction of the feminine persuasion, buried deep within my mind and ever-so-delightfully niggling me, keeping my usual thought processes slightly off-kilter.

Whatever.

An unofficial target I set myself is to knock at least one game off The List every calendar month – hey, if I can at least manage that, I’m making some progress, right?

Oh wait – I typically buy more than a dozen games a year. Christ, I’ve bought three this year, and the glut is yet to come.

Bugger.

…but yes, finish one game a month. And that tends to make February and March a little stressful, given that they both get impacted rather heavily by the Fringe. February got off easy this year, with Portal falling early in the month, but March was always going to be a bit problematic.

I’ve got a couple of nearly-completed games that I always figured I could use In Case Of Emergency – there’s a dialogue-tree run-through of Super Paper Mario which couldn’t be more than a day’s work, maybe another weekend recipe collecting for Paper Mario. Super Galdelic Hour is a bit nebulous on its completion requirements – I’ve got a feeling the mysterious sketch that gets displayed at the end of a season will become ever more detailed, but I’ve no idea what may trigger that event. And Electroplankton… well, how hard can it be to explore those little sub-games?

And so I was moping around on Friday, resigned to the fact that I was going to have to pick up one of these games again, essentially playing a trump-card. But the very idea scared me; panicking, I started thinking of other long-shots: snaffling another 25 ranked wins on Brütal Legend? Not likely. A bit of quick whoring and a couple of wins of Texas Hold’em? Ugh – my poker ability is up there with my FPS skills. And then it hit me: Frogger.

A quick perusal of the usual haunts, and I found an amazing co-op “partner” (well, I say partner, but let’s face it – he did all the work) in BUGAJ75 RETURNS, whose ruthless efficiency and friendliness was exemplary… so much so that I actually registered with x360a just to leave him positive feedback (amonst other sites). And so, after about twenty minutes… Frogger was off The List. After nearly four years.

(Four years, eh? Oh yes – this past week also marked the fourth anniversary of my original launch Xbox 360, bless it’s rowdy fans.)

So the unofficial milestone had been reached – but the mojo was still AWOL. And I started mulling on some of the other “unofficial” benchmarks I’d set myself – like trying to knock off as many Wii games prior to acquiring a monstrous HD TV. So I looked at my List again, and thought “fuck it – Wii Play must succumb.”

Now, my Wii Play requirements are pretty lax: Gold Medals in every mini-game (yes, I know there’s Platinum Medals in there too, but if you think I’m playing through one hundred levels of Tanks, then you’re sorely mistaken). So far, I’m missing three: Find Mii (an annoying dirtbag of a game), Pose Mii (an insolent shit of a game), and Tanks (which I’m not very good at). A bit of practise absolutely failed to get me anywhere near my previous high-scores, but I shall persevere – and it shall fall.

Finally, though, I started a 100% run through Twilight Princess. I must admit to having dreaded the prospect – my memory of the early parts of the game (fuelled by my own blog post) was one of wading through stupefyingly twee boring bits before getting to the Zelda dungeon goodness. So it was with some trepidation that I started the game and selected a new save-file.

I don’t know what the hell I was talking about, really – it felt like less than an hour passed before I was rid of all the cat-feeding, goat-herding, annoying-child dullness and wodged deep into the game proper. And bloody hell, it’s good, isn’t it? Having a read around this evening, I was actually amazed that the Wikipedia entry for Twilight Princess states that it’s often considered the Best Zelda Ever; I wonder whether I’ll be espousing the same opinion by the end of the game (especially on the tail end of having had no less than seven 100% Zelda playthroughs last year).

Je Retourne (2010 Edition)

Hello again!

So: the Fringe this year was good – blindingly good, in fact – and, coupled with an appropriate Festival, ensured that I got zero gaming done (apart from the odd brain-awakening game of Sudoku on the iPhone) for over four weeks. And, unlike last year, I didn’t miss gaming at all – mainly because I was too busy either filling my mind with arty stuff (120 shows all up), or my gullet with alcohol (equal parts Asahi and house reds), or talking to many culturally far-flung people, or all of the above. It was easily one of the greatest months of my life…

…which could explain why, when I returned to my Other Hobby after a month, I was so utterly disappointed by what I found before me.

I’d received my NTSC copy of No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle from Play-Asia mere days into my self-imposed gaming exile and, while tempted, I managed to leave it in the shrink-wrap until last Tuesday. Somewhat rested and dragging my sleep patterns back into off-season normalcy, I fired up the Wii and began Travis Touchdown’s second outing.

And, from the opening sequence, there’s something that rubs me the wrong way about NMH2. Maybe it’s the more detailed textures on the character models that ruin the semi-cel-shading; maybe it’s the immersion-breakers. Hey, the original game revelled in the knowledge that it was a game, but the sequel flaunts it like a drunken D-cup bridesmaid on a hen’s night, with fourth-wall-breaking references a-plenty in the opening hours.

Whilst I can understand the majority of complaints about the clunky overworld in the original game, its absence in the sequel makes the whole experience feel empty and disconnected. There used to be a real sense of purpose – no matter how monotonous – about having to ride to the High School to take on Shinobu, or to the baseball stadium to meet Bad Girl; now, their counterparts are just a menu item, something trivial on a list to cross off once beaten. There’s also no character to any of the new bosses; they’re essentially anonymous until you get the garish “DEAD” message and discover their name for the first time.

In fact, there’s so much that appears to be changed for no reason – the aforementioned texture tweaks (resulting in a muddy look), the lower camera angles, and the slightly faster – but seemingly less fluid – combat are all steps backwards, in my book. Even the ability to play as both Henry and Shinobu is handled clumsily, with the latter introducing a precision jumping mechanic to a game that really shouldn’t have one. The real-time weapon change is nice, though (but I thought you needed the power of the Playstation 3 for that? ;)

And then there’s the gamebreakers – getting stuck in endless knockdown loops. Changing katanas leaves you immobile and invincible for longer-than-a-moment – but not when that instakill satellite beam is being used. The penultimate boss battle seems to have not been playtested at all, and is plagued by incredibly crap timing; once you’re knocked down, it’s only by the grace of god that you can actually get up again before your health is depleted. And in a late bit of dialogue, the subtitles used “your” instead of “you’re”. Really? Quality control is that lax?

Eventually, after 11 hours (which included a fair bit of whoring, foolishly expecting extra weapons to appear in the lab run by the now-completely-ridiculous Naomi), I finally beat the lacklustre final boss. And, just like much of the action preceding it, the ending is disappointingly perfunctory; there’s no surprise denouement, no sting in the tail, nothing clever.

Now, I accept that I may not have been in the best mental state to play this game; I always suffer a bit of a depression when the constant mind-stretching delight of the Fringe wraps every year, felt more acutely this year on account of the personal connections I made over the period that I’m desperate to not lose. And it’s through this haze of malaise that I viewed NMH2.

Remember that I love the original game; it was my Game of the Year in 2008. And I recognise that I only began to truly love it on about the third playthrough.

And at all times – even on the first playthrough – I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed belting through NMH2.

Where the original was original and witty, astute and brash, and with solid gameplay to match, the sequel seems to rely on the tone alone, rather than the mechanics. In making the NMH2 a more mainstream production – decision described by most reviewers as “fixing all the bad bits of the original” – Grasshopper have callously ignored all the things that made the original great, making change after pointless change, leaving behind an almost completely soulless experience.

Yes, I’ll give it another couple of playthroughs – my OCD demands that much – but I can’t see NMH2 growing on me the same way the original did. Here’s hoping it does… but it has a very, very deep dark pit to climb out of first.

Tapering Off…

I should be winding down at the moment; tapering off my gaming a little, in preparation for my regular assault on the Adelaide Fringe (and, since this is an even year, the Adelaide Festival of the Arts). I set myself the task of writing a little something about every show I see and, since I tend to be a little… ummm… greedy with what I choose to see, that equates to a lot of blogging. Which means I often get bogged down and tend to put things off a little. For example, I only finished writing about the last show of 2009 – from 22 March – last weekend.

But that’s something for my other blog – this one’s reserved for gaming. And, as I opened, I should be winding down.

Should be.

Instead, this week a little Achievement-hunting gremlin crawled inside my skull and started wreaking havoc. Not content with wrapping up the remaining goals from Portal, I started hunting for other easy points; Shadow Complex obliged with a couple of easy Achievements, leaving a little bit of grinding for the one remaining cheevo (and an awful lot of practise for the Master Challenges). One of my old gaming chums helped out with a bit of Texas Hold’em whoring (and he still owes me a million dollars or so – right, Spencer? ;)

Another friend was keen to wrap up a few games, so I returned to Burnout Paradise for a quick run around Big Surf Island, and a little bit of cops & robbers. We followed that with a blast through Jetpac Refuelled, followed by some Brütal Legend multiplayer hijinks. All up, he snaffled 270 points – not bad for a couple of hours’ work.

A return to ODST‘s Firefight mode with the old crew yielded a ton of fun… well, fun and panic and swearing, anyway. And no Achievements. But it was a timely reminder that there is much fun left in that title, which seems to have fallen off the radar markedly, what with all the Mass Effects and Modern Warfare 2s and Bayonettas of the world. A bit of a shame, that.

So, as demonstrated above, my “winding down” has proved to be one of the most varied and frenetic weeks in a year or two… and I’ve just got an e-mail from Play-Asia to say that my copy of No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle is on its way. Oh, and I managed to find a copy of the out-of-print Bayonetta Witch of Vigrid coffee-table book (lovely, but overpriced) and the Climax Bible (which, despite the fact that I can’t read a single glyph of anything Japanese, is wonderful – lovely glossy presentation & chock-full of information). And I also pre-ordered Bayonetta and Jeanne figures. Because hey, my mortgage payments are going to be dented by the Fringe anyway, right?

And so I bid you (all four regular readers, anyway) adieu for a month or so. The Festivals wrap on March 14, so expect some sleep-deprived ramblings about the joys of Shinobu and Travis’ return sometime thereafter. Game on!

Bayonetta’s ShadowPortal

This week began as the previous couple did: with the glorious Bayonetta. I’m still utterly smitten with both the lady and her game, and managed to polish off not only a run through the Non-Stop Infinite Climax difficulty, but all the Alfheim Portals as well – leading to all the Achievements associated with the game being unlocked, and my overall GamerScore just sneaking above 92% (23,867 of a possible 25,940). Hurrah!

But that’s not the end of Bayonetta, oh no – there’s a small matter of unlocking the additional characters, and performing complete runs with those, too… and a little obstacle called Angel Slayer, a bonus level unlocked once all the Alfheim levels were completed. To say that Angel Slayer is tricky is an understatement; there’s fifty-one individual “rooms” in the level, and I’ve successfully managed to beat twelve of them.

So there’s a bit of work left to do there, then ;)

After a friend pointed out that Portal: Still Alive was the XBLA deal of the week, I decided to buy it and see what I’d been missing. You see, I’ve played precious little of this much-lauded game: a few quick levels when the demo was first released on XBLA had been my entire experience, even though I knew full well that the game didn’t really get going until the late-teen levels.

So – time to rectify this (supposed) gaping hole in my gaming experience.

…blimey, that last level is pretty special, isn’t it?

To be fair, my experience with Portal is probably a little compromised because of all the hype that preceded it; there was no way it could possibly have matched the frothing exaltations and Game-of-the-Year nominations. Yes, it’s a wonderfully unique experience, but it’s more of an amusé than a banquet, a fact that it seems to accept and revel in. And really, there’s only five levels of content there – but, as I alluded to before, that last level is certainly worth experiencing.

Finally this week was a return to Shadow Complex to complete a 100% items run. It was pretty easy on Hardcore and, when the going got tough in some select boss battles, I simply dropped the difficulty down momentarily – a feature which I hope many more games take advantage of. Dunno how I’m going to manage that ChAIRness internal Achievement, though.

Of course, it’s rapidly approaching that games-free time of year for me – there’s less than a fortnight before the start of the Adelaide Fringe. And I’ve only just finished writing up last year’s events!

Quicker and Dirtier…

A couple more Bayonetta notes is all you’re getting this week.

Firstly, finish the game to unlock the Couture options. Purchase the Witch Queen Couture Bullet, then change to that costume (RB at the Chapter Select screen). Now play the game again, watching all the cutscenes. It’s filthy… but in a totally good way.

Now do it all again, but with the P.E. Uniform. And then the Various – Type B costume.

Oh my.

Lest this blog become a teenage-ish outlet for physical lust, let’s mention the game again: it’s still bloody brilliant. My complaints last week about the difficult of Hard have been completely scotched after a bit of experimentation with the purchasable items; some nice combinations led to a Saturday-afternoon hammering of Hard mode, and an eventual completion time of a touch over three hours. Replay one botched level, and bang – 2:59:58, enough to unlock yet another item in The Gates of Hell. And now I’m coasting through the Non-Stop Infinite Climax skill level; that should be wrapped up by Australia Day.

Then there’s the simple matter (ho ho) of wrapping up some of the Alfheim Portals (little challenge levels within the game), and I’ll have nabbed all the GamerScore available to me from the game. But that doesn’t mean that Bayonetta will soon be off The List, oh no – there’s so many little unlockables within the game that I don’t even really consider myself a third of the way there yet. And that’s after nearly sixty hours!

I’ve got a few other games like that hanging over me on the 360; Rez HD really does require 100%-shot-down runs, and Ninety-Nine Nights has a whole lot of random drops to collect. But that’s the price I pay for being me, for letting my OCD have its way with my gaming hobby.

And I think about the sixty hours invested in Bayonetta so far, with the prospect of at least a hundred more, and I quiver with joyful anticipation :)

Quick and Dirty…

Not much to talk about this week, really…

Thanks again SEGA person :)
Oh wait, there really is a lot to talk about :)

I’m really, truly loving this. Three playthroughs (on the three easiest settings) have yielded a bunch of strategies that I know will be completely useless when I start playing on Hard – in fact, I started a Hard playthrough today and got summarily thumped by the more aggressively devious AI and additional enemies. Grace & Glory in the Prologue? You’ve got to be kidding me!

There’s just so much in Bayonetta; even tonight, after 45 hours of playtime, I discovered a new Torture Attack animation. I’m still getting to grips with Durga and Lt. Kilgore, and the Alfheim Levels? Crazy.

So much to do. So little time.

BayonettaComplex

Post-blogging last week, I started a run-through of Shadow Complex on Insane… blimey! That’s a tricky bugger. Consulting online guides indicated that the usual plan of attack on that difficulty level involves the early acquisition of one of the Golden Guns… which, in turn, are only unlocked after a 100% run-through of the game. Which, of course, I had buggered up by not acquiring a particular item before a certain game event. Which is a bit annoying, I must say. I soldiered on as much as I could, before dropping the difficulty down a notch… or two. Efforts will be ongoing with Shadow Complex, I think; even more so, given the extra internal achievements – including the implausible 100%-ing Insane in less than 3 hours.

But enough about that; this week was really all about Bayonetta. Waaaaay back in May last year, I wrote the following:

To be honest, though, my mind has been more focussed on a game that’s still some months off: Bayonetta. Ever since I first laid eyes on the initial teaser trailer, I’ve been gagging for more goodies from Platinum – and they’ve delivered some delicious tidbits on the complexities of modelling Bayonetta’s arse. Now, I’m a bit of a fan of a bit of female protagonist posterior, and Bayonetta backs that up with some nutball looking action – I can’t wait.

And, ever since then, anticipation fuelled expectation and led to a game that I had hyped to the max in my own head.

But you know what?

My expectations – and hence, the hype – have been absolutely met.

Bayonetta is lush. There is so much spit-and-polish on the entire package that it gleams. It oozes style and class – and, most overtly, sexuality. Hideki Kamiya has most certainly succeeded in his desire to create a sexy witch, and the engine-driven cinematics (as well as the demon-invoking incantation scenettes) really flaunt Bayonetta’s gorgeous form – sometimes embarrassingly so. Certainly, this is targeted at a more adolescent market than the one I’m supposed to be in, but believe me – I’m not complaining.

The action is fast and furious, and every chapter managed to elicit a genuine exclamation of “what the fuck??!?” There’s plenty of fan-service – not only for those eager to view the female form, but also more senior game players, with cheeky and good-natured homage paid to previous Sega properties. Sure, there’s a few sticking points – the final boss battle had be a bit exasperated and backtracking for goodies, leading to a fair amount of item whoring in my Normal playthrough of 31 hours (Kamiya reckons the first playthrough should be about ten-to-twelve hours) but I admit to having a big sloppy grin on my face for the vast majority of it. The second playthrough (on the very aptly named Very Easy difficulty) was a spot over six hours; item and skill acquisitions are preserved, which should be the break I need to be able to get through the Hard and Non-Stop Infinite Climax (yes, that really is the name) difficulties. However, some of the tasks required to unlock goodies in-game verge on the silly; finish Normal in less than three hours? Get Platinum medals for every chapter? Dreaming.

It’s by no means a perfect game – for some inexplicable reason, the camera speed defaults to mogadon mode, which frustrated me immensely until I poked around the menus a bit. The narrative aspect of the game is also lacking; the opening exposition takes place during an inconsequential battle (yes, I know I raved about how No More Heroes does almost the same thing, but this just didn’t seem to work), and the story itself is a little… ermmm… odd. But there’s so much Good Stuff in Bayonetta that drowns those criticisms out; cheeky laughs and flirty winks, humour a-plenty, and some of the most bizarre battles I’ve ever seen.

And much more besides, but I’ll not mention that for the moment – it’s still too soon. I’ve been blessed by folks who got me one of my copies a couple of days early, so I accept that there are many who’ve yet to experience the glory of Bayonetta. But I implore you – play through on Normal. Watch all of the credit sequences. There’s some fantastic stuff in there :D

PhantomMawComplex

Hot on the heels of my 2010 Gaming Resolutions, I’ve managed to knock a couple of games off The List already. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass was conquered in little more than a week, starting on Christmas Day and being wrapped up on the second day of the New Year. All ship parts were obtained (using massive whoring of the Temple of the Ocean King), and I also learned to love the archery mini-game. I even managed to catch a stowfish!

Late December saw Microsoft offer some discounts on Xbox Live goodies, so I bought Shadow Complex sight-unseen. Initially impressive, I’m now suffering some buyer’s remorse – the first hour is thrilling stuff, but thereafter it manages to feel like a bit of a grind. There’s something about the presentation of the game that also triggers memories of Undertow – fair enough, I guess, with Chair Entertainment responsible for both titles – but that also reminded me at how underappreciated that game was. Chair needs to work on their character models, too – some of the cutscenes were terrifying. I’ve since had nightmares about Claire’s teeth.

Another impromptu purchase was The Maw, which utterly charmed me in its demo form. A beautiful, concise game, it only took a handful of hours to 100% the game… but it was perfectly weighted.

So there you have it. Two games done. Short and sweet, since I’m not really in a writing mood. Next week, however… Bayonetta. I’ve been waiting for this game since the very first trailer, I’m going to be completely crap at it… but I’ll love every second :)

My 2010 Gaming Resolutions

Last year was purportedly a great gaming year for me; it felt like I made massive inroads into The List, knocking off tricky games left and right, and generally reducing the psychological weight of The List.

The problem is, that’s not really how the numbers played out.

Sixteen on, sixteen off. And that’s sixteen new games that got added to The List, as well as a whole bunch of Forgotten Games.

And that leaves The List at a bulging 71 at the turn of the decade. And, when I made a list of Gaming Resolutions for 2009, they were geared around containing the sprawl; let’s review how I did, shall we?

…to Complete at least two Zelda games. I want to play through them all in release chronological order, and (as I indicated last week) I’m getting close to wrapping up a 100% run on Ocarina of Time. But then what – do I go on to Majora’s Mask (which I’ve never played) or follow-up with the Ocarina Master Quest? Decisions, decisions.

Verdict: Success! Not only did I knock off both Ocarinas (three 100% playthroughs for the year!), but I managed a 100% run through Majora’s and two 100% runs through Wind Waker. And I’m also currently waiting on Lady Luck to deliver me a 100% complete Phantom Hourglass; so consider this Resolution resolved!

…to Complete at least two PS2 games. This scares me a little, really – of the eight games there, three are rhythm action games (which I’m notoriously bad at), the Katamaris are O/C collection nightmares, and Bujingai is as hard as nails on the higher skill levels.

Verdict: Oooooh… not so successful, this one. I started a pair of games with every intention of Completing them… but Katamari Damacy is reluctant to let me roll up all the countries of the world, and N2O proved to be a right bastard; I didn’t even attack the easy-ish Super Galdelic Hour. Fail.

…to Complete at least four(!) from the PC, Nuon, Dreamcast, and Jaguar groups. Holy shit!

Verdict: This started so well, with Full Throttle succumbing early, but GridRunner Revolution and Tempest 2000 both proved to be roadblocks. ChuChu Rocket! tempted but was sadly forgotten. Target of four, total of one? Fail.

…to keep on top of stuff obtained through the year. In 2008, I managed to Complete 11 of 18 new purchases – let’s aim for a similar target of 60%

Sixteen new additions; six of those were completed. 37.5% sounds like another Fail to me. I even toyed with the idea of including my handful of iPhone game purchases to help out with the target (four bought, four completed), but that seemed too much like cheating ;)

That all totals up to a pretty grim ledger, I reckon. So why not make up another set of Resolutions that are equally unrealistic, and have something to work with during the year?

And so, in 2010, I resolve…

  • …to leave 2010 with The List pared back to… oooh, let’s say 64. Because it’s a nice number :)
  • …to keep on top of stuff obtained through the year. Last year’s goal of 60% seemed reasonable at the time, but was hurt by a flurry of purchases late in the year; let’s aim for 50% in 2010.
  • …to not go overboard in the purchasing stakes. In retrospect, there’s a couple of titles that were picked up this year that… you know… were probably a little too retail therapy-ish. This year, I’ll just buy a cake instead. Or maybe put the money towards the mortgage ;)
  • …to make an impact on every platform. Sure, that leaves the Nuon looking a little dicey (Tempest 3000 is bound to be at least one thousand harder than Tempest 2000, and Ballistic is a Zuma-like – ie, shit – game), and the GameCube lineup is in the ninja-zone, but let’s give it a bash anyway.
  • …to not give up so soon. Ten games were started in anger (that’s what the spreadsheet column is called) and not Completed this year; blimey that’s soft. Time to cut that shit out.

Ooof. I don’t like the look of that lot already, and with a flurry of must-haves incoming (I’ve been looking forward to Bayonetta for eighteen months, and there’s at least two Suda51 releases in the first half of the year… not to mention Zelda: Spirit Tracks!), that means I’m going to have to really start cleaning up some of these older games. But the goal should be to push The List into modernity, thinning out older platforms, and I reckon these are pretty reasonable steps in that direction.

And finally, cut’n’pasting a line from last year’s post… What are your Gaming Resolutions for 2010?

2009: The Year in Review

2009 was quite a weird one for me; even as I acknowledge my dearth of console gaming knowledge, I’ve never felt more distant from the gaming mainstream. I managed to ignore the miniscule lure of the PS3 for another twelve months, I still don’t do Rock Band, I’ve avoided Borderlands and the Fallout series like they were OCD quicksand, and semi-realist games like Forza 3 and Modern Warfare 2 tick none of my boxes. In fact, the only mainstream toe-dipping I reckon I’ve done this year are with Halo 3: ODST, New Super Mario Brothers Wii and, maybe, Brütal Legend.

Despite that, The List has largely been treading water; throughout the year, I bought sixteen new games, and I completed a total of sixteen games. It didn’t help that a cleanup led me to discover previous purchases, conveniently forgotten, plumpifying The List somewhat; just a lazy 71 games outstanding now, helped along by cheap end-of-year deals on Xbox Live.

But hey! This is supposed to be a flippant, if not light-hearted, awards ceremony blog entry written by an uneducated guy you don’t know, recycling ideas that were never that flash in the first place. On with the show!

Proudest Achievement of the Year: Wrapping up Burnout Paradise. Every collectible, every Achievement, and – most chuffingly – every Challenge :)

Disappointment of the Year: Wii Fit still hasn’t had any impact on my weight (though that could possibly be due to the fact that it hasn’t been played… nor has it’s younger brother, Wii Fit Plus), and the much-anticipated GridRunner Revolution sadly failed to light my fire. But the biggest disappointment of the year was provided by MadWorld – so much potential pissed away in immature monotones.

Surprise Discovery of the Year: We Ski, bought nervously at the same time as MadWorld (with the nervousness instantly replaced by regret as soon as the “Checkout” button was clicked) proved to be stupidly good fun. Sure, it didn’t last long, but that flame burned unexpectedly bright enough to be memorable.

Under-Appreciated Game of the Year: A game that had a release window of about a fortnight over here, that local distributors didn’t want to know about, and wound up being sourced for less than five quid (new!) from Amazon in the UK… Soul Bubbles is a gorgeous little game, completely at home on the DS. Please try to buy a copy! :}

Multiplayer Moment of the Year: Halo 3: ODST takes this one easily. Firefight, all my team-mates dead, being chased around by half-a-dozen Brutes… and I had no ammo. Black Eye skull was on, meaning no health regeneration. And I managed to get the Team through. Fucking magic feeling :)

The “I Love You… Honest” Missive of the Year: A toss-up between all the games I’ve bought, but not played, this year. Shadow Complex, Space Giraffe on the PC, The Maw… but Chrono Trigger takes the gong here.

The “I am the King of the World” Throw-Your-Arms-In-The-Air Trophy: Finally – finally – conquering Level 64 of Tempest 2000. It’s just a pity I’m now stuck on another level only a little farther along.

What Was All The Fuss About? Award: This is going to look like link-bait, but… The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. I’ve been chewing through a bunch of Zelda games this year (hey, I 100%-ed Ocarina thrice in 2009!), but I’m utterly perplexed by the adulation this game receives. Takes all types, I guess – and I definitely seem to be in the minority. “It was good, but not great…”

The “Go Fuck Yourself” Dismissal: The Grand Theft Auto series, on the basis of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. I swore I’d never speak of it again.

The Everything Old Is New Again Award: Sure, PAC-MAN Championship Edition is a wonderful extension of the original game, but Bionic Commando: Rearmed takes the cake for a superb re-imagining of the original, with just a tiny taste of the original Commando rolled in as well. Gorgeous.

Blast From The Past Award: After a straight month and two 100% playthroughs, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker provided some of the year’s gaming highlights, with gloriously solid gameplay.

That’s What Gaming’s All About Award: Easy one, really – New Super Mario Brothers Wii eschews modern gameplay “essentials” and delivers a stunningly fun, taut, and challenging single-player experience.

The “Friendly Tumour” Award: An award for the game that initially hides its charms, but grows on you, Brütal Legend snaffles this with ease. The first playthrough had it odds-on for the Almost-But-Not-Quite Award, but repeat visits opened up the glory that Schafer built.

The “Flow Like A River” Natural Gameplay Award: Well… I had to give something to the most recent Prince of Persia game, because it was a real revelation early in the year. Fast, fluid, and rewarding gameplay, backed up with charm and gorgeous stylised graphics.

AAA-HypeTitle I Missed Award: Again, pretty much all of them… though it was pleasing to see that the gaming public may be becoming a little sceptical of the hype machine (after the rapid deflation of Modern Warfare 2‘s bubble, and a retrospective post-coital “meh” being applied to memories of GTA4).

And BOOM! There goes 2009. Big props to Prince of Persia, most of the Zelda series, New Super Mario Brothers Wii, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, Soul Bubbles, and We Ski… oddly enough, only one of that lot was released in 2009. But let’s start looking forward to 2010, and Bayonetta, lots more No More Heroes, and a return-to-form for Llamasoft on the iPhone.

But now, I’m leaving 2009 pretty much as I started it: banging my head against a brick-wall of an OCD Zelda requirement. Phantom Hourglass is demanding that I find four more ship parts, and I dare not keep her waiting.

Happy New Year!