Month: October 2009

ChinatownChampionship

After having a wussy little whine at my lack of skill with PAC-MAN Championship Edition last week, I had a breakthrough win mere minutes after posting, beating Challenge Mode 1 after the squillionth attempt. Surprisingly, Challenge Mode 2 fell shortly thereafter; pushing me well above the MGC averages and making me substantially happier.

Even more surprisingly, I managed to rattle off the remaining Achievements with barely a repeat attempt, closing the book on PAC-MAN CE in quick-fire fashion. And, in case I’ve not mentioned it before, it’s a lovely game: a thoroughly enjoyable re-imagining of a bona-fide gaming classic. And, thankfully, a testament to the adage “practise makes perfect.” If only that applied to Geometry Wars, too.

With PAC-MAN CE out of the way, and not feeling compelled to return to Brütal Legend just yet, my thoughts turned to the next game to tackle (conveniently forgetting all the other ongoing games I’ve got lined up on the coffee table). I thought about the recently discovered 360 games; sure, I could leap into Feeding Frenzy, reputed to be an easy – if grind-irific – 200 GS, but that would just make me obsess about nothing more than fish for a couple of days, and I could kinda do without that. Boom Boom Rocket? Nup, I’m really not in the mood to start learning a rhythm game. Hell, I even considered Luxor 2 for awhile, Zuma traits be damned. But in the end, my eyes drifted from my 360 to the little black box charging quietly next to it: my DSi. And GTA: Chinatown Wars.

This GTA has proven to be as problematic a purchase as, say, Gears of War or Metroid Prime 2. They’re all games that are critically – and widely – lauded, but somehow manage to leave me stone cold. Prime 2 shares thin (but classy) company as being one of the few games that have ever been banished from The Moobaarn (I gave it to a friend gratis and, now that he’s got a week off, I reckon it’s high time he finished it – right, DJ?) But GTA: CW holds pride-of-place in the aforementioned bunch, because it feels utterly loathsome, distinctly player-unfriendly. Spiteful, even.

Now, I’m all for games of skill; nothing thrills me more when, as with PAC-MAN CE above, a bit of practise yields progress. But GTA: CW seems to be completely against that idea, awarding Gold Medals to the recipients of chance. Metal for lucky breaks.

And that really, really annoys me.

A Gold Medal run on a Time Trial side mission could be thwarted at any stage by a random car drifting onto the road, obscuring your path. Normally, one would expect to be able to compensate for happenstance by using their skill, but GTA: CW‘s tolerances are so tight that any slight deviation will cost you the Medal. Rampages fare no better, with the ability to clock up big scores restricted by the random spawning of bad guys; if your killing spree chain gets broken, then you ain’t getting that Medal.

Thus, GTA: CW seems intent on making you repeat the same side missions over and over and over and over again, on the off chance that this time you’ll be smiled upon by the binary gods, this time you won’t make a trivial mistake… this time the stars will align. And that’d be fine… if the game was actually any fun to play.

But it’s not.

Not for me, anyway. I know there’s people out there who love their Rampage modes, and would happily play it ’til the sun comes up; but I’m not one of them. GTA is not my game; it’s just something that I want finished soon, so I can spring the little cartridge out of the DSi, pop it into its box, and bury it in the cupboard.

And maybe, for a minute or so, I’ll feel a happy glow from having conquered that piece of shit game.

But, even with my record currently at 90.69%, 36 Gold, 3 Silver, and 12 Bronze, there’s no happy glow now – just the promise of more painful repetition. Grrrrr.

BrütalChampionshipWars

I started this gaming week by forcing myself through some of GTA: Chinatown Wars – there’s plenty of side-missions yet to be done (I’m currently only 82% complete), and tons of Gold Medals to be acquired. Despite the fact that I can avoid the stupefying storyline, I still feel as though IQ points are shed for every moment that I play this game.

Which could explain why I’m so amazingly crap at PAC-MAN Championship Edition. It’s the only game that I’ve played where my accumulated gamerscore is less than the MyGamerCard.net average of all registered players; I view this as an abject failure, but nothing I attempt helps me play any better. Disappointing!

But the big news of the week was, of course, the release of Brütal Legend. As a fan of eighties metal and Tim Schafer, I was looking forward to this with great interest; and, thanks to a handy tip from Aussie site The Economical Gamer, I was holding my copy in my hot expectant hands within hours of the release date being broken. And so, on Tuesday night, I settled down for a good, solid dose of metal and gaming.

And it was goooood.

I’d avoided playing the demo released on Xbox Live, wanting to come into the game fresh; and the opening titles & menu screen were every bit as awesome as others had raved. The first level was great, a decent bit of hack-and-slash, with some wonderfully expressive character models on display. A few hand-holding tutorials, a bit of decent driving, a few enjoyable boss battles, and evidence of some massive OCD collection side-quests, and I’m hooked, lauding Brütal Legend‘s praises to all who’ll listen.

It wasn’t until the following evening that I happened upon the first RTS section of the game. And, ummmmm, I wasn’t really sure that I liked it. The second one was a little better, but something didn’t feel quite right. Now, I’m no fan of RTS games in general – only having tinkered with a couple vicariously – but I wasn’t sure whether I was enjoying myself during those sections… at all.

Now, I know that Schafer himself has said that it’s not an RTS game, and I suspect that the problem here is all mine; after all, I’m the type of guy who’ll tip-toe through an FPS with health constantly at maximum and all guns fully loaded. I hate the death of any of my avatars, which is why I’m probably having a tough time enjoying myself with those aspects of Brütal Legend. And that’s a massive shame, because there’s so much there to love: the music selection (all 107 songs) is phenomenal (except, maybe, for Def Leppard’s poppy Rock of Ages, which feels woefully out of place), the storytelling is Schafer-sublime, and the voice-cast is superb – OK, so maybe Lemmy is a little too laid-back, but Ozzy is perfect. Lovely little touches – the cymbal bushes, the post-game interactions, the multiple Double Fine intros – are there in abundance… but I can’t shake the memory that Psychonauts managed to deliver phenomenal production, a fabulous story, and a great game.

Still, I’ll soldier on with Brütal Legend – I’ve only 100%-ed Gentle at this stage – and, hopefully, I’ll discover some love for the RTS-ish bits.

Flu? HTFU!

Not much gaming to be had this week: a fun (but short) Halo 3 multiplayer Achievement Whoring session, the completion of the Xin missions in GTA: Chinatown Wars (during a trip to my parents place celebrating my Dad’s 80th birthday), and a painful first exposure to Scribblenauts via my nephew. Maybe it was his tinnitus-inducing “help”, but I don’t think I’ll be buying Scribblenauts anytime soon ever.

I spent most of the week sleeping, a happy escape from the ravages of the flu. But something caught my eye during my occasional visits to my computer: a video from the makers of Eve Online, CCP.

There’s sooooo much about that video that I love that I don’t know where to start… Glorious Production Values seems as good a place as any. Great instrumentation and lyrics. The perfect mix of people who’re taking their place in the video seriously, people who aren’t serious enough, and people who don’t have the faintest idea what’s going on. A Techno Viking reference. And, best of all, a company that isn’t afraid to tell it’s own customers to harden the fuck up.

Now, I don’t give a rat’s arse about Eve Online; the very premise of the game fills me with an uncomfortable mix of boredom and OCD dread. But this video makes me want to give money to CCP, because this is a company that I want to support; they make me feel like they know where their shit is at, and I love that.

And, if there’s any overseeing Internet deity, the phrase “WOOP WOOP it’s the sound of the Space Police” will replace all those fucking cat memes.

SkiWorldRevolution

Last week’s glut of new games provided a focus for this week’s play, with all my other running projects (Katamari Damacy, Tempest 2000) falling by the wayside.

We Ski was the big winner – it was an absolute delight to play, and I’m almost a little sad to have Completed it (160 stars, all animals found, all questions from The Question Guy answered). I even rode the chair lifts without skipping, panning around and checking out the surroundings in moments of enforced relaxation. It’s a beautiful looking game, the feeling of skiing has been absolutely nailed (though I suspect that a 1080-degree Rodeo is a little trickier to perform in real life), and none of the “missions” outstay their welcome. I cannot express how much this game surprised me; I was genuinely feeling a bit iffy about buying this, but it’s turned out to be a Wii highlight. Sure, there’s not a whole lot of content in there – after all, I knocked it all off within a distracted week – but it comes highly recommended. I’d even pick up the sequel if it didn’t include those bloody snowboarders. Snaffle it from Play-Asia (I used the US version on my homebrewed Wii).

A couple of minutes each night were taken up by further progression through GridRunner Revolution, which finally threw up a sizable challenge on Level 48 of the Phaal difficulty level (I’m still stuck on the final level, which goes on for bloody aeons and just grinds me down). Once that nut is cracked, though, there’s another ten levels of Vindaloo and twenty levels of Madras to return to (which should be a doddle, once Vindaloo is conquered), then the fifty levels of the wacky Thrusty Mode and another fifty Vindaloo-ish Endurance levels.

Yak wrote an interesting blog entry during the week addressing the naysayers of GRR – that is, people like me – who claimed it was too easy; and I can kinda understand his points. After all, it is fun to experiment within the spaces that GRR provides, creating beautiful patterns of bullets that swirl around the screen and (maybe, hopefully) wrap your ship in a protective cocoon of weaponry; but my OCD nature wants to push onwards, to achieve something, and that drags me out of the Pretty Zone.

Recognising that I don’t naturally want to dwell anymore has been a bit of a revelation, and provides a pretty decent explanation of my gaming inclinations of the last couple of years. As previously mentioned, I don’t consider myself to be highly skilled – competent, sure, but completely lacking in finesse. Ikaruga is a fine example; yes, it’s easy enough to bludgeon one’s way through the game (just grind twenty hours of playtime, unlock unlimited continues, Bob’s-your-Auntie’s-live-in-lover), but getting A-Rankings? That just reeks of skill and memorisation and hard work. Relentless grinding to level-up to a near-unbeatable position? That’s easy-peasy for me, and it seems to fire off all the right synapses to make it feel enjoyable.

So I reckon that’s why I’ve been leaning towards the soft-RPGs and easy-OCD games lately; they give me all the satisfaction of completing the game, whilst still providing something that feels like accomplishment. Sure, there’ll always be moments where I’ll want to switch off and just be a little less “active” in my pursuits – those times when I’d normally play a couple of levels of New Super Mario Brothers, or try a speed-run through JSRF or Halo‘s Library – and the next time I get in one of those headspaces, I’ll fire up GRR instead… maybe that’ll change my opinion completely.

But the thing is, I also fired up the PC version of Space Giraffe this week (just to… y’know… check that it worked). And bugger me if it’s not beautifully balanced and utterly entrancing – my quick “check” turned into thirty levels. As I’ve said before, I instantly fell in love with the Giraffe, but GRR wants me to work for it’s affection.

My final excursion this week was a brief sojourn into MadWorld. My opinion of it picked up a notch, despite the odd game-hanging bug, and I was actually enjoying myself in its blood-splattered monochrome world… until I hit a level with a one-hit-kill character in it. He hit me from out of nowhere, I died, I muttered “fuck this” and shut the Wii down.

And then I thought again about buying We Ski & Snowboard.

Bloody snowboarders.