Tag: Halo 2

Errrrrmmm…

Whoops.

I certainly didn’t mean to let this blog atrophy for a year (yes, my last post is celebrating its first birthday today), and it’s not as if I haven’t been writing: in that year, I’ve written over two hundred posts on my other blog, and a ream of tearfully self-indulgent joy-words on Facebook. But this blog… well, I just haven’t really felt like writing about gaming much.

In fact, I haven’t really even been playing games that much… at least, not compared to previous years. And there’s a couple of reasons for that.

The first thing to drag me away from gaming is the last-minute writing I tend to do on my other blog; the last couple of months of the year, as well as January, tends to be chock-full with panicky Fringe recollections after I back myself into a corner and have to finish the previous year’s Festival writing before the next one starts. (This year is a little different, though: discipline saw me wrap up the 135 posts I committed to before the end of August!)

Another factor was the Next Generation of consoles… or, rather, the complete lack thereof within The Moobaarn. With the exception of the Wii U (of which I’ve been an owner since its 2012 launch, and a happy owner since December 2013), I’ve not plunged into the current console generation yet: there’s nothing really there to interest me, quite honestly, and the one game that I’m really looking forward to – Bayonetta 2 – is a Wii U exclusive… so there’s no need for me to commit… yet. So whilst other people wax lyrical (or wane painfully) about this generation, I’ve not got much – if anything – to say.

And then there’s the little manner of my latest little addiction, affectionately referred to as my K-Pop Midlife Crisis, which commandeered the normally lucrative Christmas gaming time and instead sent me to Seoul for my first real holiday in nearly a decade. But that’s not really a story for this blog… well, some parts of it kinda are. Maybe.

And finally, the gaming world… well, it can be a bit of a shit-storm, can’t it? Three big incidents in the last couple of months alone: Puppy Games Dark Side of Indie PR blog post launched a shitstorm of hatred from narrow-minded, short-sighted “gamers”. The initially hilarious Moms Against Gaming Twitter feed showed that many cannot recognise satire, and rapidly became tragic: the blundering hatred spewed forth by some “gamers” can truly defeat a hopeful man. And as for the bile directed at Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn (and, thence, Phil Fish)… well, you know what?

Fuck those people. Fuck them all. Fuck them for tainting a hobby I enjoy – and, in identifying themselves as “gamers”, they do taint gaming in general – and, most importantly, fuck them for threatening people like that.

(Oh – and swatting? Seriously… what the fuck?)

And when I say “fuck them”, hopefully you’ll note that I’m not saying “I’m going to FUCKING KILL THEM”, or including some threat of sexual violence. No – I use a commonplace dismissal, a common expression of exasperated disappointment. Because that’s what I feel: Exasperation. Disappointment. Frustration. And a massively conflicted and confused quagmire of emotion whereby I want them to receive their comeuppance for their petulant comments (that, unfortunately, must be taken seriously), but which the pacifist in me wouldn’t want to see inflicted.

Sigh.

So… that might explain why I’ve felt a bit disconnected from gaming – or at least writing about gaming – lately. But it’s not like I haven’t been playing anything… So, carrying on from last time:

In between my random treasure drop Uncharted 3 multiplayer excursions, I played Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons in September 2013. It’s a short – but powerful – little game, with a handful of amazing moments packed into it; many will mention the emotional impact of the third act of the game, but for me the sheer exuberance of the goat-ride through the mountains made it totally worth playing through a second time.

The inspired decision to buy a second PS3 – and learning to operate four controllers at once – saw me boost with myself and collect the rest of my Uncharted 3 trophies surprisingly easily… I only wish I’d thought of doing so earlier. I toyed briefly with the idea of continuing to play Uncharted 3, but common sense got the better of me. I think I made it to Legacy 3, and I’ll certainly remember some of the team antics that occurred as a ragtag group of Aussies gathered together to take on the opposition (whistling “toot toot!” after every kill. Super mature ;)

A play through of Psychonauts on the PC was completed (it really is a wonderful game), and November saw the purchase and completion of Remember Me on the PS3: an interesting game with some occasionally compelling combo combat mechanics, and voice acting at both extremes of the spectrum. And whilst the game doesn’t outstay its welcome, it seems like the narrative could have had a few more things to say; overall, it proved to be a fun distraction, but hardly necessary.

With the release of the latest handheld Zelda title – A Link Between Worlds – I finally had an excuse to pick up a 3DS XL (especially after the universally glowing pre-release hype). However, I’ve barely played more than an hour or two of that game since then: but I have played (and completed) Super Mario 3D Land, which proved to be the perfect game for ten-hour plane rides to Korea. I absolutely adored 3D Land… but then Super Mario 3D World was released on the Wii U.

Holy shit. What a game! Tight controls, wonderful level design, and everything that’s great about Mario. I’m way off finishing 3D World – Champion’s Road is insane – but I’ll keep plugging away until I’ve got all those stamps. The Wii U still gets plenty of use from Wii Fit U, too – my spreadsheet of score bands is pretty comprehensive at this stage, and – just like its predecessor – it’s encouraged me to lose some weight, too. Bargain!

Xbox Live Games For Gold offered up some appealing items: Sleeping Dogs was knocked off in April (and I highly recommend playing The Zodiac Tournament Pack – even if you got the game for free, that add-on is worth every cent of its additional cost), and Lara Croft: Guardian of Light was a quick jaunt in March. And I’ve also snaffled Dark Souls via GFG… I’ve been too scared to start that one, though ;)

Once the last piece of DLC was released for Bioshock Infinite, I dove back in to finish that off. The wave-based Clash in the Clouds DLC freed the gunplay from the jarring contrast of the narrative, and was actually a pleasant challenge; and Burial at Sea was just fucking lovely. Really lovely storytelling, immersive gameplay, and… just wonderful. Way better than the original game.

The StreetPass freebies on the 3DS have kept me busy for a while; Picture and Mystery Manor fell quickly (after the discovery of HomePass), with Quest and Battle soon following. Garden was a bit of a pain in the arse, and I’ve still got one task outstanding for Force… hopefully I’ll conquer that soon, just as I conquered my Heroic run through Halo 2 a few months back, and rolled up all the countries at the end of Katamari Damacy.

But the biggest gaming accomplishment – yes, better than nailing the final Achievements for Lumines Live – was completing Dyad. Some of Dyad‘s Trophy Levels are fiendishly difficult… but incredibly rewarding. I’d honestly be hard pressed to think of a more satisfying moment in my gaming history than seeing Dyad‘s Platinum Trophy pop… it really was everything I want from a game: An abstraction of a world. Consistent rules. A test of mettle.

The plasmic eye candy helped, too.

But you know what’s missing from the year’s worth of gaming above? Any mention of Perfect Dark Zero. Again. Oh, and any discussion of the not-insignificant content of my Steam account. Because discussion of that would cause The List to leap into triple figures.

And we wouldn’t want that, would we?

Back From The Dead… Again

Nearly three months it’s been since I last posted here. Three months.

But there’s an excuse for my absence.

A really, really good excuse.

…erm, not really. As you might have gathered, my gaming mojo had been flagging a bit back then; in fact, August was the first month in over three years in which I didn’t knock something off The List. There was a fair bit of emotional hullabaloo going on as well, which sapped away any enthusiasm to get into The Zone. A significant amount of work-related travel didn’t help, either… but it did help me out with the first game I’d like to have a little blather about: Chrono Trigger.

Now, Chrono Trigger always seems to get mentioned as one of the greatest games of the SNES era and, given my new-found love of grinding out RPG success, I figured this would be right up my street. It sat in the shrinkwrap for over a year before finally being chucked in one of my resurrected DSes – and initial impressions were favourable, with lots of running around and chatting with cute characters in their beautifully pixellated world. Levelling up was a delight, the battle mechanic (when switched to the wussy Wait mode) was really nice, and – apart from the mute and anonymous nature of Chrono himself – there was plenty to like about my expanding party of protagonists.

But about halfway through the game, it all became a bit too much. Sure, I had probably played 15 hours in four days, but it suddenly felt too twee, and actions too obtuse; I began to miss things. Exits became obscured from my view, actions that should have been obvious were invisible to me. Suspecting burn-out, I gave the game a break, returning a few weeks later (on another work trip) to finish it off. But the initial delight didn’t return, so my feeling towards Chrono Trigger is a reluctant “meh”.

Of course, there’s no way that Chrono Trigger has been struck off The List yet; after all, I’ve merely finished the game with all characters levelled up to the high 60s & low 70s (mainly thanks to a red-eye flight to Perth offering the opportunity for much bleary-eyed farming in one particularly button-mashy level). But I’ve taken to referencing this FAQ as my Chrono Trigger bible, and I’m aiming for a Level 3 (of 5) Perfect File:

LEVEL 1: (Only one playthrough required, no New Game +)

  • Beat the game and unlock Ending #1 and #13.
  • All sidequests complete.
  • 100% Treasure found.
  • Have a complete Bestiary list, excluding Magus at North Cape.
  • At least 1 of every item in the Inventory.
  • Learned all Single, Double, and Triple Techs.
  • 200 Silver Points at Leene Square.
  • A Doppel Doll and Poyozo Doll for each character.

LEVEL 2:

  • Everything from level 1.
  • All characters at Level 99.
  • Defeat Spekkio’s most powerful form, the Pink Nu.
  • Have a complete Bestiary.
  • Unlock all 13 Endings.
  • 100% Extras. Everything unlocked.

LEVEL 3:

  • Everything from level 2.
  • MAX stats for every character.
  • 11 Cats in Crono’s house.
  • Get a Perfect Score of 2371 while racing Johnny at Site 32.
  • Defeat ALL of Spekkio’s forms; Frog form included.

Despite Chrono Trigger‘s New Game+ option, straight away I see I’m in trouble: my Level 60+ characters preclude me from fighting most of Spekkio’s forms, especially the tricky-to-encounter Frog form. You can guess what that means, can’t you? Yep – let’s start again. Save slot number two, 14 hours in, Level 30-ish, and at least a third of the game to go. Again.

And then there’s the small matter of the other 11 endings. Progress will, obviously, be ongoing; a short game this is not.

After a completion-free August, I felt the need to get something done, to make some inroads into The List. I decided that the early part of September would be devoted to the belated conquering of my final Texas Hold’em Achievement: the Tournament Expert. Now, I’m rubbish at poker, and had been royally (and repeatedly) trounced by the penultimate tournament AI last time I’d attempted this; but a dig around my beloved TA yielded a simple solution that I followed in an extremely disciplined and cautious manner. Except for that rash All-In which could’ve cost me everything. Lady Luck, however, granted me a free pass that time, and a couple of hours on a dreary Saturday saw me clear Texas Hold’em off The List.

Then, harkening back to my Resolutions for 2010, I thought it time to tackle one of the non-current-gen platforms; I opted for the Dreamcast and ChuChu Rocket! I’d already cleared all the challenge mode puzzles and played a bit of multiplayer with a mate last year, so a couple of evenings saw off the solo puzzle levels without much incident. In fact, I probably spent more time trying to get the software to back up my VMU running properly on my laptop.

But the latter half of September, of course, was devoted solely to Halo: Reach. Tragically, work saw fit to send me to Perth on the day of release; as fate would have it, that’s where I was also stranded for the release of Halo 2. And Halo 3. (And Rez HD, but that’s another story). So I picked up my pre-ordered copy on the way to the airport; arriving home at 10:30pm on a Friday night, I fired up the 360 before I’d even dropped my backpack.

I drank in the loading visuals, listened to the familiar-yet-new extended tones, then set about building up my avatar – as usual, mauve was the go-to colour, “M000” my call-sign. I started playing.

Now, I loved the original Halo. It was the first console game I every really played, the game that dragged me into the world of console gaming, and the game that convinced me that twin-stick FPSs could actually work. I loved the characters, I loved the story, I loved the feel of the controls and (in a move that separates me from most other fans of the game) I loved the repetition of it all. I loved The Library (and recall letting out a little squeal of delight when I first entered the Library-esque structure in Halo 2), and I loved retracing one’s steps through previously conquered environments. Somehow, that made the Combat Evolved world feel more real.

The immediate sequel disappointed me somewhat. The controls felt slipperier, the cartoon-ish graphic overhaul was offputting (oh, how I loathe the sights and sounds of the New Flood), and the humanised Covenant jarred. Halo 3 fixed the control issues and delivered a great game to-boot, but Halo: Reach… well, it feels like a big love-letter to the original Halo. From the solidity of the action, through the return visits to battle-torn environments, it really feels like Bungie returned to the original game, leveraging later works only where necessary.

My first playthrough was on Normal (a real departure for me, since I usually start on the Easiest skill levels and work my way up), followed quickly by a repeat playthrough on Heroic… and I felt a massive difficulty spike there, especially when I got to the penultimate battle. And now, since starting my solo Legendary assault, progress has slowed dramatically – I’m currently using the active camo Loadout to avoid fighting as much as possible, because I’m getting pulverised if I engage the enemy.

Of course, there’s the odd ally AI bug – on my first playthrough, I got stuck in a battle with two Hunters which took every ounce of courage (and two dozen shotgun shells) to overcome, because my Noble Team partner had buggered off somewhere to look at the scenery. Second time through he obviously pitied me, because he joined in the biffo and made the fight a whole lot simpler. But, on the whole, I’m absolutely loving Reach.

But there’s so much more to the game than that; the Commendation system is extremely addictive, and I reckon I’ve already played more online multiplayer against randoms than I have in any other game ever. It feels great getting involved in that part of the community early on (rather than being typically late to the party), and levelling up a Commendation (along with all the ranking credits associated with it) is immensely fulfilling. And whoring the shit out of Gruntpocalypse on Corvette will never get old… headshots ahoy!

The big problem with Halo: Reach is the requirement for completion. Sure, the initial set of Achievements seem relatively doable (assuming I can overcome Legendary), but it’s only to be expected that there will be a ruck of additional Achievements associated with the inevitable DLC. But there’s niggling little statistics like “Armoury Completion” and “Commendation Progress” that weigh heavy on my mind; and with the highest rank requiring twenty million credits of accumulated carnage, it’s fair to say that this may be a game that will forever remain on The List…

…which is a brilliant way to segue into Ballistic. Now, I hate Zuma-like games with all my black little heart, and Ballistic is Zuma‘s grandfather. I finally decided to give it a red-hot go yesterday, and dug out my old Samsung N501 Nuon (and the chunky step-down transformer I need to run the bugger) and hooked it up to my old CRT telly. And Ballistic looks bloody awful; chunky graphics which somehow manage to also have a fuzzy feel to them, accompanied by steel-drum “tunes” that grate after a handfull of minutes playtime.

And I still suck at the game itself.

Because the Nuon doesn’t support a save-state, and Ballistic itself doesn’t support any in-game passwords, to beat all 25 levels (twenty-five? that doesn’t sound like much…) I’ll have to do it without powering down the system; a worrying prospect when one considers the ominous buzzing of the step-down transformer. “Still,” I mused, “surely it won’t take more than a concerted weekend to bludgeon my way through the levels?”

Wrong. So very, very wrong.

A good four hours of concentration failed to get me any further than Level 3-1… the eleventh level of the game. There’s a reason I hate these games, and that’s because they hate me.

Which leads me into my final game for discussion: Astropop. But maybe that’s better saved for another post…