This post contains some massive spoilers about the game. Read no further if you haven't played it yet and don't want anything revealed beforehand.
I didn't go into Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons with many expectations. I'd heard it was a decent puzzle platformer with a unique control scheme that allowed a single player to simultaneously control two characters on screen. And that was about it. What I didn't expect at all was that it would be the most emotionally affecting game I think I've played to date.
The fable-ish, storybook quality of both the narrative and the images and characters was charming enough. The world is colorful and pleasing to look at but I was always keenly aware of the darkness underneath, the way a good fable unfolds. There were a few points when the cover of that darkness was removed which forced me to focus on the darkness. I won't mention them all here but in one instance, the scene involves the brothers rescuing a man from hanging himself. Through cooperation, they return a music-box to his family that was killed in a recent house fire, their charred remains covered next to the smoldering ruins by a blanket. You can even see the blackened feminine legs and small childish feet poking out from underneath. Like I said, dark.
In happier terms, the way the brothers would interact with each other and the world around them in different was interesting. Each of them would have different reactions to places and characters in the game. There were some heartwarming moments when you get to bask in the glow of satisfaction, knowing that you'd just reunited a loving troll couple and returned a mother sea turtles babies to the safety of her bosom.
But the truly great part of this game, what makes it rise above many others I've played, in terms of making me feel emotions was that it incorporated that feeling directly into the mechanics of the how the game works, not just inserting it with a few cutscenes, like most games I've played have done. Because the brothers have to work together, the older one on the left stick and the younger one on the right, you begin to associate those sticks to each boy. Just before the brothers reach their final destination, the tree that contains the restorative potion that will revive their father from his sickness, the older brother receives a fatal injury. Playing only as the younger brother, you race to the top of the tree, hoping that the potion might also revive your older brother. But when you return with the potion, you discover your older brother is dead.
Once the cutscene is over, the game forces you to bury your older brother in the grave that you dig for him. It's part of the level and you don't get to just sit and watch. You have to perform the act. Then, in another cutscene, you are whisked back home through most of the vistas that you just traversed with your now-deceased brother in happiness, to return with the potion to your father. At the beginning, the game opened with a cutscene that shows the younger brother in a flashback unable to save his mother from drowning. The older brother helps the younger brother through all of the swimming portions of the game by carrying him on his back. Now at home again, alone as the younger brother, you have to swim across the same deep pond that your older brother once helped you across.
It was at this point that I realized that my left thumb ached to be able to use the older brother's left stick to use the younger one. And it was also that moment that I realized that the older brother's controls were there to help him. If I just tried to make the younger brother swim with the right side controls, he would shake his head and refuse. But by pressing the action button of the older brother, the controller shaking in my hand, the memory of his older brother pushes the younger brother through obstacles that he used to need his older brother to traverse. It seems like such a small thing, but it was that climactic moment that I felt more connected to these two characters than any other character in any other game I'd ever played.
Maybe it's because I'm older. Maybe it's because I now have two sons of my own. I don't know. But those final moments of this game spoke to me more than any of the hundreds of games I've played in my lifetime. Roger Ebert once said that a game had never and would never be able to make someone cry. If only he'd lived to see this game, he may have retracted his statement. Until now, I doubted him but only out of gut instinct, knowing that someday I game probably would maybe, just maybe, make me cry. Now that Brothers has done it, not just with a cutscene but making me my thumb ache from the absence of a character, there's no question that he was wrong.
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Friday, May 23, 2014
Monday, December 13, 2010
Divine Divinity
Last Christmas, I paid GOG.com three dollars, that's three bones to you archaic slang lovers, for the privilege of experiencing a game called Divine Divinty, on the surface a Diablo-esque sort of Pavlovian piñata-bursting experience in which loot explodes from the corpses of my vanquished enemies while underneath a writhing mass of narrative and detail a la Morrowind lies waiting to be discovered. Yes, yes, it's a stupid name. I've heard all the jokes and read all the worst-10 lists. But it was a good game. Well, it was good until the rewards got too long in between and I'd been tired of being dumped in the pool. I'm getting ahead of myself, though. Let's start at the beginning.
I woke up with amnesia (snooze) to discover that I was in a small village of healers the leader of whom appeared to be going crazy. After a lot of one dimensional conversations, I learned of a rare but valuable set of dual pyramid-shaped paperweights that would let me teleport myself between them at will. I only possessed one of the set though. I had to find the other. And it was in some labyrinthine cellar that sat atop an ancient, evil cavern of evil. I couldn't access the evil cavern of evil though because locked doors barred my exit from the cellar. I knew treasure was down there and I wanted it bad but I couldn't find the right key to get in. But wait, someone told me that if I tried to use the teleporting stone I already carried right away, I could find the other immediately. So I did and I got walloped by an angry mob of sword-wielding skeletons. Repeatedly.
Start over.
I found the lever the next time. Between the designers uncanny ability to make levers that open necessary-to-unlock doors blend so seamlessly in with the same brownish/green palette hues of the wet dungeon walls and the fact that I was trying to look at this game through the modern resolution of 1680x1050, I simply couldn't see it. Anytime there's a locked door in a dark dungeon, I was going to have to go pixel hunting for levers. Brilliant. But the pixel hunting at unintended resolutions wasn't the only frustration I encountered.
Both the brilliance and major weakness of Divine Divinity both lie in it's simple gameplay/deep narrative coupling. The simple gameplay evolves naturally and in non-linear fashion. You can attempt to do any quest you can find although that does not usually mean you'd be able to complete it. But that only made for some utterly ridiculous conversations. For instance, after grinding through the game killing every outdoor monster I could find in all the main areas, I decided to continue on the main quest which took me to a castle ruled by a bratty teen-aged Duke who thinks he's God. During the conversation, the young Duke mentions the growing Orc army to the south exactly seventeen times and how dangerous they are and how we'd need a whole army of soldiers to rid the land of their presence. Of course, in my wanderings, I'd already slaughtered the entire Orc army including the commander single-handedly.
Still, in addition to some of those niggling problems, my major disappointment with Divine Divinity is that it seems to expect the player to want to figure out what to do next but I encountered lots of side quests and even got to a point in the main quest branch where I didn't know what to do next. The journal offered no clues. The map offered no clues. All I had was an NPC telling me to do something and not giving me enough details about it. After that happened a few times, I gave up. That's one thing that most modern games are starting to get right. Some might complain that they're too easy, that they're not hardcore enough. Eff that, I say. If I'm not having fun, constantly moving forward like a shark, I'm going to die of boredom . I don't want to have to spend time guessing what I should be doing next.
I'm not sure if I'll go back and play Divine Divinity to completion. I had probably reached the 30-40 hour mark and the game just didn't seem fun anymore, like the only reason I wanted to finish it was to hear the rest of the story. But the story is hardly worth it. We all know the player is supposed to be the holy one or the divine one or whatever so at this point, who really cares? It's the same reason I don't see the point in playing Mario or Zelda games for the narrative. We all know what happens. Princess disappears or gets kidnapped. Mario/Link navigate puzzles and jumping traps to rescue her.
Ok, so I probably won't finish it. But I totally loved the character skills that were available. None of the skills were confined to a particular tree or class. You really could choose any skill, mage-, warrior-, or theif-related, at any time. The game really does give you unlimited choices about how you could evolve and grow your character. And I loved the score. The music was great and seeing as you get the full soundtrack with the game through GOG, you really can't go wrong. Is it worth the $6 when the game isn't on sale? Absolutely.
I woke up with amnesia (snooze) to discover that I was in a small village of healers the leader of whom appeared to be going crazy. After a lot of one dimensional conversations, I learned of a rare but valuable set of dual pyramid-shaped paperweights that would let me teleport myself between them at will. I only possessed one of the set though. I had to find the other. And it was in some labyrinthine cellar that sat atop an ancient, evil cavern of evil. I couldn't access the evil cavern of evil though because locked doors barred my exit from the cellar. I knew treasure was down there and I wanted it bad but I couldn't find the right key to get in. But wait, someone told me that if I tried to use the teleporting stone I already carried right away, I could find the other immediately. So I did and I got walloped by an angry mob of sword-wielding skeletons. Repeatedly.
Start over.
I found the lever the next time. Between the designers uncanny ability to make levers that open necessary-to-unlock doors blend so seamlessly in with the same brownish/green palette hues of the wet dungeon walls and the fact that I was trying to look at this game through the modern resolution of 1680x1050, I simply couldn't see it. Anytime there's a locked door in a dark dungeon, I was going to have to go pixel hunting for levers. Brilliant. But the pixel hunting at unintended resolutions wasn't the only frustration I encountered.
Both the brilliance and major weakness of Divine Divinity both lie in it's simple gameplay/deep narrative coupling. The simple gameplay evolves naturally and in non-linear fashion. You can attempt to do any quest you can find although that does not usually mean you'd be able to complete it. But that only made for some utterly ridiculous conversations. For instance, after grinding through the game killing every outdoor monster I could find in all the main areas, I decided to continue on the main quest which took me to a castle ruled by a bratty teen-aged Duke who thinks he's God. During the conversation, the young Duke mentions the growing Orc army to the south exactly seventeen times and how dangerous they are and how we'd need a whole army of soldiers to rid the land of their presence. Of course, in my wanderings, I'd already slaughtered the entire Orc army including the commander single-handedly.
Still, in addition to some of those niggling problems, my major disappointment with Divine Divinity is that it seems to expect the player to want to figure out what to do next but I encountered lots of side quests and even got to a point in the main quest branch where I didn't know what to do next. The journal offered no clues. The map offered no clues. All I had was an NPC telling me to do something and not giving me enough details about it. After that happened a few times, I gave up. That's one thing that most modern games are starting to get right. Some might complain that they're too easy, that they're not hardcore enough. Eff that, I say. If I'm not having fun, constantly moving forward like a shark, I'm going to die of boredom . I don't want to have to spend time guessing what I should be doing next.
I'm not sure if I'll go back and play Divine Divinity to completion. I had probably reached the 30-40 hour mark and the game just didn't seem fun anymore, like the only reason I wanted to finish it was to hear the rest of the story. But the story is hardly worth it. We all know the player is supposed to be the holy one or the divine one or whatever so at this point, who really cares? It's the same reason I don't see the point in playing Mario or Zelda games for the narrative. We all know what happens. Princess disappears or gets kidnapped. Mario/Link navigate puzzles and jumping traps to rescue her.
Ok, so I probably won't finish it. But I totally loved the character skills that were available. None of the skills were confined to a particular tree or class. You really could choose any skill, mage-, warrior-, or theif-related, at any time. The game really does give you unlimited choices about how you could evolve and grow your character. And I loved the score. The music was great and seeing as you get the full soundtrack with the game through GOG, you really can't go wrong. Is it worth the $6 when the game isn't on sale? Absolutely.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
The Path
The Path, at least the one I'm writing about, is a game by Tale of Tales released in 2008. Rather than rehash every detail about how the game works, I'll send you to Metacritic to read all the details about the game written by all the people who got paid to write about it.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say it right now: I don't find calling this title a game difficult at all. There are items to collect, a world to explore, and objectives to meet. The world may be dark, repetitive, slow, but that's the point. The objectives may be vague and even misleading, but that's the point. The item collection is, well it's item collection, so depending on your opinion of it, that task is pretty much the same in every game.
What I find so important about this game is that it truly is the first title I've ever played that has a feminine voice. Come to think of it, very few games I've ever played have a voice at all. And that's what has me so worked up about The Path. A huge catch 22 in the game development world is that the players want change, they want new IPs, they want fewer sequels, and they want innovative gameplay. The 22 part of the Catch is that most gamers don't buy those games that try new things, that go out on limbs. They buy the same shooter that lets you run down random hallways shooting bad guys. But I digress. The Path is none of those things. It tried some very unique things, like divulging backstories of every character when they happen upon certain objects or scenarios in the woods. But they don't find audiologs or scraps of notebooks. The stories are told only through images, more akin to the way our memories work. There are flashes of objects and a couple sentences printed on the screen that act as the inner dialogue of the character your playing, which is usually some sort of reaction to the object she's examining.
And that's where the voice enters the picture. I have never played a game that seemed to speak from a feminine viewpoint as strongly as The Path. The best part about it is that there is still interactivity, there is still mystery, I still felt that I was playing the game and not simply being told a story, but uncovering it and letting the imagery speak for itself and that in that imagery, the feminine voice was revealed. Insecurities, uncertainties, and frustrations that only females can truly understand were playing out before me. As a male player, I could empathize but understood that I could never fully know. Reading through Tale of Tales' postmortem of the game, they say that a number of players believed the game to be about rape. I don't blame anyone who may have had that interpretation. The first character I played went through a story arc that seemed very much to be about her reaction to and dealing with such a violent act. But the more I played, as I worked through all the characters, it became clear that while that may have been one story, it wasn't all of them. The wolf, to me, was acting more as a symbol of struggle, something the girls each had to face in their own ways based on the context of their ages and personalities.
While I did find the game very interesting on an intellectual level, however, I understand the backlash that was unleashed against this title by people who play a lot of games. There really isn't much to do and it is very very V E R Y S L O W. Certain aspects like being forced to walk very slowly around certain areas of the world did indeed become a bit too cumbersome for my taste. But overall, I thought The Path was an excellent step in the right direction, a definitive game that makes a compelling argument for games as art, and one that anyone who has any interest in games beyond the B-movie narratives that populate most titles should play.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say it right now: I don't find calling this title a game difficult at all. There are items to collect, a world to explore, and objectives to meet. The world may be dark, repetitive, slow, but that's the point. The objectives may be vague and even misleading, but that's the point. The item collection is, well it's item collection, so depending on your opinion of it, that task is pretty much the same in every game.
What I find so important about this game is that it truly is the first title I've ever played that has a feminine voice. Come to think of it, very few games I've ever played have a voice at all. And that's what has me so worked up about The Path. A huge catch 22 in the game development world is that the players want change, they want new IPs, they want fewer sequels, and they want innovative gameplay. The 22 part of the Catch is that most gamers don't buy those games that try new things, that go out on limbs. They buy the same shooter that lets you run down random hallways shooting bad guys. But I digress. The Path is none of those things. It tried some very unique things, like divulging backstories of every character when they happen upon certain objects or scenarios in the woods. But they don't find audiologs or scraps of notebooks. The stories are told only through images, more akin to the way our memories work. There are flashes of objects and a couple sentences printed on the screen that act as the inner dialogue of the character your playing, which is usually some sort of reaction to the object she's examining.
And that's where the voice enters the picture. I have never played a game that seemed to speak from a feminine viewpoint as strongly as The Path. The best part about it is that there is still interactivity, there is still mystery, I still felt that I was playing the game and not simply being told a story, but uncovering it and letting the imagery speak for itself and that in that imagery, the feminine voice was revealed. Insecurities, uncertainties, and frustrations that only females can truly understand were playing out before me. As a male player, I could empathize but understood that I could never fully know. Reading through Tale of Tales' postmortem of the game, they say that a number of players believed the game to be about rape. I don't blame anyone who may have had that interpretation. The first character I played went through a story arc that seemed very much to be about her reaction to and dealing with such a violent act. But the more I played, as I worked through all the characters, it became clear that while that may have been one story, it wasn't all of them. The wolf, to me, was acting more as a symbol of struggle, something the girls each had to face in their own ways based on the context of their ages and personalities.
While I did find the game very interesting on an intellectual level, however, I understand the backlash that was unleashed against this title by people who play a lot of games. There really isn't much to do and it is very very V E R Y S L O W. Certain aspects like being forced to walk very slowly around certain areas of the world did indeed become a bit too cumbersome for my taste. But overall, I thought The Path was an excellent step in the right direction, a definitive game that makes a compelling argument for games as art, and one that anyone who has any interest in games beyond the B-movie narratives that populate most titles should play.
The Longest Journey
I stared and stared and stared at that electrical spark on the subway rail. It made no sense to me. Obviously there was something significant about it, something I needed to do with it. After all, the Eye made that clear. It was making fun of me, the Eye. I'd direct my attention toward the spark and it would appear again, letting me know that, hey, this was important and I'd better figure out what to do with it.
There was a key hidden in the spark. The Eye told me I should care about it.
I emptied my pockets. Nothing made immediate sense, candy wrapper, old photo of friends, a fake leaf for god's sake. (Why am I carrying a fake leaf?) Out of desperation I tried everything I had in my pockets. None of it worked by itself. Time to try the combo trick, the one where I combine everything in my pockets with everything else in my pockets to see what happens. Eventually, I figured out that I could tie a clothesline that I had been carrying around to a clamp, lower the clamp toward the spark, and pick up the key.
Thus began my Journey of the Longest variety. Only half an hour into the first chapter and already I was pixel hunting and turning to the age old strategy of trying random and ridiculous actions. Not a great sign. The Longest Journey is a game that I've seen mentioned on many "overlooked classics" lists. I'd wanted to play it when it was first released but didn't have the cash, so I waited. I waited just long enough until I couldn't find a boxed copy anywhere to save my life. So when I saw it on sale last Christmas at GOG, I decided that the $3 would be worth it.
I've now finished the game and I agree that the setting of the story, one in which a dystopian future world we might expect on earth has long been separated from a parallel dimension where magic is the rule of the day, is a great backdrop for the adventure at hand. While the world is not colored with the same minute strokes that, say, Tolkien attempted, it is still a canvas on which the details have obviously been thoroughly planned. Without a doubt, there were probably pages of history and character backstory that didn't need to be in the game. That effort did not go unnoticed during my play sessions.
However, the one fatal flaw that I believe mars the greatness of the setting, is the gameplay itself. It suffers from the mere fact that it was one of the last breaths of a dying genre. The LucasArts and Sierra adventures had also mined these same tunnels of most of their gems. The Longest Journey was simply a great story told a decade too soon. Pixel hunting and combining (in some cases) some extremely odd inventory items to cause the story to progress were two of the major nails in adventure games' coffin and The Longest Journey didn't skimp in either department. By contrast, the Penumbra series made only five or six years later was a unique revitalization, a fantastic mash-up of first-person perspective exploring, puzzle solving, and some admittedly bungled combat. If I found a dusty old lamp with a genie in it, I think one of my wishes would be that developers would pick up on the techniques that were begun in Penumbra and refine them, implement them and adapt them into more modern adventure titles, one where the puzzles actually involve combining things that make sense.
Another complaint, although much smaller, is that there are so many lines of dialogue to wade through, each and every one of which is spoken at varying levels of quality by voice actors, that the game quickly becomes and act of trying to find the one bit of information you need hidden way inside all the story bits that are only interesting window dressing. I found myself playing with my index finger hovering over the ESC key, because I could read the text faster than it was being spoken. I would get to the end of the line while the character was still mumbling half way back before I would *ESC*. The game is already long enough and it just seemed like all the spoken dialogue (especially by some egregiously slow-speaking characters) forced the game into overtime, although it probably made a great marketing bullet point on the back of the box, "200 Hours of Gameplay!". To add to the "extended gameplay" dynamic, sometimes, you have to wade through all of the dialogue options before you get to the stuff you need. That's not choice or interactivity. That's just annoying.
Truth be told, I enjoyed The Longest Journey not for the game but for the fantastic effort expended to create a truly believable fictional fantasy world. The world has some unique qualities that propel it beyond many of the adventure games of that era. It's only major flaw is the slice of time it occupies in the history of video gaming which, last I checked, is not really its fault.
There was a key hidden in the spark. The Eye told me I should care about it.
I emptied my pockets. Nothing made immediate sense, candy wrapper, old photo of friends, a fake leaf for god's sake. (Why am I carrying a fake leaf?) Out of desperation I tried everything I had in my pockets. None of it worked by itself. Time to try the combo trick, the one where I combine everything in my pockets with everything else in my pockets to see what happens. Eventually, I figured out that I could tie a clothesline that I had been carrying around to a clamp, lower the clamp toward the spark, and pick up the key.
Thus began my Journey of the Longest variety. Only half an hour into the first chapter and already I was pixel hunting and turning to the age old strategy of trying random and ridiculous actions. Not a great sign. The Longest Journey is a game that I've seen mentioned on many "overlooked classics" lists. I'd wanted to play it when it was first released but didn't have the cash, so I waited. I waited just long enough until I couldn't find a boxed copy anywhere to save my life. So when I saw it on sale last Christmas at GOG, I decided that the $3 would be worth it.
I've now finished the game and I agree that the setting of the story, one in which a dystopian future world we might expect on earth has long been separated from a parallel dimension where magic is the rule of the day, is a great backdrop for the adventure at hand. While the world is not colored with the same minute strokes that, say, Tolkien attempted, it is still a canvas on which the details have obviously been thoroughly planned. Without a doubt, there were probably pages of history and character backstory that didn't need to be in the game. That effort did not go unnoticed during my play sessions.
However, the one fatal flaw that I believe mars the greatness of the setting, is the gameplay itself. It suffers from the mere fact that it was one of the last breaths of a dying genre. The LucasArts and Sierra adventures had also mined these same tunnels of most of their gems. The Longest Journey was simply a great story told a decade too soon. Pixel hunting and combining (in some cases) some extremely odd inventory items to cause the story to progress were two of the major nails in adventure games' coffin and The Longest Journey didn't skimp in either department. By contrast, the Penumbra series made only five or six years later was a unique revitalization, a fantastic mash-up of first-person perspective exploring, puzzle solving, and some admittedly bungled combat. If I found a dusty old lamp with a genie in it, I think one of my wishes would be that developers would pick up on the techniques that were begun in Penumbra and refine them, implement them and adapt them into more modern adventure titles, one where the puzzles actually involve combining things that make sense.
Another complaint, although much smaller, is that there are so many lines of dialogue to wade through, each and every one of which is spoken at varying levels of quality by voice actors, that the game quickly becomes and act of trying to find the one bit of information you need hidden way inside all the story bits that are only interesting window dressing. I found myself playing with my index finger hovering over the ESC key, because I could read the text faster than it was being spoken. I would get to the end of the line while the character was still mumbling half way back before I would *ESC*. The game is already long enough and it just seemed like all the spoken dialogue (especially by some egregiously slow-speaking characters) forced the game into overtime, although it probably made a great marketing bullet point on the back of the box, "200 Hours of Gameplay!". To add to the "extended gameplay" dynamic, sometimes, you have to wade through all of the dialogue options before you get to the stuff you need. That's not choice or interactivity. That's just annoying.
Truth be told, I enjoyed The Longest Journey not for the game but for the fantastic effort expended to create a truly believable fictional fantasy world. The world has some unique qualities that propel it beyond many of the adventure games of that era. It's only major flaw is the slice of time it occupies in the history of video gaming which, last I checked, is not really its fault.
Friday, March 12, 2010
The Tester Triangle O X Square
Working as a QA (quality assurance) is notoriously one of the worst gigs in the game industry. It is actually a pretty cumbersome, tedious march of degradation toward the goal of a layoff at the end of a project. And the best part is that I was not beneath considering doing it for a living at one point. A few years ago, I had an interview lined up and was ready to jump on a plane in search of a dream. But to this day, I can draw my hand across my forehead and heavily exhale knowing that I made the right choice to cancel that appointment.
Case in point: Sony's excuse for a reality show called The Tester on Playstation Network.
To be honest, I'm not watching it. Which I guess is bad for Hal Sparks because if nobody is watching the smarmy bullshit on VH1 or this crap then nobody is watching Hal Sparks. But seriously, I'm having a great time reading the Game|Life recaps of the show. There's also a Twitter-style real time commentary on the episodes over at Kotaku but it's not nearly as interesting or entertaining as the Wired updates.
The recaps are very fun of course, but Penny Arcade's brief commentary on the matter cuts right to the bone of the problem with this show. The payoff is a booby prize.
Case in point: Sony's excuse for a reality show called The Tester on Playstation Network.
To be honest, I'm not watching it. Which I guess is bad for Hal Sparks because if nobody is watching the smarmy bullshit on VH1 or this crap then nobody is watching Hal Sparks. But seriously, I'm having a great time reading the Game|Life recaps of the show. There's also a Twitter-style real time commentary on the episodes over at Kotaku but it's not nearly as interesting or entertaining as the Wired updates.
The recaps are very fun of course, but Penny Arcade's brief commentary on the matter cuts right to the bone of the problem with this show. The payoff is a booby prize.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Difficulty Spikes
A few weeks ago, I purchased Trine, an interesting platform puzzler that has you switching between characters to solve various puzzles or get past obstacles in your path. Each character has their own unique abilities. For instance, the thief can attach a grappling hook to wooden surfaces to swing Jungle Hunt style between platforms. The wizard can create boxes and platforms that you can then stack and arrange to avoid troublesome jumps altogether. The fighter hits things. A lot.
The game is the perfect length for someone who only wants to sit down for thirty minutes at a time. Each level offers a slight upgrade to the challenges which include using new abilities as you acquire them and harder enemies which is only to be expected. I really do recommend this title. It's interesting, it introduces a couple of unique mechanics, and the physics are well-implemented.
My one huge gripe, however, is the difficulty spike of the last level. There were occasions throughout the game where I failed a mission or a level and had to restart. That's fine. I expect that. But the last level of Trine is difficult enough that it's approaching comedy. It's another one of those situations where I'm so close to the end that I must complete the game but the last level/boss/whatever is so difficult (for me) that if I weren't that close to the end, I would simply stop playing. But I won't. I'll keep playing until I master it. At this point, I've probably attempted the level about twenty times. In the old days, I would have probably bought a replacement controller by now.
I will say this, though. The difficulty curve for the whole game is very manageable. It's just this last level that I'm stuck on. I've played other games like Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth in which the difficulty spiked constantly from one part of the game to the next. It could have been such a great game but I ultimately abandoned that one simply because of the parts that jacked it up to 11.
If you're interested in Trine, here's the trailer.
The game is the perfect length for someone who only wants to sit down for thirty minutes at a time. Each level offers a slight upgrade to the challenges which include using new abilities as you acquire them and harder enemies which is only to be expected. I really do recommend this title. It's interesting, it introduces a couple of unique mechanics, and the physics are well-implemented.
My one huge gripe, however, is the difficulty spike of the last level. There were occasions throughout the game where I failed a mission or a level and had to restart. That's fine. I expect that. But the last level of Trine is difficult enough that it's approaching comedy. It's another one of those situations where I'm so close to the end that I must complete the game but the last level/boss/whatever is so difficult (for me) that if I weren't that close to the end, I would simply stop playing. But I won't. I'll keep playing until I master it. At this point, I've probably attempted the level about twenty times. In the old days, I would have probably bought a replacement controller by now.
I will say this, though. The difficulty curve for the whole game is very manageable. It's just this last level that I'm stuck on. I've played other games like Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth in which the difficulty spiked constantly from one part of the game to the next. It could have been such a great game but I ultimately abandoned that one simply because of the parts that jacked it up to 11.
If you're interested in Trine, here's the trailer.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Stuff Nerds Like
I was recently introduced to a family I had never met. One of the daughters of the family had drawn a respectable looking female head at a three-quarters profile on the paper table cloth. The head was most definitely drawn in a generic anime style with slightly angular eyes and small triangular nose. Everyone near the table was remarking how good it looked and the artist was accepting the compliments well. Amy, who I think was looking for some nerd cred, remarked on its anime style. That's when the girl piped back, "Hey, someone else knows about it!"
And that right there, my friends, is what will perennially bug me about stuff nerds like. As a nerd myself, I understand the mindset. We certainly have a proclivity to dig into a particular topic that we enjoy and mine it until the depths of its caverns are seemingly unblemished by other human interests. Jewels of unique and interesting content remain partially un-mined and sparkling from smooth, unblemished walls, ready to be plucked for our discovery and marvel. It always seems to us, as we dig deeper into aspects of gaming, music, culture, whatever it may be, that no other person could have possibly ventured as deep into the mountain as we have. But it is guaranteed that someone else has done so but that we just don't know it yet. We fail to understand that this path has been worn for some time.
So my initial reaction to the girl's comment was to simply think to myself, "Oh great, one of those." Another budding fan of Japanese pop art and culture who feels as though she is alone in her obsession. Alone in terms of what scope? Her family? Sure, I could see it. My parents didn't and to some extent still don't understand some of things I like. Her friends? Less likely but still probable. But start expanding that scope from a narrow band to a wide, global radius and she will begin to find the kinship of like minds. It's inevitable.
Perhaps as someone who knows of life before the world suddenly became connected with itself, I understand better what it was to know the isolation of the nerd. Not many people I knew would seek out some of the gems that I did. Bulletin-board systems existed during my childhood, but I didn't understand them and therefore failed to see the amazing potential of interconnected machines and databases of information until early in my adulthood. But now that we have the opportunity to perseverate on any topic we so choose simply by powering on our Intertrons, we can easily find others who can share in our interests.
For now, however, we should leave this girl in her perceived wilderness, in her age of wandering. She will find her niche. She may not see it now, but she will find it. She will join us.
And that right there, my friends, is what will perennially bug me about stuff nerds like. As a nerd myself, I understand the mindset. We certainly have a proclivity to dig into a particular topic that we enjoy and mine it until the depths of its caverns are seemingly unblemished by other human interests. Jewels of unique and interesting content remain partially un-mined and sparkling from smooth, unblemished walls, ready to be plucked for our discovery and marvel. It always seems to us, as we dig deeper into aspects of gaming, music, culture, whatever it may be, that no other person could have possibly ventured as deep into the mountain as we have. But it is guaranteed that someone else has done so but that we just don't know it yet. We fail to understand that this path has been worn for some time.
So my initial reaction to the girl's comment was to simply think to myself, "Oh great, one of those." Another budding fan of Japanese pop art and culture who feels as though she is alone in her obsession. Alone in terms of what scope? Her family? Sure, I could see it. My parents didn't and to some extent still don't understand some of things I like. Her friends? Less likely but still probable. But start expanding that scope from a narrow band to a wide, global radius and she will begin to find the kinship of like minds. It's inevitable.
Perhaps as someone who knows of life before the world suddenly became connected with itself, I understand better what it was to know the isolation of the nerd. Not many people I knew would seek out some of the gems that I did. Bulletin-board systems existed during my childhood, but I didn't understand them and therefore failed to see the amazing potential of interconnected machines and databases of information until early in my adulthood. But now that we have the opportunity to perseverate on any topic we so choose simply by powering on our Intertrons, we can easily find others who can share in our interests.
For now, however, we should leave this girl in her perceived wilderness, in her age of wandering. She will find her niche. She may not see it now, but she will find it. She will join us.
Friday, November 06, 2009
Dude, Where's My Chart?
I received a copy of Uncharted 2 recently for the PS3. I can say wholeheartedly that it is nothing short of astounding in the visual department. The world is rendered in such amazingly meticulous detail that it's almost too much to take in sometimes. The amount of information that it offers to populate the artificial world it creates is sometimes overwhelming in its capacity. I've completed a couple hours of the game and I have yet to get bored with the visuals in any capacity.
One idea that I've held tightly to over the last decade is that graphics do not equal gameplay. You can have the prettiest game in the world and it can still remain quite decidedly un-fun. With Uncharted 2 I was extremely skeptical of my own potential for enjoyment and was worried that I would encounter a very pretty but vapid experience. Actually, now that I think about it, that is true to an extent. It is true to the same extent that Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull was a completely stupid yet still thoroughly enjoyable movie experience. Basically, playing this game is like playing an action movie. It moves through tropes of the genre as if checking boxes on a list, but the whole experience is executed with such quality that by the time I get to the end of it, I expect that it should have been a memorable experience and one that I've enjoyed.
One idea that I've held tightly to over the last decade is that graphics do not equal gameplay. You can have the prettiest game in the world and it can still remain quite decidedly un-fun. With Uncharted 2 I was extremely skeptical of my own potential for enjoyment and was worried that I would encounter a very pretty but vapid experience. Actually, now that I think about it, that is true to an extent. It is true to the same extent that Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull was a completely stupid yet still thoroughly enjoyable movie experience. Basically, playing this game is like playing an action movie. It moves through tropes of the genre as if checking boxes on a list, but the whole experience is executed with such quality that by the time I get to the end of it, I expect that it should have been a memorable experience and one that I've enjoyed.
Monday, November 02, 2009
This Again?
I just read this from Friday's Penny Arcade post. It basically puts my exact thoughts on modern PC gaming into very sharp focus. In other words, I agree:
In some ways, I miss the days of the PC's dominance of cutting-edge video gaming. There are some things that can only be experienced by gaming on a full-fledged computer and that, to some extent, still holds true albeit to a lesser extent. But one thing that that platform requires is an occasional spirit to tweak and troubleshoot. As I get older, this is something that I find myself less willing to do. Sure, it's always a learning experience, but sometimes I just want to, you know, have fun. I have a wife, a kid, a job, and other hobbies outside of gaming and I no longer have the desire to spend two hours troubleshooting software when I could be having a good time.
Don't get me wrong (Fool Evan). I still enjoy gaming on my computer. There are lots of advantages to which I alluded before. I like all the indie games that are available. The mods are a huge benefit. But, and this is especially true for the latter, those require troubleshooting most of the time. I still want to play PC games, but I am content with playing smaller, more intimate or sometimes just older titles that I'm sure will work. I no longer have the desire to stay at or just behind the crest of the hardware wave. It can be a much kinder, gentler, and frankly, less stressful place to be.
"I have long since decoupled "having an optimal experience" from "enjoying myself," though for many, many years the two were synonymous. As friends left the Windows platform one by one, a trend I've only recently begun to reverse, it became clear to me that fun is pretty much fun, and fun with friends is amplified, and as a personal edict this has served me better than the earlier, more strident one."
In some ways, I miss the days of the PC's dominance of cutting-edge video gaming. There are some things that can only be experienced by gaming on a full-fledged computer and that, to some extent, still holds true albeit to a lesser extent. But one thing that that platform requires is an occasional spirit to tweak and troubleshoot. As I get older, this is something that I find myself less willing to do. Sure, it's always a learning experience, but sometimes I just want to, you know, have fun. I have a wife, a kid, a job, and other hobbies outside of gaming and I no longer have the desire to spend two hours troubleshooting software when I could be having a good time.
Don't get me wrong (Fool Evan). I still enjoy gaming on my computer. There are lots of advantages to which I alluded before. I like all the indie games that are available. The mods are a huge benefit. But, and this is especially true for the latter, those require troubleshooting most of the time. I still want to play PC games, but I am content with playing smaller, more intimate or sometimes just older titles that I'm sure will work. I no longer have the desire to stay at or just behind the crest of the hardware wave. It can be a much kinder, gentler, and frankly, less stressful place to be.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Unraveling
I haven't finished Braid yet. But I've definitely formed some new opinions and reshaped some old ones in the process. First, I previously stated that I thought Braid got as close to the "games as art" grail that so many have been chasing. That was after the first and second level. Now well into the fifth level, I can truly say that I wish to stomp on Jonathan Blow's scrotum and force him to come clean with exactly what in bloody blazes he's trying to say. See, at the beginning, I thought that the "story" would make itself clear as I progressed, that there would be some natural exposure of the author's intent over my unraveling of the game's challenges.
Nope.
Strictly speaking, the narrative never reveals its purpose (at least of what I know of it so far). It's like reading high school poetry. The author is trying very hard to be symbolic and witty and creative by using imagery that is entirely personal in nature. According to Blow, some people have emailed him with their interpretation of his work and those few have it right apparently. Those of us unwashed who are too stupid or lazy (me) to spend time trying to decipher Blow's hieroglyphics are simply out of luck.
My only other complaint is something that a friend brought up. Sometimes, the puzzles are just too much sitting and staring at the level until you come up with the exact solution that the designer was thinking. I don't mind doing that to a point, but when I only have a half an hour to play, I don't feel like spending the whole time staring at and pondering the meaning of some little fuzzy glowing cannonball. Sometimes a man just wants to have some fun and not be all cerebral about it. Is that wrong?
Nope.
Strictly speaking, the narrative never reveals its purpose (at least of what I know of it so far). It's like reading high school poetry. The author is trying very hard to be symbolic and witty and creative by using imagery that is entirely personal in nature. According to Blow, some people have emailed him with their interpretation of his work and those few have it right apparently. Those of us unwashed who are too stupid or lazy (me) to spend time trying to decipher Blow's hieroglyphics are simply out of luck.
My only other complaint is something that a friend brought up. Sometimes, the puzzles are just too much sitting and staring at the level until you come up with the exact solution that the designer was thinking. I don't mind doing that to a point, but when I only have a half an hour to play, I don't feel like spending the whole time staring at and pondering the meaning of some little fuzzy glowing cannonball. Sometimes a man just wants to have some fun and not be all cerebral about it. Is that wrong?
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Begin Crazy in T Minus 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
This is so incredibly ridiculous, I'm almost inclined to believe that it's fake. The text that follows is taken from this site: http://objectiveministries.org/zounds/gaming.html
The review is toward the bottom of the page after the usual stuff about how Christian games are Teh Awzomz (a particularly false statement if you know absolutely anything about the hobby) and Doom is Teh Evul (well duh).
Begin Crazy....... NOW!
______________________
Tetris (Soviet Academy of Sciences, available everywhere)
Tetris
12.10.2008: Tetris is an action puzzle game where the player rotates falling block shapes to make them fit together in a pile. When a row is filled, it disappears, keeping the height of the pile of blocks from increasing. As the game progresses, it continually speeds up until the player starts making mistakes that allow the blocks to reach the top of the game area, ending the game. Tetris is unwinable, you can only put off your inevitable defeat. This fatalistic aspect of the game should come as no surprise since it was originally created in 1985 in the Soviet Union, where the Atheist government taught everyone that there is nothing but a bleak, pointless existence followed by death with no chance for Salvation. It is claimed that the word "tetris" comes from the game pieces all being made of four blocks. In reality, the game was named in mockery of the Trinity by adding a forth hypostasis, the Communist State, to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Because it is simple to program, versions of Tetris can be found on every game, computer, and operating system. There have even been implementations of Tetris done using computer controlled lights in office buildings, turning the lighted windows into the falling blocks. The ubiquity of Tetris is also because it is highly addictive. Its repetitive gameplay and use of a repetitive Russian folk tune causes players to slip into a hypnagogic state, making them receptive to the Communistic themes inherent in the game imagery (everyone is an unindividualistic block that must be made to fit together in Soviet conformity, and sometimes whole lines of people are made to disappear without any explanation). This is intentional, since, like all work done by the Soviet Academy of Science where Tetris was developed, it was part of secret military research, in this case having to do with mind control. (The US military also researched mind control video games in the 1980s, including one called "Polybius", but we never used them during the Cold War, unlike the Soviets who unleashed Tetris into the general public where it's still affecting people to this day.) Because of its fatalistic worldview and the danger it poses to people's God-given Free Will, all implementations of Tetris get ZERO CROSSES. [See our Tetris video exposé on GodTube.]
UPDATE (1.8.2009): The Secular media must be reading my reviews because shortly after I exposed Tetris for what it really is, they started trying to counter my exposé (without mentioning it, naturally) by promoting a so-called "study" hastily printed in some Darwinist online journal that claims Tetris is beneficial to mental health. They say soldiers should play Tetris within 6 hours of being in combat to keep them from having post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The only way that could happen is if all our soldiers were equipped with Tetris games in the field! And how did they learn this? They showed subjects some sort of snuff film with like people being killed (where did they get this? do the police know about it?) then had the subjects play Tetris. What kind of sick experiment is this!? Before I was born again I saw a Secular movie called, I think, "the Parallax View", where a shadowy corporation is brainwashing people to become assassins by showing them a propaganda movie that has all sorts of disturbing images mixed with words like "GOD", "LOVE", "COUNTRY", etc. They didn't have them play Tetris afterwards, but I guess that's how they do it nowadays. I asked my Game Theory professor Dr. Holgroth about this and he thinks this whole thing is a plot by the militant Atheists to undermine our military. We try to install a Christian worldview in our soldiers in basic training and military academies, then when they are deployed, anti-Christians sneakily put Communist propaganda in their hands to condition them to associate relief from traumatic stress with a Godless worldview. (For those suffering from PTSD, do not be tricked by crypto-Communists into playing Tetris! Real relief from PTSD can be had by taking beta blockers, SSRIs, and memorizing scripture.)
The review is toward the bottom of the page after the usual stuff about how Christian games are Teh Awzomz (a particularly false statement if you know absolutely anything about the hobby) and Doom is Teh Evul (well duh).
Begin Crazy....... NOW!
______________________
Tetris (Soviet Academy of Sciences, available everywhere)
Tetris
12.10.2008: Tetris is an action puzzle game where the player rotates falling block shapes to make them fit together in a pile. When a row is filled, it disappears, keeping the height of the pile of blocks from increasing. As the game progresses, it continually speeds up until the player starts making mistakes that allow the blocks to reach the top of the game area, ending the game. Tetris is unwinable, you can only put off your inevitable defeat. This fatalistic aspect of the game should come as no surprise since it was originally created in 1985 in the Soviet Union, where the Atheist government taught everyone that there is nothing but a bleak, pointless existence followed by death with no chance for Salvation. It is claimed that the word "tetris" comes from the game pieces all being made of four blocks. In reality, the game was named in mockery of the Trinity by adding a forth hypostasis, the Communist State, to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Because it is simple to program, versions of Tetris can be found on every game, computer, and operating system. There have even been implementations of Tetris done using computer controlled lights in office buildings, turning the lighted windows into the falling blocks. The ubiquity of Tetris is also because it is highly addictive. Its repetitive gameplay and use of a repetitive Russian folk tune causes players to slip into a hypnagogic state, making them receptive to the Communistic themes inherent in the game imagery (everyone is an unindividualistic block that must be made to fit together in Soviet conformity, and sometimes whole lines of people are made to disappear without any explanation). This is intentional, since, like all work done by the Soviet Academy of Science where Tetris was developed, it was part of secret military research, in this case having to do with mind control. (The US military also researched mind control video games in the 1980s, including one called "Polybius", but we never used them during the Cold War, unlike the Soviets who unleashed Tetris into the general public where it's still affecting people to this day.) Because of its fatalistic worldview and the danger it poses to people's God-given Free Will, all implementations of Tetris get ZERO CROSSES. [See our Tetris video exposé on GodTube.]
UPDATE (1.8.2009): The Secular media must be reading my reviews because shortly after I exposed Tetris for what it really is, they started trying to counter my exposé (without mentioning it, naturally) by promoting a so-called "study" hastily printed in some Darwinist online journal that claims Tetris is beneficial to mental health. They say soldiers should play Tetris within 6 hours of being in combat to keep them from having post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The only way that could happen is if all our soldiers were equipped with Tetris games in the field! And how did they learn this? They showed subjects some sort of snuff film with like people being killed (where did they get this? do the police know about it?) then had the subjects play Tetris. What kind of sick experiment is this!? Before I was born again I saw a Secular movie called, I think, "the Parallax View", where a shadowy corporation is brainwashing people to become assassins by showing them a propaganda movie that has all sorts of disturbing images mixed with words like "GOD", "LOVE", "COUNTRY", etc. They didn't have them play Tetris afterwards, but I guess that's how they do it nowadays. I asked my Game Theory professor Dr. Holgroth about this and he thinks this whole thing is a plot by the militant Atheists to undermine our military. We try to install a Christian worldview in our soldiers in basic training and military academies, then when they are deployed, anti-Christians sneakily put Communist propaganda in their hands to condition them to associate relief from traumatic stress with a Godless worldview. (For those suffering from PTSD, do not be tricked by crypto-Communists into playing Tetris! Real relief from PTSD can be had by taking beta blockers, SSRIs, and memorizing scripture.)
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Buzz Bombs
I was sick all weekend. It started on Thursday night and I felt ok to go to work on Friday, but by the end of the day, I felt terrible. A sore throat was the primary symptom, not a scratchy one but swollen. It is still making it a chore to eat food. I was also experiencing a slight fever and fatigue, but the fatigue was gone by Saturday evening and the fever left earlier. All that's really left is the fever.
The really bad part is that I think Nicholas has it. He's been cutting a few teeth this week so he's been a pretty fussy guy, but today he got really fussy. He was fussy to the point of not being comforted by anything we did. We're taking him to the doctor tomorrow morning. For any family reading, I do not think that this is the current pandemic going around in us right now. It's just unlikely because I hadn't been exposed to anyone with the flu to the best of my knowledge.
In the meantime, while I was trying to focus on other things to avoid swallowing, I rediscovered Jeskola Buzz and have begun working on a new song based upon my frustrations with Puzzle Quest Galactrix constantly crashing to my desktop. I realize its appeal to a very niche audience, but trust me when I say I'm not writing anything for mass consumption here.
The really bad part is that I think Nicholas has it. He's been cutting a few teeth this week so he's been a pretty fussy guy, but today he got really fussy. He was fussy to the point of not being comforted by anything we did. We're taking him to the doctor tomorrow morning. For any family reading, I do not think that this is the current pandemic going around in us right now. It's just unlikely because I hadn't been exposed to anyone with the flu to the best of my knowledge.
In the meantime, while I was trying to focus on other things to avoid swallowing, I rediscovered Jeskola Buzz and have begun working on a new song based upon my frustrations with Puzzle Quest Galactrix constantly crashing to my desktop. I realize its appeal to a very niche audience, but trust me when I say I'm not writing anything for mass consumption here.
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Back to the Blog
I haven't written much lately mostly due to my own preoccupations with a couple of new games and Facebook not to mention being pretty busy wrapping up the end of the spring semester. Facebook is OK for quick communication but I miss taking some time now and again to gather my thoughts, reflect, and write something a little less erratic.
I got pretty addicted to the Facebook application Bejeweled Blitz for a while there. It was fun to beat high scores and have a little healthy competition from some good friends, but one thing always bothered me about the game: the luck factor. You could play fantastically, finding lots of good matches in quick succession and only score in the 30K range and then have an equally good game the next round, scoring well into the 100K range simply based on the random gem drops. After climbing to the top of the heap twice, I simply can't bear to play it that much anymore.
I've also been playing Bioshock. It has some great atmosphere and I can definitely see the framework of the System Shock series operating under some of the basic mechanics of the game. But honestly, I'm feeling so very done with these kinds of games. There's really nothing new there. Shoot scary zombie-esque creatures and uncover a mystery, the pieces of which are parceled out in a very scripted and linear way.
Anyway, now that summer is almost upon me, I hope to be able to spend a bit more time in reflective journaling than I have in recent weeks. Hold on, though, I have to twitter... (I don't twitter.)
I got pretty addicted to the Facebook application Bejeweled Blitz for a while there. It was fun to beat high scores and have a little healthy competition from some good friends, but one thing always bothered me about the game: the luck factor. You could play fantastically, finding lots of good matches in quick succession and only score in the 30K range and then have an equally good game the next round, scoring well into the 100K range simply based on the random gem drops. After climbing to the top of the heap twice, I simply can't bear to play it that much anymore.
I've also been playing Bioshock. It has some great atmosphere and I can definitely see the framework of the System Shock series operating under some of the basic mechanics of the game. But honestly, I'm feeling so very done with these kinds of games. There's really nothing new there. Shoot scary zombie-esque creatures and uncover a mystery, the pieces of which are parceled out in a very scripted and linear way.
Anyway, now that summer is almost upon me, I hope to be able to spend a bit more time in reflective journaling than I have in recent weeks. Hold on, though, I have to twitter... (I don't twitter.)
Friday, April 03, 2009
The Attack on the Anti-Amusement Park Hippo League
I hadn't even finished my morning coffee when dispatch radioed with the news. I had to tail it down to the amusement park right away. Some gang of cheap thugs had some serious demands and they would rip the giant foam head off any poor sap in an elephant costume to get what they wanted. I didn't even tie my shoes. I was out the door and speeding toward the park, my coffee left ignored and getting colder on the kitchen table.
When I arrived at the park, the stampede had begun. People were running slowly and steadily past me in the direction of the gate. I thought maybe they were panicking, but when I noticed the sign for the 2K fun run, my heart sank. These folks were just here to raise some money to save their beloved park.
Suddenly, as some poor guy in a green sweatshirt innocently skipped toward the exit, trying to escape any potential violence, we were ambushed at the popcorn stand, the mayhem made all the more ironic as the loudspeakers at the park pumped out some Chuck Mangione style smooth jazz. We were attacked by an airport mechanic and a lumberjack. They were dispatched with ease, but at what cost to our souls? We would soon find out.
What sort of nefarious gang was this? They apparently had their tendrils deep into Airport Mechanic/Lumberjack Local 119. Who knew how far this terrorist cell's influence went? As some local joe in a green sweatshirt tried to skip through our gunfire exchanges, a poor hunchbacked woman on the fun run did her best to finish the race she had begun. Bless her heart, she would save that amusement park at any cost. I hoped she made it out alive.
When we reached the cap shop, all hell broke loose. Gunfire and Molotov cocktails rained down upon our heads as we attempted to secure the area. Thirty seven of those dirty thugs had captured the fifteen cap shop employees working that day and were holding them hostage. The gang had even recruited some secretaries from the dentist's office down the road. I muttered at the nihilism of it all. They would stop at nothing to achieve their evil ends. As a pile of hats with dog doo on the brim tumbled to the ground, a strange thought went through my head. My squad went to Six Flags, East L.A. and all I got was this lousy death!
I chuckled at my witty quip, but my daydream was shattered as we approached the broken merry-go-round. The thing wasn't even operational and still this band of terrorists would stop at nothing to maintain their control. As I tried to aim away from the prancing historic artistry, lumberjacks flanked me at every turn. "Whad'ya think of that?!" they would yell as the ranged assailants screamed demonically, "Yeeeaaaahhh!" Fortunately, my cat-like reflexes were enough to drive them away, but the attackers kept using the carousel as fantastic cover. Amidst another final hail of gunfire, we drove the secretary collective back until they turned tail and attempted a getaway on the Jet Coaster.
The Jet Coaster was a tandem racing coaster, the kind where people laugh and taunt each other as their trains race each other around every curve not really caring that their destiny is in the hands of another, out of their control. Just like today. I don't know how they did it, but the thugs had managed to set up a transport system, something to replace their fallen numbers with ease as they continued to pull the innocent standers-by to their deaths far below. Before I could empty two magazines, the thugs' coaster was ahead! They were winning! But as luck would have it, their Jet Coaster miraculously careened back into the loading area. Amidst all the action, I hadn't even noticed that we'd arrived back at the station.
With all the confusion, my squad never realized that they were just leading us in circles, dragging us by the nostrils to their secret headquarters location. The popcorn stand! Their leader had been under our noses the entire time! As he emerged from his hiding spot behind the soda machine, the portly fellow with the gigantic hips took off his wig. "Whad'ya think of that?", he exclaimed in a slightly more gruff voice.
"I think it's time for you go, hippo," I thought. He began to fire what appeared to be his time gun at me. This technology was unheard of. Where were they getting the researchers for this? How were they paying them? The bullets he fired at me careened slowly from the barrel of the gun as if time had slowed down, somehow allowing me to fire my own bullets at them to send them careening off in another direction. I was surprised that my bullets had much effect at all because this time gun's ammo was incredibly large. For a bunch of cheap thugs, they must have had some incredibly wealthy benefactors.
It was the roughest fight of my life. As my last round was fired, the portly man fell to the ground, the impact of his fall causing the popcorn stand to explode in a cloud of flame, hulls, and creamy butter. But what happened that day was no closure for me. I'd killed the Hippo League's boss and 90 of his accomplices. But I'd taken down three innocent victims in the process. Because of that, the wounds on my soul would never heal. After all, despite our victory, more questions were raised than answered. There sometimes comes a moment in an officer's life when he just can't take another day. That was my moment. Following that event, I retired from the force and pursued the gentle life of an attack dog trainer. The scars of the followers of the Hippo League would never heal no matter how long or far I tried to run.
The only thing that remains is the shoulder-cam video I took of the event. I no longer have a need for it. Perhaps you can learn from our mistakes.
When I arrived at the park, the stampede had begun. People were running slowly and steadily past me in the direction of the gate. I thought maybe they were panicking, but when I noticed the sign for the 2K fun run, my heart sank. These folks were just here to raise some money to save their beloved park.
Suddenly, as some poor guy in a green sweatshirt innocently skipped toward the exit, trying to escape any potential violence, we were ambushed at the popcorn stand, the mayhem made all the more ironic as the loudspeakers at the park pumped out some Chuck Mangione style smooth jazz. We were attacked by an airport mechanic and a lumberjack. They were dispatched with ease, but at what cost to our souls? We would soon find out.
What sort of nefarious gang was this? They apparently had their tendrils deep into Airport Mechanic/Lumberjack Local 119. Who knew how far this terrorist cell's influence went? As some local joe in a green sweatshirt tried to skip through our gunfire exchanges, a poor hunchbacked woman on the fun run did her best to finish the race she had begun. Bless her heart, she would save that amusement park at any cost. I hoped she made it out alive.
When we reached the cap shop, all hell broke loose. Gunfire and Molotov cocktails rained down upon our heads as we attempted to secure the area. Thirty seven of those dirty thugs had captured the fifteen cap shop employees working that day and were holding them hostage. The gang had even recruited some secretaries from the dentist's office down the road. I muttered at the nihilism of it all. They would stop at nothing to achieve their evil ends. As a pile of hats with dog doo on the brim tumbled to the ground, a strange thought went through my head. My squad went to Six Flags, East L.A. and all I got was this lousy death!
I chuckled at my witty quip, but my daydream was shattered as we approached the broken merry-go-round. The thing wasn't even operational and still this band of terrorists would stop at nothing to maintain their control. As I tried to aim away from the prancing historic artistry, lumberjacks flanked me at every turn. "Whad'ya think of that?!" they would yell as the ranged assailants screamed demonically, "Yeeeaaaahhh!" Fortunately, my cat-like reflexes were enough to drive them away, but the attackers kept using the carousel as fantastic cover. Amidst another final hail of gunfire, we drove the secretary collective back until they turned tail and attempted a getaway on the Jet Coaster.
The Jet Coaster was a tandem racing coaster, the kind where people laugh and taunt each other as their trains race each other around every curve not really caring that their destiny is in the hands of another, out of their control. Just like today. I don't know how they did it, but the thugs had managed to set up a transport system, something to replace their fallen numbers with ease as they continued to pull the innocent standers-by to their deaths far below. Before I could empty two magazines, the thugs' coaster was ahead! They were winning! But as luck would have it, their Jet Coaster miraculously careened back into the loading area. Amidst all the action, I hadn't even noticed that we'd arrived back at the station.
With all the confusion, my squad never realized that they were just leading us in circles, dragging us by the nostrils to their secret headquarters location. The popcorn stand! Their leader had been under our noses the entire time! As he emerged from his hiding spot behind the soda machine, the portly fellow with the gigantic hips took off his wig. "Whad'ya think of that?", he exclaimed in a slightly more gruff voice.
"I think it's time for you go, hippo," I thought. He began to fire what appeared to be his time gun at me. This technology was unheard of. Where were they getting the researchers for this? How were they paying them? The bullets he fired at me careened slowly from the barrel of the gun as if time had slowed down, somehow allowing me to fire my own bullets at them to send them careening off in another direction. I was surprised that my bullets had much effect at all because this time gun's ammo was incredibly large. For a bunch of cheap thugs, they must have had some incredibly wealthy benefactors.
It was the roughest fight of my life. As my last round was fired, the portly man fell to the ground, the impact of his fall causing the popcorn stand to explode in a cloud of flame, hulls, and creamy butter. But what happened that day was no closure for me. I'd killed the Hippo League's boss and 90 of his accomplices. But I'd taken down three innocent victims in the process. Because of that, the wounds on my soul would never heal. After all, despite our victory, more questions were raised than answered. There sometimes comes a moment in an officer's life when he just can't take another day. That was my moment. Following that event, I retired from the force and pursued the gentle life of an attack dog trainer. The scars of the followers of the Hippo League would never heal no matter how long or far I tried to run.
The only thing that remains is the shoulder-cam video I took of the event. I no longer have a need for it. Perhaps you can learn from our mistakes.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
A Moment of Pride
I love it when the effort I've put into researching something pays off. After seeing some screenshots of some of the new objects available in the latest Community Expansion Pack for Neverwinter Nights, I just had to have pianos in my module. Historically, I've been very frustrated with the CEP for not cooperating well with certain online play sessions and I was reluctant to add content from it. But, after a number of hours spent trying to figure how to get all the content installed and integrated correctly into the game's toolset, I'm very happy with the results.
The progress on the module is slow but I'm intent to make something that is actually playable and not in some buggy, incomplete alpha state.
The progress on the module is slow but I'm intent to make something that is actually playable and not in some buggy, incomplete alpha state.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
ROM Check OK
A recent Facebook note from iPal Vern indicates that another museum is adding a permanent collection with the goal to preserve the history of electronic gaming. As a lover of the early days of electronic gaming, I continue to applaud these efforts partly because of my appreciation and partly because I am lazy. Allow me to explain.
Because I like old video games, I have a part-time love affair with emulators to keep my collection of games running without the catch of too many legacy hardware problems. Atari 2600, Colecovision, Commodore 64, DOS, and arcade cabinets are all on my PC's hard drive in software form. But again, I am lazy. You see, it takes genuine effort to keep up with the development behind some of these platforms.
For instance, I recently got a MAME itch again that required some significant scratching. So I downloaded the latest GUI MAME client and pulled the old CD-ROMs out of the closet. And there's the catch. The key word in that sentence is OLD. I acquired that ROM set in 2002, a full seven years ago. As the MAME client develops, it requires certain ROMs to update their file sets as well. My ROM set is very out of date. So even ROMs that I have don't work and that requires to reach out to the intarwebs for update downloads. It takes a lot of time for me to find these updates because while some sites have the ROMs available, a lot of them don't keep their sets updated either. And because these things are still copyright protected, that drives the honest preservationists further underground.
So once I figure out that it's going to take way too much work to even keep this tiny little collection of ROMs functional, I give up. Once more, I am lazy. The reason I started feeding off of the the emulation scene in the first place is that I have a strong desire to preserve these games. Their original hardware has a shelf life. It will stop working. But software can fill the gap. Unfortunately, it just takes a lot of effort to keep things working and compatible, so even my modest efforts will be wiped out.
Of course, all of this is simply to state that I applaud the efforts of the true preservationists, the people that are doing their best to see that roots of this new medium are preserved and do not die a slow and silent death trapped in the webs of intellectual property law. To those people: I might not be smart enough to do what you do, but I support your efforts whole-heartedly.
Because I like old video games, I have a part-time love affair with emulators to keep my collection of games running without the catch of too many legacy hardware problems. Atari 2600, Colecovision, Commodore 64, DOS, and arcade cabinets are all on my PC's hard drive in software form. But again, I am lazy. You see, it takes genuine effort to keep up with the development behind some of these platforms.
For instance, I recently got a MAME itch again that required some significant scratching. So I downloaded the latest GUI MAME client and pulled the old CD-ROMs out of the closet. And there's the catch. The key word in that sentence is OLD. I acquired that ROM set in 2002, a full seven years ago. As the MAME client develops, it requires certain ROMs to update their file sets as well. My ROM set is very out of date. So even ROMs that I have don't work and that requires to reach out to the intarwebs for update downloads. It takes a lot of time for me to find these updates because while some sites have the ROMs available, a lot of them don't keep their sets updated either. And because these things are still copyright protected, that drives the honest preservationists further underground.
So once I figure out that it's going to take way too much work to even keep this tiny little collection of ROMs functional, I give up. Once more, I am lazy. The reason I started feeding off of the the emulation scene in the first place is that I have a strong desire to preserve these games. Their original hardware has a shelf life. It will stop working. But software can fill the gap. Unfortunately, it just takes a lot of effort to keep things working and compatible, so even my modest efforts will be wiped out.
Of course, all of this is simply to state that I applaud the efforts of the true preservationists, the people that are doing their best to see that roots of this new medium are preserved and do not die a slow and silent death trapped in the webs of intellectual property law. To those people: I might not be smart enough to do what you do, but I support your efforts whole-heartedly.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Lagaard to Layton
So Etrian Odyssey didn't last long. I don't mind grinding for the sake of grinding, but this game had it in spades. Not only that but the difficulty spikes of the bosses were infuriatingly steep. Imagine you just spent the last 45 minutes grinding for special power points for your entire party only to be wiped out in the first round. "No more," I said. "I'm finished with this."
And so it was that my Odyssey came to an End. But, it was soon replaced by a host of brain teasers in Professor Layton and the Curious Village, a worthy game filled with puzzles mostly found in the always disappointingly titled "Games Magazine". It was disappointing to me, anyway.
Layton is fun but I was informed only yesterday that my DS-10 shipped. I can't wait. LFOs, here I come!
And so it was that my Odyssey came to an End. But, it was soon replaced by a host of brain teasers in Professor Layton and the Curious Village, a worthy game filled with puzzles mostly found in the always disappointingly titled "Games Magazine". It was disappointing to me, anyway.
Layton is fun but I was informed only yesterday that my DS-10 shipped. I can't wait. LFOs, here I come!
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Gaming Hiatus?
Since I've been working at the new job, I haven't had a whole lot of time to sink into gaming. Plus, I had to leave my PC back in Chicago until we can move everything out here. I had just started Darwinia when that happened and I'll be glad to see it again. However, I did bring my Nintendo DS with me and in the time between when I get in bed and I fall asleep, I've been spending a few minutes here and there playing games on it.
Now that I've finished Geometry Wars, I've picked up Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard. It's supposedly for only the hardest of hardcore RPG fans, and for the record, you might want to add the letter J to the front of that acronym, too. It is hard, for sure. I haven't quite finished the first level and my party's been wiped out three times. I'm going to keep going with it, though. It seems like I could get into the character customization aspects of it and the classes, while they do fill the standard archetypal tank/healer/damage roles are slightly more interesting versions of other classes I've seen lately in games like Guild Wars. There's a Necro-ish Hexer and a foreign-ish fighting Ronin class that adds some potentially interesting twists to the fighting part.
There's also the cartography. Oh, the cartography. I won't repeat what's been said in reviews countless times, but most games don't make you do this anymore. I don't find it that much of a loss not to have to whip out my graph paper to play a game anymore, but the tools that they've given to draw the map in-game are sufficient and completely appropriate so far.
Darwinia
Now that I've finished Geometry Wars, I've picked up Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard. It's supposedly for only the hardest of hardcore RPG fans, and for the record, you might want to add the letter J to the front of that acronym, too. It is hard, for sure. I haven't quite finished the first level and my party's been wiped out three times. I'm going to keep going with it, though. It seems like I could get into the character customization aspects of it and the classes, while they do fill the standard archetypal tank/healer/damage roles are slightly more interesting versions of other classes I've seen lately in games like Guild Wars. There's a Necro-ish Hexer and a foreign-ish fighting Ronin class that adds some potentially interesting twists to the fighting part.
There's also the cartography. Oh, the cartography. I won't repeat what's been said in reviews countless times, but most games don't make you do this anymore. I don't find it that much of a loss not to have to whip out my graph paper to play a game anymore, but the tools that they've given to draw the map in-game are sufficient and completely appropriate so far.
Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Poesysteme: Markmark Xydenden
My latest piece entitled "Markmark Xydenden".
Like I said before, it's far from genius and it's a little disappointing when the poems tend toward the repetitive, but it's pretty entertaining while it lasts.
markmark xydenden ter mark
markladentmarkmark markmark mark
markmark outcutmarkden dentact
dentact dentactactdent oneden
mark xyonemarking markdent out
markladentmarkmark mark den out
dentactactdent xydenden den
ter den dentmarksphsty ter
Like I said before, it's far from genius and it's a little disappointing when the poems tend toward the repetitive, but it's pretty entertaining while it lasts.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Word Games
I have a penchant for offbeat games. Over the years, I have moved away from being instantly dazzled by graphics and sound when game play itself hasn't changed at all. I'm looking at you, most first-person shooters. So during the past couple of weeks, I've had a chance to check out a few pretty amazing little independent games thanks in part to the free games list at freegames.1up.com.
One title with which I've spent more time than expected is Poesysteme. An explanation of the game is somewhat difficult because it's not really a game at all. In the fashion of a simulation game, you are able to place grass, trees, and what look like oil splotches around an isometric grid. In true word nerd fashion, the grass is formed entirely of punctuation marks and the trees display similar theatrics. Then, you can also place words which then wander around the grid breaking apart and combining with other words that you place to form new words. At any time, you can hit the space bar to see a poem made from some of the words you've let run around the world. It always ends up being nonsensical but it can be very entertaining. If I can find a place to freely host audio that lets me embed it here at the Green, I'll make a recording of one of the Macintosh voices reading one of my nonsense poems to put on display here. If you'd like to see the game in action without actually playing it, someone has already provided you an option:
----------------
Now playing: Roy Haynes - If I Could
via FoxyTunes
One title with which I've spent more time than expected is Poesysteme. An explanation of the game is somewhat difficult because it's not really a game at all. In the fashion of a simulation game, you are able to place grass, trees, and what look like oil splotches around an isometric grid. In true word nerd fashion, the grass is formed entirely of punctuation marks and the trees display similar theatrics. Then, you can also place words which then wander around the grid breaking apart and combining with other words that you place to form new words. At any time, you can hit the space bar to see a poem made from some of the words you've let run around the world. It always ends up being nonsensical but it can be very entertaining. If I can find a place to freely host audio that lets me embed it here at the Green, I'll make a recording of one of the Macintosh voices reading one of my nonsense poems to put on display here. If you'd like to see the game in action without actually playing it, someone has already provided you an option:
----------------
Now playing: Roy Haynes - If I Could
via FoxyTunes
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