What are you playing today?

[Cuckooguy]

I'm currently playing Rayman Origins. I kinda like how for level themes, they take 2 things that seem kinda mundane alone as a level but put them together to make something fantastical, except the first world which was just your standard looking nature level. I'm in the 3rd world, the ice/food level, and I look forward to see what wacky combination there will be next. Having a standard looking first world was probably a good idea so the later levels would feel more bizarre, but it was also probably why I had such an on-off relationship with it (It took me 5 months to finally beat the first world but I beat world 2 and got to the middle of world 3 in the last 2 days).

[Jingles]

I decided to pick up Kid Icarus Uprising on a whim. It's pretty fun! The controls seem fine to me (I use my right thumb to aim), the voice acting is nice, and it's very graphically pleasing. Probably the best game I've played on my 3DS.

[Crisis]

I beat Demon's Souls. I would have beat it a lot faster were it not for the final level, which took me about 4 days and maybe 10 hours.

All in all, I thought the game was a little bit (dare I say it) too easy. In particular, the boss fights that involve hitting a weak point in order to briefly open another, weaker point were a bit tedious once you figured out the gimmick. It means that when you reach the boss fights that are actually difficult (Flamelurker, Maneater, Allant) you just hit a brick wall.

The secret to doing well in this game seems to be using the online system as much as possible to break these barriers to progress. Helping other players provides you with new strategies you wouldn't have thought of on your own, is a fun way to amass soul currency, and resurrects you at the end of the level. This will be small comfort to those in the US who have yet to beat the game, because the servers recently went offline.

Fortunately, in a surprising lack of complacency, people have been pushing hard for a PC port of Dark Souls and Namco recently caved, so hopefully that game's prolonged life is assured.

Overall, I felt the game's level design walked a fine line between challenging and unfair. I hope that Dark Souls is even more challenging, but with fewer one-hit kills and impossible to anticipate hazards. It's definitely been one of the most memorable experiences of this gaming generation, though, and there are a handful of moments that are pure genius - kidnapping another player to serve as a boss fight is such a good idea that I'm shocked nobody else had ever attempted it. This game's strength is its atmosphere, and it pulls it off better than any game I've played in a long time.

[Wombatwarlord777]

I just spent some time playing the latest re-release of Avernum: Escape From The Pit today. For those who don't know, Avernum is a series of fairly typical tactical RPGs where your party romps about in a large isometic underworld and kills monsters and completes side-quests and whatnot. The world in which it takes place in is always large and has impressive depth for its size, which is why I suppose I like it as much as I do.

I'm enjoying this game thoroughly because it takes place in an entirely different setting than the third Avernum game, which is the only one I've previously played. Despite following the series for a couple of years, there's a lot of new material that I'm discovering. It's always nice to have that in a new game.

[Delphine]

I just sent back Alpha Protocol, which was basically Deus Ex: Human Revolution but not as good. Once you level Stealth up enough there's no challenge at all and the plot isn't terribly engaging. The game DOES let you give Thorton a magnificent beard, though, so there's that.

[Senbei]

PS3 YLoD'd. Don't suppose any of you guys have ever DIY'd the repair? Acronyms should not be used as verbs.

[Green Gibbon!]

I've never heard of that before. I had the disc drives on my first two PS3's crap out, but I don't recall any yellow light...


Incidentally, I dropped out of Hikari Shinwa after the Pandora stage. Mechanically the game is just a mess. The further you play, the more the controls fall apart. I also don't like the constant banter between Pit and Palutena. It's funny (when I can understand it), but it never ends and so gets to be a distraction. It's like the designers had no confidence in the mechanics so they tacked on this ongoing dialogue to divert the player's attention.

That's actually pretty descriptive of the entire game. It's no wonder it was delayed for so long, they very clearly struggled trying to make the good ideas (and there are good ideas in there) work, but they couldn't quite pull it together. I doubt this is going to revive the franchise, or at least I hope it doesn't. Not like this.


I also started Fez, though it has yet to grip me. As far as I can see, it's an ongoing labyrinth of pretty, but not especially entertaining set pieces that are connected together with no evident logic or structure. Trying to remember how to get back to old areas is a nightmare and the puzzles don't seem to make much sense. It really just feels kind of obnoxious. I'll try to plow a bit deeper, though I do not feel particularly compelled to return to it.


On the bright side, I actually did like Sine Mora. I have never been a connoisseur of shooting games - in fact, I have never actually finished one before now - but this is pretty and fun and challenging without being frustrating. I love the dead serious tone (despite the fact that this is a story about a time-travelling bison soldier exacting revenge for his panther son's death) and all these monologues dripping with philosophical schtick the like of which you would find in a Mamoru Oshii film. To get the good ending (or the "true" ending, as it's called - I doubt it's happy), you apparently have to clear the game on normal mode and I can barely handle easy. Guess I'll have to look that up on YouTube.

Apparently the game was developed by some European team I've never heard of, but the design work was handled by Grasshopper, who I've never never been a fan of, but everything works here. It's kind of expensive for the length, but I recommend it.

[Majestic Joey]

I was dissapointed with Fez also. I'm pretty far in the game but I honestly have no idea what I am supposed to do in the game now to beat it.

Sine Mora looks cool, First time I ever heard of it will have to get the demo.

I probably said this before but there is this great indie game that came out called Aban Hawkins and the 1000 spikes. I probably mentioned it before but I just got to say this game is amazing if you like super difficult platformers. Graphics, controls and music are fantastic and best part is that the game only costs a dollar (as opposed to snobby indie game Fez). I've been replaying it for the past month and it's a really fun, probably my favorite game I've played in the last year besides Catherine.

[Xyton]

I doubt this is going to revive the franchise, or at least I hope it doesn't. Not like this.

Looks like you're right.

As far as Fez goes, it's… not balanced very well? Some of the puzzles are clear enough, but some of them are just… really obscure. And if you want to get all the things without using a guide, you need to learn how to read the game's character set. There are a lot of cool ideas in there, and more than once I though something about the game was cleaver, but some of the stuff in there isn't telegraphed well enough.

[Cuckooguy]

I finished Rayman Origins yesterday and Kid Icarus Uprising today.

Rayman Origins is generally unfunny except the bosses, some of which are hilarious. However, the first 4~5 worlds don't have bosses at the end. You haven't really played the game until you at least fight the giant bird boss. It's like you've become desensitized at its attempts at humor so you accept it as it's just "there" but that bird boss is so strange.

I haven't played the game in its entirety though because it turns out there's a secret final level but that would require me to go back into previous levels I've been to already and increase my Lum count for Happy badges to unlock chase-the-treasure levels that I have to complete to unlock the secret final level, but going through these stages once was enough for me. But I do like how it keeps throwing new stage gimmicks at you to keep things fresh.

I liked Uprising, and I don't mind the controls so much (I got the game two months ago so on average I guess it would be one chapter every 2~3 days so I haven't experienced any pain while playing) but the dialogue is quite distracting. Actually, it's less the dialogue that's distracting and more the portraits on the bottom screen that are. It's like driving a car and a tv replaced your rear view mirror. You want to concentrate on the road so you, like, don't crash and die but the tv is in view and you can hear what they're saying but you also want to look at their reactions and expressions. The dialogue is pretty funny and entertaining!

[Green Gibbon!]

I played only one stage a week, but I still couldn't get through a level without cramping up in like half a dozen places. I had to stop for a break halfway through the Pandora stage.

[Xyton]

chase-the-treasure levels

For what it's worth, I thought those were the most fun. The final level / boss were alright, but the levels themselves are with considering if nothing else.

[Green Gibbon!]

And if you want to get all the things without using a guide, you need to learn how to read the game's character set.

This actually kind of intrigues me. Is it like a code? I keep seeing all these square patterns that I assume are meant to represent words. I assume there's a Rosetta Stone tucked away somewhere?

[Xyton]

This actually kind of intrigues me. Is it like a code? I keep seeing all these square patterns that I assume are meant to represent words. I assume there's a Rosetta Stone tucked away somewhere?

Apparently there's a room where there's a fox jumping over a dog. Nearby is written the sentence, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," from which you can puzzle out the alphabet. Once you have that under your belt, it's not too bad. You read the alphabet top-to-bottom from right to left. On top of that, all the characters have different meanings when rotated different ways -- think 3 / W / E / M.

For me, the most frustrating puzzle involving these had you write a word with blocks. If you wrote it left-to-right, it was wrong; you needed to write it top-to-bottom, but turned 90° clockwise. So even once you figure out the letters, you need to rotate them -- which makes them look like other letters.

On a mostly unrelated note, there are also separate symbols that indicate button presses. Those I found a bit more straightforward. ;)

[G.Silver]

I got the upgrade for Mighty Switch Force, which adds 5 new levels to the game. Considering there were only 16 levels initially, this is a pretty substantial chunk of the game! The game itself is still what it was before, a weird puzzle-action hybrid that reminds me, at least in the sense that it is a weird puzzle-action hybrid, of GBA Klonoa titles, though with a greater emphasis on reflex rather than puzzle. The solutions are typically fairly obvious, the challenge is in executing them as swiftly as possible, so the people who are going to like the game most are the ones who like replaying a level over and over until they get it right, but it's pretty fun the first time through too (though likely to be over pretty quickly). It does kind of have the feel of a game that you might played in-browser for free, and although I personally think it's well-worth the money, I do wonder how enamored I'd be with it if it really were a free in-browser game (I have taken some of those seriously!) rather than something I paid about $6 for.

It also gets major props for having the main character be my favorite thing in the word: a girl dressed like a robot. Actually the team of the main character police officer with her much larger robot sidekick (who, admittedly, only exists in the game as the exit to each stage!) reminds me of Deunan and Briareos from the Appleseed manga, so anything that taps into that is also ok in my book.

[Majestic Joey]

I just got back my copy of Sonic generations from my friend and have been replaying it. It's not the best sonic game, but man it still holds its own. I'd say it's definitely one of my favorite sonic games. even though it's good it by far has the worst last boss out of any sonic game. So many high pitched characters are yelling, "watch out sonic, it looks like a homing shot!" Luckily I got the S rank so now I never have to play it again and I can now make my avatar look like Eggman if I wanted to (which I probably won't).

[Crisis]

I've been playing Tribes: Ascend!

I'd never heard of the Tribes series before, but apparently it's been around since 1998. This iteration is a free-to-play, class-based, team-based, competitive FPS. The emphasis is on capture-the-flag gameplay.

If the above description makes you think it's set up to be a TF2 competitor then, well, you're definitely right. But I would say this is the most fun I've had with a competitive FPS since the original TF2. The free-to-play business model is implemented better and the game has a great design philosophy.

The gimmick in this game (and perhaps Tribes in general, I wouldn't know) is momentum. Almost every weapon fires some kind of projectile that takes time to reach its target, so movement is vital to staying alive. Additionally, projectiles inherit 50% of your momentum, so you have to develop a sixth sense for aiming based on your current velocity and trajectory. Heavy classes will kill the momentum of anyone they collide with, which can be used to your advantage if you want to stop a flag runner in their tracks. You can pull off some surprisingly clever stunts!

The levels have been built to take advantage of the momentum-based gameplay, with large maps for players to gain speed by "skiing" across the terrain. If you've ever played Tiny Wings you'll know the idea - activate skiing mode, then jet over hills and accelerate down the other side. It's a lot of fun and I was reaching high speeds with surprisingly little effort after some practice.

To bring back comparisons to TF2: the visual design philosophy is not nearly as good. The red team in particular are very samey and it's impossible to tell anyone's class from a distance, at least until they've fired their weapon. That said, the game certainly doesn't look bad, but Valve has set a pretty high bar for art direction.

Tribes is also less newbie-friendly; new players will be greeted with a vast array of classes with their own customisation options (that are all locked behind paywalls) and, though it does a good job of teaching the basics of skiing, the tutorial mode does little to prepare a new player for the sheer depth of the game. In fact it took me about 10 hours to even approach a basic level of competence - actually getting good at the game is a long and challenging road.

All that aside, it's a fun first person shooter game with a cool gimmick used in a lot of interesting ways. The momentum mechanic somehow makes it feel fast-paced despite being a lot more tactical than I remember TF2. It's annoying how much is locked at the start, but nothing can't be gotten by grinding enough hours into the game, which I guess is an improvement over the Zynga business model.

You can try it for yourself for free on Steam. If you want, use my referral link. Apparently we can both get free stuff.

[Jingles]

So I bought a Wii U!

The pack-in game is Nintendo Land. It's a pretty fun little collection of minigames, but I don't think it's quite the tech demo Wii Sports was. Now I'll have to do a little review of each game in no particular order oh boy oh boy

Donkey Kong Crash Course: You have to guide a small kart through a 2D obstacle course using the Wii U's many ways of input. Tilting the gamepad moves your kart around, pressing each shoulder button moves some platforms, moving the left or right control stick moves some platforms, blowing into the mic moves some platforms. You can collect bananas and coins (though the bananas don't add anything to your score, I think...) and your goal is to progress through each area and get to the end. Slightly glitchy, though that might be part of the OLD-SCHOOL NINTENDO DIFFICULTY. Single-player, though I've heard a second player can help.

Octopus Dance: Dancing with the Game and Watch octopus, kind of like Simon. Move both control sticks in time with the rhythm. It's kind of entertaining for ten seconds. Single-player only.

Balloon Trip Breeze: It's everyone's favorite part of Balloon Fight, now with Miis! You move your little Balloon Fight man around with the stylus, and avoid hazards and enemies. You can send your enemies into the sea by popping their balloons, or breaking blocks underneath them. A good bit of fun if you like Balloon Trip (I don't, really). Single-player.

Yoshi's Fruit Cart:You have to collect fruit with a Yoshi-looking cart. You do this buy drawing a line on the gamepad which the cart travels along and collects the fruit. Much less fun than it sounds. Single-player.

Takamaru's Ninja Castle: Remember the all-time Famicom disk system classic Nazo no Murasame Jō? Of course you do! In this game you fling shuriken from the gamepad at ninja on the TV. Neat idea, but not all that fun. Single-player.

Captain Falcon's Twister Race: Race along some tracks with your Mii in a silly Captain Falcon costume. Hold the gamepad vertically and tilt it to guide your car through the track, avoiding obstacles. Seems like a cheap iOS game, and reminds me that the last F-Zero came out eight years ago. Single-player.

Mario Chase: It's tag with Mario characters, just what you wanted!!!! One player, dressed as Mario, looks at the gamepad and runs away from the other players, dressed as Toads, tracking their location with a map. The Toads must catch Mario before the time limit is up. Mario uses the gamepad, Toads use Wii remotes. A lot of fun with five people, actually! 2-5 players.

Luigi's Ghost Mansion: Now we're getting into it. One player, using the gamepad is a ghost. The other players use Wii remotes to control their Miis. The ghost hunters must shine a flashlight on the ghost to take away their health, and the ghost must attack each of the players. Here's the twist: The ghost is only visible to the person controlling them on the gamepad. The other players can detect were the ghost is when their remote starts vibrating, signaling that it is near. A great time with five people, any less and the AI makes it a chore for everyone. 2-5 players.

Animal Crossing: Sweet Day: The player with the gamepad controls two guards, each with either control stick. Their goal is to catch the other players, dressed as animals, who are depositing candy into dishes for some reason. If the animals can put a certain number of pieces of candy in the dishes, they win. The guards' job is to tackle the animals, and take away their hearts to win. Pretty mediocre, but give it a try with the right number of people. 2-5 players.

Pikmin Adventure: Gamepad player controls Olimar, and the game plays pretty much like Pikmin with touch controls for that player. The other players use Wii Remotes to control individual Pikmin, who can attack, grow and collect power-ups. There are several levels to play through, some timed, some boss levels. Quite fun with others, but you can play by yourself if you just want a pure Pikmin Wii U experience. 1-5 players.

The Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest: First person Zelda. Gamepad player controls a Link with a bow and arrow, and the Wii remote players use a sword to fight enemies and bosses. Not the best alone, but pretty fun with friends. 1-4 players.

Metroid Blast: Basically a third-person multiplayer Metroid Prime. Gamepad player controls a flying spaceship while Wii remote players play as little Samuses (Sami?). They all play together in co-op endurance rounds, and versus deathmatches. A lot of fun, with or without other players. 1-5 players.

You can collect coins in these games to buy items that furnish your overworld, and eventually other Miis from the Miiverse walk around your overworld. It's quite fun to see how many of these items you can get, and then show off your collection!

All in all, I like Nintendo Land a lot. I find it a ton of fun with friends who are skeptical about the system, and it's a nice way to get me introduced to the Wii U.

[Dr. BUGMAN]

Octopus Dance: Dancing with the Game and Watch octopus, kind of like Simon. Move both control sticks in time with the rhythm. It's kind of entertaining for ten seconds. Single-player only.

Wait, isn't that Flagman?

Takamaru's Ninja Castle: Remember the all-time Famicom disk system classic Nazo no Murasame Jō? Of course you do! In this game you fling shuriken from the gamepad at ninja on the TV. Neat idea, but not all that fun. Single-player.

Isn't this (aside from the song in SSBB) the first time Mystery of Murasame Castle has been referenced outside Japan by Nintendo itself? Koei's Samurai Warriors 3 based a bonus mode on it but I can't care at all about that game, so it doesn't count.

[Crisis]

Today I finished Spec Ops: The Line. I had been trying to catch this on a Steam sale for a while, and once I got a bit of a break from holiday shenanigans, I devoured it in about 2 days.

One of the problems I have with video game culture is its lack of self-awareness. The modern warfare shooter genre tends to be the worst offender in this regard. So I'm actually surprised that Spec Ops: The Line, which is possibly the most self-aware game I've ever played, has even been released at all.

Spec Ops feels like a deconstruction in the truest sense. It's undeniably a modern warfare game in terms of both settings and mechanics, but suffice to say that most of my assumptions about the game and its story turned out to be wrong. The juxtaposition of goofy modern warfare mechanics and the actual realities of warfare turned out to be quite chilling, which would have been interesting by itself, if not particularly subtle. But the game goes a step further by having a plot that explores the logical outcomes of the mentality that modern military games promote. Admittedly, the basic story has been told before - but by putting these two things together, the game forces you to examine yourself in a way that a passive medium couldn't achieve.

The game suffers a little in that it is written for a target audience, modern warfare fans. I'm not a modern warfare fan, and the game makes certain assumptions about my motivations for playing that don't really hold up (I can't say much more without spoiling things). It's also somewhat ironic that the target audience might not even understand, let alone appreciate, the message of the game.

But overall I would say that Spec Ops is really more of an "art game" than a modern warfare title. It merely borrows the trappings of the genre to make a point. The game I'm reminded of most is the original Half-Life. In Half-Life, you are an accessory to a grand plot of genocide, invariably lead all your comrades to their deaths, and have to frequently do battle with U.S. soldiers. Throughout playing Half-Life, the number one question running through my head was "what happens next?", as it was obvious that a return to the civilian life from the start of the game was going to be impossible. Again, without wanting to spoil much, the ending to Half-Life is a bit of a cop-out with no real consequences for the scores of soldiers you murdered in cold blood. In fact, in the sequel, Gordon Freeman is revealed to have been revered as a hero for his actions. I think one of the reasons I am not fond of the story in Half-Life 2 is because I played them back to back. The continuity between the games is not very well handled at all.

Suffice to say that Spec Ops does not pull any such punches with its ending. It's a brutal conclusion to quite a distressing story. I'd recommend picking it up if you can and setting aside a weekend to play it. It's not long, but it's also not a game that can be played in short bursts.

[Jingles]

n-th level thread necromancy!

So, Poker Night at the Inventory 2! What could be better than some not-quite-household-names-but-still-relatively-popular video game characters playing Texas Hold 'em? How about video games characters playing Texas Hold 'em, with an actor from a recent film and a random cartoon guy thrown in for good measure!

As for the gameplay: It's still Texas Hold 'em. I think Telltale tweaked the engine a bit though, as most of the complaints about the first game were that it was too easy. Now, the computer cheats like a motherfucker, but games are twice as long and you can buy the other characters drinks so that it's easier to tell their bluffs. There's also a mode called Omaha which I've never heard of, but plays like a cross between Texas Hold 'em and Cheat. I stuck with Hold 'em, though.

Regarding the characters, the real reason anyone's playing: These are some pretty random choices. In Poker Night 1, three of the characters were from point-and-click games (Telltale's forte) and the Heavy was put in because Steam was the best way to distribute their games. Now, we've got Sam, the only Telltale character, Claptrap, from Borderlands 2, Ash from the new Evil Dead reboot, and Brock Samson, a minor character in the Venture Bros cartoon series. Sam steals the show with his signature one-liners. I haven't played Borderlands 2, but Claptrap is pretty annoying. Brock is pretty funny, and Patrick Warburton really gets into the role. Ash is just kinda... there. He doesn't really make any jokes and keeps referring to a "Wendy" (but wasn't his girlfriend's name Linda?). They didn't get Bruce Campbell to voice Ash, but I can't really tell the difference.

Max occasionally interjects, usually playing off of Sam's jokes. I'm glad to see him return. GLaDOS is the dealer, and she (it?) cracks a few jokes in-between hands. It would have been nice to have the option to change her to Reginald, though. Nothing beats when he says "TWO PAIR" and "A FULL HOUSE!".

There are also some unlockables. Winning tournaments or knocking out other players scores you "Tokens" which can be used to buy new tables, chips, decks, and drinks for the other players. Like in the first game, Team Fortress 2 items can also be won, but this time around you can unlock Borderlands 2 items as well.

The only problems I had with the game were that the dialogue repeats a little too often, and that the Steam release has a problem launching. I'm sure Telltale will release a patch for that, though, and the rest of it is great.

Poker Night 2 is a great follow-up to the first game, and it's well worth the one-hundred nickels it costs on Steam, Xbox Live and PSN.

[Wombatwarlord777]

I purchased DLC Quest on Steam this week for $3.00. I understand the game is a giant joke about how bad downloadable content can make a game, but it still kind of feels that the joke was on me as well. For that price you get two scenarios, the first of which is beatable under half an hour, and the other in maybe a hour with some trickier platforming and minimal backtracking to boot. There isn't a lot of replay value to be had unless you like going back and shooting up sheep and zombies that can't even hurt your character for achievements. The whole thing ends up feeling like a decent parody that didn't translate into a good game.

I think one of the problems I had with the game is because it is split into two scenarios, some of the DLC that you can buy for either superficial details (like sprite animations or particle effects) or gaudy alterations to the game (like adding in "realistic details" that reduce the game's palette exclusively to browns) is exclusive to only one scenario. I came in knowing the main gimmick of the game, and I expected all of the DLC to be activated at once at some point, making the game so ridiculous and over-the-top that it'd resemble a disgustingly thick pizza with every single conceivable topping added to it, something nobody in their right mind would ever consume but nevertheless inspires awe in just how majestically horrible it is. Instead, the end result was much more digestible, unfortunately.

The game was pretty funny at some points, however. My favorite joke is when the game ostensibly quits in the middle of one of the scenarios, explained away as a failure to connect to a central server. You're then offered a chance to reconnect, but only after you select a new username (and go through a few that are apparently already claimed by other people).