Full Review: Weapon Shop de Omasse (3DS)

So I finished Weapon Shop de Omasse the other night, and then I finished it an additional four times the next day, but I will get to that later on.  This game was created by developer Level 5 (Professor Layton series, Starship Damrey) and conceptualized by Japanese comedian Yoshiyuki Hirai and that comedic sense and timing comes across frequently during the game, referencing both video game culture and TV culture; "I stick them with the. . .which end was it?" said one generic NPC during a battle.

Gameplay

As stated a few weeks back, Weapon Shop de Omasse is a comedic blacksmithing parody simulation of traditional JRPGs.  The game is spent between a number of mini-game-esque type tasks. 

1) Smithing: You are able to create various types of weapons (Sword, Dagger, Spear, Axe, Dao, Club, et cetera).  You strike the chunk of heated metal to a musical theme that is associated with a Hero character.  It basically acts like a rhythm matching/mimicking game, but you have to strike the metal in different areas and "carve" away the unwanted material in order to get the shape of the specific weapon you are creating.  While smithing, you also have to keep an eye on the temperature of the metal because if it cools down too much, the metal will not be as malleable and you will fail in your smithing task.

Chaining hammer falls will increase the bonus to whichever attribute
the game currently wants to assign your bonus to.

Smithing is actually where I had the biggest issue.  As you complete a musical phrase, you add a certain attribute (slash, pierce or bludgeon) bonus to that weapon although I was never able to figure out how the game decided to choose which attribute was going to be assigned.  For example, I would be smithing an axe that would need to have a high slashing attribute and the first two "chains" on a musical phrase would add points to slash, but then for the rest of the song, points would go to pierce and bludgeon.  Upon finishing, each weapon is rated (Lame, Not Bad, Good, Great) and if the weapon's primary attribute was rated as "Lame," your weapon would often be classified as "Dull," which is not something you want an axe you crafted for your Grandmother who is questing to find her husband to be swinging around.  I am positive I must have missed something early on in the game when this was explained, so that is my own loss.

2) Polishing: Once a weapon is created or returned, you have to polish it back to its presentable beauty.  Polishing also buffs a weapon's attributes (slash, pierce, bludgeon) by about 10 points in each category., you Weapons of various types and strengths are unlocked as the owner of the shop buys additional materials which allow you to create new weapons as well as your customers who return their rented weapons along with some items used to modify the weapons you make.

The rest of the game is spent keeping track of which weapons you have in stock, which weapons you need to make for heroes who have put in orders to be picked up later, and what materials you currently have in stock to create the aforementioned weapons.

Story

The story in Omasse, is a very stereotypical one for people who have played a JRPG or twelve: Small village near "Starting City" where you play as Yhan, an apprentice to the local master blacksmith, Oyaji where customers come in and rent weapons to complete quests in anticipation of the returning Dark Lord and his minions.  Yuhan and Oyaji have a subtle comedic relationship, but the majority of the laughs come from Oyaji's blunt reaction to characters who enter the shop.

There are a number of hero characters who have their own individual stories, which are fairly amusing and at times I often felt like a bartender, hearing them talk about some aspect of their lives and the particular quest they were going on.  And while you do deal with the hero characters, the other half of the time you deal with generic NPCs (which I found odd that they were all male where as there is one transgender and four female hero characters) who acknowledge the fact that they are not heros by saying things like, "Wouldn't you rather rent this out to a real character?" and "I like repeating the same actions!"

The Grindcast, which you can select a single person to read their feed.
Some characters will also use hashtags like #weaponreviews.

Half of the story is told by the face-t0-face interactions in the store while the other half is through a game mechanic called the "Grindcast."  Grind referring to the JRPG aspect of games grinding for levels between story points and Cast from, I am assuming, podcasts.  The characters are told that there is a device on each weapon that allows the people in the shop to keep track of them on their quest and the weapons.  The Grindcast plays in the background too while you perform various tasks around the shop (smithing, polishing, inventory management) and it can be kind of hard to keep track of what the heros are up to while also paying attention to smithing that wavy-bladed flamberge.  There will also be times when unlabeled and unknown characters' quest updates will appear on the Grindcast, but these are not explained and they come across as just general chatter.

[no_spoilers]There were two separate and unrelated story elements that I was surprised that the game took.  The first I saw coming but was still surprised that it happened, knowing that the "traditional American producer" would say that the audience would not want to see that happen to a character.  The second event I did not see coming at all and felt it was rather abrupt.  Upon later reflection, it made a little bit of sense, but it felt a little out of place.  That is all I will say[/no_spoilers].

Master Blacksmith Oyaji.
Proper protection is necessary around the forge.

Graphics

With the exception of some of the design for one of the hero characters, I was overall very happy with the overall look of the game.  Being on the 3DS, I was not going in expecting modded Skyrim level of graphics, but you could say that based on the title screen, I was expecting something more akin to Akira Toriyama with a little bit less in the spikey hair department.  There was one character who did look like they could have come from a Dragon Warrior game as the best friend or part time sidekick of Loto/Erdrick.

3D Effectiveness

The 3D effect worked very well for the majority of the game.  Most of the time I had the slider at about 50-75%.  My favorite part was looking over the various weapons I had created with the slider on, but seeing as how NPCs or heroes would frequently walk into the shop or I had weapons to forge or polish, there did not leave a whole lot of time (when I thought about it) to admire my handiwork.

Music & Sound

Since at least half of the smithing aspect of the game involved hammering out weapons to music, the music would have to be catchy enough not to become annoying; pretty much what every overworld and battle music in every RPG ever has to strive to achieve.  Each style of weapon would have a specific song associated with it and while the songs became repetitive pretty early on, the rhythm that you had to hammer out changed depending on the level of the weapon; higher level weapons mean a more complicated rhythm.

Some of the songs associated with the characters are rather silly and probably should not be taken too seriously, but if you are already in the mindset that this is a comedic game, then you will be right at home with the tunes.

Something else I found to be interesting was that there was no vocal localization for English speaking countries (not that everything has to be English-centric).  All of the spoken dialogue in the game, which came from Oyaji, is all spoken in Japanese.  I know can make the general sounds associated with "Lame, Not Bad" and "Great."  There are other praises/scolds you are given upon completing each weapon and you can tell by the inflection in Oyaji's voice if he is pleased or not.  You can also assume that a dull weapon should not be part of the store's inventory.  I was and am very glad that the games spoken dialogue was not localized, but then again I tend to favor original language and subtitles over dubbed versions of anything anyhow.

Final Thoughts

So the game took about 15 hours to complete and as far as I can tell, that will be about the average amount it takes in order to beat the game every time as the events are scripted and even if you make weapons faster than I did, it will not mean that they will be rented out and returned any faster.  Some people, who are better blacksmiths than I and better judges of character when choosing which weapon to rent out may not take as long as hero quests are repeated until they succeed and advance their story.

An additional 11 hours have not changed my high recommendation for Weapon Shop de Omasse one bit as I still would recommend it to anyone with a 3DS.  While the game became tedious at points and frustrating trying to figure out why my weapons were coming out dull or when my money became so low that I couldn't afford to but the highest level materials to make the strongest weapons for the higher level quests heros and NPCs needed to accomplish in order to help make the weapon shop money so they could afford to by better materials to make better weapons. . .and so on and so forth.  

But what is a fun and memorable game without a little bit of work and frustration?  Not worth playing in my opinion.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Fighting for Survival

Year In Review: 2014

Ahhhh, 2014 is over and another year of the non-leap variety has begun, this time ending in the newly minted 2015 style.  But seriously, who talks that way!?

2014 was a good year for us here.  I felt our writing has increased quite a bit since we started over two years ago and we continue to be more and more coherent and consistent.  Dr. Potts with his newly NP inspired title Pak Watch which will be seeing further development in the coming year and the creation of Wednesdays' MIDI Week Singles of which both of us are always excited about writing for.

Looking back, I feel that I re-submerged myself in the board game playing industry, mainly towards the end of the year and partly because Conklederp and I got married which brought in some gifts in the board gaming department.  Although, I feel that this re-germinated seed began earlier in the year when Chreekat's mom moved up to Portlandia and we played Settlers of Catan.  Since then, we've played a fair amount of Mansions of Madness, Pandemic, as well as a handful of other games (7 Wonders, Camel Up!, Blokus, DiXit) with some other friends.  Our current year looks to be even more expansive with Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition that I am planning to get started in the coming weeks/months.

I also noticed that I started watching a lot more episodes from both Extra Credits and LoadingReadyRun as well as listening to podcasts of Roosterteeth's The Patch.  Coupled with my reading of Penny-Arcade and the occasional article from PC Gamer and Kotaku, these are my primary sources for gaming news and information (and I guess occasional hilarity) from the past year and 2015 doesn't look to be any different.

Gaming-wise, there's a lot more to cover and after creating a list of the games I had played, finished and stopped playing, I decided not to subjugate our reader to that kind of monotony.  But now that Steam's Winter Sale is over (as of roughly four and-a-half hours ago) and that my 3DS has filled up with games from Nintendo's eShop sale (oddly a lot for Nintendo), I am perfectly content to wallow about in this (I guess technically it's last) years haul which includes old (and a couple newer) titles such as Castle Crashers, Trine 2, Wasteland, Child of Light, VVVVVV, Crimson Shard and Weapon Shop de Omasse [which I am definitely going to write about in the coming week(s)].

With the move that Conklederp and I just completed a few weeks back, we'll be putting in a retro gaming room (SNES, N64 and GameCube) so look for more articles about games that Dr. Potts, Conklederp and I all grew up with.  With any luck, I might be able to acquire the NES from my parents house (once my older sister and I determine custody).  I've also re-installed my magnifying light which means that I will be getting back into painting miniatures, which I am very excited to do again after a three plus year dry spell.

Oh, and I had nearly forgotten that 2014 marked my official foray into the world of online gaming with The Elder Scrolls Online, of which I played for about four months before having to stop due to a lack of incoming income, and Path of Exile, which I am still playing, but appear to be unable to find the time to make my way up and through the Pyramid in a single sitting.  Ah, first world problems.  Amiright!?

So when I am not being all accountable (eh, EH!?) this upcoming school year, I'll be keeping busy with one of many forms of gaming, which I will keep y'all updated on, because that's why we exist here.

Happy 2015.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental

Monthly Update: December 2014

Yeah, yeah.  I know November doesn't have 31 days in the month, but I'm just too lazy to "design" a banner for all the other months that don't want to conform to the non-universal standard of 31 days per month.  I vote going back to 10 months with ~40 days a piece and call it square.  Who needs July and August anyway!?

Before we get to the wonderful land of video games, I obviously have to mention the release of the new Star Wars teaser and, the full Jurassic World trailer and that the final film in The Hobbit film trilogy will be released in just over two weeks.  I'm excited for both, although I am a bit apprehensive since I don't want to be hurt by The Battle of the Five Armies the same way that I was hurt by Return of the King.  I just can't take it anymore.

So there's been quite few AAA games released this past month: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Shadow of Mordor, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Halo: Masterchief Collection, Farcry 4, Little Big Planet 3.  Some would not consider Assassin's Creed Unity so much a game as it is buggy work in progress that sold for $59.99.  Grand Theft Auto V saw it's XBox One release with the PC (pov sex) release early next year.  Granted, I'm not interested in all of them (cough-cough Call of Duty cough-cough) and some others.

Then there are the games to be released in December: A Game of Thrones: A Tell Tale Games Series. . . and that appears to be it, at least all that I'm interested in.

But these are all games that I haven't played.  Sure I'd love to play Shadows of Mordor (is it one shadow or multiple because I can't keep the name straight), but I'm not 100% sure my system would be able to handle it's meaty man-flesh requirements.  But enough about our faults and more about what we've been up to.

During the last month I figured out that Dead Island: Riptide didn't want to function well on my computer, I was able to get RAGE to function well on my computer, and I am now three pieces shy of constructing the Staff of Chaos in The Elder Scrolls: Chapter One: Arena.  I briefly toyed with the idea of booting up Civ. V in honor of Thanksgiving, but that turned to not after finding out that RAGE worked; I'm a sucker for a well constructed fps in a post apocalyptic world; although J.K. Stiles and Mutant Bash TV can go suck on a curb for all I care; janky bastard.  I also started up Dark Souls and have determined that I need to create another character, for the fourth time; it all boils down to trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

This month, I'll be looking forward to Steam's Winter Sale, which will probably be coming on the heals of their Fall "Exploration Sale" which ended yesterday (December 2nd).  I've got some leftover money in my wallet from selling cosmetic stuff in TF2 and some gift cards that I bought myself from Game Stop.  Which is horrible in a way because I already have a massive backlog of games (which I have talked about on occasion) that I have yet to play and not some little three hour game, but massive honkers like Dragon Age: Origins, Fable, Baldur's Gate I & II, Dead Space 2 & 3, Batman: Arkham Asylum & Arkham City, Dark Souls, Bioshock Infinite, Final Fantasy VIII, The Elder Scrolls: Chapter II: Daggerfall, as well as ginormous wallabasses that I haven't even finished yet Final Fantasy VII, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion &  Arena, FEZ, Torchlight II, Path of Exile, RAGE, Anodyne, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Braid, The Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, BIT.TRIP Presents, Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien, and the first Fallout game.  Oh, bloody hell I forgot Fallout(s) 2 through Fallout: New Vegas which I haven't touched yet.

I haven't even mentioned games on my 3DS and PSP that are still waiting to be completed/started/finished/begun/Double Double Animal Style with a Strawberry Shake.

And yet, there are still more games waiting to get in the queue just on the horizon.

There is no hope.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
God Help

Desert Bus for Hope 8

If you're not familiar with Desert Bus for Hope, I should probably explain what Desert Bus even is before going any farther.  Looking back, I've talked a bit about Desert Bus for Hope since we started back in 2012, but not a whole lot about the game.  

Desert Bus was a mini-game created as a satire of video game violence accused of being perceived as too realistic for audiences, especially younger audience who apparently cannot tell the difference between 1995 CD games and real life.  Thus comedian magicians Penn and Teller created the concept for Desert Bus which would travel the six hours between Tuscon, Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada in real time.  However, the overall game, Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors was never released because the publisher went out of business before the game could be published.

There is a Desert Bus port available on the Google Play Store and the Apple Store with all proceeds form the sale of the game going to Desert Bus for Hope and in turn, the Child's Play charity.  Which brings us back to Desert Bus for Hope 8, which starts today, November 14th at 10am Pacific and will run for (at least) 86+ hours.  It all depends on how much money is brought in during the "drive."

Confession Time:  I've personally never donated to Desert Bus for Hope.  The years that I have been able to donate money, I have done it directly through the Child's Play website where I can either specify a specific hospital that I want to donate to, browse an Amazon gift registry to donate a specific item for a hospital, or just give the charity money.  Don't worry though, I'm not going to try and guilt trip anyone into donating money to any cause, I'm just letting people know about an option if they already were looking to donate.

I'll be tuning in a few times a day during the (at least) three and-a-half days the bus will be driving back and forth from Tuscon to Las Vegas, if anything just to watch the exhaustion in the eyes of the people from LoadingReadyRun.  Oh those Canadians.  They're beautiful people.

How does this game NOT look fun!?

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

They Make Me Feel So Good

P.S.  And Folks, this starts in 8 minutes!

Monthly Update: November 2014

Happy November!  It's both Movember and NaNoWriMo, both activities that I think would be interesting, but I never remember until a few days into November and then I tell myself, "Ah, maybe next year."

So Evolve's Big Alpha weekend happened this last weekend, and all the excitement about that experience I will post about on Friday as there's simply too much to post in a monthly update article.  So onto other things!

Conklederp and I received the board game Pandemic from Coolman and his coollady because we got married (how cool is that!), but I already talked about that part.  Recently though, Conklederp and I got a chance to play that game and ho-boy was it fun.  Well, about as fun as potentially letting the world fall into a cesspool of disease and dead bodies can be.  

After watching the Table Top episode from Season 1 that covered Pandemic, we gave the game a try, although later realizing that I didn't shuffle the Player deck correctly, but that's what first playthroughs are for anyway.  What both Conklederp and I love about this game is that all the players are working together against the board.  If one person wins, everyone wins, but there is only one way for the players to win: finding cures to all four diseases.  There are, however, three ways for the board to win: running out of Infection Tokens, maxing out the Outbreak meter and/or running out of Player Cards.  In our most recent playthrough, while we did find cures to all four diseases, the world was pretty ravaged by disease, but at least they're curable now.  To date, we have a 66% success rate with this game, but even losing is "fun."

I also opened a shop on Etsy.com to sell/showcase cross stitch patterns I've designed over the years.  It's called ExorStitch.  You know, like The Exorcist and cross stitch.  It was Conklederps idea and I love it.  So head on over if you or someone you know is into cross stitching and likes to make semi-unconventional patterns for people you like/don't like.  It'll be a hoot.

In the video game department, I finally got around to finishing the Dead Space mobile game, which will earn it's own article later in the month.  But in short, it was a fun game that did things to the player that I haven't seen since Eternal Darkness, and I was happy.

The rest of the month is looking to be not too different from October, except instead of witches and zombies there will be pilgrims and poultry corpses along with native peoples that end up slaughtered by the millions.  You know, maybe I'll finally give Sid Meier's Civilization V a go.  I did give the game a start earlier in the year (or was it late last year?), but I think I started a set scenario as opposed to a new game so I left panicking that I would leave the world decimated and without hope.  You know, like losing a game in Pandemic.

In the newer games department, I haven't played Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth although I love the concept.  I haven't played Shadow of Mordor although I have only been hearing good things about this Skyrim meets Assassin's Creed creation.  I haven't played Destiny as I don't have the appropriate console.  I haven't played The Evil Within because it's new and expensive, but I do have the demo and I'm looking forward to playing that on a dark and stormy night.  So you know, Portland.  I also haven't played Borderlands, the Pre-Sequel since I haven't played any of the games in that series and I feel that I should at least have played the first Borderlands.  I could probably now start in on Bioshock: Infinite now that I've finished the first two games in the series.

You know, some people out there in the gaming community might call my lack of playing anything released within the last year as being lame (if that insult is even used in the gaming community), but I won't be listening to them anyway, because I like cheese.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

I Like Big Shiny Things

Monthly Update: October 2014

Madd MS Paint Skilz Yo!

It's that time of the month again, and I'm pretty sure I've used that opening before. . . but you know what?  Neither do I.

This is going to be a hectic month.  First off, Conklederp and I are getting married on Saturday (11th) so some of the posts early in the month might be sporadic, depending on how much I am able to get accomplished ahead of time.  We are presently (at the time of posting) preparing to make our way to Nor*Cal tomorrow, with our goal being ultimately in the south (by California standards) and we'll be back about the middle of the month.  Goodtimes shall be had by all and yes, "goodtimes" is a legitimate word.

I spent a good amount of time during September playing both The Elder Scrolls: The Arena and Path of Exile.  It would seem that the Diablo type of play that is PoE is more enticing and engaging than what I found with DOTA 2, which makes me a little sad that I'm not as interested as I was hoping to be with the free-to-play MOBA, but I think solo game playing is too ingrained in my system.  I did play a session of PoE with Chreekat for an hour or so a few weeks back and since then I haven't seen him on Steam playing PoE, so I'm hoping that I didn't tarnish the 37 hours he's put into the game, but it looks like he was on yesterday.  I on the other hand, have only quested for a paltry 26 hours.  Oh the humanity!

And this just in, I am a Steam Stalking Creeper, but no, I still haven't played Minecraft in any of its many iterations.  Line me up to be stoned.  Again.

What the hell!  While writing today's post, music from Dead Island: Riptide (composed by Pawel Blaszczak) has come up a couple of times and it's a lot better than it has a right to be.  Now I've never played Dead Island: Riptide, yet anyway and I'll get to it eventually, but this soundtrack (acquired through the Humble Deep Silver Bundle) is really good.  I'm tempted to even say that it's "beautiful," but. . . you know what?  No buts.  The track that just played, "Let it be Haven," was indeed a beautiful simple piano piece.  There I said it.  Cue the onslaught of hate.  Maybe, but probably not.

Let's briefly take a look at October.  I restarted schooling a couple days ago so I'll be trying to get ahead for the first couple of weeks seeing as how doing school work during a honeymoon so video gaming and said activities will not be as prevalent as normal, at least for the first half of the month.  Game-wise though, October will probably be fairly similar to September with PoE, Arena and I might even delve into Fallen Earth, which I just spotted as being an open world free-to-play post-apocalyptic adventure game.  If I'm able to find time that is.  Although in the next week, I'll be hoping to play another round of Mansions of Madness with our friends so I'll have more tales to tell upon our return.

So have a happy October and I'll see y'all when I'm around.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental

Monthly Update: September 2014

Happy September everyone.  Bloody hell this year is flying by, or maybe it just feels like that for me as I'm getting hitched next month.  Yes, I am looking forward to the wedding and I am very excited for it, so don't go ahead thinking that I am one of those "ball and chain" types.  

On other fronts, the Summer Reading BINGO is progressing nicely.  I am currently trudging through Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian on audiobook and I say "trudging" in the most sincere form of the verb.  I am not 100% sure where the story is going which is understandable for me as I am finding out that unless I am paying full attention to the story, I'll end up tuning out for a bit and come back when I realize I don't know what is happening.  So it's now article writing, game playing, reddit browsing for me while listening to the disparaging tone of Mr. McCarthy's prose, but instead it's sitting quietly awaiting the next description of the happy-g0-lucky times of mid-late 19th century Texas.  But yes, I am enjoying the book.

In paper form, I am reading Robert J. Sawyer's Flashforward which received a season of TV viewers on ABC back in 2009.  If you're not familiar with the story, a mysterious event happens that causes the population of the world to lose consciousness for just over two minutes and during those two minutes, people experience their lives 21 years in the future.  In turn, those who are not alive 21 years in the future experience nothing.  What I'm finding interesting is after the event, the beginning of each chapter (so far) begins with newspaper-type snippets about the worlds reaction to the event and while some are mundane such as reporting on the death of a news anchor or a continued car pileup due to the event, others are more intriguing, "After a record number of applications were filed in the last 24 hours, the United States Patents office has closed until further notice, pending a decision from Congress on the patenting of inventions gleaned from the visions."

Flashforward is not a long book, coming in at only 317 pages and it did not spawn additional books in this world so I feel that by the end, I will still have plenty of questions, such as, "Why don't I own the TV series on DVD yet!?"

Moving into the realms of video games (finally!), I have started again playing The Elder Scrolls: Arena thanks to a link posted by "Roger" in my Daggerfailed article from last year.  The links are to downloadable copies of Arena and Daggerfall but have all of the DOS commands prewritten so all I have to do is open the application and the game starts up without having to type all of the DOS commands that prevented me from being able to play Daggerfall.  In Arena, I also learned how to open up the world map (Shift+M) and fast travel to other locations as travelling from one city to the next closest would take about 3 days (0n average).  Apparently being able to fast travel in a flat world without any form of topography (trees don't count) has made the game infinitely better.  I will most likely put out a Second Impressions in the coming weeks, now if I could only master swinging a sword with the mouse.

So PAX Prime happened this last weekend.  I might have said something about absolutely not missing PAX again, but due to the general lack of funds due to a false criminal identification (#PeopleWithIncrediblyCommonNamesProblems).  The only presentation I was able to catch was a talk that Hironobu Sakaguchi gave about the "Past, Present and Future of RPGs," but it looks like that presentation was not archived/saved on PAX's Twitch channel.  Ah well.  It was, I felt, more of a retrospective on Hironobu Sakaguchi's career at Square(soft/Enix) and a brief look at a mobile game in development (Terra Battle) at his current studio, Mistwalker.

In semi-PAX related video game news, Gauntlet was showcased this last weekend and it seemed like the remake of the 1985 Atari game received some favorable press.  What surprised me the most about the game was that it is rated M.  Personally, I've never viewed Gauntlet as an M-rated franchise.  From the gameplay footage though, it looks like they're taking a Diablo approach to dispatching enemies as well as what happens to their entrails.  I feel like I can be an old fuddy-duddy about this because the decision doesn't affect me either way.  When I was a kid (mid/late 80's) I loved playing Gauntlet, but having the M-rating is going to limit the demographic that will be able to play this game, which essentially is a massive dungeon crawl with an annoying life timer.  I don't feel like the game needed to go for an M-rating, but that's just me.

Oh damn, I almost forgot.  Last week Nintendo unveiled their New 3DS, which coincidentally is the name of the system: "New 3DS" and "New 3DS LL" for the larger version that we've seen with the 3DS XL and DS lite XL; although that might just be a Japanese thing.  There are some much needed improvements to the system such as an added C-button type joystick to the right side of the system, improved 3D effect that causes less blurring, improved battery life, a micro SD card slot and two more shoulder/trigger buttons.  What they need to improve on is the life expectancy of the hinges, but that's just me being paranoid that the hinges on my 3DS are on the verge of breaking as they did with my DS lite.

So, welcome to September!

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Close Your Eyes and Believe

Game Review: Mission Majority (Browser)

I first off would like to say that any criticism I have for this browser based platformer is from the view of someone who loves video games and grew up with the advent of Super Mario Bros.  I would still be criticising this game even if it were released by any political faction where you played as a donkey called Jack, a mellow-go-lucky pot leaf named Mary J. or as the Flying Spaghetti Monster named Bob.

So, Mission Majority, or GIOPI, 2014 Mission Majority if you are one for long titles. This game was developed by. . . someone.  The website mentions that the game was paid for by the NRSC (National Republican Senatorial Committee) and that it is not authorized by any candidate or their respective committee.

Now let us not fool ourselves, this game is designed to be some form of political propaganda although I cannot think of who the target audience would be.  Anyone of legal voting age would not find the level design to be engaging in the same way that the first level of Super Mario Bros. is engaging and entertaining, but we will get to level design later.  Anyone younger than 18 (probably) will not have their own credit card to donate or not understand why you have to use the arrow keys to move and no controller support.  Maybe the humor in the game is supposed to propel the player forward or instill a "so bad it's good" feeling.  I cannot say in anyway.  There is also no statement on the webpage as to whom the game is targeted towards.

When you go to the webpage, you are greeted by Giopi (as in G.O.P.) and given the motivation for playing the game.

Yes, the characterization you see for Giopi is how he/she appears in the game, bugged out eyes and all, but the design for the character would not be so bad if the rest of the level and characters did not look better than this four colored elephant.

The character seems out of place in the world.  Even the enemies (The Taxer) has pupils and eyebrows, but Giopi has toenails and stars on his jersey to go along with his blocky-eyed blank stare.  Prior to Level 1 starting the player is told that "the Taxer, Harry Reid and President Obama sent the job-destroying Taxers to stop you!  You need to avoid them, jumping on them suppresses their high taxes."  The Taxer is essentially a Goomba that only moves forward/backward and can only harm you if you walk into it, or if you do not land correctly on its head.  You are also charged with finding golden keys that "unlock the Senate and help Republicans win the majority this fall.  Each key represents helping Republican campaign get more volunteers."  So that is the players motivation.

Upon completing a level, you are awarded with a victory screen, the option to donate money to the GNSC, buy Giopi merchandise from their online store or join them, which I assume means join their mailing list.  The store contains simple merchandise such at a Giopi sticker, drink/beer coozie, T-shirts, posters and sweatbands all for a nominal fee ($6-$30).  What would have been smart was for the player to earn a certain discount based on how well they have done in the levels up to a certain percentage off, such as 5% for each level completed or after a certain score is reached.

The nitty gritty now.

The game stages are not well designed.  The controls are simple enough (Left Arrow: Move Left/ Right Arrow: Move Right/ Up Arrow or X: Jump), but there always seemed to be a half second lag after pressing the button.  I just chalked this up to being a browser game.  As far as aesthetics,  you are able to notice that the background and the platforms will sometimes not tile correctly, often with glaring breaks in the continuity.  I only noticed this in the second and third levels, which both use the same palette.  The final product comes across to me as being shoddily put together with little care about the people who will be playing this game because they want to, as opposed to people like me who have played this game because we were intrigued and amused by the premise.

There is also a striking disconnect between what the creators and how they want to keep the player alive.  If you notice in the top middle of the screen, the time reads 9861, which means I have 9861 seconds, or  2 hours and 44 minutes to complete this "collect three key" stage.  Even if the numbers do not directly correlate to a full second, that would still translate to almost 25 minutes to beat a stage (if 1= 1/4 second).  Directly under the timer is your life meter, consisting of four hearts.  As to be expected, with the loss of the final heart Giopi dies and you have to start the level over from the beginning and collect all the keys again.  There are no heart drops or items (aside from the keys) t0 be found throughout the level.  I do not understand the disconnect between having a timer that ends up being meaningless paired with a life meter if the game is meant to be an easy browser based platformer with really bad hit detection (more on that in a bit).

That big blue enemy is the attempt at variation to Level 2 and is called the Mudslinger.  "The Democrats' Mudslinger hurls false and empty rhetoric.  You can jump on them to mute their misleading words."  Believe it or not, I was excited by this enemy at first.  I figured that this would be the bad guy who throws blue bits of mud at you like one of the Hammer Bro. or a Venus Fire Trap, but no, the Mudslinger just stands there, not moving.  That is it.  Sure it's taller than the Taxer, but that is not much for enemy variation.  I should also mention that every time you kill an enemy, a short multiple second soundbite from one of a few Democrats during Obama's Presidency plays.  Because you squashed the Democrat, you are awarded with the enemies misleading rhetoric.

Okay, sure, I might be complaining about the game not playing by a traditional set of platforming rules and yes, I know that even in Super Mario Bros., there was no life meter and one hit killed, but there were power up mushrooms and invincibility stars.  The problem I had with only having four hearts that could not be refilled was that the hit detection in the game was atrocious.  To me, it seemed that unless the bulk of my character was landing on the enemy, Giopi would take damage.  Compare that to being able to stand on a platform with just Giopi's toes.

The only redeeming thing to come out of this game is that the music is not half bad.  I cannot place what it reminds me of, but it is a decent mix of NES era 8-bit music and early SNES era something-or-other with a hint of Paperboy thrown in during a certain section, but only because that was what I was reminded of.

If you happen to still be intrigued at this point about Mission Majority, just do a google search and it will pop right up; before the game is taken down.  Before playing you are required to give your name and email address although from what I read on reddit, there is no verification process so you are able to plug in any name and email address and still play the game.  I only made it to Level 3 before deciding that I had experienced enough to write an article about poor game design, but you are able to make your own decisions and conclusions.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

The Smile Has Left Your Eyes

Monthly Update: August 2014

Damn, is time flying by or what? 

During the month of July, I had blew through games at a rate that is not overly normal for me.  Being unemployed probably has something to do with it (although taking an accounting class probably counteracted some of the unemployment-ness), but I also happen to have been playing games that didn't take 50+ hours to complete (looking at your Elder Scrolls series).  During July I managed to finish Bioshock 2, Mirror's Edge, Dead Space (again), Thomas Was Alone, Outlast, Among the Sleep and Alone in the Dark.  With the exception of Bioshock 2 which took me 22 hours to complete, all the other listed games took less than 10, with  Among the Sleep and Alone in the Dark taking just under four hours each.  I like this.

Next on the list and continuing with the theme of older, now antiquated PC games will be I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream, but I want to finish reading the story first just because I'm about half way through and because it came free with the game when I bought it from gog.com.  I also want to find a playable version of a game from 1983 called Archon, so I'll be looking into that too.

There are also a couple of expansion/DLCs that are on my list to play as well.  First off there is the "Minerva's Den" for Bioshock 2, "Benjamin's Flight" for Thomas was Alone and "Whistleblower" for Outlast.  I don't know if I will get to all of these this month, but they are definitely on the "To Play" list of games that always seems to somehow be growing.

In the hand held gaming front, I'm still trudging through Donkey Kong Country Returns now being stuck (again) with one of those blasted (hehe) rocket levels that I had such a fun time (I didn't) with in the previous stage.  I'm also close to the end of Kirby's Adventure and I recently started a puzzle game from Fallen Tree Games and FK Digital in Nintendo's eShop called quell: reflect that is fun logic-type game about moving objects to a goal in a limited space; there might be an article in this.

Then there's the sadly neglected PSP that is sitting atop the bookshelf perpetually charged.  I have Vagrant Story and the first Silent Hill that I recently downloaded that I would really like to have a go at, as well as a couple other titles that I purchased oh so long ago that I have yet to start up; I'm looking at you Shin Megami Persona 1 & 2, Silent Hill Origins and God of War: Ghost of Sparta.

It looks like August is shaping up a bit, plus I still have a massive amount of books to read as the next on the list is the audio book edition of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, because why not?

See you all next week.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
They Run Amuck In My Terrain

Monthly Update: July 2014

I know I usually put these out on the first Monday or Friday of the new month, but I decided to make an executive decision to post this today, the last day of June and looking forward to the first and last July of 2014.  

Woooooooo!  I just finished Bioshock 2 and by "finished," I mean that I saw the end cinematic after going through the game.  I just started the Minerva's Den DLC so I have not finished-finished, but you get the picture.  I may or may not write up an article about the game as it is five years old and there are literally dozens of reviews for the game out there in Internetland.  So in the meantime, I will simply say that I thoroughly enjoyed my time back in Rapture and I look forward to seeing what new places will be explored in the DLC.

I think I am also very close to finishing Mirror's Edge as well but there might end up being ten more hours of running my ass off (figuratively speaking since running is achieved by pushing down the W key) followed by confusingly looking around a rooftop wondering where to go next.  While being shot at by the Blues.

In the wake of finishing Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, I decided to plunk Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy back into my 3DS, having been probably a year or so since I last played the game.  I did this partly because, again, I had not played it in a while, but also to decide how I would feel about the sequel that is coming out on September 16, 2014.  All of my same potential fears for the release of the game and the announced 221 songs from the existing series and now including music from Final Fantasy Tactics (no word if the FFT Advance games will be included), Advent Children: Final Fantasy VII et cetera.  I am really just hoping that the game is similar yet different enough from the first game that I will not feel ripped off by already having access to half of the songs in the sequel; obviously I expect some repetition, but variation would be gladly accepted.  In other news, I should probably play/finish one of those other 3/DS games that I have/have not finished/played yet.       /

Steam's Summer 2014 Sale ended yesterday and I am proud to say that I was able to restrain myself.  I did purchase a couple of games but in total, I spent less than $15, which could mean that I now have 15 more games, but in truth the count only went up by four, one of which was the absurdly yet accurately titled Goat Simulator.  I am not entirely sure what I am expecting this game to be, either from what I have already heard about the game and from what the trailer told me, but I anticipate to be entertained.  At least it will still be a better love story than Twilight.  Yes, I just jumped on that train.

In the book front, because last week I talked a bit about books and my reading plans for the rest of the year, I began The Poetic Edda, translated by Lee M. Hollander to cover the "Poetry Collection" tile for BINGO.  Sure, it's not your normal collection of poetry to Tennyson, Plath or Wordsworth, but it is still poetry and it is a book that I have had on the shelf and have been meaning to read for a while.  Additionally, last week I also started reading Shadow Star by Chris Claremont and George Lucas, which is the third part in trilogy of books that takes place after the events in the film Willow.  Without going into a review of the entire series right now, I will post something later in the month (?), but I will say that the world from Willow has been greatly expanded, but at a cost.

Lastly, I finally got around to playing Settlers of Catan last week with Conklederp, Chreekat, Chreekat's Mom and her friend.  I know what you are thinking and believe you me, I thought the exact same thing.  And no, I did not win.  I had too much wheat and not enough wood.  Never enough wood.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
The Day Is Much Too Late

E3 2014: Post Game Show Recap

Welcome to the day after E3 2014.  The Electronics & Entertainment Exposition has come to a close.  Following last years reveal of the Big Three's consoles, this year looked to be primarily focused on games and which systems you could  not play those games on.  I do not have an exact count (because I'm lazy) of the number of exclusives released for each system (PS4, Vita, XBone, Wii U, 3DS, PC), but as to be expected there were a handful (PS4: The Order: 1886; Vita: Persona 4: Dancing All Night; XBone: Sunset Overdrive; Wii U: Baynetta 2; 3DS: Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney; PC: Civilization: Beyond Earth).  Additionally there are games being released/announced this year that only last year were exclusives (Dead Rising 3).

And what about gaming products and peripherals (I cannot spell "peripherals" without help)?  I was surprised that I did not hear anything about the Oculus Rift or Sony's Project Morpheus.  And only a couple of days ago and not related to E3 did I hear about Valve's VR headset so I expected to at least hear something from/about one of these products looking to springboard us into the VR "future" of gaming.  I actually had to read an article from RollingStone about a comparison between the Oculus and Morpheus.  Even on Gizmodo I was unable to find anything E3 related, which I found a touch odd, but maybe they are boycotting this year??

Back to the games.

In my previous post, I mentioned a few games that interested me from my perspective of PC/3DS gaming along with a couple extras that I will not be able to get my hands on unless I acquire a PS4, Vita, XBone or Wii U, which does not look like it is going to happen anytime soon.  You know what, let us explore this idea a little bit.  Of the games that were revealed as exclusives, what game would convince me to buy that particular system.

Playstation 4: Everybody's Gone to the Rapture.  I love The Chinese Room from their work on Dear Esther and how they helped out with Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.  I imagine that EGtoP will be a lot like both of those games.  A story that is told in FP view that probably will not include any combat, but may have enemies of some sort that you have to avoid.  And it looks absolutely gorgeous.

Vita:  Axiom Verge.  Although Axiom Verge is not a Vita exclusive, it is a Playstation exclusive and there only seemed to be a couple that were exclusive to the Vita.  I only found out about this game a few minutes before typing the paragraph two above this one.  The game looks like a mix between Contra (NES) and Super Metroid (SNES), which is a great combination to have.

XBone: D4 (Dark Dreams Don't Die).  I know that being a male video game player between the ages of 18-35, I should be balls out for Halo 5, Halo: The Masterchief Collection or Sunset Overdrive, but those are just not my bag of tea baby.  I did not like Halo the one time I played it and while Sunset Overdrive looks quirky, I like the idea behind D4 a lot more.  An episodic supernatural murder mystery.  That is just more up my proverbial light rail track (streets are so last year bro).

Wii U: The Legend of Zelda.  While I've stated before my growing disinterest in the Legend of Zelda franchise, but damn is this game pretty!  It will be interesting in the coming months to see what the storyline will be and while I can optimistically that it will not involve Princess Zelda being held captive by Ganon/Ganondorf, I will not be surprised if this is the case.  UNLESS!, this will be a Wii U remake of the original that came out back in 1986, then I might actually have to break down and buy a Wii U on the spot.

3DS:  Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call.  Okay, yes, I already own a 3DS, but if I did not, then this game would probably make me go out and buy the system.  My excitement over this game does have a bit of a hiccup though.  In the first Theatrhythm, there are roughly 60 additional songs that you can buy (at $0.99 a piece) to play in the game.  TFFCC touts a total of 200 playable songs and I really hope that that does not include the songs that Square Enix will be trying to sell me.  I also hope that there is a significant enough difference between the songs from the first game and this sequel, even with the inclusion of Final Fantasy Tactics, Advent Children, FF XIII-2, Lightning Returns and FF XIV: A Realm Reborn.

Lastly, a game that I am extremely excited to see released is Gunman Clive 2, the sequel to the awesome 2d side scrolling western platformer from Hörberg Productions.  Is it bad that being surprised by this games announcement was the most excited I became during all three days of E3 coverage?  I do not say this as a critique of the video game industry, or maybe I am and I just do not know how to articulate myself as well as I would like.  Either way, Steam starts their Summer Sale next Thursday (June 19th), so there is plenty of time to build up my self control and hide my credit card where I know it will not be found.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
But Just The Good Days


P.S.  Three additional games, coincidentially all Final Fantasy related that I did not have place for are a 3DS action adventure game akin to the  Monster Hunter series, a mobile game based on the FF VII motorcycle sequence and a f2p mobile game based off of the Japanese released PSP game, Final Fantasy Type-0.