Second Impressions: Blackwell Legacy (PC)

Wow, that was fast.  Seriously, it took 3 hours to beat Blackwell Legacy, and it seemed to pass by in a snap.  Nonetheless, Jane and I enjoyed ourselves enough for me to move forward and buy the 'Blackwell Bundle' on Steam for $20, which has the first four games of the series.  Unfortunately, that leads to me re-buying Blackwell Legacy, which is a waste.  Oh well.  I wanted to sample the series first, and I did.  I hear it just gets better from here.

Good story, voice acting, a little buggy.  The puzzles weren't too tough, but there's a cool notebook mechanic that I like.  All in all, I'm hooked, I am excited to see where the series goes from here.  It's a shame the games are so short though.

-D

Second Impressions: Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)

http://rebloggy.com/post/gaming-design-poster-fan-art-shadow-of-the-colossus/74106064450

I am midway through Shadow of the Colossus, and I really think I should write something about this game.  The first time I encountered this second release from Team Ico, was when it was new, watching Zor the Red play, and sometimes taking turns.  It left a strong impression on me, and I knew this game would stand out over the test of time.

A few years later, I find myself with access to a PS3, and an earnest desire to play this game again.  Thank you ebay, I now own a copy of Ico/Shadow of the Colossus for PS3.  Though, I do not actually own the console I play it on.  This could be an issue in the future.

For the present, I definitely think Shadow of the Colossus holds up.  The art direction is just fantastic.  The graphics aren't terribly dated, and graphics aren't much of a problem for me as I am perpetually behind on the latest and greatest.  The gameplay is in some ways very simplistic, and this works to its advantage.  The few features in the game are fantastically well honed with very few exceptions.  

Much of the time in this game is spent simply going from point A to point B,  and it's beautiful and peaceful, a stark contrast to the actual Colossus fights.  For this, you employ your horse, Agro.  Agro takes a little getting used to.  My best equine advice I can give is not to try and control Agro too closely.  He's actually pretty smart, and will follow the curvature of the landscape.  He'll get on your nerves sometimes, and he can be a pain in the neck.  But it would take an extraordinarily long time to walk to your various destinations.  

One of the poorest features of the game is actually the difficulty in mounting your horse.  The mount button is also the jump button, and if you're not positioned just so, you'll end up jumping around like a goofball, which can quickly become annoying.  Apart from mounting, the camera can take some getting used to.  It has a mind of its own, and there are times when it simply won't cooperate when I want to get a look at something.  On the other hand, one of the best features of this game are the incredible majestic camera angles you are treated to.  Still, when the camera is a problem, and an 80 ton colossus is bearing down on  you, I'm less concerned about the directors vision and more concerned about not-dying.

The controls, and the gameplay in general requires patience.  This game is not a pick-up and play platforming adventure.  The controls are quirky.  However, with difficulty, there is always the exchange.  Every quirk contributes in some way to the overall artful payoff.  The heaviness of the hero's motions is really great to watch, even if he isn't as agile or quick as I'd like him to be.  If you have the patience and the will, you can become quite adepts at Shadow of the Colossus, and reap the rewards of beautiful, epic monster battles.  

One important thing to note is the third colossus battle.  This is the time in the game when the wheels come off, and everything seems to fall apart.  Typically, a colossus takes me about 30 minutes, start to finish, but the third battle took an hour and fifteen, and that doesn't include when I rage-quit and started again a later time.  And I remember having the same problem the first time through, when Zor and I felt we were slamming our heads into a brick wall.  Still, I made it through, even without consulting a strategy guide.  For anyone else:  consult a strategy guide.  Save yourself the heartache.  It's really amazing how an entire game can seem so terrible when you're having a bad time.  

Ultimately, Shadow of the Colossus is a sort of high-risk, high reward game, that I'm enjoying more and more as I get older.  If you can-- play it.  I'll buy you a copy.  (maybe)

-D

Second Impressions: VVVVVV (3DS)

I say "Second" because Dr. Potts had already created a First Impressions about a year and-a-half ago, but I found it on sale through Nintendo's eShop a few weeks back for a price I couldn't refuse.  I have also been wanting to play it on my 3DS for a good long while after only being able to play it on my PC for a measly 25 minutes.  I enjoyed the game enough during the first stage in the ship, but once I left the ship I felt overwhelmed by the minimalist aspect of the game combined with the apparent size of the map as well as playing an Atari/NES era styled game on the PC.  I also felt demoralized upon finding out that the game kept track of how often I died.  

My death count was upwards of 80+ after not even 30 minutes.

I don't remember when I last played VVVVVV on the PC since Steam for some reason doesn't have that information available (maybe there's it loses track after a year of inactivity?), but when I saw it on sale in the eShop last month, I quickly picked it up.  There's just something about the 3DS handheld platform that made the game seem like it would be more approachable and somehow less intimidating.  Additionally, the 3D effect in the stills through the eShop looked good and I feel that VVVVVV lends itself very well to being converted to 3D.

While there are some differences between the 3DS port and the PC version,  such as altering the graininess of the screen, the biggest difference is that you cannot create custom levels; you can, however play other player (from where?) created levels.  It is not clear if these levels are pre installed or if you can acquire them throughout the game or if the game is updated with new user levels to play.  So far, I haven't found these differences to be detrimental to my feelings about the game or how it plays.

So far I have been having as much fun as I wanted to have in the PC version.  The controls are about as basic as it gets and the response is perfect without any lag.  The 3D effect also looks great with the backgrounds being pulled back from the Captain and the platforms in the foreground.  The music too is identical to that of the PC game and absolutely not loss in sound quality so Souleye's work can be enjoyed unhindered with the rest of the game.  I have nothing negative about this game in this format.

Enjoying VVVVVV as much as I have on the 3DS has made me wonder if I would like Super Meat Boy more than I have if I were to also have access to it on the 3DS platform.  Somehow I do not see the goriness of that game getting by Nintendo's eShop custodians, but I guess stranger things have happened, so we will just have to wait and see.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Instrumental

Second Impressions: McPixel (Android)

I'll admit - when I first played it, I did not like McPixel.  It just seemed dumb, and the music was crappy and it looped in this very jarring way that really got under my skin.  In fact, I was going to write a whole article about how I didn't like it.  I'm glad I didn't write that, though, because now that I've been playing it for a while on my phone, it's actually pretty great.

This game is a testament to how a game can be fun even with the simplest game play imaginable. The way McPixel accomplishes this is through humor.  It's just a really funny game.  I've beaten three levels, and some of the new gags still surprise me.  It is a blend of potty humor, loony tunes physics and super low-res slapstick.   What I initially took for lazy design is actually well executed blocky graphics.  Somehow these guys squeeze hilarity into two frames of animation. Sometimes things are funny just because of how very limited the range of expression is.  But they still get their point across.

I recommend this game to anyone who likes a good dose of immature humor.

I give McPixel a Fart out of 10.

-D

P.S.  the music is quirky and fun, but... still not that great, sorry!

Blue Wizard : Second Impressions

http://sethflynnbarkan.com

Blue Wizard is about to Die is a book of poems about Video Games by Seth 'Fingers Flynn Barkan.  One thing i didn't say in my first impressions of this book is that these poems are pretty much EXACTLY what I'm going for with this blog.  Or, at least, with a lot of what I've written.  Particularly the memory posts.  The visceral, the nostalgia, the sense of memory, of childhood daydreams.  Teen Angst and vulgarity.   It's all in this book.  Really quite remarkable.

Video games are a refuge, but they were also a calling.  When I was young, many days there wasn't anything I'd rather be doing than playing an awesome video game.  And then other times, they were a way to escape when the rest of the world seemed shitty.

It should be noted that, while much of the spirit of this book is right on the marker, by now, I've really noticed a divergence from my own experience. First off, Flynn Barkan has a much deeper connection to arcade games than I do.  While I played plenty of arcades at the bowling alley, pizza places or TILT, our former Mall Hangout, I never got particularly good at any arcade games.  I just didn't have the time, the funds, or the skill.  

I've never considered myself to be a particularly skilled video game player.  I enjoy competing at games like Goldeneye, Mario Kart or even Street Fighter II, but I regularly have my ass handed to me by friends like Cortez, and later ZorTheRed or Ghost.   I'm not the worst, but I'm certainly not the best.  This, I learned early on.  The author of Blue Wizard, on the other hand, spends some time illustrating his expertise at various arcade games.  Additionally, he gets pretty lifestyle-gritty.  Smoking, doing drugs, that kind of thing.  Things that I don't associate with nostalgiac video game good times.

Finally, in this entire book (complete with citations and a list of the best games ever - nice to read)  He mentions an RPG all of once.  Well there you go.  That's the difference.  While I enjoy action games as much as the next guy, I also have spent equal amounts of time just playing RPG games.  RPGs made up a significant piece of the game-times pie that I baked for myself.  This is a portion of gaming not at all represented in Blue Wizard is about to Die. 

So, after the novelty wears off, I see that this author and myself are really quite different.  However, I don't think this is a bad thing.  Actually, it's a good thing!  A testimate to the variety of gamer identities out there.  And I don't have to like everything he does to appreciate his work. Which I do!  And I think you will too.   

-D

Second Impressions: The Elder Scrolls: Chapter I: Arena (PC)

The following will be my second impressions of The Elder Scrolls: Chapter I: Arena, seeing as how I already had a first impression, but I felt that that article was written a while ago (January 2013) and since then, I have changed my approach to the game and therefore, my impressions of the game have changed dramatically.

About a month ago, I was rereading the article I wrote about failing at being able to successfully load and play Daggerfall (TES: Chapter II) and was going over the comments that had been left.  I followed the link that one Roger left which took me to a wiki page for setting up Daggerfall, that by default is in French or German (if the page does not have the "_EN" suffix), but thanks to the miracles of modern technology, Chrome does a wonderful job at translating the pages into something readable by my uneducated mind.  For both the Daggerfall and Arena pages, I was able to download versions of the game where all of the previous DOSBox commands came "pre-installed."  This was not a problem for Arena, but the chance at having to play Daggerfall without the risk of having the game tell me the previous problems I had were again present, was much welcome.  So the downloads commenced followed by the playing.

The first mission I received after emerging from the spectral gate in the Imperial prisons (surprise, surprise) was to escort a woman from the town of Vullain Haven to Wasten Brukbrook in the east.  Now, I figured that that meant that Wasten Brukbrook would be the next town over, so I began traveling on foot.  It was not until I had exited the game to look up the control setup that I discovered "Shift+M."  

This brought up a map of Tamriel (the explorable world), which then brought up a map of the province I was in when I clicked on that.  I was told that it would take me 17 days to travel from Vullain Haven to Wasten Brukbrook, on the southeastern part of Valenwood.

First off, I learned that by pressing "Shift+M" I was able to bring up the world map, and by clicking on a particular province, I am able to travel to any of the city states or towns in that province.  Finding this out was the very definition of a "game changer."

This was when I decided that I would greatly alter my approach to how I play Arena.  When out traveling in a world without topography, getting lost is beyond easy.

That mountain is really just a matte painting and does not count as topography.

My approach to the game goes now as follows.  If I am on a time sensitive mission (escort/rescue/kill the beast), I will fast travel from wherever I am.  Often times these missions give enough time to fast travel to the desired location, complete the goal and return if need be.  I have yet to come across a quest that would need me to speedrun through a dungeon.

If I am on my way from one town to another, I will exit the town by normal means (the city gate) and head in the direction of the town looking for dungeons along the way.  I will explore said dungeon, often collecting gear and other items and once I am either carrying at my weight or inventory capacity, I finish going through the dungeon (because having a completed map is OCD important), killing as many enemies as I can in order to gain experience then once I exit the dungeon, I fast travel to the next town to sell my collected booty.  I could just as easily fast travel between cities, but where is the fun in that?  Plus I would not be at level 15 having not collected even one piece of the Staff of Chaos.

Currently in the game, traveling between cities takes an average of three days, at least in Valenwood.  So 72 hours of straight walking towards the destination.  I then figured out that 1 minute in real time translates to roughly 12 minutes of in-game time.  So if I wanted to be "hard-core," I would have to spend six hours in real time in order to reach a city 72 hours away.  I do not think that Bethesda believed that players would not use fast travel.  Keep in mind that the town I had to travel to was 17 days away plus the return trip would total 34 days.  I personally would not want to spend 68 hours of real time completing that one quest.  On the other hand, I would be very interested to find out if travelling from one site to another is actually possible without fast travel, but that might have to wait for another time.

In other aspects of the game, I am able to appreciate what Bethesda was trying to do with Arena back when it was released in 1994.  In the instruction manual, the creators often reference pen-and-paper RPGs (Dungeons & Dragons) and even with the character creation and how the stats are affected such as Strength, Wisdom, Endurance, Personality (Constitution and Charisma respectively in D&D), Intelligence, et cetera are all direct references to D&D.  Even the armor rating is taken from THAC0 where a lower number is preferable to a more intuitive higher number.  Bethesda had also expanded upon the standard classes of Fighter, Mage, Cleric and Thief and developed the following subclasses, each with their own bonuses and drawbacks.  For example Thief, Burglar, Assassin, Rogue, Acrobat and Bard are all subclasses to the Thief header.  I blindly chose a thief because unlocking ALL THE THINGS!! is better than say, being able to wear enchanted armor.

There are a few annoyances though, as is to be expected with playing a game that was created 20 years ago on a semi-modern computing device that was built within the last five years.  Now I do not know how often Arena was buggy or to what extent those bugs occurred, but at least once a day I am graced by a crashed game in one form or another.  While the crashes are not all too frequent, they are very annoying, especially when I am about to be picking up some sweet fwag!

But at least the Male is bigger than the Happy4 turning right to the zero eighth notes.  Amiright!?

Having the game randomly crash has also gotten me to save my game after almost every enemy encounter as I have run into monsters that have killed me in two hits while I have full life.  But my main advice for this game: save often, even after doing inane things like selling swag or before leaving a town.

With this renewed interest in Arena, I feel that I am able to enjoy the game a lot more than my first runthrough, although in the article I did sound quite optimistic despite when I last talked to Dr. Potts, before restarting the game again, I mentioned that my biggest issue was finding my way around the world on a 2D surface.  I will probably put out a post on Friday regarding my choice in character and picking a Bosmer (Wood Elf) female and naming her Silandra, so stay tuned if that happens to be your bag of chips.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

I'm Onto The Next One

Second Impressions: Thomas Was Alone (PC)

I probably should not have used the "Second Impressions" in my last post and I didn't actually mean to use it as that was a title for another post I was writing when I accidentally "published" the article before I realized that I hadn't changed the title yet.  Dr. Potts and I had talked about doing articles titled "Second Impressions" when one of us writes an article about a game that the other had already played/written about.  Now that that's out of the way:

I pretty much concur nearly everything that Dr. Potts talked about last year is his First Impressions of Thomas Was Alone, so there is not a whole lot that I can expand upon.  So, why then write another article about a two year old game that has already been written about and not just by us, but by 250+ other sites?  Because the simplicity of the game, the beautifulness of the soundtrack,  the writing of the characters and the delivery of the narration cannot be stated enough.  Which is why that I am stating it here.  Again.

I just finished the main storyline and I honestly sat slack-jawed upon the end of the story with characters that I had spent the last five hours getting to know.  Although that is a bit of an overstatement as various characters are introduced throughout the entire game and not all are playable in every level.

Yes, the game is simple and it could have very well been created for the Atari 2600 or even the Intellivision without narration.  The narration could have been included in the instruction manual, to be read when you reach the appropriate level.  But really, the narration voiced by British comedian Danny Wallace was able to install emotion and character depth to otherwise two dimensional polygon .  For a short time, both Conklederp and I considered that the narrator could have been Martin Freeman and even after finding out that it was not, I still have Martin Freeman in my head.

The music, the music, the music.  The music was composed by David Housden.  Even Conklederp commented on how soothing and relaxing the music is, considering it is background to colorful rectangles jumping on and off each other.  I was pleasantly surprised that the soundtrack was included with the Humble Indie Bundle that it was um, bundled with last year, otherwise there was a good chance that I would have mosied over to Mr. Housden's bandcamp page and purchased the thing for the measly sum of £3.99, or $6.83.  With the exception of track five "Divided We Fall," all the tracks are very mellow and simple, yet emotionally moving with the characters in-game.

Based on Dr. Potts' review, it sounds like he used a controller to play the game where as I ended up just using the keyboard.  Now, I am not one to normally use a keyboard when playing a platformer as the controls just do not feel as intuitive and I often feel clumsy (Super Meat Boy, FEZ, Deadlight).  For whatever reason, I decided that I was able to manipulate the characters well enough with the WASD to move and Spacebar to jump.  The game was not about dexterity, but about puzzle solving at your own pace.  I like that I did not feel rushed and only one time did I feel frustrated, but that was on a later level when I had to cycle through characters trying to select the one or two I wanted to alternatingly move after I already had everyone else in position.  That was on me.

As previously stated, I just finished Thomas Was Alone no more than 30 minutes ago and I just found out that there was a free DLC called "Benjamin's Flight" that is accessible by going to the stage select option and selecting 10.1.  I think I will give the DLC a go after I have some time to process the entirety of the main game, so look forward to that post in the coming weeks.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I'd Like To Leave The World As A Better Place