Drakengard 3 – The beginnening

I didn’t buy a Playstation 3 just for Drakengard 3 (that would have been silly), but it was the first exclusive game that made me really want a PS3. Fortunately I was able to adopt the console for the low, low price of free, and then I bought Drak3, and then I… didn’t play it for like two years. Oops!

But now, I am playing it! Time to get m’self up to speed before NieR: Automata drops. I mean, they’re only very loosely related so it’s not like it really matters, but I still feel like I ought to play through this game that I was desperately excited for before I start up the next game that I’m desperately excited for.

Before I even started up the game, I logged into the Playstation Store to check out the DLC options, as I knew there were add-ons for extra chapters. While I was ready to go ahead and buy them sight unseen, I decided to wait and see how the base game turned out before dropping another $30. It turned out that you can’t play the extra chapters until the main story is cleared anyway.

There are also costumes and music packs to purchase. The costumes are all of characters from the previous Drakengard games and NieR, and they also actually affect gameplay! But, they’re $4 each, and that’s a little too steep. Even though I could be running around dressed as Kainé or Nier (albeit the inferior “brother” Nier). Even though I don’t know exactly what it does, I did drop $3 on the NieR BGM pack, which adds three remixed NieR tracks to the game. Where? Not sure yet! But they sure are cool mixes. Wish I could put ’em on my phone somehow so I could listen to them whenever I like!

The game starts with “protagonist” Zero and her dragon partner Michael (not a good name for a dragon) assaulting a fortress, with the express intent of murdering Zero’s five sisters. Apparently they’re all legendary angels, but I don’t really know what that’s about. Gameplay is very basic hack-n-slash business in the intro. Hopefully it’s just keeping it simple for now, but if the previous Drakengard games are any indication…

After mowing through countless soldiers, who bleed as if they’re literally just huge bags of blood, you finally meet up with the sisters. And then a massive four-on-one boss fight ensues. It’s not hard because Zero is nigh invulnerable, but it can be tricky to keep your sights locked on to any one girl for long. Once they all give up, One, who appears to be the de facto leader of the group, summons her own dragon pet, Gabriel (oooh I get it now). You fight Gabe for a bit, then he blasts Zero’s left arm clean off and presumably kills Michael. The pair tumble into a chasm and we jump a year into the future.

Zero, to this point, doesn’t seem like much of hero. We have no idea what’s going on in the plot so far, and her only justification for attempting to murder her sisters is that she wants to be the only magical angel lady (or “Intoner” as the game calls them). She is also not very appropriately dressed, but this isn’t surprising, because Taro Yoko very obviously has some issues with women. Her outfit isn’t quite as skimpy as Kainé’s lingerie, but it’s not very much better. In fact, I sort of regret having purchased the game at a real store, because the checkout girl that seemed happy to help me at first took one look at the cover and shot me a look that told me she’d decided that I must be some sort of weird pervert.

But Zero is definitely a badass. She’s got a short temper and a foul mouth, and has got the skills to back it up. The way she flies around the screen, slicing her enemies to ribbons, is very cool. Actually, she is basically just Kainé, if Kainé was a murderous psychopath instead of a grumpy hermit. Her temperament is much more like that of Caim, the hero from the first Drakengard. Which I greatly approve of, if only because his characterization in The Dark Id’s LP was amazing.

An I make it sound worse than it really is when I call Zero a psychopath. Because every single character in Drakengard is on the psychopath spectrum, and it looks like D3 is following suit. Except for Mikhail, Zero’s baby dragon buddy who is apparently a reincarnated version of Michael. Mikhail is constantly asking Zero why she wants to kill everyone instead of just talking it out and trying to resolve their issues. He’s a naive little dude that dislikes violence, but follows Zero around anyway. It actually seems like he belongs more in the NieR branch of the series than Drakengard.

Anyway, the game hasn’t made much of an impression yet, but these things are often pretty unassuming from the start. Gameplay is snappy but uninspired, graphics are not the best the PS3 has to show, and the story hasn’t gotten twisted at all. But that’s after just the prologue and two levels into chapter one. It may take a while before it really opens up and goes coo coo bananas. There have been a couple shocking scenes, but nothing on the level of the Grotesqueries yet.

Stay tuned to maybe read some more about this wacky game!

I’m going to be talking about sandwiches again

Prepare your mind, for it is about to be blown. For after many years of intense training and studying, I have finally completed the Perfect Sandwich. Behold its majesty.

In an effort to benefit all of humanity, I will now share the secrets of this sandwich. Please craft it with love in your heart and a rumbly in your tumbly. This sandwich should never be used for the forces of evil, or for personal gain.

  • Toasted honey oat whole wheat bread
  • Precisely one and a half slices of cheese
  • Slightly more salami than necessary
  • A dickload of ham
  • Top it with a generous portion of pickle slices
  • An explosion of Curry Dijon mustard (top slice)
  • A fine layer of margarine (bottom slice)

Go now, prepare yourself this delicious sandwich, and revel in all of its tasty glory. If you would like to submit your own (wrong) suggestions of what the perfect sandwich is, please feel free to leave a comment. But we all know that nobody reads this anyway, so meeeeh.

I’m going to be talking about NieR again.

You all remember when I fell in love with NieR a few years ago, right? I regard it as one of the best games of the last generation, and it is finally getting a sequel this March. Needless to say, I am very eagerly awaiting NieR: Automata, as I have had it preordered since last June and am even more anxious to play it than I was for Pokémon Sun.

Right there, that should be a “holy crap, really?” moment for you, dear reader.

The Automata demo came out at some point recently, and I only just remembered to play it last weekend. For those who are ready to check out: I like it. I like it a whole lot. Like, it impressed me to the point where I am even more excited for the full game, if that’s even possible.

There is a lot left to be seen, though. For starters, Nier and Automata have very little in common besides art direction and basic gameplay elements. Nier is about grumpy old man fighting shadows to save his daughter. Automata is about androids fighting alien robots to save the world. As Nier and its sister series, Drakengard, are well-known for their insane gut-punch story twists, I’m sure that the alien robots in Automata will turn out to actually be the good guys and then we’ll regret having killed them all over the course of the game. Or something like that.

Really, all the demo shows off is the gameplay. And the main character’s pantsu. Oh, Japan. The game’s really fun, at least! It sets you in an “abandoned” factory, hunting down a big ol’ enemy robot. Of course the factory is absolutely swarming with li’l robuts, which you will mow down with reckless abandon. On the surface, it plays like a much more polished Nier, with you using a pair of massive swords to dice up your foes. Then you learn that your little flying robot buddy can also be used as a turret, adding long-ranged attacks to your arsenal. It’s a small change, but has a fairly significant impact.

Automata still plays a lot like a combination of a brawler and a shmup, and it feels really great. I don’t know if it’ll have more RPG-like downtime parts (farming, fishing, sidequests) like Nier did, or if it’ll be a pastiche of different gameplay styles like its big brother, but the core gameplay is solid. It’s very obvious that Platinum Games is behind this.

So anyway, after travelling through the factory and blowing up more robots than you can shake a Phoenix Spear at, you come up to the absolutely ginormous boss, who is a transformer and was hiding in plain sight as part of the factory that you were just bouncing around on. He’s got two massive buzzsaw arms, and constantly sprays a stream of bullets (which are big purple orbs) at you. Halfway through the fight, you board a small aircraft and the game becomes Sin & Punishment, as you’re now flying around the boss while trying to dodge his attacks and blast him in the face.

And then. Then comes the epic finale, in which you lop off one of the boss’ buzzsaw arms, assimilate it into your own arsenal, and then use it to bash his head in. And, you know, he’s a giant robot, so it’s not nearly as graphic as I made it sound. Just awesome. So very awesome. Also the “beating a robot’s head in with its own buzzsaw arm” thing is such a Platinum thing to do.

Following this awesome victory, three more of the giant factory robots emerge from the ocean, and the protagonists are all like “welp, we’re boned” and then use some kind of supernova self-destruct thingy in an attempt to at least take the giant bots down with them. Then the demo ends and I’m all like “whyyyyy I can’t wait two more months.”

I don’t know if NieR: Automata will appeal to me in the same way that the original game did, but it’s certainly making a strong case for itself. I mean, I kind of doubt that this game will feature watermelon farming, but that’s something I’ll just have to accept when the time comes. And if it does feature watermelon farming, well, we might just have the 2017 Game of the Year on our hands.

If you have a PS4, I absolutely recommend giving this demo a try (I don’t know for sure if it’s available on PC). Also, check out the sweet boss battle trailer from last year’s E3 that I’ve embedded below. It’s so amazing, and I know I’ve said it a dozen times already, but I simply cannot wait to play this.

 

Kinda weird that the game is still called Nier, even though the character that it is named after is ostensibly not in the game at all. I mean, it would be really shocking if he was. Maybe that will be the twist somehow. But given that Automata takes place after Ending D of the original game… That would be a pretty tough sell.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up – December 2016

in b4 2017 gets sucky

All jokes aside, good lord did I play a lot of different video games in December. Where in the heck did I find all that extra time?

~ Game Over ~

Pokkén Tournament (WiiU) – I forgot about this game so quickly after it came out, but I really do enjoy it. I just wish I had the dedication to get better at it. I finally finished the single-player “story”, at least. Also, why the heck haven’t all the new Pokémon from the arcade version been made as DLC? I want to play as Scizor!

wiiu_screenshot_tv_01df4

The Cat Lady (PC) – A traditional adventure game that’s kind of ugly, but has a very interesting and thoughtful story. But you know all about it already because you read the post I wrote about it, yeah?

Adventure Time: Finn & Jake Investigations (WiiU) – I started playing this what seemed like months ago, then it fell off my radar because ?????. Picked it up again and solved the remaining cases. It’s a pretty good throwback to adventure games of yore! And almost the exact opposite of The Cat Lady in terms of tone. But it’s not so good that I’m going to buy the DLC chapter.

Shantae: 1/2-Genie Hero (WiiU) – The third Kickstarter game that I’ve backed to be released. It falls somewhere on the quality scale between the immaculate Shovel Knight and the troubled Mighty No 9. Mostly very good with beautiful graphics, but has a surprisingly bad final chapter and a horrific recurring audio glitch. Pirate’s Curse is still the best Shantae.

Picross e7 (3DS) – I knew this one came out in Japan a while ago, but its North American release totally blindsided me. With joy. Thanks for the early Xmas gift, Jupiter! I didn’t clear all the mega puzzles, but they’re all the same as the standard puzzles, so I’m considering it beaten.

Lifeless Planet (PS4) – A game about being an astronaut, bouncing around on an unexplored planet with a mysterious history. At least that’s what it is for the first hour. After that, stuff starts happening, and honestly I think I was happier just exploring the simple landscapes of the early game. The story is quite good, though!

The Way of Life (Free Edition) (PC) – A walking simulator wherein you play different “events” through the eyes of a child, man, and geezer. The three scenarios provided are boring and preachy and I can’t say I’d ever consider paying for the “Definitive Edition.”

The First Skunk Bundle (WiiU) – I played Haunted Hotel a couple months ago, and recently went back to try out the other games. They’re “better” if you’re measuring by playability, but have absolutely nothing on Haunted Hotel as far as being completely bonkers. Still, they’re all mostly garbage. Catchy is okay, I guess.

~ Now Playing ~

Dragon Quest Builders (PS4) – The hours just melt away when I boot this baby up. It’s like the heyday of Minecraft, but with good graphics and music (though a little less freedom). Currently on Chapter 3.

Super Mario Run (iOS) – Well this is weird. But also really good. But also, the Toad Rush mode has showed me that despite all my years of training, I suck at Mario. Whoops!

Ape Escape 2 (PS2) – I’ve played the first and third Ape Escape games to completion, and only when I played Ape Escape 2 did the realization dawn on me that Ape Escape feels a lot like Gex, except not as terrible. Ape Escape 2 has some camera issues, but otherwise it’s decent enough.

Dino Eggs: Rebirth (PC) – One of those bundle situations where I bought a bunch of games because one looked cool and I didn’t give a flip about the others. This is one of the “I don’t give a flip” titles. It’s actually a fun, breezy puzzlatformer. I hear that it’s an expanded remake of an old Apple II game that I don’t remember ever playing, but very well could have. Apple II was a long, long time ago.

Bit Dungeon+ (WiiU) – A pixel-graphics, dungeon-crawling, roguelike game that I picked up on sale after Xmas. It’s not quite what I was hoping for, and it’s a little broken/inscrutable, but I like it! My brother decidedly does not, so it looks like I’m flyin’ solo on this one.

Pokémon Picross (3DS) – Somehow, the memory wires in my brain got crossed in a way that Christmastime now makes me think of Pokémon Picross. So I played it a bunch. Still not enough to complete all the Alt-World stages that I had left undone, though.

Life is Strange (PS4) – It’s been over a year since the last chapter came out, which meant time for a replay! There are fewer shocking “I get this foreshadowing now!” moments than I had expected. At least in chapter one. Just one massive one right at the very end.

Pokémon Sun (3DS) – Sure, I beat it last month, but there’s more to it than just getting the credits to roll. There’s a bit of post-game content, and of course I’ve got to… catch them all.

Bit Boy Arcade (3DS) – For reasons I won’t get into, I booted this up somewhat randomly. Played a bunch of stages, and it seemed kind of crappy at first, but I quickly found myself getting into it as I learned how the game works. I might just see it through to the end.

Stardew Valley (PC) – I might as well have started using cocaine. There’s a very good reason that I stopped playing Harvest Moon games.

Rollercoaster Tycoon (PC) – I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the kind of game you beat over the span of years, or never at all. Because at least in the early game, all the scenarios end up feeling the exact same. It’s like, spend a year building up a great park, and then let the game sit for a couple hours to run down the clock until you win.

Bioshock Remastered (PC) – Made a tiny bit of progress, but have now been stymied multiple times by the game locking up when I attempt to open the map.

2016 Xmas Gift Roundup!

Oh my, has yet another year passed already? Well, I guess three years if you’re just going by the last time I wrote one of these things. Remember how it used to be an annual tradition? Did I write this exact same intro paragraph last time? Ehh, I’ve already recycled the idea and the banner, might as well re-use some of the text as well.

I think that, for the most part, I stopped doing these because I began to feel embarrassed about all of the stuff I get for Xmas. I mean, it’s not like it’s all that excessive (especially with my lack of wife), but it’s easy to look at these articles and think to myself “gee, I sure am spoiled, aren’t I?” Maybe next year will be the year I finally act on my desire to volunteer somewhere and help those less fortunate.

But probably not. That would also require leaving the house, and my incredible selfishness is a defining character trait.

Continue reading 2016 Xmas Gift Roundup!

Resistant to assimilation

In the everlasting search for a healthy and also delicious fast-food joint, I tried out a new place last week. It’s the most pretentious gosh-darned mall food place I’ve ever seen -so pretentious that it’s physically painful to be inside the restaurant- but I decided to giv’er a go anyhow.

Turns out, they make a damn good burrito. I’m talking top-tier. I’ve already made two return trips because uuuunnnnhhhhh it’s so goooooood (also, only a five-minute walk from work). And normally I buy lunch like once a month.

What really bothers me is that I’ve already told almost literally everyone I know how much I’ve been enjoying this place. Like you do. But I just came to the realization that I’ve become a walking advertisement for this place with a corporate image that I just can’t stand. It’s just so pompous that I wish their food was terrible.

So I’m not going to tell you what the place is called. No more free advertisement from me! Just know, that somewhere out there, is a cloying hippie restaurant that sells amazing burritos. Also other stuff, but I’m more of a ‘go with what you know’ kind of dude.

Yep. That’s the post. Hope you hadn’t planned anything important for those three minutes.

Glub glub!

In the late days of September, I download a free app called Plant Nanny. While it was not a game, it was an attempt to gamify water. Specifically, drinking enough water throughout the day. I tried to keep with it for a while, but near the end of November I got to the point where I just didn’t care anymore. Which is sad, because in doing so I sentenced a bunch adorable virtual plants to their deaths.

screen568x568The idea of the app is that for every glass of water you drink a day, you give your plant a drink of water as well. It has a little experience bar, and when the bar fills, the plant grows a bit. After a few stages of growth, the plant will reach its final stage, you put it out in the garden and plant a new… plant. Fully grown plants will also drop a seed every 20 hours, which is not for planting, but rather is currency to buy exciting new species of plants. And so the cycle continues.

The first thing I learned from this app is that I don’t drink anywhere near enough water. I found myself struggling to try to fit in so many cups of water a day. Fortunately, Plant Nanny has a helpful reminder feature that sends a notification to your phone every two hours (between 8AM and 10PM, so as not to disturb your sleep). In reality, the annoyance of that constant reminder was part of Plant Nanny’s downfall.

The second thing that I learned is that when I do drink enough water, I have to pee all the damn time. Which, you know, makes perfect sense, but was still annoying. I won’t get into details about my bathroom habits, but let’s just say that a number of people have commented on how seldom I seem to use the toilet.

Anyway, despite the positive feedback loop of growing cute little plants and the fact that it was ostensibly having a positive impact on my health, I just couldn’t be bothered with it anymore. The reminders became grating, and I started to feel like I really just didn’t want to ingest that much water every day. I still think the thing’s calculations are off and it was telling me to drink way more than necessary. But I’m too lazy to actually do the math so we’ll never know for sure.

So now I’m back to drinking like half a cup of water a day. It’s probably not great for my body, but I don’t feel any different either way. You were cute, Plant Nanny, but in the end, I just didn’t care enough to keep it up. Like with pretty much everything else in my life.

DOOK-DOOK-DOOK

I have spent nearly six months with the video file of The Babadook on my computer, and yet I have not watched it. I wanted to watch it, but after doing a Google search and being terrified for weeks upon weeks by the images it produced, I could not bear to watch the movie.

But last weekend, I finally did it. I was actually settling in to watch a different movie, but then I was like “you know what, I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna watch The Babadook.”

Turns out, it wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought, and I would up absolutely loving it.

In fact, I liked it so much that I’ve been strongly considering watching it again. Maybe a third time. Maybe it’ll become my favourite movie.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The Babadook is still pretty terrifying. Just not in the way that I’d imagined. It’s more of a self-reflective, thoughtful kind of horror. Which may not make a lot of sense if you haven’t seen the film. I can’t even relate it to anything because it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I got the same feeling of dread from it as I did from It Follows, but really the only other thing the two films have in common is that they’re great.

I really don’t want to say much else about it, because it’s definitely worth watching. Just thinking about it makes me wish I could be watching it again right now. Maybe I will…

mister-babadook

I Am the Bored Thing That Watched This Movie

I’ve watched a lot of Netflix Original shows, and most of them have been very good. Some not-so-great, but for the most part, it’s been above average. I watched my very first Netflix Original movie last week. It was… hmmm, what’s the best way to describe it… awful.

pthingI Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House sounds an awful lot like the kind of movie that I would like from its description. Have a gander:

A nervous nurse who scares easily finds herself caring for an ailing horror novelist while living in a house with hidden secrets.

Sure, it’s a bit generic, but they wouldn’t want to spoil anything, right? Well, the thing is that there’s not a whole lot to spoil. The entire plot is about a girl who is afraid of ghost stories reading a ghost story, and then learning that it’s actually true and the ghost lives in the house she’s currently occupying. Maybe I’m being a little reductive with that summary, but that’s the gist of it.

The hugest thing I disliked about the film is that it is nearly 90% voice-over narration. Though I guess it can’t be helped when your movie has a grand total of three characters, and one has dementia and another is on screen for about four minutes total. But yeah, too much narration drives me bonkers. It’s just so boring to watch something while a disembodied voice tells you what you’re watching.

Anyway, the story is a very slow burn, and there is basically zero payoff. The climax comes out of nowhere and is over so quickly that you’re just like “wait, this is what I’ve been waiting for?” and then you have to sit through another seven minutes of epilogue in sheer frustration.

Do you want to know what happens? The girl hears a mysterious knocking inside the house, goes downstairs to investigate, and then dies of fright upon seeing -that’s right, just seeing– a ghost. A ghost that, by all intents and purposes, she should know is in the house. It is literally spelled out for her over the course of the film. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m terrified of ghosts, but I can’t imagine that I would keel over if I were to simply catch a glimpse of one. I’d be pretty amazed, actually, because ghosts aren’t real.

Also in this scene is a very bad digital effect of the ghost marching across the kitchen. What makes it so terrible is that due to plot, her legs are on backwards, and this gives the illusion that she’s a marionette or something, gambolling along so unnaturally. This could be frightening, maybe, if they had done it right (though I can’t quite conceive of how that would be done). But the net result here is that it looks like something out of a children’s program, and completely dissolves any tension that maybe have existed, further reducing the effectiveness of that big, final “scare.”

Do I regret watching this movie? It’s hard to say. I do love watching terrible movies, but this one was mostly just boring. I can’t get excited about any of its terribleness. There was nothing so corny that made me giggle. It’s the kind of bad movie that How Did This Get Made? would pass on. So, yeah. Maybe I would like to have my 87 minutes back, but on the other hand, I now have this little gem in my pocket as a short conversation piece.