I don’t know what I’m doing. I kind of feel like I should hop on the Let’s Play bandwagon, but I’m no good at the talkies. Or Spelunky, apparently. Anyway, this was mostly just to play around with Camtasia for a while before I actually started recording the world’s worst LP. Also, I swear a lot when I play games alone. So yeah, don’t let the little ones be watchin’ this.
I have a terrible voice too. Getting kind of used to it though, after watching this thirty-seven times.
You know what sucks? Finding a house. It’s not really a terrible process but it sucks up so much of your free time… Actually it’s not that bad, but between that and wedding stuff and work it’s very hard to make time for stupid things like maintaining a blog. I don’t even really have that much on my mind lately, so it’s not like I have a need to blog that is going unsatisfied.
Anyway. You ever heard of Lana Del Rey? I hadn’t, but for the duration of January, my Xbox decided that I really needed to know about her and what a great singer she is. Generally I don’t listen to my Xbox’s music recommendations, but worst case scenario, I’d be GISing a pretty girl. It was from that subsequent Google search that I learned she had a song called “Video Games” so okay. This is going well, might as well look into it. Also the word “sexpot” comes up a lot, but that is irrelevant.
I also learned from the Google search that she had recently “bombed” on SNL, and that the internet was making a really big deal of it. So while I’d never heard of her, she was known to people who hate comedy.
I continued to take my curiosity to YouTube, because it seemed like the quickest way to get the deal on this chick. The first song that came up was “Blue Jeans” and I listened about halfway through the song before I clicked back and loaded up the “Video Games” video. That one lasted until about the two-thirds mark before I closed the browser window.
Lana Del Rey’s music strategy is apparently to make it as unbearably boring as she possibly can. Adele, despite all the hype around her, is boring as fuck, but at least she sounds like she’s interested in the songs she’s singing. Lana, on the other hand, seems to be boring herself to death and sounds like she’d rather be stuffing her arm in a meat grinder than recording a song. I don’t know if she’s just purposely trying to act aloof, if that’s going to be her thing, but it certainly doesn’t make me care about her music. I suppose it beats being another Gaga. Don’t misunderstand me here, because I don’t think slower, more somber songs are bad. I like dark, artsy stuff, but it has to be done right. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” is one of my favourite Beatles songs. Matthew Good’s Hospital Music is an amazingly deep album. Lana Del Rey just fails to interest me at all.
Normally I would just brush an artist like this aside and completely forget they exist, but the fact that that she called a song “Video Games” makes me semi-involved. Actually, it doesn’t involve me at all, but it’s something I want to ramble on about. So this song is dreary and boring and just not fun at all. Unless this is a song about Tom Clancy video games, that’s really the opposite of how it should be. Actually it’s not really about video games at all, it’s just a word she ends a few verses with. And an easy way to bait nerds like me into paying attention.
Regardless of whether the song is actually about video games though, I feel like a song called “Video Games” should be fun. You know, like video games. It’s a legitimate reason to use chiptunes. Though it would be unfair to blame the actual music here. It’s not bad, and I probably wouldn’t mind listening to it if it weren’t overshadowed by the insufferable vocal track. Video games are fun, they are there to entertain, to help people forget their woes for a while and have a good time. This song is exactly the opposite of that. Yeah, I guess there are boring and depressing games, but they generally are not good games.
Speaking of YouTube, the video is pretty stupid too. Actually, so is the video for “Blue Jeans.” They’re both dumb viral/hipster mash-ups of other people’s home videos, with little bits of Lana making pouty faces spliced in. I mean, I’m not sure if they’re actually real people’s video bits that have been collaged together. They could absolutely be staged. But the fact of the matter is that the videos are completely unrelated to anything and only serve to bore me even harder.
Her Wikipedia page makes it sound like Del Rey put the videos together on her own. Given the amateurish quality (and blatant egotism), I could believe that. The only times collages aren’t stupid are when children make them (because it’s cute) and when somebody makes one that’s actually meaningful. These videos aren’t meaningful: they’re just random clips hastily slapped together. No relation, no progression, no reasonable deeper meaning. It’s just stupid hipster garbage.
So the music and videos are all absolute hipster fodder (except now that she’s getting popular, the hipsters won’t have anything to do with her), but Lana herself… not at all. She’s still a far cry from trash like Britney, but she’s got a fairly mainstream popstar look to her. And that’s just not acceptable. If you’re going to act like a hipster, look like a hipster. Get you some thick black glasses, a bad haircut, and a goofy hat at least. Probably a year-round scarf would be a good idea too. Or, better yet, just stop making lame-ass hipster songs.
So yeah, if this thing seems detached and poorly written, it’s because I was trying to stretch my thoughts too thin. I really just wanted to complain about a couple boring songs. And hipsters. I’ve been reading too many long, thoughtful blogs, and have forgottent that my sweet spot is more in concise, to-the-point writing. Also I haven’t blogged in like forever. Give me a damn break.
I plugged away at Tomb Raider for a couple hours this weekend because it’s been sitting on my PSP’s memstick for ages now and I’ve barely touched it. I’m not entirely sure, but I have this gut feeling that I hate Tomb Raider.
It’s not really Tomb Raider that I hate though. The concept is fine. Indeed, I actually quite liked Tomb Raider: Legend (though not enough to complete it), but I cannot fathom how people enjoyed the older games. Moving Lara around is just such a hassle. Even back in 1996 I don’t understand how people found the awful, awful control scheme acceptable. I mean, people knowingly played this game instead of… well, anything else? I imagine that playing Tomb Raider is roughly as painful and annoying as jamming a fork into my thigh repeatedly.
Anyhow, after roughly five hours of gameplay I’ve only just completed the Lost Valley, which goes to show how much trouble I’m having here. There was a bear at one point that mauled me to death nearly a dozen times before I was able to get past him. The little dinosaurs didn’t give me too much trouble, and the T-rex didn’t even hit me, but I stopped counting how many times Lara crumpled to the ground dead because of a misstep or when she decided to walk off a cliff despite the fact that I did indeed press the jump button.
I don’t know if I’m going to be able to stick this one out, guys. I can’t imagine that the game is very long, but it’s just so bad. And not Power Glove bad. I feel like I should pack it in and go back to Final Fantasy XIII-2, which is a game that wants me to win. I like those games.
(This post is terrible because I’m overtired and pissed off at Tomb Raider.)
The only thing that makes me happier than looking at this wonderful cover, is the fact that I own the book it belongs to.
It’s a big mother, too. Check it out. I’m not much for comic book collections; do they usually reprint them so much bigger than standard comic size? I’m not complaining, of course. I love that fact that I could knock someone out with this baby. The sheer girth of the thing makes me feel a little bit better about how ridiculously expensive it was. For someone who is such a big TMNT fanboy and has never had the opportunity to read the original TMNT comics though, it was worth every penny. Plus, it was a birthday gift to myself. How could I not spend a little extra on such a wonderful guy?
It hasn’t been a thing lately, but if you’ve combed through much of my site’s backlog, one of the most prominent themes is me being a huge MegaMan fanboy. In recent years, the love has waned a bit, mostly due to Capcom not really doing anything interesting with the franchise. MegaMan 9 and MegaMan 10 were fantastic throwbacks to the golden age of gaming, but that’s really about it. The MegaMan Star Force were just gussied-up versions of the dried-up Battle Network series, and the cancellation of MegaMan Legends 3 was a huge blow to the small but loyal contingent of fans of that particular series. MegaMan Universe just never interested me.
So I guess really the best thing that Capcom could do was port one of the best MegaMan games to iOS. MegaMan X was a landmark game that hewed closely to the tried-and-true MegaMan formula, but pushed it to the limit, making the game faster and more exciting. All these years later, it’s still one of my favourite games ever, and by far my most-played SNES title. Why wouldn’t I want to play it on my phone?
Oh, right, because Capcom released a near-perfect remake of it on PSP some years back. MegaMan: Maverick Hunter X was the reason I bought a PSP, and it’s easily the definitive version of the game. MegaMan X’s iOS port is mostly faithful to the SNES original, but you’ll notice that the graphics have been all smoothed out to help make it look a little more contemporary. They certainly look nice, and the sleeker presentation is in no way a knock against the game, but to me, X looks a little weird when not presented in chunky SNES pixels.
A handful of the other major changes are definitely for the worse. The most blatant one being that you’re playing a SNES game with a touch screen. We all know how much I hated Secret of Mana‘s iOS port for that. And Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. My opinion is the same as it was when I wrote those posts: touch screen controls are not a good idea for games designed for buttons. MegaMan X makes a little concession to that end by giving you an easy mode, but if you don’t know every pixel of this game like I do, the rough controls will probably cause you more than a few pains.
One of the really cool things about MegaMan X -and it’s something that didn’t even carry into the sequels- is that by defeating certain stages, you’d trigger environmental changes in other stages. The most prominent being that the lava in Flame Mammoth’s stage turns to stone if you’ve beaten Chill Penguin. Most of the other effects are less obvious and less functional. But that doesn’t matter, because they don’t happen here. Flame Mammoth’s stage? Lava’s always burnin’. Spark Mandrill’s stage? The airship never crashes. So on and so forth.
The one upside here is that since the heart tank in Flame Mammoth’s level used to be on the lava and only accessible after freezing the place (by defeating Chill Penguin), it’s now placed on the floor directly above where it used to sit. It takes absolutely no effort to gain it now, but it does cut back on the amount of backtracking you need to do to 100% the game (you need the Fire Wave to get the heart tank in Chill Penguin’s level, meaning you’d have to replay one of the stages).
Another concession to level design was made to the iOS version of the game. Sort of. Before, stages were single, smooth scrolling maps. Not they’ve been chopped into bits, with stark transitions between screens. The transitions don’t really bring down the value of the game, but they’re a little jarring to me since I’ve probably spent more time in these levels than in my own backyard.
Lastly, while this version of MegaMan X sports some slightly updated graphics, the music is ripped directly from the SNES version. This is awesome, because MegaMan X has a terrific soundtrack. The remixes found in the PSP remake are also available. The catch is that you have to buy them. With real money, like. It’s not really a big deal because the original tracks are better, but I couldn’t help dropping the two bucks to have the remixes available. You can buy all the weapons, armor parts and heart/sub tanks too, if you’re retarded and can’t find them for yourself. That’s kind of a waste of money though.
It does get better though! One of the things that really stuck out to me was that most of the dialogue has been rewritten, and it’s not too bad! I didn’t play Maverick Hunter X enough to know if it’s the same dialogue as from that version, but it’s sure different from the SNES original. Some of the best corny lines (see the screenshot above) have been retained though, which is just gravy. The “hadoken” scene is rewritten almost entirely, and it is magnificent (see screenshot below). The odd thing is that the dialogue font is tiny and a full paragraph barely fills up half of the text box. Not really a problem, but it stands out as kind of an odd design decision.
Speaking of odd design decisions, there are no extra lives in this particular port. At first I thought I had just remembered the extra life locations incorrectly, but I know for a fact that there is one not far above where you find the helmet parts in Storm Eagle’s stage. It’s not there. Instead, you just get two lives every time you begin a stage. Not that you should really need more than two lives to beat any single stage in MegaMan X, but it’s just another weird little change.
Also included are Game Center achievements. Being an admitted achievement whore, this makes me very happy. The highway stage even has its own set of achievements (which oddly do not count in Game Canter) that unlock pieces of a puzzle as you earn them. Most of the GC cheevos are stupidly easy to get (Defeat Chill Penguin, Defeat Chill Penguin with his weakness, Defeat Storm Eagle, etc.), but a couple are genuine achievements. Beating all the robot masters without taking a hit would be pretty breezy on the SNES, but with touch controls? Super hard.
Capcom saw fit to make a handful of other additions to the game. The aforementioned easy mode is counterbalanced by an unlockable hard mode, or so I think. It’s still a grey [locked] square, and I assume it will come in an update. Hopefully not in exchange for moneys. There is a new ranking mode that contains time and score attack modes, and a survival mode (which may or may not be a boss rush) which are mostly there as an excuse to have Game Center leaderboards. The score attack and survival games are also [locked], and I’m not sure if they’re going to be in an update or if I just need to clear all the time attack stages to unlock them. I really don’t care enough to actually play time attack. The regular game is fine with me, thanks.
So what’s the final verdict on the iOS port of MegaMan X? It’s your quintessential 16-bit iOS port. It’s got a few improvements, a few odd changes and extra features, and kinda broken touch controls. But it’s nice to have a version of MegaMan X that I will quite literally be able to play whenever I want. The PSP remake might be a more solid effort and more playable, but most of the time I play my PSP at home, whereas my iPhone is always with me. $5 is a pretty steep price for a questionable SNES port, and the fact that it’s a quick and dirty port that pushes microtransactions may sour a few on it, but I’m happy to have MegaMan X in my pocket.
Last week, there was a big celebration for work. Part of that was having a team of two from each branch compete in “Minute to Win it” challenges. Somehow I managed to convince everyone from my branch that naming our team “Team Ryan” was a good idea. It was that or “Team Jacob.”
I’ve been slowly picking away at 5th Cell’s Run Roo Run whenever I rememeber that I have games that aren’t Tiny Tower on my iPhone. That and Mega Man X, but that’s a story for another day.
In quite a stark contrast to their previous games (re: Scribblenauts), Run Roo Run is a very simple game. The premise is usual video game fare: you are a mother kangaroo who must travel across Australia in order to save your joey, who has been captured and put in a zoo. Just another (minor) twist on the common hero/princess business.
The gameplay isn’t entirely new either. Stages are a single screen long (at least up to chapter 10), and you just have to tap the srceen to make momma kangaroo bounce over obstacles. In each chapter, a new element is introduced, like springs, bouncy tires, and a double-jump kajigger. For the first few chapters, the game is really easy, and only once you reach chapter 8 will you find yourself not getting gold medals on the first try. The game’s main focus is accuracy, so you have to make sure you’re bouncing at just the right time. Once you complete all 15 levels in a chapter, 6 “extreme” stages are unlocked, and in those you need pixel-perfect accuracy to even complete the stage, nevermid score a gold medal.
Run Roo Run isn’t exactly a deep game. Like I said before, for at least half of the game, every stage fits on a single screen. Most of the stages in that first half take less than 3 seconds to complete, too. Only once you get far enough that moving platforms are introduced will your stage times exceed 5 seconds. The rating you get after each stage is handed out based on your time, too. Getting gold stars on normal stages isn’t too diffficult, but nabbing golds on the extreme levels can be even more difficult than 3-starring levels in Angry Birds.
Speaking of those angry avians, Run Roo Run’s menus have a very… familiar look.
The real high point, and I think one of the main reasons I keep coming back, is the music. Scribblenauts had a fantastic soundtrack. Run Roo Run’s music strikes the exact same sweet spot and adds a didgeridoo in a couple spots. The stages proper don’t have much in the way of tunage, but the menu screens provide all the aural pleasure you could want.
As with iOS game developers, 5th Cell is not above trying to wring a couple more bucks out of you once you’ve bought their game. There are a couple purchasable items: a bus that lets you skip a stage, and a “bullet-time” (it may be called something else, I can’t be arsed to check) powerup that slows time for so long. The cool thing is that the bullet-time persists over multiple stages, so you can use one to cheese your way to gold on several extreme stages. I’m not sure if there are more things to buy, as I lost interest in items as soon as I learned it would cost me real money to use them.
Run Roo Run isn’t a particularly robust game, but it’s fun and is over before it wears out its welcome (quite the opposite of Angry Birds). The extreme stages will have you pulling out your hair in frustration from chapter 1, but the regular levels have just the right difficulty curve. Achievements are included, and it’s only a buck. I recommend it and hope that it sells well, because 5th Cell is a great studio, and I’d love to see more work from them.
You may call this Skyrim and grilled cheese sandwiches. I call it a perfect Thursday night.
And yes, I dual-wield Pepsis.
