Video Games – Page 47

Start the countdown clock!

You know, I was so distracted by other things going on that I totally forgot to mention the most exciting news from last weekend: I pre-ordered my Switch!

I meant that in that it’s exciting for me. I know you aren’t excited. Or maybe you are, because online pre-orders for the thing sold out in 20 minutes. I tried to get one, but the EB Games website was so choked up that I couldn’t get my order in. Given that there are less than two months until launch, I didn’t think they would offer any more pre-orders. So I spent the rest of the day despondent and wondering what would be the most painless way to end my life.

But then! I got a text from my brother; he had gone to the mall after work, and they were still taking pre-orders there! So I anxiously hopped on the bus after work and took what seemed like the slowest ride in the history of everything. When I finally arrived, I ran from the bus stop to the mall, too anxious to worry that it was -40 outside.

I stepped into EB with my fingers crossed and wearily asked the man if they were still taking pre-orders. He replied “I’m pretty sure we still have a few” and dug out the allocation sheet from under the counter. “Do you want the grey one or colour?” My heart skipped a beat. I would have been happy to have any Switch, but the Switch with the colourful joy-cons was the top prize. And I got the very last one! Hooray!

I literally only ever have good luck when it comes to getting video game machines, but that’s good enough for me. I’ve got my priorities straight, all right.

The story isn’t quite over yet, because EB has over-sold and cancelled pre-orders in the past, so my Switch isn’t 100% guaranteed until it’s in my hands. But I feel like this isn’t going to be an NES Classic Mini situation, and that Nintendo will pump out enough units to satisfy demand. It’s probably going to be okay. Worst case scenario, EB cancels my pre-order, and I get to have a fun camping adventure in front of Toys R Us on Switch Day Eve.

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 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!

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!

Wherein I played The Cat Lady

Yes, you read the title of this post correctly. I purchased and played a video game called The Cat Lady. It didn’t even come in a bundle. This may come as a bit of a surprise to any who don’t know the game, as I am famously known as “the guy who doesn’t like cats” and that often puts me at odds with cat people (to be fair, they’re pretty weird).

For the record, it’s not so much that I don’t like cats as a species. Mostly it’s that I can’t stand their lack of respect for my personal space. If I want you in my lap, I’ll let you know. That goes the same for any animal (though human ladies are always welcome).

Anyway. A video game. The Cat Lady. The description on the Steam store sold me pretty well, although in retrospect, I think that I was expecting a completely different game. Let’s have a look, yeah?

The Cat Lady follows Susan Ashworth, a lonely 40-year old on the verge of suicide. She has no family, no friends and no hope for a better future. One day she discovers that five strangers will come along and change everything…

What I thought would happen is that you’d watch Susan be depressed for a bit and then five people would happen along and teach her about how to live and love again. Or something like that. But the game is billed as a psychological horror game, so I knew something was off about my interpretation. And lo, it certainly was!

The first thing wrong with this description is that Susan is not on the verge of suicide. The game opens with her actually committing suicide. And the five strangers that “come along and change everything” is somewhat misrepresenting the case. After taking her own life, Susan is given the opportunity to be revived and become immortal if she agrees to seek out and kill five psychopaths.

Continue reading Wherein I played The Cat Lady

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up – November 2016

Hey. November. It’s cold outside now. All the more reason to stay inside all the time and play video games. Except when it’s not and I go outside to play Pokémon Go.

~ Game Over ~

Pokémon Sun (3DS) – FINALLY. I haven’t been so excited about a game since Smash 4. And you know I’m not kidding because I tore through that sucker in only a week. Also, have you seen Crabominable yet??

Heaven Island (PC) – A VR walking simulator MMO. Note that I do not own a VR device, so half the experience was lost on me. But I still wandered around until I’d picked up enough apples and seashells to claim all of the “achievements.”

You Deserve (PC) – I think I would have liked this horror adventure a little more if it had run a little bit smoother. It pushed my PC a little harder than it really needed to. Oh, and also it’s got jumpscares placed in seemingly random spots just for the sake of cheap jumpscares. I put up lots more words about it yesterday.

Wario Land 2 (GBC) – I was itching for a replay, so that’s what I did. Considered taking the secret route to complete the game in five levels, but opted to go for good ol’ 100% in the end. I like Wario Land 2 that much.

Paper Mario: Color Splash (WiiU) – Quite a divisive game, though personally, I think it’s incredible. It’s not really much like the N64 or GameCube Paper Marios, but at the same time, it kind of is? Also, it’s super pretty and maybe the funniest game I’ve ever played. If I have one complaint to lobby against it, it’s that they spelled “colour” wrong.

Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up – November 2016

What do I deserve?

In the super-spoopy Halloween bundle that I bought from IndieGala, I received a game titled simply You Deserve. I knew nothing about it, save that it was horror-themed in some way, and that the thumbnail they used to advertise it caught my eye. Maybe this isn’t the best way to choose what to play, but the way I see it, most indie games will either only last two hours at most or I’ll get bored and quit before then. Not an especially big commitment.

Let us start at the very start: the title. You Deserve. It’s not a good title. But after playing the game, it makes a little more sense. Not from the context of the plot of the game, but rather from the context of I am 99% sure that English is not the developers’ first or maybe even second language.

Although reading that sentence back, it may sound like English isn’t my first language, either. It sounds better when you read it with the proper cadence, I swear.

Continuing that thought, the game was likely not developed in English, but it was translated fairly well. It’s got a few grammatical oopsies here and there, but that’s something one comes to expect after having played so many no-budget indie games. What really gives it away is the voice acting. In the odd instance that your player character speaks to herself out loud, it’s very slurred and heavily accented. So much so, that I’m confident that the actress does not actually speak English, but was just taught to read her script phonetically.

That’s small beans, though. Who really cares about whether you can understand the voice actress anyway? We all just want to know more about the gameplay! Because gameplay is king! Nothing else matters! This exaggeration isn’t funny!

You Deserve is what the kids would call a “walking simulator” but there is a little more to it than just gambolling from plot trigger to plot trigger. You will have to pick up items and find where they belong, solve some very simple puzzles, collect a wide variety of keys, and sometimes punch over a stack of boxes to continue forward. So, yeah, it’s pretty much a walking simulator, but with some adventure elements. It’s slightly more interactive than The Park was, for comparison.

What is annoying about these adventure elements is that the game is dark, and the items you need to collect don’t always stand out from the environment. They don’t flash or sparkle like items in other games. I spent 15 minutes looking for a crowbar once, because it was placed on a surface with a very similar texture and it was very difficult to pick out. Also, some items are in semi-randomized locations, so something might be found in one spot, and then magically show up elsewhere (albeit nearby) if you die and need to pick it up again. Super annoying.

Sometimes, a glitch will cause necessary items to simply not spawn at all.

That’s the kind of game this is.

The best puzzle in the game is one where you need to magically unlock a door by opening a set of lockers in the right order. It’s not terribly difficult, but it did seem like the kind of puzzle you’d find near the beginning of a Silent Hill game.

The absolute worst part of the game is the very end, where you’re dumped out into a massive area and have to collect three items. As I mentioned before, they don’t necessarily stand out enough, so they’re very easy to pass by, and also there’s an insta-kill monster on the loose and if you die you end up back at the start, having lost any items you collected. It’s a massive pain in the butt, and the point where I no longer had any patience for the game, so I quit and watched the rest on YouTube.

So if the gameplay is wanting, the story should be strong enough to push the player through to the end, right? Well… not especially. You begin in a strange park-like area, with an inexplicable catacomb beneath it. Or at least that’s what I took away from it. Your character has no idea where they are or why they’re there. Then you’re ambushed by a monster and wake up in the basement of your character’s high school. This is the point where you can start to suss out who you are and what’s going on, should you read the files scattered about. I wasn’t really interested enough to bother, and read any files I happened upon, but there were definitely a few that I missed. Then you wander through another park, a haunted house, and finally, an expanded version of the aforementioned park. All the while, very little story is happening.

To summarize said happenings: the plot is about a girl in some sort of nightmare realm created by the zombified remains of a former classmate. This classmate allegedly committed suicide because she was bullied by your character and her clique. So zombie girl leverages her lingering hatred to pull the offending kids into a nightmare and kill them off one by one. Your character is ostensibly the last of the crew to go. Then at the end you try to exorcise the zombo-girl, but in typical horror story fashion, the success is a short-lived fake-out. Did I use enough hyphenated words in that sentence?

I think the fact that I didn’t care enough to remember a single character’s name says enough about how invested I was in this tale.

Personally, I think that I spent too much time with this game. It’s only about an hour long, but I faffed about and got lost enough that I doubled that, and then some. I think that if you know all the passcodes and where the items and keys are located, you could probably clear the whole thing in under 20 minutes. Me, I had trouble with some events triggering and ended up running in circles for far too long before consulting a guide and resetting to correct the bug. And then the aforementioned issue with the key item that failed to spawn.

All in all, I found that my expectations of You Deserve were met, but that’s not saying much, because said expectations were about as low as they go. The title screen may have been the most impressive part of the game, which set a pretty poor precedent. Would I have enjoyed it more if I had a more powerful machine and it ran at full speed? Maybe. Would it be a better game if the bugs were ironed out? That’s debatable. Would streamlining the fetch quest at the end improve the game dramatically? Certainly. But none of those things are going to happen, so You Deserve will forever languish in mediocrity. To be 100% truthful, I would suggest that even if you get this game in a bundle, even if you’re given a free copy, that you just shuffle it over to the category of Steam games you’re never going to touch. It’s not worth your time or effort.

Pokémon Sun-Day

It’s finally here! The day of the new Pokémon games! Hurrah and hooray!

My brother and I went to a midnight launch event last night, which was not the best idea for me, as I still had to work all day today. But I just couldn’t wait another eighteen hours to get that sweet, sweet Pokémon Sun cartridge into my hands. I think I got a grand total of about three and a half hours of sleep last night, but hey, it’s Friday. I can afford run at less-than-optimal performance today.

I also made the executive decision to play for an hour when I got home, which wasn’t really enough, but it was the perfect allotment of time for me to reset over and over until I rolled a female Popplio (did not worry about getting a beneficial nature). Maybe I’m being insensitive about gender roles or whatever, but Popplio’s evolved forms just look like ladies, you know? It would feel wrong to me to have a male Primarina.

Anyway, enough typing! It’s time to actually play the darn game! All night long! Or at least until I pass out from exhaustion!

Here, have a trailer that will make absolutely no sense if you’re not a Pokéfan:

An idyllic island of some sort

During my, uh, “travels” through my mighty backlog of Steam games, I happened upon one called Heaven Island. It is a game like no other. Wait, no, that’s a lie. It’s actually got a lot in common with Proteus. And I didn’t really care for Proteus. Also, I’m not entirely sure what the actual title of the game is. On the bundle page I redeemed it from, it’s called Paradise Island. In the Steam library, it’s called Heaven Island. I don’t think the game proper ever references its title, so maybe it goes both ways? *wink*

Moving on, Paraven Island is the walkingest walking simulator that ever simulated. That’s almost literally all there is to it. Just bumbling around an island, looking at the trees and random structures scattered about. You can also pick up apples and seashells to earn achievements.

The game’s gimmick is that it’s an MMO, in the most basic sense. There’s no actual player interaction, though, and every player is represented by a ball of shimmering light instead of the more typical humanoid avatar. The online portion seems like a vestigial limb that probably should have just withered off long ago.

I suppose there’s another gimmick, which is that Heavadise Island is VR compatible. I did not play it in VR mode, as I have no VR device. I don’t think that this really affected my experience, because… the game isn’t really VR friendly.

See, the entire conceit of VR is that it’s more immersive than anything else. In this game, however, there is pop-in like crazy (that may very well be my PC’s fault), and you can simply walk through a lot of solid objects. These are not overly immersive traits. Also, there’s nothing to do but wander! Collecting apples only goes so far.

As one more little thing to do, there are a number books scattered about the island. They all contain short messages telling you to appreciate the game for what it is, couched in feel-good adages like “If you are depressed, you’re living in the past. If you are content, you’re living in the present.” I stopped looking at them after a while because if I had rolled my eyes one more time, they would’ve popped right out of their sockets.

Overall, there’s really nothing to Paradise Heaven. It’s a nice little beach to boot around on, but I can’t help but feel like I’d get a lot more out of, you know, actually being on that island. And not in the VR sense. It’s a perfect representation of a secluded little spot that I’d love to go to get away from the world for a while, but the lack of interactivity with anything makes the pretend version feel more hollow than anything. I can only watch digital fish swim in circles for so long.