Category: Video Games

Christmas in May

Hey you guys! Super Talking Time Bros 2 is out! Get it from this page!

I had totally forgotten about this little project a long time ago. I kind of randomly thought about it on the bus this morning and there it is! It’s too bad though; since I let it go completely, I never really sat down and polished the three levels I submitted for it. Hopefully someone else on the team cleaned up at least anything that was broken in them.

If you’re going to play it, make sure you head over to the Talking Time thread and tell the kids there how much you like it.

In other news, I should have internet again by the time I get home, so no more lunchtime phone-blogging for me! Hooray!

Xenotales

I have to say that so far, I’m really digging Xenoblade Chronicles‘ story. At the base level, it’s pretty much the same as any other JRPG on the market (youth goes on adventure to save the world), but there are other layers! And characters that seem like they might develop and grow over the course of the story! We’ll have to see, but so far so good.

The basic plot string, like I said, is pretty basic. It’s only a frame though, and it’s covered in plenty of interesting dressings. Most notably the world design. And I do mean world design, as the entirety of the Xenoblade world exists on the lifeless bodies of two gigantic monsters: Bionis and Mechonis. If you have even an inkling of video game intuition, you’ll have already surmised that one is home to a natural world, and the other a cold, mechanical land. Obviously the heroes live on the Bionis, because who wants to play a game where the protagonists are soulless machines?

Now, the denizens of each world don’t get along too well. The game’s prologue takes place a year before the actual story events, during a massive war between the worlds. The game’s antagonistic force, the Mechon, continue to attack the settlements on the Bionis throughout the game and seem to want nothing more to snack on the Homs (human) population. Why machines need to eat people has not been explained yet, but it’s certainly a twist on the “evil robots” trope.

The other great thing that happens right at the beginning of the game so it’s not a spoiler is that the main character’s love interest gets brutally murdered. Its shocking and completely unexpected. This is mere moments after he gains the ability to view glimpses of the future, and watches her die in one of these visions. Having spent my life playing video games and watching movies, I was positive that he would jump in to save her at the last minute, but no. So let’s recap: hero watches love interest die in a vision, she is impaled and eaten (off-screen – this is key), and he has to sit and watch her die again. Many heroes start their journeys in the name of vengeance, but I can’t recall one that had to watch the same loved one die twice.

Unfortunately, unless you’re completely clueless, you’ll catch on very quickly that she didn’t actually die and she’ll be back in your party eventually. The narrative never hints at this, but monsters keep dropping weapons for her, and there are several character-specific achievements that you can’t possibly get until long after she dies.

The other thing I’ve really enjoyed about Xenoblade’s story is that main character, Shulk. Yes, he has a silly name, but he’s pretty cool! He’s not at all your generic plucky JRPG hero. No, Shulk may be a youth out to save the world, but that’s about all he’s got on common with the standard hero archetype. First of all, Shulk’s got a job. A real job. He’s not an errand boy or a monster hunter, he’s a scientist. We’re given the impression that before the events of the game, he would spend hours upon hours in his lab either building things or doing research.

At the outset of the game, Shulk has a little combat experience because his profession requires him to salvage wrecked Mechon pieces from the wilds surrounding Colony 9.  Most of the time he’s accompanied by his friend Reyn, who is a hulk of a man that is enlisted in the Colony 9 Defense Force. Many characters voice their lack of faith in Shulk’s battle prowess (in as nice a way as they can), and are constantly telling Reyn to protect him.  This kind of goes away once Shulk acquires his super-sword, the Monado, which is also the source of his visions of the future. It’s a little sad, because Shulk’s character is not that of a world-class fighter, but what can you do? The action cutscenes wouldn’t be nearly as exciting if he just stood there and let his friends do all the fighting.

Inconsequential but relevant is the fact that Shulk is rumoured not to have tastebuds. In a genre where most heroes spend more time thinking about food than the task at hand, having no sense of taste is a very unique character trait.

As I’d mentioned before, Shulk’s motivation for going out into the world is revenge. Sweet, delicious revenge. Not new, as tons and tons of media have revenge as a central theme. Only most of the time, the main character doesn’t aspire to fight an entire world. Yes, the Mechon are terrible, people-eating monster robots, but what makes this boy think that genocide is the answer? And what make him think he can do it? I don’t know, but he sets a goal for himself and consistently marches toward it.

In this way, he is both very similar to and very different from Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII. They’re both motivated by their anger at the loss of a loved one, and they both set out on a fight against an entire world. The difference is that Lightning not only uses that anger to drive herself, but she also lets it consume her completely. She is more than willing to take on the world alone, and is happy to leave behind anyone who is slowing her down. She is entirely confident that she can accomplish her goal and has the skills to back up that confidence. Shulk is the other side of the coin: he’s driven by anger, but is more than willing to accept the help of his friends, even if it means stopping for a while to help them out with their own problems. He is also much less confident in his own abilities; even though he has the power to see and change the future, he has trouble believing that he can save individual lives, never mind the lives of everyone living on the Bionis.

There’s one thing I really don’t like though. I’m at a point in the game where characters are beginning to suggest that Shulk is the chosen bearer of the Monado. I did a big ol’ facepalm the first time the word “chosen” was spoken. Aren’t we a little past the stupid “chosen one” story hook? There has to be another way. Lighting and her companions were chosen, yes, but it was because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, not because it was their destiny. I guess it’s not the worst way to write a character, but I much prefer heroes that are heroes because they had the strength to make a difference, not because it was written in the stars.

I don’t feel like I’m that far into the story yet though, so I really have no idea how things are going to turn out. There have been a couple plot “twists” already that I saw coming before there was even any foreshadowing, so it could go either way. Maybe the game will continue to surprise and delight me, or maybe it’ll pull all its punches from here on in and become just another generic JRPG. I’m hoping for the best.

Dress-up Dissidia

I tend to spend most of my time playing video games with new ones. Yes, I love going back to the classics, but they’re really just diversions from whatever my latest purchase is. That said, when it comes to my PSP, I have two phases: Dissidia: Final Fantasy and Monster Hunter Freedom: Unite. Over the last month or so I’ve been in the Dissidia phase.

When the game first came out, I thought it was completely retarded. I initially wouldn’t have touched the thing if you’d paid me to play it. I was also at a point in my life where I mostly looked down upon the Final Fantasy franchise as a whole. That really didn’t help Dissidia’s case. But time went on, and I found myself staring at the game’s case, looking at the characters portrayed on it, and wondering. Then, years later, I read this and immediately ran out to the Best Buy to pick up a copy of Dissidia (which was at the $20 point by then). Not that that series of articles references Dissidia very much, but it surely re-ignited my interest in Final Fantasy. It also got me started on Final Fantasy XIII, but that’s another story entirely.

So, Dissidia, if you haven’t read last summer’s posts about it, is a fighting game that incorporates a wealth of assests from the Final Fantasy franchise. I guess I never really explained the concept when I was posting about it before, so I might as well do it now. You know how the Super Smash Bros series takes characters and stages and music and everything else from the entirety of Nintendo’s back catalogue? Just imagine that, but only with FF stuff and with 3D movement.

The whole reason I was posting about Dissidia in the first place is that I’m playing the villains right now (the game’s character roster is one hero and one villain from each of the first ten Final Fantasy games) to earn the Chaos Reports (bits of backstory), and I wanted to vent about the “alternate costumes” that can be unlocked for each character. Whoo single-sentence paragraph.

There are three different kinds of alternate costumes in Dissidia, actual alternate costumes, palette swaps, and somethign in between. A couple heroes get completely different costumes (Squall and Cloud), some get palette swaps with minor changes (Firion and Onion Knight) and some just get recoloured (the rest). The palette swaps are a little disappointing, but at least there are a few actual alternate costumes. The villains, on the other hand, are all just pallette swaps, and none particularly good. Ooh, Garland’s cape is red instead of blue. Oh, I suppose Sephiroth technically gets a costume change, but I wonder if taking off your shirt really counts?

The bright spot in this colour-flipping madness is known as EX Mode. Each character has the ability to enter a super-powered state (think Limit Break) based on their abilities in whichever game they’re from. EX Mode makes the character a little stronger, but the real point of it is that it allows them to use their EX Burst, which is a big, flashy supermove (think Final Smash, but with more quick-time events).

Since the EX Modes are based on each character’s actual abilities in their game, each one is affected differently. Cloud, Squall and Tidus, for example, don’t get a costume change, but rather their weapons are upgraded. Terra transforms into her esper form, and Onion Knight changes into either a ninja or sage. Most of the other guys have cool alternate forms too, and it’s here that the villains really get to shine.

A handful of them still just get lousy palette swaps (Garland, Cloud of Darkness), but the bad guys generally get the best EX Mode transformations. Kefka turns into his God of Magic form, and Sephiroth grows that cool black wing. Golbez and Ultimecia are joined by their Shadow Dragon and Griever summons, respectively. I don’t know what the hell Jecht turns into because I never played Final Fantasy X, but it’s pretty cool.

And that’s about what I wanted to say today. I’ve heard rumours that there are more, better alternate costumes in the sequel, but it’ll be a long time before I’m done with the first Dissidia. There’s just so much game in there!

Drawing some things

You may have heard of the super-popular new iPhone game Draw Something. If not, I guess the best way to describe it would be like a casual edition of Pictionary. It’s a two-player game where you alternate drawing a thing and guesing the other person’s drawing of a thing. That’s really all there is to it, and it’s fantasticaly fun and addictive.

It’s also a very universal game. When I introducted it to her, the woman and I sat in bed playing together for roughly and hour and a half. And she still picks it up as often as I do.

In each round, you’re supplied with three random words to choose from and draw. There are no categories provided, but you’ll get a choice between an easy, medium, or hard word. Easy and normal words are usually stupid things like “worm,” “hockey” or “green.” The hard words can be downright challenging though, especially since they’re usually celebrity or character names.

The one to the right there particularly blew me away. I’ve had a few instances of “Mario” and “Koopa,” but never something as nichey as a relatively unpopular Final Fantasy hero. Oh, and Zidane is (debatably) the main character of Final Fantasy IX, just FYI.  I was really, really excited to try my hand at touch-drawing Zidane, but alas, the name showed up in a game I was playing against a girl who probably doesn’t even know what Final Fantasy is, nevermind the hero of one of the most underappreciated chapters. I could have drawn it, but I prefer to play the game so that people are able to guess what I’ve drawn. It’s more fun to keep up a long win streak.

Now imagine my disappointment when I Googled it and discovered that Zidane is also the name of an infamous soccer player. I suppose I’ll never get the opportunity to draw a chocobo now…

Xenoworld

I’ve put about a day’s worth of play time into Xenoblade Chronicles since its release date, and it never stops amazing me. There are plenty of great things about the game, but the one thing that keeps hitting me over and over is the gigantic world environments.

Exactly why I’m so impressed by these is beyond me; it’s not a new feature to video games. Hell, I think that in February I spent more time in Skyrim than I did in the real world, and that game is all gigantic world.

It might be that I’m just now starting the really appreciate these huge environments. Hitting the wide open Gran Pulse after spending countless hours of being funneled through linear environments in Final Fantasy XIII was an absolutely exhilarating experience, and the effect wasn’t lost on me. When I first stepped out onto the Bionis’ Leg (pictured above), I got really excited and thought to myself “Oh man! This is the Gran Pulse of Xenoblade! Already! It must be huuuuge!” and then I remembered that I’d just spent almost 13 hours playing in the equally humongous environment of the lake and hillsides around Colony 9.

Colony 9, for those who aren’t yet on the Xenoblade wagon (shaaaaame), is the starting area of the game. And it is humongous. Like I said above, I spent roughly 12-13 hours playing around in there alone, doing sidequests, exploring the hillsides, challenging too-strong monsters. How many JRPGs give you such a large place to play around in right off the bat? Not too many. Unlike Skyrim and its cousins, Xenoblade doesn’t give you free access to the entire world right off the hop, but it does give you a big new playground after every few story bits.

The downside is that even though you have these huge environments to play around in, there isn’t a whole lot to do in them. There are truckloads of sidequests if you have the patience to stalk the townsfolk long enough, but most of them are monster-slaying requests or monster-loot fetch-quests. Monsters in any one area come in many shapes and sizes, but can generally be sorted down into two groups: ones you can kill and ones you won’t be able to kill for a long time. In the Colony 9 area, there are monster groups ranging from level 1-10 and then they rocket up to 70+; nothing in between. So unless you want to grind those weak mooks forever, there is sort of a ceiling to character development, at least in the early areas.

There are also no treasures in the field. Sort of. There are little collectible baubles that randomly appear all over the place as blue wips that you can pick up. You can log one of each in your colletopaedia, and when you complete a category of items or location page, you get a special stat-buffing gem. Once you’ve logged one of each type, these doodads are just good for selling and bartering with NPCs. Monsters drop loot too, including armor and weapon, but they mostly seem to be crap compared to the local shop stocks.

The real reward for running around the world is the thrill of adventure, discovering new places, and looking at those beautiful landscapes. The Bionis’ Leg area alone is so majestic and verdant that I don’t think I could ever get bored of running to the top of cliffs and looking down on the scenery. It also helps that the field music tracks are fantastic and I could listen to them forever. This is most likely because the uber-talented Yoko Shimomura is one of the composers of the game’s soundtrack. I desperately want to import a copy of said soundtrack, but with an Amazon price tag of $75, I can’t convince myself to pull the trigger on this one. It would definitely be the crown jewel of my video game soundtrack collection though…

And that’s all I’ve got to report for now. I’m not very far into the game yet, so I’m willing to bet you that there will be more thoughts on it in the future.

The rain won’t let up

I have finished Silent Hill: Downpour twice now. One more run and I’ll be part of the 1000/1000 club. You may have gotten the impression that I really liked the game last time I talked about it, and to that end, you’d be right. It’s exactly what a Silent Hill game should be: creepy, atmospheric, mysterious, and mind-bending. It has all the best qualities of a classic-style survival horror game, but cuts off most of the cruft to make it a more brisk, enjoyable game.

There are, however, a few downsides. Pobody’s nerfect, and the Vatra team is no exception to that rule. They did a really excellent job for a relatively inexperienced studio, but there are a few things that made my playtime less than optimal. The most obvious flaw with Downpour is the horrible, horrible lag. On my first run it wasn’t really an issue until I was wrapping up a few side quests near the end. Because I was taking my time and looking into every nook and cranny, the game had more than enough time to get everything loaded up and keep the framerate at a decent level. Only when I started motoring back and forth across town did I start to notice that the engine was having a lot of trouble keeping up with me, and things got really choppy. My second playthrough was even worse, because I was basically gunning it to wherever I needed to be next, and that is apparently not how you’re supposed to play. I worry about how my third run will go, since it’s essentially going to be a speed run to pop the last three cheevos.

The other thing that really got under my skin is that there’s only one save file. I’m not such an obsessive gamer that I save over multiple files in one run, but I do like to have more than one save on hand at times. Especially since there is a point of no return near the end of the game. Aside from that though, there isn’t really a need to have more than one save in this game, but I’d like to have the option available so that I could say, have a save game that leads right into the joke ending. Downpour is also the type of game that auto-saves. And it only auto-saves. There are checkpoints everywhere, and even if there isn’t an obvious one around, you can always go into a building to save. I feel like it would just be a lot more convenient to have a button on the menu to save though. Is it really that hard? The auto-save slavery still beats having to find an actual save point, I guess.

Aside from the framerate issue, these are very minor complaints though. Having multiple save slots and a manual save option would be nice, but the game works fine without them.  Other than that, I am pleased as punch with Downpour. The sentiment doesn’t seem to be too popular with the rest of the internet, but nuts to those guys. Vatra took Silent Hill in a great direction, and Tomm Hulett is most definitely still in my good books for the work he’s done with the franchise. Here’s hoping that the next one is just as good.