Category: Video Games

Mass Review Time – Honeymoon Edition

Internet, I have a problem. I’m addicted to Fargo.

Maybe it’s not so bad as addiction, but the summer trip south to Fargo has become a tradition that I can surely not break free of. I need it. I need it so bad that I managed to convince my now-wife that it’s where we should spend our honeymoon. So maybe it is bordering on addiction. I’m not a psychiatrist, I don’t know these things. Surely there’s a better way I could have started this article.

As usual, the trip was mostly to get away, relax, and just be together for a few days. And from what I’m told, that’s mostly what a honeymoon is about too. So to that end the voyage was perfectly successful. Of course we also spent a buttload of money. Like, way more money than we were even allowed to spend while down there. By some random stroke of luck, the amount you’re allowed to spend when crossing the border increased on the day we came home, so we didn’t have to pay duty on what we spent over the previous limit. It’s the first time crossing the border was a truly pleasant experience.

To that end, I should note that this is by no means a complete list of things I bought in the States. I’ve obviously excluded anything The Wife bought, because this website is about me me me me me and God forbid I give anyone else more than a passing mention. I also spend a bit on a few little house things and some clothes that I don’t feel are nearly interesting enough to write about. On that note, let’s take a look at exactly what I judge to be “interesting.”

Continue reading Mass Review Time – Honeymoon Edition

Filler at its worst

Don’t you hate it when you don’t really have anything important to talk about?

I do, but that’s not really my problem lately. The problem is too many awesome video games, and too much time spent at work to play them all.

I’m only four levels into Lollipop Chainsaw. I should have finished this game weeks ago. I think there are only two or three more stages anyway, but still. And this feels like a game where playing it over and over for high scores and cheevos will be fun and not just compulsion.

Dragon’s Dogma continued to suck up all my video game time, because I love it to pieces. I try to be careful about using the word “love” when I describe material objects, but man do I love Dragon’s Dogma. The only thing I don’t like about it is that it’s a huge dick when it comes to fast travel. But the world isn’t that big, so it’s mostly not an issue. It would kind of ruin the point anyway, when the only time I end up needing to traverse the entire map is during escort quests.

Then Theatrhythm Final Fantasy came along and ruined everything. I fear that I might not play another game for weeks. I already have a real thing about rhythm games, but when it’s a rhythm game that also tickles my nostalgia bone? Big trouble, but in the best way.

The biggest loss is that I’ll be completely ignoring the Xbox Live Arcade version of Spelunky, which I have been absolutely frothing with demand for and finally launched yesterday.

And then there’s still Monster Hunter Freedom: Unite, which I will probably be playing until the day my PSP dies. And then I will buy a new PSP and continue to play Monster Hunter Freedom: Unite. Unless Monster Hunter 3G is better.

Someday I’ll finish Kid Icarus: Uprising. If it even has an ending.

I love that my primary hobby is so consistently wonderful. 🙂

Craftimals: Adorable Slave Labour

So last week I peer-pressured Edwin into buying Craftimals: Build to the Sun. I kinda feel like I owe him a dollar.

To be fair, I don’t really deserve all the credit. Craftimals dangles a carrot that seems to be just slightly outside the three-minute trial limit, and between my insistence that it could be reached and his own need to reach said carrot, we ended up playing Craftimals for the better part of the evening.

Now I had played the trial version of Craftimals long ago, but I wasn’t able to put down the 80 Microsoft Points required to access the full game. Quite literally too, at the time I had 40 points. I probably would have bought it otherwise. It’s probably okay that I didn’t too, because Craftimals is just a big ol’ time sink, and two players make it go slightly faster.

Well, two players make it go faster if the second player is contributing to the cause, anyway.

Continue reading Craftimals: Adorable Slave Labour

The hunting cycle

It’s almost Canada Day, and Canada Day means two things to me: the Lac du Bonnet fireworks show, and Monster Hunter. Over the last couple years, it’s been a new part of our Canada Day traditions for me to tote my PSP down to LDB for the weekend and play Monster Hunter Freedom: Unite during the time that is not used for adventures or fireworks. Of course, the PSP’s battery life doesn’t last nearly as long as it needs to (there’s not that much to do around there), but for me those four hours are as important a part of the weekend as the journey to Pinawa to get ice cream from the Burger Boat, trying to collect enough silly things from the Bargain Shop for an article, and the fireworks show.

Summer in general is also just kind of when my Monster Hunter cycle restarts itself. For MHFU anyway. Me and the game have sort of a love/hate relationship where I’ll play it obsessively for a while, get stuck on a tough quest, and then put it aside for months. Regardless of where I am in the cycle though, an impending Canada Day always brings me back around to the Monster Hunter.

The first time I hit a brick wall was actually on Canada Day. I had just bought MHFU after spending the couple previous months completely obsessed over Monster Hunter Tri on Wii; when I discovered that the PSP game had roughly three times as much content, as well as giant crab monsters, I knew I had to get it. It wasn’t long after I dove in that I discovered what would become one of my most hated parts of Monster Hunter: piscine livers.

Piscine livers are an item dropped randomly when you defeat a monster known as Cephalos. Cephalos are strange looking monsters that are something like a cross between a hammerhead shark and a chicken. Most of their time is spend swimming through the sand, where it’s very hard to damage them. There is an item that can force them out of the sand, but the sonic bomb isn’t available to purchase, and the items you need to create them are somewhat rare. So once you waste the two sonic bombs that are supplied to you for the piscine liver quest, you’re stuck waiting for the Cephalos to jump out of the sand by their own volition. Which can take forever. And of course the piscine liver isn’t the only thing a Cephalos can drop, so if luck isn’t on your side you can very easily time out on these quests.

You’ll see, if you follow my Monster Hunter LP, how annoying these quests can be. It’s not until about a dozen episodes in (so it won’t be uploaded until quite some time after this blog post), but I think it takes like three videos for me to finish the stupid quest.

I did manage to wrangle up the necessary livers eventually, but the quest left a sour taste in my mouth. And I won’t even get into how I feel about the fishing quests. No, I hit my first stopping point when I met Cephalos’ big brother, Cephadrome. He does the same damn thing where he swims around in the sand and doesn’t come up for nobody. Even worse is the fact that you’re stuck fighting these jerks in the desert, where the intense heat will literally drain the life out of your hunter. Cool drinks can temporarily stop the drain, but even if you bring five in with you, they won’t last the duration of the quest. If Cephadrome decides he doesn’t want to play, there’s a very real chance that the heat will kill you.

So I tried the fight against Cephadrome a couple times. I think I died from heat stroke once, and my time ran out on another attempt. I may have even been killed by Cephadrome himself once. He’s not a terribly strong creature, but at the beginning of the game his body slams can be pretty deadly. Once my failures had stacked up enough, I decided that the quest was garbage and stopped playing the game altogether. Monster Hunter Tri had no such bullcrap; the challenge was fair and sensible, so I went back to that. Even though it didn’t have awesome giant crab monsters.

It probably wasn’t long before I picked MHFU back up though. It was still a fairly new game to my collection, and easily the best PSP game that I owned (still is!), even with the crappy quests. I took on Cephadrome again, and while I don’t think I managed it on my first try, I did eventually fell the beast, and everything was wonderful again for a while. That was, until I met Tigrex.

I’ve posted about my hatred for Tigrex before, and fairly recently, too. It took me forever to eke out a victory against one of those guys, and I’ve only slain one more since then. Tigrex isn’t really that strong, but he is fast. A lot of monsters have a thing where they knock you down and then trample over you or blast you with a fireball before you can get up and out of the way. It’s kind of cheap, and that’s basically all Tigrex does. Most monsters leave an opening to get a hit or two in, but Tigrex generally turns around and launches into his next attack long before you can close the gap and smack him up some. And then there’s rage mode.

The majority of large monsters have a rage mode where they hit harder, move faster, and gain new attacks. This is usually brought on by special circumstances, like if you deal out a lot of damage in a short period of time, cut/break off part of a monster’s body, or when they come out of a stun. I’d say that once you carve off roughly 20% of Tigrex’s life, he goes into rage mode every time you hit him. Or at least it seems that way. And it’s the worst, because the very last thing you need is an already too-fast monster getting a speed boost. It’s no wonder I stopped playing because of him.

My latest brick wall was the mighty Lunastra. She’s referred to as a dragon, but looks an awful lot like a big blue lion with wings. Lunastra’s not that hard, and I think I put down the game last time more due to being distracted by other games than because I couldn’t beat her. I know I lost a couple fights against her, but they were losses caused by my own inexperience and impatience.

The trick to defeating Lunastra, and indeed many other large monsters, is patience. Knowing when to strike is key, and it might take a couple rounds to really figure that out. Her attacks are easy enough to avoid, but if you aren’t paying enough attention and get caught by one, you’re in trouble. The flamethrower attack, for instance, is super easy to see coming, and even easier to dodge. But the damn thing hurts if you’re clumsy enough to get caught in it. I was killed instantly with 3/4 of my health bar once because I got hit by a rage mode flamethrower. It was a little embarrassing, but it put me in my place. Upon picking up the game again last week, I took Lunastra down on my first try, and with a fire-element sword and fire-susceptible armor to boot. I could not have been more poorly equipped for that fight, but I came out victorious because I took my time and fought smarter, not harder.

The next challenge on my list is Teostra, Lunastra’s stronger, redder, male counterpart. I don’t feel confident that I can take him out, because I’m still kitted out in that weak-to-fire armor set. But it’s got a super-strong physical defense rating compared to everything else I own! Sometimes it’s hard to know whether you should be worrying more about physical or elemental resistances. At least I don’t have a fire sword equipped anymore.

Will Teostra be my next gamebreaker? Probably not. At least, I hope not. I’ve only been playing MHFU again for about two weeks now. It’s far too soon to be rage-quitting already. Plus it’s Canada Day weekend, and I don’t know what else to do between the time the Bargain Shop closes and the fireworks start.

*NB: I stole the images for this post from the Monster Hunter Wiki*

Bury the Arisen

Dragon’s Dogma isn’t getting any easier. At this point a gentle bat from Veronica’s blade will send a common goblin flying several feet, but their hobgoblin friends are proving to be quite a bit more sturdy and are appearing more commonly. And these are still just basic mooks.

I accidentally let that random guy who was following me die. I don’t know when or where he got knocked off. I was exploring the area just west of the Witchwood, being assaulted by wolves or bandits every few steps. We eventually came to a beach where a group of bandits were catching some rays. I began a long-distance assault on them by firing off a few arrows into their own archers, and then I noticed that they were chillin’ with a cyclops.

The ensuing battle was frantic and much blood as shed on both sides, but I refused to retreat and eventually we emerged victorious. As the cyclops’ corpse melted into a bubbling pile of goo and I wondered why it didn’t drop any loot, I noticed that the destination marker on my map was gone. I also couldn’t see the dude I was escorting. My quest log told me I’d failed though, so I guess the only explanation is that he got smooshed by the cyclops and I was too embroiled in the heat of battle to notice. I figured I’d let him go though, he didn’t seem overly important. Also I didn’t want to have to fight that battle again.

We have since slain a few more cyclopes during our travels. Turns out they’re not particularly difficult to bring down if they don’t have backup. We probably could have taken out that one in the forest and gotten that one guy to his destination. Oops.

Continue reading Bury the Arisen

Escort of the damned

So Dragon’s Dogma is hard. Maybe it’s just because I haven’t recruited any stronger pawns (allies who you can hire into your party) since the beginning of the game, but we’ve been getting our asses handed to us by bandits more regularly than I’d like to admit. Maybe it’s because I’ve been venturing off into a world I’m not yet strong enough to tackle.

After Skyrim I assumed I could get anywhere in Dragon’s Dogma right away if I was clever enough, but levelling up is definitely a much more important feature here. While Skyrim’s level-up system is more about rounding out your skills, DD’s levels go the typical RPG way of increasing your base stats. Guess it’ll be a while before I can strike out into the wide world of Gransys.

On the upside, I’ve collected a couple good fish-out-of-water stories! The first of which occurred right after I arrived in Gran Soren (the capital city). I poked around the residential area for a bit and then took on all the quests that were immediately available from the inn’s quest board. One in particular was an escort job, and the fella that needed my help (Roderigo or something?) joined up right then and there. I figured I’d best help him out first so that I didn’t have a liability tagging along for too long.

Turns out his destination was halfway across the world. Crud.

But I assumed that my party would be able to hack it. At the very least we could just run away from everything until we reached our destination and come up with a battle plan once we were safe. Spoilers: that didn’t work.

Our first issue was when we came across some saurians chilling in a brook. Being called “saurians” makes them sound like awesome dinosaur monsters, but really they’re just lizardmen. My party had faced off with these guys before, and they’re tough, but nothing we weren’t able to handle. Or so I thought. These saurians happened to be the advanced versions (sulfur saurians) that spend most of their time invisible. They were also considerably more deadly and had better defense. The species loses most of their defensive powers if their tails are severed, but we were barely able to disable and fell one of the beasts before they overwhelmed us.

I ran away as fast as I could, my helpless escortee trailing behind. But as I tried to call my party to escape with me, I noticed that Erika and Ema were downed, so I had to run back to revive them. I had to run back and forth a few times, because usually as I’d revive one ally, another would be struck down. It’s too bad there isn’t actually a “run away” command. Being limited to being able to call your pawns to “come” makes for difficult escapes.

Being more wary of my surroundings now that I knew we were in very hostile territory, I made sure we stayed on the beaten path as we traipsed through a forest towards our goal. Unfortunately, I soon espied the first non-plot “boss” monster that I’d seen, a cyclops. While I’d helped a bunch of soldiers slay a cyclops early in the game, I wasn’t confident that my party would be able to handle the monster at this point; our supplies and strength were equally drained from the encounter with the saurians.

Fortunately, the cyclops had just woren from a nap in the road, so he didn’t notice us. We were still forced to make a detour through the woods if we were to remain unnoticed. Then the bandits saw us. It was close, but we managed to evade them and get back onto the road, but the cyclops had heard the signs of a scuffle, and was loping over to investigate. He didn’t see us, but we were pinned in a corner. The road let us to a rock facing, and the only wa around it was a twisty road that went right through the bandits’ turf. Backtracking and going the other way around the wall would have put us right on the cyclops’ dinner plate. We were in deep.

I made the call to take on the bandits. They were just humans, right? We were in rough shape, but we should have been able to manage. And for a while we did. We slew the first wave of bandits easily, but the fight drew the cyclops’ attention again and he suck up behind us and started stomping my pawns into paste. Between trying the escape the cyclops and revive my fallen allies, I didn’t notice the rest of the bandits closing in on our rear flank. I decided that my pawns would have to fend for themselves, and that as long as I could escape with my charge, I could re-summon them once I made it to town.

I ran as fast as I could, and then I heard Veronica (my right-hand woman) yell out something about a monster that looked like it was composed of several other beasts. Before I was able to process the information, the chimera lunged out from the trees and everything went red.

I’m not sure if I consider it lucky that I’d last saved right outside of Gran Soren. On one hand, I’d lost about half an hour of play time and a good amount of experience. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have to fight my way back through the forest and all my supplies were intact. I think that may have worked out for the best. It was then that I decided to let my tag-along pal around with us for a bit longer. Until I could find a safer path to his destination, anyway. The direct road there was definitely not the one we wanted to take.

Fortunately, he hasn’t been the liability I figured he would. Monsters aren’t particularly attracted to him, and the ones that are are quickly distracted by Veronica’s “shield summon” skill. He’s rather adept at staying away from danger too. I mean, he’ll often waltz right through the middle of a battle, but come out the other end completely unharmed. It’s somewhat impressive, to be perfectly honest. I’m beginning to think he might be able to survive until we’ve grown strong enough to get him where he needs to be.

Or, of course, I could always fire Erika and Ema and hire a couple new pawns who are more on par with myself and Veronica. As it is they’re probably bigger liabilities than what’s-his-face. It’s just hard to split up with companions that you’ve been through so much with. It’s really too bad that subordinate pawns don’t level up.

Dogmatic

On Saturday I made up my mind. We went to Toys ‘R’ Us first because they had a game that The Wife wanted, and I intended to buy it for her. It’s not often that she wants a video game, and I tend to nurture those wants when they surface. But there was nothing for me there. I tried my luck in Future Shop, Best Buy and Superstore that day, but they all failed to meet my needs. Or more, it seemed that my needs came too late.

On Sunday she worked over in St Vital, and I asked if she could check around that area for me on her lunch break. Sadly, neither the Wal-Mart or GameStop were of any help to my cause.

On Monday I asked again if she could scout the local EB Games before work, since it’s a stone’s throw from her workplace. Not only did she check the one in the mall, but the one across the street from the mall as well. All to no avail. I feel lucky to have such a devoted wife, but was sad that I had her chasing wild geese. So I swallowed my pride and made nice with Wal-Mart’s electronics department, because they were apparently the only store in the city that had the object of my desire.

And now I own Dragon’s Dogma. Yay 🙂

Then I booted up the game and it played a remixed English version of “Samayoeru Aoi Dangan” by B’z on the title screen. Freaking B’z. Between that and the fact that the game is more or less a mix of Skyrim and Monster Hunter with a little Shadow of the Colossus thrown in for good measure, this is clearly Capcom’s love letter to me for being such a dedicated fan for all these years.

So maybe the song doesn’t really fit the theme of the game, but man is it awesome! Plus, B’z!! I haven’t had so much trouble getting past a title screen since Metroid Prime.

I’ve only really had time to rush through the intro and poke around starting town a little, but I am thoroughly impressed so far. The boss of the intro stage is a traditional chimera, made of a lion with a goat’s head grafted on its back and a snake for a tail. Your companions suggest severing the snake and diabling the goat to reduce the beast’s abilities. Very reminiscent of severing tails and breaking other bits (frills/beaks/armor/etc) in the Monster Hunter games. Possibly the most entertaining part of the fight was watching my allies grab onto and climb the beast. I tried to get onto it myself but couldn’t manage to stay on. I’m sure the game will teach me how to do it properly before long.

Also, there’s a dragon at the very beginning, and it is massive. Like, at least as big as Lao Shan Lung. So far I am very impressed with the scale of the boss monsters; that’s one of the things I was really hoping Capcom would go all out on, and it looks like they did. Even the chimera was big enough that my character and his three buds could fit on its back. The only, only thing I’m a little disappointed with is that all (or most of, anyway) the monsters are standard high-fantasy stuff: chimeras, griffins, cyclopes, hydras, and so on. I won’t lie, I snuck a peek at the bosses in the strategy guide, and there’s nothing overly original in there. Maybe Capcom will note the excellent cross-promotion opportunity and release some Monster Hunter monsters as DLC. I would be more than happy to pay extra for the opportunity to take on Teostra in a setting where I might have a chance at victory. Or Shen Gaoren. Any of the carapaceon family would be fun, really.

Aaaanyway enough daydreaming. My first impressions of Dragon’s Dogma have been excellent, and I hope that it ends up being as compelling as its influences. I sunk over 100 hours each into both of the Monster Hunter titles I own, and a good 70 or so in Skyrim. I haven’t even seen most of Skyrim yet either.

Oh, the big problem I have with Dragon’s Dogma is that there is a very limited hair colour palette to choose from. Pink is not an option at all, so Claire is stuck with a deep red. Not acceptable.

Not symmetrical

Nintendo’s been going on and on for about a year now about the “asymmetrical gameplay” experiences that the Wii U will foster. It does look neat, and I think the little demos that they’ve provided seem like they’ll be fun for a while, but I wonder if there are any long-term applications for this style? Having an extra player play a support role in games like New Super Mario Bros U and Rayman Legends is a decent way to start, but I hope that somebody can do something really compelling with this bold new idea.

Oh, did I say “new”? I meant “thing that Nintendo has been doing intermittently and nobody cares about.”

Asymmetrical gameplay isn’t a new concept. It’s not even just a Nintendo thing. All it really means is that the two (or more) people are playing the same game and doing a different thing. Mario Party alone has been doing it for over a decade with the 3-vs-1 mini-games. Hell, Gyromite on the NES can be (and works considerably better as) an asymmetrical multiplayer game if you ditch ROB and have a friend use his controller instead. And that’s all the way from the 80’s.

I suppose those ones kind of make a point for the style though. Referencing the “nobody cares about” part of my statement earlier, let’s take a look at Super Mario Galaxy‘s multiplayer mode. Well, multiplayer in the sense that two people have controllers in their hands, anyway. All the second person does is wave around the pointer to collect star bits and stun enemies. Sure, you can point novice players in the right direction, but there’s a hole on my face that could accomplish the same thing more efficiently. New Super Mario Bros U’s “Boost Mode” is pretty much the same thing, and I can’t imagine it’s going to be much more compelling.

Why this is one of the big selling points of the Wii U, I don’t know. I suppose it’s because of the GamePad and the ability to give opposing players different views of what’s going on. That is what makes it truly asymmetrical, after all. But even that”s not new. Do you remember connectivity? That Nintendo buzzword from 2003 that never took off?

I may be misremembering, but the first example of GameCube-GameBoy Advance connectivity was Pac-Man Vs. This was a great idea. One player is Pac-Man, and he sees the entire maze on his GBA. The other players are the ghosts, and can only see a small area around themselves on the TV screen. So what you have is a multiplayer Pac-Man, but in a way that the ghost team doesn’t have such an overwhelming advantage. It’s brilliant, but was unfortunately much too hard to actually find, because it was given away as a limited free sample. It was also included in the GC versions of a handful of Namco games, but they weren’t of much interest to me and Pac-Man Vs, despite its brilliance, was not worth the price of a full retail game.

On the other hand, you have The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. It featured a really cool multiplayer mode that most people probably didn’t even know existed. When you encounter Tingle in the game, he gives you a device called the Tingle Tuner, which you can use to summon him through a GBA. Here, a second player (using said GBA) is given a radar and several actions that they can use to help or hinder Link. The problem is that once the Tingle player gets bored of dropping bombs on Link, the whole experience is pretty shallow. Maybe some people like watching a radar and occasionally telling Link where a secret is hidden, but I sure couldn’t get my brother to commit to the role. I usually just had my GBA connected and sitting next to me so I could find the hidden items that are only visible through the GBA.

This mode can also become infuriating for the Link player, because every one of Tingle’s actions costs rupees, and those rupees come straight out of Link’s wallet. It’s especially bad in The Wind Waker, because it’s easily the most commerce-driven Zelda game. Also, the bomb thing.

If you really want to stretch, you could probably consider the first Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles to have asymmetrical gameplay. Not because each player had a different radar on their GBA screen or anything, but because the game sucked for whoever had to be the Bucket Bitch and was fun for everyone else.

I’ve never used them, but a couple of the Wii Guitar Hero games have a mode called “Roadie Battle” where two guitarists compete. Each of those guitarists is paired with another player who has a DS that allows them to send power-ups to their teammate or try to sabotage the opposing guitarist. It’s a spin on the “support player” idea that Wind Waker and Mario Galaxy use, but they do it right by keeping that support player engaged at all times, whereas the other games end up leaving the support player with nothing to do quite often. Maybe the game itself isn’t as compelling as a Mario or Zelda title, but at least you’re not bored.

So yeah. I’ve got just a few examples here (and most of them are a stretch at best), but I think I’ve made a decent case that asymmetrical game experiences probably won’t hold up as a Wii U back-of-the-box bullet point. Developers are really going to have to step up if they want to make asymmetrical experiences that will matter. Nintendo Land has at least two variants on Pac-Man Vs, but you’re going to need something with a little more depth than that if you want people to care.