Grab What You Can from the Pile and Don't Strain Yourself

Goldeneye Wii has a catch-all here. Seems like there weren't a lot of us that got it on release, but it was pretty fun.

Based on everyone's feedback, put me down for Bioshock this month. Otherwise I'll be working on two new games that I can finally claim next month.

*sigh* Here we go again.

Mother 3 (because it must fall at some point.
Mass Effect 2 (it's just too good to play quickly)
Resident Evil 4 (it's about time...)
ToMI Chapter 5

I'm positive I can knock at least two of these off the list before May runs out.

brokenclavicle wrote:

*sigh* Here we go again.

Mother 3 (because it must fall at some point.
Mass Effect 2 (it's just too good to play quickly)
Resident Evil 4 (it's about time...)
ToMI Chapter 5

I'm positive I can knock at least two of these off the list before May runs out.

If you haven't started Resident Evil 4, know that it takes about 20 hrs give or take. More if on GCN/PS2 than on Wii. I strongly recommend playing it on Wii.

mrtomaytohead wrote:
brokenclavicle wrote:

*sigh* Here we go again.

Mother 3 (because it must fall at some point.
Mass Effect 2 (it's just too good to play quickly)
Resident Evil 4 (it's about time...)
ToMI Chapter 5

I'm positive I can knock at least two of these off the list before May runs out.

If you haven't started Resident Evil 4, know that it takes about 20 hrs give or take. More if on GCN/PS2 than on Wii. I strongly recommend playing it on Wii.

I've got it on PS2, dunno if I'll go for completion, but we'll see how that goes...

OK, looking through my pile, and in keeping with this month's thread title, I'm going for my droopiest fruit.

Put me down for (awaits mocking) Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper, and Mini Ninjas (both on 360 for me).

Gears 3 Beta grinding for retail unlocks is taking up a bit of my free time at the moment (plus, it's actually fun), so these two at around 10-15 hours each should fill in the rest of the month. I'm going to take a break from DA:O this month, and pick it back up next month instead.

Cross-posting with the Finished Games thread, because I'm cool like that:

I finished Batman: Arkham Asylum last night. It's an interesting genre mash-up that falls just short of greatness because of a handful of small but significant flaws. I can't help but feel that the Riddler challenges are a bit of a missed opportunity, and the developers could have done more to educate players about the stealth and combat systems. However, the game's pacing is largely impeccable, and the freeflow combat system is an absolute triumph. It brilliantly fulfills the aim of being simple to learn but difficult to master and is undoubtedly one of the most satisfying combat systems I've ever seen in a game.

Put me down for Homefront singleplayer campaign.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Cross-posting with the Finished Games thread, because I'm cool like that:

I finished Batman: Arkham Asylum last night. It's an interesting genre mash-up that falls just short of greatness because of a handful of small but significant flaws. I can't help but feel that the Riddler challenges are a bit of a missed opportunity, and the developers could have done more to educate players about the stealth and combat systems. However, the game's pacing is largely impeccable, and the freeflow combat system is an absolute triumph. It brilliantly fulfills the aim of being simple to learn but difficult to master and is undoubtedly one of the most satisfying combat systems I've ever seen in a game.

Can't say I disagree with anything you just said. It indeed would have been awesome if the riddler challenges led to something a bit more.

I will say, that the de-population of the island as you finished off henchmen made re-traversal a bit dull when looking for riddler stuff, but the alternative would have been Far Cry 2.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

Can't say I disagree with anything you just said. It indeed would have been awesome if the riddler challenges led to something a bit more.

I will say, that the de-population of the island as you finished off henchmen made re-traversal a bit dull when looking for riddler stuff, but the alternative would have been Far Cry 2.

I didn't mind what the Riddler challenges lead to. Something more would have been nice, but they gave you so many unlocks in the course of solving the challenges that I didn't feel short-changed.

What I mean about them being a missed opportunity is two-fold.

First, I would have liked for some of them to have actually been riddles. The Riddler challenges fall into three broad categories: collectibles, those environment alignment ones, and item scanning. The item scanning ones have the biggest potential, I think, in that they could have been real riddles where any object was described and could be scanned. However, they ended up mostly being a collection of villain-themed puns that required you to do little more than find the unique item in an area and scan it. You didn't even need to necessarily know what you were looking for or who it related to; you just needed to scan whatever wasn't part of the usual scenery. It's hard to feel like you're out-smarting the Riddler when you can do it on autopilot.

Second, the game was designed in such a way that solving the Riddler challenges gradually progressed from interesting to tedious. Part of the issue is, as you mentioned, the gradual depopulation of the island, but mostly it comes down to the variety of ways in which the challenges were hidden and the player's overall progression through the different areas. It's really just a mediocre execution of the Metroid conventions.

There are six exploration upgrades in the game, and every building and courtyard has an item or two that can only be accessed with one of those upgrades. Because of this, you can't complete every challenge in any of the areas until the end of the game when you have all of the upgrades. That's fine if players are going to be regularly revisiting areas as they acquire the upgrades because they can find items they weren't able to access the first time around without really interrupting the flow of the game. However, in Arkham Asylum you don't really go through areas more than once, and when you do parts of them are typically blocked off so that you can't really re-explore the space anyway.

Your only incentive to revisit an area is to solve the Riddler challenges, and you'll only get one or two per upgrade from each building but still have to traverse the entire building. If you go back for challenges you missed after you acquire each upgrade (which I think most people will do or will want to do), you'll revisit the same buildings a good handful of times for little reward. It's almost better to ignore anything you couldn't get the first time around until the very end, but then you run into the problem of running through completely depopulated areas for experience points that you don't really need anymore.

There are a couple ways they could have gotten around that problem. First, they could have limited the number of upgrades needed to clear out old areas. In that way, re-exploration would still happen but would be less tedious and more rewarding for players after each upgrade. For example, the Medical Facility could have been cleared out by just explosives and the batclaw with a greater number of rewards accessed with each upgrade.

Second, they could have made the world more interconnected so that players could revisit areas as short-cuts to other areas they needed to go to. Nearly every building in Arkham Asylum has a single entrance and exit are are meant to be navigated as large loops. If the buildings had been connected with secret tunnels or skyways, re-exploration would occur naturally as players discovered that they could get to where they wanted to go faster by cutting through a building they've been through previously. I had thought that's what the cave system would end up being, but it's more or less just another building with an underground theme.

What I think developers tend to forget about the Metroid and Castlevania games isn't just that it's fun to go back and find hidden items but that in those games a new power could give you access to whole new areas you didn't know existed and whole new ways of getting from place to place. A morph ball upgrade in a Metroid game could make that innocuous-looking vent near the beginning of the game either a shortcut to an area that took a lot of work to get to or a whole new, huge area. Arkham Asylum really lacks that presense a place that grows and interconnects in the player's mind.

(That's probably far more of a response than you wanted.)

ClockworkHouse wrote:

(That's probably far more of a response than you wanted.)

Actually, well said. That sort of post might fit well if it ended up on that blog of yours.

That difference between Batman and Metroidvania games really did stick out to me, but I didn't think of it in terms of how Metroid handled new abilities and access better when I was playing. Mostly just that going back seemed more work-like than it should have been. At least what Batman it's usually just a small room that you break down a wall for / you can see and can get to until you have the right thing and not a long bit of map just there to get you to a riddler challenge.

Honestly, I really haven't sat down to think about why certain things like this did / did not appeal to me and how other games accomplished certain similar aspects and how I found those appealing.

The stupid joker teeth were the most annoying part, so small, and sometimes way back in the back of an area. I think those were the most tedious part of my Platinum Trophy on PS3.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Put me down for Homefront singleplayer campaign.

Game is less then 2 months old. Please resubmit in 30 days for final disapproval....

Recettear An Item Shop's Tale

Ding dong The Witcher's dead. Well...completed anyway.

A major victory in the battle against the pile.

Sigh. OK, let's see what I have here...

Europa Universalis III is still chugging along; Steam says I have 80 hours into it so far and I'm only up to 1620. I think I'm doing it wrong.

I started up and finished Ben There, Dan That so it's on and off the pile in a hurry. I'll probably go ahead and play Time Gentlemen, Please just to knock another low-hanger off.

And I think I'll finally get around to playing Deus Ex. Need to track down the graphics upgrade mods and plug them in first though.

tanstaafl wrote:

And I think I'll finally get around to playing Deus Ex. Need to track down the graphics upgrade mods and plug them in first though.

...blasphemy!

on a freakin roll... Metro 2033 is down.

Ok...going to add Professor Layton and the curious village to the mix now, and then maybe see what else I can tackle next.

Wrapped up Interstate '76: Nitro Pack as well as Machinarium.

Interstate '76 (because I never gave a review last month)
Getting this to run problem-free on my semi-modern hardware ended up being impossible, but it ran well enough to be highly enjoyable. Obviously the graphics have not aged well and the keyboard-only interface takes some getting used to. Even then it never feels adequate, but once I discovered which actions were essential and which were not (shooting the pistol out of the side windows), I adapted quite well.

The real stars of the show are the wonderful soundtrack and the immersion into '70's "jive" culture (I doubt I'm using "jive" correctly here, but am not sure how to describe it better). The story isn't the greatest, but the characters and presentation absolutely make up for that deficiency. What other game allows the player to request a poem be read to him while driving through the desert? Car customizability is also very in depth and most missions are much easier with the correct equipment. There are a large number of different weapons to be salvaged from enemies, but I found myself using dual machine guns (of high caliber) most of the time.

The aforementioned problems associated with running the game on my PC (not entirely fixed by using a CPU loading program such as CPU Grabber) both helped and hurt in that some missions were made significantly easier than I thought they should have been due to enemies and allies driving much slower than they would have originally - this can also be very annoying - and a few missions were much harder or downright impossible - a specific example being the huge jump at the end of mission 5, which I could not pass without a level skip. Mission 5 was also the only place I wished for the game to feature a quick-save option. Most levels were short enough and fun enough to not be annoying despite repeated failures. There are various ways to enter combat related to one's loadout, but things the game teaches the player well are that sometimes it is best to simply turn off the engine as this makes one immune to enemy turrets, as well as how to fight while rolling backwards.

In summary, even 15 years after release, I'76 is a great game to play, provided you can tolerate some age related quirks and the fact that it may not run perfectly anymore.

Interstate '76: Nitro Pack
The Nitro Pack expansion to I'76 gives us more of a good thing, but with no cut-scenes between missions. Taking place before the events of the main game, it gives the player insight into the past of the original games' supporting cast. There is even a nice surprise near the end when the chapters featuring Taurus, Jade, and Skeeter are completed. Unlike the previous game, not only do you play as different characters, but it is now possible to select different vehicles in story mode as well. All upgrades are available for every mission in unlimited quantities, so most missions are easier than in the original. Every mission takes place in a timeline, but it is impossible to know where in the timeline each mission falls (in order to play them in sequence) without loading them first. It would have been nice to have the option to play the missions in succession.

Unfortunately, the Nitro Pack seems even buggier than the main game, but nothing is game breaking. One thing I discovered while playing the expansion is just how incredibly useful turrets of my own can be, especially against helicopters. I wish I had known this while finishing the original game.

Machinarium
As everybody well knows, Machinarium is a very charming, short adventure game with a wonderful art style, sense of humor, and great soundtrack. The game's interface design left me significantly less enthused. Perhaps it was a limitation of the game being done in flash, but it would have been nice to be allowed to right click to cancel an action/return an item to inventory instead of it bringing up an "about" menu. It would have been nice to be able to cancel movement instead of leaving the player yelling "Stop, STOP! I don't want to go there anymore!" It would also have been nice to have an indication of being able to interact with different points in each screen without having to stand at the correct position and/or at the correct height first. Most of my "I'm stuck and I'm gonna use a hint/faq" moments arose because of this last gripe.

Otherwise, I have very little negative which I can say about Machinarium. It was a bit trickier than the average Telltale game, but not by much, although a few puzzles were real stumpers. Interspersed in all of the adventuring are a few little arcade bits to break things up. Its' charm is undeniable, and I only wish as much thought had been put into the interface design as had clearly been invested in the design of the world.

EDIT: A few spelling and grammar fixes.

I think this is like the third or fourth time I've declared it, but I'm going to take another shot at Half-Life 2.

I just wrapped up The Witcher. I really didnt think I'd get it this early in the month based on how long the first 3 chapters were. Felt the last few were much quicker, especially as the powers developed.

Bean wrote:

I just wrapped up The Witcher. I really didnt think I'd get it this early in the month based on how long the first 3 chapters were. Felt the last few were much quicker, especially as the powers developed.

yeah, once your past 3 it really picks up the pace. Especially once you get the charm items you can use to repel certain creatures (the ribbon to repel drowners was REALLY useful in the swamp graveyard, I barely had to fight anything there, just the occasional leech-thing).

So how do these threads work?

We just say the game we'll play for the month, and then report back?

Crysis
Dead Space
Mass Effect 2

El-Taco-the-Rogue wrote:

So how do these threads work?

We just say the game we'll play for the month, and then report back?

Basically. The game must be more than 3 months old to qualify, though.

After months and months, Final Fantasy 13 finally goes down. Overall really enjoyed the game. Loved the battle system, though I will say that some of the battles went on for WAY too long. The story...whatever. There is quite a bit of filler in the game, but in the end, it's not as bad as a lot of people made it out to be.

That officially clears my console pile. Now on to Chrono Trigger and my DS pile.

Whilst I may have abandoned Majin (traded it in to prevent it from stifling my pile progress) I will not fail with Vanquish (I hope ;p).

I agree with the old podcast comments by Sean (or was it Shaun?) that Platinum games are making some really clean, polished and mechanically superb games (highly paraphrased).

If Vanquish even closely lives up to Bayonetta (which I loved) then I too may be on the "Buy all Platinum Games" band-wagon too.

For those adding Enslaved (AndrewA, thejustinbot) have fun! That was a real surprise packet for me. Good humour, decent gameplay, prettyy environments, good story. All of which combine to make something that surpasses what you would expect. I truely hope they make a sequel.

Garden Ninja wrote:
El-Taco-the-Rogue wrote:

So how do these threads work?

We just say the game we'll play for the month, and then report back?

Basically. The game must be more than 3 months old to qualify, though.

Alright, I'll play Hotel Dusk. I've tried it about three times, and just started getting back into it.

Wuppie wrote:

Whilst I may have abandoned Majin (traded it in to prevent it from stifling my pile progress) I will not fail with Vanquish (I hope ;p).

I agree with the old podcast comments by Sean (or was it Shaun?) that Platinum games are making some really clean, polished and mechanically superb games (highly paraphrased).

If Vanquish even closely lives up to Bayonetta (which I loved) then I too may be on the "Buy all Platinum Games" band-wagon too.

Well, their track record started back at Clover as when that studio closed down, a large portion of that studio became Platinum Games. So you've got the legacy of Viewtiful Joe, Okami and God Hand there. Having played both Viewtiful Joe and Okami, and tried out a couple of their games since they became Platinum Games. The new stuff is quite well executed from a mechanics standpoint, even what I got to try of the motion controls in Madworld. It's just that they aren't making the games I want to play anymore.

Speaking of games I want to play, Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando is done.

Sigh. Portal 2 got in my way this past month along with too much time spent with Tiger Woods '12 from Gamefly. I am at the end of Dragon Age Origins: Awakenings and hope to finish it off tonight. I plan to finish that off along with the Witch Hunt and Golems DLC and then make good on my April plan of playing more Dawn of War 2, at least making it through the first campaign.

Though L.A. Noire may throw that all into jeopardy, for now it is a footrace to get as much of my commitments done before the 17th.