Earthbound and Dune 25.04.16

Lovely Planet (PS4) I'd seen and heard a bit about this when it came to PCs last year and so I was really pleased when this popped up on the PlayStation store last week. It's a simple enough game, and FPS platformer where the levels are condensed into 10-20second chunks. Starting off simply, it progresses enemy types from static squares, to static squares which fire to balls which upon landing kill you instantly (which puts a real sense of pressure on playing as soon as you hear the distinct noise of them launching). The game is so quick to jump into then get back into once I inevitably died that it works really well, and as the levels get harder and seemingly more impossible I found myself doing specific routines through the levels, only ever annoyed at my own mistakes. I had a great time with it, the music is the only downside, at first it's chirpy and novel but it's on a short loop and gets repetitive really quickly. 

Starfox Zero (WiiU) I really, really wanted to enjoy this game. I really don't like what I've played of it, I can't get to grips with the dual screen mentality of aiming and piloting the ship, the issues I had with it started early on when aiming down and the spider like creatures, it felt so awkward looking down at the game pad while I was crashing into all kinds of things on the main screen. With no visibility of health on the gamepad on the rare occasion I felt comfortable enough to look up at the television screen I realised my ship was all but destroyed. When factoring in end bosses with specific points to target I found all of these overly complicated controls way too overwhelming (and this was level one). It got even more rough when adding the chicken walker type ship, the pacing of levels drops to a standstill at this point and I was scratching around looking for fiddly objectives (which on the two occasions I took to this mode of transport where identical). The level I left the game on was a messy affair involving a gyrocopter and a robot hanging off it, which was painfully slow and had the worst application of hacking I've experienced in a video game. I will go back, it was a little more bearable once I'd reduced the application of motion controls, but the issues I had were so much deeper than the two screen features. On the rare occasion it stripped back to just me in a spaceship shooting waves of enemies I had a feeling of nostalgia which wasn't unpleasant. Sadly to even the traditional Arwing combat felt at time sparse, especially the fight against Pigma, I had a feeling of isolation in space which I don't imagine was intentional, searching a sea of darkness for a lone pig in a space ship throwing insults at me. If this was how the game was meant to feel it was a daring take on the genre I guess. To look at it has some nice details and it has some neat throwbacks to the older games. Coming with it is Starfox Guard, which I played a few rounds of, and that was a much more fun experience. I want to play that a lot more than the game it was a bonus to.

Earthbound and dune 10.04.16

Fallout 4: Automatron (PS4), I've still got a bunch to do in the world of Fallout 4 but I dove into some of the paid DLC this week anyway. It's a bit of a shock to the system at first, the early sections of the additional quest are harsh (I'm at level 34 way above the recommended 15) that could be because my character and his weapons aren't well equipped for waves of murderous robots though. The whole landscape seems populated by machines trying to kill me, I hope this is only while working through this content and that the world hasn't been permanently altered. Once I'd completed the early legwork though and got to the robot building content it became a lot more fun, I redesigned Ada (the new companion added) as a massive red tank armed with a flamethrower and a claw topped off with an obscure head riddled with lights and wires. Watching as she slowly tailed me through the landscape as I ticked off objectives was amusing the bonus being that she was also quite handy in combat. The new non robot enemies are also cool, Rust Devils who are introduced as scavengers willing to rip apart robots for they're components (pretty similar to what my characters doing) I've got as far as an assault on they're base which I'll continue through, I like that the gross meat bags usually filled with guts and limbs are now full of exhausts and steel. All in I'm enjoying it, I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone who was bored of or didn't get into of the main game as its more of the same, but that's what I'm happy to play.

While Miitomo (iOS) continues to not be a conventional game I'm struggling give up the habit. It's social media by the way of Nintendo and demands user input to make it a experience of any sort. When it comes together though it can be really amusing, scrolling through people's answers, comments and photos is addictive whether they're honest or not. The sweet currency, which at first seems pointless is useful for seeing how your own answers stack up against others not that any of this matters. I really want to shake the habit (and I'm sure I will in due course) if only to save my phones battery and memory. 

Earthbound and Dune 02.04.2016

NHL16 (PS4) I really enjoy NHL Hitz in all its forms, and I find it upsetting that its a series which isn't going to reappear any time soon. Its with trepidation that I purchased NHL16 in the Playstation Easter sale. EA Sports games tend to fall further into the realm of simulation, and for a sport I hardly understand that was intimidating. I was pleasantly surprised though, after being forced into a repeat of the 2015 Stanley cup final on starting, then playing a quick exhibition match which taught me that I was much more suited to switching the controls to the NHL '94 settings, the puck zipped about the ice quickly and it had a nice arcady feel to it. I then moved into the career mode, building myself as a young left winger coming from London. After a brief stint with a team i'd never heard of I then got drafted by the Dallas Stars. This was impressive, as for all the goals and assists I was getting I still didn't understand a lot of the basics of the sport. The offside marker is really useful but I continue to be caught offside, skate into offside with the puck (whatever that is?) and called up for icing too, another rule which is lost on me. Its a really cool feature in the career mode to let the game play out whilst your benched, endurance is pictured as a gauge at the bottom of the screen and I could make the call to either bench myself or when there's a break in play I'd be swapped out until the gauge refills. Theres a balance to timing returning to the action, too often I'd find myself returning and begging for the puck to be passed to me only to mess up an attack, my coaching tips are quite predictable at the end of every game, stay onside and try not to ask for the puck as much. The fighting mini game which has been in every hockey game i've played seems more measured now, theres a reason for it. When I take a petulant swing at the puck when the whistles blown I'm instantly put into an encounter I tend to loose. Frustration kicks in a lot though at my own stupidity of getting caught offside or icing (I really should look up what icing is) and its harder not to take aim when I've been pulled up. I'm getting the most fun out of the game continuing my rookie career, even though its about as far removed from the fast paced arcade action of NHL Hitz as ice hockey can get. Hopefully some of the finer points of the sport will rub off on me as I play it.

I also did quite a bit of traveling so played some mobile games, Downwell (iOS) continues to be the best thing I can play on my phone. Its so addictive, I'm still pretty appalling at the game itself, can only get as far as the underwater stages. For such a seemingly simple game (effectively 3 buttons) there is a lot going on, reading enemies weaknesses and attacks and building combos to refill health or gems are things i've learnt more of the more I play. Played a little bit of SkiFree (iOS), more to show my nephew, most of the fun in the game comes from the distance you can get before getting eaten by the yeti but its still charming in its simplicity. Finally I tried a bit of Nintendos first mobile effort Miitomo (iOS) the most interesting thing I found in this game was playing what felt like a very Nintendo experience on an alien device, the colour palette, sounds, UI, characters and music all feels Nintendo. Even down to the fact it took me way too long to sync up my Nintendo ID to the game. The game itself seems to be a sequence of questions, I assume that it would be a lot more fun once a friends list of sorts is built. You can also take "comedy" pictures of your Mii or place him or her into your own photos. Theres a pachinko mini game too to get new clothing items, its not as much fun as the pachinko game in Nintendoland.

Earthbound and Dune 10.03.16

Broforce came out on PS Plus this month, and I played and liked it a lot more than I was expecting. Two disappointing things about it, one it suffers from performance issues quite a bit, slowdown and loading times are erratic and for a game invoking 16 bit charm on a Playstation 4 thats surprising and later missions which require more fiddly platforming are annoying purely because the controls aren’t that precise. Forgetting these though I had a ton of fun with it, it made me smile with every new character I unlocked, some are nods to films I wasn’t expecting like Rocketeer and Timecop and others are predictable. Each character has two unique weapons, and as your given the characters on a random loop it benefits learning each characters traits. The explosives expert I hated at the start, but got used to him as the game went through its odd story of aliens and demons, to the point where I was enjoying playing as him the most. No one character feels overpowered, but a tricky part of the unlocking of characters as the game progresses meant that the ones I got toward the end of the game I had little time to familiarise myself with. The levels themselves are short affairs (most can be completed in under 2 minutes) but because the terrain is completely destructible my approach to each level varied, sometimes I’d sneak through paths in the dirt I dug with a shotgun and others I’d take a more straightforward journey. The end goal of each level tended to be killing one character, but every once in a while a new objective would pop up and that made the slog a lot more interesting. The game isn’t anything new or spectacular but its refreshing in its basic approach and schoolboy humour, it probably took me about 4 hours to get through but I had a blast doing it. 

I played and really didn’t enjoy The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess HD (WiiU) as well. The issue of pace at the start of the game I forgotten, or perhaps I had more free time when this game came out and forgave this. The early part of the game is a lot of going over mechanics of Zelda which I’m familiar with, crawling through tunnels and annoying horse riding controls. I hearded a bunch of goats (twice) and went through a load of interactions with characters to get a cat home so I could get a slingshot. Its all set in the same village which doesn’t help the feeling of being constrained early on, running up and down the same path countless times. In about 2 hours I’ve finally got to the first dungeon, and my motivation to carry on is waining. Its not helped by the look of the game, whereas The Wind Waker looks gorgeous in all its cartoon glory, the design (which seems to have taken a lot of influence from Victorian paintings of fairies) of the Twilight Princess is odd, some characters are horrible constructions of exaggerated features and most you meet straight away, it got better when I travelled into the Twilight realm, Minda’s got a cool vibe to her and the lighting and music is eery and works well. I’m hoping to continue through as much as a can bare, I remember later dungeons being fantastic, and some great set pieces later in the game too (a horseback chase involving a wagon at one point?) Its just such a drag early on. Maybe I’ll be inspired when I finally step out into Hyrule Field.

Earthbound and Dune 03.03.16

I got Streetfighter V (PS4) there's not a lot to it. At the moment I can fight online, play a really easy story or play an almost as easy survival mode. I've got the game, but i'm not sure I get it. I'm certainly no good at it, my fights online have proven that. Starting off I went with what I thought was the coolest and most interesting character, R Mika. I really sucked playing as her though, her variation on the fireball action was limited in range and the new feature (her V trigger) was a bit hit and miss. R Mika's cool but doesn't suit me. So I tried Charlie Nash, I wasn't feeling his look, but I could do a large chunk of his moves, or at least against brain dead AI. Taking him against other real people I was still loosing more often than not, invariably to Cammy. Loosing was also becoming more of a pain, I wasn't just loosing I was being destroyed in some fights, a couple of combos and i'd be on the floor. As well as not very interesting I wasn't getting much of a chance to get a feel for how Nash played, so I went for a more tried and tested character, Ken. Presumably I'll be able to buy his original costume at some point (its in the story mode) and I'll be happier then, if his hairs sorted too that would be great. As Ken I still loose, a lot but I can do a couple of moves, and sometimes lead into a combo. Theres a lot I like about the game, it plays really well and looks lovely with some nice variations on music i'm familiar with from past titles. A lot I don't like about the game will presumably be sorted in the coming months, they'll be more characters and game modes. I'll still have the issue that i'm bad at Streetfighter (and most fighting games) but at least i'll have more ways to be bad at the game. 

At the same time I continue to work through A Link Between Worlds (3DS). I'm three dudgeons into the dark world and can see the forth on the horizon. Whats remarkable about this and a lot of the other Zelda titles is they manage to make me feel cleaver. Environmental puzzles are so well designed, and now with a greater array of items at my disposal from the start I don't feel like the solution is glaringly obvious. The dungeons themselves seem tighter than say Wind Waker or Twilight Princess. A couple of them have fallen victim to me having to get off a train and power off my 3DS without saving, but because they're more compact and I'll have worked out the solutions darting through them doesn't seem like a chore, instead everything clicks into place and feels satisfying. The inclusion of renting items doesn't seem overwhelming like I thought it might, mainly because even with this new mechanic it still reverts to Zelda tropes, dungeons revolve around a single item (or maybe two). Basically I'm really enjoying the game, the look feel and especially the sound which plays on Zelda songs I know while adding new music which is just as catchy. 

Earthbound and Dune 16.02.2016

After finally completing the main story of Fallout 4 I wanted a shorter more sedate experience, so I turned to Firewatch (PS4) which while a brief game (i completed it in two sittings) was not a serine exploration of the wilderness. From what I got out of it it's a game about how I deal with problems, right off the bat the story presented me with a major issue to deal with and the flexibility to decide how to deal with it. Initially the choices given didn't seem too varied which helped keep the narrative tight while also for me felt more human, whatever path I went down seemed like a shitty thing to do, but more believable than giving polar opposites. I'm being specifically vague as its a game driven by the the story it tells and so short I'd find it hard not to recommend playing while knowing nothing. The things I really liked and won't ruin any surprises are the design. At times it looks incredibly real, only being brought down to earth by a glance at the lead characters cartoony physique. There's a neat workaround for the conversation choices made too, all character interactions are though a walkie talkie and buttons mapped to the shoulders of the controller, it has a satisfying clunk on screen and helps to immerse in the world. I wasn't too keen on setting the game in the 80s, it seemed like a cheap way of justifying the lack of modern technology like GPS and not any other reason. The few bits that reminded me here and there that it was a period piece, Totos Africa or a Walkman felt too knowing. That's a minor gripe with the game though, especially as it justifies the use of a map and compass throughout. It doesn't take long in the game before it becomes an exercise in orienteering, and I thought it was really cool how by stripping back mechanics which are commonplace like arrow markers it made me think more about where I was going. It also made what was actually quite a small physical space feel much more expansive. As the story continued while I got frustrated that some areas where fiddly to get around (without a jump) I was also surprised to see it taking tropes from Metriod and Zelda in making new areas accessible when new things were found. 

One thing I found early on in the disposable camera was ambiguous throughout, here and there I'd take snaps (aware of the limited film in the camera) sometimes of things I thought important but others of things that looked pretty, a butterfly on a log or ruined jet-ski. The payoff for this was a wonderful thing, and even more so that it wasn't constantly reminding me to take pictures. The payoff for the story itself I liked, it suited the tone of the game for me, if it had gone another way it could have been jarring. That's all I can really say about Firewatch without getting into what happens, I liked it a lot.

Earthbound and Dune 10.02.16

SPOILERS BELOW

So after a long slog which included a break for about a month around christmas I finally got to the end of the main story in Fallout 4 (PS4). Whats really interesting is how split opinion i've read about the game is. Every issue I've read in the game seems to be if you've taken another path or faction to what i've taken. Performance issues on the Playstation 4 I didn't experience (apart from a few points of minor framerate drops) but I could see where they would be if i'd joined another faction, presumably if I'd gone with the Brotherhood of Steel I would have controlled Liberty Prime at some point or at least been flying about in helicopters instead of shooting them down. Its not hard to imagine these mechanics would have been more straining to the console. After reading the other endings (I'm not inclined to play through again) It seems that three endings are very similar and the other (which I took) is more bespoke, and while I can see that thats frustrating, I can't be too upset because I found the ending I was given satisfying. 

What struck me most about the game is how morally ambiguous it is throughout, there didn't seem to be a right or wrong path. Introduced early on through the ark of the character Kellogg, and not subtly as I walked through his memories at one point seeing what made him become the child snatching/wife killing/age defying assassin he is by the point I met him. The game at this point was getting me to side with him, understand what pushed him to becoming the primary antagonist early on. Whilst I sympathised with him I still was inclined to kill him quite mercilessly when given the option. My justification was he had the information I needed and he would do the same. From then on (and this happened to me around a quarter of the way through my play-through) I didn't encounter another antagonist, or at least to the same degree. Every opponent I met from Paladin Danse to my own son where distinctly grey in terms of whats right and wrong. I decided the right thing for me was to support my son and his goals. Quickly I realised the path I was on was essentially the same as that of Kellogg, the Institute was using me and my knowledge of the wasteland to they're gain. The point this was forced home hardest was when being sent to deal with the Railroad faction. Father (my son) assigned me the task. On the word wheel of choices I admitted I'd formed a bond with them, that I was reluctant to kill them. Fine he said, talk them down. So I went to see them, and quickly it became apparent this wasn't an option, my only option it seemed was to kill them all and they put up little fight. When completing this mission and looting the corpses of characters who'd helped me earlier find my son, I had accepted that I was quickly becoming a bad person in this game. It was before this mission that I found out that Father was dying and that he wanted me to take over his work. The son who I'd spent half the game finding to discover he was an old man who had not only survived all these years, but thrived and helped create a society was for the first time in need of me to act as his father. Thats how I justified killing the entire faction of the Railroad. 

This was my darkest moment in the game, the Railroad had done nothing wrong, certainly I had more misgivings about the behaviour of the Brotherhood. I'll get to that in a bit. The next few missions for me where me trying to make a small difference to the bigger picture, it was obvious that the Institute where not going to change they're attitudes toward synths or people surviving the wasteland but I could make an impression through a few choices and it seemed to work. When I was confronted with the Minutemen again prior to capturing a scientist they didn't act with hostility, I could reason with them. The Minutemen where the only other faction I considered going with, I still use Sanctuary as my base of operations and its populated by a mixture of mutants, synths, dogs and Minutemen I've met along the way. Not seeing Preston drinking at the bar I'd built or Sturges wandering about would have been quite distressing. Toward the end of the story, lines of dialogue I'd decided on start to play out over the radio, a reminder of the fairer more accepting wasteland I was trying to build. Ideally my Sanctuary would be a microcosm of the Commonwealth, but this would take time (and obviously wouldn't be achieved in this game). What I did achieve though was getting rid of the Brotherhood. 

Whereas the mission to destroy the Railroad felt like a downer the end of the Brotherhood was the Hollywood ending to the game I wasn't expecting. I mixed up combat with sniping down helicopters from afar to stealing missile launchers and blowing up the infantry. When I got closer to my goal I started to call in Synths to help, short bursts of conversation with them saw them regard me with fondness and respect. The Brotherhood retaliated by sending in named characters, people I'd had dialogue with, but instead of feeling reluctant to kill them like the Railroad, they're twisted vision of the world in the game made me embrace killing them. As I slowly chipped away at the waves of Brotherhood soldiers Paladin Danse showed up, he'd given me a gun early in the game as a mark of respect and thanks for completing a mission. I took this gun out and fired a few fatal shots at him, it was when I looted his corpse that a few hints toward him being a synth came up. Presumably this may have been touched upon with different story choices, but the idea of him being something his faction was actually trying to destroy was a powerful concept.

There where plenty of cliches and things that I would've liked seen done differently in the time I spent with the game. I can also see quite clearly how if I'd taken another route through it I would have had a different opinion on the story but that in itself is fascinating to me, that whole arcs of characters are locked out following one decision. I'm now chipping away a a few missions which I hadn't completed and they do get repetitive, as much as I like Preston as a character he keeps asking me to do one more mission, invariably killing some ghouls upsetting a small settlement. My final thoughts on the game though are it's one hell of a thing. Dense with story, at times so much so that fantastic plot lines can be missed. I stand by it being the best thing I played last year and for a long time but it's such a personal journey I completely understand why people disliked or where disinterested in it.