Earthbound and Dune 26.05.2016

In little over a week I completed the campaign of Doom (PS4) and I had a whale of a time with it. The game is relatively short (maybe 12hours) but it never overstays its welcome but this is a key factor of this fantastic game. Its balanced in such a way that every fight, boss encounter and level is such that just before it became tedious it ended. The plot is close to a retelling of the first Doom, taking control of the ambiguous hero (presumably from Doom & Doom 2) it was mere seconds before I was killing my first demons, unrecognisable from the footsoldiers of old but it was a couple of minutes before I fought the more familiar imps. I then died, a lot. The action is fast enough that death didn't feel so much a penalty, more of a chance to hone my skills in murdering the legions of hell. Early on without much prompting I was taught about the new glory kill system which kills enemies in gory, imaginative ways and how by doing this I got health bonuses which were essential to progressing. As much as this seems like a game with a reverence for its past it adds new features in creative ways. The chainsaw is now reduced to a short fuel supply, but using it helps build up ammunition reserves for other weapons, getting me out of tight spots on a couple of occasions. Certain scenarios do seem like retellings of things that happened in the first game such as the Hell Knight encounter from the end of act one, these nods to the games past don't feel tacked on, instead make the game feel likes its crafted by people who loved the originals and also understood what made them great. For as little plot as there is in the game (humans are using hell for an energy source it goes wrong) it's told in such an earnest tone that its funny without trying too hard. Having a silent protagonist helped me fill in the blanks to what my character was thinking throughout, sometimes when he was punching elevator buttons and smashing tubes it didn't take too much imagination. As I got deeper into the game, old foes continued to appear, pretty much all the demons from the original two games are here (minus two by my count) favourites of mine such as the Pinky Demon and the Cacodemon return with much more "charming" character design than the realism that was attempted in Doom 3 and the game bounces between Hell and Mars toward the end in such a way that the environments always felt fresh and cool to explore. 

The only slight complaint I had with it at all was that by seemingly avoiding the horror tropes of Doom 3 its not frightening at all in its bombastic approach. My memories of playing Doom 2 as a 13 year old was an underlying sense of fear, as comical as it seems now compared to today's games, the lighting and sound work in the game was terrifying at times. This reboot of Doom has decided to go another way and admittedly this way is a lot more fun. I played a bit of the multi-player and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would too. 

Doom isn't anything new, it has medipacks, yellow keys and zombies but in the week it took me to complete it felt like one of the most original games I've played in a long time, I'll certainly be playing through it again at some point. Finally the ending of the game is left in such a way that I can't wait to play the next game (if it ever comes).

My hours spent in Pokemon Yellow is now over thirty hours. I'd say I don't know how that's happened in such a short space of time but I do, traipsing back and forth fighting bikers, swimmers and young trainers to get my Tauros to an acceptable level and he's still floundering in the low 30s. It's bordered on frustrating at time, especially fighting the multitude of poison attacks at the moment but I'm still way into my Pokemon. What's surprised me the most is that there is much more of a conventional game in there (and an impressive amount for a gameboy cartridge) the plot is deeper, Team Rocket are up to something and it continually adds new things that I wasn't expecting such as bicycles and fast travelling. Still really enjoying it basically. 

Earthbound and Dune 17.05.16

Over the past few weeks I've been falling rapidly down a rabbit hole of capturing/killing (or knocking out according to my translation of the lore of the world) hundreds of Pocket Monsters in Pokemon Yellow (3DS). It's my understanding that playing the game on a 3DS will allow me to transfer my team of comically named creatures into future games via a Pokemon bank (whatever that is) and if its smooth that's a big selling point, I couldn't bare the thought of wading through tall grass to fight Pidgeys to level up my Squirtle even if the graphics are improved. 

I'm surprised about how much I'm enjoying the game, I think this has a lot to do with my tastes and habits both inside and outside of video games. It feels a bit like the elements of Fallout games I really enjoy, the hoarding, the grinding out fights to earn XP and the tantalising concept that something really valuable or powerful could be right around the corner. It also seems to have taken influence from Earthbound (and other JRPGs I've not played I'm sure) and while it's not got the sharp whit constantly it can be genuinely funny at times, normally before fighting another trainer on my travels. I wouldn't say it's particularly subtitle but the characters I've met so far from the seasick captain of a boat and the two gamblers close by who announce in quick succession "I never loose" and "I never win" have a charm to them. Speaking of charm some of the Pokemons designs haven't aged well but the majority are lovely to look at, it helps with the most addictive part of the game I've found so far, the bond made with my party of 6, for the record I've gone with Nidoking, Spearow, Pikachu, Squirtle, Graveler and Weepinbell. All the forums I've embarrassingly visited seem to suggest this isn't the best combination but I've grown attached to Spearow through training him up from level 3 and most of the others I'd longingly looked at whilst I turned my nose up at actually playing the game. I've got my eye on a couple of additions, I'd be very happy if a wild Poliwhirl or Krabby popped up. With my little team though I've worked out viable tactic of combining my plant with my rock with my electric and in these early steps it seems to work, I say early I'm pushing 15 hours of gameplay. In the narrative of the game I've encountered team rocket a number of times, collected 4 badges and can chop down trees.

Basically it's all nonsense, but the right kind of nonsense for a commute or a half hour here or there, at times scratching that animal crossing itch while at the same time giving you a little more reward for your endless grinding. The game is over 20years old and I've been aware of it for all that time both in gaming and popular culture but I don't feel like I've come to it late, I wouldn't have had the patience for it when it came out or more importantly the access to the Internet which has both helped and amused me so far exploring this world.

The rest of my video gaming related actions this week were, reading FAQs and message boards about Pokemon, playing Smash Bros 4 exclusively on Pokemon stages with Pokemon characters and finally watching the Pokemon Sun Moon trailer a couple of times. I'm one step away from producing Pokemon fan art and that's not as frightening as it was a month ago.

Earthbound and Dune 09.05.16

I finished Starfox Zeros (WiiU) brief story this week, there where points when everything came together, especially the penultimate battle against Star Wolf and his companions. Here dogfighting worked, felt good and I even used the gamepad to target at points. Changing the Arwing into the chicken walker during the fight felt like the the best transformers game there never was and compact level it took place on was small enough so action was always close. The sad thing about the game though is the few good levels are majorly outweighed by boring or annoying levels. When the game has around 10 levels in to total to complete, factor in 3-4 of them I found no fun at all, therein lies the problem I had with it. If it had been an "attraction" at the much maligned Nintendoland game the value proposition for this game wouldn't be an issue. On its own though it just felt too threadbare and I plain didn't enjoy a lot of my short amount of time with it.

I got nowhere in Party Hard (PS4) and was happy enough to do that. A stealth game with a comical premise, your irritated at the noise/commotion a party is causing to the point of wanting to murder all the people attending. The levels are small enough to occupy a single screen and it's got a stylish 16bit look to it, complete with the chip tune soundtrack that does start to get annoying as I slowly worked my way through the couple of party's I ended. I've always assumed I'd be awful at a hitman game and this game confirms this, a number of times I'd get to killing the last few people and the police would catch me right at the end because of my over eagerness to finish the level. Despite my failing I am having a great time with the game, seemingly random events from aliens to robbers happen on the levels and will increase the death count, traps and places to hide also litter the levels and add a more methodical strategy to playing. Hiding places and escape routes are barricaded up with overuse which stopped me from cheating the levels much to my dismay at discovering this. The levels are compact enough that the really fun levels, such as the party on the ranch are really good fun and kept interesting by moving around items to help your murdering on attempts. Some levels aren't as much fun due to a more constricted environment but it's all snappy enough that it's not become irritating yet. Looking forward to carrying on with it. 

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.