In the interests of continuing to keep it real, I am going to be straight-up honest with you and admit that I have no idea how the part of the game we’re going to talk about today works. At all. I’m not even going to pretend to understand by finding some scholarly quotes and then systematically demonstrating that War in the East does this particular thing better than some game no one has ever heard of. Instead, I’m just going to throw up my hands right now and say that if anyone can help a comrade out, I’d be grateful.
After the jump, anyone? Anyone? Glantz? Continue reading →
Try as I might, I can’t make myself love Dragon Age II the way I loved Dragon Age: Origins. Dragon Age II does almost everything right, hits almost all of its marketing bullet points, but never grabs you and refuses to let you go. Origins was buggy, sprawling, clunky; an old school paean to the glory days of Bioware and Black Isle and Infinity Engine RPGs. It suffered from the tired, played out Bioware formula of prologue, four quest hubs, and finale, yet never seemed boring or repetitive. For those of us who played the early days of computer RPGs, it was a promise to keep that style alive. Then Dragon Age II changed the formula, and as a result lost its chance to eclipse its predecessor long before it hit the market.
After the jump: Do games have a soul? Continue reading →
Something happened while I was playing tonight that made me start to think about the tipping point. Or the line of demarcation. Or the point of no return. One of those ominous phrases. What happened was I had an epiphany. Hold on a second. Don’t get excited. For while that term tends to carry with it an air of positivity and excitement, that’s not really going to apply here. I’m not sure this is a term, but I believe what I had tonight could be termed a ‘stupid epiphany’. Is that even a term? Did I just coin that?
I had been planning today to write about moving from the tutorial towns into the big cities of Pokemon White. I’m not going to do that, though, because of my stupid ephiphany. What is this stupid epiphany, you ask?
Sigh. I’m so ashamed to admit this. Deep breath. Oh well.
I was in the middle of a pretty nasty fight with some trainer in a hidden library in the back room of a museum when I realized it. I was trying to decide which Pokemon to send into battle after my electric horse fainted when I suddenly keyed on the gender symbols of my team. I’ve always been aware of them. I’ve never paid them much attention. Until now. My team is five males, and one female.
Team Tepig just became Team Sausage.
After the jump, the trading deadline Continue reading →
The story in Tactics Ogre is engaging, topical, and very dark. It’s also wonderfully written and executed. The plot centers around a handful of rebellious youths who wish to engage some knights responsible for sacking the village they live in. That turns sideways quickly and spills into a sweeping tale of treachery, war, and rebellion.
The core of the tale is your character and the choices you make as the game unfolds. Several times, you will be asked to make a choice, and several times those choices will be very hard. I had to put the PSP to sleep a few times and give some serious thought to how I wanted to proceed.
After the jump, decisions, decisions Continue reading →
I’m a little weirded out by the name of today’s level for some reason. Flower Face Adventures. The name…I dunno…it just feels weird to me. I suppose I’ll have to look into that.
Good level though. Especially as a follow up to yesterday’s level’s intensity. The challenge here is minimal, but the music is soothing. I also really like the rain section. It’s minor, but the visuals and the sounds work for me. This level as a follow-up just feels right. Plus there’s this weird dissonance. I loved the way I got to use the grappling hook in yesterday’s level. I hate the way I have to use it in today’s. It’s velcro-annoying.
On the whole, a lovely level.
As the champion of Dragon Age II, Garrett Hawke’s been dealt a shabby hand. After losing most of his family and many of his friends, he’s cast adrift. He began as a refugee and leaves the stage, in most cases, just the same. The world in tatters and ruin behind him. Nightmares of blood mages and abominations plague his dreams.
After the jump, I think we owe the man better than that. Continue reading →
(This post contains minor spoilers. You have been warned.)
I have a feeling that there are two reasons Dragon Age II slows down for some people early in Act 2. The first is that the game for the most part takes place in the only slightly changing city of Kirkwall, broken up by cookie-cutter dungeons and occasional interludes outside the city walls. The second is that by the middle of the game, you realize that Dragon Age II has abandoned almost every pretense of dressing up fetch quests.
After the jump, is this really what a hero does? Continue reading →
Right?
Uh.
I’m cruising by my son working at the computer the other morning. It’s early, before school. He likes to steal a few minutes in the morning to work on his drawings of Bionicles, these warrior toys put out by Lego. He’s got a bunch of the toys, as well as some of the newer lineup of toys called Hero Factory, also put out by Lego. These figures are made to be assembled by kids, then broken down and reassembled into new characters by swapping parts.
Anyone who has ever dealt with Lego toys will know what I mean. My kid is nuts over these things, so much so that he has researched the mythology that surrounds the Bionicles and their universe. He understands this mythology with a depth that I find astounding, and he is all about abiding by the rules of this universe in making his drawings of the Bionicles. He does sets of drawings. Each set has six characters. No more. No less. Each set is a team based on the fact that in the Bionicle universe, the Toas–basically warrior leaders of the Bionicles–represent elements over which they have power. Earth, Ice, Water, Air, Stone, and Fire. He may create new characters for his drawings. He may totally make up new names that aren’t official Bionicle names. But the teams will always be six and always represent those elements. Because those are the rules of that universe.
After the jump, you never studied Continue reading →
Final Fantasy Tactics was one of my favorite turn-based strategy games for years, and I loved the remastered edition that came out on the PSP a few years back. That was my favorite game in a genre that includes such classics as Fire Emblem, Shining Force, and Tactics Ogre. However, I never got into Tactics Ogre when it was available on the older consoles (such as the PSOne) so I was extra excited to see the return of this classic gameplay on a handheld I have little reason to power on.
After the jump, let me introduce my army. Continue reading →
This is mainly going to be about gushing, because I really love today’s level, Refuse Ridge. I don’t care much for the theme of the level, which is the idea that your sackboy has landed in a dump, thrown away with a bunch of other toys and license plates. A sad toy race car with a creepy blinking eye tells you to escape by making your way to the puzzle horse. I thought this was a great start, even though it took me about a thousand tries to get a snapshot of that car with his creepy eye open. It was like he could anticipate whenever I would hit the start button, or maybe hitting the button caused him to blink. I don’t know, at any rate the trashed toys theme really doesn’t go anywhere meaningful. No matter, because the playing of the level itself is just great.
Part of it is this nifty Habitrail sensibility where tubes carry you from place to place and can launch you unexpectedly into danger with the use of hidden jump pads. I wonder how my childhood hamsters would have felt about that. Added to this element is the way the grappling hook is used in this level, as a tool for slowing down and avoiding as well as swinging. I loved that twist. Even the regular swinging had a different feel in this level. It called to mind Indy using his whip, or my fantasies of being Indy using his whip to get out of jams. The above picture shows my sackboy, having been thrown by swinging under a rising platform, in mid-air over an electrified column just before I grapple hook to the next platform which will rocket me up to a much higher area. That’s a thoroughly clunky way of describing a moment when I should just have used one word: exhilarating.
I played this level several times and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Now, you’ll have to indulge me with one more picture, because taking it took me forever.
After the jump, creepy eye Continue reading →
Is there any better feeling than seeing a really substantial update for an iPhone game you already own and love? Yes, of course there is. It’s a game update, not the birth of your child. But still, it’s great. That’s why you should hurry up and grab Dungeon Raid. There’s a big, hefty 1.3 update coming any day now — it’s already submitted to Apple for approval — that adds a bunch of great stuff. If you act now, you get to love the game before the update, then get all excited while you watch the update download.
After the jump, you’d rather have this game than three dollars. Continue reading →
I’ve already talked a bit about the multiplayer in Homefront here and here, mainly in relation to the excellent multiplayer in Killzone 3. But what about the rest of the game?
Oh no, something’s blowing up and I’m being blown up, but I’m rescued and, oh god, the younglings have obviously been murdered even though you can’t show it, and now someone is blowing our cover because he’s screaming insanely at the horrible grimness of it all…Now I’m hiding under a body — well, waiting for the in-game cutscene of me hiding under a body to finish, at any rate — and now Boone is dead, and… Wait, who? Who’s Boone? I wasn’t really paying attention. Boone from Lost? Why is that news? That was, like, season two.
Read the full review here.
A lot of people might not have realized it, but railroads used to be pretty important. Without them there would have been no hoboes in Bugs Bunny cartoons, and without the ability to sit around and build track, sell goods, and upgrade trains, a lot of college students would probably have passed their physics midterms.
After the jump, it turns out railroads were also pretty important for attacking Russia. Continue reading →
When you get past the discussion of graphics and texture size, when you get over lamenting the inevitable plot holes, when you’re done praising or damning the dialog and structure, and when you’ve had your fill of grousing about the UI, one thing makes or breaks whether you play an RPG: the combat.
After the jump, I’m talking about every game that isn’t called Planescape: Torment Continue reading →
Team Tepig had a huge victory tonight. Huge. A major upset. I can’t really talk about it at this juncture, but let me just say we’re all pretty excited. Don’t worry. I will get to it eventually. Suffice to say, it was pretty sweet. For now, however, you should probably forget we had this conversation.
Hold on a second. Let me call up my Reader Screen. There. Now I’m selecting Forget. Wait another couple of seconds. There. You’ve forgotten it. No worries about that though, because I’ve replaced your Victory Excitement power with Reader Interest. I’m activating that now. Look at that! Your Interest just rose!
Excellent.
I don’t know if you can detect it here, but I’m feeling kind of guilty about messing with the heads of my Pokemons the way I’ve been doing. I’m feeling kind of oogy about it, and not because Team Plasma has been inundating me with all this liberation folderol. Those dudes are clearly abusive jerkwads and I have no intention of listening to them. If you’d seen the way they kicked around Munna you’d understand. I was there. I saw it. In fact, I intervened and now Munna is just fine. In fact, he’s an starter for Team Tepig and an integral part of tonight’s victory—
Crap. Now I have to use Forget on you again.
After the jump, I try to remember not to forget Continue reading →
