Tag Archives: ps3

Fatal Labyrinth, Genesis roguelike

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Fatal Labyrinth

While going through the games I hadn’t tried in Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection, I stumbled upon Fatal Labyrinth. It started with a corny story for a minute or so before the action started (and even that minute of story could be skipped). Despite showing its age (bad music; can’t go back one level in the menus, so you have to close the menu), it was a very enjoyable game. Not only are the levels randomly generated, but the items are described by colors with each color corresponding randomly to a specific spell. On one play, a blue cane might do blizzard damage; on the next, it might confuse the enemy.

I’ll admit that I used save states to determine what each color did so I wouldn’t waste any items. I never did manage to get the best armor or sword in the game in spite of fully clearing every level. There were are also a couple of interesting tricks I found on GameFAQs. Cursed weapons are very weak, and a curse removal item can remove the curse, allowing you to unequip the weapon. If you remove the curse before equipping the item, it’ll say it has zero power while actually being devastating to enemies. Similarly, if you equip two bows back and forth, your armor will decrease by three each time until rolling over to an ungodly amount of armor. I tried the tricks because I was curious but restored a save because it made me too powerful.

Food was an interesting in the mechanic. While your HP will slowly regenerate, your food value will slowly decrease. You don’t die when you reach zero, but you’ll begin to lose HP. This would lead me to think that I should collect all the food I find, but too much food causes the character to move slower, and if a certain amount of food is eaten, the character die on the spot. Overeating is the number two killer of knights, you know (just after dragons).

It’s been a while since I’ve played a fun roguelike. It reminded me of Azure Dreams, one of my favorite PlayStation games. After playing the game on and off for the past four days, I beat it last night.

Another month, more games crossed off my list

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My backlog is now down to 314 unfinished games and 269 unplayed games, down from 323 unfinished games and 277 unplayed games from my last post on April 25. Slow and steady wins the race.

SquidsOdyssey_WiiU_turtle

SQUIDS Odyssey

I was given a download code for this game to review for Game Boyz. You can read the review, if you’d like. It’s a port of the first two games in the series with additional content. Fun game. This increased my backlog count by one, and I haven’t crossed it off yet because I’m not quite done with it.

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria and Cataclysm

As usual, I won’t spend too much time talking about WoW. I’ve been playing three characters. First, I’m still doing some LFR for transmog on my main, Devee, the troll priest. I’ve also been playing Voidgazer, my undead warlock. Voidgazer’s in his 50s now. Lastly, I made a pandaren monk named Sleepypaw that recently joined the Alliance. I have some friends that play together every Friday night Alliance-side, so I thought I’d try to catch them. Sleepypaw is 12 or so, and my friends are approaching level 30.

phoenix wright justice for all

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All

I’m currently in the third case. I don’t spend a lot of time in this because I only play while I’m walking at lunch at work. It’s fun though!

Dr. Mario Express

I just can’t stop playing this. My high score is currently 55,200.

Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic 2

This game was part of Sonic Mega Collection Plus, and it was about time I finished it. I’ll admit, I didn’t go for the Chaos Emeralds. There was some pressure to reload save states when I failed the special stages, but at this point, I need to decide whether something is worth my time and provides enjoyment. I hated those special stages, so too bad. The game was fairly fun, but I wish the stages were updated more for Knuckles. There were many places in which I climbed and then suddenly hit an invisible wall. Also, I remember there being better enemy and pit placement. If I’m moving fast, as expected of you in a Sonic game, and in a ball, I shouldn’t roll right into a spiky enemy. The game should reward you for going fast. Even so, I like Sonic 2.

Sonic Drift, Sonic Labyrinth, Sonic Blast,The Ooze, Flicky, and Dynamite Headdy

Here’s a nice set of games in Sonic Mega Collection Plus or Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection that were just bad. I was glad to cross them off my list. I jotted some notes down in my backlog after I tried them; I’ll reproduce them here.

Sonic Drift: “Wow, this is bad. I’m glad that they improved the formula by the time Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing was released.” It’s a racing game but just barely.

Sonic Labyrinth: “I finished one level. It’s nothing like a Sonic game and quite boring.” It’s like an even worse version of Sonic 3D Blast.

Sonic Blast: “Played one zone. It’s so slow and bad.” Surprisingly, this isn’t like Sonic 3D Blast. It’s just a really slow, bad Sonic game.

The Ooze: “What? No. Just no.” I don’t know how to explain this one. You’re a puddle of ooze, and you ooze around in a boring fashion.

Flicky: “More fun than I expected, but I’m not going to keep playing it.” You play as a flicky bird, and jump between platforms gathering up your little chicks.

Dynamite Headdy: “Cute style but weird game. I don’t want to keep playing.” You fling your head around or use it as a bomb. Reminds me a little of Vectorman.

Streets of Rage and Streets of Rage 2

I own Streets of Rage in Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection and thought it was about time to give it a try. It seemed boring as beat ’em ups go. I decided to stick with it until I either beat it or got game over. I was on the last round with I reached that game over screen. I’m crossing you off the list, Streets of Rage.

Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection contained Streets of Rage 2 as well (and I also own it on iOS). I went it with the same mindset as the first game and actually liked it a bit more. This I managed to beat.

Ecco: The Tides of Time

Here’s another Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection game. I think the Ecco series contains some really interesting and eerie games. I’m very glad to have experienced them, but I don’t think experiencing more of this game is worth the time put into it. Unfortunately, I’m crossing it off my list.

Shining Force

Okay, one last Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection to mention. It’s interesting to me how old RPGs spend such little time building the story at the beginning. It’s seems less realistic to have you mission and be on your way within two minutes, but at the same time, it’s refreshing to jump into the game. I was also expecting a menu-driven RPG and not a map with a grid. I didn’t realize it was a tactical/strategy RPG. I played it a little, entering a few battles, but I don’t think I’ll play it more.

Rock N’ Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings

I didn’t play either of these, but I added them to my backlog because Blizzard added them to everyone’s Battle.net accounts. Unfortunately, that causes my backlog account to increase by two.

Couldn’t stick with GTA5

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I picked up Grand Theft Auto V when it was released. It was generally very enjoyable. The amount of polish and detail was astounding, and the world felt like a great stylized summary of Southern California. Unfortunately, I simply stopped playing it.

I suppose this happens to me much more than I’d like. GTA5 features three different playable characters, and I didn’t even unlock the third before I stopped. I did, however, get Chop, the dog. I love Chop.

One of the great things about the game is just how over-the-top it seems. The series has always been a bit over-the-top, but it seemed to take a step back from that recently. Do you remember using an explosive RC car to blow up a car in the original Grand Theft Auto? I believe the person giving you the mission said something about “that’ll teach Mom to something something.” I forget what exactly, but that wasn’t organized crime. That was comedy. Plowing through the glass walls of a building or pulling a building off of a hill is pretty similar. It’s just so silly that it’s great.

Despite being pretty entertaining, it just didn’t hold my attention enough. GTA4 was similar for me, and I did eventually go back to finish it and all the DLC. We’ll see if I return to GTA5.

Thoughts on the PlayStation 4

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It’s been almost a week since the PlayStation 4 announcement. I mentioned that I wasn’t particularly excited about it, but now I’ve had a few days to think about it. It seems like time to talk about the announcement.

The PS4 is using x86 processors for faster development time.

Developers took a while to get used to developing for the Cell processors, and software wasn’t as easy to bring to the PS4 as it was to the other consoles. This means that cross-platform development will be easier. While that means the PS4 won’t have any processing advantage over the other consoles, it also means that it should be more likely that games will be brought to the PS4 and increase the speed of development time.

The PS4 doesn’t have native backwards compatibility.

This is a huge drawback to me, just like the PS3’s lack of backwards compatibility in later models severely effected my opinion of the PS3. Because of the change in CPU architecture, the PS4 won’t play PS3 games – neither disc nor PSN games. I hate this because I’ll have to keep a PS3 around (and a PS2). However, I disliked this about the PS3 as well, and it didn’t take long for me to not need to play PS2 games much. I’m sure with backwards compatibility, I would have played more PS2 games. That said, how often did I play GameCube games on my Wii? I did sometimes early in the generation, but eventually I stopped almost entirely. I just worry because consoles are becoming less and less long-lasting. Will my PS3 still operate in a decade? If not, how do I play my PS3 games?

Games can be streamed using the Gakai service.

I would always rather have games on my console than streamed, but I like the idea of having streaming as an option. Blu-rays are much better than Netflix, right? Why wouldn’t games be the same? I live with roommates who are all using the Internet most nights. On many nights that means that there are three video streams coming to our house in addition to whatever games or other Internet-usage is being consumed. I’m sick of my latency jumping half a second or worse in World of Warcraft; I don’t want to have to worry about that for my single-player console games as well! I also hope they don’t dismiss alternatives because this is present. “Who cares if they can’t play PS3 games? We could let them stream the games!” Or, “Nah, it doesn’t deserve a real release. Just let the games stream it.”

All games will be available digitally.

I have mixed feelings on this, and it’s similar to my feelings from the previous section. Look, I love Steam. Purchasing the games digitally is easier, but then we miss out on box art and other artistic parts of the culture that are already hurting. Have you seen a really good manual lately? Probably not. Regardless, I’ve fully embraced Steam. If a PC game isn’t made by Blizzard or available on Steam, I’m very unlikely to purchase it. However, PC architecture stays the same. Consoles keep changing, which means that if a game is only available digitally, I might not have access to it in a decade. That sucks.

A share button can be used to share content with friends.

I’m extremely excited about this. Sharing content is the feature that most makes me like the PS4. There’s a share button right on the controller. When it’s pressed, players can choose to upload a video of what they just did or can start a live stream. Now, I’m hoping that means that gameplay is constantly being recorded, and you can choose when to save what’s been recorded. It doesn’t have to be long – even the last 5 minutes would be decent. Hopefully it’s not just specific scenes that the developers have to choose to be auto-recorded. I don’t know if I’ll use the live streaming much, but I’d love to post videos.

A secondary processing chip handles uploads and downloads.

For sharing to work, this has to go along with it, so it’s a good idea. The PS4 features a dedicated chip that handles uploads and downloads. In other words, uploading a video won’t affect your ability to play games. Cool.

Other devices can be used as second screens.

Boo. This works with the Wii U because it’s already part of the console. I don’t want to pull out my phone and sit there using the battery the entire time I’m playing my PS4.

Games can be played from the Vita.

I fell in love with the Wii U’s ability to play games from the GamePad. If this works, I should be similarly happy. It was said that the goal was to have all games use it. This is vastly different than saying “all games can be played from the Vita,” so we’ll have to wait and see how many can do it.

The PlayStation 4 includes the PlayStation 4 Eye, uses new controller, and uses Move.

I’m happy about all of this. First, the new controller uses concave sticks instead of convex. That means my thumbs won’t slip around as much, which means I’m happier. There’s also the touchpad-like section. I don’t know what to think about that. I don’t have any Move controllers now, so I don’t really care that the PS3 ones are still compatible, but I don’t have a problem with it either. What’s great though is that the PlayStation 4 Eye, which is already better than the PS3’s, is included.

I don’t like the idea of Move. I don’t like the idea of Kinect. They seem gimmicky to me. Now I do have to admit that I’ve never used either of them (besides a minute here or there at E3), but the Wii’s motion controls were similar. Games eventually either stopped using the technology or used it too much. However, a small amount used motion to augment gameplay. Some games used buttons for everything but you might shake the remote to swing a sword. I’m okay with that. By bundling the PS4 Eye, it means that developers no longer have to choose between making a Move-enabled game and making a non-Move-enabled game. Every game could use it. For Ps3, developers might be thinking “if we decide to use Move, we better go all out to justify the gamer’s purchase.” That would be eliminated.

So, what do I think?

I’m not sure we really needed it right now. I’m fine current consoles games. In fact, many of my favorite games recently were small PC games. That said, I think everything is an improvement in the PS4. Bundling the PlayStation 4 Eye means I can actually use Move, and making it easy to share means it’ll be easy for me to blog about PS4 games. I can’t forget the better sticks on the controller either. Overall, I’m happy with the PS4 and look forward to it.

 

Why I’m not inherently excited about a new Playstation

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A lot of gamers are anxious about Sony’s announcement tonight of, presumably, the PS4. I’m not excited. Don’t misunderstand that to mean that I won’t be interested in the next console. They might surprise me with something cool, and even if they don’t, I’ll still need to get it to play the newer games. However, that statement is exactly why I’m not inherently excited. I’ll need to get it to play the new games.

The driving force of the game industry are games. When a new game that looks good is released, I’d like to play it. When the Playstation 4 releases, I’ll need it (or the new Xbox) to play the newest games. This seems arbitrary to me. The current consoles are fine unless they change things radically. Will they? I doubt it. We’ll see more motion control and maybe a little bit of touch input from Sony, but I don’t think it’s going to make a big difference.

New consoles are always more powerful, but I think we’re at a point in gaming that power isn’t the most important thing. Sony likely knows that as they commented that they’re focusing on “new playing options” (Nikkei via Joystiq). This  could be the right path for Sony, but it really depends what these new playing options are. I enjoyed my Wii, but I didn’t see many games that really benefited from motion control or the pointer. There were some that worked well, such as World of Goo, but most often it felt like a gimmick. I haven’t tried Kinect, Move, or voice-control, but I’m not very interested in those either – at least, not as gimmicks. I’m hoping that by integrating the technology, maybe games that use them don’t have to feature them any longer. This could allow games to use them only as needed.

What else could we see? Streaming games? Serious Internet users already have bandwidth issues (especially with roommates), so this does not catch my eye. Better integration to handhelds? Building game leaderboards directly into the interface like Microsoft has correctly done (although hidden a little since the earlier interfaces)? We’ll see, but I’m just hoping that I’ll want the console because of the new experiences it can give me that the PS3 couldn’t rather than simply the ability to play games that won’t be released on the PS3.

inFAMOUS 2 complete

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inFAMOUS 2 PlatinumWhile looking through my trophies the other day, I realized I was missing two trophies in inFAMOUS 2 – the platinum and one for obtaining all powers. This just wouldn’t do! How could I leave two trophies unearned in one my favorite games when they seemed so reasonable?

Don’t worry; I fixed it now! It was fun to run around as Cole again. I’d love another game in the series!

What I’m playing: Amnesia, GTA3, Lollipop Chainsaw, SimCity Social Edition

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Over the last couple weeks, I’ve been jumping between quite a few different games. Three games I’ve been playing more than others – Amnesia, GTA 3, and Lollipop Chainsaw.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent

I got Amensia with the latest Humble Bundle. I heard it was pretty scary, and it definitely lives up to its reputation. It’s a first-person adventure game that came out about a year and nine months ago. It looked older than that to me in the way the interface works. When you approach an item with which you can interact, a hand icon appears. You can move things or hold them by clicking on them. If they’re not an inventory item for use later but are able to be picked up, they’ll float in the center of the screen. You interact with everything in a similar way. For example, you don’t go through a door by running up to it and pressing the enter-key. Rather, you press the left mouse button and either pull or push (depending on the door). This makes the game feel very immersive. The game revolves around solving puzzles… oh, and keeping your sanity.

Being the dark will slow drive you insane, which, among other things, will make you hear things that aren’t real. This is particularly scary because then you can’t be sure whether something’s really coming for you or not. Being in the dark drops your sanity, so you need to keep your lantern fueled or be able to light enough candles. When you see a monster, the longer you look at it, the more it drives you insane. You can hide in the dark from the monsters (but that drives you insane as well), but if it wants you dead, you’ll die. There really isn’t any fighting it.

It has a really fascinating story. Your character has purposely given himself amnesia and left himself with a letter telling him to kill someone. He assures himself that the person deserves to die even if he doesn’t like it. I can’t wait to find out more about the story.

The game suggests you play it in the dark with headphones. I don’t do either of those things. However, the fact that I’m playing without the brightness maxed out means I’m at least trying to play by the rules. There’s also the fact that I’m still playing even though most people I know gave up. I’m about 2/3 of the way through the game I think.

Grand Theft Auto

After playing the first GTA (and London), I tried GTA 2 once before jumping forward a number of years and playing GTA 4 and Chinatown Wars. I never beat any of the early games, so I picked up the classic pack on Steam. I tried playing the original, but I have to be honest, it doesn’t hold up. I like the core game type; I loved Chinatown Wars, for example. But the missions are just tedious. It’s all more of the same. The story isn’t very interesting. Worst of all, levels are very long, and alt-tabbing almost always will eventually lead to the game crashing. I even tried cheating by giving myself unlimited lives. That didn’t work because I didn’t have enough time to beat a level in one sitting, and like I said, alt-tabbing leads to crashing. I decided to write this one off. I won’t be returning to it.

Grand Theft Auto III

Instead, I’ll be playing GTA 3. It’s really telling that GTA 3 can be so ugly by today’s standards but still be so good. I don’t even think about it being old while I play it. It just feels like GTA 4. I’m really enjoying it so far. I’m only a handful of missions into the game – maybe around 10. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it later. For now, it’s definitely satisfying a third I’ve been having.

Lollipop Chainsaw

Lollipop Chainsaw is the one reason I’ve used a console recently. It’s Suda51’s latest game, and it’s an odd one. It’s about a cheerleader who’s also a zombie hunter. When her boyfriend gets bit, she cuts off his head with a chainsaw and takes it with him, allowing him to survive with magic. You hack and slash enemies sort of like Devil May Cry. It doesn’t take itself seriously, and I had a lot of fun with it. The claim to fame, beside being developed by Suda51 of course, is sex appeal. There’s a lot of talk about sex, and a lot of cussing. The sex is, honestly, not much worse than a bunch of B-horror movies anyways, and that’s the flavor the game seems to targeting. The over-abundant cussing just seems odd. Mad World had a lot of cussing, and it seemed appropriate. It doesn’t really feel appropriate here. There’s also a peculiar gameplay element. Control is removed every minute or so to show the player something. I understand the the game needs to let the player know what’s happening, but it should do it without taking the game away from me.

SimCity Social

I can’t believe I’m playing this. I swear, I don’t usually play Facebook games. It’s like normal SimCity, but with some twists. Each action you take consumes one energy, and energy regenerates over time. This means you have to stop playing and come back later. Money and manufacturing materials are also generated on a timed cycle. You have to log into the game to claim them, so this pushes players to stop playing but to check back in frequently. Certain buildings require staff to complete them. This means you have to hire friends as staff. You can only hire each friend once per day. If you don’t want to wait, you can spend diamonds, a rare resource that can also be purchased using real money. None of that for me, thank you.

Worms Crazy Golf

It’s Worms. It’s golf. And I guess it’s crazy. I’ve been using it as a nice way to get over the shock of playing Amnesia. What’s particularly great about it is that it supports local multiplayer.
Super Mario 3D Land
I’m pushing through the “bonus game” in this. I’m in World S5 now.
World of Warcraft
Of course, I’ve been playing this as well. I’m working on Grizzly Hills as well as PVPing and participating in the holiday.
Monsters Ate My Condo
Adult Swim Games brings one of the most fun iOS games I’ve ever played. You build a tower of condos while trying match their colors and feeding some to giant monsters. Mmhmmm. Totally great.

Zynga Slots and Zynga Poker

Two bad games by Zynga. Zynga Slots is a little addicting, and I don’t know why. Stay away from it.
Tap Tip Block
What if the zombies mode from World at War was cartoonish, featured monsters instead of Nazi zombies, was made by Capcom, and developed for iOS? It’d be Tap Tip Block. It’s short but fun.
Pucca Noodle Rush
I finally finished this little time management game. It wasn’t really very good, but I like Pucca.
SQUIDS Wild West
The sequel to SQUIDS, and a great iOS strategy game. Check out my recent Game Boyz review for more information.
Imaginary Range
Square-Enix making an interactive comic/game for iOS is great. Square-Enix taking a year to release a new issue is not. I doubt we’ll see an end to this story.
Shadowgun
Shadowgun’s a third-person cover-based shooter built in Unity for iOS. It looks great and is pretty fun. I only recently got around to returning to it to beat it.
Terra Noctics
Like Shadowgun, Terra Noctis is another iOS game that I finally got around to finishing. It’s a fun little platformer.