Thursday, December 22, 2011

Bastion

So, I picked this up on Steam a little while back, but only because it had 360 controller support. No controller support for a platformer/button masher means I will never own the game on PC.

Anyways, the game starts out good, introducing you to weapons one at a time, with an awesome, gritty narrator talking to you and about you as you travel and kick ass through levels.

I really liked the changing world, and the upgrades on the weapons, it kept everything fresh and new for the entire game. Having read the directions though, I was almost shy to upgrade since I wasn't sure if I would be screwing myself later (I literally upgraded Kratos' starting blades to max, and then saved all of the other red orbs until the final boss in God of War II, seriously). Anyways, go nuts with upgrades, but try to get a few weapons to max, and not just spread things around. I found the few that worked for me, and pumped the crap out of them.

There are also challenging mini games for each weapon where you will will prizes for using it as effectively as possible, but keep in mind that sometimes you need to upgrade the weapon to get the best score. There are also other challenges that reveal story and give you more points for upgrades, so double bonus there.

The story was really good, the narrator really breathed life into it, and the progression was well-paced. I would highly recommend picking this game up if you get the chance. Steam with a Xbox 360 corded controller or XBLA, either will do just fine.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Orcs Must Die!

So I picked this game up on the Steam sale last weekend, and a good deal it was!

I've always been a fan of tower defense games, but never really felt that the first person shooter perspective was the right way to go with them. I had tried the Sanctum demo a while back, but it felt like I was either ignoring my towers, or ignoring shooting things. Somehow, they got it right with Orcs Must Die! Also, the humor and voice acting keeps it light. =)

So I was able to beat probably 70% of the game with my typical "if one thing gets past me, I'm restarting the level mentality." But eventually there were just too many openings for me not to let anything get past.

The turrets and abilities are all fun to try out, but I have to say that I always picked the Alchemist's Satchel since it can kill 10-15 orcs in one bang. I didn't realize this was a DLC item until after I beat the game, so... yeah. Same with the Floor Scorcher.

Anyways, it took me just shy of 14 hours to beat the entire game on normal difficulty, and I still have the 5 DLC levels to play. I'd recommend the game for anyone with the tower defense itch as it will definitely help with that.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Batman Arkham Asylum - TBD

(there's a newer post for this, but I want to keep this around because it reminds me of the sadness that can happen)

I played this game quite a bit on my PC since I got it on a Steam sale. Then I replayed a bit of it so that I could enjoy it from the comfort of my couch, and play some of it with my wife.

But... my save game was lost. And not in some freak, Xbox-exploding accident. In some super-lame, I-can't-believe-I-just-saw-that-happen accident.

So, I give you, repro steps:

1) start up Xbox 360
2) launch Batman: Arkham Asylum
3) game logos play
4) title screen shows, now turbo press A because you want to play the game
5) game starts, intro batman video plays
6) "Elegrem logged in to Xbox LIVE" cheer appears (hmm, that seems odd)
7) quit game (the game is now saving your 0% progress over that first save slot)
8) title screen shows, with the first save slot showing 0% progress
9) son... of... a... bitch.

So I just went from 58% to 0%. just. like. that.

I want to get back into it again, but I'll need some time away from it for now.

Dragon Age II - Mark of the Assassin DLC

Wow. That was some really good DLC. Also, it was really hard. I had beaten the Legacy DLC and the entire game on hard difficulty, but this time around, I set the damn thing to normal and just enjoyed the content (after a few epic combat fails).

The story was good, nice level of involvement. I really liked the more intricate puzzles and the sneaking mechanics. Nicely done.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Dragon Age II - Legacy DLC

So I had beaten Dragon Age II a while back and really enjoyed it. There were a few complaints I'll agree on (area reuse, needing more impactful decisions), but overall it was a really enjoyable game.

Before I started on Legacy, I had to free up some bag space, because I only had about 3 bag spaces  left. A quick run to the Black Emporium, dump the junk, find out which staff does the most of each damage, ditch the lesser one, and purchase a few things with my rediculous ~250 gold (I still refuse to buy anything that isn't worth the cost). Now we're ready!

So I first thought I'd try out a party that does more damage, but doesn't have Aveline tanking. Yep, that fell on it's face. So now that I'm using my regular group Varric (range DPS), Aveline (tank), Fenris (melee DPS), and myself as a healing mage (keep's everyone alive), we're making progress again.

Each and every fight in this DLC was tactical, and fun to play. Keep in mind that there are switches on the battlefield that will trigger traps and make these fights much easier. I didn't notice some of these, and spent a lot longer on fights than I should have... There were also a few more puzzles and extra battles if you pursue it, which I like very much (anyone remember the Revenants in DA:O?)

The cut scenes and dialog were top notch, which was to be expected from any BioWare game. This also had really good boss battles, which made me remember some of the great ones in DA2 (high dragon fight, rock wraith, etc.)

The items were a decent enough upgrade that I actually spent a few minutes balancing out the party gear. There were still some junk/trash items, but with the extra bag space, that will just be something to manage next time.

The final battle felt very epic, and I'm glad that I was able to beat it on hard difficulty, even though I had to look up the tactics. The first few times I was fighting against an obvious mechanic and it was really frustrating. After I stopped that and did the fight using the mechanics that were obviously put in front of me, I got through it, no problem. I didn't even have to res anyone, although it got close a few times.

Should you buy this DLC? Absolutely. Should you purchase DA2 and this DLC if you don't have either? Yes. Am I a BioWare fanboy that can only say good things about BioWare games? I'll get back to you as soon as I find a BioWare game not worth buying and playing. *ka-zing!*

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Duke Nukem Forever

If they can publish it, I'm sure as hell going to beat it.

I probably should have played this normal difficulty, but whenever posed with the question of easy, medium, or hard. I usually go with hard, not because I want to hate the game, but because I don't want it to be overly easy.

Choosing hard was the wrong choice... Apparently hard means that either you know exactly what you're doing or your dead. For boss fights it means, you know how to avoid more than one successive shot or you're dead. Tip, there is just about always a good cover spot to use in a boss fight, so find it! The boss fights where this does not apply, are obvious. Also, if you're reloading your weapon when you didn't plan to reload, you're also dead. This last rule got me many times when I just so happened to run out of shotgun ammo as a pigcop lunged at my face.

The weapons were all unique and enjoyable such that I found myself constantly switching out for a different weapon as they dropped and weighing my choices against how much ammo I had left. My main focus was picking up the Steam achievements, in case any of those required a particular weapon. After that, I just went with the weapons that provided the easiest kills.

As far as story, it was good enough for what I was expecting. This game  was in no way trying to take itself seriously, and I liked that.

The only mechanics I didn't enjoy were the sudden quicktime events in the middle of a fight. This completely pulled me out of my mouse/keyboard sniping mode and into "beating the keyboard with both hands like it's a drum on Guitar Hero". Despite that, they did a good job of using this only when it makes sense (struggling to pull open a door, lifting weights, pulling a tusk off a pigcop's face to stab him with it, etc.)

For saving mechanics, this game chose to go with the checkpoint saves as you progress through the game. I did not find this nearly as frustrating as I did in Alice, but that's because there wasn't anything to meticulously collect in DNF. So for this game, I didn't mind it. Also, the automatic cloud save for this was nice, even though I only played it at home.

Would I recommend playing this game? Yes, especially if you're a Duke Nukem fan. Would I personally buy it for the $50 price tag? No, but I did pick it up for $25 when Steam did their Summer Sale.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Defense Grid: The Awakening

Defense Grid is probably the best tower defense game I have ever played, and I loves me some tower defense games!

The game progressed very well, introducing you to new towers and mechanics as the game progresses. The voice acting is superb, and helps to lighten the mood. There are few things as gratifying as nuking the one straggler that got through your defenses with an orbital laser beam.

I did find myself leaning heavily toward concussion, gun, temporal, and cannons near the end, almost completely ignoring inferno, laser, and meteor towers, but to each their own. I'm love to hear how I could use these towers more effectively. I did start using tesla towers more when I realized they were great at knocking down the shields before they got to my fully upgraded concussion towers.

I am only two achievements from having all sixty-five achivements in this game if that tells you anything about how much I enjoyed this game.

Anyways, if you have a chance, I'd definitely recommend picking it up. Especially if you like turret defense games. I got mine on Steam, but it's also on XBLA.

UPDATE: I just finished the You Monster DLC for this game. It was fantastic, although a bit short. Each level added a nifty new mechanic that GLaDOS threw against you, restricting what you can build, while being a snarky bitch about it, removing towers she thinks are too useful, etc. I'd recommend picking it up. It only took me about 2-3 hours to finish it with a gold medal on each level, but they were fun figuring out how to win.

Trine

So I finally did it. I beat Trine.

It was a really beautiful game to play and lots of fun. The puzzles were just you versus physics with some skeletons thrown into the mix. The enemies were limited, but it wasn't about the enemies as much as getting to work out how to use the characters to solve the puzzles.

The only downside or negative points I could give to this game was the awkward ending. After performing tricky jumps to get at chests hidden from view, and slaughtering tons of skeletons they follow this up with a completely different mechanic that you were not prepared for that was extremely frustrating.

Aside from that, it was a great game and I would definitely recommend giving it a shot.

If you didn't get it as part of the awesome FrozenByte Bundle, then you can still catch it today for five bucks on Steam. What's Steam you say? Get off my blog!

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Alice: Madness Returns

I'll keep it short and to the point, as I myself can't read most full length articles without losing track of where it was going or what the point was. Onward!

Alice: Madness Returns was an enjoyable game with a good story and delivered well. That said, let's get to the bad, and finish with the good, because the game was, as I said, enjoyable.

So first off, there is no saving or save control whatsoever in the game. This wouldn't be overly annoying if it weren't for the fact that dying during combat usually reloads you back upwards of 5 minutes in gameplay. It can also make the auto-save your enemy if attempting to collect the numerous collectibles, which I would recommend avoiding as they eat up tons of time finding all of them (not that I headed my own advice). Finally, the game was definitely created for console, which is made apparent by it's control scheme and numerous tweakables that were not tweaked for PC (this is Unreal, we have the technology...)

Now to the good stuff. The characters and environments look absolutely beautiful. The weapons are well-designed and stay usable throughout the game due to the new upgrading mechanic (another place where RPGs made their way into this game). Also, the combat is really well done. It keeps the gruesome artistic feel, while keeping tactical and precise, not button-mashy. The extra weapons and costumes are a very nice touch, which you can unlock through some simple INI tweaks, in case you missed the special edition (which I did). And lastly I wanted to mention the mini-games this game included. They range from simple 2D platforming, to thinking chess-styled puzzles, to Marble Madness or Sea Dragon games, themed to work with Alice. While they definitely are a change of pace, it was welcome change between the lengthy expanses of maddening item collection I was poorly avoiding. Also, I really liked Chapter 3. Especially the end sequences.

So, should you buy this game? Yes, yes you should, but don't bother collecting the memories, or it can make the game drag out. Also, upgrade the weapons in this order: knife, teapot cannon, pepper grinder, and finally the hobby horse.