Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (360)
I'm a pretty big fan of Castlevania games (particularly SotN and the DS games), so I decided to give this new installment a try. It was pretty fun, though not for the reasons that I usually like Castlevania games. It reminds me a lot my experience with Metroid: Other M, actually. Both of them were pretty fun games that did a great job of capturing the agility and badassery of their respective protagonists in combat, but what I was really looking for was the nonlinearity and space for exploration that other entries in their series' offered. So yeah, while I had fun destroying Satan's hordes with fantastic whip acrobatics, it was a march-down-a-corridor for the most part.
Haven't I seen this before?
In addition to the God of War-ness of the combat, there were definitely a few other parts in the game which stuck out as a bit familiar:
In addition to the God of War-ness of the combat, there were definitely a few other parts in the game which stuck out as a bit familiar:
Hold onto the colossus, err titan, as you climb it in order to stab it in the weak point!
I've seen this in...Shadow of the Colossus!
Also,
Change your polarity, err magic type, to match the energy rings so that you can pass through them to defeat the final boss!
I've seen this in...Ikaruga!
Donkey Kong Country Returns (Wii)
I actually haven't played the original DKC games, but who am I to turn down a modern 2D platformer? I'm a huge fan of DK64 anyhow (I seem to say this a lot, as I lamented when I talked about KotOR, but I loved that game for my ability to explore its big world!). I also had extremely high hopes when I found out this game was developed by Retro Studios, the folks who brought us Metroid Prime, one of the best gems the gaming world has seen (if you don't like it, your opinion is bad and you should feel bad). And in general, I did enjoy myself while playing this game, the levels were very well designed, the world was so vibrant and alive, and the platforming was solid. I want to love this game, but there are two things that really, really hurt the experience for me.
Did you REALLY need the waggle?
When I'm playing a platformer, I need the controls to be amazing and perfectly responsive. That's why I've never been able to really get into a platformer on platforms such as the iOS where there are problems like input lag and a lack of a tactile interface. The Wii remote has buttons, though, plenty of them, certainly enough for a platformer. And indeed, there were unused, accessible buttons for this game. But for whatever reason (did Nintendo pressure them to have motion controls? I have no idea...), they mapped one of the game's critical moves, a roll, onto a nunchuk waggle. I do NOT feel more immersed by waggling, I've played motion games that have benefited from such controls but this game did it WRONG. Especially in a platformer, where if the magic "detection" event happens too late or not at all, your character will mess up and possibly die (you do a longer jump if you roll and then jump, I did many jumps into a chasm because my roll wasn't detected). I'm not trying to complain about this just for the sake of making noise, it REALLY polluted the entire experience. Speaking of accidental deaths...
I DON'T NEED THE STUPID SUPER KONG
One of my biggest pet peeves in games is being patronized. I am not unintelligent or unskilled, at least not as much as many developers seem to think. Fine, they were probably trying to make this game playable by everyone and this one isn't as much of a deal breaker, but it was enough to make me pretty angry at the game. If you die sufficient times in a stage, this STUPID pig will start jumping and waving a flag, trying to get you to talk to it. If you do so, you get to have SUPER KONG beat the level for you. I DON'T need to have the level beaten for me, I'm not a four year old who wishes I had a big brother to pass my controller to so they can beat the level for me. Plus, Super Kong is worse than me. Deaths where I died due to the controls aside, I often died going for perilously positioned collectibles within the level. Super Kong just beelines for the finish line. Well, aren't you skilled Mr. Super Kong. If I'm playing a game with my friends and I'm doing poorly, I'd rather they make fun of me when I die than offer to beat it for me. Perhaps they tried to make the system "kind," but I really just found it annoying.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (PC)
I already did a full post on this game, so I won't spend much time talking about it here. I will say, though, that I've been playing more Bioware WRPGs since this game and I've been loving it. I was told that I need to try out some games from Bethesda as well to diversify my WRPG experience, so there might be some Skyrim in my future. But yeah, this game was awesome and got me out of the linear-game-funk I was in.
Pokémon White (DS)
Once a pokegeek, always a pokegeek. Well, it's hard to enter a conversation with me for more than 30 seconds without learning about my love and encyclopedic knowledge of Pokemon. So my thoughts on this game will probably be pretty clear. The gist of it is, this is Pokemon, if you've played a Pokemon game, you already know whether or not you like it. It has some nice graphical improvements - all Pokemon are animated throughout battle, which isn't a first for the franchise, but it's done really well here. The story actually starts off pretty damn interesting, there's a group who is against the fact that humans enslave and battle Pokemon. And you know, they actually seem to have a point. Of course, they wind up being all corrupt and wanting the Pokemon for themselves, so don't get your hopes too high, but it was interesting at least that the game would, even if just for a portion of the game, question the morality of its whole premise.
I want to brag
After about 250 hours, I have a complete living Pokedex of all 646 released Pokemon. By "living Pokedex," I mean that, in my boxes in my PC, I have 1 Bulbasaur, 1 Ivysaur, 1 Venusaur,... all numerically sorted. It's beautiful.
I've got a pair of battling teams as well, my more serious one is actually a themed bug team. Hand raised them all to level 100 (which was kind of tricky with the new EXP system, where you get fewer EXP points from the same Pokemon as your level increases (sort of double counting since the EXP required per level increases as well). I don't want to divulge specifics of their stats or movesets, but I've got a great IV bred, EV trained team:
Scizor, Heracross, Ninjask, Armaldo, Galvantula, VolcaronaEnd of Part 1
On deck for next time:
-Chibi Robo
-Portal 2
-Bioshock
-Steel Battalion
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