Beaten: Half-Life 2: Episode 1

System: PC
Status: Beaten (on 2/11/13)

Now this is more like it. Half-Life Two is a major step up, and the episodes after do so much to improve on what they do with the story telling and action scenes. Half-life is a series that puts a lot of emphasis on set pieces, and this game has plenty of memorable ones. The main issues with the episodes being that they are well, episodic, and thus short. My only complaint with the half-life two line is the rather strange streaming content they do to make it run smoother, which causes my PC all sorts of headaches. I typically have to exit out after an hour or two of playing to let it clean itself out of memory, otherwise I get tons of stuttering. Have yet to find a way to fix the issue.

Beaten: Half-Life

System: PC
Status: Beaten (on 2/8/13)

Let's face it guys, fifteen year old shooters do not usually hold up well...and this one especially does  not. The game was groundbreaking in its time for how it approached storytelling, and the AI for the humanoid enemies not being as dumb as a box of rocks. However, this game has basically no indication of right path vs wrong path, or really what you should be doing/where you should be going next. That wouldn't necessarily be so bad, except that a wrong decision that you survive making can truly screw up your game. For example, for the longest time I was stuck in the launch center, where large tentacles swing at you when you run through. If you run through and go to the wrong place, or think that you could maybe kill one of them, you waste a lot of supplies doing so. I had to read a step by step fact to get any idea what I was supposed to do or where to go.

The platforming in the game is atrocious, and made only worse when you get to the end. Someone apparently thought a game with terrible jumping mechanics deserved an entire alien world where you have no indication which way to jump, and the slightest mistake kills you. You're not even sure whether you should save after each jump, as it might mean you saved in a spot where you are now stuck and have to die. I do not feel the least amount of regret in admitting I cheated my way past the last section of the game, as it very nearly ruined what little appreciation I had for the game. Thankfully, the sequels got way better.

Beaten: Fate/Extra

System: PSP
Status: Beaten (on  1/27/13)

My love for the Nasu-verse and all its related properties are no secret to those who know me well, so of course a big reason I even got a PSP was to play this game. The Fate/Stay Night series is one that is so well done in concept and execution in the original visual novel sense, and yet so hard to really translate into a video game. This game does it very well, and it should be commended for basically translating the feel of the original into a new idea entirely.

The basic concept of the game is that you are an amnesiac person in a computer system that runs a tournament to determine who gets the holy grail. You pick one of three possible summoned spirits, and develop that character through trips into the system grinding out levels, while researching your next opponent. The original concept that information tended to be more important than sheer power when fighting for the holy grail actually works out well here. The whole thing is integrated well into the combat system itself.

The combat system is glorified rock paper scissors, with your character getting special attacks to 'cheat' the system at times. Naturally you can only do this so many times, so its not very useful for basic enemies, but is immeasurably useful on fights with other summons. The battle rounds are set up several actions in advance, and most enemies have a pattern that they follow most of the time. The more often you fight a random enemy, or the more research you do on your next opponent in the tournament, the more that is revealed ahead of time. This is invaluable for the boss fights, since for most of them, a few wrong choices can kill you.

Out of combat, the game is heavily based around time. You have so many days to prepare for the fight, and each day there is some clue to find or event to handle in order to research your opponent. This can cause it to be rather stressful, as you worry about going in to the arena to level, since once you do your investigation outside it is finished for the day. It is highly advisable to have multiple saves, as it can be easy to screw yourself out of a clue or screw up a day and not know it till the match.

The replayability is a bit lacking, as other than changing spirits, the story mostly stays the same except for a few choice you can make. I finished it with saber, and started archer but got a bit bored midway, I need to get back to it, finish the two other spirits and the optional boss in the last dungeon.

Beaten: Persona 4: Arena

System:  PS3
Status: Beaten (on 1/7/13)

Fighting games tend to be quick turn-arounds for my list. Its really easy to get the credits screen since it only takes beating one character for that, and for my criteria that counts. For this one, I at least went the extra mile and actually finished every character's story mode when I was playing it. Unfortunately, I haven't touched it since, and my PS3 being replaced cost me all the saves I had on the old one, so that means doing the story again. At least I actually have a TV big enough to see the whole screen now...

As a review, the fighting game aspect is alright. It reminds me a lot of the Jojo's fighting game on the Dreamcast, where you have your main character and then a summon that you can call in to do extra attacks. The summon can be broken by others attacking it, and the game has RPG-like status effects that can be applied. I didn't spend enough time to really learn the system innately, it was a little slow for my taste and the character sprites take up a huge section of the screen. I tend to prefer my fighting games small and quick.

Story wise, it is interesting to see characters from the two recent persona games interacting and seeing how the story works out between them and in addition to the original stories, but it gets forgettable fast. It doesn't help that in order to see the true ending, you have to see the same scenes over and over from different characters. I ended up skipping over most of the dialogue because it was the same conversation from different angles over and over.

Fighting games are always hard to complete, especially when they include trophies for online play, which in all likelihood no one is doing anymore. This one also has the issue that 'challenge' mode is glorified 'learn this combo' for all the characters. What ever happened to challenge modes that were challenges? Guilty Gear did that rather well, each was a fight with special conditions and challenges, and I haven't played a fighting game that has done that well since. Rather sad.

Beaten: Yakuza: Dead Souls

System: PS3
Status: Beaten


Ah yes, this is the reason I stopped blogging about the games daily. I enjoyed this game so much that I didn't want to stop playing to blog about it. That and it was a welcome respite from a horrible job.

My love for the Yakuza series is no secret, it has a definite charm with how it goes about telling stories with complete seriousness, mixed with absolutely goofy side quests, and ultra-violent street combat. Dead Souls is an offshoot, not cannon with the main story, mostly for reasons of zombies.

I have seen reviews of this game that discuss the wonky mechanics for shooting and aiming, which for the most part are correct. The aiming stick switches depending on whether you're looking down the sights or running and gunning. I do think a major issue with people playing this game is they play it like Resident Evil or similar over the shoulder action games. The difference is that the zombies in Dead Souls are fast, and tend to not just let you aim and head shot them at will. The game also gives you infinite pistol ammo, and plentiful ammo for other weapons, most of which tend to be fully automatic or have an area to their shots. Your character also auto-aims while running around, so its perfectly viable to run through a horde gunning like crazy.

The game play as said before is very quick, most of the time you're gunning down hordes and hordes of zombies without much hesitation. Once the game starts introducing special zombies, you have to change things up when you hear their signature sounds or see them from a distance. After a while, there is little surprise, while in free roam the special zombies appear in the same locations every time, maybe adjusted a bit by the free roam area changing between main characters. It is interesting that the game keeps track of total zombies killed for the entire game...usually ending up in the tens of thousands after a single play through.

The story is treated with surprising seriousness, and you can see the city going to hell as the quarantine zone keeps getting forced out further and further. Though the concept is a bit off, the main character's treat zombies running around the city like you would expect them to given their personalities from the previous games. There are references to previous games, though enough explanation is given that its doubtful anyone would be too lost. With how well they treat the story, its hard to believe its a side story. Unfortunately, it seems it'll be the last one released stateside, since they don't plan to release five in English.

If I had any issues with the game, it would be the repetitiveness. Its easier than other games in the series to complete all the side quests and various minigames, but it gets very annoying to have to go in to the free roam zone, do part one of a quest, step back out, go back in to do part two, rinse and repeat, each time fighting the same zombies over and over.

Progress wise, all I need to do is grind my level up to ninety nine for a trophy, then its time for Dead Souls mode.

Been a long time...

Over a year in fact. Since the last time I posted on this blog, I have gotten a new job, one that stresses me out significantly less, and have had far more personal time to game. For some reason, that translated to less of a will to blog about every game I have played, and thus me not touching this little section of the web in so long.

Not that I have many/any loyal fans, but over the next few weeks, I will go over the various games I have beaten over the last year, and discuss what I recall about them and various opinions relating to them. It won't be as detailed as my previous posts for the most part, but probably a bit more neutral. Easier to be more rational when you aren't just off the high/low of finishing the game.