Now I am thinking with portals!

Yo!

I have now completed Portal 2 and Pokémon Black Version. I've already spoken a bit about PBV, and pretty much what I said earlier still held true throughout the game. The developers of the game have upped the difficulty a few notches from Pearl/Diamond for example, which is a big plus in my book. Instead of just leveling the hell out of your starter pokémon, you now have to have good reserves in your team of other types. Some trainers you meet have pokémon that can use attacks of completely different types, or simply use different pokémon like one fire type, one grass and so on. Still, leveling your starter pokémon a lot works for most fights since it will outclass your opponents because of the higher level, but all in all the game is a lot harder. I also like that they've done away with some of the more unnecessary elements of the game, like baking your pokémon a cake (it's a lie, ECKSS DEE ECKS DEE), planting seeds in order to harvest berries or having to enter it into a beauty contest... This makes the game flow nicer but also makes it a bit less interesting I guess.

As far as the design of the new pokémon goes it's probably the most dissapointing part of the game. It seems as if they are running out of ideas since most of the pokémon are uninspired, bland or plain boring. I mean, who wants to have a pig as their starting pokémon? Nothing rivals the pokémon in the original game, Pearl/Diamond was fine bit a bit too strange and outlandish in general I think. The question is whether we'll see something as good as the first game in this department, time will tell, as long as the franchise keeps selling like butter on a hot day there is still a chance.

I got the original Portal when I bought the Orange Box a while back. I bought that bundle of MODS (because that's what it is), since I wanted to play Team Fortress 2 to see what all the fuss was about. I was severely unimpressed by TF2, and played Portal only since I got it too with the aforementioned hot deal. Portal 1 was a pretty fun and nice puzzle game (I do love me a the Adventures of Lolo), but my major gripe was that it was too short. It's amazing what a following it has gained considering you can easily finish it under four hours and there's just not much in terms of substance, in every level you do the same thing.

Portal 2 is more of a real game, at least that's what it tries to be. It has a different tone, where Portal 1 had a mostly humoristic tone, Portal 2 is more grim and goes for a more post-apocalyptic feeling not different from the one found in Half-Life 1 and 2. The game certainly is longer than its predecessor, but it's still not "long" by any means. I finished it in seven hours which is an eon compared to how long it takes to finish the Call of Duty games' single player modes, but it's just not enough for a full-priced game. There's little to no replay value to be found here unlike the CoD games' multiplayer modes for example. All the major game review sites like Gamespot and IGN have given the game raving reviews and 9+ ratings. This is baffling to me to be honest, and I think this might just be the final nail in the coffin for me to ever trust these bought sites again. There is just so much trust you can give these people and it's used up for me. And that's not even taking into account the inflation in the review scores, for this to get a 9.5 rating on IGN is beyond retarded. There is just no way to justify that score, no matter how much you twist, turn or use portals on it.

What I expected from the game, which I don't think is too much to ask for, is some sort of juicy backstory or tie-in to the Half-Life universe. There is a part - minor spoiler alert I guess - of the game which takes place in the lower levels of Aperture where stuff are from the 1950's and the company's beginnings (clearly heavily inspired by the Bioshock games), but Black Mesa is just very briefly mentioned and that's it. Portal 2 plays just like the first one except it's easier, which is not very good. It has more of an overworld feeling where you get to see how the puzzle rooms look from the outside, a bit like looking at the Cube in the movie with the same name. There are more afterconstructions in this game than in the Star Wars prequels combined, and this feels like one of them. Accompanying you on your trip is a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy-inspired british robot called Weasley. This is a matter of preferences, but I hated this guy from the beginning and just thought he was very annoying. For me, the game would've been better of without him (like the first game). Glados is a more interesting character, especially as you get to know more about her origin.

The graphics look awesome and epic, they really do. Looking at the neverending expanse of cubes that Aperture sience consists of is something else, but there is still something about the source engine that makes everything look unnatural and plastasene. Now granted that's perfectly fine for a game like Portal 2 considering where it takes place, the graphics just don't look as good as in Resident Evil 5 which is not even that recent of a game, or games like Modern Warfare 2 or Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Which brings me to my next point. Just like in Portal 1, what the game does more than anything is make you want to play a new Half-Life game. And with that I mean a new game, not a modification like Episode 3. They've pushed the source engine as far as it goes now, the next Half-Life needs a new graphics engine.

That turned out much longer than I intended, but oh well might as well use this space to "review" games I play. I'd rather do it here than at the fascistic censoring bought websites that have one hand in the pocket of the game companies.

Laters!

Gotta catch 'em all!

Hi!

Despite buying all of those other games, including actual 3DS-games, the game I've been playing the most is Pokémon Black. I thought I had had enough of this franchise when I finished Heartgold version without dying once, as I mentioned in the last post. It appears not so much, which really shows how addictive these games are. For some reason this game seems every so sliiightly harder than HG, since I've died twice now, the first one being the initial battle you have with your friend "rival". For variety's sake I chosed the grass pokémon, which I've never done before in a pokémon game since I think it seems bad and those pokémons usually are a bit boring. However I think you early on meet pokémons that are good against grass type, like electricity ones, ground types, psychic, fire and so on. Obviously, at least in my play through, your rival has the type that is bad for you (fire), and the first gym leader adapts so it is that one as well.

In Blue/Red I chosed Charmander (which apparently is the most difficult one) and for Diamond I grabbed the water one which coupled with an electricity type I almost never had to switch to any other for any battle whatsoever. Since I ground out the battles with wild pokémon even though I could've ran instead or used repel more, my water type dude (Empoleon eventually, can't remember the name of its first form) had such a high level it didn't matter if the enemies were a bad matchup. The possible exception was when you fought against some dragons towards the end, but even those I could one-shot once I got the opportunity when their attack missed or whatever. The game said you had to train at least three pokémon of different types equally in order to do well, that sure as hell wasn't the case for me. In Diamond I remember losing one single fight throughout the playthrough, which I wouldn't have done if I had not been too stingy with the potions at that point in the game. Of course, the game's main target audience is children, so this is not that strange, the difficulty is geared towards that target audience and I should move on to hardcore games for mature audiences like Halo and Modern Warfare 2... I played Pokémon Red back in the day and I think it's a genius idea for a game, likely I'll continue to play them so bite me. Pokémon is the only RPG I've really enjoyed, which says a lot. And yes I know some people don't think Pokémon is an RPG at all, but I digress. What is it if not an RPG? Some people would even say that Zelda is an RPG game, something I however don't agree with. It's more of an action/adventure game with RPG elements, but no proper leveling for one.

Oh well, gotta go now and watch MorroW pwn some noobs in the TSL!

Later!

Going Big

Hi!

Today I decided to give in to temptation and buy Nintendo's latest gadget, the 3DS along with Street Fighter IV and Rayman 3D. I also got Marvel vs Capcom 3 for the 360 and Pokémon Black for DS. The 3D effect on the 3DS is actually pretty cool, something I have not really read anything about in the numerous reviews I've checked out. If you've seen a 3D movie at a theater lately, this is pretty much exactly like that except that it's a lot sharper (the movies sometimes get a bit fuzzy especially when there's a lot of movement going on), and of course that you don't need any 3D-glasses to get the effect.

It's also a matter of which game you play. Street Fighter is the one game out of the release titles that has gotten the best reviews, however it's a 2D fighting game so the 3D effect isn't fully utilized. Rayman is I'm sure a very mediocre game, but the way the perspective is used makes it way cooler and more immersive than the aforementioned fighting game. The game itself is as I understand it a port of an old game and plays basically as a low-grade version of Super Mario 64. But that's fine since I got the game cheap with the console itself and it's fine just to showcase the 3D effect.

I haven't had time to play Pokémon Black or MVC3 that much but so far they are promising. Fighting games isn't usually the genre I play the most, but I do enjoy it and I'm trying to get into it more. The only fighting game I've really played a lot before is Super Smash Bros Brawl, and that's mostly for the nostalgia factor. What's more is that a lot of people probably don't even consider that one a "real" fighting game, whatever that is. The last Pokémon game I played - Heartgold version - I finished without even losing one single fight. Which kind of sucked because one of the main things I look for in a game is a challenge. Oh well at least in this one they've tried to change things up a little, and a positive is that I lost the second fight so that's promising at least. More news to come as they unfold and as I venture into the wonderful world of the third dimension.

Peace out!

Limbo

Hi!

I'm subscribed to the comedy group Mega64's channel on YouTube, and a few days ago they posted a new video. In case you aren't familiar with Mega64, they do comedy skits related to various video games, where they take a game and sort of put it into real life in a public place. The guys first started doing this around the time Jackass first came out so that's probably an explanation for the format of the skits. The harrassment that ensues is usually pretty funny as long as you as a viewer is familiar with the game in question. Anyway, the video in question was for a game Limbo that I hadn't played so I looked it up and decided to give it a try.



Old school 2D-games really is my cup of tea, and that's what this game is all about. Two of the games I've written about previously here - Donkey Kong Country Returns and Super Meat Boy - both have dark levels where the foreground just is a pitch black outline, and the background very toned down. This seems to be a trend with current platformers as the whole Limbo game uses this graphics style to a very good effect. The game is extremely moody even though it uses little to no music and more ambient sounds, and it's completely in black and white. The character design as well as the animation is spot-on. The gameplay is a mix between platforming and solving puzzles. In many ways it feels like a 2D version of Half-Life or Portal (obviously without the portals and/or guns). My biggest gripe is that the game is very short, some reviews state that it clocks in at around five hours, when I played it through in one sitting yesterday it felt more like three to four hours. Then again it's an independent game that you download, while you certainly don't get as much replay value as Super Meat Boy dishes out, the experience is... less frustrating, I guess? Anyway, it was a welcome game to fill out the time waiting for Duke Nukem Forever (delayed again!) and one that I recommend.

Laters!

Pro gaming

Hi!

I was planning to talk about pro gaming in this post, and as it happens I catched via the almighty Interwebz that there was going to be a few matches tonight. It was the TSL starcraft league, whatever that is, and some players I recognized competing like Huk and Jinro. Now, I don't play multiplayer SCII I prefer to watch it instead for various reasons. As long as the casters are good you still understand what is going on enough to enjoy the games. About a year before SCII was released, I watched Brood War from Korea religiously, even the replays. Part of the fascination was not only that koreans get so excited about this game, but the fact that Starcraft was a really old game by then with ancient (ugly) graphics, and despite this still going strong.

I think Blizzard took the easy way out when they used the old resource-gathering system for SCII instead of a more modern one - but they had their reasons - and from what I gather even the koreans have adopted to play primarily SCII instead of the first one. This could be wrong, but at least the GSL uses SCII and that's the only thing I watch these days when it comes to SCII pro gaming. In the first Warcraft game, your workers chopped down trees and went into a mine for gold, which made perfect sense but various workers collecting glowing minerals and some sort of gas makes less sense. Oh well, the point is rather moot anyway since the game is already finished and released and has been so for over six months.

For some reason I think that games of SCII are less diverse than BW, again I'm no expert, but it seems that there certainly is more of a chance of a long macro game on BW which in my opinion are the most interesting ones to watch. So after a while I got tired of watching random dudes playing eachother each and every day on GSL. However, things change around when someone like Jinro is playing (or even Idra for that matter). I'm from Sweden so being able to root for a countryman makes watching the games all that more entertaining, much like any other random sport which I guess makes sense when you think about it. Just any foreigner (as in non-korean) is fun to root for as well, since it's inspiring that they make it all the way to Korea in order to duke it out with the godly koreans with their insane APM. If this sounds racist that's not the case, for example the name player koreans are often very cool to watch as well even though that was more of the case with the BW leagues. Besides from Starcraft, Counter-Strike and Quake Live are great games to watch pro gaming matches of, although they're not as popular and I'm not as involved and knowledgeable about exactly when and where you find these games streamed.

Until next time, signing off.

Buddha Provides

Yo!

Not a lot of updates lately, as I mentioned in the previous post, much because I haven't played a lot of video games lately. Which in turn is because there aren't that many interesting that have been released. However, at times like these one can resort to friendly people like Buddha for example. Buddha provided me with the ability to replay Super Mario World and Donkey Kong Country for SNES. Don't ask me how he knew that I wanted to play exactly those games, I suppose if you have reached complete insight and become one with the soul of the cosmos these things kind of come natural?

SMW I borrowed from some kid who lived on our street when I was younger and played it on my SNES (I never actually owned it). I remember finishing it very quickly and I enjoyed it but it never made that much of an impression on me. Playing it again today it really dawns on you how finely tuned a game like New Super Mario Bros for the Wii is. It might seem that NSMB for Wii has very few differences gameplay-wise when compared to the original Super Mario Bros for NES, but they really have come up with the perfect mix. I say this because SMW has not aged that well, it's not a bad game by any means, but today when a lot of features it introduced aren't that impressive it feels a bit lackluster of an experience. The enemies feel a bit off (baseball-throwing football players seem strange both flavor-wise and the way they play out - no wonder they have not returned in another Mario game), and the levels are bland. If I were to recommend a mario game for SNES it would be Super Mario All Stars - especially The Lost Levels (the real SMB2), or Yoshi's Island. The latter has awesome graphics and the only real downside is that you always run as Yoshi which can be troublesome in some parts.

I recently played through Donkey Kong Country Returns again and got all the Kong letters and pussle pieces. Playing Donkey Kong Country again it becomes more clear why I think the latest Wii outing doesn't really match up to its predecessor. DKC just has a more smooth and fast-paced gameplay, where you in DKCR often have to stop and shake the controller which turns it more into a dithery experience. Speaking of the popularily termed "waggle"-function of Wii games, it really is a blight on many games. The only rational explanation for it is that Nintendo forces the developers to put some sort of motion-controlled action into all games, even 2D platformers like NSMB and DKCR where it's completely unneccessary. Waggle would be fine it wasn't for the fact that it can fail, unlike the press of a button. If you press a button the game always responds, but when you waggle there is always a risk that you don't do it enough for the game to register it. This is particularily bad in games like NSMB where you need to waggle to fly with the helicopter hat. Many times in this game when you intend to activate the rotor, it doesn't register and Mario falls down to his untimely death. This is another downgrade to DKCR compared to the original game where you just had to press a button to perform a roll, as opposed to waggling it up in DKCR. I'm not opposed entirely to the motion sensor function of Wii, but there is a right and a wrong way of using it, waggling I think is a horrible idea - at the very least you as a player should be able change the button configuration for each game to get rid of it.

I'm gonna stop here for now but do have another topic ready for another blog post even if I don't play any video games so see you soon!

Peace out!

Future releases

Hello!

I'm not really playing a lot of new games these days, I'm unemployed at the moment so my budget is a bit restricted, also there aren't that many games released that I'm that excited about. So I thought maybe I'd write a bit about some upcoming games that look promising and that I'm certainly looking forward to. So without further ado here goes a list in no particular order with the game, the platform I plan on getting it on and preliminary release date:

Silent Hill Downpour - 360 - Q3 2011
Battlefield 3 - PC - Q4 2011
Duke Nukem Forever - PC - 3 May
Resident Evil Revelations - 3DS - TBA 2012
L.A. Noire - 360 - 17 May
Mega Man Universe - 360 - TBA
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Wii - TBA 2011

I guess out of those it's just DNF and LA Noire that have an actual release date and one that is about two months away. So that's a lot of waiting left to be done, in the case of DNF two months feels like nothing though considering I've been waiting for that one for over a decade. Duke Nukem 3D has not aged very well, but at the time it was one of the most innovative Build-engine FPS games available alongside Dark Forces. It was funny that I learned about some of the quotes Duke uses from DN3D before actually hearing were they come from. Most of them are from Army of Darkness, classics such as "Groovy!" and "Hail to the king, baby!" to name a few.

I usually play quite a few old games, it's nice to relive classics and to play games I've missed for whatever reasons. Haven't been doing that a lot lately though. To be honest I don't quite know which direction I want to be taking this blog right now, the idea was to talk about current games I'm playing. But since I'm not really playing any games right now maybe the updates will have to wait, or I'll have to come up with some related topics to talk about. Another alternative would be to talk about Magic: The Gathering, but I feel that there are already a multitude of blogs about MtG out there so it wouldn't add much (of course there certainly are a lot of blogs about video games as well). I'm thinking that starting a separate blog for that topic would perhaps be a better idea. Oh well, the future will tell, time to sign off for now.

Laters!