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Jan 13th, 2014 at 09:30:27 - Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (PS2) |
Hour 3: Wow, that was a long introduction. Not as bad as Final Fantasy XIII (not by a long shot), but man am I glad to be controlling my character for the first time.
I'm really excited to be playing Persona 4. Persona 3 was the game I was playing when I moved to Singapore 4.5 years ago. Funny how I measure time by what games I was playing. My girlfriend started it with me back then and we made the best accidental character name. Persona always asks you to input your character's Last Name, First Name, but we didn't read the instructions and assumed it was just Name. So my girlfriend typed in Dickslammer. I don't know who or what a dickslammer is, but the game read the input and produced my character name, Mer Dickslam. When we leveled up for the first time, it said "Mer Dickslam felt a surge of power inside!" and we laughed for a long time.
Now that I'm back in the US and my girlfriend and I are living together, I felt it was appropriate to play Persona 4. I left the country with 3 and came back with 4. I named my own character this time, after my girlfriend's sort of pet name for me, which is also a funny name, Drangus Kerber. Drangus sounds like a mix between dingus and something Tim & Eric would say, so it makes me laugh every time. And Kerber I think she got from mixing my last name with the "Ermahgerd" meme (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ermahgerd). Anyway, I especially like when the other characters refer to me as Drangus-san or use some other honorific with the name.
Personal stories aside, I'm really enjoying the game. It's quite similar to 3. You split your time between school, hanging out with friends, and fighting in some alternate dimension. You move through a calendar year and play each day separated into Early Morning, Morning, Lunch, After School and Evening. In this case, the alternate dimension is a world inside the TV. Drangus moved from the big city to live with his uncle and cousin in Inaba, a small town in the countryside. The day after he moves, there is a brutal murder of a TV newswoman who was having an affair with a politician. She is found hanging dead from a TV antenna. The girl who found the body goes missing soon after.
Around school, a rumor spreads that if you look into the TV at midnight on a rainy night, you see the "Midnight Channel" and you'll see your soul mate in the screen. Drangus and his friends try it and see the missing girl, who is also a student at their school. The girl is found dead the next morning hanging from a telephone pole. Drangus and his friends find this strange, and through a series of events, realize that they can go inside the TV.
So begins a series of rescues as they see people on the midnight channel, and go find them in the TV world, and try to solve the mystery of how people are getting in the TV, who is killing them and why. There are a bunch of subplots and it's more complicated than what I've written here of course.
Most every system is the same as Persona 3. Combat, using personas, social links, etc. etc. The big addition in 4 is weather. You can only view the midnight channel on rainy nights. That is when you will see the next person who will be abducted. Then you have until the fog comes to save that person. The fog comes after a long period of rain. So you have to watch weather forecasts to stay prepared and determine how long you have to rescue the person. If you fail to rescue them before the fog comes, they die and it's game over. The weather factors into other systems and player decisions as well. For example, if you join the soccer team, they won't practice when it's raining. You get more out of studying when it's raining.
Another addition is part-time jobs. You have various personality traits (knowledge, diligence, expression, courage, understanding...1 more) that you need to get certain jobs, and that certain jobs will increase. You sign up for jobs and can go to work when you have time. You'll often get boosts in some personality trait and some cash. So I've taken a baby-sitting job that pays well and increases my understanding, and I can take the bus to work on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays. I've also taken an envelope folding job that pays hardly anything but increases my diligence because it's boring work. I can do that any night in my room.
At this point in the game (15 hours in or so) I have rescued one person from the TV, and she joined my party. I've gone through all the story bits and am primed to go into the TV world again to rescue the next person, who is a punk whose family owns a textile shop in the town's shopping district. All the victims are related somehow (I think it has to do with the fact that they're all involved in local businesses, and there's a big department store come to town putting them all out). I also just got this fox companion who will heal my party and restore SP (magic) in the TV world. Previously, I had to leave the TV world to heal. It will be great if I can stay in the TV world, because once you leave the TV world, then it becomes the next day. So if you don't leave, you don't waste time having to go back there multiple times, and you can spend the time instead working on improving social links or personality traits.
My main goal right now is to figure out strategies for maximizing increasing social links and personality traits. Each social link represents a certain arcana (Strength, Justice, Priestess, Magician, whatever...all the types in the SMT universe in every SMT game). If you have a persona of the arcana matching that social link, then hanging out with that person will boost your closeness faster. This is awesome with party members in this game because as your social links with them level up, they gain abilities in battle. So far Yosuke (social link level 3) can take a mortal blow for me and can occasionally counter. Chie (level 2) can take a mortal blow. Yukiko (no social link yet!) can't do anything. And then increasing personality traits is good for all kinds of things. Having certain traits at certain levels unlocks quests, unlocks conversations and the ability to form social links, unlocks part-time jobs, and more. For example, I studied a lot before exams to try and increase my knowledge. Consequently, I did really well on the school exams, which made me more popular. Each level in diligence makes me able to catch one more fish while fishing (you can trade fish to a vendor for items) before I get tired and have to go home. Anyway, maximizing efficiency in these areas will make Drangus Kerber a better character.
Aaaand that's that. I suppose I'll update again if something crazy happens. I expect the game to take me like 80 hours, so unless something crazy does happen, this log will be silent for a while!
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Jan 13th, 2014 at 08:43:54 - The Longest Journey (PC) |
Going to write a couple quick entries for some ongoing games. First is The Longest Journey, a point-and-click adventure game from the late '90s. This is one that appeared on "Top 100 PC Games of All Time" lists and so I had grabbed it and its sequel at some point. I installed it to be my next "I don't have a mouse handy" game and it got some initial play time while I was on vacation when I was doing what I do waking up hours before everyone else in the house.
First impressions: Very awesome environmental art. The backgrounds, especially the fantasy stuff, are colorful and imaginative. I had no idea what the game was about before playing, and I'm happy to say now that I like how it alternates between two worlds, two Earths. It's a cool story that has been built up nicely so far.
~Hour 3: I began using a walkthrough. I made it through the prologue and most of Chapter 1 without help, but yeah, this is a classic point-and-click in the sense that the puzzles are just...hard. I would never think to do most of the actions that turn out to be puzzle solutions. Last time I was playing, there is a scene with a rubber duck float in a canal, a pulley, a seagull, and a wooden crate. You have to throw the bread (inventory item) onto the duck float, which makes the seagull swoop down and land on the crate, which dislodges the duck float and sends it downstream. Then you pull the pulley up and take the rope on it. Then you have to go retrieve the duck float. You have to get this key that is on a train track. To get the key, you have to blow up the duck float, put a bandaid (inventory item) on the hole in the duck float to keep the air from leaking too fast, tie the rope (inventory item) around the duck float, attach a clamp (inventory item) to the rope, and toss the duck float/clamp thing at the key. I'm still not sure how the key actually got picked up, but that's what you have to do to get it.
Thanks to puzzles like these, I am now just playing with a walkthrough next to me. It's much faster and keeping my attention much more.
~Hour 5: Wow, this really is the longest journey. I thought that with a walkthrough I would breeze on through. Not the case! I used the walkthrough straight up in Chapter 2 and it took almost 2 hours! There are like 13 chapters! Not complaining. I like a long story-rich game.
On the downside, I've noticed that there are quite a few long, drawn out dialogue scenes that literally go on for 10+ minutes. These draaaag. One in particular with some priest who explains the entire history of the world to you was way way way too much information at once. I guess in Chapter 2 there were a lot of these scenes. Hopefully that's a front-loaded exposition kind of thing and it tapers off, but we shall see. The story is really neat and the voice acting is pretty good, so I want to listen. I just don't want to sit still for so long at a time!
~Hour 6: I have noticed the protagonist April Ryan has clown feet. Shaquille O'Neal called and wants his shoes back.
I've decided since this is such a calm point-and-click to just play when I am eating a meal by myself. If I play when I'm not doing anything else simultaneously, I get sort of bored. Playing in small chunks while eating seems to be right on. This'll replace Seinfeld for my "what to do while eating" activity.
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Jan 5th, 2014 at 12:20:31 - Alice: Madness Returns (PC) |
Finished this yesterday, been playing it for weeks.
Most important thing:
The art design in this game is AMAZING. It's worth playing just to marvel at. I took like 50 screenshots, which is probably why my time played is a good hour over average. It is so incredibly imaginative and beautiful and horrifying at the same time. It really looks like a messed up nightmare and fits the name of the game.
The story is basically that Alice's mind is ravaged. Reality and fantasy mix and she finds herself alternately in this demented Wonderland in her mind and in the dreary slums of London where she is an orphan. She's struggling with the memories of her family's death and the house fire that killed them all. As she encounters the people she knows in London and the denizens of Wonderland, she slowly unravels the truth of the fire and deals with her memories and the reality she is faced with. The story is slow-going and comes largely from collectible "memories" throughout the game world, so don't expect a deep hulk of a story. It's simple, well-told, and drawn out to immerse you in her mind.
That said, perhaps there is some imbalance between the pace of the tale and the time spent just platforming in Wonderland. The platforming and fighting and exploring are all a whole lot of fun, but yeah, the ratio of doing things that don't advance the story to doing things that advance the story is pretty low.
Combat is sweet and simple. You get 4 weapons over time, all upgradeable (and I upgraded them all easily to max power). There's a butcher's knife (quick piercing weaker attacks), a "hobby horse," which is one of those horse heads on a stick that kids pretend to ride around (slow smashing stronger attacks), a pepper grinder (like a machine gun) and a teapot cannon (like a grenade launcher). There is a large variety of enemies, some overarching throughout the game (Ruins) and some unique to each level in Wonderland, like Samurai wasps in the Far East and drowned sailors and cannon crabs in the underwater world. Each enemy has their own ways of attacking and there are fairly specific ways Alice has to attack each one. It makes for a big variety in combat even though there are just 4 weapons. For example, the female dolls, you need to hit with a hobby horse until you smash their clothes off and smash their bodies open, then stab them with the knife in the heart. One of the types of Ruin, you need to deflect a fireball with your umbrella (just used for deflecting projectiles) to weaken it and then bash it to death with the hobby horse. It's the most fun and challenging when a lot of enemy types are present at once.
There is also a lot of good platforming action to be had, with some (not very difficult) puzzles. Self-explanatory, yeah? There are switches to shoot, scales to jump on, buttons to press, chess matches to win...There are also a variety of "mini-games," some of which are fun, some of which are highly dubious and not fun. I always enjoyed the slides. I always enjoyed the arenas where you have to stay alive for a certain amount of time or kill all the enemies. The trivia questions are like freebies. I thought the parts where you guide the baby doll head through the maze were cool, but not implemented very well, so usually not much fun. The camera usually was awful there. The music mini-game was simple and pointless. And on and on...
Camera can be a little wonky. During combat it's fine unless you use the targeting system to lock on an enemy. Unfortunately this is an unavoidable part of fighting some enemies. The camera like zooms in on whatever you're locked on to and Alice gets in lock-step with it, so she can't turn around or anything. This sucks when there is more than one enemy around because you can't see behind you or turn or anything without de-targeting the enemy. Also you can tab-target to switch, but it seems to just switch randomly, so it's a pain in the ass to switch among targets to find the one you want. Very frustrating and a handful of deaths because of it. And as mentioned, the camera during those rolling baby doll head sections is godawful. I can see the camera being more of an issue on consoles than PC because it is a little touchy too. Also, Alice had the irritating habit of auto-running forward or right for some reason. Sometimes she'd just get stuck running and I couldn't stop her. It's not my keyboard, definitely an issue with the game controls sticking at times.
One of the best parts of the game, as you can imagine from my gushing over the environments and artwork, is the exploration. It's not open world at all, but there are lots of secret areas to find. Alice can shrink. When she shrinks, there is purple writing on the walls that gives hints about secrets. Go through keyholes, hop on invisible platforms and more to discover collectible memories, teeth to upgrade weapons, and just cool looking places. Exploring is very rewarding.
One last thing that is interesting is that during the credits, most of the names are Chinese. Weird, right? Is this a Chinese game marketed to the West or what? I looked it up and apparently Spicy Horse, American McGee's game company, is located in Shanghai, and indeed they are the largest independent Western developer in China (thanks WIkipedia) and this is the first (console) game ever that was entirely developed and designed in China for export. Fun facts.
Totally recommend giving this a shot. I loved it.
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Jan 5th, 2014 at 11:42:39 - Halo 4 (360) |
Just completed Halo 4. It was good enough, fun enough, solid, nothing unexpected. Maybe the Halo series has become a little stale for me, or this one just didn't measure up to my favorites like 2 and 3. Not sure.
Either way, there is one thing I do know. After...5 Halo games (that I've played anyway), there NEEEEEDS to be an in-game compendium. I didn't have much clue what was going on in the grand scheme of the Halo universe. Cortana wakes up, wakes Master Chief up, she's suffering from "rampancy" which is like AI death, and the gist of the game is Master Chief and Cortana trying to get home to the scientist who created Cortana to fix her. In the meantime, they stumble upon some alien who is going to...do something...bad...and they have to stop him or else...bad stuff...will happen...I think...
Forerunners, Reclaimer, Reclamation, Halos, Covenant, various military personnel, Cortana, Master Chief, Forward Unto Dawn, other ship names, planet names, Prometheans...an in-game compendium would have been so helpful because I forgot what half these words mean. A refresher on the story so far would also have been amazing. I either missed a ton of backstory somewhere along the line, or I don't remember, or it wasn't explained well, but there is stuff in this game about Master Chief's origins and Cortana's origins and their relationship. I know they were always fond of one another, but Cortana seems to be a little...in love...with Master Chief. Maybe it's her rampancy and her approaching death that are making her emotional, who knows. Anyway, was I supposed to have more of an idea of this stuff before this game, or did they just cram some of it in?
Luckily, the game is still a solid fun shooter even if I didn't really understand the big narrative picture. All the favorite guns are back, with some new ones for the new enemies. It's a bummer they took away dual wielding (or didn't put it back in, can't remember which game removed it). You just get two guns at a time to switch between. There are also grenades, one new type that creates like a warp explosion. The items were pretty sweet this time around. This is a gameplay aspect that has been pointless in several Halo games, so glad to see they got something good this time around. Basically you have armor modules that you pick up. You can have one at a time. There is a plasma shield, hologram, sprint, sentry drone, "predator" vision, jetpack, maybe another. The hologram was pretty useful for drawing fire away from me. Predator vision was sweet for sniping and seeing through fog in one particular set of levels. My favorite was the jetpack. I liked flying over enemies' heads and getting to high sniping positions.
Halo 4 overall felt a little "same-y" to me. It's certainly not as repetitive as Halo 1's godawful hallways, but a lot of the environments, especially in ships, looked very similar, and I seemed to be fighting in the same types of rooms and semi-open spaces. I was surprised that there weren't many very open spaces like in some previous games. If there were open spaces, then it was pretty much a vehicle sequence. Speaking of, there were definitely less vehicle sequences too, less vehicles to pilot. That kinda sucks because I always liked the variety of Halo's vehicles, speeding around mowing down Covenant. Part of this less open, less playground-y feel I think makes Halo 4 feel more similar to lots of other AAA shooter titles. There was more handholding for sure than previous Halo games.
Anyway, good times. Worth a play through if you like Halo at all. There's probably great multiplayer fun to be had, so I'll keep the game around in case I ever get the bug.
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