HAHA

I have literally made no progress in Kingdom Hearts since the last post. But this is really freaking funny.

Over Half Way - Kingdom Hearts 2

I was able to get a good few hours into KH2 this weekend, and I have to say that my impression of the game has flipped. I was kinda bored with the combat, but intrigued by the story - now its the opposite. Right around the half way mark, the difficulty goes through the roof. I actually had to start thinking strategically, adjusting my equipment, using healing spells and actually use my brain to play it - all of which is great.

The story on the other hand took a giant nose dive. Well, I wouldn't say that - the story finally picks up the main plot again around the same mid-point. Dealing with Sora's search for Kairi and Riku, the mysterious Organization XIII, Mickey shows his face a whole bunch and Maleficent - your main nemesis - starts causing all sorts of trouble. The problem is the delivery of these plot points. The cutscenes BEAT YOU OVER THE HEAD with the obvious. There is no room for you to do a little deductive reasoning.

Whoa, I think I just saw that scary dude from Organization XIII out of the corner of my eye
Goofy: "Gawrsh, do you think that was the fella from Organization XIII?"
Ugh...

It's just that spoonfeeding of the plot that is so infuriating. So many times I found myself screaming "Oh my God, I GET IT!"

And then I had to deal with this $#!T

Yup. And they MADE you do that before you could continue.

There's certainly enough to keep me playing through now that the combat is improving, and while the delivery of the story is awful, the actual plot is interesting enough. Hopefully take this out soon.

Still Playing: Kingdom Hearts 2 (and iPad)

Oh Steve Jobs. You've done it again.

So last Friday was my birthday and my wife surprised me with an iPad. Well, more like shocked me with an iPad. I didn't necessarily ask for it, and I certainly wasn't expecting it, but I was drooling all over it. Yesterday I finally went to get a case and a iTunes card so I could get a few games on the thing.

Since my portable collection isn't being counted into my backlog, I won't count iPad games either. I will however be playing them parallel to my backlog journey. So while the iPad games won't get a full write up, I'll throw out a review here or there. I am currently fully dissolved into the wonderment of Puzzle Quest 2 on the iPad. What a glorious game.

Legit crack.

Now - Kingdom Hearts 2. I'm about 12 hours in and just got to the Pirates of the Caribbean world. I'm starting to get reacquainted with the story but the combat is just tedious. Most reviews of the game have complained that while you have access to spells and upgrades and special techniques, you only need the "Attack" button. You rarely even need to heal. So really the only thing you're doing is mashing the X button over and over without any thought or strategy or consideration of your health or MP or whatever.

I still enjoy the game's varied worlds and decent story, but I just find the combat to be an exercise in tedium. Even boss battles are button mashing affairs with maybe a context sensitive button press at the end to finish it.

By most accounts, KH2 is 30-40 hours, so I'm almost halfway th...oh sorry. I was thinking about Puzzle Quest 2.

Up Next: Kingdom Hearts 2

 

Alright. Kingdom Hearts. I've been playing a lot of shorter games lately and I thought it was time to throw in a big one. The first game captured gamers' imagination with the combo of Final Fantasy and Disney characters. Many skeptics thought the game would fail, but it turned out to be a wildly successful game which grew into an enormous franchise. 

Why I Never Finished It: I adored the first game's story and gameplay, aside from a few gripes, but the second one...ehhh. I initially planned to start from the beginning when I started playing it again last night, but I had already put in 9 hours, and I wasn't forfeiting that time. From what I remember, the first five hours is EXTREMELY slow and tedious. By the time I got to the nine hour mark, I had no reason - gameplay or story - to continue. So here I go. This is gonna be painful. Well, not painful...annoying. Like sitting on your wallet for a long car ride. 

Kingdom Hearts 2 for PS2. Let's do it.

Review: Doom

Doom. The godfather of First Person Shooters. Call of Duty and Halo owe everything to id Software's romp through hell. But Doom came out in 1993 - eighteen years ago. So it can legally buy lottery tickets and cigarettes, but can it still entertain this generation of twitch happy gamers?

Design & Gameplay

Doom is for all intents and purposes, the blueprint for a First Person Shooter.  While it may look awfully rudimentary today, the design is still remarkably unchanged in these past eighteen years. 

The basic idea is that you are an unnamed green clad Space Marine sent to various Moon bases that have been overrun by demonic monsters; shoot everything. You start out with a simple pistol, but will quickly find upgrades such as the shotgun, chaingun, plasma gun - and everyone's favorite - the BFG 9000. 

BFG (bee-eff-GEE): noun - The first initial is Big. The last initial is Gun. I'm sure you can figure out the middle one. 

The one thing about this that did give off the antiquey feel was that you could hold six guns at once. This sounds nice, but without a keyboard to map a specific gun to a specific key, I was stuck SLOOOWWWLY cycling through my arsenal with the D pad. Modern FPS games usually only allow you to carry two guns, and now I see why that is the stronger design choice. 

On the other hand, the thing that gave me the most pleasant surprise was the level design. While the "this all looks the same" pixelated environments ended up getting me lost from time to time, the levels overall are masterful creations. Once within the second episode especially, the levels become HUGE monstrous beasts to overcome, sometimes more diabolical than the enemies themselves. Lava and poisonous liquid provided hazardous "no no" areas that could only be accessed with a shielding suit, while hidden doors and elevators satisfied my search-and-collect gaming instincts.

Each level also came with a set of goals: upon completion, you were shown the percentages of the total enemies which you killed, items you found and secret doorways you uncovered. There was also a "Par" completion time for each level which were ludicrously low - most are sub three minutes, while my first playthrough averaged me about 20 minutes per level. Regardless of how impossible the goals were, it was cool to see your numbers after a specifically difficult triumph.

Pfft. Get outta my face.

Crap crap crap!

The enemies range from possessed pistol shooting guards, to huge, demonic, fire flinging Satan spawn. And each enemy requires a different amount of bullets to be in them before dying. This sounds silly, but it really adds a ton of weight to the gravity of your situation when you've unloaded 15 shotgun blasts into something that has yet to show a single sign of pain. Which leads in perfectly to my next point: scavenging.

We've seen this design tactic in games as recent as 2007's Bioshock - where you are given just enough ammo to squeak by, but are essentially forced to seek out bullets and health on your own. It works, especially in a game with scary overtones, it adds a sense of desperation and panic from time to time. When you only have 3 shells left, you better effing make sure they hit their target.

Presentation

This is a tough one to judge. I don't remember it clearly enough from back in the day, but I'm sure the graphics were impressive when Doom was first released. My problem here is I'm playing it on XBOX Live, which usually upgrades old games into high res remakes. And while I'm glad they kept it pure, the game could have benefited from a little polish. I mentioned above that a lot of areas get that samey feel to them, and that was really my biggest gripe with the game. It was far to easy to get lost and lose track of where you have and haven't been. 

 

Awwgh! This looks just like that other room with the floor pentagram. Now I'm lost.

Overall though the game achieved the scariness it was going for. Especially toward the middle of the game, there are some areas that are covered in demonic symbols, which in general makes people uncomfortable but couple that with rooms where the power goes out and screaming, fire breathing demons, and you've got yourself a survival horror experience going on. 

Stuff I Loved: 

• Solid level design
• Variety of weapons
• Legit scary at points

Stuff I Hated: 

• Rooms all look the same sometimes
• Clunky, old design at points
• Slow weapon swap

Overall, Doom still lives up to its legend. It is a great, well crafted experience that should be played by anyone who's currently "pwning newbs" in CoD or Halo. I can't say I recommend the XBOX version, I think the PC version probably plays better, and more than likely you can get it for free. I think it's public domain at this point.

Review in Ten Words or Less: 
The godfather of FPS games still holds up

Alright, You Know What? No. I'm Done. FINISHED: Doom

Completion Time: About seven hours

Level: Hurt Me Plenty (Normal)

So here's the story. The original Doom had three episodes. Ultimate Doom, a version that was released a few years later, and is the version they released on XBLA, has an additional episode created by fans that is "extra hardcore" and "For Doom experts only." Well they weren't effing kidding. Episode four is nigh impossible with my FPS sensibilities. I spent an hour playing the first level only to get through one room. So screw it.

I beat Episode Three. I killed the Spiderdemon with the BFG. I saw this ending:

I proved too tough for Hell to contain. You're damn right.

As far as I'm concerned I beat the damn thing. And the fourth episode is simply bonus levels.

Done. Next. Review coming shortly.

Still Playing...DOOM

Oh yes. So I did a little research into this game and thought I'd share my findings. Doom is broken up into four episodes with nine levels each. The first episode was released as "freeware" by id Software to anyone who wanted it. This is the reason behind the game's massive penetration and in 1993, Doom was deemed "the number one cause of decreased productivity in businesses around the world". Seeing that it was pretty much the coolest game on the market, and the first game to bring online deathmatches to the mainstream, the title was definitely earned. 

One of the other cool things about Doom was the fact that the developers allowed anyone access to their development tools - allowing anyone to create levels for Doom, or to create entirely new games based on the game's engine with the ability to share their creations online. Many amateur and professional games were developed using id's tools - games based on South Park, Aliens, and Pokemon were some of the fan creations, while Chex Quest - a professionally developed "advergame" was quite popular, garnering an underground fan base. 

Chex Quest

As far as my experience with Doom, it started off fairly sour, until I adjusted my thinking to that of a early 90s PC gamer. For example, there are zero checkpoints within levels. You die, you are sent back to the beginning of the level and stripped of every gun and armor upgrade you acquired. But you can save anywhere at any time. So I simply had to force myself to save after every minor victory to make sure I didn't end up in frustration-ville. The other big brain retrain was the fact that you cannot look up or down. If an enemy is above or below you, you simply have to aim your X axis at him and the gun will automatically shift up or down to compensate. A minor, but important thing to remember. 

Overall, I'm absolutely loving this game. I've never gotten as far as I am now (halfway through Episode 3), and I'm excited to see this thing through to the end. Hopefully you are too.