Portal in Under Two Minutes

A bunch of my friends want to play the new Portal, but haven't played the first one. This is for them and anyone else who hasn't played Valve's wonder-game. It spoils the entire first game, though - so watch carefully.

Initial Impressions: P0rtal 2

I'm about two hours into this little wonder, and I am highly impressed.

The game picks up where the first one left off - kind of. You have been somehow detained in suspended animation, and awoken by a male AI voice that informs you that "you have been asleep for FIFTY days" and instructs you to "look at the art on the wall" to stimulate your brain. Then you are instructed to go back to sleep. The next time you wake up the voice says "you have been asleep for 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9..." and your room looks like an ancient ruin, leading you to believe that you've been launched hundreds, if not thousands of years into the future.

Then the anticipation begins. Where is GlaDos? She is nowhere to be seen or heard as you make your way through the first few levels of the game, instead you are guided by an extremely friendly, witty and for some reason, British droid. When you finally do reunite with GlaDos, the tension is at a fever pitch and it's clear that she is bent on revenge. But not simply killing you - that would be too easy. The first few hours that I've played have shown GlaDos piling on the insults. Calling you fat in clever ways, torturing your mind with the fact that you will never leave the testing chambers, making things up about your back story and your parents, saying that your standard issue Aperture Science testing uniform looks "Stupid" on you, and only you - saying that this fact is stated on file by a female scientist with a fashion degree - from France.

What a bitch

The one thing I was worried about was that they would try too hard with GlaDos in this one. Making her more aware and conscious than she should be. One of the things that made her so much fun in the first game was that she was still restricted by the fact that she was a computer - kinda like how you're often reminded that Stewie is indeed still a baby on Family Guy.

To an extent, they did try too hard. GlaDos just sounds like a mean human female with auto-tune, but I don't care. The writing is so sharp and funny that it doesn't negatively impact my impression the way I thought it would. And not nerd-funny like "Oh they made a Star Trek reference" or "Haw haw! A Periodic Table joke!" Like this is legit, clever comedy writing.

The gameplay has undergone several tweaks and adjustments - all for the better. Here's what I've seen so far:

The "energy pellet" that you so often had to redirect in the first game has seemingly been replaced by a redirect-able laser beam. You can now see through walls to any portals you've laid down - similar to how you can see an outline of your allies in Left4Dead. There are the new "light bridges" which can be redirected through portals, and finally the "faith plates" are like human catapults that fling you around the room, which allows you to use the fling+portal mechanic upside down - which makes for very interesting gameplay.

Light Bridge

Overall, it's incredible. I'm finding it a little easy, and I'm not as "brain tied" as I was when I started the first one, but I know it's coming with the heavily promoted "gels" that I have yet to see.

I will have my revenge on GlaDos. I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE!

Up Next: P0rtal 2

Yup. I been breakin rules left and right lately. Here's what happened.

As you may remember, my out-of-warranty 360 bit the dust a few weeks back, rendering every XBOX and XBOX 360 in my library useless. So I traded them in to Amazon's game trade-in service and got enough for P0rtal 2, and then some.

So, technically I didn't spend any money on this new game, but it's still a new game nonetheless.

Regardless, this is the most excited I've been about a new release in a while. I'm bursting at the seams to dig into this thing. I'm gonna take my sweet, sweet time playing this one.

Let's do it. P0rtal 2 for PS3!

Review: Mega Man

Mega Man is as well known a character as Mario or Master Chief. The first game in the series was about as hard to find as it was to beat back in the heyday of the NES. So does ol' Mega Man stand the test of nearly a quarter of a century? Let's find out.

Gameplay
The basic idea of Mega Man is that there's a good scientist and a bad one. The good one creates a bunch of robots to help society and the bad one taints them and makes them do naughty things. The only one that isn't sullied is Mega Man. His goal is to stop all the evil robots from taking over the world, and finally to stop the bad scientist from being a jerk in the future. 

Guess which one is the bad guy?

Mega Man was a unique game when it was first released. It was one of the only games at the time that allowed you to complete levels non-sequentially, meaning you could pick your path through the game. The levels are all based around the robotic bosses at the end of each level. For instance, Fire Man's stage is filled with molten lava and rogue flames. Elec Man's level is buzzing with electricity and energy.

Level Select Screen

After besting each baddie, you gain the ability to use their special weapon. Bombman allows you to throw bombs, Cutman, scissors and so on. Each ability also helps you through the rest of the game and certain bosses are weak against others' abilities, so there is indeed a recommended order in which to tackle the levels that makes the trek easier.

The actual gameplay itself is tough as nails and the very meaning of unforgiving. Disappearing platforms, indestructible enemies, overpowered bosses - as tough as the game is, the designers showed real creativity for a game released two and a half decades ago. No one had ever seen anything like it, and that's what made it so dang successful and what spawned an empire of the gaming world.

Presentation
There is possibly no other 8-bit character that is riffed on more than Mega Man. Countless message board avatars, internet memes, T-Shirts, and other various paraphernalia all play on the original, blocky Mega Man design. 

Behold the Iconic Blue Bomber

The design of the characters, enemies, stages and bosses is top notch. It's how an 8-bit game would be designed today - just dripping with style and personality. Even people who have barely scraped the surface of the Mega Man universe can recognize a Mega Man boss on first glance - a true testament to fantastic 8-bit art design.

The music...well...

This is gonna generate a lot of hate, but the music really bugged me. Mega Man's music is regarded as some of the finest in the 8-bit era, but it's so high pitched and tinny that it was just unenjoyable. It was almost the feeling I got when playing an old Tiger Electronics handheld. Don't get me wrong, the melodies were very well written and masterfully constructed, but simply too high pitched to listen to. It's the type of game music that anyone else in the room would be immediately annoyed by.

Stuff I Loved: 

• Challenging and rewarding gameplay
• Wonderfully thought out character design
• Unique-for-its-time design

Stuff I Hated: 

• The freaking cyclops boss. I was forced to cheat.
• The music...sorry 

Overall, this is a beacon of fantastic 80's game design. Still fully enjoyable today by anyone who's got a taste for pain.

Finished: Mega Man 1 (Mega Man Anniversary Collection)

 

Completion Time: About four hours

Cheated: On the cyclops and Wily

Yes, one of my rules was to beat every game without cheating, but this was remarkably frustrating. The cyclops is ridiculously tough and time consuming to beat, and by the time I reached Wily, I was done with dying. 

The cheat works like this: If you pause and unpause the game while your shot is over the weak point of an enemy, the shot will count multiple times. The timing of the cheat itself takes some practice, but indeed, it is still cheating. But who cares? I beat it. Bam.

Mini Review coming shortly.

ARGGHHHHH!!!

THIS!

_

Up Next: MegaMan Anniversary Collection: MegaMan 1

This is gonna be a beast. MegaMan AC contains the first eight, excruciatingly difficult MegaMan games. I think what I'm gonna do is break this one up - since it's technically eight separate games, I'll play them one at a time and not try to take the whole disc down at once. Since its only one disc, it only counts as one game in my backlog, but if I don't break it up, I might kill something.

I just began MegaMan 1, and it's definitely hard, but not as hard as I remember. The game has infinite continues, so your progress through the six robot masters doesn't fall apart once you lose all your lives. Additionally, once you learn the timing and patterns of each level, they become a cinch - it's just the learning that makes people crazy.

I've got some free time tonight, so I may be able to beat the first one and move on to the second one if I'm up for it.

Let's do it! MegaMan 1 within MegaMan Anniversary Collection for PS2.

Review: Super Castlevania IV

When the Super Nintendo Entertainment System launched in 1991, it came with the renowned Super Mario World. However there were a few other titles available if you were a day-one purchaser, and Super Castlevania IV was one of them. For being one of the first games on a new system, it was in the spotlight - which means critiques would be particularly harsh if it bombed. Twenty years have passed since then, but the question remains the same - is this game worthy of your time and money?

Gameplay.
Super Castlevania IV's gameplay, like its design, is based very heavily on the first game in the series. Once again, you control Simon Belmont in his quest to kill Dracula. You'll be using the whip and special items just like you remember, and anyone who's played the first game, will instantly feel at home in this one. At the same time however, changes have been made that make the game significantly more fun to play than its older brothers.

First off, the special items. In the NES series, you had to press Up+B to use your special item. This worked OK until you were near a staircase and the game got confused - are you trying to go up the stairs or use your item? In SCIV, special items are thrown using the Y button. Much better.

One of the fantastic themed stages

 The jumping has also been improved. In the original, once you jumped in one direction, there was no changing it. No tweaks to make sure you landed in the right spot. While the jumping still feels stiff in SCIV, you can "course correct" in mid air - which makes for a lot less cheap deaths.

All in all the game controls the way you imagined the first one should have controlled. Smooth, intuitive, and fun.

The level design in this game is a real treat. There's a total of eleven levels - five taking place outside Castle Dracula and six within the confines of the fanged fascist's home. All of them are remarkable and the variety on display is simply jaw dropping. Levels like the gold-doubloon-laden haunted treasure trove or even the opening stage's lush, green garden really makes each stage stand out and gives each area a distinct identity.

The enemy design has been improved upon as well. No longer are you facing seemingly invincible knights, or an endless stream of Medusa heads. Sure those guys are still around, but have a much more recognizable pattern and can be dispatched much more easily. Which leads me to my only real complaint - it was a little too easy. I didn't use a single one of my infinite continues until, like, level 9.

When I finished the game I wondered why I didn't feel the same connection I did when I finished the first Castlevania. And I think its because the first one was so hard, that I was forced to memorize every single level and can even now probably draw maps that are pretty close to the design of those levels. In SCIV, aside from the last three stages, I only saw each level once.

Nit picking aside, the game is a genuine blast to play. The last few levels pose the perfect level of challenge and definitely left a good taste in my mouth.


Presentation.
Again, this being an SNES launch title, all eyes were on the game's graphics - so its a good thing that they are flippin fantastic. Everything animates smoothly, character models are large and well drawn, bosses are huge and detailed and the levels feature some of the best artwork on the system. The devs also did a little showin off with some of the stages - a famous stage where the background is spinning as if you're walking through a tunnel is particularly impressive for the hardware, but there are hundreds of little visual treats sprinkled throughout the experience.

Spinny Stage.

Then there's the music. Ohugh the music! Its so freakin good. The game's soundtrack consists of mostly original scores, but its sprinkled with 16-bit remixes, nay, reorchestrations to make the nostalgic little girl in all of us squeal just a bit.

Stuff I Loved:

• Completely overhauled controls make the game infinitely more enjoyable to play than its predecessors. 
• Beautifully and intricately designed stages make you look forward to each new level.
• The music is stunning

Stuff I Hated:

• Jumping controls, while improved, still felt stiff
• Relatively easy until the end 

Ultimately, what you're getting here is a fantastic reimagination of Castlevania. Its been finely tuned to be enjoyed buy a larger market, and everything about it screams "AAA product." Its a shame this game isn't mentioned more often in best classic games lists because it's definitely up there for me.

Review in Ten Words or Less: 
The blueprint of how to rerelease a game.   

Finished: Super Castlevania IV

Completion Time: 2:45

Heck yes. This game is freakin great. The infinite continues were a Godsend just as they were in the original. While this one was a little easier, I think it fell in the sweet spot of difficulty. Just hard enough to put up a fight, but not so hard that controllers were being broken.

Review coming soon.

Up Next: Super Castlevania IV

 

That's right, motha. Super Castlevania IV. 

The game was a launch title for the Super NES back in 1991, and was also a retelling of the first NES Castlevania game. It expands on the original's six levels by adding five completely new ones leading up to Dracula's castle. Once inside, you'll start to notice "call backs" to the first game, but it's significantly more than a 16 bit coat of paint on the 8 bit levels - these are designed from the ground up to be bare knuckle action. 

I'm actually almost done - I'm on the 10th of the 11th level, hopefully finish it up tonight.

The backlog is dwindling.

Review: Star Fox 64

How did they get away with selling a 1 hour game?

Story.
Nintendo is known for a lot of things - story telling is not one of them. Star Fox 64 is pretty light on story. Essentially, you are part of a group of animal fighter pilots who are trying to save the universe from a gigantic monkey head named Andross.

Your furry and feathered team is about as annoying and shallow as video game characters get, and their laughable scripting and voice acting only make your distaste for them stronger. This gives you absolutely no motivation to see it through to the end. For the time, the amount of voice work in the game was something to marvel, but by today's standards it just comes off as annoying. Luckily, it only takes an hour to beat the game so you won't need much motivation anyway.

Gameplay.
Building off the smooth-as-butter flying and shooting mechanics from the original Star Fox, the game controls like a dream. Controlling your ship is simple and intuitive, shooting is fun, and using upgrades and deftly pulling off special maneuvers will convince you that you could probably be in the air force if you wanted.

The overall level progression design is where I start to feel a little gipped. There are somewhere around 20 different levels in the game, but you'll only see seven on a single play through. The levels you get access to depend on whether or not you meet certain conditions in previous levels. I messed around with a few of these, but ultimately didn't see the value in going back and guessing what to do to open another level. No matter which path you take, the same boss awaits you at the end anyway. And once you beat the final boss of a game and see the credits, the motivation to go back and play through it again greatly diminishes.

The map

The other thing that threw me was just how easy the game is. I could accept the fact that the game has a limited level structure if it took me more than a single try to beat the whole thing in under 60 minutes. Other games with short content shoot the difficulty through the roof.  For example, if you're awesome at Contra, you can beat the game in 20 minutes, but nearly everyone I know spent years trying to beat it.

Presentation.
Star Fox 64 is an incredible looking game. Even by today's standards - the ships are well designed, the frame rate is silky smooth, and the music is top notch. It's just a shame I couldn't enjoy it for more than an hour.

In the end, the gameplay and controls are spot on fantastic, its the strange design that really kills this one. The strange thing is how well this game was received. It generally got scores in the 8s and 9s upon release and sold 300,000 copies in its first week on the market. I mean it's not a bad game, just an incomplete one.

Stuff I Loved: 

• Smooth as silk space combat
• Varied levels 
• Thoroughly decent graphics

Stuff I Hated: 

• Slippy Toad - worse than Vanille
• The length! 
• Shallow story 

To be fair, I'll give this one another day or so and try to discover the alternate paths. If my opinion changes I'll update the review, but as for now I'm sticking by it. Not worth it.  

Finished: Star Fox 64

Completion Time: Under an hour
Path: Down the right side

So after realizing that my 360 became a worthless white paperweight the other night, I decided to start on Starfox 64, not realizing I would beat it in one sitting in less than an hour. Seriously, first try, all the way to the end, done. It's weird - it's got the old school NES design where the game is really short, but usually in those cases, the games are extremely difficult to extend the length of the game. Star Fox 64 is 7 levels of excruciatingly easy space combat. I don't know what they thought there were getting away with!

Review coming shortly.