The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

After loving Bayonetta so much, I had to play more of what Platinum had to offer. They made me fall in love with a genre I didn’t give much of a shit about. What could they do with a genre I generally enjoy, that of the third person shooter?

Well, it wasn’t the revelation that Bayonetta was, but Vanquish is a really solid game, and certainly something anyone who enjoys gunshoots should look into.

You are Sam, a dude who works for DARPA. You have a badass robosuit. Russia has space lasered San Francisco, so you and a team of marines are sent in to stop the next Russian attack.
Blah blah, the story doesn’t matter. It’s not making you exclaim “what the fuck?” every two minutes like Bayonetta. It’s a pretty standard shooter plot.

In fact, the whole game looks pretty standard until you start to feel Platinum’s little touches. You don’t pick up guns, but instead have a crazy morphing gun that scans weapons to turn into them and looks obscenely badass doing it. Your melee attacks put full robosuit force to work, and you punch through enemies in a very satisfying way. Some cutscenes feature combat that reminds you that this game came from the same people as Bayonetta, with Sam spinning until he drills through the top of a tank, for instance.

The best part, though, is the rocket legs. By holding down the left bumper, Sam turns on thrusters in his legs, sending him sliding forward on his knees at a rapid pace. This lets you zip between cover points quickly, as well as cover ground to enemies to melee with no problem at all. The best part is that it looks obscenely badass. I would rocket around just to do it, and even at the end of the game, it made me feel extremely cool. This is exactly the sort of thing a mechanic should do.

The game had one interesting weapon, too. The lock-on laser was kind of neat. It was kind of a handheld mortar strike. You would paint enemies and it would fire rockets into the air, home in, and hit them. Most of the rest of the weapons were pretty standard though. I used an assault rifle the whole game, basically. There is a system to level weapons up, too, but since it just kind of happens automatically, it doesn’t feel all that cool, though appreciate it being there.

But all in all Vanquish was a lot of fun. It’s the perfect rental or bargain bin grab, and if you like challenge, it seems to have you covered with higher difficulties I am not into. I had a lot of fun, I’m very glad I played. If this is a “mediocre” Platinum game, well, it still came out better than most shitty third person shooters that hit the Xbox.

Running games like Canabalt just work good on iOS. The interaction can be simple, because the character will move with no input, and it’s great for little pick up and play sessions. However, unless you have a Hook Champ, they tend to be just that. Just a little something you do for a little while, and then put down.

Mirror’s Edge manages to keep from being that, and be a pretty solid game, one I probably had more fun with than with the full-blown console version.

Faith is a lady who has to run about. You do this with a set of fairly logical and completely functional gestures on the touch screen. Swipe left or right to change direction, swipe up to jump, swipe down to slide. Simple. You can do a few more “complex” moves, but it’s mostly just about doing that at the right time. Not having buttons on the screen works really well, and I never had trouble getting it to recognize a swipe when I did it. The only problem I had was being very confused about how to pause at first. (It’s swiping two fingers up.) Other than that, it’s a really solid control scheme.
Obstacles are colored red with “Runner’s Vision” like in the console game, but unlike in the console game, because this game is 2D, Runner’s Vision is actually useful. It lets them make the backgrounds a bit more interesting than they would be able to otherwise, because you can always tell what’s something you will have to deal with as you approach it. Sure, following that path will keep you from getting all the collectible bags on each level, but at least you always know how to get to the finish line. I appreciate always knowing how to proceed.

Levels slowly ramp up in difficulty, but don’t vary too too much. Eventually they will start throwing gunners and other obstacles that could kill Faith, but the basic gameplay doesn’t really change up. It played almost like a very relaxing Super Quick Hook. Though you’re encouraged to go fast, rarely do you feel rushed and against the clock. Succeeding requires a level of precision, but nothing near the level of skill required to successfully grapplehook. It hits a nice point, and I really enjoyed it. It’s a game worth playing.
Of course, the game ends weakly with a stupid “boss battle.” There’s another dude running around the screen, and you have to trip him three times. However, he’s just as fast as Faith and annoying as fuck to actually catch. That sequence was no fun, and then it just kind of unceremoniously said “you win” and dumped me back to the menu. It was kind of a letdown, but so it goes. Didn’t make the rest of the game less fun.

I do feel like I have to mention the price, though. I bought this on a sale for a buck, but it’s normally ten dollars. This really isn’t a ten dollar game by any stretch. It’s a bargain at a dollar, and is worth more, but if you compare it to an XBLA game or indie game on Steam, which is what it’s competing with, you are not getting enough game for that. I can’t really suggest it at full price, but it’s the app store. It’ll go on sale again. When it does, do consider it. It is one of the flashier action games I’ve played on iOS, and is a solid amount of fun while it lasts.

I. Love. Space Channel 5. If you have any doubt, I offer this image of furry me cosplaying as Ulala as proof. So yeah, love the game.

Sega has recently put out an incredibly shitty Dreamcast collection. Seriously, of the four Dreamcast games they could have picked, they picked Sonic Adventure, Crazy Taxi, Space Channel 5 Part 2, and Sega Motherfucking Bass Fishing. What the hell? So, so many great Dreamcast games, and that’s what they chose. That’s not what I’m complaining about, though.

I rented this collection because it gave me an excuse to play Space Channel 5 Part 2 again. I own it on PS2, but I recently tried to play it, and the spiffy HDTV made the timing go a bit off, which I hoped this collection would fix. I had also heard there were Xbox avatar awards in the game. Now, I’m not going to spend money on avatar stuff, but I do think they make amazing awards. As someone who has played this game a million times, I figured I’d be able to pass whatever challenge they were tied to, and get some cool something or other. I mean, one of them might be an Ulala outfit, which would be fantastic.

Well, I played through the first run-through of the game the moment I got it. It took me about an hour and a half. I haven’t played the second “Extra” playthrough yet, but it’ll probably take me about as long. I played a little Ulala’s dance mode. Then I went to check how to unlock the avatar awards.

Unlocking the Ulala costume requires you to play this game for 10 hours. That’s it. No skill, no nothing, just 10 hours of play. These aren’t hours in the menu. These are hours when the game is actually running. A game that takes less than 2 hours to beat. A game that won’t run unless you are hitting the buttons and not failing.

What the fuck.

Now, I’ve logged TONS of hours into Space Channel 5 and it’s sequel. Seriously, I can’t count the number of times I’ve beaten the first game. I probably put at least 30 hours into that silly game, and it has a length similar to Part 2. I beat Part 2 tons of times as well. Even I think this requirement is insane.

Space Channel 5 is a success because of its incredible passion. It loves it’s stupid world, and shows it. You can tell every inch of the game was crafted with vision. The result isn’t great, perse. There are much better music games out there. But Space Channel 5 just does what it does with so much style, you can’t help but smile at it. But it was never about having a lot of gameplay. Certainly not 10 hours worth.

All the games on the collection apparently have similar rewards. These times maybe make more sense with Sonic Adventure and, I guess, the Bass Fishing, if you are one to actually play a fishing game. They make no sense for Crazy Taxi either. It’s obvious that these requirements were just thrown together by some intern because people were too lazy to make actual requirements. If they were going to just turn in something, I wish they would have made it attainable.

I am gaming the system to get my Ulala costume. Stage 2 will run for 15 minutes without you having to hit a button, and I’m letting Ulala fail that report over and over to run up my time. I’m not proud, but I am doing it. That doesn’t make this little achievement okay. It’s not. It’s kind of bullshit. It’s bad game design. It’s punishing fans who likely have played the game to death before this collection and are most likely to want this little reward.

Or at least it’s annoying me. And let’s face it, it’s my blog, that’s all you have to do to get me to complain about it.

I love Telltale. This is not hidden knowledge. Way back in the day, when they announced Nelson Tethers, Puzzle Agent, I was super excited. I love me some Layton, and nobody had really tried to do Layton. It seemed like a great idea. A long time later, after buying a copy on the iPhone and the PC, I finally played through it on my iPad. I love giving Telltale money, but I have to say that I’m glad I only paid like 2 or 3 bucks total on this game.

Tethers is a likable character, to be sure. He’s just as much of a loser as an FBI agent who focuses in puzzle solving should be. The world of Scoggins, while small, is also weird and interesting. There’s some intrigue, and some silliness. The plot is, certainly, something like what I expected, and has the charm I expect from a Telltale game. Sure, it ends randomly on a cliffhanger, but it did it in a way I bought. Tethers is a guy who solves puzzles. He doesn’t get to be the hero. I am fine with that.

The puzzles, however, are another story.

Telltale has never had the strongest puzzles, but in most of their adventure games, I am okay with that. They have the funny dialog and situations to carry the action forward, and there’s only so much puzzling you can do without breaking believability, even in a wacky cartoon kind of scenario like a Sam and Max episode. However, Layton solved this problem by having the puzzles almost completely separate from the story, and therefore able go be whatever brain teasers they could come up with. Puzzle Agent could have done this as well, but completely fails at it. The vast majority of the puzzles are actual jigsaw puzzles or grids of tiles you have to spin into a particular organization. These are extremely trial and error. The jigsaw puzzles will stick permanently together when you make a correct match, rewarding you for sliding pieces about at random until they click together by luck. The rotating piece puzzles use art that only matches up if it’s rotated correctly. Incorrect paths never seem remotely right. You just rotate until the art looks okay.
On top of all this, what good puzzles they have they reuse with small tweaks. This works in Layton, where you have close to 200 puzzles in the game, and thus a series of three puzzles of increasing difficulty doesn’t bother one much, but Puzzle Agent only has maybe, what 25? 30? It’s not enough to handle that repetition.

I was a bit disappointed, yes. Hopefully the announced sequel will be better. It’s still a fantastic idea and Telltale is still a great company. It just wasn’t yet ready for prime time.

I had heard good things, so I went on my iPad and downloaded Shadow Era. It’s a free-to-play CCG that uses microtransactions for getting new cards. The best part is that they have an “open platform” stance. Your account lets you play on the web, on iOS, on Android, and so on. I love me a card game, and I’m not unwilling to drop a few bucks on additional cards, so I was excited to try it.

The game runs pretty well on the iPad! Although there is a bit of a learning curve with the interface, I never had any problem picking what I wanted to do. The game seems strongly based on the WoW CCG, which is a good base. WoW is a pretty good game, and the preconstruct deck I picked out was pretty good. I was enjoying playing against the built-in AI.

Brer got on, and I’m like, hey, maybe I’ll try playing a game against a real opponent! I mean, it was free, and he could play on the web and face me, right? So I told him to get an account and we’d throw down. I clicked on the “Challenge” tab in the menu so I could challenge him to a game. That’s what you do in card games, right? I was shown a list of ongoing games, but none I could join. The only button on the screen was “quick match.” I figured that meant they didn’t have ranked games yet or something. I clicked on it to make a room for Brer to join.

It threw me into a random match with a random dude.

I searched the FAQ, the forums, all around the menus, and I confirmed it. There was no way to play against a friend.

You know what would get me to pay a few bucks to buy cards? Being able to play a fun card game with my friends. Know what I can’t do in this game? Play with my friends. Competitive play isn’t fun unless I have a complete card pool to build decks from, and I’m not going to get invested enough to buy a full card pool without getting my friends involved and playing. For a game so polished, I was shocked it was missing such a simple, vital feature.

I wouldn’t doubt they will eventually add it, and when they do, I would suggest giving the game a try. But right now? It’s kind of useless. Good job, guys.

It is a well-known fact that Robots desire companionship in order to help them better understand the hu-mon concept of emotion. However, the problem is that all potential feline companions are always stored behind a complex series of doors and platforming challenges. This is why most robots decide to, instead, go on killing rampages instead of actually loving a kitty.

The hero of Robot Wants Kitty has decided that it would rather do a bite-sized Metroidvania instead of getting it’s cold, metallic gripping appendages bloody with the fluids of dead humans.

I am apparently a really easy sell. I received an e-mail from the guy who makes Galcon and it said that I should buy this game by a friend of his on the app store, and I totally did immediately. It was that simple to convince me. If you want me to buy your app, send me a mass e-mail, apparently.

Still, I bought it because I could have sworn I had heard of Robot Wants Kitty before. I do know it’s based on a flash game of the same name. I may have heard the name, though when I got into the game, it was clear I hadn’t actually seen it. Having taken a look at it now, the presentation and such has been really ratchet up for this iPod release, which is nice. Robot Wants Kitty is a fun time, and totally worth the dollar I paid for it.

The game is a Metroidvania in miniature. Each level is like a full Metroidvania game. You collect powerups that give you different abilities that unlock new paths that take you to new powerups until, eventually, you find the Kitty and win the game. Your first task is almost always to get the jump and the laser gun, so you can fight and maneuver, but after that, it varies. There are keycards, double jumps, extra hits, and such you can pick up. Some levels use all of them, and some do not. Some levels have bosses, and some don’t. Still, they all follow the same formula.

The game is a bit limited like that. There are only three enemies (and boss versions of those enemies), and a limited number of powerups and pickups. Still, the game makes that work. You’re never confused by how to solve a situation, but simply must learn the new level. Even someone who sucks like me can complete a level in, oh, 20 minutes or so. The game records times for every level for speedrun kind of situations: I’m sure someone who didn’t suck could go much faster.

The game has 6 levels, one of which is the original Flash game remade. If each one takes you 20ish minutes, like they have for me so far, that’s a pretty decent amount of content for your buck. However, the game also has something called “Kitty Connect.” This isn’t up and running yet, but this is basically going to be user-generated levels. There’s already a level editor in the game where you can build your own stages with the items and enemies in the game. This is a fantastic game, and the editor works really well on my iPad, as you’d expect. Of course, I can’t design worth shit, so I will never make a level worth anything, but the idea of eventually going back into the app and having some top user-created levels in that Kitty Connect menu is pretty sweet.

The only bad thing about this app is the music. I didn’t use to give a shit about music in iOS games because I’d always been playing a podcast on my iPod while I played them. Now that I’m gaming on this shiny iPad, I find I leave the music on really quietly and play the podcast through my computer or iPod. Thus, the music is a thing. It’s okay for a little bit, but there’s basically one song, and it’s repetitive and annoying. Still, you can just turn it off, so no big deal.

Basically, if you like a little Metroid with your Vania, pay your buck for this. It controls fine, and I’ve really enjoyed it so far.

I think I’m still pretty sick of the Zelda formula.

I was playing Okamiden, which I got from Gamefly, and I was having a pretty good time. The game struggles to do all the things in 3D that the developers wanted it to. The combat is not all that fluid, for instance. But it was going pretty good so far and, of course, the brush skills worked so, so much better with a stylus. I beat the first boss, and I’m like, “This is going great! What a nice little game.”

Then I put it down and had no need to continue playing it. When it became obvious I wasn’t going to pick it up again, I sent it back.

Seriously, Okamiden is cute as fuck and seems like it would be a really enjoyable game, but I also felt like I was, in many ways, going through the motions. Here’s the puzzle dungeon. Here’s the puzzles one can do with this power. Here’s a bunch of really, really slow cutscenes with dubious entertainment value. I knew most of what was going to happen before it happened. The boss I fought was really the highlight: he was pretty fresh. Everything else was pretty standard stuff.

I feel this way every time I try to pick up a Zelda-like game. Darksiders did the same thing to me, though admittedly I stuck with it for longer than this. I just can’t keep going with it. I guess I just don’t feel that the time investment I have with those games are worth the enjoyment I get out of them anymore. Fair enough, I suppose. I should really just stop trying them. Maybe I’ve just moved on from them, much like I have the RTS genre. Is that really so bad?

Essner and I have played all the way through Army of Two: The 40th Day at this point. We beat it. We did it, bro.

It is a really terrible game.

It’s frustrating, really, as a game completely based on co-op with really, really stupid bro-action really could be a lot of fun, especially with the really robust and ridiculous weapon customization the game has. That’s why I really wanted to play it. However, they completely ruin it with several big mistakes, which I would love to go over with you right now, and thus will.

1. The Controls Are Ass.
When you look at something like Gears of War, and look at the number of things the A button does, it’s a very big list! However, Epic was smart enough to make sure that there’s only one possible thing the A button can do at any time. Though I’m sure it’s happened once or twice, I can’t really recall a time when I pressed A and something I didn’t want happened in Gears of War. If it happened, it didn’t leave an impression.
The list of things each button does in 40th Day is much longer, and the game is constantly doing the wrong thing. I can’t count the times I jumped out of cover instead of reviving Essner, or started a game of Rock Paper Scissors instead of reloading my gun. They tried to add so many completely useless little tidbits with nowhere to put them on the controller, and it makes the game feel more frustrating because of it. It got us killed fairly often. It was bullshit.
What really gets me, though, is that the D-Pad doesn’t really seem to be used for anything. They could have mapped things like switching to attachments, switching weapons, and things like that to the D-Pad. It would have made more sense, and be much quicker to use in combat. Instead, it does nothing. Excellent.

2. The Shouldering Mechanic Sucks Ass.
This is basically a control issue, but it is such a big issue that it really needs to be it’s own entry. Most 3rd person shooters will automatically and dynamically switch which shoulder you have your gun against when it needs to for you to get a clear shot. This makes it easy to do the shot you want. However, the makers of 40th Day decided they wanted to give you an extra level of control by letting you switch shouldering by clicking in the right stick. Now, more control isn’t bad, perse. I could see situations where you might disagree with how the game thinks you want to hold your gun, and thus would want to switch it yourself. However, this is an edge case, and not really applicable 90% of the time. In practice, this shouldering mechanic just makes you have to fumble with it in order to get a view of the battlefield, and makes it near impossible to quickly make a shot in a dire situation. You end up fighting the controls, not the enemies, and that’s a problem.

3. The Bosses Are Ill-Conceived.
I will put up with a lot of bullshit as far as video game bosses are concerned. But 40th Day takes place in something similar to the real world. The idea that firing 6 grenade launcher rounds and hitting a man in the face will not injure him is stupid. This is especially true when the “solution” to killing him involves blowing up a bag of grenades attached to his ass. I really don’t care how “heavy” the armor is. It’s a really stupid design. Sure, have the shortcut to make the boss easier, but the idea that I can hit a boss point-blank with explosives over and over again to no effect is just ridiculous.

4. They Don’t Understand The Concept Of Checkpoints.
Most chapters in this game have 1 to 2 checkpoints. Chapters are very long. Often, you will end up having to redo a firefight before trying a boss again, and again, and again. Oh, right, I already wrote about this. It’s still true, and didn’t change the entire way through the game.

I’d mention the story as well, which is completely nonsensical and random, but that’s less of an issue to me. It’s a shooter. Who gives a shit about the story? Not me, certainly! Let’s just say that it is not good, and the story ends with a guy holding a dead man’s switch… only he isn’t actually pressing the button, meaning it’s not activated, though he’s pretending it is. Fantastic.

I had fun playing through the game because I played through it with Essner, and we insulted it the entire time. Also, as I mentioned, the batshit insane weapon customization system is a ton of fun to fuck around with, and is the highlight of the game. I wish it had appeared in a game that wasn’t ass. Still, I can’t really recommend 40th Day in any way. It is a bad game. There are better co-op shooters out there. Play those.

As part of my taking command of shit, I got a game of A Penny For My Thoughts together. I bought this game because it sounded cool, and I read it and it did sound cool. But it was just on that stack of games I really didn’t think I’d ever get to play with my friends. However, as part of my take-charge attitude, I realized that they would enjoy it, but would never decide to play on their own. I was being asked to do something with people for my birthday, so I hatched a plan and forced the game to be played. People wanted to do something with me, so I twisted it, searched through a million frustrating boxes, and bam, there we were.

The back of the book has several optional different versions of the game. The basic game is about real-world drama and problems. I knew none of my group would take that seriously, so I decided to use the Cthulhu-based version that was included, thinking there was a slim chance that that might be taken with a bit more seriousness. I mean, it wasn’t, but there was a better chance! Still, that was kind of the setup.

Of course, Penny is a game for a small group, and we ended up having a big group. Thus, we only really got past the first round of the three round therapy session. Still, tons of fun was had. Watching Spants dig himself farther and farther into a hole with the sort of details he was setting up his story with was fantastic. Watching Shauna really work it with the ad-libbing and Jonathan fight desperately to attempt to make his story separate from everyone else’s even as everyone tried to draw him into an overall narrative was also enjoyable.

Early in the game, I read a list of example memory triggers from the book. One of these was “your family’s ski lodge.” Essner blamed me for this, but it was all his doing: from that point forward, everything seemed to involve a ski lodge in some way. This ski lodge was somehow adjacent to a farm as well as a Molasses Factory with a trap door which lead down into a constantly burning funeral pyre to burn werewolves who have converted to Judaism and joined the all-Jewish Mafia and trapeze artist circus act. Also, at some point beeswax was being used as a contraceptive.

That’s the kind of game we were playing.

Still, my gut instinct was right. Having actually tried it, everyone seemed to walk away from the session with a very high opinion of the game, though all agreed that a small group for it would probably be best. I got to have the role-play game I wanted on my birthday, and everyone got to have fun. We even got to eat some of Cara’s cake she made! Seems like a success to me. I have all the gear to finish the game still. I’m unsure if we’ll ever actually finish it, or play another, but I kind of hope so. It is good fun.

Today I realized that I was sitting within arm’s reach of an arcade stick, and I had a copy of Super Street Fighter IV sitting on the table over there, and yet I was playing Street Fighter IV on my iPod instead.

I bought Street Fighter IV for my iPod because it was on sale for a buck, and Capcom was donating all proceeds for it towards the relief effort from the earthquake. I had heard surprisingly good things about it, so I thought I’d give it a try. If nothing else, I’d get this blog post out of it. I wasn’t expected it to be as good as it is. It is a really quality game, and completely worth your dollar.

There are several omissions from this version of the game. One is some of the characters. Apparently for awhile they slowly added characters, but they’ve basically stopped now. While I’ll miss personal favorites like Sakura and Dan, I understand why they weren’t priorities, and you still have a pretty decent selection of SFIV fighters in there, including all the required ones like Ryu, Guile, and Chun-Li.

The other omission is no Indestructible. Oh nooooooooo. But at least it still has Guile’s Theme. And the “fight over” theme, which is kind of the best music in the game, as far as I’m concerned. Always makes you feel badass after a round.

Anyway, onto how the game plays.
I don’t know what dark sorcery Capcom employed to make the virtual joystick in this game so good, but all iPhone developers who want to try to have a virtual stick or pad really need to employ it. Every single time I pulled off a dragon punch motion on this thing, I was blown away, but I can do it with a lot of consistency. Fireball motions are never any problem. The stick is fantastic, and that’s the whole reason why the game is playable.
Though not a one-for-one recreation, the game is very, very similar to actual SFIV. All the characters they included have the same moves you remember, and can employ them the same way. I picked Abel, for instance, and was using a lot of the same techniques I use in the actual game. You don’t have quite the same range of moves, though, simply because they have reduced the game down to four buttons: a punch button, a kick button, a “special move” button which you use to pull off your EX moves, Supers, and Hypers, and a Focus Attack button. This means you don’t have as much variety of normals, really, but it still does a fairly good job with what it has.

The game also looks pretty great, while running without lag on my second gen iPod Touch. It seems to be using techniques similar to Killer Instinct, which is smart. The fighters are actually sprites that have been ripped from taking pictures of the fighters in 3D. Still, it looks great. The animation is sometimes jerky when doing things like throws, since the game is trying to figure out how to get the two sprites to connect in a good way, but overall it looks very fluid, too. It’s certainly not enough to throw off someone of my skill level, and let’s face it, you’re never going to be super serious on your iPhone anyway.

The game has multiplayer over Bluetooth, which is nice, seeing as it’s a fighting game at all. It even has “Fight Requests” like the actual game, though the concept of someone noticing you playing SFIV on your phone, booting up their copy, and both of you having Bluetooth on for them to join you in the middle of your arcade session is a bit unbelievable as a scenario. Still, they tried. There’s no online play, because, well, let’s face it, fighters have a hard time dealing with lag on a console, much less over 3G. It’s good they have something.

Seriously, if you like Street Fighter IV, or fighters in general, this is totally fun to fuck around with. The AI is about what you’d expect from fighting games (I can beat everyone on normal but Zangief, who gives me lots of trouble, just like normal SFIV) and they intelligently set the game up as leaderboard-based as a race to get through tournament mode and beat all the fighters in the fastest time. It even saves your progress between matches, if you just want to play one round and then go back to something else. It’s totally fun to fuck around with for a dollar, and completely playable. It’s pretty fantastic like that.