The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Remember when Pokemon first hit it big, and suddenly, everyone had to have a Pokemon clone? You couldn’t walk into a store without tripping over 14 games that were trying to replicate Pokemon’s success. This has mostly died down now, of course, although every so often someone gives it a try (a recent example would be Spectrobes, I’d think). Monster Racers is one of those tries.

Strangely enough, I can’t find a website for this game. It was published by Koei, but the internet is treating it like it just appeared out of nowhere. I certainly hadn’t heard of it until Val mentioned it, and I threw it on my Gamefly queue at random. When it showed up, I was incredibly surprised. The game is really competent. It’s core idea is, perhaps, stretched a little thin, but what’s there is a really good game. I could see a younger version of myself really getting into it.

The basic story is that, at some point, people found Pokemon. I mean, monsters. The one thing all these monsters had in common was that they love to run. I mean, like, seriously love to run. So, of course, people race them. You’re either a boy or an underage cheerleader girl who wants to be the best Monster Racer in the world, and beat the Star Seven! So you go out on a quest to do that.

Instead of fighting, though, you race. Now, I had this originally described to me as Pokemon meets Mario Kart, but honestly, it’s a bit more Pokemon meets Canabalt. You can slow down and even run backwards, unlike Canabalt, but that’s mostly to your detriment. You’re mostly running full speed forward, jumping over gaps and dodging things and other racers. If you jump on top of another racer, or ram them from behind, you stun them for a moment. As you run, you also build up a Turbo meter, which you can use to pull off a move that’s unique for each monster, but normally involves blasting forward at an even faster pace for awhile.

The game is constantly pulling beats from Pokemon. There’s a definite “got to catch them all” mentality to the monsters, as you get a Handbook, which is basically a Pokedex, that will put a little star next to monster’s names that you’ve caught when you encounter them. To capture them, you have your monster slow down like crazy to fire their MonStar (I wish I was making that name up, ugh) in a random race to make friends with them. It’s really, really easy, and there’s no reason you won’t capture every single monster you meet on the first try.

Still, it gives you a reason to want to do the random races. They are different, but they do get tedious. It seemed like the designers knew this, though, and put in several features to try to make the game more friendly. One feature is that you don’t have to complete a full race against wild Monsters. If you pull ahead of them by a certain length, they give up, and you win. This makes random races take 20-30 seconds, instead of the 2 to 3 minutes a full race would take. This is nice. It’s also obscenely easy to dodge random races as you walk around. Other Monster Racers don’t do the eye thing like in Pokemon. You have to challenge them. You can also see random monsters on the map, and they move very slowly in obvious patterns, so they’re easy to dodge.
All that would be great, but the problem is that you do need to keep doing those random races to level up your monsters so that they can be fast enough for the various cups and whatnot you need to complete to become the best racer. Thanks for trying, game designers, but you didn’t quite nail it.

Overall, though, I was shocked and impressed by Monster Racers. If you were to play it for, say, maybe 15 minutes a day, I doubt it would get old anywhere near as fast as it did for me. (I put in like… 6 hours, most of that in one sitting, so it got stale quick.) Hell, if you modified the racing a little to be even more Canabalt, I bet you could get this game on the iPhone and make a mint. It’s pretty charming and cool. If you ever see it in a bargain bin somewhere, pick it up. It’s certainly worth bargain bin prices. If I could have kept it for that price from Gamefly, I totally would have.

Darksiders succeeds at what it sets out to do.

Basically, it wants to remake Zelda, but it wants to make Zelda with dark, brooding characters one might see on some sort of metal album or really “badass” fantasy setting. Nobody may smile, everything is dead, everyone destroys. Demons rule the world, you messily kill people again and again. This is an “adult” Zelda.

At the same time, though, it’s really kind of childish. It’s a young person’s idea of what adult is, and while some people obvious can get into that (For example, I know Cole really liked the art and setting and whatnot) I found it really grating. Every time there was a cutscene, I was just “I GET IT, YOU’RE WAR AND YOU’RE A BADASS.” It was tiring. It certainly wasn’t why I stuck around for as long as I did.

The reason I stuck around is because this is a really, really good Zelda clone. Make no mistake, it is a Zelda clone completely. You get a new heart, or Life Stone, each time you beat a boss. The first dungeon contains a Boomerang. Sure, the combat has some God of War trappings, but the actual gameplay is a Zelda puzzle dungeon crawl, and it does it really well. If you want more of that, you really need to play Darksiders.

However, I didn’t really want more of that. As I progressed through the game, I realized why I hadn’t really played a Zelda game in a long time. The formula is just kind of stale. Since I didn’t enjoy the new coat of paint, I was looking past it to the same formula I’ve played through again and again since Ocarina of Time. Eventually, I got tired of that, too, and when I realized I wasn’t going to boot it up again, I sent it back to Gamefly.

Still, the reasons I stopped playing it are purely personal preference. Darksiders is a great game, and if you know what you’re getting into, and that sounds good, you really should play it. It’s obvious this game was made with love and with a strong reverence for the source material it’s sort of stealing from. It’s great stuff. Just not stuff really made for me, I guess.

I had promised people from school some DnD action, and so, seeing as we couldn’t get Jonathan’s campaign going on Wednesday, I decided that would be as good a day as any to get my own little campaign with everyone started.

When I had originally proposed this campaign, I had given a general outline: James L. Harner, author of this lovely book, has an evil library, and you’ll fight through it. Of course, bringing that to life is a bit harder than saying it. Especially since I ended up with a party of nothing but Strikers, and players who really enjoy lore, which has never been my strong suit. I needed to make something I’d enjoy running, but also something with enough backstory and sense built in to make the kind of people who wrote 3 pages of character backstory when asked for a “quick character idea” happy.
Oh, and I’d also have to teach everyone how to play DnD.

In the end, though, I feel like things went really well. Everyone was put on the spot when I asked them to roleplay, though they eventually got into it. Spaeth and Cole were doing most of the roleplay, even though Cara and Josh were the ones with all the Charisma. People also had a bit of a problem grasping the basic combat mechanics. I thought the power cards would make that easier, but they didn’t really. Just a little. I was glad Spants was there for that, because as the DM, I didn’t want to railroad them with advice, so having Spaeth be able to say “That really doesn’t seem like a good idea” and stuff as part of their team was better, I think.

In the end, Spaeth had to Lawful Good Stop Cole from stealing money back from a shopkeep, and Josh kept running in circles around a tree to dodge arrows. Spaeth also almost left a dude to die, even though he had magical healing powers. My enemies hit REALLY hard, but went down like chumps too, since there were so many Strikers. I felt like I actually hit a pretty good balance in my monsters this time around, because it was really close, and they were being hit hard, but weren’t in any real danger, either.

Basically, I think I kicked ass in the DM department. Or at least did competently.

I want to wrap this plot up in another session, or maybe two. Not too many, because I don’t feel like I can be counted to do that many. We’ll see how it goes.

Having Cara about creates situations to play games I never really put much time into. She wants to play games, but it’s not like we can play Call of Duty or whatever, nor does she want to. I’ve had to think of other multiplayer things we could play. This has caused me to return to two Kingdoms I barely put much time into: The Mushroom Kingdom, and Dokapon Kingdom.

Frankly, I never put much time into the MarioWii. I mean, it’s good. Don’t get me wrong. It’s great old-school platforming, but for whatever reason, I just couldn’t find time to pound away at it myself. Cara knew how Mario worked, though, so I thought we’d give it a try.

New Super Mario Brothers Wii is hard.

I mean, we were playing it, and we got somewhere. We beat World 3 playing together. But it was tough. There were a lot of deaths, and I was having to carry us, even though I’m not all that good with platformers. It also didn’t help that the world we were on was an Ice world, so we were slip-sliding about the whole time. Still, fun was had. Apparently I got really serious sometimes, but that’s just because I felt like I needed to keep making progress for Cara not to be discouraged, so I was putting on my game face and really trying to succeed at the game, more than maybe I would if I was, say, playing with Jonathan.

It’s a good game, but it was too hardcore, honestly. Playing with another gamer would be fun, but I just wasn’t skilled enough to carry both of us, seeing as I could barely carry myself. Next time I went looking on my self for something to play, I was looking for something a bit more casual.

So we played Dokapon Kingdom.
Which honestly isn’t that casual.

It plays like a board game, so it’s slow-paced, but so much of the game is based on RPG tropes that I don’t feel like Cara really understood. Still, I felt like she had a fun time with it. I mean, she beat me in the short game we played. I was honestly being too confident and getting my ass kicked too much. I also was playing a thief, and I probably should have been a warrior. In any case, if she did like it, maybe we’ll start up a story mode game and keep pounding away at that for awhile. I think that would be fun times. I suppose I should probably ask her if she agrees.

In any case, those are two games I went back to and experienced, partially through casual eyes. It was interesting, and certainly fun. Hopefully Cara is enjoying herself… I always worry. I’m so weird and geeky, but also a girl, and I feel like sometimes she doesn’t know what to do with that intersection. Not that it’s a problem.

Ramble.

On to the American footingsball, or as I’ve heard I was supposed to call it from now on, tackleball.

Something like that.

I was pretty excited about the Blood Bowl game. I had heard great, great things about the tabletop version. It was very well loved, and had a big cult following. I was looking forward to trying it in a completely affordable way on the 360.

Unfortunately, it was just not to be.

It’s clear that the people who made the Blood Bowl 360 game love the original game. Like, seriously and completely love it. Their goal was to set out to create a game where fans of Blood Bowl could play Blood Bowl online with minimal problems, and that’s pretty well exactly what they did. However, they took exactly 0 steps towards accessibility.

After doing the tutorial, and playing several matches, I still have very little idea about how the game’s mechanics work. This is a very complex game with lots of dice rolls, but it only shows those dice rolls when you fail them, and have a chance to reroll, or in a tiny window in the corner where they scroll past without explanation. It makes it extremely hard to pick up exactly why you’re failing to tackle people and so on. I was sure there was a perfectly good reason why I was failing, but the game really wouldn’t clue me in on it. It assumed I already knew.

It’s even worse in the “real time” mode. I figured this would be something to fuck around with, like a really shitty Madden or something, but no, the game just starts rolling dice in real time, and you still have to issue commands, except that it doesn’t make sense how to issue commands. It’s even more confusing than the normal game.

I’m sure, for a fan, this game would be completely amazing. The announcers are funny, but can also be turned off, which I’m sure is nice after you’ve played 50 games. The visuals are actually pretty good, and have strong style. You’ve got all the customizations options you’d want, and you can set up online leagues with your friends, or just practice against the computer. But man, if you don’t know how to play Blood Bowl already, this game is just going to seem completely incomprehensible, and I can’t really recommend it. I sent it back to Gamefly on the quickfast.

Speaking of LoL, how about that LoL Turret Defense? It’s not so much Turmulent Defense as Tower Defense, and it’s on your i-type Phone and it’s completely free.

You could certainly do worse for getting a free fix for your tower defense love.

League of Legends: Turrent Defense is of the mazing flavor of tower defense. (The other flavor, in my opinion, being fixed path tower defense, if you cared to know.) You have a big map, and sprites stolen from League of Legends (Okay, not stolen, since Riot Games did this, too) run through, and you shoot them with your little towers, making a maze with them so that the baddies take a heck of a long time to get to the other side of the map. Sometimes, one of the League of Legend champions runs in there as a boss, and takes a lot more shots to kill. That’s basically it.

It isn’t the most complicated game in the world. There are only four types of towers. A basic tower, a slowing tower, an area of effect but ground only tower, and a slow to fire but high damage tower. Nothing fancy. There also isn’t a whole lot of options or anything. You can play for set numbers of levels to try to beat the game based on difficulty, or just play until you lose in an endless mode. Basically, this isn’t going to replace a more robust, paid tower defense game. It also isn’t going to really be anything fans of the PC game really have to play, as it has nothing to do with the DotA play of the PC game, besides being a free promotional tool. At the same time, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. Everything works exactly as advertised, and it gives you a very basic, but very functional game of tower defense, with a much better map than most on the iPhone, because it requires scrolling. It’s well-built, just not complicated.

If you’re sick of the completely excellent and certainly better Tap Defense and need another cost-less tower defense fix, LoL Turmulent Defense will do that for you. It also might be more enjoyable if you like the mazing as opposed to the fixed path that Tap Defense is. It’s at least a good hour or two of enjoyment, and at the cost of free, it’s kind of hard to turn that down. Download it on your phone next time you’re stuck with something better to do. You’ll have some fun.

I’m really kind of clicking with Janna.

I really don’t know why. I feel like I’m more in control with Nidalee, but I bought her and started using her, and I keep winning, so I must be doing something right.

Mainly, it’s her Howling Gale that’s so powerful. It’s a skill shot, but it’s so obscenely versatile it’s really all she needs. You can fire it immediately just to slow down enemies, or charge it up to decimate minions. You can also let it charge to set up traps, either into the Gale, or causing them to attempt to get out of the way and run into allies. Plus, it just does a ton of damage. Every time I pick someone off with it, I feel awesome, and since it goes through enemy groups, unlike, say, Nidalee’s Javelin Toss, I can do that more often.

Her other moves are just okay. Zephyr never does enough damage for my tastes. The slow effect is nice, but it’s at such a short range I rarely find it useful. It’s much more useful just as it’s passive ability to move faster and walk through enemy troops. Eye of the Storm works great offensively, helping Janna take towers down. I always forget to use it defensively, though, as it also throws up a damage shield. The games where I remember are the games I do the best.

Really, though, it’s Monsoon I don’t get. Monsoon recharges fast and does decent healing, although it’s HoT which is less useful. It also pushes enemies away. However, it just rarely seems useful. I get the most mileage out of it throwing it down after a tough, multi-person fight and healing my side. It certainly isn’t an “oh shit” button, so it doesn’t help me escape very well. It still kind of baffles me.

Still, I like her. He’s a pure spellcaster I get, which is nice. I need to remember to pick up Kage’s Lucky Pick more often, though. That’s so perfect for her. Yeah, that’s right, I’m also tailoring my in-game builds, too. I am kind of getting super into League of Legends.

Super. Super.

Yesterday, I was staring at the still unopened Amazon box which contains my copy of Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, a game that, by all accounts, is completely badass, but is as of yet unplayed. There was a time in my life where I wouldn’t have been able to resist, a time in my life when I would have tore the fuck through that game and devoured it. I also thought about the fact that I’m still on the last case of Ace Attorney Investigations and haven’t played much Picross 3D.

It then hit me.

I’m not a portable gamer anymore.

A game used to have to be on a portable system for me to have any chance of beating it. I had the consoles, sure, but I got most of my gaming done on my GBA. I beat all kinds of portable games, constantly, because that’s when I had time to play. When I was home, I was talking with people online. I was doing other things.

Now, however, I find myself having to set aside time for games. “This is when I am going to play,” I say. As such, I have time to sit down in front of the TV and consume bigger experiences. I also have Gamefly, which brings a constant stream of cool new games to my door to give me something to focus on and work with.

Basically, I’ve completed way, way more console games than portable games in the last year.

Part of me feels like that’s really weird. I always thought that I’d always be a portable gamer. But I get most of my portable gaming in on my iPod now, little distractions to get me through the day, and when I really want to game, I’m not reaching for my DS anymore.

There’s nothing at all wrong with that. I just have to get that through my head. I play console games now.
Fair enough.

It was to try out Photo Dojo.

Basically, Photo Dojo is pretty awesome at the current price of 0 dollars, and you can easily get an afternoon of fun fiddling around with it. However, for it to really be a full product, it would need a lot of work. Luckily, again, it’s a 0 dollar download, so that’s not an issue.

Basically, you create a very simplistic fighting game by taking pictures of your friends and making them into fighters. They strike some poses, and you record some dialog, and then you can fight with them. Hitting a button makes them throw punches and kicks, up jumps, down ducks, Down and a button does their “special move,” which is based on one of four fighting styles you pick from, and back and a button throws a projectile, Hadouken-style. You can also taunt and use “Desperation Moves” with the touch screen. That’s basically it. There’s no blocking or combos or anything.
Still, the benefit is having fun making fighters with your friends. It’s a really silly affair, and a lot of fun trying to think of different positions and whatnot.

The main problem with the game is cropping. Basically, the game attempts to “crop” around whoever you’re taking a picture of. This might work, but the fact is that people want to do silly awesome things, not go with a set few poses. Even if they use those set poses, it’s hard to get them to fit perfectly in the cropping box. So you end up with a whole lot of background of the picture built into the “sprite” of the fighter, which looks kind of stupid.
The alternative, though, would be some very complex cropping tools in order to make the sprites look good. This wouldn’t be user friendly at all, especially on the DS. I’m not surprised it’s not in there. It’s just not that kind of game. It’s for an afternoon of silly fun.

In any case, Photo Dojo is a fun little distraction, and makes you go “Oh, okay, that’s why there’s a microphone and a camera on this stupid thing.” Since it’s free, it’s worth downloading if you have a DSi right now. Is it worth buying a DSi for? Fuck no. But eh, as I said, it’s an afternoon of stupidity with a friend or two.

Assassin’s Creed 2 was pretty great except when it wasn’t great.

I mean, it had a neat setting. Great graphics. You had this great side mission where you were upgrading this base town, which is always a lot of fun and they did that pretty well. You could collect lots of weapons and such. Seems like a great game, right?

Except, you know, the combat is awful. It is slow, tedious, and doesn’t feel satisfying in any way. It doesn’t help that the best way to fight is to have someone else distract the enemies and one-stab-kill them all in the back. You just stand there and guard until you counterattack, but eventually all the enemies take like 30 counterattacks to kill, so the combat just takes long and longer for no reason. It’s just really painful.

There’s also free-running, which is also kind of shitty. So often I felt like I had absolutely no control over what I was doing. Ezio would jump off of buildings to his death, and refuse to climb up the simplest of climbs without me babysitting him all the time. Sometimes, he simply wouldn’t do something I knew he could do, because he had done in a million times before. Case in point, there’s a sequence where you flash back to being Altair, and you climb a tower. At some point, there is a beam jutting out of the tower over the balcony, and you need to climb onto this beam. He simply will not do it. It took me literally like 20 minutes to do this, and even awhile after I looked up how to do it. There was no reason why he shouldn’t have grabbed that beam immediately. It was frustrating.

Moving in towns? Besides the control issues with the free-running, it’s also annoying because the towns are huge, there’s only fast-travel between the towns, and if you run, people get mad at you, and you have to get into more bullshit combat. So you’ll waste half the game walking around slowly, being bored out of your mind. Maybe you’ll pickpocket every person you pass, to try to make it less boring, but then you’ll just be attacked more often, and it’ll take you even longer to get to the next mission.

For some reason, which I understand that I’m probably not making this clear, I played this game for a long time. It was oddly compelling, if very slow to start, even though it constantly annoyed me. Then, I hit the last memory, and it’s like “Oh, you don’t have all the Codex pages? Go find them.” Fuck you, game. All you told me is that that increases my health. I didn’t need more health. I could never die. I didn’t waste my time with them, and now I need to go find 13 of those fuckers?

Needless to say, it immediately went back to Gamefly at that point.

I can see how people would like this game. Apparently a lot of people didn’t struggle with the controls like me, and maybe that made it worthwhile. I have really mixed feelings about it, and it probably ends up being negative feelings. There’s no way this was game of the year. No way. The fact that it was even discussed in that context shocks me, now that I’ve played it. That’s why I wanted to try it, and man, it just didn’t live up to the hype. At. All.
Bleh.