The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Alternate Title: “Bang Bang Gunshoot game with a ghost sometimes.”

F.E.A.R. 2 is just an incredibly generic game.

I mean, I don’t know. There are some good parts, I suppose. For one, the Soldier AI in the game is just as top-notch as it was in the original. What I played in the original was fun because the enemies were fun to fight against. You felt like you weren’t in a shooting gallery. Granted, you were much more survivable than them, of course, but they at least, for the most part, acted like someone who would like not to be killed. This holds over really well in this game, and the AI for the soldiers is excellent. It makes the combat in the game quite fun.
In addition to that, the guns in this game feel really good. Granted, not like… Modern Warfare levels of good. Infinity Ward has that shit down to an art! But they’re quite close. The enemies take a few more shots than I would like, but every gun feels unique and powerful in its own way. Except maybe the pistol. But it’s the pistol, so… I guess that’s to be expected, even though I love a good, worthwhile pistol. But yeah, if nothing else, even though they toned down the shotguns from the first game, where they made you a god, the shotguns in this game in particular still feel more powerful than anything else in any other game, and it’s really satisfying to use them. Basically, the weapons are pretty nice.

But man, I don’t know. There are issues. For one, there are enemies other than the Soldiers. “Oh, good! Variety is good!” you say. But the AI for these creatures is the exact opposite of the intelligent manner of the soldiers. They just run up to you, and you fire randomly, and they die. No challenge. Nothing interesting. They’re just generic monsters. The worst, however, are the “puppeteers.” At least these create a different combat scenario, where corpses are reanimating, and you have to find the puppeteer and kill him. But it’s frustrating as fuck, because whenever you get the guy in your sights, he uses this light blast to disorient you, so you only get to fire maybe 2 rounds at him, then you have to find him all over again. It’s pretty bullshit.
The controls, too, are kind of pointlessly different than CoD4. Not enough to completely throw you off, but it’s annoying. I mean, I hate to say that all shooter controls need to be the same, but come on. They do. It’s been standardized by now. Valve kind of gets away with it in Left 4 Dead because the game is so fantastic and they’re Valve. If you’re not bringing that kind of pedigree, and this game isn’t, I need to be pressing the same buttons to do similar things. Melee needs to be on clicking the right stick, etc. Seriously.
The “horror” elements aren’t scary either. Just like the first game, it’s very formulaic. If you’re in a “horror” section, you don’t need to shoot, just run forward. You are in no danger. They added ghosts that hurt you, in this one, to try to fix this issue, but all that does is frustrate you when you get lost and can’t find the exit, because you still can’t shoot at them, so you just have to run. There’s no terror and no tension. I just found myself annoyed that the camera effects were being all weird so I couldn’t find the exit.

Mostly, though, the game hinges a lot on its story to set it apart and make it a game worth your time. However, there’s simply nothing there. Well, okay, let me rephrase: There may be something there, but it is all in little intel notes you find spread around. It’s not actually in the gameplay or the game. You move from location to location with little obvious purpose. The way buildings are connected makes little sense. There are some characters, but they’re just kind of there. You’re alone 90% of the time, and you don’t even have a “Cortana” voice in your head. When you do, it’s almost jarring, and they’re saying things unrelated to the action, like just filling in exposition to attempt to explain why you are where you are. The game also ends abruptly, and certainly doesn’t seem to have your character follow any sort of significant arc or anything. You’re just a guy with a gun, shooting unrelated guys with guns.
I’ll admit: I listened to podcasts during the entire playthrough of the game. Nothing I was reading in the subtitles and nothing from watching the game made me wonder what was going on, or made me interested. One could probably say I didn’t give it a chance. Okay, that’s fine. But the game didn’t show me anything that wanted to make me do as such. In comparison, I paused, listened to, and paid attention to every cutscene in Red Faction: Guerrilla. Now, there’s little doubt in my mind that Red Faction had a worse plot than F.E.A.R. 2. But Red Faction was constantly doing things that made me excited. It made me invested in the awesome shit going on. I wanted more, so I paid attention. In F.E.A.R., I was just moving along for achievements and more guys to shoot. It didn’t draw me in, and it is its job to do so. I feel no remorse in saying the story is not interesting due to that.

Anyway, it was a fine enough weekend rental sort of game, though. As I said, the gunplay for most of it is very entertaining. It’s probably a better shooter than, say, Wolfenstein, which I also enjoyed and is also a great weekend shooty game. Feel free to give it a play. It won’t hurt. It’s not really purchase material, though.

Hook Champ is fucking awesome. If you have an iPod Touch or an iPhone, and you don’t have this game? I will probably punch you. Just saying.
Seriously.
A punch.
Likely to the face.

Okay, I guess I could tell you why, huh.
Here are a list of reasons why Hook Champ is one of the best iPhone games out there.

Reason 1: It’s got fantastic retro styles. I mean, just look at a screenshot or anything. Immediately you will say “Spelunky.” It just looks fantastic, and yet has enough detail that, when you buy a million different hats for Jake, the main character, you can clearly see what he’s wearing. It’s gorgeous.

Reason 2: It contains much humor. Now, Hook Champ is an action game, and you wouldn’t expect a lot of humor, but man, there is a lot of it in there! Before every level, it throws you two quick lines, easily skippable, but they tend to be very funny, and there are so many of them that you’ll still be seeing new ones even after several deaths on a level. The shopkeeper descriptions of upgrade items are equally entertaining. A small example: “Husk Musk Lv. 3: Women will crash into you at high speeds. Also, bats.”

Reason 3: It’s built from the ground up for the iPhone. Seriously, the controls are extremely simple, which is exactly what this game needs. Tap 3/4ths of the screen? Throw your grappling hook. Tap the bottom fourth? Walk forward. There are big buttons for the rarely and situationally-used Shotgun and Rocketboots, too, which are no problem to hit. It controls precisely, which is great, due to reason 5.

Reason 4: It’s got a great upgrade system. It’s always good to see a character improve, and the upgrade system in this game is balanced extremely well, at least to me. Every time you beat a level, there’s probably some upgrade you can unlock afterwards. The cost scales, but so do the number of times you have to try the level, and thus pick up extra loot, each time due to the difficulty. As such, I’ve almost always had something useful to unlock any time I went to the store, and that just feels fantastic. I’ve never had to grind for an item so far. Perhaps I’ll have to for the Max Level items, but at that point, I’m probably going to have to be grinding away at beating the hardest levels anyway, so I have no problem with that.

Reason 5: The game is old school hardcore and challenging, but not in a cheap way. Like the best action games, every time you die, you realize it was your fault, and that had you just thrown your hook a little earlier, or released it a little later, or deployed your Rockeboots right then, you would have made it. At the same time, every death makes you better at the course, and makes you feel like you can get farther next time, and you get to keep the loot you picked up, even when you die, so if nothing else, you’re working towards upgrades to make the level easier. I spent an entire day basically doing nothing but playing Hook Champ, only taking breaks to charge my iPod. It’s addicting in a really good way, and that’s because of the challenge and “one more try” mentality it puts on you.

Watch some videos of the game in action. Be convinced, and then BUY THIS GAME. It is so, so good. You won’t regret it.

We gathered, as we sometimes do, for board games. Only we have some different sorts of people about. Katie Essner, for one. And she brought a game I had never heard of called Luck of the Draw. Instead of whipping out one of my complicated gaming concoctions, we decided to go for this, and man, I’m glad we did. This game was so much fun, I’m going to have to grab me a copy of it sometime.

Basically, this game sort of combines Pictionary with a Balderdash or an Apples to Apples. You get a thing to draw, and everyone doodles a picture of it. Then you mix up the pictures, labeling them with little colored discs. Then you go to the deck of “qualities,” and flip over a few of those, and everyone votes on which drawings have these qualities. If you win votes, you get points. If you get points, you win. Simple.
The genius of the game, though, is that you do not know the qualities ahead of time, nor do the qualities have anything to do with what you are supposed to draw. You have free reign to do whatever the hell you want, and hope that your silly, insane version of whatever you’re supposed to be doodling hits a category like “Most Messy” or “Used Straightest Lines.” Or, if you’re going to draw pictures of cocks, you hope it hits something like “Most Masculine.”

Seriously, though, it’s this disconnection that lets you have a ton of fun with a good group of friends. Much like in Balderdash, it soon becomes a battle to make everyone react. Sure, you could draw a normal-looking bride, or you could draw a bride wearing a KKK outfit. Sure, you could draw a normal-looking daydream, or you could draw one with a man proudly exclaiming “MY COCK IS A BOAT!” Sure, it may be a bit juvenile, and the game works best when you at least try to draw something related to the category, but with a group who can take a joke, it is just so, so much fun.

Due to that being where the real fun is, though, the game does sort of break down like Balderdash. In my experience, after a few rounds of Balderdash, people just start writing hilarious, stupid things, and stop focusing on the goal of the game. This works the same way. You eventually have to shut it down because of that. But man, we had a really great time playing. Oh, here’s a little sample of our art, in “bad cell phone camera” vision. This is Jonathan’s entry for “Tongue-Tied.” Nice, huh? I doodled a Smoker from Left 4 Dead, but there just weren’t enough gamers at the table. Sad. But, again, that’s one of the things that makes this game so great. You don’t have to be a gamer to enjoy it. It’s just a flat-out good time. That’s awesome.

I honestly never expected to be so addicted to DJ Hero. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t played music games before. I’ve played a lot of them. A whole whole lot of them. Still, there is something about DJ Hero that really tapped into something I hadn’t really experienced, and I really, really enjoyed it. So much so that I’ve gotten the vast majority of the achievements, even the ones that required me to compete online. It’s just a really fun little game.

I blame a lot of this on the controller. Say what you will about the cost, and it is probably overcosted, but that controller really makes the game into something special. It feels REALLY good scratching on the controller, and having the physical little dial and crossfader turn potentially boring mechanics into really compelling ones. It takes a lot of work to master these sorts of things, and build up muscle memory on how much to move that slider and where exactly that knob is, but man, for me anyway, it was totally worth it. It feels like you are doing something completely and utterly different from playing guitar in Rock Band or playing a normal music game with your controller, and the game benefits greatly from it.

The music in the game itself is a whole bunch of Mashups, which are both good and bad. On one hand this, once again, makes the game feel extremely different: you haven’t played a game with such songs in it before. On the other hand, this gave them excuse to re-use songs in Mashups over and over again. Sure, every mix is a bit different, but it’s still much less fun playing 4 songs where the base is the same song time and time again.
Still, some of the mixes are really nice and catchy. There are some pretty awful ones, but it’s amazing seeing songs like Hollaback Girl turned into songs I can’t stop listening to. Of course, one of the main reasons I wanted the game was the vast support that Daft Punk threw behind the game, adding a whole bunch of music and mixes. These are by far the best, both their normal mixes, as well as some “Megamixes” where they just remix all their own songs together. And, of course, once I unlocked playable Daft Punk, I never used anyone else. Because Daft Punk fucking rules.

But yeah, I really loved DJ Hero. The main problem with it is that I have pretty well pulled every bit of entertainment out of it that one can. Unlike Rock Band, which works decently as a single-player game, but really comes together, and becomes something you constantly come back to, because you can bring friends into it over and over again, DJ Hero is a purely single player experience. Adding another Turntable wouldn’t really make things any more fun. The game is just complex enough that people can’t just pick it up and fiddle with it like they can a guitar or drum controller. There’s no community element to it. It’s just a game. A fun game, but a game, not a party game. Which is a shame.
That’s why I liked it so much, though. It was tailored for the exact situation I was in: sitting down, by myself, and just enjoying some music and some music gaming. It was a damn enjoyable experience. I hope they manage to fix all the rough edges and bring me a sequel. I’ll probably dust off the turntable and give that a solid playthrough as well, if they do.

The Steam Sale that Steam has been having over the holidays has been horrible. For people’s wallets. I was no different. One of the things I picked up, seeing as I had always meant to try it and it was only 10 bucks, was Champions Online. It was at a good price, and I continue to hope that, perhaps there will be some package deal with Star Trek Online so that when I play that with Spants, I can reactivate the subscription to this, just for fun. That might be wishful thinking.

How’s Champions? Well, let me tell you: it is an MMO.

I mean, I’m not completely knocking it for having that quality, because that is completely what it is. However, it’s not JUST an MMO. It is a complete recreation of City of Heroes. Like, totally. Only with a different backend and character building system. It’s honestly kind of amazing that Cryptic was okay making what seems like the exact same game.

Still, that means it brings over the really good qualities of City of Heroes, and that being the crazy character editor. You have so, so many options, and you can be incredibly creative. After some fiddling, I accidentally made my hero: Jackalope Girl. Just look at her. Isn’t she awesome? Here’s her amazing origin story.

Wandering outdoors during a horrible electrical hail storm, Jacqueline Lapin stumbled across a most disturbing and amazing sight: that of the mythical Jackalope mating ritual. The powerful killer rabbits were unable to let Jacqueline leave: No human was to see this awesome sight. However, they took pity on the poor girl, and made her one of them. Now imbued with the awesome power of Lepus Tempermentalus, Jacqueline has vowed to work to make the world safer for rabbit, antelope, and humankind.

Yeah, I’ve been having a lot of fun kind of creating her character. I’m picking skills that make sense for her too, instead of just whatever: She’s mostly just got kicks. Yep, she runs about and kicks people in the face. She also has Super Jump, of course. The customization is such that I can make her walk around on all fours, too, which is an awesome little touch.

Yeah, that kind of character creation was the very best part of City of Heroes, and it’s the best part of Champions.

Still, there are a few other things that are supposedly “different” from a normal MMO. The game is supposedly an “Action MMO,” but I don’t really see it. Sure, there is a block button, and some attacks you need to charge, but basically it just changes pressing one button and having it automatically fire to jamming constantly on one button instead. Not really a huge change. Maybe it makes a lot of difference in the late game? The one thing it does that I do appreciate is that it makes it pretty easy to escape combat. I can just jump away if I’m getting overwhelmed. That’s nice.
The one difference from other MMOs I’ve played that I do appreciate is that of many little instanced areas. I feel like it works really well. For example, you start in the main city of the game, Millennium City, but it’s under siege by aliens. This Alien Attack crisis is it’s own little instance: until you solve the crisis, you can’t go into the city proper, or do anything else. Similarly, I went to a place in the desert called Project Greenskin, which quickly fell under attack by mutants, who destroyed part of the facility and activated the emergency radiation quarantine barrier, and I needed to fix the problem before I could get outside it. I really like this. It adds a much stronger sense of story to the whole game, and it makes me, at least, feel more like a superhero: of course there are huge crises that demand my immediate attention! It makes it a lot cooler as a soloing experience.

The game is very soloable, too, which is nice. However, it probably is because you’re going to need to grind up many characters, due to the fact that it is very, very easy to completely ruin your character in character building, or so I hear, and that there is no complete respec. That’s kind of bullshit all around.

Still, I dunno, I’m enjoying my 10 dollar purchase. Will I subscribe to it on its own? Has it brought be back into the MMO fold? Nah. It’s a fine little distraction, though. I’ve no complaints. Though if you look at my Steam info to see how long I’ve played, know that Steam has messed up on the count! I haven’t really played that many hours. I’m not THAT crazy. Yet.

I had the bright idea, during the last week of classes, that we should play a short DnD campaign over the Christmas break. “There will be plenty of time!” I told myself. “So much time!”

Well, it took like… 3 weeks to be able to come up with a date to do this thing, and even then, we barely got it going, and even even then then, we only got through one combat. But hey, it was DnD! Dungeons and Dragons! That’s cool, right?

This campaign was supposed to be a departure in many ways. For one, it was supposed to be the first time that Mr. Justin Spants, Esq. got to be the DM. I knew this meant a complete lack of seriousness to absolutely anything about the campaign, but I hoped it would be fun. I also set out to make a character completely different from what I normally play.

You see, I am stuck, in a way. I always play the healer. Now, I love, love, love playing that role, don’t get me wrong. But if I don’t expand my horizons a little, how can I know all there is to know about the game? How can I know what the other roles need from me, the healer? How can I tell someone else they’re doing it wrong if I don’t know how to do it right? All this, plus the fact that maybe it’s time to try to roleplay someone different brought me to this point.
I had my eyes firmly set on the “Controller.” Nobody in my group has ever really played a Wizard, or the like, and we’ve often been found needing them. So I decide, hey, I’m going to play a Wizard! Only I get this idea for a character: Reckless, Brash, and in love with combat. Someone who shoots first and asks questions later, and is incredibly laid back about her chosen profession. The more I thought about this, the less this seemed like a Wizard. I turned to a class I laughed at before, the Invoker, for the answer. Invoker seemed so… bland, but as my character came together, the idea of this Avatar of Kord who isn’t about evil, or anything, but is just itching to get into war, into more fights, due to anything that could be seemed as a good idea? Well, that fit. That could be fun.

There we were, at a city with a name so stupid I cannot even recall it. Avril Sparklewhisper (sister, apparently of Rachael Sparklewhisper, my Warlord), Willhelm the Staunch (my brother’s completely min/maxed tank of a fighter), and the single-y named Tao (Essner’s warrior monk Cleric Dragonborn guy) were all there. Yes, this was a gathering of one of the land’s greatest adventuring parties: Rumblefuzzz, with three z’s, because… well, I have no idea why, it’s just how it is.

There was a fire cave, or so some guy named Brandon said. In said very religious fire cave were some very bad people, and they had taken the place hostage, which was really killing tourism. We wanted to talk to Brendon, because he seemed like he would no more, but Brandon would have none of that. Dick. We went in to take some names and throw some lightning. That’s what Avril was going to do, anyway.

And I totally did! Having AoE spells really does change combat a lot, and certainly makes it easier. I was knocking down big groups with little trouble, and it was pretty cool. Jonathan, of course, was tanking like a pro, and had some pretty crazy anti-damage skills. Essner continues to not be able to roll a d20 to save his life. Seriously, I just don’t get it. He ALWAYS misses. He never deals any damage at all. Yet he can play Arkham Horror, and murder enemies he shouldn’t be able to hit any day of the week. The guy just cannot use a d20. I don’t know. They just hate him.

Anyway, the combat went on a little longer than it probably should have, which happens, especially when you’re new at the stuff and don’t know what you’re doing: balancing a combat is hard. Really hard. But we had some fun, and then people were done, so we split. Hopefully we can continue and do some more soon, but hell, as long as it took to schedule this one, maybe we can get to it around next December. Who knows.

On Christmas Eve, I was in charge of entertainment. I had a couple ideas: I bought a copy of Up so we could watch it. But then, that was pushed to a Christmas Day movie down at the Grandparents. So what to do? Well, I finally made the parents play a board game I knew they could handle: The Choo Choo Train game, also known as Ticket to Ride.

It was an interesting experience. Explaining the rules didn’t go too bad: Ticket to Ride is a simple game, and that’s why I thought the parents would enjoy it without too much issue. It took them a few turns before they really figured out what they were doing, but they caught on pretty well.

They both played so differently. I must get my options options options lock from my mother, because she often had to really think about what she was doing, and worried about what she was playing, and where she was buying tracks. Dad, on the other hand, found a strategy and stuck with it, as soon as he figured out the game rules. It was just kind of cool. I love when I get to share my passions with my parents, and show them I’m not COMPLETELY crazy.

In the end, though, neither of them won. They didn’t lose by too much, though! Jonathan beat me by exactly 10 points, and got the Longest Train. I almost had him! Damn. But still, it was a great little family game… thing. I’m sure I’ll keep trying to make it happen in the future. That’s just how I roll.

A thread on Talking Time made me think about what my games of the year are. Surprisingly, I managed to make a list, and I’m actually pretty happy with it. So here it is, cross-posted, with some more comments.

And now, here are my top 10 games of 2009.

10) The Path: Not really a game as much as an Art thing, but it certainly got me thinking more than any other game this year. So much that I was inspired to write a pseudo-paper on it, just because it stuck in my mind. I really need to get around to playing Fatale.

9) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2: This game really disappointed me. After how awesome the first game’s single player was, I admit I was expecting a lot. It left me down. I never would have guessed I would have ranked it so low. Still, I’ve had a lot of fun with multiplayer, both with my friends and alone. It’s still pretty solid stuff. Just not super-great, game-changing stuff.

8) Klonoa: I know it’s a remake, but dammit, I love Klonoa, and I loved playing through it another time on the Wii.

7) Left 4 Dead 2: It’s more Left 4 Dead, and it’s great. I’m honestly surprised that it isn’t higher on this list, but I just haven’t been playing it too much. I mean, it’s not that it’s not quality? But the focus of me and my friends has been elsewhere. I’m sure I’ll get back into it a bit more sometime soon. Doesn’t make it any less fun, though.

6) Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story: Like most Mario and Luigi games, it suffered from a last boss with too much HP, so I didn’t technically beat it. But I enjoyed the ride getting there. More Bowser is awesome. I heart Bowser in these RPGs, and his battles were surprisingly fairly different from that of the Bros. I liked it muchly.

5) Word Ace: I hate poker, but I love word games. Somehow, combining Texas Hold ’em with Scrabble basically created crack for me for awhile. It is just so, so much fun. I wish there were a desktop app, instead of just an iPhone and Pre app, so I could play it on my computer way, way too much.

4) Borderlands: A friend of mine just randomly bought me a copy of this on Steam so I could play with him, and man, it is just so well put together. It brings everything I love about playing RPGs co-op, but it puts it in a shooter scenario where there’s always action and it doesn’t get boring. I am totally going to buy a second copy of this on 360 next year to play with a completely different group of friends, and I’m probably going to buy some of the DLC on PC.

3) Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War II: I literally bought a new gaming PC to play this game, and it completely delivered in every way. It mixes RTS with RPG so well that it rekindled my long-ended love of RTS, at least for a little while. But seriously, the single player in this game is completely fantastic, and I cannot wait until the expansion comes out next year. I didn’t much care for the multiplayer, though. I’m sure someone would get a kick out of it. I liked getting to paint my units? But the single player package is more than enough on its own. If you have a PC that can play it, you really should.

2) Beatles: Rock Band: This game has created some of my favorite gaming moments of the year. Standing for an hour, learning harmonies with my friends, and mastering singing while playing Guitar has been just so much fun. Granted, it helps that my friends love the Beatles, so they’re more willing to play this than normal Rock Band. But man, as far as games with friends go, this is, by far, the game of the year.

1) Red Faction: Guerrilla: This is probably the best open world game I’ve ever played. Granted, I only really got into playing such games after Crackdown surprised me and warmed my heart, but man, this game was excellent the entire way through, and came out of nowhere. I love the freedom felt by being able to smash every single thing. Great stuff. Add to that the nights me and my friends spent having a blast with Wrecking Crew, and you have a pretty solid choice for my game of the year, I think.

Notably Missing is Dragon Age, which I haven’t gotten a chance to play yet, but which I bet will deserve a pretty high spot when I finally get around to it. I just didn’t want to dig into a huge RPG while I was still so busy with school and shit.
Additionally noticeably missing is Plants vs Zombies. Maybe that should have been up there! But I’m pretty happy with the list. I could fiddle with it forever, but it’s probably best just to leave it be. Still, Plants vs Zombies is awesome, and you should play it.

Anyway, there’s my picks. Let me know what you think, hm?

It’s almost Christmas. I figured I needed something lightweight to play. Something mindless. Something where I could shoot tons and tons of Nazis without any problem. I ordered Gamefly to send me Wolfenstein, the new one for 360, to me for just this reason.

The game will knock you over with how mediocre it is. There is nothing particularly bad about this game. Nothing is broken. None of the combat scenarios are particularly awful. It’s a completely functional video game. You will pull the right trigger and shoot many people!

The main highlight of the game is the weapon upgrade system. A good weapon upgrade system is a lot of fun, and Wolfenstein is great for that. After every mission, I found myself going back to the Black Market to add more upgrades. They really do affect how the weapons work, too! It works really well.
However, since you have limited funds, and can only upgrade maybe 3 guns of the 8 you get, at most, you end up only upgrading the “normal” guns. Granted, those feel just fine, and I used the MP40, MP43 and Kar98k for the majority of the game. The Kar, especially, is awesome because it gets this incredibly over-powered bayonet upgrade, making it an obscenely deadly melee weapon. Enemies that took whole clips go down with one stab of the bayonet. It’s crazy. There are other guns, too, including some crazy space guns that shoot lightning and shit, but since normal enemies don’t carry them, and thus you only really find ammo for them every once and awhile, you’ll only really be pulling them out for bosses, if that, and they just aren’t worth upgrading.

Mr. Blazkowicz also gets this crazy magic medallion that gives him various Bullet Time effects. None of this is new or revolutionary, but having that extra set of options does make combat more enjoyable. One of the powers surrounds you with a shield for a short period of time, letting you run out and shoot at people. I eventually upgraded it so that the shield actually bounced bullets back at people shooting at me, and walking out in a huge crowd and having them mow themselves down was some of the most entertaining moments of the whole game.

Overall, though, as I said, there’s nothing particularly stand-out about the game. They obviously spent a lot of time on the multiplayer, for no apparent reason, because most of the achievements are for that. I didn’t even try it. Why would a game like this have multiplayer? It seems stupid. Still, it was exactly what I was looking for: a low stress shoot-em-up that wasn’t very long. It’s a perfect rental. Although, honestly, if you haven’t played Bound in Blood yet, that was a much better shooter in this vein. It had some intelligent story, and just felt a lot more polished and a lot more enjoyable. I’d go with that one first. But yeah, you could do worse than play this game for a weekend like I did. It’s pretty alright.

Alternate Title: Trine, Trine Trine.

Trine is a game that has garnered a lot of critical praise, at least among the podcasts I listen to, and it was completely deserved. Granted, the PS3 release is apparently a buggy mess, so maybe you shouldn’t play that one. But the PC version? Amazing, and completely worth your time.

At first, it seems like Trine is trying to be a modern Lost Vikings. You have a puzzle-y platformer with three characters with different abilities. The Wizard levitates things and creates physics objects. The Thief has a bow for distance attacks and a grappling hook to swing about. The Warrior can pick up heavy objects and has a wide variety of ways to fight enemies. Seems very similar to that Blizzard classic. In reality, though, it doesn’t play very much like that at all. It’s still very much a puzzle platformer, but since you don’t have to maneuver and keep track of three different people at once, simply poofing into other forms whenever you need their abilities, it goes much simpler, and that’s a good thing.

The controls on the PC were something I was really worried about. How could I play such a serious platformer with a mouse and keyboard? However, I don’t claim to know how they did it, but it controls perfectly that way. I was doing some very intense and complex swing/jump things with the Thief near the end of the game without any problem. It just controls in a very solid fashion. Never do you feel like it’s the controls making you fail. That’s really important.

The gameplay itself is, well, puzzle platforming. You have to figure out how to hit various buttons or get past various obstacles in order to get to the end of the level. Throughout each stage are scattered bottles of experience, which can provide extra challenge, if you want to get them. However, you also get experience from killing monsters, which you do have to do from time to time. Therefore, it’s not important that you grab all of these. I only maybe got half on my run through the game. In the same way, there are sometimes hidden chests, which contain equippable items for your heroes. These are very useful things, like letting the Wizard have more boxes summoned at the same time, or giving you a life potion that refills a hurt hero’s life whenever they get low. Once again, though, these are useful to pick up, but they aren’t game-breaking if you don’t have them: The only ones you need to pick up, ones that give the heroes brand new powers, are situated so you can’t miss them.
Everything about the game seems really hardcore, but it is actually very forgiving. Checkpoints are spread about liberally, so when you die, you never lose much progress at all, especially since the world-state doesn’t reset when you have to restart at a checkpoint. If you’ve already flipped a switch, it’s still flipped, and so on. When you pass a checkpoint, it also revives dead characters and heals everyone to 50% health. If you’re having trouble with a combat, you can just keep running over a checkpoint multiple times to heal up. Therefore, it’s really just about figuring out how to navigate around the challenges, which I very much enjoyed. If you can’t pull it off, you can try as many times as you need with no penalty. At the same time, it does take skill and sometimes some thinking to get past some challenges, and there isn’t always just one solution. It’s really rewarding to push forward most of the time.
There’s a story, and it’s cute, serviceable, and in no way a hindrance to the game, but it isn’t really important. The gameplay is just so great, it will carry you through till the very end. The end level is stupid difficult, though. I played the whole game through on “Medium” until the last level, where I had to change to “Easy.” It’s amazing to me that they apparently patched that level to make it easier before I played the game. Gods, how could it be any harder? They basically remove the liberal checkpoints you’ve gotten used to using, and make you go through one of the hardest platforming sequences in the game all in one go. It’s pretty mean of them. Still, once I switched it to Easy, it wasn’t too hard, and it certainly didn’t ruin the game as a whole.

Trine is an excellent game. With really well-done gameplay and controls and graphics that will kind of blow you away as being from an indie studio, Trine is certainly one of the best indie games of the year. It’s good, good stuff. Unless you simply can’t stand platforming, you’d do well to pick this game up on Steam sometime. It was worth every penny I paid for it.