The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Hello and greetings. Let me tell you about my Skylanders. Well, okay, wait, I guess I’m going to tell you about my Skylanders tomorrow. Today, let me tell you about Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure, a game you can purchase and play on your Xbox 360.

Skylanders is one of those games that makes me wish I had children of the right age, so I could play it all day with them. However, Skylanders is also a really good game… if you can get past the gimmick. Luckily, I kind of ended up finding the gimmick to be part of the fun. So that wasn’t a problem for me! But, you know, I could see some people being really pissy about having to pay 8 dollars for a new character. And if you break it down like that, it does seem pretty shitty! But I dunno, having the cool little statue makes it okay to me. Your mileage may obviously vary, though. If you can’t get over that, then this just isn’t a game for you, and that’s fine. I certainly kind of feel embarrassed being okay with it, but I had fun, dammit, so I don’t really care.

I was asked earlier today “Is Skylanders basically Gauntlet: Legends?” The answer is yes, but unlike Gauntlet Legends, which I will admit to playing a ton of as well, you have a lot of characters that actually play differently to choose from! Seriously, one thing that really shocked me was how different and varied all the Skylanders feel. After my TOTALLY STUPID hunts for more and more Skylanders, I ended up with about 10 toys. Each one feels unique and different, which is hard to do in such a simple game. But they all have their own little strategies and things they are good at, and that’s not even counting the elemental affinities. They aren’t all equal, but they’re different, and since you can swap them out at will using the magical-seeming Portal of Power, any time you feel like you aren’t being as effective, you have a new strategy at your fingertips. It’s great.

There are certainly parts of the game I feel are weak or frustrating. Each Skylander has a branch in their skill tree, and it really only gives you a vague idea of what skills are in each branch. You can’t check them ahead of time. I never felt like I made the wrong choice on these, but still, it would have been better if it had just told me what I was getting for each branch. I felt dirty getting big XP bonuses for buying more toys. I mean, obviously the game wants you to buy more toys: it shows you goddamn sizzle reels for each Skylander and is all like “BUY THEM TODAY!” But somehow that stuff bothered me less, because I wanted to know what I was buying, and those sizzle reels did a good job of quickly running down how each Skylander played. “Oh, if I want to set up laser traps, he might be good. Okay.” However, those XP bonuses are just pure greed. “To play more optimally, buy more toys.” I took their XP boost, but I felt dirty about it. Also, you could often swap Skylanders and, due to how the game pauses or doesn’t pause the action, have your new Skylander teleport in and immediately lose most of their health. I seriously swapped a character in, and had them die before I even got control of them during one of the final boss battles. That was pretty annoying! There are three achievements in the game that are real hard as well. Two I could probably get with practice, but the last one, beating the last boss without swapping Skylanders, just seems ridiculous. I barely beat the last boss using all 10! He was SO MUCH HP! It’s like he’s the last boss of a Mario and Luigi game or something. That bothered me, because I kind of wanted to S Rank this game.

These are minor complaints in the grand scheme of things. Overall, this game was simple fun. It strikes that nice medium where it’s never so complicated or taxing that you need to really think hard, worry, or be frustrated, but it’s also interesting enough that it isn’t a boring grind all the time. It’s the perfect game to play while listening to a podcast or audiobook, or while catching up with a friend on the second controller. I am really glad I decided to give it a chance, and I’m excited that it’s so popular that you can’t even find any toys in town, because I am excited to play Skylanders 2 when it comes out. The things people are going to have problems dealing with are up front: either you’re down with the toys or not. Just know that if you decide you are, there’s a pretty damn good game underneath it all that’s aimed for kids, but certainly enjoyable by adults.

What’s next on my list of things I should have written about months ago? Hm. Ah, Crimson Steam Pirates. That sure is a game!

I like the idea behind the game, as well as playing it. You were a steampunk pirate fleet: nothing wrong with that. The gameplay itself felt a lot like my time back in the day with Pirates of the Spanish Main. You moved all your ships each turn, and then saw how it played out for a few seconds before you picked moves again. It’s a kind of strategy game that’s pretty perfectly suited to the iPad, and I’m surprised I haven’t seen more of them. (I think Steambirds is one like it? I dunno, I haven’t played it.)

The game is microtransaction-based, in that there are “episodes” of content, and while the first one is free, the rest cost money. This is a fair model, and the first episode seems of a decent length. I certainly didn’t beat it. However, it also seems like the first episode is mostly a kind of tutorial, showing you various mission types and ship types that you can have in your fleet. Again, nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but I got kind of bored with it by the time I stopped.

There are plenty of things in the game that had potential. You could assign crew, and different crew members had different abilities they would give the ship. However, this really seemed mostly pre-set: you had a small amount of customizability, especially when you captured a ship mid-mission and decided who would leave your ship to crew it, but not as much as I would like. This game needs you to be able to pick your own fleet, and play missions your own way. I wasn’t really seeing that, though maybe that’s something that happens in later episodes? I dunno.

The game is polished, and it’s free to try, so you might as well try it! Again, it controls perfectly, and might have what you’re looking for. I found it lost my interest really fast because I was not invested in my fleet or tweaking it to make it work in various scenarios. That seemed like where fun would be in this sort of game, but maybe I’m wrong.

Sorry for the quickie: I’m quite tired, but I didn’t want you to go without blog content, even when it’s over something I haven’t played for months and don’t have time to refresh myself on! Am I the worst sort of blogger? You be the judge. Anyway, I’m off to bed.

Let me look at my list of blog topics…

Goodness, Mega Mall Story? Damn, it’s been awhile since I played that. Best clear that off of there. Maybe this week will be “Games I should have written about like two months ago” week.

In any case, Mega Mall Story is Kairosoft’s attempt at making SimTower, and to be fair, this is probably one of the better Kairosoft games. However, in some ways, I feel like it suffers a bit from the smaller scope Kairosoft tries to stick to. They always keep their types of whatevers limited and dole them out slowly over time to make you want to keep going. However, in Mega Mall Story, I was really feeling it. I simply didn’t have enough store types to expand far enough to unlock more store types, and that felt weird to me. You don’t, say, but two different book stores in a mall. You just don’t. Whereas in, say, Hot Springs Story, it made sense that you were putting like a million hotel rooms down of the same type: that’s what goes on at those sorts of places. Maybe that’s just me thinking too hard about the scenario. Then again, you build apartments with your own money, but don’t collect rent from them, but instead just get another customer in the area. So if I want to pick apart the “story” of the game, there’s probably more interesting things to poke at.

But I digress. The game attempts to fix this problem of not enough new stuff by having “combos,” which are strings of stores placed together to make certain types of customers come. For example, if you put a toy store, a candy store, and a capsule vending machine together, you get a “Kids” combo. The problem is, while most of the combos make some sort of sense, the game doesn’t outright tell you about them. You have to either stumble upon them accidentally, or you have to buy them from this guy to learn about them. More unlockables, sure, but I’m not just going to move my stores around for no reason to try to find these things, you know? Plus, when you buy them, you may get plans that involve stores you don’t have access to yet. Not knowing them gives me no way to plan a new floor in a new or interesting way. I clearly thought my stupid original layout was fine. I don’t want to change it without reason, you know?

Still, if you liked SimTower at all, and, uh, don’t just want to buy SimTower under it’s original name, YootTower, on iOS, Mega Mall Story is for you. I find I have more and more diminishing returns on Kairosoft’s games. They are all pretty similar. Yet they all still have the magic of previous games in there. I feel like it’s just something where you should pick the one game that really speaks to you more, whether it be Game Dev Story, Pocket Academy, or whatever, and play that one to death, you know? You probably don’t need to play every single one like me. I’m pretty sure I still have Grand Prix Story sitting on my iPad, as of yet unplayed. But someday I will play it! And it’ll be cool, I’m sure. Kairosoft is good people.

I feel like I should write about Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, but I recently watched the first episode of the second season of Sherlock, which was fantastic, and that’s kind of stuck in my head. Not that Game of Shadows wasn’t good. It was silly at times, but it was fun and action-packed, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that Sherlock brings the character development and such along with the humorous bits. But I digress.

I was seeing some backlash on my twitter feed against Game of Shadows, but I can’t say I really understood why. They saw the first one, didn’t they? This is pretty well exactly what you would have expected out of a sequel to that movie: bigger, more explosions, more of the same awesome actors being all awesome. It was certainly exactly what I wanted. Sure, there were some extra-ridiculous bits, like the “fight” at the end of the movie that was all in the mind, but at the same time, that kind of crazy-ass idea for a final fight scene made perfect sense in the realm of the movie, given that that sort of “pre-planning” was always how they showed Sherlock’s prowess, so of course his equal and rival would be able to do the same. They showed that off as best they can, and in a weird way, made a very action-packed sequence that was still a battle of wits. I couldn’t fault it for that too much.

If I really had to place fault on anything in the film, it’s that the character of the tarot card reader person was really, really useless. She does nothing besides show up with magical gypsy supplies to conveniently move the plot along again and again. She’s basically just an explanation as to why Sherlock and Watson can be where they need to be when they need to be. I guess there have been worse characters in films? But she certainly wasn’t as memorable as the rest of the main cast, but at the same time was kind of forced in there because you need a female character, right? Yeah, I don’t know.

I did rather like how they mostly resolved the Sherlock-Watson-Watson Wife love/hate triangle that was set up in the first movie. Sherlock finally kind of gives in, but his solution is to make sure that Watson Wife trusts him, and brings her to his side, as opposed to just kind of apologizing and getting along nicely, which isn’t really a thing he would do. Then again, I guess Holmes’ “death” kind of solves the problem for Watson Wife before she need really do TOO much, though, so maybe they’ll bring it back if they do another sequel. I kind of hope not, though. I liked the subtle way it resolved itself.

Anyway, I didn’t find any surprises in this film. I went in looking for a fun popcorn kind of movie, just like the last one, and that’s exactly what I got. It was fun, and funny, and just plain entertaining. I’m sure if I thought SUPER HARD I’d find some plot holes and even more stupid shit. But eh. This never wanted to be something impressive. It just wanted to be fun. And it was. So there.

Maybe I mentioned this? I ended up playing a bunch of iPad games while I wasted time Christmas morning and eve and whatnot. It was fun! It had been awhile. I think I mentioned that? I dunno.

Anyway, one of the things I played was the now almost laughably named Sonic 4 Episode 1. Because, there’s clearly going to be more episodes. Yep. Totally going to be. Most certainly going to be more episodes of that.

The game was fine. It’s very much a callback to old school Sonics, and there’s nothing wrong with that, if you’re into that kind of thing. The thing that’s really surprising is that it doesn’t play like complete garbage on the platform. It turns out that Sonic is mostly about holding to the right and then clicking the jump button appropriately, and the virtual thumbstick can totally handle that! You just hold right and just go! It’s fun! It does get a little more complex when you get to, say, boss battles that require you to actually maneuver, but even then, I didn’t find the virtual thumbstick that bad. I was able to beat the bosses I faced without TOO much trouble.

All that said, it almost seemed like too much of a throwback to me. Like, I dunno why you would play this over another run of Sonic 2 or something. I mean, it’s way easier, because they seem to throw lives at you constantly and whatnot, and the levels are like… all generic Sonic level with nothing really new about them. Okay, so, there’s little gimmicks in each level, but in general? Just Sonic level. Oh, look, here’s some Casino stages. Oh, look, here’s an airship of some sort. I’m not a huge Sonic fan, though they’re fun enough? I haven’t played the games to death, but it even seemed dull to me. I dunno. I’d rather play Sonic Colors. It would have a better soundtrack too. (Also, I hear Generations is really great? I can’t wait to try it whenever Gamefly decides to send it.)

But I mean, fuck, I paid a dollar, and it’s a solid product. Just not a particularly interesting one. Still, I’m sure Episode 2 will be even better! Coming any day now! Yep.

There are always games that are considered, but don’t make the prestigious (?) cut of being on my top ten list. Still, I like to point them out, as they’re still fine games. But before I do that, let’s talk about what games are glaring omissions from potentially being on any list. These are games I simply didn’t play this year. They might have had a shot, but it just didn’t happen.

Skyrim: I’m sure I’ll love it. I never got to it.
Kirby’s Return to Dreamland: I will clearly love the fuck out of this one, but again, haven’t cracked the plastic on it.
Stacking: Double Fine is pretty fantastic, and I’m sure this is funny and clever, but even though I own the thing (I bought it during a sale) I’ve never loaded it up.
Fortune Street: What a smart looking board game! But I haven’t spent near enough time with my friends recently to even think about playing something like that.
Professor Layton and the Last Specter: Got it for Christmas, haven’t tried it yet. It’s kind of a known quantity, but it’s good stuff, I’m sure.

Anyway, let’s get to those honorable mentions! These aren’t in any particular order.

Dark Souls
I thought that, much like Demons’ Souls, I would play this as just a curiosity and send it back to Gamefly, but this much-improved spiritual sequel really got it’s hooks into me. It’s probably still a bit more obtuse than it really needs to be. But there’s just something to the very skill-based combat and the way the world feels like a cohesive place you’re stumbling through that keeps me wanting to go back again and again, even as I die over and over and probably build my character wrong.

Neuroshima Hex
A port of a board game I didn’t know anything about, Neuroshima Hex hits the sweet spot between being complicated and being simple. Each of the armies plays very differently and gives you lots of options, and the Hex-based placement system makes turns go fast, but you never feel like a turn is unimportant. Sure, it’s a bit of a learning curve figuring out some of the icons and how the initiative system works, but once you’ve got a grip on that, you’ve got a damn good hotseat versus game that will only be improved once they get around to putting in online asynchronous multiplayer.

Ascension: Rise of the Godslayer
A card game port I didn’t know anything about, Ascension is a twist on the Dominion formula, but instead of picking a set of decks to play with every time, you have a static deck you cycle through with tons of options. In some ways, this makes the game even more strategic, because you always know what strategies are open to you from the get-go, but you can’t be sure the deck is going to deal out key cards to buy in time. Asynchronous multiplayer just adds to how awesome this game is. I guess there’s an expansion now that I haven’t tried? But the base game alone is worth the price of admission.

Virtua Tennis 4
If you had told me a sports game without “Mario” in the title would be anywhere near any best of list of mine, I would have told you that you were insane. However, I really considered booting Tiny Tower for Virtua Tennis 4 on my list for much longer than I probably should have. I just can’t believe how fond I think back on my time with that game. The honestly ridiculous board game campaign was just so much fun, and seemed created just for me, and the way you could make custom “super shots” that tailored to your playstyle was genius, even if they took a bit too long to unlock. If they kept that campaign in the next game and refined it more, I could see me buying Virtua Tennis 5, and me typing that feels weird, but it’s totally true.

Trenched
I guess it’s Iron Brigade now? But the name doesn’t matter. Double Fine made a game that has actual gameplay mechanics instead of just some stuff you do while you wait for more jokes, and that is awesome. The customization on your Trench is a lot of fun, letting you play just how you want to in a group, and when you get four people together online, this game is magic. It has some flaws: the lack of endless modes at launch was one, for example, and the boss battles didn’t completely work as well as the normal stages. But it is a blast. If you have friends you can play with, purchasing this game should be a no-brainer.

That’s it for gaming of 2011! I look forward to playing way too many games in 2012 as well. Off we go! To the future! And, you know, to Ragnarok.

Okay, let’s see… five more to go! Tomorrow I will address Honorable Mentions as well as Glaring Omissions of what I think could have had a shot at this list, but I never got to play. But that’s tomorrow. LIST GO.

5. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Why didn’t anyone tell me being a total dick in video games was fun? Deus Ex lets you play in whatever manner you’d like, pretty well, so I just kind of did the sort of things I like to do in video games. It quickly became obvious to me that I was playing a total sociopath, manipulating people’s emotions and murdering anyone even vaguely in my way without a second thought. Once I had that into my head, and could wrap it into the fairly decent story of the game, my enjoyment level shot through the roof. The combat has some weird control issues sometimes, but is solid and fun, and the “Social Battles” are fantastic. Really, the only thing that doesn’t quite click in this game is the “Rejects from Metal Gear Solid” boss battles, but they don’t hinder the game in any way. This really is a game you must play, especially if you like a good western RPG.

4. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
New game from the Phoenix Wright guy? You know I was going to be there. However, Ghost Trick is just so, so much better than Phoenix Wright. I will always love Phoenix Wright’s cast of characters, and will keep playing games in the series, but let’s face it: the gameplay is kind of shit sometimes. Ghost Trick’s gameplay, on the other hand, is a joy. It’s clever, different, and fairly easy to understand. At the same time, there’s a whole new cast of characters with just as much lovable charm as Phoenix and his friends, and frankly jaw-dropping rotoscoped visuals and animations that give the game an impressive look. Hopefully they will port this to the iPad in America, where it would also be awesome, but it is totally worth the cost of a DS game. It’s great.

3. You Don’t Know Jack
Do you have friends? Then you should own You Don’t Know Jack. I have thanked my lucky stars that Jellyvision finally made another one of these things every day since it came out. It is fun for everyone, even those who actually don’t know a lot of trivia like my parents, and it is just flat-out hilarious. You don’t get better comedy writing than this in a video game. There is no better time with friends sitting on a couch, for serious. I could gush on and on about this game, and how stuff like the Wrong Answer of the Game is brilliant, or how thankful I am they included Big Button Controller support, but seriously, just fucking buy it. It’s dirt cheap, and worth every penny.

2. Saints Row: The Third
No one game should have all that power.
Seriously, this game is just near-perfect. The shooting is fun, the upgrades are insane and completely satisfying, the customization is above and beyond the call of duty, and the story! Fuck. All of the characters are shockingly real people in a world of utter ridiculousness, completing missions that never really fail to keep topping themselves time and again. The game is crude, but funny as fuck with it, and entertaining for every damn moment of it. I didn’t give a shit about the previous games in the series, but now I am going to buy the fourth game day one. It was incredibly, incredibly hard for me not to give this game the #1 slot. I was grinning the entire time I played the damn thing. So strap it on. You should really play Saints Row.

1. Portal 2
If you’re wondering why I went with Portal over Saints Row, it’s for the writing. Saints Row has some fantastic writing, don’t get me wrong, but Portal 2 tells a story, a good story, and has characters that grow over time while still being completely hilarious and entertaining the whole way. Seriously, it is impossible not to love Wheatley and Cave Johnson for being so funny, but they also have very strong character arcs, which is just impressive. The presentation is top notch. The gameplay is honed so much you can forget it is an engineered video game level, even when it is. You never get stuck, and you always seem to solve the puzzle at just the right time, and feel like a badass for doing it. On top of that, the co-op, which I still fucking need to finish sometime, is in some ways even better than the main storyline! It shows that Valve can really fucking make a single player video game. Make some more, Valve!

Tomorrow I’m going to go over a few Honorable Mentions that were considered, but didn’t make the cut. I’ll also address a few of the obvious missing pieces on this list. So, you know, see you then?

Hello. Let me tell you about the top 10 video games of the year. Well, half of them. Because there are three days left of the year and I guess I can break them up if I want to, and thus I am. So 10-6 Today, 5-1 Tomorrow, and then Honorable Mentions/Glaring Omissions on New Years Eve. Sound good? Hope so, because that’s what I’m doing. Let’s get to it.

10. Tiny Tower
In retrospect, in a lot of ways, it’s kind of embarrassing to have Tiny Tower on here. Also, a lot of people wouldn’t call it a game. But let’s just say it’s the game-like experience I played the most this year, by far. I certainly didn’t keep up with anything else for months and months. It is just a really well crafted version of… whatever you want to call the genre of games like that. If you got addicted to it, I wouldn’t blame you, and I just can’t imagine it not being on this list, given all the time I wasted with it. So here it is.

9. Shadows of the Damned
As I think we’ll find as I climb up this list, I am a sucker for good characters. Johnson and Garcia Fucking Hotspur are two of the best characters of this year. They’re constantly entertaining and ridiculous in completely believable ways. By far the best parts of this game are when the two characters are reading Children’s Storybooks from Hell to one another. The plot, the world, everything is, well, a Suda 51 game, so it’s a bit crazy, to be sure. However, unlike most Suda games, the gameplay is actually decent. It won’t change the world, but it is enjoyable, and that helps you be able to keep playing to get to more awesome character moments.

8. Bastion
Remember what I just said about two seconds ago about good characters? Rucks, the Stranger and Narrator of this game, is a fantastic character. Him talking to you, and all the fantastic music and everything in this game, just make it an outright joy to play, and a game you don’t want to end. Add to that incredibly smart in-game systems to tailor difficulty to exactly what you want and the fact that the fast-paced combat is just AWESOME, even for someone who normally hates doing things like blocking and dodging, and you have one of the best games of the year.

7. Dead Space 2
When Dead Space 2 first came out, I made the decision I was going to try to catch up with this series. The demo for the first game didn’t grab me, but I figured I had a Gamefly subscription, and I should try it. When I did, the first game immediately clicked with me, and I was starving, hungry for this one. What I got when I played it was a game that basically did everything way, way better than the first game, letting me slaughter and murder with fun weapons all over much cooler environments. I suppose there was a stronger story in this one too, but I really don’t think this is a game you play for the story. The action speaks loud enough alone. This is the best 3rd Person Shooter to come out this year. Take that, Gears 3.

6. L.A. Noire
I am so glad I listened to people when they told me that, no, this wasn’t another Rockstar blah GTA clone, but instead an Adventure game, with ridiculous production values. I took a chance on it, and what do you know? It was an Adventure game, with ridiculous production values! Features like making your partner drive you everywhere to skip the tedious moving around town was just genius, and while the Truth, Doubt, Lie system has a lot of flaws that people have pointed out to me, I enjoyed working my way through the cases and interrogating suspects. Most of the characters were fairly entertaining as well, although sometimes leaning a bit hard on stereotypes, and were entertaining to listen to. If you like Adventure games, noire, or just watching a good story play out, L.A. Noire is a game you should play.

I’ll be back tomorrow with more listing, because everyone loves lists! I have it on good authority.

A bunch of bullshit happened today, but I don’t really feel like complaining anymore. So instead I’ll write about Jetpack Joyride.

Jetpack Joyride is a game I had heard quite a lot about, but I never really got the urge to play it. However, I finally moved my Roku into the bedroom and that freed up my iPad to no longer just be a bedtime video playing device, which let me look into some games I missed. I grabbed this Christmas morning while waiting for it to be time to go to the parents, and I played it pretty well nonstop.

It’s really good!

It’s not so much the actual gameplay that’s good. I mean, it’s fine. You press the screen to use the jetpack, and you have to maneuver around obstacles for as long as you can before you die. Simple stuff, really, and there’s plenty of games like that on the platform. Canabalt, Grim Joggers, and Robot Unicorn Attack, just to name a few. It’s nothing novel in that regard, really.

Where the game really shines is in the Mission system. The game gives you three missions, seemingly at random, and you need to complete them to level up and unlock more missions. These missions are sometimes just what you’d do anyway (Collect 5 Spin Tokens or whatnot) but are sometimes silly tasks that totally change how you play (Drag your head along the ceiling for 500 Meters, Reach 600 Meters without collecting a coin) and really keep the game fresh. Most of the time you have one mission that’s more long-term, and one that you can surely complete next run, so let’s go one more! It’s infectious. It keeps you playing and playing.

You also collect Spin Tokens as you play, and these let you get random bonuses at the end of a run. You may get bonuses for the next run (Double all coins collected, a 750 Meter Head start, etc) or something to keep your current run going (a bomb that propels you farther forward for free after death). Once again, these little bonuses are a great way to make you go “One more game” and they totally worked on me.

I dunno if this game normally costs money? I got it for free, and while there are microtransactions, the game really doesn’t force you to pay for them. You can have tons, tons of fun without paying a dime. It’s a great 2 minute game, certainly, and I understood why it got so much adoration from everyone. I would certainly suggest playing it, especially if that free thing wasn’t just some Christmas promotional sale.

I finally got a break from all the insanity of the holidays to play some more Dark Souls.
Dark Souls is a really great game.

I know, I mean, I completely know, I know that I will give up on it and not see it through to the end. But it’s just amazing to me that I can die via a curse that permanently halves my HP until I go to a specific spot to get healed by spending a valuable resource, a place I have absolutely no idea how to get to, and I still don’t want to give up on the game. I still want to keep going and see all it has to offer.

I mean, shit, the strategy in this game is so much fun. I’ve joined the Warriors of the Sun, so I can now throw Lightning, and I have tons of faith to power that shit. I can just slaughter people with it, and it makes running around so much fun, especially when I know I’ll get to a bonfire soon so I can just waste charges smoking random enemies.

I fought the Capra Demon today. Every time I’d fight him, he’d slam me the moment I entered the fight and basically kill me right there. I couldn’t get away from him fast enough. It took many deaths before I went “You know, maybe I should just equip lighter armor.” The moment I did that, I had little problem. I could roll right past him and his attack dogs. I ended up luring him up the stairs, jumping off so he’d following me, then running back up the stairs and sniping him with lightning before he could reach me again. Smoked him in 3 shots. This is a guy I had died to probably about 15 times before this happened, and the defeats were near-instant. It felt so damn good to kill that stupid rat demon! That is why this game is so awesome. I was completely screwed, but when I figured it out, it was a breeze. You feel smart, in the same way that say, Portal makes you feel smart for solving something in that “a ha!” moment. The difference is you also feel skillful, because the solutions take a lot more skill than your average Portal puzzle to pull off. Those mostly just take brains, you know?

Similarly, I ended up exploring the Depths, where I accidentally fell into this horrible sewer maze and wandered around for awhile. I had no idea how to get out, and I was seeing monsters like Basilisks (which is what eventually killed and cursed me) and a gigantic fucking rat about 2 stories tall. The level of intensity I felt during that sequence was just amazing. Sure, I could have cast my Homeward spell, and now that I think of it, I really, really should have! But no, I had to see what the game had in store for me down there. It turns out it was turning to stone and halving my HP permanently. Thanks, game! But at least I found a cool Poison Resist shield before that happened.

I’m sure if you’ve played this game, or been around other people who’ve played this game, these are all stories you’ve heard before. I’ve certainly heard them. But when they happen to me, and I’m not screaming in anger but instead just like “HOLY SHIT!” That says something to me, you know? It really does.