The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

If you want to know what game has been devouring my life recently, the correct answer is 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors.

The visual novel is just not a thing that really has caught on in the west. We want to blow things up and whatnot, not read a novel built into a video game. Still, the DS has created miracles, and I certainly enjoyed games like Hotel Dusk. Therefore, I gave this a try, and I’m really glad I did.

The basic concept behind this game is kind of Cube meets Myst meets Anime. You are controlling Junpei, a young man who finds himself trapped on a sinking ship, playing a game of life or death called the Nonary game. This game is based upon numerology and concepts such as number bases and digital roots. Each player has a bracelet with a number on it, and only certain combinations of bracelets can open the various doors on the ship, requiring co-operation in order to survive… but the way out is behind a door with a 9, and mathematically, all 9 players can’t go through that one single door…

Basically, the game is a sort of “choose your own adventure” novel. There are 7 different endings, and as you read the novel, and help Junpei make decisions, you get to see alternate realities of how the game turns out. The information you gain about your fellow players and the game itself can then be used to figure out the path that leads to the “true” ending, where everything is wrapped up. Along the way, you have to “seek a way out” in what the game calls escape sequences. These put you in a room full of static renders, sort of like Myst, and you have to solve puzzles, usually involving various number systems, in order to open the door in the room and move on.

I really loved this game. It’s clunky in a lot of ways, of course. You have to replay the game many times to get the full story, and while the game nicely lets you skip text you’ve seen before by holding down right on the D-pad, it doesn’t let you skip puzzle rooms you’ve solved before, making you resolve the same puzzles over and over, depending on what paths you’re trying. I solved this by having a walkthrough handy at all times, to help me resolve puzzles in a matter of minutes, but it’s sill not optimal if you were, say, trying to enjoy the game on a trip or something. It also often has the sort of issues Phoenix Wright sometimes has where you, the player, know the solution but Junpei does not, and therefore you have to make him figure it out instead of just solving the puzzle.

Still, the story in this game is pretty great. Although Junpei starts as generic Anime clueless protagonist, his character gets really well fleshed out as you play. At the same time, the other characters have personalities that are also revealed or hidden, depending on which path you go down. There are many mysteries in many of the endings on which characters are doing what, and what characters have motives to do certain things that lead you to bad endings. As such, you’re constantly questioning these characters, and trying to figure out how to pick a path where you keep potentially dangerous characters away from things that could compromise the game. Even better, all the red herrings and clues actually come together in a fairly sensible way. The game manages to wrap up just about everything in its ending, and not feel like it didn’t earn it. This is the most fantastic part, as far as I’m concerned. They could have easily just ignored some things in some of the “bad” playthroughs, but no. It’s all canon; even if some events didn’t really happen, the potential for them happening still existed in the world in the good ending, and that is excellent.

Few games leave me laying in bed, thinking about the possibilities of where the plot is going, and doing math to make sure there wasn’t any plot shenanigans going on. The only other game, off the top of my head, that I can think of that made me think so much was Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. As such, 999 was really a treat for me. I am so glad Nadia made a random Talking Time thread to bring it to my attention. I bought the game from Gamefly, because it was printed in very small quantities and it impressed me enough that I wanted it on my shelf. If you have the opportunity to play it, and are okay with a game that’s more reading than playing, do give it a try.

When I’m all depressed, sometimes I make silly little purchases. This is my excuse for buying a cheap copy of Lost Planet 2 for 360 off of Gamefly.

Now, you may be thinking, “Wait, you already played through that.” And you’re right. On PS3. Which means my save didn’t carry over. Which is fantastic.

Yeah, that’s mostly sarcastic. I dunno. But I did it to myself, so…

Still, I was in for a surprise when I booted it up at random today. For whatever reason I really felt like playing it, mostly due to the revelation that I could equip different weapons in the campaign. I beat the whole game without knowing your “multiplayer” weapon loadout affected the campaign. When I learned of this, I felt stupid, and wanted to see if it made the campaign feel more varied. I booted the game up and went to play with random online people.
And I found some.
I figured the only people playing the campaign at this point would be people doing high-level runs for loot because, I dunno, they really liked the game. But surprisingly, I found people to play the first couple missions with. Not a full group, of course, but I found random online dudes to play with. It was pretty fun! Mostly because people on the internet are way better at video games than me, so when I ran with them through the game on normal, they easily picked up my slack. Or maybe I just have a better knowledge of how the weird-ass game plays now that I’ve beat it once. Who knows.

Anyway, I have no idea if I’ll play through it all again, but I had some fun for one day, so that’s certainly something. And hey, if the Talking Time people whose conversation got me to pick it up ever get on, then that’s something else to do with my purchase, certainly.

The last two Transformers movies were completely and utterly terrible. Like, seriously. So bad. I feel like it must be hard for people who care about Transformers right now. They’ve got such shit carrying the name that they love.

At least they have a decent game in the form of War for Cybertron.

Now, I’ll admit I didn’t get very far in this. It makes some strange decisions. For example, I was almost always hurting for ammunition the entire time I played. Enemies don’t drop more ammo or weapons, so you only get them from boxes around the environment. However, the area I was in looked so samey all around, it was easy to miss these boxes, and then I’d have no ammo for the next encounter. It also doesn’t really give you any indication of what your powers and such do. Granted, that is kind of refreshing. It just says “Yo, there’s no tutorial, so read the in-game manual to learn about shit” when you start a new game. But it’s a shooter. Why would I read about how to play a shooter? Still, there was all kinds of “powers” in the different multiplayer classes that the playable characters fell into that I didn’t really get.

Also, I just don’t really give a shit about Transformers.

I mean, I wanted to try the game, just because I’ve heard nothing but positive stuff about this game. I was wondering if that was just being shocked that a Transformers game could be good, or if it genuinely was something worth playing no matter what. I found it was mostly the former. There’s nothing wrong with what I played. It’s a completely competent first person shooter with seemingly everyone voiced by Spike Spiegel. It’s got co-op through the campaign, so that’s always a good way to increase the fun factor. Supposedly the multiplayer isn’t shit either. But yeah, I don’t know. I’ve played so many mediocre 3rd person shooters, and I just wasn’t feeling it. It wasn’t drawing me in with any style, you know?

But man, Transformers fans are probably still playing this and loving it. And good for them!

Cara was over, and we were thinking about what to do. I mentioned that I had this Back to the Future game, and she was all, “Wait, I know what Back to the Future is! Let’s play that!” I booted it up and we played through it together.

Apparently it’s doing a damn good job of being true to the original series. Cara was constantly pointing out little gags and lore bits from the original movies that I didn’t know. It had been so long since I’d seen Back to the Future that I didn’t really have these points of reference, but it’s awesome that they were there to be excited about. I’m going to have to re-watch the trilogy before I play the second episode, I think.

Overall, though, I think the writing and such was pretty fantastic. Marty is not really a joke-cracking sort of protagonist like you get with Sam and Max or whatnot, but there was still plenty of humor throughout, and it seemed very true to the tone I remember from the movies. The fact that they let you pick a name for yourself in the past, and recorded dialog for all the options was a fantastic touch. Also, man, the sound-alike they got for Michael J. Fox is just doing a fantastic job. He is nearly perfect. That really helps.

The gameplay itself, though, is really easy. Maybe it’s because I just got done with Devil’s Playhouse, but the level of puzzle-solving in the episode was simple. I immediately knew what I had to do in almost every situation (The “finale” of the episode being the only exception). Of course, this is probably for the best. I did the driving, but Cara made a lot of the decisions, and besides the trickier puzzles, she figured most of it out, which is fantastic, seeing as she doesn’t have the “adventure game brain” you almost need to have for some of the more complicated “moon logic” stuff in these sorts of games. The property means this will probably be a very broad audience game, so it’s a good idea not to make it too tough. Still, I feel like the story stuff totally made it worth it. I don’t really play Telltale’s stuff for the puzzles, though if they’re fun, that’s an added bonus.

All in all, I am excited for the rest of the season! The episode was fun, and they seem like they have a good grasp of the property. Telltale really has their shit together at this point, and it shows.

Because really, anything with the word “Raven” in it is reason enough to cue Raphael the Raven’s music.

We continued our tradition of playing the board games I got on Christmas on New Year’s Eve, and busted open my copy of Castle Ravenloft. This game has the most giant box I have ever seen, and is supposedly filled with Dungeon-crawl-y goodness.

BUT WAS IT?
Hell yes it was.

The game is basically 4th Edition DnD Lite. Many parts are streamlined. For instance, everyone just has an AC, instead of many different defenses, and HP values for enemies are more in the 1 to 2 HP range. The basic combat, however, is DnD. You have a level 1 hero that you get to pick powers for, which are very close to the basic power choices in the Player’s Handbook. For example, my Fighter that I played still had Cleave as an at-will, which was very similar to how Cleave works in actual DnD, just without damage rolls. Enemies and traps and things were basically defeated quickly with a good strategy, or utterly destroyed the party. It was quick, tactical, and fun, and I felt like everyone enjoyed it a lot.
When we play DnD, one of the problems everyone has is how slow the combat moves. It’s hard to design encounters which are dynamic, interesting, difficult, and fair. Either everyone is a pushover, or you end up in a long, drawn-out slog fest where you’re beating against an enemy’s high HP, even though he doesn’t pose a lot of threat. This game basically didn’t have that: every fight was perfectly tuned because the designers knew what the possible party combinations were. It was difficult, but intense and fast-paced. It was just what my group wanted.

Other than the combat, you have a book of scenarios with different quests to do in the randomly generated dungeon. This is also something my friends like, so that’s a plus. Whenever you move to the edge of a tile, you “explore” and draw a new tile, putting a monster on it. Otherwise, you draw an “encounter” card, which could be a trap, a global effect, a sneak attack against your hero, or even something sort of positive sometimes. Some of those encounter cards are kind of a bitch, but they end up working really well.

Our initial outing was pretty screwed. Cara drew a “Spear Gauntlet” trap very early on, and we failed to disarm it several times. That thing is a total bitch, and it left us all hurting on HP. Spaeth was the Cleric, but he only had one use of Healing Word, and could otherwise only heal in 1 HP increments, which was useful, but since we had lost so much life, he couldn’t get us stabilized. We eventually went down to some fire-flinging skeletons.

Still, I cannot wait to play the game again. It really didn’t take that long to play, which is nice, and the gameplay was super-fun. I look forward to really figuring it out and seeing if we don’t do better next time!

Anyway, the end of The Devil’s Playhouse.

I think it takes a ton of guts to basically remove the tools you’ve been using for the whole season from the last episode. No Max, no psychic powers. No, the puzzles are designed as Sam vs Said Psychic Powers, which kind of works, in a way. It was a fun episode, certainly, but I don’t know if it was really the dramatic finale I wanted.

Basically, since guy who obviously wasn’t going to be the villain was, you didn’t really have any sort of tension. Hell, you don’t even have any sort of showdown. It’s simply all about dealing with Max’s insides in various ways. Sure, you get to use the Astral Projector again near the end, but it doesn’t really feel anywhere near as clever as the Tomb of Sammun-Mak, since that entire episode was designed around it. It’s much more straightforward.

The main issue was that I felt like I knew most of the things I was supposed to do, but not the order in which to do them. I immediately knew many solutions, but couldn’t enact them when I thought of them, and that left me more confused than I really should have been. Normally, things don’t go that way. I either immediately know what I need to get up to, or I have no clue, and go wandering about until I get some item that makes me go “a-HA!” Basically, knowing the solution but not knowing how to implement it creates frustrating situations. “I’ve figured this out! Let’s get on with it!”

Still, the main appeal of these games is the comedy and writing, and for the most part this episode was completely on par with that. I didn’t really have any issues, and I certainly enjoyed it. The pseudo-sad ending was played pretty well exactly how one would have wanted, which I could appreciate, and it wrapped it up nicely.

Yep, if you were to buy one season of Sam and Max, this is definitely the one. They improved their formula in so many ways, it’s hard not to be impressed. Plus, now that I had cleared that from my plate, I was free to play the first episode of Back to the Future. But I’ll talk about that another time.

Since I picked Mass Effect 2 as my game of the year, and there was a sale, I thought it would be a good time to go and try out some of the supposedly badass DLC for the game. Therefore, I bought the Lair of the Shadow Broker for 200 Microsoft funbucks, and gave that a spin.

It was pretty good?

I wanted this DLC because I wanted some closure, or at least the idea of progress, in the whole “I’m now sleeping with Garrus but Liara is kind of around and we haven’t addressed this” thing. I also wanted to kill a Shadow Broker. I was afraid that this whole DLC would focus on killing a Shadow Broker and shooting things, and not really give me any sort of relationship stuff.

Luckily, I was wrong.

Granted, things are still up in the air. But I got to directly address the fact that I’m sleeping with Garrus with Liara, and talk about feelings, and all that bullshit. That’s pretty cool, I think! For me, it ended in a “we both still care about each other, but shit, a lot of time has past, and we have to keep going in our own lives” kind of situation, which I feel is completely appropriate. There were also a few hugs. Aww.

It was also good just to get into the Mass Effect swing again. The combat is still really good, and the DLC had two fairly intense boss encounters. Of course, the last one, with the Shadow Broker, was kind of… eh. Mostly because I found it really easy to distract him with a drone and then wail away at his shields with Overload without him even turning around. I guess that’s the benefit of being one of the like 4 people who are playing an Engineer, huh? I’m sure that, without a drone, it would have been a bit more of a struggle.

There was also some nice variety with the mystery, the chase, and the climbing onto the ship. It did manage to mix it up quite a bit, which is excellent. It didn’t feel thrown together. It felt like a real part of the game, and that’s a nice thing to get from DLC of this nature, I think.

The only thing I would have liked to see more of is more dialog from Garrus about the whole relationship issue. I understand why there isn’t any, but there was specific dialog from Liara talking about how I was with Garrus, so I can hope, dammit! Still, what are you going to do, hm? Gotta save something for the third game.

Yeah… I liked this DLC. If you can go back in time and pick it up while it’s on sale, I do suggest it. It’s good stuff, and a nice ending chapter to the game. (I found it interesting that it talked about the state of the world being in the end game in the DLC… is that content different if you’re still in the middle of things? I don’t know.) Plus, I mean, the Mass Effect 2 combat is still a lot of fun, so that’s good too, especially if it’s been awhile since you’ve messed with it.

It only took months due to an obscure boot bug due to having multiple monitors, but I finally finished up Sam and Max: The Devil’s Playhouse. I felt I needed to before I could start on the Back to the Future games I just bought. So I finally played through and beat Beyond the Alley of the Dolls! How’d that go?

Pretty good!

It had been awhile, so I had sort of forgotten how well put together this season of Sam and Max was. It is really just amazingly polished, and they had kicked up the puzzle solving another notch. Max’s psychic powers really give the games the extra level of options needed to really make you have to think about some situations. It’s cool.

That said, there were several places where I got stumped in this episode. It’s kind of silly in that regard. You’d think I would immediately take the stance that I should mind-read everyone, but that wasn’t always obvious to me, and that held me up for awhile. Feel free to write that off as me being stupid, I suppose.

I was also not really all there for the premise of the episode. Yes, this is a game where stupid, crazy shit happens all the time, but the idea of a million Sam clones was never really ever explained in even a crazy way. An explanation was given that makes no sense, even within the whole style of the crazy world of Sam and Max, but it really click for me. In the end, it doesn’t matter, I suppose, but I’m just holding this season to a higher standard. Heh.

Still, while not one of the stronger episodes, this one was really entertaining. Once I got it working, I had a great time, and the whole Devil’s Playhouse season is a great chunk of gaming. I’ll talk about the last episode later, but, you know, feel free to pick it up and enjoy it if you haven’t yet for some reason.

Here’s some of the games I had to painfully prune to get my list down to 10. There aren’t in any order, but they are fantastic games.

League of Legends: Cut because it technically launched last year, I didn’t really get into it until this one. This is pretty well the best DotA game I’ve played. It’s tons of fun, has lots of fun characters, and is very accessible as a free to play game. The system of Champion rotation is really smart. Anyone can play this and have a good time, whether they want to spend money or not.

Cut the Rope: Probably the second best iOS game this year, Cut the Rope is really mainstream, but for a reason. It’s a ton of fun, and filled to the brim with puzzles that use the touchscreen to its greatest advantage. Plus, with them adding free sets of puzzles with the Cosmic Box and Holiday Gift, they’re making you continue to come back again and again. A fantastic game.

Super Mega Worm: Speaking of iOS games, Mega Worm is incredible. I never thought I would enjoy a “pure” arcade experience like Super Mega Worm, but they do such smart things with presentation and the leveling system that I just kept wanting to play more. It’s a fantastic game to play for a few minutes while waiting, and the screams of the people as they die never stops being hilarious.

Dead Rising 2: Case Zero: Compressing the “start all over with all your stats” mechanic of Dead Rising into a short, 1-2 hour game creates something downright magical. I haven’t played DR2 yet, but I feel pretty safe in saying that Case Zero is a much more fun experience. For $5, this is an amazing value, and I really enjoyed playing through it.

Monday Night Combat: Snoopy beat this because Snoopy was such a shock, but that doesn’t make Monday Night Combat any less of a fantastic multiplayer experience. Combining DotA with Team Fortress 2 was a genius decision, and they really make it work. Plus, you get an added “defense” mode for good measure. It’s a shame the tutorial doesn’t show you Crossfire mode, as I bet that turned some people off to the game. Still, it’s worth your time, and is about to come out on PC as well.

Well, enough looking back at 2010. Let’s look to the future. Or, I guess, to whatever bullshit I write about tomorrow. Yep.

All the everyone forever is starting to do their game of the year lists, so fuck it, I’m doing one too. I mean, I would have, eventually, either way, but the podcasts have put me in the mood of doing it today. So let’s see what my top 10 games of 2010 were, shall we?

10. DJ Hero 2: I loved the first DJ Hero, and this game basically fixed all the problems the first had, and added so much more. I wasn’t planning on buying it, but I’m so glad I did. For whatever reason, it gives me this enjoyment high other games simply don’t. It’s certainly not the most creative, or most polished, or most technically competent game of the year, but it’s my guilty pleasure of the year, and I love it a lot.

9. Snoopy Flying Ace: Purchased on a whim to play with Brer, this game’s multiplayer devoured my life for awhile. You’d never think this game would work, but it’s so polished and so much fun. Add to it that you can play split-screen online, and hey, you have one damn good game here. I’ve barely even played the single player, but I’ve sunk a lot of hours into this. It’s good times.

8. Deadly Premonition: If you want to talk about guilty pleasures, here’s one. Man, oh man, this game is amazing. I mean, it’s terrible, but it is also an experience I am so glad I had. There is so much raw creativity in this game. Francis York Morgan is one of the strongest characters of the year, and the game itself just must be seen to be believed. Somehow, despite all its problems, it works. It works so well.

7. Costume Quest: Double Fine doesn’t always nail it with their mechanics, but they know how to make a funny game with an incredible setting. Costume Quest is just that, but unlike Brutal Legend, which had mechanics that were hard to get over, Costume Quest’s simple combat never gets in the way. It’s not hard, but since the game is a short downloadable title, it doesn’t matter. If you care about Halloween, this is a game to play, though maybe wait until next October to give it a go, for the proper mood.

6. Dragon Quest 9: A classic-style game, but done with so much polish that you can’t help but completely fall in love with it. All the systems in this game are honed to perfection, and the story is constructed in a very interesting way, considering all the player characters are generated by you. It’s a shame America doesn’t get to use a lot of the cool functionality, but there’s still plenty there to make this a winner, and it certainly was to me. I’m glad I beat it.

5. Game Dev Story: By far my “iOS game of the year,” Game Dev Story is a very simple simulation, but the way it is presented is done so well that I haven’t met anyone whose life it hasn’t devoured for a few days after its discovery. It certainly did as such for me. A fantastic little game, well worth the price of admission. It simply would not let go of me, and that speaks to its awesomeness.

4. Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Forget CODBLOPS, Metal of Honor, and any other shooter. This is, by far, the best shooter of the year, in both single and multiplayer. Granted, the multiplayer is the key selling point, which brings just about the best objective-based play out there, on console or PC. But the characters in the single player are also fantastic, and shouldn’t be forgotten either. This is a mind-blowingly awesome package, and anyone who enjoys shooting dudes really should play it.

3. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light: If you had told me that I would ever love a game starring Lara Croft as much as this game last year, I would have thought you were insane. However, this almost “reboot” of Lara in a completely co-op based puzzle shooter was just so fantastically done, I fell in love immediately. If you have a friend to play it with, there is no greater co-op experience that came out this year.

2. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker: Another game I wasn’t expecting to love, but did, there is no doubt in my mind that this is pretty well the best PSP game made so far. Peace Walker somehow manages to deal with the horrible control scheme of the PSP and create an incredibly awesome shooter that keeps all the key elements one would want from a Metal Gear game while also getting rid of all the headaches that a Metal Gear game brings. The story is silly, but doesn’t devour the game like MGS4, and the game has all the awesome gameplay of MGS4, and looks fantastic to boot. And even though I stand by my statement a second ago about Lara being the best co-op experience of the year, Peace Walker is a close second if you have some buddies. If you have a PSP, this is a game you must own.

1. Mass Effect 2: Because it came out so early in the year, I nearly forgot this game. Luckily, I was reminded. Mass Effect 2 completely deserves to be Game of the Year. Not only are the characters in your team in the game completely fleshed out and interesting, the game goes to great lengths to make your decisions in the previous game, and this one, matter. You really feel like you’re making a difference in the game. On top of that, the revised combat system is fantastic, and turns the series into one of the most fun third-person shooters out there. Even if you haven’t played the first (though you’ll get more out of it if you do) you really should play through Mass Effect 2 if you have any love of sci fi games at all. Bioware has done great things here.

That’s it! Tomorrow I’m going to look at some Honorable Mentions which were on my list before I had to make some cuts down to 10, because why not? I can do that. It’s my blog.

Feel free to tell me my list is wrong, but I’m pretty happy with it. For me, these are the games of the year.