The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I think we can all agree that Genkibowl was a bad situation. It was not very good, and it left a lot of doubt as to if the money plunked down on a Saints Row: The Third season pass was going to go to waste or not. Were they all going to be as rushed out the door? Were they all going to cut huge corners in regards to dialog? Doubt crept in. Could they sour the super best most awesome game after the fact by selling me this thing and fucking me over on it?

I’m here to say that what I hoped was the case with Genkibowl seems to be true. It was the quick DLC they could get out the door fast so they could work on more substantial things. While Gangstas in Space is not much longer than Genkibowl to play all the way through, oh holy fuck is it better. These are missions that feel completely like they could have been in the game. They are missions up to the quality of the main game’s story missions. They’re funny, and they’re fun. What more do you want?

The moment the DLC started, I was worried. I called up the mission, and once again, the Boss didn’t talk to the mission-giver at all. A bad sign? But the moment the first mission started, and she opened her mouth and talked? I was so relieved and instantly pumped. It was good to be back. The dialog in the episode is pretty good! I mean, there’s probably better in the main game, but it is completely up to par, and I was so glad just to hear the Boss reacting to shit.

Sure, you can see where they made decisions to make this cheaper too. Two of the three missions in the DLC just take place in Steelport proper, as opposed to some alien planet or crazy movie set. That doesn’t make them any less fun, though, and the mission that takes place on the sound stage looks cool, and has tons of Easter eggs.

If there was problems with this DLC, it’s probably the length vs cost and the achievements. If you just flat-out buy this DLC, it’s like 7 bucks? And I beat this in like 90 minutes. That’s… pretty expensive, even if it’s fun. For just a few more bucks, you could probably buy a really fantastic XBLA game like Bastion or something for hours and hours of fun. It’s a hard sell that way. It also has very specific achievements to get, if you want to get them all. Since you can’t replay missions in Saints Row: The Third, if you forget to make saves in between them (and they’re fairly long missions too) you’ll never have another chance to try for them. That doesn’t bother me so much? But if you’re someone that would bother, keep that in mind.

Anyway, I’m glad Saints Row came back in a fun way. Bring on more DLC! Make it good like this one!

“HmmmmMMmmmmMHmmhmmmmmahhhhhmmmmmmoooohmmmhmmhmmmmmHmmmmmmm…” Twilight Sparkle was rereading her latest fanfic. It was a touching, saucy tale of a town, Horseyville, a totally original location, trying to deal with the problems of a new robot uprising, and the many dramatically romantic situations that spawned from that. It was going to be such a success! She couldn’t wait to send it to Celestia. Sure, after she had sent her last masterpiece (Prismers of Love: A Rainbow Romance), Celestia had asked her to never send her another fanfic. Surely, though, that was simply because she thought Twilight could never top her last one! But she knew she could, and this one would do it.
“I know she’ll love this one!” Twilight said. “It’s so close to perfect!”
“Twilight, I think she said last time that she didn’t…” Spike began.
“Spike, I thought I told you to clean the kitchen, not think,” Twilight said. “But no, seriously, this is perfect! But it just needs to be more… real. It needs more reality! That’ll show Celestia what a wonderful writer I am!”
“What does that even mean…” Spike said to himself, heading toward the kitchen.
It was then that Twilight had an idea. “Heeheehee, I know! Spike, I need you to write up a town-wide notice.”
“But I thought you told me to…”
“Seriously, why do you always backtalk me like this, Spike? What have I done to deserve this?”
Spike sighed, and picked up a quill and some parchment.

—

Mafia is Witchcraft

“Hide And Go Beep”

—

“And so, due to increased robotic and robotic sympathizer threat in the town of Ponyville, Princess Celestia has told me, Twilight Sparkle, to form W.A.I.F.U., Warriors Actively Investigating and Finding Undesirables, to find and squash this menace once and for all… Buy some Apples!” Applebloom gasped as she read one of the flyers pasted all over town. This was bad news! For a long time, she had always suspected one of her friends was a robot, but she never told the robot police, sure that she wouldn’t hurt a fly. But now, with this silly inquisition, she was sure to be found out, and then killed!
“I’ve got to talk to Sweetie Belle!” Applebloom raced for Carousel Boutique, where Sweetie Belle was currently staying. She knocked wildly on the door, and Sweetie Belle answered.
“Hello, best friend of mine,” said Sweetie Belle. “Inquiry: what brings you to my house today?”
“We need to talk, Sweetie Belle, and fast!” said Applebloom. “Can we go to your room?”
“Of course.”
They locked themselves in Sweetie Belle’s room, and Applebloom explained the flyer.
“But why is this a problem to our normal, soul-filled lifestyles?” Sweetie Belle asked. “Surely we are not at risk.”
“We aren’t… but I think Scootaloo is!” said Applebloom.
“Scootaloo? A robot?” asked Sweetie Belle, unsure.
“Of course! Have you ever noticed how even though she’s a pegasus, she never flies? It’s because her robotic body is too heavy! And the way that she doesn’t really have any defining characteristics… that just feels like a robot trying to blend in, doesn’t it?”
“Gasp!” said Sweetie Belle, “It all makes sense now! But Scootaloo would not injure a sentient being! She is our friend.”
“Exactly! That’s why we have to protect her! I just don’t know how…”
“Let us think. Calculating…. Calculating… Plan Formed. Didn’t you have a friend you abandoned after you met us?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“Who, Twist? Well, yeah…”
“My databanks indicate her family is likely a member of organized crime.”
Applebloom gasped. “Of course! She’d know how to keep Scootaloo safe! Let’s go!”

—

“Are you sure the Princess told us to do this?” Applejack asked. “Because I haven’t heard…”
“Of course she did. Her secret messages are of the top priority and can only be read by me. We’ve been over this,” said Twilight.
“The mission is already falling apart, commander,” said Rainbow Dash, “but honestly, I believe in you and this mission.”
“Thank you, Rainbow Dash. I can always count on you to tell the truth.” Twilight turned to everyone else. “Listen, the Princess once again has put the most capable pony in charge, so as long as you listen to me, and do what I say, we’re going to be successful, clearly.”
“Where’s the gypsy?” asked Rarity. “Surely she’s part of this warrior whatever?”
“I have no idea,” said Twilight Sparkle, definitively.
“But aren’t gypsies traditionally robotic sympathizers?” said Fluttershy. “This is why you should have let me take her out years ago…”
“Oh, right, so that’s the reason she’s not here then,” said Twilight.
“But you told all of us to invite her to this meeting if we saw her…” said Applejack.
“I was setting a trap, Applejack, it’s what leaders do.” Twilight said. “Okay, so, we’ll meet back here to discuss our findings and make plans every night, alright? I’ll have your orders waiting for you then. Dismissed!”
“But what are we supposed to do for today?” said Rarity.
“Find the bad guys,” said Twilight. “You can do it! Go on.”
“Oooookay, well. This has been informative,” said Rarity. “I suppose I’ll head back to the shrine then.”
The Members of W.A.I.F.U. scattered to do their “work.” Twilight Sparkle giggled. “Chapter One, Check!”

—

Seven knocks later, Twist opened the door. “Oh, hello Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo. Were you followed?”
“Why am I here again?” asked Scootaloo.
“That is irrelevant information,” said Sweetie Belle. “Do not worry about it.”
“We need to talk to you, Twist,” said Applebloom. “Can we come in?”
“Sure.”
“Scootaloo, would you mind waiting outside for a moment?” asked Applebloom.
“What? Why did you bring me, then?” said Scootaloo.
“Just for a moment!” said Applebloom.
“It will not take long,” assured Sweetie Belle.
“Fine, whatever.” Scootaloo said.
Safely inside, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle explained Scootaloo’s situation.
“So you want to stop this Team W.A.I.F.U. and save Scootaloo’s robotic life?” asked Twist.
“Yes, exactly.” Applebloom said.
“Can you help us? Awaiting response.” said Sweetie Belle.
“If all the robots in Ponyville are wiped out, my family won’t be able to use the robot police as cover and an easy threat… I think I could get them behind this,” said Twist.
“Well, that’s good news!” said Pinkie Pie. “These sorts of witch hunts never go well for, uh, those who practice witchcraft. It’s good to know you’ll put a stop to them.”
Applebloom and Sweetie Belle turned in surprise.
“Error: unknown participant in conversation!” exclaimed Sweetie Belle.
“What are you doing here, Pinkie?” asked Applebloom.
“Oh, well, Twist and her family helps me get all the illegal ingredients I need for my baking all the time! In exchange for some favors, of course,” said Pinkie. “But seriously, it was this kind of situation that lead to my parents’ tragic demise that only left me sad, alone, and forced to turn to the powers of evil to keep some shred of hope in my life!”
“Does that mean you’ll help us?” asked Applebloom.
“Sure!” said Pinkie Pie.
“Fantastic. Although not as useful as a unicorn or pegasus, Pinkie Pie should be able to aid us in our cause,” said Sweetie Belle.
“Let’s get Scootaloo in here and protected, and then we’ll get to work!” said Twist.

—

Days are normal 72, Nights are normal 48. Don’t talk about the game outside the game, no screenshots of “secret” information (if you have to ask if it counts as secret, just don’t do it), please put all your votes in bold text, and put nothing else in bold (in other words, if you bold anyone’s name, that is a vote, as far as the game’s concerned) and remember: Friendship is Witchcraft, and should be avoided at all costs.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders are the powered citizens. Team W.A.I.F.U. are the mafia, and get a nightchat and nightkill as per usual. The town wins if they kill all of Team W.A.I.F.U. Team W.A.I.F.U. wins if they kill all of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, or get a voting majority in town.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders

Sweetie Belle

A normal, sentient lifeform just like any other pony, Sweetie Belle has a robotic signal jammer built into her back. While Sweetie Belle is alive, it will take Two Nights of Scanning for Team W.A.I.F.U. to determine someone’s affiliation.

Applebloom

With presidential aspirations, Applebloom can be any Apple-related thing she wants to be. Once per night, Applebloom can choose a player. If that player is not one of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Applebloom will slap a presidential veto on any actions that player may be taking that night. She’ll also learn if the player she targeted is a Cutie Mark Crusader. How else would she know to stop her veto before it goes through?

Scootaloo

Considered a robot by her friends, Scootaloo fills the important role of being the pegasus so that the Cutie Mark Crusaders are racially diverse. She also has a scooter. That’s cool, right? If Scootaloo is killed in any way, after a day of rest she will return to play, alive and ready to prove how diverse this group is.

Twist

With ties to organized crime, Twist has ways of making a pony talk. They very often involve peppermint sticks to sensitive areas. Once per night, she may pick a player to brutally interrogate that night. When the morning comes, she’ll be told the affiliation of who she interrogated, and that player will have been so badly beaten, they won’t remember the experience.

Pinkie Pie

Using her teleportal powered by Gypsy Magic, Pinkie Pie can avert disaster. During the night, Pinkie Pie may choose a player. If that player would die via night kill that night, or lynch the next day, Pinkie Pie will bake the fourth wall and stop it from happening. However, if she is successful, she’ll have to regather ingredients for the next two nights.

Team W.A.I.F.U.

Twilight Sparkle

Blessed with the magical power to levitate objects, read books, control lightning, and write fanfics, Twilight Sparkle is clearly the most faithful student. However, all of these silly ponies and robots are really threatening to mess up her Mafia is Witchcraft fanfic, which just won’t do at all! Once per night, Twilight may send a message to the GM with a player and a command that can be expressed in 5 words or less. The chosen player will be informed of the command, and must follow it, or they’ll end up like Twilight’s friends back in Canterlot. The player does not have to follow the spirit of the command, just the exact wording. The chosen player cannot say, admit, or suggest that they’ve been compelled by Twilight to do something until the next game day. This power requires co-operation by everyone in the game. Come on! It’ll be fun. Play along, okay?

Rainbow Dash

Rule text? That is so un-Rainbow. Dashing like a Rainbow, Rainbow Dash can dash a message to the GM during the night, in a totally rainbow maneuver. The player mentioned in the message will be totally rainbowed in a dash, and be so overwhelmed with how shallow a character Rainbow Dash is that they will be dumbfounded, unable to speak, other than to vote, for the next game day.

Fluttershy

Cult Leader Fluttershy knows the machinations of the great Lord Smooze, and can thus predict the next Smooze-related eclipse. Once per game, Fluttershy can proclaim the next great eclipse is coming the next game day. That game day will then be shortened by 24 hours, due to the darkness of the eclipse.

Rarity

Part-time Fashion Designer and full-time Cultist, Rarity knows the value of a Giant Hat. She also has a wide collection of magical contact lenses and has taken a copious amount of acting classes. Once per night, Rarity may pick a player, an affiliation, and an identity. Taking on the role of that pony, Rarity will then put on a one-pony show to create fake proof of that player being of that affiliation and that identity for all investigations that night and lynches the next day. However, her overacting is way too over the top to work for herself: other ponies see right through it. She’s always that way.

Applejack

Solider and Apple Farmer, Applejack remembers a few techniques from her time in the war. Equipped with wartime Turing Test and Soul Detection machines, Applejack can determine a player’s affiliation. Once per night, she can pick a player to scan. When the next day starts, she’ll know that player’s affiliation via her invasive, against-Geneva-conventions investigation. The trauma will be so great, the player will block it from their memory, and be unable to tell they’ve been scanned. However, Applejack’s equipment goes haywire in the presence of signal jammers. If Sweetie Belle is still alive, the first night Applejack scans somepony, the results will be inconclusive, and she’ll have to perform a second scan on that player in order to find out the truth.

The Mass Effect 3 demo is kind of a clusterfuck! It really frustrated me. I will record those frustrations here for future generations. Or something.

First off, why the hell won’t this demo let me load my Shepard? It lets you make all these decisions at the beginning to try to approximate your Shepard, but you know what would be easier? Just loading my save file. Maybe this is only a problem for me as I’ve only played the games once, but the demo getting facts wrong from the previous games just made me angry. “That’s not true!” I told the screen! And it would have been completely avoided if they’d just loaded my fucking save.

I play an Engineer in Mass Effect. I am a motherfucking SPELLCASTER, and I love it. I have never really used guns that weren’t pistols in a Mass Effect game, and I have no intention of changing that in Mass Effect 3. Mass Effect 3 even has this new “weight” system to help me do that: the more weapons you carry, the more cooldown you have, so if you’re just rocking a pistol, your skills refresh super-fast. That’s great! However, the combat portion of the demo loads you up with a small arsenal of weapons. However, it still let me roll an Engineer. So I have all these cool spells, but I can’t USE them, because I have all these guns I don’t want to use that makes me have to wait like a full minute in between casts. This totally invalidated my strategies for enemies I used in ME2. I died so much because I could not rely on what I had learned in previous games. It was so stupid. Why didn’t it have an Engineer Weapon Loadout for me, since I picked that class? Why was there just this Soldier loadout? Ugh.

Finally, let me talk about the multiplayer. When you try to go to the multiplayer, it says it “can’t connect.” It doesn’t say why. Just that it can’t. I knew people were playing the multiplayer right then, but it just wasn’t working for me! What’s wrong! It turns out you need a special code from Battlefield 3 to play the Multiplayer demo early. The demo makes absolutely no indication of that whatsoever, though. If the demo had just told me “hey, only those with Battlefield codes can access the early multiplayer, come back Friday,” I would have said “Cool, see you Friday.” But the fact that I had to look this shit up online just made me angry. Would it really have been that hard to just put that information in the error message?

So yeah, that demo is fucked up. I’m sure the game will be fine, but goodness. Way to make a shitty demo, Bioware.

Well, my first foray into writing out and GMing a Mafia game has come to a close. It’s kind of a relief! It was a ton of work, though work I was glad to do. But now the game is over, chaos reigns over Equestria, and I’m left to think back on my experience. Here’s some of where my head is about it right now.

First off, I think my ruleset was pretty darn good, as I originally thought. But there were certainly some interesting power things to come out of actually seeing the game in action.
I was surprised at how much people were thrown off by Lies. We’ve played games with forgers before, although I suppose not without a coroner to counteract them, so I didn’t expect people to react so badly to that aspect. In general, I think people are overreacting to how he “ruins the game.” He only ruins the game if you let him. His is a power to help create more paranoia. That’s what being a bad guy is all about in Mafia. As town, you just have to not give in to it! Be logical! Don’t be silly! Don’t pointlessly start extremely clear bandwagons that the Mafia can predict! Still, there really is a lot of hatred for it. I have a feeling I’ll probably have to temper Lies slightly if we do this again, either by having a coroner role, or outlawing the super easy move of hitting yourself with the Lies power so the town never knows your dead, which is what happened this game.
I also feel like I accidentally missed the mark with Applejack, and I felt bad about it. For whatever reason, the fact that Rarity and Rainbow Dash were underpowered didn’t bother me TOO much. Not all powers could be winners, even though I would probably switch them out for better powers if I did this ruleset again. But the fact that I felt Applejack’s roleblocking power, once the game got started and I could see it in action, was actually pretty well a stupid power to ever use made me sad. Torgo put it to use confirming himself, which was good, but yeah. It certainly needs a tweak of some sort. There’s a difference between “tension on how to not fuck up this power use” and “My best move is not to use my power.”
Mutiny, as well, was more neutered than I thought it would be. Brick’s plan was very simple, and made it so Mutiny couldn’t use their power. However, Brick’s plan really fucked with the game overall, I feel. It made it feel like the whole game day was only viable in the last 24 hours, and that had an impact. A huge one, I think. Mutiny wasn’t completely useless in that regard. But still, what’s the fun of having a power you can’t use? I’d want to fix that next time around too.

All that said, I keep going back and forth about how much my ruleset favors the Mafia. Unlike Brick, I’m pretty sure it does, but unlike most of the other players, I am pretty sure it doesn’t in a huge way. It’s really close. Is simply powering up the weak Mane 6 going to be enough to fix this? Do they need something more, to help them not fuck over each other? Or an extra “Mane 6” in the coroner role to weaken that win condition for the Mafia without giving the town too much more power? I don’t know. I’m going to have to think long and hard on that one before I do another pitch based on these rules again. Decisions! Playtesting! Oh my!

One thing I didn’t realize before I GM’d a game is how talkative players in the game are with the GM. I have never thought about PMing the GM of any Mafia game I’ve played for anything other than rules clarifications, but I was pretty constantly getting PMs complaining about things, venting frustrations, saying “Tell the Champagne Room This” and so on. It was really interesting. It was an extension of that feeling I have to want to really over explain decisions I’m not sure of to people who understand. They couldn’t do that all out in the thread, so they tell me, who knows they’re innocent/guilty and thus understands what they’re frustrated about. It was cool. Maybe I’ll do that next game. I dunno.

As far as writing went, it was a fucking blast. I think I’ve converted one and a half people to watching Ponies, too, so that’s nice. Heh. But yeah, I’ve went on and on here about how I love to envision children’s characters taking on actual consequences and problems outside of their normal reach. I don’t know if I did that real well? It did get kind of silly dramatic at times. But it was fun to try, and for the most part, I am VERY happy with how I treated the characters. I panic so much when working with stuff that isn’t my own. I don’t want to change it. I felt like I did a damn good job of keeping Twilight acting like Twilight, Applejack like Applejack, and so on. I especially felt really good about the sequences I wrote with the Cutie Mark Crusaders. I often left those feeling I nailed it. Heh. If I had to do it over again, though, maybe I wouldn’t have little flavor interludes at vote counts? Fuck, that took up a lot of my free time. Then again, I got to tell the story I wanted to tell better, which is why I wanted them in the first place. I can’t be too mad about it.

The last thing I want to talk about is the bad blood in the game. Man, I don’t know, I felt like more people got hurt in the silly pony game than in games before. It was so frustrating to watch that from my position and be unable to do anything about it. You have to let people berate people. That’s just how the game works. You can’t do social manipulation unless you’re free to socially manipulate. But fuck, I would have hoped people could keep the game separate from how we all really feel about each other. We’re friends on Talking Time. Basically as close of friends as a bunch of people who haven’t met posting on a message board can be, at least in my opinion. I have screamed at people in games before, called people assholes, told them to sit down and let the adults play, and such things. But while I was frustrated then, as I said them, the moment the game ended, the feeling was gone. It was just a game. It was meaningless outside of gameplay. I don’t mind getting mad or pissy in a game of Mafia because I know, in the end, it doesn’t mean anything. I wish that was clearer to people. I don’t want to be excluding people or scaring people off, because Mafia is fucking awesome.

Anyway, I totally am calling this game a success. It had its hiccups, as any would, but overall there were no big explosions and everyone seemed to have a great time! Would I GM again? Absolutely. But I’m probably not even going to try to pitch a game for at least two more rounds. It’s an exhausting experience, doing all that stuff alone! I need to just chill and enjoy playing for awhile.

Before I say anything else about Sonic Generations, I just have to say that, one again, they have fucking nailed the soundtrack. If there’s one thing I really, truly love about the new Sonic games it is their soundtracks. They are so perfect. They are fun, and fit the game SO WELL.

Let’s just take a sample here, and take a listen. Here is the original terrible but somehow awesome song for City Escape from Sonic Adventure 2. Okay, got that in your head? Cool.
Now here’s the music from the City Escape level for “Classic” Sonic in Sonic Generations. Underneath the song, you have it mixed with Endless Mine from Sonic 3, evoking that “old” Sonic feel in the song.
Now here’s the music from the “modern” Sonic City Escape level. You’ve got the ridiculous stupid guitars from more modern Sonics, but you’ve got the basic song underneath there.

I love this shit. It is doing such a good job of evoking those eras while being good, fresh remixes.

Let’s do one more. Here’s the Chemical Plant Zone from Sonic 2. Got it?
Now here’s the “Classic” Sonic level of the Chemical Plant Zone in Generations. Still basically exactly the same, right? But they’ve added extra similar instrumentation and beat underneath to modernize it a little bit. Still, it sounds like what your memory thinks the Genesis might have been able to make, even if it never could.
And now, here’s the “Modern” Chemical Plant Zone level in Generations. It’s just like “FUCK YEAH GUITARS!” and some heavy remixing of the main theme of the level.

The game itself is just like that. It’s so good at evoking what you remember about the levels, while being slightly different. You go “I remember that part!” over and over again, but you aren’t actually playing the same levels. They’re very different, and designed for new mechanics. But they do a bang-up job of making you see them. I really liked this game.

Well, until lives fucked me over again.

Seriously, Sonic Games, LOSE THE LIVES. I got Perfect Chaos, and I was having trouble with him because you really have to balance your Boost use to not fall and die. I kept losing all my lives and having to restart the whole battle over from the beginning. After doing this a handful of times, I threw my paws up and said “I’m done. I don’t want to be frustrated.”

This same thing ruined my enjoyment of Sonic Colors. I was loving that shit, but then I got to a point where I just died constantly, and I didn’t want to deal with the frustration anymore. I just want to see all of your cool game, Sega! Give me a fucking break, here! I am a content tourist! Let me see your content!

Oh well. I hope they fix that, but I also hope they keep making Sonic games this good. Their last two were not like blockbuster must plays, but they were fun games nobody would be ashamed of enjoying with fucking AWESOME music. I would very much like that trend to continue.

I played and beat a video game! Are you surprised? Well, to be fair, this game took me all of like an hour at most to beat, so that’s probably why.

Awhile back, I found out that The Secret of Grisly Manor was free for a day. It was a little point and click puzzle thing, so that sounded like something worth trying, anyway, so I grabbed it. Then I played through it.

It was okay? I dunno.

The game is basically like a super-polished and not completely stupid version of a lot of those horrible Adventure games Retsupurae has let’s played. You’re in a world of static pictures, and you move around and solve puzzles. The little house you’re in is completely ridiculous in a lot of ways, but for the most part, the puzzles make way more sense than some in this genre, so I didn’t have much of a problem with them. There were some ridiculous, nonsensical parts. For example, at one point, you stick a rod in a whole, and then lightning just happens to strike it for some reason, and that, for some reason, makes what the rod is stuck in disintegrate, revealing a door. This isn’t like… a magic house or something. That makes little sense. Also, your character is extremely concerned with not killing a goldfish? But you’ll put the goldfish in a tub full of dirty, soapy water which would almost surely kill it. I don’t think you’re supposed to put a fish in soapy water! But what do I know, I guess.

The game did have one clever and hard puzzle that was fair, but stumped me for awhile. The clues were all out there, but it did take some thinking to put them together, mostly because there were multiple clues scattered about the world in non-obvious ways, and not like, a single clue that once you pick it up, you solve it. I appreciated that. On the whole, though, it was mostly uninspired “unlock this to get the clue/key to unlock the next puzzle” stuff. Inoffensive, fun while it lasts, but again, if you have half a brain for these sorts of games, you’ll breeze through the whole thing in minutes.

Uh, sorry for ruining the plot of this game, I guess, but it is kind of laughable. Like, you get to the end, where a door in the basement leads outside for some reason (?) and your grandpa, who you were trying to find, is just there. Like, he’s just in the back yard. You could have just walked around the house. You even go around the house to a shed at one point to solve some puzzles. And he’s like “Sorry it seemed like I was dead, but I invented time travel, let’s go!” And that’s it. Just “good job solving my puzzles, I invented time travel” and then it kicks you to the menu. You’d think with a title like “Grisly Manor” you’d have something like… scary or something happen. There’s nothing vaguely scary about the game. They didn’t even try for scary. It’s weird.

Anyway, free was the right price for this. I enjoyed it for that. If you really like this kind of game and are okay with it lasting about an hour, a dollar might be fair. I’m pretty sure they’re charging more for it, though, which is pretty crazy. There are better point and click flash games out there than this. But eh, again, it entertained me for awhile. I can’t complain. And I think this was their first game. Maybe the other ones they made are better? Who knows. I’m probably not going to go out of my way to find out, though.

Ascendency was basically my first experience with what I believe is called the 4X genre of games. Reading about it after the fact, it was apparently broken as fuck, and I’m sure there are many better games of this type out there now, and in the past, but it was just one of those formative gaming experiences for me, and I loved it.

So then it came out on iOS and then it went on sale so of course I bought it.

There is simply a ton to the game, and even vaguely remembering it in the past, it was hard to figure out all the controls and stuff. There are a ton of them, and some things, like being able to use your race’s special power if it’s an activated power, is kind of stored in a fucked-up place in the menu that’s not very intuitive to find. I always liked to play as the terraformer people, so being able to activate that ability whenever I needed to was important, and it took me awhile to figure out. Similarly, it’s hard to guide your ships to where you want them to go. I don’t remember ever having any trouble dealing with the pseduo 3D spaces in the original game, but I often had trouble telling a ship to go to the star lane I wanted them to go to. Sometimes they’d just kind of stop beside it for no reason, and I wouldn’t realize it. It was annoying, because you might not find that out until like two turns after you give the order, if you tend to build a fleet of super-slow colony ships like I do.

Other than having to get used to the controls (and I can’t even imagine how bad they’d be on an iPhone. They were bad enough with the screen real estate of my iPad) this is the game I remember. Apparently bugs that I never knew about from the original were fixed in this, making it harder or something? I didn’t notice. I did what I always did, being a super-peaceful researcher and colonizer, and it didn’t seem to really be any different. It is Ascendency. That’s pretty cool.

Of course, what’s not cool is when you get like 2 hours in to a game, and then it crashes for no reason and you lose progress and then stop playing. That’s pretty annoying! That happened. I reloaded though, and it happened again. I don’t know why. But that was enough to make me stop trying, at least for now. They do seem to still be patching it, so hopefully that’ll fix it? Hopefully.

I like Ascendency, but I think this is merely a nostalgia thing. There has to be a better game of this type on iOS, or just out there in general, nowadays. I just don’t know if someone coming in to it new would be interested. However, I mean, if you can grab it for a dollar like I did? That is a lot of solid game for a dollar, as long as it doesn’t crash on you. So maybe it’s worth trying anyway. Who knows?

Remember when I said I’d keep writing these? I guess I am.

Pokemon Gold/Silver is a basically perfect game. It’s the sequel to Pokemon every single Pokemon game since wishes it could be, but has completely failed to be. It was full of plenty of new content, gobs and gobs of fanservice, and refined basically everything there was to love around Pokemon Red/Blue. It is THE Pokemon game.

First off, let’s just talk about the new Pokemon. All of them fit right in with the original 150, easy. You don’t feel like they’re stretching for design ideas. They just work, and it’s awesome. The only Pokemon I truly love are from this and the first game, (Let’s try a list off the top of my head… we’ll call this a list of Pokemon who, if I saw a toy of them, I would buy immediately: Eevee, Vulpix, Ninetales, Wobuffet, Skamoray) and while that’s a personal preference to be sure, I just feel like, in general, these Pokemon are just the ones with the design chops to make me love them.

In addition, Gold/Silver made much-needed changes to the formula of Pokemon to make it a more fun game. Eggs were a really good addition that let you customize your team more. The new types, Steel and Dark, dealt with the balance issues of the first game, as well as little things like giving us a Ghost Pokemon that wasn’t also Poison, so that Ghost could actually be useful against Psychic Pokemon. The timed events, based on a real-world clock, were also fucking fantastic, and I just can’t understand why every Pokemon game after this hasn’t had them. Those events kept me playing the game for a long time, and being able to only catch certain types during certain times of day was just cool.

The amount of content in the game just hasn’t been matched as well. Getting to go back to Kanto and face Red after being the game was totally and completely a HOLY SHIT moment the first time it happened. While it didn’t take as long to get through that content of course, what with your fully-powered team, blasting through the area you had so much trouble with in the past game just made you feel like a REAL Pokemon master, you know?

This was like the pinnacle of handheld gaming when it came out, and frankly, for the most part, I bet it still holds up. I wouldn’t touch it at all. (Well, okay, maybe I’d put the female trainer from Crystal into the original game, but that would basically be it, and I can live without that.) Pokemon Gold/Silver? You’re awesome.

A quick one, because work schedules suck! And I need to be up in like 4 hours to do all my teaching bullshit.

Remember back on Christmas, when I played a bunch of iPad games? Well, I also played Pinball Collection HD! It’s the last one I played that day, promise.

Anyway, it was pinball! You got a table for free, then they wanted money for additional tables. Pretty fair, really. What’s there is really impressive, too, so I could see somebody wanting to buy more, if they actually liked pinball. I’m… not really a pinball person! But it was pretty impressive.

The graphics were really nice. It looks really impressive on that iPad screen! They’re going for a fairly realistic sort of pinball table: no stuff that can’t exist in real life. Maybe these are real-life tables remade? I dunno. Anyway, it all looks like it should, with all the lights and the dings and sounds you’d expect from a real pinball table. The presentation is top notch.

The controls, too, are pretty well perfect. Tap on the left, left flipper, tap on the right, right flipper. Simple as that. It feels really good holding the iPad and just bopping the screen with your thumbs. I certainly felt like I had about as much control as I ever do playing pinball when I was playing the game, so that’s nice.

The free table, Wild West, is really easy, though. Again, I am not very good at pinball, but it did not take me very many plays to figure out how to unlock the bank vault, and then rob it, which made it easy to rack up extra lives. This almost seems like a problem to me? I was getting kind of bored during my last run because it just wouldn’t end, and was not in any danger of ending! Not that I want to be dead in like two seconds or anything, but it seems like there should always be a risk of failure, right? I dunno.

Anyway, it’s got your high score tables and everything you’d want. If you like Pinball, you should clearly own this game. It’s clearly made with a lot of love. I was glad to just waste some time playing the free table, though.

Let’s see… what’s on my list of games I haven’t talked about.

Oh, woah, Solatorobo! The game I played out of my duty as a furry. Or something.

Solatorobo is a game that I am very glad got made and published in the US. That’s crazy! I’m so glad it happened! It’s really not the kind of game I really want to spend a long time with.

First things first: this game is adorable as fuck. The character art is awesome, and the world is weird and unique looking, even with the not-great 3D graphics of the DS. (That said, the 3D is among the best on the DS.) The little sound clips for the characters and stuff just ooze cute, and make you grin. It is just a fun world to be around, where you’ve got this mecha, but all you do is throw things, not shoot everything with guns, you know? It’s just not a sort of world you see anymore.

And that’s really the problem. This is not the kind of game you see any more. On the PS1, this game would have been a fucking revelation, beloved for years to come. But on the DS, it still has a lot of stuff from that era sticking around that it probably shouldn’t have. The game is extremely talky and hand-holdy, and while it is cute, as I said, I wouldn’t call it good. It can take you forever to do a simple side mission because Red just has to do so much talking in between fights. It also makes the plot paced very slowly.

All that hand-holding doesn’t do the game any favors because, at least as far as I’ve gotten, the combat is extremely simple. I am flat-out not good at any kind of real-time combat. I mean, I can get by, but I’m just not good. I had mastered the combat, at least as far as I’ve played, pretty well completely. It’s simple, which it has to be, since all you can really do is pick up and throw stuff. I hear late in the game stuff gets more interesting? But again, how much game with slow dialog would I have to sit through to get there? I just don’t know.

I’ve heard this described as a homage to games of that era, and if that’s what you want, this game totally does that, and does it well! I personally found that, while I wasn’t not having fun, perse, there just wasn’t enough there to keep my interest going when other shinies appeared. Poor Solatorobo! Oh well.