The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Gamefly sent me Monster Tale.

I had heard a lot of good things about the game, as well as a lot of reservations, sort of like the previous game from that group, Henry Hatsworth. Still, I enjoy Metroidvanias and I wanted to give it a go, so rent I did!

I sent it back after about 2 hours of play.

I don’t know, it just seemed… bad. All the pieces were there. I was leveling up my little pet and he was evolving into different things. I was wandering around a map and getting abilities that let me access new parts of the map. Stuff was happening! Metroidvania!

However, there were just little things that bothered me.

The map design was really boring. Over on the Video Games Hot Dog, they talked about how the game was not designed in a smart way, where getting a power up opened a path that slid you back to where you were supposed to be, or took you along a route with a lot of new stuff to pick up. It was literally designed to have you go to one end of the map, then go back to the other, then go back to the first place. They said this, and within my short time playing the game, I was already seeing this. Traversing the map wasn’t fun on it’s own. That made me not want to keep going.

On top of that, the combat was kind of stupid. Enemies either took one single hit, or 5 million hits, and there was seemingly no in-between. This made said backtracking even more tedious, which was really unfortunate.

I put it down after a play session, and as I thought about it more, I realized I’d have to force myself to pick it up again. It’s not a bad game, perse. It has the elements of a game, and it doesn’t feel like it controls like shit or anything. It just wasn’t bringing anything special to the table. I was hoping for charm to really carry the game, and it just wasn’t there. Oh well.

Finally, due to a really complicated series of me feeling like shit, I got back to Back to the Future! This always happens with Telltale games. I’ll play the first episode immediately, then not touch them again until they’re almost all out. Oh well.

Episode 2, Get Tannen!, was kind of a letdown.

Some of the design decisions they made to make the game “easier” to understand for non-gamers really bothered me. Mostly the movement. The game revolves around the Hill Valley town square, much like all the movies and such. It’s a three dimensional space. However, the game basically has this space set up as a straight line. There are invisible paths that Marty has to follow as he walks around. This makes it so that you can never use the straightest line to get from one destination to another to cut down on travel time. This is really frustrating after awhile. I didn’t notice it in the first episode because of Cara’s influence, which is fine enough, but goodness.
The other big problem that stuck out to me was the “Goals” thing. There was a long time where the “Goal” the game was showing me was something I had already accomplished, which seems… stupid, since it could have been telling me something else I should have been working on. Kind of defeats the whole purpose of having it!

The plot, too, was just not very exciting. None of it didn’t make sense, you understand: it’s a fine premise that Marty’s grandpa would get killed due to what happened in the first episode, as well as Kid Tannen going free and changing the future. Having to change that is all well and good. However, it really was interacting with the same people in basically the same locations as the first episode, which was really sort of a shame. It felt like some of the earlier Sam and Max episodes in that respect, where they added one new location and little else to the overall formula. Telltale had mostly gotten away from that, I thought. It was a bit of a letdown.

Finally, and I know this is just kind of a contradictory thing, but many of the puzzles in the game just seemed too… puzzle-y. In the first episode, there was only one puzzle that was really an adventure game puzzle. Everything else was more talking with people and making stuff happen, which fits more with the property and more casual aim of the game. There were many more adventure game puzzles here, and some of them just screamed of puzzle. The box of sheet music in incredibly plain view just yelled out PUZZLE and I found myself solving it before I even knew why I needed to. That’s just really unfortunate.

I’m being a bit hard on it, though. It’s not that bad, perse. They did make you feel more like a time-traveller, as you get to jump around a bit in time (not freely, but when the story dictates) in order to make the changes necessary to fix what was messed up in time, which is cool. The voice actor for Marty is still pretty amazing as well. It just wasn’t a very strong second episode, is all I’m saying.

Dragon Age II is really great.

By breaking the storyline into three distinct time periods, Bioware has managed to create characters that grow and interact with each other in cool, realistic ways. It is really rewarding to see your party members’ stories unfold, instead of just your own. It’s even more rewarding to see your party members interact with each other, both in your party and outside your party, in realistic ways. It makes them feel like actual people, instead of just pieces to use in combat.
One of the best examples of this that I encountered was with Aveline. I had given her a shield as a gift, and I got attacked for it. See, I had sold Aveline’s dead husband’s shield earlier, because I had a better shield for her. I thought nothing of it: it was just gear. Aveline, however, was unhappy I had gotten rid of such a sentimental piece of gear, and that I was now offering her something else. This blew me away. This was a realistic reaction to something I was doing in the game. It was fantastic. Dragon Age II is full of little moments like that.

The other thing that really appealed to me is how well-written the side-quests were. I went into the game planning to rush and “only do the interesting side quests.” However, every side quest had voice-acting, decisions, and long-reaching changes on the storyline. I enjoyed doing things like taking over and taking care of a mine over the course of years. They were all interesting, and I did them all. Compare this to the bullshit “checkmark on the box” sidequests from Origins, which weren’t interesting at all. They really did a good job making their optional content feel as important as their non-optional content, even if it wasn’t quite as epic in scope.

On top of all that, they also managed to fix a lot of the common problems with the relationships in the game. Again, having these relationships play out over a period of time removed a lot of the problems. I moved in with Merrill, who I was sexing up, and thus had an actual relationship with her, instead of a fuck before the final battle. The fact that the climax of the relationship with a touching kiss before running in to fight one final time actually made it mean a lot more. Sure, a lot of the “flirting” dialog options were still fucking terrible, but at least they’re still moving in the right direction.

Really, though, the big moment that really got to me was, super spoilers, Anders blowing shit up at the end. I was really frustrated and betrayed by that. I knew he was up to something stupid, but taking out my chance to negotiate made me pissed at him. I told him to fuck off. However, what truly showed me that I cared about his character, and felt betrayed by him, was when he reappeared in the little prep room for the final battle. I was so pissed that he returned after I sent him away, and that was because I felt a level of connection to the character. I told him to fuck off again, and he left. It was fantastic.

Seriously, the story and characters, the reason I play RPGs like this, really were top-notch for the most part. Little touches, like which sibling living being determined by your class, so you have a better selection of party members to choose from, is also fairly brilliant and adds replay value. It’s not a perfect game, but it was a lot of fun.

Yeah, Dragon Age II is a pretty fun game in a lot of respects.

Dragon Age II is really awful.

If you’ve heard anything about this game, I don’t need to tell you how insane it is that there are like 6 maps total in the entire game. You are constantly retreading the same ground, over and over again, with the game calling it a different place. It’s pretty insane. The fact that the game even highlights this with an achievement, rewarding you for walking through the same cave map 10 times, adds an extra level of crazy to the mix.

That’s really just the beginning, though.

The loot in this game is completely fucked up. You get “vendor trash” items that just flood your inventory and you sell for cash, which is fine, I guess, but most of the gear you pick up is similarly useless. Most members of your party have armor or weapons they won’t part with. You can’t change their equipment, besides maybe their accessories. The only character you can completely customize is your own and, well, since you’re only one of three different classes, the gear for 2 of those classes becomes completely useless. If you’re a mage, and find some bitching warrior armor, you might as well just sell that shit immediately, because it is a useless piece of junk. Even most of the gear you pick up that you could use is a waste of space. There’s no strategic trade-offs of buffs. It is either clearly worse or clearly insanely better than what you have equipped. Add to this the fact that you get so much money in the game and have absolutely nothing to spend it on, and you have a gear system that’s really useless.

The story just decides to fall into tiny pieces at the end of the game, too. Nothing that happens makes any sense at all, because they’re trying to desperately to only have to design one series of end game bosses. No matter what you do, or what decisions you make, you have to fight the same two end game bosses, and that makes what decisions you make in the story feel completely useless. It’s a really stupid end to a fairly decent story.

What’s worse, that stupid end reflects extremely badly on Varric, the character, because of the pointless wrapper narrative of the game. Varric is supposed to be a great storyteller, but he couldn’t spin the ending into something more interesting? I guess he’s not as great a storyteller as the game makes him out to be. It’s jarring when the wrapper narrative jumps into the game, because you will play for hours and hours without it having anything to do with anything, and in the end, it makes absolutely no important contribution to the overall story. If you’re going to do something like that, go all out. This game doesn’t, and it hurts for it.

Yeah, Dragon Age II is a pretty fucking terrible game in a lot of respects.

Those tabs on Chrome are seeming PRETTY SMALL! I best empty them out.

Hey, look, here’s some more Pony Gifs! I don’t have a problem, I swear.

Also, I beat Brer in Frozen Synapse, which means I am the total best. On this one match.

And then, dogs. Video game dogs.

It is also E3 going around, so here’s a quick recap of the Nintendo press conference, if you need it.

Frog fighting? Um, sure. I can watch that.

These views of the destroyed Six Flags New Orleans is made extra-creepy by the fact I see so many similarities to the local Six Flags.

Also, PAC-RAINBOW, MOTHERFUCKER.

Finally, this is a hilarious skit. So watch that.

So many fewer tabs! My browsers are safe for another day. Now, onward! ONWARD!

As per usual, I pick up games on the iPod that people randomly mention are free when they are free. A few weeks back, I picked up a game called Dirt, which has indie art game written all over it. I’m going to discuss it today, spoilers and all, but if you want to know whether you should buy it for the buck it currently is, I would say no. As a free flash game or something, I’d tell you to try it, but I can’t say it’s deep or cool enough to be worth money when you can get so many better games on iOS for that price. Still, I did play it to competition and it was probably about an hour and a half or two hours spread out over a couple 15 minute play sessions over some weeks I didn’t feel bad about spending, so, you know, decide as you will. I will also say, though, that it makes a horrible iPad game, because you have to constantly rotate your device. I ended up playing it on my iTouch because of this.

In any case, spoilers start now.

You’re a cat skeleton with boots. You can dig in any direction, which is cool, I suppose. Rotating the device changes the gravity, so you can essentially dig up or down or wherever you’d like by turning the screen around. Basically all you do is explore this underground area like this, digging away dirt and seeing what’s there.

As you search, you find weird background and items, as well as gems. The only real HUD element is a pause button, which brings up a list of gem types and a goal number. Once you collect a certain number of gems, stuff happens, with the prompt “Dirt is starting to remember.” You know, the spoiler stuff.

It turns out each gem represents a member of the family that Dirt belonged to. Once you hit the first couple of milestones, each with a talking centipede who speaks for each of the characters in their color text, you are told, by death, to dig to the surface, where you see the family over your kitty cat grave. This basically made me go “Aww, but that’s short and kind of lame.” But then I realized I had new gem goals.

From then on, each gem goal will create a room where you will see a picture from Dirt’s happy home life. You’ll see how the kitty cat related to everyone in the family, and then, finally, you collect enough to find Death again, who tells you it’s time to go, and you start falling forever, watching scenes of the kitty cat wasting away and dying. Eventually, you hit the beginning of the game again, since the game started with “You are Dirt. You’ve been falling for days.” There you go.

The game is taking itself seriously, but it’s choosing a really mundane topic. Yes, the little girl in the family is sick with something, and Dirt is a good companion, but for the most part, you don’t learn anything unexpected about Dirt. Dirt is just a cat with a terrible name. In addition, there just simply aren’t enough little doodads and backgrounds to find in the game world in general. They’re really cool to try to piece together what they are at the beginning, but eventually you start seeing the same stuff over and over again, and it loses its mystery. Finally, the art just… isn’t great. I mean, it’s certainly better than I could draw, and the sprite art of the actual gameplay is fine, but all the art of the flashbacks and stuff just doesn’t do it for me. It doesn’t feel professional, and it hurts any level of attachment you could potentially have with these characters. It’s unfortunate.

This is a good try, and a good start. Digging around and exploring is great! I just felt like it needed a few more passes to be truly meaningful and effective. It has all the mechanical elements it needs, but I just left not feeling much for anyone. I wanted to finish it to write this review, not because I was engaged. Oh well.

Dungeon and Coin is a trap.

I was preparing that list of iOS games yesterday, using the Appshopper site, and they had an ad on the side for a game called Dungeon and Coin. I thought I remembered hearing about this game somewhere, and it was free, so I downloaded it. Then, it consumed me.

Thing about those coin-pusher games. You know, the ones Essner can’t play enough of every time we go to Lambert’s? Picture one of those, only when you make coins fall down in a certain place, it spins a slot machine. This slot machine picks magic spells for attacks on enemies, who die and throw orbs and goodies on top of the pile of coins, which you can push off to collect and make more happen. You can use your coins and items to unlock new spells, new wheels on the slot machine, and so on. When you aren’t playing, you will build up about 35 free coins over time. You can buy more, of course, but really, I always won enough that I didn’t feel like I’d ever have a need to do that.

Seriously, though. This game is just fucking AMAZING at mesmerizing you. Shit is always happening. Spells are going off, throwing coins on top of coins, making them all bounce, and you’re getting combo bonuses for knocking several orbs off of the play area at a time and your little wizard is throwing magical spells and oh shit, a minigame just started and a big chest just appeared and pushing that chest off the side makes a bunch of little chests appear and OH SHIT, I JUST GOT A JACKPOT, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN, I DON’T KNOW, BUT THERE’S A JEWEL NOW, GOTTA GET THAT JEWEL! It just keeps going and going. It’s relentless.
At the same time, it’s mostly going without your input. You can drop coins where you want, sure, but you normally have so many that you just flood an area with coins and make more push off. It kind of lacks the actual tenseness of “I have two quarters, can I win this?” that an actual coin push machine has. It’s just bells and whistles going off constantly. It’s Peggle’s Extreme Fever without having to win at a game first.

It’s free. Try it if you’d like. But even though I’ve probably put like 3 hours into this stupid thing at this point, I want to say that you shouldn’t play it. It’s really just not a game, perse. Still, it’s free, and it’s not restrictive enough to really force you to do it’s microtransactions, so there is that.

Just… man. I can’t believe I’ve played this game so much. Goodness.

Cara was all like, “Man, I really want to game! Video game! Games!” and I was trying to think of things she’d like. It was then I realized that she has one of the greatest current gaming consoles: an iPad. So I decided I’d make a list of games she should get in order to get going in gaming. This is that list.
Goals of the list include getting cool games, not spending more than $20 bucks, and also getting a general game education, which is something she seems interested in. Let’s do this! In no particular order:

AppShopper
Cost: Free
Pros: Not a game, but anyone who is serious about iOS gaming needs this. There are so many sales and one day free giveaways on the App Store that it’s really worth your time to tag all interesting, but expensive games in AppShopper and wait for it to tell you that they’re on sale for a buck.
Cons: I find the fact that it dings you on app updates a bit annoying, even after I set it to do otherwise, but it’s a minor inconvenience in a great app and website.

Capcom Arcade
Cost: Free
Pros: A selection of old school Capcom awesome. One of them is Puzzle Fighter, so that’s fantastic. They keep adding more stuff, too.
Cons: Can only play a few times a day without paying to “buy” a game, though I feel that’s pretty fair. Interface to select games is kind of ass.

Word Ace
Cost: Free
Pros: A really brilliant online multiplayer word game. I’ve had a ton of fun with it.
Cons: If you lose a lot, you’ll run out of chips and can’t keep going. Game tries to default you into high-stakes games so you will want to buy chips, which is unfortunate. Constantly has a notification icon I can’t get rid of, which bothers me.

Peggle
Cost: $2.99
Pros: It’s fucking Peggle. Simple, fun, addictive, best use of ode to joy. Can purchase Peggle Nights expansion from the app, if you’d like.
Cons: I guess it’s expensive for the app store? But I mean, it’s Peggle.

Frotz
Cost: Free
Pros: A fine way to play Interactive Fiction on the iPad. Hooks into the IF archive, so you can download tons of games.
Cons: Typing on the iPad is not super great. Interactive Fiction, for all its charms, is super obtuse, even in modern forms of the genre, so it’s not very newbie-friendly.

You Don’t Know Jack HD Lite
Cost: Free
Pros: You Don’t Know Jack is awesome. I’m cheating and putting the free version on the list, but they even update the demo with new episodes every once and awhile. A treat.
Cons: No multiplayer still sucks. Jack is better with friends!

Words with Friends Free
Cost: Free
Pros: It’s scrabble, with the best online multiplayer on the platform, save for Carcassonne, which uses the same sort of multiplayer.
Cons: The ads really bother me, but, you know, you can always throw money at that problem if you want, like I did!

Spider: Bryce Manor HD
Cost: $4.99
Pros: One of the best controlling games on the platform, it’s a ton of fun. You get to explore, you get to master leaping about, and there are challenge modes if you want. What more can you ask for?
Cons: Expensive? I guess? Could always wait for a sale.

Robot Wants Kitty
Cost: $.99
Pros: An introductory Metroidvania game. Not too difficult to build those sorts of skills, but a lot of fun.
Cons: One song over and over forever ahhhhhhh!

TapDefense
Cost: Free
Pros: Not the best Tower Defense game, but a good introduction to the genre and extremely playable for the cost of free.
Cons: Not a lot of challenge variety, but hey, free game, so…

Mouse House
Cost: $1.99
Pros: A great clone of Lolo that I had a lot of fun with back in the day. Puzzle rooms ahoy! No real twitch skills required.
Cons: Controls are a little iffy at times. Doesn’t ruin the game, but could be better.

Cut the Rope
Cost: $.99
Pros: Cute as fuck. Constantly changing up the various toys you’re playing with, but in a way that makes sure you always know what’s going on. Uses the touchscreen fantastically.
Cons: Uh, no idea, really.

Cut the Rope: Holiday Gift
Cost: Free
Pros: A unique set of Cut the Rope levels, for free. Use it as a demo, or enjoy the fresh levels if you already have the rest.
Cons: Even less cons than Cut the Rope.

Super QuickHook
Cost: $2.99
Pros: Amazing arcade action. Charming and funny as hell, with lots of subtle improvements over Hook Champ (which is why I pick it over Hook Champ, though they’re both fantastic) and a nice progression to work through. Super-tight controls. A joy to play.
Cons: For-pay costume DLC? Doesn’t bother me. Maybe it bothers you? I’m looking hard for a con here. It’s a game I love so much, it’s hard to find one.

100 Rogues
Cost: $.99
Pros: An excellent introduction to the Roguelike. The easy mode is perfect for beginners. The normal mode is a solid challenge for roguelike fans. The interface is fairly great on the iPad, too.
Cons: For-pay character classes, though you get two fine ones to start with, so not a big deal. Occasional control problems, even with how good they are. Roguelikes are hard.

You Don’t Know Jack
Cost: $2.99
Pro: Fuck it, I have money left, and this is quality trivia action.
Con: I guess you’re not getting the HD version because that’s more expensive? But who cares, it’s text on a screen and voices.

That’s all I’ve got. I want to, say, put Final Fantasy on there, just for the history lesson and introduction to RPGs, but $8.99? Give me a fucking break, SquareEnix. I also know Cara likes car games, so I’d love to put a driving game on there, but I’ve never played any on the platform, and I don’t want to suggest something that may suck. Also, Cara, I know you downloaded Puzzle Quest when it was free. Play more of that. That’s good shit.

There is a lot of things in Dragon Age II that are awesome. There are also many things that suck. But during my recent play session (involving the end of Act 2, so there are spoilers, I suppose) I was overwhelmed with stupidity.

The end of Act 2 involves a long run through town towards the keep, where the Arishok has held up with his army. There are many battles along the way there, and you meet up with many important people as you go along. You have to talk to the Knight-Commander, and the Enchanter, and all these people, making decisions, and so on and so forth. A lot of tense moments, and cool decision-making. Finally, when you get to the Arishok, you have what is probably the first battle in the game that is actually challenging. It’s the only battle I’ve died on on casual difficulty. It’s really hard! My party was wiped almost immediately.

Every previous boss battle, going into the last cutscene before the battle triggered an autosave, so if I lost the battle, I could try it again. When I went into this battle, designed to be very difficult, there was no such autosave. I died, and the game picked back up with me entering High Town. This was about 15 minutes of cutscenes and dialog ago that I had to play back through.

What the fuck.

I just can’t believe that the designers didn’t think that battle was hard. As I said, it was the first tough battle on Casual difficulty. I can’t even imagine how hard it must be on actual difficulty settings. Why would they not autosave there? This is 40th Day level bullshit, and I thought Bioware was above that.

Again, there is plenty of good stuff in the game. Earlier in my play session, the game really impressed me in it’s attention to detail! But still, this was a really, really stupid oversight that made me waste a bunch of time getting back to the fight, which I almost lost again. Stupid.

The Point of Sale. The mystical retail location where people purchase things for money.

I was in command of this point.

While certainly not the most fun job in the world (and really, what is, in the world of retail) I really don’t understand what the big deal is. People HATE working Point of Sale. Like, they feel like they’d rather do anything but Point of Sale. I just don’t get it.

Basically, work is a shitty place to be when there is nothing to do, as far as I’m concerned. That’s when time goes super-slowly, and the day drags on and on in a frustrating manner. While there is a bigger risk of such things happening at Point of Sale, because when nothing is going on, you’re not allowed to move about the store and find something interesting to do, for the most part, it’s not an issue. There are small breaks, yes, but especially when you are by yourself on one side of the store, there is a constant string of people checking out. You’re always busy doing something.

I suppose what I could see people disliking is how you really do have to keep your mind on other things to survive. I can do this, it’s not hard, but it’s not like working the floor where your mind is constantly having to scan locations to figure out where this short goes, or that box. You get occupied, because you likely have a series of quests to engage in, if you’re actually working. At Point of Sale, there is a very specific script you are running through, a lot of it being hard-sell tactics for the credit card, and you can literally do that shit in your sleep if you’re not all gung-ho about making your credit goals. Which, I mean, I dunno who would be. I push it when I can, but I just feel like the sort of stuff I’m supposed to do would keep people from wanting to shop at the store. It sure as fuck would keep me away. So I don’t if people don’t seem like they’d listen. Maybe that keeps me from feeling sleazy doing the job. Maybe that’s another reason why people stay away.

I don’t know. All I know is, I need hours, and I don’t mind this shit in the least. Going to do it some more today, in fact. A job is a job, and I am glad to do the job, you know? Hopefully I’ll be involved in a job permanently that leaves me feeling fulfilled instead of tired when I go home at night, but for now, I’m happy to be behind that register, keeping myself from going broke.