January -
Ratchet and Clank: Into the Nexus: Great platformer with a solid storyline, and cheap jokes aplenty. My friend Bruce recommended
Blood Dragon. It's an FPS game loaded with a hero that knows EGG-ZACTLY where he is. That place is a
retro-future - that's right, synthesizer music, neon, robotic voices, and tons of
cliches. Your character even spouts one-liners based on kills! *Headshot* "I guess he was open-minded."
The game does a lot right: the collectibles are a) on the map and b) have an effect on the gameplay. Nothing pisses me off more than the majority of games, which have collectibles for the sake of trophies/achievements and nothing else. None of that here.
Cutscenes are 2d comic panels with decent voice acting (Phil LaMarr!), and there are more 80s-movie cliches buried in there that I'll just have to let you find out.
I bought a
Zelda: A Link between Worlds 3ds XL and let me tell-a you, this is the best purchase I've made in a long time. Nintendo is really good at doing version 1.5 games - not-quite original enough to be sequels, but repackaged, spruced up, and enough features to feel familiar but different enough. After all, A Link to the Past is a fantastic game as it is! This game is non-linear, artistically great, and loaded with interactive tweaks for the 3DS. You can quick-select items with the touch screen, and the 3D-mode top-screen shows some impressive distance for floating enemies and
platforms. There are lots of perspective-timed jumps that will land you in the lava.
However, fighting Dark Link via the Street Pass is by far the coolest thing about this game (and the coolest thing about every 3DS game). If your 3DS touches uglies with another
Z:aLbW owner, you fight an AI-controlled Dark Link of their
last-saved character for rupees! If I am just starting out and have a few items and only 3 hearts, I get hella rupees if I can beat someone who has 10 hearts and better items.
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| As always, there are the signature moments and characters, which is why people become fans of series. |
It's only January, but I know this is already one of the best gaming experiences of this year.
February - I'm combing through old games and newer-but-supposedly easy games, trying to get that 100% or Platinum.
I started a game called
Metro: Last Light. This is February's free game of the month on Playstation Plus ($50/year if you can't find a deal). You're a member of a Communist organization...and you fight Nazis as well as mutated creatures that resulted from biochemical warfare. I might not have that right, but you can look up the story if you really care. The dystopian setting and survival aspect reminds me of Last of Us, but, technically, it just doesn't deliver the goods. Your character walks really slowly, and the collision detection is reminiscent of the late 90s, when 3d graphics were new. It. Fucking. Sucks. Even the PC version was plagued with bugs, which weren't completely fixed when they released it on the consoles.
One of the trophies is to beat the game without killing any humans. You do this by approaching them and hitting square (knockout) vs R3 (stab the shit out of them). Successfully, the character will stiffly change whatever position they're in and stand up and turn around, just to be surprised and let you knock them out. It looks stupid. The only problem is that you're often waiting for the stupid square-or-R3 prompt, and you're probably going to reload your gun about 30% of the time. The AI is really stupid in that you can stand right in front of an enemy soldier and they won't notice you, as long as it's 'dark.'
*March update: I beat that game another full time in about 6 hours, without killing anything and didn't get that trophy. I deleted it in frustration and started:
March games:
God of War: Ascension, Link's Awakening (Gameboy!)
God of War games are awesome for a few reasons: epic, drum-pounding, male choir-fueled Mediterranean empire music, sweet graphics, unparalleled violence and rage.
April:
Thomas was Alone. This game deserves recognition (which I'm sure it's already gotten) for narration being able to make you care about a yellow square, and three other colored rectangles.
May: I think this was a month of trying to finish up titles for platnium trophies, and my Master Quest in Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. Just as awesome the second time through.
June:
Okami, which I liked so much, it got its
own page.
