Thursday, January 15, 2015

Games in 2015: Winter

January

deez graffix! (Halo 4)
To finish off The Master Chief Collection, Zack and I have started Halo 4. In single player, I'm tackling the Final Fantasy X-2 platinum trophy. The second week of January revealed that DuckTales - Remastered is on Playstation Plus for free!

This game rules. Of course they overhauled the graphics, and there's now a story that's integrated via cutscenes with voice overs (most of which are done by the original voice actors.) The music has been redone, and of course there's a NES-style digitized theme song at the title. All the great level music is there, as well as the level select music (which is REALLY well done.) The awesome part is that when you beat the game, you get treated to the TV show's theme song, totally extended, which then goes into a medley of all the level themes, and finally lands on a piano version of the medley. Everyone knows the moon had the best music, though this version's McDuck Mansion / level select theme is amazing.


February

He hit it in the middle of the night like a crook!
Sly Cooper Collection: Sucker Punch studios' PS2-era platform game. These 3 games are solid in terms of gameplay, with simple-but-fully-used mechanics, and cheeky humor. The era had some really healthy competition with (Naughty Dog's) Jak and Daxter, and (Insomniac's) Ratchet and Clank games, which spawned more than 10 decent titles. I beat the first game over 2 days, some time ago, with some challenging-but-not-super-frustrating parts. Trophy-wise, the games are a walk in the park with minimal collectible-hunting.

March

While preparing to move back to Seattle, writing student finals and hosting my mom and a friend or two, I still had time to hold a controller and push a button. This month, I started over my quest on Bravely Default - it's just too much of a challenge to keep a story intact over 6 months or so. I always do that with RPGs. I also played Sly Cooper 3: Honor Among Thieves. The Sly games build upon each other, in terms of story and gameplay, and nail it every time. There is a lot more than skulking and merc-ing the occasional buff guard who cracks wise to the wrong bandit.

There are at least 15 different play modes that are integrated into the story. In one level, you control an RC car that has to collect data that's being broadcast from broken explosive satellites. Another level has you flying a helicopter that drops a hook into enemies, and you have to tug them off of the ground, using directions, rockets and momentum. A new character has fireworks strapped to his back and constantly loads rockets to be fired at just about anything on your screen. Be careful...if you pack too many explosives, they will blow up and you lose hecka life. My favorite addition is that the second to last episode of the game puts you on the sea with your very own ship. Sea battles are all about positioning your ship to line up your cannons on the enemy before they do the same. After you blow their main mast down, you can finish them off or board their ship and brawl with the enemy captain and crew to capture more treasure. Also notable is the Crouching-Tiger, Hidden-Dragon fight sequence with General Tsao, a Chinese war boss.



The bosses all feel different and the voice acting is a little better than the average game. Sly Cooper 3 was an unexpected pleasure and I look forward to the 4th and 5th titles.



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I am one of those people that uses the word  perfect subjectively. I think something is perfect if it does what it's intended to do ...