Level 1-11 in Bit.Trip RUNNER is a real Bit.Trip BUMMER

…but I only say that out of the frustration that comes with a brutally old-school videogame like Bit.Trip RUNNER. It’s not a total bummer; in fact, it’s extremely addicting and full of musically magic moments; it’s only a bummer in that if you mess up once on level 1-11 “Odyssey” as you attempt to pick up 93 pieces of gold–yes, 93–or avoid numerous pitfalls…it’s back to the start for you and the never-tiring, always perky CommanderVideo.

And you try again, naturally, getting a smidge further into the level, but still end up missing a key jump because you hit the space bar one-ninth of a second too late or couldn’t remember quickly enough if you were supposed to slide under that bouncing block or hop over it. All right, so you try again. And again. And again like eight more times, stubbornness in your eyes and hands. Eventually, carelessness slips in, and aspects of the level you had already perfected now become just as difficult, with it all coming to a glorious head in accepting defeat and failure.

At least, that’s how things went for me. And the folks at Giant Bomb, based on their Quick Look skills. But yeah, Bit.Trip RUNNER‘s motto is basically, “Okay, one more try.” It’s hard not to say it, not to want to go again. The solution is so simple, and you always see your mistakes. Like, you know you could have gotten farther if you timed your jump better, so go again and this time plan your jump better. Except it doesn’t always work out so easily, especially as the levels get longer and full of more stuff. Precision reflexes are key, and for those that don’t have them, they must be earned, worked toward, like calluses from playing the guitar. I am getting there, but it’s not going to happen over night.

Need further proof about how far I am versus how many times I’ve retried levels, over and over and over? Well, see here:

RUNNER.UP: Jump 1,000 times

But I’m not done with you, level 1-11. Not one bit (pun intended). I just need a breather, but I’ll be back soon, and then you and are I going to make sweet musical completion together. Though part of me is nervous because the level after 1-11 is…a boss fight. I have no idea how those are played out, but imagine it’ll be no run through the park.

Ser Ilyn, bring me the head of the cover for Game of Thrones

Alternative title for this blog post: In the Game of Thrones cover design, you win or you die

Well, I was trying to enjoy my strawberry Poptarts and a cup of coffee this morning, but was rudely cover farted on by Game of Thrones: The Game, a new RPG based on a TV show based on a series of amazingly captivating books, dropping next month from Cyanide Studio. Let’s just cut to it then. Look at how dreadfully boring this looks:

Sigh.

This cover makes me think someone literally pitched “game” of “throne”, and no one said mum against it.

I was worried before about some of the odd changes and unnecessary additions being dumped into Game of Thrones: The Game, and I certainly wouldn’t be more interested in picking up a copy based on the cover art above. I understand that HBO is immensely proud of the throne they actually built for the set, often bringing it around to conventions for fans to sit in and briefly feel kingly, but an empty chair shrouded by pepper-black smoke does not say “roleplay in George R.R. Martin’s massive Westeros.” It says that no one tried, and that’s a real downer, given that there is countless material to pull from to present an exciting and enticing image; if anything, a map of Westeros would’ve been a better choice or a shot of a Night’s Watch member looking down from the Wall or–and I’m a wee reluctant to say this–some dragons despite the fact that they are not around at the given time of this videogame. I mean, dragons do sell, which is why they are on a lot of fantasy book covers whether integral to the plot or not.

That said, I’m still getting this game, if only to tell y’all about how terrible it is likely to be. I will try my hardest not to go into it totally biased by all of this, but that could be nigh impossible. We got the televised show that A Song of Ice and Fire deserves, but it’s looking unlikely we’ll get the same kind of treatment in the realm of videogames.

When the timing is right, a fetch quest is pure delight

Sometimes, I need a little direction. Clear yet brief instructions, a visible path to and from, a small purpose, and a jingle to indicate conclusion. A short spurt of work and reward. All of these elements wrapped up together and tied shut with forest green string equals a wonderful present in my eyes, but one that I only want when I want it. I can handle open-ended, freedom, and robust ambiguity just fine, but again, sometimes, I need a little hand-holding. I require it. And I find it in…fetch quests.

Fetch quests come in two forms: hated and accepted. To start, let’s try and define exactly what a fetch quest is: a short quest, which involves sending the player out to collect a certain number of items and return them to complete the quest. That’s kind of it. Think of it as almost an errand. Like, go deliver this cup of sugar to your neighbor down the street. Or, Joe Shmoe needs some new shoes from the store, gives you some money, and then you are off. Fetch quests are a staple of RPGs or videogames with RPG elements, though they do occasionally pop up elsewhere. They are meant to be short tasks to do between major quests, ones that are certainly more involved than “tell Tucker his friend hid some money in a bush down by the river” kind of thing. Quick bits of work for small bits of money or treasure or maybe nothing at all save for the feeling of completion pulsing in your chest.

Now, there are a few games where the fetch quests become unbearable, a real grind, and those are worthy of their heaps of hatred. Off the top of my hairy head, I can think of the Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution DLC from Borderlands, which has you going back and forth, collecting countless claptrap parts–actually, I did count ’em up. I also had some problems with the fetch quests in The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening in that it was rather difficult to figure out who needed what to progress the story–and then find said item. I think I stopped playing after I couldn’t figure out how to get the walrus guarding the entrance to Desert Lanmola to move. Again, give it to me straight.

But lately, anxiety and stress have been creeping in, and so I have not been able to concentrate a whole ton on large and long quests in RPGs, making a bee-line towards fetch quests. Granted, I did just finish the Companions questline in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim–which I plan to write about soon–but I wouldn’t really call that large or long. Instead, while playing and enjoying the latest patch that adds kill cams for ranged weapons, I’ve decided it was high time I took a whacking to the miscellaneous quests list. I delivered a sword to some dude in Whiterun, I collected bear skin pelts for some lady, I killed a bandit leader in a cave, and I continued to look for Nirn roots and flawless sapphires. You can argue whether some of those are “fetch” quests, but you will just be arguing with yourself on the Internet, so I don’t recommend it. Overall, it was a nice time, with each task taking only a short while to complete. I expect I’ll keep meandering and doing small tasks until bigger DLC is announced.

And so, a game like Professor Layton’s London Life from Professor Layton and the Last Specter, has been pure bliss for me these last few weeks. More or less, it’s all fetch quests, with a pinch of room decorating to boot. I’ve done enough going and returning to earn a new apartment, which is much bigger. But there’s something really special about waking up every day in-game, reading the newspaper, and acquiring a list of quests. None are especially hard, except for when someone wants a fish, but that’s only because the fishing minigame is the absolute worst, and five or six can be easily completed in under ten minutes. But I don’t do that. I pace myself, or think of ways that I can do two back-to-back or how if I am going to go the museum I should buy that piece of candy that someone at the college wants since they are right next to each other. The quests remain small, but I build them up in my head to be more than that. At some point, London Life will run out of new fetch quests, with only repeats available, and then I’ll be sad and pretty much done with the minigame. Until then, I’ll keep at it, one straight-faced mission after another.

Sometimes, I need a little direction, and it doesn’t hurt to know where you’re going. Thank you, fetch quests.

2012 Game Review Haiku, #10 – Jurassic Park: The Game

Push left to avoid
The Tyrannosaurus rex
Mash the A button

–

For all the games I complete in 2012, instead of wasting time writing a review made up of points and thoughts I’ve probably already expressed here in various posts at Grinding Down, I’m instead just going to write a haiku about it. So there.

Hacking and slashing greatly outweigh looting in Hack, Slash, Loot

Don’t let the Skyrim picture above confuse you too much because I’m actually going to talk about a little unassuming game called Hack, Slash, Loot, which I got as part of a recent bundle from Indie Royal. Alas, that game doesn’t do well in terms of screenshots and me throwing stupid text over it, and so I typed in “loot” into Google and found the above. Such is the way the cogs turn behind Grinding Down.

But yeah. Hacking, slashing, and looting. The game promises all three actions, but really only delivers on two, and those two are technically interchangeable, which results in one out of three. I’m not a school teacher, but I know a few, and I can imagine the type of letter grade a score like that would translate into. Despite that and a few other major faults, there are parts that I really do like about David Williamson’s independently developed roguelike that skimps on graphics and strives for missed dice rolls. There’s just something really charming beneath its brutally difficult skin.

Hack, Slash, Loot begins with choices. You have to pick a class, and they range from a Human Saracen to a Woodland Elf Archer. I went with a wizard most of the time. Once you’ve decided who you are, you need to figure out what to do, and there are six different quests to pick from: Journey to the Kimon, Mask of the Boy King, They Dwell Beneath, Dark Hearts and Evil Minds, Battle for Stormrise, and Tower of the Magus. These differ in terms of conflict and goals, but you will ultimately end up in a dungeon, killing monsters and searching for stronger weapons and gear. And each dungeon is randomly generated, making every quest, every adventure, new and unpredictable. In fact, one dungeon spawned my character in a room with two monsters right next to me, which helped to earn me this Steam Achievement:

Wooden Spoon: Die in less than 20 turns

Sweet, delicious failure!

But randomness is good, and it’s one of the reasons that I can go back to Diablo II, Torchlight, Dark Cloud 2, and the grottos in Dragon Quest IX today, in 2012, and still have a fresh experience. The graphics are retro and not distracting, with sprites taking center stage, which makes exploring the grid-based map easy. There isn’t much on the map, just a few candles and coffins, but it all looks good and recognizable. Again, I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff, but gameplay will always trump graphics for me, as it has to be fun to play, otherwise I’m just wasting my days.

That said, there is little loot to look for and the difficulty of Hack, Slash, Loot is more than enough to put someone off–it’s pure frustration. Healing your character does not happen in a conventional way; there are no spells or potions to regain health; instead, you have to loot tombs for scrolls which, may or may not, heal your little hero. This makes taking on more than one enemy at once a very dangerous situations, and I swear my character misses more times than he hits. Same can be said with enemies. It is a lot of missed dice rolls, which does not make for exciting combat; it just then feels luck-based since stats are not as visible as they need to be.

I never really got far in Hack, Slash, Loot, but I had a good time clicking around and trying out different weapons. Ranged weapons like staffs and bows were better for staying alive longer, but it was only time before I ran out of health. It was something to do while hanging out in bed, dog-sitting and watching Frasier. I just might go back again and hope that the next random dungeon is better suited…

Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden is like a joke

There’s a new Indie Impression up over at The First Hour, and I participated in it despite my disinterest in all things basketball-related. However, Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden is more than an annual sports romp; it’s a fan-made, freeware sequel to Barkley, Shut Up and Jam!, which was, by all accounts, a traditional two-on-two street basketball simulator for the SNES. Except the silly minds behind it created something truly unlikely: a post-apocalyptic basketball RPG.

Um…

I didn’t understand it and never even got to see a turn-based fight. I shut the game down when I…well, you’ll just have to go over to The First Hour and do some reading to see where Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden lost me. I have to imagine one would have to have both an interest in RPGs and basketball to really enjoy this Frankenstein’s monster, and that person is not me. However, when they ultimately make Barkley, Be Quiet and Tee Off: Redemption…please, please, let me know.

Turning over a new leash with Bulletstorm

Let me just get this out there, so y’all understand that when you see me crawling out of an alley, begging for money and smelling worse than the rotten remains of a Stygia mutant previously eviscerated by the “Rear Entry” skillshot, it’s because of this: Steam sales. They will be my undoing, as just about anything heavily discounted suddenly becomes interesting in front of my eyes. And I do mean anything.

Take, for instance, the crude and callous first-person shooter Bulletstorm. I absolutely disliked the demo, ultimately saying this:

Bulletstorm is irrefutably juvenile, and the demo is all I probably needed to experience…ever. And for fun’s sake, here’s some phrases used affectionately during the demo to hit home their target audience: pasty, bean bag, butt hole, and, the new cult favorite, dick tits.

Right. So, why then did I buy a copy of the game over the weekend for the PC? Why have I been unlocking a lot of Achievements in rapid succession? Why am I–and this is almost troubling to admit–having fun kicking mutants into slow motion and then shooting them in half? Well, because Steam was selling it for $5.00. And at that kind of price, Bulletstorm is a blast.

At its boyish heart, Bulletstorm‘s story is about revenge gone wrong. Grayson Hunt is looking to kick his former commanding officer General Sarrano of the Confederation of Planets in his nuts and then shoot him in the head. This is because Sarrano used Hunt and his fellow friends to assassinate innocent people by telling them they were corrupt evildoers. Unfortunately, trying to ram Sarrano’s spaceship with Hunt’s spaceship brought both vessels down on the planet Stygia, which is infested with mutants and monsters. But Hunt’s no quitter, and so he’s crawling across the planet’s dangerous grounds in search of the man that made him mad. He is helped by Ishi, who is now part android, and Trishka, a former member of the elite squad Final Echo.

Gameplay involves moving forward through a level and racking up points by using creative kills against the many, many mutants that want to ruin your very existence. Headshots are boring, and so one must look for other ways to create mayhem: tossing an enemy of a cliff, dropping them on some spikes, shooting them in half, setting them on fire, and so on. Points let you buy ammo and upgrade weapons, so the more creative you are, the stronger your guns will be, which in turn let you get even crazier. It’s a system that works and reminds me of the way weapons upgraded in Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal. You also use a hi-tech leash that can grab objects and throw them around though I prefer sliding into enemies and then kicking them off ledges the most–really helps conserve precious ammo. Occasionally, gameplay gets mixed up, with Hunt controlling a huge, Godzilla-like monster or trying to just escape a section of the level under a time limit; otherwise, it’s still just a lot of shooting.

Also, what’s kind of nice is that, unknowingly, Bulletstorm on Steam counts as a Game for Windows Live thing, meaning I can play it logged in as PaulyAulyWog and earn Achievements for my actual Gamerscore. Think this is my first GFWL experience, and it’s all good in the skillshotty neighborhood. Here’s a few that I unlocked that are not tied to completing story chapters:

Master of Disaster (40G): Earn 2000 points or more at once

Disco Inferno (10G): Kill all enemies without leaving the dance floor in the city outskirts

No Man Left Behind (20G): Kill all enemies while escaping from the collapsed building

Currently, I’m somewhere in Act 4. Second chapter? Third? Don’t really know what that means in comparison to the overall game, but it feels like midway through. Maybe even more than that. I’m sure it won’t take long to finish up, as we’re definitely getting closer to wherever Sarrano is hiding. Again, for $5.00, this is a good time; however, if I had bought Bulletstorm at full price on Day One…I would definitely feel otherwise. And there you go.

2012 Game Review Haiku, #9 – Hector: Badge of Carnage, Episode 1

Disgruntled Hector
Full of brill commentary
Stop that sniper arse

–

For all the games I complete in 2012, instead of wasting time writing a review made up of points and thoughts I’ve probably already expressed here in various posts at Grinding Down, I’m instead just going to write a haiku about it. So there.

Not your typical hero in Hector: Badge of Carnage

I don’t remember when exactly, but there was a sale on Steam recently, and for the low, low price of $4.99, one could get all three episodes of Hector: Badge of Carnage, a smarmy point-and-click adventure game from Telltale Games. That price seemed absolutely right, and my curiosity had already been flicked upwards after watching Giant Bomb do a Quick Look. Unfortunately, at that point, the wife and I were knee-deep in helping ghosts move on to the afterlife with the Blackwell games–and I just couldn’t sneak away to anything else until all four of those mysteries were solved. So I bought the package, downloaded all three episodes, and promptly ignored them for the time being.

But we finished those ghosty chronicles up, and now I’m ready for my next set of adventure games. Trust me, I have plenty to choose from: Gemini Rue, Jolly Rover, Beneath a Steel Sky, basically everything from the recent AGS Bake Sale, and a number of miscellaneous projects from Ben Chandler (City, Airwave, Heed, and so on). Whew. That’s uh…a lot of adventure games–and counting. I am sure I missed a few. In fact, I know it for certain; I am just too lazy to name ’em all. But the glory of being played next goes to Hector: Badge of Carnage, mostly because the tone and vulgar humor is the polar opposite of everything I’ve been playing recently, not counting Saints Row: The Third. It’s a refreshing if inappropriate breath of fresh air.

Originally, I began this post as a means to get some early impressions out, but  I didn’t finish writing it until today, and I went ahead and beat Episode 1 – “We Negotiate With Terrorists” over the weekend. So, yeah. This is now kind of a mix of impressions and final thoughts, with a magical haiku review to follow soon.

Hector: Badge of Carnage (Episode 1, “We Negotiate With Terrorists”) is, besides a really long title, a point-and-click adventure game set in the seedy spot of Clapper’s Wreake. A terrorist with a sniper rifle has locked himself up in some building and taken hostages, and it’s up to Detective Inspector Hector to fulfill the crazy man’s demands. And they are as so:

• Fix the clock tower
• Help tourism flourish
• Close down the local porn shop

Actually, those aren’t terrible things to want from a place one might call home. I think we were all expecting something more akin to a boatload of money, a helicopter to escape on, and the promise of being set free. This terrorist is trying to make the world a better place; shame he keeps shooting cops in the face whenever they creep near. But anyways, off Hector goes to solve these many mysteries, and the answers aren’t too difficult to unravel so long as you remain open-minded and try everything. And I mean everything–giving a blind guy a doped-up homeless man as a sexual bribe is not as far-fetched as it sounds. At least, not in this game.

If you do get stuck, Hector: Badge of Carnage features two hint systems, both of which are fantastic. One is Lambert, a fellow T.W.A.T. member, who you can ask questions at; the other is an actual hint menu, which can literally tell you what to do or be as vague as you’d like, with nudges in the right direction. I used both of these, and they really help to keep the player immersed in the game without feeling like one is cheating using a blatant walkthrough guide. I had particular trouble figuring out how to demolish the porn shop until the hint system showed me that I had missed doing something specific with an item I had picked up earlier on. Thanks, hint system. You saved me from getting frustrated and never coming back.

Besides the crude and sometimes confusing humor, the other aspect of Hector: Badge of Carnage that really appealed to me is its look. There’s a sharpness to the animation and art style, and the cutscenes are nicely put together. Reminds me of Penny Arcade, with bold lines and quirky character designs. As is always the case with point-and-click games, discovering a new screen or place to click around on is always a treat, and here it is no different. Upon finding the porn shop, I literally stared at the screen for a few minutes, soaking it all in, all the nasty visuals.

The only negative I can really throw at Episode 1 – “We Negotiate With Terrorists” is that it ends on the worst of worst cliffhangers. There is literally no conflict resolution after meeting the terrorist’s demands, which works for the episodic format, but bugs the bleep out of me. But I’m in for the long haul, and have already begun Episode 2 – “Senseless Acts of Justice”, which is going well so far and keeping up the tradition of toilet humor and toilets as plot devices. I’ll let you know how it all turns out.