Blowing up and up and up in ‘Splosion Man

There’s a couple more great deals going on over at Xbox Live this week, and so I snagged ‘Splosion Man for 400 Microsoft Points. Yes, I’m using them up slowly and methodically, but I’d like to think I’m putting them to good use. Got Peggle and Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting as well, which I’ve enjoyed immensely and somewhat, respectively. Still need to blow my remaining 400 MP, but I’m not sure just yet. I might wait another week to see what new deals pop up…

But yeah, ‘Splosion Man. It’s a kooky game. You’re a dude that explodes. That’s just how you get around. Press A…and you ‘splode. Press X…and you ‘splode. I think you get it. Guess some scientists thought this would be a fun little experiment to play. Well, I think we showed them another thing:

Get Them Out of Our Schools (10G): Eliminate 10 Scientists and stop them from spreading their filthy lies.

So you use yourself as a self-detonating rocket to get around the levels. You can explode up to three times in a row before having to recharge your juices. The first few levels are rather simple, but they do an excellent job of teaching you some wall-jumping tricks and just how far ‘Splosion Man can leap. The main obstacles are the level pitfalls, with toxic fluid tanks below and closed off barriers. Getting around these is relatively easy to figure out, but still might take a few tries; thankfully, the game has frequent save checkpoints. I’ve only played about the first ten levels, and it seems like I have 40 more to go. Cool, cool.

Also, the sound design is phenomenal. Quirky, rock-n-roll tracks keep you moving through the levels, and ‘Splosion Man himself is just brimming with odd noises and bumbling mumbling. Love it. Reminds me a bit of the good ol’ days when main characters really had personalities that seemed to come out of the TV screen, such as Bubsy and Blasto and Earthworm Jim. Have not gotten to the song about donuts though that I read about many moons ago on the Interwebz, but I’m sure it’s fantastic as well.

Achievement-wise, it’s decidedly odd. There’s the usually “do X amount of times,” as well as one for beating the entire single-player game and collecting cake in each level. Then there’s these:

Master of Contrls (10G): Change the controls around in the “Controls” menu.

Get Over Yourselves (10G): Select “Credits” from the “Help & Options” menu and watch the whole thing.

Like I said…odd. Either way, exploding over and over again is right up my alley. I’m looking forward to it later.

The great escape plan

I’ve been having an extremely terrible week. There’s a lot of bad stuff happening right now in my life, none of which I want to speak about publicly though I do keeping asking this question of the great being above. Thankfully, there are ways I can escape these horrible thoughts in my mind, if only for a couple of hours, but it’s needed regardless. I’m talking about videogames, and you’re not surprised one bit.

So this is gonna be a, more or less, summary of my week with gaming. Not sure how exciting it’ll be for you to read, but it’s important for me because these are some of the things that have helped keep me sane while everything else falls apart.

Earlier this week I got to try out co-op in Borderlands with Greg Noe. This was a lot of fun, and now I see what I’ve been missing out on. He came into my game at level 50 (capped because of no DLC) and helped me climb from a level 34 to level 39 very quickly. Shockingly fast to be honest. Guess that’s what they call power leveling. We rushed through the main storyline missions and took down Sledge before calling it a night. We chatted and casually shot up skags and bandits, and though he handled most of the fighting I really didn’t mind as I still racked up experience points. Got a bunch of co-op Achievements as well, and I’m one away from getting all of them in Borderlands (minus the DLC ones naturally). Just gotta ping level 50, which I might save for (hopefully) another session of co-op with Greg!

I also spent some Microsoft Points, snagging namely Peggle and Street Fight II Hyper Fighting as of the moment. Still have 800 Points to go. I contemplated getting the recently remade Earthworm Jim HD, but after playing the trial version decided otherwise. As Jim, you can’t jump and shoot at the same time, nor can you jump up off of ropes, only down. These design choices have been there from the beginning, but I’ve been spoiled by much better platformers since then and can’t get past these kinds of hiccups.

Peggle is great fun, and I am now working my way through each challenge level; my favorite power-ups are the dragon’s bouncing fireball and the owl’s zen shot. A lot of the game relies on luck, but there’s also a serious amount of planning and preparation to put into each level.

As per Street Fighter II HF, I don’t have any fighters on my Xbox 360 so I figured why not get one of the classics. Even on a difficulty of two stars out of seven, the game seriously mopped the floor with me. Guess I need more practice, but it’s fun nonetheless and really brings me back to those mall arcades. However, Dhalsim’s level is atrocious. The elephants in the background do not stop making noise the entire time. I had to put it on mute. Yoga flame!

After getting stuck on an Act II mission in The Saboteur last night, I said “feck it” and just ran around blowing stuff up. In other words, taking out some more white dots from the map. I also ended up unlocking two Achievements around the same time: the one for blowing up 50 vehicles and the one for stealth killing 50 Nazis. Guess those two were neck and neck for awhile. Hopefully I can get past this mission real soon. An online guide suggests doing it undercover, but the problem is I get caught too soon each and every time. Not sure what I’m doing wrong or if there’s another way around it all. Will keep plugging at it; unlike GTA IV, dying during a mission doesn’t make you start all the way back across the city. So there’s no reason not to keep trying.

Right. I’m visiting home-home for the weekend so I’ll probably just bring my DS to distract me. Picross 3D puzzles and more Pokemon HeartGold to sift through. Other than that, Tara and I will most likely play the LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 demo together tonight, which I really think she’s going to love. We watched a dev diary video recently that showed off Mad-Eye Moody in LEGO form. He looks simply splendid. This world is so perfect for the LEGO build; I can’t stress that enough.

So yeah, that’s my week of escaping. It’s all I can do at the moment.

Archiving the aliens finally

It took most of Saturday night and all of yesterday afternoon, as well the checking and re-checking and re-re-checking of online guides, but I did it. I actually did it. I searched high and low, far and wide, in and out, up and down…eh, you get what I mean. The point is I finally unlocked this in Fallout 3:

Alien Archivist (20G): Collected all Alien Captive Recordings

When I first went through Mothership Zeta during my initial play of the game, I missed a lot of stuff. I was more scared then to explore, afraid of what I might stumble across, whether it be a host of enemies I wasn’t prepared for or something else. So I more or less just did the missions as straightforward as possible, and once I was back on barren Earth I realized I definitely did not grab all the alien captive audio recordings. Oh well, I thought. Later, I teleported back to see if I could find them again, but many sections of the spaceship were now inaccessible. Ah, yes. One of those hiccups.

This time, however, I was prepared, and I had a plan (i.e., an online guide). Find the audio recordings. Find them hard, find them fast, find them first. So my second trip aboard the mothership was fairly perfunctory, but I was also surprised by some of the things I stumbled upon that I otherwise might not have found had I not gone looking into every crack and crevice. Like discovering the aliens’ bizarre fascination with the Giddyup Buttercup toy horses or seeing them standing around an old automobile looking rather perplexed or spawning mutant cows to watch them get obliterated by alien technology. I also found a unique kick-ass energy weapon, which I’d look up the name of, but I think the site I usually go to has viruses and so…I will just stay here. The Demolisher? The Disruptor? The Proton Pack? Hmm…

But yeah, I’m glad to see this finally unlocked. Now all I have left is to hit level 30 with an evil character (Samantha is currently level 23 so we got a ways to go), find all the steel ingots (ugh, gonna need a guide for that, too), and then hit all the level checkpoints with a neutral character. Those last ones are gonna be tough. While I absolutely love Fallout 3 and do consider it one of my favorite games, I just know it’s gonna be hard to go through it completely for a third time. Maybe I will find Dogmeat to spice things up a bit. Either way, creeping closer to a full Gamerscore…

For those curious, this is the guide I used to find all the alien audio captive recordings in Mothership Zeta. It is a little vague, which I liked, but tells you which ones are in which room and how many you should have at certain points. Hope this helps!

Not So Hopelessly Devoted to You, UNO

I needed a little distraction last night. Nothing too involving, nothing too counteractive. Just something. And so, bring on the UNO. It’s one of my favorite games to play before bed. Between the light jazzy background music and simple–if addicting–game mechanics, my eyes begin to droop after a few rounds. This is a good thing; this is what I want. What I’m saying is that I don’t play the game to become King of the Mountain.

So, when I unlocked the following Achievement last night, I couldn’t help but feel like an impostor:

Devotee (25G): Win 40 games of UNO®.

I bought UNO in June 2009. It is now June 2010. A true devotee would’ve won 40 games in maybe that first month alone. Me? Took a year. My player stats currently say this:

Wins: 40
Losses: 79

Ouchie. Well, not really. A lot of UNO is luck, with a pinch of planning and strategy. So, you win some, you lose some. Achievement-wise, all I have left is to win 10 games of UNO over Xbox Live. I believe, at this point, I’ve won three. In short, I have some grinding to do in that fashion, but it’s okay. A game or two here before bed can surely help (me fall asleep). Just hope it doesn’t take me another year to accomplish this; I only have a month of Gold access at the moment.

From Bloodletter to Grand Champion in just 30 minutes

At this point, I’m kind of drifting. I’ve beaten several games now–Borderlands, Dragon Age: Origins, and Pokemon HeartGold to name a few–and don’t really plan to buy anything new until LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 comes out at the end of June (though I’m not promising I won’t get something new if it is cheap and shiny enough to catch my eyes). I’m also having a hard time going back and replaying some previously beaten games; that said, I did pop back in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion last night to see if there was anything worth doing.

And there was: the Arena.

I’m not sure why I didn’t tackle the Arena questline sooner. Maybe I was scared at what it would throw at me or maybe it was because I just was no good at confrontations during my early levels, mostly because I was relying too much on throwing fireballs. But this time around, as a bow-wielding LV. 19 Bosmer elf…well, I made quick work of all my enemies. Seriously, I went from being a Bloodletter to Myrmidon to Warrior to Gladiator to Hero to Champion to Grand Champion in under thirty minutes without getting attacked more than, oh, five times.

My strategy was simple. I zoomed in with my bow, waited for the gates to lower, and loosed an arrow or two before my challenger even got halfway across the arena. Then I hurried back inside, collected my monetary reward, and accepted the next battle to do it all over again. Rinse and repeat. Take a small break once to restock on arrows. The only fight I had trouble with was against three enemies: a soldier, an archer, and a mage, but they all fell to my glass arrows in time. Plus, my bow is powered by electricity. Don’t ask.

The last fight, the big one, the tune-in-and-watch, was against an orc. I guess he was supposed to be tough or intimidating. He wasn’t. He took four arrows to drop, but still, he didn’t even reach me at that point as I skated backwards to avoid his sword’s swing. Sigh. No challenge at all. And six easy, quick Achievements, but you really only need to see one to get the full effect:

Grand Champion, Arena (50G): Completed the Arena Questline

Upon exiting the Arena, you’re greeted by the Adoring Fan, who loves you and admires you and just wants to follow you around. Pretty annoying, and he only spoke a few lines. I told him no, but I might change my mind in the future and lead him straight into troll territory.

But yeah, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I should play you more. You do have a lot of “easy” Achievements left to unlock; by easy, I mean they are relatively straightforward and are just based off quest progression and not skill or luck or doing something random (like killing X deer or making X health potions with alchemy). Maybe I’ll try to finish up the Fighters Guild questline next. Or the Dark Brotherhood. Mwahaha?

A short spurt of success in GTA IV

Something strange happened recently; I beat a couple of missions in Grand Theft Auto IV.

Now, I had not played the game since admitting to the rage it caused me back at the end of April 2010. Other games became my distraction, and I soon lost interest in moving Niko’s revenge plot forward. But then, recently, Red Dead Redemption was released, and all the buzz about it reminded me that I really do love an open world and that Rockstar can make a decent game, and so I popped GTA IV back into my Xbox 360, totally expecting to just drive around a bit and see the sights.

But I took a chance again on that mission “Museum Piece,” which had previously caused me a lot of heartache after failing it three times. I prepared myself by loading up on ammo, grenades, and armor, and then procedded to take my time clearing out the museum. Once outside, I stayed in the park as I remembered that taking to the streets was instant death. Here’s where it got tricky…and I got lucky. I could not see the two cars trying to run me over, but they kept bashing into the park’s gated walls, and several cop cars had shown up to assess the situation. I tossed grenades like hot potatoes and took those two (of three) targets down. The third guy was on foot in the park, a shotgun in hand, but I made a mess of him quickly. Now to lose my three stars. I grabbed the car I drove to the mission with and hit the street, trying to find a Spray ‘n Pay shop. Luckily, I didn’t need it, and made it to safety before getting there. Ping, Achievement unlocked!

Impossible Trinity (10G): You completed the mission “Museum Piece”.

And then I took on the next mission from Italian Ray…and successfully completed it. And the one after that. I think at some point, I pinched myself, but all of this was happening. I was doing well!

Until I had to chase a guy on a scooter around a park…on a scooter, too. Scooters are motorcycles’ demon babies. They handle horribly, and one mess up and your target will escape with ease. Grrr. So I failed that mission…twice, saved, and shut off for the night.

Maybe I’ll wait two more weeks to play GTA IV again. I guess I gotta save up a whole bunch of success and then spend all in one shot.

Pop culture and its effect on Achievements

Over the weekend, I unlocked a very random Achievement in Borderlands:

You’re on a Boat! (15G): I bet you never thought you’d be here.

Well, it seemed random at first, but then it slowly dawned on me that it was actually an inside joke based off of the song “I’m on a Boat” by The Lonely Island, a silly yet extremely catchy tune made popular (and somewhat viral) last year on Saturday Night Live. Basically, while wandering around the coastline on Pandora, you’ll see a docked ship all by its lonesome, and upon hopping aboard and exploring it you’ll pop the above. There’s some money and I think a gun cache there, but then there’s also some…uh, porn magazines.

So, yeah, a bit random. Well, it’s a bit random today, being that of May 2010. I’m sure when the game was being produced and “I’m on a Boat” was just about everywhere last summer, this little Achievement got a lot of chuckles in 2K’s offices.

However, give the game a few more years, and I suspect no one will even know where this stemmed from. And that’s my problem with pop culture, especially when it invades music and games. It’s not forever. It’s only concerned with the now and current, and making a quick impression on you, trying to grab your attention with something that oh so recently already grabbed it. I believe there’s a Jason Mraz song where he sings about the love of his life and also drinking from a Starbucks cup; now, I am under no authority to say whether this coffee company will still be around in 2075 (it will), but who’s to say that someone listening to his album then might not get what he’s saying. Because they don’t know Starbucks. Or cassettes. Or payphones. Or whatever. They were not alive to see the culture to pop. It’s a great reason why The Beatles  and games like Suikoden II are timeless, and I now I’m meandering here–and especially over something so silly and trite–but I’m a planner, and I just don’t think You’re on a Boat! was planned out to be amusing in the longrun. If you didn’t pop it fast when the game launched, you didn’t get the joke when you were supposed to.

Y’know, I’m probably the only gamer to overthink something like this…

Two videogames beaten, but not over with yet

Over the past couple of days, I beat two videogames. Namely, Dragon Age: Origins and Pokemon HeartGold. Both will be getting full reviews from me in the near future, one most likely here and one most likely over at The First Hour, but I still want to talk a little bit about them at the moment…since their deaths are so fresh in my mind.

Both of these games are now beaten. I have seen the end credits roll. And yet, against my power, both of these games demand I continue playing them. In different manners, of course.

For Pokemon HeartGold, they are asking me to play the same game again. The only difference is a new skin to it with new Pokemon to collect, but the fundamentals are all the same: explore the land, collect pocket monsters, defeat gym leaders, and rise to the top of another league for ultimate bragging rights. I’m going to do it, but considering that I just did exactly that for 49 hours…well, I’m not terribly excited for déjà vu to set in.

For Dragon Age: Origins, it’s all about playing the game as drastically different as possible. Because what’s done is done. My Grey Warden character defeated the darkspawn (I don’t consider this a spoiler as, duh, you knew it was going to happen) and now there’s nothing else to do. Can’t reload and venture about Ferelden to do sidequests until the cows come home. Instead, thanks to the numerous origins and different classes and varied dialogue choices, one can play BioWare’s fantasy RPG a second time and experience the complete opposite of what they did before. That’s nice. And also, I didn’t do that Achievement boosting trick where you save before you make a big decision, unlock the Achievement, reload, and then unlock the other one. So I’ll be heading back in to side with the werewolves and help the mages in the Circle Tower and so on. To be honest, I’m looking forward to experiencing it all over again.

Now…about these games’ endings. They were totally lame, especially considering the hours spent to get there.

Pokemon HeartGold tossed an extremely tough battle in your face unlike anything your Trainer ever fought against, and I suspect a lot of players were in the same boat as me. Meaning…lots of grinding to catch up and be halfway formidable. And once that’s said and done, you’re treated to a short scene stating your awesomeness and then credits with little animated Pokesprites running around and being silly. Fade to black. Reload to discover you basically only “beat” 50% of the actual game. Laaame.

Talking about the ending in Dragon Age: Origins is a bit more challenging. I don’t want to spoil specifics, but I really felt like there was a lack of imagination in the final battle. Honestly, your team just moves from zone to zone, fighting wave after wave of darkspawn until you make it to the archdemon, and then you fight it and it releases wave after wave of support enemies and then you kill it and then you’re done. And treated to–and I’m not kidding here–static paintings with some tiny text boxes telling you about what happened to people and places in the years to come. BioWare couldn’t even shell out for some voice actor here after all the speaking that when down during my 41 hours of gameplay. Sigh. There may or may not be more to the game’s ending though depending on some choices you previously made. Time will tell in that department. Either way, it felt kind of lame. Like, that boss battle with that giant tentacle-wielding woman-thing was much more exciting (and original) than this. Oh well. Maybe my second playthrough will reveal something else.

But yeah, despite the fact I’m still going to be playing these for some time, they’re definitely getting crossed off the backlog list as completed.

Picking the best origins in Dragon Age: Origins

Having now played through all six opening origin stories in Dragon Age: Origins, I can confidently tell you that some are better than others. In fact, there’s really only two that stand out as great, and the others are more or less perfunctory, a means to an end to learn the ropes and then get your character traipsing along next to Duncan and the path to Grey Wardendom. But first, let me tell you a bit about each…

City Elf

Being a City Elf is no fun at all. Your race has been rendered second class citizens, basically amounting to generations of slavery. However, things aren’t all bad. You’re about to wed some unknown Elf. Hooray! Marriage and bliss! Oh wait. An encounter with a human lord totally rains on your parade.

Dalish Elf

Dalish Elves are the complete opposite of City Elves, in that they are totally free. And they live in the woods. Stereotypically awesome. After you ambush a group of humans trespassing, your character learns of some ruins containing Elven treasure. Ooh shiny.

Dwarf Commoner

You are a Dwarven commoner and also part of the mafia. That is, if Dwarves can have mafias. But yeah, you’ll be going after a guy that tried to swindle your boss. You also don’t want your sister being taken advantage of. Just another typical day under the mountains…

Dwarf Noble

You are second in line to the throne. Not too shabby. However, there’s some darkspawn in the Deep Roads, and you’re put to the task of clearing them out thanks to having  just received a military commission. However, Dwarven politics are the very definition of dangerous, and things do not go as planned.

Human Noble

Your big brother is about to head off to join King Cailan at Ostagar to help fight the darkspawn. After saying goodbye, you tuck yourself in for a good night’s sleep in Castle Cousland, hoping to dream about apple pies and playing in a field with your violent doggy. Then, without warning, you’re awoken in the middle of the night. The castle is under attack. Eep!

Mage

You’ve studied long and hard (hey now!) at the Circle Tower to become a kick-ass mage, learning all the strict laws about governing magic. And you’re now ready to perform the ritual called the Harrowing that will determine whether you are ready to become a full mage. Not all is as it seems in the Fade though.

—

Right. So those are the six origins you can pick from. Of them, the two I’d most recommend to beginning players are the Mage origin and the Dwarf Noble origin. The other four are extremely bland and linear; in fact, I was downright surprised at just how bare bones the Human Noble story was. In that one, you basically talk to your family, go to sleep, kill some assassins, and escape with Duncan. Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom. Nothing to it.

However, the Mage origin really offers up a unique setting with the Fade and some tough choices that will directly impact a quest later on in Redcliffe. And the Dwarven noble origin was just full of betrayal and sick politics a la George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. It really pulled the chair out from under me, and gave me a lot of motivation to see how things turned out. Plus, the layout of the Dwarven setting is pretty fascinating, and their culture is rich with lore about Paragons and such. Fortuitously, these two origins also seemed to take a little longer to complete than others, give or take half an hour.

But really, all the origins kind of follow the same idea–live your life as normal until shit hits the fan–and it’s sort of fun to see how Duncan factors into each story. He mostly just acts like the boss of Ferelden and gives crazy orders in a very calm manner, even if they go against everyone else’s wishes. Oh well. That’s how the Grey Wardens roll, I guess.

So that’s the origins for…Dragon Age: Origins. I have no idea if there are new additional ones in Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening though. Not even sure if I’m going to be interested in more darkspawn-slaying after getting through all of the above. We’ll just have to wait and see.

There are some who call me…Ding! Expert

Been taking care of business in Borderlands as of late. And by that I mean…uh, shooting things in the face, grabbing a variety of loot, and leveling up. My soldier character is now an assault rifle-wielding LV. 21 maniac. He also enjoys watching daytime soap operas and Pandora sunsets. Don’t judge him so quickly just because he likes to yell things like “Critical, bitch!” and “Critical, biatch!” when scoring a critical hit. He’s actually a teddy bear.

Anyways, at this point, I’ve now taken down Sledge and unlocked fast travel. Thank the mighty stars on that latter account. I really hate driving in the game, and walking some of these distances to and fro is just not feasible. So yeah, fast travel. Woo. At least this time it was earned ::cough cough Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion cough:: and now I can head back to the Arid Badlands to finish up some other sidequests before getting deeper into the story. If there is a story. Oh snap.

I unlocked five Achievements last night, but here’s the ones I liked the most out of ’em:

12 Days of Pandora (30G): Mastered the technology of Pandora

There are some who call me…Time (25G): Equipped a class mod for your character

Ding! Expert (20G): Earned level 20

That 12 Days of Pandora Achievement is a bit random, but that’s okay. Basically, you had to kill a bunch of enemies in a number of different fashions, and when I checked on it’s status it said I only needed to melt one more face to get it. So I switched out my self-healing grenades with a corrosive mod and chucked a few into a group bandits. They were puddles of goo before they even knew I was there. Muhahaha. Ahem.

Also, my class mod regenerates ammunition. That’s freaking sick.

Borderlands really does take some levels to get going. It definitely becomes much more fun when you’ve increased your inventory a bit, opened up your character’s action skill, and found some weapons you really like. However, as I’m still playing it solo, there’s been a bunch of opportunities that are clearly better suited for a co-op game, such as the boss battle with Sledge. It’s a bit lonely on Pandora. Maybe I can convince Tara to play some split-screen co-op with me…