It’s the end of SR388, and Samus Aran blew it

Two things happened last night, and both were pretty spectacular: first, Tara and I finally began watching Downton Abbey, and second, I completed Metroid Fusion. Now while I’m sure you’re all dying to know a latecomer’s thoughts on the first episode of season one (awesome!) and who my favorite character is so far (Lame Bates!), I’ll save that topic for another time, perhaps another place. After all, this is Grinding Down, a gamer’s guide to nothing, and so we should talk about the final bosses in a videogame more than the bosses in a fancy, named estate at the risk of being lost.

After the credits for Metroid Fusion rolled and my breathing returned to a normal, healthy pace, some stats were presented. My logged time said just under five hours total, and I collected 45% of available items. I know for a fact most of the missed items were energy tanks, which probably could’ve made life in outer space a wee bit easier given just how much damage Samus takes from a single hit. Oh well. The Internet says that you can beat the game with 1% items found, but I dunno about that. I guess all you need is missiles in the end. But that recorded time of 4 hours and 55 minutes is not an accurate telling of just how much I played this game. Since time played is lost after you died, there’s no true way to know, but I’d wager it took me more around eight or nine hours to get through. Most of the bosses towards the endgame required multiple–and I do mean multiple–attempts just to learn their pattens and an attack plan.

So, let me be frank: I did not enjoy this game. It is extremely difficult and eventually became, in my eyes, masochistic. I was not reminded of my sweet, savory time with Super Metroid. Somehow, I kept coming back to despite the beatings it would deliver to my hands and eyes. On the surface, it didn’t appear any more difficult than Super Metroid was, but Metroid Fusion is more like the original game than anything else, with health quickly deteriorating and not as much chances to refill it as on other adventures. It’s extremely linear, so there was no fear of getting lost, with a non-playable cybernetic entity dishing out objectives one after the other. That part was weird, but fine, as it kept Samus (me, really) on a path. Unfortunately, that path is littered with boss fights that empty your heath extremely fast and require really quick response time, a thing not entirely possible on a Nintendo 3DS. I think a GameBoy Advance might’ve been easier for the controls, as the shoulder buttons on the 3DS eventually cause pain if you hold them down too long, and for launching missiles, you have to hold them down. So there was that.

I’ve kind of already forgotten what the story was. I mean, yeah, there’s this planet SR388, and on it, Samus discovers a parasitic organism called X that is wreaking havoc. Large portions of Samus’ suit were removed, and so she must recover them and investigate what the X is up to. Eventually you learn that the X has created a clone of Samus called SA-X, and it is hunting her. After a while, deception and betrayal happen, and there’s some reflecting on a man named Adam who appears in another Metroid game I’ve not yet played, weakening its impact immensely. And then the final level has you running against the clock to escape the planet before it explodes, just like in Super Metroid. Just like in Aliens.

And that’s where I was roadblocked the most: the very end. You have four boss fights in a row, with no opportunity to save once. It is pure evil. Designers, don’t do this. First, you fight the SA-X, which goes through three forms, the first of which is so fast and deadly that you could be without any health for the final two forms, making them even harder. The second form is easy to defeat thanks to a glitch I discovered; if you hop up to the top left platform, charge your beam, and shoot downwards, it’ll hit the SA-X, and the beast can’t reach you. After that fight, you start the 3:00 minute countdown and have to make your way back to your spaceship. Naturally, when you get there, the ship is gone, replaced by another boss fight. It swipes at you and a mini-scene involving the SA-X plays out–all while the countdown keeps going. By the time you get control back you have just over a minute or so to defeat it, and it’s not a quick kill. In fact, one attempt saw me kill the final boss with 8 seconds to go, only to realize in horror that the ship took somewhere around 10 to 12 seconds to pop back up and save Samus. That game over screen nearly broke me.

With Metroid Fusion now defeated and done, I feel better about moving on to some of the other 3DS Ambassador titles I got for free for being an early overpriced Nintendo handheld supporter. Like Yoshi’s Island or Fire Emblem. Not both simultaneously, mind you. I’m trying to complete one at a time, otherwise all that happens is I play a little here, a little there, and drop both of in the Abandoned Bin and forget about them for way too long. We’ll see where I go from here; I mean, it can only be up.

Smart, smooth stealth action in Mark of the Ninja

As frustrating as they can get, I love stealth-based videogames. It probably all began, to no one’s surprise, with Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation 1 back in the late 1990s. As Solid Snake, a real grunt of a guy, you had to sneak through a nuclear weapons storage facility on Shadow Moses Island, which has been attacked and overtaken by a group of terrorists known as FOXHOUND. The terrorists have taken two hostages: DARPA Chief Donald Anderson and ArmsTech President Kenneth Baker. For me, gameplay was fundamentally different than anything else I had thus experienced on my PlayStation 1 and SNES before it. Your goal was to avoid detection, as much as possible. And when you did, after much crawling under things, pressing your body against walls, and creeping down the line under a cardboard box, you truly felt like king of the castle.

Other games did this as well. Tenchu, which holds the honor of being the first 3D stealth game, lets you run along rooftops and use a grappling hook to get around enemies. With the use of certain Plasmids, one could totally be a sneaky sneakster in BioShock–though not for all scenarios. And from what I’ve dabbled in with Lone Survivor, hiding from freaky monsters is vital to surviving and up to you to do. Some games though, like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Hitman: Blood Money (for the Ps2), were more punishing and less fun.

Mark of the Ninja blows them all away–not with its story, mind you, but how it implements and improves upon the many elements that make up a stealth game. Namely, sound. Everything you do makes a sound, from running to landing on the ground, and the volume of that is measured in a blue ring that you can see right on the screen. If a guard is within the blue ring, he will hear you. Simple as that, but the clear and conciseness of it all works marvelously. Stealth kills are quickly successful if a short button prompt press is won. Cones of vision come right off a guard’s face, leaving behind the map as a constant picture-within-picture mandatory check. You can also easily tell when you are visible and not, depending on whether you, the ninja, is colored in or all in black. And lastly, movement. This ninja is fast and silent, and it shows when you move from one side of the screen to the other so fluidly and without detection.

There are 12 levels in Mark of the Ninja and…no, wait. I guess I should mention the reason why you are going through these levels. Again, the story was a letdown, especially since it did eventually build to a great mystery. Alas, a mystery left for you to unravel in your spare time. Anyways, you are a ninja of the Hisomu Clan, awaken by a mysterious female ninja after learning that the clan village was just attacked by an organization called Hessian Services. Your body is covered in crazy tattoos that are twofold: they give you power, and they also might make you crazy and commit suicide. As you learn more about the attack, friends become enemies, and you then begin a quest for truth. It’s all kinds of mediocre, but towards the middle the story does intensify, and the ending, which is a choice-based thing a la Bastion, did make me pause and actually think before picking. Unfortunately, unlike that previously mentioned game, your choice leads to nothing. Just credits. I was hoping for more confirmation in the end, whether the ninja was crazy or not, but I guess it’s not an answer easily said.

Regardless, the levels are a blast. Each is a puzzle itself, in that you can get through them all without being detected, without killing anyone, or doing a bit of both. There are nine upgrade points to be earned in each level: three are findable scrolls, three are score-based, and three are special challenges to do. I’m currently replaying many of them to find everything, and it is still immensely enjoyable. Two nitpicks are that laser puzzles are annoying, and that some areas are really dark, forcing you to up the gamma on your TV screen.

After beating the Mark of the Ninja, you unlock New Game+, but I don’t think it is something I’ll be able to do. Not now, maybe not ever. Firstly, the sound ring is removed, something which I rely on a lot. Enemies are tougher, too, and there’s a third change that I can’t remember, but it’s probably a doozy. Either way, for $15, this is a great game for fans of stealth, with plenty of things to do once the disappointing story is told. Also, some great and creative Achievements, like freaking out a guard to kill another guard or throwing three different items at once or making a stealth kill from inside a box. Really good stuff.

2012 Game Review Haiku, #25 – Mark of the Ninja

Sneak to learn the truth
Are you mad or a weapon
Choose your fate, ninja

–

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 all glitters and is gold in Aragorn’s Quest for the PlayStation 2

For those not in the know, I am an avid fan of J.R.R. Tolkien. This admiration goes skin deep and covers everything from The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings to his staggering level of detail on and around linguistics, both legit and fake, as well as his time with children’s books and the Middle-earth Bible called The Silmarillion. He created a number of powerful places, people, and performances from a wealth of sources: his imagination, his experiences in World War I and World War II, his knowledge as an Oxford professor, his love for his wife Edith Mary Tolkien, and so on. His work is never going to go away, and I love that. With Peter Jackson’s movies a huge success, all things LOTR-related have taken over pop culture in the last ten years or so and been embraced by nearly everyone, even those that probably wouldn’t be seen reading a book about Elves and Dwarves and the One Ring. It’s momentous stuff, capable of transforming the consumer and taking them away into another realm that is just as realized as our own.

That said, the character of Aragorn deserved better.

Aragorn’s Quest, published by WB Games and developed by Headstrong Games, is an action hack-and-slasher with some light RPG elements that came out in late 2010 for a number of different videogame systems: PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, PSP, Nintendo Wii, and the Nintendo DS. From what I can tell, I ended up buying the worst version of them all. Which is a bummer considering this was a game I actually wanted to play. Hmm. Well, let’s begin…

Things don’t start off terribly. In fact, one of the first things you hear in the game is the voice of Samwise Gamgee, with Sean Astin there to keep the character alive and full of heart. Though his narration of the journey that Aragorn took during the time of The Lord of the Rings is marred by a severe lack of background music–save for the cackling of a fire in the fireplace–and the bizarre reactions his hobbity kids evoke. Anyways, you play as Aragorn, and Aragorn only; other versions of the game, from what I can tell, feature Gandalf available as a co-op controlled partner. Not here on the PS2. This is Aragorn‘s Quest, dang it, and they mean it. And if you’ve seen the films or read the books, everything unfolds as it should. You are part of the Fellowship that plans to see Frodo to Mount Doom as the Hobbit plans to destroy the One Ring there. Along the way, you will kill a lot of Orcs/Goblins, complete quests, level up, and get really good at countering attacks.

Stupidly, everything is a quest. For example, as you go across a level, there will be, say, 10 bandit leaders. It’s not random or anything, that’s how many bad dudes are in the level to begin with. Naturally, before you start out, you will then get a quest called “Kill 10 bandit leaders”, and you can’t miss any of them as they are right on your path, so the quest is both unmissable and un-uncompletable. Just seems kind of unnecessary, but it’s all about leveling Aragorn up so that come the end-game fight you feel like a true and proper badass king-to-be. As you gain levels, you earn upgrade points to unlock a new skill for either the sword, bow, or general health aspects of Aragorn. By the end, I had more upgrade points to know what to do with, as not all skills are worth it. The jump-in-the-air-and-shatter-the-ground sword attack is great for when surrounded, as is the poison arrows for larger, tougher enemies, but otherwise you can make it out alive just hacking and slashing and blocking when you need to block. Oh, and every new weapon or piece of equipment you find is stronger/better than the one you’re currently using, leaving no strategy to play.

Two things Aragorn’s Quest does have going for it are its soaring orchestral score, taken right from the films, and its cel-shaded art. I know not everyone digs that kind of graphics style, but most of my favorite games feature it–Dark Cloud 2, Borderlands, Sly Cooper, Dragon Quest IX, Rogue Galaxy, and on for infinity–and, as an artist, I appreciate the look immensely. Other versions of the game feature more traditional graphics, and so I was surprised to see the cel shading at first. Surprised, but not disappointed. It’s a look that doesn’t easily offend.

One interesting idea that turned out to be a letdown are the arenas. After clearing a section of levels based on a main area, you unlock an arena in that area where you will fight eight waves of enemies. There are different challenges to accomplish during the eight waves–like take no damage or kill 15 Goblins with arrows–and if you earn them all, you get a reward, which the game claims will help you on your journey. Two problems there. First, I only discovered the arenas after I beat the game. Two, it is basically just grinding, and the arena I did in Moria took about 30 minutes to complete, and even then I missed several challenges. Basically, it’s not worth the time and dullness, when I’m guessing the rewards are just a new weapon or piece of stat-boosting jewelry. Oh wells.

If anything, when done right, this style of action RPG gameplay does fit Tolkien’s universe well–probably much more than RTS ever did–and so I was inspired by the failings of Aragorn’s Quest to pick up Lord of the Rings: War in the North recently for the Xbox 360. It plays similar, but is much better in achieving its goals. I’m playing as a Dwarf that likes two-handed warhammers and slicing the legs off of Orcs. Not sure how I feel about this same Dwarf using a crossbow, but more on that game later.

2012 Game Review Haiku, #24 – Aragorn’s Quest

The sixteenth Chieftain
Of the Dúnedain, battles
Repetitiveness

–

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.

Five things I still need to do in Skyrim

At the same time that I splurged on Mark of the Ninja–more on that fantastic stealth-stabby game later, I promise–I also picked up the second DLC item for the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It’s called Hearthfire, not Heathfire or Healthfire as I’ve been constantly seeing it misspelled across the Internet in the days since its birth, and it only costs 400 Microsoft Points. The low cost is low because there isn’t actually a whole lot of content in the pack; it basically gives you three spots to build a house of your own, and then you have to grind for materials like iron ingots and nails and chopped wood to actually build it and fill it with items. I’ve only just begun filling my Lakeview Manor with storage barrels and shelves to place my filled grand soul gems. Nothing terribly amazing, and it seems like this kind of Minecraft-esque stuff is better suited for somebody just starting out on their adventure to rid the realm of evil dragons than me currently who already owns a house in two different holds.

But at least I’m back in the game for the time being. Finishing up a few quests while selling some items and emptying my digital backpack of potions I’ll never use–like anything related to breathing under water for X seconds. And so, I got to thinking, and here are five things I’ve yet to do in Skyrim after playing the game as one single character for upwards of 95 hours.

Ride a horse

Look, if you could hop on a horse and ride it in first-person perspective all while still wielding a bow and arrow or sword and magic spell…then yeah, I’d be all for that. I play these Bethesda games in this perspective and this perspective only; moving out of it breaks immersion and really comes across as just goofy and dangerous to one’s safety. But no, if you get on horseback, you must ride in third person, and that’s not for me.

Get married

Haven’t really given it much thought, to be honest. From what I can tell, being married in Skyrim is a bit…old-fashioned. You gain a spouse who makes you food and takes care of your home. Great. Not really. I’m curious to see if I can adopt a child without being married after I finish building my house; if not, I guess I’ll go hunting for a favorable partner. Vex sounds ideal /sarcasm.

Find the Dark Brotherhood

Please note there that I said find, not join. I haven’t even been contacted by them yet, and I guess for that to happen I’d have to openly murder somebody who didn’t deserve it. Like, not a bandit cave leader or blood dragon. Hmm. That’s not really how I play, so it is unlikely this will every happen on my first character. Maybe if I ever roll a new dude, but that might not happen for a long time–if ever. I know, call me crazy. Except you should know I never did many Dark Brotherhood quests in Oblivion either. So there, fantasy murderers.

Learn any spell above the novice level

I’m no Harry Potter, y’all. When I need healing, I use a potion or eat some cheese. When I need to weaken a foe, I poison my arrows and loose them from afar. I’ve done the occasional spell to clear webs or gain entrance into the School of Magic, but that’s been it. Not my style of combat.

Kill a giant

Everybody did it at the beginning of the game. You see some mammoths and head over to check them out. Then a giant comes stomping at you, swings violently with his club, and sends you flying into the sky with one hit. Instant death. Lesson learned. Since then, the only times I’ve come across giants has been in groups of three or four, and I’m scared to take on one for fear of three more seeking revenge. Plus the mammoths, too. So, yeah. All those giant’s toes in my bag? I stole them.

—

So, those are my things still to do/things to never do in Skyrim. What about you? What have you not done yet in a world that seems to never run out of quests or ways to occupy your time? Catch a butterfly?

2012 Game Review Haiku, #23 – Shank

Glad to see Kill Bill
Get its own videogame
Great art, prosy fights

–

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.

Playing the Ludum Dare 22 Winners, #1 – Frostbite

Um…yeah, my bad. I kind of forgot that this was a mini-challenge I put upon myself back in March 2012 right after the winners for Ludum Dare 22 were announced. I played through the top nine entries fairly fast and meant to get to the overall crowd-pleaser right after, but other stuff came up and then that was that. It was gone from my mind, gone from existence. That is until I was scanning my long–well, relatively, I guess–list of games on Steam over the weekend and saw the title Frostbite, a flood of reminders hitting me all at once. Oh yeeaaaah. Oh riiiiiight. Remember thaaaaaat. Also, considering that the Ludum Date 24 contest is happening right around now, I should wrap all of this up.

Frostbite comes from a user named saint11. Here’s what he says of his creation:

A post apocalyptic soldier in a watchtower going mad on a nuclear winter, seeing things and with some serious memory problems.
A simple platformer, maybe a little too serious and pretentious 😀

The main deal about Frostbite is this: two meters to pay constant attention to. One is for your health/hunger, and the other is for how long you can survive the harsh cold. They deplete at an alarming rate, and can only be refilled by eating found rations and hovering near a burning trash can. You are you, a nameless soldier, armed with a gun and the ability to jump, as well as the power to see ghosts. Unfortunately, your wife went out into the cold some time ago, never to return, and you’re off to find her/make it to the city.

It’s very good. I played three times, each instance getting a wee bit farther. The first time, I died from hypothermia. The second time, a sentry bot shot me dead. The third time, I ran out of bullets and accidently fell into some frigid water. However, that was it. There’s no checkpoint system from what I can tell, and so even though each time I made it closer to the city, I still had to start back at the beginning, which isn’t ideal. You fall into a zombie-like patten that way, moving in a manner that is unnatural and free of fun. The platforming is fine, and the idea of a limited number of bullets, which you need to shoot walls open and stop enemy ghosts and bots, gives the game some bonus stress. Mainly, that hunger/cold mechanic is solid, and I could see this evolving into something much more.

All right. There’s your winner for Ludum Dare 22. Should I try to find the winners from 23 and give them some coverage or just skip on ahead to the newly finished 24 contest?

The first hour of Stacking will not blow your stack

I know the gaming industry is currently bloated and over-saturated with games based on hopping into Russian stacking matryoshka dolls and plots hanging on oppressive child labor and puzzles solved by flatulence, but if you could find it in your heart and busy schedule…please check out my coverage of Stacking‘s first hour. It’s a fun time. The game and the review.

I actually wrote that coverage some weeks back, and since then I’ve come to beat the game as a whole. That means I can speak a bit more about what happens after the “emphatic yes” answer to that oh-so-critical question at the end of the post. It’s not a terribly long game experience, but I padded Stacking out a bit by searching for special dolls, different answers to puzzles, performing hijinks, and generally just exploring the levels and looking at all the adorable details instead of immediately moving on with the storyline. There’s a lot to see and experiment with, and that’s part of the charm, that it is paced to your liking. Between this and Costume Quest, Double Fine has created some great “introductory” videogames for friends and family members that you might want to get interested in playing a game. They are safe and still quite rewarding.

Overall, story in Stacking is more about style than telling, which is a small slight. It’s predictable but acceptable, with a beginning, middle, and end, but it’s how it is presented via silent film style that really keeps you watching. Little Charles Blackmore meets a wide range of dolls, and the larger they are, the more intimidating. I think my favorite is Cromwell the Terrible, capable of giving anyone and nearly anything a royal wedgie. The final fights switch things up, requiring you to have previously paid attention to doll powers, as well as know how to play rock, paper, scissors. Nothing too challenging.

I do have another complaint to add though, one that is really only discovered in the later levels. Well, honestly, they are too big. Not in the sense that you can get easily lost, but when you have to traipse back to the beginning part to find one specific doll…it can really feel like a sojourn instead of a skip.

At some point, I’m gonna hop back in to clean up some Achievement-related tasks and give the DLC The Lost Hobo King a try. I am expecting more of the same–which is fine–but if the gameplay of “solve X puzzles to complete level” gets mixed up even the tiniest of bits…well, that’d be a great surprise. I’ll be sure to let y’all know.

Experience gun selection and skags old skool style with The Border Lands

If you’re like me–or, even more terrifyingly, if you are me–then you’re pretty stoked about Borderlands 2 coming out next month. Yeah, yeah…even the whole “girlfriend mode” scandal isn’t enough to throw me off, and I’ve been recently re-soaking myself in all things Pandora-related with some further time in Borderlands, finally dinging Level 61 with my soldier on Playthrough 2 and mentally preparing myself to take on Crawmerax the Invincible…soonish.

Until then, there’s The Border Lands. It’s a “demake” of the game. Not sure who made it specifically or if it is even associated with Gearbox or 2K Games. Seems like it though. Here are some descriptive words from everyone’s favorite dancing robot:

Borderlands wasn’t always the slick, handsome bastard of a game it is today! Go old skool and play the 1989 16-bit original to see how it all began. I can’t believe how young I look!

And it is all that. You pick your character–Salvador, Maya, Zero, or Axton–and then you’re dumped into a screen to shoot enemies. All the classics are there, like skags, rakks, and those annoying screamers that charge at you with a bomb in hand. Even bosses, clearly marked with a flashing skull. In order to proceed to the next level, you must kill all enemies. Some drop loot crates, which let you pick from two new guns, each with their own abilities and shortcomings. Anything with decent range is highly recommended, as the enemies get on you fast, and you can’t move away quick enough. It really is the Borderlands experience in bite-size format. Or is that bit-size? Thank you, thank you. Try the fish.

So, it’s something to do and has a nice style to it, with great sound effects and easily recognizable sprites. Try and beat my high score of $19,720. My only complaints are as follows: 1) you can’t change the direction you’re aiming when firing a gun, you have to wait until you run out of ammo or stop firing altogether and then change positions and 2) some serious slowdown happens once eight or more enemies get on screen. Otherwise, neat-o.

Oh, and the music that plays on the main menu for The Border Lands is quite nice. I mean, I should know, considering I’ve had it in the background on a loop while writing this blog post for y’all. Can’t pinpoint if it comes from the original game or the upcoming one or if it’s a new piece altogether, but either way, it fits just fine. Enjoy, vault hunters.