Marriage is a fine institution, but not in Skyrim

Over the weekend, I got married. The day before I got married, I got engaged, and it was a sunny, clear day, with chickens skittering around on the ground and dragons roaring in the baby blue sky above. Couldn’t imagine it any differently. I didn’t really know the woman I just promised to share my life with too well, but she seemed more than eager, and in a realm like Skyrim you only live once. I immediately fast-traveled to the Temple of Mara to speak with the priest and prepare everything. There was little work for me to actually do. He said to get some rest and come back tomorrow. I took a thirteen hour nap in the temple’s basement. Upon coming upstairs, I was surprised to see the guests had all arrived–though none looked like any of my friends. Where was Hadvar? The Greybeards? Before a candlelit altar, the priest said some elegant words, and my bride-to-be and I shared our vows. When the ceremony ended, she turned, started to say something to me about a “happy life,” and exited the temple in mid-sentence. I rushed outside, deeply worried about my new wife and the possibility she might have a concussion, and discovered that she had vanished entirely from Riften. It truly was a Skyrim moment.

So, for those curious, I married Avrusa Sarethi. This piece of Dunmer flesh and mind:

Meooow. At first, I was just turning in a quest. See, she asked me long ago to find like twenty Jazbay Grapes, and after discovering that a merchant in my fully restored Thieves Guild hideout sold them, I just bought one or two each time I visited the place until I had enough to complete the miscellaneous task. Think she needed them for potions or Nirnroot stuff. However, before I gave her the grapes, I noticed a dialogue option that basically went, “Ya want dis?” Nice to know that she was interested in me long before I did the quest for her; otherwise, that’s just guilt driving her forward, which would never last.

Currently, Lohgahn is level 47, married, and totally alone. He adopted a kid some time back out of generosity for an Achievement, and I think that young boy resides in Breezehome–by himself–but it’s hard to remember as I have four houses currently, thanks to the Hearthfire DLC. Here’s hoping that my dear Avrusa disappeared to one of my many abodes, because having a spouse offers some gameplay bonuses, like free food and he or she will shop for you while you’re out slaying dragons and finding Word Walls. Not sure how much of that is useful at this point in the game when I have all the money in the world to buy food and ingredients, but it’s kind of neat if a bit old-fashioned. When I’m up to all the fast-traveling and loading screens, I’ll go around the realm and check all my houses to see where she ended up, if she is even alive. If not…well, that’s another blog post.

Regardless, with the words said and before my new wife could hightail it back to Sarethi Farm, this Achievement popped:

Married (10G): Get married

And truthfully, that’s what marrying in Skyrim is all about: showing off.

Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion plunges into an ocean of thinner

For last year, there were two potentials vying for the Most Disappointing Game of 2012: Game of Thrones: The Game and Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion. I still don’t have the heart and/or energy to extensively rip apart Cyanide’s stab at trolling around in Westeros–though you can check out previous posts for some clues to how I feel overall–so let’s spend today talking about Mickey Mouse and his lackluster painting skills and strangely unwavering glee-driven mentality.

It started with gorgeous preview screenshots that showcased a love and attention to detail for all things retro and Disney-esque, and then came the news that DreamRift was working on the game. For those that don’t know, those are the folks behind Monster Tale—which I thoroughly enjoyed–as well as Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, which I’ve not gotten to try, but sounds stellar. This developer loves the DS/3DS scenario, building entire games around using both screens simultaneously and with purpose. And so, with confidence, I tried out the demo and found it to be an all right time, with what looked like the promise of a Suikoden-style castle that you’d be upgrading over time as you found lost cartoon characters and did mini-quests for them. Ultimately, that didn’t turn out to be exactly it, but whatever. The game had the look and sorta feel of those older Mickey Mouse games we all played in our younger days, and between the console version and the portable one, I knew which version I’d enjoy more. Or at least I thought I did.

There are many problems with Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, but let’s start with its pacing. It’s slow, bogged down by endless screens of exposition or contrived dialogue from Disney characters you’d expect more from. Mizrabel the Witch has stolen a bunch of cartoons, and it’s up to Mickey to rescue everyone. Simple enough, I guess, and the witch can take on the appearance of other Disney villains to keep you guessing for a long while. The opening of the game takes at least ten to fifteen minutes before you are even doing anything platformer-like, and basic abilities like “jumping” and “attacking” are doled out one by one to keep things moving at a glacier’s ramming speed.

The pace is further hampered by the game’s main touting point: painting. Mickey has the power to paint and/or erase objects in the world. To do this, you use the bottom screen to either trace the outline of an object or erase it fully. This takes a few seconds to do, and then a few seconds more to actually see your work realized. Now, a few seconds here and a few seconds there don’t seem like much, but you are literally pausing the action every few steps to paint or erase something, and it eventually becomes a bother, to the point that you no longer care about getting “Perfect” ratings with your tracing, scribbling around the outline as fast as possible just to get it over with. I ended up despising the painting aspect so much that I actively avoided it wherever I could; before each level, you can bring certain “sketches” with you, such as Goofy or a treasure chest, which, so long as you have the paint, you can use over and over again. I think I used the treasure chest once, and never bothered with any other sketches as, again, they just weren’t worth the effort and the time-sink.

Let’s talk about side quests, as they surprisingly make up a large chunk of Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion. They come in two forms: fetch quests or draw something. You are either fetching someone an item or straight up drawing it into existence for them. Oh wait, there’s a third category: go down the hall and talk to X, which should be self-evident. The fetch quests are probably the most annoying of the three, as they require you to hop back into levels you’ve already completed to find something that wasn’t there before. They aren’t difficult–well, depending on the level’s design–but they are a bit of a waste of time, especially since you can use a special currency to basically overwrite these quests and move on with your life. I did that a lot. There was no other reason to hoard these special star things, and so I cheated my way through many questlines. One of the more important quests is to get Uncle Scrooge back on his feet so that he can operate an upgrade store, which provides bonuses to melee damage, health, paint and thinner capacity, and so on; this is where you’ll spend all those Disney dollars you collect in every level.

Without a doubt, the breaking point for me was getting to the Castle South Wing, also known as the water levels. These are based around The Little Mermaid and someone’s love for Satan and masochism. To begin, Mickey’s jumping is floaty, and not in a good way. You spend the whole game getting used to it, only to then be in a water level that takes his floatiness to a whole new level. Now you have to deal with extra float, spikes on cavern ceilings, swimming enemies, and maneuvering around tiny platforms. Hands down, these were some of the worst water levels I’ve suffered through, and I’m the guy that actually enjoys them in Super Mario Bros. 3 and Donkey Kong Country. These are such pains in the butt that each one took multiple attempts and then, once discovering that new fetch quests opened up in all of them, I said “eff off” and never went back once. I suspect a lot of gamers might even just give up here. I nearly did.

The greatest thing Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion has going for it is its visuals, which never fail to wow. Seriously, every screen is colorful and layered, with hand-drawn and scrolling backgrounds that really make fantastic use of the system’s 3D tech. It looks, in my opinion, superior than its console counterpart(s), and the long stretches of exposition are made slightly more enjoyable thanks to great looking art. I don’t remember who said it exactly, but concept art for Disney Epic Mickey has always looked better than the final product. Here, that “concept art” is the game. So…that’s a win.

But that’s about it for Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, a disappointment in all meanings. Supposedly there was a fourth section of the castle to explore, but it was cut due to timely deadlines. Not sure if that would have saved the game or not, as surely it would’ve been more of the same, but with new things to look at it. Just goes to show that strenuous development cycle this adventure went through though. Even if you’re the biggest Disney fanatic, the magic won’t last long. Try Monster Tale or dig out your Sega Genesis and a dusty copy of Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse instead. Trust me.

2012 Game Review Haiku, #35 – Red Faction: Armageddon

Corridor after
Corridor of aliens
To boringly shoot

–

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.

Epic fail at tossing coins and strangling dudes in Hitman: Blood Money

I meant to write about Hitman: Blood Money some months ago, but I played it during an extended weekend over the summer where I hurt my lower back real bad and passed the days in somewhat of a fever haze. I mean, heck…I drew this comic during what I might consider my sanest moment. So maybe a part of me doesn’t believe how bad the controls were and frustrating the opening tutorial level was. Maybe I just wasn’t up to snuff with hitting controller buttons well. I’d try again, surely, and with all the talk about the newest Hitman: Absolution game hitting the market…well, I was in the mood for some stealthy kills.

On paper, these Hitman games sound like my kind of experience. They are described as a series of stealth action games, in which players are encouraged to use sneaking, disguises, and trickery instead of raw firepower to take out target assassinations. You control Agent 47, an assassin-for-hire, and take out targets using various methods. So far, all I’ve experienced of the franchise is the opening tutorial level in Blood Money, the hideout right after, and the beginning of the following level. I’m having a real hard time going the stealth route, instead skimping by on raw firepower, which is extremely disappointing and 100% less fun.

The controls are the biggest problem. Now, I’m playing Blood Money on the PlayStation 2. I picked this version up a long time ago for somewhere around $6, which seemed like a fair price. The beginning tutorial level, called “Death of a Showman,” is specifically constructed to show players all the different ways to be stealthy and crafty. Your assassination target is one Joseph Clarence, better known as “Mr. Swing King.” An accident at his amusement park caused the deaths of several children, and one parent seeks vengeance. The level is clearly divided into snippets, each one there to teach you a new trick: distraction, strangling, hiding bodies, wearing disguises, pretending to be someone else, messing with the environment, taking enemies as human shields, sniping, poisoning food and water, making the kill, and setting bombs. That’s…um, a lot of systems. Probably some I’m not even naming, such as using weapons (aiming, firing, reloading, figuring out how to equip/unequip) and hiding in closets. The two biggest hurdles for me are throwing coins and strangling dudes.

For tossing coins, you first have to hold the square button down to bring up the inventory. Yes, I wrote hold. You can then toss a couple of coins on the ground. The tutorial text tells you to do this. And so I do, over and over and over again. But the coins just drop at my feet, when clearly I need to get them out an open window to distract some guards nearby. You’d think the game would tell me how to aim, but no. I try using the R1 button, which is how you aim in first-person mode with a gun, but that does nothing. I try running and throwing the coins to no avail. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Eventually, I go online and learn that you have to hold in L3–which is the analog stick you walk around with–and that brings up an aiming cursor. Let me make sure this is clear: the stick you walk around with is also the stick you aim with. That means walking and aiming happen at the same time. Thankfully, Agent 47 is up against a desk, but otherwise I can’t see this working well one little bit.

Strangling dudes is just as hit or miss. Agent 47 comes pre-packed with some fiber wire. With this, he can sneak up behind someone, throw the wire around their neck, and choke them to death both silently and efficiently. Well, theoretically. I only had this scenario go down flawlessly once, and that’s the part where you’re supposed to do it anyways. Again, to bring the wire out of your inventory, you first have to hold square and then select from the items. To sneak, you hold down L1. However, to sneak with the wire ready to go, you instead hold down R1. Strangely, you can also do both if you love holding buttons down and hate your pointer fingers immensely. Then, to strangle a target, you have to get behind them and release the R1. That’s right. Letting go of a button creates the action, and what’s worse, there is no prompt so it is all guess work. Most of the time Agent 47 would just abruptly stand up behind the target, alerting them and other guards, forcing me to bust out a shotgun and blast my way to the next part.

The newspaper at the end of the level–which I think is a fantastic element–said that 28 people were slaughtered, one of them an innocent bystander. Well, that’s what happens when stealth fails and there’s no turning back. That’s not what I was going for, and without being able to play stealthy successfully, Blood Money is nothing more than a clunky, third-person shoot-em-up. After the tutorial level, you are in your hideout, where you can try other weapons and purchase upgrades for them. I started the next level, called “A Vintage Year,” but fell into the same problems previously mentioned when trying to choke a patrolling guard, thus throwing everything into shambles. Which, ultimately, is a big shame.

And no, you can’t change any of the controls. Trust me, I tried. Looked high and low and even in the middle. The most you can do is go inverted. So yeah: it’s either learn to play this way or go do something else. I think I know what I’ll be doing then.

Master Architect says a house is a machine for living in

Actually, Le Corbusier said that, but what does he know–he didn’t spend countless hours fast-traveling and staring at the same ol’ loading screens in Skyrim‘s Hearthfire DLC to gather the numerous and welcome-to-encumbrance building materials, such as clay, quarried stone, and iron ingots, to build three houses that are void of character and personality and truly, without a doubt, not worth all the effort. Really–don’t bother building your own house, especially if you’re already pretty far into the game, wherein you likely already own a home in one of the many cities, such as Breezehome in Whiterun or Honeyside in Riften. Those cost the same base price as your own plot of land, but require a whole lot less work, giving you more time to kill that bandit leader in Cave X or find your twentieth Jazbay Grapes.

Housing in Bethesda’s games has always been a pesky business. For Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, you had a few options to call home, but they were not very exciting. In the former game, I shacked up in Megaton, covering my bed in teddy bears and the shelves with rare trinkets–if I could figure out how to properly move and place an item via an Xb0x 360 controller. Your only other choice was staying in Tenpenny Tower, which came with some neat themes, but required going through a lot of load screens to simply access. Too much waiting, not enough storing of loot, if you asked me. For New Vegas, pickings got even slimmer. Some hotels offered a permanent room, and if you felt like going through a lot more loading screens, you could keep your prizes in the Lucky 38 presidential suite. Strangely, your best place to call home is at The Sink, a futuristic homebase brimming with goodies. Oblivion had a few homes that you could earn through quest completion as well, but I never really used them as once you joined a guild, that became my place to store stuff and rest comfortably.

You could always find places to…let’s call it…squat. Abandoned houses or shacks that seemed ready to be yours, but at an invisible risk. See, while they might have containers or places to store you treasured treasure, there was no was to know if that container was safe or would respawn its contents in a few day, thus erasing yours completely. Unless you used the Internet, of course, but that’s never fun. I’d rather sell off items than lose them to a coding abyss.

So, unfortunately, while the three houses in Hearthfire look pretty cool once totally complete–that’s Lakeview Manor, Windstad Manor, and Heljarchen Hall–they are not fun to build and require, at least for me, a ton of back and forth, as I’m not the sort of character who just carries around 100 iron ingots at a time. You spend a lot of time looking at menus or watching your character mine for quarried stone, which is as exciting as it sounds. And after all that, you really have little input over how your house turns out. Sure, you can place tables and chairs and barrels and weapon racks, but they go where the game designer decided they should go. All you are doing to spending your materials to place it there. Your house is not your vision. And that’s a big bummer. I was hoping to be able to have a trophy room that was filled with my kind of trophies, like a thousand scattered troll skulls, presented in my way. Instead, no. It is a model home, and nothing more. Again, you might as well purchase a house in one of the cities, which is a model house too, but cheaper and easier to fill in.

You can also hire a bard for your house, as well as make any follower a steward. The steward helps a lot in ordering building materials for you which go directly to the chest by the workbench, but only to that chest. If you need that clay for your other house, you best make room in your inventory. The steward can also bring in animals or furnish your rooms completely for a small fee. It’s okay, but came across as very robotic, especially when one is ordering piles of wood after piles of wood after piles of wood.

In short, I wasn’t expecting Minecraft, but definitely some more flexibility for creativity. I mean, I couldn’t even pick the place to build my house, ruining my dream of shacking up right next to the Thieves Guild.

But yeah. This is one Achievement definitely earned with stubbornness and patience, backed by a numbing soundtrack of clinking hammers and thumping hammers:

Master Architect (10G): Build three houses

Here’s hoping that player housing changes quite dramatically in Fallout 4 and whatever the next Elder Scrolls ends up being. Here’s hoping…

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.

Suikoden III is forever “now loading”

I…I think I have some bad news. I say it like that because I don’t want to admit to myself that any of this is true, as I am a man that holds on and hopes, even as everything around me crumbles, but things do look a little dire. My PlayStation 2 disc for Suikoden III, a game I have been searching for high and low over a number of years and only finally just acquired last year, is busted. Has to be. If you’ll recall, I ran into a nasty loading problem during the first hour of the game, wherein the disc spun unremittingly while the words NOW LOADING flashed at me with malice. Well, it happened again, different spot. And once again after that.

Currently, I’m in this weird place. I spent a week or two burning through all four Blackwell point-and-click games with Tara and then proceeded to kick Mass Effect 2‘s ass to the curb and then systemically achieved 30,000 Gamerscore on the nose. And then…well, I haven’t really known what to do with myself when a moment of spare time opens up. I’ve dabbled a bit more in Rage, played some more Cave Story on my 3DS, and watched maybe too many episodes of Felicity at once. Eh, let me take that back; I could watch Felicity all day long, but only up until the episode when she chops all her delicious hair off.

And so, the other night, I decided to hop back into Suikoden III and see what was happening; I had played beyond the first hour for maybe another forty-five minutes, stopping at an impasse where my party had to wait a little bit before they could meet with the higher-ups of Vinay del Zexay. Turns out, we just needed to stay at the inn two or three more times, which is kind of annoying as the inn–seeing as it has no competition in town–charges a hefty 300 suikobucks each time. After your party has rested enough, Sergeant Joe suggests heading back to the town hall to see if we can deliver our message. And we can. Hugo and friends are invited inside, there’s some small talk, and then the screen goes dark to–I assume–load an important cutscene. Only, the game goes nowhere–it just sits on that loading screen, and I sit staring at it until I realized I’ve sat for probably too long. I don’t immediately think it’s locked up, as Secret Agent Clank taught me that some PS2 games take forever and then some.

Disappointed, I shut off the PS2, examined the game’s disc, and then turned the system back on. That kind of worked the last time. I stayed at the inn two more times again, went back to the town hall again, chatted again, and watched as the NOW LOADING screen mocked me again. Well, boo to that. I have to suspect that the discoloration on the disc is problematic for loading cutscenes. That said, I’m not giving up yet. I’ll keep trying to play for as long it lets me play, and whether that means going off on one of the other main characters’ adventures, then so be it. Maybe Hugo and I weren’t meant to be. Maybe I’ll run into the same problems elsewhere. Maybe, maybe.

It might just be worse to have an unusable copy of Suikoden III in my collection.

Game of Thrones: The Game has got me worried

I am not a trusted scholar and saucebox of all things A Song of Ice and Fire. Sure, I love the books immensely, am a big fan of HBO’s take on blood and dragons and heraldy and fine-ass beards, and am a dude that’s attempting to draw just about every character ever named by George R.R. Martin–but I don’t know everything. However, I do know that there’s no place called Riverspring in Westeros. Except, thanks to the forthcoming Game of Thrones: The Game (ugh, what a name), now there is. Here’s how the developers describe it:

Bordering the Riverlands, the interests of this town and surrounding countryside are held in the name of Sarwyck as bannermen to the Lannisters. From their family keep, they have presided over their people for generations, but now unrest begins to grow in wake of the death of the reigning Lord Raynard Sarwyck.

All right. That’s believable enough, given just how many houses, big and small, there are, and the Lannisters do have a lot of support. And Sarwyck is a fine, Martin-esque name, but I got problems with Riverspring. Here’s why. In Fallout: New Vegas, upon emerging from a premature shallow grave, you discover the town of Goodsprings. In Rage, the first true city you come to call home is Wellspring. EverQuest fans might remember a halfling city called Rivervale. In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, after stepping out of a cave, so long as you follow the path, the first settlement you unearth is called Riverwood. And in…y’know, I’m just going to list all of these forgettable names in bullet format to really drive home the point:

• Goodsprings
• Wellspring
• Rivervale
• Riverwood
• Riverspring

The videogames market is currently inundated with spring places, and yes, pun freakin’ intended. Also, don’t forget about Riverrun, the ancestral stronghold of House Tully. The place that actually matters. But yeah, I get that the devs wanted to A) create a new location to do with whatever they wanted and B) keep it in line with Martin’s naming schematics, but seven hells, they picked the most generic thing ever. I think if I ever make a robust RPG set in a typical fantasy land, the first town I name will be called Good Riverwater Springs. You heard it here first, people.

Okay, fine. I have problems with Riverspring and just how little it adds to a world brimming with detail and construction. Moving on, thanks to Greg Noe, a new trailer has hit the Interwebz:

Wow. Look, no one–and I do mean no one–is playing Game of Thrones: The Game for its story. You just can’t outdo or even come close to the story-telling power of GRRM, so don’t bother trying. Instead, give us the goods on the videogaming side. Make it fun to play, fun to swing a sword or dabble in seedy politics or create some kind of unique dialogue tree system, but don’t pretend to be all high and mighty. This trailer tries to sound exciting, but even the narrator sounds bored–and rightly so. I’d rather see how the game will play, whether it will be more like Dragon Age: Origins or Dragon Age II, as that difference is vital. Certainly it won’t be anything original, but if it is closer to DA:O then I’m in. If it’s DAII…well, I’m probably still in as I am a huge fanboy of the source material, but man, it’s just going to be one letdown after the other. Granted, there still seems to be a second storyline to follow based around the Wall and the Night’s Watch. Maybe that tale will be more inspiring.

A release date of May 2012 is being tossed around. I’ll be keeping an eye out for more details before I take the black. Ugh. Between this, that RTS flop from Cyanide Studio, and an upcoming MMORPG, it just doesn’t seem like A Song of Ice and Fire can get the videogame treatment it truly deserves. At this point, I’d be down for something like this.

Super Meat Boy is the beefiest platformer out there

Quick, look over there! It’s another Indie Impression, and this one’s based on Super Meat Boy.

As you’ll soon read, I was able to beat all the levels in the first world save for the final boss. I gave up after too many fruitless attempts to slide down a vanishing wall into a hole before a sawblade turned Meat Boy into bits for a shish kebob party. But it was still a good time, and I can see why many love the beefy platformer, but I just can’t see myself going on, especially if I was getting stuck so early on. But yeah, great controls, great style, great boy made of meat. Eat it up, you masochistic fanatics.

Resident Evil: Revelations is portable horror and so not for me

I’m attracted to horror games from a distance. Truly, I am. I just don’t enjoy playing them, and this is pretty evident with the fact that Silent Hill 2 still remains unfinished despite Tara keeping me company through all the fog and static-laden radio noises and creepy monsters that want to spray me with their evil juices. I love the atmosphere and story and crazy enemy designs in horror games, but I just can’t handle the packed-in stress, the long stretches that build between scare A and scare B, the way tiny sounds like turning a doorknob are deafening and that general feeling of utter helplessness.

Also, a quick gander at my backlog confirms a solid lack of horror videogames. Yes, there’s BioShock, which I played and completed, but struggled with for awhile, often just standing still for long periods of time thanks to a “turn invisible when not moving” Plasmid and listening to my surroundings. I’ve dipped my toes into the terrifying pools called Penumbra: Overture and Amnesia: The Dark Descent, but have no desire to go swimming. And in my younger years, yes, I played a few Resident Evil games, but those were social affairs, adventures that my best friend and I would go on together, with chips and drinks and puppy dogs at our sides to make the real world as safe as possible in lieu of the dangerous digital version; the vivid memory of a licker bursting threw a one-sided mirror still makes me tense up.

That said, after a busy day of drawing journal comics every hour on the hour, I downloaded the demo for Resident Evil: Revelations on my 3DS–yes, the system now supports demos; praise be to the Maker, it must be the year 2012–and give it a whirl. To clarify, the last Resident Evil game I played with passion and purpose was probably Resident Evil 2 though I did try a demo for Resident Evil 5, which was lame.

Firstly, this is a gorgeous-looking game. The graphics definitely show off what the 3DS can handle, and the 3D slider flicked slightly up creates a fantastic look, really drawing me in, as if I’m walking right behind Jill as she badly shoots zombies on a haunted cruiser ship. Well, no. Not zombies. Scary, mutated monsters. Secondly, without that crazy Circle Pro Pad attachment, this game controls horribly, especially during the moments when quick, precise turning is needed. You know, like when a monster is trying to eat your face off. See, without a second circle analog pad, you both move Jill and move the camera at the same time with the one circle pad you got. It’s horrible; I’d switch over to first-person shooting mode to pop a monster in the middle of its temple only to have my aim swirling around out of control. Thirdly–and lastly–this game can manage scares just fine. You’d think, being on a brightly teal-colored handheld device, which has a number of lights on at any given time, it wouldn’t be able to create such an atmosphere, but it does. One monster jumped down from the ceiling, and I emitted a sound. I will not describe it.

And then I ran out of ammo. And then I died in a foggy room filled with scary things. I exited out of the demo and saw that I now have 29 more chances to get scared. No thanks. But I can see why many would like Resident Evil: Revelations: high production values, quality scares, beautiful graphics, and an actual story to follow. Alas, this type of game is still not for me even when playing safely under the blankets with warmth, cats, and a wife to keep me safe. Oh well. Good thing for demos.