About time I got my slime on with Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker

I finally got to play a bit of Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker last night despite purchasing the game a couple weeks ago. That seems to happen a lot with Nintendo DS titles for me. I buy them…and then don’t play them for a bit. I think it’s because I’m less excited to play my portable gaming device when in my own home, as I consider it more of a traveling thing, a road-side companion, a portal that helps pass time. Also, DQM: J was an impulse buy, something I picked up while waiting for Bullet to get an oil change; it’s not like I’ve been dying to try it out, just figured it would be interesting to see how it compared against its forefather, the mighty Pokémon franchise.

From what I’ve seen so far, there’s more visible depth in DQM: J than, say, Pokémon White. The key word is visible. We’ve all heard about the crazy amount of stats and breeding spreadsheets and EV madness and so on for those pocket monsters, but a good majority of that is behind the curtain. You have to go online and read. For DQM: J, it’s all right there. Stats, weapons, learning abilities, and what’s next for your mischievous mole or platypunk. There’s even a monster synthesis option, allowing you to fuse two monsters together in hopes of creating a better fighter. I like that, even if there’s not much I can do yet with my two-monster team. Hopefully things really open up after Infant Isle, and I can focus on grinding my team into something truly monstrous.

Also, while I love the classic sounds and elements from many of the Dragon Quest games…do they constantly need to get reused over and over? Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime, Dragon Quest IX, Dragon Quest Wars, this –they all sound exactly the same. Granted, catchy tunes and soundbits, but not after the eightieth time. Save for the level up tune. That one always warms my cockles.

Anyways, I took notes of my first half-hour playing DQM: J. You’ll be able to read what kind of crazy adventures I got into with our young monster trainer Hodor over at The First Hour. Um , soonish. Just gotta, uh, type up my hand-written notes–scribbles, truly–and clean up the review. Not to get too spoilery, but the last two minutes are basically me channeling Darth Vader. Yup. Until then, goo luck scouting those slimes!

Can’t escape smiling at this Ludum Dare game called BATHOS

If it wasn’t for Notch, I would have never even known about this crazy thing that recently took charge, known to indie game developers worldwide as the Ludum Dare. Basically, participants develop games from scratch in a single weekend–that’s 48 hours, okay–based on a theme suggested by community. This time around the theme is escape. Browsing through the 500+ finished entries is a bit daunting; some of them really do look great, and others…well, not so much. Unfortunately, a good chunk of them blur together.

The first submission I clicked on to check out was BATHOS by Johan Peitz, mostly because it looked like a SCUMM title, and those experiences always pull at my heartstrings. Seriously, there’s a Maniac Mansion vibe here. I’m super pleased to announce that the very first Ludum Dare title I’ve tried…is a winner! Well, in my book. I’m sure Notch’s entry is stellar too, but I haven’t attempted it yet, considering I barely understand Minecraft still, and I’ve been playing that for several weeks now. Anyways…

In BATHOS, the player wakes up in a supervised prison cell, naturally wanting to escape. The door is locked, but he quickly discovers many keys in his tiny, depressing cell room. Surely one of them will work on the door. And that’s it. Find the right key and get out of there. It sounds simple, but it took me about fifteen minutes on my lunch break to figure out, and the solution is delightful, obvious, turning this little indie bit of Flash wizardry into something truly charming. The graphics are clean and unobtrusive, and the game controls smoothly. There’s only so much our pixelated hero can do, but it all works. Picking up keys that don’t work and flinging them under your bed never felt so good.

One of the definitions for bathos is “an anticlimax,” and yes, Johan Peitz’s take on solitude, yearning, and escape most certainly is that. However, it might be the first time something so ludicrous has made me smile.

You can play BATHOS in your web browser by clicking this very sentence. Or, if you’re looking to download it for Windows/OSX/Linux, go here…just don’t read any of the comments below otherwise you’ll spoil a perfectly genuine gaming experience. And remember, this was created in under 48 hours. To me, that’s mighty impressive–and gives me hope that maybe one day I could make a videogame, too.

Totally died five times while reviewing Minecraft’s first hour of gameplay

At long last, my dear readers…at long last! I’ve mentioned here at Grinding Down and more than occasionally tweeted about the Minecraft review I’ve been working on over the last few days. Well, it is now done and posted and ready for your consumption. Head on over to The First Hour to see how I spent sixty minutes in the blocky world of Minecraft!

That about does it for this post. Short and sweet.

NOTE: The images in the review are from my own gaming experience, and those are my drawings on top. I like how they came out. Hopefully you do too.

The Paul gives his impressions on the first hour or so of Bastion

Like most gaming entertainment, Bastion begins with some narration. This is to set the scene, tell a little backstory, get the proverbial ball rolling. However, with Supergiant Games’ first release, there’s a hook; the narration never stops. Voiced by Logan Cunningham, the game’s narrator is ever watchful and never a bit shy to comment on the fact that you’re slashing everything in your path apart or that you need to leave that adopted pet in your stronghold alone for now or that you went left instead of right first. It’s interesting and a little creepy, but it certainly gives one a sense of their own experience, something true to only them, and that their version of the Kid is being role-played as they deem.

Bastion is about rebuilding. An event known as the Calamity has split the world into a series of floating islands, and the Kid, our silent protagonist, heads to the Bastion, a safe haven of sorts that his people created to live at protected during these hard times. Unfortunately, upon arrival, it is clear that there is a lot of work yet to be done, and so the Kid sets off across the floating map to find new resources. So far, I’ve been able to upgrade the Bastion with two new buildings: a distillery and a forge. The former is a place of potions and magical unctions, and the latter lets you tweak your current weapons with passive abilities, such as improving the speed of your bow or your chance to land a critical hit with that mighty hammer. Standard RPG flair, but the stat personalizing and slight customization is welcomed.

The game is highly stylized, with gorgeous artwork, vibrant colors, and a playing field that forms all around the Kid as he moves forward. It’s amazing to see the path constructing right before your feet for the first time, and it’s still equally amazing the fortieth time it happens. Kudos to the developers for that neat trick. The monster designs are adorable, like something from a Hayao Miyazaki film. At times, the camera zooms in for a closer look at the action, which I greatly appreciated. Every place is a place of import, nabbing a cool name that any fan of epic fantasy fiction will love. My personal favorites: The Rippling Walls and Breaker Barracks.

If there’s one complaint I could toss onto the field it’s that the dynamic narrator is sometimes talking right as a swarm of Squirts appear out of nowhere and attack the Kid. Unfortunately, at that point I am more concerned with staying alive and swiping my enemies to bits to really listen, meaning I’ve missed out on whatever he said. Granted, it might have been something minor, but it might not have been. A narration log would be nice, or some kind of codex to keep track of everything. Also, at least for me and my television from 2005, Bastion is another example of a tiny text game.

But so it starts:

The Stranger (10G): Complete the Wharf District.

Looking forward to building more of the Bastion tonight after work.

There’s no “i” in Team Fortress 2, but there is a “me”

Over the weekend, I picked up two games thanks to some coercing coupons from GameStop, but really I picked up six games, as one game is actually five games bundled nicely on a single Xbox 360 disc. It’s called The Orange Box, and it’s one helluva package, especially as a used copy; for just over $20.00, I now have access to Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. Man, that’s a lot of 2s in there. I’m sure I’ll be musing about those first four games at some point, but let’s use today to dive into Team Fortress 2, a game I didn’t think I would like, but am having fun with, as well as a game that is sadly not the be-all, end-all version of itself.

Team Fortress 2 is an online, team-based, first-person shooting multiplayer bonanza. You pick a class, a map, and a type of game (capture the flag, capture/defend control points, arena, and so on), and you’re off to shoot non-team members, capture sections of the map, and wait patiently for your character to respawn. On the Xbox 360 version, there’s six maps available, and I’ve gotten to try ’em all once, which should be obvious to all y’all Achievements stalkers:

World Traveler (5G): Play a complete game on every map.

The six maps are all about the same size, a medium build, with a few spots of elevation, but otherwise there’s a lot of staircases and tight corridors to contend with. Each team has a home base where they can restock on health and items. No real direct interaction with anything on the map though, and there’s no destruction a la Red Faction tech. My favorite playground is whatever the snowy one is called. Snowscape? Snow City? Las Frozen Vegas? I can’t remember, and I’m definitely too lazy to look it up.

As y’all know, I’m pretty terrible at competitive shooting games, and that fact has not changed one bit since giving Team Fortress 2 an hour or two of my gaming life. I get sniped from afar, set aflame all the time, and knifed in the back the moment I step into enemy territory. But regardless, I’m having fun. I think it has something to do with the wonderful art style, a loose, cartoony feel that evokes Pixar’s The Incredibles and gives me a sense that everyone else is just here to have fun and not take it so seriously like a lot of Call of Duty fanatics. The controls and simplicity of the gameplay also help; most classes only get two gun-type weapons to use and one melee weapon, and there’s no rain showers of endless grenades. I think I actually did my best with the Medic class, as I kept away from the firefights and healed teammates as they needed.

Do you play Team Fortress 2? What’s your favorite class? And if you’d like to shoot me in the (cartoony) face or help take down others with me, please add me on Xbox Live; my gamertag is PaulyAulyWog.

Check out my coverage of the first 30 minutes of Link’s Awakening

Hey! That Ocarina of Time game is being released again for like the seventh time today, now gracing the Nintendo 3DS with its legendariness and N64 graphics. I’m still unsure if I even care enough to want to check it out; more than likely, my second Big Name retail purchase for the 3DS is gonna be the next Animal Crossing title. Which, evidently, lets your character dress up like Link. Life’s a funny thing.

But another Zelda game was re-released in the last week or so, and that one I’ve actually played a bit. It’s called The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, and I covered the game’s first 30 minutes for The First Hour. CLICK THIS SENTENCE TO READ ABOUT ME FAILING TO REALIZE I COULD MOVE SEA URCHINS OUT OF THE WAY WITH THE SHIELD.

That was posted a few days ago, but I forgot to link to it. My bad. Yeah, Link’s Awakening is a lot of fun. Easy to pick up, easy to put down for a little break. The music, my gods…the music. I’ve progressed a little further too; now I’m trying to collect enough golden leaves to appease some dude who–I’m assuming–will help Link on his journey to make the world’s largest omelette. I’ve gotten four down, but still need one more. Hopefully I won’t have to resort to using a walkthrough, but the overworld map is pretty big, and Link–a.k.a. me–can get lost fairly quickly.

Honest early impressions for the Honest Hearts DLC

As expected, things go horribly wrong the minute you begin the Honest Hearts DLC for Fallout: New Vegas. First, the Courier needs to meet up with Jed Masterson, a traveling merchant working for the delightfully named Happy Trails Caravan Company. He tells you a bit about the caravan’s history, as well as his need for someone with a Pip-Boy 3000 to help him and his groupies navigate safely through Zion Canyon in hopes of trading with the Mormons in New Canaan. And off you go, zipping from state to the other in a matter of a single loading screen. However, once you arrive, your caravan is attacked and, sorry to say, you’re the lone survivor…which is a shame as Ricky would’ve made for a hilarious albeit annoying companion all the way through.

Speaking of companions, you can’t bring anyone with you in Honest Hearts. Sorry, ED-E. You’ll also need to drop your inventory down to only 75 lbs, which is irksome, but understandable. Thankfully, I was only at like 112/215 at that point, so I dropped some stupid things like lunchboxes and clothes I’ll never wear. At least they didn’t strip you of every awesome thing you worked really hard for like Bethesda has done in the past with Operation Anchorage, The Pitt, Mothership Zeta, and Dead Money.

So far, I’m enjoying Honest Hearts a thousand and five times more than Dead Money. It’s less claustrophobic, focusing more on exploring and looting through abandoned places considered too taboo for the native folk. The landscape itself is varied, but sparse of life, and at this point I’ve shot some geckos and steered clear of cazador groups. I was particularly surprised to see the Courier coming face to face with Joshua Graham, also known as the Burned Man, so soon into the adventure as I figured he’d be too pivotal and big for open chatting. Guess he’s desperate for help.

Also, kind of like when one first arrives at the Strip, the player is overwhelmed with a great number of quests to do. Like three at once, and then another five at once. It’s both great and maddening. I’m currently working on Rite of Passage, a side quest that’s more than a little trippy, while I figure out exactly how I want to go about Zion and saving its people (or not). I got to the end of the quest and quickly met death so I’m not sure if I’m ready for this or just if I need to plan better. We’ll see…right, Ghost of She?

And here’s what I’ve gotten so far Achievement-wise, both of which are simply tied to completing specific quests:

When We Remembered Zion (20G): Arrived at Zion.

Restore Our Fortunes (30G): Resupplied Daniel and the Sorrows.

Sadly, the Achievements for these DLC add-ons are never very exciting. If only the brains behind them would open up and get creative; I mean, the in-game challenges do a much better job of getting players to express their characters fully, encouraging my current Courier to melt enemies and damage limbs, rewarding us with bonus XP. Why not go the extra three feet and make some of those into Achievements? But I digress…

Looking forward to exploring more Utah territory. Most likely this weekend.

Got the itch to Quidditch

I’m a huge Harry Potter fan, and everything from the books to the movies to the LEGO-ized videogames to the tiny, but fantastic theme parks are laced with pure joy because once I interact with them, I’m beyond content. Here’s some photographic proof too, of Tara and I enjoying some frozen butterbeer on our honeymoon, even if it’s probably overpriced:

I think the world and lore and workings of the Harry Potter universe are stellar, with J.K. Rowling going the extra seventy-seven miles to make sure that everything clicked and made sense in a magical manner. She even made up her very own sport, which, contrarily to what you may believe, is not a simple task: you need rules, goals, strategy, players, teams, fields, designs, logos, tournaments, history, and so on. Quidditch is no Calvinball.

Quidditch is a mix of soccer, basketball, and football, with the most striking difference being that it’s played by witches and wizards on brooms and not on the ground. There’s a lot happening at once, with multiple balls to pay attention to: the Quaffle is a large red ball used for scoring points by tossing it through an opposing team’s hoops; Bludgers are angry, enchanted balls that Beaters hit away or at other players; and the Golden Snitch is a small, golden ball the size of a walnut that, when caught by a team’s Seeker, rewards that team with 150 points, ultimately ending the match. It’s fast-paced and anyone’s game all the way down to the Snitch.

And so it’s strange that, for all these years of Harry Potter’s growing popularity, there’s only been one videogame take on the magical Quidditch. I mean, what with the big push of online multiplayer and socializing these days, I find it amazing that Quidditch hasn’t been bundled in with the latest Harry Potter game as a multiplayer option. Instead, we just have Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, PC, and Game Boy Advance. Recently, as I searched high and low for PS2 games to add to my collection, I found the Ps2 version of Quidditch World Cup for $2.99 and said, “Bloody brilliant!” Well, no, I didn’t actually say that. But if Ron was with me, surely he would’ve.

The game’s okay. You start out doing some broom challenges, which teach you the basics of passing, shooting, stealing, catching the Snitch, and so on. Then you pick a House team, and it’s off to try to win the Hogwarts cup. I went with Ravenclaw since that’s the House I belong to, and I found beating Hufflepuff, Slytherin, and Gryffindor to be extremely easy. Like, they never scored a point against me. Maybe I was just really awesome at virtual broom-flying? Nah, that’s not it. After the Hogwarts cup, it’s on to the Quidditch World Cup, and I chose Japan, dueling it out with good ol’ USA. The spike in difficulty was sharp, and the game was super close, ultimately coming down to whoever caught the Snitch first. Thankfully, Cho did her thing, and we won, a victory surely earned unlike those back in the Hogwarts days. After that intense match, I took a break and checked out some of the Chocolate Frog cards I unlocked throughout play.

If anything, Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup showed how much of a Muggle I actually am. The game taught me about the Golden Snidget, a small, golden-yellow bird previous used in Quidditch before it became deemed too cruel and unsafe for the animals. I never knew about this backstory to the wizarding sport, and in all seriousness, I just assumed Electric Arts decided to spell Snitch wrong or in a special British way. Go figure.

Living the LEGO life of a pirate

The demo for LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game begins with a young Elizabeth Swan punching a parrot in its face. It’s pure zaniness, but that’s what these LEGO games have always been about–retellings with a special touch. If you’re not laughing, you’re not having fun.

I started to play this demo by myself, but when Tara saw what I was doing, she quickly grabbed another controller and joined in on the fun. We’ve always enjoyed playing the LEGO games together, especially LEGO Harry Potter, Years 1-4, which was very close to us in terms of interests. Here’s a comic I did many moons ago about our time with LEGO Batman (the weakest of all the LEGO titles actually):

Much of the demo for LEGO Pirates (I’m shortening the title from now on) is actually cutscenes, setting the story up and giving Tara and I many reasons to giggle. The entire game will cover all four movies. We’re playing the first level of the Curse of the Black Pearl, which has Jack Sparrow arriving in town and getting locked up, Elizabeth accidentally summoning those cursed pirates and getting herself kidnapped, and Will Turner slowly becoming allies with a wanted criminal.

The first playable part of the demo is inside Will Turner’s workshop. One player controls Will, and the other controls, um, some guy I can’t remember the name of. His partner? Together, we broke items, collected studs, fed a carrot to a donkey, and repaired a machine, which revealed where Jack Sparrow was hiding. Then it was time for a sword-fight high up in the rafters, and even though I was just mashing the attack button, the swords clinked and clanked and swung wildly, giving the impression of a real duel to the death.

The next area has us controlling Will and Jack, trying to break our way out of jail. This involves using a dog and sniffing out keys. Once we’re done this area, we’re outside in the shiny, bright sunshine, attempting to get to the docks to steal a ship. Tara takes control of Jack and the laughs hit a high when he hops on top of a barrel and begins rolling around with it. We get to do some combat with some soldiers, and then we’re over by a ship, trying to figure out how to commandeer it. Staying in the water too long gets you eaten by a shark. After solving the rather simple puzzles and zip-lining over onto the ship, the demo ends, leaving us wanting more.

However, after playing the main part of the demo, you can go back and do “free play” on the first level, which just gave us an excuse to try out some other fun characters and explore a few locked areas. Tara ran me over several times with a donkey, and then we were officially done for the night.

So, the gameplay is exactly what we’ve all come to expect. For some, that might seem like a downer. However, it’s still the sort of gameplay I like, as it is not too intense for co-op play, and just enough of a collectathon for my OCD. Granted, there are not as many memorable characters to unlock in LEGO Pirates as there were in LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Harry Potter, but I think it’ll still be a blast to control Bootstrap Bill.

The full retail version releases tomorrow, and I’m gonna get that booty faster than you can say, “Oh, barnacles!”

Busting out the guns in Ratchet: Deadlocked

When Ratchet: Deadlocked was first announced, I had my concerns. Just like with Jak X: Combat Racing, here was a game that focused on one of the weaker aspect of the game series it was born from: the shooting. Pew pew pewing in the Ratchet & Clank games was never its strong spot, which is funny to think about because the weapons and battle tools Insomniac came up with were fantastically futuristic and a blast to toy with. They were so unique that entire commercials were based on ’em. Still, precise shooting never stood tall back then, and just exploring each planet and finding secrets and unlocking Skill Points and watching hilarious, almost Pixar-esque cutscenes was more than enough to carry each game to the end.

Surprisingly, Ratchet: Deadlocked is actually not all about the shooting. Sadly, it’s still not mainly about platforming. Instead, we get a mix of shooting, action sequences, and the occasional hop from platform to platform. And this is all done without our little robo-buddy Clank. Why’s that? Well, see, the lord of “Dreadzone,” a televised reality show that pits warriors against crazy odds, has kidnapped Ratchet and Clank (and, uh, Al), and is forcing Ratchet to fight his and his friends’ way to freedom. What comes next is a selection of mini missions ranging from going from point A to point B, piloting some kind of vehicle, killing all enemies within a closed-in area, and taking on addition challenges to earn more points and bolts. They are pretty short so far, but you can also spend time outside of planets upgrading your robot helpers and buying new weapons.

I’ve only tackled the first two planets so far–Catacrom and Sarathos–and am enjoying myself despite the constant pressure of shooting at things that are shooting at me. It’s not as relaxing as taking a stroll through Marcadia from Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, but it’s close enough to what I love that I’m liking it nonetheless. And the addiction to collect bolts and upgrade weapons through constant use is there again, as well as Skill Points, which are basically early forms of Achievements, but these will actually help pay for secrets and new character skins, making them slightly more than just things to be proud over.

Between this and Secret Agent Clank, I’m probably going to finish Ratchet: Deadlocked first, and not just because its load screens are better. The story here is just more amusing and compelling, and while I love Clank, he’s really much stronger as either a companion to our furry friend Ratchet or as a robot that gives advice and narrates menu screens.

Also, another thing that surprised me in Ratchet: Deadlocked was the amount of (censored) swearing, mainly from evil Dreadzone bossman Gleeman Vox. Like, he bleeped…a lot. Really seemed out of place, but I’ll save that for another f*cking post.