Vying for political control in Lords of Waterdeep

Currently, I have a new favorite board game. For the longest time, it’s been Munchkin, and that’s not to say that Munchkin has lost any of its spontaneous, kooky fun, but Steve Jackson Games continues to churn out Munchkin-related product one after the other with no sign of slowing down in the future, and well…I just can’t keep up. Though I did get two new sets for Christmas–Munchkin Pathfinder and Munchkin Apocalypse–both of which are a lot of fun, but more or less the same ol’ backstabbin’, treasure-hoarding experience with a small twist or two, like Seals. There is strategy involved in every game of Munchkin, but also a lot of luck, like getting decent treasure early on to keep your character in the fight.

However, I’m always looking for more strategy elements over luck-based things–one big reason why I don’t play cards at the casino–and so we move on to Lords of Waterdeep from Wizards of the Coast, a fantastically unpredictable hour and change of planning, plotting, and plundering resources. It’s pretty much the best of both worlds.

Here’s how the publisher describes it: a strategy board game for 2-5 players, you take on the role of one of the masked Lords of Waterdeep, secret rulers of the city. Through your agents, you recruit adventurers to go on quests on your behalf, earning rewards and increasing your influence over the city. Expand the city by purchasing new buildings that open up new actions on the board, and hinder – or help – the other lords by playing Intrigue cards to enact your carefully laid plans. During the course of play, you acquire victory points or resources through completing quests, constructing buildings, playing intrigue cards, or having other players utilize the buildings you have constructed. At the end of eight rounds of play, the player who has accrued the most victory points wins the game.

That might not sound like a whole lot, but there’s actually a whole lot there to work with, seeing that you are limited in the number of choices you make. You have to start planning things out from your very first turn, as every turn taken should be to your advantage, whether it is playing a card against an opponent or visiting a specific building to get the right colored cubes you need to complete that secret quest in your hand. I find going to the harbor to play Intrigue spells very beneficial as, after everyone else has moved all their units, you get to move off the harbor to any free spaces left, basically giving you an extra turn. See? Strategy. You can also play Mandatory Quests on opponents to slow them down on their journey to the top, but other than that, it’s quite a civil game, much more than say Munchkin or Shadows Over Camelot.

Ironically, my favorite part of Lords of Waterdeep is when it ends. This is the moment when you get to reveal what lord you specifically are and how it affected your decisions, as well as add up how many units you have in your tavern, how much gold you have left, and so on. All of that basically turns into more victory points come the endgame, seeing everyone inch up further (or down further if corruption from the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion is a factor), and the best part is that, more often than not, it’s still anyone‘s game here at this point. Only once all the points are added up can you really see who is in the lead, the truest lord of the city.

Evidently, there’s an IOS version of Lords of Waterdeep, which is both awesome and not. Naturally, my Windows 8 phone swings and misses yet again. Oh well. Actually, no,  it’s okay. I’d much rather play a round of this game with my friends and food and the ability to watch their every move than tapping a phone’s screen on end until I win or lose. And just so it’s clear, I think I’ve only won once out of the handful of games my group has played since discovering the City of Splendors.

In search of imaginary elephants in Don’t Drink the Pink

Don’t Drink the Pink doesn’t do much overall, but it’s still an effective slice of weird pointing and clicking, certainly inspired by that rather infamous intoxication sequence from 1941’s Dumbo, wherein Dumbo and Timothy accidentally drink from a bucket filled with champagne and then begin seeing dancing, singing pink elephants, a moment I’ve still not come to terms with some seventy-three years later. It was made for the January 2014 MAGS competition “Something Cold, Something Burrowed, Something Pink” and is self-described by its maker(s) as “a simple story about a man, few pints of pink and occasional elephants.” You still following?

It opens with you passed out in the snow. After you’ve awoken and prayed to the god of forgiveness that you didn’t do anything stupid during your time of unmemorable drunkenness, you begin exploring the world. Alas, it’s pretty much Hoth. Or the planet Winter from Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. Y’know, cold and white and not brimming with signs of life. That is until you come across a simple hatch, which brings you to a small bar selling Pink, a mysteriously powerful drink. The bar itself is not too lively; besides the bartender, there’s two other patrons, one of whom is passed out as well. It’s up to you to mingle and find out what happened last night and why you were outside, all alone in this snow. Naturally, this leads to you on the hunt for a pink elephant.

As you get one step closer to answers, your Pink-O-Meter also increases with each drink of Pink you acquire and down. This means the character is getting drunker, sloppier as he plays, forcing you to second guess every word and action that unfolds. Thankfully, you who is playing the game can solve many of the puzzles in a sober state through simple deduction, as there are only a few areas to explore, a handful of items to use, and so many characters to interact with. That said, the puzzles are still pretty clever for how quickly the game was put together, accompanied by jaunty blips in the limited soundtrack that feel like tiny rewards all on their own.

Again, there’s not much to Don’t Drink the Pink, but it’s still a solid, fun fifteen or twenty minutes of clicking around and discovery. I’d have like to have seen more detailed environments and dialogue trees, but there’s still enough here to sell the story and get the job done. Kind of like of Scaling the Sky ends, everything comes full circle in Don’t Drink the Pink, meaning you could potentially play it on end eternally, but you really need only one go to see everything here. Besides, clearly, too much Pink is not good for you.

Problem after problem in Wallace and Gromit’s new indoor holiday resort

I don’t know how to get into this post without spoiling the ending to the first episode of Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures, so if you are interested in seeing how Wallace and Gromit solve the problem of giant bees invading the neighborhood…well, don’t read any further. No joke. The next paragraph is going to lay it all out. Stop now, if you are behind the times like I am, catching up on these jaunty, whimsical 2009 point-and-click adventure games from Telltale Games. All right, here we go.

So, at the end of “Fright of the Bumblebees,” Wallace comes up with a way to counteract the hyper-powerful growth formula he fed to his flowers to make the bees happier, but resulted in them also growing to extreme and deadly sizes. You don’t play an active part in this puzzle solution after taking down the large Queen Bee, just see the outcome, which has Wallace coming up out of the basement beaming with excitement over his discovery. Unfortunately, in his journey to make the bees smaller, he has also shrunk himself down in size. Immediately cut to some bouncy, knee-slappy music and then the credits.

In my mind, since Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures is billed as an episodic adventure series, I figured that the second episode “The Last Resort” would pick up on this zany plot twist and steer the story in its respective direction. Nope. It’s a whole separate story, and the second episode opens some time after Wallace shrunk himself, now back at his normal size with no comments on the matter. Huh. I found this really strange, and I guess we can blame The Walking Dead for its dedication to keeping everything connected from one episode to another. Granted, there’s still a loose connection to the previous events.

In “The Last Resort,” using the profits from their now-saved honey business, Wallace prepares to take Gromit to Blackpool for a little vacation time. Alas, the stormy weather both spoils their plans to hit the beach and creates a small flood in the cellar. Wallace comes up with the idea of converting the water-logged cellar into an indoor holiday resort for the rest of the townsfolk. If you build it, they will show up, and they do, but many are unhappy for various reasons, and Wallace makes it his personal mission to make everyone’s stay at West Wallaby Waterworld the most pleasant ever. Later, Ms. Flitt’s maybe-boyfriend Duncan McBiscuit is mysteriously injured, and no one is allowed to leave the house until the culprit is caught.

Gameplay-wise, nothing has changed from “Fright of the Bumblebees” in that you still both control Wallace and Gromit at different parts, walking around the environment with WASD or arrow keys and clicking on items to pick up/examine. There’s no item-combining; you just select an item from the inventory and use it on what or who you want. Something I never did in the previous episode that I discovered this time around was hitting the tab button, which highlights everything on a screen that can be interacted with. That’s neat, though it’s pretty obvious what items and people can be interacted with within a single scene.

I’m nearly done naming Duncan McBiscuit’s attacker(s) and proving it with hard-steel proof, but at least I know that episode three “Muzzled!” will only be loosely connected to whatever unfolds from here onwards. Regardless of that, I’m still enjoying the bombastic stories and silly character motivations and plan to see this whole series to the end. Truthfully, I just can’t get enough of Gromit staring into the camera, shaking his head.

There’s nothing zen about Koan’s keys, spikes, and fall damage

In Koan, you play as a rather impatient disciple that only wants to climb higher up the mountain and become stronger. The passive ways of your master are bewildering, especially all that sitting and meditating and thought-inducing speeches about patience and looking within one’s self. And that’s it for the story here, though I think there are hints of other stuff, like that off-handed comment from your master about…uh, killing Buddha if you see him. Yeah, no idea if that is going anywhere, seeing as I got as far as “The Dream of Effectiveness” level before my lunch-break ended.

At first, Koan seems like a simple puzzle platformer, but then you learn the power of meditation. Through it, after collecting little spinning circles of energy, you can create blocks in the level to act as platforms or climbing points. The trick is that they only last for so long, then returning to their energy form to be collected and used again. You use WASD (or the arrow keys) to move around and jump, but pressing S or down has the disciple sit. From here, you can use your mouse cursor to select where you want to place an energy-based platform, depending on the number you have collected so far. And thus, your goal in each stage becomes using these temporary platforms to make your way to the exit, without falling to your death or landing on spikes. Oh, and sometimes you gotta collect a key or not get shot by projectiles.

Initially, I found the controls to be pretty stiff and jittery. Unfortunately, that feeling never let up, with the discipline occasionally moving forward too much too quickly…or not at all, despite buttons being pushed. Thankfully, for the most part, you’re never in a rush, and the mellow atmosphere and soothing pluck of strings in the background encourages you to take the time to take in your surroundings and plan your course accordingly. A couple levels involve grabbing a key before it falls off into nothingness, and those prove the most troublesome. I’m not also convinced I grok the hitboxes for the disciple and things like spikes, as a few times I died though it didn’t appear like I had stepped on something bad just yet.

Visually, Koan is pretty despite occasionally looking a bit too…videogamey. Yeah, I couldn’t think of a better descriptor. I mean, the backgrounds look like pieces of traditional art, depicting city structures and natural scenes…but just that. Art. The watercolor backdrops clash with the rather obvious climbing blocks and shiny golden keys and doors though I do like the minimalist look to the discipline and master.

Maybe I’ll go back later to Koan and see if I can get past “The Dream of Effectiveness” level. Until then, I’ll just meditate on the key-falling-through-shot-glass puzzle’s solution and hope the answer appears before me like a puff of cloud, voiced by Morgan Freeman, guiding me onwards.

The hostile inhabitants of Yamatai have nothing on this Tomb Raider

As you all know, I have a sickness, and that somewhat imaginary disease is downloading videogames–both free and paid for–and then not doing anything with them for a very long time. Actually, this also applies occasionally to retail products, seeing as I got both Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection and Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story back in October 2013 and have yet to even crack their cases. Sure, I’ll install a game on Steam and check to make sure it runs, but that’s as deep as I go sometimes. I mean, really…there are moments where I feel catastrophically overwhelmed with content to consume, considering I get a free game a week on PlayStation 3 thanks to PlayStation Plus, two games a month for being an Xbox 360 Gold member, and countless titles on the PC from bundles or cases of freeware.

Well, I’m happy to announce that I fought back this week and immediately began playing Tomb Raider after it finished downloading–and installing further after that–and boy howdy, I’m pleased with the results. It’s one of March’s free games, along with Thomas Was Alone and Lone Survivor: Director’s Cut, and it’s actually only the second “traditional” tomb raiding game starring Lara Croft that I’ve played. Yup, I’ve played the original 1996 release–and beat it multiple times–as well dabbled with the co-op-focused Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, and now this 2013 reboot of the series. That’s it. A couple of the games in-between 1996 and 2013 did pique my interest, but many also seemed too unnecessary and too far from form, like when Lara was running around the Natural History Museum in London.

Strangely, while this new Tomb Raider is most definitely a reboot, it’s both close to form and far from it, as the focus is much more on QTE-lead action sequences and firefights than exploration, though some of that stuff is in there via optional tombs. The fact that the best aspect of an Indiana Jones-like videogame series is now partioned off to something secondary and missable is extremely depressing. But otherwise, I’m really enjoying it. My save slot says that I’m a wee bit past the halfway mark, and I’m focusing mostly on just moving from story beat to story beat, saving many of the collectibles for later after I’ve earned all the vital Metroidvania-inspired weapons which will give me access to hidden areas and such.

Well, here’s how a reworked Tomb Raider story takes shape in the current day and age: Lara Croft, an ambitious archaeology graduate with theories on where the location of the lost kingdom of Yamatai is, has convinced the Nishimura family—descendants from the Yamatai—to fund an expedition in search of the kingdom. The expedition eventually ventures into the Dragon’s Triangle, east of Japan, but the ship is suddenly struck by a violent storm and shipwrecked, leaving the survivors stranded all across an isolated island. Well, maybe not as isolated as initially expected, as Lara begins searching for her friends and stumbles across other inhabitants and a trend for nasty shipwrecks and plane crashes. No longer is Lara simply a rich archaeologist out for personal gain; she is young, naive, fragile, acting out of instinct rather than planned aggression, and it works…for the most part. That is, until it becomes a videogame again.

While billed as open-world gameplay, Tomb Raider is surprisingly linear, with sections of the map broken up by hidden loading sequences of Lara crawling under something or through a stretch of cave. Once in a section, there is some room to explore and find XP-giving collectibles, salvage, and crates of ammo, but the story path is always straightforward, from one place to another, and there’s usually no chance to tackle a scenario in a different manner. Much like in Mass Effect, you’ll arrive in areas where you’ll instantly know a shootout is about to go down, given the number of cover pieces and layout. Despite being all sad about killing a deer and reluctant to fire a weapon anymore, Lara Croft is a killing machine. An absolute sociopath when it comes to QTE kills and arrows to the head. Sadly, a lot of the gunfire moments force you to constantly keep Lara behind some kind of cover, so a lot of the melee moves and shotgun blasts are not utilized. But the bow is pretty awesome, especially once you can start lighting your arrows aflame.

I do have more to say about the distinct disconnect between Tomb Raider‘s story and its gameplay, but might save that for another post. I mean, you can’t watch Lara grimace at gutting a deer for food when she goes on in the next scene to choking a man out with her bow string, especially when you later realize that “food” is not a game concept and literally do not have to kill any other non-aggressive animals for the entire game. Ugh. Like I said, I got thoughts.

Oh, and there’s online multiplayer. Which I’ve not touched, and most likely won’t touch once I’m done with the story and finding the remainder of the trinkets, journal entries, and weapon-upgrading items left on the map. Looks uninteresting. No biggie, kids. That’s not what Tomb Raider is about, unless there’s a mode where you are each trying to grab a single item first before others get to it. No, no, not Capture the Flag. More like…Capture the Priceless Ancient Totem and Deliver it to the Museum for Zero Dollars but Some Career-pushing Recognition. Yeah, I’ll play that.

See you next year at Festivale, Pavé

Everyone plays Animal Crossing: New Leaf differently, and that’s a scientific fact, proven by science. Or me just assuming. One of those two. Some people make a bee-line for each and every bell, in hopes of paying off their entire house before focusing on anything else. Others tackle one Public Works project after the other, sprucing up the look and originality of their town, and then there are those that put all their energy into getting every fish, bug, and fossil they come across. I’m all of those people at varying times, but last night I did something I’ve never done before in an Animal Crossing adventure–I grinded.

First, let me talk a bit about snowflakes and Snowmam. During the winter, you can build four different types of snowpeople by rolling specific-sized snowballs into each other. There’s a Snowman, Snowmam, Snowboy, and Snowtyke. Each gives you special pieces of furniture and wallpaper in their own distinct way. I went through the entire winter season never getting anything from a Snowboy or Snowtyke, but the Snowman plays BINGO with you, giving you something once you hit five numbers in a row. As for the Snowmam, she asks you to collect falling snowflakes and in return gives you a piece of Ice furniture. I did this for a while, but only got a few pieces before I lost interest in the tediously simple process and stuck with playing BINGO, which, while annoying at times, at least kept things unexpected.

Well, whatever. Winter is over, but only in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. There’s still plenty of snow and cold temperatures outside in Pennsylvania to argue otherwise. Bring on Festivale, which is a spring event that happens in February or March, depending on the year. It mirrors Mardi Gras and Carnival, a holiday celebrated worldwide. Pavé the peacock hosts the event in front of the Town Tree. As it is an all-day festival of color, costumes, and craziness, there is no snow or rain during the entire day. Confetti constantly falls from the sky, and if you look close enough, you can see colored feathers in the mix. Bring enough of a specific color to Pavé, usually three, and he’ll reward you with an item from the Pavé series of furniture. If you find a rare rainbow-colored feather, all you have to do is bring him one of those to get an item. Also, you can interact with your villagers to trade feathers or win them in mini-games, such as charades and rock, paper, scissors.

Now, I totally missed out on both the Harvest Festival and Toy Day due to the fact that both of those fall on the respective U.S. holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas, and that time is spent traveling and drinking wine and being full of food. By the time I had turned on my 3DS, the events were all over–which is a shame. And not. But it is heart-twisting to miss out on these special moments and the chance to earn some rare pieces of furniture. And so I decided to make the most out of Festivale as I could, running up and down and all around Arni in search of the specific feathers, trading when I can, and dumping not needed items on the ground to save inventory space. It’s actually harder than it sounds, as the feather drop rate–slowly falling rate?–is low, and you can never predict who has what color of feathers and are willing to trade. Seemed like any time I had three of one color, Pavé wanted three of a completely different shade. I’d say I put a total of three hours of devotion into this grinding task and came away with about half of the Pavé items for it.

Here’s a list of what I ultimately earned:

• Pavé Bed
• Pavé Bookshelf
• Pavé Bureau
• Pavé Chair
• Pavé Chest
• Pavé Closet
• Pavé End Table
• Pavé Floor
• Pavé Lamp
• Pavé Sofa
• Pavé Table
• Pavé Wall
• Pavé Clock

Grr. Waah. I think I have duplicates of the Pavé chair and table if anyone wants to trade. Otherwise, I gotta wait a whole year now to try again, and that stinks as I also happen to really love the look of this series. It has a sort of retro kitchen cabin-like look to it, with the blue and white. I’d save the multitude of feathers I still have in my pockets, but my storage space is actually quite limited as is, so I think I’ll save a green feather to wear and sell the rest. Oh well. Until next time, you beautiful picture of a peacock!

Brothers, a tale of two analog control sticks

Many might think it is strange that I immediately went from Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon to Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, but that’s just how I roll sometimes. Kind of needed a bit of a palette cleanser, if you will, from the outlandish exploits of Rex Powercolt. And boy did I get it, both from a story and tone perspective, but also from a control scheme. See, I constantly kept messing up which was the grenade button in Blood Dragon, as it always seems to switch between the shooters I play and have played, like Borderlands 2, Gears of War, and Grand Theft Auto V. There is still plenty of confusion to experience in Brothers, but it never has to do with tossing grenades; I’ll explain in a bit.

Brothers is a game that, not surprisingly, revolves around two brothers. One older, the other younger. They live in a nameless fairytale-like world, which more than likely means death and a lesson is right around the corner. Alas, their father is very sick and dying, and the two boys decide to venture off into the wild in search of a very unique and rare medicine, one that can hopefully save the man that raised them. That really is the meat of the story–two siblings battling the elements to save their father’s life–and while it is pretty simple from a plot perspective, it is delicately handled, with love and care and admiration. You could even almost name Starbreeze Studios as the third brother, looking for the other two.

What makes Brothers stand out, for me, is its control scheme and dedication to not speaking a comprehensible word while still being able to tell a coherent story. We’ll start on the former of those two. Each of the two brothers is controlled by one dual stick; that means there is no switching between them, you are controlling both at all times. If I recall correctly, the older brother is the left stick and left trigger, and the other brother commands the right stick and right trigger. The nameless brothers can each perform unique interactions in the environment, such as swimming or climbing up a ladder, and the game’s puzzles revolve mostly around traversal and using these mechanics in tandem.

A couple months before I played Brothers, I also tried out a little ibb and obb. That’s an indie puzzle platformer on PSN with a very similar control scheme, though it does allow for a second player to control one of the two colored blobs, but I went at it solo and nearly broke my brain. Trying to use both sticks at the same time was quite difficult when precise timing and jumping was at hand. Thankfully, since Brothers is slower paced and much more lax, I was able to control both bodies just fine, except for one area where they are tied together with string, and you have to use them in a steady, physics-based rhythm. Also, there’s a hang-gliding sequence that proved problematic until I figured out how to properly tilt left and right just enough to turn without tumbling down to the ground.

Like many, I played through the entire game in one sitting…and didn’t earn a single stupid, trivial Trophy. I love that. Good on the developers. Evidently, the unlockable Trophies are hidden off the main path and demand that you truly explore the world as you come across it. I thought there might have been on for sitting at every bench, but nothing came of that, and when I find some free time down the line, I think I’ll return to Brothers and take it even slower, scouring the levels for these extra slices of interactivity and the vacuous ping of an unlocked digital picture. This also means I get to spend more time listening to the literally soaring soundtrack again, and that’s fine by me.

Brothers is not a very long or happy journey, about three to four hours, but it is a memorable one. It’s driven by love and compassion, and contains some strikingly gloomy and beautiful visuals that will give you pause, that foreshadow events to come and flesh out the world. There’s a moment near the conclusion of the journey that hits you like a rolling boulder, but I wish it lasted longer, as the impact of all that is quickly swept away by the final cutscene of the game and everything ending. Regardless, this one comes highly recommended.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon stole my neon-glowing cyber-heart

Well, this was unexpected. Over the course of just a few days, I burned through nearly everything Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon had to offer, and I loved every minute of it. Well, just about. Trying to kill a cyber-shark with a grenade was tedious and based around luck, and some of the “save the scientist” side missions required too much perfect planning to pull off effectively, but otherwise–this was a whole lot of fun. And yes, I find that very strange, considering I’ve never wanted anything to do with the mainstay Far Cry franchise, even the newest one that Blood Dragon takes its engine and mechanics from.

The crazy, totally 1980s-influenced story goes a little like this: Rex Powercolt, a Mark IV Cyber Commando, is on a mission to save the world from the corrupt and evildoings of Colonel Ike Sloan and his Omega Squad. This all takes place in a post-Vietnam War II world, brimming with neon and enhanced super soldiers, as well as a dragon or two. To stop Sloan, Powercolt must go on an epic quest of killing, sneaking, commandeering, and straight-up loving, becoming the badass super soldier he was constructed to be. It’s a bombastic story, but one backed by history, and if you have an appreciation for the genre and era, as I do, having been a boy that watched every single American Ninja film that came out, it’s wonderfully delightful without being stupidly cheesy.

I downloaded Blood Dragon because it was not Far Cry 3, and by that I mean, sure, it looked visually different from the green-and-blue tropical jungle setting where tigers roam and waterfalls fall, but it also wasn’t focused on shooting real people/animals with real guns in a realistic manner, something I have an aversion to. I’d rather shoot super soldiers with a laser beam powered by the amount of health bars I have. It’s not an expansion or piece of DLC; it’s an appetizing, alternate take on sound mechanics, for those that grew up in an era when action heroes spoke gruffly and took on the seemingly impossible. Oh, and all that is backed by a throbbing, synth-heavy soundtrack, that spasms and perfectly sets the mood and kicks into action whenever Powercolt himself, well, kicks into action.

Like a delicious mix of Fallout 3 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Blood Dragon lets you both run into scenarios guns blazing or be a sneaky, stealthy ninja, taking down enemy soldier quietly from the shadows. Naturally, I prefer the latter until shit hits the fan, and then it’s easy enough to mow enemies down and still be standing at the end of it thanks to an overwhelmingly generous healing system. Easy, but not as much fun. Stealth options include silent kills from behind, attacks from above, bow and arrows, and so on, and you can even chain a stealth kill to another using a throwing star. Tricky to pull off, but when it does, you really feel like a commando that knows the game. When you tag an enemy, you can track their movements, even through walls, which I loved and gave me a bizarre sense of comfort and security, just at least knowing where everyone was in the building.

Truthfully, I was surprised how short and to the point the main story missions in Blood Dragon were. I think there was six or seven of them total, and they aren’t anything more than go here, shoot stuff, protect this guy, shoot stuff, shoot stuff, ride this thing, and shoot more stuff. The real fun, at least for me, is in exploring the island and the side stuff, collecting VHS tapes and TV sets, all of which do factor into unlocking new gear and upgrades. You can buy maps that tell you where each collectible is, and you just have to work out how to get there. Commandeering the garrisons is the real meat of the side activity work, and I would often spend upwards of half an hour trying to take one as quietly as possible; the key is to first destroy the alarm system, so no reinforcements can be called in. They also work as quick travel spots when they become yours, which makes moving around the map much swifter.

Hmm. Let’s see. There are still a couple of Trophies left to unlock, but I think I could really only get two more of them. Can’t remember which enemies I have “headshotted” and which I haven’t, so I will just stick to killing a few more dragons, earning some coin, and buying the rest of the weapon upgrades before finally putting Blood Dragon to bed for good. I may not be looking forward to the next installment in the Far Cry franchise, but I am looking forward to whatever weird, offbeat spin-off comes from it.

Winnose, a surreal puzzle game starring half of a moai statue

All right. Deep breath. I’m going to do my best to explain Adult Swim’s Winnose without sounding like a complete crazy goof loose on buckets of acid, but it’s going to be a tough crawl. See, the great Winnowing has devastatingly split the world in two, including you, a moai statue, causing your flower to lose some precious petals. Hopefully you can find your missing pieces and get the world back to a more relaxed, unified kind of life, though that might require a little time-traveling. Spoiler: that’s not going to be a problem.

Created by Todd Luke and Calum Bowen, Winnose is undoubtedly a surreal experience. A fever dream come to life, one you just can’t stop bobbing your head to. It’s half a puzzle game and half a chance to show off its fantastic, flighty soundtrack, ranging from a soft, acoustic lick sung to you by a chicken to an eclectic mix of percussion and culminating with a bouncy, hyperactive J-pop track set out in space. Not lying about any of those things, I swear. This game goes places, carrying you on clouds of strange and unique sounds, certainly ones I don’t get to hear too often.

Playing Winnose is actually quite simple in that your control scheme is limited. You can move around in four directions only via the arrow keys…and that’s it. There’s no jump, no attack, no hold X to charge up your sword for a killer swipe, etc. The main gameplay goal is to reach the screen’s exit; enemies move according to specific patterns or special rules, and the moai head just needs to get by them without making contact. It’s pretty easy in the beginning, but the rules eventually stack, and there’s a lot more to consider later on as you enter and exit different portals. Regardless, I never got stuck for too long, and trial and error works well enough for figuring out the exact path you need to take to move on.

There’s a strange theme in Winnose, and I’m not even talking about its psychedelic, shroom-munching lining. No. There are constant references to, obviously, noses. First and foremost, the name of the game. You hear someone sneeze in one of the early songs, two tracks are called “Snot My Problem” and “Calm Before the Sneeze”, and the final boss battle has you…well, it’s again, without spoiling that truly special moment, related to sneezing. I don’t know if I missed something earlier, but I guess I can only take away from all this that the Winnowing was caused by some giant sneeze. Or maybe it all means something more.

But yeah, if you’re looking for a one-of-a-kind experience and have an hour or two to kill, I urge you all to play Winnose. It’s free and can be sampled in your browser over at Adult Swim’s game page. I evidently missed out a chance to do a super secret speed run after beating it, so I’ll probably be going back real soon; really, I’ll take any excuse I can get to lose myself in this colorfully bizarre state of an underworld, where the beats never stop, not even after you pull yourself together.

Some JRPGs demand you grind from the get-go

I finally got around to trying out that free and standalone-like 3DS demo for Bravely Default: Flying Fairy last night, but this post is not going to be explicably about that game. I need more time with it to both figure out my thoughts and overall opinions, as well as to decide on whether or not I’ll pick up the full retail copy, which drops today. I suspect I will, whether I love or loathe the demo to pieces, because these kind of strange JRPGs are far and few between, and my thinking is that by supporting it with a purchase, I’m helping to make strides towards a North American release for Fantasy Life. Wishful thinking, sure…but it’s better than doing nothing.

But Bravely Default got me thinking about the various RPGs and JRPGs that really make you grind for levels and money from the very start, because, at least in the demo, it downright demands you do it. The very first fight outside of town resulted in one character in my party of four dead, two badly hurt and poisoned, and the remaining member okay at half of his HP. I’m on the default–pun intended–level of difficulty, and I’m pretty good at turn-based combat, but I don’t think I have the whole brave and default techniques down just yet. That said…yowzas. The combat is brutally tough, and so for my first hour and change with the demo, I’ve just been going back and forth to the inn to heal up, fight monsters in the desert, and rinse and repeat until my eyelids grow too heavy to keep playing. It’s honestly not terrible, as I’m used to grinding, but I always find it strange when a game makes it impossible to progress without it at the very beginning of the journey. Let me list a few other examples.

One of my fondest gaming memories, just in general, always comes back to Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King. See, when I moved out of my parents’ house and up to northern New Jersey for my newly acquired post-college job, I lived off the grid for several months, relying on previously purchased videogames and DVDs for nightly entertainment while I held off on getting cable and Internet. DQVIII filled that space greatly, but it’s a slow game, and you do have to grind for a little bit in the very beginning at the Waterfall Cave section, otherwise the final boss of that area can wipe your party out quite quickly. If I recall, there’s a small section of healing water you can keep drinking from to restore your team’s health, making this place perfect for grinding, and, at the time, it certainly seemed necessary.

Dragon Fantasy (Book 1) is made up of three different storylines and a strange one-off inspired by all things Minecraft. Ignoring the latter and focusing on the former, of the three separate but connected plots, one storyline, by its very design, requires you to grind a whole bunch before you can even get to the first dungeon and safely explore it at a decent clip. In Ogden’s storyline, he is an old, washed-up man out to make a name for himself again, but that means fighting all the battles by himself, which is slower and more grindy than the other two campaigns. It meant fighting battles until Ogden was nearly out of health, run to the nearest inn, spend some gold to heal, and go back out to do it all over again. Not the most exciting time, but I ended up playing a lot of Dragon Fantasy (Book 1) while watching Netflix or Giant Bomb videos.

The first hour or so of Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is both magical and devastating, and not just because something terrible happens to Oliver’s mother. I’m talking about the area just outside the Golden Grove. It still gives me the shivers to this day. The monsters here are so powerful and aggressive that your small team of nobody really doesn’t stand a chance, and so you have two options: run and hope to avoid every fight, or go back into the woods and grind a bit for levels, money, and health-restoring items. Naturally, me being me, I ran for it. Which was not very successful for the first few attempts, though I did eventually get out of the area, only to find myself in an even more dangerous spot, though much more suited for grinding.

Oh boy. Now, truthfully, I only stopped playing Phantasy Star II because the cold weather is here, and the Xbox 360 is in the living room, which gets no heat for the whole horrid season, and so it must wait until the snow melts before I can get back into it. And by it, I naturally mean grinding for levels and much-needed moolah while trying to figure out exactly where to go next. Thankfully, the music is so good that it makes grinding more pleasant than not, but it took me forever just to reach the first Bio-Systems Lab areas.

Hey, remember Eternal Sonata? I sometimes do. Beautiful grass in that game, and it’s not every day you come across an RPG so heavily themed and dedicated to that theme. I mean, really…Polka is a terrible name for a young girl. But whatever. Every now and then, I think about going back and playing it some more. But that would mean starting over because I got to that ghost ship section and found myself severely under-leveled with no hope of gaining enough levels quick enough to defeat…uh, the boss Captain Dolce. From reading up some walkthroughs, it sounds like I messed up and didn’t spend enough time aimlessly grinding when I could. Oh well.

I’m sure if I spent some more time looking through my collection I could come up with another five to ten RPGs that are grind-heavy early on, but I need to end this post somewhere. If you have one I missed talking about, let me know about it in the chat! That is, if you can spare some time away from your efficient, but meticulous level-gaining strategy.