Everything is still coming up scary in Silent Hill 2

I like horror movies, but I keep my distance–as much as I can–from horror videogames. I don’t even think I can count on one hand how many horror-based games I’ve really truly played over the many years of my button-pressing time. Sure, a few Resident Evil titles here and there, and you yourself can decide if a game like BioShock is more scare than shooter–personally, I found it completely unnerving to get through, unlike the tamer BioShock Infinite. I gave both Penumbra Overture and Amnesia: Dark Descent a quick try, but immediately got the frak out of there, as it seemed too genuinely terrifying for me to experience. I would also argue that some quests in Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim could certainly be considered horrific and had me creeping around cave corners at a snail’s pace.

All that said: Silent Hill 2. It’s a game that’s been in my collection for seemingly forever, and I’ve taken a stab at it maybe three or four times, getting roughly a few hours in before walking away for a number of reasons. Mostly in that I always screw myself and end up saving before a hallway full of monsters with no bullets left and no more first aid kits. That, more or less, equals death or starting completely over. I’ve always liked the Silent Hill series–yes, even that first movie, which nailed the setting and crazy monsters–though I’ve really only played the first and second game out of all them, but I appreciate what they aim to achieve: a realized, fictitious setting filled with the most insane-looking demonic creatures and a constant sense of uncertainty.

Despite being a twelve-year-old game (released in 2001, yowza), I am finding Silent Hill 2 to still be effectively frightening. Though that statement generally only applies to when you’re inside a building. The story centers around James Sunderland, who enters the titular town after receiving a letter written by his deceased wife, saying she is waiting for him in their “special place”–which he believes is a park they used to frequent. Joined by Maria, who strongly resembles his dead wife, he searches for her through fog and freaks to discover the truth about her death. Wandering mostly alone through a creepy town occupied by monsters and less-than-trustworthy folk is not an easy trek, especially when backed by the wonderfully unhinging soundtrack and creature cackles.

Tara’s helping me play and making sure I don’t quit, as I could easily walk away at any moment, but there is a part of me, which is fairly miniscule, that does want to see what happens in Silent Hill 2 after the first four hours or so. I’ve only ever gotten up to the Brookhaven Hospital in all my tries. Currently, that’s where I am, so now comes the true test, to see if I can keep going. One thing I will fully admit to is looking up puzzle solutions via an online guide, as I have always found them to be too cryptic for their own good; that’s at least one roadblock diminished, and the main hurdles for me are the combat and not breaking my controller over how bad the camera angles are. Dynamic my booty.

Strangely, the game also presents a lot of opportunities for laughter, such as when James was running down Nathan Avenue and monsters were being unsuspectingly catapulted at him like flaming boulders from the blindness of the fog; I have to imagine that’s a glitch, but can’t seem to find anything online to back that claim up. When James and Maria run together, their footsteps sound like a horse in full trot. Also, the voice acting is atrocious, but thankfully there isn’t much of it, and the story can tell itself mostly with scenery and straightforward text.

I feel like, if I can beat Silent Hill 2, I can do anything. Like tackle Dead Space or Silent Hill 3 or Slender. Nah, I’m just kidding. I’m going to immediately return to sunny, colorful Japanese roleplaying games, and you can’t stop me. But you never know what the future holds.

Grinding Down’s Chrono Cross week – Miscellaneous

Well, here we are, at the end of Grinding Down‘s Chrono Cross week. Hope you’ve enjoyed my wee analytical posts so far, and I definitely have other videogames I’d love to examine piece by piece like so somewhere down the line. Maybe Suikoden II, perhaps? Super Metroid? Unlimited SaGa?! That last one was a joke, for those scratching their noggins.

Anyways, I’ve now covered what I consider to be the big four topics when talking about this classic Squaresoft RPG: story, characters, the battle system, and music. This final blog post is meant to be a grab-all in terms of smaller topics to cover, as I still–surprise, surprise–have things to talk about when it comes to all the parts that make up the unconventional puzzle that is Chrono Cross. Hopefully I’ll touch upon everything I want to here, as I’d like to move away from the game for a bit, let it quiet down in my skull, and start tackling the next game on my list of “must beat in 2013,” which is probably going to be Silent Hill 2.

That said, on with the further musings.

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Window Frames

I remember fondly changing the color of the window frame in Final Fantasy VII from that default blue to a soft green to a zany gradient-inspired explosion of rainbow colors and loving it for the remainder of Cloud’s journey to take down Sephiroth. I wish more games allowed for fun, optimal customization like this. Now, in Chrono Cross, you can’t change the color of your dialogue box, but you can find special frames to replace the standard one. Personally, most of them are ugly as heck, but I did try out the My Favorite Martian and Shellfish frames for a tiny bit, but eventually switched back to something less eye-busting. It’s more fun finding the frames than using them, but it’s nice to the have option nonetheless.

Money

For the most part, money is useless in Chrono Cross. You acquire it with every battle, but you barely spend any of it, and I suspect that, even if you tried, you’d find difficulty in emptying your pockets completely. I wish I had written down how much I had by the end of the game, but it was probably in the 120,000 to 150,000 range, and when you consider that most Elements cost less than 500, with the highest going for maybe around 3,000, well…you have plenty of money to splurge on other things. If only other things existed or were worth it. Which leads me to our next topic of discussion…

Forging/Disassembling

In certain towns, you can speak to blacksmiths who can help forge weapons, armor, and accessories for Serge and his companions. Later on, you also get an item to allow you to do this out on the overworld map. To forge something, you need some a paltry sum of money (see above) and the correct components, and then boom, you have a new thing. Some components are harder to come by, like mythril and rainbow shell, but for the most part, you can make a lot of stuff just using items won from battle. The long and short of this all though is that these weapons and armor are not worth going the extra mile, and some are actually found in various dungeons. There are a few good accessories to make though. Disassembling breaks down weapons, armor, and accessories you’re not using into components, but you’re better off saving them for when you need to equip a new character you haven’t used yet with gear.

Component trading

Um…I have never even attempted to figure this out. Basically, you trade a certain number of Element levels for things like eyeballs, feathers, and scales. Again, just doesn’t seem worth the effort, and trading in useful Elements for components you can earn in battle which are only used for forging items, which I just mentioned are not needed…well, I…wait. What was I saying again? Um, just skip this.  There are two of these trader types, anyways, so they are easy to miss. The first appears in both Guldove and Termina (Another), and the other is in Zappa’s house in Termina (Home).

New Game+

I don’t do many New Game+, mostly because nowadays I just don’t have the time. Though some games like Borderlands 2 really make it worth the effort, offering more things to see and do and become. Chrono Trigger has New Game+, but I’ve not gone back since I beat it last year, and I doubt I will try the New Game+ in Chrono Cross.

I love this RPG, truly I do–it’s just I don’t see what the point is other than viewing alternate endings. Sure, now is a great time to go back and get all the characters you missed out on during your first run because you picked Kid over Leena or Nikki over Guile, but as I lamented earlier this week, those side characters are pretty thin personality-wise. The game will play out the same way–until the ending, depending on when you fight the TimeDevourer–so that’s not very exciting to see all over, though you can speed up the gameplay to fast-forward cutscenes and so on. Let me take that one step further and fast forward us over to YouTube to watch all the different endings and save us hours upon hours.

I suspect I will return to Chrono Cross some time down the line, but not for a long while. Couple of years, at least. And when I do, I’ll probably just play it again from the beginning on a blank save slot–because that’s how I roll. I’m thrilled to have finally experienced it as fully as I could, but now I need to move on and let this experience reside quietly in my brain until something stirs it from its slumber. When that time comes, someone please remind me to ditch Kid early on and see what world-traveling life with fishing girl-next-door Leena is like. Okay, okay…I’ll give Poshul a fair chance, too.

Grand Theft Auto III, my college days landmark in videogames

Everyone was going crazy for Grand Theft Auto V yesterday, which I guess makes total sense, considering that’s when it released to the foaming-at-the-mouth world. Personally, I’ve not been interested in GTA games for a long while, and my strongest emotions for the series revolve around Grand Theft Auto III, and that’s because I consider that–without a doubt–my college game. No other game save for Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, which came out a year later, reminds me so strongly of my dorm days, of long weekends avoiding papers and drinking the night away. Though the latter title also makes me think of shoulder-high snow walls and a desperate grab for mac and cheese, but I’ll save that tale for another time…

In 2001, I was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed freshman in college, a hopeful art major at that, and my suite-mates got a copy of GTA III for their PS2 the day it dropped. At that time, I was still clinging to my PS1 and treasured copy of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, but college is all about sharing, and so we’d huddle together in our tiny, cramped dorm rooms and just lose ourselves in Liberty City, each taking turns never really doing any missions. It was all about stealing cars and running from the cops and watching your vehicle fall to pieces as your getaway plan went from grand to gravel as you smashed into everything in your way. That game encouraged emergent gameplay at every turn and rewarded you with a good time laughing like loons with friends.

Last night, I decided to remind myself of those golden days, popping in Grand Theft Auto III into my still-chugging PlayStation 2. Actually, first I checked my memory cards to see if I had any saved data on them, but alas, no. Not for any of my PS2 GTA games, which is a bummer as I distinctly remember getting pretty far into Vice City. Anyways, story-wise, the game begins with the silent criminal Claude being betrayed by his girl Catalina and getting arrested. After being sentenced to 10 years in prison, Claude  is transported across a bridge in a prison truck, which the Colombian Cartels fortuitously ambush. From there, Claude escapes and makes ties with the Leone mafia crime family as he tries to build himself back up in order to find Catalina and learn why she abandoned him.

I kind of forgot how purposely blurry the cutscenes in Grand Theft Auto III are. They actually really hurt my eyes, enough so that I had to look away during the opening moments, and I have to assume that 2001 Paul saw them as amazing and cinematic. After that, I found the game easy to pick up, and just as easy to go off the rails with, which is my favorite thing to do. I did the first few missions, which all act like tutorials. You drive and pick up a hooker, you drive over to some guy and beat the life out of him with a baseball bat, and you steal a car and get it repainted so the cops won’t know any better. After that, I drove around a bit, listened to some radio chatter, and explored the streets, which are pretty barren by today’s standards. Oh, and I noticed that the cars fall apart super fast. Like, two or three hits/collisions and you’re smoking and stalling in the middle of the road. Also, Liberty City is littered with trash. I think this was Rockstar’s way to try and fill in the empty spots, but it is weird to see the same piece of newspaper flittering by Claude every five seconds. We can also blame the limitation of the PS2 though, I guess. Maybe I’ll dip back into Vice City or San Andreas at some point, too.

Anyways, back to current affairs. Grand Theft Auto V looks like fun. Really, it does. I like the idea of three main protagonists that you can bounce around from to progress the plot and take on different mission types. But there’s a rub. I absolutely hated my time with Grand Theft Auto IV–not bothering to link to any specific articles, but if you search around Grinding Down, you can certainly find some less-than-praising remarks from me about Niko and the difficulty that game throws at you unfairly–and calling back to GTA III, a lot of fun is playing the game with others and being goofy or laughing at all the mistakes. That forthcoming online aspect might be ripe for that. Or maybe not. Until then, I’m more likely to pick up Saints Row IV first, which is more my thing these days: a weird, funny game that embraces its weird and funny bits and doesn’t need a room full of onlookers to be immensely enjoyable.

Dragon Fantasy (Book 1) grinds just like the old days

The open honest truth is I never really played much of the old Dragon Quest games. Or even the early Final Fantasies, for that matter. Well, not until pretty recently. It does not–and did not–stem from genre disinterest, but rather wrong place and time; as a young gamer-boy living in the historic towne of Smithville, New Jersey, I was not bathing in countless games as I am now as an adult in this seemingly supersaturated industry. Please note that I’m not actually bathing at this very moment–I’m typing a blog post.

Anyways, this meant that when I got my single and sole cartridge for The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, I played it for hours on end, over and over, and I missed out on Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger and so on. There was only so much I could digest, and there are actually days where I yearn for being in that kind of protective, limiting bubble. But that doesn’t mean I’m completely knowledge-less about the JRPGs of yesteryear and can’t appreciate them for what they did then and there. I mean, c’mon. Have some faith. I write on a blog called Grinding Down for goodness sake.

Dragon Fantasy (Book 1) is a new JRPG designed by The Muteki Corporation in the style of those old RPGs for the NES, like Dragon Quest. It has simple graphics, random encounters, turn-based battles, and a straightforward plot involving a Dark Knight, castles, and a general evilness about. It’s split into three chapters and an intermission thingy, but so far, I’m still on chapter one, which focuses on Ogden,  a washed-up former hero getting back into the business of saving the world. Pretty typical stuff, but that’s the point here. Heck, you can even forgo slightly enhanced graphics and music for an 8-bit wash, which I checked out, but I actually prefer the former even if it doesn’t up the scales all that much.

I’m quite enjoying Dragon Fantasy (Book 1) so far, only a couple of hours into the first chapter. It’s got charm out the wazoo and some pretty amusing writing, coupled with a Wedge/Biggs reference from the word go. Heck, even grinding isn’t so bad, and yes, you’ll have to grind to progress, mostly because Ogden is alone for the battles in his chapter, needing to play both roles of fighter and healer. Basically, the pattern so far has been like this: grind a level or two, buy all the available weapons and armor, move on to the next town/cave area, and repeat. I do wish you could see how much XP you needed to earn for the next level increase, but alas, no. You can enhance the game’s movement speed up by like four or six times (I’m no mathematician) by pushing the Select button, which helps with the button-mashing grinding aspect, but is a bit too zippy when in a town or dungeon. However, I urge everyone to slow down when it comes to fighting a new monster type, as the writing for each monster is different and gleefully written, like in Dragon Quest IX and EarthBound. Not many puns so far, but I definitely chuckled at all of Mrs. Rock Monster’s descriptions.

Oh, and looks like Dragon Fantasy (Book 2) comes out…tomorrow! What timing. We’ll see how long it takes me to get through the first game though. These types of JRPG can go on for a bit, and no matter how endearing and fast-paced the battles are, one can only grind for so long before it begins to feel unrewarding, especially if there isn’t anything to spend that gold on after robbing every store clean for its goods.

“400 Days” bridges the gap and teases you along the way

Here’s the straight dope: I bought “400 Days,” the latest episode of Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead, the day it dropped on July 5. However, I did not play it immediately, and there are a couple of reasons for this. One, I was reeling–and still am–over the loss of Ryan Davis a few days prior, and two, I knew in my heart of hearts that this was no new full season, brimming with story and content that would linger with me just like Lee and Clem and Kenny have ever since the first season ended. It was created to whet one’s appetite, not sate it.

Two months later, I started up “400 Days” and played through it in a single sitting. Tara watched, too, as well as made a key decision during Vince’s slice. More on that later. Anyways, it’s not very long, but it’s fairly enjoyable, with two of the five character storylines really exciting and engaging. In the end, it does feel like a big tease for what’s yet to come; however, even a carrot on a string from Telltale Games is better than nothing, and certainly more enjoyable than some games I’ve played this year (see Fable III and The Cave).

“400 Days” takes place around Gil’s Pitstop, a truck stop set against a Georgia highway. You play through the point of views of five different survivors, with each story set at a different time since the dead began to walk. Some are right there at the beginning of the outbreak, and others have been at this game of live or don’t live for some time now. There’s Vince, an arrested criminal; Shel, a young woman taking refuge at the truck stop with her younger sister; Bonnie, a coming-clean junkie; Wyatt, along with his druggie friend, are trying to escape a man in a truck; and Russell, a young boy hitchhiking down the road. You can please these stories in any order, but that’s how I did ’em: Vince, Shel, Bonnie, Wyatt, and Russell. After you play all the individual stories, there’s an epilogue to experience, which hints at what will be happening in the next season of The Walking Dead, and who from “400 Days” will be there to live the tale.

I urge anyone that hasn’t played “400 Days” yet to begin with Vince’s story. It packs the most punch and feels the most chaotic, with some hard and harsh decisions to make. I left one of those to Tara, and we both now have to live with that choice, while someone else has to live without a certain appendage. It’s mostly set in a bus on its way to prison. Next, I’d suggest Bonnie, which features some fun conversation bits and a nifty stealth sequence set in a cornfield. The others you can kind of do in any order and are much tamer in terms of action, though all are consistent with the quality writing and gray characterization previously found in characters like Lee and Kenny. I particularly found myself hating Nate in the same way that one hates a villain in Game of Thrones.

You’ll notice that I have not delved too deeply into the details about each of the survivors and their respective stories. It’s not that there isn’t much to share, but rather you should really experience it for yourself, in your own way. Though I wouldn’t blame you if you waited until the night before The Walking Dead‘s season two dropped to do it. Otherwise, you’ll be hungrier than some of the zombies you cross in this short, but sweet tease. And now I wait, stomach all a-grumble.

Stumbling around unhappily in Dead Rising 2

Over the weekend, some friends showed me a thing called Highschool of the Dead, which follows a group of high school students caught in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. The anime, not the manga, mind you. It’s more or less your typical zombie survival story, but set in a Japanese school and frequently punctuated with gratuitous panty shots and boob bouncing, there to mix and mingle with the violent bloodshed and tense drama. I may or may not watch more of it in the future, but regardless, it got me thinking about zombies again, reminding me that I had two zombie-related videogames downloaded on my Xbox 360, just waiting for my warm hands: The Walking Dead’s “400 Days” and Dead Rising 2.

I decided to see what Dead Rising 2 was all about first. Having only played the demo for Dead Rising way back when, all I know about this franchise is that there are a ton of zombies to kill, and they often block your way from point A to point B. You can use a variety of weapons, some effective and others less than so, and you earn PP by creatively killing zombies, which helps you level up, gain more skills, and unlock new combo cards. That sounds okay to me, if a bit mindless (pun intended). Throw in some Capcom goofiness, and we’re good to go.

No, wait. Hold up, corpse-face. I did play Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, a prequel to Dead Rising 2. It was a four- to five-hour experience that…I don’t remember much about. Oops, my bad. In the end, I wrote that it was worth getting over a sandwich, which is like crazy talk. Dead Rising 2 picks up a couple of years after the events in Case Zero, with Chuck Greene and his daughter trying to survive in Fortune City, which is now swarmed by the undead. He’s been framed for a crime he did not commit, and as you go about trying to clear your name you will rescue survivors, build weapons, give Katey some Zombrex every 24 hours, and kill the walking dead (or just run past them).

To be honest, I’m not having as much fun as I did in Case Zero. In fact, I’m finding the main game to be extremely frustrating and a wee bit unfair. Or maybe I don’t know how to go to the bathroom often enough to save my progress, but I’ve already lost an hour or so of gameplay time after getting stuck in a swarm of zombies with no health left. There are no checkpoints or auto-saves happening, so it is all in your hands to keep on top of that. I either need to make better saving decisions or just not play Dead Rising 2.

When you’re not following the main story missions, you are free to explore Fortune City until something becomes available. Generally, you will be killing zombies in your way and helping others in peril. These, from what I’ve seen, are more or less escort missions, and they are absolutely the worst. Most of the survivors are horrible runners, often getting caught in a zombie’s arms, and they lose health fast. Also, if you swing at the zombie biting them and accidentally hit them in the process, they will die. Don’t ask me how I know this.

I’m still in Act 1 for Dead Rising 2, not having fun, but I’ll try playing some more and see if I can get anywhere. I think I just might no longer attempt to save anyone, as it is really more of a hassle than anything else. I know you get some extra PP bonus or whatever, but man. I just don’t know. If there was no time limit, I’d just like to run around the casinos, finding fun and silly ways to annoy zombies before knocking their heads off. If only…

Slaughter the bourgeois with speed in Proletarian Ninja X

It’s probably a really good thing that I don’t follow game jams too closely, especially after they end. Instead, I pick up a name or two of an interesting title to check out from some other source (usually Indie Statik), do so, play for a bit, write a thing, and happily move on. Otherwise, these things are like bottomless pits, and you could spend days trying them all out to see which ones click and which ones sink. Truthfully, I had intended to look at more creations from Ludum Dare 26, after enjoying Gods Will Be Watching and TOOM, but then I blinked, and here we are now looking at games from the next game jam session: Ludum Dare 27. Really, where does the time go?

First up is Proletarian Ninja X. It is 1930, and capitalists seem to have taken over Earth. You are the Proletarian Ninja X, and your mission is to kill every single one of them. There’s a problem though; your “kill list” is as long as I am tall, and you only have 10 seconds total to kill all the fat cats in the room. Left-clicking with your mouse moves the ninja and kills a snootypant when next to them, and right-clicking throws a shuriken with deadly intent. All the rich have enlightened cones that show where they are looking, and if they spot you or another dead body, it’s game over. Thankfully, it’s very Super Meat Boy-like in starting you over again quickly, so while you might make many mistakes, it is easy to learn from them.

Everything about Proletarian Ninja X is amazingly polished. Evidently, deepnight has participated in game jams before with many successes, and it shows. In fact, I’ve already played one of their (his? her?) games before: Last Breath from Ludum Dare 22. Anyways, moving the ninja from room to room and over desks is easy and tight, the sound effects are wonderfully pleasing, especially when you kill a rich fella, and the pixelated art style fits very well for all that mass murder. That 10 seconds really makes every action count, and you will quickly learn this, as the difficulty seems to ramp up on like the third room. I got to the fifth room and gave up after failing to chop all those high and mighty to bits fast enough without getting caught. This is no Mark of the Ninja (or even Super Ninja Slash), where you can wait almost indefinitely to make your move, but I think the time restraint forces you to try different tactics and makes that final kill all the more rewarding.

I’m looking forward to popping back into this later, and I could totally see this evolving into a full-fledged title. Though I’d like to see some larger rooms with a longer time limit, maybe 30 seconds or so, just to allow for some hesitation and pre-planning. Either way, really good stuff. Always fun to give the upper class their just desserts.

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron is Biblical apocrypha in videogame form

Back in March 2013, there was a random sale on the Xbox Games on Demand marketplace section hub, and the cheapest deal among reduced prices was $2.50 for El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. I knew nothing about the game, but it had an intriguing–if long-winded–name, and a couple of screenshots told me that I was guaranteed to play something at least visually striking. So I pulled the trigger, promptly downloaded 6 GB of unknown stuff, and played the first two chapters, unsure of what to make of things. Several months later, I came back to the game and burned through the remaining chapters over a couple of nights, and I’m still unsure of what to think. I like a lot of El Shaddai, but some aspects are of the fun-ruining frustrating ilk.

The game’s plot is heavily inspired by the apocryphal Book of Enoch, which follows Enoch, a scribe searching for seven fallen angels in hopes of preventing a great flood from destroying mankind. He is helped in this epic quest by Lucifel, a guardian angel in charge of the protection of the world who exists outside of the flow of time, and four Archangels. However, there’s a modern spin here, as Lucifel, voiced by an unrecognizable Jason Isaacs, uses a cell phone to converse with God, and several levels are set in a futuristic, Tron-like cityscape. Basically, you are trying to climb a tower, defeating fallen angels on each level, until you get to the top, to defeat the fallenest of all angels and save the world from the wrath of…God? Satan? Y’know, to be honest, I don’t really know which is the opposing force in this game.

Gameplay is mostly hack-and-slash action in the same vein as Devil May Cry, with the ability to knock an enemy in the air and juggle them with sword swipes. Er, sorry–I mean arch swipes. Enoch gets three different weapon types as he progresses: an arch for quick slashes, a gale for ranged attacks, and a veil for slow, but devastatingly powerful punches capable of shattering weapons. You can pull off some combos, as well as steal an enemy’s weapon to replace your own and take them down a notch. I found fighting Gale-wielding enemies to be the most challenging, but you eventually learn all the patterns. For bosses, it’s all about patience and waiting for an opening to attack. If you do die, you can mash some of the buttons repeatedly to revive yourself, and on Normal difficulty, you could do this four or five times, which made getting through some unrelenting fights possible.

Visually, El Shaddai is a delight. Every chapter offers something completely different, and the best-looking stuff can be found in the interim platforming levels connecting two chapters. There’s one section early on that I found myself smiling through its entirety, despite the challenge being presented. There’s a lot of pinks and purples and watercolor-like washing for background skies, as well as strange geometry throughout. Enoch and Lucifel have a pretty stylized, hair-billowing anime look to them, though I found most of the fallen angels to be boring design-wise considering they all wear the same getup for most of their battles.

Two things really bothered me with El Shaddai, and they both have nothing to do with its religious slant. One: the platforming sucks. Like, no. It’s some of the worst. You can barely tell where Enoch is going to land when he jumps, and the controls are so twitchy that, oftentimes, you’d still fall off a platform after getting there in one piece. Considering that platforming is how you move from one event to another, it needed to be tighter. Two: there’s no indication on-screen of how much damage Enoch was able to take, and how hurt the bosses were. Most of the time, it was impossible to tell, and some weapons are ineffective against certain foes and armor, causing me to second guess my choices. Strangely, after you beat the game, you are given the ability to turn on health gauges for Enoch and bosses. Yeah, that’s a bit boggling.

I will not be going back to play El Shaddai on a higher difficulty, but there’s an Achievement or two left that seem feasible. Otherwise, a gorgeous game with a plot that’s hard to concentrate on, given that the screen is just one explosion of artistic beauty after another. Play it to see.

Friendly fire is not be tolerated in Battlefield 3, so they say

When it comes to war-based videogames, I’ve always kept my distance. This is a twofer: a severe disinterest in using a digital gun modeled after a real-life version and shooting a digital person modeled after a real-life counterpart, and stories that all seem to blend together, usually constructed around the ideas of straight-up terrorism and accented patriotism. It’s not that I don’t love the country I live in, it’s just that I don’t love it enough to want to blast open someone’s face with an M16A4 and then high-five my buddy and toss back a beer.

In all honesty, I can count the number of interactions I’ve had with war-based videogames on a single hand. First, I once dabbled in Battlefield 1942 back in my summers off during the college days, as a friend then constantly had it running at his house, and all you ever had to do was sit down in front of the computer and start playing. I was never any good, but we always had a laugh when trying to fly a plane only to end up crashing three seconds after takeoff. Think I also watched some friends play SOCOM. Then there was that time I tried out the demo for…um, it was a Call of Duty game on the Xbox 360, but I really don’t remember which one. There was snow and falling in snow and maybe infiltrating an airbase of some kind. Maybe Modern Warfare 2? And my third dip into the political warfare pool has been with Battlefield 3, given out for free the other month to PlayStation Plus members.

I found it to be a mindless, but educational experience. As well as reconfirming. Battlefield 3‘s single-player campaign is both traditional and not; the story it tells is generic “save the world from the bad guys” stuff, with you know who playing their respective roles, but its narrative structure will toss your mind overboard. You begin at the end, playing as Staff Sergeant Henry Blackburn in hot pursuit of a man behind some terrorist attacks. However, you then hop back to eight months before all this goes down, investigating a possible improvised explosive device in Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan. Things happen from there, and eventually you end up playing as a couple other characters, some shadier than others: Sgt. Jonathan “Jono” Miller, a M1 Abrams tank operator deployed in Tehran; Lt. Jennifer “Wedge” Colby Hawkins, an F/A-18F Super Hornet Weapon Systems Officer; and Dimitri “Dima” Mayakovsky, a Russian GRU operative. These side stories all eventually form a bigger picture. Levels are varied in location and objective, but more or less, other than driving a tank or flying a Super Hornet, you are running down a corridor, shooting enemies until they fall down.

So, the biggest thing I learned from my short time with Battlefield 3, and probably all other realistic-looking first-person shooters, is that I would make a terrible soldier. Now, it is common knowledge that my eyesight is worsening every day, but I got new glasses last year, upping my ability to see things father away much clearer. However, in a game with super realistic graphics and lighting and a lot of shadows, I had a hard time deciphering friend from enemy, often shooting a team member thinking they were evil. When you shoot a friendly person, a message pops up: FRIENDLY FIRE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED! This would alert me to my mistake, and I’d target somebody else. Further down in the mission, I’d get the message again. Rinse, shampoo, lather, whatever…and so on. Evidently, if you cause too much friendly fire damage, you’ll fail the mission, but I was never that consistent. To me, it felt like a warning that was never acted upon. That said, I’m glad I was allowed to get by with so many blind bullet mistakes because otherwise I might never have made it out of those darker levels.

Oh, and I’m not afraid to admit it: I played the game on Easy difficulty. That’s what it defaulted to, and so I kept it. Considering how fast you lose health and can frak a mission, I doubt I’d have gotten very far on a higher difficulty. I’ve not yet–and probably never will–touched the multiplayer aspect of Battlefield 3. Some wars just can’t be won.

Level-5’s short story about an attack of tokusatsu shows

Attack of the Friday Monsters! A Tokyo Tale is not really a game. It has a couple game-like elements to it, such as collecting glims to craft monster trading cards and battling with friends to gain power and superiority over them, but it’s more or less a short story about being a kid in a Tokyo suburb in the 1970s when tokusatsu shows were wildly popular. These are the type of television programming where giant monsters battle against larger-than-life heroes against a bustling city skyline. Think Kamen Rider and Power Rangers mixed with kaiju monster flicks like Gamera. I’m aware of them, but they’re not my kind of go-to entertainment choice…unless they are being poked and prodded by Joel and Crow via Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Anyways, after a total of three hours, I’m happy to have played Attack of the Friday Monsters!, but I wish it had been more. You control a young boy named Sohta living in a small town in the Tokyo suburbs. Your parents send you out on a simple delivery errand, with your Mom reminding you as you go that today is Friday, which means the monsters come out. She says it quite casually, and everyone in town is fine with the fact that this happens. As you explore the town, you meet some other kids and become friends with them. They teach Sohta how to play Monster Cards, which is based around Rock, Paper, Scissors, with some additional elements to it to determine ties. When you beat someone at Monster Cards, you become their master, now able to cast a silly spell on them to cause them to fall down dramatically. It’s pretty whimsical and innocent, reminding me a bit of my one time playing…you know, I no longer remember the name of the card game. Had something to do with spells and potions.

I played through Attack of the Friday Monsters! over two nights, but one could bang it out in a single setting. However, there is no reason to rush. Take your time and bask in the sereneness of the town, listen to the cicadas, watch the train chug on by. Setting is the star here. I found the story to be pretty light-hearted and teetering on nonsensical, but never offensive. There’s a couple of real cute moments, and keeping the Japanese voiceover work is always good. Also, that opening theme song is stellar. Quests overlap in the same style that mysteries opened and resolved in the Professor Layton series, and your reward for finishing up a task is always more glims. The monster cards are pretty cool looking in terms of art design, and you can combine multiple copies to increase the strength of one card, but other than that…the minigame is probably about 60% luck and 40% skill and never stressful or demanding that you grind for stronger cards. Just give it a go, and good luck.

The game’s titular attack was also a bit of a letdown, in how it ultimately played out. Visually, it’s a lot of fun. But honestly, I was expecting more giant monster stuff throughout, and there’s really only one instance of it, and you are basically a tiny part of the play. After the credits roll, you are placed back in town, free to run around and collect more glims, as well as battle your friends with Monster Cards. I did a quick tour of every place open once more to get what I could, but did not pick up any new quests to do, and so it seems like the only way now to get more glims is to win the card minigame over and over, which, if it was more like Tetra Master, I’d be into. Oh snap. But alas, it’s nothing to write home about.

So yeah, Attack of the Friday Monsters!, a really charming and peaceful tale about being a kid and creating your own world of fun–but just that. A tale.