Dive deeper, swim faster in Beneath the Waves

Beneath the Waves begins with, naturally, as all platforming-based videogames with a retro aesthetic should, the destruction of a romantic relationship. See, the Sun and the Ocean used to live in harmony, united, all smoochy smoochy, but have now fallen out. Well, the Sun wants its CDs back, and by CDs I of course mean precious gifts. You’ve been requested to gather these idols hidden beneath the waves–hey, that’s the name of the game wink wink–and return them to a series of pedestals high in the mountains. The trouble is, the Ocean and its denizens do not like this plan. Not one bit.

As mentioned above, Beneath the Waves is a platformer. Well, two types of platformer actually. There’s the part where you are on land, jumping from ledge to ledge, escalating higher into the sky to find the pedestals upon which you will place the returned idols. Then there’s the other part, in the water, where you are swimming and diving deep and avoiding dangerous schools of fish or heat-seeking sharks. The platforming underwater is actually more challenging than above the surface, as the little dude is able to cling to walls to reach higher ledges, but swimming past obstacles while the pressure is on requires a little more finesse and patience. I guess the best comparison I can make is that the swimming has a similar feel to arcade racing games–a little loose, with momentum an issue.

Controls in Beneath the Waves are fairly simple: use the arrow keys to move around, and [X] or up jumps. I stuck with [X], in case you wanted to know. Your main goal, to progress forward, is to find the idols deep down in the water, and thankfully you don’t need to worry about an oxygen bar as the main character can evidently breathe underwater indefinitely. Y’know, like Aquaman. As you search the underwater caverns for these idols, you’ll notice an abundance of friendly aquatic life that you can swim into without taking damage. However, once you pick up the idol, everything in the ocean changes and becomes your enemy. If you take too much damage, you drop the idol and need to swim back down and pick it up once more. Once you safely make it to the surface, you can bring the idol to a pedestal and open the gate to the next area, getting a sliver of interesting, if not entirely clear story-stuff the moment skin touches water again.

Rinse and repeat this a few times, with the underwater caverns becoming more twisted and maze-like as the game goes on. The above-ground platforming sections never really become too challenging, but the final boss fight against the Ocean’s biggest defender did force me to remain on my webbed toes, as this boss chases after you harder than any shark ever did, as well as steals back the final idol to its original location. The game does a good job of building up to this moment, so that you have all the necessary skills and knowledge readily available for you to succeed, though it took me a few tries.

It can be easy to dismiss Beneath the Waves as another one of those indie platformers with retro pixel graphics clearly made quickly for a game jam. Though Gregory Avery-Weir did make this initially for Ludum Dare under the title of simply Waves, before expanding on the idea. Still, the story is somewhat mystical, as well as something I’ve continued to think about in the days since playing it, and the swimming–when the sea creatures are not attacking you–is dreamy and fun and reminds me of the only reason I ever played Ecco the Dolphin, which was to dive deep and rocket-ship up out of the water in an epic, Sea World-worthy reveal. I’d say give this one a play if you’re looking for a different way to platform, under the sea.

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments is a crime, my punishment

I’ve seen one episode of the much lauded and Cumberbatch-starring Sherlock crime drama series, and even then I think I fell asleep towards the end of it. It wasn’t from total boredom, I swear. See, going into it, I wasn’t aware that every episode is basically a mini movie, clocking in at around 90 minutes. I was not prepared for this, thinking it would be much shorter, like a typical serialized drama (see Criminal Minds or Stranger Things), and starting the episode just before bed proved to be my undoing. One day, I’d like to watch more, but I haven’t reached that right one day yet.

In terms of videogames, I’ve never played one based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes detective stories, and there have been quite a few of them, especially from Frogwares. Well, I’m here to muse about Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments, the tenth entry in their series, which I and everyone else subscribing to a Gold membership on Xbox One got for free back in March 2016. Strange enough, a year earlier, I also got a free copy on my PlayStation 3 for PlayStation Plus, along with CounterSpy and Papo & Yo. Here’s an early spoiler: I’ve uninstalled both versions of the game.

Plot is actually a difficult thing to describe for this game. Mostly because there isn’t a main through-line. There’s an overarching story about group of terrorists called the Merry Men, who are attempting to overthrow the government and free the people of the United Kingdom from debt. It’s extremely minor in the grand scheme of things, showing up once early in the game and then at the very end where you are tasked to make a moral choice, one that probably seemed epic in the developers’ minds, but didn’t actually matter. Other than that, Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments is split into six separate cases, with some being direct adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work, such as “The Fate of Black Peter.” Each case is self-contained, and they range from a train that mysteriously vanishes to a murdered archeologist in a bath house to the theft of exotic, poisonous plants from a botanical garden. I came away enjoying a few of these cases, but ultimately not caring too deeply about the characters involved or the actual outcome, so long as it netted me an Achievement in the end.

Gameplay is, more or less, a traditional point-and-click adventure game. Except you aren’t using a mouse to hover over items and click on them. Instead, you control Sherlock Holmes–and sometimes Watson or a dog!–and you can play in third person or first. I went with the latter, as I found it easier for examining areas and moving around with a solid camera angle. You look at items in the world, speak to witnesses and suspects, solve a mixed bag of puzzle types, and finally make enough deductions to pin the crime on someone. My favorite part was connecting clues to make deductions and see ways the crime could have happened, as well as analyzing witnesses to learn more about them and open up dialogue options. Sure, L.A. Noire did it better, but that’s okay.

My biggest problem with Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments has to do with its loading screens. I’m not against loading screens and will never be against them, as I understand their purpose, even in this day and age of modern gaming, but you have to travel to and fro a whole bunch in this game, often returning to your apartment on Baker Street multiple times during a case, and these loading screens are drab and long, probably worse than the ones in Secret Agent Clank. Backtracking is the name of great detective work. Unfortunately, each time you travel to a different place, you are treated to a loading screen in the form of Sherlock riding inside a horse-drawn carriage to the actual place you are going. Sometimes he is alone, sometimes Watson is there with their knees awkwardly close, but regardless you are just watching Sherlock read a book or look out the window the entire time. You can open your notebook during the ride to review clues and such, but I began to use this downtime as great moments to play on my phone. Honestly, I would have rather watched a generic bar fill up. I’d estimate you see this screen roughly 15 to 20 times during any given case.

One of the more troubling parts of Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments appears in every single case chapter. Well, I guess one could not see it, but when I’m roleplaying the titular Sherlock Holmes I’m being as observant and scrutinizing as possible, which means checking every corner and shelf and thing for clues. That includes the telescope his keeps in the main room on Baker Street. If you look through it, you’re treated to the fixed sight of this busty woman:

Now, nothing happens. Sherlock makes no comment, the woman simply stands there and stares back, and about five seconds of silence passes before you are booted out of the telescope’s point-of-view. I examined the telescope at the start of every case, just as I did with Toby, to see if anything would happen or change. Nope, same sight, same seediness. I figured she would come into play at some point in the game, for some case or another, but that never happened, and I think all we got in terms of reference was a quickly dismissed line from Watson at the end of the game, implying that Holmes should stop doing that creepy thing with the telescope. Evidently, after doing some research outside the game, it turns out this character is from a previous entry in the series. Hmm.

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments was a game I didn’t expect to frustrate and bore me as much as it did, but I’m the kind of person that not only likes to finish what I start, but sometimes needs to. So I persevered and finished, only to realize I missed two Achievements and had to go back and replay a couple cases. Thankfully, you can mash your way through most of the dialogue and cutscenes, as well as skip every puzzle if you wait a minute or two. Still couldn’t do anything about those cutscenes. If there’s one deduction I reached, it’s that this was not iceberg-like pacing and lackluster detective work equals enjoyable, and I don’t expect to try any more future–or previous–mystery adventures starring the eclectic Sherlock Holmes in 19th century London.

The MAGS August 2016 competition is not monkeying around

I really need to check in more at Adventure Game Studio and its forums, as there is always something interesting-looking to play or at the very least read about, despite that fact that I barely have time to dig into my videogames folder of, currently, 137 items. Many of those probably originated from these forums and have been patiently waiting for my attention ever since. Well, keep waiting, I say. Anyways, this week, there’s the finalists for its MAGS August 2016 competition, which are as follows and in no particular order:

• Banana Racer
• Rango
• Dr. Muttonchop
• No Monkey’s Banana
• Monkeys to the Moon

Oh, and for those that don’t know, MAGS is a competition for amateur adventure game-makers that started all the way back in 2001. The idea is to create a game in under a month, following the rules set by the previous winner. It aims to help you work to a deadline, improve your skills, and provide a kick-start into making adventure games. The theme for August 2016’s jam was “Distance No Object”–whatever that means–and there were some additional rules tossed in for good measure, such as the games must include monkeys, a poor means of transport, a giant banana, and so on. Initially, that might all sound restricting, but one has to remember that the power of imagination has no barriers.

And now, some thoughts on each of the final five, which are in the same no particular order as before.

Banana Racer

Unfortunately, there’s just not much to Banana Racer. It’s a simple endless runner where three monkeys ride a giant banana boat and try not to run into other ships/debris. It plays like a side-scrolling bullet-hell game like R-Type, only a bajillion times less intense. You move up and down via the arrow keys to avoid hitting things in your way, and every now and then a helicopter swoops in to drop bananas in the water for…points? Health? Actually, I couldn’t tell how much health I had left after running into a few boats and once you got good enough at it the whole thing seemingly went on for forever. Eventually, I crashed the banana boat on purpose and was treated to a nice animation of a shark eating them up.

Rango

When I think of the types of games commonly found over at Adventure Game Studio, I think of things like Rango. It’s a traditional point-and-click adventure title, with an inventory, dialogue options, and colorful graphics, all at low resolution. Story-wise, Rango’s father is ill, and all he wants to do is help the old geezer. His mother sends him out to bring back the biggest banana in the jungle. Along the way, he runs into a paranoid bear and learns the true perils of his environment. The puzzles are simple, but logical, and there’s even a neat mini-game for when you are balancing or trying to do a powerful toss. More surprising is the moral choice you have to deal with at the end involving the “friendly” bear. Rango has a shockingly dark tone, but the cute graphics and music–and overdramatic voicework–help this from being a bummer to play.

Dr. Muttonchop

Dr. Muttonchop turned out to be another mini traditional point and click game, but more old-school than Rango. It features the “look/use/speak” icon interface, and thankfully that’s the total number of verbs in it. Any more than that usually scares me aware. The artwork and writing was crude, with the story revolving around a James Bond-esque plot of being kidnapped by the titular Dr. Muttonchop and left in a room to meet your ultimate demise. Naturally, you will have to use your wits and ability to gather a number of items up to escape. To be honest, I almost quit the game after immediately leaving the first room, seeing that three more rooms existed, but the puzzles weren’t too tough to figure out save for the part where every item’s “hit box” is smaller than an ant’s pinky finger.

No Monkey’s Banana

It’s stretching to call No Money’s Banana a game, as all I saw was a random story generator. One that you don’t even provide any input on. It’s like a bunch of finished Mad Libs, with a unique monkey’s life story and adventures being randomly generated by a series of different words and phrases. Unfortunately, by the third example, I had already spotted two spots of repetition, such as the rocket being powered by children’s tears and contracting an alien STD. I clicked through a few more before losing interest and exiting. Obviously from the title, this product is meant to ape–pun intended!–the promise of an uncountable amount of stories and planets in No Man’s Sky, but I think this could at least allow for some player interactivity.

Monkeys to the Moon

This is a resource simulator, sort of like A World of Keflings, except you are ordering a group of monkeys around instead of wee people to do your bidding, such as harvest wood or build an archery range. These monkeys are ambitious and want to build a rocket-ship to reach the moon, which, in their primate eyes, is really one large banana. It’s a fun idea, and the introduction scene is neat and nicely done, but then you get into the real game and the graphics just immediately push you away. I struggled to tell the difference between the tiles and see exactly where the monkeys were as they just don’t pop against where they are standing. I stayed with Monkeys to the Moon for a good long while, eventually building the platform base for the rocket-ship, but the hungry snakes proved too ferocious for my resources. One can only hope they all made it to the moon without me.

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If you are a forum member for Adventure Game Studio, you can add your two cents, with voting ending on September 15. I’m looking forward to seeing what takes the cake and then what zany rules are put forth for the new MAGS.

Runaway llamas don’t stand a chance in Alto’s Adventure

I think I can confidently say that, of all the winter sports out there, I’d be most inclined to try my hand–or rather feet–at snowboarding. Something about skis and the way your legs move and cross between one another scares the life out of me. Sure, sure…the reality of being locked then to a single board might not be a safer bet, but somewhere in my mind I’ve come to terms with this as the better, easier to grasp option. Granted, I wouldn’t be doing the same death-defying actions as seen in Alto’s Adventure, keeping myself constrained to the bunny slopes and nothing crazier than that.

Here’s a truth-pill to swallow: I downloaded Alto’s Adventure from the Windows 10 store not because it was free, but rather because its logo was stylish as heck and contained a llama inside the letter a. Guess that’s all it takes to hook me deep since I knew next to nothing else about the game at that point. Turns out, it’s an endless runner. Er, endless snowboarder. Endless llama collector? It’s one of those things, and here’s how the developer Snowman pitches it from their website: “Alto’s Adventure is an endless snowboarding odyssey, set against a beautiful and ever changing alpine landscape. The game features fluid physics-based movement, procedurally generated terrain and stunning dynamic lighting and weather effects. The core mechanic centers around an easy to learn, yet difficult to master one button trick system that allows you to chain together increasingly more elaborate trick combos to maximize the players speed and compete for high scores and distances.”

Basically, this is how your time on the mountain goes in Alto’s Adventure. You click start, and your protagonist begins to snowboard towards the right side of the screen. As you zip forward, you want to collect runaway llamas, coins, and power-ups, as well as hit ramps to do tricks and chain together many into a single combo for a hefty amount of points. The mechanic is simple, but tough to learn; press the jump button to land on roofs and ropes to automatically grind, and if you press and hold the jump button, you’ll begin to do a backflip. Knowing when and for how long to hold that jump button is key. When you land a successful trick, you are granted a temporary speed boost and blip of invincibility. There are also obstacles to avoid, such as chasms, rocks, and angry elders that will chase after you for disrupting their…I dunno, elderly sleep.

Visually, Alto’s Adventure is a beast. No, not the domesticated South American camelid kind that you are constantly trying to nab, but rather a discernible powerhouse. The graphics are minimalist, but highly evocative. I won’t say they outshine Journey, but they are hanging out in the same boat, for sure. There’s a full day/night cycle as you do each run, with fully dynamic lighting and weather effects, including thunderstorms, blizzards, fog, rainbows, shooting stars, and more. There is something hauntingly beautiful about racing through the snow as a storm cracks and flashes off in the background and surviving it all to watch the sun rise and cast its warm, orange-yellow rays on every edge of the landscape. Despite the levels being randomly generated from a bunch of similar parts, each run still feels highly unique.

My next favorite aspect besides the visuals is the goals system. It’s pretty much the same idea from Jetpack Joyride, wherein you are tasked with completing three goals while trying to handle your main goal of just getting as far as possible. Sometimes these goals are simple and naturally occurring, such as collecting a number of coins or hitting a specific tier of points, and others are more challenging. The one I’m currently stuck on is asking me to do two triple backflips in one session. Eek. There are evidently 180 goals in total to nail, and doing these level you up, which is how unlocking new characters to play as is gated. Each character controls a little differently too.

I don’t mean this as a slight, but I’ve been enjoying Alto’s Adventure in the same manner that I do my clickers, like Time Clickers and AdVenture Capitalist. It’s something that I play in short bursts, clicking every now and then, and just sort of zoning out and relaxing as things happen around ,e. The early parts of a snowboarding run are especially calming, and I love zipping through a stretch of no obstacles and only sick jumps. There are absolutely moments where you are highly involved in timing your jumps and ensuring you don’t crash, but a lot of Alto’s Adventure‘s fun comes from taking in the sights and seeing how the world changes from one moment to the next, even when that next moment is you zooming headfirst into a pile of rocks hidden at the bottom of a steep slope.

I suspect Final Fight isn’t actually my final fight

I didn’t do too deep on the latest Capcom-themed Humble Bundle, obtaining only the games in the $1.00 or more tier. Specifically, these ones: Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3, Strider, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, and Final Fight Double Impact. The second tier already contains a few titles I own, such as Remember Me and Mega Man 9/10, and the rest didn’t stand out to me as must-haves. But finally having a copy of Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix after all these years of only ever playing a demo version over and over and over, and for only one hundred pennies? I couldn’t resist. Regardless, those are words and stories for another post, on another game. For today, let’s talk about Final Fight.

Or, more specifically I guess, Final Fight Double Impact, which is the name of the thing I got from this latest Humble Bundle. Not really knowing much about this product, I assumed this was either a new Final Fight game in the beat-em-up series or a remake of the Super NES port. Turns out, nope. It’s a bundle, containing two arcade classics from Capcom’s history: Final Fight and Magic Sword. I have absolutely zero record with Magic Sword, and not much more with Final Fight, always being a Streets of Rage fanboy more than anything else, but know enough about the brawler through osmosis thanks to the Internet.

Final Fight‘s plot is hilariously legendary, one for the ages: the Mad Gear street gang has kidnapped Mayor Mike Haggar’s daughter, Jessica. Being a former pro wrestler and more muscle than policy-pushing man, Haggar refuses to give into their demands. Instead, he sets out to rescue Jessica with the help of her boyfriend, the martial artist Cody, and his friend Guy, a modern-day ninja. Y’know, cool dudes. They’ll do this together, punching and jump-kicking and slashing with a sword or lead pipe every Mad Gear goon and gal in Metro City, regardless of whether they are visible on the screen or not.

Truthfully, I only meant to see what this Final Fight Double Impact was and how it ran, but then I kept playing, eventually getting to Belger, the final boss, and kicking his gun-toting behind right out a window. That is, with a little help from some random online friends that jumped in and out of my game as I continued to hit continue after losing enough lives. See, I really never played many of these beat-em-ups in the arcades, save for that X-Men one, as they existed only to eat your quarters and I was more interested in spreading my quarters around, sampling a wide array of game types. Playing on a console with unlimited continues negates that mentality, and you can see credits roll in a number of side-scrolling brawlers so long as you persevere.

Final Fight is fine. The mechanics are simple yet solid, and somewhat addicting. You can punch, jump attack, pick up items like health and weapons, and even burn a little health to use a super attack that is good at clearing out a number of goons at once. I found a really good strategy of simply standing by the edge of the screen and mashing the attack button repeatedly; enemies will begin to walk into your firsts, and you can watch their life bars tick down without even putting a face to a name. Speaking of names…oomph. There are some doozies in here, such as Bill Bull, Holly Wood, and Wong Who.

In actuality, Final Fight is a great game to sort of lose yourself in for an hour and change. Yup, with unlimited continues, it doesn’t take too long to finish this fight, especially when you have the help of random online players. I went through just about every level with Guy, messing up once towards the end when I accidentally picked Haggar, but I can see myself going through this again with just Cody or Haggar all the way. This version comes with a bunch of built-in challenges, like finishing a level with only using one character or a certain number of continues or hitting a specific tier of points, and all that feeds into unlocking art and extras in the gallery, as well as trophies.

I also plan to still check out the other half of this bundle, but don’t expect to beat Magic Sword in a single go like I did here. Unless it really is some kind of magic sword. Final Fight contains a sword as a wield-able weapon, and it performs its own kind of magic in completing dominating the playing field unless you are going against those fire-tossing dudes. Anyways, yeah–this isn’t my final fight.

The first to finish this free-to-play Ben-Hur race is the last to die

It sure has been a lot of games completed haikus–seven in a row!–and nothing much else here on Grinding Down for these past few months, and that’s fine. This happens every year. My archives prove it so. Summer is crazy-busy for me at the day job, which basically means I find myself with both less free time to think and write about all them videogames in my possession. Plus I’m trying to get some comic books done for MICE. Do not fret; I’m still playing things here and there, jumping from game to game and system to system like an unchained glutton, but unfortunately I’m just not finding the time slash energy to put down all my hot takes. That is until now.

The other night, while mindlessly scanning the list of new releases on Xbox One’s store, I noticed a free-to-play thing called…Ben-Hur. Hmm. Curiosity got the better of me, and I had to know what exactly this was. Not because I’m some huge fan of the 1959 film starring Charlton Heston as the title character or even the least bit interested in this new re-imagining of the source material (though Morgan Freeman’s hair looks amazing). I’m just forever bewildered by tie-in videogames of all shapes and sizes, whether they are for movies, comic books, or even pizza-delivering establishments. I went into Ben-Hur thinking it’d be a quick, lackluster experience that existed only to constantly urge you, the player, to stop playing, drop some cash, and go sit in a movie theater instead, and I wasn’t disappointed in that prediction. At least I got a bunch of Achievement points, right?

Here’s how Ben-Hur goes, and try not to blink or you’ll miss the entire rundown: you participate in a chariot race where need to mash the A button to accelerate–but not too much as your horses will tire–and pull the left and right triggers to whip opponents on either side of you in hopes of taking them out for good. The natural goal is to come in first place, and you can do this by being a strong racer or simply eliminating the competition. Whipping the horses or running opponents into traps and other obstacles on the course does the trick. A season is made up of three individual races, each with their own number of laps and opponents. That’s it.

My first session with Ben-Hur lasted a total of twenty-eight minutes, in which I both won the season without breaking a sweat–or my chariot–and popped 8 of the 10 easy-as-pie Achievements. I’ve since gone back and gotten one more Achievement, and a part of me wants to get the last one, which requires destroying every opponent in every race of a season, but I think if I don’t get it the next time I play this will simply be removed both from the Xbox One and my memory. The tricky part is that you, the titular Ben-Hur, must destroy all the chariots yourself; they can’t be destroyed by other players or their own undoing. That’s as challenging as this live-or-die race gets, and the most hilarious cause-and-effect happening is seeing these health power-ups tossed out on to the track the moment you take a teeny tiny bit of damage.

Turns out, Ben-Hur was published by AOL and developed by Float Hybrid, which creates “branded experiences,” and Krome Studio, the developer of games I actually enjoy, such as Ty the Tasmanian Tiger. Maybe that’s what was missing from Ben-Hur: boomerangs and that distinct-sounding Australian English that I’ll never be able to perfectly replicate. Oh, and no, this did not inspire me to purchase a pair of tickets for the new movie. If anything, I’m inclined to stay far, far away.

How to train Spyro the Dragon to conquer frustrating platforming controls

I quit Twitter in October 2014 and haven’t regretted it…all that much. To tell the truth, for the years I had it, I never used it for any great means. Sure, there was the occasional self-promotion, the randomness of writing down whatever weird thoughts popped up in my head, the handful of subtweets and then quick deletion of said subtweets, and the liking of others’ better constructed, more engaging updates. More often, I stayed quiet, observing everyone else. However, I occasionally had my moments, and this is one that I still like to this day, posted a few years ago while watching some speedrunners destroying games for Summer Games Done Quick:

There are professional speedrunners, but what about us late bloomers and slow crawlers? I’m at 25% completion in Spyro the Dragon (PS1).

— Paul Abbamondi (@pabba) July 24, 2014

Well, almost two years later, I’ve beaten Spyro the Dragon, finishing at a 71% completion rate. That’s fine, really. I have no interest in going after the full 100%, which would require finding the remainder of gems, dragons, and eggs. Though it does look like you get access to some special room/level. Eh, I’ll just look it up on YouTube later. Remember when there was a time that you couldn’t do such a thing? Yeah, me too. Okay, okay. Let’s get on with this post. I know you are foaming at the mouth to read my thoughts about a small purple dragon that tries hard to be mighty, but is diminished by outside technological elements. The camera, people. I’m referencing the atrocious camera, as well as the less-than-trustworthy controls.

First, a plot summary despite probably covering most of this in my last post on Spyro the Dragon. This not-so-nice fellow Gnasty Gnorc–not sure if that’s a cross between a gnome and an orc or an entirely separate, standalone race–has gone and turned all the dragons of the realm into stone statues. For reasons, I guess. Well, almost all of them. Somehow, teeny tiny purple-scaled Spyro made it through the transformation wave unscathed and is now everyone’s only hope. He’ll travel through six worlds, freeing as many dragons as possible while also collecting gems, which are hidden in enemies, chests, and even across the map, eventually taking down Gnasty Gnorc in the final level.

Our titular hero has a decent array of moves for a PlayStation 1 mascot-driven platformer. He can breath fire, charge, float, and even do a barrel roll on the ground. The problem is that, coupled with the unfriendly camera, doing any of those moves while moving fast is a recipe for disaster and death. I found the easiest way to move forward was in chunks: enter an area, spin the camera round to see everything there, and then tip-toe over to the gems or enemy to take care of business. This worked mostly fine until you got to areas where you needed to run down a ramp and gain speed or do some light platforming. Unfortunately, jumping Spyro from one area to another is not as easy as it sounds: Spyro’s jump is both floaty and floaty, meaning you can hold the jump button after pressing it to float for a bit. However, letting go doesn’t simply stop the float in mid-air, so you really need to aim your jumps specifically and accurately. The camera will be your toughest enemy in this endeavor.

While I found a lot of the maneuvering in Spyro the Dragon frustrating, I didn’t outright hate the game. In fact, I loved collecting the gems and dragons and checking the list in each hub to see what I was missing. I know, what a shock. Paul enjoyed collecting things in a game that does a good job of having things to collect and lets you know what you still have left to collect.

Anyways, despite all my progress, I nearly walked away from the Spyro the Dragon when I got to the final fight against Gnasty Gnorc. I stopped counting after ten attempts to take him down. First, you have to complete the whole thing with no mistakes, as the boss fight is made up of three sections and there are no checkpoints. The first section is easy, chasing down two enemies that are carrying keys, and I eventually got so good at this part that I contemplated a career in speedrunning Spyro the Dragon. The second part isn’t too tough, with Spyro using a shortcut to catch up to Gnasty Gnorc and damage him. Lastly, and you can see this in the screenshot above, you have to platform across lava, landing on thin slivers of platforms that are slowly retracting into the wall. It’s not terribly long, but you’ll remember that I mentioned moving fast and moving with precision are not friends in this game. One false step or lack of speed, and you have to do everything all over again.

Truthfully, my mascot-driven platforming journeys are only just starting. Yes, it’s 2016. It’s never too late to dive back into the industry’s history. I bought this digital copy of Spyro the Dragon during a crazy good PSN sale back in April 2014, as well as some related titles. Next up are Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. Then maybe Gex: Enter the Gecko. Maybe. I also grabbed a bunch of Crash Bandicoot games though I’m less interested in those as Crash Team Racing is still my favorite game starring the horribly misshapen Crash Bandicoot. That probably says something.

War is about repeatedly killing a man for an Achievement

I watched Karl bleed out more than a dozen times before finally saving his life. It is by far not my proudest accomplishment to date as a grown man that plays and enjoys a wide variety of videogames, but it is one that has stuck with me since popping this Achievement in Valiant Hearts: The Great War:

Healing Hero: Save Karl for the third time without making any mistakes (60G)

You’re welcome. Also: I’m sorry.

In Chapter 4-5: Saint Mihiel, you’ll be playing as Anna at Emile’s farm. She discovers a badly hurt Karl and immediately goes into nurse mode, which is represented as a…rhythmic quick time event. Not sure how else to describe it. I imagine it’s a bit like playing Guitar Hero, but instead of all the button prompts falling from the top of the screen to the bottom, you are working left to right, along a path emulating something like a heart rate monitor. The desired button presses start out simple, but quickly escalate in variety and amount as you get further into healing Karl’s wounds.

Here’s the rub. The Achievement’s description is not crystal clear, and you have to make it through all three of the healing QTEs without making a mistake for it to work. If you mess up on one of them, your best option is to let Karl bleed out–in other words, purposely miss the button presses until it fails. Thankfully, you don’t have to go back and redo all three instances of the QTE, just the one you goofed. I ended up having to kill Karl a bunch on the third and final QTE, which is naturally the most difficult of the trio. You also do all this to a glorious soundtrack of a child screaming and Karl’s failing heartbeat. Over and over. Yup, it’s brutal for all parties involved.

Fast forward several months from abusing poor, weakened Karl, and I’ve also gone back and found all 100 collectibles in Valiant Hearts: The Great War. Yes, a hundred pieces of actual history, such as urine-soaked rags, periscopes for use in trench fights, and numerous hand-written letters home from soldiers. It turns out that I hadn’t missed that many during my initial playthrough, but in my silly and sometimes too dramatic mind, the act of going back and finding these hidden items seemed like a real arduous task. It was not. I grabbed everything I was missing in a few hours over the holiday weekend, and it was nice to see that the game autosaves the moment you find a collectible, which meant I didn’t have to finish each and every level I dropped into…as that might’ve been too much.

With that, there’s nothing left in Valiant Hearts: The Great War for me to do. That’s fine. I need to begin clearing up storage room on my Xbox One. Yes, already. I do hope to see more unique, small titles like this from Ubisoft. It’s a somber adventure, quite different from a lot of the company’s other output, but the industry needs more unique takes on tough subjects. This could have easily been a quickly forgotten third-person action game or, worse, a lackluster first-person shooter that did what it could with the war’s weapons and tactics (hi, Battlefield 1!). Thankfully, we got something more memorable.

The Temple of No holds a map that sees all things that ever have been or will be (but in map form)

The Temple of No is the first Twine game I’ve ever played. How do I know that, other than being me and knowing everything I do except for the hours when I’m asleep and dreaming about drowning in an ocean of spicy tuna sushi rolls? Well, for starters, I had to look up the definition of Twine before beginning the game. Evidently, when it comes to videogames, it means this: Twine is an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories. Basically, HTML-driven code that’s perfect for choose-your-own-adventure models, so long as it is inside a browser. I think you can pick your browser.

And that’s sort of what The Temple of No is, except it is more interested in breaking the fourth wall and ensuring you know that you are not the protagonist of the game than sticking to a structured narrative. The story is based on choice, and so you can either be a man, woman, or frog in search of a “map that sees all things that ever have been or will be (but in map form).” Yeah, y’know. Like the Marauder’s Map, but turned up to eleven. This amusing little jaunt is written by The Stanley Parable’s William Pugh and features gorgeous illustration work by Dominik Johann. Crows Crows Crows, the studio behind the equally free and interesting Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist, are also behind The Temple of No.

Despite its understandably short length, I only went through The Temple of No once. Sure, sure, I’m probably missing out on a ton of jokes and maybe even more bits of delicious, storybook-esque artwork, but when a game is driven by choice–in this case, what words I click on and in what order–I can’t help but see these decisions as firm and final. I followed the man of the story as he worked his way through the jungle and into the temple in search of the map. In my mind, I can’t simply undo that history to see what would have gone differently with the frog character despite being a huge fan of Chrono Trigger‘s Frog design. Psst: if you played through as the woman or frog, tell me a bit about their stories in the comments below. Okay, thanks, bye.

The writing is good and amusingly smart in places, though I did spot a few grammatical errors. Nothing major, just a missing period or word that was lowercased that probably should be capped. Since the game is heavy on text, it is important that the writing be strong, captivating. I found the clicking of words and timing of audio cues to be enjoyable, and there’s one bit where a man begins talking to himself…for a very long time. I eventually cut him off, but I do wonder just how long it goes on for. Regardless, that’s some solid dedication for a joke, but that’s what makes The Temple of No special. There’s great care behind it.

I guess I’ll have to keep my eyes open for future Twine games, as well as whatever comes next from Crows Crows Crows. I really do dig their aesthetic and versatility.

2016 Game Review Haiku, #40 – The Empty Kingdom

Who will you fight when
Everyone is gone, who will
You rule by yourself

–

Here we go again. Another year of me attempting to produce quality Japanese poetry about the videogames I complete in three syllable-based phases of 5, 7, and 5. I hope you never tire of this because, as far as I can see into the murky darkness–and leap year–that is 2016, I’ll never tire of it either. Perhaps this’ll be the year I finally cross the one hundred mark. Buckle up–it’s sure to be a bumpy ride. Yoi ryokō o.