Welcome to the Caribbean, let me ruin up your Gamerscore

Gamerscore is a pretty fickle thing. It mostly adds up to e-peen though it is also nice just to see in another form your triumphs and kills, but ultimately it means very little. Only one guy so far seems to have made a living out of it. Points for most Achievements range from 5 to 100, usually equaling a nice even number or a number that can be easily made even by adding five more points to it. However, there are exceptions, and some developers like to slip in Achievements for 0 points or 3 points or 7 points or maybe even 59.437 points. I mean, it’s really up to them, so long as the retail game’s total hits 1,000 points, it’s all good. A majority of Achievement lovers hate these oddball pointers, as they “ruin” what appears to them to be a nice, neat, orderly number.

Me? Yeah, it’s a little irksome, especially because I like going after such milestones as obtaining a perfect 10,000 score and a perfect 20,000 score, but it can always be remedied. Which brings me to LEGO Pirates, and it’s very first level, Port Royal, taken from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl‘s storyline. Upon completing it, you unlock this wet bandana:

Welcome to the Caribbean! (12G): Complete Port Royal

Yeaaaaaaah, that’s a 12 there, not a 15. It was my very first Achievement unlocked in the game, but I can see others getting the one where you’re eaten by a shark in deadly water first. So, for me, it was kind of like a slap in the face, the kind Captain Jack Sparrow knows all too well, and after sifting through the whole list I discovered this was done so that Traveller’s Tale could make another Achievement based on some pirate lingo. That one is called Pieces of Eight, and it’s worth 88G, which would totally fix our little number problem. However, to get it, one must acquire a total sum of 888,888,888 studs. That’s gonna take some grinding and cheat codes, meaning my Gamerscore is gonna look wonky to me for a little bit. Oh well.

Let’s all take a moment of silence though for my Gamerscore, now forever changed, forever touched:

Gotta stay strong; time heals all wounds.

Fallout: New Vegas needs a new patch to patch their latest patch

Man, Fallout: New Vegas. You’re just making it really hard to speak highly of you publicly and honestly, and that’s a shame, as you’re a fun game beneath all the glitches and bugs and wonkiness, but when a new patch is released that supposedly fixes your game and then only makes it worse…well, yeah. There’s not much we can do about that. The latest patch is, according to many forum posters, crashing their game and doing nasty stuff to save data.

Publisher Bethesda Softworks is asking fans to decline the title update. We now have to wait for an additional patch to patch the latest patch; yup, it sounds funnier than it really is, and that kind of stinks as I just recently started my third playthrough, but have to now steer clear of playing the game online so as to not ruin my save data. Kapture will just have to wait a bit more, I guess, before getting to throw dynamite at Powder Gangers again, as well as learn the ups and downs for the various Energy weapons available.

I can only hope that Fallout: New Vegas is fixed–or mostly fixed, because us Vault Dwellers truly know that a game like such will never be without some missteps–before the next bit of DLC is announced. I mean, it’s gotta be that much harder to sell more content of a broken game, right?

Right. Y’all been warned.

The Nintendo 3DS battery life is seeing red

I played a lot of Picross 3D yesterday on my Nintendo 3DS, closing the lid when I needed a break, opening it up when I wanted to break something into a blocky but adorable household item. This meant never powering down or placing the system in its charge cradle–I packed it away for the previous Easter weekend trip down to see my father and sister and didn’t feel like setting it up again just yet. So it was little bits of gaming here and there. Also, please consider that the majority of the puzzles I’m currently doing in Picross 3D average about 10 to 15 minutes each, sometimes more if I have to redo them because I suck at math and deduction.

In short, I went from having a fully charged battery to near power loss in only a couple hours. Around three if I was to guesstimate. But here’s where it got interesting. When my DS Lite would start to lose its charge, a red light would appear on the top right of the handheld, indicating that, if possible, charging would be greatly appreciated. The truth is that one could keep playing their red-limned DS Lite for at least another twenty to thirty minutes so it was not super vital to rush over and plug that baby in.

When my Nintendo 3DS flicked on the red light, I assumed the same. And you know what they say about assuming, right? I couldn’t have glanced away for more than a minute before that red light changed chaotically–it began blinking, and not a slow, steady blink, but one that signaled something terrible, like a countdown or a malfunction or something on the fritz. I was amazed to see how quickly this system was signaling that it needed a charge; I used a Quick Save for my current Picross 3D puzzle and hurried over to set up the 3DS charge cradle. The thing was still blinking like a madman when I returned it to its home so I don’t know exactly how long that blinking goes on for, but my guess is certainly not twenty to thirty minutes.

We’ve all known the battery life sucks for the Nintendo 3DS. I mean, I wasn’t even using the 3D slider or any crazy apps, just playing an ol’ regular DS game, and it still sucked away more quickly than normal. I really just need to not rely on the 3DS as my main traveling system, and only keep it around to show folks some of its neater aspects, like 3D pictures, Face Raiders, and my collection of Lord of the Rings Miis.

P.S. Isn’t it simply hilarious that I’m playing a game called Picross 3D on my Nintendo 3DS…and it’s not in 3D? Send in the ROFLcopters to take me away.

My failure with the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle

Out of nowhere, a new Humble Indie Bundle was revealed yesterday. This one, the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle, features three full games, the source code to a fallen project, and an early in to an upcoming game, as well as several original soundtracks. The three full games include Trine, Shadowgrounds, and Shadowgrounds: Survivor, and of them, I was most interested in Trine for its gorgeously lush fantasy realm. That should have been my first warning, seeing how beautiful some of these games were.

Anyways, I quickly plopped down some online money and started downloading my files. Then I tried to install them, and continually got this message: XYZ cannot be played on this version of Mac OS X. Oh…oh, okay. I checked my version of my Macbook, which I got back in 2008, and it was something like 10.5.8, which I guess is old. What confused me initially is that I was able to download and play all the games from the very first bundle (Aquaria and Penumbra and so on), leading me to assume these would work as well. Alas, no. They are too pretty for my tech. I even double-checked by hopping onto the website’s chat room, where it was confirmed by someone named Joel that I’d not be able to play on my current version of Mac. Wah. He offered me a refund, but I declined, happy to at least donate a little money to these folk, as well as credit something for the three original soundtracks that came with the games.

It seems that I’m allowed to download these DRM-free games as many times as I want so I might be able to try again in the future if/when I upgrade my shtuff. I’m slightly disappointed because Trine looks like a lot of fun, and it’s not available on Xbox Live, so there’s really no way I can play it. Not that I need more to play right now, that is. Heck, I’m still even working on the titles from the original Humble Indie Bundle.

But yeah, I failed. Welcome to my failblog. However, for those reading, this bundle is still worth pursuing though. Just make sure you’re able to run these games before you buy.

Zero StreetPass tags for me, and zero StreetPass tags for you

Like many others, I bought my Nintendo 3DS the day it launched. In hindsight, we all should have done something else that day–stayed inside the store to set up our systems and StreetPass one another. Because, alas, it’s most likely not going to happen on its own, unless we’re at PAX or plan meet-ups like a bunch of overaged weirdos.

You can read about my first day of walking around with my 3DS by clicking this very sentence. The next three days are very similar to it. A lot of checking, a lot of nothing to check. I’m trying to make a point of keeping my 3DS on in Sleep Mode at every instance because one never knows when I might tag another 3DS owner. In Quick Chek? Maybe. The gas station? Could be. In my bathroom? Time will certainly tell.

I’ve yet to get my first StreetPass tag notification. Stephen Totilo from Kotaku, who lives–mind you–in New York City, only just got his first recently, and from the most unlikeliest of places. It’s definitely something worth celebrating because they’re going to be few and far between as the days go on. I assumed that since stock in my small hometown sold out on Day One that I’d be in reach of someone else that had a 3DS, but it seems that I’ve been deceived.

If you own a 3DS, it is now your duty to carry it around in Sleep Mode, ready for tagging. Your duty as a gamer. And also because I’m sick of hiring cats with swords to try and save my kidnapped Mii and want your help.

I’ll be in NYC myself pretty soon, and if I come back with a completely empty Mii plaza, I’m going to give up on the function entirely. It sounds promising, but it still lacks integration and a wider net.

Tiny text is the plan, the plan is death

The Xbox 360 version of Torchlight was my breaking point, and so I wrote a little editorial about tiny text in videogames, which is one of the worst new gaming trends currently invading this industry, and you can read my sophisticated rantings over at The First Hour. I’ve also linked the image above, which will hopefully help you with your clicking.

And thanks goes to the late and great James Tiptree, Jr. for help with the article’s title.

So, yeah, read on. Don’t worry; the font size over at The First Hour is perfectly fine. Let me know what you think. I can’t really imagine there’s many people out there in the world that actually enjoy squinting at their TV screens, but hey…some people are oddjobs.

DEMO IMPRESSIONS – Dragon Age II

Sigh. More like Dragon Age II jumps the ogre-shark. Where do I begin?

The demo opens up with a typical RPG choice: who do you want to play as? Dragon Age: Origins offered a solid selection of races (human, dwarf, elf) and classes (warrior, rogue, mage) to pick from. Here, you can either be a male or female warrior/rogue/mage. No more pointy ears or ale-stained beards for you. This is one of the sacrifices BioWare made to streamline the sequel and focus on a tighter narrative.

Anyways, after selecting a female mage, the demo moves into cinematic territory. Varric, a dwarf, is being heatedly questioned by a templar. This woman is trying to hunt down Hawke, the legendary hero of Kirkwall, “the Champion” as she puts it.

Varric is an unreliable narrator, and his retelling of Hawke’s rise to fame is full of embellishing. According to him, Hawke’s story begins with her family fleeing from Lothering, making for Kirkwall. Alas, they are quickly surrounded by Darkspawn, and it’s here that the demo teaches you the basics of combat. The “A” button serves as your primary attack, with the rest of the face buttons designated for assigned abilities, just like in Dragon Age: Origins. Holding the left-trigger brings up a radial menu for more options. However, the most dramatic change has to be combat speed; it’s fast, and when I say fast, I mean Devil May Cry 3 fast. No joke, at one point I thought Hawke was going to knock a Darkspawn into the sky and finish it off with an air combo. So yeah, you fight a couple waves of Darkspawn and feel like you’re playing an entirely different RPG series.

After Hawke rips an ogre apart with her bare hands, Varric is called out for embellishing the story too much. The demo then jumps ahead to a later portion to allow the player to experience combat at a higher level. Here we fight some more Darkspawn and gain new companions. Dialogue is handled via a chat wheel akin to what’s found in the Mass Effect series, and I think it’s a step down. Now it clearly shows when you are being evil or good or sarcastic instead of letting you figure it out for yourself. Let go of my hand, BioWare devs! LET GO!

The demo is more of the same thing over and over again. Fight some Darkspawn, fight some more, talk, fight a boss. The boss ogre at the end killed all my companions fast, and then Hawke fell shortly after. I didn’t bother trying again. In fact, I went and deleted the demo off my Xbox 360, content in knowing that I had seen enough. The changes are too dramatic, and from what I’ve read, party companions are no longer as customizable in terms of armor and weapons. Only Hawke. This is not good. This is basically Dragon Effect II for pigeonholding purposes, and I’m not slamming Mass Effect II here as I know many love it and accept its streamlining as a good thing, but why couldn’t BioWare have the best of both worlds? Y’know, one streamlined sci-fi RPG and one deep, engrossing fantasy RPG for D&D fanatics.

Curse the Maker.

I guess, ultimately, if I want more of what I like about this text-heavy RPG series I’ll have to pick up Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening.

A million Claptrap parts is still not enough for Patricia Tannis

I used to love Claptraps. Y’know, those adorable, dancing robot thingies that would give you more inventory space or provide you with access to hidden weapon caches. I even drew them from time to time. And now the romance is over, thanks to the mission flow in Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution, the last bit of DLC for Borderlands.

Upon arrival in Tartarus Station, players meet up with Tannis in her secret workshop. She’s trying to build something and needs claptrap parts to get it done. Thus, you’re given the first mission of the DLC:

• Patricia Tannis needs parts to build her magnificent…something. Head down to the Hyperion Dump and search the scrapped claptraps for parts and bring them back to her. (Clap-Components: 0/5)

Okay, five parts. That should be easy enough, and it is. You head off to the Hyperion Dump to shoot up seemingly endless swarms of angry Claptraps. As their robot bodies explode, they drop parts like gears, wires, and motherboards. Five are quickly acquired, but picking up extra parts don’t add to your collection. In fact, you can’t even really tell how many you have as nothing is actually listed in your inventory. Which sucks considering the next quest from Tannis is this:

• Tannis needs some more parts to complete her creation’s Infinite Improbability Drive. If you can’t find any lying around, just rip them out of some claptrap spines. (Clap-Components: 0/42)

That means any extra parts you previously picked up are nulled. There’s no point in gathering more than what is needed. Kind of stupid in terms of a design process, but whatever. It’s not like we’re gonna have to collect a stadium-load more of these things, right? On to the next quest!

• Tannis needs more parts to ensure the protection grid holds on her device’s ecto-containment unit, safeguarding against total protonic reversal, which would be extraordinarily bad. (Clap-Components: 0/75)

Dammit. Enter Hyperion Dump, shoot Claptraps, exit Hyperion Dump, enter again, rinse and repeat and feel bored. Gee, I wonder what the next quest will be?

• The “popcorn” setting on Tannis’ device is malfunctioning. Well, it’s not so much malfunctioning as creating deadly mutant corn. A few more parts should fix that! (Clap-Components: 0/100)

Oh boy. Good, good. I haven’t collected claptrap parts in ages.

• Just a few more parts and Tannis’ magnum opus shall be revealed! Tremble in fear at the might of Tannis and her fearsome…what is this thing, anyway? (Clap-Components: 0/150)

Go sleep with a badmutha skag, Tannis. You suck.

Let’s do some math. That’s a total of 372 claptrap parts collected. The most frustrating aspect though is that you simply can’t collect claptrap parts as a collectible. Only during these missions do they matter, and once you’ve acquired your target number, the rest are voided of purpose. I know for sure I could have cleared a few of these missions out faster if I’d been allowed to use the previous parts I found while out on the hunt. Would it really have been terribly hard, 2K/Gearbox, to design a slot in your inventory for claptrap parts? Me thinks not.

So, the first five missions in the DLC are a straight collect-a-thon, and not a very fun one at that. And all that work results in Tannis building an android version of herself so she won’t be so lonely anymore. Um…what?

The Collector (50G): Completed Tannis’ crazy request

Crazy disappointing to be more exact.

Epic Mickey, epically forgotten

I received Epic Mickey for Christmas, and since then I’ve played it twice. Two times, people. One…two. That kind of says it all, but this is Grinding Down after all, and I always like to say more than is probably necessary.

Epic Mickey is a sad game. It’s sad for many reasons; sad that it can’t be what it wants to be, sad that its controls don’t work like we’re told how they’ll work, sad that its camera is disgruntled and ready to quit at any moment, sad that its best aspect has nothing to do with gameplay. Just sad, sad, sad. And for a Disney product, that’s astounding. Certainly, this would have been much more stellar with all the in-game levels removed, the controller denied access, and released as a straight-to-DVD bargain bin flick. It’s a great story. It would make a great family film.

And here’s a summary of the story: Epic Mickey is set in a world crafted by the wizard Yen Sid (pssssst, that’s DISNEY backwards) which houses all of Walt Disney’s forgotten characters.  Our titular hero Mickey Mouse accidentally spills paint thinner on a page containing the world and is dragged inside. Here, he’ll discover the Phantom Blot has been manipulating the world in very evil ways. Using paint and paint thinner, it’s up to Mickey to set things right (or maybe not at all). Also, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney’s first ever cartoon hero, who hates the Mouse with unbridled passion, is out for revenge. See, it’s good stuff. It has layers, and it’s a real treat to see many of the forgotten characters actually dealing with their depression and anger. And poor Mickey is just kind of thrown into the mess of it all. Storyboard-style art really helps bring to life the characters and world, and I wish someone else would come over to my apartment, play the game to unlock all the movies, and then go away so I could just watch them one after the other. Yes, that is my wish.

The story is not Epic Mickey‘s problem. In fact, it’s its only sparkle of light. I’ve never been excited over using the Nintendo Wii for anything other than Wii Sports as the WiiMote and Nunchuk are prime examples of masochism. Pure hate against the consumer. They are the worst controllers in the galaxy, and playing anything with them is a minigame on its own. Using the WiiMote to aim the paint/thinner weapon is pointless because even if you do aim it right, the game doesn’t shoot the paint/thinner where you are aiming at. It always falls short. So that’s fun to work with. The controllers also don’t make general platforming easy, especially with that camera that Epic Mickey game designer Warren Spector won’t even admit is more horrid than Goofy doing disco. And good platforming is kind of key for a…platformer. I mean, when I say that I can’t get any further in the game, I mean that in the sense that I physically can’t get Mickey to where he needs to be because the jumping and climbing and clinging controls are broken and he keeps falling to his death. Looks like Mickey is doomed to the same fate as Smee and Oswald, abandoned, stuck in limbo, forever forgotten.

Alas, Epic Mickey is not the second coming of Mickey Mania.

Over at The First Hour, Nate answered with “doubtful” to if he’d continue playing Epic Mickey, and I have to echo his sentiments though I might give it one more try. An epic shame in the end.

Nintendo 3DS is now priced, dated, and overconfident

Long have we all wanted to know, and now that the day has come, I wish I could un-know all the details about the forthcoming Nintendo 3DS. See, before I learned that Nintendo’s newest piece of future tech was releasing on March 27, 2011 for a disgustingly gross $249.99, I was curious about the system. Genuinely interested in seeing how the glasses-free 3D worked, and whether any of the games were worth pursuing, in 3D, in 2D, in 1D. And now…not so much.

Alas, it comes down to price. No surprise there, as I’m always conscious about spending money and getting what money is worth. Two hundred and fifty bucks is about seventy-five to fifty bucks too much. I was very shocked to see a portable handheld gaming device priced higher than home-based consoles. The new wireless Xbox 360 is, I think, only $199.99 right now. I guess the 3D gimmick was enough to rack on some more dollar signs than needed. Also, analysts are suggesting that 3DS games could retail for $40 to $50. That’s sickening. Heart-breaking. I already feel grumbly enough buying a new Nintendo DS game for $35, believing that to actually be too much.

For the curious, here’s a list of confirmed launch titles:

• Pilotwings Resort
• Nintendogs + Cats
• Steel Driver
• Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked
• Super Street Fighter 4 3D Edition
• Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D
• Madden NFL Football
• The Sims 3
• Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D
• Lego Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars
• Ridge Racer 3D
• Dual Pen Sports
• Super Monkey Ball 3D
• Thor: God of Thunder
• Crush 3D
• Bust-a-Move Universe
• Samurai Warriors: Chronicles
• Dead or Alive Dimensions
• Asphalt 3D
• Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Shadow Wars
• Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs 3D
• Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell 3D
• Rayman 3D
• Rabbids Travel in Time

Yowza. A lot of pre-existing games with the 3D tacked on the end. Where’s Kid Icarus or that Zelda remake? Nothing there really shouts “launch title” or “killer first-party game,” demanding that this hardware being a must purchase. Least not for me. Maybe the world is full of closet Nintendogs & Cats fanatics, and all of them will buy out every Nintendo 3DS in every store in every state, starting riots and chaos and the end of the world sooner than predicted. We’ll find out in only a matter of weeks, and I’ll be watching very cautiously. I do hope to eat my own words.