30 Days of Gaming, #19 – Picture of a game setting you wish you lived in

Fable II was an okay game. It did not wow me, but it had a lot of pretty to it, and bumbling into a new location was always a joyous moment because it meant immersing myself in a place and seeing how everything clicked. Oh, okay. That’s where they get their food, that’s where they sell their wares, that’s where a talking gargoyle head insults my intelligence. Bowerstone is an impressive main city hub, very busy with lots of shops and shoppers, as well as being broken up into distinctive districts. Bloodstone is moody and dangerous. Westcliff is a dump though you do get the opportunity to change its tides.

For me, the place to be in Fable II is Oakfield, a small village of farmers and monks north of Rookridge. It’s serene and open, quiet and nice, a place to spend the day either tilling the land or walking the paths, with a single bar hot-spot, the Sandgoose, to go to at night where, more assuredly, everybody knows your name. Some other points of interest include the Temple of Light and Manure Manor.

And if you play to the good-natured side, when you return from the Tattered Spire, you’ll find Oakfield thriving, with new houses and an expanded Temple of Light. Plus, autumn will be in full swing, with gorgeous reds, oranges, and yellows to feast upon, and probably nothing else comes as close as to feeling like a true fantasy village than Oakfield. Evil people get to destroy the village, which only makes me want to never finish my evil second playthrough even more.

A lot of Fable II is spent running after the golden breadcrumb trail, your dog desperately trying to keep up. Considering the game’s tiresome loading screens and sluggish menus, running was a blessing. I ran just about everywhere. Except for Oakfield in the sunlight, where I’d stroll leisurely around, doing little expressions for its inhabitants and keeping the peace. It’s the sort of place I dream about, where I could leave behind the plastic and pointless, be one with my surroundings, spend every day soaking up the sounds and smells.

Runner-up:

That’d be Serenity Farm, also from Fable II. It’s the inside of Oakfield’s Demon Door, and it’s special in that no one but your family (wife/husband and kids) can follow you there. Meaning no enemies, truly a secret spot all to your own. That also sounds good to me. Either way, fantasy farms…I kind of like ’em.

Honest early impressions for the Honest Hearts DLC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GAMES I REGRET PARTING WITH: Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest

Sadly, I can only imagine how terrifying RPGs must have seemed when they first came out on gaming consoles years–nay, decades–ago. In contrast to games like Super Mario Bros and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, here was a gaming genre that moved slowly, told a grandiose tale, reduced combat to a turn-by-turn basis, and asked the player to save frequently because there’s no way you’ll end up finishing this title off on a lazy Saturday afternoon. To ease gamers into this notion of quests of the epic nature and turn-based combat, Squaresoft released Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest for the SNES in 1992, a game that was, for all intents and purposes, a gateway drug to the realm of harder, more satisfying drugs. Drugs here being RPGs, people. Calm down.

Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest‘s plot is guessable. It’s about a young boy named Benjamin who is out to save the world. He’ll accomplish this hefty goal by collecting stolen crystals that affect the world’s four elemental powers. Yup. If that sounds familiar, you’re an attested RPGer. By the way, this unnamed world is divided into four regions: Foresta, Aquaria, Fireburg, and Windia. Go ahead and guess what each one is like, I’ll wait.

Gameplay, for an RPG, was simplified. And this was before Mass Effect II did it. Random battles, equipment customization, save points, and a full party system were abandoned for a streamlined, cleaner presentation that did most of the work for you. Newly acquired armor simply replaces the previously worn. You explored towns and chatted with folk, and you could chop down trees, blow up walls, and use a grappling hook to cross wide gaps. Sounds a bit more like a Zelda game, right? Here’s another instance of Squaresoft making it easier for gamers: the heal spell not only recovered lost HP, but also removed status ailments, eliminating the need for other item types.

I bought a copy of this game for über cheap several years after its release, after it missed the mark of finding lovers in the hardcore Final Fantasy fans, as well as the general mass market. I remember playing it for a bit, but never completing it. My favorite aspect was always how gargantuan the monsters you fought against were in comparison to Ben. Also, the main town in Windia stands out in my mind, but I can’t pinpoint why…maybe there was a band there playing music and I thought that was pretty neat? Maybe. But at some point, this game was bundled up with a bunch of other SNES carts as I traded them all in for my chance at a PlayStation. Strangely, it wouldn’t be until the PlayStation that a Final Fantasy game hit both targets of hardcore RPG fans and those not in the know.

Easy, simple RPGs, such as Costume Quest, can still be awesome, be loved. A part of me wants to believe the same can be said about Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest, but that same part also thinks that new equipment replacing old equipment against my will is extremely obnoxious.

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GAMES I REGRET PARTING WITH is a regular feature here at Grinding Down where I reminisce about videogames I either sold or traded in when I was young and dumb. To read up on other games I parted with, follow the tag.

Odd Gamerscores are perfect for palindromic numbers

I had a busy day of pinging Achievements, unlocking several from a number of games: A Kingdom of Keflings, LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, and Fallout: New Vegas. When all was said and done–and by that, I mean when it was time to stop gaming and make dinner–I noticed that my Gamerscore looked kind of special. It read 23132. Here’s the moment frozen in time too:

Oh boy! Zaaaany. There’s even a name for this crazy happenstance, and it’s called a palindrome. Basically, a sequence of units that can be read the same forwards and backwards. It occurs a lot in life, and I can now check off “palindrome the heck out of my Gamerscore” from my bucket list.

I know, I know. It’s all rather silly, but I found it amusing, and it’s probably never gonna happen again, at least not like this because I’ll be getting the 88G Achievement soon from LEGO Pirates which will turn my ‘score back to a nice, even number. In fact, I’ll probably do some more gaming tonight, messing up my ‘score most certainly by morning’s time, which is why I’m pushing this post out sooner than later.

Another fun example of a palindrome? This phrase: rats live on no evil star.

Games Completed in 2011, #16 – A Kingdom of Keflings

I used to be a Command & Conquer: Red Alert junkie back in my high school and early college days, and much of this blame can go to my then best friend W. We would constantly challenge each other in races for single-player missions or go head-to-head in crazy, hours-long skirmishes. I rarely won, and the biggest reason most certainly was because I took too long trying to build my base up perfectly. The key word is perfectly, not perfunctory. W would build his base just enough to start amassing troops and heavy tanks and then swarm me as I was still trying to figure out where to place my Tesla Coils.

Thankfully, in A Kingdom of Keflings, I have all the time in the world to build my base–because nobody’s coming to attack me. There’s still the problem of building my magical kingdom perfectly, which quickly got away from me as I placed houses here and workshops there and my giant castle in front of a chunk of dense forest. But there’s no outside pressure; just soothing music (save for the banjo tune), a lot of back and forth, and a great sense of accomplishment as you lock in that final piece of a building.

I don’t really understand Keflings and where they come from or why they worship my giant Avatar so, but that’s all pretty moot in the grand scheme of things. They’re great help in mining for source materials or carrying them from one end to the other. And they seemed to like me, despite my constant kicking of them or taking off their hats. It’s a quirky mix for sure.

Achievements-wise, I got 11 out of 12 by the game’s end, most of which pop naturally as you progress through the many blueprints. The last remaining one requires me to host a multiplayer game and get ten other Xbox 360ers to join and drop a special banner down. I probably won’t ever pursue that one. You’ve played A Kingdom of Keflings once, you’ve played it enough. That’s not a slam. I enjoyed my chilled time with the game, just relaxing it up and going through the motions. But nothing different would happen in a second playthrough except maybe me trying harder to achieve the most perfect-looking kingdom. Alas, I know in my heart of hearts that no kingdom would ever be perfect enough for me–unless I can physically live there.

A delicious taste of L.A. Noire’s 1940s-esque soundtrack

I did not pay much attention to L.A. Noire simply because I dismissed it early on as a 1940s era Grand Theft Auto, which, as any loyal Grinding Down reader will know, is not my favorite game. I mean, you can see the Rockstar Games touch very clearly in its latest title, from the dynamic and stylized cutscenes to the minimap to their passion about having a stellar soundtrack. That last thing is not a bad thing.

Anyways, reviews are out, and besides having to constantly warn gamers that you can’t run over prostitutes in this one (aw shucks), the verdict seems to be that L.A. Noire is much more of an adventure game than a drive-and-shoot title. No random rampages allowed. Gameplay is more focused on investigating a crime scene, talking to witnesses, and piecing together an answer. Yes, there’s still some of those annoying “tail a car, but don’t get caught” missions, as well as some shootouts, but more or less, it’s all about the story and one man’s drive to bring wrongdoers to justice. I can get behind that. Considering the lack of strong, narrative-driven titles harkening back to the point-and-click genre these days, I might have to actually get this game–but not quite yet. I still have plenty of titles to work through, but once I’ve cleared a total of, say, 25 games for 2011, then I might go out and give post-WWII Los Angeles a try.

Oh, and about that soundtrack. It’s fantastic. You can preview six songs from L.A. Noire thanks to SoundCloud:

My personal favorite is the remix of Ella Fiztgerald and Louis Jordan’s “Stone Cold Dead in the Market.” The others are great, dancy remixes of classic, old-time tunes. Doesn’t necessarily evoke the sense of police work, but does transport one back to a simpler time, to smoke-filled rooms, to dangerous women in dangerous outfits, to falling victim to gorgeous, dreamy sounds, to finding love and chasing it down.

Got the itch to Quidditch

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

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

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

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

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

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

30 Days of Gaming, #18 – Craziest thing in a game

The original 30 Days of Gaming topic for today was a sort of follow-up to “favorite antagonist,” with the focus this time being on the yin to its yang–“favorite protagonist.” The problem with that is that it is a little too similar to the topic I did for “favorite character,” and while many could argue that Gremio was not the main protagonist in Suikoden, he was a main character, and so he still remains my favorite of those. In short: frak this list, I’m making my own topic up. Let’s go with “craziest thing in a game,” okay?

Final Fantasy XII was determined to be different. It wanted to fuse MMO elements with a traditional epic plot, as well as introduce a license board, hunting for marks, and using gambits to streamline combat effectively. And it did do all of those things, somewhat successfully, but Squaresoft also added in a pinch of pure bat-shit crazy because there’s the Zodiac Spear. What’s that? Why, it’s only the strongest weapon in the game, with +150 Attack and +8 Evasion. See the shiny:

The tricky part is that for your band of girly boys and boyish girls to find this kick-ass weapon, they’re going to have to not open specific treasure chests. That’s right. Not open them. The chests to steer clear of are as follows:

• The chest outside Old Dalan’s place in Lowtown.
• There are two chests in the southeast corner of the Palace Cellar. Open them and all hope is lost.
• When Vaan gets captured, he gets sent to the Confiscatory. Don’t open any of the chests there.
• There’s an island on the Phon Coast with 16 chests on it. Touch them and die.

Leave those chests alone and you’ll find the Zodiac Spear in the Necrohol of Nabudis. Seems pretty simple, right? If only.

Naturally, during my one and only playthrough, I had opened many of these chests by the time I went online and learned of all this. Why wouldn’t I open them? Gamers are trained from very early on that opening treasure chests is a good thing, a solid way to ensure spoils and weapons and maybe even a battle with a fake treasure chest monster. I hate those things so much. It’s plain crazy to hide away such power and greatness by punishing us that play the way we’ve all been taught to play. At that point, the developers might as well took away super strong spells simply because we spoke to a Moogle in Rabanastre or used an Elixir after losing some HP. It’s just a bit boggling, and I have to wonder how anyone other than those involved in the game discovered the trick to getting the Zodiac Spear. Surely it had to be leaked out or something like that hidden room in Batman: Arkham Asylum. I mean, this didn’t hinder my love for Final Fantasy XII or stop me from completing many moons ago, but I do love collecting and completing collections; missing out on the “ultimate weapon” in a Final Fantasy game hits home hard, almost like a spear to the gut…a Zodiac Spear.

Testing the fields and busting tanks in Red Faction: Guerrilla

I gave the demo for Red Faction: Armageddon a spin the other night, and there’s not too much to talk about. It’s basically Red Faction: Guerrilla, but with a pinch of horror and a really neat new weapon, the Magnet Gun. Instead of taking place above ground on Mars, we’re now beneath the regions of Tharsis, deep below the dusty soil, where horrible abominations breed and lurk. It’s different enough from its predecessor in terms of locale, but the game seems to play very much the same. You run, you shoot, you obliterate things in your path.

I then had the itch to go back to Red Faction: Guerrilla after the demo was over, especially because I do enjoy causing massive amounts of in-game destruction. It’s just that the main story and main story missions have always given me grief; I can’t seem to get past the first few missions in Dust, unfortunately, but at least I have the freedom to drive around, blow structures up, and mine for ore.

I also played some more online matches and many rounds in Wrecking Crew, which is just an excuse and exercise in weapons of mass destruction. Matchmaking for online games is pretty slow and will probably severely slow down once Red Faction: Armageddon comes out, but I did get in several rounds of Team Anarchy. I held my own most of the time.

Anyways, here’s what I was able to unlock Achievement-wise after going back to the game for a bit:

Can’t Get Enough (20G): Played every mode on all maps in Wrecking Crew.

Field Tested (10G): Earned 1,000 XP in Multiplayer.

Tank Buster (10G): Blew up 100 small hydrogen tanks.

It’s still a hit or miss for me in terms of fun, but there’s something about Red Faction: Guerrilla that keeps calling me back. I dunno. Probably a deeply buried love for the original two PlayStation 2 games; heck, I spent countless nights battling AI bots in Red Faction II because I enjoyed it so very much. Maybe I’ll look up an online strategy guide and see if it can kept me (and Alec Mason) combat the EDF.

30 Days of Gaming, #17 – Favorite antagonist

There’s a reason I didn’t just dive into the next topic train from the 30 Days of Gaming meme after the relatively easy previous two topics, and I’d like to think it’s a sound reason. Antagonists, by their very nature, are not meant to be liked. They are the reason the heroes we root for are stressing out so much, crying over dead girlfriends, striving to be a better person, or trying to save the world. Generally, videogame antagonists are one-dimensional, a single being with a single goal and a single way to get to it; this also makes them hard to like, their lack of depth. If only George R.R. Martin wrote every villain, right? Then this would be a different case indeed. SIDE NOTE: I’m doing drawings of characters from A Song of Ice and Fire.

Not every videogame has a clear antagonist. In some occasions, it’s time; on others, it’s your skill level. And that’s okay, not everybody needs to be poked and prodded forward.

I mean, there’s been a ton of antagonists that are memorable, but being remembered is not the same as being liked. Dr. Nefarious from the Ratchet & Clank series was over-the-top and goofy, but a perfect mad scientist to take down in the end. Psycho Mantis did wonders at freaking me out and telling me how many hours I’d logged in Suikoden as he battled Solid Snake. Clockwerk, a large, robotic owl, ends up doing some truly evil things. Gideon Graves gets all Dragon Ball Z-like, going from just an average dickhead to a larger-than-life threat and nearly impossible to beat. I still can’t say with authority if Final Fantasy IX‘s Kuja is a guy or a girl. Saren Arterius is a big jerkbag that released the Reaper fleet back into the galaxy in Mass Effect. Lastly, always fresh in my mind, is Koopa King Bowser, and how jumping over him or running under him–now a rather simple task–was exhilarating those first few times because he was three times Mario’s size and the little plumber that could was taking down Goliath.

Are any of them my favorite? No, never. But they’re still worth writing about, just not lovingly.