Putting miles on the clock in L.A. Noire

I beat L.A. Noire a couple weeks ago, but I’m not going to be talking about the game as a whole or its ending just yet or all the things I loved slash hated. That will all have to wait until I get to it on my 2011 Completed Games list. In the meantime, I’ve dipped back into the game to play clean up for Achievements, as well as just drive around Los Angeles without the constant pressure of finding clues, undermining suspects, and closing cases. It’s been really nice.

Team Bondi and Rockstar’s 1940s Los Angeles is bland in terms of things to do other than driving from point A to point B, but brimming with beauty and buildings to look at, observe, eye hump, and be amazed with. Aesthetics is the name of the game here, and hoping into a car, tuning in to Billie Holiday, and driving down busy city streets is a little like time-traveling. It’s also quite relaxing because, unlike Grand Theft Auto IV, bumping into a car or accidentally swerving over to the sidewalk does not get the black and white chasing after you; in fact, you’re the black and white, and the game does quietly reprimand you for reckless driving, but never enough to put the fear in you to drive as straight and narrow as they come.

I do try to drive safe and civilian-like, but sometimes I get sleepy and veer into another car. Or some dinkhead begins to turn, but suddenly decides to stop in the middle of the road; that seems to happen a lot. No worries. Cole and his partner are always fine, never thrown from there car or anything, and the cars don’t ever explode like they would in Liberty City. Crash a car, find another, and so on. The developers have made it extremely easy to stay in the game, to keep exploring and listening to those snazzy, jazzy tunes, and that’s pretty amazing as most open-world games get boring real fast. Die a few times in The Saboteur or Grand Theft Auto IV, and seeing that I’d have to re-drive (or re-walk) all the way back to where I was is more frustration than I need, and off goes the system. However, with L.A. Noire, there’s none of that. The only pain, I guess, is having to switch out between three different discs to “free roam” certain crime desks.

Anyways, last night, as the heat and sleepiness wore me down, I found out that I’d been driving a whole lot so far, unlocking this fun Achievement:

Miles on the Clock (15G): Drive more than 194.7 miles.

Obviously, this took some considerable time, especially since I reveled in the fact that, during the game’s main missions, you could totally make your partner drive to the desired location without fear of ruining your car or losing your way or simply getting distracted. However, doing so did not count towards your total mileage for this Achievement. Post-game, finding hidden cars and completing more street crime cases definitely helped with this. I think I was mindlessly driving around near the Hollywood sign though when this nugget pinged. Vroom vroom.

I still have a few more somewhat attainable Achievements to go after, meaning I’ll be spending more time in the glitz and glamor of L.A. That sounds fine to me. Locations, newspapers, more street crimes, hidden cars, golden film reels–here I come!

Achievements of the Week – The Correct Party Position Edition

Well, here’s a new Grinding Down segment that I am going to strive to make a thing. Every Friday, when I remember or care or feel like it is necessary, I’ll round up some of my favorite Achievements that I unlocked during the week. Not all of them, mind you. Just the fun ones, the ones with some story to them, the questionable. Alas, there might be some weeks where I unlock zero Achievements, with the blame either on my gaming skills or lack of playing time or me spontaneously combusting. Yup, you read that right. I don’t want to get all predictable on y’all…

From Portal…

Partygoer (5G): Make the correct party escort submission position decision.

Terminal Velocity (5G): Fall 30,000 feet.

It’s a little after one in the morning, and I have to use the bathroom. I’m currently playing Portal in total darkness, the ceiling fan humming overhead, dulling GLaDOS and hypnotizing me towards sleep. In a tiny alcove, I create a blue portal overhead and an orange portal on the floor, and then I fall–I fall continuously, gaining speed and momentum, turning my TV screen into a seizure-inducing weapon. I leave the room for some quiet time on the throne, and when I return, I’ve unlocked the above Achievement.

From Half-Life 2…

Bone Breaker (5G): Kill 30 enemies with thrown physics objects.

I’m still not really that good with the Gravity Gun, but every now and then I am able to pick up discarded saw blades with it, and those slice through Combine like warm knives through walking sticks of butter. Um…what? Forget it. Used that method a few more times, and ping, Achievement unlocked.

From Fallout: New Vegas…

Make Up Your Mind (20G): Made up your mind… about your brain.

Not to spoil too much about this, but the conversation leading up to this Achievement is simply fantastic. Like nothing before. Really exemplary of how great this add-on is for the Fallout franchise. If only all DLC could be as strong as this old boy. I’m guessing this Achievement can’t be missed, no matter what your decision is.

From Bastion…

Pet Sitter (10G): Get four different domesticated creatures in the Bastion.

I unlocked a few other Achievements in Bastion, but they are all tied to the story and are pretty spoilerific, so I won’t broadcast ’em here. I’m getting closer to completing the game, and might even try for a full 200 here. We’ll see. I always end up getting distracted or losing interest (am I right, Torchlight?).

—

And thanks to all these Achievements, here’s a nice little surprise:

Nifty. Sure, it’s not a palindrome or a nice, solid round number with lots of zeroes, but I’ll take it for its uniqueness nonetheless.

That’s it for our very first Achievements of the Week! What do y’all think of this feature? Stunned silence will be interpreted as glorious, panty-throwing praise. And please share below in the comments your favorite unlocked Achievement from the week.

Nintendo 3DS gets a price slash, and 3DS Ambassadors get 20 free games

The Nintendo 3DS has not had a stellar ride so far, skirting the edge of failure and occasionally dancing with the promise of success. From its initial system launch in March 2011, the pricey handheld ($249.99) has had to compete with things like smartphones and internal delays of vital applications such as the eShop, Netflix, and video hub, and while it does have a working gimmick of offering “3D without the glasses,” it’s not been enough to push the system into everyone’s hands like the previous DS did.

Nintendo is looking to shake things up with a hefty price slash, dropping the Nintendo 3DS to $169.99 on August 12; this is probably the fastest I’ve seen a newly launched system drop in price, which says a lot. The company is scared and trying to hurry up and make the 3Ds shine a little more, and they now have everything else in place to make the 3DS more than just a gimmicky block of plastic; you can surf the Internet on it, watch 3D videos, take photos, stream movies, and play games.

But what about sucker-chumps like me that dropped $250 on launch day, with slim pickings like Pilotwings Resort and Nintendorabbits? What does a price cut ultimately do for us but create grumbling sounds in stomachs? Well, early adopters of the system are now coined 3DS Ambassadors, meaning they are special, prized, and worthy of free stuff. Hey, I like free stuff. Especially great free stuff.

First, 3DS Ambassadors will get 10 free Virtual Console games from the NES era, including Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong Jr., Balloon Fight, Ice Climber, and The Legend of Zelda. The other five have not been announced. Additionally, they will also be treated to 10 free Game Boy Advance titles, including Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Metroid Fusion, WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$, and Mario vs. Donkey Kong. Again, the other five have not been announced…but yowza, that’s already quite a gathering of freebies if ever there was one. And from what I’ve read, these GBA titles will not actually end up on the eShop, meaning they are exclusive to 3DS Ambassadors.

It’s unclear when these games will be available to 3DS Ambassadors; I’m guessing some short time after the August 12 price slash. Or maybe right before it? I dunno. More details to come, I’m sure. Really looking forward to the free titles as I was just complaining to Tara about my disappointment with the 3DS, my severe lack of caring for it thanks to the delays and cancellations of desired titles. This helps…a bit. I’m still not in love, but filling up my 3DS with tons of oldies, but goodies is a great start to a better relationship.

Ambassador, out!

The Humble Indie Bundle 3 is ready for your buying

There’s a new Humble Indie Bundle available, and as usual, it’s a “pay what you want, get whatever you want” kind of thing. The five games that come packaged in this third bundle are And Yet It Moves, Cogs, Crayon Physics Deluxe, Hammerfight, and VVVVVV–five titles I’ve never heard of before, but am willing to try simply because these bundles now have a solid history of packaging great unknowns together for super cheap. They take indie leaps of faith to a whole new level.

I quickly dropped some monetary beans on the package when I got home from work last night, downloading my Mac files and then trying to load up each game to make sure they all worked; last time, none of the games from the Humble Frozenbyte Bundle ended up working on my now extremely out-of-date Mac 10.5.8 OS. Sadly, I could only get one game to run, and that was And Yet It Moves, a quirky platformer with a nifty shtick; turning the world with the arrow keys affects how your dude moves around it, as well as helps solve puzzles. It’s got a great ripped paper look to it, and I’m looking forward to playing more when I’m not currently sweating bullets in a tiny, cramped attic apartment. Disappointed, but not yet done. I decided to utilize the Steam key that came with the HIB3 and see if that would help me. It did…for one game! I can now play VVVVVV, but only by opening through Steam; otherwise, the game crashes from the get-go.

I guess two out of five isn’t bad for what I paid.

I’m naturally hoping to either set up my oldish PC when Tara and I move into Grimmauld Place next month…or purchase a fairly inexpensive Windows laptop some point down the line. Not just for games, mind you, but I think I’m getting a little tired of the roadblocks my Mac constantly hits.

Regardless, I’m always happy to support such a cause like the Humble Indie Bundle, even if all the games don’t end up working for my Mac. I will get to play them eventually, thanks to their DRM free stance. Don’t let this deter you, especially if you got a working PC. It’s a great deal you don’t want to miss, and you have about 13 more days left to not miss it. Please tell me how Crayon Physics Deluxe is.

Meet The Sink’s numerous personality modules from Fallout: New Vegas

Without a doubt, Old World Blues is the best DLC add-on for Fallout: New Vegas so far. It has stellar writing, wonderful voice acting, memorable characters, and a decently sized map to explore as you please. It stands a fraction taller than Point Lookout for delivering a great, bite-sized Fallout experience, even if at times it could be a little too chatty, a little too difficult, and a little too reliant on energy weapons for success. Thankfully, my current character Kapture was already a 100 in the Energy Weapons skill before heading over to Big Mountain to be swarmed by Roboscorpions and frenzied Securitrons. One might also want to consider a character high in Speech, as there are a lot of, um, things to speak with, and yes, I said things, not people. Let’s get into that.

All My Friends Have Off Switches is a faux main story quest in Old World Blues; it doesn’t necessarily have to be completed, but I feel like many gamers will go after it, and it mostly runs parallel with the true main story quest, making it easier to pick up some–not all–of the personality modules as they go mucking about the Big Empty. You are basically tasked with finding holotapes that contain personalities for specific items in The Sink, which is your home-away-from-home for now. Installing these personalities will bring the items to life, and after much talking, you’ll learn what benefits they can offer. There are 10 personalities to unearth, as you’ll soon see below:

#1 – The Sink Central Intelligence Unit is a human-accessible computer responsible for Big MT’s data storage. It can repair your weapons and armor up to 100, switch off/on the other personalities in The Sink, and act as a traveling merchant, with a decent stock of items. It has a thin British accent.

#2 – The Sink’s Sink is a nice, if a bit OCD sink. Obsessed with cleanliness, the Sink is also upgradable, allowing the Courier to bottle his or her own water if they happen to have empty bottles. I never took advantage of this, but I bet it’s great for players on Hardcore difficulty.

#3 – This Auto-Doc is actually a prototype built by Dr. Mobius many moons ago. It seems to have a military-like personality, and it can provide the Courier with the following benefits: a haircut, facial reconstruction, implants of varying price, switch out brains, spines, and hearts, and change the player’s traits (only once).

#4 – This personality is a little creepy. Or should I say…seedy? The Biological Research Station is a computer mainframe that is capable of cloning and planting dried seeds that will harvest after three days. It also refers to the Courier as “baby” and makes way too many sexual references. Tara was especially perturbed.

#5 – Blind Diode Jefferson is The Sink’s talking jukebox, but don’t expect much music outta it. You might even say it’s got the blues…the old world blues. By finding special holotapes, Blind Diode Jefferson can update the Sonic Emitter with new traits and bonuses.

#6 – The Book Chute likes to eradicate sedition. What does that mean? Well, bring it lots of pre-war books, and the chute will wipe them clean, readying them for…um, that I didn’t get to discover. Checking online tells me that you’ll be able to make your own skill books with the right amount of blank books and specific items. That’s neat!

#7 – Light Switch 01 is a very seductive light switch that, while appearing to be sentient, is actually not. There seems to be some conflict between it and the light switch in the other room.

 

#8 – Not much different from Light Switch 01, but a few special dialogue options come up with Light Switch 02 if you’ve got the right perks on ya.

 

#9 – Oh, Muggy! You make yourself so hard to love, and yet you are so lovable. It is a neurotic, miniature Securitron that is obsessed with collecting coffee mugs. I get that. I suffer from the very same diseases. Basically, Muggy can turn coffee mugs, tin plates, and coffee pots into miscellaneous items perfect for using at the crafting bench. It also loves to curse. Swoon.

#10 – Last, but certainly not least, is The Sink’s evil-minded Toaster. This thing wants to burn more than just sliced bread, and it’s not afraid to tell you that. It’s special perk is that it can heat up any weapons composed of space-age Saturnite material, as well as help make extra small energy cells and microfusion cells. This very same toaster was originally cut from Fallout 2.

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Whew. That’s a lot of ‘bots. I whole-heartedly recommend you speak with them often and deeply, exhausting as much of their dialogue options as you can. They are all very unique, and given that each (save for the light switches, I guess) offer some kind of benefit or bonus, it’s worth the effort. I found The Sink to be a wonderful, personified hub for my time spent in the Big Empty, and maybe now even for a main playthrough, as it features plenty of storage space, reloading and crafting benches, and helpful robots at arms’ length. For playthrough #4, I’m definitely going to try to do Old World Blues as early as possible (though the game itself warns the Courier that it is meant only for players level 15 and higher, and I struggled at times even at level 28 through 30, so, uh, eep) just to get such a kick-ass base. It definitely trumps Lucky 38 or Victor’s shack.

But there ya go. Hope you liked this little rundown of the ten robotic personality modules you’ll install in The Sink. Good luck finding all their holotapes!

Games Completed in 2011, #25 – Yard Sale Hidden Treasures: Sunnyville

It might not look like it, but this is going to be a sad Grinding Down post.

Yard Sale Hidden Treasures: Sunnyville, from what I can tell, is one of the last games my mother got to play on her Nintendo DS before she passed away this past December. I remember the day Tara, my sister Bitsy, and I went out searching for Sunnyville at Momma Dukes’ request; we had to even ask the GameStop employee if he had any clue of its existence as I couldn’t find it among the thousands on the shelves. Somehow, he did though, and we got it for her, knowing that it, at the bare least, was a bit of light and distraction during chemotherapy. It’s not a great, amazing game, but it is of the ilk that she loved: finding hidden objects. Her collection has several others from this breed, and she always devoured them within a few days, and then I’d play them after her, and we’d make fun of the lame attempt to add a story to these things and just agree that finding random objects on a random photo brimming with randomness would be more than enough.

And that all basically applies with Sunnyville, too. It’s attempt at a story is modest, but still hilariously unnecessary: you’ve just moved into the neighborhood, into a very empty house, and you decide to scour your neighbors’ yard sales for key items to spruce up your house and possibly win the Superstar Homes magazine contest. And that’s what you do. Go to a neighbor’s house, find items on a list, eventually whittling it down to one or two pivotal ones, find those, and move on. Once you’ve got enough room dressing to complete a section of your house, you’ll see a “before and after” shot of the room, rest up for the night, and start all over again the next day. You need to complete eight rooms, which takes eight days, which really takes…I don’t know. I played this game with little drive, here and there, finding a few items during my lunch break and so forth. My Nintendo 3DS says I logged just under 3 hours in the game; that sounds about right.

My mother played Sunnyville twice, completing it fully both times. I know this because of the three save slots available, two are in her name. I’m not sure if a second playthrough is any more different than the first. I’m glad she got a lot out of it though. Once she was finished with Sunnyille, she passed it along to my wife, Tara, with a short, hand-written note:

Sigh.

Naturally, I miss my mom. Playing this game didn’t do anything to lessen the hurting in my heart; it only allowed me to follow in her proverbial touchscreen taps, relax with a game that helped her relax, escape elsewhere momentarily. Again, not a great game, but one I’m emotionally connected with, hung up on. Would sure love to know what Momma Dukes thought about all the punny names for the neighbors as they got me to even groan every now and then. I can’t wait to see her again.

30 Days of Gaming, #24 – Favorite classic game

I hate coining anything as classic. Such a term is relative, and considering how wide the gaming generation gap is nowadays, many might not even know what game you’re talking about–or only know it, having never played it and more or less missed the chance to. You might think everyone and their mother’s mother has played Pac-Man and that it is irrefutably a “classic,” but that actually might not be the case.

First, some light history: Pac-Man, developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway, was first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. It made it over to the United States a few months later in October. Three years later, on a warm, summer Sunday afternoon, I would be born. I can’t even begin to fathom when I actually played Pac-Man for the very first time, but this image of me at a friend’s roller-skating birthday party comes to mind; I was never a good roller-skater, and so when the other kids went zipping around the rink, doing the “Funky Chicken” or whatever the DJ was blasting, I was wandering around on my own, often finding my way to the arcade room. This was more like a shadowy closet with two to three arcade machines up and running, one of which was definitely Pac-Man. The other two? Who knows. Probably a space shooter and maybe the Claw Machine.

But I don’t have as many fond memories of playing Pac-Man in dark, seedy arcades as I do enjoying it online via Flash remakes or when Google had it as part of their logo image for a day. Sure, it’s a little bizarre to be excited over playing a thirty-year-old game on the latest and greatest technology, but it’s not that bad when you consider how great of a game it is. You are Pac-Man, a little yellow fellow, and you are trying to do two things: eat as many pac-dots as you can and not get eaten by ghosts floating around the map. Sounds simple, but the gameplay works, and can be quite addicting, especially when you only have one or two pac-dots left to devour and an army of ghosts to slip past; there is no tension like the tension of seeing three ghosts begin to surround Pac-Man, and the relief upon eating a power pellet is orgasmically god-like.

It’s an easy game to pick up and play for a bit, and to step away from when you gotta doing something else. Pac-Man himself became quite iconic in the 1980s, and the game is easily recognizable by its colors and minimalist design. It seems to be considered the first game to feature both power-ups and cutscenes; kudos to them. It’s an age-old game that I still enjoy playing today, no matter where I end up playing it: on my computer, on my cell phone, on my Nintendo 3DS. The gameplay remains golden, and I’m glad I was–and still am–a bad roller-skater, getting to actually experience the game as it was meant to be played: in a dark room, engulfed in stark, colorful light, sweaty hands making stupid mistakes, drowning in a wash of never-ending beeps and boops, immersed, caring for the little yellow dot, trying to keep him alive as long as possible.

BONUS QUESTION TIME: Can you name the four ghost enemies in Pac-Man? (Reward: 1,000 XP.)

Hense, the Goddess of Pain and Pleasure, loves this blog post about Bastion’s difficulty

Suddenly, the Kid died three times in a row, unable to stop the swarm of Squirts and Gasfellas from overwhelming him with their lethal attacks. Up until that point, the Kid had never fallen in battle; sure, he’d come close, exiting the battlefield just barely, chugging his last bottle of health potion, wiping the sweat from his brow, quietly ignoring the narrator’s snide commentary. So, what had changed? Did the Bastion developers decide to ramp up the game’s difficulty without rhyme or reason?

Nope. What happened was that I built a shrine at the Bastion and turned on all of the god-like idols, thinking they were there to help and bestow great benefits on the Kid. Actually, they do the opposite of that. They make the game a whole heap-load harder, rewarding the Kid with more XP, but chances are that XP won’t be gained due to the fact that these enemies are now faster, stronger, and more deadly. Some even drop exploding bombs upon death, one last eff you before the darkness takes them. Because Bastion suffers from the tiny text disease, I couldn’t read the flavor text that went with turning on each idol and decided that surely they existed to help us on our journey to rebuild the Bastion. The idols also stack, meaning you could turn on a dozen and really wish your thumbs never existed. I believe I had turned on Acobi, Pyth, and one other idol before heading out to find Shards. Eep.

So, to help me and my bad eyesight out in future adventuring, here’s a table of all the idols you can unlock at the Bastion’s shrine, as well as what they do to ramp up the game’s difficulty:

Idol	Description
Hense (Goddess of Pain and Pleasure)	Foes are more ferocious
Acobi (Goddess of Oath and Abandon)	Foes drop a live grenade when defeated
Lemaign (God of Hope and Despair)	Foes’ attacks slow down the player
Pyth (God of Commotion and Order)	Foes are quicker, both with movement and attacks
Jevel (God of Health and Atrophy)	Foes are more resilient
Yudrig (God of Impulse and Bravery)	Foes cause damage on contact
Roathus (God of Thirst and Plenty)	Foes never drop Health Tonics or Black Tonics
Micia (Goddess of Loss and Longing)	Foes have regenerating health
Olak (God of Chance and Whim)	Foes occasionally turn to air, making them invulnerable to attacks for a short period of time
Garmuth (God of Purpose and Folly)	Foes are more capable of deflecting attacks

Yeah, imagine all of those idols turned on at the same time. Can’t even stomach it. Thank goodness there’s no Achievement tied to utilizing these idols or anything; they are just there if you, the player, really want a different experience. I think I’m content with the default difficulty for now and will not be going back to the shrine any time soon.

Hard to say how far along in Bastion I am, but I’d wager either halfway done or a little more than halfway done. I’ve been using the machete and the scrap musket religiously, and haven’t really done much with secret skills. I constantly forget that I have a third attack. Oh well. Here’s to remembering things and reading important text then!

I can’t beat the second mission in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

I’m pretty sure no one likes admitting they suck, but here I am, all guts and no glory, telling the world (well, really just the select few that read Grinding Down) that I can’t even beat the second mission of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Trust me, I tried. I tried oh so hard. In fact, I attempted to complete “Big Smoke” roughly four or five times, but found that controlling Carl Johnson on a bicycle and avoiding a car filled with gangsters and guns is beyond tricky. From what I understand, that’s the whole mission, too: put CJ on a bicycle and pedal your way to safety.

The first few times I was focusing more on staying up to speed with my gangsta buddies, so as not to get lost in the sprawling cityscape of San Andreas, but that often led to CJ crashing into something, falling behind, and failing the mission. Other attempts ended with CJ pinned against a wall or another car, a hundred and seven bullets flaying his skin, pelting him with ire, turning him into a slice of Swiss cheese. There was no chance at fighting back, only avoiding the car, but here’s a little fact that many people might not know: cars are faster than bicycles. No matter how hard I tapped the X button, I could not pedal ahead of the car, which pulled up right next to me and opened fire.

So after my sixth failed attempt, I muttered a cuss and took to highjacking some random automobile and causing as much chaos as I could. At one point, Tara came home and was talking to me, and we were having a full discussion, face to face, as I held down the gas button; amazingly, without even looking at the screen, my car was still on the move, hitting people and benches alike, as well as avoiding cops with an insane amount of luck. My car refused to get stuck, refused to explode. Maybe that’s the secret to doing well at a Grand Theft Auto game–not looking at the TV screen. Might have to try that trick if I ever attempt “Big Smoke” again. Or maybe not. I’ve no heart left in me, and I’m spoiled from L.A. Noire‘s easier action missions (and the ability to skip ’em entirely if they prove too hard or not fun).

Anyone want to come over to the Leaky Cauldron and finish this mission for me? I’ll pay you in praise and pretzels.

The Paul gives his impressions on the first hour or so of Bastion

Like most gaming entertainment, Bastion begins with some narration. This is to set the scene, tell a little backstory, get the proverbial ball rolling. However, with Supergiant Games’ first release, there’s a hook; the narration never stops. Voiced by Logan Cunningham, the game’s narrator is ever watchful and never a bit shy to comment on the fact that you’re slashing everything in your path apart or that you need to leave that adopted pet in your stronghold alone for now or that you went left instead of right first. It’s interesting and a little creepy, but it certainly gives one a sense of their own experience, something true to only them, and that their version of the Kid is being role-played as they deem.

Bastion is about rebuilding. An event known as the Calamity has split the world into a series of floating islands, and the Kid, our silent protagonist, heads to the Bastion, a safe haven of sorts that his people created to live at protected during these hard times. Unfortunately, upon arrival, it is clear that there is a lot of work yet to be done, and so the Kid sets off across the floating map to find new resources. So far, I’ve been able to upgrade the Bastion with two new buildings: a distillery and a forge. The former is a place of potions and magical unctions, and the latter lets you tweak your current weapons with passive abilities, such as improving the speed of your bow or your chance to land a critical hit with that mighty hammer. Standard RPG flair, but the stat personalizing and slight customization is welcomed.

The game is highly stylized, with gorgeous artwork, vibrant colors, and a playing field that forms all around the Kid as he moves forward. It’s amazing to see the path constructing right before your feet for the first time, and it’s still equally amazing the fortieth time it happens. Kudos to the developers for that neat trick. The monster designs are adorable, like something from a Hayao Miyazaki film. At times, the camera zooms in for a closer look at the action, which I greatly appreciated. Every place is a place of import, nabbing a cool name that any fan of epic fantasy fiction will love. My personal favorites: The Rippling Walls and Breaker Barracks.

If there’s one complaint I could toss onto the field it’s that the dynamic narrator is sometimes talking right as a swarm of Squirts appear out of nowhere and attack the Kid. Unfortunately, at that point I am more concerned with staying alive and swiping my enemies to bits to really listen, meaning I’ve missed out on whatever he said. Granted, it might have been something minor, but it might not have been. A narration log would be nice, or some kind of codex to keep track of everything. Also, at least for me and my television from 2005, Bastion is another example of a tiny text game.

But so it starts:

The Stranger (10G): Complete the Wharf District.

Looking forward to building more of the Bastion tonight after work.