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.

You fear to go into those Spelunky mines

Let’s get real: I’ve only been playing Spelunky for about two weeks and some change now, nearly daily, attempting at least one or two runs. Originally, I had no interest in the game, as it came across as maybe too punishing to be considered fun, and so I always kept my attention elsewhere. But then Patrick at Giant Bomb began playing, streaming his daily attempts to escape the mines, dive deeper down, and get better at the numerous mechanics and tricks, and it was actually quite interesting to watch. Kind of like a horror film, where it’s fine and dandy to watch someone else put themselves into a tough and trying situation, only because it is not you, and you can just kick back and absorb.

What is Spelunky, you ask, not knowing? Well, it’s an indie action-adventure game created by Derek Yu that has you running through caves, collecting treasure, and saving damsels for a high score and an attempt at beating the boss Olmec. It originally started as freeware in 2009, getting remade for consoles and the PC years later. The trick here is that the dungeon levels are randomly generated each and every time, and you only get one shot at it, though there are ways to increase your health and gain a second life. Traps are deadly, enemies are tough and quite unpredictable, and don’t even try stealing the idol in the jungle levels unless you have enough bombs to reach safety.

Some runs in Spelunky last around twenty minutes, and some are over in mere seconds. Like an endless runner á la Temple Run 2 and Jetpack Joyride, the “one more go” mentality is strong here. Very strong. Every death is your fault, and there’s always something to be learned for your next spelunking sojourn. Next time you’ll know that you can’t fall from that specific height, that you can’t jump on the walking Venus fly trap enemies, that bees should just be avoided at all costs, and so on. Visually, the game comes across as quite simple, and that’s even more noticeable when you compare the freeware version with the updated console versions, as not many details change, but things obviously get prettier. That said, this is one of the most complex and strategy-heavy games I’ve played in a long, long time.

I’ve beaten Olmec once. And it happened quite fortuitously. See, there’s this fellow called Tunnel Man who you meet when traveling from one themed group of levels to another. Such as exiting the mines and reaching the jungle. And he can open up shortcuts to these worlds if you give him specific items, like two bombs or a shotgun. However, to open the final shortcut to the temple, you have to bring the gold key you find in the mines all the way with you through the mines, jungle, and ice caves, and it’s no easy thing. Or at least I thought it was going to be grueling. Er, I did it on my first attempt. Even crazier is that after I gave the Tunnel Man his shortcut-opening item I finished the temple levels and got to the final boss, all wide-eyed in wonder and disbelief.

Let’s see. What else can I say about Spelunky? Dat music. Now, you can never really hang around too long in each singular level, as a ghost shows up that can one-hit kill you, so you are trying to move through the world at a speedy–but safe–clip, and that means you’re unfortunately missing out on some fantastic tunes. Everyone will be most familiar with the songs for the mines, and they are moody and down-tempo, with elements taken from jazz and all things 1990s. That jingle that plays when you anger a shopkeeper is both awesome and terrifying. The game’s soundtrack, which you can listen to here, is written and produced by Eirik Suhrke, with some additional friends helping out here and there.

Despite beating Olmec, I’m nowhere near done with Spelunky. Not one lick. First of all, there’s a second secret boss called Yama, and to get to Yama requires a lot of specific steps, and you can’t mess up one of them. It seems tough, but practice makes perfect, and I’m going to at least try. First I have to reach the City of Gold and then Hell. Hmm. But I’m also playing the game on the PlayStation 3, which has Daily Challenges, singular runs where the goal is to get the highest amount of treasure, and leaderboards nicely show how all your friends stack up against you. I’ve recently added a ton of Giant Bomb users to my friends list, which makes this feature much more enticing than when it was just me by my lonesome. And who knows–maybe one day I’ll tackle a solo eggplant run?

2013 Game Review Haiku, #5 – Jetpack Joyride

Never stop running
For coins, shiny rides, tokens
One more go, one more

–

These little haikus proved to be quite popular in 2012, so I’m gonna keep them going for another year. Or until I get bored with them. Whatever comes first. If you want to read more words about these games that I’m beating, just search around on Grinding Down. I’m sure I’ve talked about them here or there at some point. Anyways, enjoy my videogamey take on Japanese poetry.

Take me away on a voluptuous Jetpack Joyride

So, yeah, I did it. Bought a PlayStation 3, specifically the new “Classic White” bundle, which is a pretty stellar deal overall. You get the top-loading console, a controller, 500 GB of storage, and a free year’s worth of PlayStation Plus, which is a service that seems, so far, heads and tails above Xbox Live. Alas, the GameStop I was at did not have any copies of Ni no Kuni, and neither did any other local stores. My time for JRPGing will just have to wait, as I’m working on some art projects for MegaCon 2013 that I should get done sooner than later as time is ticking down. So I returned home without any physical game discs to stick in my system, but no worries–with PlayStation Plus’s wide offerings and a number of free-to-play games to download, I had more than enough to try out on the new console for the first time.

And so, yes, the first game I downloaded and played was…Jetpack Joyride. And I kept playing it. Over and over and over again. For the folks that don’t know, I’m generally late to every party–hence me getting a PS3 at the end of its “life cycle”–and so I’ve never used an iPad or iPhone (or any kind of advanced iOS phone) before, missing out on all those popular touch games that are free or like a buck and instantly addicting. Sure, I hear about them a lot, like Temple Run, Space Team, and Canabalt, but that’s as far as it goes. This was my first experience with the cartoonish and silly runner, and it’s pretty great.

Basically, you are a dude named Barry Steakfries and you steal a jetpack from some scientists, trying to fly as far as you can, avoiding electrical charges and missiles. You can never stop moving, but you can change how you move, with different items equipped, new types of jetpacks, and special vehicle pickups. My favorites are the dragon and bird mobiles. As you go and aim for a new distance record, you earn coins and slot machine tokens, as there is a store to buy lots of items, like costumes and new jetpacks and one-use power-ups. To level up and earn coins faster, you always have a trio of missions to complete, and they range from silly challenges like high-fiving 15 scientists to mobile-based, and everything is tracked as it happens, which is really nice. It keeps the not-yet-monotonous running alive with new ways to play, such as not picking up any coins. Now, you can totally spend real money to buy more digital coins to then buy better upgrades, but that’s not me–I’m enjoying this as a free thing, which I will play until I feel I’ve experienced enough.

As I played Jetpack Joyride like a wide-eyed fiend, I downloaded some other stuff in the background, which I will check out later down the road. Namely, Retro City Rampage, Mega Man 9, Mega Man 10, Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, and some foosball game. There’s more to download, but the problem with downloading full retail games is that 14 GB does not happen with the snap of one’s fingers. I think Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One took around six to seven hours to download. Fun times there.

So, in short, I bought a PlayStation 3 and am really enjoying this free-to-play game that was clearly built for touch-based devices as there’s only one button in use. Life is strange. Genesis does what Nintendon’t.