2012 Game Review Haiku, #36 – Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask

A casino town
Plagued by dark, dire miracles
Make way for Layton

–

For all the games I complete in 2012, instead of wasting time writing a review made up of points and thoughts I’ve probably already expressed here in various posts at Grinding Down, I’m instead just going to write a haiku about it. So there.

Puzzling my way through the City of Miracles

When the time came to buy Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask last Sunday, I literally said the following to the GameStop guy:

“Hi, I need a copy of Sticker Star and the new Layton game, whatever it is called. The newest one.”

He laughed. I laughed in return, and we had a brief comment or two about how it is pretty hard to keep these games in line, seeing as they’ve come out almost yearly since that first magical gem of Curious Village hit the Nintendo DS and kind of blur together in the end. Granted, I still need to experience the other two titles from the original trilogy–Diabolical Box and Unwound Future–but I absolutely loved The Last Specter and its built-in mini-game, and so I was highly interested in seeing how Layton’s first foray into the 3D realm would go. So far, it’s been strange.

First, the song that plays on the main menu screen is pretty dang close to “Time’s Scar” from Chrono Cross. I mean, all it is basically missing is some sharp violin action and a kick to the pants about a minute in, but that soft, slow build sounds the same in both tunes. Pretty weird. Not sure who did the music for Miracle Mask, but either they are the same person from Chrono Cross or just a big fan that doesn’t know the meaning of encroaching.

After that, it’s a lackadaisical climb up as the story starts, with very few puzzles and an odd action element to boot. Professor Layton, Emmy, and Luke have just arrived at the fictional city of Monte d’Or, sometimes referred to as the City of Miracles, driven there by a vague letter requesting their help. They arrive just at the same time a carnival of sorts is happening. Alas, that bit of pomp and parade gets ruined when the Masked Gentlemen shows up and turns people into stone before vanishing. Who is this Masked Gentleman? No idea. Through the usual investigation methods and a dip back in time, Professor Layton and company will try to unravel it all.

The Professor Layton games have always been about two things–story and puzzles–and balancing them properly. That said, the beginning of Miracle Mask fails hard, giving us one puzzle over a stretch of twenty-five to thirty minutes, and then throwing a decidedly odd chase segment at us. Okay, let me gripe about that part. You are chasing after the winged Masked Gentleman, riding horseback below. The game switches from a cutscene to a third-person perspective, with Layton on a horse, charging forward down Monte d’Or’s streets “on rails.” You can select a new path now and then by sliding the stylus left or right, and picking up carrots allows your horse to have the strength to straight up bust through barrels. This goes on for a minute or two, and then it just ends. It’s a bizarre gameplay section that I’ve never seen before, at least not in Curious Village or Last Specter. It felt out of place and rightly so–also, a revealed plot point later makes this whole happening quite disturbing, especially for those of you with horse fetishes.

And lastly, some comments on the part that truly doesn’t matter–but at the same time, totally does: the graphics. We’re on the Nintendo 3DS here, and that means 3D models. More depth and layers and effects to hit you between the eyes, like Layton pointing at you when you do a good job. Though, seeing how nice the diorama look turns out for Paper Mario: Sticker Star, it seems unnecessary for Level 5 to switch everyone over from that wonderful Studio Ghibli 2D art to full polygons. They look creepy, and maybe for reasons I can’t say; it’s possible I’m just not used to seeing these characters defined like so, but something about Luke’s wide-eyed expressions really bothers me. You too, probably. But yeah, it’s a little hard to swallow at first, especially the way some of the characters animate, like the clowns and Nanna Gram.

Otherwise, I’m enjoying it mildly. Tara and I are playing this together slowly as I juggle Sticker Star and Pokemon White 2, and working out puzzle solutions together is fun, and the second brainpower is sometimes needed. The mini-games from the trunk look okay, though I’m not really interested in raising a talking bunny, but the shop and moving robot are good brainteasers. Plus, by hopping onto WiFi, one can download a bonus puzzle a day for the next year, which will definitely keep us busy long after this Masked Gentleman is unmasked. Will report back if there’s any more odd gameplay elements; I really hope not.

Not your typical hero in Hector: Badge of Carnage

I don’t remember when exactly, but there was a sale on Steam recently, and for the low, low price of $4.99, one could get all three episodes of Hector: Badge of Carnage, a smarmy point-and-click adventure game from Telltale Games. That price seemed absolutely right, and my curiosity had already been flicked upwards after watching Giant Bomb do a Quick Look. Unfortunately, at that point, the wife and I were knee-deep in helping ghosts move on to the afterlife with the Blackwell games–and I just couldn’t sneak away to anything else until all four of those mysteries were solved. So I bought the package, downloaded all three episodes, and promptly ignored them for the time being.

But we finished those ghosty chronicles up, and now I’m ready for my next set of adventure games. Trust me, I have plenty to choose from: Gemini Rue, Jolly Rover, Beneath a Steel Sky, basically everything from the recent AGS Bake Sale, and a number of miscellaneous projects from Ben Chandler (City, Airwave, Heed, and so on). Whew. That’s uh…a lot of adventure games–and counting. I am sure I missed a few. In fact, I know it for certain; I am just too lazy to name ’em all. But the glory of being played next goes to Hector: Badge of Carnage, mostly because the tone and vulgar humor is the polar opposite of everything I’ve been playing recently, not counting Saints Row: The Third. It’s a refreshing if inappropriate breath of fresh air.

Originally, I began this post as a means to get some early impressions out, but  I didn’t finish writing it until today, and I went ahead and beat Episode 1 – “We Negotiate With Terrorists” over the weekend. So, yeah. This is now kind of a mix of impressions and final thoughts, with a magical haiku review to follow soon.

Hector: Badge of Carnage (Episode 1, “We Negotiate With Terrorists”) is, besides a really long title, a point-and-click adventure game set in the seedy spot of Clapper’s Wreake. A terrorist with a sniper rifle has locked himself up in some building and taken hostages, and it’s up to Detective Inspector Hector to fulfill the crazy man’s demands. And they are as so:

• Fix the clock tower
• Help tourism flourish
• Close down the local porn shop

Actually, those aren’t terrible things to want from a place one might call home. I think we were all expecting something more akin to a boatload of money, a helicopter to escape on, and the promise of being set free. This terrorist is trying to make the world a better place; shame he keeps shooting cops in the face whenever they creep near. But anyways, off Hector goes to solve these many mysteries, and the answers aren’t too difficult to unravel so long as you remain open-minded and try everything. And I mean everything–giving a blind guy a doped-up homeless man as a sexual bribe is not as far-fetched as it sounds. At least, not in this game.

If you do get stuck, Hector: Badge of Carnage features two hint systems, both of which are fantastic. One is Lambert, a fellow T.W.A.T. member, who you can ask questions at; the other is an actual hint menu, which can literally tell you what to do or be as vague as you’d like, with nudges in the right direction. I used both of these, and they really help to keep the player immersed in the game without feeling like one is cheating using a blatant walkthrough guide. I had particular trouble figuring out how to demolish the porn shop until the hint system showed me that I had missed doing something specific with an item I had picked up earlier on. Thanks, hint system. You saved me from getting frustrated and never coming back.

Besides the crude and sometimes confusing humor, the other aspect of Hector: Badge of Carnage that really appealed to me is its look. There’s a sharpness to the animation and art style, and the cutscenes are nicely put together. Reminds me of Penny Arcade, with bold lines and quirky character designs. As is always the case with point-and-click games, discovering a new screen or place to click around on is always a treat, and here it is no different. Upon finding the porn shop, I literally stared at the screen for a few minutes, soaking it all in, all the nasty visuals.

The only negative I can really throw at Episode 1 – “We Negotiate With Terrorists” is that it ends on the worst of worst cliffhangers. There is literally no conflict resolution after meeting the terrorist’s demands, which works for the episodic format, but bugs the bleep out of me. But I’m in for the long haul, and have already begun Episode 2 – “Senseless Acts of Justice”, which is going well so far and keeping up the tradition of toilet humor and toilets as plot devices. I’ll let you know how it all turns out.

MegaCon and the 3DS StreetPass tagging total

I’m back, dear Grinding Down readers. Thanks for waiting on me. For those that didn’t even realize I was gone, well…you stink. I was down in sunny Florida for some days there, selling minicomics and eating at places with nifty names like Tijuana Flats and Which Wich. It was a nice time save for all the driving. Actually, the driving down was fine. It was the return trip home that was grueling.

Now, only two people participated in my little contest where you could guess how many StreetPass tags I’d get at a three-day, very popular comics convention. One was my wife, the other a good online friend. Shame on the rest of you for not participating, as you have now missed the chance to hold total power over me for one entire blog post. Anyways, here is their guesses:

• Tara Abbamondi: 114
• Greg Noe: 256

Well, last night, with a fat cat sleeping on my back, I took the time to count up all of my StreetPass tags from the weekend, and the total is pretty surprising. Ready for it? Ready?

168 StreetPass tags

Woo. Ba-boom. So, that means Tara wins, and she’ll let me know what she wants me to moan and groan and go on about at length when she’s ready. Hopefully it’s not Sailor Moon.

But man, 168 tags in a three-day span does some magical things for one’s Mii Plaza and the minigames found within. One, I was able to complete five more puzzles, as well as collect all of the tag-only puzzle pieces. I’ll probably be able to finish up the remaining puzzles in April at MoCCA; I don’t like using my Play Coins to buy puzzle pieces, as it’s more fun to collect them from other 3DS owners. Two, I filled out my map a little more, meeting people from all along the East Coast, as well as someone from Anguilla, which is so rare that it doesn’t even get a picture for it. Third, made some sick progress in Find Mii II, getting all the way to the final boss, and by final boss I mean the boss after what many probably assume is the final boss. Still chipping away at it as that level-down gas is no fun at all. Then I get to replay it all over again, choosing a different path from before to get more hats. MOAR HATZ.

But getting all these tags and grabbing new puzzle pieces was great for filling in the gaps at MegaCon when nobody was stopping by our table. Aw, sad faces. Really, that was only on Friday and late Sunday. Saturday was slammed with busy, busy, busy. Sometimes I was actually clearing out my Plaza Gate under the table, because if you got ten Miis in there you couldn’t collect anymore visitors–and I needed to collect as many as humanly possible.

The next big tagging event will be at the end of April for MoCCA Festival in New York City. I’ll hold another guessing contest around then, and hopefully more of y’all will play along. Gotta think of a bigger prize. Maybe I’ll offer up my pristine copy of Suikoden II? Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Games Completed in 2011, #37 – Professor Layton and the Last Specter

I bought Professor Layton and the Last Specter back in October 2011 and had to almost immediately give it over to my wife, after her curious levels reached a brand new high. She ate up the game and then had to keep quiet as I finished my playthrough, which I did slowly and in small pieces. Not my fault. Some other heavy-hitters came out around the same time, as well as my continued quest to beat Chrono Trigger. Plus, that little mini-RPG thing London Life was fairly distracting. But I did see it through the end, solving the mystery of the ravenous specter and the disquieted town of Misthallery.

In Professor Layton and the Last Specter, which is set before the other games in the franchise, Hershel Layton and his new assistant Emmy Altava head off to Misthallery after receiving a concerning letter from an old friend. Seems like a mysterious monster–a specter, if the townsfolk are to be believed–is rampaging through the town at night. There, they meet a young boy who is able to predict where and when the specter will strike next. And the plot gets more complicated–and spoilery–after that, so there’s my summary. You wanna know more? Play the game, you puzzlin’ fool.

Story-wise, just like Professor Layton and the Curious Village, twists and turns aplenty. But this time, things get sadder. Even made my wife cry. I’ll be honest and say I didn’t cry, but can understand why she did; it’s like, you know what’s going to happen to your equestrian partner in Shadow of the Colossus, you can feel it in your gut from the very beginning, and then you still feel sick and shocked when the moment hits. There was some confusion towards the end of the game, where a revealed character implies he already knows Layton intimately, but maybe that’s a detail I’m missing from not playing games #2 and #3. Or it’s just a big tease to come for further prequels. Either way, whatever. Mystery solved, new friends acquired, and puzzle skills enhanced by +15.

As it is a Professor Layton and the Adjective Noun title, all is where it should be: puzzles, high quality animated cutscenes, minigames, hidden hint coins, so much dang charm, oh so creepy characters, and infectious music. I played Professor Layton and the Curious Village right when it released, but never touched the other two games, putting a span of a few years between my first adventure and this new one. Surprisingly, not much has changed–and that’s okay. It was a little like going home.

As for the minigames, unfortunately, they are not as much fun as the ones in Professor Layton and the Curious Village. Maybe the inclusion of a massive minigame–Professor Layton’s London Life–is to blame. What we have is the following:

• Miracle Fish: Bouncing fish around an underwater room, trying to collect a number of  bubbles in a locked amount of time. Trial and error is ultimately one way to solve these, though a few of them are extremely tricky. I did the majority of them.
• Miniature Train: Players must lay out train tracks on game boards of increasing difficulty that will allow a toy train to go from a starting point to the finish line while passing through every station on the board. These were too frustrating to be fun, so I did the first one and never went back.
• Puppet Theatre: A group of puppets perform short plays, and players must help them fill in the blanks with words they collect during the main game. I really enjoyed doing these and trying out different phrases in hopes of getting it right. The plays themselves are cute and down in a nice art style.

The puzzles in Professor Layton and the Last Specter range from super easy to super hard, with the super easy ones sometimes being a mindf*ck in the way that it will seem so easy that you will start second-guessing yourself. Boo to that. But the game’s pacing and charm are top-notch, and I loved being able to play for a half hour before bed, knocking out a few puzzles and progressing the story, but being able to stop for the night and pick it up the next day. You always get a summary of what’s been happening, and if you ever get really lost, you can re-read Layton’s journal for extremely detailed retellings.

I am looking forward to the first iteration of Layton on the 3DS, as well as maybe picking up the other two–hopefully for cheap–over the year for when I need a little more puzzlin’ in my life.

Playing the Ludum Dare 22 Winners, #6 – Split Party!

With Split Party!, you just have to ruin all the fun. See, your goal for each level is to separate different colored boxes so that each one switches from a smiley face to a frowny face. It’s like these blocks are your teenage kids and their punky, disrespectful friends, and you just came home from a long day at the blocks factory to discover your liquor cabinet wide open and emptied. Time to put your foot down, undo your belt menacingly, and get everyone to clear out. Well, that’s how I read it, but let’s see how its maker Ishisoft describes it:

A short puzzle game. Rotate the blocks to split them up from their friends, we don’t want them partying too hard!

I played up to the tenth level and got stuck. Not sure if there are ten levels in total, as there seemed to be more room available on the select screen, but nine successfully completed levels and a tough tenth one still encompassed a good time. The graphics are simple, but likable, though one caveat was that the ultra pink-purple background never changed with each level. A missed opportunity, for sure. And it’s amazing how effective a happy block to a sad block is. Music’s good and the puzzle mechanics of rotating, while initially confusing, quickly become secondhand nature. Early on, it was hard to wrap my mind around how to rotate the blocks to precisely cut them up and/or move them elsewhere within the level.

A great little gem of a puzzle game made in under 48 hours. Do give it a look, I say. And put back any liquor you took.

Playing the Ludum Dare 22 Winners, #10 – Soliloquy

I had some serious great luck the last time I perused the Ludum Dare website and some of the contest’s entries, finding the gem BATHOS in a sea of contenders. The twenty-second edition of the “create a videogame in a single weekend” challenge just happened in late December 2011, and site users have voted on the top 50 games based on things like graphics, sound, fun, innovation, use of theme (alone), and so on. The winning lineup went up the other day.

Now, I’m not going to be a crazy bearded mountain man and try to play all 50 of these homemade brews, but I think trying out the top 10 is worthwhile. I mean, these are the ones that got the most love by a large community of indie game makers and fans, and glancing at teaser images for them, well, a lot of them look neat. Saw some pixel art and started salivating. Plus, I’m still slowly gearing up internally for the idea that maybe 2012 will be the year I learn how to make a game; playing these can only add to my experience.

So, first up, we have Soliloquy, created by the user Friedrich Hanisch, also known as ratking. The game is described as so: In this game you are split. You are one person, alone in a lifeless world – but you have two souls, which have to work together. Okay, got it. I am playing it over the web, and it opens up in a first-person perspective looking down an empty hallway made up of large, texture-less, purple and pink polygons. There’s a constant feed of white noise. Somewhere, a baby giggles. WASD moves you forward and the space bar lets you jump.

The beginning part is just moving down this short hallway, jumping small gaps while pondering where exactly you are as well as why it all looks so boring. Found the stage’s exit, which took us to a new room of floating platforms. Time to jump around; I instantly miss the first big leap and fall into the abyss. There’s more jumping, and then the soul-switching mechanic comes into play–and it ruins everything for me. By clicking the left or right mouse buttons, you sort of split the world into two perspectives of the same image, one layered hazily on top of the other; not really sure how to use this trick to complete the level, and then I started getting a headache, bringing our time with Soliloquy to an end.

Not bad. Very unique idea that just didn’t work for me and my bad eyes. I played for about 10 minutes or so. Give it a try, I say. There’s also a post-competition version that tweaks things like mouse sensitivity. Onwards to the number nine spot!

HALF-HOUR REVIEW – Pushmo

Filling the puzzle void left by polishing off Picross 3D last summer is a little piece of 3DSWare called Pushmo (or Pullmo if you’re from Europe), a game that tasks a young, wobbly Mallo with pushing and pulling colored blocks to rescue children trapped in them. It’s not the most exciting first thirty minutes of a game, with a chunk of it stuck in tutorials, but I can confirm that it gets better.

I’m now on the level two puzzles–I think No. 68 to be exact–and the difficulty has ramped up to the point of stumping me constantly. That’s a good, my dears. Many of the mural puzzles, the ones that look like fruit or animals or famous videogame faces, are actually quite simple, structured to be pleasing to the eyes and nothing more than fluff to the brain. However, a recent viewing of GiantBomb‘s Quick Look for Pushmo forecasts that the size of the puzzle grids are going to get bigger, and bigger, and then bigger again. Whoo boy. Those will be some doozies, for sure.

I’m just pleased to have a time-killer again. Picross 3D was perfect in that if I had five minutes or so between something, like waiting for Tara to get ready, I could do a puzzle. That same theory applies now to Pushmo. I mostly do my puzzling while waiting for artwork to be scanned and Photoshop to open on my slow-as-slow Macbook. If I’m good enough, I can get through two or three before it’s time to get back to making them comics. But yeah, it’s pretty good, and if you have a 3DS, well, it’s a no-brainer to get it, even if you feel like $7.00 is too high a price, it’s not. Not at all.

Games Completed in 2011, #35 – Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars

Initially, my mother bought Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars for her Nintendo DS. I thought it might be something she’d like, a mix of puzzles and story, with a laid-back pace and friendly presentation to it, and so I suggested it. Alas, my suggestion was wrong, as I discovered during one trip home that she never got further than the first few screens before giving up. I asked to borrow it, always curious about the point-and-clicker. After playing some, I could see why she struggled–the puzzles were a little tricky, and a lot of figuring out where to go next was based, at least for me, on stumbling rather than solving. But I continued on, in sparse chunks, because I’d get stuck a lot and move on to something shinier. Eventually I wrapped up the plot, earning George a silly smooch and me another game for my Games Completed in 2011 list.

The plot can be summed up like this: American tourist George Stobbart is chasing down a clown after he sets off an explosion outside a Paris café. As simple as that sounds, things eventually get out of control, and George finds himself, along with journalist Nico Collard, deep in a conspiracy involving the Knights Templar.

Gameplay involves using the stylus to tap around the bottom DS touchscreen for things/people to investigate, pick up, or  tinker with. When it comes to chatting, there’s chatting. Plenty of it. George is a confident and socializing sorta chap, and has something to say for everything. The same can be said about the NPCs in Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars, as every single character George spoke to reacted differently to the used tissue he was carrying, and at that point, the item was mostly meaningless, just a thing in his pocket. In that way, the writing is fantastic, with an attention to detail and actual facts of history and making characters really feel unique, even if George himself got creepy now and then.

This version is actually the Director’s Cut, which features new puzzles and then some new animations by artist Dave Gibbons (of Watchmen legend). Considering I’ve never played any previous version of Broken Sword, I couldn’t tell new from old, but it all looked great. The character portraits when speaking with someone offer up a wide amount of expression and detail, and pixel-hunting isn’t made all the much harder by low-res and dark screens; locations, which range from France to Ireland to Syria to Scotland, are colorful and designed to be navigated through with the touch of a style. You can press down on a selectable item or place to get more options, such as observe, talk, pick up, and so forth.

At one point in Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars, George comes to own a hand buzzer. It’s a prank item, intended to give someone a little shock after shaking his hand. You can select it as a topic of discussion with everyone, but nobody ever falls for it–that is until a certain someone does. Saying any more would be spoilery, but man, it was pretty great to finally see the buzzer in action. The game is peppered with these wonderful moments, where an item you’ve been carrying around for days finally shows its quality.

Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars is intelligent and brimming with charm, telling a story that is, many years later, fresh and gripping. Take that, The Da Vinci Code! There are moments of frustration in terms of cryptic puzzles or lack of a clear destination, but those are easily rewarded with new, fantastic characters to converse and unexplored content. I think it works well on the Nintendo DS as a portable game, thanks to a “save any time” feature, and George’s notepad is great for catching up on all things plot after disappearing for too long of a time. I definitely recommend it for fans of Monkey Island or Sam & Max, or if you’re a history buff; I now know more about the Knights Templar than ever before.

Humble Indie Bundle is back to it with the Humble Voxatron Debut

I didn’t expect to purchase the latest and greatest from Humble Indie Bundle–which, when announced on Halloween, was simply Voxatron Alpha–but then they went and threw in two more games, specifically Blocks That Matter and The Binding of Isaac, both of which I’ve seen in action thanks to GiantBomb‘s Quick Looks and found appealing. To get all three games, you have to pay above the average price, which at the time of purchase, was $4.75. My lunch at Panera Bread earlier this week was double that (turkey artichoke panini and broccoli and cheese soup for the curious). Included in the purchase are two soundtracks, as well as the promise of further updates for Voxatron Alpha, a game not fully complete yet, hence the alpha-ism.

It’s all good either way because I’m pleased to announce that all three games run–and run amazingly–on my Mac. My Macbook’s torrid history of trouble playing newer games has been steadily documented here on Grinding Down. Knowing that, I continue to try, and as each game loaded up, I held my breath with worry. Would it load at all or just quit to the desktop? How unbearable would the lag be? So many questions, none that would ultimately be answered. Every game loaded without a hitch, and plays very smoothly. This warmed my gaming heart and fingers immediately.

Of the three, the one I played the most of after installations were done was Blocks That Matter, a cute puzzle-platformer that has some elements of Minecraft to it. You control a tiny drillbot and are trying to rescue your creators by navigating through each level to a magical portal at the end. The trick is in figuring out how to use the blocks you collect to build new platforms. The other two titles, Voxatron Alpha and The Binding of Isaac, are interesting, if very chaotic. A lot of runnin’ and gunnin’ if you know what that means. Maybe I just need to get used to the controls more. Both require fast response skills, and sometimes that’s harder to do–at least for me–with a mouse and keyboard than a gamepad. We’ll see if I can get any better at ’em both.

If past bundles are any indication, there’s the strong possibility of Jeffrey Rosen adding more games to this bundle before it closes for good. Since I’ve already bought in, hopefully that means I’ll get further perks for free, such as soundtracks, additional gamey games, and pivotal updates, which is always nice. If anything, these bundles are just a great way to show support for indie game development, something I’m growing increasingly aware and curious of, and whether or not I love every game I buy, I still like to be involved.