How to train Spyro the Dragon to conquer frustrating platforming controls

I quit Twitter in October 2014 and haven’t regretted it…all that much. To tell the truth, for the years I had it, I never used it for any great means. Sure, there was the occasional self-promotion, the randomness of writing down whatever weird thoughts popped up in my head, the handful of subtweets and then quick deletion of said subtweets, and the liking of others’ better constructed, more engaging updates. More often, I stayed quiet, observing everyone else. However, I occasionally had my moments, and this is one that I still like to this day, posted a few years ago while watching some speedrunners destroying games for Summer Games Done Quick:

There are professional speedrunners, but what about us late bloomers and slow crawlers? I’m at 25% completion in Spyro the Dragon (PS1).

— Paul Abbamondi (@pabba) July 24, 2014

Well, almost two years later, I’ve beaten Spyro the Dragon, finishing at a 71% completion rate. That’s fine, really. I have no interest in going after the full 100%, which would require finding the remainder of gems, dragons, and eggs. Though it does look like you get access to some special room/level. Eh, I’ll just look it up on YouTube later. Remember when there was a time that you couldn’t do such a thing? Yeah, me too. Okay, okay. Let’s get on with this post. I know you are foaming at the mouth to read my thoughts about a small purple dragon that tries hard to be mighty, but is diminished by outside technological elements. The camera, people. I’m referencing the atrocious camera, as well as the less-than-trustworthy controls.

First, a plot summary despite probably covering most of this in my last post on Spyro the Dragon. This not-so-nice fellow Gnasty Gnorc–not sure if that’s a cross between a gnome and an orc or an entirely separate, standalone race–has gone and turned all the dragons of the realm into stone statues. For reasons, I guess. Well, almost all of them. Somehow, teeny tiny purple-scaled Spyro made it through the transformation wave unscathed and is now everyone’s only hope. He’ll travel through six worlds, freeing as many dragons as possible while also collecting gems, which are hidden in enemies, chests, and even across the map, eventually taking down Gnasty Gnorc in the final level.

Our titular hero has a decent array of moves for a PlayStation 1 mascot-driven platformer. He can breath fire, charge, float, and even do a barrel roll on the ground. The problem is that, coupled with the unfriendly camera, doing any of those moves while moving fast is a recipe for disaster and death. I found the easiest way to move forward was in chunks: enter an area, spin the camera round to see everything there, and then tip-toe over to the gems or enemy to take care of business. This worked mostly fine until you got to areas where you needed to run down a ramp and gain speed or do some light platforming. Unfortunately, jumping Spyro from one area to another is not as easy as it sounds: Spyro’s jump is both floaty and floaty, meaning you can hold the jump button after pressing it to float for a bit. However, letting go doesn’t simply stop the float in mid-air, so you really need to aim your jumps specifically and accurately. The camera will be your toughest enemy in this endeavor.

While I found a lot of the maneuvering in Spyro the Dragon frustrating, I didn’t outright hate the game. In fact, I loved collecting the gems and dragons and checking the list in each hub to see what I was missing. I know, what a shock. Paul enjoyed collecting things in a game that does a good job of having things to collect and lets you know what you still have left to collect.

Anyways, despite all my progress, I nearly walked away from the Spyro the Dragon when I got to the final fight against Gnasty Gnorc. I stopped counting after ten attempts to take him down. First, you have to complete the whole thing with no mistakes, as the boss fight is made up of three sections and there are no checkpoints. The first section is easy, chasing down two enemies that are carrying keys, and I eventually got so good at this part that I contemplated a career in speedrunning Spyro the Dragon. The second part isn’t too tough, with Spyro using a shortcut to catch up to Gnasty Gnorc and damage him. Lastly, and you can see this in the screenshot above, you have to platform across lava, landing on thin slivers of platforms that are slowly retracting into the wall. It’s not terribly long, but you’ll remember that I mentioned moving fast and moving with precision are not friends in this game. One false step or lack of speed, and you have to do everything all over again.

Truthfully, my mascot-driven platforming journeys are only just starting. Yes, it’s 2016. It’s never too late to dive back into the industry’s history. I bought this digital copy of Spyro the Dragon during a crazy good PSN sale back in April 2014, as well as some related titles. Next up are Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. Then maybe Gex: Enter the Gecko. Maybe. I also grabbed a bunch of Crash Bandicoot games though I’m less interested in those as Crash Team Racing is still my favorite game starring the horribly misshapen Crash Bandicoot. That probably says something.

Charlie Murder is pure punk rock punching and kicking

Charlie Murder is one of the two free games given out last month on the Xbox 360 for Gold members, and I nearly forgot all about it, ending up downloading it on its last available day, a few hours shy of midnight. Whew. Thankfully, it’s a small game, somewhere under 400 MB, and so it didn’t take very long to go from Microsoft’s server to my hard-drive. Skip ahead a few more days, and I actually got to play a wee bit of it, enough to put some thoughts in my head, which I’m now sharing with y’all.

Let’s see. Charlie Murder from Ska Studios is…well, I don’t really know what’s happening story-wise at the moment. The game begins with our titular character in Hell, but only briefly; see, a paramedic is actually resuscitating Charlie, though I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Seems like the streets are now overrun with denizens of Hell because the end times are upon us. Three cheers for that. Now back on his feet, Charlie and his friends (if you have friends to play with, that is) must fight off this stirred evil. There’s also some story stuff about Charlie’s band, which I’m only just beginning to glimpse, though I imagine it is either going to be of the “rise to fame” or “fall from grace” ilk. We’ll have to wait and see on that for now, and I’m definitely more interested in that than anything else.

Charlie Murder‘s a brawler, a 2D side-scrolling beat-em-up, which, to be honest, is not a genre that really excites. Sure, over the years I’ve had some decent fun with Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game, Streets of Rage, Shank, X-MEN Arcade, and so on. Heck, I’ll even openly admit right here, right now, that I put many hours into the demo of Fighting Force because, in 1997, I just couldn’t stop hitting men with broken bottles. But for the most part, walking left to right and beating up generic goon after goon with fists or a range of weapon types until you can move on wears out its welcome real fast with me. Especially the part where you repeatedly mash the X button. Alas, that gameplay style seems to still exist here in Charlie Murder, but at least the game has personality, as well as some RPG elements to freshen tactics up.

There’s just one problem–I can’t read any of the text in this game save for the colored button prompts for quick time events. It’s tiny and scribbly, and yes, I’m wearing glasses and even sitting pretty close to my television. See, a big part of the game is using your smartphone, checking in on a Twitter-like app to see who is messaging you and how many followers you’ve gained, as well as reviewing your inventory, buying skills, and selecting which special powers to assign to what buttons. Y’know, key elements to make Charlie stronger and more unique, and I’ve ended up going on guesswork alone, hoping that this shirt is better than the other one based on some iffy color cues. Like, I know this is a bad image to begin with, but this is more or less what is like to be me and see the game and its text as I’m playing. Insert a grumpy face emote here.

So, that’s a bummer. Thankfully, the game has style out the wazoo, and you wouldn’t be wrong for immediately thinking of Jhonen Vasquez’s Johnny the Homicidal Maniac comics and Invader Zim series. Muted colors save for greens and purples and dark, quirky humor work pretty well here, especially that one part where Charlie had to rough up a man in a hamburger costume at a fast-food joint. You can change how your character looks with clothing and tattoos, which is always a plus in my book, seeing your actual equipped attire reflected on the person, and it seems like there’s plenty to spend on, though money does not come fast or free, which might mean grinding, and now all I’m doing is frowning.

But yeah, this indie brawler is nice to look at and listen to, I just worry that playing by myself, especially unable to read most of the stats on weapons and gear, is not going to be a lot of fun. You can join up with other people online, which I tried once and got immediately booted, so there’s that option, but I don’t suspect I’ll be back to stop this punk-rock apocalypse from happening any time soon unless I magically receive two more Xbox 360 controllers and three new ready-to-go friends. It’s competent, but conventional, and I’m sorry if that hurts to hear, Mr. Murder and friends.

The sights and sounds of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP

The longer I don’t play any of those PC games I’ve gotten over the past year or so from too many indie bundle collections to name, the bigger my collection grows untouched with each new tantalizing bundle that adds to it. In fact, I’ve started passing up great deals simply because my digital collection is truly bloated. If I was to be honest, I still have a hard time remembering I have a gaming laptop now, as I mostly use my Macbook still, especially since that’s where I do a lot of my writing and all of my comics. My bad. But I finally bit the bullet, pulled the plug, kicked the can–what have you.

Seeing as Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is the new Braid/Cogs in terms of being coupled in nearly every new bundle that drops, I figured it was a good place to start. Plus, the look of the thing alone has had me intrigued since word-of-mouth about the little sound-based fantasy adventure came out, but since I’m the type of person who lacks both a smartphone and/or an iPad–and I can’t really even forecast when I’ll ever get such a device–I’ve had to wait  for it to get ported to the PC. Which was done back in May 2012. I got my copy of Sword & Sworcery from Humble Indie Bundle V, installed it to Steam, and quickly forgot about it because I have that tendency to do so. Maybe this is a forthcoming 2013 New Year Resolution in the works…

I guess the easiest way to describe Sword & Sworcery is that it’s an indie adventure game. Sound and atmosphere play extremely important roles, but there’s also some timing-based combat and puzzle elements to boot. You control The Scythian as he/she explores a mythic realm, uses a sword to do battle, and wields sworcery–song-based magic to get down to it–to solve musical mysteries. You’ll meet a small cast of humble locals as you move around the land, as well as some nefarious monsters, like a pursuing demon wolf-beast. There’s some other stuff that’s not really clear, like these tomes and mentions of antlered gods, but it all does a wonderful job of sustaining a fantastical yet believable other-world. Strange structures, that flipped Triforce symbol that appears now and then, an actual usage of a record to represent Side A and Side B of a place–moments of wonder, all of them. It makes each new location exciting to explore.

Let me take a moment to discuss the real meat of Sword & Sworcery: the music. The music, Grinding Down readers. It’s both calming and hypnotic, and at times absolutely unnerving. Just like the soundtrack from Fez. I’ve spent more time listening to the tunes than playing the game at this point. “The Ballad of the Space Babies” does something to my insides that I can’t, without a medical degree, accurately describe. But I’ll try. It fills me with air, it lifts me up. There’s a promise of friends whispered off the horizon, and cloud-walls that ripple with each breath to lead me there. I am floating, moving through space and heading home. Only I know the way. It feels like forever, but the speck of light is growing, crowning, now radiant, with eyes open. When I get there, they close; the ballad’s journey is over, and I’m safe.

Another part of the game that I’m enjoying, but those that follow me on Twitter are likely not is the fact that nearly everything can be tweeted directly from the game. Small bits of narration, descriptions, instructions, and even dialogue. I’m choosing my tweets carefully, but because there’s a lot of whimsy and downright silliness to the writing in Sword & Sorcery, it is often hard to resist tweeting out every encounter. For now, here’s some I’ve done:

More to come though.

So far, I’ve completed Session 1 and Session 2. Both sessions are around thirty to forty-five minutes long, depending how fast you move and how quick you figure out the song-based puzzles. The sheep one in Session 2  took me a little bit to figure out, but otherwise nothing too difficult. Moreover, the boss fight that completes Session 2 is more stressful than challenging, requiring constant attention and quick reflexes, which are probably easier to do on an iPad or phone that moving a mouse cursor left and right. I’ll get better, now that I know what to expect from these situations, but I got that Gold Trigon with only one star of health left. Whew.

I’ve taken some time off of work next week for the Thanksgiving holiday, and besides catching up on a lot of drawing for my 365 BAD COMICS project, I’m looking forward to playing some of these games of mine a wee bit more, with Sword & Sworcery‘s Session 3 high on the list. I’ll be back. Until then, keep clicking, listen hard, and float away.

Free-roaming and not knowing what to do in Minecraft

About a week or so ago, I openly mused on my Twitter profile about how I both wanted to give Minecraft a try and at the same time…did not. The former desire comes from the fact that Minecraft-related things are everywhere across the Internet; can’t go to YouTube without seeing some video about how this person and that person faithfully recreated Middle-earth or Mass Effect‘s The Citadel or all of Westeros. Can’t visit any kind of videogame-related blog without seeing a post or two or three devoted to why this beta game is greater than fully completed titles. Crazy things like that. The game’s infecting my brainspace, and I love its trixel art style, which helps it stand out as, yes, indie, but also something different. The latter desire…well, I guess you could say I was a bit worried about getting addicted to it, hard.

Magically, the peeps behind Humble Indie Bundle 3 were listening in, and have now included a free Minecraft acceptance coupon for as long as the bundle is running. No, wait. The bundle ends in five days. So that’s not correct. Customers that bought the bundle can play Minecraft for free up to…August 14, 2011. Ten more days. Now I have no excuse but to give the game a try and see if it’s for me, if it’s something I’d like, if it’s something worth devoting time and wrist cramps to on my crappy Macbook or if it’s better to wait for the Xbox 360 version.

All of those questions will be answered. I’m currently writing up a special first-hour review of Minecraft for, well, The First Hour naturally. And by special, I mean special. Just y’all wait and see…

In the meantime, I’ll continue to roam aimlessly, punch trees and grass and pumpkins, and die every time the sun goes down. That’s been my experience so far, but who knows–it might all just click randomly. Do I really have to build my own fort?

Greeting somewhat warmly The Sims 3 on my Verizon cell phone

I can’t go into the specifics, but over the weekend I was fretting and waiting and worrying and trying very hard to pass the time in a mildly distracting way, but all I had was my cell phone and football on in the background. Ew, ball-foots. So, yeah, sports wasn’t helping, nor was watching the crazies around me. There was a very weak WiFi connection available, limiting the time I could fiddle around on Twitter and Facebook to a minimal. Yet probably enough time to download a mobile game…

…which I’ve never done before in my life.

I have a Verzion Reality cell phone, and that’s exactly what it is–a cell phone. I use it to make calls, text my wife that I made it safely to work, update Twitter rarely, and sometimes take pictures. Other than that, I don’t use it much as a piece of entertainment or gaming device. In fact, the Verizon Reality doesn’t even come with any free games. There’s three trial games for Tetris, Pac-Man, and Oregon Trail, as well as Dice…which just has you shaking the phone and rolling dice around. Exciting. But yeah, I perused the list curiously to see what was available and found myself surprised at some of the titles–Call of Duty, Final Fantasy, and Guitar Hero to name a few. How bizarre that tiny iterations of these big blockbusters exist on such an underpowered piece of equipment.

I ended up putting all my chips on The Sims 3, figuring it was the genre best suited to filling voids of time and performing mindless actions. It was $9.99. The only Sims game I ever played was the very first one, way back when, and I had a good time with it during college. My neighbors were my roommates, and I had a family, as well as a bad habit of setting myself on fire in the kitchen. I know that since The Sims released there’s been about 9,723 more editions, but that’s okay…they all play about the same, right? Sort of.

The Sims 3 mobile version plays vertically, with a mouse arrow stuck in the middle of the screen. You then slide the screen left, right, up, and down until the arrow is on whatever you desire (stove, shower, bed, your neighbor’s uncouth wife) and then tap on it to bring up a list of options (quick snack, shower, nap, seduce her and steal all her jewelry when she’s asleep, respectively). Honestly, it takes a bit of getting used to, and I do worry about not being able to get Sim Pauly over to the bathroom quick enough when he’s got to read a novel.

You start out as a jobless Sim in a modest home with a tad bit of money. It’s up to you to then form your Sim’s life. I gave mine such traits as shy and calm, and I plan to be that way as long as possible. As you play, Wishes pop up randomly–these are kind of like in-game Achievements in that they are specific tasks (example: sleep in another Sim’s bed). There are 75 in all to do…which definitely adds to the time-wasting quality here.

At this point, I spent all my money on a coffee pot and better kitchen table. Now my fridge is broken, and I don’t have the cash money to buy a repair kit. So I did some fishing (caught two catfish!), and applied for a job at the local quickmarket. Haven’t shown up yet to work. My neighbors think I’m a bit creepy. And , just like me, Sim Pauly seems to never not be hungry. Greaaaaaat…

Oh, and here’s what the game looks like if you were as curious as I was:

But yeah, I don’t foresee myself playing this a lot in my free time. I have the Nintendo DS for handheld gaming, but if I’m ever stuck somewhere and need to desperately get my mind off one thing and onto another, this should do the trick just fine. Also, I’m gonna try my bestest to set Sim Pauly on fire in the kitchen, in honor of nostalgia, as well as an excuse to blog about it on Grinding Down.

I’m a Limbo XBLA giveaway contest winner!

Yup. It’s true. I’m a wiener.

I mean…winner. Of what? Well, of a little indie game just recently released for Xbox Live Arcade. It’s called Limbo, and all I know about it is that it’s mostly in black in white, has a rather distinctive noir art style to it, and there’s a particularly creepy spider creeping about within. So that’s exciting. And all I had to do to win was follow MTV Multiplayer on their Twitter account, re-tweet their post about the giveaway contest, and wait patiently as they choose five winners at random.

Now I just have to get through the work day. Oh boy. Will start downloading immediately once I get home, and hey, who knows, I might even write about the gaming experience. I know…such a thing is unheard of ’round these here parts.

This also now marks my second contest victory involving Twitter re-tweets. Back in January 2010, I won a download code from That Videogame Blog for Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter. Hopefully I’ll have more fun with Limbo than I did that piece of spastic shootery, and hopefully that spider won’t turn me into a wimpering puddle of Ron Weasley.

Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm, and more arriving on Xbox 360 November 17

That’s right. A slew of social content is coming to Xbox Live on Tuesday, November 17, including Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, Zune video, and a new “News and More” section, which will draw from MSNBC, The New Yorker, and Dilbert for content. Wait…Dilbert? Hmm.

Seems that the services are only available to Xbox Live Gold members but us lowly Silver users (must be 18+ for Facebook and Twitter) will be able to get a sample thanks to a Free Gold Weekend happening from Friday to Sunday. I’ll be sure to try it out and let the world know what I think of it. Personally, I still feel like much of the social shtuff such as tweeting and updating statuses will be time-consuming, awkward, and worse for wear, but let’s wait until I can actually update my status with “Just blew a Super Mutant Overlord to pieces with a Lincoln’s Repeater headshot!” before I start with the nay-saying.

Until then…

Update to Xbox LIVE arriving on August 11, 2009

The update will be ushering in a wave of new features, such as Games on Demand, the Avatar marketplace, user ratings, and other stuff. Read up about here.

Alas, this will not be the update that includes integrating Facebook and Twitter into the main dashboard, which is a shame as I was looking forward to that feature the most. I’m nonplussed about the notion of spending real money/Microsoft bucks for digital clothing and toys for the videogame representation of us gamers. Seems kinda moot, really.

But…but. The Avatar marketplace could really do wonders if it allows some games to unlock a few free tee-shirts or magical swords (I’m looking at you, Fable II) either as some part of an achievement or whatever. That’d be nice and possibly some incentive to even glance purchasable pixels.

As per the Games on Demand, it’s not for me. I like browsing a shop and bringing something home, whether it is a new game or a used one with the manual missing.I also suspect that they will be priced a bit unfairly, but I’ll only speculate for now and hope that they don’t go nuts. I got my copy of Mass Effect for $15 human dollars so hopefully it is somewhere around there as well.

So yeah, I’m just kind of waiting on the update bringing in Twitter and the Book of Faces. Some time this fall, eh? Okay…