Backlog battle - Episode 3 - Indie heavenly Joe - General Discussion

kalmis

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Edited By kalmis

Time with a new entry on my backlog battle blog. Not been able to game as much as I would want to recently. Thanks to ramping up of my German studies and recent movie watching efforts. Decided to start watching all the movies that have been piling up. One a day. Anyway, on with the games:

Mafia 2: Joe's Adventure

Mafia 2 was a great game and a game that many understood wrongly IMO. Original Mafia was never an open world game and the second game should not have been viewed as one one either. Anyway, this what most of the media and buyers saw the game as. The developers replied to this with two DLC's that suit open world game more. The first DLC: Jimmy's Vendetta was nothing special. I reviewed it and kindly gave it one star more than it had deserved. Joe's Adventure, the second and the first "real DLC" tells what happened to Joe Barbaro during those 10 years when Vito was locked up. Story picks up where Vito is taken away and then the story is quickly forwarded with 5 years of Joe being in exile. Cheap move if you ask me. The first proper level takes place in new lake location. With some stealth, shooting and driving sequences. Beeing more critical about the game I can admit that it doesn't do any of these too well but gets the job done. At least there is some proper story this time. Compared to the Jimmy's 100 side missions DLC at least. Unfortunately that was the coolest part of the whole DLC, the first mission that is. There is couple of other brand new locations and actual real missions. Rest are just the same silly side missions as Jimmy's DLC had. The actual last mission escalates to killing of some boss. Who
happens to be in exactly the same tower building that Vito and Joe escaped from in the main game. Also the way it concluded got me baffled. The end cutscenes seemed to be something lifted from the main game. Joe wearing that silly red/white flower shirt which we didn't see for the whole DLC. Also the last cutscene had absolutely no sound. Could have been a bug as well since I've encountered quite many of those. The DLC is about 3 times larger than the first DLC size wise. It has some new songs and Playboy magazines, as well as couple of cars and those new locations. This was very disappointing. The story on Mafia 2 might have not been the most original at least it was told well. This is just a buggy side mission filled waste of time.

Port Royale 2

Still playing this. Kind of stuck on the first pirate lair. I can finish it, but not without loosing any ships. Which I don't like so keep on trying it. Probably posting a review of this soon since GB doesn't have one and this certainly deserves one.

Heavenly Sword

OK, this is a strange one. I played it until the second last boss and have no interested playing it any further. Game itself is not so bad, well except for the sixaxxis controls and the voice acting. Game looks really pretty but I just don't feel it. Maybe it has to do with the fact this game was recommended by a idiot "friend" of mine who's opinion I don't really care for. Maybe return to this and finish the game one day.

Red Steel

Yes, started playing this early Wii game. And oh boy game doesn't look good. And it is not just the low resolution. Not that I care for graphics anyway. Just feels like a huge step down from Xbox 360/PS3 game. Anyway, the controls are absolutely terrible. How are you supposed to play a FPS game without strafing? Still, the weird thing here is that. I still kind of like this game. Get a strange 80's feel from it. I just got just into the Japan level and the difficulty seems to get more challenging now. Game is fine in short periods, but I know if there is going to be a nasty boss sword fight with these broken controls I can't handle this any more. The waggling is passable in any other parts of the game except for the sword fighting which just feels so unresponsive. Dodging is fine since it can be done from C (or Z) button but the slashing doesn't work at all.

Indie stuff

I just love indie games that look like old C64 or NES/SMS games. Here are couple that I've discovered/finished recently:

Tiny Barbarian - This is an awesome freeware game. Deliberate retro platform hack/slash. I've tweeted about the game to be like VVVVVV, but it would closer to compare this to Ghost'n Goblins. Game is quite short but definitely worth checking out if you like retro style platformer. Link here.

Kruunu
Kruunu - Another delightful freeware PC game. This is more like Super Meat Boy. Bit longer than Tiny Barbarian and way more deviant, especially the Hell level. Xbox 360 controller works here perfectly. Only annoyance is that the progress doesn't get saved. Sure you can continue from a checkpoint, but if you don't complete a world you need to start it from the scratch when starting the game again. Still worth checking out. Link Here

Star Guard
Star Guard - This a simple platform shooter. And yet another freeware game. It comes with 9 levels, two difficulty levels and a time trial mode. Very simple mechanism but somewhat nasty boss. Pro tip here, he always jumps. Link here.

K.O.L.M
K.O.L.M. - Now this is a flash game, but bear with me. This is moody a platformer in vein of Metroid. Player needs to obtain upgrades to be able to access new locations. Game has a nice Portal vibe and absolutely amazing music. Worth checking out only for the music. Available on Kongregate and Newsground

Treasure Treasure FF- Wrote an review of this and been working on the wiki. Maybe using way more time on this that I should.

Random Youtube clip, been listening to Bloodbath all week. Here is their most catchy song:

13 years ago

kalmis

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#1 Edited By kalmis

Time with a new entry on my backlog battle blog. Not been able to game as much as I would want to recently. Thanks to ramping up of my German studies and recent movie watching efforts. Decided to start watching all the movies that have been piling up. One a day. Anyway, on with the games:

Mafia 2: Joe's Adventure

Mafia 2 was a great game and a game that many understood wrongly IMO. Original Mafia was never an open world game and the second game should not have been viewed as one one either. Anyway, this what most of the media and buyers saw the game as. The developers replied to this with two DLC's that suit open world game more. The first DLC: Jimmy's Vendetta was nothing special. I reviewed it and kindly gave it one star more than it had deserved. Joe's Adventure, the second and the first "real DLC" tells what happened to Joe Barbaro during those 10 years when Vito was locked up. Story picks up where Vito is taken away and then the story is quickly forwarded with 5 years of Joe being in exile. Cheap move if you ask me. The first proper level takes place in new lake location. With some stealth, shooting and driving sequences. Beeing more critical about the game I can admit that it doesn't do any of these too well but gets the job done. At least there is some proper story this time. Compared to the Jimmy's 100 side missions DLC at least. Unfortunately that was the coolest part of the whole DLC, the first mission that is. There is couple of other brand new locations and actual real missions. Rest are just the same silly side missions as Jimmy's DLC had. The actual last mission escalates to killing of some boss. Who
happens to be in exactly the same tower building that Vito and Joe escaped from in the main game. Also the way it concluded got me baffled. The end cutscenes seemed to be something lifted from the main game. Joe wearing that silly red/white flower shirt which we didn't see for the whole DLC. Also the last cutscene had absolutely no sound. Could have been a bug as well since I've encountered quite many of those. The DLC is about 3 times larger than the first DLC size wise. It has some new songs and Playboy magazines, as well as couple of cars and those new locations. This was very disappointing. The story on Mafia 2 might have not been the most original at least it was told well. This is just a buggy side mission filled waste of time.

Port Royale 2

Still playing this. Kind of stuck on the first pirate lair. I can finish it, but not without loosing any ships. Which I don't like so keep on trying it. Probably posting a review of this soon since GB doesn't have one and this certainly deserves one.

Heavenly Sword

OK, this is a strange one. I played it until the second last boss and have no interested playing it any further. Game itself is not so bad, well except for the sixaxxis controls and the voice acting. Game looks really pretty but I just don't feel it. Maybe it has to do with the fact this game was recommended by a idiot "friend" of mine who's opinion I don't really care for. Maybe return to this and finish the game one day.

Red Steel

Yes, started playing this early Wii game. And oh boy game doesn't look good. And it is not just the low resolution. Not that I care for graphics anyway. Just feels like a huge step down from Xbox 360/PS3 game. Anyway, the controls are absolutely terrible. How are you supposed to play a FPS game without strafing? Still, the weird thing here is that. I still kind of like this game. Get a strange 80's feel from it. I just got just into the Japan level and the difficulty seems to get more challenging now. Game is fine in short periods, but I know if there is going to be a nasty boss sword fight with these broken controls I can't handle this any more. The waggling is passable in any other parts of the game except for the sword fighting which just feels so unresponsive. Dodging is fine since it can be done from C (or Z) button but the slashing doesn't work at all.

Indie stuff

I just love indie games that look like old C64 or NES/SMS games. Here are couple that I've discovered/finished recently:

Tiny Barbarian - This is an awesome freeware game. Deliberate retro platform hack/slash. I've tweeted about the game to be like VVVVVV, but it would closer to compare this to Ghost'n Goblins. Game is quite short but definitely worth checking out if you like retro style platformer. Link here.

Kruunu
Kruunu - Another delightful freeware PC game. This is more like Super Meat Boy. Bit longer than Tiny Barbarian and way more deviant, especially the Hell level. Xbox 360 controller works here perfectly. Only annoyance is that the progress doesn't get saved. Sure you can continue from a checkpoint, but if you don't complete a world you need to start it from the scratch when starting the game again. Still worth checking out. Link Here

Star Guard
Star Guard - This a simple platform shooter. And yet another freeware game. It comes with 9 levels, two difficulty levels and a time trial mode. Very simple mechanism but somewhat nasty boss. Pro tip here, he always jumps. Link here.

K.O.L.M
K.O.L.M. - Now this is a flash game, but bear with me. This is moody a platformer in vein of Metroid. Player needs to obtain upgrades to be able to access new locations. Game has a nice Portal vibe and absolutely amazing music. Worth checking out only for the music. Available on Kongregate and Newsground

Treasure Treasure FF- Wrote an review of this and been working on the wiki. Maybe using way more time on this that I should.

Random Youtube clip, been listening to Bloodbath all week. Here is their most catchy song:

13 years ago

buft

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#2 Edited By buft

Im going to try a few of those indy games if i can on the back of this blog. cheers!

13 years ago

RobertFoster

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#3 Edited By RobertFoster

You can turn off the sixaxis crap in Heavenly Sword. I only got the game on Wednesday and I finished it today. I turned off the sixaxis stuff after trying (and failing) to control Kai's arrows.

13 years ago

Backlog battle - Episode 3 - Indie heavenly Joe

Mafia 2: Joe's Adventure

Port Royale 2

Heavenly Sword

Red Steel

Indie stuff

Mafia 2: Joe's Adventure

Port Royale 2

Heavenly Sword

Red Steel

Indie stuff

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