[insert title] 8-27-11

It’s Saturday, and although school has started for me once again, I still have time to write these blogs talking about what games I’ve been playing in the past week. Speaking of games, I've been playing quite a few of them. Two I just recently purchased from Steam, and the other two I have owned for some time and am replaying through them in chunks each day. More on that later.

Real Life

Yep, summer vacation is over, and now I am starting my senior year of high school. First day of it wasn’t so bad, still the same familiar faces I’ve seen for the past few years. Probably the best thing I can say is that I have more time during school to get homework done, thanks to having a study hall. Also, I miss having my beard. And I swear the weather has been cloudy since this week started, and I always feel tired once I’m at school, even when I am perfectly wide awake two hours prior. Man, I want this year done already.

GAMES!!!!

Last Saturday I had a dilemma. With 20 bucks to spare, I had to decide on buying both Braid and Limbo, or Bastion along with the soundtrack. I went with the former. Kinda regret not going with Bastion, but I probably would’ve felt the same the other way around because I want to play all of them. Oh well, maybe next time Bastion.

I’ll be talking about both of these games. I finished them in about 2 hours each, so not a whole lot. But I still enjoyed playing them. Let’s start with Limbo.

Limbo was recently released on PC and PS3, a year after it debut on XBLA. I knew that Brad absolutely loved the game, and that Jeff did not like it that much. So having heard both sides my expectations were tempered. After playing it, I’m still somewhat in the middle, but lean more towards loving it than hating it.

First thing I have to say about Limbo is that it has a fantastic atmosphere. It’s really spooky and unnerving, thanks to the silhouette art style it uses. It was very effective. That said though, the actual gameplay in Limbo isn’t amazing. Platforming is super basic. You run, you jump, and you’ve got a grab button. That’s it. No real gameplay hook other than getting caught in a trap, dying, and then doing it again and beating it. I’m not fond of getting killed just to learn how to avoid a hazard. Would have liked it better if there was something in the environment that became the victim of those hazards and you could learn from there that you need to avoid them.

While I’m not fond of the process behind figuring out traps for the first time, the puzzles surrounding them are pretty good, and they seem to keep introducing new things to you at a rapid pace. But then there rises another problem I have with the game. There’s no real climax. I’m not talking about the ambiguous ending, but before that. The final puzzle feels like the game ended too soon. It just ends. I would’ve hoped the game had some sort of build up near the end then a gravity puzzle, especially when the earlier levels had some sort of threat that tries to kill the boy, like the giant spider or the brain slugs. Instead all that’s left are machines operating on their own.

Despite those big criticisms, I still enjoyed the game. It’s not a great game, but it isn’t terrible. It’s alright.

Second game I bought was Braid. Now, I have already played the demo for the game a few times before, so I was already a bit familiar with the gameplay. Like Limbo, it’s a platformer, but the advantage it has over that game is the time manipulation. You have the power to rewind time, correcting any mistakes you make including death.

While rewinding time is the first basic mechanic you learn at the start of the game, each world introduces new concepts involving time, including items not effected by time, time moving forward or backwards depending on which direction you move, a replay of your previous actions before reversing time, and a ring that creates a bubble that slows down time in its vicinity. Most of the time you’ll find items immune to time in all the worlds, while the rest are mostly part of the specific area they’re introduced in. The puzzles are pretty challenging, and I found myself looking up the solutions for most of the puzzles in World 6 because of time spent trying to figure it out and not get anywhere. Kind of bad of me, I guess, but I solved a good chunk of the puzzles on my own and felt good about those.

Another part of Braid is the story. It’s all told through books on a pedestal that you can read before going into a level in one of the worlds in the game. That’s fine and all, though what I really liked about the game story wise was the final level of the game before the epilogue. I was already spoiled about there being a twist involving Tim and how he’s villain in reality. But that was so long ago and I never read into that stuff that by the time I got to it myself, it might as well have been like I was never spoiled to begin with. Not only was twist effective from the story perspective, but from a gameplay perspective as well. You think you’re running away from some big knight who had her captive and you’re about to be reunited when suddenly, you start going backwards. And you can’t do anything else but hold the rewind button to see that she was trying to escape from you and the knight was her hero. That part surprised me a lot. Reminded me of the first time I finished Shadow of the Colossus, in that final moment of controlling the character that you can’t resist what’s been set in stone, no matter how hard you try (in the case of Braid, not push the rewind button).

I really enjoyed the game, a lot more then Limbo. Both of them are good games, though, and I’m glad that I did buy them both. Fun and short experiences.

REPLAY CHALLENGE: ROUND 1

(may or may not be official title for this segment. I really suck with names)

So this is it. My nine month plan to replay 20 games in my collection, both old and recent, has started as of Monday, August 22. To kick this off, I’m playing both Super Mario 64 and Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. How I’m going to write about this is give my thoughts about what I played each day. They may range from being brief to in depth. Either way, you’ll get to read my thoughts on these games as I play them instead of a summary of the whole thing.

	Day 1: Starting off I got the first four stars in Bob-Omb Battlefield and one secret star on the slide level. Beginning of the game is super easy, part of that being I still remember how to get all the stars that I got those stars really fast. I only last played this game two years ago, anyway. Controlling Mario is still fun as ever.
	Day 2: Took me a little bit longer to get the second star on the slide level, the one where you need to reach the goal in 21 seconds. About 3 or 4 tries, but I got it. Rest of the day was spent on the first four stars at Whomp’s fortress. It’s probably one of my absolute favorite levels in the game, if only because it is mad easy to get the 100 coin star. It’s like they just hand them out to you.
	Day 3: Got the star on the Wing Cap switch level, activating all Wing Cap boxes throughout the game, and then I got two more stars in Bob-Omb Battlefield and two more in Whomp’s Fortress. That fifth star on Bob-Omb Battlefield is still a pain, flying through those rings made of coins to earn the star. The first three or four rings can be reached in one cannon shot, but the last ring takes a specific angle to reach because it’s so high up. Kind of annoying. Everything else was for today was a breeze.
	Day 4: Went to Cool Cool Mountain, the first snow level in the game. I expected to screw up a lot on the Penguin race, but I only fell off once, and then I beat him. Also, kind of a weird observation, but the snow world theme, the theme in Bob-Omb Battlefield, and the theme for the Princess’s secret slide all sound like arranged versions of the same tune. Like some of the notes in the same order are used, but it’s different enough that most wouldn’t notice.
	Day 5: Jolly Roger’s Bay isn’t one of my favorite levels in the game. The second star especially, where you have to chase the eel that has the star hanging by its tail. Kinda expected a lot of screw ups, in fact I almost drowned because I got to close and took damage. So I got 4 stars there, and finally went to the first Bowser level. Got the secret star there and the key to the basement. Progress!

	Day 1: Man, it was only a few months ago that I went through this game on the 3DS. But that hasn’t prevented me from still enjoying the original game. It is kinda crazy to look back to when I first played this game and had no idea what to do in the Kokiri Village. Now I know everything like the back of my hand.
	Day 2: The inside of the Deku Tree is still the same as always. One thing I did screw up on was the boss fight with Gohma. I forgot that I had Z-Target set to hold instead of toggle, so I lost my lock on Gohma when she climbed up the wall to lay her eggs, missing my chance to shoot her in the eye and finish her off quickly. Still beat her, just not as fast I was hoping.
	Day 3: Ah, sneaking missions that feel horribly out of place for a game that is not about sneaking past people. Definitely my least favorite part about the game, but at least you have to do it once. Unless you’re wasting time by going back there with masks from the Happy Mask Shop just to show off to Zelda (I did do it before though. It eventually became a hassle though).
	Day 4: A lot of ground covered across Hyrule, from the Lost Woods, to Lon Lon Ranch, all the way to Death Mountain. And that meant getting more songs for the Ocarina. Playing the ocarina on the N64 version is a lot better for me than on the 3DS just because I still remember the buttons I need to press without needing to think. Those songs are permanently etched in my mind.
	Day 5: Second dungeon, not a problem at all. King Dodongo says screw the rule of three and uses the rule of FOUR. Whatever, didn’t change the fact that it was easy. And since turning of the game sends you back to your house in Kokiri Village, I made sure to get the magic meter at the top of Death Mountain after beating the dungeon just so I wouldn’t have to travel all the way up there later.

In Conclusion

This week has been exhausting. And it’s gonna keep being like that till the end of the school year. Thanks for reading, and even if I don't have any new games to play at some point, I still have this replay segment to ensure I write at least something involving games.

Peace.

It’s Saturday, and although school has started for me once again, I still have time to write these blogs talking about what games I’ve been playing in the past week. Speaking of games, I've been playing quite a few of them. Two I just recently purchased from Steam, and the other two I have owned for some time and am replaying through them in chunks each day. More on that later.

Real Life

Yep, summer vacation is over, and now I am starting my senior year of high school. First day of it wasn’t so bad, still the same familiar faces I’ve seen for the past few years. Probably the best thing I can say is that I have more time during school to get homework done, thanks to having a study hall. Also, I miss having my beard. And I swear the weather has been cloudy since this week started, and I always feel tired once I’m at school, even when I am perfectly wide awake two hours prior. Man, I want this year done already.

GAMES!!!!

Last Saturday I had a dilemma. With 20 bucks to spare, I had to decide on buying both Braid and Limbo, or Bastion along with the soundtrack. I went with the former. Kinda regret not going with Bastion, but I probably would’ve felt the same the other way around because I want to play all of them. Oh well, maybe next time Bastion.

I’ll be talking about both of these games. I finished them in about 2 hours each, so not a whole lot. But I still enjoyed playing them. Let’s start with Limbo.

Limbo was recently released on PC and PS3, a year after it debut on XBLA. I knew that Brad absolutely loved the game, and that Jeff did not like it that much. So having heard both sides my expectations were tempered. After playing it, I’m still somewhat in the middle, but lean more towards loving it than hating it.

First thing I have to say about Limbo is that it has a fantastic atmosphere. It’s really spooky and unnerving, thanks to the silhouette art style it uses. It was very effective. That said though, the actual gameplay in Limbo isn’t amazing. Platforming is super basic. You run, you jump, and you’ve got a grab button. That’s it. No real gameplay hook other than getting caught in a trap, dying, and then doing it again and beating it. I’m not fond of getting killed just to learn how to avoid a hazard. Would have liked it better if there was something in the environment that became the victim of those hazards and you could learn from there that you need to avoid them.

While I’m not fond of the process behind figuring out traps for the first time, the puzzles surrounding them are pretty good, and they seem to keep introducing new things to you at a rapid pace. But then there rises another problem I have with the game. There’s no real climax. I’m not talking about the ambiguous ending, but before that. The final puzzle feels like the game ended too soon. It just ends. I would’ve hoped the game had some sort of build up near the end then a gravity puzzle, especially when the earlier levels had some sort of threat that tries to kill the boy, like the giant spider or the brain slugs. Instead all that’s left are machines operating on their own.

Despite those big criticisms, I still enjoyed the game. It’s not a great game, but it isn’t terrible. It’s alright.

Second game I bought was Braid. Now, I have already played the demo for the game a few times before, so I was already a bit familiar with the gameplay. Like Limbo, it’s a platformer, but the advantage it has over that game is the time manipulation. You have the power to rewind time, correcting any mistakes you make including death.

While rewinding time is the first basic mechanic you learn at the start of the game, each world introduces new concepts involving time, including items not effected by time, time moving forward or backwards depending on which direction you move, a replay of your previous actions before reversing time, and a ring that creates a bubble that slows down time in its vicinity. Most of the time you’ll find items immune to time in all the worlds, while the rest are mostly part of the specific area they’re introduced in. The puzzles are pretty challenging, and I found myself looking up the solutions for most of the puzzles in World 6 because of time spent trying to figure it out and not get anywhere. Kind of bad of me, I guess, but I solved a good chunk of the puzzles on my own and felt good about those.

Another part of Braid is the story. It’s all told through books on a pedestal that you can read before going into a level in one of the worlds in the game. That’s fine and all, though what I really liked about the game story wise was the final level of the game before the epilogue. I was already spoiled about there being a twist involving Tim and how he’s villain in reality. But that was so long ago and I never read into that stuff that by the time I got to it myself, it might as well have been like I was never spoiled to begin with. Not only was twist effective from the story perspective, but from a gameplay perspective as well. You think you’re running away from some big knight who had her captive and you’re about to be reunited when suddenly, you start going backwards. And you can’t do anything else but hold the rewind button to see that she was trying to escape from you and the knight was her hero. That part surprised me a lot. Reminded me of the first time I finished Shadow of the Colossus, in that final moment of controlling the character that you can’t resist what’s been set in stone, no matter how hard you try (in the case of Braid, not push the rewind button).

I really enjoyed the game, a lot more then Limbo. Both of them are good games, though, and I’m glad that I did buy them both. Fun and short experiences.

REPLAY CHALLENGE: ROUND 1

(may or may not be official title for this segment. I really suck with names)

So this is it. My nine month plan to replay 20 games in my collection, both old and recent, has started as of Monday, August 22. To kick this off, I’m playing both Super Mario 64 and Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. How I’m going to write about this is give my thoughts about what I played each day. They may range from being brief to in depth. Either way, you’ll get to read my thoughts on these games as I play them instead of a summary of the whole thing.

	Day 1: Starting off I got the first four stars in Bob-Omb Battlefield and one secret star on the slide level. Beginning of the game is super easy, part of that being I still remember how to get all the stars that I got those stars really fast. I only last played this game two years ago, anyway. Controlling Mario is still fun as ever.
	Day 2: Took me a little bit longer to get the second star on the slide level, the one where you need to reach the goal in 21 seconds. About 3 or 4 tries, but I got it. Rest of the day was spent on the first four stars at Whomp’s fortress. It’s probably one of my absolute favorite levels in the game, if only because it is mad easy to get the 100 coin star. It’s like they just hand them out to you.
	Day 3: Got the star on the Wing Cap switch level, activating all Wing Cap boxes throughout the game, and then I got two more stars in Bob-Omb Battlefield and two more in Whomp’s Fortress. That fifth star on Bob-Omb Battlefield is still a pain, flying through those rings made of coins to earn the star. The first three or four rings can be reached in one cannon shot, but the last ring takes a specific angle to reach because it’s so high up. Kind of annoying. Everything else was for today was a breeze.
	Day 4: Went to Cool Cool Mountain, the first snow level in the game. I expected to screw up a lot on the Penguin race, but I only fell off once, and then I beat him. Also, kind of a weird observation, but the snow world theme, the theme in Bob-Omb Battlefield, and the theme for the Princess’s secret slide all sound like arranged versions of the same tune. Like some of the notes in the same order are used, but it’s different enough that most wouldn’t notice.
	Day 5: Jolly Roger’s Bay isn’t one of my favorite levels in the game. The second star especially, where you have to chase the eel that has the star hanging by its tail. Kinda expected a lot of screw ups, in fact I almost drowned because I got to close and took damage. So I got 4 stars there, and finally went to the first Bowser level. Got the secret star there and the key to the basement. Progress!

	Day 1: Man, it was only a few months ago that I went through this game on the 3DS. But that hasn’t prevented me from still enjoying the original game. It is kinda crazy to look back to when I first played this game and had no idea what to do in the Kokiri Village. Now I know everything like the back of my hand.
	Day 2: The inside of the Deku Tree is still the same as always. One thing I did screw up on was the boss fight with Gohma. I forgot that I had Z-Target set to hold instead of toggle, so I lost my lock on Gohma when she climbed up the wall to lay her eggs, missing my chance to shoot her in the eye and finish her off quickly. Still beat her, just not as fast I was hoping.
	Day 3: Ah, sneaking missions that feel horribly out of place for a game that is not about sneaking past people. Definitely my least favorite part about the game, but at least you have to do it once. Unless you’re wasting time by going back there with masks from the Happy Mask Shop just to show off to Zelda (I did do it before though. It eventually became a hassle though).
	Day 4: A lot of ground covered across Hyrule, from the Lost Woods, to Lon Lon Ranch, all the way to Death Mountain. And that meant getting more songs for the Ocarina. Playing the ocarina on the N64 version is a lot better for me than on the 3DS just because I still remember the buttons I need to press without needing to think. Those songs are permanently etched in my mind.
	Day 5: Second dungeon, not a problem at all. King Dodongo says screw the rule of three and uses the rule of FOUR. Whatever, didn’t change the fact that it was easy. And since turning of the game sends you back to your house in Kokiri Village, I made sure to get the magic meter at the top of Death Mountain after beating the dungeon just so I wouldn’t have to travel all the way up there later.

In Conclusion

This week has been exhausting. And it’s gonna keep being like that till the end of the school year. Thanks for reading, and even if I don't have any new games to play at some point, I still have this replay segment to ensure I write at least something involving games.

Peace.

Wait, it took you five days to get to Bowser? How? I'd say that all these games are awesome, but I've never touched Limbo, so all I can say is that "all of these games are awesome, except for Limbo, maybe."

@Video_Game_King: I spent those five days getting stars in other worlds. I just choose what stuff I want to accomplish each day, and it so happened I decided I would do the first Bowser level yesterday.

I like to boot up Super Mario 64 from time to time. It's surprising how much fun it still is. I played Braid a long time ago. It was fun for a while, but even after looking up the solutions to the puzzles, I found myself unwilling to finish it.