Hey y'all, it's about time for a new blog, eh? Thought so. Godofnerdyness started doing this two weeks ago, but I've been too busy actually playing my games, to write about them...until now. So here we go, week 1 of "What I'm Playing": special summer feature (might go past summer).
Oh yeah, inFamous, baby! I love this game! The set-up is that you are Cole McGrath, New York messenger. A package you deliver ends up being a bomb that wrecks the city. You wake up in the middle of an inferno, and slowly realize that you can harness electricity to use at your discretion...and it goes from there.
I'm having so much fun with this game. It's basically Assassin's Creed, except modern, and it's a shooter (rather than the hand-to-hand game AC was) with no guns. LIGHTNING BABY! The game could also be described as a superhero game, which is accurate. Lightning is used as a proxy for a bunch of superpowers; gliding, calling lightning storms, electo-shields, force push, and defibrilators (not kidding. You get good karma for doing this to injured citizens). The game is really tight, fun, and well realized. It's one of the few western games with a story that I'm really engaged in, not to be a JRPG-elitist. If you have a PS3, I recommend you ive this game a shot. Ride the lightning!
I don't like to put box art for this thing, but Cross Edge, being an RPG, doesn't lend itself to badass pictures like inFamous does. Anyway, Cross Edge is a crossover RPG from a bunch of different series. Let me name a few (characters included): Morrigan and Lilith (Darkstalkers), Raze and Lily (Mana-Khemia 2 FTW), and Etna and Prinny (Disgaea), among other series like Ar Tonelico. It's neat, but the story isn't too impressive. It's hard to do that with a crossover game, and the game is fun to play, so that makes the story forgivable. It's not that bad anyway. The game features a few original characters like York (he's the pistol-dude front and center in the picture), but it's really about the other series that are featured. Really. In the first 1.5 hours, I had 10 characters, hailing from 5 different games.
You explore on an overhead map, getting into random encounters along the way (you can trigger a battle at any time with R1, as well). When you get into a dungeon, it turns into a basic, 2D platformer for some strange reason. Odd.
The battles are turn-based, like you'd think, but each side of the field is divided into a 4x3 grid. You have your 4 fighters in a formation you create in a menu, which affects which attacks you can use, among other things. The game has an awesome combo system as well. Basically, each skill is labeled A, B, C, or D with a number 1 through 5. If it's a spell, it's labeled as (A-E)-Enchant (1-5). It's also given a designation (an upwards, downwards, or horizontal arrow), that tells you if you can equip it (each weapon can only use certain skills). The C-1 things tell you what skills combo with another skill (e.x: York's Massacre Shot (<- R-1) combos with Morrigan's Libido Touch (<- R-1)), which in turn create combo attacks that you can turn into more powerful combos, and so on. The best part, is that your turn is over, only when your AP is depleted (each character has a certain amount, and each attack drains a certain amount, depending on the skill), or you willingly end it. Okay,enough, I've written way more than I planned on here! You can probably tell that I'm into this game, right? Well, I am. It's better if you watch a youtube video to see what this game's about, but I recommend it whole-heartedly.
Prototype 8/10
Prototype...is about blowing the shit out of everything. That's what I've gathered from my two-and-a-half-or-so hours of playing. It's constantly on in this game. Nothing takes it easy on you. Seriously! The gameplay is essentially GTA except you have mutant powers. You can drive tanks and helicopters, run up the side of skyscrapers, glide over buildings, have multiple powers, upgrade extensively, blow up a helicopter then throw it at another helicopter, and general crazyness. I would've never played Prototype, simply because I like inFamous better, but I managed to get a free copy.
The father of one of my students at my Kung-fu school asked if I could be entertainment at his son's birthday party (who has the same birthday as me, wierdly). I said sure. I got $40, lots of candy and cake out of it. The best part, was at the end when I was talking to the kid's dad. Turns out, he makes games. naturally, I was like "Awesome!", but then he asked me if I had heard of Prototype (because I appearantly, don't look or act like I have any interest in games), to which I said yeah. The dad told me he was a programming engineer on Prototype and asked if I wanted a free copy. Naturally, I said hell yes. Yesterday, after class, he walks up to me and hands me the game. I went straight home and played it. Fun game, but I still like inFamous better. I think it's the pacing. It's super intense during a mission, but then it halts to an almost stop and you have to run to the next mission. The story's alright, but I suspect it will pick up...inFamous had me from the start, though. Whatever, this game's fun, pick it up if you like to blow things up and/or be a homicidal maniac.
That's all for today. I've been playing more games, but I've wrote a lot already, so I'll write more tomorrow. Until then, laters!
P.S. The dad also said he's starting pre-production on the Spiderman 4 game, so except that in, I think 2010/2011. You heard it here first.
Log in to comment