Hey folks, friends and naysayers, I'm going a little out of my comfort zone this week to get all topical on y'alls. It seems a lot of the major issues in the video gaming sphere these past few weeks deal with accessibility: Those we have with our games and the communities that have built up around them. I don't have specific solutions for anything, at least nothing I'm willing to stake my negligible reputation as a fun-loving wiseacre on, but I'm going to frame some of the bigger problems we're facing in the hope something clicks with myself or somebody else out there.

So I should probably address these issues in the approximate order in which they present themselves, right? Sounds sensible.

Accessibility & Games

Clearly, you can't complain about a game until you've bought it. Unless it's somehow been made impossible for you to do so. Currently, though, that's less of a problem than it's ever been, thanks to robust robots of internet sites like Amazon or Steam or Origin that will take our webclicks and turn them into wonderful, joyful presents in the mail. However, this has had the slightly negative effect of crashing various brick and mortar industries and putting them in mortar peril, which they are no doubt bricking themselves over. So to speak. The continuing much-publicised decay of Blockbuster and GAME stores, at least here in the UK, might be of little concern to us clever-clog sorts who have long since switched over to the modern conveniences of internet shopping, but to an outsider it looks like the bottom is falling out the entire gaming industry. Specialist stores going under? Doesn't look good, even if the real reason is slightly more elusive to most. This might be less of a problem than it may first appear, unless you're hired by one of these unfortunate businesses. I guess time will tell, ultimately.

So let's talk about those online places some more, then, since there's fewer physical stores around to vent about. Steam's been going strong since it pioneered a very reasonable model for selling virtual games to people, severely dropping prices for limited duration sales because their products aren't actually real, sales can be advertised instantaneously through e-mail or the website/client front-end and they also don't need to make a bunch of fancy "ON SALE, DUMMIES!" posters to stick in their store window. However, Origin's decided to start being difficult and is now depriving them of EA titles to maintain exclusivity. Also probably not too critical a problem, since a little competition doesn't hurt, but still: Instead of a centralized location for buying things, one of the few benefits of something like XBLA or PSN, we have to download multiple clients, give out multiple instances of our credit card details, and other things we're generally lazy about doing. This could be compounded on in the future with the arrival of this fancy Steam Box console creating even more exclusive gets for Valve and co. as well as more online stores of major game publishers in response. Soon we'll have a dozen different clients with their exclusive libraries to keep track of, a group of major developers that refuse to cooperate with each other on anything and agents in black combat gear busting into our homes, hacking our brain chips and making us murder our roommates and ourselves for daring to buy MyNotebook: Argentum on anything but the eShop. Mark my words.

Accessibility & Gameplay

So here we are on the next step: You have your game, how does that game make itself accessible to you? Well, first off, it may well decide to lock a considerable amount of content behind a paywall because of your refusal to buy new. It might also decide it needs to look its Sunday best with 200mb of patches before it lets you in, sort of like some crude sexual joke about wedding nights that I'm not even going to attempt to construct. But the major concern here is whether or not you're actually able to get to grips with what the game asks of you as a player.

Our own newshound (or news hot dog, if you'd prefer), Patrick Klepek, recently began his promising Worth Reading column linking to a Brainy Gamer article on how games have simultaneously become easier to beat while paradoxically also becoming more complex to control. It's an interesting read, and highlights why the casual gaming crowd is switching over to iOS and motion controls and the like. The convenience of not having to purchase a pure gaming console at moderate expense might also factor into this, I won't lie, but overall I feel there's still plenty of mileage in games with minimized control schemes. Take recent Giant Bomb favorite Rhythm Heaven Fever for a perfect example of how to construct an amazing and fun and amazingly fun game that uses the grand total of two buttons and takes almost zero acclimatization for a gaming neophyte to handle.

Of late, I've been playing games both of an over-simplified and over-complex bent. In fact, I can point you towards a good example of both in the two games I played this week: The Last Story and Syndicate. The Last Story, like Xenoblade Chronicles (and FFXIII to a lesser extent) previously, have taken what makes a JRPG work and boiled it down to its core elements, losing nothing of import and adding more besides. Levelling and inventory management has become less critical, healing items are non-existent and combat is seat-of-your-pants real-time action in the vein of your Gears of Wars, though far more thoughtful in terms of how each individual skirmish is set up. Though the game hasn't gotten any easier than its forebears, it has gotten a lot more simple to figure out, at least in terms of moving parts, which I feel is to its benefit. It's a trend that's become more common in Western RPGs as well, with Skyrim being one good example and Dragon Age 2 being one bad example of how these games make themselves more accessible to the story-driven crowd of RPG lovers by reducing the number of factors of which one must keep abreast.

But then.. we have yet another topical issue that pisses all over this ideal: That of the recent snafu with BioWare and its understandably irritable writing staff as they came under attack because of an older comment concerning the implementation of a gameplay-skipping button to correspond with the far more ubiquitous cutscene-skipping button. A commendable feature that many would appreciate, something anyone with a lick of sense (like our own Jeff Gerstmann in a recent Jar Time video) could immediately vouch for and support, regardless of their own gameplay preferences. This incident has been discussed to death of course, but it seems like "the hardcore" crowd - which I seem to be becoming further and further distanced from - objects strongly to oversimplifying accessibility of any kind, which may be yet another problem down the road for this industry as a whole.

I did bring up Syndicate, so I should follow through on that as well before bringing this already thesis-length discussion to a close: Syndicate is a game that requires a considerable degree of control mastery from its user. It is not an easy game by any stretch: You are required, with almost any encounter but specifically those with the "heavy" or "elite" enemies, to immediately hit the R2 button to slow down the action and get a decent tactical perspective of the battlefield and the opponents you must defeat. You must also use L2 in conjunction to make those tougher enemies vulnerable, if only briefly, then with the R2 Dash Overlay mode still ticking away, use the L1 and R1 buttons to take aim on that enemy's head (for maximum efficiency) and fire away with what little time of enhanced damage/immunity you have left. After which you are vulnerable for a brief yet seemingly interminable amount of time before the process begins anew. Should you have the wherewithal in that pitched battle to remember you have them, there's also three powers with specific tactical advantages mapped to the oft-forgotten D-Pad which aren't always conveniently available at all times. This leads to perhaps the first time in a long while where I felt completely out of my depth with a game, and a mid-boss on the Normal difficulty setting was sufficient cause to grant me a Game Over a dozen times before the futility of my situation encouraged me to quit in a somewhat less than serene emotional state. I don't hold this against the game, too much - I might suggest that it's attempts to elevate the far more slow-paced and measured combat of Deus Ex: HR with all its futuristic hacking bells and whistles to that of a hair-trigger arcade Call of Duty shooter seems a bit of a mismatch - yet if it lost someone who could beat GoldenEye's 00 Agent mode back in the day, I shudder to think how it would treat a relative newcomer. It has an easy mode, but normal should theoretically suffice for anyone with a modicum of gaming experience. Starbreeze Studios evidently aren't playing ball with this whole accessiblity thing at all, and I can see how old guard shooter fans like Jeff might respond to that.

Accessibility & Communities

So we at last reach the online communities, the final hurdle to achieving a strong and lasting connection between a user and their games. Online communities have always been brash; its outspoken members usually a recently post-pubescent crowd capable of an immaturity beyond their years (or before their years, I suppose). Recently though, we're seeing constant reports of the typically aggressive fighter game community in full abrasive mode and what this means for the future of that maligned and isolated community.

I stated something similar as a response to one of these articles, but it seems there's a schism between the socially maladroit ringleaders who have stuck with the close-knit community for many years through its early successes in the arcades, mid-life crisis of a slump with frequent franchise iterations sporting the most minor of updates and its current burgeoning rise with Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter IV and those who wish to take advantage of the current age of streaming internet television to promote it as some sort of sanitized eSport where all are welcome and sponsorships can flood in and bring fighter game development to untold new heights of recognition and funding (with perhaps a little for themselves for wrangling a community of wilfully offensive ingrates). It's hard to feel too opposed or sympathetic towards either group, a conflict I've figuratively correlated to the movie Airheads: The long-haired, irascible "true" enthusiasts of the fandom compared to the "guy played by Michael McKean" clean-cut industry-savvy types looking to legitimize it for better or worse. Obviously the rampant misogyny has to end, if only because of how ridiculously puerile and backwards it makes you look personally as a professional commentator. The rest of the aggressive name-calling and abuse, though, can and will be worked out by whomever ultimately gives a rat's ass about where fighter games are going.

Likewise, we have communities like the online FPS crowd and those of League of Legends type MOBAs who are also doing their darndest to chase off "scrubs" wherever they might rear their inexperienced heads, doing their particular genres no favors in the long-term either. It's fine for developers to have an obsessive fanbase to sell to, but they'd much rather have that considerably larger market of gamers from all walks of life, virtual or otherwise. However, good luck getting any of them to stick around after their fifth consecutive comparison to that one kid in the football helmet everyone remembers from middle school as being a tad "exceptional".

And with that, I have highlighted some of the more pressing concerns with gaming accessibility, if recent news stories are any indication. I'd like to hear your views on any of the above, should you have yet to voice them in the stories that they specifically pertain to. I guess to narrow the response field a little, talk about games that either felt too dumbed-down for you to properly enjoy as a grown-up who understands basic concepts without a half-hour tutorial on the principle of opening or closing as well as those games that chewed you up and spat you out the moment you insolently decided you could join in the fun as a fellow paying consumer. I know Irish comedian Dara O'Briain had a wonderful segment about the latter that'll no doubt get quoted back at me should I forget to include it.

Talking of media that seem to goes out of its way to be completely incomprehensible and even hostile to those it's ostensibly trying to entertain, it's time for...

BONUS COMICS!

Syndicate

The Last Story

SUPER SPECIAL BONUS COMIC!

That time again where I pay tribute to the Santa Claus of Gold Memberships, Whiskey Media user omghisam, by indulging him a comic strip with content of his choice. This time he wants me to draw a parallel between his Bostonian-Native American background and my British background to those of the War of Independence by depicting the new assassin of Assassin Creed III's disproportionately violent response to Anglican taxation. The things I do for subscriber-only videos now include being a turncoat, apparently.

So many times I've had to start a blog describing what it's about because the title was so vague that it doesn't really explain anything. Clearly, I am the greatest at titles. The crux of the matter is that "teamwork in games" could refer to all sorts of things. In fact, here are some of those things:

• The "Dom" model, where you and at least one other person (or CPU AI) fight through hordes of enemies and achieve objectives, watching each other's backs along the way.
• The "Pikmin" model, where you direct a little army of helpful fellows to solve your problems. In essence, you are a team manager in these games, not a team player.
• The "Alyx Vance" (or "Majin" if I'm being truthful about the inspiration for this blog post) model of additional characters with different skillsets working in tandem with the player to solve puzzles and progress further.

This week, I'm going to focus on that last model. The co-operative online game is not one I'm not overly familiar with, given how I feel about online multiplayer in general. Which is to say I'm not a fan. Besides, the variation between, say, raiding in WoW and demolishing waves of Locusts in Gears of War 3 would suggest the co-op system is specifically catered to each individual game's strengths and not really a genre in of itself. It is, essentially, the single player game but with more people playing alongside you. Apologies if that sounded reductive in any way: It actually takes some degree of game design wizardry to make a co-operative version of your single player just as entertaining (and the inverse applies too, of course, even though some shooters don't seem to bother).

Like I usually do with these blogs about specific game conceits, I'll bring up a few disparate examples of what I'm talking about and then open the floor to the Giant Bomb community for opinions on games mentioned (or neglected) and how effective they have been. Specifically with the teamwork aspect, a lot is riding on how effective the AI is behind that character, how uniquely useful that character is - and, on the flipside, how aggravatingly useless they are, to the extent that it might as well be a game-long escort mission.

Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom

I just recently beat this traditional tale of a courageous hero, his enormous gentle-hearted companion and their horribly voice-acted animal spy network. Though not the original or best of the sort of single player co-operative experience I wanted to discuss here today, it's still a highly archetypal instance of same and a fairly decent game all told. The player controls Tepeu, a thief who is unable to physically withstand the enemy forces on his own. It is only with the Majin, an immortal being of considerable power, that he stands a chance of defeating the nebulous evil force that has transformed an ancient kingdom into a dilapidated and unnaturally tainted realm of abject desolation.

The game focuses on using the talents of both characters to proceed through areas and, optionally, figure out how to claim various upgrades littered around the landscape in inconvenient locations to make yourselves stronger. In true Metroidvania form, you could easily skip most of these occasionally well-hidden upgrades (or be forced to skip them as they require certain abilities you might not have recovered yet - sound familiar?). The easy enough bosses would suggest that these upgrades aren't entirely necessary to see the game through, though that could also suggest a certain age range intended for this game. If you saw Brad and Vinny's Quick Look, they inferred as much about its child-friendly "poor man's Studio Ghibli" aspirations in its central relationship of the optimistic kid and his immortal nature deity best friend.

Really though, the strength of the game isn't in its Metroid item-collecting and backtracking, the weak bosses and especially not in the stealth sections (which are thankfully not at all enforced by the usual "get spotted, restart" rules) but rather in how the player interacts with the Majin to solve the various puzzles the environment has created for them. Whether its instructing the Majin to operate revolving bridges and catapults, finding a way to unbar a door so the Majin can pass through it or the various ways you can team up for combination attacks in combat. Though perhaps less diverse with its puzzles as it could be (though as a 10-15 hour game it hardly outstays its welcome with the few it does have), the gameplay has the benefit of directly feeding the player's investment in that central relationship - i.e. the most important narrative element the game has going for it. I knew I grew pretty attached to the big lug before too long. I mean, they even have a happy little dance they do whenever they solve a tricky puzzle. It's adorable. I'm probably a terrible person for digging this babby game for babbies, but whatever.

The Lost Vikings

Perhaps the most recognisable example of a team-based game that isn't about a bunch of space marines tearing shit up on a server somewhere is the Lost Vikings, a game about three Norsemen who are captured by a vegetable-based (fine, fruit-based) alien for his exotic menagerie. Rounding out the trio are Erik the Swift, a fast Viking capable of jumping who is the only one able to reach certain areas due to his athleticism; Olaf the Stout, who uses his shield to safely block attacks and slowly descend long drops; and Dohvakiin the Dragonborn, who is able to use his powerful voice to send enemies flying and thus make areas safe for the others.

It seems a little pointless to get any deeper into the Lost Vikings than that: The game created the diverse team puzzle game to some extent (or Lemmings did, but whatever, they didn't have little Viking helmets). Sometimes each Viking would be necessary to complete the level but sometimes a single Viking would be the cause of strife as others go about getting him to the goal safely. However, it was always the intent of the level designers to use that Viking's shortcomings to create a challenge for that specific level, rather than misjudging the usefulness of that particular companion. Though a simple game mechanically, it managed an impressively diverse set of challenges that could be solved by the collective skills of its Scandinavian trio and continues to be the paragon of this sort of co-operative puzzle game.

Valkyria Chronicles

I'm simply using Valkyria as an example of the sort of squad-based game that is strongly focused on the importance of troop specialization and ensuring that each specialization is represented in some way. You could make a similar case for Team Fortress, Fire Emblem, the original Final Fantasy and many others, though it's my opinion that Valkyria Chronicles is the most dependent on this particular aspect of the team dynamic. At least out of the ones I've played recently.

So what do I mean by that, exactly? Simply put, each unit type in Valkyria Chronicles is indispensable. While the Edelweiss tank - the central component of almost every skirmish - has its various uses in combat, it's the team of soldiers you build up around it that will make or break the battle. There are the Shocktroopers, who are the only ones physically able to lay down the law in close encounters. There are Scouts, who have decent accuracy and are essential for locating enemy units and keeping an eye on what they're all doing. The Lancers are necessary for bringing down tanks (at least from the front). Engineers are necessary for fixing the tank, restocking ammo of other units and remove troublesome landmines. Snipers are necessary for eliminating certain targets. What this boils down to is that each unit type is necessary, which is why I used that word so much. Also, I have misplaced my thesaurus.

Valkyria Chronicles isn't an easy game. Besides the disorientating switches between turn-based and real-time combat, the main difficulty comes from how each stage has its own hidden rules (such as a non-obvious critical path to avoid enemy tanks and gun encampments, or a certain silver-haired lady going Super Saiyan after so many rounds, for example), its own hidden requirements to win (simply surviving for x number of rounds, or defeating a certain unit) and, more often than not, literal hidden soldiers and landmines lying in the undergrowth that you will more than likely trip over as you feel each stage out for the first run. Without fail, I would play a battle, get someone(s) killed, fall into traps and ambushes, slowly figure out how everything is supposed to go down and then restart the level with that prescience so I could ace it for the maximum amount of reward and acclaim. A cheap path to victory, perhaps, but an increasingly essential one. The only universal piece of advice that I took to heart was to bring one of every unit type, because it is not worth it to discover late in a skirmish how vital to success a certain unit you didn't think to include really is.

So now you guys have at it. Best game that takes advantage of each separate entity's talents? Is this a format that appeals to you, or do you prefer a level playing field with identically-powered playable characters in your co-op games? Any particularly good/bad AI companions you've met in your virtual travels? Will I keep asking questions forever? Are there comics coming up next?

BONUS COMICS!

Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom

That's a sort of Engrishy title, but it should suffice for what I'm about to discuss.

Adventure games have been slowly crawling back from obsolescence in recent years and nothing has quite emphasized this comeback like the recent remarkably successful Kickstarter campaign for a new Double Fine Adventure Game from adventure auteur Tim Schafer. Clearly we as a global community are not yet done with pointing and clicking.

Unlike many genres which are happy to invoke the same trappings and tropes over and over with slightly better graphical fidelity, the adventure game genre is continually reinventing itself. From its early challenging text-parser driven narratives, to the snarky arbitrariness of Sierra's Quests, to the goofy, low-stress charms of LucasArts and the many smaller studios throughout that timeline with their own stories to tell, the genre went from strength-to-strength as the designers carefully considered what made a good story and balanced that with what made a good game. Then - and forgive me if I've gone a little too esoteric with this analogy - like the horrible fish-salamander abominations from the universally-despised Voyager episode "Threshold", it evolved a little too quickly/stupidly and led to the many compelling fiascos of the FMV adventure game era, including but not limited to: demonic rapes, tiny Jim Belushi flying an airplane and cyber-Walken blowing up your "C-Space" avatar. The genre died of embarrassment soon after.

These days we have all manner of adventure games making the rounds. Some, Indie hits like Gemini Rue and Spanish homages like Runaway and The Next Big Thing for example, are happy to continue where the classic 2D animated adventure games left off, before the whole business got a bit hairy. One could even make it a point that any game with a strong guiding narrative that can only move forward after solving environmental puzzles, such as Portal or Limbo, could be considered adventure games as well. Hell, people make that case for the Legend of Zelda too, though that's perhaps a contentious blog for another day.

After all that senseless rambling, I'll now get to the heart of this blog: The episodic adventure game. Now that term might immediately bring to mind the TellTale franchises for a lot of you, but that's not actually what I'm talking about. At least not entirely. What I mean are the games that give you a series of self-contained puzzles to solve, with each solution continuing the story while completely changing the environment and inventory for the next chapter. Games like Ghost Trick and Zack & Wiki, to name but two examples.

The strength of this format is that it greatly alleviates the usual frustration with obtuse adventure games - expediting the "try everything on everything to proceed" tactic when stuck. As older adventure games were balanced to increase the difficulty by adding more and more moving parts (or "innumerable inventory items", "barely visible background components that can be interacted with" and "rarely helpful NPCs" as the case may be) in more areas, it also tended to make progress maddeningly indiscernible, which in many cases was already exacerbated by being strictly defined by the sort of incomprehensible dream logic you'd expect from inter-dimensional beings who have had our reality explained to them via interpretative dance. With a single screen of objects to tinker with before you move on forever to pastures new, you're far less likely to encounter that sort of aggravation. Likewise, the narrative will also often benefit from following an episodic format - like a TV show - that gradually reveals more of the plot and the characters to the player in bite-sized morsels.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective specifically, which I recently played, has plenty going for it already: Stylistic art that evokes Gallic studio Delphine's older rotoscoped adventure games like Out of This World and Flashback, a brilliant gameplay conceit that is fully exploited by the varied puzzles, a memorable cast of eccentrics and a cracking mystery plot that taps into the thoughts and motivations of several different characters at once. However, its greatest boon is that each chapter is split up into single areas (usually several rooms, which can be surveyed by passing through floors and walls) with a finite list of objects to possess and manipulate and clearly defined objectives with not-so-clearly defined solutions. As challenging as the game's puzzles might be, especially with how many require crackerjack timing with gestures and movements you may have initially missed, the smaller scale means you never stay bamboozled for too long.

Similarly, many industry critics lauded TellTale's episodic approach as a means to provide a new pricing structure that allows dissatisfied consumers to opt out relatively cheaply as well as immediate fans to subscribe for the whole affair at perhaps more than a singular title might cost, yet I feel - again - that the true strength of the format has always been that manner of beneficial simplification: A sequence of smaller, manageable worlds that can tell their own self-contained stories, but will also contribute to a larger, overarching narrative that covers the whole season of episodes.

So we come back to Double Fine's as yet untitled Adventure Game. While there are plenty of reasons to stick with the older LucasArts format, given that's what many of the donors are probably hoping for without perhaps realising that nostalgia is often equated to rose-tinted glasses for a reason, I wonder if it can't benefit more from an episodic style instead - provided, of course, we wouldn't need to wait much longer than we must to play the whole thing. Double Fine already knows how to craft a game like that, as evidenced by the sublime - if all too brief - Stacking. It'll be interesting to see how this new game will turn out, given everything that's transpired within the adventure game genre in the many years since Tim Schafer's career-making masterpieces. I guess we should trust that those guys know what they're doing, ultimately. They've earned it. And you've all earned some stickpeople comics for reading this far, thereby masterfully segueing to...

BONUS COMICS!

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Racking my brain on how to address Skyward Sword and the larger Legend of Zelda franchise with a blog, I decided to create a new feature that is very similar to one I did some time ago about the Final Fantasy franchise and how the previous games of that series separately inspired the newest entry (at the time) FFXIII.

The Legend of Zelda is perhaps one of the most infamous series for self-cannibalizing ideas, so it's very common to see recurring features throughout its long tenure as Nintendo's second most profitable franchise. This actually makes it tougher to single out unique elements of each game, let alone the next step of comparing them to a specific aspects of Skyward Sword, but I gave it the old college try regardless. Let's see how badly I messed this up.

The Legend of Zelda

As the antecedent to the entire series, I'm tempted to just put "the whole basic structure" here and call it a day, but let's see if I can't try a little harder than that. Shigeru Miyamoto often cites his childhood summers exploring the forests and caves of the countryside as his biggest influence when creating the Legend of Zelda. This is at its most prevalent in this, the inaugural title, where there are very few NPCs and a hell of a lot of roaming around on monster-infested terrain. It imprinted the game with an intrepid frontier spirit, something I feel has perhaps only since been replicated with Skyward Sword to its fullest extent.

While you could claim the endless skies suggested a sort of "new world to be explored", similar to how Skies of Arcadia also reproduced its serial adventure matinee feel, the sky parts of Skyward Sword are actually fairly trivial. Besides a smattering of tiny rocks and a few NPCs, there's not a lot to be seen above the cloud cover. It's underneath the clouds, with its sparse population and decrepit ruins, that you get a true sense that the land has been abandoned and unexplored for ages untold. An expansive world that most sentient life had long since abandoned as myth. I legitimately think how it plays around with the idea of a fabled surface world is one of the game's few unspoken coups. Even though the cloud cover vanishes while you're under it. Weird.

Adventure of Link

This might seem a bit minor a comparison, but I feel the strongest link (so to speak) between the Adventure of Link and Skyward Sword is the level of difficulty. Specifically with the swordfights. Regarded as the black sheep by many, the Adventure of Link eschewed the original's top-down gameplay for a side-scroller with a stronger focus on action and RPG-style character development. In some respects it was aping other popular sword-and-sorcery side-scrollers like Dragon Slayer and Ys, somewhat neglecting what endeared the first Zelda to so many.

The swordfights though, are where Adventure of Link truly felt like a challenge. Not the insane, obtuse (or outright lying) clues from NPCs, nor the enervating constant random encounters, nor even the labyrinthine dungeons. If you didn't know the "sore knees" trick with Shadow Link, you were going to get your ass handed to you in duel after duel with your shadowy doppelganger. Likewise, the stance shifting Darknuts and Horseheads would whittle you down if you weren't focused at all times. Skyward Sword's equally challenging duels seem disingenuous alongside how easy the game is determined to make every puzzle. It's the only Zelda game to the best of my knowledge to start you off with six hearts instead of three, and that's because you'll need them.

A Link to the Past

Probably my favorite Zelda game of all time, the Super Nintendo's sole Zelda game A Link to the Past is a colorful and expansive adventure that took everything that made the original Legend of Zelda work (all but ignoring the sequel) and added more besides. Nintendo's the master of updating their treasured franchises through generational leaps, as proven by this entry and other fan favorite Ocarina of Time.

Really, the only element I've found that exists in Link to the Past and Skyward Sword and nowhere else (well...) is the Bug Catching Net. A not-so-vital tool that allows Link to explore his lepidopterist and coleopterist aspirations. It speaks to the success of Link to the Past that so much of its content is carried over in subsequent games, leaving it somewhat bereft of unique identifiers. Or I'm just blanking on it.

Link's Awakening

Link's Awakening proved the versatility of Nintendo's little box of beige, allowing an adventure every bit as far-reaching as its SNES cousin. In a slighty trippy twist, Link washes up on an imaginary island and must discover some way of waking up the mythical Wind Fish from its ovoid prison. Obviously this requires going through several dungeons and locating a series of McGuffins, in this case musical instruments.

I guess what Link's Awakening really began, and I'll readily admit to several others in the series with shades of this, is the very odd sense of humor that became characteristic of the series. Since Link's Awakening essentially started as some sort of illegitimate spin-off of Link to the Past, the creators had some fun with it, introducing cameos from other Nintendo franchises (most notably BowWow the Chain Chomp) and some extremely odd individuals. Ironically, this lack of deference to the franchise's seriousness probably helped it become more accessible. For a specific Skyward Sword comparison, I'll evoke characters like windbag Groose, the disquieting fortune teller Sparrot and the gratitude-starved Batreaux.

Ocarina of Time

The first 3D Zelda and probably the most fondly remembered, Ocarina of Time set the bar for every 3D Zelda to come. Dekus, Gorons and input-based musical compositions all originated here.

As a 3D Zelda itself, Skyward Sword takes most of its content from the Ocarina of Time model. The free-form dungeons, Z-targeting, the day/night cycle, using a mount to cut travel time, gossip stones, rolling into trees to knock stuff down.. so much gets carried over every time. Like Link to the Past, this is largely due to how successful this game was and how it continues to be perceived as the brass ring as far as this type of game goes. As such, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword have borrowed anything of note from OoT and made it as much their own, leaving it with just its legacy as the progenitor of those tropes. But I guess none of the other games has a bald fisherman from whom you can hook a hat?

The Wind Waker

I'm leaping ahead now, since there's no way I'm going to cover every Zelda game and so many from this point are content to borrow almost entire swaths of features from previous games. All I've got for Twilight Princess so far is "they both have some clown with a cannon", for goshsakes. Also this blog is already super-long and people are probably restless for some goofy-ass comics. The Wind Waker is perhaps the last notable leap to try something new with the franchise with its vast seas and stylistic cel-shaded cartoon graphics, so here goes.

The most immediate comparison to make between the Wind Waker and Skyward Sword, besides the alliterative titles, are how the worlds are presented as being largely buried under seas and clouds respectively, and how a considerable amount of time is spent crossing these empty expanses to the next vital area. There's tinges of melancholy as you explore wonders of the past world that remain buried and unknown by the larger populance and also that ever-present menace that caused the downfall being constantly in your peripheral. Some decried WW's sailing as pointless and uneventful, but I felt it was instrumental to the adventurous (and post-apocalyptic) mood the game was setting. Soaring around on your Loftwing is highly reminiscent of that experience despite the reduced scale of the Sky world, which was truncated presumably to avoid a recurrence of those aforementioned Wind Waker complaints.

I kind of made it clear that most of what makes Skyward Sword what it is are past games of the series (especially Ocarina) but perhaps I'm not giving enough credit to what the game has originated. While Twilight Princess flirted with motion controls, having a GameCube version ensured that they could never be the focus. While I can take or leave Skyward Sword's often imprecise sword fighting (or I just suck; I never rule out that possibility), it perhaps has some of the best uses of motion controls I've ever seen from a game. Nothing too horribly gimmicky nor too many instances where you felt like there should just be a button you could push instead, which I appreciated. Then again, Nintendo's had long enough to get it right.

If your low tolerance for motion controls or the Legend of Zelda's endlessly repeating structure has turned you off games in the past, there's probably nothing about Skyward Sword to change your mind. But I think it's cool? I guess that's a review? Like a really terr-

BONUS COMICS!

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Katawa Shoujo?

Doubling up this week, since neither of the topics I want to discuss seem substantial enough for their own blogs. That's such a reassuring statement to start with. I'm totally getting better at this whole blogging thing, you guys!

Longevity

Though a germane talking point for even more prattle about the super-long RPG Xenoblade, the inspiration for this discussion actually came about from playing Super Mario 3D Land and discovering what awaited in the post-game content. Like Return of the King, Super Mario 3D Land isn't content to simply "end" after two or three instances that suspiciously look like endings. I hope you'll indulge me a few spoilers (oh hey, the Princess gets rescued) as I discuss, exactly, what the game expects you to accomplish to fully complete it:

• Reach World 8 and defeat Bowser, once and for all. By which I mean a few months, maybe.
• Complete all the Special Worlds, which are another octet of worlds that are tougher remixes of previous stages, laid out in a random order. Often these stages are heavily reworked to the point of being unrecognisable.
• Complete the final regular level again.
• Find every medal (there are three per stage, just like in New Super Mario Bros Wii) and get a golden flag (hitting the top of the flagpole) for each stage.
• Beat every stage with Luigi (who is unlocked shortly after starting the Special Worlds).

Now the Special Worlds are an awesome feature, partly because the levels feel as new as the originals thus almost doubling the content, but also because there are a lot of systems going on in SM3DL that end up underutilized. Take one particular example: A stage where three platforms will phase in and out of existence in rhythm with the music - there is only one area that uses this feature and because they have to introduce how it works, it's a fairly simple stage. There are at least two Special stages that revisit that gimmick with a tougher variation, allowing the designers to get the full use out of it. Subsequently, the lengthened longevity doesn't feel artificial: These stages look different, play different and therefore feel like additional content with some thought behind them.

The two collectible-based goals, that of the medals and flags, also provide additional challenge, though to a lesser extent than the Special Worlds. They may not necessarily count as longevity enhancements as they can be found during the player's first foray into each stage. I know Patrick is in the same camp I am about getting a stage "right" the first time from what I was hearing about his experiences with the game on the Bombcast, and I'm sure there are many of you out there who have a similar perfectionist nature when it comes to this sort of thing. There were definitely times where I missed a medal or didn't have the means to nail the flagpole jump just right and immediately restarted that stage to remedy my discontentment. I'm very much aware this sort of scavenger hunting/perfectionism isn't for everyone, though, so I'll mark this down as a "feh" for ways a game can satisfactorily add to the total playtime.

The final goal is where I take issue. Luigi's missions in Super Mario Galaxy, where the whole "Luigi's Time To Shine (tm)" post-game feature really started, had the same effect as the Special Worlds did here: The stages weren't so much identical as remixed to be slightly tougher, even given Luigi's slightly different style. However, the stages for Luigi this time actually are identical: He has to successfully beat every single regular and Special World you just spent several hours playing through as Mario. The slight differences in how Luigi controls don't really provide for a particularly novel experience, rendering the whole exercise as pointless busywork. I suppose one could view it as a "new game plus" model, a system I generally don't take issue with as it tends to be a fun and breezy way to revisit a game for nostalgia's sake, or for quickly powering through the game and sweeping up items or quests or alternate paths you missed the first time for a much-treasured 100% save file. It just feels so spectacularly inconsequential in this particular case.

Whatever, I made a comic about it so I guess I'm about done talking about this. I'll open the floor to you guys: In what way has a game, specifically, introduced a late-game goal that made you think "Oh, nuh-uh!"? Clearly higher difficulty settings, new game plus and alternate storylines are acceptable longevity-boosters, even if they aren't always implemented particularly well. I'm looking for the outliers that don't fit any of those categories. Like Diddy Kong Racing's (and other racing games) Mirror World. Who bothers to memorize the direction of every turn? Oh right, racing game people. Okay, I guess that works. Others?

The Value of Ideas

Patrick's recent interview with Squidi, aka Sean Howard, and his long-running illustrated guide blog thing for new game concepts had me thinking back to five years ago when I myself had an ideas blog, and what I thought the value of a game idea had. In essence, a video game idea is like a seed: Something small and useless by all practical metrics yet nevertheless has an intrinsic value measured in future potential. Something that, with enough sunlight (money) and nutrients (a talented team of developers) could turn into something exceptional. Provided, of course, that the seed grows into a fruit tree or a beautiful flower and not some military shooter bush. That was a terrible analogy. But hopefully you see where I was going with it.

While I wouldn't say Mr Howard was a hero of mine or anything (a similarly tortured peer might be closer, though possibly giving myself a little too much credit), I was inspired when his 300 Ideas started up to ape copy rip-off try my hand at a similar feat, popping out 100 game ideas within ten weeks of updates. The full fiasco can be found here, for anyone curious. While clearly padded out with vaguely humorous ringers, I sometimes wonder how many of those games would've turned out amazing with the right group behind it. Obviously a game idea will mutate and improve as its being worked on by actual professionals, as more features are planned out for coding and certain necessary changes are made either for the sake of reality (accursed reality!), time or because an even better idea came along as a result of peer discussion and the old "art through adversity" axiom. I know I deliberately stuck with concepts for games I would have absolutely no idea where to begin coding, largely because I wanted to avoid the same puzzle games, physics-based platformers and tower defense that populate the Indie market, presumably because they all have handy programming guides for game developer newbies (to be fair to them, there's also the larger problem of genericness in the mainstream games industry too). Of course, that raises some unrealistic expectations, such as being able to bring any of these games to the world of the corporeal on my lonesome. So that's why I've always preferred ideas, ultimately. Because I enjoy imagining the impossible (or improbable, at least) and because I appear to be completely averse to success.

But man, was I oddly prescient with some of those ideas. Spooky stuff.

BONUS COMICS!

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (Demo)

Super Mario 3D Land

So once again, I spent the entire week playing Xenoblade and doing little else in the world of gaming. However, I am happy to announce that I have beaten that game and normal game discussion services will resume presently. Until that time, I've put together ten short blurbs - observations, recommendations, derisions - about one of my favorite genres and how it's gone from a treasured niche genre to "the big thing" and then back to a niche genre again.

This blog turned out to be nine short blurbs and one large one after all, so don't hold that against me. It's not like I plan these things out in advance. But I've said too much.

The "JRPG"

I'm kind of with Jeff when he recently expressed his distaste of the name "JRPG". Though it's a term that's long been established in the gamer's lexicon to mean a particular brand of turn-based RPG with a particular set of philosophies, settings and gameplay features it often revisits, it's hard to nail down what exactly a JRPG is besides an RPG that comes from Japan. For one thing, a lot of Japanese RPGs aren't turn-based, don't involve crystals or Gaia or defeating the Pope and aren't based in a pseudo-medieval fantasy world (or, using more modern stereotypes, a magical steampunk world). Then you have all the Western RPGs that do have those elements: Anachronox is as western as they come with its cynical sense of humour and sci-fi trappings, but plays very much like a "traditional" JRPG. RPG developers from both the east and west have inspired and been inspired in turn by the other, with the impenetrable Western legend Wizardry directly influencing the pioneers of the JRPG industry.

In lieu of having any specific terminology to replace "JRPG" with, I'm content to just call them RPGs. Thanks to BioWare's heel turn, there's fewer true RPGs (that feels like such a Young Snider thing to say...) around these days, so splitting them up even further with sub-genre demarcations seems pointless.

FFXIII-2 Fallout

FFX-2 was unfortunate for a great many reasons. To most, creating a direct sequel in a franchise that had previously been a consecutive series of original worlds and casts of characters was a clear indication that Square had chosen to sacrifice some of its credibility and creativity to focus on sequels that posed little risk of not making their budget back, which from Square's perspective was a necessity due to what the Final Fantasy movie had cost the studio both literally and figuratively. Fans were also put off by all the J-Pop, the "Teen Girl Squad"-style frivolity and oodles of overindulgent fan service: In effect, it pandered to a clique of Final Fantasy players to which they didn't belong, having originally been drawn to the franchise by its serious dramas involving spiky-haired PTSD victims, skewered flower girls and a talking octopus who hated opera.

So FFXIII-2 had to follow two ignominious precursors: That of FFX-2 and the critically-condemned FFXIII, neither of which had been particularly well-received by a considerable percentage of the fanbase. From the accounts I'm hearing, FFXIII-2 confronts the perceived flaws of its forebear and has fixed a lot of what made that game unpalatable for so many. People aren't too enamoured with the actual story and characters the sequel has chosen to follow, but are otherwise impressed with how much the game has improved itself while retaining what made the original great for its many apologists and secret admirers. As someone who was hot and cold about different aspects of FFXIII, I'm looking forward to seeing how my personal misgivings with that game have been addressed.

Fallout FFXIII-2

Of course, if they wanted a proper RPG, they could've just set FFXIII-2 in a post-apocalyptic future where the Cold War nuked the planet and everyone trades with bottlecaps. In a support role, I'd take a Pip-Boy mascot over a Moogle any day.

My History With JRPGs Part 1

So I guess I started with JRPGs in much the same way many of you did: With the SNES. 8-bit RPGs did exist, but were limited to Dragon Warrior and the first Final Fantasy, neither of which were particularly major sellers (given that the former was being given away by Nintendo Power at one point). There were also games like Legacy of the Wizard and Crystalis, but they were beyond niche. It was the 16-bit Final Fantasies, Chrono Trigger, EarthBound, Secret of Mana, Phantasy Stars and to a lesser extent the Breath of Fires, Lufias and Quintet trilogy that introduced the genre to so many, rocking their worlds with their deeply involved fiction in a medium so devoid of narration that you'd be lucky to be given more than "the clown has to run away from the boulders before he gets squished". Secret of Mana in particular is what captivated me for many weeks after receiving it one Christmas and from there it was safe to say I was a convert. Alas, being the dirty European that I am, I'd be hard-pressed to see many more JRPG releases that took my fancy for that particular era. To be continued.

Sweek-Oh-Den?

I always pronounced it "Soo-ee-koh-den". Were the guys just being flippant on the Bombcast or were they using the actual pronunciation? Or does any of this matter? On the subject, the Suikoden games are absolutely fantastic. I'd recommend grabbing the second game off PSN if you're able, though I'm more partial to its latest entry Suikoden V. You can't really go wrong with any of them. Even that darned boat one.

Mascot Characters

I'm sort of intrigued about Square's mini-enterprise of Chocobo, Tonberry and Moogle toys (and, after the Enix merger, the Slimes as well). I'm not entirely convinced they were pushing those things during the time when Final Fantasy was at its peak, so I imagine the marketing is driven more by nostalgia than how cute they are. Even so, it seems JRPGs can't help but include their own adorable mascots. As I intimated last week with my Xenoblade comic, that game also has one in the form of Riki, a member of an exploration-driven race of furry ball things called Nopon. They all talk in broken English (it's not clear whether that was the localization team's doing or the intent of the original writers. I imagine what we got was some sort of linguistic equivalent), enjoy eating and sleeping and being curious, live in tiny cute hovels inside a giant tree and there's even a "Breaking Bad"-style drug kingpin sub-plot that several Nopon side-quests followed that ended in an adorable outcome where the criminal mastermind was sentenced to power a giant hamster wheel.

I couldn't really tell if they were being serious or not or if this is a thing that's endemic to a lot of JRPGs. Maybe it is and I just tend to pay it no heed. Maybe it's, like FFX-2, yet another indication of how teenage girls make up a sizeable portion of the audience for these games. Wow, that's kind of condescending. Moving on.

My History With JRPGs Part 2

So the next big step for JRPGs and, again, where a lot of JRPG fans jumped aboard, was the PlayStation era. I never owned an original PlayStation, so my fascination with FF7 - and, it should be said, greater fascination with FFT - came about due to a friend of mine. I'd hate to admit to being one of those people who are friends with someone because of the awesome shit they have, but children are fickle creatures in nature. I eventually ended up getting copies of the PC version of FF7 (which wasn't quite the great idea I thought it was) and an imported copy of FFT that I played through an emulator some years later. Though I wasn't yet playing the sheer volume of JRPGs I would in my later years, it's clear from the great measures I was taking to play those two in particular that I was still drawn to the genre. It still felt like I was fighting an uphill battle against the apathy the rest of the country felt towards those games, given how few were released beforehand. But FF7 really helped in that regard, perhaps more than any JRPG before or since. I got to play a considerable amount of the PS1's library of JRPGs, with only a few glaring omissions, thanks in some part to the success of that game. Even as it's reviled by major parts of the gaming community these days for being overrated or aging poorly or what have you, it deserves credit for opening some doors/eyes at the very least.

Shadow Hearts: Covenant or "What The Flying Fuck?!: The Game"

The quickest route to pariah-dom in this fine community is to recommend games for a future Endurance Run, based on what you think would create the highest calibre of amusing banter and reactionary hilarity that made previous Endurance Runs beloved by so many. While I'd never go out of my way to suggest content for a site that is perfectly capable of frequently trumping my expectations, Shadow Hearts: Covenant is perhaps the one game I would put forward if forced to at gunpoint.

That isn't to say that was the intent of this blurb. Rather, it's a game I would instead recommend to regular gaming peeps of this community by stating that it'd be ideal for a Giant Bomb Endurance Run, which would hopefully be perceived as short-hand for a game that is filled with exquisite weirdness, fun gameplay that successfully manages to avoid becoming completely enervating after several dozen hours, goofy and loveable side characters and a lengthy plot full of twists and turns to provoke all manner of incredulous reactions. I feel if more "games ideal for the Endurance Run" threads had that philosophy in mind - that they made it a point early on that it's in no way attempting to steer an actual future feature along those lines and that they have no business telling Jeff, Ryan, Brad, Vinny or Patrick what they should be playing (unless they themselves prompt the discussion, of course) - they'd be met with way less derision and revulsion. Maybe.

My History With JRPGs Part 3

The moment I got heavily into JRPGs was in college - the ideal period of one's life to spend a considerable amount of your time and energy towards something that isn't studying. I had a fairly mint PS2, no boundaries about when I should sleep or how well I should be feeding myself, a new group of like-minded buddies to refer (and occasionally defer) to about the subject and my own potential for future employment to completely ignore. Since FFX was the only thing of note to appear during the early months of the PS2, I spent a lot of time playing PS1 games with its backwards compatability, hammering out classics like FF9, the first two Suikodens, Breath of Fire 3, Vagrant Story, Grandia, Vandal Hearts, Wild ARMs and anything else I could scrounge up with my access to Amazon.co.uk and a city full of game stores with bounteous "pre-owned" sections. Likewise, I continued the streak once the PS2 JRPG revolution began in earnest and haven't really stopped since then. It feels like during this recent generation of consoles, the amount of decent JRPGs (or at least my enthusiasm of the middling ones available) has dried up somewhat, but as long as a game like Xenoblade comes along every once and a while I don't think I'll ever stop being a diehard fan. Talking of which..

Xenoblade Final Thoughts

I've discussed this game perhaps a little too thoroughly already during the past month: I added it to my GOTY 2011 list, I've created a list of modern features I appreciated about it, created several comics in the blogs I've written while playing it and a customary short - if not particularly helpful - assessment in my list of games beaten in 2012. Now that it's over, it's time to try and put into words why I appreciated this game so much.

I guess the chief complaint against JRPGs is how dependent they are on the hoary tropes of the genre, a perpetual act of auto-cannibalism that has seen diminishing returns over the years. A secondary complaint would be the lack of care and detail that goes into the protagonists, you who tend to be the same one-note archetypes you've seen a thousand times before.

I can't say Xenoblade completely escapes either of these problems, but I found the plot to be compelling, completely outlandish but in a far more grounded way than, perhaps, Brad was discussing as a problem he has with FFXIII-2. Though it deals with two giant dead Gods, the metaphysical origins of the protagonist's magic sword, a lot of twists that don't make a whole lot of sense until they're expounded on later with some post-event exposition and an entire tree village full of ersatz Ewoks, it's a story that slowly unravels and pauses for breath frequently, allowing you to absorb everything that was going on. It was also consistently gripping, which occasionally felt like a detriment to its open-world gameplay since I'd often abandon exploring a new area so I could hit the next cutscene and see what happens next.

Similarly, I found characters to be more appealing than those of recent JRPGs I'd played. No-one feels superfluous; each has their own reason for fighting, their own little sub-plot that they're following, their own moments of growth and reflection that flesh the character out and provide a reason for being there. This is enhanced further with the entirely optional Heart-to-Hearts, which play out similarly to Tales' skits in that you get a little more of the backstory of the characters and how their capacity to understand each other is progressing. They all have a unique role in combat that the player can experiment with if they're having trouble with a particular fight. On a similar subject, the way the affinity system works - it increases by cheering your companions in combat, picking the right things to say in Heart-to-Hearts and offering each other items as presents - will at times feel a little cloying and "Team Discovery Channel!", but generally helps establish just how close-knit the group is becoming, which sometimes feels incongruous in games where a guy might suddenly decide to follow you for the flimsiest of reasons just so you'll have one more member to fill out a battle party with.

I'll finish by discussing how much I enjoyed the combat, which deserves the same commendations FFXIII-2's battle system was getting in that recent Quick Look. Like that game, its combat is based on the MMO model, where battles happen in real-time and the player is given a palette of special abilities that require varying levels of cool-down time before they can be used again. Xenoblade separates itself from the herd both with its "vision" gimmick, where you're given a small time frame to either prevent or lessen the severity of a particularly brutal enemy attack of which you are given a preview, and the various curious streamlining decisions it makes to JRPG combat features of the past. For one, there's no items - or to be specific, no potions, ethers, phoenix downs or other battle accoutrements that are the norm. Curing a member of a status effect is as easy as walking over to them and snapping them out of it. Similarly, you can resurrect fallen members by helping them back up (to a limited degree). Healing is done entirely with specific Arts, so make sure you have someone in your group that has them. Battles tend to be measured in seconds rather than minutes and subsequently there's less emphasis on your tactical ability than there is on your situational awareness - if members start falling, pick them up and figure out how the enemy is overpowering them (usually for me it's because they've put up some sort of damage reflection aura). The AI of your team is generally pretty amazing, so there's no need to worry about the usual braindead idiocy of AI companions - every character has their designated role in combat and follows it ably. Finally, the penalty for death is non-existent, as you're simply dropped off at the nearest landmark checkpoint with no penalty. If you die during a boss battle, you start a couple of feet away so you have a chance to check your set-up and equipment before jumping right in again. This isn't to say the game is too easy (as an open-world game rife with levelling opportunities, it's as challenging as you'd like it to be) but rather it subscribes to the Super Meat Boy philosophy of "don't worry, we've made it as convenient as possible to let you have another shot".

And that's about as close to a review as you're getting. This has gone on long enough, though, so it's time for some...

BONUS COMICS!

Xenoblade Chronicles

Because I'd be bereft of any other games to make comics about, I've taken the advice of @GlenTennis to try out the Asura's Wrath demo. I've also crafted a commission comic for Gold Membership sponsor @omghisam who found proof that Ryan's assertion that all Moogles talk in Brooklyn accents is factually accurate.

Asura's Wrath

Final Fantasy XIII-2

Another week, another Xenoblade binge. As someone who unwisely decided to theme his weekly blog posts around the games he had played that week, I may have discovered a weakness to this format. Namely, becoming enthralled with the same game for the third week on the trot leaving me with nothing to write about.

As I don't want to keep talking about this game - especially the spoiler-heavy late-game where I'm at - for fear of alienating those precious few American readers who I have yet to alienate in completely different ways, I'm going to go off on a sorta tangent and talk about the Wii's library some.

Now, we're at the point in the Wii's life, where - if it were a person - it would be telling the Kinect to get off its damn lawn. Therefore everyone is reasonably up to speed on what largely comprises the Wii's library. For the few uninformed that don't, I've constructed this informative chart:

The "Weird Shit" slice covers every awesome Wii game that goes out of its way to defy any and all modern game genre trappings, expectations and sense. In other words, what Nintendo generally excels at beyond incremental Zelda and Mario releases and not knowing how the internet works. Xenoblade might count as one of these, though as a slightly bizarre but otherwise trope-laden JRPG it wouldn't be entirely out of place on a Sony console. Instead, here's a quick run through of some truly unique Wii titles:

Elebits

Elebits, or Eledees as it's known over here, is one of the early Wii games that showed me how its motion controls could be used in utterly crazy ways; not just for swinging golf clubs or a Master Sword around. The regular goal of each stage is to run around a house picking up objects and shaking them until tiny creatures fly out, then collecting all the tiny creatures to power up your electrical shakey wand which, true to the Katamari Damacy rulebook of escalation, allows you to eventually pick up larger objects and shake those for even more tiny creatures. Then gravity goes away. Then you're throwing houses around. And then it gets even weirder.

Clearly the original intent of this game, before they added all the insanity with electricity fairies, was to deliver unto players the sheer unbridled joy inherent with walking around a neat and tidy suburban house and causing a horrific mess, sending furniture and boxes and collections of knick-knacks flying every which way in a mad dash for whatever before the stage's time limit ended. There was a game show for children here in the UK with pretty much the same premise and the kids on it always made it seem like the most fun thing in the world. I don't know if this speaks to our repression or what, but then I was never a particularly fastidious child. Or adult. I couldn't say whether it was the interesting, out-there premise or the sheer catharsis of throwing shit around that made this game so much fun. I was too busy having said fun to give it any serious thought.

Little King's Story

Not that ultimate destruction is necessarily what makes a game fun (good place to start, though). Building a small burg into a massive city has been the staple of many a Theme- and Sim- game in the past. Little King's Story isn't quite as in-depth as the major PC simulation-builders, but the way your burgeoning kingdom grows as you go out, explore and become enriched by the many curiosities of the larger world is as rewarding as building any number of fatal roller coasters and futuristic arcologies. Clearly inspired in part by Pikmin, you control the titular diminutive monarch as he orders about colorfully-classed peons, takes down conceptually outlandish rival kings, helps his citizens and many wives with matters both trivial and astronomical and slowly uncovers the origins of his world that ends with perhaps the craziest late-game twist imaginable.

As I said earlier about defying genre descriptors, Little King's Story doesn't really fit anywhere in the grand scheme of things. It has city-building elements, but a lot of it is mostly perfunctory as it unlocks gradually as you complete more of the game and invest in various expansions with your hard-earned gold. It has the Pikmin-esque combat and exploration, but that feels mostly secondary to the building and allows for far more variation in combat than those usual red, yellow, blue flower monsters were ever capable of. You could call it a strategy RPG, but that might be giving the simple gameplay too much credit. It's... a Wii game. That's about all you can say with any authority.

Then again, by all reports the sequel will be a Vita exclusive. So maybe I speak too soon. Dammit, I'm going to have to buy a Vita aren't I? Consarn it, fates. Conspire against me, will you?

Opoona

I can't even begin to describe Opoona as a game. So I'll start with an abridged version of its story: A family of rotund alien beings crash-land on a world going through some interesting geological processes thanks to an evil comet that has buried itself ominously in the permanent dark side of the planet. The family is separated and thus the eldest son Opoona must travel the troubled globe to seek out his father, mother, younger siblings and several dozen kittens. Alas, not just anyone is let out into the dangerous wilderness between the shielded habitat domes that the planet's civilized populace huddles inside and thus begins Opoona's long quest of performing odd-jobs and errands for the money and seniority that is required for cross-planetary travel. It is almost precisely like the part in Flashback after you make it back to Earth and need to hit the job centre, except you're a potato-shaped alien with a ball flying over your head.

When you aren't doing the various mini-games that comprise the planet's political and commercial infrastructure, you're walking around classic RPG-ish zones such as forests and volcanoes to make it to the next habitat dome. The combat against the native flora and fauna is a time-based exercise where you, as the player, must fling Opoona's flying ball accessory at enemies before they drop your health to zero with their unrelenting attacks. It's sort of like pitching a baseball towards someone with a gun instead of a bat. There's more than a few ways to send your.. psychic ball thing (called a Bon Bon in-game, which explains nothing) towards the enemies, such as a powerful direct pitch or sending it along a curved path that's harder to block. Occasionally you'll need to bend it around forward defenses too. It's an odd system but one that uses the Wii remote effectively and isn't as monotonous as JRPG combat can often become when handled poorly.

I don't know if I can unilaterally recommend Opoona. It's certainly a charming game with more than a few odd twists and turns, but so much of it involves being introduced to some new career-based mini-game or dungeon and then repeat itself perhaps to and beyond the point where its novelty ceases. If you find it cheap anywhere, though, it's definitely worth a peek.

Boom Blox

Boom Blox is what it is, so in that sense it's not crazy at all. Just an interesting set of puzzles reminiscent of Jenga, but often involving more explosions and the capricious whims of a chaotic physics engine. It's sort of like Angry Birds if it had depth and innovation and wasn't just a freeware flash game dolled up to the nines and sold to Apple doofuses for whatever bizarre definition they have for "good value". Wow, not sure where that outburst came from. Perhaps I need a nap.

Like the best puzzle games, Boom Blox slowly introduces its various rules and traps as the early levels progress before dropping you into the hard mode like a terrified infant at swim practice. Personally, I'm a much bigger fan of the violent modes that tend to involve throwing an explosive at a crucial load-bearing point of a structure to bring the whole thing collapsing down around me than I am of the one where you have to carefully remove pieces with the express purpose of causing no mishap whatsoever to the structure as a whole. Because that mode involves less things blowing up.

I haven't played the Boom Blox offspring, so I can't speak for how that is, but really this game feels more like a simple proof of concept than a fully multi-layered gaming experience. But like I said before during the bit where I talked about Elebits some, there are times where - like with that game and this one - developers are able to face a new piece of technology (like motion control) and know exactly how to mine it for the maximum funinium and laughterite yields possible. And Will Smith cumface balls.

Zack & Wiki: Quest For Barbaros' Treasure

To finish this up, because I've already spent way longer talking about the Wii than perhaps any other blog on this site, are the adventures of wannabe pirate Zack and wannabe bell monkey thing (?) Wiki. Ostensibly an adventure game in the style of so many LucasArts and Sierra of old, in practice it's a little more like a puzzle game with more than a bit of trial and error. However, unlike in the aforementioned games, which have a playtime comprised largely of trying everything on everything else until the player - in their exasperation - finds a guide and figures out that you need to make a false moustache out of cat hair and maple syrup to pretend to be a guy who doesn't even have a moustache and other such alien paths of logic, the trial and error is an integral part of the game's feeling of discovery. Buttons with indiscernible purposes, enemies and traps which will probably zonk you before you know they exist and solutions that slowly dawn on you as you experiment a little.

That isn't to say Zack & Wiki is perfect. Trial and error gameplay is hardly preferable to being allowed to analyze the situation at a glance and discover a solution on your own, which is often impossible due to the odd rules inherent to each stage. Compounding this issue is the game's scoring system, which basically favors perfect runs using every correct item in order to minimize the amount of work: This usually necessitates a second playthrough of every stage, unless you're some kind of puzzle-solving savant, and frustration creeps in when you accidentally drop an item in the wrong spot and need to restart. Zack controls a little stiffly (to be fair, the game isn't intended as a kinetic action game) and very occasionally, instead of giving you hints on what to do, Wiki will completely black out in protest to the game's anti-piracy stance and force you to figure out things on your own for a day.

However, as adventure games go, especially with how sparse they generally are (though that shouldn't really be used as a positive), Zack and Wiki is an interesting spin on what a graphic adventure game might look like if it was mixed with a Japanese 3D platformer instead of a terribly acted horror movie or an awesomely written horror movie.

BONUS COMICS!

Xenoblade Chronicles

Katawa Shoujo

So I used to have a feature called "Ten Year Retrospective", where I talked about a company's output since their early PS2 debuts and how they've evolved to the modern day household names we all know and love. The period of time wasn't meant to be deliberate; it was just a happy coincidence that both From Software and Level-5 began their respective empires of cruelty and whimsy around a decade ago. Volition's been around a little longer than ten years though, so I've renamed the feature "Teddy Graham Memories", because I've decided my naming convention for blogs will move from horrible puns to Homestar Runner non-sequiturs. Or I'm suffering some sort of neurological disorder. Draw your own conclusions.

Talking of Volition, something I'll probably be doing for the rest of this blog also, they're the scrappy development studio most famous for the Red Faction and Saints Row franchises. As the developer of Giant Bomb's almost-GOTY last year, I figure they've earned themselves some retrospection. Like always, these features are less an in-depth historical analysis than me simply recalling my own memories and experiences with games from this developer. For the most part I'd say they were positive. But I've got way more words following this paragraph which say pretty much the same thing, if you're interested in reading them. If not, my critically-derided stickpeople comics await you at the end. With their cold dead eyes and pitiless hearts. I bet JC's up to mischief again!

2000: Summoner

Summoner isn't the first game Volition worked on. That would be the two FreeSpace games, which I'm sure more than a few Giant Bomb peeps remember fondly as one of the last great Space Sim franchises on the PC. I don't know the current state of Space Sims at the moment, but people seem to really like the scope and depth of that S.P.A.Z. game, despite having a title that both namedrops pirates and zombies and has an acronym that belittles the mentally deficient. No wonder it took a while to build up steam.

But we're here to talk about Summoner. In the halcyon days of the PS2, there was a distinct dearth of good RPGs. This was a major issue considering the PS1's success was largely in part to its huge audience of JRPG fans, with games like FF7-9, Grandia, the Suikodens, two Breath of Fires, Xenogears and countless others building a significant fanbase of gamers who like effete duders who wear too many belts for Sony's freshman console.

Inversely, early PS2 adopters got EverGrace, "Orphen: The Scion of Sorcery" (a game I'm somehow physically unable to not put in ironic quotes) and this thing with all the summoning. To be fair, Summoner was probably the highlight of those depressing, barren times. Damning it with faint praise, perhaps, but it was an engrossing if somewhat flawed open-world-ish RPG where you ran around randomly-generated battlefields of monsters, summoning your own while supporting your human companions. Importantly, after the ending credits, you see Volition's earliest example of a burgeoning sense of a humor in a medium that isn't always best known for its comedic chops: Various cutscenes of the game are replicated with hilarious "bloopers". Or "hilarious" bloopers, I forget. These are followed with a bizarrely faithful rendition of the early internet meme skit from the Dead Ale Wives, talking some D&D. At the time I thought it was kind of weird. After twelve years and three Saints Row games, though, it makes perfect sense.

2001: Red Faction

So on closer inspection, it turns out I own and greatly enjoyed the first Red Faction game and rented the sequel for a brief spell and hardly recall a thing about it. Red Faction hit all the consoles of the day, but was more or less ignored on every console except the PS2. Xbox owners already had a space FPS they liked better and no-one paid attention to the GameCube. To their ultimate detriment, I feel, since Pikmin and Chibi Robo might well be the greatest games of that generation. But I digress! So often!

Red Faction details the adventures of a rebellious cadre of Martian miners fighting the oppressive forces of the Earthlings. They think they're so hot because their planet naturally produces air and water and life. The blowhards. This is where we see the other big Volition push: Truly destructible landscapes and all manner of interesting space weapons. As opposed to the usual shotguns and pistols that shoot regenerating blue shit instead of bullets. Not that I'm making any direct comparisons to anything. Importantly, it finally gave PS2 owners a damn fine okay competitive FPS that didn't involve monkey robots. I actually really enjoyed Red Faction, as I'd already crossed to the "FPS games can be played on consoles too, you guys" camp from many hours of Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. Main story was okay too. It was promising, is what it was.

2008: Saints Row 2

Skipping over the first one of these too (generally speaking, Volition rarely gets it right out of the gate), Saints Row 2 remains my favorite Volition game of all time. After following what was a milquetoast and somewhat flagrant attempt to cash in on San Andreas' massive popularity, Saints Row 2 saw what Rockstar did by following up their seminal GTA classic with a slightly more dour tale of morality and filial loyalty and decided they were done imitating. Instead, they went the opposite direction and decided to fully embrace the nutso open-world gangsta turf paradigm of GTA:SA in a game absolutely filled with content. Despite a few missteps, such as making the once entirely optional Activities compulsory to a degree before players could continue with the story, the game has everything you could want in a sandbox. Or toybox. Like that definition is ever going to take off, no matter how hard I push it.

My favorite moments from a game with many of them were the FUZZ activities, where you'd be given vague directions from a TV producer to cause as much horrific and controversial violence as possible to targets as diverse as civil unrest groups, prostitutes and politicians while wearing a police uniform. You certainly don't forget chainsawing your first PETA protest group. Forget fur, now THAT'S murder. Of course, FUZZ's only involvement in SR3 is to provide the description for the challenge where you have to drive in the opposite lane for 200 miles. But I'll discuss that later.

2009: Red Faction: Guerilla

Red Faction: Guerilla was such a departure from Red Faction I & II, but perfectly logical given Volition's new predilection for the open world system. Once again, you're a peeved Martian labourer bringing down the corrupt and listless Earth military-industrial complex. It also has more hammers than Donkey Kong and Wrecking Crew combined (Mario's like the Gabe Newell of hammers), with much of the game's enjoyment derived from smashing through buildings and watching them collapse in on themselves as the physics take over.

I must've spent such a ridiculous amount of time in that game driving along some barren Martian road, spotting some ore crystals in the distance and high-tailing it over for a smashing. In fact, pretty much any non-smashed object on the horizon was a distraction. I had become a force of destructive nature, the antithesis to man's hubristic notion that it could conquer the final frontier. If it bleeds, I could kill it; if by "kill" I mean "smash" and by "bleeds" I mean "was beholden to the game's physics engine".

Guerilla was perhaps the peak on the sad bell curve the Red Faction franchise currently evolved into. But that's something else I'll discuss later. Or now, even.

2011: Red Faction: Armageddon & Saints Row: The Third

So 2011 was an interesting year for Volition. Despite having two major titles from established franchises that would presumably sell like hotcakes, its parent company THQ is looking at some dire sale numbers. While Volition could be blamed for Red Faction: Armageddon not selling too well (the reason being because it sucked), Saints Row: The Third is a little less explicable. While I didn't particularly appreciate the changes made, specifically what was taken out rather than the fine content added in, it was a game I could still happily recommend to anyone. As did Giant Bomb, in fact, and no doubt many other institutions with far more sway over consumers than little old me. So what gives?

It'll be interesting to see how future Red Faction and Saints Row games turn out. Will they still have the same staff, given current events? Will they build on the most recent iterations of those franchises, or revert to their (subjectively) superior forebears? Regardless, I'll be playing their Guillermo del Toro collaboration inSANE and anything else that comes from their vaunted halls of madness, violence and frivolity in the years to come. They've earned that much from me, at least.

BONUS COMICS!

Xenoblade Chronicles

Warioware Inc.: Mega Microgame$!

SPECIAL BONUS COMIC!

As some of you well know, I'm still indentured to cherished Yearly Membership sponsor omghisam. This month, he's tasked me with delivering my New Year's Resolutions in comic form. Hopefully these meet with his approval, even if I intend to break all of them by December 2012.

Those of you with exceptionally good memories for trivial matters might remember a comic-based review of a certain game with animes in them that I created as a way of thanking the generous soul who gifted it to me. Since Steam's big Xmas sale and achievement-based giveaway, I've received a couple more games and I feel a similar treatment is due.

The first of these is Supergiant Games' Bastion, from not-Giant Bomb user Seven. Now, I'm sort of at a disadvantage with this one: Because Chantelise was a mostly unknown quantity I was able to elucidate and inform as much as entertain. Bastion, on the other hand, has not only been played by mostly everyone on Giant Bomb at this point but has had a rather in-depth "making of" on this site which I'm sure you're all intimately familiar with. So I'm going to be brief with my explanations and cover only what I found remarkable.

Long-time readers of the Mento blog are probably equally familiar with how I "do art": MS Paint is my medium; Stupidity, my canvas.

Introductions all 'round. There's some other NPCs I didn't include because that would mean drawing more stickpeople they're not particularly important. Those were supposed to be Kirby eyes, but it just makes me think I need to change my eyedrop prescription.

Caelondia (SAY-lon-dee-ah) is the home of the two main characters and a whole bunch of ashen corpses. It's a lot floatier than it used to be.

The alcohol stuff is interesting, beyond figuring out the logistics of how you become a more competent gunslinger and precarious ledge negotiator by chugging entire bottles of hooch. You receive a new passive skill slot each time you level up, as depicted by a spot on the shelf for a new liqueur. You are free to fill this slot with a selection of bonuses (contingent on how many types of booze you've found or bought) and apply them as befits the immediate situation. There are some basic "always useful" ones, others can greatly benefit a particular play style (such as added counter damage with the shield, or a critical hit boost that only works at low health) and others still that have slightly odd conditions and can pay dividends with a little experimentation. It allows players to mix and match in case they feel their choices are in error, and they follow an entirely different system from your active skills which means less consternation about choosing a direction to develop your protagonist. I know I'm usually the type to prioritize passive skills over active in most action RPGs, for better or worse.

Bastion's most lauded feature is the Shrine, where you can apply penalties (or penances, if you'd like) from the various colorful deities that make up the Bastion pantheon, which in turn grants larger XP and cash bonuses for players seeking a challenge. Kasavin one-ups his favorite franchise by having ten of these holier-than-thou types, each with their own alluded-to personalities and spheres of influence. Applying all of these bonuses simultaneously will kill you pretty quickly if you aren't prepared, but there's achievements in store for those who want to masochist their way to glory. Plus they can hedge their bets merchandise-wise with a tiny bull god doll, in case the Squirt dolls weren't cute enough. They're thinkers, those Supergiant fellows.

The dream stages are as the stickfella above describes them: A non-canonical way to power up and get some much needed resources in case the next story-essential stage is giving you some trouble. To be fair, you probably don't need to beat them more than once, since the new game plus option will provide all the additional funds and XP you could ever need. But boy howdy if I can't recite the Kid's backstory word-for-word at this juncture.

Yeah. There are enemies called peckers. They had a field day with that one, I can tell.

The Trials are some fun extracurricular activities that open up shortly after you find the weapon they pertain to. The basic gist is to get acquainted with what your new shiny weapon can do. Ostensibly, you already have some practice since the game forces the weapon on you as soon as you collect it. The trials therefore are a master class on how to use that weapon effectively, should it involve crowd control, timed shots or some sort of alt-fire function the game might have not yet explained. The tasks they give you also provide a way to show your mastery of the weapon, awarding you prizes by way of upgrade materials and the priceless special skills. If you can't seem to fathom how any human being could succeed the challenge, try coming back when you've upgraded a bit. The game drops quite a few intelligence-bruising hints along those same lines for you, which is always fun. I like getting talked down to. Especially when I'm stupid enough to actually need it.

Also, I don't like tower defence. Dunno if you knew that about me.

Aaaand this was where I quit.

Overall, Bastion is a fantastic game for its smaller downloadable game status and price. But you all knew that already. But the few of you who didn't know that, or were waiting for some rando from the internet to illustrate it to you with grade school level artwork, you now have no excuse to not go outside and then immediately come back inside and buy it online from the many fine online establishments that it can be purchased from for a meagre price in whatever your territory's chosen currency might be. Zenny, perhaps. It'll be worth it. Good luck, have peckers.

.

..

...

I'm so sorry.

Couple of items on the ol' blog agenda today:

Giant Bomb's GOTY

I'm not making huge awards rebuttal blog like last year. Just a small piece on their choice for 2011 GOTY and why I agree with it, since I know the decision has received a lot of criticism.

SR3 took me about 20 hours to fully complete (plus whatever I needed to hit 30 hours for the achievement - which I spent either idling, throwing gang members off the penthouse roof or attacking people with the run+melee combo) and about 150 hours on Skyrim. Both games cost the same amount of money. Looking back, I probably spent around 40 hours on Saint's Row 2 and slightly over 100 on Oblivion before getting completely sick of it.

While longevity is rarely that important a factor, especially when people can count their WoW total playtime in months and years, it is more prevalent with open world games that pride themselves on the amount of shit to do. Skyrim simply has way more.

As for the end of the actual GOTY discussion, I imagine Ryan just made an executive decision (he's generally more an arbiter and mediator than a duder championing his picks like everyone else) at the four hour mark to give it to Skyrim for possibly similar reasons. You could make the argument that SR3 is probably more what this site's about - i.e. random humorous nonsense - but it's not like Skyrim doesn't have sabre tooth cats getting launched into orbit and dragons flying backwards.

Even without such a prestigious accolade, I feel Volition's learned a lot this year about both their Red Faction and Saint's Row franchises and the directions they should be taking with them. If they put that knowledge to good use, I don't doubt that any future games from either series will be amazing.

Lock-Picking & Hacking Mini-Games

Now for the real meat of this blog and a return to the norm as I continue to explore the minutiae of game design. The lock-picking minigame in recent years has become an ubiquitous feature in many Adventure games and RPGs. It's a particularly telling example of whether or not a game is attempting to innovate the genre in some way or is simply following the motions: Because it's become such a well-worn requisite that any locked chest should have some sort of arbitrary mini-game behind it involving collectible lock-picks and crackerjack timing, you can tell which games are being serious about their game design by the ingenuity and inventiveness they choose to insert into this relatively minor feature. You could then theoretically posit that a similar level of care and innovation has been applied to the rest of the game. Ah, if only that were always the case.

Because I am weird about stuff like this, I'm going to go through a few examples of mini-games designed to separate the unworthy from their filthy lucre. Curiously, though perhaps not inexplicable, most lockpicking and hacking (lockpicking in all but name, since you're breaking through security to reach some sort of reward) minigames are based on far older pre-existing puzzle games.

Mass Effect - Simon, But In Space!

Starting with something simple, the goal of Mass Effect's hacking minigame is to follow the commands using the four face buttons. Harder locks increase the number of commands to follow. It's pretty basic and unobtrusive, yet increasingly tedious. Oddly enough, the PC version was completely different, and I'll go into that one a little later.

It was clearly one of the areas they wanted to improve in Mass Effect 2, which they did by creating two separate mini-games that were assigned to all the consoles, safes and security doors in the game. These, too, were fairly basic though - Either finding three pieces of code in a constant stream of data or matching nodes together in a style similar to that old memory matching game. Not a huge improvement, then, especially when you then add the cure for insomnia that was scanning planets for resources.

Going by what I said earlier, does this prove or disprove the overall creativeness of the game around these mini-games? To an extent, yes. Mass Effect is often derided for its simple squad-based shooter aspirations where most Bioware fans are the sort who cut their teeth on slightly more complex RPGs like Baldur's Gate II and KOTOR. The appeal of Mass Effect is largely grounded in its world and the stories it tells, ultimately.

BioShock - Decent Steampunk Security Is But A Pipe Dream

Bioshock infamously used the old pipe-laying puzzle game Pipe Dream (or Pipe Mania) as its hacking minigame, where the objective is to quickly lay a route between two points of access before a timer counted down and they would be discovered by the alarms (and a moment later by half a dozen insane splicers). It wasn't the first game to repurpose the old Amiga puzzler, though. Anachronox's feisty PAL-18 could hack into special dataports with a similar set-up. However, since that was merely one of seven acquisition mini-games (one for each playable character), it was far less egregious.

Fallout 3 & Skyrim - Hot or Cold Tumblers

A very utilitarian minigame, where you'd simply locate the sweet spot with a bobby pin until the lock twists all the way down and opens. Anyone who's played a considerable amount of Fallout 3 or Skyrim is probably sick to death of this by now. If this particular mini-game has a virtue, it's the verisimilitude to what actually picking a lock must be like in real life. That it's mostly a crapshoot is probably also applicable to actual lock-picking, though hardly conducive to a player's enjoyment.

Because it was carried into Skyrim verbatim, one could reasonably assume that Bethesda was content to keep this simple, stable mini-game and instead concentrate on the many other new systems in play. A wise move, considering.

Fallout 3 - Mastermind Hacking

Fallout 3's other mini-game, and one I admit to liking a lot, is the hacking mini-game. It involves a series of DOS-esque lines of codes with the occasional coherent word, of which the player must select the one that corresponds to the password. Incorrect guesses will at the very least give you some idea about the actual right answer. Of course, this mini-game is based off the traditional guessing game Mastermind, yet it can be a fun little head-scratcher all the same. Or would be if it wasn't so easy.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - It's A Future Unix System, I Know This!

DE:HR's hacking mini-game is deceptively simple. It has all the trappings of actual machine code and lingo liberally spread throughout, but it's a cinch to actually play after a little practice. Each instance presents a start point and an end point, which needs to be activated by hitting all the appropriate nodes first. You can also spread to special reward nodes as an added risk vs. reward incentive. You can acquire several perks to make the game easier and make harder hacks possible, and can also acquire special software found as pick-ups in the main game that can also help in a bind. It's a very elaborate and well thought-out system that, again, has some inherent verisimilitude to real life hacking if your favorite movie is Jurassic Park and have never coded before in your life.

Betrayal at Krondor - Riddle Me This, Wordlocks

This is my absolute favorite, because I love the old-school The Hobbit type riddles. Most of Betrayal at Krondor is spent walking up and down roads to various locations to fulfill quests and follow a typically Feist-ian tale of sorcery and warmongering. While leaving the path is generally neither advised nor required, you do occasionally come across chests that have been specially code-locked by the game's intimidatingly intellectual enemy faction, the moredhel.

The contents are well worth the trouble, since supplies are in constant need on the road thanks to a realistic system of constant weapon and armor maintenance and they occasionally have quest items. Yet it's one of the few instances where I'm actually more interested in the chest's lock than its contents.

Two Worlds II & Mass Effect - Tempest? Or Frogger?

Curiously, both Elder Scrolls imitator Two Worlds II (though the many improvements in the sequel suggest this series might come into its own one day much like Saint's Row did) and the PC version of Mass Effect had a similar mini-game. With TW2, the objective is to aim a lockpick down a series of spinning locks in a disorienting Z-axis view similar to the Tempest arcade game. It requires immaculate timing, especially with the harder locks which have many such rings and less time to thread the lockpick all the way to the end. It's tricky to get right, and adds some challenge to an already challenging game (though, much like the first, perhaps challenging for the wrong reasons at times).

Mass Effect has a similarly Z-axis focused hacking game, though the objective this time is to get from the outer ring to the center without disturbing the various obstacles in the way, which feels much more reminiscent of the traffic-dodging classic Frogger.

Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves - Art and Form

As dismissive as I've been of Sucker Punch's inFamous 2 of late, it's only because of how imaginative and fun their older Sly series is in comparison. The third game takes many cues from the trendsetting Sly 2, becoming something of a lesser game as a result, but one of the more memorable instances is having to discover the codes to safes and other locked areas by scouring a painting for a cleverly inserted series of numbers. Likewise, the many thief-like shenanigans the team must perform have a layer of strangeness to their mini-games that make them like nothing I've played before or since.

These are all I can recall off the top of my head. I don't play a lot of stealth games and I imagine there's a considerable amount of roguish lockpicking and stealthy hacking business in those as well. So I open the floor once again to the fine Giant Bomb community: Are there any creative hacking/lockpicking mini-games you recall? Do you prefer that they exist over the option of just using up certain items in the inventory for locked chests, such was the case in Persona 4 or the original Deus Ex? Are you fond of any game that gives you the option to simply smash apart any chests or doors, Gordian Knot style?

Now, if I may skilfully manipulate you towards some..

BONUS COMICS!

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet

Skyrim

Puzzle Agent 2