Having a job sure has been helpful, as that means I get a little boost in money to spend on games. Rather than increase my Steam library with more games, I decided to show my PS3 some love and download two games from PSN. These are those games.

GAMES!!!!

Dyad is quite an interesting game to try and talk about. Screen shots don't give you a good sense of what the game is about, and video doesn't do much better either. After playing through all the main levels in Dyad, I can say that I understand what that game is about. But explaining what that game is to someone who has not played it isn't easy. It teaches you specific terms and lingo that only make sense to other people who have played the game.

So, for this blog, I'm not gonna both explaining what the game plays like and what the mechanics are. I'm just going to describe what my experience was like playing Dyad. The short of it is that my time with Dyad was awesome. I like it a lot.

The game does a good job of teaching you new concepts right up to the last level of the game, with the instructions using a mix of words and images of things in the level that you'll come across. Applying everything you learn about the game's mechanics makes the latter levels very fun and the visuals very crazy. There is an invincibility power up of sorts that when activated warps the colors in the stage, as well as the music, and combine that with the speed at which you're going in the level, things get pretty hectic. And everything that's happening on the stage is a gorgeous, albeit trippy light show.

I tried a couple of the trophy levels in Dyad, which have a single trophy associated with them and are rather difficult. I did not have all of them unlocked as it requires you to three star the levels, but from what I played, they did take quite a few tries, and I necessarily didn't feel the need to play through all those trophy levels. Just the regular levels were fine for me, didn't even bother with the remix levels. There is a special level at the end that has no end or time limit or anything. Just go as far as you can until the colors wear you out and you can't see the dots you need to hit.

Dyad doesn't take too long to get through when you just play the regular levels, but it is a lot of fun the whole way through. Good game for $15, or rather $12 for me as I got a discount for being a Playstation Plus subscriber, so that's nice.

Would not have known about this game had it not been featured in the new games section on the front page or briefly mentioned on the Bombcast or I Love Mondays. The concept of the game sounded very interesting, and what video I looked at of this game compelled me to buy it. It was only 8 bucks for me to spend as a Playstation Plus member, after all.

The concept of Malicious is a character action game focused on boss battles. You can approach them in any order you want, and defeating them earns you new abilities and skills. You know, kinda like Megaman. There's a total of 5 bosses you must face before you take on the big bad, and you have to beat those bosses in 30 minutes or you fail. A rather generous time limit, I must say.

One major thing about Malicious is that it is very floaty. This is very apparent from the movement of the main character, who just glides around the area. You can also jump, but rather than a single or double, you have a TRIPLE jump. And if you don't want to wait until you reach the ground again, clicking in the left stick will send you straight down, so that is nice. You start off with two different attack styles, melee and projectile, which you switch between with a press on the d pad. Rather simple start, but as you go on, the abilities that you acquire are really cool.

You get additional attack methods, including a sword and a lance, and you can even get the ability to jump six times in the air. Yeah, six times. You get expanded combos for your melee attacks, a shield, wings that let you fly around faster and ram into enemies for damage. There is some cool stuff you can do in this game, despite it being a rather simple game. And that's fine, nothing wrong with that. Again, for 8 bucks, there could've been worse.

There are difficulty settings in the game, but even on easy, the game can give you a good beating if you aren't careful. Two bosses in particular were very challenging despite playing on easy. I normally saved those two bosses for last once I had the abilities I wanted, specifically the wings that let you glide through enemies, and the lance, which has a really good heavy attack. I still haven't beaten the final boss, or haven't gotten around to it rather. Still, the fights themselves can be rather fun and challenging, though not something as fantastic as a game like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry 3.

Doesn't take long at all to get through Malicious, but I enjoy character action games and don't mind replaying this one every now and again. I definitely like the abilities you gain from the boss fights, in fact, having this style expanded into a much bigger game would be interesting to see.

And the Rest

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater

Bought the first one for Dreamcast, and my skills from playing Tony Hawk 2 matched up pretty well with this one. Yeah, there are no manuals, but I never used them much in 2, for some reason. Other than having to learn the maps in this game, I've had no problem accomplishing the objectives given. And after playing Mall and Downhill Jam, I understand now why people don't like those levels.

Things Other Than Games

Gave my two weeks notice to my job that I plan to quit on the 17th, giving me a week to myself before starting school again. It is an early morning job, and I wouldn't want any tiredness in the afternoon to get in the way of my studies. Of course, I won't have a source of income at that point, so I'll be looking for a job on the campus that I can go to in between courses.

I marathoned through Gurren Lagann last weekend and absolutely loved it, and not only that, but it had the effect of making me want to watch more giant robot shows, and then led me to Super Robot Wars and Another Century's Episode, and it's just been thinking about giant robots for the last week. And that's fine by me, because giant robots are awesome, real or super.

In Conclusion

So that's it. Another blog post finished. As far as what I've got planned for the rest of the month, I'm gonna do something with both Tony Hawk 1 and 2, and maybe something with Super Robot Wars (and possibly Another Century's Episode, as a friend of mine has ACE R for PS3). Also, I got Digital Devil Saga 2 from Gamefly so I hope to have that done by the weekend before PAX, which is also my last week of summer. Speaking of PAX, I got my passes, and I'm ready to go on the 31st. Can't wait.

Peace.