Dead Island

(Let's not dance around the subject: this is Borderlands with zombies.) I can sense half of you looking at me in confusion, and half of you preparing to yell at me (maybe; I'm not sure how Dead Island fans behave), but this is Borderlands with zombies. Same open world structure, same character customization, same weapon system, hell, even the same texture loading problems. I'm not saying that in a bad way (I'm a connoisseur of blurry textures), but just giving you an idea of what's to come.

Except in terms of the story. That's where things are incredibly different. While Borderlands was about looking for a magical space vagina in a George Bush-torn Connecticut, Dead Island starts with some fuck being an asshole at a party. Then you start the game proper, choose a character with a ridiculous amount of backstory (more on that later, though), wind up in a hotel, and start looting every stray bag in sight for money/cell phones/booze. (Apparently, the only things you need to have a fun time in Australia are $20 and a bottle of Hennessy.) Notice how I didn't mention zombies. That's because you don't need motivation to swipe everything that isn't nailed down, only to swipe the nails so you have more to swipe. But after your wanton looting spree, zombies happen, and this is where the game gets interesting. Yes, there's a virus that turns people into zombies, but that's not very important to what the game's going for. While it indulges in that a bit, yet it's not about killing the zombies (FUCK YEA, IT ISN'T!), but more about survival and making sure people can go on living. Hell, the zombies aren't even that important to the story. You could replace them with, say, bears, and it wouldn't change the game too much. Although...Anyway, it's a touching take on a post apocalyptic scenario like zombies.

And then you hit the laboratory, and the story completely goes to shit. What happens there? Well, the developers decide to explain how the zombieness works: first up, a cosmetic scientist is explaining all this to you. That should be warning enough, but it gets worse. Turns out that the virus mutates really goddamn fast. Now I didn't mention it before, but your characters (even if you play as one, the game treats it as though you're playing as four) have an unquestioned immunity to this zombie virus that I'm now forced to question. If it's mutating so quickly, how are they immune to it for so long? What's that? "It stops mutating in their bodies"? Except it's already mutated, and they're already fucked. But the story continues, as you head to a jungle, a prison, and zeros of other places! By the way, the prison is host to the most ignored moral choice ever, the most predictable plot twist in the world (the guy who was leading you the whole time was a bad guy!) and the lamest ending possible (the bad guy gets zombie-fied and becomes a mega-super-mutant for no good reason). Oh, and that same shitty rap song from a few links ago. It's like they purposefully tried to sabotage their game.

That would certainly explain the character selection thing. Aw, that's a little mean; it's well-intentioned, but not well thought out. Remember that Borderlands comparison from before? Well, like Borderlands, you get four characters to choose from, each specializing in one type of combat. Nothing wrong wit-wait, there is something wrong with that: I haven't played the game. How am I supposed to know which play style suits me best? And it's not like I can switch between characters at any point, so if I choose the wrong play style (gun users seem to be fucked for the first all of the game), I'm fucked. OK, this could work in multiplayer, where you're going to see how the other play styles play out. And to be fair, there is some meaty character progression attached to all this, adding a dimension of strategy to this game about shooting zombies in the face. It's just that the premise is shaky, even if the execution makes up for it.

Speaking of execution, killing things! It's really damn fun! What? Does that surprise you? It honestly shouldn't. It's a zombie games; zombie games tend to be good with combat. What should surprise you (assuming you haven't already ready a billion other reviews, of course) is the combat itself: not a lot of it is shooting. Yes, it's a first person shooter, and you do get to shoot, sometimes, but that comes up pretty damn late in the game. For the most part, you're gonna grab whatever's at hand and use that to kill a zombie. Sometimes, you'll find yourself chucking propane tanks at zombies like that one episode of King of the Hill everybody wanted. A lot of the time, though, you're just hoping that you'll either find any sort of weapon to deal with the zombie hoards, or hope that your current weapons won't degrade into rust by the time you hit another enemy. It really goes a long way toward creating that desperate feel a zombie game like this should really have.

A feel, of course, which quickly gets chucked out the goddamn window as soon as you actually start hitting something. Not that that's a bad thing; the combat's the coolest part of the game, provided you do one thing: turn on analog controls. I know that it's a bit funky at first, what with the momentum-based controls at first, but give it time. Soon, you're gonna come to love slicing zombies in half and feeling the weight of a hammer as it plows into their skulls. I know that makes me sound like a sadistic bastard, and that's probably because I am. How else do you explain me finding enjoyment in electrocuting zombies or drowning them in the various kiddy pools littering the land? Throw in some cool enemies (from a gameplay standpoint; artistically, the look kinda dumb) and a level scaling system that keeps the difficulty consistent over the course of the game, and I don't see what else there is to mention ab-

Missions. I forgot the missions. Can you blame me, though? They're not exactly the best parts of the game. A lot of them are fetch quests or some variant thereof, and the only reason you go along with them is because of the promise of zombie killings. Hell, that's a better reward than most of the rewards you get from the missions themselves. Specifically, weapons and money. I've nothing against weapons, even though I often had zero room for them, so that leaves us with money, which really isn't necessary. All those watches and cell phones you swipe from tourists act as a steady source of income, since you can scrounge up weapons very reliably, there's no need to buy new weapons or parts or ammo all that often. In fact, the only thing I spent any real money on (outside dying a ton) were repairs, which, again, aren't terribly necessary for all but the best of weapons in the game. I guess what I'm trying to tell you is that the only reason you have to play this game is the myriad methods of killing zombies. Not that that's a bad thing. Remember my blog from two weeks ago?

Review Synopsis

• Imagine I Am Legend, but it becomes Code: Veronica X in the third act.
• I guess to make up for that, the developers decided to give you complete in total freedom in how a zombie's head comes off.
• Oh, and you get to run around an island and do stuff that isn't illegal...ish.
• For some reason, I want people to turn this into a game where Hank Hill throws propane tanks at bears. Make it happen, Internets.

You bastards! What h...wait, this is actually pretty good. Habit, I guess.

Rayman Advance

(And the deja vu continues!) I understand that some (all) of you are confused by this, so let me explain. Long ago, when I was too poor to afford a banner for this thing, I said many kind words about Rayman for the PS1. People didn't really respond, so of course the logical thing to do is the exact same thing as before. Hell, my opinion of it hasn't even changed one bit. I mean that literally; when I went to update the score on this, I realized that I gave it the exact same score as before. (8.1, by the way.) So I guess present me and past me are in agreement on at least one thing: this game rules. (Also, it seems present me and past me have the same writing abilities. Don't judge me.)

Oddly enough, part of it is because of something everybody else was doing at the time: feel like a 90s cartoon. Not in story, though, as that's pretty simple. Mr. Dark (because Evil McBadGuy was presumably taken) has captured all the Electoons in the world, and you have to free them. Throw in Rayman being a genuinely likeable dude (yea, he'll beat you up, but he's still gonna hang out with you after it), and you have the game's story. So where does it get that feel, exactly? Well, Rayman's antics, for one, but it's more due to the art style. Oh my god, the art style, you guys. It's like playing a fucking Disney movie. Everything's just so colorful and vibrant and cheerful that it's hard not to love the look. Granted, a lot of the larger sprites can look iffy, since they were likely scaled up from much smaller versions, but even then, I'm not bitching about it too much. After all, it's hard to complain when you're jumping on pencil-headed Buddhists with drums for eyes. (Though that may be because it's so hard to think in the face of such unlogic.)

It's also hard to complain when the platforming is this goddamn solid. Again, this is because of something that every game back then was doing: speed. Tons and tons of speed, which isn't exactly surprising when you know about the pencil Buddhas. A lot of the levels have you simply running forward really fast and occasionally press the jump button. I know that sounds simple, but it's actually really satisfying when you nail down that specific rhythm. But let's pretend that this doesn't appeal to you, possibly because you're a terrible person. Fear not, you monster, for there's more to this game than mere speed. You also get some Gradius bits, some Sonic CD shrinky bits, even stuff I can't connect to other games. I know that sounds pretty reductionist, but I really do love the levels in this game. For the most part, they manage to find a great idea and mine it for all it's worth. Absolutely no bullshit to find in these levels. Wow, what an awesome game! What faults could you possibly find with this game?

Oh shit. I don't like the looks of this fourth paragraph, you guys. That's never a good sign. What is it this time? The challenge? I don't remember anything to egregious on that front. Yea, you'll get your ass kicked, but it's not overly challenging or anything. Wait, I remember now: the secrets. All the hidden lives and Electoons and all that mess. Now I know that it sounds incredibly petty to complain about how hard it is to find secrets, but a lot of these just violate common sense. Want that extra life? Get to the end of the level and then turn the fuck around. How about that Electoon cage? Jump down that hole which will likely kill you. No, you're not gonna find a secret area; you're just gonna hear a beep shortly before Rayman shuffles off his mortal coil. Normally, this would be a nice addition to the game, but there's one thing getting in the way of that: necessity. You need to find every last Electoon to beat the game. If you want to see the ending, you're gonna have to bounce from level to level, hoping that you find that one cage you didn't manage to find last time...or you could click here. Disappointing, isn't it? You don't even get to fight Mr. Dark or an-WAIT! It finally makes sense! They make you 100% it so you just give up and don't see the crap ending! What's the opposite of "Man, fuck this game"? Because that's how I want to end this blog.....Girl, give this game a prostate exam.

Review Synopsis

• I know this is going to sound complicated, but Rayman was the Rayman: Origins of its day.
• No, that about covers it, really.
• I'd still go with the PS1 version, though.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

(こんにちは, bitches.) This week, I come to you with an anime themed blog, because themed blogs are infinitely easier to title than other blogs. Unfortunately, I don't think I've ever seen the animes in question, meaning at best, I can only give you vague ideas of how they connect to the source material. Also, at least one person will probably yell at me for this. Yea...I didn't think this out too well. Just like the developers of this game! Turns out that in trying to make it like the anime so damn much, they forgot to make a decent game part of their video game.

Though that's not to say it's entirely worthless. After all, if you're a fan of the show, I imagine you'll like it a lot. Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of the show, and everything is in Japanese, meaning I have no idea what's going on half the time. Robots beat things up, act stupid, Shinji yells a lot, and that's about it. For some reason, that sounds like an accurate description of the show, and for no reason, it makes me want to watch it. I know that sounds weird, but it does. The visual style is pretty cool, what with the robots being fairly organic and everything (even when it backfires, like in the previous video), and it has some pretty cool moments. I know that sounds weird coming hot off the heels of a robot howling at....something, but look at this. It's just fun to watch and makes the game enjoyable. In fact, the animes are the best part of this game (even though it can look shit half the time), which should be a good indication of where things go from here.

But what about the game part? Well, not only is it not very good, but it's very hard to describe, since it can't decide on what type of game it wants to be. It's like the lead game designer was too much a pussy to tell people their ideas couldn't be in this game. So, like my girly blog of oh so long ago, I'll break it up into what I can remember, but this time, it'll be ordered by importance! First up:

Fighting Segments!

OK, this constitutes about 40%ish percent of the game, so you'd expect it to be worthwhile. Not even close. Fighting games live by two things: a wide variety of moves and tight, precise controls. Neon Genesis Evangelion has neither. You're limited to about two moves, and only one of them is useful (except in one level, where it's the exact opposite). So most battles devolve into mechs trying to hug each other and backing the hell away when they blatantly telegraph this. Good thing, too, because the controls are more sluggish than France. Tell Shinji/Asuka/Rei (possibly) to stab a mech and they'll give it some thought while the weremechs of the night approach. Then they'll freak the fuck out and scream them to death. I wish that could make up for the flaws, but it doesn't. Speaking of flaws...

Shitty Quick Time Events!

To be fair, though, the game does introduce some variety with the QTEs, but I still didn't find them terribly enjoyable. First up is the semi traditional "PRESS THIS BUTTON NOW" type. Why the semi? WATCH OUT, THAT SEMI IS ABOUT TO RUN YOUR ASS OVER!!! Uh, I mean "because it's a button and a direction". Nothing too offensive, but the reaction time on these things is so quick that I'm certain the developers have some type of vendetta against psychics. But what about those other QTEs? These function more like a rhythm mini-game: press these buttons before time runs out while music is playing. Sounds serviceable enough, but unfortunately, it is. I can't think of any major faults with it. I can't think of anything terribly exciting about these sections, either, but in this game, you take what you can get, like...

Holding Z Sometimes!

There are two levels dedicated to this: one has you hold Z twice, while another has you hold Z thrice while pressing other buttons. Riveting. Now there's more to be found in this game, but a lot of it is very one-note (IE I can only note one time it appears in the game) and I believe I got my point across: the gameplay's weak, and I don't think the developers could give two Shinjis either way. I suggest you do the same.

Review Synopsis

• I have to admit that this did get me slightly pumped for the anime...
• ...despite it being twelve different games and none of them being any good.
• To make up for it, here's two robots fucking.

My god! They've weaponized ham! I thought bitch was the limit!

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon R

(Up next in this poorly conceived anime line up is Sailor Moon!) Now unlike Neon Genesis Evangelion, I may have once seen an episode of Sailor Moon, maybe. It's been so long that I can't remember a damn thing. A rabbit girl summons moon power to beat people up, and for some reason, that's all I can remember. Probably would have helped, though, if I could remember literally anything else, given how confusing this game is.

In fact, I think that's the game's priority, since from the very beginning, I don't understand a damn thing. Sailor Moon's living the life of a normal Japanese youth, which involves her future daughter brainwashing Sailor Moon's family, for reasons probably explained in the show. Then the Black Crystal Gang is going to steal something or do something that also happens to involve a confusing word salad, thereby forcing Sailor Moon to go Sailor Moon. Then there are other Sailors who represent other parts of the Solar System, but don't really get mentioned in the story. Now does that seem disjointed and difficult to understand? That's not my fault, for once: that's literally how the game handles things.

Think it gets better in the actual game? WRONG. Here's a listing of the stages in the game, nothing abridged: first is the school cultural festival, which immediately becomes Batman Returns for reasons unclear. Next up is a generic fantasy setting where gnomes jack off in the background. Then Crystal Tokyo, and finally, space, because if you're going to give up your stockpile of fucks, you might as well do it in style. All the while, some fuck in a mask says things at me, which I guess constitutes a plot. That probably explains why there isn't any to speak of anywhere else. I know I shouldn't be complaining about the crap story, since a lot of games have them, but whenever it does have a story, it at least feels like it's trying to be the anime. So if they put that much effort into making it feel like an anime, why did they give up when it came time to write a cohesive story to join it all together? Or is that what the show was like in general? That shouldn't really surprise me.

Just as it shouldn't surprise you that this game isn't that good. It's not bad, though; it's average. Really, really, really average. In fact, all I have to do is tell you that it's a beat-em-up and you'll know exactly what it's like. You beat people up and then do that again. Stretch it over four stages, and you have Pretty Girl Knight Sailor Moon R. Not that I'm insulting it or anything. Beating people up is always fun, and the game at least tries to build on that. You have some OKish enemy variety, five Sailors to choose from (and one mini-Sailor who makes the game super goddamn easy), a grading system, for some reason, and some other stuff! What more could you ask for? Quite a bit, actually. No matter who you choose, you only get three or four moves, depending on how you look at things, and the game edges a bit on the easy side. True, it is easy for whatever-the-hell-these-things-are to corner you and smack your ass about, but you're still going to blow through this thing in about a day. Still, there are worse ways to spend that day. *points above*

Review Synopsis

• This game makes absolutely no sense, and not in a good way .
• Imagine if Streets of Rage had more Japanese schoolgirls. You're probably imagining Streets of Rage 3, but whatever floats your boat, I guess.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

(Wait, two serious RPGs in just as many weeks?) Is the streak back up? Doubtful; I think next week, I'm gonna do some anime stuff or whatever. But this week, it's Skyrim, that game everybody else played while I was And Yet it Moving and writing blogs absolutely nobody read. What the hell was I doing with my time? Wait, I just said that. Still, I should have been Skyrimming it up, instead.

Or maybe I shouldn't have, given how things begin: bleak as all hell. How bleak? Well, your character has been arrested for...some reason (I don't remember, possibly because the game never tells you), and he's to be put to death. Yet right before he's to be executed, the guards ask him his name. That was were they made their mistake. I was given the opportunity to create my own character, and HOLY SHIT, THERE'S A LOT TO CUSTOMIZE ON THESE GUYS. Chin length, eye depth, dirt (which is apparently a body part), and everything in between. Also, body types, unless you're SpongeBob or something. Think the customization ends there, though? That's probably because you haven't gotten past the actual character creation, but whatever. Point is that there's a lot you can specialize in. Want to stab a guy and then set him aflame? You can do that, you magnificent bastard. Or do you want to snipe a guy from afar while wearing a steel helmet? That's allowed, too. (Fashion is its own skill tree, for some reason.) But it's not all combat, even if it mostly is. You can start a meth lab, stare at fish ass, and so much more. Granted, it can take a lot of work, especially with some of the more obscure ability trees (did anybody specialize in speech?), but in Skyrim, you're free to be anybody you want, if you're willing to put in the work.

And I was Dickpunch Cockblaster, Khajit Warrior Badass. If there was a dick to be punched, he would blast it; if he met a woman, he would pay for her gender reassignment surgery just so he'd have a cock to blast. (Dick punching is an oddly lucrative career choice, prospective college kids.) I guess this is the part where I talk about combat, but a lot of it was pretty much covered by the last paragraph: pressing the triggers will do a lot of things, depending on what you want to do. But from my experience, you're usually just gonna stick with what you know. There's no real reason to venture outside, say, punching everything you see. (Support magic doesn't count, because you can't kill with support magic.) The only thing tying all these disparate characters together are the dragon shouts you learn over the course of the game, which mostly act as support magic, so....yea....On that note, though, the dragon battles are pretty badass. You'd think that given how many of them there are, they'd get stale, but surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly), punching a dragon in its smug goddamn face never stops being fun. (Part of that may be because of how dumb a dragon looks while talking.) Then again, you don't spend a lot of the game fighting dragons; you spend a lot of it punching rabbits in the woods. So clearly, you don't come to this game for the combat.

So what do you come to it for? The world. Why? Well, there's a lot to do in the world of Skryim. And to prove it, I'll ask you to do something. Go pop Skyrim into your 360 or whatever right now. (I realize that's skipping a step, but just do it.) Now try to walk from one mission objective to another. Did you make it? Of course you didn't! You were too busy exploring all the dungeons and forts and shit to remember that there's a story in the first place. What are you going to do? Discover a location and not plunder its depths for all the cool shit you think lies within? Yea, right. You're gonna jump the fuck in, punch a skeleton in the face, steal/sell his sword, and love it, damn it. That's what Skyrim's all about! Though I'm not sure Bethesda entirely knew that the exploration was so awesome. What mean me? One thing: they don't want you mountain climbing. Why, Bethesda? Climbing a mountain is the manliest thing you could possibly do in this game. Nothing feels better than climbing a mountain so you can scream a Frost Troll off it and watch its bones splatter on the pristine snow beneath. Don't put invisible walls between me and that precious monkey blood.

I guess to make up for that, though, all kinds of cool stuff happens over the course of the game. No, not the set pieces, which can vary from cool to stupid; I'm talking about the random shit unique to your experience. Perhaps an example will help. This.....Perhaps another example is necessary. As I mentioned before, Dickpunch Cockblaster loves to punch dick, and the guards of Riften learned this lesson the hard way. (In fact, all guards everywhere learned that lesson, but I wish to focus on Riften.) They had had enough of my cock blasting ways, and decided that I would find it very difficult to punch without fists. They were wrong. Even in the midst of a dragon battle, I was able to blast every dick in sight. Speaking of dragons, shortly thereafter, the game recognized what I was doing as amazing, and decided to award me with a dragon's eternal soul. The Riften guards haven't touched me, since. THIS SHIT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME FOR EVERYBODY EVER. I can't even pretend to predict what will happen to you. Maybe you'll steal a farmer's harvest and then sell it back to his stupid ass. Or maybe your killer will recognize you only after you are dead. Who the hell knows? It's your story, af-

SHIT! In my retelling of Dickpunch's adventures, I completely forgot to relay the story to you! Where did I leave off before? Something about being executed? Well, turns out I didn't escape through punch, because contrary to popular belief, Dickpucnh Cockblaster can't punch you with his hands tied behind his back. Instead, a dragon arrived and wrecked shit up just for the hell of it. There's just one problem with that (dragons wrecking shit up is never a problem): dragons should be extinct. It's up to you to find out why that's not the case, and I do mean you. You see, unlike its predecessor, this story is all about you. Don't be fooled by those other characters; they're only there as decorations that make you look stupid. Skyrim is all about you. Plot? Fuck that; you have dragons to yell at. Pacing? You pace the game, damn it! Atmosphere? T...actually, the atmosphere in this game is pretty goddamn good. It's medieval as hell and feels like everybody has just given up on life; the perfect conditions for the Dovahkiin. And I'm pretty sure that Bethesda knew about this, because look at how much work they put into this game. Hell, the dragons have their own language, and it feels like an actual language. If none of the previous rambling has convinced you to get Skyrim, and that failed, too, then I'd like to introduce you to a friend of mine. I think you've met him already.

Review Synopsis

• Skyrim is where you can be anybody you want to be. Except Don King, apparently.
• And you can explore anywhere you want, too, so long as it isn't a mountain.
• There's also a story. I really can't think of any limits that imposes on you.
• Can somebody tell me what this arrow in the knee business is about? I got arrowed a lot, and while I'm sure a few of those were in the knee, I don't ever remember falling over in pain.

For those wishing for a cheaper alternative to the Skyrim experience, the following game does absolutely nothing to deliver on that promise I just made up.

Dead Rising 2

(Long ago, in the days of old (just last year), I encountered the dead rising from the dead.) Predictably, it repulsed me beyond comprehension, largely because of the bullshit story, ugly characters, helpless partner AI, and so many other issues. Unfortunately, Capcom interpreted that as "I want more Dead Rising", and decided to make another Dead Rising game. (Actually, they probably interpreted it as "you probably should have voiced those complaints at least nine months earlier".) Good news on this one, though: they managed to get it right this time around.

Except with the story, which turns out to be racist. Like, really racist, you guys. We start several years after the events of Dead Rising 1, and dear god, is it willing to reference that fact. However, we're not at that point, yet, as that's more in the middle of the story; right now, we're dealing with Charlton Heston literally mowing down zombies for viewer pleasure. But it's OK, because he's economically forced into it to buy anti-zombie medicine for his daughter. Plus there's a civil rights group telling everybody that killing zombies is bad (when they're not campaigning against Baby Seal Baseball, of course)? Hooray! Somebody's finally sticking up for the undera....what's that? That civil rights group is depicted more as ready extremists than reasonable individuals? And the zombies are a mindless horde after all? Oh, for fuck's sake. Show me one goddamn rule about zombification that tells me that zombies are supposed to be lumbering dumbasses. Why do they of all people get this second class citizen treatment? Oh, they don't have dreams or emotions or feelings or the capacity to think. They're just mindless, brain-eating automatons we can guiltlessly kill. Hell, why else did they come back to life if they didn't want to die again anyway? IS THAT WHAT YOU GODDAMN THINK!?!?.....Uh....uh....

...That aside, though, the story still isn't too strong. The third act looks like somebody took a BB gun to it, and the premise doesn't make a ton of sense. Take a look at the beginning cutscenes. Look at how much control the general populace has over these zombies. They're so not a problem that there's a TV show dedicated to killing them. And then a zombie outbreak occurs. What the hell, you guys? How could that even happen? Yes, it was hard to predict that the zombies would escape, but since they were locked up in the first place, you had to have some means of rounding them up without killing every non-zombie in the process. Hell, it's established pretty early that there are people all over the country with zombieism, and I know that at least some of them eventually choose to become zombies; how the hell is that managed? I'd very much like to know that.

In fact, one of those closet zombies is your daughter, Gameplay Mechanic Green. You see, she needs anti-zombie medicine every day at a very specific time, and if you don't-what's the point of this feature again? Seriously, I don't get why this was included. Is it motivation to get me back at base? The same base I'm gonna see anyway because of the story and the fact that I have to drag all the survivors back there? The only real difference there is that I'm fetching an item instead of a person, so it's just a tad redundant. Or is it meant to make me sympathize with the protagonist's daughter (whom you'd only see thrice because of this)? I think she'd have it hard enough being a seven year old girl surrounded by face-eating zombies. The only reason I can think for including this is to relate to Chuck in the first place. And trust me: the poor bastard needs it. He's got all the emotion of a particularly callous bagel, which isn't exactly the attitude you want to have when you're slicing up zombies. It makes you look like a goddamn psychopath.

Then again, the actual psychopaths are pretty well executed in this game. Man, these are some fucked up individuals. Just look at this redneck stereotype, for example. (Yea, if you're from the South....this game hates your guts.) Look at how quickly things go to shit for this guy. Hell, it's almost like he was on the edge already and he's using this zombie breakout as a cheap excuse to go fucking crazy. Now imagine that there's an entire world filled with people like this. That's more terrifying than anything else in the game.....I mean that in a good way, you know...I think. And then you have to fight them, at which point they pigfuck you to death. I also think. My point is that these fights are gonna kick your ass time and time again. In fact, I think there was only one boss I killed on my first try. (Of course, my memory is shitty, as I've just told you.) If you want these guy dead (and given the EXP these bastards drop, you do), you're gonna have to get creative.

Which is the entire point of the combat system. OH MY GOD, YOU GUYS, THE FUCKING COMBAT. As much as I hate the treatment zombies get in this game, you gotta admit it's pretty fun killing them. (If you ignore the racism, of course.) I'm guessing it's because of how many ways there are to kill them. Melee weapons, ranged weapons, heavy weapons, crowd control weapons, ramming weapons, emotionally scarring weapons, and so much more. I had trouble completing some of the goals in this game simply because I'd waste so much time trying to kill zombies with a magazine. What? Everything else is a weapon, so why not that? And that's not even getting into the weapons you make yourself. For as many weapons as you can find, there's usually just as many that can be made deadlier with a box of nails. Now, truth be told, you're probably gonna stick to the knife gloves because nothing else can cut through crowds as easily, but it's still all kinds of fun tasering a crowd of zombies with a Blanka helmet.

Oh, and you also have to rescue people or something. Now remember how in Dead Rising, rescuing survivors sucked ass because their only form of defense was a weak cough and they could get lost even if they weren't moving and those convicts would always mow them down for no reason and FUCK YOU DEAD RISING. Well, they fixed that. Big time. They can find you pretty easily in a crowd and they know that zombies don't want hugs. Hell, I could leave them to ride a mechanical dolphin or fight a psychopath, and they'd probably be able to bash some zombie brains in. Granted, a lot of this is because you don't handle large crowds too often (I think the most I had at one time was four, and I was barreling through crowds with one), and those could potentially create some issues, but that's not the point. The point is that actually playing the game isn't a pain in the ass now. Hooray for that! Oh, and hooray for the rest of the game, I guess.

Review Synopsis

• Man, fuck the zombie racism in this game.
• Man, fuck the guy who said fuck the zombie racism in this game.
• The survivors are not fucked.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

(Finally!) I have finally managed to find a decent Shin Megami Tensei game!....OK, that sounds all kinds of accusatory, so I believe a brief retelling of my history with the series will suffice. It started long ago with Shin Megami Tensei, a pretty cool, raw-ass RPG for the SNES. Unfortunately, navigation was such a nightmare that I couldn't play too much of it. Much later came Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor. The less said about that atrocity, the better. Then some time after that came Revelations: Persona, a Shin Megami Tensei game too ashamed to call itself Shin Megami Tensei. Yea, the story was decent, but the gameplay was far too confusing and ultimately not any fun. And now...this. Oh hell yes.

Now usually, I start with a summary of the story, but seeing that this is Giant Bomb and everything, most of you probably already know the story. However, as I am a condescending fuck, I'll summarize it, anyway. So after a stylish anime intro (seriously, it looks like Japan trying to make an iPod commercial!), we get into the story proper: Katawa Shoujo. Oh, don't act like you don't know. Both games feature a Japanese high school student, whose parents are out of the picture for ambiguous reasons, moving to a secluded area to make new friends and stuff. Hell, you even get the "introduce yourself to class" scene! However, this doesn't last for long (actually...remember that); one anime cutscene later, it moves onto being Yu-Gi-Oh. WHAT!? Both franchises feature Japanese high school students traveling to a realm of shadows (a Shadow Realm, if you will) to play card games and stop an eyeball-centric threat. Oh, and the protagonists both have "Yu" in their first name. COINCIDENCE!?

Actually, that's a misleading characterization, as this story is really good. Like, really really good. Anybody who's played the game knows what I'm talking about: the camping trip, the King's Game, the culture festival, and all the other moments of the game. That's what makes the story awesome: all the cool moments. There's so much cool shit in this game, ranging from humorous to balls-out awesome, that I'm seriously angry at it. Not only will future games be less awesome because of it (most likely), but now there aren't many great moments left for other games. But don't think it's all fun and games...even though that's exactly what Persona 4 is.

What I'm trying to transition into are the themes for this game. You got Nietzsche, Jung, identity, truth, TV, family, eyes...yea, there are more themes in this game than there are characters, but the amazing thing is how well it develops all of those. OK, not so much the last two, but everything else is extremely well developed. It's pretty obvious that they thought through things like television being the key to the public subconscious, or how bonds of people is the true power. Of course, this carries over to the Persona theme, too. They make it extremely clear that a Persona is a façade with which one faces the world...or something like that. That part's pretty confusing, especially when you realize it means that the protagonist has, like, twelve different identities at once (and not just because he's me). Yea, it's not exactly the tightest story in the world (the plot should come to a screeching halt right here), but just look at all those themes! And how well they're done! Man! What an awesome story!

And it fucking better be, because there's a loooooot of it. This much was evident from the beginning, when I accidentally birthed Japanese Eskimo Ami Yu Naruk. I restarted the game as Yu Narukami and skipped all the dialogue I'd seen before. It took me nearly twenty minutes to get back to where I was before. And there was still more cutscene ahead of me. Hell, the game doesn't even open up until around Shadow Yukiko, so until then, it's pretty much all cutscene. After that, it's....still largely cutscenes, actually. 90 hours of cutscenes and spell names so strange that they might constitute their own language. Before I continue, though, remember that I'm not really criticizing the game for this. After all, when you have a good story, you're perfectly entitled to flaunt that shit as much as you want. I'm just telling you what you're in for.

Hell, there's even a feature dedicated to cutscenes: the Social Link feature. What? What does the Social Link have in terms of actual gameplay? As far as I can tell, it's mostly just stat min/maxing, Persona fusion fuckery, and the game cockteasing you about a cutscene "soon". So yea, it's pretty much the game tricking you into looking forward to cutscenes. Again, I've no problem with this, largely because of the characters. OH MY GOD, THE CHARACTERS, YOU GUYS. Hell, I could probably write five paragraphs alone on how great the cast is. But I'll try to keep it to one paragraph, instead. Hard, because look at the cast: you have a trillion weird teachers, the manliest motherfucker this side of Inaba, Hatsune Miku meets Pinocchio, Pinocchio meets too much sexy, and even a few characters who aren't hellbent on murdering crickets. And Johnny Yong Bosch. Of course, that's an unfair characterization, especially in light of the Social Link feature, which magically turns characters into people I'm actually interested in. In the game, Rise's so damn childish that she gets shown up by a six year old (it certainly doesn't help that she vaguely sounds like a Rugrats character); in Social Link World, her life sucked so hard that she went down a road that left her with identity confusion. And it's like that for all characters. Yukiko goes from socially awkward as all hell to a regular teenage girl; Yosuke goes from Yuri Lowenthal to a pretty cool dude; Sayoko goes from entirely nonexistent to confl...alright, Atlus, now you're just fucking with me.

But that leads really well into my next point: the voice acting, which is what really solidifies a lot of these characters. Yea, a lot of the situations are humorous on their own, but it's the delivery that really makes these characters so memorable. Granted, Crispin Freeman isn't doing K-OK, I'LL ACTUALLY TALK ABOUT THE GAMEPLAY. I mentioned fusion before, so what's that about? Well, you mash two Personae together and get a new one. It's pretty necessary to be good at the game, but I have no idea how it's supposed to work....That went nowhere. How about the battle system? That seems like something I could talk about for days on end. Odd, because on its face, it looks like a normal RPG battle system, what with the options for attack, item, and ever-useless defend. But then you go into the magic and discover where the true meat of the system lies: magic. In Persona 4, magic is everything. It can heal enemies, hurt you, and knock them on their ass. Of course, it can do the same for you, but for the most part, you want to focus on the weaknesses. Those are what allow you to create cartoony smoke clouds of death, and what encourage you to experiment around with your battle options, like party members or (ideally) equipment. Oh, and you have to manage your own weaknesses, which usually means paying attention to Yu's Persona because he's the only person who can change them...for some reason. (Also, the only character whose death results in immediate game over....for some reason.) That reminiscent flaw aside, though, the battle system is pretty damn awesome.

But at its heart, Persona 4 is but a dungeon crawler. You spend most of the game in and out of cutscenes exploring randomly generated dungeons, searching for treasures and bopping enemies on the head. That may not sound like much, but the dungeons are the game's source of difficulty. Oh, and really awesome dungeon music, but mostly difficulty. Now remember that thing about magic being integral to the battle system? Well, that magic costs SP, obviously. At first, this isn't much of a problem. After all, the first dungeon is just one room, and the next one is pretty much three floors high, both with easy-ass bosses waiting for you at the end. But let these dungeons go on for ten floors or so, and you'll run out SP pretty quickly, and Mysterious Fox only has so many fucks to give. After he runs out of fucks, you are fucked, because you have all his fucks. Also, you need all that SP to take down the stupidly exaggerated bosses at the end of the dungeon...and even then, there's a good chance you'll your ass kicked. Sure, you can always leave the dungeon for the day, but...uh...

Actually, about that: turns out there's more to do than whack Shadows on the head. Yea, I mentioned Social Links way long ago, but there's so much more to this game. The sidequests, for instance. A few of them involve deciphering the mental workings of a particular afro, but a lot of them are just some variation of "go fetch this thing for me, for some reason"....OK, that sucks. There's also fishing, but that's pretty confusing and a tad dependent on luck, so....yea...maybe I should pick a side option that's actually pretty cool. School has that word in it. Yea, let's go with that. All I have to say is this: if you liked school while you were in it, you'll probably like it here. After all, it's pretty much the same experience: quirky teachers asking you questions with obscure answers, and you taking notes the entire time. Oh, and studying. Lots and lots of studying. This transitions nicely into yet another point I have: the limits on what you can do from day to day. That sounds innocent enough, but I'm not entirely a fan of it. I don't have a problem with it in theory, but more in execution. To be more specific, some of the limitations feel arbitrary. OK, it makes sense that spending the day with friends bumps me out of other activities, but why can't I make origami cranes while waiting for the Midnight Channel to come on? I mean, it's not like the protagonist is clueless as to when it comes on; it's called the Midnight Channel. So yea, I guess you don't come to this game for all the side stuff.

So what do you come for? Gamep-...st-....graphics? Yea, that'll work. The game looks awesome enough, doesn't it? As I said before, this is evident from the absolute beginning. Look at this shit. Fucking look at it. Chie aside, that's good enough to be an anime. (In fact, it was.) You're going to be seeing that A LOT throughout the game. Granted, it's going to be oddly clustered into a few areas, for no real reason, but you still get a lot of it. But what about those long periods between anime cutscenes? And the short periods, too? Well, they look pretty damn cool, too. In fact, I'd seriously consider this one of the best looking PS2 games. Don't believe me? Well, each character has about a billion different outfits, the portraits blink (and at varying speeds, something I find infinitely humorous), and Teddie even has fur! What more could ask for?

A little, if you're an ungrateful cunt. For example, I could complain about how often it reuses enemy designs, but that's sort of a minor thing, really. I could also talk about how childish the character models look, or how some of their portraits are iffy (man, the King's Game...), but you eventually adjust to those. No, what I'm talking about are the faces. Specifically, they look generic as fuck. Often times, the characters look less like people and more like dolls that can emote. So yea, I guess those Pinocchio comments earlier made some damn sense. However, I'm certain that Atlus was actually aware of this, because they actually hide the problem rather intelligently. First, by pulling the camera far out enough so that you never notice this. Second, glasses! What? You thought those were for thematic reasons? What kind of dumbass would think something so stupid? It's obviously there so they can pull in close for battle animations while still looking good, and damn it if they weren't completely successful at that.. So yea, that problem aside, the game looks pretty effing sweet.

Oh, and before I wrap this up (DEAR GOD, WHEN WILL IT END!?), I just want to take note of something that, although largely irrelevant to the game itself, is nonetheless astounding. Before I do that, though, I wish to explain my blogging process (which I'm sure I've done previously). I take notes on everything I see within a game and then compile them into what you see before you. On average, a game gets somewhere between 20 and 40 notes (20 is usually for shorter games), and if I hit somewhere in the 60ish range, then I know I'm going to review the game. The most notes I've ever taken for a game were on Final Fantasy XIII, which managed to net an amazing total of 124 notes. Then came Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4. 155 MOTHERFUCKING NOTES. If that doesn't sound large, keep this in mind: there were 151 original Pokemon. Missingno brings this up to 152. That's still less Pokemon than there are thoughts on Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4. The worst part, though? I didn't even use all of my notes, meaning I could have made this longer than it already is. Be thankful for my finite mercy. I'd say that I don't think I can top that, but that's what I thought two years ago. I guess that means in 2014, I'll be talking about how I managed to compile 3.5*10^23 notes on Some Random Future Game V: More Future than Ever.

Desperately Needed Review Synopsis

• There's a lot of story, but don't worry: it's all fan-fucking-tastic. (I think that may be the first non-sarcastic use of that word ever.)
• Oh, and a lot of awesome RPG mechanics, along with slightly-less-awesome-but-still-awesome social mechanics or something.
• Did I mention this game looks amazing? Because I totally did.

Shut up. That's not the video. This is the video.

Monstania

(And now for something much shorter.) How exactly do I mean that? Both ways. First, remember how long the Persona 4 part of this blog was? Can you even remember the world before you read that thing? Well, fortunately, this will only net about three or four paragraphs, I'm guessing. Second, you know how Persona 4 is, like, 90 hours long and has a New Game + option? Well, this game is only three to four hours long, if that, and ends with an unskippable black screen. Still, I'd recommend it, if you're particularly bored or something.

Though that's not to say the games are completely different. For example, they both have pretty humorous stories, I guess. It all starts when an obsessed youth named Fron chases a mysterious light into the woods. He's looking for a fairy, and the only woman in his life is fucking pissed at him for this. She wishes he'd just give up this hunt for fairies once and for all. Then comes an incredibly shocking twist nobody could see coming: they're not talking about gay people. I know that sounds mean-spirited, but no matter how far I got, I couldn't stop thinking of this kid looking for gay men. Think that was funny? Well, you have incredibly low standards, which is good, since that will make the game hilarious as fuck. Wait...I meant ot say that the game is actually pretty funny. Just about every level briefing comes across as though the developers were fed up with their own game, and the writers aren't unwilling to poke fun at how bullshit the game can be (or could have been). And then the game goes on, and all that humor gets chucked out the window. What happened, guys? Why'd you take that apocalyptic, racial turn? I didn't want that; I wanted Tia yelling at her boyfriend and everybody calling everybody else brother or sister or uncle for no real reason and then pointing that out. Then again, given how some of the jokes sound like serious dialogue, and that the plot isn't especially spectacular, I'm half certain that the humor was added only to hide poor writing.

And once you get rid of the story, all you're left with is some type of strange action-strategy-RPG. I have no idea how it works, either, and I feel that explaining it will only make things more confusing. It takes the perspective of Landstalker, controls like Resident Evil, and plays sort of like Frozen Synapse. I warned you. But despite the steep learning curve I set up with that explanation, the gameplay's oddly simple. You walk up to a monster and whack it on the head until it dies. That's pretty much it, really. You have a ton of abilities, but it takes a while for them to become useful, so a lot of the battles devolve into Whack a Slime. You also get another party member to help in your whackings, but here's the strange thing about it: you only get one party member at a time. I don't see why. After all, there are, like, a billion playable characters in the game, yet for whatever reason, they all have some convenient excuse to sit out the battle when another wants to join. Oh, and you level up automatically and get all your equipment handed to you throughout the game. So there isn't a ton of strategy or challenge or reason to play this game, right?

WRONG! Surprisingly, Monstania manages to do a lot with this incredibly strange system. Remember what I said about there being a billion characters? Turns out they all play completely differently from each other...with their abilities. What? You can't do a lot with regular attacks, so abilities are where you make up for it. I could list off all the examples of unique characters, but I'll just say that one character's entire purpose is to clean. That's how many characters they made before her that they had to make a character so lame as to clean while Fron is whacking monsters about. (Fron is in every battle ever.) And with all those characters, you'll do so many things. You'll trap bears in holes, go Metal Gear Pirate, fight a Kraken (on that note, though, how many games feature Kraken fights in them? This feels like something too specific to appear in as many games as I've seen it in), and so much more. Hell, you even get a ton of stuff that has nothing to do with battles. Yes, somehow, Harvest Moon, Inc. managed to fit in things like mopping floors and moving around colored pyramids. OK, that sounds about as unfun as possible, but trust me, these can be some pretty cool moments. Challenging, too.

Odd, though, since it's not a very difficult game. That double party member thing I mentioned before? Yea, it's kinda cool, but also partially why the game's as easy as it is. A lot of the time, you can switch who's attacking and let the other character recharge for a bit. In case the enemy decides to attack the other character, worry not, for you get so many curative items that not even the entire Russian army could stop you. Hell, you could take them down in less than three hours, but that's probably because that's how long the game lasts. Granted, it's a cool three hours, but it's still a short RPG.

Review Synopsis

• No matter how much you tell me, I can't not picture Fron as chasing gay guys. I know, but I can't, damn it!
• It looks like it'll be an overly simple game...
• ...when it reality, it's a damn fun, if easy, game.

Mega Man Zero 4

(Wait, something's not right about this particular Mega Man game.) It....actually ends things. That's not how Mega Man's supposed to work. I guess it was caught in that awkward time between ending series after eight games (and pissing off the fans) and ending them after two or three games (and pissing off the fans). Well, regardless, it ends things in a pretty endy fashion, but with a huge twist that I'm sure none of you could possibly see coming. It doesn't piss off the fans. Shocking, right?

But before I carry on, remember my last blog? I'm asking you because I don't. What was it about? Libertarians, you say? Well, I guess to counter-balance that, I chose this game because of how Stalinist it is. It's future times and three Mega Man Zero games have already happened, and "Totally Not Dr. Wily, Honestly" Dr. Weil is ruling Neo Arcadia like Josef Stalin. Don't believe me? The guy paints his hellhole (or so we're told; we never really see Neo Arcadia, so it's hard to tell how true that is) as a paradise, suppresses any political opposition, and wants to kill any Humans (capitalized for n real reason) he sees fleeing his super awesome city. Look, trust me, it comes across as pretty Stalinist in the actual game. Anyway, it's now up to Zero to put a stop to Weil's version of communism and save the environment, apparently. Also, the Humans. Although for being the victims of this struggle, the Humans sure are goddamn assholes......Moreso than usual. The intro makes it pretty clear how the Reploid War or whatever started: Humans built Reploids (also capitalized) for slave labor, and when the Reploids want some actual rights, they're labeled Mavericks and hunted on the spot. Then the world blows up or something, and Zero has to prove to the surviving Humans that he's not an asshole, even though the Humans are the ones who spend the game whining about how much Reploids suck ass. Other than that, though, it's got a pretty good story with some somber moments and such.

Oh, and environmental messages, because...I have no idea. This came out quite a while before An Inconvenient Truth, so it's not like it's following any trends or anything. Anyway, why didn't I mention this in the previous paragraph? Because it has a larger impact on the levels than the story. Granted, it's not too big an impact, but it's still larger than what it does to the story. Here's the thing: before you actually jump into a level, you get to choose what the weather will be like (nope, no way THAT could ever contradict any environmental themes or anything). In theory, the weather will affect how the level plays out, changing certain aspects and allowing you to access different areas. While it does do that, the problem is that all areas only have two weather conditions, like, ever, and there's always one that's clearly better than the other. It's the one that the game directly tells you is better. There's one feature down the gutter. Shame, too, because the levels in this game are pretty damn cool. Nothing terribly special, but it does know how to keep the action going, and there is enough variety to keep things interesting. Throw in some challenging bosses who speak Japanese, for some reason, and you have an OK game.

But you know what makes this game awesome? You know what makes it suck that this is the end? The weapons. Dear god, the weapons in this game fucking rule. Well, except for your default ones. Strange, I know, but bear with me. You get three main weapons: a gun that you'll never ever use, a sword that's pretty cool to use, and a knuckle. DO NOT IGNORE THIS KNUCKLE LIKE I DID FOR MOST OF THE GAME. It allows you to steal weapons from enemies, and trust me, you'll want to do this whenever possible, because there are so many great weapons to kali ma from your foes. For example, a flashlight. Yes, you can kill things with a flashlight. It doesn't make sense, but it doesn't have to when you can kill your foes with light. Oh, there are other methods of killing things, but they're nowhere near as interesting. For instance, chips. They're not very good, but the weird thing is that they should be cool. They allow you to customize Zero and dress him in pretty colors; what could be wrong with that? Well, the method of actually getting those chips: you have to build them yourself....with recipes you never get and resources you'll never have enough of. Great. Although, really, that's a pretty minor issue with Mega Man Zero 4. I'd still recommend the hell out of it, especially seeing how I've done it three times before.

Review Synopsis

• What was Stalin's opinion on the environment, and why did this game make me say that?
• Some fun levels, I guess.
• Stealing weapons? Awesome! Making weapons? Terrible!

Here's a preview of the American localization of Wake-Up Club:

Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool

(As much as I love the 90s, there was one disturbing trend that I'm glad has passed.) What? Mascot platformers? Fuck you for indirectly insulting Sonic 3! Anyway, what I'm talking about is the trend of advergames. What's that? Burger King games? Well, the 90s had McDonald's games out the ass, Yo Noid, Chex Quest, Cool Spot, the second TMNT game (coupons count)...and this, the game that undermines my premise by actually being sort of OK.

But this isn't the Chester Cheetah we know today, who transitioned from a life of convincing people to suffocate those around them to a life of general weirdness, but the hip, cool Chester Cheetah. Or at least, that's what he was trying to go for; in reality, he was not only nothing like that (it's hard to be cool when your name is fucking Chester), but he was everything you hated about what the 90s considered cool, and dear god, does it come across in the game. Any time the poor bastard opens his mouth, he sounds like a cross between Rocket Power and what you think jazz musicians from the 1940s sounded like. It's painful having to hear him spout out words like "righteous" and "hip" and "aiiiaight"....which is why the developers limited his speech only to the ending. (In fact, that last one was probably just a pained burp.) The rest of the time, he stays silent as he gathers the missing parts of his motorcycle (because he's apparently too cool to carpool OH GOD, DON'T HIT ME!). But the "coolness" still manages to leak through. (I feel like I rely on this too much, but) just look at this game. It looks like a launch pad for a long forgotten cartoon. A bit too flat for my tastes, but it gets the job done. And the music....is actually bitching? What's going o-right. I'm supposed to tell you how this game is OK.

Odd, because this is the part where I also have to talk about the gameplay. Well, it's a platformer where you jump and...no, that's pretty much it. OK, there are tons of weird power-ups you can sometimes find (sunglasses that remove all the color from the levels, a guitar that...does nothing...etc.), but for the most part, it's just jumping through straightish levels. So then how is this game good? Well, it knows how to keep just enough variety to make things interesting. In fact, let's go through it level by level to prove it: up first is a straight line that sometimes has you fucking your way through sewers. Fair enough. Up next is a monkey that follows you through shitty vine physics, followed by a boat level and then some minecart bullshit. Losing interest? Good, because up next is Chester Cheetah riding a goddamn butterfly. All the while, you're beating the shit out of a poorly drawn dog who has both the parts to your motorcycle and various modes of transportation. Or perhaps it's a series of dogs; it's not very clear. Does it make any sense? Of course not! Does it need to? Not really. Trust me, you're going to welcome anything into the experience so long as it gets you away from the actual levels. Why is that?

Well, for the most part, they're pretty damn easy. What? Did you expect anything else? The levels only demand that you press right and jump, and you don't even have to press the first one too often; of course things are going to be somewhat easy. What's that? Enemies? In a video game? That cha-*bursts out into laughter* THINGS ARE STILL EASY! Here; I'll even let you in on my master strategy to destroy the enemies in this game: move slightly to the left and then jump right over them. Sure, they won't die (even if you do hit them), but they'll learn their lesson. They, like the game, will offer you no more resistance. To be fair, though, the game eventually gets challenging a couple of stages in. Enemies become harder to navigate around, platforms less forgiving, and gameplay somewhat more engaging as a result of it. Unfortunately, things go back to being easy for the end, when the game becomes a bullet heaven type of game. Speaking of endings, care to take a wager how long this game is?..............Nobody's guessing. Like, at all. Well, for all zero of you who were wondering, it's five stages. Combine that with the lack of difficulty in about 60% of the game, and you have a very short game. So basically, this game is the equivalent of shoving an entire bag of Cheetos down your throat: it won't take very long, but you'll get some mild enjoyment out of the experience. Also, it helps if you're massively stoned the entire time.

Review Synopsis

• It's like the inevitable Cheetos cartoon you know you'd never watch.
• Wow, one of the rare examples of a licensed game that's actually competent at being a game.
• Despite his testimony to the contrary, it really is easy being cheesy. No, wait, put down the pipe, we can talk this out like civi-PUT DOWN THE PIPE!

King Kong 2: Ikari no Megaton Punch

(Wait, there was a second King Kong?) Like, this isn't just a version of Donkey Kong 2 that was renamed to remind Universal Studios who was on top? Turns out there was, and apparently it was important enough to get a couple of video game adaptations....exclusive to Japan. I'm quite sure you could have predicted what this game would be like as soon as movies came into the mix: it's got all the bat-shit insanity of any Japanese game from that time and all the quality of video games based on movies of that time. (Which is to say that it's not very good.)

I might as well tackle this in order, so the bat-shit insane part. Now does anybody remember the first King Kong? You know, that movie about a the Beast from Beauty and the Beast visiting New York and fucking shit up or something like that (it's been a while, OK)? Well, if you can believe it, this game is even stranger than that. King Kong's on a journey to rescue his girlfriend. OK, that doesn't sound strange, but you have to realize that his girlfriend is just a pink version of him. (I guess his fling with that actress was just the world's most gruesome one night stand.) Oh, and did I mention that his girlfriend was captured by space robots? Oh, how I wish I was making that up....and how I actually liked any of that. Unfortunately, though, very little of this carries over into the actual game. Yea, you can go from a dock where you punch orcas to a night carnival (again, these are all real things), but the levels themselves are pretty bland. I'm pretty sure this text has more colors than these levels, so it's not much of a surprise that they start to look kinda samey after a while. It doesn't help that this is what you'll be listening to for the majority of the game. Yea, it's an OK song, but it can't carry nine entire levels.

But at its heart, this is still King Kong, and that means one thing: destruction. Wanton destruction. This is how you advance throughout the game: smash things until the game approves of your nihilistic tendencies. Do I have to go further into that? I don't think so. It's pretty obvious how fun it is to destroy everything on screen. Good thing, too, because the main gameplay isn't too hot. Not necessarily bad enough to make me throw a particularly ikari Megaton Punch (whatever the hell that means), but not too good, either. Speaking of ikari Megaton Punches, that's about half the combat in the game: punches. The other half is a limited supply of rocks, meaning 90% of the combat is just punches. Sounds good, right? After all, more mindless destruction equals more good, right? No, not at all. Jumping around as Kong is fun, since it feels like you're a little kid jumping on your little brother's Lego city because FUCK HIS LEGO PEOPLE; punching as Kong feels like a chore wherein you carefully disassemble your little brother's Lego city because what the hell are you doing? Bosses can be more fun, since there's strategy to the punching and everything, but what with them being bosses, don't expect this to happen too much.

Instead, imagine them as the carrot on the stick, since much of the game is about finding your way to these bosses. I'm not sure why a gorilla is tempted by carrots, but logic has no place in a game where King Kong has a girlfriend who needs rescuing from aliens. Oh, right: remember that thing I said about having to rescue Lady Kong? (Well, her name is Lady Kong.) That involves collecting a bunch of keys spread across eight levels. But don't think that it's like Mario, but with giant hairy men (as tautological as that statement is); instead, you can move freely between worlds gathering keys. Unfortunately, since there's no real indication of which worlds you've completed, it's pretty easy to lose track of which worlds you've been to, making progress pretty damn confusing. Although I guess on a single level...level...things work out pretty well. There are quite a few secrets to be found in each level, giving you decent reason to take your time and not blast through things. Then again, I'm not sure why a reason is needed; you discover these secrets by stomping all over buildings, and isn't unbridled chaos enough motivation on its own? No. Not really.

Review Synopsis

• Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was a water tower's worth of brown acid that killed the beast.
• How do you make punching not fun? Make it atomic and angry.
• I'm not sure what's more confusing: the 40 minutes it took me to complete this game, or the 40 seconds comprising the following video.

Now this video I'm about to post may appear strange, and while it is, give me some credit. There's some curious horror lurking beneath the surface that I must prepare you for. There is no sound; just you and two Fire Emblem characters getting naked and spinning for your delight. Now, there was sound at one point, but Victor didn't authorize sound in this video. Who the hell is Victor? How the fuck should I know? All one can know is that he did not give these Professor Brother rag dolls permission to get down and dirty.

Vandal Hearts

(Guys?) I don't know how to feel about this. On the one hand, this is a strategy RPG, and I'm certain it's been a while since I've covered one of those. These games fucking rule, man, and I always look forward to rubbing that in your faces. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure at least one of you has heard of Vandal Hearts (it got a modern prequel thing everybody forgot about) On the other other ha-Anyway, the game. It's a strategy RPG from a company not known for strategy or RPGs (neither word comes to mind when your most famous game is Contra), meaning it's incredibly simple. I don't think I've ever seen something so utterly simple and bare bones...yet somehow, it still works out.

Don't believe me? Just look at this game. Have you ever seen anything so damn simple looking. The characters all look like something out of a really good looking SNES game (hard to pass off in early 1997), and blowing them up to occupy 30% of the screen for an attack doesn't exactly help. If anything, it makes things worse, since now, it makes it clear that the environments don't hold up well, either. I'm fine with box-y environments in a grid-based game, but not so much with low resolution textures. Trust me: the words "dot matrix" will spring to mind pretty quickly. Also, not necessarily bad, but weird is how it handles in-door environments. Instead of slapping that shit into a black void of utter nothingness, each in-door area gets slapped on the type of background you'd see tiled on the back of a crap Geocities website. Not that there's anything wrong with that in and of itself (as I said two lines ago), but the weird part is something that can't be expressed in pictures: movement. The backgrounds move. That may not sound like much, but when I first started the game, I thought the characters were on a boat going somewhere, only to find out that it was a prison most unboatlike in nature. Although for how bad (or, in this case, simply off-putting) the game looks, it does have some pretty cool looking moments. Watching a unit die No More Heroes style (right down to the M rating) absolutely never gets old, and some of the later spells can do some freaky stuff that's fun to watch.

Oh, what's that? You wanted something about how it works, not how it doesn't? Oh....alright. Well, how about the story? That's kinda cool, I guess. Why am I being so hesitant about it? The political themes, for one. Now, I have nothing against political themes in strategy RPGs (WHY THE FUCK WOULD I!?), but I do have a problem with the types of political themes present. Namely, all this democracy bullshit present. Here's the set-up: long ago, there was an evil empire being all evil and stuff. Along comes a religious hero and frees the land from the empire's tyranny, and then promptly hauls ass outta there. I'm certain it's to run away from the tyranny of choice, but the game paints it as him trying to give people the gift of free choice or whatever. So time passes and things get dark again. How do we know this? Because the government is doing things and they're taxing people and stuff. If you haven't caught on about now, it can read a lot like something Newt Gingrich would beat Bill Clinton to death with. It certainly doesn't help that as soon as the hero leaves the world, things go full-blown Nazi (that's not a joke). Fortunately, though, the actual political elements are handled pretty lightly. The focus is more often on the characters (more on that in a bit, though), and the politics are only there to give it all some context and cohesion. Consider them thinly spread spices on the Vandal Hearts dish instead of an overpoweringly strong oily naked man. (I needed to go with something Greek to put in the meal. You know, because of the democracy thing.)

So what's the real meat of Vandal Hearts? Well, the gameplay, really, but what I wanted to say was "the characters". It fucking better be, too, because there are a ton of characters in this game. No surprise, given that Konami was behind this, but that doesn't change the fact that there are more characters in this game than there are people in Michigan. You know what, though? I'm perfectly fine with it. If it manages to develop all the characters as well it does, it can have as many characters as it wants. Every character, no matter how minor, gets some time in the spotlight. Yes, even Generic Monochrome Pirate gets some story love. Of course, that's only for about one battle, but he's the exception rather than the rule. You know the best part about these characters? That character development stays pretty consistent over the course of the game. Zohar's story's not gonna end five minutes after you meet the fucker; it's gonna end five minutes after the credits (because there's an epilogue five minutes after the credits). That way, it feels like the characters serve some purpose in the plot instead of the writers checking off a list of which characters got a backstory of some type. True, some characters get better stories than others (Kira is pretty cool while Elena gets stuck with a predictable plot twist), but on the whole, the cast is enjoyable. Also cool is how when you promote a unit, they get a 100% complete makeover, as th...

At some point, I'm going to have to explain the game, right? I've gone four paragraphs (pretty much an entire blog) without doing so. Might as well be now, I suppose. If you haven't caught on, yet (I'd be shocked if you haven't), Vandal Hearts is a strategy RPG. Specifically, it's Fire Emblem. See if any of this sounds familiar: turn begins, and you move all your units, attacking enemies in some sort of rock-paper-scissors weapon triangle I never bothered learning. (That last part is where the analogy breaks down.) Should a unit die, they're gone forever the rest of the battle. Oh, and the main character's an idealistic noble youth who eventually lays claim to the Super Awesome Magic Sword of Game Titles. Not that I'm calling the game bad or anything. Yea, there's not a whole lot of depth to it (there's a branching class system, but there's always one class that's infinitely better than the alternative (THEY WERE WARNING US)), but still, it manages to do a lot with what it has. Turns out you'll be doing a lot of cool stuff in order to protect democracy, like trying to avoid suicidal villagers or a turn-based stealth part followed by a prison break. And that's not even going into the trials, although that's mainly because I didn't experience half of them. Still, what I did experience was pretty damn good.

Though there is one minor problem, and it's one that I find myself encountering a lot: it's a bit on the easy side. It's not full-blown easy, like it's the Kirby of strategy RPGs or anything (although now that I've brought it up, I sincerely wish that to be reality), but it can still be a bit easy in some areas. Notably, anything that isn't the middle. (There's a sandwich joke in there, somewhere.) In the beginning, there really isn't a lot of strategy to the battles. OK, there is a strategy, but there isn't a lot of tact to be found in "steamroll any nearby units until the game spits out money". Though to be fair, it is the beginning of the game, a time when the developers are introducing mechanics to you. Once that's out of the way, strategy enters the picture, right? Yea, it does, as I mentioned before, but it promptly takes a back seat in the game's final moments. At this point in the game, your team will consist of two wizards with spells that cover half the map in pure death, three or four snipers who can land an arrow in your urethra from twelve miles away, and a ton of physical units to pick off anything that survived this onslaught. What can possibly stand up to a team of urethra-splitting wizards? Goddamn nothing. Still, I'd recommend Vandal Hearts as some simple fun.

Review Synopsis

• Have you ever wanted to play a video game that looked like a shoe box diorama? Yes? Well...uh...yea, this game will fulfill that role rather nicely.
• At times, it's hard to tell if you're leading a rebellion or just organizing a Tea Party rally.
• An interesting and engaging, if anemic, strategy RPG.

Bastion

(Wait, didn't I already do this game?) Yea, I did, and it's only been a few months. Is that really enough time for my opinion on the game to change? But still, I do have a "two games per blog" rule I have to uphold. You know what? Let's just ignore this game for now and face that problem later. Right now, I'm gonna do what I do best:

Densetsu no Stafy 2

(Blog about obscure Japan-only video games!) That in mind, I should be fucking thrilled to be writing this, right? Oddly enough, no. I know that this isn't going to be a pleasurable experience, even though the game kinda was (more on that in the actual blog part). Why is that? Well, this is one of those games. The type of game that's pretty fun to play, but gives you absolutely no material for a blog. I'll try, though. Oh god, will I try.

Now remember my very first sentence in this part of the blog? You don't? It's the golden set of words yelling Fire Emblem music at your face; pay attention. Now then, remember that? Well, I said that this was a Japan only game, meaning it's all in Japanese and I have no clue what's going on. Regardless, I'll try. One day, in the magical kingdom of I Couldn't Tell, a snail breaks out of prison. Upon gaining freedom, he decides to pick his nose, thus summoning (what I assume to be) his accomplices throughout the land. Then some bad stuff happens, and it's up to star-posing-as-a-starfish Starfy to Majora's Mask the situation along with his trusty sidekick Who Gives a Fuck. So clearly, this is a game that's perfect for children. I mean that: give this shit to your kids. If you don't have kids, find somebody to have sex with and give this game to whatever spews forth from their crotch, because this is the best thing that could happen to that crotch creature. It's got a squeaky clean, super-saturated look to it, and there are some other things about it that I'll mention later. The only real problem I have with it is its choice of underwater theme. I don't know; it just comes off as a strange choice. Much of the game ignores the aquatic stuff, and a lot of the characters don't have much to do with the water (Starfy's from space, and I don't know how to feel about that), so what'st he point? Besides, all the more interesting levels are above water, anyway, so w-

Oh. Right. This is a platformer. I forgot to say that. Now, as I said, a significant portion of the game takes place underwater, meaning you can move anywhere you want in these portions. That's kind of where it fucks up, since to prevent the game from being a complete breeze, they made a lot of these areas boring, linear corridors. But that's OK, though, because a lot of the game isn't that. Instead, it's crazy-ass platforming. What makes it crazy? Well, how about Stafy gaining a new ability every two levels? That's not even a joke; you'll play a level, and for some reason, Stafy can now glide. Why is this? How the hell should I know? Yea, I know, Japanese, but I doubt that any language could encapsulate how this guy manages to learn a new skill nineteen times a day. Not that this is something to be angry about. It simply means that every level introduces something completely new. Actually, now that I think about it, variety's the one thing that Stafy does really well. It's amazing how many ideas it manages to jam in while still managing to do quite a bit with each one. One level will let you take revenge on ice by setting it on fire (even underwater, something I'd like to see the game explain away), while the next may see you stealthing your way through a castle because...actually, I'm not clear on why I had to stealth my way through a castle. Sure, it doesn't always get it right (there are only, like, two mounts (I don't know why (or how) this game has mounts) that actually contribute something to the overall game), but for the most part, it's more hit than miss. Combine that with some solid platforming that I probably mentioned earlier, and you have a game I should be pretty damn enthusiastic about, right?

Well, not really. There's still one thing I forgot to tell you about Densetsu no Stafy 2: this game is ridiculously easy. This game does not want you to die. Running low on health? Well, don't worry, because there's a checkpoint two feet from the last checkpoint. Even if that's not enough, though, you know those collectibles? Collect five, and you get some life back. That may not sound important, but keep in mind that any given part of a level will feature more collectibles than frames that could ever hold them. Stafy may want the sweet release of death, but he's never gonna get it. He will forever be doomed to walk the earth swim the oceans, unable to die. Should he come across an aquatic boss of some type (I want to make a giant enemy crab joke, but I genuinely can't remember the crabs in this game and their potential sizes), they will be of no help; the dumb bastards will simply announce "I AM ABOUT TO HIT YOU WITH AN ATTACK" immediately before they attack, followed up with "I AM NOW VULNERABLE. THIS IS A GOOD TIME TO HIT ME". But even if we were to ignore the combat, the game's still super easy. I know that I've mentioned how linear the levels can be, but to be fair, the developers made up for this by introducing some basic puzzles to the game. How basic? Pattern recognition and memory games. It's almost like the game was made for kids or something..........Damn it. You got me, Stafy.

Review Synopsis

• I imagine I could comment on the game more efficiently if I understood any of it.
• Hate to say it, but this is a pretty damn solid platformer.
• You know, aside from it being a total breeze. (Can you have breezes underwater? I guess now, you can.)

And I continue doing what I do. Look, give me a minute. I still have to figure all this out.

X-Kaliber 2097

(How about a revisit?) That seems to be the thing I do when I find myself with one game I can't comment on. (Then why don't I do it more often?) But remember: I'm a man who's firmly rooted in the past, so I chose the most 90s goddamn thing I could possibly find: X-Kaliber 2097. (The totally sick ollie and "yeaaaaaaaa" were lost in translation.) With a title that totally radical, I'd be kinda surprised about how little of a shit people give about this game. Why the conditional? Because I played the game, silly, and found out how justified people were, for a change.

Still, there are some notable things about this game, like how utterly sci-fi it is. In fact, you could probably replace "90s" with "sci-fi" in the previous paragraph and it would make about as much sense. The year is....I don't remember. New York (Neo New York now, because you can't rip off Futurama if it hasn't come out yet) is under the rule of a cyborg mob. Or maybe it's an alien mob. You can see where this is going: our hero (named Slash, because THIS IS THE 90s) must traverse the cyberpunk landscape and beat up Helghast (again, this came out first) until the story kinda ends. Yea, that's kind of the main problem I have with the story: how little work was put into it. There really isn't a lot to the story beyond Slash trying to rescue his girlfriend or whatever, and the atmosphere doesn't really make up for it. Why? Well, remember the part where I said it was really sci-fi? Again, not much beyond it. It's just a bland cyberpunk world and...no, wait, that's all there is. I know I should be less harsh on this, since tons of games manage to have little to no story and get away with it, but it's just that given how much focus the story gets (each level ends with a detailed animated cutscene), it feels like a wasted opportunity for something that might have been kinda cool. Man, I sure have run into a lot of games like that, recently: Alcahest, Valis III, and now this.

Of course, the word "that" could also refer to pretty simple action games, because this is totally that, too. (That "that" refers to the previous "that" in the sentence, in case any of you were confused.) Hell, go back to my previous blogs and see if they don't apply here: walk through levels and cut robots in half (OK, that's the only difference). Looking at that alone, the game gets the job done; yea, there are a few minor control quirks, but nothing too bad. But is there anything beyond that? Well...actually...how do I put this? Sort of? It oscillates between being pretty damn good and being too damn simple. Take a look at the levels: half of them actually do something, like jumping or some form of navigation, while others don't. They're just straight lines that occasionally require you to push a button to kill things. Speaking of, the combat! Your options are "slash", "more powerful slash", "ranged slash", and.....yea, that's pretty much it. I guess the protagonist is such an egotistical fuck that he won't bother learning moves that don't involve his name. That probably explains why all the enemies are same-y, too: he only cares about things that are him. Except wait, there are bosses, and he's all over the place on these guys. Some provide a decent challenge and are pretty cool, while others might as well have been ripped from Stafy (man, what a game that would have been). Spread all this out over about six levels, loop the same music the whole time, and that's pretty much all there is to this game. Pretty simple gameplay without a lot of personality. You know, just like this particular blog.

Review Synopsis

• Try to imagine a less memorable version of Blade Runner. I'd say that that's X-Kaliber 2097, but chances are you've already forgotten what I asked you to do.
• I'd put an actual bullet here, but I'm pretty sure my last two sentences in the blog itself could count as one.

Mary-Kate and Ashley: Magical Mystery Mall

(That last blog left me absolutely tired.) Did you expect anything less? I had to act like I wanted to kill myself while convincing my computer not to do the same. So for this next blog, I decided to take it easy with some easy games. And hey, I get the added benefit of unlocking the myriad secrets of the female mind! What more could you ask for? In the case of this game, quite a bit, actually.

So after a shitload of corporate logos and bass, we finally get our story proper. Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen spend their time between "being cute girls on Full House" and "turning 18 and into masturbation material for all kinds of creeps" shopping at the nearby mall. A woman who can't bother faking a Russian accent for two minutes (I'm just as confused as you are) sells them two magic amulets they MUST NOT JOIN TOGETHER. So of course they join them together. This turns the mall into fucking Hyrule Castle, and it's up to the girls to skip their way across the mall and collect the five jewels that will unfreeze time. So far, the title fully delivers: it's magical, there's a mall, and at least one mystery is present. For instance, why was that woman faking a Russian accent? And if she knows where the jewels to restore time are, why didn't she just keep them on hand in case this thing happened? For that matter, why did she sell such a dangerous thing? Why are the girls trapped in the mall (because that's also a thing, I guess)? Why did this magic time stopping amulet cost five dollars? It's best not to ask questions about this game, though. From the promotional photos on loading screens, it's fairly obvious the girls didn't give two shits about this game; why the hell should I?

This is where the blog gets odd. The game itself is just a small hub world filled with five mini-games (and one mini-game you have absolutely no motivation for playing), and there isn't a lot to say about the rest of the experience. The only common themes are pretty good graphics (sometimes) and TOO MUCH SHITTY DIALOGUE, so I'll go through them in the order that I played them. First up, we have:

Photo shoots!

If you think that a mall is a terrible place for a photo shoot, you're completely right, even if you're thinking about modern malls in all their splendor. So instead, the game warps you to a beach town, and you are tasked with taking pictures of one of the girls...stalking two fairly generic guys. And don't think that I'm exaggerating anything. The guys know that they're being followed, and they fucking hate it. They run away at every opportunity, but it's your job to send one of the twins after them. Why? So they can pose, of course. A weird compulsion for a stalker, but as long as they're not burning down those guys' houses or something, I'm content.

Of course, they could have been burning down houses, for all I knew, because I spent my first experiences with it taking way too many pictures of a black guy with a boom box. I wish I was kidding, but it's all too true. The game even punished me for it, saying that I had to take pictures of the girls posing or whatever. So I played by their rules and found the game oddly competent. Yea, at first, it's pretty lame, but eventually, the two guys decide to fuck around with the photo-shoot in all sorts of weird ways. This is when strategy and some form of skill enter the picture and make things compelling. A bit luck-reliant, too, but not too much. Up next...

Diner dashing!

Because what every celebrity teen girl looks for in a mall experience is a part-time job. Now this mini-game may sound banal, but anyone who has played it (probably just me) can attest to how effed up this can be. For instance, you play as one girl and NOBODY ELSE. You are the only one working that shift in the middle of a lunch rush. Sure, your sister might help sometimes by handing customers drinks (apparently, these people are too goddamn lazy to push a cup against a metal lever), but for the most part, you're on your own.

So naturally, the game can get a tad difficult over time, even when you discount the stupidly loose controls. Sure, things start off easy, since every customer wants nothing but pizza (no drinks; just pizza), but over time, orders start becoming more complex. People begin ordering ice cream and pretzels as full meals, and no, I don't mean "ice cream and pretzels"; I mean "ice cream" and "pretzels". Not as dessert, but as full meals. Maybe a drink, but only if you've proven yourself a fast food master! This involves weaving from food to customer to other food to drink to other customer to ad infinitum. Actually, that's unfair, as this mini-game is oddly fun. It's easy to fall into a satisfying rhythm, and all the stupid bullshit I previously outlined certainly doesn't hurt. I fear I'm starting to like this game far more than I should. Let's fix that with...

Snowboarding!

OK, so this isn't a terrible mini-game, but it's definitely not as good as what we've seen so far. Why? Well, first off, the choices are utterly meaningless. Yea, the other games had choices, but whereas those are just choosing which girl you play as (somehow, I always chose Ashley), this one has you choosing opponents and snowboards and stuff. The only problem is that the choice never matters, as there's always a best choice. Sure, there's always something with better jumping or whatever, but this ain't SSX, so speed is the only thing that matters. That means you pick the second board, face off against Jeff (because he's a fucking pussy), and leave his ass behind. That brings us to problem number two: it's too easy. All you have to do is pay attention and go through the flags (avoiding them requires effort on your part), and poor Jeff will never catch up. In fact, he has to rely on your failures to succeed, because he can't succeed for shit. So I guess what I'm saying is fuck Jeff and this middling, repetitive mini-game. Speaking of fuck...

Fashion shows!

No, not at a mall, silly. In fact, you get a choice of where you want to show off your latest fashions: a runway or the airport (known for its fashion!). And when I say "your latest fashions", I mean your latest fashions. You get to dress up your Olsen twin however you want...within the game's limits. And trust me, there are limits. There aren't a lot of styles to choose from, and quite a few items look pretty same-y. This made it very hard to achieve my goal of an Olsen twin who looked both slutty and stupid. So I opted for just stupid. And then the gameplay started, I took a few pictures, and moved on with my life. That's not me saying that I took screenshots for the site; that's me describing the gameplay. Lame. And while I'm on the subject of lame...

Music videos!

But in a good way. This isn't Marky Mark and (possibly) the Funky Bunch; this is Mary Kate and/or Ashley. What does this mean? First, you choose some dance moves that inevitably make your twin look like Hatsune Miku glitched the fuck out. Next up is the actual music video, wherein somebody managed to hire people to follow these dance moves. Think about that for a second: somebody looked at an Olsen twin having a seizure and not only approved of these visually, but wanted to get involved in such madness. And then more people thought the exact same goddamn thing. Needless to say, I left the camera firmly centered on this madness and failed miserably on my first try.

For you see, there's gameplay to this. Your goal is to make a music video that your producer will like. Obviously, this is balls-out hard. I'm dealing with shitty rap and a pop star rag dolling in a night club, and you want me to turn this into something people will willingly watch? How the fuck do you expect me to do that!? As far as I could tell, I just had to make the camera and special effects as off-the-wall and completely insane as the dancers were and hope for the best. Yea, there's a scoring system that should infuse some sort of arcane logic into this, but good luck figuring that shit out. Again: chaos rules, even if this mini-game really doesn't.

And that's pretty much the entire game in a nutshell: a series of mini-games ranging from oddly entertaining to simply mediocre. Of course, A lot of that entertainment comes from how bad the game is, so there's always that to consider. What, then, are you supposed to take away from this? Well, apparently, women love photo shoots, are fantastic snowboarders, but suck at dancing. Obviously, I do not yet fully understand women. I need more information damn it! More! And I'll get it from...

Review Synopsis

• Apparently, Mary Kate and Ashley have access to the Dark Hour, and they use it to get all types of shopping done. Wondrous.
• Oh, and I'm guessing they use their time in the Midnight Channel to snowboard and make music videos or whatever.
• I should stop writing synopses while listening to Backside of the TV if I want to start making sense.

Speaking of My Little P-wait, I'm doing that after this video. Well, anyway, here's a My Little Pony video.

My Little Pony Crystal Princess: Runaway Rainbow

(And here's the My Little Pony game.) OK, so I'm not so much trying to understand women with this game as I am Bronies, but surely there are lady Bronies, right?.....Right? Anyway, I failed even in that regard, because it turns out that there are multiple generations of My Little Pony. This is the terrible one.

Part of that is because of how ungodly girly it is. The last game wasn't this girly; Phantom Brave isn't this girly; hell, not even the current My Little Pony is this girly and cute. Don't believe me? First, here's a random clip from the show. Next, a synopsis of this game. It takes place in the magical land of Unicornia, where every pony looks exactly the same and all are required by law to wear a mouth guard at all times. We join Rarity (or Pinkie Pie, because all the colors are changed around like crazy) being educated in her princess duties. Or, rather, duty, because her only job is to summon rainbows with her magic wand. However, the first time she actually uses the wand, she fucks up gloriously and zaps herself away to a hamlet just two miles out of town. Now she has to get back to Unicornia before something or other happens, or else there will be no rainbows this year! Oh no! That's...a very weak threat. Of course, to make this threatening in any capacity, a lot of the plot is just Rarity fucking about with sleepovers and baking sundaes and other such inconsequential nonsense. Oh, and did I mention the bland pastel graphics and the "we had to fill this space with something" music? Now, tell me, dear readers, which of those is girlier?...Exactly.

Normally, this would be the part where I tell you that there's more to the game than the story, but there really isn't. It's just one long fetch quest. Now, in any other game, this would be a bad idea, and while the same holds true here, give Webfoot Technologies some credit; they've found very unique ways to make this terrible. For example, your pony (I'd say it's Rarity, but you do control Rainbow Dash for a brief amount of time) is slower than the people who make these types of games. Now sorry if I'm expecting a fucking horse to be fast, but it really does take your pony forever to get anywhere. And as if that's not enough of a problem, for many of the fetch quests, you can only carry one item at a time. One item. Apparently, the developers thought you couldn't count past one, and if that's true, then you probably deserve a game this terrible. And as long as I'm calling you an idiot, Hypothetical Gamer, you'll be delighted to hear that navigation isn't a problem in this game. Don't know where to go next? Just walk in a straight fucking line. It's literally that simple. Hell, there's a hedge maze at one point that's just one long line, and I sincerely wish I was kidding.

Ah, but it isn't ALL shitty fetch quests; it's only mostly shitty fetch quests. The rest of the experience is populated by mini-games. Now I know what you're thinking, but no: unlike the last game, there's really nothing redeemable here. Like the fetch quests, they're all really simple and really easy. Hell, the ease is why the simplicity doesn't really work. Without any challenge, I'm able to "appreciate" just how simple a lot of these mini-games are. It's mostly stuff like "grab these ponies" or "match the...stuff" or "the second thing again". So yea, nothing terribly engaging or thrilling in that package. Generally not too challenging, either, as I've said several times before. Hell, I'm certain that some of these games don't even have a fail condition of any kind. It's just an attempt to gauge whether or not you can do it, if that makes any sense. And if you can, holy shit! You're the best person ever of ever! You've just unlocked something (it happens ALL THE TIME) and you filled up a completely useless meter! Hooray for you! This game considers coloring to be a mini-game worth of challenge. That should tell you everything you need to know about this game. It should tell you everything I should have known about this game...yet I played it, anyway. Oh god...what's wrong wi-RELAPSE! RELAPSE! *downs an entire bowl of gin and horse Zoloft, passes out in blood and vomit*

Review Synopsis

• What happens to those who play this game.
• "Go get my toothbrush for me. I know it's just outside my house, but I'm too much a lazy ass to do anything, Rarity."
• Runaway Rainbow is the exact opposite of this, which means it wants you shooting puppies. I hope we're proud of ourselves.
• Wait, can't I just become a lady whenever I want? So why did I do this, again?...Anyone?...

I Wanna Be The Guy

(Hey, guys.) Me again. You may have been wondering why I haven't blogged in a while. Well, it's because I've been trying to beat this game. And I did it, you guys. Isn't that great? Heh-heh-heh......Why did I do this? Why did I let this game punish and abuse me like it did? Oh, let's face facts: I deserved it. I deserve everything I get.

But I'm the Guy. I became the Guy after beating this game. Does it mean anything, though? What does a Guy even do? Why would I ever want to be one? I never found those answers, and I doubt I ever will. The game doesn't have a lot of story, but it's still better than anything I could ever hope to fart out. It's all a series of references to better games from the old school, like Mega Man, Rampage, and Super Metroid. At first, they seemed like a small sliver of hope in my suffering, but after a while, they stopped doing anything for me. I felt...nothing. I felt like the hollow shell that I really am. I could blame the game for it (you never hear much of the music, after all), but we all know I'm to blame. For everything. God. And once you take away those references, I had nothing from the game. I mean, it's not like the game offers anything of its own that's any good. T...the...th...uh....DAMN IT! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!? JUST WRITE IT DOWN, YOU GODDAMN ASSHO-graphics! The graphics that aren't ripped from other games could be made in Paint (I imagine; I can't even draw so much as a pathetic pixel in Paint), and Dracula sounds like he was recorded through speakers with my shitty microphone.

Speaking of shitty, me. I am shit. Nothing but shit for having so much trouble with this game. Don't tell me that this game is supposed to be difficult; I know that it's all my fault that I died so many times. I should have seen all those traps coming, but I didn't. Even when I saw the traps coming (because of my repeated failure), and knew how to guide the Kid through the loosely designed levels (not too often), my fat fucking fingers tripped over the keyboard and sent that Kid to his death. Wait...Oh god...1368 children I sent to their deaths, and for no reason. I'm a monster; beyond all hope. Granted, they all died each in their own special way, but that's far more than an abomination such as myself ever deserves. I don't even deserve good gameplay from this game, which certainly explains why I didn't get any. Oh, sure, I died as many times as I did, but things became bearable after a while, and the difficulty of playing this game died down (for a while, at least), leaving me with what I truly am: nothing. Absolutely nothing. The platforming was basic enough to appeal to a moronic idiot such as myself; the secret items do nothing to quell the eternal pain; and the bosses are just as vindictive as the rest of the game. All in all, it's a monotonous hell which extinguishes any potential fun I might feel. This game knows exactly how I ought be treated.

Did I mention the glitches? No? I imagine it's because there are no glitches in this game. I'm just so terrible with computers that any time I so much as touch a button on this machine, the program simultaneously freezes and bursts into flames. Nature has conspired against me to thrust me into the most supreme suffering imaginable. But, being the fool that I am, I pressed on, and was rewarded in kind with so many glitches. The platforms, for example, knew better than to hold my weight and let me plummet to my inevitable death, laughing at my naive hubris. The game would then crash, and I would ignore the warning, diving right back into this thing. Every time, I had to reconfigure the controls, because apparently I'm too good for simple arrow keys; Mr. Kingy Goddamn King needs some WASD in his PC games. Although looking back on it (I can't help but relive these terrible events over and over again), it seems that most of the glitches were related to music. Mega Man abandoned me; the dead would steal music from me; the dead would summon silence in death; areas began to overlap; I could go on and on about this, but....y....just....I....

Review Synopsis

• ........
• .......I.....
• ........

Maybe this video will cheer me up. I doubt it, though.

Super Meat Boy

(Holy shit; it did the trick.) Well, now that I'm out of that stupor, how 'bout some Meat Boy? OH DEAR GOD, what an ordeal that was. I don't really know how to describe it, or, to be more accurate, I don't know how to describe it without repeating everything I said in the I Wanna Be the Guy part of this blog. After all, Super Meat Boy's a glitchy mess of a game that specializes in balls-hard platforming and shitloads of old school references. However, there is one key difference betwixt these games: Super Meat Boy is actually pretty good.

Right, then. The premise. What's this game about? Well, you, a meathead, must rescue your beloved from an evil fetus. No, that's not an allegory for a body builder trying to convince his girlfriend to get an abortion; it's literally a ball of meat saving his girlfriend from a robotic abortion. Thinks that sounds dark? Well, get used to it, because the entire game is like something you'd find on Newgrounds. Half the characters look like they were beat over the head with a mace, and half the time, it's because they were. Not that I'm complaining or anything; it lends the game quite a bit of personality along with a twisted sense of humor. After all, if every single character can smile throughout this (and they do), why shouldn't I? Imagine Binding of Isaac, only exactly like that.

Speaking of references to other games, guess what this game does a ton of? Actually, don't, because I revealed it in that very sentence. Anyway, like I Wanna Be The Guy (because I just remembered that I have to tie that in somehow), you're gonna find a lot of references to NES games or whatever, and like I Wanna Be The Guy, they don't do a lot for the game. You'll see them once, think "yea, that's kinda cool", and then forget about them entirely. References to modern games, on the other hand, are all kinds of awesome, partly due to volume. There are more characters from other games in this one than there are original characters. Now at first, that might sound lazy, but it actually works wonders for the overall game. First, you add 900 hours just trying to unlock the bastards (even if 890 of them are spent on The Kid). Second, each one plays pretty much like they did in their original game. Naija dashes all over the place; Viridian reverses gravity a bunch; and The Kid is still horrible. Obviously, these techniques aren't going to work in every level, so there's a bit of strategy to your choices, especially if you want to become a golden god. So hooray for that.

But let's face it: you didn't come to this game for other games. You came to Meat Boy to be punished. And punished you will be, because this game is balls hard. Hell, I personally found it harder than I Wanna Be The Guy (although a lot of that is because of what follows later). OK, so it wasn't hard at first, especially when I managed to take things slowly (odd choice of words, given how quickly I blasted through many of the early levels) and made Meat Boy look like what he looks like above, but over time, things became difficult. By the final level, I was cursing whatever sadistic fuck decided to add an escape sequence...and praising him for awesome level design. What makes these levels so good? First off, very rarely do they look impossible; most of the time, I'd look at a level and think "yea, I can totally do this". It may have taken a billion tries, but I did it, goddamn it. You can't walk away from something like this. It's an addiction that taunts you. You just want to get to the next level to see what new crazy idea the developers will use to destroy you, because trust me, there're a lot of them. You have spikes, spikey circles, your own corpses, more spikes, Ameno-Sagiri, and so much more, you guys. All over the course of the entire game, and all mad challenging. Wow, this game has everything! What could possibly sour this experience?

The cavalcade of glitches. What a deal breaker those are. I should have known how glitchy this game was as soon as I started it up. Normally, when I start up a PC game, my display gets a bit wonky as the game tries to adjust my resolution; Super Meat Boy decided to crash through some weird technical issue. Turns out that it can't run in full screen, like, ever. That's OK, though, because I play my games windowed anyway. Then I played the game, and things didn't get much better. My character would fly through walls and floors, they'd die for literally no reason, the controls would refuse to respond, I got no less than four blue screens (along with countless display drivers careening into the nearest roadside tree), and the frame rate...oh god, the frame rate. Actually, the frame rate is probably the cause of most of the glitches (or at least an omen of them). When everything is smooth and fast, no glitches. But should it drop just one frame, the glitches come out of hiding and make the game impossible to complete. In fact, that's largely why I took so long beating this: a chunky frame rate would tell Dr. Fetus to change up his timing and sit on his lazy ass, making the final level impossible to complete without at least 900 rabbits trying to drag their bloody stumps to the nearest police station.

I can sense some of you are about to yell at me about my PC being the problem, because I have the world's lamest premonitions. To that, I offer you my eventual process for playing Super Meat Boy: first, I knocked the game down to the absolute lowest quality possible. (Remember that I was already running this in a window.) Then, I uninstalled all games on Desura and Steam I hadn't touched. Next, I'd close EVERY NON SUPER MEAT BOY PROGRAM so Dr. Fetus could have all the memory he desired. Then, I'd play the game and still glitch the hell out. Given that other people have had these problems (and that they've persisted), and that the game begins with a middle finger to keyboard users, I seriously think that Team Meat couldn't give two shits about anybody who bought this through Steam. To them, you deserve everything you get. So won't you please not incur the wrath of Team Meat, and instead just buy the XBLA version of this game? Every penny counts...or something to that effect.

Review Synopsis

• I'm pretty sure that by the time I post this blog, Team Meat will have shoved in all the characters from the latest Humble Indie Bundle or something.
• Along with at least twenty more ways to kill you in the afterlife.
• All without fixing any of the glitches that plagued my experiences.

Sin & Punishment: Successors of the Earth

(OK, what the fuck, you guys?) Why's it taking me so long to put out a new blog? Well, you have Super Meat Boy to blame for that. It's a pretty hard game, and the frame rate dropping into the decimal count isn't helping things. Normally, I'd post one of my other blogs I have sitting in the line-up, but given that I've written my Meat Boy blog with my hiatus in mind, I don't have a lot of options. So until I finally beat it, I'll just do some revisits of older games or something. Up first is Sin & Punishment, otherwise known as Neon Genesis Evangelion: The Rail Shooter. Probably.

And like Neon Genesis Evangelion (probably (I should stop basing my jokes on shows I've never watched)), I have no goddamn clue what's going on at any given time. I've honestly tried paying attention to the plot, but I couldn't figure any of it out. Regardless, here's what I wrote down: it's the far off future year of 2007 and monsters are attacking Japan. Now it's up to unenthusiastic youth Saki Amamiya to save the world. Or maybe it's up to his girlfriend who looks exactly like him to do that, and he's going to destroy the world. Or both. Also, something about sharing monster blood and a talking cat and time travelling to New York or some other bullshit or something. And did I mention that all the dialogue is translated, but the subtitles remain in blurry-as-fuck Japanese? So as you can see, it's a pretty goddamn confusing story, which makes the decision to dedicate half the experience to the story as confusing as....well, as the story itself. Funny how things work out that way.

But that doesn't mean the whole story thing is bad. After all, we have the aesthetics for the story, which tend to work quite well...although that's kinda because of how ridiculous it can be. Ouch. What the hell does that mean? Well, the game doesn't look too good. I don't mean that on a technical level, though, because judging by that alone, the game would look amazing. You have some pretty good lighting going on, high resolution textures, decent face animations, and all other sorts of witchcraft that causes N64s to melt. But remember that I'm not judging this on tech alone. Art's also getting thrown into the mix, and this is where things get weird. (Presumably, talking cat things in Japan are perfectly normal.) I don't know how to put it, but the characters often look...off. They just look off. Maybe I'm in the wrong on this, but I'm not sure the characters were supposed to look thsi angsty or dumb or fucking terrifying. The voice acting gets off better...kinda. See, as I clumsily alluded to previously, the entire game is voice acted, and the quality can range from pretty damn good to not even trying. Saki seems to take the cake in the last category; the poor bastard can never seem to give a shit about anything. Not in a "mopey whiney teen" sort of way, but more like "awkward high school presentation" sort of way. Combine that with a face that most definitely is "mopey whiney teen", and you have a veritable gold mine of laughs. (Provided you can laugh, of course. I spent most of the game with the previously mentioned look on my face, even if I do that all the time anyway.)

Now to compliment the game, for a change: everything else. Everything else about the game is deserving of compliment. What's that? You want to know what the game is like? You shoot shit. That's what you do throughout the game. What more could you want out of an experience? What's that? You want MORE? Fortunately, this game anticipated your selfishness and gives you more. So much more. For example, the power-ups....OK, there aren't any. Sure, you get a sword, but it's less Radiant Silvergun and more "kill things you'd shoot anyway". But that's OK, because Sin & Punishment really shines through with its scenarios. For example, how do you follow up a game of tug of war with some Panzer Dragoon looking thing? Running in circles and shooting a cat in its smug fucking face. And then about 70% more game follows, wherein it manages to keep this pace up throughout that entire experience. How is that even possible? Never once did I stop to say, "This is getting boring" or anything like that. (Although that might be because I was using the word "confusing" instead.) Throw in some pretty awesome bosses (the final boss has you blowing up the Earth while protecting the Earth, because logic and fun never get along too well), and you have a pretty awesome experience.

An easy experience, mind you, but an awesome experience, nonetheless. How easy is it? First level: I didn't get hit once. I didn't even have to move, and I still managed to avoid bullets like a Metal Gear villain. Then the next few levels came, and sure enough, I managed to get hit sometimes, and I had to move around to avoid bullets and obstacles. Still, though, things remain easy, because the game hands out health and time bonuses like crazy. Did you beat a mini-boss? Have some more time! Shoot a random enemy? You need health! Do you exist? No? Well, here are some pity points for not existing...somehow. Actually, that's an unfair characterization, because it implies that the game has no clue what challenge is. Go ahead and play some of the little mini-game moments that break up the game proper, and you'll encounter some challenge. The problem, of course, is that this doesn't really carry over into the rest of the game. As I said, it's easy to take care of what's trying to kill you, and the game doesn't really want you dying. But you know what? This may be my fault. After all, I didn't check the menus too well (because while I don't know how skilled my Japanese is, I do know I'm absolutely terrible at reading Japanese with glaucoma), so it's possible that I accidentally played the whole thing on Press A to Win Mode. Besides, all it really needs is a stronger focus on points (perhaps by becoming an arcade game or turning combos into a per-level affair), and the challenge magically reappears. So yea, I'd still recommend this thing.

Review Synopsis

• I'd say it's like Neon Genesis Evangelion, but I'm sure that show had better voice work. Also, I've never watched the show, so I should stop making that damn comparison.
• Especially given the solid gameplay and everything.
• Easy gameplay, but still solid gameplay.

Continuing the theme of revisits, here's me revisiting the idea of SpongeBob being racist and terrible for children:

Panzer Dragoon Mini

(Nope, still haven't beaten Super Meat Boy.) I am not joking when I say that I thought I Wanna Be The Guy would give me more trouble. Anyway, our next game should have some pedigree behind it: Panzer Dragoon Mini, otherwise known as one of two Panzer Dragoon games Sega doesn't want you to know about. (I can't even find anything on the second one because that's how ignorant people are to it.) Now why doesn't Sega want you to know about this? Well, probably because it's a dull, ridiculously simplistic entry in the Panzer Dragoon series.

Speaking of Panzer Dragoon, what's it known for? Largely, as far as I can tell, story and graphics (or at least the general look of things). Guess which one this game doesn't have? Graphics? Yes, because Sega somehow managed to turn Zork into a friggin' shooter. No, it's actually the story that was left out. Oddly enough, I don't have much of a problem with that; after all, what's there to explain? Why I can choose between three completely identical dragons or why I fight the same miniboss four or five times? I'm not thinking about that stuff, mainly because I'm thinking about how the game looks. Most of the time, it's bad. The ground is just a series of crappy stripes, and while the enemies can look cool, they never get close enough to you to show off that coolness. (But more on that later.) So how does the game look good? The bosses. How did they squeeze this out of the Game Gear? OK, so there's some flicker on these guys, but keep in mind that some pretty detailed animations accompany this flicker, easily making the bosses the best part of the game.

Unfortunately, that's really all the game has, because in comes the game part. Now as I said before, Panzer Dragoon Mini is a shooter, and it's a shooter with two ways of shooting things. First is the regular shot which you'll never ever use outside boss battles. Your shots will never go where you aim, so unless you're shooting at something that occupies 80% of the screen (like a boss), it's best to rely on shooting method number two: target painting. Just hold down the shoot button, hover over targets, and release it to watch them all die. Sounds cool, right? Well, it isn't, and there are two reasons why. Now I really don't like comparing games, but this is really the best way I can illustrate my point. Look at how target painting is handled in any other Panzer Dragoon game; now here's Mini. Notice something missing? Impact. The enemies die with a small pfft as soon as you let go of the damn button, leaving you no time to enjoy killing...whatever the hell you fight. (Again, no story.) I know it sounds minor, but trust me: it really does suck a lot of the fun out of the experience.

Second, the level design just isn't that interesting. Here's the format you'll be dealing with for many of the levels: a couple of enemies come in from the left, then a couple more from the right. Repeat that a bit with those enemies, then move onto something else. True, sometimes they'll come from the top of the screen or *gasp* the corners (ARE YOU A MADMAN!?), but for the most part, it's just left and right. Does that sound exciting? If it does, then you probably passed out in a fit of excitement when you saw my banner, you boring piece of shit. For the rest of us, it's a repetitive bore. True, the game does introduce quite a few enemy designs over the course of the game, but it doesn't amount to much, since they take both the same positions as other enemies and their vulnerabilities. The only parts I genuinely looked forward to where the boss battles, but that was more because of how they looked than how they played. I don't know if the fact that it has only five levels is a good or bad thing. Yet I know for certain if this game is a good or bad thing. Care to take a guess?

Review Synopsis

• If this was the first Panzer Dragoon game, the series would be called Missile Burping/Farting/Eye-Lasering Dragon.
• Then again, it would be the ONLY Panzer Dragoon game, given the shooting and everything.
• And the overall design.