My summer is almost over. Starting Monday, I will be getting up early again and heading off to that oh-so-enjoyable college that I just love so effing much. If you didn't catch the sarcasm, I'm not exactly looking forward to it. I wish I could say that I had a great summer, but the thing is, I really didn't. It started off okay, but it quickly simmered into the one of the most boring, uneventful vacations I can remember, before a bunch of bad stuff started happening in my personal life over the last few weeks. Going back to college is just one more even in a long string of disappointmens over the last few months.
But you didn't click on this to hear me rant about my personal life. Let's talk about games. One of th eperks of all the stuff I hae had to put up with over the last few weeks is that I've had plenty of time for gaming. And I mean a lot: I think I've beaten more games in the past three months than I did in the entire year leading up to this past May. In addition to buying a Playstation 3, I've also expanded both my Wii library and my Steam library with indie bundles and sales. So even though I had a relatively crappy summer personally, from a gaming standpoint, it was great.
This is a look back at all games I beat this summer. Reminiscing, if you will, about the good (and bad) times I had. So that's what this is: a list of every game that I beat this summer, and an analysis of both my favorite and least favorite parts of each one. Now this isn't every game I played, such as multiplayer games with no ending, or casual one-off games, or games I played for a few minutes at a friend's house. These are single player experiences that I went all the way through for the first time during the summer, listed in the order that I played them. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed (or didn't enjoy) playing these games.
This acclaimed indie action game captured the hearts of both XBLA and Steam gamers with its gorgeous imagery and rugged narrator. The presentation of Bastion is nigh-unrivalled, and I've already written a full review of it if you want more information. This game kept me occupied during the final stretch of my previous semester, with me beating it just days after my last day of classes.
The Best Part: The Final "Battle," (after a specific moral choice)
You can check out my review for more information, but I found the combat and exploration in the first half of Bastion to be somewhat lackluster. The second half of the game makes up for it, however, since the plot kicks in halfway through and the drama ramps up, giving you something more to fight for and suddenly making everything matter.
The best part of Basion is undoubtedly the final moments of the game. It's difficult to describe without spoiling anything. but right before entering the final area of the final dungeon, you witness an event involving another major character that requires you to make a one-time moral choice. Your decision effects the set-up for the final battle, with one of the choices climaxing into an awe-inspiring set piece that still gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.
The Worst Part: The Training Ground Stages
In addition to the plot-advancing stages where you hunt down a macguffin, the world of Bastion also comes equipped with challenge maps that stick you with a specific weapon and task you with doing some kind of task with it, like killing certain enemies in a time limit. Like I said, the combat itself doesn't have much to offer, and these training ground stages have nothing in them besides combat. On top of that, each one requires the use of a specific weapon, so if you don't like that particular tool, then the stage will be even less fun. In fact, in the levels that used the weaposn I liked were still too hard and just not fun. Fortunately, these levels are not required, which is good, because it didn't take long for me to start skipping them.
Ever heard of this one? No? I didn't either until it came up as part of an indie bundle I was interested in. Like Bastion, I reviewed this one as well. It's a 2D platformer with a 3D twist, making you jump across a world of graffitti that exists on city walls. The game has its ups and downs, with some great design (both aesthetically and the level layout) but choking on some floaty and imprecise controls.
The Best Part: The Final Three Levels
If you read my review, you'll see that I have a lot to say about both the game's controls and the layout of the levels. Although early levels in Sideway are somewhat generic, without much challenge. Fortunately, like any good game, it gets better as you progress. By the end of the game, the design and challenges found in each stage rival some of the best platformers of all time. Not counting bosses, the last three levels are built perfectly, taking advantage of everything that makes 2D platformers great.
The Worst Part: Floating Around Vines
Unfortunately, the controls in Sideway New York leave a lot to be desired. They are sloppy, to be honest, which is why the final three levels are also some of the most frustrating. A couple sections of these levels are particularly memorable, and I just spent the last half hour or so scoured Let's Plays to find these sections. Check this out:
Yeah, I screeshot this off YouTube. There are actually two sections like this. You see those blue vine things? Those are instant death if you touch them. In this section, you have to use your glide ability (which is floaty and hard to control) to skirt around those things while going between vanishing platforms (you can see one on the right). Then you have to hit that blue blob in the middle, which temporarily turns you into paint mist, so you can pass through that wall of vines.
Hitting the blob is hard enough, due to the controls, but as soon as you do, the paint mist spirals off uncontrollably in a random directions, throwing you into the very vines it was meant to avoid. Now this is far from the only frustrating part in the game (the second-to-last boss comes close, because it very long and very repetitive,) but this one section (and a similar one not long after it) took me more tries than some levels in Super Meat Boy.
Lone Survivor was the first legitimately scary game I played in a long time. It was possibly the most pleasant surprise of the summer when I logged onto the Humble Indie Bundle page to find that this gem had been added to my inventory. It was pretty great, but I recommend checking out my full review if you really want to know more.
The Best Part: Rescuing the Cat
I love this game. Picking a best part was excruciating, because there were so few things about this game that I didn't like. The atmosphere is dreary and draws you in, trapping you in this twisted world and making you genuinely care about your character and the things going on around you.
In the final quarter of the game, the world opens up and you can explore the city beyond your apartment for the first time. Explore long enough and you start to encounter a stray cat wandering the streets, which you can befriend by giving it food. This is not a major part of the game by any means; it barely counts as a side quest and is easy to miss. Being nice to the cat, however, offers a glimmer of hope in the otherwise dismal realm that this game takes place in. This little task of helping the poor animal not only adds another element honestly makes you feel good, like their is a glimmer of hope in the world and that you are making a difference. From a gameplay standpoint, it might not seem like much, but in terms of the story, it stands as a testament of how emotionally moving this game is.
The Worst Part: The Basement Chase Scene
This is kind of spoiler, but think of it this way: if you are not going to play the game, then it shouldn't matter. If you are going to play the game, consider this a heads up about pretty much the only bad section in what is otherwise a masterpiece. And boy, is this a doozy. The third area of Lone Survivor is the basement of the apartment building. Rather than a typical basement, it iss a huge decrepit maze full of gore, rust, and fog, like something out of Silent Hill.
Just as you're about to complete this portion, you are attacked by the first "boss," an enormous monster than can kill you very quickly. Your only option is to run back to the beginning as fast as you can, except good luck with that. The place is huge and made of a very complex network of halls and tunnels that you have to completely retrace from finish to start. You have a map, but opening it does not pause the game, so the creature in question can still track you when you have it open.
Even if that wasn't the case, however, it wouldn't matter much, because the maps in this game are confusing (again, see my review.) Your only options, besides sheer luck, are to memorize the layout of the entire level, or pause the game every time you enter a new hallway and consult a walkthrough. For what it's worth, this part of the game is tense and scary, but it can also be a major pain in the butt.
Limbo is one of the most critically acclaimed indie games ever. It almost single handedly sold the entire Humble Bundle V to me. That is why it is almost painful for me to say that I did not enjoy Limbo. It is probably the only game on this least that I did not like. However, that statement is not entirely accurate, because it certainly still had its moments.
The Best Part: The Forest
The game starts by throwing you into a world living with death. You awaken in a misty forrest and quickly find that everything is out to kill you. There are traps, there are brain-controlling parasites, there is a giant spider, and there is a hostile tribe of children that inexplicably wants you dead. It doesn't take long for Limbo seep into your veins and make you feel truly isolated and alone, making you solve problems just to survive. It is one of the loneliest feelings in a game as you face a sad nightmare realm of hopelessness.
The Worst Part: The Entire Second Half of the Game
I'm sorry. I know a lot of people probably like this game, and I don't blame them. I can see why. For me, though, I just didn't. After the forrest, you enter a sewer-like section that begins flooding with water and you have to solve puzzles to keep from drowning. This starts out pretty cool, but goes on way too long, and when you emerge on the other side of the flood, you are leaving behind everything that made the game great.
The early part puts you in a "living" world, with creatures and with depth and with heart. The second half of the game puts you in a generic industrial setting with buzz saws, leaving behind everything that made the beginning interesting in favor of a dull, lifeless slog. What's worse is that once I left the forest, I started to realize how difficult the puzzles are. While there is nothing wrong with difficult puzzles at all, the ones in the second half of Limbo just weren't rewarding. I never felt accomplished when completing a task, just relieved that I could finally move on.
I think it stems from the fact that the jumping and moving is not really precise enough to pull off some of the timing and precision that many of the later puzzles demand. I quite often figured out the puzzles intellectually but still couldn't pull them of because of the controls. Of course, no indie platformer would be complete without some physics puzzles, which of course Limbo throws at you near the end, and only serve to amplify the frustration. By the halfway point in Limbo, I was no longer having fun. I finished the final third in one sitting, very early in the morning, because I forced myself to play through it just to get it done. While the early sections of Limbo are treasures, the rest is just a chore that I honestly can not ever see myself playing through again.
Yeah, that's right. I played through Modern Warfare this summer for the first time. It's not that I never played it before, since I've tried it at friends houses, I just never had the chance to do a real playthrough of the campaign. Before June, the only current gen console I had was the Wii, and frankly, no CoD game ever appealed to me enough to make me want ot seek it out. A couple months ago, however, I got a really good deal on a used Playstation 3, and the guy I bought it from threw in CoD 4 as a free bonus. I now owned the game, so why not give it a shot?
Since I didn't review this one, and since I've been a pretty frequent critic of current gen FPS games, I'll give you a run down of my general opinion first. I didn't think the game was bad. I didn't think it was great, but I certainly didn't hate it. It has some really great moments sprinkled throughout otherwise standard first person shooting. So what moments were the most and least enjoyable to me?
The Best Part: Shock and Awe
There were actually several parts I considered for this. Escaping the sinking ship on the first level, for example. Controlling the gunner in the helicopter as you provide air support for the ground troops, the two stealth sharpshooter levels, and the final chase as your squad escapes in the jeep from an enemy chopper. Those are all great, but the level that really stands out to me as the pinnacle of Modern Warfare is the stage that comes about halfway through called "Shock and Awe."
And no, it's not because of the whole nuclear bomb thing, either. This is just a really fun level to play. It is fast paced, there is a lot at stake, and the intense action around you makes you feel like you are in an actual large scale conflict. While there is definitely nothing wrong plain old shooting, the formula of "run! shoot that guy! go over there! shoot that guy!" just doesn't have a lot of staying power without something else to spice it up, which is why MW's best moments are when there is something else going on.
By bouncing you between turret section and on-foot section, keeping the action hot and heavy with little time to breathe, and climaxing with an absolutely intense rescue sequence, Shock and Awe is a great example of plain old first-person run-n-gun done perfectly, making it an exciting thrill ride all the way through.
The Worst Part: All In
This is the third-to-last level. "Shock and Awe" comes in about halfway through, with a couple really cool sniper maps soon afterward, but then the sweet set-pieces are put on hold most of the second half of the game. After the second sharpshooter level, Modern Warfare sticks strictly to the formula of, "Go over there! Shoot that guy! Now go over there and shoot that guy! Now shoot those guys, and then go that way!" It never quite ets as exciting as Shock and Awe did (which is actually a good thing, since it would probably wear you out if it kept the pace like that) but it doesn't throw much else into the mix to keep things fresh, either.
It's not that the All In level is bad, or any worse than the three missions that came before it, it's just that by the time it rolls around, the player has been doing the exact same thing for half of the game with almost no variation, and personally, I was starting to get bored of it. Also, the level starts with you having to blow up tanks by planting explosives on them. That sounds cool, but it's actually kind of a pain.
I always told myself that if I ever got a Playstation 3, my first game would be the new Mortal Kombat. Anyway, a couple weeks before getting on Playstation, I went to a relative's house, who already had one. He had mostly sports games, but among his collection was Uncharted 3, a series which I had heard plenty of good things about, so I decided to give it a shot out of curiosity. Fast forward a couple weeks and there I am taking Nathan Drake on a grand adventure through the himalayas, with Mortal Kombat being the furthest thing from my mind.
The Best Part: The Monastery
Most people would have answered this with the train section. I admit, that's pretty awesome. Additionally, the entirety of the Nepal chapters could fit here, too. But for me, the best part of Nathan Drake's quest was infiltrating the monastery deep in the snowy wilderness.
Uncharted, for those who haven't played it, is a mix of third-person shooting, parkour-esque exploration, stealth, puzzle solving, and perfectly executed cinematography. Although there isn't much variation in these things, then blend so well throughout the whole game that only occasionally does any one element start to wear on you. Near the end of the game, our heroes have to sneak into an old temple to rescue their buddy from the bad guys. This area is huge, and while no different in general from the rest of the game, it is designed in a way that maximizes your enjoyment of every major gameplay element.
The Worst Part: The Ice Cave
Yeah, it looks pretty, but that's about it.
Not long prior to the aforementioned monastery level, Nathan Drake is tasked with exploring a huge ice cavern. This section actually has some good things going for it. It looks nice, for starters. Additionally, this is the first time in a long time that the player gets a much needed break from the relentless action sequences. It's also pretty essential to the plot, since Nathan makes a couple startling discoveries near the end.
However, since the most of this section is made up of climbing sections, it starts to get dull quick. You see, it isn't that the individual elements in Uncharted are perfect. They are good enough and everything flows so smoothly that it is hard to notice or care about the flaws that are there. When you get dropped into this place with little to do besides climb for the next half hour or so, not only does it get boring, but it gives you plenty of time to analyze how clunky the exploration can be. Try making a jump or walking along a wall that isn't part of the linear path and notice how Drake flops around like he isn't even in the same game as the scenery you are trying to interact with.
On top of that, the other character doesn't speak the same language, so it's mostly silent. Nate has a couple good one liners, but you don't even get the great chemistry and dialogue that comes with his interactions with the other chracters.
I got this game the same day I got Uncharted 2. I walked into Gamestop to pick up Uncharted and to pre-order The Last Story, and saw this gem sitting on the used shelf for three bucks. I had actually been trying to get a copy since I beat the first one a couple years back, but the Gamecube version was rather hard to find. It was the surprise of the century to see it there, and at nearly dirt cheap! I couldn't resist hooking up the Gamecube controller and throwing VJ2 into the Wii almost the instant I finished Uncharted.
The Best Part: The Beginning
It's good to have you back, Joe! And you brought Sylvia, too! It had actually been a long time (at least a couple years) since I played through the first Viewtiful Joe. It was fun, no doubt about it, and stepping back into the red singlet (or in Sylvia's case, blue leotard) was a great feeling. There aren't really any unique set-pieces or extraordinary boss fights that set themselves apart during Viewtiful Joe 2, it's just fun to beat down enemies with the powers of your own awesomeness. Plunging into the first level brought all that fun straight back at full force, and it was a great feeling to have.
The Worst part: Fighting the Robot Scorpions
These things:
To be honest, the whole last level is nothing special. It's basically running to the right, pummeling enemies, and occasionally hitting switches (not that the rest of the game is anything different, mind you.) What really takes the cake, though, are these new enemies that pop up in beginning of the last section.
They are not particularly dangerous, if you know how to handle them. The problem is that their weak spot is the back and they stay guarded a lot. During their attack phase, they are invulnerable, and they attack a lot. They have a ton of health and take a lot of damage. So they aren't exactly difficult, they just take a long time to kill. It's tedious. To make matters worse, once they are introduced, the game starts throwing them at you like EA throws DRM.
Another nugget that I got with the Humble Indie Bundle V, Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP is a touch screen point-and-click game ported to the PC. It's unique style pixel art and witty Twitter-inspired writing give the game a shining coat of charm, and it is deceptively captivating despite its length.
The Best Part: Most of the Third Session
S:S&S EP is split into four "sessions." The first is a mere prologue, taking only a few minutes to complete. The second introduces the game's puzzle mechanics and leads you to the first boss. The third basically gives you free reign over the game's world to go off on your own. This is the point in which most of the major events happen. It also allows you to interact with the environment and the characters, allowing you to really sink into the world that Superbrothers offers you.
The Worst Part: Fighting the Grizzled Boor
The Grizzled Boor is this really awesome background character who just pops up randomly to sing and dance. He doesn't do much other than stand around and be cool. The problem is that in order to complete a sidequest (which has a major impact on the main game) you need an item that is guarded by the Grizzled Boor. And in order to get that item, you have to...
I don't want to think about it. Oh, Grizzled Boor, I'm so sorry... :-(
The Ball is a first-person puzzle game that got my attention a long time ago. I never bothered to actually pick it up, until it came as part of an indie bundle early in the summer. With a story that's so bad it's good, and gameplay that's so good it's great, The Ball turned out to be well worth the great deal I got. If you want to know more, you can always check out my long and detailed review of it.
The Best Part: The Lava Puzzles
One theme that comes up a lot in The Ball's puzzles actually separates you from your instrument of genius. Often, the ball will put into some unreachable area, forcing you to steer it from afar while you handle things on your own end. These puzzles are some of the best in the game.
One in particular has the ball stuck in the rafters above you. To get it back, you need to open a trap door, which is activated by hitting a series of switches on both the upper level (where the ball is) and on the ground floor. The problem is, the room you're in is flooded with lava. To hit the switches, you have to both control the ball while it's in the ceiling and dodge molten rock on your end. It is a simple concept but really illustrates how well done this game's basic gimmick can be. Oh, and stay on your toes, too, because when you finally do hit that last switch, there is one more surprise waiting for you.
The Worst Part: Timed Platforming Over a Spike Pit
That's pretty self explanitory. About two-thirds of the way through the game, you find yourself climbing a ledge above a huge pit of spikes. On this ledge is a switch that raises and lowers several pillars in the middle of the pit. You have to hit the switch, jump across the top of the pillars before their position resets, and get to a ledge on the other side to hit another switch. The Ball has a lot of platforming segments, but none of them are timed, making them far easier. Adding in the ticking clock with a very short period of time means you have to speed across these pillars, making it exponentially more difficult. This puzzle alone took me about 45 minutes and almost made me want to stop playing the game. Almost.
There isn't much I can say about Dear Esther because honestly, it isn't much of game. It's an indie art title that can be beaten in about an hour and a half. I did write a review of it, and honestly, I think that review took me longer to write than the game took me to play. With all that being said, the nature of the game (walking around and listening to a narrator read letters to you) doesn't have much challenge or depth to really have "good" or "bad" parts. Still, there are some parts worth mentioning.
Also, I swear I didn't make this blog just to advertise my reviews! I promise!
The Best Part: The Final Chapter
As mentioned, in Dear Esther, you basically just walk around and listen to a narrator. The first two chapters have you exploring an island, before you plunge into a cave in the third. At the beginning of the fourth and final chapter, you ascend from the caverns to see a bright full moon floating over a serene lagoon:
You then inch your way around the bay, climbing a path on the cliffside toward a radio tower high on the top. What makes this part the best, though, is not the scenery, but the story. It is largely metaphorical, and by this point, the final revelations are rearing their head. The game's narrative is at its most complex, leaving players wondering just what is going on. To complement the story, the environment is also peppered with random objects from within the tale, ranging from car parts to surgical tools. You know they have no place on the island, making the final section of Dear Esther somewhat creepy, fitting for the game's climax.
The Worst Part: The Shipwreck
I can't remember if this area happened in the first or second chapter. It is only a small bay with an old decrepit cargo ship smahsed on the beach. While there is nothing wrong with this at all, the problem is that the area is set up so you have no idea where to go next. You come in to the area from a path along a hill. The path out is on the same side of the bay but the other side of the hill.
What grabs your attention is the rusted corpse of the vessel. Everything points to you needing to explore. You can't. It's is just far enough in the water that you can't get to it by swimming, plus it is surrounding by rocks and logs and boxes of awkward geometry that are far too easy to get stuck on. It's fine if the ship isn't our end goal, but the problem is that there is no indication of where we are supposed to go. The path out is hard to see and is in a very unintuitive location, meaning I ended up wandering around and getting stuck in this area for far too long before discovering the path out of the bay by complete accident.
Oh boy, what a game this was! For me, it was a blindside this summer. I got it with the Humble Indie Bundle and forgot I even owned it until a couple weeks ago when I decided to give it a shot. It more than impressed me, not just with its unique concept and well done levels but with the game's character development and the overall personality of the world it creates. While there were plenty of points in the game that I felt weren't quite right and maybe a little broken, but overall, Psychonauts is one of the most memorable 3D platformers I've ever played.
The Best Part: The Campground
The campground isn't really a level. It acts more like a very large hub where the characters hang out. There are a few enemies, and some tasks and sidequests associated with it, but for most part, it acts as a place to regroup and explore between levels, akin to the palace in Mario 64.
I don't mean to say that the actually levels aren't good. They are pretty great, actually. The fact that the campground is the best part is actually a testament to how great the characters can be, since this is the area where you can interact with people, which is where the game shines the most. As good as Psychonauts is in battle, the best part is exploring the world that doublefine crafted for the players.
The Worst Part: Milla's Mind (the Levitation Training Level)
There were actually plenty of points in the game that I didn't care for. In fact, pretty much every level or boss had at least one section that felt broken or unfair. These were often small and not enough to make me dislike the game overall. Still, there was certainly no shortage of parts I could choose from for this section.
The reason Milla's Mind makes the grade is that while other levels had bad parts, this one was just unenjoyable from the beginning. The entire level is built around teaching you how to use one of your prominent powers in the game. It's pretty vital, since this power (a floating ability) is probably the most out of all of them. While I had this ability aced by the end, I had a terrible time getting used to it at first.
This is completely my own fault. I imagine most players didn't have these issues, and it really is designed in such a way to ease you into it, but I just couldn't get it. From the very first room in the level, I just couldn't get enough height on my jump to float through the rings, making me struggle for minutes to do one the most basic tasks in any game, ever. Imagine having trouble running in Mario brothers? Most of the rest of the level got easier, although not necessarily fun. It's just floating through rings over bubble streams. I was very clumsy with all of this, failing repeatedly, and just not enjoying it over all.
Then we get to the race. You have to use your power to race other characters through an obstacle course, needing to finish in first to advance in the level. Except that you don't go fast enough, meaning you need to hit speed boosts to win. Going over a jump is a nightmare, since at that point, the you are not (or at least I was not) used to it enough to navigate through the air successfully. Also, you'd better not hit any of the tons and tons of objects, because you will never speed up enough to make up for it. It's a heck of a way to end an otherwise annoying stage: forcing you to speed through a gauntlet with precision accuracy that would make speed-runners cringe.
So that's it. A couple days from now, I will be sitting in class daydreaming about video games. At least I had plenty of time to enjoy them during these last couple months. So thank you for reading this blog, and for everyone who has helped me out and read my stuff throughout the season.
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