The Backlog Episode 12 (Day 86): No More Heroes

I was one of them back in the day. When it was still schedualed to arrive in stores yet, I wanted a Wii. While everyone else was fawning over Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess as the absolute go-to launch game for the system, I was looking past that to a game that was supposed to be a launch, but delayed till the next year: Metroid Prime 3. But still, my faith in that game’s coming goodness was enough to bring me in to the system and “hold on for now” with what was admittedly an exceptional Zelda game. (And as a side note, the game was EVERYTHING I wanted from it when it finally launched.)

However, this would not be the only game I got for the system… some great, some terrible, but No More Heroes would be one I picked up at a bargain and let sit collecting dust on the shelf for years. Yesterday, I finally gave it a go…. and… Im not completely sure what the hell I just played.

The game opens up with you controlling Travis Touchdown as he leaves his apartment, and then a small rant about the patients of the gaming audience and the most insanely brief synopsis EXPLAINED BY TRAVIS HIMSELF about what you are doing and why… to the point of non-sense really. But I gotta admit, I loved the gung-ho style it all brought together so, after playing the optional tutorial to learn how the game plays, it was right off to the races and your first assassination! Straight to the action, just like the man said.

And honestly, it was pretty damn cool! Laser swords flashing, blood flying in completely 80s/90s cheesey form, and so much going on on the screen at times that you really are not sure what’s important… only that the whole effect is busy and interesting to look at! And then when you get to actual combat, the mechanics are very solid.

But then it was over and I had to get a job…. hitting trees and collecting coconuts…. in a video game…. about killing the top killers in the world to become number one… at killing…. collecting coconuts….. with a time limit… and getting hit in the head to lose time…. cause you cant be sure where they will fall…

Yeah, well that was a really bi-polar experience. Honestly, Im gonna admit, I kinda want to get to this game, but at the same time, any hype about the came fell to the floor with that second part. I will enjoy it when I get there, but there is no reason to worry about when that will be.

The Backlog Episode 12 (Day 79): Red Faction Guerrilla

With Friday’s arrival comes another back-log day for the 100 days of gaming. This time we would visit a game downloaded to the Xbox 360. Specifically Red Faction Guerrilla. This, like many games we have touched on here so far, is not a game I have a lot of history with. Rather it is yet another title I could keep from my days with an active XBL account. However this time, I did at least remember my brother playing the original Red Faction on his PC before he abandoned the platform for the 360 entirely (and in his case, it wasn’t a bad move at the time as the expense myth was still real AND he had no interest in the tech itself).

The game itself started off with a nice little opening cutscene to explain that, once again, Mars is in turmoil and a “Red Faction” resistance movement has arrisen among the miners who work the planet. And then you are off to your first destructions mission. It isn’t much, more then an introduction to the mechanic, but it does an amazing job leading up to why you join the resistance and setting up a revenge narrative for the main story.

I found the game to play very well with the exception of selecting weapons. While innovative, the fact that you can only have four and have to hit a bumper on the controller felt a little out of the way, but not too bad. Rather it was back at base when selecting your weapon load-out where things got weird as suddenly your button to back out of the menu was now a selection to put your gun in.

And if THIS is the best complaint I could find, you KNOW you are in for a good time! I’m going to enjoy this one when I get to it, though I’m likely not even going to have these issues, as I have this game now for PC (thanks to Wal-Mart clearance, I picked up all 4 games for $5 sometime last year), and the series just ramped up my interested when it comes along to play.

The Backlog Episode 11 (Day 72): Monaco and Gears of War Judgement

Another week, and we get to spend a little time with another system we simply are not right now. Today’s system was the Xbox One with a game I literally had downloaded on the Xbox 360 because it was free with Xbox LIVE. It made it to the Xbox One as one of the backwards compatibility titles. So last night, I was walking into a completely blind situation. Continue reading “The Backlog Episode 11 (Day 72): Monaco and Gears of War Judgement”

The Backlog Episode 9 (Day 59): The Godfather: Blackhand Edition

Another week goes by and another backlog title comes up. Tonight we travel back to the 30s in the streets of Little Italy as we play the newest recruit in the Corleone family’s organization. Personally picked as a favor by Don Corleone himself, you begin your climb from just a street thug to a made-man in the organization. And after a few hours I can honestly say I see some promise in this game, and, given time to get used to some of it’s lesser points, I could really enjoy this game. However, it’s also a shame because it’s clear those lesser points are because this version for the Nintendo Wii was clearly ported from more traditionally controlling platforms. Allow me to explain.

When the game opens up you begin wandering with Luca from the movie teaching you to fight by having you beat the shit out of the thugs that until that moment you were running with. Pretty bad-ass mafia stuff, and while the controls are not perfect, you hold down a button and lock onto your target and punch forward/round-house style to do as he says… and it feels very satisfying to be quite honest.

And after showing you how to save your game by guiding you to your safe house, you begin shaking people down for protection money and beating two thugs down who send a young woman to the hospital. Again, more smacking things and people around and equal parts satisfying as hell kicking their asses and awkward as the controls work “well enough” to get the job done. And then you get to learning to shoot…. and the game immediately makes what I mean obvious as the gunplay rather then relying on your pointer by default and using the buttons to control cover and movement, goes to an auto-aim garbage that wont let your cursor leave who it’s locked onto… for a pointing controller. It’s clunky, awkward and all together too easy as you basically take cover, hold a button and pull the trigger on the wiimote to kill just about anyone.

I think when the time comes to play this game, I will enjoy it overall, but I can’t help but feel like that gunplay is telling me I have the second-rate port of the game, and if I ever find it for the PC or even another console, I should consider replacing my copy with the ones they actually developed the game for, no matter how satisfying it is to basically box thugs on the street into their demise as it is with this game.

The Backlog Episode 8 (Day 52): Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel

And once again the backlog brings us another total history-less game from my collection. Like most of the games I still have downloaded on my 360, this was a free title I got when my brothers game me XBL as a b-day gift, but since it was on my console hard drive when the machine’s online capacity finally gave out, here it is… and I have to say, this one did not impress me at all.

Army of Two is basically a tag-team cover-shooter which will have either you and an AI or another player fighting your way through various missions against hoards of enemies in a modern times setting. Since I am the only one home, I had to settle for the AI, but at least I can say the guy was competant. In the hour I played, he only fell once. However, this game has a much bigger issue… the controls just plain feel janky, be it switching between walk or run, aiming, or even taking cover.

I know for a fact that this is not just because it’s played on a controller as Resident Evil: Revilations 2 felt tons better last week, but I couldn’t really place why, until I stopped trying. You see, this game is overly-auto aimed to the point that you really have to let go of the control and pretty much let the game take care of a lot of it for you. The moment I did that, the game got a lot smoother, aiming in a general direction and using the aim command to zoom in and correct severely for itself rather then try to do it myself and as a result fight the game. It still felt wrong though, at least coming from a mouse-aiming background.

Honestly, I can not recommend this game in particular, unless you do it for the kids. After all, sometimes its fun to play the not-so-great titles as a challenge to help the kids. Then go for it! It’s not so bad that you wont have fun playing with your fellow gamers… it’s just… well… clunky if you choose to try to do it yourself and not work with the game instead. But going it to just have fun… I think you can do better…

The Backlog Episode 7 (Day 45): Resident Evil: Revelations 2

UPDATE: Since the “Bonus Stream” Cougarmint has given me a copy of her game updated with some bug fixes and much smaller. She alsoasked me to link this new version so that anyone who wants to try her “Hello world” project for themselves can. I am including the link in this update. For more information on the game, continue to the original post.

Personally, I have personally downloaded and run the zip file through VirusTotal. I have also unzipped and run the files themselves through Norton Antivirus, Malwarebyte’s AntiMalware, Hitman Pro, and Windows Defender. Everything has come back clean. HOWEVER, as with any download from the internet, I recommend you scan it yourself as well if you choose to take it.

Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6JJRjkwCYJ_cnJTazZzN1RxQkk/view?usp=sharing

Hello and sorry for how long it took to post this. It’s been a crazy week overall, and ended with no exception. We did get to play on time, but it was late enough after I just went to bed, and then yesterday became a complete run-around. Being the tech-guy of the family after certain events can really teach you what time means.

BUT I digress… Friday was once again a back-log day, meaning it was time to play something I had in my library that I had yet to play and was sitting on a system I am currently not playing. It was the Xbone’s turn, and the game was Resident Evil: Revelations 2. Now, I don’t actually own the full game for this one. Rather Capcom decided instead of releasing a demo like they did the first game (which sold me to pick that up for the PC, I might add) they made the sequel episodic and released the first episode for free. I picked this up on a whim after playing the demo for part one on the WiiU and REALLY liking it, it wound up in my backlog. I had expected this to be like that demo and finishable in an hour/hour and a half, but boy was I wrong! Our run Friday only got half-way through the free offering. Capcom has been impressing me a lot more as of late…

…at least for that quality. The game itself was descent, but didn’t really stand out from it’s predecessor outside of both missions involving two characters now, one who is armed to the teeth, and the other carrying specific things needed to unlock certain passages or open certain crates.  In co-op, you and another player would each take a character requiring co-operation to get through each part of the campaign. But if you play on your own, you are now required to keep track of whichever one you are currently not controlling so the they do not die on you… in short, the single player mode is an escort mission. But at least it’s an escort mission with a competent AI who won’t just use up everything you give them (or are carrying when you swap to the other as you need to for various points in the game), which makes a vast improvement to Resident Evil 5.

What I played was overall very simple in structure with basically a single pathway to explore through the entire first campaign. There was some backtracking, but it was basically hand-holding you the entire way with the characters themselves noting when you had to do this. There were a few puzzles as well, which filled out the time very well, but nothing that required you to think so much as look around. But still, I did enjoy my time overall, and I will likely come back to finish the episodes. BUT I must put a caviate here. If I play the full game it will be doing this stuff over again, as like it’s predecessor, this title screams at me for mouse control, so whenever I get to it, the full game will be a PC purchase for me.

BUT Friday also included a bonus stream, as my friend Cougarmint had something she wanted to show off. She has completed a small project with RPG maker called Lucky 7… a little slot machine game. While I usually don’t enjoy the game-type (and as the video in my archive proves, I don’t exactly have the luck TO enjoy them), I simply could not resist the request as both this is her first completed project AND she did it using the engine/editor in a way it was NEVER intended to be used.

And she did so VERY effectively! The main game works exactly as you would expect with an option to choose how much you want to put in and a good randomizer for each of the three wheels. Lose and your bet gets added to the jackpot (a nice little touch there) leaving it as something to win back. You will also find yourself able to adjust the background and background music to fit your choices. But I did find one bug I hope she reads this to find. It is not anything major, but when you run out of money, the free spin (if you didn’t use it) also disappears. Other then that, this was flawless.

But then she added a debug mode which allows all control to go to the player, including what shows up. She left a challenge to “break” the game, and apparently there was a secret message if you pre-picked the right code for each of the windows, but I honestly couldn’t find it. Sad thing is, she told me what it was, so I kinda suck for missing that one. (Sorry, Cougarmint.)

Add to this her own personality oozing out of every bit of text for the game, and really it is a very good complete package. I will have to update this entry if she hosts the file anywhere so others can try it, but for a first project, this is really good… and for a game in general a very solid slot machine program.

The Backlog Episode 6 (day 38): Final Fantasy III (IV?…. and a Metroid 2 Report)

Yesterday was the 6th Friday of the 100 days of gaming, and with it, the 6th Backlog episode of the stream. Now for those who are new, to show some variety of the kinds of games ExtraLife 2017 could show the world, have decided every friday to take a break from the games I am trying to finish and try out something new on a system I have hooked up, but really isn’t getting any love right now. This time, the selection was to come from the downloaded content I have hanging around on the WiiU, and the dice decided to go classic, as the game of choice was the SNES release which many fans of the franchise would go to war to label one of the best games of all time: Final Fantasy III (or as we’ve come to understand it to really be, Final Fantasy VI).

Now, my own history with this franchise could best be described as spotty. Back as a little kid when the NES was he current console, I tried and enjoyed renting the Dragon Warrior titles and casually messing with the original Final Fantasy, but my tastes lead me to try a much more hard core RPG on the system, which would be the RPG I played with for years: Wizardry. It wouldn’t be till years later that I would try to get back to the original title, and I would abandon the franchise promptly when I lost my almost finished saved game to a faulty battery in the cart.

My next time playing a console RPG would actually be on the Sega Smash Pack for the PC when I discovered Phantasy Star 2, which I fell in love with and after devouring 2-4, I found myself opening up more to console-RPGs again, but Final Fantasy would yet disappoint me again, as I played 7 after it was downloadable on PSN via the PSP… and for the record my theory that something was off in emulation used to play turned out to be correct for all the weird behavior glitches I saw while playing. That was a game that really needed to be played on original hardware, no matter how official the download was.

But I saw the promise in the game, so when I saw this much loved classic on the virtual console, I picked it up… where it sat for years until last night.

So what did I think? Well, it’s Final Fantasy. The combat behavior in this game is exactly what you would expect. You and your opponents take up the upper portion of the screen with a display to let you select what you want to do and your party’s stats at the bottom. The only really special thing here is the time bar, which tells you how long you have to wait for each character to choose what they will do, during which the battle will continue above. How much it continues depends on you, as you will have the option of making the game wait to issue any further commands while you are in a menu, or be real-time.

As of for the story (which admittedly is usually a major driving force of an RPG title) it started with a bang. Right off the bat, you play as a team working for the Empire to recover an Esper, only for it to kill everyone but a girl who can use magic (no one knows how… the ability is supposed to no longer exist) and is wearing a brainwash device to keep completely in control. Instead it reacts to her and she passes out only to wake up later with the device removed and to be the immediate center of the plot, which seems incredibly eager to throw as many characters as it can at you before the real plot can begin. I will admit, I am intrigued at this, and will be interested in playing more later when I know I will be spending some quality time with this title.

But aside form that, we also have an update on Metroid 2: Return of Samus. Starting this week, I began playing the original Gameboy title while at the gym, and I gotta admit, I may have misjudged the game when I first tried. Back then, I only had a cart I couldn’t play (European release) and a ROM on my PC I could play with an old POS Gravis Gamepad Pro. Seriously, that rocker-switch was god-awful and I think it may have ruined the game, as finicky actions like how to use the spider ball I am now doing with ease! At this time, I have collected bombs, high jump boots, the varia suit, and said spider ball as well as many missile tanks and two energy tanks. I have also now killed my first too gamma metroids. This has also brought about the next earthquake, but I’m not ready to leave the area I’m in… I get the feeling there is a lot to collect still, and I want to try to get that first. This game will continue Tuesday with updates in the activity section since I’m playing at the gym at work.

The Backlog Episode 5 (Day 31): New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Welcome back and sorry for the delay in writing, but yesterday was actually very packed. I had maybe an hour or so between getting home and running out again to meet with my brothers and FINALLY take the time to watch the Alien Covenant. (And if you are curious, I absolutely loved it… but I will admit straight up to being a VERY avid fan of the xenomorph and the main series of movies that comes with it. And in fact I am watching the extras as I write this this morning.) However, while I am only writing in the morning afterwards, I was able to use that time to get an admittedly shorter round of gaming for the 100 days in… which is perhaps a little fitting considering the game played is one almost every gamer in the world today is familiar with some version of.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii is the incarnation of 2D Super Mario Bros. games designed for play with the Nintendo Wii system, but outside of a graphic overhaul, very little has changed in the game. You will be greeted with a map not unlike we got in Super Mario Bros 3, complete with the ability to select powerups to equip (if collected) before starting a level, and the levels you will get are 2D platformers crafted with the detail we expect Nintendo to pull off… but for the most part this really is just another Mario game with new upgrades Mario can use. And outside of some new designs and everything moving with the music, it is just a really familiar experience for all of us.

I believe when the time comes to play this game, I will enjoy it, but I don’t find myself excited about it. It is just another fun event in my gaming future, but one of many.

The Backlog Episode 4 (Day 24): The Raven

For the first time since we began, I find my random game of the week to be one I have absolutely no connection to what-so-ever. Rather, it is in my collection on the hard drive of an old 360, collected because my brothers gave me Xbox Live Gold for a few years as b-day gifts, and when I let it run out, the system actually let me keep the games.

So what is the Raven about? Well, you play the roll of a constable in the Swiss police who is on duty riding the Orient Express with a legendary detective who made his name shooting the infamous thief: The Raven. But a successor has made his way into the world and has proven much more dangerous, and just as important, he too is on this train!

I found myself enjoying this point and click adventure, but with a very mixed feeling. It’s a very slow burn and our time was spent really just starting the adventure as we tried to take care of a dutchess who lost her purse (she never loses anything) and a professor who was locked out of his room, ending with the thief making their move and attempting to blow up the cops trying to catch him!

It is very logical and will be a fun puzzle to figure out, but the controls here are going to do it no favors, as the constable tends to turn on very wide arcs, making moving him around to interact with the world very clunky. Thankfully the does not seem to have time restraints so this isn’t a huge deal so much as a little bit of an annoyance on what is overall looking to be a very interesting adventure that I barely scratched the surface of.

Am I looking forward to it? Well, yes and no. I would like to continue this adventure and see where it goes, but I do feel like this is the lesser version and maybe if I was playing with a mouse it might be far smoother.