Scramble Dash

What I’m Playing:

Fire Emblem: Awakening – So far this game rules. I’m a Fire Emblem fan so it probably wasn’t going to take much to get me to like it, but the most impressive thing about it is the sheer amount of content and customization it has compared to previous games in the series. The gameplay options allow you to make it as draconian and frustrating or casual and easygoing as you like. The extra maps, battle training missions and DLC extend the game well past its core story mode, while seemingly managing to keep things interesting. The Second Seals item, which allows you to reset your characters to their base classes with their leveled up stats more or less intact (Disgaea style), means you don’t have to stop grinding them at promoted level 20 as in previous games. With the marriage system allowing you to recruit people’s kids, and the large amount of guest characters you can recruit from past games, the party combination possibilities get pretty crazy. The support conversations between characters are pretty great too.

Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward – This is the sequel to I game I played on the old school DS earlier called “999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors”. It’s a bit different from other video games since the format is presented in a visual novel style (think Phoenix Wright) with puzzles scattered in between. The premise is that your character basically gets kidnapped, dumped in a weird place with some other random people, and has to try to escape by playing the mysterious host’s sadistic game, while people die in between. At about 10 hours in, I’m still into it enough, but I do get the sense that the game piles on the wordy dialog and transitioning too much, which makes things drag on and on a lot. Game completion estimations are at about 30 hours, which I think is too long for a game like this. It should take 15-20 hours at the most, which was about the length of the last game.

What I’m looking forward to:

Shin Megami Tensei IV – Like with several other people, playing “Persona 3″ finally got me into this RPG series. I feel like I should have been into it much earlier since the general theme of series involves you Pokemon capturing demons to fight with you in the post-apocalypse, punching out deities from various religions, and siding with Fascists, Darwinists, or neither and telling both groups to fuck off. (In Persona’s case, shooting yourself in the head with a gun or whatever and summoning a weird looking thing that’s supposed to be your inner self I guess to fight demons in a weird dungeon, with High School bullshit in between.) Of course, that may have been difficult since there have been a shitload of games and spinoffs of the series released since the NES days, but only the games from the past decade or so have actually been localized. Anyway, SMTIV is the latest in the main branch of the series, of which Nocturne (aka Part III) and Strange Journey was released in America. Having played through and enjoyed both, and from seeing trailers and whatnot of IV, I’m pretty excited to play IV and hope it lives up to its pedigree.

Project X Zone – Impressions of this game from the Japanese release seem to lean towards meh, which is a bit worrying. However, it’s hard for me to say no to game I though had no chance of being localized (Sega/Namco/Capcom RPG crossover with loads of obscure characters to Westerners) out of sheer curiosity. Hopefully my opinion of it will end up being somewhat more positive then what impressions seems to suggest.

Yoshi Island 3DS – I’m conflicted about this. The original Yoshi’s Island is one of my favorite SNES games. On the other hand, the Yoshi’s Island sequel for the old DS was, while not bad, kinda meh overall. This new one has a prerendered style, which, unfortunately, doesn’t look as appealing as the original SNES art style. Despite these reservations, my love of Yoshi’s Island makes me want to give it a shot.

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team – This really reminded my that I need to stop messing around and play “Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story” at some point. The first two Mario & Luigi RPG games were both great, and this one looks to continue the trend.

Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate – This game mainly caught my eye because it reminds me of Shadow Complex, and that was an awesome game. If it manages to keep to the same quality that the console Batman Arkham games have, then it looks like it could be a real winner.

Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past 2 – I didn’t think it be possible, but after Twilight Princess, I got burned out with the Zelda Series. I haven’t even bothered to play Skyward Sword yet because of it. What happened, I think, is that I just got tired of the Ocarina of Time-a-like styles of the more recent major games of the series. Of course, Link to the Past style Zeldas have been milked enough too with games like Four Swords and such. The reason why this game got my attention then, is that I get the impression that it will have some interesting dungeons with the gameplay mechanics they have shown us so far. If that impression holds true, I think this could be something that will help me get back into Zelda again. Maybe.

You may remember around this time last year, I put up a list of indie game music albums that caught my eye (or ears in this case) during that year, along with a few sample tracks for each album. Well, I liked how that turned out and I have a crapload more stuff I’ve listened to since then, so I’ve decided to turn this into an annual thing. I don’t think I’ll ever run out of material since this type of music has become so accessible due to the emergence of Bandcamp and similar sites where it shows up in droves. On top of that, it will allow me to be a bit lazier when coming up with new things to blog about, and that’s always good.

The format will be pretty much the same deal as the previous post with one major change. Instead of streaming the music here directly, I’m just going to post links to where the track is already streamed elsewhere if available. Since Bandcamp and whatnot provides this service already, I figured there was no sense of me doing duplicate work and allocating bandwidth unnecessarily. Take note that I’ve already retroactively done this for the previous post as well. If I come across something that isn’t already steamed for some reason, I’ll put up the tracks the old way myself. At worse, it presents a slight inconvenience of having to click an extra link, but if you think that sucks, you can always leave a comment.

Anyway, here we go:

Escape Goat Soundtrack

Artist: Ian Stocker
Where to buy it: Here. Also, Remix Album

Sample Track Selection:
Entryway – My favorite. Seeing as this is probably meant to be the main theme, I think it encapsulates the overall tone of the music you hear in this game well.
New Surroundings – Aptly named. This song makes you feel like you need to be on guard.
Secret Gears – This is a nice little short and sweet dance tune.

8-Bit Christmas

Artist: Rush Coil
Where to buy it: Here

Sample Track Selection:
Little Drummer Boy – Well, it is Christmas (or it was several hours ago), so here’s an album that features classic X-Mas music redone in NES style chiptune format. You can obviously hear the “Blaster Master” in this song. That’s a good game to draw influence from in my book.
Deck the Halls – Can’t say I’ve ever heard a version of “Deck the Halls” that sounded this badass.

La​-​Mulana Original Sound Track

Artist: Takumi Naramura , Houryu Samejima
Where to buy it: Here, Here,, and Here,

Sample Track Selection:
Fearless Challenger – Why isn’t this game on Steam yet? Personally, I kinda prefer these songs in their original chiptune versions from the freeware game instead of their remade versions (which is what this soundtrack collection features). The new ones are still good though. Here is my favorite track, heard when the game really gets started.
Moon Light Dance – I find this song to be pretty hypnotic. In a good way.
Treasure Sealed Off – The theme of the Hell Temple. I’ve haven’t reached it yet myself, but if it’s as menacing as this track sounds, then I already have an ideal of what I’m in for.

Super Crate Box Special

Artist: Eirik Suhrke
Where to buy it: Here

Sample Track Selection:
Construction yard – Super Crate Box demonstrates well why smartphone touchscreen controls suck for action platformers, as it plays much better in PC form. This album is a rearranged version of the Super Crate Box soundtrack from the original composer. I love the intensity of “Construction Yard”, it’s very fitting for a game like this.
Tutorial – In this song, it’s clearly all about the funk.

Fastfall (Dustforce OST)

Artist: Lifeformed
Where to buy it: Here

Sample Track Selection:
Cider Time – Everything I saw about this game made it seem pretty awesome, yet shamefully, I still haven’t played yet. “Cider Time” has a pretty chill melody with some pulsating beats scatted through the song to liven things up.
Pillars of Pepper – Catchy melody. I think this would make a nice introspective or silent montage background tune.
Baryogenesis – This song gives off a devious vibe, unlike most of the other songs on the album that seem more easygoing.

FEZ Original Soundtrack

Artist: Disasterpeace
Where to buy it: Here

Sample Track Selection:
Adventure – I really screwed up this year, because I haven’t actually got around to playing this game yet either, despite wanting it for so long. Anyway, I’m assuming this is like the main theme of the game. I like relaxed nature of this tune, something that sounds like you can take it easy while listening.
Progress – Another relaxed song, yet it has a more ominous tone. The gradual buildup of the song is nice, as if it is living up to its title as it goes on.

Rokko Chan Soundtracks

Artist: ASAGEN
Where to buy it: Here

Sample Track Selection:
Jet Man Stage – Rokko Chan the game is a pretty solid Megaman homage, and my love of Megaman is no secret. Jet Man is my favorite of the stage themes.
jet man stage, arranged by FantomenK – A more fleshed out arrangement of the above theme if you need somthing longer and meater. It has a clubbin’ type sound with the added dubstep effects and whatnot. I usually don’t like dubstep, but it’s used sparingly enough here to prevent it from affecting the song.
Dr​.​Mad stage 3, chipped by Kplecraft – Here’s a selection from one of the chiptune style arranges. I like the tragic yet hopeful melody of this tune.

Double Dragon Neon

Artist: Jake Kaufman (Virt)
Where to buy it: Here

Sample Track Selection:
Title Theme – Okay, so this is the nebulously “indie” entry of the year since Double Dragon is an established franchise, but I couldn’t resist highlighting this because the soundtrack is so awesome. Here’s a rendition of the classic title theme, and it sounds really good in this incarnation.
City Streets 2 (Mango Tango – Neon Jungle) – The main thing you’ll notice about this song is that it’s so 80′s it HURTS. It’s infectiously catchy and you’ll be hating yourself for liking such a cheesy song. That actually describes a lot of songs on this album come to think of it.
Space Dojo 2 (Billy and the Breakers – Firebird) – If you looking for a Stan Bush-esque inspirational power ballad, this is the one. Good for intense work/exercise sessions.

“El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron” was released in August 2011 and I started it in August 2012. I’ll keep this write-up a bit brief since there isn’t much to say about this game. The story is a jumble of Christianity references and religious mumbo jumbo. It basically amounts to “Your dude has to beat up fallen angels in a tower while some guy follows you around and talks to God on his cellphone.” Yeah….this is a classic “Japanese random Christianity plot” type of situation. The action based gameplay is fairly simple, and is nowhere near the Bayonetta/DMC style laundry lists of multi button combination moves. You can fight with your bare hands or pick up one of three weapons to fight with. A light ranged weapon, a medium melee, or a heavy melee weapon. You obtain weapons by stealing them from enemies or picking them up from blinking icons you may run into, which switch between the three at set intervals. After you use them for a while, the weapons will go dark and become ineffective, so you have to press a button to purify them. Later on, you get the ability to charge up and activate a short term overdrive mode, and that’s pretty much it. It doesn’t last very long so it be knocked out in a couple of days.

The barebones gameplay alone would make this a game that doesn’t really stand out compared to others. Indeed, the real reason to play this game is heavily influenced towards the visual experience. I would best describe it as an art show you can play. The vibrant colors and the unique designs of the settings and aesthetics are unlike most other games, and in that sense they are fantastic. I kept playing mainly to see what cool new scenery the game would show me next.

Unfortunately, the one thing this game seems to have in abundance is annoying platforming sections. The game shifts between a sidescroling 2D and a 3D perspective, and while not as bad in 2D, you really start to feel the frustration of the platforming from the 3D side. It also breaks up the action and hurts the flow of the game some, which I didn’t like.

The Gist: If you have a good TV and can find it cheap, pick it up, play at night with the lights out, and enjoy.

Hey it’s been another year and I was actually able to make this summer project stuff not a one time thing due to laziness! Kudos to me.

Anyway, the ideal for this project stemmed back from my college years. One of my roommates, Mike, and I would look at or discuss shot glasses occasionally, and I was always annoyed over the fact that I could never find any Megaman themed shot glasses, as I thought the pixelated mini-men would fit well for that type of thing. Fast forward to earlier this year I think, where the subject came up again with Mike over some shared item on Google Plus. IIRC, I complained about the lack of Megaman shot glasses once more and he suggested that perhaps they could be self made, thus the light bulb went off. I’m not a heavy drinker by any means so this project is mainly for the novelty over the practically, but I decided if there was ever a time to say “Fuck it, this needs to exist in the world!”,  now is that time.

To refresh your memory, the goal of the annual Summer Project is to work on something starting around Memorial Day and have it finished by Labor Day. This year, the start was delayed since I was preoccupied with building a new desktop PC, though I did do some minor research here and there in the meantime. I’d say the project didn’t really become a primary focus until the tail end of July into August. Initially, I had planned to make glasses for Megaman and the eight robot masters from “Megaman 2″, as that is probably the most recognizable set of characters. Unfortunately, since I started so late, I decided to scale back some to create a workload that would allow me to finish before the self imposed deadline. Also, since I was a novice at this, I wasn’t sure I would have enough glasses for that many characters after all my trial runs. Eventually, I settled on doing Megaman and four other reoccurring primary characters from the series: Protoman, Dr. Light, Dr. Wily, and Roll.

In the planning phases, the technique I decided on to accomplish this involved getting a set of twelve blank shot glasses, getting sprites of the characters and blowing them up to the point where I could tape them inside the glasses and trace their designs onto the glass, then painting the characters on using glass paint. The shot glasses were ordered on Amazon, and trip to the craft store afterward led to me buying several small jars of enamel paint for the colors I needed, and some fine tipped paint brushes. As for the character stencils, I didn’t bother to rip the sprites directly since I figured Megaman sprites would be all over the internet by now, and sure enough, a quick Google image search let to quick results. Once I got the sprites I needed, I just enlarged them to desired size in Photoshop, printed them out on a sheet of paper, and cut them to tape onto the insides of the shot glasses.

Left: Trial run progression of the Megaman glass. Started terribly, got slightly better each time. Right: The finalized Megaman glass

My initial approach was to was to paint the designs on the glasses exclusively via paintbrush. As you can see from the above screenshots, I was very ineffective at doing it this way at first. The problem mostly stemmed from the difficulty I had tracing the designs onto the glass. Filling in the colors was less of an issue, but I just couldn’t get the accuracy I needed for the outlines using the brush. Eventually, for my finalized technique, I settled on using a black glass paint marker to trace the outlines of the characters, and then use the paint I already bought to fill in the colors (Note: I could have just did the entire design by paint marker, but they were noticeably more expensive than the paint bottles. Five bucks each as oppoesed to one something something bucks each) . I also discovered that the brushes I had originally bought weren’t quite fine enough for my purposes, so I picked up some even finer tipped brushes at the same time I got the paint marker.

Left: Working on the rest. Right: Baking up some shot glasses

I did the Megaman glass first, which is where I worked on getting the technique down. Once I did, the following week I worked on the glasses for the other four characters. Those went a lot smoother due to my experiences with working with the Megaman glass from earlier, but they still took a few hours to complete. After the glasses were done, I had to let them dry for appoximately 24 hours and then put them in the oven over 350 degree heat for 40 or so minutes.

Victory test run.

At the end, I’m very pleased with how these turned out. Even if I overlooked something and Megaman shot glasses did exist somewhere for sale prior to this, there’s something about crafting these by hand that makes owning them that much more awesome. Now back to mulling over what to do next year.

Mass Effect 3 was released in March earlier this year and I started it up in June. So, before I continue, there will be spoilers about the endings and whatnot, but if your reading this, you probably already know.

Speaking of the ending, since that’s all you ever heard about this game in the months following its release, namely how bad it was, I’ll focus on that first. The first time I got to the end, I decided to tell Architect Crucible Kid that his choices sucked and that he can go fuck himself. The resulting ending I got was definitely the shittest one. I heard that this choice was added from the ending Extended Cut DLC which was released in the middle of my playthrough. I guess that was Bioware’s way of telling you not to puss out and not choose anything, otherwise I fail to see how anyone could be satisfied with that. Even if they wanted to have an option that led to the Reapers winning, they didn’t really show anything beside a fast forward to after it already happened.

Okay, fine. I went back and redid the ending sequence, and this time chose the destroy “red” renegade ending which went along with the the majority of choices I made throughout the trilogy (and apparently led to the “best” ending, which I had fulfilled all the requirements for). I don’t exactly know what was added to the endings by the Extended Cut from their original form, but in my opinion, while not spectacular or memorable, I don’t think the ending I got was really all that unfulfilling. Certainly not to the extent that consensus made it out to be. It seems the primary complaints about the ending choices were that your story decisions have little relevance to what happens at the very end. But to counter, as some pointed out to which I agree, every Mass Effect game begins and ends pretty much the same way. The point where you really see the fruits of your story decisions play out is in between. In my game for instance, because of all the meticulous work I did in the previous two games, the only crew members of note who died in the third I think were Mordin (Never Forget), Anderson (Never Forget) and Thane. Also Kelly Chambers apparently, but who cares about her (and Ashley, but she was already dead. Again, who cares). I even got the Geth and the Quarians to finally stop fighting after my Shepard told the Quarians to stop fucking attacking the Geth and maybe they won’t annihilate your race in retaliation (only to kill all the Geth later anyway from my ending choice. Oh well). Not to mention all the different permutations that could happen when you go to X and meet Y, unless he/she’s dead and Z is in place, unless Z is dead and…. I guess everyone was expecting the bulk of the decision making results to manifest at the very end of all this shit and were disappointed when they were kinda thrown out the window by the end sequence, but you definitely can’t say your choices didn’t matter because you see them play out throughout the entire game. Especially if you started from Mass Effect 1 like I did.

As for the rest of the game, I didn’t spend any time in multiplayer since I was playing on the PC version, whereas the people I would potentially play with pretty much got it on the 360, so I’ll just talk about the single player experience. Honestly, there’s virtually nothing that changed from Mass Effect 2 gameplay wise, and that’s fine because it didn’t really need anything at this point to keep things fresh. I did notice that they got rid of all hacking mini-game puzzles from previous games entirely, streamlining the experience even further. The squad based combat system is awesome as usual. I changed up a bit from playing the Soldier class in the previous two games, and chose the Infiltrator class this time around. Ultimately, the change didn’t really affect the routine that much since instead of shooting the shit out of everyone, I would use Tactical Cloak to sneak around or flank people and then shoot the shit out of them (also occasionally hack turrets and watch them murder the engineers who put them down in the first place). Also, the game is a bit shorter than the other two, and climax comes on a bit suddenly. When I reached that point, it was like “Oh, wait I’m at the end already?”, but I can’t say that the abruptness was a determent because I appreciate the fact that the game didn’t drag on longer than it had to.

Thus, even after seening all the ominous Internet warrnings about the ending and the inevitable disappointment that is sure to come from it, I have to say that I had a great time playing this game overall. Catching up with my dudes, seeing what happened or happens to them, and fighting alongside them one last time, I have no real regrets about how things turned out. If I didn’t have a giant pile of backlogged games waiting, I would definitely go back and start a different playthrough from Mass Effect 1 to see how things change. Try out female Shepard for one thing.

The Gist: Shepard >= Garrus >>>>> Everyone Else. The Team – Sheapard, Garrus, Tali.

I started Xenoblade Chronicles around mid February and finished at the end of May (then procrastinated a bit before writing this). Technically, this entry is not so late to the party since the US version of Xenoblade Chronicles came out in April, but I’m basing this off the European version I imported, which came out in August of last year.

In a nutshell, the plot involves two giant, world sized dudes, one made of metal, one made of organic stuffs. In the beginning, they fight each other, then stop in the middle and freeze in place. Eventually, over time, sentient life grows on each of the dudes; humans and other organic beings on the organic dude, and machine beings on the metallic dude. All of the sudden, the machine beings decide to attack the organic people, and it’s up to the plucky teenage protagonist guy, who for some reason has the ability to wield the MacGuffin item, and his colorful and unlikely companions to blah blah blah. JRPG plot, you’ve seen it enough. Snark aside, I was interested enough in the plot to be reasonably invested in the characters and finding out what happens next during the story progression. The game’s locations and environments looks really nice for Wii (yes, I still play games on the Wii) standards, and have a refreshing open world, heavy exploration-centric vibe to them. Some of the character designs are pretty cool, in particular on the mecha side, which features transforming robots. From a gameplay standpoint, there were a lot of concessions made to streamline some of the more tedious aspects of JRPGing. When exploring, you can instantly teleport to certain waypoints on the map for each area (after initially discovering them), and you can save outside of battle at any time during the game. There is a day and night system that determines what quests or monsters are accessible, but the game’s clock can changed on the fly. In addition, you gain experience points not just in battle, but from doing just about everything else. Whether it be advancing the story, discovering new locations, talking to certain people, finishing quests, etc. This eliminates the need to do any grinding (unless you want to do the optional high level stuff at the end).

The streamlining carries over into the battle system, where regular attacks are automated as you approach an enemy on the field and initiate a battle. As a battle party consist of three members and you have control over one, the main thing you’re really paying attention to is what special skills to use, as those are where all the real damage is done. If you’ve ever played “Final Fantasy XII”, it’s sort of like that, and they introduce extra gameplay mechanics from the initial battles one by one to keep things fresh. For instance, due to story purposes, you gain the ability to see enemy attacks in the future and get a chance to counteract them before they start. Aside from being limited to directly controlling one person during battle and the relatively poor performance from the AI controlling the other two characters, the battles were the most enjoyable part of the game, as I had fun just wandering around and picking fights with giant frogs or whatever at times.

As far as flaws, the one that stood out to me the most goes into the optional aspect of the game, which involves the side quests. There are a TON of these to do, but problem is the majority are boring, uninspired fetch quests, or kill X number of Y’s type quests (which I minded less due to the battle system). On top of that, most gave out pretty underwhelming rewards for what they proposed I had to go through. With such an expansive, interesting world to explore, I would have appreciated it if the designers tried a little harder to come up with something more involved for the quests which would further enhance the experience of playing, and it’s too bad they didn’t. As is, if you’re considering giving this game a shot, I recommend skipping most of the quests to save a lot of time, only doing them if you need experience or money.

Another thing I should mention is the annoyance of the inventory management system. As with the first “Mass Effect” and “Dragon Age” games for instance, but not quite to the extent of those two, the game likes to pile tons of collectibles on top of you, but only gives you a limited amount of inventory slots. I really get irked by this, because when the dreaded “Inventory is full” message shows up, it’s time to sit there and sort through all the crap taking up inventory space, lest I’m unable to carry something I might actually have a use for. It hard not to resist the urge to just sell/dump everything out of frustration.

The Gist: Well, I spent about 150+ hrs playing it, and did pretty much everything outside of a few optional high level boss fights, stopping only due to sheer fatigue. I guess that validates me liking it enough. From a JRPG standpoint, it certainly washed the bad taste of “Final Fantasy XIII” away at least.

Shadows of the Damned was released in late June of last year and I started playing it late January. Not much was said about it when it was released since EA, the publisher, basically pretended like it didn’t exist marketing-wise. Since it was made by Grasshopper Manufacturer, known for making games that usually absurd, and I usually end up liking, I made a mental note to check it out eventually. For the most part, it’s a pretty straightforward action game, littered with all the Grasshopper weirdness and raunchiness you’d expect after playing No More Heroes, Killer 7, and such. It’s pretty well acted, as the banter between main character Garcia Hotspur, and his form shifting skull pal Johnson as you traverse through levels is entertaining. At its core, the game is all about killing zombie demons and fucking up demonic creatures as you embark into hell to rescue your crazy demonic girlfriend or whatever.

Playing the game is most reminiscence of playing Resident Evil 4, and since that game was pretty great, you can take that as a compliment. It is neat when you score headshots on most of the regular zombie enemies because not only is it an instant kill, but if your first hit is a headshot, the game will do this cool thing where it would go monochrome, slow down time, and zoom in on the bullet as it travels to the head of whatever you shot. Along with a melee attack, there are only 3 weapons in the game, but they get upgraded into different variations as you progress. There are some puzzle-like elements involved, mainly having to do with the darkness zones that can kill you if you linger in them too long. Collectables are spare, and really only consist of gems, that either act as currency, stat upgraders, or weapon upgraders as mentioned before. It may seem a bit barebones, but the simplicity is appreciated.

There isn’t much I found that really bothered me while I was playing, but the biggest thing probably comes from these scrolling shmup sections in stage 4, which were meant to be a cool change up from action, shooting demons in the face portions of the main game. My fondness of the shmup genre is no secret, so I was initially excited when I encountered the first of these sections. Ultimately though, the execution fell a bit flat since they slow the pacing of the game way down and the enemies seem to soak up bullets a bit too much (with your normal gun at least). About halfway through the first section, I just felt annoyed I had to get through this, but then you find out that there’s two more afterward, the last one incorporating a pretty long and boring boss fight. Also, the game overall doesn’t take long to beat and there is little reason to replay once your done, so looking for a cheap copy or renting/borrowing it would be a viable strategy.

The Gist: This came out. A while ago. You should go play it.

Uncharted 3 was released in early November last year and I started it in mid January. On the whole, I enjoy playing the Uncharted games enough, but I’ve always had somewhat of a love/hate relationship with the series since the games are a prime example of the more overly hand-holding type games I’ve complained about in the past. Being part of a fairly successful franchise, the third game is mostly a case of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. A lot of the same strengths and weakness remain intact. Throughout the game, there is a heavy presence of action set pieces, which are put together with the care of an elaborate domino setup. However, in order to make these set pieces work, the game will often force you to run to/jump on/stand in a exact spot, or have that pipe your swinging to safety on suddenly break in half again to catalyze events. Combat is pretty much the same when it comes to shooting, which is enjoyable enough, but this time, they fleshed out the hand to hand combat a bit by adding combos and counter moves. Besides the button mashy nature of these fights, something about them seems off, like a less elegant version of what was implemented in “Batman: Arkham City”, the game I just finished playing before. The story is the usual ripped off from “Indiana Jones” and its ilk material, presented well enough to remain entertaining. Yet sometimes the narrative will do this annoying thing where it will point out something absurd, like why are guys still shooting at you while the ship your all on is sinking, then dismiss the thought immediately afterwards while your left going “this is kinda stupid game.”

My cousin, uncle, and I, who I normally play online games with most frequently, did a couple of the co-op missions yesterday, and so far they remain as entertaining as they did in Uncharted 2. They are essentially stand alone combat sequences distilled down to their simplest form, where the objective is to shoot/punch your way from point A to B. Where it changes from the main game is that the story is largely there to establish why your crew is going to point B, but essentially takes a very minor role. Instant respawn after death is removed in favor of a finite life pool between all team members, resulting in a failed mission if depleted, along with a Gears of War style revival system between deaths. The stakes are somewhat higher in co-op than in the normal game, giving it an more old-school style feel. Dare I say it, but if Naughty Dog made an Uncharted game based upon the mechanics of the co-op missions, I would probably enjoy it even more.

Going back to the main quest, maybe I haven’t really noticed until now, but Uncharted 3 especially seems to have been loaded up with climbing/platforming sections, and to me, this was always the most unfun part of any Uncharted game. All you really have to do for these sequences is tap the X button and point your control stick towards the general direction of where you have to climb. The game usually auto corrects your jumps, so the only failure comes from not figuring out where the game is trying to force to go (going back to the set piece thing), ultimately making the experience seem pointless and boring. As I was playing, it felt like the developers put in a climbing interludes just for the sake of have more of that present in the game, even when it didn’t always make the most sense, so you would run into a lot of: “Damn, the door’s locked! Hang tight, let me go on this unnecessary convoluted climbing sequence all across several fucking buildings right quick to open a goddamn door. Be right back.”

The Gist: Uncharted 3 itself is still good, but the entertainment value of the series is starting to diminish at this point. I fear my interest in the series may start eroding.

Barring a few exceptions every now and then, I’m always perpetually late on keeping up with the latest game releases. Part of the reason why is due to my out of control and steadily growing backlog. The other reason is that when I play, I prefer to go at a relatively slow pace and take my time; getting the most out of one major game (probably retail) while having a couple of minor ones (smaller downloadables or indies) to play on the side. It is therefore rare that I spend more than 2-3 hours a day on the same game. Based on this routine, I’m going to hopefully make this the start of the LTTP (Late to the Party) series of posts with my thoughts about select games, months or years later when consumer hype for them has died down considerably.

“Batman: Arkham City” was released in October of last year and I stared it in mid/late December, so I’m only a couple of months behind this time. If you played the prequel: “Batman: Arkham Asylum”, it’s unsurprisingly along the same lines, bigger and better and all that, which is not a bad thing at all. As with the prequel, the presentation is fantastic and you really get the feeling that this is the best possible Batman simulator you could ever play, especially if you grew up watching “Batman: The Animated Series” like I did. Without spoiling anything, the game ends at a point that can be conclusive to the series, and that’s fine since after beating it, I felt like I wouldn’t say no to a follow up, but I would be okay if they decided to stop here since the story had good closure and a follow up may seem redundant.

I’m surprised by how enjoyable the combat can be in “Batman: AC” (and in “Batman: Arkham Asylum” too I guess), because it seems so pedestrian compared to something like “Ninja Gaiden” or “Bayonetta”. However, even though you’re only pressing one or two buttons at a time, the fighting is seamless and engaging. It’s simple to perform attacks, but you have to pay attention to what your enemies are doing or holding to determine what techniques to use, and the timing between combos tight enough to where the game doesn’t autoplay itself. You are rewarded for variation, so the game encourages you to mix it up instead of mashing the punch button all the time. Another thing I like is the impact of the hits, as they managed to capture Batman’s rough and blunt fighting style and combine it with audible booms as he slams into people, so it feels like your really hurting these random thugs coming after you in a badass way. I would sometimes get into random fights on purpose just because it’s so satisfying.

My only real complaint is the abundance of Riddler puzzles and trophies and whatnot scattered throughout the game. I don’t remember them being this numerous in the prequel, but they’ve seem to have gone nuts with these for Arkham City. Granted, it is optional to hunt for all this stuff, so it’s not a big determent, but I feel like they could have cut the amount of Riddler Trophies in half and it would have been fine. As is, I found myself still scavenging long after I had completed every other objective or side quest in the game, and it became very tedious since a lot of the trophies require you to do whatever iteration of the same technique, be it stepping on/gliding off panels, hacking terminals, throwing freeze grenades at steam pipes/water spots, etc.

The Gist: I enjoyed it. Good combat, but ease up on the collectibles.

With the addition of this post, the grand total post count for 2011 stands at four. Here at Scramble Dash, the emphasis is always on dubious quality over quantity.

Anyway, since I’ve picked up a lot of indie game music soundtracks over the past year either as bonuses from buying indie games, or just buying the music directly, I thought I would make this post a mini sampler of what I’ve been listening to, as well as shamelessly promote the artists involved. I’ve always been a big fan of video game and similar music so I’ve been gobbling these up whenever I have a few extra dollars to spare (and you should too). If your wondering where to start, give the handful of albums below a listen, and go from there:

(Note: The tracks below are mp3 format and are down-sampled to reasonably shit quality. On the off chance one of the artists featured discovers this and has a problem with these being up, shoot me a note and I’ll take them down. OK, I’m done covering my ass.)

Sword & Sworcery LP – The Ballad of the Space Babies

Artist: Jim Guthrie
Where to buy it: Here

Sample Track Selection:

Lone Star – This track has a simple but good main melody and I like how it builds off the background beat/guitar notes.
The Prettiest Weed – I’d pick this one as my favorite. Very climatic and epic sounding.

Return All Robots

Artist: zircon (Andrew Aversa), Mike Worth
Where to buy it: Free Version Paid Version

Sample Track Selection:

 Play – Being a sucker for the 80′s style intense montage type of music, this stood out easily. The best track.
 Play – Pretty upbeat and feelgood. The 2nd half especially reminds me of Super Mario World.
 Play – The title is apt description of how this track goes. I dig it.

Super Meat Boy

Artist: Danny Baranowsky
Where to buy it: Here, or special edition

Sample Track Selection:

Betus Blues – Can’t decide if this or Can O’ Salt is my favorite track. I really like the 2nd half.
Can O’ Salt – It starts off with a fairly intense beat, then slows down a bit in the middle, and picks back up to a great climax.
Hot Dammed – I wasn’t that keen of this one at first, but over time it grew on me.

Tree of Knowledge ~Chie no Ki~

Artist: yogurtbox (Ken Snyder, Steven Velema)
Where to buy it: Here

Sample Track Selection:

Hesitation – This album is a bit odd from the rest since the game it’s from technically doesn’t exist. It is meant to reference the FM soundtracks for the Japanese visual novel computer games of the 80′s and early 90′s. This track in particular is pretty nice for a somber sounding theme.
Ending: Through the Atmosphere – Pretty decent, a bit heavy on the J-Pop though. I feel like I’m listening to an Ys game ending theme when I hear this.

PPPPPP- The VVVVVV Soundtrack

Artist: Souleye (Magnus Pålsson)
Where to buy it: Here. Get the remix album too if you like it.

Sample Track Selection:

Potential for Anything – My favorite track. It’s pretty chill but it gets you going at the same time (if that description made sense).
Positive Force – I think of this as the main theme of VVVVVV. Few songs lift your spirits like this one.
Pressure Cooker – Nice intensity on this song while keeping it catchy.

Imposter Nostalgia

Artist: Big Giant Circles (Jimmy Hinson)
Where to buy it: Here

Sample Track Listing:
Fight the Current – As with Tree of Knowledge, this album isn’t technically from any video game either, but it’s definitely game music in style. If you especially like old-school chiptune music, this is a pretty hot album. Fight the Current is like a baddass Final Fantasy/Fire Emblem map theme.
Katana Blaster – I picked this one as my favorite. Megaman would be proud.

Cobalt EP

Artist: anosou (Mattias Häggström Gerdt)
Where to buy it: Here

Sample Track Selection:

Cobalt (Menu) – As far as I know, the Cobalt game itself is unreleased as of now (it’s pretty cool looking), but the EP has this nice sounding Menu Theme and several remixes of it by guest artists.
Cobalt (Blue BomberJacket) – The Capcom SNES-era Megaman X series-esque musical style of this remix immediately caught my attention. Very similar to the Chill Penguin Stage music from MMX.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game Original Videogame Soundtrack

Artist: Anamanaguchi
Where to buy it: Here or here

Sample Track Selection:

 Play – Okay, I don’t think this soundtrack counts as music from an ‘indie game’, but whatever, I’ll sneak it in. The ‘spirit’ of the music is indie.
 Play – Very catchy and fitting for the beat em’ up format the game is in.
 Play – My favorite. I really like the foreground melody.