ROTF DS DOES NOT GET BETTER AND YOU ARE, IN FACT ALWAYS A CAR.

I’m too afraid to touch the console versions considering how the last round panned out.

Remember how when the first Transformers movie came out, there were a few different tie-in games? And of them, the Nintendo DS version was the only one I’d dub genuinely ‘fun’ past the obvious gimmick of playing as a giant robot?

The sequel, not so much.

Strike One against Revenge of the Fallen (Decepticon version anyway) is that they’ve axed the free roam ‘overworld’ segments where you can fuck up cars, climb buildings, and generally have a grand old time rampaging around. Instead, you poke at a map on the touchscreen to select uncompleted missions, sometimes revisiting the same spot two to four times. The lack of freedom extends far beyond that- as far as I am in now, there’s still no aerial vehicle I’ve been able to scan and take as an alt mode so I can get around the missions easier, and the only flying missions thus far consist of Starscream (who is apparently made of flash paper wrapped around fireworks) fighting waves of enemies who can all be foiled by waiting until their shots are about to hit, then boosting/hitting Transform. The vertical axis has been eliminated, basically making the whole flight sequence handle… well, like a car, like the other 90% of the game I’ve played so far. Some of the mission assignments are just plain retarded (BARRICADE! Sideways has challenged you to a race! If you go off the track, I’ll kill you for no reason!) and the ones that aren’t seem a little too reliant on utterly raping you from all sides with rapid firing tanks that take too long to kill when you’re in a hurry against a time limit, but are too damaging to shrug off. It doesn’t help that you’re a lot less nimble this time out- struggling to lift items, and transforming while in motion doesn’t let you keep your momentum into a run. It’s just overall less fluid. They even trimmed out being able to rip up trees and signs and swing them around.

Now, the good: The graphics are mostly better, and they’ve fine tuned the controls a bit. Your ranged/melee attacks are less context sensitive and you do all your shooting by holding down L. You can also cycle lock-ons instead of being made to shoot the nearest thing by default. The biggest plus is that you can actually customize the main character to an extent beyond ‘Level Up And Get Good At Everything,’ equipping specific weapons and equipment and growing stats in a way that suits your style. It’s just a shame everything else was dumbed down for mission based play other than finding items and collecting more energon for upgrading.

Basically, find the first one if you want a portable transforming robot fix. Or import Chosouju Mecha MG.

I’ll probably change the header at some point, but in case anyone was curious the top image came from the manual cover of Castle of Shikigami III, featuring Time Gal, seen here, dying horribly.

I’ve begun playing Knights in the Nightmare, at my friend Jake’s behest.

Jake has been many things to both me and the site over the years- a connection to warez, Japanese food, comic strip cameos, and so on. And now it’s quite apparent that he’s NOT HUMAN.

Knights in the Nightmare is not designed for human brains to process. The Japanese, maybe. But not the average person. Day one of playing this thing and trying to absorb the mechanics makes me feel like I’ve glimpsed a black monolith and and being filled with advanced knowledge that will lead to the next stage of human evolution, which if the movie is correct, means space babies.

I may post something more coherent about the game later, but for now I’m still kind of levitating slightly above the couch cross legged and I’m trying to un-enlighten enough that I can reach my lemonade again.

I can’t help but think that at least some of the challenge is coming from Sting’s visual designs. Yes, they make very pretty games about Norse gods who happen to resemble toddlers in armor. But they’re just utterly in love with cramming the screen full of text elements that have little or nothing to do with gameplay, and the fact that Sting has a DS game now just doubles the pleasure. The story unfolds on the top screen while an endlessly filling and refilling bar that looks like it’s telling me I’m on a loading screen, accompanied by the message ‘The Wisp Approaches…’ and I’m pretty sure that there’s little blurbs in the corners that say something like “READING STORY NOW”

(Yggdra Union literally had a caption in dialogue scenes that said “NOW TALKING…(Character Name)”)

Sting deserves credit for doing something different with RPG’s instead of making an engine once and running with it. But getting back to the point- the way they make their games makes me wonder how they function in real life. How do they view eating, for crying out loud?

“Okay, we’re going to have pizza. But this time there’s a twist! I ordered it special, uncut, and you have to cut it! But in order to do so, you have to have Tanaka and Nobu stand one floor tile back and to the right or left of you, in order to be sure to do maximum damage with the cutter. Also, there are small pressure sensitive mines in the pizza. You have to quickly run around the room catching the pepperoni before they hit the floor. Because the floor has demons growing out of it.”

WHAT HAPPEN

THERE’S A GAME OUT ON DSiWARE!?

AS OPPOSED TO ANIMAL CROSSING: THE CLOCK OR WARIO WARE MICROGAME: THE STAND ALONE APP?

DUCK AND COVER, THE RUSKIES AND LOCUSTS ARE COMING AWWWW HEEEEEEAAAAALLL NAAAAAWWWWWW-

[transmission ends]