The other day, I was thinking about putting together one of those new-fangled Top Ten lists of my favorite games as filler, er, I mean, for a change of pace and to show I wasn’t totally done writing normal text entries. But the more I sat down and thought about it, I just couldn’t come up with either JUST ten favorites, or spin the list into something more along the lines of “My Top Ten Most Influential Games.” There’s also the fact that whenever I get started on a game I like enough to consider a favorite, I can’t stop talking about it. Anyone on my AIM Buddy List can probably attest to that. So, here’s what I’m gonna do- Each week, I’m going to sit here and pick one of my favorite games, and explain why exactly I loved it, and what, if anything I took away from it. So, let’s begin the process of humoring me and hopefully, some of you might be enticed to try these out if you haven’t already.Continue reading MY Games #1: StarTropics
I haven’t forgotten about this little featurette here, I’ve just been a bit lax on writing about the latest and not-so-latest free samples hot off the PSN. Brothuh Kyo (whose indie game opus is nearing completion, incidentally) tipped me off that there was a demo of a game that was, and I quote:
“It’s like Bayonetta, Panzer Dragoon, Godhand and Shadow of Colossus decided to have an orgy with Liam O’Brien. Asura’s Wrath is cool.”
So, as a fan of wrath in general, I had to give it a shot. So what did I think of it?
1) THAT WAS AWESOME
2) Also, what the hell was that?
On the one hand, the demo definitely has my attention. So that’s a big mark in its favor as a free hit intended to bring someone into a shady alley itching for a score. On the other- Seriously, what the hell did I just play? It appears to have a mix of a beat ’em up with rail shooter-esque bits, and I think the demo at the least was around 75% quick-time events. Which, while certainly awesome, don’t really give you much of a taste of what the rest of the game is going to be like… unless it really is something along the lines of a massive boss rush and skips level-grinding and henchman-killing.
The snippets of plot that we get seem to make the story out to something of a God of War-ish story involving a pantheon of jerk gods who have Asura’s daughter and are using her powers against him. The featured fights seem to have been grabbed to show off how massive fights can get (the first part) and the second I have a feeling is more typical of what the game is going to be like, a free roaming 3-D brawler that mixes together a variety of button mashing combos, counter techniques, and generally dicking around until you get the prompt to go into BURST mode, sprout extra arms, then let the Dragonball Z style QTE stuff begin. It’s very Bayonetta-ish, though a bit more spectacle and a little less skill. The aformentioned “large-scale” fight in the first part of the demo involves auto-running toward the boss while trying to achieve the max number of target locks, then tap triangle and let ’em fly. There’s a bit in the middle where you have to fight off an airship while smacking down a handful of grunts who close in on you on the ground and just kind of impotently poke at you with spears. It’s all pretty epic scaled, and I should mention that I don’t bust out the word “epic” casually. We’re talking about the kind of action where a bad guy becomes bigger than the earth and tries to crush you under his finger or another can make a sword grow long enough to impale the earth and send magma gushing out of the entry room.
I think I’m pretty set on trying this one depending on if I can afford it when it drops. Course with Devil Survivor 2, Mass Effect 3, and Armored Core V (and I’ll probably cram in FFIV or something just to complete the flush) due out this year, who knows. I would like to try and move once I’m able.
What will come in the next Demo Demo Panic? Eh. Who knows. It probably won’t be as much fun as this.
It took me long enough to get around to this one, but there’s just something about high-action current gen spectacle brawlers that makes them kind of exhausting to sit through, no matter how much awesome might be delivered. I loved Platinum’s prior kill-sim, MadWorld to death, but I played that one a stage a night, which actually kinda helped with the ‘fictional death sport OF THE FUTURE!’ theme by breaking it up into episodes. Basically, in short sittings, I’m all for mowing down legions upon legions of four or five of the same enemy broken up by over-the-top QTE’s and cutscenes, but if I wanted to sit down and play Bayonetta from beginning to end in an afternoon, I’d probably yank all of my hair out the sixty-five thousandth time Two Little Angels And A Big Angel appeared after I thought I was free to continue down the hallway.Continue reading Nonstop Climax Innuendo
