#8 - The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

I feel like Spirit Tracks is an attempt to make a little kids game out of a series that was always lighthearted and fun anyway. So I feel like where most Zelda games appeal to all ages, this one just kind of makes me feel like a child but not in the good nostalgia kind of way. The game is basically about Princess Zelda being turned into a ghost, and making some random kid engineer help her save the day. It takes quite a while to actually get to this story though. While most of the time in Zelda games this prologue is cool because it gets you used to this world they've built, and this incarnation of Link. But in this game for some reason I was super bored super fast. It took quite a while to get your equipment and get to the first dungeon. Maybe it's this new engineer/conductor Link, because he's kind of a douche. He's not really ecstatic about helping out zelda, and you're frequently given dialogue options that seem kind of inconsequential. People will ask me questions in the game and my options will be like "Yeah..." or "Uh..." and I have no idea what each response means. I can't help but imagine this Link as some kind of hipster douche hero, because he's so god damned cocky all the time. And sometimes these dialogue options are unimportant and just change tiny things the NPCs say, and other times you have to respond a specific way before you can go forward with the story, and there's nothing to tell you which is which. I think this game shows why they haven't wanted Link to have a voice for so long, because it's pretty easy to fuck it up...

When I first started playing I thought to myself "Man, these train bits are alright, but it could be more of a mini-game than just traveling parts.", and it slowly does turn into a more and more complicated mini-game, but not really a fun one. Did you enjoy riding the boat around for long sections between islands in Windwaker? Well this is just like that... but worse. I personally enjoyed that kind of exploration, but in this you're stuck on set rails that you'll go over several times drawing attention to the less than amazing scenery. There are also monsters that appear along these tracks to attack you as you ride, and I have to think that the only reason they're there is to make sure you're still playing the game, and haven't just plotted your course and then put the DS down to get a drink or something. This is all compounded at times when you have a passenger on board, and you have to abide by signs on the side of the railways telling you to blow your whistle, slow down, or pick up speed, or else he'll jump off... And make sure you don't forget something that you need in a town, because if you get somewhere and find out you forgot something, you're going all the way back. After a while it kind of grew on me to where I didn't mind so much, but there were times that I was downright pissed off that I was driving a train around. There were two parts specifically that I enjoyed driving the train, but they were special instances when they actually used this mechanic instead of it just being there. The first one is when you're riding through a tunnel with a giant spider/crab monster thing chases you. The second was when you're transporting a passenger and a band of pirates attack and board your Train. I feel like if there had been a few more of these moments between major plot points, then the train sections wouldn't have seemed so weak. Also, and this is a tiny gripe, but whenever you want to board your train, you do this by talking to Ghost Zelda and she asks you if you're ready to go. sometimes she even yells shit like "AAAAAALL ABOOOOOAAARD!!!"... isn't Link the conductor? Like, why wouldn't I click on the train to leave? Why do I have to talk to some random ghost girl who doesn't know shit about trains?

Then, there are these parts where you play a musical instrument to unlock pieces of the map. I don't know what was going on, because whenever I used the instrument outside these sections I had no problem, but these parts I had to play over and over. Apparently I wasn't playing good enough for some old man who lives in a temple. Gone are they days when in Ocarina or Windwaker that he musical components are simple button combinations, and then the game (who has professional composers playing it's music) takes over for you. No here I had to sit and blow spit all over my screen trying to get this fucking thing to do what I was telling it, and it wasn't even being the slightest bit lenient. You'd think the game might cut me some slack considering A) I'm not a musician, I'm a gamer. WTF do I know about playing an instrument. and B) I feel like DS games should know their hardware kind of sucks. We all put up with it because it's what Nintendo decided to run with, but that doesn't mean it handles the way anyone wants it to.

There are some cool puzzles in the dungeons, and some of which were pretty cool and some of which were just aggravating. Despite how much I hate the touch screen controls and how almost all the controls to this game piss me off, the Boomerang works so well with the touch screen. I wish I could just use the touch screen for that one item. Also, navigating on a box using a gust thing is cool, but I will say though, that blowing on my DS to use this, and other items, doesn't get more fun as the game progresses... Why not just map this shit to a button? Then there's a section where several floors of a dungeon are completely dark and you have to navigate it using your boomerang to light shit... as I entered this part I was like "oh, this is a cool puzzle" and then immediately took it back. It's one of those things that seems cool on paper, but isn't when you are playing the game. It was just frustrating and kind of annoying. The bosses are kind of cool, but it doesn't help that my favorite boss was the first one in the game, so the rest of them didn't seem as cool because the game got my hopes high. And the whole last section of the game was bad. Not only was it not fun, it also just wasn't challenging, and it took me several tries to beat it for the wrong reasons. There are no stakes really, on the final boss I just took my time, and eventually beat him, and I wasn't even dying. You basically just have to protect Zelda while the monster hurls boulders at her, and if you don't, then the sequence just starts over... I think the boss even sighed at me at one point because it just wasn't happening. I'd tap the screen to block one of the boulders, and Link would run over to it instead without attacking... there are serious problems in your game design when the attack and move function are exactly the same...

If you're a Zelda die hard and you've got to play this, I say don't go in with your hopes too high. This is one of the worst games in the series that I've played. I just don't really even know what to say. I could go on and on about tiny things I didn't like at all, but I'm already beating a dead horse at this point. To me, this game seems like a Greatest Hits of shitty Zelda moments. All the stuff you didn't like in all the other games, compounded into the ultimate shitty Zelda game. They really missed a golden opportunity when they forgot to add the Water Temple from Ocarina, and some of the Wolf sections from Twilight Princess...

Also, I dug this new look for Link, but it's quickly disregarded for the outfit he's worn since Windwaker. I feel like if they had just made this outfit green, it would have been a nice change up to things.

#6 - X-Men: The Arcade Game

Emma Frost and Scott Summers, lovers for the ages.

I remember playing this game a handful of times on an arcade machine, but I figured for 3 bucks, it was worth downloading and playing on my phone. The game is modeled in the old school style beat 'em ups. It's cool and fun, even if it is really cheesy at times. If you haven't played it, you have a set amount of life and two attacks: a punch, and whatever character you pick to play has a different mutant ability. These special attacks take a bit of your life to use unless you have some blue floating orb thingy below your life meter. I decided I'd run through with Nightcrawler for my test run, but I played for like 2 minutes with him before there was something I didn't like about him and switched. 

Doesn't he look a little rapey? I want no part in that Nightcrawler.... 

So I shuffled through the rest of the characters. Wolverine? Nah, I'm a fucking hipster gamer, I can't pick the most popular character on the first go. Dazzler? No thanks. That's hipster bullshit. Storm? For some reason they put Storm in every X-Men video game (even the ones that don't make sense to put her in, like the X-men fighting games and shit), and I've never cared for her. Colossus? I was pretty close here. Colossus is almost the best character, but then I use his special ability, and what happens? He turns his power off (or at least his sprites don't look metallic), then he turns it back on and it sends a shockwave out... wtf? What is he scaring everyone to death with that speedo that he wears? So I settled on Cyclops. A lot of people think Cyclops is lame, I think he's a fucking boss.

So I'm playing through the game, and all is well. Punching guys, blowing shit up with my eye beams. Get to the first boss, Pyro, and he's just tough enough to be fun, but not cheap in the way some bosses were back in the day. Second Level: Doing the same thing, and then the second boss is Blob, and he uses a mace. Didn't think anything of this at first, because it was kind of whatever. Third Level is some jungle place, and then some half man - half raptor guys come out, and they're cheap as shit. Then out of nowhere some plants come to life that look like the flowers in Alice in Wonderland. Creepy? Definitely. An integral part of X-men lore? not really. Then the bosses are, in order, Wendigo, Nimrod, The White Queen (I couldn't help but laugh when I kicked the shit out of her with Cyclops.) Then I get to Juggernaut, and he's got what looked to me at first like a battering ram. I thought "That's kind of dumb, but whatever.", but then during the fight he knelt down, and fired the damn thing and a huge missile came out! What the shit?! Why is Juggernaut using a rocket launcher!? Also, during one level, the boss at the end was 3 different Egyptian statues that come to life, and wield scythes... Who the hell made this game, and what do they know about the X-Men? It's like they just grabbed some random characters, and some random villains and then just made the rest like a crazy off the wall beat 'em up.

My favorite level is the one right before the final level, where during the last stretch you have to fight all the bosses (except those fucking statues) again on your final run towards Magneto. Mystique is the boss of this level, so maybe this is supposed to be her changing into tall the previous bosses. If that's the case developers, don't put two on the screen at once. It was cool though! And this is a criticism of the genre more so than the actual game, but wouldn't a better X-Men game be one where you pull out the random bad guys for the most part, and just throw lots of mini-bosses in? That way you could have more cameos and references to the books, and also have varied gameplay, so you're not just punching the same guys over and over again... What evs though I guess.

Juggernaut... you're unstoppable bro. You don't really need a Rocket Launcher. 

The game is fun. I can't deny that, even if some bits are kind of lame. It's cool to pass the time, if you've got a few minutes to kill, and I'm hoping to get a friend or two to buy it as well so we can play local Co-Op. Sometimes the AI is cheap and does shit that you can't avoid. At one point I tried to jump over a laser beam and didn't quite make it. When I hit that laser beam, it threw me forward into the next, that I fell underneath. So every time my character tried to get up, he just kept getting knocked down. Also, the D-Pad is on the screen, so if you're moving (which is always) sometimes you might not see enemies on the screen because your left thumb will be covering them (i'm aware that this is a gripe with only the handheld version, but we've got to find a better way to do that shit for mobile games, because it's kind of lame). All of this is really inconsequential though, because since you're not playing on an arcade machine, and no quarters are required, you can click continue every time you die. This leads to using your powers way more often that you would normally be able to, and playing like a boss in general. Infinite lives bitches!!!

#3 - Amnesia: The Dark Descent

As I map out what I want to write, and how I want to write it, I'm having some trouble keeping this a review instead of an editorial about how Survival Horror as a genre isn't dead. So I think after I do this review I'll do that, but for now I'll try to stick to the world in this game without comparing it to too many others.

Amnesia seems to agree with me in the thinking that Survival Horror is still alive and kicking. This is one fucking eerie game. The whole idea is that you're a guy wandering around an old castle as it is falling to pieces, and your goal as far as I can tell is to stay alive, and to stay sane. How you do this is by rationing your light sources, whether it be a lantern with limited oil, or these little "Tinderboxes" (not really sure what that is, but it lights shit on fire which is useful...). Now if your character witnesses something that's bizarre or if you sit in the dark too long, your sanity starts to slip, but if you move along the plot, or complete objectives you get a mental boost that keeps the insanity at bay. It's a simple system, but when you think about it a little more it's actually pretty psychologically impressive in my opinion. Because that's how it would be. The longer you spent in this fucked up place your mind would start to slip away until you actually achieve something, then suddenly it might not seem so bad. You might think to yourself "wow, if I could complete this objective, who knows, maybe I could actually survive this." I was really impressed when I realized this. Not only that but this game gets atmosphere. As you walk around the ambiance alone is enough to give you goosebumps and be looking over your shoulder. As you're walking you'll hear breathing right behind you (assuming you wear headphones like the game suggests), or creaking in the boards either the ones you're walking on or sometimes the ones overhead, Rattling chains, the whole nine yards. It's creepy shit. 

My biggest problem with the game is that at the beginning of the game the main character gives himself amnesia, hence the name of the game, and so he basically has no personality throughout the story. He's kind of faceless and lifeless, and I have a feeling that if I weren't playing in the first person that would take a lot of the fear factor out of it. Not only that, but I'm kind of just wandering around this castle since I have no memories, I have no real objectives other than to just survive. Which when you're in the game makes it quite frightening and intense, but once I put it down, it's kind of hard to pick back up again. I have no nagging urge to know what happens... or even the need to get this character out of the situation. The immersion is great and all, but there's just no connection to the main character. I just feel like if as much time and effort were put into the story and character, as the level design and the ambiance, then this could have been a damn perfect experience, but as is it's just a really cool game. 

#5 - Echo Bazaar!

So I heard that I needed to play this browser game. I'm normally not a fan of these kinds of games, because most of the time the main objective is to just get more stuff and be a higher level. Now I've done my fair share of grinding, back in my FFVIII days, but a game based solely off of grinding just doesn't sound awesome to me... I decided to give this one a shot on a whim, and because the experience sounded nice when it was described on Extraw Credits. At first it starts like most of these other games. There's a lot of railroading and doing one quest right after another while having a very limited amount of ways to deal with things. Then once that's over I realized that this first part was just a tutorial, and with that realization came one that the four or five solutions I had for each problem opened up into their own settings, quest lines, and achievements.

Basically you pick sections of town based on what kinds of interactions you want to have. So if you want to be a socialite and go to parties, there's plot lines for that. If you want to be a thief and steal for your money, there are plot lines for that. I was impressed by the amount of options you have, but if you're a person driven by gameplay and not by plot, then this game has virtually nothing to offer.  Personally I'll take a good story any day, but I can see how a straight cut RPG like this could be boring to some. I will say though, that having your actions limited to only so many per hour, is so frustrating. I hate this device where you can only do so much so often, and is probably one of the biggest reasons I don't keep playing games like these. If I want to sit down and play a game, I want to actually sit down and play a game. Not play for ten minutes and then try to find something else to do for an hour while the game waits to let me play again. Although it does beg the question how many good games like this I could find and just play them in a rotating circle...? I might have to look into that.

You know if you want to play this game already. I enjoyed it, but most people probably wouldn't. Games like these have a bad reputation, so it might be hard to get your friends to play with you. And if that's the case, in conjunction with having to find something else to do between playing, it could be extremely fucking boring. But on the other hand, there is some cool stuff to see here, and a lot of the plot threads have extremely good writing, and it's shitty that more people won't see them because the game doesn't have much more to offer. I really enjoyed playing it for a week or two, and then the luster kind of faded. But if you do like these kinds of games, this is the best one I've played.

I don't know what the hell this thing is, but it's in/a part of the game, and it's creepy as shit.