Mass Effect

I've come a long way on the notion of shooting things.  I really preferred my games with more slashing and less shooting.  Shooting requires precision, patience, planning... slashing a sword only requires - well, slashing.  But I've found that I have increasingly and increasingly been evolving to enjoy active combat and a weapon that can aim.

The Mass Effect series were the games that put Bioware on the map: a space opera series about Commander Shepard, human extraordinaire, and his ragtag group of adventurers.  Having finally been re-released for the PS3, the time was ripe to play and enjoy the series.

Bioshock 2: Minerva's Den

Lasers and gravity, oh my!

While it certainly was a long time since Bioshock 2 came out, I finally found time to play through the Minerva's Den DLC (even though I purchased it nearly a year and half ago).

The add-on tells a completely unrelated story of an Alpha Series Big Daddy, Subject Sigma.  As Sigma, you are lead through the three-levels by C.M. Porter, the proclaimed designer of "The Thinker," the punch-card computer which controls operations of the underwater city of Rapture.  Things in this part of the city aren't much different from the rest of the dystopian waterworld: Splicers (so named for their history of splicing their DNA with ADAM) are running the asylum.

One new add in this DLC is a new type of Big Daddy, the Lancer, and its unique weapon, a laser.  It's a fun add, and the Lancer is no joke to defeat.  The other add is a new plasmid: Gravity Well.  It's a game-breaking method of dealing with the Splicers, but useless against heavier hitters.  It also is a huge suck on the graphics capacity of my PS3, causing the game to freeze once.

The story of C.M. Porter and Reed Hall (his spliced-up, crazy rival) is very engaging, helped by familiar audio diaries that are scattered throughout the levels.  The story rivals Bioshock 2's main story, which is universally despised.  The entire thing unfolds over two sittings, 6-8 hours depending on your play style.

If you've picked up Bioshock 2 recently, it may have included the DLC - but if you have it sitting around and you haven't, it was well worth what I spent.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope (International)

Space Opera

Star Ocean: 'Til The End of Time was my first experience with the Star Ocean games, and was a great introduction to the series.  The Last Hope is a lot like 'Til the End of Time; you can read more about it after the jump...

Final Fantasy XIII-2

Let's not kid ourselves.  I was not the biggest fan of Final Fantasy XIII when it first appeared, but a second play through really made me appreciate the game.  And even my first inclinations with its sequel (in demo form) were positive.  So how did Final Fantasy the Thirteenth Part 2 fair?  Hit the jump for the full details...

inFAMOUS 2

Listen, if you liked inFAMOUS, I have very little notion why you wouldn't enjoy inFAMOUS 2.

Cole McGrath, everyday-courier-turned-electric-conduit continues his adventures, now confronted with a monstrous beast which has destroyed whatever New York is being called these days.  The beast sucks all of Cole's powers away (how convenient) and Cole and friends head to whatever New Orleans is being called these days.

The games has learned its lessons from inFAMOUS prime.  If nothing else, the issue with chain-link fences has been addressed.  In fact, the environments are much more strongly involved in gameplay.  Combat remains nearly identical: you shoot lightning out of your hands, your powers increase with time, etc.

The other "lesson learned" is that blast shards are increasingly easier to find, which is to say that it is still a bit of a pain in the neck, but not the 14-month WHERE-IS-IT endeavor that inFAMOUS presented to me to finally Platinum the game.

This time around, morality is linked to which of the two ladies in the game you'd like to ally yourself to.  The crazy, chaotic Nix or the straight-laced Kuo.  Much as women are keen to do, there are betrayals and hurt-feelings and "come-rescue-me" moments.  But this is a video game, after all, not a treatise on feminism.

The choices remain as unsubtle as ever.  Save the orphans, burn the orphans, etc.

But the game is certainly fun to play and enjoyable to complete the quests that the game presents.  The difficulty amps up a couple times, especially with certain bosses that you experience.

The simple end to this review is this: it's like inFAMOUS, only twoier.

Skyrim

Skyrim, or more completely, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim continues the story of imprisoned-and-then-freed destiny-bound heroes of Tamriel, this time located in the frigid north, titular region: Skyrim.

The game was dense, as was the first draft of this review, which I have subsequently broken up into 5 entries (seriously).  Today's post looking at the main story and game mechanics, and subsequent posts dedicated to all the shit that got done in the name of collecting the sweet, sweet platinum trophy.

In media res being a bit of a gameplay-must these days, you start the game as an imprisoned man/woman/whatever on your way to the chopping block - the head chopping block - when you are serendipitously saved by the arrival of a fire-breathing dragon.  Amidst the chaos and fear of behading/being eaten by a dragon, you select your character's gender, race, and appearance.  Unlike the fourth Elder Scrolls entrant, you do not select a sign, have specifically anointed skills, or any of the other things that made that game have an astounding 743 sextillion (a lot) character builds.

The undead are a frequent encounter.

While skills continue to increase as you use them, the leveling system has been redesigned.  Now, gaining progress in any skill will move you towards a level-up, wherein you can increase your health, magicka (magic health), or stamina (swinging axe health).  Upon gaining a level, you are also able to select a perk from one of the skill areas, granted you have reached the requisite experience with that skill.  There are 251 perks in Skyrim, of which you may feasibly select 81 (essentially the "level cap").

I decided to put my perks into archery, sneaking, light armor, and Illusion-magic, which you think might have been setting myself up to be a total badass ninja, but I still chose to confront most conflicts at high velocity while spamming the attack key.

Combat is relatively unchanged from Oblivion, with the main exception in that you can wield magic while simultaneously wielding a weapon, or wield two spells at once.  Spells have also been pretty well nerfed, only dealing a set amount of damage and not able to be customized (a la Oblivion).

So, fresh off of not-being-killed-by-a-dragon, you are given the same mind-numbing freedom common to the Bethesda games: you could literally do anything.  Only a few story-related areas are blocked off, and to be honest - it's nearly impossible to find them, as there is just so much else to do.  The game improves upon Oblivion's compass system, and exploration begins to be "just... one... more... area..." and before you know it, you've mapped most of the locations in Skyrim.

Oh hey girl, lemme shout at you.

Anyway, it just so happens that you are a Dragonborn, a rare 1%-er, born once in every few generations who can absorb the souls of dragons and focus those souls into powerful Thu'ums, or shouts.

While dialogue with townsfolk may lead you to believe that dragons are rare sights anywhere in Tamriel, the reality is that the whole place is lousy with dragons.  And they are dragons: they eat townspeople and their steeds, devastate farms and hovels, and will fuck you up if you aren't equipped with enough healing potions to ward off the inevitable crispy feelings of being burned to death.

One dragon, in particular, plays your chief nemesis.  His purpose is straight black and white fantasy: he destroys worlds.  It's almost refreshing to meet a bad-guy who is really bad.  No tortured childhood.  No on-the-fence attitude.  Dude just wants to obliterate existence.  I can respect that.

The game is great, though the story does have some pacing issues, common to the robust world games like Skyrim.  And that's just the main story.  It was definitely worth the 80 hours I sunk into it, and definitely worth a platinum run.

Always worth it.  Always.

Demo: Warp

Warp.  Cute alien dude.

Warp, available for consoles and on Steam, had a nice little demo wherein you play a tiny alien escaping your human captors.  Your ability?  You can warp forward a small amount of space (through walls, if need be) and into small items and ... unfortunately for them ... your human captors.  While the demo was fun, it wasn't knocking my socks off, so I recommend a pass on this one.

Note: despite the immense cuteness of the alien, the game introduced itself as having "blood and gore," and I understood why after I warped into a human and moved around, causing him to explode.  Oops.

Flash Game Friday: Politricks

Just Pres. Obama - doing what he does.

Sometimes you need a launch game, and sometimes that game can be loosely based on a economic crisis in the United States.  But in a launch game, you solve the problem by being on a pogo stick.  This is the very fiber of why flash games are awesome stretches in human logic.

So here's Politricks.  It's silly fun.  The upgrades are what you would expect to find in a launch game (go further, jump higher, use a kite, make more supporters appear).

If you're into launch games, this is a political based no-brainer.  You don't even need to understand "legitimate rape" or "struggle snuggles" or "tax documents."  Just click and twirl and rake in the dough to save Uncle Sam!

FINALLY

Flash Game Friday: Nuclear Plant

The monsters are coming.

Nuclear Plant is the tale of a war ravaged society trying to nurture the single last plant alive in order to save humanity.  You play an unnamed scientist/badass who must resurrect the plant.  Unfortunately, you are constantly swarmed by mutated creatures who are trying to impede your progress.  Why?  Because it's a flash game!

The game play is half platform-y, half point and shoot.  You control your character by using the arrow keys (or the ASWD), but aim and shoot using the mouse.  Uniterrupted time at the Laboratory is used to build your skills (e.g. more health regeneration, better accuracy) and killing mutated monsters yields cash to buy new guns (from - where?).

It's fun, and short, though it took a couple of game overs until I got the hang of it.  Enjoy!

Demo: Final Fantasy XIII-2

Now that I can - in confidence - say that I am completely done with Final Fantasy XIII, I decided to go a round with its sequel, for which a demo was available on the PSN.

The story takes place a few years after the events of Final Fantasy XIII, and you play as Serah (the sister of Lightning, FFXIII's version of Cloud) and a mysterious young man named Noel.  In the demo, you play in Chapter 2 - which is - you know - some stuff has already happened, so it's hard to really say, but Serah and Noel seem to be time travelers.

Anyway, in the demo you have to beat this weird, shifty giant thing - a paradox - who is struggling into this part of time.

The battle system is mostly the same as FF13.  Serah and Noel can enter one of six roles each for a series of paradigms that the player can change in battle.

The big new add is that while battling, you can collect monsters who join you as a third party member in battle.  They also level up and develop new abilities as you battle.

Just to clarify:

Story involving time travel?  Check.
Improved FF13 based paradigm shifty battle system?  Check.
Collecting monsters, Pokemon style to fight alongside you?  Check.

DRESSING UP SAID MONSTERS IN CUTE HATS?

Yeah, the game kind of has it all.

Moogles?  Wow - talk about a forgotten IP.

Like most FF sequels: it is certainly less serious than the original (see above hats), opting instead to spread its wings and give innovation a try.  It's also learned a lot from its predecessor and is decidedly not linear.  In the demo, I was given side quest missions from NPCs.  NPCs!

Anyway, for the low price of $19.95, buying the game seems like a no-brainer.  But I've got some travel coming up, and frankly, I nabbed Skyrim and I'm really itching to give it a try...

Things That Are Ingots, Things That Are Trophies

Flash Game Friday: Sky Garden

Sometimes, you actually have to do work at work, rather than pretend that you are a much beloved video game blogger, with users dedicate themselves to your every movement.  So, sometimes you have to work - and you're looking for a Flash-based distraction that will calm and relieve your stressful work life.

The graphics are simple, as is the gameplay.
Simple and calming.

Enter Sky Garden, a simple puzzle game with music that is so calming, it blends you slowly into a Friday afternoon coma.

The concept is simple: click every tree.  The tree releases a stream of water in all four directions as far as possible.  The streams built from clicking the trees will destroy any tree they touch, so the game casually introduces you to the strategy of using streams to block future streams.  Then, like any good puzzle game, new elements are introduced.  Seedlings require water to be born into trees.  Ice halts your streams' progress.  And lava slowly spreads, killing your trees.

I strongly recommend this game for its stupendous ease to pick up, play, and complete.

Final Fantasy IV

You can keep your fancy polygons:
16 bit is the life for me.

Before there were cutscenes, and polygonal graphics, and confusing combat systems, and teen angst, there was Final Fantasy IV (or Final Fantasy II as it was released in the United States to avoid then-confusion in exchange for now-confusion).  In addition to the game being simpler, I too was simpler: a boy of 8 or 9, unconcerned with taxes, or mortgages, or whether or not to use an Oxford comma when making lists.  And I was there with FF4, following the adventures of the sprite-like protagonists in - upon reflection - one of the most clear Final Fantasy stories ever.

The fourth iteration of the quite un-final Final Fantasy series told the story of Cecil, a dark knight who begins to question if exchanging his morals for power was all that great of an idea.  By extension, he questions the orders of King Baron for sacking the helpless mages of Mysdia to collect their Water Crystal (which, presumably has power - because it is so shiny).  For questioning orders, you are summarily dismissed on a final errand to deliver a package.

The package is actually a bomb, destroying the village Myst and all of its inhabitants (Summoners who threatened the king's plans) minus one girl who Cecil feels really bad about killing her mother and helps protect her.  In turn your party is complimented by the girl, Rydia, a Summoner; Rosa, your girlfriend; Yang, a martial arts master; Tellah, an old sage seeking vengeance for his murdered daughter, Edward, a spoony bard; Palom and Porom, twin mages from Mysdia; Cid, the first playable entrant of the recurring airship captain; Edge, a ninja; FuSoYa, a ridiculously over-powered mage for which you only briefly have control; and Kain, your former Dragoon companion gone-traitor after his own personal redemption.

Redemption is a recurring theme for FF4 - Cecil seeking redemption for being a Dark Knight (and becoming a Paladin), Edward seeking redemption for the cowardice that killed his fiance, Cid seeks redemption for helping build warships... the list goes on and on.  The story here is complicated, but in the way that epic tales are not simple, not the way that I have no idea what is what without reading an accompanying compendium.  There are the occasional cheap writing techniques, but all-in-all the game plays like a story unfolds: naturally.  And there are plenty an epic moment: becoming a Paladin, Rydia's triumphant return to the party, and flying to the moon.

I'm surprised! at how awesome I thought this looked as a kid.

Battle is active, turn-based, and menu-driven.  It's not quite to the perfected point of future Final Fantasies, but the unique ability sets each character develops are a nice addition.  Some battles are quite difficult without grinding, but they are mostly reserved to optional areas and the final dungeon.  Random encounters abound, but the game almost feels bad about throwing them at you: they start and conclude rather seamlessly with the world map.

And the world is well crafted, and huge.  There is an overworld, a world below, and the mother-fucking moon for you to explore.

The game is available in so many ways, you have no excuse not to be playing it right now.  It is available for the Wii in its SNES dumbed-down for American's version, the GBA re-release featuring additional difficulty (as was intended), the Playstation re-release on the PSN (not recommended due to horrible loading times) and a DS remake with polygonal characters and cutscenes (with voiceovers)!

Demo: Quantum Conundrum

Last week, during the sporadic moments of Internet I had access to, I downloaded a couple of game demos to play, punctuating my otherwise unenjoyable X-button mashing quest for a Platinum Trophy is Final Fantasy XIII.

One such demo was that of Quantum Conundrum, previously released on Steam and the XBLA, but also available on the PSN.  Quantum Conundrum is a first-person puzzle game (a genre only recently emerging and with only one other entrant I can think of: Portal) wherein you traverse various rooms, manipulating physics and controlling small objects to push buttons and make way to the room's exit.

If you notice that the description for QC I offered was remarkably close to the one I gave Portal, well, you're right on the money.  However, QC is mostly different from Portal in that it exists in a more cartoony world, the physics you control are environmental, and the narrating voice is male and less malevolent (and voiced by John de Lancie, Star Trek's Q!)

Thanks to a handy device, you are able to modify the properties of the environment around you in one of four ways (only three of which are featured in the demo).  You can enter the Fluffy Dimension, where objects are easy to move around and throw; the Heavy Dimension, were objects are solid, break through glass, and are indestructable (but sadly, is not a dimension populated solely by TF2's Heavy - be still my heart); the Slow Motion Dimension, which I hope does not require additional explanation; and a dimension where gravity reverses itself.

The demo is fun, with nice quips from John de Lancie as you go along.  Definitely worth a grab to see if you'd enjoy it enough for the $15 price tag.

Flash Game Friday: Farm and Grow

Farming.  And Growing.

Farm and Grow is a delightful flash game that makes farming look easier than it really is.  This game is fun and sort of addicting, but farming - let's be clear - is actually not.

You manage a farmer and his family: planting crops, selling them in town, becoming educated, and farming more efficiently.  You have to feed your mini-pixel characters or they will die, and 12 dead family members means Game Over (also, 12 is a lot of pixel-blood on your hands - you maybe should seek therapy).

Lightning Strikes Twice: A Second Chance for FFXIII

I was perhaps a little critical in my review of Final Fantasy the Thirteenth (except for the bit about Lightning's hair- which continues to be unnecessarily wrong).  I have recently been replaying the game, and I wanted to give the thing a fair shake of a review.  So here goes.

Brace yourself.  This is going to be intense.

It's still not very good.

Flash Game Friday: Special Episode for Leaving Higher Education - First Person Grader

Today is my last day working directly for an institution of higher education, which has been the status quo for the past ten years - my enitre adult life!  To celebrate, I'm sharing this gem: First Person Grader.

More fun than grammar should be.

You are a starving graduate student with a mountain of debt, eagerly accepting a TA-ship with the hardass Dr. Paynuss.  The good doc sends you papers and you must grade them in order to fail students and get paid. 

While the premise sounds a little dull, the game is actually a blast to play and enjoy, and a great send off from my life of working for higher ed.

Kingdom Hearts I & II

I've been spending some time over the past couple weeks enjoying the seminal (meaning industry-advancing or significant, not semen-related) Kingdom Hearts games for the Playstation 2.  While the gameplay is nothing new, and the story bounces from whimsically simple to the Square-Enix induced complexity of a theoretical equation, the real standout of the game is the sheer depth of intellectual property fed into the game from both Disney and Square-Enix.

Kairi (left) and Sora (right) in an FMV.

Kingdom Hearts the first tells the story of Sora, Riku, and Kairi; happy-go-lucky youths who live on a small island and dream of exploring other worlds.  Their dream becomes reality when their world is "connected" to others through a menacing bad mojo known simply as "the darkness."  And this darkness also spawns monstrous concoctions known as Heartless, who errupt from a person whose heart fell to darkness.  Luckily, Sora is a chosen wielder of the Keyblade, a device that can destory Heartless and seal the doors between worlds.

A Year of dmuma!

The blog's been up for a year now, and I haven't even completely given up.  Here are some highlights of my favorite posts in the past year.

Flash Game Fridays

• Launch Games (Flight, Burrito Bison, and Pogo Swing) and Burrito Bison Revenge
• GemCraft (Chapter 1, 2, and 0)
• Corporation Inc.
• Sweatshop
• Word Bacon
• Hyperpipe
• Clarence's Big Chance
• Achievement Unlocked (1 and 2) - great games, maybe my favorites of all FGF
• Upgrade Completer

Fallout: New Vegas, the review, and all the DLC reviews.

Going on a bit too much about trophies, in-game economics, morality, and social environments.  Oh yeah, and cave rage.

Pretty intense calculations of the many options of Oblivion.

I have unintentionally posted twice about how I hate female video game characters' hair.  Once when reviewing Final Fantasy XIII, and once when playing through Skyward Sword.

Also, Varric.  And Varric.