It's a thread! (Games discussion, etc.)

[JG]

Tough to do, since it appears I only played 11 games this year (but played 10 of them to completion, which is a very high rate for me.)  Sorry Star Fox 64 3D, you get the Old Maid for not having any new content in your remake.

There just wasn't much this year -- I can't recall a year in which there were so few video games worth buying/playing.  Nintendo was busy prepping for the Wii U so they have something of an excuse, but Microsoft and Sony just folded their hands for this year and punted everything of value (minus Halo 4) to next year, so my list is very Nintendo-heavy, with the 3DS ruling the day.  Summer and Fall were especially bare times and nearly completely devoid of any release of merit: NSMB2 is the only one that came out during this timeframe.  I haven't yet purchased a Wii U, so any of those games are absent from my list (but I expect at least Super Mario Bros U to be on my 2013 list.)


10 - Duke Nukem Forever.  The only one I didn't beat.  The much overdue sequel to a really good Duke Nuke 3D game.  Servicable, but clearly lacking in today's 3D FPS category.  More crude humor than those other 3D games, but not as much as I remember from DN3D.  The most redeeming features are a pretty cool opening sequence and being able to drive remote control toy cars when you get shrunk.

9 - Epic Mickey.  Not a bad game, but designed for an older audience than Mickey Mouse should have be designed.  Too dark and too difficult to make for a really enjoyable game.

8 - Legend of Zelda, The: Ocarina of Time 3D. The controls are a little odd compared to the N64 original, but it includes the Master Quest, so that makes it all worthwhile.

7 - Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Having the world, buildings, and people all made out of paper and origami was a nice touch, but otherwise there's little paper involved except the stickers which are used for attacks. Not as inventive as the earlier games when Mario could turn aside and slip into cracks, roll up into a tube, or turn into a paper airplane to fly across gaps.  Easy, except for the bosses which often require a specific sticker to beat. Plus I'm not fond of Paper Mario coming to  the handheld system, which was home to the better Mario & Luigi series.

6 - New Super Mario Bros 2.  A decent sequel, but not alot of new stuff and much easier than the first.  And the focus on collecting coins totally ruins an an otherwise good action game.  Too many times it stops to give you a chance at a big payday, when it would have been a better game if it just went on with the action.  And a million coins is practically unreachable anyway -- you'd have to go through the entire game a dozen times or more to reach that amount.  Not worth it for a new game intro screen.

5 - Halo 4.  Finally, after 5 years we gt to see the Master Chief back in action.  A good campaign to reintroduce him and bring him back into the fold, but on the short end: 8 to 10 hours. (Disappointing, since the Gears of War 3 campaign was very long.)  Also, new vehicles like the Pelican and Broadsword are available, but you only get them once, and you don't get the old staple of vehicles like Warthogs and Scorpions but just once or twice.  The Spartan Ops multiplayer online campaign was off to a great start (and would have ranked Halo 4 higher on my list), until Microsoft usurped it at the end of chapter 5 so they could have some online contest.  Now half the players join the ops to earn points toward the prizes, but don't do anything but stand around, leaving those of us trying to enjoy the game doing all the work, while having to wait until late-January for chapter 6.

4 - Metroid: Other M. The direct sequel to Super Metroid, it focuses on how Samus deals with losing the Metroid baby that saved her from Mother Brain and her previous conflicts with the Marine corps and her commanding officer. Sort of a 3D mix between Super Metroid and Metroid Prime.  Other than a goofy first-person missile firing view, this 3rd person adventure is a decent Metroid side story. I don't recommend it to someone who hasn't played the other Metroids first though.

3 - Super Mario 3D Land.  This is what a sequel to Super Mario 64 should be. Challenging, but not impossible (I managed to acquire every star coin and beat every level with Mario and Luigi, thereby unlocking the final challenge level.)  Nintendo always seems to highlight the features of a new platform with a Mario game, and 3D Land perfectly shows off the features of the 3DS.  A must have if you've got one.

2 - Xenoblade Chronicles.  Truly one of the finest RPGs I've ever played.  They do just about everything right in this game, except for foreshadowing as they drop too many clues on upcoming plot twists to make it not such a surprise when it happens.  Also, too  much "loot" after battles makes forging new items too easy but its a small price to pay for an otherwise very well done, very engaging, and very lengthy game.

1 - Kid Icarus: Uprising. I can't imagine a better way to reintroduce the Kid Icarus franchise.  A fast paced, 3D adventure split into Star Fox-style air battles and Zelda-style land-based fighting. Lots of weapons to choose from, giving players options between long and short range, special effects, effect radius, etc.-- whatever best fits thier fighting style.  A long, but challenging campaign, with a 91-point difficultly slider to make it just as challenging as you want it to be (vs the 3 or 4 point slider most games have).  Excellent computer AI.  Fully voiced with very funny side banter between Pit, Palutena, and the enemy bosses.  And an online multiplayer competitive mode that doesn't involve the same old 21st or 26th century warfare mechanics that every other FPS features.  As much praise as I give to Super Mario 3D Land, THIS is the killer app for the 3DS.

[Moge]

Duke Nukem? How is that not on your thumbs-down catagory?

I've got a sealed copy of Kid Icarus sitting on my shelf. Now all i need is a solid white 3DS XL...

[JG]

Rating 10th out of 11 isn't exactly a strong endorsement.

I'm not sure the 3DS stand works with XL models.  It's rather small and really only ideal for the standard size systems.  And the stand a must have to play the game -- no way you're playing the game "in the air", at least not effectively with its odd control mechanisms.


On later reflection, could arguably swap #5 Halo 4 and #4 Metroid: Other M in my list.  Having gone back to play through the Halo 3 and Reach campaigns again, I can at least say the gameplay is better and more precise.  Can't move into the top 3 though based on all the bugs though.  I mean, it is a really poorly playtested game and the more you play it the more you notice it.  The physics engine does really weird things like blow you half way across a stage if you're caught in a grenade blast or hit by a Hunter's armblade just right. If shot in mid air, your body and weapons drop at radically different rates and sometimes in unexplainable directions. Bodies will roll downhill all the way, as if friction doesn't exist.  The spatial engine is a joke as I've been shot through walls before and seen in third person one enemy ressurrect another through the solid floor it was on to the floor before, with its ressurection beam clearly bisected by the floor.  And of course Halo continues to violate the cardinal rule of FPS head trauma - that a serious enough blow to the head should always kill. Sunday I shot an enemy in the face twice with the most powerful gun in the game and didn't go down (and in fact, it killed me in one return shot, which really got me hot.)  I've even shot grunts 5 times in the head before they finally go down on the 6th (which is the maximum number they can take anywhere on their body before dying.)  And since Spartan Ops is on holiday for another week while this damned contest wraps up, I've been persuing commendations and discovering that the ops stages are wildly imbalanced toward certain types of enemies.  I cleared the "hardest" Crawler Prime killer commendation way back in November, and I'm not even out of the 2nd (of 5) ranks for Crawler Sniper, which is supposed to be the intermediate level of Crawler. But no, the jackasses at 323 decided that 70% of Crawlers should be Primes, and 28% of the remaining 30% regular crawlers.  Thus, completing the commendation for killing about 500 Primes is easy, and the "easier" Sniper commendation is damned near impossible, because you'd have to kill over 2000 of them and no stage has more than 12 (meanign you're playing the same stage over and over dozens, if not hundreds, of times to chase this commendation, while killing over 50,000 Primes in the process).  Similar problem with regular Jackals, who are badly outnumbered by stronger Jackal Majors and Jackal Rangers, but not as badly as the Crawler group.

</rant>




I play as lilisaur if anyone wants to hook up for a co-op game.

[Moge]

Can't be any worse than ODST. Well, that game did have fun vehicular combat scenarios in campaign.

Halo's physics have always been bad. Can't drive the Warthog without getting flipped over.

[JG]

And still can't.

Plus "flipping" a vehicle still sends it tumbling everwhere, half the time still wrong side up or against some structure so you have to flip it again (or even a third time.) By then you're dead.

Managed to flip a warthog right on top of a mongoose the other day.  Climbed in warthog and it couldn't drive off becuase none of the four wheels touched the ground.  If I was smart I could have tried blowing up the mongoose to free it but I didn't think of it and just kept going on two legs instead.

[Moge]

Now that i've spent a lil' over 20 hours in Xenoblade, i must say the visuals are quite amazing.

The huge scale of the environments are quite an eyesore. Reminds me of Xenogears, which is not a bad thing at all.

Best RPG i've played since Mother 3. You played that game yet, JGOO?

[JG]

Best RPG i've played since Mother 3. You played that game yet, JGOO?

Nopers. I haven't played any of the Mother/EarthBound series.  I recall reading about EarthBound in NP shortly before I cancelled my subscription and didn't think it fit my fancy.  Final Fantasy III (or VI, if using new-style numbering) set the bar pretty high at the time.

Only RPG I'm looking forward to is DQ7 on 3DS right now, which by coincidence came out in Japan today.  Hope it gets translated for American audiences (shouldn't be hard becuase they did it for PS1 already) as it doesn't look like DQ10 will ever see the light of day for non-Japanese audiences.

[JG]

For those interested, Halo 4 only $40 Friday and Saturday at Best Buy. Probably won't hit that low again until Black Friday.

[Moge]

The Wii U front sure is depressing these days, especially in the wake of PS4.

Were there not backwards compatibility, i'd be really miffed right now, at least for the first six months.

[JG]

Yeah it's pretty bare. But Nintendo typically doesn't have much in the first half of the year.  It'll pick up a little with Pikmin 3 and Super Luigi later.

Too many questions about PS4 to get excited yet.

[Moge]

Picking up Gears: Judgment?

[JG]

Yup.  And Bioshock Infinite.  Then I dunno what I'll do for rest of the year.

Sucks too that my two most anticipated games of the year are seperated by just a week or two.

[Moge]

Are you implying Pikmin 3 isn't your most anticipated game of the year?

[JG]

Correctamundo.

I'd rank them as Bioshock Infinite first, Gears of War: Judgment second, and Pikmin 3 third.  I'm sure Pikmin 3 will be fun and cute, but it just won't have a gripping story like the other two will.  I think the GamePad with stylus is the perfect way to cntrol the game though, and rather surprised Nintendo hasn't already released a Pikmin game for 3DS.

That's not to say that something unannounced (ala Dragon Quest VII or X or a new Zelda game for 3DS) might not jump to the front of the list by end of year.

[Moge]

You ever get an itch to play retro games, JGOO?

Haven't heard your experience with BS Zelda yet.

[JG]

All the time. Last year I played original Kid Icarus (emulator), Dragon Quest VI (3DS version), Link to the Past (GameCube version), Star Fox 64 (3DS version), and Skies of Arcadia (GameCube version, and for something like the 5th time ).  First Halo, too, if you consider that Retro (it is over 10 years old)


I could never BS Zelda get it to work. Probably need a different emu (only one I have on my C: drive now is ZSNESW)

[Moge]

Not playing Bioshock Infinite? How does the new Luigi's Mansion stack up against the old one?

[JG]

I havent had a chance to start Bioshock Infinite yet. I'm weighing whether to play it or New Super Bros U next. Gears of War: Judgment and Epic Mickey 2 have been kicked down the road.  After playing the first few levels of GoW:J, I don't mind punting it for a while.  Since EM2 got such poor reviews, I may not ever get to it if I don't by the time Pikmin 3 and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team come along.

Dark Moon is certainly a lot longer than I remember the original being.  A lot more slapstick comedy, too (i.e. water spraying in Luigi's face after inspecting a fountain.)  Wish it used the blow mode instead of suck mode more often like the original though (ie, blow out the candles to make ghosts appear)  Do enjoy the special speed mode stages though.  Lots of nice little touches, too, like Luigi occasionally humming along to the background music when he's walking through a room that's cleared, or putting his hand over his heart and exhaling after clearing a room in which he got spooked.  Highly recommend it, but it demands alot of tough finger actions on the regular-sized 3DS so I can only play for about an hour before my thumb hurts.  It's also even more battery intensive than Kid Icarus: Uprising was - you get about 2 to 2.5 hours of gameplay before your battery needs recharging.  (Bonus: If you bought a 3DS XL recently and buy Luigi's Mansion [or the new Pokemon game], you can get a free game download from Nintendo.  Super Mario 3D Land is one of those free games.)

[JG]

Bioshock Infinite is quite good. Like most shoot-em ups, its not terribly long, so I managed to clear it in 20 hours or so since Saturday.


THE GOOD:

This game has arguably the best story I've ever seen in a video game. It is a complete mindbender and the pieces don't come together until the very end.  Usually you can anticipate what's going to happen at the end of a video game, which is satisfying but no surprise. But Bioshock Infinite is so well executed, on the order of The Usual Suspects or The Prestige, that the ending even shocked me and I had no idea that it would unfold that way.  I suspected one of the plot twists but was stunned by others, including one that you spent half the game thinking you had disproved!

Elizabeth is a partner you truly come to care about. Not only is she the focus of the story and the ultimate goal is to save her, but she's handy in a pinch, too. She ducks out of the way during a firefight, but will toss you ammo and supplies, which saves your ass plenty of times.

Very neat how they worked in more modern songs to a 1912 setting.  Songs like Fortunate Son, Everybody Wants to Rule the World, and R.E.M's Everybody Hurts show up, often sung by quartet or folksy, like songs from that era usually sound. It's a wonderful touch to give you that feeling that something's just not quite right about Columbia.

Riding the rails of the skyline is fun. It certainly gives a different angle to attacking enemies (or avoiding gunfire) than the typical ground-based firefight we've seen a thousand times already.  And you can perform a Death from Above melee attack by swinging off the skyline rails onto where an enemy is standing.

Plenty of weapons. 13 of them to choose from, plus your melee attacks. Some games have more, but I think thats about the right number.

Enemy AI is smarter than most other games. Enemies are smart enough to use cover most of the time, use a range advantage if they have it, and try to run away if weak on health.



THE BAD:

Far fewer enemies than the first two Bioshocks, and other shooters.  It's very story-oriented, so there's firefights only every so often, usually between segments of scavenging while moving to your new target location. Few occurances of a single enemy at a time, except for the first few mini-boss fights.  I miss turning a corner in Rapture and finding some plasmid junkie waiting to club me. They're all out in the open now and come running from a distance (or staying at a distance if they've got a carbine or sniper rifle)

The vigor abilities in Infinite aren't as good as the plasmids from the two games set in Rapture. And they're not even used well.  In original Bioshock, there was a block of ice you had to melt with your fire plasmid to get into an area; nothing like that in Infinite.

I rather liked the hacking of doors, safes, and machines in the first Bioshock. Since there's so many lockpicks in Infnite, its hard to come across anything you can't open freely, which takes away an element of gameplay.

Not impressed at all by the Unreal engine.  Lots of graphics clipping bugs in the game. They don't ruin the experience, but in this day and age finding a clipping bug in a game should be rather rare, not a walk in the clouds (pun intended)

Some of the bigger enemies block the entire screen if you get caught up in a melee fight with them. You get easily disoriented this way.



THE UGLY:

Another game that suffers from way too much loot.  And worse becuase alot of the loot isn't just on the corpses, but in trashcans, vents, safes, walls, desks, and every where else you can think of.  You spent 3/4 of the game just searching for loot, which unfortunately slows down the development of the wonderful story.  Would have been better if enemies only dropped their weapon (and not a lockbox or purse as well) and that the only places you could find loot are certain marked crates and safes, instead of *everywhere*

There is a crapton of racism and anti-American stuff going on. I'm sure the racism stuff is a fairly accurate depiction of early elitist 1900s, but its still easy to get a little embarressed by it.  And the fact that a Red Revolution breaks out in the city and plummets it into anarchy doesn't help things.




Overall: 9 out of 10.  Very good, but all the time spent looting sets it back a little. Less gameplay than the earlier two Bioshocks but more to see and and an even better story than the first.

[Moge]

The most vocal criticisms i've heard against Infinite want less combat.