Ya, this blogging experiment has died. Too much pressure to ACTUALLY write something. Gonna see if microblogging works for me.
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A nice little Source mod that gets rid of the guns and concentrates on the puzzle solving options the physics engine can provide. Definitely worth the 3 or 4 hours I put into it. If you put as much time into it, you can expect head scratching, cursing at your screen and more than a few “OoOoOo, I see what you did there”.
The mod isn’t perfect. I found it too unforgiving and rigid. For example, there was a puzzle involving 3 turrets behind a fence. By the time it comes up, you have the Gravity Gun. My response to this was to use the Gravity gun to knock down the turrets at an angle where they couldn’t shoot me. After downing the 3 turrets and going about my business, I died to an “instant kill” spot that must have been written into the game. The game wanted me to find a bulletproof piece of glass and carry it to “solve the puzzle”. So I did. After I knocked the turrets down with my gravity gun, just to spite the programmer. There was also a physics based puzzle involving a see-saw that was more than a little wonky. I’m pretty sure that I got past it on a glitch and I didn’t actually solve it, but fuck, it was obtuse as all hell. The later puzzles were more reminiscent of old school adventure games and their pixel hunt nature than any of the Half Life games.
Even with it’s flaws, it’s a free mod as long as you have Half Life 2: Episode 2 and it’s enough of a departure from anything I’ve played recently that I didn’t regret playing it. And having played through Half Life 2 again in the last few weeks, it made me appreciate how those puzzles felt completely natural.
Hi, I’m an action game with a dyslexic camera. The lack of a coherent world that the first one had (which is the only other one I’ve played) is bugging me. They encourage grinding by going back to other levels you’ve already beaten to unlock stuff and I’m sure I don’t like it as much as the old system. The weapon switching on the fly is sweet though. I only played the demo for DMC4 and don’t remember crazy weapon switching but I hope Bayonetta has something similar. This was supposed to tide over my desire for an action game til Bayonetta came out but since that got pushed back, I’m considering finally buying the God of War games.
I think I’m up to level 6 and the puzzle element decided to kick it up a notch when I decided to turn it off for now. Does it get better or is the first one still the best Devil May Cry game?
After weeks of putting it off because of its complex battle system, I finally have the patience to sink my teeth into this amalgam of a game. Saying it’s a difficult game to characterize is an understatement; bullet hell elements in a strategy RPG?
Honestly, I’m kind of addicted to it. Playing through it on Easy at the moment, since it took me 5 hours of playtime to actually feel comfortable with the mechanics. Also, a warning to any interested players who suffer from OCD: not only do characters die, I think it’s almost impossible to actually get all of them. I find myself turning off the game because I screwed up getting an essential item way too often, but I always find an excuse to turn it back on. Signs of a good game? If it wasn’t for their “Fuck, I didn’t mean to do that!” system of opening destroying treasure chests and their contents, I’d probably have no issue with the game and would have played it through twice by now. As of this writing, I only just beat the second boss.
Creative uses of the DS like this are something I live for. This is definitely a game that could be played on no other system, and if you have the time to sink into learning it’s intricacies (15 hours in and I just developed an idea of how the weapon effects work), I suggest a purchase.
OMG, Mirror’s Edge . . . After about 2 hours of frustrating death falls and wondering why they wouldn’t just let me map my own goddamn controls, the game data corrupts (probably due to the immense heat here in NY at the moment) and it tells me I have to delete the game data in order to play the game. What they’re really telling me is “You will never turn this game on ever again.” I think they’re right.
UPDATE: My save data was not corrupted and I put a bit more time into it. It’s really only good when you’re not wondering where the the fuck you’re supposed to go. I’ll stick with it for a bit longer though.
