Stunted Growth

WARNING:  There are spoilers concerning the DLC for Lost Odyssey and of Final Fantasy IV in here.  Read at your own risk.

I *love* gamerscore.  I want more.  I play and play on my Xbox to increase that score, and eventually, as I see more and more people with a lower score than my own, I feel just awesome.

I also love RPGs.  I get into the stories and emotions of the characters.  I enjoy immersing myself into a world that is not my own, and living the lives of these people.  That is why I play these games.  I am not the kind of RPG gamer who plays a game to get every single item in the game, or to say they’ve done everything they can possibly do (“Completionists”).  Sometimes, running around for hours and hours and hours to level up to defeat an optional boss or monster that has NO direct bearing on how the story will end for a single item that will probably over throw the balance of the game anyways (Read: Economizers) just doesn’t seem WORTH it.

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Echoes of Betrayal, Light of Redemption

FINAL FANTASY IV ALBUM BY OVERCLOCKED REMIX: http://ff4.ocremix.org

The OC Remix community has done it again.  In a new project, spanning 14 months from inception to release, designed to honor the great Nobuo Uematsu and his soundtrack from Final Fantasy IV, the wonderful artists who contribute to OverClocked Remix for our listening pleasure have captured the heart and memory of a grand tale of, as they put it, betrayal, strife, and redemption.

I enjoyed nearly every track on this album.  Now, I am not completely geeked out when it comes to video game music, but as with each of OC Remix’s albums in the past, I find that while every song is a wonderful capture and tribute of the feeling and emotion of the original, blended with the spirit and style of the idea the artist wanted to convey, I usually want to add only a few to my mp3 player to listen to over and over again.

In what is a record for me, there are 10 tracks from Echoes of Betrayal, Light of Redemption that I felt I had to add to listen to every day.  Let me put my thoughts down on these.

(Just because I didn’t put a track here doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it, I loved just about every track, and I had a love-hate relationship with the rap song [name purposefully left unmentioned], but these are the ones that made me go “OOH, I want to listen to that every day!”)

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The Maw – Twisted Pixel Games

I saw the preview of this delightful, colorful, and fun game, and had to download the demo.  The Maw follows the escape of two small prisoners from an alien ship.  The story is straightforward, with no dialogue.  Our hero, Frank, a blue alien life-form, escapes from captivity with a small purple blob, the game’s namesake, the Maw.  Containing the ability to eat nearly anything it comes into contact with, but not all that bright, the Maw is kept at Frank’s side with a handy plasma leash. After playing the first level, I was so addicted that I needed to purchase the rest of the game and keep playing.

The player plays as Frank, guiding the Maw around the beautifully created surroundings, letting the Maw eat various creatures to his heart’s content.  Every so often, the Maw grows just a touch bigger, and it happens so slightly, that you sometimes can’t tell if he really grew bigger from the last time it happens.  But he does get larger and larger, until towards the end of the game where he takes up nearly the whole screen.

Each level is a puzzle.  The main purpose is to simply devour as many creatures as you can which unlocks the exit.  In this manner, you can play through simply just  eating whatever you wish.  If, however, you explore the game fully, you find hidden secrets and monsters waiting for you to eat.  (Remember, the more you eat, the bigger the Maw gets!)

As the game progresses, you begin to learn some more advanced tactics.  You can use your leash for other things than leading the Maw around: Grabbing creatures, tossing around enemies, or throwing a creature that the Maw can’t reach (considering you can jump, and he can’t: my roommate’s kid said “Why can’t you just drag him up there?”) down to him for him to munch on.

The best part of the game is in the Maw’s transformations.  Certain creatures have special abilities, and when the Maw ingests them, his purplish blobby  self gathers some part of that power.   A lot of levels depend on this mechanic, as you work your way through the puzzles using different skills.  Skills vary from flame-throwing, laser-shooting, flying, shocking, and good ol’ fashioned run-you-down.

The game is graphically breathtaking.  Bright creatures look good against vivid backdrops of land and sky.  The amount of detail in its design puts it on a level with a full release Xbox game, not a simple Arcade download.  What really needs a strong kudos is the personality they worked into the Maw.  Capable only of varied grunting, they shaped his blobule and one eyeball into so many great emotions.   Imagine if a pet dog could smile, or be sad, or be frightened, and show it on their face, and that’s kind of the idea.  My favorite moment was when I tossed a creature down off a cliff to the Maw, waiting below.  He munched it up, ran in a little circle, and then glanced back up, waiting for more!  I really enjoyed interacting with this character!

And that’s the other wonderful part of the game:  although there is no spoken dialogue, and no written storyline, the game makes you care what happens to these two fugitives.  They work together, running from their enemies, exploring the unknown land they find themselves thrust upon.  In many games, this could turn very boring, very quick.  But in The Maw, the closeness you develop with these two carries you the whole way, all of your moments filled with the kinship of Frank and the Maw.  You work as a team, supporting one another, protecting one another.  Twisted Pixel did a wonderful job.

The music was wonderfully scored. Winifred Phillips, known for her work on God of War, composed the music for The Maw.  The music is unique, catchy, and stays in the background, as much of the environment as the vivid landscape.  I never found myself bored or tired of the music.  I sometimes forgot it was there, it was so integrated into the gameplay.

All in all, it is a fantastic game for all ages to enjoy.  It’s simple enough that the youngest players could get into it, but fun and enjoyable enough for even the older gamers.  The only gripe I had is that the game was disappointingly short, but for only 800 Microsoft Points ($10.00), it earned its value and then some.  I look forward to any expansions or DLC that may come in the future.

Please visit www.mawgame.com for more information.

The Last Remnant – Square Enix

I had heard quite a few mixed reviews concerning this game.  They seemed pretty good on the gameplay side of things (and, in my book, the opportunity to control up to 25 characters in battle, even if indirectly, simultaneously in an RPG is just astounding).   They were pretty bad on the graphics side of things.  And let me tell you, the graphics are awesome.  Awesome as hell.  Hellishly awesome.  They are so awesome. the Xbox can’t even handle them.  That’s how awesome they are.

Literally.  It’s a gripe of mine: the game uses the Unreal engine, which, is a great idea, but apparently Squeenix didn’t take enough time to work out the kinks.  It freezes and skips often, and so much is going on in battle that the character the screen is focusing on is not always drawn in time.  (Nothing is more annoying than when the engine cannot even draw the character on the screen so it can say it is “poisoned” and lose a few hit points.  Or rather, it says “poisoned”, shows the hit point damage, shows the location where the character SHOULD be, and then cuts away.)  Battles move very quickly and fluidly, but only stopped by characters who magically appear nearby when its their turn, but some characters further out are drawn who have nothing to do with the encounter.  Drives me nuts.

But, enough of that.  If you are a hardcore RPGer, like me, you get through the graphical glitches to play the game, which, is solid.  Like I said, you end up with the opportunity to indirectly control up to 25 characters at a time in battle.  The way it works is thus:

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Dungeons and Dragons: Fourth Edition

So, my roommates, their cousins, and I started a beginner’s module to the new Fourth Edition of Dungeon’s and Dragons.  Now, before we played, I was pretty sure that I was going to hate the new ruleset.  I had been DMing before this, and I was pretty in depth on the rules of the previous version.  My friends and I had played it for years… since high school, really.  There was no way I was gonna like these new rules.

But they needed an extra body, and since it was the beginner module, it came with a starter set of pre-setup characters.  That, and I did not have to DM, since Ken was already doing it.  So I figured, what the hey, I’ll give it a shot.

…There will be those hardcores who will have contempt for me after this statement: but I believe the rules here are a MUCH more accessible set of rules.  I avoid using “watered down,” although some hardcores may use, as there is plenty of complication, but fortunately, it is mostly during battle, where you want lots of options and strategy! 

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Scooby-Doo: Unmasked!

November 11th began watching my roommates cool little son.  He’s a huge video game freak, and so fits right into the family.  It’s pretty awesome.

So there I am on the couch, fighting relentlessly with 1and1’s servers to put this blog up.  In between the long delays between connections and on hold with 1and1’s customer support, I get to look up at what game the boy is playing.  It is Scooby-Doo: Unmasked for the Nintendo GameCube.

Now, before you laugh at me, let me tell you something.  I love Scooby-Doo.  Those cartoons were awesome, and I still watch them from time to time, either online, or on good ol’ Boomerang.

This game does an AWESOME job of letting the player be in episodes of the show!  The player controls Scoob, as he battles fake animatronic monsters.  The gang is all there, and as you walk by different characters, you get to hear their conversations with the various townsfolk.  Then, you go looking for clues, and bring them back to Velma, who helps you by describing them and together, everyone pieces together the mystery.

The cast is almost 100% voiced over, and the voices are totally close sounding.  (With, disappointingly, the exception of Scooby-Doo, who doesn’t sound quite right.)  As you find clues and move on, the cutscenes add voiced conversation between all the characters, doing all the things they did in the cartoons: Shaggy and Scooby joking around, Velma being all smart, Fred being the leader, and Daphne… doing whatever it was that Daphne did.  The cutscenes themselves, are an episode to watch by themselves, and you guide it along based on the action you do, and what clues you pull together.

One thing I was laughing over, was there is a power-up you can earn in the game, which makes Scooby a Kung-Fu Master.  (Sounds totally old-school Hanna Barbera to me ).  He stands on his hind legs, and with his front paws, he’ll bend over with his hands and charge up a powerful attack.  It looks just like the Kamehameha wave, except he says “Scooby-Dooby-Dooo!” instead.  LOL!!

Anyways, there’s the topic for today.  I can’t guarantee I can keep these all light-hearted, but I’m going to do what I can.

~Dan