I’m still playing (and for the most part) enjoying Skate, which I’m playing at a very leisurely pace. While it’s a lot of fun to just cruise around the world and bust tricks, there are some very awkward design choices that can annoy the heck out of you when you play Skate. The inability to walk can be infuriating due to the way the world is designed. Bystanders always seem to get in the way of your objectives, which leaves you skating into them more than you would like. But I wanted to talk about one very specific case of poor game design that drove me nuts.
Closing Thoughts on de Blob
When I first wrote about de Blob, I was really digging it. I loved the visual and audio presentation. The gameplay was really fun and easy to pick up. The second time I wrote about it, I voiced what was (and still is) my biggest problem with the game: its pacing. Now that I have beaten de Blob, how do I feel about this sleeper hit?
Why Shopping At Indie Video Games Stores Rocks
Buying video games is not very hard to do. Outside of the usual suspects such as Gamestop and EB Games, you can purchase a copy of the newest Halo game at most electronic stores, department stores, music stores, video rental stores and more. When it’s time for me to purchase a game, I generally just buy from the closest or cheapest store. With that said, I much prefer the shopping experience in an independent video game store and I try and support these stores as often as possible.
de Blob Makes Me Think About Pacing
I’m just over half way through de Blob and I’m still enjoying it. The gameplay mash-up of Katamari Damacy, Super Mario Galaxy and mercenaries mode in the Resident Evil series works really well and the developers at Blue Tongue have done a great job of polishing the details around that core experience to make the game a pleasure to play.
With the core game mechanics of de Blob, I would like to play this game in 20-30 minute chunks, with the ability to save mid-mission at any time. All things considered, I think this game works great in short bursts. If you want to speed run through it, you can beat each level in about 20-30 minutes. However, if you want to get a reasonable chunk of the levels done, your time per level will balloon to the point where it’s no longer a pick-up-and-play game.
Pick Up Post: Indestructable
After a year of damn-near uncontrollable anticipation, the sequel to my 2009 game of the year is now in my house. I was actually so excited for this, I was at Walmart at 7:00 AM buying this game, even though I wouldn’t get to play it till after work. After putting in about 20 hours this week into it (and waking up this morning with an arthritic right hand due to all the fighting action) I can positively say this game is good. In fact, it’s SUPER (sorry).
One More Try: Mirror’s Edge
During a lapse in my gaming itinerary, I decided to pop Mirror’s Edge back into my 360. Last time I wrote about this game, the game tried really hard to make me not like it. The game succeeded at that. I still love the premise of a free-running first-person game, but I stopped at the end of the second level in frustration, after dying roughly 50 times.
After a few minutes in the training level, I thought I was ready to go. What the training mode didn’t prepare me for was encountering trial-and-error gameplay and crappy combat.
Stranglehold: A Video Game B-Movie
During a time of economic instability, relatively high prices for new games and a number of high-quality games to choose from all major platforms, the market doesn’t really show much love to decent or middle of the road games. You can be an avid gamer on any system and own 30 games; all of which are AAA titles. If a game is not on the level of a Modern Warfare 2 or Halo, gamers nowadays with discriminating wallets can easily leave your game to rot in the bargain bin.
Stranglehold was one of Midway’s last attempts at creating a AAA title. It featured fast-paced third-person shooting, was inspired by John Woo’s “Hard Boiled” and even starred Jet Li as the protagonist. However, in a market crowded with great shooting games, not even John Woo and Jet Li could save Stranglehold from being a mediocre game at best and a sales flop.
In spite of its shortcomings, my experience so far with Stranglehold gives me the impression that this is a pretty decent video game equivalent to a B-movie. It has its flaws, but for the right person at the right price it could still be a good time.
The Colour of Fun
Not that many games are fun anymore. No, I’m not talking about the ratio between good games and bad games. I’m talking about games whose sole existence is to be fun. Street Fighter is fun, but wrapped in a game where you get enjoyment out of beating the crap out of someone else. Grand Theft Auto is fun, but that fun comes from wreaking havoc on a city an its inhabitants. The Resident Evil series is arguably not fun at all, as the enjoyment is derived from the games scaring the crap out of you.
This is why de Blob smacks me like a breath of fresh air. Behind the colourful visuals (which haters may call kiddie) and cheery music is a game aiming to achieve fun in it’s purest sense. I’ll be quick to admit that I’ve only played the first level, but this Wii game had me grinning from ear-to-ear from the opening cinematic to the end of my initial playthrough.
Looking Back: Berzerk
Berzerk has a unique and weird place for itself in the pantheon of video games. In the arcade, it was one of the first video games with speech. It’s also believed to be the first (and I think only) video game to actually kill a person.
Game Design Talk: The Money Play
The first time I remember finding a “money play” was in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for the Nintendo Entertainment System. After a few fights with Rocksteady, I figured out a cheap way to beat him without him ever touching me. If you’ve ever played this game, you probably figured this trick out, too. If you don’t, the image above shows how to do it. If you’re perched up on those boxes with Donatello and attack down, Rocksteady will just eat your attacks until he dies with no way to fight back. I was only six years old when I figured that out. Before I ever took the time to think about how video games worked, I had already figured out how to exploit the system.
