Demon House: FPS

November 21, 2012 by 9 Comments

Writing about a really bad game is easy.  Writing about a really good game is easy.  When a game is middling, neither that good nor that bad, I struggle with my goal to write an entertaining review.  I’ve done a few first-person shooters on XBLIG.  Of them, two are on my leaderboard: Send in Jimmy and Devil Blood.  As of this writing, they occupy the very bottom two spots.  I’ll fully admit, those games are both atrocious and could (some would argue “should”) be exorcised from the board.  But at least they were playable and fun in a train-wreck sort of way.  Others have either been glitchy, poorly conceived, or just plain boring.  I previously noted that I was surprised at how few FPSs are on XBLIG, considering that the Xbox 360 is pretty much a dedicated shooter console for many of its owners.  Sadly, every XBLIG FPS plays like it arrived to the party about fifteen years too late to be enjoyable.  Demon House is not really different.  It’s not horrible, but it’s not exceptional enough to make this a fun review to write.  This will probably not be one of my better ones, so here’s a preemptive apology.  For what it’s worth, I’m doing Trailer Park King 3 next!

Weapon design in Demon House ranges from inspired to predictable, and getting the really fun stuff takes too long for such a short game.

First off, yea, Demon House looks relatively good.  I mean, it still looks archaic.  It would have been just fine in 2000 as a Nintendo 64 or PlayStation title.  In 2012?  It falls into the dreaded “it looks good for an XBLIG” category.  And that’s where it also falls in other areas.  It’s designed well.  You know, for a FPS on XBLIG.  The controls are pretty good, at least for an FPS on XBLIG.  I accept that a first-person shooter is an incredibly hard game to design and the guys behind Demon House should be commended for creating one of the better ones on the platform.  But all I care about is how much fun I can have with a game, and fun is a fleeting commodity here.

It started good.  Really good in fact.  The game opens inside a haunted house.  This is your stereotypical amusement-park style ghost mansion, with all the clichés.    Piano playing itself?  Check.  Spooky shadows?  Check.  Lightning custom-designed to give me a seizure?  Grumble, check.  Baby carriage that rocks itself?  Check, and fucking creepy.  I wasn’t kidding about the amusement park feel of Demon House.  Considering that the enemies are all robotic devices, I kind of figured the concept here was supposed to be something like Westworld, where the animatronics had simply started to run amok.  That would be an interesting plot, but instead you’re dealing with a mad alchemist.  That’s lame, but at least the haunted house setting is.. oh.  Never mind, that’s only for the first half of the game.  The second half takes place in an utterly generic cathedral/catacombs place thingie that looks like it was lifted from Quake and/or any of a trillion Quake mods out there.  Good move Photonic Games.  I was almost interested for a bit.

The only thing Demon House: FPS had going for it that made it stand out was the legitimately creepy haunted house setting.  Once you’re removed from that and instead inserted into the boring, sterile, lifeless second act, the game becomes a chore.  Oddly enough, after about thirty minutes in that section, I was hoping the game would just end.  And then it did.  That was very kind of it.

It’s not THAT complex. I’m pretty sure enemies that stand back and shoot at you instead of charging at you has been around since I was at least old enough to ride the Haunted Mansion ride.

Let’s be clear here: I had fun with Demon House and it is going on the leaderboard.  I liked the opening act that much.  While playing it, I figured it could be a top-fifty game.  Despite dated gameplay, the shooting mechanics are fun, the enemy design is neat, and the floor layout with the multiple hidden nooks made this enjoyable.  And then you leave the house and suddenly you’re transported back to 1996, which is not where I wanted to be.  The placement of the game started to sink.  Not like a rock, which would have been quick and relatively painless.  It sinks more like a boat.  You know that scene in Titanic where they watch as the ship breaks apart and the lifeboats (some filled to half-capacity) look on in horror?  Yea, Demon House is the Titanic and you’re Kathy Bates watching on in horror.  Not me though.  I’m more like Kathy Bates from Misery, taking a sledge-hammer to the feet of Photonic Games.  Out of love of course.  🙂

Demon House: FPS was developed by Photonic Games

80 Microsoft Points DIDN’T GET OUT OF THE COCK-A-DOODIE CAR!!! in the making of this review.

Demon House is Chick Approved and ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard, although I’m sure that will be of little consolation to its now crippled developers.  


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Wiitirement

November 18, 2012 by 15 Comments

The Wii U is out. This means all that’s left for the original Wii is the typical third-party shovelware that a dead system gets once its successor hits. In the Wii’s case, this is known as the status quo. I’m kidding. Mostly. But this really does mark the end of the Wii’s life cycle, as no major first or third-party titles are left for the system. That makes this a fitting time to look back on a console that alienated hardcore gamers (even slobbering Nintendo fanboys) and ultimately collected more dust than your average Egyptian tomb. And yet, even as sales of the system slowed, it retires having outsold its rivals by nearly thirty-million consoles each, and will go down as one of the most profitable video game consoles in history. Take a bow, Wii. Don’t worry, I won’t wedgie you.

Wii was controversial from the moment its controller was unveiled. It looked silly, gimmicky, and went against everything thirty years worth of convention said gaming controllers should be. People thought Nintendo had lost their fucking minds. I did too, but in retrospect I’m not sure why. Nintendo popularized the D-pad, shoulder-buttons, the analog stick, and rumbling controllers. There have been missteps (Virtual Boy) but otherwise Nintendo tends to get these things right. Then the name came out. Wii. We’ve all heard the jokes and bad puns, which I’m obviously not above doing as indicated by the title of this piece. This irrational hatred all stems from the codename being Revolution, which people got attached to, with no consideration that the word “revolution” is practically taboo in large parts of the world.

And, of course, the Wii was vastly underpowered compared to other consoles of the generation. People moaned that they had only made slight adjustments to the Gamecube and nothing more. As if this is a new practice. The NES was, more or less, a re-purposed Atari 2600. Both consoles had very similar processors, but the NES had access to components and features that were price-prohibitive in 1976 when the Atari was being speced out. I’m not excusing Nintendo for excluding HD though. Then again, I’m not really admonishing them either. This is Nintendo we’re talking about, a company that had an irrational phobia of disc based things and internet connectivity. Do you know what Nintendo is? Nintendo is my father.  Impressed, or possibly obsessed, with “high-tech” inputs, but terrified of actual technological progress.

Punisher makers take note: your game can be difficult AND fun. Donkey Kong Returns proves that.

I’ll be honest: I’m not a fan of the system. It would rank a distant third for me among seventh-generation consoles. Fifth if you include the sublime Nintendo DS and the unsung workhorse that was the Sony PSP. But saying the Wii was the straggler of this generation is like making fun of a bench player on a Super Bowl Champion. This last generation was, and still is as long as the PS3 and Xbox 360 keep chugging along, the greatest generation in gaming history. So I don’t really care if the Wii was the dumping ground of shovelware and half-baked ideas. I wouldn’t really want to play third-party stuff on Wii anyway. I would rather play them on one of the other consoles, with all the bells and whistles those systems provided, instead of on the Wii with gimmicky controls.

Wii gave me what I wanted: high-quality first-party Nintendo games. That’s all I ever want out of a Nintendo console. Anyone who expected otherwise obviously has problems with pattern recognition. The Gamecube wasn’t exactly overflowing with third-party stuff that had a leg up on their PS2 or Xbox counterparts. The Nintendo 64 certainly didn’t. There might be a handful of exceptions, but the only reason any rational gamer would buy a Nintendo system is to play Nintendo games. And the Wii had more quality first-party stuff than previous consoles did. It’s not even close, in fact. So why the hate?

I got into an argument with a friend of mine over this. He felt Nintendo had abandoned “hardcore” fans. This is a very common argument among Nintendo fanboys. My short response: you’re wrong. My long response: you’re all stupid, entitled, butthurt idiots. And I can prove you’re wrong about Nintendo abandoning you. Again, the only reason to own a Nintendo console in this day and age is for the first-party exclusives. I know many of you cling to the era of the NES and SNES where Nintendo was king of the hill and had incredible third-party support. Sorry, but those days are long gone. They ceased to be in 1996 when Nintendo pissed off third-parties by keeping the cart format for the N64. There were almost 800 SNES games released in North America, versus around 250 Nintendo 64 games, and around 400 Gamecube games.

Then the Wii became an unprecedented hit. Nobody saw it coming. It also was cheap to produce games for and Nintendo was much more modest with licensing fees than they had been in previous generations.  Suddenly, Wii is being flooded with hastily produced, low-quality shovelware. This created a fogging effect that made the overall picture appear deluded. Then Nintendo decided to really experiment with things like Wii Fit and Link’s Crossbow Trainer, and suddenly Nintendo fans felt like they were being ignored in favor of gimmicky, mass-market oriented stuff.

Huh?

Quick question to Nintendo fans: how many original Zelda games were on Nintendo 64? Two, right? How many on Gamecube? Two again (three if you count Twilight Princess as a Gamecube game). And how many were on Wii? Um, two?

How many proper Mario games were on Nintendo 64? You had Super Mario 64 and.. um.. that’s it. On Gamecube, you had Mario Sunshine and that’s it. On Wii, you had Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and New Super Mario Bros.

Not all first-party games were worthwhile. Mario Kart 7, Mario Party 8, and Animal Crossing were pretty big steps backwards in my opinion.

How many Metroid games were there on Nintendo 64? Oh that’s right: NONE. How many were on Gamecube? Two. How many were on Wii? Two.

How many Punch-Out games were on Nintendo 64?  Zero. How many were on Gamecube? Zilch. How many were on Wii? One. One really good one.

And talking about over-using gimmicks: how many Donkey Kong Country games were on Gamecube? One, if you count Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, a 2D platformer where the controller was replaced by banging on a fucking BONGO to maneuver Donkey Kong. On the gimmicky Wii, you used standard controls.

There was a very good Paper Mario title, a decent 2D Wario Land title, two pretty good Kirby games, and a pretty good Fire Emblem title. And that’s just the franchised stuff. My friend also complained about the lack of original properties. I guess he missed Wii Sports (fuck all the haters, that game was fun), Endless Ocean, Fortune Street (making its North American debut), Big Brain Academy, the Art Style series on WiiWare, Sin & Punishment (and its Nintendo 64 predecessor that never made it stateside), and the way-overlooked Fluidity on WiiWare.

And for you fans of paying for the same shit you’ve already paid for once and played a million times, you had the Virtual Console, plus “Wii-makes” of previous generation stuff like Pikmin, Metroid Prime, Resident Evil 4, etc.

This is abandonment?

Look, I’m not going to deny that the Wii was a disappointment, but didn’t most of that stem from ambitious but ultimately shitty third-party games? Madworld, Conduit, Force Unleashed, and Epic Mickey spring to mind. But that ignores some really neat smaller titles, like Elebits or Boom Blox that were a lot of fun. While its true that my mind was never blown by anything third-party on the system, to say it was a wasteland of mediocrity is absurd.

I was quite fond of Zack & Wiki. It’s too bad nobody bought it.

Here’s one last thought on the Wii: if you were ten-years old, how much do you think you would like it? I’m guessing the answer is “a lot more than you would have at age 30.” Is it possible that your expectations were based on what Nintendo meant to you as a child? Because here’s a newsflash: your beloved NES and SNES were overflowing with garbage that you would absolutely detest if you had never played it and it was released today. I certainly would have liked Sonic and the Secret Rings a lot more if I was seven and the Wii had been my first machine, even though the game is not really that good. Just like how I loved Crash Bandicoot at that same age, a game I would loath if I played it today.

No, Nintendo didn’t abandon you, the hardcore gamer. They bent over backwards trying to appease you and keep you interested with the Wii. But Nintendo has competition that can’t be beaten: your own memories. The older you get, the more rosy those memories become, and the more insurmountable they become. So instead of bitching about gimmicks, power, or shovelware that you wouldn’t buy anyway, look at what Nintendo did for you with the Wii and tip your hat to them. Yea, my Wii sat unused for over a year before Skyward Sword showed up to disappoint me. Yea, I probably played it a small fraction as much as my other consoles. Yea, I would rather dive split-eagle on an electric fence than play 95% of the games on it. But despite being a strange, often clunky, underpowered piece of shit, it provided me with many hours of fun. I’ll miss it. You should too.

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Hostile Hustle

November 16, 2012 by 2 Comments

Hostile Hustle combines a Space Invaders clone with a climber.  Sounds like it should work, and maybe it can, but not the way its done here.  The problem is gaming has kind of evolved past the original, slow-as-constipated-shit Space Invaders formula.  That’s why recent titles in the franchise feature insane amounts of power-ups and move at the speed of lightning.  Hostile Hustle slows things back to a crawl, resulting in a title that is exhausting in its tedium.  Most innovations in gaming these days come from combining one type of game with another to create an unholy hybrid.  In this regard, combing a climber with Space Invaders is like combing a rain forest with napalm.  Well, not really I guess, because that would at least be fun to watch.

Here’s the basic setup: a wave of baddies takes formation.  As you shoot at them, they disappear and platforms spawn.  Jump up the platforms, more baddies appear.  Shoot them and more platforms appear.  Eventually, an exit will appear.  Some traps might pop up, like spikes, stun-lock lasers, air compressors, or spiky balls, but otherwise it’s just you, shooting, and more shooting.  30 levels, good luck having fun.

People out there wonder how other people can truly believe the Earth is only 4,000 years old. To which I say, look at how some people choose to ignore 30 years of gaming evolution in favor of recycling stale gameplay. It’s not that big a stretch.

Mechanically, Hostile Hustle mostly works.  The controls are adequate, but I spent most of the game wishing I had a double jump instead of the lame ass “push the enemies back and/or give yourself a seizure” wave thingie that happens when you press the A button mid-jump.  Never needed it once, thought it was the most worthless creation since the solar-powered toaster.  However, there are some design choices that are really mind bogglingly stupid, like having a bright-orange sun in the background.  Why is that annoying?  Because enemy projectiles are bright-orange fireballs.  It doesn’t seem like it was something done to make the game challenging either.  It just seems like a brain fart that made it all the way through production, which made me question whether anyone at Lethal Martini actually played their own fucking game.

Other hiccups include not having enough power-ups, and the ones you get not lasting long enough.  Sure, they might make the game too easy.  Quick survey though: who wants to play a game that is fun, fast-paced, and easy over a game that is slow, plodding, and only slightly less easy?  These are the choices you have to make, developers.  Remember, your goal is to give players a couple of hours of entertainment, not bore them into a coma.  Hostile Hustle’s lack of frills strikes me as done in that manner because that’s how games used to be.  Sure, because games used to be designed to rob you of money one-quarter at a time.  When your game is a one-time purchase of $1, your entire focus should be “make sure my game isn’t boring 99% of the time, so that anyone who plays it recommends it to others.”  Come on people, this shit should be self-explanatory.

After about 45 minutes, I wanted to throw the towel in with Hostile Hustle, but the only thing it was truly guilty of was being about as exciting as bread-flavored gum.  Then I fought the first boss, and once I picked apart all the little green blobs, the stage didn’t end.  Why?  Because some of the enemies were hanging out at the far left and right edges of the screen, not moving, not shakable with the silly solar-wave thingie.  There were also no platforms for which I could stand on to shoot them, because the level was designed by someone with no interest in actually playing the game, and thus I had to fall all the way to the bottom of the map just to be able to shoot the fuckers.

Hostile Hustle would have been way more interesting if it had been made up just of these types of fights. There’s only two, and one ended with my system crashing.

At this point, I had the excuse I needed to quit Hostile Hustle, because it had officially crossed the line from being bland to being bad.  Like an idiot, I pressed on because I held out hope that something could be salvaged from this piece of shit.  But no, just 14 more levels of agony followed by another shitty boss fight.  The only changes being more traps and seemingly shorter levels.  By level 25, I was seriously contemplating whether I wanted to play a game ever again, but there’s only five levels left, and how much worse could it get?  Then I beat the final boss, and the game promptly crashed.  Of course it did.  So nearly 90 minutes of my life burned to see the infamous Code 4 ending.  Do I recommend Hostile Hustle?  I would sooner recommend you drink an actual Lethal Martini.

Hostile Hustle was developed by Lethal Martini Games

80 Microsoft Points noted that hemlock taste just like parsley juice in the making of this review.

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Entropy (Second Chance with the Chick)

November 15, 2012 by 2 Comments

Entropy was part of the third Indie Games Uprising.  Like other members belonging to the second week of the event, it was one of the weaker games.  Graphically, it was head-and-shoulders above the rest, but the gameplay was clunky and boring.  The developers, even knowing that I wasn’t likely to upgrade the status of their creation to Chick Approved, still asked me to play around with it some more today to show the progress they’ve made.  Guess what?  They were right.  The game is improved, but my personal seal of quality is out of reach.

I would make a Jerry Lee Lewis joke, but there’s nothing great about Entropy. Not even the balls of fire.

Before going any further, you should probably check out my write-up on Entropy.  So what’s changed?  Well, thankfully I didn’t offer up my immortal soul for the ability to pick up the balls.  The guys at Autotivity Games added such a feature in.  It’s not perfect by any means.  In fact, the learning curve for it is almost as steep as figuring out the best way to slowly push the balls around using your body.  It’s still a step in the right direction, even if they got a little dog doo on their shoes.  They also cut out some of the more tedious bits in the opening section of the game.  Again, smart move.

Thankfully there’s no cake joke.

Sadly, the choppy frame-rate is not only still intact, but it’s actually a bit skippier.  So now when you chase around the little pink ball of light designed to point you in the right direction to go, you might not even see where it’s going.  One step forward in dog poo, one step backwards into a bear trap.  It sucks because Entropy really did go all out with clever puzzles and beautiful scenery, but the biggest problem still remains: Entropy is boring.  I’m not encouraging the guys at Autotivity to call it quits.  But they need to stop mending this snoozer and start work on something that can capture people’s imaginations.  Start by giving it a name less depressing.  What is the opposite of Entropy?  I don’t know.  Euphoric Kangaroos Dancing the Polka?  Feel free to steal that one.  It has to be good enough to sell at least 100 copies.

Entropy was developed by Autotivity Games

80 Microsoft Points said “more like Entropoohey” in the making of this review.

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Ninja Crash

November 13, 2012 by 5 Comments

Note: this review originally said that Ninja Crash was 80MSP.  The actual price is 240MSP. Sorry for the mistake.

Being lazy, I prefer to sum up the Xbox Live Indie Game market by saying a game is just XBLIG’s version of an existing game.  It saves a lot of time.  So I can say Gateways is XBLIG’s version of Portal.  Doom & Destiny is XBLIG’s version of Final Fantasy.  Sushi Castle is XBLIG’s version of Binding of Isaac.  It’s easy!  Frees up my time to watch reruns of House with my boyfriend.

Today’s game is Ninja Crash, which I’ll call XBLIG’s version of Balloon Fight.  Which was Nintendo’s version of Joust.  Which was Williams’ version of mixing tequila and LSD and translating it to a video game.  To be perfectly honest, I never played Joust.  I’ve played Balloon Fight, because I got it for my birthday on Animal Crossing.  Played it for about fifteen minutes, thought it was okay, wish my gift had been bamboo flooring for my house instead.  Haven’t really thought much of it since.  Well, now it’s back as an XBLIG, only with more features, modern graphics, and somewhat shoddier gameplay.

I’ve shown this game to five people and they all said “wow, looks like Smash Bros.!” And then they see it in motion and are like “oh, it’s Balloon Fight.” And then they make a sad face.

One of the reasons why I never got into Balloon Fight was the slow, plodding controls combined with the unforgiving inertia that seemed designed to inspire new curse words being invented.  Sadly for me, those controls are faithfully recreated here.  It’s not that the game controls like shit.  It controls just like the 1984 Nintendo game it was inspired by.  My problem is, gaming has come far in the last 28 years.  All that progress is ignored in Ninja Crash.  Maybe that’s what fans of the original want.  When I tweeted that I was playing a Balloon Fight clone, I had several people do the Dance of Joy and demand that I release the name of the game I was playing to them.  Guess what?  I’m sure they’ll love it.

I didn’t though.  I might have, if their attempts at improving the formula didn’t fail.  But they did.  Here’s a common problem they tried to fix: enemies hanging out near the ceiling.  Happened in Balloon Fight.  As I just learned, happened in Joust too.  Unlike a lot of attempts at improving games, this is a real thing that did require improvement, so I applaud them for giving it a try.  It just didn’t work.  When you or enemies hover too close to the ceiling, a finger comes down from the sky and pushes you back towards the ground.  And I’ll be damned if it’s not the most annoying thing in gaming since Baby Mario’s cry in Yoshi’s Island.  It also pushes the enemies down, often right into you.  I appreciate the effort, but wouldn’t a better idea have been to line the ceiling with barbed wire or something?  Hell, they actually did do that in later levels, and it worked.  The finger thing is like trying to stop people from speeding by putting a brick wall up every five feet.

The other big problem is popping guys doesn’t result in their death.  It didn’t in Balloon Fight either, but at least if they landed on the ground, you had a few seconds to kick them off the edge before they inflated another balloon and took off.  You don’t even have a full second in Ninja Crash.  Once a dude lands, they immediately begin inflating a new balloon and take to the skies before you can even collect yourself.  And unlike Balloon Fight, simply touching them while they’re grounded does not defeat them.  You have to land on them again.  Because you don’t so much control your character as you do aim him and hope for the best, this feature serves to multiply the frustration factor.  Granted, they did make it so if you pop a dude and he falls too great a distance before hitting the floor, he dies (or crashes, if you will), but I almost never did kill a dude that way.  I either had to pop them above the water or hope like hell I could pop them close enough to land that I could double-tap them.  What was so wrong with the way it was done in Balloon Fight?

The screenshots don’t do the game justice. It does look really good in motion.  Oh, and see those spears in the corner?  They kill you.

Team Devil Games had their heart in the right place with Ninja Crash, and some additions to the formula (environmental hazards, weapons) are a welcome change of pace.  But every step forward is followedby a bigger step backwards.  Ninja Crash has an audience out there that will enjoy its take on the classic Joust formula, but I didn’t like it at all and I can’t recommend it.  I also didn’t get a chance to give this a try in competitive four-player mode.  Sorry Team Devil Games, but you did sort of release right in the middle of the holiday gaming season.  Trying to tear my friends away from Borderlands 2, Halo 4, or Black Ops 2 is an act of futility not seen since the time I watched Brian attempt to break the world record for most live bees fit into a mouth.

Ninja Crash was developed by Team Devil Games

240 Microsoft Points said this game is further proof the judges of Dream-Build-Play don’t actually play video games in the making of this review.

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Frobisher Says!

November 12, 2012 by 4 Comments

Yeesh. You pick on one free-yet-crappy PlayStation Vita game and suddenly people talk to you like you like you just put a seal puppy inside a microwave. I kind of see their point. I’ve always vehemently disagreed with the assertion that games should get a break because they only cost $1. Frobisher Says! is free, so for the first time ever, I have to admit that I really shouldn’t be able to complain too much about it. But this review isn’t really about the value of a game. It’s more like a “I called WarioWare the best game ever and now I have to explain why WarioWare-like games suck” type of deal. Probably not exciting for the rest of you.

Frobisher Says! is a free PSN title for Vita that plays like that platform’s version of WarioWare: Touched! Remember how that one made use exclusively of the touch screen and microphone for its games? Yea, well Frobisher Says is mostly about showing off the random bells and whistles of the Vita. Sure, unlike Touched! it uses the face and shoulder buttons as well, but it can’t shake the feeling of being a glorified tech-demo. Those have a place in gaming, but the Vita already has a pretty decent one (Little Deviants, which has experienced multiple price-drops since it launched). So while my description of it as “putridly awful” wasn’t fully accurate, its not very good. Or good at all.

I do admire the artwork, which reminded me of Sesame Street. But the gameplay is devoid of sunny days.

One of the biggest reasons for that is the game is driven by scoring, yet it seems to be based too much on luck. In one stage, you’re a dude who has to swim to an island with a beach, using the triggers. Sounds like a perfectly acceptable minigame, and it would be if it wasn’t just totally random. But sometimes the island will be right by the starting position, and sometimes it will be somewhere off-screen. Maybe up, maybe down. You score based on how fast you complete a game, yet you have 15 seconds to finish the game whether the island is right next to you or whether it’s on the other side of the world. It’s totally up to the whims of fate whether or not you can get a high score, and that’s the one thing a game based on high scores should never do.

Or how about games that use the camera? There’s a few, and they range from harmless to horrid. The best one is a game where you have to follow a bird around your room with the camera, like a dumbed-down version of UFO on Tape for iPhone. At least that one works. Not so workable is one that asks you to find an object of a specific color. “Find something green!” Oh well that’s easy, my table-cloth is green. I said my table-cloth is green. HELLO FUCKING CAMERA!! IS THIS NOT GREEN? Fine. I have an empty lime-flavored energy drink bottle that is bright green. Here you go. Yo! Vita camera? You awake? I know you’re a cheap piece of shit and it’s shocking Sony would have included something so outdated in their new technology-pushing handheld, but you should be able to tell this is green! You can’t? Seriously? Fine. Here’s an Xbox 360 case. Oh, that got it, huh? But time is up and I score no points. Why you prick.

Come to think of it, it’s actually kind of funny that a game like this, designed to showcase the bells and whistles of the Vita, actually proves that’s its kind of a piece of shit in many ways. Back down, Sony fanboys. I still love my Vita, but that doesn’t mean I give it a treat when it pisses on the carpet. The rear-touch panel seemed like a good idea, but I’ve been cross with it since it ruined Touch My Katamari on launch day and we haven’t been on speaking terms since. I’m actually curious who at Sony thought this would work. When I play a handheld (especially a bulky one with a ginormous screen like the Vita), I rest my fingers on the back of the unit. I honestly don’t know who wouldn’t, except maybe people missing the top knuckles on their fingers, the poor bastards. It’s caused me annoyance in a few games, and I don’t seem to have the dexterity to use it properly when a game wants me to do something on both the front and rear touch panels. In Frobisher Says! it wants you to squash people wearing hats by pinching them on the Vita. I had trouble lining them up right. But that one might just be on me, so instead I’ll complain about how the back scratching minigame felt really fickle and unresponsive.

This game uses the rear-touch panel for no reason, and the whole “sneak stealthily past the alligator-man bit” didn’t work all that well because it seemed to look back at you in random intervals.

Again, I kind of feel like the school bully, picking on the cross-eyed freckled kid with the coke-bottle glasses and the bad lisp here. Frobisher Says! is free, and according to most gamers, that entitles it to a free pass. Never mind that they actually do try to sell you on an expansion pack for the game. It’s art and it’s free, so it should be given a break. No. If someone knocks on my door and offers me a free cup of malaria-laced cola, I’m not going to drink it. Frobisher Says! is a bad game. Yea, it’s quirky and has a neat graphics style, but that’s not what made WarioWare work. The games were playable and logical. The stuff in Frobisher either suffer from handling problems, mechanic problems, or just aren’t any fun. There’s not one piece of this game that is worth playing. It’s free for a reason: because it sucks and they knew it. There could have been a good game in here if some of the games were fair, but even if you get past all the technical issues, the scoring style and randomness kill it dead. Cathy Says: this game is junk.

Frobisher Says was developed by Honeyslug

No Money was spent in the making of this review. This is why I don’t play too many free games. Because otherwise I would be able to use this line to talk about the minigame that required you to say the character’s name, only it doesn’t matter if you actually say its name or not. Any words or noise will do. That why I called Frobisher “Ace Yumberfuck.” When it asked me to say his name in Spanish, it was “El-Ace Yumberfuck.” Classy!

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Slick (Second Chance with the Chick)

November 9, 2012 by 4 Comments

It’s been a while since I did one of these.  I really wish developers would take me up on the Second Chance with the Chick offer more often.  I know a lot of games I bust on here get patched up later, but developers are gun-shy about having me “go after” their games again.  Even if Second Chances are typically lighter and focus on the changes to the game, with less emphasis on smacking games down.  Or sometimes they patch the game and expect me to just Second Chance it on my own.  I don’t keep track of what games have been patched (XboxIndies.com has a sidebar that lets you know what games have been updated).  It’s up to developers to let me know.  And then just wait while I drag my feet to write the review.  Speaking of which, hi there Halcyon Softworks!  I didn’t forget you!

We’re in Hell already?

I reviewed Slick, a punisher with Game Boy-like visuals back in July and I hated it because I felt it was too brutal.  People say I have a bias against punishers, and I say “guilty as charged.”  I don’t understand the appeal in them.  I don’t understand why they keep getting made, especially when they consistently sell like shit on XBLIG (only 2 out of the top 100 best-selling XBLIGs are punishers).  The market as a whole doesn’t want them.  They’ll earn you fans among a very small niche of “retro” gamers, and they might even earn you fans among the development community if they are well designed and bear and uncanny resemblance to vintage games of yesteryear.  But if you are capable of doing a very well made, yet overly difficult platformer, you should be capable of making a game that everyone can enjoy.  Who knows?  It might even sell in greater numbers.

I think everyone agrees that the Apple Jack games are the pinnacle of design among punishers on XBLIG.  I don’t even like them, but I tip my hat to them for audio-visual design, play control, and charm.  Especially the sequel.  Among the closed-off XBLIG community, they’re highly regarded.  But when you get down to the cold, hard facts, the original Apple Jack isn’t one of the top 300 selling games.  Apple Jack 2 isn’t even in the top 900.  Mind you, Apple Jack 2 made the rounds on mainstream gaming sites, including full reviews at IGN and Kotaku.  And it’s already been passed on the top seller list by such recent fare as Lucky.  Fans of the game don’t understand it.  Hell, I don’t even totally understand it, but I’ll make a guess: punishers don’t lend themselves to word-of-mouth sales.  I’m guessing not many people say “this game is damn near impossible to play and makes me feel like an inadequate twat.  GO BUY IT!”

Where was I?

Slick.  So in my original review, I did a step-by-step diagram of why one of the stages didn’t work so well.  The game asked for perfect precision from players, while dealing with shaky controls and insanely unfair collision detection.  The guys behind it have tightened these issues up.  Collision detection more closely resembles the outlines of the enemies, and controls seem to be tightened, but that might be a perception thing.  I still don’t like the level design, or the art style.  Then again, I never owned an original Game Boy, so this does nothing to tickle my nostalgia rib.  I do actively question why anyone would do a Game Boyish game these days.  With the possible exception of Donkey Kong (aka Donkey Kong ’94), most of the games on that platform have aged with the grace and dignity of an unembalmed corpse.

Slick is either pretty or Joan Rivers-esq grotesque, depending on how old you are.

Slick really is no better or worse than your average hateful platform.  With the corrections made to it, Slick can now stand on its own and be reviewed on the merit of level design.  In that regard, it’s a total bastard that hates you and all things sunny and innocent.  If this is what you’re looking for in a game, you’ll enjoy it.  It’s not what I’m looking for, so I didn’t.  Hopefully the skilled dudes at Halcyon Softworks can apply their talent towards something with more mass-market appeal next time.  You guys proved you can blow up a bullfrog with a firecracker.  Now show me you can take that frog and make delicious frog legs with it.

Slick was developed by Halcyon Softworks

80 Microsoft points actually hate frog legs in the making of this review.

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Alien Siege

November 8, 2012 by 2 Comments

Alien Siege is a clone of the 1980 Atari classic Missile Command, a game that predates my birth by almost a decade.  Yet, it’s one of those rare games from that time frame that I can actually enjoy today.  It’s frantic, scoring driven, and a lot of fun.  And that’s coming from someone who never has had the privilege of playing a proper game of it using the trackball.  I’ve played lots of clones of iconic arcade classics on XBLIG, and most of them are honestly not that good.  Alien Siege is one of those rare exceptions.  It’s a lot of fun!  No, really!  What, I can’t enjoy knock-offs of ancient games just because I’m me?  Hey, I can if they don’t suck.

My latest XBLIG review or the Republican reaction to the recent election?

So what can you do with a modern take on a classic game that appeals to fans of the original while appeasing people of my generation that don’t give two squirts about nostalgia?  Well, improving the formula is a good place to start.  Alien Siege does that, by giving you upgrade points you can spend to improve the launch speed of your rockets, the firing rate of them, or to improve your gun.  Instead of just intercepting missiles, you also have to fire on UFOs and meteors.  Missiles don’t work on them, so you have to split your time between intercepting enemy missiles with one button and fighting everything else with another button.  It sounds like it would be too much to juggle, and it is.  But in a good, old-time arcadey way.

There’s even a co-op mode, and I had enough fun playing it by myself that I actually wanted to play it as more than an afterthought.  Now sure, I could use Brian.  He’s 29 and thus the right age to have played something similar to this as a kid.  But Brian was one of those odd kids who never owned a console and played outside like a savage.  What I need to test this thing is someone old enough to have played the original but decrepit enough that they’ll barely remember it.

Ohhhhh Dadddddddyyyyyyy!!

Thirty Minutes Later

Ugh, so here’s where things like my killjoy label come from.  Daddy thought it was okay, but liked the original better because of the trackball.  Seems to be a common theme.  I showed this to the oldest, most GET OFF MY LAWNish gamer I know, and he responded with “no shoes, no shirt, no track ball, no service.”  Exact quote, which I think was a joke, but it also shows that games like this start with more ground to make up.  It seems almost unfair that something that’s mostly well made, like Alien Siege, could be the victim of its own legacy.  But it happens.  For the record, it controls better than any console version of Missile Command I’ve seen, but that won’t be enough to win over your average geriatric gamer.

And I’m not giving Alien Siege a free pass either.  No online scoreboards, bad sound design, mediocre graphics, and backgrounds that often unintentionally hide missiles.  Check out this screen:

Notice how the color of the missiles matches the color of the mountains.  Annoying?  Oh yea.  But that’s the only major complaint that have, because all the other stuff takes a backseat to gameplay.  Alien Siege is a lot of fun, and worth your time and money.  It’s a great example of taking something old and making it new and fresh again.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go hit Craigslist and find a vintage Missile Command coin-op for my Daddy.  It’s either that or super glue his mouth shut.

Alien Siege was developed by Lost World Creations

80 Microsoft Points want to know why aliens were firing ICBMs at cities.  They’re fucking ALIENS!!  Shouldn’t they have better technology?  I know they had to stick with the theme, but the guys at Lost World Creations should have come up with something else and I’ll shut up now in the making of this review. 

Alien Siege is Chick Approved and ranks pretty high on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.  Perhaps the developers should cue up some Myra before checking it.

No trailer, no game footage.  Sorry 🙁

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My Favorite Games Ever – Part 6: WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!

November 8, 2012 by 17 Comments

This is it. This is the finale. And call me crazy, but I believe the greatest video game I’ve ever played is..

WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!

Age I was: 14

Last attempt at playing it: Today

Would I ever play it again: Yes

I thought the idea behind WarioWare sounded dumb. A bunch of one-button “micro-games” that last between 1 to 3 seconds? Utter hogwash. So credit due to Nintendo for one of the most genius uses of “gotcha” marketing in history. You see, back in 2003 Nintendo was struggling to convince gamers to buy third-party titles on its platform instead of just their own first party stuff. My oh my, how times have changed! To try to combat this, Nintendo created their first (and I think only real) demo disc, which was distributed at major retailers. It contained demos of such third-party fare Sonic Adventure DX, Splinter Cell, Viewtiful Joe, Billy Hatcher, and Soul Caliber 2. Good choices, mostly. Sonic Adventure could officially go fuck itself, but I ended up getting all the other games.

But, that’s not why I remember that disc. I’ll remember it because if you hooked your Game Boy Advance to the Gamecube while this disc was going, you could snag a full copy of Dr. Mario (which disappeared as soon as you turned off your GBA) or a demo of WarioWare. By this point, it had been released already. I had heard EGM call it “digital crack” and saw it get 9s from IGN and Gamespot. I also heard it described as “weird”, and at age 14, weird wasn’t on my radar. But hey, free is free! And besides, this would give me a chance to see just how much I would hate it.

An hour later, I was on my way to Best Buy to buy it.

WarioWare is the best game ever made. It strips gaming to its most pure mechanics (one button, directional pad, and high scores) and then weaponizes the addictive potential of what little gameplay is left. It tests a player’s reflexes, concentration, and likelihood of one day landing a stay in the Betty Ford Clinic (Update: years after this was wrote, I ended up in the Betty Ford Clinic! SEE!). Each one of the 200 “microgames” are designed to ruin your life, and they are well designed indeed. Games have “owned” me to a heavier degree, but I never actually liked any of those games as much as this. I’ll take the month I couldn’t put WarioWare down over the almost year I completely threw away on World of Warcraft.

I still haven’t heard a satisfactory explanation for why the boss of 9-Volt’s stage (themed around classic Nintendo games) is a fucking batting cage. Yes, I know Nintendo once did an electromagnetic baseball game. That’s a shitty explanation. It still doesn’t fit the theme or the mood. Jesus Christ, Nintendo! You guys could fuck up a cup of coffee.

Sometimes it’s okay for a game to challenge just yourself. I dread to think how damn addictive WarioWare could have been if I was challenging online leaderboards. When I dusted off my old GBA copy (eschewing the digital copy I got for free because I pissed away money on a launch-window 3DS), I went to check my old scores against the world records. Couldn’t do it, because Twin Galaxies is off to check for gummy substances and their site is on hiatus. It’s just as well, because otherwise I would probably end up clearing my schedule for the month. Who has time for work and eating and boyfriends and shit when you have immortality in the form of a moderately obscure gaming record?

You’ll notice that WarioWare is the one and only game I listed in my all-time gaming top 10 that I say is still worth playing today. There’s more than one reason for that. In all honesty, I would probably have a tough time arguing against stuff like Portal, Red Dead Redemption, or Super Mario Galaxy as the greatest game ever, especially against something as bizarre as WarioWare. But what’s the difference between those games and this one? No actual end, for one thing. A lot of people have chastised me for saying I don’t want to give Banjo or GoldenEye or Shadow of the Colossus another chance, even after I’ve said that I’ve gotten everything possible out of them. It’s like someone saying you waste the cow you just butchered if you don’t eat the eyeballs and suck the marrow out of the bone. But not all games carry the burden of being something that can be finished. Not all games require the type of time investment the nine epics that preceded WarioWare in this feature need. That’s why I’m cool with playing Bejeweled over Final Fantasy VII today. One game requires five minutes of my time while I wait for Jack in the Box to finish my Sourdough Jack. The other requires 70 hours spent at home in front of my TV, time that I could use to play something brand new that still has a chance at surprising me. For those of you who can’t understand why I choose not to play it again, I don’t know how else to articulate it.

That’s what I love about WarioWare. It’s something I can play for 15 minutes, potentially beat a high score in that time frame, put down for a month, and get back to without missing a beat. Let’s put this in perspective: while researching this feature, I went through all the WarioWare games again. For the original game, I shattered my record for Dribble’s stage that had stood for 8 years, going from an 84 to a 90. It’s probably not even that good of a score (though a quick check of this thread at GameFAQs shows I fucking own most of the scores on here and am quite possibly the best WarioWare player ever. Who needs to know how to throw a Dragon Punch when you can play WarioWare?) but I’m proud.

I don’t care to hear where the inspiration for some of the games came from. I can leave it up to my imagination.

Nearly ten years later and WarioWare can still wreck my day. I went to play it for a few minutes, just to see how it feels today. Hours later, with my eyes hurting and my fingers starting to cramp, I did the only sensible thing someone who is highly capable of physically overdosing on a game could do: waited for the battery on my old GBA to die, switched the game to the Game Boy Player on my TV, and kept going. Five-and-a-half hours spent busting scores and zoning out while listening to the catchy tunes and enjoying the trippy visuals. I will never play another game like WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! Prove me wrong, developers.

But let’s not kid ourselves: even Nintendo can’t prove me wrong. They’ve put out a half-dozen spin-offs and sequels and they range from meh-able to absolutely fucking horrid. Since I just went through them, I really want to talk about them.

Mega Party Games: Can’t really comment too much on this one because I didn’t have the required three friends. However, I’ll say that it’s pretty lazy of Nintendo to do straight-ports of all 200 games, even cropping the screen to accommodate them. Why you lazy fucks!

Touched: The Nintendo DS game was the first sequel to hit stateside (Twisted came out first in Japan) and it started the trend of Nintendo using the franchise as a glorified tech-demo for whatever new system their shilling. The problem here is the games were created to emphasize the touch screen capabilities instead of being fun. Plus, not all the games are suited for a series that’s hook is accelerating gameplay. Some of the games (especially Ashley’s) are fucking impossible once the game gets whipping. I’m not being a smart ass there. I mean they literally cannot be beaten. You neither have enough time nor can the system keep up with it. Touched isn’t totally abysmal, but it’s nowhere near the original’s league. And it only got worse from there.

Mike’s stage was just stpuid. One stage requires you to make no noise at all. I find any game that can be mastered by leaving it alone in another room is not a very well made game.

Twisted: Ugh. For some reason, Twisted is held in esteem for being quirky. Well, do you know what else was quirky? The first WarioWare. All future quirkiness from the series is thus redundant. Instead, Twisted relies on a gyroscopic sensor. So did another rightfully forgotten piece of shit, Yoshi Topsy-Turvy. The game has mucho problems with centering, accuracy, and playability. Ultimately, I don’t want to play a game that doesn’t want me to look at the screen. Maybe it’s just me. MetaCritic would have me believe that, because not one person came out and said “this really isn’t very fun.” I obviously didn’t spend a lot of time with it. I beat Super Wario’s stage just once, and my latest shitty score of a 6 on Crygor’s stage was good enough to make my leaderboard. Well, I just did play through it again and I didn’t miss anything.

Smooth Moves: One of the biggest disappointments of my gaming lifetime, yet another game that was inexplicably showered with critical praise. I read a lot of it and I wondered if they played the same game as me. The game they played seemed to do what they wanted it to do. The game I played was broken. As in, it didn’t work. I’ll give you some examples: in Ashley’s stage, one of the games requires you to drop the controller and let it sway from the wrist strap. About half the time I played that stage, I lost because the game didn’t recognize the motion. Even though the only thing the game required you to do was LET GO OF THE CONTROLLER! What the hell, Wiimote? Are you in a fucking coma?

The biggest problem, besides the fact that the famous lightning-speed of the franchise is crippled by the constant shifting of handling positions, is how the motions the game needs don’t match up with the motions it would seem you should use. The motions you would use to swing a bat or operate a crank in Wii Land differ greatly from reality. Part of the problem is the Wiimote wasn’t ready to handle this kind of gameplay at this point of in its lifetime. If they had waited for the Wii Motion Plus, it might have worked. But Nintendo had to get out their latest tech demo and further stomp out the legacy of the original and there is no time like the present. Fuck this game rotten.

Most of the games that required you to “push” something at the screen leaned towards the broken side.

Snapped: Yea! Another shitty, obvious rush-job tech demo! One that uses some of the shittiest hardware Nintendo has done in the last ten years, and that’s really saying something. The DSi camera is so low-resolution that time travelers from the 1960s would laugh at it, but Nintendo decided to go with that instead of charging players an extra $10 and include a camera that you wouldn’t be ashamed to use. But even if they were using space-age technology, WarioWare Snapped is just plain shitty. Let’s start with the total games: 20. That’s 10% of the total games found on the Game Boy Advance. Not that I was expecting a lot from a $5 digital download, but really you’re paying for a glorified expansion for Touched that strips as much core gameplay out of the franchise as possible. You have to sit the DSi on a table to play, stay perfectly still between rounds so that the game doesn’t have a sulk, and the camera can’t recognize you more than half the time anyway! No speed-ups either, or high scores, or boss stages, or fun. The worse game in the series? Nah, that would be Smooth Moves on account of it costing $50, not working, and sucking. Snapped only costs $5, doesn’t work, and sucks. By my math, that makes it suck only 10% as much as Smooth Moves.

DIY: I can’t really say this one sucks, but it certainly wasn’t for me. User-created content and level-editing tools have never been among my favorite features. I loved Little Big Planet, but I am not interested at all in making my own stages, nor am I all that interested in playing the shitty user-made content that is boring and unfinished 90% of the time. I wasn’t really impressed with any of the user content for WarioWare DIY, which mostly looked like stuff drawn in MS Paint. Yea, it’s better than I could do, but that doesn’t make it worth playing. The professional Microgames done by Nintendo are also among the worst the series has, which makes me think this started as a normal game before Nintendo fired the whole staff and decided to let gamers finish it themselves.

Everyone has tried to make their own WarioWare. Sony just put out one on the Vita, the putridly awful Frobisher Says. There’s also been Work Time Fun, the most artificially quirky pile of shit ever. Ha, it’s called “WTF” get it? Hilarious! Funny enough, the best WarioWare Wannabe is on XBLIG:  Minigame Marathon. It’s not perfect, but it actually plays well and more or less “gets it” when it comes to what made WarioWare work. It’s actually better than any of the official Nintendo sequels, and for only $1.

You know what? I don’t expect anything further from this series. Assuming they make any more. The next title, Game & Wario, is dumping microgames in favor of being a mascot-driven version of Wii Play. And it looks fucking horrible. But it doesn’t matter. I have the perfect version of WarioWare already, and it’s still fun to play today. I doubt anyone else in the whole wide world will agree with me, but I think the best game ever made is WarioWare Inc.: Mega Microgame$. Do you know what else? I can’t wait for a game to come along and dethrone it.

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My Ten Favorite Games Ever – Part 5: Portal

November 4, 2012 by 10 Comments

You’ve made it this far.  I’ve gushed over basketball and dudes with enormous swords.  Or enormous enemies and moogles mingling with Donald Duck.  I shed tears reminiscing about the good old days with Goldeneye, and had a glow about me while describing the miracle of Red Dead Redemption.  I talked about my childhood favorite, and a game that made me feel like a child again.  Eight games that shaped my gaming life.  From a technical standpoint, they might not be considered the best games, but they are the games I had the most fun with.  And now it’s time to move to my two favorite games ever.  Games that I’ve gushed about so much that I have to split this into two parts for no explicable reason.  How very Peter Jackson of me.

How do I define what makes a game one of the best ever made?  Superior graphics?  Intelligent level design?  Originality?  Those all factor in, but ultimately, these are the two games that I had the most fun with.  That’s what gaming is about.  Entertainment.  And these are the two games that I personally had the most fun playing.  So when someone asks me “what is the best game ever made?” it should be one of these final two titles.  Starting with..

Portal

Age I was: 18

Last attempt at playing it: A year later when Still Alive was released on XBLA.

Would I ever play it again: No.  Yes, I know there’s a huge modding community doing new Portal stages.  I’m not really into user-created content.  I quite enjoy the Little Big Planet games, but I’m not a big fan of the user-content.  It’s 90% garbage, and not worth the effort of finding the “good stuff” that typically isn’t as good as the real levels.

About halfway through Portal, I came to two realizations.  Number one: I was playing something that will remain special to me for the rest of my life.  Number two: there are going to be so many knock-offs and clones of it that it will render the game retroactively obnoxious.  I was right on both accounts.  I don’t blame Portal for being a landmark game by any means.  I blame developers (indie or otherwise) for allowing it to stunt their growth the way it has.  I’m personally going to stomp a beautiful flower every time I see any variation of “the cake is a lie” joke from here on out.  I mean, really people?  That’s what you took away from Portal?  Not the superb level design?  The amazing hook?  The originality?  The sense of awe?

A lot of gaming culture’s less than charming quirks are beyond my understanding.  The obsession with the cake bit in Portal goes further than that, where I feel the only way I could ever grasp it is by pulling a Mason and taking a power drill to my brain.  Even more annoying is how many people think they are capable of making their own variation of the cake thing funny.  Stop it!  It’s not funny!  You killed the gag years ago and all you’re doing now is desecrating its corpse.  Here’s a thought: come up with your own gag.  Maybe it will be funny and you’ll get to be the one watching in horror as people get in line to run it into the ground.

Honestly, I didn’t find the cake or the companion cube bits funny at all. So of course that’s what people still use in increasingly unfunny jokes to this day.

But I’m not going to let those douchebags spoil my memories of Portal.  You know what?  They can’t, no matter how hard they try.  The really funny part about the whole situation is how much they missed the point of why Portal is special to so many people.  Portal probably shouldn’t have been has good as it is, but the game self-corrected every possible problem that could come up.  The sterile environment should have sucked the energy out the experience.  Solution?  The maniacal, monotone GLaDOS and her increasingly dark running commentary gave players a reason to want to continue.  But GLaDOS by herself wouldn’t have been as iconic.  What tied it together and made it work was the juxtaposition.  It was the polar opposite of the highly structured, professionally scientific setting.  If Portal had a more “trapped against your will” feel to it, like the Saw movies for example, it would be funny but not pantheon of gaming humor funny.  Don’t believe me?  That’s too bad, because Valve themselves proved I’m right with Portal 2.  When removed from the professional test-chamber setting, and with your character unquestionably being tortured for giggles instead of science, GLaDOS is still funny but nowhere near on the same level.

And what about the puzzles?  If there’s just one thing I’ve learned since starting Indie Gamer Chick, it’s that people really dislike it when you hate on Sonic the Hedgehog.  But if there’s two things I’ve learned, it’s that Sonic hate is off-limits and people really aren’t drawn to puzzle games.  Even ones that get high levels of acclaim are tough sells.  What makes Portal different?  At first I figured it was the first-person-shooter thing.  Having a shooter, no matter what kind of shooting is involved, lures in people who otherwise couldn’t identify their own name out of a lineup.  But I don’t think it’s the gun thing.  No, it’s the fact that it doesn’t feel like a puzzle game.  Even if there is only one solution to a room, Portal gives players an artificial sense of freedom.  That, and it doesn’t feel like you’re being given an exam.  Instead, fun is the focus of Portal.  Portal’s Xbox Live Indie Game counterpart Gateways has that feel to it, where fun sometimes is pushed the background in favor of testing a player.  You don’t need to do that, and Portal is the proof.

Yes, like everyone else, I’ve thought about what I would personally do with a Portal gun. The best I could come up with is teleporting a dog across the room and giggling at its befuddled reaction. It’s the sci-fi version of a laser pointer on the floor. Hey, you have to be able to enjoy the simple things in life, like confusing a lower species for your own personal amusement.

Portal is greater than the sum of its parts.  Games have been funnier.  They’ve been smarter.  They’ve made better use of their concepts.  But no game has ever done all the of the above as well.  And just when you think they’ve run out of ideas and things are going to get stale, it’s over.  Has there ever been a better use of brevity in a game?  The quick ending that left you wanting more while still feeling wholly satisfying was the final nudge that pushed Portal past the realm of excellence and into the realm of legends.

But let’s not kid ourselves: Like all the best games, Portal was lightning in a bottle.  Portal 2 was good.  Very good.  One of the best games of this entire generation.  Funny, clever, intelligent, and memorable.  It even avoided overstaying its welcome, which I figured could be a problem.  Portal just barely scraped the three-hour mark.  Portal 2 hung around two to three times longer, but never felt padded.  So why isn’t it as special as the original?  It goes beyond the puzzles being inferior (which they mostly are, quite frankly), or the hook no longer being as awe-inspiring.  Portal felt like a game that was made to see if they could take the concept and make it work.  Portal 2 ultimately felt like a game that was made because it had to be made.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  I’m a business person.  I get it.  I’ll be first in line to get any more sequels that they have to make to, you know, eat and pay the bills and shit.  And I’ll expect continued excellence from the series.  But that once in a lifetime sense of wonder that the first one produced can’t be recreated.  I’m certain more games in the future will stimulate similar reactions in me, but it won’t ever come from a Portal game again.

Continue to the Final Part: WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!

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