Games You Should Play - 10/20/09

It's been a very busy time in The Marc household, with moving and starting a new job and working my butt off at my old job to train my replacements. I haven't really had that much free time to blog. However, I figured since I posted my Brutal Legend review, that I would enlighten all of you with a brand new "Games You Should Play."

Games You Should Play - Amplitude

Amplitude is to Rock Band/Guitar Hero as Medal of Honor is to Call of Duty. Both are precursors to the biggest games out there. If you have played Rock Band Unplugged on the PSP, you have played Amplitude. Amplitude is actually the sequel to the game Frequency...but much much better. It's kind of hard to explain exactly what it is or how it plays, but once you play it and start to learn it it is not that hard. It's actually easier if I explain how Rock Band Unplugged works. Basically, you play the whole band, all four instruments, and you have to keep them going all at the same time. But...you don't have to play them all at the same time. You have to keep them going by hitting a whole bunch of notes in a row for a defined section, then that track (drum, guitar, bass, solo) plays automatically and you can move on to the next track. Repeat for all the tracks and by the time you have all 4 going at once (if you are good) the first one you did should be back to hitting the notes. You have to be pretty quick and be able to keep a rhythm to succeed at this game.



In order to know where Rock band and Guitar Hero get their roots, you should play this game for that reason alone. The multiplayer stinks (it is definitely NOT a party game) and you cant even play online anymore if you wanted to as they shut the servers down years ago. The difficulty ramps up about as well as the RB/GH games, and Brutal is seriously, seriously, hard. But if you put the time and effort into memorizing everything, it should be easier. What really kills this game, is the song list. Good songs, don't get me wrong, but only 26 songs makes for a game where there is not much variety. There's a decent variety to the tracks, but only 26 songs makes for a game where you can hear about every song in an hour. There are no MEGA HUGE AWESOME songs either. In fact, most of it is stuff you've never heard of. Don't get me wrong, the game is still fun. You should definitely play it.

Games You Should Play - 9/17/09

Yes, I know. I'm sorry, it's been a while since I last posted a Games You Should Play. Let's just say my life has gotten pretty nuts the last 2 weeks and I haven't had much time to do much of anything. And both my 360s died when I was about 75% through Batman, and about to get Shadow Complex. Yeah, and my 360s are the least of my problems right now. Anyway, moving on.

Games You Should Play - Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure Edition

I can hear the rumblings already. How can you put a game on here that's only been out for like, 5 months? I'll tell you why, NOBODY IS BUYING THIS GAME. It hasn't sold like my previous most recent Games You Should Play game, Mirror's Edge, despite it having a worthy story and excellent gameplay. It's got an 83% rating on MetaCritic, yet there are barely any sales figures on this game because well, according to VGChartz it has only sold about 30k in the US. That's THIRTY THOUSAND. For the only blend of platforming and puzzles the DS has ever seen! (And no, Puzzle Quest is a blend of RPG and puzzles).

Well to stop my ranting, I will tell you why this game is awesome. First off, it's insanely British, which I love. The graphics are very crisp and clean, and the controls are spot-on (see, British humour! Hah!). How the game works, basically, is that on the top screen you control Henry Hatsworth through his adventure, but on the bottom screen there is a Puzzle League style puzzle game going on. Now when you defeat guys on the top, they don't go away, you also have to make them go away in the puzzle too. Ingenious! There's your standard power ups and stuff, but you can get items in the puzzle to help you in your adventure, and you can use the puzzle to also beef up grenades, boomerangs and your trusty gun while the projectile is in mid-air.

Here is the first level in action:


So what's the downfall, you say?

It's hard. Not Ninja Gaiden hard, but definitely frustrating at points. Now, whereas I did manage to beat the game, believe you me it wasn't easy. But it was so good I was DETERMINED to slay the game. The levels are all very long, and seemed kind of stretched out. Some levels have sections where you just have to fight a whole bunch of predetermined enemies, and it seemed like a lame mini-boss type area, and those parts get repetitive fast. Many levels also seem very similar as well, making some of them feel like a chore to get through.

The story is pretty good too, with a nice twist at the end. It's completely ridiculous, but a lot of fun nonetheless.

Please give it a shot. You can snag it for only $18.99 at Amazon these days and is definitely worth it at that price.

Games You Should Play - 8/25/09

Games You Should Play - Power Stone 2

So when I pick the games I'm going to do for this weekly installment here at Gamerology, I try to pick a game that has fallen by the wayside or games that people may have avoided for whatever reason. But, in going with the name of the column, you should play these games. Let's recap real quick what games I have chosen and why you SHOULD play then, and why you shouldn't.

Mirror's Edge

Good: Incredible sense of motion and speed for a first-person view. Smooth controls.

Bad: Terrible story. Real bad.

XIII

Good: Fantastic comic-book graphical style. Good voice acting, amazing soundtrack.

Bad: Terrible AI, lame overdone story. Controls are lousy.

Ok, now I'm going to to keep this database updated everytime I write one of these articles, in case you are new or want to see what I've written about in the past. But, they will be at the END of each article, not the beginning. This column is still a work in progress, but I think soon enough I will have finalized the format.

Anywho, on to this weeks game: Power Stone 2 (Dreamcast)

Now, I'm just talking about the DREAMCAST version of this game, not the arcade or PSP version that is on the Power Stone Collection (the load times are horrendous on that).

Ah, Power Stone 2. Just talking about it makes me want to bust out my Dreamcast and play it again. It is, one of the first, if not first 4-player simultaneous fighting games to ever be released. It is a fully 3D fighting game, where you can run to any point at any time (not like Tekken or Soul Calibur where you can only sidestep or dodge in 3d). Not only that, but the level design is excellent as well and they have multiple levels within the level! One level starts you fighting on a flying airship, only to break apart and then have you freefall down to another part of the level. Another level has an Indiana Jones style giant ball chasing you. The levels are also extremely interactive. Some levels have turrets or other things you can use as weapons. There are also tons of items around that you can pick up and use as a weapon. The sheer insanity of what is going on when 4 players are playing at once is awesome.

Check this video out to see a FULL playthrough of almost all the levels you see in the game:


You can also combine weapons you pick up with other weapons or items, and make NEW weapons which you can use! Where could this game go wrong?

Well, the characters are incredibly lame. The character design in this game is not really good at all, and there is no differentiation really except for the big guys (who move a little slower and can use a pole as a weapon) and the superpowers you get when you collect three gems. Otherwise, each character is basically the same. The stages, which are a HUGE part of the game and awesome in their own right....welll there are only 5 of them. And 2 boss stages. For a game where the level design is so good, the repetitive nature of the stages gets boring after a while. There is no story, well, there kind of is. You are trapped in this magical castle and you have to escape. There are no "endings" like other video games. You have no attachment to the characters. I know, stories and fighting games are usually kind of lame but at least they HAVE one and they HAVE endings that make you want to play with each character so you can see the ending. This game doesn't have that.

But don't let my negativity fool you, you SHOULD ABSOLUTELY play this game and then wonder to yourself, why haven't they released this on the XBox Live Arcade, or made a new one in GORGEOUS HD graphics? I ask myself those questions quite often.

Games You Should Play - 8/16/09

Games You Should Play - XIII

XIII is the first cel-shaded FPS in gaming history. The graphical style is excellent and is one of the two reasons you should play this game. The soundtrack/voice overs is the other. The game has a very unique style because of the cel-shading, and actually looks like a comic book. However, the plot, AI and control all suck. Bad. For me, if a FPS cannot control like I want it to control, I don't even bother. There are plenty of other games out there I could play instead that can control exctly how I like (Halo, Bioshock and Call of Duty spring to mind). The gameplay is standard FPS, but becuase the AI is so unbalanced, sometimes they won't hit you from 5 feet away but hit you dead on from 50 feet away. The plot is your basic amnesiac who can't remember he is a secret agent plot (basically a Bourne Identity rip off). However, there is good in this game.

Check out the fantastic graphical style of this game. The comic book action words ("POW", "BAM", etc.) and the panels within the game. This was one of the first games to do that. At the 4:00 minute mark is a cool example of how this game was at its best.

Check out a sample of the soundtrack here.

It's a funk-electro fusion and it is outstanding. I managed to score the soundtrack CD and used to listen to it all the time. It really stands out on its own. The voice acting is also very good, with a good David Duchovny (not like his Area 51 bullshit performance), Eve, Adam West and the supporting voices were also excellent.

It's worth a play, and can be had for under 10 bucks on Xbox, PS2 and PC. I recommend the PC or Xbox versions. It's also based on a French graphic novel, and there's a miniseries movie too, starring Stephen Dorff (it suckssssssss so bad).

Next week: Power Stone 2

Games You Should Play - 8/6/09

Here's a new weekly feature I plan to start, well, this week. I have entitled it:

"Games You Should Play"

It doesn't necessarily mean these are the greatest games of all time. I realize that everyone has different tastes, what I am trying to do is pick a game that does something so well (even one small part) and give it a place to shine. Even if overall the game is crappy, it might be a game worth playing. This is something Gamerankings and Metacritic won't tell you. I'm also going to try and find you games that everyone else already hasn't called "underrated" or "overlooked."

Games You Should Play - Mirror's Edge

Mirror's Edge is one of the first games where I actually felt a sense of motion in a First-Person view. Unfortunately, it's an amazing technical achievement stuck in a game with a crappy fighting system and an even worse story. But you should play it because it not only controls so smoothly, but because it's a first-person game in which you are SUPPOSED to run and jump and move like you never have before. The sense of motion you get is amazing when you are jumping from ledge to ledge doing parkour stunts. You don't even really have to play the game. Just play the demo and you will see how incredible it is.

The story does absolutely nothing to suck you in as it has one of the dumbest plots in video game history and fails to keep the game interesting. There have been many games I have played through because the story was interesting but the gameplay was not. But then again, this is a game done by a bunch of good developers, in DICE (or now EA Digital Illusions CE) who also do the Battlefield games. Battlefield:Bad Company being their only game previously that really had a storyline. Therefore, these guys don't have much experience in the story department.

Mirror's Edge can be picked up for about $19.99 these days, which isn't a bad price. Even still, I recommend the demo that can be downloaded on either the Xbox 360 or the Playstation 3, as it's a fantastic representation of the game.

Coming next week: XIII