G-pinions

Wow, it's been a damn week since I updated this thing. Longest stretch ever, I'm guessing. Anyhow, I'm happy report that I've recently spent a good amount of time actually playing games, rather than just writing and reading about them. The gaming season somehow seems even busier than the fall, since I'm still trying to catch up as new stuff comes out. But damn if there isn't a lot of great stuff to play.

Starting with the most recent fix, Tom and I are already a good ten hours into Champions: Return to Arms. As you might recall, Tom and I played through the original (Norrath) twice soon after starting this site, and it's still one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. So I'm not really sure what else to say about the sequel, since it's pretty much exactly the same thing. Almost literally. There are two new character types, some different environments, and a very inconsequential good/evil theme tacked on - even the NPCs are the same, which is just weird. Most of the interface flaws are still there too, such as not being able to move things around in your inventory. So, with all that said, it's still a pretty great game. For anyone who hasn't played the first one, they'll certainly marvel at the hypnotically simple gameplay, great graphics, constant feeling of reward, and sometimes obscene difficulty curve. For us, we're just playing it because we're addicted to the series, apparently. You're always carrying an item you're a few levels away from being able to use, and you're always just around the corner from the next mostly cool environment/boss. It's incredibly motivating. Perhaps the best thing yet is how we approached the apparently infamous stealth level when we got to it yesterday. You're supposed to sneak past all these insanely powerful wizard man-rats in this massive cave, but, c'mon, fuck that. We have no patience for that in an Action/RPG, so we did what any archer woman and her man-tiger would do - lure them away one by one, poison them with arrows, and beat them while they're down. Besides dying from one hit a handful of times, and having to teleport out to safety every five minutes, it was a blast. Trying to pull that stealth crap on us...oh, and we fought a boss named "Threshold the Feeble". Not even Scott can appreciate that.

I also picked up Taiko Drum Master last week, finally succumbing to the sickeningly adorable box art (and finding a great deal on it). Like all things, it must be compared directly to Donkey Konga. Namco made both games, and therefore their interfaces and gameplay are nearly identical. Their respective peripherals both have their problems - DK's bongos don't exactly feel too wonderful or flexible under your hands, and the clap detector isn't always listening; it results in a game that can feel inaccurate and sometimes out of your control, which isn't fun. The problem with TKM's drum is two-fold - there is a rather large dead zone in the middle of the drum, forcing you to always stay near the outer edges, and the drum isn't nearly sensitive enough, as you have to make every hit full force if you want to make sure it registers. The thing that makes Taiko superior in my mind, seeing as the rest of the problems are pretty similar, is the song list. It's a huge part of any rhythm game, obviously, and DK's mostly lame pop songs and nursery rhymes didn't cut it for me. Taiko's songs are really varied, with some good pop songs, great classical songs, and a couple of songs every game ever should have (namely Katamari on the Rocks).

Oh, I finally played the Rise of the Kasai demo too. Mark of Kri is one of my favorite games ever - awesome art design, gore in just the right instances, and thrilling sneaky assassination gameplay = awesome - so I've had high hopes for a sequel. It kind of sucks, a lot, that they pulled the online co-op from the game, especially since having another character with you does add to the gameplay. The computer isn't exactly the most intelligent on the planet, what with not helping me out in some key battles, but having Rau run alongside you on the rooftops is pretty badass. I played as his sexy sister Tati, who I feel dirty about ogling since she was a little girl in the last game. All the stealth kills are still badass and satisfying, but the combat system, while still unique, lacks the dynamicness (not a word) it had three years ago. In the era of Ninja Gaiden, Otogi, and say, Resident Evil 4, a lot is expected of enemy encounters in an action game. Maybe I just forgot the intricacies of Kri's battle system, if there are any, but the combat wasn't as fun as I remembered. I guess that's good in that it encourages me to stay sneaky, but bad in that, well, you know. Still, the art design is as good as ever, especially the insanely cool Sumi-styled intro and cutscenes, and as long as it's polished a bit before release I'm sure it can live up to it's predecessor.

Man, lots of games. Last one, for now, is Mercenaries. Pandemic are on such a fucking roll, I wouldn't be surprised if Destroy All Humans! was a GOTY candidate. Mercenaries is simply a very fun, very entertaining game. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and it knows that it's existence is based solely on the understanding that people like blowing things up. Yes, the GTA comparison are apt in that it's a fairly openly structured game, but it plays a lot differently. The freeform, sandbox, playground thing comes into play mostly during the missions - driving around and messing with things on your own time is fun, but gets old pretty quickly. On missions though, you have a ton of different approaches at your disposal, easily eclipsing any game before it in that regard. The physics represent a near-perfect balance of realism and fun, to the point where blowing up a pile of boxes with a grenade is worth going out of your way for. There are a couple very minor issues, such as only being able to board vehicles from one side (tough when you're trying to toss a captured general into an extraction helicopter while you're taking fire from a tank and a dozen North Koreans), and once in a while getting caught up behind a nigh-destructible tree or fence, but for the most part they don't affect gameplay. The game looks gorgeous too; the soft-lighting touch of Prince of Persia has thankfully not lost it's appeal to developers, and makes every jeep explosion-flung body look that much sweeter. It's just a really fun, VERY polished game, and certainly worth your time in all this craziness.