30 Days of Gaming: Day 06

Most Annoying Video Game Character

So many possibilities to choose from yet I find myself falling to a more recent character to grace our screens, and that is Oerba Dia Vanille of Final Fantasy XIII. With pig tails, a short skirt and supposedly the body of a nineteen year old wrapping up a personality that is overly cheerful and happy are left with a woman-child filled with pep. I wouldn’t put it against you if you took her for a child with the way she looks and acting like a naïve and stupid little child. When I played Final Fantasy X and X-2 I figured there was no way that Square-Enix would be able to top Rikku for sheer hyped up retardedness but boy did they blow that expectation out of the water.

That isn’t even the main thing that earns Vanille my pick as most annoying video game character however. More than anything it is her voice which argh, I just want to smash her pretty little empty head in with a brick every time she opens her mouth. The tones, the pitch, the words themselves could be considered a kind of torture in some countries. Imagine Navi from the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and the annoying pitch of her squealing “listen” but then times that by a bazillion because this girl never shuts the hell up. I have no idea who made the decision on that piece of casting but seriously, how could they think it was a good idea?

If you have yet to experience the delightful tones (yes that is scathing sarcasm there) of Oerba Dia Vanille and are thinking it can’t possibly be that bad then I dare you to watch the video below. To anyone who has endured a single word from this girl-thing you may want to avoid the video like the plague... Unless you consider yourself quite the masochist then go for it I guess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trw-MtFbUXQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMgGAxG64z4&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBrHWgg522U&feature=player_embedded

30 Days of Gaming: Day 05

Video Game Character You Feel You Are Most Like

From the first moments of contact with GLaDOS in the halls of Aperature Science there was just something about the character that echoed within me. Playing through Portal 2 further cemented the feeling and I came to think that everything with her just clicked so well because maybe she and I aren’t so different. How does one even begin to compare themselves to a robotic A.I. of a videogame though? Well I mean besides the metal plates and bundle of wires in my guts… Ok, so I’m not really like that but how cool would it be to be all cyborg-like and maybe have a few lasers attached? I mean, lasers can be practical in so many situations.

So I may not have a cool metal body like GLaDOS but the mind is way more important anyway. Biting wit and sarcasm just come to me and I love to verbally spar with others or play with words. When I played World of Warcraft I’d talk with my fellow guild mates on Ventrilo and after a while it came up a few times that I just oozed sarcasm to the point where they were finding it hard to tell when I was being serious. My sense of humour is odd to say the least, and anything GLaDOS has had to say has that level of humour in its very fiber. I don’t necessarily set out to be cruel on purpose but some comments do head down that dark path.

My dead-pan delivery and lack of displaying any other emotion in most situations throws things off as well. I guess that makes me seem more cold and uncaring than what I actually am. It is probably to my own detriment that I’m like this, and at times I don’t even realise I’m being like this. So, thinking and writing about this has kind of got me down now so I’m just going to stop there.

30 Days of Gaming: Day 04

Your Guilty Pleasure Video Game

NUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Ok, so my impression of powering up is lousy since I wouldn't even know where to begin in spelling out such a primitive sound but that is what we have the cast of Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3 here for. Just like the manga and anime that spawned it we have here a game filled with an excessive shouting, copious grunting and people (as well as aliens) beating the absolute snot out of one another.

Whilst the television show was ridiculous in its slow pacing and episodes spent on nothing more than watching the same reused fight sequence over and over, or worse still the endless staring at each other while we scream at one another, there was something that about it that was hypnotic. Each day we’d come back to tune in to see the next piece of the epically drawn out fights and finally when one combatant would make a move we’d cheer or boo as it hits home. Each attack was filled with gusto and the counter attack would be bigger than the last as it was a race to spectacularly top the opponent. Watching a character then bust out some super transformation which powers them to stupidly higher levels was just the icing on the cake.

And as we watched on who didn’t feel a little part of them wishing they could bust out such stupidly crazy moves? Unfortunately we live in reality where people don’t fly or shoot laser beams from their eyes but what we do have is video games! I guess being able to take part in all those memorable fights and pull out the fancy moves is what really drew me to Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3. The fighting engine itself may be basic by the standards of Street Fighter, Guilty Gear and so on but it was packed full of those characters we loved and their flashy moves of doom. Well maybe calling it basic was a bit of a stretch as it threw in some nifty things like the teleport counter which could end up in massive counter war, ki deflection and beam struggles, and editable skill sets for fighter customisation.

My god they really were flashy with this game. 3D graphics were melded with cel-shading techniques to capture the feeling of the cartoon and with the shading and light techniques those big bangs and explosions came to life in a brilliant flash. That characters carried their respective voices over just went to further make this like an interactive cartoon. It then accommodated further by including a story mode that started from the very beginning of Dragon Ball Z and took you kicking, punching and screaming right through to the end, fight by fight.

Really, these Dragon Ball Z games are like a fans wet dream. Just give into your inner tough guy, shout a bit and then settle in for some mindless beat-em up! Some times you don’t want to have to sit there and count frames whilst remembering long winded combos. Simple can work too and it may but silly but it’s Dragon Ball Z, biatches! If you need me I’ll be over on my lounge there proving that Vegeta would beat Goku any day of the week. I wonder if any of the newest Dragon Ball Z games are any good…

30 Days of Gaming: Day 03

A Video Game That Is Underrated

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines for the PC was released back in 2004. To be honest, I really struggled to think up a game that could be considered underrated by my standard and I'm not totally convinced this title does it either. I guess that maybe that means that I play mostly excellent games in most cases since one didn't immediately jump to mind for this..

On Metacritic, an aggregate rating website, Vampire: The Masquerade sits at a very commendable 80% rating and at the time of review it received its fair share of praise from critics for the right reasons in areas it excelled but to quote IGN's own review it was "a grand RPG, but a flawed gem of a game."

Where it comes in underrated for me I guess is with the everyone else part. Sure, there are people out there who can hold it up in the light and pay it great words like quite a few of the journalist and critic did but it seems that to the main contingent of the public it just got shuffled off into a dark, dank sewer. I can quite understand why it would though and will openly admit that the game had bugs a plenty to rear their ugly head. In the rush to push the game out it was clear corners were cut and the bugs did leave quite a mess through the sour underbelly of the L.A. night. That rush also left the last third of the game with quite some pacing issues and combat took to more of the foreground with the battle filled wind up to the conclusion. Now that might not have been such a problem if the battle system wasn't as clumsy and so undercooked to make it a chore which was only exacerbated further by the dumb as a doorknob A.I. found in opponents.

Really, I truly can see how all that would turn off any gamer but if given the chance it deserves I am sure the positives that really shine can be the game's redemption. What Vampire: The Masquerade does right it it does so of such a brilliant calibre. Then dirty, dangerous nights of L.A. have never been so enticing thanks to an incredibly moody, gritty and mature construction of the setting. This is in no small part helped by the diverse and quite unique cast of characters who stalk the late nights, and provide many a memorable lines and moments.

They are all part of the bigger picture, the story that drives the player through the game and keeps you submerged in a world that you could only have imagined. This is no B-grade Hollywood horror movie but a brutal and terrifying look into a society hidden in plain sight. Relatively undetected for thousands of years they have walked amongst humans, shared the night, and taken great length to keep their secrecy. This is a society that is well built with structure, rules and a hierarchy, and the Vampire: The Masquerade pulls you in as a fresh set of eyes and introduces you piece by piece into this horrific world which it isn't afraid to let you sink your teeth into.

How you go about it is let quite openly to you however as the game offers a plethora of choice and consequences. It wouldn't be much of a role-playing game if it didn't but even the simplest or smallest of tasks can take on a far greater weight than one first saw.

One of the most basic necessities of a vampire can prove to be a massive undertaking on moral choice and ultimate consequences. That is of course feeding, the consumption blood to keep a vampire alive as well as heal and power the supernatural abilities at their disposal. Your creation isn't limited to drinking from just humans as blood banks are available to make black market purchases from or one could turn to the four-legged, squeaking blood sacks that is a rat. Overcoming the task on deciding which source to draw upon for sustenance isn't the only matter as if going human there is then the matter of being in control of just how much to take from the victim. One could take just enough to keep themselves growing or instead you could drain them absolutely dry, leaving a trail of cooling corpses in your wake.

If that is the great ordeal of choice and consequence in just the most basic of gameplay then imagine what you come across as you make your way through the seedy streets of L.A. and the events unfolding. As a up and coming fledging to the vampire world you are thrust into a plot of intrigue and power plays that have you being dragged right into the middle. Your choices and actions will matter but at times you are just hoping that you survive the night. To be then able to go and do it all again just to see what different choices make would add to its re-playability enough but the choices of varied clans to make your character can shift things even more so and open up larger opportunities. This is especially true for the Nosferatu and Malkavian clans who offer up incredibly unique perspectives or ways of playing as the former is a vampire of true horror who must stick to the shadows whilst the latter is utterly insane, a curse of their bloodline that provides a view of the world like no other and opens up totally loony dialogue of just their own and a strange insight into many things.

Ultimately what Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines does is immersion. It can drag you kicking and screaming into its dark, twisted world but if given a proper chance you may just find yourself sliding into it so completely without even noticing thanks to its sinister allure. Yes, the bugs and lukewarm combat do their best to ruin the mood but if you can just overlook that and give the game a proper chance I think that anyone could be surprised by what goes bump in the night.

30 Days of Gaming: Day 02

Your Favourite Video Game Character

The Nameless One, main protagonist of a game that is very well in the running for my favourite of all time, Planescape: Torment. Everyone out there has their own pick for favourite character and there would as many choice by people as there is for the reasons that they make those choices. The Nameless One isn't handsome or dashing, and when you get down to it he isn't acting all heroic to save the world from yet another big, bad evil. What he is though is a character filled with incredible depth and complexity which are qualities that I have always held with high regard. To me the Nameless One is a character you just cannot forget even if you were to try which is a rather odd choice of words given the circumstance.

Talking about who and what the Nameless One is opens up a world of spoilers for Planescape: Torment, and when I say that I mean it in a bigger way than with most games. You have been warned, and I really am serious about it.

The Nameless One is immortal but such a power has not come without a cost. With each death the Nameless One succumb to so too did the memories of that life die with him, and thus each time he rose back to life he truly did start again. If that weren't enough it also became apparent that the Nameless One's personality often changed with each death. One life alone is already complex enough but to peel back a layer of the Nameless One is to find a near infinite realm of possibilities stretching before you to explore. Thousands of lives lived, a myriad of experiences the likes of which no one could ever dream to see. There is no way for us to ever know the extent, the full depth to this man's past and story though maybe that is where part of the captivation about his character comes from. Imagination can run wild and fill in the vast history that we are never shown but the glimpses that are placed before us go to great lengths in shaping the Nameless One, even if he may not remember them himself.

What we are left with as the game begins is a Nameless One who is still as immortal but no longer losing his memories with each death. Everything that came before is still a mystery but the man left behind is a stand out in his own right. A battle scarred body carries a burden of pain and suffering but hardened from it the Nameless One strives forward with an unshakable determination to uncover his past, who he is. A man driven with purpose can be unstoppable and the Nameless One has not just his immortality as a means to that end. Powerful in his own skills, abilities and prowess the Nameless One is a fearsome foe on the battlefield.

Ultimately though we come to the first, the man whose name has long been lost but is the most important of them all. The original man is the pivotal nexus, and the centre of what was, what is, and what was to come. I simply cannot bring myself to spoil this yet he is such a defining piece to the man that became the Nameless One and one of the final nails that hammer home why I simply cannot overlook him as my favourite character. I cannot, will not, say any more than that and will instead leave you with a final thought which features heavily throughout Planescape: Torment.

"What can change the nature of a man?"

30 Days of Gaming: Day 01

Your First Video Game

My first video game from way back when was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the Nintendo Entertainment System- cowabunga says it all dudes and dudettes.

My introduction to gaming began in 1991 at the wee age of six years old. For Christmas that year I found a Nintendo Entertainment System under the tree which included the classic Super Mario Bros. with Duck Hunt combo, along side it I’d also been given Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles whose cartoon I absolutely loved. Since Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was in its own box I set my hands on that actual game first and thus it earns the place as my very first video game.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was primarily a platformer with the earlier levels having an overworld map to navigate between areas. The mighty foursome would see you crawling through sewers, climbing buildings and fighting your way through dams, the city, airports and eventually the Technodrome which was the stronghold of Shredder, the turtles' nemesis. It all began with reporter friend, April O'Neil, being kidnapped and the turtles setting off to rescue her. Like all good villains, if a plan fails once then you go back and just do it again as next their master, Splinter, is kidnapped from their hideout. With everyone rescued they eventually look to taking the fight straight to Shredder's doorstep. All in all it is a totally expected plot and not too exciting but we're ninja so who cares? Well, that and what kind of 6 year old expects a plot?

The platforming action was average at best and many of the enemies you were tangling with left you scratching your head and wondering just what they had to do with series. A few familiar faces like the Mousers and bumbling duo, Rocksteady and Bebop, showed up but robot men with flying heads, weird jumping bugs, and some people made of fire? I must have missed the episode that they all appeared in. Not only were they strange choices but at times they were put in some of the most annoying places, and on top of that they respawned like a bunch of horny bunnies whenever you moved off screen.

A six year old however could overlook that as he was rocking along with his favourite mutant heroes. Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo were all there and along for the ride with the player able to switch between each turtle as they pleased. Each packed their signature weapon and therefore had differing ranges and strike pattern to their attacks. There were additional power-up weapons you could find in levels such as shuriken and boomerangs (wut?) and some ever loved pizza could give back some life when a turtle copped a bit of a beating. Any turtle who lost all their life bar didn't die but was actually capture by the Foot Clan and in later levels could even be rescued to return them back to the party which was incredibly handy.

And let me say that you needed all the help you could get. In all my years I have still never finished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. As a kid it was a stretch with the absurdity in the numbers of enemies at some points and the precision jumps in the sewer at one point whilst under assault meaning a dunk in the water was doom. Speaking of water, the second level saw the turtles diving into the river to disarm a bunch of bombs that were threatening to blow up the dam. The tight corridors of the underwater are a hell hole as not only are there timed electric zappers blocking the maze of paths but many spots are lined with what can only be called electric grass that simply touching causes a buzz and loss of precious life. Oh, did I mention that you are on a time limit to disarm all these bombs? Yeah, panic plus electrified stuff everywhere meant a lot of fried turtle.

Despite all this I absolutely loved the game because it was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Even to this very day it still holds a weird, little place in my heart because of all those memories from my childhood. With it still stashed away in the gaming backlog that is The List I will someday conqueror this, my very first video game.

The List: Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure Targeted

Thanks to fellow MyIGNer chilidogg I now have my next videogame to play from The List. I asked for a little help in trying to decide on what videogame to play next since I am quite overwhelmed for choice and he just threw in a completely random number with no idea what it actually was. I kinda liked the idea of a random number so I went with it and looked up The List to see just what I was getting into but thankfully I ended up with this...



Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure is a strange mix of action-adventure platforming and puzzle gaming rolled into one bundle. Developed by EA Tiburon and published by EA Games in 2009 we join Henry Hatsworth, British adventurer, as he sets off on a mission to find the "Golden Suit" which would grant him control over the Puzzle Realm and the treasure that can be found there.

I remember reading about this game before its release and thinking it was a really nifty thing they were attempting to do by combining two different games into one cohesive whole. The Nintendo DS with its dual screens plays into this perfectly as the action and side scrolling platforming takes places up top whilst the puzzle field takes the bottom screen. The platforming is what you have come to expect and Henry Hatsworth is armed with trusty blade and gun shots to take down enemies.

Defeating enemies adds them as a block to puzzle field below and any enemy puzzle block that reaches the top screen pops the enemy back into the game world. Stopping the enemies from respawning is a matter of lining up blocks of a like in a line of three or more by swapping them around in a similar vein to Puzzle Quest, Bejeweled or Puzzle League.

All I can remember is that I suck at those kinds of puzzle games so with a bit of pressure thrown in I am terrible. The puzzle board also holds importance besides the fact that it permanently wipes out enemies though. Special tiles can be used to restore health or provide other power boosts to Henry Hatsworth and each tile removed also adds to his Super Meter which can be in turn used up to eventually unleash mecha Robot Suit hell upon the enemies. For those who are exceptionally good at this kind of puzzle game they can benefit greatly for putting in some time with it.

I imagine there is a bit more to it all but it has been a while since I lasted played it. No idea where I am up to exactly either but I remember enough to know I knocked over some levels and possibly a few worlds. Guess I'll find out when I get home so long as I can find the game cart. Should be fun if not for the simple fact that well, just look at him; bowlers hat, monocle, moustache, drinks tea and has a sword! What is not to like about Henry Hatsworth?