Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Darksiders wrap up, MGS4 moment

Looks like my last post was about Darksiders. I finished that up and am about ready to start in with Little Big Planet. I've heard that it's a great game to play co-op, so I got another controller today so I can play it with my wife. Did some searching and found it for $20 off. So there you go.

I guess I didn't technically finish Darksiders. I got 2/3 of the way through the last temple/area/whatever. I enjoyed my time with it, but some of the puzzles or sequences seemed needlessly tedious. I really hated walking through sand, trying not to disturb the sand worm. It was one of those parts that I wasn't enjoying, so I hurried through. Which led to lots of frustrating deaths since you really need to take your time with it. I remember some of the same thing in Mirror's Edge. But what made me send it back was the scale room. There are three huge platforms hanging from chains in a room. The scales move in some nonsensical way when you move blocks onto them in order to get up to the top. Even following an FAQ which told me exactly what to do I still had trouble. And when I had to backtrack and manipulate the scales again for something else I quit. I think there were a few bosses left between me and redemption or something, but the story wasn't really the best part of the game, so I didn't feel bad about calling it quits and moving on.

I had mentioned that Darksiders borrowed a lot from Zelda. It also took inspiration from various other games, but the most surprising one was Portal. Ya, towards the end you get a portal gun. Very weird for a game of this type. You shoot orange and blue portals on sections of the wall and ceiling to get around.

I'm still enjoying Zelda: Spirit Tracks on the DS when I'm on the go and have been putting in a few hours here and there with Metal Gear Solid 4. Both are great, and I'll try to dedicate a post to one or both later. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the fantastic throwback in MGS4. At the beginning of Act 4 you're headed back to Shadow Moses Island and you're thrown in to Playstation One graphics. You play the entire level this way. It takes a bit to get used to the slightly different controls, but they're similar enough to what you've been doing to get it. When you get inside the building it switches to Snake on a helicopter as it transitions again to crisp graphics. "I had that dream again!" he says as he wakes up and shakes his head. Fantastic. I didn't even play that original game, but I've never seen a better homage. You win Kojima. You win.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Zelda what?


So I got a little game called Darksiders. Largely based on the Giant Bomb guys' discussion of it on their podcast. They kept saying how blatant it was that Zelda was a big influence on it. A grown-up, darker take on it, if you will. You're a dude with a sword and you go around on quests. Sweet, I thought. Well, the opening sequence was about as far from Zelda as you could get. It's one of those scenes where you're thrown into a big battle fully powered up and kicking ass. You don't know all the button combinations for everything yet, but you don't really need to since you're kicking so much ass. Also, there are winged angel-demon dudes and people running in terror on a big crowded city street. It was in your face God of War style combos in a setting from Prototype. Zelda, what!?

But soon you're stripped of all this power and you're just a dude with a sword who has to go on a quest to save the world. There are a bunch of heaven/hell angel/demon things going on. Also, lots of macho guy-types with insanely deep voices. So throw in a bit of Gears of War, I guess.

But a funny thing happened about half an hour in. I started to really enjoy myself. I guess it's following the standard Zelda pattern of "there are 4 temples, you need to conquer the beasts in each one before you can go to the central...place." Also, you have what are basically heart containers as your health bar. So Zelda, it's not, but I'm gonna keep playing it and see where it goes.