OMGsoCUTE!!

Little Big Planet seemed to be THE game to get a Playstation 3 for when it came out. The graphics, of course, were stunning. But it really showcases the connectivity of the box as well. Since I didn't play it until a year and a half after its release I had the fun of downloading and installing for almost 30 minutes before I could even play.

It's basically a different company's take on Mario. I'm sure it's much more than that, but I kept coming back to that feeling. Where Mario games have bright happy colors and simplistic levels, this has realistic graphics and sometimes somewhat dark story lines. It's not all run and jump. There are several "ride in this type of vehicle" segments that break up the familiar platforming. The hero's nature is really taken to heart. Your Sack Boy looks to be made of a tiny stuffed burlap sack and the physics keep reinforcing that. You can clutch onto soft materials or get catapulted across the level and land without a scratch like, well, a rag doll. You quickly start collecting costumes and accessories to make your sack person your very own. And this was the part that hooked my wife.

I went out and bought a second controller hoping that she'd play along with me. I had history on my side here, since she played through all of New Super Mario Bros. Wii with me. A similar thing happened here in that I was quickly banned from playing without her since she didn't want to miss out on collecting any of the OMGsoCUTE costume parts. The level progression and gradual sense of completion appealed to me where the collecting and cuteness appealed to her. After we were deep into this I asked if she wanted to jump in to NSMB Wii again, but I think the choice of Luigi/blue/yellow Toad just couldn't compare to the customization available here.

The co-op is very intuitive. It seemed very natural to figure things out as we went along. "You go down there and hit that switch while I hang on to the handle up here" sort of thing. We played a few user-created levels and there seemed to be a wide range of competence there as you'd expect. I didn't bother with any of the creation tools. Every time you start a new level you choose Play Online or Play by Ourselves. We played online a few times and for the most part the other players that joined our game were really helpful. I'm not sure if the game even supports voice chat, but without a headset we were forced to use text chat anyway. It's done well but it relegated all our conversation with other people to things like "sorry" or "thx good game."

So I'm happy to say we both had a blast with this game and were always looking forward to another chance to play. Now it's time for GameFly Roulette to see what comes next.

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.

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.

A little Kingdom Hearts on the road

I did some quick (GameFly) queue management about a week before I headed out of town so that I could get a DS game for my trip. I had lots of time in airplanes, airports, and a hotel room where I mostly played Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. What an odd name. But it makes a bit more sense once you realize that it's the main character's time that he spends with Organization XIII. I dunno, the story is kinda weird. I made it to day 51 or so since I got frustrated and bored once they want you to start using magic attacks rather than just hammering away on dudes with your sword. Oh, sorry, keyblade.

This series has always had a bizarre mix of spiky haired Japanese dudes from Square-Enix...and Disney characters. Ya, you read that right. We're talking Mickey and Donald here. Strangely, it sort of works. This game is very Japanese though. Unless you get blue sea-salt ice cream after every mission with your buddies. You do, don't you?

I had played KH 1 and 2 all the way through, but I didn't have enough patience for this one. It being on the DS had a lot to do with that, I think. At least the other games had decent visuals on the PS2. I got sort of sick of DS polygons and repetitive missions.

I also picked up Mass Effect 2. I'm really liking it and am about 12 hours in. I love the focus on combat. I love that they've downplayed the inventory management in this outing. I got a bit sick of continually replacing Shotgun n with Shotgun n+1 in the first game every time I opened a treasure chest. So I may write more about it later or just be lazy and point you to Matt's impressions from earlier.

How to ruin a franchise

Resistance: Fall of Man was about the best thing PS3 had going for it when it came out. It was supposed to be really pretty and take advantage of all the horsepower of the thing. Since I just played it a month or two ago, it looked about on par with the current generation of games for late '09. Some things were better, some things were worse. But what was unique about it was the concept of an alternate past and the isolation in which you experience the story. After WWII some kind of crazy plague started in Russia and started turning everybody into zombie/alien dudes. They had access to all sorts of weird looking technology too. You eventually find out that they've been on Earth forever but were dormant or something. But the story plays out where you're a soldier that has some sort of resistance to their disease and he becomes super strong and able to kill them all. This takes place in England after the rest of Europe has been destroyed by the Chimera dudes. You learn all of this from your character's perspective and a pleasant British lady that tells you where to go. You seldom see other soldiers, and then only briefly. There are lots of quiet moments going across England.

So I expected more of the same with Resistance 2. Nuh uh. Not at all. They must have noticed that mindless military shooters like Gears of War were popular and decided to copy them. It's an endless progression of "clear out the LZ!" or "hostile down!" the entire game. You're also almost never alone, surrounded by a squad of mindless idiots who don't really help you kill much of anything. Oh, and it takes place in America, since apparently the alien dudes have gotten tired of mucking up Europe. Mainly, it just gives them an excuse to show more recognizable landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge or that famous theater in Chicago. Other than a few old cars and some radios here and there, you're never really reminded that the game is supposed to be set in the fifties, either. Wow, now that I've laid it all out like this, I don't think I'll be playing much more, since they've taken away everything I liked from the first one.

Granted, there are some welcome gameplay refinements. The crouch controls wisely took a cue from every other game out there and make you click to enter/exit a crouch rather than holding down a button. My fingers were getting tired! I hear there's a multiplayer mode that's decent. I'll probably skip that based on my past history of getting immediately killed by 12 year olds as soon as I start up the map.