Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon

I was finally able to snag a copy of Luigi's Mansion from GameFly. The timing worked out pretty well too, since I headed out on a long weekend trip shortly after I got it. I did a lot of ghost-sucking on the three hour flight, if you know what I mean.

I actually took the GameFly return envelope thing with me thinking I'd finish it up on the trip and drop it in a mailbox and have a new game waiting for me when I got home. That didn't quite work out. This time it had nothing to do with GF shipping and everything to do with the last levels being really tough and complicated. Also, it was a much longer game than I was expecting. On the last night in our hotel room, I was thinking "sweet, this is the last level." But no, there was a whole 'nother section to go. Don't you just hate it when games give you your money's worth?

The game itself was charming, occasionally clever, and rarely frustrating. I sort of wanted to record the sound of Luigi's (old school phat) Nintendo DS "ringing" when the professor called him and make it my ringtone. Also hearing him say "yellllo?" every time always made me chuckle.                                                      

I had played very little of the original Gamecube version, so I can't say how much it compares to that. But I managed to enjoy myself pretty much all the way through the 14 hours or so it took me to get through the story mode. There's also a multiplayer mode that works either in person (with download play) or over wifi. I put in a little bit of time through that, but I mainly focused on the story.

I can't say it was especially challenging since I went through 90% of the game without even knowing how to dodge or jump while sucking up ghosts (the "combat" portion of the game). But the difficulty ramps up nicely towards the end for some of the boss fights and the sheer number of ghosts that get thrown at you for one brutal (timed) level.

In summary, if you have a 3DS you probably ought to get this one. As for me I'm on to the next one, Tomb Raider on the 360 and I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

(Editors note: I typed this one on my Nexus 4 with a Bluetooth keyboard, because, hey, why not?)

Far Cry 3

I'm not sure why I thought I might like Far Cry 3. I played a few hours of 2 and gave up because everyone was shooting at me wherever I went. It got pretty frustrating if you're just trying to get to point B and you get distracted by dudes shooting at you. Then you die. Repeat times...(more than I'd like to count). 

The third installment didn't have nearly as much of that, maybe because of the more prevalent fast travel to a location. But I just wasn't having much fun with it. Maybe because of the laughable voice acting and story? Or possibly because I was supremely bad at the game. Low level bad guys would continually take me out and I couldn't figure out a way to make my character handle it any better other than ramping down the difficulty setting.

You'd think a game that let me drive around on boats and four wheelers to my heart's content would grab me more, but it didn't. I didn't think the vehicle controls were much fun since it felt like the land vehicles were driving on a giant sheet of ice. 

I did some fun open world things like riding in a hang glider, but I think after just coming off of Sleeping Dogs I'd had my fill of open world settings. 

Next up is something completely different: Luigi's Mansion for the 3DS. I've heard good things.

Sleeping Dogs

I finished Sleeping Dogs today. I almost gave up on it a few hours in when I got frustrated with it being almost a rhythm game. You see, it's basically Grand Theft Auto in Hong Kong. But there's a much bigger emphasis on melee fighting than GTA. And you usually need to take out a group of about 6 or 8 dudes at a time. They invariably get on either side of you and interrupt you when you're punching their buddy. Rude, I know. But you start out without many special moves that will give you much of an advantage. I failed one mission about 10 times in a row before I changed very little and suddenly passed it. Gaining experience and new moves was a slow process, but I eventually got used to it. Compared to the shooting and driving sections, the "punching dudes" part of the game was actually the most fun in the long run.

Another thing worth pointing out is that since it's in Hong Kong, you drive on the left side of the road. I can't tell you how many times this messed me up. I was constantly pulling out of alleys into oncoming traffic or carjacking somebody on the wrong side of the car. Speaking of that, once you get to a boat, the steering wheel is on the left, opposite of the cars. But boats typically have the steering wheel on the right (for some reason) in the U.S. Anyway, maybe that's accurate and boats in Hong Kong are actually like that.

The story is fairly interesting and it's refreshing to see a game in a sort of new setting with something other than a white male protagonist. Of course they all speak English, only throwing in some Chinese phrase every once in a while.


I'm glad I stuck with it, I was entertained. Not sure what game is up next. Maybe I'll finally get to Tomb Raider. In the meantime I started New Super Mario Bros. 2 on the 3DS. It's sort of okay, like I expected. Not nearly as impressive as Super Mario 3D Land. For some reason that one really got its claws in me and I wanted to collect everything. I don't think I envision that happening in NSMB2.

Zelda: Wind Waker

This won't be a full review because I doubt I'll make it through the full game before my next GameFly game shows up (Sleeping Dogs is on the way). I've had a vague craving to play this game again for a while now and things lined up to allow me to play it in the last few days. It's still incredibly charming, and I'm over my "what is the cartoon bullshit that they've done to Zelda!?" phase. Or maybe it helped that I played two more fairly good Zelda games with this art style on the DS so I've had time to get used to it.
It holds up surprisingly well for coming out over 8 years ago. I'm playing it on the Wii and it decided to turn on progressive scan (480p?) on the 1080p TV I've got it hooked up to. The only thing that looks bad is when things that aren't in the foreground are a bit blurry. The only frustrating thing has been the controls. I've played a ton of first and third person games in a 3D space since this game came out. Let's just say there's been a lot of standardization and improvement. I keep wanting to use the right "analog stick" to move the camera in a way that would feel at home in a Gears of War or Mass Effect game. Nope. And there's a surprising amount of making sure Link is lined up _just right_ to make a jump or something. Even in the beginning levels.
So maybe I'll keep going back to this game when I have the chance. We'll see. I did like that it's been long enough since I've played it that I really felt myself getting into the role of a young kid on a tiny island. I could almost smell the sea salt in the air when I climbed up a cliff and looked out at the ocean.

Paper Mario Sticker Star

My latest GameFly game was Paper Mario Sticker Star. http://www.giantbomb.com/paper-mario-sticker-star/3030-31755/ (Sorry for the lack of hyperlink, I'm trying out the Blogger iPad app with a bluetooth keyboard and I can't figure out how to, ya know, hyperlink.)

When I first started it up, the cartridge still had a previous renter's data in there. The saved game seemed to be near the end, and was at 18 hours of playtime. 18 hours!? There's no way I can put that much time into a silly Mario 3DS game. But after an hour or so I was really looking forward to spending that much time in the funny little world it creates.

Most of the games in the Paper Mario series can be described as RPG-lite and this one is no exception. You use items on enemies in a turn-based battle that deal some amount of damage. If you press the A button at just the right times you can deal more damage or avoid taking some damage. Pretty simple. There's a little bit of strategy with pairing the right items or type of attack with the right enemy, but there's not much to that. The boss fights can get a bit more complicated since you'll usually want to save your more powerful, rarer stickers (attacks) for them. Picking the right one in the right order is the key there.

Other than that you just have to make your way around in the world and find things that will let you progress to the next section, adventure game-style. This is where the game sometimes falls flat. I spent a lot of time looking at a walkthrough to tell me where to go next since the game didn't always make it very clear. Several times, I had been to the place I needed to go and tried the thing I needed to do, but not in _exactly_ the right way. That can be pretty frustrating.

I got most of the way through the game (about 16 hours in) before I got tired of the tedium of "go here, do this, come back." I think level 4-3, the haunted mansion level was what finally broke me. Don't get me wrong, it was well done and pretty funny, but there was a _lot_ of walkthrough looking on that one.

While I wait for the next game I started up Zelda, Wind Waker. I'm playing the Gamecube disc on the Wii, using the trusty old Wavebird wireless Gamecube controller. I knew I kept those around for a reason.