September: Why Can't I Hold All These Great Games

I won't lie: attempting to come up with a great game that everyone should play for every day of a week shouldn't be hard, but it is.  Not only have I recently transitioned from having nothing to do to having tons of work and social events every night, but I also just can't jump around from game to game that much.  It's overwhelming when one boots up their personal computer and realizes that there are at least five games that they should be playing at that very moment.  And, in all honesty, games are getting to be an endeavor to finish.  Some games take up to 60 hours to beat, and trying to enjoy a game that is supposed to take you at least 2 weeks to get the full experience in a few days is mind-numbing.

In short, I've decided that Games You Should Play Week has turned into Games You Should Play Month!  It's a pretty simple concept: instead of a week where I talk about a single game every day for 7 days, I just make one post about all the games I've been playing this month, or perhaps will be playing this month.  Since I didn't even really finish GYSP the week before, I've decided that skimping on last month is a no-no.  Therefore, I'm going to lay it all out in one big post for the month of September.  So, here they are!

THE BIG ONE: Borderlands 2
I might as well just say it now, mostly because at the time of writing this Borderlands 2 is coming out in 2 hours and I'm SO FREAKING PUMPED TO PLAY IT.  And considering Borderlands 2 has become one of the most pre-ordered games in history, it's a pretty big deal that I talk at least somewhat about it.

First off, I'd like to start this by saying that if you haven't playing Borderlands 1, you actually don't have to.  Even though your friends might say, "Borderlands was the best game when I played it, the loot system was so good, the bosses were thoughtful, and the art style was brilliant."  Don't give in.  Borderlands 1 used to be one of the best console games around, simply because they finally managed to figure out how to perfectly integrate the looting mechanics of Diablo and Torchlight into a First Person Shooter without making it Fallout.

"War.  War never changes."
"And neither will your load-out."

Don't get me wrong: Fallout is great.  I can't wait to see what kind of insane shenanigans Bethesda will be able to come up with when they integrate the world into the new engines.  However, for the purposes of arguments sake, I'll say this: Fallout had nothing on Borderlands.  In my opinion, Fallout's world, looting system, and characters were not nearly as interesting or varied as Borderlands' were.  In fact, and I will admit, that I got tired of Fallout's wasteland about 20 hours in, whereas Borderlands' wasteland had me hooked from beginning til DLC end.  It was that good.

Now, fastforward to 2012, and there's a very different story.  If you wanted to try playing Borderlands 1 now, you might feel a bit alienated.  Not only is there a massive pressure to buy literally ALL of the DLC because it's just all so good (except for Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, that one was lame), Borderlands just feels way too big and yet so very empty.  Maybe it's a grizzled veteran of the Borderlands world speaking here, but everytime I start up Borderlands now, I feel as though I'm about to delve into Fallout's wasteland.  Add to that that there's a lot of very large issues with Borderlands 1 in terms of graphics, replayability, and menu's, Borderlands just plain suffers from being dated.  It's really sad to say, but Borderlands will be obsolete in 2 hours.

That's okay though, because it's being replaced by this:

Just for reference, there wasn't a single drop of snow in Borderlands 1.
Oh, and the big guy can dual-wield gatling guns.

So, now that Borderlands 2 has finally come out, and I've played a good bit of it, I'm proud to say that it is, in fact, destined to be the biggest game of this month, and probably this season.  However, I won't argue what will or won't be the best games of the year, since we have a lot more ground to cover on that one.  HOWEVER.  Enough about why Borderlands 2 *could* be the best new thing around the PC gaming corner.  Here's why it is.

First off, Borderlands 2's largest improvement over Borderlands 1 is the story.  I love how every character, even the characters that were completely voiceless in the last game, have personalities, likes, dislikes, and real life relationships with other characters (two of the playable characters in Borderlands 1 apparently had a relationship.  Prizes to the blokes who manage to guess who they are).  Not only that, but Pandora feels like a world that has changed, and in so many different ways.  First of all, every faction that was in the old game has vastly changed.  The Crimson Lance?  Totally good guys now.  Hyperion?  Still dicks, but in a much bigger way.  Claptraps?  All but extinct.  The game is absolutely ridden with references and tip-of-the-hats to the original title, and the writing ought to be commended as well.  However wrote this game gets a gold star and several Oscars for some of the most hilarious dialogue in video game history.

Pictured above:
The most hilarious villain ever conceived.

Oh, and speaking of things this game just does all kinds of right, gameplay!  The AI system has been vastly improved upon since the original, as the enemies in this game actually understand that if they are getting hit by a sniper rifle at close range, they should, oh, I don't know, duck and roll?  There was a point at which I climbed a massively tall tower, and the enemies couldn't shoot me because I was too high up and the angle was awkward.  Then, to my utter surprise, they chucked grenade after grenade at me at a perfect angle until I almost died.  Had there been fall damage in this game, I would most certainly have perished.  Luckily, I decided that, as punishment for receiving a decent FPS education by the developers, they deserved some grenades to the face.

Oh, and lest I forget one of my most talked about topics in video game culture: music.  I suppose the best way to describe the music for this majestic game is to say it's just plain adrenaline inducing, which is great when you're being shot at by 2 helicopters and 3 bandit cars when you have just been forcibly thrown out of your car by an explosion (which, by the merits of logic, just so happened to be your own car, not theirs).  The music in this game might not be remembered, in all honesty, but I will say that it sets the mood in all the right ways.

So, verdict: this game truly lives up to every expectation.  Honestly, even if you're a pop-culture junky with a mild interest in video games, get this game, because there are thousands upon thousands of hilarious references in this game.  There is a TMNT reference in there.  There's Topgun.  I won't spoil the rest, but holy shit there's some hilarious stuff.  Do I honestly need to say any more?  If you get nothing else this month, get this fucking game.

Fuck.

HRRRRRRRRRRNGH

THE TEAR-JERKER: The Walking Dead Game
What happens when you place a couple of starving, irate people with an entire world full of zombies?  Well, pretty much exactly what you think happens in that situation.  The Walking Dead Game is definitely not for the faint of heart, but for those of you who have steel hearts and/or are just interested in the subject matter, listen up.  The Walking Dead Game is easily one of the best point-and-click games out there.

The story is very simple: you start out as this guy named Lee.  He's on his way to jail when the game begins, in a cop car with a rather "taxi-driver-esque" cop taking him there.  Of course, the car crashes into a ditch after the cop accidentally hits a zombie (#apocalypseproblems). Then, Lee, of course, gets chased by zombies around a forest until he makes his way into a town, and meets this little girl who's been surviving pretty well for her age.  This girl, Clem, is going to end up being your best friend, and Lee must act the father for this child.  Now, I don't want to spoil any more than I already have, but essentially, you have to make a lot of choices in this game, and a lot of them aren't easy to make morally.

The only choice you don't get to make in this game is "survive".
But y'know, you've already done that in L4D, anyway.

Now, I'll be honest.  Point-and-click games aren't my forte.  In fact, I'm pretty new to the genre.  I never played Day of the Tentacle, or any of the other classics, although I plan on taking some time to play the Blackwell series.  In light of this realization, I decided to start off my point-and-click ventures with this game. I didn't regret that decision, as this might be the best game to start off on.  The characters are lush and full of dark personality, Clem is an indespensible companion, and I've found myself often staring at the screen not knowing whether I said or did the right thing, or if I accidentally made an enemy out of all my friends.  It's a tough game to play, not because it's particularly hard (it's narrative based.  If it was hard, there might be a problem), but moreso because I couldn't play it for extended periods because of how emotional this game gets.

It's a wonderful title, and I can't really put into words how amazing the story for this game is.  So, if you happen to be on Steam or whatever other game service you use, you should check it out.  It's one of the most beautifully dark games I've played in quite a while, and ho-boy, does it deliver.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

PIXEL PERFECT: They Bleed Pixels
And out of nowhere...INDIE TITLE!  This time, it's They Bleed Pixels, a mega-cute, mega-dark platformer with a take on H.P. Lovecraft's writings.  I'm just gonna let you take in that last sentence there for a minute... And we're good.  Yeah.  This game is excellent if for no other reason than that it's inspired by Lovecraft's works.  This game has just about everything I could possibly want out of a platformer: amazing pixelated art, an extremely dark theme, with the cutest freaking protagonist ever.  I mean, just look at her.  The cool thing about the protagonist is that the game literally has its own section for fanart of this girl.  It's a pretty nifty idea, and one that my PC certainly thanked me for (SO MANY BACKGROUNDS ERRMAHGERRRD).

Now, enough fan-gasming.  It's time to actually tell you why this game rocks.  First of all, the art style is fantastic.  I love the simplified nature of the protagonist and the stages themselves against the beautifully drawn backgrounds.  Not only that, but the cut-scenes are all also pixelated, which is difficult to pull off, as they managed to do so with tears in my eyes.  The protagonist is, as you can see, a girl who ends up in non-descript academy, where she snoops about the library from time to time.  Eventually, she accidentally spills a drop or two of her blood on this evil-looking book, and lo-and-behold, her body begins changing rapidly.  Her skin starts to rot.  She grows claws where her hands should be, and to top it off, they're made out of her own blood.  Pretty hard to hide that shit.

The side-effect of her having rotting skin and blood claws
is that she turns out to be FUCKING RAD.

So, while all this is going on, every night she dreams; and when she does, she enters this dark-version of the real world with these ink monsters who are trying to kill her.  She turns into her final form (pictured above) and begins her platforming quest.  And ever morning, without fail, she wakes up and finds herself one step closer to that form.  It's a weird story, but one that is very well told through the cut-scenes.  But, as most indie platformers go, the story isn't the main focus.  The actual gameplay and quirks, however, are pretty important.

As far as gameplay goes, you run and jump just like any other platformer.  However, the controls, you'll find, are pretty hard to use at first.  The character feels a bit sluggish and kind of difficult to control, but once one gets used to her momentum based movement, it's really not so hard.  She also can fight these ink monsters with her claws, and attempt to combo them into giving her blood, which she can use to create a checkpoint in the level once she has enough.  The core gameplay isn't that hard to master; the hard part comes with the achievements and challenge stages.

It wouldn't be a Lovecraftian platformer without
copious amounts of blood, cogs, and total darkness.

The game does ramp up in difficulty depending on how far you want to get into it.  It's a very accessible platformer in terms of difficulty, so I highly recommend that gamers of any skill level play it.  And if you manage to get all those achievements, seriously, props to you.

Massive.

MASSIVE EFFECT: Guild Wars 2
There are very few MMO's that I actually enjoy playing, in fact, at the moment, I can only think of two: League of Legends, and Guild Wars 2.

BULLETS: Black Mesa
Fuck dude, just... Stop asking.  It's coming at a later date.
*smirk*

Games You Should Play, Day #5: Dustforce

Well shit, aren't I behind on this segment.  I've been pretty busy as of late, as I'll be trekking up to college in a matter of hours now, so it's pretty much pack everything up and leave it where it is.  Luckily, the computer gets to stay for the night, so I can post yesterday's and today's GYSP Games.  Speaking of which, yesterday's Game You Should Play was Dustforce, the best game about cleaning you'll ever play!

Don't give me that look, Mario.  You too, Luigi!
I stand by my absurd claims.

Yes, ladies and gents, Dustforce.  Never heard of it?  Saw it on Steam once and thought nothing of it?  Well,  if you're a fan of fast-paced platformers, then you seriously missed the boat on this one.  I used to think the master of the fast-paced platformer was, and would be until 2006, Sonic.  However, recently Dustforce managed to change my mind on that one, and quite rapidly.  Like, say, within the first few minutes.

Dustforce was one of those titles that I saw come up on the Indie Games Blog, and I thought, "Huh.  There's something you don't see everyday."  Dustforce is a cell-shaded game with an emphasis on precise key-presses in order to "dust" one's way through every level as fast as possible.  Now, dusting doesn't sound like a very fast-paced thing to do, right?  I mean, unless you're sweeping or vacuuming or something, but even then, it's supposed to be a chore, right?

Dusting used to be a pastime, a simple pleasure for all to enjoy.
But that all changed when the fire nation attacked...

Well, dusting/vacuuming/sweeping/mopping are no longer chores in this game.  Instead, you, one of the four members of dustforce, must run, jump, and free-run your way through each stage and sweep up piles of waste where you find them.  It sounds like a strange concept, but in practice, Dustforce manages to execute it quite well.  It's a very satisfying feeling when you sweep up all that dust, defeat every enemy, and do it all while sprinting through spike traps and pitfalls while running at top speeds.  It's an absolutely exhilarating feeling when you get it just right.  The feeling is only topped by the feeling of perfecting a speedrun of a particularly hard game, or perhaps just running through Mirror's Edge a lot.

However, here's where Dustforce really branches off the beaten path: Dustforce actually doesn't require those picture perfect runs in order to finish the game.  Unlike games like Super Meat Boy, or N+, you aren't shoehorned into making it to the end of the level with a perfect run.  However, the funny part about Dustforce is that the basic platforming mechanics never change, yet each and every level feels like a puzzle to be solved.  That's the great part about Dustforce: in order to progress in the game, the first thing you need to do is figure out how to maintain momentum in every tricky jump of a single level, and then actually manage to do it.  It's hard.  Very hard, but once you get it right, like I said, there's no equatable feeling in platforming games.

The one point that I can't seem to get over, or perhaps wrap my head around, is the fact that this game is genuinely addicting.  I suppose that any game that requires a certain amount of skill and mastery of its mechanics is bound to be guilty of an addiction problem; but Dustforce really makes you think outside the box.  For instance, you can extend your jump and momentum if you manage to kill an enemy in mid-air; now apply that to a vertical level that you must maintain your momentum from the very beginning, or else you won't be able to pass it.  It's addicting because the basic mechanics are so easy to understand and interchange at a moment's notice.  Thought that you double jump to make it to that ledge?  Well, normally, but if you can manage to wall-kick up even higher, and kill the enemy at the top in one fell swoop, you can just bypass that double jump and save yourself 2 seconds on your run.

"Of course, if you do an acrobatic pirouette off of that handle
you could save up to 4 seconds on your Dustforce speedrun!"

This sort of do and re-do of all the levels in order to become the fastest and best at them is reminiscent of a few titles that have been released as of late: Super Meat Boy being the most prominent.  Honestly, the game is just an adrenaline rush of fun.  And to all those who are saying, "That's all well and good, but I hate it when I continue to play a level for an hour and never manage to get anywhere with it.  I tend to just give up and move on," I say that Dustforce has a secret weapon that many other games tend to overlook.  As usual, many of you might already know what's coming, yes, it's the soundtrack.

You may think you've beaten me, but you forgot about one thing...
I actually become more powerful when there's soothing music to my night time runs.

Yeah.  I almost hate to hype the soundtrack for this game, because, let's face it, that's been one of the things I've been doing all week long.  However, this time it is one of the reasons why I actually went out of my way to buy this game.  I looked it up on Youtube, not thinking much of it to start with.  And then I found this particular video:

Ladies and Gents:

Sit back, browse the internet, and enjoy some of the most soothing music you'll ever hear.

If you couldn't already tell, Dustforce's soundtrack is the exact opposite of what you'd expect such a fast game to be like.  It's slow, melodic chiptune music that swings a little.  It's not adrenaline pumping, it's freaking cathartic.  You don't listen to Dustforce's music in order to get a speedrun, you might listen to it to do work, or to look out over the horizon, or perhaps to socialize.  This is something that's completely new to the platforming world, as it's always been the case that you want some good ol' fashioned pump-up music to race through these levels.  However, this music marks the discovery of a new technique for the type of game that wants you to play it over-and-over.  The music here relaxes me, makes me realize, "Hey, you missed that jump, but it's okay.  You'll get it next time.  Don't yell."  And y'know what's the weirdest thing about it?

It freaking works.  Every time I just sat back and listened to the beautiful tunes of Dustforce, I found myself cruise through a level without even thinking about it.  Instead of making you feel tight and very strapped for time, it gives you that "I'm kinda high right now" feeling that lets you just let go.  Unlike Super Meat Boy, there's just no pressure with Dustforce.  There's also another reason why it just works: because it's music you can work to.  It doesn't have lyrics or a fast beat, it's kind of like trance.  It just soothes you into doing what you do best: jumping and running.

"Look!  Looklooklooklook!!! I'm like...playing without fingers.
Hahaha... fingaaaaaahs..."

If you guys aren't convinced, check out the video.  After playing this game for a total of 2 hours, I decided that I had to have the soundtrack on my phone.  So beautiful!  So, while you peruse Steam for new games that freaking ROCK, check out Dustforce.  I promise you won't be disappoint.

~Cascadakatana

PS- If you don't know who that guy is up there with the fingers, his name is Dyrus.  He streams League of Legends videos, and plays professionally (don't judge me).  He is always sleepy.  Sleepy Dyrus.

Games You Should Play, Day #4: Yume Nikki

So far, Games You Should Play Week has had a taste of a lot of different kind of games.  We've got the modern RPG, the Dating Sim game, and the Hardcore Platformer all down.  Today, I've decided to give it up for a game that belongs to a near-dead genre: the Adventure game.  Now, when you think of an adventure game, you probably think Day of the Tentacle, or Machinarium if you're a little younger; or perhaps even the most recent Telltale classic, The Walking Dead.  You probably think of games that have some menial tasks to accomplish, like escaping a room or finding a way to combine these three items together to make a flashlight.  It's true, adventure games have a very specific formula to them, and rarely do we see games that truly branch away from the fetch quest/narrative formula that goes on in the adventure game world.  And, although the narrative part tends to be the main grab for these types of games, the fetch quest idea has gotten very stale.

So, how do you find a way around that?  Do you abandon the concept of fetch quests altogether, and make a narrative game like Katawa Shoujo or Analogue: A Hate Story?  Or should you make the fetch quests even harder to complete, making players waste hours of time looking for a single object that they could use to further their investigation of the story?  How about we eliminate the narrative aspect as well!  Oh, and the protagonist should be silent.

He's...

He's not kidding, is he...?

If you haven't already picked up on what I'm about to say, then get ready, as it's probably going to shake the foundation of what you know about Adventure Games forever.  Ready?  There is an adventure game out there that managed to do it better than any of those other adventure games, to produce a narrative without ever uttering a single word, to create a defined and elastic main character who remains silent throughout the entire game, and that actually makes fetch quests interesting.

I did NOT go through 4 years of law school and 12 hours of fetch quests

TO HAVE YOU PULL THIS SHIT IN FRONT OF MY FACE.

The game is called Yume Nikki, and yes, you read that right.  Once again, I have pulled another Japanese game from the ether to show you, and this time, I can guarantee that at least some of you have a vague idea of what I'm about to say.  Yume Nikki is a game about a girl named Madotsuki, who, as mentioned above, is a silent protagonist.  She is also a shut-in who does nothing at all in the real world except go on her computer and sleep.  Those are your only two options for the whole game.  That's right, this is all you can do in the real world.  However, once you start dreaming...

Oh my gods, does it get messed up.  This adventure game puts you in the top-down view of a RPG Maker style game without the RPG, and it puts you in this shut-in's dreams.  And if you've seen some of the things that Madotsuki has seen, you'd be pretty messed up as well.  During the course of her dreams, she'll enter into these doors, which take you to different dream worlds, all of which have a central theme.  The themes, however, are not what you think: there is no fire dream or ice mountain dream.  There are, however, dreams of isometric cubes and sky gardens and coral castles and even hell!

This is fan-art for this game.

I repeat: fan-art.

Now, to get to the good stuff...  You see, Madotsuki does not have any insane abilities like seeing into the future or complete control over her dreams; in fact, she can only walk around and observe what is already in front of her.  She can, however, pick up specific powers that turn her head (or entire body, as the case may be) into different objects.  There is a power to turn her head into a stoplight in order to stop all enemy activity in the area.  There's another power that attracts enemies toward her by making Madotsuki into a nekomata, or cat-person.  There's also her knife power, which does exactly as advertised.

So, as you can imagine, the game is mostly about scenery and observation.  You are not in control of her dreams, as they are actually controlling you, getting into Madotsuki's head and making her even more recluse.  The funny thing about this game is it will never provide context to her adventures in dream world, as you are the one who gets to infer what is happening to our dear friend Madotsuki.  And trust me, there are some things that will make you question not only what's going on with her, but whether you should continue playing the game.  Did I forget to say that this game is scary?  Not in the 'ha-ha, I got you' kind of way.  No. We're talking, "Oh my god, did that girl get into a car accident, or did Madotsuki do this to her?"

It's like Trent Reznor and Satoshi Kon had a baby!

And it's a girl! :D

The funny thing about this game is that you'll never get any legit answers, as there is literally no context given to anything that happens in her dreams.  All of her dreams could be completely inconsequential, or even just figments of an imaginative little girl's mind.  Whatever the case may be, there's still that weird little voice in the back of my head every time I boot the game up that says, "Hey, I figured out a new theory, but... You might not sleep for a day or two."  It really makes you wonder what is up with this girl and why is she not doing anything to change herself?  Why can't she just go outside like everyone else and just enjoy the world and have friends?

I won't spoil the ending, as it's quite the shocker, but needless to say, it's one of the greatest stories I've ever had the pleasure of piecing together.  It took quite a bit of research, and I had to break my 'no guides allowed' rule in order to actually understand this game at all (even though I will talk about how the scenery is just breathtaking in a whole new way in a little bit, I didn't want to spend 5 hours in one area).  But, perhaps we should move onto why this game has such a great atmosphere, and how the long fetch quests are a good thing.

This oughta be good.

First off, the atmosphere.  This is something that Yume Nikki does quite well: it manages to unsettle the audience with its subliminal messaging in the backgrounds (there are some phallic images as well as some other images disguised as characters or walls), as well as put you in the mood to explore with its wide-open areas and its music.  There's definitely a theme here, and that theme is "you just aren't safe in your mind anymore", as the music is often times upbeat, and yet, has that dissonant tinge to it as it uses sounds that just don't evoke good emotions.  The result is nothing short of amazing, as you not only get unsettled by an atmosphere and theme that can only exist in a subconscious environment, but also the music just pulls you into that, making you want, yet be very afraid of, seeing more.

It's one of the most abstract games out there, as it uses the subconscious as a way of admitting its message.  For example, a lot of areas in the game look like real-world locations: subways, forests, piers, etc.  However, every single one has been crafted in such a way that there is constantly something nagging about it, like everything just feels so wrong.  After wandering around in this world for a short time, its tough not to feel insane; however, soon enough, I embraced that insanity.  I simply said, yeah, everything about this next area makes me so uncomfortable and scared, but I can't help but feel that there are important demons in there that Madotsuki needs to face.

I guess that's one of the biggest draws of this game: it makes you comfortable with how unsettled you'll end up getting.  Soon enough, you'll realize that you've heard the same haunting refrain and that you've been wandering around this dream world for hours, and yet, something keeps drawing you into it more and more. This game is the closest thing to an actual nightmare that I've ever played, something that you want to stop, that you just want to turn off and shut down, but you just can't.  There's something at the end of this area that I need to see, that she needs to see, and I won't turn back until I find it.

I played this game for 10 hours for this?!

...At least he's kind of cute, in a Yume Nikki sort of way.

Last thing: the fetch quests.  Sure, every adventure game has them.  And sure, they usually involve combining items into some weird new one in order to get past the guard to get into the castle or whatever.  Not Yume Nikki.  In Yume Nikki, you just wander.  That's it.  That's the whole point of the game.  To wander around this disturbing dream until you find a new power, and then use that power on something new.  Now, as I've mentioned already, this game gives no context to anything aside from the fact that you can dream.  Couple that with the fact that the fetch quests in this game aren't actually "quests", but simply an inherent duty, and it's painfully obvious that finding any of these powers is going to take a long effing time.  And in that time, you are going to get freaked out by the sensory overload that comes with playing this game for hours on end and finding nothing.  It's the equivalent of Einstein's theory of insanity: Insanity is when you do something repeatedly and expect something different to happen.

And there it is.  The answer.  Yume Nikki does this because it wants you to feel like you're actually just as crazy as Madotsuki.  It wants you, yes, you, to wander around and find something that you could have sworn wasn't there five hours ago.  It wants you to be unpleasantly surprised every time you enter a new area.  There's a reason why there are only a spare few moments in this game that can be considered "happy", and I'm convinced the only reason those are there in the first place is because otherwise, the creator might have literally gone postal from the cabin fever.

"Well, only four more hours of hardcore programming and then I can release my new-"

YOU DIED

Yume Nikki is one of those games that is very difficult to actually describe, and instead, it should be played and just enjoyed.  Attempting to describe any more than I have is simply futile, as the rest of this game is just what you make of it.  Everyone I've talked to has a different reaction to everything in this game, and it just builds and builds until people start to formulate theories on Madotsuki's life.  It's a brilliant work of the medium, and whoever designed this game should get a gold star for probably losing his sanity by making it.

Like I said, just pick it up on PC.  It's a free download online, and it is worth every non-penny you'll pay for it.  And, again, just remember: if you don't like being mentally disturbed or depressed after playing/watching videos or video games, just ignore this game.  It will do both, and that, I can guarantee.

~Cascadakatana

PS- I just realized that every game I've put on GYSP Week has been Japanese.  I should probably even out them odds, eh?

Games You Should Play, Day #3: Dark Souls

After blogger is done being dumb and not posting things when I want it to (like, say all of last night?), I think its time to resume Games You Should Play Week with a little old game called Dark Souls!  What is Dark Souls you ask?  It sounds scary.  And it sounds kind of like if I play it, my soul will be ripped from my interplanar being and shoved into the game until I can manage to conquer all of its levels.

Not quite that bad.

Close though.

Let me start this off by saying that Dark Souls is extremely difficult.  This isn't your grandmother's RPG; this is the hardcore mode of RPG games.  The game is actually so hard that the developers were forced to market the game to only the hardcore crowd by giving it the slogan "Prepare to Die".  Yep.  If that doesn't scream hardcore I'M GOING TO EFFING MURDER YOUR WHOLE FAMILY BEFORE YOU BEAT THIS GAME, then I don't know what does.

I'm kidding, Dark Souls' difficulty was quite a bit more overhyped than I care to recall.  Now, that's not to say that it doesn't have its moments: having to face off against a hydra that is at least 5 stories taller than you are is mildly intimidating after you've died to it 20 times.  I won't deny that its a very difficult game to start with, as you aren't given options in order to complete the first few sections.  Essentially, you're given the options of farm experience until you can cheat your way out of the first few areas, or just keep dying until you've figured out this next section.  Which brings me to my first favorite (and least favorite) thing about Dark Souls: dying!

Hip! Hip!

...Hooray?

Dying is an integral part of Dark Souls, as its one of the most major mechanics this game has over any other: when you die, you start back at the last bonfire (checkpoint) you've lit, and the bonfires are quite sparse to start with.  The good news is that no matter where you end up after death, you can always go back to where you died next time, and pick up your "soul", which is all the experience you didn't spend before you died.  So you can stack experience in these near death experiences.  Oh, and one more thing.  You actually get to keep whatever you find even if you die 2 seconds later.

Now, the annoying part is the beginning of the game, where you don't get a lot of options in order to progress.  Essentially, you're pigeonholed into moving through several different obstacles in a very specific way in order to progress in the early stages of Dark Souls; and if you accidentally slip up and make one or two mistakes?

"Awww, I missed catching the firebomb in mid-air to bounce it off of the skeletons head to unlock the door!"

TOO BAD, DICKFACE.  START OVER.

Now, when I say that dying is my favorite and least favorite thing about Dark Souls, I should probably explain.  Dying a whole bunch in a video game is usually one of the easiest ways to start hating a game; and, sure enough, when games like Dark Souls decide to start you off with leather armor to protect against a FUCKING DRAGON, then it's a pretty solid bet that any gamer will hate this game right off the bat.  I mean, who wants to die again and again and again in a video game?  Isn't the whole point of video games progressing through the game at a determined pace in order to experience the game with mild frustration, while still managing to capture the audiences attention?

Well, normally.  But this is Dark Souls.  And we don't follow the rules in Dark Souls.  Y'see, the great thing about this game is that it is only a commitment if you make it one.  Anyone could pick this game up and immediately put it down; but every determined gamer out there saw that challenge posted up on this game like a huge red flag saying "I'm the one that'll get away".  And they took the challenge.  Why?  I'll give you a hint, it's not because they're insane.

I'm pretty sure that's reason number two, though.

It's because the game is specifically designed to support dying.  It's one of the weirdest mechanics I've ever seen in a game, but it actually works.  Every time I died, after the first few, I simply said, "Well, I guess that trick doesn't work.  But I did see something new, so perhaps..." and proceeded to try new things to beat certain parts.  Not only do you get progressively better as the game goes on, but one starts to actually develop strategies to overcome certain parts, so much so that muscle memory actually cuts in more often than not when playing through areas that you've already faced down.  It got to the point where, when I was backtracking through one of the first areas after I had slaughtered most of the bosses, I realized that I *could* take shortcuts back to town.  However, I didn't, instead acting on complete instinct to get my ass back to safety.

It's an odd way to play the game, but it makes you really appreciate it a lot more.  Honestly, sometimes in games, I feel like I breeze through some areas like the water levels and the ice levels without actually taking in the scenery.  And that was one thing that was constantly around Dark Souls, amazing scenery.  One of the best things about this game is if you're really, really mad at it and don't want to play anymore, you can simply look out over that bridge that you're on and see the mountains and hillsides and the town below.  And suddenly, you're ready to face on the next challenge.  I freaking love the people who made this game, because the pacing might seem like the worst thing in the world to start with, but as long as you just stick with it, the game becomes just that much better.

If you havin' soul problems I feel bad for you son, I've got 99 problems but death ain't one.

YOU DIED

Now, aside from pacing, what makes this game really stand out, and, more importantly, why should I play Dark Souls?  Well, aside from the aforementioned reason, Dark Souls is already a fantastic RPG.  It's a real-time dark fantasy RPG with stab-and-block mechanics, which doesn't shy away from trying some truly awesome things.  Like, say, having a seamless world, without a single screen's worth of loading times.   Or perhaps the massive boss battles will pique your interest?  Or maybe its the fact that every single piece of armor is shown on your character?

It's really the little things that make Dark Souls pop to me.  I could go on and on about how the soundtrack is beautiful and about that one boss battle (it's funny, because anyone who's played Dark Souls knows exactly which one I'm talking about), but really there's no need to.  It's the small things about this game that just made it for me.  Honestly, it was love at first sight.  And, considering the first sight was a massive belly-demon with a huge hammer and flame-breath, I was pretty much in it for the long haul.

The last thing I want to talk about is the fact that this game has atmosphere, something that a lot of games just don't have these days.  I've played a lot of games that either A) have a paper-thin world with not a lot of lore or backstory behind it, or B) rely on the world already around us to tell the story.  That's all well and good, nothing against games like that, but Dark Souls just feels like a distant realm somewhere out there that might as well have existed.  The fact that undead are walking the earth in this world and there isn't a single trace of mindless zombies should be enough to break away from the stereotypes of dark fantasy, but Dark Souls goes that extra mile by having its broken-hearted NPC's tell stories of how they became undead, and what each area of the game symbolizes, or what each area used to be, or contain, or just whatever.

"Did I ever tell you about the time that you died?"

It's like stepping onto a college campus for the first time after your parents are gone.  You know that in a matter of a few short days, you're going to be in the library trying to do homework while your friends go out and party.  But, for the moment, you can just explore, take in the scenery, go up to the top of D-Hall, find a few friends to sit and chat with...

OH SHIT PVP MATCH GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.

HAHAHAHAHA FUCK YOU, SACKMACK98.

Just kidding.  PVP is one of most important parts about Dark Souls, however, as it essentially describes the end game content/replayability.  Every so often, some guy is going to randomly spawn in your world, and is going to seek you out, and attempt to kill you.  It's your job to figure out a way to kill him before he manages to kill you.  That thrill is unlike any other PVP I've experienced beforehand, as it's like a massive game of medieval manhunt where there are only two players left and both of them are armed with Dragonbone Bows.

It's a lot of fun because you also have to deal with the enemies you're already facing, giving your opponent a hefty advantage over you (unless its a one-on-one, rules are rules duel).  It's a cool feeling to have that interaction with other players, as you can either be helped or hindered by these people.  One of the last experiments that I truly love the developers for trying is this sense of "people can help you or they can gut you".  It doesn't shoe-horn anyone into exclusively playing against people or with them, you are just constantly in a state of alarm when playing Dark Souls for fear that in five minutes, some dude is gonna come in with a Zweihander and ruin your shit.

And that brings me to my favorite feeling about this game: the constant adrenaline.  Pair off the fact that this game makes you die a lot with the fear that you're going to get killed at any given time (seriously, even while backtracking, in a shop, wherever), and it's safe to say that this game puts people on alarm for the 4 straight hours they'll be playing.  It's a crazy feeling, and one that I haven't felt since I played Super Meat Boy, except this time its different.  Dark Souls made me a humble observer, as it turned me into that safe-mode gamer who actually shies away from doing crazy things in it because, hey, this game respects me as a gamer, and I'm going to respect it back.

RESPECT.

*cries*

All-in-all, Dark Souls is a fantastic RPG, and considering the only DLC to come out for this game is coming out VEEEEEEERY soon, now's a good enough time to pick the game up!

~Cascadakatana

PS- I feel so bad for doing this, but I just can't bring myself to finish Mass Effect 3.  Would I be glad that I did?  Or disappointed?  I love the characters, but do I love them enough to finish this game?  Dilemmas...

Games You Should Play, Day #2: La-Mulana

Welcome to Games You Should Play Day 2!  Today I'm going to be talking a bit about a game called La-Mulana, a platformer game that, surprisingly enough, has been around for quite some time.  In fact, this game has been available for free off of the internet since 2005.  And it's one of the deepest platformer games in terms of sheer amount of content that its hard to believe that people didn't know about its existence until a few years ago.  Well, didn't know about its existence, or perhaps it was nearly impossible to play due to the entire game being in Japanese?  You're probably wondering how that would stop anyone from playing a platformer, but rest assured, I tried it a few years ago.  And I've confirmed it to be nearly impossible to actually finish the original version without a heavily written Gamefaqs FAQ explaining everything.  Yup.  Pretty difficult.

There are five enemies on this particular screen.

The real question is, Where's Waldo?

Tackle all that with the fact that this game was designed to look like it belonged on a MSX console, and Houston, we're already in pretty deep shit here.  When it was originally released, I'm surprised anyone took the time out of their day to figure out how to accomplish every task, find ever hidden shop, discover every single trap, AND defeat every single one of the bosses without having a guide to do so.  Not only that, but during the game, you collect these ROMs, which can help you in various ways if you know how to get to the menu screen to use them, which you might not figure out until after the first temple gets cleared.  Oh, and did you know you can combine ROMs?  That's also something that they didn't tell you.

La-Mulana's release on the internet certainly wasn't a release in America or Europe, as the game was virtually unplayable for the faint of heart, or people without a comprehensive knowledge of the Japanese language.  Needless to say, I tried anyway.  Got fairly far before giving up on the game due to sheer difficulty curve on the 4th or 5th area, but it was quite the wild ride.  Filled with a lot of suffering through FAQ after FAQ looking for the precise codes to unlock...

Yeah.  Y'know what?  Enough bitching.  Time to get to the point of this article.  Now, not more than two months ago, Nigoro (the guy who made La-Mulana) decided to release La-Mulana with an updated, HD-look and a much, much more forgiving English translation.  Not only did Nigoro make the game playable and beatable, he made it beautiful.

Now, try to tmagine those lasers are pixelated.
Go ahead.  Try.

The updated La-Mulana is absolutely fantastic in every way.  Nigoro managed to completely re-do the entire game from scratch, remaking the physics of every enemy in a much more defined way, and introducing the concept of rotating parts on his bosses and enemies!  It makes the game quite a bit harder than it was previously, not to mention a hell of a lot more enjoyable when you can actually see the angle of the thing shooting at you, instead of it just rotating a beam of light to kill you.

The animations are also completely redone, making everything look extremely fluid, from your whip cracks to the massive bosses, everything just feels so polished.  I'm not sure I've played a game this airtight since Super Meat Boy.  And Super Meat Boy didn't look nearly this good.

To be fair, Meat Boy has never looked good.
Well, at least his girlfriend is hot.

Now, getting into logistics here, La-Mulana is about an explorer, who also happens to be a professor (Indiana Jones, anyone?).  This particular explorer has decided to investigate a series of ruins called La-Mulana, which have been known to devour every single traveler that have walked its hallowed halls.  Now, in comes this professor with nothing more than a whip and the clothes on his back, and he just freaking strolls on in.  Already, I can tell we're looking at a man's man right here.

I like how the game updates the main character's look on the menu when you equip him with new gear.
It's really just a constant reminder that HOLY SHIT DO YOU SEE HOW MANY SHURIKENS THIS GUY HAS.

Also, I'm not sure what it is about guys in green, but I'm thinking there's a new trend here.  Link, Naked Snake, hell, even Luigi in Luigi's Mansion.  All manly.  Super manly.  They should make the next Smash Bros. game called Smash Bros. Manly and just put in anyone who has ever ROCKED the color green.

Ah, I digress.  Back to La-Mulana.  Now, as you can see above, there are a lot of items to collect in this game.  From main weapons to sub weapons to artifacts to software (an updated name for the ROM system).  This game just has a lot of things you have to do.  And it shows, as the actual ruins of La-Mulana are massive.  We're talking Super Metroid levels of big.

Not shown above: 4 of the largest areas in the game.

Make that Symphony of the Night levels of big.

Oh, and last but not least, the soundtrack to this game.  Oh my gods, there is no way a game should sound as good as this game does.  Even the original version had some amazing tracks that were made to sound like they belonged on an MSX console.  The updated version?  Honestly, at this point, just play it to find out.  It will blow your mind a little bit. 

In this case, the original version sounds better.
HRRRRRNNNNNNNNNNNGH!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, obviously, this game isn't for everyone.  If you hate platformers, or have trouble beating games like Super Metroid or Castlevania, then it's probably a good idea to just skip this one altogether.  However, if you're looking for an amazing platforming title that hasn't succumbed to the rust-covered test of time, or just a game with a classic Metroidvania feel that is actually new, go ahead and pick this game up.  It costs like fifteen dollars, but its very worth the pricetag.

And, I mean...

Holy.

Shit.

SO.

MANLY.

HRRRRRRRNNNNNNGGGGHHHHHJKLWEJFLKSDHLKJHREOJFKLHFKLRTGJSKLJ

~Cascadakatana

PS- Now I'm curious.  How many guys in green are there in video games?  Methinks there's a lot more than I can come up with off the top of my head...

Games You Should Play, Day #1: Katawa Shoujo

For the past couple of weeks, I've been hard at work pulling myself away from those annoying MMO's in order to play some real games.  And if you've never played an MMO before, you should know it's pretty damn tough to tear yourself away from something that can literally take 5 years to get to the endgame.  And this time, I decided to revisit some games that I thought were phenomenal in the past.  I suppose it's a good excuse to tear myself away from Smite, League and Guild Wars 2 (I will never be able to actually do this, as a disclaimer).

Today, I'll be kicking off a week's worth of commentary on games that I've played in the past that aren't quite as well known as the modern games of today.  Now, before I get into this, let me just say that this is entirely based upon opinion: namely, my own.  These games are not, by any means, games that EVERY gamer MUST play, but simply a collection of games that I have been especially attached to as of late.  So, let's get started with our first game of the week: Katawa Shoujo.

Cat-a-wa what now?

This game better not be one of those stupid pet simulation games I keep hearing about...

You're half right.  Not a game about cats, luckily.  However, it is a simulation game; namely, a Dating Sim.

Dating Sim 2?!
LOVE TRIANGLE!? THIS SHIT'S GETTIN' SHAKESPEAREAN, BITCHES.

I know what you're thinking: "He's gone off the deep end.  Seriously, a dating sim?  I guess all that time he spent away from the blog has made him go insane."  First and foremost, I was already insane before I left for a week or two.  Second of all, it was a week or two.  Third of all, hear me out: Katawa Shoujo is the only Dating Sim I've played since I was fourteen, and no, it isn't one of the featured games on Newgrounds.  This is a legit story, with actual text, people who I have no doubt truly exist in this world, and best of all, a very, very thought-provoking theme.

For those of you who know Japanese, the title "Katawa Shoujo" should already be a huge hint as to what the theme of this particular Dating Sim is: Shoujo is translated as "girl(s)", and Katawa, in this context, means "disabled".

Oh man, didn't see that coming...

...so, no cats, right?

Yes, this is a Dating game about disabled women.  Now, normally, I wouldn't play a Dating Sim, because I believe that the majority of these games are chauvinistic pieces of trash.  However, when I heard about this particular game, I couldn't help but be mildly interested.  You see, I hadn't ever thought about the concept of dating someone who was diabled before  you met them.  I mean, that's gotta come with a lot of baggage, right?

Well, that's true.  The girls of Katawa Shoujo each have a different disability.  One of them has lost her arms, and must pick things up with her feet.  Another has third-degree burns on over a third of her body, and scar tissue out the wazzoo.  Yet another is deaf, and doesn't have the ability to speak without using sign language.  "Wait, this is a Dating Sim.  How does she communicate with you?  Are you deaf as well?"  See, that's the beauty of this game.  It raises so many questions about how a semi-normal human being can date someone with crippling disabilities (and I'm not going to ruin the surprise on that one).

Does pink hair with hand-sized drills built in count as a disability?
More on this at eleven.

I'm not going to lie: this game is absolutely heart-rending.  It makes you think about things you would never have thought about; it opens your mind to possibilities that you never thought possible.  And, in a way, it ensures that you feel a hell of a lot less awkward around the disabled.  I cried while playing this game.  A lot.  There's a lot of great material in there in terms of the writing that can really cut to the core.  Some of the dialogue hits a little too close to home as well.

Oh, and did I mention?  The protagonist of this game isn't some womanizing, heart-like-a-rock guy.  He's the average sullen teenager who overthinks.  He has a distinct personality.  The best part about this game is that you aren't in the driver's seat here, he is.  The decisions in this game are actually difficult to make, as they would truly appear in real life.  Do you attempt to protect the girl you love from the world, because others might see her as hideous, or should you listen to your friend and let her figure it out for herself?  Needless to say, there's also some lessons to be learned.

So many lessons.

Sexy, sexy lessons...

This game also has a habit of really changing people's outlooks on life.  After asking a few friends how they reacted after finishing a few of the endings, one of them said that he started exercising every day, due to one of the storylines where you end up exercising with a girl who has lost her legs.  I, personally, have made the realization that dating someone who was blind would be perfectly okay in my book, and I've certainly got a special place in my heart for anyone walking down that road.  It really opens some interesting doors for video gaming as well.  Dating Sims no longer have to have the stereotypical badass, the quiet bookworm, the uptight girl...

The...pigeon?

Pictured above: My sanity is leaving and taking the kids.

In my mind, Katawa Shoujo allows for a completely refreshed take on the Dating Sim genre.  And, as much as I really don't like to admit it, some of the smutty parts in Katawa Shoujo are really touching.  Yes, there are smutty parts.  However, I wouldn't take those parts out just because they are sexual (even though there's an option built into the game to do so, for the less sexually inclined).  They are a real part of the game, something that truly defines some of the more emotional moments.  And, to be honest, there wasn't a single time where I felt like they were awkwardly timed or thrown in because, hey, we needed you to have sex with this girl so that we can appease our perverted audience.

I've played enough dating sims to know where this is going.
And I'm definitely not invited.  Giggity.

Oh, and the score.  THE SCORE.  A lot of it is piano based, which gives the game that light-hearted sound when you're wandering the halls of the school, and the truly devastating heavy sound when shit starts to hit the fan.  It's a truly varied soundtrack that comprises this game, and one that doesn't go unnoticed.  I found myself humming most of the tunes by the end of the game, and even attaching certain pivotal moments to some of those songs.  Luckily, there's an option in this game to listen to any of the tracks you've heard so far, which is greatly appreciated.

All-in-all, this game is absolutely fantastic.  If you're ever feeling like you really need a pick-me-up from being a little too lonely, or perhaps you've just broken up with someone dear, go ahead and pick up this game.  It's free, takes up barely any memory, and can eat up an entire day or two, in case you want to be alone for a while.

~Cascadakatana

PS- I literally saw 9 copies of that one Batman series where Bane breaks his back.  Is this just because of the movie?  Because, if so, I've got a  problem with that.