Rose Tinted Something Or Other

Rose Tinted Glasses, I said, thinking back to games of times passed and having fond memories of defeating dragons, and taking down polutant despots and their floaty machines.

So when these old games get rereleased as "Remasters", I get hopeful.  I'll get to replay games from my childhood that I really enjoyed, and it'll feel like a new game even if I hit all the same beats.

Wonder Boy: The Dragons Trap is a perfect example of that.  A Master System game that continues the story of Wonder Boy and his ventures across Monster Land and how he was completely upended by the antagonist of the last game.

You start off with top tier gear, running through the Dragons Labyrinth, searching for it's lair to stop it's tyrannical rule.  You defeat the dragon, whapping its face over and over between flinging fireballs and frantic trampling before the robotic dragon (plot twist!) explodes in a whirl of stars and cash starts raining across the room, and a blue wisp starts chasing you, desperate to catch you and fulfill the dragons purpose: to curse you and turn you into a dragon.

The game then drops you off at the nearby village and your venture fords from there.  It's a good time tracking down other Dragons and not only cursing yourself more by getting polymorphed into other creatures but clearing the world of other tyrants who would dare to rise up.

It was a great game when I was a kid so I was excited when I saw the kickstarter running for a massive Remaster hand drawing everything about the game and filling in negative space with anything and everything, for example a colossal centrepiece to an unknown warrior amongst a smattering of headstones which only asks questions that you can't go find the answer for because you're a Wonderkid with a plan.

The strange thing though is that everything there felt like it was there when I was a kid.  That I was playing the same game again and little has changed aside from the console itself.  This clearly was not true, as with a click of a button it reverts back to the original graphics and music at your leisure.

The game is great, and the guys who gussied this baby up did a fantastic job and I hope one day to see more.  I really wish others would follow this example.  There have been more and more remasters and rereleases coming out that have been aesthetically disappointing.

Take Advance Wars.  Fantastic game with many an hour spent spamming medium tanks and artillery over the gridded battlefield.  Can't espouse how good a game it was, especially for a Gameboy Advance game.

Recently it has seen a remaster bringing it to the modern Nintendo console with some modern amenities such as online play and spruced up graphics, and that last point is where I find my contention.

The Gameboy Advance has a limited amount of real estate on it's screen.  The resolution and colour palette are limiting, but the developers used every bit of it with gusto, making it rather distinct with the tools available.

So I get why you would decide to bump that up to 3D and perhaps redraw a lot of the assets.  What I didn't expect was a lack of effort in unit models.

Here we have a side by side comparison of the unit GBA sprites and their updated models.  They're bland and uninteresting, and what's more disappointing is that these vehicles are based on actual vehicles <Insert Link to Advance Wars Trivia>.  Almost would have rathered they did a 2.5d mode and just used the same sprites and had then standing on little notches to move across a game board.

This is an example of missed opportunity.  Yeah, sure, the models are fine if the game is great, but I would rather not be looking at it and wish it was more interesting to the eye.  These units are all based on actual vehicles, so why don't they look more like them?  I would like to see this reboot game also adapt the Gameboy <i>Wars</i> games as well, the progenitors to Advance Wars, and see them update the visuals and units to match the Advance Wars motif.

Which brings me over to Sonic Origins, a new release of the Sonic the Hedgehog Mega Drive and CD collection which now comes with a DLC containing Sonic the Hedgehog games from the Sega Game Gear in their original Glory.

That's where I have my problem, and I blame The Dragons Trap.  These games were good for their time, making the best with the limited tools they have.  But we can build it better.  Prettier.  We have the technology.  There's a guy who is remastering the Sonic Chaos and Triple Trouble games into Mega Drive versions, using similar sprites and animation direction with some liberties on unique levels, but making it a convincing remaster.

These games deserve that at least.  They were fun games in their time, Sonic 1's Jungle Zone still makes me scared of rising floor levels; the Hang Glider in Sonic 2 still annoys me to think about that one emerald stuck in the sky.  The majority of them all had Sega Master System releases as well, so why wouldn't you release those instead of the dinky game gear versions?

It's another case of missed opportunity.  They could have remastered these games in gorgeous fashion, put some love and effort into a glow up, and you would be praised to the ends of the earth for showing some love for one of the biggest video game icons of the 20th and 21st centuries, yet it's squandered for the sake of ease.

Christian Whitehead, in the name of Sonic Mania, would you please help us.  Get involved more and remaster everything properly.  Make Sonic Pretty Again.  You're our only hope.

Twenty Two Token Nutshell

Well it's time for my one and only post for the year, the one time I even try to attempt some sort of writing and keep my blog alive.

Actually its kinda funny, one of the podcasts I've been listeining to have been talking about how, with the implosion of twitter and his typical outsource of creative talk, he has decided to return back to his blog and revive it there.

It's part of what got me jumping back this year, and then the numerous other posts I've half written up and drafted because I can't seem to keep my own subject focus. i'm barely able to keep my own sentences here going, having to backspace every few words just to make it sound "right". i just deleted the word unquote becaue I couldn't be fuckin arsed going back and typing quote.

anyway, I want to talk about video games. there's been a bunch I've played and I've had thoughts galore that are just drivels on epiphanys and just wanting to rave about games Ive had fun with.

Like Metroidvanias. so I've had little experience with them growing up. i didn't have a Nintendo so Metroid and the like weren't in my pervue. So when I started playing Hollow Knight and having the time of my life, which is fair because it's a beautifully crafted piece of work, I wanted to delve more into the genre.

I now have a Switch Lite, combined with a relatively cheap comfort grip, I grabbed a few of the popular and interesting Metroidvanias available: axiom verge (1 & 2), Blasphemous, and Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom.

I'll start with axiom verge because they are the most like the original metroid game, literally taking the 8 bit style and going gangbusters with it. the black backgrounds with weird tiled platform environments; tunnels circling about and confusing me until I happen to find one tile that isn't quite right and either shoot it or use a weird wave gun that changes a bunch of walls and floors because everything seems to be a biological but digitally real. It's a weird kinda game, where your character is thrown into a weird dimension of gigantic automaton trying to save themselves from another human who killed almost every other living creature. naturally you're tasked with fixing the issue, while also futzing about killing off minibosses that dont do an easy job of dying.

I havent said anything about the plot twist, because frankly that is something I was really confused and surprised about, and you should too.

Axiom Verge 2 is much the same, but jumps up to 16 bit era, and really pares down on faff. the first game had like 16 weapons, whereas now you've about 4 to work with, and maybe a few more tools after that. But again, the plot twist and the surprises, the fascinating levels and designs, just kept me going until I finished it off and moved on to the biggin.

Blasphemous is a fascinating game. It's a hard 15+ game because throughout the game, including the first few scenes, are very gorey. After you kill the first boss, you cut open his belly, pour the blood into your helmet, and put it on as the red pours down your bit-art body.

the appeal in it is that it's an interesting take on religion, and this in particular is a very old and spanish catholic art style, doused with literal examples of what are called miracles, like a boy the size of a building having the face of an old man growing in his chest, and as the game progresses the old man grows more and climbs from his chest until the one are two and they both die In The Name Of The Lord.

Weird and strange and horrific things that people and creatures allow to have happen to them because their faith demands they do it. Its a heavy theme and because it's so obscene in how it goes, it's fascinating to discover and learn, to read stories found by collecting bones of different saints across the world, to speak to different characters who are dumbstruck by everything out of the ordinary. It's a curious and gorgeous world to explore. genuinely, the art is phenomenal for something that could have been on a sega 32x.

Then there's Monster Boy. I actually haven't played much of this, truly about 3 or 4 hours in? Even that feels optimistic. And the reason is incredibly petty: I'm jaded by a related title.

So one of my favourite games from my Sega days is Wonder Boy III: The Dragons Trap. It's a fun game that has you changing forms to solve puzzles and reach different dragon bosses to return your character to normal. It's really the closest thing to a Metroidvania style game that I can attest to playing, because it has a hub area and a bunch of regions you can branch out to explore from there. It's more like a star than a series of infinity loops, but you get the idea. I'm going to have to find a name of that type of loop now, a magnus loop or something?

Anyway, a few years ago a company made a remaster of it and I fucking loved it. The core game is exactly the same, I could play the game on both a Sega Master system and whatever modern consoles side by side and I would literally have the same results. What's changed is the visuals and the soundtrack, all perfectly crafted for the game, adding so much more character to levels that weren't much more than plain blue backgrounds, but all the while making them feel like they were always there. Like they had built rose tinted glasses for this game, to make it feel in every essence the same game I played when i was a kid.

as such, Monster Boy is related in that it has the same ideas as The Dragons Trap, but sets it in the future of the characters life and allows him to change into different monsters on the fly, and having a whole new world to explore and delve into.

And my petty problem is that it's just not a similar game except by name. The controls and feel are different, the art is more of an anime cartoon style than the slightly gritty style of The Dragons Trap, and the soundtrack is just... so yeah, it's really surface level things that I don't like, and nothing I can really do about because it was all made by a different company.

All it really makes me wish is that The Dragons Trap gets a DLC addition to tell a story they want to tell, but after so many years I assume they're onto bigger and better things.

there's been a lot of that lately, last year brought in a good handful of blockbuster games that I was keen to get my hands on except for a few, and for the most part i was left disappointed early on.

Halo Infinite is really the biggest heartbreak. It's my own fault, I set up expectations that it was going to be a lot like Destiny, with having an open world that becomes incredibly deep and complex and interconnecting and having secrets in any nook and cranny you care to gawk at.

it wasn't that. it felt like a halo game, don't get me wrong, and it was super pretty in a lot of places, but... it really just felt flat.

part of that I blame on the grappling hook. that's been a big gimmick of late, to launch a grappling hook and traverse levels and encounters constantly. And it's a good thing in combat, you spot a vehicle running past and you grapple hook yourself to it and board it with ease. or you can pull an explosive barrel to you and launch it away into an enemy pile just to see them scatter.

But if you can use it to travel about, you're about to find that everything is easy to reach and youre going to spend a fair chunck of time just ninja roping your way around town.

But knowing that, you work around that. there's a bunch of different collectibles across the world and good handful of them are designed for that consideration. One type of collectible that didn't is the High Value Target (HVT), an individual enemy that carries a specially designed weapon you can pick up and use. So when Im about to cross a Jackal who carries an alien sniper rifle, standing at the top of a long slope littered with cover, brutes, shield jackals, and grunts, I would expect to run the gauntlet while he's spamming shots at me and driving me mad with each headache. Not reverse abseiling behind him and clocking him with the scifi equivalent of a boxing glove with nails in it and calling it good.

Its been a year and I havent really returned to it, partly because my Game Pass sub ran out and I havent renewed it, partly because I'm not even sure I want to yet. They have online coop implemented to the game, but I'm not finding it worth the time until they add something new or different to the game.

In the same vein, I keep thinking about Borderlands 3 and just came to the conclusion that they should just give in and become an RPG. They have all these characters, and these whole worlds they wanted to introduce, and all you're doing is just dakka dakka dakka. Which is cool, but for whatever reason it just isnt fun.

That's why I want a Tactics RPG, so you can get both hand in hand. Fix their writing, expand everyones story, have your Combat that you delve harder into to build stronger strategies than "this has big DPS", and have a god damned campaign the setting deserves that isn't just a bunch of popular memes strung together.

And while you're at it, take a look at the Mario and Rabbids games and build from that. They tackle, they slam, they shoot the shit out of stuff, all things you can do in the FPS, so why the fuck not?!

Tactics games have been pretty good of late. They re-remastered Tactics Ogre again and put them on every console available (actually I should check if it's only available on Playstation and Switch or not); Mario and Rabbids is actually pretty good, the sequel I'm playing has a LOT of improvements, especially in the free roaming where there are puzzles galore; I rebought Darkest Dungeon on my Switch so I can run that while something plays in the background on TV; Also rebought XCOM 2 when it came to the Switch because I do like a lot that it has to offer.

I did grab up Warsaw, the Darkest Dungeon-like rpg, and I've been bouncing pretty hard off it, mostly from information paralysis. It doesn't exactly ease you into the game very well and I want to learn more about the occupation of Warsaw more through this like i learnt about World War 1 from Valiant Hearts, which is getting a sequel on mobile through Netflix's service, which is a bit hurtful.

After that I have The Banner Saga which I hear is really good, it looks absolutely Captial-G-Gorgeous, but Im having trouble hitting that epiphany point with the combat. You have Armour and Strength, Strength Doubles as your Health, but the less Strength you have the less damage you deal, and you can counter it by having higher armour, which the enemies tend to have along with matching strength, so when I'm having my hard hitters get attacked first from either ranged enemies or just getting the first strike, I end up being on the back foot the whole match. I know the game is supposed to be a bit hardcore, but I just need that epiphany moment.

What I've learnt through the last few years though is that my Switch is an MVP. There's a lot of people ragging on about how it needs a hardware update and Nintendo should try to rival Playstation and Xbox in capability, but I don't really think so. It's become an Indie machine and it'll play just about any Indie that gets thrown at it.  

Speaking of Indies, Sega should let others get involved with the Sonic IP more. Sonic Mania when it came out was absolutely lourded for being a fantastic rendition of the Sega Mega Drive games made into one fun package.

i enjoyed it for the most part, some of the new levels felt a little too goofy and I didn't particularly like them, but that's a small complaint compared to the positive. Really, it's a fun game and I hope those teams dip into more of the Sonic games. Rather than the latest collection they put out.

So Sonic Origins is a bundle of the Sega Mega Drive games including Sonic 1, 2, 3 & Knuckles, and Sonic CD. Only Sonic CD I haven't actually played, but it's nice to have such a collection of games available. The problem is that they put out their purchasing options and they were Horrendous, items clearly for a cheap cash grab on top of an already fairly expensive game. Background menu Items? The option to move cosmetic things around? A Hard Mode sounded good but should have been part of the base purchase. Same with Remastered Music.

I had a plea written out that if you're going to release a remaster bundle and then offer up downloadable content, why don't you just keep remastering other games? Get the Sega Master System games and remaster them, use the Mega Drive Assets to zhush them up into something more interesting to the eye and tack it on! You'd get more than your moneys worth with remastering those underappreciated classics than you would trying to offer up the same fucking music played on a better synthesizer.

The only other big thought I had this year was of Elden Ring. It came out early 2022 to mass appraise, even got game of the year I think, and it kinda has me curious to get into it. It's a hardcore game and I can think that the only game I've played similar to it is Monster Hunter World, which I had a bunch of fun with. Next down would be God of War, but that is very much a Souls-lite, not to it's detriment though.

About a month or two later a Final Fantasy game came out called Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. A strange name for sure, pun not intended. It had a cool idea, a prequel to the first Final Fantasy game played out in an Action RPG, running around with your party and casting spells between whapping away with whatever weapon you had equipped. There seemed a pretty good variety of options at its core, some pretty environments as you would expect of its ilk. But it fell flat at it's writing. It was dreadful. Not because of the translation, but genuinely just... just terrible. I only watched a few hours of it in play, watched the scenes on youtube, and laughed with pity at the memes generated from it because it's really that bad it's not particularly funny.

Well, to circle back, quite a few of the reviewers I follow were comparing this game to Elden Ring, saying it's Square Enix's answer to Elden Ring because of the style and combat. I couldn't agree any less. Actual gameplay in hand might be different, but looking at it I was immediately thrown into thinking of Kingdom Hearts. It may not be as zippy and floaty as Kingdom Hearts is, but I would rather that comparison than with Elden Ring.

Thinking of a Final Fantasy Soulslike just puts Vagrant Story front and centre: A single character running around a labrynthian city; using different weapons and equipment against a variety of enemys, large and small; a dark mystery surrounding all characters involved in the world. It all adds up and falls short when the combat comes and you're showing the difference between a strange turn based game, and an action game.

I think that's a wrap up. My 2022 thoughts that were half baked in the first place and just didn't have much more point than what they do here.

My Year(s) in Video Games

Well lets deal with the obvious.  I haven't posted here in what feels like an age.  Last post I made was about how I was excited about the Notorious High Tier Assassin Sorscha was being made into a new Warcaster matching my Favourite Theme of Steam Powered Heavy Armour Soldiers.

Sadly I've kinda fallen out of love with Warmachine through my lack of play and interest, feeling very "back in my day, we had fun with our game" about it since I really began lurking and watching from the sidelines, and wishing I could play the Iron Kingdoms RPG instead, mostly because I got a Humble Bundle Deal that got me about 99% of the RPG books for a song.

From that I made a bunch of cool characters, all with little back stories and parties they've formed together, loose motives for their future so that any DM's have something to fuel their own narrative.  Yes I realise that means I should DM my own campaign, but I have every excuse in the book that puts me off of that.

I actually thought about doing a Play By Mail campaign with people, but I just get myself overwhelmed by trying to find some definitive answers from the internet.  I've gotten very Anti-internet for a while and now my Facebook feed is pretty much just a continuing roll of memes and tags.

So I fill in my own time with Video Games, and the last few years have been pretty hit and miss for video games.

Like Xcom 2: War of the Chosen, a fantastic expansion to the game.  It added a bunch of new stuff, like new classes and enemies, new gameplay options, new maps, even a whole new enemy type which is more hassle than they're really worth, but hey you can't get everything right.  Especially when it comes to getting a port fully working.

For ages though I've had a want to make an Xcom Campaign, something more focused on an individual party and having a bunch of encounters based on the different mission types you'd normally encounter in the Grand Strategy games, just more in depth with characters and strategy.

The more I think of it though, the cooler I think it would be as a proper video game taking inspirations from a bunch of games, starting with Xcom: Apocalypse which is focused around a singular Megacity, to Nier Automata, which seems like a far stretch but bear with me, the inspiration comes from the gameplay mechanics which changes style as you go.

For example, one minute you could be fighting in a 3D open arena with enemies coming from all around, to a classic 2D platformer style as you progress through to other map regions.  So from that, I would like to take inspiration from other turn based games and implement them into minor missions or encounters.

The more I think about it though the more I realise I kinda would use features of Mutant Year Zero, a game I really enjoyed, as short lived as it was.  If I were to nitpick it, the tedium of silent takeouts was a little grating, but still it was fun.  It could have been a little more than what it was.

When two world collide
and really support each other

Speaking of games that were more than what was expected: DOOM.  Jesus Christ that was a good game.  The speed, the fun, the exhilaration, the ripping and tearing.  The sequel is coming out in a months time and I'm excited for it even though it looks extremely arcade like in its play.  Lots of double jumping, swing bars, and wall climbing.  I saw a Youtube Card of someones review with the words "Best Mario Game Not Made By Nintendo", which feels conflicting, but hey I'm still keen.

Speaking of Nintendo, Jenny got me a Switch Lite.  It's more or less like a Playstation Portable but bigger and lighter.  I still want to get a grip case for it, maybe something that extends its battery life as well, but that has to wait until I get back to work again before I make any more.

In the meantime I have a handful of games that came with the Xmas present.  Jenny had asked around and got me The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Civilization VI, Sonic Team Racing, Mario and Sonic Olympics, and Nickelodeon Kart Racing.  The two biggest ones I wanted to play though were Breath of the Wild and Civ6.

Civilization is a game I haven't really played much in my life until this point.  I had Civ 2 or 3 when I was in high school, my mum got it as a group package with Sim City 2000 and The Settlers 2: Veni, Vidi, Vici.  I faffed around with it a lot, but never really sat down with it to understand the rules.  I gave Civ a fair crack of the whip, but on top of the rather awkward UI on the small screen I still don't really know what it is I'm accomplishing.  I do need to spend more time with it though.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a very different kettle of fish.  I'm far from finished on it, having only accomplished one of the four mechanical beasts that help in the fight of Calamity Ganon and largely only explored the bottom half of the map between getting my arse served by a new high level monster that I happen to snag the attention of.  It's a good game, don't get me wrong, but I think once I get that grip case I will have a better time fighting thanks to more flexibility in my hands.

While we are on the subject of Nintendo I've been watching a series called Game Makers Toolkit.  My mate Andy pointed me in Mark Browns direction while we were talking about certain games and their mechanics.  Mr Brown had covered the subject quite well and since then I have the occasional playthrough of all his available Youtube videos (Sorry Mark, I can't spare the dosh for your Patreon) while I play a game or sleep.  He's very soothing.

But the ones that really stood out were the series on Metroid.  I have never played a Metroid game in my life.  I think there was a period where I was using a Gameboy emulator and I may have tried to start off one of the Metroid games available but never stuck with it.  His retrospective series gave me a really good insight into the games and piqued my interest into Hollow Knight.

Hollow Knight is about a small Bug Soldier exploring an ancient kingdom called Hollownest.  You explore this hive of networked environments, meeting insects and grubs, defeating rabid bosses, and discovering secrets and history of this fascinating and magical world.  I'm 77% of the way through according to the little meter in the corner of my inventory screen so I have plenty more to find and achieve.

My favourite part of the Remaster

The style of the game has me fascinated though.  The closest I can say that I've played to this is Wonder Boy: The Dragons Trap, which has a beautiful Remaster that threw me back to my Master System days so easily that when I turned on the Retro Visuals I almost thought it was a gag.  That was the closest I came to a Metroidvania game though, and I kinda want to get into more of that style of game now that I've dabbled into it.

Speaking of Re-something games, there was Sonic Mania.  Everyone and their Mother knows that I love Sonic the Hedgehog.  He's my favourite.  I want to get a Tattoo of the Sonic and Knuckles logo on my shoulder because Sonic 3 and Knuckles is my favourite game of all time.  I wouldn't be able to tell you how many hours I've sunk into it, but I know I've deleted and restarted all of those save slots until they were all 100% several times over.

Sonic Mania was really fun though.  I wasn't a big fan of some of the newer Zones, some of them stuck out as being out of place, but its still a really fun game.  I haven't been able to sit myself down to max out everything yet but I want to get a Genesis Controller for my Playstation just so I can really get back into how I used to play, which weirdly had my right hand turned over so I'm using my digits instead of my thumb to jump.

My other favourite game that came out was Borderlands 3.  A good game overall, but sadly their antagonists weren't particularly encapsulating, especially when they were following one of the best arseholes to kill off at the end of his story, Handsome Jack.

I keep seeing people on Reddit going "Bring back Handsome Jack!" which is depressing because that's really just beating a dead horse.  I love Handsome Jack, he's a great bastard to hate, and there are a few references to him, particularly in one side mission that really brings to light how malicious he can be, but he's done.  He has died in all but a Gun that plays voice clips of him.

The new Antagonists are nowhere near as hard hitting.  I said in an old post, that I'm going to redo an elaborate on one day, that there was a turning point.  That you have him playing in your ear and you don't really take him seriously until you reach a real turning point, and suddenly you have it in your heart that you need to take him down.  You need to go after him and really kill him off.

You can't go wrong with a Robot Beast Tamer

That doesn't really happen in 3.  It could be because they stumbled upon playing the same card as they did with Handsome Jack in 2, or because they just aren't that impressive, there just isn't that turning point in the story where you're motivated to stop them.

Thankfully they still have DLC coming out.  The first was a fun tribute to Handsome Jack's Stunt Double and Moxxi where you raid a Casino.  Good value.  The next one is going to be really fun as well, but I have no idea what that'll be.

Another game that really changed things up is Gears of War 5.  Or Gears 5, as they are want to go with now.  Largely, the game is still the same.  Cover based shooting and encroaching against Mutants that emerge from the ground, occasionally with a Gigantic Monster to accompany them.  But what I liked about it was the change from just straight mission after mission to a semi-open world setting, travelling on a Kite Sled between notable locations and regions that lead into missions.  Something a bit more freeform in play.

Which can be bad, such as the case of Wolfenstein Youngblood.  That was not a good game.  A lot of ideas going for it, but just so poorly executed.  A lot of cool stuff for it, the levels are pretty, the combat is fun, the super powers are always a fun addition, but... god everything else was as shallow as a Kiddy Pool.

John Carmack, one of the big Doom Guys, said "Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important."  Well that's all well and good, but if you really treat it like that you get this game, where you have so little direction for your players to go that you flounder what you want them to do and encounter.

So that's what I mean by hit and miss.  There's been really good games and there have been really bad games.  I'm keen on what 2020 has to offer for games, but there's still the matter of all the games i"m yet to play.  Like Prey, Outer Worlds, and Dishonoured: Death of the Outsider.  And I haven't even finished talking about all the games I've played, really, but hey, I gotta stop this at some point.

Insert Token Self Deprecating Meme

Dear Xbox Avatar

I have been good to you. Made you look any range of dapper, to cool, to just plain nerdy. However I have spent too much money on you. Too much for a pretty little guy who just doesn't do much except represent me in the Xbox-verse, with features that aren't appreciated enough.

Quite frankly, it's a tad disappointing. Knowing that you're wearing a Sonic the Hedgehog hoodie and discovering that Sonic once came in a cartridge almost as big as a DS. Or wearing an Orc mask and a Warcraft Horde shirt while riding a Dire Wolf and throwing a Spear. Or wearing a Nanosuit and shooting across cover with an SMG and pistol. Or wearing your own incorporation of your ex-military corporations uniform, and driving around in a Bandit Truck.

I've spent far too much to have these features, all for no purpose but my own entertainment.The one outfit Im happy to have gotten, and without having to pay, was the Doomguy suit. And I received that by finishing a chapter in Doom II. And it was a Fkn hard chapter too. When faced with a horde (yes, a horde) of Imps you tend to freak out. And then finish shitting your pants when you see the Cyberdemon turn the corner.That's what I call an outfit to be proud of. It means something. You wear it with the pride of a soldier wearing a medal.

Cos frankly, Doom is a game that shows it's age, but nobody gives a Fuck. It's still relevant. I still have a hard time trying to sleep when i hear that patient Imp noise, something akin to a hungry truffle pig.

But having something to wear to show that I overcame those Imps by spamming my BFG, and dodging the Cyberdemon Rockets while making it catch my own?  It gives me a gleam in my heart.

So why don't games do that more? If you complete a game that offers an Xbox Avatar costume for you to purchase in the marketplace, why not reward the player with it?  Finish Xcom: Enemy Unknown on Easy, you get Xcom basic armour and a Pistol, Normal you also get Carapace Armour and a Laser Rifle, Hard you also get Titan Armour and a Heavy Plasma Cannon, and Impossible you get Psi Armour with an Animation of them casting Psionic Rift.  Heck, eliminate Exalt and you receive their operative outfit and weapon.

That's another thing.  I want to use my Avatar in game.  I've seen a handful of games that do use them, such as World for Keflings where you're a Giant and order your diminuitive minions around and build a Medieval Town for them to reside and work in, but could I find something a bit more... standard?  No.  I couldn't join in an MMO of Xbox Avatars to find myself shooting my way through a series of waves of Xbox Exclusive All star bad guys, could I.

No, he just sits there with little potential taken up by third party developers.  Microsoft couldn't just make an MMO using these Avatars, something they automatically subscribe to with their Xbox Live Subscription, could they.  Where a group of friends in contact with each other, with nothing to do on a Saturday night because they're bored with Halo or Borderlands, but still want to put in the effort of playing a game together.  No.  Those poor sods will have to make do with what they've got.

One day though.  One day.  Xbox All-Stars MMO, using your very own Avatar.  Recreate extreme demo scenes in games like Gears of War or Fable or whatever racing game they have an exclusive on.  Things like that.  Maybe not those specifically, but you get the idea.
It's an idea though, and that may be all it'll ever be.  But damnit, I want to see my Orc mask get some face time in a game, not just when I flick between screens on the dashboard.

Another exercise in literary spewing

Happy Birthday Scott 2011

I've been staring at this blank page for about 2 hours now and I originally planned to write about how I wanted to go to scotts birthday, well I'm going but what i wanted to do like get a keg of cider but couldn't find anything but one keg which disappoints me because even though Pear and Strawberry sounds like a good cider, it's the lack of options that disappoint me, and that's a big thing too because sometimes I just want to get just 5L of Bulmers Pear Cider because it's a nice cheap cider, and I like the pear flavour better though Kel says he doesn't like pear cider because it's too sweet, but I just find it easier to drink, but anyway, Scott's birthday is this weekend and it's going all weekend so with my other plans of going to Kel and Tash's to see Alex on friday and then my nephews birthday on saturday (it's a lunch/dinner at sizzler) I can work it all together very well so long as I can get back to my house before mum heads off to sizzler, then I can get back to Scotts to play Warmachine, or Dystopian Wars, or Talisman and all the various expansions scotty has for it which will be crazy fun though I reckon we'll have to make an effort to do something about getting to the top because it can be very easy to just circle around the centre and level up and then climb your way to the top, so we might try and get a relic from each end of the three corner expansions and then climb up the middle, whether it's the normal version or the alternate dragon options, but that's something to sort out when we get there, otherwise we can play our xbox's like Borderlands and maybe even Halo 4 though I think I'll have to share with scott because i don't have a copy of Halo 4 and naturally that makes things difficult, but we'll find other games to play I'm sure because there are plenty of games out there, heck we might even play Gears of War 3 and finally get me to that level 50 of Horde Mode, and hopefully take on a goddamn lambent berserker and have her chase me while I Torque Bow her to death and, well, that'll be fun all in it's entirety, and now I'm really starting to run out of things to talk about even with this mindless ramble that I have because it's all I've been thinking about except for my arcade cabinet which I really want to do but can't because without a job i haven't any money and also if I leave it here it'll probably just rot away because it'll be made of wood and the dust might even set fire inside the playstation 2 that I would have inside it and Mum wouldn't appreciate me burning the house down while i'm living with Jenny, so I have to put that on hold until I move back and get my own place with jenny, and having my own man cave with a sonic the hedgehog arcade machine in the corner.

May 15th

May 15th has been a big day for a lot of people, especially for Video games.  It's a long awaited continuation of a wonderful series, coveted as one would the holy grail.

That's right.  It was the day and release of...


Sonic the Hedghog 4, Episode II.

...

What?

Sonic Generations

I think I may have mentioned that I'm a fan of Sonic. He has been a childhood hero and remains to be. I think I have a photo somewhere that has me in my favourite Sonic Hoodie, and one of my various Sonic Shirts at the Mana Bar while playing Sonic on the Wii.

The only disappointing era's of Sonic games was really the 2006 Self-titled version. Anything after the Mega Drive until that point, I haven't had the chance to play, so to be fair I'm not going to say bad things about them. I have Sonic Adventure now on my PS3 since they made a port for it, but I just haven't put the effort into playing it yet.

Instead, I've been playing Sonic 4 which I have yet to really complete. It's difficult, and the controls are noticably different than the traditional games that I've played, though the system is meant to be much the same. What's closer to the classic is Sonic Fan Remix. And what else is likable about it is that it's got a different, but more appealing art style, really detailed and different than Sonic 4.

But I'm not really here to talk about those versions of Sonic the Hedgehog. I want to talk about Sonic Generations.

The Idea behind Sonic Generations is a combination of older and newer formats of the Sonic Platformers, the classic 2D and the newer 3D format. In turn, they follow the theme of various different levels from those same generations, picking Zones from the various games and then giving both a 2D and a 3D version of the levels with Original layouts.

One of the funny gimmicks of the game is that both generations of Sonic are able to meet each other. Old Sonic was a blue hedgehog with black pupils and no iris, and didn't really speak much. Or at all. New Sonic, after he defeated one of the Robotniks in the Archie Comics, changed to have Green Iris and Gold Buckles on his shoes, and he's taller.

I picked it up yesterday and I plugged it into the PS3 and invited mum to watch it with me. And to boot, we flicked it over to 3D to see what it would be like with the effects. What we did know of the game was that it was a bit... quick off the mark. If you performed the Spin Dash technique, you would have missed a portion of the level due to the speed he was travelling. Classic Sonic was quick, but this is ridiculous.

The 3D just made it more intense, with the detailed levels and the various colours and speeds, it was just driving Mum and I nuts. I don't think I'm going to load up the 3D again except for a special event when i want to show someone.

The Gameplay system they use is very reminiscent of the classic Sonic that I played many moons ago, with various different additions, such as Skill sets for Sonic to apply to himself (First two of which were to land on his feet whenever he gets damaged, and to have the rings stay around for 10 seconds), and challenge modes for the different levels. So there's plenty to unlock since the game encapsulates the better part of the entire franchise, and also includes special feature such as Art, Music and Videos.

I'm very excited to get into this game. It's my favourite character, with elements from all generations, and... well yeah. That's about it, really.

Sonic 4

Anyone who knows me well enough, or has seen me in the street, knows that I'm a fan of Sonic the Hedgehog. He's been my favourite character since I was a kid playing the 8-bit games on the Sega Master System (The first console I can remember having – Apparently we had an Atari?).

I remember the most frustrating level of Sonic the Hedgehog was the Jungle Zone, where you had to climb up the waterfall and if you fell, you had to start again. It was frustrating as a little kid going too far over a platform and plumetting to your death even though you knew that there was a platform that went from both sides of the screen that had JUST left view.

There was also the time playing Sonic 2, still on the SMS, and being so proud that I'd collected all six of the emeralds. Even the two really annoying ones, where you had to use a hang glider to grab the one in the sky and do something in particular (I think it was press left) to get in through a particular vent so that I could get it because I couldn't go back for it at all!

Actually you couldn't go back for any if you failed the first time, it was impossible unless you started the level again after dying, and it's difficult to justify that when extra lives are very few and far between. I think there's about 2 on every level, and 1 if you get 100 rings.

Anyway, I kept going and going, and became ridiculously good at finishing Sonic 3 and Knuckles on the Mega Drive. After that, came Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast. That's pretty much where I stopped, mostly because of being unable to pick up a Dreamcast. So the era of Sonic ended. The next Sonic game I picked up was a compilation disc with all of the Mega Drive Sonics and a handful of the game gear ones (Apparently someone was a douche and forgot that they HAD a higher resolution)

After that, it was quite a few years before I invested in another Sonic game and that ended up being "Sonic the Hedgehog" on the Xbox. That was where I found myself disappointed. I loved the 2D side scroller platformer that was Sonic. then they had this series of free roaming games that only the die-hard fans really followed.

I'm sorry, but the controls of that game were just too out of whack for me. One Nudge to the left and you have him running straight into a wall, or off into oblivion. Things were pretty and all, but just too ridiculously crazy for me to handle.

And so it's 2010, and another Sonic game is coming out. BUT it's gone back to the old Roots, where it was side scroller platformer. They bumped it up to 2.5D, where it's still on a 2D playing field but is made of 3D graphics, but that's okay. It looks like the Sonic I know and Love. It comes out wednesday, so that night before I talk to jenny will be involving the downloading and playing of Sonic 4.

Game on.