Limbo

The first rule of Limbo is to not talk about Limbo… I almost regret watching the previews and reviews of this title because it becomes a mild disappointment when I recognize a section. I will say this though, this game is going to be in the Game of the Year discussions, and if it’s not something is terribly wrong with the people who are involved in such things… There have been more clever moments in the first hour of this game than every other game I’ve played this year (I’ve played a lot of games this year).

This thing is the definition of polished, it looks amazing with the lighting effects and the shades of grey, there were not real instances where I wasn’t certain what was in the foreground/background. There are different environments but the creep factor sort of wears off when you get beyond the woods, which is too bad. The controls are simple and feel (for the lack of a better word) right. From the gamer’s perspective (re:mine), the gameplay was incredibly intuitive, challenging, but never frustrating. I’ve never had a game make me feel so accomplished, smart and/or stupid and any combination thereof from one minute to the next like this one has. The girlfriend was watching me play for a bit at the start, and there was a whole lot of  her saying “Ewwww!” immediately followed by me saying “AHHH!!” in a true “eureka!” moments. I like a good puzzle game, but I don’t recall one that has had this sort of effect on me.

You would be doing yourself a huge disservice by not buying this game immediately if you have a 360, and the developer would be doing themselves and everyone else a disservice by not bringing it to other platforms. Everyone who doesn’t have nightmares (or at least can’t recover gracefully from them) should want to, and be able to play this game. It’s twisted, and gruesome without the gore, and because of this, even the parts where nothing is happening keep you on the edge of your seat.

I should probably save something for the review…

Mass Effect 2

You know a game is successful in what it’s trying to do, that it very quickly tells you, indirectly, that you should go back and play the previous title in the series. That’s what happened to me here… I tried to play Mass Effect over the holidays after picking it up during a steam sales. I played Mass Effect 2 for an hour or so the cinematic value of that introductory chapter was incredible, but it was the nature of the very dramatic intro made it clear that I should have a connection with these characters that I didn’t have. I mentioned a few posts back that I really liked Mass Effect, now that the dust has settled on that, and I have now played through Mass Effect 2, I’d say that the original was ok, but in retrospect, it’s a fraction of the sequel is.

It’s very easy to throw Mass Effect 2 into the traditional BioWare RPG bucket, but more than that it is a third-person “stop and pop” action game, with squad mechanics. It just so happens to be class based, and includes some character skill development based on experience points. It also contains an epic story that can be molded based on the decisions that is made by the player. In my opinion, this is the perfect blend action RPG. The controls on PC were tight, much better than in the original, and it felt like I could either use their pause/command functionality or play it as a straight up action game depending on the situation I was in. The execution here in my mind was flawless, I often found myself getting into some trouble, in those cases I’d pause the battle, scan the field to see whats going on, direct my team in such a way that would get me out of situation my running and gunning had got myself into. I played on the ‘normal’ difficulty, and I found that might have been a bit too easy. I didn’t die much through the course of the journey, and if I did it really was my fault for doing something stupid. I think it felt easier because the ally AI was competent for the most part. They didn’t often run out into the open into a swarm of enemies, sure it happened occasionally, but to the point of being a problem. The weapons and abilities all felt good to use, I played through as an adept, I REALLY enjoyed aiming my biotics so that they’d curve around enemy cover and the ability to control the battle field. I also started with some of the other classes and they all felt unique and powerful in their own way. I’m certain I will be playing through this again taking a different approach, with a different class, and maybe try to not get my crew killed this time…

BioWare did a great job of more or less hiding many of the ‘rpg’ elements from the player. You don’t have complicated decisions to make about ability points that need to be distributed, sure there is still some choice, but the options are simplified. You don’t need to spend points in charm or intimidate, though the functionality is still in the game and still used to open up dialog options. You also don’t have to manage your bag, and equipment, this is instead a loadout and upgrade system that applies to both weapons and armor. You purchase upgrades from stores or find them on missions, and you can develop them by using resources gathered by scanning planets, and dropping probes to collect them. It’s a simple system, after trying to get all the upgrades I did kind of wear out on the process, but by scanning the many planets in the many systems, you may also detect an anomaly which will give you a side quest you can do. It provides a little reward for exploring, and gives a little extra incentive when you’re farming materials for that expensive upgrade. But again, it all felt pretty optional to me.. and if I had my fill of scanning there was always something else I could do to take a break.

The story is one of, if not the best story in a game that I’ve played so far, I really got into it. I think thats because Shepard and the world that I’d created felt like my own. Unlike Mass Effect, which to me really made me feel like a small piece of this giant universe, Mass Effect 2 suppresses this by the rest of the universe refusing to acknowledge the threat leaving Shepard and crew to deal with the threat themselves. Although this is similar to ME1, the reason this feels smaller is because instead of trying to deal with the powers that be, finding evidence to support your claims etc to enlist their help, you are forced into a partnership with Cerberus, a terrorist organization (by reputation) with humanities best interest in mind (or so you’re told… I for one am not buying it). This relationship creates some interesting dialog moments and some difficult judgement calls along the way. I’ve got to say knowing that your decisions in this game will have consequences in the forthcoming sequel, and having seen those same sort of decisions carry forward from the original Mass Effect play their part here really makes you think carefully about the tough ones.

The bulk of the game is spent assembling your crew and doing loyalty missions (these will unlock an additional ability, and character outfit once completed, and I believe has some story repercussion as well), in doing these you really end up developing an emotional attachment to these people, as each provides some insight as to why Cerberus choose them to be on Shepard’s crew, and how they got into the position they’re in. There are some really interesting characters here and they were all a joy to get to know. But this sort of development and detail extends well beyond your immediate crew, the encounters you have on the various missions with people and situations are all incredibly fleshed out, and complete. You run into some genuinely creepy scenarios (not the least of which being the overlord DLC), all superbly written and all really fun to play.  The cinematics in this game are great, and similar to in Mass Effect, the soundtrack compliments each and every scene, it was very easy to get worked up and get on with your mission.

This is easily on my short list of games to play this year, even if you haven’t or don’t go back to play Mass Effect, though if you have the time I would strongly recommend it. It really makes you feel that the universe here is yours to mold.. It’s a truly amazing accomplishment for BioWare and I’m not at all surprised that it sounds like they’re trying to move the Dragon Age franchise in a similar direction (not that I agree with it). There isn’t much more I can say about this other than do yourself a favor and play it… and if you’ve only got a ps3, you should be hammering the bioware forums begging for a port because it’s that good…

Dragon Quest IX Sentinels of the Starry Skies

As a long time fan of the franchise, and the developer, I picked up Dragon Quest IX this week. I think this game has a lot going for it, starting with the timing. There really aren’t any games out, or coming out in the near future which really gives me a chance to actually stick with the game. I feel like I should qualify that statement because it comes with some implications, so I will. First and foremost these games are long, and the story is historically not enough of a draw on its own to keep me playing the game. On top of that games in this series don’t tend to evolve to the point where thats the key driver for me. What DQ is to me, is a simplistic approach to a tried and true formula of RPG gameplay that I loved and grew up with. One that doesn’t need to be cluttered with things like ATB, street fighter button press sequences or any other time sensitive, or non-menu based gameplay elements in combat… TO HELL WITH THAT, I love me some menu combat, and going to get a sandwich mid boss battle. I love the humor, and how the art style has evolved along the way. I find the experience often forgettable when I eventually finish it or simply move on to something else, I ALWAYS remember that I had a lot of fun with it while I was playing, and to me, thats all that matters.

I’ll probably approach this similar to how I tackled FFXIII only with less commitment to cause. This is mostly because of the DS, I really can’t get into long sessions with the device… I don’t have particularly big hands, but I do have fairly long fingers (at least I think thats the problem), I have trouble finding a comfortable way to hold the DS for extended periods of time so I often don’t. I also tend to be doing something else while I play DS, like watch TV, so I’ll end up looking away for 10-15 minutes at a time since I’m easily distracted.

Anyway, with all that aside, the game started out well, I especially liked the cut scene at the typical spot at the end of the introductory chapter where the plot is setup. It may have been the most interesting and effective cut scene I’ve seen on the DS so far, it really got me pumped to see what I’m going to see next. The humor is still fully intact, as is evident from the first foe I encountered when my journey began, the dreaded cruelcumber, which was a happy looking cucumber with a pike who’s motives are clearly to impale you… bringing a smile to my face already.

I started out doing a few simple quests, the gameplay was even more simplistic than simple since starting out the only skill I have is ‘attack’, and frankly even now that I have more skills all I ever really seem to need at the moment is attack. I’m at about level 10 with my hero, and I’ve only just gotten by the point where I could choose to fill out my party, so I’ve been grinding a little to catch the new party members up since they started at level 1. I’ve encountered 1 ‘boss’ character I guess at this point, and he did kill me the first time around because I wasn’t prepared for him, I was out of mana when the encounter started and I had also just moved all my healing items into the ‘bag’ so I couldn’t use them to heal. He was pretty easy once I had the ability to heal myself. I’m only a couple hours in at this point but I figured it was a good time to get things rolling over here.