Zidy Plays Games

So let's talk the beta of Bungie's Destiny a moment, shall we? I managed to play... maybe 5 days of it, from Tuesday to the Saturday. During that time, I leveled a hunter to 8 (plus some) and a warlock to about 5. Didn't get a chance to play with the titan but that'll probably come later.

Overall impression? I rather liked it - more than I expected really. Quick list of things I liked:

Multiple player actually felt optional instead of necessary, unlike most MMOs. Missions that are multiplayer had built in matchmaking so I don't even need to find people to do them - the game does it for me. Always a plus :)

Random group events in the main area. I always loved jumping into these, even when I knew it was hopeless.

Respawning seemed to be penalty-less. It made me take a few more risks than I would have. Didn't always pan out, but I always learned something, even if it was "Okay, rushing in there as a warlock is a BAD IDEA."

Auto-healing and reviving other people. Everyone has a regeneration, reviving is quick and anyone can do it. That gives everyone the responsibility to keep everyone else up.

Shooting mechanics. They felt smooth, but I expected nothing less from the developers of the Halo series.

Optional missions. Admittedly, they could be rather same-y, gather X number of things that drop from X mob but they could be fun. And sometimes dragged me places I hadn't gone yet. And it's nice that they were random so I never quite knew what I was going to get when I selected a mission beacon.

Moon mission! I was rather tired when it opened so I just did the actual mission and never went back. Still, I knew even at that point that I wanted to go explore it *all*. When Ghost told me that I wanted to back away, I was already backing away in trepidation. It was easily my favorite mission so far in the entire game and I loved the level design. I can't wait to see what else is there - I heard rumors of trolls! :)

'Course, there were a few things I disliked too:

The stupid cursor in the menus. Really? This is a console game. Why do I have a cursor?

Accepting a request to somebody else's group. I have to go out of the game into my message list in my main PS menu, select Received, select the message, open it, and then select "Accept". And the darn pop-up is only there for a few seconds so if I miss it, I won't know until after I shut down the game an hour or two later. C'mon! There has to be a way to do this inside of the game that's much easier.

How I'm presented with the optional missions. It's just a recording for a few seconds. Yeah, they give me their name but I have no idea who Blah-Blah is. Can I have a picture? Or maybe list the person's name and affiliation in the mission? And then maybe list the missions I've done somewhere - even if just with the person itself. The mission briefs give me a bit of characterizations for the NPCs - something this game sorely needs because the NPC characters tend to be bland and run together. Help me place that characterization with a person I've met, plz!

Can I stop with the "help" messages at some point? I don't need to be told every time I start a story mission that I can press select to see mission details. I know this. I've done this missions a couple times now - just on this character!

A proper mini-map would be nice. Even if it's only there when I press select. I once spent five minutes trying to jump up a cliff because the marker was pointing to something on the other side of it and I didn't realize it.

Classes. I mean, I didn't get far with my warlock character, but there didn't feel like a lot of difference between her and my hunter. character. Still, we were limited to level 8. And there are subclasses that suppose to mix it up a bit more. So we'll see :)

Borderlands (PS3) - First off, I've played practically all of the first Borderlands game on my PC over a year ago. But I picked it up used a couple weeks ago as I've been curious to see how playing with a controller differs from using a mouse and keyboard, especially for a FPS. And what better game than Borderlands, something Steam tells me I've sunk over 200 hours into?

And honestly - after about the first two or three hours? Not much. In some ways I like it better - it allows me to be more flexible. I don't have to be sitting in a chair and have someplace to place a mouse. I can curl up in my bed - which is great if I'm playing for an hour before bed. I'm still getting used to compensating for the lack of proper DPS switch - oh, how I do love that about my mouse - but I'm getting better. And the best thing above all? I don't know if it's a PS3 thing or what - I don't get as seasick playing on a PS3. Whoot!

There are some things I don't like about it though. I don't know why, but driving feels very unintuitive. Left stick controls movement, but relative to the camera - which is controlled by the right stick. Turning around can get very confusing. I also don't much care for how I can't reassign the buttons or get a close-up of a gun. Still, nothing that really bothers me. Overall, I think all other things being equal, given a choice between PS3 and PC versions of the same game - I might lean toward the PS3.

Borderlands 2 (PC) - Borderlands 2... oh Borderlands 2. How I really want to love this game. And I do! But there is so much about this game that drives me nuts.

I've had Borderlands 2 since it came out over a year ago and I've still not finished my first play through. At this point, I pretty much only play it when my best friend bugs me about doing a co-op game with him. Which admittedly, is practically several times a week, but I usually dodge most of them.

So let's talk about my biggest problem with Borderlands - the main reason I end up groaning when M. suggests we play. Inventory Management. I detest inventory management. There is nothing that will put me off a game quicker than being expected to spend a lot of time comparing and selling and storing and everything that goes with having a very limited inventory and yet, lots of loot. It seems I spend at least 30 minutes or so every game session sorting through weapons.

And yeah, I'm a hoarder. But damn it, part of what I like about the Borderlands series is all the weird weapons. I want to be able to play around with them - even the ones that are obviously silly. I don't always expect them to work well, but I would at least like to try them. Otherwise, what's the point? Why give them to me, just for me to sell because I don't have enough inventory slots to keep them around especially as I need to keep slots free to pick up other weapons I find that I will just have to sell?

Yeah, it's a vicious cycle and one that no matter how much I like the rest of the game, has managed to make me dread playing it.

Quiz RPG: World of the Mystic Wiz (Android) - So, this is a silly little F2P smartphone RPG game where instead of choosing spells/skills or even playing Bejeweled to attack, you answer quiz questions. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Your party has hit points and attack points and sometimes, if you answer a question fast enough - it might do something special (like get a bonus to it's attack or heal). Get enough questions right, they might even get something really special they can activate - fireball or remove a wrong answer from the list.

Here's the biggest problem with it - the game is entirely tied to luck. Spend gems to invoke and get a new party member? You have a chance to get something good, but you'll probably just get something okay. Trying to get through a tournament to increase your rank? Well, you just might spend the first five rounds dealing with sports questions and get one of them right because they keep asking about games and players that you've never heard of.

And that's where the frustration comes in. I've spent the last week basically grinding low level monsters so I can hopefully use them to level up some mid-level monsters I've collected and those I can then feed to my actual party members and maybe get them strong enough to survive the tournament which I need to get the rank to do the next story mission.

First, a bit of personal history. I didn't play any of these Playstation 2 games back during the PS2 era. I didn't even own a PS2 until about 2007 and mainly got it for the RPGs available on the system, not for platforming games. I vaguely recall playing Spryo back on a PS1 in 2001, but other than that - I had no clue who Ratchet, Jak, or Sly were nor had could I tell you a thing about their respective studios Insomniac, Naughty Dog, or Sucker Punch. But that was all to change when my sister purchased a PS3 last winter.

With her PS3 came my decision to get the Playstation Plus subscription because hey! free games. PS+ gave me Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, which was a lighthearted platforming game on rails that had note perfect humor, even though I didn't have any idea who anybody was or their history with each other. (I'll do more about it at some point just because it's rather fascinating. As a Ratchet & Clank game, I see why it didn't do as well especially after the stellar success of the Future trilogy. As the first Ratchet & Clank game for somebody to have played, it's actually a really good introduction to the series.)

Ratchet & Clank wiki labels this screenshot from the opening cinematic as "Nefarious stalking Qwark." Having now played through six games, I totally agree. Honestly, Nefarious - there are better ways to get a guy's attention, I promise you.

From there, I picked up the Ratchet & Clank collection and started playing the first game. Honestly, I was in love with the game and the characters by the time Ratchet had conned his way to a new ship after crashing his. Yeah, Ratchet was a jerk at points and Clank really needed to have his screws loosen, but they were young and so new to this saving the universe and being partners thing. I loved how it was a mixture of platforming and adventure game fighting. Even the most frustrating moments - usually the damn races - were fun. The game could be hard at times, but not punishingly so, and every new area felt different.

Okay, I lied. I was actually in loved with the game as soon as I got to hit something with a wrench. There was just something satisfying about the feel and sound of it breaking something into itty-bitty bits.

By the time I had finished the first game, TV Tropes had introduced me to the other two PS2 platforming mascots - Jak and Sly. So I quickly picked up their collections and started on Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy. Especially in comparison to R&C, J&D:TPL felt like a more traditional platformer. No crazy guns, no fancy gadgets, not even hit points. Just a lot of leaping, flinging, jumping, dodging, and kicking things. The eco-magic system made things interesting and I loved how brightly colorful everything was. Yeah, there were some extremely frustrating moments - more so than Ratchet & Clank - usually, every time I was on the stupid speeder especially if there were glowing rings involved. But the platforming was well done and honestly, Jak and Daxter themselves made the game so worth every moment. They were funny together and such great friends. 

Actually, it's Daxter who made dying worth it. All his wonderful, silly little lines as I was waiting for the game to reset itself. "While you're down there, uh... could you rub my feet?"

Then came Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus. Admittedly, I went into this game practically straight after playing the other two and that probably colored my opinion of this game. Of the three of them, it definitely felt like the weakest. Unlike Jak & Daxter, the platforming wasn't anything special. While it had some fun gadgets and abilities, they weren't as interesting as what I found in Ratchet & Clank. The one thing it had different than the other two, the stealth aspects, felt under used. There was rarely any option for sneaking up on an enemy and even less for avoiding a fight all together. If there was 10 enemies in a level, I knew I'd probably fight 9 of them. And since fighting one made so much noise it attracted everyone else around, I honestly didn't see the use in sneaking except to get around the alarms and avoiding a few fights on my way to a level in each chapter's main area.

Just once, I'd like to catch these guys unaware. Just once. But they always seem to know I was there, no matter how quiet I tried to be. What sort of master thief am I that I can't even sneak up on a simple mechanic wielding a loud blowtorch?

Now, okay, it may sound like I really didn't like Sly Cooper. Not true at all. It had just as much humor and atmosphere as the other two. And it definitely had the best boss fights, especially considering the variety of them. Plus, all the main characters were interesting and had unique backgrounds - protagonists and antagonists. I loved some of the smaller touches - the feel of a Saturday morning cartoon with different episodes/chapters and how cheerful they were at breaking the fourth wall when explaining how to do things. 'Course, I also have a soft spot for Robin Hood style thieves and Sly is about as perfect example of this as they come.

Plus, you know... canonical love interest between thief and detective chasing said thief. And Sly's right - Carmelita is gorgeous when she's mad.

Still, I'll admit that as much as I did like Sly Cooper and the Thievius Racoonus, I wasn't as excited about playing the second game as much as I was with Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando and Jak II. I figured it was going to be the same old stuff as the first one. But, I did like the story and the characters and well, I've played many a game for just that reason. (Epic Mickey anyone?) So when I finished up Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Sly 2 was next on my list.

I played through the first introduction section, got to the first chapter, and just wasn't feel it. Instead, I bought the Prince of Persia collection and played Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. And since I was worried about Clank, I played Quest for Booty. When I was finished with that, well, I made a promise to myself that I would finish Sly Cooper 2 before I played Ratchet & Clank Future: Crack in Time. So, out came the Sly DVD and in went the game.

So... Quest for Booty takes place about a year after Tools of Destruction. Ratchet has been looking for a way to reach the Zoni dimension so he can find Clank. I'll probably replay Tools of Destruction at a later date and give a proper review on that, but let's just leave it at I was one of the people who reacted rather negatively when the Zoni kidnapped Clank. I didn't break down in tears or throw my controller, but it was darn close.

Well... maybe there was a few tears. Damn you Zoni! How could you do this to poor Ratchet? And I thought you were cute too.

Now, since I haven't finished Quest for Booty, I'm going to focus on a few things and not give my bullet point "Yay!/Bah/WTF" list like I did in Prince of Persia. Mainly I'm gonna talk about the length and how that translated to the feel of the game.

When I said this game is short, I mean really short. If ToD had came out even a few years later, this would have been a DLC instead of a standalone game. The way I play, I'm gonna be lucky to get 10 hours out of my first run through since I really love taking my time, exploring everything, dying multiple times, and whacking everything I can with my wrench or blowing it up with a fusion bomb. (For comparison, I usually clock somewhere in the 30-40 hour range my first time with a typical Ratchet & Clank game.) Right now, I'm maybe 3 hours into the game and it doesn't feel like there's gonna be much more to it.

Also, the flow, while still very much a Ratchet & Clank game, just feels a tad unpolished. For example, there are few proper cutscenes in the game, at least so far, and even fewer where Ratchet actually interacts with anyone and it's not Rusty Pete giving a bit of exposition. Most cutscenes have been replaced with the dialogue option question and answer gameplay from ToD. While I appreciate the ability to interact with other characters, I miss hearing Ratchet's voice, especially for the more outrageous options.

Admittedly, the few cut scenes that are in the game are awesome if just for Rusty Pete's narration.

Weapons appear to be identical to their ToD versions, but not all of them return including my all time favorite weapon: razor claws. You start out with them already at level 3 and they upgrade fairly quickly. There isn't any collectables - no gold bolts or skill points or action figures or raritanium. Bolts barely matter, other than to be handed to the Smuggler to continue the storyline or purchase the probably unnecessary replacement of the RYNO. (The Alpha Distruptor, already at max level, from ToD. If there is an actual RYNO weapon in this game, I haven't heard whisper of it yet, and frankly, rather doubt it.) Every other weapon has been handed to Ratchet. Ammo is provided by quickly repopulating ammo boxes placed near any major battle. The only thing you have to go out of your way to find is the weapon mods - one per weapon to give it a little extra zing. I'll need to go back to compare to ToD, but at least the combuster has the same special mod it did in the previous game - the ability to start little fires on the ground. I suspect it's the same for all the other weapons.

Once you finish up an area's missions and leave, you have no way to return to that area. So far, the one exception is Hoolefar Island, which the story brings you back and even still, you're limited to maybe about a fifth of what you previously could access. A bit disappointing, considering how friendly Ratchet & Clank games are usually to exploring, and it does mean I spend a lot more time than I normally would in an area just to make sure I didn't miss anything before I move on.

Okay, so the Dan Johnson action figure isn't a real collectable nor was it hard to find, but it's still awesome. It, more than the weapon upgrades, made me glad I spent the thirty minutes exploring the bottom of the sea around Hoolefar Island.

With the lack of collectables, serious weapon upgrades, or any sort of unlockable, I don't think I'm going to see a New Game+ option when I do finish the game. Without it, other than trying a few other dialogue options and trying out hard mode, there won't be much incentive for playing it a second or third time. Not to say I won't, just I probably won't finish the game and jump right back into it like I normally do.

Yet... I really don't think of any of these things as actual problems with the game. Just limitations and like I said, it really feels more like a DLC than a full game. Wiki says that the game came out in August 2008 as a downloadable only title and ToD was released in October 2007 - so that's less than a year. In addition, Crack in Time was released in October 2009. So, all three games were released in a space of two years. Even without considering QfB, two years from ToD to CiT is impressive for most current-gen game series of the depth of Ratchet & Clank. 

And it's not like the gameplay was copied from ToD - there are several new elements or updates to old PS2 elements, especially with the wrench. Monsters that fear light, being able to pick up objects, and manipulate platforms. I would say, if anything, this game feels like it was experimenting with some new ideas in a familiar environment without having to commit to them for a full game. I'm really hoping they did well enough to be used in Crank in Time.

Finally! The wrench finally does more than turn the occasional bolt and whack things really well - even it's just acting like a fancier version of the Dynamo and Tractor Beam from Going Commando. However, none of it could take the place of hitting everything as my favorite thing to do in a Ratchet & Clank game.

So yes, I love this game. Even if I'm going to finish it with only another hour or two of game play, it's a great follow-up to the ending of Tools of Destruction and it's getting me chomping at the bit to play Crack in Time. And just maybe... very maybe... (not likely at all, but a girl can hope), I will find Clank at the end at this game.

His purpose is to be Ratchet's best friend and companion on their madcap adventures saving the universe, you insane time-manipulative twits! That's where he belongs, not with you! GIVE HIM BACK!

Prince of Persia - Sands of Time (PS3 HD Port): Never played the original PS2 or PC version, so I can't judge the port itself other than sulking that I can't unlock the original Prince of Persia game like you could in the original. And they didn't bother taking out the activation to unlock it so I spent a good 5 minutes whacking at a wall, trying to figure out what I was doing wrong that it wasn't breaking when I could see the light through the cracks. So yeah... that definitely sucked and felt rather lazy on the part of the people who did the porting.

Likes:

The story. Oh goodness, the story. And voice acting too. I felt for the Prince in having to fight his own father as a sand zombie. I laughed at how he convinced himself that the Princess would make a lovely wife. And I just adored the conceit of the Prince telling the game as a story to the Princess who didn't remember any of it.

The platforming. So much fun. And at points, rather challenging. And even though I probably spent a good twenty minutes on it, I did enjoy the part where I had to do all the platforming without sand. I hadn't realized until then how much I'd gotten used to having that ability to rewind time just a little bit until I couldn't do it anymore. Good practice for my no-sand play through. So, frustrating but a good frustrating.

Combat - with a caveat, which I will get into in the next section. I like the flow of combat, the different moves, and how they worked together. I loved using combos. I like having to use defense and figuring out when to take advantage of an enemy. I liked coming up with strategies to survive the fight - like leaving the easier enemies alive so that I could only get one big enemy on the field at a time or killing everyone and leaving their corpse on the ground instead of sucking their sand so I had a second to sip water and get a bit of healing.

Dislikes:

Odd.. glitchy movement. I don't know if this was part of the original or a result of a poor port, but the Prince didn't always walk or run smoothly. It reminded me of watching somebody who has a hurt foot or leg running - this odd not-quite stumble to his movement.

No subtitles. I loved the dialog and the story, like I mentioned above, but sometimes it was hard to understand it - especially if it came while I was doing something else.

The endless combat. Not the combat itself, just all the combats where I killed an enemy and another one popped in over and over and over again.. Yeah, that worked in keeping me from getting horribly overwhelmed by throwing 15 blue pikers at me, but it just made the combats feel like they dragged on *forever*. I never knew if I was close to being done, how I was fairing overall, and most fights would easily last five minutes if not longer. And yeah, I had a special ability where I could use all my little sand tanks to freeze everyone but I never used it once. There was never more than five enemies on the field and when I had seven or eight little sand tanks, using all of them to freeze five enemies - three or four which were usually weaker enemies  - never seemed like a good investment. Especially as I wouldn't know what sort of enemies I'd get in return for destroying these five. I'd rather use the mini-tanks to freeze one giant enemy, kill him, and use another mini-tank on the next enemy that came up. I suppose it might be worth it if the enemies that replaced the five I killed also came in frozen, but something told me I wouldn't be so lucky. Still, I might check that out next time I play.

Finicky controls. I can't even count how many times I accidentally stabbed somebody with my dagger, freezing them, when I was trying to suck the sand out of a corpse. Or tried to jump off a wall over an enemy and have it either completely fail or jump over something entirely different. Grrr.

Final "boss". If you can even call it a boss. Hah! That was a joke. Button mashing at its finest.

IDEK:

Okay, we get four different swords through the game. First one is your basic one, your second one smashes walls, and the last one kills everyone dead with one touch. What the freak was up with the third sword? Was there a reason for it in the game because it didn't seem to kill anyone any easier than the other ones.

Dream/bath sequence. W.T.F. Admittedly, we're dealing with a game that involves time travel and sand zombies and magic life fountains, but up until that point the game, there was a consistency to the game that made it feel grounded in some sort of realism. It was logical to itself, I suppose. The bath sequence didn't seem to fit the rest and felt jarring enough to throw me out of the game, especially when I'm spent 20 minutes doing trial and error to figure out the damn door puzzle. (I understand there's supposedly an audible cue, but fuck if I ever noticed it over all the other sounds in that room.) I suppose you could say the magic fountains exist in a similar sorta-realm to this bath tower place, but there wasn't any story elements in them so it was easier to accept. And also... this leads into my third IDEK point.

What was Farah's goal in all that? Did she really start to fall in love with the Prince and if so, when and why? I loved the Prince but I was following him and listening to his story. She wasn't even with us half of the time and most of his dialog was directed at himself or the version of her listening to the story, not the Princess actually in the story. There just wasn't any moment when I really felt they connected on an emotional level, least not on her part. And as for the Prince, well... he wasn't interested in her until she appeared interested in him. And if she did love the Prince, then why did she steal his dagger and sword? She had to have known he didn't quite trust her - especially after he didn't stab the hourglass and that lead to them falling into the catacombs. And if she didn't love the Prince (which is my personal theory actually - she figures out he's an arrogant self-absorbed twit and plays up to that to get him to trust her) - then why didn't she just steal the dagger at any time he was out cold from the vision clouds? The game indicates it was at least a minute or two before he regains consciousness and he's out of it enough that she could move his head into her lap, so I can't imagine she couldn't steal his weapons and run. I'd love to see a bit of this all from her perspective - see how she'd tell the tale to a skeptical Prince - but alas, the sands of time have erased her memories so that won't happen.

Overall thoughts: Faults and WTF questions nonewithstanding, I really enjoyed the game. Good platforming, decent combat system, and engaging story. Well worth the 10 or so hours it took to play it and one I'd recommend to anyone who likes platforming.

Will I play it again? Yes, I think so - although maybe not right away. I'd like to understand the story better. And it would be nice to redo some of the earlier combats that really frustrated me with some of the tricks I figured out later in the game.

Will I get all the PS3 trophies/Steam achievements? Possibly. I'll have to do two more runs if I do - one trophy I need requires me to use my dagger 200 times to rewind time while another one requires me to use my dagger only 20 times the entire game. So, two conflicting trophies.

What about the sequels? Well, I have the PS3 collection so yeah! I've looking forward to them both. And probably the PS3 games too like The Forgotten Sands. Maybe even the original games - might see if there's a demo or something to try them out first.

What are you playing next? Not sure, but here's my list of current games and games I'm looking at playing soon. So, probably something from one of them.

Current Game Progress:

Sly 2: Band of Thieves - finished tutorial.

Ratchet & Clank (replay) - Second to the last level.

Unfinished Swan - Completed, just working through trophies

Final Fantasy VI - at first actual town.

Ratchet: Deadlocked - finished tutorial. 

Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty - first area completed.

Games in Queue (not in any particular order):

Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty

Jak 3

Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters

Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past