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Peggle came on my radar due to seeing browndr consistently on Xbox Live playing this game. After discussion I came to find it was his mother-in-law who was actually logging all the time. He did vouch that the game was fun so after finding out a Valve themed version of the game called Peggle Extreme was free on Steam I decided it was time to check the game out.

Peggle is about as casual as gaming comes. You hurl balls at dots scoring points to progress to the next puzzle. Peggle Extreme is more or less a glorified demo with only 10 levels. Upon launching and exiting the game you are nagged to upgrade to a version with more levels and features but for free what can you expect.

The game runs flawlessly on my EEEPC at 1024×600 resolution. So far I played though the brief adventure mode scoring 4,111,000 points.

The game is fun and addicting. There are versions available on almost every platform imaginable and comes recommended. At some point I plan on getting a full version of the game but I’m not sure on what platform. On my PC I could play everywhere but the 360 version would be nice too.

Note: Insult Swordfighting has a great post advocating games like Peggle over latest and greatest AAA titles.

This is the first game I’ve ever played that I refuse to accept a series sequel as canon.

Growing up my dark horse of gaming cred was being one of the largest fans of the original NES Bionic Commando.  As a young vanlandw I remember leaving the NES paused though a day of school at a friends house in attempts overtake the Badds and save Super Joe. When emulators were big in college I was finally able to make Hitler’s head explode and save the day with a story to tell. A few years ago when Capcom was doing their relaunch of the brand with Bionic Commando Rearmed the launch trailer for the Next Gen Bionic Commando left me worried but hopeful.  It appeared to be absolutely unrelated to the game I played as a boy but as a man hurling oneself off a building and swinging around sounds like a dream come true for gaming.

After following the green dot though Accession City I was right to be worried. Bionic Commando does everything a brand relaunch should avoid doing. They should have taken a look at how well Metal Gear Solid transitioned from it’s humble starts to it’s A list endings. Take the right stuff from where you started rather then shedding everything that made that was right in the first place.

Saying the 2009 edition is loosely related to the 1988 offering is an understatement. After thinking about what Rearmed ultimately became the developers were selling it as a remake but it was clearly a re-canon(not sure if this a real term or not) of the series. The Next Gen game is clearly (and loosely) based off Rearmed much to my dismay.

I will go as far as to say Nathan “Rad” Spencer is one of the worst video game characters of all time. Gamer Melodico posed the question “Who is the worst video game protagonist of all time?” and I confidently left a ballot with the following comment…

Yesterday I made it though a third of Bionic Commando (XB/PC/PS3) and Spencer in that game is horrible. He sounds to be similar to Cole (Infamous lead) where he’s always pist off and has absolutely no reason at all to be doing what he’s doing. During all this while murdering people he will display bouts of glee it’s just odd.

It’s a shame because the swing mechanics are great and it could be a good game if the protagonist’s drive could have been fixed.

During every cut scene or radio communication Spencer sounds like he’s furious. He’s also very vocal about not wanting to be doing what he’s doing and questioning his orders emotionally (emo?). Spencer is also voiced by the highly over rated Mike Patton. He did a terrible job in The Darkness and in Bionic Commando he’s no better. It’s not like his material here was his to ruin but he must have remembered only one line from Spencer’s character bio about being recently released from prison and carried it though the bulk of his performance. As the player you must ask yourself  if you or I were just released from prison and released to a recently bombed city to stylistically kill hundreds of enemies  how would you feel?

During game play Spencer of course has the typical one liners when eradicating his opponents. Using the sniper rifle he will vocally laugh almost devilishly or say something stupid like “That’s gotta hurt!” or “I’ll send you the bill!”. Before a boss battle Spencer will seriously for just one time in the entire game break the fourth wall and speak as the player saying one of the worst lines I’ve ever heard ever.

“Is that a long health bar or are you just happy to see me?”

Along with being a prick Spencer is absolutely unrelatable and I don’t see how anybody could feel sympathetic for him. Spencer’s main motivation though the game is to uncover information regarding his missing wife but when you find the conclusion it’s unfathomable why she would even give a shit about him in the first place.

Though the game your best friend will be the “marker”. HQ will constantly send you the right way to go and I would advise to never attempt to go anywhere other then that marker. In a development decision I’ll never understand there are 150 “collectibles” though the game that contribute to an achievement and unlocks viewable concept artwork. For reaching most of the collectibles risking death is required or to go off the beaten path and search them out. Due to Accession City just recently being bombed parts of the city are blue and radioactive thus unaccessible.  The games biggest crime is an affliction upon a gamers natural habit to explore or put another way break the game. Anybody who plays any game does this without even thinking about. Test the limits. See what you can get away with. Some of us like to look around and try to find easter eggs or find optimal paths.

Not call uno when you have uno and see if you can get away with it.

Bionic Commando punishes you to no end for doing this. Going into some of the radiated areas for a second will kill you. Game Over. Restart from checkpoint. Some of the collectibles will put you in harms way thus killing you thus making you sit though a long loading screen and taking away your progress. At least three times after finishing a long section of multiple boss type characters just trying to get to the green dot by mistake I swung into blue death resulting in doing that hard section over again. To make matters worse many areas are surrounded by water and Spencer being equipped with metal boots and one non-human arm your character will sink to the bottom. One bad swing and your ef’ed. Every game should checkpoint how Halo does where wiping an area of enemies the game checkpoints thus even if you screw up the enemies you killed are dead. They could have even allowed challenges and collectibles to stack after death so you wouldn’t have to redo so much. A gamers time is precious…

I played the game on the PS3. Owning Rearmed thankfully gave me the unlock of the “Classic” Spencer model as updated Spencer just looks like a reggae singer. Digital Foundry found technically (Frame Tearing) the PS3 version eclipses the 360 version (Link 1, Link 2) but I found frame rate issues in multiple areas. There are also multiple blur effects implemented so beware if those type of filters hurt your eyes. Last year Game Stop had the game on sale for $20 new so when I went to pick up a copy they showed a small bit of humanity and gave me the pre-order patches for free! I hate Game Stop.

Finished the game on “Hard” difficulty and really wouldn’t have had any problems if I wasn’t playing to complete the challenges. In a game like this achievements are typically given for reaching story points in the game but in Bionic Commando 90% of the achievements are for completing challenges like swinging and killing six enemies or killing a certain amount of guys with one attack. The masochist in me would almost do a run on “Commando (super hard) difficulty and try to pick up the three challenges I missed to get the  ”Bionically Challenged” trophy as that would be two gold trophies but I doubt that will happen. I also found 87/150 of the collectibles and passed about 10 I could have gotten but the fear of the blue death, redoing fights, and the devil water the decision was made to pass them.

There was a man long ago that said and I quote “but in the end it doesn’t even matter”. The final 5% of the game is actually quite fun and almost inspired. The last two boss battles are not hard and there is some deviation from the city scape. Sadly the initial impression of the game is what I’m going to remember most and I believe most reviewers feel the same way I do. The swing mecanics I was so excited about sadly aren’t given the room they need to work. The game shockingly doesn’t have many vistas where it opens up and lets you swing around and the combat gets in the way many times. Point A  to Point B. Green Dot to Green Dot. Most of your arm work goes into killing people or climbing up structures to kill people. I would love to see an open world/sandbox game take the swing mechanics and use them properly.

Bionic Commando ends like most games that want to be trilogies do. After the credits an indecipherable message that requires the internet to figure out plays on top of a cliffhanger ending for Spencer. Video games have never been kind to their early adopters imagine if you paid $60 dollars for this game for an ending that answers hardly nothing but selling you more. Typical.

Undecim -2.

Postscript: There were a few things in this post I forgot to mention that is worth bringing up. First are the horrible advertisements littered throughout the city scape of the game. Normally I don’t get up in arms about this but these ads are horrible and might be worse then the ones contained in Mercenaries 2. Most of the billboards are extraordinarily low res textures and I would almost assume it was done on purpose so they stick out even more.  The in-game posters for the Dark Void game in particular are impossible to even make out whats on them the textures are so low resolution. There are buildings that are named “Bionic Commando Rearmed” but they might be movie theaters I have no idea. Pepsi ads are on buildings and oddly placed Tricell ads as well. Tricell is from the Resident Evil verse so building a bridge there makes no scene at all.

On a positive note the soundtrack is done very well. There seems to be multiple composers so it’s hard to give proper credit to one individual. From the original tracks to the remixes from the original game there is not one bad track and worth checking out.

I am the target audience for this game. An older gamer with slightly more free time and patience then the typical aging gamer who’s looking for a fresh take on the FPS experience. Following the “Smart Gaming” scene Far Cry 2 is another critical darling along the lines of Braid and any Jason Rohrer game where everybody had an opinion good or bad. For awhile I’ve been meaning to pick an avatar and head to modern day East Africa and kill people for diamonds but my first copy was stolen during shipping thus it wasn’t up till now I’ve been able to find another good price on the game.

The aspects I enjoyed most about Far Cry 2 was in the areas of game design where there was a conscious effort to change aspects of shooters where innovation was stagnant. In any game where you play as a human it’s just illogical for your character to be a bullet sponge. Since Halo 2 and 100% regenerative health games like Call of Duty have taken an armor ability carried it over to the everyday soldier. For keeping the pacing of a game swift recovering from wounds in seconds might be cool but for everybody to be like Wolverine just doesn’t make any sense. How damage is handled in shooters is something I’ve wanted changed for along time.

Far Cry 2 to a degree has regenerative health but after receiving enough damage your character will be “wounded” and need to patch himself up or you will die. This idea alone is welcome. It bothers me when a human character can be shot millions of times and there isn’t the slightest consequence. Snake Eater tried “proper” healing but the menus were so slow it became a full time job keeping Snake moving. In Far Cry 2 this is done with a single button but it can impact combat.

Another thing to watch out for is jamming weapons. Almost all shooters have weapons ALWAYS work how they are suppose to. Guns shoot exactly the same time every time, and reload in the same amount off time and show the same reload animation every reload. I believe this is due to multiplayer balancing but sadly that  has carried over into campaign. Far Cry 2 introduces weapons that will misfire. Weapons that are purchased at the store and maintained well won’t misfire as much but pick up a gun from a dead enemy is a chance you shouldn’t take lightly.

Far Cry 2 is a game about killing tons of enemies, completing missions from dedicated drops, and performing a few mundane tasks given to you from horrible people and completed by a horrible person. Cars will break down and need to be repaired. Your body has contracted a deadly disease and needs pills routinely at the worst times possible. Cell tower assassination missions remind me of dating in Grand Theft Auto 4. You don’t have to do it but you will want to. The “I’ll get to it when I can get to it” thought of game design is here in full. There is a token achievement for doing all them.

As with any game the good comes the bad. Most of your time is spent traveling from one area to the next. Between these areas will be random armed cars trying to kill you. After that you will hit a check point where you will want to try to bypass it because you have killed so many guys but mostly fail and end up having to kill everybody in an more inconvenient manor. This whole game is killing. Everybody wants to kill you. Screw with the guys in the safe zone they want to kill you every single one of them. On sight 99% of people in the game want you dead instantly. Enemy AI goes from brilliant to horrible to frustrating to exhilarating. Some time just getting to the mission area one guy will hardly see you though  high grass, wake up everybody and then everybody wants you dead. I preferred playing most situations with the stealth approach with silenced weapons. 85% of the time some random guy would see me and totally ruin my plan. When my plan worked though it’s a damn good feeling. Finishing an objective without being spotted is great.

Completion Stats: These stats are from the last save point before you make your final “choice”. After that part the game can be completed after killing maybe five dudes and going up a few hills. I played as the character “Hakim Echebbi” because I found him reserved and slightly handsome. Played on Normal difficulty and earned 520 gamer score.

Game completed: 96% (I beat it?)
Main missions done: 29/32 (I can’t imagine I missed any who knows)
Buddy missions done: 12/12
Side missions done: 20/40
Underground missions done: 5
Buddies met: 9
Buddies deceased: 6
Buddies abandoned: 1 (due to glitch I had to save him like four times and kept dying and ran out of healing shit)
Buddy rescues: 11
Best buddy: nobody (had two during the course of the game)
Diamonds found: 737 (I found about 100 of the random 221 briefcases)
Current diamonds: 495
Weapons bought: 7
Accuracy upgrades bought: 5
Reliability upgrades bought: 5
Repair upgrades bought: 0
Ammo upgrades bought: 6
Favorite primary weapon: MP-5
Favorite secondary weapon: 6P9
Favorite special weapon: M-249 (must work off bullets fired I used either a launcher or a dart gun 99% of the time)
Total shots fired: 21241
Shot accuracy: 29%
Wounds healed: 180
Total time played: 24:08:57
Total game days: 15
Distance walked: 129km
Distance driven: 165km
Distance swam: 1km

Of all the statistics this game doesn’t keep is the amount of casualties . My estimate I would say over 5,000.

In the end I hope more games take the successful parts of Far Cry 2 and expand rather then doing Call of Duty/Halo over and over again on the console. This post could go a lot longer discussing more of the various wins and losses of the game but this is enough. Undecim: 3

Note: If there is any interest in this game but you don’t feel like actually playing it I would HIGHLY suggest to check out Ben Abraham’s Permanent Death series. He chronicles playing the game where he will quit playing when he dies thus no continues or loading from a save game. You die your dead game 100% over. The PDF is beautiful and I would buy printout of it if I could it’s that cool of an idea. Also Clint Hocking (FC2 Creative Director) has a great game design blog about the game in his archives and his GDC talks are interesting reads too.

In Picross 3D the player uncovers solutions to puzzles in 3D. Not shitty movie 3D but in video game 3D. Using the DS stylus, you’ll chip away blocks to uncover a shape and use numbers as clues.

Found out about this game per a recommendation and showing the cover art to women will make them melt because it’s so cute. The game I’ve found can both be enjoyed by men and women and at $20 Picross 3D has a low cost of entry.

Things start off easy with a gradual but fun tutorial and even the beginner difficulty contains hours of puzzles the so ease of learning is well paced and not boring.  So far in my solutions uncovered letters to animals and slowing learning all the tricks of the trade.

When I bought my DS Lite years ago I initially was interested in catching up in GBA games I missed and playing core games that require a lot of time and dedication. I’ve found that the Touch! Generations games and puzzle games are what I find most enjoyable and plan on buying more games like Picross 3D to round out my DS collection before games start getting hard to find.

Picross 3D comes highly recommended to any DS owners looking for a game that can be played in small intervals and shared with an significant other. At the point of this writing I have finished over 40+ puzzles and downloaded a series of additional puzzles using WiFi. Plan on playing as long as I can keep solve puzzles.

The title of the post comes from the last words uttered from our entirely one dimensional somehow infected player cyborg and star of Dark Sector stylishly labeled Hayden Tenno. Tenno is the type of character where his words and personality are completely throwaway but what he’s able to do is whats memorable. He’s reminiscent of Tiger Woods where I don’t care for Mr. Woods as a person but watching him play golf can (was?) be a special thing. Tenno is the same way.

After a point early in the game Tenno obtains the ability to use a  weapon called the Glaive. It’s badass I’m not gonna lie. I found when learning to use Tenno’s abilities his skillset allows the player to formulate small stories in combat. You can battle enemies only using the Glaive being a Czar of the Glaive, or you can play guns blazin using a variation of customizable weapons. If you want to utilize cover and invisibility playing like a silent ghost can be possible. In the end I used a combination of all skills to surprisingly strong results. The game on it’s Normal difficulty is simple fun (I died maybe three times total) minus all it’s shortcomings I’m not going to bother to write about.

After playing Dark Sector how the developers intended I would suggest to play another way.

As a younger man due to the limitations of the medium I would find myself forming my own conclusions on game stories and the characters within those stories.  For example in the early Final Fantasy games your party would be a series of sprites but it’s easy to take that and picture more.  I can’t imagine being the only one in the world with a rampant imagination and video games before the 3D/CGI/FMV/720p age was a huge stimulus for me. In this regard I would suggest to entirely disregard the story Dark Sector is trying to tell. Skip the cut scenes throw it all away. In the end narrative is not one aspect this game excels at. There should be a setting in the options to automatically skip all cut scenes and story sequences.Get lost in the combat and don’t take the game seriously. Do what you want with it.

Minus the Glaive another aspect of the game I appreciated was there is no in game communication telling you were to go or what to do. The game is entirely linear so it’s about impossible to get lost. It’s a nice change of pace not having Dark Sector’s version of Cortana/Anya/Oracle telling you what to do. I’m so sick of playing games and having orders barked to me especially by women. It was a welcome change of pace to say the least.

The 360 allows iPod hookup so blast some metal, get drunk, hell stand on your head and just slaughter your enemies it won’t matter. With skipping the cut scenes this game can be a two sitting play though day rental at most. Dark Sector can be a worthy lightweight weekend escape and can be purchased cheap. I got my copy a few months ago from Newegg for $5 bucks and comes slightly recommended solely because of the Glaive alone. Undecim 1.

In my recent series of gaming posts most of them have come rather naturally. After completing a game I’ve been able to have something to convey that was different from what I’ve read or I had strong point of view I wanted to explain. With Dante’s Inferno it’s proving to be hard.

The general consensus of what you will find online in the review community (Gametrailers video review, Metacritic ratings) was exactly how I felt about the game. Anybody who has played God of War or Devil May Cry (or almost any 3D combo action game)  has played Dante’s Inferno already.You climb walls, you walk along rope, you rip people in half, you turn cranks, you button mash to perform epic combos,  you turn on your devil trigger, you obtain new skills though orbs (souls), and so on. The comparisons to God of War are unavoidable and the developers don’t even hide it so why in the hell should I? After doing some research I found the same development team that did Dead Space also did Dante’s Inferno. Dead Space also is a game that borrows many (every?) convention from it’s genre and turned it into a very adult oriented and accessible game that worked well. I would recommend Dead Space over Resident Evil 5 for example. Dante did not turn into a leader but is clearly a pack follower.

The game does start out strong (The Brainy Gamer agrees) but as Dante gets closer to Beatrice’s salvation the final sections are not very inspired and honestly frustrating. As you first decent into Hell you get into the “thick of the shit” quickly accompanied by fantastic artwork and a powerful visceral horror of being in Dante’s own personal Hell. The further you progress it sadly becomes less about what made the game interesting to start and when you finally get to the final trial and boss sections you honestly will just want the game to end.

Sadly the game doesn’t keep track any battle statistics like God of War 3 does. I finished the game on “Zealot” (Normal) as there was no reward for difficulty. Missed three “relics” and one Judas Coin. 860 Achievement Points were earned and I played down the “Unholy” path until that was maxed then I worked on becoming “Holy”. Completed in 13:18:02 units of time.

If a PS2/PS3 is not in reach and you can’t play the classics (DMC1, DMC3, God of War 1/2/3) and you need an action game Dante’s Inferno isn’t the worst game you can play. Undecim 0.

Many thanks again to Vo for letting me borrow the game.

Note: A few nitpicks I wanted to insert here. This game does not have “restart from checkpoint” that proved to be utterly frustrating when trying to attempt the Malebolge trials. There are trials as a player you know you can complete on a first play though and you have to just let yourself die to try again. Also some cutscenes are skippable and some are not. Player beware….

Note 2: I forgot to mention every time you die the game pulls a “Call of Duty” and flashes you some random ass quote from Inferno mocking you for your death.

“I come from a place whither I desire to return. Canto II: Beatrice”

Also, something I wanted to mention as a plus is the game engine. Dante’s Inferno runs at 720p 60 frames a second. Hopefully next generation all games will run at 60FPS as Dante plays well due to this design choice. Both platforms according to Digital Foundry (PS3/360) technically are very similarly.

Well, 20,060 to be exact

Number of Games: 54

Total Achievements: 955/2222 20,060/46,615

Hit over 20,000 completing Dark Sector earning The Dark Sector achievement.

Gunnin f/ jja