Let's Talk Favorite Xbox 360 Games

So at this point, I don't think there are any more 360 games I'm likely to get. I should mention I'm counting things I bought through XBox Live Arcade as separate from this list. That's for games I can't get in physical form for the console. If I really want to play it, and there's a physical copy, I'd buy that.

Given those criteria, I've owned 38 games for the system, though I only have 24 of them these days. We can safely eliminate the other 14 from consideration, so what did make the top 5?

1. The Saboteur
2. Dishonored
3. Tales of Vesperia
4. Singularity
5. Alice: Madness Returns

So, GTA clone, first-person stealthish game, JRPG, first-person shooter, action-adventure/platformer game. Pretty much all of them take place in worlds that are either already ruined, or one their way there. Alice's mind is falling apart. Certainly the altered timeline Ranko creates is a mess, and even before that, Katorga is a horror show. Vesperia's world is one where humanity's ability to survive is contingent on their ability to maintain any barrier they can create between their cities and the outside world, and their method will destroy them anyway. Dunwall's on the verge of collapse, and Sean's running around in a Nazi-occupied country, which I think speaks for itself. I know most games take place in worlds with problems, otherwise what is the character doing, but this selection seems a bit grimmer than most of the previous consoles. Probably says something about my state of mind I'd rather not consider.

I haven't tried to go back and play The Saboteur through again to see if it holds up. I kind of suspect it won't. I've never played all the way through any of my other GTA-style games more than once, either. But this one just had a style that worked for me, and it made me think of Duck, You Sucker in certain ways, at a time when that movie was on my mind a lot.

Until I got to Tales of Vesperia, there was a long stretch where I had no idea what #5 would be. It was kind of going back and forth between Catherine and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. But the former struggled due to my issues with puzzle games, and with how much I despised Vincent, and the latter had some plot developments I found distasteful, plus I wanted more freedom to use Monkey's Cloud. The console was kind of shaping up as a system with few games I really loved, mostly just a lot of OK games, each with a few different strong points, but also some weaknesses. Since Tales of Vesperia, I'd say both of those games have been passed by Sleeping Dogs, South Park: Stick of Truth, and probably one of the Metro games, though I'm not sure which (leaning toward Last Light because of the gameplay).

Cathartic Video Game Levels #6

I probably ought to re-title these "Favorite Game Levels", because this one, at least, isn't really about catharsis. It's just fun.

I've been replaying Starfox 64 for the first time in a decade. Had to buy a new copy, seeing as Alex lost mine after I loaned it to him all those years ago (also Goldeneye, Mario Kart, and Resident Evil 2, which is why I don't loan things to Alex any longer). Not really back to my old level of skill yet, though I'm a heck of a lot better than whoever owned it before me. Already beat your high score by over 300 kills, WLT!

There are a lot of levels I like: The warp in Sector X, the two battles with Star Wolf, to Area 6, which is level to go for 300 kills on. But if we're talking favorite levels, it's Katina all the way.

Katina's one of the possible third levels, which you can get to through either Sector Y, or if you can manage the warp, Meteo. That warp gives me a lot of trouble, so I usually go through Sector Y. Katina is one of the arena (or all-range mode) levels, as opposed to the more rail-shooter levels (like Sector Y and Meteo). One of the Cornerian military's bases (a square-topped pyramid) is under attack, and it just so happens to be under the command of an old friend of Fox', Bill (who appears to be a mouse or some other rodent).

It's a big mess of Fox, his team, Bill and his guys, and all of Andross' fighter craft. There's no "no friendly fire" option, so you can accidentally shoot down any of your allies. Takes a little more work with Bill or your wingmen, but it's a long fight, so it is possible. Still, the numbers aren't overwhelming, so the early stage of the level is a good chance to get into the flow, learn to distinguish the different ship outlines. Other than the base - which sits in the center - the level is a flat, featureless plain. So there's no worries about hitting any obstructions (which is a bit of a concern in the two Star Wolf battles).

After a couple of minutes, a huge, disc-shaped mothership settles over the base, and unleashes waves of fighters from 4 hatches on its underside. You can shoot the hatches when they're down and destroy them, limiting the enemies you have to contend with. But once you shoot all 4, the needle-like core of the mothership extends from below, and you have one minute to shoot it until it explodes, or else it destroys the base.

So yeah, it's basically the end of Independence Day, minus Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith defeating the aliens with laptops and cigars. But it's the level that most purely captures what I love about the game. Starfox 64 is a flight combat game, and that's all this level is. No branching paths, no enemies that always attack at a specific point as I progress through the level, no mouthy boss enemy. All the enemies are the same basic fighter design, nothing clever to do to beat them, I just have to get them in the sights long enough to blast them a couple of times.

It's a wild scrum with a hundred other enemies out there, and things will never go entirely the same each time. The last time I was playing, I was cruising, shooting down tons of enemies but mostly avoiding hitting any allies, and then, as I was turning to chase a foe, someone else crashed into me. Couldn't tell if it was friend or foe, but it didn't matter. A minute later, it happened again, and I was missing a wing. Before I could react to that, someone crashed into me from the other side, and I was missing both wings. I went from the Hyper Laser back to the single laser, and now it was more of question whether I could destroy the core in time.

And I wanted to destroy that core. Not just to accomplish the mission of protecting the base, and not just because Bill will lend a hand in Sector X if I do. Bill is Fox' friend, and I like Fox. Trying to take on his father's mantle, protect this system from Andross with his dad's old friend, an idiot toad, and a falcon who constantly undercuts and disrespects him. I don't know what Fox and Bill got up to, but you can tell they're close, and that Bill has absolute confidence that Fox will come through. Even when I accidentally shoot him, he just jokingly says, 'Try shooting the bad guys, Fox.' There's no heat to it, he trusts me. It's a little thing, but it works, it makes me not want to let down this friend of Fox.

As Usual, When The World Needs Saving, Turn To A Band Of Oddballs

One problem I tend to have with JRPGs is the level grinding. As you progress through a game, the monsters and other foes get stronger, and you have to get stronger as well. But that can be time consuming, and since I'm never sure how strong the next boss will be, I'm caught between wanting to fight enough that the battle will be winnable, and wanting to skip all that and get on with the story.

Which is why, outside of Persona 3, I don't tend to revisit JRPGs after I beat them, even if I otherwise enjoyed them a lot. The grinding is too much hassle. I haven't tested it, but I think Tales of Vesperia is going to be one of those I'll actually play again.

Vesperia has the sort of RPG story outline I'm accustomed to. Yuri is a surly, cynical guy who frequently gets in trouble with the authorities because deep down he actually cares a lot about people and hates seeing power abused. While escaping from a stint in jail, he meets your standard naive princess who very much wants to help people with her impressive healing abilities, but has never been outside the castle. If you wanted to take a moment to ponder why they put their jail in the palace, which is presumably full of people that you'd want kept away from criminals, that's fine. I'll wait.

*whistles Cheyenne's theme from Once Upon a Time in the West*

Estelle (that'd be the princess) was looking for a Knight friend of hers, who also happens to be a friend of Yuri's. He wasn't there, but an assassin was, so the two set out on a quest to find their friend and help him. As things usually do, the threat escalates. There are piece of ancient technology called blastia which can't be recreated, but can be used for all sorts of things, notably creating barriers which keep monsters from overrunning all human settlements. Someone is going around stealing the cores which power these, and someone else is flying around on a dragon destroying others. This soon rises to a threat to the political structure of the world, and then a threat to the existence of the world itself.

As this is happening, Yuri and Estelle meet a cast of oddball characters who throw in with them for various reasons. Each character is caught in a situation or place dictated by earlier decisions, and being part of this group seems to help each decide whether that's really what they want to do and generally change their outlooks on life. So there's a lot about friendship, desire, dreams, resolve, stuff like that. There's also quite a bit of humor, as certain characters end up being the butt of jokes frequently, or there are running gags (Karol's knack for coming up with terrible names, Repede and Rita tormenting each other over their respective phobias, pretty much everything about Raven).

Though the game can be too gabby at times, I did find myself invested in the characters. Each one has a defined personality, and the game is long enough the player is able to watch as prolonged exposure to the rest of the cast changes them in different ways. There are a number of villains I hated in the game. Most of them aren't completely evil - the game makes sure to demonstrate such absolutes don't exist - but they are annoying in ways that makes me really want to beat them up. The game also has skits that will run at certain times, or after certain events. You don't have to watch them - when one is available, the game will let you know it can be triggered with the "back" button, or you can skip it once it starts - but they do add to the overall experience. Some are sweet, most are funny. I liked their inclusion, because it's a quick way to see the characters interact in different ways, and also serves to flesh them out.

As for the beating up part, the game has a very nice combat system. Eternal Sonata had a set-up where during battles, characters could move around, either to get near or away from given enemies or allies. This was different from most of the other JRPGs I'd played, where you tell a character to attack, and they do, but then return to their original spot once they're done, without consequence if they run right past another enemy. But it was still turn based. You moved on your turn, then that character sat motionless until it was their turn again.  

Tales of Vesperia took the moving approach and made it constant. Everyone involved in the battle is doing something all the time. You can give general commands to the other characters in your party, but the computer will determine how they follow it. So there's more of an ebb-and-flow. You can see everyone going on full attack against a boss, but then if there's healing needed, maybe Estelle falls back and focuses on that. If we're getting trounced really badly, maybe other characters fall back as well. The boss may try to press the attack, but I can use Yuri (or whoever) to try and keep him occupied and hope the healers keep me from dying in the interim. In, say, Wild Arms 3, if a monster wanted to attack Jet, there wasn't a whole lot Gallows could do to stop them, unless his turn came first and he could kill it.

I wouldn't say I mastered the combat system by any means. I never figured out the Mystic Artes (which are each character's ultimate attack, that's what Rita's doing up above), and I was usually only comfortable controlling Yuri. I didn't understand Fatal Strikes until probably 30+ hours into the game. The good news is you can still win battles without understanding that stuff. It's a little slower, but it's still possible.

I mentioned level grinding is a thing I struggle with on JRPGs. So it pays for a game to have some way to entice me to fight lots and lots of battles against cannon fodder enemies. Vesperia earns points with me right off making those random encounters visible on-screen so I can try to avoid them if I wish. The other thing the game does is the idea of Synthesis. While there are stores that sell lots of different things, some items and weapons can only be obtained by creating them through synthesis. Which means you have to find the ingredients, many of which are dropped by monsters you defeat. But they won't drop the thing you want every time, so you may have to fight the same kind of monster many times to get enough of the thing you need. But if it's a good enough item, I'll do that, and I'll level up in the process.

Synthesis isn't new. Dragon Quest 8 had the alchemy pot, which is basically the same idea. But the alchemy pot could only produce one thing at a time, and you had to wait what seemed an eternity to get that one thing. Tales of Vesperia does require you visit a town and find the local Fortune's Market, but once you're there, you can make anything you have sufficient ingredients (and money) for, instantaneously. That's service, and encourages me to grind, because I know the instant I have what I need I can zoom over to a town and make the sword I want. I won't be stuck waiting for it to finish cooking or whatever. 

Another thing I like about Tales of Vesperia is all the additional, optional things the game provides. You can synthesize accessories which serve no function or than altering your character's appearance. Make them look goofy, badass, hot, whatever you want. I was able to make a Black Hat for Yuri that was pretty awesome, and he wore that the rest of the game.

There are also a lot of optional sidequests. I completed at least 20, but there were probably that many I missed. I completed the Fell Arms quest (which also makes the final boss fight much harder, fyi), but barely scratched the surface of the cooking sidequest. I'm not sure how I was supposed to know about them, short of visiting each town and talking to every person after every major story event, but that's why they're optional. A lot of them are silly, and only offer new titles to adorn your characters with (though the titles sometimes come with a new outfit if you're feeling bored). But they also serve as an opportunity for more character interaction and development, and it's another excuse to level grind, because you usually have to travel, and traveling means you may have to fight things.

That's what I really need in these games, a reason to be fighting monsters other than a transparent attempt to get strong enough to kill the final boss. I need things that make fighting feel like a natural part of the story. Running around in the same field for an hour killing monsters simply because I'm worried I can't beat the next boss is boring. Killing those same monsters because I'm trying to acquire some fur or claw I need to build a weapon for Repede, or to bring to someone else makes it feel like there's a purpose, rather than stalling. Plus, it helps flesh out the world around the characters by introducing me to more of the people in it who are at risk.

I would easily put Tales of Vesperia in my Top 5 Games for the 360, were I to make that list right now. Top 3, actually.

Let's Talk Favorite PS2 Games

I've been turning this one over in my head for awhile. Since at least when I posted about favorite XBox games. The Playstation 2 didn't have quite the clear separation for me between the Top 5 and everyone else that some of the other consoles did. It was very clear to me which game was #1, but there was kind of a mess for spots 2-9 that took a lot of thinking to sort out. And I'm still not totally sure about it. Oh well, nothing says I can't change my mind in the future. Looking back, for example, I probably should have bumped Starfox 64 up to #3 on my N64 list.

5. DragonBall Z Budokai 3
4. Sky Odyssey
3. God Hand
2. Ico
1. Shin Megami Tensei Persona 3

Hmm, turns out I never did a dedicated review of DBZ Budokai 3. Just offhandedly mentioned it in a couple of posts. I will mention that it had the advantage of being one of those fighting games where it was fairly easy to pull off some of the cool special attacks, which is my preference (see my Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 review from August 29th). Even if I feel like the story mode kind of half-assed it at times, it's still a fun fighting game.

Like I said, 2-9 were pretty close together, so some of this could have gone differently. Right now, I'd rank Bully #6, then Echo Night Beyond, Okami, and Shadow of the Colossus. Bully suffers somewhat from the same problem as a lot of GTA-style games: if I want to play through the story again, that's going to mean playing through a lot of stupid, irritating missions. And there's only so much fun I have roaming the town egging people. I don't think Echo Night Beyond would be as scary the second time through. Maybe the latter two rank higher in replayability, but the first two were more fun the first time around?

Of the actual Top 5, fighting game (w/some RPG elements), flight sim, beat 'em up, puzzle game, RPG/social sim game. Persona 3 had to be first. I've finished it at least a half-dozen times, and even accounting for my skimping on the level grinding in later playthroughs, we're still talking 300+ hours. Even though the Social Link aspect is a puzzle of sorts (juggling friends, saying the right things), it's at a more relaxed pace, and it's optional. I don't have to make any friends if I don't want to. But I do, because even I, antisocial grump I am, like having friends.

I knew either Ico of Shadow of the Colossus had to be in there, and I think I went with the latter because it tends to keep the puzzles separate from the combat. Killing a Colossus is a puzzle in itself, while with Ico, I can typically worry about switches and moving blocks, and after that, come the shadow things out to recapture Yorda. Relaxes the pace (meaning, I don't like solving puzzles on the clock). God Hand is occasionally frustrating - I've still never beaten it - but it's so strange, in ways both creepy and absurd, that I enjoy it. It's also one of those games where, when things are going well and I'm in a groove, it's an absolute joy to play. When I'm stringing the combos together and smoothly dodging every punch, it feels like a real accomplishment.

Besides, what other game makes me fight five dwarf Power Rangers, and a gorilla dressed as a luchador that is actually a man in a gorilla suit (dressed as a luchador)?

Once I decided to hell with the game's desire for me to use the D-pad, and went back to the joysticks, Sky Odyssey was much more fun. It really is a very good flight game, and I have more fun applying ludicrous paint jobs to my planes, giving them stupid names, and trying to design my own logos than I would ever have expected.

That covers it for the PS2. I have no idea when or if there'll be a top 5 for the 360. Microsoft is supposedly going to keep releasing game for it for the next couple of years, so until they stop releasing games I want to play, I guess I can't make the list.

Cathartic Video Game Levels #5

I haven't done one of these in about two years, but I remembered one I thought would be fun.

Generally, I don't think older games provide a lot of catharsis for me. They tended to rely on quick reactions and precise control. Jump at just the right moment, with sufficient speed, or Mario dies, end of story. It's tense, unforgiving, and there wasn't a lot of variation in the gameplay. You run across the screen jumping on turtles and over pits early in the game and near the end. There a plenty of games like that out now (Singularity is always a first-person shooter, for example), but at least some of them try to mix things up, or provide story elements that make certain things personally satisfying. But older games can pull that off too.

Kirby's Adventure is my favorite NES game. Throughout, you'd run into a certain area, and there would be this guy with a shiny metal face mask. Nowadays, I think he's called Meta-Knight, but back then, I didn't know his name, if he had one. He'd sweep aside his cape and point his sword at Kirby, only to run off and leave me fighting their goon squads. They all carried different weapons, but none of them were powers Kirby could copy. So you were reliant on whatever powers you'd brought in, or on inhaling them, then spitting them back at their cohorts. Which means I never got the satisfaction of turning their abilities against them. This repeated itself several times

Finally, I reach the 6th level boss, and look who it is. Mr Sword and Cape. Again he brandishes his sword, but this time, another sword falls from the ceiling and lands before you. He waits. Until you pick up that sword, nothing's gonna happen, but once you do, he's coming for you. It isn't a fighting game, or a quick-time event where I have to hit the right button at the right moment to avoid Kirby being bisected. No counters or parries, just two characters jumping around, charging at each other and taking big swings with their swords. Kirby had three moves as I recall: A basic swing, a charge which would end in him sliding forward on his face, the sword held out in front of him, and a leaping attack where he would spin in midair, the sword whirling around him.

But the straightforward aspect was part of the fun. All the other boss fights you had to wait for them to stop moving so you could use whatever power you had, or wait for them to unleash an attack you could inhale and turn against them. None of that here. You have a sword, he has a sword, attack when you like, dodge as you like. And there was the whole build-up of him constantly making you fight his pitiful lackeys, so weak they didn't even have powers to steal. Even the Waddle Dee had powers to steal if they were carrying a parasol. Finally he's chosen to face you himself, and he's not using any tricks, not throwing cannon fodder at you to give himself a chance to recover. It's a fair fight (if you figure Kirby knew how to use a sword before he started this adventure). It makes it so terribly satisfying to cut him down to size.

The Fate Of Dunwall Rests In Your Grabby, Stabby Hands

Of all the games I received for Christmas this year, Dishonored is easily my favorite. Which is impressive considering how much I liked Alice: Madness Returns. The story goes that the land/city of Dunwall is gripped by an awful plague, and Corvo (you) have returned from a fruitless journey to neighboring lands to see if they know of a solution. Shortly after you return, a super-powered assassin arrives, kills the Empress, and kidnaps her daughter, Emily. The various honchos in power pin the whole thing on Corvo. He escapes with a little help from a band of people loyal to the late Empress, and sets out to rescue Emily, restore her to the throne, and deal with the traitors in the government as he sees fit.

The thing I enjoy most about Dishonored is the stealth elements. Perhaps not a surprise, given my love for Thief (and my disappointment with Velvet Assassin). I suppose you could play the game loudly. Corvo's weapons include firearms and explosives, but my preference is to sneak. I stick to the sleep darts for the crossbow as much as possible, the sword failing that. I find that makes it easier to pick off enemies one at a time. I'd be more comfortable if it was 3rd-person, rather than 1st, but you can't have everything. I'd also like it if there was an easy way to tell if you were well hidden or not. Unless someone walks past and gets the "alert" symbol over their head (three tiers of little lightning bolts, with each tier lighting as they get more suspicious) you can't tell offhand. Generally, people in this game are a bit smarter than in some other stealth games I've played. They don't give up as readily if you find a hidey-hole. It's nice, if nerve-wracking, trying to decide whether to stay or bolt.

The other thing I enjoy about the game is the element of choice. If you sneak up behind an unsuspecting person, you could stab them, choke them into unconsciousness, rob them, or ignore them entirely. There are various security device. You could deactivate them, rewire them so you're the only person safe from them, or find a way around. Before or during most missions, someone will make a request of you. You can carry it out or not. It might make things easier, or it might simply keep your hands a little less bloody. Those decisions have consequences down the line, good or bad.

I tried to go non-lethal, most of the time. The game convinced me to, because one of the load screens said killing more people made the plague worse, and led to a darker ending. I kept remembering I was supposed to be helping Emily reclaim the throne, and decided I really didn't want to hand her London during the Black Death. Also, sometimes it was easier to take the alternate choice, and sometimes, I just felt merciful. I'm still not sure why I spared the assassin. Maybe if bringing him to prison had been an option. . .

There was one guy I wanted very badly to kill, but because of the direction I'd taken, he was already dead by the time I reached him. So disappointing.

Along the lines of choices, Corvo gains powers shortly after his escape. He's approached by The Outsider, some sort of, I'd call him a trickster deity. There are charms and runes inscribed to him scattered throughout Dunwall, and gathering those lets you gain powers. He observes you through the story, pops in every once in awhile to critique, or discuss your options, but doesn't (so far as I know) interfere. He doesn't care what specifically you use his gift for, only that you use it. Does that make him the game designers?

Other than Blink (teleportation, very handy), you don't have to activate any powers if you don't wish to. Some were a little flashy for me, or seemed likely to encourage more violence, so I tried to stick to things that helped with evasion or confusion. Possession, Dark Vision, Bend Time, Agility, things like that. Looking back, I think I'll try to upgrade Possession to Level 2 sooner next time. Maybe don't activate Shadow Kill. I got a little loose with the covert stabbing after that.

I guess the graphics are good, I'm not knowledgeable enough to say, but everything looked good to me. Dunwall has a Victorian London (or how I picture that) vibe in its nicer parts, though other areas remind me of bombed out, World War 2 London. The designers do seem to have gone to the trouble of creating lots of levels to the city, which creates lots of different avenues to travel. Try the sewers, try the rooftops, try the front door. Nose around in abandoned (or inhabited) apartments along the way. Attack City Watch or don't. Whatever suits you. There are times I felt I was butting up against the limits of an area. I'd feel certain I ought to be able to Blink up onto that building, but nope, can't make it. I guess they weren't prepared to do an entirely open-world, and I will admit if I could keep going out of Dunwall, one Blink at a time, I just might.

I'm sure I'll play the game again in the future, probably more than once. The problem I'm facing is what approach to take. I'd like to see what results from a more high chaos style. If nothing else, I might get a chance to kill that one character. However, it's going to require more killing across the board, and the other thing I wanted to do was try to be more stealthy. There were so many times where I ended up being spotted and having to fight my way out (or drug a bunch of people), only to realize later there was a way around. Also, I wasn't really happy with myself because even though I spared most of the real bad guys, I ended up killing a lot of their subordinates along the way. It hardly seems fair, although I would have let them live if they had stopped trying to kill me. Just move aside and let me deal with your boss, please.

I guess I'll see when I get around to playing it again. My track record for ruthlessness when given an option is not great. Unless you value mercy, in which case I'm pretty good.

It's A Little Less Wonderland, A Little More Nightmare

'When you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.' - The Cheshire Cat

Alice: Madness Returns is a sequel to American McGee's Alice as I understand it. I didn't know that when I started it, I simply assumed it was a sequel of sorts to Carroll's original story. Maybe it is, but this Wonderland is a fair bit uglier than the one I remember from the Disney version.

At this point, Alice is some years on from the loss of her family in a fire. She's living at the office of Dr. Bumby, helping care for the children there as he tries to help her mind. By wiping away all those memories that trouble her so. Unfortunately, Wonderland itself is under attack by a monstrous train that destroys all in its path. Alice finds herself falling back into the world within in her mind with increasing frequency as she tries to stop the train, regain memories she fears lost, and discover the person responsible for everything.

I'd call the game a platformer. There's a lot of jumping, avoiding pitfalls and traps, triggering switches then trying to get where you need to go before time runs out. There's also a lot of combat, as Alice finds an array of weapons. Four of them - the Vorpal Blade, Teapot Cannon, Pepper Grinder, and Hobby Horse - can be upgraded multiple times, provided you find enough teeth. Fortunately, there are plenty of those around, and I was able to upgrade all of them fully well before the end of the game. There are also Clockwork Bombs and the Parasol. More a defensive piece, that last one, one I wish I'd used more. But you know me. It's attack, attack, attack all the time. Each weapon has its strengths, and it's fairly easy to switch between them, as most are mapped to a different button. The Grinder and Cannon share the right trigger, but you can switch between them by pressing the D-pad one direction or the other.

Combat on the whole is not necessarily easy, though most battles aren't hard once you find the enemies' patterns and weak spots, but the game doesn't try to hinder you the way some do. The camera is generally helpful, the controls respond well, and you get some nifty moves to help. Alice has a Dash move where she turns into a flurry of butterflies, which you can direct a short distance. It's a quick way to close or elude an enemy. What's nice is you can use it without even moving if you want to avoid an attack without losing your prime position. Tap the button, but don't move. Alice will dissolve into the butterflies, the attack will pass through, then you can reform and resume your attack. It's a lot like the dash move in Shinobi, which I also quite liked, except I think it works even better here. The camera isn't actively making life hell, for one thing.

I will say I found it a little hard to switch targeting sometimes, which can be a problem when a boss surrounds itself with mostly insignificant subordinates. I couldn't get the weapon aimed at the thing I really wanted to strike. That didn't come up too often, though. Jumping puzzles were a bit more of a problem, because trying to find the right combination of repeated jumps and glides was difficult. I'd think I could glide the rest of the way, and then abruptly she'd stop gliding and start falling. Or I'd find I couldn't do any more mid-air jumps, but also couldn't glide.

One quibble for me was how long chapters are. When playing games, I often like to try and finish one level or mission each time. With Madness Returns, that really wasn't going to happen without investing more than 4 hours. This wouldn't be so bad, except you tend to have just one true objective each level. So I start a level trying to climb a mountain to find the Caterpillar. 2+ hours later, I'm still climbing the mountain to reach the damn Caterpillar. There's been a lot of fighting, a lot of lever pulling, and helping these poor oppressed, um crickets I think, against the Daimyo Wasps, but ultimately it's all been in service of reaching Caterpillar. It doesn't help when you use Shrink to view hidden messages, you keep seeing pictures of him with an arrow pointing ahead. Yes, you've been telling me that for quite some time. Exactly how far ahead, though, would be more helpful.

I complimented the functionality of Dash, but I also really like it as a visual. The burst of butterflies as she vanishes, then reforms looks very nice. The game has a lot of that. Most of the levels have their own theme. I particularly liked the section set way up in the clouds, where walkways and buildings form out of playing cards. Some levels have vibrant colors, others are murky and grey, things falling into disuse. Others are disturbing, depending on how you feel about preserved specimens or the internal workings of your body. That giant eye peering in through the keyhole? Yeesh. The Wonderland parts contrast nicely with the parts in London. Very little there is vibrant, but it's more that everything looks shabby, like it was never beautiful. There's a sort of greasy smear to everything, emphasizing how dirty and unhealthy it all is. Except for the part in the asylum.

While playing, I very much wanted Alice to learn the truth she was seeking. Regain her memories, feel whole, and perhaps alleviate her guilt. I had lots of theories about what was happening. Her sister wasn't dead, she'd used the fire as cover to start a new life. The Cat's responsible for the destruction of Wonderland. He is, after all, the one egging her on. Besides, he's a cat. Of course he'd be up to no good. In the end, I was wrong on all counts.

Still, as much as I wanted Alice to succeed, I understood the Wonderland inhabitants' frustration with her. Not only do her stated desires keep shifting, but everything is always about her. She wants Wonderland saved for her peace of mind, and they are merely tools to help her achieve it. Now one could reasonably argue they are parts of her, or things created by her mind, but their lives seem to have progressed since the last game. Rarely for the better, but how much of that is their failure, and how much is Alice? There's a real sense whatever she did in the first game was also done with only her own well-being in mind, and had a ruinous effect on everyone else. And perhaps on her, given her state in this game.

As it is, I'm not sure what to make of the ending. There's a part of me that thinks this entire game, her entire life since she left the asylum, was nothing but an extension of her mental trauma, and none of it happened. Kind of like how there's a shot at the end of Once Upon a Time in America that suggests maybe all the scenes from the '50s were a DeNiro opium hallucination. The lines between London and Wonderland do blur quite a lot, but I'm not sure if it works that way.

The game's story does have some deeply satisfying moments. The large fellow with the scythe in the background over there is the Red Queen's Executioner. He's an invincible monster that hounds you for most of a chapter. When Alice is finally able to turn the tables, I hardly even cared that it happened in a cut scene. Sure, I would have liked to administer the coup de grace, but I doubt I'd get to see the great reactions from both parties if I did.

Complaints about the length of chapters and occasional jumping issues aside, I really loved Alice: Madness Returns. I'd say it's easily in my Top 5 for the 360 at this point (though admittedly, the only two other sure things are Singularity and The Saboteur), and it's only looking better for how disenchanted some of the games I've begun since finishing it have left me.

An Explosive Irishman In Paris

The Saboteur was one of the first games I bought for the 360, along with Fable 3 and Rage. I finished both of those before Halloween and haven't looked back. The Saboteur I took my time, tried to finish every last thing I could.

I'd say it's easily my favorite 360 game so far, which is maybe a little disappointing. It's essentially Grand Theft Auto: Occupied France. You take on missions for a Resistance cell, missions which usually involve killing someone, or blowing stuff up. Maybe there needs to be a swift escape utilizing some fancy driving. You gradually get forged papers that let you travel to other sections of Paris, putting you in contact with other members of La Resistance, who also have missions for you.

It can be repetitive, so I broke up the missions with lots of freeplay work. There are hundreds of what are called freeplay targets scattered across the map. Some are postcards, or scenic views, others are some supply drops, but most are symbols of the Nazis you need to destroy. SS generals, tanks, sniper nests, propaganda loudspeakers. Every one of them you complete earns you a little bit of contraband, which is how you pay for weapons. Not that you're usually at a loss for weapons or ammo. After all, there are Nazis all over the place, just kill one and take his gun.

One of the things for me that differentiates it from the GTAs are the stealth elements. Sean's an adept climber, which makes getting to the freeplay targets easier, and also gives you a little more versatility in how to approach targets. This isn't a game that gives you truly different options on how to complete missions (like say, Dishonored), but you can at least opt to snipe from a nearby rooftop rather than barrel in guns blazing if you like. And I do, I do like. The climbing is very easy. Jump up to a grip, move the control stick until another grip is highlighted, push the jump button. Just make sure the Nazis don't see you.

Also, it's possible to stealth kill a Nazi (if you can catch them unaware), and steal their uniform. The game employs some common sense to the Nazis' ability to see through your disguise. Namely, if they can't see you, then they can't see through your disguise. Sounds obvious, but apparently too difficult for the makers of Velvet Assassin. The driving isn't incredibly smooth like you might expect from a racing game, but it's fairly steady. There are a few races, but the difficulty isn't hard at all. My coworker is terrible at driving in games, and was able to win the big Grand Prix race on the first try. Vehicles tend to take a lot of damage before they stop working, unless shot by a tank. You will be able to find tanks and wreak havoc in them, by the way. Little disappointed I couldn't hijack a Messerschmidt and strafe people, but oh well.

One aspect of the game is perks. If you complete a certain task, you unlock certain bonuses. A new gun, a new stealth attack, not having to pay to have cars repaired. You're also able, if you have the dosh, to purchase one gold level perk, without having to complete the requirements. My coworker used it to unlock the Panzerschreck. I used to it to make it so Nazis aren't suspicious if I plant explosives while wearing a disguise. I'm sure this highlights something about our respective approaches.

One quirk of the game is that almost everything is in black-and-white at the beginning. There will be occasional things in color. Luc's scarf is sky blue, the swastika on the back of a car a deep red, but everything else is black or white. As the game progresses, as you gradually liberate France, color returns to the region, emphasizing the weakening of Nazi control. They'll still be present, but less likely to hassle civilians, and you'll find it easier to escape them. It's a nice touch, but after awhile it seems like areas are being liberated just because. Why does my recovering a race car liberate the countryside around the villa I stole it from? What Frenchmen were around to see it who would care? So I'm not sure the execution of the idea is where it could be, but what the hell. Plus, it made your final confrontation with Kurt Dierker much more satisfying.

Which is good, because it seemed terribly anticlimactic for a moment. I haven't spoken of the story much, but in brief, Sean Devlin's drinking away his sorrows in Paris when Luc approaches him about helping the Resistance with his explosives aptitude. Of course the Irishman drinks heavily and likes explosives. Sean doesn't care too much about fighting the Frenchies' battle for them, but he does like the idea of getting his hands on Dierker, who he holds responsible for his friend Jules' death. Throw in some double crosses, a Spanish weapons dealer, British Intelligence using Sean, tension between Sean and Veronique (Jules' sister). and there you go.

I imagine it worked for me because - besides Sean's frequent and creative use of profanity - I was watching Duck, You Sucker a lot when I started playing it, and I appreciated certain parallels between Sean and John. Sean let his temper and ego get his best friend killed, and was drinking his life away until he got a chance for revenge. John actually killed his best friend, which torched his belief in anything except killing. He's in the Mexican Revolution to kill anyone in uniform, Sean's in World War 2 to kill Dierker, and any Nazis in the way. Sean is maybe a little less cynical than John, but I'd say he's also younger, and not as far removed from his tragedy. Luc is probably Dr. Villega, which leaves Santos and Juan. Eh, it sort of works. Neither one is particularly interested in the war except for what they can make off it. Overall, I think that bought the story some slack it might not otherwise have gotten. I'm not sure how much story you need for trying to slow down the Reich.

Oh, I also really liked the music for when you're in the car. It all seemed period appropriate (I don't know if it was original music, or songs actually created during World War 2), and it was just very pleasant. Sometimes it's nice to get out of the city and just cruise the countryside in a nice car for a while. If only those French civilians would figure out which side of the road they wanted to drive on. I don't care which, just pick one!

We'll Set The World Right, Eventually

I beat Singularity earlier this week. I was going to say it's the first first-person shooter I'd played in over 2 years. Then I remembered I beat Rage last fall. So Singularity is the first FPS I enjoyed playing in a long time. Over 5 years, probably.

The gist of the story is a man named Ranko is sent as part of a team to investigate some strange happenings on the island of Katorga-12. While wandering the ruins after a helicopter crash, he's hit by a wave of energy, and suddenly everything is burning. He saves a man about to fall, another wave hits, and everything's as it was before. Almost. Soon enough, Ranko and his partner are captured by Soviet - not Russian - soldiers, commanded by the very man he saved, a Dr. Demichev. He's quite surprised to see you here, not looking a day older than you did when you saved him, over 50 years ago.

Yes, you altered the past, and after being rescued by a group called MIR-12 (who I picture hiding out in a rapidly decaying space station), you're clued in that by saving Demichev, you brought about the death of another scientist named Barisov, and Demichev used an element known as E-99 to build a bomb which destroyed the East Coast of the U.S. Then the whole world basically capitulated, Demichev gained power, and was eventually able to overthrow Khrushchev. Stalin would never have let that happen.

MIR-12 knows Barisov was working on a time manipulation device (TMD), and they want you to find it, use it, and fix things. Which you try very hard to do. You save Barisov, meaning he's alive to guide you when you return to the present, but that still doesn't fix things. Throughout all this, you're fighting not just Soviet soldiers - be it ones from the '50s or the present - but also the mutated results of Demichev's experimentation on the people who populated the research facility on Katorga-12. He wanted to see what would happen if people ingested E-99 regularly with their food. The answer is, not so good for you.

The good news? You have the TMD, and it can do all sorts of things. You can catch projectiles hurled at you and redirect them (larger ones, like grenades, and explosive barrels. Not bullets). You can age things forward or backwards, to rebuild a collapsed staircase or bring back a box with potentially useful items inside. You can age people, too. You can create a ball of temporal energy which slows everything within it except you. There's even an Impulse function, which is basically a wide-beam repulsor ray. Not sure why it would have that. I think it would have been better if it caused the things it affected to return to the location they occupied a few seconds earlier, since that could serve the same purpose: to get you a little breathing space. Whatever, it's handy either way.

I think one of the reasons I grew disenchanted with FPS was the increased emphasis on tactical sense. Where you had to use cover and flanking, and all that stuff. I can see that being fun if you're playing with a friend you can coordinate with, but on my own, or relying on computer A.I. - which doesn't come up here, I'm speaking generally - not so much. Singularity doesn't overload on that. You have to exercise some common sense, especially against soldiers. Get behind cover, prioritize, stuff like that. But it doesn't cross that line where it starts to be too much work to be worth the trouble. Maybe having the TMD helps. All the tricks it gives you greatly simplify things. If you remember to use it. I didn't a lot of times, though I got better near the end, when having enough energy for it wasn't such a concern.

I don't like you can only carry two weapons. There are lockers scattered around where you can switch between weapons, buy ammo, upgrade the guns, but at the end of the day, you have to pick two. You can swap one out for something you find on the ground if you'd like, whatever you drop will still be in the locker the next time. It's one of those Goldeneye remnants. In that game, you could carry as many guns as you could find, and I loved the variety. This isn't a gripe exclusive to Singularity, though. Dark Sector and The Saboteur do the same thing. I assume it's some greater emphasis on realism, though I don't know what business that has in a game where I have to use a minigun to kill a bug large enough to destroy a train trestle.

The game has a decently creepy atmosphere. Not on par with Silent Hill 2, but moreso than Resident Evil 4. Katorga-12 is a rotting corpse of a facility, with broken windows, crumbling walls, corpses and wreckage everywhere. A lot of the game takes place at night, with nothing but barely going lightbulbs, fires, or the moon for lighting. Occasionally the game employs the "indistinct whispers", where you hear someone talking, but you can't make it out, or determine where it's coming from. That always puts me on edge. Especially when I also see one of the mutations perched on a ledge, before it teleports away. Are they communicating with each other? Is it the wind? Is it ghosts, or some temporal echo?

There are old tape recorders you can de-age and listen to. They can be useful, or just depressing, either because the person is full of hope, or because they've grown resigned to their fate. There are also messages on the walls sometimes. You have to de-age those to see them, but what's bad is that as the game progresses, it becomes abundantly clear they're directed to Ranko, specifically.

The game offers three different endings. It's more like Echo Night Beyond, where which ending you get depends solely on a particular choice you make at the end, as opposed to Silent Hill 2, where the ending is the culmination of how you played the entire game. Unlike EHB, Singularity has an ending they definitely consider the "right" one. I'm not convinced, but I wasn't a fan of any of the endings. I mean, I like the decision I made the first time, but afterward, the game tells you what the fallout is, and they also hint at what Ranko gets up to. It didn't jibe with my picture of what he'd do at all. To be fair, I figured he would do pretty much what I would do. On the other hand, it isn't as though the game offered any insights into his personality that would suggest he wouldn't act like me.

Sometimes it's hard to stick the landing. That aside, I loved Singularity. If I didn't have so many other games I need to finish (or start), I'd definitely play through it again. I'd like to see if I could do better at incorporating the TMD into fights, rather than using it mostly in the quiet moments.

Let's Talk Favorite XBox Games

The XBox might have the highest ratio of good games among my systems, after the N64. There were duds, or games that were good but had certain features that wore on me after awhile (Burnout 3 and that damn elastic AI), but I can make a Top 5 without even touching any number of games I really love. Neither of the GTAs make it, nor any of the DOAs, or Secret Weapons Over Normandy. For that last one, blame the terrible, terrible, wingman AI. Anyway, the Top 5:

5. Crimson Skies: The High Road to Revenge
4. Max Payne
3. Beyond Good & Evil
2. Phantom Dust
1. Thief: Deadly Shadows

Let's see. A flight combat sim, a 3rd person shooter, an action/adventure game with a bit of old school platformer and fighting mixed in, an RPG (sort of), and a stealth action game. Despite the number of enjoyable games, this has always been a really easy Top 5 for me to put together. I can pull any of these games out and start over and have a good time. Phantom Dust might be the lone exception, since it takes several missions before you're able to create your own arsenals to take into battle, which is a lot of the fun, mixing and matching.

I was looking back over those posts, and in the Thief one, I mentioned it was one of three games vying for the top spot, the other two being Phantom Dust and Max Payne. I'm not sure when it started happening, but sometime within a year of that, I felt like they sorted themselves out, Max Payne dropping father behind first, then Phantom Dust. It's only recently (within the last couple of months), I concluded Beyond Good & Evil should move ahead of Max Payne. It's close, but I think the variety of gameplay elements give it the edge. It might not hurt that Beyond Good & Evil never had any subpar sequels to tarnish its rep somewhat. I can't speak to Max' most recent adventure, but I know Max Payne 2 was lousy, which made the original look better and worse. Better because it's easy to see how it could have turned out, worse because I think it showed some limitations of the game. It really is about shooting and bullet time, with some hardboiled narration thrown in for good measure. I like all those elements, but within a single franchise, there's perhaps only so much you can do with them before it gets stale.

I don't know when I might get to the PS2. The problem there isn't finding five games; it's figuring out what their order is. *Shrugs* Something for me to think about during the many hours I'll spend driving this week.

Let's Talk Favorite Gamecube Games

The 'Cube was a Christmas gift in '01. That's over a decade ago now, jeez. The N64 still worked fine (still does, in fact, even if there are still 4 games I need to retrieve from wherever Alex thinks he may have left them), but there weren't really any games coming out for it by then. So the 'Cube was the new hotness so to speak. The fact it was small and easily portable didn't hurt any, not for someone who had to periodically pack up all his stuff and move to or from a dorm.

I'm pretty sure the reason I wanted a Gamecube will be game #4 on the list, but on the whole, the system didn't work out so well for me. I bought 28 games all told, but there are at least 10 I'd classify as "duds", and probably at least another 5 that had certain aspects I enjoyed, but had enough frustrating things to ruin the experience on the whole. Baten Kaitos: Origins would fall squarely in that category. It's predecessor might, as well. Of course, there were certain games I intended to buy for the Gamecube I wound up having to purchase for another system, which skewed things a little. If I'd managed to get Beyond Good & Evil for the Gamecube instead of the XBox, that might change my perspective. On the little purple lunchpail, at least.

#5. Skies of Arcadia: Legends
#4. Super Smash Bros. Melee
#3. Timesplitters 2
#2. Metroid Prime
#1. Resident Evil 4

Skies of Arcadia narrowly edged out Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker for the 5th spot. One RPG, two first person shooters, a fighting game, and a survival/horror/adventure/3rd person shooter(?) I'm not entirely sure how to classify RE4. It's less of a horror game than RE2 or Silent Hill 2, but adventure seems a little, I don't know, cheerful for it.

I was trying to beat Metroid Prime again this spring, which didn't really work out, but anyway. I was being repeatedly killed by the Omega Pirate. Or more accurately, I was being killed by the various Beam Pirates it was calling down to protect itself while it tried to rebuild its Phazon armor. After several days of trying once or twice and failing, I threatened the game with demotion to #3 on the list if it didn't let me win. That didn't have an immediate effect, but I let it keep its spot. Metroid Prime is one of those games where it's really fun when things are going well, and I enjoy the efforts to flesh out the world with the Chozo Lore and Pirate Research entries. Although that Space Pirate planetarium is about the saddest thing ever. When the planet with the virus that is about to kill you when you start seeing double is the happiest place, you know it's a hellhole.

Looking back at the review, I may not have given Timsplitters its fair due. At one time, I owned it and Halo, and Timesplitters 2 is the one I kept. I'd regard it better if they'd fixed some of the co-op glitches, and if it had gotten some of the character building Timesplitters: Future Perfect did. As to Smash Bros., I find I'm getting progressively worse at the games with each new iteration. The more new moves and control functions they add, the more I struggle. Granted, I didn't put in as much time on Melee as I did on the original, but even when I play it a lot, some of the moves never become second nature to me.

This isn't a particularly close list, RE4 is well ahead of the others. I've played it to completion multiple times, and I likely will again. I'm just so happy the camera plays fair now, even if that's makes it a less terrifying game. The gameplay is just a lot of fun, and the timing button commands to kick or escape added an enjoyable bit of flexibility to the game (I know people who love to shoot out the legs of attackers, then either slice them with the knife, or kick the hell out of them.) I would put it behind RE2 from a story perspective. That game's characters and their arcs have always been more interesting and felt more filled out.

Let's Talk Favorite N64 Games

This is one is actually pretty tough because the N64 worked out pretty well for me. I've said it before, but there were only two games I absolutely regretted buying, which isn't bad out of 20.

5. Starfox 64
4. Resident Evil 2
3. Super Smash Bros.
2. Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
1.Goldeneye 007

Let's see, flight combat game, survival/horror, fighting game, adventure, first-person shooter. That's sort of a lot of diversity, even if most of them boil down to shooting something.

I still feel a little odd ranking Goldeneye above Ocarina of Time, but it's not so much a measure of quality as it is how much I enjoyed the game. And Goldeneye has all those wonderful multiplayer memories tied to it. Which is really the big theme of the N64 for me. 3 of these games had at least part of their appeal tied to their multiplayer options. Starfox isn't to the same extent as Goldeneye and Smash Bros., but it was a flight combat game so it had its own advantages. There are at least 2 other games in the running for that 5th spot - Mario Kart 64 and Wave Race - and they also both had multiplayer.

This was the first system I had where that was really a consistent option, and I guess this means I took full advantage of it. Granted, it doesn't account for RE2 or Ocarina, but those were both very good games in their own right (setting aside RE2's lousy camera), so they had more than enough going for them to earn their way in regardless.

Let's Talk Favorite Game Gear Games

While the NES was something I received as a Christmas gift when I was in kindergarten, the Game Gear didn't come along near the end of my time in 4th grade. It stayed with me all the way through high school (though I did have to get a second after I broke the screen on the first one) when, for a variety of reasons too stupid to go into here, I gave it to Alex for safekeeping when I went off to college.

He promptly lost 85% of my games before I came back for winter break. Thanks, Al.

5. Majors Pro Baseball
4. Batman Returns
3. Earthworm Jim
2. Sonic the Hedgehog
1. Power Rangers

I suppose it becomes apparent why I had the sudden urge to do a Majors Pro Baseball post last weekend. Anyway, One sports game, three platformers of varying styles, and one fighting game. I suppose Power Rangers tries to be a beat 'em up, but considering you only ever fight one enemy at a time, and don't really do much moving around the level, it's a fighting game.

It' isn't too surprising a Sonic game made it in, since 6 of the 29 games I had for the Game Gear were Sonic games. Of course, six of the games I had were either X-Men or Spider-Man games (or both at once in the case of Arcade's Revenge), and none of the came close to making the list. Return of the Sinister Six might have a shot at the top 10, maybe Mojo World as well, but that's it.

Looking at the five I picked, it's kind of neat how each of them had a soundtrack I can recall almost instantly. I talked about the "runners in scoring position" music for Pro Baseball, and Batman Returns had this very solemn sort of theme for the credits. I was particularly fond of the music for the Scrap Brain level in Sonic, though every Sonic game had good music. Even Sonic 2, which I otherwise hated (and would likely headline a least favorite Game Gear Games list), had some good tunes for the Sky High level. I remember getting odd looks from classmates for whistling that tune in class in 6th grade.

The three platformers are all a little different. Batman Returns, with the fact most of the boss battles are a lot more difficult than the rest of the level, really encourages searching high and low through the level to find those power-ups that let Batsy call in the mechanized cavalry. You can do that if you want in Sonic of Earthworm Jim, but it isn't necessary. In this Sonic game, at least, you don't have to collect all the Chaos Emeralds, so there's no need to slow down and search carefully. You can simply barrel through full tilt if you'd like. As for EWJ, searching might provide health boosts or a super-powerful one-shot attack, but it's likely the player can find some of those just by sticking to the basic path through the level.

I always wanted Batman Returns to allow me to launch some sort of flying kick when I swung off a grappling line, but it wasn't to be. Which lead to more than a few moments of swinging, landing, and being punched off the ledge by some goon I wasn't able to attack until after I stuck the landing. Early video game Batman couldn't multi-task.

I Liked Sports Games More When They Were Simpler

Well, that was discouraging. I called Jack to try and figure out where the comics he was supposed to mail before Memorial Day were. Turns out he wasn't at the store that week, and so he isn't sure if they were mailed, when they were mailed if they were, and thus we have no idea where they are. Swell.

I hope they show up soon. In the meantime, I realized they was an old game I loved I never post about. Maybe because it was a sports game. I've talked about sports games before, but it's usually something about Madden 2005 riling me to the point I break the disc in half and throw it in the trash. My Game Gear had its share of games like that, minus the part about actually breaking the game. NBA Jan Tournament Edition used to rile me on a regular basis, given the number of times I lost on full-court shots at the buzzer.

But I'm going to be upbeat today, so I'll look at Majors Pro Baseball instead. It was one of those early sports games where you didn't have to apply any logic to how you used your players. If I wanted, I could use the same pitcher every day, and he'd never get hurt. He would get fatigued, but only as a result of however many pitches he'd thrown that game, not because I'd used him the last 30 games in a row. I could put any lineup out there I wanted, without worrying about whether I included someone who could play catcher or not. Someone in the lineup would play there, and they'd be fine.

With only a directional pad and two buttons, the controls couldn't be too complex, which meant stealing bases was pretty easy. Just a matter of getting a decent lead and timing it right. That's actually what frustrates me most about the last few baseball games I've played, base stealing feels so much more difficult now. I want to run like crazy, damnit! The Cardinals of the 1980s live on, but not if the game designers make it too complicated, because I lose the will to go through all the mess it takes to make it happen. So yes, I'd try to steal (or go for the hit-and-run) on practically every pitch, with practically every player. Sometimes it blew up in my face, but the nice thing about the rosters being based on the 1991 season is the Cardinals could make almost an entire lineup of players with 10 or more steals, so running worked pretty well.

I guess I was pretty good at scoring runs, because I teamed up with a friend of mine to play a season where he handled pitching and I handled hitting. We went something like 30-2. He pitched because he'd mastered the ability to throw hard. I never could figure it out. I think it had something to do with hitting the button repeatedly as you threw, versus just holding it down.

My pitches never topped 80 mph, which meant all my pitchers were Jamie Moyer. Who, come to think of it, might have been available as pitcher in that game, though it would have been as a Cardinal, and I don't remember him being on the roster. Speaking of Moyer, I'm disappointed the Rockies DFA'ed him. I mean, they stink, let the 49 year old continue to set all sorts of age-related records on your club. What else are they playing for this year, Todd Helton's quest for 2,500 hits?

Anyway, I threw everything on an arc, aiming for the outside corner. Unless the hitter was standing right next to the plate, in which case I tried to jam him. This was made all the trickier because I could move from one side of the mound to another before throwing, and the hitter could shift position in the batter's box during the pitch. So I could stand in the center of the mound, and throw it to the outside corner, and the batter, who had been standing in the middle of the batter's box, could rush up to the plate as I threw to try and get in range of the pitch. It was a rather strange way to represent the games pitchers and hitters play trying to outsmart each other.

The real joy for me, though, was the soundtrack. I was always jealous that the computer team got my favorite music whenever they got someone in scoring position. It was similar to the regular music, but faster and with a harder edge to it. It was absolutely worth it to let the other team get guys on base, just to have that music as the backdrop while I was pitching. I was almost disappointed when I'd work out of trouble. Almost. I hate losing too much to want their half of the inning to continue.

Let's Talk Favorite NES Games

I'd been meaning to do formal lists of my favorite games for each console I've owned for awhile. Why? Lists are fun, I suppose. In light of the fact I'm tired and not particularly inspired, now seems as good a time as any to start. I might as well work chronologically, so it's the old NES first. The title of each game will be a link to a post I wrote about it, assuming there is one.

5. Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle
4. Mega Man 4
3. Super Dodgeball
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Arcade Game
1. Kirby's Adventure

OK, one thing I might as well admit up front is, if I couldn't beat a game, it isn't likely to make the Top 5. Not saying there won't be games like that on here. I've never beaten Mega Man 4, and 2 months ago, I hadn't beaten Ninja Turtles 2. Still, I am competitive enough that repeated failures are bound to frustrate me, and may eventually sour me on a game*.

That's a sort of survival/puzzle game, a platformer, a sports game, a beat em' up, and another platformer. We're still years away from my discovering the fun of first-person shooters (during junior high and high school, which is probably significant), or RPGs (which came even later). The only NES game I can think of I had that wouldn't fit in the 4 categories above is Duck Hunt, and I did not like that dog. Always pointing and laughing. One day, dog, I'm just gonna leave you at the wetland. If you're lucky. . .

Ahem. Without really thinking about it, I'd always kind of assumed I liked Mega Man 4 for the ability to use your enemies' powers against them. But I remembered I hardly ever did that. Mega Man's versions of the boss attacks were so much weaker than the originals it hardly seemed worth it. I think I only used them out of desperation. I did love the music though (especially Skull Man's level), and I'm sure the idea of my dog being able to transform into a jet a help me out held a certain appeal (I played some Mega Man 2 earlier this spring, and was surprised/disappointed when Rush wasn't there to help. Guess he hadn't been introduced yet).

One thing I didn't mention when I celebrated beating Turtles 2, that I had brought up in the post linked above, is that jump-kicking wasn't as flawless a strategy as I remembered it being. The Foot ninja were much better at timing their punches to coincide with my kicks and send me flying that I expected. Which didn't cause me to abandon that strategy: I still figure I have less chance of getting hit if I'm constantly in the process of jumping or kicking than if I'm standing still swinging a weapon. Memory's a tricky thing.

None of these games seem too hard in retrospect. I'm basing that on my ability to beat them. Well, not Mega Man 4, but all the others. Given my miserable track record with every other NES game I had, I assume these were relatively easy. Maybe they just required certain skills I actually had or, more likely, I'm forgetting how much time I put into beating some of them. I think unless there's something noteworthy about the setbacks, we tend to forget them in the aftermath of success (though we may still remember how narrow the margin of victory was).

* Case in point: I'm trying to beat Metroid Prime again right now, and after the 7th consecutive death at the hands of the Omega Pirate, I was getting a little fed up. I did beat it last night, so souring averted.

Pimp Slapped By The Hand Of God

I was sure I would have done a post about God Hand at some point, but I can't find it. Maybe I was waiting until I beat it. Since I don't see that happening any time soon, the wait is over.

God Hand (on the PS2) is a beat 'em up, plain and simple. There are a few mini-games, like blackjack and betting on chihuahua races, but those are just ways to get more money so you can buy more power ups or new, devastating attacks. The rest of it is sending Gene around each level to beat up every hostile weirdo he sees, before they do the same to him.

Since many of these weirdos are possessed (or empowered) by demons, this can be quite a challenge for an ordinary human, as Gene learned when his right arm was lopped off for trying to rescue some poor schmoe. Fortunately, Gene crossed paths with Olivia, the last member of a group of people tasked with protecting the God Hands. She attached one (it's not just a hand, it's an entire arm) in place of his missing limb, and now they travel together. She's usually forces Gene to get involved, either by kicking him out a hotel window into the middle of a fight, or by threatening to take back the God Hand - with a hatchet.

There are ~100 different regular attacks you can purchase for Gene to use, though you can only assign about 10 of them to button commands at a time. There are Orbs you can purchase or find, and these let Gene perform big attacks. Some are for one target, others for a group, some long range, some short. Again, you can decide which ones will be in the "roulette" when you decide to use the orbs, so if one isn't suiting your fancy (I eventually dumped Mule Kick because I got tired of an attack that was useless if unleashed against a female opponent), you can swap it out once you find enough other techniques. I'm fond of Kung Fu Samba myself.

In addition to your health bar, there's a second bar representing an energy gauge for the God Hand. When it turns from purple to orange, you can activate the God Hand and go to town. It only lasts for a limited time, and refills as you land strikes, so I try and save it for boss fights, or desperate situations. My strategy usually involves throwing anything I can first, then hammering away with any blunt instruments that are handy. After that it becomes strike, retreat (when they block), counter (when they start to attack), repeat. It's a little tricky fighting lots of opponents at once (I was hung up awhile at an 8-on-1 battle which included a boss character along with the usual goons), but it mostly works. When I can keep my reflexes up.

In spite of all the stuff about demons, and people getting arms lopped off, the game doesn't really take itself seriously. They have Daran Norris, who voiced Spottswoode on Team America: World Police as the voice of the Belze, the leader of the demons. Maybe it's just me, but that makes it a little hard to buy that guy as a threat. Plus Shannon's attack that turns Gene into a chihuahua, and then there's Elvis. Not Elvis Presley, but a fat stereotype Mexican guy who smokes cigars and keeps calling Gene "cabron", but mostly "pendejo".

Then there's the lower level bosses like the gorilla luchador, the dwarf Power Rangers, the demon rock band, or Tiger Joe, the man dressed like a rugby player with an eye patch. And the cannon fodder of amazons in spiked bikinis, samurais, fembots, and all sorts of people who must have been on loan from Road Warrior. The Road Warrior guys are fond of proclaiming "I'm Alexander the Great!" right after punching me in the face. Which, hey, whatever amps you up for a fight, I guess. Tiger Joe likes to describe his style as "impetuous", usually after kicking Gene in the face five times.

The game's a bit sexist. The guys dress strangely, but outside of what I think were 2 fellows dressed as Vegas showgirls*, they're mostly covered up. The women, not so much. Also, if Gene can land enough strikes on one enemy without getting hit in response, said enemy will get dazed. Gene's then free to assault them with rapid pressing of the circle button. On some foes that means pummeling them with fists or feet in rapid succession. For others, it means repeated knees to the face. For all the female characters? Spanking, the finale of which sends the enemy flying across the room to either hit a wall or skid along the ground. It doesn't do less damage, but it's a little awkward to be playing a game that encourages such activity, especially if my coworkers are in the room. I'd really rather just punch the crazy Amazon repeatedly, OK?

Most of the violence is like that. Cartoonish. Contrary to the image above, you don't see blood, the enemies and Gene don't show visible signs they're getting beat up as fights progress. I don't know that I'd quite equate it to an '80s cartoon like G.I. Joe, since the cut scenes do show enemies dying, being incinerated, whatever, but the actual gameplay doesn't go the Mortal Kombat "cheap gore" route.

* They seemed like guys, considering their flat chests, and the game doesn't skimp on cleavage typically, but the Mule Kick was useless, so perhaps they were very muscular women.

Don't Tell Me I Lost When You Just Told Me I Won

I've mentioned a few times I'm a fan of the DragonBall series. Watched a lot of the episodes, bought some of the manga, and yeah, bought some of the video games.

The first Budokai game wasn't very good, but I played it enough (and had enough fun with it) that it was worth the money. Budokai 3 was actually pretty good. Maybe not one of the greatest fighting games of all time, but I tend to stink at fighting games anyway, so how would I know*? There was one other I got to play once, Supersonic Warriors on the Game Boy Advance. It wasn't much different from the first two games I mentioned, other than the fighting arena being limited to 2-D rather than 3-D. Fly around, trade punches and energy blasts, save the world, that sort of thing.

The one thing it really had going for it was the ability to play story modes for several different characters. Budokai 3 had that, but in some cases, it seemed sort of half-assed. What I mean is, I'd be playing as a character (say Krillin), and I'd have to fight somebody that guy fought in the actual original story. Originally, Krillin lost, but I have to win, because this game actually expects you to win boss fights, unlike Baten Kaitos: Origins**. So I do, hooray for me. The game then continues forward with the story as it was originally, so it's treated as though after I kicked butt, I was trounced by the same guy off-screen. That's deflating.

With Supersonic Warriors, if you win a fight, the story actually proceeds like you won the damn fight. It reflects the fact that with the help of your quick wits and reflexes, this character can defend the world from any threat. Or destroy the world in defiance of all opposition if you play as one of the bad guys. Whichever. It was a touch that I appreciated, because if the game is going to let me fight the big battles with a different character as the big hero, then it could at least play out like the character I chose is the big hero.

* I think I was pretty good at the first Super Smash Bros., but I never moved beyond mediocre on any other fighting game.

** You'd think not being expected to win would be a good thing, but not when you're expected to survive for a certain amount of time. You can't be trounced too quickly, but you also can not win. At least not until some point well after the place where I got fed up with battles I wasn't able to win.

I Liked It, But Not Enough To Buy It, And I Don't Know Why

One of my favorite games for the NES is one I never actually owned. I mostly played Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle at my cousin's house at Christmas, but I still liked it a lot more than most of the games I wound up eagerly buying. I never had a chance to read a player's manual, but the gist seemed to be Bugs is caught in a castle with many enemies who want him dead, and must make his way to the top, where he presumably escapes somehow. On each floor he has to grab all the carrots without getting touched once.

The player can opt to try and elude the enemies (including Daffy and Yosemite Sam, among others), or take advantage of weapons scattered about. There were boxing gloves to fire at enemies, and various heavy objects which could be pushed over ledges to K.O. unsuspecting types below. So there was a certain amount of strategy, because you needed to figure out how to get to the carrots without getting trapped, which could take the form of maneuvering enemies to where you could dispatch them, or simply get them out of position. It's not a complicated game, but there were different ways to approach things, which meant I could change my style to suit my mood*.

I have a soft spot for the music too. It's not anything deep, but it works, in part because I think the music's beats are matched to Bugs' stride. The music sort of works with him.

* I do the same thing with Thief: Deadly Shadows, opting to make it through with as little violence as possible sometimes, but other time deciding to give every person I see a blackjack to the head. Either way gets the job done, so it's all about which is more fun at the moment.

Make Some Friends, Save The World

Every role-playing video game I've owned had some unique aspect to it. Skies of Arcadia Legends had the battles between ships, rather than simply between characters. The Baten Kaitos games had the card battle aspects. Wild Arms 3 its Western setting. Dragon Quest 8, Akria Toriyama character designs. What? That was a good enough reason for me (combined with excellent reviews). Sudeki, well, Sudeki was the first RPG I owned, so it had the advantage of there being nothing to compare it to.

With Persona 3 it's Social Links. Normally, dating sim games hold zero interest for me. The key here is that making friends and spending time with them (strengthening the Social Links) improves the main character's chances of saving the world. Each S. Link corresponds to an Arcana. Each persona (which is an aspect of your soul that can take on a form and help you fight monsters) belongs to an Arcana. The stronger the S. Link, the stronger Personas of that Arcana are when you create them. Building connections with others makes you stronger as a person.

The story is, your character returns to a town he grew up in, but there are strange happenings. Fortunately, you are an exceptionally gifted youngster, so you join Professor Xavier's X- I mean, you join S.E.E.S., the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, and set to protecting the city from monsters, while scaling Tartarus, an immense tower that appears during a hidden hour each night. I wish we had a club like that at my high school. That's not the whole team over there, either, since it's missing the dog, the robot, and the elementary school kid. Truths are learned, personal difficulties are faced and overcome by each team member, etc., etc.

The dungeon crawling/leveling up aspects are the least interesting part for me, which is a little frustrating because they're also the most time consuming. The fun part was deciding how to spend the day. Would I hang out with a friend, or go buy better equipment for my teammates? You can increase your Academics, Charm, and Courage over the course of the game with different decisions. Sometimes it's as simple as staying awake in class (Academic boost), other times it requires going somewhere and spending money, but you can find cash in Tartarus, so it pays (literally) to go there. Increasing those areas will open up certain S.Links to you. The wealth of choices you usually have makes the limited periods where the story is on rails really annoying, though.

That's one thing I really like about the Social Link part. Most of the Links are in turn, connected to others. Join an Athletic team and make a friend, but given enough time, you can also befriend the team manager, Yuko. Progress that friendship far enough, and she tells you a rumor she heard about a monk that hangs out in a nightclub. Who you can also befriend. The more people you hang out with, the wider your connections spread. None of it is essential to win the game, but in my mind during the game, the S. Links emphasize who the character is fighting to protect. Since it isn't essential, you can focus on whichever ones you find most interesting. I've completed all the S. Links at least once (the completist in me), but there are certain ones I have no interest in dealing with again. It's become almost like a puzzle game for me. Trying to figure out the best way to spend time with everyone I want to, so that nobody winds up feeling neglected.

The combat is fairly straightforward, though it benefits from a really excellent soundtrack. I don't mind some of the repetitive battling against cannon fodder because I enjoy the music. The combat system is a little different from other RPGs I've played because I don't have absolute control over all the characters in my party. I can issue basic commands, like telling them to attempt to knock enemies down, or focus on healing, but I can't tell them to use a specific spell or attack. It added a certain level of unpredictability to the battles, and I found myself spending more time healing teammates.

In most RPGs, I tell the other characters to do the healing, and my character spends most of his time attacking, and it works because I can be sure that a character I tell to cast healing will, and on the character I specified. With Persona 3, even if I set someone to "Heal/Support", there's no guarantee they'll cast a healing spell, and they may not cast it on the character I'd prefer. So it was best to be sure the job was done right. Besides, I like the other members of SEES, I didn't want them getting knocked unconscious.

If you were going to ask me if I'd recommend it, I'd say yes. I don't know if the hypothetical you likes RPGs, but I can tell you I really love the game. Enough to play it through 6 times. I already mentioned I like the music, I also love the voice work, especially for Junpei, though he benefits from being a class clown type, so he uses many exaggerated voices throughout the game. The controls are pretty easy, and when roaming Tartarus, the game enables you to see potential enemies, so you can avoid or attack them as you see fit, which is always a plus. One of the persistent annoyances for me with Skies of Arcadia and Dragon Quest 8 was that you couldn't avoid those sorts of random battles. You run for three seconds, boom!, you're attacked by randomly spawning enemies you can't see. Not a problem with Persona 3.

Cathartic Video Game Levels #4

I'm surprised it took me this long to think of this one, since I've been playing it over and over lately.

One of the nice things about Phantom Dust is the Simulator, which lets you replay any level you've already beaten at any time. Generally, this comes in handy because each time you beat a level, you'll receive a skill, so perhaps you get some extra copies of a skill you like, or one you hadn't gotten yet for free, and some money, which can go towards buying more skills or Arsenals. Having already beaten the game, and collected all the skills, that doesn't interest me much. 

Still, I've been playing the mission "Desire to Meet" repeatedly lately, because I just really enjoy it. The mission's set in the Palace battleground (it's actually what's left of a mall), which is a good all-purpose setting. There are two stories, some cover, some destructible terrain, and the sightlines are such that short, medium, and long range attacks are all readily usable. What's nice about the mission is the simplicity of it. There's one enemy, so I don't have to split my focus trying to be aware of where multiple opponents are. I'm not saddled with a partner, so I don't have to rush to their defense, or make sure they don't kill themselves attacking recklessly. It's me against the "red head". It always uses the same Arsenal, so I know which skills to expect, but it'll unleash them at some unexpected moments, so I still have to stay on my toes. 

Still, the fact I generally know what to expect means I can devise certain strategies to go with my skills. I can use Paralyze Barrier to protect myself when it attacks, which freezes it in place for 3 seconds. Then I can run up next to it and use Photon Wave to knock it for a loop while it's helpless. Or I can wait until red head's on the walkway above and try to blast said walkway out from under it. 

There's always my Diabolical Trick Arsenal, where I don't even attack directly. Both the defenses I carry erase skills, I have an attack that can reduce its Level, forcing it to grab more Aura Particles, and Diabolical Trick erases skill capsules that it hasn't picked up yet. Once it's out of those, it's health will drop steadily until it dies. I like using that because most of my Arsenals are just variations on beating it up until it dies, while this is a more indirect approach. 

No posts for the next couple of days, because I'm going to visit a friend. Have a nice weekend.