Alan Wake

Date Acquired: 9.4.2010

Date Completed: 9.25.2010

Thoughts: I kind of ignored this game when it first came out. Judging by the sales figures I am far from alone. I had recently played through Heavy Rain, (a game I thought was kind of the PS3 couterpart of this game) and it launched the same day as Red Dead Redemption. In retrospect, this was probably a poor decision for this game, as RDR had incredible sales and topped the sales charts for weeks. Microsoft would have been far better off releasing this 3 weeks early, or delaying it two months, but instead they took on Red Dead and lost. Then all of a sudden in August, I started getting a strong urge to play this game. I'm not sure where it came from, but I just really wanted to play it. So I finally sucumbed and picked it up shortly after finishing Wario Land.

I almost didn't finish this game. Not because I wanted to stop, but because I already have 3-4 games in the can for September, and was thinking I could hold out and make this my October game so I'd have one. I was seriously considering this, until I thought about why I'm doing this list. The whole point (and it's been very succesful) is to get me to finish games. Delaying finishing a game I otherwise would finish sooner is the antithesis of the whole list. So I couldn't do it. Plus I really wanted to finish the game, this game rocks.

Pros: There's a lot to like about this game. It starts out with a unique story that does a good job of piquing the player's interest. It supports the story telling with excellent voice acting. The mood is fantastic, it uses a creative episode format that makes it seem like you're playing a weekly television show. Every new chapter begins with a recap of the previous chapters (which makes it ideal for incremental gaming) Every chapter ends with a cool song that will play all the way through if you let it, or skip past it because you're impatient to continue the story/get your achievement points. The game is all about light vs dark. You're wandering around in the dark with your flashlight a lot, but it never got annoying, it was never so ridiculously dark that you couldn't see (We'll call this the Doom 3 effect). You go through the game armed with a flashlight and a gun. To defeat the enemies you have to hit them with light for a certain amount of time to make them vulnerable, then you can finish them off with your gun. It's an unusual gaming mechanic, but it works well. The game does a good job of creating suspense, but I wouldn't call this game a horror title. Though there was at least one scene where I said to myself 'I bet something is going to jump out at me here, and not only did that happen, but it still made me jump. Weird. I also loved the driving parts. A great way to conserve ammo is to run the enemies over. The game makes great use of frequent checkpoints so you won't find yourself repeating long stretches of the game after dying very often.

As for the comparisons I was drawing in my mind between Alan Wake and Heavy Rain, they wound up being not very similar after all. While both games are story driven, unique and original experiences, Alan Wake is much more combat focused than Heavy Raind, and doesn't have the multiple endings. There's just the one. Actually the game that I most closely compare Alan Wake to would be the cult classic Eternal Darkness. They're not identical, but I thought of ED many times while playing through Alan Wake. Speaking of which, I would LOVE to see an HD ED remake or better yet, a true sequal.

Cons: The game gets a bit repetitive eventually. The basic mechanics never change, you don't really get new weapons in later chapters, you pretty much have everything in the first chapter (and for some reason keep losing it in each chapter and have to find new weapons every time, so don't be afraid to use your good ammo when you play, you can't take it with you) And there aren't a lot of different enemy types. Also the game ends and has a decent ending, but it then continues in 2 downloadable chapters. One of which came free with new copies of the game, the other will be released this month, and it's somewhat annoying to have to purchase the true ending of the game. However, in this case, I enjoyed the game and want to extend the experience so I will gladly be handing over my money.

Final Thoughts: I'm just going to say it, this is my favorite game of the year so far. Granted there's a lot of great stuff from this year I haven't played yet (Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy 13, God of War 3) as well as great stuff on the way, but for me, right now, this is my favorite game so far. I strongly recommend buying this game new, to give the developers the money and help this game's sales. It needs it. Trust me, you're going to want a sequal after you finish this game.

Metroid: Zero Mission

Date Acquired: 2.8.2004

Date Completed: 9.16.2010

Thoughts: This game is exhibit A as to why I am challenging myself to finish games and post about them. I own so many incredible games that I played halfway through and then stopped for no obvious reason. It bothers me. And leaving a 2D Metroid unfinished REALLY bothers me. It is a coincidence that Metroid: Other M was released less than a month ago. That's not what got me thinking about revisiting this game. Actually it was my August deadline that really got me thinking about it. I needed a game, and started looking at games I thought I could finish quickly. I decided this game needed to be restarted from the begining (AGAIN, I have literally started this game from the begining at least 4 times now. I always got stuck midway, or distracted and moved to something else. But not this time.) So this game was added to the short list of August candidates. Obviously I went with Wario Ware instead. Most of my portable gaming time was going to DQ9, and I just didn't want to distract myself from it.

Pros:It's 2D Metroid! Haven't we been over this already? But more than that, it's a remake of the original Metroid game. But rather than just take that short game and improve the graphics, Nintendo added updated play mechanics (Now I can duck AND shoot!), a save system (which means no Justin Bailey code), Super Metroid Weapons, and whole new levels, including the post-Mother brain level. In Metroid Zero Mission, Mother brain isn't your final nemesis, giant robot Ridley is. That final level by the way, is incredible. A great addition to the series, and something completely different. You get to run around as Samus, sans her armor, armed only with a stun gun as you try to avoid detection while you make your way through the ship. It's a little bit of Metal Gear Solid in my Metroid, but it works. Eventually you get a suit of armor, and get all your old weapons back and get to pay those space pirate bastards back for messing with you when you were weak and frail. Another cool addition is the inclusion of the original NES Metroid game. It's not available at the begining, but becomes available after beating the game. (there's my Justin Bailey code!)

Cons: Cons. Cons. Cons. You mean I have to say something bad about this game? Hmmm, well I guess I would start by comparing it to other 2D Metroids. It's not as good as Fusion, in my opinion. It just can't stack up to that game's awesomeness (and that's despite the pink and purple armor that Samus is forced to wear throughout most of the game). It may be technically better than Super Metroid, but it's not by much, and SM came first, so SM still comes in ahead. So it's the 3rd best 2D Metroid of all time. That's obviously still a hell of a thing. It's a great game that probably everyone who wants to play already has. If not, well good luck, it's not getting any easier to find at this point. Other minor gripe would be that I didn’t appreciate waiting until that last level to finally get the power bomb, letting me go back all the way through the entire game again to finish trying to unlock things. At that point I was ready to fight the final boss and move on.

To Do: Probably not much. I could go back and find some of the other power ups I didn't get, but why? If I do anything with this game, it will be play the original Metroid, but since GBA games don't work on the DSi, I probably won't do that. (That's right, I had to whip out the SP to play this thing. At least I didn't have to use my micro)

Dragon Quest 9: Sentinels of the Starry Skies

Date Acquired: 7.10.2010

Date Completed: 9.13.2010


Thoughts: I am well known (among my friends anyway) for my love of the Dragon Quest series. It’s one of the only series, maybe THE only series where I don’t get distracted from the game and take time off. I always finish Dragon Quest games. And this one was no different. I followed the life cycle of this game closely, from the controversial announcement that the series would be moving to the DS for the 9^th game (the 8^th game was on the PS2, the 7^th game on PS1) It was controversial because DQ8 on the PS2 was amazing, the first time the Dragon Qwest series had a game that was known for it’s graphics. DQ8 had voice acting, something you don’t get much in typical DS games. I also sunk over 100 hours into the PS2 game. Could a DS game actually be that big?

Pros: The answer is, yeah, pretty close. While the actual main story only took me about 53 hours, there are 120 optional side quests, many of which don’t activate until after you beat the game, and an additional batch available from Nintendo via download, as well as treasure maps that can be found in a variety of ways including the game’s tag mode. In short, there’s a lot content in the game.

The game offers a lot in the way of customization as well. You create not only your main character, but every member of the party. Deciding things like gender, skin color, appearance and name for each. In addition, every piece of clothing or weapon equipped by the characters are visible on the characters at all time. So every new sword, or armor piece results in a different look for the character.

DQ9 also maintains the classic Dragon Quest charm. It’s been a key element to my enjoyment of the series, and it’s hard to put into words, but I know it begins with the monsters. The slimes and wyverns and drakes and golems all harken back to the very first game, and I’m always happy to see them return.

Cons: While I did like customizing the look of every character in my party, I didn’t like the decision to make them non-characters. They have no personality, no back story and never speak or do anything in the game. They are basically just there to give you extra turns. I feel like we’re way past that. That’s just too big of a throwback. I LIKED the characterizations in DQ8. I liked Yangus and Angelo and the rest. It’s not like it would have been difficult to give me customization AND characterization. When I’m creating characters just give me a byline describing the character I am making: This character is boisterous and outgoing, ‘this character is timid and stutters a lot’ whatever. Then I can design the character with this criteria in mind. If the character I’m making a notorious lady killer, I might design him as a fat hideous slob. It would be great!

Furthermore some of the elements introduced in previous games have been removed or left in a bad state. For instance: Monster capturing is gone from this game altogether. That was one of the elements that made DQ5 and 8 so interesting, happening upon a monster that could fight either in your party like in DQ5 or in an optional monster battle in DQ8. Tracking the monsters down and recruiting them became a tremendously fun part of the Dragon Qwest series. I haven’t played 6 or 7, so I don’t know if this element existed in those games, but it was missing in DQ9. Alchemization is another factor I took umbrage with. In DQ8 you could use alchemy to craft weapons you couldn’t buy, superior weapons relatively early in the game. In DQ9 you really can’t do this until after you’ve completed the game. So uh, what’s the point then? All the good equipment requires very rare materials you can’t get without downloading the extra content and/or finishing the game.

The use of character classes left me puzzled as well. At first it seemed an adaption of Final Fantasy 5, where you could have your warrior study mage class for a while and learn spells. But no, anything you learn as a mage is immediately lost to you when you become a warrior, with the lone exception of skill point allotment. Then there’s the decision of when to make them unlockable. The sage vocation for instance, can’t be learned until at least the 2^nd to last dungeon in the game. At the point that I learned it my characters had played through the whole game and were around level 45. If I made a character a sage, he would go all the way back to level 1, lose all of his HP, MP and spells and I’d have to build him back up so he could help me in the last dungeon of the game. Yeah sure, why not just grind an entire game’s worth between the 2^nd to last dungeon and the last dungeon?

Conclusion: I enjoyed the game, but after 8 and 5, this game fell way short for me. I suspect the tag mode and multiplayer aspect would add a lot to this game, but those aren’t really options for me, so I can’t consider them. I’d recommend this game for die-hards, but for others, I would tell them to play 5 and 8 and wait and see on the upcoming 6.

To do: Download some of the extra quests and play through those. Also meet up with my friend Dan and play the multiplayer.

The Typing of the Dead

Date Acquired: 9-3-2010

Date Completed: 9-9.2010

Thoughts: This is a game I've wanted to play for YEARS. I never bought it on the dreamcast because I was a college student and buying a keyboard for exactly one game was stupid. I couldn't afford that. A few years later I learned that a PC version existed and tried to track that down but failed (I should have used the internet, but it was still relatively new at that point, I checked gamestops and gave up)

It doesn't really make any sense why this game has disappeared. Sega LOVES to shove remakes of their older games or quasi-sequals down our throats, and while many of them are dubious fits at best (Jet Grind Radio on the GBA?) A Steam release of Typing of the dead is a gigantic no-brainer. So of course Sega screws up an obvious decision as only Sega can. They are out of the console market for a reason folks, and it ain't their great business sense. I get the feeling this game would have an audience if Sega would just release it. While I was playing, my roomate came out of his room to get ready for work and immediately said 'is that typing of the dead? How'd you get that? I've been looking for that forever'. So that's 2/2 in my apartment alone. You're sitting on a goldmine Trebec! Er, Sega.

I won't bore you with the details of how I acquired it. The important thing is that I finally did and got to play it. And it is awesome! The graphics are no great shakes by today's standards of course, but I loved them. This game is a great throwback to the House of the dead series (obviously). What's cool is that the further along in the game I got the more rewards and unlockables I opened up. Such as starting with 5 lives instead of 3, or getting up to 9 continues. What I really like is the boss battles. The first one is just standard type the word before he hits you fare, but later fights get more creative. My favorite involves a 3 headed hydra. You are asked a question and then you must type the answer from the three choices below the hydra heads. It forces you to stop and think about the question, read the 3 possible choices and then furiously type the answer. There are all kinds of neat touches in the game. When you are fighting 3 zombies at once, you have to try to figure out which is the closest to you and type it's word. If you hear a whooshing noise, it means an axe or knife is being thrown through the air at you. You have to finish the word you are typing and then type the single letter associated with the object being thrown, then move onto the next zombie. I also loved the fact that my character walks around the whole game with a dreamcast strapped to his back, with a giant duracel battery on top of it, and a keyboard in front of him. The voice acting and story are god-awful. Just hideous. But you get the impression that that's intentional, a B-movie sort of vibe there. It certainly didn't keep me from enjoying the game.

I wish this game was compatible with Windows 7. I tried installing it on my laptop and it won't run. That's a shame, this would be a great portable option for me. I'll just have to play it on my desktop when I get the urge. The main game didn't take me long, but there are some other modes I can try out, and I certainly don't mind playing through the main game a few times. I actually acquired this game with the idea that I could put this on the computers of the girl I am dating. She's a teacher, and has a couple of computers (that I need to fix so she can use) and I thought I should load some educational games on there. I have no idea if Typing of the dead is sixth grader appropriate. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it at all. The 'blood' is green zombie goo, there's no swearing or even any real sexual inuendo in the words you type (although feel free to read in a little, but it's nothing glaring that a sixth grader will pick up). It's likely that Nicole will tell me that she can't put this in the classroom, at least one parent will find out about it and flip out. But I'll play it in front of her and let her be the judge. I still have where in the world is carmen san diego to install for them...