Infamous 2

Wow, has it really been 4 years since I completed the first Infamous game? It certainly doesn't seem that long. My lasting memory of the first game was a fun experience, but lacking in polish (which seems to be backed up by what I wrote in my review) By the time Infamous 2 came out, I was really looking forward to it. The game released during E3 of 2011, and I bought it immediately and started playing it. But then I did what I often do and I got distracted and my interest waned and I moved on. I always knew I'd come back to it, but there was no hurry. With a game like this, you can pick it up, play a mission or two and not be totally lost. When Infamous Second Son was unveiled as an early PlayStation 4 title, I knew that I'd have to make completing this game a priority. I was hoping to finish it at least a little before Second Son released so I wouldn't feel burned out when that game comes out.

Everything about this game is better than the first game. Everything. The graphics are better. The story is better. The powers are better (especially when I unlocked the electric tether, I loved sling-shotting my way through the city with that thing!), and it feels so much more polished. Not to say I never ran into a glitch, but it's not the dominating memory I'll have of this game. As soon as I jumped back into this game on Thursday, I was having a blast and I wondered how I ever put off finishing this thing for so long. By Saturday I was starting to remember why. As fun as this game is, like most sandbox games, it can start to feel repetitive. This is hardly a fair criticism, it can be argued that all games are repetitive. In The Last of Us you did the same thing the whole way through. Same with a game like Uncharted or Halo. But I suppose it's because we're selecting the missions we are choosing to play and we can see the developers are making the effort to make every mission as different as possible but not totally succeeding.  Of course, I wasn't going to let myself get burned out this time, I had a goal, and really it was never a chore to play this game, I was always having a blast every time I started a new mission, and I frequently found myself playing 'just one more mission'. 

Focusing on the story for a minute. I'm not going to spoil it, but I will say, the story begins as sort of a 'who cares' (For me, anyway) and evolves into an interesting story. It's not on Bioshock or Naughty Dog levels, but it was intriguing. And the ending I definitely did not see coming. I need to go look at some trailers for second son, because this game answered some of the questions I had about this game, but  also provided me with brand new ones to ask.  I'm especially curious to see if Second Son is going to continue the 'choose your own path, good or bad' that is found in both Infamous 1 and 2. Deciding your path was all the rage several years ago, but now it doesn't really feel like anyone does it any more. Which is fine with me. I never play as bad, and I never play through the game a second time, so that content is always locked out to me. I would like to go back to this game some day and play through the evil choices, and see those power ups, but I know I never will.

I always expected to like this game, but I expected it to feel like more of the same, maybe an expansion of the first game. If I had to say something negative about it, I'd probably pick on the generic box-art. I would never have bought this game just from the box art,  and this is coming from someone who bought Mega Man 1 on the NES from only the box art (that was way before gaming magazines or even rentals) The game though was terrific, I'd recommend it to any  PS3 owner and now I really can't wait for Second Son!

Completed: 1.5.2014

Super Mario Land 2: The Six Golden Coins

One of the hard ironies about being young is that you have all the time in the world to play all the videogames you want, but your budget is so limited that you can't play many of them. Such was the case for me and this game. It was a game I was very interested in, but it just fell through the cracks. I finally got to play it in college when my sister got it for Christmas, but I didn't have a lot of time to put into it. When it became available on the 3DS e-shop for $3.99 I went ahead and downloaded it. Now of course, I suffer from the reverse problem. I can get any game I want, but I have no time to play them. So a year after I downloaded it, I finally got around to giving it a try and was immediately transported back to the early 90's.

Super Mario Brothers 3 and Super Mario World are universally loved, and deservedly so, but I'd argue this game is almost criminally overlooked. It does a lot of the same things those games did. It has an overworld map, it has secret exits and hidden levels. And it does a lot of things not done in a Mario game either before or since. It feels simultaneously old school and fresh.

The game just does so many things right. The first is the big, beautiful sprites. Nintendo was clearly conscious they were making a game on a tiny screen, so Mario is proportionately larger than he is in his console games and it works very well for it. The game adds strategies I've never had to consider in a Mario game before. For instance, fireballs now destroy blocks, there was one area where there was a block that I had to destroy in a wall blocking a path to a secret area, but once I did, I was too large to get through the hole I created, so I then had to go let my character get hit to become small and then I fit through the hole and received my reward. Similarily Mushroom Mario and fireball Mario can do a spinning jump that destroys the blocks below them, but for whatever reason, Rabbit Mario can't do that. I found myself in a situation where I was Rabbit Mario standing over some breakable blocks hiding a secret path. I again had to let myself get hit once and then was able to spin jump and get through it.

Speaking of Rabbit Mario, he represents the lone new power up to the game, and was relatively un-interesting. It's the equivilant of the raccoon tail except you can't fly or act as an offensive weapon. It is purely used for floating.  Stages can be played in any order, I didn't even find the second world until I completed all the other worlds. There was also a bubble that you could get in and fly with that I kind of wish had shown up in more levels.

There aren't even a standard number of levels per world. The Tree Zone has 6 levels while the Space Zone only has 3, and one of those is a hidden level. This is particularly disappointing, because the space level is very unique and fun to play. I would have loved more space levels. Plus Mario looks awesome in his space suit!

Without a doubt the game's biggest contribution to Mario lore is that it marks the introduction of Wario, who would go on to appropriately steal the series from Mario and take it over for himself. Although he's hardly the Wario we know and love. The game just begins. No cut scenes at all. You have no real idea why you're playing until the end when you kick Wario out of his castle and it becomes Mario's Castle. But Wario doesn't get any scenes where we get to meet him, and he looks so bizarre in his first appearance, he's freakishly large.

This is not a long game, maybe that's a reflection of the amount of memory the Gameboy cartridges had. My total time on the 3DS says I spent 3 hours and 45 minutes with the game. I'd like to know how much of that time was spent on the last level. Like most Mario games, this game isn't particularly difficult. It has checkpoints halfway through the levels which have become a 2D staple. But the last level, storming Wario's Castle is absurdly difficult. I lost 45 lives before I finally finished it! The level is very difficult and once you clear it you have to go through THREE boss battles before it's all over. And a death at any point forces you to start the entire level over. It was almost enough to tempt me to using the save states on the 3DS, but I refused to do that. I don't think you've really completed the game if you used save states. By the time I finally finished it though, I was really good at that last level. I felt like if I played that level 10 more times (which I would never do because I don't hate myself) I would probably beat it 8 times since I had really learned how to navigate the level (and boss fights) by that point.

I believe this game is an absolute classic, and is probably one of the least-played Mario titles, but it absolutely should be played by anyone who loves the 80's and early 90's Mario games.

Completed: 1.4.2014

ICO

What could be more random than me waking up on New Year's day and deciding I needed to play Ico? Only returning to blog about it after a hiatus of over a year. I swear I had no intention nor had even considered doing either when I went to bed last night.

I want to start by addressing the box art. The art on the left is the cover the UK and Japan got, inspired by this painting here: The Nostalgia of the Infinite by Italian Surrealist painter Giorgio de Chiricio. The UK cover is a clever way to convey what the game is all about. Action is such a small part of this game, there are no mini bosses and only a handful of occasions where you fight enemies. The game is about exploring and experiencing the story. And also ladders and windmills. The American cover however, seems to be trying very hard to hide what the game is. Sure these are all images from the game, but the US cover makes this look like an action title. At least they left a windmill in the picture... But the US getting stuck with crappier box art is nothing new, so I'm not going to dwell on it. On to the game.

I played this game years ago on the PS2, but it never really grabbed me. When I heard this collection was coming I figured the HD makeover and the trophies would finally get me to finish the game. When I started playing I checked my trophy log. I had two trophies from this game, the last of which coming in November, 2011. It absolutely didn't seem like that long ago to me. The game doesn't have many trophies (16) but I was about a quarter of the way through the game when I started it up again today.

The HD graphics really didn't do anything for me. Like a lot of these HD remakes, I don't remember the PS2 version looking any worse than this game. I'm sure if I compare them side by side the difference would be obvious, but this is not a pretty game, it is very noticeably a PS2 title that I'm playing here. But whatever, you don't play ICO for the graphics.

The gameplay hasn't aged that well. It's certainly playable, but often frustrating. For those who don't know, the game is essentially a giant escort mission that has you leading princess Yorda through a giant castle to escape from a witch. Yorda rarely just follows you on her own accord. You frequently have to holler at her, or to be doubly sure you can grab her hand and pull her where you want to go, a method I employed for most of the game. There are basically only two ways to die in this game: Fall to your death (which I did a lot) or have Yorda get kidnapped by goblins and fail to get to her in time (which happened less frequently)

The sound in the game really stands out as well, both good and bad. The main theme is haunting and beautiful. I really loved the guitar melody during the end credits. But the game made the interesting choice to keep the music going when you pause the game which bothered me. I pause because I want to clear my head and take a break, not keep humming along to the score. The waterfall sound effect sounded like radio static. I had to turn down my sound when I played these levels.

If Ico came out today it would be an indie title. I see something like Limbo as the spiritual successor to it. It doesn't do many things, it feels very small, but what it does is satisfying and compelling. Ico has the reputation for being an underrated gem. Perhaps it's the 13 years of anticipation, or playing it two console generations after it came out, but I found the end experience good, but not stellar. It does pave the way for me to finally move on to Shadow of the Colossus, something I cannot believe I have put off for this long.

Date Completed: 1.1.2014