Long-Overdue Update/Shadow of the Colossus

So, I've been absent from this blog for quite some time. Grad school was kicking my butt, and in February, I started working at a site called Gaming Target, which has been amazing. I took a break in the spring from school and got really into writing at Gaming Target and Press 1, where I still have a column. In March, I went to PAX East, and in June, I got to go to E3, which was AMAZING!! I had an incredible time out there. After that, I broke up with my boyfriend, I was in the hospital twice for tachychardia (from stress), I've been diagnosed with acid reflux (from stress), I had a (VERY) brief love affair, and I've finished tons of games, books, and movies, and I'm very nearly at the end of Gurren Lagann, which I've been watching for ages. I do plan on writing a lot more in here - especially about my experiences at E3, which I think are worth writing down on a personal level as much as they were on a professional one. I was also promoted to Senior Editor at Gaming Target, which is pretty awesome! I tried to write about everything I saw at E3 but only managed to scratch the surface. There are tons of reviews I need to get back to, and a lot of games I want to play as well.

Which brings me to the second part of this post...

I just beat Shadow of the Colossus.

Backtrack: when I saw the trailer for the Last Guardian last year, I became obsessed with Fumito Ueda:



I went out and found a copy of Ico (pronounced EEE-CO, not III-CO), his first game, after reading all about it, played it, and promptly fell head over heels in love with it. Ico is a beautiful story of a boy, born with horns and cursed to be sacrificed, who escapes from his fate and helps a ghostly girl escape from hers. (It's more complicated than that, but I don't want to spoil anything.)

I bought Shadow of the Colossus after but I was afraid to start it with all the things I'd heard about it. Having gone through a break-up and then what was basically another heartbreak at the hands of the brief love affair boy, I decided maybe it was time to exercise some catharsis in a depressing game. Normal girls would probably just watch The Notebook; I wanted to play a game in which my moral choices to brutally murder beautiful creatures would make me sob into my cat.

Shadow of the Colossus is the tender tale of a horse and his boy, similar to the Neverending Story, except instead of riding on Falcor to save the girl, you stab him in the fucking head, repeatedly and mercilessly. (Did I need to curse there? Have you PLAYED this game? If you have, then you understand expletives can be necessary in this description.) You are Wander, and you want to bring a dead girl back to life, so you go to the End of the World and appeal to the powers there. The powers that be see that you've got the magic sword needed for just a certain little job he needs done, so he sets you to it - you must kill the embodiments of the 16 colossi that line the walls, and then he will grant your wish.

You go out, get on your trusty steed, Agro, hold your sword up in the sunlight to pinpoint the location of the Colossus, and ride off to find it, your bird soaring high above your head. You find the Colossus and discover very quickly that things are not what they seem. There's no impersonal swordplay, or grenade-lobbing. There's no Quicktime events, or RPG battle systems. You plain and simply find the symbol on the beast, climb up the beast, and then stab it to death. And you must do this 16 times. 16 times!!

I stopped crying after the 4th, but at the 14th, my weeping started anew (how couldn't it, with his tiny little body that moved like a sweet dog?). But it was the end that I couldn't bear.

SPOILERS AHEAD!! WARNING!! Please be warned!!

It was one thing to lose my precious horse - watching as Agro fell, listening as Wander screamed his name. It was another to be judged by my townspeople, taken over by a demon, and then turned into a baby - just as my love awakened! Will he ever atone for his sins? But at least Agro turned out to be alive, and now we can all be together as a happy family - right?

However, I've heard people say that this is supposed to be the spiritual predecessor to Ico - that this boy born with horns is a sign. Is he Ico? I thought Ico was born in a town in which every generation, a boy was born with horns and had to be sacrificed to the castle? Or, perhaps, is this where it all begins? Does the beautiful girl grow bitter towards the townspeople and grow evil, causing a boy to be born each generation with horns, forcing them to sacrifice them to her? Does she change the castle - is this really the castle from Ico thousands of years in the past? Already the end of the world seems so old, and yet perhaps it is far older.

That is all for today - I have some more editing work to do. Tomorrow I am going to comment on all the games I'm playing (and the ones I was playing that have since gone stale), and perhaps comment on some other things.

-nik

Review - God of War Collection

When it comes to certain games, I am a late bloomer. This is true about the much loved – and much hated – God of War franchise. My first Kratos-related quicktime event occurred earlier this year at the Penny Arcade Expo when I tried out the demo for God of War III. I had previously avoided the games for two reasons – the first being that I loved Greek mythology and couldn’t stand seeing it raped by the media. I’d had too many disappointments to think this would be any different. The second reason was that I knew someone who once employed an “anger stick” after each session of the first God of War – meaning he went into the basement and beat the couch with a stick. He also used to order a “car burger” to eat on the way home from fast food restaurants to slake his hunger until he got home, so perhaps I shouldn’t have trusted his word – or that of his terrified wife.

Judgments aside, I’m glad that I waited so long to try the game out, as Sony very recently released the first two games together on one handy blu-ray disc, along with the demo for the third, coming out this March. This was a dream come true for someone as anal retentive as I am – I can’t stand playing games out of order. So I dove right into the remastered God of War and subjected myself to all the fun…and all the frustration.

The story of the first God of War is very simple: Kratos, an ambitious young Spartan general, calls out to Ares for help on the battlefield, and becomes his servant. Kratos soon discovers that being the servant of the God of War lends itself to no end of rape, pillage, and generally unpleasant situations. After years of servitude, Kratos simply wants to be released from his suffering and torment. Athena appeals to him for help when Ares attacks Athens, and Kratos sees a chance to get revenge.

At first, I loved the game – the puzzles, the battles, even the bosses and their wrist-numbing quicktime events – all of it was great. I couldn’t understand why people were frustrated while playing the game. I began to see it as I hit a few bumps in the road, places where the game mechanics were terrible. I painfully started to understand the mythos that surrounded the game.

And then I got to Hades.

Sweet mother of mercy, did I hate Hades. My boyfriend, Mike, had watched a lot of videos about the games after playing them, and he said that even the director, David Jaffe, admitted the horrendous flaws in Hades. That section was added in because they felt the game wasn’t long enough, and it was the only part of the game not strictly quality-controlled…and boy, does it ever show right through the veneer of lava and flames. I crawled my way to the end, determined to just finish it.

I debated whether or not I wanted to start God of War II…ever. Mike convinced me it was worth it, that there was nothing nearly as frustrating as Hades, that there was a great storyline to this game and I was going to love it. (His argument is always that I love Battle of Olympus despite the fact that it’s not true to myth – but taking something I adored as an adolescent based on my favorite Greek myth is totally different than taking all the most famous stories and jumbling them into one convenient delivery system for Kratos – even if they DID get Harry Hamlin, Perseus from Clash of the Titans, to voice Perseus.) Against my better judgment, I stepped into the Titan-fueled waters of God of War II.

I’ll admit to several betters – the game play is vastly improved. The battles flow much more fluidly, and it’s easier to dodge and block out of special moves. There are no horrendously glitchy platforming sections, either. Any time a section of the platforming is less than stellar, it’s because either you haven’t figured out what you’re supposed to do, or what you’re supposed to do initially seems so ridiculous that you can’t wrap your brain around what they’re asking. Fortunately, they’ve also improved this game by giving better hints – that is, giving ANY hints at all. The story is also much better, and while not at all even remotely canonical (can I say canonical about Greek mythology?), it is interesting to see the way they incorporate the characters.

However, these things brought with them inherent flaws. My wrists and elbows are killing me from incessant quicktime events. I hurled a controller for the first time in 22 years – since playing Zelda II: the Adventures of Link as a kid. (Can you guess what part? I’ll give you a hint – it involved the hammer.) The story, while better, lost cohesion, and I frequently found myself asking why I was in a certain place and what exactly I was trying to accomplish. In spite of all of this, the ending is epic, with a plot twist almost ridiculous in its predictability.

There are several bonuses to getting the God of War Collection – it’s remastered, though only in game play. The cut scenes are still in the original rendering, and the transition can be jarring at times. It has two sets of trophies, one for each game, which is a major plus for me. And, of course, the God of War III E3 demo is available on it as well, so that you can play that controversial scene of ripping Helios’ head off over, and over, and over again, right in the privacy of your living room.

Final analysis: worth the buy. I’m hoping my next PSP purchase will be God of War: Chains of Olympus. And now, I’m going to go put my right elbow on ice.

Review - Batman: Arkham Asylum

This was my first blog post at No Game Network. I still haven't finished my PAX review!

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Please note: my PAX review is on the way, and will be here soon. For now, satiate yourself with this tale of the caped crusader, and know I slave over a keyboard to bring you more words.

Batman: Arkham Asylum does a lot of things for me. It doesn’t feed the cats or wash the dishes, but it does make me feel like I have just administered a lot of justice…with my fists. It is a highly satisfying brawling game composed of one part ass beating, one part stealthy sneaking, and one part puzzle solving. More than anything, it is a Batman fan’s dream come true: it features a plethora of villains and is rife with enough back story to make the most devout comic book fan squee with joy.

The game starts with a cinematic of Batman bringing the Joker to Arkham Island. Batman is highly suspicious of the Joker, who – uncharacteristically – has given up without much of a fight, causing Batman to insist on escorting him into the asylum. This is where things go very suddenly – and very terribly – wrong. We discover the Joker meant for it to happen all along, and with the help of Harley Quinn, begins to quickly and efficiently take over the island.

At first, the game seemed too easy. I was playing it on normal, and I kept thinking to myself, either this game is really simple or I have gotten totally amazing at video games. The foes were easy to defeat (though even as they got harder, it was so much fun to fight them that while it felt challenging, I just kept coming back to the word “satisfying). The Riddler has hidden trophies and set up puzzles all over the island, which, initially, were also quite easy. But then, abruptly, the game became very hard, and I realized the entire beginning sequence of the game was something of a tutorial – a warm-up, so to speak – for the rest of the game. Not long after that, the game became totally awesome. The creators were trying to do something dark, and succeeded in a way that was more than a little scary.

I don’t want to give any spoilers, but this is my review, so I’ll just say if you don’t want to know what happens, you might want to stop reading here. I simply wanted to comment on my favorite parts of the game, which were, by far, the scenes in which the Scarecrow (how I wish they got Cillian Murphy to voice that villain!) drugged Batman and things go completely – no pun intended – batshit fucking loco. The first time it happened, I thought I was going crazy, but once I caught on to what was happening, I slid into the sudden change in gameplay and let it roll over me. It was amazing.

The one complaint many people have is that the game is too short. I beat it in just 6 days, so I can see where they’re coming from. But for me, the game was so satisfying from start to finish that I can’t voice that as a complaint. I didn’t spend nearly as much time as I wanted gathering the Riddler trophies and solving his puzzles because I was wrapped up in finding out what happened next in the story. I do plan on going back and finding everything, which, to me, is what a great game is all about: it’s one you want to go back to, one you crave, even after you beat it. This is why I buy games instead of renting them – if I were a renter, I’d end up with a stack of games that I couldn’t let go of. (And for everyone who says they want to “try the game out first,” my only reply is: isn’t that what demos are for?)

Tangent aside, my final word on Batman: Arkham Asylum is: yes. Yes, very much so.

Update

The good news is: I've been writing! A lot. I'll be posting it in here as soon as possible. It's been a really great time for me writing-wise the last few weeks.

The bad news is: I haven't had nearly enough time to play all the games I want to play. The main reason for that is because I got into grad school and it kicked my butt the first term. I took two online courses in the Library and Information Sciences program at Drexel - Action Research (statistics) and Information Users and Services - and worked hard and got two A's! I'm very proud of this accomplishment.

I have beaten a lot of games, but I'm still working on the Final Fantasy series, which I started at the beginning and want to finish before XIII comes out here in North America (on the day after my birthday!). We'll see if I can do it - I'm so close to the end of 4 I can taste it, and I've got 5 ready to go. I'm planning to write a feature for Press 1 about this, so I'm hoping I can get it finished in time.

Keep an eye out for some work coming up soon, hopefully tomorrow. I've also been watching some movies (*gasp!*) and Mike and I watched The Office (American) and now we're on Sopranos - season 4. I've been reading a ton and I picked up knitting again, which feels sooooo good. And I am so ecited for Christmas I could stay up all night over it :)

Hope you are doing well! More to follow.

Latest Happenings

Hi, everyone! I've been working on some writing lately - in fact, you can see some of it at my brand new column at the magazine Press 1. I write video game reviews for them now - you can see my first official one here, with the tentative title "Geek with Tan Lines." I also have some things about to go up at No Game Network, including my PAX review, so stay tuned for that as well. For now, I guess you'll just have to see this, and understand that i will be rolling around my apartment in just 5 days.

I may write some stuff about fashion, so I hope you're ready for this jelly.

-NKX

PS: Grad school application is in, and other projects are a GO. More on those later.

Review Forthcoming

Hello, everyone! I have been very absent from the internet for the last few months - I've deleted my Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter, and I've stopped using internet communication devices as my main source of contact with the outside world. I spent most of the summer playing video games, writing, and preparing for grad school, to which I applied yesterday. Now that my personal statement is finished, I am ready to start writing again! I've beaten close to a dozen games since last I wrote in here, but most likely, I'll be writing about the game I just beat last night - Batman: Arkham Asylum. I've also got a review I wrote for Ghostbusters: The Video Game, but that will be on a REAL website (as opposed to this blog), and I'll link to it as soon as it's available. But for now, I have to get back to work. And if you don't hear from me in the next few days, relax - I'm at PAX, writing up a storm. :)

Video Game Review: Resistance 2

It’s been ages since I wrote my last review, for a plethora of reasons:

- I turned 30!
- Spring term started – we’re currently in week 7 of 10 – and I’m taking 3 classes (making up my incomplete in Japanese 201, a class on the literature of comics, and readings in fiction)
- I’ve gotten involved back in the philosophy club and with a local writer’s group
- We’ve been busy every weekend since the term started
- We got an AMAZING new TV.

In the time between my 30th birthday and the new term starting, I managed to beat 3 games – Resistance 2, F.E.A.R. 2, and Dead Space. (We also started watching Curb Your Enthusiasm and got through 3 whole seasons. It’s hilarious!) I’ve started and finished a bunch of other things since then as well – along with the literature I’m reading for my classes (and all the Japanese I’m studying – oi vey), I finished book 4 of the Dark Tower series, and re-started two Final Fantasy games – 7 and the original (well, the remake of it that looks sort of like Final Fantasy as a Saturday morning cartoon). I also started playing Battle of Olympus and Marble Madness again on my laptop ever since getting this awesome piece of geek heaven:



To top it off, Mike and I have been giving the Gamecube some play – now that we can have all of our consoles hooked up, we’ve been taking advantage of it. I started playing Mario Kart: Double Dash again and have almost everything unlocked (damn you Rainbow Road on 150 CC!!) and Mike’s been dabbling in the Megaman Anniversay Collection as well as the my collector’s edition Zelda disc (right now he’s playing Ocarina of Time).

Add all of that to our regular coursework and spending time with our families as well as all the other things that come up on weekends – and the fact that my mom is getting a knee replacement surgery this Friday – and we have been busy kids. But I’ve been really wanting to write a review lately, so here goes nothing…

Resistance 2 completely redefined the concept of a first person shooter for me. That isn’t really saying much, frankly – I’ve only played a handful of shooters, and I don’t really think I’m qualified to say that anything redefined anything, so to speak. But having played a handful since I got my PS3, I can say with confidence that it’s like nothing else I’ve ever played.

First and foremost, the Technicolor quality really is like Dorothy stepping forth, as I said in a previous post when I was commenting on the omnipresent grey of the first Resistance game. The colors are vibrant – almost too vibrant at times when you’d rather be seeing less detail than more – and add a really vivid and occasionally almost surreal quality to the game. The scene I mentioned in a previous post is applicable for this one as well – when I was in Twin Falls, searching for my team, I came upon dozens upon dozens of pulsating cocoons. Once I met up with one member, we discovered everyone else was back where I’d started…only now, predictably, as we were heading back, all the cocoons were exploding, and Chimera that I can only describe as “fast-moving zombie-Chimera” – formal name of Grims – were attacking us on all sides. I finally got through the backyards and almost out of the last house I had to get through when Mike casually mentioned, “oh yeah, there are going to be a million outside.” I thought he was kidding, but in reality, he was only applying slight hyperbole.

Despite the fact that it took me several tries to get through that part – and dozens of other parts – and I did, at times, submit to overpowering frustration – the game was very enjoyable. It really did change the way I thought about the shooter genre. It forced me to think about what gun to use, which options on the gun I should use, where I should come out from, who I should shoot first, and just what kind of general strategy I should employ with each scenario. Again, I’m sure dozens of people have come to this realization in dozens of games, but for me, this was my first shooter that really helped me to employ an intellectual strategy.

The weapons are far more powerful this time around. The Auger – barely a mention in the last game – has been ramped up to be able to see enemies behind walls. The Bullseye is also more potent and the tagging system seems to have been improved. I love the Rossmore even more, and the best part about the pistol is the secondary fire, which is an explosion – you shoot, it sticks, you explode it. (This was especially helpful in the aforementioned scene with the Grims.) But by far the best weapon in the entire game is the Wraith, which not only shoots out 200 bullets in rapid succession, but also incorporates a shield as its secondary fire. I approve!

On top of having amazing graphics, what I felt was an incredible storyline (far better than the first one, though I think it really shows how they were coming into the story and improving on it and making it into an interactive experience more so than just “here is video game, you play A to B”), and an ending that I would consider to be “cinematic,” the Resistance 2 online experience is ridiculously addictive. Mike and I have played a lot of co-op and competitive but my favorite is the team deathmatch. It’s sort of like Unreal but less frenetic and plopped down right in the middle of some of the best moments in the game (I think so far my favorite one is in the mansion in Louisiana).

All in all, I would have to say that the Resistance series has been added to my list of favorites. The PSP game recently came out, and while I bought it already, it’s been collecting dust on the shelf. I’m also not caught up completely on the comics (read: at all) and I just found out the book came out and we didn’t notice. It may seem silly – well, actually, it would have seemed silly to me a few months ago to buy a novel based on a video game series. But this one is so good that I’m willing to give it a chance. Actually, I once read a Harry Potter novel that I thought was a leak of the seventh book but turned out to just be really long fan fiction – and I finished it even after finding out it wasn’t Rowling’s. (The writing was about the same level, so I barely noticed.) I still read the 7th book anyway. If I can waste time reading those books – and I’ve read them more than once – I think I can give a book based on Resistance a chance.

This was way longer than anticipated, and far rustier! Fear not, loyal readers – if there are any of you left – for I will reward you with more reviews in the coming days.

And now, back to my regularly scheduled homework.