Dark Dildo Souls

Dildo Bat +15

As the year rolls along and a slight lull hits the gaming market, I’m still playing catch-up after the firestorm that was the holiday season.  After doing a plat run of Snake Eater, which unfortunately turned into more of a headache than it should have thanks to those stupid kerotans (arghhhh), I’ve been working my way through Dark Souls and Saints Row: The Third. These games couldn’t be any more different, but both are really quality titles that make me feel I’m getting my 60 bucks worth.

After San Andreas, Rockstar had a big decision to make on where to take the Grand Theft Auto series. They had a great sandbox franchise that was a solid mix of serious story and silly fun, but down which avenue to turn? GTA IV clearly went down the serious route and, while definitely amazing, a certain level of that over-the-top fun was lost. Saints Row looked to take that path less traveled and in Saints Row: The Third, the roof wasn’t just blown off. They turned the whole damn block into smithereens. And what’s left in the wake is one of the most stress free enjoyable games I’ve played in a long time.

Try to catch me now, bitchezz!!

Unlike most sandbox adventures that ask you to go from rags to riches, Saints Row starts you off with a lot at your disposal, and it only keeps piling on. With your customized character that can look like a serious gansta’, a hot Russian assassin, a monkey with a space helmet, or anywhere in between, you try to regroup your gang and strike back at the Morningstar, a coalition of stereotypes looking to take the Saints down a peg. Aside from the story missions, there are tons of collectables (drug palates, blow up dolls, etc.) and side missions that ask you do all sorts of crazy stuff like jump in front of moving cars for insurance fraud and ride around in a tank blowing stuff up. The humor is crass and lowbrow and usually unnecessarily violent. Needless to say, it’s hard to not love every minute of it.

The story is meh, obviously, but it never takes itself seriously, which is the right attitude to have. The game centers around what is fun, mainly big guns, bigger explosions, violence, carnage, sex, and everything else a twelve year old could want. And thankfully, there’s a twelve year old in every gamer that likes to be indulged every now and again. The action is fast and smooth and there are no points where the gameplay feels bogged down. SR3 is the very definition of a sandbox, leaving you truly free to just have fun and play.

You'll never take the mascot gang alive!

During a time were games are at a crossroads, the medium is trying to figure out how stick to its roots of fun gameplay, but at the same time compete with the movie biz and tell worthwhile stories. I definitely appreciate that the industry as a whole is trying to take itself more seriously, but then again it’s nice to have a game come along like SR3 that looks to be its stupid immature self and nothing else. It almost reminds me of times back in the day when my friends and I used to take turns playing GTA3 and just see who could get to 5 stars and last the longest. It was pointless but so much fun, full of “oh shit!” moments. SR3, for me, harkens back to those simpler times. And the inclusion of co-op too really helped put things over the top. If riding around blowing shit up naked before jumping from a plane and base landing in the middle of a gang operation won’t de-stress you, I don’t know what will.

And on the other side of the spectrum, Dark Souls is a game that stresses me the fuck out. I remember reading the reviews for it when it just came out and one line that stuck with me was something along the lines of how this game had a vision and didn’t compromise it to make it more accessible. I think that’s the best way to kind of sum up my 35 or so hours of experience thus far. Dark Souls is dark and miserable and unrelenting. But once you get past the intimidation factor, the satisfaction of conquering its challenges is sublime.

No problem, we got dis...

Moving away from Demon’s Souls level by level format, Dark Souls is a sprawling world and feels it. Every area has its own tone (and perils) and it’s rather clever how they are all connected. Every time I unlock a shortcut, there’s always an “ahhhh” moment, popping out somewhere I’ve previously been. The other changes, like the bonfires and covenants, all feel like an evolution of the original, leaving the best parts of Demon’s Souls, or the soul if you will, while bringing it to a new level.

The story is rather murky, like a lot of things in this game, but the narrative for Dark Souls feels more centered around you, the gamer. It’s a lot like a multiplayer game in that respect where the story isn’t about the characters or events but the experiences you have overcoming the challenges as they come. I think a really good example of this is towards the beginning of the game where you need to head up to a tower and ring the bell. The path is brutal, full tough bosses and unforeseen traps that make dying a common event. But whenever anyone playing the game finally makes it up there and rings the bell, you hear it in your game. You know someone out there made it. And so can you. So onward you muster. It’s really a powerful feeling in the end, and your story feels just as real and engrossing as any in other games. 

Lord, beer me strength!

What also adds to that feeling of satisfaction when progressing through the obstacles the game throws out at you is how nothing is really spelt out for you. Unless you go and try different tactics and search different rooms and talk to different NPCs at certain times, you’re likely to miss a lot of things. With the internet and beautiful things like wikis, these finer points like how to get certain items can be found with some research, but the complexity of all these elements makes the world feel so mysterious and overwhelming, adding to the sense of satisfaction when you succeed.

The online elements of things is also pretty interesting as well. I never really messed with online portion of Demon’s Souls, especially because it made getting world tendencies the way you wanted them a pain. In Dark Souls, however, the online characteristics of the game feel much less complicated and damn helpful with boss battles. Summoning some other players in the game to help conquer tougher sections really brings in a sense of community to the world, full of adventurers looking out for each other.

You cockblocker!

The other side of this coin, of course, is getting invaded by other players, which happened to me a bunch of times in the early portions of the game when I was still relearning how to play. My character really isn’t built for PVP and there wasn’t anything more frustrating that trying to survive the countless perils ahead only to have some dick phantom come out of nowhere and kick my ass. What sucked even more were instances where I was actually holding my own and about to beat one of these players, only to see them run into an enemy filled room and heal since heading after them would mean having to deal with all of the enemies. Some might consider it pussing out, but to avoid this now I just stay hallow mode unless I feel like I need some help with a boss.

Overall, I knew I would enjoy Dark Souls, I just didn’t think I would get sucked into it this much. I was unsure if I had a platinum run in me at first, but now I’m sure I won’t stop until it’s on my digital shelf. I don’t think it tops Skyrim in terms of my person game of the year for 2011, but it is definitely within the top 5 and worth a play for a gamer out there looking for a challenge.

Countless Hours I Want Back

This seems about right

A few weeks ago I recounted the 5 platinum trophies in my collection that are my favorites and would sit on the front of my shelf if they were…you know, real. They all either earned their spots because they demonstrated the completion of a difficult challenge or just stood as the pinnacle of a brilliant game. But that’s the fuzzy side of platinums. The truth is not every platinum is equal and some represent an exercise in patience if nothing else. It’s games like the following that have made me reconsider my gaming habits and vow to not waste my time with so many better options out there. Here are 5 platinums I earned but, looking back, we’re totally not worth the time commitment.

What's the point of this many characters when they all play the same??!!!

Dynasty Warriors 7 

Platinum Name: True Warrior of the 3 Kingdoms

More Apt Platinum Name: Shut-in of the 3 Kingdoms

I’ve made references to my nostalgic ties I had to the Dynasty Warriors series a few times before, all of which were definitely severed on the road to this platinum. The single player campaigns themselves aren’t too bad, and the conquest has its moments, but the sheer amount of garbage to swim through to get this trophy is just cruel. The combat feels repetitive just playing with one character, but after having to play with every one of the ten thousand in the game and maxing out their skill trees, I was fairly concerned that my square button was going to break from being mashed so constantly.

Despite the brain scraping grind fest it is to max out the skill trees though, maxing out your bond with every character sends things over the edge. Companions are pretty much worthless thanks to poor AI, so increasing your bond with them is incidental if anything. Sometimes characters will visit towns in which speaking to them will help, but their arrival is random and sometimes you have to just rely on luck, which blows when you’re waiting for one freaking guy to show up and I’m stuck talking to Lu Bei for the hundredth time.

Rank on the face-palm ‘o meter of shame: 7/10

Need more explosions!!!

Just Cause 2 

Platinum Name: Winner Take All

More Apt Platinum Name: Winner Blows A lot of Shit Up

I hate to bad mouth this game because it’s really great. To this day, there has yet to be a sandbox which rivals Just Cause 2 in sheer scope and, despite that, getting around is super easy thanks to the grappling hook and infinite parachutes. The story is lame and thankfully didn’t take itself seriously, and the combat is fun enough in the GTA sort of way. On the flip side, it's annoying having to find all the vehicles in such a large world and some of the combat trophies are a down right pain, but the Perfectionist trophy sends things over the top and plants Just Cause 2 on this list.

There are a lot of things that blow up in this game. A lot. And having to blow up 75% of them is a grind if there ever is one. I literally spent hours traversing the map, just trying to find things to blow up. Hours. And thanks to the previously mentioned scope of the game, it wasn’t always easy to find them. There isn’t exactly a glowing arrow floating over a gas tank that’s planted in the middle of a mountain range. I enjoyed Just Cause 2 but finishing that trophy just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Rank on the face-palm ‘o meter of shame: 4/10

Good luck getting in here, bub

Call Of Duty: World At War 

Platinum Name: Platinum

More Apt Platinum Name: Assfuck

I, like 10 billion other gamers out there, enjoy the occasional shooter and picked up World at World because it was going for dirt cheap online(being almost a year old by the point I played it) and the platinum requirements didn’t look too bad. And they weren’t. Until the last battle sequence on Veteran. I’m not sure if was “Downfall” or “Heart of the Reich,” but there is a section where you’re with your other bros storming the front of the government building, bullets flying around like they're going out of style. I don’t mean to sound whiny, but that section is simply unfair and poorly designed. If you’re going to only allow the player to take one or two shots before dying, you gotta design the boards around that mechanic. And that ending sequence wasn’t.

On a recent survey Dorkly did about the worst scenarios in video games, one of the ones that made the cut was the infernal “not realizing you’re fighting enemies that will respawn indefinitely and wasting all your health and ammo trying to finish them all off” convention, which is what happens at that point in the game. Enemies will keep pouring from an unseen spot and, unless you reach a certain point on the map, they will keep coming. That’s all fine and good, but when you can’t stick your head out of cover for two seconds without dying, things go from challenging to frustrating quickly. No matter how many Germans I gunned down, the next batch was right behind them preventing me from going forward without getting a face full of lead and it was more luck than anything else that I was able to get forward enough to stop the oncoming horde and make them spawn further back. But that was after several hours of screaming every four letter word at my TV. Nuns around the world wept.
 

Infinite spawning enemies is a stupid design choice(in my humble opinion) for this game and the veteran run feels like more of a grind than it has to be. To this day, the thought of World of War is synonymous in my mind with getting plowed from behind and shall remain so.

Rank on the face-palm ‘o meter of shame: 6/10

You and I will be seeing alot of each other...

Final Fantasy XIII  

Platinum Name: Ultimate Hero
More Apt Platinum Name: Ultimate Waste of Time
 

Although I’m sure there are a bunch of people in Japan that ate this game up with a spoon, I fall into the camp (as I’m sure most do) that felt Final Fantasy XIII was a colossal disappointment. With crap characters, an overly complicated story, and a path with less to explore than a paper bag, it was a pretty but ultimately a forgettable experience. Or, at least it would have been if hadn’t been for the Treasure Hunter trophy.
 

Since some weapons can only be obtained by upgrading a few which require super rare materials (I’m looking at you trapezohedrons) farming you will do. I spent days running back and forth farming Adamantaimais, my fingers crossed each time hoping the numbers favored my plight and, obviously, often they didn’t. I actually enjoyed the combat system, but repeating the same fight over and over again hoping for a rare drop sucked the little positives I had to say about the game. Screw this game and cash-in equal that followed.
 

And this is the same company that made Chrono Trigger. Chrono Trigger!!!


Rank on the face-palm ‘o meter of shame: 7/10

Fuck it! Destory the PKE! I DONT CARE ANYMOREEEE

Ghostbusters: The Video Game  

Platinum Name: Platinum Trophy 

More Apt Platinum Name: Poor Descriptions
 

While definitely not an AAA title by any means, I actually enjoyed the single player campaign. The proton beam mechanic is decent and the script, inked by Harold Remus himself, is generally funny and feels like it belongs in the Ghostbusters universe. It doesn't have the polish as a lot of games out there do in terms of design, especially this section towards the end fighting a bunch of stone cupids which kill you in one hit, but definitely a solid game and deserving of better than the hot pile of garbage Sanctum of Slime is. In the end though, any good feelings I had when thinking back to playing Ghostbusters: The Video Game are overshadowed by two large roadblocks which will go down as some of the most difficult bronze trophies out there:
Gozer’s Most Wanted & No Job Too Big.
 

Motherfuckers.
 

For "Gozer's Most Wanted", players need to "successfully complete every job in every location." The problem is that the word “successfully” is rather vague. The truth behind this abomination is that you have to satisfy what seems like quite random conditions in these jobs, since a lot of them are horde mode-ish. Combined with a very limited online community, getting people to play on the job you need on the map you need can take long enough, not to mention hoping you can satisfy the conditions to make the job “successful” in the first place isn’t a cake walk. There’s nothing more devastating than waiting twenty minutes for someone to join your game only to have things go poorly and having to wait again for another shot.
 

"No Job Too Big" isn’t bad at first glance either, just having to capture all the “most wanted” ghosts that randomly pop up during the multiplayer. The problem is that the appear rate behind some of these ghosts are a little non-existent rather than random, and I was literally left playing for hours upon hours just hoping the stupid ghost I needed would show up. And it would be one thing if the multiplayer was fun. It really isn't. But on I played with dreams of the sparkling trophy. I scoured the interwebz and followed everyone’s cockamaney theories on how to make these piles of ectoplasm appear when really it was just blind luck.
 

Mass hysteria. Dogs and cats living together.

Get Your Ass Back Into The Game

Anyone can assassinate a templar. Not everyone can do it with style!

After a short romp with Modern Warfare 3(which is definitely an enjoyable experience, for what it is), I’ve been helping Desmond and all his ancestors fight the Templars in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. With 2 sequences to go, the end of their story is rapidly approaching, so I thought it would be a good moment to think back on the series as a whole. Goin down the CoD road Ubisoft has decided to churn out a game once a year, and the results have been somewhat mixed in my eyes. It’s been a great move sales wise, but the jump from iteration to iteration keeps getting smaller and the crossroad is fast approaching where the Creed will either stay in its borderline AAA status or fall off a notch to the nebulous grey middle area where series go to die.

The first Creed, thanks to some awesome marketing, really cemented the IP as one to keep an eye on even though the nuts and bolts of the gameplay didn’t live up to the hype. It was cool how they were able to keep the whole Animus stuff a secret until the game’s release, but the world created strikes me as a prime example of trying to do too much. It’s a cool premise, but gets buried under conspiracies and double crosses involving a bunch of dudes with hard to pronounce names. I appreciate the effort, but in this case, I really thought less could have been more.

I'm like a lock smith....for your mind!

The sandbox assignation gameplay was cool, but felt rather spare with limited ways to really go about offing your targets. When Assassin’s Creed II came along, it felt like this was the game that first should have been. The combat was still shallow and far too easy, but now the environment felt alive, ripe for an assassin to mess some noobs up. Each target had multiple ways to approach and try to dispatch and, while the story didn’t help much, Assassin’s Creed II was just fun to play.

Brotherhood seemed to come out of nowhere all too quickly, but it felt polished enough that it didn’t feel like cash in. The inclusion of recruiting and training your own assassins created the sense that you were really part of and building a faction. Although those individuals didn’t feel like they had a whole lot of personality to add to the mix, it really added a new layer of strategy to the gameplay.

The multiplayer (because everything needs to have multiplayer now apparently) was a cool take on the death match, having players try to sneak around a map in a crowd and off each other. It felt pretty awesome successfully sneaking up to a target and being able to off them without them seeing it coming, but I felt like the novelty died out fairly quickly. From their movements, it was easy to tell a player from an NPC and it really just came down to “do you think this player is after me or not?” I haven’t gotten around to playing the multiplayer in Revelations yet, but from what I have read/heard, it seems like a natural progression but not huge step forward for the component, like everything else in the series. I’ll probably still play it for a few hours before walking away though.

Run, biatch! I still gonna gets ya!

My playthrough of the rest of Revelations has been somewhat of a mixed bag. Even though it’s only been a year since playing Brotherhood, I felt extremely overwhelmed with the controls, each button having about 10000000 functions, depending on the context. There’s just too much to be woven into a sufficient tutorial. There were even a few times when I knew what I had to do (pickpocket, assign a thief to distract a guard, etc.) but had no idea how to do it, being forced to check the interwebz. And I’m an experience player! I can’t even imagine how someone might feel if they’re coming in fresh.

The story has been somewhat purged of the Desmond sections, which is a good thing because they really hurt the flow of the previous games. They’re still there though to tell some back story, now replaced with a weird first person section where you create blocks to advance in this weird computer thinger….yeah. It’s nice getting to hear about Desmond before all this Animus crap started, but feels like a little too late. The guy he appeared to be in the first game just doesn’t seem compatible with the version they’re trying to make now. Same goes for Altair. He was a douche in the first one. Now we’re supposed to think he’s noble?

Assassin's Creed: Douche's Resurgence

Complains aside, once I got passed the control learning curve again, I felt right at home. Fulfilling the condition to get 100% sync has been a bitch sometimes and caused some frustration, but overall, playing is as enjoyable as ever. The storyline with the sultan’s son is a bit of the series staple – a hazy conspiracy involving forgettable characters, but Ezio’s relationship with Sophia and getting the Masayf keys has been good enough to keep me engaged. That, and slowly taken control of the city by taking out dens and building a fortune.

Overall though, if it wasn’t for the knowledge that the ending will be a “revelation” and a conclusion of the Ezio storyline and hopefully shed some light on what happened to that Kristen Bell looking chick at the end of Brotherhood, I think I would be fairly disappointed with Revelations as a whole. The two big additions have been the “tower defense” mechanic which is completely optional (which is good, cause it sucks), and the bombs, which are interesting and helpful, but don’t really change much about how the game is played too much. If Brotherhood was Assassin’s Creed 2.5, Revelations is 2.7. There’s just nothing in it, besides the story, that couldn’t have been dlc.

They're attacking from the rooftops! You idiots!!

Thus, I feel like the series is at a crossroads. At the end of this year, Assassin’s Creed III is already slated for release and all signs point to an American revolution setting. It’s an interesting choice and will definitely provide some opportunities for new game elements, but if it turns into just jumping around with one of those triangular hats, I think I’m out for good.

Assassin’s Creed is a very solid series for this generation but, in my eyes, it’s losing its luster with iterations that take baby steps forward rather than leaps. The core of the game is stealth assassinations and it needs to go back to that element of it, giving the player more options to attack targets with and a more robust combat system that doesn’t feel like an after though. If Revelations has made anything clear, it’s that the formula is getting stale the series needs a kick in the ass to get it going again.

In an increasingly competitive market, Ubisoft needs to remind gamers why the Assassin’s Creed franchise is worth investing in with III. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of gamers out there, like me, will just feel saturated by it and move on.

Drake and the Dragonborn: My Winter Break

Man, can I pull off this afghan or what?

With winter break over and grad classes back in full swing, I will always look back fondly on the winter break of 2011 where I sat down to take a sledgehammer of awesome to my “to-play” pile and pound out the platinums for two Game of the Year nominee’s: Uncharted 3 and Skyrim. Going into it, I knew it was going to take a lot to unseat Portal 2 for my vote and, while all definitely superb games that solidify the video games industry’s curb stomp of quality over the movie biz, one definitely rose to the top.

From everything I heard before going into it, Uncharted 3 was said to tone down the over the top action a bit and hit all the other finer points of the series on the head. From my experience, this certainly was the case. Naughty Dog’s blockbuster did what summer movies want to do but did it better, telling the latest tale of Nathan Drake with some really great set piece moments and the patented humor the series is known for.

Up against some English chick named Marlowe who most likely fell to Sully’s charms back in the day and her sidekick who can apparently get shot in the head and walk away unscathed, Drake and crew race to discover the “Atlantis of the sands,” a city with equal amounts of treasure and fucked-up-shit. Joining the cast is a mate named Cutter, who’s gruff persona balances out the usual cast well. The banter between all of them was definitely my favorite part of the game and stands as a fine example, like the rest of the series, that really great writing can be a leg to stand on for a game. Even if the combat and platforming weren’t refined, I would have trudged through the game simply because I cared about all the characters and needed to know how it all turned out.

Above: Likeable as fuck.

But thankfully this isn’t the case as the game mechanics of Uncharted 3 are just as fine as the earlier installments. After a nice flashback section where you get to play as a young Drake, the man himself alternates between said platforming and gunfight sections as the plot rolls on. There was a bigger emphasis on hand-to-hand combat with the addition of a few strictly fisticuffs areas and, while satisfying, I didn’t feel like they really did much other than provide another wrinkle to the gameplay. It’s fun to smash a tuna on dude’s face, but felt ultimately unnecessary after the third time.

In terms of difficulty, there were definitely some annoying parts to get through in Crushing mode, especially the mini-gun fight on the cruise ship, but overall it’s all pretty manageable. I distinctly remember a much greater  challenge on the other two, but it’s not easy enough to put up a big stink about it. Uncharted is all about the characters, so an easier run didn’t bother me.

Along with a more robust online experience and co-op modes, Uncharted 3 feels like the pinnacle of Drake’s adventures, doing everything the series does, and doing it well. I still think I enjoyed Uncharted 2 more simply for the appreciation of the jump it was over 1(and the clown joke at the end), but 3 is just fine and dandy.

Amazing, but not enough to top Portal 2 in my eyes.

Someone order an extra large slice of awesome?

Then came Skyrim. The beast. With an estimated time to platinum said to be around 100-300 hours, I did it a cool 87 and loved every second of it. I played a little bit of Oblivion back in the day but never really got into it. With Skyrim however, for whatever reason, I was in from the first sword swing and started waking up with my fiancée at 6:30 in the morning when she got ready to go to work just so I could play. While there are some definite technical issues, the scope of what Bethesda created earns it a pass in my book and still feels like one of the most epic adventures of all time.

One of the things I appreciated the most about the game was the flexibility you’re given when creating a character. Rather being stuck with a class, you could explore other play styles without starting from scratch, building up skills with simple use. When the game started off, I was a warrior redguard who rocked a mace in one hand and some magic in the other. Later on, I slowly began to embrace light armor and bow skills, and felt like my character had simply evolved rather than changed “classes.” It’s a design choice to appreciate, especially in a game where there’s so much to do and multiple playthroughs would be a massive time-suck.

And in a time where these is so many other great games to play, it’s downright considerate, I would say.

You can play however you likeeeeeee

Immersion is the word that kept buzzing in my ears as I played, falling into my role as Dragonborn as I helped return the thieves guild to their former glory or got wasted with some dude who turns out to be a daedric god and havd to figure out what I did last night like Nordic version of “The Hangover.” Ever town has its own feel and practically every character has their own story to tell and become involved with. The world feels like the most complete one I ever experienced in a game and that accomplishment in itself is one that can’t be understated.

As it was widely reported though, Skyrim isn’t without its technical issues, especially on the PS3. Along with buggy quests (my poor cousin’s game will simply refuse to load the swindler’s den) and graphical glitches (hilarious backwards flying dragons), there is a tremendous lag issue that has rendered  a lot of players’ games unplayable when they passed the 10mb save file size. I sweated up a storm as my file slowly approached and passed the mark and, while noticeable, it thankfully wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t play. Turning off auto-saves really cut down on the issue and, while I did experience a handful of crashes, my experience wasn’t soiled too badly outside of chugging my way through Whiterun. I’m sure it would have gotten worse the further I played (by the time I got the plat, I probably did maybe half of all the available quests), but my trip through Skyrim was luckily smooth for the most part.

Textures? We don't need no stinkin' textures!

While I definitely get how pissed players must feel who didn’t fare as well as I did, there’s no denying the landmark in gaming Skyrim is. Just from browsing through the mods popping up on the PC front for it, it’s clear that this is a game people will be playing for a long time. And, for a single player experience, that’s certainly an accomplishment. While I loved each and every second of Portal 2, Skyrim is an experience I will never forget and made me feel part of a world like none other before it. That’s why, with a confident knock with my gaming gavel, I declare it as my personal Game of the Year of 2011. The only other game that might have given it a run which I didn’t get to play(yet) was Dark Souls, but looking back at my time with Demon’s Souls, I figure that it will be fun, but the difficulty willy trump the fond memories it will create.

Overall, bravo games industry. 2011 was one for the books in terms of quality. Now bring on 2012!

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh