Tag: adventure

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Game Ramblings #17 – Song of the Deep

More Info from Insomniac Games

  • Genre: Action/Adventure
  • Platform: PS4
  • Also Available On: Steam, Xbox One

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that this game is pretty close to Metroid: Zero Mission in a submarine.  For one thing, it’s very distinctly a Metroidvania title, with a 2D relatively open world, backtracking for upgrades and cash to areas you could not previously enter, and combat involving a lot of missiles.  For another, about half way through you earn the ability to exit your sub, mirroring the introduction of Zero Suit Samus, and the more risky decision making involved there.  However, this one does enough to separate itself from being just a clone, and ends up being a great experience for a great price.

This game really has boiled down what it means to be a fun Metroidvania title.  Direct traversal has a really nice flow to it.  Despite being underwater, the movement speed is really quick, and turning is tight, despite having a distinct weight to changes in direction.  Both main weapons (a rope claw, and a set of different missiles) feel good in combat, and also play a part in expanding the areas you can get to in the world.   Enemies are ever present, but don’t feel unfair, and also drop a fair amount of health pickups, so I didn’t ever feel stressed between large segments of combat.  Really this is about as good a Metroidvania as I’ve played in the last few years, and I would recommend it just for that.

Then you get to Insomniac’s attention to detail being at the forefront.  The story is lighthearted, but for them a surprisingly serious tale of a girl trying to find her lost father.  However, as ever it is fantastically well written.  Visually the game is absolutely beautiful, and the audio fits as a fantastic ambient soundtrack while floating through the various areas.  Every region has both a distinct visual style, and a matching soundtrack, so you’re always experiencing something a bit different, even as you’re just rummaging around trying to find every last hidden secret scattered around.

Realistically, there were some things that were definitely a bother.  Some upgrades were not very obvious in what their intended role was, though experimentation quickly fixed that problem.  The inherent floatiness of the controls definitely worked great in most areas, but some tight laser avoidance areas showed some of the potential weakness of underwater adventures.  In one particular area, there was an obnoxious escort segment involving a tiny sea creature needing to be led via lights, who liked to go get distracted everywhere but where I wanted him to go.  That said, none of this detracted from the overall experience.

If you’re a fan of Metroidvania games, go do yourself a favor and go buy this one.  It’s only $15, and you get a great 6-8 hour adventure.  I’d also recommend going to pickup the physical copy if you’re into collecting.  I suspect this was a fairly limited run, and will be a good entry into your collection in the future when it becomes a lot harder to find.  Either way, this was a definite game worth playing.

I’m also going to put a side note here.  This game is the first released by GameTrust Games.  Most people probably won’t recognize that name, but it’s the new publishing arm started by GameStop.  A lot of people have a fairly negative view on GameStop, and some of that is definitely warranted.  However, them selecting this as their first title, a game that I suspect most publishers straight out ignored, is a potentially good sign for the future of that division.  They’ve got games signed from Ready at Dawn (The Order: 1886), Tequila Works (Deadlight), and Frozenbyte (Trine), so it certainly seems like we might be seeing some more interesting stuff coming out from them this year.

It’s going to be curious to see where GameStop takes that publishing arm, but leading with a small title from a great developer shows that they may be willing to take some risks to give back to the players and developers that they may have previously spurned.

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Game Ramblings #11 – Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune Revisited

More info from Wikipedia

  • Platform: PS4 (Part of The Nathan Drake Collection)
  • Genre: Action-Adventure, Third-person shooter

Uncharted 4 came out, so I’m doing what everyone else is doing; not playing it!  Admittedly I’ve always had a bit of a habit of picking up games, having more games come out, and never finishing games that I got sidetracked from.  For as quick as they are, the Uncharted titles definitely fell into that category.  Because of that, I decided to start at the top and work my way through, beginning with Drake’s Fortune.  So then the question is, how has this one aged?

So I’ll start this off by immediately admitting I have a love/hate relationship with the gun play of this series.  I absolutely adore that I can run through the entire game with a 9mm pistol, using it as an effective sniper rifle and getting the vast majority of my kills as headshots.  That said, it absolutely bugs the game developer side of me that I can do this.  Throughout this play through, I only really ended up using other weapons on a need-to-use basis.  The shotgun and MP40 came into play in the zombie-ish end game segments when they had effectively infinite ammo.  The AK47 and MP4 became relatively effective pray and spray weapons into walls of enemies.  However, they never really felt more powerful on a per-hit basis than either of the main 9mm pistols, and the lack of ammunition available for other larger pistols meant that I really had no reason to use others.

On the other hand, I have a much less positive relationship with the actual environmental design when it comes to this.  Going through the levels, it’s extremely obvious when you’re about to get into gunfights.  In general, you’ll turn a corner, see a bunch of crates, concrete wall segments, etc in a flat area, and know that once you hit a trigger point, a bunch of dudes are going to come into the field to start attacking you.  Sure by end game you get snipers in vertical nests, but by and large the combat areas are extremely obvious and scripted.

That said, mechanically I would tend to lean towards the gun play still being very fun, but not more than above average.  At this point I feel like the Tomb Raider series has taken some of the strong points of this series, and with the addition of that game’s more defined stealth mechanics, there are definitely options out now that have vastly improved on the third-person tomb crawling.

So then the question I guess becomes, is this one still worth a play through if you’re new to the Sony world?  Aging aside, I’d say yes.  The story is a pretty solid Indiana Jones-style story, the characters are entertaining, there’s enough visual improvements for the game to still look pretty decent, and the craftsmanship of the experience is without question.  Much like the Jak series, the first in the series showed the promise of Naughty Dog’s path, and new people to the series shouldn’t skip it for its age.

And yes, sniper 9mm is a lot of fun.

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Game Ramblings #10 – Ratchet and Clank (2016)

More Info from Insomniac

  • Genre: Action/Platformer
  • Platform: PS4

As it turns out, the game based on the movie based on the game is still as good as it was on the PS2.  As it also turns out, you can retcon an origin story without actually retconning an origin story.  Basically, Insomniac has pulled a rabbit out of a hat.

So, yes, this is technically a game I’ve played before.  Saying I’m a Ratchet and Clank fan would be a bit of an understatement.  I’ve effectively played through all the games, including Secret Agent Clank, Size Matters, and the slightly unusual side games on the PS3.  I came into this one not really sure what to think.  On the one hand, it brings the origin story into a more modern time, with the things that Insomniac has learned in the past 15 years.  On the other, I came in knowing that they were going to be retconning a significant amount of the origin story of what is now a 10+ game combined story.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit suspicious of the thing as a whole.

So, let’s get this out of the way.  If you’ve never played a Ratchet game before, this is a damn good starting point.  If you have played a Ratchet game before, this is a damn good restarting point.  In some ways, this game really is an all star combination of the best of the past titles.  The weapons and upgrade system tied to it are heavily influenced by the later titles in the series, with standard blasters like the Combuster to the absurd like the Sheepinator to the explosively fun like the RYNO.  The levels themselves are also show a bit of a mix.  There are some that are reimaginings of original game levels, and some created new for this game.  Overall, it hits a lot of the highlights from the original, while swapping in some newer, better designs for some of the repetitive elements that would no longer work as well.  And holy shit it was so nice immediately turning on the strafe controls right at the start.

So now, about that story.  I’m going to avoid spoilers here, but they explain away the retcon of the origin in a way that absolutely makes sense for this series.  From the opening cutscene, long time players of the series will be in on the gag, and appreciate the in-jokes that pop up to explain the differences between the original and remakes, while new players don’t even have to care that the original existed.  The end of the game also leaves an opening to explain how we arrive at one of the later titles in the series.  The trademark Ratchet humor exists throughout the game, and from what they’ve shown of pre-rendered cutscenes in the game, should also translate very well to the movie theater.  Is it kind of weird to see the changes? Sure.  Is it very Ratchet and Clank? Yes.

I guess I don’t really have much negative to say here though, which is slightly rare.  There’s a handful of weapons I didn’t really use, but that’s mostly because the ones I did use were never really running out of ammo.  There were a handful of areas where there was probably a bit too much collecting, but nothing that got in the way.  The difficulty on normal was too easy, and moving up too hard provided a nice challenge, but had sort of strange power spikes depending on my upgrade path, but again didn’t provide any negative blocker.  Overall this just continued the Ratchet and Clank mainline series history of being at worst a really damn good game.

So, I dunno, go out and buy it I guess! 😀