Heavy Rain

Finally having finished Final Fantasy XIII, I was extremely disappointed by the ending; Probably because the game’s story was extremely vague. There was a section in the information menu that told the story, but I found that to be a little too cumbersome since it was pages upon pages of data. In the end, sadly the game felt rather like an action movie, for which the writers forgot to include the plot so they had to release it separately.

The last boss though was at least very much Final Fantasy style. One hit kill attacks (which led to game over if it was your main character), obscene amounts of damage (one hit kills unless you maxed out levels), and all of this combined with the fact that there is no new game plus...

Final Fantasy was like a very beautiful lady (or handsome man) who in appearance is so stunning that you cannot help but stare. You approach it thinking it going to be a satisfying relation. But, then the mouth opens and what comes out; well you didn’t quite expect that. But, there is still much beauty to behold, so you try to work through it, try to adapt to it. In the end though you are told you are not good enough and are thrown by the wayside; rejected.

Deciding not to dwell on it, I have since moved on. I have decided to try my luck with Heavy Rain. Recently released for the PS3, I had seen advertisements of this game since a couple of years ago (tech demos and such).

As seen from the tech demos and other such trailers that have come out since, one can glean the information that this is also a very pretty game. The game starts with a man sleeping in a bed, accompanied by soothing piano music for background music. Your first task at hand is to help this man get out of bed and figure out what do, now that you have just woken up, all sweaty and nasty from a good night’s sleep, so the first task of the day is to go into the bathroom and shave, brush your teeth, and shower (man butt cheeks and everything). On the way though you can look at the picture of your loving wife, who has also left you a loving note slipped under the door (telling you that she loves you).

After you are done with this you can go down stairs to either, lounge about being useless, go into your home office and get some work done, or (the one that I didn’t figure out) go outside and do some gardening until your family returns. When they do return you then spend some quality time with your two sons (Shaun and Jason) in the backyard, where you beat the crap out of one son while the other one cheers you on. Such love between the family. Then your wife comes out to tell you that food is ready.

The above is basically the game’s tutorial level and most of the time explaining all the control mechanics to you. The loving family theme is a bit over the top for me though. But, I get what it is there for as your first son (Jason) ends up dead at the end of the prologue. Provides a bit of a contrast.

The game basically plays like a long quick button sequence. With all your actions being controlled by the button presses and direction presses. Most of the time the game is slow paced, letting you pretty much control the move through the events at your own pace, but there are other sequences that require your rapt attention and quick reflexes that generally define how your character survives (or dies). The game basically translates to a decently sized psychological thriller with you in control of four of the major characters in the game.

The first one that you are introduced to is the loving father, Ethan Mars, who after losing is first son, is now divorced and lives in abject poverty. The second one is the Detective out of the pulp novels, Scott Shelby, who is investigating the crimes being committed in the game. The third is the FBI profiler of many accents, Norman Jayden, who seems to be in the only intelligent man on the police force he is working with; and finally there is the comely young reporter photographer, Madison Paige, who seems to serve no other purpose in the story right now (At the stage I am at) other than the pretty little thing to look at.

The basic story of the game is that Ethan Mars’ son has been kidnapped by Jigsaw and now he (Ethan) has to go through all these difficult puzzles and setups to find where his son is... ... ...

The basic story of the game is that Ethan Mars’ son has been kidnapped by the “Origami Killer” and has had tasks set upon him to locate his son. Scott Shelby and Norman Jayden are on the law side of the game, trying to track down who the killer is and where the kid is hidden. Madison Paige seems to just hangs about in the background being hot and sexy.

As I mentioned before the game works like a psychological thriller, putting the you (The Player) in the shoes on the most relevant people as far as the “Origami Killer” case is concerned. This provides a very good aspect for immersion as you go about doing the menial/mundane tasks of the day and move the more important tasks of investigating clues and tracking down suspects and witnesses. But, I found the immersion broken when the game suddenly launches itself into a pre-scripted event, and you have to haplessly watch as events spiral down until you are given control of the situation.

While there is an aspect in the game (given Norman Jayden) that could lead into an interesting investigative part, the game actually seems to work of flags. As in “Did you do event A, if yes then trigger event B, Else trigger event C”. While I have not finished the game, it could be really annoying to find out that I have figured out whom the killer is but the game decided that since I hadn’t done that one part that was expected so I don’t get to catch the killer. Somewhat reminiscent of Japanese Gal-Games, where everything was triggered off of what flags and events had been set or seen.

Though the immersion aspect of the game doesn’t really work for me (I find myself thinking that I would handle certain situations in the game differently), I feel compelled to play the game because I love psychological mysteries and this, if nothing else, is a good one.

There are multiple endings to the game. But even with the mathematical possibility of 61 (60 + 1 for game over) endings I don’t think the game has any replay value. Catch the killer; Save the kid; Done.

No multiple girls to capture; So no point in going back and playing again.

Final Fantasy Final Impressions

Now that I am further into the game I can safely say, Final Fantasy XIII intrigues me. The game is trying to stick to its FF roots by having stupid hard bosses that can one hit KO a party without even blinking an eye. Yet since the game has a pseudo real-time aspect to the combat makes it so that you can actually power through a lot of such battles if you really strategise on what you are doing.

The one thing that is starting to get on my nerves now is the constant switching of player characters. While I sure there is a deep story impact emotionally, I find this mechanic really annoying. I just find myself thinking, “Come on, I just got used to playing as so and so.” After having played 20 some hours I have now gotten used to all the characters, whether I wanted to or not; and there are character that I wish I did not have to play. I preferred it when the AI was doing the healing, and not me.


As far as the story is concerned, I think anybody else would know better than me as I still don’t quite understand (nor have I really been paying attention, but I am trying to speed through the game so I will probably pay more attention through the second playthough) what had happened (or why), but now that the world ending monster has been determined the PC are getting ready to kill it. And there is a lady who is wearing cleavage conforming clothing and she carries a whip, so you can tell she is ‘Evil’.


I did get to meet the last player character that I was missing.
FANG as I like to call her (yes, for some reason every time I utter her name I have to raise my voice) seems to be a foreigner. Why? Well, she speaks with an Australian accent. She seems to have been in bed when all this happened and has not had a chance since to comb her hair or run her fingers through it to make it settle down. She seems to be wearing a Saree in such an atrocious fashion that would make an Indian blush with embarrassment; the game ‘teases’ you with possible upskirt shots (up saree?) of her at many an occasion. Her shoes seem to be stolen from Roman legionaries. She fills the ‘tough guy’ role of the party when Snow is not around.

The combat system is one of the shining moments of this game. With the last post I was not further enough into the game to say this, but once you hit the point with the paradigms, strategy becomes important; Especially if you are looking for something over 1 star at the end of battle. Choosing roles correctly at the times in boss battle can really turn the tide in your favour. But most of the lower level enemy battles consists of mashing the A button to auto ability kill the enemies.


One thing of note: English voice acting with Japanese cinematic direction does not mesh well. While the voice actors in FF XIII did a great job (especially Sazh), the gestures and head shakes make the dialogue look awkward, even cheesy, at times. But again, probably since this is such a massive release there was lot of attention paid to the voice acting, so there is actual acting there. Although Lightening was probably the easiest; look and sound sullen, and when there is an emotional scene sound even more sullen. Sazh seemed to have the most character growth (with Hope trailing behind him) and the voice acting for him is top notch. But, for once I would like there to be a situation like the one he ends up in where the character responds logically, not emotionally. It is just a dream of mine.


This part I don’t understand. So eight hours into it and the game asked me to switch disks. Now I am 20+ hours into it and I am still on the second disc. Why was the first disc so short?


Over all, I like the look and the feel of the game. Probably because it does not play anything like a FF game that I have previously tried. Once I am done with this playthrough, I will probably be going back to collect the rest of the stuff I miss.


On another note, Resonance of Fate comes out tomorrow. It is by the same company that made Infinite Undiscovery. Is anyone else looking forward to it?

Army of Tutu

Continuing the trend of sequels, I just recently discovered Army of Two: Two or Army of Two: The 40^th Day.

Before I start, I must mention some things about the first game. The first game, or Army of Two: One, is a third person shooter, where you can control one of two characters: Tyson Rios, or Eliot Salem. Both of them, initially as Army Rangers and later as part of a Private Military Corp (PMC), were sent into situations that required skills, deadly force, and a lot of team work. There was an underlying story about corruption, scandals, back-stabbing, and friendship and bro-love. The gameplay consisted of a lot of running around and hiding behind obstacles, shooting at enemies, drawing fire so your partner could shoot at enemies. There was one part which was called back-to-back, where you and your partner would stand back-to-back and everything would slow down so you could pick off a lot of enemies in a circular fashion. You could reward your fellow player with bro-love when they did something you liked or with bro-hate when they did something you disliked (or if you just wanted to be a dick).

An overall fun game, unless you were playing the game in single player mode. The AI was notoriously dumb; Or spiteful. The AI tended to get itself killed (more often than not) regardless of what order you gave it. Every order pretty much translates into ‘run up and stand in the middle of enemy fire and die’.
This game was fun as I pointed out earlier, but you had to have another person playing with you. This is one of those games that are tailor-made for co-op multiplayer. But then again I wish that a lot of the other games out there right now would be co-op multiplayer as well.

The characters themselves, Rios and Salem, were your typical characters. Rios was big and burly and partly the conscience of the team. Salem was smart-aleck of the group with witty quips and jabs, who generally saw things as a means to an end. But, overall both characters looked and sounded human.

Army of Two: The 40^th Day gives them an “upgrade”. While the graphics of the game have gotten a lot shinier, it seems that Rios seemed gone on a steroid binge, now with muscles rivaling Chris from Resident Evil 5, on top of this he sounds like he had been hit on the head with a hammer a few times. Salem now sounds like an Italian gigolo from New York and unfortunately looks the part as well.

Does this detract from gameplay? Only if you played the first game for the characters. Fortunately this is a minor negative for the game. Gameplay has remained practically the same. There is still an agro-meter. You still hide under cover and pop out to shoot. There are still team actions. But on top of this the nifty thing (that I liked) was the “Morality Choices”. During missions you will be presented with the option to do something evil or good which leads into a comic book style montage of how your choice affected the feature. Cool thing about this is that either of the players can make the choice when it comes up on screen and the other one has to live with it. There is also a camaraderie mechanic so Rios and Salem can end up as best friends or not. What the impact on the game is beyond achievements, I don’t know. Another addition is the mock surrender mechanic. Wherein one player can surrender and the other one can sneak around to pick off enemies.

Overall the game is still fun. Single player not so much, but the multiplayer holds hours of entertainment. There is more replay value in this game (compared to the first one) mostly because of the “Morality choice” movies and plus there is always the collectors dream of unlocking all the weapons.

While the single player mode of this game may be lacking, I would recommend this game to anyone who is looking for a game to play with a friend.

Final Fantasy XIII First Impressions

I got my hands on Final Fantasy XIII on release day. Like everybody else. First thing I did, probably like everybody else, was to pop it in the 360 and start playing.

Now I have only had a chance to play the first hour or of the game so I can’t really say if I like the game or not just yet. I mean, I don’t even know what’s going on. There are people in fancy dresses and then there are these other people in fancy armours. There is a lot of fighting and exploding between the two and then a giant robot comes out and starts ordering the people in fancy dresses around, and I still don’t have an idea of what’s going on other than the fact that I am rooting for the people in the fancy dresses; and killing the people in the fancy armours and their dogs too. There is also a Pulse fal’Cie going around, but I don’t really know what that’s about either.

So far I have run into seven of the characters that have been in the party. At the start of the game you take control of:

Lightening: The ‘main’ character of the game and the first female lead (as I understand, other than X-2) who seems be a character based of the Cloud Strife (of FF VII and Advent Children) with breasts glued on and about as much personality. Maybe as the game progresses more is revealed. On the plus side, she does not run like Yuna. She uses a sword as her main weapon.

Sazh: Tagging along with our lovely heroine is this fellow; your run-of-the-mill black comic relief that uses guns. I can’t really think of much else to say here, because this character is very stereotypical of what you would see in a buddy action movie (if one character was white and the other black).

A dramatic escape and showdown later, we switch to:

Snow: The hero, as he is referred to quite a few times. Out to do justice and good and protect the other helpless civilians. Has the personality of any other hero type so not much to be said here. He seems to like punching people.

Gadot: Tagging along with Snow, he is a mirror image of Snow (expect he is the lackey type). Uses guns. Don’t think anyone is waiting for him though.

Lebreau: She is the Lingerie model turned action heroine of the group. She was probably at a photo shoot when she was arrested and shoved onto the train out of city, and had to grab whatever she could to cover herself up. She uses guns as well.

Another dramatic sequence and showdown later we switch to:

Hope: A young kid orphaned in this strife (his mother dies). He is still figuring things out while trying to seem put together. He has a facial expression that is stuck on ‘who me?’ or maybe ‘Whoa! Boobs!’, but I haven’t quite figured out which one it is. He uses a Boomerang? Where he pulled it out of is anybody’s guess.

Vanile: Provider of the above mentioned boobs and over-all general perkiness. She is seems to be the requisite air-headed pop diva ‘look at me, I am pretty’ type character, which makes the fact that she provides the narration (in certain scenes) really strange to me; Probably more going on there than meets the eyes.

Hour and some minutes into the game and most of it has been gameplay (which in most other JRPGs I have spent the majority of this time watching cut scenes)? It was quite a nice experience. But, I still have no clue as to what the characters are aiming to do (other than head to the huge robot building). So colour me intrigued. I’ll at least keep playing till the reveal about what is going on.

I do have to say though, I like the battle system.

· You control one character, the other are computer controlled.

· You either go the easy route and just pick ‘Auto battle’ which lets the AI decide what actions would be best in the given situation or you can pick abilities to pick and choose what actions to take during the allotted time.

· All playable characters start with an area effect attack. This may not seem like a huge plus but this is one of my gripes with a lot of RPGs that you don’t really get an AOE to start out. You generally have to work up to it.

· Potions heal the entire party! On top of that, using a potion does not use an action! That’s two for two. Though I wish that potion usage was a button press rather than menu navigation, but that is very minor gripe (maybe it is, I zoomed through the tutorials so I didn’t really read anything).

The only thing I can say about the graphics is, ‘Wow! Pretty!’ The FF team really made an effort for the game to look High-Def in, well, High Def. There is no marked difference between the cut scene graphics and actual gameplay graphics, which is very impressive. Characters and surrounding are well rendered, that I found myself stopping on ledges to admire the scenery. I have never done that on a console game so kudos to the FF team. Job well done.

All of this said the final point I would like to make is that as far as I have gotten in the game it does not seem much like a fantasy game as the title ‘Final Fantasy’ suggests. It is more of a ‘Final Technology’. But, maybe they are saving the ‘Fantasy’ part for later. I will have to wait and see.

Mass Effect: A Spaced Epic

Mass Effect 2 hit the shelves last week. It is a continuation of the space epic Mass Effect (in case you were wondering). The story picks up not long after the end of the first game.  

The opening sequence shows random hot female, aka Miranda Lawson, talking to mysterious, covered in shadows man, aka ‘The Illusive Man’, about the fate of the galaxy and how Shepard has shown the alien races that humans are strong-willed and pioneers and also how Shepard is the last hope the galaxy has to live to make sure that the threat of the Reapers can be quelled. Wild guess as to what happens next…

Shepard , who after a glorious victory against the reapers,  is on ‘his’ way home from somewhere, when they encounter a ship of sorts. The Reapers!? No, as Joker exclaims, it is not the Reapers! So… there is something scarier than the reapers out there in the galaxy that the crew of the Normandy (or Joker) know about… if there was something like this in the first game I didn’t quite catch it… but as luck would have it this ship is here to destroy the Normandy; and the ship is destroyed and Shepard is killed (no ifs, ands, or buts about it).

So, these two people in the opening sequence also belong to this super secret shadow organization (Cerberus) that already knew about the reapers from before the events of Mass Effect (1 that is) and just decided that it wasn’t worth letting the galaxy know, because hey, all they want is to push the pro-human agenda forward. At this point I lost interest in the story… I have really had enough of there being a shadow organization that knows everything, or controls everything, or is ever present without anyone’s knowledge. It is a plot device that has been used too often, and I think is the easy way out for any story writer to explain or sort out plot points…

But I didn’t play the first game for its immersive story, I played it mostly because the gameplay and the RP mechanics were interesting and there was an immense amount of character customization. Well the RP mechanic of the dialogue wheel of ‘what you see may be what you get’ is still there, but say goodbye to the character customization. This game boasts a simpler mechanism for this. You only really get to pick the abilities that you have (which are fairly limited at the beginning of the game, six I think, and the new ones can only be gotten after you do the loyalty mission for your crew)… Weapons and armour drops are gone as well. Now you to buy (or find on missions and then research) upgrades to your equipment, which happen to be very expensive… in Mass Effect, money really wasn’t an issue… now, in Mass Effect 2, I seem to be running out of it regularly. You tend to find new weapons that on missions that replace the one that you are already carrying (this can be changed at the weapon loadout menu in the ship armoury or before boss fights on missions).

There is now an ammo mechanism. Why? For giggles it seems. The first game had a perfectly good system as far as weapons went. You shot too much, the gun overheated; you waited for it to cool down. Now, not only do you have to reload, but you also have to look for ammo clips (these tend to be abundant on most missions, but on a few I found myself running low).

Upgrades to the ship, and weapons and armours are done by using resources that you find by scanning and spending an unnecessary amount of time probing planets. Your ship now comes equipped with 30 probes (initially, but going up to 60) which are used to extract the resources from a planet using the most inane and annoying feature of the game. What was wrong with the system in the previous game where when a planet was scanned, you immediately harvested whatever goodies were on the planet… did the galaxy take few steps back as far as technology goes while Shepard was dead? And to top it all there is also fuel that you have to deal with… whenever a mass relay jump is made, if there is a desire to go beyond the system that you are in you have use fuel (which you can run out of mid journey) and fuel costs money to buy, which there already is a shortage of. Why? Why is there a sudden need to track these banal things when the player should be allowed to concentrate on saving the galaxy!?

Mission gameplay mostly consists of little bit of talking and a LOT of running, hiding, shooting, and exploding. In the first game fighting as incidental to the story that was going on; there was a lot more emphasis on character development and story progression than there was on the ‘run and gun’ aspect; which is why the combat system was a little kludgy. Now since they have honed the combat system a lot, it seems everything else has taken the sideline.

The action part of the game (which there is a lot of) consists of:

1)      Go into area where there are many conveniently placed boxes, walls, and other such structures.

2)      Hide behind afore mentioned structure/s and wait for enemies to arrive.

3)      Poke out from cover and shoot.

4)      When health is low, hide behind structure to regenerate health.

5)      When all enemies are dead move on

6)      Go to 1

*Oh and the B button is used to melee the enemy.

Sound familiar? This game is better described as ‘Gears of Mass Effect’ or maybe ‘Halo 3: M.E.S.S’ (That’s Mass Effect Shepard Saga). The story itself is about as epic as in those games.

But on the bright side there are no MAKO sections any more.

Seems to me, Bioware has a history of screwing up the sequels…

Example:

Neverwinter Nights. Probably one of the best PC based RPG in the last decade. The combat was easy and the RP fun. And it came with the Aurora toolset, which led to the design of some great player created modules.

Neverwinter Nights 2: Much hyped sequel to the first game that fell flat on its face. Combat was overly complicated (with the AI being dumb as bricks and you having to control 2-4 characters at the same time), and there were incomplete dialogues and plot-lines. This doubled with the fact that they took out the ‘easy to create module with’ toolset and replaced it with an overly complicated toolset, so there was not quite the prolific development of modules by players as there was for the first one.

Knights of the Old Republic: Same as before, the game play was simple yet challenging. The story was fun and interesting.

KotOR 2: Well ok, so for this they actually did a good job as far as keeping with the gameplay of the original game, but with the amount of levels that were being thrown around… gameplay was really simple… the game stops being hard after the first quarter. And there seemed to be unfinished plot threads.

But, in both those cases… Obsidian was the one who made the sequels so I guess the blame lies on them.

Well, EA bought out Bioware, so maybe this whole thing is EA’s fault.

24: The second Blockbuster premier

Yesterday was the second 2-hour-blockbuster premier of 24 starring Anil Kapoor.

The story obviously picks up right after where the previous hour left it. With CTU acting like incompetent idiots (except Chloe of course) and Jack out in the field looking for a dude.

Now one thing I have noticed is that in the movies and TV shows the “Computers=Magic” statement applies quite readily, but why can’t this information be represented more technically…

In the part where they are trying to decrypt the file that was found on Ms. Reed’s laptop, Dana (the head analyst) complains that the decryption was taking too long. I thought, “Well, if you took the silly display graphics down and replaced it with text/ASCII, you could free up processor and memory space…” But while this was going on the other analyst walks over since he is missing some algorithm that is going to help with the decryption and starts hitting on Dana. What better time to do this? Sure there is the looming threat of an international incident lurking around the corner, but if you don’t make your point to the woman right now, when can you? Typical software guy I think.

Then the decryption finally finishes… and we get to see… a 3-D rendered model of the UN building, but there was another part that was still rendering!?

1)      Why was the 3-D rendered image off of Ms. Reed’s laptop just opening up without any compatibility issues? Did they just have that magically universal software that can load anything?

2)      If the CTU computers were taking time rendering the second part of the image, how the hell did Ms. Reed even produce it on her dinky reporter laptop? Was she running a special CRAY edition?

All this aside, this 2 hour segment also seemed like where all the characters grew a brain! Mr. Hastings actually listened to Jack Bauer when he (JB) returned to CTU. Chloe (not Zoe) was applauded for the work she had done. There was much rejoicing as Cole Ortiz saved President Omar Hassan in very close call.

The only reason for me to tolerate this show right now is Anil Kapoor, and I have found myself secretly wishing for the demise of President Omar Hassan. Once he is dead I have no reason to watch the show any more. But, the one hitch in this idea is that the character of Omar Hassan is so likable that I mostly find myself rooting for him… The fellow hides nothing… Ms. Reed blurts out under the pressure of the Incompetent Mr. Hastings that she had an affair with the president. I was expecting Omar Hassan to deny this, but, in a twist, he corroborates the story!

They (CTU) find traces of U-235 (apparently weapons grade uranium) on the Assassin’s body. He (the President) admits to come into contact with men (through his brother of course) that were looking to sell a bunch of weapons grade uranium. I mean really? Well, I will have to endure to watch the rest of the show. Thankfully I have nothing else on Monday nights so it won’t be much of a problem.

Oh and Dana’s past life is catching up to her and is threatening to encroach on her current life because no one at work knows about it…

This bit requires a huge amount of “suspension of disbelief” because she works for the CTU! Didn’t they do all sorts of checks on her to get her that “top secret, for your eyes only, if I tell you I will have to kill you, clearance”? If nothing else, at least, emphasis on the at least, her boss, Mr. Hastings would know about her past. She could just go to him and ask him to help her. But, no… the show creates unnecessary drama trying to make us think that, “Oh no, whatever is Dana going to do now?”

24 resumes it normal show time on FOX on Mondays at 9:00 PM from next week.

Jack Bauer: More Powerful than Superman

It has been a while since I have seen a TV show that has involved me yelling at the inanimate object as if the characters inside could hear my voice and suddenly start acting to what I was saying.

Season 8 of 24 began yesterday (Sunday) in a blockbuster ‘2-hour with limited commercials’ block. The only reason I watched yesterday and perhaps will watch the rest of this season is because of one thing and one thing only.

Anil Kapoor. Represent!

Yes indeed, I do find it hard not to watch Hollywood movies or TV shows that have a Bollywood actor in them. It is like a patriotic need, I think. Even my Father called me up while Human Target (good show by the way, recommend) was on at 8pm last night to ask me if I was tuned in to watch Anil Kapoor on 24. Neither of us really cares about who or what Jack Bauer takes on this season, but we did need to make time to watch an Indian actor on an American show representing a Middle Eastern President… … Ok, this is my problem with a lot of things… Indians hardly ever get to represent Indians in this show or movies; they are generally portrayed as Middle Easterners… Why?

But anyways, back to 24. This part does contain Spoilers about what happened on the season premier so if you haven’t watched it yet.

Season 8 begins with Jack having retired from CTU because saving the world time and time again can become tiresome and repetitive after a while. He has now taken to more simple things like sleeping and hanging out with his grand-daughter. This was the first shocker for me… I thought his entire family was dead (his wife being dead since season 1 and I thought his daughter had been killed in a later season). The idyllic time in his life comes to a screeching halt when a shot up man tells him that there is a plot of assassinate the President!... of a Middle Eastern country.

Jack tires his hardest to hoist the problem (informant) off to CTU which just ends up being a big blowout and Jack ends up at CTU providing the information to the new management there. By the way Chloe is still at CTU… I think she may be the only cast member to survive all 8 seasons. And when did she get so pretty!?

Things get a little out of control and a suspect is captured. Ok, at this point of time I knew that it could one of two people who were behind this assassination nonsense and when they made this deflect I really did think it was the lady-reporter. So she gets arrested and brought in, at which point Chloe chimes in, “Isn’t this a little too easy?” Apparently there were incriminating files on the lady-reporter’s laptop and an encrypted file, which after Chloe said it becomes apparent that it was too easy that they found her out so easily. “Oh well,” says the Management, “Sometimes these things are meant to be easy, so shut your trap Chloe.”

So Chloe as a last recourse goes to Jack, who begrudgingly takes it to Mr. Management. Now this part is a little more of a personal opinion than anything. But if I was Mr. Management and Jack Bauer came up to me and told me that they may have missed a very important lead that could be followed up on… You know… THE Jack Bauer, whose reputation should be legendary in the intelligence community! The man is more powerful than Superman, and has probably saved the world more times than James Bond; I would inclined to listen to him and at least assign him one person who can help him follow the lead (Chloe perhaps), not dismissively wave him away!!

So the lady-reporter is brought in for questioning and hooked up to sophisticated equipment so they can tell if she lying or not. This next section contains a paraphrasing of the dialogue that happened. NAB is No Alarm Bells, as in she is not lying. AB is Alarm Bells as in she is lying.

First they established a baseline to make sure they can catch if she is lying or not then the questioning begins.

Management: Who is the assassin?

Lady-Reporter: I don’t have anything to do with this assassination plot you keep talking about…

NAB.

M: When did you first meet the President?

L-R: 6 months ago?

M: Did you come into contact with any extremist organization there?

L-R: No.

NAB.

M: What was the purpose of your visit?

L-R: To do an article on him. We met in the lobby of the hotel. I interviewed him.

M: So, no sex?

L-R: Yes, no sex.

AB.

M: Are you sure you are telling the truth? You are lying aren’t you?

L-R: ……

(A point here, Anil Kapoor and Hot-Blonde-Lady-Reporter did an encounter which she is trying not to leak lest it demolish his reputation as a President)

M: So what about the assassination plot?

L-R: I know nothing about this assassination plot.

NAB.

M: Sex?

L-R: No sex.

AB.

M: What about this assassination plot?

L-R: I have nothing to do with this assassination plot!

NAB.

M: Lady, what did you do with President six months ago?!

Ok… at this point I was yelling the TV. Why was this information even relevant? What does it matter what she did with the President 6 months ago when she went to interview him? Wasn’t the impending doom of assassination still lurking in the background? It was readily apparent that she may not actually be involved in this plot… But let’s try to grill her for information that has nothing to do with this.

Oh and there was chick in CTU that has a double life… It seems she changed  her name so she could get away from an abusive boyfriend/husband. I’d love to see how they explain why she is working at CTU. Oh yeah , and more stuff happened, and Jack killed people.

Unfortunately though I am invested in the show now so I have to watch it to its conclusion.

There is another 2-hour-limited-commercial blockbuster block tonight starting at 8pm on FOX.

Oh and it was the Brother, with his fancy hair and ludicrous soul patch. How could not be him.

It's Plumbering Time

I have always been a fan of the Mario and Luigi RPGs since the first one that came out on the Gameboy Color. I really liked that one… then there was one of the DS called Partners in Time and needless to say it carried on the quality that the old game had enchanted me with. You got play as the Mario Bros while they were strapping young men, but also when they were wee little babies. There was funny tongue in the cheek dialogue. Of course Peach gets kidnapped again as she always dones. She may just be the greatest MacGuffin ever created.

And just recently I discovered the latest in the series, Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story.  This game has occupied most of my evening lately with its zany gameplay and funny dialogue.

The gameplay is standard to this game series. Mario and Luigi are controlled using the A and B button, but in a twist Bowser is controlled by X and Y. The game allows you to switch between the two on a moment’s notice as long as Mario and Luigi are inside Bowser.

Battles are triggered by running into the enemies and killing those gets loot and xp… but this is all standard to an RPG.

Where this game shines is the dialogue. One thing I have always enjoyed in these games has been the whacky storyline and the over the top dialogue between the characters. Mario and Luigi still are only able to speak in fake Italian. Peach has magical powers and Fawful is back with a vengeance. The game is really easy to play and really fun to get into. I even found myself rooting for Bowser (when I am sure near the end he will turn into the bad guy again) time and time again.

As mentioned earlier, in this game you play as Bowser, who after having swallowed up the entirety of the ruling class of Mushroom Kingdom (Peach) and the plucky heroes has to go about saving the world from a villain, while Mario and Luigi run around in his innards doing leg work to keep Bowser up and running.

So first… when did Bowser turn into a hero? He isn’t the most likeable hero but still he goes about saving the world as needed because all he really wants Peach to like him more than Mario……..? When did these characters get so… so… deep? Not that I mind, but weren’t Mario games just supposed to about some plumber climbing ladders and wasn’t the point of Mario games to play as Mario and sometimes his brother Luigi. This game goes the other way by having you play as Bowser… mostly. You do still get to run around as Mario and Luigi inside Bowser and as the game progresses outside him as well. But most of the major plot accomplishments are credited to Bowser, with a little nudge in the right direction from the Bros (and company). Princess Peach gets kidnapped at some point in the game, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to most people who like or have played the Mario series. But instead of Mario doing the saving, this time it is Bowser. What a twist!

Initially I was thinking that this would really detract from the game, but still hasn’t and I am about 8 or 9 hours into the game so, if it hasn’t yet…

The one major problem I have with the game is that sometimes the game just leaves you in the lurch without telling you where to go next. Currently I am stuck at a part where I have to get into Peach Castle, and I have no idea how to go about this… at all.

Well thankfully there are FAQs for this sort of nonsense.

While the Mario franchise has been rehashed too many times to count now, if Nintendo ever decides to bury it I hope they at least keep this series. As this has been a awesome series to play, up till now at least.

Wanted Dead or Alive

So Borderlands came out about a while back  and after a bit of hunting I finally found it at a local Wal-Mart (Thank god people hate Walmart so much).  Now while this may be irrelevant, but the only reason I picked this game up is because one my friends told me that this game is like Diablo… and who doesn’t love Diablo.

This game is like Diablo, except it has guns… and is a first person shooter… and is set on a different planet. But that is where all the dissimilarities end. Basic premise of the game is to run around kill monsters and gain levels and collect loot so you can be high enough level to kill the baddie at the end of the game (call it an educated guess).

There is a neat little Character introduction process, with which you get four characters to choose from:

Mordecai as the Hunter (Rogue), Roland as the Soldier (Warrior), Brick as the… Brick (Barbarian), and Lilith as the Siren (Sorcerer). I picked the Siren.

The game starts you off in the regular run-of-the-mill scenario of getting used to combat as you follow a robot around to the town of Fyrestone (Tristram) from where you shall be questing. I nearly died in this part due to the lack of shields (that are given to you after this area, but mostly because I am not very good at the FPSs). There is an “aim assist” feature that helps a little but you still have to get your aim on the enemy. After you done with the introductory part you meet Dr. Zed (Deckard Cain) who will give you a bunch of quests to go do stuff or meet new people, who will in turn give you quests to go do stuff or meet new people and so and so forth… but you will be coming back to Dr. Zed (Deckard Cain) a lot.  The quests themselves are simplistic and anybody who has played any RPG or MMO will be familiar with the format.

For each monster you kill, as well as each quest you do, you get experience and once you reach level 5 you have access to skill points. The first one is used to unlock your character’s special ability (Phasewalk in my case since I am playing through as Lilith) and the rest are spent on a skill tree like chart (reminiscent of Diablo). Money was a little hard to come by when I started the game but after about 4 levels (Which went by quick enough) I had suddenly had about 20K and nothing to do with it. Buying weapons seems pointless because the game was throwing weapons at me from monster kills and most of them were better than the ones in the shop (once it opens). Shields on the other hand are a little harder to come by but you won’t be changing them too often either.

The first boss battle comes at you suddenly that I was a little underleveled for it… (it seems). I died quite a few times. But this is where the game shines. Instead of having to go through the “load game, restart mission” screen you get cloned and put back at last checkpoint type area. So you can just run back into battle with the boss or whatever you were fighting at the time and continue from where you left off. But if you are one those cool people who can shoot where they aim, you have chance to get a “Second Wind”… when your HP falls to zero, you get a short amount of time to kill the nearest (or farthest) enemy to stand back up with a few HP. I was unable to get this to work though.

                The last boss of the game was a bit of a pain; but once I figured out the trick to it…surprisingly easy, which was somewhat disappointing, as I was expecting more of a challenge. But after the first playthrough, the game can be loaded up again for a second playthrough in which the enemies are stronger, hit a lot harder, but this all doesn’t really seem to matter until the very near end of the game where this actually becomes a bit of an issue… there is literally a brick wall of difficulty in the last level of the game.

There have been two DLCs since the game has come out:

Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot, which is like an invasion style game, where up to 4 people can team up to take on waves upon waves of enemies.  I have only had a chance to try it single player and while the waves are easy enough for one person, the boss waves are like hitting a reinforced concrete wall at high speeds in car without the seat belt on. The first boss that I fought was Baron Flynt… and I was dead before I even realized it.

I am sure this is much easier, if not less harder, with more people.

The other one is The Island of Dr. Ned, a good ol’ Halloween styled adventure. Set in Jakob’s cove, this module boasts an eerie setting with zombies, werewolves, and other spooky things of that caliber. As you find out that there was a problem which Dr. Ned (not Zed) tried to fix and ended up creating more problems. Same as always you get quests from the bounty board which has its own claptrap to keep you company with snappy comebacks and funny dialogue. The one gripe that I have with this module… When zombies are killed with a head shot they drop a quest item “Brains” which are needed for a quest later on but the game gives you no indication of this and to top it all, any “brains” picked up before the quest begins don’t count towards it.

But that is a really minor thing. Over all this is a really fun single player module and I am sure is even more fun with multiple players.

Both the DLCs well worth the 800 MS points.

Now I did try playing the game through as one of the other 3 characters (Since I finished the game as Siren), but none of them seemed to be worth it as it seems that Siren seems to be a bit on more overpowered side of a class. Reminds me of the Amazon from Diablo II, until Blizzard nerfed them…

Yeah, I am not bitter about that (The Amazon bit, not the siren bit).

Movie games and the like!

So while having a talk with my Father on the phone, he mentioned that a movie that the two of us had watched a while back called Aagey Se Right is being turned into a game. So I did a search on Google and found out that it was not the only game that was being turned into a game. Apparently there are three movies from the Indian movie machine that are being turned into games by a company called IndiaGames.All of the quotes are 'copy-paste's of the statements in the article I found.

Quick Gun Murugun:

“The ‘Quick Gun Murugun’ game is based on the film Quick Gun Murugun, who is the central character of the game. He is an unlikely superhero with ‘Guntastic’ powers and a sincere South Indian cowboy who considers it his duty to serve and protect. The movie revolves around his mis-adventures with his arch villain Rice Plate Reddy! The whacky game-play of Quick Gun Murugan tests the player’s shooting speed and reaction time. The player, who is a cowboy, has to swiftly shoot the enemies appearing in the area using a desert eagle pistol, before they try to shoot him.”

Aagey Se Right:

“The game ‘Aagey Se Right’ is an action-packed nonstop bike racing/pursuit game based on UTV Motion Pictures’ comedy film Aagey Se Right. The game-play tests the player’s driving skills, speed and reaction time while he rides his bike through the chaotic streets of Mumbai city. In the game, the player who dons the role of the cop Dinkar Waghmare, has to chase his trusted Bajarangbali stickered gun on the run. While chasing it, his fate and destiny make him an unlikely hero against the underworld goons and terrorists.”

And last but not least Kaminey:

“Inspired by the latest blockbuster Kaminey, a UTV Motion Pictures production, Indiagames has launched a highly action packed mobile game aptly suiting the thrills offered by the movie. Go chase, fight the cops, take risks, hit the rival gangs - Experience the craze that you wish to be a part of, after watching the movie. The game replicates the role donned by Charlie, the protagonist of the movie, packed with absorbing game-play and thrilling levels.”

Now while it is a common practice in the US to turn games into movies (especially the major releases like Iron Man, Pirates of the Caribbean, Avatar and the like), it is a very new thing in India for something like this… India has the largest movie industry in the world (last I checked) with just of movies coming out in a year; the Hindi movie industry is big and the Tamil movie industry probably bigger. But, this is small step in Indian game industry as these games are only for the mobile phones.

So what is next then, maybe bigger games for the console systems for some of the other popular movie titles.

Sathiya: You play as the protagonist while going through the city searching for your missing wife through the streets of Mumbai. Game play features driving through the gritty streets of Mumbai in a open sandbox environment. Beautifully scripted flashback sequences in hidden locations. New and exciting songs

Ab tak Chappan: Play as Sadhu Agashe, the lead inspector of the encounter squad, as he navigates the murky underbelly of Mumbai as you search for criminals and execute them, all in the name of Justice!

Don: Play as Vijay, an unwilling civilian, who has to use his wits and charm to mimic the now dead don of Mumbai so he can expand his empire while still surviving the dingy environment of the Underworld. Now with more Dancing sequences employing the use of the iToy attachment for a full on immersion.

Needless to say, I think these games, if they existed, would have been a lot more interesting than most of the games that get released now a days…

Poppycock!

I was dusting off my DSi, which I hadn’t used in ages, and I came across this game again: Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure. I did remember liking the game when I played it initially.

HHaPA follows the adventures of the old but still young-blooded English gentleman by the name of Henry Hatsworth. Traveling from location to location in search of the perfect gentlemen’s suit, made of gold and turning you into a man of pure awesome! Along the way you shall fight strange creatures from puzzleland who just happen to be frolicking around in the world and also dark forces from the adventurer’s guild who seek to claim the golden suit for their own nefarious purposes.

Henry Hatsworth is a game that occupies the well known genre of Platformers. But, it also adds the element of a puzzle game (like bejeweled, puzzle quest and the sort).

Sights: The game is a veritable treasure of colours, and impressively so. It is a good break from the larger console version of gritty brown, gritty gray and, gritty black. No two levels are alike, at least from what I have seen so far. Enemies come in all shapes, forms, sizes and, colours and the characters' art is well detailed. This all along with pretty background art makes for a very soothing sight.

Sounds: The music is simple and catchy. Quite a bit so because I have had one of the soundtracks’ stuck in my head since Saturday… But overall the music is very fitting to the levels that you are in and the upbeat tunes lend to the lighthearted theme of the game. Overall the musical choices are very well done by the composer(s).

Gameplay: There are two aspects to this game; one is the platforming part done on the top screen, while the bottom screen in your puzzle part. As you kill enemies they will be transported to the bottom part of a rolling block puzzle which you will have to switch to, from time to time, to completely eliminate the enemies.
The platforming part follows the general scheme of all other platformers out there. Run; Jump; Slash; Shoot; etc; etc… Press the attack button enough times and Henry performs a combo. Press the “shoot” button a few times and launch a line of bullets at the enemy/enemies in front of you; or you can press up and the shoot button to unleash a Super Fireball attack on your enemies (useful in certain situations). But all and all pretty standard gameplay.
The other (possibly more interesting part of this game) is the puzzle part on the bottom screen. Every time you off one of the denizens of puzzleland on the top screen, they are immediately transported to the bottom screen, which is basically an upwards rolling block puzzle. Here you will have to align three or more blocks of the same colour to get rid of the blockified enemies or just regular old block. Leave an enemy in here for too long that it actually rolls into the upper screen… and you shall soon find why this is a bad idea. If any enemy block transports itself to the top screen it will basically rain down on Henry a few times (hurting the character), while you were busy dealing with the other enemies on the upper screen.
There is a timer meter on the left side which shows you how much time you have left to fiddle around in the puzzle section. This meter also has a tendency to run out quickly (early on at least). On the right is your SUPER! Meter… once full this lets you transform into a giant golden suit robot for a limited time during which you are invulnerable to damage. Also any shots you fire will use a little bit of the super meter.
Another use of the Puzzle mode is to make you shots bigger. When you fire a shot, but before it makes contact with the enemy; you can switch to the puzzle screen and fire away a few combos to see that your shot suddenly grows massively in size and does a lot more damage.
This all seems like fun… But… that’s just the first level…
During the first level the amount of enemies that you have to fight is very small compared to the later levels… so having a short time bar on the puzzle mode doesn’t seem like much of a problem until you hit the brick wall of difficulty in the second level.
While in the first level it is fairly easy to keep up with the enemies that are being sent at you… on later levels it starts to ramp up with the speed of an exponential equation reaching its limit… More often than not you may find yourself trying fight of hordes of enemies on the top screen while also trying to be rid of them on the bottom puzzle screen (which at times that the game hates you and will not give you a way out) and then have to deal with the blocks that escape to the top screen as well. The other problem that I found was that while the level design is in fact quite pleasing, the levels seem entirely too long… and certain parts of them seem to require split second timing to get past. All of this combined does make for a very discouraging combination.

Overall, the game is fun and innovative… but only for a short period (although it still remains innvoative). Gameplay is definitely not something I can recommend the game on, but the story is quirky enough to keep my attention, so I end using AR to cheat through the game to at least see it to its conclusion. Then again I might be better off reading an FAQ with the spoilers. It’d probably be easier… much easier.

Heaven or Hell!

Darksiders is a regular old adventure hack’n’slash game that came out this week, by Vigil. The game is nothing new as far as the genre is concerned. You get to play as War, one of the horsemen of apocalypse, who gets shafted when someone cries wolf and he shows up to bring the apocalypse to Earth a little too soon. Having screwed up, War goes through a Metroidqsue sequence where he loses all his powers and reverts back to level 1 (Why War would have a level 1 to being with…) And then of course he has to go back and fix his mistake or else…

To help him in this endeavor, War is assigned a cheery little companion called the watcher (voiced by Mark Hamill of Batman fame)  who from time to time will chime in with a cheery “hey listen” to get you follow his instructions and also provides helpful tips to solve puzzles and beat bosses.  One side point here… In most games that seem to have a notable actor for voice acting (like John Cleese in Jade Empire, Patrick Stewart in Oblivion, and Liam Neeson in Fallout) the game tends to have them for very short time… this game however diverges from this (thankfully I might add).Also to help War along in his quest for redemption is the fallen angel Samael, who basically acts as quest giver and general banter person.

So the basic premise of the game is to go to Dungeon A, solve some simple puzzles (Some of them had me stumped until I saw what I needed to do… and then I felt a little stupid), get special Item A* from it to traverse to the last boss, and then beat the last boss using the Item A*… on the way War also gets to beat the crap out of a lot of demons that try to get in his way. After the dungeon he gets to use the new item found or a new item given by Samael to traverse to the next dungeon and rinse and repeat.

On the way to all this War also locates his horse, Ruin, who can then be rode around to get places faster. Also there is a gun called Mercy… which is useless against enemies, except in the one instance where it is needed for a boss.

So if all of this sounds familiar, that is because it actually is. This game bears a marked similarity to the Zelda series, as far as the game play is concerned at least. But, thankfully there are no Schizophrenic farmer boys who based on a series of dreams set out to save princesses who are apparently genetically programmed to get kidnapped by the villain who is genetically programmed to kidnap them.

Where this game shines is that though it is set in dark, dingy Earth where all humans are dead and demons walk the land having claimed as their own… making for a very gritty setting. But, unlike most of the other games with gritty settings this game diverges from choosing brown, gray, and other brows and grays as the primary basis for all colours in the game. The game is full of colour and this makes it more than eye pleasing.  Monsters come in all shapes sizes and colours (though purple seems to be a common theme among them). Landscapes are well drawn and pretty to look at. Even War himself is decked out in red and silver making for a very prominent presence on screen. While this may seem like a minor point, I have had enough of the dark and gritty settings where everything seems to blend into one giant ball of gray or brown or any combination of those two. This makes for a happy diversion from that. Barring a few minor graphical glitches the game has nice graphics. The character design and the setting are a little comic bookish… but the game may not have worked as well as it did with realistic graphics.

Voice acting is nice here (especially the Watcher and Vulgrim), but the one thing that got to me was the fact that War talks with constant pursed lips… which makes it seem like someone had sewn the sides of his mouth.

Controls are easy. One button for attack, one button for dodge. Magic takes two buttons but, not very hard to get used to. Camera angles do screw up from time to time, causing me to plummet to my death or run right in to a monster that I was trying to dodge away from… but these are minor complaints.

It is a decently long game as well. I am about 8 hours into it and I think I nearing the end now (just a guess), but there are enough hidden tidbits in levels that can be used to occupy time (since new powers can be used in older levels to access areas that could not be accessed before).

All and all I am enjoying the game.