The Great Playthrough: Game 67 - Kingdom Hearts 2

Wow, it's been about two months since I last did one of these! Sorry about that - it's not that playing games has lessened in the Braunton household, it's just that my computer broke and it's taken me a long time to get back to this blog.

But I'm here now! And this next game is a member of a very popular franchise...

 
Kingdom Hearts 2
Released on: PS2
Played on: PS2
Release date: 2005 

Kingdom Hearts is one of my darling wife's favourite computer game franchises of all time, and this sequel stands up as one of the best (or so I am told).

(Before we go any further, if you are a fan of my darling wife (and who isn't), you might like to know she's started a new gaming blog HERE)

Now I was slightly wary going into it, as I have seen her play it before, and it does look like a lot of fun, but it's also an RPG, and I've discussed many times my problems / worries with those.

Having said that, this is an action RPG, so at least battles are in real time, not the strange turn-based antics that a lot of RPG's utilise that I cannot get on with at all.

The game starts with a ridiculously long cutscene, which I am told basically tells the (very condensed) story of the plot up to this point, with no dialogue, set entirely to music. I had to be told that this was the story of what had previously happened, as I wouldn't have had a clue otherwise! This is not a newbie-friendly opening...

And then, the game finally starts and I am playing as a new character. One who didn't appear in ANY of that previous cutscene! Nice one Square Enix, thanks for confusing me even further.

At the start of this game you play as Roxas, a guy who looks suspiciously similar to Sora - the protaganist of Kingdom Hearts (the original) - and as the mythology of these games introduces lots of different versions of the same people (Real People, Nobodies, Heartless... hell for all I know, everyone has a pink and blue dinosaur version of themselves in the Kingdom Hearts-verse!) it is a bit of a foregone conclusion that... SPOILER ALERT!

Roxas will turn out to be Sora, and then you will begin the quest proper.

However, I only know this from conversations with my wife, as I didn't get that far. This opening section (which apparently acts as some kind of prologue) took me over an hour and I still didn't even complete it!

But that's enough complaining about the somewhat confusing nature of the plot. What's the actual game like?

You know what, dear reader? I enjoyed it.

Don't get me wrong, it's not perfect, as it has flaws - slightly wonky camerawork, an over-reliance on repetitive tasks (although that may just be this early section) and due to the non-linearity (which I know is supposed to be an advantage in games like this) - if you don't walk into the right area to trigger a cutscene, you can be running around for ages with no clue what to do next...

However, it has a very good control system, the graphics are pretty nice for a PS2 game, and most importantly of all, I was having fun - and it's rare that I say that about an RPG! Mind you, with this and A Link to the Past, maybe I'm going to have to re-evalute whether I enjoy RPGs, it seems like I'm starting to enjoy them more and more...

The only other flaws in this game come about due to the rules of this playthrough, rather than the game itself. After playing for just over an hour, I felt like I had achieved absolutely nothing, and had absolutely no idea what was going on.... plus it felt like I'd spent an inordinate percentage of my time watching cutscenes.

But I'll play it again (although, on the basis that I'm sure we'll buy the HD re-release for PS3, I may continue it on that), because, as I said earlier, I had fun playing it - I just want to get past this stupid opening sequence and get into the meat of it with the Disney worlds etc!

Rating: 7/10 
Time played: 1 hour 5 Minutes
Would I play it again: I already said that I would! Jeez, stop picking on me! 

So, from now on, I intend to (try and) get these blogs much more regular again. Spread the love people, send the readers back to me, and I shall make sure you get new blogs on a regular basis (I'm halfway through another one already!)

Next time, we'll have a bit of a different blog - why not come back and see?

The Great Playthrough: Game 47 - New Super Mario Bros Wii and Game 48 - Grand Theft Auto III

You may have noticed that I am, once again, reviewing two games in the same blog,  I am doing this primarily because I think it is absolutely hilarious that these two games turned up next to each other - mostly because you'd have a harder job picking two games that were more different!

It's-a-picture!

New Super Mario Bros Wii
Released on: Nintendo Wii
Played on: Nintendo Wii
Release Date: 2009

I keep running into a problem when writing some of these blog entries. And that problem is simply that when I am reviewing a game I play regularly anyway, it becomes very hard to write about it - simply because I must enjoy it or I wouldn't be currently playing it! And as you all know, I'm a huge fan of 2D platformers...

But is Super Mario Bros Wii a step too far?

Have they finally made a Mario 2D platformer I don't enjoy?

Am I asking too many questions?

The answer is No, No and Yes.

I'm sorry to be as predictable as the outcome of a boxing match between Mike Tyson and a particularly inebriated one-armed lemming, but it's true. I love this game.

Certain critics are very unkind to this game, saying that it is very similar to every Mario game ever, that there is no variation and that Nintendo are flogging a Findus Lasagne.

(LEGAL NOTE - I had to cross that out due to a cease and desist letter from the National Equine Institute of Great Horses (or NEIGH for short) who have advised that they do not wish the good name of horse to be associated with the tasteless meat that one finds within a Findus lasagne!) 

However, I find these criticisms to be silly and unfounded. Yes, it shares a lot of similarities with many other games in the Super Mario Bros series - however, it is incredibly fun to play. And that's the point. (And yes, I am aware that I didn't really deflect any of those criticisms, I am merely ignoring them, but that is my prerogative. And if you don't like it, feel free to stop reading...

NOTE - Please don't stop reading. I like people reading my blog! 

Oi! Italicised text, don't argue with me! 

But I like being read 

No. 

But.. 

Behave. Or else. 

... 

That's better.

Anywhere, where was I?

Lost.

Don't start with me....

New Super Mario Bros Wii is great. Of course I was going to say it was great, and you all knew that. The graphics are cute, the level design is spot on as always, and best of all, Yoshi is back!!

The only things I would criticise? Apart from the fact that multi-player can make any friendship turn sour (whoever made it so that you could bounce off each others heads while jumping over pits, condemming the person you landed on to fall to their doom was evil!) my only minor criticism is that I would love it if we could have a 2D mario game that doesn't have a desert world as World 2 and an ice world as World 3.

Just saying....

Rating: 9/10

How long did I play for? An hour and a bit...
Would I Play it again? Regularly

So from cutesy "childlike" gaming, to the game that was deemed "horrific" and "horrendously violent" by a lot of over-reactionary newspapers when it was released...

Grand Theft Auto III
Released on: Playstation 2, Xbox, Mac OSX, Playstation 3, iOS, Android

Played on: Playstation 2

Release date: 2001

I was really unsure how I would feel about Grand Theft Auto 3. I remember playing the original top-down game, but had never ventured into the open-world of this infamous threequel. 

I remember when it came out, was a period where I didn't play a lot of games, and I disliked the "adult" theme games appeared to be taking at that time, mostly because of the dearth of FPS's it seemed to be creating. So mentally, I had tarred GTA3 with the same brush. Which was unfair.

Because actually, when I booted it up? I had a lot of fun...

My first attempt at the opening sequence basically consisted of me getting into that first car, starting to drive, realising that the driving controls are in fact really good, and then smashing through lots of scenery, people and cars until my car exploded.

Then I started again. And this time I attempted to actually proceed with the mission as suggested, trying not to destroy everything - which led Neety to mock me, stating that I'm such a nice man I even stop at red traffic lights when playing Grand Theft Auto! 

But I got to the first location, accepted my first mission, and went to collect a prostitute. Which I successfully did. As I was driving around, however, I kept noticing wierd graphical glitches, with sections of road shimmering, disappearing, and at one point it felt like a road just looped around on itself. 

And then when I got the prostitute back to the club, the cut-scene crashed. 

So I tried again - from the beginning of the game. Completed the first mission (the tutorial one) and then.. it crashed again.

Turns out the disc is broken. So I can't play any more. Which made me sad, because I was quite enjoying the game - even though the radar is horribly tiny and hard to read, there's a distinct lack of visual differentiation between curbs you can drive up, and curbs that you cannot, and the button mapping when controlling your character on foot seem unintuitive and wierd...

Because I managed to play about 25 minutes worth, I do feel I can rate the game - although this rating might have been altered if I had played longer - both positively (if I had discovered new bits I really enjoyed) or negatively (if the open world setting had caused me to run around pointlessly too much).But for now, this rating will suffice, although if I get another copy, I shall come back to it!

Rating: 7/10

How long did I play for: About 25-30 minutes, until it broke...

Would I play it again? Yes - if my disc worked! 

So after that huge long blog post, what is next? Well... I'm just checking the list...

Awesome. Next time it is HOUSE OF THE DEAD 3!!!!

See you then....

The Great Playthrough - BONUS ROUND PART II!

Yes, it's another bonus round! Basically, I have ended up buying a couple of games recently, so rather than insert them all into the list - I decided to review two of them in one go here - they are both on the same disc, so it was exceptionally easy for me to do both at once...

Yes - I'm back to logo pictures for this blog....
I'm sure none of you miss my smiling face that much!

Sonic The Fighters

Released on: Arcade, Sony Playstation 2, Nintendo Gamecube, Xbox
Played on: Playstation 2
Release date: 1996

I don't understand bad games.

(I know that's a strange start to a blog - but bear with me, it'll get better)

Let me clarify - I understand that games exist that I don't like, or games that have good ideas buried under some awkward design flaws, or games that could have been good but were rushed to prodution - but I don't understand the mindset that creates a BAD game.

In case you hadn't guessed - I'm not about to heap loads of praise on Sonic The Fighters - and yes, I know I am a huge Sonic apologist (and by that I mean I apologise for the hedgehog, not that I apologise using soundwaves. I mean, I do apologise using soundwaves, except when I apologise in writing, like I am here, but ....

*A crunching noise occurs and then reality folds into itself due to the circular nature of that sentence*

You get the idea. I will forgive an awful lot of "bad" Sonic games - I enjoyed Sonic Generations, I think that Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is OK, I even have a soft spot for Sonic Heroes (although, you do have to be hyped up on sugar before you play because otherwise the irritating voices and bright colours do make you want to rise up and attack the nearest person. But I digress... again) But Sonic the Fighters is just bad.

Let's approach this logically and look at the mathematical equation behind the game:

Virtua Fighter (adult, violent game) + Sonic the Hedgehog (Cute, Kidsy fare) + Rushed production (cheap and ugly polygon graphics) = Sonic the Fighters.

In other words, it wasn't worth creating! It barely even has "so bad it's good" entertainment value - Neety and I played it for 10 minutes and our attitudes can be seen below:

1 Minute in - *Smile* This is awful

3 Minutes in - It's an exercise in pointless button mashing

6 minutes in - "Frowns" This is REALLY awful

10 minutes in - *Rips disc out of machine and throws it across the room* GO AWAYYYY!!!!

I am aware that I have said very little about the game itself, rather than just moaning how awful it is, but there's not much to say. It's Virtua Fighter with worse controls, uglier polygonier (is that a word?) Graphics, and music so annoying that you end up wanting to stab yourself in your eardrums just so you NEVER have to hear the bloody music again!

Seriously, this game is awful...

Rating: 1/10
Time Played: 10 Minutes
Would I play it again? I would rather play any FIFA game for a week with only celery to eat than play this game again. 

Sonic R

Released on: Sega Saturn,  Nintendo Gamecube, Sony Playstation 2
Played on: Playstation 2
Release date: 1997

Do you know what the unique thing about Sonic R is? It's the first (and as far as I know, only) game in which Sonic races against people on foot - which makes sense, because he is a speedy hedgehog! Sounds fun, doesn't it? Could it be a diamond in the rough?

....

No.

It's worse than Sonic the Fighters.

I know what you're thinking: "But Brawny! How can it be WORSE than Sonic The Fighters? You implied (about three paragraphs ago) that Sonic the Fighters was one of the worst games ever. "

Yes, yes I did. And do you know why Sonic R is worse? Because Sonic is IMPOSSIBLE to steer in a straight line! And he takes aaaaages to get up to speed, whereas all the other characters (who are in vehicles, no less) are much quicker. The courses are horribley designed, the gameplay is duller than the water you would find in the bottom of a ditch that was running through a Coldplay concert in Swindon.

DULL!

These two games, between them, have made me so angry that I can't continue writing.

Rating: 0.1/10 (Only because I refuse to give anything 0)
Time played: 8 Minutes (and that was pushing it)
Would I play it again: *Transforms into the Hulk and smashes your face with the game case for suggesting that I would ever play this rubbish again*

Next time - A better game. (Well it can't get any worse - I HOPE!)

The Great Playthrough: Game 39 - Singstar Rocks!

Another day, another playthrough blog. However, this time I’m not alone – no, this time I am joined by the ever-wonderful Neety! And why is this? Well today I am playing a game which is quite definitely not designed for single-player use.

Singstar Rocks!

Released on: Playstation 2

Played on: Playstation 2

Release date: 2004

Firstly, let’s get this out of the way. I don’t approve of the exclamation mark used in the title. It seems to be going out of it’s way to tell me how exciting and how much this game rocks, and frankly, that puts my back up just a little bit. (And yes, I understand that they have used the suffix Rocks to denote that this particular edition of Singstar utilises rock music – which as you are all (probably) aware, should be right up my street.  

Getting past that, I've played a Singstar game before – if you live with Neety then at some point in a drunken evening it does tend to become compulsory. But I’d never sat down to play it, as a game, sober. So this was going to be a new experience for me.

But as I said at the start of this, it’s not really a game designed for single-player, so Neety and I sat down to play some two-player competition.

And it was OK. Not the best game I've ever played – and that’s not because it’s a party game, or a music-based game. I love to play Guitar Hero, and will happily play it for hours at a time, and while I was playing, I couldn't figure out why Singstar wasn't entertaining me anywhere near as much as Guitar Hero or Rockband do.

Yes, part of it was the tracklisting, as bar a few songs, the majority of the set list was not to my taste – I'm not a fan of Bloc Party, or The Hives, or Snow Patrol… and also, why in hell is Gwen Stefani on the track listing for a game that is supposed be featuring rock music? Yes, she was in a ska-punk band, but when she left them she started to create some of the most hellish R&B inspired pap that I have ever encountered, so including one of those songs in this game made me feel physically sick.

But that wasn't my big reason for not enjoying the game a lot. My primary reason? I'm not very good at it – and it doesn't seem to be a game where skills improve.

Yes, there is a definite advantage to knowing the song that you are singing, but unlike something like Guitar Hero, where there is a right button to press and a wrong button to press – but instead, you have to sing along and, if your voice is like mine, it doesn't stay on the same note consistently. I have a definite tone to my voice (which is not something I dislike, particularly) but it means that it is very hard to stay exactly on the note…

I'm not describing this very well. Let me try and describe it in pictures.

If this is how Singstar displays a long, held, correctly sung note (the way it would be sung by Neety) is like this:

-----------------------------------   

Then me attempting to sing the same note looks like this:

                   ___

--_---_-_-_-      _---_--_---

There may be lots of little fluctuations, but the note sounds right to the human ear…. But not to Singstar.

And that’s my biggest problem with the game. I could talk about how well designed it’s party game elements are (which they are), and how it helped pave the way for music games on modern consoles (which it did), but at the end of the day it’s a game for which I cannot develop my skills. And that infuriates me.

So it’s fun, and all, but I won’t be going back to play it unless it is as part of a drunken entertaining evening.

Rating: 6/10

Time Played: 30 mins

Would I play it again? Only as a part of a fun drunken evening.

And if you enjoyed this? Come back tomorrow (Friday 15th Feb) at 7pm GMT for the next installment...

The Great Playthrough: Game 36 - Star Wars: Racer Revenge and Game 37 - Bit.Trip Runner

I begin, as I often do, with an apology. I know that at the end of my previous entry, I advised you that this next one would be along very soon. And it wasn't.

In my defence, I have been rather busy....

And while I'm in a confessional mood, I ought to point out that I'm not going to complete my initial plan of playing all of these games before the wedding - I still have over a hundred to go on the list! But that's not going to stop me continuing with this experiment, (Just to clarify, the experiment I'm talking about is the game playing - not some weird Frankenstein-style experiment that you think I'm up to), and today I present to you the next two games in the series! First up:

Star Wars: Racer Revenge
Released on: Playstation 2
Played on: Playstation 2
Release Date: 2002

I was looking forward to this game. As derided as Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is, it is universally agreed that the podrace is by far the best part of the film, and I seem to remember that the N64 game that preceded this - Star Wars: Racer - was pretty good as well. These factors, combined with my love for silly arcade racers (remember my disappointment when Outrun 2 didn't work?) gave me high hopes for Star Wars: Racer Revenge.

And then I played it. And honestly? The best comparison I can give is to compare it with the Star Wars prequels themselves. There was initial excitement followed by the disappointment of good ideas being badly handled.

Don't get me wrong, the first race was fun. Handling was a bit strange, but I thought that I'd get used to it. And then, after losing the race (unsurprisingly - due to it being my first go at the game), so I tried again with a different racer and different pod, and then after a couple of goes, I won! And after winning, my reward? Getting dumped back into the track select screen I was in before.

And that is one of my biggest problems with the game - there's no single player mode. Yes, you can play the tracks one at a time, but it doesn't feel like there's any progression or reward for doing well. There's no grand prix, or mission mode, or anything like that. Couple that with the erratic handling and I was fed up with playing the game within 20 minutes.

Sorry Star Wars: Racer Revenge, but you were a disappointment - I'd rather play Outrun any day.

Rating - 4/10
Time played - About 20 Minutes
Will I play it again? - I don't think I'm likely to. 

Bit.Trip Runner

Released on: Nintendo Wii

Played on: Nintendo Wii

Release date: 2010

When I first played Bit.Trip Runner (back when I originally got it), I remember expecting it to be a platformer, and was therefore disappointed with it for approximately fifteen minutes of play, before the game suddenly clicked into place. 

It may look like a platformer. You may need to jump onto platforms and avoid spikes, but it is, in fact a rhythm action game. And the reason I didn't notice? Because it is so well disguised. It'd be like tasting an apple that looked like an apple, smelt like an apple, felt like an apple, but tasted like a 3-course gourmet dinner roasted by Gordon Ramsey whilst he was dressed in a Garfield outfit.

It's not what you expect.

Although, that's not necessarily a bad thing... because it is a very good game.

Basically (in case you didn't know), Bit.Trip Runner sees you controlling Commander Video (a wonderfully blocky 8-bit style man) who continuously runs, and you must make him jump, slide and kick his way through the level, all soundtracked by some wonderful chiptune music.

And the music is the key, because every action you perform with Commander Video makes a sound, and if you do the action at the correct time, it enhances the music, allowing it to build up to an aural soundscape of wonderment. It's almost as if the visual part of the game is irrelevant. You feel like you could play it with your eyes shit. (I don't recommend it though, I died very quickly when I tried that!) 

On the whole it is a very fun game - it can be frustrating when you get things wrong and get sent back to the start of the level when you miss one jump, but because the level re-starts straightaway, not giving you the option to quit, which is a very canny piece of game design. 

My only real complaint about Bit.Trip Runner (apart from the occasional moment of unresponsive controls, which I am assuming is the fault of my wii-mote as it is starting to fall apart from overuse) is that it does all start to feel a little samey after a while, and therefore it's a game more suited to short bursts of play rather than hours upon hours of continuous play. 

It's still bloody good fun...

Rating: 8/10

Time played: 1 hour

Would I play it again?: Definitely.