Screw you Capcom

I know I'm months late here, but I didn't have blog then. So I'm venting my frustration now. I reiterate: screw you Capcom.

Spotlight: Aquaria

First a little background on me. About a year ago, I asked my friend during extreme boredom "what's the best game I've never played?" One of his answers was Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I somehow hadn't played this game despite owning a PlayStation practically since it came out. When I got to it, it was wonderful. It opened my eyes to a whole new genre--one that Metroid players had known about for decades.

The free form exploration was really cool, accomplished the whole "suck me into the game world" aspect I said I loved. Then you get RPG-like character advancement, becoming stronger as the game goes one (has anyone ever made the reverse, where you get weaker as the game goes on?). Plus, you have different weapons and tools which let you try different things to get through sections of the game. I went on to play Super Metroid afterward, which I also loved, and my fascination with this genre was well underway.

Now fast forward a bit, I had purchased the Humble Indy Bundle mainly for World of Goo, and I thought it was a cool scheme for selling software. I didn't really look at the other games, until a few days ago when I got an email telling me they had added the games to Steam, and I could just enter a key to redeem them. Well I decided to have a look at what else I bought. Well one game happened to be Aquaria, which promised to be "Metroidvania meets Ecco the Dolphin." They had me at the first word, as long as it could live up to the billing.

Naija

Time for a brief overview of Aquaria. You play as a kid of humanoid fish thing named Naija, pictured above. Naija is just swimming along when you encounter another creature which looks vaguely like her. This awakens her mind and she realizes she has no memories. So it's time for a quest to discover her origins and/or ties to the planet. Naija has 3 main abilities, she can swim, cook (which would be called potion making if this were a traditional fantasy game), and sing. Singing is the magic system of the game. It uses a radial menu to combine mouse gestures with an Ocarina of Time esque song system. It's pretty slick and works very well.

The game has met my lofty expectations so far, with the caveat that I'm only 3 hours in. The exploration of this game is great, and it's not just finding more areas. You can interact with so much of the background, from all the fish swimming around with you, to rocks, to plants, and more. The gameplay has been primarily exploring new areas, finding new recipes, songs, and occasionally a puzzle to solve. All of which comes together really well.

I do have a few minor complaints. First is the art direction. I find the main character stupid looking. She's too cartoony and it makes gives the impression of being childish. Most of the background art and other creatures don't follow this lead, so I just enjoy the scenery and try not to spend too long looking at Naija. My second complaint is the story telling. It reeks of amateurism. With a poorly done voice over and too exposition. The developers should have took a page from Super Metroid and realized less can be more. Samus didn't have to tell us every time we found some clue "looks like I'm on the right path to Ripley," but Naija feels the need to inform us when we've found something she thinks might belong to her people. I also don't need her to tell me how she feels about everything either. Again, these are just minor issues on a great game.

Thoughts: Gran Turismo 5

For my first real post, I thought I'd talk about GT5 as it's the game I've been spending the most time on recently. The question is what can I say that hasn't been said already? You've probably already seen the infamous Gran Turismo 5 vs. Forza 3 - AI comparison video, which it turns out was not quite true.You are probably aware of the issues with this game (B-Spec mode sucking, long loading times, etc). So what can I talk about? Well first I'm going to complain about a seemingly minor issue (transmissions), then I'll say something nice (2 things actually).

Of all the features of this game, why talk about transmissions? Well there is a flaw in this game, which really limits my enjoyment, and it's a little thing, but it's been the 2nd biggest issue I've had outside of the AI ramming me all the time*. When I buy a mod name "fully customizable transmission," I expect it to actually be fully customizable. Crazy, I know. However, GT5 seems to think it means, you can change one aspect which is a nebulous "top speed" adjustment. Why do I say nebulous? Because it lies. Every top speed I've experience had been lower than the number listed. Anyways, you change this number and then it adjusts all the ratios of the gears for you., which is really annoying. I'm playing GT so I can mess with all the tuning options I'll never get to do in real life. Then to add insult to injury, when you read the help in the transmission menu, it has a long description about manually adjusting gear ratios. I read a rumor online that you can manually adjust once you reach level 40, but haven't been able to confirm. I'm level 22 right now and it's taken me a while to get there, so I won't see level 40 for a long time. The whole ordeal is very frustrating.

Now to say something nice. Two things come to mind, the first one is that collecting cars in GT5 is very addicting. It's best not to look up what you'll win from each event and just go with the flow, getting many surprises. The second aspect is the wide range of things you can do. I find the dirt and snow races so much fun, and this is something Forza doesn't compete on. Now I could just play a rally game, but then I wouldn't have the car selection that GT has.

Final note: the premium cars do look purdy.

*Which apparently gets better as you go along the AI improves with your level. Which I find really annoying. I hate auto-leveling enemies. It's a constantly moving target, so you can't say "I'll get this much better, then I can beat him."

Greetings and Felicitations

If you are some lost soul who happened across my blog, you may be wondering to yourself, "why title a blog 'I don't know shit about video games'? I would much rather read a opinions about games from someone who did know shit." A good question and a good point. The title is a joke, but it's more than that too. It's more of a attitude that I don't know everything, and I'm open to new ideas. I find too many reviewers who seem to think their opinion is somehow superior to others. Not to say I don't have strong opinions and won't express them, just that I will try to keep an open mind.

On to my tastes and experiences. I've been a PC gamer all my life. My dad was an early adopter of this new consumer product called an IBM, and there has been at least one computer in my house since I was 2. I've always gravitated towards PC gaming initially because of this, but later as I learned the many added bonuses PCs give you over consoles. My first console was a PlayStation, so I was late to getting one relative to my peers. Although my stepbrother had a Super Nintendo. Currently, I do own a PS3 along with my PC. My roommates have an Xbox and and Wii, so I can play any game that comes out.

If I was forced to pick a favorite type of game I would say RPG. I really like to get into the game world, and RPGs have done the best job in general of making me feel like I was controlling an actual person in a real world. You can move around at your own pace, explore, talk to whoever you want and in many choose what you want to say. A good story does a great job of sucking me in too, which all my favorite RPGs have. Besides immersion, another aspect that I like is when I can advance the game in multiple ways. Which again great RPGs have done (ie, talking, fighting, stealing).

 I hope to post once a week. It will be a mix of retrospectives on older games, thoughts on new games, complaints about big companies stifling creativity, and spotlighting indie games that I think look interesting.