Tag Archives: Games

REVIEW: Ghost Trick

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About a month ago, a friend suggested I purchase a game called Ghost Trick for the Nintendo DS. He hooked me by saying it was one of the best stories he’d ever seen. Curious, I decided to make the purchase, and I found myself with an absolute gem of a game.

Plot:
 
I won’t spoil this plot because I think it’s something everyone should try, but it is incredible. It starts out simple enough: you’re the ghost of a recently killed man, and another ghost, Ray, tells you to save the girl that is about to be killed right beside your body. It goes on from there. Really, it’s one of the finest plots I’ve ever experienced, and it’s all character-driven. There is only one external factor, and it’s the coolest twist ever. 
 
Characters:
 
All the characters have their own unique personalities and hidden motives for things they’re doing in the game, and it’s cool to see how they all come together to create the plot. My favorite has to be Missile, the dog that Sissel comes in contact with.
 
 
This is a really cool feature. As a ghost, Sissel has the power to manipulate small, inanimate objects, and has the ability to go back to 5 minutes before a person’s death and try to change it. The changing of someone’s fate is the core mechanic in the game, as Sissel must utilize his abilities to manipulate objects to change the past, and thus the future. This comes in the form of puzzles you must figure out, and I have to say, some of them were pretty challenging.
About midway through the game, you’re able to utilize another ghost ability – switching objects with similar shapes.
The only problem with Ghost Trick is the lack of re-playability. Once you figure the puzzles out, you know what to do and you already know how the mystery unfolds, and so replaying it takes away from so much of the game.
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Ghost Trick is a gem. It’s a game I had never heard of until suggested to me, and I’m glad I decided to try it, and it easily has one of my favorite game plots of all time. This game proves that games can have a deep, meaningful story, and still be an interactive success. If you like puzzle games or a good story, definitely pick this game up!
Score:
 
Plot: 10/10
Characters: 10/10
Gameplay: 7/10

Just sayin’

The 3DS: your mobile entertainment hub for when you’re sick

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Waking up at 4 AM with the stomach flu is never fun, but when I’m experiencing catastrophic abdominal pain and confined to my bed, I know I can always count on my Nintendo 3DS to carry me through the day! And why, do you ask, is the 3DS so useful for when I’m sick? It’s simple: it’s the mobile hub everyone wants!

My revelation about the wonders of the 3DS came to me this morning when I woke up and its bright screen was glaring at me, ready to play the next episode of How I Met Your Mother on Netflix. I thought to myself, “I can lay here and just continue to watch How I Met Your Mother, and I would never have to turn over to grab the remote and turn on my TV.” It hit me then: when I’m sick, moving around = bad, and with the 3DS in hand(s), I can play games, watch Netflix, and even browse the Internet without really moving at all. If it had a thermometer and a way to dispense food I’d never need another device again!

And when it comes time to bring myself out of bed and to the kitchen or the bathroom, my 3DS comes with me. That means when I’m feeling nauseated or hungry, my 3DS can sit neatly in view, allowing me to enjoy Netflix while also fighting nausea or microwaving a nice bowl of chicken noodle soup.

In conclusion, next time you’re sick, grab your 3DS and download Netflix (and if you don’t have Netflix, get Netflix) – you won’t be disappointed.

Just sayin’

REVIEW: Beat Hazard Ultra

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I really didn’t want to write a review this week, but I’m having the hardest time finding something to write about and I already missed last week’s post since I was with my girlfriend all week, so I’m resigning myself to writing a review. Here we go!

Beat Hazard Ultra is, literally, a top-down shooter (think Asteroids) with music. It’s similar to Audiosurf in one very crucial way: you can use your own music, and that’s one of the main hooks of this game. Combine these two qualities and you’ve got yourself a great time killer!

Atmosphere (Music/Graphics):

Beat Hazard Ultra has a very modern-day Asteroids feel to it. None of the models really stood out, but what does stand out are the effects. The game pulses to the beat, and whenever you destroy something sparks fly from it and pulse as well. Really, I could call this game Asteroids: Club Edition and you’d get a good feel for how this game looks. Now, the cool thing is you can set how intense the pulsing is: from 50% to 200%.

Don’t use 200%.

The only problem with the effects is seeing the enemies can legitimately become hard when you’re on higher difficulties and the pulsing sparks, the ships, and your ships fire (which, by the way, also pulses) all blends together in one huge mix of lights and enemies. It’s cool to look at, but not only does it increase the difficulty, but it will seriously strain your eyes thanks to the strobe-like effects. In fact, the game’s title screen even warns you that it has some serious strobing in case you’re prone to seizures. I’ve gotten a headache a couple times when I had it on 100%, but at 50% it’s much easier on the eyes.

The music is a not really something I can write about because you can use your own (except for one of the achievements which requires you to play all of the built-in music), but for those wanting to complete said achievement: I liked some of the music, but I’m heavily biased towards house/electro/etc… so the rock and metal songs were really unpleasant when I played them. I haven’t touched them since I got the achievement (even the dance ones), though, because I can play anything off of my iTunes library.

Gameplay:

As I’ve said before, this game is very much like Asteroids. You’re a ship that flies around shooting asteroids and enemy ships. Sometimes you’ll get a boss, which is a beefed up version of an enemy ship, which are fun, and there are ‘mines’ which prevent you from shooting for a few seconds. As you play, you gather “super bombs” that clear out the entire screen, multipliers for score, and POW and VOL power ups, which increase the volume of the song and the power of your ship’s bullets. If you max out both, you reach ‘Beat Hazard’, meaning you’re at max power and the effects are maxed out. It’s a very simple game.

There are perks which can be unlocked by collecting money (like an ultra beam or shield), as well as unlockable difficulties, which are, unfortunately, pretty easy once you get a sizable number of perks, but that doesn’t take away from the fun because the more difficult it is, the more the screen explodes with lights and sparkles.

There’s also a survival and boss rush mode. The boss rush mode is really fun because at some point you find yourself with 5 bosses on-screen, and they’re all huge – it gets really hectic.

There’s also multiplayer, but I haven’t actually played that mode, so I won’t talk about that.

All in all, Beat Hazard Ultra is a one of those games where you play a couple songs and you’re satisfied, but you’ll keep going back because you’ll want to play to new music you get! If you’ve got some cash to spare and love music, consider picking up Beat Hazard Ultra!

Score:

Atmosphere: 9/10

Gameplay: 7/10

Overall: 8/10

Just sayin’

Geek ‘Til Dawn 9 Recap

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Last Friday, DePaul‘s game club, DeFrag, hosted an event called Geek ‘Til Dawn (GtD), which is an all-night gaming event. From 8PM to 7AM, students at DePaul (and guests brought by students) can play anything from board games to video games. There’s anime viewing, group games, and even a raffle! It’s a very fun event, and this Spring’s (this was the 9th time they’ve held this event), instead of playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl all night, I went out and did more, and it was a lot of fun!

Here’s a quick recap:

– I hosted an impromptu single-elim Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament and found someone who wants to be part of the competitive scene at DePaul! That’s almost 4 people I’ve found this year who really want to improve, and that’s awesome to me. I won the tournament in style, and found out that you only get a silver trophy for winning Brawl’s in-game tournament. What a ripoff! Even though I won, I was (not so) secretly rooting for the girl playing red Link and the guy whom I chose the Marth color for (he actually faced me in the finals. LOL).

– I found someone who doesn’t think Yuzu from Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor is horrible character (but her ending does suck unless you play OverClocked)! I could write a paper on the cast of that game and I guarantee 2 pages would be dedicated to Yuzu and how she’s not a bad character.

– I finally beat my friend Pat in Snowboard Kids 2, which we’ve been talking about playing to see who’s better for the past year. He won game 1, then I won games 2 and 3. Swag hat coach with Balance Board lvl 3 da bess!

– I played 3 games of League of Legends, landing with friend who went AP Soraka. I went Support Ashe, and we won all three games. 3-0 Support Ashe/AP Soraka!! In the last game three of the five on the opponents team disconnected! LOL It was kinda sad, but at 5AM none of my team cared.

– I played Anime Name that Tune and won 1 point off of Clannad. At least I got a point off my favorite show! LOL.

– And then… AND THEN… the most hype match of Jenga I have EVER SEEN! I can’t even describe it, so here’s a video of the last six minutes of Game 3:

Jenga Game 3

And that was my GtD! Now it’s time to finish my one month left of school and begin Summer Vacation!

Just sayin’

REVIEW: Pictobits

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Every month, Club Nintendo releases a set of games that are available on the Wii Shop Channel or the 3DS e-Shop as rewards for coins. These are usually priced at 150 coins, and, like with Super Mario Kart, some of them are absolute gems. Pictobits is one of those gems.

Atmosphere (Music/Graphics):

It’s 8-bit! Who doesn’t love 8-bit? The puzzle pieces look very similar to Tetris, giving it a very nostalgic feel. The music, remixed versions of the original songs (still 8-bit!) are great! I got into it and started playing to the beat of the songs, and it was awesome to hear the originals remixed with 8-bit, keeping everything simple and themed.

I found myself replaying a few levels just because the music was that awesome!

Gameplay:

The gameplay is actually relatively simple. Colored blocks are falling from the sky, and you have three rows of various colored blocks to make a column or row of 4 or a 2×2 box minimum by manipulating them with your stylus. You can make a row stretching across the entire screen if the falling pieces present themselves that way or a 5×2 box – the combinations make up a big part of the way the game plays. If the falling pieces hit your blocks and don’t make a match, they turn into blocks themselves.

Once you make a match, time freezes, and any pieces attached the to completed piece start to fall faster after the completed piece disappears – this gives you time to set up blocks so that they fall into matches and link together. You can go up to a maximum of 9 links, and I’ll explain why in a second.

You can touch an untouched block with your stylus and have the entire block of puzzle pieces fall quickly to extend your combo if you’re quick enough, and any match you make during the time freeze will extend your combo.

So, why only a maximum of 9 before it stops counting? Because of the goal of the game. The goal of the game is to uncover the level’s hidden character(s). You do this by completing puzzle pieces. If you complete a column of 4, then 4 bits fly to the top screen and fill in 4 bits of that character. If you do a combo, you’ll get 8 bits for 2 links, 12 bits for 3 links, and so on and so forth until you can get a whopping 36 bits for link 9, and that’s only for combing with 4 bits. If you combo with larger blocks, rows, and columns you can get into the 60’s of bits!

The difficulty increases as you complete the character. In the beginning, the music is just some beats and a very small rhythm. As you complete the character, the music begins to fill itself in with the parts of the game pertaining to that character, and once you’re 3/4 of the way done, the entire song comes out and plays as you finish the character. As the music picks up, the puzzle pieces fall faster, making it harder to combo.

It’s actually pretty simple, but the game throws a few curveballs in – there are blocks that can’t be moved (marked by an ‘x’), so they must be completed to disappear. There’s also the Pow Block and coins. Completing a 2×2 or higher block gives you one coin, and any unmovable blocks give one coin when matched – but what are they for? Besides buying the Dark levels (harder versions of the original levels) and music to listen to, they’re for restoring spaces in your block holder.

At the start of any level, you can store up to 10 blocks to then put down and make matches. If, for whatever reason, you find yourself in a tight spot, you can press the Pow Block in the lower left-hand corner to erase a few lines of your stack and make the rest come crashing down to the bottom of the screen. However, it comes with a price – you lose one spot in your block holder, meaning you now can only hold 9 blocks. If you have 5 coins, however, you can buy one spot back. It’s a very balanced system, and extremely useful during the later levels when you’ll be using the Pow Block more than a few times.

There’s some replay value in Pictobits, but only in its Dark levels that need to be unlocked and in getting enough coins to unlock all the music. Or, for those who are hardcore, you can try to get the highest score, and if that’s the case the replay value is great!

And finally, the controls – in short, the stylus works wonderfully. There’s nothing more to say about it except I’m glad it used the stylus instead of the D-Pad.

Pictobits is one of those games that you pick up, beat, and then come back to when you have a few minutes to kill and want to play something you know you’ll enjoy – it’s got great music and intuitive gameplay, and it’s something I’ll be playing whenever I’m bored or want a puzzle game with fantastic music! If you’ve got 150 coins to spare on Club Nintendo or a few extra dollars, pick up Pictobits; you won’t be disappointed.

Score:

Atmosphere: 9/10

Gameplay: 9/10

Overall: 9/10

Just sayin’

ACen 2012 Recap

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Finally, I have time to write this! It’s a couple days late, but I had homework to do. LOL.

ACen 2012 is over, and school is back in full swing. It sounds like it sucks, but it’s May, which means (hopefully) nicer weather and a month left of school!

While it didn’t go as planned, ACen was an awesome weekend filled with jokes, jokes, and a lot of swag! A small recap of some of the more interesting things I experienced at ACen 2012:

– My friend Jerome paid $60 and got a Saturday pass, so a couple friends and myself went as his backup posses to help him claim his full-weekend pass.

– McCormick and Shmucks (the seafood restaurant, right by the Intercontinental, which we stayed at, is actually called McCormick and Shmicks, but I actually thought there was a u instead of an i).

– My friend Mike drove into a car wash thinking it was the parking lot for Potbelly.

– My friend Arthur brought a real crowbar into the con (real weapons weren’t allowed, so he made it look fake).

– Tournaments at ACen have to be single elimination. I found out the hard way when the Brawl tournament went on for more than three hours. I won’t be entering any tournaments unless they’re single elimination.

– I didn’t go to a single panel, but this turned out to be in my favor because many of the panels were rescheduled or were running late.

– Friday night, I took NyQuil to quell any cold that might try and get to me while I slept on the floor and to drown out any noises I’d hear. It didn’t work. The four kids on the beds proceeded to talk about:

  • Body Pillows
  • How chocolate is made with cow’s blood (and by extension, filling steaks with chocolate) – I don’t even know if the cow blood and chocolate thing is true.
  • Fresh Prince of Bel Air
  • BLONIC
  • Belinda Wanda
  • How they’re in the beds and talking, while the kids on the ground were actually trying to sleep
  • How I say, “swag!” all the time (and by extension, replacing smurf with swag)

We were up until at LEAST 5 AM (one of my friends had to leave the room and attempted to sleep in his car. He ended up going home to sleep).

– My friend Jerome, whom we convinced the Wednesday before ACen to go, thought he’d have nothing to do. Instead of doing nothing, our group didn’t know where he was half the time. Friday, he disappeared into the night, and after trying to call and text him with no answer, he came back at 4 AM. The next day, I encountered him and a few other friends, and I asked Jerome if he had been playing Street Fighter all night. He said he wished he had. I then had a revelation – my friend Arthur and I had been talking about going to Hentai Hell, which, unfortunately, was at 3 AM, so we decided not to go because I wanted to sleep (oh, the irony!). I knew right away what had happened, and here’s how the conversation went:

Me: You went to Hentai Hell, didn’t you, Jerome?

Jerome: No.

Friends: No!

Me: Oh my god, you guys went to Hentai Hell! You fucking went to HENTAI HELL!

And then Jerome proceeded to tell me that it wasn’t actually hentai. It was live-action…I’m so glad I didn’t go!

– Seth Rogan and David Spade on Tai Chasers (and starring in Samurai Jack as Seth Rogan and David Spade as his sidekick Seth Rogan as Samurai Jack)

– Galick Blast!

– Spirit Blast!

– Special Beam Blast!

– The laser light show in Yu-gi-Oh!

– Fryception

– Shakeception (offered only at Steak’n’Shake)

– Driving 7 people in a 5-person car to T.G.I Friday’s, both times two different ways of fitting everyone in!

– There was a waiter who only refilled drinks of two of our group. He took my friend Propit’s water as he was drinking it, then two minutes later refilled it again after he had only had a little of it. My other friend, John, had his coke refilled, and when my friend Mike waited 10 minutes for a refill, John switched cups, the waiter refilled the cup, and then John gave it back to Mike!

– Hey, Ryan, you’re taking us to IHOP, right?

– So, we’re going to IHOP, right, Ryan?

– What, we’re going to IHOP?

– The rude waiter at Culver’s (what do you want on your burger?). Yes, the emphasis is there.

– The random people dancing to LMFAO as we blasted it on the way back from Culver’s (raise the roof!).

– The CPU Luigi in Mario Party 2 had 10 stars at the end of the game. How many did the next highest have? 2 stars.

– Mike and I duo-texting Arthur about the Soap Bubble (and him not knowing what a Devil’s Four-Way is).

– The fire alarm at the Hyatt was pulled (and the Pat jokes that followed after).

– Cosplaying as Hoopz Ketchum (Ash hat worn backwards), Slam Dunkum (Ash hat worn forwards), and Ash Barkley (Ash hat worn sideways). Next year I’m gonna go all out and bring a boom box blasting slam remixes!

– Preparing for, but not going to, the Pokémon tournament (I was so confident I would’ve won…and I don’t even know if it actually happened!)

– The obscene amount of money I spent at the Dealer’s Room and Artist’s Alley (so, so worth it. My room looks awesome right now!)

And that’s all I remember. All in all, it was a fantastic con, and I can’t wait for Youmacon this year and next year”s ACen!!

Just sayin’.