Jono on video games

Busy busy busy

2012-12-18T19:42:00.002+08:00

Sorry for the lack of updates but I've been busy with making a game called the Legacy of Barubash
It's an Action RPG primarily for Android phones & tablets and also the Ouya.
We are hoping to release it next year and hopefully we can get the beta out sometime in January.

I've got a few articles I'm writing at the moment about subjects like realism and boredom in games but it might be a while before they are finished as I'm also working on another game project.

They Bleed Pixels Review

2012-11-03T22:32:00.000+08:00

They Bleed Pixels is a rather brutal platformer with a heavy combat aspect, it was released on the 29th of August 2012, I ended up buying it during the Halloween sale because I'd heard good things about it and I wanted a challenging shortish game. It can be bought through Steam.

The story's about a girl who goes to the "Lafcadio Academy for Troubled Young Ladies" where she finds a mysterious book which transforms her and causes nightmares, it's told through short pixel art cutscenes which are like an animated comic book.
It's not particularly important but it does influence the levels, each dream and the chapters within progress through a nightmare and where the book has been placed in an attempt to destroy it and the journey of ascendancy through that nightmare.

The key mechanics are solid, the movement and combat system work well for all the challenges you are faced with, there's also an interesting checkpoint system which relies on you collecting a bunch of points from either pickups or defeating enemies in a stylish way, then you just need to find a place devoid of enemies and hazards to cast it.
There is a lot of wall jumping so your character can grab on and slide, sometimes the jumping will require you to just drop and then use the second jump and some gaps even have spikes over the top so you need to use the dash attack instead of jumping.
The combat can be tougher to get used to because you only have a few moves and they are contextual which can be confusing when you want to stab an enemy and instead end up kicking them or doing a dash attack.

The art is rather great, the foreground environment is a silhouette while the various hazards and characters as normal sprites with white outlines set against a detailed parallax background.
All the animations of the character are surprisingly detailed for something which is just a small sprite but the rest of the enemies are pretty basic,
There's also a bunch of cool effects which convey certain things like the screen being distorted when you are low on health, having an aura surrounding the character when you have a checkpoint stored and everything explodes into red pixels when you deal damage and it also covers the environment.

The soundtrack and sound effects are fine but after hearing the character scream and die for the 10th time because you missed that jump is really grating, there's also the issue of the short and constantly looping music which you'll probably notice quickly as your frustrations builds up.
It's fine for the combat segments because you generally jump right back into that but it's bad when you die on a long platforming area and you start to feel the annoyance of doing that all again.
The sound effects that really stood out to me was the circular saw and the various dying noises, everything else was kind of simplistic.

It is a very difficult game and I do recommend using a game controller for it because the movement is rather important and I don't think it would feel as smooth otherwise.
I probably died at least 1000 times while playing it, I kept pushing because the challenge was good but it did get very frustrating when I couldn't get the patterns down before the next area I could place a checkpoint.

Overall I'd give it an 8/10

General update

2012-10-28T16:55:00.000+08:00

I was meaning to record the 2nd level of R-Type Delta but something is causing that level to have recording problems.

Last weekend I got a pair of Logitech G35s which means I have better audio quality and games sound a lot better as well.

I also set up a twitch.tv account for streaming which works well and you can see level 2 there
http://www.twitch.tv/jondogtv/videos

R-type Commentary Contact 1

2012-10-17T21:35:00.004+08:00

Formatted and cleared space on my external computer so now I can start recording videos.
Need to replace my microphone quickly though because the audio quality is horrible

Mega Man 1 and 2 Review

2012-10-08T20:40:00.002+08:00

Blasted through these on the weekend, I'm surprised I managed to beat them after having a hard time getting anywhere in Mega Man ages ago, I think something about timing must have clicked recently.

Mega Man
Mega Man is a game I've been meaning to beat ever since I played it a few years ago, I think I got to a boss once but I was so low on health and lives that I died shortly after.
The story line is a pretty basic "Beat the bad guys to save the world" kind of thing but it gets the job done because it's much more about the gameplay.

I started playing it again recently and I found it easier but the challenge is still there and I definitely died a lot.
The platforming can be rather difficult with the various hazards and enemies that will knock you back in the air and most likely into a pit.
Enemies also like to spawn based on your position and will frequently respawn when you move backwards and forwards, this can't even be abused for health because the drop rate is so low.

The graphics and sound are great for a high quality NES game but there is quite a bit of slowdown and sprite flickering which can make some of the boss battles more difficult than they need to be.

Overall it's a decent game but a bit too difficult for my tastes and the graphical glitches make it pretty horrible to look at, I'd give it a 7/10.

Mega Man 2
Mega Man 2 is a much needed improvement on the first, the levels have a much nicer flow, the enemies aren't repeatedly spawning because you accidentally moved a few steps back and the bosses actually feel fair.

The basic story is pretty much the same but you are against different enemies this time and the final level is longer with more stages.
Nothing too complex and once again it allows the game to just simply get on with the gameplay.

The overall gameplay is vastly improved, most of the irritating enemy spawns are gone, platforming is much smoother and the bosses actually feel like a proper boss fight.
The ammo and health drops are also a lot more common so you don't need to worry so much about dodging every attack, there's even health tanks which you can find to use in emergency situations.

They also added a password save system which I didn't need to use but useful even if it does mean writing down a long code.
Only problem I had with it was the one hit kill obstacles, the weapon menu which was annoying to navigate and a lot of the guns felt gimmicky until you use them in the boss fights to exploit their weaknesses.

The graphics are improved subtly but rather nicely, all the small touches like the waterfall in Bubble Man's level and various new enemies make it look a lot nicer even though it's still a NES game.
The flicker and slowdown has been greatly reduced which makes the game a lot nicer to play and look at as well.
The soundtrack is slightly better than the previous game but the sounds are the same.

Overall I'd give it a 8/10 for all the improvements it has over the original.

Game Impressions

2012-10-01T23:45:00.000+08:00

Haven't really finished any games lately apart from Castlevania so I'll just list a bunch that I've played recently.

Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale
This was actually a pretty cool game to come across after lamenting the lack of current generation JRPGs, I've only played through the demo so far but that gives you a considerable amount of content.
The main premise of the game is to run a typical RPG shop selling all sorts of items like armour, weapons and food. How you get the items is up to you but I think the best way is dungeon runs as long as you don't die.

Torchlight II
The sequel to Torchlight which improves upon everything by giving you a much more open world, multiplayer mode, new classes, new weapons and a great difficulty system.
I haven't managed to play this too much because the multiplayer kept dropping out on my but I did play the beta earlier in the year and that was good fun.

Cortex Command
This game is an interesting 2D game that combines management and base based combat.
The controls are a bit difficult to get used to because the jetpack seems strange and the movement system is dynamic.
The new faction is interesting and allows you to dig through bunkers now.
Somehow the automatic mining has stopped working though which means you need to keep a better eye on your gold.

Castlevania
Powered through this last night, it wasn't really too hard but it was rather frustrating because the controls are so limited and the enemies are sometimes unpredictable. The graphics are rather bad but that's due to the limited palette of the NES and I guess it does invoke a feeling of horror. The soundtrack on the other hand is probably one of the best I've heard on the NES.

Game Completion Checklist WIP

2012-09-14T19:53:00.000+08:00

Alright finally got a bunch of games written down, have a lot more to sort through but this is a good start.
You can check it out here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgZyuEix3FbvdE5Xdmd4bUtybGJVRGJidUR4WTB0WGc#gid=0

To the Moon Review

2012-09-14T19:51:00.001+08:00

Alright time for a review of the story based RPG To The Moon made by Freebird Games.
It was originally released through various digital stores for the PC on the 1st of November 2011 but was recently released on Steam.

I really recommend going in to this game not knowing much about the story beyond the short description on Steam or the main website.
I believe that's the best way to experience it, so I'll try keep this review spoiler free as possible.
The basic premise is you play as two scientists (Dr. Eva Rosalene and Dr. Neil Watts) who work for Sigmund Corp. who use technology to change memories so people can get their dying wish.
Your assignment is Johnny Wyles, he wants to go to the moon but he doesn't know why.

To do this you have to get into the patient's head to view his memories, starting from the most recent and working your way back.
To do this you'll have to find 5 memory links, most of them are objects but some of them are experiences, after that you can break the barrier on the memento which has a simple tile flipping puzzle, when you solve that you will take a jump back in time to a memory which shared that object and repeat the process.
It's kind of dull but this isn't a fast paced action game and that kind of gameplay really wouldn't suit the story.

The art is beautifully rendered pixel art which evokes the feeling of a 16-bit RPG but with smoother colours and some really nice lighting effects.
Only problem I had with the art was some of the objects on the floor didn't stand out enough so I kept running into random plants on the ground and wondering why I couldn't keep going forward.

The music and sound also wonderfully supports the story by always changing at the right moments to support it.

Now onto some technical stuff, this doesn't have much to do with the game but it can help with making the experience better.
The options can be accessed with F1, turn "smooth mode" and "reduce screen flickering" on because otherwise it will look laggy and there will be a bit of screen tearing.
The game can be played with the mouse, keyboard or controller. I personally used the keyboard for the majority until I worked out that the controller works as well, the mouse is kind of awkward but it does let you know if you are hovering over an interactive item, Q to speed up and Z to slow down the game (back and A respectively on the Xbox 360 controller).
The game is shown in a small 640x480 window but this is fixed by entering fullscreen mode (alt + enter) or using the Windows magnifier tool (windows button and +).

It's about 4.5 hours long but it's well worth every dollar and I regret not playing it earlier, this game has definitely given me hope for stories in modern games. Overall I'd give it a 9/10 and I look forward to the sequels.

Plans and an upcoming review

2012-09-11T23:46:00.001+08:00

Been thinking of all the times I say "I started playing that game but I didn't finish it." and it kind of annoys me.
I think the best solution is to start a google spreadsheet of all the games I've completed, started or have been meaning to play.
It may take a while but I think it'll be worth it just so I can keep track.
If I have enough time I'll add a few more columns such as platform, if I've reviewed it and when I last played (this column will probably be restricted to steam games).

Also sometime soon I'll have a review of To The Moon up.

Game Updates

2012-09-08T11:44:00.003+08:00

Haven't finished any games lately but I have been playing a bunch so I'll give you some short impressions of them.

Tribes: Ascend
A rather fast class-based multiplayer shooter. I'm alright at this but I really need to work on my shooting because I'm not giving myself enough lead time. I am always rather high on the scoreboards when I play Technician which is cool.

The Basement Collection
A collection of flash games from Edmund Mcmillen + loads of bonus content. Pretty fun collection but getting the all the unlockables is hard because it requires achievement grinding and beating all the games. Some of the games can get very laggy because flash can be quite buggy.

Darksiders
An action-adventure game in the vein of God of War and Devil May Cry. Having quite a bit of fun with this, though it took a while to be any good because you have the classic "Start strong and become weak." intro sequence. Puzzles are simple but interesting and are a welcome break from the combat, just wish you could move about a bit faster, so many empty corridors.

Dark Souls
A notoriously hard action-RPG with lots of dying. Only started this last night so my impressions are rather weak. Accidentally went the wrong way when I got out of the intro section which was fun and resulted in a few deaths.

Iron Brigade
Yet another Double Fine game, this time a third person shooter/tower defence game. This game is alright but I really don't like how every level puts you on the edge and gives you no breathing time for turret placement/energy collection. Looks great for an Xbox 360 port though.\

Hard Reset
A cyberpunk FPS game. Probably never going to give this a full review because it's shockingly repetitive, two weapons which you can get minor modifications for and the four different enemies just soak up bullets.

Writing style

2012-08-25T10:58:00.001+08:00

I'm not really very happy with my current writing style, it just doesn't flow well. My reviews are currently in the format of sections dedicated to story, gameplay, design, graphics & art and sfx & music. It may work for some sites but I want to write reviews that will hold someone's attention and don't sound boring and impersonal.

I'm working on fixing it but it may take a while for me to work it out.

Super Mario 3D Land Review

2012-08-20T21:47:00.002+08:00

Time for a review of a game that's a bit more recent and is on a different platform: Super Mario 3D Land!

Super Mario 3D Land is a 3D platformer developed by Nintendo for the 3DS and was released in November 2011.
It's less of a standard 3D Mario game like Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine or Super Mario Galaxy and more of a mix between the bonus levels of Sunshine/Galaxy and the traditional 2D Mario games.

The story doesn't really exist as it's just a Mario game where you have to save Princess Peach from Bowser once again by defeating him a few times along with his children.

Most of the game is standard Mario gameplay, the level variation is nice but it gets a bit repetitive and the game isn't very long or difficult because it constantly throws power-ups and 1ups at you. If you die enough on a level you will get a white Tanooki suit which makes you invincible and if you die even more you can even skip the level. The rest of the power-ups are the standard Mario fare, Fire Flowers, mushrooms and Tanooki Suits. Their is also two new power-ups, the Boomerang Flower and the propeller box.

The 3D effect is done rather well in most levels and is also used rather cleverly in a few secret rooms that would look normal otherwise.
The gyroscopic features are utilised by the cannon, binoculars and some of the mail you get from Princess Peach and the bottom screen is used for info and power-up storage.

The music and sound is great and borrows a few tracks from Super Mario Galaxy and has a few new ones.
The graphics look great for something on such a small console but it's a shame the 3DS has such low resolution and a lack of anti-aliasing in 3D mode.

Overall I'd give Super Mario 3D Land a 7/10

Psychonauts review

2012-08-09T00:13:00.001+08:00

Psychonauts is a game originally released for Xbox, PS2 and Windows in 2005 and it has recently been released for Mac and Linux. It's a game I had heard lot's of praise for over the years but for some reason had never got around to playing it. Once again I played this with an Xbox 360 controller on the PC, it is a platformer after all.

In Psychonauts you play as Razputin, a 10 year old boy who ran away from the circus to a summer camp for psychic kids. The camp is the main hub where you will browse around and chat to the other kids at the camp, from there you'll go visit Coach Oleander for the first level which is pretty much a training course, all of the levels apart from the 2 hubs are set in characters minds which means every level is very different from the last in terms of level design and gameplay, sometimes even the characters and enemies will look very different.

A lot of the game is based around either platforming, combat or puzzles. The platforming can be a bit annoying until you get the levitation power up a few levels in, after that it's more a matter of landing precisely than whether or not you will make the jump. The puzzles are rather easy and straight forward but if you need help you can always use the bacon to ask Agent Cruller for advice.
For the combat and puzzles you'll be using the various psychic powers you learn throughout the game such as telekinesis, pyrokinesis and invisibility. The puzzles and combat are rather easy and straight forward but if you need help you can always use the bacon to ask Agent Cruller for advice.

The graphics look great for a 7 year old game and I think the cartoony style really helps this, unfortunately there are some bad models, blurry UI due to scaling and some weird pixellated effects which I assume is either a graphical bug or due to the render size of the time.

The music is a great soundtrack of traditional instruments that suits the wacky art style of the game and each of the levels, the sound effects are generally pretty good but the double jump and levitation ball sounds made me feel rather nauseous and the levels didn't really help that.

Overall I'd give Psychonauts a 9/10.

Costume Quest + Grubbins on Ice DLC Review

2012-07-31T00:04:00.001+08:00

Recently I completed Costume Quest and it's Christmas DLC Grubbins on Ice on the PC. It was originally released for the Xbox 360 on the 19th of October 2010 a few weeks before Halloween and released for the PC on the 15th of October 2011 and is available from Steam, XBLA and PSN.
Once again this was a game I played with the Xbox 360 controller.

The game starts out with your typical Halloween night and fraternal twins Wren and Reynold go trick or treating, at this point you get to pick between the two and then go trick or treating. Soon after a monster will grab the sibling you didn't choose because they were dressed up as candy corn. So now you have to get back your sibling from the evil goblins, all while making friends and getting candy.
Grubbins on Ice is just an extension of the main quest but obviously set during winter.

Running about the world interacting with the inhabitants, solving puzzles and beating quests while utilising the costumes abilities was one of the best moments of the game for me.

The battle system is turn based gameplay but relies on you being an active part of the battle instead of mashing the continue button. Attacking and defending require you to do actions such as pressing a button at the right time or rotating the analog stick. Getting the attack bonus can be a deciding factor in a lot of fights along with your selection of costumes and battle stamps.

The art and the art style is brilliantly cartoony but I just wish it was scaled a bit better for higher resolutions because a lot of the UI and textures are just ported straight from the console version, also if you don't have a rather recent video card you may have some frame rate problems with all the graphical options enabled, so I would recommend you turn off the higher options like SSAO and FXAA.

The music and sound is rather simple but is still suitably creepy to fit the theme of Halloween.

There's not too much replayability as the game only takes a few hours to beat including the DLC, but there's quite a few optional quests to complete along with the battle stamps, cards and costumes to collect.

Overall I'd give it an 8/10

My next review will be Psychonauts, another game from Double Fine.

A.R.E.S.: Extinction Agenda Review

2012-07-17T23:38:00.000+08:00

I got this game in the Indie Royale bundle sometime last year but didn't get around to playing it. Now that have played I kind of regret it. It's a bit of a throwback to games like Super Metroid and Mega Man X but with better graphics and sound.

The story is about destroying the Zytrons who are infecting machines on the spaceship and are planning to destroy the planet, it's very tedious and drawn out in the slow cutscenes and in-game text which will sometimes occur before boss battles making it take longer to retry.
They were also obviously rendered for the console version so they end up looking pixellated on most monitors.

The graphics are a fusion of 2D characters and 3D backgrounds and I think it works rather well along with the sound and music.

The controls were frustrating and needlessly complicated, shooting and aiming is fine and shown by the direction of the characters arm, jumping and movement however is horrendous.
Constantly the double jump will not reach it's full height either killing the character or forcing you to start from the bottom again.
I played with an Xbox 360 controller so the experience with controls may be worse if you only have a keyboard and mouse setup.

The difficulty is only caused by the awful movement, the AI completely locking onto you and the fact that every single hit will stun you for a second which can result in falling to your death many times, groups of enemies can stun you for several seconds making it hard to get anywhere when they keep respawning.

It took me about 2 1/2 hours to get near the end until I glitched on the last boss elevator so I decided to quit because otherwise I would've had to do the whole level again.
In a speed-run I think it would be possible to pass under 1 hour.

If you really like retro action games I'd say give the demo a shot, you might have a better experience than me. Overall I'd rate it 4/10.

Introduction

2012-07-08T23:56:00.000+08:00

Hello I'm Jono and this is my blog about video games, I'll generally be doing reviews, analysis of certain elements that stand out to me and posts about game development and concept art.

My favourite genres are RPG and 3D platformers, some of my favourite series are Ratchet and Clank, Spyro, Fallout and Metroid. Most of the games I'll be reviewing are on the PC because that's all I really have apart from my PS2 and Wii.

I'll try to be updating at least weekly with whatever comes to mind and hopefully I'll be able to get some screenshots and game footage to add to posts.