Breaker Game Reviews!

Hi, I'm Zach, the Commercial Breaker. This is my page where I post text reviews of video games—new and old—that I'm playing, or have played. I also do First Impressions and Final Thoughts reviews. Thanks for checking this out!

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Cave Story (PC)

Starting from my last save before getting (what I'm calling the "I didn't give a shit about the game or story" ending) the ending I got, I decided NOT to go with Kazuma and escape, but I went back and now it looks like I'm going to try to defeat the Doctor. Buuuuuut... this "Final Cave" stage is HHHHAAAARRRRD. I'll return later but for now I'm gonna take a break, as taking a nice long break from Cave Story has helped me twice before.

'Til next time!

―Zachary Carter, the Commercial Breaker

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Cave Story (PC)

Oh boy. I did NOT know the game was this short. And I feel I got the worst ending possible, as (Spoilers in strikethrough) I didn't get to save any characters (except Kazuma) and we escaped and fled to the mountains on Earth below and lived out the rest of our lives. I'm really disappointed. I hope there are better endings.

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Cave Story (PC) Supplemental

I defeated the boss that I couldn't beat in the Labyrinth! Now I can move on so I can continue my review!

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Cave Story (PC)

Alright! The weekend has arrived, and as such I have more time to play more Cave Story as well as Earthbound, and anything else that may come up. But before I get to playing, I thought I might talk more about Cave Story, seeing as how last night's review mostly talked about the many, many different ports of the game.

Now, Cave Story follows the adventure of Quote, a robot soldier sent to a floating island by humans (non-specific at the moment, as I'm not too too far in the story) on a scouting mission ten years before when the game picks up. The story starts as Quote awakens in a cave, having no memory of how he ended up there. Exploring the cave, he finds a village of Mimigas―a race of sentient, rabbit-like humanoids that inhabit the island―who are being harassed by the Doctor.

The Doctor has two servants: Balrog, a blue and orange... living rectangle... I guess; and Misery, an adolescent [she appears to be, at least] witch. Sue Sakamoto is a Mimiga who was originally a human, and somehow ended up in Mimiga Village. Sue has a brother, Kazuma (who is still a human), who is trapped in a warehouse in Grasstown, which Sue sends Quote to go rescue him after meeting her in the Egg Corridor. Professor Booster is a professor from the research team that went to the floating island, and after Quote blows up the rusted door trapping Kazuma in the warehouse, Booster appears out of the teleporter.

When Prof. Booster sends Quote to the Sand Zone, he meets Curly Brace, a female robot who also has no memories of her past, and Jenka, an old witch who is Misery's mother and guardian of the red flowers, who says Quote is a "soldier from the surface", one of many who were sent to the island to slaughter the Mimigas. 

Misery teleports Quote to the Labyrinth deep inside the island as punishment for meddling with the Doctor's plot. Curly Brace has also been thrown into the Labyrinth, and this is where I am now. The boss battle after the part where you find Curly Brace. This boss battle is INTENSE. I'm having a real problem with it. It's not unfair, it's just difficult.

And I guess this is as good a time as any to mention the STRANGE controls (the keyboard controls are just fine; I'm talking about the Xbox 360 controller controls). With the 360 controller, the default controls are: A to shoot; B to jump and to select things on menus; LB, Y, Back, and Start to switch between weapons; X to bring up the map (one you get the Map System in Mimiga Village); and RB to bring up your inventory. And if those weren't strange enough for you, to bring up the Pause Menu, you still need to use the Escape Key on your keyboard! The left stick is used for movement, but, the D-Pad is never used! It is extremely confusing and very hard to adjust to, and as far as I can tell, there is no way to change the control settings, as there isn't even a Settings menu in the game―not on the Main Menu, not on the Pause Menu! If I had a USB SNES controller, I probably wouldn't have as much of a problem with this, as a SNES controller's A & B and X & Y buttons are reversed from the 360 controller's layout (though, I'd still have to use R to bring up the inventory...). Alright, enough with the control rant. Moving on...

Anyway, I've been typing this part of my review for too long now. If I don't stop now, I'm never going to get to play tonight. Cave Story is an amazing game (despite the f***ing Xbox controls...) and I recommend that you all at least check it out if not play the whole thing. Even if action/adventure 2D platformers aren't your cup of tea, I guarantee there'll be something about Cave Story that you'll find yourself loving. Everything (except the Xbox 360 controller controls; but I digress.) is done right. The music is perfect (not to mention the BEST. TITLE. THEME. EVAAARRRR!!!), the graphics are an amazing throwback to early-'90s 8-bit and 16-bit graphics, the story is AWESOME and very immersive and well-thought-out, the characters are well-designed, the level and world designs are fun, exciting, interesting, and also well-designed, and the gameplay is great, even if frustrating at times. Undoubtedly looking like a perfect 10. Can't give a final score yet, though; so you'll just have to wait!

'Til next time!

―Zachary Carter, the Commercial Breaker

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Cave Story (PC)

There is nothing I could possibly say to express how much I love this game, nor is there a word to describe how great it is. Cave Story (Dōkutsu Monogatari in Japanese), developed by Studio Pixel for the PC and released in December of 2004 (download can be found at the fansite http://www.cavestory.org/), is an action/adventure 2D platformer, and is an homage to many a classic games that developer Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya played in his youth, i.e. Metroid. 

Cave Story is possibly the most well-known indie game of all time, and the original game earned widespread critical acclaim, with sites such as 1UP.com saying "so massive that it rivals modern [Game Boy Advance] Castlevania and Metroid games in terms of scope and play time" and Matt Miller of Game Informer said "Cave Story combines elements of Metroid, Ninja Gaiden, Mega Man, The Legend of Zelda, and Castlevania into an "engrossing, challenging, and quite lengthy" whole.". As such, Cave Story has recieved numerous ports, including Linux computers; Amiga's AROS, MorphOS, and AmigaOS 4; Mac OS X operating systems; Sony's PlayStation Portable; Microsoft's Xbox; the Sega Dreamcast; GamePark Holdings' Linux-based GP2X and GP2X Wiz; and even Texas Instruments graphing calculators! And updated WiiWare port was developed by Nicalis and released in March 2010, who also released a DSiWare port in November of the same year. There was a retail release of Cave Story for the Nintendo 3DS, Cave Story 3D, released in November 2011; also released in November '11 was Nicalis' Cave Story+, released on Steam, and later released for the Desura service in April 2012.

Now back to the review. I'm starting over, and I don't remember much of the story (though, I wasn't very far to begin with...), but I do remember that the title screen music is the BEST MAIN THEME OF ALL-TIME. Anyway, the story follows Quote, the interestingly-named robot protagonist, who falls into a cave and loses his memory. Through Quote's explorations, he discovers a plot by the Doctor, an egotist who intends to force the inhabitants of the cave to fight for him in his bid to conquer the world (Insert gratuitous M. Bison "Of course!" reference here). Quote is thrust into the position of the hero as he endeavors to defeat the Doctor. As with other games I'm reviewing, I'll say more as I play more, but for now I don't want to spoil the story for myself!

'Til next time!

―Zachary Carter, the Commercial Breaker

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Earthbound (SNES)

Ahhhhh… what a refresher. It’s nice to get away from the stress of school, social life, and it all in general, to play an amazing game. (Even if I feel guilty for using the big E…) Earthbound, Mother 2 in Japan, is definitely one of the most well-designed RPGs, let alone one of the best games of all time.

With Earthbound, just everything is right. The story is amazing, the characters and setting are great, graphics are nice, and the music is also great. I'm not very far in the game, but I'm not very good at it at the present time... but I'll get better with time. I'll describe more as I get farther, but for now, I'm going to get back to playing.

'Til next time!

―Zachary Carter, the Commercial Breaker

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SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom (PC)

I just finished this game. It took me only about two hours to beat. Moving on; continuing on my streak of early-2000s Nickelodeon/THQ PC games, we have SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom, released in 2003. Just like the previous game I reviewed, Employee of the Month, the humor is fantastic and the writing is great. Unlike Eotm, Battle for Bikini Bottom is a variety game, packed with mini games. There are five areas, Downtown, the Chum Bucket, the Kelp Forest, the Mermalair, and the Flying Dutchman's Shipwreck. Each has five main games and a final game. In the story mode, you have to complete the five main games in order to get to play the final game. There isn't much to say about this game, other than GO PLAY IT NOW. But right now, I give SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom a 9¾/10.

'Til next time!

―Zachary Carter, the Commercial Breaker

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SpongeBob SquarePants: Employee of the Month

SpongeBob SquarePants: Employee of the Month is a comedy-adventure game released for PC in 2002 by Nickelodeon games and THQ. The game ingeniously combines humor that you'd see on the show, along with some 4th wall breaking and some great humor that you wouldn't see on the show, to create a truly hysterical and immensely fun experience that I haven't seen since the last time I played it. The last thing the game is is square, and the graphics, while non-HD, are pretty outstanding for '02, and are still pretty good by today's standards. Overall, Employee of the Month is an extraordinary game that I'm sure I'll be coming back to a lot more often now that I understand some of the humor better.

'Til next time!

―Zachary Carter, the Commercial Breaker

[thegamefreaks]

Video: Valve shows off new Steam controller Valve has posted a video showing how the newly announced Steam Controller will work across a variety of PC games and genres.

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THAT's a controller? That looks like a new set of speakers! Valve, I love ya, and I love Steam, but THAT is not a controller.

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Game Dev Tycoon (Playtime: 33.3 hours)

And as my hundredth year at Nor'easter Games has come and gone and I enter the new century, I suppose it's a great time to take a break and update my review on GDT. Well, I can certainly say it is NOT easy to get perfect 10s across the board, I've seen on GDT's Steam community page that you can actually get a 11/10 score if your game is ABSOLUTELY F***ING INGENIOUSLY AWESOMELY AMAZING, and I have no expectation of receiving that score anytime soon; at least not with Nor'easter. I've released well over a hundred games and five consoles―respectively the Blizzard, the Avalanche, the Ice Storm, the Nor'easter, and the Nor'easter II―and my scores are starting to slip as no innovation is achievable now that sixty-five years have passed since I received my Lifetime Achievement Award. I think I'm probably dead now... but anyway, I'm hear to review the game.

Alright, well... uhhh... review... review, review, review... ummm... well the game certainly isn't easy, and one or two bad games in a row can certainly tank your profits and send you spiraling into bankruptcy, ESPECIALLY when you're starting out. The gaming magazines can really feel like your arch enemies sometimes, and when that happens, it'd probably be a good idea to take a break from playing before you end up creating an intentionally s***ty game called "F*** INFORMED GAMER" or "GAME HERO SUCKS". Not that that actually affects scores (I'm serious, it won't.), but it'll just make you feel worse and put a permanent bad memory in your Game History. For a game developed by two people, brothers Patrick and Daniel Klug, GDT is extremely immense, extremely immersive, extremely well-researched, and extremely well-designed.

I will come back and say more, but at this time, my score for Game Dev Tycoon is 9½/10.

'Til next time!

―Zachary Carter, the Commercial Breaker

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Game Dev Tycoon (Playtime: 29 hours)

Game Dev Tycoon—created by brothers Patrick and Daniel Klug of Greenheart Games, a company they founded in July of last year, and released on the 10th of December the same year—is a "business simulation video game" (according to their Wikipedia article), where you play as a small start-up game developer in the early '80s (circa 1984, but it's hard to pin it down) and try and make it in the industry. The game is well-designed and well-researched (though release dates are quite far off for certain consoles, if you're to say the game starts in '84), and the in-game counterparts of the real-life consoles are creative and are also very well-researched. If the release dates were to be fixed, there is potential for many more consoles which aren't currently in the game to be integrated, for example, the Sega Saturn is not in the game, nor the Panasonic 3DO, Phillips CD-i (yes I know that one's a piece of shit); Nintendo's GameBoy Advance, Virtual Boy, nor 3DS; and Sony's PSVita. The selection of game topics is EXTREMELY expansive, yet the massive list could still be expanded quite a bit. The game gives you 35 years to do as well as you can, then it scores you, and afterwards you can play endlessly (I think; I'm currently on Year 70-something on my best save). I'll talk more about this one later, but for now I'm going to go back to playing.

'Til next time!

-Zachary Carter, the Commercial Breaker