#2008 games

[akelaphobia]

Tomb Raider Underworld (2008, Crystal Dynamics)

Using Lito Perezito's AOD Lara mod in these shots, if anyone wants it: https://www.nexusmods.com/tombraiderunderworld/mods/73

[dailyvideogamecharacters]

Faith Connors

Mirror’s Edge (2008)

[ethrelite]

[soundofseclusion]

58. Pokemon Platinum Version

Release: 2008, DS Beaten: October 22nd, DS Playtime: 28h 31m

I'll be honest at this point, I keep beating Pokemon games and then failing to write about them in the "Retrospective" series of posts I promised at the beginning of this year. I don't think I particularly want to continue that series, and I probably couldn't remember my thoughts on the games I didn't already write about anyway, so going forward, I'm just going to post thoughts about the games in their media thread posts, along with my team for that game (assuming it's a mainline Pokemon game).

Platinum has a surprisingly solid story, which I did not recall being the case when I played Gen IV as a kid. But it sticks out to me now. I'm okay with low-stakes Pokemon games and high-stakes Pokemon games, but I don't always feel like the high-stakes ones nail what they're going for by being over-the-top or absurd. Platinum strikes a good balance.

This generation is also much more balanced than the generations before it (while still having some hiccups), and I definitely felt like it was easier to construct the team I wanted this time around. Although, I couldn't use a Rotom like I intended, due to the fact that Rotom's forms were locked behind a limited event in Platinum that is now inaccessible. It's sort of just part of the deal that replaying a Pokemon game outside of its release window will lock you out of some content.

Anyway, I liked Platinum the most out of any of the Gens I've replayed so far. Here's my team. Credit to Pokecharms for the template.

[soundofseclusion]

50. Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People

Release: 2008, PC/Wii Beaten: September 24th, PC (Steam) Playtime: 13h 42m

Because this is an episodic game, I'll collect my thoughts for each episode individually. Sorry for the long post, but I can't figure out how to add a Read More break anymore.

Episode 1: Homestar Ruiner - A really funny start to the series. It sets the tone and general feel of the games up pretty well. Compared to later episodes, it has some puzzles that felt a bit out-there. The formula gets refined right away with the next episode so I think they were just getting comfortable with how they wanted the game to play. Right off the bat, the character models are great in 3D and all the dialogue is, as expected, funny and well VA'd.

Episode 2: Strong Badia The Free - The chapter immediately presents a much higher-stakes (comically so) scenario than the first episode. It leads to some really silly gags and an interesting new direction. The puzzle solving feels a lot tighter and more logical, with hints that are actually well telegraphed. I only had to look up a solution once because, despite being correct about where an item was, the game's "metal detector" segments are a bit unwieldy and become mandatory in a later part of this chapter. Still, it's a good sign that the only thing I had to look up was something that I was just not doing correctly as opposed to feeling genuinely lost.

Episode 3: Baddest of the Bands - This one has a pretty funny premise, wherein Strong Bad needs to recruit all of his friends to compete in a Battle of the Bands just to pay for video game console repairs. Something I haven't mentioned yet is that these first three episodes all take the format of: Strong Bad wants to do a thing, then he has to reverse everything he just did because something unexpected happened as a result of his decision to do said thing. And it's funny every time. H*R is such a good world for this type of game, because it really lends itself to silly and borderline nonsensical solutions to puzzles. My main gripe is that I was really annoyed when the music and vocals audio tracks just cut out during the climax cutscene.

Episode 4: Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective - A solid episode in which you live out the filming of Dangeresque 3, filled to the brim with gags related to its low production value and eccentric cast. It's my favorite of the season. I can't think of anything to say about it--which I hope reads as "no notes, A+" instead of "nothing interesting here"--but it was really funny and had the best concept out of any of the episodes.

Episode 5: 8-Bit is Enough - Definitely the most ambitious episode of the season. It really leans into the absurdity of its premise and goes in a bunch of interesting directions. The series already had a lot of meta humor, but this is the episode that really dives into it the most. Overall, this is probably my second-favorite episode, but I can see why people think it's the strongest one. It's a great finale and is extremely polished.

[soundofseclusion]

41. Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Release: 2008, Wii Beaten: July 10th, Wii U Playtime: 7h 6m

Playtime accounts for Subspace Emissary (adventure mode) completion.

Brawl is one of those games that you look back on fondly but isn’t that fun to go back to.  Everything feels so slow and clunky compared to Ultimate, which makes even characters I’m comfortable with significantly less fun to play as.  Still, SSE is pretty enjoyable, primarily for its cutscenes.  Seeing your favorite characters interact in silly or cool or dramatic ways is just a lot of fun, and the story is just flat out good, with a lot of threads that run parallel and then end up tying together and a decent amount of twists.

The actual gameplay of SSE is rough, with some uninteresting level geometry that sometimes borders on unfair and a handful of enemies designed primarily to frustrate the player.  But sometimes it’s alright.  The final level, a giant maze of connected areas which needs to be full-cleared to progress to the final boss, is actually one of the better parts of the experience.  It’s not perfectly designed, but navigating it is fun and surprisingly intuitive.  And the enemies, despite being frustrating to fight against at worst, have really cool designs that gives the game its own identity.  I think the biggest complaint I’ve seen leveraged against SSE is that its enemies are original creations when they could have been pulled from the individual IPs being represented, but I like the new enemies.  I kind of wish there was a mixture of both, especially because it’s odd how only Mario enemies are represented alongside the SSE enemies.

Overall, I do genuinely think Subspace Emissary is worth going back to, even if I felt myself fighting against the game a lot (I still don’t know if I was having controller issues or if Brawl is just like that).  I wish we had something closer to it, particularly the full story plus cutscenes with every weirdo character interacting, in a more modern Smash game.

[bloggerterminal]

6 Games from the 2000s which still look great graphically

6 Games from the 2000s which still look great graphically

These video games from the 2000s were way ahead of their time

Game graphics these days are just stunning, and games like Red Dead Redemption 2 PC look absolutely brilliant. However, the humble beginnings of some games are still worthy of appraisal in this era, as these games from the 2000s still hold up graphically.

6. Half Life 2 – 2004

Although the graphics of Half Life 2 weren’t all that…

View On WordPress