#yonkeydong

[yonkeydong]

FALLOUT 3: RIP 2008-2011

Fallout’s name was mud. Interplay’s original game had been praised upon release in the early nineties and was soon followed up by Fallout 2, developed by in-house studio Black Isle Studios. Both games were still revered as classics, but unfortunately, the tepid Fallout: Tactics, abysmal Brotherhood of Steel and the cancellation of Fallout 3 could only muster defeated sighs from the PC old-timers who remembered the good old days. Worst of all, an audience was growing-- a young audience who asked “What’s Fallout?”

The rights to Fallout were sold to Bethesda for pennies in 2007 when Interplay faced bankruptcy. Fallout 3 was released near the tail-end of 2008 and introduced the series to a brand new market of young console gamers, including myself. When Fallout 3 came out, I had turned 15 only a month or so before and was beginning my freshman year of high school. My best friend Ben got a copy for Christmas and regaled me with stories until I finally picked it up.

Bethesda makes very identifiable open-world games that they have yet to stray from. At the time, the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was their latest, and though much of what I love about Fallout 3 was already being put to use, the medieval setting didn’t mesh with me, and I never played it. “Oblivion with guns” was the popular description for Fallout 3, and the idea of wandering around an open world collecting knick-knacks and weapons made out of garbage had a certain allure to it. The Elder Scrolls had already proven the formula for others, but Fallout 3 was my first taste of the Bethesda open-world RPG.

Luckily for me Fallout 3 had hundreds of hours of content, and I was the right age to get every last bit out of it. The game is full of easter eggs, random encounters, out-of-the-way locations, bugs-- content that can easily be missed by others. With that comes the possibility of seeing parts of the game your friends won’t, and though there is a canonical story, Fallout 3 is about the crazy stories and experiences unique to each person’s playthrough.

Some encounters were there for everyone, such as wandering into a neighborhood of cannibals, finding a vault full of homicidal clones named Gary, and stealing the Declaration of Independence from a robot convinced he is Georgia’s second governor. Others were more unique. Fallout 3 has some notorious bugs which usually end up working out in the game’s favor. While exploring I approached a wrecked bus when it suddenly flew into the air as lasers shot from nowhere. Ben told me about the time he blew up a Protectron so hard it rocketed into the sky. Hours later, a Protectron fell from the atmosphere and slammed into the ground in front of him.

The sheer density of Fallout 3 is hard to overstate. Not only can players’ experiences wildly differ, but there is an enormous amount of weapons, clothing, souvenirs and junk to collect. Half of the fun came from hoarding and displaying my treasures, and like a kid sitting in his fort waiting for enemies who never come, I guarded them. A shotgun under the bed with a box of shells next to it, or a few grenades in the mailbox outside of a house. Mines were laid around the no-man’s land I had claimed as my own. The game’s carry limit meant I was already a walking armory, but the little touches kept me immersed.

I got my money’s worth out of Fallout 3 many times over, clocking 350 hours across a few different characters. Downloadable content freshened up the game and gave me more locations to scavenge, and near the end of its life, when I had done almost everything possible and was eagerly anticipating New Vegas, self-imposed limits, such as only carrying one weapon or just using what I could take off corpses, extended my playtime even further. Eventually New Vegas came out and I voraciously played for a hundred hours or so, but I never liked it as much. Fallout 3 had the advantage of coming first, and it was revolutionary when I first played. The freedom, the customization, the amount of unique content-- I didn't know it was possible, but it was, and it blew me away. 

I have wrung every last drop out of Fallout 3. If you have not played it, I can't recommend the game enough, but I can never go back. Fallout 3 is a peak in my gaming history, and I don’t think I’ll ever become so invested in another game again, but that’s okay. The memories will always remain.

[yonkeydong]

UNCHARTED: DRAKE'S FORTUNE:

My decision to buy a Playstation 3 was quick and mostly a matter of circumstance. Though I love my PS2 and all its wonderful games, I packed it up when I had an opportunity to buy a refurbished launch PS3 with backwards-compatible hardware. The sleek monolith replaced my Blu-Ray player, PS2 and neglected Xbox 360, and I, with no real intentions of delving into the PS3 library, was content. For the moment at least.

The only exclusive I had any interest in was Naughty Dog’s output. With Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and 3: Drake’s Deception garnering insane amounts of praise, and more recently, The Last of Us blowing both of them out of the water, I felt obligated to check out the catalog of one of the Playstation 3’s strongest developers.

Going into Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, I knew nothing. Beside the high scores of Among Thieves and Drake’s Deception, the only piece of information I knew about Drake’s Fortune was that it was from 2007 and may not have aged well, but I was still excited.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune follows a charming, what-did-I-do-to-deserve-this guy named Nathan Drake. Supposedly an ancestor of the great explorer Sir Francis Drake, Nathan is a treasure hunter-- along with his mentor Victor Sullivan-- who, after recovering the empty casket of Sir Francis Drake from the bottom of the sea, embarks on the hunt for El Dorado with nothing but the famous explorer’s journal. Nathan, Sully, and the tag-along reporter Elena Fisher soon find themselves trapped on the island containing El Dorado and a rival mercenary force. In the words of one of Nathan’s enemies, the last man standing gets the gold.

Nathan’s an instantly likable character, and never once did Elena, Sully or the rest of the characters grate or get on my nerves-- I actually liked them quite a bit. I realized I hadn't recently played a game where the cut scenes separate the player from the character, and by making Nathan Drake a protagonist who acted outside of a first person view, Naughty Dog gave me more character to observe and latch onto. This, along with the excellent orchestral score, well-acted cut scenes, and some surprising twists solidify Naughty Dog’s cinematic effort to make players feel as if they are playing a summer blockbuster. 

Aside from a brief gunfight in the first five minutes, Drake’s Fortune begins with exploration, which I found to be one of the more unique and enjoyable parts of the game. Exploring involves poking around different environments and climbing, jumping and scrambling up and down cliff faces, crumbling ledges and thin vines. Gravity is a formidable foe-- often turning the game into Drake’s Misfortune-- and getting from point A to B usually involves biting your tongue and offsets any peace you might experience while treading solid ground. Much of the game is exploring, looking for treasures and figuring out how to get to your next destination while taking in scenery as lush as the jungle or as dark as the caverns beneath.

Unfortunately, the gunfight confirmed my worst fears and revealed the age of Drake’s Fortune. Movement is slightly imprecise and sometimes Nathan will just walk off a ledge or miss a jump due to the clunky control. The shooting is similarly rough as the over-the-shoulder view is zoomed out enough to make aiming a chore. Furthermore, Nathan can only hold a pistol and a two-handed weapon, both of which never hold quite enough ammo to feel secure. Don’t get attached to a certain weapon because at some point you’ll run out of ammo and have to grab something else to survive. This would not be an issue if combat was more stealth-based, but the second problem with Drake’s Fortune is that the game forces you into shootouts often, and very seldom will you have the opportunity to take someone by surprise. Nathan can take cover, toss grenades and throw punches, but it’s telling just how many gunfights are in the game because at some point I forgot hand-to-hand combat was even an option.

*SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN’T PLAYED THIS SIX-YEAR-OLD GAME AND INTEND TO*

Even the slow moments of Drake’s Fortune can be scary. Exploring the unknown while anticipating danger such places may hold-- whether or not there even is any-- breeds hesitancy to speed forward, especially in more bizarre areas such as a U-boat in the middle of the jungle. This moment in particular stuck out by how uncomfortable I was when exploring it, even though the sunlight was blazing through gouges in the hull, I wanted to get out of there, especially after a brief observation Nathan makes.

The captain and his crew are all inside and dead, and when Nathan grabs a map from the captain, he sees his face and wonders what could have scratched it up so badly. Later, the enemies make it clear that something else besides Nathan is killing their men, and with traps springing up among the foliage and and a quick glimpse of something running while in the underground caverns, Nathan’s puzzled.

And so was I, especially since I didn't know what kind of game Uncharted would be. I went along, muttering “it better not be aliens” and thinking there might be some tribe trying to protect their land. I was partly right, and in the last level in the caverns, Drake’s Fortune turns into The Descent when pale monsters come crawling up from the depths and pursue Nathan into an abandoned Nazi bunker. Turns out El Dorado (a statue in fact) pulls some Ark of the Covenant shit and instead of melting faces turned the Spaniards into monsters. This was the last thing I expected going into Uncharted, and I was chuckling at Naughty Dog’s balls to pull such a twist. I was also exclaiming HOLY SHIT and GODDAMN every other minute because I was suddenly playing a level of Resident Evil Revelations.

*END OF SPOILERS*

In 2014, is Uncharted still a game worth playing? I’d say yes, with some reservations. If you have already played the second and third installments without playing the first, I have a feeling it’ll be difficult to go back. If you know the story and the twist, it’s not going to be as enjoyable. If you are like me, haven’t played any Uncharted and don’t know the story, get on the ground floor and spend the 6-8 hours to complete it. If anything (and again, I’m only assuming), Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune will emphasize the growth of Naughty Dog’s talent in later games such as Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception and The Last of Us, helping them to live up to the hype they have been receiving for years. Now that I've had a taste, I’m excited for more.

[yonkeydong]

AEROSTAR

Sometimes people just shouldn't mess with a good thing. Take the humble peanut butter sandwich for example. A staple of middle school, high school, and now life between classes in college, the peanut butter sandwich is a timeless culinary creation that, in my opinion, barely needs tweaking to be good. However, innovation keeps the world fresh, my broke-ass friend, and when you eat two a day in lieu of a real dinner, it can start to get stale.

Change it up! Get some raspberry jelly, maybe some orange marmalade, even honey can add new life to your sandwich. Sometimes you get a little crazy. “Let’s throw some bananas on there!” you’ll say, and though it isn't my taste, I understand on some fundamental level where you’re coming from.

But no one, ever, says “Let’s make this sandwich worse.”

Aerostar is a 1991 Game Boy shooter developed by Vic Tokai and published by Sunsoft here in the U.S. I never heard of it until I dug it out of a bin at work, so I took it home and gave it a try. Upon start-up, the logo pops up with energetic music, and you are given the choice of difficulty. The first level is a coastal city with a top-down view and sharp, detailed graphics. I played up until level four before I ran out of continues, and can say that the enemies, level design, and bosses look great. There are a few different power-ups; standard stuff like spread, missiles, lasers, and two R-Type-style satellites which follow your ship around.

So far we have the timeless PB&J. Nothing crazy like marshmallow fluff inside, but a nice, wholesome sandwich you don’t mind eating every day. What wrecks it?

The asparagus on Aerostar’s sandwich is a single game mechanic. On the first level, you are flying over what looks like a highway. Pressing A will raise your ship to a higher plane, much like Zaxxon, but only for a limited time. During this time, you must move to another “highway” or stay on the one you’re on, and if your boost runs out over anything but the highway, you fall and die. It’s a space shooter on literal rails. There are multiple paths, and you constantly find yourself dodging fire, trying to hit enemies and avoiding dead ends by jumping to other spots. In later levels, it’s nearly impossible to stay alive, even on easy, because you only have small squares to land on. The boost recharges, so becoming a sitting duck waiting to fly to another platform happens often. It’s much easier to describe the ship as a truck with limited hover jets, but the problem is that it’s not--it’s supposed to be a goddamn spaceship.

If I could move anywhere on the screen, this would be a decent shooter. Instead, it is severely hindered by a mechanic that makes no sense inside or outside the game. The game is called AEROSTAR--why am I being constrained? It could have been good, but no, they had to add asparagus.

[yonkeydong]

ROBOCOP & ROBOCOP 2

The first time I watched RoboCop is one of the memories I will always cherish.  It was a model summer day in a middle-class American suburb. I was sitting in the living room of our new house on a summer day. The sun was shining, the breeze blew gently through the open windows, pizza, breadsticks and salad from Jet’s lay before me. There was no school work, no job to worry about, and no one else was home. RoboCop was free on cable, and I watched it all while devouring greasy fast food. Basking in the delight of Clarence Boddicker, the grit and rust of Old Detroit and the quick satire of Paul Verhoeven, I knew this was one of the greats.

Six years later, a few days ago, I borrow RoboCop 1 and 2 for the Game Boy from work. I still love RoboCop, but good games based on existing properties are few, and I had a rough idea what I’m getting into.

When you first plug in and boot up the Game Boy cartridge, the title ROBOCOP flashes across the screen as the game’s credits fade in and out. The music is slow, contemplative, and done in that telephone ringer bleep-bloop style reminiscent of certain Codemasters games, but here it sounds kind of cool and reminds me of the intros to the NES Mega Man games. Once the level starts, a slower version of the Robocop theme plays as you slog along.

A fitting way to describe RoboCop’s gameplay is “realistic”. Control is slow as molasses and heavy, and even though Robocop has a large health bar and can aim straight up, diagonally and side-to-side, enemies and bullets are plentiful enough to make quick work of him. If you leave any alive, such as the guys shooting from windows, you’ll have a hell of a time trying to dance around their shots. It’s easy to get hit once, falter and get hit again by more bullets or grenades, spiraling into quick death and frustration. You can try to jump, but I don’t recommend it, not when you can duck.

At the end of each level, there’s a brief mini-scenario, such as going into first-person aiming and saving a hostage. I tried shooting through her skirt but that didn’t work, so I had to play the first level over again. I called it quits.

The sequel has a much cooler menu screen. ROBOCOP 2 in the big, movie poster font with a detailed animation of Robocop aiming his pistol and firing while fountains of casings shoot out the side. Awesome, maybe this game will be better?

Well, there’s another neat pre-game animation of his fist with the spike extending out, but after that is where it all goes downhill. Upon starting the level, you’ll notice that all the sprites are about twice as large, which means there’s half as much space to see what’s going on. This time you can actually jump and run, but instead of being responsive and precise, Robocop’s slip-sliding on the surface of the moon. There are less bad guys, but to balance out the drop in difficulty, the option to duck has been removed. Arguably the saving grace of RoboCop 1, I was already in mourning for the loss of a good friend, but compounded with that is Robocop’s new inability to aim up or diagonally, so get used to using that jump button.

Once you finish the level, a percentage pops up telling you whether or not you need to arrest more dealers. If you do, get ready to play that level all over again. I thought the game was being cute and meant I had to kill more enemies, but that had no effect, so I assumed you had to get close enough to melee to count as an arrest. Turns out that’s wrong too. The people who look like hostages flailing their arms for help? When you touch and free them, there’s a little counter in the lower-left that goes up and translates into your end score. So yeah, they were the drug dealers all along I guess. 

In summary, these are not good games. RoboCop 1 is slow and difficult unless you memorize the enemy locations, and RoboCop 2 is big, ugly and slippery. I’d buy them for a dollar but any higher and there will be...trouble.

[yonkeydong]

WARIO BLAST: FEATURING BOMBERMAN

Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman is the American localization of Hudson Soft’s Bomberman GB. Up until its release in late 1994, the Bomberman series only had two games available on home systems in America; 1989’s Bomberman on the NES and the renamed-for-America Atomic Punk, released for the Game Boy in 1990. Thanks to Super Mario Land 2 in 1992 and Wario Land just a few months before it, rebranding the game as Wario Blast was a good marketing decision, as more American kids recognized Wario than Bomberman. At least that’s what I think, because I probably wouldn’t have grabbed either it if it didn’t have Wario’s dumb grin plastered on the cover.

Like Bomberman before it, Wario Blast has the player running around a maze with destructible walls blowing up enemies. You choose either character, and the computer controls the other while you both run around blowing up enough walls to get to each other. There are power-ups that give a larger blast or the ability to lay two bombs at once, but with more power comes a larger risk of blowing yourself up first. Half the fun of Wario Blast is trying to outmaneuver your enemy while trying not to box yourself in, and the other half is when you actually succeed and blow the other guy to ashes. However, there are a few seconds before the victory screen, so if you get blown up too, the round ends in a tie. Each level is best out of three. Once you beat a level, more blocks and more enemies show up in each round, and as fun as it is to play Wario, it’s hilarious to play (and win) against two or three of them. There’s also a four-character password system to save your progress.

Wario Blast is one of the few games that is enhanced specifically for the Super Game Boy. New sounds, color, a unique border and a two-player mode (!) make Wario Blast a good reason to own one. I don’t have one, or a Super Nintendo to use it on, but I can imagine two-player would be frantic and full of WAH-HA-HA and other Wario impressions. 

Not only was renaming this game a good move for sales, it also adds to the character. Wario already established his track record as a fat jerk-- being the main antagonist in Super Mario Land 2 and buying his own castle in Wario Land to make Mario jealous-- now he’s stealing a whole game from Bomberman and putting his name on it. It’s not out of character and actually pretty funny, but if you despise Wario, you can always play Bomberman and blow a hole in his fat gut. Otherwise, you can show Bomberman how badly you can beat him at his own game. Either way you swing it, Wario Blast is good, clean, portable fun.

[yonkeydong]

ALLEYWAY: YUP, IT'S A LAUNCH GAME

the year is 1989 and the hot new Game Boy is proudly filling pockets and straining eyesight across the USA. Tetris is fun and all, but you’re mowing lawns and delivering papers to save up for the BRAND NEW MARIO GAME. All your friends at school have it and it almost feels like a sick joke how good they make it sound. You’re ready, you can feel yourself ripping open that box and filling your Game Boy cartridge slot with the best launch game available.

At last the day comes. You have enough money and your parents are taking you to Toys R’ Us! The aisles are filled with toys you don’t currently care about because all you want is Mario. You sprint past shelves of Nerf guns and Transformers, scoffing internally at your past naive fascination with such simple distractions. Truly, the future is here! Video games are the mark of the sophisticated pre-teen, and you don’t want to be late to the party.

Finally, the Game Boy aisle is here, and at the end, on a pedestal and in a spotlight, is the game you’ve been sweating, laboring and lusting after!

Alleyway.

Alleyway continues the long, complex lineage of Pong spin-offs involving breaking bricks with a ball and paddle, except what makes this one special is that Mario’s in it! If the frantic box art didn’t have you wondering who was in there, the pre-game cutscene shows him jumping into the paddle. One of the original launch games in 1989, the box art encouraged the player to “Cruise the Alleyway!” and “Slam energy balls to destroy the Vid-Grid!”, which really translated into “It’s Breakout!” except this time you could play it on a small screen notorious for motion-blur. You bust blocks with your energy balls-- sometimes the blocks move, sometimes they’re shaped like Nintendo characters - but when you miss, your ball blows up in a tiny mushroom cloud to let you know you can’t handle gameplay of this vintage. When you’re all out of balls, Mario abandons ship and runs offscreen (presumably to something better) as the ship blows up.

The nature of the beast is that most launch games aren’t very good. Super Mario Land was the big hit everyone wanted, and Tetris even came with the system, so what else was there to play? Tennis? Pfft. The most endearing parts of Alleyway are the little Nintendo touches, but at its core, it’s still Breakout. That’s fine, but in 1989, Alleyway felt like a four-year-old NES launch game with nothing new to offer, and in 2014, there are much better games of this nature available for the Game Boy.