 | It's not what you think it is, really. |
Time for me to report my gamage from last week.
Citizens of Earth (PC)
My review for this should be forthcoming. Personally, I enjoyed the game, but I have to move on with other projects. I will keep this one on my backlog, which is not something I usually do with review copies I receive, but I made a special case for this one.
Anyway, I made it as far as chapter 5 before moving on to my next review project. Getting there only proved difficult in the beginning. Right after I stomped the first major boss and entered chapter 2, the game tried to push me ahead by stuffing me into a taxi so I could rush off to another town. "Screw that noise," I said, because I had a feeling there was a lot of exploration to be hand. And boy, was there ever!
In fact, I would almost say that there was too much exploration...
A vast chunk of the game becomes open to you at the beginning of chapter 2. In addition to the first two towns, you can also cruise through a few forests, a desert, a cemetery, the ocean floor (assuming you recruit the lifeguard right away), an island loaded with possessed limbo experts, a factory built on a campground, which is overrun by scouts driven hyper by an overage of sweets; a hippie encampment or commune or something, and a couple of farmlands. That's miles worth of powerful enemies (read: loaded with experience, but not really strong), hidden items, and characters to recruit.
Yeah, besides just Earthbound, the game steals a page from Shining Force by allowing you to add forty characters to your roster. By the end of chapter 2, I had twenty-one allies total and realized I could have recruited two others before entering chapter 3.
The main problem I had with the exploration was more my fault than the game's. Because I ventured so far off the beaten path and pretty much mapped every nook and cranny I could, I became horribly over-leveled. Like, the protagonist's brother was so powerful by the end of my expedition that he could one-shot almost anything, including a couple of the bosses. I also somehow managed to advance bits of the story before they became available. For instance, I went to the hippie ranch and spoke to a few NPCs before thoroughly searching the place. By the time I got to chapter 3, all I had to do was defeat the boss. The chapter only took me about 10-15 minutes because of this.
I also managed to defeat the boss in the scout camp before reaching chapter 4, which made the encounter seem awkward. I mean, I basically just took a part of the story out of sequence. Despite my anal exploration, I didn't bother to defeat the other two bosses of chapter 4 before getting to that part of the game.
I'm not sure when I'll get around to playing the rest, as I really want to get my October games out of the way as soon as possible this year. Hopefully I won't drag my feet too long before scratching this one off the list.
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The Last Tinker: City of Colors (PS4)
Another title I'm reviewing at RoG. My opinion on it keeps changing as I advance. At first, it seemed like a cinematic action game with banal beat 'em up elements. It's since grown into a visually wonderful lighthearted experience, with slightly less banal combat and genuinely enjoyable areas to advance through. Currently, I've obtained the Green Spirit and need to restore his curiosity, which I apparently can only do by climbing a massive and very unsafe windmill.
I like how creative the game is, despite being a little too adorable at times. The early segments where the world was going to hell were pretty intense, highlighted by immense white tentacles and what appeared to be gleaming white starfish covered in dead-staring eyes. You, of course, had to outrun those and a sinister, white gelatinous mass known as Bleakness.
Finally, we have a video game that doesn't portray the embodiment of evil as shadows or a substance like crude oil. Rather, it's a colorless, lifeless, joyless blob that-
Actually, I take that back. It totally looks like the antagonist is the biggest bukkake the world has ever known. That's not really much better than the aforementioned alternatives...
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Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain
Having played through and finished my first draft for a review of Monsters in My Pocket, it was time to move on to October game #2.
For those who don't remember, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain is basically a Zelda clone developed by Silicon Knights. The series currently rests in the hands of Square Enix, who have shown us how much they adore the brand by canceling the sixth installment, Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun, and replacing it with what will likely be a forgettable multiplayer action game called Nosgoth. Thanks, Squeenix...
I'd forgotten how flawed this game is when first get into it: t's murky as all hell and the combat is a bit clunky. I've grown accustomed to the darkness now, though, and actually quite like it. It gives the game the kind of dreadful, Gothic feel I would expect it have. The combat, on the other hand, hasn't improved much, but it's not so bad that I would rip the game apart for it.
As for progress, I'm still early in the campaign. I'm supposed to fight Nupraptor, but keep bumping into side dungeons containing new spells and abilities. Not that I'm complaining; I like the extra dungeons.
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Genj - January 26, 2015 (11:07 AM) I sure hope you're playing Kain on PC. The PS1 version was very heavy on the loading. |
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JoeTheDestroyer - January 28, 2015 (12:08 AM) I have the PS1 version, which I've owned for nearly 20 years. There was no chance of me getting the PC version at the time, as my PC back then could barely run the first Doom. It is pretty heavy on loads, but it's tolerable. It doesn't even compete in that department with some games I've owned on PS1: Warcraft II, Hexen, and Diablo to name a few. |
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