Valentine’s Day is when you let the people you care about know that you really appreciate them (shouldn’t that be everyday?).  One way to show appreciation is to give gifts.  Well my Valentine’s Day gift to all of you readers is a fun blog to read.  It’s a lot less expensive than flowers and much less calories than chocolate, too.

Companion Cube go down the hooooolllleeee…

There are only three times that a game made me want to play an FPS. I’m not really a big fan of those kinds of games. The first time I wanted to play an FPS was with Chex Quest. It was a PC game that came in a cereal box. It was free and I didn’t want to pass up a chance to play as a piece of cereal. I reviewed Chex Quest for the Dallas newspaper and it was a hit because nobody ever thought to review a game in a cereal box. Another time I wanted to play an FPS was with Metroid Prime. Well, that’s not really an FPS game, but it is FPS-like. And they really did a great job making a Metroid game in 3-D. And recently, a third game made me want to play an FPS. It’s Portal. Not an FPS per se, but a puzzle game with FPS views and controls. It’s in a game called The Orange Box that has Portal and two other games that I don’t really care much about.

I love Portal. It’s brilliant, enjoyable, and dog gone funny. It’s one of the funniest games I’ve ever played. I love the turrets and I replayed the final boss fight twice just to hear all the taunts the boss gave you. Real clever gameplay, too. The puzzle mechanics of using portals to get around is ingenious. I bet the makers of other 3-D puzzley games like Metroid and Zelda looked at this game and thought, ‘Dang, I wish we had thought of that.’ I especially like how the game is short and not too frustrating. The older and busier I get, the more I welcome games like that. I think a lot of today’s games are too long and drawn out with filler.

After beating the game, I checked out the commentary where you play through the levels and click on the word balloons to hear comments from the developers. I was hoping for more insight on the humor and inspiration of the game, but what I got in the commentary was mostly nerdy stuff that went over my head. I did like the lively commentaries by the voice actor of the computer, though.

Even though I liked Portal, you don’t have to worry about me posting the ending song here or quoting lines from the game. No lying cakes or anything. Too geeky (and yet I have no qualms about writing a blog about the history of Sonic Blast Man). But it really is a funny game and if you can get the chance to play it, do so. Does anyone know where I could get companion cube products (toys, plush, etc.)?  Jeff wants one. He cracked me up when he was playing Portal. He picked up the companion cube and spun it around and around while humming “So Happy Together.” That was so funny.  I was hoping Jeff would enjoy and play the other two games on The Orange Box.  He says that Team Fortress 2 is like a really, really violent version of The Incredibles, and he says that Call of Duty 4 is WAY better than Half Life 2.  He also says that both games were really hard.  I had fun watching him play Half Life 2, though, because he made funny MST3K-like comments throughout play.  When he’d pick up something, he’d say, “Ooooo, no hands.” Or one time when he picked up a skull on the ground he said, “To be, or not to be…” 

But at any rate, Portal is great and I’m about to go to Valve’s online store and pick up a companion cube T-shirt for Jeff and a GlaDOS T-shirt for me.

Shut up, Sylvia!

This past weekend I played No More Heroes at a friend’s house.  I’ve been saying that No More Heroes really isn’t my cup of tea, but I really couldn’t snub the game TOO much without trying it first, you know?  In the game, you play as Travis Touchdown, a anime fanboy and wrestling nerd.  It’s funny because I have some friends who like anime and wresting, too.  Of course they’re not quite as BAD as Travis Touchdown is, though.  Actually since I like to collect video game toys and Namco memorabilia, I guess I’m a little like Travis myself.  Uh oh!

Of course, one big way that my friends and I are NOT like Travis Touchdown is that he’s out to kill all the bad assassins in town so he can be the number one assassin.  Why?  To make money to buy video games of course!  And other things that are a little more adult-rated, but we’ll get into that later. 

Travis’ ‘boss’ in the game who gives him all his assignments is a lady with a French accent, and her name is Sylvia.  I didn’t like her in the game.  She was mean and she would always call Travis on his cell phone right before he was going to fight one of the assassins.  Then the Wii remote would ring and you could put it up to your ear like you were listening to her talk to you on the phone.  But she talks way too much.  She went on and on and on about stuff.  She said something about a river of madness or whatever, I wasn’t really listening.  I felt like just handing the remote to my friend who was sitting on the couch next to me and letting him talk to her for a while.  She wasn’t letting me get a word in edgewise.   And her French accent wasn’t even that sexy either.  Heck, the pink blobs from Loco Roco had better French accents than she did.  Oh!  There is one cool thing about Sylvia.  She has a neat limousine.  I was sad when she kicked Travis out of her limo because I liked it.

Anyway, Travis kills his foes with some kind of home-made light saber.  Now, you’d think that you would control attacks by swinging around the remote like a sword.  But you don’t.  Just pushing the A button swings the sword, and tilting the Wii remote high or low while button mashing is how you attack or block high and low.  While I prefer the more direct approach with Wii sword combat in games like Zelda and Soul Calibur Legends, play control in No More Heroes isn’t bad, it’s just different.  Your sword runs on electricity, and in order to charge it up you have to do something really gross.  I won’t say what it is, but let’s just say that when I had to charge up the sword, I held the Wii remote as far away from myself as I could.  It was kind of embarrassing.  Like how if you ever played Super Monkey Ball in the arcade and had to hold that banana-shaped joystick.  Yeah, it was that kind of embarrassing.

I was worried about the extreme violence and blood in the game, but it really isn’t THAT bad most of the time.  The game is so cartoony that the blood that spews out of people looks more like red streamers or candy.  It looks like Travis is just beating up piñatas.  And all that Viva Pinata I’ve played has made me desensitized towards piñata violence.  There were still some parts that I didn’t like, though.  Like when Travis cut off the first boss’ arms and then his head.  I thought that was gross.  But then, I guess I’m just a big baby.  Remember when I wrote a blog about when I played Rumble Roses XX?  You know, the overt sexism in that game didn’t bother me as much as the violence did, when you had to hit the other player and in the game they would groan and double over in pain.  Yeah, I didn’t like that either. 

But one thing I did like about No More Heroes is the cartoony graphic style, and all the 8-bit sounds and visuals mixed in.  That was my favorite part.  I also really liked Travis’ cat.  And while No More Heroes is rough around the edges in places, it’s a heck of a lot better than most other third party Wii titles.  Heck, the only other really GOOD third party Wii game I’ve played is Zack & Wiki.  But I probably won’t get No More Heroes myself.  I like supporting the smaller developers, but only if I know I’ll enjoy the game they’re making.  It’s just not for me.  I’m certainly not against violent video games, but if I had a choice between a violent game and a family friendly game I can share with my little brothers, you can bet I’ll pick the latter any day.  And No More Heroes is definitely NOT for kids.  Don’t even let them know you HAVE this game if there are young ones in your house.

Marching to the beat of a different drum.

After playing a game like No More Heroes, which isn’t quite my cup of tea, I played a demo of a game that’s right up my alley!  It’s Patapon for the PSP.  It’s a music/rhythm game because you have to time your button presses to the beat of the music.  But it’s also a military strategy game because, depending on what buttons you press, you’ll command your little tribal battle troops to march forward, attack, defend, etc.  It’s very creative, cartoony, and cute in a Loco Roco sort of way.

The rhythm part of the game isn’t too hard.  Most of it is just four beats in 4/4 time.  You press four buttons and then your tribe chants and does whatever your buttons (drums) commands. It kind of reminds me of Space Channel 5.  Now, if you want to make your tribe march forward from left to right (it’s a 2-D game), just press square, square, square, circle.  The Patapon tribe will chant “Pata, Pata, Pata, Pon” in 4/4 time after and then march forward.  To attack, just press circle, circle, square, circle, and the tribe will chant Pon, Pon, Pata, Pon, and attack any enemy or obstacle in the way.  You’ll want to keep the rhythm going, though, because the higher your combo gets, the more powerful your attacks become.  Between battles, you can use items to build different troops and equip them with powerful weapons. 

The best part about Patapon, though, is that it’s only going to be 20 bucks.  And it comes out at the end of February.  Even better, if you reserve a copy at GameStop, you can get a demo disc to try out Patapon.  And if you beat the demo levels, you’ll get a save file that will net you a exclusive weapon to use in the full game.  Or you can just do what I did, borrow a friend’s demo disc.  But I’m still going to get the game.  The demo convinced me.  I guess that’s what demos are supposed to do.

And that’s all for now.  Happy Valentine’s Day!  –Cary

Tags: Game Reviews