Completed: Brothers – A Tale of Two Sons.

 After a few months I finally got around to renewing my Playstation+ Membership. I didn’t cancel it for any reason, I just couldn’t afford the extra expense due to numerous car repairs being needed. After renewing it 2 more car repairs were needed and I regretted the decision to renew. What’s done, is done though and I will have PS+ for a full year and I immediately added the instant game collection to my queue.

I had to work a 10 hour shift on Saturday. Working a 10 hour shift on Saturday for me means sitting in a cubicle, waiting on people to lock out accounts or call in various computer problems. There’s not a lot of that so I bought a GAEMS PGE to use on these shifts and get some gaming in. I only had a few options since not everything had finished downloading by the time I went to work. I had Brothers: A Tale of two sons, Metro: Last Light, Bioshock Infinite, and DYAD. Brothers looks kind’ve like Fable and I hadn’t heard a lot about it so I figured I’d give that a shot first. It turns out that it’s a short game, but that’s not a bad thing.

This is a very unique game which I hated at first and thought I would give up on 15 minutes in.  I was finished 4 hours later, and already thinking about how I could convince others to play this game. I refuse to spoil anything so all I will say is you control 1 character with your left hand, 1 with your right. They each get a control stick for movement and a single button for action. If you think that’s simple, try it. There is also no real dialog and no subtitles, but you will completely understand everything that is going on.

Thoughts on the Playstation 4 announcement

My fandom of Playstation is still relatively new, but I was very excited about tonight’s announcement. Unfortunately as I’ve mentioned before, my PC sucks and it made the stream very difficult to watch. I missed the big reveal because every stream I tried lagged horribly and I couldn’t even get my PS3 to connect to my router for the first time ever.

Overall I felt the announcement was pretty lackluster. Due to the various leaks over the past month there weren’t any big surprises. This is probably why it was announced early on. Having the specs confirmed is great and all but who really cares about the specs? I work in IT and I love computers, and I get that it’s really the only way they can say what it’s capable of, but none of it means anything until we get our hands on the system and the games developed exclusively for it. Only then can we really see what the machine can do. On that note I’m going to break down some of the announcements below and what I like/dislike about it. I’m not addressing sequels or anything that’s not new (at least to me).

Knack – I feel like this should not have even been part of the announcement. I don’t understand why after all the specs they listed, they show a game with the animation style Knack has. I’m not saying it can’t be a great game, it could have the most amazing gameplay and story ever, but I lost interest as soon as I saw what it looked like. It’s like using an HD TV to watch old looney toons.

Diablo 3 – Cool, never played Diablo due to my crap PC but I’ve always been curious.

Destiny – *Sigh* This did not belong here either, and especially not as the final announcement. We knew this was coming a couple of days ago when Bungie said so. I am really looking forward to this game, so much so that I’ve already had the preorder set in my cart, but I thought about the PS4 and realized that I didn’t want to commit not knowing whether or not I’ll be buying a second copy down the road for it.

That was the notable announcements for me. I’m not disappointed that they didn’t show the console. It’s pretty much certain that it will either be black or white, have the PS4 logo in blue, and will play games. I am disappointed that they didn’t name the price… probably waiting for Microsoft to drop the info for 720 (or whatever) first, but I’m a couple of weeks away from my tax return and was hoping to set aside the money if it’s under $500. If it’s over that, I’m getting a new TV and working on my media room slowly until the price drops a little.

If there’s something I didn’t address that you would like to know my opinion on leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to discuss it.

Oh crap, I forgot, I’m blogging again…

Okay, maybe I didn’t forget. Maybe I just forgot to finish Space Marine?

Alright… here’s what really happened. I jumped on Black Ops 2 because I really needed a multiplayer fix. I figured I’d do horribly because I hadn’t played in awhile and the exact opposite happened. My team may not always win but I certainly do. I don’t think I’ve had less than an even K/D ratio in the past week. I finally found the best combination of weapons for me. I go with 2 primaries, 2 perks, and no tactical or lethal items because I rarely do anything useful with them. I will get back to Space Marine soon but it’s very hard to give up when you’re going 28/3 or 15/1.

You understand… right?

Also, I’ve been trying to use the in-game streaming option on Black Ops but apparently my connection is crap and it will never work. I do hope to get a new PC sometime soon so I can have video updates to go along with this blog. I also learned over the past couple of weeks that my Samsung Galaxy S2 phone is more capable of rendering videos than my computer… that’s a problem.

 

Road to Story Completion: Game 4 – Darksiders

What a relief! I have FINALLY completed Darksiders. Don’t take my phrasing of this as an indication that this was a torturous task. I enjoyed it very much but I did not expect to log 19 hours and 31 minutes on this. 16 hrs may have been possible if it was not for the few occasions where I got stuck. I had to take a break on these occasions and jump back into it with a clear mindset and as usual I blew right through it on the first try. I will never understand how that works, but I’m sure if I ask my wife (who’s working on a masters in psych) she’ll have an answer for me.

Impressions

Although I enjoyed my time with Darksiders I am happy to be done. The story was very compelling and kept me interested right through to the end. The characters and environment were done really well and I was not initially expecting this to include puzzles. I’ve grown to enjoy puzzle games quite a bit since Portal and the amount of different abilities needed to solve them kept things interesting.

My only real complaint would be that I felt the game should have been done a couple of hours before it was. Truthfully I may have just forgotten something that was said prior to my break which lead me to believe I was closer to the end than I was. Because of this, however, the last two hours dragged on quite a bit. The story was still very good but it seemed to be filled in with a lot of busy work and back tracking.

This game is definitely worth playing through, but not something I would buy. I will most likely check out Darksiders 2 sometime down the road but not until after this years challenge is complete.

I fear that I have made a big mistake (Darksiders progress update)

If you’re following the blog you should know that my latest game in progress is Darksiders. I am nearly at the end and I mistakenly saved over a file where I had full health at a point pre-battle at half-health. I have tried at least a dozen times and failed at what I hope is the mid-point of the fight. I took a break over the weekend so I can make a fresh attempt and hopefully push through to finish out the game. Since I have logged about 14 hours total already I may have to put this one aside and move on if I am to continue with the challenge

Road to Story Completion: Game 4 In Progress

Darksiders hit Playstation Plus for free this morning. This 10GB download has hooked me after only 1.5 hrs. According to howlongtobeat.com I’ve got about 15 hours to go. This will  likely be the last update until I finish. Since I average about 2 hours a night I expect to post again late next week.

If you’re at all curious what this challenge consists of for me here is the list of incomplete Free Playstation Plus games.

 

 

1.  BioShock 2 (Completed)
2. Quantum Conundrum (Completed)
3. Shank 2 (Completed)
4. Darksiders (In Progress)
5. Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One
6. Anomaly
7. Rochard
8. Trine 2
9. Awesomenauts
10. Tomb Raider Underworld
11. Uprising
12. Hamster Ball
13. Borderlands
14. Sly Cooper and the Thevius Raccoonus
15. Starhawk
16. Double Dragon Neon
17. Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine
18. Outland
19. Sideway
20. Bloodrayne Betrayal
21. Renegade Ops
22. Choplifter HD
23. InFamous
24. InFamous 2
25. Hydrophobia: Prophecy
26. Resident Evil 5
27. Dungeon Defenders
28. Pay Day: The Heist
29. Scott Pilgrim vs the World: The Game
30. Rock of Ages
31. Swords and Soldiers
32. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
33. Just Cause 2
34. Zombie Apocalypse: Never Die Alone
35. Saints Row 2
36. Back to the Future Ep 1 – 5
37. The Walking Dead Ep 1 – 2 (not sure 2 is a full episode?)
38. Little Big Planet 2
39. Killzone: Liberation (not sure this is a full game?)
40. Dead Nation

Keep in mind that this list grows with each new free game released on Playstation Plus. Below are the incomplete PS3 games I own that are also part of the challenge:

1. Singularity
2. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
3. Prince of Persion: The Forgotten Sands
4. L.A. Noire
5. Crysis 2
6. God of War: Origins Collection
7. Little Big Planet 2
8. Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs
9. Brink

This list will grow as well if I happen to get anything new. If there are any in this list that you think should be omitted for any reason please let me know and why. Remember, rules are:

• No Sports
• No Racing
• No 8/32-Bit
• No Vita (unless I get one)
• No PSOne
• No Minis (I’m not sure these are even part of PS+ but I had a bunch in my past downloads list)

As a side-note, I really wish I had some video capture equipment so I could document this better.

Road to Story Completion: Game 3 – Shank 2

The official Twitter account for Playstation posted yesterday that Darksiders will be available free for Playstation Plus subscribers on 1/15. I’ve wanted to play it for a while, so to make sure I could jump right into it I picked a short game for #3. That game was Shank 2.

Impressions

I played a few minutes of Shank 2 when it was first released on PS+. I thought the art style was great, and the cut scenes were amazingly gory. Having spent my childhood with side-scrollers and beat-em-ups  I typically put games like this down after a matter of minutes, however, the mission kept me focused. Although it is short and the fights are repetitive, the changing environment and obstacles keep you thinking and interested.

I do have two complaints. First, the female protagonist Corina needed more gameplay. You take her through one level and she is a bad ass! I’m not sure if I was just in the zone or if it was her but it seemed like every button press was a hit or counter and I was very close to finishing her level without damage. Second, and I have a hard time complaining about this… the final battle was too easy. A few of the early battles I had to restart several times while this one I completed with only half damage.

Overall it was a fun game. I played on Normal difficulty which is what I’m doing for most of this story completion challenge and I will not go back for Hard difficulty on this one. I will probably not go back and play this at all, but if you’re in the mood for a good side-scrolling beat-em-up you should definitely check it out. I finished it in 3.5 hours which is about par according to http://howlongtobeat.com/. I did not spend time exploring, just ran through and found what was on the way.

Road to Story Completion: Game 2 – Quantum Conundrum

Just as I thought I might, I completed Quantum Conundrum last night. It took approximately 2 hours to finish up. If you’re not familiar with it, the game was directed by Kim Swift who directed the Portal series. As I said previously I love Portal and had to check this out when I heard the news, but I ended up waiting until it became free on Playstation Plus.

The writing is not at all on par with Portal; however, there are blatant similarities between the two games. While Portal has test chambers that the player moves through, Quantum Conundrum has rooms in a house owned by your crazy scientist uncle. The constant voice of Glados is of course missing, but you get the voice of your Uncle who is stuck in a pocket dimension waiting for your rescue.

Impressions

Despite the lack of Portalness to this game I thoroughly enjoyed it. It does a very good job at training you to use the different dimensions throughout the game. You will end up with a total of 4 dimensions at your control; heavy, fluffy (light), time, and gravity. You get these in several stages as the difficulty gradually increases over time. I had very little trouble with most, but I will admit that I got completely stuck and had to look up the solution one time. After seeing how dumb of a mistake I was making I was good through the rest of the game.

As I do with Portal I will probably play this again on occasion and potentially go for a couple of the challenge trophies since there are only 16 total. During my challenge of beating all the free PS+ games, however, I will move on and not look back. If you have not played this already, I highly recommend it. Of course, if you’re a PS+ subscriber you have no excuse for not playing.

When I turned the game off I saw one of the Tomb Raider movies on Showtime… I’m thinking about taking that as a sign for the next game in line. I’ve never completed more than 1 level in a Tomb Raider game though, and would be happy to hear your suggestion for the next to play.

Road to Story Completion: Game 1 – BioShock 2

If you don’t know me, and I assume most people reading this won’t. I’m a big fan of first-person shooters. I’m only a mild fan of RPG’s. Whenever any game combines the two styles I have trouble with it. In any case I decided to start my road to story completion with BioShock 2.

Impressions

I had tried the first game long ago on Xbox, and never got into it. I feel like both have a pretty slow pace. If I had not previously set the goal of completing it I probably would’ve given up. However, I stuck through it and after the first level I was hooked and wanted to complete it. I very much like the moral decisions that have to be made throughout the game. I also think it’s great that it gives you good reason to go with either decision causing a real moral dilemma. I ended up playing about 2 hours a night finishing in 4 days. I might have spent more time on this than others who have played it because I was trying to collect everything I saw not realizing until 3/4 in that there is no inventory and items are used right away. The last night was a 5-6 hour stretch. I felt like the end was right around the corner and every time it wasn’t I did the standard “Okay, just one more..” until it was over.

I did not get the best ending, and I wasn’t trying to. I simply wanted to play the game and do what was necessary to make it to the end. I didn’t try to rescue every little sister but I didn’t harvest them all either. This gave me the Abandoned Evil ending. I looked up the others on YouTube afterwards and there were parts of each that I liked so I would’ve been satisfied either way.

There is a small chance that I might play again in the future. Now that I know the game mechanics I feel like I could stand to do a little more exploring and deal with all the little sisters in some way. There were many areas that I know I missed because I did not want to stray to far from the main path, but the parts I did explore lead me to believe that it is fairly linear anyway and there’s not much chance that I will actually get lost. For now the game has been deleted from the system to make room for others. I have completed the task with this one and would rather have the space for whatever is released next month.

What’s Next?

Quantum Conundrum is my next to be completed. I love the Portal series and wanted to play this since I heard it was by the same creator. I checked out the demo and enjoyed it but never bothered to make the purchase. Fortunately PS+ came to the rescue and released it for free. I have been playing since it’s release on PS+ so I am already halfway through. I imagine that I will complete it within a day or two.

It’s 2013 and I’m on a mission.

I’ve acknowledged to myself a long time ago that I have a pretty bad case of ADD when it comes to gaming. In most other areas of my life I can focus on and complete tasks, but when it comes to gaming I seem to only be able to complete things about 20% of the time. Based on an article I read recently I know I’m not completely alone in this. The author of that article believes it could be due to the number of choices. I too have taken a good long look at my stack of games, and although many are not completed and some I’ve never started I decide that I have nothing to play and fall back on a game of multiplayer in Halo or Call of Duty. The list of incomplete games has grown exponentially since Sony has begun giving out games for free to Playstation Plus subscribers. So, I decided that the best course of action was to pick a group of games and set a goal to complete them. My choice was the free Playstation Plus games I’ve amassed in the past year. In addition to this will be any new games I happen to purchase.

There must of course be exceptions, and here they are:

• I hate sports, therefore I cannot include sports games.
• Classic Playstation games do not count.
• Vita is out, unless I get a Vita.
• 8 and 32-bit games are out. Sorry, I played enough of those as a kid.

I will also do a small write-up on my thoughts at the end of each game. Since this was all decided half-way through Black Ops II I will not be writing about it. It was a good game, and I thoroughly enjoyed the story. I will write more about other games as I play them. I have also completed BioShock 2, I will write another post about that later today.