I heard this game mentioned recently on a podcast when Plants vs Zombies came up in a conversation, so I decided to check it out. While I don’t think Garden Defense isn’t as good a game as PvZ, it is a fairly good little tower defense game.
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Keepers is a weekly segment in which I discuss games I’ve played that I’ve seen fit to keep after playing. I generally sell a game that I’ve finished, so the only reason I keep one is because I plan to replay the game some day. Classifying a game as a “keeper” is generally a badge of merit. Yes, I mean all five (actually six) of the Resident Evil titles. I have copies of all six on their original platforms, and they’re all great in their own ways. I’ll admit that I find the even-numbered titles to be the best of them, but my Resident Evils is like my childrens. I love them all. The first Resident Evil looks horrible by today’s standards and has dialogue that isn’t quite as well-written or performed as the dialog in most porn movies, but I spent the majority of a recent flight crammed into my little airplane seat playing the DS version. I’ve got to say - the game is still fun, and it’s damned hard. When you’ve got a limited number of typewriter ribbons to save the game and you’re playing in the admittedly short chunks of time that you typically have on a portable game console like the DS, having limited saves makes for a really difficult game. But the DS version added a lot of nice stylus puzzles, and some weird tacked-on knife fighting bits that keep you on your toes. Of course, I still have my original copy of Resident Evil for the PS1, but with a portable version available, I may never sit down again for the PS1 version. On the other hand, I very well may go back and play Resident Evil 2 on the PS1 for… what? The sixth time? Depends on how you’re counting, I guess. The initial game is one that you can play through four times: twice with each character, since there are two nearly-identical missions. After those initial four plays, I think I went back through once or twice immediately, one time completing the game with only 6 saves and using no first aid sprays so that I could unlock some weapon or uniforms or something. I think I replayed twice after that, years later. Resident Evil 2 is arguably my favorite of the series. The scare factor is just through the roof, and that’s what I love so much about the game. Resident Evil 3, on the other hand, is the bastard child of the series. Whereas RE2 had a “Nemesis” that appeared only in the game’s second mission, RE3 has his retarded brother who follows you around, moaning “STARS!” instead of “BRAINS!” In RE2, the Nemesis was one of the best parts about the game. In RE3, it’s just kind of dumb. The game that should have been named Resident Evil 3 is the one they ended up calling “Resident Evil: Code Veronica X”. It was the first Resident Evil game for the Playstation 2, and it had a better plot, better graphics, and better game mechanics than the other games. At times, it even featured limited 3D, mediating the series’s much-maligned camera angle issue. I only wish you could have set the difficulty level lower. That way, I might have actually finished the game. Code Veronica is the only Resident Evil game I’ve not completed. Yeah, I’m discounting Resident Evil 0, Umbrella Chronicles, and the other spin-offs. When Resident Evil 4 came along, it changed everything. It was a bit of a reboot for the series, replacing the mindless flesh-eating T-virus zombies with parasite-infected Las Plagas villagers and Nemesis with chainsaw-weilding crazies with burlap sacks over their heads. It reintroduced Leon Kennedy from Resident Evil 2, and turned the series away from its survival horror roots. Still, it was an excellent game. Resident Evil 5 gave us co-op. I’m nearly finished with the game, and I can tell you that the best thing about it is the co-op. I first played alone on my PS3, and then tried the co-op with my brother while I was visited him on the East Coast. I can tell you that the game is about seventeen times better when played co-op. When playing single-player, the AI partner you’re given is idiotic to the point of absurdity. At least the PS3 trophies have funny clever names like “It BELONGS in a Museum”, “They’re ACTION FIGURES!”, and “Master of Removing”. If you get those references then you can renew your geek card. Even with my complaints, I’ll be keeping every one of these games. I can only hope that when Resident Evil 6 is eventually released, they bring back some T virus zombies, just for old times’ sake. The flesh-eaters are always the scariest ones.
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Here’s the second Lungfishopolis musiccast - this one focuses on the music from Nintendo Wii’s Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I’m not entirely happy with the audio quality on this one - I’ll try to do better next time. Lungfishopolis MusicCast - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
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One of this year’s E3 announcements that escaped my attention until today is Nintendo’s announcement of the “Kind Code“. This is a system whereby if you find yourself stuck at a certain point in a game, you can activate the Kind Code, and the game then plays itself. In this way, you can figure out puzzles, or learn the best way to defeat a difficult boss. My first take after reading this was distaste - that it was essentially a cheat added in by the game designers. And while in some ways it is, I can’t wholeheartedly object to the idea. When I think back to games like Metal Gear Solid 2 and Eternal Darkness, which I had to stop playing because of a too-difficult boss, I realize that I’d have loved to skip that portion of the game so that I could experience the rest of the story after that particular battle. Super Mario Brothers Wii will be the first game to make use of the Kind Code. I’ll likely buy it, since it seems like a perfect game to play co-op with my wife.
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It looks like over the weekend, Hulu.com has begun blocking the PS3 browser from viewing their site. As I’m someone without regular cable TV, this stinks. You’ve hurt my feelings, Hulu. Luckily, I found a fix on ypass.net. It seems that Hulu is using the User-Agent string in the browser’s HTTP request to determine whether you’re visiting their site from a Playstation 3 or from a computer. It seems that if you’ve got some basic network-fu, you can install a proxy server at home and thereby pass a different User-Agent string. The proxy server recommended by ypass is squid. After installing, you should edit squid’s config file as follows.
Then, after starting up squid, you go out to your PS3 and tell it to use squid as its proxy server. To do this, choose manual network configuration, and when you get to “proxy server”, set it to your PC’s IP address (which can be found by typing “ipconfig” at your PC’s command line prompt) and tell it to use port 3128. I haven’t yet tried this, as I’ve had spotty luck watching Hulu from the PS3 in the past, but I’ve only recently hardwired the PS3 into the home network, so I may go back and give this a go. If any readers set this up successfully, please leave me a comment and tell me how it went.
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It looks like Blizzard has released a third Starcraft 2 “Battle Report”, and it’s the best one I’ve seen yet. There are some brilliant moves by these obviously high-level players. Matches like these could easily be a spectator sport. The video is in two parts, both of which you can view below.
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Okay, so it’s got no sound effects. But it’s Burgertime! Besides, be honest - you’re playing at work, aren’t you? You don’t really want any sound effects.
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So I’m currently playing The Conduit so that I can review it and like I do with most games, I check out the reviews that come out while I’m spending time with the game. I’m sure this is a bad idea as you don’t want the opinions of others to impact your own review, but I can’t help it. Part of this is just curiosity, to see if the impressions of others jive with my own. Sometimes it’s anticipation; I’m excited for a game I don’t have yet, but will be reviewing, and I want to know if it’s any good. I’m sure none of those reasons are sufficient for poisoning my well of opinions, but if I don’t read game reviews I may actually have to do my job and that ain’t happening any time soon. On occasion I’ll read reviews that fly directly in the face of what I’m seeing when I’m playing a game. In a lot of these cases, the differences are technical: they connected to multiplayer fine and I didn’t, they knock a game’s controls without seeing that you can change them, while I checked out the options, things like that. With The Conduit, though, the differences of opinion have to do with the single player mode. A good number of the reviewers find it bland and uninspiring, while I’m having a great deal of fun with it. This brings me to the problem, that three little word: fun. Fun is one of those words you’re supposed to shy away from in reviews because it’s completely arbitrary. Granted, a lot of opinions put forth in game reviews are commenting on arbitrary things, but at the same time, if you have a 360 game that looks like an SNES game, even allowing for differences in opinions in regards to graphics, most people will agree that those graphics aren’t up to par. Tom Chick, who is one of the best video game reviewers on the planet as well as an incredibly nice guy, never uses the word “fun” in his reviews as it’s unimportant. What is important is if the game is designed well, does it do the right things and do them well. It makes sense, as things that I find fun, say grinding for achievements, others may find stultifying. The problem with this is that, in the case of The Conduit, I can see the points of the reviewers in regards to the single player story, however I’m having a great deal of fun with the game so those problems don’t matter to me. So then I have a hard time reconciling if these problems are actually problems or the other reviewers didn’t have as much fun with the game so the flaws become much more apparent. I have no idea. Now, arguably, I don’t play a lot of shooters as, for the most part, I find them boring. Left 4 Dead had the co-op hook, but without it, it was just moving from one room full of zombies to another. Playing those campaigns by yourself was not at all entertaining. BioShock had the powers/weapons combination as well as a great setting. I’ve heard that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and World at War are great games, but honestly, military shooters bore the piss out of me, so I haven’t played them. When I play a shooter, I’m not asking a lot from it, probably because shooters have, historically, just been about moving from room A to room B and killing everything you come across. I want good controls, varied, effective weapons, decent enemy AI and a story that has enough to it to keep me motivated. The Conduit has all of these things. I’m not sure what else others would want from it. In the end, I’m having fun with the game. When I have to put the Wiimote down at the end of the evening and go spend time with the wife, I don’t want to put it down. I want to keep playing. I want to see what the next alien enemy is. I want to find the next experimental weapon. I want to move from room A to room B and kill everything I come across. I am having fun and I don’t want the fun to stop. I just can’t say that in the review. I’m hoping that by figuring out how to take “fun” out of the equation I can lay bare the design choices that make a game good or bad, but I’m not sure I’m talented enough to do that. There’s always the concern that if I take fun out of things, I may end up shortchanging a game. Some games are repetitive and derivative and fun as hell any way. Treating a game like that with more of a clinical eye may do that game, and those that might miss out on it a disservice. I don’t know. Maybe I need to stop reading the reviews of others so that I don’t overanalyze things. In the meantime, you should totally play The Conduit. It’s a lot of fun.
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Keepers is a weekly segment in which I discuss games I’ve played that I’ve seen fit to keep after playing. I generally sell a game that I’ve finished, so the only reason I keep one is because I plan to replay the game some day. Classifying a game as a “keeper” is generally a badge of merit. The first console I ever bought myself was the original Playstation, thirteen years ago. And the first game I got for it was Armored Core. I played the crap out of that game, and I loved it. Beating the final boss was nearly impossible, but I eventually did it. The sequels were also a lot of fun. I played some of the PS2 sequels, but never loved them like I did the Armored Core games for the Playstation 1. Even though I don’t have my Playstation hooked up right now, I made sure to keep Armored Core, because when I do hook it up, this will be one of the games I want to play.
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Most game sites bring you Game of the Year awards every December or January. But here in Lungfishopolis, we’ve just acquired a crystal ball - we got a used one at this little shop in Chinatown, real cheap - and we are now able to bring to you our Game of the Year awards for the next decade. Hope you enjoy this little look forward. Sorry that you’ve got to wait so long to play these. 2010 - No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle (Nintendo Wii)The sequel to No More Heroes came back strong with better minigames, better combat mechanics using MotionPlus, and even better comedy. Travis Touchdown still sits on the toilet to save his game and still drives around Santa Destroy on his “Schpeltiger” motorcycle, but now he can fight from the Schpeltiger and he’s got far better wrestling moves, including throws, submission holds, and the dreaded cluster buster. In the opening cutscene, Travis’s girlfriend is killed, and the game consists of a giant revenge murder rampage, battling subsequently more powerful henchmen until he finds his girlfriend’s murderer. The villians are even more ridiculous, including a potato-chip-eating kid piloting a mech and a woman in a six-limbed jetpack. 2011 - Freedom Force vs The Atomic Robot Zombie Men (XBox 360, Playstation 3, PC)This new tactical RPG from 2K Boston revisits Patriot City and reintroduces Mentor, Minuteman, El Diablo, and most of the original cast of heroes. FFvtARZM allows for online co-op play and the ability to create and share custom character models, as well as a level editor available only in the PC version. When the evil Dr. Think takes over the Kremlin using his powers of malkinesis, Freedom Force flies to Russia to intervene. But soon, they learn of Dr. Think’s secret army of atomic robot zombie men. Can Freedom Force stop them before it’s too late? 2012 - Chimaera: Corner of the Eye (Nintendo Wii)Chimaera: Corner of the Eye is a psychological horror game set in New Orleans. In 1971, dead bodies begin appearing inside Rachel Montrose’s house. After the third occurance, she leaves her home. When a body appears in her hotel room two days later, the police begin investigating her. Chimaera incorporates the same insanity effect system introduced in 2002’s Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, and expands that insanity effect system in new directions using the Wiimote’s speaker, the new WiiMove controller, and the Wii’s internet connection. 2013 - Psychonauts 2 (Playstation 3, PC)Psychonauts 2 picks up immediately where the previous game left off: at Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp. The Grand Head of the Psychonauts has been captured, and as a new Psychonaut, Raz accompanies Sasha Nein and Milla Vodello to rescue him. Their adventures carry them through Paris and Prague, and into dozens of new minds. 2014 - Portal Wars (PC)Everyone was expecting the announcement of Half-Life 3 at E3 2012, but instead Valve announced Portal Wars, a new persistent online shooter based in the universe of Half-Life and Portal. Portal Wars is not a MMO - there are no classes or levels - but you keep gear that you acquire, and weapons and ammo can be scarce commodities. Vehicles are extremely scarce, but rather than Half-Life 2’s 3-4 vehicles, there are 14 different vehicle types initially, including the troop transport and the helicopter. Each server is one of the world’s numbered cities, and it’s possible for players to travel between them, although the journey is generally difficult. When you log off, your character goes to sleep, so it’s best to rest in the underground resistance bunkers. If one is threatened while you’re offline, you can choose to be notified by email, instant messenger, or twitter. If you’re killed, the character is permanently dead, although this is less of a loss than a MMO, since there are no levels. But you do generally lose all your gear. Portal Wars makes use of a face-mapping system, evolved from Valve’s faceposer software. Webcams can be used so that when the player speaks, his facial expression and lip movements are mapped onto his avatar’s face, creating a new level of realism. And in a design decision similar to Left 4 Dead, Valve allows players to play briefly as Combine forces. Combine characters are nameless, non-persistent characters. Generally, you’ll play as a white-suited combine elite. They use the super-rare pulse rifles, and sometimes have access to mounted machine guns, sniper posts, and headcrab shell launchers. Infrequently, combine players will spawn as groups of hunters, paratroops and helicopter pilots, or even striders. Valve indicated in February of 2013 that it is possible for the resistance to retake cities and even to totally repel combine forces from the Earth. 2015 - Wasteland (Playstation 3, PC)A direct remake of the 1998 RPG by inXile Players create a party of up to four players to control, or optionally create fewer for online co-op play, in which up to six players can participate. You can also add NPCs to a party with less than six characters, but NPCs are under their own control. Characters begin as new desert rangers at Ranger HQ, where their adventure begins wandering the wasteland and eliminating dangerous desert creatures for the benefit of local settlements. Along the way, they can become entangled with mafia, cyborgs, and a gun-toting monastic brotherhood. 2016 - The Legend of Zelda: Destiny Mirror (Nintendo DSv)A launch title for Nintendo’s new DSv portable, Destiny Mirror uses the DSv’s stereoscopic cameras to create 3d images of the player and his actions in the Destiny Mirror. Gameplay is stylus-controller, much like Phantom Hourglass, but much of the gameplay is done through use of the camera: waving a hand, making shadow puppets, and even drawing in mid-air with the stylus. 2017 - Quantum (XBox Universal, Playstation 4, PC)Quantum is a sci-fi first-person shooter set in a near-future Earth where scientists at CERN have made human teleportation possible. As the game opens, the CERN facility is under seige by military groups from two separate nations who want to seize the technology. Players are part of a UN special forces unit sent to intervene. Quantum received high praise for making excellent use of the new 3d technology in this console generation, and for its excellent voice acting. 2018 - Mechwarrior 6 (PC)After the buggy mess that was Mechwarrior 5, nobody expected the sixth installment in this long-running series to be as good as it is. Using new DirectX13 capabilities and allowing players to run the game in up to three monitors for peripheral vision, Mechwarrior 6 brought the series to a whole new level. 2019 - Baldur’s Gate 3 (PS4, Sega Singularity, PC)After nearly twenty years, nobody expected the Baldur’s Gate series to make a comeback. But it did, in the same way that the 1991 Neverwinter Nights game was remade in 2002, and the 1998 Wasteland game was remade in 2015. Baldur’s Gate 3 turns out to be as much of a phenomenon as the original was way back in the 20th Century.
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