lost in games

 After a gameless Tuesday, Wednesday also looked to be heading that way since i got back home late from the office. Fortunately i had around 45mins to spare before the Porto-Arsenal champions league game so i decided to play one battle in Valkyria Chronicles.

I went overtime though and only finally beat it after around 1.5 hours thus missing the first half of the match (thank god!). Back to Valkyria now. I was playing the first desert battle in the story and i had the problem that most of units that had positive links with one another, and thus increasing their combat abilities, were not desert fighters. In fact some were even allergic to the desert. That left me with a squad that really did not connect as a team. Combined with some very slow moving of my troops towards the enemy base it led to a really bad win (D rank) and thus not that many Experience points and Currency.

After playing a couple of skirmishes too, its obvious that the game favours speed and casualties over caution and rewards you depending on how many turns the battle is won. This affects future battles since your R&D and levelling up of classes is greatly affected by this. It goes against my style of play which is to use caution and avoid casualties so it’s interesting to see how i adapt to this.

More news from the Gallian front soon……

Having refused to put myself through the copy and pasting all the Nintendo DS and Wii shovelware this will be a short and easy blog post. In 1989 the first Prince of Persia was released and became part of my childhood memories. The animations offered by the game were remarkable for its time. However its unforgiving gameplay (a regular thing those days) prevented me from ever finishing it. The series then remained in anonymity inspite of a few more releases.

Then in 2003, Ubisoft  resurrected it with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Tim, which i played on the PS2. It was a fantastic game, and the first proper successor of the original game. Now, we are in the HD era and another Prince of Persia comes along. Is it another royalty fitting for the title? Many reviewers seem to think so.

This week’s game of the week is of course Prince of Persia

1. Prince of Persia (360, PS3)

PSP Store

I would like to make an exception this week and also mention 2 titles that have become available on the PSP store (US). Everyday Shooter and Super Stardust Portable are games available on the PSN and are two of the best available downloadable games out there for the PSP’s big brother. At US$10 each, both titles may be worth downloading on the PSP as well even without that second thumbstick.

I really wanted to love this game. I really did. When i played the demo for the first time a few weeks ago, i thought it was one of the most exciting and fresh gaming experiences i had in a long time. My vote of confidence had been cast and i bought it on launch and did not wait for the inevitable January/February price drop.

This was also the case for the first 2-3 chapters of the game. Free flowing was my middle name. Only a few times did i have to redo my runs and jumps more than 2-3 times. It was frustrating as it was mostly a result of trial and error and not of any fault of my own. But the enjoyment of the game’s core gameplay was still strong enough to carry it. Free running in first person mode is really inspirational. But setting up the game’s core mechanics means nothing after a while if there isn’t a solid game to support it.

Unfortunately this is where Mirror’s Edge fails me. When you are trying to figure out how to get from one place to the next it’s bad enough that you have to try and die a few times to find the right way to do it. But later on, without spoiling anything, there are certain situations where enemies storm in and you have to find a way out while they are chasing you. So you don’t have the time to find the correct escape route and avoiding their gunfire. What happens is that you will do the scene 7-8 times figuring out the way piece by piece until you finally escape. By the time you do this whole process correctly, you just can’t care less whether you free flowed or not. You just want to get it over with.

After this, the game introduces situations where combat is inevitable. While it explicitly tells you in the beginning that you should avoid it and run, it deliberately sets it up so that you can’t. You have to fight either with your fists or with a gun. But why? The most fundamental principle of Mirror’s Edge is that the heroine is a runner. She is not a soldier. If you are looking to play the game without shooting at anyone then you will be frustrated until you find the perfect way to put the enemies, one by one, out of action with kicks and punches.

The Edge reviewer, which i did not want to believe, sums it best for me,

” ‬Is it a Portal-style puzzler or a breathless steeplechase‭; ‬an Orwellian parable or freeform Olympics‭? ‬Unable to decide until it’s left the springboard,‭ ‬it tries to be all of them but manages none.‭”

Fantastic premise, visuals and mechanics. But it’s too many stops and starts to feel like a game.

• A magical 2nd half, together with some flawless offside decision making, was all i needed in a mostly non-gaming Sunday. Even though Arsenal’s target this season should only be to qualify for next year’s Champions League, it’s feels so good to beat Chelsea in their home ground. Arsene, enjoy this win and stop whining all the time to the 4th official and move on with building a title contending squad at last.

• Finished reading Criminal: Lawless (Vol: 2), a crime graphic novel. I like these guys (Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips). Very enjoyable series. I recommend it.

• Left 4 Dead is a fantastic multiplayer experience even in split screen. Played it on Saturday and the game constantly surprises and overwhelms you (in a good way). Each enemy type is oozing with personality. For example the first time i encountered a Hunter was fatal….Now every time i hear a girl crying i keep the hell away. And don’t get me started on the Tank….Brilliant game. I believed that the game was ideally suited for playing only with friends and not random people on Live but i read this beautifully written post on Graffiti Gamer that changed my mind.

• I am currently in Chapter 5 (a total of eight) in Mirror’s Edge and have two things to say. First of all, it’s a really short game. I mean it’s a game where the story can be finished in a weekend at most. Of course you can replay it at harder difficulty levels and also do the time trials but for a Euro 60-70 game i consider it a very short game. The second thing is that although innovative it is flawed in the way the developers want you to play it. I will have more on that in a later post.

• After going through a few DS titles to make a decision, i decided to start playing Square Enix’s The World Ends With You. Beautiful art! The combat needs some getting used to as you are fighting with two characters. One is in the touch screen and controlled via the stylus while the second is on the top screen and controlled using the d-pad. It needs some getting used to. Again i will write a few comments on the game later on as it’s very interesting.