The Man Who Knew Too Much 11-13-09

Today's Show:

Mario Theme

Zelda Wind Waker - Theme

Zelda Wind Waker - Zelda's theme

Loom Soundtrack - Adapted from Tchaikoswki's Swan Lake

Kings Quest - Theme

Final Fantasy 7 - Prelude

Martin O'Donnell & Michael Salvatori - Willow Creek (From Myth II: Soulblighter)

Martin O'Donnell & Michael Salvatori - Great Library (From Myth II: Soulblighter)

Mark Morgan - Khans of New California (From Fallout 2)

Jeremy Soule - Harvest Dawn (from Elder Scrolls: Oblivion)

Jeremy Soule - Reign of the Septims (from Elder Scrolls: Oblivion)

Gary Schyman - Bioshock Theme

Rosemary Clooney - It's Bad For Me

Professor Layton Theme

Yoko Shimamura - Dearly Beloved (from Kingdom Hearts 2)

Shawn Lee - Theme From Bully

No One Lives Forever Theme

Baby Park Theme - From MarioKart Double Dash

The Go Team- Get it Together (from Little Big Planet)

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas Theme

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

This sequel picks up shortly after Professor Layton the Curious Village, expands the scope of the game and stands as one of the best handheld games I have ever played. I should start by saying I'm not much of a handheld gamer. Fast paced games on the small screen and tenuous controls generally don't appeal to me. Professor Layton, though, is perfect for me. It's a pick up/put down short session game that remains engrossing and fun.

Playing as Professor Layton and his sidekick Luke, you are thrust in to a surreal murder mystery involving a series of quirky characters and settings. Layton oozes charm - its animation and art design are beautiful, looking gothic yet colorful - reminiscent of Tintin and The Triplets of Belleville. The characters are mysterious and plenty, and each mystery solved unravels a bevvy of new ones that would make Agatha Christie proud. And the music is a divine sort of French pastoral pastiche.

Tying all of these elements together is the core of the gameplay, a series of puzzles and brainteasers. This collection of puzzles would make a good DS title on its own, but its glossy wrapping and mysterious storyline make for a sublime experience.

The Diabolical Box is a longer game than The Curious Village, and while offering a deeper storyline, I did feel like some scenes carried out too long between puzzles or plot advancement. Obstensibly set free to walk about the landscape, the game's design is really rather linear - you have to unlock new areas only when the plot has advanced far enough. While this is nothing new to adventure games, at times it felt slightly tedious going back and forth from each end of the village. A few rewards are given for completism, though, and all in all the slower pace is acceptable.

The Diabolical Box (and Curious Village) is a must have for the DS, and is one of the few handheld games that can stand next to console or PC games in my list of favorites.

Mildly popular in the States, Layton has a big following in Japan and a film and third sequel are in the works.

Villain Architecture

Here's a neat article.

And while I'm at it.

Why not?

Prince Of Persia

Having wanted to play the Prince of Persia games since their inception - circa 1989 - it's funny that I managed to avoid them until now.

2008's Prince of Persia, taking the original title, has you playing a cynical, sarcastic vagabond who encounters a princess, drawing you into a war between gods. Elika is struggling to regain her kingdom from the dark Ahriman, who was has been released from his prison of 1000 years. As the story progresses, you get to see exactly why Ahriman is being freed and how the princess' role in the story unfolds.

It's certainly one of the more beautiful games I've played. The animation is spectacular, and the fluidity of the character movements was really enjoyable to watch. Small details, like the way your character trades places with Elika when balanced on a narrow ledge, add up to a grand experience.

The world design and graphics are stunning too, and I felt myself pausing for long breaks in the action just to study my surroundings (this is the game to break in your new tv).

POP is definitely a platforming game, though it seeks to reinvent the possibilities, and for the most part succeeds. Much has been written about how it's too easy. When you fall or die in battle, Elika will catch you or save you, placing back on the last flat surface you were on. It's just like any other platformer- when you fall, you restart. I guess what bothers people about POP is that you get to respawn very near where you died. But I found that element of the game satisfying. Who wants to retrace all the easy steps just to get to the hard part?

Plus, in the later levels, they string longer action sequences together, forcing you to be more careful.

In order to unlock levels, you must collect "Light Seeds" throughout the game. The designers put some of these in places where there is no option but to throw yourself into a chasm, making the "Elika save" quite practical.

While the story is a bit derivative and predictable, the characters are well defined. Aside from the typical American concept of Persians being slightly tan Caucasians, the designs are impressive. Elika is high on my list of VG babes now, and the writing is genuinely funny. Elika and the Protag have a good foil/jokester routine and many of the barbs are inwardly pointed:

"A bridge builder would make a killing around here"
or
P: "Everything's gonna be ok."
E: "You don't believe that."
P: "No."

My only beef with the game would be the fighting. Enemies spawn at a few points in the game, and you fight four different bosses four times each, not including the end sequence. Basically, boss battle are a string of combos acted out by the protag, or in response to a boss' action. Not being the best at quick timing (especially after a few beers), boss battles would take me a long time. I was also handicapped by the XBOX controller, which I was not familiar with at all. Responding with the correct button in the beginning was nearly impossible.

My own actions quickly consisted of the one combo that I could remember, so while there are dozens of ways to fight, I stuck with the only thing I could do consistently enough to beat a boss in under 30 minutes. I was basically a Swiffer for the bad guy's dens. But I slogged through them, and the final battle with Ahriman was very fun.

All in all, a great experience. A nice length (with promise of a sequel), fun gameplay and super super stunning graphics. Recommended.

Video Games I Rocked as a Kid: Flashback

Flashback was introduced to me by my friend Ben. I think we both downloaded it off of the old school "smuggler" bbs (original pirates). This game was epically difficult for me at the age that I was playing it (probably 11 or 12).

I'm not sure I ever finished it but my brother said he recently replayed it and got to the ending. It was the kind of game where one shot killed you, so in the difficult parts it became more strategy than action.

Most distinct about Flashback was the graphics and art design. The fluidity of the character movements was unheard of for its time, and the unique moves like crouching, rolling and firing your weapon still look good.



The art design was great too, the levels varied from cyberpunk cities to alien jungles to goopy caves, and the cut scenes had a cool 70's sci-fi style. Here's the intro to the game:



This was a very influential game for me and that first level video brings back great memories.

Delphine Games, which was a French company, released a sequel to Flashback which I never played, though apparently it wasn't particularly popular. Delphine planned to release a third sequel but the company went bankrupt.

Awesome Video Game Art

Here's a site where a bunch of artists have re-thought video game cover art in the style of The Criterion Collection Movie covers.... Some of them are really good. Not much info on a lot of them though leading we to wonder which person designed each (cuz there are some obvious standouts) and what game some of them are supposed to be.

Games That I Rocked as a Kid (GTIRAAK)

Myth II: Soulblighter edition.

I didn't play Myth. I was introduced to Myth II by my uncle, who gave me his copy of Myth II because it was too violent for him. So 14-year-old me gleefully took it home and played the hell out of it.

Myth II was a groundbreaking in a lot of ways. It's realtime strategy, but without the hassle of mining, collecting, building and all of those tasks that plague other RTS titles (not that it's not fun, just refreshing to not use that gimmick all the time).

In Myth II you have a set number of characters for each level and you must get through each level using them and their special abilities. The characters are balanced and fun to use. You have dwarves, warriors, archers and eventually mages.

You can name your characters and if they survive they carry over from level to level, gaining experience. This makes me obsessive about having characters survive and I usually replay levels dozens of times just so I keep d'Artagnan or whoever alive.

Myth II was probably the first game I played that employed realistic physics. Archers would shoot further from a hill and god forbid your dwarf throws a grenade uphill.

There are moments of huge frustration when your dwarf decides to throw a grenade at the enemy who is standing amidst your warriors, effectively decimating half of your forces.

"Casualty! Casualties!" The narrator informs you.

Overall a fantastic game that I have replayed probably 7 times. In fact I think I'll go finish up a game now...

ADDENDUM: A game's save mechanics are probably the most hotly debated feature of any given game. I don't understand why any game wouldn't let you save whenever and wherever you want. That's common sense, but we won't argue that here. What I do miss most about game saves is being able to name your save file. Modern games don't let you do that. Myth II allowed you to save when you please and to name the file whatever you please. Which is crucial to a perfectionist like myself. Game designers take note.

Games that I rocked as a kid

Many purists bemoan modern games as being too easy. Sometimes they're right, but most game companies have added difficulty settings so that each game has a varying degree of difficulty, depending on how expert you are.

Not so with old games, where the punishing difficulty level would send you enraged or crying to the solace of a comforting teddy (or blanket or whatever you sissies used).

The above picture is a perfect example. It's from Crystal Caves, one of many Apogee games from the era that defined scrolling shooters for PC's. If you study the picture you can see a multitude of actions occurring. You must shoot the bad guys, but never let a bullet hit the air machine or else you die immediately. These air machines are conveniently place every 6 pixels, or so. You have keys, switches, eggs, elevators and enemies coming at you with a jumping mechanism that requires no error.

I can't believe the patience that I had as such a young kid playing these games. The difficulty was heightened by the lack of saving your games, meaning frequent deaths would result in playing the entire level over again. Even though my coordination has developed since those days, I don't think I could bring myself to play these again. The frustration would kill me.

Apogee Games I rocked (wow, a lot actually):

Crystal Caves

Secret Agent Man

Cosmo's Cosmic Adventures

And, to be discussed further in the future, Wolfenstein 3D

Games that I rocked as a kid

Oh man, Rasket struck gold with that post. It also reminds me of the Games Of Our Lives feature on AVClub, though I'm not sure they really do that any more.

Anyway, this is for all the kids whose parents wouldn't allow console games. We had to get our kicks on computer games and I still believe it was the golden age of PC gaming (Mac too, if there exists a golden age of mac gaming).

Adventure games ruled and best of the era was LOOM. You can torrent it still and it's truly amazing. the depth of the story and the feel of the world and its guilds seriously influenced my world outlook. It was a little hard for me at the age I was playing; I remember my Dad had to help a lot because the mechanic for casting spells was by matching notes and playing on a musical clef. Tricky shit for an 8-year-old. Definitely a spark in my gaming life.