Bangai-O Spirits Review (DS)

     Last year I remembered this game existed and that I used to want to try it, so I got it for my birthday. Amazing intro.

     Bangai-O Spirits is a pretty unique 2d shooter. You play as the titular Bangai-O, a Gundam looking mech that is as tall as a building, although your sprite is quite small as the levels and other enemies are also huge. There are a ton of different stages that fall into different categories, and you can play any of them at anytime. You can also edit them on the fly or create your own stages in the edit mode. There are a whopping 167 stages by my count which includes a pretty extensive group of tutorial stages, which feature some sarcastic, 4^th wall breaking anime characters that are pretty clever. These guys are the game's only real story and are only featured in the tutorial and briefly after beating one set of levels. They are a nice little touch though.

     You'll need to go through the tutorial, as the game is kind of difficult and also a bit different than any shooter I've ever played. Bangai-O can fly in any direction, and the screen scrolls with you. You can go back and forth and up and down through levels; there is no automatic scrolling. Holding A makes you dash. You can't fire weapons while dashing, but you can ram enemies for damage. B fires one of your main weapons, or a combination shot if you have chosen 2 compatible weapons. At the beginning of each level, you can choose two main weapons out of 7 choices. 2 of these are melee weapons, a sword, which rapidly attacks, and a giant baseball bat that can send enemies and enemy missiles flying. Some of the bullet type weapons are compatible and if you choose them you will automatically fire a shot that combines the attributes of both shot types (there is a way to fire them independently, but I never used it). For example, if you pick bounce and homing shots, you fire shots that home in on enemies and bounce off walls. If you choose 2 non-compatible weapons (such as the bat and a gun) then B fires 1 and Y uses the other. You can move and shoot at the same time, or you can double tap the fire button to lock yourself in place and then fire in any direction.

     You also choose two EX weapons at the beginning of each stage. These are the screen clearing super powerful type weapons seen in many games, although as you'll see in the gameplay description coming up, you use these weapons a lot more than in a traditional shooter. There are 7 choices, and many of them are beefed up versions of the main weapons. Others are more unique, such as one that freezes enemies and one that reflects all missiles on screen back at their owners. These EX weapons also follow the same combination rules as the main weapons, so you can combine compatible types. To use them, you hold down either R or L to charge them up and then release when you are ready to fire, causing an awesome animation of tons of missile pods opening up on your tiny mech sprite. The traditional missile types show a number next to you as you charge up that represents how many missiles you will fire (up to 100!). Others work differently, such as the freeze weapon, which shows how many seconds you will freeze the enemy for, or the reflect weapon, which you don't charge up at all.

     Levels are typically pretty short. All of them are completed when you destroy the target or targets in the stage. There are lots of gimmicky levels, such as mazes and block pushing puzzles and really great stages that involve setting off fuses and waiting for them to unlock new areas and enemy groups. There are also many combat levels, and combination combat/ puzzle/ maze/ fuse levels, and others, such as levels that look like stuff, like a DS or a face.

     Combat in Bangai-O is insane. There are hundreds of missiles onscreen at once as dozens of enemies try to gun you down. I constantly used my EX weapons to clear the screen of missiles, as you can shoot down enemy fire and enemies can shoot down your fire. EX weapons are as much a defensive mechanism as an offensive weapon. The closer enemy missiles are to you when you fire an EX weapon, the more powerful it is, so you are constantly trying to fire a fully charged EX shot a milisecond before enemy fire hits you. The more shots are near to you, the more missiles you will fire back. If you would fire back more than 100, your missiles instead grow in size, up to 4x as big as a normal missile. The best feeling is charging your EX shot up to 100 and then releasing just as a million missiles are about to eat you. 100X4 pops up on the screen and then you fire a deluge of giant missiles out that gobble up the enemy shots and penetrate the missile curtain to damage and kill the enemies that fired them. Awesome. Time and time again enemies flood the screen with missiles, and you flood right back. You can store up to 3 EX shots at a time and collect fruit and money (?) dropped by enemies to recharge it. Getting into the flow of when to use EX shots so that you can kill enough enemies to recharge you shots and repeat is essential to learning how to succeed.

     Some enemies require different tactics than well timed missile barages. Some smaller enemies can slice your missiles down or hit them back at you, requiring you to catch them in certain animations or use melee weapons against them. For example, there are mechs that roll up in a ball and are invincible as they rapidly fly around. They also fire so rapidly that they counteract your shots, so you have to catch them with a big amount of fire right when they stop rolling or use melee weapons on them. If you don't, their rapid fire shots can shred you in an instant. Actually, most enemies can shred you in an instant if you aren't constantly on your guard. There are health pick-ups in many levels, and they often figure into your strategy in a big way. You might choose to go through a few tough battles, then double back for a health pack, then continue on. Even with the health packs, you are almost always in mortal danger, so they don't make things too easy (in case you were worried about that). The game is challenging, and I can see it being frustrating for less experienced players, but if you like a challenge or are willing to learn, it's really rewardingly awesome.

     The other enemy type that you need to deal with are giant boss-type enemies. These are frequently encountered and often need several vollies of missiles to take down and can take you down in very few shots...like 1 shot. Or they may be giant sword enemies that will reflect all your shots back unless you flank them. Between your normal enemies that are weak but flood your screen with bullets, the specialist enemies that require unique tactics, or the giant and mighty boss-type enemies, the many levels stay varied with interesting combinations of baddies. There's a lot of visual diversity in the enemies too. Most are other types of mechs, but there are also giant drill machines, huge wheels covered in guns, and even giant ants.

     And then there is Langai-O, an enemy type that has all of your capabilities. So it can counteract your missile attacks just like you can counteract others. These guys are seriously challenging and require unique strategies. If you want to figure them out your self, skip to the next paragraph, as I'm going to offer a few tips. Reflecting can work, although usually causes them to counterattack extremely hard and take you out. My favorite strategy is to fly close to them with a shield equipped. They should stop a medium distance away from you and fire. Your shield should catch all of their shots. Charge up a full EX shot while this is happening. After a few seconds, they will charge you. Release your shot a split-second before they melee you and BAM! They shouldn't have time to counterattack. This isn't fool-proof as it doesn't always work for me, but it was the best strategy I could come up with. There are probably other methods out there.

     All this crazy action really taxes the DS, and slowdown is rampant. I viewed it as part of the fun though. It never really bothered me. One of my goals was to make it crash, but I never quite managed it. Sometimes when you pull off a really big EX attack on an already crowded screen, the action will pause for quite a bit before continuing. It adds dramatic flair, I think. It's hard to imagine it running at full speed no matter what happened. I would love to see that. There is a Bangai-O game on Xbox 360 called HD Missile Fury. I'm very curious how it runs. It must be crazy if it runs full speed. I'm not taking any points off for the slowdown in this game. For whatever reason, it compliments the epic feel of the over-the-top action.

     Bangai-O also has a pretty nice level editor. You can edit any of the game's levels or build one from scratch. I had a few ideas and was able to very quickly build them. There are barely any instructions on how to use the editor, but it's so intuitive that you don't really need instruction. You basically pick what you want to put in the level and then use the stylus to tap or draw it in. Very simple, yet very effective. I made a few concept levels, and I had them functioning in minutes. In one level, you set off a fuse and have to survive and push a few blocks around while being chased by an unstoppable hoard of Langai-O's until the fuse burns out and destroys the target. In another level, you have to destroy yourself at the same time as the target. In another, I make you choose between blowing up your mom or your best friend (I've beenplaying the Walking Dead a lot recently). And then I basically ran out of ideas and just made a level filled with missile launchers so you can play around with big EX attacks. All of these were simple to make and test play. You can set up gimmicky levels like this pretty quickly. I imagine balancing a decent combat level is much harder, especially since you have to jump back and forth between edit and test modes.

     You can output these levels as sound files that other DS's can listen to and re-create. I've tried to get other peoples' levels with no success. I tried 2 different sets of headphones held up to the DS microphone with no luck. I also don't really have the equipment I need to upload my levels' sound files to youtube. Sorry, I know you really want to play them. Reading some forums and stuff, it's clear that the system does work, you just need the right conditions and headphones and stuff. I'm giving up on it for now, but may try some different headphones in the future. And if I have any new ideas for cool levels, I may try the editor again too.

     Bangai-O's music is really bad. I don't like it at all. I played in the break room at work a lot, and I would have the sound off out of respect for other people. I didn't miss the music at all, it's horrible. About half of the sound effects are grating too, such as the screams when enemies explode (well, they are kind of funny). I'm just realizing now that you can turn the music off but keep the sound effects. I wish I had known that before...

     Bangai-O Spirits is a pretty unique game for me. I've never played anything like it. It's challenging and incredibly chaotic and frenetic, and I loved it. It's a Great Game, tier 2.

Plants vs. Zombies Review (PS3)

     I guess Plants vs. Zombies is mainly a phone/tablet game... I'm kind of out of touch with those devices. But when I played the demo of the PS3 version, I was sold.

     Plants vs. Zombies is a tower defense game that has you defending your house from brain-starved zombie hordes with an unlikely ally; sentient plant life. The graphics are cute and cartoony and consist of brilliant HD sprites. If you're a fan of HD sprites, you won't be disappointed as this game is packed full of great ones. There are 49 plants in the game, and each one is a silly, happy (or angry) little guy with great attack and idle animations. These range from pea pods that shoot out peas like a cannon and watermelon plants that launch like a catapult to sunflowers that produce extra sunlight (which you spend to plant more seeds) and walnuts that block the zombies' path. Each plant has a little text blurb to accompany it in the game's almanac, and these are generally clever and cute as well. With almost all of the plants, there is a great sense of visual design. If you're a fan of urban vinyl toys, you'll like what's in here; the plants have a very Yummy vibe to them. Ditto for the 26 zombie types and the great looking environments.

     There are many game modes, so I'll start with the campaign and work my way out from there. The campaign presents 5 overarching levels that consist of 10 stages each. At the beginning of each stage, you are shown what types of zombies you will be facing and then you choose what plants you are going to take with you into the level. Typically you will be facing certain specialized zombies and will need to take certain plants that can counteract them. For example, if you are facing zombies that use makeshift shields, you would take mushrooms that shoot out armor-piercing gas. If you are facing zombies on Zambonies, you would take thorns that pop their tires. If you are facing zombies that jump, you might take big walnuts to block their jumps. When the level starts, you have a few seconds of peace before the zombies start marching toward your house, which is on the left side of the screen. Zombies start all the way on the right side of the screen and march toward the house in one of 6 horizontal lanes. If a zombie reaches the house, a lawnmower will run over and instantly kill all of the zombies in that lane. This is a one-time occurrence. Once a lane's lawnmower is gone and another zombie reaches the house, they go inside and kill you, and it's game over.          Each lane has 9 spots to plant your defenses. Each plant costs a certain amount of sunlight. You collect sunlight as it drops out of the sky from time to time by running your cursor (controlled by the left stick) over it. You can also set down plants that generate sunlight for you (this is a requirement to beat almost any level).

The plants you have chosen for a level are displayed at the top of the screen. You use R1 and L1 to select which plant you want, and then use the analog stick to move the cursor to where you want to plant it and press x to plant. Holding down circle digs up a plant if you want to remove it from a spot to plant something else. Once you plant...a plant, it has a cooldown time before you can plant it again. Some plants recharge quickly and can be rapidly planted all over while others take a long time to recharge. Whenever a plant is in range of a zombie, it will attack it automatically. Most plants only attack zombies that are in the same row as them, although there are some exceptions. A progress bar at the bottom of the screen shows you how far into the level you are and when big groups of zombies are coming up. If you survive until the end of the progress bar, you clear the stage. Most levels last 5-10 minutes. That's basically it, but from this simple idea comes a huge amount of variety.

     Almost every level you beat earns you something new. Often it's a new plant or a new zombie type that will attack you in the next level. Each overarching world in the game offers a twist on the pattern as well. The backyard has a pool that gets attacked by aquatic zombies and requires aquatic plants to defend it. Night time levels don't produce sunlight but give you access to cheaper mushrooms that behave differently than day time plants. Fog levels obscure your vision of big chunks of the yard, and rooftop levels require you to place pots for your plants and make you use indirect firing plants due to the slant of the roof.

     Every fifth level in the campaign is a special level that plays differently. Usually it involves playing without sunlight using plants you can plant for free but are only provided to you one at a time, forcing you to work with what you are given. There are a few other variations too. These levels are very fun and work well to break up the other levels. Playing a few normal levels in a row can feel a bit samey, so having something different to break up the pacing is a great idea. One of these levels is a brilliant thunderstorm level that is really atmospheric and fun.

     The campaign is a bit on the easy side, with a few challenging bits here or there, and is a bit long for being so easy, but it is also pretty engaging and fun. The way the game gives you new plants, enemies, and scenarios is really well paced, but I don't recommend playing the campaign for hours on end as it can get a little boring since most levels play out very similarly (albeit with new plants and enemies and stuff). Once you find how you like to build your defenses, you end up doing that every level, with some experimentation and changing as you gain new plants. Still, you usually end up building similar defenses every level with changes here and there.

     So, let's talk about the other modes. Once beaten, you can play the campaign over again. The second time through there are more big waves of zombies and three plants are chosen automatically for you, limiting your choices a bit and making you use certain plants. There are vs. and co-op modes, which I didn't try. There is puzzle mode, which has 18 levels of 2 different flavors. In one, you play as the zombies and try to defeat the plants, and in the other, the level is filled with vases you crack open to reveal either a zombie or a plant. These vasebreaker levels are very fun. Mini-game mode has 20 levels that have interesting rules, like super-fast zombies, zombies with plant heads that attack you, and a fun mode that put's you up against great odds but lets you plant whole columns of plants at a time. There are lot's of fun levels here, but some are meh. Then there is survival mode, which has 10 levels that want you to survive a certain number of waves of zombies. Beating this mode unlocks endless survival mode, which goes on forever. This mode is far and away the hardest mode in the game. There is a trophy for reaching wave 40, and it is a very challenging task. I made several attempts at this, including a 2 hour try that got me to wave 38, and finally a successful 3 hour run that got me to level 51. A few rounds in, this mode becomes unrelenting, throwing huge amounts of the game's toughest zombies at you. The difficulty spikes sharply, and only really powerful builds will survive long. I found a picture of a build that I ended up using that got me to wave51. The only thing they don't really note in that picture is that I used tons of spikerocks to stall the gargantuans, who will attack them for awhile, and to stop Zomboni's and catapults. The build in this picture might seem over-the-top, but other ideas I tried on my own fell apart hilariously once the going got tought You need to babysit this build constantly with bombs and ice-shrooms, but it will get you there. This mode is a fun way to end your time with the game, as it's difficulty is way above anything else you'll encounter.

     The game has slowdown when there are a lot of plants and zombies onscreen at once. In the campaign, you almost feel proud if you can get enough plants onscreen at once to cause some slowdown (just like I used to love crashing my PSP when I pulled off a ridiculous combo in Puzzle Quest). However in endless mode, which often pushes 100+ characters on-screen at once, the game slows to a crawl. Part of the reason it takes 2-3 hours to get to round 40 is that the whole thing is viewed in slow motion. This kind of helps you, as endless mode is incredibly frenetic and things can go wrong really fast, but it's also annoying to deal with extremely significant slowdown. If it get's real bad, the music will also glitch and switch songs or sometimes play 2 songs at once, which sounds horrible.

     There is also a gardening mode in the game where you take care of plants by watering them and giving them plant food and stuff. You can grow them bigger and sell them for lots of money (which you use to buy upgrades that let you take more plants into a level, or special plants that are better versions of the standard ones you earn by beating levels). I spent a lot of time with this mode. It scratches the virtual pet itch quite well, if you miss your Tamagotchi (I do!).

    The music in this game is really good. It's catchy and sounds like an organ to me. The rooftop music is especially sublime. Also, the trophy you get for only using walnuts and chompers is really fun (sorry, didn't know where else to put this in the review!).

     Plants vs. Zombies has a massive amount of content. While the campaign can get a little boring, the other modes mix things up enough to keep you interested. The great character design is a delight to look at, and the gameplay is generally satisfying. There are a great number of ways to logically designing your defenses, with many possible successful builds in most modes. Plants vs. Zombies is a Great Game, Tier 3.

!SPOILER POST! The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 1: All That Remains SPOILER POST!!!

OBLIGATORY SPOILER WARNING! IF YOU HAVE NOT YET PLAYED EPISODE 1 OF THE WALKING DEAD SEASON 2, YOU ARE CRAZY IF YOU READ THE BELOW SPOILER POST, AS IT WILL RUIN EVERYTHING FOR YOU! AS I WRITE THIS, I HAVE ONLY PLAYED EPISODE 1 AND THEREFORE WILL ONLY BE SPOILING EPISODE 1!

Here are my stats:

I distracted the guys who were interrogating Christa rather than running away.

I didn't mercy kill the dog. I can't take on the emotional stress of a mercy killing for a dog. I take on some for not killing it, but not as much, I think.

I gave water to the dying guy who was after Christa.

I accepted Nick's apology for almost blasting me.

I saved Nick. He had ammo and it looked to me like Pete had been bitten, although it could have just been a cut... I thought it was safer to go with Nick.

Omid died so quickly. At least his face got a graphical upgrade. So sad. Then.... where is the baby?! Was it stillborn or kidnapped or died or is it out there somewhere or what?! Then, Christa is now probably dead, although she could be the person Clementine is talking about when she says “I thought you were dead” in the “next time” section at the end. Her or Kenny... or maybe that one guy from season 1 who leaves the group near the beginning of the game.

The things that loaded up incorrectly from season 1 for me where:

1. In the “previously” part at the beginning, it showed Lee sparing the first St. John brother. I totally pitchforked him.
2. Clementine makes a reference to a friend of hers losing an arm. I think she's talking about Lee, unless I'm missing something. But Lee's arm stayed attached in my game. Really annoying that these things got messed up. It'll be even worse if there's something more important that gets messed up.

The object that was moving around like the wonky trees in season one that I was talking about in the review was a bush in the background that just continues to go down and down and down.... The object jumping around I mentioned is the rifle in the hand of the dude when they put you in the shed. He's holding perfectly still, but the rifle is vibrating and moving. The object I referred to that clips through a body is the frisbee: it goes through Clem's leg several times very conspicuously.

     I sure didn't want Clementine to die. I spent the whole 1^st season trying to protect her, and I feel like I was more focused in this episode trying to keep her safe. I don't want to watch her death scenes. I don't know if it was possible to die in this episode or in future ones, but I'm going to try real hard to not have her die once.

     Playing as Clem is different than playing as Lee. 400 days gave a taste of getting into the mind of another character. The choices I'm making now as Clementine are different than Lee would make, but also influenced by him since he had such a big influence on Clementine.

     It was interesting watching the group making a decision about your bite. In season one you had to make decision like that as part of the group. Being on the other end of that was a cool reversal.

     The part with the dog is heartbreaking. The part with the sutures is heartbreaking. This game has turned from a daughter simulator to a little girl suffering simulator. The Dr.'s daughter is interesting. I guess she's been mostly sheltered from what's going on in the world. That's not going to end well no matter what happens. Can't wait for episode 2!

The Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 1: All That Remains Review

     I just turned off my phone, turned off trophy notifications (don't read those trophy names beforehand, they could be spoilers!), carved out a two-hour block of my life, and sat down to play episode 1 of season 2 of The Walking Dead. I even played it on a different day than I was planning so that I wouldn't play it the same day as the premiere of series 3 of Sherlock so that I would have room in my brain to mull it over properly. I thought it would be better to review the whole season once I was done with it. So as an experiment, I decided to do the opposite of what I thought best, just to see what would happen. So here I am reviewing episode 1. Please refer to myreview of season 1 as I won't be reiterating the basics of how the game plays here.

     Let's start with the technical problems. I was so hoping that there wouldn't be any. After the huge mess that is the technical side of season 1, I was really hoping Telltale would make it one of their number one priorities to make the game run silky smooth. Unfortunately, it doesn't. Fortunately, nothing in episode 1 of season 2 is as bad as the worst parts in season 1. The animation skips a bit during auto-saves, but at least it doesn't freeze up. There is also some trailing in some scenes: a character will move leaving a subtle, barely noticeable trail behind them. It's not a big deal, and it only happens a few times. It's usually something that I see in PSP games. I believe it's a framerate problem. Either that or my tv is too weak. I noticed one wonky object moving during a scene a la the trees in season 1. I don't know how that happens, seems like it would be an easy thing to fix. There is also some clipping of an object someone is holding through the body of a character in one scene, and an object that jumps around noticeably in someone's hand. Finally, although the game very conspicuously found and loaded up my save file from season 1, it seems to have gotten several things wrong. During the “previously on The Walking Dead” part at the beginning, it showed many scenes from season 1. It got one part wrong though, showing the opposite of one of the choices I made. Then later, there is a reference to part of season 1 that also did not reflect my choices. This is really bizarre. I'm sure there is some difficulty in maintaining the continuity of a series like this where there are so many choices and things that could happen, but these errors are pretty inexcusable in my opinion. I mean, did it really look at my save or not? Didn't anyone notice that this was happening and fix it during playtesting? If it's going to show scenes from season 1, why would they pick one that wasn't going to load up your choice properly? Or is it some kind of glitch where it doesn't read your save file properly and then generates random choices? I suspect this may be the case, as it tells you that if you haven't completed episodes in season 1, it will generate random choices for you. In any case, it's a ridiculous flaw. One of the main selling points of the game is totally broken, which is a shame as it pulls you out of the game. Fortunately, the game is so strong, it pulls you right back in a second later...

     I know I probably sound like a broken record in these Walking Dead reviews, because now it's time to tell you that despite these huge flaws that effect the gameplay and the overall experience, the game is amazing. I'm not going to touch the story (at least not until my spoiler post!). Just know that it's just as good as season 1. It's different in several ways, but still so, so good.

     The controls have a few new tricks. Nothing major, so I'll let you experience them for yourself. The UI has a makeover for the better; your cursor is smaller and onscreen prompts and icons have a fresh coat of paint. The graphics look better too, and overall it runs better than season 1.
    On a non-technical side, one thing that bugged me was some of the language that pops up on the screen at the end that tries to get you to buy the other episodes. I'm fine with the screen in general as I want to buy the other episodes, but the part that says “Buy season pass now, best value!” or something to that effect seems out of place. I also am not a fan of the choice to have title cards with scenes from each episode available to view right from the beginning. I started to look at them, but then quit because I don't want any spoilers at all.

     One observation I made during the middle of the episode was that it would be cool to have an open world game that played like this. It would be cool to have a game like this generate random events and let you go anywhere and do anything. The Walking Dead is a very linear experience in some ways. Of course, just minutes after thinking this, I didn't think it again for the last hour of the game as I was totally absorbed in the story. Detailed story would probably be sacrificed to make an open world version of this game (at least with current technology and game budgets and development times). Some day in the future, there may be a massive open-world game with a story as detailed and involved as The Walking Dead no matter where you go or what you do. In the present, however, a linear game like this is a blast to play when the writing is top notch and the story is interactive.

     The bottom line is that season 2 is continuing the excellence in interactive storytelling set forth in season 1. I highly recommend you start playing and keep up with this series, as it is a continuing part of one of the greatest stories in video gaming history. Just keep your fingers crossed that more and more kinks are worked out as the season goes on and that future episodes will be technically flawless as well as continue the dynamite story. If they do, they'll earn perfect scores from me. But for now, episode one is a great game, tier 2.