The Last of Us SPOILER POST!!!!!

SPOILER ALERT! YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ SPOILERS FOR THE LAST OF US! TURN BACK NOW! THESE SPOILERS NOT ONLY RUIN THE STORY, THEY ALSO REVEAL GAMEPLAY ELEMENTS THAT WILL RUIN YOUR ENTIRE EXPERIENCE WITH THE GAME! TURN BACK NOW!

     So, the thing I talked about so much in my review that ruined the gameplay and made survivor mode harmless is the fact that even in survivor mode, the game will magically provide ammo and health packs for you. If you are low on health and can't make a health pack or find stuff to make one, Ellie will give you one. On my first play-through this happened from time to time and I thought nothing of it, but I realized you can actually rely on this in my second run.

     You can also use all of your ammo in every fight, and your enemies will drop you more ammo when they die. They'll drop some if you have ammo left, but if you are totally out or close to it, they will drop you A LOT. Trust me, I did this many times, and it works every time. Use all your ammo in every fight without worry, you will get more.

     That doesn't sound like too big a deal as you still have to win the fights, and there is some challenge to that. But the entire point of this game is managing your resources, conserving what you have, and searching everywhere to get the stuff you need to survive. And if you try to do that, the game lets you, and that's great fun. But it's an illusion; the game doesn't generate ammo for you unless you need it, so if you ration your supplies, you won't even notice this effect. However, you can run through the whole game without searching for anything and still be fine, as the game will generate ammo and health as needed. I understand why this feature exists in normal mode, as you could get yourself into a permanently bad situation if the game had limited supplies. But to have so much dropped in your lap in survivor mode is crazy! Survivor mode would be amazing if there was a set amount of supplies and you had to manage them. That's not the case. You wouldn't even ever really get stuck even if you did run out of ammo as you can stealth your way through most situations. It would just be harder, which is what it's supposed to be. Once I figured out I would always have ammo, I didn't search around anymore and I was very careless with my ammo. In other words, I was totally disengaged with the whole concept of the game. Not good. At least I didn't figure this out on my first play-through.

     As for the story, I won't go into too much detail on my thoughts, but here are a few things to think about.

You can't tell me that Joel is in the wrong for stopping a little girl from being murdered. I don't care what the greater good is, he's not in the wrong. Now, he might be in the wrong for going on a killing spree to save her, but that's another story. It's wrong of the Fireflies to kill Ellie. I haven't seen anyone agree with me on this on a message board, but I'm sure someone out there must agree with me.

     The ending is subtle and non-conclusive, which is not something you see too much in gaming (except for cliffhangers, which are usually poorly done).

I'M ABOUT TO SPOIL THE ROAD A LITTLE NOW, SO BE CAREFUL! DON'T READ THE NEXT BLURB IF YOU DON'T WANT THE NOVEL/MOVIE “THE ROAD” SPOILED FOR YOU!

     I think the ending is better than The Road's because The Road seems to spring a little hope on you in the end. It was abrupt and didn't fit perfectly in my opinion, although it's still a decent ending. The Last of Us kind of leaves things in the status quo. Life is horrible, there will be no cure. That's how we started, and that's how we end. Joel and Ellie have each other, but there will probably be problems between them in the future, if they survive long enough to have them. That ending fits into that world better than The Road's ending fits into its world.

The Last of Us Review

      It was a hard battle to keep myself spoiler-free on The Last of Us for the last however-many months, but I mostly did it. And, as usual, that's what I recommend for you too. The Last of Us is talked about in revered tones by many as a stellar achievement in gaming. Did it live up to the hype for me? Keep reading to find out, or skip to the wrap-up at the end.

     The Last of Us is a stealth/action-adventure/zombie game. It takes place in a zombie-style dystopian future where society has broken down in the wake of an infectious disease outbreak that makes people mindless and violent. The source of the outbreak is not something I'd seen done before in zombie fiction. I won't spoil it here, but it's disturbing to note that it has a real-life analog in nature. You play as Joel, a survivor of the initial breakdown of society who now struggles on with his life some time later. At some point he gets tasked and motivated to transport a young girl, Ellie, to a militant group outside of the quarantine zone he lives in. That's about all I'm going to tell you about the story. There's actually a whole lot more to even the set-up of the story, not to mention where it goes from there. But I'll leave it at that. The story is excellent. It's in the top echelons of gaming story-telling. It's very well written and does some things I haven't seen done in video game stories before. It's not my favorite gaming story, but it's very high on the list. It's hard for me not compare this game to The Walking Dead games that I've been playing lately. Fortunately, the games are very different. I will say that I personally think The Walking Dead's story is better.

     The left analog stick moves Joel, the right moves the 3^rd person perspective camera. Select opens your backpack, which lets you craft items and use pills to upgrade Joel, as well as look at stuff you have collected. Note that this doesn't pause the game, so you can't do it in the middle of a fire fight. Square is your melee attack. If you have a melee weapon equipped, you'll automatically use that. If not, you'll use your fists. You want to mash it as fast as you can to get your melee combo going. Triangle lets you pick up objects you find. Circle make you crouch down. This makes you much quieter and slower, and lets you use cover during firefights. Cross makes you climb obstacles and ladders. The directional buttons let you equip stuff. Left and right select your guns, up and down select other items, like bombs, bricks and bottles, and health packs.       While you are picking a weapon, you can hold down cross to open up your backpack to pull out another weapon, as you can initially only carry one rifle-size weapon and one sidearm at a time outside of the pack. This also doesn't pause the game, meaning if you run out of ammo in your gun and need to pull another out of your pack, you better hide first.

     L2 causes you to run. R2 activates listen mode, which makes Joel crouch down and move slowly, but he can see enemies through walls if they are making sounds, such as footsteps or talking. This is really cool, as when you are trying to figure out where enemies are you need to use a combination of looking around and listening, just like real life. And finally, L1 makes him aim, and R1 fires. While aiming, you can press R2 to make Joel switch hands. This allows you to get the proper angle around cover if needed. When shooting, the reticle widens and becomes less accurate if you move, and shrinks and becomes more accurate if you hold still.

     If you sneak up on someone from behind, you can grab them by pressing triangle and then strangle them by pressing square (which takes a few seconds) or shiv them if you have a shiv (which is almost instant). You can also hold people as a human shield during a fire fight, which let's you fire your pistol. If you wait too long, however, your prisoner will break free from your grasp.

     So, what is it like to play this game? Well, you typically explore abandoned and destroyed cities and buildings and stuff. A lot of times, you'll run into infected people. Most of these encounters involve an interesting balance of 2 types of infected; runners and clickers. If a runner sees you, it will run at you and attack you. Clickers, on the other hand, are blind (due to the...problems going on with their head area), and hunt you by sound. You can sneak right past them if you crouch down and move slowly. However, if you go too fast or run into something that makes a sound, they go into attack mode, flailing about wildly. If they grab you, they instantly kill you, unless you have the skill that lets you stab them if you have a shiv available. So you have this great tension between enemies you can sneak by and enemies that can spot you and make you have to fight them, thus making a lot of noise and making all the clickers come running at you.

     Encounters usually start with you not being seen, so you can try to eliminate some infected by stealth. Runners can be choked out if you sneak up behind them. Clickers cannot be strangled. If you grab them, you have to have a shiv available to kill them (I probably should have mentioned that shivs break after 1 use awhile ago. You can start making better shivs later in the game though). You also can't kill a clicker by punching it, you must use a melee weapon or a gun. So you usually try to take out some runners without them seeing you, cause if they see you you'll have to shoot or beat on them, which will cause all the clickers to charge you, and then you are in trouble. Most of these situations are tense and fun as you try to take out a few infected and then get out of the area before any of them see you. Sometimes you'll get away. Other times you'll take a few out only to have a clicker hear you and attack and then you end up running for a defensible position and fighting off runners and just barely getting away or killing all the infected. Very fun stuff. Straight aggression will usually get you killed in these encounters, you need to have a plan and adapt on the fly to survive. There are a few more specialized types of infected as well, but they are much rarer, and I'll leave them up to you to discover.

     Other encounters are with gun and melee armed humans who are out to get you for one reason or another. Fighting them is quite different than fighting infected, as you might imagine. Often you end up in an area a group of guys is patrolling, and you have to try to take them out secretly before a firefight breaks out. Often you need to wait until people separate and then strangle them one by one. Trying to stealth kill people out of the sight of others is an art form, and you'll have many thrilling close calls trying to pull this off. If a firefight breaks out and you are outnumbered, that's real bad news. Coming out of cover means you will get shot, and you can only get shot a few times before dying. If stealth fails you, your best bet is often to run to a new position so that the enemy doesn't know where you are, and then shoot some of them from your new angle, or wait for them to split up looking for you and take them out. Fighting human enemies is just as thrilling and tense as fighting infected, although things play out totally differently. The differences between these two kinds of encounters and the multitude of locations and situations around these fights keeps the combat fresh throughout the whole game. From claustrophobic office buildings to wide open suburban neighborhoods and everything in between, there is great variety to be had in the tactics you'll have to employ to evade and defeat both crazy infected people and smarter, armed normal people.

     When you're not fighting, you're often scrounging for supplies; rooting through drawers and shelves in abandoned homes and offices. This part of the game has a very Bioshock feel to it, and just like in that game, it's pretty enjoyable. You can find parts that you can use to upgrade your guns at workbenches that you find from time to time and pills that you can use to upgrade Joel, increasing his max health and giving him new skills and making him a better shot. You can also find materials that you can use to make stuff. For example, finding blades and tape lets you make shivs. Oil and rags let you make either molotovs or health kits. Explosives can be combined with blades to make shrapnel bombs, or with sugar to make smoke bombs (protip – molotovs, shrapnel bombs, and smoke bombs are all super effective). Supplies are not in abundance. The world has a feel to it like it's already been combed over several times. You might open several drawers in a row and find nothing. But then, just when you are about to give up on searching, you might find some precious ammo or a cache of parts.

     Speaking of ammo, it's pretty limited. It's in stark comparison to many games where you might have hundreds of bullets at your disposal. Looking at your inventory is pretty pitiful. If you have 5 guns, your ammo counts for them might be, like, 3, 2, 1, 6, 0. That's why you need a plan in your fighting.

     There are many open, large areas in the game, but there are also some that have a linear feel to them. Many times in the larger areas, I didn't know where to go, and would have to explore. This was fun, and really added to the mood of the game, or the desperate feel of being pursued and not knowing where you are. Other times the guiding hand of the design is a bit too obvious. It's frustrating to see many, many stairwells in the game blocked off with furniture. If Joel wanted to go up those stairwells, he could move that furniture very easily.

     When you're not fighting (and also when you are) you'll be talking to Ellie, and whoever else you might be with. The game has conversations running all through it the entire time. They are great too. It's a great story (repeated for emphasis).

     One interesting choice is the way Ellie and your other companions behave during enemy encounters and the way enemies react to them. Namely, unless you are seen, enemies can't see and won't react to your companions. This is good, because your companions are very dumb when you are being stealthy, and will do stuff like run into clickers for no reason. Obviously the ideal thing would be if your companions had good enough AI to hide and be stealthy themselves, but this system actually works alright since it means your companions won't ruin your stealth plans. You just have to get over them doing obnoxious and stupid stuff and watching enemies totally ignore them. It's a shame and takes you out of the mood, but you get used to it, and at least it avoids the pitfall of your friends ruining every stealth sequence, which would be really broken. Fortunately, your friends do well when the non-stealth fighting starts to go down. They assist you and kill enemies on their own. It's pretty amazing when they actually save you from dying in a dramatic way that is often relegated to cutscenes, like jumping on the back of someone who is about to kill you, or smashing someone over the head with a bottle right when they get the drop on you.

     The game is long. It's longer than you probably think it is. I won't say how long, 'cause that's kind of a spoiler. It doesn't get old though, and the length really adds to the feel of the games.

     In the category of realistic graphics, it's the best looking game on PS3. The in-game graphics are great. Faces are expressive and environments look real good. There are some glitches in the environment, such as plants that move strangely when you touch them (plant-life glitches, just like The Walking Dead!). There are also pre-rendered cutscenes that feature some really realistic people. Ellie, Joel, and almost all of the other main characters actually look real in these scenes. 10 years from now, we might laugh at these renders, but right now my brain is fooled into thinking I'm looking at real people about 50% of the time.

     The music is mostly understated, adding a little mood hear and there. There isn't much in the way of epic scores highlighting a climatic scene, and that's a good thing for the feel of this game. Some acoustic guitar parts highlight the rustic feel of many of the locales and their denizens.

     The game is a really great experience on your first play-through. There are some genuine problems in re-playing the game though. First, the trophies set you up to play the game three times, which is one too many in a game this long and linear. First, you should just play it on whatever difficulty setting you want (I went with hard first). Then, you'll want to play it on survivor, the hardest setting. But there is a trophy for beating new game + mode. You won't want to play survivor on new game + mode as the whole point of survivor is to have it be hard, and new game + mode makes it easier. Survivor is probably too hard for your 1^st play-through, so if you want all those trophies, you're looking at 3 play-throughs (at least if you follow my philosophies). Also, new game + is totally inappropriate for this game. There is only basic character growth and weapon modification in the game, which is fine. It's just that there is absolutely no point in carrying over that growth into another game. New game + is for games that have a lot of new content in their re-plays, such as new character growth, areas, and challenges. It's a great feature in many games with robust post-game content, but is pointless here.

     Second, about half-way through my 2^nd play-though I discovered a game breaking fact about the game that makes it much less fun. I won't say what it is here because it is forbidden knowledge that will ruin your fun. After figuring out this... trick... the game became super-easy and a whole element of it was removed from the picture entirely. I was playing on survivor mode, which isn't that hard to begin with. It was disappointing that survivor mode wasn't as hard as it could be, and then to figure out this...idea... made it laughable as a challenging experience. I'd heard so much about the great challenge of survivor difiiculty, but unfortunately it is a joke.

     And even though I adored my first play-through of the game, re-playing a game is a big part of the experience for me, so it pains me to say that the game went down in my esteem quite a bit due to my lackluster experience with its supposedly hardest mode. I'll have a spoiler post up soon that goes over what exactly I am alluding too, but please don't read it until you're done with the game.

     Despite this disappointment in the post-game, The Last of Us is a stellar game. It's a compelling and different story that is extremely well-written and well acted. It draws some obvious inspiration from The Road, but I actually like it's resolution better than the end of The Road (I'm talking about the book, I haven't seen the movie). This story is coupled with a convincing world and a very fun stealth/action gameplay system that is a blast to play through the whole adventure. If you've heard that The Last of Us is very realistic, you might be surprised at some of the abstractions present, such as the generic parts and pills you use to upgrade weapons and Joel. But if you view these abstractions as tools to give you a feel for what's going on, the desperate, realistic theme shines through. It's a Great Game, tier 2.  

PS3 Bucket List Update

     I'm getting close to completing my bucket list. Here's what I've got on the list so far. A lot of these I probably won't play, but I've put down anything that has any chance of getting played by me.

Flow – beautiful non game – disc version with flower and Journey – will flow's dlc still work?

Genesis Collection*

Retro/Grade*

Wild Arms*

Everyday shooter*

plants vs. zombies*

last of us

400 days

Pixel Junk MonstersPS3 version – tower defense

BreakQuest 2

Ico and Shadow HD*

Grubbins on Ice

lone survivor – 2d pixel horror

Siren: blood curse – 8.9 gigs, get European version?

Bionic Commando Rearmed – original on psp

Bionic Commando – if no other cool open world swinging games

flower

noby noby boy

astro tripper

gunstar heroes

alien havoc

abe's exoddus – abe box?

braid

hysteria project 1 and 2

rocket knight

coconut dodge

mecho wars

spelunker hd

whos that flying -2d ship shooter

blimp

flying hamster – 2d ship shooter

strong bad

wackylands boss

star hammer tactics – SRPG – maybe

2d adventures octopus

limbo

1000 tiny claws

okabu

rocket birds

driver San Francisco – teleporting

sine mora +?

Bioshock Infinite

Medievil

Jumping Flash – maybe

magic orbz

Guacamelee

Pixel Junk Eden – look for bundle

soldner x2 final prototype –looks ok, this or another shmup, not both

blood omen

soul reaver

field runners

pixel junk shooter 1 and 2

dead nation

age of zombies

greed corp – maybe, primarily multiplayer

aero racer

normal tanks

Megaman 9 and 10

Dead Space – 1 &2, 3 has salacious posters or not, peng

cubixx HD – not the mini

beam em up

history egypt – or romance?

widget's odyssey 1 and 2 – platformer with cutscenes

fly fu

young thor

castle crashers

Alundra

age of hammer wars

crescent pale mist – cool 2d sidescroller

linger in shadows cool interactive art

Droplitz – puzzle game

Shatter – more brick breaking, like breakquest

critter crunch puzzle game

planets under attack – galcon labsish

Vempire – puzzle game

Circles – puzzle math

Kahoots – puzzle platformer?

Deflector – enigmo vibe

Thexder neo – 2d transforming robot – cool

magic carpet

Descent – on disc

retro cave flyer – like velocity mini game

Digitiles – hard math game

vector td tower defense mini cool look

Secret of Monkey island 1 and 2 (no tales of) – 2d adventure

Sneezies – weird sneezing game – kinda like every extend extra

Love Cupid – shoot and catch hearts

Supermarket mania – maybe best of these time casual games

super stacker – puzzle stacking

voodoo dice – puzzle dice moving, like cube moving game

Influence – hard puzzle game

Pallurikio – weird puzzle platformer

archibald's adventures – cool puzzle platformer

carnivores dinosaur hunter hd - + an ice age mini version sequel

terrover

panda craze

myst

auditorium HD enigmo like puzzle game with cool music effects

sky fighter – 2d dogfighting like rocketbirds parts

pacman dx – fun pac man variant

hello flowerz real time gardening sim

blimp

comet crash TD with offensive component

I must run – canabalt with levels that end

arcade essentials – to try q bert clone Evolution has asteroids, frogger, and cave gravity flyer

Savage Moon – tower defense

eat them – 3d kaiju destruction

magician lord – Altered Beast like old game

Microbot – twin stick with traveling in human body

gatling gears – play greed corp first

tales from space: about a blob – short 2d platformer

Undergarden – ecco like exploring

romance iv

Explodemon – MegaMan like guy who explodes

core blaster – puzzley tower defense

bloons td – dumb td

paper wars – tank in a corner

pixeljunk sidescroller

pix'n love rush – platformer with retro skins

hard corps – contra like

moon diver – strider like

mini squadron – rocketbirds like

Swarm – play as tons of blue guys who die, platformer

chime super deluxe – musical puzzle game

Walking Dead season 2

rushn attack – stealth 2d platformer

pow

split second – over the top racing game, fast and cool

duael invaders – 2 invaders at once, control both

Stardrone – pinball like game – control spaceship indirectly

3d twist and match – spin 3d objects – puzzle

mad blocker alpha – tetris like with great art

Neutopia – zelda clone from back in the day

puzzle agent adventure- cool look, bad puzzles

fancy pants – 2d platformer

under siege – RTS

alien crush – old pinball

bonk's adventure – old platformer cave man

ghost recon future soldier – near future 3rd person

puzzle dimension – ball rolling puzzle game

dungeon explorer – old action rpg

child of eden

akimi village- non violent rts – short

run ghost run – clone of shooting bubble split games

me monstar – monster fighting running around – cool graphics

Ninjamurai – runner + shinobi

galaga legions DX – more like a twin stick

Scarygirl – the mini looks ok, 2d platformer – ps3 version doesn't look great

one epic game – runner with shooting

Snowy – puzzle platformer

impossible game – runner

Cyberbots – 2d fighter w/robots – pending esrb rating – looks good otherwise

call of duty – no black ops 2 – try modern warfare

Edge – block roller – really cool – puzzle platformer

revoltin youth puzzle platformer 2/ great soundtrack

Eufloria – like galcon

Speedball – future sports – looks not great

sideway ny – puzzle platformer

beat hazard – twin stick – uses your music to generate level

burger time world tour – burger making platformer

Klonoa – 2d platformer

journey

Warp – puzzle teleporting – not super great

idiot squad – sheep follow tiles you lay

Battlefield – bad company – more like call of duty – 1 and 2

angry birds

jetpack joyride – more like a shooter

future cop

floating cloud god

Prototype 2

rock of ages – roll rock down a mountain

Kaleidescope – trippy mini games

zen pinball 2 – suggestive themes on some tables – star wars is free? Or try plants vs zombies – or maybe just play real pinball

pinball arcade – black hole and ripley's believe it or not are free – theatre of magic and arabian knights – no – or try terminator 2 or something else

dyad

papo and yo – 3d puzzle plat

sound shapes – musical platformer

Shinobi – ps2

transformers war for and fall of cybertron

psychonauts

feisty feet – runner – racing

orange box – portal only + 2 – no half life

Pid – cool puzzle plat

rotastic- weird grappling hook game

black knight sword – bloody platformer

Kareteka – different fighting

labyrinth legends – dungeon crawler

3d dot heroes

munch's odyssey

demon's souls

germinator/ ms germinator – like bust a move in reverse

first queen iv – rpg/rts – in japanese, but looks cool

Machinarium – adventure game

x com enemy unknown within gene mods screen is salacious

ion assault – twin stick, doesn't look too good

Tomba – use a walkthrough

dragon fantasy – old school rpg

sniper ghost warrior – 2 might be ok if desperate for military fps sniper only

Sniper Elite – v2 – same but wwii – better but wwii

Thomas was alone

A-men 1-2 military puzzle platformer

giana sisters – 2d plat

Storm – nature puzzler

alien spidy – hard speed runney platformer

do not fall – puzzle platformer – fast

stealth inc – puzzle plat

cloudberry kingdom – hardcore platformer

Cursed Crusade – bad looking 3d action

ibb and obb – meant to be co-op

red star – shooter and beat em up

duck tales – platformer

the bureau – cover shooter

splinter cell – try blacklist maybe?

lost planet – no #2, others ok

brothers

castle of illusion – mickey platformer

Kickbeat – dumb rythym

mystic heroes dynasty warriors esque ps2 game

Sanctum 2 - 1st person tower defense – cool

Magrunner – portal clone w/cthulu themes

pac man ghostly adventures – bad 3d plat

Rain – stealth/puzzle

sky dive – squirrell suit simulator – no replay value

battle of tiles – strategy – no info – awesome

orc attack – 3d brawler – not good – some cool boss designs

Brink - 1st person – best for multiplayer – not good single player

captain america – decent action game

Condemned 2 – ok 1st person brawler

dark void - 3rd person jeck pack steam punk – cool

Dirt 3 – rally racing

doki doki universe – scribblenauts + personality quizzes?

DW gundam 3 – crazy long DW stuff

fairytail fights – cute/ bloody beatemup – cool

Haze – not great 1st person shooter

Funky lab rat

il sturmovik -ww2 flight, nothing special

Blazing angels – ww2 flight

Lair – has patch for normal controls

punisher even single player is multiplayer bots - 1st person shooter

Majin – lead a giant around action – bad voice acting pretty

Nail'd – over the top 4 wheeler racing

naughty bear – teddy bear manhunt – looks cool

operation flashpoint red river – methodical fps – red river?

Resistance- 3 sci fi fps's

Ruse – WWII RTS – cool zoomable map

Singularity time travel fps – looks decent

stick it to the man – puzzle platformer – not great

And here's what I have left to vet... won't be long now! Once done, I will group them into categories and start playing them!

stormrise look at cutscene on big screen

Stranglehold – esrb done

syndicate

riddick

timeshift

trinity universe

tron

unreal

viewtiful joe

white knight

yakuza

ys

R-type delat

torneko

Alien rage

ethan meteor hunter

jet set

castlevania

Proteus

darkness

descent

alone in the dark – blogcast says this is good

alpha protocol

back breaker

baja

blades of time

blitz

blur

body count

brothers in arms

conan

damnation

dark sector

dynasty warriors

facebreaker

far cry 2

the fight

fist of the north star

fracture

fuel

full auto

castle storm

how to survive

Katamari forever

g force

Ghostbusters – disc game?

hellboy

heroes over europe

battle for the pacific

civil war secret missions

hulk

iron man

juiced

jurassic: the hunted

just cause

kingdom under fire

kinghts contract

last rebellion

lotr conques / war in the north

lucha libre

Mafia 2

Mag

medal of honor

gundam crossfire

monster madness

mx vs atv

need for speed

order up

Planet 51

primal carnage

prison break

pure

record of agarest war

rise of the argonauts

robitics

Scard 2

saw

shellshock

shift2

simpsons

socom

soldier of fortune

spiderman

ssx

star ocean

stuntman

surf's up

Tales of graces/ tales games

terminator

tin tin

bourne

narnia

the club

the darkness

thor

time crisis 4

ghost recon

hawx

top gun

tornado outbreak

trinity souls of zillo

turok

twisted metal

two worlds 2

untold legends

vampire rain

wiking

Warkawk – single player?

warriors legends of troy

way of the samurai 3

wheelman

x blades

wolverine

zack zero

injustice

farming simulator

adventure time

air conflicts

arcania

contrast

stick it to the man

fight night

painkiller

saint seiya

super motherload

hero of sparta

saga games

strength of the sword 3

pixel junk 4am

minecraft

toki tori

aabs animals

mutant mudds

tiny brains

twisted lands

AC liberation hd

the raven

double dragon psone

Grid 2

lucifer ring

DBZ battle of z

cyber sled

Firemen 2

adam's venture

Truck racer

dust force

Space marine – if I play 40k

gex

Far Cry 1

lightning returns

skull girls

zombeer

blowout

Pac man world

Wolf fang

Put all big screen games from misc list on genre lists

Forest legends

strider

neo contra

Tomba 2

mr. driller

Thief

catlevania lords 2

Tales of Symphonia + dawn of new world

magus

pac man museum

Mahjong 2 world contest

herc's adventures

Master Reboot

Growlanser heritage

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.