Atom Zombie Smasher (PC)

Introduction

The country of Nuevos Aires is suffering a zombie invasion. Having lost your arm in an accident, but still wanting to serve the military effort, it lies to you to command the military. El Presidente would do it himself but there’s been an attempt on his life and it’s left him incapacitated. You don’t really see any of this during the game, except in little comics. You just deploy mercenaries and try to stop purple dots from touching yellow dots.

I said purple zombies and I meant it.

History

Atom Zombie Smasher is developed by Blendo Games which consists of Brendon Chung. He developed the game in eight months with the desire to create a game where the player had to make sacrificial choices. To this end the player must choose which humans to save, the lone scientist or the teeming hoard of frightened non-scientists. Possibly having to decide whether it’s okay to launch an artillery barrage at their own men to secure victory.

Fun Fact: There’s a short development journal in the game itself. Describing exactly how many versions he created and why he had to keep revising.

Atom Zombie Smasher was released on January 22nd, 2011. It’s competition was Dead Space 2 (PC, PS3, Xbox 260), Mass Effect 2 (PS3), and Magicka (PC)  –tough crowd.

Nostalgia

My college roommate had this game and when I saw him playing it I had to ask him what was going on. When he told me it was called Atom Zombie Smasher I knew that I had to play it. After I played it I knew that even if I beat it and only played it for a couple of hours I had to give this guy some money and buy it. It’s so uniquely goofy that I couldn’t say no.

Gameplay

The game starts off simple. You control a helicopter that will land, blast it’s airhorn, and attract humans to it. Humans will board the helicopter in a bid to escape from the zombies rushing in from off the map. The helicopter can only hold so many survivors before it’s got to take them away and then return. It creates a neat desperate impatient dynamic when it comes to deploying the helicopter. If zombies approach the landing zone the helicopter can’t land. If you rescue enough people then you win the day! If all the humans are infected before that… then I’ve got some bad news. When night falls all the streets have zeds pouring in making it much more difficult to help people.

Behold, nighttime and zeds everywhere.

The first seven missions you complete award you mercenaries as rewards. There’s the infantry merc who’ll walk around through the streets and shoot zombies or the zed bait mercenary who will attract nearby zombies toward his location.

The mercenaries also gain experience and upgrades as the game goes on. They also have ridiculous names

Infected territories are rated from one to four. Each level increases the number of attacking zed streets. At level four there are no humans and it’s your goal to kill all the zeds before nightfall.

When a territory reaches threat level 4 it infects all nearby territories except dead or reclaimed territories.

Eventually you’ll discover scientists researching the zed threat. They appear as blue on the map and have priority helicopter access. These scientist’s research can be used to purchase upgrades. The higher the infection level, the more the scientists so… choose wisely.

Losing one mission isn’t the end of the world but you can retry it if you want. The goal is to reach a certain number of victory points. Every zombie gives their faction a victory point and every human you rescue gives you a victory point. There are certain milestones that unlock more upgrades for each faction.

The Gush

There are only five music tracks but they’re some of the most memorable surf rock tracks I’ve ever heard. If you like grooving electric guitars then you’ll like this soundtrack.

Every so many missions the game will treat you to a short vignette which reveals the goings on of certain people during and leading up to the outbreak. They verge on non-sequiturs within themselves but I find them hilarious.

This dialogue is simply brilliant. They just get better and better.

The game has got oodles and oodles of mods so there’s a lot of replay-ability, insofar that no two playthroughs will feel the same.

This game is absolutely silly. It’s got Lamma Bombs, Catbird Cannons, and Elephantbird Orbital Launchers. The sheer ridiculousness is fun.

The Kvetch

The game is only good for short bursts. You might play a few rounds to begin but eventually I slowed down to only playing it once every couple of months.

The Verdict

That all being said, I do still keep coming back to it. It’s individual vignettes re difficult to remember but that just makes it fresh when they pop back up. The gameplay is solid and actually requires a lot of strategy. This game is definitely worth the $9.99 price tag. I’m pretty nostalgic for it even though it’s only 3 years old.

Next Week: Audiosurf

Zoe’s MMO Corner: Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 is a one time payment sword-and-sorcery RPG that takes place about 250 years after the events of the original Guild Wars, following the rise of the Elder Dragons who exist to frak up everything.

History and Development

Sometime in like, 2007, ArenaNet basically scrapped the potential fourth expansion campaign for Guild Wars, then titled “Utopia”.  Instead, they split it into two things: a weird half-campaign expansion called “The Eye of the North” and the idea for Guild Wars 2.  Basically at that point Guild Wars was sort of getting out of control and gaming was advancing pretty fast and I guess the development team wanted to implement changes but didn’t have the ability to do so, so hey, whole new game.

And man was that a great decision.

I’m going to make no secret of the fact that Guild Wars 2 is my current second favorite game of ever because it’s fantastic.  Maybe I was bias to begin with because it was Guild Wars…but better…and you could play non-humans, but I don’t care, because my bias has turned out to be supported by like, everyone out there.  Like, literally everyone.  It’s got like, a 90% approval rating or something and that’s just crazy.

In development, ANet once again tried to toss off a lot of the usual MMO conventions especially, and I hope ya’ll will like this one, level grinding.  Yeah, basically mass murder is sort of whatever in this game because the developers threw in all sorts of dynamic event quests so that you don’t have to do it.  Instead you just run around and oh look, there’s an event over there that you can go dive into without having to do anything other than show up and help out.  It’s really cool and solves that thing I was complaining about in Guild Wars where you feel isolated.  It’s the opposite of isolating, but no one can take your stuff anyway.  This game rewards like…cooperation and being a decent person.  Shocking.

Also did I mention that you don’t have to play as a human because LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE NORN.

Okay, I know everyone has their favorite race in this game, but I saw the trailer for it back in 2009 or so and figured out that those super cool giant vikings were playable, I kind of flipped my shit.  Please don’t ask me why, but I found it really appealing.  And I was so not disappointed.

I am the viking queen of Tyria and no one can stop me.

Character Creation

In character creation, you chose from one of five races (humans, monster cats, vegetable people, tiny gnome-like mad scientists, or giant vikings) and eight classes (two heavy hitters, three technological or sneaky types, and three mages).  Then you chose from a bunch of different options to create a kind of personality for your character and that determines the first part of your story quest.

Super customization-y and pretty smooth about it too so it’s not like, a total mess.  My one complaint is with female humans and norn because they just look…weirdly pretty no matter what and I know that’s weird, but it’s sort of uncomfortable.  The dudes do not look like supermodels, let me tell you, but the ladies do.

Story

The overarching story of Guild Wars 2 is that 100 years ago a bunch of dragons came out of hiding to fuck everyone over.  I’m not talking like, little dragons, I’m talking Elder God levels of dragon.  They’re assholes.  The personal story, as built into the game upon launch, is about taking down Zhaitan, who’s basically the undead dragon, and is all about the zombies.  I’m not kidding, the zombies are everywhere.

The first half of the story is all about your character’s development as a hero which is kind of neat because they don’t start off going “YOU ARE THE GREAT HERO”, it’s more like, “We think you have some potential” and then you get to watch your character develop INTO the hero, which is a nice little touch.

Gameplay

The People at ANet ain’t no fools (okay, that’s debateable, but not about big things).  They knew that the problem with their first game was how complicated things got, so Guild Wars 2 is heavily simplified.  There are a lot less skills and you don’t have to run around to find them.  You just pick up weapons that your profession (only one this time) can youse and wave them around and eventually develop skills.  It’s pretty chill.

They also implemented a bunch of different kinds of quests that work together.  First there’s your renown quests, which are always there and you can only do once.  Then there are dynamic events, the quests that just start up at different times or with different triggers and you can either choose to do them or not.  Then there’s your personal story quest which stems from the choices you made about your character in the creation process.There are a ton of different options so it’s pretty cool to be able to play with different characters and not just do the same thing over and over again.

Guild Wars 2 is also constantly updating so they have Living World quests which actually recently changed from achievement-related world boss flail fests to a continuation of the personal story that’s always there and it’s pretty cool because the whole personal story is about ONE Elder Dragon and the Living World basically introduces the idea of fighting the others and stuff.  And also evil piratical psychotic plant girls.  Just roll with it.

I was only sort of tangentially around for this, but even I know this can’t be good.

The world map is still huge and mostly unused so it’s exciting to see what’s coming next.  And jumping around is a lot easier so while the world does seem smaller in a way, it also feels like you get to see more of it.  There are a TON of achievements and one of them is for exploring 100% of the world.  It’s really hard.  But super cool to be able to finish and go “I AM THE MASTER OF THE WORLD,” which I haven’t done yet because you have to explore the PvP maps too and there’s this one tower that another team has had for a month and a half and…you know what, let’s not talk about it.  (Since the writing of this post I have actually completed the map and I have never been so proud of myself in my entire life.  I am 23.  Clearly I need a better life.)

There’s also crafting and dungeons and large-scale PvP and small-scale PvP and armor collecting and guilds and honestly this is the MMO for someone who never wants to go anywhere else for anything.

The Good

Character Creation.  Personal storyline.  Updates (except they don’t come fast enough, sorry guys).  Mechanics.  Questing.  Keeping it fresh.  This game is FANTABULOUS.

Except Boobplate is back but you can kind of ignore it and not use it if you want to, thank god.

The Bad

The community hasn’t gotten a whole lot better.  I hear there are pockets of goodness in guilds but I’m not really privy to that since I’m still not the best at internet socialization.  They are way more helpful and less screamy because they put in a player-to-player trade system so they don’t need to freak out about how much they want a certain item.  Getting money is kind of tough at first and it instills this sense that you’re going to be broke forever which is nerve-wracking whenever you want to buy something.  And since the level cap is now 80 and not 20, there’s that traditional period in MMOs around level 15-30ish where the game can be SUPER difficult because things just scale funny.

The Ugly

Look, I honestly haven’t got much for this.  Nothing sticks out as physically painful.  Crafting can be expensive and/or tedious?  But no, because I honestly think crafting is kind of fun.  The writing drops off every once in a while and is kind of weird I guess but it goes away fast enough that I don’t care.  Look, this game is great.

From here…?

Buy.  This.  Game.  It’s still a little pricey (around $50) but it’s really worth it and hey, unless you want to buy things out of the gem store with real money, that’s all you’re ever going to pay for.  It’s beautiful and fun and exciting and you get to be a giant viking or a Roman cat or a freakin’ flower person, I mean, who can resist that?  Just buy the game, you won’t regret it and if you do, well, we may need to talk about what you’re looking for out of video games because it’s clearly not GOOD STUFF.

I could stare at this game all day and sometimes do.

Next Month: The Secret World, my innate fear of vagina witches, and some of the coolest MMO stuff of all time (look, there’s my opinion already, you don’t even need to read it–but you should anyway.)

Cave Story (PC, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Wii)

Introduction

Cave Story is one of those games with a title that tells the player everything they need to know. There’s a cave and a story going on in it. By the nature of this story it’s got so many spoilers that it’s difficult to say anything about it. Let’s just say that you’re a “soldier from the surface” and that you’re going to be thrown into some turmoil. I hope you like Megaman because you’re gonna jump, shoot, and find a whole bunch of cool weapons to fight some bad guys.

No weapon, 3 health, and a save point, let’s get started.

History

Save story is a game that was made by one man, Daisuke Amaya. He programmed, wrote, developed, designed, and composed the whole project. It may have taken him five years to do it and when he was done he gave it away. This game is the definition of indie. It’s design is simple in all ways, characters, music, plot, gameplay but from that simple design complexity rises from the sheer number of factors that are thrown at the player. Amaya began working on Cave Story in 1999 when he was in university and continued working on it until 2004 while he was a software programmer.

It’s pretty easy to find a photo of the development team because this guy did it all.

It’s free distribution and eventual translation into English lead to a release Wii virtual console in 2010, on the Steam distribution platform in 2011 as Cave Story +, and as a fully remastered version called Cave Story 3D. Cave Story + is a paltry 9.99 so, although you can download it for free, I urge you to pay for it if you can no matter what platform you prefer. Cave Story + even has some cool stuff in it that’s not in the original like a boss rush, and Hard Mode– A mode that leaves the player at 3 HP through the whole game.

Cave story was released on December 20th 2004. It’s competition was World of Warcraft (PC), Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (Playstation 2), and The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth (PC)

Nostalgia

If you’ve been playing videogames for a long time you’ll probably run out of fingers and toes counting the number of times that characters get or have amnesia in games. It’s a really popular trope in RPGs to create some dramatic irony or create some sort of prophecy. I can think of Final Fantasy games in which  multiple characters have MULTIPLE BOUTS of amnesia. Do writers know how extremely rare that amnesia is? Our dear hero in this game is also suffering amnesia and I won’t say why for spoilery reasons but lemme just say it makes perfect sense. It’s not about a blow to the head, brainwashing by a vague yet menacing organization, or something that happened when he was too young to remember it.

Gameplay

The game is pretty simple. Our soldier from the surface can jump, shoot, and move and that’s about it. He also has the rare ability among run and gun protagonists to aim up and down. You’ll encounter enemies and obstacles aplenty, almost no two of which are alike.

I hope you’re ready for the sheer quantity of dudes this game is gonna send at you.

A unique aspect of the game is that weapons upgrade system. Weapons have levels from 1 to 3. Enemies drops chips when they die which contribute what basically amount to experience points for weapons. Weapons get substantially better as they level up, get useful abilities (like shooting through walls), and they do more damage– with one exception. The trick is that weapons lose these level up points when you take damage. If you keep getting hit then you’re gonna have to change your weapons or scramble to find more upgrade chips. It’s a really interesting system that encourages exploring the weapon space.

Switching weapons in the middle of combat can be a little tricky but once you get ahold of it you’ll be switching from your busted machine gun to your missile launcher in no time.

Weapons are also the form of currency in the game. Some weapons are discovered through exploration while others can be traded away for different– not strictly better weapons.  The weapons each offer something to someone’s playstyle. Unfortunately each trade is non-refundable so you’ll have to have fun with your saves if you want to experiment.

The game is all about exploration. It’s loosely based on Metroid and it shows. There are secret passages and all sorts of strange places to find and explore. It’s the player’s responsibility to find important, but non-vital items, like the map or the Bubbler gun.

Gush

This game has got a bunch of endings and they’re all about how far you push the story. You can give up and just try to survive. Or you can go all out, save the day, and find out the answer to the mystery of the caverns. It’s up to you.

There’s a weapon in this game called the Nemesis. Unlike the other weapons in the game it gets worse the more you upgrade it. At level 1 it fires giant lightning bolts that deal intense damage. At level 3 it shoots ducks– like rubber ducks. It’s satisfying to get knocked around by a boss for a bit and then take out the Nemesis and get some payback.

The bosses in this game are phenomenal. They start off insanely simple but eventually the screen is being saturated with enemies and attacks and you’ve got to keep on to your wits just to survive. Experimenting with different weapons can also make some boss fights much easier to handle.

Is that a smiling rock ball, surrounded by other rock balls, rolling around the room and trying to crush you? Yes it is!

The music in this game is incredible. Amaya didn’t really know how to compose music so he made a program to compose music for him. He would take the raw output, tune it a little, and find the right area for it. The music fits these places incredibly, I’m taken in by it every time I play– My favorite song is Labyrinth Fight.

The characters are pretty simple in this game but there are so many that stand out to me. Their simple designs express a lot about their character.

One of the characters is a giant walking toaster named Balrog. He bashes through ceilings and shouts “Huzzah!” It’s hilarious.

The plot is simple and delightful. It’s a battle against greed, violence, and a battle for identity.

This title screen is the whole backstory for the game. In this image is what misdeeds have been done. Play the game and figure it out.

Kvetch

The path to the secret true ending is a motherfucker. Some of the things that you’re expected to do are totally illogical based on the circumstances– One of the steps you have to take is to abandon someone so that they can survive. You heard that right, you abandon the guy and he lives, if you help him out then he dies. Some steps require immensely precise actions, if you miss any of them then you’d better hope you didn’t save or you have to start the whole game over.

Verdict

Cave Story brings some of the most pathos evoking moments in any 2-D shooter that I’ve ever played. I laughed, I cried, I kicked some serious butt, saved the day, and solve a cosmic mystery. I can’t say that about most games that I bought for ten dollars.

Next Week: Atom Zombie Smasher (PC)

Gex: Enter the Gecko (Playstation 1, Nintendo 64, PC, and Gameboy Color)

 

Gex is a three foot tall, bipedal, talking, gecko. Why is there are three foot tall, bipedal, talking, gecko running  around? “Shut up! Go save the fabric of television!” is the game’s response– it’s bizarre how the mascoting got in the nineties.

Welcome to the media dimension. The place where all television exists– in the waves… I guess.

History

Gex started his existence as one of those weird nineties animal platform game mascots. His original game was a simple 2 dimensional affair complete with Gex posing on the front of the box with sunglasses on– The story of the original game is that Rez, the self-styled lord of the media dimension, kidnaps him to make him a mascot… even the game knows.

 Strangely enough, this game runs off the engine from Tomb Raider 1. Eidos,  are you recycling game engines again?  It was written by Dana Gould, a writer for the Simpsons. He would also design costumes that Gex would wear in different levels and perform 700 one-liners as Gex’s voice actor.

Fun Fact: Gex if voiced by Leslie Phillips in the European release.

Gex: Enter the Gecko was released on January 31st, 1998. It’s competition was Resident Evil 2 (PS1), Skullmonkeys (PS1), Panzer Dragoon Saga (Sega Saturn).

The voice behind Gex ladies and gents.

Nostalgia

Gex: Enter the Gecko was on of the first games that I got for the Playstation 1. I didn’t even know it was a sequel to anything, I just saw a 3D platformer and I was in. In fact, if I had thought it was a sequel I would have found the first in the series to play them in order. Which would have been a disastrous turn of events because I’ve played Gex and I didn’t really like it, which would have probably prompted me to not give this game a chance. It was also one of the first games that I needed a memory card to play. I remember writing down incredibly long passwords or starting the game over whenever I wanted to play. Was it a good investment, well let’s go on to the gameplay section.

I was such a scaredy cat, I would avoid the horror levels because they scared me so much.

Gameplay

The controls and design of Gex are pretty simple. Gex can jump, karate kick which doubles as a long jump, tail whip to take on close attacks, and jump on his tail like a spring to get a lot of height and destroy enemies below. If he takes 4 hits, he’ll go down. Gex can also walk on certain types of walls, they’re pretty easy to spot because of their discoloration. Keep an eye out for them though because they usually mark hidden areas.

The karate kick isn’t a very useful move but you’ve got to admit it looks pretty badass.

Every level has a theme, there’s Toon TV, Scream TV, Kung-Fu Theatre, and just about any other genre you can think of. How do you control the media dimension? With remotes of course. Each level has red and silver remotes. The red remotes are acquired by doing certain task specific to the level or reaching a certain point. Silver remotes are acquired by collecting enough things or finding the hidden silver remote in the level. You get gold remotes by killing bosses. These remotes unlock more channles and more sections of the media dimension.

Different levels have different themed obstacles and different themes within the levels. The Rocket Channel levels usually take place in space so a bad jump will send you hurtling to a bottomless space pit– how is there gravity in space? SHUT UP! And there are air stations, run out of air and Gex is dead. The Pre-History channel has tough enemies in it and so on.

Gex’s costume changes a lot in levels. Unfortunately the lightsaber is just for show.

Gush

Every channel has different enemies so it’s not the same old hat dispatching monsters all the time.

You wanna fight spoopy Pumpkins? Do it.

The music is usually very evocative of the style of each channel. The music matches the channel’s theme perfectly.

I love hunting for secrets and this game has got many secrets aplenty to go hunting for. There’s more hidden in this game than silver remotes, keep your eyes peeled.

The level design, even in the same channel, is unique. No two levels really feel alike. Different levels have different pieces doing different things. Then like any good game, they start putting them together.

The design and music reach a new level if you can find Rezopolis.

Gex’s one-liners are usually really good but sometimes he’ll just keep repeating the same phrase again and again.

Kvetch

The bosses in this game are really underwhelming. I remember that Mushu Pork and Mecharez exist but I don’t remember peril or really what fighting them was like.

Although if I had taken the time to enter over the shoulder mode with the camera I would never have been able to unsee Mushu’s screwed up eyes.

Some levels of this game have a lot of death pits. Most of the space levels are 99% percent pits and, looking back at platformers, pits are sort of a boring obstacle.

Verdict

This game is still pretty solid. It might be a little tough to track down but if you see it in a bargain bin somewhere and feeling like jumping around then I would recommend picking it up. I do warn that my nostalgic feelings for the game are pretty strong.

Next Week: Cave Story