S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky

Introduction

In 1986 on April 26th around 1:23 in the morning reactor four of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant explodes. This was actually caused by secret experiments drawing too much power from the reactor. The subsequent evacuation and creation of the Alienation Zone is the perfect cover up for more secret experiments. In 1991 the Soviet Union collapses but the experiments continue. In 2001 a bus filled with tourists goes missing and The Zone is sealed off “completely”. In 2006 the military quarantine around The Zone is utterly destroyed, the sky blazes with bright light and the earth quakes as a wave of energy explodes through the Zone, this is known as an Emission or a Blowout. The Zone expands in size by 5 kilometers. In 2007 enterprising mercenaries and hunters enter this Alienation Zone in order to find objects of worth. In 2011 you play as Scar, a mercenary stalker (Scavenger, Trespasser, Adventurer, Loner, Killer, Explorer, and/or Robber), escorting some scientists into The Zone. The sky brightens and the earth begins to tremble, The Zone suffers another Blowout. Scar survives the Blowout, despite being completely unprotected. The Zone expands another 5 kilometers.

Then this old man starts asking you a lot of questions like, “Why aren’t you incredibly dead?”

History

The Stalker games were developed by GSC Game World, a critically undermanned and underfunded game studio. It took them seven years to finish Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl but it only took them a year to make Stalker: Clear Sky– I guess making a game engine really takes a lot out of you. GSC is no more, unfortunately. After trying to port Stalker to the Xbox and PS3 they scrapped that and tried to make Stalker 2 but that project was also scrapped.

The Stalker series of games are based on a Movie from 1979 simply called Stalker. Which in turn is based on a short story called Roadside Picnic, which was published in 1972. They all share certain traits in common, the existence of a Zone, with peculiar things in it, men who will do what they need to get these things, and something that grants wishes. I haven’t seen the movie or read the story but Stalker seems like a very loose adaptation but taken in a very interesting direction.

GSC created and used the X Ray 1.5 engine and as a result it has really dynamic lighting which is great for a survival horror shooter. It also provides weather, water effects, and a day and night cycle. All of this was employed by the developers to really bring the Zone to life– and make things more creepy..

Nothing like good lighting to point out how terrifying… this… thing is.

Stalker: Clear Sky was released in the United states on September 5th, 2008. It’s competition included Spore (PC), Silent Hill: Homecoming (PS3, Xbox 360, and PC), Dead Space (PS3, Xbox 360), and Bioshock (Ps3, Xbox 360, and PC). (Geez, tough crowd).

Nostalgia

When I was in college I was part of the computer club and every once and awhile someone would start playing Stalker. After one person would start someone would say, “I never did beat that, lemme give it a shot.” Soon the whole room was filled with cursing college students getting their faces rocked by mutants and shotgun blasts. We started coming up with stupid stories about The Zone and acting out little scenarios between characters from the games. And even though that has all passed there is still some remnant that all Stalker fans can enjoy, the “Get out of here Stalker meme.” If you’re not sure that someone you know is a Stalker fan–I mean should this bizarre niche need ever arise– just tell them to “Get out of here Stalker,” in a bad Russian accent and if they’re response is to hang their head or grimace you’ll know they are.

Seriously, can’t a dude who’s glitched himself into a locker while creepily staring at you get a moment’s peace?

Gameplay

Stalker: Clear Sky is a survival shooter so… let that just sink in for a second. Most shooters that I’ve played do not involve the consequence of injury, or the expenditure of bullets as seriously as Stalker does. This, combined with the crack enemy AI and the brutal numbers associated with damage makes this game hard as hell. Everything is trying to hurt poor old Scar, other Stalkers, mutants, space-time anomalies, and even the air– if radiation counts as the air trying to kill you (It’s usually in the water, but it’s all over the place). The game’s scenarios put the player in a situation where they’ll pick up fallen weapons and unload them just for a few extra bullets but throw the weapon behind because it’s too heavy and every Kilogram of weight works against the player. Weapons also jam with infuriating frequency, an unreliable weapon jamming can get you shot up quick.

Encumbrance is no joke in this game. It measures the weight of every single bullet in your inventory and if you go over your 50 kg load you’re gonna have a bad time.

The controls in this game seem normal at first WASD to move, mouse to shoot. But X makes you sprint and [ uses a medkit and ] uses bandages. It took me 5 minutes of hitting every key on my keyboard to figure out that Y changes the ammo type you’re using and = changes the firing type of you weapon. Reader be warned, you might want to map your controls to something that fits your playstyle.

The game’s big hook mechanic is territory control. Each chapter of the game includes a situation where 2 factions are at war and the player may choose a side. It’s extremely beneficial between the money, favors, items, and reputation you’ll garner to participate. The first faction war is sort of a tutorial and you can’t choose a side but you may in the other two. Be careful which faction you choose because the benefits are exclusionary and there’s no going back once you’ve chosen.

Anomalies present an interesting dilemma to the player. There are objects in anomalous areas called artifacts and these artifacts have a myriad of extremely beneficial effects like healing the player or eliminating radiation. Going into the fields is incredibly dangerous but the prices that these artifacts garner can be extremely useful disregarding their other benefits. Speaking of anomalies, they’re everywhere and extremely dangerous. The Whirligig and Vortex anomalies are very common, they catch the player, mess with they’re controls, then explode. Even veteran players still gets caught in their grip, unable to escape before they die, from time to time. But, just like the Stalker movie, Scar is equipped with a bag full of bolts which he can throw to trigger or detect anomalies.

Who’da thought these little guys would be so useful?

The Kvush

The glitches, dear goodness, they’re everywhere. One time the game crashed because I had the sheer audacity to have a guide take me somewhere. Not somewhere I wasn’t supposed to go, just to the next town. That being said, sometimes the glitches can be hilariously funny. These rampant occurrences have given rise to the phrase, “Such is life in the Zone.” No matter what’s going on it’s just the Zone’s weirdness, certainly not a problem with the game.

Blurry people phasing through floors. Such is life in the Zone.

People phasing into other people. Such is life in the Zone.

The voice acting in this game is shockingly good for such a low key title. Unfortunately, like The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, it’s got like… 5 guys doing it all. They’re chops include trying to sound tough when they’re voicing bandits, or trying to sound stoned when they’re voicing guys from the Freedom faction. Then again Steve Blum did two of the voices for this game and he does a very good job.

The Gush

The territory mechanics are usually spot on and really fun. The organizations are really dynamic, choosing one can be an uphill challenge or have interests that the player has stake in. Taking objective after objective while keeping your team alive sounds like a dumb escort mission but these guys aren’t chumps. Sometimes they’re better equipped than you are. It’s an odd feeling being in an FPS traveling with someone else for protection instead of the other way around.

The Zone has a beautiful atmosphere. Stalkers in camps and settlements talk with each other, in Russian. They banter, they argue, and they laugh. To see men in a place like this fighting untold monsters and then to hear them laugh because Smitty over there risked his life to pick up a useless rock he thought was an artifact is really cool. Mutants attack camps and are beaten back by independent squads. There are a lot of events that go on without intervention by the player. Bandits attack or are repelled. There’s a whole world of things going on that the player can choose to involve themselves in or ignore.

There are 8 minutes of guitar tracks the game plays when a Stalker at a campsite breaks out his dusty guitar. Sometimes I even sit and listen.

The music is really atmospheric and perfectly puts the player on edge. The moody synth sounds put the player in a mood to face the strange and unusual. The game itself is visually stunning. It’s a little dated and a little brown but I think it presents a ruined wilderness very well.

Take in this scene. A tree, nearly dead, hanging over the entry path to a dilapidated church filled with bandits that have take up residence.

The game may be difficult but it’s all downhill from here, sort of. The game has this peculiar way of getting easier the further you go on instead of more difficult. The more powerful armor and artifacts can make the player incredibly durable and the more powerful weapons can deal heavy damage to even the most armored stalker.

The Kvetch

The finale and ending to this game might make you feel like you’ve wasted your time reaching it. It’s so bizarre that a game that I love so much has such a terrible ending. The game is about exploration, solving a mystery, seeing the unknown, getting some mad loot and the finale is about shooting dudes. Shooting dudes in increasingly one-sided scenarios. I had to deal with not one, but four machine gun nests. Did you run out of ideas, developers? The ending itself is a great lead up to Shadow of Chernobyl but it doesn’t give any closure to Scar, the guy we’ve been invested in and playing for the past 20 hours.

The Verdict

I think Stalker: Clear Sky is a great game. Through the glitches– funny or game breaking, the adequate voice acting, and the incredibly disappointing ending I think this game is a really good survival shooter and a step forward for the Stalker series. It made numerous improvements over the previous title and presented a larger more playgroundy world to explore and have fun in. I’m not blinded by nostalgia for this one, I only played it recently, so this review is free of rose tintedness. I highly suggest picking it up if this interests you.

Next Week: Megaman Legends

Brave Fencer Musashi (PS1)

 

Introduction

(This post contains many food puns. Reader groans are inevitable.) That Allucaneet Kingdom is under attack by the vicious Thirst Quencher Empire– and remember, even food based empires are evil and food based kingdoms are good. In a moment of desperation Princess Filet uses a spell that’s been passed down her family for generations. A spell that’s meant to summon a hero, THE hero of legend. She speaks the incantation and calls forth a small blue haired boy who claims to be the master swordsman Musashi. The hero of legend had gotten shorter and younger than he had once been but his task is no less great– it’s actually strangely similar to the legend itself…

As you can see, they’re off to a lovely start.

 

History

It’s strange where an idea begins. Hironobu Sakaguchi, the games director, envisioned the game to be about Miyamoto Musashi, the famous sword fighter, fighting and living in a world he didn’t belong. Then I guess, somewhere along they way, they decided to market the game to children. Sakaguchi didn’t have high hopes for the project but after seeing a few technical demonstrations his hope returned. It was difficult to identify Musashi as a wanderer so they made his character more samaritanish. The technical challenge of the game was to get polygons to move in real time and still look good, something I think they succeeded at.

Fun Fact: In the Japanese release all of the villains are named after alcohol, but very much like Vodka Drunkinski, they changed all of them to be about soda.

I’m sorry, I meant Soda Popinski. It’s totally different. And he can’t drive because he’s got a big caffeine buzz.

Brave Fencer Musashi came out on October 31st in 1998. It went up against Oddworld: Abe’s Exodus (PS1), Half-Life (PC), and Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped (PS1).

 

Nostalgia

This game and Final Fantasy VIII fed each other in this weird way for me. Each of them had a demo disk that had the other’s game on it. I played the Brave Fencer demo until I was red in the face for wanting to play it. Then I stopped playing FF VIII because I didn’t get the Junction system. When I played its demo that came with Brave Fence it renewed my interest in the game and when I came back to it I suddenly could wrap my head around this byzantine silliness. And that’s the power of a good demo, game industry. If you want people to play your game show us what it’s like and if we like it then we’ll buy it. None of this Colonial Marines stupidity, just show us the game and we’ll buy it.

Gameplay

Brave Fencer Musashi is an action hack ‘n’ slash with platforming and RPG elements. Musashi has got to maneuver between attacks and strike while the iron is hot with his blades, Fusion and Lumina. Fusion attacks quickly, doesn’t do a lot of damage, but can combo nicely. Lumina swings slow but hits like a runaway truck. Fusion can also be used to absorb an enemy to give Musashi a useful ability. Some of these abilities have utility purposes, some allow passage through areas, and others give Musashi combat edges over his enemies. Musashi can also charge for a little while to execute a spinning attack and, if you’re really good, unleash a devastating counter attack after blocking an incoming move. In RPG style, Musashi can gain levels by using his weapons, defeating enemies, and just walking around. Musashi can also spend his hard earned loot on healing items or food at the local shops. As a being from another world Musashi has to eat a lot.

Musashi can learn new techniques from Knights of the castle and the most unlikely of characters.

Musashi’s quest requires him to find the 5 scrolls, those of Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, and Sky. And to find Musashi’s old legendary armor. All of these things allow him to platform or otherwise reach places he hadn’t been able to before. This creates a cool gating mechanism where Musashi can go new places, find new stuff, meet new people, learn new moves, and then kick more Thirstquencher butt then ever before.

Musashi can’t swim and basically melts in water so the Water Scroll is really important.

There’s a lot to see and do in the Kingdom of Allucaneet. Beyond going to the next objective there are a bunch of hidden palace members which extend Musashi’s BP (Like his mana), and Minku creatures who hold Longevity Berries which must be stolen to increase Musashi’s HP– animal cruelty HO!

 

The Gush

The music in this game is incredible. Every single area has its own theme and each theme promotes adventure! It’s all high octane and fast paced to match our swift fencing protagonist. You can rescue musicians for the palace just to spice up the music there. Musical stylings range from classical to more rock tunes. It’s emphasis on movement can make hurrying up and waiting annoying at times. But it’s all so wonderfully frantic.

The game over screens are fantastic. Musashi is mortally wounded and makes a quick one-liner before fading away such as, “If I die, I hope I’m reincarnated as Musashi again.”

The characters in this game are great. Most of their dialogue is voiced and it really shows their emotions. They’ve got witty dialogue that matches them wonderfully.

Come on, it’s gotta be good. Steve Blum voice acts this mysterious treasure hunter.

There are a lot of really cool dungeons. From mines, to lofty peaks every nook and cranny of this world longs to be explored. There are just so many well designed places. Most of their purposes are obvious but sometimes I wonder, what was the ice palace a palace for?

Weird ruins? Flying vampire zombies (Vambie for short)? Strange glyphs? Sign me up.

The art is really pretty for a PS1 game. Sometimes I just look at the backgrounds. The sprite work is also really good for the time. Their animation is really smooth.

I really like that there are 35 people to rescue from the castle and some of them aren’t useful. The janitor just keeps saying that he’s the honor of toilets everywhere or something. It just goes to show that the attendants of the castle are not all important in this conflict, as they shouldn’t be. But they’re still all funny.

The bosses in this game are bananas. They’re all huge and require interesting tricks in order to defeat. It’s not about unloading punishment it’s about finding and exploiting weaknesses. The only slug fight is with Kojiro, a rival fencer, so it makes perfect sense for the fight to be about actual fighting.

“I heard it was someone’s birthday! I brought my favorite gift! Death.”

The combat is good overall. Fighting with Fusion and Lumina is satisfying before Musashi starts learning combos. Fusion’s quickness and Lumina’s range give them an interesting interplay between each other. The charge up techniques also create a risk vs reward system of dodging attacks to unleash more damage than ever. And then the blocking counterattack move is a nice little hidden trick that’ll surprise a player for taking advantage of an enemy’s opening.

THIS GAME HAS IN-GAME ACTION FIGURES! That is all. The 12 year old in me and the 12 year old me that played this game loved those little pieces of digital plastic. With their crappy playing animations. I still remember Capricola’s action figure had dumb poses with his gun accompanied by grunts.

 

 The Kvetch

The villains are a little flat– SODA PUNS! The big bad is evil for the sake of being evil and his lieutenants twirl their non-existent mustaches all the time. Evil isn’t a stand in for anything here, it’s just a romp to save the princess and beat up some bad guys.

 

What happened to Rootrick? That art looks great but this model looks… like a mashed potato man with a gargoyle face.

 

All of the puzzle situations, or places where Musashi isn’t fighting are super difficult. I couldn’t figure out the Shogi Puzzle in the Meandering Forest without a guide, nor could I solve Soda Fountain’s Calendar Puzzle. And I can’t tell you how many times I was stumped by Steamwood part two (Binchotite Boogaloo). Maybe I’m just bad, but these were all unfun levels of hard for me.

 

The Verdict

I really like this game. I would get to the final parts of the game and play for hours. With so many things to find I bet you get something really cool for it all.

Depends on your definition of the word, “cool.”

But it’s definitely worth playing all the way through.

Next Week: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. : Clear Sky

Final Fantasy VIII (PS1)

Introduction

Squall is an emotionally stunted teenage mercenary who has finished his final exams. He is now eligible to get sent out to do real wet-work and other dangerous missions (Wait… hold on. There are teenage mercenaries? Most of them are orphaned? Yeah because teenage mercenaries are killing soldiers and leaving their children parentless. And then the cycle propogates itself. Cid… you monster). His first mission gets messy and embroils his academy into a war. This war then gets messy and embroils the world in a conflict over relative time and space. Throw in a couple of romances, some kooky characters, some sweet settings, and a leveling up system that made my head spin and we’ve got a game.

Apparently this is what leveling up looks like… uh… umm…. I’ll get back to this later.

History

Another Final Fantasy game with the same old crew. It’s bizarre to think that most FF games begin with Yoshitaka Amano’s art and then those designs get extrapolated and integrated by writers and graphic designers into a cohesive product but that’s how it happens. Squall’s and Seifer’s trademark scars just started as something interesting Amano added to the designs and they turned into a symbol of bitter rivalry and parallel ability. Or how the card game came into being because they were popular in Japan at the time and so they made one, the simplest things provoke design and expansion (And then how those simple designs can get blown out of proportion).

Somehow that first image becomes the second. (And the Final Fantasy desire for more than the usual number of belts begins. Also, Jesus, Squall have you ever gone outside. He looks damn near translucent.)

Final Fantasy VIII was also the second game to get a release for PC. It had sharper but more jarring visuals, slightly worse background images, and more midi sounding music. It was also more difficult to control with a keyboard instead of a keyboard (X is the gunblade trigger, what were these guys thinking?). Steam’s PC port even includes a magic booster which provides Squall and his friends with a pool of simple spells to start the game with (Which would make sense considering they’re learning in a university that specializes in the application of magical warfare). When I was growing up it was also strangely difficult to find a computer that it ran well on.

Fun Fact: This is the first Final Fantasy with an ongoing internal monologue.

Funner Fact: This is the first Final Fantasy game with realistic models for characters.

Final Fantasy VIII was released on September 9th 1999. It’s competition was Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage (PS1), Heroes of Might and Magic III (PC), and Ape Escape (PS1).

Nostalgia

This is the first Final Fantasy game that I completed. There may have been a Gameshark involved and a lot of swearing but that doesn’t change the fact that I beat it. It was difficult even with a Squall with maxed out stats, one overpowered character does not an effective party make. And there are some fights that can’t be won with brute force alone. I didn’t do as much exploring as I would have otherwise and I didn’t figure out how to make the Junction system work. I’m so glad I revisited it and gave it an honest go though. Delving into it’s systems was one of the major points of playing and even if it meant a few saves that were basically unsalvageable and starting over… there was also a lot of cursing involved.

Also, navigating the debug menu was a giant nightmare.

Gameplay

It’s a Final Fantasy game so get ready for some angsty and over the top characters (Now don’t confuse those groups), turn based combat, a plot that’ll make your head spin a little, some minigames, and a brand new system that isn’t seen before or since.

Our angsty protagonist is Squall, an emotionally damaged young man who finds himself unable to trust anyone or anything but himself. Someone who keeps his feelings bottled up inside because it’s impossible, and therefor foolish, to truly relate to anyone or anything… ugh. Sorry, but playing as this guy can get a little oppressive. I see his point of view and how he got there from being abandoned as a small and impressionable child and that he’s still young, young enough to snap out of it or change in any way. But it’s still difficult to hear him think and talk about it all the time like he doesn’t see the adoration and care that his companions have for him. But, having been this way myself (Oh past me, you’re always worse than present me), I can understand where he comes from. I didn’t want to see the way others cared about me because that would mean having to admit that I could or should do the same for them. And in the end Squall breaks these nasty habits at least a little bit.

I bet he thinks he’s so deep. If he brings an acoustic guitar to my party I’m gonna throw him out.

The over the top characters are basically the rest of the cast. They’re all uproarious and compelling in their own ways. With only six main party characters it’s easier to develop them. Unlike Final Fantasy VI and it’s cast of 14 characters, 5 out of 6 of these characters get development and closure (This is even a bigger fraction!).

Look at these bright faced young people. Time for their spirits to get crushed.

The plot can turn into a jumbled mess a little bit though. When time travel gets involved and The Doctor is around to explain it away things are bound to get messed up.

The Kvush

The Junction system. I want to be angry at it because it’s a byzantine and nearly incomprehensible mess but I can’t stay mad at it. It provides the ability when connected with other systems, like the card game, allows characters to become very powerful very quickly. A system that provides nearly full character customization with the navigation of a few menus and the application of the player’s mind. And I know that everyone hates on the draw system for being a dumb, tedious, waste of time and it is but it’s not meant to be the primary source of magical charges (The only spell I draw is a few scans at the beginning of the game). It’s clear that items and Guardian Force refinement abilities are meant to be the main source of magic and that draw is meant to snag a few precious spells or Guardian Forces from bosses. So I loved figuring it out and loved having mastered it but there was a long time where the Junction system just didn’t make sense and I think the game has a bad way of conveying how it works.

Wait… wait! I see it now. You “equip” the magic to the stats. Why didn’t the game just phrase it that way?

Time Compression, I don’t know if it’s brilliant or supremely fucked up. I’m going to say it’s both, call it a night, and then ask Cthulhu to turn the lights out for me before he comes to bed.

The gunblade. Just… its existence can make fans cream their jeans and haters froth at the mouth. I think it’s an interesting idea for a cutting weapon to pierce thick hide and then inject an explosive shell into the wound but… it’s super impractical. And that was just my head canon on it. I think the game tries to say that it just fires bullets out of it’s invisible sword barrel. I dunno, it looks cool but it sounds so dumb.

The Gush

I love the card game. Screw all the haters, this game can get really strategically satisfying. Between the spread or abolishment of rules, the manipulation of those rules, and how their simple natures can change the game in big ways next next rules region is always full of surprises. There are also web sites that support the Triple Triad game if anyone has a hankering to play online with an expanded card set.

The music in this game is great but it was made by Uematsu and Uematsu doesn’t make bad stuff. At least he doesn’t make bad stuff at this time anyway.

The summons in this game are awesome. Because they’re usable multiple times in fights and have to be equipped to characters it’s a viable strategy to rely on GF attacks to dominate the opposition.

Besides, if you could summon this guy in real life to throw needles at your enemies you would.

The environments and backgrounds of this game look really good. Sometimes I marvel at things for a little while. And sometimes this marvelling leads to the discovery of sweet hidden passages.

These two places are part of the same location! And that location tells an impressive tale.

I also can’t think of a Final Fantasy game before it that was able to produce as much spectacle as the Garden fight from Disc 2. This is just madness, and there are even more scenes of the bloodshed.

I really like the character of Seifer Almasy. He’s got all of Squall’s emotional trauma but none of his reservedness. He’s loud, belligerent, dangerous, and inspiring but in the end that’s what captures him in a cult of personality lead and staffed by himself. He’s young, idealistic, and confused about his life but is unwilling to share that with anyone. And to top this all off he’s extremely capable. It’s like if Tyler Durden had all of the skills but none of the direction. When I was younger I didn’t understand his motivations at all but being all growed up it’s plain for me to see his rampant confusion and unwillingness to bring it to light.

Golden dialogue right there.

The Kvetch

Quistis is a really interesting character, or she could be. She’s the oldest of the bunch and the only female in the party who isn’t romantically involved (Well, except her obvious desire to fuck Squall around the beginning of the game which gets destroyed in the cold emotional black hole Squall has instead of a libido). But we know almost nothing about her. We don’t know where she trained, what her aspirations are, or what she’s all about.

This game is chock full of pointless side quests. There are so many little side activities that are not worth the player’s time. Some of them give Guardian Forces and that’s super cool and rewarding but Mr. Monkey’s quest line offers simple healing items that can be purchased from up scale shops. And don’t get me started on the obfuscated BS they expect of the player when it comes to the PUPU alien quest line.

The monsters scale with the player. Oblivion should’ve learned their lesson from this game. The average level of the party is used to determine the level of monsters and their statistics react accordingly with stronger monsters getting stronger faster and weaker monsters not seeing that big of a boost. This leads to a problem where players who are confused by the Junction System try to grind enemies to make up for it and then get left even further into the dust by enemies that they’re even more ill matched for. It leads to some interesting abuse with party balance and Junction manipulation but it feels like mean trick on an unsuspecting player.

The Verdict

Find your walk through or a friend who can help you cheat the system because I think this game is damn good. It’s certainly not as good as its review scores might suggest (10/10 my ass Playstation Magazine. I’ll go as high as 8/10 and not one point higher. [I would go for 7.5/10 but I have to make dumb number jokes]) but it’s also not as bad as it’s harsh critics would say. I recommend it to those that enjoy the byzantine or complex if only for complexity’s sake. There are too many wonderful moments, characters, places, and secrets to pass this one up.

Next Week: Brave Fencer Musashi (PS1)

Max Payne (PC)

Introduction

Max Payne is a NYPD detective– though not a loose cannon cop who doesn’t play by the rules– who’s wife and daughter are brutally slain at the hands of men strung out on a hitherto unknown substance, codenamed Valkyr. With nothing left to lose Max takes a job at the DEA to take revenge against Valkyr and its distributors, which had been conveniently offered to him only hours earlier– citing the existence of his wife and daughter as reason not to join no less. Framed for a murder he didn’t commit and with his cover blown, he must cut a bloody swath through New York in order to crack the case and regain his innocence. (I like how the developers couldn’t choose just one cop cliche so they went with all of them)

He knows how to make an entrance.

History

Max Payne was developed by Remedy Entertainment, only the second game they had developed, and was published and distributed by Take-Two Interactive. Development started in 1996, almost just after Tomb Raider’s release. The game is born of “how could we do it better and cheaper” the developers wanted to make Tomb Raider with a better camera, use the 3-D but not let it eat the budget. These desires created a better and more responsive control scheme and the use of comic panels to relay the narrative instead of full cut-scenes.

Fun Fact: Remedy developers shadowed some undercover New York agents (with their permission of course) in order to see what it was really like and take hundreds of photos to help them map areas.

Additional Fun Facts: People think that this game was influenced by the Matrix but since this game was in development in 1996 and intended to use slow motion as a mechanic that is untrue. Although the popularity of The Matrix probably made acclimating to the idea of slowing down time smooth.

Even more Funnerer Facts: Max Payne is loosely modeled after script writer, Sam Lake.

I wouldn’t call the resemblance uncanny but I will say they both have similar interests in Hawaiian shirts.

Max Payne was released in July 21, 2001 for PC and later on Playstation 2 and Xbox. It’s competition was Baldur’s Gate II: The Throne of Baal (PC), Final Fantasy X (PS2), and Devil May Cry (PS2)– what a golden year for gaming.

Nostalgia

This is one of the first games that had a level I was almost too scared to complete. Each chapter is separated by a dream sequence and these dream sequences are trippy and straight-up terrifying. Most of them are more puzzle than action but they’re all very thematic and make for great interludes to the, otherwise, non-stop action. The scariest part is really the music and sound. Slowed down and pitch altered clips from the game are audible including an infant’s scream that is nearly speaker breaking.

I’m walking on a trail of blood while it’s raining blood. This is… GREAT!

Gameplay

Max Payne is a third person over the shoulder shooter so it’s all about shooting mobsters, junkies, high grade mercenaries, and shadow government goons and the game does a lot to serve this. The biggest mechanic this game has to offer is Bullet Time. With a simple click of the right mouse button Max can slow down time a bit. This allows him to shoot faster and even dodge bullets. This might sound like it gets old but it doesn’t. The only thing that holds this mechanic back is that the only way to recharge bullet time is to kill enemies and if there aren’t any enemies around then you’ll have to do without until you wax some bad guys.

Bullet time can also be used to make Max perform slow motion dives, it’s a great way to start a fight or get out of the way of a shotgun blast.

Max moves quickly and responsively so it doesn’t have Tomb Raider’s tank controls. The over the shoulder vision also allows Max to look around corners– this might seem weird but I always assumed that even if Max couldn’t see them then he could still hear them.

When it comes to the killing Max’s arsenal is a little limited. He’s got two different pistols (one of which can be dual wielded and the other of which cannot), a shotgun, an automatic shotgun (But you won’t see those until the end of the game, an assault rifle, some uzis, a grenade launcher, and a sniper rifle, a bat, and some grenades. All of which fit conveniently in his trench coat. It might seem like there’s guns aplenty but they’re all similar.

Max’s nightmares serve to point these things out.

 

The Gush

The plot in this game is ridiculously good. Pardon me, I mean that it is both ridiculous and good. What starts with a tale of revenge ends with government conspiracies and mad science. It’s rife with betrayals and back stabbing. It’s built like an overblown John Woo movie. Where simple men take matters into their own hands and kill like… 500 guys before the end of the show.

The soundtrack for this game is really good, if scarce. The atmosphere of the brutal winter storm and decrepit buildings make most of the music.

The character’s are wonderfully fleshed out… except for Alex– he dies a little too early. Especially Max, the comic panels really get into his driven head. We hear his doubts, his fears, as well as his grim determination. All of the side characters ooze personality. From Vinnie’s desperate pleas and furious diatribes, to Vlad’s cool demeanor and brash plans. Every once and awhile some of the common thugs will even spout some humorous dialogue.

Those dream sequences. Now that I’m not scared of them any more they still send a chill down my spine. They’re an interesting look into the psyche of a man on the edge.

Nope, this didn’t get more okay between this one and the last.

The finale is a wonderful test of rudimentary puzzling and gunplay. It’s nice to see a final obstacle that is overcome with the player’s head as well as his weapons.

I love the Ingram weapons. They’re bullet hoses and reload quick. I used to call them the “boss killer” because those things spit out enough lead to keep a boss suspended in his getting hit animation until he’s dead.

 

The Kvetch

This game has a stealth mission. Max gets pummeled and has all of his weapons taken away so he’s got to sneak around until he can find some weapons. I’m all for taking away my arsenal but “sneaking” around when there’s no clear way to do so is confusing. I would get spotted by guys that were back to me because they were turning a corner.

There are a few “plot” holes. Certain characters survive events because the plot says so and that’s sort of weak.

The Verdict

This game is damn good and definitely deserves a purchase on the platform of your choice. It’s 3D shooting at it’s finest and it’s aged remarkably well. I’m not even nostalgia blind for this one, I just see it in my game drawer and think, “alright, let’s give it a go,” and I’m never disappointed.

Next Week: Final Fantasy 8

Mount and Blade (PC)

 

Introduction

The night is wet and cold. You’ve surrounded the city of Veluca with your group  of loyal and trusty warriors. You’re wearing the best armor and weapons money can buy and are the first climbing the ladder to mount the walls. You reach its precipe and get nailed with like, 6 crossbow bolts. What were you thinking? Never be the first over the wall– who do you think you are, Alexander the Great? I bet you thought it was so cool to have a giant axe and charge forward. Seriously, get a shield, it’s useful.

Pictured here are shields being useful. Do you believe me now?

 

History

Mount and Blade was developed by TaleWorlds, located in Turkey, and was published by Paradox Interactive, located in Sweden. You might know Paradox Interactive for Magicka, the Crusader Kings series, and Runemaster– these guys really like their medieval/fantasy roleplaying games. The game takes inspiration from games like Sid Meier’s Pirates! and Daggerfall. It’s meant to feel like the player is a vital character in a historical fiction novel.

Fun Fact:  The review scores for Mount and Blade varied greatly. Ranging from Eurogamer’s 5/10 to Gamepros 5 stars.

Mount and Blade was released on September 16th 2008. It’s competition was, Sid Meier’s Civilization IV (PC), Stalker: Clear Sky (PC), and The Witcher: Enhanced Edition (PC).

Oh man, check out those… 2008 graphics?

Compare that still shot with Stalker Clear, mentioned above and released in 2 weeks before.

 

Nostalgia

Game Mods. I remember seeing the guys at my college computer club playing this game and they all had all sorts of crazy mods for it. I’ve seen Star Wars mods where being wookie is just about wearing special wookie armor and all the swords were replaced with lightsabers. This game is easily modable and I think that’s a huge point for it. I know it’s no excuse for its lacking appearance and its semi-limited gameplay options but it is really cool. I’ll admit that I haven’t installed any mods for it but that’s not for lack of them. The internet is brimming with mods for this title and I urge players to seek out and try them.

Freaking skeletons. You can mod a skeleton army! Sign me up.

 

Gameplay

Mount and Blade is difficult to describe when it comes to its gameplay. It’s certainly a bit of a sandbox, there are any number of things the player can do. They can become a trader, become a bandit, a mercenary, a gallant  knight, a despicable scoundrel, the protector of a village, the lord of a castle, or try to take the world for themselves–key word ‘try’. The character’s skills are the main influence on what the player can do. If they want to make a character who’s good at trading it will behoove them to put extra points in trading or looting if they wanted to be a bandit for example.

Look at all these skills! They’re all also cleverly related to different attributes.

But if you want to do what the game “intends” you to do you’ll end up becoming the vassal to a king and conquering castles and cities… until he doesn’t shower you with the attention that a brave and valiant warlord deserves and has consistently given fiefs and castles to Lord Bulba and then you defect and he flips his shit and then you’ve got to flee to the nearby kingdom and hope they’ll accept you after to took over 2 of their cities… I think this one got away from me. But the point is that you can do a lot of things and you never know what’ll happen.

Maybe if you could extract your lips from King Ragnars butt then you might be able to actually accomplish something instead of having me do all your dirty work you stag bannered, stubble faced prick… I might hold a grudge.

Your path to success is based on the troops that you recruit. Each of the different factions has a recruit that can be upgraded into different units. And each factions troops lends themselves to different roles, certain factions have troops that a better suited to different tasks on the battlefield. In taverns across Calradia there are mercenaries and “heroes” to hire. Mercenaries are generic units that perform their tasks admirably but don’t excel in any real way. Heroes are characters that always get knocked out in battle and never truly die. They also can gain skills like the player can which allows very skilled heroes to contribute to each other’s skills, if applicable. These heroes also have opinions of other heroes and of the player’s actions. Some heroes revel in being bandits, other will leave the party if they raid too many villages.

 

The Gush

Do you see that face? That’s Jeremus and he’s the best hero money can buy, by which I mean he’ll join the party just to save peoples lives. How… Why? Because he’s a surgeon. I know medicine from this era isn’t great but Jeremus has got some good ideas and he just wants to keep people alive. He’s not too keen on bandits and imposing on villagers but he’s the only surgeon that needs no training.

All of the factions have grounding in different cultures of the time. Each one feels uniquely like themselves. It’s easy to identify who you’re fighting just by looking at their troops.

There are lots of different ways to alter the difficulty. From increasing the damage you deal to decreasing the damage you take to decreasing the general AI levels.

Being part of a cavalry charge is awesome and it’s something that not a lot of games offers.

Hold formation! Strike like a rogue wave!

I love the Nords, they assault castles and don’t afraid of anything.

I also love the Khergits, they are based on the mongols and that’s all you need to know.

The map is well decorated and looks like a real geopraphic location

It’s a pretty sweet map.

The interactions and dialogue of the heroes is really great. Hearing a superstitious and uneducated assassin accuse an engineer of black magic because he’s doing math in the sand is just hilarious.

 

The Kvetch

The music in this game isn’t very good. That’s all there is to it. It tries to have sweeping orchestral pieces but it’s plain to see it was made in some sort of program and not put together too well.

There’s only 1 different type of swing for every angle of attack. You’re always right handed and you can swing right, left, overhead, and stab and it’s always the same.

Cattle escorts. The cattle escort missions are the worst type of quests to get. They’re damn hard to control and it’s just tedious and not fun.

All the prisoners are only worth 50 denars because a Swadian Knight is just as valuable as a Swadian recruit.

The food system is really simple and seems merely ornamental.

 

The Verdict

This game is pretty good but after playing the sequel it feels incomplete. Mount and Blade: Warband has so much more polish and it really improves the games feel end experience. So I can’t recommend this, but only because Warband is better. Nostalgia status: Unblinded.

Next Week: Max Payne

Netstorm: Islands at War (PC)

I guess this is a game about… lightning. Great box, team.

In a world above the clouds people live on the scarce islands of land that float among the winds. This world is ruled by a cruel emperor and you are part of the revolution to depose him. You’ve been captured and imprisoned but you’ve freed your priest of the Furies and are ready to fight for freedom here and across the skies. Use your tactical acumen to place buildings, gather resources, and crush your enemies!

Did I say tactical acumen? I meant floating islands and buildings.

History

Netstorm was developed by Titanic Entertainment which, as far as I can tell, is comprised of 8 people and was published by Activision. A demo was released a month before it released proper and a simple exploit allowed users to unlock the full game with it. The game itself had bugs within, particularly in the multiplayer game mode. It was possible for players to force opponents to crash the game, securing easy victory. Both of these exploits significantly hurt sales. Activision kept the servers up until 2002 and now fans maintain enough servers to play online for diehard players.

The game is considered abandonware so downloading it is just a click away (http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/216/NetStorm+-+Islands+at+War.html).

Netstorm was released on October 31st, 1997. It’s competition was Curse of Monkey Island (PC), Colony Wars (PS1), and Age of Empires (PC)

There are also some 3D remake projects rolling around the web.

Nostalgia

Have you ever had to stop playing a game, or at least stop progressing, because there was one level you couldn’t beat? TV tropes refers to something like this as “That one level,” and Netstorm has one helluva “That one level.” It’s called The Noose and it’s a level with a big gimmick. The player’s starting island is surrounded by a special unbreakable bridge. The bridge has a few breakable segments but the rest can’t. The player can’t build bridges to the enemy island or nearby resource clusters so… how do get out? I didn’t figure it out for years. Apparently when a building is destroyed next to a bridge it breaks the bridge segments around it. So what you have to do is build a building next to the breakable parts of the noose and destroy those buildings yourself. But this is something that’s never explained in the game, it’s something that’s not even incidentally noticeable. I had to cheat to level select to skip it when I was a kid. It’s super annoying and it’s the first level of the second chapter.

Look at this nonsense! How is someone supposed to figure this out?

Gameplay

The game is about building buildings, building bridges, and building units to gather resources. Some buildings attack other buildings, other buildings absorb damage, and other buildings have other strange uses (Did building stop being a word?).  You can build bridges off of your island in order to reach resource nodes (Storm Geysers) and buildings.

The buildings and units you can build are limited by your knowledge. Then you need to build a workshop that correlates to the element of knowledge your building for and select it as one of the buildings that workshop is producing. If you don’t have the knowledge to build something then you’ll have to beat the level without it.

It’s less of a tech tree and more of a tech pile.

The four elements are Sun, Rain, Wind, and Thunder. Each element has a unique quality and theme. Sun buildings are simple but competent, Wind are quick and cheap but lack durability, Rain buildings are a little weird but useful, and Thunder buildings are incredibly powerful but are expensive and difficult to use.

Some advanced mechanics: Every building you destroy gives you a portion of its cost to you in storm power and the explosion can damage nearby buildings (Note: Defensive buildings don’t generate damaging explosions.) It’s cheaper to build more workshops of lower levels but that’ll hog your island space.

Space management can get a little crazy.

You claim victory over your opponent by immobilizing their priest, capturing him, bringing him to an altar, and sacrificing him to the Furies. It’s sort of interesting how you can be victorious without destroying your opponent’s stuff. It’s all about this one little vulnerable guy.

The sacrificial ritual has its own music and dialogue that all players can hear so everyone knows it’s going on.

The Gush

The 3D art for the encyclopedia’s models look really good. And each entry has a bit of flavor text that fleshes out the world. The humor in that flavor is dark but still hilarious.

The Nimbians are a people with a fully developed culture. Their art, government, and religion all serve the war they fight and their fighting serves their art, government, and religion.

I’m not sure if the soundtrack is dynamic but it certainly seems it. The beginning of each match has tranquil music that picks up as the buildings start going up, the lightning start arcing, and the whirligigs start their bombing runs.

The first two chapters of this game have a really great difficulty curve. They’re not too hard but not too easy either.

The opening cutscene for this game is surprisingly good.

GRAPHICS!

Every element has the same types of units but it’s incredible to see how little tweaks to their design can make them feel so different and unique.

This game can get incredibly chaotic, and it’s meant to. An enemy can sneak bridges behind your island and unload a pile of hurt on your workshops or other valuable structures. It’ll keep you on your toes to make sure nothing fishy is going on. The AI isn’t that bad but high level multiplayer can get dizzying.

I mean, what part of this seems difficult to follow?

The Kvetch

It’s sort of impossible to play the multiplayer anymore. Maybe I just couldn’t find a good server but there was never anyone else online. The multiplayer was supposed to be the big draw and it’s disappointing that it’s impossible to get a game going.

The Noose. (I’m still mad)

Some units and buildings just aren’t good… well… one is. The Arc Spire. It says it does 50 damage, more than anything else in the game! But it just creates a damaging wall between it and another Arc Spire, so an enemy has to be dumb enough to move into it or maybe it damages things structures between it too… I dunno. It just seems pointless.

The last chapter is ungodly levels of hard. It’s really unfun.

Dust Devils are generated by Dust Devil Generators. The generators can be destroyed, the Devils themselves cannot. I’ve played this game for years and still don’t know how to counter them effectively.

The Verdict

For the low price of FREE it’s simple to see why this game is worth playing. It’s got solid mechanics, fun flavor, challenging gameplay, and’ll entertain for a few hours at the least. I recommend this game without nostalgic interference. But when you get to The Noose, give it hell for me.

Next Week: Mount and Blade

Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi (Playstation 1)

Introduction

After the destruction of the Death Star Emperor Palpatine sends out the call to a hitherto-unknown character, Arden Lyn– Not Darth Vader, call someone we have no connection to and have never heard of. He orders her to go beat up Luke, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Princess Leia. Arden also teams up with Boba Fett and some alien guys. Lyn is an expert in the galactic martial art of Teras Kasi, which everyone else has picked up pretty quickly to face her. It’s time for all these characters to rumble across the Galaxy.

This is Arden Lyn. How does she hold up that giant robot arm with her normal body?

 

History

This game was developed by Lucas Arts– A Star Wars game developed by Lucas Arts, what are the odds? The reviews for this game are really mixed, but mostly on the negative side. The most common complaints were that Lightsabers did not remove limbs on hit and that characters were grossly imbalanced– but I’ll get to that later.

It introduced three new characters to the canon, A Tusken Raider named Hoar– yes it’s pronounced how you think it’s pronounced, A Pig Man guard from Jabba’s Palace named Thok, and Arden Lyn herself. Although they didn’t receive much, if any, backstory in the game they were fleshed out in the expanded fiction later on down the line. Arden Lyn and Teras Kasi actually became things that were acknowledged and vital to the canon.

Fun Fact: Teras Kasi is Finnish for Steel Fist.

Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi was released on September 23, 1998. It’s competition was Fallout 2(PC), Caesar III (PC), and Crash Bandicoot Warped (PS1).

Say what you will about choosing these races, I think they’re who the fans were dying to see guys brawl.

 

Nostalgia

Did you ever like a game that turned out to be totally bad? My father and I loved this game. It united our love of Star Wars and his desire to not play a game that took a long time to beat. I tried playing every character and he would only play Luke, he wanted to be the Jedi hero so that’s who he played. I’d try to sneak the difficulty higher when he went through the arcade mode to see him get frustrated or rise up against opposition.

But looking back on the game now I had no idea that the reviews for it were so bad. I thought this game was awesome, there were a lot of frustrating things but as a kid that didn’t play it competitively those problems didn’t come to light– Except for you Hoar, I’ll never forgive you.

I’m looking at you, you sandy bastard.

 

Gameplay

Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi is a fighting game, so it’s all about learning combos and using moves that are effective against your opponent’s moves. This all being said the move lists are only in the manual.

Every time you deal or take damage it fills your character’s power gauge. This power is measured from one to four bars and certain moves use this power gauge. Finishing moves us it all and devastate your opponent with an incredibly impressive attack.

There’s also a stun meter under each character’s health bar and I have no idea how it works.

Some characters have weapons that they can use. Luke’s lightsaber and Hoars gaffi stick are really cool to use but Chewbacca, Han, and Fett only get blasters that aren’t incredibly useful. Their ranged attacks have such a long charge time that it’s easy for other characters to close the gap and deck them in the schnoz.

The Gush

Playing as Luke Skywalker and fighting Darth Vader in a fighting game lightsaber duel is fun no matter how bad the controls are.

For the playstation 1 this game looks pretty good actually. The fields and arenas are good depictions of their settings, except for maybe the Hoth map.

Oh look… whiteness and snow.

The game has some fun and silly cheats like big head mode and tiny fighter mode.

The Kvetch

If you lose the manual you’ll lose the game. And when there are two players and only one manual, it turns the game into a pause-fest where each player is trying to remember or get the manual to figure out what to do. Most games have a move list available from the pause menu, this is not most games.

There are also certain moves that aren’t in the manual but are only in the strategy guide. Because gating moves behind a 20 dollar pay wall is fair, right?

The control input is kind of clunky. There are times where I SWEAR I’m pushing buttons, and the game recognizes it in practice mode, but I still don’t attack properly.

Or maybe the game is just glitching out.

The game only has 8 characters but it does have four unlockable characters. Unfortunately all these unlockable characters are just pallet swaps of other characters, they look different but have the same moves. With the exception of the incredibly hard to unlock, Mara Jade. She’s actually worse than Luke in every way– her healing move heals the opponent too! Bug or feature? You decide!

Oh… Stormtrooper… just what I wanted.

Some finishing moves can miss and other can’t, missing your finisher can be really disappointing especially when your opponent can’t miss theirs.

Animations are repeated a lot, especially with winning and losing taunts.

It’s ungodly hard to unlock Mara Jade in this game. You have to put in a cheat and then beat some enemies on the hardest difficulty level. A CHEAT is necessary to legit unlock a character, because fairness.

Some characters are unfairly good. HOAR RANT ENGAGE! Hoar has one special move, just one. It’s called the whirling dervish and it makes him spin around and hit the opponent 12 times or something. If he hits you with it, it’ll only stop when the move is over. It’s hard to dodge, deals a bunch of damage, and it’s just the same thing over and over again. It’s also his finisher, the only big difference being that the non-finisher version does less damage. Fighting this guy is a nightmare because two Whirling Dervishes will knock you out and using him feels like cheating because you knock out the opponent in two moves. But the only way to beat him is to play as him, you have to get on his level, stoop so low, to defeat the game.

This is what the dark side really is. Winning at any cost, ignoring fun and choosing victory.

 

The Verdict

I know I’ve complained a lot about this one but I can’t bring myself to hate it. Maybe I’ve succumbed to the dark side of Hoar’s spinning assaults but I just love having this fight…

Show me another game where I can face my father, playing as Darth Vader, as I play Luke Skywalker? Didn’t think so.

Next Week: Netstorm for the PC

Chrono Trigger (SNES)

Introduction

Chrono is a fatherless young man (Who doesn’t speak, has spiky hair, and a modestly sized sword)– and you know what that means, he’s the main character of a JRPG– who is going to the Kingdom’s Millenial Fare. He meets a boisterous young girl and goes to meet his best friend, Lucca. This is a JRPG and Lucca is a young woman wearing goggles so she’s got to be a super genius capable of constructing hyper-advanced technology. And this happens to be the case. When Chrono’s new friend tests the teleporter her strange pendant– which couldn’t be of vital importance– has a strange reaction to the machine and she disappears. As it turns out the pendant turns the teleporting machine into a time machine. More time portals open up during an adventure that leads Chrono and his friends through all of time.

“Lucca, is this thing safe?” “Of course, it’s completely untested and might turn your friend inside out but that’s what science is for.”

 

History

Chrono was made by Squaresoft by a team lead by Hironobu Sakaguchi, you might remember him from my Final Fantasy VI entry because he lead that team as well– and all Final Fantasies before it as well. They didn’t always plan for the game to be about time travel but when it was mentioned by an uncredited employee the team jumped on the idea except the head writer, Masato Kato. The sheer taunting weight of causality and the infinite ways that a player’s choices could alter the flow of history turned Kato off to the idea. That is, until Kato thought about multiple endings to the game based on those choices.

The endings of Chrono Trigger are so big there’s a meme for it.

The game was translated by, Final Fantasy IV and VI translator, Ted Woolsey. They only gave him 30 days to translate all the dialogue. He was only able to accomplish this by using strategy guides and other sources to give him a better grasp of what the translation was supposed to be. The English translation also has dialogue that totally changes the nature of the villain. Perhaps it was a mistranslation, perhaps it was Woosley’s own spin.

Fun Fact: The art was design by Akira Toriyama, the guy that made Dragonball.

Fun Fact: This game was planned to be a part of the Secret of Mana series.

Chrono Trigger was released on August 22nd 1995 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It’s competition included Comix Zone (Sega Genesis), I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream (PC), and Twisted Metal (Playstation).

Nostalgia

What ever happened to game over screens? The most recent game I can think of that had a real game over screen is Metal Gear Solid 4– which was punctuated by a montage of the game’s events culminating in an image of Snake saluting.

The final fight throws a curveball at you, changing “exit” to “exist”. Selecting exist triggers dialogue from the final boss who shouts, “It’s not over yet.”

I mean, this is the era of game over screens that could crush the soul of a young gamer that just wanted to save the day or defeat Jason Vorhees.

I’m not kidding. This is the game over screen of the Friday the 13th Nintendo game.

But Chrono Trigger goes a step further.  It has a whole game over cinematic. We get to see the final boss begin his march to eradicate all the life on the planet. All of the planet’s denizens work together to fight against the fearsome being. This is all Earth has to offer and it’s not enough. It’d be like if the Last Alliance of Men and Elves went to Mordor and Sauron was reading a magazine and proceeded to beat them all silly and conquered Middle Earth. After all that we’re treated to this.

As the screeching cry echoes throughout the cosmos the planet turns grey as all hope is dashed and all life is extinguished.

 

Gameplay

As a JRPG, combat is not what this game is all about. The design still supports fun combat though by introducing character techniques and the positions of enemies. Techniques aren’t just magic, Chrono has an ability where he spins his sword around dealing damage to an enemy and all nearby enemies. Some techniques hit single enemies, all enemies, or enemies in a line. This gives the player more to do than just select Attack over and over again. Watching the ways your enemies move can also give you a crucial advantage.

The plot leads our dear characters to the far future to the end of time, and the far past to the dawn of man. At the beginning the player has very few portals they can go through and few times they can explore but as the game opens up more portals make themselves apparent and eventually the player can travel through time at will– If that’s not awesome then I don’t know what is. The interactions between the time periods can be as subtle as the way the continents move or how taking a treasure chest from the past makes it empty in the future.

And the plot is really what this game is about. It’s filled with double crosses, misconceptions, and the will to persevere. It’s an absolute joy to play through with more than one moment that filled me with so much pathos that I had to save the game and put it away for the night.

It’s plain to see how the continents drifted between 600 AD and 1000 AD.

The Gush

New Game +. All I’m gonna say– alright not really. After you beat the game you can start again with all of your levels and items. Now you can beat the final boss at different parts of the game and defeating him in each chapter unlocks a different ending.

The music in this game is some of the best I know. It so well represented the characters and emotions of the scenes that I was utterly enthralled.

Time travel can be confusing. But when I got lost I can just go to the End of Time and talk to the old man there and he tells me what I was doing. Leaving an RPG is the kiss of death for it, it leads to a lot of “Where was I going? What was I doing?” But this guy will put you right back on track.

Also, the design of The End of Time is just incredible.

Most games have side-quests as things that are either too difficult to find or finish. The Chrono Trigger map is so compact across the time periods that it’s simple to see all the areas that are available to explore. And the interactions between them isn’t spelled out but it’s simple enough for the player to think “Time to go back in time and save the day!”

This game has 6 characters (And one secret one– shut your gob! No secrets here!) and they all get closure by the end of the game. Final Fantasy 6 was 9/14 but this one is 7/7 on the character closure scale.

There’s something about seeing all of the characters resting on the trail like this.

The multiple ending in this game are an interesting look of how history would have evolved if the player hadn’t altered things. How did Magus originally get defeated? What happens if no one helps the prehistoric people fight the reptites? What do the developers think of the game? A different ending answers these questions.

I’ll admit it, I’ve beaten this game three times and I still don’t know how to beat the final boss. I just fill him full of damage until he dies. But considering the unknowable nature of Lavos I think this is a very befitting way to fight the creature. It’s anatomy is so far beyond our understanding–or mine at least– that all I can do is whale on him until there’s nothing left.

“What? How do I? Fuck it. I’m gonna hit it until it stops moving and then I’m going to light the rest on fire.”

The characters are all dynamic and interesting. They all have interesting traits and motivations. They’ve all got something that holds them back and, at the same time, leads them on this journey to discover a way to overcome well… except…

 

The Kvetch

… Chrono. He’s a silent protagonist with no character except what the player invests in him. I’ll admit, the Millenial Fare and the subsequent trial gives the player a powerful opportunity to figure out who Chrono is and, by extension, who they are. Because Chrono is just a self insert for the player. We’re supposed to be Chrono but there aren’t a lot of decisions like the ones in the fare that allow us to flesh out who Chrono or we are– and what if I don’t want to be a red haired messiah analogue?

Also some techniques are hard to aim.

The Verdict

I had to dig, and I mean really dig, to find one complaint with this game. It’s great, it’s simply great. I can’t recommend it enough. If it seems like something you’ll like then you’ll love it. I’m not even Nostalgia blind for it. I didn’t play this game until I was 19, and maybe 5 years is enough for me to get into my rocking chair and declare it “the best game ever” but I don’t think that’s the case.

Nice work every sprite in the game.

Next Week: Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi

Fallout 1 (PC)

Look at that Windows 95 logo. Just look at it! Then look at that Mature Rating.

 In 2077 the world was plunged into a wave of nuclear fire. A 2 hour barrage of non-stop nuclear weapon launching left the world an irradiated wreckage. Humanity endured in small part to a series of underground vaults that were constructed with the purpose of saving people– well except for all those experimental vaults that destroyed their denizens in a myriad of terrible ways. It’s 2161 now and Vault 13’s water purification chip has unceremoniously died and if they’ve elected YOU to go get a replacement somehow. You have 150 in-game days to find a water chip and return it to the Vault but surviving in the wasteland will prove more difficult than the search.

I like how the starting equipment matches this image. You’ve got a small pistol and a knife, go kill some giant scorpions.

 

History

Fallout was developed by Interplay Entertainment, it was meant to be a successor to the apocalypse themed game Wasteland. Interplay couldn’t get the rights to the Wasteland name so Interplay’s boss, Brian Fargo, named it Fallout instead. A team of 30 pumped this game out in 2 years with 3 million dollars to burn. The opening music was supposed to be “I Don’t Want to set the World on Fire,” but a copyright claim had it changed to “Maybe” instead. Eleven years later, “I Don’t Want to set the World on Fire” would grace our ears as Fallout 3’s opening tune.

Producer, Tim Cain, pictured here programming the whole engine of Fallout 1 himself. That bag on his head is magical because he performed this feat in a mere 6 months.

The game was supposed to have complicated moral dilemmas, working with the sheriff to kill a crime boss sends the sheriff on a head trip but killing the sheriff fills the crime boss with enough regret that he reforms– I think that’s really cool and if the game dropped enough clues to these men’s true natures it could have been a really compelling turn of events– but we got sort of simple moral choices instead. There’s no easy way to put it, but this game was one of the first that allowed, but heavily discouraged– seriously, some NPCs won’t even talk to the player if tale of this heinous deed reaches them– the player to kill children. This lead to heavy and buggy censorship in foreign releases, the children’s sprites were just made invisible. They’re dialogue still hangs in the air and they can still be killed, invisibly leaving no gore, with an errant grenade or other explosives.

The game gives you a “perk” that calls you objectively evil (twice!) for killing children. Good on you, game.

Fun Fact: Fallout was originally supposed to use the Generic Use Role-Playing System– or GURPS for short– rule set but Steve Jackson Games was so repulsed by the levels of violence and gore in the game that they refused to license their system for it.

Fallout was released on September 30th, 1997. It was going up against Hexen II (PC), Grand Theft Auto (PC, PS1), and Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II– that’s a mouthful– (PC). I guess it was just a time for violent videogames.

Nostalgia

Have any of you ever played a game that seemed like a game you played when you were a kid? I swear that I played Fallout when I was super young, too young to figure out what was going on or even how to play. I remember walking around in a wasteland town but that could have been any game that takes place in a dusty town. I probably didn’t play it at all actually. And why is it even important whether I did or not? Maybe I want to feel like I was part of the history, playing a game before it was classic. Maybe I just want to clarify the memory. Or maybe I need to accept that I might have dreamt it when I was 20 and that it doesn’t matter. I’m gonna go with option 3 and move on to the Gameplay section.

But it seems so familiar! Like every other dusty saloon in every other isometric game.

Gameplay

The main quest of the game is to get the water chip for Vault 13 so the player will have to do a lot of investigating and do a lot of travelling. An interesting point is that you can ask special NPCs about certain topics which requires you to actually type out the term you want to ask about. So, pay attention, it could lead to important information that’s NECESSARY to beat the game.

The wasteland is a dangerous place filled with raiders, mutant animals, mutant people, other mutant people, and mutant mutants– did mutant stop being a word for you too– so your character had also be really good at killing things unless he or she wants to end up on the menu for some mutant mutant. And I mean really good at killing dudes because you’ll typically be outnumbered, outgunned, or be facing an 8 foot tall beclawed monstrosity.

Or whatever this thing is.

The player enters combat automatically when he approaches an enemy or concludes dialogue that would lead to a conflict. The combat is turn based in which each character has a set number of action points determined by their perks and agility. Certain weapons and attacks cost variable action points so smaller weapons can get fired more in a turn as opposed to that honkin’ sniper rifle that takes 8 action points to fire. Moving, reloading, and opening your inventory also cost action points.

Check out this character sheet! I know that having a higher skill percentage is better but I don’t know what the actually difference between 50 and 52 small guns is.

The game’s attributes effect your skills starting values and you tag 3 skills which get a 15% boost and level up twice as much when skill points are spent on them. Strength also effects your character weight carry limit and melee damage, Perception effects a lot of skills and effects how close enemies start in random encounters, Endurance effects a few skills and gives the player more health, Charisma increases Barter and Speech and allows the player to recruit more companions, Intelligence effects a bunch of skills and gives the player more skill points to spend at level up, Agility increases the amount of action points and when they act in a turn, and Luck effects all skills a little bit and increases the players critical hit ratio– luck also increases the chance of finding beneficial random encounters on the map.

LIKE FINDING THE TARDIS!

The Gush

There is stuff everywhere in this game. There are computer terminals with lore and lockers filled with items.

Just about every skill is useful– I’m looking at you Traps skill, YOU’RE ON THIN ICE!

There are traits that give the player useful attributes that come with penalties so you can customize your character in such a way that suits your play-style.

The claymation and voice acting for this game is really good. The claymation heads show a lot of emotional range, even if it’s a little simple as does the voice acting.

You can also use the Vault Assisted Targeting System– VATS for short–  to aim at particular areas to hinder your opponents.

This can prove to be really useful, blinding opponents or making it impossible for them to use larger weapons.

Did I mention the simple fact that this game has…

…UFOS!?

The world feels appropriately desolate. It will feel like you’re wandering around a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Kvetch

The camera lacks a zoom so it’s difficult to see small objects on the ground. If you drop a grenade in a cave it’s basically lost forever.

This game is unpleasantly difficult. I’ve started combats in which the first turn is just me taking three times my maximum health in damage and getting blown away. I guess I walked into the wrong neighborhood.

Time for a rant. You only have 150 days to get the water chip and if you fail it’s game over. I saved my game with 12 hours of play with only 10 days left on the clock to find the chip. Long story short, I was super far from where it was because I got a lot of lost. I didn’t have multiple saves so that save was just doomed. There was no way to salvage it and no way to get the water chip in 10 days so it was just in an infinite game over cycle. Veterans of this era in gaming would call me a fool for not having multiple saves for one character but I was indeed a fool… and I wasted 12 hours… so that’s “fun”.

It seems like 150 days is more than enough time but only if you spend all your time looking for that chip. Side questing has to be kept to a minimum. It’s all about getting that XP and those clues until you get the water. At least that was my experience– and it was a really stressful one.

It’s really easy to break the game, sort of. If your gambling skill and luck are high enough then you’ll never lose a gambling game, this gives the character a theoretically infinite amount of currency if they’re willing to mash some buttons for awhile. That being said, all the money in the world won’t buy you enough to live. No matter how many stimpacks you have it never seems like it’s enough.

The Verdict

It’s unfair to judge a game based on its sequels. This game was incredible for the time but I’ve been so spoiled by modern gaming that I found it to be un-fun levels of hard. I’d say that I’m playing it wrong but I looked up character building guides, quest completion guides, and full spoilers for wear to find the water chip but I still couldn’t get my shit in order enough to fight Super Mutants. If it’s the only game you’re going to play all year then it definitely has the content to support that through all the deaths. But there are so many games now that it’s unreasonable to ask for such a commitment from the player.

Bottom line, play this before you play any of the other Fallout games if you want to really enjoy it, however unlikely that is to happen. If you’ve already played Fallout 3 or New Vegas and still want to play the classics then go ahead, it’s fun just to experience the past. But if you want to play a classic that’s better designed then I recommend skipping to Fallout 2.

Next Week: Chrono Trigger

Final Fantasy VI (SNES)

The top image is the japanese box art and the bottom image is the US box art. Did we ever get shafted.

Introduction

1000 years ago civilization as we know it was nearly wiped from the face of the world in a conflict known as the War of the Magi. Humans and beings knows as Espers wielded magic in countless battles. Humanity had to rediscover the power of steam and the most basic of industrial technologies. The Empire– it’s seriously just the empire? Whatever, just remember kids empires are evil and kingdoms are good!– has rediscovered Magic now and is gathering power at breakneck speed. You take the roll of a group of 14 exceptional individuals that have gathered from the disparate corners of the world– even the Empire itself– to fight the Empire.

Whatever you like, this game has a character for you. It’s got 2 kids, an androgynous mime, a yeti, and a samurai–  if you want it, they got it.

History

I bet I know what all y’all are thinking right now, “If the game is final fantasy 6 then why does the box have a roman numeral three on it?” Good question with a simple answer. Final fantasy 2, 3, and 5 weren’t released in the US. Final Fantasy 4 was the second Final Fantasy game that was released in the US so they marketed it as Final Fantasy 2 to avoid confusion– which would eventually create the confusion you’re feeling now, presumably. So when Final Fantasy 6 came out in the US they called it three to continue the trend. So that’s why it’s VI on the Japanese box and III on the US. With that out of the way, let’s talk about some other stuff!

This is the first game in the series that series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi was not intimately involved with, or at least not as involved as he wanted to be. Different characters were designed by different developers and it makes the game piecemeal but in a good way. They took the elements that they liked and turned them into wonderful quilt of a game. The game has no clear protagonist and I believe this large combined effort is the cause.

Fun Fact: This game was developed in a year– that’s just insane to me.

This game was released in the US on October 20th 1994. It’s competition was Sonic and Knuckles (Sega Genesis), Warcraft (PC), and Donkey Kong Country (SNES).

Nostalgia

Video Game rental stores– they were illegal in Japan and I can see why. Lemme just say that my family was super poor for awhile — they eventually started paying me in videogames for my good grades. In the meantime we would rent games because we couldn’t afford to purchase them. It was 7 dollars for 5 days. Now, that’s fine for a game that you can beat in 5 days but Final Fantasy VI requires an attention span that a 12 year old just can’t sustain in order to beat it in so short a time. I would rent it time and time again just to play through the first few hours because my save file would always get overwritten by the time I could get it back. Oh… damn… I should have written this section on limited save files– I am the worst blogger. God, I would play on a higher leveled save file and I couldn’t understand what was going on because I didn’t know the plot and I would feel bad for messing with someone’s game.

Bottom line, if we had saved the money we spent renting this thing over and over again without getting anywhere we could have bought it. It was a scam renting this game out pure and simple.

I’ll see you in hell.

Gameplay

As is usually the fair in Final Fantasy games there’s the plot and some combat, and ne’er the twain shall meet. The plot is rife with spoilers and learning as the story unfolds is most of the enjoyment so I’ll just talk about the basics. The world is split between free states and the Empire– I’m still harping on it for being just THE Empire. (This just in: It’s actually called the Gestahlan Empire. Named after it’s emperor, Gestahl.) The Empire is centrally located on one continent and the free states are divided and not militaristic so they’re having a hard time repelling the Empire, especially since the Empire discovered Magic and Magi-tek– Oh man, it’s like Magic and Technology put together! I just like the word, it rolls of the tongue — if the tongue was an assembly line. People from all the free states have banded together to form a group called the Returners, who are going to fight the Empire. I never understood why they were called the Returners. What are they returning from– are they saying not to call it comeback because they never left? I dunno, it’s a cool name but I don’t understand why they use it.

This world is filled with people who are willing to fight the Empire, some may need a push but they’re more than able. These people are Terra, the enigmatic woman who has been brainwashed by the empire and forced to use her natural magic powers to kill innocents– by the way, that natural magic thing is really important. Locke, a pure-hearted thief– I mean treasure hunter– who works for the Returners. Edgar, the flirtatious king of Figaro who appears to help the Empire but really colludes with the Returners. Sabin, Edgar’s twin brother who abdicated the throne in order to follow his dreams of becoming a martial artist. Cyan, an honorable samurai in the service of the Kingdom of Doma. Gau, a feral child who has survived the harshest wilderness in the world. Celes, a tomboy general for the Empire who is considering defection. Setzer, a gambling free spirit and pilot of the world’s only airship. Shadow– very original guys– a taciturn ninja who works for the highest bidder. Relm, a peppy young girl who can bring her drawings to life for a short while. She lives with her grandfather Strago, who can keep up with his granddaughter and has learned the ways of many monsters. Mog, the urbanite moogle whose dances can summon the forces of the world. That’s 12 characters! And it’s not including the 2 secret characters.

Look at all these guys!

Each character has different abilities that they can employ in combat. I find it super fun to find combinations of characters that compliment each other very well. Characters can attack as well as cast spells– did I say cast spells? I meant to say that magic is dead… dead forever… yup… forever.

The music in this game is some of the best for the Super Nintendo. It was composed by Nobuo Uematsu so you know it’s good– if you know who that guy is, I mean.

This music is so notable that there is an entire album devoted to remixing it. It’s called Balance and Ruin and I highly suggest checking it out.

The art and animation for this game is shockingly good for the time. Characters had more mobility than ever — They were able to blink, man! They could raise there arms and could move around out of pixel alignment which allowed them to express things that couldn’t be expressed in previous games. The animations of magic are also really satisfying, it looks like these enemies are getting messed up.

It might not look like much now but it was revolutionary at the time.

The Gush

Sabin suplexes a train, you heard me. Sabin can suplex a train, check it.

This could be the whole section, but I guess I should say more.

 

The villain’s motivation is wonderfully simple. There’s nothing wrong with crazy being a character’s motivation especially when they have so much character behind it. I also rate him as one of the greatest villains of all time just because of the sheer amount of havoc and death he causes. He also rates as one of the most glamour filled final fights in game history. His boss fight has 4 stages. These aren’t multiple forms mind you, this guy’s just got 3 waves of minions to fight before you even face him. And to top it all off, the music is fucking wonderful.

I’m just going to say it again, but the art for this game is beautiful.

Just take a look at this image. That’s the Imperial capital and you’re going to infiltrate it with that airship. How small, defenseless, and exposed do you feel right now? They’ve got you beaten dead to rights, if that searchlight hits you that airship is getting shot down. They out-man, out-gun, and over-power you in every single way. And if you don’t defeat them then no one will– that’s some Lord of the Rings stuff right there. Good luck.

The sketches are just jaw-dropping.

Is anyone ready to be a Samurai yet?

Or maybe a ninja? Whichever you choose, you win.

There are 14 characters in this game and it never feels like any of them are being shortchanged. By the end ten of them get closure to their personal stories. The game was designed to have no protagonist and it gives the player the opportunity to pick their own.

If you asked me to pick a favorite character I wouldn’t be able to. Every time I choose one I immediately think of a reason to pick someone else. I want to choose Shadow because he’s got a mysterious past that we get to piece together but then I remember some spoilery things that happens with Locke but then my mind turns to Relm’s spunky attitude and it never ends! They’re all just so goddam compelling.

You know what’s awesome!? Dogs! Shadow’s got a dog. It takes hits for him and dishes out the pain. It’s something small, but it gives him so much character and life. The dog’s name is Interceptor and he “eats strangers,” if that’s not cool I dunno what is.

This game runs the gamut of emotions. I cried, I cheered, I laughed– did I mention that this game can be really funny. And it’s not just the translation, but that doesn’t hurt it.

Mistranslation or non-sequitor? You decide.

This game has serious choices with serious consequences. I’m not going to spoil it but just remember, leave no man behind.

The Kvetch

Do you remember that part where I said you could pick your protagonist? Well sometimes the game chooses which characters you have to play and that can rob you of your protagonist…ness. But hey, you’re favorite guy or gal is probably busy doing something else in another location– certainly something really awesome — while these guys also do something important.

This game is really buggy. Thankfully most of the bugs are so obscure that you’re unlikely to find them but some are just game changing. The evade stat doesn’t work, you heard me. You evade attacks based on your Magic Block stat, not the evade stat. In addition, the dark status effect doesn’t do anything. Try blinding an enemy? It has no effect. Then again it doesn’t effect you either so it’s not all bad. Then again, the dark status effect indicator makes it look like you’re character is wearing sunglasses so…

Certain spell combinations can break the game, enabling the player to defeat all enemies in two casts with the exception of some bosses. Some would say this is a plus but I disagree.

This game can be a completionist’s nightmare. There are a lot of segments that are points of no return with sweet loot behind you. Some abilities can only be acquired in certain parts of the game and are LOST FOREVER if you don’t get them. Certain scenes only trigger in mutually exclusive circumstances, so if you did A and not B then something happens but you can only see the other thing if you restart the game and then do B and not A.

Get your strategy guide kids because there are secrets hidden in senseless places all over this game. It wouldn’t be so bad but some of them are only available the first time you enter the room and that just seems unfair.

The Verdict

It might come as a shock to you, dear reader, but I fucking love this game. I still play through it once a year. I don’t feel nostalgia blinded by this game, I feel nostalgia enriched. When I got the full version and could stop renting it my world was splite between high school homework and this game for 2 weeks until I beat it. I personally think it’s the best in the series. Agree? Disagree? Hash it out in the comments.

Next Week: Fallout 1