First Impressions! Persona 4 Golden

So last Friday I picked up a Playstation Vita due to the fact that I got Playstation Plus and had a bunch of free Vita games I could play. The one game I actually picked up in-store was Persona 4 Golden, because I'd heard a lot of good things - a LOT of good things - and I love me a good RPG. I had only very passing knowledge of the game, but knew it had to do with being a high schooler who also fought monsters in some alternate reality.

Game Review! Remember Me

Remember Me

Developer: Dontnod Entertainment
Publisher: Capcom
Platforms: PC - Played, Xbox 360, Playstation 3
ESRB: M for Mature
What I played: Finished the game (9 Hours)

Remember Me is set in Neo-Paris, 2084. A company known as Memorize has invented a device called "Sensen", which nearly the entire world population uses to share memories as if they were a currency. You play as Nilin, a memory hunter working with the rebel group called "Errorists", dedicated to taking down Memorize. The problem is, you've been recently captured and your memory wiped...

Gameplay

Remember Me's gameplay has three forms: combat, platforming and remixing. Combat is similar to the style used by the Batman Arkham games, although has a twist with its combo system and special abilities. Platforming is standard fare, along the lines of Uncharted and Tomb Raider, including a bit of puzzle solving. Remixing is the game's true shining point, although only occurs four times throughout the game.

Combat consists of mainly three actions: Punch, Kick and Dodge. These three actions will be your main weapons in taking down the Enforcers and Leapers and all their variants. Dodging is pretty straight-forward, you push the button, you make a dodge move, avoid damage. Punch and Kick alone won't get you too far, but that's what the Combo Lab is for.

The Combo Lab

Inside the Combo Lab you have access to up to 5 unlockable combos, which combine the Punch and Kick actions into various patterns. Each attack - a Punch or Kick- action in a combo can be slotted with a "Pressen", which can either deal more damage, heal Nilin, shorten the cooldown of an S-Pressen - a special attack - or multiply the effect of the previous Pressen. The Combo Lab is a fascinating idea, but it needs some tweaking to work better. It's pretty decent for the first half or so of the game, where new enemy types are introduced and new combos and more Pressens are being unlocked, but after that you probably won't use it much. Eventually, once you have all the combos unlocked, you have each combo set up for a specific purpose - damage, healing, cooldown, a bit of each - and you don't ever have another reason to enter the Combo Lab again. That's too bad, because the idea is really neat. Using the combos has some flaws too. Starting with the third combo, you can start earning extra PMP, which is basically their word for Experience Points. PMP is what's used to unlock new Pressens, and you earn it through regular combat as well. The problem is finishing these longer action combos. A lot of enemies, especially the Leapers, die with only two or three hits, even from attacks that aren't a Power Pressen. And if you're fighting more than two, maybe three enemies, it can be difficult to land more than two or three attacks in a combo because an enemy will either hit you to break the combo, or you dodge away from an enemy instead of over them, which also breaks the combo. They needed to tweak the combo system a bit so that you could keep up a combo a little easier. Nilin also has access to "S-Pressens". S-Pressens are special attacks or abilities that work best under specific circumstances and against certain enemies such as revealing stealthed enemies or corrupting mechanical ones. You also gain access to the "Spammer" early on. This is the closest you get to a "gun" in the game, and is mostly used for puzzle-solving purposes than combat, although it's default light and upgraded heavy attacks come in useful - or are required - against some enemies. Figuring out which enemy to attack first, what Pressens you need in what combos, what combos you need to use when, and what S-Pressens you need to use are the keystones to surviving a combat encounter. This works fairly well - except when targeting with the Spammer gets a little wonky - but didn't quite reach a level of really fascinating. Overall, combat is kind of weak, especially compared to the games it's trying to emulate. It's not horrible, but could definitely see some improvements.

Platforming and puzzle-solving was sadly a bit lacking as well. What was there was pretty good, it just needed more. A lot of the platforming was really straightforward, which was helped a lot by the fact that an orange arrow would always point you to the next ledge - or nearby ledges - so you always knew where to go. This is both handy and annoying, and you'll lean one way or the other depending on how much you like platforming. I kinda liked it, because it's usually pretty obvious anyway, but would also help you pick out that ledge or ladder you thought wasn't actually climbable.

The platforming arrow

Which is useful because there's a lot you can't climb or explore in Remember Me, which is sad, because the setting is beautiful. I've heard complaints about Nilin's jumping ability - or lack-there-of - unless attempting to climb something. After jumping a few times just to see it for myself, I came to the conclusion I actually really like it. What I had a problem with was making smaller movements or turning around, which more than once caused me to wander right off an edge to my death. A lot of video game characters can leap into the air doing their best Mario impression, and can jump a lot higher than I'm sure most human beings can. Nilin looks and feels like she can't jump that high because she can't - most people can't, I'm sure. It actually makes the platforming seem pretty realistic compared to most games, such as Uncharted. Also unlike Uncharted, the platforming isn't very exciting. It's just there to make moving around the areas more interesting that just walking... which is about all it manages. The puzzle-solving is pretty good when actually used, but otherwise is a non-entity. Most puzzles are solved throughout the game with an upgrade for the Spammer that lets you tether to objects to move them around. One particularly interesting puzzle had you shoot hubs of rails that rotated out and around, and you had to shoot them all until they formed a path leading up the wall. It was cool, but also pretty simple. I'd have liked to see more variations of that puzzle, with harder versions further in the game. Platforming also had I believe only two directly platforming-related puzzles, with flipping billboards. You had to time your traversal across the billboard just right so that the rotating panels wouldn't knock you down. Sadly, as mentioned, they only did it twice, and it was the only really interesting time I had with the platforming. Another puzzle-solving mechanic used later in the game is the ability to pull power from one console and shoot it to another. You can pull and shoot this power through windows, of which there are many in Remember Me, and you have to figure out where to pull and where to shoot the power. This also wasn't utilized quite as well as it could have been, having only really one good puzzle, which was right after you got it.

Before we talk about Remixing, I want to talk about the "side-quest" stuff. They take the part of collectibles, like many games of the genre do. Mnesis Memories are probably the most common pickup, and adds entries to your Journal. Information about people, events and landmarks are all examples of things that get unlocked by these pickups. You also have Scaramechs, which have a barely noticeable sound that's supposed to alert you to their presence. But you have to pretty much be right next to one to hear it, and even then you might just chalk it up to one of the many environmental background sounds. When shot with the Spammer, they grant you bonus PMP. Finally, we have SAT and Focus Packs. Upon collecting 5 of each, they grant you either another Health or Focus pack, accordingly. These are the coolest pickups in the game, as each one is hinted at by what I'd describe as a "memory screen". Lore states they're a memory clue of the location of the Pack, left by other Errorists.

The location of a SAT Pack

The idea is you find some landmarks in the picture and try to find them in the game world and get to the location captured in the memory. It's really cool, and the Packs are actually useful, so you don't feel ripped off at all. Although the message saying what the Packs do every time you pick one up is a bit annoying.

Okay, so we finally come to Remixing. Remixing is Remember Me's key gameplay feature, but is only featured 4 times throughout the entire game. Unfortunately, it's also not that great. How it works is, you view the original memory from start to finish. Once it's done, you can rewind and fast forward the memory, watching for glitches. Once you find one, you pause the memory and manipulate the glitched object. This causes a subtle change in the memory, but will - hopefully - cause drastically different outcomes. The goal is to change the memory so that something else happens, but without causing the person who's memory you're manipulating to believe they've died because... well, you can't remember you've died. That kind of doesn't work. They're all pretty easy though, since the glitches are laid out for you. All you have to do is figure out which ones you need to activate, because if you rewind past a glitch you've activated, it turns it off. It's completely trial and error. That's not to say it's horrible, it's really interesting and fascinating to play. But - like pretty much every other part of the gameplay - it could have been so much better. The closest comparison in this gameplay I can think of is the DS (and ported to iOS) game Ghost Trick. Dontnod should have looked at that game a lot more to figure out how to make Remixing even better than it already is. Things like allowing glitches to be activated at any point, and knowing which ones to activate when and in what order would have made Remixing way better.

Gameplay: 6.5/10

Story and Setting

The story of Remember Me begins with Nilin having her memory ripped out. Despite this, she seems to have held on to a few scraps, and is guided down a set of corridors to a machine that will finish the job. Somehow, someone by the name of Edge contacts Nilin, and tells her how to escape. She does so, and Edge says he's the leader of a freedom fighter group called "Errorists". Missing her memory, Nilin has little choice but to follow his orders, and learns that she's what's called a Memory Hunter. Memory Hunters are people who track down people to steal their memories. Nilin was a special Hunter, due to the fact that she can Remix memories, instead of just steal them, causing them to remember something differently than how it actually happened. The rest of the game follows Nilin as she takes down Memorize, the company behind the memory device Sensen. She does this by breaking into special prisons, stealing memories and Remixing a few. The story is pretty good, and even has a couple of nice twists that you don't see coming. The idea behind a lot of what you're doing is pretty terrifying too. Most of the memories you steal, you steal without the person knowing at all. They have no idea that a memory - a piece of their personal history - was taken from them. And yet you do it in the game as if it's nothing. That's kind of scary. There's not a lot of side characters, and most of them don't stick around for too long. They're usually just there a couple times to help Nilin along. They still come off as having distinct personalities, they're just not that fleshed out. I would have liked to see a bit more of them, but it's not much of a complaint.

Cool holographic store signs

The setting of Remember Me is what truly sets it apart from other games. The game is set in 2084, in the recently war-ravaged and now recovering version of Paris known as Neo-Paris. A lot of the city is actually doing just fine, and shows off all the technology that humanity comes up with in the 70 years between now and 2084. One of the coolest small things I saw was holographic store signs that pop up, even over worn-down shacks in the slums of Neo-Paris. The place feels like a futuristic city, but without being one that's totally inhuman - like the corridors of the Citadel or even the Normandy from Mass Effect. The place looks like it was built by human hands. It's an amazingly well-crafted world. It's just too bad we get to see so little of it. Remember Me is pretty much just a long corridor with a couple of niches set in the walls here and there with a collectible inside. Neo-Paris would be amazing to explore if it had been opened up a bit more, but even with what we do get, it's pretty great. You can even learn a lot about the lore surrounding the game's setting through the Journal entries unlocked by picking up Mnesis Memories. I hope the game does well enough to warrant a sequel, as the setting is even more well-crafted than my beloved Mirror's Edge, and I want to see more.

Story: 8/10

Setting: 10/10

Visuals and Sound

Your first vista view in Remember Me

Remember Me is a beautiful game. Neon signs, dark corners, flashy shopping hubs, it all feels real and well designed. The graphics are pretty well done, there's little to complain about visually. Facial movements feel a bit stiff, but they don't get used often enough to be much of a big deal. I always like seeing characters react to getting wet, and Remember Me does this well. Nilin doesn't walk out of a rainstorm perfectly dry, she looks soaked, as most would be. It doesn't fade away like magic over a minute or so either, it sticks around for awhile. One very cool thing is use of style with the Sensen device. Every person you see in the game has a little spinning disk-like thing hovering over the back of their neck, this is the Sensen device. The game uses it's base design on nearly everything holographic or virtual reality. From your stolen Spammer to entire areas rendered to surround a memory you've entered, and even the first boss fight's whole arena, this design is used. It's a really cool look, and although its base colour is white, they sprinkle in different colours, and it really works.

The game's soundtrack is really neat, it has a classical feel that fits its French setting, but also has lot of strange sounds mixed in that remind you that it's set in the future. It's an odd mix, but boy does it work. Music isn't used where it isn't needed, but if something's going on - from combat to scripted scenes to cutscenes - the soundtrack will be playing, and you'll notice it. One thing I would have liked to see is something of a main theme for the game using this style of music, but that's a personal problem, and nothing at fault with the game itself. The voice acting is also well done overall, and the pronunciations and accents all remind you that this isn't the US, or even a setting that has a lot of North American people in it like most games. It's never annoying, and a welcome change of pace. In fact, Nilin has the most notable accent, so you're always reminded of it.

Visuals: 9.5/10
Sound: 9/10

Family Friendly Rating

Remember Me is rated M for Mature, and although it's not anywhere near as bad as Gears of War, it still earns it's rating. Combat isn't at all gory, as none of Nilin's attacks draw blood. During Remixing however, there is at least one scene where someone gets shot. The most "offensive" thing in the game is the language, which isn't exactly common, but still around enough and strong enough to warrant the M rating.
ESRB Rating Information

FF Rating: 5/10 (10 being highly offensive)

Conclusion

Remember Me is a game that was really well designed, but sadly not well executed. The world, sound and visual design were all amazing. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the gameplay. It had a lot of interesting ideas that were all so close to being something that would make the game truly special, but none quite made it. It doesn't feel rushed or flawed, the game is mostly pretty solid. What it needs is a second chance, a chance for Dontnod to take what they learned with this game and make a killer sequel, because I can see the next game becoming something everyone should play. If you really support new games with good ideas and great settings, buy Remember Me. If you like all this, but don't feel like paying $60 for a game with only okay gameplay, wait until it goes on sale or drops in price (or both). I preordered the game and paid my $60, and I can't say I regret it, so take that as you will. I really hope Remember Me gets it's second chance, and isn't forgotten.

Final Score: 7/10

Notre Dame in Remember Me's Neo-Paris

The Eiffel Tower in Remember Me's Neo-Paris

Random Pondering! What Happened To Super Mario Bros.?

Today I'm going to talk about one of the saddest things I've seen in gaming, and it all has to do with everyone's favourite plumber, Mario. To start off, let me give you some of my background with the ol' guy. My first real video games were Ikari Warriors, Duck Hunt, and Super Mario Bros. You can guess which one got played the most. Duck Hunt, probably. But Super Mario Bros. was right there with it, since it was all on the same cartridge (yeah, bundle packs that far back!). I played it more than any other game at the time, and had a number of older relatives that pointed out a myriad of secrets. Today, I like to think there's almost no secrets I don't know about in the original SMB. I'm just gonna skip over SMB2, I didn't really play it, it's likely most people didn't, it wasn't really SMB anyway. SMB3 however I played a fair bit when I had the chance, although didn't own it until a handful of years ago - actually found an original NES cartridge, but also had it for the GBA. It was a worthy and quite impressive successor to the original game, and one I also still like to play to this day. Super Mario World was one I played, but never really got into. If I'd ever gotten it on GBA like I had SMB3, I probably would have played it to completion as well. I know a couple of times I got pretty far, and finished once because a friend of mine took us through the Star Worlds or whatever they're called. Also a wonderful game, just not one I've played as much. I'm also not going to really mention Super Mario World 2, because that was a lot different (more comparable to the Yoshi series of games, for obvious reasons) and I didn't play it like, at all. But basically, you could pick any of the 2D Marios from the NES/SNES eras and have a good time (although the All-Stars version of SMB1 I really didn't like, I might bring that up more later).

New Video! Let's Play Dark Forces Episode III (Part 1)

http://youtu.be/3msiuPD9Be0

Dark Forces continues with some dirty, stinky, and completely disgusting sewers. Ugh. (Embedding still not working...)

New Video! Bioshock Episode 8, Tomb Raider Part 6, Sister Plays Mega Man X!

Got me a new set of videos out too, if you haven't already seen them! First up, I continue to release Bioshock with Episode 8!

(Embedding is seemingly broken, so links it is!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUrsdFYIg9k

Secondly, I finally continue Tomb Raider with Part 6!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nayG0OUGP1A

And to mix things up some, I had my sister (well, one of them) play Mega Man X, with zero instruction from myself. See the results!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLzOQLtx6bQ

That's all I've got for today (and possibly this week, although I'll try to upload another Dark Forces video on Friday/Saturday). Next week may be sketchy on video uploads, but then I'll have a weekend that I can actually do stuff on, so I can hopefully build up some kind of buffer so if I have a busy weekend I can keep uploading.

Personal Log, Earthdate 15-05-2013

Hello blog followers! I apologize for the lack of posts, especially after throwing two out there so fast. Speaking of those, I'd like to thank ArenaNet for retweeting my blog post about Guild Wars 2's Living Story updates. I've got just under 1000 views for that post, which is mind blowing for me. For anyone who decided to stick around, special thanks to you! Now, what's up with my silence?

Well, the biggest one is I'm working now. Started the job on Monday, although I had expected to just be doing paperwork and then go home... so that was a bit of a shock. I'm only just recovering from sudden-job shock, and should be getting back into things soon. I'd be pumping out content this weekend, except my friend's having a birthday campout thing, so I'm gone all weekend. I might have some time to work out some posts offline so I can upload them when I get home.

As for what posts I've been thinking about, I've got a post about the current state of Super Mario games and what I think of them as well as a very excitable post (which I want to put some real effort into) about Ace Attorney 5, having just recently been confirmed for a North American release with it's English trailer and release window of Fall 2013. You can't even believe how excited I am for that, I just... ugh, I HAVE to write that post. Stupid work taking up all my time. Anyway, keep an eye out for those, and hey, for anyone who's reading this, feel free to suggest topics in the comments below. I'll think about 'em and see if I can come up with something post-worthy.

I'm So Excited! Guild Wars 2's Living Story Progression

Guys, I'm super excited, and I gotta share. I finally got around to finishing Guild Wars 2's Frost and Flame Living Story updates (the latest of which was Retribution, the final update for the series). It's not crazy heavy on story, but I realized I really enjoyed what they were doing as I finished Rox's story mission from The Razing.

Before I go any further, here's the links to the update pages for these...

F&F The Razing: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/march-2013/

F&F Retribution: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/april-30-2013/

Secret of Southsun: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/may-14-2013/

Random Pondering! The "Worst" Parts of Mass Effect Were The Best Parts

Today's Random Pondering takes a look at a common and often discussed topic of a nearly classic video game: Mass Effect and it's "worst" parts.

Everyone knows that the Mako couldn't control for crap and seemed to have it's own gravity field that just gave no craps about whatever was around it. It'd bounce from canyon to atmosphere if it felt like it. But was it really worth removing? And those elevator rides! Those long, drawn out, elevator rides! But were they really that bad? In my opinion - and I stress OPINION - no, they really weren't. And I think Mass Effect 2 and 3 could've been better if they'd stayed in.

New Video! Let's Play Dark Forces Episodes I and II

Join me as I check out the old Star Wars classic, Dark Forces!

New Video! Adventures in Gaming Episode 4/Bioshock Episode 7/WTF Screen?

Adventures in Gaming Episode 4, featuring Guild Wars 2's "Super Adventure Box"!

Let's Play Bioshock Episode 7!

And this is what happens when you try to record DOSBox in fullscreen mode.

New Video! Adventures in Gaming: War Thunder

After about a month and a half of not getting around to it, I present to you... ADVENTURES! IN! GAMING! Waaaar Thundeeeeeeer!

Yeah, I've had the footage for about 6 weeks, but never got around to finishing my editing. But I did! For you! Hope you enjoy!

Personal Log, Earthdate 2013-4-26

School is over! Rejoice! Rejoice!

So yeah, I finished school today, which means more blog posts, and more videos. This weekend I'll be working on going through footage that's been sitting on my computer for awhile now. This includes War Thunder, Guild Wars 2's Super Adventure Box, and reuploading Tomb Raider Part 4. Once that's all done, I'll get back into uploading and recording more Tomb Raider. Should I manage to get all the way through and finally finish an LP, I'll be going back to BioShock. BioShock Infinite was awesome, and I'd like to see what the original has to offer as I go on.

As far as the blog goes, I have at least two topics I'm planning to talk about, and still have to finish Sly Cooper so I can try to write a review of it. Also have to finish my Tomb Raider one at some point. So yeah, stay tuned readers!

Personal Log, Earthdate 2013-4-15

Sorry for the lack of posts. It's the last two weeks of school, and it feels like I've got a lot left to do. What time I spend outside of project work is being put into League of Legends and Guild Wars 2. Just wanted to throw that out there, for anyone who follows the blog and not Twitter or anything else. That's also why there haven't been any new videos for awhile - they're a pretty big time sink to edit, and I just don't have that time right now. Come May, I'll have a lot more time on my hands for stuff like blog posts and videos. Until then, I'm gonna plug some awesome videos from people NOT me!

First up: Smooth McGroove's "Mega Man 2 - Dr. Wily Stage Acapella" video. Found this guy awhile ago because of Zelda music and... well, even songs I've never heard before are freakin' awesome thanks to this guy and his amazing hair. Go watch his stuff, it's good.

Next up, we have a video from friend and clan mate Goldfishboy! He plays with fellow clan mates King, Ortick and Monkeymedic and... well, "play" may not be the operative term for what follows. It's L4D2 though, and it doesn't go well, which is always good for a laugh.

And finally not one, but two videos from my good friend BrownSound, all a part of my clan's Playtogether night in Halo 4 this last weekend. FEAR THE BROHOG!

And I hope that's enough to tide you all over for a bit. If you want at least some stuff, feel free to follow me on Twitter. At the very least, you might catch a glimpse of my progress on my school projects.

Random Pondering! Redesigned Superheroines With More Clothes

Earlier today I was linked a story on Screw Attack that had a gallery of images that showed off outfit designs from a "Michael Lee Lunsford" of various superheroines with more clothing. Y'know, things like pants. Shocking, right? Anyway, here's that link.

http://www.screwattack.com/news/michael-lee-lunsford-presents-fully-clothed-superheroines

But since I thought they were interesting, I figured I'd talk about 'em a bit. Note that I am NOT a huge comic book reader and don't keep up on all of these characters. I do know pretty much all the ones that everyone sees, and a few niche ones here and there. Don't jump down my throat if I make an error or whatever, thanks.

New Purchase! Age of Empires II HD

Just thought I'd let everyone know I picked up Age of Empires II HD off Steam just now, so I'll be checking that out. FYI, if you buy it now, you get it for $2 off ($17.99 instead of $19.99) and immediate access. If you're gonna get it eventually, might as well make it now.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/221380/?snr=1_7_15__13

Related Video! Messing Around in Dirt 3

}SoC{BrownSound uploaded his own }SoC{ Dirt 3 video today, which provides an alternate view on one or two parts of my video, as well as some footage from later that day which I did not capture. Sadly, his sweet 180 reverse through the storage container is not present.

New Video! Adventures in Gaming Episode 2: Dirt 3

Myself and a few friends from }SoC{ play Dirt 3's more interesting multiplayer modes and have tons of fun and close calls.

Random Pondering! Are Doctor Who's Companion Introductions Getting Worse?

Random Pondering is where I think about something for awhile until I decide it's worth writing about. I might not come to a real conclusion on anything I'm thinking about, but I feel like sharing my thoughts. Tonight I decided to share my thoughts on how the new series of Doctor Who has been handling Companion Introductions. There will be some spoilers if you're not completely caught up on the series, so I'd turn away if that's the case.

Spoiler Post! Bioshock Infinite's Ending

Welcome to the first Spoiler Post! This is where I talk about something that's a complete and total spoiler from a game, and if you don't want to get spoiled, go away, close your eyes, PLEASE DO NOT LOOK! Please! I hate getting things spoiled, and I don't want it to happen to you!

Today's topic will be the ending - and a bit about the rest of it too - of Bioshock Infinite.

Personal Log, Earthdate 2013-3-30

Easter's around the corner! Or already here if you're in any time zone East of me. Make sure to get to bed early so you can get to church without passing out halfway through. Which basically means I hope no one reads this until noon tomorrow :P

New Video! Adventures in Gaming 1 & Tomb Raider Part 5!

Just in case people here didn't see them up on my channel, I'm posting this. Part 4 is currently not available for watching due to copyright issues. I'll try to work around them for a couple videos and then put it back up. Sorry :(

Personal Log, Earthdate 2013-03-30

Ten days... I'm so ashamed. I'm going to blame it on the fact that I haven't been able to record any new LP footage for anything, and have been too lazy to edit up my War Thunder video for Adventures in Gaming. Also, YouTube has decided that my Tomb Raider Part 4 video breaks some kind of copyright, which if I upload it, restricts me to 15 minute videos! Whoo! So yeah, I want to finish the War Thunder video, then upload another Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed video, and then I'll upload Part 4 again and try and get that worked out. In the meantime, I activated Part 5, which you can watch by clicking that there link.

So, what have I been up to... well, I had a story-writing assignment due this last week, plus some other school stuff, so that's been keeping me busy. For the first time ever I brought my GameBoy to school and traded Pokemon with someone. He was replaying FireRed, and I have LeafGreen, so, y'know, that was a thing that was cool. Turns out I have... I think it's 132/150 of the original 150 Pokemon (I'm not counting Mew, because he's a special event dude that's practically impossible to get) from Red/Blue/Yellow (or LeafGreen/FireRed in this case). This is the closest I have ever come to completing the Pokedex in my history across all the Pokemon games. If I can get all 150, it could be the greatest achievement in my gaming history.

Secondly, I bought/played/finish Bioshock Infinite! I was gonna LP it, but I ended up getting so addicted I played it at school on my laptop and blew through the whole thing in like... 4 days? I think I beat it Thursday night (it's Friday... oh wait, I passed midnight, I guess it's Saturday. THE LOG DATE IS FRIDAY!). Anyway, I enjoyed the game immensely, which is nice, because I wasn't blown away by the first - or at least what I've played so far, which you can watch for yourself on my YT channel. I guess about halfway through the game gets really interesting, so I should sit down and play that some more. Elizabeth was awesome as both a written character and a gameplay partner. The times I'd get low on something and sometimes not even realize it, and she'd just already have what I need waiting... man, she's just awesome. The game was pretty great all the way through... right up until the end. The beginning of the end was sweet, with a cool thing happening that I won't spoil. Then it just kinda tumbled down this mindscrew hole until it landed face first into a shallow pool. I wasn't a fan of the ending. It wasn't a... "bad" ending. I didn't see it coming at all, although I've heard others say they did, and that there was clues, but I didn't see it at all. It felt like it was kind of a rip-off I guess? I dunno. It wasn't the ending that I wanted. I'm interested in any story-based DLC they might release though. But yeah, you should go play that.

Next, Riot has released both the Karma rework and Zac to League of Legends! I haven't tried Zac yet, since I tend not to jungle, or even play top, but I tested Karma out in a couple games and she's pretty cool. I miss the heal, but I only ever played old Karma once kinda by accident. I also got the Mafia Miss Fortune skin since it was on sale at the time of this posting

I also recently bought Katarina, deciding I wanted to see if I could actually play her now despite my horribly horrible games I experienced with her during a free week. I proceeded to pwn some face and decided she was awesome. A friend of mine was actually spectating that and decided to gift me with the Sandstorm skin for doing so well. Continue being awesome Q.

And finally I bought Dirt 3 (Or is it DiRT3?) because a bunch of my friends were playing and I felt left out. The game is actually pretty neat, feels nice to kick back and play using my 360 controller. I managed to miss two out of the three friends playing since it took me awhile to download, but I'll play with them tomorrow. I also played a random game of DoTA 2 with a few clan mates because... I really don't know. Still don't know much of what I'm doing in that one, and I still don't really like it, but friends play it, so I guess I should learn :/

Personal Log, Earthdate 2013-3-20

Hello readers! It's been awhile since I shot the breeze with everyone, but time fast forwarded or something, so I'm gonna try and do this fast.

First off, holy crap, the Pokemon anime used remixed non-8-bit versions of the battle music from Red/Blue. I don't know how I managed to go this long without realizing it, but it's pretty much the greatest revelation ever.

Go look up those same tracks from Red/Blue. I can kinda see how it'd be hard to match them, but once you realize it, it's definitely the same music. It sounds sooooo good. Man. I'm still getting over that and it's been hours.

Okay, with that out of the way, I bought moar games. I need to stop doing that. Dead Space 2 was on for $6 on Origin, so I snatched that up right quick, since I recently finished DS1 and was waiting for it to go on sale. I played a bit of it, but I'm hoping to record some this weekend, since I'll be having the house to myself. All the silence to record! Whoo! I also got Sonic and All-Star Racing Transformed... I think that's what it's called anyway, it's really long-winded. I recorded some choppy gameplay of that (apparently it's quite system intensive, I'll have to turn more settings off/down if I record more) and will have that up tomorrow night. And finally I preordered Bioshock Infinite, which means I also got a copy of XCOM, which I wouldn't mind recording. Maybe I'm recording too many different things... or I need to upload more often. Stupid slow internet upload speeds.

Finally, I am currently in the process of uploading Let's Play Tomb Raider Part 5. There's wolves again. Keep an eye on my Twitter for exactly when it goes up, otherwise I'll post it here tomorrow morning.

And with that, have a good night all!

New Video! Sonic Generations Green Hill Act 2 Speed Run (Attempt 2)

I'm late again! Sorry! I had to render the thing three times because I kept forgetting something in editing, and then it was really late and I couldn't upload it. Still ended up not getting any sleep. As such, there's no Personal Log today, but I do have another Tomb Raider video ready to go for tomorrow night. I'm gonna go get some sleep.

New Video! Let's Play Tomb Raider: Part 4

I... think it's working? It still says "disputed third party content" on my manager page, but I can view it, and when logged out, can still view it. Let me know if it doesn't work...

This is the final part I have rendered, I'll have to edit the last parts of my gameplay footage I have left and then start making more.

Weekly Update! March 9-17, 2013

Welcome everybody to the first Weekly Update!

First off, I'd like to apologize for the lack of posts the last few days. I got caught up in doing stuff over the weekend, and never got around to it. You may also be wondering what happened to those videos I said I'd put up. Well, the first part of that is a bogus copyright claim popped up on Part 4 of Tomb Raider, so I'm disputing that, and that's why it never showed up. It's really annoying, and I hope it gets cleared up soon. For the Sonic one... well, I got lazy. Sorry. I'm hoping I'll do it tomorrow. Also, because of the aforementioned copyright claim, I may be putting a hold on the TR LP, instead of just continuing to upload past Part 4. Besides, Part 5 and onward may be hit with the same claim until this one is worked out. I'll try to do some Bioshock instead to make up for it, as well as some more Sonic runs. In the future, don't be too surprised if I don't put something up every day. Blog and video releases may be fairly random, but I'll try to get a few out per week. Stay tuned readers!

So, as a look back on the week, let's see what we've got.

Obviously, I started the Pelikki Game Report. That's pretty cool. For me, anyway. Hope it's cool for you too. For notable posts, I put up my Jak & Daxter review, my first impressions of Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, and a few videos to my YouTube channel. I'm thinking of starting up a Facebook page too. We'll see.

Game news!

StarCraft 2's Heart of the Swarm expansion hit this week, which is pretty much all anyone paid any attention to. I'm not even sure if anything else got released. At least that I know of.

Riot has finally blown the lid off Zac, their newest champion for League of Legends. He's currently available on their PBE servers if you want to give him a try.
They also revealed the full details of the Karma remake. They are NOT on the PBE to try out. Yet.
And finally, they showed off a new map, Howling Abyss. It's currently on PBE, and seems to be a legitimate queue option for ARAM games. I'm not sure if it's replacing Proving Grounds or not.

Personal Update:

So this weekend I did a few things. I better have, to make an excuse about not posting, right? Let's see... I don't remember what I got up to on Friday. I think I ended up playing Halo 4 with my friend and clanmate }SoC{BrownSound (no, not the poop thing). Pretty sure we won most of the matches but the last one, which was a sad note to end on. Saturday I had a sudden urge to jump back into a game called War Thunder. It's a WWII-era flight combat sim, and is pretty sick. It's World of Tanks-ish, but you get to bring all your planes into battle at once, and they count as your "lives". Once all of your planes are destroyed, you're done. It's supposed to be bringing in Land and Sea combat as well - which is currently only present in the form of ground targets to blow up with bombers - but currently it's limited to Air. That's fine with me, as I needed an excuse to break out the ol' Force Feedback monstrosity sitting on the shelf. The game is a lot of fun, and I recorded some gameplay tonight, so hopefully I'll get some footage of that up this week. But yeah, I think a very large chunk of my time this weekend was spent playing War Thunder.

I also started playing Resident Evil 4 again, since I never finished it and some of my LoL friends were talking about it this last week. I'm a much better shot with my 360 controller (playing the game on PC) now than I was years ago with my GameCube controller, so I hope I can conserve more ammo and what not. I just reached the graveyard, for those who care about my progress. I haven't been playing it a lot.

I don't think I played Sly Cooper at all this weekend, and I feel bad. I may have played it a bit on Friday, but since my friends wanted to play Halo 4, I had to swap my HDMI over to my Xbox (I need to get my other port fixed on my TV...) and I'm far too lazy to swap them back without a real desire to do so. On the other hand, I ended up staying up past 3 AM this morning (that would be I started Saturday night and played into Sunday morning) finishing Halo 4 on Legendary. Solo. Finally. Lord that was testing my patience a few times. Promethean Knights are horribly designed enemies. At least the Elites have the Plasma Pistol weakness. Knights have NOTHING. And drop no decent weapons to kill them with. You pretty much need an OP Cannon (Incineration Cannon, but come on, seriously. It's OP) to kill them effectively. Although I did find that the Scattershot works pretty well. I still hate them. Haaaate. But I'm decked out in full Mark VI MJOLNIR in multiplayer, so I guess it was worth it.

I think that's about it for me. As always, thanks for reading. I'll see you next week.

Personal Log, Earthdate 2013-3-14

Well, I decided to re-render Part 4 of Tomb Raider. Unfortunately, I decided on this far too late and because my video card apparently doesn't work with Sony Vegas, it's taking a very long time to finish. This means I will not be uploading Part 4 tonight. I would've provided you with a Sonic Generations speed run instead, but apparently I also forgot to render that. So sadly, there will be no new videos tonight. Sorry, but expect it to happen now and then. In fact, I may cut down to only three uploads during the next work week. I'll try to get two up over the weekend though.

One thing I forgot to mention the other day was that I finally got to try a real game of Blood Bowl. I bought it while it was on a Steam sale and another friend of mine bought it. Sadly, the game is complicated as all hell and so I didn't so much as "play" it as "stumble through it horribly and impale myself on a pointy object". I think we - that is, the aforementioned friend who had also bought it and I - got like, 6 turns in each before we decided to call it off because I had made so many mistakes it just wasn't even fun for either side. Since I spent money on it and all, I'd like to go back to it, but man... it's just so hard to get into. Bleh. Maybe this weekend. Maybe I can make a fail-tage out of it. (That would be a montage full of fails, FYI).

Aside from that, I really didn't do much today. Played a bot game of LoL (Akali vs Bots is hilariously awesome), did math homework... oh! Right. I played a number of rounds in Mass Effect 3's multiplayer. I'd bought the Paragon Lost Blu-Ray awhile ago. It was a pretty cool movie. Not amazing, but cool. It gave a good background to Vega, that's for sure. Don't think anything quite as tragic happens to Shepard in the entire length of the trilogy. It's pretty rough. Anyway, it came with a code for Multiplayer, and someone at school was going to go play MP, and I figured I'd join him. We had a very odd glitch in that our total ammo counters were not there, and occasionally our guns would fire one to three times and then suddenly require a reload. It wasn't until I got home was I able to input the code, and sadly I didn't really get anything out of it. Maybe the 5th level upgrade to a weapon attachment. Eh. Played a few more rounds with a clanmate, }SoC{BrownSound (no, not named after the poop thing), and we ripped it up pretty good. I should play more of that. Also Halo 4's War Games. Ugh, so many games to play, so little time.

Anyway, I was hoping to hammer out a bit more story for my Game Design class' assignment (a Choose Your Own Adventure type game/story/book/web site), so I'm keeping this one short. Night!

Personal Log, Earthdate 2013-3-13

Today will be a short one folks, as I'm up a bit late. Plus I didn't get up to much.

Let's see... my school assignment of creating something like Space Invaders took a big jump in the right direction. I managed a 5/10 so far on the marking criteria, with automated levels, lives, points and points that award lives! I'm pretty happy I managed to get all that to work, especially since I was having menu troubles earlier. Buttons were closing my game when they weren't supposed to and it was makin' me mad! But it all got worked out and now stuff is headed in the right direction. Plus the due date was moved from Friday to Monday. Whoo! Now if only my math homework would get a breakthrough like that.

Had a few more Ranked games for League of Legends, one of which went well, two of which did not. The second one was annoying because our Akali was lagging, and the Quinn would not shut up about it. So everyone was arguing and no one was doing all that great, including myself. I didn't build quite right against Lux (I was Ahri) and she took a farming lead, held it, and then managed to kill me when I screwed up. Things pretty much just snowballed, with only a single tower down for our team before we got overrun. Ah well.

Got another Sonic Generations Speed Run up tonight too. I might upload another one tomorrow, and re-render Part 4 of Tomb Raider to make it look a little nicer. Didn't get to play Sly Cooper tonight either. Although I could have, I just didn't think of it. That would've been way more fun than losing in LoL. Oh well.

And finally I started watching Veronica Mars, since apparently there's a big popular Kickstarter to get a movie funded. Plus a friend of mine said it was one of the best shows he's ever seen. He watches Doctor Who, Spectacular Spider-Man and Star Trek. Considering all that, I figured it was worth checking out. Only seen one episode, but it seems interesting.

That's about all I got today. Thanks for reading!

New Video! Sonic Generations Green Hill Act 1 Speed Run

I toyed a bit with some brightness settings on this one, but I don't think this one needed it. It's not as good as the one I got the achievement on, but it is still under a minute! I'm not sure if there's more shortcut to take here, but maybe there isn't, since it IS an achievement to manage it under a minute.

First Impressions - Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus

So I picked up the Sly Cooper Collection last weekend for $15, which is a pretty good deal considering it's normally $30 or $40. Probably $40, but that's beside the point. It was, again, one of those "big name" PS2 franchises. I have two other similar collections: God of War did good by me, while Jak & Daxter left a bad taste in my mouth. Sly Cooper however, with his band of rogues, has had me mostly smiling all the way through.

The story setup was a bit of a cold open - Sly is right on top of Police HQ ready to break in for some file. After a daring escape, slipping out of the clutches of Carmelita Fox, it is revealed the file is on Sly himself. He's using the information inside to track down the mobsters who hold on to the "Thievius Raccoonus", which contains all the Cooper family thieving secrets. Apparently it runs in the family. The style is very comic book-esque, with even the animated cutscenes looking like a comic was brought to cartoon life. It makes even the darkness that Sly slinks through seem inviting, as opposed to creepy, which makes sense since he's a stealthy thief.

The combat is pretty simple, with each enemy having some sort of attack pattern you have to dodge before moving in to take them down. It's not exactly flashy, but as a thief, Sly is all about efficiency. You slip past their attack or around their defenses, and with a swift blow, they're down for the count. It's satisfying, even though it may not have been all that hard. The game is pretty indulgent on those who like upgrades as every level has a set of clue bottles that unlock a safe which contains an upgrade of some kind. It may be a new move, an upgrade to a move, or some kind of passive ability.

Level designs are fairly simple, and typically straight-forward. They're also pretty small. However, each mission contains at least 7 levels, so there's still a lot to do. It may feel short and cut up for those used to more open-world designs, but it also leaves the player feeling like he's really getting somewhere. It's nice, and focuses your attention on the single area, making it feel like you really finished it and can move on without looking back guiltily.

The first boss fight was pretty easy, and the second one wasn't too bad either, although his final stage had me  a bit frustrated. The bosses are also the only enemies with any real personality, but it makes sense since the rest are supposed to be hired goons that respawn. You're not losing out on character interaction anyway, since Sly's crew - Bentley and Murray - are always ready to pipe up with information or head out to help.

So far the game is charming, interesting, appealing and fun. I can't wait to finish it, but I'm still pretty early on so it could get either better or worse, depending on how they handle the difficulty curve.

New Video! Let's Play Tomb Raider: Part 3

As promised, another episode of Tomb Raider is now available for viewing. I have footage left that won't have any mic fixes, but I may re-render Part 4 so it's a bit brighter and easier to see, especially in the darker parts of the game, of which they are a few.

Enjoy!

Personal Log, Earthdate 2013-3-12

Okay, so I'm doing another one. I decided a lot can happen in a week, so I guess Sunday will be a weekly roundup? I'll try to do daily posts, but don't kill me if I miss one. No one's perfect.

I feel happy with my Jak & Daxter review. I've had some complain, some correct, and some agree. It's probably the most attention I've got for a review I've written. Still, that makes me think I've done something right. Or it's just because I bashed it instead of praised it. Who knows. Speaking of reviews, I'm working on one for Tomb Raider, and hope to have that out tomorrow. You'll get my more condensed thoughts on the game through that, and experience every step of the way with my LP.

Speaking of my Tomb Raider LP, another episode of that is going up as I type this. It'll take awhile, so I'll get around to linking it here tomorrow. I share the house with five other people, it's not really fair to take up the internet during the day. Plus, y'know, I'd like to use it too. I may re-render Part 4 so that it's a bit brighter, as I've had some complaints on that. I'm also going to try and fiddle with sound levels so that I don't get drowned out, as has also been pointed out to me. Speaking louder is probably a good idea too.

As far as gaming-related news that happened today, a lot of people are probably really excited over the release of StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm. Personally, I'm not a huge RTS player, so I didn't get it. I may record an LP of SC2: Wings of Liberty's campaign though. It seems interesting, but never got around to finishing it. So why not upload it? Also, I guess PETA's trying to convince people the the Zerg are as innocent as the cats and dogs we live with? Let's send a Zerg Rush down on PETA HQ and see what they think then. Yeah, that's what I thought.

More to my liking, EA and DICE released the final pack of DLC for Battlefield 3 - End Game - for PC and 360, at least if you have the Premium service like I do. If you don't, it comes out on PS3 on the 19th, and PC/360 on the 26th. End Game contains CTF as a new game mode, a number of new maps, the dirt bike vehicle, and Air Superiority Mode. ASM is basically just Conquest, but everyone's in a jet. I mostly got frustrated as people could kill me with machine guns in two seconds when I couldn't do it after ten. Assuming I could keep them anywhere near my sights for ten seconds. Oh well, more practice is required I suppose. I'd also like to get a video up of some }SoC{ members playing. I was going to record tonight, but there were people nearby and that prevented me from getting any footage. Also I sucked, and didn't manage to play much anyway.

I continue to play Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus. I just finished Muggshot's mission, and will tackle whoever's next tomorrow. His boss fight really bugged me. The first two stages were fine, but that last one kept killing me because he'd shoot as I landed on a point, and couldn't dodge. Took him down eventually though, so yay trophies!

I think that's about it. I came across some cool Tomb Raider related talk from IGN and Kotaku today, which is why I started reviewing the game. I'll try to put my thoughts on some of the popular topics of the story there, while avoiding spoilers. I may do a spoiler post later, which will also free me from needing to stay more objective in a review. Although I may not be doing that so well either. Practice makes perfect!

Riot also released what seems to be a picture of the new champion that's on his way: ZAC

Credit for image goes to Riot, but I grabbed it from Surrender@20

He looks cool I guess, although I was imagining something different. We'll see more when he hits PBE. I probably won't play him though, as I haven't left bot lane in weeks. Mostly because I'm playing Quinn and Valor, who are awesome, and also because the games I haven't played Quinn I've played Support.

Anyway, that's all I got. If you managed to read the whole thing, thanks and props. I'll see you all tomorrow.

Oh! One last thing, I'm gonna try and set up a new YouTube channel, one with a better name. Go subscribe to this channel. I'm not sure when I'll get around to uploading stuff from my old channel, and for now, I'll still be uploading to my old one. But yeah, go subscribe, because eventually I'll only be uploading there. In fact, I've recorded more Sonic Generations speed runs (did Green Hill Act 1 and redid Act 2 to be EVEN BETTER!) and may upload those exclusively to my new channel. So yeah. Do that.

New Video! Sonic Generations Green Hill Act 2 Speed Run

Oh sweet, you can embed your YouTube videos. Hardcore.

Here's a speed run I did of Sonic Generation's Green Hill Act 2 as Modern Sonic. I think I did pretty well, and it IS my best time to date. Still screwed up, and didn't turn off Steam or Skype, so there's a bit of rough edges relating to those. Oh well. I'll do better and upload one without such interruptions some time later. I'll probably record speed runs of the other levels too, I just was playing this one and felt like recording.

Personal Log, Earthdate 2013-3-11

So I started my blog today. Tonight. Whatever. First thing posted was my Jak & Daxter review which was not favourable. I figure I'll probably do these weekly, not daily, but when better to start than now? I'll probably do them Sunday night, so as to cover my week and weekend.

Last Sunday I finally finished Jak & Daxter, so the obvious decision was to buy the Sly Cooper Collection while at Wal-Mart, right? Right. So I picked that up for $15, and have begun playing it. I've finished Raleigh the Bullfrog's area in Sly 1 and have moved on to... Muggshot I think his name is? He's a Bulldog who's taken over a city in Utah. The game seems awesome so far in all respects, and I'm keeping notes so I'll hopefully have a review of that up at some point. Might throw out a initial thoughts post though. I'll ponder on that.

Finally, I'm uploading another video tonight which has probably already finished getting posted. It's a speed run through Sonic Generation's Green Hill Act 2 level as Modern Sonic. That marks probably a record of three days in a row of YouTube uploads. And I still have stuff to upload! Crazy. I might be able to actually do this!

Jak & Daxter: TPL HD Review

Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy HD

Developer: Naughty Dog
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Platforms: Playstation 3 (PSN/Retail)
ESRB: E for Everyone
What I played: The game’s story (unknown hours), ending at 80-something percent

Jak & Daxter is a classic Playstation 2 game that’s been remade in “HD” and released as part of a bundle pack with its two sequels. The game centers around the mute protagonist Jak and his best friend Daxter, who’s been turned into an ottsel by a substance known as “dark eco”. They set out north to find a pair of Sages that can potentially turn Daxter back to his humanoid form.

Gameplay

Jak & Daxter is a 3D Adventure Platforming game, a popular genre when the PS2 and N64 were the latest consoles. Similar titles include Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64 and Super Mario 64, which I will compare against Jak & Daxter. Let’s start with the game’s controls and the characters’ abilities. The player controls Jak, with Daxter perched on his shoulder. Jak’s basic moveset includes a jump - hit twice for a double jump - a dashing punch, a spinning attack and a crouch. The crouch can modify other actions, such as jumping while crouching for a high jump, crouching while moving for a roll, or both for a rolling long jump.

This might be useful if Jak couldn’t already reach the same heights or length using his simpler abilities. The spinning attack is used more often for getting a bit more length on a jump than actual combat. By utilizing the double jump and the spin attack, you’ll get about the same jump length as the long jump, which doesn’t require the room you need for the rolling long jump. The high jump takes more time to set up and perform and doesn’t have as much mid-air control as simply double jumping, which will give you the same height. As such, platforming is very straightforward, requiring little thought aside from timing the jumps. You might not even realize these “advanced” techniques even exist, as the game is almost completely bereft of a tutorial, and doesn’t cover them at all.

Ah! But this is one of the popular 3D platforming games! Surely the platforming will get more interesting as you learn new abilities! Nope. Jak learns no new abilities over the entire game, leaving you with your basic jump, punch and spin. The only trick they throw in is poles to swing on - which only exist in a few places on two or three levels - and blue eco.

This leads into the one interesting thing Jak & Daxter has for its gameplay. Scattered throughout the game are orbs and vents of differently coloured “eco”, which is some kind of magical substance in the world that seems to take on gaseous, energy-based, or liquid forms. As mentioned early on, Daxter was changed into an ottsel by dark eco, which only exists as a plot point and is never used in-game. The rest of the eco variants are used by Jak for various situations, but only work for a period of time, which is given as a timer in the corner of the screen. Blue eco will attract nearby collectibles, such as Precursor Orbs, as well as destroy nearby crates. It also powers some Precursor platforms or panels, which will work as long as Jak is channeling blue eco. Red eco is used to increase Jak’s strength. This can be used to shatter enemy defenses or take out tougher enemies in a single hit. Yellow eco turns Jak’s punch into a projectile shot, which can be used rapidly on the ground, or once mid-air. You can aim it using the first-person “look” mode. These three eco powers will allow you to accomplish a number of tasks throughout the game, but aren’t utilized too often. Usually only for one or two objectives in a level, and most levels will only have one color of eco. The final colour of eco doesn’t give Jak a new power, but instead health - Green eco. These exist as tiny green orbs that drop from enemies and broken crates. Fifty of these green eco orbs will fill up a portion of Jak’s health, although you can find larger orbs that are worth 50 and will immediately fill up a health portion.

This leads me into combat. As mentioned, Jak has two attacks - a dashing punch and a spin attack. Both attacks suffer from a slight delay at the end of the animation, meaning if you don’t land your attack, you’re likely about to get hit. The spinning attack is very close range, and thus the more dangerous of the two. It’s more useful in getting a bit more length out of jumps than combat. The dash attack is only marginally better, in that if you miss, it’s possible that you dashed out of range of the enemy you were attempting to hit. However, if there’s more than one enemy nearby, you’re likely to get hit by him during the delay at the end of the attack animation where you cannot move, jump or attack. This is likely to cause frustration, as Jak only has three portions of health. Each hit will obliterate a portion, and regaining those portions is both annoying and dangerous. Green eco feels rare, despite being dropped by all defeated enemies and crates that seem to be everywhere. This is because enemies and crates most often drop only two orbs of green eco, but can get up to four, if you’re lucky. Occasionally you might find a large orb that will restore a whole portion of health, but these are incredibly rare, possibly one, maybe two, per level. This still wouldn’t be too bad except for the fact that some objectives require you to make your way past a horde of never ending enemies. Considering Jak’s limited combat potential and having only three hits until death, these occasions are pretty much completable only by sheer luck and mashing his punch. Even this would not be much of an issue if the checkpoint system was any good. Each level has only a few checkpoints, and often these checkpoints can be three enemy groups away from wherever you were before, meaning you’re likely down a health or two before reaching the trouble spot.

The objective in the game is to collect power cells to power your Zoomer, which is your transportation to reach a new hub area. Each hub area contains a teleporter, meaning you can get to any previous hub area without driving the Zoomer back and forth. One way to collect power cells is to trade in Precursor Orbs to various parties in the hub worlds. These exist similar to Sonic’s rings or Mario’s coins, but exist as a set amount per level. They’re scattered everywhere, and often in groups, but have no purpose other than turning in for power cells and filling up the game completion percent.

The problem here is easy to see when you compare Jak & Daxter against other popular 3D Platforming/Adventure games. Banjo-Kazooie had Bottles, who would teach you new moves in nearly every world of the game. Mario64 had unique power ups for large areas of the game that had to be unlocked in special side-worlds to use. Heck, DK64 let you control entirely different characters with entirely different ability sets. What does Jak learn? Nothing. The three eco colours are utilized in the first few worlds, and are only useful in very specific situations, and they’re all pretty obvious, especially due to the timed nature of the eco power-ups. Jak shows no growth during the game, and the game suffers for it. Enemies are boring, and platforming is uninspired, often uninteresting, and more than likely annoying due to fighting the camera, as is common in most 3D Platforming/Adventure games.

One interesting thing to note however, is the fact that the entire game world of Jak & Daxter is load-time free. The hub areas flow directly into the worlds and each other with no load times. This was a technical marvel at the time, and still is, as most games even today still have loading times between areas.

Gameplay: 5/10

Story

The main plot line in Jak & Daxter is, of course, finding a way to get Daxter back to normal after being turned into an ottsel. Along with the ottsel situation, Jak and Daxter notice an oddly large group of Lurkers gathering. To solve these mysteries, Jak and Daxter must travel north to find the Dark Eco Sages Gol and Maia. As they go, they come across another mystery - the three Eco Sages of the hub worlds are missing. While this may all sound interesting, it’s pretty much all covered in the first hour of gameplay. For 90% of the game, all you do is go to mostly empty worlds with a few handfuls of enemies until the end of the game where you finally see some more people just before fighting the boss and ending the game. The hub worlds will contain a person or two, but they exist only to turn in your Precursor Orbs for power cells and mostly don’t contain much personality. Not to mention they don’t seem to care that there’s big groups of monsters appearing nor that their Sages have gone missing.

Jak and Daxter have a bit of help along the way from the Green Sage, Samos, and his daughter Keira. Sadly, Samos does little but yell at Jak and - especially - Daxter while Keira doesn’t do much but pop up just long enough to say she’s fixed something. Jak is completely silent, as many main video game heroes are, leaving Daxter to fill in the gaps. Thankfully, he does this wonderfully, and is the only character in the game with pretty much any personality what-so-ever. However, due to the fact that there’s almost no dialogue in the game, even Daxter gets only a few chances to shine. At least he makes great use of his chances.

Story: 3/10

Visuals and Sound

First off, Jak & Daxter is a PS2 game. That means it’s impossible to rate against today’s 1080p-quality games. As such, I’ll try to rate the graphics of the game as closely to it’s original time period as possible. Yes, it’s an “HD Remake”, but that means little, as all they did was up the resolution. Sometimes this can make a game look worse, as the little things no one really noticed are now in hi-def.

Aside from the rest of the game, the visuals in Jak & Daxter aren’t horrible. Mostly. One of the first things you might notice are the characters’ eyes. They were either bad to begin with, or forgotten about during the conversion to HD. They’re basically just coloured ovals on faces that are incredibly blurry and hardly look like eyes at all. Their faces are a bit off too, but the decent animation makes up for it. The style is very cartoony, and they often make use of it, especially with Daxter. Level designs are also visually interesting, and each hub area and world are easily distinguishable from the others. If only the level designs were as interesting.

The sound quality managed to make a good transition to the hi-def realm, as the sound and voice acting is crisp and clear. What little voice acting there is isn’t bad, but even if it was, Max Casella’s work as Daxter would totally make up for it. The level specific music is very background and not that memorable.

Visuals: 8/10
Sound: 9/10

Family Friendly Rating

The game is very family friendly. There’s no real violence, no language, and no sexual content (unless you count Keira’s bare midriff).

FF Rating: 1/10 (10 being highly offensive)

Conclusion

I’m honestly surprised that Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy was so highly praised, and considered one of the best games on the PS2 platform. It lacks features that nearly every other 3D Platforming/Adventure game had, and did practically nothing to make up for it. Gameplay was frustrating more than fun,and there’s barely a story worth talking about. The gameplay also didn’t evolve, change, or grow at all during the game. I haven’t yet tried the sequels, but they can’t be much worse than this.

Final Score: 4/10