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.
Pelikki Game Report
I'm GodsGameFreak and this blog is about me shooting the breeze about video games by talking about them, making videos about them and reviewing them. Find me on Twitter as @GodsGameFreak, and on YouTube as GameFreakL.
Thursday, 27 June 2013
Sunday, 23 June 2013
Game Review! Remember Me
Remember Me
Developer: Dontnod EntertainmentPublisher: 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 |
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 |
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 |
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 |
Story: 8/10
Setting: 10/10
Visuals and Sound
Your first vista view in Remember Me |
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
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
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.
Tuesday, 28 May 2013
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).
Monday, 27 May 2013
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...)
Dark Forces continues with some dirty, stinky, and completely disgusting sewers. Ugh. (Embedding still not working...)
Thursday, 16 May 2013
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.
(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.
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.
Wednesday, 8 May 2013
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/
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