Backlog Beatdown: March

Hello again! I've been trying to document games beaten this year (and hopefully beat more than last year). A month ago I posted my first update on this for January/February and it was a pretty sizable chunk of games. This time around I'm making a post for one month because there were definitely enough games beaten during to warrant one.

Seven games were beaten in the month of March:

• Nancy Drew: Secret of the Scarlet Hand
• Hakuoki: Warriors of the Shinsengumi
• Tomb Raider
• Richard & Alice
• Jetpack Joyride
• DLC Quest
• Incredipede

As is my new norm, almost all of the completed games are independent, although not entirely. Tomb Raider is of course the one released this year to much acclaim. I enjoyed it too, though it left me wrestling about how I felt about Lara's presentation in the game. Hakuoki was a really sad game as it isn't even a visual novel as the first was. Instead, it's a totally cheap cash grab of a game that, honestly, should have never been given the localization greenlight.

Although none of these are my new favorite, I did quite enjoy them. Incredipede in particular was visually stunning and I recommend it to people looking for a different sort of puzzle game. Nancy Drew games are also pretty awesome and it's a shame that more people don't take them seriously. I had pages of notes taken for the game and it was exciting to reference them to solve in-game puzzles. As I've not played all the Drew games I'm unaware if that difficulty continues, but hopefully so, as it really puts you in the young detective's shoes.

Right now I'm trying to work through Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory and God of War: Ascension. Hopefully they'll be beaten by the end of April!

Backlog Beatdown: January and February

Hey folks, long time no chat! This post was prompted by recalling the backlog adventure other bloggers are undertaking this year (in particular, Chic Pixel's Anne!). I used to think that reviewing games would be the most entertaining thing in the world, but it really just cuts back on your time to play other games without constraints. Well, so does any job, but at least with a job unconnected to games you can still use them as relaxation! Either way, despite being a busy beaver with reviewing tasks I've been trying to whittle away some uncompleted games in my library. Things have been going better than expected....

In January I seriously managed to beat 11 games:

• My Ex-Boyfriend the Space Tyrant!
• Zombies.
• Thirty Flights of Loving
• McPixel
• VVVVVV
• Wizorb
• Slave of God
• Kentucky Route Zero: Act One
• Moonbase Alpha
• The Journey Down: Chapter One
• The Cave

Okay, many of these were also reviewed by me but at least others like Wizorb and VVVVVV were finally taken down. As you can see, my preference in games is only continuing to trend toward all indie, all the time. It's not as if I planned it this way, but indie games tend to be shorter experiences. And honestly, most of them end up as fun as much more expensive games so why ignore them?

In February things became much busier and so I only beat Oozi: Earth Adventure, which is a pretty fluid platformer. A few days into March I manged to finish up a couple games, but those will be addressed in a later post. What games have you folks beaten in 2013 so far? Which has been your favorite or least favorite?

2012 Reviews in Review

With 2013 beginning, it's hard not to reflect on the past year. 2012 was a very interesting year for me in regards to writing. It is probably obvious to see that my blog has been much quieter than it was at the start, and this is mostly due to the shift in reviewing habits. As the year went on, I reviewed more and more, and became more comfortable with it.

Although it is fun to review games, it did make me think about a few things. For one, with reviews very often on my plate, I felt that I was rarely able to enjoy games that I wanted to play "just because". Instead of flipping through my PS2 collection to find a new gem, I was usually forcing myself to play a game for review. Thankfully, most games I ever review are ones I'm interested in, but there is something to be said for free gaming time as opposed to gaming with a goal in mind. In this post I will share a couple charts which show off various stats for my year of reviewing and links to all my 68 reviews.

ERIE Review

I wasn't sure what to expect upon starting up ERIE. Possibly because of that, it ended up being a very neat half hour gaming experience. The game is pretty simple overall. You begin in a pool of water with no idea of where you are. Quickly, you read papers scattered around which start to inform your understanding of the location and what happened.

Unfortunately I'm still not completely sure as to the specifics, but it seems like a game best played when you are unaware of the story anyway. Without knowing anything you can enter the game with a fresh perspective! I would recommend that as it helps make everything a bit scarier and interesting as events unfold.

In regards to gameplay, it is quite simple. There's little you ever have to do aside from marking your pathways as well as collecting a few key cards. Well, you don't have to read letters or mark your way, but it just seems something most players are going to do. Although you are not given explicit goals, it quickly becomes easy to understand what to do. Level design is also not bad. Even for someone like me who tends to get lost without looking at a map every second I was able to get a feel for my surroundings (eventually).

The game is very eerie and contains a few "boo" moments. For a little while, I felt legitimately annoyed, until discovering things were not as hard as I was making them up to be. Overall, this is a great little gameplay experiment if you want to play something spooky.

PS: The video up top is my first playthrough of the game, which took around 30 minutes.

Indie Test Drive: 0 A.D.

Because I simply don't have enough games I decided it would be interesting to try playing more indie games. Sure, I actually play a fair bit of them once they come to Steam, Desura, and GOG but that's not quite indie enough. Why not try out other titles that have yet to find a publisher - or might not? So, yup, that's what this and future "Indie Test Drive" posts are about.

0 A.D. is a title being independently developed by a team of volunteers. It has apparently been worked on since 2001. Back then, it was a "total conversion mod" (meaning they took an existing game and overhauled it) but it changed later into a wholly new project. The game will probably appeal most to those who enjoy historical RTSes. If you love Age of Empires or Empire Earth then this is something worth looking into.

Initially, it didn't seem like there was much new brought to the table. You have your choice of various historical troops to choose from and then can go about growing your town into a society and going to war, or forging alliances. Apparently there is a multiplayer mode which would sounds like a lot of fun, but I was unable to test it out. There are multiple gameplay modes, but I was only gave one a shot and was a bit disappointed because the "AI controlled" enemies didn't actually do anything until I came and stormed their cities.

The version I played was a bit goofy. There were birds but they simply were stuck in place and didn't ever move across the screen. Upon killing a camel, it just stood there (upright) as my troops picked at it for food. Animals also did not have any walking animation and simply slid across the ground. However, in between me playing the game and looking up the 0 A.D. website I found that a new beta was just released earlier this month. It appears to fix up a lot of stuff and even upgraded the graphics.

0 A.D. is completely free in beta stages and will be once it finally launches as well. The game runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. I enjoyed it but just wish there was some sort of story function instead of simply focusing on multiplayer.

Dys4ia Deserves to be Played

For a while I've been in love with the works of Anna Anthropy - known often as just "Auntie Pixelante". Lately she's been focused on making a lot of "mini" games but they're still pretty fun all the same. For a while now though she's been talking about work on a game about her trans experiences and that really interested me. Finally on Friday it arrived on Newgrounds so I thought I'd share a link to it now.

The game's called dys4ia. "Dysphoria" is often a term used in the trans community to describe someone having feelings of dysphoria with their own body. Dysphoria is the opposite of euphoria, which of course would be joyous emotions. One of the common labeling of "transgenderism" these days is "gender dysphoria". So that's where the title comes from.

While it is really just a bunch of small interactive vignettes, it stands as a very strong piece of work. It's certainly not a typical game but how could one be made over such subjects? The game travels through Anna's life pre-transition, attempting to transition, and where she is heading now. Although I'm not a transwoman I could certainly understand where she's coming from. Aside from woman-specific things I definitely have felt like she has, such as feeling like a spy in the bathroom or being so thankful to have someone with me along the way.

There's just so much about dys4ia even though it only lasts about 5 minutes. It brings up things that I'm sure most people have never even thought about, much less expected to be reality for certain people. It also leaves with a nice message for trans and non trans people. If you have a few minutes to spare I strongly urge you to try it out.

Good Gaming Start to the New Year

This year seems to be really good for game releases already! And no, I don't mean things like the upcoming Mass Effect 3 and all that jazz, although those certainly will be huge for fans. For me, this year has been off to a stunning start thanks to all the visual novels coming out!

First there was Katawa Shoujo which I adored and gobbled right up. Then there was Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom which will hit store shelves on Valentine's Day (my review available here). Now I'm fussing with Analogue: A Hate Story and that too is a great time. Finally, after getting in touch with JAST USA (a visual novel/dating sim localizer) thanks to Anne of ChicPixel I've got even more games waiting to greet me throughout the year.

I've enjoyed VNs for a while now, but never has it seemed like America was really ever in sync with them. Most of us don't seem to care for things that aren't "typical" games and it's such a shame. That's why I think those of us who do care about unusual titles should be sure to support them however possible. Despite getting a review copy of Hakuoki I'm still happily waiting to pick up the special edition once it's out.

So yes, I'm really happy with my January of gaming. I'm going to probably break for VNs for a bit once I finish up Analogue to play some of The Simpsons Arcade Game. How has your month been going gaming-wise? Is it equally as pleasant or are you perhaps waiting for an upcoming title?

Katawa Shoujo is Too Good

Original Katawa Shoujo artwork

Okay, back when I first heard about Katawa Shoujo I was more than a little concerned. It bloomed out of 4chan, which is well known as a site full of crude, creepy, and immature people. Members of the video game-specific board are always talking about getting into groups and making games, so I mostly just brushed references of this one aside. What set it apart from every other idea that bloomed there weekly before disappearing forever?

I guess it took a great deal of years but the game is finally out now. I wholly expected it to be a very trite dating sim experience which would probably insult a lot of people. Somehow though it's come out and been an amazingly caring experience. The writing isn't the best in the field, but it's a lot better than the majority of officially published releases (which isn't hard to do). Some parts of the game show obvious indie-ness (such as one character being drawn sketchier than the rest) but otherwise it is a very well put together package. There are points when I was very impressed with this as being an indie endeavor - such as some rather high quality animated sequences.

More than anything I was scared of what this game might be. Somehow though it's managed to treat each disabled character just like anyone else. They also seem to have done their research with working out how people adapt around this all. I'm amazed that something born out of 4chan isn't a degenerate piece of work. I think that's what impresses me the most. Even if you didn't know of its roots though the game is already on the list of my more favored VNs. I've not completed it yet but once I do I hope I'm left feeling happy about the game. I expect to write a piece later about how respectful and tasteful this game is sometime next week.

Auntie Pixelante Does it Again

I'm a huge fan of indie game devs who really try for something different. Now, there's nothing at all wrong with, say, retro-looking platformers or moody sidescrolling adventures but they're not exactly my style. If someone is making an independent title I like to see something really creative and new shine through (and that's a little hard when the market is crowded with a lot of "me too!" games).

Two of my current favorite devs are women and they both seem to be ridiculously awesome (Anna Anthropy and Christine Love). Anyway, the former just put together a choose-your-own-adventure sort of thing titled Encyclopedia Fuckme and the Case of the Vanishing Entree and it's excellent. The idea for it came due to her lamenting the lack of seriously sexual stories in text adventures that seem at all true to life. Well, like, where the writer seems to understand sex and sexuality instead of making a harem fantasy, anyway. I think she achieves this very well AND creates one hell of a story in general.

I really appreciate her work and wish that more people would get to play it, but that's probably a pipe dream. Or, maybe if I wait a few hours Jim Sterling will "discover" this and write about how hilarious and weird it is. Despite being a lesbian tale, I have a feeling all sexualities will be able to get a kick out of what Anna offers with her story.

PS: It might be tough to get, but working for the "good" ending is tremendously worth it.

A New Visual Novel by Christine Love

There's so many indie games out there these days it's really hard to know all what's coming out. The big names get coverage but a lot of great devs are known only in really tight knit communities. I don't know how popular Christine Love is, but she put together one of my personal favorite indie games of 2010 (alongside Super Meat Boy). That game was Digital: A Love Story and this is a "spiritual successor" to that.

In Digital, you were shown nothing but a computer screen from the 80s and messed around in BBSes, emails, and websites trying to find the girl you fell for online. It was a really cool, if brief experience and I suggest computer users who remember BBSes to totally check it out.

As for her newest game, I have yet to play it a I just found out about the damn thing. However, it looks to be pretty sweet as well, forgoing the retro computer vibes for the social networking of the future! It's called Don't Take It Personally, Babe, It Just Ain't Your Story. Aside from the name being a bit of a mouthful, it looks pretty good, promising: seven students, three endings, one eavesdropping teacher. A full length visual novel about the erosion of privacy, gay drama, young sexuality, and the perils of modern online life for a high school literature class.

I don't know about you but that sounds right down my alley! This reminds me that I still have not played her other recent release titled Love and Order which looked pretty cool and included a lesbian relationship option to boot! Well, I'll check this out first and maybe post a sort of longer mini review once I'm done. Oh, by the way all the games come in the three main OS formats: Windows, Mac, and Linux.