Axioms, Surgeons, Remixes, and More!

In the time since I last played Bloodborne, I managed to get in a much greater variety of other games than I expected. Which is to say that Axiom Verge wasn't the only thing I played. I also managed to keep myself from diving back into Bloodborne for longer than I expected, but I'll probably be starting new game plus in that today. And if not (I do have things I need to get done, and might get in the way), then tomorrow for sure. Anyway, enough pre-ramble (play on preamble, if that wasn't obvious).

Axiom Verge

Axiom Verge is one of those games that I feel like I first heard about a while ago, but never really paid a ton of attention to it. Because of that, finding out it was coming out was a bit of a surprise a month or so ago. I can't honestly say the day of release was a surprise to me, given that I talked to the guy who made it at PAX East, but it still sneaked up on me. And I didn't hesitate to buy it on the day of release, because the game looked like it was rad, and I always feel good when I have the chance to support games like this that are good and were made by a small number of people, or in this case, literally by one guy. The credits say, "Developed Solely By," which I think is great. It's too bad that there also had to be some credits for marketing and some other administrative people at Sony, and the "Thanks to" section, because it would be my favorite credits ever otherwise.

But the actual game? It's really good. I would even go so far as to say great. It has issues, some of which are not like, "universal bad design decisions," but rather are things that I didn't care for and wish had been different. Mostly control related things. Well, that's not exactly it. It's hard to describe without spoiling or sort of spoiling some of the upgrades and abilities, so if you're leery of that sort of thing, just skip the whited out stuff. Assuming I remembered to do that.

Part of it is that, while playing this game, it was nigh impossible for me to do so without comparing it to other games. Most notably the Metroid games, though I did find myself thinking of Dust: An Elysian Tail a lot too (as that's another great game made by one person). As much as Axiom Verge is clearly inspired by Metroid, and looks a lot like those games, it's also a very different game in a lot of ways. The weapon stuff is the easiest example to point to, but I feel like the differences in the methods of traversal are more substation, and that's where my complaints with the game begin (though I'll be getting back to combat stuff shortly).

In the Metroid games, the traversal stuff takes the form of things like the Morph Ball, which lets Samus squeeze into tight spaces, and the space jump, which lets her jump infinitely (or a double jump in the Prime games, but I'm focusing on the 2D ones here). There's also the Screw Attack, which doesn't improve her ability to traverse the environment, but it does let her rip through enemies just by jumping into them, which can make getting through rooms later in the game much easier. Especially when you're going through earlier areas with weaker enemies that you don't want to spend the time shooting. And there's the Speed Booster, which lets Samus run really fast, and can be canceled into a dash thing that will send her flying in any direction. Well, any direction that you can manage on a d-pad. Super Metroid also had the Grapple Beam, which is the one thing that is copied pretty exactly in Axiom Verge, except that it's a physical grapple and not a "beam," like in Bionic Commando.

Axiom Verge has similar things, but they're all more, for lack of a better word, complicated. Yes, the Speed Booster dashes were not the simplest thing to do, and the space jump had pretty precise timing in Super Metroid (much less so in Fusion and Zero Mission), but that stuff never felt super hard to pull off, to me. Not like some of the stuff in Axiom Verge, anyway. Because Axiom Verge doesn't have a double jump. It has an upgrade to jump height, but no double jump.

Instead, there's an air dash/teleport thing, and a drone that is thrown and can be used to teleport to. The first is a late game upgrade to something that early on only lets you phase through thin walls after pushing against them for a couple of seconds. By the end it's a longer range thing that can be done whilst jumping, and can break through certain blocks in addition to phasing through thin-ish walls. Sounds simple of paper, but the part where I would screw it up (repeatedly) was that you do it by double tapping in a direction on the d-pad. Again, sounds simple, and honestly, it is, I was just bad at it. Not in cases where I was just standing against a wall, but in cases where I'd have to do things like dash through a horizontal surface to get on top of it. There were cases where it literally took me four or five tries to do a simple double tap of a button and time it correctly. And there were definitely more complicated scenarios that I messed up trying to do that too.

Same thing with the drone. At first you can't swap places with it, and it can't be thrown very far. But by the end, you can swap with it, and the range is WAY farther than it was before, to the point where it lets you get way higher than the jump and dash can. But, as with the dash, there were times when I just screwed up something simple because I through the drone in the wrong direction, or because I didn't time the swap correctly. Again, something that a lot of people probably won't have problems with, but I did.

And I wish the game just had something simpler instead of these things. Or that they were easier to control. Like, rather than air dashing, I wish I could just hit a button to dash. A shoulder button, or something, I don't know. I realize everything is mapped to something in the game, but I wouldn't have minded losing the grapple and having that be a dedication dash button, or something like that. Speaking of the controls, that brings me to the combat, and my issues with it.

The combat's not bad, it's just a style of controlling in this sort of game that I don't especially care for. Namely that aiming is controlled by the d-pad (or stick if you're crazy enough to play a 2D game with no analog control with a stick). You can hold L1 to stand still and aim, but that doesn't really solve the problems I have with it. Namely that I can't move in one direction and shoot in the other. And yeah, I know, nothing about that type of control set up in inherently wrong, and there are plenty of people that like that, or even prefer it, I'm sure. I didn't, and I felt like it resulted in my dying more than a few times. This game is definitely better than a lot of games when it comes to not punishing you over death, but that doesn't make dying because I felt like I was struggling with the controls any better.

Conversely, I realize that asking every game like this to just control like Shadow Complex is asking too much. Even something simple like Super Metroid's "Moon Walk" option that let you walk backwards whilst shooting would have been helpful here. Or not, I dunno, maybe it would have just resulted in me dying for other reasons. So, never mind, I wish it controlled like Shadow Complex. And yes, I know, Shadow Complex isn't the only game, or even the first game that had that sort of control. But that's the one I played, and there's still a part of me hoping and wishing for Shadow Complex 2.

Anyway, back to Axiom Verge. This game has a lot of weapons. A LOT of weapons. I didn't even find them all, and I still had way more than I knew what to do with. A couple of them early in the game are needed to solve puzzles, or open a door, but for the most part, they're there to kill enemies. But the problem is that most of them feel unnecessary. They feel like they're there just because the developer came up with the idea, tested it, and decided to keep it in to have yet another collectible hidden away in some corner of the map. There's so many weapons that at a certain point I kinda stopped caring, unless it was something that seemed immediately useful. I never really found anything that seemed super over powered, either. There were a couple of times when I thought something might be, but they never were.

But don't get me wrong, there's also a TON of things that I really like about Axiom Verge. Things like being able to "disrupt" enemies to change their behaviors. Sometimes it's simple stuff, like slowing them down to make them easier to manage. But sometimes it does things like change a plant like enemy that shoots projectiles to instead create health orbs. Or turn enemies that float around aimlessly into little platforms that float around aimlessly. Stuff that like is really cool.

And as much as I wish some of the traversal skills were easier for me to pull off, that doesn't mean that the environments aren't well designed, or fun to get through. Because for the most part, they are. I had a ton of fun playing the game, and exploring every nook and cranny that I could. I would go back through areas I had been in earlier after getting a new ability just to comb every inch of it for things that I missed. Well, "every inch" isn't true, because I didn't 100% the game. I want to, but I feel like it's something I'd have to look up online to do, which is why I haven't done that yet. You know, because going online and looking things up is hard to do.

And then there's the music, which I found to be the most surprising thing about the game. I like the music a lot. Not only is it really good, but it's incorporated into the games in ways that most games don't. It's not a rhythm game, and there's nothing like that. But there are things like parts of the background that will pulse in time with the music, or health bar, which does the same. The coolest one, however, is the low health beep. Unlike games like the Metroids, or Zelda games, in which low health simply triggers an obnoxious beeping sound that is more likely to result in your death because it was annoying and distracting you, the low health beep in Axiom Verge is in time with the music. Like, all of the music. This isn't a game with one song that plays over the whole game, there's a lot of musics, with different tempos, or whatever the term would be. I'm not a music knowledge person, obviously. I just know that it goes a long way to make the low health beep not annoying in the slightest.

The story is pretty interesting too. I don't really want to get into specifics, or spoil anything about that, but it's interesting. There's twists, and turns. And there's some ways in which that stuff gets worked into the game play that I thought were pretty cool. Not going to spoil that stuff, but there was one thing in particular that I thought was really cool, even if it was a relatively simple thing.

I know I spent a lot of this complaining about Axiom Verge, but I want to reiterate that even in spite of my issues with the game, I still liked it a whole lot. There was a point where, a few hours before I finished it, the game hooked me in a way it hadn't, and I just couldn't put the game down until I got to the end. I dunno what it was, but I couldn't put it down.

It's a great game, and I highly recommend it if you like these sorts of games. Is it some new classic that redefines the genre? Eh, probably not. But it's a great game that deserves your support. Even if it takes him another five years, I know I want to see the next game from Thomas Happ Games LLC, and I'd like to think that Axiom Verge doing well would help in that coming to fruition.

Surgeon Simulator

I'll be honest with you: Axiom Verge is the meat of this blog, the rest of this stuff is just silly stuff that I've also poked around with and haven't written about yet. That's not to say I dislike Surgeon Simulator. It's goofy fun. But it's a game that I paid 91 cents for. I played the first surgery a few times until I succeeded, then I downloaded at my cousins house so they could try it. Turns out watching other people try to play this game is actually more fun than playing it. Struggling with the controls is fun, and funny at first, but after a while it just gets kinda frustrating. Especially when I know what it is that I need to do in order to complete the surgery, but can't because the physics decided to send the thing I needed flying off into the distance. Or because I just can't seem to pick up the thing I need at the right angle I need to in order to hold it like an actual human being.

But like I said, it was 91 cents on a PSN Flash Sale, so whatever. I got more than my money's worth. For the usual $15, though? Don't spend that much on this game.

NES Remix 2

Now, if you've been keeping track of all the games I've been playing over the last few years, that's kind of weird and creepy. And also, you'll know that I've not played NES Remix the first. And the only reason I started playing this one is because I got it as a Club Nintendo Platinum reward. Why did I pick this one? Because I don't have a 3DS (which had a larger and better selection of rewards), I already own Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze (which is a great game and would be a good reward), I didn't want to download a Virtual Console version of a GBA game, and I didn't want a game that requires you to use the Game Pad (Pushmo World). NES Remix 2 was literally the only one that fit that criteria.

It seems totally fine. I played a couple hours of it, and for the most part, I was having fun with it. But the amount of fun seemed to vary based on what game I was playing, or what game was the main source of the "remix" I was playing. For example, I was enjoying the Punch-Out ones a lot more than I expected (I had never played a Punch-Out game before). Conversely, I enjoyed the Super Mario Bros. 3 ones a lot less than I expected (another game I had never played before). It's just too slide-y. Which led me down this hole of worrying if I would be unable to enjoy Super Mario World in the modern day in the case that was also slide-y. And that would really bum me out because I loved that game (well, technically the GBA version).

But like I said, it's fun. I do hope that the later remixes get a little more, you know, remixed, but I also kinda doubt it because of Nintendo. I'll keep poking away at it.

Noby Noby Boy

This was another game that I bought when it was about 90 cents. I stretched Boy to make Girl grow. Girl made it to Neptune while I was playing. Or, at least, it interrupted me while I was playing to tell me that, I seriously doubt it actually happened during the one time I was playing this game.

It's bizarre, it's weird, it's aimless, and I dunno that it even fits my own, arbitrary and meaningless definition of what a game is (interactive, and has either a "win" state or a "lose" state, but not necessarily both (a definition that things like Proteus, Gone Home, and The Stanley Parable all meet, to be clear)). But I like it. It was worth the pittance I spent on it.

Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions: Evolved

I don't have a whole lot to say about this, but I wanted to mention that I've been playing it. It's really cool that a lot of new content was added, included a mode that is as close to the Retro Evolved as you could get without just including it as a separate executable. Well, I suppose they could have added in the original music too, but I like the new version of that theme in 3 more, so I wasn't too upset about that.

The new levels and stuff are cool too. New enemies are interesting. More than anything else, it's just great to see a game like this being supported with so much new content, for free, months after it was released. Which, to be honest, does get me worrying about how well the game sold, like what Jeff was saying on UPF last week. Not that I want Geometry Wars 4 to be coming out in the near future because sales were that good, but I don't want the studio that made the game to be downsized or anything because it didn't sell well enough. It's a great game, and I hope it did/is doing well.

Anyway, it's still a great game, and still worth playing. And worth coming back to if you haven't played it in a while.

Planetside 2 Closed Beta 2

I somehow got emailed a beta code for this. I downloaded and installed it to my PS4. I have yet to actually play it.

Anything else?

Nope! That's been it in terms of games. And what's coming up in the near future? I'm definitely going to new game plus Bloodborne, and I will probably do my best to 100% Axiom Verge, even if that means resorting to looking up stuff. I mean, I'll be doing that for Bloodborne, so I can find those optional areas that I missed, and other secret type things that I didn't get to in my first playthrough.

As for other games? I know Titan Souls and Mortal Kombat X are both this month. I'll almost certainly be getting MKX, if only for bringing it over to my cousins' house so we can have fun fighting and doing fatalities. The story mode should be good too, of course. I dunno if Titan Souls will actually be worth playing, or not. I didn't get a chance to try it at PAX because there were always too many people crowded around it, but it looks interesting.

Oh, and there's the Mario Kart 8 DLC coming this month too. Since I already purchased it months and months ago, I'll be racing around in that.

There's non-game related stuff happening in my life too, but that's not the sort of thing that I feel comfortable discussing online at this time. But, like I mentioned a couple blogs ago, it's something that could affect how often I do these blogs, or the content of them, so keep that in mind. Again, nothing inherently bad, and hopefully will be good in the long run. Hopefully. Who knows!?

Anyway, thanks for reading. Dunno when the next blog will be, but there will be more this month, for sure. Probably.