Shovels and Martians!

You know, I had really good intentions to keep blogging every week, like I had been. But then I sat down, tried to write something about the Miiverse, because I hadn't done anything else that week (aside from Mario Kart 8, which I've written more than enough about), and I just couldn't do it. I'm not gonna try to say that I have some super high quality level that I must reach for my blogs, because I'm the first to admit that a lot of them are total nonsense, or just me rambling about stupid stuff. I'd say that in my time on Giant Bomb, I've only written a handful of blogs that I genuinely put a lot of time and effort into, and one of those was a choose your own adventure starring Luigi that was also my game of the year stuff. Yes, I mentioned that one instead of the coming out blog, because of course I did.

Anyway, now I do actually have some stuff worth writing about, so that's what I'm gonna do. Maybe in the future I'll be able to do a weekly blog like I want to, but for the time being, I'm sticking with this haphazard non-schedule of just writing whenever.

Jamestown

As you probably already know, I don't really play PC games. I'm quite vocal about how my PC is terrible, and can't really run modern games. Which is why when an internet friend offered me a code to Jamestown (which he got from a Humble Bundle, but apparently he already owned the game), I initially turned him down. But no one else wanted it, so I took the code, and decided to play the game. And, as luck would have it, being the first PC game I've tried to play in a while, I had my fair share of technical troubles.

The first was in simply getting the game to run. Installing it and everything was simple, I'm not an idiot, but the game simply wouldn't do anything after I clicked on it in Steam. So, I tried uninstalling it, and reinstalling it. Still nothing. My next step was to go to Google, which led me to a solution. It turns out there was some file inside the game's folders that I had to click on to install something else, I dunno. After that it started up no problem.

That wasn't the end of my technical problems, though. First, the game kept seeing my DualShock 4 (which I use a thingy I downloaded to use with my PC) as two separate controllers, but I fixed that by checking a box on the thingy I downloaded to make that not happen. That didn't stop me from playing the first level "co-op" with my controller controlling the movements of two ships, though. But I didn't really want to play the entire game that way.

But the problems I weren't able to fix were in the frame rate and sound. The frame rate was playable, and certainly no worse than some last generation games that I played, but it did seem to get progressively worse as I got deeper into the game, as there were more ships and shots on screen. On the one hand, that was kind of a bummer, because it reminded me of how terrible my computer is for playing games, but it also made some of that stuff easier. You know, gave me slightly more time to think before the enemy shots hit me.

Audio wise, there was this weird thing where lots of explosions at once would make the audio bug out. I don't really know a ton about audio though, so I'm not really sure what the proper terminology would be. But it definitely wasn't what it was supposed to be. And it's a shame, too, because I think the game has some really great music (I'd even say the music is the best part of the game), but some of it got lost in a sea of terrible sounding explosions.

But that's enough about my technical issues, let me get to the actual game. If you know absolutely nothing about this game, then I'm sorry that I spent this much time before getting to the actual game play. GB did do a Quick Look of the game, in which you can see that this is a scrolling ship shooter game (sometimes referred to as a "shoot'em'up") sent in an alternate history where instead of colonizing America, the powers of Europe decided to colonize Mars, but it features historical figures and location names anyway. But on Mars. There isn't really a lot of that Colonial style in the game, outside of the music and the post level "story" bits, which are just still images with some text. The first level features some little dudes that look like British soldiers running around, but after that, it could really be any game in this genre.

Game play wise, the thing that sets this game apart would be the vaunting system (at least I think it is, I dunno). After you defeat enemies, these big golden gear and nut looking things fall out, and those fill a meter. When the meter's full, you vaunt, which creates a shield around your ship, and lets you absorb bullets for a few seconds. After that, the meter continues to drain, your shots turn purple, and you get a points multiplier until you vaunt again (which creates a smaller shield), or the meter drains completely. But you lose those bonus points if you die. At least I think that's how it works, I didn't really pay super close attention to the tutorial.

There's a bunch of different ships to choose from, but most are locked away and have to be purchased with in game money. I ended up using Guy Fawkes' ship the most, because it has lock on missiles. But that's the only one I unlocked, so maybe the others are way better, I don't know.

I did enjoy the core combat of the game, but I have a pretty serious issue with the design of this game. Like many in this genre (I assume, the last one I really played was Ikaruga, which I demanded frothingly), the game has a bunch of difficulty modes. So, being someone that doesn't play a ton of these, I went for Normal at first. Which was fine, until I got a few levels in (there's five total), and the game told me that I had to go back and play all the levels again on Hard to progress. Now, if the game had told me from the start that I would have to do this, I wouldn't have been as upset. But it didn't, so I was upset. It just felt like it was padding to make the game last longer than it would otherwise. But the real problem was that the game did it AGAIN on the next level, and then a THIRD TIME for the final level, just with progressively higher difficulties. I'm no game designer, but there had to have been a better way to handle that.

I did finish the game. The final level gave me a lot more trouble than the other ones, because the developers decided to add a bunch of giant spikes and other environmental hazards that weren't in the previous levels, but I was still able to finish it. Then I unlocked the "Farce" mode, which replaces the text in the story scenes, but it wasn't funny like I was hoping, so I didn't bother going through all the levels in that mode to see it through.

Overall, I think it's an enjoyable game that has some weird progress blockers in it. I didn't pay for it, so I'm not really going to make any statements about worth in relation to cost, but I enjoyed it. If you like these sorts of games, then you've probably already played it. If not, then I dunno. Play it if you want.

It kinda made me want to replay Ikaruga. But I don't really want to get my GameCube out to play it. There was a 360 version, right? But then I'd have to turn my 360 on again...Ugh....

I'm also reminded that I never really knew how to pronounce Ikaruga. "I-car-ru-ga?" "Ik-ka-ru-ga?" Some other thing I never thought of?

Shovel Knight

Shovel Knight is a game that I wanted to play much sooner, but hadn't, because I didn't really have any way to play it. Yes, I know, I could have tried playing the PC version, but I'm glad I waited because I didn't have any technical issues playing the Wii U version.

Shovel Knight's a pretty easy game to describe. It's a side scrolling platformer where you play as a knight with a shovel. You jump over stuff, jump onto stuff (including a downward shovel strike to attack enemies), hit stuff with the shovel, use sub weapons that drain a magic meter, eat turkeys, jump over more stuff, dig piles of dirty to find treasure, and then jump over even more stuff. Also, it looks and sounds like an olde timey game.

But that's being really reductive about the entire thing. I don't play a ton of platformers these days, and when I do, they're usually not the ones that look like olde timey games. Not that I don't like the aesthetic, I just feel like it's kinda over done, and a lot of the time attempts at making games look old just feels cheap to me. It's hard to describe without having examples to show, but I'm much too lazy to do that, so I won't. That's not the case with Shovel Knight, here the art is really well done, and I would even go so far as to say excellent. It's a fantastic looking game, and the soundtrack is just as good, if not better. I've found myself humming some of the music from the game whilst not playing the game, which very, VERY rarely happens these days.

An odd cameo...Ahem, back on topic.

It made me realize something. Most games these days don't really have a theme to them. You know, everyone knows the Mario theme, the Zelda theme, etc. But does Gears of War have a theme? Does Assassin's Creed have a theme? I dunno, maybe, but even when most games these days have a recognizable theme, it's big and dramatic, like Uncharted. Not enough games these days have jaunty themes that make for good humming music, but Shovel Knight does, and it made me quite happy.

Game play wise, there really isn't anything that hasn't been done before. Maybe the ability to break checkpoints for more money, but I won't commit to saying that hasn't been done before. I remember Bit Trip Runner 2 had the ability to skip checkpoints for extra points, now that I think about it, which is pretty similar.

It does also have a Dark Souls style death system, where upon death you lose some money, but have a chance to retrieve it before you die again. It's not completely Dark Soulsian, in the sense that it's not ALL of your money, but it does increase based on how much money you have. But it has some issues. Namely, in that while Dark Souls always leaves your souls in a spot on solid ground, and usually a little bit before the spot where you actually died, Shovel Knight has floating bags of money near where you died. The problem being that if you died by falling down a bottomless pit, which I often did, then the money might wind up in a spot where it's almost impossible (if not actually impossible) to get without dying again. Sometimes the fishing rod item helps in retrieving that stuff, but not always, and it felt like it could have been improved.

Not that it was that big of a deal in the long run. Money is certainly important in the game, but by the end I had purchased everything except one suit of armor (which I've been told since is the OP armor). There's health upgrades, magic upgrades, shovel upgrades (but not straight up damage, oddly), new sets of armor with advantages/disadvantages, and sub-weapons/items, or relics, as the game calls them. These are similar to Castlevania ones, in that they drain a magic meter, but unlike Castlevania, you equip them from a menu, rather than find them in candles. Anyway, there's a couple that you buy in the game's first town, but after that you have to find a secret chest in stages, in which Chester has been trapped, and then buy them from him. They are moderately well hidden, but I found them all without too much trouble. Some of them are pretty helpful too, so I'd recommend being on the lookout for them.

Speaking of that, I want to mention the difficulty of this game. Now, at one point in time, one Patrick Klepek described this game as being, "especially easy," and that he "breezed" right through the game. Now, granted, I kinda took that first quote out of context, given that he meant in comparison to old games, and Patrick is probably just straight up better at games than I am, but "easy" isn't a word I would use to describe this game. I mean, I was about to beat it, and all the optional levels, so I'm not going to sit here and try to call the game super hard or anything, but I died almost 150 times. Actually, I probably died more than that, because there were a few times when I lost a bunch of money early in stages, and just restarted the Wii U so it wouldn't save that I had lost so much money. Yes, I know, shut up. I don't normally do things like that, but I also hate losing money in games.

That said, the vast majority of the time when I died, I felt like it was my fault, not the game's. Not every time, I do think there's a handful of cheap things in the game, but I don't really remember specifically, because I don't really remember off hand. But, like I said, I was able to get through it all (well, I didn't get 100% of the items), so it's not impossible. Chances are you're probably better than I am, and maybe playing with a regular controller, instead of a Wii U Gamepad (I really need to buy a Pro Controller) I would have done better too, I dunno.

Either way, I really enjoyed Shovel Knight. If you like platformers, and haven't played it, Shovel Knight is absolutely worth your time. Sadly it's not on PSN, or Xbox Live yet, but hopefully it will at some point. It'd be a shame for someone to miss it (like I almost did) just because it's not available on the platform someone prefers to play on.

That's my post game stats screen. I forgot to mention that there's a New Game Plus mode too, but I haven't touched that yet. Probably will at some point, though.

Other stuff?

That's about it in terms of the video games that I've been playing lately. Destiny is out tomorrow, so I'll be playing a lot of that. Not instantly Tuesday morning, sadly. While I had been thinking about going digital with it, Kmart's got some deal with a bunch of Kmart points, so I kinda have to buy it there. That's the trouble with being unemployed and living off your dad. When a game is $15 cheaper (even if it requires going back to Kmart to use the Kmart points, which we will because we go to Kmart a lot for just regular stuff like soap and junk), you kinda have to go with that one. I mean, it just means I'll be doing a lot of disc swapping as time goes on, what with my likely obsession with this game likely not ending the second a single player focused game comes out lately this year (I'm looking at you, Shadow of Mordor).

I keep meaning to start working on a dumb little Twine game for something called Ruin Jam, which is a Game Jam about games being ruined (in a comical sense, it's not being serious). The deadline for that is fast approaching, so I should probably get on that. If I do, I'll try to figure out some way to let people know about it, without it being spammy. It'd be kinda poor on my part to be a mod, and do something spammy, you know?

Similarly, I haven't been working on my book at all. I want to, and I know I should, but I just haven't. I also haven't started watching any of the myriad of animes that people have been telling me to watch, but I am DETERMINED to start watching Ouran High School Host Club soon. Yes, that is exactly what it sounds like, from what I've been told. I'm excited.

I'm getting close to taking the road test for my driver's license, because of course I've waited until I was almost 24 to do that. Hopefully I'll pass.

And uh...That's about it. I could talk about Miiverse, but instead of discussing that quagmire that I've become addicted to, I'll just say that I've met a few really nice people there, and leave a selection of some drawings I have created there. I'll leave out my pseudo-erotic Link drawings, one of which the admins deleted.

Actually, I kinda want to say something about that. The admins on Miiverse, I mean. You know I'm a moderator here, but I gotta say, for as much flak as we sometimes get on GB, and usually don't deserve it, the admins on Miiverse do kinda deserve what they get. Here on Giant Bomb, we at least take the time to respond to users, and act like human beings, unlike on Miiverse. But then again, our community isn't the insane asylum that Miiverse is, so maybe you have to be completely cold and robotic in someplace like that. Oh well. I've been behaving there, don't get the wrong idea. I keep the rule of "don't be a jerk" alive, no matter where I go.

Anyway, here's those Miiverse drawings. Most of them were done on the Smash Bros community, which is why so many of them say "Character X for Smash." So I could keep it "on topic."