The Gamer's Quarter

[Shapermc]

Castlevania: Dracula X Collection

So, uh, this is kind of nice? Possibly the second best Igarashi game ever released (Chronicles for the PS1 is probably better because it’s not as elaborate and doesn’t have some of the silly things this game adds, but I’ll get to that later).

FAKE EDIT: This is honestly more a comparison to the original and what’s added, not much else. It’s kind of just a list, sorry.

First off: Voice acting. I have to talk about this because it’s fairly awesome in English. I am going to go out on a limb—though I’m probably wrong—but I think they hired the English voice actors from SOTN. Yes, the amazingly, entertainingly, terrible voice actors. They also injected a bit more story into the 3D version of the game, it’s probably on par with the writing of the original but the cutscenes are all in engine rather than awful anime cutouts floating around. I always really liked the opening movie (well the Richter montage that ends with the Cross item crash) from the original Rondo of Blood, which is absent from the game in 3D form, which is unfortunate. Anyways, the writing is on par with the original SotN, as is the voice acting and it’s fantastic for that reason. They even got that weird “recorded in a bathroom” sound quality to the voices from SotN. OH YES, the intro movie is still in German and they still sacrifice a woman with lots of blood. Excellent stuff.

Next: Music. It’s not as bad as I expected! This is the one thing that the remake of Rondo gets better than the Sharp X68000 Castlevania remake on Chronicles. It’s far more sensible than the initial movies circulated on the internet would lead you to believe. The only problem with the music is that it’s so varied throughout the game, but as indifividual set pieces they’re better. Like you get some “jRock” versions of some originals, other times you get very classical remake versions, and at others you get fairly faithful versions of the originals. It’s an odd combination. There’s even some new music (or it’s so different it may as well be new).

The gameplay is mostly similar. I think it may be a bit easier to do the double jumps (or back jump what ever you call it for Richter), and Richter feels a bit heavier… or something. Like the gravity was turned up a little. It’s hard to put my finger on. It fits well with the style of the original, but it feels just a little off. I think that the damage was scaled a very small percentage from damage (something like you take 3% less damage for getting hit by an enemy), but this is just a guess based off not playing for over a year. I should be able to compare it better when I unlock the original game. Maria, I think, got balanced as well in the other direction. Since she’s so powerful it’s always kind of felt like playing with her was a sort of easy mode. I could just have a faulty memory here, but it only takes about 3 and a half hits to kill Maria now. It’s balanced fairly well I think! Also, her new style suits her better for how she looks in SotN (playable, not in her dress at the beginning fight with Dracula when she lends Richter her power).

The stuff that’s added/changed ranges from odd to neat. Nothing really game breaking or even too interesting, and all fairly classic IGA mindset. First there has been collectibles added to the game. NOW before you react like I first did, they’re not sick amounts of collectibles, nor are they as worthless as many of the other Igavanias: they’re meta collectables. The best part is that once you collect them they never come back, and they’re only in the remake version. So, what do you collect? Mostly sound files to play in the sound test mode, but as I was poking around I found something else awesome you can do: arrange the soundtracks. The game actually lets you assign songs to specific levels so you could, say, have every level play Vampire Killer. This is actually cooler than it should be. It also unlocks the sound for both the original and the PCE version in the sound test mode at the same time.

The other thing that can collect? The “original games,” which is to say Symphony of the Night and Rondo of Blood. I collected SotN very easily and within about 30 minutes. Granted, this was taking a secret route, but still, it was the only collectable that I didn’t have to take a special/high route to obtain. That’s the other nice thing, most of the collectibles are either in hard to reach places (which forces you to explore more and figure out how to get to them) and less interestingly, some are character specific for how to get (some require Maria’s double jump for example). I’ve seen a lot more collectables than I’ve actually collected unfortunately. Most I open in a candle or hidden blocks, but I can’t reach, or if you fall down and change screens when you return they disappear so you have to try again next time you go though the level. It defiantly adds a reason to play well, if only so that I can actually have every level play Vampire Killer.

The originals: I haven’t unlocked Rondo, but I did for SotN and I played it. It’s pretty good? I don’t know it’s a mixed bag. They retranslated the game (as many of you may have known they were doing) yet when the opening rolled I didn’t think they had because it seems like they kept the same actors and used the same recording techniques. It’s really bizarre to hear because you no longer have wacky-awesome lines like “What is Man? A miserable little pile of secrets!” And “Have at you!” has been removed but replaced with writing that is far more sinister. Anyways, they kept all the movies from the original PS1 release, even the awesome little waves konami logo bursting from the rocks. Nice touch! They re-dubbed/translated the voiceovers for those too, which means that Konami was far more aware of it’s fanbase than I would have thought after the atrocity of the XBLA release of SotN. Anyways, I do have some problems with the video quality as the resolutions bounce all over the place and menus look god awful. There’s also some weird color errors in the solid colors which I assume results from the screen size mixed with the image resolution. The good thing is that the game doesn’t blur anywhere near as horribly as I expected! In fact it’s possibly the cleanest and most playable 2D game I’ve played on the PSP.

[Tangent: Speaking of which, the remake of Rondo blurs so much that at times I feel as though I can’t make anything out. It’s not as bad when the PSP is plugged in, it basically turns into bearable blurry as opposed to too blurry.]

So, I guess that wraps things up after only getting an hour or two in with the game. It’s fantastic to say the least. Fairly faithful to say the worst. This is probably going to be the best Castlevania game released in the past 5 years (no, sorry, I haven’t really liked any of them since Harmony of Dissonance, especially the DS games)
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[dessgeega]

dementium: the ward is a new survival horror for the ds published by our friends at gamecock. everything it does has been done before, but it manages to do them pretty well nevertheless.

i like that there's a perpetual dirty film around the edges of the screen. i do not like dumb backtracking exercises which seemingly exist just to give you an excuse to jot down passwords phantom hourglass style.
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[Pink Teddy Bear]

Dementium is a really, really amazing game. I came home from work fully intending to just play a bit to see what it's like before finishing my homework, but I don't think I'll be able to finish my homework.

[dessgeega]

i played through kirby's dream land 3 for the snes. i really want to like it because of its visual design (the sprites look like moving pastel sketches), but it's plodding and overcomplicated. i've discovered that if you ignore your animal pals and all the little collecto stars it's not that bad, but it's still really bland. particularly next to kirby super star, which brilliantly marries a two-player beat-em-up with a robust platform game.
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[JasonMoses]

The above summarizes my thoughts on Kirby 3 exactly.

[Cycle]

i felt the same way about dream land 2
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[Ethoscapade]

the only bad kirby games are the dreamland games.

the only kirby games that aren't among the absolute BEST on their respective platforms are the dreamland games.

***this includes kirby 64

[Cycle]

i like the first dream land
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[dessgeega]

i like the first dreamland. it's really interesting to see what a kirby game looks like with a more constrained set of verbs. kirby 64, on the other hand, i think suffers from the same overcomplication as the latter two dream land games: there are so many combinations of abilities, and many of them are slow or useless. kirby super star has a huge number of abilities, but each one is contextual, preserving momentum. for example, if you run and use a cutter attack in super star, kirby will spring forward in a quick slicing motion. if you run and use cutter in, say, dream land 3, kirby will come to a dead stop and toss a boomerang. add all the little things to collect and the game's pace drops to a crawl.
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[dhex]

the crysis demo is good. it is also a fucking beast.
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[dessgeega]

why did no one tell me trax on the gameboy is so good?
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[Cycle]

i don't think i've heard of it, more info plz
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[dessgeega]

it is an absolutely charming shooter for the original gameboy by hal laboratories. everything is big and round and full of character. enemies come from all directions and you can swivel your gun to fire anywhere. here is a video, but this player plays kind of boring.
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[Cycle]

Man, the original gameboy was so awesome.

I'm gonna clear out one of my flashcards and just put the whole GB library on it.
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[Winged Assassins (1984)]

I found my Die By The Sword disc! It installed but wouldn't run the quest mode so I ripped the CD to my HDD and mounted it with DAEMON Tools and now it does work!

I still can't get to grips with VSIM sword movement. It's awkward but that's because I'm using the keyboard instead of the mouse since even with the sensitivity jacked up it's not fast enough for my taste. I strongly feel that it's one of those game that would benefit from wiimote controls but that's not going to happen now is it.
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[dessgeega]

trax doesn't seem to have much of a presence on the internet so i wrote about it.
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[dessgeega]

playing through kirby's dream land, as i did today after many playthroughs of trax (which was released by hal a year earlier), it's incredible how much faster the game is than dream land 3.
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[Shapermc]

I played Shadowrun for like 4 or 5 hours yesterday. Man, I really love that game. We actually managed to have 8 people on the same team that everyone knew (in one way or another, I only directly knew 4 other people). We mostly stomped the opposition, but it is nice to see that the general asshole level of random pubs is down quite a lot. Also, the tactics have improved quite a bit (i.e. random people are less likely to be selfish in their purchases). I forgot how much I really enjoy Shadowrun.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[dessgeega]

it probably shouldn't surprise anyone that i've been playing kirby super star again. i replayed the great cave offensive, taking the time to hunt out treasures (which really are hidden in fabulous places). i finished the game with fifty out of sixty; i have managed to find them all in the past.

speaking of which, the difference between these and all the items i hate collecting in dream land 3 is that these treasures are unique, each with a name, appearance and price tag (the dime is worth 10g, for example), and are all hidden in tricky places - you feel clever when you reach them. it also helps that if you mess one up, you don't have to replay a whole stage to try again.

playing this makes me excited about the new smash bros., the adventure mode of which seems to be the logical successor to this game.

also as part of my kirby binge i've been playing canvas curse, though it's really not a kirby game so much as an interesting game with the kirby franchise attached to it, as nintendo is wont to do (and these make up quite a bit of kirby's library). the levels are very clever, and the game is getting hard. that's a good thing, but i'm not sure if i'll be able to finish it.
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[Shapermc]

dess, if it's getting hard then it's almost over. The game gets nice and challenging for the last level or two but before that it's a cake walk pretty much. Excellent game still.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[Swimmy]

I played through Great Cave Offensive with my friend the other day. I've gotten all the treasures alone, before, but it is a bitch, because for a couple you need the helper, so I had to do some controller-juggling. This time we got them all and it was enjoyable, except that I knew where they all were and he was kind of lost. So I was barking directions and probably sounded like a dick.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

[dessgeega]

that's why i packed the game for california.
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[Ethoscapade]

dess, i am amazed that you had not played canvas curse before now.

i actually hundred-percented that game, and, well.. that roughly quadruples the time investment on that one.

[ryan]

Sega Rally Revo - holy hell this game is kicking my ass. The AI is nuts on this thing. The game has a weird sense of when it wants you to win or lose, and will toss a car at lightning speed past you at whatever time and place that will sting the most. It's still really satisfying, though not as purely enjoyable as the original in any sense, but they really should've thought this out; arcade racer = hard isn't what most people have in mind. Have fun with the PSP version, shaper.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[Cycle]

yeah the ai is RATHER DUBVIOUS and stick to their pre-programmed path no matter how much you try to force them off the road. rather dissapointing.
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[helicopterp]

psst dessgeega this isn't all leading up to some sort of huge HAL labs article you plan on writing, is it?
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[Harveyjames]

http://uk.wii.com/software/interviews/mario_galaxy/vol3/index.html

THE NEW EDITION OF IWATA ASKS IS OUT

I'm the only person who cares about this, aren't I

This one interviews the sound team including Koji Kondo. I'm a huge fan of Koji Kondo's, mainly because I think Wind Waker has got the best sound design of any game I've ever played.

[aderack]

I love these things. I just have been keeping the last couple of pages in unread browser tabs, for when my brain is in the right mode.
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[dessgeega]

revenge of meta-knight is amazing. partly it's because it's set in the kind of dark industrial environment that has never appeared before (or after) in kirby's cuddly dream land. partly it's the breakneck pace - every segment is timed (and not loosely) and leads up to a last mad chase across the bridge of a crashing airship as the villian haunts you in one last effort at avenging his mighty machine.

but what interests me most about revenge of meta-knight is its narrative. the events of the game are narrated by the villians, in dialogue boxes at the bottom of the screen, as you perform them. you run right, you smash enemies, things explode, and your increasingly unhinged foes give context to it: "the reactor's been destroyed! the ship's going down!" it is a great way to insert narrative without taking away the player's autonomy: kirby never says a word the entire time.

oh, and the trax tank makes a cameo!
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[extrabastardformula]

All the talk of Romero in that other thread inspired me to pick up the Dangerous Dave games. They are remarkably capable platformers, greatly cleaning up the Commander Keen engine with a notably sleeker HUD and level design that feels like the game is one thing rather than a bunch of wholly unrelated pieces.
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[Harveyjames]

[helicopterp]

[dhex]

from the files of games no one cares about: call of duty 4 was far less jingoistic than i thought it would be. it was actually semi-fun for a bit. still lots of deaths etc, which i have no idea if that's a bug, a feature or somewhere in between.
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[ryan]

I found the demo of CoD 4 unbelievably boring. I was really looking forward to it after the awesomeness of part 2 and the suck of part 3.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[dhex]

it's a little too high tech for the cod feel which was so much more gritty.

this is far more breaker nine echo got a 113 what's your roger?
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[Cycle]

so a remake of WIZBALL was released, which is some kind of cult classic, so i decided to have a look since i almost always LOVE cult love/hate games.

it's interesting! and fun! i don't think i really understand the appeal though. i like some of its ideas but not sure if they are really implemented that well.

i'll have to find out how you're actually supposed to play the game tomorrow and see if that brings any new revelations.

oh, it looks and sounds really nice though. going back to your tower is rad.

anyway, here it is if you want to try yourself:

http://retrospec.sgn.net/game-links.php?link=wizball

also the god damn live service won't accept my credit card AGAIN i want to buy mutant storm damn you god blow it out your ass microsoft

also shaper i will be getting shadowrun this week (apparently)
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[Harveyjames]

I used to play the sequel, Wizkid, a hell of a lot. It's essentially the same game but there are adventure game sections where you walk around with a body. It's surreal and brilliant.

[dessgeega]

i've played everyday shooter. i mean i played it before, at the igf, but i had no idea what to do. now that i know what i'm doing, i like it a lot. the goal of the game is the acquisition of dots, and the rules for producing dots change each screen. in that way, it's kind of a weird descendent of a jeff minter game, though i know jon mak prefers to credit kenta cho and omega. the stages are clever and fairly well-balanced (particularly the third, and i havn't really seen farther than that), and make pretty music.

also, bioshock: amazing world-building, dumb shooting. it's the first game to make me realize that realtime-rendered graphics can look better than riven, and i'd really prefer to play it like riven, without the constant getting killed. there are also a few things that the game could stand to lose, because they detract from that sense of world: the "new goal" messages and the HOW TO PLAY loading screens. my suggestion is just a black screen, with a small off-center stream of bubbles floating to the top.
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[Lasa]

Castlevania on the virtual console is making me feel quite inadequate.
I just can't beat Dracula with the damn remote turned sideways, maybe it's finally time to buy a classic controller.

[helicopterp]

I'm fairly ignorant when it comes to first person shooters, but I really like Black. The level design forces some spectacular moments, the highlight of which was blowing up in a matter of seconds the enormous fuel tanks in the foundry level ten minutes after I had wound my way carefully up and down their spiral staircases. The stages are very open to exploration and interpretation (interpretation in the sense of how to tackle them).

I also like that other than using health packs, there is not a single button on the controller that doesn't have to do with operating the weapons on your person. No vehicles, no machine gun turrets, no opening doors, no operating fancy technical equipment. Just shooting, messing with the settings of your gun, reloading, changing guns, hitting people with the but of your gun, aiming, and throwing grenades.

This is also one of the first games in a long time that has actual proved to me what the funds at EA's hands can do for production. The visuals are painstakingly accomplished, and the sound is even better. Light washes all the environments in colorful blues, yellows, and greys. Each gun that you and your enemies fire makes a distinct sound, and the ability to recognize the sounds benefits even light strategy.
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[dessgeega]

i've had my first boss fight in bioshock, doctor steinman. i showed up at his window with a flying sentry gun, and another dropped down in front of me while he was making his speech. i zapped it and hacked it. then, while he was running around fighting the sentries, i stood outside the window blasting him with a shotgun. when i ran out of ammo i jumped inside, tommy gunned him, then beat him with a wrench until he fell over.

that was pretty great. if there are more fights like that in the game, i will be glad.
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[Cycle]

so, as it turns out, once you actually understand what's going on, Wizball is an awesome game.

Wouldn't expect anything less from the founders of Sensible Software.
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[Shapermc]

[Cycle]

Eh, I disagree. I had much more fun in segments after that. It REALLY went downhill after the BIG REVEAL but it's like an hour or two of more gameplay so it's alright.
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[Shapermc]

[Cycle]

I agree the first part of the game is tighter, yeah, but I still feel I had more fun in later moments, what with all the plasmids and big daddies that weren't actually scripted and generally more interesting places to fight. I agree there was a bit of filler thrown in, though, but the parts that weren't filler and more exploration based were great. Medical felt too linear and bland, design wise. I was actually really worried when I first played it since you said it was the highlight!

As for the narrative, I can't really remember much of it to be honest so I can't say. The art gallery part or whatever was awesome, though. Even though, yes, it's filler, but it's awesome filler.

Also, I've been playing JET SET WILLY. The Banyan Tree totally isn't as hard as everyone says, i can do it in one go now. The room before it is harder.
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[Shapermc]

Yeah, The Doctor and Cohen (the artist) are by far the most interesting characters in the game outside of Ryan himself. The thing is that I really hated Cohen's level, and while the doctor's was bland and straight-forward, it was atleast thematically interesting with lots of backstory and generally creepy themes abound.

Actually the way you talk it seems like Narrative is more what you remember than story. I'm mostly referring to story here (the actual things written in logs and recorded on voice and what the characters say), where the Narrative is very free form (the things you do and how you do them resulting in your own personal story of how you reached point b after point a) so I don't have many particularly interesting stories because I'm more about finding the quickest way to get something done and repeating it until I find something quicker. The narrative and story are fairly intertwined in Bioshock though, so it's more a fine line than when talking about most games.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[kirkjerk]

I just finished Bioshock, been playing it intermittently since it came out.

Guess I'm not in love w/ the genre right now. The whole "search every corpse and closed item for loot" thing is just a puddle of meh.

The setting was great though.
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=/ \(<D)_/
==/\/ >_ kirkjerk.com

[Shapermc]

[Cycle]