Enclave

Enclave is a game is an action game that was released in 2002 for Xbox, but just as a testament to how long my backlog is, I only just beat it a few days ago.

Enclave, despite getting quite good reviews at the time of its release, is a game that I think went under the radar of most people.  It's a title that isn't bad and is sort of fun to play but at the same time manages to feel a bit boring and stale if that makes any sense at all.  Plus the thing hasn't aged well at all since 2002 so playing it today feels a bit clunky, but that didn't stop me from having an OK time with it.

At this point I'd usually take some time to talk about the games story but I forgot it because it's one of the most pointless and stupid things every written with lots of silly fantasy terms in it just for the sake of it.  From what I do remember there was some kind of war and the lands were split in 2, a good half and a bad half, over time the lands started to come back together and the bad half started attacking the good half.  Your bunch of heroes have to enlist the aid of some people and put an end to some demon that controls the bad half or something....who cares just fucking cut some orcs already, jeez.

Gameplay wise, it's nothing really special.  You pick a character and you click the mouse in a monsters general direction and hope it dies before you do.  Over the course of the adventure you gain access to new characters like a Knight, Ranger, Druid, Wizard etc. but I beat the whole game with the Knight with the exception of a single level that was filled with archers so I have no idea what the other classes are like at all.

While playing you are given gold to spend on items and equipment and it seems at the start like the general idea is that you have to explore and find the gold, but you get craptons of gold just for beating a level so there really isn't any need to spend time exploring like I did but it does make things a little easier I guess.

One nice thing about the game though is that it has 2 story modes.  A light campaign and a dark campaign, so once you beat the game as a goody goody protector of the lands, you can replay the game as a huge arsehole.

Also Enclave has the WORST Final Boss I've ever seen.  I'd call spoilers but the following video is just 1 minute of me shooting a monster in the face, so I don't really think it counts....

What a well designed boss battle....

It must sound from this post that I don't like Enclave at all, but quite the opposite, I actually really enjoyed playing it.  It's strange, as I was playing and as I reflect on the game I only have bad things to say but do believe me when I say Enclave is rather fun somehow.  I really enjoyed my time with it despite all my griping.

So if you want to give it a go based off my glowing review, then head over to Steam and pick it up pretty cheap.  Failing that, you can dig out your old Xbox and try and hunt down a copy in a used game shop or something, maybe the console version plays a bit better, I have no idea.

Mobile Gaming is Weird

A couple of posts ago I said that I got an iPhone 5s and wasn't really all that taken with it.  Well since I had to sign up for a Japanese App Store account, I decided to do some delving into what the Japanese mobile gaming market had to offer.  Thanks to a recommendation from my wife's sister, I ended up playing something called 育てて掃除機 (Or Raising Vacuum Cleaner) and now it's time to take a moment to talk about one of the strangest games I've ever played.

The premise is simple, you have a vacuum cleaner, and when it sucks up rubbish a small meter fills up.  When the meter gets to full the vacuum cleaner changes shape, starting out with a small cat resting on top and then over time taking on much more strange forms.

There is also a mini game that involves taking your cat machine for a walk.  This means you go down a motorway at high speed collecting coins and avoiding cars.  With those coins you can purchase balls of rubbish so that you can speed up the process of cat cleaner evolution.

Usually, when you think about mobile games you assume they are designed to be played at a bus stop or something.  Something you use to kill 10 minutes or so by playing a pointless shitty puzzle game or whatever.  This game however doesn't even qualify as that since all that you are required to do is open the app, touch the screen once, and then you are done for like 10 minutes while the rubbish respawns.

It's a truly strange game that's worth playing at least once if you can read Japanese.  If you can't read Japanese then it's just fucking weird and there wouldn't really be much point.  But I found myself strangely addicted to this fucking thing, opening the app whenever I could do clean my room and watch my cat cleaner evolve into something truly strange.

育てて掃除機, despite being one of the most basic things I've ever seen, is way more engrossing than half the shit on the app store in both regions, so give it a go if you can.

Crazy Japanese Cafe

Today I was planning on coming home and making a usual post on something gaming related but then I went to this crazy cafe for dinner and this shit is too weird to not post about.

The place was called Mountain and on the outside it looks pretty standard for a cafe out here, even on the inside shit seems normal....but then you get the menu.  What you are looking at in the above picture is part of the past menu, and some of the stand out dishes in that picture are the melon pasta, banana pasta and the strawberry pasta (only available in winter)

If you think that sounds disgusting, it's because it is, check this shit out.

That is the melon pasta, and it is quite possibly one of the worst tasting pasta dishes I have ever had.  With the fresh cream on top it looks like something that should be cold, but that's a hot pasta dish.  Also you can't see it too well in the photo but there are chunks of melon hiding in the pasta and hot chunks of fruit with pasta is NOT a good combo.

Luckily there are normal things on the menu so you can go there and enjoy a meal.  The normal stuff is also pretty well priced considering the size of the portion, so all in all it's quite a good place with an extremely strange gimmick.

If you ever find yourself in Nagoya, look up Mountain on google maps, you'll more than likely come out with some crazy culinary story of your own.

Crane Games Probably Aren't Bullshit

I've spent a lot of time on this blog talking about game centres here in Japan, but I've yet to mention these things.  UFO Catchers as they are known over here are games where you have to position a claw above a prize and try to grab it.

The prizes they put in these things can be literally anything.  I've seen collectible stuff, game systems, games, food, ice cream, all sorts of stuff is up for grabs, but when I play them I never manage to bloody win anything.  I used to think that they were rigged like slot machines are, that the claw would make one good grab after so much yen has been shovelled in, but after asking around about these things I think my idea was a little off.

There seems to be some kind of technique for these things, something I don't understand and it'll be a long time before I ever get round to mastering such a technique if it does exist.  I heard from one friend of mine that there are "professional" crane game players, who win stuff and then sell it on for a profit, it sounded nuts.  At first I was a little sceptical about the idea of these things paying out consistently to skilled players, but I do in fact know a guy who doesn't play often, but wins pretty much 100% of the time when he does have a go.

So, if you don't get enough out of regular games and you feel you need to be rewarded a bit more, get practising on these bad boys, you'll be rolling in plushies before you know it!