Tau and Friends Play Gauntlet (2014) Part 2

Tau and Friends Play Gauntlet Part 1

New Gauntlet! Get Hype!

It's not very often that I get hyped about things, but I can't help but feel a great sense of excitement when I see the trailer for the new Gauntlet game!

First take a look at the trailer, it's rad

Now in case you don't know what Gauntlet is, it's a game where you pick one character out of 4 classes and you go through a big fat dungeon collecting loot for score and killing HUGE numbers of monsters.  The game is well known for it's fast paced game play and co-op multiplayer and has a large place in the heart of many people my age.

I still remember back in my early teenage years, going over to a friends house and playing the shit out of Gauntlet Legends.  Raging over who was getting all the food and gold and eventually overcoming all the big bads the game had to throw at you.  It was a time filled with both extreme amounts of anger and extreme amounts of joy.

The reason I can let myself get so hyped for the new Gauntlet is because it's the kind of game that's very hard to fuck up.  All you need is 4 classes, a lot of baddies and co-op play, if you have those 4 things then you have at the very least an acceptable Gauntlet experience.  Add some polish, maybe some online functionality to bring it into 2014 and some well designed dungeons and the new Gauntlet will be something really special.

The only thing that pisses me off is the name.  Why is it called "Gauntlet"? Now everyones going to get confused when you say Gauntlet because they won't know if they mean the 1985 arcade game or the 2014 game. 

I'm going to be watching that space with much excitement.

Killer Is Dead

Killer is Dead is a game I have not finished yet, but due to it being fucking amazing I just had to talk about it right now.

The game follows one very smartly dressed assassin known as Mondo Zappa and his adventures doing work for an orginisation that involves killing an array of downright weird targets with the help of his happy go lucky school girl friend.  He has a big robot arm and a tormented past and he gets caught up having to deal with some guy called David doing all sorts of evil stuff from his base of operations on the moon.  Keep in mind though that this plot was written by non other than Suda51 of Killer7 fame and isn't scared to go right off the handle at basically any point during the game.

The gameplay revolves around hacking and slashing your way through levels of strange robot zombie things called Wires before eventually fighting one of the games strange and incredibly intresting boss characters.  On the way you'll find pickups to improve your weaponry, health and blood gauges that will help make the killing of extremely dangerous criminals a lot easier.

On top of all that there are a ton of side missions that involve all sorts of varied and interesting goals such as securing a bonsai tree or making laps of a Kyoto village while running over Wires.  If you need a break from the killing there are the games Gigolo Missions which involve hitting on attractive women and giving them presents so that their mutual feelings result in them giving you an upgrade of some description.  I could rant for an entire post about the press's reaction to Gigolo mode but instead of that I'll just say that the content off these missions has been grossly exagerated.

The graphics are also really slick with cool looking character models and interesting levels that are varied enough to stop you from being bored visually speaking.  The music is also pretty good and the game comes with both Japanese and English voice audio if you're the kind of person that wanted to hear the script delivered by the Japanese cast.  The English voice actors did a good job of delivering the lines though so it would be worth switching between the two for the full experience.

That said the game isn't perfect and the biggest thing they fucked up with this one was the difficulty.  Hard Mode was obviously designed to be played on a new game+ (assuming there is one) and playing it on your first time round can seem a little unmanageable at certain points, especially the side missions.  The problem with this is that normal mode is way too easy and I have no idea what the challenge is like on easy mode but judging from my current experience you could probably beat the game with one hand there.

The game also has a few bugs of which I shall share two stories with.  On one level, after performing a special kill on an enemy I just fell through the floor and had to restart the mission from a check point which was rather annoying because sometimes the checkpoints can put you quite a ways back.  On a side mission involving a gun turret one of my targets glitched behind a wall that I could not shoot through which resulted in me having to start the whole thing over from the beggining which pissed me off to no end.

Still, difficulty problems aren't game breaking as you can still enjoy the experience on any setting and game bugs are infrequent if a little annoying so Killer is Dead is still worth picking up and blasting through just for it's truly unique brand of Suda51 strangeness.

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance

I already mentioned this once as the game that basically restored my love for gaming after 2012 ended up being so incredibly shitty, well now I'm going to gush about it!

So to start, I did a google search on the world revengeance, because I was convinced that was just made up to sound cool, but it is actually a thing, so straight off the bat I'm learning new things by playing this game.

Anyway, silly words aside, it's really quite hard to find a single word to describe Metal Gear Rising.  The best thing I can come up with is "Radical", but even then this games level of rad are so high that it doesn't really do it justice.

So I don't really know where to start with this "review", so lets start at the plot.  The game starts out with some group trying to destabilise stuff in order to cause war because war generates money for Private Military Corps and they like that.  Then it turns into a plot around child organ harvesting and shit gets really crazy from there.  But for the first time ever I didn't really give a flying fuck about the story in a Metal Gear game.  It's not bad by any stretch, but when there is all this high octane hacking and slashing going on, I just want to concentrate on that.

Which brings me to the game play, oh lord is it good.  The core game play revolves around hacking and slashing enemies until they die and if you have played anything like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry, you can expect a combat system that's just as fun and rewarding.  The thing that everyone knows about though is the games "Blade Mode", where you are basically free to cut anything in any way and this is used to harvest spinal cords for healing yourself or killing big enemies.  This is also a really fun mechanic and doesn't interrupt the flow of game play.

Now for the blocking, because I've seen a lot of people complain about the blocking.  There is no dedicated block in Metal Gear Rising and instead we are given a parry which is performed by pressing forward towards an enemy and doing a light attack.  The parry comes in two flavors which is a standard parry which prevents damage, and a perfect parry which prevents damage and counters.  I saw a lot of people saying things like "it's not well explained" or "it's too hard to perform".  Please ignore these people because they are just bad at the game since the window for just pulling off basic blocks is huge and the game explains the controls behind a parry right away in a VR mission AND gives you plenty of time to practice.

Anyway, for all my griping about people slagging off the parry system, I'm not saying this game is perfect.  The final few chapters feel a little bit rushed and have very little length and it's a bit of a shame the second half of the game wasn't a little more fleshed out.  Also there are some quick time events and while they aren't too bad I'd still prefer it if they weren't there.  Also the stealth segments of the game are fucking crap and while they aren't mandatory it feels that they were shoehorned in there just because it's a Metal Gear game. They are incredibly out of place when just slicing up dudes is just as, if not more effective than sneaking.

Finally the length, I'll admit it is a little on the short side with my total playtime being six and a half hours on hard mode, but that's not counting cut scene time and I'm pretty sure failed attempts aren't included in the total time either.  That said the game is full of replay value, because my six and a half hours of playtime were filled with pretty crap grades, so I want to go back and improve my skills.  On top of that, beating the game unlocks another difficulty and doing it again unlocks an even harder one.  On top of THAT there are 20 VR Missions which task you with killing dudes as fast as you can for a big gold star.  Finally on top of THAT there are 20 collectable thingies to get throughout the game which only give stupid shit like concept art but are hard to find and for a completionist like myself, add some more replay value to the game.

So the TL;DR version of this entire post is, game is awesome go play it!  If you're a fan of action games like this who were left wanting after DmC, this will perk you right up.  If you aren't a fan, go play it anyway and you will be soon enough.

God of War Ascension Trophy

This story is so pathetic and petty.

So here's the deal, there is (was) a trophy in the new God of War game that was titled "Bros before hoes" which was given to players after they beat up one of the female boss characters. Apparently, this trophy was seen as misogynistic and was promptly changed by the developer.  Holy fucking goddamn is that some bullshit

So lets start with why it's bullshit.  The phrase "bros before hoes" is a phrase that has been around for fucking donkeys years.  Basically for as long as I can remember this phrase has existed, and been used for years, but literally millions of people.  No one complained about it being used then, but as soon as you put it in a video game everyone decides to use it as ammunition to take a shot because there are some people who see the games industry as an easy target for this shit.

That aside though, it made sense in the context of the game.  You beat the boss called Fury, who is this woman, and I haven't seen the whole scene but some shit happens and you get caught up in this black goo and this woman is about to do something nasty to you.  So this dude just pops out of nowhere, decides to betray the nasty lady (I think) and teleports Kratos to safety.  If he's betraying this chick to rescue Kratos I'm pretty sure that's a good reason to use the phrase "bros before hoes"

The article I read on Joystiq had a quote that said "The text was offensive to some members of the community and impacted their enjoyment of the game"

FUCKING. BULLSHIT!

People are just complaining for the sake of it at this point.  I mean it's fucking a trophy, it doesn't even have any impact on the game, it's just a stupid little message that pops up for killing a boss so that people feel like they actually achieved something.  Also, when did people become such spineless idiots to the point where they are offended by shit like this?  No one was offended by this message, people are just taking pots shots at developers because they see the game industry as an easy fucking target.

You weren't offended when Kratos fucked 3 women for experience orbs, but you were offended by a trophy message?  Get fucked, "feminists" who complain about shit in video games aren't out for equality, they are just out to demonise men.  The most sexist people in this whole situation are the people complaining.  Piss off and let me enjoy video games without having to hear stories about your constant, pathetic whining all the fucking time.

The Height of Idiocy

DmC: Devil May Cry is still a game I have yet to play, so I will not be commenting on how good it actually is, but as far as I'm concerned, it still LOOKS like a piece of shit.

ANYWAY! The point here, is that DmC is not selling as well as Capcom hoped it would as they have now gone and halved the sales expectations from this title.  While to me, this is neither good or bad, I came across an article that royally pissed me the fuck off.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/capcom-almost-halves-dmc-sales-expectations/0110372

This article, written by Ben Parfitt basically just outlines what is going on with the sales figures for the game.  But he doesn't just say that, he's saying that fans are destroying this games sales figures out of spite, because they changed Dante's hair colour.

Never in my life have I seen a more ignorant prick write things on the internet about video games, and this is coming from ME who writes plenty of garbage on this blog.  He agrees with the notion that "Devil May Cry fans destroy brand out of spite", which is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.

People aren't buying the game because its vastly different GAME PLAY WISE to what they are used to.  But it's not just different, it's been heavily dumbed down compared to past games, so the whole reason people enjoyed Devil May Cry has basically been removed from DmC.  Couple that with some of the juvenile writing I've ever seen and it's a good recipe for making people turn away.

Not one person gave a fuck about Dante's design once some game play came out, NOT ONE, but this doesn't matter.  Newsflash for you Ben, players don't owe Capcom or Ninja Theory anything.  People aren't buying the game because it looks ass, not out of spite.  Ben Parfitt isn't the only idiot to say stuff like this though, I have seen a couple of articles now calling the fans a bunch of whiny babies for not buying DmC.

But here is the thing, the Devil May Cry HD Collection, to my knowledge, is actually doing pretty fuckin' good.  THAT should be an indication of why DmC isn't fucking selling.  Fans don't want your easy mode "FUCK YOU" garbage, they want more of stuff like Devil May Cry 3/4.

I can't wait to find a pre owned copy of DmC so I can really tear it apart but there is no way I'm giving a penny to Ninja Theory or Capcom for this shoddy excuse of a Devil May Cry game.  Also one more thing!  When I was raging about the game play to my friends on steam and such, they would just say to me "if you don't like the look of it, then don't buy it", which makes sense right, but apparently all fans who don't buy things that they don't like the look of are now all spiteful babies

Fuck you Ben Parfitt and fuck all the "journalists" that posted articles with similar themes.  I suggest that you take those pay cheques and give them to my Charity, because you sure as fuck don't deserve it for the type of drivel that comes out of your head.

Free Game Friday......On Saturday! Zenonia

First of all, apologies for free game friday being a day late, I ended up in a karaoke booth all night and by the time I got home I was too drunk and tired to even consider making a blog post, anyway, I'm now well rested and ready to bring you more free entertainment!

So, break out your smart phones and iPods because this weeks free game is a mobile game called Zenonia.  I find it strange that I'm finding games like this on the app store for my iPod Touch, usually I associate the mobile games market with casual stuff, you know, stuff for people to kill 20 minutes on a subway train, not proper gamers stuff.

Anyway, Zenonia is a Hack n' Slash RPG where you play as a young lad called Regret (Fucking stupid name by the way) as he is on a quest to avenge his dead father.  On the way you have to deal with the ongoing war between some holy knights and some clan of evil dragon people.  Basically the story is kind of dumb and the names of all the characters are pretty shitty too.

While I'm thinking about it the combat is a little bit shitty too.  It's basically one button combat and you just wail on an enemy until his life bar dissapears in most cases, that said though I still enjoy playing this game quite a bit.

First of all, you can pick one of three classes at the beginning, a Paladin (magic user), a Assassin (sneaky man for the dirty player) or a Barbarian (2 handed tough guy).  There is a chance that one of the reasons I find the combat so dull is I chose the Barbarian class so my guys whole deal is just wailing on enemys with a 2 hander anyway.  I'm still part way through my first playthrough so there is a chance that the other classes may make the combat a bit more compelling.

While I'm at it there is A LOT to this game, and I do mean A LOT.  The gameplay basically boils down to a single player MMO which would usually turn me off in most cases but as a time killer for the subway? yeah it's pretty good to grind out a few quests on my way to work.  Anyway, the world is pretty big, filled with dungeons and plains, snowfields and the like.  It does limit you to where you can go for each bit of the story, but it's OK because leaving the designated quest areas would mean getting your ass kicked anyway.

There is also shittons of items and stuff to pick up and collect and you have to keep all your junk in good shape if you want to stand a chance against what lies ahead.  Also there are skill trees, because every fucking game has to have a skill tree now and whenever you level up you get points to put into your stats and skills so you can really customise your guy to suit your own play style.

There is in fact quite a lot of depth here in preparing for combat and managing your quests and abilities, more depth that I would ever expect out of a goddamn iPod game.

So put that Angry Birds down and play a real game!  Maybe for those of you who class yourselves as "casual" gamers, you'll find that "core" gaming isn't as scary as it's all made out to be.