Three Months of GHG

You know, I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times where GHG felt like work. And not the kind of work you love, but the kind of work you dread. It took starting this blog to fully understand the laments of content creators not being able to create good content whenever they want.

It’s not the subject matter, though; I can write about games all day, every day. However, there are just some mornings where the topics don’t come to me, and even those I have stockpiled as easy backups? I’ll look at them, feel completely uninspired, and think to myself, “I’d rather take a nap.”

So what do I do when that happens? As much as I’d like to say that I run around town all Rocky-like with “Gonna Fly Now” pumping myself up full of ideas — which is a fantastic way to get energized, by the way — instead, I play something new.

I have a general rule where I like to stick to just 2 or 3 games at a time — usually from different genres — but if they’re longer games, that can get repetitive, even if I’m still having fun. I find that firing up something fresh is usually more than enough to break me out of that funk, and today, I was definitely feeling it.

So after about an hour of sitting around knowing I wanted to talk about the blog itself, I gave myself a figurative slap in the face, shook my head vigorously, took a look at my Steam library, and installed whatever jumped out at me. This time, it happened to be Guacamelee: Gold Edition.

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Within the first few seconds, it was already making me smile with its clean, unique visuals and smooth controls. What beautiful music and funny dialogue too! I love it when games hook you like that, and you know almost instantly that you’re playing a great one.

I can’t wait to dive deeper into it. It’s been getting a lot of renewed attention with the Super Turbo Championship Edition that recently came out (but not yet for PC), and it’s always referred to as one of the better “Metroidvania”-style games, so it should be good. And if I do end up liking this, it will open doors for me to go back and play more of the Metroid and Castlevania series, many of which I have never played or finished.

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In other news, I’ve been keeping my YouTube channel updated regularly with some random video clips, and I’ll be trying something new over the next week to make it a little more interesting, so stay tuned for that.

Editing the videos themselves has been a great experience, and it’s something I’ve enjoyed doing ever since high school. Although I haven’t done it for several years now, this has been a nice way to get comfortable with it again.

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I use CyberLink PowerDirector 12, which is far from pro, but it gets the job done. Microsoft used to have a good built-in movie maker in Windows, but they ditched it in favor of something that became far too simplistic and limited. There’s probably a way to get that old version back, but that’s OK; it was worth upgrading to this instead. It’s stable, the editing tools are easy, previews are quick, and there are a lot of different output options, which is nice.

But I digress. Today’s update was supposed to be about the blog, right?

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Last month, I was at 36,937 words across 48 posts. Today, it’s increased by 18,898 words across 20 new posts, or about 945 words per update. Total content has increased by 34%, so I’m keeping a pretty good pace in terms of new stuff. I wrote 7 reviews, which is the most I’ve done in one month. Previously, the most I’d ever done was 4, during the first month of GHG’s existence.

Thanks again for continuing to come back and read this little blog of mine. Your readership is important to me, so I’ll do my best to keep it interesting!

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Review: DuckTales Remastered (PC, 2013)

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D-d-d-danger! Watch behind you!
There’s a stranger out to find you!
What to do? Just grab on to some
DuckTales! A-woo-oo!

If ever there was a late-’80s earworm, the DuckTales theme song is it. It’s impossible to look at that iconic logo and not start singing along. DuckTales came out back when I was in junior high. It was a time when my friends and I suddenly got too old — and in our minds, too cool — for Saturday morning cartoons. Shows like Robotech were drawing us away from the cheap, mindless fare that was common back then, but DuckTales was different. It looked terrific, and had exceptional, fluid animation. I loved it, and whether I’m right about this or not, I always credited its quality and success in part for the resurgence of Disney’s animated theatrical releases shortly thereafter with The Little Mermaid and the lesser-known and under-appreciated Rescuers Down Under.

20140711_ducktales_nesIts popularity led to the Capcom classic game of the same name on the NES in 1989, which GHG reviewed last month. Despite its short length, simple boss battles, and pogo-jump controls that are arguably a little too complex, I really enjoyed it, and consider it a very solid 8-bit title, particularly when you take into consideration that it’s licensed, and could have been bad. Very bad.

When it was revealed that WayForward Technologies — a company known for their skill at crafting retro-style action games like Contra 4 and the excellent Shantae: Risky’s Revenge — was developing an HD remastered version of DuckTales, excitement levels went through the roof. I mean, if it’s not going to be Capcom themselves, who better to do it than a company that specializes in this sort of thing? While the selfish side of me was kinda hoping for Inti Creates instead, I put my faith in WayForward that they’d deliver. And for the most part, they did.

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First of all, full disclosure here: I played through DuckTales Remastered on its default difficulty first, which is set to Easy. I do this for all games, since it’s my belief that the default setting is what the developers want the majority of players to experience, and most play balance and tweaking generally center around it during testing. More on this later, but it’s an important detail to note.

Graphically, DuckTales Remastered does a lot of things right. The character art in particular is fantastic, with silky-smooth and expressive animation cycles that really bring them to life. WayForward did a phenomenal job ensuring that everyone looks as good as we remember from childhood, with new cameos that will surprise those intimately familiar with the NES original. Enemy art and animation are just as impressive, and it was so nice to see the same high quality level of effort go into both basic enemies and major bosses.

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I found the backgrounds to be OK, but there was nothing there that really blew me away. They are full of nice colors and provide a good amount of depth and separation, but they lack detail and most of them just looked overly simplistic to me and at odds with the quality of the superb 2D elements. Throw in generic-looking environmental objects that have a floaty, pasted-on look, and you end up with an overall visual aesthetic that didn’t really work for me. It gets the job done, but there was just something about the look of the game that never quite felt right, and I couldn’t help but ask myself, “How much better would this have been had it all been in 2D?”

DuckTales Remastered‘s soundtrack, however, is tremendous. Composed by Jake Kaufman — who has also scored a number of other WayForward games and the amazing Shovel Knight — this is an updated soundtrack done right. All of your favorites from the NES game are here, with a perfect balance of modern instrumentation, extended arrangements of classic melodies, and beautiful retro nods that pay nothing but the utmost of respect to the source material. Hats off to Kaufman for his great work here, and I highly recommend a purchase of it on Amazon or iTunes.

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The game also contains full voice acting, which is all delivered by the talented voice actors from the original show, giving DuckTales Remastered an even more authentic feel. Unfortunately, little restraint was exercised when it came to the sheer amount of dialogue here. Perhaps it was excitement about having the original cast involved, but it’s completely overdone and takes the player out of gameplay for far too long. You can’t speed it up and the only way to skip it is via the pause menu. It really kills pacing and could have easily been cut in half. As it stands, it’s full of needless exposition that is cool at first, but doesn’t take long for it to become borderline insufferable.

Gameplay-wise, DuckTales Remastered is a little bit of the old, a little bit of the new. It controls well enough, and the gameplay is as you remember, with Uncle Scrooge able to use his cane to pogo-jump around levels, find hidden treasure, discover secret areas, and use rocks and objects to take out enemies, just like the NES game. Speaking of the pogo-jump, you can now do it just by jumping and pressing the action button instead of having to press down on the d-pad as well. WayForward has both control options available, though, so go with what you’re most comfortable with. I used the default (i.e., easier) way, and I thought it was great.

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There is also a new collectibles objective where you have to find various objects around each stage to progress, but there’s no mystery to their whereabouts since they’re all marked on the pause menu map. It switches up the way you have to play the game in that it forces you to do these things before taking on the level’s boss, which is a fundamental change from how the original DuckTales worked.

These were likely added to enrich the game’s storyline and extend overall play time, and although they feel a bit contrived in that sense, I didn’t mind their addition.

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Getting back to what I said earlier about playing on the game’s default difficulty, I got through the game in about 3 hours. Although I didn’t die during any of the boss fights — which are more fun than the NES game’s, but still very predictable — I died quite a few times during regular gameplay, usually falling into a bottomless pit or some other instant-death scenario. You have unlimited lives, and I didn’t think anything of this. That’s modern game design 101, and most games don’t penalize you at all except for maybe sending you back to the last checkpoint. That’s what DuckTales Remastered does. On Easy.

On other difficulties, your lives are now limited. Losing them means Game Over, but it also means you lose everything from that level and you have to start over from scratch. This is utterly crazy. I would expect to at least keep found treasures and overall progress. If I have to start over from the beginning? Fine. I’ll make my way to where I lost my last life, but to erase all that work? No thanks. It made me quit out the first time it happened to me.

This kind of design works when your levels are short. It worked well on something I played recently — NES Remix — because its design is based around concentrated stages where subsequent attempts all build upon the mistakes you made previously, and getting further in each one gives you a strong sense of accomplishment. If you lose all of your lives, yes, you have to try again from the beginning, but it only take a few seconds or at most a couple minutes for a redo. It has no place here in DuckTales Remastered because WayForward has made changes — namely much longer levels with additional collectible requirements — that makes severe punishment like this unnecessary.

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Anyway, speaking of collectibles, the money you find throughout the game isn’t just for hoarding inside your giant vault. You can use that cash to buy a ton of artwork and music. Prices are high for each one, so for those completionists out there, it will take several playthroughs to get everything. Starting a new game will thankfully not erase your progress when it comes to these unlockable bonuses.

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Apart from the whole Game Over thing and the overwrought dialogue, I enjoyed playing through this game. It’s familiar enough that you will smile with satisfaction remembering everything from your youth, while experiencing new things that may surprise you. It’s not perfect, but to its credit, it successfully captures what made so many people fall in love with DuckTales — both the TV series and the game — in the first place.

Finally, be sure to sit through the end credits in its entirety. It was definitely one of my favorite parts of the game.

  • Graphics & Presentation: B
    Beautiful 2D character artwork and gorgeous animation are this game’s highlight. Serviceable 3D backgrounds with generic objects and some janky animation don’t match the quality of the character work. Long, painfully slow story sections bring the presentation to a near-standstill.
  • Music & Sound Effects: A+
    Fantastic soundtrack by Jake Kaufman, with refreshingly fun takes on the NES classics. Sound effects are good and voice acting is excellent, including all the actors from the show!
  • Gameplay & Controls: C+
    More forgiving pogo-jump controls make the game easy to learn. The sprawling level design is good, although objectives make them feel more linear than they should. Erasing all level progress after losing your lives was a terrible design decision.
  • Value: B-
    It only takes a few hours to get through the game, but unlockable content and different difficulties offer incentives to come back.

Overall: B-

 

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Artist Spotlight: Laura Carberg

One of the best parts about working in the videogame industry was the sheer number of creative individuals I met and became friends with. While there are talented people everywhere, it was the shared interests — comics, movies, books, cartoons, toys, and yes, videogames — that brought us all closer together. You could talk about work projects, your favorite character from Chrono Trigger, why you hated a certain filler story from Battlestar Galactica, and the ills of sparkling vampires, and everyone around you would understand and be able to contribute to the conversation. It’s hard to find that kind of interaction in the workplace, and it’s one of the main things that makes me want to go back.

20140710_laurel_c_tumblrBut that’s not what this is about. This is about a cool artist friend of mine who recently collaborated with me to come up with the avatar drawing you see here and on other social media websites. Her name is Laura Carberg, and I had the great pleasure of working with her a couple years ago at THQ’s Quality Assurance department in Phoenix, Arizona. She was already a funny and friendly person at the office, but it wasn’t until she started posting some of her work on Facebook that I realized she was into drawing and painting as well.

I recently had the chance to interview Laura from her home in Phoenix to talk more about her approach to her work, her interests, and of course, gaming.


Gray-Haired Gamer: So, is it hot enough out there yet? Sorry, cheap shot. Anyway, thanks in advance for doing this interview! Besides art, what should the internet world know about you?

Laura Carberg: I’m a comic book nerd, science fiction junkie, and I occasionally lose days at a time to videogames and Netflix.

GHG: Ah yes, the Netflix binge. Many have succumbed to its power. Have you been drawing for a while?

Carberg: Well, I’m 28, and I’d say I’ve been into art for 27 of those years. Some of my earliest memories are of me scribbling some very caveman-like stuff with crayons.

GHG: Mmm, there’s nothing like the smell of a fresh box of Crayolas. Besides cave paintings, do you like drawing anything in particular?

Carberg: Characters, props, and environments mostly, but I like to try a little of everything.

20140710_st_lauraGHG: Can you tell us a little bit about the tools you use for your artwork?

Carberg: Sure thing. I use pencils, micron pens, ink, watercolor, etc. Honestly, much like subject matter, I will try anything I can get my hands on.

When it comes to digital, I use Sketchbook Pro, Photoshop, and I bought a used Wacom Cintiq 12WX tablet. Sometimes I’ll combine digital with traditional elements, too. Each project is different.

GHG: Nice on the Cintiq! I’ve always wanted one of those. Where do you draw inspiration from in coming up with new ideas?

Carberg: My personal life and feelings definitely play a part, but I also very much enjoy the storytelling elements that illustration presents as well.

GHG: Besides the sweet art you did for me, do you have anything else in the works?

Carberg: Yes, I’m part of a Kickstarter that should be starting in the middle of this month! I’m also working on a few personal projects right now, and of course, I’m always open to do commissions.

I’ve also worked on a few prototype board and card games, done some concept art for animations, storyboarded, and other comic-related gigs. As you’ve probably guessed by now, I’ve been into a little bit of everything.

GHG: Yes, a pattern seems to be emerging here. This is perhaps a selfish question, but anything you want to say about your time at THQ before its demise?

Carberg: The feeling of camaraderie there was amazing. We were a family… a goofy, strange, wonderful family, and that came to me at a time in my life when I needed it the most.

Plus, there’s just something awesomely satisfying about seeing a product that has your fingerprints all over it hit store shelves. I’d be all, “Yeah, I was part of that.”

20140710_shep_laurelcGHG: Couldn’t have said it better myself. Before I get all teary-eyed (again), let’s talk a little bit about gaming specifically. Have any faves?

Carberg: Ohhhh man! Yes. The Mass Effect series, Fallout 3, Final Fantasy VIII, X, and XIII, Skyrim, Heavy Rain, the Uncharted series, Civilization V, and The Last of Us.

I love them because in most cases, they’re rich in story and character depth. Oh, and Darksiders 2 has a special place with me.

GHG: You just had to stir up those feels again, didn’t you? What’d you think of E3 this year?

Carberg: I’m not ready to commit to a new console yet, so I actually tried to ignore it! I’m still playing catch-up on my PS3, 360, and my Game Boy Advance SP.

GHG: The GBA SP is so good! I wish it’d had a few more years just to itself before the DS came out. Are you playing anything on it?

Carberg: Final Fantasy V, mostly. I’m also playing Fallout: New Vegas.

GHG: FF5 has one of my favorite title/intro sequences of all-time. Good choice! Anyone you want to say hi to or sites you want to plug?

Carberg: Hello to all of my THQ homies! Also, please check out my work at www.laurelc.net, Facebook, and Tumblr.

GHG: Thanks so much again for taking time out of your day to do this. I wish you the best with the Kickstarter project, and can’t wait to see more of your art. Stay cool!

Carberg: Thank you!

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Review: Electronic Super Joy (PC, 2013)

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Indie games have become one of the best and only ways for players to experience classic genres with modern design sensibilities. Over the past decade, they have gone from barely discoverable titles on the fringes to being featured right alongside the big triple-A blockbusters at industry shows and events. At E3 this past June, it was not uncommon to hear someone talking about Batman: Arkham Knight or The Legend of Zelda and in the same breath express equal excitement over No Man’s Sky and Ori and the Blind Forest. 

Medium-sized publishers — so prolific in the ’90s and ’00s — have all but vanished from the gaming landscape, and in their wake are a huge number of independent game studios. While some have struck deals with major publishers and manufacturers, or been acquired outright, the vast majority of them still self-publish either via their own websites or a digital content delivery service like Steam, Google Play, and the PlayStation Store.

Electronic Super Joy, also available for Mac and Linux (and coming soon for iOS and Android) is the distillation of all the things that make indie gaming so much fun and unique.

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From the moment you launch it, it’s immediately clear that Electronic Super Joy isn’t about being subtle. The title screen hits with a blast of pulsating hot pink and loud trance music. Oh, the music. Before I even talk about the game itself, I have to mention the soundtrack. If you don’t like the techno genre in general, you may want to turn the volume down.

For everyone else, Electronic Super Joy‘s music is absolutely one of its highlights. Composed by enV (pronounced “envy”), the soundtrack does a spectacular job establishing mood, creating tension, and most importantly, getting the player in the zone to conquer. Check it out HERE on Bandcamp.

You’re then met with a rather lengthy warning screen full of exclamation points. There’s something quite liberating and tongue-in-cheek about it, which sets the tone for what is to come. Don’t be too alarmed by it. While there are more than a few obscenities, erotic moaning every time you die, and yes, even battles with a pope, it’s nothing you would ever take seriously. This is a game, after all, about your journey to take revenge on the Groove Wizard for stealing your butt. Yeah, you read that right. And if you are offended, there’s always the PG Rating in the Options menu.

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Anyway, its hilarious story aside, at its core, Electronic Super Joy is a 2D platformer in the tradition of difficult classics like Super Meat Boy and VVVVVV. Games like these thrive on their perfect controls, fantastic design, fast death recoveries, and a beautiful marriage of visuals and audio. They reward dedication and perseverance, precariously teetering on that edge of unfairness… but never losing their balance.

Thankfully, Electronic Super Joy gets all of those things right. Your character controls so well, with predictable jumping arcs and quick turns. Throughout your journey, you’ll acquire and use a wide range of different moves, including a downward smash, double-jumps, flying, wall jumping, and high jumps in reduced gravity environments. Speaking of those environments, slick surfaces, single-use bounce pads, lasers, projectiles, spikes, rotating platforms, heat-seeking rockets, and other dangers are all intent on preventing you from getting to the end of each level.

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The main game is broken down into three worlds comprised of 15 stages apiece. One nice feature is that as you finish a level, you’re immediately taken to the next one. This gives the game a nice flow instead of constantly dropping you back to the level-select screen. This also makes the game feel extremely short as you can, in one sitting, get through an entire world in about an hour.

It’s not just a matter of getting to the end, though. Much like the Bandages in Super Meat Boy, Electronic Super Joy has 22 Stars that are cleverly peppered throughout each world. Getting each Star is one thing, but you then have to survive long enough to make it to the end or the next checkpoint, whichever comes first. Successfully getting all the Stars will unlock a fourth world that will put all of your skills — and possibly your sanity — to the ultimate test. For those who want even more, a Bonus Content Pack and the recently released Groove City standalone sequel are also available.

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Graphically, Electronic Super Joy has a lot more going on than screenshots initially convey. Although the game is primarily done in 2D sprites, there are a lot of 3D elements that add to its aesthetic. Backgrounds have multi-layered, spinning polygonal objects that are often synchronized to the music, producing hypnotic, eye-searing visuals that bring to mind the work of ’90s Amiga demo groups like The Silents, Anarchy, and Spaceballs.

The background graphics are lovely, and they can also be a big part of the gameplay itself. One of Electronic Super Joy‘s earliest levels, “Black and White”, is a great example of the background and foreground becoming one. HERE‘s a video of me playing through it, even though I accidentally take the wrong path at the end.

Characters are small, but they are animated well, and all the NPCs you come across throughout the game have funny, helpful, and sometimes misleading things to say. They happily nod their heads to the beat as you jump from platform to platform, eventually leading you to each world’s fun and bizarre boss challenges.

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I had a great time with Electronic Super Joy. It’s a game that doesn’t take itself seriously at all, but at the same time is a case study in expert platforming design and execution. If you love a good challenge, look no further.

  • Graphics & Presentation: B+
    Simple, consistent 2D/3D graphics, with multi-layered backgrounds, vivid colors, and effective foreground separation. Nice, blocky animated menus. Lots of screen tearing with the internal frame limiter off, but input lag with it on makes the game unplayable. Use external V-sync instead.
  • Music & Sound Effects: A+
    An amazing trance and techno soundtrack by enV that perfectly blends with the game’s visuals. Easily worth purchasing separately. Good sound effects and funny vocals that may get under your skin, but you can thankfully turn them off if you prefer.
  • Gameplay & Controls: A
    Excellent controls do exactly what you want them to do. Great gameplay variety, and the Stars are challenging to obtain. Some of the later levels require a bit too much memorization with almost zero time to react, which can be frustrating even for seasoned genre veterans, but the game maintains fairness throughout.
  • Value: B+
    A short game at about 5 hours, but it’s a decent value for only $7.99. If you go for all the Achievements, however, total playtime will be extended considerably.

Overall: A-

 

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Review: Shovel Knight (PC)

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It only takes a few moments to see influences from NES classics like the Super Mario Bros. series, DuckTales, and the Mega Man series in Shovel Knight‘s DNAYou’ll also be hit with other waves of nostalgia, being reminded of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Konami’s Castlevania series, Sega’s Golden Axe, and other favorites of a bygone era here. Whether references are intentional or not, it’ll feel like the late-’80s again, and in all the best ways possible.

Now, retro-style games have become rather cliched in recent years. The style is very popular for indie and mobile titles, and while I understand the opinion that not utilizing the latest cutting-edge graphic technologies doesn’t move things forward, I personally love it. It’s fascinating to see what modern artists are capable of pulling off with big pixels and limited color palettes. It’s that whole mentality of doing more with less that can potentially yield results even more impressive than the latest blockbuster on the newest consoles. Yes, I love the way Muramasa Rebirth looks on the Vita, but I can equally appreciate the lovingly crafted spritework in Daisuke Amaya’s Cave Story. Don’t let the 8-bit style turn you off, though; Shovel Knight‘s graphics are superb — borderline 16-bit at times as the best 8-bit games were — and animation is detailed, smooth, and brimming with character.

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The same can be said about music in games. While I absolutely loved the work of Gustavo Santaolalla in The Last of Us — one of my all-time favorite PS3 games — I equally enjoy what Jake Kaufman and Manami Matsumae have done here in Shovel Knight. Much like oldschool graphics, music that has to be created without the use of real instruments and limited sound channels often produce stunning compositions that transcend the technology itself. One of Shovel Knight‘s first tracks, “Strike the Earth! (Plains of Passage)”, is so inspired and sounds like it could have leaped from the very best of the 8-bit era. In fact, so much of Shovel Knight is of the highest quality that if it had actually come out during the NES era, it would no doubt be regarded as one of the best games of all-time.

The graphics and music are indeed terrific, and Shovel Knight shines in the gameplay department  as well. Its closest relatives would be Castlevania and DuckTales; just think of your shovel as Simon Belmont’s whip or Uncle Scrooge’s cane. Mechanically, it works quite similarly in terms of being a short-ranged melee weapon and a tool for bouncing on enemies and other environmental obstacles. However, chalk it up to the influence of modern gaming to have the greatest effect where it matters most: controls. Shovel Knight‘s controls are perfect, and I can’t think of a single death that occurred because the controls weren’t responsive enough or didn’t do what I wanted. Tight controls (or lack thereof) will make or break platform games, and to its credit, Shovel Knight absolutely hits the nail on the head in this regard.

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At its heart, Shovel Knight is a tried and true action platformer with some RPG overtones in terms of armor, weapon, and subweapon upgrades, each having their own set of strengths and weaknesses. Levels are long, and full of branching pathways and hidden alcoves. Discovering them is a joy, and much of Shovel Knight‘s challenge is in finding them all. Writing is also a strong point, with excellent dialogue and a surprisingly poignant and personal story. I had goosebumps by the game’s final scenes, which is a testament to the developer giving every facet of Shovel Knight equal attention.

There are modern conveniences like auto-saving and numerous level checkpoints, but Yacht Club Games changes things up a bit to make its death and continue system have actual consequence. I think one of the game’s neatest feature is how you are given the option to destroy the various level checkpoints. By doing so, you’ll collect extra treasures, but as a result, you’ll no longer be able to continue from that point if you die. This creates scenarios where you have to make it through an entire level in one life or be sent back to the very beginning.

Keeping the checkpoints in place doesn’t give you a free pass, though. Dying separates you from a good chunk of your loot, and if you want it back, you’ll have to collect it from where you died, which is sometimes impossible depending on where exactly you bit the bullet. This is a nice change from most modern games, where death carries with it no ramifications.

The one area of the game that feels slightly undercooked are a few of the boss fights. They are all beautiful to look at and have interesting and learnable attack patterns, but many of them can be defeated rather easily on your first attempt. Being able to carry multiple items that fully refill your health and magic meters further diminishes the challenge if you choose to utilize them. In some cases, though, I appreciated these battles being a little easier after taking a serious beating through some of the level trials preceding them.

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Between all of the great action are these wonderful, quiet moments full of reflective calm and other surprises. They’re a great inclusion that very much reminded me of Golden Axe‘s intermission campfire scenes where you can stock up on health and magic potions. However, these brilliantly build a strong bond between the game’s key characters in haunting and meaningful ways. I always looked forward to these after defeating one of the game’s bosses.

The game’s achievements, or “Feats” as they’re called here, are definitely worth mentioning. There are some truly challenging ones that will give trophy hunters a run for their money, extending the life of the game for those who want to extract the most out of it. A number of them run completely opposite to one another, so don’t expect to get them all in one shot. Speaking of the game’s length, it took me about 7 hours to finish it the first time (the in-game clock had me at around 6 hours and 40 minutes), and even though I took my time, I only found about 65% of the game’s hidden Music Sheets, which unlock music tracks inside an in-game sound test. There were also some other important items I missed along the way, so the game definitely will take more than one playthrough to see and do everything.

Not only that, but a New Game+ mode is also included, which ups the challenge for those seeking a more difficult playthrough, but lets you keep all your upgrades from your first time through.

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And last but not least, I have to point out the game’s humor. I mentioned earlier that the writing in the game is excellent, and while that applies to Shovel Knight‘s serious dialogue, it equally enhances the more lighthearted exchanges as well. It’s full of puns and other high-energy, exclamation point-filled zingers that make all of the NPCs interesting to talk to.

Shovel Knight is a special game. It represents the pinnacle of 8-bit sensibilities with the refinements of modern game design, wrapped up in a beautiful package that will remind you of all the things that drew you to videogames in the first place. Also available for the Nintendo Wii U and 3DS, Shovel Knight is not to be missed and is an easy contender for Game of the Year.

  • Graphics & Presentation: A+
    Beautifully drawn sprites, gorgeous backgrounds with multi-plane parallax scrolling, and some giant screen-filling enemies. 60fps with no screen tearing, even at its highest resolutions.
  • Music & Sound Effects: A+
    A superb soundtrack by Jake Kaufman, with nods to many 8-bit classics. Contributions by original Mega Man composer Manami Matsumae are a welcome treat. Excellent sound effects bring the action to vivid life.
  • Gameplay & Controls: A
    Perfect, fluid controls make Shovel Knight a delight to play, with tons of hidden areas to find. Fun platforming with all sorts of environmental hazards to contend with. Very unique continue system. Some bosses provide little challenge.
  • Value: A-
    A pretty quick game at about 7 hours or so, but New Game+ and a slew of Feats and hidden items will keep you playing for a long time if you want everything the game has to offer.

Overall: A+

 

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Happy Fourth of July!

GHG will be back on Monday, but I just wanted to wish everyone a fun and safe holiday weekend. We’ll be checking out the fireworks show here during the Fort Dalles Fourth, the first in over 25 years!

I plan on getting caught up on a few games over the weekend as well, including Pokemon X (3DS), Nier (PS3), and Shovel Knight (PC).

 

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I’m about 15 hours into Game Freak’s Pokemon X — this being one of the first games in the series I’ve ever put any time into — and I’m enjoying it.

There’s something irresistible about these cute and unique monsters, figuring out what skills to keep or replace, seeing what each monster evolves into, and understanding the various characteristics of all the Pokemon in this world. As a relative newbie, I’m still rather overwhelmed by the complexity and variety on display here. Just keeping tabs on what Pokemon I’ve caught and organizing them feels like a game in and of itself. The satisfaction of whittling down a Pokemon’s health and capturing it in a Poke Ball is also pretty great.

I’m particularly impressed with Pokemon X‘s soundtrack. I was expecting a standard and light set of tunes, but there have been many times where I’ve just sat there and listened to the catchy music found all over Kalos, like the “Gate Theme”, which is just so good.

Some things about the game annoy me, like how it can be a bit difficult to position your character to speak to NPCs, or the slow pace of battles even with the animations turned off. On the flipside, the game is very pretty, and small touches — like how you physically bend down to talk to children — show great attention to detail that give the game its unique charm.

Even though I’ve put a decent amount of time into Pokemon X, I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. This is the kind of game I could easily see myself sinking many, many hours into, like I did with one of my favorite Nintendo DS RPGs several years ago, Dragon Quest IX.

 

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I just started Cavia’s Nier a few days ago, and only have a couple hours logged. It’s a game I’ve had in my backlog since 2012, and after being urged by a friend to play it for at least the past year, I decided to finally give it a shot.

From the beginning, I didn’t think I’d make it past the intro. The game suffers from sub-par visuals and a combat system that — at least initially — feels simplistic and repetitive. The first battle in Nier seems to take forever, and for a moment, I thought I was doing something wrong.

I wasn’t feeling much better a little later, as the game’s inhabitants were perfectly happy to send me on countless, mindless fetch quests. However, after I played through and finished the first dungeon — including the first boss — I started feeling differently.

There’s a lot going on in Nier, with many ideas borrowed from genres you wouldn’t think have any place in an action RPG like this, but nevertheless, they’re in here and they work quite well. The story is interesting, which is elevated by some pretty good voice acting. It was certainly better than I was expecting, with the title character Nier and your early sidekick Grimoire Weiss having solid performances.

So far, Nier is proving to be better than I was expecting, and even though it has numerous flaws that can’t be ignored, I find myself compelled to play it, and that’s what’s most important: that a game be fun.

 

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Finally, there’s Yacht Club Games’ Shovel Knight, which I just wrote about yesterday. Having put around 4 hours into it so far, I’m about halfway through. It’s just a fantastic platforming adventure with so much to do.

Challenge and difficulty feel just right, although if you are not used to playing side-scrolling games like this that have limited continue points and other consequences for dying, it might initially feel punishing. It’s not Mega Man or Ninja Gaiden levels of punishing, but players just wanting to quickly fly through the game to see its ending will be met with a quick demise. In fact, many rooms are designed in such a way that you’ll take a hit and usually fall to your death — or at least get knocked back to the previous screen — if you just run in blind.

I can’t say enough about how good the game looks and sounds. Art and animation are of the highest quality, backgrounds have a ton of detail, and the music gets in your head and stays there. Jake Kaufman, with some contributions by original Mega Man composer Manami Matsumae, outdoes himself here. “La Danse Macabre”, a song that will bring to mind a very popular vampire-slaying series on the NES, is one of many standout musical pieces in what is already an amazing soundtrack.

Shovel Knight would have to seriously pull the rug out from under me at this point to fail. What a game!

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Shovel Knight: 8-bit Perfection

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I’m only about an hour into Yacht Club Games’ Shovel Knight, but I already know this will be one of my favorites of 2014.

Successfully funded on Kickstarter in early 2013, the final product is nothing short of stunning. I actually feel bad that I wasn’t able to contribute to its campaign last year — I was in the middle of moving and changing jobs at the time — but something tells me I’ll be buying at least a couple different versions of it before all is said and done.

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Available for the PC, 3DS, and Wii U, Shovel Knight is a prime example of balancing childhood nostalgia with streamlined, modern design. It looks good in screenshots, but it truly comes to life in motion, with multi-plane parallax scrolling that was more common in the 16-bit generation, although there were several 8-bit games that did make use of this technique. Whether it’s accurate or not doesn’t matter; it looks terrific.

Use of color, art direction, and character animation are all top-notch and pop off the screen. There aren’t any artificial graphic filters here, so the sprites are crisp with every last square pixel shining through beautifully, exactly how I like it.

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There’s a surprisingly personal story intermixed with the game’s humorous presentation, and the writing throughout is superb. You won’t find any badly translated text in Shovel Knight, although who knows? There might be some later for nostalgia’s sake.

Then there’s the soundtrack, which is also mind-bogglingly good. You can listen to and buy it for any price HERE, and they even offer the original NES .NSF file download for free. Talk about going above and beyond.

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Even this early on, there’s so much good stuff happening. Talking to the quirky townsfolk uncovers all sorts of useful information and helpful hints, hidden areas, mini-games, a music player, and upgrades.

The actual stages are full of dangerous enemies, tiny platforms, and fun challenges that take some planning if you’re going to collect every gem strewn throughout each screen. With such intuitive, responsive controls, playing through Shovel Knight has been an absolute joy so far.

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I’m going to go out on a limb (but not really) by predicting that I’ll be giving this game an A — if not an A+ — by the time I’m done with it. There are certain games where you can just tell within a short time playing it. This is one of those games.

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Backlog Blitz: The games of June 2014

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June hurt. A lot. Although I didn’t spend a lot of money ($63.75), I only finished 2 games worth $20.00. With the year already halfway over, heading into July with only a +2 advantage isn’t the most positive of omens. Let’s hope the rest of the year turns things around! Anyway, the format, as with previous updates, is Game Title (Platform, Purchase Price, Play Time).

Games purchased (-9, $63.75 spent):

  1. 20140701_lego_cityLego City Undercover (Wii U, $5.00)
    The Lego games — and the work of Traveller’s Tales in general — have been hit or miss with me in the past, but I’ve heard great things about this one. Having played through and thoroughly enjoyed Grand Theft Auto V earlier this year, I’m eager to try this, a more family-friendly open-world action game.
  2. Picross e4 (3DS, $6.00)
    This was mainly a purchase for my wife, who loves all things Picross. I didn’t even know that these eShop versions existed until I just happened upon them while browsing through the store a few weeks ago. So far, a thumbs-up from her, so things are looking good!
  3. Aban Hawkins & the 1001 Spikes (Wii U, $6.50)
    Nicalis is one of my favorite indie developer/publishers — responsible for the excellent 3DS versions of Cave Story and VVVVVV — and it didn’t take much beyond its weird trailer to convince me that I’d be buying this on day one. Just started it, and it’s fantastic.
  4. NES Remix 2 (Wii U, $10.00)
    After giving the first NES Remix a second chance, I ended up really liking it, so picking up the second one was a no-brainer. Game selection looks better, and there are a number of changes and improvements to it that should make it an even more enjoyable trip down memory lane.
  5. Far Cry 3 (PC, $7.50)
    And then came the Steam Summer Sale, which unfortunately accounts for this and most of the remaining games below. I’ve never played any of the Far Cry games, but I’ve heard really good things about this particular installment. The trailer shown at E3 for Far Cry 4 looked intriguing, so I might as well get educated on what this series is all about.
  6. 20140701_far_cry_3_bdFar Cry 3: Blood Dragon (PC, $3.75)
    A total impulse buy, I have no idea what this is about, except that everyone who has played it says it’s one of the coolest things from 2013. Looks like it’s chock-full of ’80s and 16-bit nostalgia, so that sounds like it’s right up my alley.
  7. New Super Luigi U (Wii U, $17.50)
    I’ve been waiting for a good price on the retail version of this New Super Mario Bros. U DLC, and I finally found one. The original game was one of my favorites on the Wii U, and is up there with New Super Mario Bros. Wii as my favorite of the “New” series.
  8. Spelunky (PC, $3.75)
    Took me a while to finally buy this, and the Steam Sale made it possible for a great price. I played a good chunk of the non-HD version years ago, so I’m looking forward to losing myself in this enhanced version.
  9. BattleBlock Theater (PC, $3.75)
    Another impulse purchase based on a friend’s recommendation. It’s a platformer by The Behemoth (Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers), which sounds like a winning combination to me!

Games finished (+2, $20.00 value):

  1. 20140701_nes_remixNES Remix (Wii U, $15.00, 15 hrs.)
    Although I still can’t get over how bad the controls are in games like Ice Climber, Urban Champion, and the original Mario Bros. (non-Super), this is still a great compilation that will make you look at the NES era in entirely new ways. I’m glad I gave it another chance, because I ended up really enjoying it. Overall: B+ (Review Link)
  2. DuckTales (NES, $5.00, 4 hrs.)
    This is a short game, but it’ll definitely take you several playthroughs to extract everything there is out of it. But even after that, you’ll likely come back for more. This is a unique, fun platformer that proudly does its license justice. Good graphics, great music, fun gameplay, and nonlinear level design. Overall: B+ (Review Link)

And with that, we head into the second half of 2014! If E3 is any indicator, it’s going to take some serious willpower to make it through the rest of the year in positive territory.

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