Great games with flaws

So lately I've been playing two games with most of the free time that I have, and a few other games on the side as well. I'll cover the other games I've been less time into first, before delving deep into my thoughts regarding the two important games for this blog. I'll warn you now, this is probably going to be another one of my lengthy blogs, seeing as how I haven't posted on here in quite some time. I mean, do you know how much time a person can put into multiple video games over the course of over a month? It will become clear in the next few paragraphs. And just to be clear, that's not to say I've been lazy. I work 3 to 5 days a week (not nearly as much as I'd like, but it's a job), and with the rest of the time I've had I've been either spending time with my family or studying for the GRE. I finally took the GRE today, and am going to spend the next day or so relaxing with some games, and then it's back to grind, actually applying to the grad schools. And if I find that my GRE scores aren't high enough, it's back to studying to take it again.

Anyways, I don't know where to begin, so I'm going to just throw a game out there that I've been playing, being New Super Mario Bros. Wii. I'm halfway through world 7 so far, and while I haven't played it in about two weeks or so, I was managing about one world a day. I found it to be quite a bit of fun, and makes me happy that Nintendo finally made another sidescrolling console Mario game. Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3 are some of my all time favorite games, and so it was a nice throwback to the good old days of platforming. And the difficulty and pacing is well laid out. I had heard in reviews that the game is pretty easy up until the last world, but I disagree. Nintendo did a great job making sure each world is varied with difficulty, and not every level has to be played (though obviously I'm playing as many as I can). Even better, they added multiple exits to levels. I'll probably never find all the exits and collect all the large golden coins, but it's a nice feature to throw in there for gamers who want replayability. And I'm not going to go into multiplayer, that makes the game really interesting.

I could be flying through that game much more quickly, but honestly, the game would get boring to me. That's unfortunate, since I've never grown bored with a sidescrolling Mario game before. But the good news is that whenever I got bored with NSMBW, I would pop in Super Mario Galaxy 2, and continue to get my Mario fix. Yeah, yeah, I was going to save SMG2 for a later date, when I finally finished other games. But I thought to myself, what's the pointing in saving a great game when I have plenty of other games I can play down the line, and many other great games will be released (and acquired in some way)? There are good things and bad things to the game. The good news is that the game is mostly designed for Super Mario Galaxy veterans. The game doesn't hold one's hand for very long, and to me it feels as though they developers assume that the player has played the first one. To me that's nice, since the difficulty level starts at about a level 2 to 3 out of 10, instead of a basic level 1 for the beginning of the first game. The problem with doing this, is that most of the new abilities are thrown at the player right away. Within just a few worlds, almost all new abilities have been seen. It just feels like a lot to take in, even though I know they're doing it just to get the "tutorials" out of the way. That way the player already knows how to use all of the abilities, and they can throw the abilities into earlier and earlier levels. It's a give and take situation. I'm only about 15 stars into the game, and will be playing much more of it after a finish the games I'm playing now.

I also purchased (used of course) Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Wii, since a friend wanted to play online together, and I fell in love with the original console version. This one seems like it's taking most of the best aspects of the previous two versions and combining them. It's a fun game to waste time on, but unfortunately doesn't have much to pull the player back into, besides collecting cool Nintendo items for the house. I've only paid off the first two mortgages, and have another 50,000 bells left to pay for this one. Then Nook will once again add onto my house without my permission, and assume that I will pay him for it. Bastard.

Okay, enough with the side games, people want to know what I've been sinking my teeth into. So I'll start with the game that I've actually already finished. Once I acquired my SNES, a friend highly recommended a game called Illusion of Gaia. He said that it's like a Zelda game, but made by Enix. Since it was cheap I picked it up, and immediately fell in love with it. That was before the game annoyed me. Yes, a great game with obvious flaws.

The combat in the game is awesome. It's basically the same as any top down viewed Zelda game (LttP, LA, etc.), but you are rewarded for killing all of the enemies in the "room." I say "room" because the game actually means area. When inside a dungeon, this means clearing out all enemies on the floor, even if they're on a ledge above the character. This is a unique feature because in Zelda, you just gain health by finding heart pieces or by killing a boss. Your sword gains power by upgrading it, as does your shield. But in Illusion of Gaia, one does not upgrade their sword and does not have a shield (not in the literal sense, I won't go into the shielding of the game - it's critical in some areas, but can be ignored for the sake of this conversation), and actually receives jack squat for defeating a boss, save for the usual "special required item (! /sarcasm)." The game forces one to defeat enemies to level up. The level up acquired from beating all the enemies in a room is either extra strenth, extra defense, or extra health. Yes, that means extra health to the health bar, right then in there. And from what I've seen, it's totally random what is received (though maybe not, I doubt you can randomly get all the health upgrades or strength upgrades at the beginning of the game, but it feels like it's random). But for all those people out there who just can't standing fighting in a Zelda type game, then when you get to the end of the game, you're out of luck if you have low health. I'm happy to find a game that forces the player to fight through each and every room, and rewards the player for going out of their way to find each and every enemy in an area. I don't know if I killed every enemy in the game, but I know I at least had a full health bar when I fought the last boss, so I must have gotten almost all of them.

"Man, he really enjoys this game, so what can the flaws be?" I'm sure you're thinking that, and it's unfortunate that the flaws are in this game, because this game could have been excellent, standing right next to LttP. But Enix made this game, and not Nintendo. I'm not sure how the Dragon Warrior games are, but the story in this game just sucks. I mean, it's actually overly convoluted at some points, when the overall plot is so basic! Boy's dad goes missing a year ago. Comet thing is hurdling towards Earth. Boy must find out what happened to father, and stop the comet. PERIOD. That's the extent of the plot. You could say the same about LttP: Boy wakes up. Princess needs help. Bad man wants to take over. Bad man takes over. Boy must stop him. Period. The difference is that the storytelling in LttP is phenominal, as are most of the Zelda games out there (even the crappy ones!). IoG just drags on, and on, and on....and on....and on...and then drags on further, just like this sentence is running on. Most games try to avoid sequences like this, as they are very hard to play out as fun. But that's not to say they're impossible! Chrono Trigger did these types of scenes extremely well (*cough*Square!*cough*Enixbuyout?*cough* sorry, something I had to get out...of my throat). But IoG has a few of these scenes, and the text is just painful. Not only are the conversations dull and pointless (and point out the obvious), but they take away from the story.

And yet, I can think of more good things the game does! Like I said, the game is great but just has flaws. This time, I speak of unexpected moments. There was a moment about three quarters through the game, where something occured, and it brought a smile to my face. What I saw actually made me happy to see in the game. Most games cannot evoke a sense of happiness or any emotion out of me (besides happiness in having fun, but that's different). Not ten seconds later, something else happened that made my jaw drop. It was the shock effect that the scene had on me. Enix did something that I don't think I've ever seen in a game, and while it was quite unexpected, it was neat. So bravo Enix (now part of Square, now SquareEnix, Squeenix, whatever), that scene was great. The end of the game was unexpected and hilarious as well. Seriously Enix?! Wow.

I'm done talking about Illusion of Gaia. Maybe one day I'll remember something from the game (like the fantasic music, btw) and throw it in a post on here. But I want to talk about Assassin's Creed. Oh how I love AC right now! AC is a game that stands by itself, but is not a game that is revolutionary. I feel like I've played a game just like it, and yet the two could not be more different.

I speak of Crackdown. The two games are so similar they could be brothers. Except, these brothers are totally different. In both games, the player scales walls and buildings, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, and basically avoiding the ground as much as possible. The player is a natural killer, and has multiple ways of killing enemies. There are many enemies across the map, though there is one main enemy that must be killed. This main enemy, however, can be killed in any way the player sees fit. One can confront the enemy from any angle they so choose, and can even choose the order in which they so choose to kill these special enemies. Scattered across the map are items to acquire, hidden on rooftops, alcoves on the ground, and hard to find places. Like I said, these games could be brothers. But in each of these examples, the games are totally different.

In Crackdown, the player is a beefed up cop, who can take bullets, jump hundreds of feet, and basically not feel pain. He's got speed, power and agility up the wazoo. Btw, did you know that wazoo is actually a real word on here? I'll have to look up the exact meaning of it later, now I'm curious. But back to the topic. Altiar, the character in AC, is less about strength and more about cunning. He jumps across rooftops with realism and moves realistically through the environments. While walking through crowds, he bumps into every person who touches him, but on command can push and wade his way through crowds, making sure not to startle or upset anyone. Instead of just the basic walk or run, Altiar can also sprint and walk slowly, blending in with the crowd. This makes things semi-realistic as well. When running guards notice Altair, though don't care much. When sprinting, they are suspicious and put their hand on their sword, just in case something occurs. Though when blending in, Altair looks just like another monk, and guards will not recognize him...that is, unless he's just killed a dozen guards nearby and have many more guards pursuing him. Then he must move faster than them for them to fall behind and lose his trail, or for him to get out of their view, and hide somewhere when they can't see where he's gone. Okay, so this is very unrealistic, seeing five guards all walking around a haystack, and can actually hear them saying "Where did he go?!" Yeah, they're idiots.

But the controls work out so well most of the time. I say most of the time, because it can be very frustrating running towards a ladder, and Altiar misses it, tries running up a wall with not holds, and comes back down right into the guards hands. Not that fighting them is a pain. I've taken on a dozen of them at one time with my sword no problem, but running is much more fun. Plus, I have things to do! I don't want to waste all my time fighting, knowing that I'm just gonna have to run again after I kill all of them. The worst I saw is when I got behind a ladder, and Altiar actually started climbing it from the wrong side! As funny as it was (and props to the developers for letting the player actually do something that is possible in real life), it was very annoying.

But I digress, those are minor occurrences. Most of the time things play out smoothly. There is nothing like jumping rooftop to rooftop, sneaking up behind an unsuspecting guard, and assassinating him. No guards alerted, and I go on my way. Assassinations can also be done in broad daylight in largely populated areas, with guards right in the thick of things. Seeing a dead body in front of them, however, will alert the guards, and will immediately start looking around for the culprit. Once again, nothing like completing a side mission of assassinating a certain guard, slowly walking away from the scene down a side alley, and actually hearing another guard behind me yell "Who did this?!" This game makes you feel like the ultimate badass assassin...and it's the first game in the series! The reviews have only gotten better for each one, so I'm excited to see what the second one does better than the first. And wallclimbing is not as dumbed down as many people believe. Yes, you don't choose exactly where you want to grab, but the game does an amazing job of going in the direction that the player points. And the game is so realistic to show Altiar grabbing each and every spot on the walls and windows that need to be grabbed to look realistic, and does the same with the footholds.

I really wish I could explain more about how cool AC really is, and how it makes me feel like a badass (in the game obviously). I personally believe that most people who like Crackdown would like AC as well. But who knows. Now off to do more side jobs to learn about my next victim and how to kill them, and then it's time to do some assassinating.