ugvm — Page 395 — the site of uk.games.video.misc

LA Noire: completed!

Posted on 24/12/2013 Written by Xexyz

I had only a few missions to complete in that game, it turns out, all of which involved hunting down various corrupt officials and getting them to talk.

I think that shooting him in the leg was probably a bit excessive, but as I said previously the game has taken control of my character's actions in order to progress the story. This has just got worse as the game's progressed - it's not longer merely Phelps being over-zealous in questioning; it's now Kelso shooting people during cutscenes.

Still, at least I get to drive between these and watch people being shifty.

The endgame saw me exploring a creepy dilapidated house, in which a madman had been holed up. The game carefully told you that he was mad several times, before showing him folding origami cranes over and over again. Finding these in the house was quite a shock.

The final missions turned into a run-and-gun cover shooter, with the madman seemingly able to convince dozens of men to lay down their lives just to keep me away from him. Naturally, that didn't work, but it was pretty tense, running around the sewer systems and popping out to shoot people. It felt pretty familiar in some ways, reminding me of gameplay in Red Dead Redemption.

I finally found the flamethrower man, who turned out to be someone that Phelps and Kelso had served with. Funny that all the main characters turned out to be linked in some way, given the size of the city the game's set in.

And then the end of the game sees Rockstar killing off the main character again, but this time I have little sympathy left for him - even after he helped to save everyone else.

After the credits, you can go back and play in free roam mode, which means that you no longer need to worry about how much damage you cause when driving. I enjoyed that, and ended up with some amusing accidents.

Overall, a great game, but the story was crowbarred in a little, which spoilt the interactivity somewhat. I hope a sequel could improve on that.

LA Noire: am I overly moralistic?

Posted on 22/12/2013 Written by Xexyz

Games, as interactive experiences, put the player into the character they control. The player determines how the character progresses, whether they succeed, and how they act. This, of course, is a challenge to game scriptwriters, who have to determine how players can all get to the same ending no matter how they behave. Some games get this more right than others.

I've mentioned before about how I feel uncomfortable playing certain games - Bulletstorm, for example, didn't keep my interest as I felt that the characters were unlikable. I've played around half an hour of Gears of War before tiring of the macho idiocy. LA Noire has hit it from a different aspect, however. For the first couple of sets of levels, there's not too much of a running story, other than an up-and-coming policeman getting promoted. By the time you start on the Vice Desk, however, there's a much grander story happening, and Cole Phelps - your character - gets a little too involved. The end of the vice desk cases sees Phelps exposed as an adulterer.

So no matter how I play the game, whether I stop at red lights, I am forced to play the part of an adulterer. My character gets thrown out of his home and demoted, whether that's how I was acting or not. It's a sudden break in the immersion which is entirely unwelcome.

Anyway, I've done a few cases on the Arson Desk now and I feel the game's coming to a head. I'm no longer playing as Phelps - probably just as well since I have no empathy with him - but he's cropping up from time to time. Maybe I can complete this soon ...

NES Remix (Wii U)

Posted on 22/12/2013 Written by deKay

Well this was a lovely surprise from Nintendo. No idea it was coming at all, and then suddenly at the end of last week’s Nintendo Direct, Iwata went all Apple and said “Take a look at this…” and “It’s available now!”.

There used to be a game called Game Centre Challenge, which had longer-than-Wario-Ware but still short challenges based on retro games. Except those retro games didn’t actually exist – they were fake retro styled titles. This is real, with real NES games replacing the not-real NES game clones. And, I believe, it’s by the same developers.

You’re given a set of NES titles, broken down into short challenges. Like, collect 20 coins in Mario before the time runs out. Or smash 5 barrels in Donkey Kong. Or beat the first boss in Zelda without losing any health. You’re rated up to three stars depending on how fast and well you manage this, and as you gain stars you unlock more games and challenges.

In addition to the breakdown of old games into what is essentially boot camp for game skills, there are various remix levels which make things different. Like, how about playing Mario like an endless runner? Or Ice Climber with just a spot of light following you, while everywhere else is dark? Or Pinball with invisible flippers? Or Donkey Kong as Link instead of Mario – and Link can’t jump?

Also as you play, you get some sort of score called B. I’m sure it’s a reference to a game but I can’t recall which. The symbol is like that for Bitcoins so I’ve been assuming it’s that. Every thousand or so B you obtain, you unlock stamps of characters and other sprites from the games, which you can use in Miiverse to make hilarious (well, mine are hilarious) pictures. I’ve found unlocking these stamps to be more of a draw to play the game than the stars, actually.

I’ve heard there are about 200 challenges in total, so 600 stars up for grabs. I have just 250 so far, but I do have 3 for most of the challenges I’ve attempted. I’ve not got that many Rainbow Stars (for being even better than 3 stars), although I have fully Rainbow Starred all the Pinball challenges.

Scribblenauts Unlimited (Wii U)

Posted on 19/12/2013 Written by deKay

And I’m done! I’ve mopped up the final few shards, and done every single puzzle in the game.

It was a lot of fun too, and just messing around or trying to complete the puzzles the ‘wrong’ way never ceases to entertain.

1000 Heroz: nearly there

Posted on 19/12/2013 Written by Xexyz

Up to day 926 now, and I'm all-but-out of the RLLMUK leaderboard, as Donny Rosco is 40,000 points ahead and while I beat him on most days, that's only gaining me 100 points a day on average. My period of not playing has come back to haunt me.

Most days see me getting a global rank of around 200, which is pleasing. I think at the moment I'm 50th in the world, but there's a fair bit of time still to go.