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There’s Poop in My Soup (Mac): COMPLETED!

Posted on 02/07/2016 Written by deKay

Yes, the game is really called that. Yes, you can defecate in someone’s soup. You can also do it on their heads. And on dogs. And everywhere. That’s the idea.

It’s a totally stupid concept but since it was just 52 pence (in fact, less than that as I had some free credit) on Steam I bought it, played it a lot, poo’d everywhere, got all the achievements, and have now classed it as completed.

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Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse (3DS): COMPLETED!

Posted on 02/07/2016 Written by deKay

The original Shantae on the Game Boy Colour (which I played on the 3DS VC not that long ago) was a lovely little platformer with some slight issues: it was very, very hard, and there was a lot of backtracking and wandering aimlessly. I really enjoyed it, but I was a little concerned the followups were going to have the same problems. Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse does not, I was pleased to discover.

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse — Maximum Spider

I picked the game up as part of that Nintendo Humble Bundle a while back and now I’ve played it I can say it’s a definite highlight of that pack. It looks incredible, especially in 3D, and fixes all of issues of the original game. There’s backtracking, but there’s an item that warps you to the start of each area and several upgrades and shortcuts you can use to speed around the place. It’s not exactly easy, especially the final area on the way to the end of game boss, but it is substantially more accessible than the GBC title. Baddies don’t take hundreds of hits, and those that do can be dispatched easier if you buy the available upgrades in the shop. I found that many could be defeated more easily later in the game using extra moves I’d unlocked too.

These moves, like a dash, a triple jump and a down-attack also turn Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse into a Metroidvania type platformer, even more so than the (no longer available) animal morphs of the original, allowing access to new areas. There’s even a fill-in-all-the-squares Castlevania style map, and an dungeon filled with skeletons which apes Castlevania even more. As before, your hair is your weapon, and is basically a whip anyway!

Hidden around the game, some more difficult to find and/or reach than others, are evil cacklebats, each corrupted by Dark Magic. A side quest, to unlock the “proper” ending, is to defeat all 20 of these creatures. I managed it although finding two of them took ages! There are also hidden squid which, when you collect four, gives you an extra health heart. I didn’t get them all, but they’re not important for the story.

My only (tiny) disappointment with Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse was that each area borrows very heavily from areas in the first game, with most of the baddies from that returning. Yes, they’re redrawn and look incredible, but they’re the same as they were before. There are a few new ones, and it doesn’t really matter anyway. The bosses are all new (bar one, who literally tells you he’s a filler boss now, having returned from a previous game) and they’re all fun to beat.

Definitely one of Wayforward’s best games, although most of their output is pretty special. I’m really interested in playing their HD remake of the DSi Shantae game now too!

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Battlefield 4 (PS4): COMPLETED!

Posted on 29/06/2016 Written by deKay

No sooner had I posted about playing Battlefield 4, did I complete it. I literally had just ten minutes of game left, and that didn’t even involve any combat. Of course, the credits were a hundred years long afterwards.

My thoughts on the game are this: It’s aight.

There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with it. It’s a straightforward, mostly linear shootmans with lots of swearing and some big set pieces. The voice acting is OK, the gunplay is fine, and the controls are perfectly usable (even if I do keep getting L1 and R1 mixed up and drop grenades at my feet). It even looks quite pretty.

Ultimately though, it’s not really my sort of game. I enjoyed it enough to keep playing until the end, but upon doing so I didn’t feel like I’d played anything groundbreaking or important, I’d merely been passing the time until it was over and now I’ll move onto something else.

I understand the multiplayer is fantastic. I wouldn’t know as I’ve no intention of playing it – I dislike most online shootmans more than most offline shootmans. Now the question is, should I start on Battlefield Hardline?

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The Temple of No (Mac): COMPLETED!

Posted on 28/06/2016 Written by deKay

Well, I say Mac, but in fact it’s a web browser game built in TWINE. It’s a narrative discovery game in the same sort of vein as Gone Home and Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist, the latter of which is by the same people.

As it’s TWINE, and therefore basically a text medium choose your own adventure, it isn’t as technically impressive as those other games. The story is fun, self referential and sarcastic. It’s short, I’m not sure it’s possible to not complete it (unless you just quit, I suppose), but it’s definitely worth a play. And it’s free, so you’ve no excuse. You can find it here.

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Kirby: Planet Robobot (3DS): COMPLETED!

Posted on 21/06/2016 Written by deKay

You know, I hadn’t even realised Kirby: Planet Robobot was out already, and then I got it as a Father’s Day present. And it’s only bloody excellent.

I know some recent-ish Kirby games have been a step away from the normal “inhale baddies, copy their abilities” model of old, so I was a little worried Planet Robobot might be similar, especially as the core addition is Kirby’s new mech suit. I needn’t have worried though, as this is proper Kirby – and when in the mech? It’s still proper Kirby.

Happy colourful levels with definitely Kirby-sounding music mixes with metallic surfaces and robots, but it’s clearly a standard Kirby game. There are multiple (usually two, sometimes more) planes of play, with Kirby popping into and out of the screen in fantastic 3D, but this just adds to the game rather than change anything fundamental. Some puzzles (mostly to obtain Core Cubes, needed to unlock boss levels) use this fore- and background swapping to great effect.

The levels themselves are pretty big, although with 6 worlds (and a final boss fight 7th world) and just 4 or 5 levels in each it isn’t a large game overall. At least, I thought that until I’d beaten the game and two more modes unlocked! One of which is to play a modified “remix” of the game again, only as Meta Knight, who doesn’t have any copy ability nor does he have a mech suit. That will make some of the mini boss fights interesting!

The game itself was incredibly good fun. I raced through it in just a few days mainly because it was so much fun I couldn’t put it down. Sure, it isn’t difficult either (I died maybe five times in total, ending the game with over 40 lives) although getting a few Core Cubes is pretty tricky – I’ve not collected them all so that’s something left to do. My only complaint would be in the SuckySuck(TM) Bit at the end where there’s a Boss Rush (albeit with a powered up suit which makes short work of them all) and then the final boss has a multitude of additional forms. Not hard, so not frustrating, but a bit clichéd.

Best Kirby game in ages. Probably since the SNES Kirby’s Dreamland 3, in fact.

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