Post — Page 71

Actual Sunlight (Vita): COMPLETED!

Posted on 02/11/2016 Written by deKay

I’d never even heard of Actual Sunlight, so I was a little surprised to not only find it sat there on my Vita, but also to find myself playing it. Wait, what? A Vita game? Here? With my reputation?

It turns out it was on PS+ a while back. I dived in. Oh god.

When a game starts telling you to commit suicide, you know you’ve made a mistake playing it. Sure, it’s telling your character to do it rather than you the player, but the exposition of Evan Winter’s dreary, dead-end life – with his high tech trinkets that do nothing to make up for his non-existent love life nor his pointless, joyless job – rings a bell for many people, I’m sure.

Go to the roof, and jump off.

Actual Sunlight is a narrative discovery game, following Evan’s mundane activities as he gets up, has a shower, laments his existence, and heads off to work. Or the roof of his apartment building, if you decide to try and end it all. It’s a spoiler to tell you there’s no real choice in the matter, but a one worth spoiling as it’s as much about the journey as it is the destination.

I didn’t enjoy playing it. I don’t think you’re supposed to. Everyone you talk to is miserable, and playing it makes you miserable. Still, it was interesting, I suppose, watching Evan descend seemingly into schizophrenia as he converses with himself, acts out a life he could have had, and ultimately takes himself to the roof after all.

The opening titles warn you that Actual Sunlight deals with difficult and mature issues. I’m not sure it actually deals with them, but they’re certainly represented. Probably best to avoid the game completely if the themes here are likely to cause you distress. An odd choice for Sony to push as a PS+ title, I’d have to say too.

The post Actual Sunlight (Vita): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Gargoyle’s Quest (3DS): COMPLETED!

Posted on 30/10/2016 Written by deKay

Along with some other games (like Year Walk), Gargoyle’s Quest was cheap on the eShop. I don’t know what prompted me to buy it, but this Game Boy classic has always interested me, at least a little due to the plot.

Well, what I knew of the plot – Firebrand, the bad guy gargoyle from Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins, is the protagonist in this part RPG, part platformer set in the demon realm Firebrand comes from. You quest is to defeat the even-more-evil-than-every-other-demon, the King Breager who is going to destroy Firebrand’s world.

How this plays out is surprisingly reminiscent of Zelda II on the NES, with overland travel – where random battles take the form of very short platforming sections – villages to visit, and “dungeons” which are side-scrolling platforming bits of substantial length. Firebrand upgrades his abilities to enable him to hover for longer, jump higher, or allow him to temporarily cling to spiked walls.

Unlike Zelda II, though, it’s actually possible to complete Gargoyle’s Quest, as I proved today when I did so. It is a bit janky (with lots of slowdown in sections), a couple of areas are incredibly frustrating (timing drops past spikes, in particular) and bosses that don’t get harder (the end boss is the easiest in the entire game). It also suffers from terrible dialogue, complete with spelling mistakes.

All that said, it’s a fun little title that was probably excellent when it was released, but hasn’t really aged well. I’m glad I played it though.

The post Gargoyle’s Quest (3DS): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Year Walk (Wii U): COMPLETED!

Posted on 28/10/2016 Written by deKay

It seemed appropriate to play Year Walk, given it is nearly Halloween, and the fact it was very cheap on the eShop helped too.

Year Walk is a graphical adventure game, where you play as a man taking part in the dubious Swedish ritual of Årsgång, a sort of spiritual journey where the participant can supposedly learn about their future. It involves exploring a small map, making note of various shapes and markings, and solving a few simple puzzles.

Oh, and it’s scary. And bizarre. I can’t go too much into it as that’ll spoil the surprises, story and jump-scares the game has to offer, but several events are more than a little disturbing.

Things get even more disturbing after the game has been completed, with secret extras that blur the line between the game and reality. Probably best you don’t play it just before going to bed. Like I did.

I can’t say it was fun, but it was certainly very interesting. And worrying.

The post Year Walk (Wii U): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Pokémon Y (3DS): COMPLETED!

Posted on 25/10/2016 Written by deKay

A brief history of my time playing “main” Pokémon games:

1997: Pocket Monsters Green, a badly translated ROM on a Game Boy emulator. I had returned to university early from a holiday in order to spend a few days revising. Instead, I spent a few days playing Pocket Monsters Green, non-stop, reaching the Elite Four and realising my chosen team were no match for them. I never beat them.

1999: Pokémon Blue, on a Game Boy. I obtained the first 4 gym badges, then stopped playing. I don’t know why.

2001: Pokémon Gold, on a Game Boy Advance. As with Blue, I obtained the first 4 gym badges. Then I stopped playing.

2003: Pokémon Sapphire, on a Game Boy Advance. Once more, after obtaining the first 4 gym badges, I stopped playing.

2016: Pokémon Y, on a New 3DS. Completed!

After the earlier false starts, I’d given up on playing any more in the series because I assumed they’d all go the same way. After 13 years, however, and my 7 year old daughter wanting to play Pokémon X, the time was right to get back into the main series Pokémon games.

It was fun playing alongside her, mostly progressing through at a similar rate, with me occasionally helping out by sending her Pokémon or using O-Powers to augment her abilities temporarily.

Since the last game I played, things have improved greatly. The graphics, of course, but also there has been a lot of streamlining. Early on in Y, you obtain an item that allows you to share XP with all your party, meaning you no longer have to start with a Pokémon you want to level up and then swap them out immediately. Item management is easier, and trading your Pokémon is so much easier – and can be done over the internet. There’s even an online “swap shop” for them, where you can browse “wants” or offer your own Pokémon up. Or, you can do random trade matchups where you don’t know what you’ll get. I’ve used this a lot with duplicate creatures, and obtained some great stuff, like a high level Pikachu, a Shiny Oddish, and plenty of others I’d not seen myself at all.

All that is great, but the core game is the same as it ever was. Travel the region, fight the gym leaders, Be The Best. No bad thing, especially to someone who hasn’t played Pokémon in such a long time, and there are so many ways to make it easier (the trading, the online “Pokémiles” shop, the XP sharing, O-Powers, Mega Evolutions) that the frustration of grinding – perhaps a reason I gave up on the earlier games – doesn’t happen. Indeed, I beat the Elite Four, the Champion, AND the *spoiler* with my team of mainly Legendary level 100 monsters (and level 90+ Greninja and Charizard) taking down every opponent Pokémon (bar one, who was Sturdy) in a single hit each without taking any damage in return.

Too easy? Possibly. Did that matter? Not at all. Did I complete it before my daughter finished X? Hell yes. And isn’t that all that is really important?

The post Pokémon Y (3DS): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Catherine (PS3): COMPLETED!

Posted on 17/10/2016 Written by deKay

Contrary to some of the information I read about this game before playing it, and indeed the suggested content based on the box art, Catherine is not a game of nudity and boobs. In fact, if you were to buy the game for titillative purposes I’m afraid you’ll be sorely disappointed.

catherine cover art — That’s your man Vincent there, trapped between a rock and a hard place.

That’s not to say the subject matter doesn’t make an appearance, as it does albeit in a just off screen or implied form. No, the game is about men cheating on women and coming to terms with this by becoming sheep and playing block pushing games in their nightmares.

Vincent is a man who is being pressured into marrying Katherine, his more successful long-term girlfriend. He’s not sure that’s what he wants yet, and this triggers a series of events where he’s haunted by these block game dreams, and finds himself in a relationship with the mysterious Catherine who he meets at his regular bar. As the game progresses, it’s clear Vincent doesn’t seem to have much of a say in what’s going on with Catherine, and once Katherine reveals she’s pregnant, things get complicated.

As Vincent spends his evenings drinking at the bar, we find out that other men who also drink there are having nightmares too. Nobody can remember them, but you – as the player – soon realise who the sheep you keep meeting in your dreams are. Sheep who die if they don’t make it through their nightmares, as reported by the grizzly news reports the next day.

One half of the game is the interaction between Vincent, his friends and fellow barflies, and the two women in his life. The other is the block moving and climbing game. The aim of these sections is to reach the top of a tower of blocks, by pushing and pulling them into position not completely unlike in the game Pullblox. Some blocks can’t be moved, others break if you stand on them, and other still explode, have spikes, push you, or otherwise cause problems on your ascent. As you climb, the lower blocks disappear meaning you can’t just stop and think for too long. At the end of each night there’s a level where you’re additionally chased by a demon of some kind who can thwart your progress, or kill you.

I’m not often one for block pushing games (and I’ve commented on the horror that is adding sokoban-style levels to games before), but this is a little different, and for the most part fun. A few levels were frustrating, including a later one where your climb can be stymied because of random blocks causing progress impossible: No amount of planning will let you past, but you have plenty of lives to play with, you can undo moves, levels are pretty short and most have checkpoints, all of which help.

As for my playthrough, it took around 12 hours and I completed it with the “I’m a good boy but lost my woman anyway” ending. Apparently this was mostly down to the choices I made during the final section of the game (you have to answer relationship questions after each level), so there’s a chance I might replay that bit and try for something better. Or maybe I won’t? Catherine is a decent enough game, and certainly more than worth the £1.60-ish I paid for it on PSN, but I’ve so many other titles vying for my attention I’m not sure I can justify another runthrough.

catherine

If you like slightly frantic puzzle titles with bizarre storylines that make you feel like a bad man, you’ll probably like Catherine. If you just like boobs, then there’s not enough here for you I’m afraid.

The post Catherine (PS3): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.