Tag: ds

>getting it back

>So it’s been quiet here at SFTC, and for that I apologize.  Things have been pretty quiet on the gaming front since my last post.  There wasn’t anything new to play, and I wasn’t necessarily doing all that much on the backlog, Steam sales be damned. 

But then Little Big Planet 2 came out, and then Dead Space 2 came out, and now the 3DS and the PSP2/NGP have been formally announced/dated, and I find that I’ve got some things to say.

LBP2:  I finished the single-player campaign earlier this week, and started to dabble with some of the community-made levels.  The game is as charming as ever, and the single-player campaign certainly did its best to illustrate what the game is capable of.  And it should be noted that the game’s website, lbp.me, is perhaps the best game-related website ever made – the ability to look at community-made levels on the web, add them to a queue, and then have the game automatically have your queue waiting for you the next time you log in – it’s so elegant and well-made that it seems downright bizarre that it hasn’t been done before.  If I have a problem with the game, then, it’s that I don’t think I’ll ever have the time/patience/imagination to make my own levels, which makes me feel like my experience with the game will be artificially cut in half. 

Dead Space 2:  Finally got this via Gamefly yesterday, and I’m about an hour in.  I never finished the first game, though not for lack of trying, and so my first playthrough of DS2 is being done on the easiest mode, because I’d really like to make it all the way through and see where the story goes.  As the game is apparently very friendly in terms of incorporating previous playthroughs into new ones, I can see myself giving it another go on a higher difficulty level.  I’ll say this – I’m loving the hell out of it.  I do scare pretty easily, when it comes to movies, but games don’t really scare me – sure I’ll get startled (like when the dogs jump through the window in RE2), but there’s a big difference between being startled and actually being creeped out and scared.  So, then, no, I’ve not been scared.  And I wasn’t scared in the first one, either – I never finished it because there were sections that were just too hard, or I didn’t have enough ammunition, and I got frustrated and gave up.  The first hour of DS2 has been thrilling, however, and certainly startling, and there’s been a few times where I’ve said things out loud that I normally wouldn’t say.  I’m very much looking forward to diving back in.

As for the new handhelds…

I’m certainly intrigued by the 3DS, there’s no doubt about it.  But I’m not really all that excited about the games that have been announced, and ultimately that’s the most important factor.  Hell, right now I play my DS maybe once or twice a year, if a good puzzle game comes out, and I can’t justify spending $250 on a snazzy piece of tech that I’m never going to use, especially since I’ll be getting a Verizon iPhone 5 later this year.  And I really don’t want to spend $250 just to play up-rezzed ports of N64 games, no matter how snazzy the ports are. 

Similarly, I’m very intrigued by the new PSP – very snazzy tech, and a more hard-core lineup of titles (I’m especially interested in that new Uncharted title) – but I don’t know that there’s any one must-have title out there that can help me justify the purchase.  And I’m already wary of Sony’s ability to sustain a handheld – I was excited to buy a PSP, sure, but I got bored with it and sold it back within 8 months, and I haven’t missed it at all.  And if the plan is simply to port over 360 and PS3 titles, well, that’s not necessarily what I want out of my handheld experience.

I generally play handheld games either on the subway or in bed.  I never have the sound on, and I’m not really all that interested in narrative.  I want something to do for a few minutes here and there while I’m unable to do anything else.  My iPod Touch has been excellent at filling that void, and the $1 – $6 price point is very appealing.  So, again, it’s hard for me to justify $300 + $50-60 per game, when the games they’re offering are games I’d rather play on my HDTV. 

I still think I’ll end up with a 3DS, eventually.  I think I can wait for the inevitable redesign and price drop, though.  The PSP2, on the other hand… I don’t know.  The PSP2 is the machine I’d rather have, frankly, but I need to know that Sony can maintain a healthy game library for more than 6 months.  Otherwise, I’m just going to stick with the iPhone.

>Picross 3D

>I’m trying to remember the last time I was heavily invested in my Nintendo DS. The last game I played on it was probably the most recent Zelda game, which I didn’t particularly care for. In any event, in less than 12 hours I have become totally addicted to Picross 3D, which is somewhat of a surprise for me since I never particularly cared for the 2D iteration.

It hits all the right notes, for one thing. It’s a puzzle game, which means it can be played on the go, in short bursts, with the sound off. And it uses the stylus and touch screen about as well as you could ask for. (The only way it could be cooler is if there was a version that came with Project Natal, which you could manipulate a la Minority Report, but that wouldn’t necessarily make it better.)

In a way, on a total base level, it feels a bit like sculpture; you chip away at a lifeless mass of cubes until a shape is revealed within. Of course, it can be hard to tell just what the hell the final shape is supposed to be. Just a few minutes ago, in fact, I finished a puzzle and the solution was revealed to be a Clione.

I had absolutely no idea what the hell a clione was, and when I googled it, I wasn’t necessarily convinced that what the game presented had anything in common with what it actually is. But that’s OK; it’s a logic puzzle, it’s not something that requires 1080p graphics.

>Things I Think About While I Wait For a Package That Will Not Arrive

>In my last entry, I mentioned that “I fucking hate UPS,” and that was before my newly-repaired 360 even left the warehouse. My 360 was supposed to be delivered today, and I’m here at home waiting for it, and yet somehow it was delivered on Friday – except it wasn’t, because the UPS driver apparently couldn’t find my buzzer even though there are only 2 buzzers by my front door to choose from, and one of them actually has my name on it. I called UPS and had the package rescheduled to today, the day it was actually supposed to be here; I’ve been tracking the package since I woke up this morning, and while it’s still listed as “In Transit,” the last update is from last Friday, and so I remain uncertain as to where it actually is, or if I’ll ever see it again.

So let me think of happy thoughts, then: let me turn to Peggle DS, which is the polar opposite of Puzzle Quest: Galactrix in that it is AWESOME. Peggle Nights is a pitch-perfect port of PopCap’s popular pachinko game (alliteration holla), which means it is exactly what I wanted it to be – a super-addicting puzzle game that looks and plays great. Where PQ:G suffered from copious, frustrating loading times and horribly implemented touch-screen controls, PN:DS wastes no time in getting you your fix, and you can control it however you want – I opt for the d-pad and buttons as opposed to the stylus. Anyone who’s played Peggle on other platforms knows exactly what they’d be getting into here, but I’d heartily recommend it for any DS owner.

On the retro-gaming front, I have been negligent with Final Fantasy 7; I’ve been really busy lately with some music projects and just haven’t had the hours available to really dive in. I’ve been keeping my PS3 busy with PixelJunk:Eden, though, and the other day I treated myself to Crash Bandicoot: Warped. My buddy Jongre and I played through the 3 main Crash games back in the day, and Warped was probably my favorite even if it was the one I played the least; it certainly mixed up the action more than the previous 2, even if it’s just as frustrating and the controls are as imprecise.

…Then again, since it looks like my 360 is in UPS limbo, maybe I will give FF7 some more time today.

>Impressions: Puzzle Quest Galactrix (DS)

>We’re only 3 days into March but I’ve already got a front-runner for the Biggest Disappointment of 2009: the DS version of Puzzle Quest Galactrix. As I am a fiend for all things Bejeweled-esque, and especially because I remain such a huge fan of the original Puzzle Quest (going as far as to buy it on the DS, the 360, and my old cellphone), I am willing to give the forthcoming XBLA version a fair shake. That said, the DS version – the version I was really looking forward to, the version I was hoping to be able to play at all hours of the day – is absolutely horrible.

And I say this even though I only was able to play PQG for about 10 minutes; 10 minutes was probably more than enough, to be honest. To be fair, my DS battery was about to die – but the technical problems in the DS version are glaringly obvious, and I’m being brutally honest when I say that 10 minutes with this version is being incredibly generous.

MTV’s Stephen Totillo has gone on at some length about the ridiculous – nay, absurd – loading times that plague the DS version – every thing you do is punctuated by 3-5 seconds of loading, and that shit adds up, especially since it’s unclear why switching between not-terribly-impressive screens should take that long. This could very easily be a Flash title – in fact, I do believe there’s a Flash demo online somewhere.

Most infuriating, though, is that the touch screen controls are totally fucked. The general idea is that you pilot a starship and you fly around to all the nearby planets/asteroids/ships by pointing on them, and then when you get there you point again and a little menu pops up, and then you point on whichever menu item strikes your fancy. This doesn’t seem to be that big a deal, except that when the menu pops up, you have approximately 3 pixels with which to click on – and if you miss, which you will, the menu doesn’t just close – your ship inexplicably flies off in a completely random direction, which means you have to click on the planet AGAIN and click on the menu AGAIN and attempt to select your menu option AGAIN and invariably you’ll miss the tiny little window and then you have to do all this shit AGAIN, and this shit adds up even more than the gratuitous loading.

As for the game itself – the part where you arrange colored hexagons in order to do battle – it’s basically the same thing as the original Puzzle Quest except new hexagons can enter the playing area from any side, not just the top. And, as it was in the original Puzzle Quest, the computer cheats like a motherfucker. It is not at all uncommon for the computer to get a 5 or 6-time cascade, which can totally fuck you up – and this happens at least 2-3 times per battle. And remember: I only played this game for 10 minutes, and I only got into 3 battles – the computer cheats like crazy AT THE VERY BEGINNING OF THE GAME, WHEN YOU’RE STILL FIGURING OUT WHAT THE DIFFERENT COLORS MEAN.

It would stand to reason that the 360 version will not have these problems – the menus should be much easier to navigate, and the loading times should be nonexistent. But the 360 version isn’t portable, which is what made the original Puzzle Quest such a pleasant time-suck.

(And speaking of my 360, fucking UPS has it slated to be delivered back to me on Monday, March 9. It was given a shipping label on Saturday, February 28. That seems impossible; it only took 4 days for my 360 to get to the repair facility. I fucking hate UPS.)

I’m getting way too bent out of shape over this game – indeed, I’ve spent more time writing this post than I did playing the freakin’ thing. Rent it if you absolutely must, but be warned: it’s going to drive you crazy.