Blog of Pawn  

I’ve been one of the lucky few to have access to the beta for StarCraft 2. Unfortunately, I haven’t been allowed to talk about it…until now! You’re probably anxious to dig into your brand new game, but read below for details about what’s changed, what hasn’t, and tips from someone who’s played a few rounds.

The beta for StarCraft 2 had constant updates with access to its features being progressively unlocked. The single player campaign was never included. However, before the beta closed last week, they gave us access to a very rich multiplayer experience. It includes the things you’d expect of a modern game – achievements, unlockables, an interface that makes it easy to chat with your friends and set up a game either with people you know or against complete strangers. Yes, games have come a long way since 1998, when the original took the world by storm.

More important than the interface outside of the game, the real question is the gameplay itself. What’s changed since Broodwar? Here, I will say that the changes have been more evolutionary than revolutionary. They didn’t add any new races – still the original three. They haven’t drastically altered the gameplay, but they’ve done what’s necessary to make this the definitive version of StarCraft. If you liked the original, you’ll like this one too and probably won’t be able to go back.

The first update you’ll notice is the graphics.

The original game ran at 800×600.

I’m not sure what resolution StarCraft 2 maxes out at, but its more than your computer can handle

SC2 actually uses 3D character models though the game still plays from the same overhead perspective. You can use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom in, though I never found a good reason to do this. I imagine the closer perspective will be used in cut-scenes for a more personal feel. The 3D engine has already given the custom games a lot more flexibility. I found online where someone had made a 3rd person shooter using the new editor. I’m sure a lot more amazing creations will be produced in the coming months.

A few seemingly small tweaks have changed the dynamics of how I play StarCraft. The Command Center/Nexus/Hatchery can now rally workers straight to the minerals. This allows you to spend more time focusing on the battle and less time on making sure you have enough gatherers. A small icon on the bottom-left also warns you when you have idle workers. Whenever you have a spare 50 minerals, throw in an extra worker and forget it. I wish they’d default the rally point to the minerals, considering it’s the first action you’d ever want to do 99% of the time.

Another tweak to increase build efficiency is the ability to hotkey multiple buildings to a single button. Say you’re Terran and you’ve built three Barracks to pump out Marines. Doubleclick one of the Barracks and they’ll all be selected. Then press Ctrl + 1 to assign 1 as their key. After that, you can press 1 at any time, then A A A to build a Marine in each of the Barracks. All three will come out at the same time. Later you decide you want to create some tanks, so click 1, then hold Shift while clicking the Factory to add that to the selected buildings. Press Ctrl + 1 again and now you have 4 buildings attached to the one key. Now press 1 and A A S for 2 Marines and a Siege Tank. If you were a hardcore Starcraft 1 player, you may have noticed that the hotkey for Marines changed. They changed a lot of the hotkeys to be accessed from the left hand so that you waste less time.

The biggest change, probably, is the addition of new units and the removal of old units. At least from the multiplayer. They’ve hinted that some of the old units will be in the singleplayer campaign.

For Terran, the Firebat, Medic, Vulture, Goliath, Wraith, Science Vessel, Dropship, and Valkyrie are gone.

However, they now have eight new units: Medivac, Banshee, Hellion, Marauder, Repear, Raven, Thor, MULE, and Viking.

The Thor is notable as being a giant mech that goes down faster than I’d like it to. The Medivac is notable as being both a Medic and a Dropship. The Reaper is the Terran’s new favorite rushing unit. It has a jetpack allowing it to jump up and down cliffs. The MULE allows the Terran to collect minerals at a ridiculously fast rate.

The Protoss have lost their Dragoon, Arbiter, Corsair, Dark Archon, Reaver, and Shuttle.

They’ve gained the Colossus, Immortal, Phoenix, Void Ray, Warp Prism, Sentry, Stalkers, and the Mothership.

The Colossus looks like it was taken straight out of War of the Worlds. Like the Terran Repear, it can move up and down cliffs with its massive legs. The Mothership is a giant ship with some unique abilities, one being the ability to cloak other units as well as the ability to recall units in a target area to the Mothership (don’t feel so sad about losing your Arbiter The Void Ray is a unique ship that shoots a laser beam which continues gaining power the longer it can continue firing. Stalkers have effectively replaced the old Dragoon as a ground-based shooting unit. One distinct ability they have is to teleport short distances. This works great to allow micromanagers to move damaged units to the back of the army to continue fighting. To match the Terran’s new gathering power, the Protoss have a new ability called ‘Chrono Boost’ which allows units to be built faster or upgrades to be researched faster. The difference between a good player and a great player will be how often he remembers to take advantage of this new ability.

Finally, the Zerg have lost their Guardian, Lurker, Scourge, Defiler, Queen, and Devourer.

They’ve gained the Roach, Queen (what??), Baneling, Changeling, Infester, Corrupter, Overseer, Brood Lord, and Infested Terran (huh?).

I’ll explain the Queen first. What you knew as the Queen is nothing like what is called a Queen now. The unit is now a ground unit that stays in your base to create more larvae to create more units. She can also heal units or buildings, or create creep tumors to increase the range of the creep. The Overlords no longer have the ability to detect cloaked units. You’ll have to upgrade them to Overseers for that feature. The Roaches, with their ranged attack and the ability to move while burrowed, have been upgraded and downgraded pretty frequently. It remains to be seen whether they’ll be a favorite or useless. The Infester has a lot of interesting abilities, like taking over units with Neural Parasite and spawning Infested Terrans.

The Terran Supply Depot can now lower itself into the ground, so there’s no reason not to use it as a wall.

Well, I imagine you’re probably feeling overwhelmed with information by this point. So, I won’t continue much further. One last thing I’ll say is that there’s a stronger sense of each unit having one or two distinct counters. So, learn what these are, learn to scout your enemy early and often, and play play play! I’ll see you in-game.

Be sure to add me as a friend and let me know that you read my blog. You’ll find me at pawn@gamerhighway.com.

I’ve decided that puzzle games are the junk food of gaming. You pick them up whenever you want something to fill your appetite, but you’re not quite ready for a full meal. You may get tired of it for a little while, but you’ll come back to it some other time. You may feel a little guilty for lack of real substance, but boy does it taste good.

I think I’ve had my fill of World of Goo for a little while, though who’s to say I won’t snack on it again in the future.

When I first saw World of Goo, I had my doubts about how viable its premise would be as a puzzle game. How would they achieve much depth with just a bunch of goo balls that stick together to try to reach pipes? I was wrong to judge the game so early.

What I didn’t realize was that throughout the course of the game, they keep adding elements of variety to keep it fresh. Its all tied together through a relatively shallow but genuinely humorous story.

Baloons are one of the many various items you’ll use to achieve your goals.

In addition to the story which can be completed in a relatively short amount of time, the game has a few elements to give it some replay value. In addition to the regular criteria for beating a level, each has an OCD criteria that will either be to get a certain amount of extra gooballs into the pipe or completing the level in a certain amount of time.

Also, every extra gooball collected over the minimum will go to a place where you can try to build as tall of a tower as you possibly can. You’ll see other peoples’ records as clouds in the sky. I probably spent as much time on this as the regular story, trying really hard to build a tall tower that wouldn’t collapse.

Not my tower.

So, would I recommend this puzzle game? Yes, yes I would. You’re not going to put as much time into it initially as a Final Fantasy game, but odds are much higher that you’ll come back to it now and then.

If I were to give a short list of favorite games, the Street Fighter series is right up there. Super Street Fighter IV is indisputably¹ the best Street Fighter game to date. As much as I loved Street Fighter 4, I was pretty hyped about Super Street Fighter IV before it came out. All of the extras they were promising made it a deal almost too good to be true. Having played the crap out of it over the last few weeks, I can now assure you that it is everything a great videogame should be.

Need more convincing? Okay. Figured you would.

When I’m raving about how great this game is, I invariably come across one of 4 types of gamer. I could draw a 4-box grid and be all scientific-like, but I won’t. Needless to say, no matter who you are, there are several good reasons why you should be playing this game.

Player 1 – Can I call you Guile? No? Well, thanks Guile.

You played Street Fighter 2 almost two decades ago (can you believe its been that long). You thought it was pretty fun, but then you were annoyed as the series kept releasing titles with slightly different names, one or two upgrades, and 4 new characters. You ask, “Are they doing it all over again? Did they not learn their lesson? Haven’t they been doing the same thing for the past 19 years?”

Well Guile, you probably didn’t notice, but there was a decade-long gap between the last iteration of Street Fighter 3 and Street Fighter 4. I think they’ve had enough timeout to learn their lesson. Don’t you? Super Street Fighter IV is anything but a minor upgrade from last year’s game. They added 10 new characters, bringing the roster up to 35. That’s a bit more than the 12 fighters you remember². To put things in perspective, Tekken 6 only added 7 new characters to Tekken 5’s roster³. It doesn’t end there though. They re-did all of the animated intros and endings, they added several new offline and online modes (!), revamped the training mode that was introduced in SF4 (excellent for getting back into the series), added new stages, and many other things. This is anything but a minor update. Any other company would call it a full sequel and charge $60, but Capcom didn’t. It launched at $20 less than the average new game. A true steal at $40, you can currently pick it up on Amazon for $30. Not a bad price for re-entry into the series. With all of your old favorites and just as many characters you’ve never seen before, you’re going to fall in love all over again. Give it a shot. You won’t be disappointed.

Player 2 – You’re a casual gamer. Today I’ll call you Dan.

You play videogames casually but haven’t ever played Street Fighter. Maybe the occasional Facebook game or a little Wii bowling. You’re already telling yourself “This game probably isn’t for me. I don’t like that type of game.” You don’t know what type of game it is, but you assume you won’t like it. Well Dan, you’re going to be surprised when you finally do give this game a shot and learn its exactly your kind of game.

Street Fighter II was one of the original games that people got together to play with friends and strangers. The granddaddy of casual gaming, it single-handedly inspired a genre of followers and gave the arcades a boost in popularity that had never been seen before, and hasn’t been seen since. This new iteration, Super Street Fighter IV, comes with a new online mode called “Endless Battle” that’s designed to bring that same feel to your home. Up to eight people can play together, taking turns while everyone who’s not playing can watch and talk with each other with microphones. If playing online isn’t your thing, playing multiplayer offline with friends is a ton of fun too. Despite being a 2 player game, its a lot of fun to watch even when you’re not playing. The characters’ expressions are a joy, and flashy effects will wow you when they fill the screen. You’ll spend hours showing your friends the vast array of crazy characters.

Player 3 – Hey Cody, hope you didn’t get bored waiting for me to get to you.

You’re hard core. You chew through the latest and greatest games and spit them out. You’re the best player around and your friends and family know it. You’ve come to the right place. Play against the strangers online and you’ll find they’re more than happy to humble you. That’s okay though. You have the trial mode to learn your stuff and the single-player game to hone your skills before getting back online and showing everyone who’s boss. The trial mode’s great for both newcomers and veterans because it starts off by teaching you the most basic of basics, and advances in what it teaches you until eventually getting to crazy combos that only a real hardcore pro (such as yourself) will be able to pull off.

Player 4 – Sorry to keep you waiting Ryu. Ready for another round?

So you bought Street Fighter IV or maybe you thought about it really hard, because you love the series. You’re still asking “do I need to buy this iteration?” YES! This game effectively replaced Street Fighter IV. All of your SF IV buddies have switched. The same gameplay that you love is here, but with a ton of new content to digest. New online modes are better than the previous offering and the whole online experience is better – joining a game is easier, less lag (usually unnoticeable), a new ranking system, and double-blind character selection.

I mentioned before that there are 10 new characters, but I hadn’t named them yet. You’ve got Dudley, Makoto, and Ibuki from SF3. You get Adon, Cody, and Guy from SF Alpha. DeeJay and T. Hawk from Super SF 2 are here. Two brand new characters have joined: Hakan for the grapplers, and Juri for everyone else. The sheer variety in how these characters play is simply astounding.

They gave every character a 2nd Ultra attack, which if you played SFIV, you know are always satisfying to connect with. You’ll want to play multiple games with every character to learn the new Ultras and determine which one you like best.

Worried about having to go through single player again to unlock characters? Don’t. For one, the final boss Seth isn’t as bad as he used to be. And two, all of the characters are unlocked out of the box, so you don’t have to play it at all if you don’t want to. It bears repeating that they’ve really aimed for this game to be played multiplayer. Even the unlockables are unlocked through multiplayer this time. Because the icons, titles, taunts, and costume colors are now unlocked per character by playing with multiple characters, you’ll find more variety than you used to.

Well, I’ve said about all I can say. I don’t think its possible for anyone to give this game a chance and dislike it. Go buy it, I look forward to seeing you online.






¹There’s probably some people who would dispute my claim, but they’re wrong.^4
2 The roster count is right under SFA3 Max’s 37 characters – the most in the series.
³In Tekken’s defense, it has 43 characters.
⁴And ugly.

As you’ve probably figured out, I’ve been trying out a lot of NES games lately. The other day I stumbled upon a truly impressive entry on my Dingoo called “Cheetamen II”.

It starts out with an introduction cut scene that initially looked like it might’ve been a cheap ripoff of Battletoads, itself a ripoff of TMNT. I quickly noticed that it also looked like it might’ve been drawn in mspaint by an untalented 7 year old.

The story read like it might have been written by that same 7 year old after he was hit in the head a few times with a baseball bat.

Click here to see the rest. I dare ya.

Then the game started, and I knew what it felt like to be a 7 year old who’s just been hit in the head by a baseball bat.

If someone pointed a gun at my head and said “write a side-scroller in 30 minutes or I’ll shoot you”, it’d turn out only marginally better than this game.

• The jumping feels incredibly unnatural; I’ve honestly written a better looking bouncing animation myself before.
• One time jumping glitched and randomly killed me.
• You can’t duck, but there are enemies that are too low to the ground to shoot with your crossbow.
• There are holes to jump over, but enemies walk over them, then walk through the ground if it happens to be at a higher elevation than the starting ground.

I wasn’t able to finish the first level. The enemies will fly at positions to where they can hit you, but you can’t hit them. No matter what. I didn’t bother playing this game for very long, but a little research revealed to me that the game was literally unplayable in later levels, with unmissable glitches that wouldn’t let you continue further.

According to Wikipedia, this game wasn’t officially released, but then someone found all 1,500 copies in a warehouse and unleashed them upon this world right before bellowing out a deep maniacal laughter. The actual cart is quite rare, though the ROM is readily available. If you come across the cart, you may be tempted to keep it in your collection, but don’t. I’m pretty sure that the events of Paranormal Activity were based on the last guy who had the same idea.

When I was a kid, my mom used to periodically bring me along when visiting a friend of hers, B.J. She had a son who was never around, but had an NES and a few games that I didn’t have. Double Dribble was one and Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest was the other.

Castlevania II is different in a lot of ways than Castlevania I. It looks the same, featuring a hero who wields a whip and climbs a lot of stairs. However, it focuses more on exploration, a lot more open ended than its predecessor. You have towns with villagers who give you clues. You might say it plays like an entirely side-scroller Dragon Warrior or Zelda.

I remember having fun with both Double Dribble and Simon’s Quest, but being rather frustrated with the latter. I felt like I had fully explored everything there was to do, yet somehow not making any progress. It’s hard to convey how strange that was, having seemingly fully explored a game yet having no sense of progression.

I wanted to give the game another go, but had forgotten which Castlevania it was when I chose to play Castlevania a few months ago. After going ahead and completing the first Castlevania, I decided to give this one a shot. I was curious to see if I’d fare any better this time around.

Short answer, I didn’t.

Long answer, once again I did a lot of exploring in all directions, upgrading my whip a few times and gaining a few other items. Yet I eventually found dead ends in every direction without ever feeling like I’d made real progress. Unlike the first Castlevania, I never found a single boss. I got to where I could go wherever I wanted with ease – the random monsters aren’t as hard as the first game and they don’t throw impossible combinations at you.

The clues that the townspeople give seem almost entirely worthless and/or cryptic. Clues like “You have a friend in another town.” and “Hit Deborah Cliff with your head to create a hole” What??

Finally, I resorted to a tool that wasn’t available in my youth – gamefaqs. I learned things there that magically open up this game.

Up+attack button = use item
Somehow, I never accidentally did this before resorting to gamefaqs. Ironically, I kept accidentally doing it afterwards. Why is this relevant?

You buy a wooden stake from a guy in a mansion at one point in the game. It seemed worthless before, but it turns out that to progress through the game, you use the stake on a crystal orb that I found but couldn’t figure out what to do with.

Your holy water that you buy can be used to open up hidden paths. Random empty rooms suddenly have purpose!

Remember “Hit Deborah Cliff with your head to make a hole”? There’s no sign anywhere saying where Deborah Cliff is, but it turns out that if you find a particular dead end and sit in one spot while ducking for a full 8 seconds, a tornado carries you to another area (no Zelda whistle). How the heck does a kid figure that out in an action game from the 80s??

It felt good to finally see new territory, even if I had to resort to a guide. Its simple platforming, whip-slinging fun.

Moving forward, I eventually found a town where people actually acknowledged my accomplishment from the first Castlevania (actual plot? This is madness!). Afterwords, made my way to the entrance of Dracula’s Castle. So he IS in the game!? Here I discovered a new frustration. For some reason, an obstacle lay in my path preventing my progress. Another trip to gamefaqs would reveal that I was supposed to find objects in more Mansions than what I had found. It would also reveal that some of these Mansions were before the infamous “Deborah’s Cliff”. Okay.

So I worked my way back to the place where I had been teleported. A funny thing occurred to me. I couldn’t get back. That’s right. Even gamefaqs didn’t reveal to me that there was a point of no return. Once again, this game has defeated me.

So I have to say, this game is impossible for entirely different reasons than Castlevania I. Castlevania I is known for its impossible situations and even more impossible bosses*. This game will maintain a place in my memories as the game no mortal could figure out on their own. I suppose if you rely heavily on gamefaqs you could actually finish this game and maybe still have fun with it…

This might help. I haven’t used them.

*I read that this game has bosses, but I somehow managed to not find a single one.

A little over a year ago, Mr. Zackman harassed me for two days straight to play Psychonauts. I didn’t, but I told him I’d probably get around to it eventually. And now I have.

I can see why he was so crazy about it. Besides being a competent platformer, this game had without a doubt the most imaginitive levels in any game I’ve ever played. That’s quite a tall order, but the narrative allows for it.

You play as a young boy named Raz who breaks into a summer camp for teaching psychic powers like pyrokinesis, levitation, and telekinesis. One of these is getting inside other peoples’ heads. Here, you’ll find war zones, giant board games, dance parties with floating flower petals, and more.

The game shines with its sense of humor, with many moments that are downright hilarious. One of my favorites was where Raz was treated as a giant godzilla-like monster in a miniature city with terrified civilians. As I walked towards buildings, I’d hear cries like “he’s heading towards the puppy orphanage! He’s destroyed the puppy orphanage! Oh wait…that wasn’t the puppy orphanage. NOW he’s destroying the puppy orphanage!”

I also have to say that the voice acting may very well be the best I’ve seen in a game. Even repetitive lines don’t feel so repetitive because of the quality with which they’re said.

Unfortunately, this review isn’t completely glowing. There are a few stages in which the difficulty just about ruins it for me. Like any platformer, the game suffers from occassional camera problems, but the majority of my gripe is with the last two sections’ extreme requirements of skill. I had the same gripe with Zack & Wiki, but this one was worse. I have a confession to make. This one actually defeated me. After two nights of trying the last section of the game, I finally gave up and watched someone else beat it on Youtube. Consider yourself warned, but I won’t look down on you if you do the same.

I’m long overdue for a Tekken 6 review. I mean, I’ve owned it for like 2 months now. Ridiculous!

First thing’s first, Tekken 6 isn’t likely to make a hater start liking the series. Likewise a Tekken fan will find plenty to love about the latest entry. In other words, Tekken 6 is more evolutionary than revolutionary.

For those who haven’t been keeping track, it’s been 5 years since Tekken 5 was released on the PS2. If one were to compare Tekken 6 to Tekken 5 (which I did), the first thing you will notice is that its designed for widescreen TVs. Yay! You’ll also find that the graphics have been given a considerable update. Not that Tekken 5 looked bad…it was one of the finer looking games on the PS2. But you can tell that this is a game for the newest console generation.

See for yourself!
Tekken 5 screenshot:

Tekken 6 screenshot (click for full size):

Talking to people, I’ve learned that many of you didn’t even realize that the Tekken series has been a relatively story-rich game since Tekken 3. It’s no Final Fantasy, but I’d put its depth above the likes of most games that are actually hailed for their stories. Tekken 6 gets a story mode in the form of a 3D beat’m up. The story mode will probably be what you spend most of your single player career on. They actually ensure that by making you face each of the characters before you can fight as them in a tournament mode to see the character’s ending.

Spoilers!
You play as series newcomer Lars and assisted by another new character, a female robot named Alisa. Initially in the story, Lars loses his memory. As he’s trying to remember who he is and what his purpose in life was, he learns that the world is now ruled by two opposing factions. Jin Kazama now runs the Mishima Zaibatsu, while Kazuya runs the opposing G Corporation. For reasons that are eventually revealed, Jin has declared war on the world and is winning with his own army. (One thing that’s kinda fun about the multiplayer stages is that chaos is happening in all of them.)
End of spoilers!

There are a few dozen stages that all end with someone from the Tekken series either choosing to fight you or help you fight random bad guys. Like any good beat’m up, you have health boosts in the form of chickens, and weapons in the form of metal bars, flame throwers, and gatling guns. The weapons are extremely satisfying to take out enemies.

In order to allow for progressive difficulty in this storyline mode, you’re given random articles of clothing to wear that boost your stats in some way or give your attacks different status effects like freezing, stunning, or setting them on fire. For the patient, there’s a lot of customization that you can give to a character. It can take a lot of time playing though just to change your favorite fighter’s look.

On the subject of characters, there are a lot to choose from in this game. In fact, there’s more in this game than in any other Tekken – 42!

40 are playable

Newcomers include the aforementioned Lars and Alisa. Jack technically counts because he’s Jack 6 instead of Jack 5… There’s a new girl named Zafina who I think I could learn to have fun with. Her attacks are kinda weird and hard to read. Leo is another new character who I’ve had decent luck with so far. Miguel looks like he could be a fun character. He’s got this drunken bar brawler air about him. Finally, Tekken 6 get’s its own American fat but fast guy named Bob. Bob’s not quite as hideous or nearly as obnoxious as Street Fighter 4’s Rufus, but one has to wonder if this trend is going to continue indefinitely. Of these, I personally find Zafina, Miguel, and Leo to be most likely to make my frequently used list.

Zafina vs Jin (click to enlarge)

As expected for a fighter in this generation, Tekken 6 introduces online fighting to the mix for the first time in the series. I used to think I was halfway decent at this game. I now know that to be false. *sigh* Lag wasn’t noticeable. It was also pretty quick about putting me in a match.

Some final things worth noting are that the music is particularly outstanding, from metal to techno to…you know what? I’m not too good at categorizing music. Stuff that isn’t metal or techno. How’s that? Where was I? Oh yeah. Tekken 6 has a lot of single player and multiplayer modes to keep you busy. Also, the game is very generous with achievements. In the first 3 1/2 hours of the game, I already had 435 points. Some of you kids care about that kind of thing, so thought I’d let you know.

So that’s about all there is to say about Tekken 6. Will you become King of the Iron Fist? Or will you leave it to Bob?

Many of you who know me know that once a year, I drive up to St. Louis for a weekend and play computer games with my friends from college. I have many times been asked the question ‘Why?’. Other times, I get asked the questions, “What do you do?” or “What do you play?” from those who are less condescending. Every year is different, but I’m going to chronicle the trip that I just arrived back from yesterday in order to answer those last two questions. If the result doesn’t explain ‘why’ I go, then I’m afraid there’s nothing else I can do.

Friday morning, Matt and Jonathan Libertini arrived at my house around 11:00. After packing everything up into my car, we set towards St. Louis. On the way there, we discussed the viability of gaming laptops as being good for LAN parties and how the two may make each other more popular as laptops continue to lower in price. After that subject was exhausted, Matt and Jonathan told me about how great Dragon Age Origins was. I must say that if you’ve never heard the Libertini brothers talk about a videogame for an extended length of time, it’s always a fun experience. Also, we played a little bit of ‘Guess the game’ with some videogame music by the One Ups. I learned that neither of them is very good at that game. The level of distortion in the tracks was a factor as well, probably.

We arrived at Andrew Reiter’s (aka Butch) house that evening and greeted those who were already there before carrying our stuff in. When I carried my new box in, everyone acted impressed, then teased me when I started looking for a place to plug in – as if the size of the case is a factor in how much electricity you consume. I guess it’s reasonable to assume that if you have a nice case, you have nice parts inside it. But, these days, nicer PCs don’t automatically take up a lot of juice *shrug*.

Matt Frazier immediately wanted a picture.

Once the three of us got set up, we jumped into some Team Fortress 2. TF2 is an interesting little shooter. I have fun when I play it, though I only seem to play it about once a year. Those who were already there and practiced up were doing better than we who had just arrived.

After an hour of capturing checkpoints and shooting people, Nathan Thomack and Toli decided they couldn’t use a piece of paper as a mouse pad and said they were going to Walmart to buy mouse pads. Annoyingly, my headphones didn’t survive the trip (plastic 1mm hinge…), so I went with them to get new ones. We took the opportunity to tell each other what was new in our lives. Thomack bought a house this year. Toli is engaged. They were surprised to hear about the new structure my area at work is going through, and decided that it was a fad. Hard for me to say, but they both tend to have pretty good business acumen, so maybe…

After we got back, we played TF2 for several more hours. I eventually normalized back to the skill level that I was at previously. Having headphones helped. After watching a few people playing Dragon Age and loving it, I was finally persuaded into buying it on Steam, and played TF2 while it was downloading.

After I got tired of TF2, Kaleb talked me and a few others into playing a board game called Stone Age. It centered on gathering various resources and felt like the initial stages of Age of Empires in board game form. There were various things to collect and ways to specialize in hopes of eventually gathering points which would choose the winner in the end. It was hard to see what the best strategy would be; all of us had a distinctly different one. I somehow managed to win, though it didn’t feel like I would for most of the game.

Kaleb’s looking rather sophisticated with that beard of his.

After that, I watched Jake Reiter play Fable. Most were still playing TF2. After a while, I went downstairs where a few rounds of Killer Instinct were played. Butch still remembered how to do some Killer Combos. Nate and I didn’t. I was doing well to pull off a Super Combo. Around 2 or 3 AM, people started dropping off to get some sleep. When you intend to play all weekend, you gotta pace yourself . Or maybe we’re getting old lol. I believe it was around 4 AM when I settled into a recliner to play Punch Out for another hour on my Dingoo.

I woke up at 8:00 AM to find that nobody else was awake. Nathan Sanders was the next to wake up. He, Dan, and I are always the first to wake up every year. Normally, the three of us go out for breakfast and chat while the rest are still asleep. Unfortunately, Dan wasn’t able to make it this year. We explored the possibility of the two of us going out for breakfast, but it turned out that we were blocked in. So, the two of us chatted while waiting for everyone else to wake up.

Eventually, I decided to try out my new game. Sanders implored me not to make an avatar of myself; so instead, I made an avatar of HIM which wasn’t what he had in mind. To his horror, I even made my character a ranger, which is supposedly what he would’ve chosen for himself, given the options. I had him convinced it was all in his head, until he noticed I named the character Zackman, his chosen online name.

See for yourself!

My initial impression of the game is that it has pretty good graphics, voice acting, and an interesting enough storyline. In the traditional BioWare convention, the game offers choices for what to say in dialog. One thing that it has been receiving some praise for is that it’s not so two dimensional in its choice of “say the nice thing” or “say the mean thing”. It’s more nuanced, and the result is more nuanced. I haven’t played much of the game yet, so I can’t really speak to that. But, that’s what I’ve heard from others.

After some of the others woke up, Butch prepared a breakfast casserole, which was rather tasty. We played a few more rounds of TF2, followed by a traditional Thanksgiving meal with fried turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pumpkin pie for dessert.

Around 1:30, we decided to change things up with StarCraft. My first match was going to be a free for all with Jason and Jeremy. I say ‘going to be’ because the two of them secretly decided it’d be funny to team up on me and knock me out right away. To everyone’s shock, including my own, that wasn’t how it went down. I managed to defend myself from their dual-assault, all while continuing to grow in power. After several rounds of my Zealots and cannons destroying zerglings, I went after the first base I could find, which was Jason’s. Jason had gone with the incredibly risky strategy of using his workers as part of his assault, so he was unprepared for my counter-attack. After he was wiped out and I sent a larger force against Jeremy, they surrendered and I was the victor! Again, I say that had to be the most surprising match for everyone. Last year, they were both measurably better at the game than I.

My base after fending them off.

We played a series of 4 vs. 4 matches after that. I won the first one and lost the next two. A couple of guys eventually decided a tournament was in order, with 4 man teams created to hopefully spread the skill evenly. The first match up was me, Thomack, Toli, and Jeremy Whatley versus Nate Reiter, Sanders, Jake, and Tristan. Since Nate Reiter was unquestionably the best person at StarCraft there, I rallied everyone on my team to the common goal of eliminating him ASAP. When he survives to end game, there’s no stopping him. Also, since he was unquestionably the best person at StarCraft there, he was pared with teammates who wouldn’t be able to help him in any manner. Luckily, I found him pretty quickly, two minutes into the match. I built an offense a little outside his base and kept him busy until the others were ready to help. When they were, the four of us swarmed on him, and he eventually went down. After that, the other three each fell pretty quickly, and my team achieved victory. There were two other matches after that, the first being between two completely separate teams, of which Butch, Jason, Jeremy, and Tristan would be the victor against Kaleb, Toli, Matt, and Jonathan. The second was between the two losing teams. I’m not sure who won. We decided to hold off on the last match between the two winning teams to play some more TF2. However, we never did have that final match.

At some point, just about everyone got hooked on a new game called League of Legends, otherwise known as LOL or Lawl, but I wasn’t able to get my account working. Instead, I played the new Super Mario Bros Wii. Like most cooperative platformers, mechanisms existed to grief your teammates. Butch had a lot of fun picking me up in various ways and throwing me into holes. Apparently he thought we were playing Smash Bros. Sanders and I played through the first world, which got surprisingly challenging. I was tempted at one point to buy this game, but I don’t think I will. Most people who might initially play it with me would probably give up pretty fast.

I came up stairs to find that Jake had played Fable up to the point that I had quit playing when my save randomly got corrupted. I watched him play until he got tired of it, then I took over. I thought the Arena was pretty close to the end of the game. I was wrong. I kept playing and playing thinking the end was near, but it was about 3:00 AM before I finally made it to the final boss. Unfortunately, Jake hadn’t designed his character as a good match up for this boss. More magic would be needed in order to even have a chance. But, it was 3:00 AM. So I went to sleep to try it again the next morning.

Sunday morning, I hit it again. It took some experimentation and several runs, but I eventually defeated Fable’s final boss – only to be teased by those who had stayed up to 5:00 AM that they saw I hadn’t completed the game the night before. I started a few new characters in Dragon Age to see the different opening story lines. One thing that I’m sure gives the game good replay value is that you have several completely different stories to see.

Kaleb wanted to use my box to play LoL, so I obliged him and watched as Sanders browsed Butch’s games on the Wii. After Sanders had his fill of Wario Land: Shake It!, I played The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, which Butch had working on his Wii somehow. It appears that the Wii is rather hackable – Butch had all of his Wii games running off a hard drive, and had various console emulators on it with complete collections.

The end was nigh. Everyone started packing and saying good-byes but putting off actually leaving. We ended up standing in a circle of conversation that eventually got quiet; each of us having had a satisfying weekend, but not wanting it to be over just yet. After resigning that it was indeed time to leave, we said our good-byes again and got in our cars. On the way home, we ate with Thomack and Aaron. Later in the evening, Matt and I discussed various subjects like the future of media and theoretical business models. And that was the end. I went to bed at 10:00 and slept very well.

Of course, the title would be referring to Castlevania for the NES.

Castlevania starts off pretty unassuming. There’s no introduction, but a guy who steps through some gates. You casually stroll into a castle. Then things get weird. Ghouls attack you, then bats, and panthers. It’s okay though! You have a…whip…hmm…okay.

Continue pushing forward, and you find a giant bat. Kill it, then step through a door. Now you’re in a new area! You eventually have the pleasure of finding flying madusa heads, knights who throw axes, the Grim Reaper himself, and eventually Dracula in the flesh!

I would complain about the graphics, but to give them a little credit, this game came out only a year after the original Super Mario Bros, which is still earlier than Super Mario Bros 2. The visuals won’t make you lose sleep at night, but the horror of actually trying to complete the game might.

Another relic this game holds of its past is the level of challenge. Tough jumping puzzles? Check. Marred by sub-par controls? Check. Lots of enemies that swarm about in the most inconvenient places? Check. Impossible bosses? Check and mate! The game starts off pretty easy, but ramps up the difficulty pretty steadily. Health replenishment is almost non-existent. You won’t be gaining lives, except from getting through a level without dying. You do have infinite continues, but when you do, you start at the beginning of the level.

I’m gonna be honest here. Only a child in the 80s would have the patience to beat this game without using save states or some other cheating mechanism. There are patterns to be observed, but there’s a fair amount of randomness. Sometimes it seems like enemies and/or enemy projectiles take up 80% of the playable area. The last third of the game is especially crazy.

See those sickles hovering in the air? They home in on you!

The game was pretty fun regardless of the fact that I never would’ve played through it without save states. The different areas are pretty varied, and the music is decent. I found that I kept pressing on with one question I kept asking myself: can I get through this part without getting hit? If I tried enough times, I’d usually decide that yes, it was theoretically possible.

I was a little surprised that the number of areas was smaller than expected. When you beat a level, it shows you a map of the castle, and it seems larger in the map than while you’re actually going through it. But, I imagine the game still gives an adequate number of gameplay hours through the amount of time you’ll spend replaying the same level, due to death. Also, if you manage to beat the game, it starts over with an even HARDER mode. The enemies are faster, in higher numbers, and do greater damage. I wasn’t able to get through the first area in this new mode.

Well, that’s about all there is to say about this game. Check it out if you want a challenge or want to see where the series got its roots.

Think of an object. It appears. Hmm! That was neat! Let’s think of another! Wow, that appeared too!

It’s pretty much the ultimate power, isn’t it? Imagine a puzzle game where you have this power. Sounds easy? Depends on how imaginative you are. Scribblenauts is this puzzle game.

The premise is you are a guy, named Maxwell, with the profession of Scribblenaut, and your goal is to collect these star-like things, called starites. You progressively unlock different scenarios where you’re given some hint on how to obtain the starite for that level. Write a word, and that item will appear on the screen. You can create animals, vehicles, food, just about whatever. Exclusions include proper nouns and vulgar items. Okay. Still sounds easy enough! Sometimes it is, sometimes it’s not.

You see, just because you are an object’s maker, doesn’t mean you have complete control over it. If you create a bear and place it right next to you, it will still try to eat you. Sometimes a level will have something aggressive (like a bear). Sometimes you can shoot it. Or kill it with a bigger animal. Sometimes, one of the objectives is to get past it without killing it. That’s a little trickier. Will you try to distract it with food? Perhaps distract it by making it fight something that isn’t you, but weaker? Maybe trap it? Shrink it? Turn yourself invisible? It’s up to you.

The game has a pretty impressive vocabulary, though stuff doesn’t always work out the way you think it should. Creating a ‘bridge’ creates a small wooden bridge that typically isn’t big enough to get over pits. Creating something like ‘road’ or…’iceberg’ will do the trick though. The game is chock-full of mythological creatures and internet memes. If you can think of something funny, it most likely exists.

I rescued several people from the tops of buildings by creating Pegasus, which I rode to them, then created a rope to pull them to safety. The ‘roflcopter’ is a nice alternate flying device. Cthulhu makes a pretty nice ‘bad thing killer’. Also, in case you’re wondering, if you create ‘God’ and ‘Satan’, they’re both in there, and God wins.

It’s really amazing to me that a puzzle game has finally managed to be both challenging and encourages imagination. They didn’t come up with multiple possible answers. They give you a sandbox and let you create the answer. I’ve found myself replaying levels I’ve just beaten to try new ways to defeat it again. Not because I’ve run out of puzzles, but just because an idea hits and I wonder how it’ll work out. By the way, there are a lot of puzzles.

I find myself challenging myself to think of items that I haven’t thought of before, testing the game’s limits. Before you go into the puzzle solving mode, they’ve actually created the intro screen specifically to fulfill that curiosity. You aren’t going for a starite. You’re just there, creating what you wish. This has it’s own unlockable backgrounds, received for coming up with enough unique words.

Does this look like a game you could have fun with? It might not be for everyone, but I’ve had a lot of fun with it.