Thursday, August 21, 2008

Hurray for freeware games

For years I only ever considered using a computer for non-gaming activities. Chatting using IM systems, browsing the internets, collecting and listening to music, ect. I did play video games, but they were few and far between. For the longest time it was only Blizzard games, like Diablo and Starcraft, but as the months go by I've started to use my computer for gaming more.

I download games and I play them from the disc, but I only own a few of the latter. So with few options available to me, the internet has provided sites like the excellent Home of the Underdogs.

This site's goal is to host and provide both freeware and abandonware games for the PC, with some of the oldest games being from 1982 to games up to 2005. Unfortunately, they apparently haven't updated in a couple of years but the site is still running and all of the games are still available.

After I got into a small funk over deciding which game I should play (since I was tired of both FFIVDS and FFVA at that moment), I decided to hop onto the computer and see what games I had downloaded. I have several roms available to me but none of them peaked my interest aside from Captain Commando, a game I recommend for SNES owners, and after I beat that I went to the internet on a whim.

The result? Delicious stockpiles of free games of every genre I can think of. Thanks to HOTU and other sites I now have several more PC games added to the repetoir, including a couple I think deserve a mention.

The first is Duel Toys. It is a freeware game released in '05 that takes a fun twist on fighting games. Instead of playing as the actual characters, you're a kid who owns "Duel Toys". These Duel Toys are the characters you use to fight with, so it's a tad like Pokemon in the "collect your fighters" theme. The nifty thing is it takes games from several major fighting game series. Street Fighter, King of Fighters, Darkstalkers, Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat and even Star Gladiator; it's got fighters from them all.

To top it off the sprites are done in a cutesy "chibi" fashion to give it a fun and happy-go-lucky feel. My only gripe with it was near the end of the Story-themed mode they provide. After you collect six badges and accumulate 50 wins you're allowed to enter the DT Tournament. This Tourney is a bunch of endurance battles one after another. Lose, and you're automatically sent back to your house. This forces you to start the whole thing over again.

Problem with that is, you have to reset the program or Quit the Story mode without saving, because the DT Tournament glitches up. If you lose once and try to go back all you can do is wander around the area while all of the assembled fighters - including a sprite of your character - stand there and look at nothing. Save your file at that point and you're permanently (as far as I know). Overall still a good little fighting game.

The next game comes from Bombergames. These guys have spent the last five years or so making the best Streets of Rage games I've ever played. The entire game engine was coded from scratch, all of the sprites from the games have been graphically edited and made better, and the game's series of stages is an original run with multiple paths to give the player a buttload of stages to get through. If you ever liked the Streets of Rage series or enjoyed a good beat-em-up, this game will do both of those justice. It's definitely a download (and for free too).

Now for the third and last game of my mentions. Released two years ago by Pixeljams, Gamma Bros is an awesome neo-retro game that goes back to the heyday of oldschool shmups. The concept is kinda like Space Invaders but with movement on both x-axis and y-axis, with enemies coming from all four sides of the screen. There are only a few stages to the game but these are long and make the playthrough last, especially if you die.

Unlike other shmups where you get extra lives or have multiple continues, Gamma Bros only gives you two chances before you get a Game Over. This comes from the story of the game - a tale of two friends trying to get home from work through an alien-infested area of space. Each of the two guys has a ship with a lifebar that you can collect heal restores for. When the ship is gone, however, the guy is left to hover around in space with a jetpack. If he dies it switches you to the other man and if he dies, game over.

Fortunately you can buy new ships and even resurrect your fallen comrade with the proper currency you pick up through the game. But luck and skill go a lot father then purchasing new chances in my opinion.

That's all for now, so until the next save point Sobou's going back to healing his fractured back.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Gains and Losses

Well, the past several days have been quick and interesting. Well... kinda interesting. Life shuffles on like normal for most of us, but for several it either speeds by or just up and quits.

Before I start up the whole rant about my life and video games, I want to say that I send my condolences to the families of Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes. This past weekend both of them died. Bernie was only 50, while Isaac Hayes was 65. It's a really bad thing to see great people passing on, but life does happen so we just have to grieve and move along. I liked both of them since I thought Bernie Mac was great in the movies he played roles in and was a funny comedian, and who didn't like the soul-singing star who played Chef in South Park? It's just a sad loss of two men who had years ahead of them.

With that done, let us move on to someone more personal: me. For me the week went by fast and my main obsession was Final Fantasy V Advance. Yesterday I finally beat the game, after six hours of ABP-grinding near the only Save Point in the Cleft of Dimension's Void. Gaining anywhere from 26 to 30 and sometimes 199 ABP - when you're normally lucky to get 6 ~ 8 - was awesome so I took it upon myself to master every class except Necromancer (which I don't have yet) and Mime (which functions almost exactly like Freelancer).

With my team completely beefed up I went on in and beat the crap out of Exdeath and Neo Exdeath. I had forgotten not only how easy he was (when you have all your classes mastered), but how moving the final cutscenes were. From what happens with Gilgamesh, to the appearance of the Dawn Warriors and the determined final attack of your party, it just hit home and felt good to see something come out of it.

After he died and the credits rolled, I unlocked the Bonus Dungeon. Whoo. It's a pain in the ass. The bosses challenge you unlike anything the regular game provided, including Omega and Shinryuu. Bosses like the Archeodemon - who casts Death on himself if you attack with commands like !Rapid Fire and fully heals himself - and the Grand Aevis are tough and challenge you harshly even with 99% of your classes mastered. I'm on the Archeodemon now, but after yesterday's attempt at him I shut it off and installed Age of Empires 2.

Now, I love the game. The tons of different units and upgrades, the multiple resources and ways to acquire them, and the historial tales you play through are all fun. But not when you're about to beat a campaign mission you've spent close to an hour on and the game crashes on you. That turns that love to hate. Which is why I went straight to my next game: Super Robot Wars 3.

Known in Japan as Da 3 Ji Super Robot Taisen, this game is incredible. Japanland has gotten at least 20 different Super Robot Taisen (Wars) games, but America has only ever acquired two: SRT Original Generations 1 & 2. Problem is all the different series contained within each game, which makes licensing a bitch for the Japan companies because everyone of them wants a cut of the profit if the game is going over to America. This sucks because the games are fun as hell.

I obtained a ROM of the game and there is a full translation patch available on the Internet, so I started it back up. I had played it for several missions ages ago, but I wanted a new start. Oddly enough as I'm playing this I'm also ripping sprites of the mobile suits, the character portraits and the map icons for a reason even I don't know of yet. It makes for a fuller experience I suppose, and I can always use the sprites for a new Backlog banner.

So, for those of you who said "lol tl;dr", let me shorten it out:

  1. Sucks that Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes died.
  2. I beat FFVA and I'm working on the Bonus Dungeon
  3. Age of Empires 2 is fun, but not when it crashes on you.
  4. Super Robot Wars is awesome and they should get it over here.
Until the next save point, Sobou's out.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Mortal Kombat!

To be frank, it pisses me off. I love the series, but it pisses me off. And this opinion comes from my previous play experience with the Midway series that accumulates to today.

Yesterday afternoon, I sat down and started playing Mortal Kombat: Armageddon for the PS2 again. It's been sitting on my shelf for at the least several months, and I never did finish it. On a whim I decided to go back to it and what resulted was me in my "angry gamer" mode: pissed off, slamming my fist on the desk and just about roaring about the bullshit the game was giving me at the time.

The whole gameplay aspect of MK:A is good, but the AI is a bastard. For some of the mandatory one-on-one fights I had to do in the game's Konquest (story) Mode, the computer was relentless, not even allowing me to input a command to do something. It would sit there and either counter-attack or juggle me to my death despite my attempts of hitting - and even smashing - at buttons, trying to do anything.

Plus, the "Parry" and "Breaker" systems didn't help either. Breaker is where you press Block (R2) and Toward the opponent at the exact time they hit you with an attack, and you counter-attack, knocking them down. Problem is, it was stubborn as hell to actually work for me, and it only allows you to preform a Breaker three times between all of the rounds of combat you have (So 3 times in a best-of-3).

Parrying almost never worked either. It's the reverse of Breaker: Away from the opponent and Block. It's suppose to deflect the attack and turn the opponent around, and you have infinite uses of it, but seeming as how Hell would freeze over before it worked, I could barely defend myself against the cheapass juggling sprees and counter-hit frenzies the AI worked itself into.

And let's not forget the "air combos": the moves that take up half of each fighting style's roster. Apparently you can only do them after using a pop-up move to knock the enemy in the air. I tried practically everything, but I could never find the proper pop-up move for Taven, because anytime I would hit them into the air, they'd sail out of range of any move save a fireball or something. So if I hit, it was either [Direction] + [one of the four buttons], or Square-Square-Triangle. That or gratuitous spammage of the special abilities.

The storyline was good though, as ambiguous as it was. And like usual, the ending was a cliffhanger that resolved practically nothing. Figures. I spend all that time running around as Taven, trying to stop Armageddon, only for it to leave off with him winning his godhood (what did you expect?) and attempting to hold off Armageddon until he could find a way to stop it period.

Maybe I just suck at Mortal Kombat games, but the AI went to even "cheap" lengths at times, and was merciless. I did manage to beat it though, and collected all sixty of the "Konquest Relics", unlocking EVERYTHING in the Vault. Kinda funny how they give you all of those music clips, alternate outfits, movies and concept sketches for free when you manage to somehow acquire an item from every person's repetoir. Seriously, how could Kano run around without his mask, and why would a dead Lin Kuei ninja have Liu Kang's wristbands? It makes no sense.

I don't believe I'll go back to it now that I've finished and completed it, but I'll keep it around. Having just about every character in the series playable is something worth holding onto.

I've also made progress in Final Fantasy V Advance. Stupidly, I didn't realize that when the spikes turned into holes in one of the lower floors of the Waterafall, all I'd have to do is jump down and grab the Tablet. I then spanked Leviathan with Rapid Fire + Thundaga Spellblade (moronically easy win), and sprinted right through the Underwater Magma Chasm. Last Tablet in hand, I finally managed to get three of the four new classes: Oracle, Gladiator and Cannoneer.

I've got mixed feelings about them. Oracle seems to have potential, but the Predict and Condemn skills either don't have enough of an effect, or are too slow to even work well. But the ABP Up skill (150% ABP gained per battle), and gaining the highest base Magic stat for Freelancer/Mime by mastering it does seem worth it. It just has to be slugged through.

It's crap that the whole appeal of Cannoneer - Combine - isn't acquired until you master the damn class. When it's proclaimed that the core of the class is mixing "Shot" materials together with other items to hit all enemies with damaging effects, why make it the final skill you get from the damn thing? As such, I have had no chance to even experiment with Combine. I just had to deal with "Open Fire", the class's core skill.

And Gladiator? Finisher is ok, and having that many different weapons available to equip is nice, but it just seems like a mash-together of different traits of Knight, Berserker, Ranger and Dragoon, with a new core skill (Finisher) that doesn't work half the time. Hopefully Necromancer is actually worth the effort.

Oh well. With just Odin left as an extra before I tackle the Cleft of Dimension, the game's going smoothly. I just wish my stomach was as filled as this playing experience is turning out to be.

Until the next save point, Sobou's out.

Monday, August 4, 2008

The fuel tank is empty...

... and the driver is tired as hell. I've been up for seventeen and a half hours and I'm ready to just crash. First things first though, gotta jot out all the crazy shit that went down today. Well, maybe not crazy, but all the same.

I woke up at around 7:26am this morning rather abruptly to a fire alarm blaring throughout my household. I figured it was temporary, and if at least forty minutes is "temporary", then sure enough it was. Turns out the fire alarms in the household have reached their five-year life expectancy and decided to shit out on us. Go figure.

Took a long walk before heading to my weekly Dungeons & Dragons game, and that went well. Had some jumbo shrimp and the session ended well for us, with the third out of ten "Queen's Eyes" dying to our ten-character (1 PC + 1 NPC for each person) party. We play a mix of 1.0 and 2.0 rules, with a lot of house rule mods as well. Normally, I'd question this, but our DM has been playing for 30 years, so we just go with it. Plus, it lets me cast mage spells even though I'm a cleric, so rockin'.

Went to the movies at 9:45 to see the third Mummy movie. Overall, it was pretty good. It's been awhile since I've seen Brendan Fraiser in a movie, and Jet Li did a decent preformance for what he was. Plus, the yeti kicking the chinese soldier in the balls and scoring a home run was funny as hell.

And now for the main portion of this whole thing: The news from my own video game world. Couldn't decide what to play earlier today, then I just up and picked back up Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion for the 360. I still had the Dark Brotherhood, Mages Guild and Fighters Guild questlines left to finish, so I figured I'd hop into it. Before I left for the Mummy movie I finished up the Dark Brotherhood (and became the Listener of all things...), adding another leadership title to the repetoir of jobs my character does in the Oblivion world.

Seems almost impossible for someone to multi-task like that... Being the leader of an assassin's cult, the leader of a thieves' guild, the Champion of the country, the central Arena's Grand Champion, and soon the Arch-Mage of the Mage's Guild. It defies even video game physics.

I'm also plodding along bit by bit in Final Fantasy V Advance. Trying to do the Waterfall dungeon where one of the two remaining tablets is, and all I seem to be accomplishing is mastering classes, since I can't seem to find my way through any deeper. Oh well, it's ABP and it's all good.

That's it for now, so until the next save point, Sobou's out.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Saved File Started

There. Everything is up and running, and I've got the page how I want it to look (for now at least). So, then, opening blog post it is!

My main use for this will be to just clack out my thoughts/impressions/opinions on any game I'm playing at the moment, or life and how it's going for me in general. I would have just stuck with the comments section on the Backloggery, but those are small and tend to get overwritten and possibly deleted, and I'd like to look at what I wrote several months back when it comes down to it, honestly.

As far as life goes right now, I'm doing good. I've got about a month left of wearing the brace I need (due to bike accident) to wear, then it'll just be onto the outpatient physical therapy to work back up the torso muscles that have been weakened and lazy these past two and a half months.

In my video game world, I beat U.N. Squadron - a SNES shmup - today. I've owned the game since at least 1995, but as far as I can remember I never actually did beat it until today. The second-to-last level was an utter bastard. Rather, not the level itself, but it's boss. In a game where you're scrolling from left to right and shooting in that direction, putting a boss's weak point above you with shields on either sides makes for a tough boss.

Then you've got the fact that missile launchers and screen-ranged flamethrowers keep coming onto the screen via the train-like tracks on the floor of the gigantic cavern you have and it becomes a battle to just stay alive while you spam whatever special weapons will even hit the damn boss above you.

Still, I love the damn game and I'm glad I finally finished it. I can only imagine the amount of hair I'd tear out of my head when I'd go back to it and upgrade the difficulty above Hard to the "Gamer" difficulty.

Until the next save point, Sobou's out.