The storyline developed pretty well and kept me motivated to continue playing the game. I enjoyed the big play twist at the climax of the game and from that point on, the puzzle pieces of how Rapture, the Big Daddies, Little Sisters, and Jack were create(or raised) started to fit together cohesively.

I thought the storyline was great, but I have two gripes with the game. The first issue I have with Bioshock is that two of the areas of rapture involved me going around that area to collect certain items to build something. Granted, they need something besides killing a bunch of enemies and grinding for better abilities to keep the gameplay fresh. I personally don’t have much of a taste for scavenger hunt missions in games. I think I have done them too many times by this point in life. I didn’t mind the first one in Arcadia because I felt it did a great job of introducing the mechanic of gathering items to create power items and tonics.

The second time was used to gather items to build a bomb to blow up Rapture’s core(I think). By that time, I was so jacked up on Adam, I don’t see why I couldn’t have blown up the core with what I already had in my arsenal.

This brings me to my second gripe: difficulty. I picked normal for the difficulty but I think I should have picked hard instead. The game seemed really challenging at the beginning because I had nothing. Big Daddy battles kept me on my toes and I would die a lot in those early fights. However, once I was able to invent items like exploding shotgun shells, Big Daddies would drop at my feet within a minute. Then I would get a crap load of Adam from his companion Little Sister, and get plasmid spells that made me unstoppable. To be honest, I defeated most of the splicers by just stunning them with electricity and then hitting them over the head with a wrench. If they were resistant to that, I burnt them to a crisp.

It became too easy to get cash for first aid kits and too easy to get items to build powerful ammunition. Not only that, some of the tonic’s I used to buff my abilities made combat and hacking way too easy.

By the time I faced the game’s final(and only) boss, he was no match for me. His shit got seriously ruined. I want to think that if I played the game in hard mode, that the resources I could collect would be far more limited and make the game more challenging to get through. Maybe I could rescue all the Little Sisters and not harvest any so I can get the other ending. Right now, I want to take a break from Pipe Dreams hacking and beat shit with wrenches to play one of the many games I haven’t beaten yet.

Last year at the Independent Games Festival, Fez won the Design Innovation award and the Excellence in Visual Art award and showed off how switching 2.5D perspectives could be ingeniously used for puzzle-solving. It wasn’t as polished as Super Paper Mario, but it did show a promise of depth in its gameplay. The game has since then been handled by Polytron Corporation and is slated to come out in 2009. I really hope that happens but that is not why I posted.

I was looking through Capcom Unity’s website because I wanted more Capcom-specific information from E3 this week and found a couple of gems I wanted to show:

Now that is some pretty good stuff to get my classic Mega Man fanboy blood pumping! It doesn’t really show off too much other than a remixed Metal Man’s stage and have given Mega Man more directions to travel in. I do like the affect they have on the background music when Mega Man uses Flash Man’s time-freezing weapon. This next video shows even greater potential:

The first part of the video begins to show the potential of what classic Mega Man can play like in 2.5D with little things like the perspective changes of his battle with Mecha Dragon showing off some interesting attack patterns from the boss of the ladder scene where the camera looks up to show that lasers are coming down and ready to obliterate Mega Man, letting the player know that it’s time to move!

But then a new mode for this fan game is shown when Proto Man teams up with Mega Man to travel through stages designed for cooperative play. There’s quite a few interesting things here. Protoman has to step on a switch that will lower deadly spikes so that Mega Man can get an extra life, and then later they take turns doing this so that they can advance through the level. I also like it when the view zooms in and out based on the distance between Mega Man and Proto Man, making it easy to go off in their own areas to fight enemies or solve puzzles and then return to work together when they need to. None of this is new in cooperative games; however, this combined with the elements that the 2.5D perspective brings could add something fresh to Mega Man, a franchise that has spent a good part of it’s existence being milked by Capcom.

This was a really interesting prototype that Peter Sjostrand has been working on. I really think Capcom should pick this up(and him as well) and make this into a complete game that could be downloaded various consoles and other gameplaying devices by players around the world. It was an excellent idea for Mega Man 9 and this could work really well. Whether the robot masters and stages they use are original or based on fan favorites, it can potentially be a very fun and interesting game to play with other people. Nintendo is doing somthing similar New Super Mario Bros. on the Wii, but that game is going to lack the challenege that the Mega Man series is known for.

What I do have a problem with is what games they recommend to buy for kids and why. All Star Cheer Squad and a Nancy Drew game? High School Musical 3? Seriously!? The list of recommended titles has more hits than misses and has many notable omissions. So Mr. Ward here is going to help any of you blog-reading parents out with your game holiday shopping. Hit the jump below to see my awesome list of games you should buy for your kids this holiday season.

Mega Man 9 – Wii, XBOX 360, PS3
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
Mega Man 9 takes the platforming series back to it roots from the 8 bit era of gaming. The game is challenging as there are a lot of obstacles and traps for players to avoid. These situations, in addition to boss battles, give players the opportunity to think and form strategies of their own in order to win. This is great because kids have it way too easy these days. For some reason, designers have felt having “accessibility for all” meant making many modern games brain dead easy to complete. To compliment the old school and challenging nature of Mega Man 9, the graphics and music resemble the best of what the NES had to offer many years ago. This game is just as good as Mega Man 2 or 3, and this download-only title is a great gift for your kids so that they can see how good you had it when you were their age.

Super Street Fighter II: Turbo HD Remix – XBOX 360 and PS3
ESRB Rating: T for Teen
Ridiculously enough, MediaWise forgot to exclude Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe from their games to avoid. Normally the level of violence would be a good reason to not buy this for kids, and even though the violence and fatalities were toned down for a Teen rating, it’s still noticeable. Putting that aside, kids are going to want it because it has Batman and Superman and it. That may be nice and all, but the gameplay is actually trash; furthermore, the execution of many aspects of the fighting engine are heavily flawed. The game is ultimate crap(I will post at a later date specifically as to why) and it scares me that parents will their children their first foray into the fighting genre with this. Please don’t do that. Instead, be a good parent this holiday and download Super Street Fighter II: Turbo HD Remix for your kids so they can have one of the greatest fighting game experiences ever. I spent much of my Thanksgiving Break playing it. The graphics and sound have been redone(and you can choose to go old-school) and the game has been rebalanced for a much fairer competitive play. For a fourth of the price of MK vs DCU, you will get way deeper fighting game experience.

LittleBigPlanet – PS3
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
This is a cool platformer in which players can use teamwork to solve puzzles. The game is very aesthetically pleasing, with excellent level design and cute sackboys to control. This game also has the ability to create detailed levels and share them on the Playstation Network. Sony has been moderating player submissions as best as they can and so far the level of user-created content available is incredible. In addition to being a great game for the kids and family, this is one of the must-own titles for the Playstation 3.

Rock Band 2 - Wii, XBOX 360, PS3, PS2
Rated T for Teen
Don’t waste your money on Guitar Hero: World Tour. Get this game instead. I don’t care either way when it comes to the Simon Says music games, but everyone who is into them has told me that RB2 is the way to go. You can download songs in addition to the ridiculous amount of songs already available and on the PS3 and XBOX 360 versions, you can convert your old Rock Band songs for a small fee. Just make sure you have your kids play the classics so their musical tastes aren’t rotted by the emo scene!

deBlob – Wii
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
Let’s face it, Nintendo dropped the ball hardcore with the Nintendo Wii this year. You probably have a good amount of dust on your Wii because nothing very notable has been released for it during the past few months. There is at least one good game this holiday for the Wii you should try out: deBlob. The game has you control a blob that has the task of restoring color to town that has had it taken away by an evil organization. The ways you can do this are very creative and overall the game is a fun and light-hearted experience. It has the visual appeal and warm nature that you would find in a Super Mario game or a Pixar film.

World of Goo – Windows, Mac and Wii
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
World of Goo won a couple of awards at the Independent Games Festival earlier this year. It’s a very unique physics-based puzzle game where you have to save a certain number of goos each level by manipulating them with the mouse(or Wii-mote) and using them to construct objects such as towers and bridges to get them to safe locations. One of the main strategies to win is to provide support as you extend your towers and bridges since the goos carry weight on them. This can cause for some interesting situations to happen as towers and bridges can topple and break or the goos can cling to surfaces you do not want them to. World of Goo is very addicting and the PC version has a demo you can try out and I highly recommend doing so.

Spore - Windows and Mac
ESRB Rating: E+10 for Everyone older than 10
This game was hyped for years and while many people didn’t have their expectations met(and certain gameplay features were cut from the final release), this game is still a great present for kids. It’s a very simple evolution game where you take the most basic form of life, evolve it into a customizable creature, build a civilization, and then travel and conquer the galaxy to your liking. There’s a lot more to that, but like the aforementioned LittleBigPlanet, Spore encourages players to be creative have some control as to how they play the game. There are more than several different stages of the game divided into smaller metagames that are based on existing genres like strategy games(Civilization, Age of Empires) and simulation games(Sim City). These metagames are nowhere near as complex as the full games they are inspired by, but I think that is good for younger players who made not be ready to handle games of such complexity and depth.

The winter looks good for gamers of all tastes and ages so do your best to go out and get some great games this holiday season!

I never played the Lego Star Wars games that have come out. I grew out of the whole fandom of Star Wars and I don’t think I can really go back. Indiana Jones is still fresh on my mind after seeing that fourth movie that nobody really wants to talk about. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was okay but if you didn’t see, it’s not a big deal. The game can be two players or you can play it with an A.I. controlled partner. It looks like I will be going through the trilogy’s greatest moments(in Lego form) and beating up lots of stuff.

Anyways, I kinda forget what happened in the former trilogy for the most part, however the gameplay is similar to an old action sidescroller with “puzzle” elements. So I start of the game with what appears to be Indy and some guy with a shovel looking for the Lost Ark. I think. Indy can punch the crap out of pretty much everything and that is awesome. So I break Lego bushes and get Lego coins that I can use in groups of a thousand every time I fall into a cliff when I think I am jumping at a vine but not really.

Early on, the game seems to lack visual depth when you are trying to get past obstacles. You will fall off cliffs because they don’t look like cliffs at first. But in all honesty, I don’t think that you can get a game over in this game. When I relaized this, I started to play sloppy because there was no penalty for dying. This game is supposed to be for kids but when I was a kid, the games I played would make ou start over when you failed. I guess kids today are pussies. You have a partner with you throughout the levels and you can beat each other into pieces for enjoyment. When characters in the game are defeated they break into little lego man parts. So the shovel dude and I are journeying through a jungle and there’s not a lot going on. There are no enemies for a while and I am just collecting coins and pressing the red button to build stuff so that I can advance.

I spent much of the first level wondering where i am supposed to go as the level seems to lack visual clues that tell you where to go. Later on, I learn that I am supposed to jump on random hanging vines to open up doors. There are some spiders that keep dropping down but they are easy to kill. Spikes also come out of the ground and if they hit you, you die. if they miss, you can pull them out of the ground and throw them at enemies. There were also alligators in the lake I beat with a whip while on land.

We make it in the temple after wondering around on a raft for a while and discovering the aforementioned vine trick. In here is a puzzle where one player presses a switch to lower spikes in the area and the other player will cross. When you are playing alone, you can switch between the two characters and the other will usually follow you around. I was afraid that when I switched characters, Indy would leave the switch; however, it appears that certain puzzles like this will cause the A.I. character to accomplish the task you want it to do on it’s own as Indy presses the right switches. So far the co-op A.I. has behaved quite well which is something modern games do not execute correctly. I suppose since this a very linear game, set up like a side scroller or top-down game, that setting up event triggers and navigation points for the A.I. is quite easy compared to FPS games where your allies are bullet shield and can’t drive vehicles.

I eventually get the artifact and re-enact the scene where Indy escapes from a rolling boulder, while jumping over pits. I keep falling into pits and eventually the boulder runs me over and takes me outside to meet people that probably want to kill me. I escape, and have a new parter with a wrench to team up with me as we fight the tribals and get the plane fixed to fly away. It was more or less a back and forth between the two objectives. The dude with the wrench had to do the fixing and upon completion, we were off.

After that I save and go to the college and explore and see all the various things going on, while breaking tables and getting money for it. I love the old school game logic here. I discover that I can unlock characters I don’t care about with the money i have saved and that I can either continue to the next stage of Raiders of the Lost Arc or try one of the other two movies. I must say that is a pretty cool feature in the game as it gives the player choices on how they will play. But I decide to continue Raiders and I have a female partner this time, and she has some important artifact. We end up in a bar for some reason and she can jump higher than Indy(because women can automatically jump higher than men, according to the designers) to solve the bar’s puzzles of going somewhere and holding the red button down. Man these puzzles are really well-though out and creative! After that, we have a bar fight against what might be Nazis but they aren’t wearing their swastikas. I could have sworn there were Nazis in the movie, what happened?

After we beat a bunch of people up, we go outside where it is snowing and I build a couple Lego snowmen and fight people who have guns. Shooting with a gun in this game is very simple. All you have to do is face the enemy you want to shoot and press a button. Why can’t all action games be quite like this? For giggles, I try to hit the woman I am with but whe is not affected. I switch to her and pound Indy into a pulp. What the hell? You can’t beat women in this game? How is it fair to be able to beat up your male partners for amusement, but not your female ones? I call shenanigans!

Back to the game. There’s also a horse that does nothing but I made him stand on a switch. you can ride him, but there really isn’t a point in that. To get across a bridge, I built something and carried it to a place that had an arrow over it. And then I killed more not-Nazis and blew up a truck. After that the level was pretty much over. It was quick with plenty of well-paced action, which I liked. Unfortunately, because I don’t remember the movies that well, I have no idea what is going on. All I know if that there is stuff to punch.