Posted on:
May 1, 2013
Aria is…
Category Archive: Games
Apr 20
Tagros’ Thoughts: A Dark Turn To A Lighthearted Monster
Hi friends!
When Monster is sleeping, you can use his belly as a trampoline to get to unreachable locations
I know that it has been quite a while, but after a long hiatus, I hope to get back into writing, as there are some games coming out in the near future that I truly believe deserve some attention that might get thrown under the rug, or brushed away. This isn’t necessarily going to be a new feature, but I do want to adapt the way that I wrote before in lieu of a more mature, insightful look at the games that I have decided to discuss. Seeing as the main area where I play games is on Steam now, most of my selections will be from there, and because of the way that release happen, this means that some of these games may have already been out on other platforms for a while, and are re-releases just coming to steam. For this weeks installment, this is exactly the case, as the game that I want to discuss is an indie gem called Papo Y Yo, which released on PSN back in August, but recently got a steam release (it came out on the 18th).
Now I have always been a fan of games that try to tell a story that (at least attempt) to speak on issues that are more than just surface level. In many ways, the tone of a game and the way that it carries itself can turn a game that I enjoy into a game I absolutely love, and this is what initially drew me towards Papo Y Yo. I heard about the premise of the story (a young boy who is confronted with taking care of a docile monster whose addiction to frogs turns him into a raging beast) and the ties that it had to developer Vander Caballero, and decided that I needed to try it for myself. Without going into too much detail, the ties to addiction are something that I am very familiar with, so I wanted to see if a game that focuses on this could capture the feelings that I had when I dealt with similar issues.
But when he eats a poisonous frog, his demeanor quickly changes
The answer that I found was that yes, it did, to a scary degree. While there may be a few issues with the game technically (the controls aren’t the best, and the graphics are not top notch), I could instantly look past, as the game reached me in ways that other games never have. If you look at most of the reviews, nearly all of them say that while there are issues mechanically (which is to be expected with the size of the team that they had and the type of game world they developed), these are the type of stories that need to be told, and I couldn’t agree more. To be completely honest, the first time that I saw Monster eat the frog and start chasing right towards me, I felt a really weird sense of realism that I had never really felt in a game, but the depression that I initially experienced was soon quelled because I realized that I wasn’t alone in this experience. While Vander’s experience may have differed from mine, the fact that there was even a game out there period was more than enough to really entwine me deeply within the games universe.
This type of feature is something that I will continuously try to hone, as I think that there is quite a bit of room for improvement, but if you don’t have any feedback that you want to give, or your personal experiences with the game, feel free to let me know in the comments below, or you can email me at tagros.ariablarg.tv (if you want to keep it private). Hopefully this will be the first in a long line of blogs, and I thank you very much for reading!
Developer Vander Caballero was never passive about how this game was strongly informed by his life as a child
Happy Gaming,
Tagros
Apr 17
Spring LCS final week.
Springs LCS is finally winding down, and the battle for playoff position is tighter than ever.
Counter Logic Gaming, Good Game University, Vulcan, Team MRN and Complexity are all fighting to get into the playoffs as wild cards, and with only 5 games left, each game will be as intense as ever. While the aforementioned teams are fighting for their chance to be in the playoffs, Curse, Team Dignitas and Team Solo Mid will be fighting for a BYE week, giving them the opportunity to scout out the wildcard matches.
My predictions:
This is how it’ll look at the end of the LCS.
Curse will win LCS Spring and go on to a bye week before playoffs with a win over GGU today, and Team MRN on Thursday. Although with internal fighting in the team, I could be completely wrong. (Win vs GGU, Win vs MRN, Loss vs DIG, Win vs COL, Win vs Vulcan)
Team Dignitas will wrap up their season in 2nd place, just falling 2 wins behind Curse. I feel Team Dignitas has slowed down towards the end of the season, but remains a force not to be trifled with. (Win vs COL, Win vs CLG, Win vs CRS, Win vs Vulcan, Win vs TSM)
Team Solo Mid will end up in 3rd place, just barely miss the bye week. (Win vs MRN, Win vs CLG, Win vs Complexity, Win vs Vulcan Loss vs GGU, Loss vs DIG)
Counter Logic Gaming
Counter Logic gaming will solidify their 4th seed Thursday with a win over Vulcan. (Loss vs TSM, Loss vs DIG, Win vs Vulcan, Win vs MRN, Loss vs GGU)
Good Game University will continue their momentum into this week, winning big in bottom 4 matches. I feel like their play has vastly improved and roster changes have made a huge difference. This is the sleeper team to watch for in the playoffs. They are hungry, and wanting to show the world what GGU is really about. (Win vs COL, Loss vs CRS, Win vs MRN, Win vs Vulcan, Win vs CLG, Win vs TSM)
Team MRN will limp into the 6th seed, pushed forward by poor performances by Vulcan and Complexity. I feel they will easily be swept under the rug by whomever they play in the 1st round of LCS playoffs. (Loss vs TSM, Win vs Vulcan, Loss vs CRS, Loss vs CLG, Win vs Complexity)
I do have a feeling though, that after last week, CLG COULD, I repeat, COULD wind up as the bottom seed. I don’t feel like that gut instinct is good enough to warrant me writing them off in my predictions though. CLG still hasn’t picked up the pieces, and a poor showing this week will solidify their bottom seed, pinning them up against TSM. That’s for another post though.
Thanks for reading.
While at PAX we saw a joust fight arena and said we had to do a fight there :p
Posted on:
April 14, 2013
On the way to the the final PAX dinner we though of singing 99 bottles but we came up with a good alternative
Posted on:
April 14, 2013
Mar 28
Whine Country: Dracula is Dead
[Hey Blargnauts. Aria wants me to write again, so I'm going to poop out this super brief, stream-of-consciousness bitchfest. Maybe it will be a regular thing; maybe not. Here we go!]
I recently borrowed a copy of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate. (Trying saying that one time at a moderate pace… without feeling like a moron). Okay, so my heart was broken when it was announced that the original Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was beginning a new canon for Castlevania; but now they are apparently re-branding the Castlevania series as Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. And you thought Akumajo Dracula was bad! It’s so dumb! But, I digress…
I played this bastardization of my beloved “Cassie” for about an hour. It’s starts with a boring prologue starring boring Gabriel from the first “CasLorShad”. You do some stuff predicated on the first game, which I didn’t play, so I didn’t really care. Then the gameplay starts, and “Oh boy!”, I thought to myself. “Let’s see how they botched this simple combat concept!” Well, I was actually wrong. They didn’t ruin “The ‘Vane’s” combat; they adequately implemented God of War’s combat… in 2D. Moving on…
This game looks a lot more interesting… BRB
After the prologue, you’re put into the tribal skins of Gabriel’s grandson: none other than Simon Belmont himself. “This should be better”, I thought. “Now they’ll introduce new and interesting elements.” Wrong again. Same bland GoW combat. Worse yet, there’s not enough of it. You spend more time platforming (a task which doesn’t even resemble fun in this instance), than you do stupidly whipping around.
Okay, this brief rant is getting less brief. So I’m gonna to diarrhea out the rest of my thoughts, completely acknowledging the fact the I’m giving up on putting any real effort into this.
- The game is butt -ugly! These polygon are so jagged and plain, they make me want to puke!
- Alucard uses a whip! What? Also, he’s made out of ugly polygons.
- CastLorShat has barely noticeable music. Which is the worst possible sacrilege for a Castlevania game.
- It’s bad! It’s really bad! Don’t play it!
Okay, that’s it. ::whips around mic until bored, then drops::
Mar 04
Tagros’ Thoughts: Bit Trip Buy This Game
Hello All!
As I sit here waiting for it to hit 9 pm (when Tomb Raider releases on Steam for the West Coast), I wanted to do a blog about a game that I have been playing a bit of recently. Unfortunately, I have been massively busy with work the past two weeks, but I have still been able to fit in time for a gem of a game that goes by the name of Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien. For those that don’t know (which I assume is an extremely small portion of people reading this article), Runner 2 is the highly anticipated sequel to the indie smash hit Bit Trip Runner. I actually ended up preordering the game on Steam after I got back from Pax Prime because of how impressed I was with what I saw, but for those who only have knowledge of the original, I will tell you a few reasons why I think you should check out its sequel.
The art style has changed quite a bit from the original version
First off, let me know that the gist of the game is the same. It is still an endless runner and still has extremely tight timing for some of the jumps, which makes gameplay range from fairly simple to absolutely excruciating. One of the biggest things that they added was a checkpoint about halfway through the level, which honestly, is a lifesaver. In the first game, you could get to the very last jump, and if you accidentally slipped up, you were all the way back to the beginning. Luckily, the checkpoint can lessen some of the anger that you may get towards the game, but it can get infuriating if you miss a gold piece and hit the checkpoint, because it means that you pretty much have to start the whole level again. Another pretty big addition is the fact that in certain places, the map will split into two parts where there is an easier and a harder route. These tend to not have very important consequences outside of the fact that you can earn more points if there are more obstacles on the map, but it is a cool addition, and sometimes it can lead to secret areas!
Another cool feature is that the three worlds in the previous game have been expanded to 5 worlds, with multiple levels in each world. Each of the different worlds have quite a bit of charm and character, and each world offers a new character that you can unlock. They all play roughly the same, but seeing the different skins is pretty cool and adds a personality to the worlds. You can also collect costumes to put on each unlocked character, which can make your runner completely different from your friends. I don’t know about you, but I am a pretty big fan of customization, so this fact really drew me in. What do you think of Runner 2 though? Have you played it? Do you want to? Sound off in the comments below!
The “retro” sections are much more few and far between, but still provide quite a challenge
Happy Gaming!
Tagros