Though the graphics aren’t terribly detailed, the game stays steady at 60 fps, and it even mixes FMV with rendered graphics nicely.

I ended up getting the PC version because, well, PCs are more powerful than consoles. Unfortunately D:SF on the PC doesn’t have that many graphical improvements over the console versions. I can play the game in true 1080 HD and other high resolutions (up to 2560×1600 I believe), and the game supports hardware AA and v-sync, but that’s it. Can’t increase draw distance, LOD or anything like that. Still, it looks significantly better than the console versions.

Being an Ubisoft game on Steam, there were no trophies/achievements, which is annoying. Probably the only disadvantage the PC version has over the console versions. The game uses U-Play achievements, which are kind of lame, but unlike traditional trophies/achievements, they can be used to buy some (crappy) DLC content

The game’s representation of San Francisco is neat. Not exactly accurate, but it has the general location and look of various landmarks – Golden Gate Bridge, downtown, Ocean Beach, Lombard street, Embarcadero, Pier 39, Coit Tower, etc. Most of it is here.

Though the cars handle more-or-less realistically, the game is more “arcadey” than realistic. Eventually you gain a boost ability, a ramming ability, and cars have “health.” Then of course there’s the game’s gimmick: the ability to shift.

With the ability to shift, you can take control of anybody driving a car. The game has you use this ability to complete a variety of tasks. For example, you can quickly shift to a driver on the other side of the city to complete an objective. Or when you’re racing you can take control of oncoming traffic to crash into your opponents.

It sounds pretty messed up but it works with the game’s story: Undercover cop John Tanner chases after criminal boss Jericho, only to get into a horrible accident. Tanner ends up in a coma and the game actually takes place in his mind, where he is able to do these amazing things like shift into other people’s bodies and boost his car.

The game isn’t serious at all, and it uses the shift mechanic to create some funny situations. For example, you’ll take control of a father with his son in the car and scare the pants off of him, or take control of some woman’s husband and make her think he’s crazy.

The game licensed mostly American cars, but there are some European cars and Nissans. The cars look nice and (aside from the arcadey/video game abilities) handle pretty realistically.

Overall Driver: San Francisco is a fun game that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys driving games.

Cave story (aka Doukutsu Monogatari) is an indie game created single-handedly by Daisuke Amaya (who goes by the name “Pixel”) over the course of five years. It is a well-made game that uses retro graphics and sound (slightly better than Nintendo quality). It’s a fun game that quickly became a “cult-hit” fan favorite, earning recognition within the gaming community and eventually gaining a fan translation. Now due to popular demand, it’s available on Steam, over 6 years after its creation.

The gameplay has a sort of Metroid feel to it. It is a classic side-scroller/platformer type game. Your character will wield some neat weapons, each with its own strengths, that can be leveled up. The well designed levels and bosses give the player a good amount of variety and challenge. The game is mostly linear but it does have branching paths and you can roam freely for the most part. There are plenty of secrets and easter-eggs in the game, so there is a lot of replay value and depth to it. It’s a good game that is pretty complete, quite a feat for just one person.

The game stars a boy who wakes up in a cave, not knowing who he is, where he’s from, or what he’s doing there. He soon finds himself in a village of creatures, known as the Mimiga. These Mimiga are being terrorized by an evil doctor, and it’s up to you to stop him. The story seems simplistic but is actually well done and extensive, and can be surprisingly dark at times (a lot of characters can die, for example). Though the characters aren’t well developed, it’s still a little shocking to see them die, especially in such a cute game. The somber and serious story is a stark contrast to the retro graphics and cute characters; I like it.

The retro graphics and music are quite endearing – a throwback to a simpler era in video gaming. The game itself is very modern, however. It is well-paced; the difficulty is well balanced. The controls are tight. The story is mature and interesting. All unlike most games of yesteryear. Had Cave Story been released in the late 80’s/early 90’s it would’ve been the ideal dream game of the NES/SNES era.

The game’s difficulty is pretty fair. Being too reckless or sloppy will cause a death, but it’s never too hard. The game ends in a spectacularly challenging boss fight that reminds me a lot of the final bosses in the Mega Man/Mega Man X games. I tried for a couple of hours trying to beat the final boss. It’s a 3 phase boss fight (with phase 2 having a secondary “sub-phase”). There is no chance to save, reload or replenish health between phases, so the bosses act as a kind of endurance round as well.

Like many hard challenges it was quite satisfying finally being able to beat the game. Most games nowadays are too easy so the challenging and satisfying final boss was quite a refreshing (yet simultaneously frustrating) change of pace.

I ended up getting the “normal” ending (did I mention this game has multiple endings?) but little did I know that getting the secret “best” ending requires you to fight yet another boss that’s even harder than this one.

You have the option to play the game with some updated sound and graphics (maybe between “Super Nintendo” and “PlayStation” quality), but part of Cave Story’s charm is its retro feel, so the update feels a bit unnecessary.

All of Cave Story – its excellent design, artwork, music, story, etc. – came from one person, which is quite a feat. If playing well-made, retro-style indie games sounds like your cup of tea, I would highly recommend picking it up and giving it a try.

Maybe because I just finished two God of War games in a row, but I think the combat in El Shaddai is poorly designed. Why are there two buttons for attack (the same attack), but you have to hold guard and press it to do a strong attack? Same goes for dodging (there are two jump buttons, but you have to hold guard and press jump to dodge). And the right analog stick and 2nd shoulder buttons aren’t utilized at all.

The game gives you three different weapons for variety. Aside from the “normal” weapon, you have a fast, ranged weapon, and a slow, defensive weapon.

The weapons’ usefulness depends on the situation. The ranged weapon is sometimes so weak it’s useless, and the stronger weapon is also too slow sometimes, and its defensive qualities are questionable. After a certain point, the game more-or-less forces you to use specific weapons on certain enemies/bosses.

Throughout the game, you are randomly pit against regular enemies, which can be annoying, and the fights can take very long, especially by the end of the game. The game gets a bit challenging toward the end. Though I can’t really say whether the challenge is from well designed fights or having to overcome poor combat design.

The combat feels more like filler most of the time, especially those “random enemy attack” bits. I got tired of the combat really quickly. I think the game could’ve done with less combat. Again, I must point out that I just finished two God of War games, so my opinion is a little jaded (I think GoW has some great combat). And I’m just tired of these types of games in general. To its credit, the game does try to add variety outside of the combat. For example, there is a motorcycle race level, and level where you play as a fallen angel. There are platforming levels as well (in both 2D and 3D). These non-combat sections are probably my favorite parts of the game

The game looks good. Graphics are very stylish and imaginative but lack in technical proficiency. The complete lack of anti-aliasing is probably the part I find most annoying. (Apparently this problem is only on the PS3 version of the game) And there is a lack of texture smoothing sometimes too. The game does that weird effect that was in Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom – Often there is a shroud, a layer of texture, over everything a lot of the time. But I love how the different worlds of the game are so unique.

The style of the game is very anime-like… Overdramatic, pretentious, goofy, cutesy, and full of fancy slow-mo stylish action cutscenes and such. The game constantly switches styles, breaks the fourth wall, and is very random. I like it, as its unique style is easily the best and most memorable part of the game. For example, there’s a bonus stage that, if you fail, it shows you the credits and kicks you back to the title screen. That part is kind of annoying but it’s a good example of how “out there” and unusual this game is.

The writing and acting can be goofy but is actually not too bad, especially compared to other Japanese translated games. The only complaint I have with the translation is that the lips aren’t synchronized with the speech, which isn’t really a big deal, honestly.

Overall, I found the game reminiscent of Killer 7, which I loved. The gameplay is poor but the game is so weird, peculiar and interesting that it makes up for its shortcomings.

I played the first SimCity game extensively and dabbled with SimCity 2000 a bit, but haven’t played SC since.

SC4 is SimCity like usual, but with more options.  You can customize the terrain before you start a city; You can specify the density of the different zones; You have several options when it comes to creating a water and power network, and also when it comes to police & fire stations, schools, hospitals, etc; You can establish various city ordinances; And so forth and so on.  With the Rush Hour add-on (which comes with the deluxe edition) you can build subways, elevated trains, passenger and freight lines, etc.  And you can create an intricate highway system with a number of different on/off-ramps, clovers, etc.

You can even plant “Sims” around town and follow them (funny how “The Sims” games, got so popular that they made the SimCity games obsolete).  You can see how they feel about their commute, how they like their jobs, if they feel safe or healthy, etc.  You also have the option of driving cars (and even helicopters) around the city to see what the commute is like.  A neat feature though honestly it feels largely unnecessary.

SimCity 4 has a number of new features and such, but at its core, the same old fun SimCity.

Stability issues

When I first fired up SimCity 4, it crashed after about an hour or two.  I tried playing it again and it crashed again after a couple of hours.  It was very frustrating starting a city and seeing it grow, only to lose your progress.  There should really be an auto-save feature in this game.

I looked up what the problem could be, and I came across a suggestion which was actually the same solution I used to run Painkiller and the Prince of Persia games.  I guess my computer setup is just inherently incompatible with older software.

Interface issues

The interface is composed of nondescript icons.  Though they have tool tips, its annoying learning what each icon/button does.  Its all fine once you get used to it though.  But it could take a while.  The tooltips don’t give you the keyboard shortcuts either; I had to look them up online.  I guess it was assumed that everyone who plays the game has a physical copy of the instruction manual.  After all, how could they have known digital distribution would be so big years later.

Realism issues

Some of the sim aspects of the game are a little weird though.  In real life, if you put a parking garage in a heavy commercial zone, a lot of people are going to use it.  But in SimCity, people only use parking garages in residential areas next to transit stops.  Hospitals are a similar situation.  If you put one in an industrial area, it will never get used.  In real life, people will use it all the time, due to industrial injuries alone.  The game seems to figure traffic pretty strangely too.  The game may not figure the most efficient commute for the sims (they are very finicky with their commute), making it hard to plan out traffic routes.  Little things like that kind of mess up the realism.

Overall the game is still great, time consuming fun.  Creating and watching over a city and seeing it thrive (or not) is still entertaining after all these years.  Often I would want to play the game for an hour or so, only to spend an entire afternoon tending to my city.  If you’re like me and you enjoy SimCity and haven’t played SimCity 4 yet, do yourself a favor and pick it up during the next sale.

Shinji Mikami should be applauded though.  I love that he embraces and tries to emulate American culture and style, while a lot of Japanese developers often try to stick with the same formula.  He’s been known to criticize the Japanese game industry for being stale.  I can’t say I disagree with him.  Of course the same can be said of American companies.  Either way I enjoy it when game makers from one culture adopts the strong points of another.

The game gets hectic, and is pretty fun.  It basically plays like your basic 3rd person shooter with a couple of key differences.

Bosses are fun.  They mostly consist of large (often transforming) robots that fire lasers and missiles and everything in-between, which is really cool.  Again, something you don’t see in American shooters.  Some of the bosses are reused a couple of times though.

And you have the ability to slow down time (Bullet Time just like Max Payne and F.E.A.R. – very cool but not exactly original) and perform a fast moving “slide.”  The sliding mechanic is probably the best part.  It gives you mobility that you just don’t get from the multitude of third-person shooters out there.  It works well with the big robot boss fights.

Still, the game isn’t perfect.  I wish there were more fights that had you smartly utilize the slide.  And the “overheating” mechanic is a little too restricting.  Why do melee attacks drain the meter?  And does the game have to force you to use the slo-mo when you get hit and subsequently completely drain the meter?  Maybe if they make a Vanquish 2, they could address these problems.  That would be a sequel I would love to play.

The game is short but sweet.  Levels often have a different exciting situation to put you in.  Like a cool train chase level, a sniper level, or a zero-gravity level.  Or a level where you infiltrate a giant moving crab-like boss as big as a city.

The graphics look good but are kind of weird.  The most annoying thing is the light saturation (I think that’s what it is).  It makes it really hard to see things sometimes.  If a certain graphical effect gets in the way of visibility, it needs to be toned down.  This is one of those cases.  On the other hand, the motion blur looks really nice and fits with the fast pace of the game.

Like most of these kinds of games, your AI controlled squad just gets in the way.  They occupy your cover, get caught in your crossfire, die constantly, and have horrible aim.  It makes me wonder why the game isn’t just a “one man army” type game.  If it was, it wouldn’t quite feel unnecessarily hectic and possibly more precise and strategic.

It’s refreshing to play a third-person shooter that isn’t American, and a Japanese game that isn’t overly cinematic, too serious and starring some emo Bishounen or something.  One of these days I hope to play a game that is the best of both worlds.  I think we are getting closer and closer to those days.

Overall Vanquish is fast-paced, hectic and fun; an American type of game with a refreshing, extreme anime-like style of action.  An interesting Japanese take on the American third-person shooter genre.

But when I tried playing the games I ran into several severe problems.  The game was extremely jerky, and the controls barely responded.   It’s the same problems I had with the Prince of Persia collection.  I wonder what the problem could be… maybe games coded in this engine or specific language?  Maybe my processor or video card just don’t play well with games designed for legacy hardware.  I dunno…

Gotta love spending money on games that don’t run well on hardware that completely obliterates the minimum requirements…

Ah, the joys of PC gaming!

So I finally figured out and fixed the problem with the PoP games and Painkiller.  So I played PK for a bit.

The game is neat.  As I said, it’s just nonstop shooting action set to heavy metal music.  You go in a room, tons of monsters come out of nowhere, and you kill them then move on to the next room.  The game saves and replenishes your health between each room; not much thought required.  There isn’t a dull moment, but it does get repetitive and it isn’t exactly a deep or memorable experience.

With these basic enemies I find myself just running backwards in a circle shooting shit.  Most enemies just make a straight B-line for you, but later on you encounter different varieties of enemies to mix things up a bit.

It’s a first person shooter boiled down to the basics.  If you like FPS games and just want to mindlessly kill shit, without story or fluff to get in your way, Painkiller is the game to play.

Kratos has a couple of new attacks – he can now imbue his blades with fire which is pretty neat (and also weird – I thought his blades were <I>always</I> on fire) and he also has a charge/tackle move that I never use – but yeah, more of the same.

Anyway, it’s a good game, but I feel like I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as Chains of Olympus.  Maybe because I played CoO first, then played Ghost of Sparta immediately afterward.  And at this point I’ve already played the hell out of God of War in general. (I just realized I played every single GoW game!).  More of the same can only be so much fun.

It’s kind of funny how it feels like they try to make the story emotional.  It’s well done, not terribly cheesy – But it’s hard to feel for the main character in a game where he spends 99% of his screen time shouting and killing things.

The game looks great, significantly better than Chains of Olympus.  It’s amazing just how good they made the graphics look, especially considering it was originally a PSP game.  LoD effects, sharper textures, more detailed monsters and environments, blur effects, depth of field, etc.  Just like Chains of Olympus, they significantly touched up the graphical detail for this HD version, and it shows.  More than just a resolution increase, they actually recreated every texture and model.  I wish other companies would do that with their HD collections; it would make them much more worth buying.

Anyway I think this game is great. The game isn’t much too look at, doesn’t have much action, and I wouldn’t really recommend it to anybody (except perhaps those with a penchant for programming or chemistry).

I mean, think about it. The game is like programming with fake chemistry. Most people would probably look at it and think it was boring, and understandably so. That was my first impression as well. But I really enjoyed it. Much more than Dead Rising 2, a popular big-budget 3D game, which I am also playing at the moment.

I definitely wasn’t expecting to enjoy it this much. Out of all the recent indie games I’ve played, I had the highest expectations for TRAUMA, and probably the lowest for SpaceChem. I was glad to be pleasantly surprised.

I love the music, too. It’s so dramatic, and is of relatively high quality, especially compared to the visuals and such. There aren’t that many tracks though, so if you play the game for so many hours you end up listening to the same tracks over and over.

While there isn’t much to the story, it is very well written. You can tell that the guy who made the game (Zach?) put a lot of effort into it.

The game gets pretty tough. Admittedly, I’ve had to look up some help on the more difficult levels. However, I didn’t just copy-and-paste the answers and use them verbatim. I just looked at design ideas and such. Then I would come up with my own design and create it from scratch. These latest levels I’ve been playing would take hours to build, even if I look up design ideas. (Edit: some of these levels take me DAYS to build.) But seeing it all work is very rewarding.

Overall, SpaceChem is a very good game that I’m glad to have picked up a tried. To think, I could’ve very easily missed out on it. That would’ve been sad.

I think I mentioned my love hate relationship with Puzzle Quest here before, but if not here is a simple run down: other than being beyond frustrating at times, and wanting to throw my DS against the wall MANY times as a result of that frustration, it was an okay game. Do I love puzzle games? Yes. If I had demoed Puzzle Quest, would I have bought it? Absolutely not. Did that stop me from downloading the free version onto my phone? No. I think if I found a game I really loved, I wouldn’t mind shelling out a few dollars for it but as I’ve discovered – I hate everything. I’m secretly (apparently this is no big secret) a grumpy man in disguise. I have made plans on being curmudgeonly old man when I grow up. I get irritated when I hear a character in a game repeat one phrase over and over, or any sound effect repeatedly and often I played WoW with no sound and my music playing in the background. In fact, I play most games with my music in the background but I digress.

My point is that I like having an out that doesn’t cost me money. At most, if I decide that I don’t like Angry Birds anymore, I can delete it and no harm no foul. I realize that the full version is only $.99 or so, but could you imagine hating several games that cost more than that? I’ve seen games go past the $7 mark, and other apps that are $14 and up. In an economy like todays, one cannot simply afford to throw their games away. Not to mention, I’m not the most careful person in the world and my phone, at some point, will probably factory reset itself to get revenge on me for its treatment. I break everything I touch which means I will probably lose all the games on it and me being me means I’ll probably forget to re-download one or two of them.

So where is this whole blog going anyway? I really love my new phone and if I had been stuck in the hospital with my old phone, I may have lost it and flipped out on my suitemates. I both enjoy and hate the touch screen (I have problems seeing around my fingers sometimes and I don’t have the most delicate touch or dainty fingers) and I love the wide variety of free games available (especially when they’re made by a local company or person!). I’m not entirely sure how to end this blog, so I guess… HURRAY NEW PHONE.

-Cogs

Pretty good game. Has a pleasant design to it and the interface isn’t complicated. So its easy to get into. I was never too good at slider puzzles, but if you like them, then this game will be heaven for you.

-Revenge of the Titans

The game is an interesting take on tower defense. The enemies don’t have a precise, designated path and you’re free to build towers mostly anywhere. Because of this you have to be careful where to build. If you build too close to them, the enemies will attack your tower and destroy it. And if you build too far, the tower won’t be effective.

The upgrades are kind of neat too, though it looks like once you pick an upgrade you can’t go back without starting the game all over again, which is kind of annoying.

Also, in addition to being susceptible to enemy damage, the towers fire slowly and are subject to running out of ammo/reloading. And they reload slowly. Another thing that’s kind of annoying.

I do like the look and feel of the game though.

-TRAUMA

Neat game, really short. A simplistic point and click adventure. The pictures are well done; pleasant and nice too look at. The game eventually devolves into mindless clicking, but it’s so short and easy that it doesn’t make much of a difference. Its all over before it becomes too tedious. A nice distraction for about an hour.

-Atom Zombie Smasher

Fun game. It has good audio, but simplistic visuals. Not terribly original but pretty fun, will play some more.

-SpaceChem

I tried to play this game and it took a few minutes to install MS Framework, which I already had installed. Why does every damn game install this thing? Is it necessary to install it over and over? Then when I went to the option menu, the game quit on me. When I tried to restart the game it tried to install MS framework again! Ah the joys of PC gaming.

The tutorial is a YouTube video, which I think is weird.

Edit 1: Tried to play it again, and it tried to install MS Framework again… what the hell?

Anyway, I think I’m too stupid to understand this game. It has neat music at least. It’s very dramatic for this kind of game.

Edit 2: Okay, the game isn’t that complicated after all and is pretty fun. Another nice distraction of a game here.

Edit 3: Well, I really like this game, played it for a while and it only felt like a few minutes. It’s actually pretty damn fun.

Edit 4: This game is awesome! I love it. I definitely wasn’t expecting to enjoy it this much. Maybe because it’s so logical. I really like that. The game gives you the rules and it’s up to you to make it happen. It’s like oversimplified programming or electronics. And it’s just awesome when you solve it and watch all the reactions play out. Like a symphony of atoms; a symphony you composed yourself. Makes me feel smart when I’m not. reel smurt

Edit 5: The game gets pretty tough, pretty fast. I’ve reached a point where I feel like I’m stuck, and as much as I don’t want to look up the answers, I would rather do that and concede defeat on one level, than stop playing the game altogether.

Unfortunately there are a lot of bugs with the game too. It crashes occasionally and the game STILL tries to install MSFW every time I play it. If they can fix these bugs, well that would be nice.

And it allows you to upload your solutions to YouTube, which I like, though honestly they aren’t much too look at. This game isn’t exactly fun to watch… still I couldn’t help it: