Luckily this year the summer isn't a barren wasteland of games, like it is most other years. Well, I guess it might be in July, but June has been a pretty good month so far. Due to these releases my post E3 slump has been somewhat brighter than in previous years.
I had pre-ordered Remember Me, and Project X Zone a very long time ago. I'm still currently playing Project X Zone, and I've taken a break from Remember Me. It's not that I don't like the game it's just that I took a break and haven't really wanted to go back to it. The main reason for that is The Last of Us. I told myself I didn't want to play another zombie shooter, but the positive reviews swayed me. I picked it up at midnight don't regret it at all. While the reviews may have been a tad too positive compared to my experience it was still an excellent game.
I've also played a ludicrous amount of Animal Crossing: New Leaf, but I have no idea how to distill my thoughts into words yet. I enjoy my virtual world so much, but I still have no idea why. Hopefully I can figure it out, or at least be able to profess my love in a sensible manner.
So without further ado, it's game time!
Remember Me
I really like cyberpunk worlds, so I was immediately interested when I first saw footage of Remember Me. It takes place in a future version of Paris where memories have been made into a commodity. People can share there memories with others, which is something I've always thought about doing in real life. The world is very cool and I enjoy exploring as much as I can. The game is fairly linear, so there isn't a whole lot of time to look around, but if you take the time to look around you'll be able to find out a whole lot more about the world.
The main character of the game is a woman named Nilin. She is what's known as a memory hunter, who ironically had her memory taken from her. I guess it makes sense for the protagonist to have problems with memory in a game about memories, but I'm still not a huge fan of amnesia as a plot device. In the beginning you escape from a terrible government facility in order to continue working for your old boss Edge. Edge is the leader of a revolutionary group and he seems to have a lot of faith in Nilin. He needs her steal some memories and take down hoards of enemies in hand to hand combat!
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| I hope you like doing combos! |
Initial reviews of Remember Me were quite negative. They mainly cited the voice acting and combat as points of contention. I can understand the voice acting, because it's not exactly the best. It's especially annoying when the characters say things like "remember you soon" instead of see you soon. You know, because it's a game about memories, so you obviously must make reference to that as much as humanly possible. It can be a bit grading, but it's not game ruining.
Combat on the other hand I have absolutely no problem with. Sure, at first it seems a bit stiff. Once you get past that initial hurdle though it's really not that bad. Remember Me has a melee combat system that's very similar to the Arkham games (I guess most melee combat is these days). You equip various punches and kicks to make combos. In order to do so you're given a set of attacks called pressens. Each pressen is either a punch or a kick that has special properties. You then equip them in order to form combos. The attacks will always look the same, because the button combinations are pre-determined. The only thing you're changing are the attack properties.
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| Customizing combos actually matters quite a bit. |
Once I got going I found it very easy to chain combos on enemies. I also found myself tinkering with the combos in order to get the most damage or health back in a single combo. It's actually quite gratifying once you get the hang of it. What starts to get annoying is that there are so many enemies, and that's all you do is run from one combat scenario to another. It gets kind of repetitive. That might be terrible in a 20 hour game, but according to my completion progress upon booting up the game it's only around 6 hours long. Sadly I haven't completed those few hours yet, but I'm going to go back soon. It's always nice to see new IP this late in the console cycle. It's a fun game and I don't regret the purchase.
The Last of Us
I tried as hard as I could to resist buying The Last of Us, but I couldn't do it. I caved and bought a third person shooter that revolves around zombie-like monsters. I say zombie-like, because the creatures in The Last of Us are not actually zombies. They're humans whose brains have been affected by crazy fungus spores. Most zombie or monster focused stories like this aren't really about the monsters/zombies anymore, they're about the people who are trying to survive. That's what makes The Last of Us so compelling. You play as Joel the hardened survivor who knows how to kill. He finds himself in the company of a young girl named Ellie. Much like Elizabeth and Booker in Bioshock Infinite the core of the game is the relationship between these two characters. The performances were motion captured, which makes a lot of the stuff that happens a lot more heavy hitting than it would have been otherwise. There were a few moments where I got teary eyed. One of the moments I''ll probably remember forever.
I don't want to give away a lot, because this game is something that I feel everyone who has a PS3 should experience for themselves. It's not the most groundbreaking story ever told, but it's definitely something that will stick with me for a long time. It's just depressing. Some of the things that happen in the world are so messed up that it's hard to believe. Despite that you'll want to push through to see what happens to Joel and Ellie next. At first I didn't see what all the fuss was about. The story took quite a bit to really get going, but once it got up to speed it just kept on trucking right to the ending. I guess the main thing slowing it down for me was the actual playing of the game.
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| You get to know Joel and Ellie very well over the course of the game. |
The game play of The Last of Us is actually better than I would have expected. It focuses largely on stealth. You can go through the whole game choking both the infected and humans to death from behind. In fact, it's probably better to do that. To make it a bit easier to do you can throw bricks and bottles, which the enemies will react to, because shooting everyone in the face isn't viable. As is appropriate with any apocalyptic world your resources are limited. Bullets don't show up every three seconds, or even every time you kill an enemy with a gun. The combat scenarios were fun for a while, but I eventually saw them as road blocks to keep me from seeing the next awesome story sequence. It doesn't help that some of the infected can instantly kill you when they get all up on you. Eventually you can craft shivs to make it so you get a second chance at life, but it still really doesn't help very much.
The crafting system isn't very in-depth, but it's nice to have. You can craft shivs, health packs, and even Molotov cocktails from things you find in the environment. There is also a perk system where you can spend supplements on upgrades. They never make you a whole lot better than you currently are, but they do help incrementally to make combat more manageable. As I mentioned previously the game play is fine, it just seems to get in the way sometimes. It didn't help that I got stuck in the environment multiple times with no way to advance. Twice I was supposed to be given a button prompt to move on that just wouldn't show up, which really kills any sense of momentum. I forged ahead though and came away with an awesome gaming experience. This is definitely a game I think people should play.
Project X Zone
I remember watching every twenty minute trailer for Project X Zone before it was released in Japan. I had no idea what the hell was going on, but it looked insane. So many characters I know and love rendered as beautiful 2D sprites comboing the living hell out of a single enemy. While watching those trailers I told myself that there was absolutely no way it would leave the shores of Japan. Copyright is much different in Japan than it is in America. I thought that having a crossover between Sega, Namco, and Capcom make it here was impossible, especially after Namco X Capcom for the PS2 didn't make it over. Instead Namco Bandai made me eat my words by bringing Project X Zone to the US.
The game is now in English and I still have a very wavering grasp of what's going on in the game. Most crossover games like this have the characters either randomly transported to other worlds for some reason, or they all have amnesia and must work together to get back their memories. Project X Zone has the random transporting, but I'm over halfway through the game and still have no idea why it's happening. To make it even more confusing most of the characters seem to know each other for absolutely no reason. Why does everyone know that Pai from Virtua Fighter is a movie star? Why in god's name does Jin from Tekken know that Chun-Li is a cop? In the context of the game it seems that most of the characters are aware of each other despite the fact that they all exist in different worlds.
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| Complete and utter madness. |
I haven't taken the time to research this, but I'm pretty sure that this is a direct sequel to the PS2 game Namco X Capcom. Mainly because, the two main characters from Namco X Capcom are in this game. It's entirely possible that the story is just terrible though, which is to be expected from this type of thing. Like I said I'm over halfway through the game and there still isn't a central enemy. Don't get me wrong there are plenty of enemies, but they aren't really cooperating and if they are the reasons why are not clear. In my opinion it would have been better if there wasn't a story.
So what is Project X Zone you're probably asking yourself. It's a strategy RPG. You move the characters on a grid and have them attack enemies. Where this differs from other SRPGs is that each unit it actually two characters. For example Chun-li shows up on the map, but in reality it's Chun-Li paired with Morrigan from Darkstalkers. When you choose to attack an enemy you are then put into a battle. If you've seen any footage of the game this is the part you would have seen. The enemy is on the left, while your team is on the right. In order to attack you have to push A by itself, or pair it with a direction. All of the attacks are shown for you on screen. To start each pair has three different attacks, and can attack three times. You can mash out the same attack three times, but if you use each different attack once then you get to attack once more.
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| Most battles look like this, but with 800,000 more enemies on screen. |
What's cool is that the battles are actually very active. If you just mash out the attacks you're going to do very poorly. You want to keep your combo counter going up by keeping your enemy in the air. This means that you have to time your attacks to keep juggling the enemy. If you want to do critical hits you have to hit the enemy just before they hit the ground from your previous attack. It's much more engaging than your average SRPG. To add in more fun there are solo characters you can send in to help out and if you're standing near another one of your units you can call them in for a single attack as well.
I love Project X Zone, but I also find it supremely frustrating. Since the story barely exists all I have to look forward to is the combat. The combat is fun, but only up to a certain point. At first the battles only take around a half hour to complete, but now they take me an hour or more. Battles start with a ton of enemies, but inevitably more enemies show up on subsequent turns. That would be fine, but sometimes there are 40 or 50 enemies to fight at a time. Once you think you've won a billion more enemies show up with an entirely new boss, because why the hell not? It gets super annoying. I've played for 23 hours already and I'm apparently just about halfway through the game. I'm all for long games, but at some point it has to stop. There's no reason for this game to go on for so long. I'm fighting the same bosses over and over again to reach a nonexistent goal. It's a good thing the combat is really addicting or there would be absolutely no reason for me to continue on.
What's Next?
I'm going to be real honest when I say I don't know what I'm going to write about for next month. There aren't really any games I want coming out. Dive Kick is the only thing. It's supposed to come out before EVO, but who knows when it's actually going to be released. I ordered the Japanes only Wii game Captain Rainbow as well, but you know it's in Japanese.
I bought every single one of the Mega Man Battle Network games for some reason too. So maybe that? I don't really know. It's summer and I'll do what I want.
Until next time.
-Manny
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