This month marked the beginning of my foray into the video world. As you may have noticed I streamed quite a bit of Spelunky, and even played through the entirety of Grim Fandango for charity. I also started posting videos on my YouTube channel, like my Let's Play of Bayonetta 2. However, this is still a blog so I'm not going to stop typing up this kind of stuff.
Since you can just go and watch me playing through Bayonetta 2 we'll be talking about some different stuff here. Shadow of Mordor came out for the PS4 and it's just as amazing as I hoped it would be. A Lord of the Rings game with awesome combat? I never would have believed it a few years ago.
I also played through Dust: An Elysian Tail, which was finally released on the Playstation 4. I saw my brother play a lot of it on 360, so I'm glad I finally got to see it through to the end for myself. I'll finish up by talking about the few hours of Freedom Wars I played. It's kind of like Monster Hunter, but with an anime style prison. I need to get back to playing it, so without further ado, it's game time!
Arkham Asylum changed the way melee combat works in modern video games. Its system was so solid that now almost every single game with melee combat emulates. Shadow of Mordor is no exception, which is a good thing. I like the Batman combat, so when it's put into other games I tend to enjoy it. You can seamlessly go from foe to foe and use special abilities as the combo grows. This game is super brutal, more so than most games I've played in recent years. It's super easy to decapitate and maim foes, which is both satisfying and a little bit disturbing.
You play as Talion, who is a ranger. His family was killed by Sauron, and then he is possessed by a wraith. Surprise, it's a Lord of the Rings game! What's weird is that this game could pretty much be anything, but for some reason it has a Lord of the Rings skin on it. The story is absolutely secondary to the gameplay. It takes place in Middle Earth, but it could probably have taken place anywhere with any other protagonist. Sure, I like the Lord of the Rings universe, but it doesn't make any reasonable difference here,
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| Get ready to stab all the orcs! |
The main draw to Shadow of Mordor is the nemesis system, which works exactly as advertised. Being a Lord of the Rings game you fight a lot of orcs. They have a hierarchy. So you have normal grunt soldiers, commanders, and a few other classes all the way up to the highest which is war chief. All of the elite units have names, traits, and weaknesses. What's insane is that they remember you and what you've done. So every time you come into contact with them they will remember the scenario. If you defeated them they'll want revenge, or if they killed you they'll call you out on it. On paper it doesn't sound exciting, but in game it creates a lot of cool scenarios.
The hierarchy of elite soldiers change as you go through the game. So if you kill someone, then another orc will rise to take their place. If one of them kills you then they'll get promoted as well. This system is the main driving force behind the game. You can interact with the system in numerous ways. Events will pop up around the open world, so you can influence them. Sometimes the elites will throw parties and you can poison their booze, or two elites will be fighting and you can help one, or kill them both. Later on in the game you can use your wraith powers to control the minds of enemies. In doing so you can pit your minions against other elites and make huge waves in the overall hierarchy.
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| This is how you know what's happening with the nemesis system. |
Shadow of Mordor was an excellent game. It's the first open world game in a long time where I actively tried to do all the side missions, because they were well implemented. The nemesis system kept me coming back, because I wanted to experience more of the game world. It's super cool to have grunts talk about you and specific things that you've done. It's even more cool when you build a personal grudge against an enemy that essentially doesn't have a story behind it. All you know is what you've done to them and what they've done to you.
When games have a good system other games tend to steal it. Much like this game borrows heavily from the Batman combat, I hope that future games borrow heavily from the nemesis system. It would work quite well in many other franchises, and it can still be improved upon. It ends up creating very personal game experiences and stories.
Dust: An Elysian Tail
This game came out for the Xbox 360 a few years ago and I've wanted to play it since then. My brother got it and I could have played it, but for some reason I never got around to it. So when I found out it was coming to PlayStation 4 and it would be free for Plus members I got super excited. It was basically made by one dude, which is insane.
In Dust you play as Dust, who is an amnesiac fox/dog man. I remember when the game first came out there were a lot of people who were super against it because all of the characters were animals. A lot of people thought that it looked like it was for kids, which always upsets me. I don't get why people need to attack things for being what they perceive as childish. Anyways, as Dust you're trying to recover your memory and learn who you really are. In the beginning he wakes up next to a tree with a talking sword named Arah. A weird furry bat/hamester named Fidget is there as well. The story is actually pretty solid and there are some shocking revelations and plot twists as it progresses. In fact, I had the game crash during a pivotal moment in the story!
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| Dust is a beautiful looking game. |
The combat in Dust is simple, but fun. Dust can swing Arah to do basic melee combos. He also has the ability to swing Arah rapidly in order to create what is essentially a tornado. When you hit enemies with it you can easily juggle them. To add an extra layer to it Fidget can use various magic attacks. When the magic is hit by your crazy tornado move it has various effects, but they're all very damaging. You want to get as many hits in a combo as you can, because the damage you're dealing increases with the combo, so does the experience you gain.
It's a Metroid style game with a melee combat system. There are various areas you can't access until you gain more abilities. You can also pick up quests from various characters in order to get upgrades. It's a cool little indie game that's extremely polished. Every time I look at it I'm consistently amazed that it was basically created by one man.
Freedom Wars
I have been excited to play Freedom Wars for a very long time. I still don't know how I feel about it yet though. I know I like it, but I can't help but feel like the game is missing something. For those who don't know it's essentially Monster Hunter, but in a weird future prison. People who are considered to be a drain on societies' resources are sentenced to prison where they are forced to work off their sentence. In order to do so prisoners must fight abductors, which take citizens to other cities to work. It's okay though, because a friendly hologram bear talks to you all the time.
At first the game is super restricted, because as a prisoner you have few rights. Doing certain things will add years to your sentence. So initially you can't speak to people, leave your cell, sit down, or take more than five steps. You eventually gain these rights by purchasing them with points you get from missions. The missions are where the game is like monster hunter. There are numerous types of abductors, which are more or less monsters. There are tigers, dragons, and many more, but they all look like weird glowing robots.
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| The abductors are ridiculously large and kind of scary. |
Most abductors have hollow casings on their body where they hold citizens. In order to rescue them you can either defeat the abductor, or grab onto the part and slash it until it opens. Basic combat is like most other hunting games. You start with a sword, which has basic three hit combos, and strong attacks. There are numerous sword types like light and heavy, but you can also get crazy huge concrete blocks on a stick and lances. Secondary weapons are guns, which also vary greatly. I tend to use light assault rifles, but there are also rail guns, rocket launchers, and a whole lot more,
The main differentiating part of the combat is the thorn, which is wrapped around the player characters arm. It's a thorny vine, which you use like a grappling hook. You point it at a target and then you can pull yourself to wherever it landed. Since you can't jump this makes up for it. It allows you to cling to enemies in order to hit them. There are three types of thorn, which are attack, shield, and heal. I personally use heal, because I like to have as much health as possible at all times. You can charge the thorn in order to do various things. Charging the heal allows you to heal allies, and create a tree to heal yourself as well. Just hitting someone on your team with it will heal them. Attack and shield vary in terms of charging, but their names are pretty self explanatory.
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| You can use your thorn to pull enemies down for easier attacks. |
One of the main advertised points of the game is that you can fully customize your AI partner. They are called accessories and are essentially your parole officer. It's possible to fully deck them out in whatever clothing you've unlocked and weapons that you're not using. It's not nearly as cool as all the advertising and pre-release coverage made it seem.
There is a lot of faction based stuff going on, but I haven't really messed with it yet. When you begin the game you join a Panopticon, which is named after a real life place. Since I live in New York state, I chose New York. You can donate resources to help out the overall score, or play multiplayer matches in order increase the rank of your Panopticon. I assume you get rewards for doing so, but I don't really have any idea.
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| Fight for your panopticon! |
I like playing it a lot, but like I said earlier I feel there's something missing. Most games like this have you increasing your stats constantly through armor and weapons. You upgrade your weapons in Freedom Wars, but it's done through a menu and then you have to wait a set amount of time for it to finish. There is no armor either, so I generally feel like I'm not advancing at all. I'm going to continue to play it, because I'm enjoying it. I just hope that it grabs me a bit more.
November is Coming
I thought that this was a crazy month for games, but it's nothing in comparison to what's going to happen in November. On the 11th everything pops off with the release of Digimon All-Star Rumble, Assassin's Creed Unity, and Tales of Hearts R. Then the following week we have Little Big Planet 3, and Dragon Age Origins. Three days later the most important release of the year Super Smash Bros. for Wii-U comes out alongside Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
I have barely had enough time to play what I got this month, but I'm going to have to find a way to persevere. Going forward you can expect me to post a whole lot more videos!
It's going to be a crazy month, so I need t get cracking on the stuff I haven't finished from October yet!
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