tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8715784681118368722024-03-08T02:58:02.327-06:00Matt's Game QuestOne lifelong gamer's look at his favorite games of the past two decades. Updated almost daily.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-85695622588572374602012-11-16T02:32:00.000-06:002012-11-16T02:32:01.181-06:00One year AnniversaryHey guys! It's the one year anniversary of my blog! Sorry that I haven't been posting lately but I think I may start again soon. When I started this blog, my intention was to chronicle my favorite games and I hope to one day complete my list from 1991 to 2012. So here's to one year and many more years to come! Thanks for reading.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-82087996495090689742012-06-06T02:24:00.000-05:002012-06-06T02:24:32.502-05:00Here's what I've been doing for the past few months:I haven't been posting much lately, and there's a good reason. I've been learning how to build a computer for the sole purpose of doing let's plays, and last week I finally bought and put together my dream PC. I recorded my first let's play yesterday, so without further ado, here's episode 1 of Let's Play Dead Space 2!<br />
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By the way, NSFW because of language and violence. Also, consider my ban on the F word lifted. I use it a few times here. Enjoy:<br />
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<br />Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-76822548432279186672012-05-24T17:13:00.002-05:002012-05-24T17:13:58.824-05:00My Top 5 Games of 1992: #2 The Legend of the Mystical Ninja (SNES)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Developed: </b>Konami<br />
<b>Published: </b>Konami<br />
<b>Genre: </b>isometric/side scrolling action platformer<br />
<b>Platform: </b>SNES, Wii Virtual Console<br />
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<i>The Legend of the Mystical Ninja</i>, like most of the 1991/1992 games that I've talked about so far, is another of the earliest games I recall playing. I can't for the life of me remember how I got the game. My parents may have just bought if for me on the recommendation of a retail employee. Regardless of who is responsible for it coming to be in my possession, I'd like to thank that person wholeheartedly. If it wasn't for them, I may have never played this absolutely batshit insane game.<br />
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In <i>The Legend of the Mystical Ninja</i>, you take control of either Kid Ying or Dr. Yang, who I will refer to by their original and much less racist sounding names, Goemon and Ebisumaru, because as you may know from my <i>Persona 4</i> article, I love typing out ridiculously long Japanese names just to confuse the reader a little more.<br />
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They battle through 9 ridiculously difficult levels full of crazy villagers, evil ninjas, carnival workers, ghosts, thieves, and all kinds of animals. Our heroes start out just trying to rid their village of ghosts, but soon find out that a princess has been kidnapped by ninjas. Being the bad dudes that they are, Goemon and Ebisumaru head out to rescue her.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I've seen killer umbrellas in multiple Japanese video games at this point, so I guess that's an actual myth over there.</td></tr>
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Each level starts out with an isometric beat 'em up section, each in a different village, and for whatever reason all the villagers in the game want Goemon and Ebisumaru dead. You can earn money by beating up the crazy villagers which can be spent on items like armor or pieces of pizza that automatically heal you when you run out of health. There are a good number of minigames you can spend your money on too, but most are just for fun and only reward money if anything at all. You can also use your money as a projectile which I find to be much more useful than normal attacks attack.<br />
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Enemies also drop scrolls, which can be used to perform magical attacks (which I almost never use,) and lucky cat statues which upgrade your weapon. There are three weapon levels, each providing more attack range that the last. Getting hit reduces your weapon level by one, so the more your screw up, the harder the game gets. Great design choice! Why not just give power-ups that last for the rest of the level like in <i>Castlevania</i>?<br />
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The beat 'em up areas are probably the most difficult part of each level; unfairly difficult in a few. The villagers spawn endlessly and get in your way all the time. The worst are ones that have projectiles like guards that throw what appear to be lanterns or drunken assholes who throw bottles of sake. Dunno how that one got by Nintendo's censors.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's probably the craziest example of the insane villagers: Babies with guns. Seriously.</td></tr>
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After dicking around town for a while, you then head into the second part of each level where the game turns into a side scrolling platformer. I think level 3 is the only one that doesn't have a side scrolling area (and also no real boss.) There are almost no health pickups in these areas though most of the time having a piece of pizza in your inventory is enough to get you through them.<br />
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At the end of each platforming area are bosses which start out pretty easy, but from level 5 on, you'll get your ass handed to you regularly. Most of the bosses are pretty hilarious actually. They include a ghost that spins plates at you, a demon with a huge rack of lanterns on his head, a creepy transforming face, A giant kite ridden by a bunch of ninjas, a huge kabuki dancer who shoots flower petals and poison gas at you, a dragon (the only normal boss of the bunch I guess), a couple of huge toys, and a boss rush on the last stage that ends with a fairly easy final boss.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I really have no clue what this is supposed to be.</td></tr>
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The game looks great, though there isn't much to say. Huge bosses are always a plus for me and just about every boss in <i>Mystical Ninja</i> fills half of the screen, so it wins a lot of points there. The death animations of pretty much every enemy are really hilarious. Well, I say animation, but it's really a single frame sprite that flies back a few feet and disappears, but you get the idea.<br />
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The music is also really good, though most of the songs are really short with some as short as 10-15 seconds. One song that's relatively long is the title screen music which is just so happy that it warms my heart every time I hear it. The sound effects are okay, but there aren't that many of them. I think every enemy in the game makes the same sound when they die, so you'll be hearing that, along with Goemon and Ebisumaru's damage sound, a lot.<br />
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My only real complaint about the game is that there are two levels that require you to buy an expensive item to proceed, forcing you to grind for money if you didn't save up beforehand. I guess that's one way to extend the game a bit but having to deal with the psycho villagers for longer than necessary is pretty annoying.<br />
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The Legend of the <i>Mystical Ninja</i> is truly an underrated gem of a game. I almost never see it listed in lists of the best SNES games or best games of the '90s, which is a complete shame. An even bigger shame is the fact that only four other games in the Mystical Ninja series have made it to the U.S. I suppose it's just too niche of a series for Konami to invest in translating, but at least we got a few over here. You can get <i>Mystical Ninja</i> on the Wii Virtual console, and I encourage anyone who loves zany Japanese folklore tropes to download it.<br />
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Next:<br />
My game of the year for 1992!<br />
Easily my favorite adventure of a certain green clad elf.<br />
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I'll leave you with the <i>Mystical Ninja</i> title screen music. This song just gives me such a hopeful feeling; a feeling that there's something to look forward to in the future.Video brought to us by YouTube user Paineity.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/xFrwuG64ssQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-38494296755620400342012-05-13T06:59:00.001-05:002012-05-13T06:59:57.776-05:00My Top 5 Games of 1992: #3 Contra III: The Alien Wars<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Developed:</b> Konami<br />
<b>Published: </b>Konami<br />
<b>Genre: </b>side-scrolling run and gun<br />
<b>Platform: </b>SNES (reviewed), Game Boy, Arcade, Game Boy Advance, Wii Virtual Console<br />
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Unlike many people around my age, <i>Contra III</i> was the first game in the <i>Contra</i> series that I played. It wasn't until probably years later that I finally played the earlier games, so this was my introduction to <i>Contra</i> and run and gun games in general. It's also probably the most balls out hard game of my childhood. I swear I only beat this game once as a kid, and it wasn't until I was playing the game for this article that I finally beat it on hard. With save states... To be fair, I was playing with an Xbox 360 controller. You try beating this game on hard with one of those.<br />
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Anyhow, in <i>Contra III: The Alien Wars</i>, you take control of one of two badasses who must quell an alien invasion on their own. You shoot your way through 6 stages of mayhem, 4 of which are side-scrollers and the other two being top down levels that utilize the SNES's mode 7 technology quite well.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hmm... Maybe this is where they got the idea for the last boss of <i>Mass Effect 2</i>.</td></tr>
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The first stage is simple enough. Just walk right and shoot stuff. In stage two, you encounter the first mode 7 level where you have to wander around a highway and kill several targets marked on your map, then you face the boss in what seems to be the biggest parking lot ever. Stage three has you going through an industrial area where you climb up several buildings and face FOUR mini-bosses, then the giant terminator looking robot pictured above at the end of the level. I always died a ton of times on this level as a kid, leaving me with few lives left for the insanity of stage four.<br />
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Stage four is probably my favorite level in any run and gun game. You tear ass down a highway on a motorcycle while being assaulted by all manner of enemies along the way. You're soon attacked by a huge ship as well, forcing you to abandon your bike to jump up to a helicopter where you hang from a huge missile with one hand and shoot with the other.<br />
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After a quick mini-boss fight, the missile is fired at the ship from earlier WITH YOU STILL ON IT. An endless wave of missiles soon follows and you must keep jumping from one to another as they hit the back of the ship and explode. Between jumps, you have to destroy two shield generators to expose the ship's hilariously gigantic weak spot. Then the ship begins actively destroying the missiles before they can hit, forcing you to jump from missile to missile faster while still attacking. The ship is soon destroyed and after a blinding explosion, you find yourself back on the helicopter and the level finally ends.<br />
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Jeeze. Think that's intense enough? It helps that the music on this stage is freakin' awesome, though the bass track sounds hilariously similar to the distinctive bass from <i>Seinfeld</i>. That's the second time that I've somehow managed to mention <i>Seinfeld</i> in an article, the first mention being in my <i>Persona 4</i> article- BAM! SHOEHORN!<br />
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Level five is another mode 7 stage mostly the same as level two, though it takes place in a desert where you fight giant insects, and there are waaay more level hazards like parts of the sand that spin you around really fast. The boss of this stage can be absurdly hard if you don't know what you're doing, though you can figure it out pretty quickly on easy and normal. It starts out shooting little fireballs at you, and after you've done enough damage, the area around the boss begins to spin around which makes you quickly whirl around the area AND spins you in place at the same time somehow.<br />
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While you're struggling to aim at the boss' small weak point, it sends out a huge centipede thing which ignores you and runs around randomly, unless you leave the spinning area, in which case it immediately comes right for you, but will ignore you again when you get back on the spinning part. Kind of a weird pattern but whatever. The only other thing to worry about is a wall of fire that the boss shoots out periodically, sometimes forcing you to leave the spinning area and get attacked by the centipede.<br />
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On hard mode, this boss is a total asshole, and at first I thought I wouldn't be able to beat it. It spins you around so quickly on hard that it's damn near impossible to aim; that is unless you know the trick to the fight. On normal and easy, you just have to hold the L button to steady your aim when the boss spins you, but on hard you still spin too fast to aim even while holding L. It turns out on hard that you just have to double tap L, then hold it so you can aim properly. What a stupid difference... Though it admittedly fooled me until I watched a YouTube video of someone beating the game on hard.<br />
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The final stage is inside the alien leader's body I think, and once again you have to fight several mini-bosses throughout the stage. You fight a giant heart that spits out aliens who are totally not face hugger rip-offs, then a weird insect like monster with a human looking face, THEN a gargoyle type thing that has the easiest pattern ever, and finally, the last boss.<br />
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I could not figure this guy out at all as a kid, but he's actually pretty simple. He has two arms that attack you every few seconds, and if you don't immediately destroy one, they're really hard to dodge. If you destroy both, the boss gets much harder as he begins to throw legions of enemies at you, so just kill one arm, then shoot the boss' weak point on his forehead.<br />
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Once you damage him enough, he explodes for about 20 seconds, then his brain falls out and comes to life. This guy can also be a huge pain if you don't know what you're doing. He starts off by spinning a bunch of different balls around himself. You have to shoot one, and depending on which one you shot, he'll do a different attack. The Spike ball is the one you wanna try to shoot every time because it causes him to drop easily dodged spike balls everywhere, along with tons power-ups for whatever reason.<br />
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A few of his other attacks are fairly easy to deal with, though a few are waaay too hard to avoid. He does the spinning ball thing again after each attack, so it's in your best interest to get good at shooting the one you want. After he finally goes down, the helicopter from stage four shows up again to lift you out of the place. If you're playing on easy or normal, the game ends here, but on hard, the bastard gets back up AGAIN and chases after you in a newly donned armored body. This form isn't too tough. You just have to keep dodging left and right while shooting him, and he dies pretty fast.<br />
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One thing I didn't mention in my <i>Turtles in Time</i> review is the fact that the game pretty much calls you a wuss if you beat it on easy or normal, and you don't get to see the ending. <i>Contra III</i> does the same damn thing, and in both games, the ending is hardly worth the trouble you go through beating the game on hard to see it. I guess it's about the journey and not the destination. Whatever.<br />
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<i>Contra III</i> may be a hard game, but I can't say it's unfair. If you know what you're doing, you can get through it with little trouble, and if you die, it's pretty much always your own fault. There's also a bit of an exploit that you can do if you have the L and C weapons. If you hold the fire button, then rapidly tap the weapon switch button, they fire absurdly fast and can kill most of the bosses within seconds, even on hard.<br />
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During the YouTube playthrough I mentioned above, the player clams he's managed to kill the second boss in less than one second using this technique, and he DID manage to beat the game on hard without dying so I'm inclined to believe him. That almost makes me wish there was a difficulty above hard. I felt the same thing about <i>Warhammer 40k: Space Marine</i> actually. Hmm... I thought I sucked at video games, but now I'm wishing <i>Contra III</i> was harder. Guess I'm at least mediocre.<br />
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I probably should have mentioned the weapon system earlier. Like in previous <i>Contra</i> games, there are a few different weapons you can collect throughout the game, though in <i>Contra III</i> you can hold two at once and switch between them with the press of a button. Most of the weapons are useful, aside from the homing missiles which are far too weak and can't be aimed at specific targets. As I said above, the L and C weapons are by far the best, and you can easily kill pretty much everything with them.<br />
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One thing that I loved about <i>Dead Space 2</i> and mentioned over and over in that game's article are its awesome action setpieces. <i>Contra III </i>is pretty much one long action setpiece, aside from the mode 7 stages, which are fairly subdued. I detailed the insanity of stage four but most of the game is just as fast paced.<br />
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In stage one for example, enemies spawn from both sides constantly, encouraging you to move quickly. You destroy a few barricades and get in a tank for a bit. Your tank is soon destroyed though, then YOU have to fight a tank. Then a plane comes by and bombs the shit out of everything, lighting the ground on fire and you have to climb on utility poles for a bit while dodging some crazy fireballs. Then the fire suddenly disappears and a giant freakin' turtle attacks. Yep. That all happens on stage one. Interested in the game yet?<br />
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So the game plays well, and it looks great too. While the graphics don't blow me away, they're still pretty good for the time. I gotta hand one thing to Konami: They definitely didn't cut any corners in this game's visuals. There's a huge variety of enemies and almost every stage has multiple mini-bosses, none of which are recycled sprites from earlier stages. In fact, I can only think of two normal enemies who appear on more than one stage, though there are probably a few that I'm forgetting. This also goes a long way in mixing the gameplay up and increasing the challenge a bit.<br />
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The game's soundtrack is fantastic, as is standard for Konami games at the time, and I gotta say that the music in <i>Contra III</i> feels especially fitting. Every song feels appropriate for the level it appears in and most of them are really catchy. As I said above, the music in stage four in particular is incredible, and is definitely the standout for me.<br />
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Not much else to say. <i>Contra III</i> was one of the most frequently played games of my youth. Even with its difficulty, I kept trying and trying. This makes all the insipid touch screen and motion controlled games of recent years even more offensive to me. I played hard ass games with a controller for my entire childhood and I never wished for anything easier. No, not all motion and touch controlled games are horrible. I love my Wii and DS, along with a few iPhone games. I'm getting way too off topic.<br />
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You can buy <i>Contra III</i> on the Wii Virtual console, and I encourage anyone who enjoys a challenge to do so. It takes some learning and practice, but when you finally beat the game on hard, it's well worth the effort. Hmm... I gotta try to do that without save states one of these days. Shit. Forget what I said before. I suck at video games.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Is that supposed to be a dog in the lower right? What the hell is going on with its head?</td></tr>
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Next:<br />
Number 2 in my top 5 games of 1992!<br />
Yet another masterpiece from Konami. A hilarious parody/tribute to Japanese folklore.<br />
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I'll leave you with the music from stage four of course. All I have to say is: <i>Seinfeld</i> bass. You can't unhear it! Video brought to us by YouTube user gbelair3.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/ALAoPgc9sz8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-8124261688064602842012-05-08T15:36:00.001-05:002012-05-08T15:36:33.989-05:00New Dead Space all but confirmed<a href="http://www.destructoid.com/ea-confirms-new-dead-space-game-227120.phtml">YES!</a> <a href="http://www.gamesradar.com/e3-rumours-dead-space-3-appear-at-the-show-with-release-within-year-quite-probably-heres-why/">YES!</a> <a href="http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/05/07/new-dead-space-arriving-by-march-2013.aspx">YES!</a> <a href="http://www.giantbomb.com/news/tidbits-from-electronic-arts-q4-financial-results/4130/">YES!</a> <a href="http://www.gamefront.com/ea-confirms-dead-space-3-need-for-speed-by-march-2013/">YES!</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://mattsgamequest.blogspot.com/2011/11/my-top-5-games-of-2008-2-dead-space-360.html">You may be aware</a> that I'm a <a href="http://mattsgamequest.blogspot.com/2012/01/buy-dead-space-damn-you.html">pretty big fan</a> of <a href="http://mattsgamequest.blogspot.com/2012/04/my-game-of-year-2011-dead-space-2-360.html">Dead Space</a>, so this news is pretty exciting for me. Rumors have been flying around for a while now that Dead Space 3 has been in development, and while the exact title hasn't been confirmed, EA told investors today that a new game in the franchise is in fact in development and scheduled for release during EA's current fiscal year, which ends March 2013. I've gotta say that I'm very pleased with EA for NOT turning Dead Space into an annual franchise, allowing each game some time to reach the level of greatness I expect from the series. Please don't change this practice, EA.<br />
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E3 cannot come soon enough!Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-63448190047658820492012-05-06T22:03:00.000-05:002012-05-06T22:03:02.663-05:00My Top 5 Games of 1992: #4 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (SNES)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y5agw0-Dsh0/T6cjls6PtpI/AAAAAAAABgM/SbAw4a2YTbg/s1600/Turtles+in+Time+box.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y5agw0-Dsh0/T6cjls6PtpI/AAAAAAAABgM/SbAw4a2YTbg/s1600/Turtles+in+Time+box.jpg" /></a></div>
<b>Developed:</b>Konami<br />
<b>Published:</b>Konami<br />
<b>Genre: </b>beat 'em up<br />
<b>Platform: </b>SNES (reviewed), Arcade, Genesis (partially,) Xbox Live, PSN<br />
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As far as I remember, I was a fairly big fan of the <i>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles</i> franchise, but only to a certain extent. Sure, the show was great, the first movie was awesome, and the game in question today was absolutely amazing, but I just don't recall being as obsessed with the show and toys as many of my friends were. I dunno. I think I was more into Nicktoons back then.<br />
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I'm sure this statement may piss off some of you, but in my opinion, <i>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time</i> was the best thing the franchise ever produced, and it's still one of the best beat 'em ups ever. I had a decent amount of fun replaying all of the older games I've talked about on this blog, but while replaying <i>Turtles in Time</i>, I really had a blast. I can't overstate just how well this game still holds up.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.</td></tr>
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The story of <i>Turtles in Time</i> is pretty hilarious to me. The opening
cutscene show April O'Neil reporting from the Statue of Liberty, when
Krang suddenly shows up and carries the statue away. The airwaves are
suddenly hijacked by Shredder, who mockingly laughs at the turtles,
prompting them to head out to stop him. <br />
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The level progression is kinda weird at first. You start out high up in a construction site for whatever reason. Seriously. It goes from the turtles being in their home in the sewers during the opening cutscene and BAM. Construction site. After that, you're suddenly in an alley in level 2, then you're surfing through the sewer in level 3 and you finally get to the Technodrome in level 4. Dunno why they took that detour above ground, but whatever; it makes for some great opening levels.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nx_namDEDa4/T5-zwKGYjnI/AAAAAAAABe4/zQtMte5Gwco/s1600/Turtles+in+Time+shot+02.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nx_namDEDa4/T5-zwKGYjnI/AAAAAAAABe4/zQtMte5Gwco/s1600/Turtles+in+Time+shot+02.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Also, in the sewer you fight these things, which look like Xenomorphs crossed with Cheesasaurus Rex.</td></tr>
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At the end of the Technodrome level, Shredder attacks you in a giant tank thing and you have to destroy it by throwing his own minions into it. On easy and normal, this fight isn't too bad as the enemies you fight are pretty easy, but on hard you have to fight annoying blocking enemies who are really difficult to throw. After his tank is destroyed, Shredder jumps into a giant monitor which somehow transports him through time. He condemns the turtles to the same fate and sends them back to the year 2,500,000,000BC, placing them in the Paleoproterozoic era, which should kill them within minutes since there was little to no oxygen in Earth's atmosphere at that time.<br />
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Shredder also apparently sends legions of minions back in time because every level is packed with them and at the end of each level is one or two of the turtles' villains like Leatherhead, Bebop, and Rocksteady. Most of the bosses are pretty fun to fight, with the exception of Slash, the boss of the prehistoric level, who is a cheap asshole that blocks constantly.<br />
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Anyway, the Turtles fight through several time periods and locations including a 16th century pirate ship captained by Bebop and Rocksteady, a 19th century train where you contend with Leatherhead, a much too futuristic version of 2020 where you fly down a highway on hover boards, and a moon base where Krang attacks you in a cute little pink flying saucer. The final level is back in the present day where you finally fight Shredder with Lady Liberty conspicuously looming in the background.<br />
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Like I said in the opening paragraphs, <i>Turtles in Time</i> has held up remarkably well over the years. Part of the reason why this article took so long is because I kept wanting to play the game every time I would sit down to write about it. The only other beat 'em up I can think of that I've had such a consistent amount of fun with over the years is Capcom's <i>Alien vs Predator</i> arcade game. It's just one of those games like <i>Dead Space 2</i> or <i>Persona 4</i> (shoehorn successful!) that I just never get tired of.<br />
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The gameplay is quite simple to learn, but can be pretty deep as far as beat 'em ups go. You only have two buttons to worry about, B to jump and Y to attack, but depending on how you time your attacks and combine the two buttons, there's a ton of moves you can pull off.<br />
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For example, most normal enemies can be thrown by attacking them once, waiting a split second, then attacking again. There are also several air attacks you can do, though I still haven't figured out the timing on a few of them. Seriously. I've been playing this game for close to 20 years and I still don't know all the attacks. I know I kinda suck at video games but I'm not THAT bad.<br />
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Further mixing up the gameplay is the fact that each turtle plays a bit differently from the others. Leonardo is the most well balanced of the four, moving at a decent speed and doing average damage. Michelangelo moves the slowest and has a fairly short attack range but he does the highest damage out of the four. Raphael is easily the fastest and does about the same damage as Leonardo but has the shortest attack range. Donatello does machines- uh, I mean... he moves the second slowest but has a huge attack range.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Hi-_2w14RvY/T6cqjZYHiBI/AAAAAAAABgg/w_3pp_skI38/s1600/Turtles+in+Time+shot+04.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Hi-_2w14RvY/T6cqjZYHiBI/AAAAAAAABgg/w_3pp_skI38/s1600/Turtles+in+Time+shot+04.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That reference isn't offensive or anything.</td></tr>
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My recommendation if you're playing on hard would be to NOT pick Michelangelo when continuing if you're getting near the end of the game (picking him at the start is fine.) Shredder moves around so quickly on hard that Mikey's slow attacks are ridiculously hard to time. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that Shredder emits an aura that hurts you if you attack him right before he attacks. On easy and normal, you have a good amount of time to attack him after his aura disappears, but on hard you only have a split second to hut him before he moves and puts the aura back up.<br />
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The graphics are decent, though there isn't much to talk about. They are significantly scaled back from the arcade version where every character had amazingly fluid animation. The SNES version's graphics are just about on par with Konami's <i>Simpsons</i> arcade game which just puzzles me even further that they never ported that game to SNES. They probably would've had to scale back a few things but I think it was possible. I'm sure it had to do with licensing issues. Uhg. I hate when corporate politics gets in the way of creativity.<br />
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<i>Turtles in Time</i> has a freaking amazing soundtrack. It's similar to <i>Goldeneye 007</i> in that many of the songs in <i>Turtles in Time</i> are based on the <i>Ninja Turtles</i> theme song and pretty much every song in the game is super catchy and hummable. Hmm... hummable. Is that a word? Spell checker didn't correct me. Anyway, the two boss themes are definitely the standouts. The regular boss theme has some of the craziest bass I've heard in a video game song, and as I said before, the final boss music is one of my favorite boss themes ever. It's just so damn intimidating, though Shredder is admittedly pretty easy unless you're playing on hard.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7IyzOG89czA/T6czTd0l8LI/AAAAAAAABgs/mDtM27ODoCc/s1600/Turtles+in+Time+shot+05.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7IyzOG89czA/T6czTd0l8LI/AAAAAAAABgs/mDtM27ODoCc/s1600/Turtles+in+Time+shot+05.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This level takes place in 2020. Apparently within 8 years we're gonna have a lot of purple buildings and weird F-Zero highways.</td></tr>
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<i>Turtles in Time</i> has an interesting release history that is worth talking about. It started out in the arcade, then was ported to SNES and Genesis in two VERY different games. The SNES version was mostly true to the arcade game, though there's a few extra levels and bosses thrown in. The Genesis version is pretty much a completely different game that uses a lot of the same sprites and gameplay, but changes the levels almost completely from the arcade original. It actually doesn't even have the same subtitle, with the Genesis version being titled <i>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist</i>, so I guess some people may not even bother mentioning it alongside the others, but I think it's pretty fun.<br />
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There's also a remake of the arcade game that is probably not worth mentioning at all because it's not available anymore (at least in the United States. I hear other countries can still play it.) It was available on Xbox Live and PSN for a year or two but was taken down after Konami's license expired or whatever. I never played it but I recall it getting pretty low review scores. If you're in a country where it's still available, I guess you could give it a try.<br />
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As far as I know, none of the three original versions is available on Wii virtual console or any similar services though I could be wrong. Freakin' licensing issues... Whatever. Until Konami and whoever else involved gets their shit together, just emulate it.<br />
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Now that I think about it, <i>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time</i> is perhaps the most fun game overall in this particular top 5. The 1992 list was actually one of the hardest to put in order, so you can pretty much consider all the games on it as nearly equal in my mind. As far as pick up and play action goes, Turtles in Time is probably the best on the list. It's a game that I've played for about 20 years, and I'm certain that it still has years of enjoyment left to give.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UVsAZ91GDtA/T6c0HrhAsmI/AAAAAAAABg0/5aecZcTUV7Y/s1600/Turtles+in+Time+shot+06.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UVsAZ91GDtA/T6c0HrhAsmI/AAAAAAAABg0/5aecZcTUV7Y/s1600/Turtles+in+Time+shot+06.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What's with that sepia tone? Did they bring a camera from 1885 to take this picture?</td></tr>
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Next:<br />
Number 3 in my top 5 games of 1992!<br />
Arguably the best side scrolling shooter of the 16 bit era.<br />
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I'll leave you with the two boss themes from <i>Turtles in Time</i>, the first being the regular boss theme and the second the final boss theme. I mentioned in a previous article that Konami was really good at composing music that just makes you wanna kick some ass back in the day and I think that applies perfectly to these songs. Both videos are brought to us by YouTube user HyperComboEx.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/GPH9qZ8yvLI?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q7b3s5tGpCY?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-22919261680424861192012-05-03T15:09:00.001-05:002012-05-08T15:37:01.872-05:00Atlus may change Persona 4 voice actors for Golden and Arena, and I'm not angry about itIf you've read a handful of my articles, you may have noticed that I
make a point of shoehorning in mentions of <i>Persona 4</i> constantly. It's
one of my only running gags. That, coupled with the fact that my <i>Persona
4</i> article is still the longest one I've ever written, is probably a
pretty good sign that I'm a pretty big fan of the game. I'll go ahead and spoil now that it isn't number one in my top ten list (which I'll talk about someday,) but it's pretty high up there, sitting in the number 3 spot right after <i>Silent Hill 2</i>, which segues into my point fairly well<br />
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A subject that I talk about way too much, video game companies messing around with the voice acting in re-releases of games, has resurfaced in yet another of my favorite games ever. <i>Persona 4</i> has two follow-ups coming out this year (both of which I somehow forgot to mention in my most anticipated games of 2012 article,) one an enhanced remake of the game for Vita and the other a fighting game sequel by Arc System Works, my favorite fighting game developer.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nC-stZNpANo/T6LkV-mAuSI/AAAAAAAABfQ/a0HJ9lWckFM/s1600/Persona+4+Arena+shot+a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nC-stZNpANo/T6LkV-mAuSI/AAAAAAAABfQ/a0HJ9lWckFM/s1600/Persona+4+Arena+shot+a.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Teddie is apparently a Nazi officer of some sort now. I really have no clue what's going on with this art.</td></tr>
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I almost never watch trailers for any given game unless I'm hopelessly excited about it. <i>Persona 4 Arena</i> (the fighting game) doesn't fall into that category. I'm excited for it, and it looks amazing, but I just don't watch game trailers that often. My Point? Apparently an English trailer for the game has been available for some time which features some changes to the voice cast; a fact that I was blissfully unaware of until today. Based on my articles about <i>Silent Hill HD Collection</i>, you probably expect me to be furious about this, right?<br />
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Well I'm not angry at all. You know why? Because Atlus, unlike Konami, has earned the benefit of the doubt in this case. As I've mentioned before, Atlus is my favorite game company right now, and that's because they actually give a shit. I know that they must have tried their absolute God damnedest to get the same voice actors back, and they most likely actually CARE that they'll be letting some fans down. Also at issue here is the fact that Arc System Works fighting games always contain a metric shit ton of voice acting, meaning that maybe some of the voice actors simply don't have the time or desire to return for so much work.<br />
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The same thing goes for the Vita remake,<i> Persona 4: The Golden</i>, which is said to contain around twice as much voice acting as the original game. That much talking takes work, folks, so I fully understand if the voice actors don't want to dedicate possibly weeks or months of work (I have no idea how long voice recording takes) for one project. Thankfully, a spokesman for Atlus USA has said that they'll still try to get the original cast back for <i>The Golden</i>, so there's still hope for that one. Everything about this situation just makes perfect sense to me. Call me a delusional fanboy, but Atlus has earned this one.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-46168050330708629132012-04-25T17:15:00.001-05:002012-04-25T17:29:55.320-05:00My Top 5 Games of 1992: #5 Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (SNES)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2dQtU_1lF1I/T5hkkiIWkfI/AAAAAAAABd0/UEct6OJX67c/s1600/Street+Fighter+II+box.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2dQtU_1lF1I/T5hkkiIWkfI/AAAAAAAABd0/UEct6OJX67c/s1600/Street+Fighter+II+box.jpg" /></a></div>
<b>Developed:</b> Capcom<br />
<b>Published:</b> Capcom<br />
<b>Genre:</b> 2D Fighting <br />
<b>Platform:</b> SNES (Reviewed), Arcade, Genesis, at least 15 other platforms<br />
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When it comes to genre defining games, few are as indisputable as <i>Street Fighter II</i>. Prior to its release, all the fighting game genre really had were clunky games like the first <i>SF</i> and <i>Yie Ar Kung-Fu</i>. Then <i>SFII</i> came along, gave every fighter a unique, well defined move set, and smoothed out the gameplay greatly. I can't really think of a better way to put that. Older fighting games just feel like their characters are locked to a grid or something.<br />
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Anyway, like many, many kids of the early 90s, <i>Street Fighter II</i> was the first fighting game I every played and was probably among the first few games I owned on the SNES. My friends and I sunk countless hours into it, trying to figure out every nuance and taking turns trying to beat the game on its hardest difficulty, only to be constantly thwarted by that cheating asshole, M. Bison. It goes without saying, but Street Fighter II had some of the most ridiculously fun multiplayer I've ever experienced. When you have a few friends all about the same skill level, the game is an absolute blast.<br />
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Before I start, let me make it clear exactly what version of the game I'm talking about here. <i>Street Fighter II: The World Warrior</i> was the first version of the game released on the SNES. It was the only version that I owned and the one I played the most, by far. I'll talk a bit about its many re-releases too, but lets focus on just the original home release for now. I also realize that the arcade version came out in 1991, but I only played that a handful of times; much less than the home port.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Screw this attack forever. I swear he's able to do an infinite combo with it. Maybe I just suck.</td></tr>
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In <i>Street Fighter II</i>, you select one of eight multicultural fighters whose racial diversity puts even the Planeteers to shame, and attempt to beat the other 7 in one on one fights. If you manage to beat all of them, you go on to fight the four non-playable boss characters who are all cheap bastards. M. Bison, the game's last boss, in particular has some of the cheapest damn attacks ever. It seems like no matter how you approach him, he has something to counter you with.<br />
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<i>Street Fighter II</i> is fairly light on story as far as the overall plot is concerned, but each character has their own back story and I felt like the game's visuals did a good job conveying a bit about what kind of person each character was. Each fighter has a unique look, personality, and fighting style, all of which have held up pretty well over the years. Every character from this game returned in <i>Street Fighter IV</i> with virtually the same designs, so I guess if it ain't broke, don't redesign it. Or something.<br />
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As I said in the beginning, <i>SFII</i>'s gameplay forever changed the fighting game genre. Its predecessor was already a fairly good evolution of the genre and (I'm really sorry if I'm wrong about this one) introduced the famous fireball and dragon punch move inputs that almost every 2d fighter has included to this day. <i>Street Fighter II</i> refined that formula to a simple but elegant fighting system, adding other mainstays like charge attacks and full circle inputs like Zangief's spinning piledriver.<br />
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I could be wrong again (I'm not exactly a video game historian) but I also believe that <i>SFII</i> introduced the idea of combos to fighting games (beat em' ups had simple combos prior to <i>SFII</i>.) It may also be one of the earlier examples of emergent gameplay as the developers didn't even intend to include combos as a game feature. Players just figured out that they could execute certain attacks and cancel certain animations in a quick enough manner that their opponent could not counter. Pretty neat stuff.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
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Enough about gameplay mechanics. How does it actually play? Very, very well actually. Each character controls pretty much the same and there are only a few special attack inputs to memorize, allowing you to learn the basics of each character quickly. If you want to go beyond the basics though, <i>SFII</i> can get as complex as chess at a competitive level.<br />
<br />
To really excel in versus mode, there's a wealth of character strategies to memorize. You can't just get good with one fighter either. You need to be able to anticipate exactly what each character can throw at you in any given moment. Just search for <i>Street Fighter II</i> Evo matches on YouTube and you'll see what I mean.<br />
<br />
Almost as good as the stellar gameplay is the game's incredible soundtrack. I swear there isn't a single weak track in the whole game. Each character has their own theme song that plays on their stage and they all match up with both their respective fighter and their level so well. It's also worth mentioning (though I talked about it in one of my earliest articles) that Ken's theme was directly sampled from Cheap Trick's <i>Mighty Wings</i>, though if any of the other songs were sampled, I'm not aware of it. It was kinda funny to me because as far as I remember, I never heard <i>Mighty Wings</i> until years after playing <i>SFII</i>, so it felt kinda like someone added lyrics to Ken's theme from my perspective.<br />
<br />
Visually, the first console iteration of <i>SFII</i> isn't too amazing compared to its successors, but it still retains a measure of charm with its varied character and background designs. I especially love Chun-Li's stage, which is a Chinese suburb featuring a number of background characters, most notably a butcher shop worker whose short animation dooms him to an eternity of strangling a chicken to death.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gbPfqyu7qiY/T5htc3kiGnI/AAAAAAAABeQ/EzaHqwG1egQ/s1600/Street+Fighter+II+shot+03.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gbPfqyu7qiY/T5htc3kiGnI/AAAAAAAABeQ/EzaHqwG1egQ/s1600/Street+Fighter+II+shot+03.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I believe this is where I'm supposed to say "See! I'm not making it up!" Also since I mention it in every article: <i>Persona 4</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i>Street Fighter II</i> also marked the beginning of the long standing tradition of re-releasing the same game over and over with a few tweaks and new characters. In the case of <i>Street Fighter II</i>, it was re-released four times in the arcade, and three times on the SNES. I remember when I first heard about the game's first re-release and a friend of mine kept telling me you could play as the four boss characters. I thought he was full of shit until I finally played it for myself.<br />
<br />
After probably hundreds of hours playing as just the original eight, seeing the four boss characters playable blew my freaking mind. If there was a version of Street Fighter where you could play as the bosses, anything was possible. Maybe there was a version of <i>Super Mario World</i> where you could play as Bowser, but it was only released in Japan. Nah, I didn't go that far but it was still pretty amazing to me.<br />
<br />
I never actually owned any of the re-releases as a kid, but when I got older, I realized that the original game was improved quite a bit by its successors. The gameplay was much quicker, the graphics were more detailed, five other characters were eventually added to the roster, and even super attacks and air combos made it into later releases.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9FuJWEu0DjQ/T5hvR3mFAII/AAAAAAAABeY/gojh7TLicto/s1600/Street+Fighter+II+shot+04.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9FuJWEu0DjQ/T5hvR3mFAII/AAAAAAAABeY/gojh7TLicto/s1600/Street+Fighter+II+shot+04.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">God I love Blanka's damage animation.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Telling you where and why to buy <i>SFII</i> is borderline pointless. Pretty much anyone with interest in the fighting game genre has already played it, and every gamer at least knows of the series. If you by any remote chance haven't played the game and are a fighting game fan, there's an amazing HD version of the game on Xbox Live and PSN which you may find more accessible than the older versions.<br />
<br />
Not being a fighting game expert actually makes it pretty hard to write about <i>Street Fighter II</i>, but I played this game so damn much that every move, song, sound effect and graphical effect is forever engraved into my memory. Though I will never be anywhere near a competitive level of skill at the game, it still managed to bring me countless hours of enjoyment, perhaps even more so than a sizable chunk of the other games I've written about here.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7XP_A45Hloo/T5hvdRP-w9I/AAAAAAAABeg/z9KXy8__LCc/s1600/Street+Fighter+II+shot+05.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7XP_A45Hloo/T5hvdRP-w9I/AAAAAAAABeg/z9KXy8__LCc/s1600/Street+Fighter+II+shot+05.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Those three guys in the background of Balrog's stage always bothered me. The guy on the left looks like he has a giant head since his hat is the same color of his skin, the guy in the middle has a Muppet face, and the guy on the right looks like he's missing most of his head. Maybe the guy on the left took it.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Next:<br />
Number 4 in my top 5 games of 1992!<br />
Another amazing licensed beat 'em up from Konami.<br />
<br />
I'll leave you with my absolute favorite song from the entire <i>Street Fighter</i> series, Vega's theme. Its energetic, flamenco sound immediately conjures memories of Vega's cheap ass aerial attacks.<br />
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Also, since I probably won't have anywhere else to put it, the second video is an original song by YouTube user <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/hyadain2525">Hyadain2525</a>, who does some of the funniest video game parody songs I've ever heard. The song is mostly in Japanese but the video below was subtitled in English by another user.<br />
<br />
First video is brought to us by YouTube user constantlimit, and the second by YouTube user Hyadain2525 with English subtitles by YouTube user habanerospice.<br />
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<br />Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-65765250547378241032012-04-15T05:00:00.000-05:002013-04-09T00:50:30.483-05:00My Game of the Year 2011: Dead Space 2 (360)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-156zIUwKkTQ/TzWDbzG1eXI/AAAAAAAAAvs/X8yDj1PLwa8/s1600/Dead+Space+2+box.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-156zIUwKkTQ/TzWDbzG1eXI/AAAAAAAAAvs/X8yDj1PLwa8/s1600/Dead+Space+2+box.jpg" /></a></div>
<b>Developed:</b> Visceral Games<br />
<b>Published:</b> Electronic Arts<br />
<b>Genre:</b> 3rd-person action-horror<br />
<b>Platform:</b> 360 (reviewed), PS3, PC<br />
<br />
If you've read my older articles, you'll probably know that <a href="http://mattsgamequest.blogspot.com/2011/11/my-top-5-games-of-2008-2-dead-space-360.html">I'm a pretty big fan of the first <i>Dead Space</i></a>. I always longed for a worthy follow-up to <i>Resident Evil 4</i> and the folks at Visceral Games apparently shared the sentiment. <i>Dead Space</i> took what was great about <i>RE4</i> and refined it so well that it made <i>Resident Evil 5</i> feel a bit disappointing by comparison.<br />
<br />
When a sequel was announced, I quickly pre-ordered it; the first time I did that since 2004 when I pre-ordered <i>Metal Gear Solid 3</i>. My expectations for <i>Dead Space 2</i> were about as high as they could be, so did it live up to them? Yep. As I said in my Top 15 Games of 2011 article, my biggest complaint about this game is that the cutscenes aren't skipable. Other than that, it's near perfect.<br />
<br />
<i>Dead Space 2</i> continues the story of space engineer Isaac Clarke, who was thrown into an insane asylum located in a giant space station built into the remnants of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. He's awakened suddenly one day and finds himself in the middle of another outbreak of necromorphs, humans who have been mutated into undead killing machines by the enigmatic "marker." Also, he's stuck in a straitjacket.<br />
Oh boy.<br />
<br />
As always: <b>SPOILER ALERT</b><br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><i>Before I start, I need to give a shout-out to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/TobyGames">TobyGames</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/themarathonseason">themarathonseason</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/PewDiePie">PewDiePie</a>, and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/VenomProject">VenomProject</a>. Aside from one screen that I got from GameFAQs, every screenshot in this article was captured from their Dead Space 2 videos on YouTube, so credit for this article's visual pizazz goes to them. Thanks for the awesome videos, guys!</i><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0dJryBjeTyI/T4k3XGddreI/AAAAAAAABbE/ZMgNpawJNUY/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0dJryBjeTyI/T4k3XGddreI/AAAAAAAABbE/ZMgNpawJNUY/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+02.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nicole is now a human Lite-Brite of some sort, apparently.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The game opens the same way as the first one: with a static filled video of Isaac's girlfriend, Nicole. This particular recording is of a call she made to Isaac some time before things went wrong on the USG Ishimura, the "planet cracker" spaceship she was serving aboard. Right off the bat, we see that Isaac's face has been changed a bit from the first game and now looks a lot like Commander Shepard. He also talks now as opposed to <i>DS1</i> where he never spoke a single word for the whole game. While I'm pretty apathetic about the change to his appearance, I am very happy that they made him an actual character in this game, rather than a silent avatar for the player.<br />
<br />
The view zooms out from the holographic video and we see that Isaac is being interviewed by a rather harsh doctor about what happened to him on the Ishimura. Isaac mentions the marker and as the doctor yells at him to elaborate, a zombified hallucination of Nicole gets in Isaac's face and demands him to "Make us whole."<br />
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The scene changes to Isaac being woken up by Franco (the main character of the mediocre puzzle game prequel to <i>DS2</i>, <i>Dead Space Ignition</i>) in a dark padded cell. Isaac is bound in a straitjacket, which Franco attempts to take off of him, but an infector necromorph stabs Franco through the chest, then jumps on his back and injects something into his forehead, which triggers probably the most violent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_horror">body horror</a> moment I've ever witnessed as Franco transforms into a necromorph.<br />
<br />
A woman yells at Isaac over Franco's radio, telling him to run, and we are treated to one of the most intense opening gameplay segments ever. Isaac, who is still in a straitjacket, must run through several hospital hallways filled with necromorphs. I've heard some people say that this part was so scary that they stopped playing right off the bat. I'd love to see those folks try to play <i>Amnesia</i>. For the record, I don't find this game (or any of the other <i>Dead Space</i> games for that matter) even remotely scary but I can see why some people would. I think <i>Silent Hill</i> has left me too jaded in that department.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5bR4eu8sF00/T4k4TMYyLgI/AAAAAAAABbM/0b0URowzDek/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5bR4eu8sF00/T4k4TMYyLgI/AAAAAAAABbM/0b0URowzDek/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+03.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Isaac gets to relative safety but soon runs into the doctor who was interrogating him in the game's intro. He grabs Isaac and puts a scalpel to his throat, saying that he was ordered to kill all of his test subjects. Isaac pleads with him not to do it, saying that they can both get out of this alive if he just gets him out of the straitjacket. The doctor lowers his scalpel as if to stab Isaac in the gut, but instead cuts his arms free and lets him go.<br />
<br />
The doctor gives Isaac a couple of basic supplies, then commits suicide by cutting open his throat rather violently. Isaac can do nothing to help him so he moves on and is immediately contacted by the woman that yelled at him briefly over Franco's radio. The woman, whose name is Daina, tells Isaac that he is suffering from a form of dementia that will kill him if he doesn't get help, which she is conveniently able to provide. She gives him a route to follow and Isaac reluctantly continues on. Yay! Five minutes into the game and we're already getting ordered around by a stranger over the radio!<br />
<br />
Like 2 minutes later, Isaac does the obligatory "I don't trust you, why are you helping me" nonsense and Daina tells him that if Hans Tiedemann, Titan Station's director, gets a hold of him more people will die. All righty then. Can't argue with that logic. By the way, Titan Station is also called the Sprawl by some characters in the game, so I'll probably absentmindedly go back and forth between the two names.<br />
<br />
Isaac finds a man strapped to a surgical table with a rather large surgical incision on his chest and a surgical laser pointed at him. Isaac attempts to free the man but a necromorph barges in and kills him. Isaac quickly grabs the laser and attaches it to his flashlight to create a makeshift weapon that somehow functions identically to the plasma cutter in the first game. Why would a surgical laser fire out line shaped laser beams capable of easily cutting off limbs? Eh, maybe he turned the power up on it or something. Whatever.<br />
<br />
Isaac bumps into another asylum inmate who attempts to lead him to safety but they are immediately separated by emergency doors. So much for that. After some more bickering between Isaac and Daina, we get a bit of exposition on how Isaac ended up on Titan Station. Tiedemann found him floating in space after the events of <i>DS1</i> and has been studying the effects the marker had on him for the past 3 years, all the while keeping his memory suppressed. Using the information that the original marker put in Isaac's head, Tiedemann built another marker which caused the current necromorph outbreak. <br />
<br />
<i>Dead Space mobile</i> actually sheds some more light on this but it also contains at least one major spoiler for <i>Dead Space 2</i> so I won't go into much detail. All that's really important is that you play as the most gullible character ever who is tricked into sabotaging Titan Station's security system multiple times throughout the course of the game, which allows the necromorph outbreak to spread. It's meant to be a direct prequel to <i>Dead Space 2</i> but I wouldn't recommend playing it first since as I said, it spoils something that's coming up shortly.<br />
<br />
Anyway, Isaac runs into the other asylum inmate a few more times and finds out that his name is Nolan Stross and unlike Isaac, his insanity is unquestionable. He contacts Isaac many times throughout the game to tell him about "the steps," something that won't be relevant until the end of the game... That has to be the worst running gag ever and it's pretty much the only one that I have so far... Well that and describing something goofy, then immediately placing a screenshot with a caption saying something like "See! I'm not making it up!" I am terrible at this.<br />
<br />
Isaac boards a tram and fights his way to the front car. Before he can make it all the way up there however, the tram derails and he slides through the remaining cars, coming to an abrupt stop as he dangles upside down from a wire just outside the front car. He fights off a bunch of necromorphs and is confronted by a brute that bursts out of the tram. Isaac shoots it, which causes its arm to sever after one hit somehow. These guys are mini boss characters in the first game and everywhere else in this one, but for whatever reason, this brute dies in one shot.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zom3VYQwC_o/T4nSqqxcMeI/AAAAAAAABbU/Z8gc2F1oLRs/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zom3VYQwC_o/T4nSqqxcMeI/AAAAAAAABbU/Z8gc2F1oLRs/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+04.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
That one shot also manages to cause the tram car to come loose and untangles Isaac from the wire he was suspended from. He runs off just in time as the tram car hits the ground and explodes like crazy. I don't know what part of the tram would make it cause such a big explosion. You'd think it would be powered by electricity. Ah, whatever. This is an over the top action game. Logic doesn't exist.<br />
<br />
Daina gives Isaac another new route to follow for like the third or fourth time now and he continues on, but Stross soon calls him up again to say a bunch of crazy shit that makes no sense. Isaac finally thinks to ask Daina about him and she states the obvious: he's crazy. Stay away from him. Isaac gets suspicious when Daina's route takes him through a Unitology (crazy religious zealots who worship the marker) recruitment facility. She assures him that it's the fastest way to get to her and he thinks nothing more of it. I wooooonder what's gonna happen.<br />
<br />
After a few more minutes of exploration, Daina's route brings Isaac to a church of Unitology where he is immediately attacked by a gunship piloted by Tiedemann's soldiers. After escaping that deathtrap, he calls Daina, even more suspicious of where she's leading him, but She tells him to STFU and do what the NPCs tell him so he keeps following her route. Dumbass.<br />
<br />
I probably should have gone into a bit more detail earlier about Isaac's hallucinations from <i>DS1</i>, which are back and get exponentially worse as you progress through the game. One actually attacks him in the church when a hallucination of Nicole seems to be trying to stab him in the eye with a syringe, but the hallucination soon disappears and we see that Isaac was holding the syringe up to his own eye. Also, his helmet seems to automatically open up specifically for this scene. Eh, maybe his hallucination episode caused him to open it.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3CnzraFLyBI/T4nV9WDbv_I/AAAAAAAABbc/EloJwxc3khk/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3CnzraFLyBI/T4nV9WDbv_I/AAAAAAAABbc/EloJwxc3khk/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+05.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There's a pretty goofy puzzle in the church where you bust your ass to shut down a gravity core or whatever, just so you can turn off the gravity and fly one floor up to a balcony in the same room. Then you press one button and the gravity turns back on. Why is it so hard to turn off but you can turn it back on with one button? It's a pretty cool puzzle actually but it just seems silly to defeat the purpose of a relatively complex puzzle right after you solve it.<br />
<br />
Isaac reaches the top of the church where Daina is waiting with a couple of goons who restrain him. SURPRISE! Daina is revealed to be a Unitologist. She tells Isaac what he should already know, though he seems surprised by it: the information the original marker stored in his brain can be used to make more markers. Unitologists believe the marker is the secret to humanity's evolution and want to build countless markers to spread "convergence" across the galaxy. I guess homicidal zombie aliens are what humans are really supposed to be. <br />
<br />
Daina's party is soon ruined when the gunship from earlier shoots the shit out of the room they're standing in, killing everyone except Isaac who escapes through a trap door, landing in a dark room a few floors down. Then my favorite action setpiece of any game from last year starts. A huge, almost fully armored necromorph attacks Isaac as the ceiling begins to collapse with support beams and pipes falling everywhere. As Isaac attempts to escape, the necromorph keeps picking him up and tries to eat him, but he shoots the one unarmored part of its body, which severs its right arm.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-j1rA_BFMZGk/T4nbcp1mXeI/AAAAAAAABbk/ODhWZ9_IMlY/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-j1rA_BFMZGk/T4nbcp1mXeI/AAAAAAAABbk/ODhWZ9_IMlY/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+06.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Isaac runs down a hallway into a room with a large window that is quickly shot out by the gunship, causing Isaac and the huge necromorph to fly out and land on the ship's hull. Isaac attempts to float away but the necromorph grabs him again. A couple of explosive barrels are conveniently floating next to the necromorph's head, which Isaac shoots, causing a huge explosion that I guess kills the necromorph and destroys the gunship because you never see either of them again. Isaac is rocketed back by the explosion and flies back into the Sprawl through a window which is quickly sealed up by a blast door.<br />
<br />
Stross immediately calls up and rambles about an extremely vague plan to destroy Tiedemann's marker, but they'll have to travel pretty far to reach it. Isaac decides that listening to an insane man whose plan is completely unclear at this point is good idea and begins the long trek to the government sector where the marker is stored.<br />
<br />
Isaac comes across a young woman fighting off a group of necromorphs which she manages to kill before Isaac can even get close enough to assist her. When he attempts to go talk with her though, she almost shoots him too. Isaac tells the young woman, whose name is Ellie, that they should team up but she's actually a smart character (at least in the <i>Dead Space</i> universe where anyone could go insane at any moment) and refuses to trust Isaac, telling him that other people are a liability. When she says this line I swear to God she glances directly at the camera as if to say "Yeah. I mean YOU, player. You suck."<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ckK5i3P52rI/T4nbx4uJzEI/AAAAAAAABbs/zSOlxVtaSO0/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ckK5i3P52rI/T4nbx4uJzEI/AAAAAAAABbs/zSOlxVtaSO0/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+07.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cut! Ellie, you gotta look at Isaac, not the camera.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Ellie soon leaves, telling Isaac not to follow her. The first time I played through the game, I honestly looked around the room for another route for several minutes before giving up and going down the same elevator that Ellie left on, so yeah; the game forces you to follow her. And here I was, trying to do what the game told me like a good little player.<br />
<br />
Isaac makes his way through an elementary school/nursery where he encounters two enemies that I have yet to address, so I guess I'll talk about them (and 1 enemy from <i>DS1</i>) here. I can't remember if I mentioned them in my <i>DS1</i> article, but one type of enemy in that game, which return in this one, are called lurkers. Lurkers are basically zombified human babies that attack you with tentacles growing from their backs. They're so heavily mutated that you might not even notice unless you look closely, so I wasn't too bothered by them.<br />
<br />
In <i>Dead Space 2</i>, they brought back lurkers and added two enemies that aren't quite as defensible: zombie children and explosive zombie babies. This is where it begins to get a bit too sketchy. It makes sense that there would be necromorph kids and babies since Titan Station is an entire city, but I still find them to be a little gross, particularly the exploding babies.<br />
<br />
The exploding babies are literally a human baby with charred black flesh and a giant, explosive growth on their back. That's already disturbing enough on its own but they also make regular human baby sounds as they slowly advance on you. They're the only type of necromorph that does this. Every other type makes unworldly monster sounds, including the zombie children and lurkers. It just seems like Visceral Games was trying a little too hard to add as much shock value as possible to the game. They'll be hard pressed to top this in <i>Dead Space 3</i>.<br />
<br />
Anyway, other than killing children, Isaac also has to deal with more hallucinations of Nicole who constantly mock him and keep telling him to "Make us whole." Ellie contacts Isaac and tells him that she found Stross and almost kills him before Isaac stops her because he needs Stross to be "not dead" so they can somehow destroy the marker. Ellie decides to take Stross with her for whatever reason; I guess she agrees with their unbelievably vague plan. <br />
<br />
A few minutes later, Isaac bumps into Ellie and Stross but the power goes out and Tiedemann contacts Isaac directly, telling him that he and Stross have to die so the necromorphs won't spread any further or whatever. You were the one that made the marker, buddy. He tells them that he cut power to life support which is the cue for a brute to attack Isaac.<br />
<br />
After that's dealt with, Isaac tells Ellie more about his awesome plan to destroy the marker with his human Chekhov's gun and she agrees to help. First things first; they need to turn the power back on by repairing the back-up solar power system. Isaac makes his way through a highly secure area that is controlled by an artificial intelligence named ANTI who I thought would end up being a SHODAN style antagonist but all she really does is what she was programmed to: protect the solar array.<br />
<br />
After an interesting puzzle that mirrors <i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i>, ANTI goes offline, clearing the path to the solar array. Ellie periodically calls Isaac to tell him how exponentially more crazy Stross is getting which I guess is to build tension for a later scene. Isaac re-aligns the solar array manually and another crazy setpiece starts.<br />
<br />
Isaac gets into an ejection seat or whatever and is launched back down
toward the Sprawl. As he hurls through space he has to dodge a ton of
debris which I swear wasn't there before. This part kinda reminds me of
<i>Star Fox 64</i> actually. It's not quite as forgiving as that game though,
because if you so much as graze any of the obstacles in your path, Isaac
explodes into meaty chunks rather comically, forcing you to restart the
whole ejection scene again. At the end of it though, Isaac smashes into
a vent and bounces around like a pinball before coming to a crash
landing without taking any damage. Maybe it's easier to be dismembered
in a vacuum or something.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Dn-M2aoOQ8U/T4npozgGr3I/AAAAAAAABb0/CR8wnI3YHNE/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+08.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Dn-M2aoOQ8U/T4npozgGr3I/AAAAAAAABb0/CR8wnI3YHNE/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+08.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">USE THE BOOST TO GET THROUGH!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Isaac meets up with Ellie and Stross in a room almost exactly the same as the one where he fought the brute earlier, but just as they're about to get to safety, shit starts exploding all over the place and they get separated again. Ellie immediately gets to work to open another door so Isaac can get away from all the explosions just as a horde of necromorphs barges in and life support in the room fails. I guess it's only in that room since Ellie and Stross are like one room over and aren't wearing spacesuits like Isaac.<br />
<br />
Cue the hardest fight in the game. I'm sure many people would disagree but I have personally died here more times than anywhere else in the game. You get attacked from every direction by probably the most annoying combination of necromophs. There's spitters, which have a projectile, a ton of zombie kids, which always attack in hordes, and leapers, the most annoying enemy in the <i>Dead Space</i> series, period. They move super fast, can jump on walls and have a ridiculously long attack range with their leap attack that they love to do so often.<br />
<br />
Ellie eventually gets a door open, allowing Isaac to get to safety, and he continues on through a processing facility of some sort. Ellie shuts it down before he goes in but Tiedemann, still dead set on killing Isaac, powers the facility back up with Isaac still inside. While Isaac dodges fire and all manner of sharp spinning things, Ellie and Stross fight their way through more necromorphs. Actually it's more like Ellie does the fighting while Stross gets more and more crazy, to the point where he screams at Ellie about "the steps" while she's busy trying to keep them alive.<br />
<br />
Isaac finally meets back up with them and Stross is in a near catatonic state. He keeps mumbling about the steps, the dark machine, the needle and all manner of crazy things. Isaac ignores him and goes to restart the tram system that will take them to the government sector while Ellie attempts to get Stross back on his feet. Once that's done, Isaac hallucinates some more and yells at zombie Nicole in a kinda derpy sounding voice. Should have gone with take 2 on that one.<br />
<br />
As the tram begins to descend, they can see the USG Ishimura, the setting of the first <i>Dead Space</i>, docked nearby. Ellie gives Isaac the government explanation of what happened and tells him that the Ishimura's crew was killed in a terrorist attack, but Isaac sets her straight just as the tram comes to an abrupt halt.<br />
<br />
Isaac steps off the tram to see what is blocking it, and after way too much exploration, finds a room full of tentacles wrapped around huge, explosive fuel tanks. He does the sensible thing and blows up the tanks (while fighting some annoying damn enemies,) clearing the path for the tram. He jumps into the tram just in time for them to do an action movie explosion chase scene, but they are again brought to a halt when Tiedemann uses a giant freakin' laser beam to cut the tracks, separating them from the government sector.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m0bf8qew0OI/T4pq2xD9a9I/AAAAAAAABdo/-xxfyTX237w/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m0bf8qew0OI/T4pq2xD9a9I/AAAAAAAABdo/-xxfyTX237w/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+09.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Conveniently enough, the Ishimura happens to be right behind them so Isaac boards it and makes his way to the bridge so he can use the ship's gravity tethers to pull the tracks back together. His hallucinations get worse and worse as he makes his way through the Ishimura. Stross is getting worse too. He seems to be having a conversation with his dead son, then he suddenly attacks Ellie and bites her. God, why keep this guy around? Do you really think he knows how to destroy the marker? What's it made out of anyway? Why not just blow it up? There's gotta be some explosives somewhere in the Sprawl. Meh.<br />
<br />
Thankfully, Stross calms back down and Isaac finally makes it to the bridge and activates the gravity tethers. Ellie and Stross quickly take the tram across and Isaac jumps in an escape pod in yet another scene that I can't believe he survives. After crash landing, a video transmission pops up and we see that Stross has completely snapped. He has Ellie pinned to the ground and the video cuts off just as he prepares to stab her in the eye with a screwdriver. What did I tell you? This could have easily been avoided. Even that liar Daina knew enough to tell you to stay away from that lunatic.<br />
<br />
Stross taunts Isaac a few minutes later, telling him that he thought that if Ellie did step 3 she would be able to "see." Apparently Step 3 is being stabbed in the eye. A while later, Isaac bumps into Stross who taunts him some more through a fence. He holds up a screwdriver with Ellie's eye impaled on it and tells Isaac that he's next, but Ellie pops up from behind him, hits him with a pole, then yells my favorite line of 2011 at Isaac:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ixE-DvEahpI/T4n0NUYYEgI/AAAAAAAABcE/2NYlBTawX08/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ixE-DvEahpI/T4n0NUYYEgI/AAAAAAAABcE/2NYlBTawX08/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+10.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A blast door closes just as Ellie and Stross begin to fight. I guess that's one way to not have to animate a scene: have it take place on the other side of a wall. Not that Visceral Games is lazy or anything but why did that blast door close all of a sudden? Actually, most of the doors that open and close or lock and unlock automatically in this game don't make much sense.<br />
<br />
In the first game, the ship's computer would say something like "Foreign matter detected. Commencing lockdown." Then it locks the doors and after you kill all the necromorphs in the room, unlocks them again. Ignoring the fact that the ship somehow knows when the undead aliens are foreal dead, it makes a bit more sense than <i>DS2</i> where the power will go out right after you enter a room, then turn back on right as you kill the last enemy. I am over analyzing this way too much.<br />
<br />
Anyway, something that somehow makes even less sense happens. Isaac steps through the next door and is immediately grabbed by a tentacle that drags him through a long, narrow tunnel, then throws him out into space. The first time I played this, I thought this was another hallucination, and that Isaac would appear back in the hallway. But it isn't. The tentacle disappears as soon as it lets go of Isaac and is never seen again, so I guess all it does is grab people through that one hole in the station and throws them into space. I guess it was supposed to be a jump scare, but it would make a bit more sense if he was just forced to go out into space to progress? I'm over analyzing again...<br />
<br />
Isaac calls Ellie, who says that Stross has run off and she's found something interesting nearby. Isaac soon bumps into Stross again who immediately attacks, hitting Isaac's helmet so hard with his screwdriver that it opens up, leaving Isaac's head vulnerable to further screwdriver attacks. Isaac fights him off and is forced to finally kill the annoying bastard. Oh no! How will we ever destroy the marker without mental McGee?<br />
<br />
After another fun, wave based room, Isaac is attacked by zombie Nicole who somehow lifts him up off the ground by his neck. I guess he's imagining that too. In another mash A to not die QTE, Nicole chokes Isaac and demands that Isaac tell her who she really is; why he won't let her go. He finally admits that he can't let her go because he would have nothing left if he did, which causes Nicole to turn back to normal and say "Step 4. Acceptance." Okay then. The other steps, at least according to Stross, all had to do with a dark machine and needles. Dunno how the five stages of grief got factored into that (Yes, I know acceptance is stage 5. No need to correct me.)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a12YpogZ3OM/T4oCXL3n2dI/AAAAAAAABcM/Yme75DDuJDc/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a12YpogZ3OM/T4oCXL3n2dI/AAAAAAAABcM/Yme75DDuJDc/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+11.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Isaac soon finds Ellie and the "something interesting" that she mentioned earlier: a giant digging vehicle of some sort. They quickly fix it up and begin digging their way to the marker. They come to yet another crashing stop and land in the government sector, but are separated. Ellie almost immediately finds a gunship they can use to escape. Isaac soon catches up to her and somehow forces the gunship to launch from a computer in the station. Ellie is none too pleased but Isaac is determined to save at least one person in this series and sends the ship, and Ellie, flying off.<br />
<br />
He sits down and talks with his imaginary friend some more. Nicole seems to be in a significantly weakened state and again tells Isaac to "make us whole." Make sense already! Isaac walks off and gets yelled at by Tiedemann some more, who warns him that he has 200 men stationed throughout the government sector and tells him he has no chance to survive and to make his tim- oh my God I just made an all your base reference. I think it's time to turn my internet badge in.<br />
<br />
Isaac soon runs into a huge group of those soldiers who are blocking the way to the marker. The first time I played through the game, I thought this was a cutscene that was going to take control away from me so I just stopped moving in front of the column of soldiers who quickly blasted Isaac to pieces. You're actually supposed to run into a bathroom that I didn't notice the first time, then crawl through a maintenance tunnel and run up to a control room where Isaac turns off the power so a horde of necromorphs can barge in to clear the way for him. Great idea!<br />
<br />
The soldiers get slaughtered and Isaac fights his way through a horde of necromorphs before finally arriving at the marker chamber. Or at least a room with a view of the marker chamber. Close enough. Hundreds of necromophs have grouped around the giant marker which is at least 3 or 4 stories tall. Nicole shows up again and tells him that "convergence is at hand," then Tiedemann calls Isaac up to yell at him some more, saying that it's his fault this is happening. You were the one that built the marker, dumbass.<br />
<br />
He says the same thing as Nicole; that a "convergence event" is taking place. Is that like a resonance cascade? Then a huge beam of light erupts from the marker and the necromorphs begin to get sucked up to the ceiling. Nicole again tells Isaac to "make us whole," and leads him to the next room where the squickiest gameplay segment I've ever experienced begins.<br />
<br />
Isaac gets into the machine that Stross described, and a metal device keeps his head in place and holds his eyes open. Then it's up to the player to slowly guide a huge needle down to Isaac's eye which somehow accesses the marker data in his brain. This is yet another gameplay segment that I didn't get the first time. The game purposely doesn't explain how it works to increase the chance that you'll screw up the first time and have to watch the most violent death animation in the game, aside from Franco's death at the beginning of the game I suppose.<br />
<br />
The way it works is simple; you move the needle around with the right stick, and make it go up and down with A and Y. The needle moves really, really slow to increase the tension of the scene I guess and as you move it, Isaac gets nervous and begins to fidget around, though if you stop moving for a moment he'll calm down. The goal is to stick the needle directly into his pupil. If you do that, you succeed and the result is not as violent as you would suspect. The needle just slips in for a second, Isaac sees a bunch of symbols, then it pulls back out and a little blood runs out of his eye.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2lE1KZiA9ZE/T4oDMYk3IBI/AAAAAAAABcU/iHtfQEUusjQ/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2lE1KZiA9ZE/T4oDMYk3IBI/AAAAAAAABcU/iHtfQEUusjQ/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+12.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My apologies to any trypanophobic readers.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
If you put the needle anywhere else though, the whole device comes crashing down and kills the shit out of him. I don't know why it would do that but whatever. The more shock value the better, I suppose. This was what happened the first time I played this part. I thought it was just a creepy interactive cutscene that you couldn't fail, and when I screwed up I initially thought the machine was trying to rip his eye out just as Stross did to Ellie. But no; you just die if you don't do it right. This part was especially nerve wracking in the hardest difficulty which I'll talk about later.<br />
<br />
Isaac gets back out of the machine and Nicole simply tells him that she'll be waiting at the marker. Then an insect like, regenerating necromorph shows up. Just like the regenerator in the first game, this necromorph cannot be killed so all you can really do is dismember it, then put in stasis while it regenerates, and run. As you run, you'll be confronted by hordes of necromorphs, all of them the more powerful "enhanced" version of each respective type. Some people have complained that this part is cheap, but I find its challenge to be about the same as any other area of the game with respawning enemies. It's certainly easier than that annoying room I mentioned before where I died over and over.<br />
<br />
Isaac finally reaches the marker and as he approaches a bright light in front of it, he's suddenly hit with a round from a javelin gun. Ah shit. It's Tiedemann, and he's looking a lot like Two-Face with half of his body charred as a result of the light that erupted from the marker I guess. It happened off screen. Isaac pulls the Javelin out, and another one. Just Tiedemann is about to shoot him from point blank range, Isaac suddenly knows how to do CQC and disarms Tiedemann, then violently shoots him through the throat with a javelin. Then the game gets pretty sadistic when it gives you partial control and lets you shoot him again, but he dies a few seconds later whether you shoot him or not. Nicole appears and thanks Isaac for coming this far, then tells him that it's "time to die." DUN DUN DUN<br />
<br />
Wow, I never would have guessed. Nicole shoots Isaac with a mind laser or whatever and the camera zooms into Isaac's head where he fights a mental battle with Nicole and a marker that has a fleshy necromorph core. Aside from the brutes, which I consider to be more like mini bosses than proper boss fights, this is the only boss in the game. I found this pretty disappointing after the giant bosses in the first game.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dHt2i5FnIdg/T4oHz6gstYI/AAAAAAAABcc/PMn0eCTOw4g/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dHt2i5FnIdg/T4oHz6gstYI/AAAAAAAABcc/PMn0eCTOw4g/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+13.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That was your first mistake. Well, maybe not your first, but whatever. My point stands.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
All you really need to do is stay away from Nicole and keep shooting her until she disappears, which exposes the marker's core, your actual target in this fight. After a few moments it closes back up and Nicole reappears. If Nicole gets too close to Isaac, it's instant death in a really disturbing scene. It zooms back out to the real world where Isaac, with a smile on his face, shoots himself through the chin with the javelin gun which causes his face to become disgustingly stretched out and distorted. Man this game is sadistic.<br />
<br />
Other than Nicole, all you have to worry about are zombie children that constantly spawn, though they still die in one hit from any attack so they aren't that annoying. They're pretty much just there to drop ammo for you. After about three rounds of shooting the marker's core, it explodes and the game zooms back out to the real world where the marker is somehow crumbling and Isaac collapses from exhaustion. The station's computer warns about an imminent reactor breach and it seems like Isaac is finally out of luck.<br />
<br />
Fake credits begin to play but Ellie suddenly shows up and crashes the gunship through the roof. Isaac does his Iron Man routine again and dodges some more debris as he flies up to the ship. He gets in and they quickly fly off just as the station explodes. The final scene mirrors the ending of the first game as Isaac sits down in the pilot seat. He slowly looks to his right expecting zombie Nicole to attack him again, but it's just Ellie. Roll credits.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kxHfF9UHd6E/T4oYjaXGukI/AAAAAAAABdA/GnWQ_aiIoz4/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kxHfF9UHd6E/T4oYjaXGukI/AAAAAAAABdA/GnWQ_aiIoz4/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+16.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Uhh, nothing. Just making sure you didn't suddenly turn into a zombie alien thing for a cheap jump scare.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In a short post credits dialogue segment, a mysterious man is told of Titan Station's destruction, and says that the "other marker sites will have to pick up the pieces."<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
---</div>
<br />
Ah, so where to even start in this review... In addition to what I said at the beginning about the cutscenes not being skipable, I think I may have to add one more thing that I kinda dislike about <i>Dead Space 2</i>: there are several elements of the plot that don't make sense to me. I still consider it to be as close to perfection as I could hope for in a game, but I can't help but be bothered by a few things.<br />
<br />
Why was Isaac convinced that Stross could be of any help in destroying the marker? What was the deal with all the necromorphs crowding around the marker and the subsequent beam of light that shoots out of it? What did the eye needle machine do to Isaac? How the hell did fighting zombie Nicole and a fake marker in Isaac's brain cause the real marker to start breaking apart?<br />
<br />
Hopefully most of these questions will be answered in future <i>Dead Space</i> games but I can't help but be a bit bothered by them. Hell, I still don't fully understand what it is about the marker that causes people to either go completely insane or turn into necromorphs.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ys8WSb9JZpU/T4oPDUB5VZI/AAAAAAAABcw/oDnDVe-d-lo/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ys8WSb9JZpU/T4oPDUB5VZI/AAAAAAAABcw/oDnDVe-d-lo/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+14.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Good question.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Other than those loose ends, I love the story in <i>Dead Space 2</i>. The biggest problem I had with the first <i>Dead Space</i> was its lack of well defined characters, but the second game fully rectifies this with some of the most likeable characters in recent memory. Isaac himself went from a silent, faceless avatar for the player in <i>DS1</i>, to a very charismatic and well fleshed out character right from the start of <i>DS2</i>.<br />
<br />
Another huge improvement is the inclusion of several well characterized antagonists. The first game had Dr. Mercer, whose name I didn't even know until I looked it up on <i>Dead Space Wiki</i>. Yeah. That's about how well defined a character he was. He didn't make enough appearances and when you finally fight him, he's just a regular necromorph who you can kill before he's even done transforming. Pathetic. <i>DS1</i> also had Kendra at the very end of the game, but she barely counts.<br />
<br />
In <i>Dead Space 2</i>, there are 4 characters who antagonize Isaac. Zombie Nicole is the most obvious one who torments him for almost the entire game and ends up being the last boss. Tiedemann was fairly good but underutilized for long stretches of gameplay. Daina and Stross also count, though they both die soon after you realize they've betrayed Isaac.<br />
<br />
Ellie ends up being your only real ally and I thought she was great, especially since she's a strong female character who isn't sexed up at all. There aren't too many of those that I could name off the top of my head sadly. Naoto from <i>Persona 4</i> I guess since there's only two scenes in the whole game where you can even tell she's a girl. I have gotta stop referencing that game so much. Hmm. Actually, that could be a running gag. Time will tell.<br />
<br />
Do I even need to cover the graphics? They're about the same as the first game, though you see characters' faces up close a lot more in <i>Dead Space 2</i> and the talking animations are really well done. Most of the main characters are apparently modeled after their voice actors, so I guess that explains Isaac's change in appearance. It's pretty weird to look at the cast list on IMDB if you're familiar with how the characters look.<br />
<br />
I think Ellie is the only exception, and I'm a bit disappointed actually. Her voice actress is black but Ellie is white for God knows what reason. You could have had a strong, non-sexualized, black female lead, Visceral. What were you thinking? Maybe they couldn't get the rights to her image or something. Moving on...<br />
<br />
The music is the same as always with big budget games nowadays. It's a competently done orchestrated score but it isn't really catchy or memorable at all. The <i>Silent Hill</i> series is my go-to example of how to do amazing survival horror music that really hits you at a primal level. I just don't think an orchestra is capable of having as much of an effect as the demented synthesized sounds that Akira Yamaoka created.<br />
<br />
The sound effects and voice acting are where <i>Dead Space 2</i>'s audio really stands out. Like in the first game, every sound effect has impact. Every weapon, every attack, every ambient sound, and every enemy sounds convincing and fitting. Speaking of which, if there's one thing in the game that actually manages to creep me out a bit, it's the enemy sounds. The screech of a stalker when it charges you is downright horrifying and the guardian wall monster things are still as disgustingly pitiful as in the first game.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LDfddg_ybnA/TwJhtfU1cmI/AAAAAAAAAhs/XHslpqPvshY/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LDfddg_ybnA/TwJhtfU1cmI/AAAAAAAAAhs/XHslpqPvshY/s1600/Dead+Space+2+shot+01.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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The voice acting is a pretty big step up from the first game. Not that the voice acting in <i>DS1</i> was bad; it was probably more that the characters and dialogue weren't very interesting. That's not the case in <i>Dead Space 2</i>. I swear there was only one badly delivered line in the whole game, which I mentioned above in a scene where Isaac is screaming at zombie Nicole in a kind of dumb sounding tone.<br />
<br />
Other than that, the game's script and acting are amazing. In my <i>Batman: Arkham City</i> article, I complained about how insipid the dialogue in that game was; one of its only faults. While that's only one example, poorly written or badly delivered dialogue still seems to be a problem in the industry. <i>Dead Space 2</i> however, has some very well written and surprisingly varied exchanges. Almost every character has a unique way of interacting with Isaac, whether it's Nicole's constant mocking, Tiedemann's anger at not being able to kill Isaac, Stross' insane rambling, or Ellie's cynical, cautious tone.<br />
<br />
Isaac himself displays an even wider range of emotions, starting out afraid and confused at the beginning of the game, slowly becoming more confident as the plot progresses, and finally conquering his inner demons, quite literally. Character growth like this is becoming far too rare.<br />
<br />
I guess now is as good a time as any to address just damn violent this game is.
I'm a pretty jaded guy, so I'm almost never offended or grossed out by
violence, but <i>Dead Space 2</i> really tries its damnedest to raise the bar
on how far video game violence will go. Right off the bat, the game sets
an extremely graphic tone by having Franco violently transform into a
necromorph right in front of our eyes. Actually, that scene is kinda
funny to me after how bad the only game where you play as Franco, <i>Dead Space Ignition</i>, turned out. Seriously. Screw that crappy game.<br />
<br />
Many of Isaac's death animations
are just way too over the top, like when the zombie children manage to
kill him in a QTE, they literally tear him limb from limb. Failing the eye
needle machine immediately comes to mind as well. As I said above, that scene plays a pretty
dirty trick on you by not telling you what to do, and it managed to fool me into thinking it was just an interactive cutscene that you couldn't fail.<br />
<br />
The gameplay in <i>Dead Space 2</i> is damn near perfect. Just as in the first game, It does a great job teaching you all the controls and gameplay elements at a reasonable pace with short tutorial messages or intuitive bits of gameplay that teach you without saying anything. The navigator from <i>DS1</i> also returns. Any time you need to be pointed in the right direction, all you have to do is click the right analog stick and a line will appear on the ground that leads to your next objective. It may hold the player's hand a bit much I suppose, but the game's challenging combat makes up for that.<br />
<br />
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Combat works pretty much exactly the same as in the first game as well. Enemies are resistant to body and head shots, so you have to shoot off their limbs to dispatch them. Kinesis and stasis are still around and are as useful as ever. Kinesis lets you pick up and throw objects at enemies so you can save ammo when possible, and stasis slows enemies down for a short time. You also put both of them to use while puzzle solving.</div>
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Almost every weapon is viable, though one of the problems I had with <i>DS1</i> is still around where some weapons had really low ammo stack sizes
that took up too much space in your inventory. I say
that, but when I replayed the game for this article, I had a little fun
by beating the game using only the contact beam and seeker rifle which
both have fairly low ammo stack sizes. Even weapons that I hated in the first game like the flamethrower and ripper have been improved quite a bit.<br />
<br />
The
only new weapon I was disappointed with was the javelin gun. It does pretty
high damage but has a really slow fire rate and consumes two ammo if you
wanna use its alternate fire, which actually doesn't make much sense.
Alternate fire on the javelin gun causes the last javelin you fired to
shoot out a burst of electricity (and explode when fully upgraded,) so I
don't know why it would consume another javelin if all you're doing is
detonating the last one you fired.<br />
<br />
One thing that wasn't really around in the first game are the various action setpieces throughout <i>Dead Space 2</i>. Most involve either Isaac using his rocket boots to speed through a zero gravity area, or QTEs where you just have to mash A to survive. One thing that was around in the first game and returns in <i>Dead Space 2</i> are scenes where Isaac is being dragged around by an enemy that he has to quickly scare off by attacking its weak point for massive damage, like the amazingly frantic scene where Isaac tries to escape from the giant necromorph that attacks him at the end of the church area. Scenes like that really do a great job of making the game feel like a blockbuster action film, while still involving the player in intuitive ways. <br />
<br />
I talked about this in my Top 15 Games of 2011 article, but it's worth describing again just because I find it so funny. <i>Dead Space 2</i> has one of the most challenging hardest difficulties ever: hardcore mode. In any other difficulty, if you die, you respawn at the last checkpoint. Hardcore has no checkpoints, so if you die, you have to reload your last save. You are also limited to three saves in hardcore so you have to do a bit of planning and use them well. Enemies behave like they do in the third highest difficulty (from what I've read at least) but the thought of losing so much progress puts you on edge and makes you more likely to make mistakes.<br />
<br />
It took a lot of practice for me to finally beat hardcore. I picked out the three hardest fights and saved before each of them. Since you can't play new game + in hardcore difficulty, I also decided on exactly what weapons I was going to buy and when I would upgrade them. My hard work paid off I guess because once I had all that planned, I played through hardcore without dying once. That freakin' eye needle machine was still absolutely nerve wracking, though.<br />
<br />
So what do you get for overcoming all those absurd restrictions? A big foam finger that shoots invisible bullets that kill anything in one hit. I'm not kidding. Isaac even says "Bang! Bang! Bang!" or "Pew! Pew! Pew!" every time you shoot. It's pretty hilarious because the weapon fires as quickly as you can press the fire button so Isaac can make his childish gun sounds comically fast if you shoot rapidly.<br />
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There are a few more miscellaneous things that were changed from the first game that
I'd like to briefly touch on. There was quite a bit of backtracking in
the first game which helped pad out the game's length a bit but made it a
little less interesting to replay since you'd see almost every area
multiple times during every playthrough. Dead Space 2 almost completely
eliminates backtracking while still maintaining a fairly lengthy
campaign.<br />
<br />
I think there are maybe one or two rooms that you pass through
more than once and the only one that I can specifically recall is a
large room with four doors. You enter through one, leave through the
second, go through a lengthy path that leads to door 3 and back into the
room, then leave again through door 4 which you unlocked between doors 2
and 3. Confusing, I know. My point is that there is next to no
backtracking in <i>Dead Space 2</i> and I commend Visceral Games for their efforts in that department.<br />
<br />
Another thing that was changed is the fact that in <i>DS2</i> you must
stomp enemies after you kill them for them to drop whatever item
they're carrying. In the first game, enemies would just drop an item
when they die, and when I first played <i>DS2</i>, I couldn't understand why
they would makes such a bizarre change. I finally realized that they
were trying to make it easier for enemies to play dead, so it's another
way to scare babies who are afraid of jump scares. It eventually becomes
second nature to just stomp every enemy after you kill them so I didn't
mind the change after a while.<br />
<br />
I suppose I should also mention the multiplayer, but I didn't ever play it. It seems kind of similar to <i>Left 4 Dead</i>'s versus mode, with 4 players controlling humans and 4 controlling necromorphs. In all likelihood, nobody is playing it anymore but I could be wrong. This game really didn't need multiplayer but I suppose it's a requirement for every big budget release nowadays.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
---</div>
<br />
<br />
<i>Dead Space 2</i> is an absolutely marvelous game and an exemplar of the action genre. It takes the incredibly fun action of its predecessor, adds crazy setpieces on top of that, and eliminates the backtracking that padded out the first game. The writing and characters are improved, and the plot more engaging. My only complaints about the game are nitpicky at best, and if I bothered giving scores, it would easily be a perfect 10.<br />
<br />
Here's just a bit more evidence of just how much I adore this game. It's one of only 4 games that I've gotten every achievement in (the others being the first <i>Dead Space</i>, <i>Oblivion</i>, and <i>Mass Effect 2</i>), I've probably beaten it over 20 times and I'm still not bored with it. I love it so much that despite the fact that it just came out last year, it has a spot among my top 10 favorite games of all time. Yeah. I kind of enjoyed this game. <br />
<br />
You can get <i>Dead Space 2</i> for around $20 online and even cheaper than that at retail. My local Wal-Mart has been selling the PC version in the $10 bargain bin for months now. It isn't for the squeamish, but if you can handle some pretty intense violence, buy it. You will not be disappointed. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm Isaac Clarke, and this is my favorite store on the Sprawl.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Whew. 2011 is finally done. I'm getting worse and worse at this. When I created this blog, I intended to do one article a day and a top 5 article every 2 days at the most. So much for that.<br />
<br />
Next:<br />
Number 5 in my top 5 games of 1992!<br />
The game that kicked off one of the most popular genres of the 90s.<br />
<br />
I'll leave you with the only song from the game's official soundtrack that has any emotional impact on me, <i>Canonical Aside. </i>I believe it's the song that plays right after the last boss fight, as Isaac collapses from exhaustion and the fake credits start to play. Could be wrong about that. Regardless, it's one of the only songs on the soundtrack that isn't just super fast violins and trumpets. Those songs are competently done but I just find them to be boring as hell. Video brought to us by YouTube user RadiantRhapsody:<br />
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Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-38028056592695127642012-04-02T11:04:00.000-05:002012-04-02T11:04:01.665-05:00Game Music Appreciation: Battle Arena Toshinden - Eiji's Theme<i>In game music appreciation, I take a look at a song from a game that I
probably wont be writing about in any other fashion. I always feature
one or two of my favorite songs from each game in my top 5 articles, but
not every game gets an article. To put it bluntly: this is where I put
good songs from games that I either dislike or am apathetic about.</i><br />
<br />
<i>Battle Arena Toshinden </i>was one of the first games I can remember playing on the PS1. I recall playing it at a friend's house once for like 10 minutes, then we never played it again. So I don't remember much about the game, and for the past decade and a half I haven't thought about<i> </i>the series very much if at all. Then Brett Elston, formerly of GamesRadar, now working at Capcom of America, started a great podcast about video game music called <a href="http://www.vgmpire.com/"><i>VGMpire</i></a>.<br />
<br />
One of the first episodes was about <a href="http://www.vgmpire.com/2011/11/16/vgmpire-episode-04-the-genius-of-jumping-flash/">PS1 launch games</a> and the surprisingly consistent quality of their music. The first game they talked about was Battle Arena Toshinden and I was freaking blown away by how amazing the music they played sounded. I don't believe he played the song that I'm talking about today, but after I sought the game's soundtrack out, Eiji's Theme quickly became one of my favorite songs on my iPhone.<br />
<br />
I did a little research about who composed the first Toshinden to see if I could find anything else by them, but all I could find was one or two of the game's sequels. Regardless, Eiji's theme is one of the most rockin', energetic songs that I ever heard in a fighting game, and as they point out in <a href="http://www.vgmpire.com/2011/11/16/vgmpire-episode-04-the-genius-of-jumping-flash/">the PS1 launch episode of <i>VGMpire</i></a>, the songs in Toshinden are all like 3 minutes long but considering how short fighting game matches often are, you may never hear the whole song while playing. Anyway, without any further rambling, here's Eiji's Theme, courtesy of YouTube user Okuplok90:<br />
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<br />Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-77904437278487805112012-04-01T17:56:00.001-05:002012-04-01T17:56:53.426-05:00Why I haven't been posting as much lately:<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For once I wish a game was less fun. I may have to rethink my game of the year for 2011...Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-55144894465209737212012-03-27T09:37:00.000-05:002012-04-01T17:59:21.455-05:00My Top 5 Games of 2011: #2 Batman: Arkham City (360)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Developed:</b> Rocksteady Studios<br />
<b>Published:</b> Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment<br />
<b>Genre:</b> 3rd-person stealth-action, beat 'em up<br />
<b>Platform:</b> 360 (reviewed), PS3, PC<br />
<br />
Like <i>Portal</i>, I thought that <i>Batman: Arkham Asylum</i> was a game that was impossible to improve upon. For the first time since Sunsoft's NES <i>Batman</i> game, I felt like I was really playing as Batman. Of course, <i>Arkham Asylum</i> was quite the upgrade from Sunsoft's game by including just about every element of what makes Batman so awesome. If featured well done stealth segments, a simple but challenging combat system where you could fight room fulls of enemies at once, and gadgets. Lots and lots of gadgets.<br />
<br />
Then <i>Arkham City</i> came out and made <i>Asylum</i> look like an early beta. <i>Arkham City</i> takes all the elements of <i>Arkham Asylum</i> and increases the playable area to cover an entire section of Gotham City. There were more gadgets, more ablities, and best of all, more villains.<br />
<br />
In <i>Batman: Arkham City</i>, a section of Gotham City is evacuated of civilians, walled off, and every criminal and super villain is rounded up and thrown in. Bruce Wayne is also somehow arrested and finds himself tied to a chair with Hugo Strange staring him in the face. Strange tells him that he knows he is Batman and leaves him in the dark room. This is where the gameplay starts.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">IMPORTANT PLOT DEVELOPMENTS</td></tr>
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Actually, gameplay starts with a single fight where we play as Catwoman. The only reason the scene is even here is to show that she gets captured by Two-Face. I should note that the first time I played through the game, I didn't get to play any of the Catwoman segments because someone dropped the ball and my brand new, pre-ordered copy of the game didn't have the stupid, customer punishing online pass needed to play the Catwoman parts of the main story. My point is, this first scene really messes with the pacing compared to playing the game without it. The other Catwoman parts aren't as poorly placed but I didn't think this one was necessary.<br />
<br />
Back with Bruce, he soon breaks the chair he is bound to but his arms and legs are still shackled. A guard runs in and throws him to the inmate processing line where he is ambushed by the Penguin (Voiced in a cockney accent by Nolan North) and his gang. The Penguin has Bruce on his knees and prepares to beat him with a pair of brass knuckles but in probably the coolest tutorial ever, the game tells you to press Y to counterattack which makes Bruce, who is still in shackles mind you, break the Penguin's hand. He then proceeds to beat the crap out of his gang, and finally manages to break his shackles mid-fight.<br />
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He contacts Alfred and tells him to send his gear which he soon retrieves so I can finally stop calling him Bruce like some overly obsessed fan. For whatever reason, he's convinced that Catwoman knows about Hugo Strange's "protocol 10" plan that he keeps mentioning over radio chatter. There was a prequel comic to this game and I suspect that the reason for this is in there since I swear the game never explains why she would know about it. Thanks, writers.<br />
<br />
Batman sneaks in on a mock trial that Two-Face is holding for Catwoman who was trying to steal from him in that unnecessary scene earlier.This whole scene is kind of a mess from a film making point of view. Two-Face has Catwoman tied up, dangling over a vat of comically bright green acid or whatever. There's so much green gas coming out of the stuff that it looks like it should be suffocating everyone in the room, especially Catwoman, whose head is hanging right above it.<br />
<br />
So Batman jumps down from the ceiling and beats up the courtroom full of thugs but right as the fight ends, the view zooms in on Two-Face who shoots Batman off screen. He then prepares to shoot Catwoman in the head rather than dropping her in the acid for whatever reason but she breaks free and knocks his gun away. He pulls out another gun, but before he can shoot her, Batman, who has climbed on top of the gallows that Catwoman was hanging from, pulls Two-Face up to him with his grappling gun and ties him up with thick rope in like half a second and hangs him above the acid in Catwoman's place. This is how NOT to edit a scene, prospective filmmakers and game developers.<br />
<br />
Anyway, Batman asks Catwoman about protocol 10 and of course she knows nothing about it. A sniper's laser sight appears on Catwoman's head, but Batman pulls her out of the way just in time. Batman immediately sets up a crime scene with his magic detective vision and is able to locate exactly where the bullet came from in a matter of seconds. Catwoman traipses off to steal more shit or whatever and Batman heads to the church that the sniper shot was fired from.<br />
<br />
He finds Harley Quinn and the Joker's gang inside and disappears into a cloud of smoke before they can shoot him. Harley leaves and Batman takes care of the rest of the thugs silently in a fairly well done tutorial for <i>Arkham City</i>'s stealth system. Batman checks the church's bell tower to find the sniper but instead finds a remote controlled sniper rifle, a video of the Joker, and a ridiculous amount of explosives packed into the room. He jumps out just in time and tracks the Joker's signal to a nearby steel mill and finds a seemingly dead Joker.<br />
<br />
Surprise! Another Joker jumps from behind Batman and knocks him out with some sort of gas while saying "You fell for the old fake Joker gag;" something that is relevant to the last boss fight. God, we're doing this AGAIN? Not that I dislike foreshadowing but do we really need to wait until the end of the story like a freakin' M. Night Shyamalan movie? At least it's not necessary information to get the best ending like in <i>Persona 4</i>...<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">OH MY GAWD!... WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR FACE?!</td></tr>
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Batman wakes up tied to a wheelchair with a transfusion of the Joker's blood being pumped into his body. The Joker tells him that it's his blood was poisoned in the first game after he took an experimental serum called Titan, and that not only are they both going to die if he doesn't find the cure, so will people all around the city from blood transfusions that he snuck into emergency rooms. He then KICKS BATMAN OUT OF A WINDOW where he falls several stories but has his fall broken by the wheelchair I guess.<br />
<br />
We switch to Catwoman for a bit, and she wants to break into Hugo Strange's vault to steal something but she needs a way to tunnel through the sewers to get into it. She heads to Poison Ivy to ask for her help but Ivy immediately attacks her. After Catwoman beats up waves of mind controlled thugs, Ivy remembers that she can control plants and grabs Catwoman with a bunch of vines. Annnnnnd... scene!<br />
<br />
Back with Batman, the Joker calls him on a cellphone that he duct taped to his chest and tells him that Mr. Freeze was working on the cure but disappeared on him. Batman sets his magic detective gear to track temperatures and finds the coldest point in Arkham City. He arrives at an old police building but only finds the Penguin's gang who he beats up again and learns that Mr. Freeze is in a museum on the opposite side of the map, so he heads there.<br />
<br />
After a kind of annoying gameplay segment where Batman travels around Arkham City and destroy a bunch of electronic jammers so he can use his computer hacking gadget to get into the museum, he finds that the Penguin has taken Mr. Freeze hostage and is using his freeze gun. Batman saves Mr. Freeze, along with a bunch of police officers, and coaxes Mr. Freeze to give him a device that can jam his freeze gun.<br />
<br />
Then the craziest thing in the game happens. Batman crosses a water-filled room on the way to the Penguin and is attacked by a shark which he PUNCHES IN THE FACE. I never say this but I honestly could not believe what I was seeing the first time I played this part.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yep. That's Batman punching out a shark. "What is this I don't even" doesn't even begin to do this justice.</td></tr>
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Anyway, he finds the Penguin, disables the freeze gun, and beats him with one punch but the Penguin blows up the floor of the room, sending batman into the basement. And what do we find in the basement? Solomon freakin' Grundy. Ignoring the fact that Grundy isn't really a Batman villain, Batman apparently forgets about the fact that he never kills and defeats Grundy by smashing his exposed heart. I guess it doesn't count as killing if it's a zombie. The Penguin tries to attack Batman one last time but Batman is tired of his bullshit and beats the crap out of him.<br />
<br />
Back in the museum's entrance hall, Batman talks with Mr. Freeze about the cure to his poisoned blood. Freeze tells him that the cure he created works, but without a self replicating enzyme that has adapted to human blood or something like that, it won't work. Batman says that he knows of someone who has been exposed to just such an enzyme for centuries: Ra's al Ghul.<br />
<br />
This is the cue for some ridiculous plot convenience when a member of Ra's al Ghul's league of assassins, who was held prisoner by the penguin in a glass case in the museum's entrance hall, breaks out of the case and make a run for it. Batman manages to track her down and puts a tracking device on her. Then Robin makes his only appearance in the game when he shows up to save Batman from the assassin who almost manages to kill him. Batman immediately tells Robin to GTFO for whatever reason and follows the assassin back to Ra's al Ghul's lair.<br />
<br />
Batman once again finds himself at the mercy of the assassins but Ra's al Ghul's daughter, Talia, shows up and calls the assassins off. Talia, who is one of Batman's love interests for those who don't know, slaps him and asks why he suddenly showed up. He lies and says that he wants to join the league of assassins so Talia takes him to perform the "demon trials" which consists of him drinking some strange liquid that immediately makes him hallucinate like crazy.<br />
<br />
A ghostly Ra's al Ghul guides him through a desolate wasteland and talks about a bunch of emo BS about how the world is is full of evil and its up to them to remove all the baddies and blah blah blah... Go write a live journal, you hippie. Batman eventually completes the trials and Talia takes him to go meet Ra's.<br />
<br />
His final trial is to kill Ra's and replace him as the leader of the assassins but Batman remembers that he doesn't kill and refuses. Ra's jumps into his Lazarus pit and emerges rejuvenated, then attacks which is Batman's cue to start tripping balls again. He hallucinates that he is fighting a huge group of warriors made of dirt or clay or whatever, then a gigantic version of Ra's al Ghul that shoots swords and shurikens at him. This game is zany as shit. Batman soon finds the real Ra's and defeats him with probably the coolest beat down in the game (well, aside from the shark):<br />
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Batman takes a sample of Ra's al Ghul's blood with a comically large device and heads off to Mr. Freeze's lab, but not before rescuing the Mayor of Gotham (Quincy Sharp, the warden of Arkham Asylum in the first game) who was thrown in Arkham City too. Batman interrogates him and Sharp reveals that it was Hugo Strange that got him elected in the first place with the only condition being that he be allowed to create Arkham City. Sharp also alludes to the fact that Hugo Strange has "powerful friends" who provide him with seemingly unlimited resources.<br />
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Batman leaves Sharp be and meets Mr. Freeze in his lab. He gives him the sample of Ra's al Ghul's blood and Mr. Freeze makes the cure in like 5 seconds. I guess he had all the calculations done already. Whatever. He puts one vial of the cure in a wall safe and holds the other out as if to hand it to Batman but he smashes it, saying that the Joker has kidnapped his wife and he wants Batman to find her. When Batman refuses Mr. Freeze attacks and my favorite boss fight in the game starts.<br />
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What I really love about this fight is its similarity to boss fights in the <i>Metal Gear </i>series. He's too powerful to attack head on so you have to use stealth and gadgets to surprise him and whittle away at his health a little at a time. Each time you stun him with a gadget or stealth attack, he changes his strategy so that you can't attack him the same way twice. He's really the only boss in the game that allows for multiple approaches like that. All the others have a specific tactic you use to defeat them.<br />
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He eventually goes down and Batman immediately opens the wall safe only to find the back missing, along with the other vial of the cure. In its place is a Joker playing card, along with a paper copy of the card next to it. This is yet another hint for the last boss fight. Being the nice guy that he is, Batman promises Mr. Freeze that he'll find his wife after he cures himself and heads for the Joker's hideout at the steel mill.<br />
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After fighting through an army of thugs, Batman finds a much healthier looking Joker who he beats fairly easily but a huge group of thugs shows up that he has to take care of too. I won't say what it is but there's ANOTHER big hint for the last boss fight here. I'll explain later. Explosions ring out after all the thugs are taken care of and Batman is knocked out by rubble from the collapsing ceiling.<br />
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The Joker prepares to shoot Batman but Talia suddenly shows up and stops him, telling him to join the league of assassins. He accepts and Talia conspicuously places Batman's tracker on her jacket so he can follow her. Batman falls unconscious and we switch back to Catwoman who is still tied up by Poison Ivy's vines.<br />
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Ivy is apparently pissed at her for not watering some kind of special plants or whatever and says that the last one is in Hugo Strange's vault. Since they have the same goal, Ivy lets her go and agrees to help break into it. Catwoman heads to the sewers where she finds that Ivy's plants have cleared a path for her and soon after she enters the security room outside the vault, Hugo Strange is heard over the radio telling his men to commence protocol 10, which causes explosions to begin ringing out in the distance.<br />
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After a pretty fun stealth segment, Catwoman breaks into the vault where she finds a couple of briefcases and opens one, which reveals a bright light. I guess she's stealing Marsellus Wallace's soul. After beating up some guards, she prepares to leave, but a conveniently placed monitor that somehow shows an image of Batman trapped under the rubble of the collapsed roof causes her to rethink things. She drops the briefcases and rushes off to save him. There's too much plot convenience in this game.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The game actually lets you choose whether or not to save him and if you don't, fake credits begin to roll and a voice over implies that the city falls into complete anarchy without Batman. The game then rewinds back to the point where you make the choice and lets you try again... Tough call.</td></tr>
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Catwoman helps Batman get out from under the rubble and runs off, telling him that he probably knows what protocol 10 is now. Back outside, we see Strange's men are killing every inmate of Arkham City that they can find. Batman has lost his freaking mind and thinks that following Talia is a better idea than stopping protocol 10 but Alfred shuts off his tracker and reminds him that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Batman reluctantly agrees and for whatever reason, thinks that one of the helicopters attacking the inmates must be carrying the "master control program" that he can use to get into Hugo Strange's lair.<br />
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His shot in the dark is apparently accurate and he soon finds what he needs to get to Strange. After climbing Strange's tower and fighting through an army of guards, he finally comes face to face with Hugo Strange and defeats him with one headbutt. He puts a device of some sort which allows Oracle to shut down protocol 10. I guess shutting it down orders the soldiers to stop bombing the shit out of Arkham City. Whatever.<br />
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Strange tells Batman that he still hasn't won but Ra's al Ghul stabs him from behind, telling him that he's failed. Yep. Ra's al Ghul is the "powerful friend" that the Mayor mentioned earlier. Protocol 10 is apparently the first attempt at Ra's al Ghul's plan to purge the world of evil. Strange even mentions future plans to do the same thing in Metropolis and other cities earlier in the game. I find this part to be really hard to believe. Couldn't Strange just quickly tell the soldiers to keep attacking? Ra's gives up too easily. Meh.<br />
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Regardless, Strange tells his computer to activate protocol 11 which starts a short countdown. Batman quickly grabs Ra's and jumps out the window just in time to escape the subsequent explosion. These protocol plans seem to be quite varying in severity. Protocol 10 is designed to kill every criminal in Gotham but 11 is just to destroy one room?<br />
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Anyhow, as they plummet to the ground, Batman grabs Ra's to try and save him but Ra's stabs his sword through his own chest in one last attempt to kill Batman. Batman pushes him away just in time to avoid the blade and Ra's lands violently on a metal fence.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">How is this game not rated M?</td></tr>
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With protocol 10 thwarted, all that remains is to get the cure and save Talia from certain death. Batman soon tracks her to a theater where the Joker has her at gunpoint and demands that Batman give him the cure. Talia takes advantage of his distraction and stabs the Joker from behind with a sword. She takes the cure out of her pocket and tells Batman that she stole it from Harley Quinn before she could get it to the Joker which causes Batman to have a realization.<br />
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We see several flashbacks of the Joker and a few revealing things that have been said throughout the game, the last being the Joker's line early in the game about "the fake joker gag." Talia is suddenly shot from behind and we see the sick looking Joker from earlier on a balcony. The healthy looking Joker that Talia stabbed suddenly wakes up and BAM. It was Clayface all along.<br />
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By the way, the big hint I mentioned earlier during the fight in the Joker's hideout is actually a fairly subtle one, though I noticed it the first time I played. Whenever you switch to detective vision, you see information about enemies, like which ones are carrying firearms or wearing armor. The one thing you always see though is the enemies skeletons. However, if you use detective vision during the fight in the Joker's hideout, you can see that he doesn't have a skeleton, so yeah, it was Clayface in that fight too.<br />
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Clayface morphs back into his normal form and attacks. This fight is kind of boring at first. All you do is dodge his attacks and keep throwing freeze bombs at him. After you lower Clayface's health enough, the Joker blows up the floor which sends the two of them plummeting down into Ra's al Ghul's Lazarus pit room and my third favorite fight in the game (behind Mr. Freeze and Ra's) starts. Batman picks up Talia's sword and uses it to fight back an army of clay soldiers that Clayface attacks him with. Batman eventually defeats Clayface by jumping in his mouth and cutting his way out which somehow subdues him and finally takes the cure which seems to immediately heal him even though he was coughing up blood in an earlier scene.<br />
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The Joker yells from part of the Lazarus pit's machinery which Batman throws the sword at and knocks down, along with the Joker. The machine swings downward, knocking Clayface into the pit, but nothing more develops from this so I guess we'll be fighting super Clayface in the third game. The Joker decides that ambushing Batman from the shadows and stabbing him in the arm that he's carrying the cure in is a good idea but of course Batman drops the vial, causing it to shatter on the ground.<br />
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The Joker desperately tries to scoop the liquid off the floor and the sound effects seem to indicate that he's eating pieces of the broken vial. Ouch. Batman asks him if he wants to hear "something funny," and tells the Joker that even after everything he's done, he would have given him the cure. The Joker laughs and says "That actually is... pretty funny..." as he collapses and begins to gasp for air. He soon stops breathing and dies with his signature smile across his face.<br />
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In one final scene, Batman carries the Joker's body out of Arkham City where he sees Commissioner Gordon and a squad of police officers. He places the Joker's body on the hood of one of the police cars and walks past Gordon without a word. One thing that bugs me in this scene is the fact that Gordon is voiced by a different actor than the first game. The reason it bothers me is because Tom Kane, the voice of Gordon and Quincy Sharp in <i>Arkham Asylum</i>, reprises his role as Sharp in <i>Arkham City</i> but they hired another actor just to say a couple of lines for Gordon. I don't get it.<br />
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Oh and the game is over by the way. After the credits though, there's one more Catwoman mission where she tries to get her things from her apartment so she can leave Arkham City but a bomb destroys it. Two-Face's gang attacks her and she fights them off. She tracks Two-Face to the museum and gets revenge. And during the boss fight, Two-Face and his thugs call Catwoman a bitch more times than I can count. This game really likes that word.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I already said it once in my top 15 list of 2011: this is the best screenshot ever.</td></tr>
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Anyhow, <i>Batman: Arkham City</i> is quite an amazing game. So many villains make appearances that it just gets silly. If you count side missions and challenge maps, a lot of villains that casual fans probably aren't familiar with make appearances. The likes of Hush, Black Mask, Deadshot, Azrael, and Mad Hatter all play some part in side missions. Combine that with all the main story villains and returning characters and you have quite a few baddies for Batman to deal with. I think Scarecrow is the only villain from <i>Arkham Asylum</i> that doesn't return in some form which is actually a bit disappointing with how interesting a villain he is.<br />
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I should probably get my three gripes out of the way. First, that mother flippin' online pass. For those unfamiliar with the term, an online pass is a code that you put in the first time you play a game (if it has one that is) to unlock content. It's meant to combat piracy and the used games market but I highly doubt it does anything on either of those fronts. Seriously. Game publishers. If you're going to lock out content behind an online pass, MAKE SURE YOU ACTUALLY INCLUDE THE GOD DAMN THING WITH NEW COPIES OF THE GAME.<br />
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As I mentioned at the very beginning of the article, all the Catwoman parts of the main story are locked behind an online pass which is supposed to be included with new copies of the game, and I had this game pre-ordered, but tough shit. There was no online pass to be found in my brand spankin' new copy of the game so I was locked out of part of the main story the first time I played through the game. It took WB Games well over a week to send me a replacement code (And I had to email them photographic proof that I owned the game. What are you, WB, a crazy boyfriend or something?), but by then I had already gotten a code from a kind soul on the game's official forums who was handing them out for free. That is absolutely unacceptable WB. I know you are capable of doing better than this.<br />
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Anyway, as for the game itself, I have two problems with the game's writing. There's plot convenience up to Batman's pointy ears that really gets in the way of my suspension of disbelief. Batman seems to know a lot of things that he shouldn't at several points in the game. Let me rip off another one of Red Letter Media's running gags and ask, did Batman have a copy of the game's script? Is it in his utility belt. "Don't worry, Robin! I'll save us from this plot hole with my Batscript!"<br />
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The other problem with the writing is the dialogue, which can get downright awful and insipid at times. I could understand the dialogue being simple if they were marketing this game to kids, but with the number of times the word "bitch" is said in this game, and a few scenes of violence that I'm amazed didn't bump the game up to an M rating, I can't imagine that's what they were going for. Either way, I HATE when works of fiction made for children talk down to them. Kids are smarter than you think, writers.<br />
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I should touch on that briefly. This game should be rated M if you look at the ESRB's standards. If <i>Persona 4</i> gets rated M for Kanji saying "shit" a handful of times then the boatload of "bitches" in <i>Arkham City</i> (along with the violent parts that I just mentioned) should have bumped it up to M. For comparison, <i>Alan Wake</i> is rated T and characters say "shit" in that game constantly. I guess Microsoft and WB Games have more clout at the ESRB than Atlus. NO, I'm not implying bribes or anything here; by clout, I mean clout.<br />
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Anyhow, those are my only real problems with the game. From a gameplay, story, music, acting, sound design and graphical standpoint, <i>Arkham City</i> is amazing. Since I was just talking about dialogue, I guess now is as good a time as any to mention the voice acting.<br />
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Like in <i>Arkham Asylum</i>, there are a number of voice actors from <i>Batman: The Animated Series</i> who reprise their roles. Kevin Conroy is still the best Batman in my opinion and Mark Hamill is as amazing as ever as the Joker. Unfortunately, Hamill has stated that this is the last time he plans on playing the character, so I guess the Joker's death at the end of the game is kind of symbolic of that.<br />
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Arleen Sorkin did not return to voice Harley Quinn but Tara Strong did a fantastic job as her replacement and on that note, Maurice LaMarche also does an admirable job imitating Mr. Freeze's <i>Batman: TAS</i> voice actor, Michael Ansara.<br />
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The biggest surprise to me, as far as the voice cast is concerned, was when they revealed that Nolan North would be voicing the Penguin. My gut reaction was, "Great. Now the Penguin is gonna sound like Nathan Drake." Man was I wrong. North does a fantastic job and I'd never have guessed it was him if I didn't know ahead of time. The only problem I have with the voice acting is that the generic thugs' voices can get repetitive. I swear half of them are voiced by Steven Blum and John DiMaggio.<br />
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The music is absolutely marvelous. There are hints of songs from the Burton <i>Batman</i> films, <i>Batman: The Animated Series</i>, the Nolan <i>Batman</i> films, and dare I say it, the Schumacher <i>Batman</i> films. I especially love the music that plays during stealth segments, especially the song that plays right after protocol 10 starts.<br />
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<i>Arkham City</i> is a great looking game overall, and like its predecessor, it takes a lot of visual cues from <i>BioShock</i>. I really don't have much to say about the graphics beyond that. I guess this is as good a place as any to mention that the loading times are really short (in the 360 version at least), which makes me wish Rocksteady would share their secrets with a few companies (Bethesda, Square, hell even Irrational, whose games they imitated so closely visually.)<br />
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GAMEPLAY! Finally. <i>Arkham City</i> is all about gameplay. As I said in the first paragraph of this article, <i>Arkham Asylum</i> was the first game since Sunsoft's NES <i>Batman</i> game to truly make me feel like I was playing as Batman. The stealth, combat, and gadgets were all implemented so well that I thought the game was too perfect to get a sequel. <i>Arkham City</i> proved my dumb ass wrong by improving everything.<br />
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And not only is the game fun to play, it's also very well paced and easy to get into. You have access to tons of abilities and gadgets right from the start but the game teaches you to use everything at a steady rate. Gameplay is divided pretty evenly into three areas: exploration/puzzle solving, stealth, and combat.<br />
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Puzzles mostly consist of figuring out which gadgets to use to progress through a given area, with some side missions requiring a bit more exploration to really figure out. The Riddler's many puzzles scattered around Arkham City are probably the best example of this. There are literally hundreds of Riddler puzzles to solve and trophies to collect and after certain increments, the Riddler gives you the location of a puzzle room with victims bound in <i>Saw</i> style traps.<br />
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It's kind of funny actually because ever since I saw <i>Batman Begins</i>, I thought it would be a cool idea to reboot the Riddler as a Jigsaw style serial killer in one of Christopher Nolan's <i>Batman</i> movies but Rocksteady read my mind and beat him to the punch. NOTE to hardcore comic book fans: I haven't read every DC book ever so if the Riddler has already been portrayed like this before, I haven't seen it.<br />
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The stealth gameplay is so fun that it rivals my love of the <i>Metal Gear</i> series' signature gameplay. It's much more simple than <i>Metal Gear</i> however. All you really have to do is stay on the conveniently placed vantage points near the ceilings of every stealth room, wait for an enemy to be out of sight of the others, then quickly jump down and take him out. Grapple back up and repeat.<br />
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I should probably mention that in every stealth area, all the enemies have firearms, so a head on attack is usually suicide. If you do get seen, you have a huge number of options to save yourself if you think fast. The easiest thing to do is to drop a smoke pellet which the developers were smart enough to map to the Y/triangle button whenever an enemy with a gun sees you, so you can always rely on that as long as it isn't on cooldown. I could be wrong but I think you can only use it once per room. You have several other gadgets that can thwart gunfire but it's up to the player to decide what works best for them.<br />
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Melee combat is another area where you have a ton of options. Against most enemies, you can win with two buttons: X/square to attack and Y/triangle to counterattack. As long as you keep attacking and countering quickly, you build up a combo meter which allows you to perform instant KO attacks as it gets higher. Just as in the stealth area of gameplay, gadgets play as big a role as the player wants in melee combat. You could go through the whole game and never use a gadget in combat or you can use them constantly; it's all up to your play style.<br />
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That's what I truly love about this game, and the reason it's number 2 on my list. You can play as the Goddamn Batman the way YOU want to. One final thing I should mention is the boss fights. In <i>Arkham Asylum</i>, the boss fights were fairly disappointing, with many of them being copies of each other. <i>Arkham City</i> abandons that idea and makes every boss fight unique. The fights against Mr. Freeze, Ra's al Ghul, and Clayface's second form are the standouts in my mind.<br />
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<i>Batman: Arkham City</i> is a game that I love almost everything about. The three areas of gameplay; exploration, stealth, and combat; are all fun, well paced, and allow for an amazing amount of freedom. Audibly and visually, the game is top notch. My only real complaints (aside from the online pass bullshit) are about the sometimes childish writing and dialogue. Other than that, <i>Batman: Arkham City</i> is a game that I can recommend to just about anyone.<br />
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You can get it for $30-$50 depending on where you look and I think it's money well spent. I barely touched on anything outside the main story, but if you add up all the side missions, Riddler trophies, and the various challenge modes, you're looking at TONS of replay value.<br />
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In closing, ROCKSTEADY FOR THE LOVE ALL THAT'S HOLY PLEASE MAKE A SUPERMAN GAME!!! We need a good one of those.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's what they should have called the game!: "<i>Batman is Kicking All Kinds of Ass Down There</i>"</td></tr>
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Next:<br />
My game of the year 2011!<br />
An absolutely perfect action-horror thrill ride that never relents and never disappoints.<br />
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I'll leave you with three great songs from <i>Batman: Arkham City</i>. The first is <i>Kitten with a Whip,</i> Catwoman's theme, which is fairly subdued but I really like it because it does a good job of reflecting the more lighthearted tone of Catwoman's gameplay segments, while still sounding foreboding. It gets good at about 1:30 into the song.<br />
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The second song is <i>Streets of Fire</i>, the song that plays as Batman hunts down the control program he needs to get to Hugo Strange right after protocol 10 starts. This one is probably my favorite song in the game. It sounds a lot like some of the music from Christopher Nolan's <i>Batman</i> films to me.<br />
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The third is <i>You Should Have Listened To My Warning</i>, one of the songs that plays after enemies in a stealth room are aware of your presence and are searching for you. It's a good example of some of the more action packed songs in the game and the dynamic music that changes in a style similar to <i>Metal Gear</i>.<br />
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The first two videos are brought to us by YouTube user HoundForHire16Bit and the third by YouTube user TheDufase19089:<br />
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<br />Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-39260546019153712292012-03-24T01:54:00.000-05:002012-03-24T02:48:21.312-05:00More evidence of Silent Hill HD Collection's awfulness: Even the original games' art director thinks it looks bad!<i>Credit for this must got to <a href="http://www.destructoid.com/silent-hill-designer-unimpressed-by-silent-hill-hd-224421.phtml">Destructoid reviews editor Jim Sterling</a>. Thanks for always sticking up for the fans, Jim!</i><br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/Freeman34">Freeman34</a> on YouTube AKA <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/Levit0">@Levit0</a> on Twitter posted a great video and link dump detailing some of the problems in Silent Hill HD Collection:<br />
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Go to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcPzeICO1ag">the video's page</a> and like/favorite it so more people can know about this. Konami needs to know that gamers have higher standards than to accept crappy ports of two of the best games ever made.<br />
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The best part of this is that he asked Masahiro Ito, art director of the first 3 Silent Hill games, what he thought about a few comparison shots and here was his reaction (images also courtesy of <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/Levit0">@Levit0</a>):<br />
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Here's the screens he linked Ito (click for full size):<br />
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I try to keep the nerd rage and fanboyism at a minimum on this blog but when it comes to my second favorite game of all time, or any game in my top 10 really, I just can't help but get outraged when a substandard port is released.<br />
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I promise that this is the last story I'll post bitching about Silent Hill HD Collection. Unless something really crazy comes up...Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-50407963377837949012012-03-23T06:26:00.000-05:002012-04-13T17:46:31.282-05:00Big surprise: Silent Hill HD Collection is a buggy piece of shit<i>I'll say right now that I have yet to play this game for
myself, but all that would really tell me that I don't know right now is
whether or not the gameplay was changed at all. All I'm talking about here is sound and graphics.</i><br />
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I've been warning you guys about <i>Silent Hill HD Collection</i> for a while now and what do you know, it turns out I was right. Being delayed from the end of last year all the way to this week was already a bad sign, but I had hopes that they might be able to iron out any problems by now. Unfortunately, according to <a href="http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=464801">numerous reports</a>, there is a boatload of audio and visual issues with both games with <i>Silent Hill 3</i> being hit especially hard.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Players have reported issues where the sound would cut out suddenly, music would fail to load up during certain areas or cutscenes, and some sound effects are noticeably lower quality than before with some even reporting startling popping or crackling sounds.<br />
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In the visual department, some players are saying that textures are missing and fog is much less dense than the PS2/Xbox versions leading to some areas where you can see outside of the game world. From some comparison screenshots and videos that I've seen, the visuals somehow look worse than the original versions in many ways, with lower quality shadows, less vibrant colors, flat textures, and a total lack of fog in the amusement park area of <i>SH3</i> in particular.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yo dawg, I heard you like dull, flat textures and a complete lack of atmospheric fog...</td></tr>
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In <a href="http://www.destructoid.com/silent-hill-hd-collection-seems-to-be-a-buggy-mess-224364.phtml">a recent Destructoid article</a>, Jim Sterling details a frame rate breaking bug involving receiving an achievement during a cutscene, which causes the game to slow to less than 1 frame a second. All the reviews I've read so far also mention the frame rate stuttering in large areas which you'd think would be a non-issue with ports of 2 last gen games. I find this particularly vexing since the games included in the <i>Metal Gear Solid HD Collection</i> (also by Konami of course) had much better frame rates than their last gen counterparts (and no busted textures.)<br />
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One other thing that isn't a bug but nevertheless pisses me off, is the fact that the original voice acting isn't an option in <i>Silent Hill 3</i>. I really had hope that the delay would give them the chance to include the original voice work but it seems that the licensing issues that I've mentioned in the past dissuaded them from doing it. I'd really like to know if Konami made any effort to reach out to the voice actors of <i>Silent Hill 3</i>. Again, back to the <i>MGS HD collection</i>: all the original voice acting was included. I really don't understand the issue here. Is it royalties or something more complicated?<br />
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I should note that the new voice acting isn't even that bad. Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, who provided the vocals for several songs in the <i>Silent Hill</i> series so she is familiar with it at least, headed up the re-dubbing of the games and provides the new voice of Mary and Maria. There are a few other recognizable voices like Troy Baker, who I think is fantastic, but here's the thing: it didn't need to be done. This isn't freaking <i>Dragon Ball Z</i>. You don't need to re-dub it every time you re-release it. Uhg, I give up on that one. Do what you want...<br />
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Konami, I would like to address you directly. Back in the 90s and early 2000s, you were one of my favorite game companies. I could list so many of your games that I absolutely adore to this day and have written about many of them on this blog in the past, including <i>Silent Hill 2</i> (my second favorite game of all time) <a href="http://mattsgamequest.blogspot.com/2012/02/my-game-of-year-2001-silent-hill-2-ps2.html">quite recently in fact</a>. You are breaking my heart when you do things like this. I want to love your games as I did in the past, but when you keep betraying my faith in your ability to deliver quality, it gets harder and harder to take you seriously as a leader in the gaming industry. You are better than this, Konami.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-1480090548632631812012-03-11T01:27:00.000-06:002012-03-28T04:12:34.544-05:00My Top 5 Games of 2011: #3 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (360)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Developed: </b>Bethesda Game Studios<br />
<b>Published: </b>Bethesda Softworks<br />
<b>Genre: </b>Action RPG<br />
<b>Platform: </b>360 (reviewed), PS3, PC<br />
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I've been a pretty big fan of the Elder Scrolls series for a few years now. I remember seeing a review of Morrowind on Cartoon Network's Toonami block back in 2002 and I knew I had to play it for myself. I picked it up soon after that and I was hooked. Everything was just so in depth. Everything you did improved your character slightly which made it feel a bit more like I was playing in a living world where "practice makes perfect" really meant something. Its sequel, Oblivion, changed things up quite a bit; Combat was more action focused, skills were easier to raise, and the world was more traditional fantasy than the world of giant mushrooms and slit striders in Morrowind.<br />
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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim streamlines things even further by removing traditional character classes from the game entirely and allowing you to play the way you want to. Rather than choosing which skills you plan on using for the rest of the game, Skyrim lets you use whatever skills you want and still be able to advance your character just as in previous games.<br />
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Normally, I would put a plot summary here, but the Elder Scrolls series is one where you do whatever you want and includes a number of plot lines that you can explore at your leisure. The overall story that drives Skyrim however, is that the long extinct dragons are somehow coming back and it's up to you as a dovahkiin, or dragonborn, to stop their rampage. Along the way, you'll find yourself in the middle of an armed uprising of the native Nords against their Imperial occupiers.<br />
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The Elder Scrolls series is a series of freedom. There are dozens of quest lines in each game, each with their own story to tell. Even outside of questing, you could spend literally days on end just exploring, defeating monsters, and conquering the many dungeons you will find. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is no different. Once you complete the tutorial quest, you are free to travel anywhere you wish and do whatever you want. Scattered across the land of Skyrim are cities and villages where you can find people who have tasks for you to complete. It can be as simple as finding a specific item for someone, or a complex quest chain where you visit many dungeons to advance through one of the many guilds.<br />
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Before you do any of that though, you first create a character. You can chose from the same ten races as in Morrowind and Oblivion. Each has slightly different bonuses to skills though the differences are negligible. In previous Elder Scrolls games, you would also either pick a class or design your own, but in Skyrim, when you create a character, you choose their race, gender, appearance, and name, and that's all.<br />
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Attributes and signs are no longer existent (though there are "standing stones" that you can find which give permanent bonuses similar to signs) and the skill system has been changed dramatically. In previous Elder Scrolls games, you would choose several "major skills" which would dictate what your character is good at and what you have to do to advance your level. Skills range from various weapon skills and schools of magic, how well you can sneak around and pick locks, and even your ability to influence people verbally.<br />
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Choosing major skills is gone in Skyrim, however. The number of skills has been reduced to 21 and leveling any ten skills will now level up your character. Instead of raising attributes when you level, you can choose raise your health, mana, or stamina by ten points, and you get to choose one "perk."<br />
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Perks are passive bonuses that increase your proficiency in a given skill in some way. For example, the one-handed skill has perks that raise your damage with one-handed weapons, as well as bonuses to your damage and attack speed while dual wielding. You have to level a skill up to a certain level before you can use certain perks, and perks offer a much higher bonus to your proficiency in a skill than just leveling it does. In fact, leveling skills may not affect them in any way other than allowing you to get higher level perks. I'm honestly not certain about that one.<br />
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Combat has also changed quite a bit from previous games. Melee combat works similarly to Oblivion though there are finishing moves that seem to occur randomly during combat, finishing off enemies at low health. This means that you could be in a situation where you and the enemy are both at about 20% health, but a finishing move could occur before the enemy runs completely out of health. The reverse is also possible unfortunately. I've had powerful enemies do finishing moves on me at 50% health more than once, so it can be rather unforgiving at times. And that was on normal difficulty. I don't even wanna try hard.<br />
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Magic also works quite differently than Oblivion. You can now dual wield spells and combine their effects, such as using an attack and shield spell at the same time to keep your offense and defense high. Magicka regenerates much more quickly, allowing characters to use magic exclusively if they wish. It's a very welcome change in my opinion, especially after using the restrictive magic system in Morrowind for so long. In that game, you had to either drink potions or get out of combat so you can wait to regenerate magic.<br />
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One really cool aspect of Skyrim is that dungeons work kind of like an MMO in that there's an actual boss at the end and almost always a chest with some nice loot. Many dungeons also contain "word walls" at the end which is part of the new spell system introduced in Skyrim: shouts.<br />
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As I said at the beginning, the character you play as is a dovahkiin, or dragon born, which means you can use the powers of a dragon's voice. These range from the unrelenting force shout that you get first which staggers enemies for a moment, to one that allows you to jump several yards forward, one that changes you into a ghost for a few seconds making you invincible but locking your attacks and spells for the duration, and of course, multiple shouts that let you breath fire and ice. Shouts don't cost magicka but they do have a cooldown which can be pretty long in some cases.<br />
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So to get these shouts, you have to find the correct word wall for whatever shout you want, then you have to kill some dragons and absorb their souls. Yep. There are randomly occuring dragon fights throughout Skyrim, and they always seem to occur when I'm least expecting them. I'll just be picking herbs and shit for alchemy them BAM. I'm on fire. The dragon fights are pretty cool but dragons are by far the biggest offenders on the list of enemies who will do a finishing move on you when you are at relatively good health.<br />
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Visually, Skyrim is a mixed bag. It looks significantly better than Oblivion or Fallout 3, but it still falls behind many games nowadays. The 360 version has noticeably low quality textures with PS1-like pixels when you look closely at anything. I also notice that the loading times are pretty damn long. Many areas take about 20 seconds to load off the disk though if you install the loading times are a bit better. I can't speak for the PS3 or PC versions but I assume the PC version looks much better at high settings than either console version.<br />
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Skyrim's music is some of my favorite in the whole series. Oblivion had some great songs, along with an epic version of the Elder Scrolls main theme. Skyrim takes that main theme and turns the epicness up to eleven with a full chorus of deep voiced men singing the tune in the dragon language. There are also a few other returning songs including one from Morrowind that I was really glad they brought back and they even brought back that AWFUL store song from Daggerfall and made it much more tolerable by having bards play a much more subdued version of it. Here's a YouTube video of both, back to back:<br />
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Video courtesy of YouTube user Drakzeel.<br />
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I'm always talking about how important story is in games but the Elder Scrolls series is one of the exceptions to that rule for me. I haven't cared about the story in any of the previous games and Skyrim is no different. It's not that the story in any of the games is bad; I just didn't find any of them compelling for whatever reason. I remember the mage guild storyline in Oblivion being more interesting to me than the main quest. Ouch.<br />
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Here's the paragraph where I tell you what platforms its on and where to get it. Its on 360, PS3, and PC and if you can't find it then you're blind. That is all. Really though, you can get it for $40-$50 most places. <br />
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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim had a lot to live up to for me. Oblivion
was the only game that I bought a whole new computer for so yeah, Skyrim
had some pretty high expectations to meet. It doesn't feel like as big a
leap from Oblivion as Oblivion was from Morrowind and from the hardcore
RPG fan inside me, it feels much more casual then the rest of the
series. Skyrim is still an amazing game despite that and I've had hours
of enjoyment from it so far and I'm sure I'll be playing it off and on until the next
Elder Scrolls game.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A lone orc against the might of the Alliance? CHARGE! (Anyone who gets that is as geeky as me.)</td></tr>
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Next:<br />
Number 2 in my top 5 games of 2011!<br />
Perhaps the best superhero game ever made.<br />
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I'll leave you with, what else, the Skyrim main theme. It'll be quite an amazing feat to make it sound any more epic than this in The Elder Scrolls VI. Video brought to us by YouTube user VerySeriousJoke, who included the lyrics in the video. Yes. The song's made up words actually have an official English translation. It's in the strategy guide.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/UsnRQJxanVM?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-63894406106477656562012-03-07T18:51:00.001-06:002012-04-27T17:44:55.524-05:00Game Music Showcase: Badass Castle MusicI feel like I should make a small change to one of my features, Top 5 Game Songs. Whenever I do one, I always struggle to narrow it down to 5 songs, and in many cases the songs aren't in any particular order, so I'm changing the name of this feature to Game Music Showcase. This will also clear up any confusion anyone might have between<i> </i>Top 5 Game Songs and my main Top 5 feature. The feature is still the same otherwise, I just didn't wanna have to worry about choosing exactly 5 songs every time.<br />
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<i>In Game Music Showcase, I take a look at a few songs from a particular category, like battle themes or title screen songs. The songs are listed in no particular order, except for the last one which is my personal favorite of the bunch. I love video game music more than any other genre and with this feature, along with game music appreciation, I hope to help you understand why. </i><br />
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<i>So why bother with having two music features? Game Music Appreciation is more in depth while Game Music Showcase is more of a microcosm of one category of video game songs.</i><br />
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For some reason, video game castles always seem to have really bitchin' background music. Ever since <i>Super Mario Bros</i>, it seems like composers have always tried to convey the hugeness, luxury, and, sometimes, creepiness of a palatial abode. I give you my favorite video game castle songs:<br />
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<i>Hyrule Castle </i><br />
<i>The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, </i>1992<br />
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Video brought to us by YouTube user Renegade466isback. <br />
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<i>The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past</i> is one of the earliest games I played as a child, and back then I was only 4 or so and couldn't read yet. As a result, I could only get so far through the game before it got too confusing and I would restart. The point is, I heard this song a lot since it's the music that plays in the game's opening dungeon.<br />
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<i>Dracula's Castle </i><br />
<i>Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, </i>1997<br />
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Video brought to us by YouTube user shadowtheoblivious. <br />
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I could put about 20 songs from the <i>Castlevania</i> series here but if I had to choose one great castle song, it would be this one, my second favorite song in the series after <i>Divine Bloodlines</i>, which I already featured before and doesn't play during a castle level anyway.<br />
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<i>Rescue the Feudal Lord!</i><br />
<i>Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, </i>1998<br />
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Video brought to us by YouTube user GAppears. <br />
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<i>Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon</i> is a serious contender for my favorite Nintendo 64 game. It felt like a bit more linear version of <i>Super Mario 64</i> but there's nothing wrong with linearity if your gameplay is absolutely stellar.<br />
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<i>Tyrano Lair</i><br />
<i>Chrono Trigger, </i>1995<br />
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Video brought to us by YouTube user NickAura.<br />
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<i>Tyrano Lair</i> was one of the few songs in <i>Chrono Trigger</i> that was composed by Nobuo Uematsu, who took over for Yasunori Mitsuda after he became too ill to complete the soundtrack. This song reminds me a lot of <i>Mr. Crowley</i>, especially the intro, which is a good thing in my book 'cause <i>Mr. Crowley</i> is among my favorite non-video game songs ever.<br />
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<i>Karazhan</i><br />
<i>World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, </i>2007<br />
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Video brought to us by YouTube use WOWMusicGuru. <br />
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Before you listen to the full 9 minutes of that video, I'm only talking about the first 2 minutes of it. The first two minutes of the video is the song that plays when you first enter Karazhan, which is actually a huge tower, but it feels so much like a castle that I think it counts.<br />
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Karazhan was the first raid (dungeon that requires a group of at least 10 players) that I did in <i>WoW</i> and it was one of my favorites all through my time playing the game. Once it became obsolete after <i>Wrath of the Lich King</i> (the game's second expansion) came out out, I would try to do the dungeon by myself as a challenge but I was never able to beat a certain boss (opera boss for those familiar, unless it was Wizard of Oz, which it almost never was.)<br />
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<i>The Castle</i><br />
<i>Final Fantasy VIII, </i>1999<br />
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Video brought to us by YouTube user PeyserConley.<i> </i><br />
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This song is the reason I did this feature. It's the song that plays during the last area of <i>Final Fantasy VIII</i>, Ultimecia's Castle. It also happens to be one of the longest dungeons in the game so thank God it has such an amazing background song. One thing that lengthened the dungeon was the fact that all of your abilities except for basic attacks were locked when you first enter and each boss you beat would allow you to unlock another ability. You couldn't even save until you unlocked it. Final Fantasy is weird.<br />
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<i><br /></i>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-10605132776540504792012-03-07T00:10:00.000-06:002012-03-28T04:12:54.076-05:00My Top 5 Games of 2011: #4 Portal 2 (PC)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Developed: </b>Valve<br />
<b>Published: </b>Valve<br />
<b>Genre: </b>First-Person Puzzle Game<br />
<b>Platform: </b>360, PS3, PC (reviewed), Mac<br />
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Like I said in a previous article, <i>Portal</i> was a game that I thought was impossible to make a sequel to. Valve decided to accept that challenge and proceeded to blow my freakin' mind. <i>Portal 2</i> surpasses its predecessor in just about every way, including in story, the one area I didn't think was possible to improve upon. That's not to say that the first <i>Portal</i> is a bad game by any measure. I just want to make it clear how impressed I was with its sequel.<br />
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<i>Portal 2</i> follows the continuing misfortune of Chell, who managed to escape her confinement in Aperture Laboratories, as well as destroy the malevolent artificial intelligence controlling the facility, GLaDOS, but was unfortunately recaptured soon after the conclusion of the first game and put into suspended animation for an undetermined amount of time. Beware: SPOILERS for both <i>Portal</i> games ahead.<br />
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<i>Portal 2</i> opens with Chell waking in what appears to be a hotel room and is greeted by a computerized voice that asks her to do a few exercises before putting her back to sleep. She wakes up again after possibly years of sleep (the game isn't really clear,) finding the hotel room in disrepair and the computer voice malfunctioning. There's a knock at the door and we are then greeted by my favorite new character of 2011, Wheatley the neurotic robot eyeball, who is voiced by Ricky Gervais' best buddy Stephen Merchant in one of my favorite voice performances ever.<br />
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Wheatley tells Chell that they need to get out of the facility and disappears into a small hatch in the ceiling. The entire room seems to start moving for a moment before Wheatley lowers back into the room and gives Chell some bad news in the most clumsy way possible:<br />
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After that fun bit of news, an alarm starts to go off, prompting Wheatley to disappear back into the ceiling <br />
and start moving the room again. As he recklessly rams the room into various things, it begins to break apart, showing the massive warehouse it's stored in and the thousands of other shipping container-like prisons that Wheatley claims have malfunctioned, killing all of their occupants as they slept. He rams the container into a wall which causes Chell to fall out and land in a familiar room:<br />
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For anyone unfamiliar with the first <i>Portal</i>, Chell has just landed in the prison cell where she started out in that game. Also of note is the state of disrepair that the entire facility has reached. Every surface seems to be covered in years of filth, plant life has invaded just about every room, and many areas are simply blocked off by debris. Fortunately, or unfortunately I suppose, the computerized announcer assures Chell that the Aperture Laboratories facility will still operate automatically even under apocalyptic conditions.<br />
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Chell briefly meets back up with Wheatley before falling through the floor again where she finds a portal gun. This is your puzzle solving tool in the world of <i>Portal</i>. The portal gun can shoot two different portals depending on what mouse button you click and stepping into one portal immediately takes you out the other. Your only limitations are that you can only have the two portals open at any time and they can only adhere to white or light grey surfaces.<br />
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You maintain your momentum as you pass through one portal to the other, so if you needed to get to a high up ledge with no portal surfaces, you could put one portal on a wall facing the ledge and the other at the bottom of the pit. When you jump into the portal in the pit you come flying out of the other one, allowing you to get to otherwise inaccessible areas.<br />
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Chell and Wheatley meet back up AGAIN a few minutes later and he leads her right to GLaDOS' chamber where he thinks there is an escape pod they can use to leave the facility.<br />
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Wheatley jacks into the computer to try and turn the lights on, but instead he manages to make the room they're in rise up and flip on all the switches along the way. This somehow repairs GLaDOS, who was in shambles moments earlier. She smashes Wheatley, tossing him aside and drops Chell into a vent, apparently dead set on making her do more tests.<br />
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After Chell completes some of GLaDOS' puzzles, Wheatley shows back up, somehow having recovered from being crushed, and breaks Chell out of GLaDOS' "test chambers." They travel through the inner workings of the facility and quickly formulate a plan to beat her. They disable GLaDOS' neurotoxin pump and sabotage her turret production line. <br />
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They confront GLaDOS, who is now nearly helpless without her old tricks, and initiate a "core transfer" which replaces GLaDOS with Wheatley who almost immediately goes mad with power. He takes GLaDOS apart and puts her in a potato battery which somehow has the power to keep her online. GLaDOS tells Wheatley that he was designed to be a moron which prompts him to drop her and Chell down an elevator shaft.<br />
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As they plummet to the deepest depths of the Aperture Laboratories facility, GLaDOS explains that Wheatley was designed to put a constant stream of bad ideas in her head so she would behave and now he's in control of the entire facility. They soon land about 5,000 meters underground and GLaDOS is carried off by a bird. Chell wanders through the dark caverns and soon finds a condemned building that was somehow built this far down.<br />
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She explores the ruined complex and finds a giant, foreboding blast door which houses a second Aperture Laboratories facility that was opened some time in the 50s. Chell is forced to go though the vintage test chambers which somehow still function after all these years and all the while, recordings of the founder of Aperture, Cave Johnson (Voiced by J.K. Simmons), play over the loudspeaker.<br />
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He's pretty much just as unethical as GLaDOS, and seems to have a nearly limitless fortune that he spends on a whim for seemingly pointless endeavors like buying 70 million dollars worth of moon rocks which he ground up for experiments but caused him to become deathly ill. He does mention that moon rocks make great portal surfaces which is actually a hint for much later in the game.<br />
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Chell finds GLaDOS in a bird nest and they decide to team up to stop Wheatley, who GLaDOS is certain will destroy the entire facility because of his ineptitude. She explains what Wheatley is in a bit more detail. GLaDOS had a number of "cores" attached to her that regulated her behavior in various ways. Wheatley was designed specifically to always make bad decisions so that GLaDOS would "behave." That didn't work so well because as we gradually found out in the first game, GLaDOS killed seemingly everyone in Aperture Laboratories except Chell so she could have a test subject.<br />
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Chell put the potato that is powering GLaDOS on one of the pointy bits at the barrel of her portal gun and she remains there for the rest of the game. That's right! The main villain of the first <i>Portal</i> is now attached to a potato battery and is right in front of you for about half the game. I love Valve's sense of humor.<br />
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GLaDOS is inspired by an instructional poster and formulates a plan to defeat Wheatley: a paradox. She figures that Wheatley's limited mental capacity would be overwhelmed by saying a paradoxical statement to him and they begin to make their way back up to the main Aperture facility. As they near the exit of the old Aperture complex, they hear a fairly strange revelation from Cave Johnson:<br />
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Caroline was Cave Johnson's assistant. She's also GLaDOS. Yep. GLaDOS was a real person whose consciousness was put into a computer so she could run the facility. Fun times.<br />
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They arrive to find Wheatly unsuccessfully attempting to teach some bizarre and seemingly nonfunctional robots of his own creation to solve his test chambers. Chell quickly solves his simple puzzle and he appears on a nearby monitor. Since Chell is a silent protagonist, GLaDOS is reluctantly forced to make a paradoxical statement which has predictable results:<br />
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Yep, Wheatley is too dumb to understand a paradox and he forces Chell to solve his test chambers because he has an itch to have his puzzles solved. Sounds like Professor Layton. GLaDOS explains that a need to perform tests is hardwired into the Aperture mainframe that Wheatley is in charge of, and he's quickly building up an immunity to the sense of satisfaction that is programmed to trigger when one of his puzzles is solved.<br />
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Wheatley becomes increasingly frustrated as Chell solves his puzzles that he creates on the fly by ramming together (in a pretty comical fashion) puzzles designed by GLaDOS and soon begins to clumsily hint that he plans to kill them soon. As Chell enters a dark test chamber, she falls into a rather well designed trap that sends her flying onto a platform surrounded by spiked crusher plates and a pretty hilarious chapter title:<br />
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Chell easily escapes the death trap and makes her way through the depths of the facility while avoiding a few more poorly planned traps before arriving at the main core of the facility. Chell plugs GLaDOS into the mainframe and they ride the elevator up to Wheatley. They plan to put corrupted cores onto him so they can initiate another core transfer that will put GLaDOS back in charge.<br />
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Wheatley isn't going down without a fight though and Chell is forced to defend herself as Wheatley lobs bombs at her that she launches right back at him with portals. Chell puts the corrupted cores on Wheatley, one of which is a sexist, southern "adventurer" voiced by none other than Nolan North:<br />
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Once Chell puts enough corrupted cores on him, the core transfer begins but Wheatley of course objects, causing the computer to ask Chell to push the "stalemate resolution button." Wheatley attempts to block Chell from getting to the button which forces her to portal over to it using the only available surface directly under Wheatley. Chell is knocked away by an explosion and the roof of the facility collapses, revealing the moon in the night sky.<br />
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Remember when I said that Cave Johnson's statement about moon rocks making good portal surfaces was important for later? That's right! Chell shoots a portal ONTO THE MOON which causes Wheatley to sucked out into space with GLaDOS narrowly saving Chell from the same fate just as she regains control of the facility. Chell falls unconscious but soon wakes up and finds GLaDOS back to her old self.<br />
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GLaDOS tells Chell that she realized something; that the simplest answer to a problem is usually the right one and killing Chell "is hard." She lets her ride an elevator to the surface but the door opens early, revealing turrets that seem like they're about to kill Chell, but instead they play a song as the elevator continues back up. Chell soon arrives at the surface and exits, seeing the sun for the first time in years. The door slams shut behind her but it soon reopens and the infamous companion cube from the first game rolls out. After the credits, we see a rather sad scene of Wheatley floating in space who says that if he had the chance, he would tell Chell that he's sorry.<br />
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All righty. That summary was shorter than I expected. Let me reiterate something that I can't emphasize enough: I really, really believed that <i>Portal</i> was a game that could never have a good followup, but Valve did not disappoint me one bit with <i>Portal 2</i>. If I actually scored the games that I write about, <i>Portal 2</i> would be a 10, and that's with the whole ten point scale in use; not the bullshit 7 to 10 scale that so many sites seem to be stuck with nowadays. <i>Portal 2</i> is just that damn good. I honestly can't think of a single criticism.<br />
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<i>Portal 2</i> is one of the wittiest games ever made. No qualifying statements. It simply IS.When taking screen caps for this game, I saved pictures of almost every line in the game. Seriously. Just about every line is funny in some way, even in serious scenes like the one where Wheatley takes over Aperture.<br />
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<i>Portal 2</i> is not only well written but also very well designed. It's powered by the then 7 year old source engine but it still looks fantastic. Valve did a wonderful job showcasing just how versatile their engine is by including scene after scene of Aperture Laboratories falling apart in some way with tons of debris flying everywhere. Pretty amazing for an engine that can trace its roots to the Quake 1 engine.<br />
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<i>Portal 2</i>'s gameplay is a great mix of all the things we did in the first game and a handful of awesome new ideas. The gels that are introduced about midway through the game add a really smart new way to approach puzzles, with many requiring you to put the blue "repulsion gel" in the right spot so it will bounce you across a large gap to your goal.<br />
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One complaint about the gameplay that I've heard a few times is that it was dumbed down from the first game to make the solution to puzzles more obvious. I would agree with the point that puzzles were made a bit simpler by reducing the number of portal surfaces but I feel like I had the same difficulty beating <i>Portal 2</i> as I did in the first game. I'll have to beat then one after the other one of these days.<br />
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Valve always excels with their games' audio and <i>Portal 2</i> is perhaps their most impressive work in that area yet. <i>Portal 2</i>'s voice acting is the stand out of course with voice performances on par with any of Pixar's films. Ellen McLane, Stephen Merchant, and J.K. Simmons all deliver outstanding performances. Every line is read with charm and charisma. Nobody was in this just for the pay check. Stephen Merchant in particular must have done hours upon hours of voice work to record all the random lines Wheatley says during gameplay.<br />
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A good example of this is the very beginning of the game when Wheatley comes to wake Chell from her stasis. If you don't go open the door for him he'll just keep talking for like a minute. Then a few minutes later he'll ask Chell to speak for him to see if she has brain damage from being in stasis for so long. The game tells you to press space to speak (which is actually the jump button) and until you do he'll keep asking you in slightly different ways, again for a surprisingly long time. I cannot complement Mr. Merchant's diligence enough.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This screen is also a good example of how expressive Wheatley is even though all he has to work with are his robotic eyelids. Bravo, Valve!</td></tr>
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I already put it in my top 15 games of 2011 article but it's worth posting again. Here's my favorite line in the game, said by Cave Johnson near the end of the old Aperture section. I swear you can hear J.K. Simmons on the verge of laughter for the whole line:<br />
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Video brought to us by YouTube user murpium.<br />
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The game's music is a mix of what I can only call Atari sounding techno, traditional symphonic music and ambient sounds. You really have to hear it for yourself to get it. One thing that <i>Portal 2</i> does is similar to something that I pointed out in my Super Mario World article about dynamic music. In that game, whenever you ride Yoshi, the music has an extra beat added to it that disappears as soon as you get off him. <i>Portal 2</i> does the same thing when you use the various puzzle solving tools like repulsion gel and aerial faith plates. It's a clever touch that I always appreciate.<br />
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One other thing that I, and probably every other fan of the first <i>Portal</i>, wondered before this game's release is if they would be able to write an ending song as memorable as <i>Still Alive</i>. While I don't find it nearly as funny as <i>Still Alive</i>, <i>Portal 2</i>'s ending song, <i>Want You Gone</i>, is still a great song with a few funny lines. Pretty much what I expected.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DXs4uUh0aDA/T1bq5eoKIoI/AAAAAAAABX4/PVjTgW56WQE/s1600/Portal+2+shot+18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DXs4uUh0aDA/T1bq5eoKIoI/AAAAAAAABX4/PVjTgW56WQE/s1600/Portal+2+shot+18.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The way Ellen McLane delivers this line is <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evGh4grJnJ8">absolutely hilarious.</a></td></tr>
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I guess I should mention that <i>Portal 2</i> also includes a separate co-op campaign that I haven't played and don't plan to. I do not play online games. Period. <i>World of Warcraft</i> was the one exception to this rule and I finally managed to get that monkey off my back last year. It isn't a bad game by any stretch. To the contrary, it's one of my favorite games ever. I just spent way too much time playing it.<br />
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<i>Portal 2</i> is available on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC for around $20-$30 and I'm sorry if this is no longer valid but when the game was released you would get the Steam version of the game for free if you bought the PS3 version new. You may or may not still be able to do that but it's an amazing deal if you can.<br />
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Anyway, <i>Portal 2</i> is a marvelous game that I never expected to be made simply because of how good its predecessor was. In my opinion, it surpasses the first game by a small but noticeable margin. It's a game that I can recommend to pretty much anyone, even non-gamers. Seriously people. If you haven't played <i>Portal 2</i> yet. DO IT! And play the first game too while your at it.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rs_mojIBTbs/T1bmrJKKPdI/AAAAAAAABXw/RT5XNKpHZHs/s1600/Portal+2+shot+17.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rs_mojIBTbs/T1bmrJKKPdI/AAAAAAAABXw/RT5XNKpHZHs/s1600/Portal+2+shot+17.jpg" /></a></div>
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Next:<br />
Number 3 in my top 5 games of 2011!<br />
A first person action RPG that simplifies the gameplay of its predecessors but never disappoints.<br />
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I'll leave you with <i>The Part Where he Kills You. </i>I think you can guess where this one plays. It's a perfect microcosm of the game's music with a combination of symphonic music, techno, and the Atari sound I mentioned earlier. Video brought to us by YouTube user shadowoflink69th. I skipped the video ahead 40 seconds past some ambient sounds to where the song itself starts.<br />
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</div>Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-1430619560538521582012-03-06T18:47:00.000-06:002012-03-07T19:45:47.290-06:00My Most Anticipated Games of the rest of 2012I guess it's a bit late for this article with two months of 2012 already behind us but better late than never I suppose. As I've said about 20 times already, 2011 was an amazing year for gaming; one of the best in recent memory. The gaming industry will be hard pressed to make 2012 as good and I think it just might happen. Here are the games that I am most excited about in 2012.<br />
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NOTE: it probably goes without saying, but all of these games aren't guaranteed to come out this year but they are all scheduled to. The list is in chronological order for games that have relatively solid release dates, then alphabetical for games that are listed as TBA 2012.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><i>Mass Effect 3</i><br />
Bioware, Electronic Arts<br />
360, PS3, PC <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-auBUtzl2-WI/T1WnGybIycI/AAAAAAAABUI/FQ0x9w_dSB8/s1600/Mass+Effect+3+shot+01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-auBUtzl2-WI/T1WnGybIycI/AAAAAAAABUI/FQ0x9w_dSB8/s1600/Mass+Effect+3+shot+01.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">FALCONE PAWNCH!</td></tr>
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Oh, wow. We're gonna have to wait a while for this one, what with it coming out TODAY and all. Sarcasm aside, the first two <i>Mass Effect</i> games are two of my favorite games ever. The first game was THE game that I bought my 360 for, so yeah, I'm a fan. <i>Mass Effect 3</i> is unfortunately doing a lot of the bullshit that I hate: tacked on multiplayer, day one DLC, and stupid unnecessary voice commands that you need a kinect to use for whatever reason so I don't know if they're even present in the PS3 and PC versions. I could be wrong but last year's E3 seemed to imply that.<br />
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Regardless of those annoyances, I still really wanna play the game, and hopefully it'll be as big of an upgrade to the second game as that game was to the first. That sentence made no sense. Anyway, the demo was pretty impressive, though they changed what female Commander Shepard looks like to sex the game up some more I guess but at least she's getting some more attention. And no. I don't call her FemShep. That's moronic and sexist.<br />
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For anyone unfamiliar with the series, you can choose to play as a male or female character, though both are referred to as Commander Shepard in game with idiotic fans constantly calling female Shepard "FemShep." I really hate other gamers sometimes. Don't even get me started on that <i>Street Fighter X Tekken</i> tournament...<br />
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<i>Silent Hill: Downpour</i><br />
Vatra Games, Konami<br />
360, PS3 <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uGi1z5gm-4A/T1Wo6u1m7HI/AAAAAAAABUQ/cZrXlqMdhNo/s1600/Silent+Hill+Downpour+shot+01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uGi1z5gm-4A/T1Wo6u1m7HI/AAAAAAAABUQ/cZrXlqMdhNo/s1600/Silent+Hill+Downpour+shot+01.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">HURRAY! Quick time events! Everyone loves those, right?</td></tr>
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I'm kinda torn on this one since Konami has bullshitted me so much lately but it's a <i>Silent Hill</i> game so I'm obligated to check it out. Downpour has a few more concrete things going against it too I'm afraid. Once again Konami outsourced the game to a western developer, Vatra Games whose only previous credit is a remake of <i>Rush 'n Attack</i> that was in development at the same time as <i>Downpour</i> and wasn't that well received by reviewers.<br />
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<i>Downpour</i> is also the first game in the series that is not scored by Akira Yamaoka who I consider to be an irreplaceable part of the <i>Silent Hill</i> franchise. The game IS being composed by a competent composer at least, Daniel Licht, the composer of Dexter and a shit load of horror films.<br />
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Also going against <i>Downpour</i> is the fact that Korn is doing the theme song to the game. What is this I don't even... To be honest, I used to be a fan of Korn when I was a teenager and I don't think they're that bad to this day. The only problem is, THEY SHOULDN'T BE DOING ANY MUSIC FOR A <i>SILENT HILL</i> GAME.<br />
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Two last things that I should mention: Gameplay and graphics. The gameplay kinda looks like a combination of <i>Homecoming</i>'s combat and the fast paced exploration of <i>Shattered Memories</i>. I never criticize the gameplay of a game that I have yet to play for myself so I will withhold judgment on that one. Lastly, <i>Downpour's </i>visuals look REALLY dated. Though the graphics engine may not be fully completed and graphics don't really matter to me but I DO notice when they're crappy.<br />
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Also, no, <i>Book of Memories</i> isn't on the list because I don't have a Vita and probably won't be getting one for some time. I still don't have a damn 3DS.<br />
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<i>Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City</i><br />
Slant Six Games, Capcom<br />
360, PS3, PC <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-g2GeQqG4Btk/T1WqZvOUi8I/AAAAAAAABUY/3Enn06ZZi2E/s1600/Resident+Evil+Operation+Raccoon+City+shot+01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-g2GeQqG4Btk/T1WqZvOUi8I/AAAAAAAABUY/3Enn06ZZi2E/s1600/Resident+Evil+Operation+Raccoon+City+shot+01.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What is even happening in this screenshot?</td></tr>
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Let me tell you a bit about Capcom. Capcom was one of my favorite developers until last year. A huge number of my favorite games of all time were made by them. So, what happened last year that I'm bothering to type this crap? They decided to NOT release the newest <i>Ace Attorney</i> game in the United States. They're officially on my shit list after that. I'm really about as close as I've ever come to boycotting a publisher, and Capcom was just about the last one that I would have thought about doing that to. Yes. I love the <i>Ace Attorney</i> series that much.<br />
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Another series that I love is <i>Resident Evil</i> and by all rights, I should hate this game. Even disregarding my new found anger at Capcom, this game is just so weird that I should despise it. It messes with the story of <i>Resident Evil 2</i> which is my second favorite game in the series, and it looks like a crazy multiplayer party game. For whatever reason though, I really wanna play it.<br />
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<i>Prototype 2</i><br />
Radical Entertainment, Activision<br />
360, PS3, PC <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nV-Lqh9odko/T1WsGKujvJI/AAAAAAAABUg/iYCDRC0MuJo/s1600/Prototype+2+shot+01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nV-Lqh9odko/T1WsGKujvJI/AAAAAAAABUg/iYCDRC0MuJo/s1600/Prototype+2+shot+01.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I just love this shot. Ahh, the simple joy of a man with a sword for an arm jumping thousands of feet into the air to attack a helicopter.</td></tr>
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I don't know how this game even exists with Activision's policy of only releasing games that can be made into a franchise that they can "exploit every year." I guess it isn't an actual company policy and I may be misquoting Bobby Kotick so please don't sue me for slander, Activision. I understand that you are a multimillion dollar corporation and you're trying to run a business but if that means turning works of fiction into products with no love put in them, then maybe you should rethink your priorities.<br />
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My point is, <i>Prototype</i> came out three years ago so I'm surprised that a sequel was green-lit this late. Regardless of any technicalities like that, I loved the first <i>Prototype</i>. It's gameplay is some of the most absolutely bat shit insane I've ever experienced and it made playing as a character that is essentially a villain really fun. Yes, I know that there are many games that you play as the villain that came out before. <i>Prototype</i> just happens to be one of my favorite games in that category.<br />
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<i>Max Payne 3</i><br />
Rockstar Games<br />
360, PS3, PC <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-U9MsBZm6zp4/T1WtGWnh4gI/AAAAAAAABUo/GNecOz69XSE/s1600/Max+Payne+3+shot+01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-U9MsBZm6zp4/T1WtGWnh4gI/AAAAAAAABUo/GNecOz69XSE/s1600/Max+Payne+3+shot+01.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">For this game, the part of Max Payne will be played by John McClane.</td></tr>
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Finally, a game that I have no complaints about. My love of the first <i>Max Payne</i> is already well documented on this blog and although it isn't being developed by Remedy Entertainment, I'm still confident that <i>Max Payne 3</i> will be great. Rockstar has yet to disappoint me in years. In fact, I think the last game published by them that I didn't like was <i>State of Emergency</i> which I blame on that game's crappy developer.<br />
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<i>Dragon's Dogma</i><br />
Capcom<br />
360, PS3 <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OwxCRuGcpDI/T1WukF5vHwI/AAAAAAAABUw/QaRM6Ug1QSg/s1600/Dragon%27s+Dogma+shot+01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OwxCRuGcpDI/T1WukF5vHwI/AAAAAAAABUw/QaRM6Ug1QSg/s1600/Dragon%27s+Dogma+shot+01.jpg" /></a></div>
<i>Dragon's Dogma</i> is a game that I'm interested in simply because of its concept. It looks like <i>Monster Hunter</i> in a more traditional fantasy setting with some <i>Shadow of the Colossus</i> mixed in. The only problem I have with it is that the demo they were showing at last year's E3 was ROUGH. You have NPC partners who constantly comment on things going on in battle and many times the game will go into slow-mo and zoom in on the NPCs as they say canned lines, interrupting the flow of battle. Ouch. If they get rid of that and make it so they stop repeating themselves so damn much, it should be pretty great.<br />
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<i>Lollipop Chainsaw</i><br />
Grasshopper Manufature, Warner Bros. Interactive<br />
360, PS3 <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4dyp04f74BE/T1WwZk9_VII/AAAAAAAABU4/zYREgk_emnI/s1600/Lollipop+Chainsaw+shot+01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4dyp04f74BE/T1WwZk9_VII/AAAAAAAABU4/zYREgk_emnI/s1600/Lollipop+Chainsaw+shot+01.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Okay. Including an Evil Dead themed bonus costume is one way to get me on board.</td></tr>
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The only reason this game is on the list is because it's a Grasshopper/Suda51 game. If it wasn't, I would write it off as another shitty looking, overly sexed up beat 'em up like <i>Onechanbara</i>. That's the power of Suda51 though. He can make just about anything and I'll at least have some interest in it. Well, except for <i>Diabolical Pitch</i>. Screw Kinect.<br />
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<i>The Last Story</i><br />
Mistwalker, XSEED Games<br />
Wii <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AdG2S5YNTfo/T1WxVXHvlNI/AAAAAAAABVA/X5po69hhgS8/s1600/The+Last+Story+shot+01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AdG2S5YNTfo/T1WxVXHvlNI/AAAAAAAABVA/X5po69hhgS8/s1600/The+Last+Story+shot+01.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">OMFG! Learn 2 hold aggro, nub!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This one is actually pretty sad. Nintendo, in all their infinite wisdom, decided not to publish <i>The Last Story</i> in the United States, so XSEED Games had to do it for them, well over a year after the game came out in Japan. What is so sad about it is the fact that <i>The Last Story</i> was developed by Mistwalker who did a fantastic job with <i>Lost Odyssey</i>, so I was looking forward to this game's American release.<br />
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If a relatively small company like Atlus can constantly translate and release text and dialogue heavy games in the United States, then freaking Nintendo should be able to. Where the hell is all that Wii and DS money going? Atlus managed to translate and release <i>Persona 4</i> in the United States, a game with a TON of text and voiced dialogue, just <b>5</b> <b>months</b> after its Japanese release. And they did a damn good job of it too. This is why Atlus is my favorite video game company. Because they care. Man, I am really good at getting off topic. Or really bad at staying on topic. It's a glass half full/empty thing I guess.<br />
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<i>Anarchy Reigns</i><br />
Platinum Games, Sega<br />
360, PS3 <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-066fQwSLZ6I/T1WyZfotjZI/AAAAAAAABVI/KBJrO3Z510Y/s1600/Anarchy+Reigns+shot+01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-066fQwSLZ6I/T1WyZfotjZI/AAAAAAAABVI/KBJrO3Z510Y/s1600/Anarchy+Reigns+shot+01.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This was one of the only screens I could find without a massive watermark on it. It also happens to be the best one overall, at least in my opinion. Just LOOK at those freakin' gloves.</td></tr>
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I have loved all of the games developed by Platinum Games, with the exception of <i>Infinite Space</i> which I have yet to play, but I'm a bit shaky on this one however because it may or may not be a multiplayer only game and I couldn't care less about that. I'm keeping my hopes up though.<br />
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<i>BioShock Infinite</i><br />
Irrational Games, 2k Games<br />
360, PS3, PC, Vita? (Not sure about this one. It's on GameFAQs though.) <br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-En5HOe2tXBY/T1ZkeC_wQAI/AAAAAAAABVQ/Aedp9HC_0y0/s1600/BioShock+Infinite+shot+01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-En5HOe2tXBY/T1ZkeC_wQAI/AAAAAAAABVQ/Aedp9HC_0y0/s1600/BioShock+Infinite+shot+01.jpg" /></a></div>
<i>BioShock Infinite</i> is my third most anticipated game of the year, falling just behind two later entries. I loved the hell out of the first two <i>BioShock</i> games and every game (that I've played) developed by Irrational for that matter. <i>BioShock Infinite</i> looks to be just as good, if not better than its predecessors, with an intriguing plot and some amazing looking gameplay. <br />
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<i>Assassin's Creed III</i><br />
Ubisoft<br />
360, PS3, PC, Wii U <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zIMkcwMEA4s/T1Zl1DZ2ZYI/AAAAAAAABVY/hLFwCVQI0AE/s1600/Assassin%27s+Creed+III+shot+01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zIMkcwMEA4s/T1Zl1DZ2ZYI/AAAAAAAABVY/hLFwCVQI0AE/s1600/Assassin%27s+Creed+III+shot+01.jpg" /></a></div>
I mentioned the <i>Assassin's Creed</i> series briefly before but I'll talk a bit about it again. I HATED the first game but I forced myself to beat it for whatever reason and it may be the game that I hated the most that I played all the way though. When <i>ACII</i> was announced, I couldn't care less. Then the reviews came out and I had to play it. I'm SO glad that I did because <i>ACII</i> fixes just about everything that I disliked about the first game. <i>Brotherhood</i> made the series even better and although I have yet to play <i>Revelations</i> due to a lack of funds, I'll pick it up ASAP.<br />
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<i>Assassin's Creed III</i> was already high up on my must play list and after the trailer that was released yesterday, it shot up to a close second on my most anticipated games of the year. For anyone unaware, <i>ACIII</i> ditches the Renaissance era Italy setting that it has used for the last three main series games in favor of an American Revolution setting. Hoooooly crap. I'm a big fan of American history so the thought of <i>Assassin's Creed</i> being set during our war of independence is just mind blowing to me. This game can't come out soon enough!<br />
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<i>Resident Evil 6</i><br />
Capcom<br />
360, PS3, PC <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BaYCbm1b_5U/T1ZmVAxF6EI/AAAAAAAABVg/xqqO7EOZYeo/s1600/Resident+Evil+6+shot+01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BaYCbm1b_5U/T1ZmVAxF6EI/AAAAAAAABVg/xqqO7EOZYeo/s1600/Resident+Evil+6+shot+01.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SURVIVAL HORROR!</td></tr>
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Wow, two <i>Resident Evil</i> games in one year. Actually, it's three since <i>Revelations</i> just came out. Whats with all the games using the subtitle "Revelations?" If they're trying to reference the <i>Book of Revelation</i> then they need to take that "S" off the end. Anyway, <i>RE6</i> looks to be quite promising.<br />
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Soon after the debut trailer was released, fans did a damn fine job of decoding a great deal of it with many saying that there are at least three playable characters: Chris Redfield, Leon Kennedy and an unknown newcomer who is voiced by the great Troy Baker. They have also noted the fact that Chris' gameplay looks to be more action oriented like <i>RE4</i> & <i>5</i> while Leon's looks like a more traditional survival horror game like <i>RE</i> games prior to <i>4</i>.<br />
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Day-um, son! That's a lot of information gathered from a trailer that's only a few minutes long. Needless to say, I'm anticipating this one quite a bit.<br />
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<i>Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs</i><br />
thechineseroom, Frictional Games<br />
PC, Mac, Linux <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No screens available for this game yet; just concept art. Creepy, creepy, concept art.</td></tr>
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<i>Amnesia: The Dark Decent</i> is one of my favorite games of 2010 but I also HATE it with a fiery passion for how damn scary it is. It's gameplay, story, visuals, and sound design are all fantastic but God dammit is that game frightening as all hell. Seriously. That chase music haunts my freakin' nightmares. Simply put, it's a game that I have a bizarre love-hate relationship with.<br />
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Just from its creepy title, <i>A Machine for Pigs</i> sounds like it'll be just as horrifying as its predecessor. The story is that an wealthy man from England was exploring some ruins in Mexico when he became severely ill and began to have cryptic nightmares about a horrifying machine. He recovers months later and awakens to the roar of a huge machine starting. Holy crap. I don't know if I can handle it. I don't know what it is about <i>Amnesia</i>. I can play just about any horror game, aside from <i>Silent Hill 2</i> & <i>3</i> and <i>Afraid of Monsters</i>, with no problem at all. <i>Amnesia</i> just hits all the right scary buttons I suppose.<br />
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<i>Brothers in Arms: Furious 4</i><br />
Gearbox Software, Ubisoft<br />
360, PS3, PC <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This was the LEAST violent screen I could find of this game.</td></tr>
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It's <i>Inglourious Basterds</i> the game.<br />
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<i>Diablo III</i><br />
Blizzard Entertainment<br />
PC, Mac, (Possibly consoles. Only a rumor) <br />
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<i>Diablo II</i> is a game that I spent so much time in that it must be in my top 5 most played games, if there was any way to count all the hours that is. As I said in my last article, <i>Diablo III</i> is my most anticipated game of the year and after playing the beta, it's still number one. It was supposed to come out in 2009 so my hopes of it being released this year aren't sky high but it seems to finally have a relatively solid release date.<br />
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<i>DmC: Devil May Cry</i><br />
Ninja Theory, Capcom<br />
360, PS3 <br />
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This game has had a lot of hate thrown at it for various reasons but I think the idea of Ninja Theory developing a <i>DMC</i> game is just amazing. Strangely enough, I never beat <i>Heavenly Sword</i> and I've never even played <i>Enslaved</i>, but I'm still anticipating this one pretty highly.<br />
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<i>The Last Guardian</i><br />
Team ICO, Sony Computer Entertainment<br />
PS3 <br />
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At this point, I'm worried that this game may never come out with the shake up that happened at Team ICO, but either way, The Last Guardian looks incredible. <i>ICO</i> and <i>Shadow of the Colossus</i> are absolute masterpieces so I have pretty high expectations for this game.<br />
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<i>The Last of Us</i><br />
Naughty Dog, Sony Computer Entertainment<br />
PS3 <br />
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We don't know much about this one yet and we don't even know for sure that it's coming out this year, but I do know one thing: Naughty Dog is one of the most talented development teams out there so regardless of when it comes out, we can expect quality.<br />
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<i>Metal Gear Rising Revengeance</i><br />
Platinum Games, Kojima Productions, Konami<br />
360, PS3, PC? (Again, it's on GameFAQs.) <br />
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What the hell does revengeance mean? Anyway, like I said in the <i>Anarchy Reigns</i> entry, I love Platinum Games and a <i>Metal Gear</i> game made by them has gotta be amazing, though it is a bit worrisome that Kojima Productions handed the game off to them in what seems to be pretty late into development. Platinum apparently restarted the development of the game from scratch so who knows how it'll turn out.<br />
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<i>Prey 2</i><br />
Human Head Studios, Bethesda Softworks<br />
360, PS3, PC <br />
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I am one of the three people that really enjoyed <i>Prey</i> and thought it was pretty innovative. It did amazing things with portals over a year before <i>Portal</i> came out and had an interesting set of alien weapons rather than the usual pistol-shotgun-assault rifle set we see so often nowadays. Hmm. Why didn't development of <i>Duke Nukem Forever</i> get handed to Human Head? Not that Gearbox is a bad developer or anything, but Human Head proved that they could finish off 3D Realms' sloppy work once so why not let them do it again? Guess they were too busy with <i>Prey 2</i> at that point.<br />
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<i>Tomb Raider</i><br />
Crystal Dynamics, Square Enix<br />
360, PS3, PC, Mac <br />
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If there was one thing the <i>Tomb Raider</i> series needed, it was a reboot. I thought that the PS1 era <i>Tomb Raider</i> games were simply wretched, though the newer ones were okay. In any case, rebooting the series to a cinematic, <i>Uncharted</i> style game is probably the best thing that they could've done so count me in for this one.<br />
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<i>Torchlight II</i><br />
Runic Games, Perfect World<br />
PC, Mac <br />
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Oh, wow. I'm excited for a point and click RPG sequel. What a surprise. The first <i>Torchlight</i> has been a pretty amazing game to pass the time until <i>Diablo III</i> finally decides to come out so a sequel would be lovely, thank you.<br />
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One last thing I should mention is the indie game scene. As far as I know, they haven't announced anything, but I would love to see what Final Form Games (developer of <i>Jamestown</i>) and Supergiant Games (developer of <i>Bastion</i>) are up to. Man, where am I gonna get all the money for this shit? I need a cheaper hobby...Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-26947648236938293202012-03-01T22:08:00.001-06:002012-03-01T22:08:25.930-06:00HOLY CRAP!!! Diablo III beta!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Now THIS is the last damn thing I expected. I actually got into the Diablo III beta! There isn't an NDA in place so I'll definately be doing posts about this in the near future. Diablo and Diablo II are two of my favorite games ever. Hell, I've enjoyed pretty much every game Blizzard has developed. If you read my honorable mentions of 2011 article, you'll know that I was a pretty big World of Warcraft fiend until about mid last year. Anyway, the D3 beta is downloading as I type this so hopefully I'll be able to do some actual garmes jarnulizm soon.<br />
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I owe a big thanks to <a href="http://www.gamesradar.com/">GamesRadar</a> who is currently running the contest I won the beta key from. They're giving away 50 keys every day so <a href="http://www.gamesradar.com/diablo-3-beta-key-giveaway-gamesradar/">you still have a chance to enter too</a>! And of course, thank you Blizzard for the opportunity to test out my most anticipated game of the year!Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-47720520320526939952012-02-28T22:01:00.000-06:002012-02-29T19:28:27.048-06:00My Top 5 Games of 2011: #5 Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (360)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YhjG8XyG_1s/T02VQU4L3nI/AAAAAAAABRA/zo-3vkU7MKA/s1600/Warhammer+40k+Space+Marine+box.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YhjG8XyG_1s/T02VQU4L3nI/AAAAAAAABRA/zo-3vkU7MKA/s1600/Warhammer+40k+Space+Marine+box.jpg" /></a></div>
<b>Developed:</b> Relic Entertainment<br />
<b>Published:</b> THQ<br />
<b>Genre:</b> Third-Person Action<br />
<b>Platform:</b> 360 (reviewed), PS3, PC<br />
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In my honorable mentions of 2011 article, I had a list at the end of games that I had yet to play but am interested in and <i>Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine</i> was among them. Soon after I posted that, I saw it for $20 new on Glyde so I picked it up. After beating it a number of times, I just knew it had to be in my top 5 of 2011, so my list has changed a bit since my previous articles about games from 2011.<br />
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My knowledge of the <i>Warhammer Fantasy</i> and <i>Warhammer 40k</i> universes is pretty limited. I've never played the tabletop games or read any of the books, but I have played two previous video games based on <i>40k</i>: <i>Space Hulk</i>, back when I was still a kid, and more recently, <i>Fire Warrior</i>, which I didn't really enjoy that much. My point is, this article is coming from the point of view of someone who is an outsider to the <i>Warhammer 40k</i> universe, so I apologize in advance for any inaccuracies in this article. Just wanted to get that out of the way before the article proper.<br />
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<i>Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine</i> follows the exploits of Ultramarine Captain Titus and his squad mates, Sidonus and Leandros as they fight to take back an industrial planet from an army of invading Orks.<br />
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<i>Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine</i> is a game that is fairly light on story, but its narrative was interesting enough to hold my attention throughout. I'll hit the finer points.<br />
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The game opens with a squad of Ultramarines, one of the most talented chapters of the Space Marine military, as they arrive on "Forge World Graia," a human colonized planet with an extensive network of military factories. An army of Orks, one of the enemies of mankind, has invaded and is attempting to plunder the world of its vast store of weapons.<br />
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Captain Titus, the player character, and his squad of Ultramarines are forced to abandon ship during an intense melee between hundreds of ships high above the planet's surface. Titus manages to land on an Ork ship and disable it in one of the most badass scenes in the game. He fights through a horde of Orks and turns one of the ship's own guns towards its bridge, causing it to crash.<br />
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Titus reunites with his squad and they head to a nearby base where they aid the local imperial guard soliders. They move on to a massive cannon that the Orks have commandeered and are forced to destroy it to save their ships from being shot down, and head to a huge factory where they meet up with Inquisitor Drogan, a high ranking member of the "Imperial Inquisition."<br />
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Drogan leads them to a powerful device that he claims can be used to wipe the Orks out in one fell swoop. Titus is separated from the others as he takes the device that emits "warp energy" which is normally poisonous to humans, but has no effect on him for reasons unknown to him. He reunites with the others once more and they make their way to the "orbital spire" high above the planet's surface, where they activate the device but rather than killing the Orks, it opens a portal that an army of Chaos, another powerful enemy of mankind, pour out of.<br />
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The leader of the Chaos army, Nemeroth, reveals that Drogan has been dead all along and he's been controlling his corpse to allow the Chaos invasion. The Ork leader shows up and attacks Nemeroth, allowing Titus and his squad mates to escape for the time being. They head back to the factory where they met Drogan and meet the Ork leader again. Titus kills him and they activate the Titan Invictus, a massive robot, which they use to destroy the orbital spire in hopes of closing the Chaos portal.<br />
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Sidonus is soon killed and the warp device is taken by Nemeroth who takes it to the remains of the orbital spire. Titus soon follows him and finds him in the middle of a ritual that transforms him into a daemon. Nemeroth and Titus battle as they plummet from the orbital spire with Titus managing to kill the beast and destroy the warp device just before he's saved from his fall by a ship.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Okay, I normally hate quick time events but I have to admit that one where you smash the last boss' head is pretty epic.</td></tr>
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The ending shows Leandros selling out Titus to another Inquisitor who arrests Titus for his possible corruption because of his inexplicable resistance to warp energy. Titus goes quietly but not before berating Leandros for his by the book attitude in a pretty epic hero speech.<br />
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So the story is pretty standard but I liked it. I'm sure if I was a <i>Warhammer 40k</i> fan, I would probably understand it better and find a few extra things but even as someone who knows next to nothing about the franchise, the story is pretty enjoyable. The characters are all very charismatic, especially the Ork warboss who harasses you for most of the game. All of the Orks are pretty hilarious to me actually with their thick cockney accents.<br />
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As far as graphics go, the game is gorgeous. Relic Entertainment is always pretty good in that department. I definitely have to complement how intuitive the game's visuals are. A problem that I have with many shooters is being able to tell when far off enemies are dead because of crappy animation or just a bland color scheme. <i>Space Marine</i> never has that problem though, with easily noticeable and quick death animations, as well as a fairly distinctive popping sound whenever in enemy dies from gunfire.<br />
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One thing I should mention is a problem that I've always had with <i>Warhammer 40k</i>: That Space Marine armor is just too damn big. The fact that the three main characters don't wear helmets only emphasizes this. Their heads just look TINY compared to that bulky armor. I swear I'm not trying to troll here, 40k fans; I just want to be honest.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the game's opening shot. I think I've made my point.</td></tr>
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Anyhow, <i>Space Marine</i>'s sound and music don't stand out too much. The music is competent enough to entertain but it's a fairly standard Hollywood style soundtrack. The voice acting is definitely the standout of the game's audio. Like I said before, the Orks are all really charismatic because of their delightful accents and most of the other voices are just as well done.<br />
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The only exception to that is Drogan who is either voiced by someone who just wasn't trying or perhaps he speaks so strangely because he's a corpse being controlled by Nemeroth the whole time you fight along side him. Who knows... Also, I was unaware that the English pronounce the word lieutenant as LEFtenant. You learn something new everyday.<br />
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Gameplay is where <i>Space Marine</i> really shines. I know a lot of people have compared it to <i>Gears of War</i>, with some people being stupid enough to call a game based on a franchise that started in 1987 a <i>Gears of War</i> knock off. While I'd concede that many comparisons are apt, as a fan of the <i>Gears</i> games, I have to say that <i>Space Marine</i> is <i>Gears of War</i> done even better.<br />
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The control scheme is quite similar with ranged weapons controlling pretty much the same as <i>Gears</i>, but what <i>Space Marine</i> does to rise above <i>Gears </i>is in its melee combat which I would say is similar to Rocksteady's <i>Batman </i>games. The only BIG problem I have with the melee combat is executions.<br />
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If you manage to stun an enemy, you have the opportunity to perform an execution on them, which heals you for whatever reason; I'm sure there's an in universe explanation that I'm unaware of. The problem with executions is that many of them have overly long animations during which you can still take damage which can lead to some cheap deaths. I would just say don't bother with them but they are the ONLY way to heal so sometimes you have no choice.<br />
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Other than executions, <i>Space Marine</i> has some of the most fun and addictive gameplay that I've experienced in a long time. The game is a bit on the easy side, even on hard mode which I beat with little difficulty. I kinda wish there was an even harder difficulty to challenge myself with but I still have fun with the game regardless.<br />
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<i>Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine</i> is one of the most pleasant surprises I've had in a while as a gamer. It's gameplay is fast and addictive and it's presentation is on par with any huge name blockbuster game. It also features a fairly extensive multiplayer mode from what I hear, but If you have read many of my previous articles, you'll know that I'm not a big online game player. It is available on 360, PS3 and PC for around $20-$30 so I encourage any fan of third person action games, especially <i>Gears of War</i>, to give <i>Space Marine</i> a shot.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WjwWxT9N6mw/T02fcM0SOrI/AAAAAAAABRw/NddJpN371js/s1600/Warhammer+40k+Space+Marine+shot+06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WjwWxT9N6mw/T02fcM0SOrI/AAAAAAAABRw/NddJpN371js/s1600/Warhammer+40k+Space+Marine+shot+06.jpg" /></a></div>
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Next:<br />
Number 4 in my top 5 games of 2011!<br />
A first person puzzle game sequel with all the charm and wittiness of a Pixar film.<br />
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I'll leave you with Valkyrie Run, though I'm afraid I can't remember where in the game it plays but it's a great song regardless. Video brought to us by YouTube user IAMARAGHAST.<br />
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<br />Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-21867363705742930222012-02-27T15:59:00.000-06:002012-03-23T05:32:50.017-05:00My Game of the Year 2001: Silent Hill 2 (PS2)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Developed:</b> Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo<br />
<b>Published:</b> Konami<br />
<b>Genre:</b> Survival Horror<br />
<b>Platform:</b> PS2 (reviewed), Xbox, PC, 360, PS3<br />
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I said at the end of <a href="http://mattsgamequest.blogspot.com/2011/12/my-game-of-year-2008-shin-megami-tensei.html">my <i>Persona 4</i> article</a> that my favorite game of all time was released in 2001. Well, I thought about it a lot since then and I changed my mind. I do that a lot. <i>Silent Hill 2</i> is my SECOND favorite game of all time. I'll do my top ten list one of these days.<br />
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<i>Silent Hill 2</i> tells the story of James Sunderland. He receives a letter from his wife, Mary, telling him to meet her in the small resort town of Silent Hill, in their "special place." There's a small problem with that. Mary has been dead for three years. Regardless of that fact, he goes to Silent Hill to search for her and finds things that he could have never imagined. As always, this article will spoil the entire game so be warned.<br />
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<i>Silent Hill 2</i> opens with perhaps the most meaningful opening shot ever. Our protagonist, James Sunderland, stares at himself in a rest stop bathroom mirror. Keep this in mind for the remainder of the article. Anyway, James walks outside and we hear the afore mentioned letter from Mary being narrated in her voice. She tells James that he promised to take her to Silent Hill again sometime, but he never did, and that she's waiting for him there now, in their "special place."<br />
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James himself begins to narrate, explaining what I just did about the letter being from his wife who passed away 3 years ago. He states the obvious, saying that it's ridiculous that he came here and wonders what Mary could mean by their "special place." The only place he can think of is Rosewater Park by Silent Hill's Toluca Lake.<br />
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He sets off, taking a path through the woods since the road into town is blocked. And now for the longest foggy path ever. Seriously; it takes like two minutes total to get through the whole path and get to town. There's actually an interesting reason for it. The Developers wanted players to feel like there was no turning back once you got into town and I gotta say, it works. At least for my impatient ass.<br />
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Along the way to town, James meets the first of several bat shit insane people. As he passes through a graveyard, he finds a teenage girl kneeling in front of a grave and startles the crap out of her while trying to ask for directions. She follows one of the most overused horror movie tropes and tells him not to go into town because it could be dangerous. Oooooooh. Is there a spooky castle on a hill with bats flying around and lightning striking?<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's a show about a smoke monster or something. I dunno. I never watched it.</td></tr>
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James says he'll be careful but the girl childishly whines that she's "not lying." James assures her that he believes her but he's going either way because he has someone "very important" to find. The girl concurs, saying that she's in Silent Hill looking for her "Mama," and James continues on, leaving her to her craziness.<br />
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James finally makes it into town and it's abandoned of course. As he walks down the street, he finds a huge streak of blood on the street like something dead was dragged and suddenly sees a figure in the distance that quickly disappears into the fog. Okay, now this is turning into <i>SH1</i>'s opening.<br />
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He runs after the figure and eventually finds himself running down another dirt path. He eventually gets to a dead end at a small, boarded up tunnel where he hears static blaring. He climbs through the boards and finds that the static is coming from a pocket radio when he suddenly sees the figure he was following.<br />
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It's a grotesque, human like creature that seems to have a layer of decayed flesh covering its entire upper body. A vaguely human shape can be seen beneath the fleshy cover, with its arms wrapped around it like a straight jacket. The creature is bent over a corpse which it seems to be feeding on, but stops when it notices James and attacks by spraying out a yellowish gas at him. It almost seems to be in pain just existing and wheezes loudly when it sprays the poisonous gas. James quickly grabs a loose board and begins beating the creature until it stops moving. The radio stops making any noise as soon as the creature dies. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdLrooeI3wU#t=5s">Huh? Radio? What's going on with that radio? </a></div>
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As James leaves the small tunnel the radio begins to make more noise. A woman's voice can be just barely be heard and she seems to call James' name, though it's barely audible through the static. James decides to take the radio with him because he "might need it." Yep. You never know when a busted radio might come in handy. Actually, the radio is one of your most important tools in the majority of the <i>Silent Hill</i> series. Whenever there are enemies nearby, it emits static so you can get a good warning before you're attacked.<br />
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Speaking of enemies, the town is full of them now. James fights his way through them as he makes his way to the lake but he finds that all the roads that lead there are quite literally out. Where there used to be streets, there are now only enormous chasms that James couldn't hope to navigate through.<br />
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After a bit more searching, he finds that the only way to the lake is through an old apartment complex. It's in this area where we encounter the first "dungeon" area of SH2. The <i>Silent Hill</i> series, at least before <i>Shattered Memories</i>, has always been pretty formulaic. You start out in an area of the town or in a building of some sort and begin to check every door that is available to you. You have a map which marks the doors you've tried and like 90% of them will be jammed and half of the ones that aren't will be locked by keys that you have to find somewhere nearby.<br />
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So all you have to do is check every room for keys and you'll eventually get through each area. There are also occasional puzzles thrown into the mix and they can be quite complex in higher difficulties. Most areas also end with a boss battle so when you find the boss, you're usually home free, if you can beat the boss that is.<br />
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Anyway, James looks around for a bit and finds a key on the ground behind some bars that have cut off a section of one hallway. As he reaches for it, a little girl who can't be more that seven steps on his hand and kicks the key away. She laughs at James and runs off before he can say anything. Yay, jump scares!<br />
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After navigating the dark hallways for a while, James finds an unlocked apartment that has a dress hanging in the middle of the room with a flashlight clipped to it. As soon as he takes the light, a fun new monster jumps up from the ground. This one is even more abominable than the first. Sewn to a decayed mass of flesh are two pairs of mannequin legs, one on the bottom that it walks on and two on the top that it uses to attack.<br />
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What makes this enemy even more creepy is their tendency to stand completely motionless until they notice your presence and attack. When they're in this idle state, your radio doesn't react to them which leads to one really good jump scare in the apartments where you enter a room that you think has no enemies until you check one of the bedrooms and have the camera suddenly switch to a view of an open closet and BAM! A mannequin attacks!<br />
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James kills the creature which somehow roars whenever it's hit despite having no visible mouth and continues searching the apartments until he finds a creepy room with bullet holes completely covering every surface. He finds a handgun that I guess has seen a lot of use sitting in a shopping cart for whatever reason and takes it. As he walks down another hall, James suddenly hears a man scream and runs to the source of the sound where he finds a horrifying sight.<br />
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Behind another set of bars is a creature that defies description. It appears to be a man in a bloodstained smock, but atop his head is a gigantic helmet that would put Dark Helmet to shame. The helmet appears to be made of a rusty, sharp metal and is shaped like a pyramid with the lower angles jutting sharply downward. It looks like a horribly painful thing to wear. The creature is bathed in red light that seems to be coming from nowhere. He stands completely motionless, and seems to stare at James despite his helmet having no visible eye holes.<br />
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James stares back for a moment, but soon enters a nearby apartment to escape the creature's gaze. Static blares as soon as he enters, but it isn't his radio. A television is on nearby, with nothing but static displayed on the screen. The corner of the TV is stained by fresh blood and sitting in a chair just in front of it is a dead man who is completely covered in blood and is missing a large chunk of his skull.<br />
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James goes to the back room of the apartment where he finds a grandfather clock. After a silly puzzle, he pushes the clock aside and finds a hole in the wall that he enters. He finds himself in the next door apartment and just outside is the other side of the fence and that thing. James apprehensively steps outside but finds the hall empty.<br />
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After a bit more exploring, we're treated to perhaps the most shocking scene in the game. James finds another unlocked apartment and soon after he steps inside, he witnesses a horrifying sight. The Pyramid monster, who is called Pyramid Head by the way, has two mannequin monsters that he has prinned up against a kitchen counter. It isn't exactly clear what's going on at first but he seems to be violently raping the monsters. Instead of running out of the room like any sane person would do, James runs into a nearby closet and shuts the slatted door. And doesn't turn his flashlight off...<br />
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Pyramid Head finishes his deed and slowly drags one of the mannequins by its leg before stomping it to death. We get a good, long, close-up look at Pyramid Head here. He awkwardly grabs at his helmet and seems to be sniffing the air in James' direction. James panics and fires a barrage of bullets at the creature who seems only slightly fazed by the assault. He roars at the closet before stomping out of the room.<br />
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After wandering around a bit more, he enters an unlocked apartment where he hears what sounds like a man vomiting. James sees a corpse in a nearby refrigerator that appears to be completely mutilated. He follows the source of the vomiting sound and finds a college aged young man hunched over a toilet, vomiting up what seems to be an endless supply of stomach contents.<br />
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He stops long enough to speak with James and immediately claims that he "didn't do it" and "he was like that when I got here." James introduces himself to the young man (and to the audience actually. His name isn't used until this point) whose name is Eddie. James stupidly asks if Eddie is friends with "that red, pyramid thing" which only seems to confuse him.<br />
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Eddie's guilty conscience seems to keep getting the better of him and he continually denies that he did anything wrong and says that he isn't even from this town. James asks him if he was "called to this town too" which Eddie seems to agree with. James tells him to be careful and leaves him to his endless vomiting.<br />
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After crossing over to the apartment building next door, James soon finds the girl from the cemetery laying on her side in a room with a full sized mirror covering an entire wall. She's holding a bloody kitchen knife which she seems to be staring at dreamily. James finally introduces himself to the girl, whose name is Angela. She seems to be completely out of it, as if she's on some kind of medication or drugs; neither would surprise me. She speaks in an almost drunken tone, telling James that he's running away, just like her, but immediately apologizes. James asks if she's found her mother yet to which Angela replies, "She's not anywhere." How meaningful.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's where the game's cover comes from I guess. Dunno why they'd put the character who probably has the least screen time on the cover.</td></tr>
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He shows her a picture of Mary, asking if she's seen her, which Angela can only shake her head at. He tells her that Mary is dead, but assures her that he's not crazy, at least he "doesn't think so." Angela gets up to leave, but James asks what she plans to do with the knife. She tells him he should take it because she doesn't know what she might do with it, but when James reaches out for it, Angela recoils in horror and yells, "No! I've been bad... Please don't.", before dropping the knife and leaving. James takes the knife for some reason and leaves. Man, is there anything sane in this game?<br />
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James nears the back door of the apartment building but after going into the exit stairwell, he's treated to yet another disgusting scene of Pyramid Head having his way with another monster. To his credit this time, James attempts to leave through the door he came though but can't get it to open. Pyramid Head advances on James slowly, and I mean SLOWLY, because he's carrying a gigantic sword that complements his novelty sized helmet quite nicely.<br />
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Queue the easiest boss battle ever. You don't even have to attack him once. In fact, he's impossible to kill and leaves after a set amount of time, so you're wasting your time and ammo if you do attack him. Also, one of his attacks is a one hit kill on any difficulty so just run.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I know I can't be the only person who thinks of this when they see Pyramid Head's one hit kill attack.</td></tr>
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After a few minutes, a familiar siren rings out in the background. That's right <i>SH1</i> fans! It's the sirens that turn the world into hell! Nah, actually all this one does is make Pyramid Head turn and leave like it's quittin' time at the mess with James' head factory. For the third time, James goes through a door that he knows Pyramid Head is on he other side of but finds an empty alleyway instead. Your luck is bound to run out one of these days, James.<br />
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He hurries on toward the lake and finds the little girl who stomped on his hand earlier. She's busy reading a letter which James asks about. She quickly runs off, yelling, "None of your business. You didn't love Mary anyway!" James is shocked that she knows about Mary and begins to give chase but the child proves to be too quick for him. He gives up and heads straight for the lake.<br />
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As he arrives he is shocked by what he finds. There's a woman who James says looks like she could be Mary's twin, but realizes that she looks a bit too different to be her. The woman interrupts his rambling by saying, "My name...is Maria." Clever. James copies Harry Mason's shtick of asking the same damn question to everyone he meets and asks if she's seen Mary. Of course she hasn't and James decides sounding crazy is a great idea as he tells her about Mary's unfortunate bout of death and the letter that spoke of their "special place."<br />
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She asks if they had any other special places in Silent Hill and James remembers the Lakeview Hotel that they stayed in. Maria suddenly gets really inappropriate and remarks, "The hotel was your special place? I'll bet it was." Classy. James begins to walk off but Maria flips out and asks him to take her along on his dead wife hunt. She then says another hilariously foreshadowing line, "I look like Mary don't I? You loved her didn't you? Or maybe you hated her..." Subtle.<br />
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James brings her along and they run down the road to the historical society where they can take a boat across the lake to where the hotel is. Along the way, they find a corpse with a map near it that points toward the bowling alley so they head there for whatever reason. Maria waits outside because she "hates bowling" while James heads inside where he overhears the little girl and Eddie talking about Eddie's apparent criminal past.<br />
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The girl asks him what he did to make the police come after him to which he replies that he ran because he was scared and that nobody would ever forgive him. No one makes any damn sense in this game. James wanders into the main room where he finds Eddie eating a pizza and I would really like to know here he got that with Silent Hill being populated by nothing but monsters.<br />
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James asks about the little girl who Eddie tells him is named Laura, which is her queue to step out of the shadows and runs outside. James tells Eddie to help him catch her but Eddie seems way too calm about the whole situation which prompts James to say the goofiest line in the game:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a fun bit of trivia: I listened to an interview with James' voice actor late last year and he still remembers this line as his least favorite in the game, 10 years later!</td></tr>
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James runs outside where he and Maria chase after Laura until they come to an alleyway too narrow for an adult to fit through. They cut through a strip club where Maria apparently works since she has the THREE keys needed to unlock the back door and follow Laura to Brookhaven Hospital. Yay, the obligatory hospital level. No, really. There's been a hospital level in every <i>Silent Hill</i> game so far, though I hear the upcoming <i>Silent Hill: Downpour</i> is finally gonna break that tradition.<br />
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As they begin to search through the hospital, James and Maria are soon attacked by demonic nurses who are all wearing skimpy fetish uniforms but have grey, cracked skin and horribly deformed faces. We'll talk some more about this and the other monster designs much later.<br />
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Maria decides a filthy bed in a monster infested hospital would be a swell place to take a nap so she rests for a bit while James keeps searching for Laura. Up on the roof, we learn that Pyramid Head can apparently teleport when he appears out of nowhere and knocks James off the roof, down into the psych section of the hospital, appropriately enough.<br />
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Now for the most passive aggressive puzzle ever! James finds a metal box with two key locks and two combination locks on it. Whatever's in there must be IMPORTANT! Actually, there's nothing in it. Just look:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wonderful.</td></tr>
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Actually there's a few strands of hair in the box which James takes like a good little adventure game character. I'm just soooo sure those'll be used in some stupid puzzle where you combine them with a bent needle or something to fish a key out of-<br />
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Yeah. Sure. Whatever. So James takes his magic key and rides the locked elevator to a blocked off section of the first floor where he finally finds Laura. He asks her how she knows Mary but immediately calls her a liar when she says they met at the hospital last year, because as you'll remember, James said Mary died 3 years ago. He apologizes and says that the important thing is to get out of this hell hospital but Laura seems confused when he asks how she hasn't been hurt yet.<br />
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Laura tells James to follow her to a nearby room where there's another letter from Mary and James, the gullible bastard, walks into the dark room only to have Laura lock him in. He bangs on the door and yells at her to open up but she runs off just as a trio of abominations descends from the ceiling and attack James. He fights off the bizarre hanging monsters but falls unconscious as sirens sound off in the distance. Something unseen loads him onto a gurney and we see a first person view of James being wheeled through the hospital, only to be dropped off in the central courtyard unharmed.<br />
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He re-enters the hospital but finds that it's a bit different. It's time for <i>SH2</i>'s first "other world" segment. In the first <i>SH</i> game, the world would often shift to a hellish world made of rusty metal and corpses, but in <i>SH2</i> the other world segments are much more subtle. They make up for it in <i>SH3</i> & <i>4</i> where the other world goes absolutely bat shit insane routinely.<br />
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James heads to the basement and bumps into Maria who got transported to the other world too I guess. He tells her that he's glad she's okay and here's how she responds:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PkfVvMo5fgY/T0ojohcqglI/AAAAAAAABOc/_fzjZ6FslfY/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PkfVvMo5fgY/T0ojohcqglI/AAAAAAAABOc/_fzjZ6FslfY/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+13.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I overuse the term "anyway" a lot in my writing and every time I do I hear Maria screaming "ANYWAY!?" ...I've played this game too many times. By the way, If I hadn't already made the joke just now, David Silverman would be in the corner of this picture because Maria looks exactly like him right here.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3-QEZKg3k78/T0ojuRU_vMI/AAAAAAAABOk/88VssAQOprk/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3-QEZKg3k78/T0ojuRU_vMI/AAAAAAAABOk/88VssAQOprk/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+14.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Also, this scene violates <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/180_degree_rule">the 180 degree rule</a> HARD. There's a reason for it though, at least in my opinion. More on that later.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After picking up a few puzzle items and some more emasculation, they get on the elevator and this happens:<br />
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Video courtesy of YouTube user JamieRozs.<br />
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Thankfully, that quiz game is optional but if you happen to know the answers or use a guide, you can get a ton of extra ammo and healing items. After that's dealt with, they head to the last locked door in the hospital which is unlocked by putting a couple of rings on hands coming out of it. Yep. After a long descent down a previously unreachable stairwell, they end up in a loooong hallway when an old friend shows up. Yeah, it's Pyramid Head again, but this time he got rid of that ridiculous buster sword and picked up a spear so he can RUN now.<br />
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James and Maria do likewise until they reach an elevator while some of the best freak out music ever plays. James makes it inside, but the door shuts on Maria's arm and Pyramid Head stabs her just as the door closes and the elevator ascends. James broods for a minute but soon recovers and finds a wrench and a marked map in an office on the first floor. He sees Laura walking away from the hospital outside and follows her.<br />
<br />
After a silly puzzle where he digs up and unscrew a box back at Rosewater Park so he can get a key, James finally makes his way to the historical society where the afore mentioned boats to the hotel are located. That was quite a detour. After stepping inside, he finds a fun painting with a familiar face, or rather familiar helmet on it:<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-52sgdaQjX3A/T0oyyfUqyeI/AAAAAAAABOs/TO5C0km8gPc/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-52sgdaQjX3A/T0oyyfUqyeI/AAAAAAAABOs/TO5C0km8gPc/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+15.jpg" /></a></div>
Yeah so either Pyramid Head is a real person and not just a demon created by the town or that painting was created by the town too just to mess with James. In the next room, James finds something else that the town must have created, a burnt staircase leading underground that takes no less than 50 seconds to get down at top speed. That's some pretty literal symbolism there. A burnt staircase that leads impossibly deep underground. I wonder what's at the bottom...<br />
<br />
All kinds of wackiness it turns out. First James finds a prison lobby-like area and soon finds a deep hole that he jumps in since there's no other way to go. Makes sense. He lands at the bottom of a well and the game really expects the player to try everything here because the only way to get out is to hit the right spot on the wall several times until it breaks revealing a door. <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GuideDangIt">Guide dang it!</a><br />
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Right after that, you enter a small room with a key sitting on the ground. When you pick it up, your flashlight runs out of batteries. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov%27s_gun">Thank God we happened to find exactly the type of battery James' flashlight uses back in the hospital.</a> When you turn your light back on, the room is suddenly FULL OF GIANT ROACHES and you have to figure out the code for a keypad by the door to get back out. Three of the buttons are lit up so you know which ones to push, you just have to figure out the right order.<br />
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Once James gets out of there, he finds another hole that he jumps down, and this time it's a sideways hallway. Ignoring that, when James lands, he finds himself in a prison cafeteria and sees this:<br />
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Delightful. Right in front of Eddie is a recently shot man that he says he had to kill because, "He was makin' fun of me with his eyes." Good reason. He goes on to say that he's always let people walk all over him until now, "Just like that stupid dog. He had it coming too!" What the f... He then claims that he was joking and that the man was dead when he got here. Sure. He quickly leaves, with James, and the player, being left supremely confused.<br />
<br />
Now for the most vexing series of dungeons in the game. James wanders around the prison for a while until he finds all the tablets he needs to complete a puzzle so he can get a horseshoe (which literally appears out of nowhere) and combine it with a wax doll and a lighter to create a handle for a trap door. I'd think that if recently melted wax would be strong enough to open the door, he could do it with his hands but whatever, this is <i>Silent Hill</i>.<br />
<br />
James jumps down another hole, then, after a disgusting morgue room, he jumps down another hole where one of the most horrible sound effects ever to come out of a synthesizer plays. Only listen to this if you really wanna get chills down your spine. I warned you:<br />
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Video courtesy of YouTube user PeyserConley.<br />
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Man, <i>Silent Hill</i> series composer Akira Yamaoka comes up with some crazy shit. In <i>SH1</i> there's a similarly horrific sound effect that he apparently made by distorting the sound of a dentist's drill so who knows how he did this one. Thankfully this sound only plays in one small room which has, you guessed it, another hole! James jumps down it and finds himself in a dilapidated industrial building. He enters the only open door, which leads to a cargo elevator that starts on its own and heads down even farther into the earth for about 30 seconds. James must be a mile underground at this point.<br />
<br />
He finally stops jumping down holes for a while as he makes his way through an abstract area called the labyrinth. Hmm, I wonder if the boss will be Jareth, the goblin king. James heads down a ladder to a circular area where Pyramid Head just roams around like a regular enemy. And he's still invincible. That's just cruel. In a room in this area, you can find Pyramid Head's giant sword and use it yourself and apparently if you equip it and turn your light and radio off, monsters will run from you thinking it's Pyramid Head. I've never actually tried this for whatever reason.<br />
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Back upstairs, there's a physically impossible puzzle where you rotate a large stone block with faces carved in it which causes a room nearby to rotate in unison. You have to line up the doorways in the room correctly to proceed on and after you do, you find Maria, alive and well.<br />
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I love this scene so much that I won't even try to summarize it. Here it is:<br />
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Video courtesy of YouTube user fungo.<br />
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Anyone who insults the acting in this game can kiss my ass. Konami can as well for replacing these voice actors in the upcoming HD re-release. By the way, the voice actors also did the motion capture for their characters. Just another reason to be pissed at Konami.<br />
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Anyway, in the event that video is taken down, James finds Maria inside a jail cell alive and she seems to speak like, behave like and even possess the memories of Mary. She soon turns back into Maria mode however and tells James to "come get her."<br />
<br />
James runs off to find a way to the other side of the bars and soon finds a hallway full of newspapers, one of which pretty much says that Angela killed her father but the police couldn't find much evidence. Also, the knife that James has been carrying around since the apartments is probably the murder weapon. As he approaches a room near the newspapers, he hears Angela screaming from inside and runs in.<br />
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Inside he finds a room that can only be described as the inside of a womb with cylindrical objects sliding in and out from the walls. Gross. Angela is cowering in the corner with another piece of rape symbolism looming near her. A monster that is designed to look like two people having sex on a table attacks James. He quickly kills it and Angela walks over, kicks the creature, then picks up a television from the corner of the room and drops it on the abomination.<br />
<br />
James tries to calm her but she goes on a tirade, accusing him of being a rapist and saying that he probably didn't want Mary around anymore because he found someone else. She storms out of the room as James weakly states, "That's ridiculous... I never..."<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DlN6Q7TJgtA/T0p7IYLuyEI/AAAAAAAABPI/NO0IlV699zY/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+17.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DlN6Q7TJgtA/T0p7IYLuyEI/AAAAAAAABPI/NO0IlV699zY/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+17.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What an uplifting game.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After some charming suicide symbolism, James finds the other side of Maria's jail cell and what a surprise, she's dead again. James grieves some more and eventually leaves. Right down the hall, he finds a graveyard that seems to be outdoors despite it being thousands of feet underground and all. There are a few graves you can read, including the grave of <i>Silent Hill 4</i> antagonist Walter Sullivan, so I guess they either had that game planned this far ahead or they just decided to reuse his name and serial killer backstory. Also among the graves are open graves for Eddie, Angela, and in the back corner, one marked James Sunderland. Which contains another hole that James jumps into.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JObYMbPauVY/T0p90V1qLjI/AAAAAAAABPQ/Bso1EPhAfqg/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JObYMbPauVY/T0p90V1qLjI/AAAAAAAABPQ/Bso1EPhAfqg/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+18.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Woo! Call...forward I guess.</td></tr>
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He lands in a looong hallway that slowly turns dark red as he runs to the end of it. In the next room, we find Eddie who has completely snapped at this point. He has apparently killed several people in the room, again for looking at him the wrong way. That reminds me of Early Cuyler's "he looked at me crossways" defense. Eddie rants on and on about various crazy shit until James tells him that he's gone nuts, which is Eddie's queue to attack.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8Ar6ERTyA6U/T0qEhNVPkOI/AAAAAAAABPY/7D_vS6_2qMY/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8Ar6ERTyA6U/T0qEhNVPkOI/AAAAAAAABPY/7D_vS6_2qMY/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+19.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I just love Eddie's crazed expression here. He's so photogenically insane.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Now for kind of an annoying boss fight. You fight him in a tiny room at first but he soon flees to a larger one. James follows him and Eddie rants some more about how he shot a football player in the knee and killed his dog. Kind of an interesting thing on that subject. If you check the room across from the bathroom where you first meet Eddie, you'll find its full of football posters. Foreshadowing I guess.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-G45golFr9Ps/T0qK8aafnnI/AAAAAAAABPg/L_dXb1XCnvk/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-G45golFr9Ps/T0qK8aafnnI/AAAAAAAABPg/L_dXb1XCnvk/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+20.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now THAT is foreshadowing.</td></tr>
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James laments killing a person, even in self defense, then asks himself a very odd question, "Mary...did you really die three years ago."<br />
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Now for the craziest part of the game. James steps through the nearby door which leads outside to the back porch of the historical society where he started. So after traveling arguably miles underground, he somehow ends up a few yards from where he started. Holy nuts. And now for the most boring gameplay segment in the game, especially on harder difficulties! You have to get in a row boat and row it to the other side of the lake. Sounds pretty easy and it is on up to normal difficulty where you just have to point the boat toward a light in the distance and hold up on the control stick.<br />
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On hard however, you have to rotate each analog stick in unison to go forward, giving this part a bit of a learning curve. Though if you got this far on hard, you're already doing pretty damn good. Also, you gotta love the symbolism here, which I'll talk about after the plot summary.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xGcJH_0ZSBM/T0qbcs9HI-I/AAAAAAAABPo/-RoHyCgE9_8/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xGcJH_0ZSBM/T0qbcs9HI-I/AAAAAAAABPo/-RoHyCgE9_8/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+21.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Smartass.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
James FINALLY arrives at the Lakeview Hotel and soon finds that the sexy time monster that was attacking Angela has now become a regular enemy, though thankfully they're less powerful. He finds Laura who gives him the letter from Mary she teased him with earlier in the game. In it we find out that Mary was still alive A WEEK AGO. That's a bit less than three years, James. What aren't you telling us?<br />
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James wonders if Mary could really be alive somewhere in the hotel when Laura realizes that she dropped another letter from Mary that she had and runs off to find it. Man, these letters from Mary are really getting to be a dime a dozen.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pOBAGJwzpRs/T0qb8uF124I/AAAAAAAABPw/bhSMB8YxAqI/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pOBAGJwzpRs/T0qb8uF124I/AAAAAAAABPw/bhSMB8YxAqI/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+22.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yo' protagonist is so fat, he goes over elevator weight limits by himself!</td></tr>
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James soon finds an elevator that is somehow over the weight limit even though he's alone. Now if the hair box in the hospital was the most passive aggressive puzzle, then this has to be the most passive aggressive gameplay segment. You're forced to leave ALL of your items on a shelf near the elevator and I mean all of them, including your flashlight and even the letter from Mary, as if that would weigh you down...<br />
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Once James relinquishes all of his items, the elevator suddenly works and he's able to explore the basement. After collecting some puzzle items and dodging a few mannequin monsters that he's helpless against, James finds a large can in the hotel kitchen that he opens and finds that it's full of light bulbs for whatever reason. He takes one that he uses in the very next room so he can see the keyhole on a door in a dark room. Dumbest puzzle ever.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8ArzvebIsX0/T0qdFztCn1I/AAAAAAAABP4/MmdTdJ-SJd0/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8ArzvebIsX0/T0qdFztCn1I/AAAAAAAABP4/MmdTdJ-SJd0/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+23.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I think this is where I would normally say, "See! I'm not making it up!", but what's the use at this point.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Back upstairs, the game gets passive aggressive again when James reaches the hall outside the room where his items are. There are three mannequins blocking his path in the small room and after he collects his weapons and can defend himself again, they disappear. This game is devious.<br />
<br />
After a silly puzzle involving music boxes, the path to room 312, the room James and Mary stayed in, is finally open. James heads in and finds a VCR where he watches a home movie that he taped during their trip. That soon ends however and we see a much blurrier image of James speaking with Mary in her hospital room. We can't hear them but they're clearly saying something important. James leans over her and seems to kiss her before grabbing her pillow and smothering her with it.<br />
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James sits in silence for almost a full minute before Laura bursts in the room and asks if he found Mary. He's unresponsive at first but finally looks up and tells her the truth: Mary is dead because he killed her. Laura flips out on him, slapping him as she yells at him. All he can do is say he's sorry and she eventually relents as she storms out of the room. Mary's voice can suddenly be heard from James' radio. She begs him to come find her which finally snaps him out of his miserable state.<br />
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He runs out to the hall but finds that he's suddenly been transported to the other world again. The hotel seems to have been burned up then flooded and most of the doors are jammed. The game decides to get really confusing by have several of the doors warp you around the hotel, though if you watch your map, you can get through this area in no time.<br />
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There's a couple of optional scenes coming up that I'll cover. Watching them actually impacts which ending you get, but they both contribute to the story. The first one is a quick scene of James listening to an audio tape of Mary's doctor and James arguing over her condition. The whole scene takes place from an exterior view of the hotel where the camera focuses on a bed that seems to be floating.<br />
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After that, James finds Angela in a stairwell that is engulfed in flames. She's really lost it now, mistaking James for her mother at first but realizes it's him and ridicules his attempts to calm her. She asks for her knife back but James refuses hand it over. She asks if he plans to use it himself and walks upstairs into the fire. James comments that, "It's hot as hell in here," to which Angela replies, "You see it too?":<br />
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James leaves the way he came and heads down the linear path set in front of him. He finds a grid of 9 save points next to a door. I guess they REALLY want you to save here. That grid of save points is actually the Japanese cover of the game. That's pretty minimalist stuff there.<br />
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He heads through the ominous door and finds a large room with Maria hanging on a torture rack on a nearby balcony, somehow alive again. There are TWO Pyramid Heads now which impale her with their spears, killing her again, causing James to have another revelation.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ow2H1Ku8ieQ/T0uXcPwlHMI/AAAAAAAABQQ/I4c0t7IQw0I/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ow2H1Ku8ieQ/T0uXcPwlHMI/AAAAAAAABQQ/I4c0t7IQw0I/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+26.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">James looks so badass in this scene, standing up to TWO Pyramid Heads at once when he used to be terrified of just one.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
He addresses the Pyramid Heads directly as they set upon him. He tells them that he was weak and needed someone to punish him for his sins, but he knows the truth now and tells them that "it's time to end this." He battles the monsters and is actually able to injure them. After a while though, they seem to just give up and simultaneously commit suicide by impaling themselves on their spears.<br />
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The second optional scene plays as James makes his way down a long hall. We can hear a conversation that he and Mary had as her illness began to take a toll on their relationship. He comes to visit her in the hospital, only to have her yell at him, driving him away. We hear Mary express regret as soon as he leaves however and she begs him to come back.<br />
<br />
For once, James heads UP. Really high up in fact. He runs up a long staircase and eventually finds Mary in a large room at the top. Depending on what ending you're gonna get, the woman will either behave like Mary or Maria, but regardless of the ending, she transforms into a creature that resembles an even more twisted version of the upside down torture rack Maria was killed in by the two Pyramid Heads.<br />
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She attacks by floating around the room and either shooting a swarm of moths at James or by choking him with one of her newly sprouted tentacles. James fights her off until she falls to the ground and, <a href="http://mattsgamequest.blogspot.com/2012/02/endings-metal-gear-solid-3-crosspost.html">just like in Metal Gear Solid 3</a>, the game will wait for you to deliver the killing blow before it will continue. Next is the ending, and there's 6 of them so I'll describe them all I guess.<br />
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First is the "leave" ending, which is the happiest one and my favorite because I'm such a sappy wuss. Before the final boss fight, Mary speaks like Maria and gets pissed at James for mistaking her with Mary again. He's not listening to her bullshit this time though and she transforms into the final boss. After the final boss fight, James suddenly finds himself in a different room with Mary. James beats himself up some more, saying that he wanted her out of the way so he could have his life back, but Mary pretty much forgives him and tells him to move on with his life. The scene changes to James and Laura walking away from Silent Hill as a much longer version of Mary's letter to James is read. I think it's supposed to be implied that James adopts Laura though it isn't explicitly stated.<br />
<br />
The "in water" ending is very similar but rather than the scene with James and Laura leaving Silent Hill, James is seen carrying Mary's body off. The screen fades to black and we hear James speaking as the sound of a car speeding off is heard. The sound suddenly cuts off and it cuts to an underwater shot as Mary's letter is read. God damn. As if this game wasn't depressing enough. Let's have the main character kill himself in the end. That's just plain cruel.<br />
<br />
In the "Maria" ending, James speaks with Mary before the final boss fight in a scene that is similar to the post boss scene in the previous two endings but Mary blames James rather than forgiving him and transforms into the final boss. After the fight, James is seen leaving Silent Hill with Maria who begins to cough, possibly implying that she's going to get sick too.<br />
<br />
In the "rebirth" ending, the pre-final boss cutscene is the same as the first two endings but after the fight, James is seen in a boat as he narrates. He pretty much says that he plans to use the power of the dark gods of Silent Hill to resurrect her.<br />
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The last two endings are joke endings. I'm not kidding. <i>Silent Hill 2</i> has TWO joke endings. The first is the "dog" ending where James finds a control room in the other world hotel. Inside the control room is a dog sitting at a control panel. He says, "So it was all your work!" in Japanese for whatever reason. And it's the same voice actor as the rest of the game. He apparently speaks English and Japanese. Pretty cool. Here's the ending itself, along with the hilarious credit sequence that plays afterward. I just love the dog's stoic expression during the credits:<br />
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Video again brought to us by YouTube user fungo, who uploaded every cutscene from the first 4 <i>Silent Hill</i> games. Impressive.<br />
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The other Joke ending is the "UFO" ending which is actually a recurring ending in most of the <i>Silent Hill</i> games. I think the only one that doesn't have a UFO ending is <i>Silent Hill 4</i> but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, in this particular UFO ending, Harry Mason shows up along with a horde of alien ships. He asks James if he's seen a little girl but James cuts him off and asks if he's seen Mary. Now that's some lampshade hanging right there. One of the aliens suddenly shoots James with a laser and we see Harry and the alien carrying James off as Harry gives the alien a thumbs up. What in the world... Actually, the UFO ending of <i>Silent Hill 3</i> shows James and the alien living with Harry and (<i>SH3</i> spoilers) <span style="background-color: black; color: black;">Heather</span> so I guess that's where that lead.<br />
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I think that about covers the endings so lets get on with this crap... I'll try to keep this short because I could write an essay about how layered <i>Silent Hill 2</i>'s plot is. Every scene, every character has been interpreted to death but here's my interpretation of it all.<br />
<br />
The whole game is going on in James' head. He killed Mary and was
arrested, then thrown in prison and is executed. The historical society
dungeon is a perfect allegory for this. He ends up in a prison that is
impossible to backtrack from and that area ends with him going down to
the hell-like labyrinth area which itself ends with James jumping into
his own grave. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Remember this picture? Remember how I said it was relevant to the whole article? That's because the whole game is a reflection of James' messed up head.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The various characters in the game represent either James or Mary in some way. Angela represents Mary as a victim with her paranoid actions seeming to mirror the terrified thoughts of a person who knows they are going to die soon. Eddie is a bit more complex. He represents James' slow decent into madness and his willingness to kill to avoid his problems. More obvious is the fact that he is a representation of James' denial of killing Mary and finally accepting it. One could argue that James killing Eddie right after jumping into his own grave also represents him committing suicide.<br />
<br />
Laura is Mary as a sick, sexually unavailable, and verbally abusive tormenter. Not much more to that. Maria is both James' desires physically and his worst nightmare emotionally. She constantly tempts him but when she's not chastising him, shes getting killed by Pyramid Head. Speaking of which, Pyramid Head is pretty obvious.<br />
<br />
He's pretty much James' id on crack. He does whatever he wants, even committing rape and murder on a whim. He is the most obvious of James' tormenters and is a literal representation of his denial. He is stalked by one invincible Pyramid Head for most of the game and after killing Eddie, he finds two but by this time, he has come to terms with what he's done so the Pyramid Heads lose their invincibility.<br />
<br />
The enemies are all similar to Pyramid Head in that they are extreme representations of various emotions. The first enemy is a sick sounding humanoid that is quite literally trapped in its own body. The second and third enemies, the mannequins and nurses, are both monstrous personifications of sexual desire and the nurses in particular are also a terrifying version of James' delusional view of the healthcare system.<br />
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That's about enough of my crazy view of this game. Let's actually review this sucker. Like the previous three games on this particular top 5 (<i>Max Payne, Final Fantasy X, and Metal Gear Solid 2</i>) <i>Silent Hill 2</i> was a game with some amazing visuals for the time and I think it has probably held up the best out of the four. Character and enemy designs are detailed and fairly subtle actually. Maybe it's just me, but Eddie looks a lot like a fat version of James. Maybe he's supposed to be an alternate, more monstrous version of James. Environments are similarly well designed with the standout areas for me being the historical society dungeon and the hospital.<br />
<br />
In the audio department, <i>Silent Hill 2</i> is an absolute marvel. As I said in the middle of the summary, sound designer and composer Akira Yamaoka is insanely talented. The music in this game ranges from touching, to bizarre, and completely horrifying. The song that plays as James monologues at the beginning of the game, which I think is called <i>Letters</i>, is one of my favorite songs and for whatever reason it isn't on the official soundtrack which is a total shame. The game's sound design is also amazing with the monsters making some noises that I can't even imagine how Yamoaka managed to pull off.<br />
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Gameplay is the one weak area of <i>Silent Hill 2</i>. It plays a lot like old school survival horror games. Hell, it IS an old school survival horror game at this point. Exploration and puzzle solving are done well enough but combat is where the game gets kind of frustrating. Shooting works okay, though like many survival horror characters, James has kinda crappy aim.<br />
<br />
Melee combat is what I'm specifically referring to. It is done fairly simply; all you have to do is hold one button to ready your weapon and press another to attack, but it seems like melee attacks miss constantly. The fact that tapping the button does a weak attack and holding it does a strong one can also cause some annoyance because it doesn't always work correctly. Maybe I just suck.<br />
<br />
One other gameplay element worth mentioning is how you get the various endings. The "rebirth" and two joke endings have specific things you must do to get them so they aren't much trouble. It's the first three that have some of the most esoteric requirements that I've ever seen in any game. Things like how quickly you heal damage, which items you examine in your inventory, and how attentive you are to Maria all have an impact on what ending you get.<br />
<br />
For example, to get the "Leave" ending, you must heal yourself as soon as you take damage, examine the photograph of Mary and her letter a few times during the game, make sure NOT to examine Angela's knife, stay away from Maria as much as possible, don't read the diary on the roof of the hospital, don't listen to the tape of James and Mary's doctor arguing, and finally, make sure you DO listen to the entire conversation between James and Mary before you take the stairs up to the last boss. All of those things are just for one of the endings. You don't actually have to do ALL of those things, like examining inventory items. I never bothered with that and I've gotten all three of the original endings.<br />
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I don't have much else to say. I'm holding back a lot of plot analysis BS for the sake article length so I'll just do my usual thing and tell you to buy the game. However, there are a few complications with this one. <i>Silent Hill 2</i> is available on PS2, Xbox, and PC for now with 360 and PS3 versions coming out next month. I have problems with every version of the game however.<br />
<br />
The PS2 version doesn't work well on PS3 so if you have a backwards compatible PS3, don't expect it to run perfectly. The Xbox version is even worse in that department with an absolute plethora of texture and crashing issues when the game is played on a 360. The PC version has always been a buggy mess but it's even worse on newer computers and I don't know it works on Windows 7. I'm gonna guess not. I can't speak for how well the HD re-release works since it isn't out yet but I can complain about one thing: Konami jerkin' me around when it comes to the voice acting in the HD versions of <i>Silent Hill 2</i> and <i>3</i>.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rant incoming.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I already wrote a whole article about this where I dropped the only F-bomb on this blog, so that should be an indication of how much this annoys me, but here are the details. An HD bundle of <i>Silent Hill 2</i> and <i>3</i> has been in development for a while now for 360 and PS3. It was supposed to come out at the end of last year but it was delayed until March 2012 for whatever reason. That's all well and good except for the fact that Konami decided to re-record all the voice acting in both games. In many other situations, I wouldn't really care, but <i>Silent Hill 2 </i>&<i> 3</i> are two of my favorite games ever and I've gotten very used to the original voice cast, so this really, really bothers me.<br />
<br />
It was revealed near the end of last year that the original voice acting would be an option for <i>SH2</i> but not <i>3</i> which just confused and annoyed me even further. Then I heard the interview with James' voice actor, Guy Cihi, that I mentioned earlier. He finally explained what happened. Guy and the rest of the cast of <i>SH2</i> are actually Americans who reside in Japan so they recorded all their lines directly for the developer rather than dubbing over Japanese voice actors.<br />
<br />
Also, as I said before, they did the motion capture acting for their characters too, so they were pretty involved in the game. Guy learned about what they planned to do to the game and he took action. He contacted ALL of the other actors from <i>SH2</i> and asked them to waive their rights to the game which they all agreed to if only to preserve their original performances. So they will make no money from this re-release.<br />
<br />
That's what it comes down to. Money. Konami doesn't give a shit anymore. That's why this "collection" is so lazily done. There are 7 games in the <i>Silent Hill</i> series. How does releasing a bundle of 2 of them count as a collection? Hell, next month two other <i>SH</i> games are coming out, <i>Downpour</i> and <i>Book of Memories</i>, so it'll be a 9 game series.<br />
<br />
That's another thing to complain about, as if there wasn't enough about this to complain about already. Why in the name of Oscar Wilde are they releasing three <i>Silent Hill</i> games in the same month? Did Konami suddenly turn into Ubisoft? Seriously, game publishers: SPACE OUT YOUR RELEASES. You aren't going to make any money if you have your own games competing against each other. If you think consumers have the money to buy unlimited games then you obviously have forgotten about the used games market.<br />
<br />
Uhg, that's enough. Here's my point: I won't endorse the <i>Silent Hill</i> HD Collection but I also won't criticize anyone who wants to buy it. At this point, <i>Silent Hill 2</i> & <i>3</i> are getting kind of hard to play, so at least more people will get the chance to experience these two wonderful games. I just wish Konami didn't feel the need to mess with the voice acting. Konami re-released <i>Metal Gear Solid 2</i>, <i>3</i>, and <i>Peace Walker</i> last year with all the original voice acting so I don't know what the issue is here.<br />
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ENOUGH. God dammit. I rant way too much.<br />
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<i>Silent Hill 2</i> is an utterly amazing experience. James Sunderland's tale of self punishment is one of the most subtly written stories in any video game. It's a game that is NOT for the faint of heart. I consider it to be the third scariest video game in existence (Behind <i>Amnesia</i> and a <i>Half-Life</i> mod called <i>Afraid of Monsters</i>. HELL YES, I'M AFRAID OF MONSTERS NOW!), it is extremely violent and very, VERY maturely themed. Any game with a monster that sexually assaults other monsters is definitely not for kids. If you are of the right mindset, you may find something to love in <i>Silent Hill 2</i>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uBTvMlXrOns/T0vr2YeSUiI/AAAAAAAABQo/7E-_YSLOO90/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uBTvMlXrOns/T0vr2YeSUiI/AAAAAAAABQo/7E-_YSLOO90/s1600/Silent+Hill+2+shot+29.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I couldn't resist.</td></tr>
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I really, really suck at this. I started my top 5 games of 2001 back on
December 13, 2011 and I'm finally finishing it over two months later.
Damn I'm awful. Also, I totally messed my list up. <i>Super Smash Bros Melee</i>
is on my 2002 list. The only problem is it was released in 2001.
Whoops. I really thought it came out in early 2002 for whatever reason. I
think that's the only mistake on my list though. I hope...<br />
<br />
<br />
Next:<br />
Number 5 in my top 5 games of 2011!<br />
An amazingly fun third person action game based on a hugely popular tabletop game.<br />
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I'll leave you with my favorite song from the game which I mentioned earlier. It's not on the official soundtrack so I don't know if it has an official name but fans call it <i>Letters</i>, as it's the song that plays as James talks about Mary's letter at the beginning of the game. Video brought to us by YouTube user Zaberpalo.<br />
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<br />Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-42202653185170404292012-02-25T09:06:00.001-06:002012-04-27T17:44:39.783-05:00Game Music Showcase: First Level Music Part 2<i><strike>In Top 5 Game Songs, I list my 5 favorite game songs in a particular
category, like Top 5 Battle Themes, or Top 5 Title Screen Songs. I love
video game music and find that it doesn't get the respect it deserves,
so this is my way of spreading awareness of how great it is.</strike> </i>(EDIT 3-7-12: feature change lol)<br />
<br />
<i>In Game Music Showcase, I take a look at a few songs from a
particular category, like battle themes or title screen songs. The songs
are listed in no particular order, except for the last one which is my
personal favorite of the bunch. I love video game music more than any
other genre and with this feature, along with game music appreciation, I
hope to help you understand why. </i><br />
<br />
<i>So why bother with having two music features? Game Music Appreciation
is more in depth while Game Music Showcase is more of a microcosm of
one category of video game songs.</i> <br />
<br />
I already talked about 5 great first level songs in <a href="http://mattsgamequest.blogspot.com/2012/01/top-5-game-songs-first-level-music.html">the last Top 5 Game Songs I did</a> but there's so many great opening level songs in gaming that this category deserves a second look. Here are 5 more great background songs from the first level or area of each given game.<br />
<i></i><br />
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<i>- </i><br />
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<i>Dam </i><br />
<i>Goldeneye 007</i><i>, </i>1997<br />
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Video Courtesy of YouTube user mariodonkeykong1990.<br />
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Goldeneye 007 has one of my favorite game soundtracks ever. Hell, I have almost EVERY song from the game on my iPod. I think all that's missing are a few short musical queues like the death fanfare, so I actually DO have every real song from the game on there. That should give you a bit of an indication of how great the music in this game is. The folks at Rare got really creative with this one. Rather than just doing digitized versions of songs from the movie, they composed a completely original soundtrack with pretty much every song containing snippets of the James Bond theme somewhere in it.<br />
<br />
As for the opening level, it follows the film's opening scene with 007 bungee jumping to the base of a Russian Dam to access a secret chemical research facility. I love pretty much every part of this song, from the opening melody, the incredibly catchy beat, and the amazing bass throughout the whole song. It really deserves multiple listens just so you can catch everything.<br />
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-<br />
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<i>Bob-omb Battlefield</i><br />
<i>Super Mario 64</i>, 1996<br />
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Video Courtesy of YouTube user <strike>Luffyonepiece</strike> (EDIT 3-7-12: video removed) rudreadingiam.<br />
<br />
I really don't talk about Koji Kondo enough. It seems like I'm constantly spouting off Nobuo Uematsu's name as if he's the only video game composer worth mentioning, but there's an army of awesome composers throughout the history of video game. One of the best ever is the afore mentioned Koji Kondo, the man responsible for some of the most recognizable video game compositions ever. Level 1-1? That was Kondo. The Legend of Zelda theme? Kondo. ALL the music in Ocarina of Time? Kondo.<br />
<br />
He also composed the song in question today, Bob-omb Battlefield. I still remember the first time I played Mario 64. After years of Super Mario World, it BLEW my mind to see Mario in a 3D world, even if it's hilariously primitive by today's standards. The game's first level was pretty forgiving as far as design and enemy placement is concerned, so I ran around it A LOT to just try out all of Mario's moves. My point it, I heard this song many, many times but I still love it. Listen closely and you'll notice so many layers to the song. I especially love how a trumpet (or whatever you would call that midi instrument) is added when the first part of the song loops. Little things like that can make an already great song amazing.<br />
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-<br />
<br />
<i>Forest Funk</i><br />
<i>Super Meat Boy</i>, 2010<br />
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Video Courtesy of YouTube user IndieGameMusicHD.<br />
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<i>Super Meat Boy</i> is a frustrating freakin game, especially for someone like me who is only sorta good at video games. It doesn't help that I've all but lost my childhood reflexes at this point. Regardless of its difficulty, <i>SMB</i> has some of the best platforming gameplay I've experienced in years and an AMAZING soundtrack. The first world's music is a great example of that. I say this a lot, but this song is just so fitting for the kind of game <i>SMB</i> is; one where you'll die a LOT. I'll talk about this game much more in depth when I talk about games of 2010 but for now, here's the amazing first world music of <i>Super Meat Boy</i>.<br />
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-<br />
<br />
<i>Bombing Mission</i><br />
<i>Final Fantasy VII</i>, 1997<br />
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Video Courtesy of YouTube user beuvan.<br />
<br />
I've mentioned before how awesome Final Fantasy VII's soundtrack is but it can't be said enough. From what I've seen, Bombing Mission is usually combined with the game's intro theme since the game's intro segues perfectly into the first area, but I'm specifically talking about music that plays in the first area of gameplay. Speaking of which, the first area of Final Fantasy VII has you taking control of massive sword user extraordinaire Cloud as he and resistance leader Barret fight their way to a "Mako Reactor" to bomb it so it will stop sucking up the planets life energy or some other silliness like that.<br />
<br />
The song really reminds me a lot of the soundtrack to the first Terminator film which is one of my favorite film soundtracks ever. I don't even know how to describe that type of music, really. I always call it 80s sci-fi music but there's probably an actual name for it. The first Mass Effect had a crazy soundtrack like that too which left me really disappointed with the second game when they went with a more traditional soundtrack.<br />
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-<br />
<br />
<i>Cavern</i><br />
<i>Metal Gear Solid</i>, 1998<br />
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Video Courtesy of YouTube user TheOSTation, whose account keeps getting banned and restored repeatedly for whatever reason, so this video may be unavailable sometimes.<br />
<br />
Right after I posted my last Top 5 Game Songs, I almost immediately remembered this song and wanted to kick my own ass for not including it. I freaking LOVE this song. It's just such a perfect sneakin' around song. I remember playing the demo of MGS1 soooo many times and just running around the first area, listening to this and watching the credits. That's right. The first Metal Gear Solid has in-game opening credits that appear in the corner of the screen during the first few minutes of the game. It really helped drive home something that I felt all through MGS1: for the first time, I really felt like I was playing a movie.<br />
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<br />Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-36825449005579998942012-02-21T07:01:00.000-06:002012-02-22T02:27:32.393-06:00Endings: Metal Gear Solid 3 (crosspost from Destructoid C blogs)This is an article I posted on the <a href="http://www.destructoid.com/elephant/posts_by_users.phtml?t=Community">Destructoid Community Blogs</a> today in response to a "Bloggers Wanted" post. They do those every week (I believe) with a theme in mind and this was the first one where I really had something to say. In this case, the theme is great game endings and I couldn't think of a better example than one of my favorite game endings: the ending of <i>Metal Gear Solid 3</i> (<i>MGS3</i> will get a full article some day too. This one is special.) Anyway, here's the post, exactly as it appears on Destructoid. <a href="http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/Matthew+Geminder/endings-metal-gear-solid-3-222286.phtml">Here's a link to the Destructoid version as well.</a><i><br /></i><br />
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I've been playing video games for 20 years now and over those many years
they've elicited a number of emotions from me; frustration and anger at
the difficulty of some games, happiness and fulfillment at the
greatness of others. The rarest emotion however, is genuine sadness. I
can only think of two moments in gaming that made me feel truly sad. The
first was Celes' attempted suicide in <i>Final Fantasy VI</i> and the second is the focus of this post: the ending of <i>Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater</i>.<br />
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For you to truly understand why <i>Metal Gear Solid 3</i>'s ending made me feel so sad, I'll have to <b>SPOIL</b> pretty much every major plot point in the game, so be warned.
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Metal Gear Solid 3 is a prequel to the entire <i>Metal Gear</i>
series, taking place in 1964 with the player taking control of Big Boss,
the "greatest solider in the world" who series protagonist Solid Snake
was cloned from. Big Boss, who I will refer to as "Snake" just as <i>MGS3</i>
does, is an agent of the CIA who is sent to Russia to rescue a
defecting Russian scientist. After locating the man however, Snake's
mentor, The Boss, appears, revealing that she's defected to Russia and
promptly beats the crap out of Snake, leaving him for dead.<br />
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Several weeks later, Snake has recovered and is given a new mission:
Kill the boss, the woman who taught him everything he knows. She is
being blamed for the actions of the man who she allied herself with,
Colonel Volgin, who detonated a nuclear warhead on Russian soil soon
after The Boss' defection. If the United States government doesn't take
care of her, Russia will be forced to see the bombing as an act of
aggression on the US' part.
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<br />
Thus begins Snake's long, torturous fight through the ranks of
Volgin's troops and The Boss' unquestioningly loyal Cobra Unit. Along
the way, we learn just how close Snake was with The Boss and the almost
Godlike reverence that he and everyone else feels for her. Even though
The Boss and her allies throttle Snake at every opportunity, something
just feels wrong about killing a woman that everyone has such respect
for.
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She's also an extremely charismatic character, stealing the scene
whenever she shows up. Kojima Productions did a fantastic job building
her up as a total bad ass. She easily beats Snake's ass on multiple
occasions and can even overpower the hulking Colonel Volgin with little
effort.<br />
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So Snake manages to kill the Cobra Unit and Colonel Volgin, and destroys
the Shagohod, Volgin's super weapon. Just one thing remains: he must
kill his mentor to prevent World War 3. They meet in a field of white
flowers and have one final, grueling battle. The Boss, of course, proves
to be Snake's most formidable opponent yet. At close quarters, she's
still more than a match for Snake and even in ranged combat she's as
deadly as they come.
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<br />
Snake manages to come out on top in the end and we see The Boss
lying on the ground near death. She hands Snake her gun and the camera
zooms out to an overhead shot. The letterbox that is present during
cutscenes then disappears and it is the player who must pull the trigger
to end The Boss' life. Seriously. Snake will just stand there pointing
the gun at her forever until you, the player, finish the job with him.<br />
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Snake then escapes with fellow agent Eva and after a dumb love scene,
Eva leaves Snake a taped confession which tells him the truth behind his
mission. The Boss never betrayed the United States. Her "defection" was
a ruse that would allow her to join Colonel Volgin and steal his vast
fortune. However, after Volgin detonated a nuke on Russian soil, it was
up to The Boss to take the fall for it so the United States government
could clear itself of any suspicion.
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<br />
She played her part to the end and sacrificed her life and honor for
the good of the world. She would go down in history as a war criminal
and her heroism would never be known by anyone outside a select few. The
last words we hear before the credits are, "She was a true patriot," as
Snake salutes The Boss' unmarked grave with tears streaming down his
face.<br />
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That final image and those words were the closest any game has come to bringing me to tears. <i>Metal Gear Solid 3</i>,
like the rest of the series, is a goofy game, but its ending is one of
the most somber and moving things I have experienced in a work of
fiction. Despite its sadness, it also manages to be one of the most
satisfying endings to any game I've ever played. Whereas many works of
fiction are lessened when the mystery of their plot is removed, <i>Metal Gear Solid 3</i> is at its strongest when all the veils are lifted.Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-25705932077538337362012-02-18T08:19:00.000-06:002012-02-18T08:19:20.215-06:00Jamestown Extended Edition Part 2I love the music of <i>Jamestown</i> quite a bit. So much so that I made a second extended edition from one of its songs; this time it's <i>War Upon the East Frontier</i>, the first level's music. Same deal as last time: Buy Jamestown. You can get it on Steam or <a href="http://www.finalformgames.com/jamestown/">on the game's website</a>. Anyway, here's my extended edition of <i>War Upon the East Frontier:</i><br />
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<br />As with last time, I did not compose, nor do I own the copyright to this song. If anyone from Final Form Games wants me to remove this, just ask!Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-871578468111836872.post-28596550155741256422012-02-14T00:39:00.000-06:002012-10-26T22:30:23.469-05:00My Top 5 games of 2001: #2 Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (PS2)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Developed: </b>Konami Computer Entertainment Japan<br />
<b> Published: </b>Konami<br />
<b>Genre: </b>Stealth Action<br />
<b>Platform: </b>PS2 (reviewed), Xbox, PC, 360, PS3<br />
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As you may already be aware, I'm a pretty big Metal Gear fan. Of course at the time that this one came out, the only game in the series that I had played was Metal Gear Solid. I didn't even know that Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 existed back then, in fact. Regardless, Metal Gear Solid was my absolute favorite game at the time so I was pumped as hell for the sequel. Every trailer that came out was just mind blowing. Just like with Max Payne and Final Fantasy X, I couldn't believe how good the game looked. Of course I thought the same thing about Donkey Kong Country and Chrono Trigger but you get my point.<br />
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Metal Gear Solid 2 is the continuation of the story of Solid Snake. In the first Metal Gear Solid, he stopped a terrorist uprising in a remote Alaska nuclear disposal facility, but between that game and this one (which takes place only 2 years later), he and his best buddy Otacon have gone rogue to combat the sudden boom of Metal Gear (the series titular giant robots) designs that hit the black market. They have dedicated their lives since then to eradicating the threat that Metal Gear poses on the world in hopes that people will one day live free of the fear of such destructive weapons.<br />
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I need to give a quick shout out to <a href="http://lparchive.org/Metal-Gear-Solid-2-%28Screenshot%29/">Al Cu Ad Solte</a> of <a href="http://lparchive.org/">lparchive.org</a>. I used a lot of screens from his <a href="http://lparchive.org/Metal-Gear-Solid-2-%28Screenshot%29/">Let's Play of MGS2</a>. Just like in my Persona 4 article, there were a lot of screenshots that I couldn't find anywhere else. Again, I hope that's okay but if it's not and in the unlikely event that you'll even read this, Al Cu Ad Solte, just email me and I'll take the screens down. I really need to get a TV tuner.<br />
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The game opens with Snake walking along the George Washington bridge in New York during a rainy night. He exposits (expect to see that word and its synonyms over and over) that he and Otacon received intel that the US Marine Corps has been developing its own version of Metal Gear and he intends to get photographic evidence of it to give to the media. Ever since the events of <i>MGS1</i> became public knowledge, people have been wary of the dangers posed by Metal Gear robots, so the idea that the US government has been making them would look quite bad.<br />
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Snake soon reaches the center of the bridge where he bungees off the side and lands rather roughly on a large Marine Corps cargo boat. Soon after he arrives however, a large group of terrorists, including regular series villain Revolver Ocelot, arrive on the boat and kill all of the Marines on deck and in the bridge. Ocelot sees Snake and seems to have been expecting him, but leaves Snake be for the time being.<br />
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Snake sneaks his way to the bridge where he spots one of the leaders of the terrorists, Olga Gurlukovich, on the deck outside. He is forced to incapacitate her but leaves her alive for whatever reason. If you've read my Metal Gear Solid 4 article, you'd know that Olga's daughter helps save the world in that game so good thing Snake didn't kill her. Just goes to show you that you never know the future consequences of your actions. By the way, Olga is Pregnant at this point so maybe that tranquilizer gun Snake used to knock her out is why Sunny is so damn weird. Anyway, before he heads back inside, a small, remotely piloted military drone takes a picture of him before flying off, leaving Snake and Otacon puzzled about its intentions.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I may not have found a picture of Johnny's shitty pants for my MGS4 article but I did find one of Olga's hairy pits. I can't help but wonder if that's one of Kojima's fetishes... I am so mean to that man.</td></tr>
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Snake makes his way into the cargo hold where Marine Commandant Scott Dolph (who, fun fact, is named after one of Metal Gear series creator Hideo Kojima's best friends) is giving a speech to a huge group of Marines about how awesome their Metal Gear is. Snake soon finds the new Metal Gear, codenamed Ray, and takes his photos. Just as he uploads the photos to Otacon however, Ocelot and Olga's father, Sergei, suddenly show up and take the Commandant hostage. Ocelot then promptly betrays Sergei, saying that he intends to take Metal Gear Ray to the Patriots, who Dolph refers to as the La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo in shock.<br />
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I guess I'll explain the Patriots again. It's a bit of a spoiler but the Patriots are essentially the real leaders of the U.S. in the Metal Gear universe. They are completely unitary, wanting to control every aspect of the world, even going as far as having their name censored by anyone who knows about them and has government nanomachines, which is why Dolph referred to them as the La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo. Interesting story about that codename. It was chosen specifically because there is no L sound in Japanese, making it impossible to say in that language. I'm not sure if they're codenamed that in the Japanese version of the game but regardless, it's an interesting touch that most players probably don't know about.<br />
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Ocelot shoots and kills Dolph and Sergei, then a bunch of Gurlukovich soldiers in probably the coolest scene in the game. Ocelot always gets the best scenes. He had the best scene in MGS4 when he first takes over the SOP system and he has probably my favorite scene in MGS 3 which I'll get to some day. Anyway, he takes out a rather comically sized detonator and sets off explosives placed around the ship, causing the room to start flooding.<br />
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As Ocelot makes his way to Ray's cockpit, Snake runs over and yells at him to stop. Ocelot then does something that I thought was the weirdest shit I had ever seen at the time. He begins to scream and rips off one of his sleeves, but soon calms and refers to Snake as "brother." That's right; Ocelot is possesed by the main villain of MGS1, Liquid Snake, Snake's brother (Specifically, they're both cloned from the same man. Whatever. This shit is confusing enough.). Except he isn't because as you may know from <a href="http://mattsgamequest.blogspot.com/2011/11/my-top-5-games-of-2008-4-metal-gear.html">my MGS4 article</a>, it turns out it was hypnosis all along. What is this, freakin' <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldboy"><i>Oldboy</i></a> or something?<br />
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As I said in that article, Ocelot lost his arm in MGS1 and after Liquid died (of a disease mind you) Ocelot had his arm grafted onto him to replace his own. Never mind the fact that Ocelot is seen running off with his arm in the scene where it gets severed so you'd think they could reattach it but whatever, he had a ridiculous <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit">Xanatos gambit</a> to pull off. They also reveal in MGS3 that Ocelot is the son of the Sorrow, who was history's greatest spirit medium, implying that he already has a predisposition to being possessed. But whatever; its hypnosis.<br />
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Anyway. Ocelot or Liquid or whatever gets into Metal Gear Ray and wrecks the ship up even worse. Snake is thrown overboard and the scene shifts back to Ocelot, who I guess is done being fake possessed, talking to the President for whatever reason. Apparently Ocelot was the one who took the photos of Snake with the flying drone and plans to use them to smear Snake on the news.<br />
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Cut to 2 years later, we hear a familiar voice. It's Colonel Campbell, Snake's commanding officer in MGS1! Yay! He's speaking to a young man that he refers to as Snake but it's obviously not the Snake that we're familiar with. He talks about the incident with the Marine ship sinking, which caused a huge oil spill in the Hudson River.<br />
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A massive, oil drilling platform-like clean-up facility called the Big Shell was built on top of the spill but it was recently taken over by terrorists, led by a group of super-human terrorism experts (Not a joke. Their job before they went rogue was to commit mock terrorist attacks to train the military.) known as Dead Cell, who have taken the President of the United States along with about 30 other people hostage.<br />
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They're demanding 30 billion dollars in exchange for the hostages and are threatening to kill them and demolish the facility if their demands aren't met. This would apparently cause an even worse disaster as the chemicals being used to clean the oil out of the river would pour into it all at once and poison the water for an undetermined amount of time. Jeeze.<br />
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"Snake" infiltrates the Big Shell through a small port at the bottom of the tall facility. As he arrives, 2 teams of Navy SEALs also show up, but they are unaware of his presence. His mission is apparently so top secret that even Navy SEALs aren't in the loop on it. His mission, by the way, is to rescue the President and the other hostages and ensure that the Big Shell isn't destroyed. Piece of cake.<br />
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As he arrives, Campbell decides to change "Snake's" codename to Raiden and thank god cause this would get really confusing to write otherwise. Raiden soon finds that someone entered through the same port as him, knocking out a bunch of terrorists on the way to the elevator up, and it wasn't any of the SEALs. I woooooooooonder who that could be...<br />
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Raiden takes his rebreather off, revealing his goofy, anime-like, white hair and solidifies his place of infamy among fans right off the bat. I'll say right now that I have no big problems with Raiden. I never did, and I may be the only person who would willingly say that. For those who don't know, you play as Raiden, rather than Snake, for the rest of the game and a lot of people hate him for that. Well that and he is kind of an annoying moron.<br />
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Probably just as hated is Raiden's girlfriend, Rosemary, who is the character who calls him the second most after Campbell. And every God damn time she has some dumb shit to say about their relationship. Kinda busy saving the President, sweetie. It might have to wait. One time she calls him up hysterical because she went into his bedroom once and saw that he has no posters or family pictures on the walls and apparently that freaked her out. Good God. She's supposed to be the "mission analyst" who saves your game, which she does, but whenever you call her up she's got some stupid new thing to talk about. Thank God you can skip cutscenes in this game.<br />
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As Raiden takes the elevator up to the main facility, Campbell tells him about the terrorists who call themselves the Sons of Liberty. Name drop! Their leader claims to be Solid Snake but Campbell is convinced that Snake died when the tanker sank. Raiden makes his way to the "strut" where the President was last spotted and I guess I should explain the layout of the Big Shell for clarity's sake.<br />
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The Big Shell is composed of 14 buildings, called struts, raised high above the water, laid out in the shape of two hexagons with 6 buildings on each side surrounding a large central building. These 2 arrangements are referred to as Shells 1 and 2 with the first few hours of Raiden's mission taking place in Shell 1 and the rest in Shell 2. Understand? Good.<br />
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Raiden finds a grisly sight in strut B where one of the SEAL teams was last heard from. Several of them are already dead in the main hall of the building and Raiden sees all but one of the remaining SEALs get massacred by a lightning fast man in a trench coat. The last SEAL gets lucky though and isn't killed by the crazy man who is called by one of his comrades over the radio and promptly leaves.<br />
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The SEAL takes his mask off and we see that it's Snake, who Raiden doesn't recognize for whatever reason even though Snake was supposedly all over the news after the tanker incident, for which he was blamed. Snake, calling himself Pliskin (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_Plissken">clever</a>), somehow infiltrated a Navy SEAL team for reasons yet unknown. He was injured fighting the crazy man, who is Vamp by the way and the first member of Dead Cell introduced, who I talked a bit about in my MGS4 article.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Who do you think you're fooling? Raiden. That's who.</td></tr>
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He's a seemingly immortal man who claims to be a vampire but in reality he just has super powerful nanomachines that can heal any wound. Why wouldn't they put those in more people? Only he and Naomi have them so maybe they only work for some people. Whatever. I remember people throwing out all kinds of crazy theories about this game after it came out who they thought that Vamp really did have powers but he could only come back to life if he touches water, since all three times that he dies in MGS2, he either falls in water or in the case of his first death, another character's tears land on his face.<br />
<br />
Anyhow, Raiden leaves Snake to recuperate and (after a call from Rosemary) finds the other SEAL team fighting the second member of Dead Cell, Fortune, who is possibly the most emo character ever. She wants to die but believes that she can't because she has a seemingly limitless amount of good luck, to the point where bullets fired at her veer off course and even a grenade fired at her during her first scene doesn't explode. She uses a comically over-sized rail gun to kill the other SEAL team and leaves with Vamp who has the unconscious President in tow, along with an important looking briefcase. Remember that for later.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rrbe8VvpRvY/TznOfgS1gQI/AAAAAAAABHw/0aAD5Up91j0/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+Screen+10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rrbe8VvpRvY/TznOfgS1gQI/AAAAAAAABHw/0aAD5Up91j0/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+Screen+10.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now that's a <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BFG">BFG</a> if I've ever seen one. Fortune's got some serious upper body strength.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Raiden calls Campbell with the bad news and is told to switch his priority to bomb disposal to eliminate the terrorists' ability to destroy the Big Shell . Raiden protests, saying that he's no bomb disposal expert but Campbell informs him that an expert just happened to come along with one of the SEAL teams and he's in the next strut over. How convenient.<br />
<br />
Raiden finds him in the cafeteria and immediately points his gun at the old, cane dependent man for whatever reason but is soon stopped by Snake who informs Raiden of the man's pedigree. His name is Peter Stillman and he's apparently THE bomb disposal expert and was brought in because a student of his, another bomb expert known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man">Fatman</a>, happens to be a member of Dead Cell and Peter is the only one good enough to find his bombs.<br />
<br />
Peter gives Snake and Raiden sensors that can detect Fatman's cologne, which he apparently puts on every bomb that he makes. He also gives them spray cans full of liquid nitrogen to freeze the bombs so they don't have to worry about defusing them and the developers don't have to make a bomb defusing minigame. I really wanna know if that would actually work.<br />
<br />
Raiden and Snake split up and get to work freezing bombs with Raiden taking care of Shell 1 and Snake defusing bombs in Shell 2, but according to Peter, the places where they find them are horrible choices if the terrorists intend to destroy the Big Shell. After another dumb conversation with Rosemary, Raiden is called by a person calling himself Mr. X who warns him to watch out for landmines on one of the connecting bridges between the struts. Okay then.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hTy9f5KLEIE/TznVfKJVTbI/AAAAAAAABH4/ugD9lL6nmE4/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+Screen+11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hTy9f5KLEIE/TznVfKJVTbI/AAAAAAAABH4/ugD9lL6nmE4/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+Screen+11.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">God dammit, Rosemary. Is now really the best time? I'm just a bit busy DEFUSING BOMBS at the moment.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Raiden comes across Olga Gurlukovich, who is now in control of her father's army (who make up the bulk of the terrorists on the Big Shell by the way) after his death. She speaks with an unknown man over the radio who seems to mistrust her when she tells him that she saw a man dressed as a ninja and another man hiding under a cardboard box. Who would ever question a story like that? Raiden attempts to hold her up but she quickly escapes, leaving him to continue his bomb disposal.<br />
<br />
Raiden gets a conference call from Peter and Snake, who says he found a huge cache of explosives at the base of one of the struts, and they don't have Fatman's signature cologne on them. Stillman finally realizes that they've been tricked and heads over to the explosives Snake found and tells the other two to take care of the rest of the bombs while he takes a look at the big one.<br />
<br />
As Raiden takes care of his last bomb, Peter tells him to head back to THE AREA WHERE HE STARTED to take care of one last bomb for real this time. Snake takes care of the last bomb on his end when Peter yells that the big batch of explosives has started counting down, forcing Raiden to hurry to his last bomb. He disarms it but Peter calls and says that the big bomb has a proximity trigger that will kill him if he tries to run so there's nothing he can do to save himself. The bomb explodes, killing him and damaging a large portion of one of the struts of Shell 2.<br />
<br />
Raiden heads back but runs into Fortune who thinks he is Snake who she believes killed her father, Marine Commandant Dolph. Well there's one source of her emo demeanor. She attacks him relentlessly with her hilariously overpowered rail gun and Raiden is just as helpless as the SEALs with all of the bullets he fires at her veering off course. Adding further insult is the fact that her health bar as you "fight" her is absurdly small.<br />
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Vamp suddenly shows up too and prepares to attack Raiden who shoots at Fortune a few more times, causing the bullets to veer right into Vamp, one of them hitting him in the forehead. He collapses and Fortune emos out some more. Raiden walks right up to her and puts his gun against her head but DOESN'T kill her for God knows what reason. He leaves and we see Fortune crying all over Vamp who suddenly wakes up, saying that he already died once so he can't die again. "Fool me once" taken to the extreme, I suppose.<br />
<br />
Campbell tells Raiden that Fatman contacted them and wants to speak to Raiden face to face, so he heads back to the other side of Shell 1 where he disarms another stupidly placed bomb on the heliport when a very strange sight appears. Fatman shows up, wearing a full bomb disposal suit and roller-blades which somehow allow him to move lightning fast despite his apparent weight and the FULL BOMB DISPOSAL SUIT.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Enough talk! Have at y- Wait...I think I already made that joke before...</td></tr>
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Fatman is probably the hammiest villain in this game and that's saying something. He gloats about how he beat Peter at his own game and that he'll go down in history, blah blah blah. Raiden strikes a nerve when he calls him a common criminal though and Fatman attacks.<br />
<br />
After a ridiculous boss battle involving Fatman skating around and putting bombs all over the place, he gloats that the biggest bomb in the place is set to go off before dying, finally tipping the scales a bit in Raiden's favor. One Dead Cell loony down. Raiden soon finds a novelty sized block of C4 right under Fatman's body and freezes it, ending the bombing threat. Great hiding place for your trump card, dumbass.<br />
<br />
After a quick call from Campbell who tells Raiden to switch his priority back to saving the President, Snake calls him up. Raiden asks how Shell 2 is looking after the explosion. Snake replies that its a mess but seems to know nothing about the chemicals that would poison the water if the Big Shell were demolished. Yay, foreshadowing! Snake tells him that he didn't find the hostages anywhere in Shell 2 so they must be in the core of Shell 1, the only place either of them has yet to go.<br />
<br />
He tells Raiden that he found a helicopter that they can use to save the hostages and that he brought a "gearhead" with him that can pilot it. I wonder who that could be. The only problem now is that the terrorists have a harrier jet that would make quick work of the helicopter so they need to take care of that first.<br />
<br />
Raiden head back down from the heliport and finds himself face to face with a ninja and God dammit. I can't write for one paragraph without craziness happening. The ninja is dressed in a cybernetic suit of armor that looks almost identical to Grey Fox's in MGS1. The ninja says that he is a messenger from the "La Li Lu Le Lo" and despite the fact that they are talking face to face, he calls Raiden on his codec. I guess codec scenes take up less disc space.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Pwj8TTHaTRw/TznYhkYl72I/AAAAAAAABIQ/DsWpJ9O8CjQ/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+Screen+14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Pwj8TTHaTRw/TznYhkYl72I/AAAAAAAABIQ/DsWpJ9O8CjQ/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+Screen+14.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hmm. I'm not the only one recycling lines.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The ninja is apparently Mr. X, the person who warned Raiden about the landmines earlier. He tells Raiden that he knows the location of the person who knows the location of the President. That sentence hurt. The president is apparently being held separately from the rest of the hostages and the head of the secret service, who is among the hostages, somehow knows where the president is. Why would the terrorists discuss that or anything else in front of the hostages? Whatever.<br />
<br />
Mr. X exposits further that "we" don't know what Ames looks like or even what their gender is. He DOES know that Ames has a pacemaker and that Raiden can use a long range microphone to listen for it. I'm not kidding. That's the next gameplay segment. Identifying someone by listening to a bunch of hostages heartbeats until you find one that sounds weird. Also, I call bullshit on nobody knowing Ames' gender. He's the ex-husband of MGS1 character Nastasha Ramanenko who wrote the book about MGS1 that made that game's events public knowledge and founded Philanthropy, the anti-Metal Gear group that Snake and Otacon are members of, so Snake and Otacon would know at least. God Dammit.<br />
<br />
Anyway, now that my absurd knowledge of obscure <i>Metal Gear</i> facts is out of the way (it'll be back), the Ninja gives Raiden a bunch of fun stuff, including a better security card than Raiden's, a uniform that looks like the terrorists', and a cell phone which Mr. X says he might be glad he has. All righty then.<br />
<br />
Mr. X warns Raiden that the terrorists have a nuclear weapon and the briefcase computer thing that is necessary to launch it AND the President's access code for the computer. That is a lot of screw ups on the secret service's part there. Raiden asks how the terrorists could have gotten a nuke and why the President brought the nuclear button with him and Mr. X explains that the Big Shell is actually a cover for a Metal Gear development facility, just like Shadow Moses island in MGS1. He tells Raiden to ask Ames about the rest and quickly disappears when Raiden looks away for a split second.<br />
<br />
After a silly gameplay segment where you have to sneak into the core of Shell 1 and get into the hostage room by jamming a terrorist's face into the retina scanner outside, Raiden finally finds Ames with the afore mentioned microphone, pacemaker sillyness. Ames talks for even longer than Mr. X and does the same dumb shit of talking over the codec even though they're face to face. Ames, like Mr. X, claims to be an agent of the "La Li Lu Le Lo" and says that the President is in the core of Shell 2, meaning Snake didn't search very well over there if he managed to miss the PRESIDENT.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3U-RuCnVcCA/TznZ2dO39nI/AAAAAAAABIY/L02xMGt4-s8/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+Screen+15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3U-RuCnVcCA/TznZ2dO39nI/AAAAAAAABIY/L02xMGt4-s8/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+Screen+15.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">GAMEPLAY!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Rather than shutting up after giving Raiden the one piece of information he needs to rescue the President, Ames goes on, saying that the hostages wouldn't dare harm the President because the nuclear button is wired to his nanomachines and will shut off if he dies. He also confirms that the Big Shell is nothing more than a front for a Metal Gear R&D facility and that the nuclear button can activate the new model of Metal Gear as well, which is why the President came to the Big Shell.<br />
<br />
Ocelot and the as of yet unseen leader of the terrorists show up in a nearby room and Raiden listens in on their conversation. They talk about Fatman and Raiden, wondering if they're both agents of the Patriots and mention that they only need the President for one more hour before they make "that girl" activate Metal Gear.<br />
<br />
Olga shows up and demands to know who the ninja is, finding it highly suspicious that Ocelot and a cyborg ninja both happened to be at Shadow Moses and now here in the Big Shell. Apparently she thinks the 60-something year old cowboy might be the ninja himself, even though Grey Fox died at the end of MGS1 and was the one who cut off Ocelot's hand. Whatever.<br />
<br />
After a scolding from the terrorist leader, she walks off and Ocelot begins to have some kind off attack, apparently brought on by liquid's arm (though we already know that isn't true.) The terrorist leader complains that they spent a fortune having that arm attached by the best transplant team in the world in Lyon, to which Ocelot repies with probably my favorite line in the game: "I never trust a Frenchman." lolracism<br />
<br />
Raiden asks Ames if the terrorist leader is really Solid Snake, to which Ames replies that Snake died when the tanker sank so there would have to be two of him, which he says is impossible. I think Liquid Snake would like to disagree with that. If he wasn't busy being dead and fake possessing Ocelot. He warns Raiden that it won't be long before they launch a nuke, to which Raiden argues that it's nowhere near the ransom deadline.<br />
<br />
Ames seems confused and says that detonating a nuke miles above New York has been their goal all along. They plan to shut down the city's power with an electromagnetic pulse and take over Manhattan, making it an independent republic. Apparently an EMP would make police officers and members of the military unable to fight back or else that plan is really, really stupid.<br />
<br />
Ocelot strolls up and asks what Raiden (who is still dressed like one of the terrorists) what he's doing with Ames, who says he felt ill. Ocelot calls him a liar and says he knows who he really is: a Colonel working for the Defense Intelligence Agency sent to keep tabs on the President. Ames suddenly dies exactly like Decoy Octopus and Kenneth Baker in MGS1: seemingly for no reason, though it was later revealed to be FOXDIE that killed those two. I'm not explaining FOXDIE again. Read <a href="http://mattsgamequest.blogspot.com/2011/11/my-top-5-games-of-2008-4-metal-gear.html">the MGS4 article</a>.<br />
<br />
Ocelot pulls Raiden's ski mask off but Mr. X suddenly falls from the ceiling, nearly cutting off Ocelot's arm who manages to dodge just in time. Mr. X covers Raiden, who quickly escapes and makes his way to Shell 2 to rescue the President. Hopefully he's a bad enough dude to do it.<br />
<br />
After clearing a shitload of C4 off the connecting bridge between the two Shells, Raiden sees snake and Otacon fly by in the helicopter that they hope to use to rescue the hostages. The terrorist leader shows up and proclaims to be Solid Snake, which irritates the real Snake who yells that he's an imposter. The terrorist leader then calls Snake brother and the game finally introduces him as Solidus Snake. I guess Gas Snake would have sounded silly.<br />
<br />
So yeah, we're getting into soap opera parody territory here. A third clone of Big Boss. Lord have mercy. It gets even weirder than that though. The last scene in MGS1 is an off camera discussion between Ocelot and an unknown person on the phone who we can't hear. Ocelot refers to him as Solidus, then Mr. President. That's right. Solidus was the President of the United States just before the current one that he's holding hostage. Wheeeeeee!<br />
<br />
The terrorists' harrier jet shows up, piloted by Vamp. Solidus jumps in the gunner seat and prepares to shoot down the helicopter. Snake throws Raiden a rocket launcher and tells him to take down the harrier because I guess a soldier on foot with a rocket launcher would be more effective at taking down a fighter jet than a military helicopter. Whatever.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-shU8tWXF2Ho/TzncQH6KUEI/AAAAAAAABIg/VeFpwpGVb4s/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+Screen+16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-shU8tWXF2Ho/TzncQH6KUEI/AAAAAAAABIg/VeFpwpGVb4s/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+Screen+16.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You'd think a not vampire and a clone of Big Boss in a Harrier would be able to take down a lone soldier in seconds, but whatever.</td></tr>
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Raiden, of course manages to take the jet down, which falls into the harbor but is caught by a Metal Gear Ray. Apparently they have those. Solidus was injured during the fight so he sends Vamp off to kill Raiden. Vamp jumps out of the jet and RUNS ON THE WATER. Apparently his super nanomachines let him do that. Allow me to quote the Angry Video Game Nerd here: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVBerX6Dzmc&t=309">"...why is this guy walking on water? Who does he think he is, Jesus Christ?"</a><br />
<br />
Raiden calls Snake up and asks him the obvious: are you the real Solid Snake? Instead of doing what I would have and yell "Well duh, moron", Snake is pretty humble about it, talking about all the goofy secret agent philosophical BS from MGS1. The one thing that we DO learn is that Otacon's sister is being held hostage somewhere in the Big Shell. So two Presidents, a not vampire, a woman who can make bullets veer off course, Otacon's sister, and multiple Metal Gears are all here. This game is silly.<br />
<br />
Raiden is forced to make his way along the outer wall of Shell 2 since the main entrance was destroyed in the battle and eventually finds his way into the Shell 2 core. As he nears the room the President is in, he comes across Olga talking with Solidus over the radio. They bitch each other out some more about who's the bigger traitor. Meh. The one important thing said here is that the floor right outside the President's room is electrified, much like the lab area in MGS1. Olga leaves and Raiden is forced to do the same thing as Snake in MGS1: find a remote control missile launcher to shoot a missile through a vent and destroy the control panel for the electric floor. Yippee...<br />
<br />
After that's dealt with, Raiden FINALLY speaks with the President who, after talking with Raiden for about 10 seconds, I'm not kidding here, grabs his crotch to check his gender. You could have just asked, you creeper. And Raiden isn't THAT girly. Especially in the Japanese language track here he has a really deep, manly voice, but I digress.<br />
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The President, whose name is James Johnson by the way, admits that he worked with the terrorists willingly because he though he could get power. Raiden questions this, saying that as the President of the United States so he already has power. President Johnson then forever convolutes the story of Metal Gear by finally explaining the Patriots, which I already spoiled earlier in this article so scroll up if you want that explanation again.<br />
<br />
President Johnson goes on to say that he wished to become a member of the Patriots and I guess betraying them and helping a terrorist group take over New York would really make them take a shine to him. He then talks about Solidus, saying that the events of MGS1 were his doing, which is why he was taken out of office by the Patriots. They intended to assassinate him soon after but Solidus managed to escape and create his army with Dead Cell and the Gurlukovich soldiers.<br />
<br />
He then drops maybe the silliest bombshell of them all: the new model of Metal Gear being developed at the Big Shell IS the Big Shell itself. The upper cleanup facility is merely a cover for a huge, underwater Metal Gear known as Arsenal Gear. Arsenal Gear itself is a giant battleship with a payload of thousands of missiles, including nukes and a horde of mass produced Metal Gear Rays to protect it. Arsenal also has full control over the United States military, making it the precursor to the Patriots' SOP system in MGS4. Pretty scary stuff there.<br />
<br />
It gets even wackier. Arsenal Gear's purpose is not only to show off the Patriots' military might; it's controlled by an AI called GW that also exists to put a stop to the free flow of information on the internet. That's right; Kojima predicted SOPA a decade ago. lulz<br />
<br />
President Johnson then tells Raiden what he has to do: find the last remaining programmer of GW, Emma Emmerich, Otacon's sister. He gives Raiden a disc with a virus on it that Emma can use to destroy GW, rendering Arsenal Gear useless. And Just like that goofy computer virus in MGS4, it's somehow based on the human virus FOXDIE. Bah humbug.<br />
<br />
The President then grabs Raiden's arm and points his gun at his chest, ordering Raiden to kill him. Raiden resists but a gunshot rings out and President Johnson falls to the floor. Raiden is shocked and quickly turns around to find Ocelot standing with his revolver barrel smoking. He jokes that his trigger finger must have slipped and bids Raiden farewell, referring to him as "carrier boy" for whatever reason. He leaves and Raiden tries to give chase but President Johnson grabs his leg, telling him to let Ocelot go and to find Emma so they can stop Arsenal Gear.<br />
<br />
With that, President Johnson dies and Raiden calls up Colonel Campbell. Campbell claims to know nothing about what the President was talking about but says they should take his claim about Arsenal Gear seriously at the very least and orders Raiden to find Emma.<br />
<br />
Raiden calls up Snake and Otacon next. He tells them about the President and asks if they knew about the Big Shell being a cover for Arsenal Gear, which they apparently did. Everybody except Raiden and Campbell seem to know everything going on around here... They tell Raiden about the tanker incident; that it was a set up from the very beginning to create an oil spill so they could make Arsenal Gear without anyone questioning it.<br />
<br />
The Patriots also managed to kill two birds with one stone by sullying Snake and Otacon's names so nobody would take their anti-Metal Gear activities seriously. They end the conversation with a strange question: If Ocelot was the one behind the tanker incident, meaning he was working for the Patriots, why did he ally himself with Solidus who wants to destroy them?<br />
<br />
Anyway, After an annoying swim through the core of Shell 2, which was flooded after the big bomb went off earlier, Raiden finds Vamp sitting on top of the surface of the water in a pump room. Apparently his super nanomachines allow him to do that too. Even if he really was a vampire, I've never heard of them being able to just stand on water like freakin' Jesus. Uhg, I'm thinking way too hard about dumb shit...<br />
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For whatever reason, Vamp tells Raiden that even with the President dead, they have an experimental nuke they can use and Arsenal Gear is already in the process of coming online. They fight it out for a while before Raiden manages to supposedly kill Vamp for a second time and continues on, but not before ANOTHER call from Rosemary who decides to freak out about Raiden never being able to relax near her or some other stupid shit. This is the conversation I mentioned earlier where she freaks out about his room having nothing but a bed in it. I don't know. Rosemary is really weird.<br />
<br />
After that nonsense, he manages to find Emma in a locker, just like how Snake found her brother in MGS1. And just like her brother, she wets her pants in terror at the sight of Raiden who points his gun right in her face for whatever reason. He does that to every character he meets, now that I think about it. Moron.<br />
<br />
Emma is of course apprehensive about going with a man who just pointed a gun in her face but Raiden eventually convinces her to come along. That is until they get to the flooded area. Emma then refuses to go any farther because she's afraid of water. Then why in the holy hell would you work in a facility that is completely surrounded by it? What-freaking-ever.<br />
<br />
Raiden eventually convinces her to hold onto his back so he can do the swimming for both of them and eventually they make it to dry land where they take a break. After some unnecessarily long banter about Otacon and Emma's history, they continue on. As they make their way into another flooded section, Emma delays the inevitable swim by talking about Arsenal Gear and GW.<br />
<br />
Apparently she designed GW and knows all about what it's designed for. She reiterates what President Johnson told him about GW censoring the internet and says that the Patriots want to control information at a level where the public will believe literally anything that they say, going as far as to say that they could change the number of letters in the alphabet if they wanted to. She also tells him that Arsenal Gear isn't only a showcase of the Patriots' military might; it mainly exists to protect GW so their control can never be lost.<br />
<br />
Not only that, but every other computer in the world also contains a program that works together with GW to regulate the things people post online. Holy shit. Talk about control freaks. Emma says that the system isn't complete yet however, and that the Patriots are planning a major test to see how well they can manipulate the flow of information.<br />
<br />
They continue on and find that the way to Shell 1, and the computer room where they have to input the virus, are cut off, so they'll have to use the oil fence right above the water to get there. There are soldiers and robotic sentries along the way so Raiden lets Emma go first as he clears the way with his sniper rifle in probably my favorite segment in the game.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gzEB04SQlXM/TznxVzBzA0I/AAAAAAAABI4/Kbe6JhkpxpY/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+Screen+19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gzEB04SQlXM/TznxVzBzA0I/AAAAAAAABI4/Kbe6JhkpxpY/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+Screen+19.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stay dead already!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Vamp decides to not be dead again though and grabs Emma, holding a knife to her throat and taunting Raiden from a distance. Raiden manages to kill Vamp for the third time but as Emma slowly walks to the end of the oil fence we see that she has a knife wound on her abdomen that is bleeding badly.<br />
<br />
Snake rushes over and takes her to the computer room with Raiden quickly following. They begin uploading the virus but it stops at 90%. They wonder if the Patriots tampered with the disc and decide all they can do now is kill Solidus and his men. Emma and Otacon share a soap opera moment before she dies and Otacon cries for like 15 minutes.<br />
<br />
He explains why Emma is afraid of water: because their father drowned in their swimming pool when she was young and she nearly drowned as well. Otacon would have helped her but he was busy having sex with his stepmother. I'm not kidding. That's the story he tells here. I swear, this game would be over in like half an hour if characters would stop interrupting the plot with their inane stories.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y4ZE0qVJmv8/Tzn8yptRmgI/AAAAAAAABKI/SLLQomZFUpc/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+shot+29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y4ZE0qVJmv8/Tzn8yptRmgI/AAAAAAAABKI/SLLQomZFUpc/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+shot+29.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I know that feel bro</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
When Otacon finally pulls himself mostly together, they split up, with Otacon going to rescue the hostages and Snake and Raiden heading for Arsenal Gear. Raiden asks how they'll get aboard when Mr. X suddenly falls from the ceiling and reveals his face, or rather HER face. It turns out Mr. X was Olga. She knocks Raiden out and we see a quick scene of Big Shell collapsing and a dark image of Arsenal Gear underwater. The scene again shifts to a black screen where we faintly hear Solidus and Ocelot talking.<br />
<br />
As the scene slowly comes into view in a first person perspective, Ocelot says that there is no data anywhere about Raiden, even in the CIA and FBI databases; he's essentially a nonexistent person. Solidus claims to know who he is though. As Raiden's vision clears up, we see that solidus now has an eyepatch over one eye and a couple of Dr. Octopus robot tentacles coming out of his suit. Also, the tentacles say US ARMY on them so I guess Kojima is implying that the United States military has secret robot tentacles. Also giant robots designed to fight other giant robots but whatever.<br />
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Solidus calls Raiden "Jack the Ripper" and asks if he remembers him before choking him with one tentacle and scanning his head with the other. He wonders if his memories have been and we finally see Raiden, who is strapped to a rack completely naked. lolz<br />
<br />
Solidus pads the game out some more by telling us about Raiden's past. Apparently Raiden was a child soldier in an unknown country under Solidus' command. Solidus also claims to be his godfather. Okay so in addition to being a clone of Big Boss and the President of the United States, Solidus was also the commander of child soldiers in some unknown country, one of which was his godson? What is going on in Kojima's head?<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By the way, Raiden's nudity is censored Austin Powers style for this whole scene.</td></tr>
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They discuss their plains in front of Raiden for whatever reason, saying that Arsenal Gear will be ready to attack in one hour. After Solidus leaves the room, Ocelot shows Raiden the virus disc before pocketing it and leaving too. Olga shows up and tells Raiden that she's an agent of the Patriots sent to make sure his mission is a success. If you've read my MGS4 article you may already know why but anyway, its because the Patriots are holding Olga's daughter, Sunny, hostage.<br />
<br />
She tells him that she'll let him out of his restraints but it's up to him to find Snake who has his gear. She punches him in the stomach for show before stepping out of the room. Rosemary decides to call up but this time it's Raiden's turn to tell a story. He tells her all the creepy details about how the child soldiers were brainwashed with praise and shown violent action movies if they survived the days fighting. Anyone who refused to fight was shot, so it was either fight or die. Man this is getting dark. Moving on.<br />
<br />
Raiden's restraints release and he's finally able to leave. Unfortunately he's naked and has no equipment. Queue the funniest gameplay segment in the whole series. That's right! You play as naked Raiden who covers his nudity at all times with at least one hand so you can only use basic attacks; nothing that would require both hands and net this game an AO rating, at least back then.<br />
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Adding even more wackiness to an already absurd area is the fact that Colonel Campbell and Rosemary have gone absolutely ape shit insane. They call you literally every few seconds with some crazy shit to say. First, Campbell calls up and tells you to complete the mission acording to the simulation and says "We have Rosemary." Then, they demand that you turn the game off, saying that the mission is a failure and that you'll ruin your eyes sitting so close to the TV. After that, Campbell tells a story about how he was abducted by aliens recently. He'll randomly spout lines from previous Metal Gear games and at one point says one of my favorite lines ever:<br />
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Video courtesy of YouTube user snaykscommentaries.<br />
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After that madness, Raiden finally finds Snake who thankfully gives him his clothes and equipment back. Rosemary calls up sounding normal again, and speaks with Raiden for a moment, telling him that she's a patriot spy who was tasked with monitoring him from the moment they met and reveals that she's pregnant with his child before her signal is cut off.<br />
<br />
Snake warns Raiden that there's a horde of soldiers that they'll have to fight through and a production line of at least 25 Metal Gear Rays that they may have to contend with as well. Raiden starts to feel some self doubt but Snake gives him a pep talk, telling him not to dwell on the past and to find something to believe in for the future. Otacon calls them up to tell them that the hostages are safe and Raiden tells him about how strange Campbell and Rosemary were acting all of a sudden. Otacon tells him that he'll look into it and they continue on.<br />
<br />
They fight through a horde of Solidus' most elite troops and get another call from Otacon who drops another wacky bombshell: The Colonel's transmissions have been originating from inside Arsenal Gear and they have the same encryption protocol as GW. That's right, folks! Raiden has been talking to Arsenal Gear for the entire game. Let me quote Ayla from <i>Chrono Trigger</i> here and say "No more rubbish or head go BOOM!"<br />
<br />
Otacon goes on to say that the Colonel isn't just the Arsenal Gear AI, he's also a figment of Raiden's imagination which GW created to control him and the virus they partially uploaded has started to take effect, explaining the Colonel's bizarre behavior. BOOM! There goes my head. Raiden starts to freak out, wondering if anything is real but Snake again snaps him out of it and they move on.<br />
<br />
The Colonel or GW or whatever calls up again frantic, saying that "they have Rosemary," which Raiden's dumb ass falls for AGAIN. They continue on regardless and fight even more soldiers in a crazy fight where the screen will randomly flash white and a fake game over screen will display for a few seconds before returning to normal.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-G2eefJnvmwI/Tznzgw946fI/AAAAAAAABJQ/wMtXSx0ZCEw/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+shot+22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-G2eefJnvmwI/Tznzgw946fI/AAAAAAAABJQ/wMtXSx0ZCEw/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+shot+22.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Also, for the duration of the "Fission Mailed" screen, gameplay is squeezed into a tiny box in the corner. And I don't know how one would mail a nuclear reaction but it certainly would be a good trick.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After the soldiers are dealt with, Fortune shows up and Snake tells Raiden to go ahead while he fights with her. Raiden soon finds himself in cyberspace or something. I don't know. Just go with it. I think I said the exact same thing at one point in my MGS4 article...<br />
<br />
Solidus can be heard in the distance, taunting Raiden some more, saying that he's the proud achievement of the "S3 program," which stands for "Solid Snake Simulation." The Patriots wanted to create a soldier on par with Snake, so they trained Raiden with virtual reality and sent him in to stop the Big Shell takeover to test his abilities in a real world situation.<br />
<br />
Solidus suddenly rockets into view, along with a horde of Metal Gear Rays. He sics them on Raiden who manages to hold them back for a while with the missile launcher that he somehow still has from when he fought the harrier. He collapses from exhaustion after defeating a few of them and Olga is forced to reveal her betrayal of Solidus as she comes to Raiden's defense. She tells him that his nanomachines are transmitting his vital signs to the Patriots so if he dies, Sunny dies too.<br />
<br />
Solidus Jumps back into view and immediately kills Olga and waves at the Metal Gear Rays to continue their attack. Instead of attacking just Raiden however, they start going nuts and go after Solidus too. Ocelot yells over the loudspeaker that GW is out of control and Arsenal Gear is on an emergency ascent course. Solidus immediately blames the Patriots like he always does and forget what I said about the scene early in the game with Ocelot killing all those guys being the best one in the game. This one is waaaaay cooler:<br />
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Video brought to us by metalgearsolid.org and YouTube user Dragonarh.<br />
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For those who don't feel like watching video clip (or if the video is removed, which wouldn't surprise me), Solidus kills the shit out of the remaining Metal Gear Rays and decides not to kill Raiden because he "still has some use." As Fortune walks up with Snake in handcuffs, Solidus knocks Raiden unconscious with an electric shock.<br />
<br />
Raiden wakes up on top of Arsenal Gear along with Snake, Solidus, Fortune, Ocelot and an inactive Metal Gear Ray. Solidus picks up Raiden by the neck with on of his robot tentacles and begins to choke him. Fortune begins to walk off, saying that she has business to attend to but stops when Solidus asks if she's planning to hijack Arsenal Gear. She immediately gives herself away by asking who talked but Solidus tells her that he planned to give it to her in the first place because it's useless without a crew of hundreds and support from other vehicles. He tells her that his objective was never to keep Arsenal Gear, but to get a list of names of the Patriots so he can hunt them down and kill them.<br />
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Ocelot begins to laugh and tells Solidus that the Patriots orchestrated everything that happened in the Big Shell. They had Ocelot sink the tanker to create the cover for the Big Shell, sent in Olga, her soldiers and Fatman, killed Ames with his own nanomachines, told President Johnson what to say to Raiden, and created the virus that infected GW to make sure every scrap of information on the Patriots identities were deleted. They even had Ocelot kill Commandant Dolph, Fortune's father, to provoke Dead Cell (They also killed Fortune's husband and two other members of Dead Cell named <a href="http://metalgear.wikia.com/wiki/Chinaman">Chinaman</a> and <a href="http://metalgear.wikia.com/wiki/Old_Boy">Old Boy</a>. I am not making that up.) The entire Big Shell incident was a recreation of the events of MGS1 to test Raiden's abilities.<br />
<br />
Fortune realizes that all her emo rage has been Ocelot's fault the whole time and readies her rail gun. Ocelot quickly shoots at her and the bullet doesn't veer of course this time; it hits her right in the heart. He tells her she doesn't have any powers; she's been protected by a magnetic shield generator the whole time. Fortune manages to stand back up and fires a shot at Ocelot which is deflected the same way as her shield. He pats a rectangular device on his belt, the same type of shield generator that protected Fortune. Apparently that magnet shield can deflect lightning or whatever the hell Fortune's crazy gun shoots out.<br />
<br />
Ocelot remarks that Fortune's heart is on the right (which is apparently a real world heart defect), but doesn't shoot her again for whatever reason. Instead he jumps in Metal Gear Ray's cockpit as Solidus uselessly shoots at him. Ocelot fires a hail of bullets out of Ray's machine gun at Solidus who deflects all of them with a pair of swords. One of the deflected bullets breaks Snake's handcuffs as Ocelot unleashes a hail of missiles upon the others. Fortune slowly steps in front of the others and somehow deflects the attack by holding her hands forward. I guess she really does have powers.<br />
<br />
The effort proves too great for her though and she falls to the ground, dead. Ocelot decides to get fake possessed again and we see that Liquid is such a ham that he even make Metal Gear Ray stand up tall in a proud pose as he speaks. Not Liquid claims he was the one who leaked the information about Arsenal Gear to Otacon so Snake would make his appearance and says that he's off to kill the Patriots. Snake decides to be a reckless moron and chase after Metal Gear Ray as it dives into the water but diving in at the SAME TIME.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oh, Liquid. Is there no scene that you can't fill with camp?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Arsenal Gear starts moving fast and crashes into Manhattan Island where Raiden and Solidus fly off and land on Federal hall, which is about 10 miles from the Verrazano bridge which they pass under during the cutscene but whatever. After they recover, Solidus starts his dumb villain speech about how he's the real good guy here but is interrupted by the longest codec conversation in the game.<br />
<br />
An unknown Patriot AI (Speculated to be JD, the head Patriot AI in MGS4) calls Raiden up and starts babbling on and on about all kinds of crazy shit. It's actually a pretty interesting scene. The Patriots believe that the freedom of the internet allows too much "junk data" to pile up and is a threat to human evolution. The AI reveals that S3 does not stand for "Solid Snake Simulation," but rather "Selection for Societal Sanity."<br />
<br />
The Big Shell disaster and Raiden's mission were the ultimate test of the S3 program's ability to control an individual. Raiden was selected because of his relationship with Solidus as a soldier under his command and because he was the only one out of all the child soldiers that they could have used who refused to accept the past. They consider him to be a perfect representative of the masses they wish to control. They give him his final mission objective: Kill Solidus. He refuses at first but they remind him that they are holding Sunny and Rosemary hostage.<br />
<br />
The codec conversation finally ends and Solidus decides to give Raiden some motivation by telling him that he was the one who killed his parents. Queue the dramatic impact sound effect. Anyway, Solidus gives Raiden a sword for whatever reason and they fight it out. Even with Solidus' robot suit and myriad of abilities, Raiden manages to overcome him and land a killing blow.<br />
<br />
Solidus stumbles to the edge of the building and falls to the street below, landing behind the memorial statue of George Washington. Solidus makes a futile reach up to the father of our country before finally dying. Raiden climbs down to the street as people converge on the disaster when Snake suddenly shows up. God knows how he managed to get from the New York Harbor to Federal Hall so quickly but whatever this is Metal Gear.<br />
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Snake tells him a bunch of motivational stuff about finding something to believe in and whatever. He takes out the virus disc that Ocelot supposedly too and says they gave Raiden a fake one to throw Ocelot off. They hope to sift through the virus data and find out who the Patriots really are. He tells Raiden to stay alive until they can rescue Sunny and leaves just as Rosemary walks up.<br />
<br />
Raiden finally remembers why Rosemary has been harassing him for the whole game about what's so special about today: its the day they met. Dumbass. They decide to get married and the credits roll. But the game's not over yet. Snake monologues about the importance of passing on our history to the coming generation, which is the theme of this game: Memes. No not freaking Rick roll or some other dumb shit. I mean the real definition of the word Meme: the passing of ideas and culture to the next generation. Passing on what our genes can't.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By the way...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AZtqlmwYYZ4/Tzn5pL3x26I/AAAAAAAABJw/5hF87rz2GME/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+shot+26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AZtqlmwYYZ4/Tzn5pL3x26I/AAAAAAAABJw/5hF87rz2GME/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+shot+26.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vamp is in the ending.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ENHANCE!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Anyway, the screen fades to black and we hear a conversation between Snake and Otacon. Otacon found the names of the Patriots and one of them is a contributor to Philanthropy. The only problem is: they've all been dead for about a hundred years. DUN DUN DUN!!!<br />
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God, I really need to work on my summaries. That shit was way too long. But just as in my Metal Gear Solid 4 and Persona 4 articles, it was worth it. Metal Gear Solid 2 had soooo much to live up to for me. MGS1 was my favorite game at the time it came out and every trailer for the game was like hype crack. I just couldn't have been more excited. So did it live up to my expectations? Yep.<br />
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Let me address the first thing that many people hate about MGS2: Raiden. They see him as a bad replacement for Snake, and feel like they were lied to by all the pre-release information that only showed Snake in the tanker. That was the point. This whole game is about information manipulation. And what better way to manipulate the player than to make them think they'll be playing as their favorite character than to make them play as another for most of the game? I really gotta hand it to Hideo Kojima and his team. They pulled off one of the most impressive bait and switches in the history of fiction.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5tw7E_fnTqk/Tzn7mYxyjnI/AAAAAAAABKA/TQTNiHMbX1Y/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+shot+28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5tw7E_fnTqk/Tzn7mYxyjnI/AAAAAAAABKA/TQTNiHMbX1Y/s1600/Metal+Gear+Solid+2+shot+28.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">See Raiden anywhere on the back of the box?</td></tr>
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People also complain about how weird the game is. First off: it's a Metal Gear game. Second: I agree with the theory that the game is meant to be postmodern. Postmodern art rejects the norm and approaches things from an angle that the viewer, or in this case, player, may find alien or even uncomfortable. Raiden's design is the first indication of that. He has a slender, androgynous build and strange, white hair that you don't see too often. He also does and says things that are just slightly off, like the way he points his gun at every character he meets like an idiot.<br />
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Slightly off is a good way to describe many elements of MGS2. The Big Shell section of the game is meant to mirror MGS1 and in many ways it does, but everything just feel a bit strange. Elements of various characters from MGS1 are split up and mixed around in characters that Raiden meets. Vamp for example, dresses like Liquid Snake, has otherworldly powers and superhuman strength like Vulcan Raven, and slaughters a group of soldiers with a bladed weapon like Grey Fox. He behaves in such a strange, alien fashion though, which just makes him feel, well, weird. There's little details like that all over MGS2 that add up to an experience that brings the player out of their comfort zone.<br />
<br />
Moving on from that... From a gameplay standpoint, MGS2 was absolutely stellar back in the day, though after playing through it again for this article, it feels a bit dated. The game has a fixed camera meaning you'll have to be careful and check around every corner and make good use of the radar to get through the game without being spotted. Combat isn't that bad, but you either have to auto aim in third person, or switch to first person where you can be more precise, but you can't move while in first person mode.<br />
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The controls are essentially the same as MGS1 though they switched one or two buttons around. It's a fairly simple setup that take a few minutes to memorize but it sticks with you if you play enough. The Metal Gear games are pretty fair as far as balance and difficulty go, so if something goes wrong, it's usually the player's fault.<br />
<br />
Just like the gameplay, MGS2's visuals were amazing back in the day, but haven't aged that well. This was one of the last games that I really thought had the best graphics there would ever be. I eventually stopped being an imbecile and realized that graphics would only improve but back then it was quite an amazing sight to behold. Especially the early trailers that came out before the PS2 was even released. That first trailer blew my mind like no other.<br />
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The music is really good, though it's probably my least favorite soundtrack overall in the whole series. It isn't bad at all and the music that plays during gameplay is great. It's just that the cutscene music feels a bit too cliched at times. Hollywood composer Henry Gregson-Williams was brought in for the first time on this game and he contributed a good chunk of the game's soundtrack. Though my favorite songs by far were composed by series regular Norihiko Hibino. The highlights being the alert music in the Big Shell section and the Dead Cell boss music. I'll put both of those at the end.<br />
<br />
Metal Gear Solid 2 is probably the biggest departure for the series and I can understand why many people dislike it. It is a bizarre game with a protagonist designed to be hard to like. Almost every element of the game feels a bit strange but for that reason I adore it.<br />
<br />
Metal Gear Solid 2 is available on a number of platforms. It was originally a PS2 exclusive but was soon ported to Xbox and PC with an enhanced special edition titled Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance released on all three of those platforms. Substance added a variety of extra content with the PS2 version receiving the bulk of it if I'm not mistaken. Substance was recently released again on PS3 and 360 in the Metal Gear Solid HD collection which also includes 4 other games. There's also a Vita port of MGS HD in the works so you have a number of options, though if the core game is all you care about and you have a way to play PS2 games, you can get the original MGS2 for literally a few bucks online.<br />
<br />
I always feel like ending my top 5 articles with some kind of statement about why you should buy a given game and I really wish I was a better writer so I didn't feel compelled to do that all the time. Regardless, Metal Gear Solid 2 is a very interesting experience that is a bit hard to get into on its own but if you read up on the previous Metal Gear games a bit, you may find it worth your time.<br />
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Next:<br />
My game of the year 2001!<br />
A survival horror masterpiece that explores areas of the human psyche that most games steer clear of.<br />
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I'll leave you with exactly the songs I said I would play at the end. The first is <i>Battle, </i>the alert music during the Big Shell area, and the second is <i>Yell Dead Cell, </i>the boss battle music that plays as you fight members of Dead Cell. Both Videos are brought to us by YouTube use LarsAlexandersonSH:<br />
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Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08874866105827330430noreply@blogger.com1