Y’know,
I usually make an attempt to get these posts up on Saturday. I don’t always succeed,
but the effort is there, and as everyone knows, it’s the thought that counts.
This week I didn’t even make that effort. I was so busy on Saturday with a ton
of game programming to do and a bunch of bloody homework that needed to be
done; then it gets to Sunday and I have to work a nine hour shift. Now, I’m not
going to talk down to you, my lovely and talented readers. I know these are
just excuses for being really late on my weekly post; however, I feel that they
are really good excuses. Out a panel of ten expert excuse makers, three of them
said that these were above average excuses. The other seven didn’t actually show
up to the panel. One of them had a relative die, one of them had to take their
dog to the dermatologist, and someone else was stricken with ‘barfitis’. Really
when you look at it, my excuses have a 100% approval rating which is higher
than basically any other approval rating ever. Either way, I’m going to need to
write quickly before I start getting into Mike’s Mondays territory so I’m going
to cut this intro paragraph right here and start telling y’all about the games
I’ve been playing this week.
| But I don't wanna! Picture from: www.sanderssays.typepad.com |
For
starters, I played a lot more Silent Hill 4. The game is still pretty awesome
and much of what I said last week still holds; however, things have stated to
become much more intense. The room that you could casually return to in order
to replenish some health has stopped replenishing my health. It turns out the
ghosts have started to invade my quiet little room. My windows are moving all
by themselves, blood is dripping from the peephole, and I can see ghoulish
faces poking out from the wall. What’s worse is that if I am to go near these
happenings then my health starts to go down. I am now completely reliant on
health drinks and med kits to heal me, and those are in very short supply. I
can get rid of the ghosts in my room by placing down a holy candle, which can
be found scattered around the environment. This makes it so I don’t take damage
while I’m there, but it doesn’t fix the health regenerating system for some
reason. To make matters worse, when I’m not in the room I’m being chased by
Walter Sullivan (the main antagonist), and he’s got a gun that does hella
damage. It’s pretty stressful, but also pretty awesome. The game feels like it
has some real progression to it; whereas it started out really quite easy, but
now I’m struggling to get my health above the half-way point. The challenge is
deep enough to the point where I feel like I’m playing a survival horror and
not some two-bit action game where I have a hundred bullets and health
regeneration. When all is said and done I am still having a lot of fun playing
this iteration of Silent Hill and it has become a contender for my favorite of
the Silent Hill games, if it weren’t for that f*cking chick who keeps following
me around.
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| "Enter hole? Well, it beats eating at Arby's" Picture from: www.silent-hill-4-the-room.en.softonic.com |
That
last line was meant to be a witty sign off for that paragraph but it totally
brings up an aspect of the game that I totally don’t like. You encounter some
woman whose name I don’t remember (Gah! What is this? MMwMM?). She is
indicative of Ashley from Resident Evil 4 in that she just kind of follows you
around; only this time it is way more annoying. For one, she moves really slowly.
Like, if you don’t stop every couple of feet, you will out run her and she’ll
be lost. Also, when you go through doors, she doesn’t immediately spawn in that
room with you. This means that if you want her to enter a new area with you,
she has to be standing by the door with you when you go to actually enter that
area; and because she moves so slow, you’ll wind up standing by the door just
waiting for her to catch up so you can progress. It’s super annoying, and it’s
not like you can just ditch her somewhere because occasionally the game throw
up some invisible walls until she is properly by your side. I should also
mention that she can fight enemies; which, on the surface sounds good, but then
you realize that you have to sacrifice one of your own inventory slots to hold
her weapon even though I can see her physically holding it in her hand. It’s a
ball ache, and it sours a really good video game package otherwise.
| "No! Officer! I know I said I was upset with her, but did not hit her will my car twenty times!" Picture from: www.gameswalls.com |
Now, I haven’t
been one for handhelds as of late. I have an original PSP, but that was the
last portable gaming device I have owned besides my phone. The whole idea just
kinda lost its appeal to me. If I’m out and about I don’t really have time, nor
do I really want to play a game with any real commitment; and if I’m at home, I
have PC and PS3 games I want to play. Handheld consoles don’t really suite my
lifestyle and the games don’t always seem worth the investment of a whole new
handheld console. I didn’t want to pay another couple hundred dollars for a DS
just so I can play the one or two games I thought looked cool…but that was then.
At the beginning of this week my girlfriend lent me her DS so I could play one
of her favorite games, Phoenix Wright. I might now have to reconsider my
decision to not buy a DS now.
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| "Don't laugh at the judge because he looks like some sort of amorphous, blubber creature!" Picture from: www.animevice.com" |
Phoenix
Wright, as it turns out, is a really cool game and it’s pretty hard to describe
to someone who hasn’t played it. The idea that is you play as a defense attorney.
Now, when I first heard about this game, I was racking my brain trying to
figure out how you make a game out of that. Go ahead and take a minute, try and
figure out how this game works……………….okay! That’s enough time. Phoenix Wright
is broken up into two segments, there’s the portion outside of the court room,
and the portion inside the court room. When you’re not actively in a trial, you
are out and about, examining the scene of whatever crime the defendant is
involved in, looking for clues that show up as items in some sort of inventory
system, talking to people about preset topics, and generally trying to figure
out what went down. When you find all the clues and progress the story enough the
trial starts and you have to do your best to prove the defendant not guilty.
This is the fun part of the game. What happens is the prosecuting attorney will
bring up witnesses to give their testimony. The testimony is broken up into
little information segments that can be examined and flipped through at will.
You can request some elaboration on any particular info testimony segment and
you ultimately have to try and find a contradiction in what the witness says
based upon the clues and evidence you found outside the trial. When you think
you found that contradiction, you present the evidence that proves that fact.
Do this several times for each witness, answer a few questions from the judge,
batta-bing batta-boom and you’ve won the trial. You get five chances to f*ck up
by either presenting the wrong piece of evidence, or by answering the judge
incorrectly. If you blow those five chances, the trial is over and the
defendant is found guilty.
If my
description doesn’t make sense then all you need to know is that the crime
scene has become a logic puzzle, and it is up to you to solve it so everything
makes sense. I think these systems are really clever, like…really clever. I
really admire how they have managed to turn a job like defense attorney and
turn it into an adventure. Phoenix Wright has his own rival, there are shocking
twists and turns revealed as the trial unfolds, and whenever you discover a sick
contradiction the prosecutor looks like you’ve just punched him in the gut. It’s
really pretty fun to behold and it makes me feel epic in a setting that I never
thought could be so epic. At points the witness’s testimony looks completely
solid and you’re flipping through evidence trying to see if anything doesn’t
make sense. But then you realize that the defendant couldn’t possibly have
murdered the victim because the murder weapon only has finger prints from their
left hand! The jury goes ballistic, the prosecution is down for the count, and
Phoenix is standing tall. It’s a lot of fun.
| Just kidding man! It's totally fun. Picture from: www.armchairempire.com |
Occasionally
Phoenix will say something like “Of course! The answer is so obvious now. The
real murderer is…” and I’ll be prompted to pick a suspect, but I don’t have any
clue who the murderer is. I found myself wildly guessing answers in some of these
scenarios because the imaginary ties that the game has come up with to link evidence
to the proper cues are a little farfetched at times. “That couldn’t possibly be
the defendant in that photograph because of this clock!” I don’t know, maybe it’s
just me, but some of the logic in the logic puzzles seems a little illogical.
Oh well. I still think Phoenix Wright is a great game. The art is competent,
the writing is alright, but the game itself is so much fun. I’d say it’s definitely
worth a look.
Oh man!
I had better wrap this up soon. There’s only a couple of hours until MMwMM. I hope this
super late, super rushed post is enough to last y’all another week. I totally
would have written a better closing paragraph but, uh…um, I think I’m coming
down with a case of barfitis. Until next time Shlockheads, this has been your
Weekly Shlockness.
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