Why Grind Quests Are And Will Always Be Bad

"Grind Quest"

It's a noun.  

              1. A computer game quest in which the player does something that is most likely too easy or too hard for their skill level, and which the player is asked to do over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

              2. What you do in a job you hate, except for virtual, in-game "rewards."

And now for a stunning change of topic: Xenoblade Chronicles is a wonderful game; it's so good, that mentioning the game in this post feels near terrible. Yet it is fitting, because its optional sidequests (and let's stress that word "optional") for the most part end up being grind quests. They are, almost all, of the "kill or collect x number of y" variety; they are the typical MMORPG stereotype quest, but IN A SINGLEPLAYER GAME. There existence in XC baffles me. More talk about them in this week's review.

There's no reason to cite the many psychological studies that say doing the same thing over and over again is bad for your happiness, because it's obvious. It is so obvious that I question the need for this post, so I will end this in this paragraph. In no game should grind quests exist (unless they're part of, say, an artistic statement....but even then!). Grind quests, as Jonathan Blow likes to remind us, are "unethical," which is a Blowian way of saying they're "Hitler." They exist in MMORPGs because they don't require you to be a skilled or smart player to complete them, and yield sexy, shallow rewards (such as in-game money, or temporarily cool loot, or extra XP), which is to say they exist in big budget MMORPGs because they addict players (via their easy, rewardingness), are easy to design, and guarantee the extension subscriptions. MONAEY!!!

Xenoblade Chronicles Has Taken Over My Life

The title says it! And thus I have nothing new nor interesting to say today. Although, I'm making many mental notes on the game in order to write the next real post, which won't be a review, since I think I have at least four more days of playing to go; my characters are at level 60 (I think the highest level will be 100).  So no praise-worthy post today.

The Pacing of Xenoblade Chronicles (No Spoilers)

Assuming you stick to the main story line, Xenoblade Chronicles ends up being one of the best paced role-playing games ever! (For the record, I haven't yet finished the game, so just pretend I did.) (And for the record, I just finished the game, and it might be the best-paced role-playing game ever.) In tonight's post, I give three reasons why the pacing's so good.

The most important facet to Xenoblade Chronicle's pacing is the most important facet because just about every game should do it just the same; this facet is the interest curve the story-telling follows. (You'll have a good idea of what an interest curve is by the time this paragraph ends) What Xenoblade Chronicles does is open with an interesting intro (in this case, a cinematic), then dumps you into a really exciting scene, and then levels off a bit, letting you relax in and get to know the new world a little; and then it puts you into another exciting scene (although not as exciting as that first one); and then the game relaxes you for a moment, then excites with the craziest thing you've seen thus far, then relaxes you again and then excites you again with the most exciting thing you've seen yet, and repeat (with each later exciting bit being, for the most part, even more exciting than all the other ones before). This, dear readers, is the ideal interest curve for...keeping an audience interested! Following it in the year 2012 may seem conservative, but it works.

[The short version of the ideal interest curve is: Interesting, pretty exciting, laid back, mildly exciting, laid back, incredibly exciting, laid back, the most exciting thing so far, repeat the last two until the story ends. The game's main story pretty much follows this.]

Another pacing strength is in the linearity of the areas. We never see anything purely linear nor totally nonlinear ("purely linear" would be like being an actor following a script, "totally nonlinear" would be like a sandbox with toys, or not a "game"). That's the obvious point though. What I'm talking about with Xenoblade Chronicles is how every next area is different in its level of linearity from the previous (and next) area. The different area layouts make the players proceed through the areas at different paces, and, as a result, the game feels a lot less monotonous, just because the new area feels different, and not just in new music and artwork, but in the way it makes you move about space.

And the last, big, good pacing thing to the game's storytelling is the rate at which it tells you about its world. It does it in varying sizes of brief bits. This is something Bioware and Bethesda didn't seem to understand in their games; guys! do not make your characters go on random, minute-long (and longer) monologues about themselves and their world. Random, narcissistic speeches about people and places that do not exist are hard to listen to for more than five seconds. Xenoblade Chronicles avoids this by putting its information dumps into individual sentences surrounded by dramatic pauses or action or humor; plus the sentence quality is high; plus it doesn't force you to drink in its world by the hose.

Of course, there are other ways by which the story's well-paced, but I like pointing out these ones.

How to Withstand Xenoblade Chronicle's Sidequests

Tonight I'm going to discuss how to do Xenoblade Chronicle's sidequests. Why? Because, as far as I can tell, they comprise the painful parts of the game, and if you develop obsessive completion disorder while playing XC (or, when you develop this), you will suffer them.

So here is how to do Xenoblade Chronicle's sidequests as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Tip number one is: Do not sell anything under the sections labelled "materials" and "collectables" Don't sell them because, as the 480 billion side quests come, you will be asked to collect a lot of "materials," some of which are rarely found. By not selling them, you'll end up finishing many of these quests the moment you start them. (Note: You CAN run out of inventory space; when this happens, dump the crapiest-looking stuff)

Tip number two: Everytime you kill a monster or see a floating orb (these represent materials and collectables), take that monster's stuff and grab that orb. If you run out of inventory space, sell the items represented by the smallest pouches (i.e. the cheap stuff); most of the crap stuff will end up just being crap.

Tip number three: Before you leave a new town (or sidequest-giving place), start as many quests as possible; i.e. talk to as many NPCs with the white exclamation marks as you can, before you head into the wilds. This way, when you beat enemies and minor bosses, you will simultaneously be finishing quests. Killing monsters before you get the quests will not will not effect quest completion; even boss-killing doesn't count until you activate the quest.

Tip number four: A common sense tip: If you feel like you're going through the story too quickly, and you're so addicted to Xenoblade Chronicles that you can't stop playing, do sidequests. When the sidequesting starts boring or frustrating you, resume the main quest. [This tip will be counter argued by tip number six]

Tip number five: Have a computer on sleep and connected to the internet so you can google sidequests' monster and item locations. You may object to this tip because it takes the scavenger huntness away from the game, but I feel, with a Xenoblade Chronicle's Direct X 8 graphics, you'll end up wanting Internet help, especially once you realize you've been searching over the same old places for hours.

Tip number six, is the most important tip: It's "Do not do the sidequests on purpose (do them on accident!)" Most of the tips above have been written under the assumption that you'll want to do the sidequests because you're a completionist. But seriously, DO NOT DO THEM ON PURPOSE, because if you actually spend your "I'm going through the game's story too fast and want to slow down a bit" time on the sidequests, then basically you'll end up boring yourself. "How's that?" You ask. "Grind quest" is the answer. "Search for X number of (sometimes rare) item Y," "Kill X more of this," "Kill that boss monster you might already have killed," "etc." These are, essentially, the sidequests of Xenoblade Chronicles. I am reminding you that anything that makes you do something you've already done over and over and over again is not interested in your happiness. You can't do Xenoblade Chronicles's sidequests on purpose and simultaneously not feel like you should be doing something else with your life. So, when you play this game, just make sure you talk to the non-playable characters who give those quests, and do not sell materials nor collectables. Accidentally completing the sidequests that award you XP makes the main story's boss battles less loseable.

Tip number seven: Read Tom Chick's "Xenoblade Chronicles Beginner's Guide." Some of it you've just read, but it's good review.

Why Written Reviews Are (Usually) Better Than Video Reviews

A professor from the U.K. once joked that, in the future, no one will read in their leisure. And immediately I worried because I wasn't sure if he was joking. (To this day I still don't know if he was joking. I think of his words in my sleep) Then, after he said what he did, I returned to my apartment and watched a Zero Punctuation review and a Gametrailers review.

Fast forward to Today, fifteen minutes ago. I was thinking to myself, "What can I write on the Internet, now that I'm so busy playing the 120-hour Xenoblade Chronicles and thus will have nothing comprehensive to say for a couple weeks?" And I thought of this! A Video Reviews Vs. Written Reviews piece (WOOO!!)! And after a few minutes of analyzing in the bathroom, I concluded that, overall, written reviews are better.

Here's why. Written reviews are less spoilery; they don't reveal as much of a game's graphics and sound. This is non-spoilerific because, in most games, graphics and sound are used, in part, as incentives to keep players playing. "What will the next area look like?" "What songs have I not heard?" "Will there be a naked woman?" "WILL THERE BE A NAKED MAN?!" That kind of stuff. Written reviews CAN very much spoil the visual part, but writers usually decide not to sneak that into their essays (at least not without spoiler alert tags). (And spoiling sounds? Writers can spoil game dialogue and games' writings, but again, they usually decide not to)

Video reviews, however, have a propensity to spoil games' visuals since they show games' visuals (with the exception of Zero Punctuation Reviews). The video editors, if they're smart, can limit the damage by showing the least spoilerific stuff, but they can only limit.

The other reason why written reviews are better is that it is easy to cite things from them. While in a video review you really have to search -- clicking and moving that symbol along the minutes/seconds bar, trial-ing and error-ing, spending many of your finite seconds (minutes if you're unlucky) -- with written reviews you can just scan a page, with your eyes.

Not to say video reviews are Hitler. They have their good qualities. One being that a video maker can depict what a game looks like much quicker than a writer can.

"Faster depictions of characters' psychological disposition?" No. "Depictions of color and scale and pretty much anything else?" Yes.

And another advantage (or the other advantage) is that, if a critic wants to show what he or she's praising or condemning, he or she can edit it into their video. A critic who only writes would need to insert an Internet video link, if there is one.

And....that's it!

If you're wondering, I'll answer now: am I biased against video reviews? Yes. Do I watch them? Yes.

The Ikaruga and Sine Mora Review (Part 2)

Now finally we compare the new bullet hell shooter Sine Mora, fresh from Hungaria, to the legendary Ikaruga!

Sine Mora does one thing, that is essential in games of its genre, better than Ikaruga. Or I should say: it actually does it. Sine Mora gives you the ability to practice any boss (from Sine Mora, har har), providing that you reached and thus unlocked them in story or arcade mode. It lets you practice any unlocked boss in something called "Boss Training Mode." You simply open it up, select a you reached boss, and there you are, training; i.e. unlike Ikaruga, Sine Mora let's you NOT have to play entire levels just to practice its bosses. And this precludes a lot of pain.

Sine Mora also looks beautiful; it's the prettiest game in its genre. It uses many vibrant colors and offers bosses as various as the Sentinal from The Matrix and a Giant Robot Spider. Not to say that Ikaruga -- the game we're comparing Sine Mora to -- looks bad; Ikaruga looks good! But it also looks very black and white, and is in Direct X 8, as opposed to Sine Mora's Direct X 9.

Sine Mora is a lot like StarFox64 in that all its characters are talking animals with pilot's licenses. At the same time, Sine Mora is a lot NOT like StarFox64 in that its characters talk about grimmer things, such as rape, torture, nuclear holocaust, execution, slavery, parricide, existentialism, and fucking (literally, with that word). Also the game is from an entirely different genre.

But like StarFox and unlike Ikaruga, there's a lot of story-telling. And/yet/but, even though I played Sine Mora's story mode twice (to get its alternate ending) I still didn't understand the plot. Not that this bothered me, as all the text-slides between missions were interesting, some of them on an intellectual level. Plus they were read in Hungarian, which made the game feel more exotic. The game also features many cutscenes, and avoids repetitive cutscenery by giving you the ability to speed through them; just press the left shoulder button.

Not to say Sine Mora's presentation trounces Ikaruga's. Ikaruga may lose the impressive visuals battle but wins the music battle. Ikaruga's music is cool, inspiring, makes you feel like you're the protagonist of an epic battle. Sine Mora's music, on the other hand, is boring. It's most "exciting" music is its boss battle music. Listen (minor spoiler alert):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dia0IOl8rFw&feature=related

Now listen to some of Ikaruga's music (minor spoiler alert):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGNSdcy-apU

And now on to the most important conversation: Sine Mora's gameplay? Is it better or worse than Ikaruga's?

Worse.

Sine Mora has a few problems with its level design, most of which can be summed up as: the unavoidable death, the kind that you can't possible predict during your first run through of the game. Most of Sine Mora's levels have a point or two where you're going to die during your first run (unless you do your story mode run on "Normal" noob mode, in which case you'll still end up dying some cheap deaths). Most of these deaths come from bosses who have these speed-of-light attacks whose attack path you cannot predict until you've seen them a few times, and whose projectiles you won't be able to dodge when they're already and suddenly flying towards you. Said projectiles are fast and massive, and in some cases the boss is the projectile. Also, there are some puzzles in the game involving the environment that, like the bosses, are located later in their levels, and you'll end up dying to them, perhaps too many times, causing you to have to restart not from the autosave point but from the very beginning of the chapter. And unlike the bosses, you cannot figure out the puzzles in a "puzzle training mode"; you can trial and error your way or look for youtube videos.

Another level design problem is partly a too-much-love-for-fancy-graphics problem. A lot of the time it's hard to tell where you can fly and where you can't, especially during some boss battles. Sometimes you can fly in front of a boss, learning, as you fly over the boss, that it's in the background. Other bosses you'll discover this ain't the case, that the boss is actually NOT part of the background and is instead a giant solid mass of crashingness. And you die.

Trial and error rules in this game (in a frustrating way). It's not like Ikaruga where, except for perhaps one moment, every time I died, I did so because I didn't play well enough. I really get a sense that Sine Mora favors sexy visuals over hot gameplay experiences. Especially when the screen "shakes" during explosions while there are still enemies and enemy projectiles flying all over the place. Or especially when the small, fast, grey-and-thus-hard-to-see missiles show up.

The other other problem with Sine Mora is also something Ikaruga doesn't have. Fat. Sine Mora has a lot of redundant level and boss design. Many players won't notice it, since the visual variety is quite high. But players paying attention to how they're being asked to move their craft will notice that a lot of levels and bosses play out in almost exactly the same way. Whearas in Ikaruga, every situation manages to have its own personality through its gameplay.

But as negative as this may seem, the Sine Mora experience is, I think, just as good as Ikaruga's. The latter game may have the better level and boss design, but it doesn't have a boss training mode.

★★★★☆


Notes: I do not actually know if you can unlock the bosses via reaching them in Arcade mode; I unlocked all the bosses via story mode.

The Challenging Achievements in The Binding of Isaac and Super Meat Boy that I Don't Want

After studying a lot of game design, I've concluded that the hardest achievements in The Binding of Isaac and especially Super Meat Boy are not worth pursuing because of the pain (the work) they inflict on their players. I imagine getting said achievements must feel great, but at the same time I imagine that going through pain to get something that doesn't make me a more effective person, or doesn't produce anything that contributes to the lives of those I care about, isn't worth it.

Let's analyze, starting with Super Meat Boy.

In Super Meat Boy we have the "Do the Whole Hell Dark World Without Dying" achievement (plus the later dark worlds' do-not-die achievements). The precision and patience needed to beat some of the stages in Hell Dark World are so....needful of precision and patience, that the idea of spending hours memorizing where and when and how I should move, practicing each level over and over again, just so I can get the perfect button pressings in muscle memory, combined with the acceptance of my dying near the end of a dark world a few (dozen?) times during the actual achievement runs, making it so I'd have to start all over from the beginning of the world again and again and again, feels....like it'd be an infuriating experience.

Meanwhile...

The Binding of Isaac has its own challenging achievements, and two seem terrible. They're the "Beat the hardest and 2nd to hardest levels without taking a single hit" achievements. These sound incredibly frustrating for two reasons:

1) Unlike Super Meat Boy, you cannot practice the boss battles (which are really good for scoring hits on you) without playing the entire game before them. There's no practice mode that let's you JUST PRACTICE a level or a boss.

2) If you DO take a hit while playing the latter levels, after playing through the mandatory entire game before, you'll need to restart from the very beginning. (There goes another twenty-five minutes)

However, The Binding of Isaac's hardest achievements are what you'd do after you've played the game so many times that you're a pro at it, so if I had to pick between the two games' hardest achievements, I'd go for The Binding of Isaac's.

The Ikaruga and Sine Mora Review (Part 1): Why Ikaruga is Better than Radiant Silvergun

Shooty Excitement! This is the first of a two-piece review! Ikaruga (2001) and Sine Mora (2012), two very different, shootery, bullet hell, mechanically 2D, fighter/spaceship/submarine/aeroplane games, are going to get the same review score (from meeeeee)!

Though the real reasons why I'm reviewing these together are that I see these two as the greatest of their genre (note: I have played only four of these type of games, but Ikaruga is generally considered the best and Sine Mora the newest) and -- the other reason why I'm reviewing like this is -- that these two games are flawed in the opposite ways and excellent in the opposite ways; or at least I like telling myself this is the case; you'll see; it'll make sense.

So first! Let's talk Radiant Silvergun!

Radiant Silvergun is critically considered one of the greatest shoot'em-ups (or "Schmups"). Although not anywhere as famous as Treasure's greatest game, Ikaruga, this 1998 shooter, playable on XBOX Live Arcade, has many of the DNA bits of Treasure's later "classic." Radiant Silvergun is insanely hard. It features not just bullet-dodging, but pattern-bullet dodging (i.e. enemies will be arranged and shoot in ways that force you to discover where you should move and where you should shoot, and with what weapons). There are entire "chapters" (i.e. levels) that can be beaten without firing anything. And varied boss battles there are; varied not merely in how the bosses look but in the patterns you'll need to discover to beat them; in many games of this genre, bosses are beaten simply by discovering their weak points and shooting them, and dodging uber-well; in these Treasure games, you'll need to navigate a maze, you'll dodge in patterns you haven't dodged in before. And sometimes you'll fly fast, and sometimes you'll fly slow -- a pacing tool not seen in enough shooter (flying) games, in general. You'll hear variations of inspiring music. The game's score-boosting combo system is based on killing enemies of the same color in 3's (the games do it a little differently, but I won't discuss it 'cause it's not terribly interesting). And the story and dialogue are, not great, but they have an edgy, anime-inspired theme (note: I do now know what "anime-inspired" means).

But Ikaruga is better than Radiant Silvergun. 

It's easier to learn, due mostly to its having less buttons (4, vs. Radiant Silvergun's 7). Ikaruga's unique mechanic (the polarity system), makes the game even more unique than Radiant Silvergun's Radiant Sword and giant animal robot bosses. Ikaruga's a shorter game, which is to say it's fatless, which is to say, for example, that it has less mazes and less bosses, but has mazes and bosses that play even more differently from each other than Radiant Silvergun's mazes and bosses. Ikaruga is better paced; it does away with minutes-long cinematics and talking heads (to whom you would listen to over and over again, and not playing, due to dying over and over again). Almost the entire game of Ikaruga manages to be noob-friendly; on the easiest possible difficulty settings I beat the game in 2.5 hours (although it was still gloriously hard enough that, when I took my left hand off of the controller for a second to scratch my face, I died). Radiant Silvergun's story mode (that is, the whole game) on the easiest difficult settings took me seventeen hours of pain to beat (it's supposed to be an hour-ish in length).

And....that's it, in the Ikaruga's-a-better-game paragraph.

And before this part one ends -- Ikaruga's polarity system: what is it? 

It's a system (in Ikaruga) in which all your enemies and all the projectiles are dark or light-colored. Your own ship, too, can be either color (will be either color) via the press of a button that you will press many times; you can switch between the colors in a second at your whim; the game can't be beaten without you doing this. 

And gameplay point of this yin and yang visual style is: 

When you're dark, you do extra damage to light enemies but can be killed by light-colored lasers. When you're light-colored, you do extra damage to dark enemies but can be killed by dark-colored lasers. You absorb the laser fire that is your current color.

If you're confused and don't mind a spoiler, watch this video of Ikaruga's final chapter on Hard Difficulty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGNSdcy-apU

The Binding of Isaac Review

This might be the best five dollar game ever. And to think that Edmund McMillen was going to give it out for free. Oh you.

Super Meat B- I mean, The Binding of Isaac is a rogue-like.

What's a rogue-like? I'm not sure. The Internet says The Binding of Isaac is a rogue-like...therefore a rogue-like is a The-Binding-Of-Isaac-like!

In rogue-likes you control a naked, crying child through a short series of dungeons (your basement), shooting your tears at your enemies and eventually fighting your mom, or Satan, or your mom's heart, or some other boss I haven't discovered yet. If you're good enough, you can beat this game in 18-minutes (although more likely thirty). If you die, you have to restart from the beginning. And every replay feels like a fresh experience for of a bunch of reasons, which I'll review a little later. For now I want to give you an idea of what the game looks like; take a gander at this screen shot:

http://download.gamezone.com/assets/old/screenshots/NEWS_McMillen_Sheds_Light_on_The_Binding_of_Isaac.jpg

Oh wait, sorry. That's Edmund McMillen.

Take a look at THIS screen shot:

http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1556&bih=773&tbm=isch&tbnid=Vp3g1FBj4TwGFM:&imgrefurl=http://edmundmcmillen.blogspot.com/2011/07/binding-of-isaac-coming-to-steam.html&docid=6Xdrq6VG2pP8CM&imgurl=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz8iaodH-6_-Wy8WZn1gjfhZZ659PUN4dmMXEadgAqFYo-VRxZYCjBjhjuQ5L3t0iw2yb892tdDcqPVxtgS6mi7bRs6gD2An8JwOldH1CM0lx8qAWvIPIcmE8_K8vYDaOFFwjG4k6_e_UU/s1600/isaac2.jpg&w=638&h=488&ei=PwWLT9GeJ-iU2AX3zZjcCQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=728&vpy=148&dur=1644&hovh=196&hovw=257&tx=151&ty=111&sig=115051761779223087231&page=1&tbnh=134&tbnw=175&start=0&ndsp=29&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0,i:76

To orient you into understanding the picture, the blonde one is you, and the blood-coughing one is one of the game's many bosses. (You don't have to be blonde. That hair belongs to an unlockable character)

Now that you've witnessed the screenshot, you're probably thinking something like, "What in the name of God is this?!"

This, my friends, is a screenshot from a game about a boy named Isaac who is about to be sacrificed, by his hyper-religious mother, to God (the year is 2011). He escapes into the basement (Isaac, not God) and must fight against disgusting enemies. These enemies tend to shoot and leave trails of blood, have their innards showing, and, in a few cases, make poo, which may contain hidden items. The game also features urine and gore. The art style makes it look cute.

You might have heard about how Nintendo refused to publish The Binding of Isaac on the 3Ds because of its controversial anti-religious people commentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27Le3kOOFQk

But don't worry Christian & Jewish gamers! The whole game comments on religiousness. And not just by featuring ecclesiastical stars like the seven deadly sins, but also via its random level generation, which not just makes every playthrough of the game feel fresh, but also makes the game difficulty somewhat random playthrough to playthrough. And yes, this is definitely a religious thing; I'll explain.

On some playthroughs the items you find just won't be that useful (or maybe they'll be super useful). Sometimes levels will end (or interrupt) with bosses you never faced in previous playthroughs, suddenly making the game much more challenging than you felt it was going to be. Sometimes rooms you enter will have a layout and a monster selection that don't give you much maneuvering-room. And, my favorite, sometimes you will clear a room, and a cool item will appear, but it will be surrounded by an abyss you can't cross; it's like the game is playing life, mocking you for your bad luck. Or maybe, this playthrough, you will have good luck. Or both! I am pretty sure all this is a form of religious commentary (IN GAME FORM). Many games critics would consider this random difficultyness "bad game design" because: players will bump into things that do not compliment their current skill levels. But, because of the religious theme, I find that it is genius.

There are more than seventy items you can pick up (weapons, powerups, pills with unknown effects, etc.), and all of them make a visual change to your character. How cool it looks to see your depressed naked child wear your mom's heels! Or your mom's bra! Or your mom's pad?!

But at the must-talk-about heart of this game is its gameplay, which is indeed challenging, and is based on the four arrow keys and the WAS and D. On default, the latter buttons are for moving left, right, up, down, and the former buttons are for shooting and looking in said directions. You also get the letter "Q" to use the one-time-use item, and the spacebar to use the rechargeable power you currently carry. It's very easy to learn and very hard to master. And although it may seem like you're too limited game-mechanically, you will quickly learn things like: moving while shooting to make your tears fire diagonally.

You also get bombs (Zelda style; the ones that look like cannon balls with fuses). I forgot which default button drops them. (And yes, you can switch up buttons, and you can download a certain file to allow for gamepad support, if you want).

Okay, I just made a features list. Truth is, all I really want to do is gush about this game. The Binding of Isaac is the game I wish Diablo II had been. One that has visually-interesting, stat-boosting RPG items, and a random-level generator, but isn't based on grinding your life away to obtain said stat-boosting loot, without which you wouldn't win. Unlike Diablo II this is an action RPG that rewards you for your skill and always gives you something new and interesting (until you've finally played through everything). The Binding if Isaac is fun, full of personality, and not addictive.

I am very excited about its expansion.

★★★★★

Why I Don't Want to Finish a Zelda Game

I don't care that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has a metacritic score of 99/100. I loaded up my old save file today and was immediately bored. The game's writing is too boring, its combat is too obsolete, and its graphics are too crap.

I am convinced that the people who reviewed Ocarina of Time in 1998 were boring and/or they were being threatened by Nintendo and/or they were pandering to a reading audience of children.

And as I look at videos of later Zelda games and later Zelda story-telling, I just don't want to play ANY Zelda game. Why, after Devil May Cry and God of War and Ninja Gaiden Black and Bayonetta and the Rocksteady Batman games, would I want to play any 3D Zelda game?

The catchy music?

Uh no, I can just tune into my local community college radio station and hear music that kicks the ass of practically every video game song ever made, including all the Zelda ones.

The puzzles?

The puzzles I played in the first half of Ocarina of Time were clever (assuming a puzzle can be "clever"), but not fun. So no.

The unoriginal story?

No.

The creative, brilliant level design?

Not enough of an incentive.

Then why not just play a 2D Zelda game?

Because I watched a middle-aged Japanese guy play through A Link to the Past's most epic moments.

Do you like chocolate?

Sometimes.

So there! I'm not playing a Zelda game (unless someone pays me to).

SpaceChem is a Puzzle Game

And I don't want to play it. I'm not being paid to play it. I consider the ten dollars I spent on it a donation to a passionate indie dev.

I can't help but feel that people who like pure puzzle games should be doing something else with their time (sorry). Instead of playing a puzzle game they could be writing code, which yield much happier long-term results (I'm saying this knowing nothing about code). But I'm also saying this because less time spent playing puzzle games and more time spent coding equals way more money, which equals more freedom to do fun, creative things.

It seems that, whenever I discuss the boringness of puzzle games, I always come back to the old: Why did I like Portal?

I liked Portal because of its story, and GLaDOS, and the companion cube, and the portal gun; plus the puzzles weren't too easy nor too hard.

And why again did I like Portal 2 more than Portal? Deh Jokes. A game with flaws (unlike Portal), sure. But, joke-quality measured, Portal 2's best jokes were much funnier than Portal's.

Although I do want to take a moment to complain about SpaceChem (and it is enough of a complaint that it would warrant a less than stellar review). Putting out the reactor instructions (the gameplay part of the game) is tedious. It took me a minute just lay out the things in some of the early puzzles.

A lot of reviews are describing how the game gives immediate feedback for your puzzle-solving attempts. You press "play" and the game runs a molecule-making-and-processing cycle with the instructions you've assembled. But, that doesn't make the putting-out-the-parts not take minutes each puzzle!

Again, back to Portal: remember how the Portal gun takes a second to show you if you made a portal, and looks cool? You do?! Cool! Because SpaceChem's puzzle-doing takes minutes and looks boring (until you run a cycle blah blah blah).

Atom Zombie Smasher (single player) Review

Yatzhee (the person) claimed that one of Left 4 Dead's strengths as a zombie game is that Valve could have replaced their zombies with koalas, and it still would have felt like a zombie game.

In Brendon Chung's Atom Zombie Smasher all the zombies are purple dots, and it still feels like a zombie game.

Atom Zombie Smasher is two games in one, an excellent real-time strategy game and an okay turn-based strategy one. It's also a series of comics, slide shows, and articles, with goofy llama-based super weapons, goofy assassination attempts, goofy killer robot-fighting, goofiness.

Atom Zombie Smasher's background music is surf guitar.

In short, AZS is a Zombie Apocalypse Real-time Turn-based Comics Slide Show Articles Surf Guitar game, all for only ten dollars (and less if it's on sale).

First I want to sell the real-time strategy element, because it's so good. Each battle is fought over a bunch of city blocks. You have a God's eye view of a 2D, quadrilateral map, and you'll have at least one of two goals: save as many civilians as possible before they are all dead and undead, OR kill everything (that is zombie). The yellow and blue dots are the civilians. The purple dots are zombies. You'll deploy with a green dot squad of troops, a building-perched sniper team, a rescue copter called the Pleasant Pheasant, and a cannon. Or not. Sometimes the game will send you in with road blocks, mines, or maybe just a machine gun cannon called the Elephant Bird. Maybe instead of the road blocks you'll have your sniper squad or zombie bait. The unit combinations are different whenever you visit another city (unless you start a campaign with the non-random units modifier).

So every battle is a little different. And almost all are filled with drama, as any of the hundreds of zombies can undeadify a whole crowd of people within two seconds of touching them. You'll end up calling in artillery strikes right next to helpless crowds and hope the not-very-accurate shells won't end up falling on them. Or maybe, if it's a small number of zombies approaching, you can tell your sniper team to aim in that new direction, hoping that they can set up and aim fast enough to prevent zombie-civilian contact.

Not to say it's only a game about fast-thinking. Before a battle begins you're required to place soldiers and things here and there on buildings, grass, and streets. If your goal is to save lots of civilians, you'll want to turn the city blocks into a maze of death (against the zombies, not the people). If you fail a mission (if too many civilians died), you can restart said mission, and the game will ask if you want to set up with your troops and things in the same spots they began the mission in.

Oh, did I mention that (okay I didn't) you level up your troops and equipment? You do! Which means that the game is a little addictive, making you feel invested in your army and its mission to save Nuevo Aires.

Also buildings blow up, so the mazes change not just between cities but during battles.

Now on to that turn-based game. It's a lot like Risk in that the campaign map is a bunch of puzzle pieces stuck together, and that the higher the number in a puzzle piece (1-4), the stronger the Zed army.

The differences from Risk? The enemy is bunch of zombies. There's no politics. And a "4" zed level means all you can do in the province is Kill Everything.

The problem with Atom Zombie Smasher stems from the only ways to make it significantly more challenging. They are modifiers called "Hardcore Mode," which makes the zombies run, and "No Quarter," which makes the zombies able to invade any province, including ones you own (and sometimes they'll invade at level 4 strength). The "Hardcore Mode" makes winning short campaigns impossible, and "No Quarter" makes winning long campaigns impossible. (You can set the campaign score needed to win; the first person -- Player or Zed -- to reach number X wins). I didn't want to play another campaign that couldn't keep me wondering if I was going to win or lose; after playing one-and-a-half campaigns I got enough of a sense of what the Risk map would look like, in terms of zombie-control, to tell if I was going to win or lose in the following hours. Thus, I lost interest in AZS before even winning a campaign; 3.5 hours after starting the game I felt like playing it only so I could write this review.

Tom Chick (the amazing American games journalist) said of AZS and its too-high difficulty that they constitute a perfect representation of our post-Vietnam/Iraq cultural shifts. AZS gives you a limited number of military resources and asks you to save a Latin American country from insurgent Zombiism. Once you figure out how to beat the game on the no modifiers difficulty (which you'd probably do in a couple hours) the only ways to be challenged in AZS are to be over-challenged and....to be over-challenged. Thus Nuevos Aires is actually VietIraqinamistan.

And I agree. It's hard not to; the game even tells us (via spoken words) to be wary of the military-industrial complex. But, unlike super Chick, I see its representing our distrust of Capitalism as not enough of a virtue to bring this game the instant-classic status it almost deserves. At hour 3.5, I knew I was going to win my second campaign, an hour before I won it.

But in all, if you are not on a budget, consider Atom Zombie Smasher a must-play.

★★★★☆

Update: Atom Zombie Smasher Being Thoroughly Played

I love Atom Zombie Smasher, which is why I do wish it will be better than it seems to be right now.

I will describe its awesome bits in the inevitable review (expect this on Friday).

Until then I will be playing it quite thoroughly to see if the difficulty of its turn-based part is broken. Right now it seems too easy and too hard; i.e. far before a campaign is over, I know whether hours more of playing will result in loss or victory.

I could describe why this would be a bad thing, but I don't want to waste words on a potential non-issue.

Super Meat Boy: The Dark World and Beyond

I have found the part of Super Meat Boy that the hardcore gamer might not like, if they are the type of hardcore gamer I am thinking of. It is the Dark World/Super Meat World/Do Not Die Achievements. Okay, that's three parts. And it is 75% of the game.

Why's it not likeable? And to whom?

First the "to whom": those super hard parts are not for the completionist who cannot take super hard games.

"Why?" Because, as you play those harder parts, and realize how much time you're spending and how little progress you're making, you will end up asking yourself, "Am I basically doing the same thing over and over again and getting basically the same result (getting from point A to Point B)?"

So, what I'm saying is, for the completionist who doesn't tolerate super hardcoreness, Super Meat Boy is one of the worst games. If you're one of these people, don't get it. (And if you aren't, do get it.)

I fear I may be one of those girly-men completionist people (not that I'm saying that you are bad, even if I end up not being one of you). I am going to complete this game to its 106% completion (or try), just to see, if I am one of you :) :) :) :)