#IndieSelect: Dobo's Heroes (NS)

Disclaimer: I received a copy of Dobo's Heroes for the Nintendo Switch from publisher Gramik Games through 420MacMan's #IndieSelect.  I received the game without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and that experience be shared through social media.  All pictures and words unless otherwise noted were from my own experience playing the game.

Dobo's Heroes

Systems: Windows, Nintendo Switch

Release Date: January 17, 2022

Publisher: Gramik Games

Developer: Colossus Game Studio

Play Time: 5 - 10 Hours

Dobo's Heroes is a single-player puzzle platforming cooperative game where you get the character of Dobo to the exit in each stage while a clock ticks away in the upper left-hand corner of the screen.  The timer is there for the same reason that it exists in Super Meat Boy, to see how fast you can beat each stage and then rank your time on the leaderboards to see how slow you actually moved.  I say cooperative in regards to a single-player game because Dobo is unable to complete the stages alone and requires the assistance of Dobo's grandchildren who each have different abilities that complement each other, think thomas was alone if you are familiar with that game, but unlike that game, here you only need to get Dobo to the exit and you leave the grandchildren behind.  Don't worry, everyone returns to the next stage.

I am going to ignore the speed-running aspect of the game out of the discussion for right now, but we will get back to it.

Dobo's Heroes is made up of 45 levels broken up into five worlds with nine levels per world.  In the first world, "Space/Time", you are introduced to your first grandchild, Diybi (yellow grandkid) and the very basic mechanics for the entire game.  Your grandchildren are able to turn themselves into stepable platforms for a limited amount of time that help Dobo to the end portal.  How much time you have left is shown by the character gem/diamond in the upper right corner of the screen and honestly I did not notice this until I was already three worlds in.  The gems/diamonds also show you which character you are selecting and who you can select next (from left to right or vice versa).  Both Diybi and Dobo are not great at jumping, hence the need for platforms, so when you get to the second world, "Past," and Duduh (green grandkid) joins your group, it is very much a relief to have a character with a better jumping ability.  Duduh's secondary ability is that they can break through specific areas that usually creates a moving platform that Dobo can use to help him to the end of stage portal.  When a character "dies" they will respawn back at the beginning of the stage, which sometimes you can use to your advantage, but more often than not, and especially in the later stages, it is sometimes faster to restart the level than to get everyone back to where they need to be when you need to use more than one grandkid to get through to where it was that you "died."

Something I picked up from the second world on, is that oftentimes you end up having to leave one of the grandkids behind, be it from needing them to turn into a platform to reach a higher ledge or to cross a spike-filled gap. Then you just leave them behind, which I always feel a little guilty about and I am sure that Dobo would not feel great about it either, but again, all your grandkids respawn upon "dying" and you start each level with them at your side again, so at least you are not leaving them completely behind.  However, knowing who to leave behind may not always be clear on your first run through a level and sometimes you may have to make multiple runs to figure out how best and efficiently to tackle each level.  But that is part of the puzzle aspect of the game.   It was only in the later levels as well that Dibyi felt more useful as there were some areas of floor and ceiling spikes that could be jumped over, but with their low jump, they did not run the risk of hitting the ceiling spikes.

In the third world, "Culture" you are joined by Debys (blue grandkid) who can turn into a trampoline-like platform and lastly in the fourth world, "Keep Trying", Damba (purple grandkid) joins who can do a quick mid-air dash as well as turn into a platform like all the others.  Damba felt like the most unique ability apart from the platform, partly because their jump ability was not very good, about the same as Dibyi and Dobo and it felt like they were relegated to dashing across gaps or long strips of spikes for the sole-purpose of activating switches or buttons. 

Now, there is actually some story going on in the background which does not seem to play any integral part in the actual gameplay; or at least any impact that I have noticed.  When you start the game, Dobo's family is trying to convince him to leave the solitude of his darkened room after a vision of who is likely Dobo's late wife Erina.  Finally Diybi is able to convince Dobo to leave and that is where your adventure starts.  Throughout most stages, are books containing histories and memories from Dobo's earlier life, filled with reminiscences of conversations with Erina, and news clippings that very much feel like an allegory for climate change in our own world.  There are also hidden fortune cookies that give similar insight into Dobo's world and life, but all of these collectibles are optional and are not required to pass through the portal and the end of each level. 

Presently in the game, I am in the fifth and last world, "The Present Time," and stuck on level 44, which is pretty frustrating knowing that I only have one more level to complete the game.  I have tried multiple avenues to use different grandkids to manipulate switches to activate platforms, but most of the level feels like it was built around Damba and their dashing ability.  With switches located beyond spike-filled passages and spike-filled gaps and just spikes in general, I cannot see how using a combination of other grandkids would make the level doable.  On top of that is that it on average takes me about four to five minutes to get to the furthest point in the level and when one grandkid "dies," I have only found the one consistent way of making my way through the level is to have no fewer than three grandkids and getting them all back to the beginning, it is often times faster to restart the level than "killing" the grandkids to get them to respawn at the beginning.

As for the speed-running aspect, I have some mixed feelings, especially since the the online rankings seems to be currently broken.  When I first started the game, I was able to see where my time placed on a leaderboard and even managed to top at first on a couple of the early stages; There were also fewer than 10 time, so there was that too.  Now, when you go to check the rankings on any of the stages, the leaderboard is in permaload-mode.  My theory on this is that there was a hiccup with the coding in the leaderboard that maxed out and that it is having trouble loading all of the times, including the players individual time; I genuinely have no idea though.  I have checked to see if there were any updates for the game to patch this, but as of Sunday January 30, but it is still on version 1.0.  Without the ability to show leaderboard rankings, it kind of takes out the entire speed-running aspect out of the game, which is unfortunate because the game lends itself very well to speed-running.  Knowing which grandkid to use when and especially with making stepping platforms for Dobo who already has a limited jump could easily ruin a run by adding in a couple of seconds.  Hopefully the developers are able to patch in a fix to save this function of the game.

I really did enjoy Dobo's Heroes and there is a lot to like.  The level design is varied and consistent throughout, with some levels taking longer than others and with the exception of one proximity-triggered spike-traps that comes up from the ground without any indication that it exists (essentially a gotcha-trap), I never felt that the game was taking cheap-shots.  The music I was also very impressed by and will definitely be covering some of the music in an upcoming MIDI Week Single.  I was also surprised by the message of the game with environmentalism and environmental sustainability at the forefront,  and I wish that I could have finished the game to find out the conclusion to Dobo's journey from a secluded isolationists to one who is again connected to his family with the help of his grandkids.  I also love that Dobo is not and does not come across as a crochety old bugger who has no connection to his grandkids, but all of his interactions are supportive and encouraging.  It is just an incredibly sweet story that I wish that I could see the end of.  All of that being said, level 44 does add a bit of a sour-note because I cannot seem to wrap my head around the solution.  I will be keeping the game installed on the Switch out of the hope that I can either find a walkthrough or get a hint to how to get Dobo to the end.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Instrumental

MIDI Week Singles: "Castle Theme" - Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition (NS)

 

"Castle Theme" from Neverwinter Nights on the PC, Mac OS, Linux, iOS, Android, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One (2002  2019)
Composer: Jeremy Soule
Album: Neverwinter Nights Original Soundtrack & Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Official Soundtrack
Label: Atari & Beamdog
Publisher: Atari & Beamdog
Developer: Bioware

You first hear this track after the hour-long (didn't it also take you an hour?) character-creation process and you listen to the introduction as to how your character finds themselves in the plagued city of Neverwinter.  As you "wake up" in the Academy, a different song plays with a glimmer of the Neverwinter Nights theme, less heroic than the main theme but rightly so because you are only a level 1 scrub who would die with a single well placed critical hit.  But then this song, the Castle Theme starts up as you progress through the in-game tutorial to prepare you for the rest of the game.  Something about that bassoon (is it a bassoon?) that plays at around the 10-second mark and then the flute takes over around 33-seconds just really hits me in the nostalgia feel.

I restarted Neverwinter Nights on Monday, and I was immediately taken back 20 years to when I first played this on my PC in 2002 during the days before Steam existed.  I put a lot of hours/days/weeks/months/years into this game and hearing that theme in the Academy at the beginning of the game when everything was new was very comforting and not too threatening.

And right now, that is the kind of music that I feel like sharing with you all.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

All I Knew Leaves My Brain

First Impressions: Descenders (NS)

Descenders

Systems: Windows, Xbox One, Xbox X/S, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch

Release Date: May 7, 2019

Publisher: No More Robots

Developer: RageSquid

I picked up Descenders for a couple of reasons.  First, I liked the idea of a mountain biking game akin to 1080 Snowboarding.  Second, the tracks are procedurally generated so you can, hypothetically never race the same track twice, although the locations for each track are identical so the environment/vistas are the same depending on which location you choose to start at.  Lastly there was a response by the developer towards someone who was offended at the inclusion of an LGBTQ Pride flag as a cosmetic customization option that you have to choose to enter yourself.  So when I saw that the game was on sale in the middle of December, I thought I would throw some money at the developers/publishers.

Having already written a little bit about my inability to really shine in games that focus on performing tricks, I enjoyed the ability to not have to perform tricks in order to succeed at this game, although needing to complete a series of maneuvers in the tutorial section right off the bat was a little worrisome.  Most of the tricks required you to perform a bunny hop (hold down then press up on the right joystick) while accurately riding up a not too wide ramp (while holding ZR to maintain speed pedaling) then rotating the body of the rider either using the left or right joystick, so there is a bit of coordination involved.  Thankfully, there was nothing that was too difficult and there was a bit of a learning curve when it came to the physics engine, but even now I am still trying to learn how to make more subtle moves with the joystick.

My first attempt at the Tour Ride in the Highlands did not go so well as I previously had just been messing around in the free-ride hub area.  Once on the actual course, I felt that the controls were more sensitive, but that was probably just from feeling that I needed to stay on the track; more mind over reality I think.  I quickly found that performing tricks while on the course felt more difficult because of the added pressure of your Health Meter which decreases by 1 every time you crash, so unlike 1080, you do not have a health meter, but instead have a one-hit and dead mechanic (although you are not really dead-dead).  When you do crash, thankfully there is a checkpoint system that is usually placed a bit before each ramp/stunt so that you have enough room to gain speed especially if you are expected to jump over a pit of boulders.

Not really knowing how the game Tour Ride functioned, I was a little surprised by the choose-your-own-path aspect, so when I had wasted three lives on the first track, I was a little bit scared by how many options I had.  Well, I ended up not even finishing the second track because I crashed while trying to avoid a ramp.  So I tucked my bike between my legs, did not gain any additional cosmetic options, and returned back to the hub in shame.  I was honestly a little saddened that my first run(s) in Descenders was not as fun as I had hoped it would be, but that was not my last time.

The next day I got back on the bike and paid a little more attention to the tracks, and more importantly, my lives.  I did try to avoid a lot of the ramps (you can't suffer fall damage/crash if you don't go off a ramp!) and just focused on getting to the finish.  I also started noticing the Optional Objectives, but most of the time they involved some variation on performing a trick, so again I avoided completing those.  Although I was being more careful than my first time, I was very excited to see that there was a "Medic" track that granted you additional health upon completion.  

So I continued to ride the bike down various tracks heading further to the right of the map screen towards a Skull icon on the map which turned out to be the final track for that area.  The objective here was to make a jump over an elevated train track and I knew that that was not something I was going to attempt with having only one life left at that point.  So I pedaled down the hill, swung to the left of the ramp, and rode under the train only to have the game call me a Chicken!  I was okay with that because I made it across the finish line.  This second time through the Highlands was a lot more fun although I knew that I was still just scratching the surface of the game.

Leading into my third time playing, I discovered a couple of important aspects of the game.  First, when you complete the Optional Objectives on each track, you gain additional health which is incredibly important when you go up against the Boss Jump at the end of the course. Second, unless the Optional Objective is to finish the track in fewer than 50 seconds, it is perfectly okay for you to avoid the finish line to ride back to go over jumps if you have objectives like "2 Near Misses," or "6 Seconds of Air."  Third, there is a Day/Night cycle, and the more tracks you do in a course/area, the less daylight there is and since all of the tracks are in backwoods-type areas, it is likely that there are no spotlights illuminating the course, so attempting tracks in the evening is probably not advised.  Fourthly, there is an in-game achievement-type system that can be completed... to unlock cosmetic items?  Maybe, I'm not 100% sure on this, at least on the Switch edition.  Lastly, I found out that you can skip the first area, The Highlands, if you manage to complete the Boss Jump three times, presumably to show competence in riding your bike down a hill/mountain/track.

There are a couple of other in-game mechanics that I have not touched on such as crew team/crew, gaining reputation, getting sponsors, free riding, Daily Challenges, and likely a lot more that I am not recalling off of the top of my head.  The point is, there is quite a bit to this game that I know only a little about and have either just found out about or have yet to discover.  Four attempts in and I am having quite a bit of fun having my avatar fly down the hillside on a mountain bike peaking around 70 kph while avoiding trees, boulders, castle ruins, and apparently trains. 

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Lift Yourself Up

MIDI Week Singles: "We Are One (feat. Veela)" - Descenders (NS)

"We Are One (ft. Veela)" from Descenders on Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch.

Album: Alchemy 2

Composer: Rameses B

Label: Liquicity

Publisher: No More Robots

Developer: RageSquid

It would make sense that a procedurally generated game has a fair amount of music in it and if that game is also a racing game, a game that might require you to do tricks that there be catchy music.  There is a lot of music in Descenders that are just instrumental tracks, which is fine because they blend into the background and I do not have to think about the music itself.  I also recall having similar feelings about the instrumental music in 1080°  Avalanche.  But then when a song comes on that has lyrics, it just feels like there is more of a punch and you might start feeling more inclined to perform tricks either in time with the music or try to make it to a ramp right as the song peaks.

This song is one of the tracks that I do not know if I would normally vibe with had I come across it outside of the game.  Veela's vocals are a little high-pitched for my regular taste in vocals and the music itself does sound a lot like the rest of the instrumental music in the game.  The two parts of the song together, along with it being a vocal track on a primarily instrumental soundtrack have now elevated it and I am now excited when it comes on.  I am still not pulling off any complex tricks though (see Monday), but I do seem to have more fun when this track comes on.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Trembling of Nothing but Their Own Fear

Trick Attack

I do like racing games, or at least some racing games.  But I feel like racing games can be broken down into two main categories and then additional sub-categories from there.  There are car racing games and all other racing games.  Car racing games being like the Mario Kart series, F-Zero series, Forza, and Need for Speed series, any game where a car on four wheels is your primary mode of transportation and your goal is to cross over some version of a finish line faster than everyone else; and yes I know that in Mario Kart 8 you can drive a motorcycle, and vehicles in F-Zero don't even have wheels, but you get my drift.  Ugh.  When I say "all other racing games," I think about the 1080°  Snowboarding and Wave Race franchises, along with Excitebike and ATV Wild Ride 3D.  Games where you are controlling another vehicle that is not a car, be it a snowboard, a motorcycle, a jetski, a bike, et cetera.  I guess racing games where if you crash or fall off of your vehicle, the race is not over and you can get right back on and continue; this does not extend to Star Wars Episode I: Racer as I have my own issues with that game.

Without so much as publicly stating it, I think I prefer these types of games because they also tend to take place in locations that are nice to look at.  In short, I would rather play a game where you snowboard through snowy peaks than on a paved cobbled road through a European city.  I also like to have some semblance of realism in my racing games, hence my preference for 1080° over the SSX Tricky series.  I also really like The Crew, which was a mix or racing and open-world exploration in a nearly invincible self-healing car.  However, with this appeal towards non-car racing games, often comes a mode of play that I have never excelled in which in turn is probably the reason why I am not more excited by its existence.

Trick Attack, or whatever you want to call the racing mode where you perform tricks for bonus points that increase your score either as part of an accumulated score or as the sole score during a versus match.  I am sure there are plenty of games that implement a combination of requirements to proceed in a Grand Prix mode where you not only have to rank in, let us say the top three, AND score above a certain threshold in order to proceed to the next heat.  Or a mode where you race through the track taking jumps and performing tricks to have the highest score.  Or a similar mode where you actively race against either a real person or a CPU opponent with the same goal in mind.  Again, this mode just does not really interest me, or it is not a draw for me to be excited about a game, although there have been exceptions.

In ATV Wild Ride 3D, performing tricks, albeit tricks where you would just hold down one button while pushing a joystick in a particular direction, rarely pulling off more than three or four tricks per jump, was integral to winning races as they would grant speed boosts felt well integrated.  It could have also been that the trick mechanic in that game was somewhat simplistic in that if you were not seated on your ATV when the vehicle landed you would crash and there was no rotating vertical and horizontal axis combined with tricks to worry about.  And then in games like the 1080° series, I will occasionally pull off a trick if I feel that it will not put my position in the race into jeopardy.  Or if I happen to fly off a steep cliff and there is nothing else to do but fall.

And then there are the Tony Hawk games, where the whole point of the game is to do tricks in an open area within a certain amount of time and score all the points.  But those are not racing games, and I would probably be drawn to a skateboard racing game, but only under circumstances and mechanics similar to ATV Wild Ride 3D.  Or you know, if the 1080° team got back together and did a skateboard racing game.  Anyway, I digress.  I do not know if I have made any points or clarified my position or feelings about racing games or just muddied the waters even more.

I bring all of this up because I picked up Descenders on the Switch which I will get into on Friday, which is a mountain bike game with various tricks implemented but the game is pretty vocal about completing the track how you see fit, be it actually riding down the dirt track or over the open unpaved landscape.  The focus seems more on completing the track and surviving than an actual race and that is something that I am pretty excited about exploring more.  So come back Friday and we will go into Descenders from Rage Squid.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Instrumental

Game EXP: Zombieland: Headshot Fever (OQ2)

Zombieland: Headshot Fever

Systems: Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest, HTC Vive, Steam VR

Release Date: May 25, 2021

Publisher: Sony Pictures Virtual Reality & XR Games

Developer: XR Games

I am a fan of the first Zombieland movie although I have not seen the sequel yet so I cannot comment on the longevity of the franchise and/or how this game and its concepts fit into that larger infected world; although the outfits the characters are wearing the look to be based on those from the second movie, Zombieland: Double Tap.  The basic premise in the game is that you have befriended the group from the Zombieland films, Columbus, Wichita, Tallahassee, and Little Rock, and are held up in the mansion of your generic rich bald totally-not-Jeff Bezos-boss who started an event called the Zombieland Invitational where you run an obstacle course filled with zombies.  As you progress through each stage, kill zombies of various types (typical video game types such as Screamers that attract other zombies and Sports Fan Zombies that buff nearby zombies), you collect toilet paper which is the in-game currency and used to upgrade your guns (it's movie/video game logic, it's not supposed to make sense).

The gameplay is pretty simple and semi-on-rails.  You have your primary weapon equipped and you move with the world by auto-jumping to predetermined points to engage with zombies who you have to clear to go to the next point.  You will not often see zombies up ahead of you that you will engage when you jump to new spots, usually because they are behind closed doors, behind fences, under tables, you get the idea.  After a couple of stages, you gain access to a secondary weapon, the first being a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun and later a light submachine gun that makes the Klobb feel accurate.  Something I did not realize until putting this article together was that while your handgun has infinite ammo, you never find ammunition for your special weapon lying around or picked up from zombies, and I kind of like that; which is probably also why I like to use the Ammo Sack Perk which gives you additional special ammo at the start.  I told the game that I am left-handed, as I am left eye dominant so I end up holding the handgun in my left hand and the secondary weapon in my right.  Since your special weapon is by default attached to your hip, I just hold it in my hand before starting the level while holding my left hand up to stabilize it, as I would if I were only holding one gun.

Not including the demo for SUPERHOT VR, this was my first shooter in VR so I do not know the mechanics that a lot of other shooters use, but two of the key mechanics that Zombieland uses are that headshots and headshots kill to slow the world down (explained as an adrenaline rush) and reloading, which you perform by flicking down the joystick on the controller of the gun you are reloading, then bringing the gun down on a clip that is hovering in front of you; your primary handgun has infinite ammo, but your secondary weapon has limited ammo and yes you do lose ammo if you reload before using all the bullets in a clip.  This hesitation to reload early and potentially waste coveted ammunition has led me many times to run out of ammunition while trying to shoot a fast-moving zombie and die while trying to reload under pressure.  Also, the reloading action is different depending on the gun you are holding.  For the handgun and submachine guns, you just have to move the gun onto the new clip, but for the sawed-off shotgun, you have to move the back-end of the barrel of the gun to where the two shells are hovering, which takes a little more time; I have not yet unlocked the RCP-90 or whatever it is called in this game or the revolver. 

Each stage is pretty short lasting only a few minutes (or tens of seconds if you are equipped to the gills and going for a spot on the leaderboard), although when you first play through it can take longer because you may not know where all the zombies spawn from, which zombies to take out first, where the explosive barrels are and when to shoot them, and your weapons may be underpowered.  Or like me, you might just totally suck.  There is a time-based leaderboard presented to you before you start each stage where you can see the loadout and speed that other players have beaten levels and on one hand, it can be interesting to see how other people approached a stage, and on the other, it can be discouraging seeing that Debouye has gone through the Junkyard 14.001 seconds when you are still struggling to make it to the end.

There is a shooting range that offers challenges of varying difficulties with gun skin cosmetics as a reward for completing progressively difficult goals such as increased accuracy or higher scores.  Sadly you are only able to use guns that you have and I found that using the shooting range never made me feel like I was actually getting any better and improving to earn only a cosmetic gun skin never felt overly productive when I could just be playing an actual level and earning toilet paper and improving my runs (huh).

Each stage also offers optional challenges that are only required to unlock the final stage, the Zombieland Invitational, which you gain access to after completing 15 challenges and after completing challenges five and 10, you earn guns (more on that below).  Not all challenges are optional as most stages simply have a "Survive" challenge which you complete simply by beating the level however you want.  Other challenges are more difficult such as completing Smartek Industries in 1 minute 5 seconds or faster, which likely will not happen until you have made a few runs.  Probably because I was not paying attention, I did not realize that you could actually hover over each challenge Icon depicting a particular character and see what the reward is for completing that specific challenge.  Such as gaining access to the Vanilli M4 Special combat shotgun from beating the Trent's Store level in fewer than 0:59 seconds, which would be hard enough on its own, but for every head you explode, you enter an adrenaline-fueld slow-mo phase that also decreases your final run time at the end.  So while you might have taken 1:47 seconds to complete a level, you could have earned a -0.25 second modifier from your slo-mo headshot kills giving you a final run-time of 1:22.  

The point is, because I was not paying attention to being able to see what you could earn, I was not focusing on what you needed to do to earn additional guns thinking that there must be something to occur in the end-game because I was not earning any more guns that could help me get through difficult areas, so I ended up going through most of the game with two handguns, the sawed-off double barrel shotgun, and the submachine gun.  So when I completed the Zombieland Invitational, my loadout was the following:

• B250-MOT (Handgun)
• Ladyjane Special (Sub-Machinegun)
• Perk 1: Ammo Sack (Additional Special Weapon Ammo)
• Perk 2: Rock Steady (Enhanced/Steady Aiming)

Tooting my own horn, I did manage to beat the Zombieland Invitational on my second try.  The first time around I made it about 2/3rds of the way through before being caught off-guard by a Sprinter.  What I liked about this course in particular compared to the other levels was that after each group of zombies you killed, you were given the choice of two directions you could go, presumably with slightly different types and numbers of zombies that would attack you.  This could lead to a lot of different variations on the same level so it was a little sad that this was only implemented in this one level.

All-in-all, there are nine primary levels in the game, although this version of the game, probably after a number of updates after its initial release there were an additional six additional levels added to themed headers titled "Deleted Scenes" which are all new areas and "Extended Cut" which are areas that you have previously gone through but with a new skin a la different zombies and different set dressings.  I was a little surprised by some of the levels in that they included storylines about having to kill friends and family who had been turned into zombies, but I know that that works in the context of the Zombieland universe.  And I probably should not have been surprised by the end of the game either considering that in one stage you specifically go to your ex-girlfriend's apartment to kill her and your final goal for the game is to kill your boss.  I also just realized that your former boss is the final boss fight.  I can be slow sometimes.

There is a decent amount of content here, or at least what I have come to expect from the handful of VR-centric games that I have played, for people who are actively trying to get faster and faster times and when you get to the point that levels take you less than a minute to complete, you can do quite a bit while only playing for 30 minutes.  And if you are the kind of person that likes to hunt achievements, there are plenty of those to go around too.  All of the achievements I earned were just by regularly playing, which is my preferred way to get achievements.  Maybe that is not actually a lot of content, but I am also pretty early in my VR gaming career so at least right now, it is nice that there is some additional post-story content to play through.  That being said, I am glad that I picked up the VR games bundle over at Fanatical because I do not know if I would have paid $29.99 for this game, partly because again, while I am a and of Zombieland, it was not on my watchlist while first browsing the store and despite my previous comment, I do not know if I would say that there is $30 worth of content.  The game is fun though, and I probably will play more after having beaten the game, mainly to unlock the rest of the guns to give some variety in how to approach the levels, but I do not know if it will be my go-to game just to play.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

There Are Never Ending Treasures

P.S.  To give you a better idea of how a level goes, here is "Exit 34" stage that took me the longest time to get through and this video I filmed was actually my first (and only) time getting through this stage, but it is a good example of the varied types of zombies and how each level progresses.

I also just realized that I really should be shooting with my primary handgun while shooting with the secondary/sub-machinegun.  The things you learn by analyzing your playthroughs.  The more you know.

MIDI Week Singles: "Castle of the Gods" - Saturday Morning RPG (NS)

 

"Castle of the Gods" from Saturday Morning RPG on Everything (2012)

Composer: Kenny Meriedeth

Album: Saturday Morning RPG (Original Game Soundtrack) 

Label: Bandcamp

Publisher: Limited Run Games

Developer: Mighty Rabbit Studios

The MIDI Week Single this week is somewhat of an honorable mention from the music we have selected over the last month.  "Castle of the Gods" plays during the Christmas Special episode of Saturday Morning RPG while you are searching the ice flows of Antarctica, although there is not a lot that is specifically wintery about it.  The music has a very 80s feel to it with its synthesizer-heavy around the 20-second mark, although I do not know if there was a specific homage that this song is paid to.  It does kind of remind me of Kitaro who writes ethereal electronic/symphonic music, kind of like "Journey to a Fantasy" from his 1987 album "The Light of the Spirit."  It was because of this song that I did not mind how expansive the Antarctica area was and how much backtracking I ended up having to do.

"Castle of the Gods" is also noticeably more low-key and relaxing than a lot of the rest of the music from the game, which is more high-energy to get you pumped.  I just think it is a chill song that made me feel like I was 10 years old and playing on the SNES in my parent's living room on a Saturday morning before cartoons started.  

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
We Fight For Our Destiny

Demo Time: SUPERHOT VR Demo (OQ2)

SUPERHOT VR Demo

Systems: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, PlayStation VR, Oculus Quest

Release Date: December 5, 2016

Publisher: Superhot Team

Developer: Superhot Team

SUPERHOT, the original standalone game has always interested me, even before it was ported over to all the VR headsets.  I like the idea of playing an action game that doesn't move as quickly as you would expect it to.  To have the enemies only move you you move, along with any projectiles and bullets feels pretty ingenious.  I also loved the stripped-down aesthetic, that all of the background and detail to everything on-screen was not the focus of the game, but instead was to make the player feel like a complete bad-ass.  Essentially John Wick.  And once I downloaded the demo on the Oculus Quest 2 and played through it, I realized that it was more than just a first-person action game, but really a first-person puzzle game with guns.  And wine bottles.  And ashtrays.  And throwing stars.  And calculators.

The demo for SUPERHOT VR consists of 10 stages that function as a tutorial to the game's mechanics.  All enemies appear as a reddish-orange human who shatters upon being hit by an object or your fist, and you have to "clench your fist" as I have tried slapping them open-palmed to no effect.  The demo starts off by giving you a gun to shoot a stationary enemy, giving you a taste of the shattering body and level transition, followed by a similar stage, but here you have to punch your two enemies.  The demo then introduces the concept of dodging incoming bullets Neo-style and then disarming an enemy by punching them, knocking the gun out of their hand, then grabbing the gun in midair, then shooting the enemy. This was when I knew that I was having a great time because how friggin cool is that!?  The next group of stages has you dodging enemy punches, then introduces throwing stars while three enemies run at you from varying distances.  It is here that the demo introduces you to the mechanic that any object that is dark-colored can be used as a weapon.

The next series of stages are kind of like a checkpoint since if you die in any of the following stages, you respawn here, with a gun in front of you and once you grab said gun, three enemies appear, one in front of you with a gun pointed at you.  This is where you find out that if you shoot an enemy who is holding a gun, 99.47% of the time that gun will fly in your direction with the purpose of catching it, then dispatching the other two enemies running at you.  The remaining four levels are essentially this, taking out three enemies with either your fists or other objects in the environment while not getting killed yourself.  And that is where the puzzle aspect really comes in.

In the demo, all of the enemies start in the exact same location and all of the same items respawn in the same place so there is no randomization.  You can decide not to move your hands while analyzing where each enemy is and slowly moving your hands to get an idea of what they are planning, but it is not always easy to keep your eye on an enemy who is approaching your from one side while also keeping an eye on the enemy who is shooting you from across the room while poking your head out from behind a computer console to throw an ashtray and the shooter.  Thankfully, when you die, then the game does a quick job of respawning you at the checkpoint so there is very little time lost having to click a button to restart, then clicking a "yes" button confirming you want to restart followed by a loading screen reminding you that you should duck out of the way when enemies are shooting at you.

To date, I think I have played the demo maybe 10+ times?  It is a short demo once you figure out how to move in each stage and how best to use the weapons and objects, spending maybe two-and-a-half minutes* from start to finish, longer though if you get tagged in one of the last two stages.  It works well as a stress reliever because one-shotting brittle glass-like enemies with a punch to the face or a wine bottle to the groin can be pretty cathartic.  And feeling like an action movie bad-ass is really what this game is primarily about.  So I will definitely be picking up the main game, but I have a couple of other games that I am working through right now so I'm not hard up to pay full price ($24.99) and will likely wait for a sale.

I have read some comments specifically about the VR port of the game removing one or two story-points that have the player either shoot themselves or throw themselves off of the roof of a building as being censored content.  I was initially perturbed about the content being removed from the main game, but then I read a comment from the developers explaining their decision and I appreciate their stance.  I do not mind the devs saying, "You know what, this thing we put in our game we kind of regret and is not really what we want included, so we decided to remove it" and would obviously take this type of edit on a case-by-case basis and in this particular case, it does not bother me.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Now I've Caught Your Attention

*P.S.  I've included an entire run of the demo below if you want to see me have horrible aim with throwing stars, but to also show how smooth the game plays in VR with having use of both of your hands, and because of this I do not know if I could play it on PC with keyboard/mouse controls now.

Game EXP: Saturday Morning RPG (NS)

Saturday Morning RPG

Systems: iOS, Android, Windows, OSX, Linux, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Switch

Original Release Date: April 5, 2012

Publisher: Mighty Rabbit Studios

Developer: Mighty Rabbit Studios

Playtime: 5-10 Hours

I previously talked about Saturday Morning RPG back in July after playing through the second of five episodes, although the formula going from episode to episode is essentially the same.  The main character Marty is presented with the problem for the episode, typically involving the evil HOOD forces under the control of the evil mastermind Commander Hood.  Speckled throughout each episode as you make your way through various maps, characters present Marty with side-quests, but only if you actively talk to characters.  I mention that because, at the end of every episode, you are given your stats which include how many quests you completed along with an overall rating.  With the exception of the first episode, I have never managed to find or complete all side quests or found all of the enemies to fight.

I mention this because as there are a limited number of side-quests and enemies in each stage, both of which are the primary ways in leveling up, you are somewhat relegated by how much you can level up each episode.  That being said, you are able to replay episodes presumably to finish uncompleted side-quests and to gain additional levels.  I say presume because I only played each episode once as I was not compelled to replay any of the episodes because I felt that I was at an appropriate level by the end and each new episode did not feel that I was underpowered.  Then there is the feeling of completeness both in terms of personal bragging rights, and if you wanted to try to complete either the in-game or system-specific achievements.  Playing on the Switch, being awarded in-game achievements was more of an afterthought and when they would pop up on the screen, my primary reaction was, "Huh, what was that for?"

Story-wise, I was moderately entertained.  Each episode did capture that ridiculous premise of an evil nemesis always attacking the same town/city/region in their attempt for world domination.  Tonally, it did capture a lot of the Saturday morning network cartoons of the 80s and early 90s before Nickelodeon and other specialty cable channels really took off.  There was violence, but really only superficial violence.  All of the local bad guys felt like they were based on 1950s greaser biker gangs as if the people writing cartoons in the 1980s had grown up in the 40s-50s.

And as for the game mechanics, I feel like I covered the majority of that in my First Impressions article and I won't delve much deeper as not much changed or developed after the first two episodes.  I did try multiple ways to not have to spin/rotate the joystick on the Pro Controller and Joy-Cons when scratching the stickers to get the buffs before a battle, but nothing seemed to work as well as using (and abusing) the controller.  And even then, I felt that I could never have a sticker with a scratch difficulty rating higher than two stars if I wanted to use most/all of the buffs.  I tried "scratching" (really just rubbing my finger on the screen) in small quick scratches, I tried only around the edges of the sticker, I tried using multiple fingers and nearly every time I could get one or two single star stickers before the fight started.

I finished the game after between five to ten hours and honestly, the ending came as a bit of a surprise both in terms of story and pacing.  I knew that I was on the fifth and final episode, but I guess in typical Saturday morning cartoon fashion, after the final confrontation with Commander Hood on a space station (or was it a base on the Moon?), he ended up escaping to cause evil another day.  I probably should have seen that coming, but because I didn't, the end of the game felt a bit hollow.  Like I finished a chapter and then the book was taken away, but honestly, I was okay with that.  Saturday Morning RPG had moments when it was fun, the music definitely helped keep my interest but the gameplay did get repetitive and I was happy to no longer be playing.  Maybe if a 10th Anniversary Special Edition Episode 6 is released next year I might pick it up to see if it is just more of the same or if there are improvements or any changes at all.  

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Go Ahead And Feel The Beat

MIDI Week Singles: "North Wall" - ActRaiser (SNES)

 

"North Wall" from ActRaiser on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (1990)

Composer: Yuzo Koshiro

Album: Actraiser, Actraiser Original Soundtrack & Symphonic Suite

Label: G.M.O. Records, Wayô Records

Publisher: Enix

Developer: Quintet

To close out our month-long selection of cold and wintery songs, I decided on "North Wall" from ActRaiser.  This is the song that plays in the first platforming combat area in the northern part of the continent, aptly named North Wall.  I find this song a little strange, but in a good way, because it does not really fit in the context of a platforming game where you are killing small blue imp-like creatures as you trudge your way through shin-deep snow, dodging falling icicles (can they still be called icicles if they are as big as you are?), scaling a mountain, slashing at giant floating eyeballs in caves, and fighting a large torso of a fellow animated statue.  The music seems more suited for an open expanse of snow, ice, and wind.  If you slow the song down to 3/4, it would almost fit that setting even more, especially as the song swells from 1:08-1:20.

Interestingly, based off of the previous songs we have featured last month, is that this song does not have any bells, triangles, or chimes, but instead uses a harp and a horn-like instrument and still manages to evoke a snow-covered landscape with dark branches of covered trees peeking out from under snowdrifts.  I feel like I can imagine this scene very well, both in-game and real-life locations.  Again, as with most of the songs featured last month, nostalgia.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

I Believe It Went A Little Something Like This...

Year in Review: 2021

 

I have another almost entirely written article sitting on another computer so I decided to rewrite the entire thing so that I could have it ready for alls y'alls on Monday, January 3, 2022.  That's how much I love each and every one of you.

Bloody hell that was a banger of a year.  

475,075 (MORE) people died in the United States from COVID-19, to cap it off at 824,190 for the last two years as of December 31, 2021.  Although the current word is that while the Omicron Variant is significantly more infectious, it is appearing to be less lethal because it is not attacking the lungs in the same way that Delta and other more aggressive variants have in the past (as if 2020-2021 is waaaaaay back in the past).  This is not my forte so I am going to move on.

There was a mix of outcomes in terms of social issues.  There was a guilty verdict for D. Chauvin, the Minneapolis Police Officer who murdered George Floyd.  There was a guilty verdict for the three small dick-energy-murderers who hunted down and murdered Ahmaud Aubery in Georgia in 2020.  There was a settlement with Elijah McClain's family and the city of Aurora, Colorado after he was murdered by a combination of Aurora City Police and paramedics because he was black and was not acting in a way that was consistent with what some white people thought of as normal.  I should be a lot better of an ally by not just talking about the high profile cases

Oh, and who could forget the day 362 days ago on January 6, 2021, when supporters of former President Donald Trump peacefully attacked the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. in an attempt to invalidate the culmination of the November 3rd, 2020 election, to hang Vice President Mike Pence, and do everything else to any RINO or Democrat they came across?

So I got back into reading this year.  I bought a Kindle Fire 8 because they were on sale, but mainly because I lost my Kindle Paperwhite and I think it might have been left at my old job after I was let go (fired) back in the end of Febuary, which is the only place I can think of that that I could have left it as I have not seen it since sometime in February and I had taken it to work occasionally.  So during those six months that I was unemployed, I read a lot of Star Wars books because I hooked up this schnazzy Kindle Fire app OverDrive to download eBooks from our local library.  And by a lot of Star Wars books, I mean that I read 13 books, novels, and short stories (which counted as individual books according to Goodreads).  I had thought about writing articles for some of the books and at least for the Aftermath Trilogy, but that ended up not happening because I would go from one book to another and I was trying to read them in chronological order.  I also finished Carmilla and The Witch Cult in Western Europe, both of which I started waaaaaay back in 2020.  But anyway.

In the realm of board games, I ended up having to back out of our Dungeons & Dragons group that was doing the Curse of Strahd quest.  I was finding that it was becoming more and more difficult to participate even after our DM had been accommodating in moving the start time back so that I could help Conklederp with getting Goblino ready and into bed.  It eventually got to the point where I was not able to participate because our evening routine was ever-evolving.  So I asked our DM to put my halfling Wild Mage Lurien into some type of scenario where it could be possible for him to come back, but I believe that their campaign finished up.  But I did pick up the Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft that was released back in May, which seemed to piss off some people by not including stat-blocks for some of the Darklords while the books specifically tell the DM to use equivalent stat-blocks and which ones from the DMG to use.  I was pleasantly surprised by how the book worked as a combination of both campaign settings and a toolset for DMs to build their own setting within Ravenloft.  It did make me want to start up a new D&D group, but again and is always the issue, finding the time.  I do not think we played any other board games the rest of the year, which is a little sad, but again, finding the time that works around Goblino's timetable is pretty difficult.

But I have found time for video games, which is usually relegated to the mornings when I wake up before everyone else, and then after going to bed, usually after Conklederp and I stream a show on Netflix, Disney+, or Hulu (recently being the second season of The Witcher, and now getting into The Book of Boba Fett.  I do not have any thoughts (yet) about the Cowboy Bebop series on Netflix because I have yet to see it, and I have only watched half Marvel series on Disney+ (Wandavision, and Loki) but I would like to start in on those.  Eventually.  At some point.  But yes, video games, again mostly played on the Switch this year, although in the latter half of the year I did expand my playable catalog to Wii U and Oculus Quest 2 games.  

The Switch in handheld mode has been my primary gaming source for the entire year, again mostly played after waking up in the morning or after getting into bed.  My favorite game is probably the one that surprised me the most on so many fronts.  I spent around 93 hours on Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and that was not even counting the DLC which I probably will not be getting.  There was just so much in this game that I loved, from the building up of Hyrule before the Calamity and giving weight to the people who survived into Breath of the Wild and all of the principal locations.  Like Akkala Citadel was just a place in Breath of the Wild, but in Age of Calamity, the number of battles that you fight there, defending the fortress time and time again from wave after wave of Ganon's hordes.  Then being able to see and fight as the Champions as well as ancelary characters like Impa and introducing new characters like Astor.  

My favorite indie game was probably Tux and Fanny, because it has been a long time since any has made me literally lol to the point that I had to put the Switch down to be able to breath again.  Terry Pratchett has said that "You can't map a sense of humour" regarding early Discworld novels and people asking for maps of the Disc, and I felt that that holds true for trying to explain why "1997 Toyota Tacoma" next to a drawing of a plant made me laugh as much as it did.

The rest of 2021 is a bit less interesting.  I did not go out to the movies at all because right now I still do not trust other people who might go into theaters.  Conklederp and I did go to a taproom in the Spring and two breweries back in May, being the first time out since March 2020, although were are still not going out to eat at restaurants.  I think going out to movies is what I miss most about going out into the world and there have been plenty of movies that I would have like to see in theatres, but that may also just have to wait until Goblino is older and COVID-19 becomes reclassified as an endemic.  A little bit longer than lasting until April, 2020 it turns out.  And a lot more than 11 or 12 cases*.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
On the Wings of Death by the Hands of Doom

*P.S. Try 57,107,627 reported cases in the United States alone.