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Monday Gaming Diary: Getting Reacquainted with Handhelds

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Kingdom Hearts 3DS

I admit that I am a complete gadget junkie. As such, sometimes my new-found gadgets gather dust after their newness and initial excitement wears off. My 3DS and Vita are two such gadgets. Both have sat unplayed since SDCC, and I can’t really say that I played with my 3DS as much as I used it for Street Passing so I could complete two puzzles I couldn’t finish at E3.

This weekend, however, I was a little determined to make up with both of them. My husband had drill weekend, so he was gone starting Friday night and therefore, it’s up to me to parent the kiddo at night. It’s very, VERY hard to play my console video games and do this. I mostly play things he can’t watch, and since I’m trying to be quiet as he goes to sleep, I wear a headset, which means I can’t hear him get out of bed or call for me that easily (my headset is awesome, for the record). So the best course of action lies in the handhelds. Not to mention, if I get called away from playing, it’s so much easier to stop my handheld than it is a console game.

First up, I decided it was time to make up with Kingdom Hearts 3DS. I was initially really turned off by the game due to the fact it is, in essence, a timed game, but the fact that it’s a handheld game wasn’t that appealing to me either. If I play a game, I’d really rather it be a console game for a number of reasons. Again, I admit that I have no idea why I bought these handhelds other than the fact I am a gadget junkie. But anyway, I played KH3DS for a few hours and rekindled my love for the series. The timed portions aren’t as bad as they initially seemed, and I really like how tied the game is to Birth by Sleep, so yay, I’m glad I’m no longer mad at it.

Had to dust off the Vita a little too. After giving up on the Vita version of LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 (seriously, DO NOT BUY), my Vita has been off for weeks, for some of the same reasons why my 3DS has been turned off. But I have a stack of Vita cartridges that I haven’t cracked open or finished playing. I couldn’t bring myself to play more of Resistance: Burning Skies, so I tried Dungeon Hunter: Alliance. It’s a little action-RPG that follows the typical formula of a Western RPG and has none of the spark. I can see why it got poor scores across gaming sites, but it’s so mindless that it’s something I can play while Gabe occupies himself with coloring books, puzzles, or his iPad. KH3DS is anything but mindless, so I can’t really play that around him. This fits the bill perfectly.

That said, I can’t recommend anyone buy it, and I doubt I’ll pick it up again.

I’m going to Houston next week, and the handhelds will be making the trip with me. I have 4-5 hour road trip each way plus nothing to do at night at my parents’ house. Hopefully I can make a bit more of a dent in my Vita games and KH3DS during that time.

Monday Gaming Diary: Murder holes! Comedy gold!

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This past week I’ve had a bit of a personal tragedy, so all plans for everything pretty much went out the window like all my hopes for the Wii U. I needed a pick-me-up, something that was over-the-top and wasn’t serious in the slightest. With all of the serious games I’ve had to play as of late *coughcoughSpecOpsTheLineWitcher2SyndicatePrototype2etccoughcough*, I really wanted something silly.

Sorry, Kingdom Hearts 3DS…you take yourself seriously enough, despite the ridiculous pastels and fluffy creatures.

If you’ve looked at my stack of shame as of late, you probably know exactly which game I picked: Bulletstorm.

I’ve heard from my EvilCast cohorts more than once how insane the game is in both gameplay and in dialogue, but nothing could have fully prepared me for this game. I feel like I should replay with a journal next to me so I can write down every ridiculous thing that is said in the game. Then again, if I do that, I may end up writing down the entire script of the game. And then I’ll have to hide it so Gabe doesn’t find a book in my handwriting with the word “dick” scribbled all over the place. At least there are YouTube videos for that.

I also tried to play some more Halo 3: ODST, as, well, I have to get that and Halo: Reach done before November 4th, but I just couldn’t get into it this time. It’s too serious, and ugh, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I miss Master Chief. These non-Spartans grunt and gasp way too much during a firefight. It’s horribly distracting and annoying. Plus, I feel that all I’m doing is wandering around trying to find health packs, and whilst doing so, stumbling into ambushes. I’m somehow not dying, which I’m going to attribute to the Covenant’s odd inability to chase me into buildings. It’s definitely not from my skill.

However, it was pretty futile to start Bulletstorm now as I’m about to have to really shelve it for a little while. Transformers: Fall of Cybertron releases this week, and at least it’s also not too serious! I doubt there will be dick jokes in it, though. If there were, that would rock on so many levels.

Monday Gaming Diary: My Break from Gaming

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I’m so tired. I’ve gone balls-to-the-wall ever since San Diego Comic-Con, and looking back on it, I’m not sure why I thought I could handle traveling so much and working, and and and and…you get the idea. So last week, I took a complete break from gaming (unless you count iOS games as gaming, which I don’t).

I can’t lie; it was nice. I actually went to bed early and got some decent sleep, and I’ve felt myself completely unwind from the stress-coaster I’ve been on since mid-July. So when I went to my Dishonored appointment on Friday morning at QuakeCon, I felt eager to play a game again. Every now and then, we all need a break from things, especially when our hobbies become more like jobs than they are hobbies. Since this is my first week in about three to have zero traveling and zero conventions to attend, I’m going to get right back into my normal routine. For starters, I need to finish this Spec Ops: The Line strategy guide review that I’ve been sitting on since before SDCC. I had all the intentions in the world to write it up while I was in San Diego. Considering that was almost a month ago, well, yeah. I have nothing.

Oh and before you question my status on Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance, I haven’t had a chance to work on that as I’m still waiting for the guide to arrive. I’ve used that fact to delay even turning on the game so I could enjoy my break for the full week. That’s how you turn lemons into lemonade–by, uh, procrastination.

If you want to know how much I loved Dishonored, you’ll have to read my write-up at GamingAngels.

Gaming Diary: Darksiders II Community Event

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Darksiders II

Gaming Angels received an invitation to THQ’s Darksiders II Community Event, and I was honored to be selected to go. After I rage quit Darksiders just the week before, to say I was nervous about having to play the game for two days straight would have been an understatement. I was really scared I was going to get frustrated to the point of giving up, and then the THQ and Vigil staff would have to help me, and then I would sit in the back all red faced and sad. At absolute worst case scenario, I flipped a table in rage, stormed out, and then somehow left the building with the ginormous statue of War in the lobby.

Fortunately, my fears were all for nothing. I had a great time playing Darksiders II, to the point that after playing for 4 hours on Thursday, I was sad we had to stop for a Q&A session. From the 8 hours I’ve played total, I never once got frustrated with the platforming, the puzzles, or really any aspect of gameplay. With the first game, I got a little angry within the first couple of hours.

You can read my full write-up of my experience on Gaming Angels. I’m actually looking forward to Death’s story releasing next month now, whereas just a week ago, I was ready to pass it up completely unless GA had me review it.

I did play a bit of LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 on the Vita on the plane, and wow that was a disappointment. Are all LEGO games on the Vita as disappointing in presentation and gameplay or is it just all handheld LEGO games? I remember really enjoying LEGO Star Wars III on the 3DS, so I have a hard time believing that WB has just given up making LEGO games enjoyable on portables. Is it just the Vita? Does WB not care how blurry the cut scenes are, how chopped up the story is, or how awful the mini-games they inflict are? I haven’t played the same game on the consoles, so I can’t fully compare the differences, so it’s possible the console version is just as bad. Either way, both WB and Traveller’s Tales should be ashamed of themselves. If it’s just the Vita, they should be doubly ashamed of themselves for allowing such a half-assed presentation and game on the Vita. Please do not let LEGO LOTR be that awful on the Vita. If it is, just stop porting LEGO games for the Vita. It’s ridiculous.

Monday Gaming Diary: The inevitable happened – I rage quit Darksiders

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Darksiders

The more I played Darksiders and the more I saw how much of a Zelda-clone it really is, I knew I would quit the game eventually. I didn’t want to, as I really, really like the story, but I had a sinking suspicion it would happen. The question was, what would do it? Would it be the usual boredom that causes me to quit Zelda games? Or would I hit some super frustrating boss of whose frustration would be compounded by horrible aiming mechanics? Or would it be some insane timed platforming puzzle? And the answer was…C.

As soon as I received the power of the chronospheres to slow down time, I knew something bad was going to happen. I knew it couldn’t be used for something as simple as just evading the giant sandworms, and sure enough, I was right. I had to use it to quickly climb around a stupid tower in the middle of the desert. Have to slow down time to avoid getting smacked by a spinning blade at the top of the tower, as I have to use the demonic growth to traverse the top of the tower because the bridge is out. The bridge is always fucking out. The puzzle seemed simple enough and it really didn’t seem to be that bad. What I didn’t count on, though, was the direction I needed to pull on the analog stick not corresponding to where War would actually go. I practiced a variety of methods, but nothing seemed to work. War would either climb back down or go in the direction of the spinning blade. After thirty minutes of trying, I said no more.

Life is too short to play games that cause that amount of frustration. I’m really sad about not finishing the game and having to rely on game summaries to find out what happened. I’m going to a Darksiders II Community Event this week, so I really wanted to have the first game completed so I would be fully prepped for the second. Now that I hear that the second game has more platforming than the first…well, let’s just say that I’m thrilled I have a writer on staff who has already begged me to work on the Darksiders II strategy guide review. I will still greatly enjoy myself at this event, and who knows; maybe I’ll really really like the sequel more than the first. It’s happened before, so it’s bound to happen again.

Sorry, Darksiders. I tried, I really did. I hate anything timed, and this one puzzle just pushed me too close to coffee table flipping rage. Time to refocus on LEGO Batman 2 and the next item up in my stack of shame: Transformers: War for Cybertron.

 

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