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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.

 

Monday Gaming Diary: Reason #4789 Why I Love Strategy Guides – JRPGs

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Dragon Quest VI

I haven’t playedDragon Quest VIsince E3, which was only about what, a month ago, but in JRPG time, that’s about ten years. I turned it on while at the airport for the return flight and instantly fell into the “uhhhhh, what am I supposed to be doing again?” DQVI has no journal, and while I remembered there was someone you could talk to “in case you ever lose your way,” I could not for the life of me remember who this person was or if they were in the real world or dream world.

My save point doesn’t help, because I saved in a town where I had already saved it from certain doom. So I went there for another reason. Either it had a cheap inn or it was close to a sidequest. Wait, didn’t I unlock the ability to submerge my ship like a submarine? Did I come to this town to explore underwater? Arrrgh, WHY AM I HERE AND WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NEXT?

Thank you for your existence, strategy guide! Thanks to you and my handy-dandy bookmark, I see that I came to this town for no known reason whatsoever. There is nothing I need anywhere near here, and in order to complete my current sidequest, I need to go somewhere else. Conclusion? I needed a super-cheap inn.

JRPGs are long suckers, and for those that I’m playing for fun and not for my review, I may take days or weeks or even months in between gaming sessions. If I didn’t have the guides, I’d most likely quit the venture or start over. And if I started over, I’d end up back where I was: confused. Considering I really, really like DQVI, this would be a darn shame. Whenever I get around to Dragon Quest IX, I have a feeling I’ll be back in the same boat repeatedly.

The best part of the whole story? When I pulled out my massive DQVI guide from my carry-on bag, guy next me shot me a look of disgust. He commented that the game was not that hard and I didn’t need the guide. I cocked my eyebrow at him and said, “Who said I needed this because the game was hard? I hadn’t played in over a month and I can’t remember what to do next.” He looked surprised, then smiled and said, “Oh yeah, I can relate.” A few minutes later, I heard him say over my earbuds, “Damn! I didn’t know that sidequest was there.”

HA!

Monday Gaming Diary: Stack of Shame Shuffle

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Stack of Shame Shuffle

Yup, I’ve reshuffled my stack of shame yet again. As you can see from the image above, I even have deadlines on each of the games. I am on what you may call a very tight schedule from now through the fall.

Two forces triggered this latest shuffle. The first was an invitation to attend a THQ press party for Darksiders II, where I’ll actually be sent–not on my own dime, unlike E3 and SDCC–to a video game event. I’ve never finished the first Darksiders game, and I’d really like to have it done or at the very least a majority of it done before I head out and make a complete ass out of myself in front of the developers and publishers. The event is July 25th. In other words, as soon as I get my butt home from SDCC, it will be Darksiders, balls to the wall, and set on the Easy difficulty setting. When you absolutely, positively have to burn through a game in a week, Easy is the only way to go.

That’s been the biggest monkey wrench in my stack of shame kerfluffle. The second force was the announcement of the fall release for Transformers Fall of Cybertron. I never finished War for Cybertron like I wanted to, and now I have until late August to do so in order to be able to review the guide for Fall of Cybertron when it releases. Thank God I’ve already conceded reviewing both the Borderlands 2 game and guide to others. I would have had to add Borderlands to my higher priority list, and well, then I could just schedule a breakdown by late September.

Once that hit me, the realization of other sequels’ releasing also came into full epiphany. Assassin’s Creed III releases October 30th. Halo 4 releases November 6th. I must finish Assassin’s Creed Revelations, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo: Reach in order to fully understand what will happen in these games.

Keep in mind that I also have to review Inversion for GA ASAP, as that game released while I was at E3 and I just haven’t had a chance to get around to it yet, AND Kingdom Hearts 3DS releases July 31st.

It’s a good thing I have friends with young children, so none of us get out ever. If they don’t hear from me for a month or two, it will be nothing too unusual for either of us.

Monday Gaming Diary: LEGO Batman 2 and…Gabe…

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LEGO Batman 2

I’ve usually made it a policy to not play video games around my son, Gabe, but I’ve made an exception as of late with handhelds, especially while he plays games on the iPad. (The family that games together, stays together.) One game I have been playing alot on the Vita is LEGO Batman 2, and as Gabe has gotten into super heroes lately, it really intrigued him to watch me play. LEGO games are quite honestly the only kid-safe games I own, so I’ve had no problems with him hanging on me while I play.

Sunday morning, however, he went into my gaming office and saw my PS3 copy of LEGO Batman 2, as I had to get a console copy to review the strategy guide. He neatly put two and two together and asked to watch me play that copy on the TV. Of course, I initially thought that was awesome. It didn’t take me long to see how really not fun that is.

On the one hand, I was able to start work on that strategy guide review, but on the other hand, I wasn’t really able to concentrate on much. Thank God it was a LEGO game, where concentration isn’t exactly that important. However, having a backseat driver while playing a game, even a LEGO game, isn’t as much fun as it sounds. Of course he didn’t understand why I was stopping to smash everything in sight for the sake of gaining the Super Hero status in stud collection. He didn’t get why I was fulfilling ridiculous prerequisites for minikits. As such, he felt the need to tell me where I needed to go. At every second.

I’m able to tune out most of it thanks to being a stay-at-home mom with no daycare for two years, but it’s hard to tune it out when he grabs my hands to get my attention to tell me where to go. Then he wants in my lap. Then he wants my controller because it’s a better color than the one I’m letting him hold. It becomes one giant pain in the ass. He would probably want to watch me play all day, but there’s only so much I can take with that much distraction going on.

Selfish of me? Yeah, a bit. But gaming is something I do for me that occasionally ends up being work. There are so many other things I’d rather do with Gabe than have him watch me play a video game.

After I said no more video games for today, he grabbed Gears of War off the shelf and asked me to play that because the guys “look cool.” Ah, yes, they are cool, but hell no, kiddo. Let’s go color in your coloring books.

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