Enough Plumbers:
I have dim memories of playing this game years ago and after watching
Patrick checking out second one, i wanted to play them both again.
What an inventive little game! Really interesting puzzle platformer with cloning mechanics. I was stuck on level 14 for a while, but the final solution turned out to be much easier than i thought.
Ninja Gaiden (NES):
I'm on level 5 (meaning that when i start the game from the beginning every two days or so on my breaks, level 5 is now when i give up). Need to figure out how to do that wall to wall jump. You know the one. Yes, THAT one.
The game is all about patterns, all enemies have predetermined behaviors and they're all very simple to kill individually. Some trouble might start when the game starts spamming them but "don't stop for nothing and keep running" mantra works for majority of the game.
Despite that enemy behaviors are wildly different, majority of them are killed if you simply stop for half a second and slash (range on this sword is bigger than you think). Birds are easy, either duck and wait for them to fly closer and slash or jump over them and let them fly off screen.
Speaking of screen, screen border is actually your main weapon in the game, not only you can simply ignore most enemies by running past them or just by letting them run off screen themselves, you can even abuse it to change the position of especially uncomfortable enemy.
There is one dude in the beginning of level 5-1 who is standing on top of a pillar and throws knifes at you. He is rather bothersome, but you can manipulate screen border near him a bit and he will fall off that pillar. Level 5 also introduces white dudes who throw boomerangs at you -- so far they're the only enemy that you NEED to use power-up against.
Because i have big health bar i find that strategy "harm yourself to abuse invincibility state" (thank you, La Mulana, for teaching me this!) works wonderfully in this game.
Assassin's Creed III:
The beginning of this game is weird. It takes them three hours or so for them to give me full access to the city, before that i just go from mission to mission. Just roaming the city and collecting stuff is one of my favorite things to do in the series and they won't let me until i am done with all tutorial missions.
Even when they give me access, it still feels rather empty:
- there are no shops (there is some cart on wheels that sells stuff though)
- i've only had one extra mission in the entire city (delivering mail)
- and viewpoint synchronization points are too scarce (seriously what were they thinking when they picked that setting? there is just not enough tall buildings).
I don't even know what viewpoint synchronization does anymore, because it sure doesn't unlock any shops that's for sure.
Fast travel system... I still didn't figured it out how to actually use it, so i won't whine much on it yet, but i just hope that you don't actually need to roam around in this underground maze every single time you want to move to point to point. Because that would defeat the whole point of "fast" travel system.
Full synchronization on fort siege mission was annoying. But at least it made me learn some new moves. I like new cornering mechanic and how you can whistle to attract guards. But human shield mechanic is a pain to use, and it's always better just to run away when you see guys starting line fire.
Rifles take too much to reload. I mean what happened, Ezio and even Altair had much better guns with zero reloading time. I know, i know: "MUH REALISM", but this is a videogame. At the very least, they could have added some kind of active reload system from Gears of War to it -- that might have made it more fun. So far, it's better to fire a rifle, ditch it and then pick up another one from corpses that you don't have to reload.
It was kinda funny in this mission how one of my men climbed on top of a roof, positioned himself right above the guard and then jumped off it to kill... a dog standing nearby. Really? I'm not even sure if it was a bug or something but it was funny either way.
Franklin's speech about picking older women for lovers was absolutely hilarious. It turned even more hilarious when i googled around and found out
it's 100% real.
Scribblenauts Unlimited (PC):
A perfect opportunity for my new wireless keyboard and mouse. I tried to play it before but it was hard to play with my setup -- i really don't want to play games on my monitor anymore and my TV is in across the room from my PC.
First time when i tried to play i couldn't really understand the controls, it just didn't make sense. Yesterday i finally got it: the game was made with Wii U touch controls in mind first and foremost and in PC port they didn't bother to change them at all. So this game is actually most controlled by mouse mostly and keyboard is only used for typing.
But controls aside -- this is such a great game. So much fun and charm. Now that i am actually playing it i love it so much and i am so sad that Wii U version was delayed to in Europe until it became completely irrelevant. I could have played this wonderful game on Wii U launch a year ago... In August, i finally caved in and got Steam version on sale for 4 bucks. I would had zero problems with buying this great game fully priced a year ago, WB. Your loss, once again.
I love humour in this game so much. like there are lockers at fire fighters station. What's inside them? Mini giraffe, hungry platypus that will eventually eat said giraffe and a pink fireman helmet.
Most of the puzzles are very easy and but still very fun. Like when you give fire fighters' mascot dog a little helmet of its own, a little fire truck will appear and then the dog will get into it and ride away!
And i love how game is both a guided experience and at the same time gives player some freedom to have fun. I had one mission where i had to make pizza and after i gave the cook tomatoes, dough and anchovies (whatever that is... i only know that from movies), he asked me to add special ingredient of my own.
Of course, being mature well-adjusted adult i am, i added boogers to the mix. Guy who ate this pizza enjoyed it well enough.
Some puzzles didn't really made sense though. Like most of art gallery. It felt like for some paintings, anything could do. When gnome asked to add something on the painting i randomly added a rat and it worked. So either this was a very well implemented
Pratchett reference or anything would have worked.