Symphony of the Night

There are few things I want to discuss but not enough time.  School, art comissions and band* have taken up alot of my time.  Despite this I still manage to find time to play some videogames at night (staying up until 3 am then having to wake up at 5:30 is generally not the best idea, but I managed to stay awake the entire day somehow.)

Anyways, I have been playing Castlevania : Symphony of the Night, it is simply a solid game.  It is the first Castlevania game to use and incorporate RPG elements, that being leveling up, upgrades, customizing equpiment, etc.  

I have played other RPG like Castlevania games like Aria of Sorrow and Order of Ecclessia and I know what to expect.  Not quite blown away by anything of this game, but is in my opinion alot more fun than the normal Castlevania games where you level to level beating a boss on the way.  Castlevania is just a fun game in general.

Overview

True to Metroidvania style gameplay, exploration is key and you will be looking at your map ALOT.  You play as Alucard (Dracual spelled backwards, zomg) Dracula's son, and you are trying to kill your father.  You hop into the castle and you're off to find Dracula with no sign or hint as to where you are supposed to go.  Somewhere, there is generally no right or  wrong place to go because each room has something important or helpful to offer whether it be a new weapon, armor, money, or a new ability.  

After mindlessly exploring for a while, you begin to get a basic idea as to where you are supposed to go, that place is usually the place you haven't gone to yet.  Here's the thing though, the places you haven't been to almost always aquire you to obtain a new ability to get there, such as turning into mist to get through iron bars or doubling jumping onto higher platforms.  

So it follows this basic formula

1) Run around/explore

2) Go to all rooms possible

3) Examine areas you cannot reach

4) Find ability/upgrade allowing you to reach these new places

All while killing monsters on the way.  The pacing is great and the seemingly repetitive formula always seems fresh.

Gameplay

The sheer number of weapons, armor, etc. in this game is staggering.  Items are basically everywhere and you need to learn how to use each one to the best of its ability.  The amount of secret rooms and passages is also amazing.  There are certain walls you can break open with your weapon that usually leads to more rooms with treasure at the end that is worth finding if you manage to find it.  An experienced gamer will know where to look for these passages, usually that little dead end that seems to be there for no reason (hit that dead end for safe measures.)  The size of the castle itself is the icing on top of all of this.  The castle is large, there is lots to explore, but it doesn't end ith just the castle.  There is an inverted castle, which is like a mirror othe castle that you can explore.  It's harder and more hardcare and awesome.  There is a ton to explore and a ton to do.

Controls for this game are solid.  With your basic Castlevania controls, attack, jump, crouch, run, up+attack for special.  You also have a second attack button, you may assign a weapon to each hand, it could be two swords, or a two-handed word, a sword and a shield, or a sword and a special weapon like a pentegram or shuriken.  This gameplay open for different play styles.  You also have your basic armor equipment, head gear, armor, etc.  this is self explanatory for anyone who has really ever played a game where you equip armor and weapons.  (If you do not understand, start playing different games and expand your variety of games.)

Presentation

The game has a great look and feel to it.  Each area has its own distinct atmosphere, be it a library or colosseum, you will always know your general location by looking at the enviroment.  The sprites in the game are smooth and well done.  Alucard's movements are all smooth along with the enemies causing the game to flow smooth as water.  Not much can be said about music because the ISO that I downloaded doesn't seem to have music, I have sound but there is an over all lack of music.  Despite this, I am a big Castlevania fan and have heard the songs and know what they are, it's pretty epic.  One thing they do in this game is that they keep 3D graphics to an absolute minimum, only about 2 enemies are 3D.  The only 3D is at the beginning of the game and that's just about it.  This is good because it seems that Konami didn't have too much experience with 3D rendering because the 3D intro of Dracula's castle looks incredibly sloppy.  Because they use almost no 3D and keep it to 2D they manage to make a beautiful 2D world.

Favorites

1)I love how Alucard can turn into a bat, wolf and mist in this game to reach different places.  Though I haven't found much use for the wolf form, mist and bat are lots of fun.  

2)I enjoyed how save points were well scattered through out the castle so you never had to go too far to save and stop playing.

3)Well placed warp points so back-tracking is much easier and faster taking you to general locations faster.

4)Weapon and play style variety.

All in all, Symphony of the Night is a one of the best Castlevania games to date.  It has spectacular visuals that always looks fresh.  The castle is huge and there is a ton to do, explore and collect.  Last and most importantly the gameplay is smooth and fun and is paced so very very well.

Gameplay : 10/10

Presentation : 9/10

Fun Factor : 9/10  <----That point in time when you can't figure out where to go gets to you just enough to get points deducted.

Overall: 14/15

*My school's band is one of the best in the state.  We are playing First Suite in E-Flat by Gustav Holst, Lux Aurumque by Eric Whitacre, and Galop by Dmitri Shostakovich 

New shoes

A class mate of mine recently asked me to color his shoes. We negotiated a price of $25 and I was off to make it the awesomest thing ever. The shoes he gave me were Nike Air Force 1's, and it took me about a week to finish. I spent a good lot of late nights coloring these shoes too. Overall, I would have to say it took me about 16-19 hours to do finish this.

And here is the final product.

Halo 3: ODST Campaign review.

Earlier I reviewed Halo 3: ODST based on the bit of campaign I played and the hours of firefight mode I played. Now that I have beaten the game, a full review can be done. In the link below you can read about the firefight mode and all of it's glory.
http://sharpiegamer.blogspot.com/2009/10/halo-3-odst.html

The campaign is a fun experience that you may or may not want to do over again. In the campaign you play Rookie; you and your crew get knocked off course on your decent onto a covenant ship when they go into slip space. You wake up several hours after your crash landing onto New Mombasa, left alone in a dark hostile place crawling with covenant troops. Your goal is to figure out where you team is, or what happened to them. Early on in the game, you meet the Superintendent, a massive super computer that basically runs the city. From the Superintendant you can view objectives and places you need to go, there are 6 areas you need to investigate to discover what happened to your team. This is where the fun really happens, when you find the right object using the detective visor it brings you into a flashback on what happened to your team. These flashbacks are alot more action oriented and brings you back into the normal Halo "shoot everyone in sight" scene.

Despite being able to go to these way points in any order you want, it really helps when you do it in the right order. I managed to almost go through the flashbacks in chronological order, but if you find that you've done it in a jumbled manner and you care about the story, you will have to piece all of the events together for it to really make sense.
Another problem in being able to do these flashbacks in any given order is the pacing. When played through in chronological order, each level is more intense than the other. Like, the very first one, you are simply on ground, moving through the city fighting some brutes and the like. Later, you go onto fight hunters, but then you are high jacking a phantom ship. It's weird when you playing the most epic scene in the game, and then for the rest of the game, it just doesn't compare to what you first played.
Despite this, there will always be the same ending and this ending remains intense and challenging.

With all of the flashback levels aside, getting to them isn't all that great. You are playing as the rookie and you travel across New Mombasa in the dark, so you will be using your detective visor just to see where you are going most of the time. This takes away from the dark lonely atmosphere of the game if you'll end up playing 4/5 of the game using that visor. While traveling through the city, you will come across the occasional troop of enemies patrolling the city, but otherwise it is a long walk trying to find your way to the next way point, it seems a little bit too long too. Despite this, the background music gives you a feeling of loneliness. If you really care to look for it, there are sound records of a girl and her tale of the covenant invasion called Sadie's Tale. I personally was not too interested in this, but anyone who is interested is given a little motivation to explore the streets of New Mombasa.

So looking back at old scores. Here is the final score for Halo 3 ODST

Gameplay: 9
Gameplay, difficulty and level design remain solid and is over all fun to play, especially firefight mode.

Presentation: 8
Being too dark for its own good, just about forcing you to play through the game with the detective visor on, save for the flashback levels. Flashback levels are really where the setting is good with a fairly diverse landscape.

Story: 6
An over all bucket of dece of a story, but who's really playing a Halo game for the story?

Lasting Appeal: 10
Firefight will leave you and your friends with lots of fun to be had looooong after the campaign in complete. With ridiculous pars as 200,000 points, you'll have fun reaching the par score and getting better.

Over All: 8/10 (24/30)
Still, a bit too pricey for a game that should only be costing $30 or $40, you'll still have a ton of fun with firefight and a good run with the campaign. It's a great game, but the only real question stopping you from actually getting the game in my opinion is the price.

S and Z are little shits

Ok. Everyone likes Tetris, some more than others, some less. What matters though is that everyone loves Tetris, but I think it is safe to say that just about EVERYONE hates the S and Z block. You know those little freaks of nature that don't really fit anywhere, so you gotta look at the list of blocks you're about to get to check for an S or Z blocks and when you see one you're like, "Aw, crap. Gotta get ready for this."

It's like having your grandparents or your annoying old (reeeaaaally old) aunt over, you know it's going to happen in advance, there is NO way of avoiding it, so the best thing to do is to get ready for it as best as you can.

It's nothing like the I block (you know, the one that is just a straight line) you want that to come, but it never does. You have the entire grid filled out save for this little strip that you've reserved for the I block and by the time it finally comes you are one block away from a game over; then out of nowhere the I block comes and you're happy as can be. It's like when Jesus came back to life, hopelessness fear, then this wonderful thing comes along and saves you and makes everything better.



Let's recap

S and Z blocks = Satan
I Block = Jesus
L, J, and O are the under appreciated middle child.
T is a mystery because I could never understand how to do a T-Spin

I've got my hands full of videogames right now.

I just got a new laptop that has great gaming performance, so a whole new world of gaming opportunities opened up for me. Now I bit off a bit too much I could chew, here's a list of games I'm currently playing right now.

Fire Emblem
Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga
Super Mario World
Super Mario 3
Metroid Zero Mission
Bioshock
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Half Life 2 (Half Life 2: Episode 1 after that)
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Metal Gear Solid
Final Fantasy VII
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Halo 3: ODST

Does Golden Eye Source count for anything? If so that too.

Maybe I should wait for Thanksgiving break and Christmas break for this, but then again. Maybe not.

Games like Final Fantasy, KotOR, Oblivion, Fire Emblem, and Superstar Saga will take a considerable amount of time. Since they're all RPGs. Oh gosh. I think I'm gonna get Unreal Tournament III: Black soon too.

THERE'S SO MUCH ON MY PLATE RIGHT NOW!

I'm at that point where I want to play this, but then I'll want to play that too, oh and don't forget about this one too, and that, and this, and that, and that, and that, and this. You get overwhelmed, especially when you've got school and band to worry about.

Tip to gamers. Keep to only 1 or 2 or so games to play at one time.

iPod nano

Ok, the new iPod nano is weird. It has a camera on it, but this camera only takes video and doesn't take just pictures. JUST video.

You cannot take action pictures where you and friends are in sweet poses in midair when you only have a video camera. If you or someone you know can do backflips off walls or something of equal caliber, you've a good use for a conveniently small camera. But you won't find too many occasions to use a video camera when you're hanging out with your friends, etc. You'll generally just want to talk pictures (facebook!)

It also makes you wonder, if they've managed to shove a camera into an iPod nano, why hasn't the iTouch gotten any sort of camera yet?

Final Fantasy VII

Prior to this I had only played Final Fantasy 1-6, but I got Final Fantasy VII on my PC and there is one big thing that I really enjoyed from the start of the game.

You are thrown straight into the action.

Unlike your usually Japanese RPG where you have to sit through boring introductions, you know get to know this ordinary child that is the protagonist and then watch his little village get burned down by bandits and then his dying father tells him that he's not actually his father and his real dad is some magical swordsman. No, you don't go through that generic bull crap at the beginning, you jump off a train and you're off to blow up a reactor. AWESOME!

Halo 3: ODST

I recently got Halo 3: ODST. Let me tell you, it is a great game.

Though I haven't gotten through too much of the campaign, that isn't really what matters, the thing that makes the game worth $60 is the fire fight mode. Much like the Horde mode in Gears of War 2, you fight off waves upon waves of increasingly difficult enemies. Firefight can last hours if you have enough skill, but also requires team work with the people you are playing with. Local multiplayer in this game only supports two people, so if you want to go through the campaign with 4 players, you'll need to use system link or have xbox live. This was a disappointment because sometimes it's nice to just have friends over and kick some ass together without having to have 2 copies of ODST, have 2 TV's, 2 360's and a system link cable.

Back on the topic of firefight, each wave becomes more difficult and each stage has different enemies and difficulties. For example, the Crater stage has snipers on the roofs and on the night time version of this stage has engineers flying around giving your enemies and overshield. Each wave brings on stronger enemies, you'll find yourself pitted against 4 Brute Chieftains wielding gravity hammers, leading a dozen brutes with jetpacks with countless drones flying in the air and 2 hunters to put the cherry on top. You will get your shit owned, but given enough skill and teamwork, you can beat them, (I did it with just me and a friend) What makes a situation like that more difficult is that each round activates a skull, "Tough Luck" is always the first skull to be activated so enemies dodge grenades and slower projectiles easier, as rounds go by (a round is 5 waves) more skulls are activated, things get a little tricky after the first round when "Catch" is turned on and everyone starts throwing grenades. This forces you to change your strategy and actually think a little bit. Health packs and ammo caches are replenished after each round and at that time you and your team mates will have a short period of time to get any needed ammo.

In ODST to you are no longer Master Chief so you wont have your wonderful regenerating shiled anymore. In ODST you have a life bar, but before your life bar actually starts to drain your stamina has to be taken down, you know it's taken down when everything starts to turn red, when that happens you should take cover and wait for everything to return to normal color. If you do happen to lose health the only way to regain it is by finding a health pack. You also won't be jumping quite as high, you still jump considerably high but you aren't as floaty has the MC. You'll also find you throw grenades a bit more realistically but still a bit inhuman.

As for the campaign, I haven't played enough to know. This will be updated as soon as I beat the campaign.

So far, Halo 3: ODST's score is

Gameplay: 9

Controls, level design, and difficulty remain as solid as ever.

Presentation: 9

You actually feel a little bit lonely playing the campaign and visuals are still good despite how old the Halo 3 engine is getting.

Lasting Appeal: 10

Long after beating the campaign, you'll be able to kill hours upon hours on fire fight mode.

28/30

After deducting a few points for having to pay $60 for a game that should be $30 we get an over all score of

25/30

Note: The game comes with a Halo Reach beta and also comes with a Halo 3 mulitplayer CD with extra map expansion on it. If you didn't invest any money on the DLC for Halo 3, you'll have ODST and all the Halo 3 multiplayer maps.