Pressing Buttons

Feeling Riddickulous

I don’t think I’ve ever been more confused by a game then the time I’ve spent with The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Dark Athena.  Playing a game is pretty cut and dry, either I like it or I don’t. There’s never really been that middle ground for me. In every facet of my life, you get a super thin chance to get placed in my good books.

But with Riddick, I’m running behind a bandwagon that’s housing a ton of really happy people. I can see them really enjoying themselves, talking about how great a bandwagon it truly is. But I can’t seem to make that jump on board. The bandwagon has a lot of rusty nails, and it smells of soiled diapers. And it’s warty.

I’m a few hours in, and I’m certainly enjoying myself. But I keep feeling as if the game is purposely putting me through the ringer. At times, I feel as if it can’t make up its mind as to what it wants to be. The game places a focus on melee combat and skulking around the prison’s shadows. That is, when it doesn’t go through an identity crisis and wants you to be the new sheriff in town, blasting your foes away. There’s been a few times when I feel as if I’m supposed to sneak around the jail guards, or I believe I should, considering the environment is steeped with shadows. But after many failed attempts, the easiest thing to do is simply shoot the dude. And by easiest, I also mean it was the only way. No amount of shadow play could allow me to advance any further.

I’m not letting these problems mar the game completely; I’m still enjoying a very original and creative game. But I hope the problem is remedied soon, or else Riddick will be labeled as “two faced”, perhaps even enter the “shady” territory popularized by Lauren Conrad of The Hills. And it will not like living among the ranks of Spencer Pratt, I can tell you that much.

From zero to sixty

I honestly couldn't have had any less interest in Rabbids Go Home unless it actually came packed in with a vial of the Ebola virus.

But now, in lieu of some very important information, I feel quite differently, and as such, have realized I'm quite shallow.

Ubisoft Montpellier is the developer. And this has officially become my most anticipated title of the year.

I've got the new Nintendo Power which broke the news right beside me. And it's beside me now because an article that I originally planned on ignoring has become one that I need to read right away.

In the beginning, I believed that Ubisoft's Paris team would be the ones behind the game. And according to my brain, nothing good has come from them.

I still recommend Rayman Raving Rabbids to the masses. It's a great game. But I can't bring myself to recommend its sequels. Ubisoft Paris took something beautiful and threw it into a seatbelt-less bumper car, saying only one thing before it go ripped to shreds by its bear-driven competition; "Have fun."

But it looks like the series is back at home with it's creator, Michel Ancel. You may remember that name if you're from the future, as it later becomes a worldwide holiday where we celebrate his genius.

I become an even worse individual for not knowing much else about the game. But the dude tied his name to a King Kong game, and look how that turned out. The guy just can't produce anything less than spectacular. He may have single-handedly kicked off the mini-game collection craze on the Wii, and I still can't condemn him.

So while I may be shallow, I am for all the right reasons.

Pressing Start

I think it's about time I pay my respects to those games that have the nerve to expect its user to follow the on-screen instructions it displays.

Which is to say requiring me to press the start button when it commands so.

Far too often after a parade of company logos, the game's main screen comes up. Well, most of it anyways. Before the display cascades into the full main menu, we generally need to press a button. And that button is almost always said to be the start button.

But how many times have you hit the A button instead, only to have the same results? What about select?

Some games have taken notice to this trend of refusing orders, and prominently display a "Press Any Button To Continue." Why press that far away Start button when my thumb is already primed and ready on the A?

But it's those games that force me to press Start that I respect like a fallen rap artist. Honestly, how glaring an example of a loser if you can't be bothered to hit the right button? By choosing to ignore this request, the game should immediately question your intelligence and force you into some sort of baby mode.

I'm only a recent convert to the pressing Start club, but I can already see the error in my previous ways. The button says start right on it, what else would you press? When exactly did we move away from this intelligent way of life?

I want the times where pressing any other button would result in a brick wall between you and the game. I need those times back.

Should I even care anymore?

It seems like Valve can't help but remind all us 360 owners that the update to their 2007 hit Team Fortress 2 is still on the way.

So I can only hope that the reason only a select few still play the thing is that there's a multitude of players waiting in protest for this massive update.

Maybe that's why this thing is taking so long. Valve's kinship with gamers is due to their good nature of supplying free content to their consumers. While this is happening with Left4Dead, it's entirely possible that this whole TF2 on 360 thing is kind of dead in the water. Dumb thing to say considering the above link, but honestly, with all these excuses for its delay, it's very possible the one dude working on it will call it quits. Why waste time on something that so few will enjoy? On the 360, it's obvious that you're merely a flash in the pan if you don't supply it constant updates and content. Valve came up short on that end of the bargain, which is why it won't appear on Xbox Live's activity list ever again.

Maybe Valve's just pushing me to the PC version.

A trip into the absurd

Since MadWorld's crater-causing arrvial on our fair planet, I've gotten myself into what any practical person would call a "weird game" mood.

Weird in a positive sense. Not in a hentai focused schmup, or a witch touching game.

No, by weird I mean game's that aren't perverse, but instead they house an odd amount of the freaky deaky.

So when I finished MadWorld, I wanted to bite back into that apple of surreal. Naturally, my mind turned to my unbeaten copy of Killer7 for the Gamecube. I still don't know why I never finished it, but I think in part it's because I found it to be one of those games I just have to play during the daytime. Pathetically, it wasn't even one of those psychological scares. No, instead it was because I didn't like how the game's antagonists would announce themselves: a boastful cackle.

I  suppose, in summary, you could say I've been on more of a Grassshopper Manufacture/ Clover Studios kick. But that's far too focused, I wanted your mind to race as to what games I could be talking about.

Random Reader: "Dude, this dude's totally tripping out on Cho Aniki! What have I always said bro; if you're going to talk about something, make it Cho Aniki!"

So I said to myself, "Tyler, you're going to beat this game, and you're going to do it right quick." That's a big deal for me. Most gamers would spit on me for my "to be beaten" pile of games. If I were to place that collection opposite my assortment of completed titles on some kind of elephant sized scale, the crater caused it tipping in my shame's favour.

So I set out and beat Killer7. I really love Killer7. But that's not a recommendation, because I don't want to hear how awful it is down the road. If you don't want to play what is quite reasonably StarFox on mescaline, that's fine. Have fun with The Boreventures of Bore-us Borenouski.

But now that I've written down that I've completed Killer7, there's not much I feel comfortable saying about it. Because I don't really know what happened. I'm going to consult James Howells' plot analysis, as well as Hand in Killer7, the unedited version of the story Goichi Suda wanted to tell. In the mean time I'll just let my brain continue to cry as it lays on the floor.

But I couldn't stop at Killer7, I needed to keep the weird train going.

Noby Noby Boy quickly became an obsession. As someone who downloaded Bonzai Barber the other day, and a devout patron to the house of Peggle, I have no problem with these un-games. I  made up that term because saying casual is pretty lame (and something I know I've been guilty of plenty of times, quote a time I used the term a get a prize).

So, when I wasn't shooting Power Ranger-esque heroes, I was eating my own butt. In Noby Noby Boy of course. I don't think it's possible to eat my own rear end. But for Noby Noby Boy, it's an everyday occurrence.

I have God Hand over in the corner, waiting for its turn aboard the Weird Train, and I can promise it's hopping on soon. Because my gaming sessions can hardly be deemed weird if I'm not spanking my adversaries.