Day 265: Journey (Again)

You may or may not remember my lengthy post about my 20 minute preview of the game Journey from last year. It was full of flowery words and lots of praise about why Journey was my number one most anticipated game for this year. Well the full game finally came out almost three weeks ago and I just played it today. The reason it took me so long was because for games like this I prefer to wait to start until I know I can give it my undivided attention for at least a couple of hours. With Journey I wanted to have the house to myself long enough to play it through in its entirety (which ended up being about 2 hours).

Now onto the game.

I've started this "review" three times now and deleted several hundred words worth. It's hard to write about the mechanics of the game without in some way taking away from the things that I found amazing about it. The gameplay is simple and well developed, but at its heart this game is about creating an emotional journey for the player as you lead your character on a literal one. The sense of isolation, even when paired with another player, is immense. I've said it many times, but it really reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus which is one of my favorite games of all time.

Of course in the game you're not alone. A major part of the emotional journey is sharing it with the random companion you are paired with. It's strange how connected you can feel to a perfect stranger when you can't talk to them and don't even know their name. It makes communication more difficult in some ways, but in the end you feel an attachment to this person because you're in this adventure together with literally no one else to help you see it through. While the game does make you feel isolated, you don't ever feel alone, and that is incredibly comforting, especially in the end.

When I finally completed the last long struggle with my companion it was sad and exciting and sort of unbelievable all at once. I don't want to get into plot details, but there was a real sense of "if you can't make it, I'm not going to make it" about the whole thing. That's not a gameplay feature, you can absolutely make it on your own, but by the end you don't want to.

I feel like I want to say so many things about my one brief play-through, but my words seem inadequate to capture the feeling of the game. It's really something you have to experience to understand. I realize this is not a game for everyone, but the people that get it will love it.

The levels, characters and mechanics are simplistic, but beautiful; the music is beyond amazing. These things make the game worth playing but it's the emotion thatgamecompany was able to tap into that make it more than memorable. I don't know how many times I'll revist Journey but I do know I'll never forget my first.

Day 260: Leonardo As Wander

Today's picture is a reference to one of my favorite games of all time: Shadow of the Colossus. I got the ICO/Shadow of Colossus HD remake for Christmas and I finally got around to playing it. ICO was new to me and very well done, but Shadow of Colossus is beyond amazing, even now. The amount of emotion that game is able to tap into with such a simple story and very little dialog is amazing. It creates a real sense of isolation and a grandiose sense of purpose in your quest. It also made me feel very conflicted. The point of the quest is to seek out and kill 16 colossi in a forbidden valley, but with most of colossi I was sad to see them die. It's hard to put into words exactly how this game makes me feel, but it left a very strong impression the first time I played it and I highly recommend it to anyone who looks for an emotional gameplay experience.

In the picture Leonardo is the main character, Wander, from the game. He's clinging to the back of a colossus and preparing to stab its vital sign to destroy it.

I also decided to use my day off to do something I've been considering doing for a while now. I've always liked those high speed videos of people creating art pieces because it shows you how someone can make something amazing from nothing so I decided to do my own. My art style is incredibly unique and I knew that everyone was wondering how I can make such amazing drawings. Well, here you go. A few notes:

• The notebook is the same style I've used to draw 99% of my pictures.
• I always start with pen first unless it's a special drawing.
• I never start over. All mistakes have to be assimilated into the drawing.
• Most pictures take between 10 and 20 minutes to finish.
• These are new colored pencils I stole from my wife. My old set was getting pretty worn.

Day 165: LittleBigTurtles

Guess what? I have another video game post for you guys. I beat Modern Warfare 2, played online for like a day and then got bored. Now I'm back to a game that I bought a while ago and I kept put off playing: LittleBigPlanet 2.

Let me explain something about the LittleBigPlanet series. The games are comprised of over-the-top adorable characters called Sack Boys (or if you prefer the gender neutral, Sack Things) in a world made entirely of craft materials. It's all about using your imagination and creating whatever you can think of. You can play the story mode to collect new materials, build your own levels or play any of the millions of levels created by other users. The whole thing is very wholesome and cutesy and British so it's just oozing with cheekiness. And just so we're on the same page let me be very clear on this one thing:

I fucking love LittleBigPlanet.

I was totally on board for this adorable-train well before the first game was released. I got into the beta and loved every second of it and LittleBigPlanet is one of the few games I actually bought myself on the day it was released. I played the shit out of it, collected every prize/costume/sticker thing and I created my own level (it's a Hogwart's level and it's bitchin'). I even have my own character that I created for myself in the game. Part of the fun is collecting different materials and outfit pieces to customize your Sack Boy in a trillion different ways, but I created this character early on and have pretty much stuck with him ever since. I used him as my Facebook and Twitter profile pictures for a long time and it drives my wife crazy that I'm so attached to this guy. I call him the Dapper Lion and if you see him online say hi, cause he is me.

The Dapper Lion in all his... dapperness.

My good friend, Mandy, even crocheted me a Sack Boy with a Dapper Lion mask to go with it.

 I made a top hat later, but don't have a picture.

So, LittleBigPlanet was one of my favorite games of all time, and then a second one came out and... I didn't get it. I don't remember why I didn't buy it at the release. I remember wanting to, but I waited and bought it used some time later. Even then I played it very little for some reason. I think in my mind LittleBigPlanet is a big time commitment because I really want to finish the story-mode, get all the prizes and use those things to create some new levels I've been thinking of. That's a lot of work and inevitably I found other games to play that were less time intensive or that I was more excited to play right then. I had grown comfortable with LittleBigPlanet and I took it for granted. That was up until about a week ago.

I finished Modern Warfare 2 (or at least what I wanted to get out of it) and I thought, "Hmm... maybe now is a good time to get back into LittleBigPlanet 2." Since then I've been finding little snippets of time to play whenever I can. I'm reliving all the fun I had with the first one and I'm glad I came back to it. I don't know what I was thinking before. LittleBigPlanet is not time-intensive. It's perfect for killing 5 or 10 minutes on some user created content, or spending a whole day bulding your own creations. That's one of the things I love about the game; it can be whatever you want it to be.

Anyway, I'll stop gushing about this game even though I really do love it. And in case you're wondering I do have a Ninja Turtle costume for my Sack Boy. I have the ability to make all of the Turtles, but the only one I have saved is Donatello. The color's a bit off because I took the photo of my TV. It's not my design, but it looks pretty good.

Day 160: Ninja Turtles Are Easily Bored by First Person Shooters (Probably)

Some of you may have realized by now that I'm a big gamer. I'm a gamer in the sense that I love playing video games, not in the sense that I do it all the time. I rarely (if ever) buy myself video games anymore since I mostly don't have time to play them. One game can usually last me a while, especially since I've grown a greater appreciation for RPG's over the last few years.

Lately I've had more time to play and this means I've been going through games quite a bit faster. I got inFamous 2 for my birthday and played through it twice (once good and once evil), I borrowed Dragon Age II from a friend and played through it twice (once as a rouge, once as a warrior), I even went back through God of War and God of War 2 for like the 5th time each to finish getting all the Playstation trophies.

The latest game I played was Modern Warfare 2. I know a new one just came out, but I am perpetually behind the curve on games despite my love of them. Anyway, Modern Warfare 3 came out and my friend Shaun said, "Hey, you can borrow number 2 and get your skills up for when you get number 3." I'm doubtful if I'll ever actually own Modern Warfare 3 and let me explain why.

I play First Person Shooters entirely wrong.

I don't mean to suggest that I'm especially bad at them. Actually, to be honest I can be pretty decent most of the time when I'm playing the game the way it was designed to be played. The "the way it was designed to be played" part is what always gets me.

I am a sucker for a great story-line in a game. I love cinematics and well written dialogue and I love characters you can relate to or at least empathize with, so my first order of business is always to play through the campaign mode before ever setting foot online. Unfortunately FPS games (at least the Call of Duty/Battlefield variety) are not designed for gamers like me. The current generation of FPS games focuses extremely heavily on the online multiplayer aspect and usually only include a story-mode for something to do if the server goes down. I know plenty of people who play nothing but Modern Warfare and have never touched the single-player campaign. I guess that's cool, but that's not what I enjoy in gaming. To me the multi-player is a fun distraction occasionally, but I get bored of it very quickly.

It's because I get bored that I tend to play these games in an unorthodox style. I find it difficult to care too much about my Kill/Death ratio or how many head shots I've gotten with a particular weapon. Most of the time I just try to stab everyone because it seems much more satisfying. Anyone can shoot someone from half-way across the map with a super-powered scope, but it takes some real skill (or just a blatant disregard for your own safety) to run around a level dispatching enemies with only a combat knife. Often this leaves me at the bottom of the leader board, but it's way more entertaining for me (and Shaun).

On top of that I need something to do besides just killing other players for the sake of increasing my rank. I need a goal to achieve and getting a red dot sight or an increase in bullet damage isn't exactly what I'm looking for. I probably spent more time playing Call of Duty: Black Ops online than any other shooter in recent memory. You wanna know why? The gamer cards.

The gamer cards are stupid; another throw-away feature added for some slight variety in a game about shooting people in the face, but it was literally the only thing that kept me playing. In order to add another layer you have to reach a certain level. In order to buy a new design to use you have to have enough cash to purchase it. I spent hours upon hours online working toward a single goal and once my gamer card was completed to my satisfaction I stopped playing entirely. I hadn't touched almost any of the gun or game achievements, but that didn't matter to me. All that mattered was my gamer card, because FPS games are not designed for me.

Here's a picture of my pride and joy.

Day 96: The Turtles Get Their Party On

Does everyone remember that time I met Felicia Day and wrote a really long blog post about it? Well this one kind of is about her too, but not entirely. And I didn't meet her again, unfortunately.

The title of today's post might be a bit misleading. The Turtles aren't partying, but they are in a party. Party in this instance referring to an RPG type party of characters. This post has a couple of inspirations. I first thought about drawing the turtles as fantasy/RPG style characters when I was talking to my friend Mandy about which Hunger Games district they would be assigned to. I gave her a brief character synopsis in which I assigned them each to an RPG player class.

The second and more immediate inspiration comes from Dragon Age II. I loved Dragon Age: Origins much to some of my friends' dismay. I really credit Dragon Age with being the game that taught me not to be so serious when playing an RPG and that it's OK to give your character a little, well, character beyond being the stoic hero. I haven't played the second one yet, but today's the day. I borrowed it from a friend and I'm finally ready to start. As a matter of fact it's installing an update on my PS3 as I type this.

But that's not all! Not only is today the day that I'm starting my first Dragon Age II playthrough, but it's also the premiere of the Dragon Age: Redemption web series written by and starring Felicia Day! I just watched the first episode. It's pretty good. I'm a little confused about the Qunari because they don't look like I remember Sten looking from Dragon Age: Origins, but maybe it will make more sense when I've gotten into the game. I found myself looking closely at little details on the costumes and weapons. Felicia's costume has been all over the internet the past few months and it is pretty impressive, but the other costumes look like they were taken straight out of the game. The series is only running for six weeks and I can't wait to see where it goes.

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I have a confession. I had this mostly typed up and the picture scanned and added to the post and ready to go, but I put off finishing it so I could play the game. I'm only a few hours in, but it's really good so far. It's a slightly different feel from the first game and maybe a little brighter and more animated art style, but I think it works well. The combat is much more fun for sure. I haven't gotten much into the main story because I've been playing the "Mark of the Assassin" DLC that was released yesterday in conjunction with the Redemption web series.

BioWare wrote an entire side quest around Felicia Day's Tallis character and even included her as a party member. I'm not sure how this compares to the rest of the game because as I said I haven't gotten very far in it yet, but the writing is really good and often very funny. It is a little weird seeing Felicia Day as an elf in-game, though. They did a good job, but being an elf her features are slightly out of proportion to her human self so she looks like her, just... a little off.

Her character is a great addition and the voice acting is great all around. I've even met up with a few old friends from the first game. Of course they don't know me since the player character from Dragon Age: Origins is gone, but I remember them. It's a lot of fun and I'm excited to have the next three days off to put in some time. Speaking of which I better wrap this up so I can get back to it.

To finish I'll talk a little about the picture. These are the roles I assigned the Turtles when describing them to Mandy. Starting from the left Raphael is definitely a rouge. He's hot headed, but sneaky and he duel wields dagger-like weapons. Donatello I made a mage. There are usually engineers in fantasy, but that's really more of a profession than a class. His science is closer to magic anyway so I figured he would make a good mage. Leonardo I think of as a paladin with swords. Dragon Age doesn't have a paladin class, they have Templars, which are sort of the same thing. He's a pious warrior in charge of keeping mages from using their magic for evil, but Templars can do some holy magic themselves which seems to go against their beliefs. I guess even in Thedas the power of religion allows for servants of the church to get away with these things for what they perceive is the greater good. Michelangelo is pretty much just a brute-force warrior. He's the tank of the party.

There you have it. The Ninja Turtles as RPG characters. If you disagree with my assessment feel free to draw your own picture and submit it. I'll leave you with episode one from the Dragon Age: Redemption series. Enjoy!

Day 80: Michelangelo Plays an Awesome Arcade Game

Remember that awesome FantasticFest arcade I was going to post about, but then I posted about Journey instead? Well, I went back there for a panel and all the games were still set up! I guess I wasn't paying much attention to the website and thought that only a small amount of the more "indy" games were remaining through the weekend, but I was wrong, dead wrong.

The reason I went back in the first place was to attend a panel about story telling in video games and film. It was mostly about story telling in video games, but they used methods of story telling in film as a contrasting view. It was actually very interesting when it wasn't completely hilarious and absurd. The panel was made up of the writer and two other creative team members from LightBox Interactive (Warhawk, Starhawk) and two Spanish film makers. It was really interesting learning about the unique challenges in developing a story in a video game, but probably my favorite part was when one of the film makes went on a rant about not liking Angry Birds because they're too angry and comparing them to Palestinian suicide bombers and terrorists. It sounds mildly offensive and it probably was, but it was also hilarious.

Afterward I got to play a few games I didn't get to the first time around at the arcade and by the time I left I felt that I definitely got my money's worth out of the free event. Man, I love Austin.

Day 77: Journey

Today I went to an awesome PlayStation party at the Highball to kick off FantasticFest. I was planning on writing a blog about the party and all the awesome games I played, but I was so impressed with one specific game that I decided to do my post about that game specifically: Journey.

Journey is the new PlayStation Network downloadable title (available sometime in the near future) by ThatGameCompany. I loved Flower, one of ThatGameCompany's pervious releases, and I'd read a few things about Journey that made me really interested to play it. Journey was the main reason I wanted to go to the PlayStation party in the first place. When I got into the Highball I found four TVs set up to demo the game. It didn't take long before one of them was available and I sat down to try it out. A woman named Robin introduced herself and talked to me for a minute about the game and the development team before she handed me the PS3 headset and controller.

I was immediately sucked into the world of Journey where you play as an armless be-scarfed character. The first thing I thought of was a Jawa because of the hooded, black face with glowing eyes, but your character is taller and infinitely more graceful than any Jawa. You move smoothly over sand that flows like water towards a mountain in the distance. Along the way you are given very little instruction on the controls and no instruction on how to accomplish your goal or even what your immediate goal is, but that's part of the charm of the game; It's all about the experience of discovering the world on your own.

Eventually you meet another person, another real person, playing the game somewhere else, but no words are ever exchanged. The only communication that occurs between you is the movement of your characters or your songs. Pressing Circle causes your character to sing a note, hold it longer for a more powerful burst of music that can activate things around the world or recharge your companion's scarf. I found myself using short songs to communicate my thanks or encouragement to the person I was playing with. I don't know why, but I got the impression that the person I was playing with was female. I wonder who they imagined they were playing with?

Over the twenty or so minutes that the demo lasted I became completely absorbed in the desert world around me. The closest experience I can relate it to is the way I felt playing Shadow of the Colossus. The open, mostly lonely world and the lack of any sort of narrative or explanation left me to fill in the blanks myself. It's an intensely personal and emotional experience, at least for me, and difficult to describe. I love the idea of a game evoking so much emotion with such a minimal amount of guidance. It's a bit like listening to an instrumental piece of music. It can make you feel a certain way without lyrics to describe what the song is about. To me Journey evoked feelings of sadness, but also hope in the accomplishments of myself and my nameless companion. I know I had a big stupid grin on my face while playing the demo, but as it ended I found myself a little misty eyed over the experience.

I love video games and a good story is always important. I love the Uncharted series, Dragon Age and inFamous because of the acting and story lines, but it's games like Journey that I can totally immerse myself in. Even just playing the demo I instantly forgot about everything that I had been stressed about during the day and just enjoyed the experience. It's hard to overstate how excited I am for this game to come out so I can delve back into the mysterious landscape and meet another nameless adventurer.

Day 25: The Turtles Get Electric Powers

So for a while now I've been playing this game on my PS3, inFamous 2. It's awesome. If you haven't heard of the inFamous games the basic premise is an explosion goes off in the city and gives you--a kind of assholish bike messenger guy--electrical super powers. You can throw bolts of electricity, grind along electrified power lines and climb basically any structure using a combination of your character's love of parkour and an increased control over your own electromagnetism. I love the story line and the comic book style cut scenes. I even loved the main character's Batman-esqu comically gruff voice in the first one. inFamous was one of the few games to surprise me with the ending and I can't wait until I finish the sequel.

While playing inFamous 2 the other day I was inspired. What would it be like if the Ninja Turtles gained power over electricity? Well, I imagine it would look something like this. Donatello is obviously becoming drunk on his power, but I'm sure that will be overtaken by the desire to do good. Michelangelo is climbing a building after probably accidentally blowing himself off the roof with an electrical explosion. Rafael is channeling his powers to create a massive lightning storm (and posing like Raiden) and Leonardo is trying out his static thrusters which will enable him to glide through the magical use of electricity just like in the game. The last thing I want everyone to notice is the color of the electricity they're using. It's blue, which, if you've played the game, you know means they're all good guys. Bad guys get red lightning powers, good guys get blue, just in case you were wondering.