Croc: Legend of the Gobbos (PS1) - Game Review

REVIEW MOVED TO:

https://rambolicrambler.wordpress.com/

I've written a Creepypasta!

Yes! That's right! Not only am I arrogant enough to think you care about my opinion on games and music, but NOW I'm arrogant enough to think you give a shit about my fictional writing!!

All joking aside, I've been a fan of this form of literature for a while, mostly thank to a YouTube channel called Some Ordinary Gamers, which showcase them. Recently, they've set up their own site for posting said Creepypastas, so I've decided to throw my story into the fray.

It's called Bead Dice Sky. Without ruining it, it's about a computing teacher who is sent a hacked game by one of his more mysterious students. It's not based on any specific game, as the game in the creepypasta is actually original.

If you're interested, then go have a look and help me out!

Thanks!

http://someordinarygamers.wikia.com/wiki/Bead_Dice_Sky

A Non-Gamers Guide To: Minecraft

If you own a PC, you've probably already heard of this fairly massive phenomenon. You can't look around YouTube without seeing some kind of Minecraft gameplay. Be it parody, modded or 'vanilla', this simple yet addicting game has pretty much taken over.

The Background

Minecraft was the brain child of a single mind, Markus Persson, although he is better known by his nickname – Notch. There is speculation that his idea had already been made by a group of people and their game, Infiniminer, with the slight difference that this game was basically a blocky Team Deathmatch game, and not much fun at all. So I will disregard this criticism because I can. Mojang developed and published Minecraft in 2009 as an open Alpha and gradual move progression into Beta. It was in this phase that the game gained a massive following, with many prominent YouTubers making their names and reputation publishing videos of this game. Minecraft finally saw a full release in 2011. Since then, it has garnered much praise from gamers and developers alike for making both an interesting adventure and creation game in both single and multiplayer.

My Personal Experience

 I’d like to preface this entire section with the fact that I have only played the Xbox 360 Edition of Minecraft, which I feel is an incredible beginner’s tool for this very immersive game. If you read my League of Legends ‘review’, you will know my computer can barely handle the programs on it at the moment, so I think this game would probably just kill it, so all of this perspective will be from that version.

I had heard a lot about the game being a massive time sink and that they were going to release it as an Xbox Live Arcade game late 2011. I’d never really been too interested in Minecraft videos online up until then, as it was to a game I’d probably never play. However, when I heard of this version, I began to look it up. My favourite part of all the videos I watched was the amazing structures that could be build out of the simple blocks that were given in game. The gameplay itself, if slightly over exaggerated by certain YouTube celebrities, looked very appealing to me. I did take all of this footage I was seeing with a pinch of salt, however, as I did realise it would be different to the launch set up of the Xbox Version, but it was safe to say I was excited for this game to come out.

When it finally arrived, I was both amazed and disappointed at the same time. I was amazed as it was such a good version of the game. I saw my first problem would be the infamous difficult crafting recipies, and contantly having to check back to the Minecraft Wiki to get the information. This was completely taken out in the Xbox version, replacing it with a much simpler system where, if you have the items to make something, you can just click on the icon and it will make it for you. This was very much a beginner’s guide to Minecraft. I appreciated this, being the dim witted man-child I am.

However, this joy was short lived, as I noticed a lot of the things that were in the PC version were left out at launch, most disappointingly for me, the Creative Mode. Yes, you could play on peaceful and build to your heart’s content without mobs, but digging out all your materials when all you want to do is build a castle is arduous and unwanted. Fortunately since then, creative mode has been added, yet, to my knowledge, the End is still unattainable for some reason, although updates are coming very frequently with ‘new’ mobs and blocks every time. As soon as I was able to go into creative mode, I was hooked. I would say that Minecraft is probably the game I have given the most time to since Final Fantasy IX back in the Playstation 1 days.

If you are new to the game, but like to watch YouTube videos of people playing Minecraft, there are certain things you have to realise:

1) Creepers are not as scary as some people lead you to believe – Yes, if your stuff gets blown up that sucks a lot, but it doesn’t make you shit yourself with fear. Think of it like an explosion in any other game, but coming from a walking shrub. I guess if you are scared by slow moving shrubbery then you have every right to scream, but also no right to play a game where it’s basically their mascot.

2) Digging straight down IS a terrible idea – You may think, as I did, that digging straight down will get you to the more valuable ores quicker than a normal staircase. Not the case. Alongside random spawning of said ores, you are also more likely to find a lovely big pool of lava to burn all your materials or a beautiful ravine, which you will be seeing from the inside as you fall towards your death.

3) Minetracks are pointless – unless you’re aiming for a massive build or just want to show off, there’s no reason walking won’t be less costly and more efficient. Seeing how precious iron is on some seeds it seems silly to waste it all on a track.

My Verdict

Minecraft is the very well presented time sink everyone has said it would be on the PC, and playing it on the Xbox only makes it easier, for me at least. Although it’s still not perfect, it’s definitely worth 1200 Microsoft points, and the skins are pretty cool too. The skins go from Banjo to Marcus Fenix and everything Xbox in between. If you’ve plated the PC version already you may come away slightly disappointed, but newcomers to the game will love its simplistic nature and, now that there is a fully functional creative mode, enjoy the building and exploring even more.

Mickey's Wild Adventure (PS1) - Game Review

REVIEW MOVED TO:

https://rambolicrambler.wordpress.com/2015/02/08/mickeys-wild-adventure-ps1-rambolic-reviews/

A Non-Gamers Guide To: League of Legends

I may be very late to this particular band wagon, seeing as this game was actually released in 2009, but I have only really just discovered the strange joy that is League of Legends.

The Background 

For those who don't know the history of the game, allow me to explain briefly. League of Legends is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) PC game which is inspired by a modded map created for Warcraft III called Defence of the Ancients. You can clearly see the Real Time Strategy breading of this game, as it is all controlled by pointing and clicking toward objectives, then pointing and clicking until you either kill a minion or a rival Champion.

The first thing to draw me to this game, other than the constant references made to it by YouTubers and the like, was the array of Champions you can control. Although this was very much an RTS at heart, in League of Legends you only control 1 unit: Your Chosen Champion. This is probably the strongest part of the game for me. Riot Games have put so much effort into not only making these characters balanced in game and aesthetically pleasing, the amount of effort which has gone into each of the Champions back stories and reasons for being in the League is quite frankly Tolkien-esque.  Each Champion had a lovingly crafter lore which leads to them being chosen to fight on the Fields of Justice, and that detail lead me to look further into this game.

What also astounded me about the game, with all its detail, voice acted characters and beautiful graphics, is that it is free-to-play. With the amount of content in this game that is amazing. If only other games could be so kind.

My Personal Experience 

My first worry I had with the game is that the laptop I have is, to put it bluntly, old and crappy. After seeing many people's videos on YouTube, I thought it would just burn out and never work. This is why I am surprised to say that not only did my trusty laptop not blow up immediately (which is evident while I'm typing this for you), the game also runs relatively smoothly as well. Sure, when there's a lot of shit happening on screen it does tend to chug like a struggling steam engine, but it's not too bad as long as you get out of there with your life.

Once the game was working only one thing disappointed me about the game: That not all Champions are unlocked for you to play at once. I know this is a petty thing to bring up, and also this system does stop people from just choosing the best characters immediately and ransacking every game, but when you've made a list of Champions you want to try out and you find you can't use any of them until you have collected enough IP. The way you unlock these Champions is with Influence Points (IP) which you gain through playing games. A very clever system of progression I feel. The other way to buy these characters is
through Riot Points (RP) which are bought with your real money. RP is also the only way to buy new skins and such for your Champions, also a good way of running a free to play game.

With this knowledge, I went into my first game not knowing what to expect. PvP? Not to start with, are you nuts!? I've seen people play this game before, they'd rip me a new asshole in two minutes. So, with that irrational fear of people killing me in a video game, I went into a Player vs AI game, where bots call kill me instead. As a modern gamer who likes to wade into the action immediately, there's a lot of things you have to learn to Play League of Legends:
1) Just because your character has a sword and is classified as a 'melee' fighter, doesn't mean he will beat others in combat - Do you want to know how many games I played before I got my first Champion kill? Five. Five games of going zero for fifteen made me grateful this wasn't a Team Death Match style of play.
2) When it comes to Fight or Flight, Flight makes a lot more sense - Whenever you die, your respawn time increases, so its better to hang back and replenish your health at the beginning rather than waiting forty seconds to get back into the action.
With these words of wisdom from, well, a noobish idiot, you may survive and do better than I do.

Once I had amassed enough IP to unlock my first owned Champion, I was unsure who to pick. So, obviously, I went for the one who looked both cool and had the coolest looking attacks. This lead me to Fiddlesticks, a scarecrow looking fellow who fires crows at people while holding a bad-ass scythe. This character taught me another important lesson in League of Legends:
3) String together specials is the best way to get mad kills - I found that combining Terrify, which halts the enemy temporarily, with Crowstorm, a whirling avian vortex of death, got me far more Champion kills than mindlessly running in with Garren and twirling with my sword like a ballerina.

My Verdict 

In all, League of Legends is a really fun game to play, and it is a heap more fun with friends or good, friendly team mates. Although the learning curve in the early games is pretty steep and not having your own Champion at the beginning does suck, but after this period its an entertaining game which you are very likely to spend a lot of time playing.

A Non-Gamers Guide To Gaming

This is a new segment I am doing which will look at certain games from the perspective of a 'Non-Gamer'.

I'll clarify that statement. I would class myself as someone who plays games, but not necessarily a 'Gamer'. When I think of someone who classes themselves as a Gamer, I think of someone who uses gaming as their main pass-time, who dedicates themselves to playing, completing and becoming very skilled at such games. I don't see myself, in that light, as a Gamer, but more of a person who enjoys games whenever I can in between working and juggling other things in my life.

For this reason, I don't have as much time to gauge a game on its artistic merit or completion difficulty and bonuses. So my reviews will be more like first impressions and recommendations if possible.

The first review will be up pretty soon, so keep an eye out for it. Until then, have a good weekend

'Les Miserables' - Short Review

So they finally made a film out of the most critically acclaimed musicals of all time. Its not really a question if the musical works as a musical, its now whether the film company managed to do it justice on the big screen.

The reason this is a short review rather than a full one is, well, it's not hard to find a review of this film, so look at one of those if you don't want spoilers etc. This is more of an impressions video from someone who was introduced to the story and most of the songs via this film. (Yes, I am a culture-less pleb, but feel free how you liked Les Mis before it was cool, I love talking to time travellers from the 1800's).

Firstly, I'll talk about a problem many have had about the film: The casting. Let me be the first to say that Russell Crowe did surprisingly well as stern faced police inspector Javert. Although he is not the greatest singer, he pulls the songs off reasonably well and portrays the character very well, if a little stiff at times. Anne Hathaway blew me away with her performance. I had no idea she had such a powerful voice. Her rendition of 'I Dreamed A Dream' was perfect for the feeling of the film. I'm not surprised, however, by how well Hugh Jackman does in the leading role. With a Broadway background, his voice was very well suited to such a task.

The story doesn't need to be talked about, it's Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. If you want more information on the book itself, it's free for the Kindle. Go.

The movie does, at times, seem to move at break-neck speeds, spanning decades and important moments in a few minutes or a song. Then again, this was more of an issue in the musical adaptation itself, and in the movie there are certain filler scenes which make it a lot easier to take in.

Throughout the film, there were some silly moments, but most were relatively loyal to the musical itself. However, one scene sticks in my head in which I laughed out loud in the cinema to the dissaproving looks of those around me. After Letting Valjean go at the end of the film, Javert sings his Soliloquy atop a bridge. Those familiar with the book and/or musical may recognise this moment as 'Javert's Suicide', in which he is torn between upholding the law and trusting the convict to save the life of a revolutionary. This is accurately portrayed in the film, however the part I laughed at is the ridiculous sound effect they decided to put in for when Javert hit the water when jumping off the bridge. It didn't suit the moment. It didn't suit the scene. It didn't suit the movie in any way and ruined the moment in which my favourite character (yes, he is my favourite character) is struck off the cast.

However, the good outweigh the bad, and I would highly recommend this to anyone who is not already singing the praises of the musical. It's a long film, a feature that I am usually opposed to in films such as Transformers and Battleship, but the songs make the long run time enjoyable.

How to Ruin the Film - Think about it like this...

This section I've decided to put after doing some research, I found out that, depending on your view of the events portrayed in the book, Hugo actually made the antagonist and protagonist of Valjean and Javet interchangeable. That means, depending on your view of the events that take place, you can take the side of the character who you believe to be in the right. Obviously, if you choose the Javert side then your story doesn't get too much pay off in the end of the musical, but think of it like this (this will only count for the musical/film, the development may be different in the book).

At the beginning of the play, we are only told by Javert that Valjean is a dangerous criminal, and only have Valjean's words that he stole a loaf of bread to feed his sister's dying son (whom we never hear from again). If you take the legal side of Javert, look at everything that Valjean does as the actions of a pathological liar. He's set free to be on parole, yet never turns up. He is welcomed into the house of a Bishop and steals his belongings. He takes a new name and lies his way into office in Paris. I would go on, but it's more fun if you see the film or musical like this. I found it very enjoyable (in a weird way, admittedly) taking the side of the law and wanting this criminal to be put before the court. Some may say that's a bit sick for what most people see as a tragic hero of literature, but I would say the same for Javet, a man who's tireless preservation of law and order is torn apart by a man who torments him with his stolen freedom and subsequently lead to suicide by his questionable actions.