Fukubukuro 2010 #5 DOG DAYS

I love stories about heroes trying to escape hell.  Reading an essay about After Hours an oft-forgotten Scorsese brought this to front.  While opposite in tone, trying to escape Hades is the core story of both that movie and

GAME OF THE YEAR 2010

Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days.

If you played the demo, and didn’t instantly love it, I can’t help you.   10 seconds into the demo and I was frothing for it.  By the end of the demo I wanted to drink deep from Dog Days’s (YES that’s the one part of this whole thing I’m sure is grammatically correct.) cup.  I needed Dog Days bad.  Then I heard it was 5 hours long, and man no.  Action movies on blu-ray are 19.99 USD.  I ended up waiting a month until Gamefly put the game directly into my mailbox.

I co-opped the game at the house of the man I co-op games with.   I was equipped with a energy drink that tasted like Crystal Light Lemonade and 30% sugar.  He had a pepsi max.  I also had a little, then regretted that this year I had given up zero calorie beverages.  The situation called for it, even though I vastly prefer Coke Zero to regular or diet.

We blasted through that game in seven hours. We laughed like hyenas at the naked level.  The sucker-punch ending made me step back and go, “That was pretty good.”  My friend might have liked the game less than I did, but was being polite.  I couldn’t pry a verdict out of him.  The game fully satisfied me from beginning to end.

I again lamented it’s 60 dollar price point.  Games can’t continue doing this.   Back-Mops breaking all sorts of records doesn’t mean anything when it takes 2 less people to generate the same level of profit from one sale.  I briefly considered, years ago, with the success of Katamari Damacy that maybe, games would get universally cheaper.  This generation ended up being more expensive all around.

2 months later, 3 months after it’s release, Dog Days was all of 19.99 at Best Buy.  I bought it and immediately played through the game again offline.   Then I tried online, which was already something of a ghost town.  Any complaints I can level at the game are in the multiplayer.  The online stages are not nearly as gloriously genius as the single player levels.  I can’t mute the jackasses that made me sit out the 5 minute match I waited 10 minutes to play because he held me up then threw me to the ground and shot me before I even got the QTE prompt to get out of the hold up.  I did find a few people to run through the single player with, and everything is glistening level design.

If you didn’t like the demo, I can’t help you.  The demo starts with a fantastic escape from a restaurant out the back way, and might be the only time the level doesn’t make sense in reality because I can’t remember where the actual restaurant entrance is.  You also hop over the same broken wall a few times.  But when it is time to MURDER CHINA, the level design is perfect.  If you played this alone, maybe this is why you didn’t find it genius.

There is always two paths, the straight path for Lynch, the side path for Kane ( the side path for Lynch, the straight path for Kane.)  The man taking the straight path is there only as distraction to the private body guards for the mafia elite and to not get killed.  When the side path gets a clear shot at the white suit cleanup team, they have to kill as many of the chinese military as possible before they realize he’s there.  The low-level gangsters will then focus on Kane, giving straight path Lynch a shot at headshotting the police officers just trying to kill two unstoppable men.

Our demo level has K and Mister L escape onto a street.  On the left side is a video store.  On the right is a building under construction and a catwalk.  On the street you have convenient cars.  One man should obviously be fighting through the video store, the other is his cover fire.  Cars sometimes blow up, and the catwalk’s cover will get blown to bits.  Our video store hero’s cover is good for the most part.  Most of your opposition is flooding out of a restaurant down on the left side, which has a lot of propane tanks around it.

A later escape has you in an area with three warehouses and a dozen different ways to approach the problem of murdering everyone and getting out of China.  Every failure feels like you did something stupid.  Getting away with something stupid is a sigh of relief for you and your partner.  After a dozen times of playing through the game I'm still getting surprised by myself of my co-hort's discovery at another way escaping everything we deserve.


There was no reason this game was going to be a success at 60 dollars.  It’s too much of a decision.  Hell if I could recommend it to anyone for that price.  This game might of set the world on fire at being released at 19.99.  I0 Interactive might still have been a development studio.  This game features at least 3 scenes I had been waiting for in an action movie.

Friends on Steam ended up getting the game for 5 dollars when it was 5 dollars on Steam.  I was happy at everyone on my list that suddenly had that game in their possession.  Either way, this friend complained that their were no civilians in the game, even though the opening movie somewhat promised there would be.  I didn’t have a response to that, it somewhat bothered me in my response playthrough.  The satisfaction in killing all of armed-China came back, and I got over it.

His other complaint was all the enemies had the same AI if they were military personnel or thugs jumping off moving motorcycles.  I didn’t notice this either, maybe because what you were fighting was just another bit of windowdressing.  Through their own actions Kane and Lynch end up having the entire city of Shanghai hating them.  The game gives us just enough showing that we don’t need any telling about them.

Dog Days is fantastic, brief and features a shootout at a McDonald’s.  I’ve been waiting for that for years.  It has the most glorious idle menu screens.  The 15 seconds of running across an empty lot and an helicopter flies over is worth more to anyone than the entirety of Brak Fops and most action films.  The guns are stupendously loud!  Everytime I play the game I have to remark, “Holy lord, I’m kind of killing a LOT of people.”

In short: My good friend Chris Pinner can forgive Dog Days because the bodiless camera is just following Kane and Lynch, and you’re not the camera.  He has a thing for FPS games not showing the body you see.  I hope he loves Breakdown (Japan does Half-Life and Halo is Xen.)

Fukubukuro 2010 #4 OxenVonBoxen

My friend loaned me his Xbox, for some reason, on August 20th, 2010. I don't know why he did it, really. He loaned it to me with Forza 3 still in it's drive, after I said I didn't need it. I never did play Forza 3.  Now it's March 4th, 2011, the 360 is gone and Forza 3 remains.

The 360 was used to play Deathsmiles.  That's another article.  Using the 360 I made an avatar that looked a less like me than the anime characters who look exactly like me.  I gave myself the most glorious screenname I have ever had, OxenVonBoxen.  I ended up buying XBLA games on my friends account, and playing them on OxenVonBoxen for some sort of payment for still having the 360.

I still had that 360 at Christmas, where I gave that friend a month of Gametap.  Gametap had given me the chance to play through 90% the 360 catalog.

In 2010 I still didn't like Halo.  Halo and Paper Mario inhabit the same place in my gaming emotions.  They elicit nothing from me.  They don't anger nor entertain me.  I can go through the motions and play them, and I end up feeling like I'm dying.  ODST was nice enough.  I eventually just wanted to download mp3s of the logs and never did.  At the end I went "Yep!  This is still Halo."

Similarly Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad a game about a big breasted girl in cowboy boots and a bikini slicing zombies with a sword was amazingly boring.  It's astounding that they could accomplish that feat.  After 10 minutes you wish you were doing something else.

Wartech: Senko no Ronde is a game I missed the boat on multiple times.  I played it a few times in the arcade, until it became unbreakable because of the hardcore community around it.  Then in the comfort of my own room, it felt lifeless without competition that I wasn't going to get.  

Guilty Gear 2: Overture is an amazing action RTS where you are in the middle of the battlefield at all times.  Sort of Brutal Legend but awesome and not super stressful.    It must have been amazing for the two weeks there was a viable online community.

Lost Odyssey can go fuck itself.  The novel interludes are about what you would get if you told a creative writing class to write a story about "A man who has lived for a thousand years, and will live for a thousand more."  The first boss that people mention is an unbeatable cock are right.  Everything about the game made me feel like I was playing a game on the PS1, which would be two generations of improvements removed.  Dragon Quest VIII let me explore everywhere from a first person and behind the character view and everywhere felt like a real place.  LO did have numerous language options which I always love, but the huge battle turning into an RPG battle where people jump back and forth to attack was heart breakingly depressing.

Blue Dragon is like the perfect RPG if you don't give a fuck.  If you are sick or you don't care and just want to play a fucking RPG then Blue Dragon is your ticket (or a better game.)  After 8 hours of the game I realized I just didn't give a fuck about anything the game was doing, and one of my party members caused me to skip the cutscenes everytime he opened his mouth.  Yelling is not an endearing character trait.  I can't remember if the game had more language options than English and Japanese. It gets points that I could skip cutscenes though.

Mass Effect 2 was pretty good for 10 bucks.  If you paid more than 10 bucks maybe you had higher standards?  As disposable entertainment, I was entertained.  I didn't even get laid!

Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis is an amazingly accurate representation of table tennis.  If that's something you're interested in then boy do I have the game for you.

Raiden IV was about the same as Raiden III and I didn't own the latter for a long period of time.  Raiden Fighters Aces was...ace.  A collection of three kind of similar shooters with a lot of different options.  It was a retro game collection done right.

Ninja Chop! was an Xbox live indie game in which a 3D model kunoichi  chops glasses of milk that splatter all over her.  You unlock the ability to dress her up at as a school girl or an office lady.  It's hilarious. It's baffling.  It's the perfect game to let someone try without any context.  It's not erotic at all.  You question what the creator's intention was, and don't get a response.

Platformance: Castle Pain is an excellent throwback XBLIG game that is one map with three difficulties.  I can't remember what I paid for it, but it was worth the price.  Nice controls, nice sprites.


萌めくり (Moe Mekuri) is a puzzle flipping game to see anime girls. a genre I have experience with.  You can see the girls picture before you start flipping it.  I'm not sure anyone has ever bought the game given how extensive the demo is.

Let's Learn Japanese:Beginner is actually a really good Japanese flashcard program.  It's only a dollar.  Get it and learn Katakana/Hiragana already!

Explosionade was nice enough.  I don't really like Mommy's Best Game's art style.

Shoot 1up is a MBG I did play a lot more of.  The mechanic of having all your lives on-screen is pretty cool.   Try it!

Leucistic Wyvern What if Panzer Dragoon REALLY SUCKED?

ゆっくりの迷宮 This is what the Japanese thing Doom is I guess?  Even with moderate Japanese I couldn't tell what the hell was going on it.  I was punching some similey faces and man-no corporate overhead and you still make the walls dull grey.

Chieri`s Heart ★ Pounding Hot Springs Steam Leisurely Trip won't let me bold it.  I also couldn't find the game on the xblig list so I couldn't get the proper kanji.  This is a pretty cool little arcade style shooter that I don't think anyone played.  The mechanic of hooking onto bubbles and using the physics of your gun to get around is pretty great.  

Protect Me Knight! rounds out the XBLIG games with being a retro game that Scott Pilgrim could have been.  Made by Ancient, Yuzo Koshiro's studio.  Get some friends and protect a princess.  If you don't have friends, buy it anyways.  You owe it to Koshiro for something he's done.  The website should be enough to pay the man.

Last Remant I had played at TGS a few years ago and enjoyed.  It was a SaGa game in everything but name.  Within a minute of starting the game I had a party of 12 and a screen full of numbers.  I just could not deal with that at the time.

Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 is something that must be seen.  Yeah the volleyball is terrible.  The waveracing was my GAME OF SHOW TOKYO GAME SHOW 2006, but that was because TGS'06 was particularly poor.  Everything in the game costs exorbitant amounts of money.  I assume this is to keep you in the game since beside being a mediocre game, it's not sexy at all. It's not erotic to the point that you go, "Wait stop.  What are you doing?  Outside of embarassing yourself?"  

Dead Rising was played so I wouldn't want to even try Dead Rising 2.  That worked out splendidly.  DR is a good game, just I didn't want to play it again.  Killing the mindless hoards was better than in Onechanbara or a Musou game.  Props to that.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was bought because I was trying to spend enough points to get bonus points so I could get Guwange for free.  I never got the points.  I did get Sonic 2 with not perfect emulation.  The sound emulation caused me minor pain.

Deathsmiles was still gripping by the throat when I tried to buy Guwange by being GAME OF THE YEAR 2010.  I talk more about that elsewhere.

Guwange.  I don't even need to talk about this.  You go try it on MAME and tell me if it's worth 10 bucks.  And make sure you play until Toosies the spider-kitty.

Every Extend Extra Extreme is diluting a dilution of an excellent freeware game that might not even be free anymore.

Space Giraffe is the disembodied head of J. Allard.

Ikaruga I almost bought again.  Then I realized the owner of the 360 had my copy of Ikaruga (GC) and I didn't.  I still played the first level over and over and felt satisfied.  For route memorization shooters, Ikaruga can't be beat.

N+ has been outclassed.

Super Meat Boy is delicious.  Each level is so perfectly designed that it is frightening to think how long they were playtested.  It's amazingly heartening to think how long they took until Meat Boy's physics were as perfect as they are.  That other characters even exist, and are even characters from other games is ______.  This game is CAVE STORY OF THE YEAR.  Yeah I know, newgrounds.  Get over yourself.  Play the game until you decide on your own last level.

Omega Five I didn't play enough of.  It had to be one of Hudson's last games

Serious Sam HD: First Encounter is a game about shooting lots of things, in HD.

Gears of War 2 wasn't nearly enjoyable as my memories of playing GoW 1 on a couch in Japan in 2008.  It was actually a very middling experience.  The Lake Monster fucking sucked.  Much like Halo the enemies quirks and patterns made me shrug instead of engaged.  Then again I couldn't co-op it or try the online, so I might have been playing it wrong or just not playing Dog Days instead.

 Samurai Shodown Sen didn't give me a chance, so I didn't give it one.  I tried the first combatant in two different sessions three times each and was pummelled into the ground worse than when I play Super Street Fighter IV.  The game looks nice enough, though I understand why it was in arcades for a grand total of 2 weeks.

Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and Bolts I would have loved to play more of but froze about 40 minutes in twice.  I almost bought it to play more, considering Banjo-Kazooie is one of my favorite games.  I didn't buy that either, though I came damn close a couple of times.  I figured the 360's owner would never touch it. Another TGS memory:

While trying out BKNnB at the Microsoft booth I had a helper who I wasn't helping enjoy his job.  I was mostly seeing how I could fuck around in the demo while he kept giving me broken English advice.  I responded with complete Rare gibberish.  I almost wish someone had recorded that instead of this:

Like I said, it was a bad year at TGS.

Alan Wake actually somewhat inspired me to start this blog based on how amazingly stupid it was when I wasn't playing it.  Alan Wake is a completely unlikable asshole who has to get away from it all.  He enters a middle of nowhere diner that has a fullsized stand in of himself by the door.  He then gets pissed off at anyone that recognizes him.  When's the last time you saw a full sized stand in of a fiction author?

Deadly Premonition I might write about elsewhere.  But is absolutely a lovely experience when it isn't survival horror.  It was dreadful and I almost hate the game because of the survival horror sections.  After Deathsmiles you need it.  Even if the survival horror sections are really really really bad.

Mushihime-sama Futari 1.5 isn't quite Deathsmiles but it's a good Cave game.  It's probably is I could only play a single game at a time before my eyes burst into pain.  Didn't spend a lot of time with a game I could only play a little bit of and then had to lay down for an hour.

Ninja Blade is the best QTE.  It was a wonderful little 5 hour game that had a lot more inspired design than what game journalists would call inspired design.  Consider it and Bullet Witch to take place in the same universe.

Bullet Witch changed video games forever for me.  It was THE MOST IMPORTANT GAME OF 2010.  That it's never discussed with the same reverence of God Hand is almost heartbreaking.

Being given the prompt and using the tornado spell for the first time is amazing.  I watched a city be destroyed in real time.  Then I found out you can use the tornado spell at any time and just about cried.  Then a floating brain threw an 18 wheeler at me.  Then another.  Then I carwheeled between both flaming piles of metal landed and threw a tornado back at them.  The standard for video game entertainment was immediately raised to incredible new heights.

It's amazing that I can allow and enjoy Ninja Blade and Bullet Witch even if they are on opposite ends of the spectrum.  Maybe it's because they are.  Watching with out pretension something awesome, and doing without pretension something awesome.  They both feature invasion of powerful monsters into our world and fights on top of airplanes.  Ninja Blade's final boss is somewhat awkward, while BW is Cavia putting their balls on the table and telling you to stare at them.  Taking that sucker down makes you go, "Yeah I actually did that."

It's also probably another reason I didn't like Vanquish or Bayonetta.

Epilogue

That was a lot of games me!  This article also dates how spread out I was writing some of these.  The next article will almost be not about video games (or at least that's how it is in my head.)  But the result of playing all those games?  It makes me glad I don't have a 360 now because it's suddenly raining shooting games and I'm going to mention how much I love Deathsmiles again and see what you think about that.