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.

Bayonetta (PS3)

10 dollars meant I decided to go ahead and buy Bayonetta.  I originally planned to play it whenever I went back to Japan.  I still don't know when that's going to be.

Even if I had played it in 2010, it wouldn't have even been mentioned in my favorite games of 2010 (still writing the fukubukuro).  Hell it's not even my favorite witch game.  DEATHSMILES DEATHSMILES DEATHSMILES.  Bayonetta doesn't have you fight a giant photorealistic cow.  Most of the bosses finished with me thinking "I'm glad that's over" and when I inevitably fought them a second time, "Well this time it's shorter."

I've got to compare it to two other action games, Ninja Blade and Bullet Witch.  First I think NB and BW might as well have taken place in the same universe.  I'm going to hold that dream too.  Both of them are just about 5 spectacular hours long.  While people complain about the QTEs in Ninja Blade, the entire point of the game is the QTEs.  If you fail a round, the game rewinds briefly you might take a tiny bit of damage, and you get to try again.  It wants the player to win, and it doesn't want you to feel bad about losing.  Also almost always has you pressing buttons if there is cool stuff on screen.

Bayonetta uses QTEs in the worst way possible.  They are haphazardly thrown around and so inconsistently used that you don't know when you're just going to watch a cutscene and when you are going to get a QTE to "dodge" or "jump".  More that "dodge" in QTEs is Triangle and Circle together, and not R2 which is dodge in game, another nice point for Ninja Blade.  Even late into Bayo, you'll watch 30 seconds of fighting wondering "when is this boss fight going to start?" 

The worst part of the QTEs is, if you fail it is instant game over, and Bayo makes you feel bad about getting a game over.  A red skull and crossbones flashes on the screen, Bayonetta's body lies full and center, and you'll get a skull for every death each chapter.  I've never liked games that hammer home that I died.   I know I died.   It's why I hate Jak and Daxter and love Jak 2 and 3.  The most fun I had with Bayo was when I spent about an hour on one of the bonus missions, which really should have been separate from the main game, like Godhand.  In the bonus missions you have a set amount of times you can get hit, and if you die it just drops you right before the mission started.  Dying, internalizing my mistakes, and trying again was great.  It didn't kill the momentum like the main game did.

Playing Bullet Witch is like making your own cutscenes.  One of the reasons I love it so much, is that a giant floating brain threw a flaming bus at me which I cartwheeled by.  I then summoned a tornado which kill the brain and destroyed most of the city street I was on.  The camera is always focused on Bullet Witch too, and I really don't know what the hell the camera was trying to do in Bayonetta.  I got used to it, but that doesn't mean it was good.

In Bayo you can be in dangerous environments without danger, half the stages take place on frozen in time falling debris that won't let you make a bad jump, and if you do make a bad jump you have to fight the camera and Bayo's weird jump to get back to safety, but you'll probably take the 1/10th damage and spawn back at the beginning.  In Bullet Witch I had to take down a giant flying serpent that was trying to destroy the plane I was on.  I had to combat it, the blowing winds, and the ability to just fall right off the ship.  Winning that battle felt like I had done something. 

Bayo has a map screen before each mission, in which a little girl places a Bayo figure on the map.  Then it loads.  Then it lets you start the mission.  Like the Devil May Cry series, and really way too many games, Bayo has a poor sense of progression.  Bayo even has amnesia and doesn't really know what she's trying to do or where she's going for most of the game. 

Bayo didn't get better than the demo, but it didn't get worse either.  It just sort of exists, it's a game I have played.  It's not Bullet Witch.  It's not Godhand.  The director, Kamiya, does love Space Harrier (<3<3<3<3)  enough that there's a Space Harrier level, but you can't change the controls to non-inverted.  But But But...Outrun music?  Nah, just go play Bullet Witch.