Where Did You Go, Burnadette?

It was funny, enjoyable, and interesting. My wife identified with Burnadette enough to be concerning. I liked it. I hear the book is totally different, and that's fine with me. Go see it with your wife.

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Assassin's Creed Odyssey

I am a huge fan of the AC series.

Well, except for Liberation. While the story was engaging and the gameplay elements that were added in were cool, the issues it had being ported from the Vita to PC were horrible and I couldn't finish it. My NPC escort would get hung up on ladders, trees, whatever. Oh, so annoying, especially after I had just finished III and Black Flag, which were fantastic.

I went on to Rogue, and felt right at home, back in the familiar controls of Black Flag and III, and loved seeing characters I was familiar with, people I knew and a story that blended so well from episode to episode in North America.

I finished Rogue the other day and instead of going on to Unity, I thought I'd give Odyssey a try.

Holy crap, culture shock.

The controls are different. The graphics are different. The gameplay is different.

And in this case, different is good.

It took a little time to get used to the new controls, because they are quite a bit different than III-Rogue. Perhaps a controller would be better, but I like the fine targeting control with the mouse.

Combat is actually a skill to master, and is much more difficult. In all of the previous AC games that I played i could easily take on a group of six to ten guards and tear them apart. Now three give me trouble.

As you progress in the story you unlock large scale battles. Pro tip: make sure you take the Warrior's Second Wind ability or there is no way to heal during battle. After dying about six times in that battle I had to reset my abilities to better suit large scale combat, which cost about 500dm (the currency, Drachma, which the game tells us was used up until Greece entered the EU in the early 2000's).

Act I of Odyssey is set in Greece long before the Assassins and Templars, some time after the Battle of Thermopylae showcased in the movie 300. You take on the role of a Spartan child grown up to be a mercenary, during the Peloponnesian War. The story is very interesting and engaging, and there are a lot of side quests to keep me interested in exploring the open world.

Upgrading the armor and weapons gets tedious, however, because you have to do so every 2 or 3 levels for your kit to remain relevant, and the numbers you're dealing with for damage are ridiculous. For example, I am spec'd Assassin. My hunter damage is 250-ish, my warrior damage is about 300, my assassin damage is over 5300! And even then some enemies of the same level (though are captains or other similar elite baddies) are not killed by an assassin strike, and I have to use a charged strike which doubles the damage o.O

And it isn't just the armor and weapons you need to upgrade, you have a ship, also. And lieutenants to lead your ship. As with the other games, upgrades and style sets are available for your ship, but that requires more money and more resources, and after upgrading my kit to level 11 (i'm now 13) I didn't have enough money and resources to do any upgrades on my ship. I could spend entire days just farming resources, which isn't what i want to do.

Instead of using your assassin's vision there is some sort of telepathic connection to a golden eagle that flies ahead and marks all points of interest in your vision. Many of the skills I was comfortable with in the earlier titles seem to be getting a primitive treatment in Odyssey, which I really enjoy. It feels like the things we do in Odyssey will someday become the standard for assassins and templars.

Overall, it has a semblance of the AC feel, but easily stands on its own as an exciting RPG adventure that keeps my attention and makes me watch the clock for the time when the babies are in bed and my wife is watching crime shows so I can go play Spartan until way too late in the evening.

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Battletech

Woah, there's some dust and cobwebs on this page. I guess I should do a little housecleaning. Well, maybe later.

Today I wanted to talk about Battletech by publisher Harebrained Schemes.

I played this game a lot with my friends as a kid. I loved the idea of piloting giant robots across the battlefield, ripping the arms off of them, and beating them with it like a club. I loved the chess-like strategy, and the utter chaos when a plan goes wrong.

As with most of the games I played as a young teen, this game was introduced by my friend Damian's brother Brian, but after that my friends and I were hooked, and this became one of our regulars.

I saw this one on Steam, and have to admit I was excited by the nostalgia. But as with most things, nostalgia isn't what it used to be, so I delayed purchasing it. I've been burned too many times to go through that again.

My buddy Tony bought it and told me it's a lot like the board game, so I bit the bullet and bought it.

Things I like:

• How similar it is to the tabletop game.
• The weapon selection
• Death from Above
• The available mechs (and the expansion adds more)
• Campaign mode (not just arena deathmatch. thank you)
• career mode (yes! campaign style play, make your own story. thank you)
• playing a match against my buddy was fun and reminded me of the tabletop

Things I would like different:

• More multiplayer modes:
• I would like it if your friends could play through career mode or the campaign together in a lance
• I would like it if you could have more than one opponent in a match, or in teams.
• I would like the option to do skirmishes against the computer in team matches, (i.e. Me and my buddy against two computer opponents)

Things I don't like:

• It is seriously difficult to get a start in career mode. There's a good reason that you get a benefactor in the campaign. Mechs are expensive.

I guess that's it. I really enjoy this game as is, and would like more options to play with my friends as well.

So if you're an old fan of Battletech, or if you played the rpg Mechwarrior, or maybe even if you enjoy watching old indie movies like Robot Jox, give this a try.

Battletech by Harebrained Schemes Steam Link

Robot Jox

PG

 1989 ‧ Cult film/Indie film ‧ 1h 25m

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Review on Lux-Pain for Nintendo DS

The long awaited review finally arives! Just like the last one, I did not watch the trailers I linked for you, nor did I read any reviews by those people who played the game at E3 or the GDC. I also did not read the instruction book. My feelings of excitement for this game are completely related to the manga pics I saw on the website and the genre listing it as a psychic detective story. Also, I haven't finished the game. I like to write the review after about six hours of gameplay when I have a feel for the game but haven't experienced everything yet.

Initial Thoughts

1. Maybe i should have read the instruction manual on this one. It threw me right into the middle of an investigation, and i did okay at picking up what i was supposed to do after staring at the screen for 1.5 minutes before realizing it wanted me to do something.
2. I don't know if they did it on purpose, but the dialogue isn't the same as the captions, and its kinda disorienting for those of us who are compulsive about reading our anime. Did you ever watch Steamboy in english with the english subtitles? yeah. its like that. And then we get to two drunk girls, one has voiceovers far off the captions, the other of which has no voiceover at all.. again, disorienting. The voiceover thing bothers me a lot. And it isn't like its just here and there. Its different all over the place. I'd say 90% of the captions don't match the voiceover script. The captions seem to be more of a direct translation from the original Japanese, while the voiceovers are what it would sound like it if an American said it. And it isn't like they're trivial characters. Some of them are main characters. And sometimes characters who normally have voiceovers.. don't. In fact there was not one voiceover the entire way through day 3. Its like they gave up.. *sigh* I have no problem with reading the captions only. I think it would have been better to go all or nothing on the voices. It detracts from the game.
3. The intro vid is pretty sweet, good graphics. They had a good group of artists.
   
4. Hmm.. a few spelling mistakes in the english captions. Should have read thru them again.

Initial Thoughts Rating: -

Storyline

Once I began to ignore the voice issue, the storyline became really interesting. A psychic investigation into a rash of suicides. The clues, the characters, the interaction, all very engaging and captivating.

Storyline Rating: +

Gameplay

Investigation is the most pervasive element in this game. Either by talking to people and answering their questions or responding with an emotion (coded by colors... blue is sadness, red anger, yellow happy, purple laughter, etc.), or scratching their face off hunting for small psychic worms, called Shinen, that contain thoughts, emotions and feelings. The search for the worms is innovative, and do refrain from trying to clear the whole screen... I .. burned out a subject's brain and ended the game... *blush* Briefing is given at the beginning of each day, debrief to remind you of the clues is given at the end. I have experienced a single combat, which was in the form of a mini-game ala whack-a-mole.

Gameplay Rating: +

Genre Elements

Lux-Pain is listed as a psychic investigation game, and it hits dead on. There is a small rpg element with experience gathered when worms are collected or important clues are discovered. Leveling up increases aspects of your psychic searching power (Sigma ).

Genre Elements Rating: +

Replay-ability

The story is very linear and clues will be uncovered pretty much regardless of the order in which you investigate the areas of the city (this i found out after a fatal mistake or two and reload). It plays like a book, with a few interactive areas, and is a one-shot story. A good story, but no replay.

Replay-ability Rating: -

Summary

Lux-Pain is a really good story-driven investigation game with innovative elements and a strong storyline. The voice acting is good, but the seeming randomness of using voiceovers and the completely different scripts is distracting.

Summary Rating: (3 out of 5)

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Review: Blue Dragon Plus for Nintendo DS

When i let the dogs out this morning, i found a plain yellow padded envelope on the front porch with a big UPS Ground label on the front. Inside was a nice letter from the marketing agency, thanking me for taking the time for the review and reminding me to find their web tool online and let them know when the review was posted; and the game: Blue Dragon Plus for the Nintendo DS.

My DS was dead from way too much Animal Crossing: Wild World over the last couple days, so it took me a few hours before i was set up to try Blue Dragon Plus.

But i'm probably getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning. This is my first video game review, and i was surprised even to be asked to take part, but i want to make sure i do a thorough job and be fair.

I will say up front that i was not influenced by the marketing agency that asked me to review the game in any way. the fact that the game was shipped to me for free, i can only assume, is the standard in reviews, as evidenced from Penny Arcade and Ctrl+Alt+Del mentioning in their blog that such-and-such publisher sent them random-game to review.

I refrained from loading up the original Blue Dragon on my 360 while waiting for this game, wanting to go into the review fresh and perhaps as if i had never even played it. It has been about a year since i played the 360 game, and i couldn't remember much, so I'm off to a good start.

I also refrained from reading any other reviews or watching trailers of Blue Dragon Plus, so as not to be influenced by anything except my own experience.

The other thing I refrained from was the instruction booklet. I had two reasons for this:

• One - As a man, I have a natural aversion to instruction booklets.

• Two - I wanted to really know how intuitive this game was. Would it have controls easy to guess and navigate, or would it be incredibly complex and require remapping and a cheat sheet?

So, on with the review

Initial Thoughts

• Good intro cutscene, really reminded me of what i remember from the 360 version. Very cinematic and recognizable characters. Kind of surprised me for the DS (but the only other game I have is Animal Crossing, so I really don't have much of a basis for comparison).

• Feels like final fantasy tactics at first glance after the cutscene. 3D Isometric, shoulder buttons for rotating the camera, D-Pad for positioning the camera.


• I like that it introduces the characters in the party at the start and gives tips for how to effectively use them in combat.
  
  
• Controls were very intuitive and only took mere seconds to play with and figure out. No complexity at all.
  

Yes, so there are the first three thoughts I had. My initial impression is a positive one.

Initial Thoughts Rating: +

Storyline

The second thing I noticed is how story-driven Blue Dragon Plus is. Packed with excellent cinematic cut scenes and story-furthering dialog interspersed with some very strategic real time combat. For those of us that are fans of the Final Fantasy series and can handle lots of dialogue and cut scenes, you'll feel right at home.

The story was engaging and interesting. It built upon the world from the original title and flowed well, much like a comic book or graphic novel. It made sense in context and was well written.

Storyline Rating: +

Gameplay

The real-time combat takes a little getting used to. Most isometric games like this that I am used to (FF:Tactics and even Blue Dragon(360)) were turn based, but when the enemies don't wait for you to pick your action, they just start walking and beating on your characters out of the expected turn sequence, the world flips upside down and its time to build a new strategy.

This is where the simplicity of the controls shines. Three icons on the right side of the screen control party selection. The first is for scrolling through your party individually, the second is for circling the target party members with the stylus, and the third is selecting all party members. Clicking on an enemy sends all selected characters to release whoop-ass. There are two to three icons at the bottom of the screen for each character selected. Special attacks, and medicine for healing. Simply click one with the stylus and combat pauses so you can ensure the target of your spell.

I was easily able to group my combat-oriented members on the enemies to overwhelm them and send the scout out to gather treasure and medicine to keep them alive.

The rest of gameplay is spent reading through the linear storyline and watching the cut scenes, or making minor direction choices that automatically move you to an area occupied by either a monster or a shop. Simplified perhaps too much, but easy to understand and work with.

Gameplay Rating: +

Genre Elements

Blue Dragon Plus is listed as an Action RPG. Combat action is the primary element of gameplay, so I give it a + for that.

The 'Key Points' page of the marketing site boasts "Exciting RPG Elements Such As Item Collection, Character Progression and Robot Customizations".

Fine, let's talk about RPG Elements.

Items are collected and assigned to characters to grant additional stat bonuses and counteract weaknesses or increase strengths.

After combat, characters are awarded experience points and possibly level up. There is nothing to do during level-up. Stat increases are awarded automatically.

I haven't even gotten to the robot customization yet. This intrigues me, and I'm looking forward to it.

But how does it play as an RPG? That depends on your definition of Role Playing Game. I'm a paper and dice RPG'er and text-based RPG'er, which means I have a much different view on role play than WoW or EverQuest RPG'ers. So for me, the RPG element was the weak point of this game.

But as for the Action, Blue Dragon Plus is all about action.

I would say this is a neutral, one plus/one minus, but the RPG portion is listed as "Elements", and not designated as the primary genre, so we'll catagorize it Action.

Genre Element Rating: +

Replay-ability

I know I haven't yet played the whole game through to the end, but in my experience so far, there isn't much to replay. Choices are limited to how you go about taking out the bad guys during combat. All conversation is pre-scripted with no input from the player, so once you've played through to the end, that's it. I'm not one who even re-reads books more than once, so I probably wouldn't play it more than once, but what I have played so far was good.

Replay-ability Rating: -

Summary

Blue Dragon Plus is a good story-driven combat game with some innovative elements in a familiar world. While not a true RPG, it does try to incorporate popular elements to appeal to everyone, and does an okay job. The 30+ hours of playtime is a fresh release in the wake of shorter games, but the complete linearity does not promote replay-ability. More of a graphic novel with combat breaks, but still recommended for fans of the original or similar titles. Having first completed the original is suggested for understanding the back story.

Summary Rating: (4 out of 5)

Blue Dragon Plus
Published by: Ignition Entertainment
Developed by: Feel Plus
Genre: Action RPG
System: Nintendo DS
Rated: E for Everyone
Release Date: February 24, 2009

Blue Dragon Plus images and video care of Rocket XL Marketing.

Dragon Score Image copyright: WarSpider Entertainment LLC, and is used with permission.
DragonClash.com is neither owned or operated by Nintendo and is not
associated with the Blue Dragon Plus product.

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Rating System

I thought it was important to post my criteria for game reviews, what with my review of Blue Dragon Plus coming up.

My video game reviews are rated on elements I look for in a game, and are completely subjective, based on my personal opinion. I try to be fair when writing a review and do my best not to allow outside influences to sway me.

Initial Thoughts - watching the opening cut scene and first impressions of the game.
Storyline - How engaging is the story, how interesting, how well was it written.
Gameplay - Innovation, intuitive, easy to control, any frustrations.
Genre Elements - How well does it meet the claims of the genre.
Replay-ability - Was it worth playing through, would you consider playing it through again.

I realize this isn't everything a game is made of, but it is more at heart to what a game is to me compared to other reviewers that consider more of how it looks and what it sounds like. Graphics and Sound are secondary, and therefore included in the initial thoughts, rather than separate categories.

If you have any questions about my review process, send me email.

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