Category: Done Playing

Done Playing / Feature / Nintendo

7 Sep, 2012

Done Playing: Domino Rally (Wii)

Up until the moment I started playing Domino Rally I had convinced myself that it would be a sequel to No One Can Stop Mr. Domino. That game had you rapidly and strategically dropping dominoes behind the unstoppable Mister in order to trigger all of the stage’s bizarre surprises in one flawless go. It was a demanding bastard of a game and I really loved it. Domino Rally packs the same kind of peculiar surprises and expects a similar speedy precision but thanks to the ever-unreliable Wii Remote it turns out only mildly fun and mostly a bastard to play.

Leaning heavily on Katamari Damacy, Domino Rally’s stages are backed by catchy J-Pop style tracks and open with low-rent cutscenes of bizarre characters in mundane peril. Minon is the “everyday superhero” that they call on in their time of need, be it retrieving a lost balloon, sinking a critical putt, helping an overburdened father answer a contest-winning phone call, or getting elephants to fall in love. The scenes are short and barely animated but they have just enough style to be charming which is the only thing to soften the blow after you take indirect control.

Minon is always moving but instead of dropping dominoes behind him as in Mr. Domino you lay out a swath of holographic Minon Blocks to keep him moving forward. You can go straight or curve to the left or right and… that’s really all the control you have. With an incomprehensible map and a too-close, overhead view of the world you’ll fumble out a path of holo-minoes to bridge rows of stationary objects that speed up Minon and refill his Minonaide energy. This is anything but automatic, though, as you’ll have to shake the Wii Remote in time with Minon’s quickening steps and then steady your hand to set the next piece before he runs out of room to move. If that happens you’ll play a little balancing game until you can get things moving again but will also lose all your momentum. Along with the Minonaide and speed that steadily deplete as you play there’s also a timer forcing you to play as flawlessly as possible.

This would all make for a fine ‘perfect run’ challenge if the game had reliable controls but the Wii Remote can’t deliver. Going from wild, rhythmic shaking to one of three precise on-screen positions isn’t easy or fun and as Minon speeds up the process only gets more annoying. By the end of each stage my right arm was sore and I was ready to quit but — damn! — those cutscenes are cheeky! The stages escalate in complexity and you’ll retry many of them as you divine the correct sequence of events but there are only eight in total. There’s a token Versus mode and loads of astonishing “memory poems” to find but I’d feel pretty let down if I’d paid more than $10 for what was three hours of playtime.


Outside of my hopes for a Mr. Domino sequel I think what’s most disappointing about Domino Rally is that it never feels like you’re playing with dominoes. Minon could just as easily be bounding across little magical clouds or, hell, he could simply be running on the ground. For a game that puns the word ‘domino’ so excessively there are precious few actual dominoes to be found and that just doesn’t feel right to me. Domino Rally is only entertaining during the parts where you aren’t playing it and by my last check no one has posted all that stuff to YouTube. You’ll have to suffer some punishment to see it yourself and if that’s a dealbreaker for you then skip this outright. If it’s not I’d still recommend hunting for the lowest price you can find.

Done Playing / Feature / Microsoft

16 Jul, 2012

Done Playing: Trine 2 (Xbox 360)

For my money the original Trine was pretty close to perfect. It taught its character-swapping gameplay and let you focus on the clever physics puzzles, it was absolutely gorgeous to look at and — most importantly — it didn’t overstay its welcome. It’s a lean, focused indie classic whose only fault is that its boring combat is mostly there to break up the puzzle sequences. Trine 2 doesn’t stray far from that formula and starts out strong but the additions to the gameplay managed to kill my excitement in the end. According to Steam and Raptr I’ve played both games for around eleven hours each but Trine 2 might as well have dragged on for an eternity.

Let’s start on the highest of high notes, though, with Trine 2’s presentation. The images here may look nice but they can’t begin to capture the wondrous sight of the game in motion. The title screen alone has more artistic majesty than the entirely of two or three contemporary games combined. My words do it even less justice so I’ll skip the descriptions and sum it up as whimsical. Whimsical as hell! There is never nothing to be amazed about while looking at this game. Seriously, this is what it looks like when unicorns dream!

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Done Playing / Feature / Microsoft

10 Jul, 2012

Dinosaur Hunting: Complete

 

The “review” after the break pretty much tells the story but to sum it up: I am officially the foremost expert on Dinosaur Hunting that doesn’t speak or read Japanese. The video above is the first part in what wound up being a 15-part series on Youtube, a complete playthrough that’s garnered way more views and interest than I could’ve hoped for. The review below will give it to ya straight but if “dinosaur” and “hunting” sound like an intriguing adventure you might as well get started with the videos. Oh, and there’s much more at the Giant Bomb page for the game which I also created.

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Done Playing / Feature / Microsoft

23 Apr, 2012

Done Playing: World Gone Sour (Xbox Live Arcade)

World Gone Sour is another one of those increasingly common games that I buy not for its apparent quality but because of how it revolves around real people I know online. When certified real person Adam Boyes (from co-developer Beefy Media) plays the game alongside equally real Giant Bomb co-founder Jeff Gerstmann, their banter is more than just a PR dude trying to sell a press guy on the game. They’re friends and though they may not call me the same, I feel a friendly connection to the two from years of Giant Bomb podcasts and tweets. It was during this quick look that Boyes mentioned a Giant Bomb logo hidden in the game which further blurs the line between things I like. If that wasn’t weird enough context to come into this review I also just earned enough free Microsoft Points from Bing to cover the cost of the game. Let’s just qualify it as “individual results will vary”.

World Gone Sour is a game about Sour Patch Kids candy but like in the days of Cool Spot and M.C. Kids it doesn’t shove candy or soda or happy meals down your throat. The licensed property is just there to set the scene, in this case a world where candy that doesn’t get eaten goes crazy and builds contraptions and obstacles out of everyday junk. You’re a saintly sour patch candy whose quest to rescue his friends has suppressed the madness. What that sets up is a Pikmin-lite system where you find other Sour Patch Kids and hurl them at switches, precariously placed pick-ups, or absorb them to grow bigger and enable new powers.

Those powers include growing and shrinking in size, doing a ground pound move and using your buddies like a bowling ball to take out enemies and explore the side-scrolling levels. It’s nothing cerebral like Fez or daunting like Super Meat Boy and paired with the mellow music and narration of Creed Bratton the whole game feels largely subdued. I’d even call it a nice change of pace from other platformers of late that feel like they’re out to prove something. World Gone Sour is also subdued (in a bad way here) in its visuals with textures that almost look out of a PlayStation 2 game. I like the Toy Story scale of things and the depth of field effects but I didn’t expect to be squinting at blurry objects to make out the gag labels in a modern game. That Giant Bomb logo looks crisp though, oh, and so do the Sour Patch Kids themselves. You can practically taste the crystals of high fructose corn syrup that cover them.

World Gone Sour is aware of what it is — a platformer based on a licensed piece of candy — and it tries to make it special. The narration is clever in spots and the Method Man video takes itself perfectly seriously but it doesn’t go far enough to be really memorable. If you don’t also have a strange meta connection to those involved with its production I can only call it a palette cleanser that isn’t as sour as you’d expect from a pun that bad. It’s cheap, lasts for a couple of days, has local co-op play and you’ll likely get all of the Achievements without much extra work. I hate to call it a throwaway diversion between bigger games but given the sugary nature of the source material that may be the most fitting way to put it.

Done Playing / Feature

16 Apr, 2012

Done Playing: Disassembly 3D FREE (iOS)

There’s something appealing to me about interacting with real world objects in a virtual space beyond the typical violent interactions of most games. I’m a big fan of Secret Exit’s Zen Bound series in which you attain enlightenment by wrapping rope around wooden blocks. Disassembly 3D scratches that same itch for me only the enlightenment and reward comes from taking apart consumer electronics.

There are loads of similar apps on iOS to replicate the field stripping of guns but it’s the more mundane nature of Disassembly’s objects that grabbed me. For free you can disassemble a dresser, a desk lamp, and a speaker with paid unlocks for objects ranging from desk chairs to bicycles all the way up to a house. Pinching to zoom and swiping around to move the camera you’ll remove screws and switches, pull things apart and toss them around the room, and watch them animate. There isn’t a lot to see in the free objects but on the more advanced stuff you can simply watch doors and levers operate, mess with the fluid physics of a shower head, figure out the combination to a safe and poke at the gears and pedals of a bike.

Completing each “stage” unlocks bomb mode that lets you explode the object at will the next time you load it up. I derived an immense sense of satisfaction from gently opening the dresser drawer, putting a lit bomb inside, closing it and watching the thing disassemble itself in slow motion. I then derived that same sense of satisfaction four or five more times in a row.

Manipulating the camera is a little finicky at times and I had to zoom way, WAY in to get some of the parts out but for free it presents a fun and unique experience for anyone who likes to play with real-time physics or putting furniture together. I enjoy both so maybe I got more out of Disassembly 3D than most will but I still say it’s worth checking out if you’ve got an iDevice.

This review was originally posted at PEGreviews.com which is currently on hiatus

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