Give It To Me Raw

Recently, I purchased a cheap vinyl player and began listening to a few vinyls. Call me a hipster, but I honestly think it provides a better listening experience.

No, I’m not trying to argue if the medium sounds better on a CD; in fact, vinyl LPs can sound poor if you don’t take proper care of it, or if it was improperly pressed by the record company. I will stress that whenever I listen to a vinyl, I just sit in front of my speakers and listen—no distractions whatsoever.

Most people enjoy passively listening to music in places that don’t allow you to concentrate on the music—in their car, at the gym, at parties, etc. For me, concentrating on listening allows me to appreciate music at a much more active level than ever before.

So how does all of this play into gaming? Easy: every game demands your attention. Think about it—you’re actively taking part in playing a game with a controller in hand. Even if you’re playing a portable game, you’re still required to pay attention.

This active role that I enjoy about gaming is a very fulfilling experience. You immerse yourself in every sense minus smell. You get to enjoy visuals, music, story and most importantly, you take control of the game. It’s easily the most active you can be in front of a screen.

The Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus (Sony’s virtual reality hardware) could easily take gamers even further, but I don’t think VR will be a big financial success. Just like how I listen to vinyl, gaming already seems to be active enough of an experience. Of course, I can only speak for myself but a peripheral on my head would lose its novelty quickly. It’s still interesting as a concept, but who knows how virtual reality will really perform.

Things like VR have already been done in the past, but not in such a big way. This is similar to the craze over 3D movies and games we had a few years back. People now have 3D TVs and are able to play 3D games, but the novelty wore off, and I don’t know anyone that plays their games in 3D.  Most people even turn 3D off on their 3DS nowadays.

3D movies are pretty neat, and the technology has caught up enough to provide a proper experience for the consumer, but in the end, do all these extra features matter? I fear VR will become something tacked-on that developers will be wasting their time on, just to include it. Sort of like multiplayer in some games.

Things like 3D and VR aren’t huge steps at improving an active experience. Rather, they provide immersion in ways that won’t stand the test of time. Give me a controller and let me enjoy the game, and don’t waste money developing tacked-on things like 3D and VR. Like vinyl, let’s just focus on what’s important: what the artist(s) truly intended.

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Sweet Child O’ Mine

I’m proud to be a Montrealer, partially because studios like Ubisoft Montreal put out Assassin’s Creed. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, Ubisoft Montreal puts out a game like this, and so far, it’s been a great experience.

You play as Aurora, a girl who wakes up in a different world (Lemuria) after falling asleep from being sick. There are many more characters, such as Rubella and Robert, but there’s also Igniculus, which plays alongside Aurora. Think of Igniculus as Navi from Ocarina of Time, but actually useful: he’ll help you with puzzles, open boxes, and provides support during combat.

The art style plays a prominent part in my experience so far. Highly detailed, watercolor-esque graphics play really well with the feel of the game. It’s very fantasy-like, a feast for the eyes. The color choice is immaculate: deep, muted colors and an amazing use of dark and light tones.

I can’t help but feel like this is a children’s book, a fairy tale presented as a video game. The storyline uses heavy rhyming, which sometimes feels odd, but overall ends up charming. Regardless, the story has dragged me in and I can’t stop playing.

Coeur de Pirate, a fairly popular singer around Montreal, composes the music. This sets a tone that is fairly somber, which complements the art style. A great score composed mostly of piano and violins.

The gameplay reminds me of Limbo, just with more RPG elements when in combat. Igniculus can slow down enemy attacks, so there is strategy in choosing which enemy to slow down and when to do so. I find this active style of turn-based fighting impressive, as a lot goes on during a fight. Honestly, I’ve never played other games with this kind of mechanic, so this is new to me. The puzzles are simple but still very fun.

Sometimes I found controlling Igniculus with the right thumbstick a bit loose, but I grew used to it. The game also allows you to control Igniculus with the touchpad, which I believe is the better option of the two.

Final Thoughts

I haven’t finished the game; it’s only been 4 hours out of a supposed 12-hour playtime. My point here is that for $15, you can’t go wrong. You get great art, great music, a good story, some interesting gameplay, and a 12-hour playthrough. Most blockbuster games are the same length, aren’t as good, and cost $60-70. It’s easy to recommend this to anyone because it excels at every aspect in a game and isn’t too long like most RPGs.

It’s also clear that the people behind this game took the time to think this game out in full. Cheers to the staff who worked on this title.

Here’s a song I enjoyed from Child of Light:

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Gaming For My Ears

As I mentioned last week , I’m currently playing Mercenary Kings and the music is fantastic. This got me thinking about all the recent indie games coming out (and about a few older titles) that have such awesome original soundtracks (OST). Music means a lot of things to different games; some are era-specific, which is cool because you wouldn't hear the same sort of music in a similar game. Others just have amazing backdrops, but in order for this to work, I feel like the music has to go far and beyond to even stand out. Masterpieces go so far as to synergize music and gameplay to near perfection. So much like Brandon did a couple weeks back, I will make a lovely list for you all containing some of my personal favourite video game soundtracks.

First things first though, I'm actually still having quite a bit of fun with Mercenary Kings. It's very similar to Metal Slug or Contra but way less arcadey. By that I mean, the game isn't made to murder you every other second in an attempt to steal your quarters. That and it also has up to 4 player local co-op, sooooooo you can't go wrong with that! Since it sparked this entire segment, I will indulge you with another song from its 16-bit style rock soundtrack before beginning my list:

Small disclaimer before I start: you won't see any games with a compilation of hit list radio songs on here. No NHL, WWE, or GTA; although all of those games do have some pretty great soundtracks, they just aren'toriginal in my mind. The list is in alphabetical order.

Catherine

A couple of weeks ago I might not have even put Catherine on a list like this. When I was cleaning and organizing my game collection, I came across an art book for Catherine that happened to include the OST as well. I've always been a fan of classical music; big orchestras are great and provide some of the most powerful and intricate music ever. Featuring musicians such as Beethoven and Bach, I needed to add this game to my list:

Guilty Gear X2

I love 2D fighting games and the Guilty Gear series is easily my favourite. There is a super fast tempo to the fighting; a tempo which the music keeps up with perfectly. All originally made for the game, heavily influenced by rock/metal, it's a blast to listen to and really gets the blood pumping. I cannot stress enough how much the tempo of both the fighting and music go together, the developers couldn't have done a better job and I'm eagerly awaiting the PS4 version which releases later this year:

Hotline Miami

This game even without the sound track is one hell of an amazingly fun experience. It's just a top down 16-bit murder simulator and if you haven't tried it yet, you are missing out. The music is something else all together though, it just adds so much to the overall experience. It's all original and made for the game; it has this sort of 80's vibe, which meshes with the setting perfectly. Here is one track, but I would recommend checking them all out:

Katamari Damacy

Recently revisiting this title for my #tbt, I actually listened to the entire soundtrack as I wrote that post. The music in the entire series is by and large quite good, although personally I find the best soundtrack belongs to the original game. The soundtrack itself is half jazz, half electronic, but all quirky. The main draw of the music in Katamari Damacy is that it's all charmingly catchy, you just can't get away from it, nor would you want to:

The Saboteur

Made by a studio that is no longer with us, Pandemic left us with an enjoyable sandbox WWII game with a very unique art style. The game starts off entirely black and white and then dynamically adds colour to the world as you liberate Nazi-controlled zones. The music was a compilation of jazz from the era and being a huge jazz fan myself, this game was a no brainer for me. The song I happened to link here funnily enough isn't even from the era, it was composed within the last decade, but it's so amazing and I feel it captures the same mood the old jazz songs have.

Sang-Froid: Tales of Werewolves

Having personally worked on Sang-Froid, that's not the reason why I added it to my list; this is not some shameless self promotion! I, along with many others who have filled the steam forums, think the music in this game is amazing. It's all folky-Quebec music, which is sort of an offshoot of Celtic music. This means that there’s lots of violins and foot stomping. The music is one of the best parts of Sang Froid and fits the setting of the world like no other music can. The song I chose to display is featured when you do most of your planning in-game; I especially like when the accordion enters the mix :

So that is my list, I'm sure I left some stuff out. I encourage everyone to comment and tell me how crazy I am for not including "insert title here" to my list, so please do! I love a good debate and music preference always starts a good one!

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The Platinum Card

I consider myself to be a bit of an on again/off again trophy hunter, a comment which I'll shed some light on before continuing. You see, when the PS3 and 360 came out, everyone was going nuts for achievement points. When Sony finally released trophies (which took nearly 2 years after launching the PS3) I was all over that shit. Of course after a year or 2 it became more of a hassle then an enjoyment and I started playing games to just play them again instead of trying to pad my stats.

Cue the Ps4 release and I find myself elusively hunting for those trophies again. My rationale though, is that I'm streaming nearly everything I play now and with the speed at which I complete a game’s story, trophy hunting is the next best thing to extend that game’s lifespan.

Now that you're safely out of my head, let’s get back on track. Recently I got the platinum trophy (100% completion) in inFamous: Second Son. Moreover, I wanted to look at this accomplishment from a trophy hunter’s prospective.

First things first though, this game was amazing! I loved it. The powers were cool, the story tug at the heart strings when it needed to, the pacing was great, and I found the entire experience to be quite a deal more focused than other open-world action titles. I did however feel that the older games in the series did have more content in the world than Second Son. The side missions felt more like side distractions: usually side “missions” have a sort of overarching narrative while these did not. Every mission you did as Delsin (the main protagonist) was story-relevant and progress the plot forward meaningfully. This isn't a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination; like I said, the game was focused, which I feel too many AAA games now a day's are jam packed with filler.

Trophy wise, the game was a joke. I almost feel bad getting the Platinum because it was so very easy, to the point where I almost feel dirty for getting it. I guess I'm kind of weird or stupid; or better yet, maybe I’m just difficult. I feel that it's challenging for developers to come up with achievements/trophies which effectively extend the lifespan of a video game. Developers either mail it in and make them un-challenging or they make them so impossibly hard and/or time consuming that you must spend like 100+ hours on a 10 hour game just to get them. Some games have the perfect balance. For instance I feel Resogun (ps4 downloadable game) has this, although I have yet to platinum it yet.

Second Son, sitting in the former camp, was very straight forward. The player pretty much has to beat the game twice, once playing as a Hero and in the next play through, you behave all villainous-like (with one session being played on normal ideally, and the second on hard mode). There were a few trophies thrown in there after the fact that required some extra gusto, such as killing one enemy with 3 different powers or staying afloat in the air for more than 45 seconds (which I thought would be harder than it actually was).

Moral dilemma... Those graphics though!

Now, yes it was easy, however the developers did one thing...one thing…that annoyed me to no end. They made it so you couldn't skip the cutscenes! In this day and age, who can't skip cutscenes? On the first play through it didn't matter, but when I have to play the game a second time, it would at least be beneficial to skip over previously watched cutscenes.

We shall see how long I can keep this going. So far on my Ps4 I have platinumed (in chronological order): Knack, Lego Marvel, Strider, Thief and now Second Son. Additionally, I'm on my way towards Dead Nation and Resogun. Looking back at my list, the last PS3 game I Plat'ed was Just Cause 2, which was in 2010...That very well might be the reason I stopped in the first place. My advice to you: never attempt to get all the achievements/trophies in a sand box game, it's not worth it.

Completely unrelated, I'm going to leave you with this: I started playing Mercenary Kings, which is free in April if you have Ps+, right after finishing Second Son. The only reason I bring it up is because the music is awesome and I desperately wished to share it with you!

So awesome... foreshadowing anyone? 

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OSUUUUUU!

Hey, my name is Campeau, and I'm an alcoholic... Oh wait wrong website, I'm a gamer.

I figure I should intro myself as the other guys on the site have. I'm 23 heavily bearded and have been gaming since my parents put a genesis controller in my hands so they could do whatever people did before we had the internet.

This week I figured I'd tell you guys about OSU! and why you should be playing it. Osu is a rhythm game from the far off and ancient land of Japan and, I mean, it would have to be with gameplay like this.

                                    And yes a living, breathing, human being did that.

So that APM(Actions Per Minute) wet dream is Osu and it's addictive as hell. So a bit of back-story: I got into rhythm games back during the heyday of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Eventually I also played Elite Beat Agents, which was my gateway into the beatmap gaming genre. Now that you know a little about where I'm coming from let me tell you how the game works. Osu uses three different elements:"hit" circles, sliders and spinners. You interact with each of them differently and overall the mechanics aren't overly difficult, it's the pace and speed of the song that really affects the difficulty. One of Osu's benefits is that it's an open source game, so any and every song you can imagine is out there for you to play. There's really no end to what you can do with the game. Also there are other game modes tacked on and each bring a unique change to the game and its gameplay. Most of these modes have gameplay similar to guitar hero or are a piano/drum simulator.

One of the draws of Osu is the variety of peripherals you can use to play it. Traditionally it's played with a mouse or keyboard but, through modding and other means, you can use an ipad or similar tablet or even a graphics tablet (which I don't recommend). I do however recommend playing it with a mouse, if you're any kind of PC gamer it's definitely something you should play. It's amazingly useful for hand eye coordination and reflexes; I've even heard a lot of Starcraft 2 and League of Legends players play it in their off time to speed up their reaction time. So not only is it crazy fun and addictive but it actually makes you a better gamer overall. There are a few downsides though; the game does have a pretty steep learning curve, which can be frustrating at times but overall once you get the hang off things you'll be having fun in no time. I've logged way more hours in it than I can count and turned a bunch of friends onto it as well. In summation the game is free and there's really no reason you shouldn't give it a try, I mean are you too good for free?

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