This is the end of trilogy mouth and now for the final review: Batman Arkham Trilogy! This is what happens when a company takes a twist of Metroid-Vania into a brawler; The invention of Bat-viania, a dance-like combat system that's focuses more on perfect timing than mashing buttons like in most fighting adventure games! There's a reason the series is highly acclaimed to the point of imitation from games like Sleeping Dogs; It's just the format works for action games!
It all starts with Batman, as THE batman, is driving in the bat-mobile with the joker arrested after taking the mayor hostage. Before that, Black Gate prison had a fire and had to transfer the majority of thugs into Arkham. Batman knew something wasn't right, but delivers The Joker. However, Harley Quinn kidnaps the head of Arkham, Quincy Sharp, and took over with her sexy nurse outfit on, and all hell broke loose! The joker takes over Arkham with his Titan formula monster men and it's up to batman to stop the madness.
This game help start the series off, as batman must explores Arkham and later picks up new gadgets from either from his Bat-storage or what he invents on the fly like the charge-pluse gun which shoots nonlethal bolts which open and close some doors. And that was just a small taste of the bat-gadgets the player. The combat is very simple from timing your punches, dodges, and counters; However, it feels really slow and it's really easy to lose the combos. Thankfully, the Wane upgrades helps as it boosts gadgets, Batman's Armor, and help improve the gameplay. Along the way, Eddy Nigma, known as The Riddler, leaves trophies and puzzels for those completionist and helps with leveling.
After the events, Joker is suffering from blood poisoning from the titan formula and is slowly dieing as a result. Bruce Wane, in the meantime, is trying his best to close Arkham City down as many criminals has escaped and has occupied the city. However, Hugo Strange has figured that Bruce Wane is Batman thanks to an outside source and, with his private army, kidnaps Bruce and sells him to Penguin. Bruce Wane then escapes and fights as Batman to regain control of the city with the help of Catwoman; who is more interested in robbing Two-face blind during the chaos, but helps anyways because it would benefit her.
The game is more refined as there's more new gadgets and a new stunt-combo system as it helps build combos when fighting goons. The Batvaina evolved into a more open-world. It's not bad, it's just very jarring and different from the past game. The Riddler is also back, and this time the riddles are all over the city! This time, you have to catch him as he token Gorden's police team hostage. Solving enough riddles will help catch him and save the police. The gliding mechanic, which existent in the last game, has been refined to help travel around the city. It also has an upgrade when the player complete the training set by Wane Interprizes and it helps. However, if going for completion, it's best to go after the side missions first as there's a point of no return after one point in the story.
In the end, The Joker dies before Batman could have gave him the cure to his blood poisoning because joker made batman drop the cure, breaking his chances of survival. Harley blames Batman for his death and plots her revenge. It has been months since the events of the last game and things where calm for a time until a fear toxin bombing in a local diner occupied, causing death and injury which lead to the city being evacuated to the villains. All the sudden, a private army occupies Gotham with the help of The Arham Knight, who seem to know Batman from the inside and out. Things go beyond crazy than they ever before.
However, while they did center the game-play to the point where it is easier to complete, but it's the only way to get the real ending of the game. While alternative endings, or in this case real endings, in metroid-vania games, usually handle well. Its not here. The problem is the Riddler; While normally some of his puzzles are ok, some of the racing portions of the game didn't fit his personality. And speaking of, while some parts of the Bat-Tank was challenging, it felt more of a transformers than Batman game. However, if the player read the comics, the plot twist in the end is just very bland, making the game not really worth completing 100%.
In the end, I would recommend this trilogy whenever they go on sale. However, the Disk-Locked Content isn't worth in the long run as they are too short and not worth the effort. This is a series that inovated the Metroid-vania series into something new and somewhat refreshing. This is the last trilogy that RockSteady will be official working on for Batman as it will probably be handed down...God help us all....
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Beastly Bash; Hitman: Complete Collection (Excluding Absolution)
This is a series been fallowed since there has been tons of videos on you-tube, from Harpoon to Hit-God, and it was their trick clips that got me to play the original trilogy. That what personally sold me the game as this series had as the original trilogy added replay within itself. While they did started some controversy for killing in this game, the players get the best score by going for the Silent Assassin ranking, the best ranking within the series. This not only helps discourage people from randomly killing, but this help portray Hitman 47 as a chaotic anti-hero, hired to kill bad people who has wrong people and earns cash to help him with his other hits and objectives.
Where did Hitman 47 come from? He was a perfect clone created by one of the worst people in the world from cells of the terrorist whom he was made to kill. He escapes and joins the ICA and then the game introduces Diana; A sidekick who assigns targets for Hitman 47! After killing the terrorists, the mad doctor Otto Wolfgang Ort-Meyer decided to make a clone army to help rule the world. However, Hitman 47 saw this as a dangerous act and kills him as well as the clone army; Hitman then destroys his research notes, making sure that no one else could use the technology ageist him. Hitman then escapes the swat team and then hides in the church as the alias Tibias Reaper and serves the church.
The first game, Hitman: Agient 47, tells this story origin of Hitman 47 though it's gameplay. However, it was more of an action game than a stealth game the series was better known for. While the game did have some faults, this game sold well enough on it's narrative to get attention enough for two damn good sequels; plus, the game's sequel, Hitman 2, help defined what the hitman games where all about. Hitman 1 gameplay is forgiven as the narrative goes over the gameplay.
However, Hitman 47 stood out too much in the last game and attracted the attention of Zavorotko's Mafia criminal group; his minions kidnaps 47's friend and mentor Father Vittorio; randoms him to the Hitman 47, forcing him to come out of retirement and help Diana with her assignments in the ICA. Hitman races to kill his targets, known members of Zavorotko's criminal empire to help lure out his kidnappers. After killing a clone that was left over from the asylum, he traced that they have returned to the seance of the crime; He faces Zavorotko and his minions, freeing Father Vittorio and leaving him alive in the church. Hitman 47 then knew that he would endanger him, decides to return to the agency.
This is the hardest of the original games, as it introduced mechanics but has tons of bugs. Personally wouldn't recommend this game as a starter game and point out the other two games are they are much more balanced and open. The bots tend to see you from a mile away on some difficulties, covers are blown even if you walk slowly as crawling, and everyone shoots first before asking questions. When getting the hit done, it is satisfying but finding the new way can be tedious. That's where youtube comes to mind; Use it as a guide to save your sanity!
And then there is Contracts and Blood Money; Their story happen between each other while Hitman 47 is being hunted down as well as the members of the ICA. During an assignment, Hitman 47 got injured by a gunshot wound, leaving him helpless in his hotel, passing out from the loss of blood. As he is out cold, he flashes back to his past missions from his escape from the asylum as well to his other missions. After a mob-doc heals his wounds, he knows that he's close to death more than ever before.
Before all this occurred, an american control group called The Franchise wants to capture Agent 47 as they fear that he would use cloning for his personal advantage. They want to take over with their own personal clone in their business and any interference would cost them money. Basically, it's the cola vs Pepsi, but we all know Pepsi is evil and that we all prefer Dr. Pepper as he's our favorite anti-hero. Anyways, Hitman has to to kill those who help run the franchise, while at the same time, avoiding those rivals that are after him.
Both Hitman games almost plays the same except Blood Money is refined both graphically and gameplay wise. However, both games has aged well within the series! While Blood Money is the best of the series, Contracts feels the most challenging. Both games comes highly recommended as you don't have to play the first two games to recap in the back-story and the player sees the events before/after Contracts. As past Hitman games, the maps are wide and varied, but more contrived in these games. There's more than one way to skin your human targets, as they preformed horrible things than Hitman ever done.
The biggest problem with Absolution is that is was too liner than the Hitman games; And now that there's a sequel announced at E3, it proves an old theory that Absolution was Half-baked like how Saints Row the Third.It feels that the developers had too much in their hands; as Tell-Tale Games found out when handling The Walking Dead with Wolf Among Us. The game's semantics and the story got in the way with the gameplay mechanics and it felt like the developers forgot what made Hitman 47 good; That, or they had Kane and Lynch Failure in their minds. That wasn't even a good game series, so It's time to move on. Better yet, trow them out so other IPs get the spotlight!
In the end, I wish I could recommend the series; However, pick up Blood Money and Contracts, as the story adds up to sum up Hitman in a simple way. That would be shoving everyone off the edge while giggling like a school girly girl who found her friends cookies while leaving a fart on her friend's seat. Nasty fun! However, please don't do that; That is rather freaking stupid!
Where did Hitman 47 come from? He was a perfect clone created by one of the worst people in the world from cells of the terrorist whom he was made to kill. He escapes and joins the ICA and then the game introduces Diana; A sidekick who assigns targets for Hitman 47! After killing the terrorists, the mad doctor Otto Wolfgang Ort-Meyer decided to make a clone army to help rule the world. However, Hitman 47 saw this as a dangerous act and kills him as well as the clone army; Hitman then destroys his research notes, making sure that no one else could use the technology ageist him. Hitman then escapes the swat team and then hides in the church as the alias Tibias Reaper and serves the church.
The first game, Hitman: Agient 47, tells this story origin of Hitman 47 though it's gameplay. However, it was more of an action game than a stealth game the series was better known for. While the game did have some faults, this game sold well enough on it's narrative to get attention enough for two damn good sequels; plus, the game's sequel, Hitman 2, help defined what the hitman games where all about. Hitman 1 gameplay is forgiven as the narrative goes over the gameplay.
However, Hitman 47 stood out too much in the last game and attracted the attention of Zavorotko's Mafia criminal group; his minions kidnaps 47's friend and mentor Father Vittorio; randoms him to the Hitman 47, forcing him to come out of retirement and help Diana with her assignments in the ICA. Hitman races to kill his targets, known members of Zavorotko's criminal empire to help lure out his kidnappers. After killing a clone that was left over from the asylum, he traced that they have returned to the seance of the crime; He faces Zavorotko and his minions, freeing Father Vittorio and leaving him alive in the church. Hitman 47 then knew that he would endanger him, decides to return to the agency.
This is the hardest of the original games, as it introduced mechanics but has tons of bugs. Personally wouldn't recommend this game as a starter game and point out the other two games are they are much more balanced and open. The bots tend to see you from a mile away on some difficulties, covers are blown even if you walk slowly as crawling, and everyone shoots first before asking questions. When getting the hit done, it is satisfying but finding the new way can be tedious. That's where youtube comes to mind; Use it as a guide to save your sanity!
And then there is Contracts and Blood Money; Their story happen between each other while Hitman 47 is being hunted down as well as the members of the ICA. During an assignment, Hitman 47 got injured by a gunshot wound, leaving him helpless in his hotel, passing out from the loss of blood. As he is out cold, he flashes back to his past missions from his escape from the asylum as well to his other missions. After a mob-doc heals his wounds, he knows that he's close to death more than ever before.
Before all this occurred, an american control group called The Franchise wants to capture Agent 47 as they fear that he would use cloning for his personal advantage. They want to take over with their own personal clone in their business and any interference would cost them money. Basically, it's the cola vs Pepsi, but we all know Pepsi is evil and that we all prefer Dr. Pepper as he's our favorite anti-hero. Anyways, Hitman has to to kill those who help run the franchise, while at the same time, avoiding those rivals that are after him.
Both Hitman games almost plays the same except Blood Money is refined both graphically and gameplay wise. However, both games has aged well within the series! While Blood Money is the best of the series, Contracts feels the most challenging. Both games comes highly recommended as you don't have to play the first two games to recap in the back-story and the player sees the events before/after Contracts. As past Hitman games, the maps are wide and varied, but more contrived in these games. There's more than one way to skin your human targets, as they preformed horrible things than Hitman ever done.
The biggest problem with Absolution is that is was too liner than the Hitman games; And now that there's a sequel announced at E3, it proves an old theory that Absolution was Half-baked like how Saints Row the Third.It feels that the developers had too much in their hands; as Tell-Tale Games found out when handling The Walking Dead with Wolf Among Us. The game's semantics and the story got in the way with the gameplay mechanics and it felt like the developers forgot what made Hitman 47 good; That, or they had Kane and Lynch Failure in their minds. That wasn't even a good game series, so It's time to move on. Better yet, trow them out so other IPs get the spotlight!
In the end, I wish I could recommend the series; However, pick up Blood Money and Contracts, as the story adds up to sum up Hitman in a simple way. That would be shoving everyone off the edge while giggling like a school girly girl who found her friends cookies while leaving a fart on her friend's seat. Nasty fun! However, please don't do that; That is rather freaking stupid!
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Beastly Bash: Earthbound/Mother Trilogy; Too hot for 'merica! [Spoilers]
Before I start, I will place one warning: SPOILERS AHEAD!
Thanks, now for the retrospective!~
Well, since Earthbound fans are having a Bound-Fest or something like that, as well as Mother 4, Its time for a retro-review! About Mother 4, it's Fan-game that is a prequel to Mother2/Earthbound taking place in the 197X; 20 years before the birth of one of the most annoying game characters ever. No, not Kefka, silly fools; Porky. And before you ask, wouldn't recommend Consonance Distance because it messes with the cannon. We all know that Giygas is cannon as he attacked the 9X's and what's left of his body created Mewtwo, as his corpse was left in the Pokemon world. Guess they didn't think they would make a clone of the shell of an alien god!
First off, Earthbound Zero, this is where Giygue was first still in his teen-agency sent to kill Ninten's grandfather and grandmother who raised him as a kid, his his parents left him behind because...of a plot point never explained within the series. Wars? Rebooting earth? Who knows!? Anyways, While the grandmother was raising Giegue, the grandfather studied their race and abandoned them. (Itoi never really had a father in his life.) Giygue, angry that he ran off with the knowledge, kills him and starts kidnapping people, as he fears that humanity will use his race's power ageist the universe. Nintend gets involved when he find his grandfather's journal and goes off to stop Giygue.
Sadly enough, this game is the WEAKEST of the series; Since the game's fighting system based off the old Dragon Quest games, Random encounters where bad to the point that they where actually work in a way that it wasn't really intended. The game was intentionally hard for the wrong reasons that the modding community made an easy version of the game to over-condensate for the difficulty of the game. while most NES role-playing games didn't age well, this game is one of the worst aged games. It's why I decided to spoil the plot without warning.
After the events in Mother1/Earthbound Zero, Giegue retreated to space, where his powers grew to the point to becoming the power of evil himself! After losing his alien form, he become like Cthulhu and becomes a dark alien god. However, he has lost his mind, as "absolute power corrupts absolutely," the newly formed Giygas was contained int the Devil's Machine as his mind-controlling powers corrupts everyone including the annoying neighbor Porky, who helps sets everything in motion as the "devil's" advocate. Buzz-Buzz, a failed version of Ness, goes back into time to warn past Ness and sends him to find the eight Your Sanctuary locations to get the powers of the earth and stop Giygas.
At first, this game did NOT sit well with most critics, but being a 90's person, this game was not build on fun but more on the reflection to most people at the time. Also, this game did influence games later in the line like Persona 4, which is considered one of the best JRPGS of it's time. Being someone who personally like Earthbound dispute what critics say, as some like soulless games like Doom 3, It one of the best classics. Other than that, the game introduced an awesome combat system that adds a "Bleeding" effect to where the health counts down like a car's fuel gadge. SOMEONE needs a HEALH bar. The game also has the enemies in the background instead of random encounters, making it manageable and some fights ship-able. This game is also thankfully easier that Zero, but is the LONGEST of the series. Despite this, it's recommended none-the-less.
After Giygas' defeated, Porky runs off with what is left of Giygas' power and technology, making him a very dangerous foe more than before. With the technology left behind, he uses it to kidnap people from his time and creates the Pigmask army, a reference and parody of the collective from Half-life 2. He and his army lands in Tazmilly Village, a post-apocalyptic village in an Australia-like island, he bombs forest and gains control via happy boxes. He then makes chimeras, Animal and machine hybrids that cause chaos that kills Lucas' mother in the start of the game! It's up to Lucas and company to stop the Porky and his Pigmask army while looking for his missing brother Clause.
While Earthbound was strong, as it didn't take itself seriously as a free-roaming JRPG. However, Mother 3 has the strongest story of the trilogy as the player has feelings twords the characters and their new movements of sprites. This game pushed the limits of the Game-boy advance! The player can relate to one or many of the events that occur during the story. The battle system has been ampted, as there's a new combo system that is based on of the rhythm in the background music, and getting them down is satisfying! Returning and fixed from Mother 1 is the running mechanic, which can bypass weak enimies and sometime crashing into things cause things to happen, even if there's a few in the game. The game is considered the BEST in the series for a reason, beating Earthbound with the majorities tens all over review sites. This is highly recommended, but I will not spoil the ending here as it's something to see first hand!
Overall, the Mother/Earthbound series is all about the experience! While some do not see it as fun, as they tend to not see gaming as art, I would recommend the series for anyone who like to play RPGs to kill the gods of olde. However, its recommended to watch Mother 1 as its the weakest of the trilogy. While Earhbound seems dated, it has that "Story is not important" charm liked in games like Phantasy Star Online. Mother 3 has the heart and actually revolutionized RPGs to perfection, it's a real damn shame that it will NEVER be localized normally; While I don't recommend piracy, play the game via translation patch. This is one RPG trilogy that is under-utilized withing the realm of gaming...
Thanks, now for the retrospective!~
Well, since Earthbound fans are having a Bound-Fest or something like that, as well as Mother 4, Its time for a retro-review! About Mother 4, it's Fan-game that is a prequel to Mother2/Earthbound taking place in the 197X; 20 years before the birth of one of the most annoying game characters ever. No, not Kefka, silly fools; Porky. And before you ask, wouldn't recommend Consonance Distance because it messes with the cannon. We all know that Giygas is cannon as he attacked the 9X's and what's left of his body created Mewtwo, as his corpse was left in the Pokemon world. Guess they didn't think they would make a clone of the shell of an alien god!
First off, Earthbound Zero, this is where Giygue was first still in his teen-agency sent to kill Ninten's grandfather and grandmother who raised him as a kid, his his parents left him behind because...of a plot point never explained within the series. Wars? Rebooting earth? Who knows!? Anyways, While the grandmother was raising Giegue, the grandfather studied their race and abandoned them. (Itoi never really had a father in his life.) Giygue, angry that he ran off with the knowledge, kills him and starts kidnapping people, as he fears that humanity will use his race's power ageist the universe. Nintend gets involved when he find his grandfather's journal and goes off to stop Giygue.
Sadly enough, this game is the WEAKEST of the series; Since the game's fighting system based off the old Dragon Quest games, Random encounters where bad to the point that they where actually work in a way that it wasn't really intended. The game was intentionally hard for the wrong reasons that the modding community made an easy version of the game to over-condensate for the difficulty of the game. while most NES role-playing games didn't age well, this game is one of the worst aged games. It's why I decided to spoil the plot without warning.
After the events in Mother1/Earthbound Zero, Giegue retreated to space, where his powers grew to the point to becoming the power of evil himself! After losing his alien form, he become like Cthulhu and becomes a dark alien god. However, he has lost his mind, as "absolute power corrupts absolutely," the newly formed Giygas was contained int the Devil's Machine as his mind-controlling powers corrupts everyone including the annoying neighbor Porky, who helps sets everything in motion as the "devil's" advocate. Buzz-Buzz, a failed version of Ness, goes back into time to warn past Ness and sends him to find the eight Your Sanctuary locations to get the powers of the earth and stop Giygas.
At first, this game did NOT sit well with most critics, but being a 90's person, this game was not build on fun but more on the reflection to most people at the time. Also, this game did influence games later in the line like Persona 4, which is considered one of the best JRPGS of it's time. Being someone who personally like Earthbound dispute what critics say, as some like soulless games like Doom 3, It one of the best classics. Other than that, the game introduced an awesome combat system that adds a "Bleeding" effect to where the health counts down like a car's fuel gadge. SOMEONE needs a HEALH bar. The game also has the enemies in the background instead of random encounters, making it manageable and some fights ship-able. This game is also thankfully easier that Zero, but is the LONGEST of the series. Despite this, it's recommended none-the-less.
After Giygas' defeated, Porky runs off with what is left of Giygas' power and technology, making him a very dangerous foe more than before. With the technology left behind, he uses it to kidnap people from his time and creates the Pigmask army, a reference and parody of the collective from Half-life 2. He and his army lands in Tazmilly Village, a post-apocalyptic village in an Australia-like island, he bombs forest and gains control via happy boxes. He then makes chimeras, Animal and machine hybrids that cause chaos that kills Lucas' mother in the start of the game! It's up to Lucas and company to stop the Porky and his Pigmask army while looking for his missing brother Clause.
While Earthbound was strong, as it didn't take itself seriously as a free-roaming JRPG. However, Mother 3 has the strongest story of the trilogy as the player has feelings twords the characters and their new movements of sprites. This game pushed the limits of the Game-boy advance! The player can relate to one or many of the events that occur during the story. The battle system has been ampted, as there's a new combo system that is based on of the rhythm in the background music, and getting them down is satisfying! Returning and fixed from Mother 1 is the running mechanic, which can bypass weak enimies and sometime crashing into things cause things to happen, even if there's a few in the game. The game is considered the BEST in the series for a reason, beating Earthbound with the majorities tens all over review sites. This is highly recommended, but I will not spoil the ending here as it's something to see first hand!
Overall, the Mother/Earthbound series is all about the experience! While some do not see it as fun, as they tend to not see gaming as art, I would recommend the series for anyone who like to play RPGs to kill the gods of olde. However, its recommended to watch Mother 1 as its the weakest of the trilogy. While Earhbound seems dated, it has that "Story is not important" charm liked in games like Phantasy Star Online. Mother 3 has the heart and actually revolutionized RPGs to perfection, it's a real damn shame that it will NEVER be localized normally; While I don't recommend piracy, play the game via translation patch. This is one RPG trilogy that is under-utilized withing the realm of gaming...
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