Elana, the Squalid Queen

 FUUUUUUCK THIS BATTLE

    I was originally going to condense this post, and my post about the Shulva/Dragon Sanctum area into one, but there is no way I wanna smoosh that all into one post. So here is a dedicated post to maybe the hardest (so far?) boss in the entirety of Dark Souls II (judging strictly by times died, at least)
   
    When you make your way down to Dragon's Rest (explore the high areas to either side. You have to jump to them, and there's those caped-knights to fight, but there are some goodies there), you're met with a huge fog gate. Could the size of the fog gate be a direct correlation to how incredibly hard and annoying a boss battle will be? Probably not. Well, take a deep breath, and come through the gate with me.
    When you go through the fog gate, you are inside a giant room with a beautiful dragon mosaic on the back wall. There's also some white candles laid out on the floor, perhaps in some sort of ritualistic manner. And what's in front of that mosaic, you might ask?

This is more to show off the room and that awesome-looking wall

    In case you can't see the minuscule figure in the above picture, that's Elana, the Squalid Queen. And boy, squalid she certainly is. She looks a little like Nashandra, and some of her attacks are similar. Except she's 100 times more difficult than Nashandra. Firstly, she's a tall decrepit woman wearing an ornate dress that I'm guessing is made of skin (or it at least looks like skin). When you first walk into the room, she babbles on about how you're going to rot, then she produces a mean axe out of thin air. This is by far her only method of attack.

Here she is, moments after crushing my skull with that axe

    She reminds me of the Darklurker fight a bit, because she has a zillion attacks. Firstly, if you get close, she can swing that axe like nobody's business. She will swing it once, twice, or thrice, so be careful of that. If you stand too close for too long, she'll unleash a flurry of dark magic that flies around her, like an AoE attack. It's easy to run away from, because she telegraphs it. The radius isn't very big either. If you are far from her, she'll shoot two variations of dark orbs: one is a straight line of three of them, and the other is a spread shot of five or six. Both these are fairly easy to dodge, but if you aren't paying attention, they can hurt like hell (especially the straight line. That can almost kill you by itself. The spread out one is really easy to dodge). Also, if you are far, she'll summon glowing red orbs that appear near you. They explode after a second or two. Again though, this is pretty easy to dodge. When you see them, just run. One attack she seems to do rarely (she might only use it if her health gets low, which would explain why I haven't seen it much) is a homing dark orb attack. Like the homing soul spells, she'll conjure three orbs over her head, and shoot them at you. Also, she likes to teleport around the room, disappearing in a puff of red smoke, which can get quite annoying. Here's what it looks like, in action:

Pictured: Annoyance

     You might be asking yourself why I can't beat her, when I describe all of her attacks as easy to dodge? Well, I've withheld one other thing she likes to do. She'll summon some minions to help her out. Oh fun! More gang-style fights. The first time I fought her, she summoned three golden skeletons. Other than the color, they are just normal skeletons. Two hits kills them. This isn't a huge deal, really. Just quickly dispatch the skeletons, and remember to pay attention to the shit she also throws at you.
    I died on my first attempt. On my second attempt, I saw her start to summon, and I was ready to smack those skeletons around some more. You should have seen my face when, instead of skeletons spawning, it was a nice gold version of Velstadt! What in the actual fuck? I'm not done with this DLC yet (obvi, guys), so I have no idea if there is any lore behind Velstadt being summoned here, or if it's just because he's a big, tough, enemy. It's not the full Velstadt experience, as he only swings his huge hammer. He doesn't get charged up or shoot his own dark magic. Still, with Elana firing all manner of dark bullshit at you, while you're trying to avoid the golden boy chasing after you with a huge hammer, it gets very hectic. I was still actually really enjoying the battle the first 8-10 times: as I said, it's hectic, but it's fun trying to run around, avoiding Velstadt, and getting hits in on the Queen. I'm now at 19 (failed) attempts, and it's not quite as fun anymore. I'm really holding out summoning help, because I'd love to do this by myself. The fact I'm on NG++ doesn't help, because my sword might as well be a little stick. It does between 450-550 damage (depending if I used Flame Weapon), and it barely scratches her. She must have like 30,000 HP or something crazy. I've gotten her down to about a quarter health once, otherwise most other attempts barely get to half health. One final note: she doesn't always summon Velstadt. I believe it's random between that and the skeletons (I'm trying not to read and spoil anything online for myself generally, but I did read she also summons golden pigs, or something? I've fought her 19 times and haven't seen that yet. I've even read she summons human players? Again, have not seen it).

    All that up there was from my original post from a few days ago. What you are about to read is all pure new goodness. There are no more pictures unfortunately, but there was no way I was wasting any time trying to capture pictures as I fought this boss for my thirtieth time (!!)

    Firstly, yes, I did beat Elana last night. Secondly, it was super fucking hard. Thirdly, I had to summon help. And fourthly, no, summoning help does not make this battle an incredibly easy cakewalk, like basically every other battle. If anything, it might be harder. But after trying I think 23 times on my own, to no avail, I needed help, otherwise I'd be stuck on her forever, and never get to check out the rest of the DLC. My strategy for meleeing her solo was to run at her as soon as I went through the fog gate, and and get as many attacks off as possible while she talked and produced her axe. I could usually get three or four. After that, I would stay close to her, dodge her axe smashes, and run when she did the dark AoE attack. Otherwise, I'd just take pot shots when I had an opening. This would have been perfectly acceptable if not for one thing: Velstadt.
     Every time she summoned Velstadt, that might as well have been the end of the battle. I just could. Not. Deal. With. Both of them at the same time. Maybe I just really suck, but meleeing her solo is an incredibly great challenge, and if any of you have done it, my hat is off to you. Again, I'm on NG++. I wonder how much different a normal NG battle is. Perhaps I'll have to try that some time. Because I'm dumb, I didn't take any notes. I meant to add this originally, but totally forgot. I tried five or six times with the Puzzling Stone Sword +4, and, meh, it was okay. It attacks quickly, and the two-hand attack is a thrust, which is nice, but it just didn't do enough damage on this boss to really justify using it. Oh well, still a really cool sword.
    Well, after getting crushed time and time again, I decided I would summon help. I didn't want to, but I was past the point of caring. First, I summoned NPC Steelheart Ellie and a player. We died. I then tried all sorts of combos of summoning: just Steelheart Ellie, her and a human player, two human players, one human player. I know you can summon Benhart here also, but I have no idea where his summon sign is. Thank god I had plenty of Human Effigies with me. I know, I could have been summoned and killed the boss to get my humanity back, but I wasn't in the mood to help. Plus, it seemed every time I did help someone, the world master got killed with Elana having like 10% of her health left.
    Hey, speaking of getting killed when the boss has 10% of her health left, that happened to me two times last night. There's nothing quite as rage inducing as having a boss almost dead, where literally three or four hits will kill them, but then you get killed instead. The worse was one such case, where I had two Sunbros helping me, and we were wrecking ass. We were all doing well, smashing Elana, smashing Velstadt, just doing some general smashing, and Elana was almost dead. I mean, a sliver of health. Five hits max, and she was dead. And then, out of nowhere, BAM! That fucking line of dark orbs killed me. How come I didn't dodge it? Oh, well, Velstadt was standing in the way, and I didn't see them until it was too late. That made me want to crush my controller into thousands of pieces.
    Eventually, late into the night, we were victorious. I summoned two humans players, and we went in. One of the guys got killed about halfway through the battle, but me and the other guy (I don't remember his name, maybe I'll write it down when I get home and include it here) persevered, and with excellent skill, and some luck, we took down Elana. I wish I could go more in depth with a specific strategy, but I don't really have one. If you're going melee, I'd suggest summoning. If you are one of those hardcore, "pssh, summoning is for n00bs, I'm too hardcore, and a REAL Souls player" kind of people, well, fuck off. I generally don't resort to summoning unless I have to, but I would never look down on someone that did it consistently. It's part of the game, and it levels the playing field. I mean, the fucking boss can summon people, why can't you?
    Sorry for that little tangent. I sent a thank you message to the guy that helped me kill her, and I added him as a friend on PSN (I'm nosferat3. Add me!). I'd like to add that this fight felt very fluid, and it barely lagged at all with summons, or playing as a summon. Most boss battles have some sort of lag when playing with human phantoms, this one seemed almost lag-free. At any rate, it felt great to get past that battle. Now, finally, I can explore more of this great DLC. Once Elana died, the giant dragon wall opened, revealing a path to a cave with a bonfire.
    What lies beyond the bonfire? Remember I mentioned that we wouldn't be seeing the last of that dragon, from the beginning? Yeah, well, let's jump from the frying pan to the fire here. Check back (hopefully) soon for the next installment of my boss posts.

    One final thing I forgot! Elana did in fact summon three golden pigs during one of our fights. They seemed identical to those little bastards that run around Majula. So random.

    The difficulty rating might seem extreme, and maybe I'm being emotional with it, but this boss (even with summons, which almost always brings the difficulty down to a 2 or 3) was harder than Darklurker, harder than the Throne Defenders (because they are SUPER easy with help), harder than Smelter Demon. Oi vey.

Times I died: 30 (yup, shattered my record of 21)
Difficulty: 9.5/10
Rating: 8/10
 

Crown Of The Sunken King DLC

Aaah. Feels like home

    IMPORTANT! I'm splitting this post into two different posts: one about the DLC, and one about the boss battle. There's just too much to talk about to keep it in one giant post. So, I'm going to keep the introductory paragraph intact, for posterity's sake. Enjoy

    (original introductroy paragraph:) So far, the first chapter of a planned trilogy of DLC, called "Crown Of The Sunken King", is fabulous. Now that that's out of the way, I've decided that on top of my normal boss posts, I'm going to go a little more in depth with the actual DLC a bit. This post will still be mostly the boss, lovely Elana here, but I really want to talk about my playthrough of the DLC, and instead of dedicating a bunch of different posts, I figured I'd just throw it in here. I'll say it'll be 60-40 (in favor of boss talk over DLC talk). So, strap yourself in, this may be a long one.
    Since I spoiled so much of Dark Souls II for myself, I'm trying my absolute damnedest not to read anything about this DLC until I complete it. So, I might miss items/areas/bosses, and that's fine. I'll go back and do that after I finish it up. However, there were a few things I was aware of before going into the new DLC, and I'll quickly outline them here. These are based off of one overview I read about a week before the DLC came out, and one review I read of the DLC.

• Overall, it's very good. On par with how DS II is
• The bosses (especially the last) are good
• Environmental moving puzzles!
• It's DIFFICULT
• Also, I knew how to access the DLC. That I just straight up looked up. So sue me (it's not nearly as obscure as the Artorias DLC from the first game)

    With that in mind, let's head in. There might be some spoilers here (especially with bosses), so also bear that in mind.

    After downloading the DLC and starting the game up (I had to download the latest patch, and it took so goddamn long), you get a new item in your inventory. It's a key of sorts, called the Dragon Talon. This is a big tip off, because much of this DLC seems to be based around dragons. I love this, because I think the Souls games almost always knock it out of the park with dragons. After finding where to use the key (Black Gulch), you are transported to a cave-like area. After running through its titled corridors, you arrive outside, high up on a cliff side. The words, "Shulva, Sanctum City" slowly fade in and out, with that familiar gong sound that accompanies going to a new area, and you're ready to go. Shulva is a great looking place, and it continues with the main game's concentration on interesting levels to explore. This one bares slight resemblances to Tseldora. It's a large, underground (should I say, "sunken") city, replete with rocky walls, huge stone formations (man-made, of course), a giant temple, waterfalls falling from above, strange trees/limbs (slightly reminiscent of the Shrine of Amana), narrow stairways, lots of falling hazards, and finally, lots of asshole enemies.

Waterfalls and bridges off in the distance

A giant temple. Just checking it out with my broski here

    I really enjoy the look of Shulva. You start at the highest point of the area, and you continually work your way down. It's very vertical, and it is a great addition to the other, "vertical, work your way down" areas of the Souls games. When you first arrive in Shulva, you have to follow a path that takes you to the first bonfire. As you walk, you'll see some non-descript thing having over an edge above you. It sort of looks like part of the rocky scenery, at least until you get close. Hey, turns out it's a large dragon. It wakes up, and flies past you, then dive-bombs below, out of sight. I have a strange feeling we won't be seeing the last of this guy.
    As you make your way through the city portion of Shulva, you'll notice small lighted pillars. Attacking them will make some part of the environment near you move. Sometimes huge stone pillars will jut up from the ground, both hurting the enemies near them, and giving you a new place to check out. Sometimes they will create bridges that you can cross, or move walls. It's a pretty neat little mechanic.

There's lots of messages that say, "jump". There's also lots of blood stains

    Let's talk about the enemies for a minute here. Most of the ones you fight in the first area are dead (I think?) soldiers. They use either maces, lances, or shoot at you from afar with bows and arrows. Maybe it's because I'm doing this DLC on mg NG++ character (it was either that, or start a whole new character. Fuck that, gimme a challenge!), but these guys are tough customers. They hit hard, can deplete stamina in a few swings, and like to gang up on you. Besides these guys, I came across some amalgamation of those green poison spitting statues from Black Gulch. It's like several of them fused together, and they can walk. I can't figure out how to damage them, except for when I use Chaos Storm. My normal attacks bounce right off, and my other pyromancies don't do anything. I'm not sure what's so special about Chaos Storm, but I just decided to avoid them instead of trying to kill them. Finally, there are bugs that spew equipment damaging acid. They are easy to kill, but caution must be used.
    Eventually, you'll work your way to a narrow bridge that has two lance soldiers on it. Luckily, that sleeping dragon you woke up seems pretty pissed, because he comes through and torches the bridge, killing those two clowns on it. Unfortunately, if you die, every subsequent time you need to cross this bridge, you have to kill those two manually. Across this bridge you enter a tomb-like place, called Dragon's Sanctum. This place is full of small stone corridors, little traps, buttons to be pushed (similar to the lighted pillars from the Shulva area), and jumps/falls to make. There is a sword that I found here called the Puzzling Stone Sword. It's a sword that can also extend to do a whip-attack (with the strong attack, I believe). I really want to upgrade this sword, which scales with dex, by the way. It seems like it could be a legit cool weapon. For now, I'm still rolling with my Mastodon Sword +10.
    There's a very difficult encounter with an invading phantom here. None other than Jester Thomas decided to invade, and unleash fiery hell upon you. He comes plowing in with so much fire he's like a drunken pyromaniac. He literally does not stop throwing fireballs or casting Chaos Storm (I think anyway. It causes several flame pillars to erupt all over the place). On top of this, he will cast Warmth to heal himself too. On top of that, you fight him in a small, two-leveled room attached to a very narrow corridor. I killed him without dying myself, but it was not easy.
    After the Thomas fight, you go down to a very interesting area. You walk through a fog gate (which I thought would yield a boss) and you're in a large undergound lake area. There are giant white stalagmites jutting up all around. And here walks extremely strange and tough enemies. They are like the little cousins of those stupid hind-leg monsters that stomp and jump around in Demon's Ruin from the original Dark Souls. These are big (but not nearly as big as those monsters from the first game), lizard-like monsters who walk on hind legs. They have large mouths with human-looking teeth. These guys are ridiculously tough. I haven't killed one yet, and I probably wont. They bite, and stomp, and shoot dark orbs at you. They look awesome, but yowza, they pack a punch.

Underground lake. It looks spectacular.

Roar

    There's also an enemy you find that genuinely tricked me for a few seconds. They are large, guardian-type guys, and they hold two curved swords. When you first encounter them, there are two, and they are standing in a room with two red-glowing statues, laid out like graves. The two enemies appear exactly like the white phantoms of other players that you occasionally see as you play the game. I thought they were other players, and I thought it was very strange they were just standing, doing nothing. Then they turned and started to attack me. You can't hurt them until you destroy the red-glowing statues. When you do this, they turn un-ethereal, and can be attacked as normal. Getting past the clever little trick, these guys are fucking bastards. They remind me of the sword-swinging half of ol' Flexie (haha, still going strong!). They move very quickly, swing their swords with amazing dexterity, and are strong. Don't bother blocking with a shield, because they will completely drain your stamina in a second, and they'll still be able to attack.
    I'd like to add here that there is a large section of Dragon's Sanctum (right around the Jester Thomas appearance) that has spikes lining the floor. They don't kill you, but they slowly deplete your health the longer you stand on them. This whole area gave me a HUGE Tomb Raider vibe. In fact, a lot of the DLC thus far has given me that kind of feeling. Also of note, there's lots of those phantom guards wandering these spiked areas. Once they are turned human and are able to be attacked, the spikes hurt, and kill, them!

A close up look at the spikes, and those phantom guards.

     Eventually you'll get to a section before the boss gate (oh yeah, this post is about a boss!). You're in a humongous room, at the top of it. You can see the fog gate from where you are, but you can't survive the fall.

It's a loooong way down

    You have to fall down to several different crumbled pillars and stairs below you. It's really not that difficult, but if you try to go too fast, it's easy to fall and die. I've died at least ten times because I was trying to rush down the structure and get to the boss. It's very annoying to get killed by the boss, then die again while trying to get back to her (which is true of any boss, obviously, but here it's accented because it's easy not to die). There's also very tough knight enemies here. They have red capes, and remind me a bit of the Baldur Knights from Dark Souls. These guys are nasty: they attack very hard, and like all the other damn enemies, they can just cut your stamina right down. I try to avoid these guys when I can.
    Finally, when you make your way down all the broken, crumbling architecture, you'll be in an area called Dragon's Rest. There's a large fog boss gate here. I should note, there is a bonfire behind a hidden door right before you start descending down to Dragon's Rest. This is a great thing, because, as of this writing, this boss, Elana, has killed me 19 times. I'm almost positive I'm going to spectacularly smash my record of dying 21 times to a single boss. How has she been whooping my ass? Well, you'll have to check the next blog post for an in-depth look at my amazingly ridiculous battle with her.  

NEW CONTENT STARTS HERE! LOOK LOOK LOOK: 

    Okay guys, I want to apologize for being so incredibly scatterbrained with this post. First, it was a big post about the first two areas of the DLC and the boss. Then, it was just a post about most of the DLC. Now, it's going to be an all-encompassing look at the DLC. After I killed Elana, I tried the next boss (the last of the DLC) a number of times, and, of course, he's hard as hell. Then I remembered I found a key to a locked door right at the beginning of Dragon's Sanctum, so I decided to go there and check that area.
    Once you walk through that door, you go up some ladders, and are back in Shulva. You can find a bonfire up here. You also get invaded by another NPC red phantom (I didn't write down his name, and I can't seem to find it online ANYWHERE). He's tough, but not nearly as bad as Thomas. He does throw Llyod's Talismans at you, which is pretty unique. At first, I had no idea what he was doing, until I got hit by one, and I realized I couldn't use my Estus Flasks.
    Beyond the bonfire here is a small, optional area of the DLC called Cave of the Dead. Fuck this place.

Cave of the Assholes is more like it

    After the first grave-like room, you run down a rocky corridor, and you're in a room with a few of the normal enemies from Shulva. There's some holes in the floor to drop below. The room below is perhaps the most frantic, annoying room in the entire Souls series. It's full of five (I think) soldiers (three can be killed by arrows before you jump down), and about a hundred petrify-spitting statues. They look exactly like the poison spitting ones in Black Gulch, but they are dark, with bright, red eyes. They look awesome in the dark cave area. As I mentioned, they spit this gray, petrifying-liquid, and if you get built up with too much, you're dead. That's it. You turn to stone, and you're dead. It's rough, and it happened probably close to ten times last night. There's also those walking-stone statues that shoot the petrify stuff. I have good news to report! I did finally figure out how to kill them. The stones are all collected on the back of a little turtle-looking creature. You have to hit that thing to kill it. It explains why my Chaos Storm hurt it, but nothing else does. Hallelujah!

Shoot him with arrows! (don't mind the gigantic picture)

    This room filled with the enemies and spitting statues is very confusing. It took me several, several minutes to figure out how to get out. Once you do, you'll drop down a little more and find yourself in a long corridor-type area. There are three of those crawling statue monsters, along with three more regular soldiers, and even one of those huge worms from Black Gulch. Getting through all this finally let's you get to the fog gate, and the boss(es) of the area. I actually did beat them last night, and I'm hoping to have the post up tomorrow (Friday, 8/1). so look for that! I'll talk about it more, but it's grueling to run from the bonfire back to the boss if you die (which I did a bunch, because I repeatedly tried to get pics of the bosses. They are all of poor quality).

    Phew! I think that's everything. I didn't get to explore the area immediately after the bosses, because I shut the game off right after I beat them. I'll include what's after them in their post. I'm DONE updating this post. I'll leave you all with this: I really like this DLC. I don't have it finished yet, but I will soon. I haven't checked out any lore yet, so I have no idea who this Sunken King is. The areas are great to look at (mostly), the bosses are tough, it's decently big, and there are some interesting new enemies. On the down-side, I'd say some of the enemies are less-than-inspired, and so far I haven't found anything amazing, in terms of loot. I know I still have places to explore, and I know I missed stuff (repair tree!). Obviously, I would suggest this DLC to any DS II fans. It meets the expectations of the main game, but it falls a bit short of the brilliance of the Artorias DLC from the first game. However, when all three Crown DLC's are released, and are seen as one trilogy, I'm sure it will be equal to, or better than, Artorias. Thanks for reading (and re-reading, and re-re-reading)!

B-LOG SLAYING: The Grim Adventures Of Billy & Mandy (GBA)

Short, but pretty fun (like, really short. The story mode takes less than an hour!)

    Have you ever played and enjoyed a game you NEVER EVER thought you would enjoy, let alone play? I'm sure it's happened to every gamer in some instance or another. I'm kind of a big deal on Instagram (this is a big fat lie. Seriously though, follow me if you don't already. I'm the turkey picture named @kalameet), and I'm part of a group of like-minded retro game enthusiasts called the Retro Collective. They did a summer Secret Santa program, and it works like any typical Secret Santa: you get a name, then you send them a bunch of games. Well, I got a bunch of games! One of the bunch of games I got was The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. I vaguely recognized it as a cartoon that used to run on Cartoon Network, but as such I've never seen one second of the show. I decided, despite the fact that I had no familiarity with the source material, I might as well throw it into the ol' GBA and at least try it out. If it sucked, I wouldn't bother with it, but if it was fun, I would officially add it to my collection/backlog. Well, if you haven't guessed, it was fun enough to add to my backlog, but it's not without some serious flaws.

CONS: 

• STORY MODE IS INCREDIBLY SHORT! LESS THAN AN HOUR IN TOTAL!
• It's essentially a beat-em-up, but it's very difficult to go through enemy encounters without taking damage (especially since so many of the missions require killing large amounts of enemies without taking damage)
• Controls can be a bit stiff, at times
• All three characters essentially play the same

PROS:

• Great graphics for a GBA game
• Simple, fun, beat-em-up gameplay
• While the story mode is criminally short, the missions you can do (for the most part) are fun and pretty varied

    I spent a little over three hours with the game in all. I didn't 100% complete it. I am probably at 90-something percent complete. There are two modes to play: story mode, and mission mode. Story mode has three chapters, each starring a different character: Billy, Mandy, and Grim. Billy and Mandy's story modes take between 12-17 minutes each to beat, and Grim's is the toughest, and takes upwards of 20. Even still, that's daaaaamn short. The whole story is that Grim's Mojo Balls have been released, and you are tasked with retrieving them, lest they destroy everything, or something banal like that. I have no idea if this ties in with the show, but I honestly don't care one iota about the story in a game like this. After beating each story chapter (each ends with a boss), you receive one measly Mojo Ball. There are 54 in total to collect. The other 51 come from the mission mode. I thought it was odd that going through the whole story only nets you 3 Mojo Balls (spoiler: Billy is dumb and accidentally lets all the Mojo Balls loose), yet each singular mission (some which only take ten seconds to beat) nets you one. The whole story mode just seems unnecessary. 

Billy's story chapter

 

Mandy's story chapter. Jelly of that red GBA?

 

And, Grim's chapter. There's a hunk in the background

    I was very happy to discover this game is essentially a beat-em-up. I love these kinds of games. But, part of the problem I had with it is that it's very difficult to dodge enemy attacks. You can either punch or kick with the two face buttons, or you can jump (you can also attack while jumping). There are several missions where your goal is to either defeat all the enemies on limited health, or survive enemy onslaughts until a timer runs out. Usually these ones you can't even take one hit. Maybe this is just me being shitty at the game, but these were infuriating missions. There isn't much you can do in the way of blocking (unless I'm super dumb, and you CAN block), so I usually just hopped around, trying to stay in the air as much as possible. It wasn't fun in the very least. 

And you'll see these screens A LOT

    Occasionally there were jumping sections that I died on because I hit the jump button, but either a.) I hit it too late, or b.) the controls are a bit stiff and you need weird timing to get some of the jumps. Here's a funny sidenote, though: there's a large jump you need to make in Billy's story chapter, and I died on it probably ten times, because I just could not make the jump to save my life. Perhaps if I hadn't ignored the "tutorial" option on the main menu, I would have known that you can double jump by hitting the jump button while in the air. I'm dumb. 
    Finally, all three characters play exactly the same. They all have unique power moves (killing enemies fills a meter. Once it's full, you can unleash an extended attack that kills all enemies it touches, and leaves you invulnerable. Standard fare, really). Besides this, Billy's attacks don't do any more or less damage than Grim's, and they don't have any different reach or anything like that. Maybe this is more of a complaint with these kinds of games in general, though. 


    Despite all that negativity above, I did mostly enjoy my short time with this game! Firstly, the graphics look great. They are bright, and there's a lot of variations on the background themes and enemies (most of the variations come up during the missions). Unfortunately, the pictures I took probably don't look that great. It was tough to get a good picture, what with my damn reflection in all of them, the light behind me, and the general glare of the screen. There are some cut-scenes too, and these also look great. 
    Let's talk about some good gameplay qualities. Despite my bitching above about not being able to block, this game is still mostly a beat-em-up, and it's pretty fun. Each of the three story chapters have several areas to go through, and lots of enemies to knock around. There's also some platforming sections to break up the constant donnybrooks. It's one of those games where you walk to the right, then the screen stops scrolling with you, then enemies come out. Once you kill them all, the game allows you to go on. It's simple, but for a game like this (a licensed, very short, probably hastily made kids' game), it works. As I mentioned, at the end of each chapter is a boss. They are super bare bones, but I'll get to them in a second. 
    You can't complete the story mode until you collect a certain amount of Mojo Balls. And since you only get one upon completing Billy's quest (Mandy's and Grim's are locked initially). you have to do a small number of missions. Maybe twelve or thirteen. They are broken up into tiers, with each tier having ten missions, and them getting progressively more difficult as you go up in tiers. The first tier is stupidly easy, while the fifth one gets insanely annoying. They are very varied, and for the most part, fun. They offer much more variety than what is seen in the story mode. Some have you racing through a level as fast as possible; having a gun with limited ammo, and taking out all the enemies with only that ammo (probably my favorite ones); some you have to break open many treasure chests to find pie pieces before time runs out; plus the few I mentioned above. I think there's more too. These are a fun distraction, but they only exist to collect all 54 Mojo Balls. I stopped at 49, because the last few I had I simply did not have the patience/motivation to finish them. Overall, the missions are fun, but they don't last too long either. I more skilled player than I could 100% complete this game in 2 hours I bet. 
    Okay, I know you've been waiting for it. Here are the bosses!

GENERAL SKARR

 

He looks cool enough, but don't be fooled. He's easy

    This is Billy's boss. He's a general (duh) that puts on some sort of robot suit. He stands on one side of the screen, and shoots these orange bullet-things at you. If you try to get close to him and hit him, he'll blow you back. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to beat him. All you do is just stay on the opposite side of the screen, and jump over the orange things he shoots at you. He'll eventually move to the other side of the screen, and do the same thing. Once you've jumped over a bunch of his bullets, he'll slump down for a few seconds. That's when you run in and hit him. Do this a few times, and he's beat. Easy as pie. 

JACK O'LANTERN

 

That's him, on the right!

    Mandy's boss is a humanoid thing with a pumpkin head. This is the toughest boss in the game. Jack stands up on that tomb, and you have to deal with exploding pumpkins. When you hit one, it flies off, and when it lands, it explodes. The plan is to hit one up to Jack, where it'll explode, and he'll fall down to where you are. Then, just pummel him (being careful of other exploding pumpkins that are bombarding you). After he takes a beating, he'll jump back up, and you gotta do it again. After you do this a few times, he's dead. Annoying, but not too bad.

Hurt? Or drunk? You decide

 NERGAL

 

Yikes this picture sucks. Sorry, I let you all down

    This is Grim's boss, and I guess you could say the final boss? Well, he's one of the EASIEST bosses I've ever fought in any game. First of all, since you can't tell from the picture, I'll describe him: he's a black humanoid thing with legs and arms, and also some tentacles for good measure. He walks back and forth, and touching his tentacles hurts. They are electrified or some shit. Anyway, all you have to do is jump over him. After he walks back and forth a few times, he'll get tired. Then you beat his ass. Supremely easy. 


    Whelp, what else is there to be said about this game that I haven't said already? Honestly, I wouldn't have ever played this if I didn't get it for free. I wouldn't spend more than $1 at the absolute max. If you see it at a thrift shop for $1.01, you should probably just move on. Unless you're a HUGE fan of the show, I guess? I'm glad I did play and experience it, but it's just not essential to any GBA collection. 

My final loading screen, because the game doesn't even have a credit roll or "The end" screen. Psssh

 









 

B-LOG SLAYING: Aliens: Infestation (DS)

After all this time, aliens are STILL popping out of peoples' chests

    I'm not particularly versed in the Aliens universe. In fact, the only Aliens thing I've seen is Prometheus, which is a tenuous connection to that franchise at best (despite that, I thought Prometheus was a good movie). I do love Space Balls, and there's that nice alien-popping-out-of-the-chest parody. And, uh, I enjoy the work of H.R. Giger. That counts, right? 
    What I'm saying here is, I know jack shit about the Aliens franchise. Yet, about a month ago, I spent $4.98 (thanks, Target clearance!) on a DS game called, Aliens: Infestation. Why would I buy such a game? Well, it was cheap. That's part of it. Also, I looked at the back, and the few little screenshots seemed interesting. That's right, I bought a game without referencing the internet. Not even once (I did after I purchased the game, but that's besides the point). I bought a game based on the back cover, kind of like people used to do before the internet exploded inside everyone's brains! 

    And guess what? It was a hell of a fun game! Woooooh, win one for cheap, clearance games.  

    As you've come to expect here, I'll give my thoughts/opinions on the game. That IS why we're here, right? I think I'm going to take the approach I used for my Silent Hill Downpour post, and go with a pros and cons list, and then discuss it. So, let's do it, shall we?

CONS:

• Very few enemy types
• Laughably bad dialogue
• Kinda boring, bland sci-fi story
• It's all just a big fetch quest (in the vein of Doom)    

PROS:

• Great graphics for a DS game
• Simple, yet very fun, gameplay
• It's pretty difficult
• And this could be looked at as a con, but for the sake of me trying to get through my hugely bloated backlog, it's a pro: it's a short game

    The enemies in this game become boring pretty fast. In the beginning, you fight some robots with guns. These are probably the most annoying enemies in the whole game, because you have to shoot them in the chest to kill them. But they shoot at you, so you have to duck, then pop up, get one shot off, then duck again, before you get blasted. After a bit, you find the "classic" xenomorph aliens, which are basically the enemies for the rest of the game. There are also small chest-bursters and even smaller little worm-like aliens. Towards the end, you fight zombies (the easiest enemies in the game) and some ape-like aliens, but about 75% of all the enemies are the blue HR Giger-inspired xenomorphs. It gets old pretty quickly. It's not a huge knock, but they could have expanded the enemy roster.
    The next problem is the least severe, and the most hilarious. The dialogue (and there is a fair amount of it for a 7-hour game) leaves something to be desired. Here's a nice nugget:

Hell yeah homie (ugh)

    You can find and recruit (I believe) 19 marines throughout the game, and each one has their own cardboard cut-out, horribly cliched personality. That's part of the problem. The other part (and this ties into the bland story, so I'm going to roll them into one) is just the boring dialogue. If it's not cringe-worthy social stereotypes, it's blah-de-blah cliche sci-fi/military jargon. Personally, I didn't need any kind of story. Or, how about this story: here's a spaceship. Kill all the aliens on it. Bam! So easy. Otherwise, the story centers around an abandoned ship teeming with aliens, and some government conspiracy to breed and capture the aliens to use them as weapons (spoiler alert!). Anyway, two minor gripes with the game, but gripes nonetheless.

Although this is kind of funny, making fun of all that military mumbo-jumbo

    The whole game boils down to: start in an area, explore, realize that many areas are closed/blocked off for various reasons (locked, doors welded shut, too much darkness, hot steam in the way, etc), find the data computer that generates the map, go to your objective on the map (which is most likely an item that will open up a blocked off area), rinse and repeat. There are six keycards that allow access to various elevators/parts of the main ship, and you don't find the level six keycard until about 95% into the game. There's a decent amount of backtracking and things like that. It does remind me of Doom slightly, where you have to find the differently-colored keycards to open up various locked doors. Overall, even this isn't a huge complaint, but it is something. 

    The cons are small and niggling, for the most part. This is a very fun game that I would recommend to Aliens fans, and non-Aliens fans alike. Here's why:

    This game looks pretty damn good. The character and enemy sprites are bright and fluid. The backgrounds are colorful and detailed as well. Here's a few screenshots I got that captured the cool look of the game: 

A starry background

This is one of the coolest backgrounds I've EVER seen in a game

And there's this to.

    The gameplay overall consists of shooting the ever-loving shit out of aliens and robots. Pretty simple, but also very fun. You have a pistol (with infinite ammo. Of course), and start with a basic machine gun. From there, you find a shotgun (which rules), a flamethrower (which kinda blows, but is mandatory to access certain areas), and a heavier machine gun (which is probably the best weapon in the game. I guess you could call it a gatling gun). These can be upgraded to be stronger, too (although each can only be upgraded to a max of +3). You get grenades, which besides their usefulness in blowing open vent hatches, are pretty effective for boss battles. If you use the starting machine gun (which I promptly ditched when I found the shotgun. That's another thing: besides the pistol, you can only hold one bigger weapon at a time), you can also fire rockets from it. I generally used the shotgun until I found the gatling gun, then I switched between the two (I killed the final boss with the gatling gun). I found the pistol basically useless once you start fighting the aliens. It's okay for the robots, but it takes too many bullets to kill the fast moving aliens. As I said, the flamethrower sucks too, and the machine gun is okay, but I didn't touch it once I found the shotgun. 
    For the most part, this game is a side scroller. There's one section where you are in a space-car (I guess?) and you have to man a turret and blast aliens that attack you. This part is super annoying, and it comes right before a boss; if you get killed by the boss, you have to do this driving section again. The only other part that's not straight running-and-gunning is a short section where you go outside the ship to access a different area that is inaccessible at this point. This is more of a platforming section, because you have to jump (usually blindly) to various platforms on the outside of the ship. No gravity makes you jump awfully high, and it's tough to figure out exactly where you are supposed to go, or if you can even safely land on a platform. 
    This game is pretty tough, if you ignore those two sections I just talked about, namely because I found them far more frustrating than difficult. Namely, the beginning is the toughest. You have four marines to use, and you can switch between them at any save points (there are quite a few of these luckily). But, if one gets killed, that's it! PERMA-DEATH! I didn't know this in the beginning, so after an hour or so of play, I was down three marines, and only had one guy left alive. I had a tough time dealing with those robots that I mentioned a few paragraphs ago. If I were to go back and replay, I'd probably not lose anyone in the beginning of the game. But luckily I ended up finding two more marines, so I had three for the first boss battle. This was the single hardest part of the whole game. I'll get to the bosses soon, though. The perma-death of the marines adds a level of anxiety that I think works marvellously. You sort of feel like you're alone on a dead spaceship with only a few comrades. The difficulty in the game comes from perma-death, the large amount of enemies (and how long they take to kill, until you upgrade weapons), the boss battles, and just the fact that you can't really dodge or block attacks. It's tough to get through enemy encounters without taking a little damage, at least. And I don't think it's possible at all to take no damage from boss battles. Since we are on the subject of bosses, let's chat a little about them!

FIRST BOSS (Bigger xenomorph)

    I don't think these bosses have names, which is pretty damn lame. Another lame thing? Out of the four bosses, three of them are just bigger versions of regular enemies (the final boss is just a bigger version of the first boss). Only one is completely unique (and he's the coolest looking, of course). Here's Mr. FirstBoss:

Lots of blue in this picture. Just a bigger version of the normal blue xenomorph. It's probably three times bigger

    This guy is a real bastard. I saw probably a dozen "Game Over" screens before I finally killed him (without losing any marines, no less). What's worse about the battle is the fact that every time you die, you have to run through a lot of enemies to get back to the boss, and it gets very annoying (truly, after six or seven attempts, I just ran past all the enemies instead of killing them). As far as his attacks, they are pretty limited. If you're close in front of his face, he'll stick his alien-tongue out and jab you with it. He will also whip with his tail. Other than that, he just jumps around. Again, his attacks are pretty tough to dodge (there is a dodge roll which comes in handy, but doesn't dodge everything). There are six or seven of those pods that spawn the little chest-burster guys. They are slightly annoying, but you can take them out easily. 
    My strategy was destroy those pods first and foremost. After that, I lobbed all six of my grenades at his face (his only vulnerable part. It flashes green when he takes damage), then just unloaded with my machine gun. You have to point it diagonally up to hit him. You can't just shoot straight (unless you jump on one of the platforms while he's still on ground level. I didn't bother with this). I would run up to him, point and fire some shots, then try to run back. I avoided a good amount of damage this way. After 45,000 (might be a slight exaggeration) bullets, he'll go down. As I said, I think he's the toughest boss in the game, so at least it's a little easier from here on out. 

SECOND BOSS (I call him Dicknose)

    The second boss is the only unique one in the game. He stands, sort of hunched over, waiting for you after that car turret section I spoke about above. He's about twice your height, and fairly menacing looking. He's an unattractive brown color, and he's bipedal (but he's got a tail. All aliens need tails). And his nose, well I think it looks like a limp penis, but I suppose you could say it's kind of like an elephant trunk. Just, judge for yourself. 

Hung like a huge alien

    You fight this guy in that giant room with the giant alien-robot (?) hooked up (?) to the giant laser-eye telescope (?) thing in the background. The cool picture above! Anyway, like the first fight, this one also has those pods that should be taken care of quickly. You have much more room to run and get a tiny breather/reload time if needed. He attacks with a slow punch with his arm and a high-knee thrust. He jumps around the room as well, which can damage. Finally he will occasionally spew green acid/vomit/bile-stuff. The strategy here is basically the same as the first boss: whip grenades at Dicknose -- here, his chest is his vulnerable area. It flashes white, and can only be shot with the diagonal upwards shot -- then blast him with whatever you have. I was using the shotgun, upgraded to at least +2, but maybe +3 (weapon upgrades are everywhere in this game). I ran, or rolled, past him, got behind him, and took some shots, before running past him again. This guy only took three tries, I believe, in part because I didn't wanna keep doing the car part, so I was extra careful. This is my favorite boss in the game. 

THIRD BOSS (Bigger ape-alien)

    NOTE: Between Dicknose and this guy, you fight another giant xenomorph, identical to the first boss. I omitted it here because, well, I forgot you fight it. But, you fight it in a power loader suit, much like the iconic one from the movies. It's actually kind of funny, because you find a key to the power loader suit, and you get a call on your com from your Sargent, and he says something along the lines of, "Keep that key. You may need it later". Literally the very next screen you find a power loader that you must use to crush a box. Yup, the only thing you need the suit for is to crush two boxes (one here, and one in a different part of the ship). You can fight the giant xenomorph in it, but it's a hassle. Anyway, for whatever reason, this xenomorph is more powerful than the first one you fight, so you end up blowing it out a air-lock into space.

    I honestly don't remember much from this battle, so by virtue of that, I'll call this the easiest boss in the game. He's a bigger variant of the ape-like aliens you find in the final third of the game. He's big, and he's damn fast. The fastest enemy in the game, for sure. 

This guy is pretty cool looking.

    He runs on all four (like an ape, which is where I think the similarities come from), and he bites at you. When he runs, he can damage you. He can swipe with his claws too. Finally, he will leap high in the air, off screen, and come crashing down. I really should have made some notes along the way, but I believe I fought him with the flamethrower. The basic strategy? Throw grenades at him, and blast his face with the flamethrower (or your weapon of choice). This is the only boss in the game where you can shoot straight and not have to point upwards to hurt him. I didn't find him particularly tough, because he will occasionally just stand around and take your abuse. His attacks seem a little easier to dodge than the other bosses. 

FOURTH (AND FINAL) BOSS (REALLY big xenomorph)

    The final battle of the game is against essentially the first boss, but pumped up on Marc McGwire-level steroids. He takes 450,00 bullets to take down, and has the same attacks as the first boss. 

Ol' Smiley here is no pushover

Here he is, killing the human antagonist of the game, with his penis-tongue

    This battle is a little different than the first one though. There are turrets placed all over that will shoot enemies for you. Yeah, he'll occasionally call down the normal xenomorph enemies to join in on the fun. These guns kill them pretty quickly, but it's tough to get them to hit the boss. There are also explodable barrels strewn about, as well as three levels of platforms. My strategy? Get ready: throw grenades, then blast the holy hell out of him with the +3 gatling gun. I will say, the gatling gun has 500 bullets, and that is not enough to kill him. Luckily when a marine dies and a new one takes his place, they come in with full ammo. I just ran around him, pointing up (ugh) and shooting his chest. Eventually, after more than a dozen grenades (across a few marines) and probably 1,000 bullets from the gatling gun, this stupid beast goes down. 

That's really funny!

I'm trapped in the game! Aaaaah! (jk)

    Then, the game ends about twenty seconds later. Underwhelming, to say the least. But, that's about all I can say for the final boss, and all the bosses in general. They were pretty tough, but were also pretty boring. They could have done a lot more with the boss design, I'm sure. Oh well, I'm still pleased enough with them. Like I said above, my playtime was a little over seven hours, and that seems just perfect for a game like this. Since there are so many savepoints, you can even pick it up and play for 10-15 minute stretches, which is great. 
    My recommendation? Purchase this game if you find it cheap enough. Mine was $5, I'd say I would pay double for it, but not much more than that. I'm sure it can be found easily and cheaply enough. If you are a huge Alien fan, you could spend more on it. I know nothing of the franchise, but from some of the things I've read, it has a lot of Alien stuff in it. I'm sure it's enough to please big fans. 

    Do you need one final reason to play? I've saved the best for last:

NAKED ASS!

A Very Quick Note

Super quick here: I should be getting the Dark Souls II DLC, "Crown Of The Sunken King", tonight, and will start playing it thusly. I'll have more dedicated boss posts about it as I fight/beat them. Stay tuned! Hopefully I can get one up tomorrow!

B-LOG SLAYING: Silent Hill Downpour (PS3)

'fraid all the roads are out. Every last one of them. Strangest thing

  I've always loved Silent Hill. Right back to the first game on the Playstation, I thought it was a very interesting, unique, SCARY, survival horror game. Way back when, sometime around 1999 or 2000, I rented (do you all remember RENTING games from brick-and-mortar rental places? Man, I kinda miss that. Oh Video Update, we hardly knew ye!) the first Silent Hill, and played it briefly. I don't remember getting far, probably not past the first school. I already really enjoyed Resident Evil, but this was different. Sure, RE had the few jump scares (dogs through the window!), but Silent Hill was just dripping with dread. I mean, that elementary school? Fuuuuck that. Resident Evil never (and will never) come close to being that scary. So anyway, I played the game a bit, but ultimately returned it, as one is wont to do when renting a game.
    I don't remember the exact timeline of events (thanks, brain), but this is how I'm going to lay it out, and call it word of god. I wanna say, I received Silent Hill 2 on PS2 as a birthday present when it came out in 2001, and sometime after that, I bought the original Silent Hill at a sale that Video Update (later Movie Scene, later, a Five Guys Burger and Fries) had. It was only the disc, and the ripped off front page of the manual (I have since gotten it complete, and I'm very happy about that). Silent Hill 2 was the first one I played and beat (I think). I loved it. Absolutely loved it. The story. The grainy graphics (I remember being super impressed with those graphics). The environments. The scares. And of course, mannequin rape (I'm pretty sure my dad was in the living room watching me play during that scene. Yikes). It was a favorite game of mine, and it really started my love for SH. I played and beat the original, then got the third, and played and beat that. At some point, I got Silent Hill 4: The Room, and I did beat that (although it took literally years). Let me say, I don't know why that game (and the series as a whole, after 3) got panned the way it did. It was up to the caliber of the original trilogy, and man, the first person apartment sections were unnerving as all get out. Those ghosts were incredibly aggravating, I will say.
    Before I get off on too much of a Silent Hill love tangent, just know I've loved every SH game I've played. That includes 4. That includes Homecoming. I haven't played Origins or Shattered Memories yet (waah), but they are high on my want list. So, when Downpour came out a few years back, I was very excited. I remember at the time reading that it was a return-to-form of sorts for the franchise, and it was generally well received (something the last few games hadn't really been). Oh, and fuck IGN and their 4.5/10 score. If you're curious, read their review here. My thoughts here will be more helpful to Silent Hill fans (and non-fans even, maybe). I was finally able to buy Downpour with a Gamestop giftcard I got for my birthday last year. My wife helped me decide that was the first game for me to start on my quest to vanquish my backlog (hey, read my ever-updating list here). Without further adieu (and ridiculous rambling), here are my thoughts:

Start screen (for those without eyes)

    I'm not doing a review, but more of a general rundown of my experience, and my thoughts. Before you continue reading, let me get this out of the way very clearly: I LOVE Silent Hill. I know you read that up there, but I'm going to reiterate. I'm going to be as fair as possible, but things in this game that bothered other people didn't bother me. And the worst problem with the game, which would make me pretty annoyed at any other game with this problem, didn't at all hinder my insane enjoyment playing this.
    I'm going to list the pros and cons, as I see them, with the game, and then expand upon those with my thoughts. Easy enough, right? Let's start with the cons first, because everyone always starts with pros!

CONS: 

• Framerate is anywhere between fine and absolutely horrendous
• There is very little variety in the enemies. I believe there are only five enemies (and only two bosses. Although they are pretty good ones)
• The combat sucks. Combat in SH usually sucks, and it continues here. 

There, that wasn't too painful. Before the "framerate" con scares anyone, let's at least read through the pros:

PROS: 

• Very scary
• Good story with great, interesting characters
• The side quests are fun, and add nice variety and a great element of exploration
• On the topic of exploration, the semi-open world of Silent Hill is brilliantly realized, and exploring is really satisfying and rewarding

    Okay, let's talk about the elephant in the room. The framerate in this game is not very good. For the first few hours, I barely noticed. It was more like slight hiccups. They didn't detract from the game. At some point, it started getting bad. Like, really bad. There were a few points where I though I might need to stop playing. It was distressing. When I first installed the game (which took so fucking long), I also downloaded a patch. Apparently, the patch was to fix the framerate problems. From what I read online, it made it worse. In the end, it didn't stop me from playing, and while it is a big negative, it didn't mar my experience very much. If this had been some other game that I didn't have as much emotionally invested in it, and I experienced these framerate problems, I would have considered stopping, or at least severely marking down any score I might give it. So everyone, know going in: the framerate may be FUCKING HORRIBLE. 
    Next on the list is the enemy variety. This, to me, is the single most disappointing thing about this game. Finding all the sick and twisted monsters and demons in the Silent Hill world is one of my favorite parts. They really have made some scary/disturbing monsters in the past (those Twin Victims from 4? Who didn't shit the first time they saw them? Here's a link to the wiki page). This game had five types, I believe. (EDIT: I looked it up, and there are more than five enemies. There's close to double that, but two of them are very similar to each other and I didn't at first consider them proper enemies. Also, there's one that you only see (and hear) for a brief few seconds. So, meh!) And they are pretty standard and boring. I think they missed a huge opportunity here to create more terrifying nightmare creatures. Also, there were only two bosses, and the first you don't fight until about 75% into the game. At one point I was honestly wondering if they had been omitted altogether (apparently there was supposed to be a boss fight in the Devil's Pit Mine that was taken out. This part is much closer to the beginning of the game). However, I will say the two boss battles that are included are pretty good ones. More on them later (bosses back on the blog!)
    The final con is the least severe, because I think it's a problem that has plagued SH since the first one. The combat in this game sucks. It's just no fun. The fact that almost everything in the game can be used as a weapon is pretty cool (weapons degrade over time, so you'll go through dozens in the game's 12-16 hour story), but every time you stand near a weapon or item, a "pick up" prompt shows up. It's tough to tell if you're standing near a weapon (which you mostly likely don't need because you have one) or an item (which you definitely always want to pick up). I found that throughout the encounters in the game, I would get rocked by the enemies. Luckily first aid kits are fairly prevalent (I played the game on normal. Not sure if difficulty effects the amount of healing items).
    And hey, since I'm here, I'll throw in another minor gripe: the "otherworld" chase sections. Generally, I find the "otherworld" sections of Silent Hill games to be more boring compared to their normal counterparts. I love the rusty, bloody, industrial aesthetics, but it kind of kills the scariness. What makes SH so scary and disturbing is the ungodly creatures, sights, disturbing subject matter happening in an otherwise normal, every-town kind of place. Monsters lurking in a "normal" world = scary. Monsters lurking in a monster world = just normal. With THAT being said, when you get transported to the "otherworld" four or five times throughout this game (maybe six times), you are constantly pursued by this red, all-killing orb. I guess it's called The Void? But these segments play similarly: it appears, and you have to run for your life. If it gets too close, it slows down time, and it hurts you. If it hurts you too much, hey, you die! If I had to guess, I'd say I died probably 12-15 during the game, and at least 8 of those were due to not going the right way during a chase sequence. It's nice that it breaks up the gameplay, but it's ultimately just annoying.


    If any of those three (four) things scare you in a big way, perhaps you should not consider purchasing the game. But, enough of the bad. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my time back in Silent Hill, so let's talk about that instead!


    I (and my wife) found this game exceptionally scary. Maybe I'm just becoming a puss, or maybe it's just been a while since I played a SH game (I don't remember the last one I played, Homecoming, being nearly as scary or unnerving as this one), but I was constantly in a state of unease. And that's a high honor I can bestow on a survival horror game. When not in the titular town, you're exploring houses, mines, a monastery (I'll get to that in a bit), a thrift shop, a bank, a movie theater, and other areas. They are all dark. You have a flashlight and a lighter throughout a majority of the game, but it's amazing how much light a flashlight doesn't provide when you're exploring a scary, rundown movie theater.
    I have a nice anecdote I'd like to share. When you first arrive in Silent Hill (after two-three hours), you're free to explore the town (side note: I've seen people complain the game is unclear with its objectives in the main story. This is untrue. You know the general area to go for the main story during the whole game). I wandered into a backyard, and there was a ground-level window, which was for a basement of a house. The light was on, and I had the option to venture inside. So, inside I ventured.
    This basement was very dark. Even my flashlight offered the feeblest protection against the oppression:

How much darker can it get really? The answer is none

    So, I'm exploring the basement, my heart pounding. I'm quite literally scared that at any second, some horrible thing is going to just be seen slinking away around a corner. Well, I find nothing. However, I hear something unsettling: a woman crying. There's a jail-cell door down here, and it's locked. Beyond the door is where the crying is coming from, even though nothing can be seen that would be making the noise. So, I explore upstairs a bit, and come back downstairs. The crying has stopped. Worse still, that locked cell door is now open. There was nothing on the other side of it. Sufficiently creeped out, I got the hell outta dodge. Silent Hill loves to mindfuck people, and I think they are good at it. I know that anything can happen, but usually nothing does. It creates a constant atmosphere of fright. You know something could happen, and it's the anticipatory waiting that freaks you out.
    Another nice little addition is the door-opening mechanic. When Murphy (the main character) opens a door, he grabs the handle, and the camera zooms in to over his shoulder. You're now essentially opening the door in first person. I am not lying when I say that every single instance of opening any door came with a sense of foreboding. Could this be the door that had something scary behind it, just waiting for me? I think it's a great mechanic that I don't see talked about anywhere else.

A common loading screen

    A final note about scary things: this is a loading screen. You'll see a lot of these during play. Normally, it'll cycle through a dozen or two different little tips (the one above reads, "Punching creatures can buy you time to escape, but it's not an effective killing method"), but occasionally, it'll display something like, "I know you're lying", or, "They're in the room. You just can't see them". It only happened to me maybe five times, so it's pretty rare. I really wanted to get a picture, but alas, I couldn't. They are thrown in so casually, it's a great little fourth-wall-breaking scare (or at least creep out) tactic.
    I don't want to delve too deeply into the story, as to not spoil it, but I thought it was pretty good. You're a prisoner being transported to another prison. Your prison bus crashes when suddenly, the driver has to turn to avoid the road which has just disappeared into a black abyss. Turns out, you crash right near Silent Hill. As you progress through the game, small snippits of your past are revealed (via short flashbacks, cryptic dialogue, and pieces of information you find around town that flesh out Murhpy's story), and it's interesting to start piecing them together. Of course, there are six endings (one joke ending), so I'm not sure what would be considered cannon, but the two I saw were both good. Also, I really enjoyed the mailman character, Howard. He seemed to know much more than he let on. Overall, all the 8-10 people you meet are all interesting and add a lot to the game.
    There's something like fourteen side quests hidden throughout the town. This is new for Silent Hill, and it adds a great sense of exploration to the game. I only finished five of them, and only found eight in total I believe. I wanted to find/finish more, but I wanted to finish the game and move on to the next. It's an unfortunate side effect of having a fucking huge backlog.
    These side quests range from gathering items for a homeless guy (his name is Homer, and he sort of looks like Homer Simpson), freeing caged birds, investigating a bank, and fixing a projector in a movie theater (sounds lame, but their is more to it). There's more of course, but those are some of the ones I did. The quests really help to break up the normal gameplay. Just running straight through the game, ignoring side quests, you could probably get through it in 10-12 hours. I finished at 16+ hours, and could have easily added a few more, if I chose to finish all the side quests.

Final game stats (note the progress only counts for the story mode)

    Exploring Silent Hill is a thrill. You'll find several buildings to enter, and each one has something of value in it, be it a side quest, an item, ammo (pretty scare), health, or something else. As stated before, I was sufficiently scared and unnerved exploring these dark, mysterious places. I sincerely hope, with (I hope to god there will be more) this game, going forward, they keep the semi-open world and side quests.
    I made a note of this, and I'm not sure where else to put it, so I'll include it here. St. Maria's Monastery is probably the scariest place in the game. Besides the fact that it's a Monastery that was re-purposed from an insane asylum, there's lots of disturbing kid stuff here, and other little things that just mess with you. Namely, my walkie-talkie was always emitting static, which should indicate an enemy nearby. There were usually no enemies. I don't know if I'm dumb and just didn't see it, or if this was on purpose, but it definitely kept me on my toes. Also, that damn tire swing in the playground area. If you've played it, you know.

    I think that's all I can say about the game. Before we finish, let's talk about...

BOSSES!

 

THE BOGEYMAN (minor spoilers might be ahead)

    As I mentioned above, you don't fight this guy until well into the game, after St. Maria's Monastery. You fight him on a small beach to a lake. You see him a few times in the Monastery before you fight him here. He's a tall man with a gas mask, and a rain slicker on. He holds a large hammer that hurts quite a bit when he swings it.

Are you fighting yourself?

    He has three attacks. If you are far from him, he'll slam his hammer into the ground, which shoots an earthquake line (that's the best I can describe it) at you. I found this absolutely impossible to dodge. Literally every time he did it, it hurt me. If you get close, he has an overhand swing of the hammer, and one that he swings more around his body, which could hit you even behind him.
    He killed me three times, I think. Maybe twice. My strategy was to run up to him for a second, then run back. This would prompt his hammer swing. Immediately after, I ran back up to him, and hit him only once with my fire axe. If I stayed around any longer, he'd hit me. He's deceptively fast with that hammer. After you hit him several times, he drops onto a knee and gathers dark power (??). If you are too close to him during this, you get hurt. This is a good time to run off and heal/switch weapons if need be.

Bogeyman and Velstadt long lost brothers?

    I'm not sure how this fight exactly works, because after I got him on his knee like this three times, I believe, I was able to go up to him, and I was prompted to finish him off. I took his own hammer, and smashed him with it. However, what I don't know is if you can do it the first time he falls to his knees. I never got close enough to see if the prompt shows up, so I could have made this battle much more annoying than it was.

THE WHEELMAN

    You first glimpse this strange creature at the beginning of the game. You see him a few more times throughout, and he proves to be the final boss. He's a very old man (or at least humanoid) confined to a wheelchair. He has various tubes coming out of him. When you see him normally, he's normal sized. Of course here, he's fucking huge.

Bender doesn't approve.

    He has four huge life support tubes that have to be yanked out to kill him. Pretty damn grim. But if you try to run up to one, he smashes you good. You have to ride up giant breathing-tube things that go up and down. The tops of them act as elevators, and they lead to platforms that have spotlights. If you shine the spotlight on him, he's blinded (as seen in the above picture), and then you have the time to pull the tubes. Pretty simple, but it was a fun battle. There's other normal monsters to fight too, and if you stand in one spot too long, old Wheely here throws debris at you. Overall, not a tough fight really once you know what you're doing.
    Once you finish it, you have a tiny bit of the game left to play. It's very cool, ties up the story (for the most part), and is a great gameplay change. I'll leave it at that.

Not the best picture, but Wheelman at another angle (not blinded)

    Well, ladies and gents, I think that's it. If you stuck around and read this whole gargantuan post, well, I thank you. Overall, I would absolutely suggest this game to Silent Hill fans. It wouldn't be a horrible entry point to the series, but for a newbie, 2 or 3 is still the best starting place. I will say, I think Downpour is the best game to come out since 3, so that's something right there. Despite some flaws (one huge and, frankly, inexcusable), I think this is a fun game that retains the classic Silent Hill formula while adding some great new ones. I'm hoping there will be more games in the series (I know the last few have been critically disappointing, and probably don't rake in the dough). As of this writing, 7/10/14, I guess Hideo Kojima (of Metal Gear fame) has expressed interest in directing the next installment. There's also a comic coming out in August that goes into another character's story more. Why it would come out two years after the game is any one's guess, but it's gotta be a good sign. Right?

Hideo Kojima directing Silent Hill? Has the world turned upside down?

     So I'll leave you with this: Hideo, add more monsters and bosses! Shit.

See? I really beat it!