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!

THE UNGODLY LIST

SHANE'S BACKLOG. 

 

AKA - HE'S NEVER GOING TO GET THROUGH IT

 

AKA, AKA - HE'LL PROBABLY BEAT FOUR MORE GAMES THIS YEAR

Ugh, LOOK at this mess. How'd I get myself into this craziness?

    Last night, I decided it was finally time to write down, and count exactly how many games I had in my backlog. I knew it was a lot. I was guessing 50. Hell, maybe even 60. But, if you can read the above number, or if you read my previous post (you probably didn't, and it's okay. Really), you'll know the number is a staggering 94. Oi fucking vey, amiright? I cannot believe I have this many games just sitting, not being played. It did make me realize I must have at least 200 games in my collection. I know it isn't a huge amount compared to some people, but for little ol' me? That's pretty good. I'm also in the (very slow) process of cataloging all my games, so I can get an official count.
    I also realized that, even though getting games comes few and far between for me, I can cool it for a little bit. There's still hundreds of games I'd like to eventually own, but first I should probably knock off some on this list. I will say, there may be a few I take off just because I don't like them. I'll try to play everything to completion, but if I don't like a game, well, I don't like a game. This may have already happened with Phantom 2040 for the SNES. I have put in maybe three hours here and there, and I just can't get pulled in. I'm never thinking, "oh boy, I can't wait to pop in Phantom 2040 again!" It's always more like, "ugh, I really just don't want to play Phantom 2040. But I will." It becomes a chore. And chores are just no fun.
    I haven't figured out exactly how I want to tackle this list, or how I should maintain it on my blog here. For now, I'm just going to list the games in my backlog, and do a simple cross-out and a date completed when I beat one. So this page will serve as a master list, and will hopefully be updated as absolutely promptly as possible. After I beat some games, I'll probably make some separate posts dedicated to them, with pictures, my thoughts, and other general musings.
    Well, without further adieu, here is the mastodonic (is that a word? Blogger says no!) list. They are in no order, but I will list oldest systems first (basically). Thanks for looking y'all!

UPDATE HISTORY:

 

-1/18/15: Beat 6 Golden Coins (GB)

-1/10/15: Beat Splatterhouse (original) and started Super Mario World 2: 6 Golden Coins (GB)

-1/1/15: Added Suikoden II, Legend of Dragoon, and Wild Arms ("PS1", via PS3 digital)

-12/28/14: Added Vagrant Story, Threads of Fate, and Suikoden ("PS1", via PS3 digital)

-12/20/14: Added Dragon Quest IX (DS) and Tales of the Abyss (3DS). Also, started Splatterhouse (original arcade, via PS3 version)

-12/18/14: Added Child of Light (PS3) and Pier Solar ("Sega MegaDrive", via PS3 digital)

-12/11/14: Beat Brain Lord (SNES)

-12/8/14: Started Final Fantasy IV Advance (GBA)

-11/15/14: Started Splatterhouse (PS3)

-11/13/14: Started Brain Lord (SNES)

-11/9/14: Beat Super Castlevania IV (SNES)

-11/6/14: Added Brain Lord (SNES)

-11/3/14: Added Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Uncharted: Among Thieves, also added Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection and Splatterhouse (all PS3)

-10/31/14: Added Dragon Age: Origins, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and Fallout 3 (all PS3) and Obscure: The Aftermath (Wii). Also started Super Castlevania IV (SNES)

-10/30/14: Beat MMPR (SNES)

-10/28/14: Started Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (SNES)

-10/8/14: Started Link's Awakening (GB)

-10/7/14: Beat Resident Evil: Revelations (3DS)

-9/26/14: Added Link's Awakening (GB)

-9/21/14: Beat Batman: Arkham Origins (PS3)

-9/13/14: Added Champions: Call to Arms (PS2)

-8/25/14: Added Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Xbox) and Clock Tower 3 (PS2)

-8/23/14: Added Blue Dragon and Condemned: Criminal Origins for 360

-8/18/14: Took all of the N64 games off this list (getting rid of my tiny N64 collection)

-8/11/14:  Started RE: Revelations (3DS)

-7/22/14: Added Resident Evil: Revelations (3DS), and am putting Star Ocean (PSP) on hiatus for now, to (hopefully) get continued later on down the line

-7/18/14: Finished Grim Adventures (GBA)

-7/14/14: Added The Grim Adventures Of Billy and Mandy (GBA)

-7/14/14: Finished Aliens: Infestation (DS)

-7/7/14: Finished Silent Hill Downpour (PS3)

-6/30/14: Started Aliens: Infestation (DS)

-6/27/14: Added Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare to PS3

- 6/16/14: Added Kingdoms of Amular: Reckoning to PS3 (I forgot it, because I own it digitally on my PS3. No hard copy)

- 6/14/14: Crossed out Phantom 2040 for SNES, added start date to Silent Hill Downpour (PS3)

NES:

• Swords & Serpents
• Dragon Warrior
• Ultima: Exodus
• Faxanadu
• Ninja Gaiden 
• A note about this one: I know it's hard as hell, and I am not 100% confident I will actually be able to beat it fully! Only time will tell, eh? 
• Astyanax
• I've played this game a bit, and I really enjoy it. I feel it's kind of an under appreciated gem on the NES
• Star Tropics
• ST II: Zoda's Revenge
• I'm very excited to play both these games
• Duck Tales
• Final Fantasy
• You will notice I have a fucking huge amount of Final Fantasy games in my backlog
•  Battle Of Olympus
•  Super Mario Bros. 2
• I know, I know. I've beaten 1 & 3, but never got around to completing this oddity
• The Legend Of Zelda
• Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link

SNES:

• Final Fight
• Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (started on 10/28/14, beat on 10/30/14)
• Final Fantasy Mystic Quest
• Phantom 2040
• Again, this one may be stricken from the list. I haven't vastly enjoyed my time with the game thus far                 6/23/2014. Don't like it enough to finish.
• Super Star Wars
• Super Empire Strikes Back
• I typically despise Star Wars with a fiery, unholy passion. This trilogy of games for the Super Nintendo is probably the only Star Wars things I like. 
• Super Castlevania IV      -started on 10/31/14, beat on 11/9/14
• Magic Sword
• Brain Lord (started 11/13/14, finished 12/11/14)
• Ys III: Wanderer From Ys
• Jurassic Park
• I actually enjoy this game!
• Ultima: False Prophet
• Drakkhen
• Wolfchild
• Eye Of The Beholder

SEGA MEGADRIVE:

•  Pier Solar and the Great Architects 
• This is technically a "Megadrive" game, but it was released in 2010, and I downloaded it from the Playstation Network on my PS3. I'll include it here instead of under the "PS3" section

GAMEBOY:

• Pokemon Red
• The first Pokemon I ever played was the newest version, Y. It was extraordinarily fun. 
• Final Fantasy Legend III
• The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
• Great little story behind my acquisition of this one: I'm training a new guy Max at work, and it turns out he's HUGE into retro games (and gaming in general). He says something like, "I'm pretty sure I have Link's Awakening in my car". And sure as shit, he does! And he just let's me have it, because he has a digital copy on his 3DS. It's the original black-and-white Gameboy version, not the Gameboy Color DX version, and this is more than okay with me. VERY excited to start it, and it's basically second on my "handheld priority" list, right after I finish RE: Revelations (started 10/8/14)

N64:

EXPLANATION: I recently decided N64 is just not a console I have interest in, at all. I'm getting rid of the few games I have. I plan on getting the OOT release on 3DS, and I'm just crossing my fingers Majora's Mask gets a 3DS release also. (8/18/14)

• Super Mario 64
• Perfect Dark
• The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time
• I feel I might need to defend myself on this one a bit. I've been a Zelda fan since at least Link To The Past (although I have distinct memories of playing the first two on NES at a young age), but as a family, when it was a choice between PS1 and N64, we chose PS1 (a choice I would make 1000/1000 times, by the way). I never got to play any of the flagship N64 games. My greatest regret from wanting a PS1 was never getting to play either OOT or Majora's Mask.

PLAYSTATION:

• Final Fantasy Anthology (5&6)
• I've debated long and hard about playing both FF5 and FF6 on this compilation. Obviously this is one of the easiest ways to play 5, but I'd really like to play 6 on the SNES (known as Final Fantasy III, of course). But I also know the price of a damn FFIII cart, and it just seems like it makes way more sense for me to play it on this disc, seeing as how I already have it.
• Final Fantasy Origins (2)
• Now with this one, I'm only going to play Final Fantasy II. I have the original on NES, and I'd like to play it on that machine.
• King's Field
• Suikoden
• I've been getting more and more excited to play this as I've been talking about it with a friend at work. PS3 digital download
• Threads of Fate
• PS3 digital download
• Vagrant Story
• I rented this game once or twice as a kid. I liked it, but never played much. I know it's pretty highly regarded, so I'd love to play through it fully. PS3 digital download
• Mega Man X4
• Mega Man X6
• Mega Man 8
• I don't find the Playstation era Mega Man games to be as fun or endearing as their 8/16 bit counterparts. 
• Deathtrap Dungeon
• This isn't a great game, and I debated putting it on the list because I only have it for nostalgic purposes. But I will play through and (hopefully) beat it
• Final Fantasy VIII
• Final Fantasy IX
• Granstream Saga
• Tomb Raider
• Overblood
•  Another game I know hasn't stood up to the test of time, but I have such great memories of my dad and I playing this game. I have never beaten it myself (I know he did back in the day), so I'd like to change that. Going through will be a great nostalgic trip too
• Nightmare Creatures
• Same deal as Overblood above. 
• Galerians
• Syphon Filter 2
• Treasures Of The Deep
• Chrono Cross
•  I wish I had Chrono Trigger...

GBA:

• Golden Sun: The Lost Age
• I played through, and LOVED, the first game. I started this one directly after finishing the first (this was some time last year), and since it's so similar to the first, I was just kind of burned out from this game. I'm probably a little less than a quarter of the way through.
• Final Fantasy IV Advance
• Again, same deal with FF6 up there. I'd like to play this on the SNES as Final Fantasy II, but chances are I won't have that cart for a while. It's not as pricey as III, but I still don't have the cash for it.   (started on 12/8/14)
• The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy
• Started this on 7/15/14         -finished 7/18/14

PS2:

• Castlevania: Lament Of Innocence
• Final Fantasy X
• Final Fantasy XII
• Dark Cloud
• Clock Tower 3
• Very excited to play this. Love getting more survival horror
• Twisted Metal Black
• Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny
• Star Ocean: Till The End Of Time
• Dragon Quest VIII: Journey Of The Cursed King
• Mega Man X7
• Eternal Ring
• Champions: Return to Arms
• Very excited to play this. LOVED the original Champions of Norrath when it first came out. Haven't had a chance to play this one yet
• Phantasy Star Universe
• Red Dead Revolver
• LOVE Red Dead Redemption. Interested to see what they kept from this first game
• Resident Evil 4
• A classic that I haven't gotten around to playing. Hey, that's the reason for this list!
• Resident Evil: Code Veronica X
• A not-so classic (though still good) that I haven't gotten around to beating. This game is hard as hell. Love the graphics 
• Unlimited Saga
• I hear this game really sucks, but I'm still willing to give it a fair shot.
• Kingdom Hearts II
• Another game I started long ago, but never beat. I must have gotten at least half way through, and I can't remember why I stopped. I LOVED the first one.
• Max Payne 2
• I started this long ago, and stopped after probably less than an hour. Not sure why, because I loved the first, and I recently played through the third, which was also fantastic. Anyway, this is low priority.
• Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
• I played and beat the second game, and while I remember it was pretty difficult, it was also way more fun than I had anticipated. Hopefully the first is good also.    

XBOX:

• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
• This isn't too high on the priority list just yet (because of the HUGE TIME-SINK it is), but I can't wait to lose potentially 100+ hours to this game, which I hear is better than Oblivion and Skyrim

GAMECUBE:

•  Resident Evil
• This is the only Gamecube we have (it wasn't even mine! It was my then-girlfriend's). I'm very interested to see what it's like compared to the flawed, but awesome, PS1 original.

DS:

• Aliens: Infestation
• While this isn't the only DS game I have, it's the only one I need to play and beat. Bought it cheap at Target without knowing anything about it. From what I've heard from people on Instagram, it's a great game! Wooh! (started 6/30/14)     - finished this 7/14/14

• Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
• Just grabbed this for pretty cheap over the weekend. I probably wont' start it for a while, but I'd like to have it finished by the end of 2015

PSP:

• Star Ocean: First Departure
• I've been playing this game, on and off, for about two months now. It's okay, but it's been tough for me to really get sucked into it. It's not as fun as I was hoping it would be. I'll get into this more in its own post, but my two annoyances are: the fighting (it's basically button-mashing dressed up to look like something more strategic) and the world-map-traversal (so far, 12+ hours in, I still have to walk over the world map. It takes FOREVER to get from one destination to another).  
• *NOTE: I'm putting my playthrough on hiatus for now. I wanna play other PSP/handheld games. I should still pick this back up later on*
• Star Ocean: Second Evolution
• I'm probably going to wait a long while to start this, once I beat part one. This is definitely currently very low on the priority list
• Dungeon Maker II: The Hidden War
• Final Fantasy Tactics: The War Of The Lions

WII:

• Donkey Kong Country Returns
• I'm pretty close to beating this. I just gotta sit down and do it.  
• Super Mario Galaxy
• I started this game, long ago, on my first girlfriend's Wii. I got pretty damn far, and of course, we broke up. I haven't had the energy to fully restart this again, even though it's one of the best Mario game I've played 

• Obscure: The Aftermath
• Haven't played the first, but this was $2.50 at Gamestop, so I decided, why the hell not. Tough to turn down a very cheap survival horror game. 

XBOX 360:

• Fable II
• Fable III
• Condemned: Criminal Origins
• Blue Dragon
• Very excited about this one, and I'd like to move up closer to the top of my "queue"
• Alan Wake
• I'm at least halfway through this game. One of the driving reasons I wanted a 360
• Halo: Reach
• I started this game also, but I'll most likely restart it once I pick it up to continue playing. 
• Gears Of War
• Gears Of War 2

3DS:

•  Resident Evil: Revelations (started 8/11/14)    - finished 10/7/14
•  Tales of the Abyss
• I plan on starting this once I finish Final Fantasy IV Advance

PS3:

• Bulletstorm
• Final Fantasy XIII-2
• Child of Light
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution
• Fallout 3
•  Had this before, but got rid of it. Gotta give it another chance
• Dragon Age: Origins
• See above!
• Mass Effect 3
• LOVED the second one. Can't wait to play this.
• Resident Evil 6
• My wife and I played through, and loved, 5, for all its faults. We started this one, and she just wasn't feeling it at all. So I'm going solo. I will say, the insistence on those fucking timed-button press parts are infuriating. Can't wait for the Evil Within
•  Two Worlds II
• Another game I know gets bad-to-middling reviews, but I'm eager to try it.
• Saints Row IV
• Batman: Arkham Origins   -finished this 9/21/14
  
• Condemned 2: Bloodshot
• Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
• Splatterhouse (started PS3 game 11/15/14)
• As with the Sonic Collection, I mainly got this game because you can unlock the three original Splatterhouse games, and I'd love to play those. So if I have to slog through a mediocre God of War clone (with extreme gore at least), I'm fine with that. This sublist will be the three Splatterhouse games from this collection:
• Splatterhouse
• Splatterhouse II
• Splatterhouse III
• Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection
• Very excited about this one. Just realized very recently that probably every Genesis game I've ever wanted to play is on this collection. I generally dislike Genesis greatly, but there are some (hopefully) great games on here. This sublist will list all the games on this collection I'd like to play through and beat:
• Alien Storm
• Altered Beast
• Golden Axe
• Golden Axe II
• Golden Axe III
• Phantasy Star
• Phantasy Star II
• Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom
• Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium
• Shining Force: The Legacy of Great Intention
• Shining Force II
• Shining in the Darkness
• Streets of Rage
• Streets of Rage 2
• Streets of Rage 3
• Alien Syndrome    
• Ni No Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch
• Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare (DLC)
• I decided to include this as well. Not a full game, but as far as DLC, it's decently long. It's also the absolute BEST zombie-related DLC that's probably ever been released. 
• Kingdoms Of Amular: Reckoning
• Silent Hill: Downpour
• I'm a huge SH fan, and this, Origins, and Shattered Memories are the only ones I haven't played. Very much looking forward to playing Downpour (started this on 6/14/2014).        -finished this 7/6/14

    Well, there you have it folks! Check back here periodically, I'll strike these through when I finish them. Wish me luck. 

 

Evolution! v. 2.0

Because genius constantly evolves

  

 NOTE (8/15/14): I'M ABANDONING THE MUSIC IDEA. I'M JUST STICKING TO BOOKS/BOSSES/DARK SOULS II/BACKLOG. THAT'S ENOUGH. I'LL KEEP THIS UP FOR POSTERITY'S SAKE (I say that a lot)

    Okay folks, I wanna make a quick note here. This blog has evolved a LOT in the last 3+ months. Originally, it was going to be used to document boss battles. Then, it was going to just be a blog about my endeavors with all the games I had yet to beat (pay attention to this, it pertains to today). Then, it turned into that plus my thoughts/ramblings on the books I was reading. If a blog about video games and books wasn't random enough, I've decided I wanna bring music into the fold. As with my book thoughts, I'd like to make short posts about the music I listen to. I listen to a decently large variety of music, but it always comes back to metal music. I'm a metal-head at heart, even though I can listen to most music (and indeed, I'll hope to showcase that here). I have 500+ CDs (yup, I'm a chump that still buys physical Compact Discs), and my big idea is to showcase every one. I actually started doing this on Instagram (follow me, I'm @kalameet), and got a good 100+ CDs in, before I just gave up. If I do it here on this blog, I can expand my thoughts a bit, and hopefully I'll keep up with it. I know it's a huge undertaking, but each post won't be huge, so I should, in theory, be able to put up a few a week, at least.
    Now, on to the matter at hand for today. Last night, I went through and wrote down every game that I own that is in my "backlog" as it were. For the layman, basically any game I own but haven't beaten yet. I was shocked (shocked!, actually) to find I have a whopping 94 (that's NINETY-FOUR) games, across thirteen consoles, to play through. I honestly thought I only had maybe 50. Talk about eye opening. So, I'm going to compile that list on a blog post, and I'm going to update with my progress/thoughts/opinions of the games I'm playing. I'll include as many shitty pictures as I see fit. And, to tie the whole thing together, I will be putting special emphasis on games with good boss battles.
    So, that's that then. Thank you for sticking with me throughout this schizophrenic time. Enjoy reading about books/music/and video games.

BOOKS: Dolphin Island

Dolphins Really Are Super Smart

Dolphin Island, Arthur C. Clarke

    This was a book I was weary of reading, or even purchasing for that matter. Firstly, I LOVE Arthur C. Clarke. I've only read a handful of his books (half dozen, I think), but two, Rendezvous With Rama, and Childhood's End, were two of the best books I read in their respective years . His big claim to fame I would say is writing the book 2001: A Space Odyssey (he wrote the book as the movie was being made, which is interesting). That was a good book that I definitely need to re-read at some point. Anyway, the point is, he's known as a a heavy hitter in the sci-fi game. He's part of the "big three" of the sci-fi guys (the other two being Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov). Back to my introductory sentence, why was I weary of reading this? It's a short adventure book about...dolphins? That's the impression I got from reading the back. Doesn't sound too "sci-fi" to me, and frankly, I was thinking it was just a throwaway book amidst Clarke's fantastic bibliography. How wrong I was.
    I enjoyed this book immensely. Much more than I ever thought I might. Why did I enjoy it? Well, mostly for the reasons I said above. It's quick. It's interesting. It's not too-heavy in social commentary (I didn't think so anyway). It's fun. And this book, more so than maybe any book I've ever read, made me really wish I could visit the main location. It's a beautifully detailed island community. It made me want to swim in the ocean and explore coral reefs. I really don't like the water much, and I can't swim, so in general, I stay away from the ocean. The fact that this book made me want to immediately just drive to the beach, well, that says a whole lot.
 

    I'm very glad Clarke wrote this book. I know he is deeply invested in dolphins/the sea, and his knowledge shows. He expresses in the back of the book that some of his writing about dolphins here (mostly about their high intelligence) is fantasy. He says that while dolphins are very smart, they probably aren't as smart as he depicts them in the book. Despite that bit of truth-stretching, reading this book gave me a new appreciation of dolphins in general. It also does bring up some questions of morals, such as dolphins and their general freedom (it's said in the book that dolphins are free-er than humans, because they have the whole ocean, but later in the book humans start training the dolphins to find ship wrecks, coral fish for fishermen, etc., and it's brought into question if we are indeed lessening their freedom by doing this). It's interesting to think about freedom as a whole, and are you still free if you are essentially being controlled, even just slightly?
    One very interesting bit of the story that gets little time spent on it (which, in the end, is probably for the best) is during the middle, and at the very end, of the book, there is a small mention of an alien spacecraft that crashed eons ago. It is implied that there are dolphin storytellers that have heard the tale (or is it really truth?) from older storytellers, who in turn have heard it from even older storytellers, and so forth. I enjoyed chewing on this bit of randomness, and it almost seems, judging by the very end of the book, that Clarke could write a second dolphin book that centers more on the search for this spacecraft.
    This book didn't have the bloody fighting and moral/religious quandaries of Orphans Of The Sky, and it didn't have the bizarre alien presence and mystery of Solaris, but I think this book was my favorite of the three. It's short, and for someone with time, it could be read in one sitting. It's well-written, and concise, and, as I mentioned, man did it have some great descriptions of the reefs and diving.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a fun adventure book. Maybe you'll learn a thing or two about dolphins!

BOOKS: Orphans Of The Sky

By Jordan! What the huff is going on here?

Orphans Of The Sky, by Robert A. Heinlein

 

    I'd like to get something out of the way now, before I continue with my thoughts of this (generally) good book. I did a little reading on Goodreads about this book. It's average rating is 3.78 (out of 5), so almost 4 out of 5. Pretty good. I saw some people complaining about the misogynistic tones of this (and other Heinlein/50's-era sci-fi work) book, however. I went into this book, not judging, necessarily, but with a keener eye to try to pick up on this. I've enjoyed a few Heinlein novels that I read years ago (Starship Troopers, Door Into Summer, The Man Who Sold The Moon, The Unpleasant Profession Of Jonathan Hoag, and Citizen Of the Galaxy, but I really didn't care for that one), so I'm not new to him. I honestly cannot possible recall any sort of anti-woman things in those. That doesn't mean they aren't there, I just haven't read those books in a long time. I'm sure they do exist in those books, but I was a dumb teenager and didn't notice them. Now I'm a dumb adult. Unfortunately, there is some misogynistic garbage in here.
    The book is short (my copy was 128 pages), and basically the first 100 pages are fine. There is a passing mention of woman at the beginning, and then nothing until the end. Perhaps the fact that there are no female characters in the book, by and large, can be seen as misogynistic, but that didn't bother me too much. I mean, half the characters in the book are mutants anyway. However, the finale of the book has several cringe-worthy passages. The main character, Hugh, has two wives. Apparently, in this universe, it's the husband's job to name his wife (I guess?). He doesn't even give his second wife a name, and is so gracious as to allow his first wife to keep her old name. What a guy! It must be stated, Hugh has both these wives simultaneously. Other than this, the general tone of how the wives are treated is pretty bad. They are basically just less-than-human (maybe even less than the mutants? The mutants get much more respect from Hugh, and the two other main "good guys", Alan and Bill Ertz) pieces of properties of the men. It's a shame that this comes up, and it adds to the underwhelming ending of the book.
    Let's discuss some good. Overall, this was an enjoyable book, and it had an interesting idea. It's kind of a slam on organized religion (which I'm always down for), and shows how easy it is to manipulate people into believing whatever you tell them. The gist of it is that there's a gigantic spaceship floating through space, and it's inhabitants were all born on the ship, and they all think the ship is their entire universe. Nothing exists outside of the ship. I mean, how can something exist outside of the entire universe? Let's just say, all it takes to convince the main characters is a look at the stars beyond their ship, in the recesses of space.
    There is a whole religion and a set of rules based upon the idea that The Ship (as it is referred to throughout) is the universe. Learning about how the people on the ship live is interesting. It's an existence similar-yet-bafflingly-different than ours. I will say, the mutants (oft-referred to as "muties", which I assume is a derogatory term, although the mutants themselves use it too) were my favorite part of the book. They are basically just humans that were born deformed (due to space radiation, I wanna say), and ostracized from society. The humans fear them, and want them dead. The strongest of them is a two-headed man named Joe-Jim (not a hillbilly, actually. One head is named Jim, one is named Joe). They can be brutally violent (especially barely-brained Bobo. He constantly looks for opportunities for violence and to just eat people), but they don't yearn for it.
    This was an easy read, and I faced none of the confusion I did with Solaris, although I still preferred that book. The ending of this book (despite a nice, bloody final battle) was just a bit too deus-ex-machina for me. In describing how the main characters escape certain death, Heinlein uses the word "luck" (or any of its derivatives) at least half a dozen times. They were lucky enough to be able to use the space pod. They were lucky that it was easy to pilot, despite none of them knowing really how to operate it. They were lucky to be close enough to land on a moon. And hey, they were sure as hell lucky that the moon they landed on was inhabitable.
    Besides the final ten-or-so pages (with all the awful treatment of women, and all that damn luck), this is a good, fast read. It's interesting, has some good action, some diverse mutant characters, and some religious/social commentary. I'm sure you could do far worse.

I'd suggest this book. If you are super-sensitive about characters (and most likely the author) subscribing to the ancient bullshit of women not being equal, perhaps you should pass. 

 

BOOKS: Solaris

You'll never look at alien oceans the same again!

Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem

 

    I don't want to relegate these posts to book reviews, per say (because honestly, there's more than enough people doing that, and doing it much better than I ever could, for me to bother attempting a serious review), but more my general thoughts and opinions about the work. I will give no score, but I will indicate my suggestion to read it or not. So, let's begin, shall we?

    Some time back, I was searching the interwebs (or, interwebz) for book recommendations. I've been on a heavy sci-fi kick the last few years, so that's where my searching lead me. I found a few "must read" sci-fi books lists, and this was on one of them (if I could possibly remember where I found it, I'd link to it. It was probably more than a year ago, if not longer). I read the words, "sentient ocean", and I was in. I've been wanting to find this book for a while. My wife and I, a few weekends ago, went to our favorite used books store, called, well, Used Book Superstore (here's a link: http://www.usedbooksuperstore.com/). They used to have five locations in southern NH and Massachusetts. Unfortunately, all but two of the Mass locations remain. However, they are the two best of those five anyway. They always have crazy discounts, and most books are between $1.99-$4.99. Okay, enough advertising for them.
    Anyway, we went to the one in Burlington, Mass, and found nothing. We decided to try the one in Danvers, which is only about twenty minutes away. As I thought I was setting myself up for more disappointment, I saw this: (!!)

    Automatically, a fairly crappy bookstore(s) visit turned into an awesome one. I snatched this up, and I couldn't wait to read it. Finally, last week, I started it. Since my memory is abnormally lousy, I usually have a tough time recalling everything I've read in a book. So I decided I'd keep notes about this book. This decision also made it easy for me to write up these book thoughts.
    I'm a slow reader, but this book is short, and it goes fast. I read it in a week, which is pretty good for my slow ass. Overall, I liked this book. It was imaginative, weird, confusing (more on that in a moment), and thoughtful. It was actually much different than I thought it was going to be. It's not a bunch of scientists just shooting the shit with the ocean for 211 pages (which I thought it might be), it's far different. The sentient alien ocean, which is (most likely) the only creature living on the planet Solaris, doesn't talk in a traditional sense. It doesn't do anything in a traditional sense. It's very difficult for the human scientists to wrap their minds around this thing. It's so alien, very little is known of it. By the end of the book, both the scientists and reader gain little information about exactly how the ocean works. This is fine with me, I enjoy letting my imagination fill in the blanks. Not everything needs an explanation, and some things just don't have an explanation (at least one that can be understood by human minds).
    I'm not going to summarize the book here. Even though it's a short book, my summary would be needlessly long and probably slightly incoherent, as I'm wont to pop in with innumerable parenthetical notes every other sentence. You can find better summaries elsewhere (I'm great at getting people to leave my page), but I'll briefly talk about two chapters that confused me. The first was chapter eight, entitled, "The Monsters". In it, Kelvin (the main character) reads, at length, from a book in the station's library about the ocean, and it's various forms and structures. The basic gist of the chapter is that the ocean, through long, fantastic processes, creates huge, alien structures that line the planet/ocean. They all have strange names like, "mimoid", and, "symmetriad". It was one of the longer chapters in the books, and it dragged a bit. Lots of flowery language and (for me, at least) tough-to-imagine scenarios with alien geography. I suppose you could look at that as further proof as to just how bizarre Solaris, and it's inhabitant ocean, is, but I find it just a bit annoying.
    This book has lots of chapters where Kelvin reads books and disseminates info from them to the reader. The other chapter that I had a hard(ish) time following was chapter eleven, "The Thinkers". This one has Kelvin reading more books/pamphlets from the library. This time, they are about so-called, "Solarists", or people who closely follow/study the happenings of the strange planet. It goes through several theories that scientists throughout the ages have had about Solaris, and it just becomes too much. It gets boring, and it's a dry read. I found myself reading without really absorbing. Almost reading for the sake of getting through, to the next chapter.
    Other than those two chapters, the rest of the book was a delight. It makes you think about life other than human life. It makes you think about how much we just don't know about literally everything, besides ourselves and human life. And even that, we aren't too sure of. I'm interested in reading more from Mr. Lem, and hopefully I have an easier time locating them than I did with Solaris.

I'd recommend this book. Just pay attention when you read some of the info-heavy chapters. 

 

Evolution!

And it didn't even take tens of thousands of years!

    Okay, guys and gals. We've come to a crossroads of sorts. When I first conceived of this blog, it was going to be strictly about boss battles. And since Dark Souls II had just come out, and since those games (in general) have amazing boss battles, I figured what a great place to start. After finishing the game, I was stuck. What game could I go to next that had great bosses that I could write about? Nothing much came to mind (besides the first two Souls games). Then I thought of the God Of War series. Now that's a series that has great boss battles. But, I've beaten all but the most recent game (Ascension). While I would like to go back and replay those games, I have such a gigantic backlog of games (from NES up to PS3) that I decided it was time to start playing through them. I figured, perhaps I could take pictures, and document my blind progress through all these games. Original? Certainly not. But perhaps I could bring a slightly different perspective? Maybe people like my inane ramblings?
    I'll take pictures also, and I'd like to take this space here to apologize, once and for all, for the quality of the pictures. As this is still largely just a service to myself (I'm my target audience at this point, because I'm not convinced, despite the page view numbers, that more than one or two people really even look at this. Thanks spambots!), I don't have the money nor justification to buy that fancy capturing hard/software. I would like it, because I'm sure it makes things much easier, but that's likely not happening. I'll try to take the best pics I can with my phone, and use those. Who knows, if people actually like reading what I write, maybe I can save and splurge on a capture device.
    So, that's that. Going forward, the video game section of this here blog will be my documentations of playing through these games, with an emphasis on bosses, where applicable.
    Wait, video game section? Isn't it ALL video games, you might ask yourself. The short answer is

NO!!

 

    Now, for the long answer. Another passion of mine is reading. After a long drought of non-reading, I'm getting back into it. I've decided I'm going to post my thoughts on what I'm reading. Not reviews, let's say (overdone, eh?), but just my general thoughts and opinions. Now, this may be interesting for the following reason: I'm blind and can't read books* I'm not really smart. I mean, I'm not an idiot, but when it comes to reading and interpreting what I read, well, I'm bad. My imagination has a very difficult time sometimes putting the words on the page into coherent images in my mind. As I read mostly sci-fi, this is sort of problematic. Perhaps with my writings here, I can do two things: help myself figure out/remember things I've read, and let other people know that it's okay not to understand everything you read. You don't need to be an English teacher to appreciate a book. If you read a book, and then you read the reviews of said book, and all you find are people arguing the many enlightened themes of said book, and you say to yourself, "I thought it was just about a planet full of monkeys?", well, then know you are not alone. Maybe this is the place for you. Semi-intelligent book discussion, without people looking down on you!


    So, there it is, ladies and germs. I'd say the split will be 75% video games, 25% books (I'm a slow reader, coupled with my finite amount of time per day I get to read). Hopefully, if any real person reads any of this, they'll enjoy it. My first post under the new format will be for a SNES game called Phantom 2040. I'm not sure when it will be up, but I'd like something to be up by the holiday weekend. See you all there!

Boss Stats and Numbers

Get ready for grade-level arithmetic!

    I died a lot in Dark Souls II over 112+ hours between two characters. Specifically (for the purpose of this blog), I died a lot on bosses too. I'm going to break down some simple numbers and go into a bit of depth about how I fared against the thirty (30!) bosses in the game.


    Firstly, my total death count to all the bosses on my initial playthough was 179. 179 over 30 bosses. That is an average of 5.9 deaths per boss (a few high numbers, and few zeroes, really skew the numbers)! That can basically be rounded up to six deaths per boss battles. What other games can you think of where you die an average of SIX TIMES PER BOSS? Imagine if you died six times on every boss in Final Fantasy VII, for instance. You think Dark Souls II has a lot of bosses? That game has probably double the amount, at least (factoring in the sidequest ones too). God, playtime on that game would be outrageous. Imagine if you died six times to all the bosses in ANY turn-based RPG? Yikes.


    My most deaths on any boss was a staggering 21. This happened on two different bosses: Lost Sinner and the Belfry Gargoyles. That's 42 deaths to kill two bosses. I would imagine that that's more than you would die in most other games, altogether. Also, for fun's sake, the boss I died to the most on Dark Souls was (surprise, surprise) Ornstein & Smough. I don't know the number exactly (it was years ago, after all), but I have no doubt that it was in the mid-twenties, at least. A nice note from the here and now, I'm currently playing Dark Souls, going for the platinum for that one (only need two trophies), and I just can. Not. Beat. Gwyn. Ugh. He is another boss from this game that is pretty high on the death list I believe (and to hell with your parrying suggestion. I can't parry). Now, the boss I died to the most in Demon's Souls was probably Flamelurker. Final note about Demon's, I remember easily beating both Fool's Idol and Old King Allant my first time through, and on basically every subsequent playthrough, they both (especially Allant) give me huge problems. Yeah, Fool's Idol. Lame.


    Conversely, I killed five bosses on my first try. These were: Giant Lord, Prowler Magus, Scorpioness Najka, Mytha, Baneful Queen, and Flexile Sentry). In comparison, if memory serves correct, in Dark Souls, I killed Iron Golem, Pinwheel, and I believe Demon Firesage and Centipede Demon on first tries (not 100% on those last two. They were no more than 1 death, for sure). For Demon's Souls, I think the only ones I killed on my first try were Leechmonger and Dirty Colossus. For such brutally tough areas, those guys are pushovers.


     Now, delving into my self-appointed (and only slightly arbitrary) difficulty ratings, we see that the average difficulty rating is an underwhelming 4.6, which would roughly be the difficulty of somewhere between Executioner's Chariot, Pursuer, and Velstadt. No bosses got a 1, a 4.5, or a 10 for their ratings. The highest rating was a 9.5, for only one boss battle (two bosses), that being those pesky Throne defenders. Three bosses got ratings of only 1.5, which would be the lowest (this dubious honor goes to Mytha, the Skeleton Lords, and poor old Magus). Now, a bit of a rant. Not entirely a rant, but I see people all over the forums and message boards I look at, and many people complain the bosses in this game are too easy. Are they really though? Sure, there were definitely some simple ones here, but I think that's more to do with the sheer number of them. I will say, I was dismayed a bit, initially, with the difficulty of some of the bosses. There were enough tough, challenging bosses to ultimately satisfy me, however.
    So let's quickly think back to Demon's and Dark Souls, and the difficulty of their bosses. Now that we've separated ourselves from the games (Demon's is FIVE years old, while Dark is about 2.5 years old), we can truly look back on the games and realize, "eh, there's not many hard bosses in these games either." Case in point: how many really tough bosses are there in Demon's Souls? I would consider tough to be an 8 or above on my difficulty scale. Going in order, starting at 1-1, Old King Allant (probably the hardest in that whole game), Flamelurker, and the Maneaters. Other than that, are any of the bosses worthy of an almighty "8"? Let's start again from the beginning, for a very quick rundown:

• Phalanx: easy
• Tower Knight: intimidating at first, but easy
• Penetrator: medium (unless Biorr is helping, then SUPER easy)
• Armor Spider: is pretty close to being on that 8+ list, but you can kill him from afar with well-timed dodges, and a hell of a lot of arrows
• Dragon God: easy
• Fool's Idol: easy, but can be super annoying (at least for me)
• Old Monk: if you're fighting the computer (which I assume everyone is at this point): pretty easy. If you're fighting a human, well results may vary. Could very well be the toughest battle in the game
• Adjudicator: annoying (because of the small area you fight him in), but ultimately easy
• Old Hero: a joke
• Storm King: can be annoying as hell, but easy
• Everything in world 5 is simple

    So, three hard bosses out of all those? Now let's go to the original Dark Souls. Same game: how many tough bosses? Ornstein & Smough (no doubt), Four Kings (even this is very questionable, but I'll include them), and Gwyn (no parrying, anyway). There are some fringe players too (I'm not going through the whole boss roster): Capra Demon (because of that bullshittingly small room) and Sif. I will say, the DLC is no fucking joke. All four of those bosses I'd probably rate at least a 7 (and truly, after Sanctuary Guardian, the final three might be 8.5+). So again, three bosses, with a possible two more.
    Now, what does this mean for Dark Souls II? Well, if anything, that there are as many hard boss battles as in the previous games, but because there are more of them, and they are more spaced out (the hard ones I mean), it seems that there aren't as many.
    Finally, here's a more detailed breakdown difficulty ratings from Dark Souls II (meaning, the number of battles that fall between the specific difficulty rating):

0 - 2.5:   9
3 - 5.5:   9
6 - 8:     7
8.5 - 10: 5


    I think that's all I can squeeze out of difficulty ratings. I think that's it anyways. So, what have we learned, exactly? I love these games too damn much. Really, there is no other conclusion that can be drawn. Why put so much work into something like this? It's a labor of love, and it was a blast to put together. I love writing (even if I don't "blog" like a pro. I'm sure my paragraph structure and order is not optimized, and I'm sure the tense of most of my writing is out of whack. Sit on it, Potsie!), and I love these (and many other) games.



     At first, I was going to say I was going to have one final Souls post, that would rank all the bosses from all the games, but as I've been compiling this list, I realized it was a fool's errand. It's very difficult to rank 73 bosses in an honest, complete way. Meaning, how much of a difference is there really, between numbers 56 and 57? It all comes down to arbitrary minutia. So, I'm not going to make the list. Perhaps one day I'll do a top ten list. So, sorry if you're disappointed (you aren't trust me). Stay tuned for what's coming on this (ever-evolving) blog!