First impressions of Blizzard's polarizing new game

Saying first impressions is a bit deceptive because I have actually beaten Diablo III on normal already, but I'm not in the mindset to review the game. I'm moving through nightmare difficulty with my first character, a demon hunter, and going through it the first time with my second character, a wizard. I've certainly been enjoying D3, but it has some flaws. Knowing Blizzard, they'll be updating the game bit by bit for years to come alongside an inevitable expansion pack or two, but saying this does not negate any current problems.

For now I'll briefly mention some of the main things that stood out to me. I think the game's interface has been improved and streamlined considerably from D2's, making for a smoother experience while removing some annoyances that just plain weren't fun. Health globes and more readily available resources to use skills keep the action flowing much more so than the game's predecessors. I like that I can customize my characters' skills anytime, allowing me to try new things and find combinations that work well rather than feeling nervous about every precious point I received to allocate in D2. My characters feel like they're powerful, able to handle the onslaught of foes before them, and this is a good feeling.

Now for a few things I don't care so much for. I don't particularly like that D3 is even more gear dependent than D2, although this isn't as big of hit against the game as it would be if this is something I'd merely heard before actually playing it. The auction house is certainly something I'm ambivalent to at best. What really annoys me though is that it must be played online even if I'm playing single player (which is how I play it), although this is something I knew about well in advance and prepared myself for.

Those are my first impressions in short. I have more I could add on what has been mentioned so far, but I'm holding off at least for now. Overall though I definitely like the game, but I am beginning to see why it has become very polarizing among its' players. I've heard from many people who really like the game and probably from even more who definitely do not. With the fame of D2 to live up to, it's understandable how the game is bringing out strong feelings.

A Diablo of a finer vintage

I admit I was pretty hard on Diablo (henceforth D1 with similar abbreviations, etc.) in my earlier post on it, especially because it was a game that very adeptly mixed many different types of gameplay for its time. The main thing I was getting at was despite this the game has not aged well and the biggest reason why is its sequel did so much to improve the formula that it made it difficult to go back to its predecessor. High praise for Diablo II actually. A more factual tidbit to support this praise is that to this day D2 remains on many top 10 lists for PC games and after 12 years it is still readily available pretty much anywhere that sells computer games. Outside of another of Blizzard's prize stallions, Starcraft, this is unprecedented.

It maintains the addictive mix of exploring, killing evil things and finding loot that D1 had and improves substantially on the formula. In D1, there's one small town and one very deep dungeon (essentially), but D2 is composed of four acts plus a fifth with an expansion and besides Act IV they are each individually larger in scope than the entire first game. The first major addition is the over world of large open areas to venture into the countryside, finding both essential and optional dungeons to explore along the way. Instead of painfully plodding along you can now run, moving faster from place to place and in combat situations. While I normally wouldn't count running as a big advancement for a game (I would think it'd be a given actually), it does wonders to improve upon D1. D2's predecessor, as I mention in my overview of it, was not only slow but extremely restrictive to move around in and this hampered gameplay significantly. No longer are enemies that can teleport or run away the bane of my character's existence; yes they still exist and are annoying, but they don't stop the game from being fun.

On the topic of fun, another big difference is the diverse number of ways the game can be played. In D1, the classes respectively specialized in melee combat, ranged combat and magic, but basically they could all do the same things (a warrior could use magic, a sorcerer could wield swords). The main thing separating them was their attributes affecting how well they could do various actions. D2 vastly improves on this by offering five classes, plus two with the expansion, that are vastly different from each other. Each have their own unique abilities and beyond that, their skills can individually be customized in many different ways. The sorceress for example has skill trees for fire, ice and lightning spells and generally players who use her will want to focus on specific spells within two of the three skill trees, but if you want to be creative it's possible to use all three or just specialize in one (although I wouldn't recommend it for higher difficulties).

I chose barbarian this time around because it's the only class I haven't bothered to go through the game with. Now having done so, I can't say I regret my decision to ignore him. It wasn't difficult to take him through normal, but I found him very dull compared to the other classes. His is a very gear-dependent class and one problem I have with D2 is when the right gear becomes necessary for a character to advance. Now when I say the right gear I don't mean the crap the NPC merchants sell or the majority of what enemies you kill drop, I mean stuff you have to be very vigilant or lucky to find. I don't want to run a section of the game ad nauseam, fighting other players on who can click on the good loot drops first (if playing with others), to advance. Now my barbarian had a bit of an inferiority complex to my Act II mercenary for most of the game and even though completing the game wasn't really a problem, I felt weaker than I should have for most of it. I'm not sure how many other players share my feelings on this, but as someone who has only intermittently played the game I've often felt very outclassed when it comes to gear. Even though it's meant to be a loot-driven game, there's something about how the formula actually works that I've never been happy about.

Like D1, D2 certainly looked good for its time and to this day its' relatively detailed sprites give it strong visuals and art direction. I'm not the biggest fan of rendered graphics, which is what Blizzard used for both D1 and D2 along with Starcraft. For those who don't know, rendered graphics involves first making a 3D model of something like a character and then creating a 2D sprite of that model. It allows the game to display an approximation of the 3D model without causing the demand to actually render it. Rare of old had considerable success with this for the Donkey Kong Country games on the Super Nintendo. The Golden Sun games on the Game Boy Advance also made passable use of the technique. Although as I said I'm not big on this method in general, Blizzard is certainly experienced at rendered graphics and D2 may be the game that used them best.

When it comes to sound, D2 is again very similar to D1 with largely atmospheric background noise and music belittled by the number of whacks, spell flinging and groans you are more likely to hear. The amount of character dialogue is considerably increased and this is welcome. Besides Deckard Cain and very occasionally the witch Adria, nobody in D1 had much that was terribly interesting to hear. Plenty of new characters occupy D2's few safe havens and most have remarks to pass on about the world and the story, although I imagine most people completely bypass this section of the game.

Despite all the good, I'll admit I've grown a little tired with the game. I've played through it about four times with my favorite class, necromancer, and at least once now with all the others. However, the game has amazing replayability and even now I would still like to try out some of the available characters in different ways. It's just that I have to be in the right mood to play (same as everything really) and these moods are becoming more infrequent.

I am somewhat disappointed in Blizzard's present lack of support for the game on modern operating systems like Vista and Windows 7. Yes, the game is 12 years old and normally I'd give a developer a pass for not keeping a game up after so long, but D2 is still widely available in a battle chest where computer games are sold as I mentioned previously. I don't understand how they can continue to keep the game in stores but leave it a nightmare to get to work correctly on modern computers. Choosing to run it in compatibility mode didn't even begin to fix it for me or for many from what I've read. It took quite a bit of research to find a solution after going through multiple ways others used with the same operating system version as me.

Now that I'm finally finished with D2 I'll at long last be getting Diablo III. Hopefully my computer will be able to handle it well enough. I've been a bit torn between choosing the demon hunter or the wizard as my first character, so depending on how things go I'll post next weekend on my first impressions of the game.

Update on this blog thing

So it has been about a month and a half since I started 8-bit Smirk. I think it's been working out alright, although it feels like there's always so much I have to do and so much else I want to do. That's pretty typical though. I started the blog to essentially be a journal of sorts and in this respect it's been a success. Not so very long ago I had a friend tell me he wanted to start cutting gaming out of his life to focus on other pursuits, not least of all the noble goal of improving himself to be a more well rounded and knowledgeable person. I respect that decision, but it's not one I would ever see myself making. If this makes sense, removing gaming from my life would amount of removing much of me from myself. Gaming is more than just a hobby, it's one of the few things I have passion for and gives me motivation to deal with the things I don't want to be bothered with. More than that though, it is one of the things that defines me as a person. I am a writer, I am an outsider, and I am a gamer. For a more general defense of gaming, refer to my introductory post.

It often feels like there are so many games and so little time, especially when I think of big series I've yet to really explore like Mass Effect and Persona, and when it comes to writing this blog it seems like I'm always getting behind on what I'd like to get posted. That has particularly been the case for about a month now due to some major disruptions in my life. I had to change apartments and I have also been undergoing what I would term epic computer problems. Due to these things I was a bit scattered in what I felt like playing while my Diablo project fell by the wayside.

Recently I started a third character, a mage, in the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. While I liked playing from a new perspective, the character has been the most difficult to play as and so far the least enjoyable. I've played and beaten all the main Elder Scrolls games and I've never really enjoyed magic-using characters in the series, so it's nothing new for me. Eventually I want to do a whole writeup on Skyrim and really get into some details, but that time is not now. Perhaps sometime around when the first DLC, Dawnguard, is released. I will say at this time that the game will be a strong contender for one of my top favorite games ever, although that's a decision for after some time has passed.

When I am out and about on the weekend I typically like to keep a pick up and play sort of game with me, and for the last couple weeks that game has been Castlevania: Circle of the Moon in my trusty Game Boy Advance SP. Sometime I'd like to really write on the Castlevania series, which has many games that rank highly with me. Circle of the Moon is among this number and it's position has considerably improved over time. When it came out alongside the Game Boy Advance, the system it was designed for, played it in a way that was just barely visible. Every other system afterward that could play GBA games has been an improvement on visibility and this has helped the game greatly. It also has great replayability: I'm currently toward the end of my fourth playthrough. How the different unlocked modes switch up how the game plays offers some good variety. The player character, Nathan Graves, is also among my favorites of the series' vampire hunters. He has a great name, great look and he pretty much ignores the game's annoying rival character who eventually just ends up embarrassing himself basically. Anyway, great game.

I mentioned my Diablo project a bit ago, which I will be resuming where I left off at now that I have a computer I can use for it. First I will be completing Diablo 2, which I stopped playing shortly after the end of Act I when the epic problems began more than a month ago, and write a similar overview of my thoughts on it that I did for the first game. Don't worry, it'll be quite a bit more positive. The idea of the project was I fully go through D1 and D2 before finally getting to Diablo III. I'd intended to be ready for this eagerly anticipated game when it was released May 15, not a month later, but as Philip J. Fry once said: time makes fools of us all.

R-Type-ing

While I wouldn't say the side scrolling (or vertical) shooter genre is one of my favorites, it is one I have some nostalgia for. Within the genre itself there is no series this is truer for than R-Type. Super R-Type on the SNES was my introduction to the series, and an unforgiving introduction at that considering there are no midway checkpoints in the stages for when you die. I put R-Type Final in recently and started just messing around on my save with a completed ship library, but when it came to trying to get through some of the later levels in my unpractised state I decided I wasn't really in the mood for dying over and over to get good enough to proceed further. So I decided to move on to something else, and yet shortly afterward I found myself downloading R-Type III: The Third Lightning on the Wii's Virtual Console. Apparently I did feel like dying over and over in a game. Excessively so.

R-Type III is one of the few games I just gave up on trying to beat. I don't recall every game that would make this list, but Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage for the SNES is also a prime member of it. While I was able to complete R-Type III once upon a time by cheating basically, the thought of getting through the lava flow nightmare in the foundry level alone filled me with the gamer equivalent of mortal dread. I wouldn't say the game is my white whale, but it's within that ballpark. So anyway that's the game I decided to start up and within a 24-hour period I somehow managed to beat it. It was certainly a proud moment. I managed both forward and backwards through the lava flows, through the fifth level of corridors that morph into enemies, and then defeated what I'd previously believed to be a nightmarish final boss. Oh I died many, many times, but I persevered like a kid on the weekend without a single other thing to do. As epic as the final boss is it wasn't nearly as hard as I remember it. I think psychology played a role in that. To begin with things are pretty standard until you think you destroy it, blowing its limbs across the screen, but then you discover victory was premature as the limbs dart around trying to take revenge for the death of their body. Just as it starts to feel hopeless firing at the deadly limbs with a life of their own, you discover the final boss is still very much alive, tearing a dimensional hole in space as it chases after you. So yeah, epic.

To critique R-Type III a bit, it is a very strong entry in the series. Despite its brutal difficulty it at least is mostly generous when it comes to checkpoints and continuing. It has very nice looking sprites, a great soundtrack, and the controls are precise. The player's R-Type ship is a powerful little bastard and its available choice of three forces was the series' first attempt to offer some real variety in play style. As brutal as the game is, it would be impossible without the ship's extremely potent wave cannon.

After finishing the game I was still looking for more from the series, so I started on R-Type Delta, which is my favorite entry in all ways besides the massive number of playable ships in R-Type Final. Visuals and audio are both quite good, but the levels are where the game truly shines. There's something about them that is nostalgic yet fresh, exciting yet laced with atmosphere. You also get the chance to fight some really interesting things. It is R-Type though so of course it is hard, but unlike many other entries the difficulty rarely feels unfair, although there is a stretch of the fifth level that is absolutely brutal on any difficulty but easy. Years ago I had the game down very well and it was a learning process to get even close to my previous skill level, which unfortunately I don't think I was able to achieve. Excellent game though, one that is readily accessible through the Playstation Store.

My last real stop was a game I'd have my eye on for quite some time, R-Type Dimensions. The game, downloadable for the equivalent of $15 on Xbox Live Arcade, is both a faithful port and remake of the two arcade titles that started the entire series. Players can change at the press of a button anytime during gameplay between the original graphics or new 3D ones. However, even R-Type III has nothing on the difficulty of its arcade predecessors. These games were not just designed to take quarters, it seems like they were designed to take all the quarters and still leave you on a screen with a boss that just refused to let you kill it. Very fortunately, there is an unlimited lives mode where the only penalty is the depressing thought of just how many ships it takes to make it through the harder levels (essentially every level after the first or second stages). Instead of going back to a checkpoint a new ship immediately appears in this mode. While the control is precise for the ship, control of the force leaves a bit to be desired compared to later entries, but I suppose that's part of it being a faithful port. None of the music or sound effects were updated and although I wouldn't have said no to redone music, it's not something that bothered me. Something that does bother me are both included games' final bosses, which I guess technically glitch in unlimited lives mode if not killed quickly enough. These things were not meant to be fought without power ups and eventually they just kill you instantly over and over as new ships appear since they are unable to keep up as the difficulty of the fights escalate. Was R-Type Dimensions worth $15? Honestly, probably not, but despite that I'm glad I have access to it all.

So there you have it, my recent foray into my favorite shooter series. The mood to play R-Type will again someday rear its head out of the chest of Dobkeratops and when that day comes I will be ready to pilot an R-9 again.

Apparently monkey catching

Ape Escape 3 was my next miniature project following Klonoa and unlike Klonoa I'd been having it waiting in the wings for awhile since I purchased it used not very long ago. I haven't played Ape Escape 2 yet, but I did play the first and in general not much seems to have changed. That's not really a bad thing, although I can't say I particularly like the analog stick-focused gameplay. In a way that's saying a lot of my feelings for the game in a nutshell, because this type of gameplay is such a prominent feature of the game. However, despite not being very fond of the controls it was still more or less enjoyable. It's still fun to frantically run around catching or sneaking up on the game's monkeys with all the same gadgets.

One strong, positive feeling I have of the game is for the level design. The premise of the game is that monkeys are using TV to take over the world and put everyone into a trance. Levels the player visits are all movie sets responsible for the broadcasts. The number of genres and environments represented as well as references to specific movies and shows is staggering. While the individual levels each follow a sort of theme, even within individual levels there is a great deal of variety. An example is a level that starts off with kind of an Indiana Jones theme in sort of a rugged, mountain area with a water fall. Up from this area are some ancient ruins, and beyond those is some sort of transporter that goes up into the sky to an Olympus- or heaven-like area with angel monkeys flying around.

Graphics are simple looking and generally cartoonish, but that's not a bad thing. The look works well for the game. I've already talked about the levels, which are a plus for the graphics because so much looks fresh when you can see it rather than the same thing over and over. Music is mostly upbeat and somewhat catchy. The English voice acting is where Ape Escape 3 hits a big snag when it comes to sound though. Just by playing through the levels I can tell the game is supposed to be completely ridiculous and funny, but the generic and lifeless voices given to the characters are adept at sucking away all possible humor whenever they pop up in cut scenes and tutorials. On that topic, the tutorials are needlessly redundant and numerous, although at least it's not usually a big problem to skip through them.

A new element to the Ape Escape series this game brings is the morph ability, which allows the player to temporarily become something like a knight, ninja or western gunslinger. Each offers corresponding abilities that are generally an upgrade to both catching monkeys and doing damage to the rare boss. I guess I can't exactly say I dislike these morphs, but there is something about them I'm not crazy about even though it's hard to describe what exactly that is. It almost feels like cheating to become one and then spam one technique over and over to bypass the regular gameplay. They do go along with the game's theme of traveling through many different TV genres.

Overall Ape Escape 3 was a better game than the first if only for the diverse environments. Otherwise, it's the same monkey catching action, which as I've said isn't a bad thing.

Suddenly inflating with Klonoa

Klonoa: Door to Phantomile was even more random of a pick of what to play next than Beautiful Katamari was. I was in somewhat of a hiatus and I didn't feel like much of anything, so I started throwing ideas around my head. One of them was Klonoa, which I noticed had recently become one of the PS1 games available on the Playstation Store. I really didn't know much about Klonoa. The only way I knew the character and its games existed was due to some sort of cameo he made in one of the Tales games. I'm not even sure which one, but it may have been Tales of the Abyss. Anyway, I wanted to try it out eventually considering that from what I could gather it was a critically acclaimed 2D platformer.

As much as I liked the game, I don't think it has left a terribly strong impression on me, but I can certainly see why it is liked. Strong graphics, strong music and strong gameplay is a good combination. The story and the characters were a little inane, but at least the characters all have gibberish voices in the semi-frequent cut scenes (the voices could have been much, much worse). The game also has two main drawbacks. First, it's short. As good as it is it really didn't last long and I ended up getting the majority of the optional stuff with very little backtracking (the collectible is rescuing random characters). Second, I encountered glitches. This may be only for playing it on the PSP, but the game froze up in several cut scenes and without fail during the end level fanfare of 2-2. After doing some checking online it seems I'm not the only one to have had these problems. Eventually I just learned to always skip the fanfare as soon as possible to avoid any chance of the game freezing after I finished a level. So, it wasn't insurmountable, but I did end up repeating 2-2 about five times between it freezing during a cut scene and then systematically after I completed it. It nearly ruined the game for me because I was about ready to put it down in frustration.

Fortunately I didn't because I encountered few problems through the rest of the game. The gameplay mechanic of inflating enemies and either using them as weapons or a double jump is fairly unique, although it also never really stopped feeling a bit odd. I wouldn't mind playing the Wii port of the game to see how they updated the graphics and I'd also like to hunt down Klonoa 2 on the Playstation 2 eventually. Considering the glitches, I wouldn't recommend playing the game on the PSP like I did assuming there is a widespread problem, especially if you can play it on something else.

Randomly rolling

Sometimes you just feel like rolling. Rolling a Katamari that is. Once the compulsion hit me I decided to direct my efforts toward Beautiful Katamari, mostly because it's the only Katamari game I haven't quite played out yet. Unfortunately, as I do not have a Playstation 3, Forever Katamari is not among the games I have access to. I have an inkling that it's better than Beautiful Katamari however.

Beautiful Katamari is one of the weaker entries in the series I think and a significant reason for why is it easily has the weakest soundtrack. Not a single one of my favorite music tracks from previous games made it into the score, and although there are a few decent songs nothing really stands out. There are even fewer tracks I want to listen to repeatedly or for as long as some of the courses last. Considering in my last post I said I don't really have an ear for music, this may sound like a reversal, but music has been a unique strength of the Katamari series and is pretty important to enjoying the gameplay for me.

Fortunately, the gameplay remains very good and Beautiful Katamari does introduce some interesting new environments to roll in. The interior areas that smaller Katamari have access to like the restaurant, store and supermarket are fun and interesting. The themes of the stages this time around are pretty easy to ignore and for the most part you really only have to worry about making the Katamari as big as possible as fast as possible. There are some unique exceptions, like trying to roll up the cheapest or lowest calorie items in the supermarket to make the biggest Katamari possible, but usually you can ignore what the King of All Cosmos says. I consider that a plus, considering I like to actively ignore him. On the other hand, it doesn't have the variety of wacky levels that We Love Katamari has. One of the main things I'd yet to do in the game since I first played it were the DLC stages, which were rather expensive last I looked. They've now dropped in price to about half of what they were, which is more reasonable. So I tried them and enjoyed them for a period of time, but not so long as to really make it worth even the lowered prices. The graphics are basically unchanged from the games on the Playstation 2 from what I can tell. Screen resolution and how clear smaller objects look seem to be the only major changes visually, but that's fine considering the unique look of the game has aged well.

It's still a decent Katamari game and the regular content is worthwhile if you can find it for a lower price. A better game in the series is Me & My Katamari, oddly enough, which remains my favorite just under We Love Katamari. Me & My Katamari has a very nice selection for its soundtrack and a good assortment of levels too. The PSP controls take some getting used to, but they end up working surprisingly well. The only real problem I have with that game is the tendency for some levels to transport you from one area to another after getting to a certain size, rather than the more seamless method featured in every other Katamari game.

Review of Kirby's Return to Dream Land

Kirby's Return to Dream Land basically takes the concept of New Super Mario Bros. Wii and applies it to the Kirby series. It translates the 2D side-scrolling gameplay of the originals to 3D side scrolling, harkens back to earlier entries in the series primarily, and throws cooperative gameplay with up to four players into the mix. Overall it does a pretty good job at what it sets out to do. Since this is the first official review I've done for my blog, I'll mention now briefly that I will primarily examine games based on gameplay, looks and sound. Other factors such as story, controls and replay value may weigh in on a case-by-case basis.

There's not too much to say about the gameplay besides that it's classic Kirby. You move forward, eat certain enemies to gain their powers, then use those powers to blow through everything in your way until either losing them or finding a better ability to copy as you move through a stage. Kirby can float so there's no danger (usually) of falling into a pit, but there's a good number of varied obstacles for some platforming fun. There is a variety of abilities with a lot of mainstays and a few new ones to copy. Nearly all the familiar abilities have at least one nice little addition, like the spark ability being combined with plasma, and some of the new powers are fun and useful, like water.

One gripe I have with the gameplay are the super abilities, which are new to this entry. Back when I saw a trailer for this game I remember seeing a few of these in action, such as when Kirby pulls out a massive sword and does an attack that spans nearly the entire screen. It looked very impressive at the time. Now it looks uninteresting because I know how these abilities are used now. A fair number of stages feature one of several super abilities in the last area before the goal, and they're instantly recognizable because a large, fancy looking enemy will conveniently appear in front of you as if to inconspicuously say: "I'll bet I have a pretty awesome power." Assuming you do as the game intends and copy their ability, you'll spend the next few minutes spamming the one attack they have. Almost all of them require you to use the ability to hit time or location sensitive windows of opportunity, which if missed will require the use of the ability yet again. Super ability attacks will pause action for about three to five seconds each time they are used. It's boring to do and it is even more boring if you are another player tagging along with the Kirby using the super ability. Snow bowl, where you become a large snowball and roll forward, is about the only one that's actually interesting. However, if the super ability segments are plodding than at least there's a decent reward in the more frantic section that always come immediately afterward. For every super ability section there's a star gate that appears just before the goal, usually with some minor requirement to make it appear, such as by destroying a large object. The gates lead to obstacle courses that are a race against time to keep from being crushed and are immediately followed by decent boss battles. The ultimate reward is a few energy spheres, the collectibles this time around typically hidden (sometimes well, sometimes not) throughout all the stages. Anyway, the gist of this rant is I think super abilities were a poor addition to the game.

Having multiplayer is a plus for the game and without it I probably wouldn't have played it for awhile longer. I don't actually own the game, but I've been playing it alongside my friend Eric who does. We only get to it for an hour or two once a week so it has taken awhile to go through. The drop-in mechanic of allowing additional players to come and go whenever they want, making use of a shared pool of lives, is nice and flexible. It can be played with up to four players, although I'm not so sure how well four players would work in practice. The game worked fine for the most part with two players. Actually it feels like it was optimized for two players as Eric commented at one point. Fortunately we didn't have to worry about bumping into each other or anything like in New Super Mario Bros. Wii and generally we could do our own thing. However, once every now and then one of the cooperative mechanics would kick in. For example, we'd be jumping and floating between platforms and then suddenly Eric's Kirby would jump off my head, sending me directly down into a pit (or vice versa). These instances were rare and generally no more than minor annoyances, especially considering the ease of most of the game, but they did happen and I can scarcely imagine what situations would allow these mechanics to be useful. More often one of our characters would get lodged on the other's head, and while that could be debilitating depending on the situation it was usually more funny than anything (especially if the one doing the sitting was Dedede). Still not useful though.

On the note of mentioning one of the other characters, there are three playable characters besides Kirby: King Dedede, Meta Knight and a hero Waddle Dee. Apparently only usable by players besides the first, who is locked in as Kirby, I spent the majority of the game using these characters. I used Kirby some early on mostly to try out the various special abilities, but once I had it's hard to overlook the usefulness of the other characters and their permanent abilities. Meta Knight was my choice for quickly moving through levels and cutting down weak enemies, Dedede was my boss killer, and the Waddle Dee while fun was mostly set aside for the former two as the game became more difficult.

I briefly mentioned the game was easy and indeed it was for Eric and me. Both of us have played numerous Kirby games and we cleared standard mode with barely a problem and probably without either of us giving it our full, serious effort. Extra mode was quite a bit more challenging and we finally reached our first game over about halfway through on a boss, and the difficulty increased even more from there. How easy and how hard a game is are difficult qualities to rate for anyone but myself and it's even more difficult to say whether one or the other is good or bad. I guess I'm mentioning it as more of an observation. The easiness didn't bother me much early on, it was still fun, and the increased challenge was welcome by the time it arrived. Aside from the ease of the game, particularly early on, it also feels like it takes time for the stages to really start getting interesting.

Graphics are the easy part to critique because Kirby's Return to Dream Land certainly looks nice. I'm not too picky about the technical superiority of some graphics versus others, but to me this looks like they took the series' 2D sprites and translated it to 3D within the Wii's capabilities. That's about as best as I could expect. Stages are colorful and relatively varied in appearance, and player characters and enemies are well animated. Kudos.

Sound is somewhat of a tricky area for me to approach primarily because of all the things I notice, sound effects and music are almost never at the forefront. The game makes sounds like I would expect it to from my experience with Kirby in the past and the music seemed to fit whatever situations I was in. For me that's enough to give a game a positive pass when it comes to sound. Now there are certainly some music tracks I like more than others and I have a few older favorites that from what I could tell were competently rearranged, but in general there was no specific music in the game that really caught my attention. I asked Eric about the music since he has a much better ear for it than I ever will. He agreed he didn't think much stood out at first, but as things progressed he believes there were a number of catchy tracks.

I feel like I spent a good chunk of the review criticizing rather than praising, but don't take that to mean I didn't like the game. It was good, although not great. The multiplayer mechanics could be slightly less intrusive and some mostly minor gameplay gripes are what keep it from approaching overall better entries like Kirby Super Star. Kirby's Return to Dream Land is a solid addition to the series that keeps all the good, core elements older fans are familiar with. With an easier difficulty and possibility of multiple players, it's also probably a pretty good entry game into the series for newer gamers.

My rating: 8/10

Some content in this post is being used under the fair use exception of copyright law. Kirby's Return to Dream Land is copyright of HAL Laboratory and Nintendo.

The Diablo that didn't age like fine wine

Diablo III is very nearly here with its' May 15 release date. Blizzard has a tendency to release its games only when they're ready. I think that's commendable personally and I'd much rather wait for a great game than see something released before it's ready. Two weeks ago I started up the first Diablo (hereafter referred to as D1 with similar abbreviations for the sequels) with the idea of going from beginning to end of the games in anticipation of D3. I completed D1 a bit ago and I have recently started D2. For now I wanted to give some impressions of the game I've finished and then do D2 later. Once D3 arrives I'll certainly be writing about it to some degree.

When D1 first came out I thought it was great. My first experience was playing the demo which only had some of the monastery to explore and the warrior was the only available character. I wouldn't say it blew me away (I'd certainly played better games by that point, with Ultima VII: The Black Gate and Final Fantasy VI coming easily to mind), but it was still pretty fun. One thing about me is I tend to like games that keep it simple, and D1 easily achieves simplicity. While I'm not a game developer, from my experience in other areas it seems like simplicity is hard to achieve - not easy. You have to trim all unnecessary elements yet maintain the delicious creamy center. For its time I think D1 was certainly a yummy treat, but to me it has grown stale since then.

I found it repetitive, monotonousness and plodding. Yes, D2 could probably be described as repetitive too, but D2 is still fun for me as I'll talk about more when I do a post dedicated to it. The slow walking speed in D1 makes it excruciatingly slow. In dungeons it is more forgivable because positioning is a large part of strategy in the game, but moving around town is a pain especially when it comes to visiting the witch on the opposite side of the area everything else is in. Since I did a run through the games primarily to refresh myself of the lore and setting, I chose to go through D1 as the warrior (for reasons obvious to anyone who paid even slight attention to D2's story). I'm thinking I might have had more fun if I'd played the rogue or sorcerer, but it's hard to say for sure. Back in the game's day I played through them all and I recall each had their areas of difficulties. My first full run through the game as a sorcerer took some creativity on my part to kill Diablo at the end. In comparison, it was a grueling slog through hell (literally) for my warrior to reach Diablo, but when I finally reached the big bad it was almost laughable for all the resistance he presented. I pretty much used my weapon with knock-back effect to push him against a wall and I then systematically sliced and diced without allowing him barely any openings to get a hit in. As a final boss he's certainly odd in that it's much more dangerous to be at a distance than right in front of him. I had no reason to stay away, but in the time it took to approach him he used his Armageddon spell repeatedly to lower my health enough to almost warrant the use of a single health potion. I had more trouble with going one-on-one with some of his mooks on his level, let alone the groups of 10 or so they like to come in. One particular bitch of an advocate made me chase him literally across the entire level teleporting around.

That brings me to a rant on ranged attackers in D1, who I think deserve a very special, apparently lengthy mention. I dislike them very, very, very much. Now I was moving along through the game at a good pace through the monastery, it wasn't particularly fun but it was smooth sailing, and then I got to a level of the catacombs where two thirds of the enemies were goat men with bows. Partly it was my fault because I was using a strong two-handed weapon and they made baby swiss cheese out of me almost instantly. I nearly gave up, but then I discovered (probably rediscovered) that having a shield is a much, much better idea for a warrior despite any drop in attack strength. I went from dying nearly instantly to being able to stand in a room with more than a dozen of the goat men, still chugging health potions at a modest rate but able to survive. So I could stay alive, but I still wanted to be able to kill things I came across so I could explore. I've come back again to the slow movement speed and while I said I didn't mind so much in dungeons, this instance is the exception. It seems no matter what I could barely get a single attack (note, attack not a hit) in before whatever one I was aiming at would move away. Repeat as necessary until all will to play the game has gone is essentially what the game became for me. The only way I could reliably kill them is to chase them carefully and trap them in a corner. If that were a routine occasionally encountered than okay, but generally I was dealing with rooms of 10 or more of these guys and while I slowly eliminated them one by one the rest were pelting me with arrows. While my shield blocked nearly all of them, my movement was extremely choppy from doing so. It was extraordinarily not fun. Somehow I did make it through that level and continued on with the game, and I at least did get some reward because the caves that came afterward were by far my favorite part of the game.

While the caves still had ranged attackers, they were of the sort that don't run away and generally just threw out some attacks while closing to melee range. Between the less-claustrophobic areas and being able to handle large groups of enemies without having to micro manage every action, the game actually became fun for three levels. When I reached level four of the caves I found the floor flooded with succubi and it was the bow-goat men all over again except now my shield was useless due to their magic attacks and my resistances didn't help. Very fortunately, I found the stairs down quickly and just bypassed most of the area. The hell levels were very dangerous, but manageable. By the time I reached the inevitable floor full of more succubi-type enemies (blood witches?) I was lucky enough to have equipment to provide the max level of magic resistance. Tracking them down carefully one-by-one was still unpleasant, but manageable.

So I proceeded until I reached Diablo's level and then came the ultimate slap. I was extremely dangerous and well protected by this point, all my resistances were maxed and I had made duplicitous use of elixirs, and yet for all my trouble I still had a horrible time clearing out all the advocates in the area. It didn't matter they could barely hurt me, it didn't matter I could badly hurt them, because having a swarm of presumably powerful magicians teleporting around like gnats often before I could land a single hit was miserable. My dexterity was maxed by this point and my weapon greatly increased accuracy, and still. When it comes to expressing how 'fun' it is to chase down all the various ranged enemies, I feel I need to use a colorful sentence along the lines of what Zero Punctuation's Yahtzee often uses, to the effect of: "Expletive buggery cripes expletive." All I can say it no, no this is not good game design and no this is not fun.

Some content in this post is being used under the fair use exception of copyright law. Diablo is copyright of Blizzard Entertainment.

Dash forward with X

Recently I started playing the Mega Man X Collection and went halfway through it up to Mega Man X3 (hereafter referred to as X3 and so on).

X1 is pretty great. I almost don't know what else to say about it. A beginning of a new series, not quite revolutionary but polished, well designed and fun. For me there's a strong amount amount of nostalgia with it, especially the very beginning on the highway. I'm not going in depth on it, but if that's what you want check out this video by Egoraptor on Sequelitis. He really gets into the fine details of approaching how it was designed. The maneuverability of X is always what my mind latches onto when I consider the game alongside the classic series. I thought the PSP remake, Mega Man Maverick Hunter X, was very well done. Vile, in particular, could not have been handled better. It would have been nice if Capcom had continued remaking the games in this fashion.

After thinking about it for awhile, I'd have to say I wouldn't consider X2 to really be an improvement on X1. Sure, air dashing is cool and a few other little things are nice to have in the mix too like the Cx4 chip graphic capabilities. What I'm getting at here is X2's relatively equal to X1 but with different levels, music, bosses, story and weapons. It's more of the same, which is to say it's more of the same awesome, and to me that's still awesome. One criticism I've had of many game reviewers over the years is the speed and harshness they will come down on a game, particularly a sequel to a game they otherwise liked, for no other reason than it doesn't do something amazingly different. I can understand the idea of wanting to see gaming evolve, but it's no reason by itself to be extra critical of a game. Note that I'm speaking in general here, not about critical reaction to X2 specifically. The thought simply occurred to me, as it likely will again.

Right up there with air dashing is also the buster upgrade that lets X use two charged shots. One minor complaint I have is that I didn't find any of the special weapons useful at all outside of using them against a boss to exploit a weakness or to access certain items hidden in the stages. In comparison some of the X1 special weapons were particularly useful to pull out against enemies in multiple situations, but in X2 I tend to use double charge shots almost exclusively.

X3 is perhaps the game between X1 and X6 I have probably had the least amount of contact with, because until the PS2 collection I never owned a version of it. I know I rented it once around the time it came out and thoroughly went through it (though I probably didn't know about the Z saber trick then). One negative to the version on the collection I ended up owning is it's the PS1 version of the game, meaning it has animated cut scenes the SNES version didn't have and the music has been remixed. Unfortunately, the music was remixed very badly. While the sound capabilities of the SNES are certainly dated, there's plenty of good music from its games that still sound good as is the case with X1 and X2. The PS1 version of X3 I have though has reduced most of the music to annoying noise and was so bad for one or two levels I turned the sound down so I wouldn't have to hear it, but that's the fault of the PS1 version and not the original. X3 music on the SNES is comparable to the earlier entries in quality.

Other than music, I would say X3 feels like a slightly weaker entry than X1 or X2, but that's not to say it's not good. I would pin the reason for this on the stages, which don't seem quite as fun to me as its predecessors'. The eight mavericks are a good bunch though and I like how most of them can still put up a bit of a fight even if you're exploiting their weaknesses, unlike X2's. The confrontation with Sigma in X3 is epic in my mind. To me it feels like the ultimate showdown between X and Sigma at his absolute strongest. Sure, they fight again but besides Sigma never seeming quite 100 percent again, the following games all seem to have something going on that offsets his importance.

I don't think I'll be getting to X4 or beyond at the moment, but I'll share a few thoughts on those. X4 is notable for probably having the highest production value for a game in the series relative to its time, although Capcom could certainly have improved on the English voice acting. It's one of the best when it comes to gameplay. X4 also introduced Zero being fully playable, a feature I certainly enjoyed. For reasons I don't entirely remember, I recall being annoyed with a few things from X5. It is notable for having what I consider X's best armor, the Falcon Armor, and story lines built up through most of the series finally have their payoff. X6 seemed to do its best to mess up that payoff to the detriment of the Mega Man Zero series, but I don't recall anything bad about the gameplay. The battle with Sigma is oddly enough one of my favorites, but beyond that there's one compliment I can pay the game: it's not X7. Unfortunately, X7 is what it is, which is a mess. Axl was probably the only decent thing to come from it. I have never played X8, but it sounds like it's worth a try someday.

Some content in this post is being used under the fair use exception of copyright law. Mega Man X is copyright of Capcom.

Easter memories of Castlevania and monsters

Happy belated Easter. In my previous post I mentioned I would be posting a "somewhat amusing gaming-related anecdote from my childhood" and I now intend to do so. I'll eventually be talking about a game from one of my all-time favorite video game series, Castlevania.

The story goes back to the year 1991 (I think) and I was 7 years old at the time. Easter came around again as it had before. I enjoyed coloring eggs, getting some candy and maybe some type of special treat, but as far as holidays went I don't think it was ever as important to me as Halloween or Christmas. As far as I'm concerned, the Easter I'm thinking of was by far the best and I owe it to my parents (or the Easter Bunny). That year my parents had some surprises for me in colored plastic eggs and then hid the eggs all over the house. Now it could have been candy in those eggs and even that would have been great, but by some amazing inspiration my parents decided to fill the eggs with little Monster in my Pocket toys.

You might need to have also been a boy around the same time to know what I'm talking about, but they were these little rubber toys of classic monsters. I think they changed and became more complex as the franchise continued, but the ones in the eggs were from the first series of toys. Small, approximately 1 inch tall, and one solid color (awesomely red, nearly lime, slightly lighter purple than I would prefer, and blatantly yellow is how I would now describe the original colors they came in). I loved them then and even now I still think they're pretty cool when it comes to toys. There was something very memorable about exploring the house I'd always lived in on my own scavenger hunt, like everything was transformed into something more special than its everyday form. Simply speaking, it was a magical experience for a dorky child.

I scoured every nook of the house I could think of to come up with what in my mind was a great collection of the tiny monsters (probably about 12 or maybe less, but I certainly would later get more at stores). What made all this even more memorable was my video game interest at the time happened to be Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. I've come again to a point where my memory is a bit hazy, because I can't recall if I also received the game as some type of Easter gift, received it sometime earlier or if I just was currently renting the game from Blockbuster while I had extra time off school. Regardless, I was into the game at the time and it worked very well to have a bunch of tiny monsters not unlike the mostly single color enemies in the game. The natural progression was to play with the Monster in my Pocket toys as if they were Dracula and his creatures, which I indeed remember doing. I used an old He-man play set of Castle Grayskull, acquired at a yard sale or flea market sometime previously, as Dracula's castle. Not sure what I used for a Belmont, but I'm sure I figured something out. Maybe monsters and such may not sound holiday appropriate, but to a 7-year-old boy it was the best Easter ever.

Castlevania is indeed one of my favorite video game series. I'll admit even though I was psyched about Castlevania III back in 1991, it doesn't rank particularly high with me now compared to other entries. Yes, it was good, and every now and then I get the urge to go back and play it (an urge I've resisted the last several times it crept up). It doesn't have quite as much nostalgia for me as the first two entries and I enjoyed many of the ones that came after it more. For a series sometimes known for its difficult, the third may well be either the hardest or a close second (not counting two obscure remakes of the first game that never made it to the U.S.). When I'm in the mood for Castlevania again, I'd diffidently like to go into more detail on the series.

There was actually a Monster in my Pocket video game for the NES and it was made by Konami, the creator of the Castlevania series. I never owned it, though I did play it once upon a time, but I don't have any thoughts to share. Just wanted to mention it because it'd be remiss not to given the content of this post.

Some content in this post is being used under the fair use exception of copyright law. Monster in my Pocket is copyright of Matchbox. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse is copyright of Konami.

The story behind the name

For awhile now I have thought about creating a blog (in fact once I technically did start one, but never did a single thing with it). One barrier to go through with starting was I had absolutely no idea about a name. I suppose if I were to really force myself to brainstorm, I'd come up with something half decent I could live with. A really good name though? Something I would be 100 percent happy with? No clue.

No clue at least until just last weekend. I had come home and because I was in a bit of a Mega Man mood, I started up Mega Man 10. When it first came out I played it about four times through, but one of the features I was most interested in was not available as downloadable content at the time. I speak of Bass mode. Maybe saying it like that might make it sound a lot more impressive than it is, but to me it's a big deal. Bass is my favorite character in the Mega Man franchise, but more on him later.

Of course Bass mode has been available for purchase in the game for some time now, but until now I hadn't felt like going back to the game. I will say I enjoyed playing Mega Man 10 as Bass, although it seems like his style of gameplay didn't transition quite as well to a (pseudo) 8-bit game. Firing in all directions wasn't quite as useful as it sounds or as useful as I remember it being in Mega Man & Bass. Even though it is awesome to blow the shield out of a Sniper Joe's hands with Bass' rapid fire, the unusual challenge of destroying Mettools with Bass' weaker blaster while not taking a hit was irksome.

Anyway, the name 8-bit Smirk came to me after defeating one of the robot masters. For the sake of a better story, let's say I just finished off Sheep Man. Bass struck his pose on the screen while he absorbed the robot master's weapon, and even though I had seen the sprite of him doing so several times before I mentally commented to myself: "8-bit Smirk." In my mind there are no better words to describe the expression on Bass' pixelated face. My next thought was, for some reason or another, how the same words would make an awesome name for a blog. The idea of everything I wanted to do with a blog began to hatch in my mind. Why did I think smirk rather than smile or grin when I first unconsciously commented on Bass' expression? Because I know Bass and I know his character. In short, he's a bastard.

Bass falls within the same tired character archetype of the protagonist's rival (an annoyingly common archetype in anything related to Japanese animation), which in fancier language might be termed a foil. He wants to beat Mega Man to prove he's stronger, blah blah, he's a rebel, blah blah, he's not a good guy but he often ends up fighting evil (Dr. Wily), and blah. Despite all that there's still something about him that makes me appreciate him as a character even though I'm aware of his limitations (in terms of his peers, nobody in the classic Mega Man series is really complex). I like how completely irreverent he is to his creator, Dr. Wily, and I like how utterly thick headed he is. His character design also really stands out within the classic series. I like him even though I probably couldn't completely justify why. That and his inspirational smirk are the reasons I plan to make him somewhat of a mascot for this blog.

A note on Bass' name: it is pronounced like the musical term. Quite a few character names in the classic Mega Man series are music related. Bass has a robot dog for a partner named Treble (Bass and Treble). In Japan they are known as Forte and Gospel, but I like their localized names better. They're the names I was first familiar with, I think they're more mainstream musical terms that work better together as a pair, and because when I think of bass sound the word obnoxious comes to mind (it fits his personality).

Now besides being what I consider a good name, 8-bit Smirk also conveys some things about my blog I believe will be characteristic of it. The first part more or less should mean I will be dealing with games all the way back (but not exclusively) to the 8-bit era. I could be talking about the oldest games in the NES' library, to games yet to be released on current systems, and everything in between (whatever I feel like). The second part of the name will probably be revealing about my personality, but I'll leave that to be seen as I go along.

I have several posts I plan to make soon. Easter Sunday is nearly here and I have a somewhat amusing gaming-related anecdote of a memory from my childhood to impart. Besides Mega Man 10, I also recently played through Mega Man X to X3 and have some thoughts on the overall X series. I have been playing Kirby's Return to Dream Land with a friend and I plan to make that game one of the first (or the first) I review here. Diablo III is on the horizon and I am eagerly awaiting it by going back to replay the preceding games in the series yet again. An overview of some of my favorites within all of gaming is also something I want to do soon. So until next time...

Be awesome; stay awesome.

Some content in this post is being used under the fair use exception of copyright law. Mega Man 10 is copyright of Capcom. Bass is copyright of Capcom.

Introduction

Greetings. Welcome to my blog. My name is Ben Baird and for some reason or another you have stumbled onto my blog. Generally I plan to be writing about whatever I feel like, but overall the majority of the content will be video game related. I'm going to start rambling on now for a time about myself, my interests and to further explain my blog, 8-bit Smirk. The warning is given: it will be long and of dubious interest.

I graduated in 2007 from Central Michigan University with a major in journalism. Why did I choose journalism? Before going to CMU, I attended Henry Ford Community College and while there I struggled for about two years to figure out what I should pursue (anthropology electives I had there were fun). I liked stories, reading and writing, so I tried an English major to start. Eventually I decided I should change my major to something that would offer expanded career opportunities (to put it delicately). So I switched majors to education and made English my minor. The education thing didn't last long though. I went into it thinking I could be an English teacher, but after only a semester I decided I wasn't cut out for teaching since I was never good at public speaking and explaining things verbally was also a weakness (writer). Next I tried the college's single journalism class, liked it, and when it was over I asked the professor to recommend a school where I could have a journalism major. I ended up going to CMU for journalism and I made the choice to stick with it.

My dream job was (and is) to review video games. When I was at HFCC, I did some game reviews for the Mirror News student publication, but beyond that it's an interest I have to do something more with my primary hobby. I didn't have strong expectations this was actually what I would do with journalism as a career, although it's certainly been a thought.

I could talk some more about my experiences at CMU, which were good, or about my career in journalism afterward, but I think I'll hold off on those narratives. Suffice to say I managed to form a relationship with the exact newspaper I had my eye on, the News-Herald, which is the local Downriver newspaper I grew up with. I consider myself lucky to have received the opportunities I've had with the News-Herald, the Press & Guide, and with the overall Journal Register Company. Currently I am the police and court reporter covering Washtenaw County for Heritage Media within the same parent company as the previously mentioned newspapers. It's a position I have held since November 2011, and it has worked out good so far. The stories I write typically appear among the eight Heritage West newspapers, which can be accessed at heritage.com (my Twitter page is a reliable way to find links to all my stories @BenBaird1). While I have the option to make 8-bit Smirk my staff blog, I am choosing to keep it my own project.

My history with video games is also something I would like to very briefly overview. For me it all began one Christmas morning with an NES, the copy of Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt it came with, and the Legend of Zelda. Gaming has remained a big part of my life since and, while some might disagree, I think it's an important part. To quote my friend Elena: "I consider it time well spent." Video games are becoming more and more mainstream, but it seems to me there are still many who belittle and disrespect gaming as an entertainment industry.

Playing games is an interactive experience. It's not about sitting there and staring at a screen. For me, it's about visiting other (or alternate) worlds and exploring them, whether it's a massive and immersive epic like the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, a sandbox game like those of the Assassin's Creed or Grand Theft Auto series, a traditional RPG like those of the Dragon Quest series, or a simple side-scrolling platformer like the aforementioned Super Mario Bros.

Do I love all games? No. If you're trying to figure out how big of a dork I am this next bit might clarify, but I've never been interested in sports; so as you might imagine I also have no interest in sport games. Puzzle games are also something I'm not fond of, unless I'm in a Tetris mood or it's physics based (like Portal or World of Goo). I like some first-person shooters, but usually only if they have some degree of RPG elements like Deus Ex or System Shock 2. I have never played a Battlefield, Call of Duty, or Halo game, and I don't have any interest in ever doing so (not that I wouldn't review games I otherwise don't play if I ever become a professional video game reviewer).

My idea for this blog is to pretty much just write about whatever it is I'm currently playing or otherwise interested in. I switch between projects (a word that is very apt to describe how I approach games) frequently based on what I feel like at the time. Game reviews will be among my posts, but I'll also be taking things in other directions. Maybe I'll just want to talk about what I'm doing, discuss some element of a game, or do some sort of commentary on multiple games. One note I'd like to make is that even though I am a journalist and will be mostly sticking to AP style if only out of habit, I will not be strictly adhering to it while writing here (hence these side thoughts in parentheses; they make writing out what I want to get across much easier for me).

So there it is, my first blog post on 8-bit Smirk. I'll be doing another one soon on how I came up with that name. Hopefully if you made it this far you didn't find my introduction post to be boring, but I'd certainly understand if you did. It was just something I wanted to do to get some background on the record.

Be awesome; stay awesome.

Some content in this post is being used under the fair use exception of copyright law. The Legend of Zelda is copyright of Nintendo. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is copyright of Bethesda Softworks.