That got me thinking: There are a lot of games I have that
I’ve never played. So I went back to that list I did ages ago, where I was not
surprised at all to find that a similar proportion of my Xbox360 games have
never been played. This is something that I felt the need to address.
Unfortunately there was something in the way of that, which
is the game I’m currently playing – Dark Souls. As I’ve said in the two
preceding blogs, Dark Souls is a game where it is perfectly possible to play
for hours and get nowhere. If I can play this game for two hours and all I’ve
achieved is levelling up my character ONCE, I’d consider it progress. And while
I’m still enjoying the game – it has an old-school feel to it that I haven’t
seen in games in a long time – it is taking time away from playing everything
else I’ve got.
So I’m making the decision to put Dark Souls to bed. Not
because I don’t like it – but in the spirit of No Game New Year, I think I need
to be playing more games than just the one, if there’s no evidence that I’m
getting anywhere in it. I will come back to it at some point, but not now.
I decided to check off the first un-played game on my list:
BattleBlock Theatre
And what a fantastic game this turned out to be! In essence,
it is a puzzle-platformer. You have to take your player through a series of
block-puzzle-style mazes and challenges in order to rescue your friends from a
theatre run by cats for their own amusement.
It sounds mad – and it is – but that is part of the joy of
the game. This kind of thing reminds us of why we got in to games. It’s bright,
colourful, the gameplay is fantastic and above all else is actually FUN. There
is a non-interactive tutorial if you want it, but the game mechanics are explained
to you as you go along so you can spend more time in the game. The levels are
well-designed and balanced; no enemy feels out of place and only a small number
of challenges in the main game have been insurmountable for me.
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| A typical scene. Except I made my guys blue. For Birmingham City. |
If longevity makes a good game, this game is great. The idea
is that you need to collect gems in order to open the exit clear the level.
There are 6/7 gems per level, but you only need to collect three of them to
clear it and if I was playing the game like homework, I probably would. But
getting all the gems and a ball of yarn (to bribe the cats for new weapons!) raises
your score and rating for the level, and I found myself replaying levels over
and over just to find enough gems to give me an A. If you compete the level
fast enough you also get an A++ with 2 more bonus gems, but I rarely get this
as I am not that fast.
A special mention must also go to the soundtrack of the
game. In these times, it is always a pleasure to hear a game that has
background music! And much respect to Will Stamper, for the voice that narrates
the game. In what I can only describe as a ‘fantasy Irish’ accent, he narrates
in a naïve yet oddly sardonic way that fits the tone of the game perfectly. Sometimes
he goes off on one and you’re so busy laughing you don’t even notice. And it’s
worth getting to the secret level just to hear what… occurs… as he scat-sings
over a 2-chord refrain.[1]
This will keep me going for a while – I haven’t even tried
the other modes yet – so expect another blog on this at the end of the week!
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