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| A kid's game it may be, but there's something Lovecraftian about these villains... |
After the rather intense experience of playing Max Payne 3
all the way through in a single weekend, I felt I needed something light to
lose myself in for a while, so I tried Rayman Origins. Rayman is a franchise
that I thing I should have given more time to than I ever really did; it came
at a point where 3D graphics were becoming the standard, and a 2D platformer
was not what I was expecting of the 5th console generation. It was
my loss, really, because Rayman was a very good game, one I currently own for
the Playstation and hope to return to at some point. I haven’t played any of
the games in between, but Rayman Origins is a very competently-designed action
platformer. It’s addressed some of the issues presented by the first game – the
difficulty appears to be reduced, you have unlimited lives etc – and this makes
for a very fun game. You run and jump across some beautifully-drawn and
colourful words, trying to free the Electoons (Little pink blobs,) punching bad
guys, and capturing Lums (the game’s equivalent of coins.) Occasionally there’s
a shoot-em-up style mini-game with a mosquito which breaks up the action
nicely. I’m enjoying my time with it so far, I’ve got to the second ‘World,’ and
I mean to carry on. As the achievements are all earned in-game and none of them
are tied up in online multiplayer as far as I can see, this is one of the few
games I have a hope of 100% completing; it’ll be an interesting journey if
nothing else!
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| Strewth... |
It will be worth remembering how much fun I’m having with
Rayman, because the other game I’ve been playing this week is Dark Souls. I’ve
started this game a few times and never got very far; all the rumours about the
games difficulty are absolutely true. You play as an undead fighting your way
through the land of Lordran, to… actually I’m not sure what you’re trying to
achieve, other than avoiding spending eternity locked in the Undead Asylum you
escape from at the beginning. You fight your way through other undead and
demons, each and every one of which wants to see you dead. Which is for the
best, really, because you’ll be obliging them on multiple occasions before
you’ll get anywhere. Dark Souls has a very technical combat system, and you
have to work out the function of each of your moves. A light attack does some
damage, a strong attack does more damage and can breaks defence, which is its
primary purpose. You can do a jumping attack for the same purpose and to close
some distance, while a front kick will knock enemies back; great if you’re
fighting near a sheer drop. If you have a shield you can block, and also parry
attacks. The latter is almost mandatory for getting through the game, but requires
precise timing to pull off. I’ve been playing it a lot over the last week and
had to look at a Wiki to find out what I was doing wrong; quite a bit as it
turns out. Also it was far from the first time I’ve tried to play through this
game and this time I found the lower section of the Undead Burg I’d missed
completely for the first time! I think I might have to restart again and follow
the Wiki. Is that cheating? Possibly, but even armed with that information, Dark
Souls is a very hard game.
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| Oddly compelling... |
When it was convenient for me to be playing on handhelds, I
kept on at New Super Mario Bros for the Nintendo DS. I’m enjoying it, but I
like being able to put this one down now and again. For some reason, playing
through this one knowing I’m almost certainly going to have to do so again to
unlock everything isn’t filling me with a determination to do so. On my Kindle
Fire, I’ve been playing Puzzle Quest: Marvel Super Heroes. I’ve been enjoying
that; it’s a Match-3 but with an element of strategy to it. Can I beat it
without spending any money? I hope so, but it’s a bit of a grind!
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