Couple Gaming

As you have seen previously, an RPG became a family affair, and to this day we are still trying to finish Dragon Age.  But we also still really really enjoy it.

So I am not looking forward to Hunted: The Demon’s Forge by inXile.  Not only is it a new RPG that looks amazing.  But it also has co-op!  Seriously, Co-Op an RPG with the wife will be awesome!

More info on the game;

“Set in a dark fantasy world, Hunted: The Demon’s Forge is an unforgettable cooperative action game, pitting you and your partner against waves of vicious enemies. Taking control of either E’lara, a ranged weapon expert, or Caddoc, a master swordsman, you must use a variety of weapons, powerful spells, and cover tactics to battle your way through menacing dungeons, overgrown ruins, and downtrodden towns. Discover secrets and complete co-op-based puzzles whilst exploring the sinister world to discover answers to the game’s deep, dark mysteries.”

For the PS3, 360 and PC

Dark Void finally arrived.  I have been looking forward to this game for some time now.  Flying around in a jetpack, taking cover vertically, hijacking UFO’s.  What’s not to love?  This game.  Thats what.

I am SO disappointed in this game.  The story line is shallow, the graphics are not up to par with what this generation of consoles can do, and the game  play is seriously lacking.

My daughter and I sat down to try this game out.  She loves watching me play games and she loves aliens.  So this should have been a good experience for us both.  You start the game flying around with your jet pack and you have NO idea how to control this thing.  So its just you, zooming around trying in vein to shoot UFO’s.  And then BAM! It’s a cut scene and you are starting all over.  And by all over I mean the game is finally starting.  You are no just a normal joe flying over the bermuda triangle.  The of course you crash after seeing a UFO.  Now you are exploring the jungle for some reason.  And then you see an alien robot kill  a guy.  The alien leaves and you go grab the guys weapon.  A huge gun.  Ohh and he has another on him for your partner.  That’s right, he was carrying two huge guns…..anyway! I am not going to tell you everything, for those of you who want to play this game there is no reason for me to spoil it.  But lets just say don’t expect much of a story and don’t expect the game play to live up to the hype.  I do understand maybe this hype was all my own.  But regardless I am disappointed.  What could have been a good change of pace for shooters is just another disappointment and now I am going to go back to Darksiders where I actually enjoy myself and possibly where it ends and my daughter isn’t crying and begging me to stop playing.

Dragon Age is the first real game I bought for my PS3.  I saw it on sale for about $40 for the PS3 right after it was just released, while the 360 version was still $60. I figured since it is a single player game, I won’t need to be on live and it will give the family time to play their other games in the other rooms.  Also the dust on the PS3 was just embarrasing.

Turns out the wife and daughter are big fans of RPG’s.  Who knew?   So for the past two months, almost everynight, we gather in the spare bedroom and play dragon age.  And by play I mean I play, but the girls get to tell me what choices we are going to make and what spells to pick when we level.   The story in dragon age isn’t bad, but it doesn’t really bring anything knew to the table either.  An evil is acending upon the world and you need to gather all your allies and defeat it.  Easier said then done of course.  And the story is interesting enough that you won’t be complaining about it.  What really sets Dragon Age apart is the charecters.  Each one has a back story that you can learn if you find the right items and ask the right questions.  While you are on your journey they will randomly talk to each other about their past or thoughts.   We really enjoyed having Allister and Morrigan in the party because they would always be arguing.  But be aware that to gain approval with one, might be a dissaproval for another.  For instance we wanted to sleep with Morrigan, but with Allistar in the party every choice we made that she approved of he didn’t.  And at one point he almost left our party for good.  So we made it up to him and then dumped him in camp as soon as we found a new warrior.  Dragon age is full of quests that take a fair amount of time, but we have played over 50 hours and we still aren’t bored of it.

All and all if you’re a fan of RPG’s you should already own this game.  If you aren’t sure you like RPG’s you should probably own this game.  If you hate RPG’s but like avatars having sex, you should own this game.  I can’t think of a good reason no one shouldn’t own this game.  And remember.  Just because it says single player on it doesn’t mean your family can’t enjoy it as well.

Couple Gaming finally has a PS3.  Yes, I know we said it would be a cold day in hell, <utahbashing> but it’s cold in Utah every year, so we figured it was enough of a sign </utahbashing>.

A month or so ago, Ymiris came across a game he thought had all the elements his wife would enjoy: hidden pasts, mythology, and a storyline.  He knows me entirely too well, so I though I would give the PS3 it’s chance to wow me.

OK, I admit it.  I’m wowed.

Folklore starts out much like the latest Japanese imports, with a lot of movie and a dash of incomprehensible mystery (see Fatal Frame or Trace Memory).   After the first bit of movie, you are given a choice: Play the Female story, or the Male story.  OK, a few games do this.. no problem.

Here’s where it gets odd:  You don’t just play one or the other.  You play both, and they weave through each others storylines beautifully.  The girls storyline seems to happen first in the timeline, and then the mans follows along after her.   It’s perfect for a couple, as each story line is interesting in it’s own way.

The basic premise is that through a specific island, one can reach the Spirit Dimensions.  During the day, you talk to the towns residents and find out about their lost loved ones, trying to find your own.  At night, you can talk to spirits, or travel to the ghost zones to find out about the afore-mentioned Loved ones.  The ghost zones are fairly straight-forward, and sometimes the landscape is beautiful, and sometimes it is repetitive and annoying.  It’s a toss-up, but it’s almost always interesting.

Your powers come from the spirits you suck up.  Your first spirit is a small sprite that hits things close to you; the sprite actually jumps out of your fist & into things, instead of having you just hit.  It’s an interesting theory.. and it plays out very well here.  After that first spirit, the characters split, with the girl getting some specific ghost-powers, and the man getting a different set.  You have to play to your characters powers’, and learn each one through each chapter.  The game then becomes a case of  “what is this monster vulnerable to?  Should I use my fire slicing wildebeast, or my gun-shooting army?  Or my tank, and then the wind-blast griffen, followed up with the water-bubble-blower.”  The beasts keep you guessing much of the time, keeping the fight scenes from getting too boring, although frustrating during bosses.

It’s mildly frustrating to play both characters on your own (I found myself more than once thinking “oh, if I Just had the other characters power..” ), but watching each other & the storyline progress was wonderfully interesting.

As a Couple game, I give this four stars.  Of cours, Ymiris was busy playing the WoW expansion, so I played this one with the Couple Gaming Daughter And Test Subject, and we are both enjoying it immensely.

There are a few annoying parts of the game, firstly: 2 characters, 1 save.  You cannot stop in the middle of one characters “chapter” to pick up the other character.  You finish it completely, and then you can switch.  Also,  the final bosses are the same for each character (at least as far as we’ve gotten), and they have a tendency to be very annoying (expect to die at least 10x per boss until you find out his weakness).  But the storyline (again, so far) and beautifully landscaped zones has made up for it.

We’re looking forward to finishing the game, but would love to hear your take on the subject!  Have you tried Folklore, and if so, what did you think?

So, a professor at BYU (everyone in Salt Lake, please commence vomiting now.  Everyone else, please place your bias regarding mormons here as well.  Done?  OK, let’s continue then shall we?) did a study showing how Video Games influence the life of college students.

Evidently, the media in general stole what they wanted out of it, stating that gaming and bad relationships/drug use are directly related.  Kotaku has gotten to the bottom of this and the professor has stated more the thinking below:

“Also, please remember the nature of the statistics shows that as one variable goes up the other went down. For example, the more one played video games the lower their quality of relationships. That suggests that, as with almost anything in life, that the more extreme you get in its use the more problematic it becomes. That doesn’t therefore show that moderate use is bad. Not by any means. Also please remember, these are averages. Just because you happen to be an “exception” doesn’t mean that the results cannot be “true” for a good number of young people. Right?”

OK, that makes sense.  It becomes interesting when the BYU website seems to clarify, as well as muddle…

“It may be that young adults remove themselves from important social settings to play video games, or that people who already struggle with relationships are trying to find other ways to spend their time,” Walker said. “My guess is that it’s some of both and becomes circular.”
…..
Statistical analyses also revealed that the more young adults play video games, the more frequent their involvement in risky behaviors like drinking and drug abuse. Young adults who played video games daily reported smoking pot almost twice as often as occasional players, and three times as often as those who never play.

Wait.. hold on a second.  Both of these statements are leading to same thing, but can easily lead people to believe two different things.

If you see someone going from playing 1 hour of video games a week to 10 hours, and see them fighting with their parents more & increasing drug use… which act could be causing the other??  How do you WANT to see it?

Of course, the same could be said of reading 1 hour a week to reading 10 hours a week.. or going out with friends 1 hour vs 10 hours, or watching TV.    Shouldn’t the study also have included other “escapist” activities, instead of trying specifically for this study?

Couple Gamings stance is that the study should be ruled inconclusive.  Also, we’d like to volunteer for the next study, as long as it is truly well thought out.

As aside note, when the Couple Gaming Daughter & Sometimes Test Subject fights with her parents, she does homework (as it’s the only time she can really be alone in her room without us calling her Emo).  Maybe we can use this study to link homework with drug use as well?

Before I give you my take on this game let the following be known.

1. I love almost all mythology
2. I enjoyed BulletWitch
3. I was really, looking forward to this game

With that being said lets begin, as I stated above,  was really looking forward to this game, but as soon as I put it in and starting playing I was instantly disappointed.  The graphics were sub par and the feeling of the game really felt cheap, I don’t know how to describe it, but it had the same feel as Bullet Witch, it was a B game, simple.  I almost just turned it off and wrote the game off as a failure, and I wouldn’t be the first, almost every review I have seen has said how horrible the game is, granted some of the reviewers actually thought the dev was trying to make a statement by calling the game “Legendary” but no, they were referring to the story of the game, which is all about Pandora’s box being opened in modern times.

You can see why this game interested me, being a fan of mythology and hearing of a game being made that revolved around Pandora’s box was such a great idea….

Ok, so it’s a B game, the story really is shallow and the graphics leave a lot to desire, but Odin help me I got sucked into the game and actually finished it, there was something, and I don’t know what, but something drew me into the game enough to allow me to finish it and enjoy it.  Maybe it was all the creatures and the short messages you get about their mythology, or maybe it was the constant werewolf attacks…or maybe it’s because I have been reading the Anita Blake series and the game just went well with it.  Whatever it was, I did enjoy it and thankfully the game only took about 6 hours to finish.

So yes, this game is a B game and I wouldn’t recommend it to most, but if you like Mythology and you have a few hours to kill, give this one a rent, otherwise go ahead and skip this one, you aren’t missing much.

Since Ophilye was kind enough to start a good horror post, I decided I should also post a list of must play horror  games for 2008.  That is not to say these all came out in 2008, but they are good horror games to play even now.

1. Deadspace – An Original IP from EA and a hit!  A must play for this Halloween.

2. BIoshock – Something I have been playing a lot lately and truly a classic game, the big daddies alone make this game.

3. Condemed 2 – I never played the first one, but the second one is very good, and very dark.

4. Dead Rising – No horror game list is complete without zombies and Dead Rising gives you that in groves!

A short list for sure, but I didn’t want to repeat our list from last year.  Also keep in mind that both Left 3 Dead and Silent Hill 5 are coming out soon, they will also provide some seriously awesome game-play.

So finally Guitar Hero: WT is out and from what I hear from my friends it’s a fun game, but not without some issues, the most important one is so far none of my friends can get the drums working with Rock Band 2, which is a real shame as that was one of the big reasons I wasn’t going to buy the Rock Band 2 drums, I wanted the better looking GH:WT drums, also I hear the foot pedal on the drums doesn’t have anything to cushion it when you press down, so you always get a clicking sound, which can be annoying. Those are the two things I have heard so far, I have yet to purchase the game and until I hear the drums work with Rock Band 2 I may have to hold out till next year.

Let us know what you think!

I have not heard of this game until now, and I must say, I am not sure how well it will do given the fact that it’s so different, not that it’s a bad thing, but most people don’t like change, it’s a simple fact.  What’s so different you ask?  Well from what I understand, this isn’t a game with zombies, aliens, monsters, gangsters, spies or anything that we are use to, it’s an “Adult Game with Adult Emotions”, and from the trailer below it looks like it is trying to put us in a siutation that can and does happen to people, a situation none of us want to be in.  Check it out for yourself and you decide.

Btw joystiq has all the info, head over there to follow this game

I am not sure how i missed this, maybe because we have been ever so busy on other things, including beta testing WarHammer, but it seems that Guitar Hero: World Tour Instruments will work with Rock band and possibly Rock Band 2.

the Xbox 360 version of “Guitar Hero: World Tour” will indeed be compatible with the instruments for the first “Rock Band.” The “GH” developers have, for obvious reasons, not been able to test their new game with the upcoming “Rock Band 2.” Other third-party guitar and drum controllers are expected to work with “GH: World Tour” as well.

This is by far the best news yet, this means that even the Ion drum set should work with GH: World tour as well!