Penny-Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3

I get pumped up about new releases on games, but I often have to pass them up.  I love a game that does something different, and when I see games like El Shaddai: Rise of the Metatron, Catherine, and Bastion, it appeals to me.

But sometimes, I like to see an excellent return to form.  I am a big fan of Zeboyd Games, creators of Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World, two great throwbacks to RPGs of old.  The first is a wonderful parody of games like Final Fantasy (note that Breath of Death I-VI do not exist), and the latter stands as an amazing rendition of a 16-bit SNES-era RPG.  Both games have hilarious stories, memorable characters, and skillful theming.  But most importantly, it avoids a lot of the problems that older RPGs seem to share.  I had to grind through a total of no levels in either game, and I didn't have to worry about healing my party with potions after every battle; you start out with full HP every time.  Your MP will dwindle, but with proper management, it won't be a game-ender.

One of the cool parts about Zeboyd Games, though, is that there is a noticeable jump in quality in between each game.  I played Cthulhu Saves the World first, and when I played Breath of Death VII, I was struck by the difference in graphics and writing.  It's not to say that BoDVII is bad by any stretch of the imagination, but the jump that was made from their first to second RPG is amazing.

This speech is a reference to Mother (Earthbound in 'Merica), and I love this joke.  This is Breath of Death VII.

Cthulhu finds the greatest treasure of all. 

Hey, speaking of RPGs, did you know the guys from Penny Arcade made two of those?  They and developer Hothead Games started the Penny Arcade Adventures series on May 21, 2008, which has one adventure so far, "On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness."  The first two entries were animated in 3D and you played as a regular guy whose house gets crushed by a giant robot.  At the persuasion of the narrator, you follow Tycho and Gabe through New Arcadia until you kill Yog Sethis, the god of mimes and the antagonist of the first game.  The first and second games are well-written, very aware of themselves, and extremely goofy.  It wouldn't be Penny Arcade if it didn't have those qualities.  And when the second game came out in October 2008, it seemed we were set up with a great potential for a nice, quick episodic game release schedule.  Kind of the opposite of the Half-Life Episodes.

In the games we are told that there are four gods fighting for power.  One had possession of the robot that crushed your house, and you kill it at the end of the second game with the help of Tycho's niece.  So we had a perfect set-up for a four game series, but the third game wound up in development hell.  Kind of exactly like Half-Life 2 Episode 3 (does our suffering please you, Valve?).

Then Penny Arcade announced that the third game was coming back with the help of Zeboyd, and I promptly lost any inclination I had at reasonable patience.  Zeboyd had already produced two of the best-written games I had ever played, and they teamed up with Penny Arcade.  So yeah, I was excited for this game.  It's one of maybe three games I've pre-ordered in my life.  

The game plays like a turn-based RPG from the SNES era, but with a bar up top that lets you know who's going to make a the next move.  Based on your speed (and that of your enemies), characters can pass each other on the bar, and judging the order from that bar immerses you in the battle system.  The game uses a Super Mario World-style overworld to get from place to place, and once inside a building, you enter a typical Final Fantasy-style top-down view of the dungeon.  What sells me on the game isn't the gameplay or the graphics (both of which are great, by the way), but the writing.  Even in battle, the enemies' names and descriptions were something to look forward to. The first two games were great, but this one carried a lot more weight as a narrative.  I cared about Tycho and Gabe in this game a lot more than I did in the first two because they were established as better characters.

Gabe in particular.

In fact, the end of the game stands out as one of the best endings I've ever seen.  It carries more emotional weight than any game ending (and for that matter books and movies) I've seen, and it carries that weight because by the end of the game, I cared about the characters and their choices.  I'll keep it spoiler-free, but just know that as someone who values stories, this one is easily one of my favorites.  I can't wait to see what's in store for the fourth game, and exactly unlike  Half-Life 2 Episode 3, I have a lot of faith that we'll get it sooner rather than later.

(Edit: I'm a big dummie; I couldn't pre-order it because I couldn't on Steam.  But dammit I would have if I could have.)

Thoughts on Portal 3

If the comments sections under any blog/article about Portal 2 are to believed, one of the popular demands for a new Portal (either full game or DLC) would involve Doug Rattmann as a playable character.

If you are reading this and you don't know who Rattmann is, you can see him here.  He is also responsible for all of the graffiti around Aperture Laboratories in both Portal games.

The scribbled ramblings of a man we can trust.

My gut reaction said "No, that's a dumb idea."  If you read the comic, you can see that Doug Rattmann's survival was questionable at best.  It's very tricky in storytelling to confirm or deny the survival of a character, especially one in his position.  In addition, it breaks Chell's set tradition of having a silent, somewhat detached protagonist, and Atlas and P-Body's (somewhat forced) silence in the Portal 2 co-op campaign.  Chell, I think, added a lot to Portal because she could have been any one of us, and we experienced Aperture Science in just the way we did.  Doug Rattmann adds a history to the Enrichment Center that separates him from us, the players.

However, after playing Portal 2, I've kind of changed my mind for a couple of reasons.  One thing that initially occurred to me as a negative was the possibility of Rattmann responding to GLaDOS, and actually carrying on a conversation.  After all, he is identified as not being mute, and he does talk back to GLaDOS in Lab Rat.  Adding this to Portal 3, though, would greatly separate the game from Portal and Portal 2, setting it apart.  Considering Valve's level of polish on whatever it is they do, it's likely that Rattmann's conversations with GLaDOS would add to the game in a good way, rather than a bad way.

In addition to Rattmann's possession of a voice, Rattmann has another quality which sets him apart from the other characters of the Portal series: he is a paranoid schizophrenic.  If you haven't read Lab Rat yet, read it, and you'll see the way Rattmann sees the world.  It's all kinds of fucked up.  Things seem to blend into one another, and because he has held off on his medication, his schizophrenia has taken an even deeper root in his mind.  Thinking of this from a level-design point of view opens things up.  Things have been pretty sterile in Aperture, save the takeover by nature.  Even then, though, things obeyed the laws of the land.  Playing from Rattmann's point of view could allow for some unnatural occurrences, like twisted or untrustworthy perspectives, or (literally) insane levels.  The gameplay element of the Portal Gun would allow for levels like that.  Think about the original Half-Life, and the Xen levels.  You could twist and alter the already messed-up landscape even more for Rattmann levels, even as challenge levels akin to the special levels in Super Mario Sunshine.

I'm talking about a twisted, distorted version of this crap.

So you know what?  I kind of hope that I get to see this kind of level design in a future Portal game.  Gabe Newell has said that Chell would have an impact on the Half-Life universe, so I doubt that we would not see her again.  But if I had to wait 'til Portal 4 for that to happen, and I played as Doug Rattmann while we waited, I'd be A-Okay with it.

30 Days of Video Games Day 28

My Favorite Developer:

It's a tie, it's gotta be a tie.  I like these two developers for different reasons, so let's hash this out.

First is Valve.  I pretty much told you why I love Valve a couple of days ago when I wrote about the best voice acting I have seen in a game.  But I didn't touch on the polish that Valve gives each game before it is released into the wild.You can watch any video of a game released by Valve to get an idea of just how polished their stuff is.  Of course, this comes with a cost.  Click the link to be taken to a chart of Valve Time.  A little-known fact: Valve works in a temporal vortex which results in their time-stream fluctuating rapidly.  In short: they rarely live up to a release date, even when it's "...any minute now."

We could've had Half-Life 2 in January 2003 if they didn't put so much time into that sweet goatee.

Despite all of this, Valve makes games that tend to amaze players and critics alike, and it makes the wait worth it.  Maybe when I'm 30 we might actually see Half-Life 3 (or to be more realistic, Half-Life 2: Episode 3).

The second developer I would have buttsecks with if that was a thing you could do with developers is Grasshopper Manufacture, headed by Suda 51.  They are the madmen (and ladies, I must remember to not be sexist) responsible for Killer 7, No More Heroes 1 and 2, and most recently, Shadows of the Damned.  I've said a lot about Killer 7, so there is little need for me to go on with that track.  But added to the games I wish I could play are the other three I've listed.  It's amazing when you can get Yahtzee to like a game, and he  sums up the appeal like this: there's nothing like Killer 7 or No More Heroes.  Flawed as the games may be, get them anyway! (he says.)

Travis Touchdown (yes, that's his name) recharging his lightsaber.  Note that he is shaking it up and down near a certain nefarious region on his body.  Very subtle, Grasshopper.

And I agree on that note.  Shadows of the Damned was the game that critics had been waiting for, giving Suda 51 a little bit of leeway with his weirdness in a gameplay setting that makes the game appealing to more than just weirdos like me.  For an example, watch this video.  Great gameplay combined with an 8-year-old's sense of humor?  Sign me up!

30 Days of Video Games Day 26

Best Voice Acting:

Again, I'm told that Uncharted and Uncharted 2 would be one of those games that would take this title if I had played it.  But luckily, Valve has me covered on multiple fronts for this one.

Firstly, the Half-Life series.  Unfortunately, I haven't played Half-Life 2 in a while, so I don't remember the voice acting very well.  It was high-quality stuff, though.  I remember the first Half-Life, though, and that is mostly because of the G-Man.

Or as he's also known: Seriously What the Hell is Your Agenda?

At the end of the original Half-Life, he congratulates you for defeating the final boss of the game and blah blah blah enigmatic crazy bullshit.  You could see him in every chapter of the game, but to hear him actually speak to you is creepy as hell.  He also makes mention of his "employers," who are again completely unknown (but there are theories.  Oh boy are there theories).  The G-man's speech stands out greatly as probably the most memorable parts of Half-Life and Half-Life 2.

Then there's Team Fortress 2.  I haven't gushed about the game in a few blogs, so I'll hear no complaining from any readers on this subject.  One of the things that really can draw you in to the game is the different (ridiculous) accents that each mercenary has, giving away their countries of origin.  But it's the fun that the script has with the characters that makes it great.  It's like a room full of Americans went, "What would an Australian say as a battle cry?"  And then we end up with a bad Australian accent yelling "God save the queen!" and a Scotsman yelling "Freeeedooooom!"  It gives a very light tone to a game where I will end up setting people on fire and blowing them up into small bits.  The game's a cartoon, and the characters really make it great.  Watch any of the Meet the Team videos and you'll get the idea.

But the best voice acting, I think, has to go to Portal and Portal 2.  They really turned two pretty damn good games into two of the best games in this field.  I can't say enough good about GLaDOS.

Ceiling GLaDOS is watching  you...

As the only "companion" you have in Portal, she quickly becomes your best friend, even though you KNOW that she has every intention of killing you.  Any time I heard her monotone, auto-tuney voice come over the loud-speaker, it was a joyous occasion.  It really helped, too, that the script for this game was amazing.  The same goes for GLaDOS's script in Portal 2.

Portal 2 really set the story element in motion with its voice acting, though!  Bringing in J.K. Simmons to play Cave Johnson, the founder of Aperture Science, was amazing.  Wheatley was a great contrast to GLaDOS; where she was extremely intelligent but had the personality of a serial killer, Wheatley was a welcome-wagon that never stopped welcoming you with the warmest of greetings... until he wakes up GLaDOS and starts the events of Portal 2.  Because Chell is a mute protagonist (and maybe just a straight-up mute person), the story depends entirely on the physical looks of Aperture Labratories and the voices around her.  Portal and Portal 2 pulled this off better than any other game I've played.

30 Days of Video Games Day 18

Favorite protagonist:

Let's see... this one's pretty difficult.  Well, I can get rid of a lot of potential answers by eliminating silent protagonists from the race.  I like Gordon Freeman, Chell, Chrono, and Mystery Guy from Bioshock enough, but you can't really connect to them without any kind of dialogue.  People who just yell and don't really give a lot in the way of plot or thoughts also don't count , so Link, Mario, and others along that line also get eliminated.

Phoenix Wright makes the nomination list for actually having a personality and for being relatable.  Edgeworth also too as well.  Duke Nukem is also note-worthy, but I'm not sure I can justify him as my favorite protagonist.  Same goes for Raz from Psychonauts.

Note: Here, I had to take a break from writing.  I couldn't decide on anyone being a particularly stand-out protagonist.  So I changed my line of thinking.

I'm going to change my line of thinking to a great creation by a game developer.  And I'm going with the protagonist of Amnesia: The Dark Descent.  He doesn't throw out awesome one-liners, but Amnesia isn't the type of game that would need that.  Instead, we're set up with a protagonist who intentionally loses his memory, and who has a completely unidentifiable enemy force hunting him.  He's the perfect protagonist for what Amnesia sets up.

In regaining some sense of his past (since that seems to be the goal of every amnesiac in video games), we get a first-person view of Daniel's experiences beyond what happens in the goddamn creepy castle.  Instead of letting us watch what happens, we maintain complete control.  That keeps everything about as terrifying as Frictional Games could possibly want it.  Plus, I actually care about this protagonist's back-story, something I can't say for many of them, apparently.