LittleBigPlanet 2 (Part One?)

Well, one new years resolution down, 3 to go. I would apologize, but my only readers are my parents and some grandparents (not that I think that they will get much out of this,) who don’t really expect me to write, knowing that I have the work ethic of a potheaded sloth. I was planning on reviewing this back in January, but then my priorities in gaming were changed due to borrowing games. I started writing 3 other blog posts, but they didn’t go anywhere. But whats done is done and boy don’t I wish that weren’t true.

So, LittleBigPlanet2 (LBP2). I liked LBP1, but I thought that it was overrated. It was a good platformer, but its big strengths were artistic design and the non-platforming sections; also, playing it solo would’ve been like watching “Independence Day” alone. I thoroughly enjoyed the single player, and was ready to dick around with the level design tools, until one of the tutorials glitched and I couldn’t finish, so my experience of that was somewhat diminished.

It would seem that Media Molecule heard this cry, and tried to make it very focused on puzzles and vehicle missions. They understood that their physics engine is very good, but it isn’t for platforming. As a result, LBP2 is a fantastic game even playing alone. The puzzles are challenging, but never illogical; the new clothes are a million times better than LBP1’s (now I have the ability to dress up as Akbar and Jeff); the vehicles offer new and interesting forms of gameplay; but the real thing that makes this a great game is that there are camels with frickin lasers on their heads! Well, a camel, but this is still a breakthrough. Portal, Mario 3, Final Fantasy IV, and every other game I would’ve argued for “best game ever” title are now obsolete in the eyes of the laser camel!

Now that I’ve said that it is in Mario 3 territory, I can start complaining: LittleBigPlanet, you don’t have a good story. You have some fantastic names that I’ll be stealing (my new concept album is “The Factory of a Better Tomorrow” by my new pseudo-neo-pop rock band “Gregory Marlowe’s Asylum for the Mentally Alternative,”) but don’t waste your time with the big epic cut scenes because I’ll just skip them. One doesn’t play LBP to watch a masterpiece of story telling, one plays it because crazy crap happens. This is time and money that could’ve been spent making more game if they had gone with the LBP1 storytelling method of in-level text boxes.

Next, where did the jetpacks go? In LBP1, jetpacks were a central part of several levels, but now they’re completely gone! And when are you going to sell the special edition costumes on the PSN? You already made the content, just slap it up on the LittleBigStore and sell it for 4 bucks a pop. I want the Gonzo, LGM, and Tron costumes! WHY WON’T YOU LET ME GIVE YOU MONEY!

Yes, these are petty complaints even to me, who got pissed at Red Steel 2 because I never got to buy the exploding shotgun upgrade, but I’m stretching for ideas here. Level design is good, game mechanics are interesting, but nothing really new. I like the parts where you control minions, kind of like Pikmin. I like the parts where you get a grappling gun, kind of like Bionic Commando. I like the parts where you get a head gear gun thing, but that just makes it part of a genre as old as Contra (probably older, but that’s the earliest game I can think of.)

In conclusion, LittleBigPlanet2 is good, but I regret paying $60 for it. I should’ve waited, and spent that money pre-ordering Portal 2. There might be a follow up post on the UGC (user generated content) because LBP2 aggressively tries to get you to build levels. When I first started it up, the narrator said on the main menu “you can start building levels, or play story mode first” (obviously I’m paraphrasing and he said something much more poetic and cutsie, LittleBigPlanet being LittleBigPlanet,” however, I make no promises.

What The Hell Will I Write About?

My New Years Resolution for 2011 is to get out a blog post bi-weekly (bi only because I’m not sure about how often I’ll be able to get concepts) so I need to get out a post soon. The difficulty is that news has been slow, not much in the world of gaming (LittleBigPlanet 2 is the first big release of the year, and thats not out for another 2 weeks), and I have 7 anime series that I’ve been meaning to finish but probably never will — Princess Tutu, Durarara, and Black Jack to name a few — so there’s not much I have to talk about.

So game of the year time! 2010 was a year for me to catch up on games I hadn’t played, so I can rattle off all the games I played from 2010 of the top of my head, so don’t expect me to be doing platform games, and I didn’t play the major games of the year — Red Dead Redemption, Assassins Creed Brotherhood, and Mass Effect 2 being the ones that come to mind — so this will be a unique list.

Most Improved Sequel: Pac-Man Champion Ship Edition DX

Pac-Man is a game that I think you’ve played, and after 30 years of the series going nowhere but down hill, Pac-Man CE DX is the definitive Pac-Man. Fully utilizing modern console graphics and adding new game mechanics, this is hands down the most improved sequel of 2010.

Most Thinking Game: Civilization 5

Civilization 5 is a game where you play as the English Empire if World Wars I and II hadn’t destroyed it. Some games are complicated because of the amount of micro-management that went into it — looking at you X-Com — but Civ 5 genuinely has that much depth. Short of Agricola, it is the only game where my turn can take 20 minutes of me staring at the board thinking.

Most Disappointing Game: Epic Mickey

After acquiring the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in 2007, I assumed Disney would re-release the old cartoons, make mad bank, and then do nothing with the character. I was delightfully surprised when I discovered that there would be a game using the old dark Disney cartoons — including Oswald — to re-engineer Mickey, especially with Square Enix trying to get Disney out of Kingdom Hearts. I was terrified of the final product. With a camera that hates you, controls that make Mickey move like Mario after smoking a joint and — the deal breaker — an art team that doesn’t know the difference between dark and hideous, Epic Mickey is the most Disappointing Game of 2010

Most Japanese Game: Kirby’s Epic Yarn

Epic Yarn is a game based around cute. No dark lord threatening Dreamland, no terrorist insurgency, no hidden past on the Space Colony ARK you have to retrieve (okay that was SEGA, but still.) The closest thing there is to a villain says “Soon Dreamland will be within my knitting needles!” and remember, Nintendo makes Kirby darker for the American releases. Sure, I could’ve given it to any number of weird DSi Ware releases, but I didn’t play any of those, so I say that the game based around cuteness is the Most Japanese Game of 2010, Kirby’s Epic Yarn.

Just Plain Bestest Game: Civilization 5

What can I say? I didn’t play Starcraft II, Red Dead, Etc., so my top 3 were Sonic The Hedgehog 4, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and Civilization 5. Sonic 4 was disqualified for only being the first episode, I’ll be able to give it game of the year when the final episode comes out, and Galaxy 2, well, it wasn’t bad. Galaxy 2 was just more, nothing new, nothing bad, but nothing interesting. Civ 5 is if Agricola, Memoir ’44, and Through The Ages were fused by Reiner Knizia, were ported to the computer by Valve, and then published by Inside Baseball. While I got 20 some-odd hours out of Galaxy 2, and probably 5 hours of Sonic 4 (only episode 1 of course) Steam has told me that I have played 469 hours of Civ 5. If that’s not enough endorsement, I don’t know what is. So that is my Game of the Year awards, if you don’t like them, it was kind of a last minute thing, so don’t get frustrated.

Nintendo Fails at Wii-motes

On December 26th, 2009, I went wii-remote hunting. I had gotten Mario Party 8 for Christmas, but I only had two Wii remotes, and Mario Party works best with 3 or 4. Naturally, I went out in search of wii-remotes. I went down to the Watertown Mall (now %60 Target) to try to get wii-motes there. No wii-motes. I traveled to the edge of the mall to the Best Buy. No Wiimotes. I asked a staffer when they would be getting a new shipment. They said that a truck was coming in tomorrow (today) but they didn’t know what it would contain. I had to go across the street to the Arsenal Mall (why they have two malls across the street I don’t know) to the section of it that I have dubbed the “no-mans-land where there was once a Ruby Tuesday and Cinnabon” to find a GameStop to see if they had Wiimotes. They had no regular Wiimotes. What they had was a black Wiimote with a Wii Motion Plus included. Frustrated, I pondered. I decided to buy but one Wiimote. When I returned to the GameStop, and asked for said wiimote, he returned from the back with all five of the Wiimotes remaining. He told us that the GameStop headquarters’ warehouses were completely dry, and that Nintendo had under produced.

Apparently this happens every year. Nintendo does not know how many to make of something for the holiday season. Launch year, it was the Wii console. Up until this year, it was DS related. This is not news, it is commentary. Nintendo needs to make more of everything. When I said this to my mom, a grad-school student learning about finance, told me that that would be un-economical. I say, they can under produce after they’ve over produced. If there is stuff left over on the shelves, then they don’t have to make more for a month or two into the new year. Anyway, I don’t have much to say about it, I just want to be frustrated at Nintendo. So, over und out.

Just How Fat Are the American Youth?

Before I begin, I would like to say that I have no experience with Africa, South America, or Austrailia, so I can say nothing on the topic for those areas. However, I have been told that Chinese are increasing in weight, Japanese are very healthy, and Europe gets tons of exorcise (because it takes a 10 minute jog to get from London to Stockholm), and eats in moderation.

The media today doesn’t want you to feel good about yourself and those around you. The Today Show has featurettes like Top Ten Ways To Loose Ten Pounds In 2 Weeks and Why You Could Be Better. Mainstream media and television trys to convince you that todays children are horrible little devils. They make it seem that popular media — Eminem, Marilyn Manson, even Twilight — are causing havoc. They do this by making assumptions, and using small examples, like Boston Latin School vampires, to referance Columbine and anything else serious to add hyperbole.

Right now, I would like to address issues about child obbessity. “Studies” show that child obbessity has been leaping since the eighties. However, never, have I seen these studies sited, or have them show numerical values, only percentage increases. I would not like to link to studies, or referance news articles, I would like to just speak about my own experience.

I have only seen obese Americans on rare occasions. I go to a school of 2400 kids, and pass somewhere between 1,000 and 1,200. Of these 1,200 children I pass by daily, I would classify 3 of them as obese, and 10 of them as over weight. From this, I have difficulty believing the insane percentages that associations like NACHRI (National Association of Childrens Hospitals and Related Institutions) state.

I have seen the documentary “Supersize Me,” (I highly recomend it) in which a man only eats McDonalds for a month. However, I would like to take note of something from that movie: he GAINS very little weight. Several times when talking about this with people, they have told me, “go on the McDonalds diet! That will take care of your problems.” He gains only 30-50 lbs, which is not very much when talking about children of 260+lbs. The McDonlads diet destroys ones liver before they can gain enough weight.

The food industry is changing high-caloric foods’ formula, so that they can advertise how they have “Only 100 Calories” and “Low Sugar” or “45% less fat” and I am fed up with it. As I stated at the beginning, media doesnt want you to be happy with yourself. If you are lesser than you want to be, you will consume more products that claim to help you be greater. But no one ever wonders what the companies use instead of sugar and calories. Companies like Jell-o use artificial sweeteners and unhealthy chemicals to make them taste similarly to the old product. These chemicals are bad for all people, while calories and sugar are only bad for those who think that they need to be better.

IF YOU WANT TO LOOSE WEIGHT, BUY FROM WHOLE FOODS! BUY NATURAL FRUITS! BUY FOODS THAT MOTHER NATURE CAREFULLY HAND CARVED TO KEEP YOU HEALTHY, NOT THE ONES THAT THE COMPANIES MADE TO SCAM YOU!!!! Americans need to learn that cutting out 45% of fat is NOT a viable excuse to eat a 3 Muskateers bar. They need to learn that they need to change themselves before they can expect change from others. Meanwhile, people like me are tired of hunting down the unhealthy foods.

In summary, ladies and germs: I am frustrated with the irony of the food industry, and I have finally managed to rant about this onto the internet. Thank you, and good-bye

A Series of Unfortunate Fetch Quests

Hello all of you on the internet, I would like to voice my opinion on an important topic: Legend of Zelda. I have heard people complain about games that are just a bunch of fetch quests, but at the same time, these people are huge fans of the Legend of Zelda games.

It is true that I have not played many Zelda games, or beaten any of them, but what I have played is running around, doing chores for people. I got incredibly frustrated, and gave up on Twilight Princess when the store clerk told me to herd her cat! That is an expression for something frustrating, and prolonged, but I mean this in a literal sense. When I told my friend John this the next day, he told me that I didn’t understand, and that I needed to go fishing!

I will admit that I have had fun with one Zelda game, however, it is the Gameboy Advance game, The Minish Cap, which I have been told was the worst Zelda game. I would disagree, as it is the one where you don’t go on fetch quests, but instead an adventure game. In minish cap, you

Hard Drive Wiped

Hello all -5 of you who actually give a !@#$. I would just like to ask you something: Guess who’s back. Back again. Watchamacallit’s back. Tell a friend. I’ve wiped my posts, cuz’ nobody wanted to read Neoscam anymore, but I wanted to  blog. So I’m back, on the track, and reactivating.

I’ve given up on Neopets, so I’ll be writing about what I like: Anime, Video Games and, because I’m stuck on Those Darn Cats, Disney. For this first post, I’m reviewing the Anime Cowboy Bebop: It is the greatest piece of art ever created. If you haven’t watched it, you should go out and buy the box set for $40. It will be worth every single cent you can spend. That is all there is to say.