Up late talking games & writing? You're...

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Only four-ish more days until Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate comes out.

My full review will go up on February 10 when the embargo drops, so look for that soon. However, I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say that I'm not the kind of person who puts 100 hours into a bad game, so take that as you will…

With such a huge amount of time poured into Monster Hunter, I haven't had much time for anything else, but I took a break from hunting tonight to dip into Life Is Strange from DONTNOD Entertainment.

(Side note: Are these guys intentionally jinxing themselves with the names they come up with? DONTNOD, as in, don’t nod off while playing and fall asleep! And their last game was Remember Me, as in, please don’t find it too forgettable! Come on folks, this is all so awkward…)

Anyway, the general consensus on Twitter was that it was something worth dipping into, and since it's episodic in nature, I figured investing two hours and $5 in the first episode wasn't too much of a risk.

Essentially it's a Telltale-style adventure (Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us, etc.) where the player walks around the world, exploring things and talking to people. No QTEs at all, though. Besides that, the most notable thing about it for me is that the protagonist is an average 18yo girl, and the people she meets pretty normal and realistic. Of course, videogame realistic, but realistic all the same. 

Clearly the developers want to add things for the player to interact and experiment with, but it was hard for me to do because it felt like I was doing illogical things given the level of realism, as opposed to the gamey artificiality of JRPGs where villagers don’t care if you steal every damn thing they own.  I mean, I'm playing an 18-year-old girl who’s reserved and pretty quiet… Why would I be poking my nose in places where it didn't belong?

Incidentally, the game shows your choices at the end of the episode, just like Telltale does. This time, they’re broken up into major story beats and a bunch of minor actions you can take, and I noticed that I did almost none of the small ones. Not surprising given how I felt like I shouldn’t be disturbing things or screwing around as I went.

One random thing I meant to blog about earlier, but forgot until just now: If you caught the @Gamecritics GOTY show, then you know that “we” picked Mario Kart 8 as our game of the year. Personally, I wouldn't have guessed that as our winner in a million years, but the votes were the votes, so what can you do?

Anyway, I hadn’t played it by the time we recorded that show, so I figured I should give it a spin. Gamefly sent it shortly after, so my son and I put a little of time in. Honestly, it seemed to me like standard Mario Kart -- not terrible by any means, but nothing really outstanding, either.

By sheer chance, Gamefly sent Sonic & All-Stars Racing: Transformed (dat title!) just a couple of days later, and my son and I thought that was a more exciting, more entertaining game by a large margin. 

(It was brought to my attention by @TwinHumanities, so a shout-out to them!) 

Although the two games are essentially the same at the core, Sonic’s mechanic of transforming from a car to a plane to a boat (and back again) was pretty neat, the sense of speed was great, and the tracks were quite impressive with lots to look at, plenty of callouts for Sega fans, and frequent changes in topography. For example, during the first lap of a race, the player would have to go through in car mode. Coming around on the second lap, the track would fall away, requiring a quick transformation into aerial mode… Stuff like that.

Anyway, I don't remember many people talking about this game (because Sonic I’m guessing) but despite the fact that most of the games in that series have been pure crap lately, this one was a great time, and it easily eclipsed Mario Kart in our household.

If you haven't given it a try, it's worth a look!

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