What foul sorcery is this?!

 Here's something i came across during my travels on Youtube: A complete playthrough of the Commodore 64 game Sorcery:

 Original video located here. Accessed 22nd August 2016

You hear people of today describe the 8-bit era (or the 3rd console generation if you prefer) of gaming as being populated by games that are of brutal difficulty. People talk of the Mega Man games and the original Castlevania as being really tough, much like how Dark Souls is described today.
Mind you, that kinda does make sense from a designer's perspective because whatever the game may lack from a technical standpoint, it makes up for in offering a challenge. Make the game too easy and people won't have any reason to play it beyond the first successful completion.

Which now brings me to Sorcery. I played a lot of games on my C64 as a kid and this was indeed among the hardest I've played. This down to two factors: Firstly, this game was nothing short of vague in exactly what is trying to convey. Looking at the video over two decades later however and it seems clear: The player is required to pick up certain objects and use them in a particular combination. And, naturally, there are numerous red herrings abound which makes success in the game more a case of trial and error.
Secondly, there is a time limit that is nothing less than punishing: As established above, the player would need to apply trial and error to find the successful path to victory but the time limit does not allow for such experimentation. Thus it would seem multiple attempts would be required to find the successful path.
Make no mistake: there is little room for error. As indicated by the video ab0ve, the player would need to rush through the game and have their health drained with the dangers lurking at every turn. There are potions that can restore the player's health but they are more a hindrance when the greatest enemy is the clock. If anything I'm surprised someone actually managed to beat this game.

Mind you, when I originally played this, I figured that the vial of poison would be the item that would secure victory. I tried to persuade my brother but he was unconvinced.
Now, years later, it seem that I was right :)

Star Wars got NES'd up

My recent post about the NES game Kung Fu stirred memories of another game I saw being played out on the NES: Star Wars.

Original video located here. Accessed 8th August 2016

In the years since I first saw this game in action, I became aware that this game has built up a rancid reputation as being one of the worst Star Wars games ever made. So how does it some twenty years later?
Well, I am somewhat baffled by the hate this game gets. At first glance the game certainly looks impressive and certainly better than a lot of other NES games at the time.
My research has revealed that a lot of the hate seems to be directed at the gameplay: What, with falling damage, fiddly controls, and a lot of 'blind faith' jumping (that being jumping into uncertainty and hoping you land on something on solid). Those are legitimate points but nothing that differentiates this game from the tough difficulty that was so commonplace in games of the NES era.
One could say that this game still suffers from the 'curse of movie tie-in' but it does a solid job of both following the plot of the movie and adding some new additions on top. And hey, I welcome any creativity when following a movie tie-in - after all, Super Star Wars on the SNES had the Sarlacc from Return of the Jedi as the first level boss.

My recollections of playing this game weren't really that spectacular: I didn't get very far largely due to the difficult nature of the game. And years later, I tried the adore-mentioned Super Star wars and I found that just as, if not more, frustrating.

So at the end of the day, this game may look impressive but the hatred it gets is still baffling to me. Granted it's not best Star Wars game but it certainly isn't the worst.
But if the hate of this game is down to the difficult nature, it must look odd now when people are getting beaten down by Dark Souls.

Weekend Edition

Last weekend I was at a friends place with some other friends - much of this time was spent around a PS3. Now whilst this isn't my first time using a PS3 (that story is something I may come back to in the future), this was an opportunity to have a quick bash at some of games that are only available on the Playstation.

So what got played? Well....

Marvel vs Capcom 3
Always good for a laugh. I will admit to being familiar with this series but I've never actually took the time to play it. But I did enjoy playing this game: Maybe it's one of those games that need the right atmosphere to get the most out of (ie played with a group of other people). I used a team of Wolverine, Morrigan (Darkstalkers) and Amaterasu (Okami) and did rather well. Sure it was odd to see Amaterasu present but there is indeed some amusement value in seeing her, a wolf god, trump the thunder god Thor....

Little Big Planet
One of the bigger hits to spawn from the PS3, Little Big Planet is something that left me with mixed feelings. I do like both the inventive graphics and the four-player malarkey (whilst being very reminiscent of New Super Mario Bros) but other times, the controls aren't really that welcoming - as I found out, it's hard to try and work out how to do things when the more experienced players are screaming ahead of you and taking the rest of the screen with them, leaving little time to work within! Still, Little Big Planet has some degree of charm and for that I give it props.

Dark Souls
What a reputation this game comes with - being perhaps the most fiendishly difficult RPG ever made. No pause button, a stacking of unbelievable odds and the sense the game is taunting the player with every step. And that reputation isn't kidding: I saw my com-padres each getting slaughtered by the same monster and it certainly made for a frustrating sight. Also notable is seeing announcements declared in large lettering and the many, many cheap deaths. Now normally I would hate a game for doing that but in the time I spent playing Dark Souls I can say it some elements going for it with the great skeleton animations and setting.

Ico / Shadow of the Colossus in HD
Well I've been singing the praises for these games many times before on this blog so there's not much to add. However, I'm astonished by the HD remake and how everything looks so much better - so much so it's near impossible to go back to the original PS2 incarnations. Also, there is indeed a sweet satisfaction to play games you thought only you knew about and seeing other people showing an interest.