How All Video Games Should Be More Like Dead Space 2

From now on, I will be following a loose framework for my posts, days that start with “T” are free post days were I can post whatever I like.

This post will have nothing to do with the game-play, story, or general awesomeness of Dead Space 2, instead it will be entirely about it’s achievements.

I for one enjoy the achievement system on the Xbox 360, and as you can see I have a pretty respectable amount of gamer-score. But as you can also see in “completed” game section, Dead Space 2 is very lonely… It is a good thing I finally got that last achievement I needed for Dead Space 2, because prior to this weekend I didn’t have every achievement unlocked for any game. Now when I say more games should be like Dead Space 2, I’m referring to the kinds of achievements in that game. All of them were fairly doable, no achievements were impossible to obtain and on the flip side, you didn’t get achievements for turning the game on, and yes I have played games were you got an achievement for exactly that.

Most of the achievements pertained to gameplay aspects, which you could easily get just by reading what the achievement was, and then altering your playing strategies to get said achievement. There were achievements in which you had to find secret items, normally I would have to look up how to do all of these achievements online, but the maps on Dead Space 2 are not too intricate and I found almost all the secret items I needed after a couple run-throughs. Another thing I appreciate about Dead Space 2 is that they didn’t have any achievements that you got from the multiplayer. When games make achievements that you must unlock in multiplayer matches, they just become chores that dampen your multiplayer experience, this would have been especially true in Dead Space 2’s case because I didn’t care for the multiplayer very much. Now, all games have that one achievement “Beat the game on the hardest difficulty” and Dead Space 2 is no exception.

Dead Space 2 has one of the hardest campaign of any game I have ever played, the only games that come to mind as being harder are the Halo games on legendary, and Twisted Metal (2012). But one thing that is different, is that Dead Space 2 doesn’t make you want to throw your controller across the room and rage like legendary Halo games do. The main thing that make Dead Space 2 hard is that on the hardest difficulty there are no checkpoints and you can only save three times. This seems like a daunting task, but once you get your strategies down it is very doable. Anyway, the main point I’m trying to make is games need to lighten up a bit with the difficulty of their achievements, and become a bit more like Dead Space 2. Achievements should be challenging, but not impossible, and easily obtained with some time and effort put towards it.

Now, what do you think of achievements and their difficulty?

Twisted Metal 2: The Bossiest Bosses

One thing I say about older games is that they knew how to make bosses. The first boss is the devil himself, he drives a tank named minion. His special weapon is a tri-force of missiles accompanied by a freeze blast, this does quite a bit of damage and he uses it frequently. If he doesn’t feel like shooting you, he can simply ram into you at fast speeds dealing more than enough damage.

Despite all these things if your decent at playing the game he is a pretty manageable boss, mostly because he is essentially only a little more than a single typical foe. He handles just like any other car and is even a secret unlock-able character.

Minion is mere child’s play compared to the games final boss, Dark Tooth. Dark Tooth is sweet tooth’s father, and is arguably the best boss in twisted metal history.

As a young child I could not even comprehend fighting this behemoth of a boss. So I would just drive around the streets of Hong Kong hoping not to run into this mad man, while my dad dealt with him. I even had nightmares of Dark Tooth. As you can see in the picture, Dark Tooth is a giant ice cream truck with a flaming clown head to top it all off. At a distance he will shoot spinning, flaming, ice cream cones at you, freeze you, and throw his flaming clown head at you. His attacks are even more brutal as you get close, because he will do all of the above, and also proceed to jump on top of you. Only the fastest of Twisted Metal’s characters can escape Dark Tooth, for he has amazing speed. Defeating this monster is no easy feat even for the most hardened of twisted metal players. But if you manage to do so you win right? Wrong. After this beast there is one final challenge there is one final challenge.

You manage to destroy the truck, but not the flaming clown head. To destroy Dark tooth once and for all you must kill his head.

This final form has no where near the god like amounts of health his previous form had, but if you take this form of Dark Tooth lightly you’ll pay with your life. He still has all the weapons in in his arsenal, and he can dish the damage out. With a powerful special you can take him out fast enough. So those are the bosses of Twisted Metal 2, some of the craziest bosses ever made.

Twisted Metal 2 Character Review: il Portatore di Morte

This is a review on a specific character from the first game I’ve ever played, Twisted Metal 2. To read my review of this game in general go here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/twisted-metal-the-only-good-car-destruction-games/.

also, check out my other character reviews here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/twisted-metal-2-character-review-my-old-favorite/ and here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/twisted-metal-2-character-review-thumper/

So unless you speak italian you’re probably wondering what il portatore di morte means, it means the bringer of death. I wrote it in italian for a few reasons, 1. I’m mostly italian, 2. I’m learning how to speak italian, and 3. I wanted an excuse to mention that my last name (Mori) is a form of the word death in italian.

The person behind the wheel: Mr. grimm is the grim reaper, he enters twisted metal because he is addicted to souls, he can never get enough of them. If he wins he will wish for the worlds population to plumet so that he can have a sufficient feast. Now if you look at the character picture above, he looks like a badass, and he should! He’s the god damn grim reaper! But in the video sequence after his victory he appears like this:

And he talks in this whiny voice, “Calypso…. I can’t take the pain…. ughhh…. I need more souls….” This disappointed me, I would expect more from the angle of death. The way Mr Grimm gets screwed is that he gets his wish, and the whole world is turned into a battle ground where death rates skyrocket.

But obviously the human race eventually becomes extinct and he has no more souls to eat ever again, so he comes back whining to Calypso.

The Car: Mr grim has been in every twisted metal game ever released, and he always has driven a motorcycle. Except of course in my least favorite twisted metal game of all time, twisted metal 4. In that game he appears as “Captain Grimm” and drives a crazy boat with wheels, just plain stupid. Throughout all of the twisted metal games Mr grimm has always been one of my favorite characters game play wise. I tend to like characters with extreme strengths and weaknesses as apposed to more well rounded characters. Mr Grimm excels in speed and special weapon power. In Twisted Metal 2 he has my favorite handling by far, his max speed is 131, and has powerful special weapon that can be used at any range. For his special Mr Grimm summons a soul in the form of a bloody skull that races across the screen, doing major damage to whomever it may hit.

The freeze attack definitely helps, but given the attack’s sheer speed you dont always need it.

As I said in my last post I would love to hear from you if you’ve ever played any of the twisted metal games, or if you want to talk classic games in general.

Twisted Metal 2 Character Review: Thumper

This is a review on a specific character from the first game I’ve ever played, Twisted Metal 2. To read my review of this game in general go here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/twisted-metal-the-only-good-car-destruction-games/.

also, check out my other character review here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/twisted-metal-2-character-review-my-old-favorite/

The person behind the wheel: When me and my dad picked twisted metal up again I ventured out from my normal mister slam and started trying to play as other characters, Thumper quickly became one of my favorites. The driver of thumper is named bruce, he lives in LA and is part of dangerous gangs. He enters the contest because he’s tired of fighting for his life everyday and wants to be somebody. If he wins he will wish to be the ruler of the world.

Like almost everyone else he too gets screwed by his wish, He becomes the ruler of the world, but the world has been reduced to ruble due to the twisted metal contest. So he hardly has anything to rule over.

The Car: Bruce drives a pink low rider. The car has average handling, decent armor, and the most powerful special weapon in the game. Like I said the car has average handling, but average in this game is pretty spectacular. Thumper does not handle like a low rider at all, it can reach 105 mph and fly across the map if you hit a jump right.For Thumper’s special weapon a flamethrower shoots a flame out the front of the car dealing massive amounts of damage. This weapon can be a little tricky to get a hit with, but combined with a freeze shot, Thumpers decent handling, and the weapons range it isn’t too hard.

Like I said in my last post I would love to hear from you if you’ve ever played any of the twisted metal games, or if you want to talk classic games in general.

Twisted Metal 2 Character Review: My Old Favorite

This is a review on a specific character from the first game I’ve ever played, Twisted Metal 2. To read my review of this game in general go here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/twisted-metal-the-only-good-car-destruction-games/.

The person behind the wheel: The only character I used to play as on twisted metal when I was young was Mr. Slam. The driver of Mr. Slam is named Simon Whittlebone, he is a nerdy ginger who’s profession is that of an architect. He enters the contest because his dream of building the tallest building in the world was taken from him. If he wins he will wish to have his chance to finish his masterpiece, but like just about everybody else in the contest he gets screwed over by his wish. Before he is able to finish his building he falls from the very top of his building all the way to the ground.

Needless to say, he kicks the bucket. Just a random side note, I’ve always found that term strange… it refers to when somebody ties a noose around their neck and kicks a (in this case) bucket out from under their feet. But who stands on a bucket while trying to kill themselves? Come on go all out! Kick a stool, or if your really adventurous, a chair.

The Car: He drives a tractor who’s handling is (as the game states) sluggish.

His max speed without turbo is 91 miles per hour, which sounds fast, but I don’t think the programmers realized how fast 91 miles per hour is, so it’s agonizingly slow in-game. The car also turns slow, overall it is difficult at best to handle Mr. Slam, but what else would you expect from a tractor? Each car comes equipped with a special weapon that only that vehicle may use. For his special Mr. Slam makes use of his claws, he picks other vehicles up and slams them about three times, hence the name Mr. Slam. This special weapon does a more than decent amount of damage and it’s recharge rate is fair, but for the attack to connect, your target must be directly in front of you, and can’t move for about 2 seconds. When you Combine this with Mr. Slam’s unresponsive handling, you get a special that takes the accuracy of a surgeon to hit.

The freeze attack aids Mr. Slam’s special greatly, but when I used to play as him all those years ago I could never remember how to use the freeze attack. Nevertheless I still managed to get enemies in the grip of my tractor, I have no idea how. Mr. Slam’s shining feature is his ability to take damage like a boss. He is one of the two most armored characters that do not require a code to play as.

If you have ever played any of the twisted metal games I would love to hear from you, but otherwise I do believe that old games have a certain charm to them that newer games simply don’t have, wether its the old Spyro games, super smash brothers, or old pokemon games. I’ve never really been able to put my finger on it, so I’d also love to hear from you regarding such.

My Recently un-dusted PlayStation 3

 

I’ve been playing video games for as long as I can remember, it’s just something I grew up with. In my more early years of gaming the Xbox certainly took a backseat role. There were much more games for my other systems that appealed to me, and also I did not appreciate the huge awkward controller that belonged to the original Xbox. But when the Xbox 360 came out, it instantaneously became my main gaming system. The controllers were perfect, the graphics were great, and the game selection was wonderful. Out the three main systems, xbox exclusives proved to be my favorite. Only the occasional Wii exclusives (such as super smash bros brawl, or paper mario) would detour me from my Xbox 360. All the while the playstation 3 that my dad bought sat in my living room, virtually untouched.

Even now the only use my Playstation is receiving running an old Playstation 1 game that me and my dad used to play all time. You’ll hear more about that later. My main point is, my Playstation has been there the whole time, and not once has a PS exclusive come out that has compelled me to get it. That is, not until now. A Playstation exclusive is coming out in the very immediate future that I just have to get. I can’t wait to get my hands on it and you’ll hear about it soon enough.