Call of Cthulu... updated

Managed to get some courage to go back to this last night.

I learnt a few things about myself and a few important lessons that I will now share with you.

* I really don't like ugly thugs chasing me down when I have limited time, and no weapon except my trusty ammo pack. (Found some ammo,but no gun. That sucks). I also seemed to enjoy wandering around town a lot more when the local cultists weren't trying to use my body for target practice.

* I still get creeped out by scary girl voices.

* I should not attempt to run around with a broken leg. You tend to black out in inconvenient times. Also I should try to take the ladder in future, instead of flinging myself over the ledge to get to a save point. Scary girl voices are *not* an excuse.

* Don't look at creepy things. Just... don't.

ICO 2

OK, so I promised a review of Shadow of the Colossus, less known as "ICO 2".

Good stuff:
YAY for horsey. I loved the horse animations, riding a horse in a game is a lovely pleasure, especially since it's got different speeds, and it really has a lot of character. Love the fact that it steers like a real horse too. ;)

The fights take about half an hour each, which is just long enough to keep my interest without becoming tedious. Once a boss is done, you get a lot of satisfaction in seeing the damn thing fall. You also know exactly how far you've got to go.

The variations of the colossi... damn those guys are creative. A lot is gleaned from real-life mingled creatures. So there're flying, swimming, crawling, jumping etc colossi. But it's so well done! My favourite has to be one that was actually insanely difficult.

*Spoilers follow*

It involved jumping on your trusty steed, galloping at full speed with 1 x chasing colossus, then shooting the damn thing in its giant eye, so that it would hit the side of the cavern. This involved keeping the horse going, aiming at the colossus (so you were pointed backwards) and hoping your horse wasn't about to run into a wall. Oh, and try not to get eaten by the huge sand snake colossus chasing you. :) There was sheer adrenalin pumping in my veins by the end of that. Very intense thrill.

*End of Spoiler*

Bad stuff:
Some of the bosses are exasperatingly difficult. And walkthroughs don't help. :P Just the thought of going back to try kill the flying thingy makes me ill. I'm stuck at the 4th to last creature, and it's driving me nuts. Make sure you've got a partner to assist you with this - a collegue said that he and his girlfriend got through this by taking over when the other got too frustrated to play.

Yes, it eventually becomes a "Gotta finish playing this stupid f-ing game so I can carry on with my life in peace." Does this make it a bad game? Does the absolutely breathtaking visuals, that keep on stunning me (unlike Oblivion, which quickly grew old), make up for the frustration? Do the heart-stoppingly large colossi that literally shake the ground upon which you stand, ease the pain of having to climb up several times, only to fall off because you lost strength?

I think it depends on the player. For 90% of the game, I enjoyed it thoroughly, the solutions were pretty straight forward, and a bit of timing and luck took me the rest of the way. Now I just have to work up the courage to take on those last few bosses....

Call of Cthulhu

Finally! After several years of *waiting* for this game, it's finally in my hands.

True, I'm too scared now to go and carry on playing it, but the experience was worth it :)

Seriously, this game is pretty scary. You need to keep an eye on your character's sanity, and spiraling into madness is quite grisly. Special screen effects start occuring - blurring, spinning, hallucinations. I got freaked out when my character freaked out at something...and I still don't know what he saw! You know a game is scary when you're terrified, and you didn't even see anything!

Graphics are a bit dated, which is my only gripe. The good thing about this is that I can run anti-aliasing, and on 1024 x 768, and it's smooth as a dream :P

Spore!

OMG, Spore is insane!

To quote a reviewer at IGN, "Will Wright is a mad genius of gaming." I've just watched Will Wright's presentation of Spore... At the beginning, I thought "Wow, this is completely different". As it went on, my mouth started hanging lower and lower. The word "Insane" started repeating in my head like a mantra.

There are several different stages/games, starting from pond amoeba, to multicelled, to village, city...

Ok, holy shit. He just zoomed out to the solar system. He's now talking about UFOs... He's so not going to transform that planet? Yup, you can upgrade the UFO to have terraforming abilities. Damn.

I think I'm going to waste a lot of time on this game. Seriously, this is like Legos, microscope exploration, biology all rolled in one. Do you know how excited that makes me? :D (Yes, I'm a science/biology freak. Don't ask)

Myst IV - The devil you know

Stuff I liked:

• It's extremely immersive - you can literally tap any surface you like, the movement method is the best in the series, in my opinion, and the graphics gorgeous.
• The satisfaction of solving puzzles (when I actually could!)

Stuff I didn't like:

• Damn, those puzzles are nasty. And making me look for little pieces of paper in obscure places, when I didn't even know I had to be searching for them? - bad Myst, bad! *wields rolled up newspaper*.

This refers to an obscure puzzle on one of the ages, where I eventually resorted to UHS-Hints. The hints couldn't even help on the last puzzle on this age - had to go find a walkthrough. Do yourself a favour if you're playing this, and allow yourself to cheat if you can't solve a puzzle. It's not worth the frustration. :)

• Pixel Hunting!! I HATE pixel hunting, and this game requires a full fledged mouse rifle to get them all.

Any particular room may hold many important clues to other puzzles. But you don't know what is clickable, and which objects are just scenery. So whip out the mouse and start clicking - books, papers, odd objects. Then you get to a puzzle, which usually consists of an obscure piece of machinery with knobs and dials. Again, clicking commences as you try to figure out what is clickable, and what can be ignored. Woe betide you if you miss a doo-dad, and the machine doesn't work. You'll sit there scratching your head trying to figure out what you've done wrong for a while.

Final Comments:
Enjoy, with a walkthrough. ;)