Games in October

Yeesh, this was the month of steady grinding, and not in a good way. Reflecting back, it might have been my least-enjoyable month of gaming this year. To set the tone, Gamefly offered me 2-at-a-time a $1 membership to come back to their service, so I happily signed up, thinking I'd have a similar experience as earlier this year.

Not 'pages,' 'pagies,' because it's...stupid?

I was finishing up the definitely-too-much-of-a-good-thing Final Fantasy XII and took 2.5 weeks to complete the first game, Yooka-Laylee. This game is controversial because fans of the developer's previous games Banjo Kazooie/Tooie called those games perfect platformers--and how do you really follow up to perfection?

Lots of jokes. Side note: this boss is super hard.

Yooka and Laylee are two buddies that explore, platform, and waste a whole bunch of your time all the while. In terms of exploring, this game rewards you with collectibles that aren't too far off the beaten path, and the scenery and graphics are beautiful. I also have to say that this game has one of the most diversified list of tasks - minigames - that I've ever seen, and most of them are pretty fun and thoroughly developed. Timed switches where you platform and collect, mine cart racing ala Donkey Kong Country, sliding and dodging, aiming and shooting, puzzling and a dozen other things you can do while you collect more than 1200 items.

A snake...named Trowzer. RILLY?

However, I mentioned that most of the minigames are fun, and this is where Yooka-Laylee gets tainted. For starters, the camera sucks. When there is an object between your perspective and the character, the camera doesn't know what to do. The controls tied to the camera suck, and at times the minigames control sucks, which is a great recipe for frustration. Good camera physics are the second pillar of a good platforming/adventure game and this game gets an F minus in that regard. The next gripe is inconsistency. Most of the game is easy and presents a lower-mid-level challenge: I did about half the tasks on the first try, employing some of my 10 Gaming Commandments.

Featuring a character from a better game.

Then there are certain boss fights and tasks that are so unreasonably difficult that I found myself swearing up a storm in front of a such a cutesy-fun game. Think about how humbling a Mario Kart blueshell is, and scatter that feeling throughout Yooka-Laylee, and you can understand why reviews blast this game so harshly. Also, the dialogue sucks and can barely be skipped. Ugh. With a single player game, the devs have no incentive to waste your time (as online multiplayer trophies and DLC does), so who thought this was a good idea? I can recommend Yooka-Laylee for people who like 3d adventure games, and it's a lot better if you're not going for all collectibles and can skip some of the more bullshit tasks.

Raphael still sucks in this game.

The next rental that I played for 2 days and returned was Platinum Games' TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan. This developer is known for games like Bayonetta and Vanquish. Bayo is hot shit, but the universe in that game makes no sense, nor does the story, and I never made it more than half way through the first game. Vanquish is a different story. I loved that game, and had one measly challenge left, after doing everything else, that kept me from the platinum trophy. TMNT has that feel of beating up loads of enemies with a noncommittal camera and maybe it was the other game I was playing at the time, but it felt so underwhelming. Maybe I didn't like this game because I shouldn't have played it alongside Yooka-Laylee. The turtles have a bit of personality, but you can set their moves to pretty much mimic each other. The AI controls 3 of them and you can switch them mid-combo and do some pretty cool moves that don't do much damage. Then you get to the third level and keep dying. Over. And. Over. This one is hard to recommend. To add insult to injury, mail time ate up 8 days with this rental.

One other rental was Trivial Pursuit Live, which was pretty awesome for what it was. The music was cool and the questions were a good challenge. That was a quick 100%.

My last rental has a special slathering of hatred for the month of October. Get this: Tekken 7 has a known error (still took a decent amount of Google-fu) that botches the 25-minute install. So, I fire it up and that happens. I see smudges on the disc and try again the next day. Doesn't work. Send the disc back. 8 days later, I get my replacement, and by then it's time to cancel with Gamefly as the $1 month was up. This time, the installation makes it to about 90% and quits.

...SHOUSHI...

At this point, I have wasted 1.5 weeks with a game that doesn't even work, bringing my monthly game rental count to 4 total games. This is a poor reflection of the rental company, and of course Namco, for making a game that doesn't install. The bug is that the game installs from the disc at the same time of downloading the patch, which apparently applies to the still-installing game. Play test, Namco. Plenty of other games do this just fine. Once I got Tekken 7 installed, it came to be what I expected, with a quick trophy list and naturally the two worst part of modern fighters: unfair, difficulty-shrugging special bosses and the online community, who are all masters of the Iron Fist Tournament.

Still got babes, dho.

Tekken 7 has dope graphics, but because the series always sticks to glossy-flashy, it will never look real, but that's fine. Stay with your art style! It plays like every Tekken game, has a story mode that I skipped entirely (I just want to fight), and has cool title screen music. It's also got a platinum trophy list that's easy to recommend. If you can install it, that is.

Change the sheets and I'm out!

Last up: one of my Games in 2017, Steamworld: Heist features steampunk-robot-cowboys--"cowbots"--doing missions around the solar system in a 2d tactics game with RPG elements. There are 9 playable characters and their skill sets mean you play them all quite differently. Each mission, you are free to select your crew, and Piper Faraday is only loosely your main character. Shoot robots and turrets, collect loot, enjoy cyborg-talk. Easy recommendation, here, folks.