Halloween Challenge 2012 Part 1

During the month of October 2012 I decided to celebrate the Halloween spirit by playing games that can be defined as horror or have some feature that could be linked back to Halloween. Overall it was actually a pretty lame experience. I composed a list of 25 of my unbeaten games that fit the mold and challenged myself to beat at least 10 of them. While I met my goal, it was a little bit underwhelming. I'm going to write a little bit about my experience and thoughts on the games I got through, here's the first half. Prepare for a flood of zombie games, I apologize in advance.

Dead Rising 2: Case West (XBLA)

My friend and I have been trying to play through Dead Rising 2 Case West together for a while. I've never really played the Dead Rising game and my knowledge is fairly limited too. I do know that zombies are involved, and brutal zombie death is to follow. And silly costumes, and orange juice. Anyway. I did purchase the prologue to Dead Rising 2, Case Zero and it was honestly an enjoyable little romp that got me excited to try the game out in full. A little while later they came out with Case West and I picked it up. When I tried it initially it just didn't grip me like the other one did. So there it sat, wasting away in my backlog, until Halloween finally brought my attention back to it.

The core of the game is solid. Pick up random objects to utilize as weapons and work your way through a heavily zombie infested area completing tasks to further the story. It's a lot of fun just discovering all the neat items lying around that you can use against the undead hordes. You can even combine the weapons to make even crazier devices some of which are truly original. My main problem with the game is in the set up and how you progress. The game is timed, and events only occur at certain times in game, meaning you can easily miss starting a quest or you can be too late in turning it in. While I get the reason for this design choice as it adds tension and can make traversing areas with pretty low danger level zombies seem more frantic. This can lead to a bit of unnecessary frustration though. My only other major grip is the plot makes no sense, but since it acts as an epilogue to a game I've yet to play I was expecting this.

All in all this isn't really a bad game, I just can't recommend it highly. Whereas Case Zero got me psyched to try out Dead Rising 2, Case West just wore on me. I'd go from wandering around waiting until a mission became available to feeling rushed to finish it in time and get to where I need to be. It just feels a little off. This design seems like it would fit into a full game a lot better as there would be more content to take up time in between the missions so I don't flip flop between boredom and feeling anxious. I'm assuming for a Dead Rising fan this would be a worth while game to check out, and I don't regret my time spent with the title.

Walking Dead Ep. 4 Around Every Corner (PSN)

 This is a hard game to talk about. It's all about the plot and to talk about it would be to ruin the plot, or at least parts of it, to those who haven't touched it yet. The whole game is the story about how a man named Lee deals with the world ending in a zombie apocalypse. The first person he encounters is a little girl, Clementine, who joins him for the whole ride. He meets up with other survivors and just deals with shit you'd have to deal with in a world flooded with undead. The game is really simple. You walk around and you click on stuff, there are a few instances of "combat" but it's more of a reflex to hover your cursor over the target area and tapping the button quick enough. This may sound boring but it works.

Like a good TV show this game is all about the characters and the relationships between the characters. You'll meet a lot of characters and grow attached to most of them until finally their fate catches up with them, usually to a grim conclusion. A lot of the time you'll get to influence who gets to live and who gets to die based on your actions. This would seem to promote replay value, but it really isn't there. Maybe in a few years once the finer details have been forgotten.

Without going into detail this is one of my favorite episodes from this series. There a handful of really intense scenes, and I really love stuff like that. I won't ruin anything in case you haven't played it, but if you have an early scene with Kenny is just amazing in my opinion. The ending to this episode was perfect too. They managed to make a child character who is not annoying, one who you actually feel for, one who you really want to go out of your way to protect. Throughout the series I would willing throw myself into danger if it meant saving Clem, and the end to this episode really brought that to the forefront. This series was spectacular, and I really really hope they make another season at least. This was one of the best parts of this challenge, and it only got included due to being released in October.

Project Zomboid Alpha (PCDL)

Here comes the first of a couple of examples of how I really pushed the legitimacy of the games I counted towards finishing my Halloween challenge. I also already wrote out my entire playthrough in the post prior to this one. Reviewing this one doesn't seem fair as it's in an alpha, or even pre-alpha state, but it's still worth talking about my thoughts on this project.

I heard about this game some time after it was first announced and I was really interested in the concept. Basically the creators were attempting to make the most realistic zombie survival game. That is something I've been wanting for a long while now. Progress has been relatively slow, as per usual with small indie companies taking on big ideas, and their have been a few snafu's with development, but it seems to be mostly on track now thankfully.

This game succeeds in capturing the general feel of what they were going for. You'll feel desperate and you'll feel alone. In the alpha you start with your wife who is sick and you must care for her, immediately throwing you into the thick of things. The controls are a little awkward, but that might just be me as I'm not terribly comfortable with all mouse/keyboard set ups, they're workable though and you have a lot of options in the game. You can go scavenge, fight zombies, fortify your house, build complete add on's to your house. I mean, it's possible to link to neighboring house completely block off the bottom floor of one and make an obstacle course to get into your house from the one viable entrance. It's crazy the ambition that's oozing in this game.

The alpha is lacking, but that is one of the most pointlessly redundant things I've ever said. The concept here is amazing and if they manage to finish up everything they plan to implement there is a wonderful little gem here. If you've ever had aspirations of surviving a zombie onslaught here's a good chance to experience just that.

Limbo (Steam)

Ugh. This fucking thing.

See that screenshot? That's the whole appeal of the game, not that scene, but the art style. Honestly that's the only saving grace this game has. It looks really nice. Before I played the game I suckered into thinking it was so great just because of the art style. I read reviews praising the game, but it was the art style that really pulled me in.

Then I played it. What a disappointment. It's just a rudimentary platformer with some tired and true mechanics we've seen before. Some hidden eggs in a level, push blocks to where they need to be to float across water or jump higher, time jumps on the electrified floor so you're only touching it when it's un-powered, etc. It does have a couple interesting features. There are some gravity flipping shenanigans near the end which work well, and there's this worm that will burrow into your head and make turning around impossible without bumping into something. It adds a neat little extra element to parts of the game. They both can be pretty aggravating at times though too.

My problem with this game isn't the game itself, it's the hype behind the game. A lot of games fall prey to this sadly though. It has a really interesting art style, plus it was released in that time when indie games on XBLA were getting lots of praise thanks to Braid and such. This game is not bad, it just did not live up to expectations. If you go into this thinking it's a puzzle platformer wherein there are lots of weird and different deaths you'll probably come out enjoying it more than I did. However, Super Meat Boy might have just spoiled me too.