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Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD

May 4, 2014May 3, 2014 by Belghast

Steampowered Sunday #12

This weeks episode of Steampowered Sunday is chock full of self indulgent cheatery. Firstly we have plans on going out and about Sunday morning, so I am technically playing the game and doing this review Saturday night shortly before recording AggroChat. The second bit of cheatery is that normally I play through a game in my steam back catalog. That however is not the case this week as currently steam is having a sale on all Activision titles. Among the list was one that caught my eye. I had noticed it a few times in the past but was never at a price point I was wiling to snap it up for. However yesterday for $5 I figured it was well worth that just for a trip down memory lane.

THHDGame 2014-05-03 19-32-02-65 Something you need to know about Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater franchise is that I played the hell out of it. I was one of those little skater kids, and I even went so far as to have the “Tony Hawk” style “hangover” haircut. As a result when this came out for the original Playstation I latched onto it with both hands. One of the things I always wanted was a really good skating game, however we were stuck with either Skate or Die that at least had a free style ramp mode, or 720* which lacked any kind of free skate option… and if you took too long you were chased by an angry swarm of bees. No game gave me what I wanted, which was the ability to faff about without a timer ticking and do all sorts of nifty tricks. This game franchise had exactly that, and I spent countless hours playing and it and it’s higher resolution cousins on the Dreamcast.

Memory Lane

When the I got my Playstation 2 one of the first titles I picked up was Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3. So I knew one of two things was going to happen. Either I would have a wonderful romp down memory lane, or I would be severely disappointed by the crappy remake. Thankfully the game is pretty much a 1080p remake of the original playstation title, and this is a good thing. Playing the game with a XBOX 360 controller on my PC feels almost exactly like I remember playing it on the PSX. All the tricks worked essentially the same, and I struggled with the same problems I ever did. The game works the same way, each map has a ton of objectives and as you move your way around the area you get bonus scores for collecting them. As always the first objective I generally go for is for grabbing the letters S K A T E scattered around the room.

Additionally all of the old secrets are exactly where I remember them, and accessed through the same kind of tricks. I really was not expecting anything more than a graphical update, so I was not terribly disappointed to find that literally nothing had changed. I got the same enjoyment crashing through the room on top of the ramp as I ever did. One of my favorite things about the series was trying to find all the named “gaps” and a lot of these work the same as they always did. The only thing that is confusing really is that the game is like a remix of all of the Tony Hawk titles. There are maps from the early THPS games as well as the later Underground games. Overall this gives you a good mix of things to go and explore, and Free Skate mode is just as much of a guilty pleasure as it ever was.

Stripped Down Game

My biggest complaint about the game is that it is greatly stripped down. Gone is the ability to create custom skaters, and also gone are the weird unlockable characters like the Neversoft eyeball guy, and Spiderman. The lack of ability to create your own skater really hurts my overall enjoyment of the title. I liked creating a skater that was a reasonable facsimile of myself and customizing his stat package to be only the things I cared about… namely street skating. I found that overall Eric Koston has the closest stat package to what I would want, so I have been using him. The game has been out for two years, so I doubt that we will be seeing any kind of DLC that adds in the missing functionality. My only hope is that maybe just maybe someone cares enough to create a mod that lets you do the same thing.

The other missing feature is the skate park creator. I spent hours building interesting skate parks to go explore, and I remember THPS 2 for the Dreamcast had a wide variety of items you could choose from. I realize this title was released not only on the PC but also tablets and phones… so there is a limited amount of stuff they could realistically squeeze into the game given those constraints. Even with these missing features, I have definitely gotten my $5 worth of fun. Sure I still have my playstation, playstation 2 and dreamcast… but I am not going to go dig them out of the closet and hook them up just to play Tony Hawk. This little download has allowed me to relive some of those memories without having to do that.

Watch Me Suck at THPS!

As has been the trend lately, I recorded the entire play though of THPS, or at least a good chunk of it. You can see just how bad I suck at the game these days, and how many jumps and tricks I miss. I had a blast doing it, and I need to figure out a better option for a push to talk key while playing a game that requires a controller. As a result there are huge blocks of time where I say nothing. But it is fun nonetheless. If you had good memories of the game like I did, you might check out the sale while it is still going on. Well worth the few bucks, and the game performs extremely well. I didn’t notice anything glitchy about it, so it seems like a pretty solid experience.

Episode 4: Mentors for Everyone

Last night we recorded Episode 4 of the AggroChat podcast, and once again we had our regular cast in place. Kodra was back from his business trip, and Rae was no longer trying to join the circus. I tried a little experiment last night, that I probably won’t repeat again. I had been concerned that I had been overly directing the flow of conversation, so I tried to take a step back and let the rest of the hosts introduce topics. The end result lead me to do way more editing and massaging on this episode than normal as I deleted a ton of awkward pauses. The end result is still fairly interesting. We ended up talking about the current state of Elder Scrolls Online with its launch and remaining bugs. We talked quite a bit about ArcheAge and how intrigued I am by it. Finally I nudged the rest of my panel into talking about League of Legends. They had been threatening for weeks to derail the podcast, and I encouraged it… and the end result was not terribly derailed after all.

#SteamPoweredSunday #AggroChat #TonyHawkProSkater #ElderScrollsOnline #ESO

The Great Landrun

March 27, 2014 by Belghast

Joining the Circus

I have decided, that after the day I had yesterday, I am going to run away and join the circus. Not that I particularly want to be a part of the circus, and especially not since clowns have always freaked me the hell out. It however seems like the proper thing to do when you’ve had a day as bad as the one I had yesterday. Lets scan back through the annals of time to September 11th 2012, and “the event”. I had just returned back to work from taking a few days off for the death of my Grandfather, when a gross overreaction to a security scan gone wrong changed my life for the worst.

Yesterday was my first day back after taking two days off for the death of my grandmother. As I was travelling in I got a text from my boss making sure that I would be there. When I got in, things were bad. Seems as though a security scan gone wrong had locked up and was not essentially DDoSing our websites. So I spent most of the morning dealing with trying to triage our servers as the scan completed. Finally someone had to go in and force cancel the scan because it seems like things had hung up completely. I ended up spending a good chunk of my afternoon dealing with the fallout. Then on top of that we had a major GIS system release, that kept me there until after 5:30. Which doesn’t seem very long until you realize that I generally work 7 to 4.

Basically I was already not in the best shape after losing my grandmother, and to walk back into this shit storm… was almost more than I could handle. However I managed to soldier through and do the stuff that needed to be done to get through the day. Apparently this is what happens when I lose a grandparent… the world plots to destroy me. I feel like it is appropriate still to run away and join the circus. That seems to be the thing you are supposed to do when you have had a phenomenally bad day like yesterday. The only problem is it might be difficult to find a circus with wi-fi, so I guess I will just limp through the rest of this week and try really hard to recuperate this weekend. To add some icing to this cake, it seems like we need to go refrigerator shopping. While most of the food is still freezing well enough, we have reached the point where Ice Cream is no longer “icy”, but instead more yogurt like consistency.

The Great Landrun

Yesterday afternoon Landmark reopened and we were greeted by a slew of new servers and some completely new island names. Gone was my beloved Liberation/Pingo so I knew I would have to venture out and find someplace new to call home. I spent a bit of time popping between the tier 1 zones until I settled upon Liberation/Shield. Originally I thought I would only be in game long enough to stake my claim and then run off and play some Diablo 3. I was apparently wrong. It turns out that this time around we had to gather up enough materials to be able to craft our very own claim flags. By the time I landed on the island I noticed that the claimable land was already shrinking… and while doing a lot of complaining over twitch… I proceeded to try and gather the mats to make my claim flag.

With the founders pick, it was actually rather simple. The claim flag requires 7 elemental iron, 10 heartwood, and 10 sapphire. Before I really knew what I was doing I had gathered up the iron and the heartwood and only needed to find some sapphire. However a short run from the portal spire I managed to find a patch and get more than enough gems to finish my flag. I zipped to the portal which now has not only a forge but a sawmill as well as a brand new mailbox. I was shocked and amazed that I was able to make a claim within visual distance of the spire on Liberation/Shield. I proceeded to faff around for the next thirty minutes clearing my claim to prepare to try and rebuild Belgarde Keep.

Grappling Hook Lust

After I ate some dinner I popped back in and started streaming again. Granted like usual I am in with my friends on mumble and we are not necessarily talking about Landmark. However before too long the all consuming mission of Rae and I was to get back our grappling hook. Being able to zip around the map rocks, and NOT having it made me sad. So I popped around the map looking for a machine capable of making the grappler. Turns out it is the outfitters workbench that can craft it, and just southeast of the portal in Liberation/Shield has a really great claim. Serac has apparently poured through the creation of some of the better machines, and will hopefully serve as a nice outpost close to me for building all the stuff I need to build.

While it took damned near all night to find 20 elemental tin… since surface tin seems to be a rarity, I did manage to cobble one together before I had to go to sleep. The only problem… I had forgotten just how bad the Bronze Grappling hook sucked. For starters the cord is insanely short, so you can only grapple very short distances. On top of that it has always felt like it is far more random in its hook points than the later ones. All of that said… any grappler is better than no grappler. At least now I can dig my way into a hole with impunity, knowing that I can zip back up to the surface just by hitting E.

If any of the SOE folk are reading this… you guys should totally sneak me a prime grappler code under the table. I still want to know how those things work as compared to the highest tier grappler I crafted in Alpha, which I believe was Viridium. Another really amazing addition this time is the mailbox I mentioned earlier. Throughout the night I mailed several sets of “claim flag mats” to various friends who did not have the luck to start the game with the Founders Pick. With the massive run on land going on, I wanted to make sure most of them had the chance to claim a decent space while they were still available. Now if you were an alpha player… you are on your own since it is relatively simple to gather up the materials after getting in and seeing just how common Iron, Heartwood and Sapphire really are.

The Crusades

March 26, 2014 by Belghast

The Morning After

Yesterday was a trying day to say the least. The funeral for my grandmother was at the odd hour of 9:30, and to add to that it was 35* outside which made me cling to my leather jacket like a life vest. The wind that was blowing made the graveside portion absolute torture. When we got back to the dinner afterwards, we huddled around the coffee pot trying to warm up. I feel like it has been too long since I had been to a catholic funeral, because after going to mostly protestant ones over the last few years… it felt very clinical and detached from my grandmother. I am sure she would have liked it, being the devout catholic that she was, and the priest… however hard he was to understand seemed to do his level best to give her a proper sendoff.

Normally I am used to absolutely losing my shit at some point during the funeral service as loved ones recount tales of the deceased. This didn’t happen, either in the losing my shit variety or the recounting tales variety. It was a mass, just like every other mass I have attended… with the exception that there was a casket at the front. Nothing about the service felt like we were honoring my grandmother… instead it just felt like we were obeying a ritual. It is sad she is gone, but the positive of it all is that I think it is going to help my generation… the cousins to reconnect. We stood around and visited for a couple of hours in the church hall after the service.

For whatever problems my moms generation has had with drama… that seems to be completely absent from my generation. It was good seeing my cousins and finding out that all but one are living in close enough vicinity to be able to get together for dinner. My wife is already scheming to have some sort of a cousins day out at the zoo.. in part because the children of my cousins don’t really know each other… and that is a damned shame. I remember similar outings to the kiddie park etc, that let my generation mingle and get to know each other. While I have never really fit into my family, it seems like none of my cousins have really felt like they fit in either. I guess it is time for us to create our own brand of family.

The Crusades

I have to say I love everything about the crusader. I somehow got left out of the Reaper of Souls beta shenanigans, so yesterday was quite literally the first time I had played one. I have always been drawn to “tanky” characters, or at the very least sword and board oriented ones. The crusader so far does not disappoint at all. I have only made it a little way through the play through and I am already digging the look and feel and style. My friends seem to have a problem with the male crusader voice acting, but I dig it so far. So right now I am completely torn, I want to play my crusader so much… but I also want to complete Act V. In part because I don’t want the internet to spoil my fun. I can only go so long without reading tweets about D3, and sooner or later someone is going to spoil the ending.

Granted Blizzard games are not exactly high fiction, but I am trying to keep whatever I can about the game secret for now. Which is extremely ironic, considering I live streamed the entire evenings play. So basically… if you care about spoilers don’t watch. It should be at least mildly entertaining as within moments of starting playing last night, I ended up with two other friends joining me in my mission. Whenever Rae is in the channel it is always entertaining. As the evening went on we ended up with Tib, Waren, Drathis and eventually Tam in the channel as well. Granted our trio never really changed during the course of the evening, but suffice as to say that we were all somehow playing Reaper of Souls.

So far I am really enjoying the new content. I don’t want to dig too deeply into it as to create my own spoilers but the maps are pretty vast, and extremely detailed. The thing that I am liking the most so far is how almost every single dungeon has some sort of new event. These were my favorite thing about Diablo 3, but they just felt like they were to sparse or random as to whether or not you would actually see one. The amount of creativity that went into designing this acts traps and events is pretty great. There is also an amazing sub theme going on, that will make Frank Herbert fans excited, but I won’t go into more detail than that. It is not exactly subtle, but fans of the Dune series will pick up on the references.

Bounty of Games

Right now my big hope is to be able to get through Act five this week, and hopefully have my monk to level 70 to show for it. The primary reason I am wanting to push through the content is that if my math is correct… Elder Scrolls Online head start begins this Sunday. Granted this is the five day launch for folks who preordered imperial edition through Zenimax… but that is precisely what I did. I have been really looking forward to this game and I am amped to finally get in and make some permanent decisions. Like I have said before, I have been in testing of this title for over a year at this point and have watched it grow from something good to something great. The only problem is… it is launching super close to Reaper of Souls. So while I don’t want to abandon playing a crusader… I know I will at least for the short term. I intend to be in and streaming ESO from day one as I wander around and adventure on my Imperial Sword and Shield Dragon Knight.

Risk of Rain

March 2, 2014 by Belghast

Steampowered Sunday #7

I feel like I am getting on on this bandwagon about three months too late. Risk of Rain is an interesting indie metroidvania shooter, with randomly generated worlds and randomly placed objectives. I remember seeing this and thinking, man that looks cool. So I picked it up over the Christmas break, but never ended up playing it. When I started this whole Steampowered Sunday section this was also the very first game I think that a friend of mine gifted me to do a write up on. It was at that point that I knew sooner or later I would have to devote a Sunday morning to it. It was with a certain bit of trepidation that I finally sat down to play it. I had watched a few streamers playing this… and saw the frustration of them dying horribly over and over.

Your Death Was Extremely Painful

I honestly cannot remember a game that has been quite so successful at making me feel like a complete and total failure. I just finished playing roughly thirty minutes of the game and I feel like I want to throw the controller across the room. I of course won’t because I don’t want to break my favorite controller. The deck is stacked against you from the start it feels like, and the longer you take to find the teleporter, the worse the enemies get. However the longer you hold out, the better your chances are because you level up and can unlock various abilities throughout the level. The best I managed was getting to level 8 before finally getting swarmed to death by so many adds on screen at one time.

The problem I had with this level is I seriously could not find the damned teleporter. I wandered all over the place, picking up all sorts of nifty things, but never finding the actual objective. This is the real frustration of the game for me, is the dual missions… find the teleporter fast, and level up and find interesting weapons. When you finally do trigger the teleporter, you have to stay alive for 90 seconds while this insanely huge colossus attacks you, along with tons of other baddies that have spawned in. I have made it to the colossus phase half a dozen times at this point but the closest I have managed to make it is 30 seconds to go.

I think in part my issue is that it is set up with “modern” controller settings. I am just not used to using my trigger buttons for anything. I am far better controlling games with the face pad, so I have considered remapping the controls greatly to put all of my cooldowns on the face buttons. This is a side effect of growing up in the Atari/Nintendo/Super Nintendo era and pretty much disappearing from consoles in any serious way until Playstation/Playstation 2. I am just used to having everything controlled with the thumb buttons, and even while playing super nintendo games I tended to remap the controllers to put the buttons I almost NEVER pressed on the shoulder buttons.

The game itself is pretty gorgeous, and for not having many pixels to work with, the sprites evoke a sense of character to them. It honestly reminds me of the same kind of graphical treatment that the old school PC lemmings games used to have. Super intricate world made up of super tiny sprites. The music adds a certain character of foreboding to the alien landscape. Running around this world just feels eerie and I can’t really explain why. The purplish color palette fits the first level, but I am not sure if this changes the further you go in the game. The game is extremely well crafted for the limited resources it has on screen at a given time.

What the game reminds me of honestly is a bullet hell shooter, but if a bullet hell shooter started out extremely sparse and continued to get progressively worse over time. In most bullet hell games there is a point of equilibrium where “it can get no worse”. Once you reach that point you can adjust to it, and move forward. Risk of Rain always gets worse, there is no point at which you can really take a breather from the gameplay and prepare for the next assault. Each of the mobs on screen has a pattern, but some of them are purposefully non-complimentary. So far the things that always seem to kill me are the little flying jellyfish things. At the very least they whittle down my health to a point where one of the other mobs, like a lemurian can finish me off.

As maddening as I found the game, and while I could only take thirty minutes in one sitting… I have to say I enjoyed myself. I kinda want to boot the game up again and give it another try until I can defeat the first level. The game is extremely enjoyable and the concepts are simple enough to pick up in a few minutes. Survival is the major problem. I think if I could find the leech seed again, and then locate the teleporter early on I would be able to make it through the 90 second phase. If I got better at using the trigger buttons, namely to dodge I would have had a much better chance of success as well. Sooner or later I will have to adapt to “modern” controller layouts, because this new fangled trigger button thing apparently is not going away.

Now For Something New

For some time now, I have gathered up not only a backlog of games to play… but also thanks to the various humble bundle packs, a number of duplicates. As a result I have decided to start hosting a contest. The idea is that you the reader votes for the next game to be featured on Steampowered Sunday. I picked 10 possible titles from my steam backlog, and you the reader will pick which one you want me to play next sunday. During Saturday’s blog post I will declare a winner and choose a random submitter to win the game that is up for grabs that week. This week I will be giving away a copy of the original Bioshock. For this giveaway you must have a steam account to be eligible. I will be tabulating the results using a Google Form. If you are not interested in the game, but want to vote anyways… there is an option for that as well.

Click Here To Vote