Auricular Discovery

Easily one of the best $2.50′s I have ever spent. I grabbed this rock-solid PSN-to-PC port during a crazy Steam sale, along with many other great deals a while back. I feel like I’ve played a couple dozen revivals of the Arkanoid/Breakout concept, mostly freeware, and I have to give props here. Shatter is by far the best effort. None of the new mechanics derail the core experience. The whole thing remains very balanced and fun, with every step the developer took forward. It also came with the full Steamworks community support. It’s the total package, as far as time-sink casual games are concerned. Newcomer to game music, Module hits us with a fantastically refreshing trip into a kind of 80′s space synth pop that I can’t get enough of. I’ve listened to this album probably 7 times at work. Definitely in my top 3 soundtracks of 2009! Be sure to check out the official music video for Amethyst Caverns, which was definitely the weirdest track of the set!

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I loved Populous 3 so much. It’s probably the only god-sim I can fully enjoy. They usually involve way too much micromanagement for me. Pop3 instead focuses on the combat between the tribes, and having a central character, your shaman, where most of your attention will go to. It was really ahead of its time in some ways. You could pull out into space and see the entire world. You could deform the land in real 3D to your liking. You could use spells like tornado to see your enemy’s structures ripped to shreads. It was such an atmospheric experience too, thanks mainly to Mark Knight‘s soothing sounds. This track here is actually a piece he posted on his site, which is a preemptive example of what his Populous 4 score would sound like, if it ever came to be made.

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SimCity 2000 was probably the first game to strike me with the depressing realization that I have no creativity. I absolutely fail at these kind of god games. I know not how to create, but to destroy. Maybe if I grew up with a PC instead of a NES/Genesis, I’d have developed some different interests. Oh well. That’s why the game offered you wonderful catastrophe tools such as plane crashes, floods, and volcanos. The music is a delightfully cheesy jazz. It sounds like the kind of background music that would serve as a segue piece for an 80′s urban sitcom, as the camera converges from one setting to the other. Maybe it’s a retired genre, but I keep it for the nostalgia.

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Can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed a Contra game quite the way I did the original, but props to Konami for not abandoning or abusing the series like some other developers would have. I guess I just really struggle to play these games with 3D graphics, even when they use fixed 2D perspectives. At least I can still enjoy the music. Shattered Soldier (Shin Contra in Japan) has the best soundtrack since Super C on the NES. The quality of the metal here is pretty outstanding, while the rest of the tracks are some very heavy sci-fi techno, with a little Blade Runner vibe thrown in. And yes, this is Akira Yamoaka, the Silent Hill guy. This track alone proves that his recent departure from the survival horror series should give him the much needed freedom to excel in totally different styles. Seven SH scores was enough. We don’t want him getting burnt out.

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Easily one of the best JRPGs of all time. Why is Grandia 2 so great? Well, what can I say? It polishes the genre mechanics to perfection, while having the balls to ditch or replace the aspects that often fail. No random encounters. A turn based combat system that moves like a real-time one. A phenomenal soundtrack that makes full use of streamed audio instead of sequencing. A perfect frame rate. A high contrast story that can handle cute, upbeat moments and dark, mature, tragic scenes while treating you like a mature adult. An English dub that includes much of the Metal Gear Solid cast is the cherry on top. While it doesn’t reinvent anything, it administered a much needed evaluation of the JRPG. Even if you absolutely hate the genre to a borderline racist degree, give this one a shot. But, for your own sake, stick with the Dreamcast version. The PS2 got the laziest port imaginable.

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I’m always surprised at how many people remember this one. I think Jumping Flash was just the right kind of game at the right time. I really don’t know why this game was so quickly thrown aside. Maybe you could blame the massive advancements PS1 graphics were making from 1995-1997. I know the models were blocky and textures were dull, but there was a lot of atmosphere here that made up for it. Absolutely huge stages with creative designs were a blast to progress through. The game took place entirely from within Robbit’s perspective, complete with visor shaped screen and GUI with visual damage indications that games like Metroid Prime would later make use of. You could even see your feet as you pounced! Unfortunately the sequel was pretty uninspired, and there was a 3rd spin-off title in Japan exclusively, but reviews indicate that it’s worth no one’s time. World 6-3 is the final boss theme, and especially rocks. Feel free to download the entire rip from my other site.

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Finished Trine this week. It’s not often we get a 2.5D sidescroller, so I had to check it out. I really don’t have a whole lot to say about it. You’ll have some fun for the first hour dealing with physics-based puzzles but before you know it, you’ll find that there’s little motivation to solve anything  in the intended complex ways. The game leaves itself quite open to exploiting certain elements. For example, anytime there was something out of reach, I would just conjure a plate in mid air with the Wizard and double jump off of it before it fell. I didn’t have the patience to do things carefully, especially when health is plentiful and dying has no real punishment. I also never have any interest in Tolkien-type fantasy, so I skipped past the narration. At least the score was top notch. Crystal Caverns is a really tranquil piece that stuck with me.

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I’ll try not to repeat what hundreds of blogs have stated but the short of it is, this game was amazing, yet it sold terribly. You need to acquire it by any means necessary. A lot of the blame can be placed on UbiSoft for not marketing it worth a shit, and also for releasing it in November, the most competitive month for game releases. There have been a couple videos hinting at a sequel, but if you’ve followed the roller-coaster of announcements and denouncements, you’d believe that nothing is set in stone. Even if we do get a sequel, I’m not sure it will be what we want. I’m sure UbiSoft will be making some massive changes to the formula. From a business point of view, the product didn’t sell, therefor something must be wrong with it, and needs “fixing”. I’ve seen a lot of fans clamoring for more Jade, but I’m placing my coin on pessimism this time.

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I’m not the biggest fan of Xenogears. It’s definitely got some rough edges, and the 2nd half is a complete cluster-fuck of a story, but praise must be given for it’s complex and mature tale. I can totally understand the people who can’t tolerate the endless hours of text it forces you to read, but I still must insist you all give the soundtrack a listen. Without question, it’s Mitsuda‘s masterpiece, and that’s saying something considering how often people label him (nerd bias aside) one of the finest composers in history. Creid was an official arrangement album released a couple months after the Japanese launch of the game. The recording quality and production value were absolutely stellar for the time. Arrangement albums typically didn’t get this level of effort back then, and even today, I’ve only honestly come across half a dozen that follow suit.

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This was probably the first Playstation title that made me second guess my choice to go with the Saturn. Many, many weekends were spent in the deathmatch mode with a friend. The series has definitely seen better days. The first launched strong, the 2nd perfected the formula, but everything after that point went downhill. The series traded hands here and there, and in the process, it lost a lot of it’s identity. The sequels were lacking in metal, too wacky, too drab, or the gameplay just wasn’t there. In some cases, it was all of the above. What’s even stranger is that the composer for TM1 and TM2 seems to have absolutely no other music credits to his name. Know that there are rumblings of a new sequel/reboot, but I’m keeping my expectations in check.

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