Ultimate Utopia XXIII by Adarahs

A clever parody of RPGs with emphasis on the Final Fantasy series. With nostalgic music from several RPGs, the action is right on with the timing and effects. The still camera and transitions are dead on! They even have summons!

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To call Second Life a game would be a limiting description. It is not quite a game. To me, a game has certain characteristics:
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Let me preface this event with the fact that I’ve never made cookies by myself. In fact the last time I remember making cookies with someone was waaaay back in elementary school. But since I stumbled upon these instructions, a lot of it seemed intuitive to me. Let me walk you through the process.

The Ingredients

From that website:

2.5 cups flour
3/4 cups sugar, blitzed in a food processor until fine (I didn’t do this)
1/4 tsp salt
two sticks of butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces, at room temperature (more on this later)
2tsp vanilla extract
2tbs cream cheese, softened

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I have to admit, I don’t have much experience when it comes to cooking - I need all the help I can get. Enter the cute game Cooking Mama, where you complete a bunch of mini-games to create a recipe of your choice. She will instruct you on each task, and depending on how you do, her reactions will change accordingly.

For this entry, let’s make fried prawns, shall we?

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I won’t discuss the story here as the gameplay is the main focus of this post. It is necessary for you to have sound when playing this game as you must time your button pushes to the beat of the music. The game basically uses the four shape-buttons (triangle, square, circle, x) for different percussion sounds, where the different combination commands your army to do different things.

Aren’t they cute?? I love how the button shapes form their mouths.

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I want to devote an hour everyday to exercising, without much driving/prep time, without regard to my laziness or my willingness to “pass” on exercise “just this week”. No! I want something easy and readily available, quick warm up/cool down time, without taking weather into consideration…something that can be done at home without a huge space hogger like an expensive exercise machine. Something more interesting than lifting dumbbells daily.

Then it hit me - I have a TV, and a PS2….Dance Dance Revolution!

Sure, go ahead and laugh. =) In the meantime, I’ll point to a couple of sites. It’s also important to “consult a physician before starting any exercise on your own” and that “results will vary from person to person”.

You’ve probably seen these in the arcades some time in the past couple of years. Have you ever seen a hardcore DDRer? They often walk away panting and sweating, it’s quite a workout!

I did not consult a physician - I just eased into it by trying Basic (which was too easy) and then Standard/Trick/Difficult (which was juuuuuust right). I also attempted several Heavy songs to push my limit - I’ll update with any results I notice. Until I change my eating habits, I won’t notice much weight loss, however, using this to build up stamina (and get blood rushing) is a good idea in my book! I will just watch out for tender joints/muscle pain/etc and not push myself too hard at first.

It’s quick and fun! I tuck the foam pad behind my headboard each time I’m not using it - set up/tear down is minimal at best. DDR for an hour, rain or shine - no driving, and it’s harder to lazy my way out of this.

I’ll go into details about the different version of DDR…later. I will leave you with this cute little inspiration:

This game is very similar to Pikmin, but instead of a marooned spaceman rebuilding his spaceship, you are an evil Overlord rebuilding your ruined tower. It’s a linear game that’s part puzzle, part strategy, and multiple good vs. evil choices that will influence the appearance of your character, how the villagers react to you, the types of spells you can receive, and the endings.

The Minions

There are four types of minions and each color has different abilities.

• Brown minions are the basic fighters that can dish and withstand the most physical damage of all four types. Their appearance also changes depending on what weapons and armors they pick up, but I’ll go into those details later.
• Red minions can launch fireballs and are immune to fire attacks as well. They also have devil horns and tails to match their fiery talent.
• Greens become stealthed when standing still at a marker for a couple of seconds, deal lots of damage by backstabbing (they wield assassin claws), and are also immune to poison.
• Blue minions are immune to water and can resurrect dead minions as long as the body still exists. They have webbed ears, hands and feet and also make blub-blub-blub noises.

I swear, these minions have adorable personalities and expressions. I never felt alone with these guys, and I actually got attached to some of them so I felt bad when they died. The first time I had my minions clear out the pumpkin patch, I chuckled out loud when they used jack-o-lanterns as helmets. Look at these jokers!

But that’s not where it stops.

Bug helmet

Zombie arm with slug helmet

After killing this minotaur-like skull boar, his head dropped and one of the browns picked it up. This helmet was so huge, he stood out from the rest of the crowd. I started calling him Captain Zulu. Of course I was very sad when he died - I missed seeing the huge furry head among the crowd.

If your minion happens upon a mug of beer, after drinking it, they will receive an attack bonus for a short time. When the time is over, they signal this by relieving themselves.

Marker Placements

Markers help with the strategy and placements of minions. For example, blues should be positioned toward the rear of the army - they will automatically resurrect fallen minions but are extremely weak to attacks so they shouldn’t be placed near the front. The placement can be moved around on the fly, and you can remove/add minions to each group depending on which marker you have selected.

The Bosses

When I first saw the Overlord’s helmet, I said out loud, “Who am I? Sauron?” This game features ugly hairy hobbits, whiny elves, mute greedy dwarves, and dumb humans. It’s hard for me not to draw a parallel to Lord of the Rings realm, but from evil’s point of view. Check out how disgusting Melvin the Underbelly, king of the hobbits, looks:

In this realm, the elves are not the proud noble race people know and love. Here, they are whiny and helpless, but who can blame them when the King Oberon is sleeping and being too lazy to help his own kind? That’s ok, because here I am, ready to smack some sense into him:

The Mistresses

As I found components to rebuild my tower, I found out I could decorate it after I chose a mistress.

On the left is Rose, who is considered a “good girl” with a saucy attitude. If I choose her, my brown and blue minions would receive an automatic boost when called upon. Her decorations for the tower consist of roses and gold.

On the right is Velvet, who is the ‘bad girl” and acts all seductive with her implications. If I choose her, my red and green minions would receive the beneficial boost. Her style for the tower is darker, gothic, full of purple and black themes.

I have to admit, the dark designs are more suited toward my tastes. Even though I’m a girl, I was quite captivated by Velvet…I like her punky outfit more than Rose’s. I couldn’t quite say no to her:

Corruption

During the game you’re allowed many chances to choose the good path or the MORE evil path. It’s the difference between killing the villagers because you feel mean vs letting them live. It’s the difference between rescuing the elven women or saving the huge sack of gold before the mine collapses.

Your corruption level alters the appearance of the Overlord as well as the tower’s. The more corrupt, the darker the sky becomes surrounding the tower until it becomes night, spikes grow out from the shoulders and back, sparkling red dots emanate from within, and finally, at 100% corruption, an evil aura pulsates from your character. I played through the game twice, first as good, then as evil.

Don’t fret if you make a mistake by accidentally fulfilling an evil task when you’re trying to be good - there will be some chances in the game to slightly reduce your corruption level.

Some Changes I’d Make….

The spells don’t have descriptions so it’s not intuitive what it does. The game gives a quick hint/explanation each time you find a new spell, but I don’t know which hotkey it’s mapped to or what image is associated with the spell. What does the domination spell do? Which one is it? For this reason, I rarely use any of the spells, other than the fireball or the flamethrower one.

Often when in town, I will stand in one spot and sweep my minions around to destroy containers and grab loot. Usually I’m standing next to an NPC who has only one line, and repeats it over and over again, like a broken record. They could increase the delay of the line deliverance, but instead it’s annoying.

Tip

I can’t remember at what point I am able to do this, but going for 100% corruption, I went to the Heaven’s Peak - City waypoint. There are two mumblers priests and a couple of townsfolk wandering around. Have some browns attack a townsperson, then set their marker somewhat away from the mumblers, who will constantly resurrect the fallen over and over again. Situate yourself right next to the poor chap to collect gold without moving.

This way you can rack up Enemy of Mankind (kill 500 peasants) and earn money while leaving the game to do something more productive in the real world. Check out the screenshot - all those beer mugs is from one man (he drops one each time he dies).

So there you have it. I quite enjoyed my time as the Overlord and highly recommend this game to anyone. The dungeon portion is quite challenging as you’re not allowed to use your magic or exploit the terrain to defeat your opponent. I’ve not yet tried out the multi-player portion but plan on doing so in the future.

At first I wanted to make a “Top 10″ type of list, but then I realized - you the readers, can continue contributing your own experiences, making the list grow larger!

I want to make a list for what NOT to do in a game. I’ll try to mention annoying themes than a specific game annoyance. So without further ado, I’ll start with my biggest pet peeve…

In-game movies, cut scenes, text sequences, and training that cannot be skipped, no matter what.

I don’t care if it’s my “first time” playing - maybe I played the game somewhere else. It doesn’t hurt to give us the power to skip everything.

Okami - I had to rubber band the square button on the controller and go eat dinner because you won’t let me skip the intro story for a new game (and it is looooong). BAD Okami! BAD! At least you let me skip it once I beat you but…you offer little replay value to enjoy this feature.

While we’re at it, how about the summons from Final Fantasies? After I’ve called on you for the nth time, I sit there and watch…bored. FF8 at least gave you the ability to learn Boost and button mash to increase your damage during the cut scene, why wasn’t something similar incorporated for the later games?

For most of us that die many times before learning how to defeat a boss, watching the cut scene over and over again only adds to our frustration. Worried that players may accidentally skip a movie? Map it to a button that’s not commonly used that players have to reach for (usually the start button).

This annoyance includes the company logo sequence that displays before the game starts. EA is notorious for this. Let us skip it! Some companies are worried that players skipping the clips mean that they never see the company logos. Make it skippable, but display the company logo within 2 seconds - these days we have short attention spans, cater to us!

If you make it unskippable, players (on PCs) will locate the movie files and remove them so they don’t ever play. If you make it skippable, you’ll find that players are often too lazy to locate the movie files to remove them because they can skip it. It’s logical.

Any game that requires gameFAQs or guide books to progress or gain better items.

A game that is designed well will not require supplementary documents in order to play. When choosing a new race/class, do not force us to look at a manual, why not have this info readily available? Tutorials should exist in the game, either incorporated as part of the story, or make it optional.

Also, time and thought should be put into “why” players are carrying out orders or playing mini-games. At least explain the reasoning in the story, otherwise, it feels randomly thrown in for the sake of being thrown in.

Final Fantasy, I’m looking at YOU. You and your ridiculous “throw a rock at a monkey, turn around and clap three times in order to obtain an item to upgrade your weapon”, how’m I supposed to know to do that when you don’t tell me (in the game)? For shaaaaaame!

And now your mini-games are even more tedious AND ridiculous - dodge lightning 100 times in a row to get the ultimate weapon for Lulu. Can you imagine an old NPC that tells you about this task? “Legend says that if you dodge lightning 100 times in a row in the desert, the Gods will grant you an ultimate weapon.” Either way, you call this fun? Ah, screw you!!

Awkward camera controls/angles.

This includes no control over the camera when you direly need it. Basically, something is preventing you from seeing what you need to see.

Katamari Damacy, you’re guilty! When the camera awkwardly moves behind a wall, the wall does not become transparent. How can I see where I am?? And along the same lines, the King of Cosmos’ head shows up and blocks the screen to just…talk. Stop that! Go away!

In Half Life 2, if you use the gravity gun to pick up a large object, you’ll have to look around it because it’s not transparent. Add in the fact that it’s in first person view so the item is always in the middle of the screen (can’t move it to the lower corner) makes it difficult to see/aim at someone in front of you.

Resident Evil 4 is viewed in third-person, so technically you can control the camera by spinning the character. However, if my back is to a wall and the villagers are surrounding me, the camera is pushed against the wall and into Leon’s back, which fills the whole screen. This is only 2% of the game and it’s a small annoyance. Take away collision-detection from the camera, and if the wall is between camera and character, make the wall transparent.

Some of the older 3D games are guilty of this: one moment you have the third-person view of your character’s back, and in the next screen it pops into second-person view. Up becomes down, down becomes up, and you actually run back and forth between the two screens while the camera flips perspective until you slow down to a walk. I haven’t seen this happen in the recent games however.

Sparse save points, or a difficult game that offers no timely save points

Did you die at the boss? Congratulations! You win a free trip to the beginning of the level and have to fight through everyone again! At this moment, I can’t remember any new game that fulfills this, since most games now utilize quick saves at the very least.

However, there’s an old game out there where, after you reach the end, it says “Baha! Just kidding!” and sends you aaaall the way to the beginning of the game on a harder difficulty. You must reach the end (again) in order to get the real ending.

Ghouls & Ghosts! You suck!! And you did this many times!! When I played this on the Genesis, it was a long game without any saving capabilities. It would also overheat after an hour and freeze the game, so…I could never beat the game in time to see the end.

When you’re about to die/run out of time and this horrible thing happens to remind you constantly, in case you forget.

Katamari Damacy - When you’re about to run out of time, there’s a siren that sounds like “EEEE-YAR! EEE-YAR! EEE-YAR!” This game made it on this list twice? Double shame! Especially since the music is so good, I don’t want to turn the sound down.

Bad voice acting

This is subjective as some people aren’t bothered by this, but for me it ruins game immersion if the character does not sound convincing. Movies with bad actors annoy me, same thing with video game movies. At least give us the option to use subtitles and hear it in the original language.

Maybe it’s not the voice acting, but the voice itself that rubs me the wrong way. Maru Moro from Blue Dragon has such a voice. When I use his corporeal attack, I shudder at his “RAH! RAH! ROCKU ROCKU ROCKU ROCKU” battlecry.

Resident Evil - the first one for the PlayStation had such horrible acting, I could not take it seriously. I cringed every time people spoke.

House of the Dead 2 - something about their voices are stiff and hilarious.

Someone also told me that Star Ocean 2 and Valkyrie Profile had bad voice acting.

Games that are difficult and long that have bad/short/disappointing endings.

I think my most disappointing game ending ever was some of the old Genesis games that show a picture and say “Congratulations! You’ve done it!” Game endings should show effort, give us a treat for beating the game.

Diablo’s (first one mind you) ending was disappointingly short, to me. I expected more from the game as it took me a long time to beat. However, this was when the PC games were really new to me - I didn’t know how to play very well.

Bad controls/bad game play.

By allowing us to remap keys, the game MIGHT be able to avoid bad controls.

However, with Halo 3, the right bumper button is used for EVERYthing - reloading, picking up weapons off the floor, mounting a turret, and knocking off bad guys from their vehicles. Plenty of times I’m trying to grab a turret or pull a bad guy off of a wraith, but I stand there instead for a couple of seconds reloading.

Bioshock has randomly mapped plasmids so that you don’t know what spell you’re using. I’ve already complained about this in the previous post so I won’t go too deeply there.

So there you have it. Have another annoying theme to add? Let me know! Also, more video game examples that fall under these categories are always appreciated.

Wonderfully Spooky Environment

The creepy environment made me so cautious in the beginning, I crawled around the areas slowly. After I realized splicers are usually noisy and don’t materialize out of thin air (other than Houdini Splicers), I traveled around quicker with more confidence. A lot of thought and attention were put into the layouts of a stage - each place looks unique. I don’t feel like I’ve been to a place twice.

Game Details

I like how anything that is incinerated takes on a charred look. It adds to the realism. Yes, even splicers take on this effect when you burn them.

Water is also marvelously done. In my previous post, swimming in the water made my chest tighten up. Little speckles show up on your screen when you get wet, as if your camera got sprayed. And if you stand under spraying water, you get a nice ripply effect on your camera view.

Hacking

It’s fun, but can get quite old. I can’t imagine doing this with an XBox 360 controller - I found it difficult to do towards the beginning with a mouse! Hacking is basically like the old Pipe Dream game, but you have to uncover the tiles before you can start swapping out the pieces. It gets easier as time passes, when you get more engineering tonics to make the ordeal easier.

You can also hack sentinel bots that fly around so they follow you and shoot at your enemies. They’re quite cute (to me) and sound like bees, but they can get in your way sometimes. I’m sure a lot of players found them to be annoying. Still, every time I feel lonely, I convert some, and it feels like I have company.

Photography

I like the fact this game incorporates photographing your enemies as a way to study their weaknesses and increase your damage. It’s a creative addition to the rather non-existent RPG aspect of the game. After a while it does get old (I zap everybody, take a photo, then bash them with a wrench).

Big Daddy

I’m sorry, but who finds Big Daddy scary? If you run by them or leave them alone, they do nothing. If they’re without Little Sisters, you can pass them amicably in the hallway. Be careful, as they have unforgiving collision detection, which is quite annoying at times (I got stuck once trying to pass one).

And they groan once in a while. Scary? Disturbing? Not at all, they’re dumb and harmless unless you initiate combat. Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2 was TONS scarier, had an attitude, and I didn’t even WANT to get close to him.

Fighting Big Daddy can be a challenge until you get the proper weapons. But until you do, what’s challenging about them? Just die and get resurrected at the closest insta-chamber - you come back with some health and eve (mana) and then just zerg the sucker. No strategy needed. Don’t even waste your health kits. Use up your eve before you use up your ammo. Which brings me to my next point…

Insta-Chambers

A lot of hardcore players out there say “if you find these cheesy, don’t use them and reload at the last savepoint.” Ok, I can do that so I feel good about myself because I have mad skillz, but what’s the point when it’s readily integrated into the gameplay?

This means that finishing BioShock on hard difficulty is not challenging for anybody. This means strategy is not as important, even though this game emphasizes flexibility in doing so. This means the game is less scary - why be cautious when death has no consequence?

Lack of Strategy, but also Lack of Consistency in the UI

If I start off the game with electricity powers and a wrench, and I can end the game with electricity powers and a wrench, I’m not sure strategy is even needed. Part of this is also because I find it difficult to load my powers in a specific order that I want. If I can’t dependably hit hot keys to bring up the plasmids, I won’t use them.

I’ll demonstrate the UI inconsistency. I have 6 slots available for magic that I can swap at a gene bank. Here is the UI for the gene bank slots. I would expect, based on this image - 1. security bullseye 2. telekinesis 3. incinerate 4. insect swarm 5. dummy 6. electricity.

But instead, when I bring up the actual hotkeys, it’s mapped to….F1. electricity F2. security bullseye F3. telekinesis F4. dummy F5. insect swarm F6. incinerate.

This means I’m panicking while I’m looking for my plasmid by trial and error vs being strategic with what I have, because every time I swap skills at the gene bank, its hot key location is random. Because I’ve had electricity since the beginning, and because it’s always been F1, I know I can count on it.

Now, there is one spot in the game where you will have your abilities removed and then given back to you. It took me 5 minutes (I’m not exaggerating!) to figure out how to put electricity back into the F1 slot. A lot of it was trial and error, standing at the gene bank. If it was this frustrating trying to get one skill into one hot key slot, I don’t even want to waste my time configuring the other slots, hence I don’t use other plasmids.

For this reason, I’ve stuck to using electricity as my main power - robots and about 80% of the monsters are vulnerable to this.

Long-ranged Weapons Suck

Now, the weapons are another thing. I would’ve preferred it if the weapons had better aiming accuracy while giving me less bullet capacity. I’m fine with games that include recoil in weapons, but that means the first shot is accurate while the subsequent shots are not (unless you pause between each shot to re-steady the gun). In this game, first shot is horribly inaccurate.

Based on the image, this does not mean you will hit the trap bolt, even though the cross-hair is glowing red, which means “target in view”. In fact, it took the 6th shot to finally hit it (without me moving the mouse once). I like the fact that they have 3 different types of ammo for each weapon, so I appreciate the fact that I should be using antipersonnel bullets on splicers and armor-piercing on Big Daddy, but…

Reloading takes 5 seconds. That’s too long. Factor in switching ammo on the fly to pick the suitable type, and you’ve wasted even more seconds. Also, take into consideration that sometimes I panic and accidentally hit the B key that changes ammunition type, and it’s frustrating as hell to run around, wondering why I can’t fire. It’s realistic, I appreciate that, but I avoid all that unnecessary frustration by using the dependable wrench that never requires reloading. Although it’s melee distance only, there are plenty of combat tonics that make it useful.

It’s funny, some guys I talk to think it’s admirable I use the wrench. I think it shows that I’m an unimaginative player. It could also be that I suck. I’m not sure - I prefer long-ranged weapons in Half-Life, Halo, and Gears of War to meleeing. What’s wrong with me and BioShock?

What’s the Story?

After playing through the game once, I’m confused with the story. I like the fact that people leave recorded diaries for me to listen to, but the chronology is confusing, and in the end, I’m still not sure what happened. Why was Adam and Eve ever introduced to Rapture? I have no idea how the guy at GameFaqs wrote a plot summary (although after reading it, it makes a lot more sense).

Also, the transmitter often relays messages while I’m in the heat of the battle, when I cannot listen to them.

The Annoying Stages

I’d have to say one annoying stage is at the bee farm - you have to hit the switch that releases smoke that calms the bees, and you have a limited time to gather enzyme samples. In the meantime, splicers are always always ALWAYS coming. Not when I’m at the door waiting for them, but the moment I hit the switch, it causes splicers to magically show up at my door. AGGH! Leave me alone!

The second annoying stage is when you have to escort the Little Sister. Keep in mind I use the wrench for attack, so I need to get close to the enemies. Usually the Little Sister will squat into a little ball in front of me where I can’t see her, and prevent me from getting at the splicer. Horrible collision detection! Also, inconsistency - why don’t Little Sisters block Big Daddies from getting to me?

Fortunately, two annoying stages is not much in this game. The other stages are better

My Strategies

Since I fight with the wrench, I need the chameleon skin/natural camouflage, wrench lurker, wrench jockey, and increase your running speed tonics. I felt so much like a ninja, watching splicers walk by me, photographing them, and then bashing them.

There’s a spot in the wine cellar you can hack the security cam, then wait for big daddy to walk by and toss a security bullseye on him. Let him duke it out with the bots. Collect the money afterwards. In the later stages, I’ll lure the big daddy to the hacked security cam, then use the liquid nitrogen sprayer to freeze him in place, then toss security bullseye on him. When the bots come, just hide in a corner and he’ll usually forget you.

When I’m feeling particularly lonely, I’ll use Shorten Alarm tonic (decrease amount of time security cam is activated once it spots you), stand in front of a non-hacked camera on purpose, then hack the sentinel bots it sends. You can only have a max of two hacked bots at any time.

Conclusion

So there you have it. Overall, I still recommend the game for the experience - some of the quests are morbid, and there are clever surprises thrown into the game (caused me to jump and squeak). I think the gameplay left more to be desired. Also, I harvested all the Little Girls to see what I can buy, thinking the next round, I’d save all the Little Girls. As I sat down to play the game a second time through, I suddenly felt tired, and looked up the Good Ending on YouTube.

I wanted to like this game, I really did. Gameplay is a huge factor for me, however.

Here is a funny review from someone else’s point of view on the game. It brings up some points that I agree with.

The ambiance in this game is amazing. At the start of the game, the plane you’re on crashes into the ocean. Somehow, you survive and must swim to safety. Being that I am a weak swimmer in real life, this scene made me somewhat uncomfortable with its realism - I felt my chest tighten a bit.

On dry land, the journey to Rapture, the underwater city, is very creepy and scary. It’s dark. There are weird noises. The place is run-down, dirty, and decaying. With any new suspenseful game, I find myself crawling slowly and cautiously, moving a step at a time, fearfully peering around corners because I keep thinking a bad guy is going to pop out of the shadows or jump out of the water. I don’t know what to expect!

Every time you find a new…magic power (I forgot what they’re called), you get a cartoon tutorial that looks sickeningly cheerful:

The game uses an interesting fusion of old architecture, drawings, and design (it takes place in the 1960s) with steam technology and genetic modifications. This whole game has a depraved twist to it…what an interesting style, I like it!

I will leave you with my most disturbing moment in the game so far. I’m chasing down a psychotic surgeon to get a key from him. As I step foot into the hospital, I look down and see, written in blood:

The sarcastic use of the Hippocratic oath is both ironic and disturbing to me. =( I actually paused for a couple of seconds staring at the ground and thinking “oh my GOD! NOOO!! He’s CRAZY!! He’s INSANE!!!! AAAAAAH!!!!!!”

That’s it for now. I’ll be back later with my final impressions of the game.