The Best Escort Mission that Ever was

HIGH Completing the game without skipping any levels.

LOW The stages in area15 can be soul-crushingly difficult.

WTF why is using the water power so finicky?

Falling Short of Inspiration

HIGH The impact of a perfectly-aimed tank round on a punk riding a trike.

LOW Getting stuck in the level geometry three times per game.

WTF No team deathmatch? In an FPS?!

I'm still between review games at the moment, so I started playing Silent Hill: Book of Memories on Vita. I liked the demo and I'm a big fan of dungeon crawlers and Roguelikes when they're done well, so despite all of the negative talk I heard, I decided to go for it. I'm about ten levels into the campaign so far, and I think it's actually pretty good—but that statement needs some qualification.

Numbers Game

HIGH Mopping up a roomful of baddies with a buddy in short order makes you giddy.

LOW My low level runthrough gave me +5 Gray Hairs.

WTF Me: "Did we just murder the Ninja Turtles?"

No Sympathy for this Devil

HIGH Finally figuring out how to get that woman to climb into the bath so I can electrocute her!

LOW Why is Satan's son involved in a boss fight?

WTF Whoever edited these kill videos may have a slight gore fetish...

It's time again for one of my "house-cleaning" posts where I toss up a bunch of random bits and links to stuff and get it off of my computer.

Moe'd Down

HIGH Charming an entire group of enemies at once, turning them all into adorable bunny creatures!

LOW Do "something" do get a better ending? What does that mean?!

WTF So many bath scenes!

Psycho in the Car with Pistols

HIGH Figuring out, after multiple deaths, how to take down a whole level in seconds.

LOW The queasy, terrible stealth level.

WTF Almost every moment of this game is a WTF.

I was listening to a podcast recently (and I've heard this same thing multiple times from other people over the last week or so) and I was shaking my head at the way the speakers were discussing recent Events Which Shall Not Be Named. Over and over, they were so insistent that reviewers are "getting paid off" for good scores.

In the wake of the success of Obsidian's Project Eternity Kickstarter, supporters are eagerly watching the stretch goals to see what promised goodies will be put into the game. Meanwhile, I am hoping to see one thing left out: voice acting. Done correctly, voice acting can significantly improve a Japanese RPG. However, recording voices for characters diminishes a Western RPG, regardless of the reading's quality. For this reason, I feel that Western RPGs should avoid having voiced dialogue.