Sunday, July 15, 2012

In a Gravity Daze

Gravity Rush is the best game ever made.

Okay, so it's not. But you know that feeling you get after you just spend as much time as you possibly can with a game and beat it 100%? That's what I just did with Gravity Rush. I got all the trophies. All of them. I must stress that this is something I almost NEVER do. I could care less about "gamerscore" (mocking quotation marks intended) and starting with this game it's the first time I've ever even looked at trophies on a Playstation system (note that I've had a PSP for four years, a PS3 since 2010, and bought a Vita... well, a few weeks ago).

It's not something I usually care about.

And to be honest, even though I just got them all, I don't really care about it here, either. It is just that Gravity Rush is so damn fun that I want to drain every ounce of enjoyment out of it that I can. I want to do every mission. I want to collect every gem (well, maybe not that one). I want to find out as much as I can about the gorgeous world in the game. I want to listen to the music as much as possible.

I don't want this game to end.

I mean I realize that I've probably got a mix of shiny new item syndrome (the Vita) and the old "hey, that game was a pretty great experience," which combine to form some sort of pleasure cocktail that completely overloads my ability to think rationally and develop coherent thoughts.

But who cares?

I suppose I should actually talk about the game now. You play as Kat, an amnesiac who finds out she has an interesting ability to manipulate her own personal gravity. This means that, as long as she has the energy to do so, Kat can "fall" anywhere at a pretty good clip. I say fall because that's basically what she does - she changes gravity and then falls in whatever direction she pointed. So you can "fall" up, down, sideways, wherever you desire. As you play through the game, you level up your abilities a bit - such as length of time Kat can manipulate gravity, the speed at which she "falls," and her attacks - more on those in a minute. The gravity controls are the real draw of the game, and they are intoxicating. The feeling you get as you send Kat careening around the town of Hekseville is not unlike Crackdown and its sequel, wherein the hero is able to move about quite quickly, and is insanely fun to control. Coming immediately off Gravity Rush, I must say I think I prefer it over the Crackdown games, and I had quite a bit of fun with those.

They are different beasts, though. Gravity Rush is a game that overflows with personality, beginning with its well made cel-shaded graphics to its fantastic music. I have trouble describing music and graphics so I'll leave it there, but they must be seen to behold. They are stylized perfectly and I find myself longing to listen to the music when I'm not even playing the game.

The great graphics, though, do add quite a bit of character to the town, its inhabitants, and especially the story of the game, though. Gravity Rush develops its world quite well, and, like the TV show Lost, forces the player to ask questions while answering a few - but not all - of them. This is rare in a video game - the ability for the writers to have enough restraint to not explain every little detail of the world the player just spent several hours in. It leaves a little mystery, and I find that when I attempt to fill in the cracks myself that the game becomes even more intriguing with what could be. I'm glad I don't know everything about Hekseville and its inhabitants.

So I beat the game, beat all the challenge missions, killed the tough enemies (and that last one was a pain, believe me), and am now going to move on to the downloadable content. I plan on 100% all those, too, although I don't think they'll be as hard as the main game. All told, assuming they don't release more than the three packs that I can already see on the Trophy menu, I will have spent about $53 on this game - and every penny has been worth it.

That Vita purchase from two weeks ago? Justified.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Acquisitions: 7/1/12

I've decided to start cataloging my various video game purchases, to keep track of where and for how much I get my various games. I tend to forget over time, you know? I think it'd be nice to keep track. These posts will likely be short, I would imagine.

Today, I discovered a new game shop in Romeo, Michigan: Game Portal. It's right off M-53 and I had never been in there before, and only barely noticed it out of the corner of my eye when I saw a SD television with a NES hooked up to it in the window. My girlfriend and I were driving by as we just left an antique store she wanted to go to a few doors down. We pulled over and I checked it out.

The place was in good order and didn't smell, and there were a couple young kids running it and some crappy techno played from the back (it dipped into dubstep for a minute there as well, much to my girlfriend and I's chagrin). The place has lots of different stuff, your usual NES games on up to present PS3 and 360 games, portable games, and luckily, a small section containing Sega CD, Saturn, and Dreamcast games.

Now I'm not sure yet if it's a permanent thing or not, but they have a Buy 2 Used Get 1 Free sale going on right now and I took advantage of it. Since my girlfriend didn't want to spend too much time there (I had told her we were going to play tennis and some other outdoorsy stuff), I went straight to the little Sega obscure section and dove in. I noticed immediately that they had a copy of Panzer Dragoon II Zwei in fantastic condition, and braced myself as I flipped the game over to see the price... Oh! A mere $24.99! That's an easy decision. Everything else they had for the Saturn was crap, same with the Sega CD, so my eye drifted over to the Dreamcast section and I noticed a few things.

They had a copy there of Skies of Arcadia - again for only $24.99! - and copies of Sonic Adventure 1 & 2. I already have Skies for the Gamecube and heard it was better there anyway, but I don't have the Dreamcast Sonic games so I looked at the prices and decided on Sonic Adventure 2 for $16.99 (I prefer this title over the original Adventure). I took my purchases up to the counter and paid for them and walked out happy.

My girlfriend, on the way out, said "I'm surprised you didn't look for your free game," and I immediately swore and turned around and walked back into the store. The cashier was very generous and said I could certainly still pick out a free game despite completing my transaction earlier. Not wanting to make my girlfriend wait much longer, I grabbed Sonic Adventure off the shelf (it was priced at $13.99) and took it to the counter. I shamelessly convinced the guy at the counter to switch the jewel case since it was cracked and taped, and he let me grab some sports game off the shelf and switch it.

As we walked out of the store, I told my girlfriend I couldn't remember if I already owned Sonic Adventure for the Dreamcast. I thought I did but when I got home I confirmed I only had the DX version on the Gamecube. Success! For about $44 I got some really great games. Sometime this week I'm going to try my copy of Panzer Dragoon II Zwei and I cannot wait.