Special editions

I am one of those idiots advertizing companies love. Show me a commercial of a hamburger and I rush outside to get one, not just because I want one, but because I NEED one. Off course this works the same with games… now there are games I simply have no interest in and that won’t change, Viva Piñata will never be part of my collection. There however are games that make me go “meh” at first, but when I see people in my friend list playing it or I see the commercial I start to go: ”I might want that” which inevitably changes to: “I need that” in the end. Fueled by reviews, magazine articles and colleagues talking about it I come to realize I might not even survive without having that game.

Off course funding, or more specific lack thereof at times gets in the way, I am not especially rich, quite the opposite actually. So I can’t always get what I want (humming the Stones here). But sometimes I get what I need.

This whole mess is an interesting challenge to begin with, but then there is such a thing as a “Collector’s Edition” or even worse “Limited Edition”. I have managed to convince myself that I want these only with my A rated games; Franchises which have proven to be awesome like Halo, Fable, Assassins’ Creed and the like. A collector’s edition seems to demand you buy it to prove you are a loyal fan and the limited edition needs to be bought before they are no longer available. No need to explain that when a new game of one of my favorite franchises comes out, I need to have the special, limited, collectors you-need-to-have-this-to-prove-you-are-cool edition.

There are usually three reasons for me to want the collector’s or other edition of a game, which are:

1 ) The collector’s edition has certain extra’s that make it worth the extra costs like a t-shirt, a patch (UNSC patch in Reach is awesome), Art book, bonus DVD or a statuette/ figurine.

2 ) The game developers need to be rewarded for making such an epic game. I love it when a company does it’s best to deliver something awesome. Years are spent in the creation, there’s been lot of play testing and a visible love for the game and it’s background is shown by the developers. Though not always successful, the effort is visible, Lionhead and Bungie are clear examples of this.

3 ) Extra in-game content, ranging from special armor types to complete exclusive levels or missions. Though I sometimes feel a bit cheated by this because I feel the extra content should have been part of the original game, this type of bonus is one of the most successfully employed. Pre-order the game to receive an exclusive weapon, buy the black edition to receive black armor and the white to receive white for example… actually causing some fans to buy game twice. Pokemon games are notorious for this concept.

So when it’s a franchise I care about and two of the above requirements are met, I will definitely try to get the special edition. Off course some offer more value than others. Fable 3 for instance, however awesome the coin, deck of cards and in-game content are it hardly justifies the 20 euro it costs extra, the legendary edition of Halo Reach however… though more than twice the price of the standard edition is well worth the 129 euro for the real fans, luckily they don’t release that many HALO games. Recently I acquired the “Codex Edition” of Assassins Creed Brotherhood which is by far the best value for money collector’s edition I have seen so far… for only 30 euro’s more than the standard edition…. You get:

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood game

Renaissance Collector Chest

Exclusive Codex

Map of Rome

Multiplayer characters cards
Exclusive artwork cards

Lineage DVD

Bonus DVD
game soundtrack

2 Exclusive single player maps: Aqua Gear & Trajan Market

2 Multiplayer characters: Harlequin & Officer

Exclusive Armor

And it comes in this chest, which is of surprisingly high quality.

Besides all that, though it starts off a bit slow it might very well be the best game of the franchise so far. So that’s a bonus right there, a good game, free with my Assassins Creed Brotherhood merchandize pack.

The Darkness...

The Darkness...Bloody effing awesome…

Since I haven’t really got the inspiration to do an actual interesting blog ( yes I did find some of my earlier blogs interesting ) and the little energy I had I already spent on my tarot blog ( http://www.nltarot.nl/ ) I will leave you with a tip on a low budget game still found out there that is so totally worth your while you might actually want to feel a bit of shame if you haven’t got it yet.

I am talking about “the darkness”. It starts out as a rather standard, though very good looking shooter, after the expanded prologue however horror like shooter delivers on a plane few do. It makes you feel like a powerful badass taking well deserved revenge. You feel justified in your cause as you slaughter mobsters and first world war German soldiers on earth and in hell with all types of standard weaponry and your supernatural weapon the darkness which manifests itself as monstrous tentacles that rip adversaries apart. And then there's your darkling minions, who are delisiously cruel and increddibly funny....

Though you feel pretty overpowered a lot of the time, this is how you should feel as the heir of the supernatural power of the Darkness, the game never gets boring and has some awesome moments....

Going for 10 to 20 euro’s (dollars roughly the same) it is a definite must have.

GO BUY NOW

I hate fluffy cutesy carebear unicorn shit

I have decided that games are for adults. Now I only have to get the industry to understand this.
Off course I could have ended my blog there but that might be considered too easy. With December on our doorstep it is once again time to be on the lookout for presents for ourselves, our families but primarily our kids. Those little buggers have somehow earned the rights to be spiled rotten at the end of the year. As a respectable dad I, off course, am no exception.

Since my boy has one major passion, gaming, it’s this corner of the toyzone we start looking. Now I was under the impression that most next gen gaming consoles were more or less marketed towards adults… but damn how wrong I was! There is an awful lot of cutesy, fluffy pink and pastel shit out there. Especially with all the motion controlled games that are spewed on the market the carebear unicorn populace is gaining strongly. We need more blood, gore, chainsaws, aliens, decapitations and hardcore sex!

Which doesn’t mean I don’t want Kinectimals for Christmas…

Pact Man, eater of souls…

All this time I misunderstood this classic… Pacman is not just any old yellow circle… PacMan is a revenant in league with the devil. He searches for souls escaped from hell, every time he eats a small pentagram (in the game depicted as a dot) he gains the power to absorb these renegade souls, it’s just those crappy graphics that obscured this.

Molineux, f**k you as well....

Okay I have been playing Fable3… before I continue I want to state that in comparison to many other games Fable 3 is rather brilliant, great graphics, awesome sound good solid gameplay. Having said that… IT SUCKS! No seriously, I am once again disappointed by what could… should have been the most brilliant game ever.

The original Fable is one of my all time favorite games and with the only shortcoming of it being literally too short I feel the game was near perfect. And as usual when I like something, they change it. Fable 2 was in my opinion the worst “improvement” I have witnessed in my gaming career. I can’t put my finger on it, but Fable 2 was just…lacking.

And now here’s part 3. Though it looks better and “feels” better too many things that make Fable..well Fable have been left out. There are but a few actual storyline quests and little story driven motivation to do the side quests. You can’t use your expressions how and when you want to anymore, so riding into town giving everyone the finger has been made near impossible. And then the changing of your appearance has been adjusted to a point that even though the change is more dramatic it can only be achieved in the endgame and only during certain actions. In other words, they left out the fun. Yes there are some awesome voice actors (John Cleese, Stephen Fry, Simon Peg) and the game does have some hilarious bits, but it all feels very staged where previous Fable games left the having fun part up to you.

I don’t feel sorry for playing the game, it is a good game, but it could have been so much better and Molyneux seems to lose his grasp, he’s just not giving people what they want.

Screw Retro!

When I was younger games were much better…right? Wrong, oh so wrong. I mean come on you’re joking right, compare Pong to Vanquish. Recent technology has given us better graphics, better sound and endless possibilities to make even the most far fetched game concept possible. Besides that in yesteryear games were made by a single guy or a small group of tech nerds in an attic, nowadays professional writers, symphonic orchestra’s and big league producers rule the video gaming seas. And off course a few of those small scale design teams have made some epic games, like the first Prince of Persia for example. But their skills fade in reality compared to the professionals today.

I didn’t use to feel this way… I’ll explain. Recently the Castlevania Franchise got a re-boot. Castlevania has always been a favorite of mine, the first installment I remembered as this epic adventure that demanded the best of my skills. It was a feast for the eyes and the music was brilliant (humming it right now actually) then came Simon’s Quest maybe one of my all time favorite console games. I remember these games fondly and the franchise only got better through time. So being a fan I needed to have this new game without doubt. I played it, finished it and was somewhat disappointed. The game is good, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t get the buzz the old Castlevania games gave me. So I made one huge mistake…. I downloaded a good emulator and started playing my old NES favorite Simon’s Quest…. It sucked!

Invisible holes in the floor, puzzles that are defying logic to such an extend that only a walk through can save you, clearing a castle demands that you stake a crystal ball with an oak stake that has no other use, the only reason I knew this is because I actually watched a vid on youtube on the game and then came the final boss Dracula which could be destroyed by standing in one place using one button repeatedly. Never mind the graphics, unforgiving controls and all-round boring adversaries. It sucked, not in the good vampiric way either… it sucked balls… big hairy, smelly balls. And it hit me….

The issue is not that games of the olden days are better, we just didn’t know any better… We are spoiled by the brilliance of some of the games out there and fail to recognize how totally awesome games can be when you view them in their own light. Castlevaina – Lords of Shadows is on almost every ground superior to it’s predecessors (well except for the fact that it is linear as hell) it just didn’t give me the same feeling because I have been spoiled. Simons Quest was on the top of it’s game, it was new in many ways Lords of Shadows is not.

So where does that leave us, apparently the old games suck to our spoiled sense and new games fail to maze or challenge us… well there are three options… continue on a bit jaded while you slowly come to terms with the fact that you have “seen it all”, stop playing altogether and do a Bob Ross art workshop, keep up with trying to find those diamonds out there, those sporadically created pearls of brilliance that make gaming worthwhile.

Uwe F**KING Boll

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New Blog, free games etc....

So here it is… a new blog, Nocturnal Lure gaming, from yours truly. (under construction)

What’s this all about, well it’s about gaming, computer gaming, mostly console gaming. Why should you keep up with this? Well because I’m funny off course but also because I will be giving away games on a regular basis.

I’ll be honest, I want this blog to get a steady and large following and I am willing to invest in that. Since I am a die hard gamer, I own a fair share of computer games, mostly Xbox360. Every now and then I will give one of these away… and not just the crappy ones.

So what will you find here? Most often it will just be me ranting or praising games and game related nonsense, the occasional review and my idea of tips on what to buy and what not to buy especially from the “budget bin”. Since my main hobby is conflicting with my not being rich I have some insights on how to wrestle through the abundance of budget titles.

Now I won’t be doing a “real” blog today, but I do have this tip for you… and since I am such a giving person I will be giving away my copy of this game as soon as I reach 25 followers.

Prey

Prey is a shooter who has the guts to say “I am different”. Portal puzzles, messing around with gravity and scale, this game is a physicists nightmare… or wet dream. It all starts when you as a native American together with your girlfriend and grandfather get abducted by aliens. Inside the alien’s planet sized ship both reality and physics get whacked around while you try to save both your planet and your girlfriend. Extremely large areas, one large enough to have a large passenger plain fly in and crash in to, as well as claustrophobic hallways where up and down shift, take turns as your surroundings.

In short, awesome gameplay with challenging environmental puzzles and a well played out storyline with some intense moments. It’s only real shortcoming is that it’s way too easy. Mostly because you can’t really die.

When you can find it, it will probably cost around 10 euro’s or up to 15 US dollar. For that amount it’s one of the best buys I know.