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Malik (1/28/13)

Another week went by without a post. I'm not trying to be lazy on posting as much as I'm just not finding the mental sharpness needed to write anything coherent. However, unlike many other times without posting, I have been doing things worthy of being posted about.

First off, as a fan of both RPGs and puzzle games, I downloaded 10,000,000 off of Steam. In simple terms, 10,000,000 is a game that combines the basics of a simple indy RPG with the match three style of a Bejeweled, with a touch of an endless run game. You have battles against time as you run through a dungeon. Along the way, you face enemies which require enough damage dealt to get past, and locked doors and treasures, which require keys to open. To deal damage, you match three or more sword or wands to deal physical and magical damage. To get past a lock, you match three or more keys on your puzzle board. Along the way, you also collect wood and ore from wood and ore tiles, shields to up your defense with shield tiles, and increase your rewards by matching backpack tiles. Unlike Bejeweled, this game uses a piece movement style that has you shift entire rows and columns at a time and as many spaces as you want to make your match. The endless run part comes in by how you lose in a run through the dungeon; by enemies or locks preventing your progress until you're pushed off the edge of the screen.

The game also allows for base building between runs. You can create shops to upgrade physical and magical attacks, as well as your shield defense and your total armor defense. There's also a shop to spend XP (earned from killing enemies) and a shop to activate potions to add a small change to the game play (such as gaining 20% of your wood and ore as gold, but getting no wood and ore). You use your money to upgrade equipment, wood and ore to upgrade and build out the shops, and experience to get new abilities (bonus damage against dragons, for example). All of these come together as you beat achievements in the dungeon to open higher difficulty levels in the name of getting 10,000,000 or more points, which equals beating the game.

I'd call 10,000,000 an ideal game for puzzle fans and endless run fans. The only issue I had, at all, was that the mouse controls can get a little too loose at times. Still, for being a $5 game, you can't go wrong with this. It took me about 10 hours to get to 10,000,000 points, and I could easily go back to get a few more achievements, if that's a good enough motivator.

I've also been playing through some Far Cry 3. I don't have much to really say beyond the basic summary of the game; it's an amazing open world FPS with a lot of great game mechanics and flat out awesome graphics, and an absolutely throw-away story.

I got the chance to play the Wii U this weekend. I cannot say too much about it, since I only played a little New Super Mario U and a little of The Cave (also available on Steam, and another game I bought and finished with a lot of reasons to go back to for more). I can say the Wii U game pad is a pretty awesome bit of tech. The display on it makes me think a lot of a medium level tablet. It's sharp, bright, and has a good resolution. I also works wonderfully for the intended purpose of not tying a person to their TV. If you want single player New Super Mario U, you can play the entire game on the tablet. However, on the downside, you cannot play multiplayer with the tablet controlling a regular character. Still, after only playing about thirty minutes of New Super Mario U, I really don't feel like I can give a good opinion of the game...except that it at least feels less stale than the other recent New Super Mario games.

The one thing I can say, without a doubt, is that the Wii U, much like the Wii, makes a strong and good first impression. I mean I would say I really want a Wii U after my time with it. However, when I stop and think about things, I can then say I'm not getting one. At least not yet. I need to see the games, and see games that are exclusive. Otherwise, I'm fine with Steam, and possibly whatever comes from Sony or Microsoft, if they show that their next consoles are worth it.

Malik

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