Strategy Guide Reviews

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Monday Gaming Diary: the Good and Evil of inFamous 2

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This past weekend was my birthday weekend, and I kickstarted things on Friday by stopping work at noon and playing inFamous 2. My goal was to finish the game before I had to do a jewelry party (another job) Friday night, but instead of finishing it then, I completed all of the side missions and found every single blast shard. I really, really wanted that gold trophy as I know I’m not going to get the other gold or the platinum. But after I got home, I started up inFamous 2 and beat it. I was very, very surprised with the good ending.

I won’t spoil it here, but it made me very sad. My husband snatched my strategy guide away from me and read ahead to the evil ending. He then said, and I quote, “You HAVE to do this.”

So, after the credits finished rolling and I was awarded the appropriate trophy, I started a new game and imported over my evil save from the first game. My plan is to burn through this game. I’m doing evil side missions and side missions I know will only take me a few minutes and that’s it. As a result, I’m over halfway through the game already. Despite what my colleague Blake Grundman thinks, I’m having a hard time playing as evil. It’s weird for me to not care for other people’s safety. On the flip side, it’s very easy to get through missions in a hurry, especially boss fights, and certain trophies are also incredibly easy to obtain.

I’m going to make inFamous 2 my gaming over lunch session this week so I can hopefully wrap up the evil ending by the end of the week.

However, now that that is out of the way, it’s time to focus on my next big strategy guide review: Dungeon Siege III. It’s going to be weird to play an RPG after playing a high-action shooter game, but I’m looking forward to it all the same.

Favorite PlayStation 2 Strategy Guide: Kingdom Hearts

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I was pondering last night while playing some random side mission in inFamous 2 on what was the best strategy guide I have ever found. I couldn’t think of an answer, because I’ve come across so many that were so great that it would be hard to pick one over the other.

So I’m narrowing it down by console, and the first guide that instantly came to mind was the strategy guide for Kingdom Hearts. 

Before my friends rise up in arms, let me assure all of you that I didn’t pick this simply because I love the KH series. If you need further proof, go read my review of the strategy guide for Kingdom Hearts II. That said, I admit that nostalgia does play a little part in my love for this guide.

Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows may be what brought me back into the gaming world, but it was Kingdom Hearts that moved me to the hardcore. Considering that I hadn’t played a hardcore game since, oh, Super Mario Bros. 3, I was in way over my head with KH. I was still learning how to use the analog sticks and how to use more than four buttons, so anyone who has ever played KH can probably figure out EXACTLY where I first ran into trouble: Wonderland.

I got to the world boss within five minutes, and I knew I didn’t find half of what I needed to (such as fire magic) in order to fully complete the level. I knew there were Dalmatian puppies waiting to be found. I knew I was missing chests. And I KNEW I was missing puzzles to solve. I started over using GameFaqs, and I was somewhat satisfied with using it, but it apparently drove my husband crazy to see me play with my laptop open constantly. What can I say? I didn’t want to miss anything!

I didn’t get the game until late in the summer in 2005 for my birthday, so the strategy guide was pretty much sold out everywhere. I gave up on searching for it and continued on my merry way. Until I got absolutely stuck in Agrabah. GameFaqs wasn’t helping. I had one gaming friend in the area, but she lived 30 minutes away and had beaten the game awhile back. She had no advice. I was ready to quit, but my husband didn’t want me to. He actually did a scavenger hunt across GameStops and Best Buys in our region and found perhaps the only Kingdom Hearts strategy guide in stock in Denton County. The cover was ripped, so Best Buy sold it to him for half price, but I think he would have paid twice the tag for it. He surprised me with it one night after work, and after flipping through it, I realized that I had missed a ton of things that GameFaqs either didn’t explain very well or didn’t mention at all. I actually started my game completely over.

I didn’t miss a single thing once I had the guide in my hands. I never got lost–not even in Monstro–and I found every last collectible. If there were Trophies back then, this would have been the first game I would have 100%-ed on. There is a non-existent platinum trophy out there with my name on it. There’s something to be said about a strategy guide that can help a newbie to gaming complete every single thing.

That should be how all strategy guides go, but believe me, they don’t. Not all guides have 100% useful screenshots. Not all guides make note of when certain collectibles are available in previous areas. Not all guides avoid spoilers in walkthrough descriptions. Not all guides are organized in a way that makes it incredibly easy to find what you’re looking for without flipping through the entire thing. Not all guides have detailed maps of every area a player can visit that include markers that point out this item will be available at such-and-such point. The strategy guide for Kingdom Hearts does.

In many ways, I use this guide as a standard when I review others, especially since none of my other PlayStation 2 strategy guides–not even the others written by the author, Dan Birlew–have come as close to perfect as this one.

Monday Gaming Diary: F*** You, Tiny Tower

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I wish I could say that I’ve made more progress in any other game except for inFamous 2 over this last week. Instead, I’ve found myself obsessed with a couple of casual games. Rather than playing Ocarina 3D over lunch, I’ve been playing Zuma’s Revenge on the Mac. I’ve played Zuma before, way back when it was a freebie on PopCap, and it was always one of those games that was fun but never captured me for long. It’s pretty much the same game now, but ugh, I can’t stop myself from play9ing when I have a few minutes to myself. I’m at the point where it has become frustratingly hard, so hopefully that will deter me from playing any more of it and focusing more on what I need to, like Ocarina 3D.

And that brings me to the other casual game that has sucked the life out of me: Tiny Tower. I have two friends who are obsessed with Tiny Tower, and they kept talking about it so much I decided to give it a chance. It’s free, so where’s the harm, right? The game itself is actually stupid. It’s not really that fun to play, but I can’t stop playing it. I can play it while my son is playing with his trains. I can play it while I eat. I can play it even WHILE I WORK, because that’s how little effort the game takes. I was even playing it while podcasting last week.

I need help.

I’m sadly typing this while I’m playing Tiny Tower. I just need to help a messenger find one of my tenants, restock the video rental store, and operate the elevator. If it would let me participate in my bitizens’ bitbook social media network, I would.

I have already given my tokens of gratitude to my friends for introducing me to this game. I need to stop talking to both of them, immediately.

Professor Layton and the Unwound Future Mini-Review

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Professor Layton and the Unwound FutureI specifically packed Professor Layton and the Unwound Future in my Japan luggage because I knew this would be the perfect time to play it. This game was meant for those train rides! And sure enough, I was right; those train rides were perfect for solving a puzzle or two.

However, like its predecessors, the story behind the puzzles is what kept me up until 1 am playing, despite the fact that I had walked my feet off all around Japan that day.

All of the Professor Layton games have stories that completely jump the shark, but they fit in a way for why this professor of archaeology and his groupie constantly run into people with puzzles to solve. The stories would NEVER fly by anyone without the puzzle solving mechanics, and I think that’s part of the charm and fun of the games. The story of the Unwound Future jumped a bigger shark than the others–I’d love to explain why but I won’t for spoilers’ sake–but I found that I liked it best. It centered around some of Layton’s past and explained the histories behind a few running characters, which really appeals to fans of the series.

As such, it’s difficult to recommend this game unless you have played the first one, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, as so many characters are given zero background information. For example, without playing the first game, you will really have no clue about Don Paolo or Clara or even Layton’s history with Inspector Chelmey. It also goes without saying that if you didn’t like either of the first games, you won’t like this one either. It’s more of the same, more mini-games, and more brainteasers.

I cannot wait for the fourth game to release in the states.

Monday Gaming Diary: inFamous 2, Ocarina of Time, and Gears of War

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Gears Co-OpDear Diary,

I started three new games this past week. I finally got to sit down and play some inFamous 2, and while I had a goal of beating the game by the end of the week, I didn’t count on getting so distracted with everything else. I’ve probably put in over 8 hours to the game so far, and I’ve barely advanced the story at all. Instead, I keep hunting down side missions and while I’m running around looking for them, I get even more distracted by hunting down blast shards and dead drops. At first, I was really irritated with having to hunt down messenger pigeons for the dead drops, but it’s actually proven to be far more fun than I originally thought. My funniest dead drop story so far was when a pigeon landed on a taxi and I had to go chase the taxi down. I laughed so hard I almost lost it.

So yeah, I need to get back on focusing finishing the game this week, but I know I’ll get distracted again. It’s just too much fun to zap things with lightning.

I also started Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D to play during brief downtimes. That…wasn’t such a good plan. The game is too deep to really pick it up and play it in 30-60 minute bursts. I have to admit, though, that I have to switch back and forth between 3D and 2D. When a ton of movement happens on the screen and Link gets a little knocked around, it really, really hurts my eyes. Turning off the gyroscope function has helped immensely, and I obviously need more practice on holding the handheld still. I blame the fact that I’ve played a few regular DS games recently and fell out of the habit.

And last but not least, I started Gears of War over the weekend. My hubby and I started Gears 2, but I kept feeling that I needed to play the first one. With the third game releasing in a couple of months, I bit the bullet and hunted down the first game in bargain bins. The husband and I attempted to play it together on Saturday, but it didn’t go well. I was either yelling at him or reviving him. He’s been out of practice for a long time, but since we were playing on Casual mode, I got really, really irritated. After it took us way too long to finish Act 1, I told him he was fired. I’d love to play shooters with him since that’s all he likes to play, but man he needs to rehone his skills.

Now I understand why my friend Blake was yelling at me when we played Gears 2 together. I had just started to get into the shooter genre, and I was not prepared for the fast action of the game, so yeah, Blake had a very similar experience with me. Maybe he and I can play together now since I’ve gotten a little better.

But as for how I feel about Gears, I don’t know. I was hoping for more of a story about what is going on, and this so far hasn’t produced. I’m only two Acts in, so maybe things will unfold later, but for now I’m just shooting things that shoot at me. That’s a little fun, but the fact that the first game plays out a little like a Survival/Horror game (of which I was warned of) doesn’t help my affection for it at all. I HATE being in suspense or being scared. In the areas with the Kryll flying overhead and the Wretchers jumping out behind corners, I was constantly on edge. At least the dialogue cracks me up.

So goals for this week: move forward on inFamous 2, play more Ocarina, and try to finish the first Gears over the weekend. The Fall rush is rapidly approaching and I need to get prepared!

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