PixlBit

Still going through my games list, shortest to longest. I'm not even past games more than 6 hours yet. I played three games all on Xbox Live. Here be they. 

i began with Final Fight: Double Impact. This is a very faithful port of two arcade games, Final Fight and Magic Sword, both side-scrolling brawlers. I played Final Fight first solo and then a random popped in with me to play co-op. I thought that was neat. You don't see online play for old arcade games very often. This games needs two players. You get swarmed with enemies and it's hard not to get surrounded quickly. I played for a little while but eventually quit out to play Magic Sword because this game is just not fair. Enemies hit you first even when you have a long pole that should clearly keep a guy, using only his fists, from hitting you. Weapons in general are pretty useless most of the time because they get knocked out of your hand at the sligtest hit. 

Then I played Magic Sword, a very similar game but with a sword & sorcerery theme. I liked this much better but it still makes you hit the continue button way too often. I shouldn't be surprised though because both of these games were designed to be quarter munchers. It's too bad, because I love the pixel art and sounds of these games. The gameplay just annoys me. 

Then I started up Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. This is a Starbreeze game. The guys who did Chronicles of Riddick and, as Machine Games, did Wolfenstein 2014. The two brothers represent the two sides of your controller. The right side, stick and trigger, is the younger son, Naiee, and the left the older, Naia. This makes for some interesting coordination between the two in various puzzling and platforming situations. 

The game is absolutely beautiful. It reminds me of the Mist games since it's a very quiet game and full of amazing scenic views. All the characters talk in a mysterious language that sounds like gibberish. It reminds me of the gibberish spoken by the leaders in Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution, which I quote often for their funny sounds. Dialog is not an important part of the game, though, because the story is told mainly from the visuals. The game's puzzles are not difficult and there is some exploration but not a lot. The whole game took me about 5 hours plus a half hour to mop up some achievements. So it's not long but you will be absorbed by it thoroughly the whole time, I promise you that. My only gripe is that the music gets a little bit heavy handed in the more emotional segments. I think those scenes might've been more powerful with less musical/emotional assistance. Other than that, it was a great experience full of amazing visual moments and an impactful story. I'm glad I finally got to play it.

Then I bought a game I should've bought years ago, The Maw. My buddy Mark played this Twisted Pixel game a lot when it came out as I scoffed and played other things. I remember playing the demo and just not getting into it. What was I thinking? This game is like playing Pikmin with Olimar and one super-growing, morphing pikmin.

You play as some kind of humanoid alien trapped on a space ship that seems to be collecting alien creatures. The ship crashes and you're left sitting next to a strange blob with teeth called The Maw. You can leash this Maw and call it to come to you. The Maw is like a big voracious dog. It'll eat just about anything and grow at various intervals. You can also change its type of attacks and abilities by feeding it certain types of alien creatures. You use these abilities to get past obsticles put in your way by the collector aliens who have lots of technology to throw at you. All the creatures in the game seem like types of insects except the ones after you, and yourself, who are humanoid. It's just fun to lead The Maw around and have it eat things and grow as big as a house.I'm maybe half way through the game and will be completeing it tomorrow for sure. Then we'll see about achievements. What a great game! What was I thinking way back when. 

That be Sunday. Monday's next.