PixlBit

Mark and I played some more co-op in Kane & Lynch 2 trying to get a few more achievements. I was trying to get the one where you have to get the kill on an enemy your co-op partner knocked down but not out. I shadowed Mark and shot at anything he did that still moved. I only got a couple more and was still far from the 30 needed for the achievement. So, I just helped Mark get a few other achievements and just had fun with it. Then I switched to Valkyria Revolution, since it installed so quickly.  

I think Valkyria Revolution (VR) violates the very specific things I loved most about Valkyria Chronicles (VC): the graphics and the strategy gameplay. VR has the same core design aesthetic as VC except it is not nearly as sharp. It’s as if they put a soft filter on it and made it blurry. Then the gameplay is action-based instead of turn-based, and your primary weapon is a sword or staff instead of WWII style projectile weapons, which are still present but made secondary. So on those two points, I was very disappointed. But after a while, I accepted them and played it most of the day.

Then I got stuck unable to beat a Valkyrie. I honestly couldn’t figure out how the leveling system worked. I ended up just jabbing buttons until whatever mysterious resource got used up. I think it helped boost my damage with certain spells on my second try at that Valkyrie, but my team got beat up worse than the first time, which made no sense since I leveled them as well. Then, it was sort of mysterious how to make better equipment. You could custom design gear with materials, but you couldn’t assign them to characters. When you buy them, they are applied to all the characters. I never saw an equipment management screen. It’s like they cut a corner on that feature. So I never knew exactly how good my gear was. I might have been running around with the equivalent of t-shirt and jeans for all I knew, which maybe was why I was having trouble with that Valkyrie. Anyway, these things weren’t well explained in the game, and I didn’t feel like digging for an answer. I enjoyed what I played, though, I just kept wishing for old VC instead.

Then I started Phantom Dust, an original Xbox game released for free by MS. I played the single player story mode. The world is pretty neat. It’s a post-apocalyptic world full of stylish punks that remind me of 80s scifi flicks like Liquid Sky (or maybe it’s New Wave Punk style). You play as one of two strange, extra special, punks just released from capsules. You have to live underground because above there are strange machines and humanoid creatures, and the air is full of poison (phantom, I guess) dust that erases memories over time. So each match in the above world is timed, and you have to defeat whatever enemy is before you in the smallish environments before you lose your memory again. The music is post WWII classical which adds an eerie air to the cut scenes. I liked that stuff. It reminded me of Bela Bartok. So, in every mission, you pick up ability orbs and assign them to a letter button on the controller, and then use them for attacks, defense moves, stat boosts, or movement skills. The battle system works pretty well. I like it. I can’t wait to play more to unravel the mystery of how this world became apocalyptic.

That’s a day. I won’t be off again until next Friday, but maybe I’ll have a moment for some Project STEAM on my 3DS sometime.