Super Mario Maker - WiiU
Hrm. I really thought I was going to like this game more than I did. It's odd too, because Super Mario Maker does nearly everything I had hoped it would do, yet it still leaves me cold. It's a brilliant idea on paper - a Nintendo-made level creation suite that lets you make, share, and play stages in the style of Super Mario Bros. 1, 3, World, and New Super Mario Bros. - but the experience is ultimately undone by some puzzling design choices and a "community" that seems far more interested in trolling than it is in creating compelling levels.
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| Switching styles. |
So, as I said, Super Mario Maker mostly succeeds in its basic mission. It's easy enough to jump in and start making levels, and the creation tools are intuitive and fun to use. What's baffling, however, is that you aren't given access to the full set of tools right from the outset. In order to unlock more blocks, power-ups, and enemy types, you have to not only spend time playing with the limited set of tools that you start with, you have to wait until the next day for the next set of tools to unlock! The process of unlocking the entire set of tools takes something like 7 days, which just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I mean, I get it if the idea was to have people start simply and learn the basics before giving them a dizzying array of things to play with, but I would have rather seen a robust tutorial system that people could use to hone their level-designing skills rather than this arbitrary "waiting period" nonsense.
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| It literally took a week to get access to all of these enemies. |
Other troublesome aspects of the presentation reveal themselves when you try to play the levels created by others. The main problem I had is that the game is designed to distribute the levels singly. That is to say, one can't make a "pack" of levels and present them as a group. Although you can "follow" designers whose work you like, it's painstaking to try and find designers who make high quality levels, and even when you do, beating a level takes you back to a menu where you need to manually select the next stage you want to try. This gives the game a disjointed feel that undermines the sense of progression and accomplishment I typically feel while making my way through a Mario game. Super Mario Maker tries to address this with the inclusion of a mode known as the 100 Mario Challenge - which tosses you a handful of randomly selected player created levels and gives you 100 lives with which to complete them - but the randomness of the levels you'll play in this mode ultimately just serves to underscore the fact that MOST of the player created levels are complete garbage. And therein lies my second main problem. Seriously - I can't stress this enough - the vast majority of the player created stages I've encountered are just terrible. Most are either too easy, soul-crushingly difficult, or merely exist to showcase the designer's dubious sense of humor. Nintendo may have given us the tools, but their in-house designers need not fear for their jobs.
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| This doesn't even scratch the surface of some of the trolly crap you'll see. |
It seems to me that most of my gripes with Super Mario Maker could be addressed by patching the game in a way that gives players more options for sorting the scores of user-created levels into something slightly more cohesive. Also, if top designers were able to group several levels together I think this game could be a lot more fun. As it is, Super Mario Maker ends up being an intriguing idea that just isn't that much fun to play.
Grade: C
Grow Home - PS4
Well now, this was a delightful way to end the year! Grow Home is a charming little 3D platformer that combines an engaging central mechanic and a quirky robot protagonist to great effect. Players take control of B.U.D., a botanical droid who must grow a giant plant (think Jack and the Beanstalk for scale) in order to oxygenate a planet. This is accomplished by climbing the plant - painstakingly at first, but with greater ease and mastery later on - while occasionally stopping to "activate" flower buds that send gigantic vines spiraling ever higher. The game ends when you reach the stratosphere and reunite with your waiting spacecraft and its doting onboard AI, M.O.M.
With an unlimited number of retries and no actual enemies other than the environment - the only way to "die" is to plummet from an ungodly height or drown in a deep water feature - the game has an easygoing vibe that puts the focus squarely on the enjoyable climbing mechanic and the gorgeous physics-based environment. And the game does look gorgeous. Despite its limited scope and low-poly art style, Grow Home has a warm and whimsical aesthetic that dovetails nicely with the relatively undemanding gameplay.
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| "Just what do you think you're gonna do with that carrot, pal?" |
It's ironic that a game about growing the tallest plant ever was ultimately so short in length. In fact, that might ultimately be the greatest knock against it. I finished my initial playthrough in just over three hours, and I definitely wanted more. After completing your main objective there are a couple of collection-based side quests that open up, but alas, there is but one giant plant and not much left to do once it's fully grown. I wanted other worlds to explore and other ...plants to climb! As I get older I seem to have less time for gaming, so it's nice to occasionally get a chance to sit down and play through a bite-sized charmer like Grow Home, but this one does end up feeling a little undercooked. Still, that begs the question.. is Grow Home better because it's so short? I mean, could this simple game about climbing actually sustain itself over the course of a 20-30 hour campaign? Perhaps the game might be more fleshed out with some enemies and some additional mechanics like throwing and shooting, but would it retain the same simple charm? Tough to say, but I think we may get some answers to these questions when we see the all but inevitable sequel that this game deserves.
Grade: B+
Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition - PS4
As Grand Theft Auto clones go, Sleeping Dogs is among the best I've played. The graphics are solid, it controls well, and it features an intriguing story and characters. In fact, it even makes a few improvements on the GTA formula. Character progression, something mostly absent from the GTA franchise, is present here in the form of upgradeable abilities and fighting moves, and the combat generally feels more fluid and skill-based. Speaking of combat, Sleeping Dogs generally eschews gunplay in favor of combo-based kung-fu melees. It's a welcome change from the stale lock-on, fire, repeat routine of the GTA franchise, and it helps keep the gameplay engaging. The real star of Sleeping Dogs, however, is the city itself. Set in Hong Kong, the city is breathtakingly rendered. From the neon tinted hubbub of the Night Market to the vistas of Victoria Park, Sleeping Dogs offers players a chance to get a feel for one of the world's most unique cities.
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| The pic doesn't do it justice. The city is gorgeous. |
Still, Sleeping Dogs doesn't quite do everything it needs to dethrone the mighty GTA. The driving, while serviceable, often feels heavy, and many of the cars seem slow to start and feel generally less maneuverable than those in that vaunted franchise. The game also suffers from a lack of levity. GTA has never taken itself too seriously, but Sleeping Dogs' hard boiled storyline betrays the often silly nature of these kinds of open world crime simulators. Interestingly, this more serious tone also serves to limit the gameplay options. It seems that in their desire to keep the game gritty and realistic, the devs were forced to dial back on the variety of playable scenarios. In other words, you won't be flying any planes or going on any "you'll never take me alive"-style rampages, and you certainly won't be beating anyone to death with a glittery dildo.
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| ...but you WILL kill a guy by smashing his face into an air conditioner! |
If you missed it last gen, or you just can't get enough of that GTA formula, Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition offers a solid experience in that vein. I give it points for making its main character something other than a depraved criminal psychopath, and the virtual representation of Hong Kong is nothing short of amazing, still Sleeping Dogs doesn't quite achieve the same satisfying balance of gameplay and narrative that makes GTA so compelling.
Grade: B-
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes - PS4
So, keep in mind that I'm not talking about the latest installment in the Metal Gear Solid franchise, but rather the stand alone prequel that arrived last year.
Y'know, I've played all of the games in the MGS franchise up to this point, and MGS V: Ground Zeroes does a lot to push the push the series into some interesting territory, but after spending a few hours with this game I'm pretty sure that I'm going to skip the full version of MGS V: The Phantom Pain. The game plays and looks great, but after all this time I think I'm just kinda done with the series' brand of stealth action gameplay. I give developer Hideo Kojima and his crew credit for the work they did to expand the series' scope into an open world concept, but they seem to have done it at the expense of the overall narrative, and, if I'm honest, it's just kind of tedious having to keep track of your visibility in these larger open areas. I mean, really, hiding behind a rock for 10 minutes while you wait for enemy soldiers to change position is just boring. It was one of the things that I disliked about MGS 3: Snake Eater as well, and I was rather glad to see them move away from that with MGS 4: Guns of the Patriots. For me, the combination of sneaking and open areas makes me anxious, and as someone who obsessively restarts the mission every time I get spotted by the enemy, the prospect of sinking a bunch of time into the full version of MGS V kinda just fills me with dread.
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| Maybe I can hide in that Jeep? |
We'll see what happens, though. If I can pick it up in the new year for a decent price I may give MGS: The Phantom Pain a fair shake, but nothing about this prequel release has me particularly excited about the prospect. I know that a lot of people have raved about it, and I expect it will tap the top spot on countless Game of the Year lists, but I just can't bring myself to "gear" up for another go 'round with Solid Snake..or his.. clone father..or whoever the hell he ends up being!
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| The surgery scene made me squirm a little... |
Grade: B-
Rocket League - PS4
Hot shit, this game is fun!
Grade: B+
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