Demo Driver 8: BeatBlasters III
I am relatively sure that this is the place where Kirby bosses are born.
Sometimes games wind up with poor scores simply because no one can really categorize them, even if they want to. BeatBlasters III is kind of terrible at basically everything it appears to be, and it’s only when you start to get a feel for what it actually is that the game goes from being “bad” to “fun.” Although I freely admit that not everyone is going to feel even remotely the same way as I do about the title.
See, BeatBlasters III is not a platform game, although at a glance it sure looks like one. There are platforms and you move between them, but that is hardly the point. Nor is it a rhythm game, although there is a rhythm element to the game. It’s some very odd combination of both, and yet it manages to be neither, or at least not with any skill. It’s a game with poor play control that’s part of the experience while at the same time being a game with perfect control for creating exactly the right sort of tension.
Perhaps I should start from the beginning.
Lest a monster you become
It’s not the supernatural that makes any hint of opposition something to be destroyed.
What really locked in my opinion of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines was Heather.
Heather is almost the definition of an optional character, albeit an important one. You first find her when she’s in a hospital bed barely clinging to life, obviously going to die unless you do something. Feeding her a drop of your vitae will ensure that she lives, and if you’re trying to be a halfway decent person you’ll do it without a second thought. It’s an altruistic act, a kind one, something wholly divorced from your own needs.
It’s only when she shows up again that you realize what you’ve done, but even then you can’t really object. Heather immediately sets about making herself useful to you, and it’s easy to keep being nice to her right off. After all, she makes it clear that she can help you when you’re otherwise asleep, and she doesn’t want anything in return except to be near you. You could run her off, but this happy fashion student just wants to be near you. Why would you be so cruel?
Then some time passes, and she tells you she’s dropping out of school after you’ve further bound her to your blood. And you realize that you’ve ruined her life.
Telling Stories: Keeping it tense with zero stakes
I will freely admit that I have seen a decided minority of Doctor Who, but I’m always fascinated by the lengths that the show goes to in order to justify its plots. And kind of with good cause. The Doctor’s TARDIS is basically a get-out-of-plot-free card, able to travel through time and space with an ease usually reserved for making instant popcorn. Many of the conflicts in the show could be solved simply by going back in time to before the antagonist had a certain idea and then throwing him into a locked vault.
I am aware that the Doctor has a rule against killing; that is also a mechanism to avoid having him solve every single problem with infanticide.
Of course, every single story ending like this would make for a terrible series anyway, so I’m not begrudging the existence of these contrivances. The alternative is awful. But it raises an important question about roleplaying, wherein you have no such artificial narrative blocks. You can leave at any time, and you have absolute veto power over what happens to your character. And that’s for good reason, obviously, but it also creates an environment wherein you can always, always leave.
The Final Fantasy Project: Final Fantasy IV -Interlude-, part 2
Artwork from a sketch by Yoshitaka Amano
I had really wanted to get through the whole of -Interlude- in one part, but alas, it’s just a little bit too long. You’d think there’s be a more solid sense of progression as a result, but instead it’s kind of scattershot and all over the place, starting you in the middle of leveling with an odd assortment of gear and no super-clear picture about how long you’ll be here. It’s an odd duck, is my point.
Last time, we left off with Rydia acting as if she is far too drunk to be near crystals and loaded onto the Falcon, which is weird enough in and of itself but still leaves the question of why monsters in the Sealed Cave were acting up in the first place. Also, apparently Edge is doing something, although it really hasn’t tied into the game in a significant fashion yet either. I really hope these plot threads start coming together soon, there’s not a whole lot of interlude left.
Sorry, not a whole lot of -Interlude-. That title formatting looks really ugly. Did anyone point that out?
Recent Work
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Chocobo Dash
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Eliot Lefebvre 