VVVVVVery Good Chiptunes - VVVVVV Review

Go ahead and hit play.

I picked up a copy of VVVVVV months ago.  I think I got it as part of one of the humble bundles, probably the second or third one.  It had sort of been languishing in my pile of unplayed PC games, which is by far the worst pile to languish in on account of how rarely I play PC games.  That VVVVVV was sitting unplayed, it turns out, is very bad, because VVVVVV is a very good game.

Oh man he looks pissed.  We'll invade Siam LATER, Oda.

I was sitting in LAX awaiting my 12am flight to PHL so that I could hop over to ITH the next day and I had some time to kill. As is my custom, I had elected to arrive at the airport WAY too early rather than to have to worry for even one second that I miss my flight.  It was during this time that I decided to bust the new laptop out to play some Civilization V which I had enjoyed a little bit too much over the break.  However, it seemed that Oda Nobunaga's reign of terror was going to have to be put on hold because I couldn't get Steam to start in offline mode and thus couldn't play any Civ V.  Without a good surface to mouse on my only other alternative was to fire up VVVVVV and I'm so glad that I did.



VVVVVV is a game all about simple charm.  All you need to worry about is moving left and right, whether gravity is up or down, and spikes or other obstacles.  Apart from that, it is a story about Captain Viridian's efforts to reunite his spaceship crew which have been scattered all over lost in some new dimension.  It's a game not unlike Super Meat Boy, where you'll die hundreds (if not thousands of time) before you're through, but where death is of little consequence because the game is about discrete platforming challenges that are never more than a few seconds in length. Throw in a dash of collecting and a metroidvania style map and you know almost all you need to know about VVVVVV's gameplay.

The thing that really kept me going in VVVVVV, beyond the roughly 630 deaths in the 90 minutes it took me to finish the game, was the blistering chiptune soundtrack.  These are tracks so compelling and perfectly matched to the gameplay that they transcend the nostalgia of the genre and sound completely contemporary.  This is music that I would listen to apart from VVVVVV and not feel a hint of nerd shame about.

If you're at all interested in games, have $5 and a bit of patience, buy this game and enjoy the hell out of it.

No New Games 2012 - Also, Shadows of the Damned

It's 2012 now, and though there are many amazing games on the way (Mass Effect 3, Bioshock Infinite, a Firaxis developed XCOM game), I think it's time to put my foot down and stop buying so many goddamned games.  Though black friday itself was a complete disappointment for me this year, the weeks leading up to Christmas were absolutely ripe with amazing deal from Best Buy, GameFly and Steam.  Amazon, not so much this year.  What I wound up with was this:

One of the most sadly overlooked games of 2011.

Shadows of the Damned (PS3 - $14 from GameFly)
Dirt 3 (PS3 - $15 Best Buy)
Portal 2 (PS3 - $15 Game Fly)
Kirby's Epic Yarn (Wii - $8 Best Buy)
Bullet Storm (PS3 - $8 Best Buy)
Witcher: Enhanced Edition (PC - $5 or so, Steam)
Civilization V: GOTY (PC - $16 or so, Steam)
Rock of Ages (PC - $2.50, Steam)
Bastion (PC - $5, Steam)

whew, I think that's it.  It should be noted that used titles from GameFly come in amazing condition with all of the relevant packaging, manuals and online codes (really surprising). Somewhere in all this amazing shopping, I willfully forgot about all the other games I haven't finished and now that I'm looking at the pile it has made me a little sad.  Those titles include but are not limited to:

Dark Souls (PS3)
Little Big Planet 2 (PS3)
Resonance of Fate (PS3)
3D Dot Heroes (PS3)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PS3)
Okami (Wii)
Mad World (Wii)
Metroid: Other M (Wii)
VVVVV (PC)
Braid (PC)
Torchlight (PC)
Final Fintasy IV Complete (PSP)
Jeanne D'Arc (PSP)
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (PSP)
Zettai Hero Project (PSP)

They know who their audience is. ME!

So really, I've got my work cut out for me this year.  I'm starting with Shadows of the Damned. It's a shame that game didn't sell more, because really it is amazing.  The action is alright, but the setting and story are absolutely top notch and I've laughed out loud more than once. The writing is incredibly smart and self-aware, serving the dual purpose of diffusing any outrage one might feel towards the stereotypical portrayal of both the hispanic protagonist Garcia "Fucking" Hotspur and his scantily clad damsel in distress, as well as being a breath of fresh fucking air after what seems like an eternity spent wallowing in a generation of games defined by how gritty its modern military shooters could be.  It's nice to see a game so thoughtfully define its own original mythology and then just run with it like it's just plain common sense that strawberries are demonic treats made from ground-up tongues.  Do yourself a favor and pick this game up, you can get it cheap these days.