Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee Impressions

Hot Shots won out over Pac Pix on Sunday, although I'll probably be picking it up this weekend as well. It turned out to be the perfect game to lazy away a Sunday afternoon, on the couch. Almost too perfect. I'm trying to play it as little as possible because of all my flight time coming up, but it really is hard to stay away from.

Probably the most striking thing about the game is that it's HUGE. As I said, I played most of the afternoon, and again some last night, and I've only unlocked one more character, and the 2nd of the six courses. The game forces slow progression, requiring you to play a course 9 holes in, or 9 out, or all 18, through many tournies, putting challenges, or match play. This isn't a game where every couple rounds you play an additional course opens up. I felt like I really knew the first inside and out by the time I gained access to the second. About the time the second opened up is when I was prepared and wanting to move on.

The mechanics themselves come from the oldschool "tap tap" school of golf games. Timing is everything. Tap to set your power, then again for accuracy. Things get deeper, with the ability to put super spin on the ball, make power shots, etc. It never feels like a shallow experience. Its still very easy to pick up and drive right in, however.

At six courses the game is a little light (I believe Hot Shots Golf Fore! included 11 or 14 or something), and online play would have sent the fun factor through the roof, but those are my only two complaints. Game progression is slow, as I mentioned earlier. You'll have to play a LOT of tournaments where your only prize is a new club/ball/accessory for your golfer before unlocking anything significant. Some see this as artificially expanding the game's length, requiring a lot of play until all six courses are available. I personally think it just makes the game perfect for portability. A quick 9 holes takes almost no time at all, and at the end you'll always earn at least something, and be closer to ranking up or earning a new course/caddie/character.

Even if you don't traditionally like golf games, I would reccomend at least checking it out. Its a hell of a lot of fun and doesn't try to appeal to hardcore golf enthusiasts. If you DO enjoy golf games (and own a PSP), then HSG:OT is a must-own. It won't be leaving your PSP for a long time. It's currently right at the top of the PSP's library, with Lumines, Ridge Racer, and Metal Gear Acid.

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Pac-Pix Impressions

I've gotten the feeling playing Pac-Pix that the game would be a hell of a lot of fun... IF I DIDN'T WRITE LIKE A FIVE YEAR OLD. As most of you reading this probably know, the point of the game is to draw pac-man which will animate and come to life, and then steer him around eating up the ghosts. As the game progresses, you gain the ability to draw arrows and bombs as well.

The farther into the game you get, the more it becomes a puzzler, instead of an action title. You'll run into situations like needing to run pac-man over a switch to gain access to some ghosts to eat. To get at the switch, you have to light a bomb. To light the bomb, you have to first light the candle. To light the candle you'll have to bounce an arrow off a couple of mirrors to hit another switch. It really is a lot of fun.

The problem is, everything you can create, arrows, bombs, and pac-man himself, has to be drawn in a specific way. Its not really Namco's fault. I understand that it was necessary for bombs to be drawn counterclockwise, with the fuse sticking out a specific way, for the game to recognize that the scribbling being drawn was indeed a bomb. When you're someone like me, who can barely sign his own name, this becomes a major problem. I draw a bomb. Draw it again. Again. Again. Finally on the fifth attempt the game understands. Its the same, or worse, for Pac-Man himself.

Again, its not the game's fault. You should see some of my attempts at quickly scribbling a pac-man into existence. They're truly horrible. Regardless of who's fault it is, the end result is the experience not being as fun for me as I would have liked. If you have neat handwriting, I have every confidence that the game would be super fun for you. If you're like me, you might want to try your luck with someone else's copy, first.

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Meteos Impressions

I'm not prepared to make a Lumines vs. Meteos judgement yet, but I can safely say that Meteos is much more full-featured. There's many more options for play. "Star Trip" is like a 1P adventure where you clear several "planets" (levels) to get to the end, and within Star Trip there's multiple options to mix it up, as well.

Then there's a timed option, where you do as well as you can for 2 minutes or 5 minutes, or clear 100 meteos or 1000 meteos as fast as you can.

There's also an endless mode for each planet, and as the planets vary wildly in terms of gravity (the basis of how the game plays), its not merely getting a different score for each skin or something. You'll have really different high scores for some of the planets because they play so differently.

Lastly, I really dig how the game unlocks things for you. As you clear Meteos' off the top of the screen, they're added to your total. There are a ton of different types, some more rare than others. So like, after an hour of playing, you might have 250 iron in your stock, 200 H20, 30 glow, and maybe only 1 "soul" meteos. These are then used to "make" new planets, items, rare metals, or sounds/songs. So a planet that's made with just common shit could be made after almost no playing, but some will be hard to save up and make. In 90 minutes of playing I got ONE soul meteos, and it alone made a planet. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some that required a lot of rare stuff to make, later on.

The game is option rich, as well. You can set the game for a rightie or a leftie, you can set what items/weapons you want to appear. Soundtest and stats are available from the start. Stats isn't as comprehensive as a game like melee, but its still cool. Counts power-ons, on time, game time, # of games, # of total blocks cleared, launched, etc.

Couple other random notes:

-You can send a meteos demo to another DS owner.

-4 players can play with one game card.

Lastly, in my opinion the music is really, really excellent. There are NO licensed tracks, so you can't expect anything as cool as I hear music in my soul or lights or anything like that, but the best Meteos tracks easily match up to the best Lumines original tracks. The title screen music is especially (surprisingly) epic.

Downsides

-The meteos are small, and I've died thanks to grabbing the wrong one or putting one in the wrong spot multiple times, after only playing a couple hours. In 1P its frustrating, but in multiplayer its gonna be a major bitch, I can already tell.

-The scratching trick still works - sometimes. When the shit has hit the fan and I've tried it, its worked a little over half the time.

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Lost in Blue Impressions

I buy videogames with such frequency that I've become very fickle with how I spend my gaming time. Even if I spent $30 (or $40 or $50) on a game, if it has serious flaws I'm unable to overlook, the odds are it'll get permanently shelved after only a few hours of play, replaced by whatever else I pick up a few days or a week later.

Lost in Blue, on the other hand, is a game that I'm really growing to love in spite of my recognition that it is a flawed experience. The premise is that you wash up stranded on a deserted island. Starving, weak, and dehydrated. All you have to do is survive, and presumably find a way off the island (I haven't reached the end yet).

The first major reason the game keeps drawing me back in is because it has an excellent sense of progression, which is something I've talked about being a sucker for before. You begin by scrounging coconuts and mushrooms that may or may not be poisonous, just to have enough energy to stay alive. Eventually you find rocks, sticks, and other materials to help you build tools such as a spear, rudimentary fishing rod, or fire maker. Once you can catch and cook fish, hunger, while still looming, doesn't cast such a dark shadow over day to day activities. You can start using more of your time to explore the island, finding new materials to make even more advanced tools like a bow and arrow, or a table and chairs for your cave/home. I keep coming back because I only need to find two more logs to be able to build a bed, and then once I have that I can do this, which leads to THIS, etc.

The second reason I'm drawn to the game is its strong sense of exploration. As I get deeper into the game I'm finding that its a more involved and longer experience than I anticipated. I've found a jungle (which houses vines to be made into rope, by the way), plains, where large animals can be hunted, and I just recently found a set of ancient ruins. Every time I press further away from my home base I'm left genuinely surprised at what I find, which is a rare thing in the generally predictable world of videogames.

The last reason Lost in Blue is keeping my attention is its use of the DS touch screen. Carrots and Potatos have to be dug up from the earth. Fish actually speared with anticipitory reflexes, trees shaken to gather fallen fruit, etc. All the tasks that use the touch screen just require very basic interaction... tapping, rubbing, etc., but it adds a welcome visceral element to the game.

The big problem with the game is that so much of it is just so clunky. Moving on the island itself is clunky and slow... inventory management is even worse. Its way too much of a pain to move items from your backpack to your storage shelf, when it should be very intuitive. Normally this clunkiness would be a dealbreaker for me, but Lost in Blue appeals directly to my gaming sensibilities in a major way. It defies traditional genre bounderies, and does an excellent job of convincing players to play just one more (in-game) day.

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