Saturnalian wrote:
1) Metal Gear Solid V. (PS4)
2) Resident Evil: Revelations 2: Episode 1. (PC)
3) Battlefield: Hotline. (PS4)
4) Black Mesa. (PC)
5) Rayman Fiesta Run. (iOS)
6) Until Dawn. (PS4)
7) Transformers: Devastation. (PS4)
8 ) Half-Life: Opposing Force. (PC)
9) Lost Planet 3. (PC)
10) Stealth Inc 2 (PS4)
11) Ryse. (PC)
12) Bloodborne: The Old Hunters DLC (PS4)
13) The Escapists: The Walking Dead (PC)
14) Half-Life 2: The Lost Coast (PC)
15) Half-Life 2 (Cinematic Mod) (PC)
16) Half-Life 2: Episode 1 (Cinematic Mod) (PC)
17) Bug Princess 2 (iOS)
18) Undertale (PC)
19) Pikmin 3 (WiiU)
My first impressions when I started Pikmin 3 were that the environments weren't as great as some of the gaming press made out in the reviews but it is nice to see the rendered fruit and the same bulbous baddies in HD. I just don't think it is especially mind blowing.
Pikmin was always a strange game though and after playing it for a few hours I soon settled into the familiar pattern. Y'see playing Pikmin is kinda like my job. I make a list of things to do and I work through the list each in-game day. As jobs are ticked off, new tasks are identified and placed on the list at suitable points - usually the bottom. As the day draws to a close I return to my sofa and await the next day whereupon I pick up the list and start again. Sometimes there is a rush to the deadline at the end of the day and sometimes I finish early. The better at your job you become the more efficient you are at planning just the right jobs so you finish on time.
So if you've played Pikmin before it'll take you all but a single ingame day before you realise when you need to stop what you're doing and get back to the ship. Rarely will you have that situation when you fail to get back to the ship and have any Pikmin outside die horribly. If you haven't played Pikmin you'll soon learn and I daresay you won't have any major deaths on your hands. So, business as usual for Pikmin 3. And it really is, because it is Pikmin 1 but on the WiiU. AND THIS IS FINE. I quite enjoyed the almost relaxing pace of ticking jobs off the list - today I will get that fruit, then explore round there and then destroy that barrier, find the next bridge to repair and be back home for tea and pancakes.
There's a couple of changes however. Pikmin 1 gave you 30 days to complete all your jobs OR YOU DIED. And it was repeated every day, 30 days, 29 days, 15 days, 1 day until your final death. So you always had the urgency to proceedings that you had to get your arse into gear every day and not mess about. It turned out however that the 30 days was ample time for even a fair few cock ups along the way but still added an immediacy that is lost in Pikmin 3. There ain't no 30 days, instead you have to collect fruit to make food and if you don't have food then you die. Turns out that only the biggest muppet would die of starvation and within a couple of days you've got a stock pile of the stuff and by day 15 I had about 30 bits of food to last 30 days. So the food collecting is largely irrelevant - except for completionists and to get the best ending by getting all the fruit on all the maps. And that's another thing, there's only 4 maps and they aren't the largest things neither. I finished the game on Day 30 (old habits never die apparently) and I had 32 bits of rationed food left and had collected 56 out of 61 fruits. I can't remember how long it took to finish but it didn't seem like very long at all. 6-8 hours maybe? Just a guess.
The other change are the controls. I think this was actually inspired: You hold the controller in your left hand and use the stick to move and the shoulder button for the whistle. You can change Pikmin using the D-pad. Then in your right hand you hold the stylus. The entire screen on the WiiU controller is a very big button which you tap with the stylus. You hold the stylus on the screen to move the on-screen cursor which is replicated on the TV on a 1:1 basis. The only problem is the camera which you can move by pressing the cursor against the edges of the screen but it doesn't work that well or in the heat of a fight so occasionally you have to take your right hand, still holding the stylus, and nudge the right stick a bit. That's the only problem, because it works like a dream (especially since you don't really need to be very accurate). So anyway, you move the cursor on the pad's screen and just tap to do stuff (like throwing the Pikmin about). You don't like that? You can use the WiiU controller or the wavebird. There, everyone is happy.
Summary: It's Pikmin again in HD WHICH IS FINE. It's not like we're inundated with Pikmin games, is it? It's as enjoyable as it ever was. The controls are great. The lack of time-limited or food-limited pressure is virtually non-existent. I'm convinced that this is a gamers game but they want to think that children, parents and grandmas are playing it too. The story mode is too short.
Oh, and there's some DLC for it bizarrely. I think it's a few maps or something.
Oh, oh, and there's another mode where you collect as many fruits as you can within a time limit. The maps are much more dense and varied. There's a cool one on a dinner table which is brilliant. I'm assuming that you can challenge your friends as to who can get the best times and what not. It looked really fun but without anyone to play with me I did a couple and took the disc out. Bah.
Oh x3, and some local multiplayer mode. Again, no friends, no play. Maybe it's a sort of battle mode akin to Age of Empires!? Fuck me that'd be brilliant. I'll never know.
So, yeah, Pikmin 3: pretty good fun. I really enjoyed it.
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