Showing posts with label Pikmin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pikmin. Show all posts

Saturday, December 02, 2023

Video Games of October 2023

October was a complicated month, so I wasn't thinking too much about what I really played. I did install steam on my Mac and so that was nice to expand the pool, although there's not a lot that plays nicely on my 2016 mac.


My top five games (by play time) for October were:

  1. Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - I'm reaching the ending of my first play through. Maybe should have pushed thought quicker, just to let the story go at speed. ToTK has been
    Screenshot: Link stands on a snowy hill looking out on a mountainous landscape, while a korok looks at him squarely in the side of the head.

  2. Dicey Dungeons - This has been pretty good for quick pick up and play situations. The number of different ways to approach the core concept of role dice and use them to activate cards is fun alghough, I would love a design my own deck and just play with things, even if it would be stupidly imbalanced.

  3. Pikmin 4 - Continues to be solid and I appreciate just how much there is. Have drifted off in the last little bit, but I'm sure I'll be back.

  4. Tactics Ogre: Reborn - It snowed, and just to confuse everyone, rather than playing Ogre Battle, I played Tactics Ogre. It's a little thin for story, but the actual combat in an encounter is always fun.

  5. Hades - Still great. Does not like my Mac's keyboard.

Here's my total play time for October:



And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:




Thursday, November 09, 2017

Blog: Video Games of October


I was pretty unsettled in October and jumped between games a bunch. I don't love the feeling of not having something serious to play, but for now I'm focused elsewhere and I'm pretty happy just to get a chance to play when I get a chance.

My top five games (by play time) for October were:
  1. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - One beautiful thing about Breath of the Wild is just how much there is to do. It makes it simple each time I turn it on to wander off into Hyrule and find something new and fun and engaging.

    Quite the outcome of a side trip.

  2. Pikmin 3 - I love this game. I could play it forever. There's just so much brightness and charm. The game play presents a lovely challenge of first finding a solution and then optimizing that solution. Every Nintendo Direct, I'm always hoping to see more Pikmin 3.

    Work to do, work to do.

  3. Kingdoms and Castles - I haven't bought too much in the way of new games lately, but listening to 3 Moves Ahead discuss Kingdoms and Castles it seems like enough fun for $10 to make it worth while. I've enjoyed it so far, although it doesn't have a huge range of things to do. There's something nice about building a simple city and using it to kill dragons.

    A dragon in the rain.

  4. FTL: Faster than Light - I suck at FTL. I've been bad at FTL since it came out. Then I watched Eurogamer play it and thanks to Jonneh, I suddenly understood a lot about how *not* to suck at FTL. Either way, even if you're bad it's still a good time.

    Finally.

  5. Pokémon Go - Daily bonuses keep me going, other than that I haven't played too much.

    This ... was a bad idea.

Here's my total play time chart for October:


And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:



Thursday, August 16, 2012

Blog: Thoughts on Pikmin

I recently finished replaying Pikmin. Pikmin is a real-time strategy game released by Nintendo for the Gamecube in 2001. Pikmin was later followed up by Pikmin 2 and now Pikmin 3 is scheduled to be a launch(ish) title for the Wii U. In it you play Captain Olimar, erstwhile space ship captain who has crashed into a terrifying planet full of giant captain eating monsters. You have to find the 30 missing parts of your ship  with the help of 3 different, colour-coded for your convenience, species of animate carrots. I rented it (and played it through) through when it first came out and recently picked it up at my local game store.

Piiiiiikmin (via GameFAQs)

You play Pikmin by raising up a swarm of these small simple creatures who's basic functions are to fight things and carry things. You get more pikmin by having them carry food back to their "onions" from which they sprout new seeds which bloom into pikmin which you then pluck and put into forced labour fighting monsters, removing bariers and carrying more food and your ship parts. Different pikmin are immune to different environmental hazards. Put together you get a game that's part puzzle game part action-strategy game.

It's a simple game and really short (I finished it in 3 light evenings, and I wasn't that good). I enjoyed enough to feel like writing a bit about it, especially because of the brightness of the game and how much fun it was it was to play.

What I Liked


The greatest part about Pikmin is the feeling of the game. It's bright and colourful and the controls are (for the most part) not frustrating. It's easy enough to see a problem, decide on a solution and implement it (whether or not it will work is another story). The controls feel good and the game doesn't fight you outside of a couple of AI elements, since the pikmin are supposed to be independent creatures you sometimes have to work with what they want. This doesn't detract from the game at all though.

It's kinda fun to hang out with these guys. (via GameFAQs)


I like the constrained nature of the game. Your ship has crashed, you have 30 days to retrieve 30 ship parts. Pikmin fight things and cary things. All you need to do is make sure the paths are open (which you do by using more pikmin to fight things. The game isn't overwhelming with complexity, either in the gameplay or the story, so it's simple to sit down and play for a few minutes when ever you feel like it. Days last 13 minutes, so it's easy to get a small snippet of Pikmin in although it sometimes takes a couple of days planning to get a task done and it's easy to forget what you were aiming to do.

What I Didn't Like


The biggest issue I had with Pikmin is the strength of the enemies. This is partly due to my having played a lot more Pikmin 2 where the a lot of the bosses from Pikmin become easier, regular field enemies and you have stronger Pikmin to fight them. Still I would describe Pikmin as an easy game, except for the combat. It's also true that most of the enemies are based on patterns and the more you play the more comfortable you get with the correct way to fight each kind of enemy.

Patience is a virtue rarely explored in video games. Watch out for the feet. (via GameFAQs)


I also found that the game is a little bit small and simple (despite my having like the constrained nature above). Again this might be my experience with Pikmin 2 peeking though, but the areas are a bit small and there aren't any extra things to do. It would be nice to find a few extra surprises here and there to expand on the game a bit.

While it's mostly alright, the AI was not all it could be. While most of the game felt like you were collaborating with helpful, mostly compliant creatures (who sometimes had their own agendas) every once in a while the covers fall off and you run into problems. One instance I had was when a bunch of blue-pikmin who are able to walk through water (they have gills) wouldn't carry a ship part back to the ship unless a bridge was repaired for them to carry it over the water. It's a case where what should be a largely emergent AI system was trumped by traditional video game design and it made the game worse for it. From what I recall they did make this much better in Pikmin 2, but as an AI researcher its frustrating to see something we could implement much better going to waste.

Things I Noticed


Pikmin was also re-released on the Wii and while I haven't played it (I have watched Chuggaconroy's Let's Play), I noticed that they signifiantly reworked the controls. This seems to have removed a lot of the issues I've had with getting the pikmin to the right places at the right time. While I don't think the Gamecube controls are terrible it does look like the Wii controls make the game a lot easier.

Things I'd Include in a Game


The bright and happy aspect of Pikmin shouldn't be underrated, even if it causes people to feel like it's a "kiddy" game. It's obviously not appropriate for every game, but sometimes its nice to be able to relax and enjoy the atmosphere ... although this possibly makes it more horrific when you get a swarm of pikmin eaten.

How can it not be charming? (via GameFAQs)


I also like the bite sized chunks attached to achievable goals. This game came out long before the "social gaming" trend started and it's a good reminder that small fun pieces of game play doesn't have to also be about microtransactions.

Final Thoughts


I enjoyed Pikmin and if you're able to get your hands on it I recommend playing it. It's a lot of fun by itself and an interesting example of where video games have been in the past. I'm really glad I picked it up and I'm pretty excited for the forthcoming Pikmin 3.

It is the fundamental nature of the Pikmin. All things must be carried. (via GameFAQs)


The Video Games I Played - February 2024

This is the second new monthly games post . I'm not feeling very settled in what anything means. The book posts have some basic stats...