Professor Layton and the Curious Village

This is not gonna end well

Back when I played the Phoenix Wright and the Professor Layton crossover I realised there is a huge amount of Professor Layton games and I needed a job to afford all the games. Well, I got a job now and guess what? I got the four first games for the Nintendo DS. The UK english as well meaning same voices as in the crossover and lets go. Basically this is a pure puzzle game in the veins of the 7th Guest and I played that as a kid a lot. Although I cheated to get to the end since some of the puzzles in that game are just obnoxious, I mean come on, how many chess and picture puzzles can you have? Here I at least can always use the hint coins system if a puzzle gets to irritating. And mostly the problems lies in that I don't carefully reads the instructions and small problems actually understanding what they mean. I mean, often I'm fooled by how I interpret the words. There is for example some guess who's lying or did the bad thing and you get some statements and by deduction you will find the answer. Fine and dandy, but I get perplexed on the wording as in my mind it can means two things. And don't get me started on when I forget what left and right is. And there is three more games? GOD!

You may think this is just a normal puzzle game, but here our heroes are chased by a remote controlled ferris wheel in a park.

The story is that Professor Layton together with his assistant Luke are travelling to St. Mystere on an invitation of Lady Dhalia, the recently dead Barons wife to find the Golden Apple, a treasure hidden by the baron according to his will and they need the greatest puzzle solver to find it. But things start strange as you get locked inside the village and a the same time one of the relatives to the dead baron winds up dead as well and the London inspector Chelmey is there investigating the case. The mysteries pile up on each other and you soon find out the truth... the whole village actually consist of two people, the rest are robots. Created by the late barons engineer and as you guess the murder isn't really a murder. The victim just malfunctioned and before the engineer could get him he was stoved away by the diabolical Don Paolo who then disguised himself as inspector Chelmey to frame the professor. And this game isn't afraid to introduce an arch-nemesis that the main lead don't remember, meaning it sets up possible sequels and prequels as well.

Well, the devil horn-hair style give it away

It's a fun story and the art style reminds me of some children animated movies I watched as a kid and it has that charm. What's problematic is that the story actually lacks drive. Well, I want to solve it, but I don't have any other reason then that I'm curious. Don Paolo actually tries to frame me later on for the murder, but at the same time Layton unmask him so that threat is gone. The only time there is some urgency is when I've reached the top of the mysterious tower in the village and Don Paolo starts wrecking the place with his flying contraption, but then we are in the ending cutscene so I don't get to do anything. Also, the golden apple is actually the baron's daughter who lives on the top of the tower and the whole puzzle was constructed so that some worthy person could make her happy. Still, she and Layton is trapped on the top while Luke managed to escape so Layton builds a hang glider and sails of and forcing down Don Paolo, they discover the treasure hidden in the baron's manor, but leave it there since taking it away would stop the whole town... how that is possible I don't know. Really, they can come by later anyway since the one keeping the town working is Bruno, the engineer and he is pretty old and after that no one can repair the people. Layton, Luke and the girl travels back to London and all ends who ends well. So why wasn't the hang glider the last puzzle?

Doin' The Omoralisk Schlagerfestival '16 (5)

Attack of the disco-balls

Is it over? Finally, broadcast towers falling apart, the airport radar system fails and the trains don't run.... well, the last part seems always to be anyway, but still. So we have had some technical difficulties in this week. Probably some maintenance problem at Telia with the airport radars, but the broadcasting towers seems to have been sabotaged. Specially since it also has been reported uniforms from the company have been stolen in a break some time before. Now, blame falls on the only regional nation that have had a hisory of aggressivness against it's neighbours, especially when their is talk about new gas- and oil pipes in the baltic sea and access to a port on Gotland. I'm of course talking about Russia. But really, it's probably in retaliation for the loss of the Eurovision song contest 2016, when Russia won the popular vote, but the international jury's gave the points to Australia and Ukraine, leaving Ukraine the winner.

Jokes aside. I don't know how I should feel about this. Clearly the Ukrainian song has political undertones that can be seen as veiled criticism against Russia, but the song ain't that bad. On the other hand Russia's song probably was better, but it's hard for me not being coloured by their actions domestically and internationally. But then they got the popular vote... but again, that is probably also due to all Russians in other countries which are sizeable minorities. In Sweden for example we have the newspaper Aftonbladet which was accused of being Putin's voice in Sweden, publishing his propaganda without any thought, by the Finish foreign policy institute (? can't clearly remember). Of course Aftonbladet is a tabloid full of apologetic communist so it might be some left overs of the cold war.

All this makes it really nasty, everyone says culture and sports shouldn't be full of politics, but we all know that even the romans understood it's importance on politics. Bread and circuses (Panem et circenes) have always been important for politicians, keep the people happy with fun distractions and you can get away with murder... or tax hikes... or war, which pretty much is murder but on a larger scale. It's used as propaganda, it creates an aura of success or failure depending on if it's good or bad. Short in all, it left a bad taste all around. And the wrong song won. I'm not talking about Australia's which probably was the best of Russia, Ukraine and Australia, but obviously the best song was Bulgaria's. Even though it sounded like she sang she was a loser. At least not Belgium won, which had a good happy song, and I like those, but since the basline made me think of nothing else then Another One Bites the Dust by Queen. And that is just plain plagiarism.

Overall it was a pretty good year. I also liked Georgia's song and there were some great hard rock acts... but the lyrics would have need polishing. I don't know which country, but it was almost as every single line was taken from songs that Ronnie James Dio done in his own band, Rainbow and Black Sabbath. Well, glad it's over for now and hopefully we won't win next year or the year after that so we can have some peace and quiet around here.

Shovel Knight: Plauge of Shadows

Dark side of the Shovel

Got the update for Shovel Knight and I gotta say it is rather fun although the gameplay is much harder. You play as Plague Knight in search for ingredients to the ultimate potion. The ingredients are the essence of the other knights meaning you have to defeat the other knights and the enchantress. The knight maps all have a secret area where you can find the relic of the stages, but since you are an almighty Alchemist you sell it to Chester who then will sell it to Shovel Knight. And the reason why you make this potion so you can be together with Mona... or was it the Magicant? Doesn't matter, it is a cute story where Plague Knight learns how to dance from the fish king and still is to embarrassed to dance in front of her. And then Shovel Knight, he's awesome. First he storms Plague Knights castle and you have to defeat him, but as he is the hero, he makes one final attack and strike you down. Of course you still need his essence so you sneak up on him when he sleeps and take it. And then again when you break up the feast before the enchantress stage he's such a dick. I saved them all when I played as Shovel Knight, this Shovel Knight just leaves. And of course due to every relationship cliche Mona saves you from your dangerous experiment cause she loves you, but in turn is turned into a dangerous version of you and you have to save her... by defeating her.

UNLIMITED ALCHEMICAL POWER

Basically the same game, but with another character. Plague Knight I feel is a bit harder to control due to the explosive jumps and powers makes me fly all over the screen and a such platforming important game makes it difficult as hell. Although defeating the final boss feels so satisfying. It's a free update if you get the original game so play on. Also, there is some new areas in most stages and the first town is completely different due to not be able to enter it since you are a bad guy. Continuity!

Ducktales Remastered

Ducktales Woo-Hoo

My sister got the original game for the Nes and obviously it was always a struggle to get to play it. We weren't much for sharing between siblings. But who cares when I got the remastered version instead for the Wii U. Original was made by Capcom while this version was made by WayForward, the same company behind Shantea. Confession first, never finished the original, I got to the final boss, but never got the rhythm to beat him. And people say this is an easy game, I must really suck. Well, lucky for me there is an easy mode so I could finally beat it... and then I played it all the way to hard since that is the best way to unlock all side things. Guess I just have to get good.

Original game cover

Plot is that after the beagle boys tried to steal a map from Scrooge McDuck he himself goes out looking for the treasures hidden in the map. You go to the Amazon, Transylvania, some African mines, the moon and the Himalaya. Turns out it was a ploy by Magica de Spell and Glomgold Flintheart to summon a vampire Count... I wanna say Duckula, but that is another animated series. You defeat him and Duckburg and the world is saved. Apparently several people didn't like this remake. The game lost a lot of it open levels since it forced you to search the whole level often for items to go to the next part of the level, be it map pieces, relics or armour parts. Some people also complained about the voice acting which gave more story to the game compared to the original. I personally liked it since as far as they could they used the original voice actors from the TV-series and that makes it even feel more like the series. A pity they didn't make localisation for Sweden and used the Swedish voices... well, the Swedish voice of Scrooge McDuck had already been dead for several years so that is probably for the better they didn't. And now they are bringing back the series for 2017. How come that the older I get, the more things from my childhood still sees to be on the TV?

Edit 2016-05-23: Well, that was a bit sad since a couple of days ago Alan Young, the voice of Scrooge McDuck, passed away. As stated, to me the voice of Scrooge was the Swedish dub (or both of them since Mickey Mouse Christmas Carol had another voice), but we had one episode of Ducktales and that was the Valentine episode. And Remaster now of course. But to me the most distinguished role was as Haggis McMutton from Curse of Monkey Island and it took me a long time to realise that he also was the voice of Scrooge. Young become 96 years old and still probably will be greatly missed. Of course now everyone will dread who might be the new Scrooge in 2017.

Adventures of Pip

Evolution of Video Games

So I just downloaded the Adventures of Pip after seeing some positive reviews and just crave some easy 2D platform where I can actually jump. And it is rather fun. You take the role of Pip, a single pixel who embarks on a quest to save the kingdoms princess from the dark queen Derezzia who dreams of a world were everyone is a single pixel since then there will be no resia... I guess abuse against inferior pixels. Of course Derezzia is the only one still keeping her 16-bit resolution, but compared to the king and many other 16-bit people she is rather reasonable. You can change your resolution by defeating blue bit monsters and they will upgrade you. Each version have different attributes. 1 bit can float in air and on water while 8 bit can punch, wall jump and is the fastest while 16 bit have a sword that can break stone and he is heavy enough to sink in water and stand still in wind. All three versions are needed to reach the end. You can downgrade with just a push of a button which also works as an attack.

The saviour of the common pixel

I thought it was a simple game. I finished it in one sitting and only missed one villager and that was on the last stage. The only problem I had was the second to last boss, the lava boss apparently named Lord Magmalith. I hate that guy. I must have redone that sequence 20 times before I finally beat him and the last boss was a cakewalk.

I REALLY hate him!

If I gonna be a bit negative it felt rather short and the ending rather abrupt. Also sounds like they are setting up for a sequel and that would be fun. Fun to play, but maybe not at full price. Good graphics and fantastic music I might also add and the dialogue has its moments. At least try it once. That is the other problem and that it doesn't seem to be any replay value. They don't even have different difficulty settings, although I wouldn't want to try Lord Magmalith on any higher setting.