The Gridline #1

by Dr_Worm on Feb 14th, 2013

Hello, and welcome to an experiment that not even Paul knows about. That’s right, I’m throwing authoritative concern out the window to give you an experimental blog called…

This week’s blog includes:

• You Don’t Know Jack (2011), PC version review
• Dr. Worm’s Top 5 Favorite Voices in Videogames
• King’s Quest 1+2+3 review
• Put To The Test: Dualshock 1: Playstation Too?
• Proteus review

…Man I need a new logo.

Here’s the plan: each week I’m going to present you guys with a weekly blog with five (that’s 5) pieces of content in one huge, king-sized bite. These pieces could be reviews, but also other articles like Top 5s, predictions, testing gaming-related things out (you’ll see in a bit) and more.

You may have noticed by now that I’m currently using a blue font. That’s to differentiate between commentary that I don’t feel has to be part of the article, and the article itself, which is in the standard black.

As for reviews, my personal policy used to be that it had to be a recent release, with the review being written within a year of its release. Instead, I’ve opted for games that are easily available (obviously, recent releases tend to fall into this category), which includes digital downloads. Thus is the case for the first review of this experiment, a revival of the classic PC franchise, You Don’t Know Jack:

 

Review: You Don’t Know Jack (2011), PC version

Some hardcore PC gamers are probably well aware of the You Don’t Know Jack series. Beginning in 1995, it’s essentially a series of virtual game shows that you can play with up to two of your friends. After the sixth edition, the series went on hiatus, with a brief stint of single-player flash-based episodes “airing” every now and then (which are now nowhere to be found, a rare sight for the internet indeed). The series returned in 2011 and is available for download via Steam, and it’s simultaneously the most superior and inferior entry in the series.

Long-time host Cookie Masterson returns to present you with carefully worded trivia questions, the subject matter of which range from pop-culture to politics, math to science, fiction and non-fiction. Of course, it wouldn’t be You Don’t Know Jack otherwise. Unfortunately, I should mention the big gaping flaw right away – this version only lets you play with two players. Traditionally, You Don’t Know Jack always let you play with three people, so why did they decide now to limit it to two?

The format of this edition is familiar, but there are a few new elements. In each episode, Cookie asks you a series of trivia questions, and the faster you answer, the more money you gain or lose, depending on whether you answered correctly. As opposed to buzzing in and answering one at a time, both players can answer simultaneously with their own set of answer buttons. When both players have answered, the choice each player picked is revealed one at a time. This means both players can be correct on the same question, making it a bit more balanced and smoothly paced.

Many hallmarks of the series also return. You can screw your opponent (literally) once per game and force him to answer the question with little preparation. If they get it right, they steal your money, but if they answer incorrectly, you get theirs and have an opportunity to answer it yourself for more money. There are also the occasional unorthodox questions (as if any question in this game is typical), including Funky Trash, where you have to guess whose trash Cookie just dug through, using said trash as clues, along with the strikingly self-explanatory “Put The Choices Into Order Then Buzz In And See If You Are Right Questions”.

In each episode, there’s a Dis Or Dat answer where one player has to choose whether something is one thing or another. Is Innocent the name of a Britney Spears song or a pope? Also in each episode is the Wrong Answer Of The Game. Intentionally pick the incorrect answer hidden somewhere in the episode based on the question’s sponsor (ie Granny’s Roach Butter) and you’ll score bookoo bucks. And of course, no You Don’t Know Jack would be complete without the Jack Attack, the final round involving matching words based on a clue before your opponent can.

I like the presentation of this You Don’t Know Jack. Cookie’s personality really fits well with the game and the banter between questions are just as well-written and humorous as the questions themselves. There are over 70 episodes, each with 10 questions (not counting the Jack Attack), so even though there’s an obvious lack of replay value in knowing the answers to questions you’ve played before, there’s plenty of unique content to make up for it. Considering each episode tends to be about 10-15 minutes long each, you have easily upwards of 12 hours of constantly fresh questions.

The 2011 edition’s biggest flaw, as I mentioned before, is that you can only play with two people. To my understanding, the console version is the exact same game, but with up to four players. What gives? Even if it might be crowded to play with four players on the same keyboard, why can’t you just plug in a controller or two and play with four players that way? The console version also apparently has DLC packs, unlike the PC version. For a game that started out primarily on the PC, why would they betray the format so much?

You Don’t Know Jack is a great party game that should be played on consoles, not on the PC. If you have the friends and are looking for something new to play at parties, by all means pick it up on the 360 or PS3 and have a good time while it lasts. If you prefer to play by yourself, then the PC version may just be for you, but the game is much better with more players.

3 out of 5

 

If you’re on Facebook, it’s worth checking out the You Don’t Know Jack Facebook game. It’s a game on Facebook that, get this, I actually recommend, especially if you have friends who are willing to take part in its asynchronous multiplayer… unlike me. The only friend I have on Facebook playing You Don’t Know Jack with me is my mom. I wish I was joking. But hey, at least the game still has Cookie Masterson as the host, and speaking of whom, he’s included in this week’s Top 5:

 

Dr. Worm’s Top 5 Favorite Voices in Videogames

 

#5 – The HEV Suit (Half-Life, Half-Life 2)

The HEV Suit is a special hazmat suit that keeps you informed on your vitals and, for some reason, your weapon inventory and ammo. You ever feel like Black Mesa was a little too prepared for a disaster? Anyway, the HEV suit has a very calm, feminine robotic voice which you hear frequently in the first Half-Life, but only every once in a while in the second. Some may find it superfluous, but there’s something endearing I like about the HEV suit’s voice. It reminds me of the voices you’d hear in cars from the 80s that said things like “door is ajar”. I would be pretty impressed if my car told me it detected minor lacerations. I would be equally impressed if I actually had a car.

 

#4 – Tim Kitzrow (NFL Blitz, NBA Jam)

Tim Kitzrow is the announcer behind NFL Blitz, and NBA Jam before that. His commentary tends to be more on the comedic side, especially when he has a color commentator to go back and forth with. His voice is powerful and packed with testosterone, a quintessential sports announcer. He’s probably most well known for occasional shouts of “BOOM-SHAKA-LAKA” as the player smashes the backboard in NBA Jam. Tim just naturally has a voice for sportscasting. He should host a game with John Madden, or at least Frank Caliendo pretending to be John Madden.

 

#3 – Cookie Masterson (You Don’t Know Jack)

After briefly appearing in You Don’t Know Jack volumes 1 and 2, Cooke Masterson got hosting duties for volume 3, went on to host The Ride, and has been a staple of the series since. Kevin Kelly of the deathbed-ridden G4 said that “Without Cookie, [You Don’t Know Jack] would quickly be just another forgettable trivia game”, and I have to agree. He even appeared as an announcer in the very short-lived television adaptation of You Don’t Know Jack. Instead of Cookie, it was hosted by Paul Reubens, the guy who played Pee-Wee. Can’t imagine why it failed.

 

#2 – Cave Johnson (Portal 2)

Everyone knows about Aperture’s strong-willed, yet foolish founder Cave Johnson, so I don’t have much to say about him. Valve’s casting of Cave was perfectly executed with JK Simmons; Cave sounds just like you would expect the stern leader of a scientific research company specializing in teleportation and mutating mantis people would sound. His voice has both a strong impact and clarity to it, which is impressive.

 

#1 – The announcer from Unreal Tournament 2003

To put it simply, the announcer from Unreal Tournament 2003 is so over-the-top, it’s awesome. He’s pretty hardcore, and in a game that’s all about fast-paced arena combat, it works perfectly. Even counting down the time remaining in a match, he still sounds badass. And when you max out your graphics settings, he proclaims “holy shit!” This announcer was so awesome, they included him in UT 2004, but you have to enable it in the options. In my opinion: do it before you even start playing. He makes the other announcers sound like wimps.

 

Up next is a variation on the typical review. As I said before, my new principle for which games to review is dependent on its availability. With efforts like the Wii Virtual Console, the Playstation Network’s PSOne Classics, and GOG.com rereleasing classic games to a new audience via digital download, that makes them eligible for review. I like to call them “throwback reviews”. Here’s a review of the classic King’s Quest series as revived by GOG.com

 

Review: King’s Quest 1+2+3

 

If you’ve ever played the Homestar Runner flash game Peasant’s Quest and felt like the game was one big reference you just didn’t get, well, this is that big reference. It’s difficult to put into words just what King’s Quest did for gaming. Simply put, it was a game that helped the PC take a step forward in being a viable platform for gaming. They used visuals to compliment the text adventure mechanic, which was relatively unheard of at the time. GOG has the first three games bundled together for 10 bucks, but as historic as these games are, do these games still hold up well in 2013?

Let’s go through each game one at a time. In the first King’s Quest, you play as the knight Sir Graham who ventures to the castle of the land of Daventry, only to discover that King Edward is dying and needs an heir. The king of Daventry sends Graham on a quest (hence the title) to retrieve priceless treasures the king was foolish to loan out: A magic mirror, a magic shield, and a magic treasure chest that never runs out of gold coins. Without them, his kingdom will fall, and if Sir Graham finds all the treasures and returns them to the king, he will inherit the throne.

The land of Daventry is akin to that of fairy tales – across the green fantasy landscape you’ll find a witch, a giant, dwarves, a troll, and of course a dragon. King’s Quest keeps score, but it’s not that important, however there are many items in the game with the sole purpose of adding points to your score count. At the time, it made sense since pretty every game around had score, but nowadays it’s kind of annoying to have an inventory filled with ironically useless treasures.

King’s Quest’s puzzles are pretty basic, as expected for the time. I often found myself stuck on puzzles with an obvious solution that the game wouldn’t accept, only being able to complete them by looking up a guide and learning that I had to do something slightly differently, or use a slightly different word. It can be pretty annoying at times. The array of arbitrary actions hotkeys doesn’t help much either, especially when the only useful one is swimming, AKA the not-drown button. Also, Graham walks very slowly, and if you try to increase his move speed in this GOG release, he suddenly walks at the speed of light, into trouble or too far from something interesting. Overall, considering its age, King’s Quest I is an OK game worthy of playing through at least once if you want to keep up with the story.

In King’s Quest II, the Magic Mirror from the first game shows now-King Graham (28-year-old spoiler alert) a vision of a damsel in distress in a far-off land. Graham, in love with the maiden, teleports to Kolyma to save her. Kolyma is a lot like Daventry, only it’s not Daventry. It looks like Daventry and has the same medieval fairy tale atmosphere as Daventry, but it’s not. It’s Kolyma.

Joking aside, virtually every problem I had with the first game was rectified in the sequel. Turning the walking speed up doesn’t make Graham break the sound barrier, the puzzles have a tad more depth, and it’s not as difficult to find just the right answer to them. I figured I would probably need a guide to solve King’s Quest II as I did the first one, but that turned out not to be the case. That’s not to say the puzzles are easier, they just have a bit more clarity to them.

King’s Quest III was the disappointing entry of this three-game pack. In this one, you don’t play as Sir Graham, but a 17-year-old orphan named Gwydion. He lives with the evil wizard Manannan (yes, that’s his name) high atop a peak in the land of Llewdor, far away from Daventry. Manannan occasionaly leaves on some official evil wizard business, letting Gwydion to sneak through his laboratory and leave the house.

My major problem with King’s Quest III is Manannan himself. When he leaves the house the first time, you think you’re free to go about your business, but you never know when Manannan will return, and when he does, if you’re not in his house, he’ll just flat out kill you. This is a huge pain, especially when you’ve made a half-hour’s worth of progress and saved in a situation that’s impossible to return home before Manannan. It’s very confusing if you’ve never played before. The first major puzzle in the game involves finding a way to keep Manannan from killing you, and once you do, the game then only has one annoying aspect of it.

Spellmaking is a good idea in theory, but here it’s poorly executed. The only way you’ll know how to make spells is with the game’s manual, which is included in the GOG extras so make sure you download it. Not only that, but you need the manual for anti-piracy reasons, and it’s also the only way of knowing a few key plot elements. I won’t spoil them here, but revealing them in the manual and not in-game is pretty lame. But anyway, spellmaking requires gathering ingredients, bringing them to Manannan’s lab, then crafting the spell. I’ll keep it brief: It’s pretty monotonous.

Aside from these problems, King’s Quest III is pretty similar to the others, with the exception of an auto-map that charts the land as you traverse it. Did I forget to mention King’s Quest I and II don’t have that feature? Make sure you take notes on the world as you progress in those games, and don’t forget to save often.

All-in-all, GOG’s King’s Quest 1-3 is a fair package. The games hold up moderately well and fans of old-school gaming who haven’t given these classics a shot would certainly be interested. Is it worth $9.99? Personally, I don’t think so. Wait for the package to go on sale, or if you prefer more updated versions of these games (or just not paying for things), you could check out AGD Interactive’s SVGA remakes which are available for free.

3 out of 5

 

This next article is the first in a series called Put To The Test. It’s fairly self-explanitory – I test out game repair techniques and things of that ilk to see if they’re really worth trying. First up is a test of the “of that ilk” variety, not necessarily a repair but something Playstation fans could potentially find useful. I do intend to do more hands on repair-type jorbs in the future, but I decided to get a half-assed one out of the way before getting to the good ones.

 

Put To The Test: Dualshock 1: Playstation Too?

The Playstation 2 was very much backwards compatible with the original Playstation 1 – games, memory cards, and controllers were all usable on the Playstation 2. There are also many Playstation 2 games that allow you to use the original Playstation’s Dualshock controller instead of the only slightly more advanced Dualshock 2.

So say you just got your Playstation 2 with one Dualshock 2 controller and you want to play a multiplayer game with a friend. You’ve got that spare Dualshock 1 controller, but will it work? Or for instance man’s best friend decides to make a piddle puddle all over your Dualshock 2, rendering it useless. Will that Dualshock 1 controller suffice? To find out, I tested all of the Playstation 2 games I own to get a general idea of how often Dualshock 1 controllers were supported. My results are as follows:

 

Yes:

• ATV Offroad Fury 3
• Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance
• Bully
• Capcom Classics Vol 1
• Dragon Quest VIII
• God of War
• God of War 2
• Gran Turismo 4
• Guitar Hero*
• Guitar Hero 2*
• Guitar Hero 3*
• Guitar Hero World Tour**
• Guitar Hero 5**
• Guitar Hero Rocks the 80s**
• Half-Life
• Jak & Daxter
• Jak II
• Katamari Damacy
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance
• Maximo: Ghosts to Glory
• Metal Gear Solid 3
• Midway Arcade Treasures Vol 1
• Midway Arcade Treasures Vol 2
• Need For Speed Hot Pursuit
• NFL Blitz 20-03
• NFL Blitz Pro
• Blitz: The League
• NFL Street 2
• Okami
• Ratchet & Clank
• Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando
• Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal
• Ratchet Deadlocked
• Rock Band**
• Rock Band Track Pack 1**
• Rock Band Track Pack 2**
• Rock Band Metal Pack**
• Rock Band 2**
• Shadow Of The Colossus
• Sly Cooper & The Thievious Racoonus
• Sly 2: Band of Thieves
• Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves
• Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
• SSX 3
• Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4
• Tony Hawk’s Underground
• Tony Hawk’s Underground 2
• Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland
• Twisted Metal Black
• Twisted Metal Head On
• Viewtiful Joe

*Controller can be used as a guitar, using the shoulder buttons (and X for orange). No need for strumming. The analog stick acts as the whammy bar.

**Controller cannot be used as an instrument – the game will think the controller is for the singer, even if a mic is not plugged in.

 

No:

• Final Fantasy XII
• Kingdom Hearts
• Kingdom Hearts II
• The Simpsons Hit & Run.

 

Results:

A resounding 51 games out of the 55 I tested showed support for the legacy PS1 controller. I don’t know what Square Enix’s deal is with Final Fantasy related games, despite Dragon Quest 8 working fine. Or The Simpsons Hit & Run for that matter. I would try more Simpsons games, but I don’t have any because they all suck. Also for the record, I have Jak 3, but for some reason it wouldn’t load past the “SCEA presents” screen. I’m willing to bet it would work fine, though.

In conclusion, my “studies” show that most PS2 games will work with the PS1’s Dualshock 1 controller, but certainly not all of them. If you know of any more PS2 games that work with the Dualshock 1, let me know. Maybe we can get a community list of games that do and don’t.

Furthermore, if you have any suggestions for more things for me to test, send me an email or post on the message board. If it’s within my range of accessibility, I might just give it a shot.

 

It’s worth noting that some games that work with Dualshock 1 controllers do have uses for the Dualshock 2’s analog buttons, like God of War or Gran Turismo. In these cases, I assume the digital buttons on the Dualshock 1 act as a full press for these games, or in Gran Turismo terminology: flooring it.

Finally, one last review before wrapping things up – it’s a game that seemed so much like Dear Esther, I just had to check it out. Here’s my review of Proteus:

 

Review: Proteus

I feared that Dear Esther would begin a trend of artistic “games” with no gameplay whatsoever. Proteus is the first step in that trend becoming a reality. If you enjoyed Dear Esther, then you’ll enjoy Proteus. If you enjoy games, then you probably won’t. There, review’s over. Can I go home now? …I’m already home…

Proteus takes place on a randomly generated island, which you’re suddenly plopped down into. You can go wherever you want, but you can’t do anything. Visit a dense forest and do nothing. Climb tall hills and do nothing. Look at various creatures like crabs and squirrels, and do nothing. There’s nothing to do on your random island besides walk around. See a steep incline and want to climb up it? Well go right ahead, the game doesn’t care.

Sightseeing can be legitimately interesting. If you’ve ever wanted to know what Dear Esther was like on acid, this is probably it. The world of Proteus has a vibrant, pixel-like landscape, because we haven’t seen enough of that in indie games already. One genuinely artistic thing about the game is its audio design. Depending on where you are and what you see, the wind chime-like music changes to match. There’s no narrative, just exploring and hearing the game’s procedurally generated music, which is more than I can say for Dear Esther and its boring, overly pretentious dialog and soundtrack. In Proteus, there’s no story whatsoever to get in the way of you soaking in what the island has to offer.

What does separate you, the player from Proteus is that there’s an incredible lack of interaction. Sure you can chase chickens around and move near objects to hear how the music changes, but there’s nothing for you to do. You can’t build or destroy anything like in Minecraft, there are no enemies, nor are there puzzles to solve. All it is is just exploring. You don’t come out of it feeling like you’re a part of this world, but just a visitor.

Each island has a rock circle wherein anytime after the first nightfall, you can progress to the next season. Proteus always starts on Spring, so you can progress up until Winter, and after a certain amount of time, you float very slowly towards the sky until eventually you’re back on the main menu. All-in-all you’ll spend around 50 minutes to an hour before floating away. There’s no way to pause, and if you hold the ESC key, you simply return to the main menu, losing any progress made.

Just before finishing this review, playing the game again to see if I missed anything important, I overlooked a feature that I thought was impossible at first, that being saving your game. Turns out, it might just be my favorite feature of Proteus. Press F9 during the game to make a postcard. This saves your game as a PNG file that looks like a typical image file, which you can open and view like a normal PNG. What’s so cool about this feature is that it makes it very easy to share islands and does so in a unique way. I had downloaded screenshots from the official Proteus website for use in this review, and when I discovered this feature, I realized those screenshots I downloaded were actually real save files for pre-rendered islands.

Proteus has a lot of similarities with Dear Esther: both are attempts at interactive art, both give the player little interactivity at all, both are around 10 dollars, and both are obscenely overpriced. I’ll give Proteus credit, unlike Dear Esther, it’s not completely boring. In fact, I found some elements of Proteus to be moderately artistic, or at the very least intriguing. But there’s one thing Proteus just is not: a game. Because it, like Dear Esther, claims to be a game, I feel the need to judge it as one. I praise Proteus in many aspects of its design – aspects that would do well to compliment gameplay – but with no real gameplay to speak of, I just don’t think I can recommend it as a game. As a piece of art, I’d say it’s worth checking out.

1 out of 5

 

Please understand that despite giving Proteus a 1, as a game, I do have a fair degree of respect for it. As someone who firmly believes that gameplay should always be the most important part of any game, Proteus is almost non-existent in that department, so I just can’t give it a recommendation.

And there you have it, that was the first… edition? …of The Gridline. Please, let me know what you think of my Podcastian efforts in the comments, as well as your thoughts on the games and other articles mentioned above. I also hope to do a Q&A segment as well, so if you have any questions for that, ask away.

The main purpose of The Gridline is to some day become a weekly collaborative effort for people who are enthusiastic about video games. Yes, that means I’m looking for writers. If you’d like to write for The Gridline, let me know and I’ll see about letting you on board; Or if you’re not already a member of the site, send me an email with a review or some other article of yours. The only things I will not accept are news-related articles and personal blogs – I’m mainly looking for opinion pieces. There is one condition, though: You need to be someone who’s truly passionate about games and are willing to write on at least a two-week basis. As it is currently, this a labor of my own love, not the rest of the staff’s, so I reserve the right not to add you to the Gridline team if I don’t find your content suitable.

Also… I really didn’t get Paul’s permission to do something of this scope, so if this doesn’t fly here (be it Paul doesn’t like it or it’s too superfluous to combine 5 blogs into one in a week), I could always host it on my own website that I hardly use anymore. In any case, thanks for reading and I hope for this to return next Thursday.

Categories: Features