King's Quest Chapter 1: A Knight to Remember Review!!

This is a review of a game a briefly talked about in my previous post. Now that I have bought the Complete edition of the 2015 King's Quest edition (King's Quest 2015 Edition Complete Edition!? EDITION-CEPTION!?). And as this game is very story focused there will be SPOILERS. I will attempt to keep the ending of Chapter 1 unspoiled but I cannot say the same for the rest of the story. And it's a really good story as well. Of course if you do not want spoilers but still want to read the review just scroll all the way to the bottom where you will find a rating out of 10 and a list of the pros/cons of the game. Also keep in mind I will review chapter 2: Rubble Without a Cause as soon as it is available.



For those of you who have not read the "Oh hey, shout out to this game I found while window shopping at GameStop since I have nothing better to do with my time" post, King's Quest is a re-imagining of another game, also called King's Quest, that was released in 1983.



The original King's Quest was a Point-and-Click Adventure game that revolutionized gaming. Sadly people don't remember King's Quest as it did not leave a cultural impact. But it was, at the time, the most technologically advanced game ever made. The first game to introduce depth perception in addition to a fully animated protagonist.

King's Quest 2015 is a not a reboot but rather a re-imagining of the original game. The classic game is still canon, but just changed to fit ye modern times.

First thing to note about 2015 King's Quest is how they set up the story. An old man, named Graham is telling the entire game in bedtime story form to his granddaughter, Gwendolyn. You play as the young version of Graham, but the narrator is the old version of Graham.


Both Grahams. Young and Old,

The game starts with Old Graham retelling a modernized version of the most iconic scene in the original King's Quest game. A twenty something year old Graham is sent on a quest by King Edward (I guess you could call it a KING'S QUEST!?) to retrieve his stolen mirror. The mirror is magical, as it can show you the future. And expose breadcrumbs tangled within Old Graham's beard. But back to the story!



The mirror has been thrown down a well.



At the bottom of said well is a cave.




Inside the cave is a one eyed Dragon (how said dragon lost his left eye is explained later on in the story). And the Dragon is guarding the mirror.

Oh and in the cave there are literally just random beds everywhere (lazily piled up in some places, hanging from the cave ceiling in others, etc). Yeah. Something you should know about this game is that it does not take itself seriously. At ALL. Except once, but very late into the chapter.

At the end of this mission comes a pretty epic scene. After narrowly escaping the Dragon, Graham returns to the well entrance. There, he is cornered by the Dragon, who took a shortcut to the exit. Graham is armed with a bow, and only a single arrow. You can kill the Dragon with the arrow, Free the Dragon out of sympathy/kindness, or use your arrow to distract it by hitting a bell. I have beaten the chapter three times simply to know what would happen if I tried all the options. That is something I love about this game. It is by far the least linear game I have ever played (let's hope this strong point carries over to Chapters 2-5!).

After you make your choice, Old Graham and Gwendolyn have a chat about the logic Young Graham was using when he (or rather, the player) made that choice. No matter what choice you make Old Graham is still a good person

While I won't spoil all the other moments like this one, All the choices follow a theme of bravery (killing the dragon), cleverness (distracting the dragon with the bell), and finally, kindness (setting the dragon free).

Next Story Old Graham tells is the longer of the two (I am assuming each chapter will have a maximum of two stories). This story stars a much younger Young Graham (during the first story he is in his late twenties). This time Young Graham is around 17-19, and it is the story of how Graham became one of the greatest knights in the town called Daventry.

As the chapter mostly focuses on this story, I will avoid giving away too many details. Basically, Young Graham wants to enter the Knight Hopeful competition to become a Knight of King Edward's Royal Court.


these are the other Knight Hopefuls Graham meets.
Left to Right: Achaka (he's foreign), Whisper (he's
self absorbed) Manny (he's clever) and Acorn (he's big
and tough).

But now let's get to gameplay. This is a puzzle game, which is a good thing for me since all my favorite games are puzzle games (Portal 2, Valiant Hearts: The Great War, technically Shadow of the Colossus if you count that as a puzzle game, etc).

The controls are VERY simple and easy to learn. You move Young Graham with the Left Joystick, interact with objects with the X button, and access your inventory with the Square button. Sometime's the game shifts to a first person perspective, and while in first person you can shoot with a bow and arrow(s) by pressing X. That's literally it.

Now as this is a puzzle game, something that will bug people is the nonsensical "video game logic" where the solution to a puzzle is something completely random. King's Quest is not that game. Every puzzle is filled with common sense. One early puzzle (albeit a easy one) is that Graham has to flick one of two levers to open a door. One lever will activate a trap. The fake switch has the skeleton of the previous victim on it. SO if you were a twenty something year old man from Daventry looking for a magic mirror and you had to flick one of two switches, you obviously avoid the lever covered in skeletons.

While most of the puzzles are easy enough, there are some VERY difficult puzzles (including the final boss of this chapter, which I will not spoil).

Oh, and I love the graphics in this game. It is almost like a painting and looks like a fairy tale. Which is a good thing since King's Quest is inspired by several well known fairy tales.

My only two gripes with King's Quest is that the loading screens are obnoxious. They are short but they are so frequent it makes travelling around Daventry a lot more tedious than it should be. plus there are random frame rate drops when Graham enters a new area, but the FPS return to normal after a about three seconds.

Overall I give Chapter 1: A Knight to Remember an 8/10. It's a fantastic game, and let's hope that Chapter 2 continues the quality that was seen here.

King's Quest!!!

This post is about a really cool game I found on GameStop's website the other day. King's Quest!

 

For those of you who do not know, King's Quest is an OLD game released back in 1983 (though there was a remake of the game released 1987.). It was a Point and Click Adventure game that revolutionized gaming as a whole. Granted, it is a old game. It did not leave such a cultural impact as Super Mario Bros did. But it left a technological impact, and it is possible, that if King's Quest was never released back in '83 modern video games would not be what they are today. 

the original King's Quest!

What did the original King's Quest do that was so amazing? It did two things. First, it was the first game ever to have depth perception. Make the main hero, a man named Graham, stand behind a object, you can no longer see him. Stand in front of the object and the object can no longer be seen. Second, King's Quest I as it later became known as was the first game ever to have a fully animated playable character. Graham has walking, running, picking up things, opening/closing doors, and swimming animations. 

But on to the 2015 King's Quest! I really like the way they set up the 2015 edition of King's Quest (but there is a complete edition of the 2015 edition? King's Quest 2015 edition complete edition? Edition-ception?). Basically the way they set it up is that an old man named Graham is telling his granddaughter stories about the adventures he had when he was young. This is also a really funny/goofy game. (Early on you go in a cave where there are random beds hanging from the ceiling. Also you meet a man who insists that his pet goat is a unicorn).

 

Old Graham!

But you (the player) control young Graham.

 

Young Graham.

But you must remember that it is OLD Graham telling the story. Not some omnipotent narrator who you never get to see. I also like the way the game explains the player dying  (example: getting eaten by a dragon will cause Old Graham to fall asleep mid-storytelling and mumble about food. Another example is pulling the wrong switch, which activates a deathtrap, will cause Old Graham to say "And that is what WOULD have happened if I had pulled the wrong switch").

By the Way, the very first level is actually a modernized version of the most iconic scene in the original King's Quest.  In the original scene, Graham is sent on a quest by King Edward (I guess you could call it the KING'S QUEST!? :P) to retrieve a magic mirror. Where is the magic mirror? In a cave. At the bottom of a well. The only thing keeping Graham from the mirror is a MASSIVE MAN EATING DRAGON!!! (or a M.M.E.D. for short!)

 

It's a M.M.E.D.!!!!

Speaking of dragons, the level ends in a really cool way. Young Graham is cornered by the dragon and has only one arrow left. You can defeat the dragon in three ways. One: Killing it with your last arrow (which is mean). Two, using your last arrow to hit a bell, which will distract the dragon long enough for Graham to escape. Or three, using the last arrow to hit a switch to set the dragon free. The dragon spares Graham's life to reward his kindness. And, spoiler alert!, the dragon may come back in a later level to help you.

Each of these choices will change the story and potentially the ending. Speaking of which this is a episodic game so if you want the WHOLE EXPERIENCE of the game buy the complete edition (but this is the 2015 edition! KING'S QUEST 2015 EDITION COMPLETE EDITION!?).

Oh and this game is also very pretty. Everything looks like it's in a painting. As you can see in the screenshots. 

And finally, this is a PUZZLE GAME!!! YES!!!! #thePuzzleRevolution!!! In case you cannot tell, my favorite games are puzzle games *cough cough* Valiant Hearts the Great War *cough cough*. 

If you want to play this game it is 39.99 and is currently on PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.

LEGO Avengers Hype!!!!

This is a post that came out the day after my previous post (see: The Bucket Game is Too Strong!! Splatoon 2.0!!) because I thought yesterday was a Tuesday even though it was Wednesday.



If you cannot tell by the title or the fancy logo above, this post is dedicated to LEGO Marvel's Avengers!!

In case you don't know who the Avengers are, they are super heroes that have been around since September, 1963. It is currently August 13, 2015, if "1963" did not make that seem forever ago.

Now there are only two Avengers movies, and the game will LEGO-ize both movies. But there will be 150+ playable characters. I don't remember there being enough characters in just two movies for all of those.  So they will improvise probably. They did the same with LEGO Jurassic World (Fisherman Jim, anyone?).

The first thing to note is that they revamped combat to offer more control. And they apparently made Captain America look epic. I mean seriously, he has the coolest combo animations ever. He fights like a champion! A champion people! What's better than fighting like a champion?


The Avengers as LEGO's!

Also, all of the Avengers have team combo attacks (called Avengers Initiative moves) which are used both for solving puzzles and serve as AoE (short for Area of Effect) attacks that hit everything on screen. Some of these are based off iconic moments from the films (Thor striking Captain America's shield with his hammer, creating a shock-wave, which the two did in the First Movie) and comical (Hawkeye Pulling out a Giant Bow and shooting Black Widow into the air where she does a 360 while shooting everywhere with a pair of guns).



Something really cool is that characters that were in LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (a game with a completely original story that starred most of Marvel's most iconic super heroes. This game is a LEGO-ized retelling of the blockbuster film The Avengers, and it's sequel, Avengers: Age of Ultron) have new abilities. For example Black Widow now has a I-pad. Well it's not supposed to be a I-pad but I don't care. It looks like a I-pad therefore it IS a I-pad!! But anyway, Black Widow can use it to scan things hidden in the environment. Another example is that Tony Stark (Iron Man) can suit up with the press of a button, so players can swap out armor mid level (provided they unlocked the armor).

Plus there are brand new abilities as well. A new character is Quicksilver (from Age of Ultron). He can use his super speed to literally freeze enemies in time and bop them one at a time. It's a really cool ability. Plus Quicksilver is arguably the coolest character in Age of Ultron. So I will be playing as him a LOT.

By the way I pre-ordered this game at Game-Stop. Which is HYPE!!! Especially because if you pre-order the game you get a free mini-figure based of one of Iron Man's armors, the Silver Centurion armor. And that armor is also playable.

But the thing that is most exciting about LEGO Avenger? Hulk takes a selfie.


STOP. SELFIE TIME!!

But in all seriousness, The thing I am most hyped for is A) Quicksilver's time freezing malarkey. B) Iron Man's new Suit Up ability. C) Running around Marvel's version of New York. D) Hulk and his selfies. And E) The new combat system.

That is literally all the info I know on LEGO Avengers. Oh wait I almost forgot!!






Stan Lee is in the game. He even gets his own mech!

For more info stay TUNED!!!!