Be Excellent To Each Other

It's not as batshit mental as I thought it might be, but it's still crazy nutzoid.

Is anyone else playing it?

I was surprised (or maybe I wasn't) to learn that Atlus made it. Remember Atlus? They did that DS game where you were a surgeon and performed operations on people against a background of global terrorists sending out some deadly virus. It was a bit mental and the actual game was actually a bit of a chore after you'd got past the hundred-odd cut scenes.

Catherine is very similar in style and format: cut scene, talky-bit and then game, cut scene, talky-bit, game etc with a few distractions throughout. It's got some lovely anime stuff and the whole game is lovely and polished, I just can't figure out if it's fun or not.

Probably not. The actual game is this bizarre tower climb that starts off hard and gets harder. I've just done level 4 (out of 8, I think) and it's bloody irritating. You get so many respawns which you can blaze through and if you die - you die. Well, you go back to your last save but as it takes ages to get anything done it's soemthing you definately don't want to have to do. It's hard. Very hard. Some of the boss stages, where you're chased by a monster up a tower, are beyond challenging and can be really nasty pieces of work. A stock-pile of 17 respawns got churned through when one boss hit me with, HNNNNGH, the reverse controls attack!

But despite that, or inspite of that perhaps, I want to see what's next. I want to go back to the hud and get pissed with my friends. I want Catherine to send me more sexy pictures by text, but I also want to tell her I have a girlfriend and to leave me alone. I want Katherine to stop telling me what to do with my life but she seems nice and uber fit so I should probably stay with her. Catherine seems a bit flaky. Or maybe I tell Katherine to go fuck herself and start afresh. She's so bloody bossy anyhoo, and her cryptic text messages are annoying. If she's got something to say why can't she just say it?

It's every blokes worse nightmare really: you're in a relationship wth a nice woman and suddenly someone else comes along and throws themself at you. Can you exercise restrain or are you actually a scumbag? It's fascinating to play it out and I only wish I didn't have to climb a massive tower each night made of blocks.

So it's good but also frustrating. A real mixed bag so far but it's really caught my attention.

What you say there matches my impression in that it looks endearingly bonkers with an interesting story but the actual game looks shit. Thanks for confirming I was correct to ignore it.

I'm playing it, and I like the block stacking game. I put the difficulty to Easy quick-sharp though. As you say, the final levels of each night -- the ones where you're chased by a nightmare -- are quite challenging.

You can dodge the "reverse controls" attack, BTW.

I refuse to drop the difficulty down. I don't shy away from a challenge although those bosses are trying my patience. Besides, the fear of starting at the last save is a good incentive to get better.

The reverse controls monster attack might be capable of being dodged but the time limit is too tight to stand still and wait for the attack to pass. That big titty face thing was right on top of me by then.

Area Man Complains Game Is Difficult When Not Set To Easy Setting.

They put in easy mode so Grandma can enjoy it too.

Ooh, I do like the questions they put in mid-level. You get asked a question and see what answers were given by other players around the world.

They're a little simplistic, such as "If you cheated on your boy/girlfriend who is most to blame: 1) You 2) The person you cheated with?" but it's a nice touch. One that The Walking Dead carried on years later.

which format are we talking about?

Its out on Xbox and PS3 and virtually the same on both

But it's only free on PS+! Free, FREE, FREE*!








*Subject to terms and conditions.

'A bit of a chore' isn't really the words I'd use to describe Trauma Center.

Suffering a million years (okay it's at least three hours) of boring shit at the start of Persona 4 before you get to play it was a chore, but TC's gameplay is too fast to be a chore. No chore. Trauma Center is ch-awesome.

Trauma Centre! That was the one. It started off quite good but the last few stages were a sodding nightmare and crushed any enjoyment I was getting out of it.

The worst stages in TC where the ones where you had to wait for things to happen before you could act. It's got the controls of a God game, but played at 10,000% speed. You're pepped for rapid-fire crazy shit, but waiting for things sucks (you're on a time limit, too).

Deftera is the worst GUILT, next to Pempti, next to Tetarti, next to Triti, next to Savato. In fact, all the GUILT suck. And all the TC2 Neo-GUILT suck! All the levels in all the TC games suck! Why do I even like these things?

Except for Kyriaki. He's alright.

I haven't played C/Katherine, so I should really shut up now. (Is it like D/Generation?)

I'm super enjoying this now.

If you've ever been in a relationship and had an emotional tryst with someone, done the sexting with someone else or just thought about cheating on your partner, you'll be horrified to see it play it out on the screen. It's cringeworthy but fascinating. It's also blow out of proportion so it's not a simulator, fortunately, although that'd be ripe subject matter for a braver developer.

I'm even getting into the block puzzling, even if it is frustrating in part. Silly deaths from rushing can really get on your tits when each level has but one check point midway. The boss levels are fucking horrendous and cheap though. Had it not been for these boss levels I'd probably be loving the whole package. They're a real stain on an otherwise excellent original game.

I'm on the final boss. 11 hours in and it's well worth the price of PS+ alone (well the 11 quid I spent).

Actually, it's the last but one. Gah.

Still, I've stocked up 81 respawns so it can't be that hard. Plus I'm rubbish at puzzle games and don't have the patience for them.

Finished!

I really enjoyed that in the end. It all got a bit typically Japanese at the end (i.e. stupid) but it was still aces. I'm glad it was so difficult but am terribly thankful that the block sliding was forgiving enough that it wasn't a platform puzzler where there's only one solution.

A big old 8/10. Very good.

I want to play this but I've been sucked into Hitman Absolution. For which I also paid nothing. I bloody love PS+.

You paid nothing?