Jetpack Joyride is Free, Pretty Good

It's slipped my mind, unfortunately, but last week when the Playstation Store updated, said update included Jetpack Joyride, specifically tailored for the Vita, for the all-too-tempting price of Free.  I'm not sure why - perhaps because it is another freemium title like the delightful Treasures of Montezuma Blitz (in that you can spend all sorts of money on coins and such if you desire) or perhaps because it was simply a late Christmas Gift.  I'm not sure, but it is certainly something to be thanked, to be celebrated, because the little game is something else, that is for sure.  I'm not sure I can even attribute it to the price being nothing (though it certainly helps) because in the very same update, in the Playstation Plus section, Chronovolt was also free and it is terrible.  But Jeypack Joyride?  It's quite a nice little time-sink when you've got a bit of time.

I'm well aware of Jetpack Joyride's beginnings as a simple Mobile game and that much certainly shows even now in this product, but that's not necessarily ever a bad thing.  Yes, we deride mobile games, usually for actual reasons, but sometimes their simplicity and charm end up with something that is just fun, much like this.  I mention charm specifically because there is quite a lot of it tucked away in the corners and cubbyholes of the game, from the main characters name being Barry Steakfries to premise simply being stealing a Jetpack to fly around in for funsies (hence the name) to the various little touches you'll see in the background and coin layouts.  This is clearly a game that was made with -care- and maintained in much the same fashion which is a respectable thing no matter what.

The way the game plays is rather simple.  It starts when Barry bursts through a wall, dons the jetpack and begins his funsies.  You're in a constant state of going right at a rate of speed which is not to you to decide and your only -real- input is whether you are going up or running along the ground.  Those of you familiar with Canabalt probably get that - the goal is simply to go right for as long as possible, dodging obstacles and gaining coins in the meanwhile.  Thus there is no way to 'beat' it, you simply aim to do a little better each time.  Perhaps knowing of its own simplicity, the game does add a deceptive amount of variety with the various tools it implements along the way.  The coins are an obvious one, of course - you use these to purchase upgrades, different clothes, gadgets, all variety of things to make your next run more enjoyable, more silly, or simply more suited to you.  The long-standing goal, by that virtue, is likely to simply buy everything available that is not a consumable, which is a task that will take some time to be sure.

Something that also adds to the experience is that you're not -always- piloting the titular Jetpack, but at times you encounter a power-up that will place you into the seat of another random vehicle or transportation device.  I've encountered six, which I believe is all of them in the form of the Hopper (a giant robot suit), the Anti-Gravity Suit (exactly what it says on the tin.  Think VVVVVV), a motorcycle that is pretty bitchin' (and comes with a shotgun that Barry will unload into scientists without mercy), Mr. Cuddles (a giant robot dragon), the CFT or Crazy Freakin' Transporter (I believe that's the name) and the Profit Bird, which is a robot bird plane thing that is clearly a riff on Angry Birds and it's -hilarious-.  Each vehicle has its own method of use that varies the gameplay up and they all have the benefit of being able to take a hit for you to be discarded so that you can continue your run beyond the one hit that you can take.  An upgrade you can slap on any and all of the vehicles is a magnet which will draw any nearby coins to it as you pass, so it can be quite lucrative to be in one as well.

I think the thing that's the best about the variety, the entrenching mentality of the game, is the Mission system.  You're given exactly three missions at a time, no less no more, that you will complete over a run or several.  Doing so earns you coins for your stash and Stars for your 'level' which, s'far as I can tell, doesn't really do anything but give you a new title and a new card with even more stars to fill before you level up again.  Every mission requires something -different-, some specific thing that is a meta-challenge you can assign to yourself whilst playing to ensure that you do, indeed, keep playing.  Simple things like "High Five Seven Scientists in a single run" which means 'run by scientists and see a flash and hear a slapping sound' or 'Brush by 10 Flashing Red Lights' are present and easy enough to do most of the time, where there are also clearly long-term things like "Collect 1000 coins." or "Collect 10 Spin Tokens" added into the randomizer.  The missions are not endless, I'm assured, but there is likely a lot and it's quite a lot of fun, actually, to see them through individually.

As if my Vita needed more things to tantalize me with, between the ever-alluring Youtube and Persona 4 Golden (at least), Jetpack Joyride has ingrained itself as something that I'm just going to find myself playing sometimes.  I won't know how, but I'll certainly know the why, which is simply that the game is fun and takes no real time to enjoy, though extended play sessions are nice to get those missions accomplished and such.  Because hey, this time it wants me to get on the motorcycle and stay there for 600m, and that sounds like a challenge I can accept.  Oh, if I get three hundred more coins I can upgrade the Profit Bird!  And so on and so forth.  So if you have a Vita and you have 32 MB of space clear (seriously, it doesn't need much), do yourself a favor and grab it.  It's free (unless you need like ten thousand coins right now), it's tiny, it's pick-up-and-play and it even has trophies right off without needing them patched in like the other freemium games that are out on the Vita.  It's simple, charming fun.

Second Look: Treasures of Montezuma Blitz

In this day and age, the days where patching a game after-the-fact has more or less become standard across all platforms, we normally only see minor tweaks here and there in that form.  Bug-fixes, tweaking a piece of code to improve performance, or simply introducing code for downloadable items.  Normal stuff like that.  It's rare that a patch actually does anything to improve a game in a real, tangible way, but when these instances crop up, they should be lauded and appreciated accordingly.  Especially when they take a game that wasn't much of one and injects a wholesale shot of fun into it.  And double especially when said update causes me to compulsively play a game I had previously stated something of a mild distaste for in the past because I find that I am actually enjoying it.  Somehow.  I say all of this because oh god, I'm sure you realize why I'm saying this by now.

Anyways, I don't know what it is, exactly, about the patch that has been introduced to Treasures of Montezuma Blitz that has made it so much fun, but let me assure you right off that it is, indeed, fun, despite being the same game in many ways.  Rounds are still a minute long (barring matching tokens that have time extenders on them), and it's still the same basic game, thought improvements on the XP system allow for growth on a ridiculous level.  (Note that I am Level 12 in the above screenshot, where the last time I was Level...0.  I honestly haven't played the game a lot)  The score system similarly seems to have been amped up as, once again if you refer to the first post about the game, I was impressed by a score of 36,800 points, where I have now gotten to the mid hundred thousands (446,200 here making me ranked first in my list for what will be a pathetically short amount of time because Radthanael and Aubvry will demolish that in short order) and while that's my 'bragging zone' (I believe I've managed 600k on one occasion) it's decidedly ridiculous how wide the gap has gotten.  Yes, I'm higher level and yes, I have perks now, but still.

Realistically speaking, for being the same game, it's practically an entire new one with the improvements that have been made, if you haven't gathered.  Where I criticized it initially for being too short, for taking too little of your time, I now find that, as default, the game almost refuses to let you go.  Free Lives are earned in ways that I can't even begin to comprehend, so the five you're normally given (provided you play every day, you get -bonus lives- if you skip a day) almost -always- amount to more than that which turns what could seem to be 5-7 minutes of gaming to, honest-to-god 20+ minutes.  That is, if you simply play until you're out of lives for the day, as I imagine everyone does.  Knowing that the gaming time is 'limited' drives me to enjoy, to wring every second possible out of it, and I've found, several times now, that I think "Oh god, how do I still have three lives left, I've played like five rounds!".  I said it and I mean it as such:  the game does not want to let you go.

If you've downloaded the game already (remember, it's free), then going back is certainly recommended.  Only if you have a lot of time to spend on it, of course.  As I've stated, not only will the game shower you with lives for all the days you've missed, but you'll earn about half of them as freebies in the course of play.  This is honestly the best method of understanding the game, really, since you almost don't have to worry about the fact that you can only play it for so long.  Chances are, that 'so long' might even be longer than you'd be willing to invest otherwise.  But if you can start and stop, then you have a stronger will than I, friend, or simply a distaste for matching jewel games.  For the price (of nothing), I certainly can't insist you exercise caution any longer:  get the game, if just for something to play when you have a few minutes here and there or when you're just sitting around, perhaps not really wanting to play anything else.  I don't rightly think that there's a way that you could honestly regret the decision to get it.

Have I mentioned that the game has trophies now, by the way?  Because it has trophies now.  I'm not sure just how it got away with releasing -without- trophies in the start, perhaps because of the fact that it is, indeed, free, but for whatever reason, it has them now.  It's a fairly short list (only one gold, no platinum) that will give you quite a bit of challenge if you decide you want to fill it out completely, so this isn't a game to grab to quickly inflate your trophy count, but they're there regardless.  And the game is fun, too.  I believe I stated that somewhere along the line, but I think I haven't stressed it enough.  So maybe I should just really lay it all on the line really simply.  The game is free and fun (now), so it's definitely worth a download and minutes of your time every day unless you just aren't a fan of the type of game.  Which is certainly understandable.  Or if you have an addictive personality because this game will likely be hell for you then.  I swear that I'm seeing things in match-three vision nowadays.  It's....slightly maddening.

Update!:

So, either because I am an idiot who misses things terrible, or they changed something with regards to lives during the patch, I have been referring to Treasures of Montezuma Blitz as a game you can only play once a day.  That is incorrect.  That is....quite incorrect, as the above picture shows.  Lives refill every few minutes so that in fact, you could play your five, put the Vita down, go off to make a sandwich or have a smoke or something, and come back to at least a couple more lives.  So, provided you don't have much else to do, Treasures is definitely a game you could spend the bulk of a day playing as...well, a game.  Without paying a bit, on top of it, provided you have a little patience.  I decided it would be better to include the above screen as an image, considering it's in the game, to show off how dense I can be sometimes.  Since, we all have our moments sometimes.

Sick Post Because I'm Sick

Sometimes, Google.  Sometimes you do good.

So, as I have kind of alluded to in recent posts when I have actually posted, I have been fairly sick lately.  Thankfully not in the 'serious' sense, but enough so that I am in something of a haze for the better part of a day, or at least more of a haze than normal, what with it being Summer Spring (for a day yet) and all.  Which pretty much means I'm really in no condition to be writing even though I would love to.  I mean, I have tried the last couple nights, but I've had nothing really to work with and I feel like even if I had a giant two page -thing- about something really interesting, I wouldn't be able to do anything with it because I have just been 'derrrr' for the entirety of my down-time.  I also haven't been gaming all that much despite my recent acquisitions of Lollipop Chainsaw and Gravity Rush which burns me tremendously.  The brief bits of the former that I have played have been brilliant, but you'll hear about that soon enough in a format you might not expect.

I do have two bits of news here that I can talk about to try and get myself out of this little funk I'm in, since I feel like I am possibly on my way out of illness.  With any luck, I'll be back to throwing down posts that veer more verbose than a valiant victor verily vexing villains for a vendetta.  Said time is not tonight, however, so don't be surprised if I can only muster a couple paragraphs here for both bits of information.  Though, to be fair, there's not a whole lot to be said about either, one is pretty uniformly positive, and the other is Sega being Sega which means it is not positive whatsoever except maybe kind of a tiny little bit, but not really.  I should probably save that for the actual talking about it portion instead of here, but eh, I'm feeling all crazy wacky so who cares.

Why don't I just throw down the Goddamnit, Sega so we can have that done and move along, yeah?  Yeah, let's just go ahead and do that.  So, do you guys remember Valkyria Chronicles?  Well it's back!  In pog card form!  Kind of.  Valkyria Duel is a free-to-play, PC Browser-based card game that is, obviously, only available in Japan because shut up.  There's a planned Smartphone version of it as well, but that's not in the cards on the table just yet, though I imagine it will likely be fundamentally the same since it's likely not a very taxing game.  It will be, as some/most Free-to-play games are, supported by micro-transactions that I have no idea how they will play out.  I imagine you can either buy 'boosters' of people, or they'll have a special grouping of cards that are special enough to be paid-only.  I mean, it's a card game, there are not really all that many options here.

I.....well, I really don't know where to start here.  I'm sure you can imagine where I'm coming from before I even say it, but suffice it to be said that there is not enough "Goddamnit Sega" that I can say here.  I could say it til my already raw throat dries up and cracks and it'd still not be enough for everything that is wrong with this picture.  Now, do I personally care that this is a quick cash-grab for a franchise that I happen to enjoy despite every instance of Sega trying to prevent that?  Of course not.  In fact, I encourage it - who knows, if they rake in enough profit from this, maybe they'll feel confident enough in a PSN-only, no-dub version of Valkyria Chronicles 3 for us since, hey, they'd still be making money off of the whole thing from micro-transactions of the card game.  And maybe if they did that, they could release -this- game over here for smartphones/browsers in an attempt at the same, but expanded, cash-grab.  I imagine it kind of hinges on at least having the ability to play all three games, however, since all three games rosters are involved, as you might be able to tell.

The thing that bugs me is that this is Valkyria Chronicles, and it's a card game at the same time.  I kind of have a thing for card games as you have no doubt realized, and I would probably buy into one based on several franchises I love.  I bought into Metal Gear Ac!d -happily- and would buy it all over again if I could play it on my Vita, which I keep mentioning.  It bugs me because it's pretty much a non-zero chance at being able to play this despite what I said above making something resembling sense.  Sega doesn't do sense, apparently, and said lack of sense still gives me reason to wonder at what's going to happen with further instances of series that I enjoy from them, namely Yakuza.  I have said it before, but I will straight up cut a bitch if my only option for Yakuza 5 is downloading it.  Regardless, that's not Valkyria Chronicles, nor Valkyria Duel related (Note:  Would totally buy a Yakuza card game, totally serious), but there's not much else to say.  It's free, it's Japan-only, it's a friggin' Valkyria Card Game and it taunts me something fierce.

Less vexing is the existence of Okami HD as a real thing, which is something I'm sure will make you all happy.  Should make Chance happy at least, so there's something.  As for myself, I am also happy, but in a less-so, I-may-not-buy-this-game-right-off way because it's DD-only which, you know what, I'm not even going to say it again, you know why that takes it off my radar.  Still, I hope it's only my radar that it takes it off of, because I really, really want this game to sell.  If I could buy and play it, I totally would, and if it catches a good Playstation Plus sale, I might even go against common sense and buy it to download it at some unforeseen time in the future when I have non-shit internet and a PS3 that won't explode or at least convinces me that it will not, should I choose to download something more than, oh say, 300 MB in size for the sheer amount of time it will have to remain on in which to do so.

I don't have much of a story with Okami, but I do have -something- of one with it, so I may as well tell it.  Back in the days of GameCrazy, you see, when I was but a teenager, I walked into the store with a desire to buy and the dosh to back it up.  I didn't know what I was looking for, and honestly could've been sold just about anything because I just needed something to play, since the games at home obviously weren't enough.  Being a dumb kid and all.  So, with just me and the cashier girl in the store, I walked right up to her as she asked me "Hey, anything I can help you find today?" and said "Well, I dunno.  I'm just looking for a new game."  Giving me something of a weird look before going into contemplation, she asked me what system I preferred and as she moved out from behind the counter, I said "PS2", prompting her to head that way.  She obviously had something in mind when she grabbed a case as soon as she went to it.

Going back to the counter, she placed Okami down, a game that I had not heard of at that point, and proceeded to extol unto me the virtues of the wonderful art style and direction, as well as the quirky, brush-and-platforming based gameplay.  Sufficiently curious, I informed her I'd take it, she rang my up and the transaction was complete, just that simple.  I took it home, played it and had to admit that the game was absolutely wonderful, while also wondering just how I had not heard of it, or at least not remembered it had I read about it.  I did beat it and had quite a bit of fun with it, and suffice to say that the next time I saw her, I informed her about her good taste.  And it's kind of for that reason that I hope the game does well since it is very underknown, underrated, despite a good portion of the internet not likely giving you that impression, especially now with this news.  So I suppose that means that maybe you should believe the hype.  Or at least buy it to give yourself an excuse to look at some gorgeous visuals, maybe use that Move Wand you bought (though it's not mandatory) and/or just to get some trophies.  Because you can never have enough trophies.

Treasures of Montezuma Blitz - Free....at a Price

So, this last Playstation Store Update brought several things worth of note to the store; the most pressing of them being Persona 3:  FES.  It....also brought the game pictured above known as Treasures of Montezuma Blitz which touted itself as a Free-to-Play game.  And to its credit, it certainly is free to download it and play it which does, of course, mean that it is Free-to-Play.  It successfully fulfills the parameters that it sets in advertising itself in not only that, but in announcing itself as a fast-paced puzzle game that you can play on the Vita.  All of this is, indeed, truth.  So there really shouldn't be any problem and I guess the next couple of paragraphs will be explaining how it plays and everything ri-oh, that post title isn't good.

So, while the above picture is how you can expect Treasures of Montezuma Blitz to look whilst playing it, that visage doesn't last long.  Long before the short stints the game allows (which I will elaborate on a little bit later) become truly satisfying and enjoyable, you'll undoubtedly encounter this screen which is basically a gigantic brick wall between you and some sense of elation that you can only get from playing a game.  I'm sure you already know where I'm going with this, but let me direct you to this image real quick to say two things.  First off, tangentially, look how fucking good I am at this game.  36,800 points where my next competition is 6,700 - feels good, man.  Second off, and this is the important bit, slightly above my score and to the left, you'll notice five heart outlines; as you might be able to infer, these are the 'lives' the game requires to allow you to play it.  As you might also be able to infer, to continue playing in a day past this limitation requires you to buy more lives.  With real money.  I believe the going rate is $0.99 per refill (which I also imagine refills all five lives, not just one.) which....is not cheap at all.

You see, Treasures of Montezuma Blitz can basically be explained like this:  Do you like Bejeweled but hate how the rounds seem to go on forever?  Then you'll love this game!  That does seem a little strange and intentionally so because the earlier statement of 'fast-paced' is certainly literal - matches go by really fast to say the least.  I'm sure if I bothered to time them, they would only come up as one or two minutes, thus not really allowing a lot of time for anything beyond short bursts of jewel-shifting in chunks that have to be budgeted per day.  At every point in considering that statement, I had to wonder "Why wouldn't you just....buy a Bejeweled game?" and the only reason against it is the fact that Bejeweled does not exist on the Vita yet, so of course we're just left with someone trying to profit in the meanwhile.

I can't fault them of course, nor can I say that the game is bad because it, in itself, is not.  What makes it bad is the lack of enjoyment it offers, because this freemium thing is the quickest way to suck the fun out of anything, especially when the 'free' portion of it is so lacking.  The reason why the freemium model works elsewhere, particularly in Facebook games with the variety of -ville titles and the like is because those games generally offer a lean-to-healthy amount of things to 'do' without forking over a cent.  As I said here with Montezuma, the matches seem to last a mere 1-2 minutes and, doing a little quick math, that means with the five lives you get, you're looking at somewhere between 5-10 minutes of content a day.  The way it's broken up doesn't help either since, as a Facebook might only offer somewhere around 15 minutes, it's a constant 15 minutes which makes it feel longer in some circumstances.  Montezuma's shortness leads to a sort of 'blink and you'll miss it' feel for it, and I think it really only works in its own detriment.

Am I saying that The Treasures of Montezuma Blitz is a bad game, however?  Of course not, it's a fairly by-the-numbers clone of an enjoyable game.  There are some Vita-specific things involving the touch screens in interesting, yet annoying ways (having a smoky screen, for instance, necessitates using the back screen to try and part the smoke while you look for combinations that will, in turn, lessen the cover) that take away/add to the flavor, but it's pretty much just what it looks like.  I would even go so far as to say that it probably requires a download of your own to see if it's worth those 5-10 minutes of your day for you.  What do you have to lose, after all?  I'm merely saying that it doesn't really work for me, for the reasons I've listed above.  At the very least, it might hold you over until a more capable puzzle game of this sort graces the little handheld I can't help but love.

Phantasy Star Online 2 Will Be Free-to-Play

Guess that's one less thing we have to worry about for the release of the game, since, as I have said in the past that Subscriptions give me pause.  However, not only will PSO2 be free-to-play, but it also seems that it will be free to download as well, placing the entirety of the game's revenue on Micro-transactions which will rightly give plenty of people a little reason to raise eyebrows.  It's certainly not Sega's first announced venture into F2P but outside of Spiral Knights, it's also a fairly untested territory for Sega, especially with the importance that the Phantasy Star brand has for them.  While it might seem that it's not one of their bigger franchises, I will note that there have been quite a few Phantasy Star titles in the past few years, inspiring more and more titles, making it clearly worth their time.  Even still, without all that, it would be the sequel to Phantasy Star Online which itself spawned several titles of the same name that were all monetized and subscription-based, so straying that far outside of the boundaries is a little odd.

On top of the Free-to-Play, Free-to-Download approach, it seems there will also be a version for Smartphones (iOS and Android both) that, clearly won't offer cross-play, but will share information with the PC/Vita versions at least.  The Smartphone version will apparently be simpler, offering more 'social game elements', whatever that means, and will presumably be free as well, considering.  Regardless, it won't be the same game as the PC/Vita version, and I imagine it will be treated more as a companion piece than a game itself.  That's fine by me, of course, and I'm sure many people will just be blown away at the prospect to have their game on the go regardless of if they have a Vita or not.  But certainly, the Vita route would be the more tantalizing option, since it will be closer to the real thing and, as seen above, make usage of the Vita's control scheme itself.

In addition to that news, there was also news that as the game launches into the Beta phase of development, taking in around 100,000 people to test, they will release the Character Creation Demo on April 5th.  This is so people will have access to it well before the game is released and will be able to fine-tune their characters long before it necessary so that once the game is finally released, they'll be able to just go at it right like that.  At least, I would imagine the characters created with the demo would be importable, but if not, then they will likely be easily reproducible, if you take note of the settings you have for your perfect character.  But I would more be willing to bet on just straight importing them.  From what I can tell, every other game that's done something similar, releasing the creation tools prior to the game itself, has been able to import, so I'm not counting on something different here.

The downside to this all is that the other 'Phantasy Star-related surprises' that were to be revealed this month were likely what I have just covered.  This means that there is still no Phantasy Star Victory formally announced which means that there is a very sad Mogs.  Given that PSO2 will not be available in Japan until later on this year, and the Vita version (again, for Japan only) will not happen til next year, any chance of the games coming to America by years end are likely non-existent.  At the same time, no announcements have even been made suggesting that it will, but come on.  It's a brand new game in a popular franchise that works on a model that has proven to bring in a lot of money if you do it right, as evidenced by other F2P MMOs and other things, such as, dare I say it, Playstation Home.  If you make things for people to buy whilst in an MMO or MMO-like environment, they will buy them, pure and simple.

Granted, there is time yet in the month, but I would be very surprised if they announced anything else in the next few days.  Simply because this is what Sega does - they say things that are very clearly ambiguous, instill hope, and then dash it in one fell swoop.  Granted, they usually do it with news that isn't all that great, and PSO2 being free-to-play is, more or less, great news, but it is still indicative of what they do best.  I say this as someone who likes Sega, of course.  It probably doesn't matter a whole lot anyway; with any luck the upcoming PSP compatibility update (that is still rumored at this point, s'far as I can tell) that might happen sometime in April will make Phantasy Star Portable 2 playable on the Vita.  With that done, I'll actually be able to play it again, and that's really all I want at this juncture.  Just Phantasy Star Vita goodness, is that too much to ask?