Tag: Nintendo Gamecube

Pikmin. A game like no other

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

 

Pikmin was a game from X35 Earthwalker’s childhood. It was the game that he so loved and adored. It was a game that set the standards for other games. This game was most likely the first game he had for the GameCube. Pikmin was a classed as a real time strategy (RTS) game that was released in 2001 on the Nintendo Gamecube. In this game you controlled captain Olimar, an alien who crash lands on a strange planet. He encounters small, cute but unique creatures called ‘Pikmin’. These guys can’t really do anything by themselves but when they are in groups, that’s when they become one of the most powerful things on the planet. 

You crashed landed because an asteroid struck your ship, sending your ship on a crash collision course. Even worse, your ship started to break apart. Parts of your ship landed in different places on the planet. Olimar can’t get the pieces as they are big and heavy and in locations that he can’t reach. Even worse is that the atmosphere of the planet is toxic for him. His life support system has enough to keep him alive for 30 days! Captain Olimar soon discovers that Pikmin can fight other creatures, carry objects, break down walls, build bridges and more. So can he find the ship parts, repair his ship and get off the planet with the help of the Pikmin in 30 days? That’s the question.

Pikmin has 5 different areas for Olimar to explore: Impact site, Forest of Hope, Forest Naval, Distant Spring and Final trial. Each area is very different and has their own fun points and annoying points. The impact site is where you crashed landed on the planet (We are sure you figured that out). Here the area is designed to teach the player the basics of using Pikmin and what they can do. In the very first day, nothing can kill you but after the first night, enemies will occupy the area. Forest of Hope is where the action truly starts. There are many parts to Olimar’s ship here. Also there are little larve like enemies here, Bulborbs which are the famous giant two legged creatures with large mouths to eat you and your Pikmins, armoured beetle which is really mean and long neck bird head creatures who have quite the peck. Forest naval got it’s name because according to Captain Olimar, it looks like a belly button from high altitude. This level is X35 Earthwalker’s least favourite but is the most different and has a lot going on in this level from bugs dragging around a ship part to fire geysers shooting out fire. Things get serious in this area. Distant Spring many would consider to be the hardest area as it has everything from the other areas in it from solid walls and lots of water to numerous enemies and tricky puzzles. Matter of fact Distant spring has stronger versions of previous enemies there.

The final area is the one that no one will ever forget. It’s the level that all players of Pikmin have learnt to fear. It’s ‘Final trial’. This area isn’t like the others. There aren’t multiple areas to explore and many pieces of the ship to find. There is just one piece and just two sections. This area tests what you know about Pikmin and how to use them. Straight away the level splits into three paths. The left is more for red Pikmin, the middle is more for blue Pikmin while the right is more for yellow Pikmin. After you cross the small lake like area, you then come to an arena where the thing that shall not be named… fine… the ‘Emperor Bulblax’ is just chilling. You see what looks like plants in the ground but that’s actually antennae like things from it’s back. It’s underground. This is the official final boss of the game and it’s a fight indeed. The emperor has lots of health and is capable killing your entire army if you aren’t careful. It uses it’s sticky tongue to grab and eat Pikmin and later on can jump high to crush Pikmin to death and shake them off. The secret make the emperor swallow ‘bomb rocks’ which will do nice damage and stun the enemy for a good while.

In Pikmin 1 there were three types of Pikmin: Red, Yellow and blue. Red were the strongest and did the most damage to enemies, making them best for combat. They also have the ability to withstand fire, so fire geysers have nothing on these guys. Yellow are probably the lightest of the Pikmin as they can be thrown to much higher places. Also, they have the ability to pick up and throw bomb rocks, meaning that no wall can stand in the way of the yellows. Blue has the unique ability to go through water. That’s right. They won’t drown, meaning they can reach multiple areas and parts that other Pikmin just can’t go. Also each of the Pikmin types have different physical features. Red has a nose, Yellow has ears and Blue has a mouth. This is interesting though. Also Pikmin have 1 of 3 things on their heads: leaf, bud or flower. Leaf Pikmin are the weakest and the slowest while flower Pikmin are the strongest and fastest. There are two ways to create flower Pikmin. First is when a new Pikmin is made and it’s in the ground, leave them there and over time they will turn into flower Pikmin. The second is to have them drink nectar which instantly turns them into flower Pikmin. Nectar isn’t as rare as people think. You can find them in grass, pebbles, dropped by a rare beetle creature or flying ghost things. 

X35 Earthwalker was one of those who completed the game way before 30 days. You get a different endings depending on how fast you complete the game: early, on time and ran out of time. Now there were two sequels to the game and we loved them also. The third was our least favourite, the second was the best in terms of gameplay and features but the first holds a special place in X35 Earthwalker’s heart. In the second one, the whole idea of controlling Captain Olimar and Louie was excellent. We might write about that game another time though. X35 Earthwalker when he was younger actually got attached to the Pikmin. There was once a time where when searching for parts he made some mistakes and got a quite a bit of his Pikmin eaten. He ended up crying but then later came back with pure rage, vengeance and an army of 100 red Pikmin with the sole purpose of killing that monster. He did and it made him feel a lot better. We remember going through the levels and seeing everything for the first time, wondering how to solve certain puzzles and reach certain parts. It was exciting seeing the ship slowly get built back together and then reaching new areas. Or chasing those flying ghost looking things that have the nectar. Pikmin are so useful and can do many things.

This game isn’t that difficult and we strongly believe that within two play throughs of the game, almost any player can beat the game within 30 in game days. The main skill you need when playing this game is multitasking. You have to have one Pikmin squad collecting and carrying pellets or dead creatures bodies back to the onions to build your numbers. Another group that can be breaking down walls, building bridges or pushing large objects out of the way. While another group goes with you hunting for ship parts and exploring. The player has to manage all these things and know when to do that. You must manage your time properly as you don’t have that much time in a day so what will you do and how will you do it. Will that take too long? Is there a faster way? Should I use one whole day just for increasing Pikmin numbers and upgrading them to flowers? That’s up to you. Lastly, never leave your Pikmin alone at night. Any Pikmin left alone after the countdown reaches 0 will be automatically hunted down and eaten by monsters. Nothing will survive the night. Either keep them right near their onion or keep them with you and they will be safe. This is one of those games that you must play and try if you get the chance. The developers ‘Nintendo EAD’ created an awesome game that will be with us always. Whether you know the game or not… never forget to do the ‘Earth Walk’!

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Conflict: Desert storm. An example co-op game

Posted on by X35 Earthwalker

 

Desert storm is an action tactical third person shooter game developed by ‘Pivotal Games’ that came out in September 2002. In this game, you control the most feared special operations forces in the world: the elite British SAS or the US Delta Force squads. These teams consist of: Bradley (the leader), Foley (the sniper), Connors (the heavy weapons) and Jones (the combat engineer). The game takes place in the Persian gulf war.

This is a game that is from X35 Earthwalkers child hood. It’s a legendary game that he will never forget. The memories, the laughs, the struggles and more. It’s all there. There is literally no other game like this game for sure. Best to start of with the tutorial which by the way is amazingly done. This is how tutorials should be. Firstly a choice as to whether you want to take the tutorial or not and then explain and get into everything about the game. It takes you through positions, shooting, movement and more with assault courses, shooting ranges and special rooms. When you play the campaign you can switch between the four soldiers whenever you want. Each character has their own weapons and equipment so you must be smart about who you want to use for certain parts of the mission. For example it’s not best to use Foley, the sniper, when you are going into a building. You need medium to close range weapons in there.

Bradley has the assault rifle which also comes with a grenade launcher attachment meaning he is best medium range combat. He has a silence pistol so entering and clearing out buildings is second easiest for him. He has binoculars so scouting is what he can do also. He later gets access to special weapons too but more on that later. Foley has the sniper rifle so he can head shot and kill enemies from far away and because sniper rifles can zoom in, he can scout good as well. Connors has a light machine gun that can lay down lots of fire and damage at everything. Tanks are scared of him because of the powerful rocket launcher in his back pocket. Connors deals damage like no other. Jones has a silenced sub machine gun meaning he is the best at stealth and taking at enemies in buildings. The man also happens to have some mines, which he can use to cover certain doors or behind the team. It doesn’t stop there as in his pockets are also some C4 explosives which he can plant and then detonate with the trigger. He also has a shotgun making close range combat, like in buildings so easy. Combining all the skills and equipment of the team results in the fact that there isn’t a single situation these guys can’t handle.

Few times in the game there will be levels where your objective will be to destroy some really large or other specific targets and so for this, they equip Bradley with special equipment. The two that we remember are air strikes (the one that looks like a phone) and a laser designator. With the phone looking one, you could use it to call in air strikes on the location that you aimed at to destroy scud launchers, clear a large area of infantry or just to get a tank out of the way. These were limited. The laser designator didn’t have a limit but you couldn’t just use it anywhere. The most notable moment with the laser designator was when you had to use it to destroy a very large bridge. It can be used on tanks as well. With those stuff, you really do feel like you were special forces with exclusive equipment. 

If you play single player then you must use the command to make all your team mates follow you to have everyone moving at once. Depending on the situation, you may have to switch characters. Like the level that had the bridge, Foley was the best as you could snipe them and they can’t even hit you back. When a tank shows up, get everyone to a safe location, switch to Connors and blow up the tank with his rocket launcher. When you need to lock down an area or set traps with silence action then switch to Jones for his mines and C4. All the the characters have frag grenades, smoke grenades, medkits and a combat knife. The frag grenades worked exactly as you expect them to. The smoke grenades in this game is probably the best smoke grenades we have ever seen in a game in terms of effectiveness. Nothing could see you. The medkits recovered a lot of health and can be used to revive fallen troops. The combat knife is always exciting to use because if you sneak up behind an enemy and use it, it becomes a stealth kill execution. Another great feature about this game is that you can give weapons to teammates very easily and if a team mate is down, you can take things from them as well. So let’s say Foley is down but Bradley has run out of medkits then you can take a medkit from Foley to use on him and bring him back into the fight.

Multiplayer is literally the best way to play the game. This where all the memories for X35 Earthwalker himself comes from. He use to play this back when he was very young with his family. X35 Earthwalker would play Bradley, his sister would play Foley, his mum would play Connors and since it was three of them his sister got to control Jones as well. So much crazy adventures would take place. Times when getting new shiny weapons was more important than the fighting going on outside. They even created a ridiculous strategy to deal with tanks when out of rocket launchers. Jones would give his detonator to Foley. Foley would use smoke grenades to create a smokey path towards a tank, then Jones would run up to the tank with a C4 and plant one right next to the tank. Then try and make it far away or back to safety so that Foley can blow the tank up with a detonator. Sometimes Jones couldn’t get back we would have to blow up the tank with him but since when you lose health your body is always in one piece on the ground, we could just revive him with a medkit. How ridicolous is that? X35 Earthwalker and his family would split up and take strategic positions only to hear the screams of his sister being chased found and chased by the enemy so then everyone would run to her to help. It was so much fun. So much craziness and memories that it’s best explained through speaking and not writing.

There were a lot of levels and of a good length with clear and interesting objectives. One time you will be destroying scud launchers, the next time you have to eliminate a target and then next you have to do a rescue. The variety is good. The graphics and sounds were great for its time. The environments and level designs were nice to look at and the areas were different. The enemies are dangerous and numerous. There are infantry with rifles, sniper rifles, light machine guns and even rocket launchers. There are anti air tanks, anti-infantry tanks and regular tanks of two types of armour. There is even a helicopter that attacks you. Fight in cities, buildings and off course deserts. Play by yourself or go full in with split screen four player.

Overall this game is awesome and will always be special to us regardless of time. The developers ‘Pivotal Games’ did an outstanding job with this game. It’s still available on steam as well but whatever you do… Don’t forget to do the ‘Earth Walk’!

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