Played Lately: Bastion

• As soon as it became available, I bought a copy of Bastion. Nothing was going to stop me. Nor should it have because the reviews have been amazing so far. Not that I've been able to play it as much as I want to. Because what I really want to do is skip work every day until I finish it. I did stay up too late a couple nights rebuilding the Bastion and tackling various Proving Grounds. I may even have pouted when I reminded myself that I had to go to bed.


• Here are a few disconnected thoughts about Bastion:


• "He gets up." - I know that it's just a stupid little thing, but I love, I adore the fact that The Kid starts almost every level by landing flat on his face. He just lays there until you push the stick and make him get up. Hilarious!


• The Narrator - Oh my goodness that guy is cool. It is not some astonishing dynamic system, but it doesn't need to be. The part is sharply written and superbly acted. And everything about it oozes cool. Sadly, I can't help but wonder how many crappy narrations we'll have to sit through because of copycats.


• Old school action RPG combat - As much as I love Torchlight, the combat is pretty straight forward. Bastion feels a lot more tactical, a lot more demanding. It feels good to have so much control of your attacks. It's rewarding to defend and evade effectively. Because it is more demanding, the fights are more difficult. Even for a perpetual newb like me, I want to overcome the challenges instead of a throw my controller.


• I want to steal this setting - The world building in this game is spare, but highly effective. The efficiency with which Caelondia, its inhabitants, and environs is breathtaking. I'm sure it took a lot of work to pare the descriptions that finely, but you learn so much seemingly very little effort.
  
  And the names! How could you not want to visit a place called the Rippling Walls? Or explore the Wild Unknown? Or join up with the Slingers or the Breakers?
  
  If my Unexplored Worlds posts start looking vaguely Bastion like, please forgive me.


• A word of warning: when you start a new game to show your wife the cool narration, it tells you that you about to overwrite your save game. It's not kidding. I did it anyway because it was too cool not to share. And, to be perfectly honest, I wanted to see it all again. See you in the Bastion!

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© 2011 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.