Game Completed | NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams

Game Title: NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams (Nintendo Wii)
When: August 3rd, 2008
Completion Time: 3 hours 49 minutes

At one point, I did own NiGHTS: Into Dreams for the Sega Saturn.  I, however, never did play it.  When a NiGHTS sequel was announced for the Nintendo Wii, I still didn’t care for it.  And you know what?  Even after playing the successor on the Wii, my thoughts are the same.  Sega should’ve left this series in the vault.

Journey of Dreams start you off by allowing you to play through two children’s dreams, Will and Helen’s.  I chose Will’s and figured I can play through Helen’s if I enjoyed it enough to play through it again.  Fortunately, I never had to do that.  I don’t know what the hell Sonic Team is doing to their games but I haven’t enjoyed a single one of theirs since…well, never.  Sonic Adventure was so-so, Sonic Adventure 2 was shit, Sonic the Hedgehog (on 360) was even worse; and now this.  The game revolved around you, playing as a hybrid of the character NiGHTS and the child you chose, going through loops and saving the dream world from the Nightmareans.  The game is split into three worlds with five levels in each one.  Each world lacks variety since you’re doing the same missions in each one.  Save for a few where you’re actually on-foot going through a “maze” and levels where you’re in a boat/coaster.  The coaster one is actually pretty fun but aside from that, everything is just flat-out boring.  I couldn’t wait to finish the game and I’m glad it took me less than four hours to do it.  I can’t possibly put in another four hours in Helen’s Dream if I wanted to keep my sanity.

As for the musical score, I actually liked it.  As corny as it sounds, it was quite pleasant.  Very bubbly.  I didn’t play the game for the music, though.  So what I was left with is a horrible gliding game with a decent soundtrack.  Sonic Team fails again.

Do I recommend playing it? No.
What games am I playing next? I have quite a few that I’m juggling.  I started up Space Invaders Extreme (DS), Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 (360) and Call of Duty 4 (360).  I’m also playing Endless Ocean (Wii) and Halo 3 (360) in between my main gaming sessions.  The only reason why I played NiGHTS was because I have a potential buyer and I gave myself a time limit of two days to finish it before I ship it out.

Geoms

Fact: I bought an Xbox 360 for Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved.  Watching videos of the game in action made the wait for getting an Xbox 360 even more unbareable.  So when I finally bought one off of Amazon, I was psyched to get online and download it right away.  And I was not disappointed.  But as much as I loved it, I couldn’t get pass the 1 million barrier.  I came pretty close with 985,000 points, though.  I never did try again to see if I can get above my personal high score.

Just about a week ago, Bizzare Creations released Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 on Xbox Live.  Honestly, I was not stoked for the game…at all.  I haven’t really been keeping up with the latest games but usually if there’s a sequel to a game that I loved playing, I would’ve at least read a bit more on it.  Hell, I didn’t even know it was out until I booted up my 360 and saw the advertisement for it.  I figured I’d give it a download and see how the game plays.  Bizzare improved the game in every way possible.  The game now features six modes of play and there’s at least something for everyone.  There’s still the Retro Evolved mode, where you play endlessly until you’re out of lives.  Deadline is a timed game where you try to get as much points as possible within three minutes.  King is a unique mode where you can only shoot when you’re in circles that appear on the playfield.  Once you’re out of the circle, you can’t shoot.  Therefore, every trek to a new circle will be filled with enemies that you have to dodge.  In Pacifism (my favorite, so far), you can’t shoot at all.  The only way you score points is by going through “gates”.  Once you go through a gate, it’ll explode any enemies near it.  Waves was included in Project Gotham Racing 4 and is a featured mode in Geo Wars 2.  Every few seconds, a wave of zip-lining fighters will cross the screen.  It gets frantic when you have waves of enemies appearing from every direction.  Finally, there’s Sequence.  It’s comprised of 20-levels where there’s a fixed arrangement of enemies in each level.

Even the smallest details in the game amazes me.  For example, as you’re playing, you can have your HUD display either the next best score on your friends’ list, your personal best or the highest score on your friends’ list.  It makes reaching a goal much easier since you’re not aiming for the top, but just enough to top the next high score.  If anyone wants to add me to compare high scores, my Xbox Live gamertag is Sochie.