Vincent and the Doctor

Have you ever seen Doctor Who? Is it something you enjoy? Honestly, I didn't get into it until the new 2005 series started. I liked the older 1963 show off and on, but something about the reboot just drew me in that didn't happen with the older one. Today I was watching some reruns of the show because it's really the kind of series that you can "experience" far more than one time with it still feeling fresh a year later.

Today's episode was called Vincent and the Doctor, the Vincent referred to in the title being Vincent van Gogh. This episode reminded me of something that I really like about Doctor Who - the show can make you laugh, feel happy, feel anger, feel sadness, and in my case, even make me cry. It details why the Doctor goes back to meet Vincent as well as a short look into how Vincent may have acted and viewed the world around him. Quite a beautiful episode out of the many intense story driven ones, only touching ever so slightly on what happened in the previous episode since that one had some very heavy material in it.

If you've never watched Doctor Who before, or you have watched the original in the past but weren't quite so interested; I highly recommend giving the 2005 version a first or second chance. Given enough time to get into the show and feel for the characters it can take you on an emotional roller coaster of beauty, intense story, and fantastic whimsy characters throughout that you won't soon forget the joy of.

Jamestown

Recently I've been playing a lot of this Jamestown game co-op with my girlfriend, and I must say this game is a blast in co-op mode. If you enjoy the old games like Galaga and want to take it up a massive notch, Jamestown might just be for you. My friend, TheShadowCookie, enjoys the game quite a bit and has mentioned that he has trouble with its difficulty level, which is saying something since he is an avid Touhou player. I recently managed to beat the final level of the game, not including the DLC, and boy was it a painful level to work my way through.

Now, if you're looking for an amazing story with thick plot and twists that make you want to hear more at every turn... well... this sure as hell isn't the game to find it in. The story is crazy and strange. I barely was able to make a lick of sense out of it other than apparently the Spanish have joined forces with Martians and Jamestown is on Mars instead of in the United States. It gets weirder from there. The game made me think I was about to play a strange RPG with the opening, and to be honest, I think that kind of a game would have made more sense with the crazy story telling job that was done in this game. You can easily skip through the story without missing much of anything at all as the gameplay is the shining point this title has to offer.

The music played during levels is fantastic. It matches the intense atmosphere with projectiles flying every which way to a T. It's quite nice to do your best to let your weapons run silent just to listen to the music as much as possible. I've been impressed lately by the music appearing in indie titles. They really have been doing a magnificent job there even in a game where the story is so disjointed and weird that it doesn't make much sense logically. Still, the story is better than some games I've seen, so I won't dwell on the weirdness any further.

Overall I would have to give this game a 7/10 for great gameplay, a fantastic music score, and some rather pretty graphics to look at with projectiles floating all about the screen. The points that strike it down to 7 are the story and the steep difficulty curve. Anyone who can play Touhou as well as TheShadowCookie saying a projectile game is hard means the game is excruciatingly difficult for most casual players and even some hardcore ones. You'll probably manage to make it to the final level after a good bit of playing if you can keep at it, but the final level is bound to stop many players in their tracks as it takes the difficulty curve from a 45 degree angle to a 90 degree straight up death trap. I'd recommend it for a fun bit of gameplay on your own, but especially for a lot of enjoyment playing co-op with friends.