Tag Archives: Video Game

Gaming, Let's Play Content, Uncategorized

Gameplay: Kreshenne Plays MYST

January 15, 2021 The Demented Ferrets 2 Comments

Hey everyone, it’s Kernook here. In the two videos below, Kreshenne explores the immersive world of Myst, solving puzzles along the way. The game is coined as a graphic puzzle adventure, as the main draw of the game is the puzzles themselves. The game is considered a classic.

It was developed by Cyan, Inc. and published by Broderbund. Originally it released in 1993 for Mac. As time went on other ports of the game were released. PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Windows saw notable ports of the game.

As for the game itself, it’s all about the insanity of two brothers. The mind-games that you, the player, must sort through.

Kresh Plays: MYST

Part 1

Part 2 More About MYST

In the game players use a special book to travel to the island of “Myst“. Once there, you solve puzzles and travel to four other worlds. These other worlds are known as “Ages”. Each age uncovers more backstory of the game’s characters.

Myst is a first person game. Players interact with specific objects on screen by clicking on the item, or dragging it around. Certain items like journal pages can be picked up and carried to particular locations.

Movement in the game relies on the player clicking on locations shown on the screen. There are plenty of areas to explore, and a keen eye is required to solve some of the puzzles. More on that later…

The game also features a journal. This is a necessary component to the game. You’ll be collecting the pages that belong inside of it. This is a double edged sword. You can only carry a single page at a time. If you drop a page, it reverts back to its original location. When you find them, be sure to place them where they belong.

Little Details Matter

Like Anime and Gaming content? Check out our other platforms below:

To beat the game, you’ve got to explore the island of Myst in its entirety. With every puzzle you solve you’ll discover clues for the next one and where you ought to go next.

You’ll be tasked with visiting the “Ages” mentioned above, The “Ages” you’ll visit are small sub worlds, self-contained and with their own puzzles to solve. Each of the Ages have their own name and theme to go with it. The Ages are: Selenitic, Stoneship, Mechanical, and Channelwood. Some of the clues, items and information discovered in one of the “Ages” might be required to solve puzzles in a different one. This is why details matter.

Rushing through a puzzle too quickly may leave you stumped later. In the videos above Kreshenne runs into this issue a few times.

Unique Aspects of MYST

Myst uses each in-game environment to the utmost advantage to tell the story it presents. Like many games of its era, the game relies largely on text based story telling. There are some “cut-scenes” if you can truly call them that, as well.

What made Myst so popular for its time was the unusual ways it provided the backstory. The entire game is riddled with mystery waiting to be unraveled. At first, you’ll have very little backstory. Nothing is particularly clear, and there is no hand-holding in sight.

You won’t have any obvious goals or objectives in front of you. As a player, it will all be left up to you. There are no enemies in the game, and no combat. The game is a slow burn, and the player can solve the puzzles at their own pace.

For more opinions about this game, might I suggest you look at the Myst review written by Jason Smith over at Adventure Gamers, or that you check out the one by Christopher Livingston on PC Gamer website.

In my personal opinion though, the two brothers that made the island are crazy people. Frankly, I’ve said too much about them with that single statement. The rest is up to you. If you haven’t played Myst or watched a play-through, you really should.

This has been Kernook of The Demented Ferrets, where stupidity is at its finest and level grinds are par for the course. I’ll see you next time.

You can help support us through PayPal or Patreon.

Meanwhile, check out some of our other great content below. You can also find more information about supporting us at the bottom of this post.

With your contributions, you make our efforts possible. Thank you for supporting our content. Patreon supporters receive access into our official Discord server, and a few other perks depending on the tier. If you don’t care for Patreon, and don’t care about perks, you can always support us through PayPal too… links below.

Those who join via Patreon get special perks, such as extra content, quicker updates, and more.

To Our Supporters

Thank you for helping us to enrich our content.

Patreon Supporters:
($3) Little Ferrets: None
($5) Demented Minions: Francis Murphy and Andrew Wheal.
($7) Fandom Ferret: None
($14) True Blue Ferret: None.
($25) Premium Ferret: None.
($50) Round Table Ferret/Fluffy Ferret: Josh Sayer

Fandom, Gaming, Let's Talk Games, Uncategorized

Fandom: Resident Evil 3 Remake Announcement Trailer

January 14, 2021 The Demented Ferrets 1 Comment

The announcement trailer can be found above.

As you can likely guess from the disclaimer, this is an old post. That being said, when the initial hype for the game was in full swing, I was one of the many fans excited for the game.

I’m sad to say I wasn’t a huge fan of the game, but I’ll talk about why when I review the game in it’s entirety. That’s a separate post though. For now, the content below is merely a time in fandom when I was far too excited for my own good.

The official trailer for the Resident Evil 3: Remake has me so excited to see what’s in store for the survival horror genre.

Old fans of the series will easily recall the dynamic game-play of the original game, released for PlayStation back in September of 1999. I’d like to take a few moments to share my fondness of Resident Evil, and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis particularly.

Playing as Jill Valentine was one of my favorite things to do in the early days of Resident Evil. Back in the first game, I played her story over Chris’s. Getting to return to her character after the events of Resident Evil 2 was what made me beg my mom for the game. She agreed to get it as a late birthday gift. I counted the days until it hit store shelves. Unfortunately the game dropped on a Wednesday, and I had to wait until Friday after school to get it.

The wait seemed like forever. Finally the day came, and I immediately started playing as soon as we arrived home with the game disc in hand. Playing Resident Evil three was a very memorable moment in my life. While many fans call Resident Evil 2 the best game in the franchise, I have always loved Resident Evil 3: Nemesis even more.

Despite the many flaws that Resident Evil 3: Nemesis had, I fondly recall that it was the first survival horror game I was able to beat on my own. My birthday is in the middle of September. I was a child, and survival horror was something that I just couldn’t help but be enamored with. The problem was that I was very young for a mature rated game. My older brother, 7 years my senior, usually had to help me with other games in the genre.

At the time, I was too young to understand some of the puzzles. I had trouble overcoming the problems that came with having a limited supply of ammo. Other survival horror games had me stumped, or were simply too difficult at the time. Without help, I didn’t get a chance to beat the games at all.

At least, not until Resident Evil 3: Nemesis released for the PlayStation. It was the game that allowed me to fully experience survival horror, without help from anyone. Looking back as an adult, the easy mode was probably too easy.

In hindsight offering such a huge capacity of weapons and ammo allowed me to blast my way through the entire game. I didn’t need assistance, but I also didn’t learn the skills required of other survival horror games. That said, while easy mode was too easy, the normal mode and beyond provided a sufficient challenge. After playing Resident Evil 3: Nemesis on easy, I returned to it invigorated. Feeling empowered and encouraged, I beat it two more times. Once on normal and once on hard. After that, I was able to return back to the other releases in the franchise. Finally, I could play them entirely on my own.

As you can see, I owe a lot of my love for survival horror genre to Resident Evil 3. Seeing this remake come out is a dream come true for me.

The release date for Resident Evil 3: Remake is April 3, 2020, and there seems to be plenty to look forward to.

I’m honestly at the edge of my seat waiting for this game to come out. I haven’t felt this much child-like glee for a game release in years. With a burst of healthy nostalgia, and an overwhelming excitement to see what changes have been made, I sit here with a smile on my face. For me, this heartfelt elation is what it means to be a gamer.

Seeing this franchise come back to life the way that it has in recent years does my soul good. There are few things in this world as simple as sitting down to play a game. Only a handful are more rewarding than sharing that passion with others like myself. Watching the hype slowly build as the fan base grows. I can’t put a price on it. It’s too valuable to me.

In some ways, I feel like a child again. I’m eagerly waiting to have the game in my hands. I can’t help counting away the moments until I can experience Jill’s story and Raccoon City anew.

When the game comes out, I’ll be playing, will you?

This has been Kernook of The Demented Ferrets, where stupidity is at its finest and level grinds are par for the course. I’ll see you next time.

You can help support us through PayPal or Patreon.

Meanwhile, check out some of our other great content below. You can also find more information about supporting us at the bottom of this post.

Those who join via Patreon get special perks, such as extra content, quicker updates, and more.

To Our Supporters

Thank you for helping us to enrich our content.

Gaming, Let's Play Content, Let's Talk Games, Uncategorized

Gameplay: Kreshenne Plays Jazz Jackrabbit

January 6, 2021 The Demented Ferrets 2 Comments

In the video below, Kreshenne takes on Jazz Jackrabbit, a somewhat difficult platformer developed and published by Epic MegaGames. Originally released in 1994 for PC on the DOS operating system, this game saw a fairly decent player base in it’s heyday. Nowadays, Speed runners return to the game, showcasing impressive speeds, glitches, and more.

Sadly, there’s no such impressive feats of skill here. Just Kresh getting annoyed and Kern laughing at all havoc.

Kresh Plays: Jazz Jackrabbit

More About The Game

Hey everyone, Kernook here. I just want to give a little bit more information about the game for those who haven’t played it or heard of it before. Hopefully you enjoy the gameplay video above, but let’s talk about the game a bit.

Jazz Jackrabbit also saw releases for Mac and Windows in 1995 and 1996. It was one of the first titles to bring platformer games to computers. The game was re-released on GOG.com in November of 2017.

Notable titles in the series include: Jazz Jackrabbit 2 (1998), Jazz Jackrabbit 3 (1999), and a few others.

The game is set in a fantasy world, akin to “The Tortoise and the Hare“. The old children’s story providing the perfect set dressing to this awesome platformer. Though it pulls inspiration from a classic, this game is distinctly futuristic. Space travel and planetary conquest gives the game a unique spin.

The basic story is that the ongoing animosity between tortoises and hares lingers for about three thousand years. The tortoise in the telling of the story is named named Devan Shell, a rather evil tortoise and a mastermind to boot. Jazz Jackrabbit is not only the titular character, but the protagonist of the game as well. Jazz aims to defeat Devan and make his home planet a happy place one more. To do this, he must also rescue his planet’s princess, a common trope of platforming titles.

Jazz is depicted as a bright green jackrabbit with attitude. He’s a rough and tumble sort of rabbit. He’s often shown wearing a red bandanna and matching bracers. He toes a blue “blaster” style gun, which the player uses in combat against enemies.

Gameplay

This is your standard platformer in many ways. The player controls Jazz. He will gain momentum and run faster the longer he moves forward. He also jumps higher too. The player will need to avoid the traps. Lost players will occasionally see an arrow or two to guide their way, but navigation isn’t too difficult.

There’s a lives system, and a health system.

You can collect up to ten lives total. When you lose a life, Jazz starts from the beginning of the level. If you managed yo reach a checkpoint before you lost a life, you begin at that checkpoint sign.

Jazz can get hurt, and that’s why he has a life bar. It will change in color depending on how much health he has left. Jazz can only take a few hits, and the number changes based on the difficulty. Easy mode provides five, the most you can get. Medium offers four. Hard and Turbo modes offer only three. When Jazz gets hurt you can try to find a carrot to heal him.

There’s also a system of “buffs”, items that can help you on your way. As mentioned above, you can pick up carrots as healing items, and occasionally find an extra life. There’s also a shield that protects Jazz from getting hurt. You can also find upgrades that give Jazz the ability of rapid fire and super jumps. There are collectibles too, and that’s important for each stage.

While Jazz begins with his basic blue blaster, you can upgrade that too. Some of the weapons include bouncing launcher grenades, flame bullets, and TNT. Jazz can also get a sidekick in the form of a bird as well.

Like most platformers the game has a timer. You need to complete the level in the time you have. If time counts down to zero, Jazz loses a life. To complete each stage, the player must reach the finish and shoot the sign before time runs out. The player is then provided with additional points awarded for the remaining time. If a player receives a perfect score by collecting all of the items, they will get to play a bonus stage.

Bonus Stages and Secret Levels

If the player finishes the stage with a big red diamond, they’ll enter a bonus stage. The objective is to collect as many blue diamonds as possible before the timer runs out. If you can beat the bonus stage, you’ll get an extra life as a reward.

Bonus games aren’t the only thing you’ll find. Jazz Jackrabbit also has secret levels. I hope you’ll play the game yourself, so I won’t discuss them at length here.

For more information rearguard this game, you could check out this review written by Cory D. Lewis, or this review over on PC gamer.

All in all though, I really just suggest that you play the game for yourself. If you like retro platforming titles, Jazz Jackrabbit is a solid addition to your gaming library.

This has been Kernook of The Demented Ferrets, where stupidity is at its finest and level grinds are par for the course. I’ll see you next time.

You can help support us through PayPal or Patreon.

Meanwhile, check out some of our other great content below. You can also find more information about supporting us at the bottom of this post.

Those who join via Patreon get special perks, such as extra content, quicker updates, early fiction chapters and more.

To Our Supporters

Thank you for helping us to enrich our content.

Fandom, Gaming, Let's Talk Games, Uncategorized

Is Death Stranding Worth playing?

January 6, 2021 The Demented Ferrets 2 Comments

Hideo Kojima is a master at making objectively good games. It’s not a question, it’s fact. He’s a risk taker, making games with mechanics that don’t have a “one size fits all” approach. From the early Metal Gear series, to the P.T. Demo, Kojima has proven time and time again that he knows what it takes to make a good game. His greatest games push incredibly deep narratives, multifaceted, and compelling.

Then Death Stranding came out and made waves among the gaming community. Although it sold well, the game just wasn’t as well-received as it could have been. Strong positive reviews aside, hard-core gaming critics and casuals alike raised eyebrows at this odd title. While most of the reviews seemed to be positive, of them slammed the game for having uninteresting point A-to-B slog with questionable story telling. Others complained about the fiddly controls in the game. Even I have to admit a few of the mechanics were pretty annoying.

At the time, the occasional annoyed rants from the larger review sites only fueled my desire to play it. I didn’t really know what I was in for. My expectations weren’t incredibly high. Personally, I feel that the higher my expectations are for something, the more I let myself down when those desires aren’t reached.

After all, game developers don’t owe me anything just because their artistic vision didn’t meet my own criteria for what a good game should be. That said, I have three basic criteria for any game I play.

If a game can meet these standards and I still don’t like it, then it’s my fault. If I ended up buying a game I don’t like, and that’s not something I can blame a developer for.

My three rules are the following:

The game must ultimately be playable. No game breaking bugs, visual eye-sores, or glitches that will severely hinder and impede my game-play experience.
The game must be reasonably priced for what it has to offer. If I shell out money for a game, I want to know that I’m getting a quality experience that at least reflects that price. I don’t mind paying large amounts of money for a shorter game-play experience, but, that experience must be worth something.
The game must be accessible for me play on some basic level. I have a fine motor-skill disorder. That often means games like Dark Souls kill me repeatedly on hard mode. That said, I can still play, beat, and enjoy the game. I don’t ask for an easy game. However, I expect the controls to be fluid. The subtitles must be easy to see and to read. The mechanics of the game must choreograph properly what’s happening on screen.

For example, if something’s about to shoot at me, I want an obvious sign of that someplace. I don’t want to be sniped and have no obvious way to tell. If I’m about to get a “game over”, I want a clear and consist metric that’s about to happen.

I think that those three criteria are essential for any good game. With the building blocks in place, any game has a chance to be a fun, interactive piece of media.

Having completed Death Stranding, I’ll say this: For adults, Death Stranding is worth playing at least once.

This is not a children’s game, and it doesn’t try to be. This game was crafted for an adult gamer, with a firm sense of self, and a firm grasp of morally grey ideology. Parents should use caution when buying it for their mature teenagers. Do your research first, and don’t just pluck this game off of the first shelf you see.

The controls are a little clunky, yes. There is absolutely no disputing that. However, if I can figure them out and navigate the game with Dyspraxia, then the controls must not be a complete failure. They are repetitive, but that serves a narrative purpose. It’s not complete and total garbage. They’re just not the greatest, either.

Multiple layers of subtext in the game will always be important, and Death Stranding uses mechanics as a metaphor. Yes, perhaps it is a bit overdone. Yet, everything in this game seems to have been placed there intentionally, and the story is captivating in its own strange way. I adore the opening quote at the start of the game, and the somber opening song.

The themes are dark and heavy, the game reflects that masterfully. The world is beautifully crafted, and the design is completely immersive. The mechanics aren’t always easy. There are times when the game falls a little short, but it isn’t a bad game.

If you start to look at the game as a complete narrative experience, it’s actually quite good. If you haven’t played it yet, pick the game up when it’s on sale. Give it a try. You may end up liking it too.

This has been Kernook of The Demented Ferrets, where stupidity is at its finest and level grinds are par for the course. I’ll see you next time.

Those who join via Patreon get special perks, such as extra content, quicker updates, early fiction chapters and more.

To Our Supporters

Thank you for helping us to enrich our content.

Kresh Plays: MYST

Part 1

Part 2

More About MYST

Little Details Matter

Unique Aspects of MYST

To Our Supporters

Share this blog.

To Our Supporters

Share this blog.

Kresh Plays: Jazz Jackrabbit

More About The Game

Gameplay

Bonus Stages and Secret Levels

To Our Supporters

Share this blog.

To Our Supporters

Share this blog.

Music, anime, games, movies and more. Where stupidity is at its finest, and level grinds are par for the course.