A Little Moment of Dutch History

Since today will be the last Queen's Day in the Netherlands for a long time, I thought about giving my opinion and interests surrounding the Dutch history, which has flourished plenty since several centuries.

Our history has seen plenty of interesting events, some of them are pretty long too, such as the Eighty Years' War. I won't be talking about this chronologically, so I will just jump right into wherever I want to be.

The Golden Age was a prosperous period where Dutch trade, science, military and art were among the most acclaimed in the world during the 17th century. The Dutch East Company was an important corporation that had a lot of power and consequences during the age of colonies and the trade industry.

Famous figures such as William of Orange, Rembrandt van Rijn, Christiaan Huygens and Baruch Spinoza all made up for their different impacts and the legacies they left behind. And as for the Dutch Republic, it was a successful government run by the people that made Holland very powerful next to the VOC and WIC companies.

But we have dealt with enough wars as well, such as the Anglo-Dutch wars and of course World War II. Anne Frank is an important witness towards what was happening during those cruel times, and the Hunger Winter was another scary consequence.

After liberation, The Netherlands had a baby boom like other countries and the constitutional monarchy established in the 19th century became more popular. Decolonisation around the world happened and ended and we welcomed our hands to multiculturalism and liberalisation.

Recent politics sees many parties attempting to gain control over The Netherlands with their arguments and opinions, and we've had quite a few controversial ones so far, such as the pedophile party, the party for animals and of course the party for freedom led by Geert Wilders.

Dutch culture is tolerant, and this is reflected back through the allowance of immigrants consisting of all kinds of people including intellectuals. Euthanasia, same-sex marriage and being permitted to use soft drugs legally are more examples of liberalism.

Iconic objects include cheese, windmills and the color orange. Not only does Holland accept multiculturalism greatly, the same goes for religion and foreign relations are particulary strong. We have important cities including The Hague, Rotterdam and Amsterdam.

Our cinema history is seriously lacking if you ask me. There is room for improvement and growth to be found here. But as for our game industry, at least Guerilla Games delivers with their Killzone series, however growth should happen too.

Dutch inventions include the micro and telescope, the stock exchange, the artificial hart, Wi-Fi, the submarine and more. We have also discovered quite a lot of the world, such as Australia, Easter Island and various more locations.

And the delta works were constructed in the 50's in order to defend against the water floods that keep rising. We happen to have a history with water earlier on as well, as we have used it to fend off foreign attacks.

It looks like I went from Dutch history towards Holland in general, praising my country. And that's okay, having pride for your nationality. I am certainly glad to have been born in this part of the world that has done plenty of interesting things so far.

Uncharted Trilogy

 

Naughty Dog's Uncharted was a new IP back in 2007, and a system seller for the Playstation 3. Currently it has four available titles, is immensively popular and is also well loved by critics. As I started playing the first part, I knew that I was in for an exciting adventure.

Meet Nathan Drake, enthusiastic treasure hunter of old artifacts who is talented with both languages, guns and being funny in overall. Together with his friends Elena and Victor they search for Francis Drake’s fortune in South America, which is connected with El Dorado.

The main theme of the soundtrack is pretty good! It plays as an action third person shooter set during exotic locations while going on with unraveling mysterious areas and treasures. Somehow, it's all very similar with Indiana Jones.

Enemies were ridiculous in their amounts, but I suppose that could be called game logic. Still, near the end in particular the church shootout was challenging. Before that, the enemy waves were do-able, even the unexpected monsters found later on.

The climbing physics were fun in a different way from for example inFAMOUS. The cast was likable, especially Nathan was funny intentionally and unintentionally whenever dying in a silly way.

As for the puzzles, these were too simplistic. Everytime Nathan opened up his little book, the clues were in your face.

Whenever you would sometimes get lost by the detailed graphics, you would sometimes find smaller treasures that act like trophy achievements. This is one of the few times for me where they actually make sense to have a reward system surrounding these precious objects. 

The technical and production values are seen back by the colorful detailed graphics, voice acting and animations. These continued to get even better with each sequel, but I am honestly impressed at the amount of details designed here already.

In overall, Uncharted is rightfully an entertaining game and Drake's Fortune happens to be just the first entry. I am pretty sure that the best has yet to come!

Rating: 8.2

An explosive sequel where the scope of the settings increased dramatically, and the action sequences could easily be described as a summer blockbuster from Hollywood.

In Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Nathan, his mate Harry Flynn and colleague Chloe Frazer have an agreement upon going after the mythical Chimsala Stone, rumoured to be hidden in Shambhala somewhere.

But the road is long ahead, as Drake will journey through Turkey, Borneo, Nepal and Tibet before arriving on the destination. Through these transitions, old friends and new villains are appear. Victor takes a minor role but Elena is more involved with Nathan's troublesome adventures.

And boy do these adventures get crazy sometimes. From a falling train at the very beginning to a collapsing building during a civil war to a giant hidden temple of ice and platforms, there certainly were a variety of locations present.

Especially the parts of Tibet were astonishing for me. The culture was well presented. I thought the snowy mountains of the Wii game Cursed Mountain were already impressive, but the ones seen in here are just sick. (although to be fair, the mountains were used differently in each game)

Lavericius was one tough son of a bitch as a final boss as he wouldn't go down easily. The excuse of quantity from the Serbian army was more plausible than the large group found in Drake's Fortune because they felt more authentic as mercenaries.

Among Thieves is a very good game that builds upon what was achieved with the original with everything, but the best part is that it's such a lengthy game with many satisfying moments of success.

Rating: 8.7

Very similar to the previous one, except that the settings and story are different.

In Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, Nate and Sully experience a deal gone wrong in England, but are still able to continue their latest journey, involving around uncovering the lost city known as Iram of the Pillars, and using the tools and hidden notes left behind by Francis Drake.

Since the focus is on these two this time, the other support characters Chloe and Elena have minor roles. The new villains Talbot and Marlowe plus the new minor character called Cutter are fine.

After leaving London, the two find themselves in eastern France, looking for a clue which might pinpoint where to go next. Meanwhile, Chloe and Cutter are investigating the other possible location in Syria.

As the latest wave of enemies keeps the tensions going, and after the 4 characters reuniting, Nate and Sully alongside Elena find themselves stumbling upon an ancient underground tomb in Yemen. There it becomes clear that the final destination will be somewhere in the center of the Rub' al Khali desert.

What Drake's Deception easily does better than the previous ones in my opinion is the amount of different puzzles being available. Also, I liked how I noticed the references towards blockbuster movies such as the final action scene in the James Bond movie The Living Daylights.

The desert chapters were spectacular, with mirages and hallucinations appearing, a cavalry moment, the sandstorm or just walking around aimlessly, looking for water. What I also noticed just now is that each Uncharted game ends not only with a hidden location, but mythical enemies as well.

Also somewhat new towards this entry is playing a chapter during Drake's youth in Colombia, where the relationship between his best friend is created. Marlowe's background remains unknown, but I could imagine.

So it turns out that the Uncharted trilogy is a very good trio of action adventure games with platform and puzzle elements that have easily captured the magic found in typical successful action movies. I'm sure that Sony and Naughty Dog are very proud of these titles as well.

Rating: 8.6

Mother Trilogy

 

The first had been an obscure Japanese release for a long time, until emulation caught up with the West and thus, discoveries in the East were getting made. Mother uses a traditional battle system similar to Dragon Quest where basic action can comply. 

As Ninten, you are on a quest to unravel the mysterious phenomenon occuring at your home town. As you recruit new friends, you notice that the setting is more of recent times, with modern NPC's, baseball bats instead of swords and more ideas such as being able to bring back fallen allies using hospitals.

There are also weird scenarios that made their debut here and never really went away with the trilogy. In Mother, there is for example a dream world that is important for the quest to continue, and some enemies are rather odd, such as hippies attacking your party.

Like many old RPGs, Mother suffers from illogical walkthroughs and offers very low knowledge towards items, PSI(magic), weapons etcetera. To smoothen the gameplay, I sped up the level grinding by use of the “Easy patch”, which honestly made the game more enjoyable for me.

In this age of video gaming, I must try my best to play as many interesting games as I can and beat the majority of them if possible. So, while there are no major faults with this RPG, it does show its age.

Rating: 6.4

 

Massive improvement over the original Mother, EarthBound, which is the more recognizable title of this sequel, is a favorite of seasoned SNES gamers. 

With it’s many references towards pop culture, wacky dialogue, odd mood and strange themes playing, it’s one of the quirkiest RPG games I have played. That is in essence why this title is still beloved and remembered by many today.

The difficulty is more fair in here, plus the length of the game is pretty big. The graphics are cute in their own way, and did not hinder the modern 90’s based setting. Never mind the fact that molecules, annoying old party men and abstract arts amongst other enemies for instance can be aggressive against your party members. 

The soundtrack is quite diverse, with a few outstanding ones, plus some remixes from the NES game. I enjoyed the Threed, Moonside and Fourside songs, the dungeons were most of the time forgettable though. And perhaps EarthBound relied a bit too much on so much weird occurences that it kind of hurt the overall score. 

The final boss Giygas is easily one of the most unique ones out there, worth experiencing after all that traversing, level grinding and unusualness. It's the same alien from the original, and this time, he is defeated in an entirely new way.

Nothing beats the Moonside area though when speaking of total unexpectedness. It’s probably one of the best trips you can have inside video games. So Mother 2 has plenty to offer for many of us, but it is understandable if you cannot grasp the excitement around it.

It is simply one of those games that you probably had best grew up with in order to truly love it.

Rating: 7.6

 

It ends with a bang, so to speak. Situated at the Nowhere Islands, away from the settings of the other two, Mother 3 comes with new features, a varied new cast and a touching story that will no doubt hit you at certain times, despite the game’s quirkiness, as fans of the franchise are already used to.

While the traditional turn based RPG gameplay is still here, as well as the humoristic parts of it, it comes with a new rhythm based feature that is sort of akin to how Paper Mario games reward players when they hit enemies at the right time. 

Instead of watching closely when to strike them in Mother 3, you must listen to the beat each tune provides during battle, in order to score more hits. While it isn’t necessary to use this feature, it will certainly help out anyone who is prepared to memorize the tunes and thus, deal way more damage.

That isn’t to say that the overall difficulty is noteworthy lower, on the contrary, this third entry is around the same really, if you forget about Mother 1’s tremendous amount of grinding. Bosses are unexpected adversaries of varied origins, and likewise it goes the same with the regular enemies, that can start from strange roadblocks or flying mousses, to the craziest, including Horseantula’s and Negative Man, who is depressed about everything. 

The story is about a troubled family that eventually gets separated from each of the members. While a mysterious pigmasked army has come to do malicious business around the once peaceful village and other areas, you will meet up with another bunch of bizarre characters, such as 7 “transexual sages” of some kind protecting magic needles, mole crickets and peculiar oxygen supply machines along your long journey.

The length is split up between chapters. The first few of them will let you control different kind of characters, eventually all related to the overall story, but starting from Chapter 4, you will control Lucas as the main protagonist from now on.

What Mother 1 and 2 established as a way to deposit or withdraw items and/or money has been changed here to quite different characters. Now, homeless men and wandering frogs will fill their roles for these desires, and hospitals no longer seem to exist.

In fact, I don’t even know if it’s possible to revive party members in this game by myself, because I would usually find a revitalizing machine or a hot spring that both fill up the party’s health to the maximum. 

The comedy most of all comes from the bizarre situations and characters you encounter during the game. As far as I know, there aren’t that much pop culture references as there were in EarthBound, but feel free to prove to me otherwise. I did however notice one that brought a smile to my face at New Pork City in the theater. There, a reference towards the classic movie Cinema Paradiso(1988) is readable.

While maps got introduced with Mother 2’s towns, I must say that they have been improved here, for allowing much more locations to have maps now, resulting into navigating around much easier and more comfortable.

Several characters have also returned, such as the Mr.Saturn’s, some familiar NPC’s which are quite taller and even Porky, who has now become the main antagonist and the final boss. He’s old and sick now though, so he resides in this dangerous looking machine that seems to be keeping him alive.

He wishes to see the end of the world, get rid of everyone who hates him and while doing so, turn it all into one giant toy ground for his ultimate pleasure. At the endgame, you must first overcome Porky’s twisted Empire Building, which involves cameos, tricks and challenges. 

After Porky defeats himself, the story then ends with a sad piece of tale about two brothers confronting each other to settle family issues. Well, after that, it truly ends, but what happens to the people of Nowhere Islands is up to the player’s imagination.

Rating: 7.8

All in all, while they won't appeal to everyone, even when speaking of RPG's in general, the Mother trilogy has a specific own style of approaching traditional thinking, as they blend their odd characters, story and settings, while adding in lots of humor and charming dialogue. In short, they are an oddity when it comes to RPG's. 

They're good games in my eyes, and they are masterful games in other eyes. I'd say, for the best introduction, especially try EarthBound first, and then decide how to go further. Lots of gamers grew up with that game, but not me, I just went from 1 through 3. Still, even I can conclude that it's recommendable to play at least once.