Get Out Of My Blog!

Mighty Bone Hammer slung across my back, warmly clad in Mafomofu armour, packing a choice assortment of snacks, potions and collectables already harvested from packs of luckless Anteka further down the mountainside – I am prepared for anything.

Anything that is, with the exception of a massive, screen-filling Wyvern that rushes, shrieking, from a mountainside cavern, robbing me of all composure and earning me strange glances from my travelling companions on the Piccadilly Line as I yell “SHIIIIIIIIT!” and start trying not to get eaten.

Having a happy, placid commute trashed by the appearance of a giant bastard dragon is just one of the ways in which Monster Hunter 2 continues to endear itself to me.

I’d heard of it previously of course, the mythical PSP unit shifting “killer-app” for the Japanese hardcore gamer market.  The game that’s given rise to a culture of impromptu WiFi café-lans, including a temporary one right here in London.  I’d heard about the hardcore appeal, the vast depth and the somewhat fearsome grind.

What I didn’t realise, is that Monster Hunter is great.

Now, it may be that I have hours of WoW / AoC / WAR / FlyFF and god knows what else to thank here.  After all, these games condition you to love the grind with their finely judged interplay of risk/reward and their drip-feeding of new experience just as the old threatens to become tedious…Sure, MH is grindy – focusing on the repetition of certain tasks involving the gathering of herbs and/or the killing of monsters.  It’s actually rather like a chained series of WoW-esque “fetch” quests, with a similiarly WoW-like diversion of being able to harvest bits and pieces along the way to craft or upgrade weaponry and armour sets.

MH is fun though.  There’s the visceral appeal of hunting giant monsters with a huge hammer (or a huge sword, or a bow,  a gun etc. etc.) – judging attack timings, chaining combos, rolling to avoid attacks and, when the beasts finally succumb; hacking cookable lumps out of them to barbecue on a portable spit.

So colour me surprised, another game that I wouldn’t have looked at twice turns out to be damn good.  Anyone want to donate me a copy of Monster Hunter: Freedom Unite?