Mullon's Reviews

Review: Dead Space 2

2012-01-16T18:17:00.000-05:00

Dead Space 2 is a third person shooter and survival horror for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. It was developed Visceral Games.

Isaac Clarke fighting off a couple of small Necromorphs on the Sprawl, with a larger Necromorph down the hall.

Isaac Clarke, the protagonist from the previous Dead Space, wakes up on a giant space station called the Sprawl, with no memory of what happened to him since the last game. The Sprawl is under attack by the Necromorphs, dead humans that have been mutated into murderous monsters, which Isaac quickly learns that he is indirectly responsible for. Isaac decides to put a stop to the attack, which is hampered by the Necromophs, the cause of the Necromorphs, and the head of Sprawl trying to stop him for an unknown reason.

Dead Space 2 is divided into chapters, though the start and end of each chapter is arbitrary. Isaac goes through the sprawl killing Necromorphs with weapons he buys. Necromorphs cannot be conventionally; instead the player has to shoot off a Necromorph’s limbs to kill it before it closes the gap between it and Isaac and kill Isaac in a gruesome manner. Isaac can buy many weapons but only carry four at a time. Ammo, health items, and money to buy everything is found on dead Necromorphs, but in limited supply, so the player has to carefully ration everything and bring along the weapons that are most appropriate. Extra weapons and items are stored in fancy vending machines; the vending machines are not abundant, but they keep everything, so Isaac can drop off some items at one and pick them up at another.

Isaac also has the ability to slow enemies down and pick up objects and hurl them and enemies with his mind. The telekinesis is unlimited, but the slowing down is not and has to be replenished like health. The telekinesis is also used for solving simple puzzles, like putting giant batteries into place.

Level design is underwhelming. At first it is cool running around futuristic commercial and residential areas like hospital and a shopping mall. But those levels are replaced a third of the way in with generic grey metal walkways and corridors that all look like they belong in a smelting factory or a mine. Unfortunately these levels make up most of the game. There are several times when Isaac either doubles back through levels, or goes through areas that look exactly the same.

For most of the game Isaac is travelling to a part of the Sprawl to deal with the Necromorphs, with no other story. And that is okay. Even if the plot is straightforward, it is entertaining to watch Isaac get himself into more dangerous situations and dismembering bigger Necromorphs. The survivors he talks to are not stupid or annoying, and the end of the game is exciting. There is a subplot of Isaac seeing hallucinations of his dead wife that is also mildly interesting.

What is really bad about the story is how often the narrative gets waylaid. Most the game is spent fixing some part of the station blocking Isaac’s way. I could never be bothered to remember what Isaac was going to fix and it makes most of the game blend together in a series of similar tedious tasks.

The monsters are horrific, but there only a half dozen different kinds and Isaac runs into all of them early on, so they are not surprising. Isaac is well equipped to handle them early on, so it is hard to find something you can slice to ribbons scary. And it is so predictable; every air vent might as well have a sign over it that says “Monsters will eventually burst through here” and every large elevator should say “Monsters are going to drop down.” The musical cues and loud banging that happen whenever a monster appears also diminishes the terror.

Despite all these problems, the basic game play is fun. It is easy to figure out how to cut off the limbs of Necromorphs, but the different variety of Necromorphs and the way they get stronger as the game progresses makes sure fighting them is always challenging.

Most of the weapons are enjoyable and effective, so the player can fight through the game however they want. The alternative fire on each weapon also lets the player be more creative Best of all are the power nodes that allow the player to customize their weapons however they want; it feels like an accomplishment maxing out a weapon’s stats, and the ability to enhance what part of the weapon you choose makes it feel less like a chore.

Isaac Clarke shooting a spinning saw blade at a Necromorph.

The amount of ammo and health Necromorphs drop and Isaac finds are at a level that keeps the player challenged when trying to survive, but it never feels like the game is being cheap or unfair.

All this together creates an experience that never gets old. It is challenging but reasonable and very rewarding all the time instead of dull and monotonous.

Dead Space 2 is fun even with the boring setting and story. But the lack of anything beyond a fun shooting sequence makes it hard to recommend buying at full price since once you are done you are not going to want to play it for a while.

Review: Batman: Arkham City

2012-01-02T22:46:00.000-05:00

Batman: Arkham City is an action game, set in a sandbox environment, with stealth elements for the Xbox 360, PC, and PlayStation 3. It was developed by Rocksteady Studios.

Batman flying over the rooftops of Arkham City towards a Riddler trophy.

Following the events of Batman: Arkham Asylum, newly elected mayor of Gotham City Quincy Sharp has walled off a part of Gotham and turned into a gigantic prison, dubbed Arkham City, where he has dumped all the criminals and supervillains in Gotham and left them to fend for themselves. In charge of the new prison is villainous psychiatrist Hugo Strange, who has deduced that Batman is actually Bruce Wayne and gotten him thrown in Arkham. Now Batman has to deal with all the rampaging villains running around Arkham while trying to figure out what Strange is really up to.

Arkham City acts as the game’s overworld. Batman will learn the location of the next important plot detail; travel to that point using a some sort of monitor that clues him into how close he is to the destination, fight through a dungeon, and get a lead on where in Arkham he should go next. Arkham is not that big; Batman will travel to a couple of dungeons twice.

The city itself is a dump, and various parts are just differing versions of decrepit city, from the decrepit industrial area to the decrepit shopping arcade. Once you get over seeing all the shout-outs to Batman it stops being that interesting. But travelling around is fun. Batman has a grappling hook that he can use to boost himself over buildings, and a gliding ability. So the player can make Batman shoot up the side of a building and use the momentum to glide over the city. And Batman can do that repeatedly, grappling from building to building.

In dungeons Batman goes through rooms, fights guards, gets a gadget, solves puzzles, and fights a boss. The puzzles use the new gadget Batman finds and are not difficult. Like in the overworld, the dungeon design is not notable except for the Batman shout-outs. The boss fights are fun because they force the player to use the combat mechanics and the gadgets in a creative way.

In Arkham and the dungeons, Batman will run into gangs of thugs without firearms, which he will have to fight. To fight, all the player has to do is mash the attack button to make Batman attack a thug multiple times. Batman will attack the nearest thug, but if they all back away then Batman will punch the air. The player aims the control stick at the enemy they want Batman to attack, and sometimes that works, except when it does not, and when the thugs have walked out of the camera’s eye.

Batman has a counter ability, which the player can use when an icon appears above the head of an enemy that is about to attack Batman. The player only has to press a single button, and Batman will stun an enemy. It works about half the time, instead of all the time, like it should.

Batman can also use gadgets he find in fights as well to stun enemies. They usually take a combination of button presses to activate. Some gadgets are easy to use when they only need a quick double-tap, but all of them are really clumsy to use in the middle of a fight when Batman is being attacked.

When Batman attacks multiple enemies quickly it racks up a combo bonus. When the bonus is high enough Batman can use special attacks that attack multiple enemies at once. Also, the higher the combo the more experience points the player get. The problem with the combo system is that it is dependent on the enemies always being near Batman for him to attack them quickly, which they are normally not.

Inside a dungeon, groups of thugs might have automatic weapon, which means Batman cannot attack them head on. Instead Batman has to hide around the room and pick off the guards one by one. These areas are far more interesting than the fights. Batman can take out enemies a number of ways; sneaking up behind people and strangling them, dropping down from a gargoyle and tying them up, hanging from a ledge and grabbing their leg. Except for the sneaking up behind one, every takedown makes noise and alerts other guards who converge on where Batman just was. On the one hand, that means Batman has to get out of there quickly, on the other hand it makes the guards break patrol, which is good, because otherwise you have to wait for the guards to walk towards where you are hiding, and that is incredibly tedious. The only serious problem is how well the guards can see Batman is inconsistent, sometimes they will see him swing around, and sometimes they will not. The only way to make sure the guard is completely isolated and everyone is facing away, and that is not fun to wait around for.

Besides the main story of going to different dungeons, Batman has a couple of side missions he can complete where he deals with more supervillains. Almost all the side missions are a variation of “Go to X, find Y.”, like Batman having to find X under a time limit, or not knowing where Y is. These are not that difficult, are creative enough to feel interesting, and provide some extra stories to enjoy.

One last thing the player can do is hunt down the hundreds of hidden Riddler trophies in Gotham. To collect the trophies the player has to use Batman’s gadgets or moves creatively. Besides trophies, there are riddles that hint at Batman characters, and things to destroy with batarangs like cameras and balloons. Finding them unlocks character models, challenge maps, concept art, and interviews between Strange and the other villains. Except for the interviews, none of the rewards are interesting, especially the challenge maps, which take all the tedium of the combat with no reward. There are also challenge maps for the sneaking parts, where Batman has to capture guards under a time limit, but doing them repeatedly turns the whole thing into a chore.

Combat and collecting Riddler trophies nets the player experience points; enough experience points level ups Batman. When Batman levels up, the player can make his armor stronger, get him additional gadgets, or unlock new combat moves.

The story is very problematic. Anyone who is not familiar with Batman will not be emotionally invested in the settings or characters. Early on Batman is poisoned by the Joker, and most of the game is spent going on errands in an effort to find a cure, which is not nearly as interesting as dealing with the new prison or Hugo Strange. The game spends its time building up Strange as a brilliant villain and Batman’s intellectual equal, and then wastes all that potential with a plot twist at the end. Furthermore, said plot twist makes Strange’s motivations for everything that happens during the game confusing and rather pointless.

Batman: Arkham City is a decent game with a fun exploration and stealth parts. But it is so flawed in almost all of its parts that it becomes a real disappointment to anyone who is not distracted by getting to play as Batman.

Review: Deadly Premonition

2011-12-19T16:31:00.000-05:00

Deadly Premonition is a sandbox with third-person shooter elements for the Xbox 360. It was developed by Access Games.

Francis York Morgan investigating a crime scene.

FBI Special Agent Francis York Morgan is sent to the small town of Greenvale to investigate a murder; a waitress named Anna was found murdered and tied to a tree out in the woods. Shortly after York’s arrival more murders occur, and a local legend dubbed the Raincoat Killer is blamed. York has to learn to the identity of the Raincoat Killer, and learn the dark secrets of Greenvale.

Deadly Premonition has three game play parts to it. The first part, the part that gets the plot moving along, is when York has to go to some pat of Greenvale to talk to someone of some other action that starts a cut-scene. This takes up most of the game time, but does not involve a lot of game playing. Mostly it involves York finding a police car and driving from one part of Greenvale to the other. While the plot is interesting, getting there is really boring once the player has gotten used to Greenvale. Thankfully York sometimes has conversations in the car, but unfortunately those eventually run out.

The second parts of the game are the combat areas. Sometimes when York investigates somewhere he is transported to a dark twisted version of that place, filled with attacking ghosts. The left shoulder buttons makes York aim, the right button fires, and the right control stick aims

These areas are pretty straightforward; they are mostly long sets of corridors with little deviation. Almost all the enemies are the same ghosts that slowly lumber towards York and attack him when they get close. Since they can take several shots before dying without flinching, the challenge is in finishing them off before they get too close.

They are also horribly tedious. The narrow hallways are forgetful, as are the enemies, which only provide a challenge when the player does not think. And there is no variety to the fighting either, just the same enemies and the same strategy. The combat areas could have been entirely removed and it would not have hurt the game, except for one boss fight near the end.

The third part is when York has to meet someone at a certain time, but not for several hours, leaving the player to find ways to fill in the hours by running around Greenvale. The game runs on a very slow day/night cycle, so the player has a lot of time. The biggest way to eat up time is the side-quests for the townsfolk. Almost all of these quests involve doing something minor, like going to some part of Greenvale to pick an object and bring it back, or do something like compete in a trivia challenge. Sometimes the rewards are nice, like weapons or new suits, but a lot of the time they are just useless collectable cards with the character’s face on them. And if the player runs out of things to do they can make time pass by quickly by making York smoke or sleep.

The most interesting thing about Deadly Premonition is its setting and characters. York is a somewhat unstable man who frequently talks to his invisible friend Zach, goes off on long tangents about movies he likes, and is incapable of understanding when not to talk about grisly murder investigations. Greenvale is populated with interesting character like the tough but authoritative sheriff, the creepy blond twins, the slutty art gallery director, or the eccentric wheelchair-bound millionaire and his rhyming assistant. The characters are cartoonish in nature, like characters from a not really serious mystery drama, or a soap opera. The biggest draw to driving around Greenvale and completing the game is learning more about them.

The story itself is a mixed bag. At first it feels cliché, but it never feels clichéd enough to not be interesting, just somewhat predictable. Then it starts to get really weird, which explains some of the plot and the back-story, but raises a ton more questions.

And then there are the millions of technical problems that should not exist in any game in 2010. Voices do not line up with mouth movements; characters go through the same recycled animations all the time; doors make the exact same creaking noise no matter what they are made of, characters smiling look inhuman; explosions pass through enemies without them noticing; and the grass looks painted on. The only nice thing that could be said is that plenty of detail was put into the town itself so it looks like a unique town and not some copy-and-pasted level. And Access is aware of these faults, which is why the game is only twenty dollars.

It is damn lucky that Deadly Premonition is cheap and has an interesting enough setting to get players to play through it until then end, because almost all of its other features are boring bordering on terrible. It is worth it though, to at least the story; and at least a lot of the filler can be skipped over.

Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: the Game

2011-12-05T16:52:00.000-05:00

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: the Game is a beat-‘em-up for the PlayStation 3 PlayStation Network and the Xbox 360 Xbox Live Arcade. It is based on the Scott Pilgrim comic book and movie. It was developed by Ubisoft Montreal.

Scott Pilgrim, Ramona Flowers, Kim Pine, and Stephen Stills, fighting one of Ramona's Evil Exes and two thugs.

Scott Pilgrim, his girlfriend Ramona Flowers, and his friends Stephen Stills and Kim Pine must defeat Ramona’s seven Evil-Exes so that he may date Ramona. That is the entire story.

Scott Pilgrim is seven levels long, each focused on a different Evil-Ex. Up to four players, controlling the four main characters, travel from left to right, beating up enemies until they reach the Ex at the end, who serves as that level’s boss. The game starts on an over world map, and levels are divided up into two section so players can go back and fight through specific parts of the level.

Characters have a light attack, a heavy attack, a jump and a block. Pressing the attack buttons and the control stick in certain directions will make the characters use stronger attacks.

Characters also have a health meter and a guts meter. Each character has two special stronger attacks, activated by the shoulder buttons, which use up the guts meter; also each character has an certain amount of strength (how strong attacks are), willpower (how large their guts meter is), defense, and speed.

The guts meter acts as another extra life. If you die and there is still some of the guts bar left, it brings you back to life.

Defeating opponents gets the character experience points. Any character that gets enough experience points levels up, which is supposed to increase their stats, but it never did in any noticeable way. Leveling up also unlocks new combo attacks for the player to use, which are unique for each character.

Dead bad guys drop money, which can be used to buy food and other items to regain health and increase stats. For some stupid reason the game does not say what the item does until after you have purchased it. Also, it says that you can take some food with you, but I did not see what taking the food with you accomplished. There was no button that let you eat the food and regain health.

If Scott Pilgrim has something going for it, it is that the developers tried very hard to make the levels exciting. Each level is unique and has its own obstacles and backgrounds that differentiate each other. Same with the enemies; there are a ton of enemies that have different attacks that require different ways to kill them.

Bosses are fun to fight too. Each Evil-Ex is difficult, but not impossible to defeat. They always have some sort of unique attack that is challenging to figure out and overcome.

The soundtrack is also very good. It is a mix of retro video game music and rock, and it works very well together. And each level has its own track.

There is no story except for an intro story. However, the ending changes based on who beats the last boss.

Graphics deliberately evoke old two dimensional side scrolling beat-‘em-ups, though the sprites for this game are far more detailed than older beat-‘em-ups, and the backgrounds look almost hand drawn. They help make the game more interesting to watch than boring static characters.

There are way too many problems with the fighting that make this game difficult; not difficult in a challenging way, but in a cheap frustrating way that should not have been a part of the game. Player characters cannot block when in the middle of the attack or when opponents successfully hit you. Meanwhile, enemies can block anything until they do not feel like it anymore. Enemies can wait off camera as long as they want; making you think the game has crashed. There are no health items found in any levels outside of shops, and no extra lives, so any time you start a level with anything besides the default three lives, you have to kill yourself to get the continue and start over.

If those problems were gone, it would still be a difficult game, because levels have tons of enemies that attack at the same time and it is difficult to anticipate everything. But that difficulty can be overcome with practice and feels rewarding to accomplish.

The leveling up process is also a problem, because of the aforementioned lack of noticeable improvement. So instead you have to go back and play old levels again and again to farm money, to buy food, to power up, so you can get through the last three levels.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: the Game is a cheap, frustrating, unrewarding game. It looks nice, and is somewhat more decent when several people are playing it, but Ubisoft should have spent a lot more time fixing the problems with the fighting mechanics before releasing it.

Review: Portal 2

2011-11-21T16:46:00.000-05:00

Portal 2 is a first person puzzle game for the PC, Mac, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. It was developed by the Valve Corporation.

An example of Chell using the portal gun's abilities to solve a laser puzzle.

Chell, the protagonist of the first Portal, wakes in the decayed ruins of Aperture Science. Chell tries to make her escape along with a humorous artificial intelligence named Wheatley, but accidentally restarts her old nemesis, the psychotic AI GLaDOS, who promptly throws her into the bowels of Aperture with Chell’s old portal gun so she can perform pointless and deadly rests for GLaDOS’ amusement. Chell and Wheatley have to escape Aperture and GLaDOS again, using only the portal gun.

Chell has to go through four different types of testing to complete the game. All the puzzles use Chell’s portal gun in some way. The portal gun can create two connected portals on any human-sized white surface and transport anything between them instantaneously. This means Chell can move herself to the other side of a deep gorge, or up on a ledge as long as she shoots a portal up there.

Usually the exit of the testing chamber is in an area where portals cannot be placed, or has to be opened by placing a cube on a button that’s in an area where portals cannot be placed. To get around this the player has do something like place a portal in a bit and another high up, jump off a cliff, and use the momentum to shoot Chell through the portal and out the other side.

Those are what the first set of tests is like, and they are all pretty easy and unmemorable. The second type involves using portals to redirect lasers so they hit targets. These are the hardest puzzles, a aiming the lasers can get difficult.

The third set of puzzles use gels that Chell has to plaster the walls with using the gel dispensers and the portals. There are three gels, a bouncing gel, and super speed gel, and a gel that supports portals. These are the most enjoyable puzzles, since the solutions are the most creative and messing around with the gels is fun.

The last set of puzzles by tractor beams. They are not really interesting, and since they are near the end of the game it is hard to care about them.

What is nice about the puzzles is that they can be somewhat difficult at times, but they never feel cheap. All the different tricks the portal gun and other tools Chell has at her disposal are explained to the player or are demonstrated with a simple puzzle. There is never an impossible idea the player just barely pulls off that only the developers who had been building the game and seen it from all angles would consider. However, most of the puzzles are not that hard to figure out, and it usually takes a couple of tries and some patience to beat them.

There is also the problem of how unsatisfying actually completing the puzzles feel. Since they all take place in test chambers that just keep going on with the only goal being to get to the next one, it does not feel impressive to solve them. There are only two times when Chell goes behind the scenes at Aperture and uses her portals to mess with stuff, and those are the most enjoyable puzzles, or at least the most memorable, even though they are not difficult.

Portal 2’s story is interesting, if a bit parse among all the test chambers. It also has the problem of raising more questions whenever it answers one. GLaDOS carries most of the story and is a very developed character, but half of it is spent making petty insults at Chell. The best part is the voice of Cave Johnson, the founder of Aperture Science whose voice is heard during the gel puzzles. Hearing his insane ideas for scientific experiments and casual disregard for others is hilarious. Wheatley is okay as a bumbling counterpart to GLaDOS.

There is also a co-op mode where two people use two portal guns and all the different tools to complete challenges as two robots that GLaDOS is directing. These are amusing puzzles that are not too difficult to complete for two people who have played the game. Even GLaDOS is more amusing. The problem is finding another person who has either not played through the co-op mode, which the chances decrease with each passing second, or someone who is willing to play through it again, which given its linearity is really hard to find.

Portal 2 is a fun game, even if it has flaws. Anyone who wants a nice puzzle game with some humore should be satisfied with it.

Review: Super Mario Galaxy 2

2011-11-07T17:22:00.000-05:00

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a platform game for the Nintendo Wii. It was developed by Nintendo.

Mario and Yoshi climbing up a tower. Note how the level curves slightly because it is a small planet.

King Bowser has stolen the power stars from a spaceship with the hopes of using their power to build a new galactic empire. He has also kidnapped Princess Peach again. Mario must travel the universe with what remains of the spaceship’s power, collect the power stars, and rescue Princess Peach.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is six worlds long, with seven levels per world, and two or three power stars a level. Individual levels are made up of several planetoids that Mario travels across, avoiding traps until he reaches the power star at the end.

That is the how Mario gets the first power star. The second power star, if there is one in the level, is hidden somewhere on the way to the first star. Sometimes the star is on a divergent path; other times Mario has to beat a mini-game, like destroying a bunch of the boxes in a limited time, to win the star.

Hidden in every level is a comet medal. Finding the medal unlocks a third star for the level. To get the third star Mario has to complete whatever he did to get one of the first two stars but with an extra challenge; racing against a time limit, or with only one piece of health instead of three.

Prankster comet stars are the least fun to get. While the first two kinds are fun to reach because you explore the levels and overcome reasonable challenges, the prankster comets cross the line into unpleasant challenge, especially the ones that are on a time limit. And they feel like a way of artificially extending the length of the game. I would have preferred bigger levels with new stars instead of going through the same levels again with less fun. Actually, the first Super Mario Galaxy had the same problem. If it were up to me I would have had the two games combined into one of reasonable length instead of two short games with padding.

Mario can jump, double jump, triple jump, and wall jump. Mario also has a spin attack, activated by flicking the controller, which can also act as a jump. Enemies are killed either by jumping on them, or spin attacking them if they cannot be jumped on.

Mario can collect two things: coins and start bits. Mario walks up to coins to collect them, but the player can collect star bits by pointing the Wii remote at the screen. Coins do nothing except give Mario extra lives, but star bits are needed to unlock the way to the second star, and for opening up new levels.

Some levels Mario can find his dinosaur friend Yoshi to ride. Also in some levels Mario finds suit that give him extra abilities. Yoshi can levitate, run on water, and turn into a light source if he ingests certain types of fruits, and the costume powers are creating clouds to make extra platforms, jump really high, shoot fireballs, and fly like a bee for a limited time. They mix up the gameplay a little bit, but none of them are any more fun than running around as regular Mario.

As a linear platformer, all of Super Mario Galaxy 2’s challenge is dodging enemy attacks and obstacles like moving platforms, usually at the same time. The fun of the game comes in the sense of accomplishment from getting through these obstacle courses. And for the most part the challenge is fair; the challenge curve is difficult but not frustrating. However, the game at times creates an unfair difficulty by positioning the camera at an uncomfortable angle making the jumps harder. This becomes especially difficult with planets that are so small that you can see the planet’s circumference, and Mario has to jump around them instead of jumping in a straight line.

Despite the cheapness of some levels, most of them are fun. They are not for the most part difficult, and running through the majority of them is rewarding. The levels start of easy and get reasonably more difficult.

The story is weak, even for a Mario game. Every time Mario reaches Bowser, Bowser boasts about some plan he has, but we never get to see it. Otherwise there is no story to speak of. The only new character is the spaceship’s original owner Lubba, who is an annoying guy who makes bad jokes. There is also a tiny sentient star that gives Mario his spin ability, but it is a baby and does not talk.

The level design is a letdown. The levels are based around running around tiny planets, and that is shown of with Mario running around them and them having their own levels in gravity. But the planets themselves are not interesting. Most of them are grass or dirt based, or machinery. There are a few somewhat better ones, like the ice level, or the lava level, or the ice and lava level, but nothing really creative. And they are such small planets, they feel more like Nintendo had a bunch of half formed level ideas and strung them together.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a solid if unoriginal platform game that will entertain fans of that genre. The difficulty can get unpleasant, but overall the game is more fun than annoying.

Review: Dead Rising 2

2011-10-31T17:13:00.000-04:00

Dead Rising 2 is a sandbox game for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. It was developed by Capcom and Blue Castle Games.

Chuck Greene fighting through a crowd of zombies. The right side shows what mission the arrow at the top is pointing Chuck towards, and the bar under it shows how much time Chuck has to complete it.

In a world where zombies exist, Chuck Greene is a participant in a zombie killing game show “Terror is Reality”, broadcast from Fortune City, so he can afford medicine for his daughter Katey. After Chuck’s latest appearance on the show, the “Terror is Reality’s” cache of zombies is released and overruns the Fortune City, trapping Chuck, Katey, and several other survivors within the city. Chuck, who has been framed for the zombie outbreak, has to find evidence to prove his innocent, rescue as many survivors as possible, and find medicine for Katey so she does not turn into a zombie before the military arrives in three days.

Fortune City is a combination of a large shopping mall mixed with Las Vegas style casinos. From his safe house in the northwest corner of Fortune City, Chuck has to venture out and rescue people spotted by Stacey, who is manning the security cameras, or investigate places that have evidence to clear his name. But Fortune City is packed with zombies, so Chuck has to fight through them using any objects he can get his hands on.

A big draw of the game is that Chuck can use anything that is not nailed down to kill zombies. Food trays from the cafeteria, golf clubs from the sports store, computer monitors, giant teddy bears, lead pipes, park benches, CDs, the game has a ton of ranged and melee weapons Chuck can weaponize. Chuck can initially hold up to four items in his inventory, but his inventory space increases as the game progresses.

For the zombies, their strength lies in numbers. There are usually hundreds on screen, but only the ones near Chuck will attack him. Individual zombies are easy to kill; even groups are not that difficult to deal with. The only real danger is getting impatient with picking the zombies off safely and trying to wade through the crowds. At that point a zombie will probably grab Chuck, but whether or not a zombie actually does is a matter of chance. Sometimes Chuck can run through without a problem, sometimes he will be attacked repeatedly, but the chances of him getting attack go up the longer he is in a crowd.

Another big selling point is that Chuck can combine certain items together to create stronger weapons. Chuck gets combo cards that tell the player which items Chuck needs to collect. Then Chuck can bring those two items to a workbench and combine them to create a combo weapon. Combo weapons are stronger, or just kill zombies in ludicrously violent ways. Two combo weapons that are available early on are a bat with a bunch of nails in it, and a bucket with a bunch of drills in it. The bat is useful for taking out a bunch of enemies at once; the bucket only takes out one, but is entertaining to watch Chuck put one on a zombie’s head.

The bulk of the game is spent going after the people Stacey spots on her cameras. There are two kinds of people for Chuck to find: survivors who need to be brought back to the safe house, and psychopaths who need to be killed. The player normally does not know which one it is going to be until Chuck gets there.

For the survivors Chuck needs to rescue, normally Chuck just has to talk to them to get them to follow Chuck back to the safe house. Most of the survivors are unarmed, but Chuck can give them a weapon to defend themselves. The artificial intelligence for the survivors is decent; they can fend off most zombies with little problems and can follow Chuck closely. Survivors can get annoying though when they want something from Chuck before they will move, like money, or an item.

While the player can technically avoid saving people and focus only on the main missions, it is not advisable to do since, because rescuing people nets Prestige Points. When Chuck gets enough Prestige Points he will level up. Leveling up benefits Chuck in a number of ways, it increases his life, makes him faster, stronger, and lets him carry more items.

For the psychopaths, they have tons of health and powerful attacks that can quickly destroy Chuck. Killing psychopaths also earn the player Prestige Points.

Fighting psychopaths is a pain. Most of them have way too much health, move too fast, and do not react to Chuck attacking them. So while the player is trying to whittle down the psychopath’s health, the psychopaths are tossing Chuck around and being generally unstoppable. A few of the can be stunned by certain weapons, but there’s no indication as to what works on them.

Main missions tend to involve Chuck going to someplace and then fighting stronger enemies and maybe a psychopath. They are not much different from regular missions, except that they happen at specific times.

A special type of main mission is finding medicine for Katey and delivering it to her every morning. The medicine, Zombrex, is hard to find, but not too hard. Some of the survivors carry it, and it can be bought at a couple of stores.

The military will arrive in three days, so the player is on a strict time limit. While three days is plenty of time to get the name-clearing missions done, it is not enough time to do that and rescue or kill all the people Stacey finds. All the missions have a strict time limit to complete, and if the player does not complete a main mission they have to reload or restart the game.

If Dead Rising 2 has one problem, it is that the developers tried really hard to make the game inconvenient and not allow the players to enjoy the setting. The time limit is strict, and does not allow the player to explore and mess around in Fortune City. And with the only entrance to the safehouse being in the northwest corner, by the end of the game the player will have only seen at most half of the city. The survivors and psychopaths are found all over Fortune City, but thanks to the time limit the player will want to get in and out quickly without seeing anything.

The combo weapon system has problems too. A lot of the weapons really are impractical, no matter how cool they are. And a lot of the parts needed for items are in out of the way places, as are the workbenches. That, plus the limited space and Chuck’s inventory makes it really not worth the time to find items needed for combo weapons.

The player saves by going to the bathrooms around the city. There are not enough bathrooms to be convenient, leading to more precious being wasted.

The storyline and characters are not bad, but they are not great. Chuck cool if a bit two dimensional. The rest of the cast are not outstanding except for a couple of the psychopaths Chuck meets who are cartoonish, and the main villains, whose dickishness and extreme dislike of Chuck are almost laughable. The story has shades of anti-Americanism in it, but not the point of getting annoying.

Dead Rising 2 also comes with a series of mini-games that player can play online with three other people. The player competes in four mini-games that award points for how well the player does. There are games like running over zombies with a Zamboni and shooting their blood into a giant zombie mask, or running down zombies with a motorcycle. The player gets money based on how well they do, which can then be spent on weapons in game. The mini-games are fun, and anyone can pick them up and master them, so the playing field cannot be dominated by someone who has been playing them too much.

Dead Rising 2 is a solid premise, but has several faults that keep it from full taking advantage of its own potential. People playing it will have fun, but will be disappointed that they cannot do more.

Review: Alan Wake

2011-10-24T19:36:00.000-04:00

Alan Wake is an action-adventure game for the Xbox 360. It was developed by Remedy Entertainment.

Alan Wake exploring an abandoned gas station. The red semi circle is his health; the yellow circle indicates what direction to head; and a completely white flashlight mean it's at full power.

Frustrated bestselling author Alan Wake has travelled to the small Washington town of Bright Falls to cure his writers block. While checking out the lakeside cabin they are staying at, Alan’s wife Alice is dragged into the lake by an unseen force, and Alan dives in after her. A week later, Alan wakes up in car with no memory of what happened, a manuscript detailing events that are going to happen to him, and a bunch of possessed townsfolk trying to kill him. Alan has to find out where his wife went, how he got his hands on the manuscript, what happened during the lost week.

The main gimmick of Alan Wake is that the game takes place at night and all the enemies are townsfolk possessed by shadows that can only be hurt by light. Alan has to use his flashlight to weaken enemies first and then shoot them when they are weak enough. Until then he has to dodge the townsfolk’s attacks, either running up and hitting him with farm equipment, or throwing knives from a distance. The shadow’s defense is represented by a reticule that shrinks the longer Alan shines a flashlight on it, until the shadow briefly flashes and staggers. Just pointing the flashlight in an enemies’ direction weakens them a little, but to make a noticeable dent in Alan has to focus the flashlight, which drains its batteries quickly.

Alan only has a couple of ways to defend himself. Stunning enemies with the flashlight and shooting them before they can reach Alan is the primary way, but the player can also make Alan dodge to the left or right by pressing a shoulder button and pushing the control stick in one direction quickly. It is useful, but sometimes Alan does not move far enough out of the way, or the camera angle makes it hard to figure out which direction to dodge.

Alan normally starts a level with no equipment but usually finds a flashlight and pistol quickly. Later on Alan will find a rifle or shotgun, which are stronger but take longer to reload and have less ammo. Alan can also find flares which scare enemies, and flashbang grenades, which destroy them instantly.

Combat is not that difficult on normal difficulty. It is easy to keep a few enemies at bay, especially with the number of batteries and, grenades, and flares lying around. It gets harder in the last couple of levels when Alan is attacked by several larger townsfolk at once, but thanks to Alan’s regenerating health it is still not difficult, though it challenging enough to be fun.

A bigger problem is that there is not a lot of variety in the enemies. There are the townsfolk who make up most of the challenge, the occasional huge guy with a big weapon that is harder to take down. And then there are possessed items, large objects that start flying around and throwing themselves at the Alan and can only be destroyed with the flashlight.

The game is six levels long. Each levels starts in the daytime, where Alan talks to people and moves the plot along. Then through some contrived manner Alan gets stuck wherever he is until it is dark out, and is stuck travelling through the woods surrounding Bright Falls to some other destination.

The first three levels have a pretty boring design. Most of them take place in the fog-filled woods around Bright Falls. The level designers obviously did not just copy and paste the same area over and over; it is just that forest is not that interesting. Running into the few decaying cabins and other building scattered about always feels like a godsend, because something might feel different in the fights. It gets better in the last three levels when Alan goes through more civilized areas.

There is a ton of crap for Alan to collect to make running through the levels more interesting. There are thermoses of coffee to collect and stacked tin cans to shoot, but neither of those do anything interesting; there are stashes of weapons found off the main trail that can be found by spotting hidden spray painted markers; there are radios and TVs Alan can turn on, the radios play a radio show that gives commentary on what is going from the perspective of the townsfolk, and the TV shows a show like The Twilight Show program; and lastly there are pages of the manuscript that details what is going on and what is about to happen.

The graphics and design are a mixed bag. On one hand the character models look terrible, lip-synching is off, and faces look ghoulish. But the levels themselves look nice, forest look real thick and varied, and Bright Falls looks like an actual town and not a bunch of similar looking buildings. It is particularly impressive to climb up a mountain in one level, and look back and see all the landmarks Alan has passed through on the way there.

The story is probably the most interesting part of the game. It deals a lot with stories coming to life and characters aware that they are in a story and acting accordingly. It also one of those “ancient formless evil that messes with people” stories that HP Lovecraft and Stephen King are fond of. Alan Wake is an unlikable jerk, explained as frustrated from writer’s block but does not make him any more enjoyable to listen to. He gets less annoying when things start to get really weird and he has no time to act like a jerk.

Alan Wake is a fun game though with a few problems that would make one want to only play it sparingly once you know the story. The gameplay is solid, though simple at times, and the setting is oaky; definitely good for a rental or buying used.

Review: Mass Effect 2

2011-10-17T16:23:00.000-04:00

A Note: I only played through this game once, which took 30 hours. To cover every type of gender, character type, and morality style, I would have had to play the game at least three times. This review is my experience playing a Male Soldier Shepard who mostly makes good decisions.

Mass Effect 2 is an action RPG/third-person shooter for the PlayStation 3, PC, and Xbox 360. It was developed by Bioware.

Commander Shepard shooting a large mech. The bottom icon shows how much shield Shepard and his/her crewmates have; the top icon is the enemy health bar; and the bottom left shows what weapon Shepard is using and how much ammo it has.

Two years after the events of Mass Effect, Alliance hero Commander Shepard has been killed and resurrected by the morally dubious organization Cerberus. With Cerberus’ backing, Shepard is tasked with finding out why the mysterious alien race known as the Collectors are abducting human colonies around the galaxy. Shepard has to put together a crew that can find out the connection between the Collectors and the galaxy-threatening race known as the Reapers, and stop them.

Mass Effect 2 focuses on Shepard and to build a crew for his/her spaceship, the Normandy, and completing missions. The main complicated missions are about recruiting new crewmembers, with about three focusing on dealing with the Collectors. There are also plenty of side missions that Shepard can complete for experience and money.

Missions come in two parts. In the first part, Shepard and two crewmates travel to a planet and walk around, talking to people until someone can point them in the direction of the second part. This part is really dialogue heavily. Areas can have many people with conversations that several minutes long and cover both the current mission and lots of back story about the area and people.

Mass Effect 2 uses a morality system in its dialogue. When Shepard is talking to someone he or she will have several choices in dialogue options, either finding out more non-essential information or making the mission move forward. The game considers most dialogue good or evil, or “Paragon” or “Renegade” as the game puts it; when the player chooses a good or evil dialogue option, the game gives the player good or evil points that fill up a bar. Filling up either bar unlocks more dialogue options that sometimes makes completing the mission easier or have a better reward. It also opens up additional actions Shepard can do during cut scenes; for example, if the player has accumulated enough Renegade points, Shepard regularly has the option of shooting or punching someone who is talking too much.

The writers for Mass Effect 2 did a really good job. The conversations are always informative and really flesh out the universe; they are easily the best part of the game. Characters actually talk like real people and do not come off as tools the developers use to move the game forward. Dialogue is presented as simple when the player has to choose what to say, but what Shepard says is more complicated.

Speaking of the writing, the Mass Effect universe is one of the most thought out sc-fi universes ever created. All the aliens have complex, interesting, well thought out civilizations and histories. Their histories and interactions with each other are similarly complex, and it is fun to see how they are weaved effectively into game. The massive backstory is found on the ingame encyclopedia, which can take a couple of hours to read, but it is totally worth it to feel more a part of the game and see why different characters act the way they do towards each other. Anyone who does not like science fiction will not find the story interesting, but they should not be playing this game anyway.

The main story with the Collectors is pretty short; it only lasts about three missions which are a couple hours total. Most of the game is padded out with recruiting crew members by fixing whatever personal problems they are dealing with. The crewmate’s stories come off as trivial compared to the galaxy wide threat the Collectors present, but the characters are so interesting that it is easy to ignore.

The morality system is a double-edged sword. It is nice that the player has multiple ways of dealing with a situation and that being good or evil has different outcomes. But it is not fair that the player can only access certain dialogue if they are good or evil enough. There is no benefit from restricting the player like that. More importantly, Bioware is not the end all authority for what is right and wrong. I personally disagreed several times with what Bioware designated the “evil” choice and do not like being penalized for not agreeing with them.

In the other, smaller part of the game, Shepard and two crewmates go to travel to someplace and shoot up the place. These parts play like a regular third-person shooter; one button aims, the other button shoots, and another reloads. Pressing a different button makes Shepard take cover behind an object, and then pressing the aim button makes Shepard peak out behind the object. Shepard and his/her crewmates also have special powers like special ammo that damages shields. These powers are leveled up with experience Shepard and co. gain from completing missions. Shepard has five types of weapons he/she can use, which all use the same ammo found lying around. Shepard has a regenerating shield and health bar.

Combat areas are not bad, but they are not particularly memorable either. It can get difficult sometimes when there are lots of enemies, but it is way too easy to just duck behind something and wait for the shields to regenerate. Having a variety of weapons is nice, but there is no reason to switch between them unless one runs out of ammo, or the enemies are too close to use the sniper rifle, which is not often. The special powers Shepard and crew have to do not help that much in a fight, nor do the crewmates themselves, who at best are useful for distracting the enemies. The enemies themselves may differ in their appearance (humans, aliens, robots), but they all play the same, except for the occasional giant mech. And, except for the levels involving the Controllers, most of the levels have a similar chrome-and-boxes-everywhere look, whether it is on a spaceship, or a prison, or an apartment; the only difference being how derelict the place looks. Still, even with all this flaws it is fun to pick off enemies while they try to gun down Shepard, like a shooting gallery, it is just a flawed system.

Big missions contain both parts. Shepard will walk around until he/she talks to the right person who tells them where the fight is. Shepard then goes to that area and fights. Some missions only have the second fighting part, but no missions have only talking.

During missions Shepard can find weapon upgrades and money to buy weapon upgrades. Missions can only be played through once, which is a pain since it is possible to miss upgrades and money is in limited supply.

The game has several small technical problems as well. There are several long loading times; character models look stiff, and faces can look unsettling; the written text has a tiny hard to read font; and sometimes the game glitches, like Shepard getting stuck in one area.

Mass Effect 2 is not a great game. The combat is average; the morality system is limiting; missions can only be played once; and the graphics have problems. But the world and the characters are so cool and immersive that it is impossible to care. It is a joy just to walk around and talk to everyone in this game that many of its problems are easily ignored, at least for the first playthrough.

Review: God of War III

2011-10-10T18:47:00.000-04:00

God of War III is an action game for the PlayStation 3. It was developed by Santa Monica Studios.

Kratos finishing off a bunch of skeletons with his Blades of Exile. The green bar is his life; the blue his magic bar; and the yellow his item bar. The circle shows what weapons he currently is equipped with.

Picking up right where God of War II left off, Spartan killing machine Kratos has had enough of Zeus and the rest of the Greek Pantheon making his life a living Hell and is storming Mount Olympus with the Titans. But Kratos soon learns that to kill Zeus he has to dispel the Flame of Olympus and open Pandora’s Box, and to do that he must first find Pandora somewhere in Mount Olympus.

God of War III is a combat-oriented game. Kratos travels along a linear path, fighting Greek monsters along the way, or getting trapped in an area and not allowed to proceed until he kills everything around him.

Kratos has a light attack, and heavy attack, a grab, can dodge, and can block; stringing these attacks together makes Kratos use more effective combo attacks. There does not need to be many combos, since most enemies do not block it is easy to button mash. But it is nice because it gives the feeling that the player is allowed to be creative when they are fighting. The only strategic moves are the dodge and block, which work instantly and block most attacks.

There are two types of enemies: the cannon fodder that Kratos kills by the dozens effortlessly, and the big monsters. Like miniature boss fights, big monsters have to be worn down while Kratos dodge’s their attacks. When their health reaches a certain level the player can perform a quick time event to finish them off. Most of these are basic Simon Says events; press the correct sequences of buttons or twirl the control stick to finish them off. It is lame, but Kratos’ attacks are so amazingly brutal and fun to watch that inputting a series of timed button presses is forgivable.

The culmination of this setup, and the best part of the game, are the boss fights. Santa Monica really put some effort into making it feel like you are taking down a god. Like when fighting the big monsters Kratos has a lot of room to move around in and plenty of attacks, so fighting the gods never feel repetitive. And they always culminate in epic quick time events where Kratos, in a creative fashion, utterly destroys his opponent. Even though the player is not doing anything directly, it still feels like an accomplishment to see Kratos take down someone like Poseidon, or Cronos.

When Kratos kills a god he gets an item. A few are tools that help him solve puzzles, and the others are additional weapons. The tools are useful, but the weapons do not differ much from Kratos’ first weapon: two knives attached to his arms with long chains that can attack things up close and from a distance.

Each item comes with its own magic attack, an extra powerful attack that drains a magic meter, so it can only be used a couple of times. Items also have their own meter, but that refills automatically.

Every time Kratos’ kills an enemy it drop red orbs. The player uses the orbs to upgrade their weapons, making them stronger or unlocking more combos for Kratos to use. Red orbs can also be found in hidden treasure chests, along with orbs that replenish Kratos’ health and magic. Kratos also occasionally finds items that increase his various meters.

There is one serious problem with the game play: Kratos’ double-jump ability. For some reason the game only sometimes recognizes when the player presses the jump button a second time. And the player cannot do it quickly, you have to lift your thumb all the way off the button and press it down again, a problem when you need to quickly get across. I died more times trying to jump across something than I did in any fights. Thankfully jumping over pits is not a huge part of the game, and Kratos has unlimited lives, though it is a pain going through all the loading screens again.

The story is flawed; the writers should have just stuck with Kratos picking off the gods one by one. Instead they added this plot about needing Pandora’s Box to kill Zeus which does not fit really well with the mythology of the game, especially with needing Pandora to actually open it. The game explains why near the end, but it feels like the writers were trying to shoehorn new story into their current game and it does not fit well. And then there is this part at the end that tries to explain the god’s behavior that reads like it is trying to make Kratos’ actions seem less psychotic, and it does not work either compared to all the people Kratos has killed over the course of the series.

The level design is interesting in that it feels like one long level that is only broken up by cut scenes. Given that the game is supposed to take place in the home of the gods, something more abstract or ostentatious than caves and basic Greek palaces would have been nice. It does not stop Mount Olympus from looking great though.

God of War III is a fun, mindless and violent game. It only stumbles in the story and jumping, and those are not necessary to enjoy its combat, which is the best part.

Review: Super Meat Boy

2011-10-03T17:01:00.000-04:00

Super Meat Boy is a 2D platform game for the Xbox 360 and PC on Steam. It was developed by Team Meat.

One of Super Meat Boy's easier levels. Note the lava and buzzsaws, they are everywhere.

Meat Boy, a boy made out of meat, is in love with Bandage Girl, a girl made out of bandages. But Dr. Fetus, a fetus in a bipedal robot in a suit, hates Meat Boy and kidnaps Bandage Girl to spite him. Meat Boy goes off to rescue Bandage Girl.

Super Meat Boy takes place over five worlds of twenty levels. In each level Meat Boy has to rescue Bandage Girl, though when he reaches her Dr. Fetus will take her to the next level. In theory levels only take a couple of seconds to complete, though later levels can take up to a minute to complete.

“In theory”, because levels are incredibly difficult. Levels are covered in piles of salt, bottomless pits, spikes, and especially buzz saws. Meat Boy can run and jump really far and fast, and wall jump and the player can control Meat Boy’s direction when he falls. It is a good thing Meat Boy can do that, because each level is a test in how précis the player can make jumps. Levels start off easy enough, doing things like jumping over a row of buzz saws, or wall jumping between two collapsing walls. But eventually the levels turn into challenging things like falling down a spike-lined pit to try and reach a spot on the wall that is not covered in spikes, to jump over a large lava pit while dodging laser-guided missiles. And Meat Boy does not have a health bar; one hit on anything makes him explode.

Team Meat knows they made a difficult and tried to alleviate the frustration a bit. The short levels keep the player from having to trek back to whatever killed them the first time, and whenever Meat Boy dies he regenerates at the beginning of the level in less than a second. This means the player can play the level over and over again without thinking.

There are several additional levels in addition to the main ones. Completing a level unlocks its Dark World version, which is a harder version. Some levels have hidden warp-zones that take Meat Boy to levels that look like old video games. And each world has a Minus World level that can only be accessed when the player completes that world. All of these are harder than normal levels.

Each level also has a par time that the player can try to complete the level under. Doing so accomplishes nothing, but beating the levels is so quick, and the times always look reachable, so the player is tempted to complete them all.

Each world ends with a boss fight. These are challenging, but after the levels they usually feel like a breather.

There are twenty bandages hidden in each world. Collecting bandages unlocks hidden characters that have special powers that make it easier to get through the levels, like a double jump or the ability to float. These characters are based on main characters from other games, like The Kid from I Wanna Be the Guy, or Jill from Mighty Jill Off. Collecting the bandages can be annoying, because while some are merely difficult to reach, others are deliberately hidden, which is annoying.

The game is 2D, but it does not look like an old Super Nintendo game. Character do not look pixilated, they look like cartoons. And the levels are really detailed, with birds flying around, and sunlight going through cracks, and changing times of day. The levels do get les varied in design the more bleak they get, but that’s it.

There is no story beyond Dr. Fetus taking Bandage Girl to another place that Meat Boy has to rescue her from. But those scenes are animated, as well as whenever Dr. Fetus summons a boss. They are always funny, in a darkly comedic way.

Super Meat Boy walks a fine line between being difficult in a fair way and being difficult in an unfair, cheap way. The levels start off easy and gradually get harder. Eventually it starts to feel like completing the levels is less about skill and more about luck, Or even worse, slowly drilling the levels repeatedly until you can do all the jumps without thinking about them. And that is not fun, that is memorization. The levels that exemplify winning based on luck are the ones where the obstacles are not on a fixed path or affect the way Meat Boy controls, like the levels with the laser-guided missiles, or the ones where the player has to maneuver Meat Boy over ant-gravity generators. And a lot of those appear in the later levels.

At the same time though, a lot of difficulty is self-inflicted. The player does not have to collect the bandages, or find the warp-zones, or beat the par times.

Super Meat Boy is for anyone who wants a fun challenge. But anyone who obsesses over finishing everything might want to look elsewhere, or else they will eventually resent the game.

Review: Okamiden

2011-09-26T16:54:00.000-04:00

Okamiden is an action-adventure game for the Nintendo DS. It was developed by Capcom. It is the sequel to Okami.

Chibiterasu and his current partner Kagu rnning through Yakushi Village, and the map on the bottom screen.

Nine months after the events Okami, Nippon is once again invaded by demons. Chibiterasu, son of the sun goddess Amaterasu, is summoned to destroy the new threat alongside the adopted son of the hero Susano, Kuni, and various other teammates.

Chibi travels to different parts of Nippon fighting large small demons and their demonic bosses. The game is not divided by levels, but areas of Nippon, which makes it feel like one giant place. There are villages full of people and not enemies; over-world levels between villages and dungeon areas, which can have enemies, hidden treasures, and people; and dungeons, which is mostly enemies, puzzles and boss fights.

Like his mother, Chibi can use the Celestial Paintbrush. The paintbrush allows Chibi and the player to pull off magic spells to overcome obstacles and fight monsters. The player can stop the game at any time and draw on the screen with the stylus; drawing certain symbols causes things to happen. For example: drawing a horizontal line across the screen can slash enemies and cuts boulders in half, and drawing a lop-the-loop makes wind blow and knock flying enemies out of the air. Chibi learns new spells by finding statues of gods around Nippon and tracing the constellation in the sky. Chibi has a limited supply of ink, which gets depleted whenever the player uses the brush. The player can refill Chibi’s ink reserves, as well as his health, with items bought at a store or found in the field.

Puzzles in this game are really simple. Most of them involve using a brush technique once or twice to get by an obstacle. Others involve guiding Chibi’s current companion to a button or treasure chest while fighting off demons with brush techniques.

Using the brush techniques is interesting. Not “Wow I have to play this every minute because it is so much fun interesting”, but “That’s a neat way to use the DS’ features” interesting. Nothing specific is memorable, just the concept is general.

Combat occurs when Chibi runs into an enemy on the field, which transports them to an arena. Basic attack is using whatever weapon Chibi has equipped by mashing the Y button; Chibi starts off with a bladed disc and finds two other weapons later. However, a lot of enemies are protected from that basic attack but are susceptible to certain brush techniques. The player can either wait for the enemy to become vulnerable, or use whatever technique works on the enemy to stun them, and then whack them until their life bar depletes. The player is then awarded yen for how quickly the fight took, how many times Chibi was hit, and how often the player used Chibi’s partner, who attacks after the player has pressed Y enough times.

Combat is not very good. It takes forever to wear down the enemies’ health bar even when using brush techniques, and to get in and out of the arena. Then yen reward is not worth it since so many items are found in the field anyway it makes the shops almost worthless except for the last boss. Eventually it is just easier to avoid running into enemies on the field.

Chibi increases the amount of health and ink reserve he has by completing sidequests. These are always boring fetch quests.

The design of the game deliberately looks like ancient Japanese brush art; It is a stylized but impressive look. The DS is able to make the design look good, but sometimes characters look pointy.

There is little story here. Chibi just gets dragged from one problem to the next. His interactions with his partners are more interesting than the story. It is not until the last third of the game that the story picks up, when the fate of Nippon is on the line and Chibi’s companions start interacting with one another. It would have been nice if the plot had started at the last third and Chibi met his companions along the way, or something like that. And the plot is not going to make any sense to anyone who has not played Okami. But the ending is very memorable in a good way.

Anyone who has played Okami will recognize that Chibi goes through several of the same areas as his mother did. That is disappointing, and tedious.

Also, the player cannot save anywhere. There is no good reason the developers could not have done that.

Okamiden is a major letdown as a follow up to Okami. After the novelty of the Celestial Brush wears off the only interesting thing is the story. This should be avoided except for diehard Okami fans, who will at least enjoy seeing familiar characters again.

Review: Kirby's Epic Yarn

2011-09-19T16:02:00.000-04:00

Kirby’s Epic Yarn is a platform game for the Nintendo Wii. It was developed by HAL Laboratories.

Everything in Epic Yarn is made to look like it was sewn together.

One day in Dreamland Kirby is turned into yarn and thrown in Patch Land by the evil yarn sorcerer Yin-Yarn. In Patch Land Kirby learns from its ruler Prince Fluff that Yin-Yarn has stolen the magic yarn that holds Patch Land together. Kirby and Fluff have to recover the missing magic yarn and put patch land together, then stop Yin-Yarn before he turns all of Dreamland into yarn.

Kirby, and if there is a second player Prince Fluff, travel through seven different areas in Patch Land, each made up of six levels and one boss fight. In each level Kirby has to avoid enemies and obstacles and ring a bell at the end of the level. There are colored beads Kirby and Prince Fluff can find each level.

Kirby has a piece of string that he uses like a whip to either unravel enemies or roll them up into balls and throw them at blocks. Combat is really easy; Kirby’s whip works on most enemies except for the ones that are bigger than Kirby, and they do not have any defense.

A big point of the game, perhaps the biggest part of the game, is an apartment Kirby gets at the beginning of the game that the player can decorate. Furniture and wallpaper/carpeting are mainly bought at the store with the beads found in the levels. There are over a hundred different types of furniture the player can buy, from sofas to beds to clock to thrones to rugs to dolls to food. There are also hundreds of different patterns the player can buy to decorate the walls and floor of the apartment, as well as reupholster all the furniture.

There is a string along the top of the screen that fills up with beads when the player collects beads. Collecting enough beads awards the player a medal; the more beads collected the higher the medal. Collecting these medals accomplishes nothing.

There are also two pieces of furniture and one piece of music hidden in each level as well. The player can listen to the music when not in a level.

Other tenants move into Kirby’s apartment complex when the player puts certain furniture into the apartments. These tenants play games with Kirby in levels the player has already completed. They are: hide-and-seek, collect a certain number of beads, carry the tenant to a certain part of the level, beat up a set number of enemies, and racing. Playing the side games gets the player unique wallpapers. These games are mildly amusing, but not that fun. And they can get boring

Kirby and Prince Fluff cannot be harmed. Any time they are hit or fall into a pit, all they do is loose some of the beads they have collected, which can then be picked up again. It is only a problem for anyone trying to get the medals, which accomplish nothing.

Kirby’s Epic Yarn has a unique art style. Everything looks like it was made out of yarn and similar construction materials. All the characters are animated pieces of yarn, and all the backgrounds look like they are made out of felt and other materials stitched together, with liberal use of buttons. Kirby goes through ice caps, forest, haunted houses, and inside televisions, but it all looks stitched together. It is an interesting look at first, but after a while the overall fakeness of everything makes it boring to trek through. And it does not look like someone is actually holding felt behind the screen; the graphics are not good enough.

Special mention has to be given to the music, which sounds like it was made by two talented people in a room full of musical instruments. None of the soundtrack sounds electronic.

If Kirby’s Epic Yarn has a problem, is that it is way too easy. Combat is simple, Kirby cannot get damaged, and there is nothing that feels like a challenge, not even the boss fights. The game has been dumb downed so the player can focus on decorating their apartment.

And in the end, the apartment is not that good. Sure there are a lot of pieces of furniture and wallpaper, but it is a really small room. And even though there are lots of pieces of furniture, Kirby cannot interact with most of the furniture. If the player puts the furniture closer the screen, Kirby will walk over it likes it’s a picture. What was the point of the damn thing?

Kirby’s Epic Yarn is a subpar Kirby game. The Kirby series is not the most difficult series, but they still manage to be fun. This one is just tedious.

Review: BioShock 2

2011-09-12T16:42:00.000-04:00

BioShock 2 is a first-person shooter with adventure elements for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. It was developed by 2k Marin.

Delta attacking a Big Daddy with his Electro Bolt plasmid power.

Rapture, a failed attempt at building an Objectivist utopia on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean with the finest minds in the world has been taken over by Collectivist psychologist Sofia Lamb. Lamb plans to use her daughter Eleanor, along with the superpower granting substance ADAM, to create a cult that will lead to a Collectivist utopia. Eleanor’s former Big Daddy Subject Delta is tasked with rescuing Eleanor.

Delta travels to different parts of Rapture with some objective in mind, usually hunting down someone for information. To get to the person or other objective, Delta has to fight through hordes of Sofia’s mutated goons.

Delta has two types of attacks. The first kind use regular weapons, like shotguns and mini-guns. The effectiveness of these weapons varies. Ammo is limited and is found either on dead enemies or bought in vending machines. There are other machines that give weapons upgrades, like a larger clip or a stronger attack, but there are only a set number of those machines in the game, so the player has to choose which ones to use carefully.

The other more interesting weapon Delta has are plasmid powers which Delta also finds laying about Rapture, like shooting fire or lightning powers. These powers act in support to the regular weapon, they usually act as a way to slow down and partially damage enemies while Delta finished them off with weapons, liking freezing a guy and shot-gunning them to death.

There are also passive plasmid powers that Delta can equip, like a power that makes vending machines cheaper, or heals Delta whenever he stands in puddles of water.

What differentiates BioShock 2 from other shooters is that it is not just about going to rooms and shooting everything, Rapture is a place to be explored. Levels are actually complicated and detailed and fill with money and ammo and audio recordings to find. Since Rapture was built in the 1940s it has a heavy art deco design which the developers put a lot of detail into, plus the look of a destroyed city built underwater. The developers put a lot of work into making every area unique and a joy to explore. Delta will only run into one or two enemies every couple of rooms, though their numbers increase as the game progresses.

Plasmids are bought with ADAM, the collection of which makes up a large part of the game. Delta has to find Little Sisters walking around Rapture. Then he has to defeat their Big Daddies, which are incredibly tough enemies. Then Delta has to escort her to bodies filled with ADAM, and guard her from enemies while she harvests the ADAM. Finally Delta can gently remove the ADAM from her body and turn her into a regular girl, or kill her and get a lot of ADAM. The game presents it as a morality choice, but since it is stated at the beginning that the player will get a bigger reward later if they save the Little Sisters, it is not much of a choice. And after all that, Delta has to kill a Big Sister, which is like a Big Daddy but stronger and faster.

Combat is not hard. Despite a good selection of weapons and plasmids it is easy to spam a few weapons and plasmids for most of the game. It only gets really dangerous when a bunch of enemies swarm when a Little Sister is harvesting. The game sets up these big areas for fighting the enemies, and includes trap weapons the player can use, but they are so cumbersome. And eventually Delta gets so powerful that the last few levels are not a challenge at all.

The back story is told by video recordings characters made and left around. They range from the big story of how Sofia Lamb came into power, to little stories detailing the history of individual areas. The main story is less interesting; Delta just goes from one area to the next, aided by someone and opposed by one of Lamb’s followers, until he reaches Lamb’s hideout. It is a good thing the video recorders are around to flush out characters and places, because otherwise the story would be pretty basic. The story has a strong Objectivist versus Collectivist, which is interesting, though I question how effective a satirical message the game can make with something as fantastic as ADAM. And anyone who has not played the first BioShock will not understand anything, even with the glossary the game provides.

What BioShock 2 has going for it is that it really encourages the player to explore all of Rapture. The levels look great and nothing looks duplicated, from the restaurant area to the park area, and there are enough things to collect like audio diaries, weapon upgrades, and plasmids to make the player feel rewarded for exploring.

BioShock 2 provides and fun interesting game that is entertaining from beginning to end.

Review: Golden Sun: Dark Dawn

2011-09-05T16:40:00.000-04:00

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is an RPG for the Nintendo DS. It was developed by Camelot Software. It is the third game in the Golden Sun series.

The main party doing what it does best: being boring.

Thirty years after the events of the original Golden Sun the world of Weyard has had to deal with the planet-changing resurgence of Alchemy. One day the descendents of the original Golden Sun heroes are tasked with going out into the world to retrieve a Roc feather to power their parent’s flying machine. But such a small request will draw them into the many conflicts caused by the new power of Alchemy.

Dark Dawn is a typical RPG. The player controls Matthew, the son of Isaac the original Golden Sun protagonist, and his friends as they make their way from town to town. At each town the story progresses in some way and the player buys new weapons and armor.

In between towns Matthew’s part randomly encounters enemies that the party has to fight. The party and monsters take turns fighting, the party attacks first and then monsters attack and they go back and forth until someone dies. The party can use physical attacks or magic. Defeating the monsters rewards the player with money to buy new equipment, and experience points which makes the party stronger.

The characters are aligned with different elements which affect what types of magic powers they use. Matthew is associated with earth and his magic powers use rocks; his friend Tyrell is fire-based and throw fireballs.

The Golden Sun series has two things unique to its game play. One is the use of Alchemy to solve puzzles. Matthew and co. will constantly run into obstacles that require powers to overcome them. Matthew for example has the ability to move large columns of land which can be used as stepping stones. Matthew’s friend Karis can create gusts of wind which can propel boats across bodies of water. Most of these puzzles look like mazes with incomplete pathways that the player has to fill in with Alchemy powers. None of the puzzles are hard.

The other big part is collecting Djinns. There are Djinns hidden throughout Weyard that the player can find, which when equipped to the characters increases their strength and gives them new magic powers. Almost all the Djinns can only be reached by using Alchemy powers. Like the characters the Djinn are associated with a type of element, like water or air. The Djinn can be equipped to any characters, but since the Djinn work best with characters that share their elements it is a needless addition. It is fun to find the Djinn, but like the other puzzles it is not difficult to find them.

In combat Djinn can be used to help the characters. Some raise the characters strength or defense, or others attack the enemy.

After a Djinn is used they go into standby, which the player then uses to summon large monsters which do a ton of damage. If for example the player uses three earth Djinn they can summon Cybele to do a lot of damage. Some summons requires a mixture of different Djinns, like two fire and one wind to summon, but these do even more damage.

Combat is easy. The player could do things like use certain type of magic that are effective against certain types of monsters, or raise their own stats, or block or use items. But it is so easy to simply attack all the enemies without thinking. All the player has to do is mash the command button until all the enemies are killed; the player does not have to think at all. For bosses all the player has to do is use all their Djinns to summon the big monster and smash the bosses to dust. As long as the player keeps their weapons and armor up to date they will be fine.

The story is atrocious. Most of the game is spent looking for the Roc feather, which is not an exciting quest. Along the way the party gets involved in disputes among the cities, just because, no real motivation. At one point they decide to rescue the captured son of a pirate just for the Hell of it. People mention other conflicts and disputes among other groups and cities and acts the player should know who they are already. They might have been mentioned in past Golden Sun games, but those were several years ago and it is unfair to expect the player to remember every city and town. And it ends on a cliffhanger, a cliffhanger for an event that is briefly mentioned at the beginning and never mentioned again. That is not foreshadowing, that is phoning it in. The characters themselves have no personalities and do not go through any character arcs; Tyrell is kind of an idiot and Karis is kind of bossy and that is it.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn would be an okay game despite the combat easy combat system if the story and characters were not so awful. RPG and Golden Sun fans should avoid this one.

Review: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

2011-08-22T16:52:00.000-04:00

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is a third person shooter with action-adventure elements for the PlayStation 3. It was developed by Naughty Dog.

Nathan Drake, hiding from an enemy he's about to shoot in the face before killing his two friends in the corner.

Professional treasure hunter Nathan Drake has learned the location of the lost city of Shambhala, which is rumored to contain the Cintamani Stone, an ancient artifact that bestows great power to its owner. Unfortunately, Nathan gets backstabbed by his old friend Flynn, who tells the location to Serbian war criminal Zoran Lazarevic. It is a race between Drake and Lazarevic to reach the Stone first.

The player, as Nathan Drake, travels from location to location fighting through Lazarevic’s private army. Among Thieves is several chapters long, thought the game plays like one long sequence interspersed with cut scenes. Most of the game is spent in shootouts in ancient ruins, or a couple levels in a city and one on a train. The basic strategy of the game is make Drake take cover behind a wall, pressing the aim button to make Drake peek out from his cover and take aim (and make the camera zoom in to help the player focus), and shoot all the bad guys until it is safe.

Drake can carry two weapons, a pistol and a larger gun, plus four grenades, which he picks up from fallen enemies. Damage to Drake is represented by the screen getting black and white with splashes of blood. Drake’s health regenerates over time.

Drake can also insta-kill enemies silently if he sneaks up on them, or fistfight them if the player wants to. But fist fighting someone makes Drake a sitting duck, so it is a pointless action.

Enemies carry a lot of different weapons that Drake can pick up. Some are unique compared to each other, like the regular two pistols compared to the revolver, but some are redundant, like the two assault rifles or the two shotguns.

Enemies know to dodge and duck behind walls for cover like Drake, and what they lack in health they make up for in superior numbers coming in at all sides. The only problem is that on normal mode their accuracy is so bad compared to Drake and Drake heals too quickly that there is no challenge. That does not make the fights any less fun though. What is less fun are the special enemies the game occasionally bring out, enemies with shotguns or mini-guns that absorb a ton of damage.

The other part of the game involves Drake jumping around ruins, climbing from ledge to ledge or up walls. These parts are really easy most of the time because a lot of the areas that Drake can climb have a lighter color palette than the background, and Drake reaches out to the next ledge he has to grab when the player pushes the control stick in the right direction. But it can also lead to the some of the game’s cheapest deaths, since not every ledge is highlighted, and the camera makes it hard to see what ledge the player should make Drake reach out to.

There are several trophies the player can earn for accomplishments like killing fifty enemies with one type of weapon, or silently killing five enemies in a row. These are useful for getting the player to use more weapons and adds a challenge to the firefights. Earning trophies nets the player money, which can buy things like bonus skins for the characters or concept art.

The art direction is gorgeous. All the levels are these grand, lovingly detailed expanses. Every building, every street looks original. The game never feels like it is recycling places; every shoot out is in a new area.

Characters models are really detailed too. Faces emote when they talk, including furrowing brows and shaking heads realistically when distressed.

The voice acting and cut scenes look great and detailed. The characters never look like dolls standing around, they look like real people moving around and interacting with the environment. And the voices fit perfectly with the characters and the lip synching is never off.

The story is the classic “race the bad guy to the ancient artifact” story that has been played out a million times already. The backstabs are easy to see coming a mile away, the characters, particularly the Lazarevic are action movie stereotypes, and the plot never gets any more confusing than “characters travel to a place to find a clue, then go to another place.” The worst part is that characters act like guns are a lot more dangerous in cut scenes than they do in games For example, in one scene Drake and his friend just let a bunch of henchmen run in and point guns at them, even though they had gunned down dozens of their comrades a couple of minutes ago. At least the characters are likable.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is a fun, if somewhat cliché game. Anyone who likes a good shooting game will have fun.

Review: Heavy Rain

2011-08-08T16:02:00.000-04:00

Heavy Rain is a mystery-adventure game for the PlayStation 3. It was developed by Quantum Dream.

Quantum Dream put a lot of work into making the characters look as realistic as possible.

A serial murder, dubbed the Origami Killer, is abducting children and murdering them by drowning them in rainwater after five days. Ethan Mars, a traumatized father with mental problems; Madison Paige, a journalist with insomnia; Scott Shelby, a private investigator and former police officer; and Norman Jayden, an FBI forensics investigator with a drug problem; are all drawn into the investigation when Ethan’s son Shaun is abducted.

The story is a generic mystery, featuring a serial killer with weird rituals, and protagonists with traumatic pasts.

Parts of the story are shown somewhat poorly, with segments of the story explaining where, why, and how characters go to where they go and talk to who they talk are left out, only showing the characters arriving.

As for the mystery itself the game does not give the player enough information ahead of time to solve the case. Instead it dumps a lot of motive and back-story near the end. The game does not want the player to solve the case, if it did it would do a better job of cataloging the clues the characters find.

Despite all this the story is not bad. The characters, while shallow in history, all have developed personalities that make them fun to watch and use. The way the narrative switches between them is a rare way to tell a mystery, and the way it takes place over five days on a strict schedule is also impressive. And there is an interesting plot twist near the end that uses the way the game has been telling the story to good effect.

All the characters have been motioned capped and their faces modeled on their voice actors to incredibly detail. The faces almost always show clear emotion when they talk. Just as good are the backgrounds. Because the game only visits locations once, the developers had time to put lots of detail into all the buildings. Nothing looks copied and pasted; everything is where it should be. The player can walk into a house and figure out where to look for medicine because it makes sense, which does not sound impressive but it is.

What the game does is make almost everything interactive, but makes it a challenge to do anything. The player cannot press a button to flick on a light switch; they have to push the right control stick down. Or turn it half-circle clockwise to open a drawer, or shake the entire controller to brush Ethan’s teeth. Even walking requires holding down the R2 button while moving the left control stick. In addition, especially during important events, the player will have to perform more challenging controller tricks, like tapping a button rapidly, or holding down buttons in a sequence, or pushing the control stick really slowly.

And that level of interactivity is novel, but it is not fun. In the end it is still opening drawers/flicking light switches/sitting in chairs, stuff that can be done in real life. Likewise the more complicated button pressing is exciting; usually the player has to press them when the character is under duress and if the player fails the character gets into trouble. But it is not fun; it is pressing buttons quickly, like Simon Says.

But the worst part is when the buttons commands appear, they appear in white font and stay near the character, which makes them hard to see when the character is far away and near a light background. There was no reason to make them that hard to see.

When the game starts a chapter, the play takes control of a character as they arrive somewhere. The character either has to do some mundane tasks, talks to people, or do a couple of tasks under a time limit. If it’s not the latter at first it will be eventually. The game makes it feel like doing mundane things will have some affect on the game later, and sometimes it does. But the game does not want to go off the rails too much and could not program every possible outcome for every action, so most actions only have minor consequences that do not affect the overall game.

And then there are the quick time events. These are movie sequences when the game flashes button commands that the player has to press quickly or suffer the consequences. These are the parts that have the biggest chance of affecting the game, mostly in that they can kill the character and change the ending. These are also exciting, but a cheap way to simulate tension and game play. To give the game credit, it does give the player a second chance if they miss one or two buttons.

Heavy Rain is best played through once for the story and to at least see the game play. But due to its linearity and the fact that once the novelty wears off the game play is not that fun, it is not worth full price. So, it’s a great rental.

Review: Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep

2011-07-26T09:30:00.001-04:00

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is an action/RPG for the PlayStation Portable. It was developed by Square-Enix and Disney Interactive Studios.

Aqua using her ice summoning powers to fight off Gantu from Lilo and Stitch.

Terra, Ventus, and Aqua are Keyblade wielders, warriors who protect the many worlds (which all look like Disney movies) from the Darkness. One day their master, Eraqus, gets word that the Worlds are being attacked by creatures called Unversed, and sends Terra to destroy them and locate the other Keyblade Master, Xehanort, who has disappeared. Ventus is goaded into following Terra by a masked boy, and Aqua is sent to look after Ventes by Eraqus.

Birth by Sleep follows Terra, Ventus, and Aqua as they go to the different worlds and fight Unversed. The game follows each character separately, all of which go through the same worlds but have their own stories which intersect several times.

Combat is the biggest part of the game and has many parts, some of which work and some of which do not. There is a basic attack, block, and jump button, and the player can lock onto an enemy with the shoulder buttons. Mashing the attack button while locked onto an enemy is a decent way to get through most enemies. Block is way too slow to be useful, and does not work in the middle of an attack; it is only useful when the player knows that an attack is coming a couple of seconds beforehand.

Then there are special attacks. Players can buy, collect, or make a large variety of attacks that cause more damage, or do unusual things to enemies like poison them, or attacks that heal the player. The player can carry an infinite number of these attacks, but can only use a couple in battles, and has to assign which ones to use to a set number of slots. The player can cycle through the list of attacks they have made available using the control pad, but this can be difficult to do in the middle of a fight.

Players can meld special attacks to form new, stronger attacks, which is necessary to fight later enemies. It is interesting to see what new kind of attacks are created, but the process is somewhat random, and the game does not record what creates what, so it is possible to have a bunch of attacks that do not make new attacks and no knowledge of what older attacks to buy.

During the story the main characters establish links with other characters, which they can then use to partially transform into those characters. It is useful at first because it gives the player some extra powerful attacks when they are not quite strong yet. Eventually though the player gains enough strong attacks on their own that the links become useless.

The biggest problem with Birth by Sleep besides the combat is that it makes the player go through the same story three times with the Ventus, Aqua, and Terra. They go to the same levels, fight the same enemies, the same bosses, and gain the same attacks. The only difference is that their stories are different and that they talk to different people, but that does provide enough variety.

The story is okay. Most of it is not going to make any sense to anyone who has not played the other Kingdom Hearts games. It is possible to understand some of it, but the meaning of a lot of plot elements will be lost on newcomers. Ventus, Terra, and Aqua’s are interesting when they intersect with each other; it is fun to see how the characters see events from different perspectives. On their own Terra’s story is the most interesting, while all Aqua does is go from world to world and not do much.

The graphics look really great; the 3d character design look smooth and detailed; not pointy polygons anywhere. The story is told through animated cut scenes which also look great. Voice acting could use some work; the voice actor for Aqua sounds like she is bored the entire time.

Birth by Sleep comes with a couple of mini-games in addition to the fighting, like a racing game and a collection of board games. None of them are fun, but they need to be completed to see the good ending on normal mode, which is really unfair.

There need to be more places to save. There is no good reason not to have a place to save before every boss fight, especially when they have long cut scenes before and after them, though those can be skipped over.

By now one would think Square-Enix would learn from past Kingdom Hearts games and fix problems in the series. Instead they have made another game that die hard Kingdom Hearts fans will buy, but no one else has any reason to.

Review: Infamous

2011-07-11T16:36:00.001-04:00

Infamous is an action game for the PlayStation 3. It was developed by Sucker Punch.

Cole MacGrath talking to his friend Zeke in the sewer. The red lightning around his arms indicates that he has been acting evil.

Cole MacGrath is a bike messenger in Empire City who is caught in the center of an explosion that destroys a large part of the city but leaves him unharmed and gives him powers over electricity. The explosion gives several gang members powers and unleashes a plague, causing the government to cut off Empire City from the rest of the world. Cole has to use his electricity to defeat the super-powered gangs and find the device that caused the explosion, or use his powers to take over the city.

The player controls Cole as he completes mission in the three districts of Empire City. Cole starts in one district, and after completing enough missions he can go to the second district, and eventually the entire city is opened up. Cole can climb up the sides of buildings quickly, jump across rooftops, and grind along electric poles, all necessary to move around Empire City quickly and complete missions.

The game is divided into several chapters that take part in a section of a district. Each chapter begins with Cole restoring electricity to that section, gaining a new superpower along the way and opening up that section’s missions. When Cole completes the story missions for that section a new section’s power supply will be revealed.

Cole gains experience points from completing missions and defeating enemies. The player buys new powers and upgrades for existing powers.

Cole’s main power is shooting a bolt of electricity from his hand. Other powers he gains are offensive powers like electric grenades and shockwaves, and regular utility powers like the ability to glide.

Cole has a reserved amount of energy that is drained whenever he uses a power. Cole can refill that reserve by draining electricity from surrounding equipment like lampposts and cars. Cole can increase his reserve by finding scattered shards of the device that caused the explosion around Empire City.

Story missions are more complicated than side missions, and usually have several parts that use Cole’s powers in more creative ways. Side missions are not essential to complete, but are necessary to gain more experience. These missions mostly involve going to somewhere and beating up a group of people, or protecting a group or a vehicle from enemies, or collecting something while fighting bad guys. They are not a lot of variety to them, but they are simple and quick and they happen in different parts of the city so they do not feel like Cole is doing the exact same thing over again.

Each district is controlled by a gang. Whenever Cole completes a side mission he takes over a portion of the district and enemies no longer spawn there.

The game has a morality system. During missions Cole will be presented with a chance to do something good or evil. The type of choices the player makes affects what kind of powers Cole gets and the storyline.

If Infamous has one thing going for it is that it is addictive. The way the game rewards the player for collecting shards, completing missions, capturing parts of the city, they all make you want to keep going and get more rewards.

Empire City looks great. It is a dump, but it is a dump with a lot of variety, which is important when going across its rooftops. There is no area that looks like the developers copied and pasted from a different part of the city.

Combat is awful. It does not matter what powers Cole gets they never really stand up to a group of people armed with guns and near perfect accuracy and deadlier superpowers. And the gangs always come in groups that easily overwhelm Cole. One would think that getting shot in the face or blown up with electricity would be effective, but getting shot does not faze them and when they get blown up the enemies just pick themselves up.

The morality system is ham-fisted and annoying. There is no subtlety to the choices; they are always something obvious like kill someone and take their stuff or let them go. The consequences are so inconsequential that you really have to go out of your way to be evil. And sometimes what the developers considered the evil or good choice is questionable. It is really unfair that the player only gets some powers because of doing good or evil things, the player should be allowed to have whatever they want. And make their own decision with what to do with them.

The storyline is very bad. In addition to the morality part, motivations for the enemies, especially the ancient conspiracy that orchestrated the explosions and its high-ranking members are never explained well. And so many important characters are killed for cheap drama.

Infamous makes you want to keep playing to unlock everything, see the city, and find out what happens next. But at the end all the frustration from the combat, story, and morality system might make you feel more annoyed than satisfied.

Review: Secret Agent Clank

2011-06-27T18:10:00.001-04:00

Secret Agent Clank is a platform game with stealth elements for the PlayStation Portable. It was developed by High Impact Games.

Clank getting through a series of security lasers with the help of a rhythm game.

Clank the robot is sent by the spy agency he works for to guard the Eye of Infinity. Clank arrives just in time to see the Eye stolen by his friend Ratchet. Knowing that his friend would never do such a thing, Clank decides to figure out who is really behind the theft.

Secret Agent Clank comes in three parts. The main portion of the game follows Clank as he goes to different planets to figure out who is behind the theft. On each planet Clank has to travel from one end of the level to the other. The player has two ways to handle a level; they can either fight the guards and death traps on each planet, or sneak past them.

For fighting, Clank has several weapons at his disposal, like a bomb launcher or a razor-blade tipped bow tie. Using these weapons nets the weapons themselves experience points, and eventually they level up and become stronger. But Clank’s health is really bad, so fighting enemies out in the open is a lot more dangerous.

For sneaking, Clank has a gadget that clan block lasers, can knock out enemies from behind if sneaks up on them, another gadget that can disguise Clank as an enemy, and some levels have costumes he can hide in. Whenever Clank sneak attacks a guard, fools a guard with his disguise, and if he makes it through an area undetected, he gets a long life bar. But sneaking takes longer than fighting and requires more patience.

It is interesting the way gives pros and cons for both options, and it is nice that the game gives the player and option, and makes a good argument for both options and does not favor one highly over the other. There is a problem though near the end of the game when the levels just have so many enemies that it is impossible to sneak past them, forcing the player to fight.

The second part follows Ratchet as he fights off enemies while in prison. This part is like previous Ratchet and Clank. The player selects an event that Ratchet has to fight in. The events are usually something like “Fight six rounds of enemies”, but almost always have an extra challenge, like fight enemies under a time limit or giant fireballs are flying around.

Like Clank, Ratchet has a several weapons he can use, like a bomb launcher or a shotgun. And like Clank if Ratchet uses the weapons enough they level up. It is not possible to just level up one weapon and rely on it, because there is not enough ammo scattered around the arenas.

These levels can be fun when using powerful explosive weapons to mow down waves of enemies, but it is a pain to level up the weapons evenly since several of the weapons are a pain to use.

Clank buys new weapons for himself and Ratchet with bolts. Bolts are found in boxes in Clank’s levels, or by completing arena challenges in Ratchet’s levels.

The third part follows Captain Quark as he goes to an area Clank has already been and tells his biographer made-up stories about fights he has been in. These are all boss fights or short levels with Quark shooting a blaster at enemies. These segments are oaky, but nothing would be lost if they were removed and just shown as cut scenes.

Clank has three additional level types. In one he controls a vehicle and races to the end of a level while smashing enemy vehicles with his car’s weapons. The second level has three robots which the player uses to activate switches. Levels like these have switches that one robot has to hold down, that create a platform for the other robots to cross to activate others switches, or some variation like that. Both have additional levels the player can participate in for more bolts. Bother are pretty easy, but the races can be fun while the robots are not that interesting.

There are also rhythm game segments where the player has to press buttons to a music beat. These are awful because they do not line up with the music and the indicator to press the square button looks like the indicator to press the circle button.

The story is a spy movie homage. It is okay, but not memorable. It probably will not make sense to anyone who has not played previous Ratchet and Clank games. At least the voice acting is decent, the cut scenes look good, and it can be funny at times.

Secret Agent Clank gets credit for doing something new with the Ratchet and Clank series, and making it fun. Anyone who enjoys the regular series should enjoy this too.

Review: Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters

2011-06-13T15:59:00.005-04:00

Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters is an action/platform game for the PlayStation Portable. It was developed by High Impact Games.

Clank competes in a minigame sidequest.

Ratchet and Clank are relaxing on a beach planet when a little girl name Luna, who wanted an interview, is kidnapped for her knowledge about the mysterious Techonmite race. Ratchet and Clank go after to rescue her. Meanwhile, washed up superhero Captain Quark tags along in the hopes of finding out who his parents are.

In Size Matters, the player controls Ratchet as he travels to different planets and shoots enemies with a wide variety of guns. Each level has some obstacles like bottomless pits to jump over, or giant plants to climb, but the challenge largely comes from all the enemies Ratchet has to dodge and kill. Enemies have a ranged weapon or melee weapon, and how tough they are increases as the player progresses. Levels are linear and lead from open area with enemies to open areas with enemies.

There are many weapons the player can use that vary a lot. There are basic ones, like a shotgun, and elaborate ones like a flamethrower. When Ratchet successfully uses a weapon they gain experience points and eventually level up, which their strength in some way; the weapons can level up four times. Each level the weapon gets more powerful, or gains more ammo, or an extra weapon like electricity. The game does not tell the player what the upgrade is; the player has to figure out what the upgrade is, which is annoying.

Weapons and ammo are bought with bolts, which are dropped by enemies and found by smashing crates throughout the level. The amount dropped is usually enough so that the player does not have to go around killing enemies until they raise the amount needed to buy a new weapon. This is the most addictive part of the game, since it is fun to earn powerful weapons and blow away enemies. Otherwise it would be just going from area to area shooting somewhat stupid enemies. Not all the weapons are useful, and leveling up some of the more useless weapons is a pain.

Ratchet can only hold up to eight weapons at one time, including gadgets, so it is a mild puzzle trying to figure out which are the most important. But there are not enough weapons or tools for it to be a real hassle.

The levels look nice. The designs twist around and have enough obstacles that they do not feel like empty hallways designed solely to shoot enemies in.

There are side missions that the player can participate in as well. There are races, arena battles, a type of soccer, a flying ships game, and a robot leading game. None of them are fun, but the player needs to play them to get enough bolts. The only decent one is where Ratchet hacks security keys using rail grinding, and that does not even give bolts as rewards.

The camera is stationed behind Ratchet, but it is a little too close. Enemies will frequently be just out of sight and impossible to for the player to hit them until it is too late.

The story is a joke. There are two scenes that explain what is going on with the Technomites, and the rest of the time Ratchet’s behavior comes off as sociopathic. Quark’s storyline is tacked on. The story uses shrinking and growing a lot in its story, but no one points it out that much. Ratchet just happens to have a shrink ray that he uses a lot.

The graphics are decent three dimensional models. The cut scenes are nicely animated too, and the voice acting is very good.

The game is not hard. Even with the enemies that are off-camera they are not that difficult to dodge or just resist the shots, because Ratchet has a lot of life which increases during the game. And if Ratchet does die he just re-spawns a few feet away with all the leveled up weapons the player has gained. The only part that is difficult is the bosses, which have huge health bars.

Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters is a decent platform game, but a subpar Ratchet and Clank game. There are better Ratchet and Clank games to play, but for the PSP it is okay. It is only somewhat fun, a decent way to pass the time if there is nothing better to do, but not something someone needs to play, or even remember.

Review: Amnesia: The Dark Descent

2011-05-30T21:16:00.001-04:00

Amnesia: the Dark Descent is a first person survival-horror and adventure game for the PC and Mac. It was developed by Frictional Games.

One of Brennenburg Castle's unsettling, flesh-covered rooms.

Daniel wakes up in Brennenburg Castle with amnesia and a note from his past self. The note says that Daniel gave himself amnesia willingly, that he has to kill the baron of Brennenburg in the center of the castle, and that an unknown supernatural menace called a shadow is trying to kill him. With no way out of the castle and clear evidence that the shadow is real, Daniel sets of kill Alexander, the baron of Brennenburg.

The player controls Daniel as he moves from room to room in Brennenburg, solving minor puzzles and avoiding monsters. Daniel has a sanity meter which depletes whenever he is in a dark area. When his sanity is lowered Daniel experiences hallucination which manifest as frightening visuals and sounds. The player can counter these effects by lighting the many candles or torches in the castle to light some areas. Tinderboxes, the item needed to light candles, are found around the castle, but are in limited supply so the player has to use them sparingly. There is also a lamp that requires oil which is also in short supply.

Running around Brennenburg Castle is a monster, which is the only thing that can actually harm Daniel. It appears at random in some rooms, and if it spots Daniel it will chase him down. Daniel has no way of defending himself, so he has to run and hide. The trick is to put enough distance between Daniel and the monster and make Daniel hid out of the monster’s line of sight, at which point it will hopefully lost interest and run away. Closing doors slows the monster down. Using the lantern also alerts the monster to Daniel’s location, but hiding in the darkness messes with Daniel’s sanity, so it’s a matter of deciding what the bigger problem is. Since the monster is actually harmful it’s the bigger problem.

Outrunning the monster is definitely the scariest part of the game, especially with the change in music and its horrible face. And it is unusual how unlike other video game protagonists Daniel can only run. But it can feel unfair how random the monster’s appearance is. You can walk into a room, the music starts up, and you run into a corner and hope the computer thinks it is dark enough, but it is not because the last time you were in there you lit all the candles. Or the damn thing will spawn in a narrow hallway and chase you, you hide, and it wanders back to where it started and blocks the path again.

The puzzles are all pretty simple. Most of them involve going to a room to find an object to put in another room, the only obstacle is the player’s fear. If an object like a lever has to be put into something else in a certain way there is usually a note lying around that explains how to do it. A few of the puzzles utilize the game’s physics engine, which gives a realistic weight to objects when they are lifted or thrown. It also makes the player have to slide the mouse up and down to pull levers, which is okay, but tougher to do when turning cranks. None of the puzzles are really ingenious or frustrating; all they do is give the narrative direction.

Amnesia is interesting because its entertainment value is focused solely on people who really like to be scared, who go out of their way to be scared. And that’s the best way to enjoy the game, that’s why the developers suggest at the beginning to play the game in a darkened room with earphones to really immerse oneself in the atmosphere. Because otherwise the player might notice that aside from the monster the only scary tricks the game has beside the monster are distorting the screen, cockroaches walking across the screen, flesh like substance that appears on the walls, and a library of sound effects.

The back-story is fleshed out through journal entries that Daniel finds written by his past-self, and flashbacks he sometimes has when walking into a room. It is interesting story, eventually finding out what the monster chasing him is and why Daniel eventually gave himself amnesia. However it is possible to miss parts of the back-story this way.

Brennenburg itself is not a really interesting place, horrifying imagery aside. There are some nice rooms, but for the most part it is hallways of stone and timber filled with junk. No decorations anywhere, which does make it less interesting to walk around then the few bedrooms Daniel goes through.

Amnesia: the Dark Descent is good for people who have fun getting scared. Other people who are looking just for adventure game might feel underwhelmed in-between feeling terrified.

Review: Limbo

2011-05-16T17:06:00.001-04:00

Limbo is a side scrolling puzzle game for the Xbox Live Arcade. It was developed by Playdead Studios.

Limbo's silhouette style creates a dark and haunting setting. The giant spiders add to that.

A little boy wakes up in the woods and runs to the right, eventually descending into a pit. That is the entire back story.

The player takes control of the nameless boy as he moves right, first through a dangerous forest, and then through the ruins of some type of industrial complex. The game is presented as one long trek; it is not divided into any segments. All the boy can do is jump and push/pull blocks/crates/switches.
The obstacles of Limbo are all puzzles. Most of them physics puzzles, like pushing a crate onto something to reach a rope to swing to another place. A lot of them require quick timing, like trying to reach a platform before a boulder, or a buzz saw, or most memorably, a giant spider reaches the boy and kills him in a horrific manner. And he does die in horrific ways, with his limbs and head getting cut off, or blood spurting out when he gets impaled on spikes. Later puzzles take advantage of the games physics engine, and involve using momentum or artificial gravity to solve the puzzle. Most players will need two to three tries to get through any puzzle. Thankfully whenever the boy dies he re-spawns right next to the puzzle. There are about only three puzzles are really frustrating, the rest the player should get after a few tries. There are also a few puzzles where the player loses control of the boy which are fun too.

The most distinctive thing about Limbo is its art design. Everything is in black and white. The boy and everything he interacts with looks like a silhouette, except for the boy’s two white eyes. The backgrounds, which are very detailed, with decaying trees and buildings that change while the boy moves, are blurry and covered in fog, but easy to discern. And the whole thing is shot with a grainy filter, which adds to the bleakness of the setting.

The characters are really well animated. The boy looks like he actually has weight; the way he jumps his arms actually swing along with him.

There is no story. The only clue to a story is that the boy sees a girl a couple of times, but the game does not elaborate on who she is. But that is mostly okay, the lack of story makes the game more mysterious. The ending is rather abrupt though, why it ends in the place it ends feels more like the developers ran out of ideas instead of something conclusive.

The game is a little scary. The atmosphere is oppressive, and things like the giant spider get creepy music cues that contrast with the quietness of the rest of the game.
The game is also really short, about four to five hours. And there is not much replay value until the player has forgotten to solve the puzzles. It is only ten bucks, so it is not so bad.

The only real problem with Limbo is that the novelty of the setting wears off eventually. The game starts off in a decaying forest, with other kids trying to kill the boy, giant spiders attacking the boy, and what appear to be dead children hanging from the trees. But then the game shifts to the factory level which is far less interesting yet takes up at least half of the game. It is cool at first when it looks like the boy is jumping around a city, but that gets quickly replaced by factories. The puzzles stop being about dodging cool things like traps set for the boy, and instead are merely random buzz-saws or boxes. The backgrounds are less interesting; a lot of the time they are only grey hallways.

While the lack of any story is fine, without any sign that there is at least an actual world the game just becomes a series of puzzles that have no real reason to be completed. If only there were more areas, or signs that something was going on, something to indicate the player was making progress in any way instead of just going to the right because that is the only option.
Limbo is a good, short little game that people should play just for the experience of seeing the setting and atmosphere. It does stumble at the end, and it is short, so it is not a perfect game.

Review: 'Splosion Man

2011-05-03T22:17:00.001-04:00

‘Splosion Man is a two dimensional platform game for the Xbox Live Arcade. It was developed by Twisted Pixel Studios.

'Splosion Man after he has blown up a barrel to help him reach a high ledge.

In a secret laboratory, a being made of living explosions called ‘Splosion Man has been created. But he is totally insane and does not want to stay there, so with the player’s help he stages a break out, blowing up everything and everyone along the way.

The player controls ‘Splosion Man as he travels through 47 levels. As a platform game, ‘Splosion Man’s obstacles include pits of acid, floating platforms, and walls of spikes, among others. The only thing ‘Splosion Man can do is explode, that is the only thing the buttons on the controller allows, the exact same explosion. ‘Splosion Man’s explosion acts as a jump, and he can explode up to three times, though each subsequent explosion propels him not as far. After three explosions ‘Splosion Man is vulnerable to weapons and cannot explode for a second while he recharges.

'Splosion Man uses his explosions in other ways to get past obstacles. The biggest is his wall jumping ability, which he can do three times to climb up shafts. He can also use them to blow up attacks robots and occasionally deflect missiles back at turrets.

The other big tool ‘Splosion Man has at his disposal are exploding barrels. There are regular exploding barrels which propel ‘Splosion Man higher than normal jumps. Several obstacles are bypassed by leapfrogging ‘Splosion Man from suspended exploding barrel to barrel. The second kind throws ‘Splosion Man really far and make it impossible to control his direction. The third kinds, which are really orbs instead of barrels, are kicked by ‘Splosion Man to destroy switches.

The player is awarded a score at the end of each level, which is then put up on the Xbox Live leaderboards. The score is based on how fast the player gets through the level, how much stuff they destroy and people they blow up, and whether they find the cake that is hidden in each level.

A typical level will include several things. ‘Splosion Man will in a level probably have to escape a rising tide of water by quickly bouncing up walls, or trying just make a jump by exploding three times, or dodging around lightning bolts, typically platform puzzles that rely on the player having split second timing to successfully make it through.

‘Splosion Man starts off easy and gets harder as the game progresses. While levels at the beginning may take only two minutes to complete, by the end levels may take up to 15 minutes to finish.

The graphics are okay, but not notable for anything. The scientists and ‘Splosion Man look like cartoons, which is fine, but they lack detail. The laboratory has mostly the same white and metallic corridors. The labs change colors twice, but they all start to blend together after a while.

The music is not memorable either, except for the guitar riff that happens every time ‘Splosion Man explodes.

There is not story, just ‘Splosion Man trying to escape. There is no evidence that the scientists are even doing anything wrong.

‘Splosion Man himself is a little funny. He is prone to making gibbering weird noises and pop culture phrases while he runs around and explodes.

There is a multiplayer mode. Presumably it is at least as fun as the single player mode.

The game does have replay value for anyone who likes to show off high scores. Players can go back and try to go faster through the levels, or try to track down every cake in the game, and it immediately goes up on the leaderboard for everyone to see.

If ‘Splosion Man has one flaw is that the later levels become too difficult to be fun. There are several puzzles that demand the player be absolutely perfect with their timing; barrels that are a little too high to reach or platforms that move a little too fast. The end result is the player dying several times for a being a little too slow. And it never feels fair. The occasional uncomfortable camera angle does not help either.

There is also a problem with a lack of variety in the game. All the big different challenges are revealed halfway through the game, which leaves the player with nothing but more difficult challenges later on. It is not much of incentive to know that the only thing the player has to look forward to is more suffering. There is the sense of achievement for completing a difficult level, but that is all.

‘Splosion Man is not a bad game for ten dollars. But, it can be really frustrating, so anyone who hates unfair challenges should probably spend a little more for a better game.

Review: Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

2011-04-18T16:33:00.003-04:00

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is a third person action-adventure game for the PlayStation 3. It was developed by Naughty Dog.

Uncharted uses an over-the-shoulder camera angle when Drake is in a gunfight.

Nathan Drake, the descendant of Sir Francis Drake, has discovered his ancestor’s journal. The journal contains the location of El Dorado, the lost city of gold, which somewhere deep in the Amazon. Drake, along with his friend Sully and Elena who is documenting the expedition, must reach the lost city before Gabriel Roman, another treasure hunter that Sully accidentally tipped off, and his army of mercenaries reaches it.

This game is all about shoot-outs in ancient ruins in the middle of the jungle. Anyone who does not find that scenario a little bit interesting should not play this game.

The player follows Drake as he travels through 22 chapters of jungle-based ruins, first in the Amazon and then on an island, not that there is a noticeable difference. 80 percent of that time Drake engages in firefights with mercenaries. The other 20 percent is spent jumping around ruins, with lots of hanging on cliffs and jumping from ledge to ledge. The game does not feel divided up by chapters; the narrative goes from area to cut-scene, making the whole thing feel like one long story.

For combat, pressing the left shoulder makes Drake aim his weapon and moves the camera from third-person to over-the-shoulder, and the right shoulder button fires Drake’s weapon. Drake carry two weapons, a smaller gun like a pistol and a larger gun like an assault rifle, and four grenades, all of which Drake picks up from fallen enemies. Drake’s health regenerates, so if he is shot, all the player has to do is find some cover for Drake until he recovers. And if he does die the game restarts shortly before the fight, thanks to a handy auto-save.

Uncharted uses a cover system; all the player has to do is press the circle button to make Drake dive for the nearest cover. This is the only way to survive, since running around in the open will get Drake mowed down by gunfire. There is a slight problem in that Drake will sometimes run to the wrong object for cover, like running up against the side of a wall instead of behind the wall, leaving him exposed.

Enemy AI is decent. Almost all the enemies know to use cover, and will hardly run out to get shot at. Later enemies will learn how to flank Drake as well. Some enemies will carry pistols, while others will carry bigger weapons, and including grenade launchers and sniper rifles, so there is variety in the weapons Drake faces. The enemies’ only problem is that they do not learn to move when their cover is not working.

The fights are the best part of the game. They are challenging enough to delay the player, but not so much that the feel frustrating or unfair. The areas where the fights happen are usually big so the player can try a couple of different strategies if something is not working. That no two areas are the same also adds to the variety to the fighting.

The other main part of the game is climbing around ruins. This involves lining up Drake to jump and hang on to a ledge, skirting around the ledge, and then jumping to another. Missing the ledge will kill Drake. Drake automatically grabs whatever ledge is in front of him, so there is no challenge in trying to grab it. The problem is figuring out what Drake can jump to. Drake cannot grab onto all ledges, he can only grab onto whatever ledges the computer allows Drake to grab. So it turns into a guessing game for what will not kill Drake if he jumps to it. Awkward camera angles in these segments do not help figure out what Drake can grab. The only use of these segments is to break up the fights so they do not get too monotonous.

The graphics are fantastic. All the ruins look detailed and original, and the jungle really pops out at the screen. The developers put a lot of time into making the buildings look like they are covered in dirt and age.

The cut scenes are detailed as well. Character’s faces are expressive, with moving brows and complex looking mouths that synch up with the dialogue perfectly.
As said before, level design is all ruins in the jungle. They look great and individual areas where fights happen look different, but after a while they do all start to meld together in the brain. Some more variety would have been nice. There is one area that takes place in a military base, but that area awful.

The storyline is okay. It is not original at all, but it is a well made knock off of other stories. The characters are likable; Drake is entertaining, but he can be annoying and smarmy at times.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune suffers from problems with originality and repetitiveness, but it fun overall, and should not be dull to anyone.

Review: Resistance 2

2011-04-04T16:23:00.001-04:00

Resistance 2 is a first-person shooter for the PlayStation 3. It was developed by Insomniac Games.

A shot from Resistance 2's multiplayer mode.

The Chimera, the mysterious monsters that emerged out of Russia have almost taken over the world, thanks in part to their ability to make new members out of mutated humans. Sergeant Nathan Hale, the protagonist of the first Resistance and one of the few humans to resist the Chimera’s conversion process, has returned to the United States. Hale, along with other survivors of the Chimera’s conversion virus, has to fight off the Chimera invasion and their leader, Daedalus.

Resistance 2 is an ordinary shooter. There are seven levels that are pretty long. Hale has to go from one to the other, fighting Chimera forces with whatever weapons he finds. Hale can carry two weapons, and three grenades. If Hale dies he starts at one of the many checkpoints in each level, so the player does not have to backtrack much, and he has unlimited lives.

Weapons are pretty creative. Every weapon has a primary fire and an alternate fire which uses a different type of ammo. For example, the Chimera sniper rifle fires three bullets for primary fire, and shoots an orb that fires electricity for secondary fire; or the human revolver that detonates its bullets for secondary fire.

Enemy AI is decent. The Chimera soldiers travel in packs and know how to hide behind objects for cover. Taking out only two of them can be challenge for anyone foolhardy. Their only real problem is that they do not learn to move when their hiding spot is not protecting them.

Multiplayer seems okay. There are only four modes: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and Sentinel, which is just Deathmatch with sixty people. Deathmatch was fun, but some of the weapons might be too overpowered for multiplayer; specifically the mini-gun with shield attachment is too overpowered. The starts out with a low rank, which they can improve by playing in ranked matches. Killing people in ranked matches gets the player experiences points. Get enough experience points and the player levels up and gets cool stuff with which they can decorate their character with.

Single player is not too fun. The reason it is not fun is because of using the soldiers AI to set up interesting firefights, the game keeps leading Hale into tedious situational fights that result in a lot of cheap deaths. For example, in the chapter seven Hale has to fight some fast zombies, disable some turrets while shooting enemies using a conveniently placed sniper rifle, fights some flying robots, another sniper fight, more flying robots, jumping over water, more fast zombies, a firefight, shielded robots, giant spider tanks that can only really be hurt with rocket launchers, exploding fast zombies, another sniper fight, another firefight, more robots, and a boss. Out of all of that only the firefights are interesting because they allow the player a degree of creativity.

The story is not good. It does not explain what happened between the first two games, it does not explain the back-story of Hale very well, it does not explain the Chimera well either. Parts of the story are told in notes found in the game and conversations that only allude to the back-story. It’s only notable quality is how incredibly bleak the situation is; the Chimera have overrun most of the world and it really looks like humanity is doomed no matter what Hale does.

The setting is supposed to be in the 1950s, but barring a few ham radios in the game and one level that goes through a suburb there is no indication of this. All the bases and outfits and language are generic science fiction.

All the characters including Hale are uninteresting unmemorable space marines without the space part. Voice acting is likewise unremarkable, though it is not bad in anyway.

The music is enjoyable. Got a nice military beat on most travsk, with lots of drums and trumpets.

The graphics are nice. The levels look great, especially shots of the giant Chimera’s spaceships hanging over Los Angeles. Interiors look detailed when they are not going through boring army bases. The Chimera look freaky and detailed, with muscles all twisted and their shiny faces. The only ones that look bad are the humans, who sometimes look like faces painted on dolls.

Resistance 2 is a decent shooter for the ps3. Single player is subpar but the multiplayer is fun enough, if maybe not worth the sixty dollar price tag alone.

Review: Devil May Cry 4

2011-03-21T16:12:00.001-04:00

Devil May Cry 4 is an action game for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. It was developed by Capcom.

Nero and Dante dueling each other.

Nero, a young man whose right arm is demonic, is attending a ceremony celebrating the noble Demon Sparda with his friend Kyrie, when Dante, the protagonist of the previous Devil May Cry games, bursts through the skylight and shoots the priest Sanctus in the head. Nero is charged with tracking down Dante who seems to know something about Nero.

Devil May Cry 4 takes place over several levels. Nero goes form area to area in each level, where he is stopped by a force field and forced to fight demons before he proceeds. He does this until he reaches the boss at the end of the level.

Nero has three types of attacks: his sword, his gun, and his demonic arm. The sword is the player’s main weapon; it can pull off a variety of attacks by inputting different button combinations. The gun can attack enemies in the distance. The demonic arm can grab enemies and cause a lot of damage, but only if Nero grabs the enemy at the right time.

Nero has two ways to power up his attacks. The first way: Nero revs up his sword like a motorcycle to fill up a gauge. Once the gauge is filled it makes Nero’s next attack stronger. The gauge can be filled up to three bars. The second way: the player activates a second gauge which doubles Nero’s attack power and depletes as time passes. This gauge is filled by finding orbs around the levels or by dodging attacks.

The player is given a grade based on how stylish Nero fights a wave of enemies. The grade is based on how little the player repeats the same attack twice and how little Nero is hit. Getting a higher grade nets Nero red orbs. The player is given a second grade at the end of each level based on how quickly the level is finished, how stylish all the battles were, and how many hidden red orbs the player found. This higher grade rewards the player with proud souls.

Red orbs are used to buy health items, proud souls are used to buy Nero more attacks.

Given how central fighting is to the game, it is incredibly frustrating how flawed it is. A lot of Nero’s attacks do not do much damage, barring one or two attacks. A lot of them are based on how different the player can press one button several times in a row. Even attacks that are bought are not much of an improvement. Stronger attacks would have been better. The gun is so weak and slow that it might as well not exist. The grab is the only really strong attack.

Nero has a dodging ability, but it is slow to react and does not work when Nero is in the middle of an attack, or if he is jumping.

The first gauge attack is useless. It takes a long time to fill, and then only works for at most three attacks. And the gauge depletes whether the attacks hit or not.

Enemies range from fair to cheap and tedious. Same goes for bosses, though those are more forgivable because they are bosses. There are not that many different types of enemies either.

And the same damn music plays during every fight.

Level design is mediocre. There is a town, a castle, a jungle, and a different castle. They look nice, but are largely forgettable. Several levels have Nero go through the same areas over and over again too.

The story is forgettable as well. It does not make sense unless the player has played other Devil May Cry games, and even then not by much. The cast is two-dimensional at best. The cut scenes are awesome, showing Nero pull off incredible feats which frequently look cooler than stuff in the actual game.

Nero is okay. He is sort of funny and can do cool stuff, but he is also really whiny and prone to yelling and dramatic whispering. His faults are further emphasized whenever Dante shows up and proceeds to be cooler and a lot more likable.

Then, almost as if to mock the player, the game switches over to Dante. Dante has much stronger, faster attacks that actually can be upgraded. And his narrative is not filled with screaming, only witty one-liners. But then the game makes the player go through the exact same levels that Nero did.

Devil May Cry 4 is a broken, repetitive, mess. The Dante segments reinforce how bad the game is makes one wonder why the developers did not go with that for an entire game.

Review: Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds

2011-03-07T17:40:00.003-05:00

Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds is a fighting game for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It was, naturally, developed by Capcom and is the third Marvel vs. Capcom game.

MvC 3 has a wide variety of characters from both companies, like Viewtiful Joe (left) and Thor (right).

There is not plot. Allegedly there is a story about Capcom character Albert Wesker teaming up with Marvel Comics character Dormammu teaming up to take over their worlds, but there is no evidence of any story in the game.

Players choose three characters from a roster of thirty five, taken from various Capcom games and Marvel comics. Fights are one round long. To win the player has to knock out all three of their opponent’s roster. Like other fighting games, the player attacks with button combinations until the opponent’s life bar is depleted. MvC 3 has one button for a light attack, a medium attack, a heavy attack, and a special attack.

Regular combos just string these buttons together, while special attacks involve rotating the control stick a bit and pressing a button. The player can also perform hyper combos, which are like special attacks but require pressing two buttons and are a lot more powerful. They also consume part of a bar at the bottom of the screen which fills up whenever the player attacks or is attacked.

All the characters have similar special attacks. Pretty much everyone has an attack that involves turning the control stick a quarter counterclockwise and pressing two buttons. But everyone’s actual attacks are different. Some wrestle another character; some shoot something; some blow up an area, so no two characters feel redundant. And for the most part no character feels overpowered; all the big and strong characters are slow etc, so most anyone should be able to pick up the game and at least understand it, if not master it.

The attention to comic and video game lore is what makes this game really great. The cast range from really popular Marvel and Capcom characters like Captain America and Chris Redfield, to less popular characters like M.O.D.O.K. and Mike Haggar. And the stages are all from Marvel and Capcom that fans would recognize. It would be nice if there were more stages, or if they were more popular areas, but they are still pretty cool.

The best part though, is the dialogue. A lot of little hints are dropped through many of the things the characters say at the beginning and end of the fights. Sometimes certain characters will deliver special lines to other characters, usually as a reference to something they have been in. Again, it would have been nice if they all said something unique to each other, but that would have taken a lot of recording.

It is possible for the player to switch from one character to another by pushing the shoulder button. Doing this is helpful when one character’s health bar has been somewhat depleted and needs to recharge a bit. This can lead to fights where the players constantly switch between their characters, trying to keep them alive as long as possible. Tapping the shoulder button also brings in another character for one support attack.

The game comes with two modes, a single player and multiplayer mode. The multiplayer mode has offline mode to play with a friend in the room, and an online mode. The online mode keeps track of how well the player does in matches and records the player’s fighting style. This is recorded on a card that can be seen by other people online. It also ranks how well the player is doing. In online mode it is possible to fight in a rank battle, where the player improves their ranks by beating someone of similar rank; but good luck finding anyone playing that, because everyone mostly fight sin player battles, or in lobbies. Player battles try to match up players with similar ranks, or anybody depending on what the player wants. In lobbies two people fight while everyone else waits, and the next person in line fights the winner. It would have been nice to be able to watch the fights while waiting.

Single player mode has six battles against computer controlled opponents followed by a boss. Only the last two fights and the boss fight are difficult. After the boss fight the player gets to watch a couple of screens showing the character they used in a funny sketch. Some of them are better than others; most of them are not very exciting. The only really fun part is seeing more crossover interactions.

Beating the single player unlocks useless crap like artwork, the ending, character back stories, and a model viewer. All of it is underwhelming.

The graphics are great. The characters are cel-shaded really well so they look like comic book characters come to life. Music’s crap though, or at least not memorable.
It still succumbs to the problems that most fighting games have. Some characters have long distance attacks that can be spammed indefinitely. There is always the feeling that everyone else’s attacks work faster than yours. And in the end it largely boils down to who can memorize attack patterns.
Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is a solid fighting game that should be fun to anyone who likes fighting games and comic books. It has a few problems, but they should not bother anyone who just wants a fun and balanced fighting game.

Review: Professor Layton and the Unwound Future

2011-02-21T18:57:00.001-05:00

Professor Layton and the Unwound Future is a puzzle game for the Nintendo DS. It was developed by Level-5. It is the third game in the Professor Layton series.

One of the areas Professor Layton will have to find puzzles in.

A week after a time machine explosion makes the prime minister of London disappear; Professor Layton and his apprentice Luke receive a letter from someone claiming to be Luke ten years in the future. The letter asks Layton and Luke to go to a clock shop, where they are transported a decade into the future, to a London controlled by the mob run by a mysterious leader. It is up to Layton, Luke and Luke from the future to save London.

In Unwound Future, the player guides Layton and Luke as they walk around future London and they investigate. To achieve this goal the two have to talk to everyone, almost all of whom respond to Layton’s questioning with puzzles. Solving puzzles advances the plot, until the game is finished.

Most of the game is spent solving puzzles. Most of the puzzles are logic puzzles of some kind, like being asked a question that relies on clever wordplay to trick the player, or trying to move or rotate objects somehow. Several of the puzzles take advantage of the DS functions like the aforementioned object rotation puzzles. But, a lot of the puzzles do not take advantage of the DS as well, which is a waste. At least the player can write on the puzzles to help solve them.

The puzzles are really difficult, but they are not impossible. Several of them just require patience or lateral thinking. This is probably not a game for young children.

Several of the puzzles are worded poorly which make them nearly impossible to solve. Others make unfair assumptions about the player, like one puzzle that assumes that when people look at things from the side they are at eye level. A couple of puzzles expect the player to know about something beforehand, like giving directions on a ship or the metric system. For some horrible reason a couple of puzzles are slider puzzles. But the worst puzzles are ones that are just elaborate math problems. But there are over a hundred puzzles and most of them are fun, so it is not a really serious problem.

Solving the puzzles awards the player picarats, which act as the scoring system for the game. When the player answers a question incorrectly the number of picarats he or she gets goes down.

Scattered around the game are hidden hint coins which the player can find by tapping around the screen. The coins unlock up to four hints per puzzle.

The game is divided into chapters. Any puzzles that are not completed by the time a chapter is finished are collected at a special house which can be accessed at any time. Which is good, because finding hidden puzzle is really boring.

There are three mini-games the player can participate in. The first game is about putting the correct stickers in a storybook to make a story. The second game is inputting directions into a toy car so it avoids obstacles while collecting something. The third game is about creating platforms for a parrot to fly onto as it delivers a package. The first two are fun, but the third run involves a lot of guesswork as it is nearly impossible to predict where the parrot will fly.

The rest of the game is not too interesting. Future London is pretty small and a lot of time is spent running back and forth across the same area.

The plot is okay. It is a decent mystery. But near end the story goes crazy, pulling in a plot twist out of nowhere to create an excessive amount of drama and weirdness. It is exciting, but does not make a lot of sense. The ending is surprisingly touching.

All of the characters are enjoyable to watch and make going back a forth through the game really fun. Layton’s interactions with everyone are cool or funny, and everyone has a lot of comedic moments. It is not necessarily a comedy.

The graphics are drawn like a cartoon and look very nice, if rather stylized. Not one is drawn realistically, but it works for the game. The voice work for the characters is really good too. The music is pleasant to listen to as well.

Professor Layton and the Unwound Future is for anyone who likes puzzles and is already a fan of the series. Anyone who would buy it for anything else is wasting their money.

Review: Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles

2011-02-07T15:45:00.001-05:00

Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles is a first person on-rails shooter for the Nintendo Wii. It was developed by Capcom. It is the second Resident Evil on-rails shooter for the Wii, and the thirteenth Resident Evil game overall.

Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield shooting through a bunch of zombies.

The game details special agents Leon Kennedy and Jack Krauser’s mission to go into Amazonian Rainforest and capture a drug lord who has gotten his hand on the T-Virus, a virus capable of turning humans into zombies and monsters. Along the way Kennedy relates the events of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil: Code Veronica to Krauser.

The Darkside Chronicles is divided into three chapters, which are broken up into several levels. In each level one or two players are led through each level, shooting everything along the way. The player in unable to move their character, so the player’s only defense is to shoot the enemies enough times to kill or stun them before they reach the player. Once all the monsters are dead the player moves further through the level.

Enemies are either zombies, whose main danger in that they come in large numbers and can surprise the player, or monsters, which are stronger and have attack patterns that make them hard to hit. All enemies have a weak point, usually a small area like the head, which if hit takes the monster down faster than shooting at them randomly.

Most levels end with a boss, who is always tougher, has more powerful attacks, and more health.

The players control the character’s aim by pointing the Wii remote at the TV. The player fires with the B button and uses a knife attack with the A button. Reloading is done by shaking the remote. The player can carry four weapons, which can by cycled through with the control pad.

The player starts with a pistol with unlimited ammo, but can carry up to three other weapons, like shotguns, grenade launchers, and bow guns. Ammo for these weapons can be picked up in the levels by pointing at it with the remote and pressing A.

The player can buy upgrades for their weapons with money found throughout the levels. Attributes like bullet strength and reload speed can be enhanced; the more money spent the higher the attribute. Finding money is harder than finding ammo, instead of it being in plain sight the player has to find it by shooting whatever junk is lying around the level that can be destroyed, like vases or plants or pictures.

The other two things that can be found are health and files. Health just lies around and can be collected and used by pressing the + button. Files are found by destroying things. The files do not do anything but provide back story.

The game also gives a grade at the end of each level, based on how well the layer did. For the most part it is fair, being based on how many enemies the player kills, how quickly they finish the level and whether or not they are hit. The only unfair part is how many headshots the player makes, since they only count a headshot if the player hits a small section of the head and not any part of the head. The player gets extra cash for a high grade.
Fighting off the monsters provides a challenge is not difficult to get the hang of. The levels are short, but that is fine because if they went on longer they would get tiring.

There are a few things that get the player to replay the game. Upgrading all the weapons and collecting all the files can be an interesting distraction for those who really enjoy collecting stuff. But, it can be really annoying figuring out what can and cannot be destroyed and shooting every tiny little item, especially shooting every light bulb.

The bosses are a pain. They always soak up so much damage, and they usually have tiny weak points that can only be hit some of the time. Frequently the player will just have to stand there and take damage until the weak point is exposed.

The storyline is not good, but it is enjoyable as long as it is not taken seriously, like most horror stories. The dialogue though is bad being the point of being cheesy enjoyable bad. People who have played past Resident Evil games will understand what is going more than people who have not.

At least the soundtrack is impressive. And the graphics are very good too. All the monsters stick out and nothing looks blurry or hard to see. The full animated cut scenes look even better.

The level design could use some work. The levels are varied and memorable, but several levels have the characters go through the same rooms over and over again.

Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles is a fun, if flawed, shooter for the Wii. But it might not be worth it for people who are not already Resident Evil fans, unless they can buy it really cheap.

Review: Fable II

2011-01-24T18:28:00.001-05:00

Fable II is an adventure game with RPG elements for the Xbox 360. It was developed by Lionhead Studios.

The Hero in the middle of seducing several people at once in an alleyway.

One night in the kingdom of Albion, Lord Lucien invites two orphans to his castle and attempts to murder them as part of a plan to resurrect his wife and daughter. One of the orphans, actually the last in a long line of Heroes, survives. Ten years later, he or she sent off to stop Lucien, whose plans to resurrect his family threaten all of Albion.

Fable II tries to do many things at once, but everything they try is flawed in some way.

The main game is about completing the main quest through a series of missions that compels the Hero to travel across Albion. All the missions revolve around going to someplace and killing everything that tries to stop the Hero, whether it is bandits, or zombies, or Lucien’s soldiers.

The Hero has a melee attack, a ranged attack, and a collection of magic spells. The Hero strengthens these attacks by collecting orbs that are dropped by fallen enemies and spending them on enhancements. The player can either strengthen their attacks and defense, or spend the orbs on attack moves like dodging and blocking.

The type of attack used on enemies affects the type of orb dropped. Melee attacks drop melee orbs, etc. While having the choice of attacks is nice, melee attacks are simply more powerful than ranged attacks and faster than magic attacks, so there is not much reason to focus on leveling up melee, except to make fights more varied.

The Hero has to make money to buy weapons, and since enemies do not drop gold and any items found around Albion sell for only paltry sums of money, the Hero has to get a job in town like bartending or cutting wood. This takes several hours and is really tedious.

The game awards the Hero for completing missions with “renown”. The only practical use of renown is that it makes the price of items goes down slightly, but the game tries to justify it by making some parts of the game impossible to pass without a high enough renown.

The player cannot talk to villagers. Instead the Hero makes gestures that are either friendly or hostile. Friendly gestures make villagers fawn over the Hero, and hostile ones scare them. Like renown, the only practical use for this is making shopkeepers drop their prices slightly; otherwise it is only fun for players who like to watch NPCs run around or crowd the Hero, which is enjoyable at first, but starts to get tiring once they starts asking for rings all the time and blocking doorways.

Another way to make money is buying houses and renting them out. The player will automatically received gold every couple of minutes for every house they own, even when the Xbox is turned off. The Hero can also buy better furniture for their houses to increase the rent. This is a less tedious way to get better weapons, but since it is possible to get the best weapons halfway through the game, it will leave the player with a useless pile of money. Buying all the houses can be addicting, but not very satisfying.

If the Hero makes friendly gestures at a character enough times, which takes about a minutes tops, the Hero can marry that person. Then the Hero’s family can move into a house and have a kid. It is possible to do this several times in different towns, but like renown and gesturing at the NPCs it does not accomplish anything.

There is a morality system, but it is arbitrary. Quests will have some sort of ethical decision at the end that will only allow the Hero to do something really good or really evil without a reasonable middle ground. Doing so gets the Hero good or evil points. But it does not matter anyway since the player can reverse anything by doing simple actions like donating to the church or eating baby birds. All letting the good/evil point accumulates does is affect how the villager act towards the player and their appearance.
The only pointless diversion that is kind of fun is that the player can customize how the character looks, with many different hairstyles and clothes which can be altered with dyes. And lots of video games have that, though maybe not to this level of detail.

A few minor other problems: the dog that accompanies the hero is only useful for finding treasure chests and is useless in combat, and the indicator that points out when new quests, jobs, and sales is only useful for new quests and is prone staying on the screen after the player has checked to see what the new quest/job/sale is.

Combat is genuinely fun and easy. And unlike everything else, fighting monsters actually feels rewarding when skills and magic spells level up. The same feeling accompanies completing quests, which are only there to provide a bit more variety in places when the Hero fights monsters. The story is nothing impressive, even if takes place over the Hero entire life (through use of time skips), but Lionhead’s writing makes the funny dialogue and characters more memorable. Even though the number of regions the Hero visits can be counted on the player’s hands, they are big and varied enough that going through them is never tedious, except for the caves. And even though a lot of the features of the game are pointless, they can be skipped. It is just that the game would feel much shorter without them and the game makes them seem so important.

Fable II is a really ambitious game that falls on its face many times and is mostly suited to those that need to complete everything obsessively. Without the obsessive parts it is nothing but a somewhat humorous adventure game, which would be fine if video games were cheaper.

Review: A Boy and His Blob

2011-01-10T16:16:00.001-05:00

A Boy and His Blob is a platform/puzzle game for the Nintendo Wii. It was created by WayForward Technologies and Majesco Games. It is a remake of A Boy and his Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia for the NES.

The boy utilizing the blob's shapeshifting abilities to avoid an obstacle.

A boy is woken up in the middle of the night by an alien blob crash landing outside his tree house. The boy quickly bonds with the blob creature and discovers that it can morph into different objects when it is fed jellybeans. The boy and the blob set out to save the blob’s planet from the evil blob king.

A Boy and His Blob is four worlds long, with ten levels and ten bonus levels each. In each level the boy and the blob have to reach the golden jellybean at the end. But, the levels are filled with enemies, pits, spikes, and other impediments. To avoid them, the boy has to utilize the blob’s morphing powers.

Some of the things the blob can morph into are ladders to climb, parachutes to jump down pits, rockets to get around long spiky corridors, or anvils to crush enemies with. There are fifteen jellybean transformations in all.

The boy is only allowed to use a couple of types of jellybeans each level, but has unlimited amount of those jellybeans. For example, a level might have the boy only use the ladder jellybean and the parachute jellybean.

The boy has no way to defend himself on his own. All he has is a small jump that barely clears gaps and enemies. And any attack or a fall from a great height kills him. Thankfully the boy has unlimited lives and reappears a few feet back from where he died.

The blob is controlled by the computer. Usually the blob follows behind the boy, but the player can direct the blob by throwing jellybeans. Several puzzles are solved by throwing a jellybean over an obstacle and having the blob morph into something that will get the boy over the obstacle too. Sometimes the blob will get stuck and the computer cannot get the blob to jump over whatever is blocking it. Eventually it will jump over, but that can get slightly annoying. The player can call un-morph the blob and return it to the boy with a button press.

Every level has three hidden treasure chests. Finding all three chests unlocks a challenging bonus level. Beating that level unlocks concept art. Collecting the treasure chest can be tedious, especially if the player passes them and has to go through the entire level again to get at them. In some ways the challenge levels are more enjoyable because there are no treasure chests to find.

The game starts off easy but gets really hard near the end. However, it never feels cheap. It helps that there are only so many jellybeans and therefore only so many answers to the puzzles, so the player can never really get frustrated at not figuring out the answer. It can be difficult timing things like jumps and dodging around enemies, but the way to get around them is always obvious. For the most part solving the puzzles is a fun challenge that should be accessible to anyone.

The graphic design is this really nice looking 2D cartoon style. The sprites and backgrounds are all hand drawn and do not look choppy at all; everything moves seamlessly. And the level design is gorgeous, from the swamps to the alien planet.

There is no story. There is a paragraph in the instruction manual and a picture book in the third world, and that is it. Besides explaining why the duo moves from place to place, the story does not affect the game at all.

There is no dialogue either. All there is the boy exclaiming something when he wants the blob to return. The developers should have chosen a less annoying voice actor, because hearing the boy shout “Blob!” repeatedly is unpleasant.

The game does not use the Wii motion control in any way, thankfully.

The game is not very long. Even after collecting all the treasure chests and completing all the bonus levels the game only takes about ten hours. And there is no replay value at all. It is not really worth full price.

A Boy and His Blob is a fun puzzle game that can be enjoyed by everyone who likes semi-challenging puzzles. It can get a bit daunting at the end, but no one should have any real problem with it and should still have fun.

Review: Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts

2010-12-27T14:34:00.001-05:00

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts is a vehicle creation/platform game for the Xbox 360. It was developed by Rare. It is the third Banjo-Kazooie game; the last two were on the Nintendo 64.

Banjo and Kazooie piloting a basic vehicle in the first level.

Banjo, Kazooie, and their archenemy Gruntilda have been transported by the Lord of Games to Showdown Town. Tired of the lack of activity between the heroes and villain since their last game, L.O.G. has forced the three into a vehicle building competition. The winner gets ownership of their home, Spiral Mountain.

Nuts and Bolts is made up of six worlds connected by a hub world, Showdown Town. Each world has puzzle pieces called Jiggies to collect. To collect them, Banjo and Kazooie have to construct vehicles and use them to win competitions. Winning Jiggies unlocks newer worlds, new challenges in the same worlds, and new vehicle parts, until the game is completed and Gruntilda is defeated.

The building vehicles part of the game is a very impressive system. The vehicles are not realistic; the bodies of the vehicles are made of cubes, wedges, pipes, and panels. But the number of pieces the player is allocated, and the way they all can connect to each other, allows for a lot of creativity.

There are also several cool gadgets that the player can attach to their vehicles. All vehicles need at least some type of engine and fuel tank, but they can go anywhere and come in different sizes. Less vital but still important are different types of wheels, floaters to make aquatic vehicles, wings and propellers for planes and helicopters, and truck parts to transport things. And there are a ton of weapons and fun miscellaneous tools, like a self repairing tool, that can be attached as well.

There is nothing more enjoyable than spending ten minutes putting a car or a plane together, making sure it has all the parts and that it looks nice, and then testing it out and seeing that it works the way the player wanted it to. But it is difficult to not simply make a vehicle that looks like a real vehicle, for example simply building a regular car because cars are the standard. Also, there is nothing stopping the player from attaching a seat to four wheels and an engine and not do anything creative with it, except that might make the vehicle unbalanced.

The game does take into account the weight of vehicles. More powerful engines are needed to move bigger vehicles, and vehicles can be unbalanced if took much stuff is put in the front or the back. There is a problem with the vehicles having a hard time not sticking to the ground no matter how weight is put on it, which is a problem when most of the levels have uneven ground.

Unfortunately the rest of the game is not as fun as the vehicle creation section. The entire game is made up of time trials; races, transporting stuff under a time limit, pushing things under a time limit, destroying things under a time limit, all missions that need a vehicle in some way. It is occasionally fun to have to make an unusual vehicle to complete a creative objective, but most of the activities are mundane. And putting them under a time limit or in areas that are hard to navigate, with vehicles that do not hug the ground, just makes the completing the challenges frustrating. The only joy is in getting the Jiggies so cool new vehicle parts are unlocked.

Level design is weird. The levels are huge and gorgeous and allow plenty of space for races and whatnot. But they are largely empty. All there is to do is to go from one character hosting a challenge to the next. It brings up the question of why make the player go to each challenge. It would have been easier to have all the challengers in one place. There are musical notes that can be collected to unlock more vehicle parts and tokens that can be used to unlock more vehicle parts, but those are not fun to collect.

The story and characters are all aware that they are in a video game, and most of the game revolves around making fun of video game conventions, like the pointlessness of fetch quests, or the history of the video game industry, or Rare’s own history. It is funny, but at the same time it is depressing having it pointed out how far Rare has fallen since the 90s.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts is a fun vehicle building simulator surrounded by a terribly tedious driving/flying/whatever simulator. And it is a letdown to fans of the Banjo-Kazooie series.

Review: Sam and Max: The Devil's Playhouse

2010-12-13T20:05:00.001-05:00

Sam and Max: the Devil’s Playhouse is an adventure game for the PC, Macintosh, and PlayStation 3. It was developed by Telltale Games. It is the third “season” of Sam and Max. It was originally released episodically and then rereleased as one game; this review will treat it as a complete game.

Sam and Max having a conversation with Grnadpa Stinky. The player always several choices of dialogue when talking to someone.

Sam and Max, Freelance Police, discover that Max has developed psychic powers, powers that react when Max encounters a toy from the Devil’s Toy Chest. Unfortunately for the duo they are not the only ones who want the toys, as the two have to deal with a space gorilla overlord, an evil museum curator, and the Elder Gods, all while trying to unravel the mystery of the Devil’s Toy Chest.

The Devil’s Playhouse is divided into five chapters. In each chapter the player controls Sam (who Max follows around) as they try to deal with some overarching problem. To solve the problem, the two have to overcome various silly obstacles and people. Like most adventure games, the obstacles and people are puzzles, and to solve the puzzle the player has to find or receive an object and use it in a not entirely sensible or usual way.

The team also has to spend a lot of time talking to people, either to advance the plot or find out what the puzzle is.

New to the Sam and Max series are Max’s psychic powers. Powers like mind reading, ventriloquism, or precognition, which the Sam and Max also use to solve puzzles. For example: using the ventriloquism to cause a distraction so they can sneak into somewhere.

The puzzles are a little challenging, but never too frustrating or too obtuse to figure out. It is all a matter of thinking what would make the most sense to use without worrying about common sense.

The graphics are problematic. The game is set up with 3D models that walk around confined areas. The characters have a limited number of programmed movements, which often do not line up with what the characters are saying, most noticeably with the lip synch. Characters also sometimes disappear. This may have something to do with the game being installed by downloading off the internet. Hopefully this does not happen with the version that can be bought retail.

The art design is okay, the designers opted for a cartoon look, but it works well with the setting.

The voice acting is all very good. Not a single voice is annoying. At times the voices in general sound like they are all talking with a lisp.

The story is very interesting and funny. The writers deserve credit for breaking away from the more formulaic storytelling of the first two seasons and doing different things with the story. The story picks up right where the last chapter left off instead of starting in the same place every time and moving from there. Anyone who has not played the first two seasons will not know what is going on or who anybody is, but fans of the series should be happy to see their characters developed. The only bad part is some of chapter four where Sam and Max do not have clear motivations for what they are doing, but the rest of the story is fine. There is also a small part in the third chapter where the style of the game changes, but thankfully it does not last very long.

The best part of this series has always been its humor, and this game does not disappoint. Every other line of dialogue is very funny, relying on lighthearted parody of culture, or people just people acting weird, or crazy. And there is a lot of dialogue, so players will be entertained the whole way through.

There is one problem with the stories and the puzzles, and that involves Max’s psychic powers. Several times a puzzle is solved by Max using his mind reading or precognition ability which will simply say what the answer is, or the story will advance because Sam and Max used the precognition ability to see what will happen then do it instead of a clever reason. It comes off as really lazy storytelling.

Sam and Max: the Devil’s Playhouse is a very fun and funny adventure game that anyone who enjoys adventures games and humor should like. Anybody who did not play the first two seasons will be completely lost, but that is all the more reason to go play the first two seasons as well.

Review: Red Faction: Guerilla

2010-11-29T16:03:00.001-05:00

Red Faction: Guerilla is a sandbox game for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. It was developed by Volition Inc. It is the third game in the Red Faction series, but the first one to be a sandbox game and not a first person shooter.

Alec Mason joyriding around Mars in a stolen truck.

Alec Mason has been invited to a terraformed Mars by his brother Dan to begin a new life as a miner. Shortly after Alec’s arrival Dan is gunned by the Earth Defense Force, the military group that runs Mars like a dictatorship, on suspicion of Dan being a member of the resistance group Red Faction. Alec reluctantly joins Red Faction to avenge his brother and bring down the EDF.

The game is divided into five sectors around Mars. Each sector is controlled by the EDF; the level of control is represented by a number. Mason has to bring that number down to zero by completing a few main missions as well as several side missions. Once the EDF’s control is brought down to zero Mason has to complete one final mission before the sector is freed and he can move onto another sector.

Mason starts out with only a sledgehammer, but quickly gains more weapons. Mason can pick up basic weapons from EDF troops, like assault rifles and shotguns, but the really powerful weapons are bought from Red Faction, like a rocket launcher or a gun that shoots electricity. Guns are bought with salvage, a currency of sorts that Mason collects from the ruins of buildings the player destroys, or from completing missions. Red Faction weapons can be upgraded with more salvage, making them more powerful.

The main missions are combinations of driving somewhere, collecting something, killing EDF officers, and demolition. These are always varied and complicated enough to be entertaining. It is a shame that they do not take up most of the game.

Most of the game is spent completing side missions. These missions vary in levels of entertainment, differing mostly in where they take place and how strong the EDF are. It is not necessary to complete every mission, but it does pad out the game, and completing some missions reward the player with salvage. The best ones are raiding a facility and killing all the EDF there with a group of resistance fighters, while the worst ones are blowing up an important building alone while an unlimited number of EDF bare down on Mason.

Fighting the EDF raises the sectors morale, while hurting civilians and their buildings lowers it. Higher morale means that civilians will sometimes help Mason in fights. But the civilians are so weak and ineffective in fights that they become a liability, making the whole morale system nothing more than an annoyance.

The big selling point of Red Faction: Guerilla is the opportunity to blow up lots of buildings. Several missions involve destroying buildings, and Mason has access to explosives right at the beginning. And the buildings are so easy to destroy. Mason’s hammer alone can take out a huge section of a wall with one swing. It is very easy to drive a car through a building without there being any resistance to the car at all, like the building was made of tissue paper.

But what is really impressive is how any part of a building can be destroyed, and not look preprogrammed to be destroyed. For example, the player can drive a car right through a building, and that will leave a very noticeable hole in the building, but the rest of the building will remain standing. And like real buildings, some buildings do have supporting areas that can be destroyed to bring the entire building down, though there are just as many times where the player will slowly have to demolish all the walls to bring the roof down. It comes off as much more realistic how well the buildings stand up.

But while Red Faction: Guerilla does blowing up buildings very well, it falls short in many other areas. Completing main missions is fun and rewarding, but the side missions are only okay, and even worse, sometimes only reward the player with a morale boost and not salvage. The EDF control number is okay, but it is so easy to reduce to zero that it is not a challenge. The world is an open sandbox, but since it is mostly barren Mars with building scattered around, it does not encourage much exploration beyond going from point A to point B.

Even blowing up buildings starts to get weird when it becomes impossible to ignore that the buildings collapse like they were made of cardboard, straws, and cotton balls. And then there are the times when the game gets upset unless the buildings is completely destroyed even though the player has run out of explosives, leaving Mason to slowly smash the walls away.

Red Faction: Guerilla is an okay game for people who really like blowing up stuff and getting into firefights. Everyone else though, might want to spend their money on a better built game.

Review Dead Space: Extraction

2010-11-15T15:57:00.001-05:00

Dead Space: Extraction is an on-rail shooter for the Nintendo Wii. It was developed by Visceral Games. It is the prequel to Dead Space, which was on the Xbox 369, PlayStation 3, and PC. It will apparently be appearing on the PlayStation 3, which as of this writing has not happened yet. This review is based on the Wii version.

Two necromorphs advancing on the player in a service tunnel.

Nathan McNeill and Gabriel Weller are detectives on assignment on the planet Aegis VII when a mysterious artifact that has been dug up starts to drive the planet’s residents insane and turn them into monsters. Along with two hangers on, Lexine Murdoch and Warren Eckhardt, McNeill and Weller attempt to escape to the space cruiser USG Ishimura in orbit above the planet, unaware that they are having similar problems.

The main Extraction game is ten levels long. One or two players control the guns of McNeill Weller as they walk along a predetermined path, shooting every monster (or necromorph) that appears before them before it can attack. The necromorphs are not particularly smart, the challenge comes from their large numbers, the massive amount of damage they can take, and the players’ aiming abilities. The necromorphs come in waves, when the players finish one wave they move further down the level. The necromorphs are practically invulnerable in their torsos, so the player has to shoot off their limbs to damage them.

The players have several types of weapons at their disposal. Their effectiveness at cutting off limbs varies. Each weapon comes with a basic attack and an alternate attack that is activated by turning the Wiimote sideways.

Except for the starting weapon, ammo is limited. The players have to pick more ammo that is lying around the levels. Since the detectives move on their own, the players have to grab the ammo quickly with the Wiimote before the camera moves out of the way. It provides a little extra challenge. There are also upgrades the players can pick up that increase their magazine count; this are usually in harder to reach areas.

There are some diversions from the shooting. In addition to parts that move the story along, there are times where the player will have to choose which direction to go. There are also panels that one of the players needs to hack by tracing the Wiimote along a narrow line, and hidden rooms that they can break into for more ammo or upgrades. Things like that give the players a reason to replay the game and find new stuff to do, though not too much.

There is also a challenge mode. In the challenge mode the players go through part of a level, and there is nothing to do except killing necromorphs, which there are a lot more of. Points are awarded for how well the players shoot the necromorphs, and the players can aim for the high score, but no other reward. So it is really more for people who want to challenge themselves. For some annoying reason necromorphs in this mode can get stuck behind columns and walls, making it impossible to finish the challenge.

The story is okay. It is a standard horror story, but the characters are likable so it is okay. People who played through Dead Space and are hoping to learn more about the initial outbreak on the Ishimura might be disappointed though, because this game takes place before and after the prologue for Dead Space.

The graphics are okay. Characters can look a little blocky, but it is not that noticeable.

The thing about on rail shooters is that they appeal to a limited market, especially the shooters that are not in arcades. They are usually short, and people who buy them have to be comfortable playing through the same areas repeatedly. But as far as rail shooters go Extraction is one of the best. It is pretty long for a rail shooter, being ten levels that take ten to twenty minutes to finish. There are plenty of enemies and weapons to make each play-through somewhat different. The only real problem is that the can feel slow at times, since a lot the monsters slowly shamble towards the camera, and explaining the story can take a while. But that is not a serious problem.

Dead Space: Extraction is a very fun rail shooter that uses the Wii’s abilities to great effect. This game should be fun for people who have played Dead Space and want to know more, and those who are just looking for a fun game.

Review: Saints Row 2

2010-11-01T16:01:00.001-04:00

Saints Row 2 is a sandbox shooter for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. It was developed by THQ and Volition Inc. It is the sequel to Saints Row.

The Boss and Johnny Gat punching out some dudes in their hideout's basement.

The leader of the 3rd Street Saints, known only as The Boss, wakes up from his/her five year coma and breaks out of Stilwater Correctional Facility, only to find that the Saints have lost power in the city of Stilwater. The Boss has to rebuild the Saints’ reputation by taking down the three gangs controlling the city, the Brotherhood, the Ronin, and the Sons of Samedi, while dealing with the powerful Ultor Corporation that controls the city.

The player controls The Boss as he/she completes missions throughout Stilwater. There is one mission available at a time for each gang that can be played whenever. Completing a mission advances the story, as well as bring another part of Stilwater under the Saints’ control. The player does this until all three gangs are gone and Stilwater is controlled.

Story missions involve killing people with guns outside, running into buildings to kill people, destroying vehicles, and destroying vehicles while riding in a vehicle, either while driving or in the passenger’s seat. Stilwater is huge and full of different buildings, cars, and weapon, and the games takes advantage of that. The missions are spread out and use different parts of the city, so they never feel old.

But what is really impressive are all the side missions that the player can participate in. There are about fifteen side missions in Stilwater, each six levels long which can be done in two places. A couple of the more creative missions include participating in a destruction derby, spraying feces on buildings while someone drives a septic truck, and avoiding the press while someone has sex with a hooker in the backseat of the player’s car. Rewards for these include a specialized vehicles and ability powerups.

And that is just the missions that appear on the map. The player also gets rewards for pulling stunts like sky-diving, driving into incoming traffic, and taking people hostage. It is almost too addictive, trying to complete every single side quest and get all the hidden things.

Completing side missions earns the player respect. The player needs to earn enough respect before the story missions become available. But earning respect is so easy that it is not a challenge at all.

The best part is how the player can customize everything. The player can decide everything about The Boss, gender, physique, body structure, personality, and voice. And there are so many clothing options that the player can make The Boss look like anyone, from a fairly normal person to a crazy nutjob.

The player can also customize parts of the gang, like how they dress and what they drive. That, plus buying up businesses for money and buying additional hideout which can also be customized, really give the player sense of megalomaniacal power, which is the best part of the game. And almost always getting a unique reward for completing missions just makes the player want to play more.

Driving around and causing trouble alerts the police. The more damage is done, the more police chase The Boss. But it is easy to avoid causing problems, so that is not a big deal And killing gang members does the same thing, except with gangs chasing The Boss.

Combat is easy. Just point the weapon at the enemy and pull the trigger. They will stand there and get shot at. The only danger is finding cover if there are a lot of people shooting at The Boss, or the danger of getting run over by a car. The Boss can also fight hand to hand or with a melee weapon, but they are almost all obsolete.

The story is okay. Nothing big happens, but the characters are all likable and funny. The parts that are not funny are usually cool to watch.

The game is not perfect. The AI is terrible. It is possible to recruit gang members to help The Boss, but they cannot aim and will not take cover. And sometimes they will blow themselves up. At best they can sometimes provide a distraction.

Some of the side missions are not designed well. A couple of them are buggy, or rely on luck to complete. And in the later levels they can become more difficult than fun. It would have been better if they had been shorter instead of dragged out.

Money is way too easy to get, and there is not enough stuff to buy with it. At first buying ammo is a problem, but the income gained from buying businesses solves that.

Saints Row 2 is a very fun and very addictive game. Anyone who likes sandbox games with rewarding mission should be able to waste a lot of time with this game.

Review: MadWorld

2010-10-18T15:59:00.001-04:00

MadWorld is a beat-‘em-up game for the Nintendo Wii. It was developed by Platinum Games and published by Sega.

Jack faces off against one of the game's stronger enemies.

Jefferson Island has been taken over by Death Watch, a group that hosts violent gladiatorial games and broadcasts them to the rest of the world for fun and profit, cutting off the island and turning it into one deadly arena for the latest Death Watch game. Jack is the newest contestant for the Death Watch games. Armed with a chainsaw on his arm, Jack seeks to become the Death Watch champion and claim the large cash prize while pursuing his own mysterious goals.

The player controls Jack as he makes his way through different levels on Jefferson Island. In each level Jack has to kill a never ending army of thugs to score points. The more creatively an enemy is killed the more points the player gets. When the player collects enough points a boss fight becomes available. When Jack beats the boss the level is cleared and the player can move on to the next level.

Jack has a few basic attacks. He can punch people a bunch of times, uppercut them, or slice them in two with his chainsaw. But those are not really important. The real way to attack enemies is to use the various weapons that are strewn about the levels to kill the enemies in a more creative manner. Most levels have similar types of weapons, like signposts that can be jammed through the thug’s heads, barrels that can be slammed on top of thugs, or walls of spikes that they can be impaled on. But many levels have weapons that are unique to them, like one level has a tank full of piranhas, and another one has a giant grill to cook people on.

The player gets more points if they string multiple attacks together, like smashing a barrel on someone’s head and then throwing them off of a cliff. And the player receives less points if they do the same type of attack over and over again.

The main draw of MadWorld is the sheer number of ways Jack can kill someone. All the levels are relatively non-linear, and the enemies are endless and not very hard to defeat. There are usually at least a dozen ways to kill a person per level. It is really up to the player’s imagination how to make the game fun. Of course, to enjoy the game one must have an appreciation for messy over the top violence.

It is not too challenging. The regular enemies are only a little difficult near the end of the game, and that is only when there are a lot of them. There is also a time limit, but it is so long that there might as well not be one.

The bosses can be annoying, mostly because most of them have a cheap block and really powerful attacks. It would have been nice if Jack had a similar blocking ability to even it out.

Use of Wiimote is very well implemented. The player just has to swing the remote to the side or up for a side-wipe or uppercut, or hold the B button down and swing it down for a chainsaw attack. Flicking the nunchuk makes Jack dodge. All nice simple movements that take advantage of the Wii’s capabilities without a lot of flailing around.

The art design is interesting. The game is all in black and white and looks like a comic book. It also has visual sound effects and some of the cutscenes are done in panels like a comic book as well. The only color is the red blood that is splattered everywhere, which eventually disappears. The black and white look does make it hard to see objects and people sometimes, since from a distance it can all look like a mass of wriggling black and white.

The story is confusing and preachy, with a timeline that does not make much since. Whoever wrote the story really hates rich people.

It is funny. Jack and other characters get a few funny lines out. The funniest jokes come from the two announcers that constantly comment on Jack’s progress. It is a real shame that a lot of what they say cannot be heard over the soundtrack and all the screaming. Also they tend to repeat themselves a lot.
There is not too much replay value. Even with all the different weapons available they can still get old eventually. The same goes for the levels, which lose their initial appeal once they have been explored. If only more of the weapons were not unique to their respective levels.

MadWorld is a very fun, violent, and funny game that uses the Nintendo Wii very well. Anyone who enjoys mindless violence should play it.

Review: Dead Space

2010-10-04T16:14:00.001-04:00

Dead Space is a survival horror/third-person shooter for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. It was developed by EA.

Isaac Clarke on the command deck of the Ishimura.

Isaac Clarke is a member of a crew sent to determine why the starship USG Ishimura sent out a distress signal. Onboard Iasaac and his colleagues discover that the ship has been overrun with undead human/alien monsters called Necromorphs. It is up to Clarke and rest of the crew to escape the Ishimura while learning the origin of the Necromorphs and what they did to the ship.

The player controls Isaac as he makes his way through different parts of ship, completing whatever objectives he has been given by his crewmates.

The main enemy is the army of Necromorphs that have infested the Ishimura. Necromorphs are not bothered by weapons fire (though it can impede them), and like to attack Isaac up close, so the player has to kill them before they reach Isaac. Isaac has several weapons of varying effectiveness depending on the player’s skills at his disposal, like a flamethrower or a sonic boom gun.

The best way to kill the Necromorphs-which the game instructs the player to do early on-is to sever the Necromorphs limbs to kill them. Except for the first weapon Isaac acquires, none of the weapons are suitable for cutting off limbs at a distance, so the game is not being fair in that regard.

As the game is of the survival horror genre, enemies do not initially come in large groups, instead appearing suddenly around corners or out of vents to surprise the player. Near the end of the though, they stop being surprising and start attacking in lager groups, and the challenge becomes having enough ammunition to finish them off.

Scattered throughout the ship are items called power nodes. Isaac can use these nodes to upgrade his weapons in armor by making them more powerful, reload faster, etc. However, nodes can only upgrade one feature of a weapon or armor at a time, and the nodes are extremely rare. So the player has to decide what is the most important to upgrade.

Isaac will also find money lying around the ship, which he can use at the shops onboard. The shops carry items like weapons and health packs, as well as more power nodes. Like the nodes money is very limited so the player has to decide whether it is more important to buy nodes, new weapons, or ammo and health.

There are four types of puzzles the player will run into in the game involving slowing down fast moving objects, lifting heavy objects out of the way, running quickly through a vacuum, and maneuvering through a zero-g environment. None of these puzzles are frustrating, but they are never desirable diversions either, and only the vacuum and zero-g areas are impressive challenges.

The Ishimura is a very scarily-designed ship. Not a single hallway or room is well lit, at least not for very long. What few light sources there are create a dull orange and brown haze or cast shadows. Most of the hallways are black, gray, or dark brown. There are vents everywhere, perfect for Necromorphs to jump in and out of. Since all of the ship adheres to the same dark decorum, it could start to feel a similar after a while. But the different designs corresponding to the different sections of the ship, like the medical wing looking more sterile, the engine area being filled with pipes, or the atrium being a garden, keep the game from feeling redundant.

What Dead Space really has going for it is its addictiveness. Exploring new parts of the ship, systematically cutting the limbs off of enemies, finding new logs, and upgrading weapons are all so simple and rewarding that it is easy to keep doing them again and again.

The storyline is okay. At the beginning it feels like the game is just coming up with excuses to have Isaac run across the ship to fix things. It becomes more reasonable later when more important events start to happen. The back story is nicely fleshed out through the discovered logs. It perhaps shares a little too many similarities to the 1999 computer game System Shock 2.

It is not really scary though. The Necromorphs are horrifying to look at, but there are only about a half dozen, so it is easy to get used to them. Same with the ways that they surprise the player, they can only jump out of the ceiling before it stops being a surprise.

The game can be a bit short, taking a little under twelve hours to complete with no serious challenges. But it stops before the limited types of enemies and the same dark atmosphere really starts to get boring, so it is fine.

Dead Space is a fun shooter that anybody can enjoy. It is not really scary, but it is very interesting.

Review: Mirror's Edge

2010-09-20T16:02:00.001-04:00

Mirror’s Edge is a first person platform game for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. It was developed by DICE and Electronic Arts.

Faith jumping over a huge pit. Note the lack of health bar and other indicators.

In a totalitarian city, Faith is an employee of an underground courier company that employs fast athletic runners to transport sensitive information undetected by the authorities. One day Faith discovers that her sister has been framed for the murder of a mayoral candidate who could have potentially reduce the hold the police have on the city. It is up to Faith to discover who framed her sister and find the real murderer.

Mirror’s Edge focuses on Faith running across rooftops while evading the police. The game is notable for being first person, so the player can actually see what it is like to run across the top of a cityscape like a Parkour expert.

The controls are simple, though it can take some getting used to. The most important button is the jump button, which acts as a general obstacle interaction button. Pressing it causes Faith to jump, run along walls, climb on top of things, and climb over things. There is also a “slide under things” button that doubles as “roll when falling from a great height” button when pressed at the right time, and a combat button.

In each level there is a linear that Faith has to run littered with obstacles like fences, attics, and lots of space between buildings. Faith can run around the obstacles, but because the police move so fast it is up to the player to jump over and duck under obstacles to shave off precious seconds. The player is helped by traversable obstacles glowing bright red when Faith looks at them.

The other part of the game is trying to get out of rooms/areas that Faith has become trapped in. In these parts there is a complicated way of escaping that the player has to discover using Faith’s Parkour skills. There are no police in these areas, so the player has plenty of time to figure out the exit.

There are times when the game will force the player to fight a couple of police. These are never fun. Faith has a basic punch attack, and a low and high kick. Faith also has a disarm attack that never works. The rest of the time the player has to mash the attack button until the guard drops, or shoot other guards with their weapons. This may be fun in other games, but here it just ruins the flow. The game should be focused on running nonstop, which is always exciting, instead of slowing down for this. And there is no strategy either, just punching until the person goes down. It does not even make sense, Faith is tiny and these guys are huge and armored.

The artistic design for the game is striking. Everything in the city is bleached white, unlike the grey buildings of real life. Objects, like doors, signs, and the sky, are bright solid colors which contrast with the white. It makes the whole place looks sterile, but beautiful in its cleanliness. And it makes the rare colors that do appear look gorgeous.

The level design on the other can get boring after a while. Almost everything looks the same. It is not bad on the rooftops and upper floors when it looks so damn beautiful and Faith is moving too fast for the player to notice that much. But inside the rooms and hallways Faith gets trapped in, which are usually something boring like a warehouse, building under construction, or a basement of some kind, it gets dull seeing the same stucco walls and pipes no matter what way they are set up or what primary color they are covered in.

This is part of a larger problem though, that the non-“running from cops” parts of the game are incredibly boring. And they take up the majority of the game play. They are always in these boring areas, and always consist of jumping at the same wall or pipe until the Faith successfully grabs it, and the carefully moves onto the next out of the way obstacle. This can take a really long time to do. Like the combat sections, these might be fun in another game, but there is something a lot more exciting that the game could be doing.

The storyline is clichéd dribble, with lots of backstabs, secret plots, flat characters, and a plot twist that can be seen a mile away. It would have been a lot more interesting to see Faith actually doing her job as an information courier than get wrapped up in a secret conspiracy plot.

Mirror’s Edge is a game that has a cool idea that is utterly squandered and replaced with boring combat and climbing puzzles. It is a real shame, because the first few levels show such promise.

Review: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

2010-09-06T16:16:00.001-04:00

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks is an action-adventure game for the Nintendo DS. It was developed by Nintendo.

Link's train travelling along the Spirit Tracks, and the overworld map showing where he is going.

In the kingdom of Hyrule, Chancellor Cole has destroyed the Tower of Spirits and stolen the body of Princess Zelda to serve as a vessel for the demon Malladus. The disembodied spirit of Princess Zelda enlists the aid of newly appointed train engineer Link to fix the Tower of Spirits and retrieve her body. To do so, Link must travel along the Spirits Tracks, the chains that were originally used to hold Malladus that have since been re-commissioned as train tracks, to the four corners of the kingdom and find that relics needed to repair the tower.

The game makes extensive use of the DS’ hardware. The player controls Link by moving the stylus around the screen. Combat is handled similarly; the player just has to tap the enemy for Link to attack it. There are also several puzzles where the player has to make notes on the maps with the stylus to solve puzzles. And half of the items Link collects use either the stylus or microphone in some way.

The game is split into among the four different realms of Hyrule, and the player has to go through three sequences in each realm.

In the first part, Link and Zelda have to retrieve part of the rail map that will unlock the next section of the kingdom from the Tower of Spirits. Link controls normally while Zelda possesses a suit of armor that the player has to direct by tracing her path along the map. Puzzles in these areas involve taking advantage of having two people at the player’s disposal or Zelda’s indestructibility. These take the best advantage of the DS’ capabilities.

The next part-and this is the part that takes up most of the game-is travelling across Hyrule on the Spirit Train. The player traces a path along the Spirit Tracks from Point A to Point B, and Link pilots the train there. Along the way the player has to shoot down enemies with the train’s cannon, or switch the train to another track if another train is getting in the way. There is always a town that Link has to stop at first to get directions to the sanctuary of the area, which will then lead to the third part of that area.

These areas can be both good and bad. Travelling across the world by train is a novel concept, but it can get become tedious after a while. It is not the linearity that is the problem, but how slow the train moves and how elaborate the railways can be. The game tries to keep itself from being too repetitive by having enemies attack the train, or have other trains to dodge, but overall a faster train would have been preferred. The music that plays constantly while driving the train does not help at all.

The third part of the game takes place in the area’s dungeon. Link has to retrieve whatever tool is hidden away in that dungeon, then use to reach the end of the dungeon, and defeat the boss at the end of the dungeon with the new tool. These sections are okay, the puzzles are not particularly memorable, but they are never frustrating either.

There are several side quests that the player can make Link do. The two biggest are transporting cargo or people, either within a time limit or without getting damaged. Completing these can increase Link’s health, or open up new railway paths which can lead to new areas or shortcuts. They are for the most part fun little time wasters. The only bad one is the long rabbit collecting side quest. What is weird though is that most of them cannot be accessed by the player until the end. Also, most of them take place in the southwest part of Hyrule which is a waste of the other three realms.

The game’s biggest problem is it’s adherence to using all of the DS’ functions at the cost of enjoyment, especially controlling Link with the stylus, which never feels comfortable. Neither does anything involving the microphone. Combat is difficult too, despite its simplicity since it does not leave much room for maneuvering. Most of the challenge in the game comes not from difficulty of the enemies or traps, but from the difficulty of avoiding really simple perils.

The graphics are pretty good. It is in 3D with a top down perspective, and is cel-shaded.

There is not much story beyond “save the world”. The only really good part is the back and forth between the silly Link and the ghost Zelda, though the rest of the story is not horrible.

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks is an okay Legend of Zelda that is held back by its own concepts. Not terrible, but it could have been better.

Review: Lost Planet: Extreme Condition

2010-08-23T16:13:00.001-04:00

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition is a third-person shooter for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. It was developed by Capcom.

Wayne travelling through a frozen over city.

Humanity is trying to colonize the icy covered planet E.D.N. III, but face opposition from the Akrid, and race of giant insectsthat inhabit it. An Akrid hunter, Wayne, is separated from his group of hunters and gets amnesia after watching a gigantic Akrid kill his father. Wayne joins up with a group of snow pirates, hoping to regain his memories and kill the giant Akrid who killed his father along the way.

The game is divided into eleven levels. Each level begins with Wayne having to travel to the other end, shooting Akrid, other snow pirates, and the soldiers of the conglomerate NEVEC along the way. Each level ends with a large boss that Wayne has to kill.

Fighting the Akrid is different from fighting humans. Most Akrid are impervious except for a glowing orange spot on their bodies. The player has to aim for that spot while dodging the Akrid’s unrelenting attacks.

The humans are more conventional. They can be killed by being shot enough times unlike the mostly invincible Akrids, but make up for it more firepower and superior numbers.

All enemies drop thermal energy, a substance needed to survive on E.D.N. III. Wayne has two life bars, a regular one and one that stores the thermal energy. The thermal energy bar is always slowly counting down, so the player has to feed it a constant stream of thermal energy. Whenever Wayne is hurt his thermal energy is used to replenish his regular health bar. This adds an extra challenge for the player to find enough energy to stay alive while it is constantly running out. If anything his thermal energy bar is his real health bar. But because so many enemies drop energy so readily the player usually has more than enough energy to survive by the middle of the level.

While Wayne has plenty of normal weapons at his disposal, he also can pilot giant mechs that are found throughout the levels. These provide additional armor, as well as stronger firepower. These are needed to take out the enemies’ mechs, as well as the larger Akrid. Wayne can equip two weapons per mech, which gives the player a degree of control over how they want to handle fights. The mechs also use thermal energy, but at a much quicker rate. So using them creates an extra risk.

Bosses start off really easy but switch to incredibly hard near the end when their weak points are hidden. They are not impossible, but can get really close to being more frustrating than fun. They are always visually impressive, towering over Wayne even if he is in a mech.

Wayne also has access to a grappling hook which he needs to climb up the sides of mountains and buildings. For some reason it does not work on all surfaces.

With all the giant bugs and giant robots, it is a shame how subpar the combat in the game is. With the Akrids there is not much variety. There are three enemies that are more of a nuisance than anything; one does the cliché enemy charge at the player like a bull tactic, which leaves only four enemies of note, half of which do not appear until the end.

Fighting humans is always easy thanks to the massive amounts of thermal energy Wayne can collect. The only humans that pose a challenge are the ones with laser rifles and the ones with rocket launchers.

Robot fights always boil down to running around in slow circles, pressing the trigger button as fast as possible before the enemy does, and then hopping into another one when the current mech is too damaged. They always take too long, and in levels with lots of mechs it is sometimes easier to just run through them and pray for survival. And any game that makings fighting robots boring is not doing its job.

Setting the game on an all ice planet is a novel idea, but it makes the levels less interesting. They are either snowy mountains, snowy caves, snowy ruins, or less snowy bases.

The story is awful. All the characters, including Wayne, are either boring or annoying. Characters commit actions without much reason. Sometimes they will somehow show up at places that they should not be reached. The story presented by Wayne’s slowly revealed memories is confusing. The objectives of the main cast are unclear for most of the game. The biggest plot hole is that the main characters act like NEVEC is evil, but besides employing one asshole they are not shown to do anything that would be considered evil until the very end.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition is a game that fails at everything it should excel at. It is a real disappointment and a waste of a premise.

Review: Shadow Complex

2010-08-09T16:03:00.001-04:00

Shadow Complex is an action-adventure Metroidvania game that can be downloaded off of Xbox Live. It was developed by Chair Entertainment and Epic Games.

Jason in a firefight somewhere deep inside the base.

Jason Flemming is spelunking with Claire, a girl he met at a bar last night, when they stumble upon a large secret underground base. Claire is captured by the Restoration, an evil organization bent on toppling the United States, and Jason has to rescue her by infiltrating the base.

Shadow Complex takes place only in the giant complex. Jason explores the base while trying to complete his current objective, which is always looking for something, like Claire or power armor. Along the way Jason has to kill all the guards who try to stop him. Jason starts off with a pistol, but gets more powerful weapons as he explores the base. He also can instantly knock out enemies when he is standing next to them.

The complex is not entirely accessible to Jason at first. Most doors have certain locks that can only be opened by weapons or equipment Jason finds. The doors are color-coordinated. For example: Jason soon runs into green colored doors which can only be opened by grenades which Jason finds shortly after. Other equipment includes double jump boots and super speed harnesses.

Jason does more than run through rooms shooting everyone. Jason often has to jump over obstacles and climb through vents to reach regular and hidden areas, making the base a lot like a maze.

The player has access to a map that shows where the current objective is, what parts of the complex Jason has already explored, and where all the doors Jason has run into are and what color they are.

There are several items hidden throughout the complex that the player can collect. Collecting them can increase Jason’s health, or the amount of a certain type of ammo Jason can carry. All of them are hidden in areas or behind doors that the player cannot access until Jason has collected a certain weapon. A few are hidden in hard to reach areas, but most of them are easy to obtain if the player is patient enough to go back and get them later.

As Jason explores more of the complex, he gains experience points and levels up, making him stronger as he fights stronger enemies. The change happens so gradually is almost unnoticeable, even when going back and fighting weaker enemies.

The game is in 2D, but enemies can stand in the background and shoot at Jason. The player uses the right analog stick to aim Jason’s weapon. Normally moving the stick up makes Jason aim up, but when enemies are in the background Jason aims at them instead. This gets tricky when Jason has to aim at multiple enemies in the background that are not directly behind him.

Jason runs into giant robot bosses every so often. These are challenging because of their overwhelming firepower. But they always have a weakness that can be easily exploited, making them a reasonable challenge.

Level design is sort of bland. Most of the complex is generic metal base look or caves. Each area is designed uniquely, but nothing is really memorable. The graphics have a nice, realistic look that flows smoothly without trouble.

The story is clichéd action movie. Evil forces are trying to take over the United States and Jason has to stop them. The story is easy to ignore and is not necessary to enjoy the game. Details about the Restoration are overheard by Jason when he is climbing through vents and are interesting enough to hear. Jason himself is the most boring main character ever. Being voiced by Nolan North does not help this.

The game is pretty easy. At first when Jason has a pistol and little health guards pose a challenge. But after Jason gets a faster weapon and collects a couple of health upgrades almost all guards are a breeze to kill. And almost all the guards are alike in terms of difficulty. That is not to say it is not enjoyable. Most of the fun is in exploring the base and collecting items.

It is also rather short, taking four to five hours depending on whether the player decides to collect all the hidden items. But it is a complete game that only cost fifteen dollars, so it is worth it.

Shadow Complex is a short, enjoyable game that if fun for anybody who enjoys Metroidvania games and is cheap. It is not the most creative of games, but it is fun, and that is what counts.

Review: Ninja Gaiden II

2010-07-26T17:11:00.001-04:00

Ninja Gaiden II is an action game for the Xbox 360. It was developed by Team Ninja and Microsoft. It is the second Ninja Gaiden game for the Xbox. It has gotten a rerelease for the PlayStation 3 called Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2.

Ryu, inbetween killing hoards of enemies.

The Black Spider Ninja Clan has stolen the Demon Statue from the Dragon Ninja Clan and unleashed the Four Greater Fiends on the world. Dragon Ninja Ryu Hayabusa has to track down the Black Spider Clan while killing the Four Greater Fiends one by one.

Ninja Gaiden II is broken up into fourteen levels. Ryu has to go through each level killing everything, and fight the boss at the end.

Almost all of the game is Rye fighting crowds of enemies, either other ninjas or Fiends. Ryu has a weak, quick attack, a more powerful attack that takes longer to be used and can be charged up, and a block. The player can push the attack buttons in certain sequences, which will make Ryu perform more complicated and damaging attacks. But it is just as easily to mash the buttons until the enemy Ryu is fighting is dead.

There is more strategy when using the block button. Pressing it works almost immediately and is very valuable when Ryu is being swarmed by enemies.

Ryu has a number of weapons he can collect throughout the game. Each weapon, like the staff, scythe, or clawed gloves, plays differently. Some weapons are heavier or faster than others. It gives the player a chance to use a weapon that they feel more comfortable with, which may change depending on the enemy. The player can make upgrade Ryu’s weapons by collecting nimpo, a currency of sorts that the enemies drop, and spending it at the shop statues found throughout the level. Ryu can also buy healing items and ammo from the shop statues as well.

There are also projectile weapons that Ryu can use as well. They are almost too weak to be useful. Every so often the game forces the player to use the bow and arrow set to take down flying enemies or enemies that are too far away. This is always really boring.

The player can charge up one of Ryu’s attacks by holding the down the stronger attack button. This unleashes a much more powerful attack. Holding it down for a little while charges it to level one, and holding it down longer charges it up to level two. This will also attract the nimpo to Ryu, which will make him charge up faster. Attacking enemies with stronger attacks makes them drop more nimpo than usual, so the trick is in charging up when nimpo is around before an enemy knocks Ryu down and then attack again more quickly when more nimpo appears.

Ryu has other skills as well, like running along walls and jumping off cliffs. These are used whenever the game wants to break up the nonstop fighting. But after the first two levels they are not used that often, except for the water walking.

The bosses are okay. Most of them are easy as long as Ryu has a couple of health items. It is fun how the bosses can be attacked at any time, instead of the usual cliché of them showing a weak point after going through a sequence of attacks, instead focusing on how quickly the player can dodge and attack. Except for the bosses which can only be killed with arrows; those are extremely dull and usually have the cheapest attacks.

The game has a problem with its camera. Normally it is a foot lower than it should be. Frequently it will be pointing in the wrong direction so the player cannot see all the enemies attacking Ryu. There is a button that resets the camera behind Ryu, but it is hard to remember in the middle of a fight.

Some levels are more interesting than others. All the levels that take outdoors are beautiful, and all the regular cave sewer levels are dull. Thankfully the outdoor levels outnumber the cave levels.

The game is rather easy, which is a surprise when compared to its predecessor. Enemies just attack Ryu all at once without blocking or dodging. The challenge they present is that they can easily take off large chunks of Ryu’s health. There are enough health items around to counter this though. The enemies do not become really challenging until the last couple of levels. At least there is a hard mode, which unlocks a harder mode when it is beaten, which unlocks an even harder mode when it is also beaten.

The story is not very good, and the characters are not that memorable. But it at least makes sense and can be ignored.

Ninja Gaiden II is a fun, mindless game. It can get slightly boring with the nonstop fighting and annoying camera, but it is just challenging varied enough to be entertaining.

Review: Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days

2010-07-12T18:59:00.001-04:00

Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days is an action role-playing game for the Nintendo DS. It was developed by Square-Enix and h.a.n.d, in collaboration with Disney. It the fourth Kingdom Hearts game and is set between Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II and alongside Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories.

Roxas and Axel in the middle of a fight. The bottom screen shows the map and how close the player is to completing the mission.

Roxas is the amnesic newest member to the mysterious Organization XIII, a group of Nobodies who seek to gain hearts. As one of the two wielders of the legendary Keyblade, Roxas can collect hearts by defeating creatures called the Heartless. But as the days pass Roxas will learn the sinister motivations of the Organization, the origins of his friend and fellow Keyblade wielder Xion, and his connection with the mysterious person “Sora”.

Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days is divided into missions that take place over the course of a year. The goal of most of these missions is to either defeat a set number of Heartless or a particular Heartless. There are other missions, like looking around an area or collecting emblems, but defeating Heartless is usually the main goal.

Combat is carried out by using the A button; by pressing the A button repeatedly Roxas swings his Keyblade. There is not much strategy to it, just press the A button until the Heartless goes down and hope Roxas is not killed in the process.

There is the possibility of using strategy. Roxas can block or dodge attacks with the Y button. But the game takes a long time to register when the Y button is pressed, making it almost impossible to block in time. Also, it will not work if Roxas is in the middle of an attack. Dodging works slightly better for some reason, but Roxas does not move that far out of the way. At least the player can make him jump out of the way with the B button.

Roxas can use magic as well, which is implemented in an interesting way. During the game Roxas collects panels, which can be placed on a grid. The panels come in unusual shapes and have to be fitted together like a puzzle. These panels do things like make Roxas stronger and give him magic abilities. For example, if the player puts one Ice magic panel on the grid, Roxas can cast magic once in a level. Adding more magic panels increase the number of times Roxas can use magic during a mission. It is a pain at first when Roxas has only a few panels, but becomes a fun challenge when Roxas has more panels and a larger grid.

The graphics looks really good. They look like a PlayStation 2 game shrunken down onto a DS, with three dimensional characters moving on a three dimensional plane. It even has animated cut scenes every so often. The graphics look a little pixilated, but that is a minor quibble.

The game play is extremely repetitive. The mission objective is usually kill a certain amount of Heartless, and with the mostly mash the A button combat this game uses, this can become tedious over the almost one hundred missions. The eight levels are mostly based on Disney movies. At first they are interesting, but each level is made up of only a couple of rooms. Basically the game boils down to going through the same couple of rooms over and over again, pressing the A button or whatever button magic has been assigned to.

The story is severely harmed by it taking place between the first two games. The fate of the main character Roxas and his friend Axel, as well as everyone else in the Organization, is already known to anybody who has already played Kingdom Hearts II. The only mystery is the new character Xion, and she is not interesting enough on her own. Most of the story is of the Organization messing around for a year, and it only gets interesting near the end when the player finds out how all the characters wound up where they were by Kingdom Hearts II. The ending was extremely poignant, but it just highlighted how pointless the entire story was. Worst of all it does not elaborate or explain any characters motivations or actions in other games.

The game comes with a mission mode, where players can team up with a friend to see who can complete missions first while collecting the most crystals scattered about the level. The competitive aspect makes the missions a little more exciting, but not enough to overcome their dullness.

Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days is an ambitious attempt to make a three dimensional game on a DS that is marred by its very repetitive nature. Only really die hard Kingdom Hearts fans will play through it until the end.

Review: Tomb Raider: Underworld

2010-06-28T16:28:00.002-04:00

Tomb Raider: Underworld is an action-platform game for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. It was developed by Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Interactive. It is the third Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider game and the ninth Tomb Raider game overall.

Lara Croft climbing down a massive ruin.

Tomb Raider: Underworld continues where Tomb Raider: Legend ended. Lara Croft is looking for her disappeared mother, who she believes is lost in a different dimension; a dimension which has become the basis for every depiction of the underworld in every religion. To locate this dimension, Lara must explore various crypts found throughout the world that contain artifacts which will help open up the way to the dimension.

The game is broken is broken up into five levels, each containing a different tomb. Lara must reach the deepest part of the tomb to locate the artifact stored within. To do that Lara must use her extensive acrobatic abilities to dodge ancient traps and climb over and under the decaying ruins, while occasionally fighting the local wildlife.

Most of the game is spent navigating Lara around traps by having her climb walls, jump over chasms, jump to other walls, and dodge traps. The challenge is in finding the proper way to navigate those walls. For every trap or puzzle, there is only one route to go around it, and it is up to the player to find that route and navigate it without falling or missing a jump. Sometimes there are additional obstacles in Lara’s way, and the player has to time Lara’s jumps so she is not crushed or burned alive.

The problem is figuring out what Lara can grab onto is not just a challenge, but can be unfair to the player. Lara cannot grab any ledge; she can only grab ledges that stick out. Usually they are lighter in color, like white ledges against a blue wall. But they are not always that easy to spot. It can become a guessing game what ledges or outcroppings Lara can and cannot grab onto, leading to a lot of pointless deaths. The challenge should be successfully pressing the buttons that make Lara jump several times in a row, not figuring out where to jump.

It does not help that the camera is very unwieldy. Several times when Lara is hanging from a ledge, the camera will swing away from the next ledge and the player has move the camera around to find the next ledge. And even then the camera can get stuck against the wall, making it impossible to see where the ledge is.

The game also has a glitch where it occasionally has a hard determining which direction the player wants Lara to jump, like pointing the control stick back and having her look to the right and vice versa, or trying to grab a ledge and instead running into a wall. It is a good thing that the game gives the player unlimited lives to make up for all the pointless deaths.

Sometimes Lara will run into puzzles that involve moving objects, like huge stone blocks, around in a certain way to open a door. These puzzles are never difficult and they do not happen enough to become tedious.

There is combat as well. Lara has access to her pistols, and can bring one heavier gun into the level to fight animals. This consists of shooting at the target while repeatedly pressing the dodge or jump button to get Lara out of the way, though she does not jump far enough to make much of a difference. Since there is usually little space to move around in anyway each fight devolves into shooting the enemy before it kills Lara without any strategy.

The story is okay. The odd thing about it is that, while it is a sequel to Tomb Raider: Legend, it takes several parts from Crystal Dynamics’ other Tomb Raider game Tomb Raider: Anniversary, almost to the point of forgetting the original story. It is almost like Crystal Dynamics wanted to make a sequel to Tomb Raider: Anniversary but could not for some reason, so they shoehorned a sequel into Tomb Raider: Legend’s sequel.

The graphics looked great. All the levels look unique and detailed, from the lush jungles of Mexico to the cold and lonely Arctic Ocean. Some of the underground parts can look a little similar, but the above ground parts look beautiful.

Tomb Raider: Underworld is an okay game. But several technical problems that could have been fixed keep it from being a great game.

Review: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

2010-06-15T01:49:00.001-04:00

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 is a role-playing game for the PlayStation 2. It was developed by Atlus. It is the fifth in the Shin Megami Tensei series.

The new student arriving at his school. Note how the game keeps track of the time of day and the weather.

A new student arrives at the small town of Inaba at the same time of series of unsolvable murders occur. The new student soon discovers that the murders are being committed by throwing the victim into a dimension on the other side of the TV where they are killed by monsters called Shadows. Using his ability to enter the TV, the new student and a couple of likeminded friends must discover who the murderer is and prevent anymore murders from occurring, while still going to high school.

The game takes place over the course of one school year. Every month a new person is thrown into the TV and the student and his friends have to go save them. The missing person is found at the end of a dungeon inside the TV, usually ten levels long and filled with monsters, that the player has to traverse by the end of the month. Also at the end of the dungeon is a large boss that the player has to kill.

To fight the Shadows, the student and his friends have access to Personas, physical manifestations of their egos that take the forms of mythological figures with special powers. Each character’s Persona specializes in a certain type of magic, like ice magic or fire magic. The main character though can have multiple Personas, which he obtains from defeating Shadows. Most Shadows have a weakness to a certain type of magic, so it is important to have a variety of Personas available. Also, the player can fuse multiple Personas together to make really strong Personas.

When fighting Shadows, everyone in the party gains experience points and levels up, making them stronger. A lot of time in the game is spent fighting Shadows over and over again until all the characters are strong enough to fight the boss at the end of the dungeon. This can become really tedious as this can take several hours. It is not a difficult or unfair, but the process did not have to take as long.

The other half of the game is going to high school and making friends. When the player becomes friends with someone, they establish a social link. By spending time with a friend the social link becomes stronger. Each friend is connected with several Personas, and by strengthening the social links the Personas become stronger.

The challenge of the game is finding time to both explore the dungeon and visit friends. The player can only visit a friend or go to a dungeon once a day. It is impossible to stay in a dungeon indefinitely until everyone is strong enough because eventually their magic power will run out, and friends have to be visited regularly because the stronger Personas are essential to winning.

The game comes very close to being repetitive and dull. If fighting Shadows was a little more difficult, if reaching and fighting bosses was more frustrating, if it took any longer to level up characters, the entire game would be an exercise in tedium. Luckily all of those activities never feel too difficult, and most repetitive actions at least feel like there is some progression while being conducted.

The storyline is interesting, in that unlike most role playing games, it sticks to the murder mystery the entire way through instead of becoming only about saving the world.

The characters are interesting and unique. None of them are really annoying, which is good, because they are the only interesting parts of the story that are not related to the mystery.

The friends that the player can make all have interesting stories as well, which fill out the rest of the year. As each social link progresses, the friend goes through an arc where they deal with an emotional problem that is always a little interesting to watch.

The only real problem is that the game is both too long and too short at the same time. The whole game could have been shorter; dungeons could have had fewer levels, it could have taken less time to level up, and there are at least two months that could have been cut without losing much of the main story. At the same time there are not enough days the school year to complete all the social links and find out how everyone’s character arcs finish. And there is nothing more annoying than almost seeing the resolution to a friend’s story, only for the game to end.

Also, at the very end there are a couple of questions the player has to answer to get the right ending. Those questions are not fair, since they are based more on the player’s opinions than facts.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 is a fun role playing game/life simulator that barely manages to avoid being tedious. It is still longer than it could be, but it is addictive and entertaining enough for that to not matter too much.

Review: Tales of Monkey Island

2010-05-31T21:55:00.001-04:00

Tales of Monkey Island is an adventure game for the PC, Macintosh, and Nintendo Wii. It was developed by Telltale Games and LucasArts. It is the fifth game in the Monkey Island series, but the first game to be worked on by Telltale Games.

The player looking over Guybrush's inventory on Flotsam Island.

Guybrush Threepwood is attempting to rescue his wife Elaine from the dread pirate LeChuck again. Unfortunately for Guybrush, the voodoo cutlass he brought along to stop LeChuck backfires on him, causing a massive explosion that separates the three of them and releases the Pox of LeChuck on the Caribbean. Guybrush must find a way to reunite with his wife, and find a cure for the pox before it gets out of control.

Tales of Monkey Island was originally sold in an episodic format, but has since been collected and sold as a single game. In each episode Guybrush has to accomplish some task by collecting items, talking to people, and solving puzzles. There are five episodes total.

In each episode the player has to direct Guybrush to talk to everyone in the area. Along the way Guybrush needs to pick up every item he sees along the way. Then, when Guybrush is talking to someone, he will be directed to an obstacle that Guybrush has to overcome with an item he has acquired. Usually it is more complicated than that.

The challenge in these puzzles is figuring out what unusual way the player is supposed to use and item. Usually it means taking an item and using it on something in a way that is unusual, but practical. The computer does the actual work; it is up to the player to figure out how in theory they would be used. Technically it is possible to just click every item in Guybrush’s inventory on every object in the game, but that would take forever. Except for one of two puzzles, none are really challenging as long as they are approached with a creative mind.

An additional challenge to this formula is that sometimes two items have to be combined to form a new tool. It is a mildly amusing addition, but not really memorable.

The Monkey Island series has always been known for its humor, based on pirates acting unusual, anachronisms, and clever dialogue, and Tales of Monkey Island keeps that tradition. Not all of the jokes are winners, but overall the game is funny. Same goes with the new characters, which range from funny to forgettable. Except for the new secondary villain, the Marquis de Singe; he is just annoying. The best new character is Guybrush’s new first mate Reginald van Winslow.

The story is okay. It is really steeped in the Monkey Island mythos, so anyone who has not played the other games in the series might not recognize the cast or understand a lot of what is being said. It also gets rather dark near the end, which is unusual for a Monkey Island game. And a character who has been part of the series since the beginning acts somewhat out of character for the sake of the plot, which might possibly upset some fans of the series.

A bigger problem though, is what comes from the game originally being sold in an episodic format. Instead of one long story, the game is told in five interlinked short stories, which lack the detail that would come from a bigger story. The same goes for the areas Guybrush visits, which are small and involve a lot of running back and forth so they can fit into the episode. The worst of this is the third episode, which for the most part takes place in two areas. Or Flotsam Island, which is visited two and a half times throughout the game and has this really long and annoying “run around the jungle maze” puzzle, and comes off as padding.

The game design is in 3D, and for the most part looks okay. Everyone moves at a quick rate with no clipping. Guybrush is easy enough to navigate around with the mouse. Character models could use a bit more detail though, and sometimes the designs are unusually pointy, especially Guybrush.

The voice acting is very entertaining and really helps sell the jokes. The lip sync between the voices and characters can be off at times. The limited number of facial movements the characters have does not help this.

Tales of Monkey Island is an unusual but enjoyable addition to the Monkey Island series which should be enjoyable to anyone who is a fan. The only real fault is the episodic presentation, which should be excised from future games.

Review: Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

2010-05-17T19:15:00.001-04:00

Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story is a role playing game for the Nintendo DS. It was created by Nintendo and AlphaDream.

An exmaple of a in-game battle.

King Bowser has eaten a mushroom that makes him inhale everything, including the Mario Bros., Princess Peach, several townsfolk, and a ton of debris, before passing out. Amid the resulting confusion, the villainous Fawful has decided to use the chaos to take over King Bowser and Princess Peach’s castles. Bowser has to get back his castle and defeat Fawful, while Mario and Luigi have to locate Princess peach inside Bowser’s body, repairing Bowser along the way.

The player takes control of Bowser and the Mario Bros. using the DS’ two screens, the top screen for Bowser and the bottom screen for Mario and Luigi. Bowser’s goal is to reach his castle, fighting enemies along the way. Mario and Luigi help him by activating parts of his body so he can get through obstacles; for example, stimulating his arm muscles so he can push a large obstacle out of the way. Other times Bowser will do something to himself that will make a part of his body accessible, allowing Mario and Luigi to search for Princess Peach.

Areas in Bowser come in two types, little sections that have mini-games that the brothers only visit when something needs to happen, and large areas filled with nothing but obstacles and enemies that the brothers can visit anytime. Meanwhile Bowser walks around one large world, which, while having different sections, feels less segmented and more like one complete world.

Bowser levels are far more interesting than Mario Bros. levels. For one, they have more variety to them. Every area inside Bowser has a similar looking design, while Bowser travels around many different places. His levels also have people to talk to and more hidden things to find. Thankfully Mario and Luigi eventually find a way to travel between Bowser’s body and the outside world at will.
Bowser and the Mario Bros. have to fight enemies throughout the game. Like many other RPGs, fighting is done in turns. Bowser or the brothers will attack, and then the enemy will attack. What makes fighting interesting is that the player can increase the power of attacks or defend against attacks by pressing a button quickly at the right moment. For example, Mario and Luigi have jump attacks that become stronger if the player presses either the “A” button just as Mario lands on an enemy or the “B” button when Luigi lands on an enemy. Enemy attacks are usually color-coded red or green so the player knows whether the enemy is about to attack Mario or Luigi and can press the “A” or “B” buttons to dodge them.
For enemies attacking Bowser, it is up to the player to figure out whether the attack would be best deflected by Bowser ducking, or Bowser punching the attack. Usually the enemy gives a small hint as to what type of attack they are about to use.
The addition of extra button pressing during fights makes the fights a lot more interesting than other games, as they keep the player on their toes all the time instead of waiting around.

There are also special attacks the three protagonists can perform. Mario and Luigi’s attacks involve even more precise button pressing, while Bowser’s use the DS’s stylus function.

The rest of the game is pretty fun too. The story is interesting enough, though at first the story feels like it does not have any main objective and is just about the characters wandering around. Bowser’s story is far more interesting though, because he is a villain and unlike Mario and Luigi can actually talk. The funniest parts involve Bowser commenting on the weirdness of the situation or being the bad guy who is being upstaged by a different bad guy.

The game is rather short and easy. It takes about twenty hours to beat, and with the abundance of healing items Mario, Luigi, and Bowser find, plus the ability to dodge attacks, means that the chance of dying are pretty small. And there are not many side quests to participate in, at most there are a couple of extra mini games the three can play that involve more use of quick button pressing. Still, at least the twenty hours the game does last for are very fun.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story continues the tradition of fun Mario RPGs. Mario fans and those who think RPGs are normally boring should both find this game fun.

Review: Ratchet: Deadlocked

2010-05-03T17:28:00.001-04:00

Ratchet: Deadlocked is an action game with platform elements for the PlayStation 2. It was developed by Insomniac Games. It is the fourth game in the Ratchet & Clank series.

Ratchet in the middle of an arena battle.

Ratchet, Clank, and their friend Al have been kidnapped and forced to compete in the DreadZone, an intergalactic television show that forces heroes through various challenges. Ratchet, along with two robot companions, has to compete and rise up through the increasingly dangerous ranks of DreadZone while waiting for Clank and Al to find a way to escape.

The players controls Ratchet as he goes through various death courses on different planets. Each course has several objectives that have to be completed in order before Ratchet can proceed to the next level. Usually the objectives are simple tasks like get to the end of the level, or get to the end of the level in a vehicle, or fight off several enemies in an arena. Very rarely are the objectives any more complicated. Along the way Ratchet has to fight off dozens of robots and monsters, usually several at once.

After completing the main objectives, Ratchet can participate in smaller challenges. These are somewhat harder. Challenges like shooting several targets before time runs out, or fighting off several large monsters in an equally large vehicle.

And among the big and small challenges are even tinier challenges, like using a certain weapon a number of times or kill an enemy a certain way. But the difficulties of these do not match up with the reward, making them mostly a waste of time, though some can be completed incidentally.

Completing both the big and small challenges awards Ratchet points, which are needed to open the next planet. But the point’s requisites are so low that they never present a real problem.

As usual for a Ratchet & Clank game, Ratchet has at his disposal a wrench and several incredibly destructive weapons, like shotguns, miniature turrets launchers, rifles, and rocket launchers. When Ratchet uses a weapon enough times, it becomes more powerful, or faster, or acquires more ammo. The ways the weapons cause damage do not differ too much; it is theoretically possible to rely on one weapon. Whoever is playing though, will probably have to switch weapons anyway so that they level up evenly, or because a weapon has run out of ammo (which can be replenished, but not all the time). This is not a bad thing as it leads to more variety in the many fights Ratchet will be in.

Weapons can be equipped with modifications. Some mods, like the acid mod, are helpful, while other mods, like the morph mod, are not.

Ratchet has two robotic companions that help him along the way. They can also attack enemies, as well as open doors and throw EMPs that disable turrets. A number of challenges involve Ratchet defending the two robots while they do something like hack a computer, or blow up a tower. It is a good thing that they can do these tasks, as their attacks are not impressive.

Weapons and upgrades for the robots are purchased with bolts, the game’s currency. Bolts are picked up from defeated enemies and completing challenges. Usually there are just enough bolts picked up to buy the next weapon.

If there was one serious flaw with Ratchet: Deadlocked is that it is a bit formulaic. Every level is relatively small, and completing the objectives for each one means going back and forth across them a lot. The objectives are usually a variation of going to a place, and killing/fixing something. And while it is important for the player to know what they are doing, having the objectives spelled out does take away a lot of surprise. Thankfully, each planet provides enough variations, along with the changing weapons and enemies that the game never actually gets boring.

The story is told through cut scenes in between each level, dealing with Ratchet’s growing popularity and the reactions of his kidnapper. All the scenes are well written and funny. The game keeps the feel of a television show by having two announcers comment on Ratchet’s during each level. It does get annoying though when the announcers start to repeat themselves.

Ratchet: Deadlocked is a step down in the Ratchet & Clank series, due to its somewhat repetitive nature. But it is still a fun game that should entertain both fans of the series and newcomers with its constant firefights.

An Explanation for the Person 3: FES Review

2010-04-19T16:46:00.000-04:00

I feel like I should explain the Persona 3 review a bit more.

I started playing Persona 3: FES in 2008. At first it seemed like an okay RPG. The dating simulation part was okay, the story was okay, the characters were okay, and the fighting seemed reasonable enough.

But then the combat became more difficult. Bosses started to feel more unfair. I was spending more and more time running around the Tartarus trying to make enough money to buy equipment so I might stand a chance against the next boss.

At least I think that is how it went.

Meanwhile the story was not getting any better, nor was the characters. But it was impossible not to grow a little attached to them and their stupid story after spending so many virtual days with them.

Around hour fifty I realized I wasn’t having any fun. But I did not want to stop because I did not want those past fifty hours to be for nothing.

After another fifty hours and a disgustingly unfair final boss and I had beaten the game. I actually did a crazy laughter thing after I had finished it. But unfortunately I still had that damn epilogue, and I wanted to know the entire story.

So I started it, even though I did not really care about the characters too much. I learned quickly that this epilogue was the worst parts of the combat without any good parts. After a couple of bosses I quit, since it was clear that this was going to take a while. I still don’t get how people found time to beat this game before me.

I stopped for a while but eventually tried playing again only to get frustrated again and stop. This continued into 2009, as I became more annoyed by the game but unwilling to let it go. I forgot about what happened in the main game.

In mid 2009 I decided on a more systematic way of finishing it. I would fight a boss, and then play another game. This worked an eventually I beat it in 2010.

When I wrote the review I had to look up some things to remind me what happened in the main game. Boss fights appeared differently, but the same tediousness remained the same. That is why I felt like the review missed some things.

I didn’t cover the AI, which even now is still spotty in my mind. I know the bosses’ AI sucked, but I’m not sure why. I know that the allies’ AI sucked because, while it was nice that they learned what attacks did not work, they could not learn when to heal people properly.

Long story short, Persona 3 is awful game that is extremely addictive. I would recommend avoiding it at all costs, it’s not worth it. I’ll probably get Persona 4 because I’m already sucked in, but if anybody ever reads this I would advise you to stay away.

Review: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES

2010-04-19T16:45:00.001-04:00

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES is a role playing game for the PlayStation 2. It was developed by Atlus. It is an updated rerelease of Persona 3 with an extra epilogue titled “The Answer”.

A party about to enter a dungeon.

The player takes control of the new student Gekkoukan High School. Every night at midnight, the school turns into a mysterious tower and unleashes demons called Shadows, which drain the emotions out of humans. It falls to a group of students called SEES, which the new student joins, to climb the tower and find the source of the Shadows, using their own monsters called Personas to fight the Shadows along the way.

The first thing that needs to be said is that this game is very long. The main game can take at least one hundred hours to complete, while “The Answer” can take another fifty hours to complete. A lot of those hours are not going to be fun.

Persona 3 is broken up into two parts. During the day, the new student goes to school and makes friends. All the player has to do is talk to various people over and over again during the school year. The difficult part is finding time during the day to also do school work and other activities that increase the player’s academics, courage, and charm stats. These need to be raised so the player can do more things with their friends and strengthen their “Social Links,” which are the way that the game records how well the student is doing with his friends.

This is the most fun part of the game. While it is not really challenging, it is slightly difficult to balance a virtual social life with saving the world. And this is where most of the story happens.

The second part of the game takes place in the tower, called “The Tartarus.” Every night it is possible, though not necessary, to take the student and three other members of SEES into Tartarus and try to climb as many floors as possible before the characters get tired. Eventually SEES will reach a floor with a boss on it, and then another floor that cannot be passed until a month has passed in the game.

In the meantime SEES has to fight the Shadows. To do this every member of SEES can summon a Persona. Each Persona has a strength and a weakness, and every Shadow has a strength and weakness. For example, some Shadows on a couple of floors might specialize in fire spells and be weak against ice spells. So, it would be smart of the player to bring a member of SEES who has a Persona that specializes in ice spells to fight the Shadows on those couple of floors. The one exception is the new student, who can summon multiple Personas that vary in specialties, which adds more strategy to every fight.

The way this part ties into the first part is that creating stronger Social Links makes the Personas that the new student can summon stronger, so it is imperative for the player to maintain the students social life if they want to have a chance of winning.

While fighting the Shadows, the player earns money which is needed to buy new armor and weapons for the characters. This is vital because the bosses are extremely difficult and every advantage is needed. Incidentally, while the player is gathering money the characters will level up and become stronger.

The biggest problem with this game is how ridiculously hard it is. As stated before the bosses are really difficult. Usually they have attacks that can wipe the entire party in one hit, including the main character, who if is killed, ends the game automatically. That is why the armor and weapons are needed. The strength/weakness part also applies to them, and knowing their weakness is usually the only way to do any significant damage to them. But because they are so powerful, and because exploiting their hidden weakness is the only way to do any serious damage, the bosses come off as really cheap. Even after buying all the equipment and leveling up, the chances of beating a boss are not very good.

The game is also really tedious. Armor and weapons are expensive, so several hours need to be dedicated to fighting Shadows over and over again. There is no reason that the weapons could have been cheaper, and the characters becoming more powerful could have taken less time. It just drags out the game. And the player has to do this a couple of times every week in the game’s year. At first it is reasonably challenging, but by hour fifty the game is a lesson in masochism.

The story is interesting enough. The Tartarus gets an explanation which gets more complicated as the game progresses. It is not really memorable, but at least the characters are likable enough so it never feels boring.

“The Answer” is like the regular game, except much harder and does not have the going to class part of the game. It is nice to see what happens to the characters at the end, but it really does not make up for all the extra work.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES is an RPG with an interesting premise that gets bogged down by it unnecessary difficulty. The school life simulation makes the game more unique and is fun, but it does not make up for the unbelievably horrible fighting parts.

Review: Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth

2010-04-05T21:52:00.001-04:00

Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth is an adventure game for the Nintendo DS. It was developed by Capcom. It is the fifth game in the Ace Attorney series.

What it looks like when Miles Edgeworth is going over a witness' testimony to find errors.

The player takes control of district attorney Miles Edgeworth as he acts as an unofficial investigator for several cases he inadvertently gets roped into. Along the way he will have help from old friends Dick Gumshoe and Franziska von Karma as well as newcomer thief Kay Faraday, while facing opposition from prosecutor hating Interpol agent Shi-Long Lang.

Ace Attorney Investigations is broken into five cases. In each case Edgeworth will collect clues and interrogate witnesses and suspects. Each clue found and each witness successfully interrogated will progress the story and get Edgeworth one step closer to catching the criminal.

Each case is divided into the parts where Edgeworth collects clues, and the parts where he interrogates witnesses and suspects. The clue collecting part is handled differently than in previous games. The player controls Edgeworth as he moves about the crime scene and examines objects or talks to people. Some objects, like the murder victim usually, can be examined more closely to find more hidden pieces of evidence. When this happens, the camera shifts to Edgeworth’s perspective, and the player can move a cursor around the screen and examine objects with it. Talking to people will also yield more evidence.

Sometimes a closely inspected part of the crime scene contradicts evidence Edgeworth has. When that happens, the player can bring up some evidence from Edgeworth’s organizer and show how they contradict.

Every so often Edgeworth will collect little pieces of “logic”, which take the form of observations inside Edgeworth’s head. If two pieces of logic explain each other, the player can connect them, and Edgeworth will realize something that will advance the case.

During the interrogation part of the game, someone will give their testimony, which will be broken up into segments. The trick is finding which part of the testimony contradicts a piece of evidence that Edgeworth has. If there is a piece that contradicts part of the testimony, the player scrolls to that part of the testimony and presents the evidence. Alternatively, the player can “press” a part of the testimony to learn more about what the person is saying. Doing so can possibly give clues, or it will make the witness amend a part of their testimony, which then can be contradicted by a piece of evidence.

If the player presents the wrong piece of evidence, their health bar will go down. If the health bar empties the game is over. Luckily the player can save anytime they want, like right before a presenting a piece of evidence, and restart the game if it is wrong.

The most fun part of the game is contradicting someone’s testimony. It always feels good to look over the evidence and find some small clue in Edgeworth’s organizer that ruins the testimony.

A big problem with the game, and this has been a problem with the entire series, is that sometimes a witnesses’ testimony can be contradicted by several pieces of evidence. But only one piece of evidence can be used per testimony, so it is up to the player to guess what the developers were thinking, which is not fair. The game really needs a timeline organizer as well, since it is hard to remember all the events of the case.

Not that it matters anyway, since except for two puzzles in the middle and two puzzles at the end, Investigations is really easy. Edgeworth or someone else usually gives really big hints about what piece of evidence is needed, like mentioning something that could have only come from a certain place, or was picked up at a specific time. There is almost no challenge throughout the entire game.

The “logic” segments are not challenging either, since there is usually only two or three piece of logic to connect together, so it is not hard to deduce which pieces of logic should be connected.

The story is okay. At first the individual cases are kind of unremarkable, but eventually they all tie together which makes them more interesting. The overarching storyline is hard to take seriously though, because it is centered on an art smuggling ring.

The characters range from tolerable to forgetful. Edgeworth is kind of a jerk, which was fine when he was an antagonist or an ally, but becomes tedious when he is the main character. Franziska and Shi-Long are even bigger jerks and Edgeworth deals with them regularly. Kay is just a knockoff of other characters from the series instead of being original. It is fun to see the characters again, but they can be grating at times.

Ace Attorney Investigations is the weakest in the Ace Attorney series. Returning fans will enjoy seeing old characters, but newcomers might be unimpressed by the easy mechanics and regular story.

Review: Assassin's Creed 2

2010-03-22T16:29:00.001-04:00

Assassin’s Creed II is an action game with some stealth elements for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and the PC. It was developed by Ubisoft.

Ezio Auditore de Firenze on top of a church in Venice.

The game, like its predecessor Assassin’s Creed, has a framing device and a main story. In the framing device, Desmond Miles is using a machine called an Animus to quickly learn how to become an assassin by experiencing the lives of his ancestor, so he can help defeat the evil Templar organization. In the main game, which takes place during the Italian Renaissance, Desmond’s ancestor Ezio Auditore de Firenze’s family is wrongly accused and executed, prompting Ezio to locate the Templar conspirators responsible and murder them one by one using, his newly acquired assassin equipment.

There are two ways to assassinate a target. One way is to sneak around where the target is located, find a hiding spot, and kill the target quickly and quietly with the blade hidden up his sleeve, hopefully without attracting any guards. Or Ezio can run in, fight all the guards with his sword, and kill his target, if he has not run away by then. The second way requires less thought, but it can take longer, the target can escape, and it feels a lot more satisfying to plan a silent kill.

When spotted by the guards Ezio can either fight off the guards or hide. Fighting the guards is easy, but can become boring at times. Hiding takes less time, but sometimes it is hard to lose the guards, and every so often the guards will check his hiding places, like on benches or in haystacks.
One of Assassin’s Creed II’s biggest selling points is his ability to stealth fully assassinate people in a variety of ways, thanks to his amazing prowess at climbing and running over rooftops, which never gets old. From the rooftops Ezio can quickly cross cities, evade guards, and take out archers and other targets from a distance without being noticed.

The visual design on the game is beautiful. Over the course of the game Ezio visits Florence, San Gimignano, Forli, and Venice. While the developers of the game could not know exactly what those cities looked like in the 15th century, they worked hard to make the cities look as distinct and real as possible. All the cities are memorable in their design from San Gimignano’s many towers to Forli’s swampland.

In addition to Ezio’s main quest, there are several side missions he can partake in, some more important than others. There are essential ones, like where Ezio has brake into the tombs of older assassins to retrieve assassin seals. And there less important ones, like races across the rooftops. The only ones that are really tedious are the actual assassination side missions, because those involve a lot of following people and fighting guards.

Another fun extensive side mission is decorating Ezio’s villa. Ezio gets his own villa and town to renovate early in the game, which he can invest money into to improve the stores in town, or buy paintings for his villa. Doing so will lead to the stores giving him discounts and to him receiving income that he can pick up from his villa, which he can then use to buy more stuff. Sadly the town can be completed by the time the game is halfway over.

The only real problem with Assassin’s Creed II is that the story and game play suffer a bit in the last third of the game. When Ezio reaches Venice, he stays there for the rest of the game. Before Ezio was travelling to and exploring several cities in Italy. Staying in one city is boring by comparison.

Throughout the game there are hidden puzzles that Ezio has to find, that use codes or various works of art throughout history as clues. For the most part they provide a decent challenge, but the last four are really unfair.

Near the end of the story there is a point where Ezio and his friends do nothing for ten years. The game is trying to be somewhat historically accurate and fit into the timeline of Italian history, but the game was at an urgent moment and the developers should have thought of something more impressive for Ezio to do for a decade than nothing. Anybody who bought Assassin’s Creed II will have to download the extra material online if they want to find out what happened, but it is not fair that the player has to pay for something like that.

The rest of the game’s story is okay. Neither Desmond nor Ezio’s stories are memorable, but it is interesting to learn more about the Templar’s secret history and how they have secretly affected the rest of the world.

Assassin’s Creed II has a few minor problems near the end, but for the most part it is a very fun game that is a lot of fun that has many improvements over its predecessor.

Review: Torchlight

2010-03-08T16:26:00.002-05:00

Torchlight is an action role playing game for the PC and Macintosh. It was created by Runic Games and Perfect World Entertainment.

The player character fighting a group of skeletons in a dungeon.

One day in the town of Torchlight, a gang of monsters appeared from the town’s Ember mine and killed a bunch of townspeople. It is up to the player to venture into the Ember mine and the catacombs beneath it and discover the source of the monsters.

The player can play as a Destroyer, an Alchemist, or a Vanquisher. This review was done with a Destroyer and shall be written as such, though apparently playing as a Vanquisher is like a Destroyer except she attacks at a distance, and the Alchemist is like a Destroyer except he relies on the many spells the game has instead of merely smashing the enemies.

Torchlight is a very simple game. The player goes from one end of the level to the other, killing every single monster along the way by clicking on them until they die, and picking up everything they drop, like weapons, armor, magic spells, and gold.

The player has to equip weapons and armor on their characters to better defend them or to attack. Most items usually have extra enchantments on them, like some might be more resistant to certain types of magic, or others might make the character stronger. It is up to the player to figure what combination of armor and weapons are most suitable for their character, which usually is not very hard to figure out.

The player can go up to the town of Torchlight from time to time and sell all the loot he or she has collected but does not need for more gold, which can be used to buy stuff the player actually needs. The chances that the stores in Torchlight have something better than the equipment found in the mines is about even.

The player is given a pet at the beginning of the game, either a lynx or a wolf. The pet can attack monsters right alongside the player, and use spells as well. More importantly, it can be loaded up with loot found in the mine and sent up to Torchlight to sell so the player does not have to that themselves and can just continue along through the catacombs.

The graphics are pretty nice. Everything has a cartoonish look to them, but the varied color scheme and the detail makes everything stand out. The way all the characters twitch and fidget while they stand around or walk makes them look more alive. And there is nothing more satisfying than swiping at a bunch of enemies and watching them all fly away or fall over cliffs.

In addition to the main quest there are three side quests that the player can participate in: finding something, killing something, or going into an optional dungeon and finding something. Since completing them does not get in the way of completing the main game, completing them is a nice way to gain some extra experience, though the rewards are usually not that impressive and the quests themselves are not memorable.

Torchlight starts off fun in a non-challenging way. The game play does not require much thought, it is easy to click on everything without thinking about it at all. It is even easier with a Destroyer, who has a spell at the beginning of the game that takes out all the enemies surrounding him. Eventually the lack of challenge starts to get boring. The only really difficult areas are the last five levels, which do not make up for the preceding tedious levels.

The level design does not help either. There are thirty five levels in total, and every five levels is a different theme, starting with the mines, and then moving onto dungeons, then ruin, etc. The levels are randomly generated by the computer, but they are made up of components that the computer knows. It is like taking a bunch of blocks and arranging them in a different order every time. So, even though the levels are random, parts of them quickly feel familiar, making the whole thing more repetitive. There are about only four different kinds of enemies per five levels, which make the levels even more forgettable.

Torchlight is an easy game that is fun at first, but eventually gets dull. Anybody who does not want a challenge should be fine, but everybody else should just play the Diablo series by Blizzard Entertainment instead, unless they really want something new.

Review: Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

2010-02-22T17:49:00.003-05:00

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box is a puzzle game for the Nintendo DS. It was developed by Level-5.

An easier example of one of the hundreds of puzzles the player will have to solve.

One day Professor Layton receives a letter from his friend Dr. Schrader, informing him of Dr. Schrader’s latest find, the infamously cursed Elysian Box. Fearing for his friend’s safety, the professor rushes over to Dr. Schrader’s home, only to find Dr. Schrader dead, the box missing, and a ticket for the Molentary Express train near his body. The professor, along with his assistant Luke, decides to board the train in the hopes of finding out who murdered Dr. Schrader and the location of the box.

In Diabolical Box, Layton and Luke travel from place to place, talking to everyone they meet and slowly picking up clues that unravel the mystery. Almost every step of the way either Layton or Luke have to solve a logic puzzle found on something they are inspecting or from a person they are talking to. While some of the puzzles are optional, most have to be completed to progress the story.

The main attraction of the game is the logic puzzles, of which there are over a hundred. Many of them are logic puzzles, like ones that would be found in a book. Others are mechanical puzzles that take advantage of the DS’ stylus function to operate. It is unfortunate that not all of the puzzles take advantage of the DS in some way, since otherwise it is no different than reading puzzles from a book. Thankfully a significant number of the puzzles do use the DS in some way.

Puzzles are the only challenge in the game. Anyone who is thinking about buying it has to like puzzles to some degree or else they will be extremely disappointed.

Most of the puzzles are really difficult, but not impossible. A few of them do need a certain level of understanding of mathematics to complete, which is somewhat unfair. The worst ones though, are the slider puzzles and the peg solitaire puzzles. Those are awful and should not have been included in the game.

Throughout the game the player can find hint coins hidden in the scenery. These coins allow the player to buy up to three progressively more blatant hints per puzzle. But since there are a limited number of them they have to be used sparingly.

Completing a puzzle rewards the player with picarats, the game’s currency. The more times the player fails to solve a puzzle the less picarats they get. Gaining more picarats unlocks extra puzzles and bonuses, like a movie gallery or music gallery. They are not essential to beating the game, but they do provide a little extra incentive towards doing well on the puzzles.

To break the monotony of the main game the player can enjoy a couple of mini-games, using items that can be collected by completing some puzzles. The first game is a camera that needs to be reassembled. The second game is getting a hamster to lose weight by strategically placing items in front of it. The third game involves mixing tea ingredients to make certain teas for people. All three games are okay, though the tea one can be frustrating. Completing any of these games unlock more puzzles.

The rest of the game is pretty straightforward. Layton and Luke will go to a place, solve a puzzle, get a direction, and go to another place. Usually Layton and Luke will have to double back to the same place over and over again. The game starts on the train, but soon moves to a couple of towns. Thankfully none of the places are that big, and Layton and Luke move pretty fast, so travelling back and forth never feels tedious.

The story is decent. It is not a particularly deep or complicated mystery, but it is interesting enough. The characters are likable and never become annoying, especially Professor Layton. The twist at the end stretches the story’s credibility, but it is not that important ultimately. The story is mostly told through talking portraits, but every so often the game will use some really professional looking animated cut scenes that look like they were taken out of an animated movie.

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box is a fun game for anyone who likes challenging puzzles, with a decent story and enjoyable characters to carry it along. Anyone who does not like puzzles will not enjoy it, but anybody who enjoys a tough mental challenge will have fun.

Review: Bayonetta

2010-02-08T19:24:00.002-05:00

Bayonetta is a third person action game developed by Platinum Games and published by Sega. It was made for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, though apparently the PlayStation 3 version has severe loading problems.

Bayonetta fighting a massive angel with the end result of a combo attack.

Bayonetta is a witch who, twenty years ago, wok up at the bottom of a lake with no memory of her past and a strange jewel around her neck. One day she gets a tip that a similar jewel that might explain her past has been located in the European town of Vigrid. Unfortunately for her, as a witch with ties to Hell, the forces of Heaven will stop at nothing to kill her, not that she minds killing angels.

Bayonetta is broken up into several levels throughout Vigrid. Bayonetta will cross through each level, only to be periodically stopped by a force field that will not go away until Bayonetta has killed all the angels in the area, using hand to hand combat, weapons obtained by a demonic arms dealer, and monsters that she summons with her own hair. This happens several times until Bayonetta reaches the end of the level.

Combat is the biggest part of the game, and it is where most of the problems with the game lie. They are small problems, but there are so many of them that when they add up it makes the combat more irritating than fun.

First there is defense. The only way for the player to block any attacks is with the dodge button, which will make Bayonetta cartwheel a few feet out of the way. If the player presses the dodge button at the last second, time will stop and Bayonetta can get several attacks in while the enemies are frozen. The problem is that while dodging is effective when Bayonetta is fighting one enemy, it is incredibly difficult to dodge when there are several enemies attacking at once, especially if not all of the enemies are on screen.

Then there is the magic meter. When Bayonetta dodges an attack, and occasionally when Bayonetta attacks and enemy, her magic meter will fill up. Once that has filled up enough Bayonetta can execute a “Torture Attack”, a powerful attack on one enemy. These attacks are important since they do a lot of damage to an enemy, unlike Bayonetta’s regular attacks which chip away at an enemy’s health in tiny bits. However, whenever an enemy hits Bayonetta the magic meter is reduced significantly. Given the aforementioned difficulty of following enemies, this will happen a lot. It is like the developers forgot that the human eye can only follow so many things at once.

These problems would not be so annoying if it were not for the grading system. After every fight the game will give the player a rank based on how well they did. The system takes into account how much damage Bayonetta caused and how long the fight lasts, which is fair. But it also factors in how much damage Bayonetta takes. Then at the end of the level it takes in of the fight rankings, plus how many times the player used an item or died, and gives a composite ranking, which will usually be really low. Given how difficult any attack is, and since the player will probably be using several items just to stay alive, this is incredibly unfair.

The levels that take place in town are interesting, but the levels that take place in the mountains are dull. And the heaven levels are merely sunnier versions of older levels.

The story is told through exposition and flashbacks. Every so often Bayonetta will remember some of her past or someone will explain the plot to her. But these flashbacks usually only obliquely hint at what is going on until the very end, which makes it hard to follow the story.

The game has a lot of gratuitous sexual innuendo, with Bayonetta strutting around like she is on a catwalk in her skintight suit, and everything she says is a double entendre. But it is done in such an over the top manner that it is more funny than sexy. Still, anyone who plays this game should have a healthy tolerance of sexy women.

Cut scenes are really impressive. Usually they have Bayonetta performing some jaw-dropping acrobatics while throwing off some one-liners.

Bayonetta is a game that tries too hard to be challenging, and only ends up feeling unfair. It is funny, and sometimes the game can look really impressive, but the game itself is a frustrating mess.

Review: Assassin's Creed

2010-01-25T16:25:00.002-05:00

Assassin’s Creed is an action game with some stealth elements. It was developed by Ubisoft for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and the PC.

Altair, after the player had just completed a sidequest in Acre.

Assassin’s Creed has two stories, a framing device and a regular story. In the framing device, Desmond Miles has been kidnapped by Abstergo Industries and strapped to a machine, which, using Desmond’s genetic memory will help Abstergo locate something that has been lost. In the regular story which takes place in 1191 AD, Altair is an assassin who has to assassinate nine prominent people throughout the Holy Land in the hopes of putting an end to the Third Crusade.

The game is broken up into the nine assassinations Altair has to perform. Altair is told which city his target is located in, Damascus, Jerusalem, or Acre, and travels there. Once he arrives, climbs a tower to get a view of the city, and checks in with the local assassin’s bureau, Altair has to gather information on his target. He does this either by listening in a person’s conversation, pick-pocketing someone, or beating up someone for information.

Once he has enough information, Altair has to carry out the assassination. With the information he has collected, Altair has to sneak into wherever the target is hiding, possibly assassinating the guards beforehand, and kill the target without being seen. Or he could run in, hack through the guards, and swordfight the target. Either way, once the assassination is completed Altair must run back to the assassin’s bureau while avoiding the guards.

Killing someone with stealthily is ideal way to kill anyone. But to do that the player has to move Altair slowly towards the target, and then quickly use the stealth kill button before the target notices Altair. It is an effective way to kill guards, and pulling off a stealth kill does feel like an accomplishment, but the process can feel so tedious at times, especially when the target can easily spot Altair anyway, that sometimes it is just more fun to run in stabbing.

Sword fighting is a simple mechanism. Altair will lock onto one person. There is one button to attack, one button to block, and one button to dodge. Pressing the attack button will sometimes land a successful attack, or else it will be blocked. If the player can press the attack button at the correct time though, it will result in a much more powerful attack. It requires a bit of luck, but the fighting overall feels like it requires some skill.

When the player does not feel like fighting the guards, Altair can simply lose them by running away and hiding somewhere, like sitting on a bench or walking among some similarly dressed philosophers. It is also a simple procedure, though it does feel funny when the guards immediately give after Altair sits on a bench.

With only nine assassinations total the main game can be completed very quickly. But there are many side missions that can be completed that reward Altair with a bit of assistance. Whether or not the extra help is needed or whether the missions are fun is a matter of debate. For example, Altair only has to climb one tower and get the icons to appear on the map, but if he climbs more towers more of the map is revealed. Likewise if Altair gets more information on his target, the easier it is to plan the assassination.

The other big activity Altair can do is saving citizens. This involves fighting off a couple of guards that are harassing a person. Doing so rewards Altair with mobs stationed throughout the city that will slow down any guards that are chasing Altair. The rescues are at best mildly tedious and the mobs are never really helpful.

Overall the game can feel repetitive, as Altair follows the same pattern with each assassination assignment. But because the assassinations take place in different parts or the city, and because the guards do become more difficult as the game progresses, it is rather easy to fall into an entertained lull instead of finding the game repetitive.

Both the framing story and the regular story are somewhat interesting. Both involve ancient conspiracy stories and both have bland protagonists. The only really interesting part is the central mystery that ties the two storylines together.

Assassin’s Creed is a fun game that fails is some respects but still manages to be entertaining enough that it evens out. Anyone who can stand the occasional repetitiveness and some of the more boring parts should have fun.

Review: Condemned 2: Bloodshot

2010-01-11T18:43:00.003-05:00

Condemned 2: Bloodshot is a first person action game with survival horror elements for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It was developed by Monolith Productions and Sega. It is the sequel to Condemned: Criminal Origins.

The whole game is in first person, but usually the player has to get up close and punch out enemies like this one, instead of using firearms.

Ethan Thomas, the protagonist of Criminal Origins and former forensic investigator, is called in to help with the investigation of the murder of Malcolm Vanhorn, an ally of Ethan’s from the previous game. Helping with this and further investigations leads Ethan to discover the source of what is causing the homeless to become violently insane, and the source of his own terrifying hallucinations.

Bloodshot is broken into several levels. In each level Ethan has to traverse some creepy dilapidated area, like a rundown hotel or cabin out in the woods, to reach a goal. Along the way he has to fight off several psychotic homeless people. Once Ethan reaches his goal he uses his abilities as a forensics investigator to search for clues.

The big challenge is from fighting off the crazy homeless enemies. Ethan knows a variety of punches and kicks to fight off his enemies. The player controls Ethan’s attacks with the shoulder buttons on the controller, left button for left fist, right button for right fist, both to block. Pressing the buttons in certain combinations without interruption, plus manipulating the control stick in certain ways, results in Ethan pulling off more powerful attacks that do more damage to enemies. But the enemies can block and dodge attacks, and are usually about as strong as Ethan, so killing them is not easy.

Frequently Ethan can find or improvise a weapon, like chair leg or a pipe, which are more effective in killing enemies. But the weapons fall apart the more they are used and eventually have to be discarded. Even more rarely Ethan will find a firearm that can take out enemies from a distance. But the weapons usually have little ammunition and have to be used sparingly.

The combat is the most fun part because of how complex it can be. The player cannot merely press one punch button over and over again, or use one weapon. The player has to take into account how many enemies Ethan is fighting, where they are hiding, when to block, when they block, instead of merely slaughtering them like in other games.

The other part of the game is investigating crime scenes. Ethan will walk into a crime scene, or start the level at a crime scene, and use his all purpose forensic tool to gather clues, like blood spatter and forms of identification. Then, he will send the clues back to his coworker Angel Rosa, who will in turn ask Ethan questions about the crime scene that the player has to answer. Doing so yields the player a grade, that ultimately is almost worthless except for unlocking some hidden content, but it still presents a fun little challenge.

Bloodshot is a scary game, but is unique in how normal and down to earth its scariness is. Ethan is usually just running through some abandoned building, with only his flashlight for light. The only scary things are crazy homeless people that keep attacking, though they do look more inhuman as the game progresses. But it is the way that they run out of the darkness screaming and getting in Ethan’s face that makes them so terrifying. Plus Ethan’s own vulnerability makes them more threatening. And the broken down buildings that serve as levels only add to it.

The biggest problem with the game is the story. In the first game, in addition to the normal scares from the hobos, Ethan experienced hallucinations. The second game explains the source of the hallucinations, the cause of the crazy homeless people, and the back story in general. And not only is it a bad explanation, it makes the rest of the game less scary and more silly.

The other problem with the game is that along with the story, the levels themselves become less scary; specifically it stops being scary in the level where Ethan breaks into a museum and fights off crazy homeless people with swords. That, plus the revelations about the back story in the next level make it impossible to take the game seriously anymore and it loses its entire atmosphere.

Condemned 2: Bloodshot is a good game with creepy atmosphere that loses most of what made it special about halfway through the game and becomes merely decent game with an enjoyable combat mechanic.

Review: Batman: Arkham Asylum

2009-12-28T17:26:00.004-05:00

Batman: Arkham Asylum is an action adventure game with heavy stealth elements for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and the PC. It was created by Rocksteady Studios and Eidos Interactive. It is based on the Batman comic book by DC Comics.

Batman beating up several of the Joker's goons at once.

Batman’s arch nemesis the Joker has taken control of the Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane for some unknown purpose and has released all the inmates. It is up to Batman to retake control of Arkham, save as many of its staff as possible, capture it’s more dangerous prisoners, and figure out what the Joker is up to.

The player controls Batman as he makes his way through Arkham. Batman’s goal does not vary much throughout the game. Batman finds out someone is in trouble or one of his super powered enemies is about to do something destructive and goes to help/stop them. This repeats throughout the game, but because the story feels so intense it is not noticeable.

Fighting Joker’s henchmen makes up the bulk of the challenge of the games; there are two ways this comes about. The first way is if Batman runs into a group of thugs without guns. In these encounters, Batman fights the thugs head on. All the player has to do is get Batman close to an enemy and press the attack button repeatedly and Batman will beat up the villain. Sometimes while Batman is attacking one enemy, another will try to hit Batman from behind. When this happens an icon will appear over Batman’s head and the player can press the counter button which will get Batman to attack the person behind him. The fighting is fun, though not particularly challenging.

The second and much more entertaining way Batman deals with the enemies is when he runs into a room full of thugs with assault weapons. In these instances Batman has to use stealth to take out the thugs one by one without being seen. Batman has to hide somewhere, wait for an enemy to walk by, disarm them, and disappear when the other thugs investigate the noise. There are several different ways to disarm an opponent, like stringing them up on a gargoyle, or blowing up a wall they are standing next to. The variety of the rooms that Batman ambushes people in, combined with the many different methods Batman can take out the bad guys, and the danger of being caught, is what makes this the most exciting and challenging part of the game.

The other part of the game is investigating a room for clues. This is how Batman finds out someone is in trouble and goes to help them. Batman will scan a room with his visor and find some sort of substance in a room, like blood or ash from a pipe. Then using his scanner Batman will follow a trail of the substance to the next part of Arkham. It is not fun activity, but it is an interesting and easy way to progress the story.

Every so often Batman will run into one of his other super powered villains and have to fight them. These fights are mildly tedious at best.

There is also a lengthy optional quest where Batman can explore all of Arkham, and using the various gadgets he collects throughout the game, find trophies and other hidden objects that unlock information about the characters, character trophies, or extra challenges. The trophies are not difficult to find, so finding them provides an amusing diversion but does not get in the way of anyone who is not entertained by side quests.

The story is at first mysterious while Batman tries to figure what the Joker is trying to accomplish, but that disappears halfway through and it becomes a regular story. But watching as Arkham Asylum steadily gets worse keeps the story interesting. There are also numerous references to Batman’s seventy years of comic book history, which should be entertaining to fans of the series.

Arkham Asylum itself is pretty impressive. Each section of the asylum looks unique and it never feels like Batman is running through a bunch of identical corridors. The rest of the game looks really good too.

Due to how linear the game is, it might be best to wait a while before playing again because, except for the fighting segments, the rest of the game will feel really repetitive.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is a fun adaption of the Batman comics that seamlessly combines stealth action elements in an easy and enjoyable way.

Review: Prototype

2009-12-14T16:15:00.003-05:00

Prototype is an action and sandbox game for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. It was developed by Radical Entertainment.

Alex Mercer divebombing a tank in the ruins of Manhattan.

Alex Mercer has woken up in a New York City morgue with no memory of how he got there and the ability to shape shift, thanks to the BLACKLIGHT virus that he has been infected with. Very quickly the military is brought in to hunt him down, and Mercer has to find out why, as well learn how he developed his shape shifting abilities, and get revenge on whoever killed him in the first place. But someone has unleashed a different virus on Manhattan that turns people into zombies and monsters and made Manhattan into a warzone, another problem Mercer will have to deal with in addition to the military.

Mercer’s main missions are to find out what happened to him, do something about the military trying to hunt him down, and deal with the zombies invading Manhattan. To accomplish this, Mercer has to go on missions, which usually involve going to some place in Manhattan, and killing someone; or destroying something; or chasing after someone and them killing them; or eating someone for information.

Thanks to the BLACKLIGHT virus infecting his body, Mercer can change his body into various weapons, as well as a couple other abilities. In addition to being able to eat people for health and information about the current mission, Mercer can run fast, jump really high, climb up buildings, glide, and disguise himself as the enemy. Most of these abilities are essential for completing the missions, or just getting around Manhattan faster, though not all of the combat abilities are really practical.

The story is rather normal story involving lots of evil government conspiracies and the military committing various atrocities, all of which Mercer finds out about throughout the game, a lot of which is found out by consuming people, gaining their memories, and piecing the story together.

What is really impressive though, is watching Manhattan turn into a giant mess. As the story progresses, whole neighborhoods become filled with zombies and other monsters that Mercer can visit at any time. Actual parts of Manhattan become filled with thousand of zombies all running around at once, plus giant monsters and buildings covered in pulsating orange pustules. It makes the whole situation feel grave and important. It is weird though, seeing one half of New York look like the apocalypse and then go to another part of New York and see everyone walking around like nothing is wrong.

The setting is a really big draw. The player is given access to all of Manhattan to do whatever they want. Mercer can run up buildings, pick up cars, glide, and kill hundreds of people in brutal ways without any consequence whatsoever. Eventually the novelty of such reckless abandon wears off, but on the onset it is really novel.

Combat is more complicated than necessary. The player can lock onto one enemy and attack them by pressing one or two buttons repeatedly. Pressing the attack buttons a certain way makes Mercer do stronger attacks. Mercer can also purchase stronger attacks using experience points gained from killing enemies and completing side challenges. Unfortunately most of these attacks are unnecessarily complicated to perform and do not cause enough damage to warrant their execution, especially with the mutants, which they barely slow down at all. Thankfully Mercer can pick up and throw vehicles, or hijack tanks and helicopters, which make fighting a lot easier.

Also, when fighting many enemies at once, it becomes difficult to focus on one enemy. Several times Mercer will focus on the wrong enemy, which is usually the one that is not about to attack him.

The main game is fun. Each mission usually has a new enemy, or a new handicap for Mercer to overcome, or some other type of unique obstacle for Mercer to challenge. Unfortunately the main game is also pretty short. So to pad out the game, there are various side challenges that Mercer can participate in. There are about eight types of challenges scattered throughout Manhattan that Mercer can participate in at any time. As a further incentive, completing the challenges under a certain time limit gets Mercer more experience points, which are essential for making Mercer stronger. While some of these side missions can be pleasant enough diversions, most of them are incredibly tedious. And running up and down Manhattan trying to reach them is never fun.

Prototype is a game that sets a very presentation that is immediately enticing to anybody watching. And while several parts of the game can be annoying, avoiding those parts will yield a fun, though short, game.