Metal Gear Solid 2 US Box Art

The game is split into two sections, The Tanker and The Plant. The Tanker section is set in the far off year of 2007 and features the long time series protagonist of Solid Snake as he sneaks onto a United States Marine tanker to obtain a picture of the new Metal Gear that is being developed. To give a bit of back story to this, The Tanker section is set a few years after Metal Gear Solid 1 and since the events at Shadow Moses the secret Metal Gear projects have become public and everyone and their mother are trying to develop the best Metal Gear first. The second section of the game, The Plant, features the series lesser protagonist Raiden two years after the events of the first section of Metal Gear Solid 2. In Raiden’s part of the game he is sent to “The Big Shell Plant” which allegedly is used to clean up the oil spill and other such chemicals from the Hudson River because of the events of two years ago. Raiden is sent to Big Shell because a terrorist group called Dead Cell have kidnapped the US President and are holding him hostage until their monetary demands are met. With the help of Cr. Campbell and Raiden’s girlfriend Rose, Raiden begins his mission but what he does not know is that he is walking directly into a plot that is much bigger then he is. Players will spend the majority of the game proper with Raiden but if gamers so choose they can partake in side missions called Snake Tales. The Snake Tales missions are side missions that play out the story of MGS 2 HD if Solid Snake was the protagonist. Also packed in with the HD edition is the VR missions that were featured in the Substance release of MGS2.

Raiden Art Work

In regards to gameplay, MGS2HD retains all the controls that it had in its PlayStation 2 iterations and takes no control whatsoever of the PS3 sixaxis controls, which is a good thing. Compared to the controls of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD players will find it very easy to transition from one game to another with only slight changes to button layout that are easily adapted to. Although a staple in the current MGS games, MGS2 was the first game in the series to incorporate the first person perspective to take out and look around for enemy soldiers. The game does feel dated when it come to movement, especially when it comes to sticking to a wall to hide from soldiers. When sticking to a wall the camera repositions itself, in doing so the movement controls become reversed and staying in one place to not be noticed becomes very hard. The HD upscale, like Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD, does leave something to be desired. Although cutscenes are in HD the textures of the PS2 at the time do not do the upscale any service and makes the game look even worse than it once did in many respects.

When it comes down to it Metal Gear Solid 2 is still not as good as some of the other MGS titles but still can stand the test of time better then its three predecessors. Fewer series have stood the test of time as Metal Gear has to create a highly original and dynamic story that spans many console generations. To have been a MGS fan when this game was first released must have been a horrible. One had to deal with the introduction of the most complex story any video game series has had to date and very little reference material to go back to and piece together what Kojima was trying to do at the time. Only until later did things in MGS 2 start to really make sense and come together. If nothing else can be said about this game, it is the game that brought Metal Gear into the twenty first century and did it with a huge splash.

Soul Calibur V NA Box Art

When a series of games has reached its fifth installment, there are bound to be attempts at “changing things up” to keep the series feeling fresh and new, while at the same time trying to hold onto some elements from previous games to please those afraid of change. The key to being successful this far into the game is finding a good balance between old and new. If too much is changed, previous fans of the series will drop the series, and if not enough is changed, people will complain that it is just a re-release of the previous games. SoulCalibur V has found a decent balance between the two, with changes to the combat system that are not too daunting to learn, the return of most of the most memorable characters in the series, and the addition of a few decent new characters as well.

The story mode in SoulCalibur V takes place 17 years after the events of SoulCalibur IV, With Siegfried having shattered the Soul Edge, defeating Nightmare and bringing about a short era of relative calm to the world. The player is not given a choice of which character they will be playing through the story mode with, as each “chapter” in the story has a specific character already selected. Most of the story has the players controlling the two new characters, Patroklos and Pyrrha Alexandra. Patroklos spends most of the story looking for his kidnapped sister, while Pyrrha attempts to survive in a world she feels has cast her aside. Along the way, players will be introduced to all of the new characters, all while experiencing possibly the most in-depth storyline in the series so far. Previous installments in the SoulCalibur series allowed players to go through a series of random fights with whichever character they chose, each character having a different ending upon completion. With the loss of character selection in the story mode, the story itself becomes the focus. Told through a combination of cut scenes and a storybook style of narration, the story mode familiarizes players with the new characters while giving a good taste of how the world has changed.

Patroklos, the game's main protagonist.

The most important element of a fighting game is, of course, the fighters. While many fighters from the previous games have returned, there are some slight changes to the roster for SoulCalibur V. First is the addition of Patroklos and Pyrrha, the son and daughter of Sophitia, a character Soul Calibur veterans are quite familiar with. They each have two different incarnations: Patroklos Alpha and Pyrrha Omega. Along with these two there is the addition of Z.W.E.I., a broody and mysterious man who can summon a werewolf spirit named E.I.N. He has a companion named Viola, a fortune teller who uses a metal claw and a floating crystal ball as her weapons. There are also a few replacements for some of the older characters. Kilik has been replaced by a young man named Xiba, with a typical silly personality who is always looking for a meal. Taki has been replaced by Natsu, an apprentice to Taki who is searching for her master. Xianghua has been replaced by her daughter Leixia, who is a Chinese general. Ezio Auditore da Firenze of the Assassin’s Creed series is available as a guest character to the series.

Ezio makes an appearance as an overpowered monster.

Patroklos uses a sword and shield combination style, while his alpha form uses a quick striking katana style. The first incarnation is relatively simple to use, although lacking in reach. The quick striking form is extremely fast, but suffers from short reach, lack of power and little to no combination moves. Pyrrha uses a sword and shield style for both of her forms. Both are pretty fast, and also quite powerful. Z.W.E.I. is not very powerful, but has many combinations and a good amount of speed. Viola is ridiculously fast, with some pretty mean combinations involving her floating crystal ball. Ezio is, of course, very fast and very powerful. He makes use of every weapon you acquire in the Assassin’s Creed games, including the crossbow and hand cannon. His power and speed make him extremely formidable. Each of the replacement characters plays almost exactly like their predecessor, with only small variations to their move lists. All in all, the character list is quite strong, with the new characters being decent additions to the series for the most part.

Many changes have been made to the gameplay for SoulCalibur V. The “critical finish” system has been removed entirely, along with use of the soul gauge. Instead, players will slowly fill a special meter known as the critical gauge that will allow them to pull off a super move for each character known as a “Critical Edge.” typically a very powerful move, these can be game-changers if executed properly. Also available are Brave Edge moves, using less of the critical gauge and enhancing character-specific moves. Guard impact has been tweaked a bit as well; instead of requiring the player to press guard and the direction of the opponent’s attack at the precise moment it happens, players now quickly tap the guard button and either forward or backward. Consuming a small portion of the critical gauge bar, the guard impact stops a move no matter if it is high or low unless the move is unblockable. Another new guard mechanic is included, called Just Guard. if a player hits guard the second a move is about to connect, a just guard happens, granting a slightly faster recovery and action from the guard stance.

Probably the coolest critical edge in the game.

Each of these new systems is an improvement on the system that it replaces. The Critical Finish system was extremely broken, allowing anyone who used a fast character to easily break the guard and then finish an opponent with little to no effort. The addition of the Critical Gauge system gives the game a more arcade feel. Each of these moves, while powerful, are all capable of being blocked or dodged. The loss of Guard Impact as a move that can be executed at any time is a little disheartening, but the new Guard Impact works better if you have the critical gauge to pull it off. Just Guard is almost unnoticeable, with a small flash of blue light being the only indicator that you have done it properly.

The only ill-conceived changed, in this reviewer’s eyes, are those made to a few existing characters. Nightmare, as well as most of the other large and strong characters, has been given a massive boost in speed while keeping his great strength. Anyone who knows what they are doing can select Nightmare and completely dominate almost any other character. The new stages are relatively pretty, with some of them having special changes that occur during battle. On certain stages, if a fighter achieves victory via ring out the two combatants will fall to a different area and see new scenery. Some stages just change as the fights progress, giving a little bit of depth to the environment around the players.

he will devour your soul...

Another big change in this installment is the character creation system. Far more involved than the system from previous games, players are given the ability to change just about everything on their characters. the limbs and torso can all be individually changed, with a selection of faces and hair that is still a little limited. The costume pieces are generally unlocked by simply playing the game. There is also a sticker system that allows players to put decals on their character or their armor. With so many options, recreating a favorite character from a favorite series is well within the ability of the players.

If you use Tira then you are a cheater.

Overall, Soul Calibur V does not stand out too much from it’s predecessors. The new mechanics are nice, but the new characters are pretty forgettable when put next to their counterparts from the previous games. The combat is more or less standard Soul Calibur fare, which of course is not a bad thing. The addition of the Critical Gauge gives it a feel like something you would expect from a Street Fighter game. Most of the specials are pretty cool, but a couple of them are weak and quite useless in comparison. Still, this game carries the name of SoulCalibur well. Any fan of the series will undoubtedly spend hours making custom characters and showing off their creations online. While the new elements do not really stand out, the game itself is still solid. The gameplay is as good as would be expected from a SoulCalibur game, the music is enjoyable, the story, while short, is worth playing through. If anyone is a fan of the series, then this is a solid addition and should be picked up and enjoyed!

Lightning is bland, but so cool looking

After the flashy introductory sequence, Final Fantasy XIII-2 attempts to very quickly reveal how different its design philosophies are from the controversial original. If the opening section was not so fun and not executed so well, it may have appeared desperate. Thankfully, it instead properly sets the tone for an engaging experience. The two main characters meet almost instantly and the player begins battling, Paradigm Shifting, and gaining rewards from battle immediately after. All tutorials can be skipped, but even if the player chooses not to do so, the information is concise and helpful.

The game continues to feed the player its mechanics at a brisk pace after that. The hub world connecting all locations and times – known as the Historia Crux – is introduced, followed quickly by the addicting monster-taming mechanic. With so many mechanics introduced so clearly within only a couple of hours, it is more than a breath of fresh air from the hand-holding of XIII.

The story in Final Fantasy XIII-2 remains as high concept and melodramatic as it was in its predecessor, but the big difference is the improvement in focus and character. The poor writing and time-travelling jargon is a lot easier to follow from the more dynamic new heroes.

Serah is a little flat, but she has an arc that is far more clear than Lightning’s ever was in the first game. Hope’s return as a prominent character is far from the groan-fest many may have expected. He is older now and comes well-equipped with more maturity and an improved voice-actor; he graciously feels like an entirely new character. Newcomer Noel is the best of the lot, however, with more complexity to his inner workings than the combined cast of the original. He is not immune to the unbelievable and eye-roll-inducing speeches about hope or human nature or his struggles with his own emo whatever, but the difference is that XIII-2‘s characters rise above the less-than-par writing. This is a welcome returning trend that used to set the Final Fantasy series apart. It is important to note that XIII-2 is not a full return to the timeless characters of the past, but surely a step in the right direction.

This guy isn't the worst.

There are other good characters and moments worth praise, but none that could be properly described spoiler-free. However, gamers can rest assured knowing that it is far easier to be invested in the story and characters in this sequel than it was in XIII proper.

When Final Fantasy X-2 started the trend of direct sequels to Final Fantasy games, it uprooted the entire battle system of Final Fantasy X to devise something new. The result was one of the greatest battle systems in the series. However, in the case of XIII-2, the original already had another contender for top spot, so the sequel only needed to make minor tweaks to its mechanics. Of course, having full customization so soon into the experience should make it a lot easier to swallow for many of the critics. Minor changes can also go a longer way than expected. Faster Paradigm Shifts allow players to use the mechanic as not just the strategic core of the system, but also a tool to make timing-based decisions. Swapping to a defensive Paradigm the moment before a huge enemy attack and swapping immediately back to an attacking or balanced Paradigm is not only very effective, but incredibly satisfying.

The largest attack launched on Final Fantasy XIII however, was regarding its linearity. Despite XIII-2 still not really having “towns” in the most traditional sense – the engine was not designed for characters to move particularly well in tight spaces – the “tunnel” has most certainly vanished. Locations have multiple paths and are given personality and purpose instead of merely being means of getting the party from Point A to Point B.

In fact, similar to its semi-sister title, X-2, Final Fantasy XIII-2 incorporates a multiple-location and mission structure while maintaining an over-arching story to tie it all together. XIII-2 is more successful at it, however, by including far more new areas and breathing new life into the old ones by presenting them in different time periods. Players will feel pleasantly overwhelmed with the choices in front of them. Side-quests, mini-games, countless monsters to tame and upgrade, and even entirely optional locations are present throughout the experience and after the credits roll as well. This feels like the game Final Fantasy XIII was supposed to be.

Cute, but sharp.

The game is not perfection, however. In addition to the wonky writing and tendency to drift into melodrama, the game can feel a little unpolished. The framerate is hardly consistent, areas can feel cheapened by some DLC-centric design, the camera goes to weird places during cutscenes, and the otherwise improved Crystarium has a few minor late-game frustrations. Thankfully, none of these issues come close to the original’s flaws which shook the title to its core.

This reviewer would be remiss if the music in the game was not mentioned. Final Fantasy XIII-2‘s soundtrack is again similar to X-2 in its attempt to be vastly different from the rest of the series. Once again, XIII-2 is more successful in this regard. While there are a few spectacular duds, the soundtrack as a whole is unique and often powerful. The frequent presence of vocals surprisingly adds more to the experience far more often than it takes away.

This is truly the HD Final Fantasy game that fans have been waiting for. Meaning and emotional weight finally have a place in the Final Fantasy XIII universe. Critics of the original’s battle system or general mood will find no solace in this sequel, but fans of the series who were frustrated at wasted potential in XIII have many reasons to accept Square Enix’s well-crafted and addicting apology in Final Fantasy XIII-2. Oh, and none of the characters turn into air-headed pop stars. So that is also a plus.

Full disclosure: the author was provided with a free copy of the game for review purposes.

Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker Logo

Set in the midst of Costa Rica during the Cold War, Metal Gear Solid‘s story starts up this time with the infamous and legendary Big Boss, which players soon come to find out that he just wants to go back his original code name Naked Snake! But before I go further into the story be forewarned that the original Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was released April, 2010; so while I will try to avoid massive spoilers there might be a couple sprinkled throughout! So the story is as follows, Naked Snake (aka Big Boss) has left FOXHOUND and The Patriots to form his own mercenary group entitled Militaires San Frontieres or more commonly known as MSF. The player also sees the first chronological appearance of Kazuhira Miller who is the very same “Master Miller” in the first Metal Gear Solid. So whilst there fledgling group are training Kaz drives up with a couple “visitors” for Snake, these visitors turn out to be Paz Andrade and “Professor” Galvez, both of which claim to be from the University of Peace. They claim that one of Paz’s friends has been captured by a CIA run Military group that for some unknown reason are in Costa Rica and to further thicken the plot Paz also has a tape of her “friend”" running away from said Military group but on this tape a strangely familiar female voice catches Snakes attention. It is the voice of his old mentor The Boss who he killed ten years ago during the events of Metal Gear Solid 3. The two ambassadors of peace then offer Kaz and Snake that if they help them out the two can provide them with an off shore base to expand and grow MSF. Kaz wants to accept right away but Snake very hesitantly accepts even though he has already figured out that the “Professor” is really KGB. So from here on out Naked Snake and the men/women of MSF go out on “Tactical Espionage Operations” to get the CIA out of Costa Rica!

Professor Galvez Art Work

In terms of the gameplay in Peace Walker everything is entirely pick and choose mission based with more missions unlocking as the player clears missions. There are two sets of missions: the Main Operations, which contains all the story based missions, and the Extra Operations which are all sidequests and have very little to do with completing the main story line. The Extra Ops are really where skills as a stealth action player are tested, with multiple perfect stealth, marksmanship, increased difficulty boss fight missions await. In addition to the Extra Ops and Main Ops there are also NPC run Ops called Outer Ops which you can send the solider of MSF into battle. As previously mentioned Snake and MSF received an offshore plant that they christen “Mother Base”. The player can go on missions and forcefully recruit enemy soldiers to join MSF, and through the recruitment can put soldiers into one of many departments of Mother Base which include Combat, Research/Development, Mess Hall, Medical, and Intel. As these departments level up players will have access to more advanced weapons and items to put to use on the battlefield.

As it comes to controls I must say that any issues that were brought up in the PlayStation Portable version have been addressed and are gone thanks to the PS3′s second analog stick now being put to use unlike when players tried to use their PS3 controllers with the PSP edition. Also during the course of the story MSF starts to build their own Metal Gear to combat the Peace Walker units that plague the nation. Players are also able to trade items, weapons and soldiers with friends via the PlayStation Network and go on verse ops together to see who has the better Mother Base.

On the topic of the HD upscaling the game does have many moments where one can tell some textures were not upscaled and are still the same from the PSP version, but overall this is still a good looking game.The story overall does have some of the Metal Gear plot confusion but Peace Walker does more clarification then trying to confuse fans unlike the past couple of entries. It gives fans a better look at Big Boss and begs the question “Is he a villain or a good guy?” Overall the game is an excellent port and and instant classic in the franchise, if a fan of the Metal Gear series passed the game up because of one reason or another they should really pick up the HD Collection and start playing!

North American box art.

Final Fantasy XIII tells the story of six people trying to save themselves and their world from being destroyed. In the process, the characters each become marked as “l’Cie”, giving them an unbreakable quest called a “Focus”. If the six fail, then they become shambling crystalline zombies. The ones giving these “Focus” quests are known as “fal’Cie”, the guardians and protectors of the world. If the plot of Final Fantasy XIII seems unnecessarily convoluted and silly…it is. The plot is hands-down the weakest aspect of Final Fantasy XIII, a nonsensical and pointless mess. Sadly, the characters are not much better; while their backstories are intertwined, none of the characters are particularly interesting or exciting in and of themselves. Mercifully, every cutscene in Final Fantasy XIII is skippable, so players are not forced to sit through the boring nonsense. Still, it is highly disappointing to play an RPG – particularly a Final Fantasy game – with such a disappointing plot.

The one good character in FFXIII.

The gameplay of Final Fantasy XIII is an interesting beast. Final Fantasy XIII is, for much of the game, painfully linear; the player is railroaded into a tunnel of cutscenes and battles. Midway through, Final Fantasy XIII suddenly becomes overwhelmingly open, but finishing the game requires a trip back into the tunnel. The battle system of Final Fantasy XIII is by far the best part of the game. Using a modified version of the traditional ATB system, Final Fantasy XIII uses a heavily-simplified job system. Taking one of six roles, characters can perform different in-battle jobs and actions. By shifting “Paradigms”, the player can control the party’s job make-up in a very similar manner to the shifting in Final Fantasy X-2 battles. The player controls the party’s leader; the other two party members are left to A.I. control. Remarkably, the A.I. in Final Fantasy XIII is decently intelligent; if an enemy has a weakness, the computer-controlled members will react accordingly, and the computer-controlled healers will prioritize the party leader and those who are lowest on health. The party is fully healed after every battle, and any battle can be retried. Surprisingly, though, Final Fantasy XIII is by no means an easy game. While not obnoxiously difficult, battles in Final Fantasy XIII are challenging, and the enemies in the linear portions of the game are well-balanced for the party’s capabilities.

The combat in Final Fantasy XIII is fast-paced an interesting.

Clearly inspired by Final Fantasy X‘s “sphere grid,” the “Crystarium” system for leveling allows the player to level each character’s job individually. Nodes on the Crystarium are filled using “Crystogen Points,” the Final Fantasy XIII version of experience. The Crystarium is appropriately linear, with few branching nodes breaking off from the main path. Roles on the Crystarium are, for most of the game, locked to certain characters, and each character has a unique version of each Crystarium role. Different levels of the Crystarium unlock as the party defeats certain story bosses, setting a cap on the player’s ability to level grind. This means that, for most of the game, the party and enemies will be appropriately balanced. It also means that, for most of the game, the player actually has very little input on how his or her party will develop as they level up.

The Final Fantasy series has always been known for its excellent graphics, and Final Fantasy XIII is certainly no exception. While the Xbox 360 version of the game does have some graphical issues, the PS3 version of the game looks spectacular. The game is colorful, and the world looks vibrant and interesting. It is a shame, then, that the player is railroaded onto a linear path for so much of the game. Final Fantasy XIII also sounds good, though admittedly most of the soundtrack is forgettable. A few tracks, like “March of the Dreadnoughts” and the introduction theme, do stand out, but the music of Final Fantasy XIII is largely unmemorable.

Final Fantasy XIII has received a great deal of praise and hate, for various reasons. For a gamer seeking an interesting RPG battle system, Final Fantasy XIII is definitely a game worth picking up. However, the story-seeker would be much better off avoiding Final Fantasy XIII and its convoluted mess of a plot. If one has the choice of version, the PlayStation 3 version is easily the one to pick up, as the game simply looks better on the PS3′s Blu-Ray over the 360′s three DVDs. Final Fantasy XIII is, in this reviewer’s opinion, a solid entry in the franchise that is a great deal of fun to play. As for you, readers, do you think I am wrong? Is Final Fantasy XIII good, bad, overrated, or underrated? Discuss Final Fantasy XIII in the comments, dear readers! As for this reviewer? Final Fantasy XIII-2 has already been pre-ordered.

Yup.

It is 2012 and Peter Molyneux, fabled game developer and liar-at-large, is now respected as one of the most successful game developers of all time. Molyneux’s Lionhead (pronouned Lyin’ Head) Studios has, in the past decade, produced three extremely successful role-playing games. This series–the Fable series–has earned itself an enormous, diehard fanbase which is willing to defend the games in the series to the bitter end. It is that bitter end which this reviewer eagerly looks forward to, even as Fable: Pony Training is currently still in development. The reasons why can be seen in the beginnings of the series.

This review cannot begin without declaring a simple fact: Fable is a bad game. The opinions of this reviewer have been reiterated over the years on websites such as CatFancy, where those opinions earned the admiration and agreement of countless thousands of readers. Nevertheless, after striking a Faustian bargain with the readership of this site in exchange for funds to keep the lights on, this reviewer has no choice but to delve into the festering, turgid shithole that is Fable. And shithole it is.

The plot of Fable begins when an incredibly ugly young man (who has no set name, so let us call him “Stinker”), apparently suffering from some kind of hydrocephalic disorder, is confronted by his equally handicapped sister. The year is A.D. ‘vaguely medival fantasy’, and the people are all bad caricatures of cockneys from the London dockyard–or perhaps that should be Londinium, for the setting is called Albion, a poetic term for the island of England. In this Dick-Van-Dyke-besotted universe, Stinker’s spoiled and demanding sister Theresa desires presents, for it is, unhappily, her birthday. With a screeching voice and a stomp of her foot, Stinker is sent to search for the expected gifts and it is then that fate intervenes. For the village of hydrocephalic imbeciles is attacked and, presumably, the Stinker’s parents and sister are–mercifully–slaughtered.

Behold the beautiful land of Albion!

But alas, all is not lost! After growing up in the Heroes’ Guild with his dismal friend, Whisper, Stinker discovers that both his sister and his mother are alive. Soon, Stinker learns who destroyed his village (a fellow named Jack of Blades), and he swears vengeance. Jack of Blades, it turns out, holds a sword unimaginatively called the “Sword of Aeons,” which gains power as it receives the blood of the line of Archon. No prizes for guessing whose the line of Archon is. Jack endeavours to kill Stinker’s sister and mother, and Stinker must intervene. Though he is unable to prevent the death of his mother, Stinker is able to prevent Jack killing his sister and, in the process, Stinker becomes the new master of the Sword of Aeons. At this point, he can either kill Theresa and further empower the sword, or he can cast the sword into a void, destroying it forever. This reviewer killed Stinker’s sister, because she is a whiny bitch.

The theme to Fable was composed, possibly in a moment of drunken madness, by Danny Elfman. Consequently, it is passable. The rest of the music was composed by Molyneux’s music maestro, Russell Shaw, who has none of Danny Elfman’s capabilities. Nevertheless, the soundtrack is the best part of Fable. This is not much of a feat, however, as the rest of Fable is lamentable. The morality system is absurdly bifurcated (KILL YOUR SISTER to absorb her power in the sword, or SAVE HER); the vaunted ‘character actions have effects on the gameworld’ system actually boils down to ‘light coloured clothing makes you good; dark coloured clothing makes you evil’; and the combat system is more or less ‘mash attack to win’. Meanwhile, the world of Albion is filled with cockney idiots who annoy, rather than delight, guv’nah. Usually, they demonstrate their Genuine British Nature(tm) by ending every sentence with guv’nah, guv’nah. This quickly becomes annoying, as you are probably beginning to see, guv’nah.

But if Dick-Van-Dykery is not sufficent to dissuade the potential player, allow this reviewer to add that the PC version, which is technically being reviewed here, has even more of the exceptional crapitude which the console release has. For in The Lost Chapters, Jack of Blades returns with yet another magical sword and, in a twist which surprised no one but Molyneux himself (in one of his “Eureka! I’ve got it!” moments), Stinker is once again set upon the task of slaying Jack. Who is now a dragon. With a mask. And upon slaying Jack, another Big Moral Dilemma(tm) takes place: whether to destroy the mask and Jack, or to wear it, Diablo-like, and become Jack. Oooh, tough one there, Molyneux.

Peter Molyneux, OBE

There’s more to Fable, but all of it stinks. There’s a murder mystery that no one gives a tinker’s toot about, and a Bandit King who saves Theresa, and some extra areas in The Lost Chapters. But to explore all of this would prolong the experience of Fable and, as it is a profoundly dissatisfying experience, players will more likely hurry on and–quite rightly–ignore the nonsense which festoons the game like so many peacock feathers in a lady’s overburdened hat.

But the worst part of all are the lies which Molyneux told about Fable, the promises he made and on which he could not–and did not–deliver. Players, giddy with expectation, laid down pre-orders for Fable, excited to see ‘real morality’ systems and ‘an ever-changing world’. What they got instead was a simplified RPG with stupid characters and a simplistic ethical system, all stifled by a bare-bones combat system and a difficulty level only slightly above Barbie’s Horse Adventures. And whilst playing the game with open eyes here in 2012 might well save one from the defeated expectations which attended the game’s release, doing so will only prolong the life of the series and the success of its creator–both of which, this reviewer hopes, will soon end.

Deadly Towers

At the end of 1986, Lenar’s Deadly Towers was released in Japan, followed by an American release the following September. Yet, despite the release coming near the end of the year, Deadly Towers was nevertheless a best-selling title on the NES in 1987. Of course, these were early days for role-playing games on Nintendo’s console, which was yet emerging in terms of its popularity. Clearly the success of the game owes more to the dearth of available RPGs than to its content, because what Deadly Towers doesn’t have is satisfying music, sound effects, gameplay, plot, characterisation, graphics, or, indeed, anything else.

The gameplay is generally typical of NES-era, top-down adventure games. The player controls Prince Myer, a knight, who appears to be clad in some sort of bluish hoodie. The Prince of the Hoodlums has been set a task (according to the instruction manual) by a spirit, who has revealed to him (also in the instruction manual) that Myer’s Kingdom of Willner will be destroyed by an army of demons led by the fearsome Rubas. To prevent this deeply unpleasant situation coming to pass, Myer must sally forth to the mountains of the north and destroy the seven sacred bells in the sacred flame–after which he must destroy Rubas (with a sword, not the sacred flame). Prince Myer leaps into action; his coronation is on the morrow (so the instruction manual relates), and he can’t allow the festivities to be ruined by something as disagreeable as the end of the world. Morover, in Myer’s little Germanesque country, the coronation is probably heralded by the Teutonically officious execution of their ethnic minorities; Myer musn’t delay or the demons may bump off his intended targets first!

The Opening Area

Desperate to ensure that his thousand-year-rule gets off to a ringing start, Myer dons his sacred blue hoodie and picks up his dirk. There are demons to slaughter. Unfortunately for Prince Myer, staying awake all night (as the instruction manual claims he does) to contemplate the future of his kingdom has left the young dictator feeling a trifle groggy. Luckily for gamers, Lenar has a keen eye for this sort of detail, and they have made Prince Myer extremely difficult to control. He slowly plods through the land, throwing little knives that travel only slightly slower than an upset tortoise. But Myer is not irresponsible!–to ensure that each knife meets its target, he refuses to throw another knife until the first has landed. Thus, with one knife on the screen at a time, the plodding prince perambulates persistently towards his pious purpose.

Upgrades may be found–but not easily. For purchaseable upgrades are hidden in dungeons, and by hidden this reviewer means hidden. The entrances to the dungeons are completely invisible; as are the exits from those dungeons within the dungeons themselves. Within the dungeons, the exits are in different rooms than their entrances. Moreover, all of the dungeons wrap around–and, their layout is what some might be willing to call ‘excessively confusing to the point of insanity’. A player could easily blunder into a dungeon purely by accident and never find the way out–for the room the player enters in is not the room the player can exit from. Each room is full of monsters which respawn, and Prince Myer has virtually no way to recover his life. When he dies, the game restarts. He will likely die long before he reaches the exit of the dungeon: the first dungeon has 167 screens whilst the last has nearly half as many again.

Map of Dungeon 4

If Myer is slow, and his sword slower, the enemies of Deadly Towers are not at all so encumbered. Moving with great accuracy and speed, no doubt as a result of being rested for millennia, the demons flap and flutter around the screen entirely unpredictably. Curiously, Deadly Towers has an extremely well developed randomiser. Unfortunately, this renders the game nearly impossible. Enemies move much faster than Prince Myer’s floating butter knife and they also move in entirely unpredictable ways. Rewinding the game in emulation will result in different enemy behaviour each time, so that the game is teeth-gnashingly difficult even with an unlimited ‘undo’ feature. Meanwhile, the repetitive beeps and boops which pass for a soundtrack grind endlessly into the mind of the player, cutting sawtooth grooves along the neural pathways until screaming, endlessly screaming, seems the only escape. The NES was capable of wonderful soundtracks–the Mega Man games, for example, prove this point. Deadly Towers does not have a wonderful soundtrack. It is an auditory torture chamber in which the player is immersed and then ground slowly into dust.

As Myer works his way through the castle, the mountains, the dungeons, the cave, and eventually the towers, he may blunder into a secret ‘Parallel Zone’–a gateway to which exists in each of the towers. In the Parallel Zone, Myer can get equipment which is usually helpful. An exception is the double shot, which shoots two daggers instead of one, and which cannot be shut off. This might seem like a positive boon, but one of the daggers always seems to miss the intended target, leaving the player forced to wait until the other dagger finally ambles to the edge of the screen–only then can the player shoot again. The entrances to the Parallel Zone are as invisible as those to the dungeons–and their exits likewise. It is entirely possible to get lost in the Parallel Zone and never find one’s way out unless one is capable of stepping in literally every available place in the hope of finding the one place which will teleport the player out.

Memorable Boss Fights

The bosses in Deadly Towers have a load of life and take forever to kill–and the final boss has several forms with a significant degree of randomisation to it. As Myer cannot recover his life by any means other than killing normal enemies and hoping for a life-up–and as these do not exist in boss fights–the battle system may be accurately described as ‘punishing’, ‘unforgiving’, and ‘bloody awful’. The reviewer was forced to rewind battles thousands of times until, through sheer luck coupled with manual dexterity, he managed to just squeak through to victory–after which he was forced to descend the entire tower, burn the bell, and repeat the process for the rest of the seven towers which comprise the areas before the final tower itself.

A note on the combat: Prince Myer is not rendered temporarily immune when struck–not even for a moment–though he is knocked back. With monsters that move quickly, Prince Myer can be knocked into the monster itself, and again, and again, so that he can be killed from full life to naught in less than two seconds. For, once hit, Myer cannot be controlled again for a full second or more. Worse yet, the game is full of ‘Deadly Ledges’, which Myer (in his sleep-deprived state) will plunge down if he gets anywhere closer than, say, thirty yards. This results in an instant game-over as well. Monsters can (and will) knock Myer over these ledges, making the chasms far more dangerous than any enemy in the game. Also, bosses respawn–including the mini-bosses in the opening section of the game. Going back through a door that had a boss in front of it will place Prince Myer squarely inside that boss, usually killing him before the player has realised their blunder.

This is Deadly Towers.

The rooms and the monsters all look the same, and the bosses are all badly-animated chimeras which leave little impression upon the player (there was a ghost, and a hydra… maybe?). The music is the NES equivalent of an industrial estate’s ambience, the difficulty level is sufficient to wring tears from the most hardcore gamer’s eyes, and the controls are the digital equivalent of trying to pilot Nate Liles through a ball pit whilst hanging on his back, shouting directions into his Lady Gaga-deafened ears. Meanwhile, the littlest Teutonic prince has no in-game backstory and what we do get–from the instruction manual–is the most barebones of outlines, none of which is referenced in the game. And when the game is completed, the player gets a single screen of congratulations in text, along with a picture of the future genocidal maniac secure on his throne, waiting to deport undesireable segments of his population to the work camps where they can be made to produce for the Fatherland and then be made to disappear.

In short, Deadly Towers is a bad game. But more than that, it is the worst game which Lusipurr has played in many years of playing terrible games. Avoid it–avoid it like the plague it surely is. Avoid it if you value your sanity. Avoid it if you enjoy games. Avoid it because, for a game that actually works, it is amazing how the fine people at Lenar have managed to get everything wrong. Other broken games have done worse–but they are broken. Deadly Towers is not broken and, in the end, that removes any excuses it may have had.

This is not the box art for Fable II, surprisingly.

Fable III was released in October 2010 for the Xbox 360 and in May 2011 for the PC via Games for Windows and Steam. The storyline of Fable III is the story of the unnamed player character, the younger son or daughter of the protagonist from Fable II. Fable III follows the player as the player character leads a rebellion against his or her older brother, Logan, the tyrant king of Albion. Along the way, the player learns some (not really at all) surprising facts about Albion and about Logan and must later choose how to deal with these new pieces of information. The story of Fable III is fairly unremarkable, with little to say about it that is exceptionally good or bad. The major twists of the plot are all predictable, and the player’s moral choices throughout the game do virtually nothing to change the way events play out. The rebellion plot used here, while a bit cliched, is not a bad plotline, but storytelling inFable III is shallow and unrewarding. Additionally, the static and bland characters contribute very little to the plot. Like the narrative and characters, the dialogue and writing are also bland and unmemorable. Overall, then, the story elements of Fable III are empty and seem almost pointless. They are not particularly bad, but then they are not particularly good either. For a series so frequently hailed for its moral choices, the fact that the player’s moral choices do virtually nothing to change the plot of Fable III is somewhat alarming; morality in Fable III seems to matter even less than in the first game.

Magic basically dominates everything in Fable III.

Gameplay-wise, Fable III is again fairly unremarkable. The combat elements are action-driven to the point that the game barely feels like the action-RPG the series was billed as, and there is honestly little to say. As with other games in the series, the player has three combat styles to choose from: melee, magic, and ranged combat. Unfortunately, Fable III is not a particularly balanced game; magic is the clear winner in basically any combat situation, as it has the most versatility and no cost whatsoever to cast. There are two notable mechanics to the Fable III combat experience, however, and one is good and one bad. The good mechanic that Fable III uses is “spell-weaving”, the ability to equip two spell gauntlets so the player can combine the effects of two spells at once. Sadly, Fable III also features a literal inability to be killed; if the player runs out of health, the character will fall down for a few seconds before standing. As a result, Fable III is insultingly easy, with even the chance of being knocked down being fairly low. The fighting in Fable III is admittedly solid, but the player’s complete immunity to dying removes all tension from combat situations. Leveling in Fable III is handled fairly well, at least. Leveling is done in an area called “The Road to Rule”, wherein the player unlocks treasure chests by spending “Guild Seals”, which are earned through combat experience, quest fulfillment, and interacting with the citizens of Albion.

No Fable III article on Lusipurr.com is complete without a painful reminder that this picture exists.

Technically speaking, Fable III is decent. The graphics are smooth, and while the colors are often very bland, this is to be expected of a vaguely-British medieval European setting. The character models, unfortunately, are still extraordinarily ugly; the people of Albion seem less like humans and more like trolls. The voice acting has improved greatly from the days of Fable and the characters sound legitimately English instead of ridiculously cockney. The music is largely forgettable and does little to affect the game for better or worse. In a sense, then, the music is a perfect summation of the full Fable III playing experience.

The real issue with Fable III is not that it is a bad game. Fable III is a bit too easy, sure, but the mechanics are solid and it is decently fun to play. No, the problem with Fable III is the problem that the Fable series as a whole as long suffered from: the game has a huge amount of unused potential. The morality system could give players a number of options for how their character handles the rebellion against Logan’s tyranny, but instead, the story proceeds in the same direction regardless of the player’s choices. The gameplay is decent but could be better, the characters are forgettable, and the overall experience just seems flat. Fable III is not a bad game, but it is also certainly not worth the full price of admission either. In many ways, this is perhaps even more disappointing than if the game had been terrible. Fable III is a game that had great potential, but sadly did not live up to what it could be.

Sid Meiers Civilization V US Boxart

Civilization V is the fifth main installment in Sid Meier’s acclaimed Civilization series. It is a turn-based strategy game in which the player chooses a famous historical leader and attempts to build a civilization to the point where it is superior to all others in the world. Civilization V has 5 victory conditions: Time, Diplomatic, Conquest, Science, and Cultural. A time victory tallies up players’ scores in the year 2050 AD and the player with the highest score wins. A player achieves a conquest victory by capturing all other players’ original capitals. A science victory is won by the player that builds the game’s spaceship and launches it into space, and a cultural victory happens when a player builds a wonder called the Utopia Project, something that can only be built when a player finishes five social policy trees.

Like its predecessors, Civilization V tracks a civilization’s happiness and the amount of money in gold that it possesses. In this game, however, happiness is a far more valuable thing to have than in previous games. Happiness adds points toward a counter on the top of the interface that indicates how close the player is to a Golden Age, which increases the production and gold output of cities that the player controls. Too much unhappiness and/or too much negative gold per turn will give military units an attack penalty adding an interesting amount of depth to the game. The player is forced to watch their economy in order to keep their military strong if they desire a conquest victory. Happiness and unhappiness are on a measurable continuum, with happiness gained from things like access to luxury resources and trade routes between cities within a civilization. Unhappiness is a byproduct of population and number of cities. This means that players need to be wary of how much their civilization is expanding in order to keep their happiness high. At first, this seemed inconvenient, but it became clear that a smaller civilization was more manageable and defensible.

A screenshot of regular gameplay.

One very welcome change to the game that allows cities to become more defensible is the removal of the players’ ability to stack units in tiles. A player may only have one combat unit and one non-combat unit on a single tile at any given time. This drastically reduces the military power that a player can possess, which means that it is far less likely for a player to become overpowered. Cities themselves have been revamped so that they now have their own defense ratings and health bars, giving them the ability to defend themselves without any garrisoned units. Because cities can now defend themselves and players can no longer stack units, it is now far more difficult for a smart economic powerhouse to be conquered by the local warmongering bully. The game becomes more challenging for the military-minded and more playable for the economy-minded. Another drastic change in the game is the hexagonal grid system that replaced the square grid system from older Civilization games. The hexagonal grid changes movement in the game and opens up new squares for players to attack units and cities from, helping to balance the inability to stack units in the game. It also allows a city a wide area in which it can expand and station citizens.

Pictured Above: A screenshot of a player meeting Montezuma.

Graphically, the game is much more intensive than even Civilization IV, which can lead to difficulty running the game in later turns. Fortunately, the game has a new strategic view, which simplifies the graphical qualities of the game, allowing it to be run much faster. Strategic view is a much-needed and welcome addition to the world of Civilization. The introduction looks phenomenal.

The music in the game is very good, but perhaps the most impressive thing about the game is the voice acting. Whenever a player contacts an AI opponent during a singleplayer match, that opponent is voice acted. The AI leaders speak in the native language of whatever civilization that they belong to, from Caesar’s impeccable Latin to Oda Nobunaga’s surprisingly accurate formal Japanese. Linguists are bound to enjoy this aspect of the game.

While Civilization V can be fun to play alone against AI opponents, the game is far more fun online with friends. It is a great way to kill about ten to fifteen hours, and the game can be configured so that players are able to join and leave at their leisure, with the AI taking over for players that have left and players choosing to take over for an AI when they join mid-session. Players can choose to play on teams or in a free-for-all game, and games can be set as public (anyone can join) or private (only friends and those who are invited by the host are able to join). It is available on Steam or in stores for both Mac and PC. One of the nice things about the game is that it has been patched so that Mac and PC players can play together. Civilization V is a fun, if long-winded, strategy game that is easy to play but hard to master.

Trine 2 Cover Art

Zoya, Amadeus, and Pontius are reunited once again in Frozenbyte’s Trine 2 to save the kingdom from from a new danger. While our three heroes are battling goblins and solving puzzles, gamers are posed with questions of their own: does Trine 2 live up to its predecessor? Does it improve upon its flaws? What about the graphics? The puzzles? The abilities? The problem with sequels is that it is impossible to play them without making endless comparisons to the games that came before. Does Trine 2 improve upon the first game? Yes and no. But more important is how this game holds up in the competitive and growing world of indie platformers. Trine 2 brings players into a world of vivid fantasy settings, whimsical storytelling, and challenging puzzles to deliver a unique experience.

Once again, players will find themselves switching between three characters – a thief, a wizard, and a warrior – to confront the challenges of this side-scrolling adventure. Each character has unique abilities and their own health bar. In a single-player game, this can pose a bit of a problem. If a player finds herself down a warrior and a thief in the middle of a mass of goblins, there is little a wizard can do aside from stand and be slaughtered. Or summon boxes and planks. Luckily, Trine 2 also features an excellent online cooperative mode. Multiplayer games are easy to connect to and finding other players a breeze. A girl can either play with her friends or play a quick game with strangers, without the stress of worrying about whether or not she’ll successfully connect to a game. And if players are worried about the puzzles being too easy in multiplayer mode, fear not, because the puzzles offer enough of a challenge to warrant a helping hand every now and again.

The Witch's Lair: Not at all foreboding.

The storyline, while more engaging and involved than that of the original Trine, does leave some room for improvement. The game starts with players being transported by the Trine to a forest filled with goblins. They come across a darkly-clad witch, who implores them to aide her in defeating the Goblin King who has overtaken her palace. Along the way, the story of two sister princesses unfolds. It tells like a classic fairytale. There is little depth. The conclusion is open-ended. But the story is whimsical and when paired with the stellar visuals make for a satisfying experience. Not all stories need to have layer upon layer of intrigue, and Trine 2 gives just enough flavor to keep a girl hanging on for the next level.

In closing, Trine 2 may not be the king of side-scrolling platformers but it offers players a gorgeous world to visit for a few hours on a rainy afternoon.

Full disclosure: the author was provided with a free copy of the game for review purposes.

3D Dot Game Heroes boxart

With everyone going crazy over Skyward Sword, it seems fitting to review another amazing Zelda game! One so amazing that it does not even have The Legend of Zelda in its title! 3D Dot Game Heroes does such a great job mimicking the classic top-down Zelda games that it almost feels odd that the player’s character is not set to Link by default. Dungeons play out just like one would expect from a not-quite-Zelda game, and the various sidequests and NPCs in town all parody other gaming classics. However, despite all of its 8-bit charm and retro game nods, 3DDGH feels strangely empty and railroaded compared to the older Zelda games it tries so hard to impress.

The dungeons in 3DDGH are just like what one would expect from The Legend of Zelda. The player, who is definitely not-Link, runs around the dungeon, hunting for the boss key. In each dungeon, not-Link finds a new weapon to use throughout his journeys, but unlike the newer Zelda games, the boss of each dungeon does not require the player to use the dungeon’s treasure. Instead of the puzzle-like boss fights of newer games, boss battles involve bashing the boss with a sword until he dies. The first two bosses can prove to be somewhat challenging, due to the players low amount of hearts, but as the game progresses and the player gets access to a larger health bar, potions, and magic, the bosses get easier. By the end of the game, it is possible to simply chug potions while slashing the final boss to death.

3DDGH lets players design any kind of 8-bit hero they want!

Sadly, 3DDGH lacks many puzzles throughout the game, unlike its Zelda role-models. There are a few puzzles in the game, such as simple block sliding puzzles and a labyrinthine forest, but the bulk of the gameplay lies in smashing things with a sword, an area which 3DDGH makes some interesting improvements in. Rather than having one or two swords, such as a wooden sword and Master Sword, 3DDGH features a ton of swords, ranging from the stereotypical “hero’s sword” to a giant fish. Each sword can be upgraded to do more damage, have a farther reach, or do various magical effects. The sword upgrade system is tons of fun and lets players have different weapons for all kinds of situations, but in nearly every case, the player needs to be at full health to use the upgraded swords. With even half a hearts worth of damage, all of the strength and size improvements to one’s sword vanish. Yes, it is possible for players to grind up a sword with strength high enough to top bosses in a few swings, so one could argue that requiring a full health bar for all those upgrades to work balances the game out, but that does not make it any less frustrating!

Believe it or not, that is one of the smaller swords.

3DDGH features all of the locations one would expect from a Japanese fantasy game. A magical forest, a volcano, a desert, and so on. And with those locations comes a cast of characters all heavily inspired by other popular retro games. Nearly every NPC features some kind of joke our reference about another game, of course, the bulk of the jokes will not be understood by any sane video game fans, since they are almost all Dragon Quest related. Catching a reference or two when chatting with NPCs is always a little funny, but it also makes it extremely hard to differentiate between an NPC who simply exists to spew out jokes and an NPC who is giving the hero information about a sidequest; 3DDGH features a lot of sidequests. Ranging from grabbing an item for a hidden cave, to playing tower defense minigames, to running items back and forth between NPCs, and more, these little fetch quests usually give the hero a heart container or sword, and the best part is that many of them are time sensitive! While it is perfectly possible to beat the game without hunting down every little heart piece and bonus sword, players paranoid about finding everything will definitely need to use a guide.

While, unlike Metroid, Zelda-like games are known for exploration, 3DDGH really drops the ball when it comes time to adventure. The game is always eager to point the player in the right direction, and anytime the player must trek through the world to find a new dungeon, the game is nice enough to put a marker on the player’s map, right where the dungeon entrance is. A few of the dungeons end up being pretty far from towns, but there’s a massive lack of anything interesting between towns and dungeons. Players may find an item shop or fairy fountain along the way, but other than that, the game spends no time trying to entertain the adventurous. It is by no means a game breaker, but keeping the time sensitive sidequests in mind, players might beat themselves up as they scour every inch of the game, paranoid about missing any bit of extra content.

3DDGH still manages to be an enjoyable experience, especially for anyone who has been playing games since the early days of the NES. The dungeons and bosses are all very fun, and they all prove to be a pleasant challenge. The constant retro references always make chatting with NPCs worthwhile, and the whole sidequest issue will only bother perfectionists. Unlike the newer Zelda titles, 3DDGH uses a regular controller! So should one find themselves with broken arms after flailing through a session of Skyward Twilight Sword, 3DDGH is the perfect alternative!

FUS RO DAH!

This writer will admit that it was incredibly hard to remain objective for this review, for a reason that may be quite unpopular on this site in fact: Emmori loves Western RPGs more than their Japanese cousins, at least for the past few generations of consoles. This could be blamed on any number of reasons: art design differences, storytelling structure, characterization, a dislike of grinding, or maybe simply because of a crippling case of ethnocentrism. Games like Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic have always appealed to this writer more than game series such as Final Fantasy and Disgaea ever could. But despite all of this, it may make for a better review. After all, what better to invoke higher standards of criticism than a game that is hyped to set new standards in a favored genre?

The subject of hype, of course, being Betheseda Game Studios’ newest addition to the infamous Elder Scrolls saga: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Set in the titular land of Skyrim 200 years after the events of the previous game (The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) the game focuses on the player-named main character, a fugitive that has been sentenced to death amidst a civil war that engulfs the land. After the player’s execution is interrupted by a semi-convenient attack on the town by a dragon, the player escapes and make his way into the open world of Skyrim, where his adventure unfolds. The player soon learns that their character is a mythic being known as the “Dragonborn”: the ultimate dragonslayer, and prophecized savior of the world. Although the main plot is indeed interesting enough to warrant playing through, the game (like its predecessors) does not make the player focus on or even pay attention to the main storyline. The game is a giant, open sandbox with a huge number of quests and places to explore, some of which come with their own sets of minor plots and story archs.

The player-made Dragonborn himself (or herself) is not characterized by then game. Rather, it is up to the player to decide how the voiceless Dragonborn reacts to a situation or approaches a problem. Other characters are different, however. Although the voice acting is perhaps the best it has been in an Elder Scrolls game, Skyrim‘s non-player characters all suffer from somewhat wooden voice acting, which is especially noticeable in extreme situations. This occasionally leads to somewhat humorous, yet flow-breaking moments; villagers may find themselves locked in a life-or-death battle with a dragon and emerge victorious, but with bodies of their friends strewn about, but will show no sign of worry or anguish – except for when they stop to look at and ponder the bodies.

Ice trolls are among the many dangers player will face.

The gameplay of Skyrim has been drastically improved and evolved since Oblivion. Though many of the series’ classic features–such as leveling individual skills to level up, enemies that grow stronger as the player does, and crafting and improving equipment–make a return, Skyrim has streamlined combat and gameplay to remove unnecessary features, making way for new and interesting features. Many skill trees have been consolidated and combined, so that making a character with a certain set of skills is easier. Gear no longer becomes damage with use, alleviating the need to repair equipment at annoying intervals. Playing the game in a third-person view, as opposed to the classic first-person view, has been altered and improved as to be useful. Skyrim has also let players fully customize their character by removing classes from the game, no longer punishing characters for choosing a race or trying to level a skill that is counter-intuitive to a class’s purpose. The game also features the addition of perks that improve abilities and allow a character to specialize even further in one or several character directions, no doubt borrowed from Bethesda’s previous Elder Scrolls-eque Fallout series. And finally, the inclusion of giving player the ability to assign different commands and items to separate hands allows players to experiment with and develop strategies and playstyles, such as allowing the player to wield two spells, a sword and shield, two weapons, or any combination of these. There are many bugs and glitches in the game, but few detract from the experience of the game to call it a problem. Combat feels much more fluid in Skyrim than than ever, and as such the gameplay is, in this reviewer’s opinion, the best in the Elder Scrolls series to date.

These giants do not like it when others mess with their herds of mammoths.

As a primarily open-ended RPG, one should hope that Skyrim‘s environments should be beautiful and wondrous to look at. And like its predecessor Oblivion, the land of Skyrim is indeed marvelous. For a game set in a wintry, harsh landscape, Skyrim is incredibly detailed and verdant, with several areas that are distinct in atmosphere. Even the dungeons the player must traverse are creepy and moody, with dim illumination and ancient-looking decor that dot the dangerous depths of caverns and fortresses. The game’s soundtrack is subtle and rarely calls attention to itself, only helping to strengthen the mood; triumphant music plays when a discovery is found or a level is gained, calm music plays in peaceful towns, and fast-paced war-drums play whenever an enemy charges or a dragon roars in the distance. Players may rarely wish to utilize the game’s fast-travel system, so that they may explore and take in the landscape of Skyrim fully.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is an excellent game and players should feel excellent for playing it. It is a big, beautiful world filled with enough things to do to keep even the most completionistic of gamers occupied and entertained for a very long time. It is definitely worth a purchase, especially for those with little to no experience with the Elder Scrolls series that are interested in what all of the fuss is about. Skyrim is available now on Steam, as well as on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, so go, and play it with utmost confidence in your purchase!

The Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days North American Box Art.

Set between the two numbered entries in the Kingdom Hearts franchise, 358/2 Days finally brings to players the full story of Roxas, the playable character from the first few hours of Kingdom Hearts II. 358/2 Days tells of Roxas’ introduction to Organization XIII, the shadowy villain group of the Kingdom Hearts franchise. Along the way, Roxas makes friends with two of the group’s members and ventures through a number of Disney worlds on adventures. The most interesting part of the plot of Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days is its characters; playing as Roxas gives players a look into the motives of the people behind Organization XIII. Unfortunately, however, one character does feel tacked on and unnecessary: Xion. Added to Days as the fourteenth member of Organization XIII, Xion spends most of the game as an unfitting addition to the plot. While her reason for being a part of the plot, and not part of any other Kingdom Hearts game does become clear later on, Xion still feels like a character uncomfortably wedged into the franchise’s narrative. Admittedly, though, the plot of Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days is still a welcome addition to the Kingdom Hearts series narrative; the actual story is interesting and aside from Xion the characters are fantastic.

Showing some Heartless who's boss.

The gameplay is easily the area in which Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days disappoints the most. Like other series entries, 358/2 Days uses an action-RPG battle system, but with several modifications to the Kingdom Hearts formula. Rather than equipment, items, or MP, 358/2 Days uses a panel-based grid system wherein the player equips the items, spell charges, and levels that are accumulated throughout the game. Being forced to equip level-ups makes the battle system feel restrictive, but panels are easy to come by and the player will have more than enough to equip any desired upgrades. Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days uses a mission system rather than a world map; by talking to one of the Organization XIII members, Roxas undertakes missions to advance the story and gameplay. The mission system works extremely well for a portable system; missions are short and allow for a few minutes of gameplay on-the-go. The missions can at times make the plot feel a bit disjointed, but the cutscenes and story sequences are integrated into the missions well enough that this disconnect is rarely noticable. Also notable is the addition of Mission Mode outside of the story, which allows players to use the DS’s local multiplayer capabilities to do missions with friends; this makes Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days the first in the series to allow cooperative multiplayer. The worlds of 358/2 Days are small, even by Kingdom Hearts standards, and the setting proves extremely disappointing as a result. Overall, the gameplay of Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days is good, but not great, and falls disappointingly short of the standards set by the PlayStation 2 Kingdom Hearts titles.

The Dream Team in action.

Aesthetically speaking, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days is more than adequate. While many 3D games on the DS look bad, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days does everything it can with the handheld’s limited graphical capabilities. The gameplay graphics are admittedly a bit pixellated, but 358/2 Days is easily one of the best looking games on the system. The cutscene graphics are phenomenal, and the Kingdom Hearts art style is wonderfully preserved both in and out of the cutscenes. One looking for a graphically pleasant experience on the DS would be hard-pressed to find a better title than this.

The Kingdom Hearts has always had excellent music, and 358/2 Days is definitely no exception. With many tracks returning from Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II and many new tracks, 358/2 Days arguably has the best soundtrack in the series, and the sound quality does amazingly not suffer from being on the DS. The soundtrack is phenomenally strong, and many of the new songs fit the game and the series as a whole extremely well. While Kingdom Hearts as a franchise has never had a weak soundtrack, 358/2 Days is fantastic even when compared to other series entries.

Unfortunately, good graphics and an amazing soundtrack do not save Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days from mediocrity. 358/2 Days has a good story and decent gameplay, but something about the experience just feels a bit off. Fans of the series are recommended to pick it up, but gamers who are not fans will not be converted by Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. The middling scores and gamer opinion that 358/2 Days has received are completely justified, and the game is very much a love-it-or-hate-it affair. What do you think, readers? Have you played 358/2 Days, or has this one slipped under the radar? And if you have played it, what were your thoughts? Is it a welcome addition to the series, or an unnecessary storyline that only further delays the release of Kingdom Hearts III. As always, comment and let me know what you think about the first DS Kingdom Hearts title, and I look forward to reading your thoughts!

Kirby's Return to Dreamland US Boxart

The Kirby series is one of the most iconic Nintendo-exclusive franchises in the world. Developed by HAL Laboratories, Kirby has spent years fighting for for food, fun, and the safety of the world. The latest game released by HAL, Kirby’s Return to Dreamland, is exactly what one would expect a Kirby game to be: lighthearted and fun, not terribly difficult, and featuring an interesting array of copy abilities. Set on the world of Popstar, the game follows Kirby, King DeDeDe, Meta Knight, and an enthusiastic Waddle Dee as they try to help a space traveler repair his spaceship with parts that they find scattered about the world.

One of the most appealing things about Kirby’s Return to Dreamland is its multiplayer capability. Up to four players can play simultaneously in the game’s story mode. A player may enter the game at any time by selecting either King DeDeDe, Meta Knight, a Waddle Dee, or a Kirby of a different color. Upon entering the game, one of the first player’s lives is consumed. Instead of each player having lives of their own, all the party’s lives are stored in a pool that they all draw from. The game places emphasis on the first player remaining alive. If another player dies, they can reenter the game by taking another life from the pool, but if the first player dies, the party is moved back to the last invisible checkpoint within the level where the player died. It is slightly odd that the only real progress loss results from the first player dying, but because it is a Kirby game, it is not really difficult enough to warrant frustration. It is definitely a refreshing change of pace from Kirby’s Epic Yarn, which had no real penalty for players dying. Though it does not make the game extremely difficult, it does force the players not to be reckless with their characters.

A comparison of two possible multiplayer combinations in the game.

The cooperative story play is very similar to that of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Characters can bounce off each other’s heads, suck each other up in order to use each other as projectile weapons, and even jump on each other’s back to perform powerful team attacks. A character being used as a projectile is invincible until they strike a terrain object, which makes cooperative play very handy for boss battles in copy abilities are lost and the boss does not spawn a lot of projectile objects. The game also has a “super-inhale” ability, which allows Kirby to inhale multiple objects and allies, and some objects that would otherwise be impossible to inhale. Unlike New Super Mario Bros. Wii, however, it is very difficult to use the cooperative game mechanics to intentionally cause another player to die. Whenever a player who is not the first player begins to move too far from the first player, they are automatically transported back to the first player. This mechanic, while not a great annoyance, seems to suggest that multiplayer in Kirby’s Return to Dreamland is a bit of an afterthought. Regardless, the multiplayer in the game is every bit as fun as that of New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

Graphically, Kirby’s Return to Dreamland is a solid game. It is done in a typically cartoony Nintendo style, and character models look polished. If it can be said that a game looks good on the Wii, this game looks good on the Wii. Kirby has many fantastic-looking super copy abilities that he can grab in some levels that destroy enemies and terrain elements on the screen in flashy displays. These are well drawn, and many of these are highly comical, such as a Kirby that turns into a giant snowball and rolls allies up into the ball while destroying everything else in his path.

As Kirby games go, Kirby’s Return to Dreamland has a decent story. There are a variety of short cutscenes throughout the game that tell the story of the space traveler and his reasons for crashing in Popstar, as well as how Kirby and friends handle the traveler’s dilemma. Like any other Kirby game, there is no dialogue by any character except the space traveler, so the story is told visually. This does not make the game bad by any means. HAL has become skilled at dialogue-free storytelling over the years.

Kirby uses his Super Sword in the screenshot above.

The game also has two delightful minigames and several enjoyable challenge levels. These are unlocked by collecting Energy Spheres within the game’s normal levels. Energy Spheres are the Kirby equivalent to Star Coins in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. The challenge levels force Kirby to beat a level entirely using a certain copy ability. They are fairly challenging, but not too difficult for any gamer experienced with platformers. The two minigames are highly entertaining, but are best played with multiple players. The first unlockable minigame is a competitive game in which the players must hit moving targets with shurikens in order to obtain points. The player with the highest point total at the end of a few rounds is declared the winner. The second unlockable minigame is a cooperative minigame in which players fire guns at an armored boss enemy in order to destroy the boss within a specified time limit. The boss will fire rockets at the players in order to prevent them from attacking. These games are quite fun as short party games and offer a nice break from the game’s story.

Kirby’s Return to Dreamland is a wonderful game for gamers of all kinds. It provides a fun cooperative experience to groups of friends or family. It reminds Nintendo veterans what Kirby used to be like while still adding new elements to the game. It takes the spirit of New Super Mario Bros. Wii and applies it to the Kirby universe. The game is truly a delight, and is a must have for any Wii owner.

Mario Kart 7, more than ever, is an example of a solid foundation that has been bogged down over the years by a lack of innovation and refusal from Nintendo to let a franchise grow with its original audience. Also, the blue shell breaks the game.

Mario Kart 7 Box Art

While the Super Mario and Zelda series’ are making changes – albeit minor – to their long-standing formulas, the changes are largely positive and the games are still able to hold their place among the top tier titles of this generation. With Mario Kart 7 however, the Mario Kart formula has proved itself embarrassingly behind the times by limiting its few innovations and allowing an easily fixable mechanic ruin the game.

There are positive elements about the game when not considered as part of the whole. The graphics are some of the best on the system, and the 3D effect is even more smoothly integrated than it is with Super Mario 3D Land. Of course, the 3D does not add anything to the gameplay like it does with 3D Land. Also, Super Mario 3D Land is a good game.

Another positive addition when considered in isolation is the return of speed boosting coins from the Super Nintendo and Game Boy Advance titles. In contrast to the short boosts of speed that the mushroom item or speed panels provide, these coins can be collected to a maximum of ten to give an overall boost to a kart’s top speed. It is an excellent mechanic in theory, as coins are often placed off the optimal path so the player must choose whether it is worth it to sacrifice an early lead for a more long-lasting benefit.

Before this facade of a game worth playing is broken down, there are a few more illusions of positivity to add. Mario Kart 7 boasts some excellent track design. Shortcuts are many and are often refreshingly skill-based. If a player does not tackle a shortcut in precisely the right way, the path will often slow his progress more than if he had opted to not attempt the alternate path.

In addition, a handful of tracks drop the three-lap formula and instead opt for a much longer non-looped track divided into three sections. The change makes for some appreciated variety and requires players to become truly familiar with the layout to take full advantage of the design. The only downside to this new take is that there are so few instances. There are also sixteen classic tracks, so surely it would not have been too big of a risk to design all the new tracks in this manner.

Oh yeah, also there is flying.

Finally, Mario Kart 7 continues Mario Kart DS‘ trend of harboring one of the only competent online Nintendo games. The online functionality is quick, intuitive, and reads the player’s overarching 3DS friend list, eliminating the need for those annoying separate friend codes. However, there is no option to turn off items in general online play and that is where the very fabric of Mario Kart 7 begins to unravel.

Because unfortunately, items are not always on just in online play, but in the single-player Grand Prix challenges as well. These two modes are the meat of the franchise and the return of the heat-seeking blue shell and – to a lesser extent – the lightning bolt break the experience. The blue shell is not merely an annoying presence that must be ignored. It literally renders the rest of the game irrelevant. Mario Kart 7 might as well be a dice-rolling simulator. It would serve a very similar function.

It is possible for a player to be in first place with ten coins in hand when, in the middle of a jump, a lightning bolt shoots him out of the air scattering a portion of his coins and all his items. Then when he lands (losing more coins for falling off-course), it is possible that he will get hit again by a blue shell that was tracking him. This causes him to lose the remainder of his hard-earned coins while watching his position fall to near-last through absolutely zero fault of his own.

That scenario is not only possible, but frighteningly common. In fact, the lightning bolt/blue shell combination happened to this reviewer on frequent occasion while playing. It is a mechanic that rewards bad play and punishes good play. That mechanic has no place in a game. Especially when these items are impossible to avoid or defend against. Even the far-fetched strategy of intentionally starting poorly to hope for an invincibility star item for later use is rendered void by the item-removing lightning bolt.

People complain about a small roster.

All this is made more frustrating when it is considered that the 150cc Mode would be a legitimate challenge without the presence of items. It is made more frustrating knowing that the online multiplayer could have been a legitimately competitive experience.

Mario Kart 7 has tight controls, clever track design, and tough-as-nails AI at the hardest setting. When a player loses in a very rare legitimate race, it is encouragement to brush up on his skill. He can review his play and find ways to improve in the future. However, when he loses far more often by literally no fault of his own, he feels deservedly shafted. The point of the game becomes futile as skill ceases to be a factor.

The incredibly easy remedy of an item switch option is, sadly, nowhere to be found in the single-player and online modes. If the Super Smash Bros series did not have an item switch option, there is no way that so many people would still hold fevered tournaments of its various games to this day.

Mario Kart 7 is a game that has great elements that are made entirely irrelevant on account of blind, stubborn, and easily amendable design choices. Mario Kart 7 is a frustrating experience. Any gamer who would like his skill to impact his results should pass on this title without a second thought.

Full disclosure: the author was provided with a free copy of the game for review purposes.

The Dynamic Duo.

Sony’s Uncharted franchise is one of the more notable to emerge from this seventh generation of consoles. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune was one of the first games to truly demonstrate the graphical prowess of the PlayStation 3, and delivered a solid action-adventure experience that had not been seen since the conclusion of Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia trilogy. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves took the groundwork laid by its predecessor and created one of the most intensely cinematic and engaging videogames of all time. Two years later, Uncharted: Drake’s Deception seems intent on delivering a similarly riveting experience. But does it? The short answer is “no.” Uncharted 3 is a thoroughly enjoyable, cinematic adventure that features all of the characters we have grown to love over the last four years, and those who enjoyed the first two games should certainly not miss out. However, the story falls flat when compared to Among Thieves and even Drake’s Fortune, and the game suffers more than most sequels from being, quite simply, more of the same.

Uncharted 3 finds our hero Nathan Drake on the trail of yet another long-lost fortune. This time around it is a forgotten city in the Rub-Al-Kali desert, an “Atlantis of the Sands” which Drake figures houses some exotic treasure. Standing in his way is a cantankerous old woman named Marlowe, who is a member of an ancient world order that “controls their enemies through fear.” Needless to say, she also wants to find this Atlantis of the Sands for her own evil purposes.

If that description comes off as a bit uninspired, that is because it is. The plot behind Uncharted 3 is not terribly interesting, especially when compared to the epic tale that Uncharted 2 wove. There is no great sense of urgency to be found. There is little notable human drama to draw the player in. And there is far too much time spent kicking around in dark tunnels, caves, and other similarly unexciting environments, particularly during the first half of the game. Certain aspects of the plot are left entirely unexplained, such as why Marlowe’s henchman Talbot is immortal, and why Drake is attacked by fire-zombie-whatever-things near the end of the game. To top it all off, the ending of Uncharted 3 is one of the most anticlimactic endings in recent memory. Really, truly disappointing and dissatisfying in its utter simplicity.

Gamers (this reviewer included) lamented the fact that Drake’s cigar-chomping partner Sully was not given much of a role in Uncharted 2. Developer Naughty Dog clearly listened to those complaints, and made sure that Sully is around for the vast majority of Uncharted 3. Chloe is back too, and for the first half of the game Drake is accompanied by a new companion by the name of Charlie Cutter. With an gritty english accent and a snarky attitude, Cutter is easily the most interesting of Drake’s companions in Uncharted 3 – which is actually a bit of a sad statement.

The villainess Marlowe.

Why? Because that honor should go to the characters we are already familiar with, but while Naughty Dog was nice enough to grace the game with their presence, they did not bother to go much further. Sully is back, yes. But his role in the game honestly feels like a throwaway. He runs around with Drake, makes some Sully-ish quips, and gets captured and beat up a lot. The game quickly reveals that he has a prior relationship with the villainess Marlowe, and one would expect this to add a dimension to the plot. But it does not. Chloe is even more useless. She strides about looking shapely, and makes a few snide comments with her sexy accent. But the greatest disappointment is Elena, who is more or less given the shaft in Uncharted 3, much like Sully in the previous game. Some of the game’s more poignant scenes – scenes in which this reviewer realized just how much he had come to care about the characters of the franchise – are with Elena. Which makes it all the more cruel that her impact on the story is practically non-existent.

But despite the negative tone of the above paragraphs, Uncharted 3 still has the uncanny ability to stop the player from ever putting the controller down. Like the previous two games, Uncharted 3 features sharp dialog, superb voice-acting, and cut-scenes that remain among the very best in videogames. And, while they may be slightly less mind-blowing this time around, Uncharted 3 delivers some extremely impressive, high-octane sequences when it wants to – like escaping from a Crusades-era castle while it is burning down. Or escaping from a massive brig as it sinks deeper and deeper into the ocean. The overlying plot may disappoint at times, but the moments, the action, and the undeniable charm of Nathan Drake make it a ride worth taking.

Uncharted has always put cinematics and storytelling before gameplay, but there is still plenty of running, jumping, shooting, and punching to be found in Uncharted 3. It is, for the most part, entirely unchanged. A Gears of War-esque cover system is utilized, with third-person shooting mechanics that can also be compared to Gears. One thing this reviewer did notice is that Naughty Dog has significantly improved the cover system. It is still mechanically the same, but it is much smoother and more easily controlled this time around – resulting in fewer stupid deaths due to an inability to take or remain in cover. Also, one mechanic that is new is the ability to toss enemy grenades back at them – which ends up being a very well-balanced, fun, and useful addition to combat.

Melee combat has been slightly revamped, and made into something that resembles the combat found in Batman: Arkham City. (Or Arkham Asylum). Drake can now counter attacks, and also utilize the environment to a small extent – attack an enemy while he is against a wall or near a surface such as a table, and Drake will perform a cinematic takedown that involves bashing his enemy’s face against said wall or table. In a few instances, Drake will even do something even fancier, such as grab a nearby wrench for use in the finishing blow. All things considered, melee combat in Uncharted 3 is still fairly shallow, but it is indeed better here than it has been before, and the melee sequences offer a nice break from the normal action.

Drake is a cold-blooded killer.

When not watching cutscenes or taking down enemies, the player will generally find himself engaged in simple platforming. The platforming is unchanged from previous games, and frankly is a bit tepid this time around. There is rarely any question as to where to jump – the game makes it all too obvious how to proceed. Challenges such as timed jumps are also non-existent, which makes platforming in Uncharted 3 a very passive, guided affair. It can be entertaining, yes, but not particularly rewarding. The same can also be said of the game’s puzzles, which are easier than they ever have been. The solution is almost always clearly mapped out in Drake’s journal, and when it is not, Drake’s allies are always all too eager to straight-up tell the player what to do. So, again, while some of the puzzles are clever and entertaining in concept, solving them is not a particularly rewarding experience.

One thing that cannot be taken away from Uncharted 3 is its graphical accolades. Once again, Naughty Dog has crafted one of the prettiest games of all time. From the crowded city streets of Yemen to the shifting sands of the Rub-Al-Kali desert, Uncharted 3 is a literal visual feast from start to finish. In fact, looking at the game can often be more fun than playing it.

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is not a game that should be missed, especially by fans of the series, but it is perhaps a game that should be purchased a few months down the road at a cheaper asking price. After three games, the formula is perhaps wearing a tad thin – and as a result, Uncharted 3 feels just a little too much like it is on rails. A pretty picture, more than anything else. But if one can look past this, it remains an incredibly beautiful, cinematic, engaging experience with sharp writing, fantastic pacing, and enough exciting action to satisfy.

Dark Souls' standard edition box art

Simply put, Dark Souls is an amazing game. As soon as the player steps out of the game’s tutorial area Dark Souls begins to pull itself away from Demon’s Souls, making Demon’s feel like an early demo version of Dark Souls. On a technical level, Dark Souls received a much needed balance to the status and magic systems of Demon’s Souls making the game as a whole much easier to play. The inclusion of Bonfires, Dark Souls’ fancy term for checkpoints, over the level selection area in Demon’s Souls, along with the open world format not only makes Dark Souls much easier to progress in, but it also leads to the game feeling more like a 3D Symphony of the Night rather than the spiritual sequel to The Game from Hell. Of course, the term “easier” is used lightly here; Dark Souls is still very difficult when it wants to be, and slowly weans players off of frequent checkpoints until entire levels lack any Bonfire at all. But even with its much better soundtrack, strangely engrossing story, improved graphics, and awesome assortment of magical treasures, Dark Souls has to have one major weak point; sadly, that weak point is its online play, which in some ways is actually worse than it was in Demon’s Souls’. Forget about online play, though! Someone with the determination to finish Demon’s Souls probably has no friends to play with, which is all the more reason for them to shut up and buy Dark Souls!

Demon’s Souls was not very friendly to dexterity-based characters or Red Mage-like hybrid characters, but thanks to some very boring work done on the numbers in Dark Souls, nearly every character type and play style becomes viable. Additionally, upgrades to weapons and stats make a noticeable difference in effectiveness. Simply upgrading a sword one level or increasing strength by a few points can knock down the difficulty of an area quite a bit. The ailment system, which previously featured three ailments that all did the same thing, now includes three very unique ailments that, unlike Demon’s Souls again, can actually be inflicted upon enemies. Bleed causes a massive burst of damage after a few quick attacks, poison does what poison always does, and the monster-only curse ability instantly kills the player and permanently halves their health. However, despite all of the effort put into balancing the numbers out, the elemental system still sucks; everything everywhere is weak to fire or non-elemental attacks, and the few enemies that have a major weakness to the other elements are just as weak to non-elemental damage.

The Bell Gargoyle is one of the first major bosses players will encounter.

Rather than sticking to the level-by-level progression of Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls features an open world, with dungeons and checkpoints scattered all over. The world of Dark Souls is absolutely amazing to explore. There are just the right amounts of shortcuts and treasures in each area to keep wandering throughout a dungeon extremely interesting the first time through, and nearly every area has an extremely strong mini-boss monster for players to hunt down and kill on a return visit. While the aim of Dark Souls is still killing the boss monsters, the areas are so amazing that they may drive players to slay a boss not to progress the story, but simply to continue the exploration. Much like Symphony of the Night, each area leads players to a boss fight or power up that progresses the story or strengthens the player.

Dark Souls is easier than Demon’s Souls, but that is not really saying much. Early on, checkpoints always seem to be right where they are needed, and time spent leveling up really makes a difference, but that does not mean Dark Souls is Baby’s First Action-RPG. Levels still remain a pleasant challenge, but no longer resort to shoving players down pits or pushing them face first into insanely strong enemies. Rather, the real difficulty comes from rationing out the limited healing items players get at each checkpoint, because it is very, very easy to spend up all of one’s potions before getting even remotely close to a boss fight. Checkpoints become less frequent as the player progresses through the game, and the final handful of levels have absolutely no checkpoints at all, just like good old Demon’s Souls.

Players get to see this message a lot!

The most disappointing aspect of Dark Souls, and the one it should have improved upon the most, is its multiplayer. It is basically the same as Demon’s Souls, players can summon other players into their world for help, or they can invade the world of others and wreak havok. But this time around, players need to be in human form for either, and reaching human form requires a very valuable and rare resource, aptly named “Humanity,” which has many other uses that are all much better than playing with strangers. Co-op play still requires players to throw down “sign” and wait for someone to decide they are worth playing with, meaning it is impossible to guarantee being summoned by a friend. Covenants, Dark Souls version of factions or guilds, exist that make cooperative and player-versus-player play easier, but there is no excuse, other than “it would make the game too easy!”, for players not being able to simply send PSN friends an invite for a quick boss fight or PvP match. If balance is an issue, simply reducing the rewards players receive if they chose to hand-pick partners from their friend list would be an easy fix.

From start to finish, Dark Souls is a great game, and can easily absorb fifty hours of one’s life. Rather than trying to make its players cry, Dark Souls gives players a wonderful fantasy world to explore, while keeping the difficulty at a reasonable level. If Castlevania plus Monster Hunter without the boring start-up quests of Monster Hunter sounds appealing, go pick up Dark Souls as soon as possible, but anyone expecting an MMO-like multiplayer experience should look elsewhere.

Starring someone who is not a prince!

Series reboots are wonderful things. What else can fill a fanbase with such a peculiar mixture of optimistic glee and cynical dread as the promise of new storyline, new characters, and a new canon for one’s beloved franchise? Today on Emmori’s Prince of Persia Spectaculariffic Game Reviewing Time for Great Justice, this reviewer will look at the penultimate case study as an example of how high expectations temper poorly with Ubisoft’s new direction of a classic franchise. Today, the next-gen remake of Prince of Persia is on the chopping block.

Released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 by Ubisoft in late 2008, Prince of Persia follows the story of the “Prince” of Persia: a nameless adventurer (with no relation to the protagonist of the Sands to Time trilogy) who becomes entangled in an ancient struggle when he helps to save a princess named Elika. The Prince and Elika team up in order to stop an ancient god of Darkness–refered to as Arhiman–from emerging from an ancient prison and devastating the world, which they intend to accomplish by reclaiming and purifying key sites of the game world. The narrative of Prince of Persia is surprisingly well-executed in terms of the expectations of the game; harkening back to its predecessor and fellow reboot of The Sands of Time, Prince of Persia‘s story focuses almost entirely on two elements: the ever-present threat of Arhiman’s escape, and the relationship between the Prince and Elika. While the former drives the story and gameplay, the latter is easily one of the best elements of the game, as we see the relationship between the two main characters grow and change. Elika and the Prince play off of each other as opposites: Elika is a bookish, optimistic, altruistic dreamer, while the Prince is a world-weary, sarcastic tomb-robbing adventurer. The game features an surprising amount of dialogue between them that is activated by the press of a button, so players who take the time will be rewarded with lore, discussions of things such and altruism and faith, as well as some truly hilarious banter between the two.

Ahriman is an evil dude.

While the story and dialogue of Prince of Persia is a step in the right direction, the the same cannot be said about its gameplay. While the traditional wall-running, jumping, and climbing of the previous incarnation of the series is still present, the game’s platforming has been significantly simplified to encompass a more cinematic presentation. All acrobatics are now done with a single button, in combination with using grabs and Elika’s magic. And while some challenges in the game can be difficult, the game features a trend this reviewer was horrified to realize: you cannot die in Prince of Persia. It is impossible. Whenever the player would die–fall, be beaten to death, get eaten by oozing darkness, etc.–Elika swoops in the save the Prince. While it might be understandable for the game to give the player some other means to save themselves from a fatal blunder in the absence of the plot-centric Sands of the last series, the game goes too far and makes no challenge tense or worrisome, since there is no potential for failure, but merely a prolonging of a fight or course run. The game ends up being too easy, yet frustrating.

The game’s combat is watered down as well, shifting from strategy and combo-based fighting to a pretty, yet boring QTE-filled mess. In every combat, you fight a single enemy (usually a boss character), utilizing combos invovling grabs, swrodplay, and magic. At times, enemies can only be affected by certain attacks, and at others the player is given an opportunity to react to a combatant’s attacks. While it is fun to air-juggle enemies and slam them into the stage with grabs and magical blasts, combat suffers from the repetition of not only utilizing a limited number of combos, but from fighting the same bosses over and over again, as well as the game’s reliance on quick-time events mid-combat.

Never before have hand-cranks been so detailed!

While the combat and platforming of the game are not up to par with previous games, the environment is beautifully rendered, utilizing a great deal of what this generation’s graphical capabilities can showcase. The look of Prince of Persia in done in a sort of cel-shaded, watercolor art style, and the characters and levels are fantastic to look at and explore. The levels are open and can be revisited and explored. This exploration is necessary in order to gather collectibles called ‘Light Seeds’, which allow the Prince and Elika to access new areas.

Prince of Persia is a very pretty game, and leaves its unique mark on the series with its design aesthetic. But all of this begs the question: is the game worth playing? With a heavy heart, this reviewer cannot recommend it to anyone but hardcore fans of the series, or younger gamers who want a simplistic platformer. The game’s narrative, characters, and visual design are all excellent, but these are all overshadowed by the Ubisoft’s choice to entirely rid the game of the tension of failure, and to so drastically simplify the gameplay.

Another entry into the oversaturated zombie-game market?

Plants vs. Zombies is, on the surface, a simple tower defense game. Indeed, the game is very easy to learn. Zombies approach from the right side of the screen, seeking entry into the player’s house on the left. The player’s goal is, as the game’s title suggests, to plant various plants on the lawn to repel the zombies. As the player advances, more plants are unlocked, and newer, tougher varieties of zombies emerge. Additionally, the map changes every ten levels in the main adventure mode, for a total of five different maps with different obstacles to deal with in addition to the incoming zombie invasion. The resource used to build the plants, naturally, is sunlight, and players need to plant sunflowers in order to generate it. What makes the gameplay of Plants vs. Zombies so successful and addictive is its simplicity. The forty-nine plants the player can eventually unlock add a fair bit of complexity and strategy to the game without over-complicating things. Levels are usually short but often very hectic as the player rushes to build a strong lawn defense. Unfortunately, though, Plants vs. Zombies can get a bit repetitive, as most casual-targeted games do. Still, Plants vs. Zombies has enough variety in it to create an experience that is simple and enjoyable.

KABOOM!

On a technical level, Plants vs. Zombies offers up what one reasonably would expect from a casual game. The game’s art style is extremely vibrant and colorful; never before have zombies looked so fun. The music, while not groundbreaking, is catchy, and greatly adds to the colorful atmosphere of the Plants vs. Zombies experience. Plants vs. Zombies also ends in a voiced-over song, and that song is adorable. While keeping it simple, the technical aspects of Plants vs. Zombies still work to create a fun game. The controls, at least on the PC, are fairly good; the game is almost entirely played using only the mouse. Dragging and dropping plants where the player wishes them to go is easy, though admittedly it is possible to misplace a plant and ruin a setup if the player is rushing. It seems that the technical aspects of Plants vs. Zombies, like the gameplay, are meant to create an experience that is both simple and fun. In this, PopCap Games has been extremely successful.

Survival mode gets very hectic as zombies pour into the screen.

In addition to “Adventure”, the primary gameplay mode, Plants vs. Zombies also offers several other types of gameplay. Mini-games, such as a zombie version of PopCap’s Bejeweled or a variant of the main game where portals shift plants’ projectiles and zombies around the map add variety to the game’s simple mechanics. “Vasebreaker,” a puzzle game, has players breaking vases to uncover both plants and zombies, and attempting to form a defense based around the plants and zombies that are exposed. The other puzzle game, “I, Zombie”, puts the player in the other role by having the player spend sun to send zombies after an existing lawn defense. And, like any good tower defense game, Plants vs. Zombies has survival modes; there are two survival levels for each map type as well as an “Endless Survival” mode. The mini-games, puzzles, and survival levels are significantly tougher than the main adventure mode. The endless games are particularly challenging, as the difficulties spike rapidly as the player advances. Honestly, the other gameplay modes are even more fun than “Adventure”. While some of the mini-games are boring, and “Vasebreaker” as a puzzle mini-game is not particularly exciting, these other modes of play turn Plants vs. Zombies into a game worth experiencing.

For ten U.S. dollars on Steam or twenty for a retail copy, there are certainly worse purchases a gamer could make than Plants vs. Zombies. There is also a free, features-limited web version available on PopCap’s website, but I would honestly just recommend purchasing the game. For someone seeking a casual, simple, and above all fun experience, Plants vs. Zombies is an easy choice. Heck, I hate tower defense games and I liked it! What of you, Lusi-sprites? Have you played Plants vs. Zombies? If so, what were your experiences with the game?

Oh yeah, Link can shoot from his sword again too

Skyward Sword, unsurprisingly, is a coming of age story. However, this time Link and Zelda are already very familiar with each other as the game begins. They are both students on an island in the sky known as Skyloft. The plot is quickly set in motion as a storm throws Zelda out of the clouds and down to the unknown surface below. It is an extremely strong beginning that swiftly makes it clear that Skyward Sword houses the best Zelda character yet.

Only Tetra from Wind Waker has really allowed Zelda to be a character and not just a princess, and Skyward Sword takes it to another level by letting Zelda have complex motivations and an important side of the story reserved for her. The game also allows Link and Zelda to have their closest relationship yet and Nintendo finally returns the story-telling’s focus to character. This focus combined with spot-on motion capture and great facial animations make for powerful and subtle character-driven scenes on a level that has not been seen in a Zelda game since the N64 days.

The video game industry is filled with capable studios that churn out high-production epic cut-scenes regularly. Developers like Naughty Dog and Bioware have writers that are arguably the very strongest in the industry, but Nintendo flexed a long-dormant muscle with Skyward Sword that proves that the best writing chops are not necessarily required to create some of the most engaging and emotionally poignant moments in gaming. Every single scene will not etch itself into gamer’s hearts, but when it counts, Skyward Sword delivers the goods.

This trend continues to make a rich and dense world throughout. Twilight Princess often leaned on a crutch of references and failed to deliver a distinct personality of its own, Skyward Sword creates a Zelda world positively different than any other while simultaneously embracing and celebrating the others as well. There are explicit gameplay and character references to Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Phantom Hourglass, and even Spirit Tracks, but Skyward Sword always makes sure not to lose its unique mood.

Characters that would be throwaways in a game like Twilight Princess are given depth and sometimes a larger role and funnier lines than one might expect. In fact, the dialogue and story are often surprising. Link is not always the golden child and even allies do not hesitate to call him out if they have an issue with him. In this way, the player actually feels progression as Link must work to earn respect that he will find in the strangest and most satisfying places.

Despite the plethora of fantastic original and returning characters, not every one is a winner. After the strong companion showings of the King of Red Lions in Wind Waker and Midna in Twilight Princess, Fi almost always falls flat with her half-baked robot dialect and general lack of personality. She has moments of greatness and she provides very helpful information including individual performance reports for every enemy, but is ultimately a showing of rare blandness in the game.

The primary villain, Ghirahim is also spotty. While a far stronger character than Fi, he is not always believable in his clichéd rants about his evil desires. His theatrics are amusing, and he is part of a few powerful scenes, but his convenient “I’ll deal with you later” exits are cause for a few eye rolls.

Diving off islands in the sky is a lot of fun.

The structure of Skyward Sword‘s gameplay and progression is an odd beast. In one sense, the Zelda formula is entirely intact for better or worse. Link travels to the forest, mountain, and desert locales encountering dungeons as well as new and old races along the way. He gains new items to help him access areas that were previously impossible to reach. However, now the areas connecting the dungeons are filled with puzzles and enemies in a way that has not been the case since the 2D Zelda games. Also, Link is constantly re-visiting old areas, but in ways that are surprisingly fresh. Skyward Sword not only has fine story pacing, but excellent gameplay pacing. The player never feels underpowered or overwhelmed, but is constantly given new ways to play up until the final moments of the title. New mini-games are unlocked, old areas are presented in entirely new ways, and expected patterns are often tossed on their head.

While the player will be largely impressed and enthralled with how old areas can be brought to life in unexpected ways, there are a few duds. In the main quest, three different bosses are played multiple times with few – and in one case no – changes from the previous battle. Also, there are a couple cases in which a retread does feel like unnecessary filler, but these cases are certainly exceptions.

Two major gameplay changes that signify a step forward for the series are Link’s stamina bar and the ability to upgrade potions, items, and equipment. The former finally puts an end to the need to incessantly roll around to get to areas quicker. Link has a finite stamina bar that will cause him to be temporarily exhausted if over-extended. This exhaustion will leave him vulnerable and cause him to lose any grip he has on a cliff or vine-covered wall. The bar replenishes quickly and is used if Link sprints, climbs, or performs spinning attacks. The strategy added from this simple Shadow of the Colossus-esque feature is invaluable and it is difficult to remember Zelda games without it now.

With the upgrade system, money and collectables finally make a difference in a Zelda game. Link’s wallet can become very large quite quickly, and it will be needed. Shops have useful items, and upgrades go a long way, so even sums of over 1000 rupees can easily be drained from one visit to the bazaar. Bugs and enemy drops also become very important resources. No longer does anything found in battle feel useless. Every item can be used to make Link feel more powerful in a very tangible way. Also, these resources can be sold back – albeit inconveniently – if a player feels he has too many of a certain type.

The player can get rid of most of that HUD too. Very cool.

Another feature unique to the game is the implementation of ground-up motion controls. It would be dangerous to go into Skyward Sword with the thought that “motion controls” are equal to “beginner controls”. While this is largely the case in the extremely waggle-heavy Wii lineup, Skyward Sword is very different. No player will be an instant expert. Flying around Skyloft will initially be clumsy, sword-fighting will initially be amateur, and to blame undeveloped skills on poor controls would be entirely inaccurate. Practice and skill pays off in Skyward Sword and underestimating the game to be aimed at beginners would be a mistake that would cause a player frustration throughout the experience.

Hardcore gamers will likely even be at a disadvantage with the controls. Those familiar with the timing and button-mashing needed in every other Zelda title – including Twilight Princess – might become frustrated when trying to translate those traditional methods to Skyward Sword. Zelda veterans are likely to have a difficult time unlearning their habits in order to be truly successful while playing.

In fact, the only real issue with the controls is that they are – in fact – motion controls. Any player stubbornly opposed to playing any title without a traditional controller will be unlikely to be converted. However, those players who pictured a Zelda game first when the Wii was announced will finally be appeased. Albeit over half a decade late, this is the game that gamers thought the Wii would provide. The controls work, they are well implemented, and they benefit from practice and skill.

Strange to think that this much can be said about this game without a single mention of its visuals. Only Mario Galaxy 2 shares Skyward Sword‘s ability to make a player forget he is playing a game on the vastly under-powered Wii system. Combining the visual styles of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess was the perfect move and Skyward Swords‘s water colour graphics are truly glorious to behold. Up until the final moments, players will find themselves admiring their surroundings. This is the best Zelda has ever looked.

All this text still barely satisfies the content and personality overflowing from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Even without mentioning the charming 50s gangster-style Mogmas, the challenging “Hero Mode”, or the brilliant orchestrated musical score, there is more praise to be said about the game. Players who have zero patience with the Zelda formula or motion controls will find no solace in this title. However, for the rest of the gaming population, Nintendo has given endless care and attention to its one true Wii Zelda title and it is easily the greatest game on the system. It may not be the best in the series, but it is the best in a long time, a worthy origin story, and a must-play for even vague fans of the series.

Full disclosure: the author was provided with a free copy of the game for review purposes.

Payday features six missions, but each one boils down to one of two basic types, either break-ins or escorts. Break-ins require finding and using tools to reach the loot, and escorts, obviously, involve pushing a horribly slow and unarmed NPC through a long level. The break-in missions force players to wait around for a few minutes as the tools do their jobs, all while fighting off waves of police and SWAT members, who easily lose sight of the player and run away if players hide long enough. Escort missions involve a little more run-and-gun, but it is still best for players to totally ignore the invincible escort NPC and hide until the SWAT team grows bored and heads home. The law enforcers are not particularly dangerous, but ammo is so hard to come by that it is simply best to ignore the waves of cops and SWAT that seem to rush the players every five minutes. Gamers familiar with first-person shooters will easily be able to finish missions in around twenty minutes, and could easily clear them faster if the damned tools and escort NPCs did not take over five minutes to complete their tasks.

The upgrade tree, while supposedly full of abilities and guns, seems to hardly affect the game. Completing each of Payday’s missions once does not give the player enough EXP to unlock a new weapon, or even a power-up more useful than an ammo restoring gym bag. Every player starts with a lame SMG and pistol, and every player will be stuck with them for a long time. Luckily enough, the law enforcers are only slightly more varied in their weapons. Normal police officers have pistols, while SWAT members carry rifles, shotguns, riot shields, and the pathetically easy-to-avoid taser. For players that want to constantly grind through levels to get guns, there will be a lot of replay value here, but anyone not willing to invest multiple runs into every level will likely never see a new gun.

One of the more armored SWAT members.

As mentioned earlier, the law enforcers are so dumb that players can simply hide until they run off, and at times, cops will even shoot innocent civilians. Cops hardly pursue players, almost as if they were glued to their spawn points. While they are accurate enough to gun down a player out in the open, the cops’ health are so pathetically low compared to the player’s that it is possible for players to stand out in the open soaking up bullets as they gun down the police officers. Payday, surprisingly, does not feature health regeneration like many modern shooters, and there are absolutely no health packs throughout levels, which would actually make the game much harder were it not possible to rescue a dying teammate and instantly restore his health by a large amount, similar to Left 4 Dead’s bleed-out and revival system.

Payday at least deserves a round of applause for keeping itself somewhat mature. There is no undue violence or gore, players are encouraged to let the civilians live, and players will actually receive penalties for shooting innocents. The party of crooks players can control do use some strong language, but each crook is of a different nationality and keep themselves from falling into stereotypes.

Level up! Finally, a new gun!

Payday is definitely not able to stand up against other sixty dollar triple-A titles, and given that Team Fortress 2 is free-to-play, it is not even able to compare with other low-cost FPS titles. One could argue that Payday should not be compared to competitiv natured titles like Call of Duty or the amazing Team Fortress 2, since Payday is a cooperative shooter. However, Left4Dead and Borderlands are also cooperative FPS games, and are much cheaper and of a much higher quality. Of course, Payday is Overkill’s first foray into the gaming world, and definitely shows that they have a lot of room to grow, but hardcore FPS fans should not expect to find the next genre-defining experience in Payday.

Full disclosure: the author was provided with a free copy of the game for review purposes.

Duality is a theme in both the narrative and gameplay of Two Thrones.

It should be no surprise by now that when the third Prince of Persia game was announced, fans of the series (this writer included) were sufficiently cautious of it. The previous title in the series had been quite polarizing for fans of the series, and people were hesitant to see the Prince’s story become even more unnecessarily dark and gruesome. But when the game was proclaimed to have the best features of the both The Sands of Time and Warrior Within, gamers became intrigued, but still skeptical. And that skepticism is addressed in this week’s edition of Emmori’s Prince of Persia Spectaculariffic Game Reviewing Time for Great Justice, which features the third installment of the classic Sands of Time trilogy.

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, released by Ubisoft in late 2005, is the final chapter in the adventures of the titular Prince of Persia. Upon his return from the Island of Time with his new love interest Kaileena, the Prince finds that someone has invaded his kingdom and is ransacking his home city of Babylon. He learns quickly that this has been the work of the Vizier–the villain of the first game–who has been brought back to life thanks to the Prince’s manipulation of the timeline in Warrior Within. The Vizier proceeds to sacrifice Kaileena and remake the Sands of Time, which begins to infect the populace of the city, including the Prince himself. His infection results in the creation of a darker side of him called the Dark Prince, whose voice guides and berates the Prince, and occasionally transforms him into a shadowy, menacing sand monster. Returning to the game (also as a result of the Prince’s meddling of the timeline) is Farah of the first game, who once again aids the Prince in his adventures. While it is a vast improvement over Warrior Within, the narrative of The Two Thrones suffers from some of the same problems as its predecessor: the story progression is well-paced and the Prince’s narration is once again pertinent, but the character interactions are still clunky. The Prince’s and Farah’s relationship isn’t nearly as fun or intricate as it was in the Sands of Time, and the Dark Prince’s inner dialogue with the Prince is usually interesting, but also often uninteresting and usually unneeded.

The gameplay of The Two Thrones is, however, undoubtedly the best in the series after two years of development. The fluid platforming once again is the central focus of the game, incorporating all of the games’ previous pitfalls, traps, and obstacles, as well as new features: The Two Thrones gives the Prince the ability to brace himself between narrow walls and climb up and down, as well as use the dagger to grab onto points of a wall during a wall run or jump. The Prince’s dark form also utilizes the ability to swing from fixed points, as well as extend a wall run. These new features have allowed the developers to create new dimensions of platforming and strategies to play with, and they are indeed a blast to play through.

Sneaking up on and quickly assassinating people is one of my favorite features in the game.

Combat in Two Thrones deserves special note, since it has once again been changed and expanded since the previous games. In addition to the Prince’s standard form of agility-based fighting that utilizes the environment and a multitude of combos and weapons, the Prince’s Dark transformation allows him to utilize the Daggertail, a new weapon the Prince finds himself bonded to after being infected by the sands. The Dark Prince’s fighting style is far more aggressive and powerful than his standard form, but often feels too easy, since nearly every enemy in the game is unable to block most attacks from the daggertail, which means the player can generally just press the Secondary Attack button until victory is achieved. The third method of dispatching enemies is via a new stealth mechanic that allows a player to quickly dispatch enemies with a speed kill–a small interactive cutscene, with success based on timed button presses. Skilled players can even dispatch several enemies at a time, or dispatch multiple enemies, one after the other. Boss fights also make a return, each of them being reminiscent of previous fights from the series, but all relying somewhat heavily on speed kills to end each fight. After years of practice, Ubisoft has finally created the perfect formula for how a Prince of Persia game’s combat should be handled.

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, while still suffering from a lag in characterization the series has never fully recovered from, is still a strong title and a worthy final page in the Sands of Time trilogy. Its design offers a very back-to-basics approach to narrative, while still improving and innovating the action of the game above that of its predecessors. This reviewer recommends it highly, especially to those already invested in the series. Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones was originally released for PS2, Xbox, and GameCube, and can also be found over Steam, PSN, and on the Wii and PSP under the name of Prince of Persia: Rival Swords.

Sideway: New York Box Art

Before this review gets started, a few short things need to be said. First, let us all thank Fable Week for pushing this review back on my schedule, and next, seriously, thank Fable for pushing this review back. Until just recently, Sideway: New York had a very nasty save bug that would randomly wipe files completely or simply forget to activate the auto-save feature, but this issue seems to be resolved now. While the bug seems to be have been patched out, anyone playing an older version of the game for whatever reason, and possibly owners of the newest version may still experience this bug, so proceed with caution, and avoid any emotional attachment to Sideway‘s save data. Now then, on with the review.

Sideway: New York is a two-dimensional platformer that, as the title suggests, takes place in New York city. The three-dimensional city of New York serves as the backdrop for all of the levels, while the player, enemies, and other platforming elements are shown as flat graffiti art on building walls. Sideway also features an entirely original soundtrack full of nothing but rap tracks, which was likely included to add to the game’s ghetto atmosphere, but may not sit well with certain gamers. Sideway is not nearly as easy as, say, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, but it is no Super Meat Boy either; large portions of some levels are completely danger-free walks through the park, and when the game actually does decide to kill the player, it is the result of an instant death trap or a streak of bad luck on the player’s part. Sideway wont bring anything new or exciting to the hardcore platforming fans, but for casual platform fans or as an “every now and then” game, Sideway will definitely prove entertaining.

'Help! I don't want to go!'

The biggest problem with Sideway is its atmosphere. The game paints itself up to appeal to rap culture loving dude-bros, yet tries to play like a classic platformer. Anyone who does not actually like this kind of music will immediately run to the options to turn the game’s soundtrack down or completely off, yet the game can feel empty without any kind of soundtrack in the background, even if it is rap music that hardly compliments the gameplay. The graffiti enemies and cartoon-like 2D visuals all look very nice, but there is hardly any variation in the appearance of things; enemies and platforms in Chinatown look just like the enemies and platforms in the first few levels of the game, for example. The paint theme and cartoon visuals give off the impression that Sideway should be taking place in a much more lighthearted environment rather than the ghetto streets of gangster New York, but it is very easy to look beyond the run down streets of New York and its unending rap soundtrack in order to enjoy this game.

As for its gameplay, Sideway: New York puts a lot of stress on collecting all of the score tags, secret tags, and paint power-ups throughout the level rather than running fast, saving the princess, or jumping on turtles and mushrooms. The score tags are scattered throughout the level like coins in a Mario game or rings in Sonic, and are usually out in the open and players can very easily collect all of them on the first or second time through the level. The secret tags and various power-up abilities, however, are usually very well hidden; some hidden tags require the player to return to a level once a certain power-up ability is learned, while others are cleverly hidden behind 3D objects in New York or past very tricky platforming sections. It can be very difficult to hunt down all of the secret tags in a level, even after five or six runs, but players simply looking to reach the end of each level will not find things that difficult. Many of the spike pits and other traps can easily be avoided if the player simply ignores the score tags in that specific area, and many of the game’s enemies are laughably easy to defeat. It usually only takes a few punches to knock anything down, but some enemies are able to damage the player even while they flinch back from an attack, and later on in the game enemies begin to explode upon death. The game does feature boss fights every few levels, which may cause players to die a few times, but each boss has one weakness that becomes very easy to exploit once learned. Rather than punching players in the face or trying to drown us in Super Mario-inspired levels, Sideway provides rather easy levels in the hopes that players will replay old levels to unlock the various hidden tags.

Like all the cool new platformers, Sideway includes multiplayer, too!

Many gamers will not want to spend all day playing Sideway: New York, and will likely only play through a level or two when their more hardcore games, like Call of Battlefield: Pretzel War Zombie 3, grow tiring. This is not because Sideway is a bad game, but because it simply is not very engaging over long periods of time. The rap music is very repetitive, especially when one’s preferred genre of music is something other than rap-hop-hommie-yo, and the background and level elements change very little throughout the various areas, making every level seem just like the previous. For gamers who find themselves wishing more games were more about finding all the coins in a level rather than challenging combat, or find themselves saying “Gee, I really wish Kirby’s Epic Yarn actually had a death function!” Sideway will definitely fit the bill, but anyone looking for the next big Mario challenger should probably look elsewhere.

Full disclosure: the author was provided with a free copy of the game for review purposes.

Extreme!

Welcome to the second installment of this LusipurrCom Prince of Persia review-a-thon, readers! Since it seems that some of our staff writers are doing these sorts of specials, it’s time for Ol’ Emmori to hop on the proverbial bandwagon!

In the last installment of Emmori’s Prince of Persia Spectaculariffic Game Reviewing Time for Great Justice (Working Title), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was the subject of analysis. Ubisoft’s 2003 platformer set a standard for action games and platformers that adventure titles of today live by; with high-flying, fast-paced acrobatics and fluid, graceful combat matched with powers that compliment its unique style of play. So why then is Prince of Persia: Warrior Within widely considered to be an inferior game compared to its original, when Warrior Within executes these mechanics on a level equal to its predecessor, if not better?

Originally released in late 2004, Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia: Warrior Within once again follows the trials of the titular Prince of Persia, seven years after successfully preventing the disaster of the first game. It is revealed in the introductory sequence of the game that after the Prince saved Azad from the Sands of Time and prevented the Maharajah’s betrayal, a beastly creature know as the Dahaka began to pursue him. According to a mysterious old man the prince meets in his travels, The Dahaka is a guardian of the timeline; since the Prince had used the Sands to prevent his own death, the Dahaka seeks to kill him and ‘balance’ the timeline. In an attempt to save his own life, he decides to make his way to the Island of Time to prevent the Empress of Time from creating the Sands of Time in the distant past, utilizing Time Portals that were said to be in the Fortress of Time, on the fabled Island of Time.

EXTREEEME!

This is the point in the game at which the narrative begins to pale in comparison to the original. In addition to being horrible at making creative or original names, the narrative of Warrior Within is executed in a way that is considerably inferior to The Sands of Time in many ways. Unlike the sarcastic, yet tragically arrogant Prince of Sands of Time, this Prince is now simply a darker, brooding generic version of his former self. Instead of commenting on the wondrous, yet deadly architecture of the fortress or how weary he is from his years being hunted by the dark monster that runs from, he instead merely yells cookie-cutter battle cries and remarks on what he must do next to get to the next area. At some points in the game does the Prince actually get to talk other characters and discuss what topics such as fate, death, and knowing one’s place in history, but these moments are short and quickly forgotten. The needlessly dark characterization of the Prince in this game is a severe hindrance on the quality of the narrative for the entirety of the story.

While not nearly as problematic as the characterization of the Prince and the unnecessarily dark mood, the environment of the game is another minor issue. Much like the Prince himself, the game’s levels have a dark and dirty visual motif that, while stylish, is a somewhat boring sight to look at for most of the game. The entire world is seen through some sort of ugly gray filter during the portions of it that take place in the Present, while in the Past the colors are more vivid, but still contain mostly shades of brown. While this may be a choice on the designer’s part to create a suitably darker version of Sands of Time‘s visual style, this design decision reeks of the industry trends of the time, in which game developers were beginning to add darker, more mature elements to video games in order to pander to a more ‘adult’ demographic–a trend that continues to plague the industry to this day. Another nagging problem with the game’s style is its soundtrack; instead of the authentic Arabian-sounding music blended with modern electric instruments of the previous game, Warrior Within opts instead to use heavy metal riffs for nearly all of its soundtrack, which again detracts from the strength of the audio element of the game and adds to the suspicion that this was simply done to pander to the ‘hardcore’ gamers of the era.

EXRRRREEEEEEEMMME!!

On a more positive note, the game’s level composition is one of the better features of the game. As opposed to the strictly linear map of the the previous game, Warrior Within features an open world, with parts of the map unlocked through player upgrades and using the Time Portals scattered around the Fortress. There are rarely areas in the game that are inaccessible once passed through, giving players the advantage of backtracking to find additional upgrades when they have achieved the necessary level of power. In addition, the game’s platforming and combat are as good as, if not better than, Sands of Time. The implementation of the game’s Free-Form Fighting System is a welcome addition to the already stellar combat of the series, allowing players to utilize not only different weapon styles and strategies, but also use the environment against enemies. Warrior Within also includes bosses and huge enemies to fight, giving players a break from the generic hordes of enemies. Enemy AI has improved as well; foes no longer simply watch as you twirl over their compatriots and stab them, and take attacks of opportunity when the player is cornered, outnumbered, or surrounded. As in Sands of Time, different enemies require different strategies, so care must be taken to fight intelligently when confronting them.

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within is a strange game to talk about. It suffers from much, but not enough that it could be called a bad game. The platforming is better than ever, the combat is visceral and engaging, yet the overly-dark mood and characterization of the Prince is notably off-putting. But despite its flaws, this reviewer recommends it. It is an excellent buy on Steam for only $9.99 USD, in addition to having an HD remake available on PSN for $14.99 USD. If you enjoyed The Sands of Time, there really is no reason not to give Warrior Within a try.

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair brings followers of the series back to their roots with 2D stage-based adventuring and a familiar cast of characters. Fanboys and girls everywhere can step into the shoes of their favorite Castlevania character to race through six loot-driven stages. Where this game lacks in the storyline and opportunity for exploration that its predecessors are so known for, it makes up for in excellent multiplayer and excellent replay value.

The most memorable and perhaps most appealing feature of Harmony of Despair is the ability to choose from a plethora of previous Castlevania characters. These characters include Soma Cruz, Alucard, Jonathon Morris and Charlotte. The PSN version of the game also includes Yoko Belnades and Julius Belmont (offered as additional DLC for Xbox players). Other downloadable characters include Richter Belmont, Maria Renard, Simon Belmont and Getsu Fuma. Each of these characters has unique abilities and no one character is levelled up in the same way. For example, Richter and Julius become more powerful through the levelling up of sub-weapons. On the other hand, Alucard and Soma equip various weapons to increase attack power. This allows players to experience the game differently through each of these characters and makes subsequent playthroughs of the levels that much more appealing. Playing the game as Alucard is an entirely different experience than playing as Julius.

One of the many familiar bosses players will encounter throughout the game

The gameplay is straight-forward. Players are given thirty minutes in which they are to race through a given map, killing monsters and collecting as much treasure as possible before coming to the boss. It is like a light version of previous 2D games. Instead of fleshing out maps and sifting through every corner of every room, Harmony of Despair forces players to rush from room to room to boss. At times, this can prove to be a little frustrating especially when trying visit all the areas of the map only to have the clock tick down to zero.

There are six stages in all and the last stage ends with players facing off against the count himself. As a result, Harmony of Despair is a very short game. A game that can be completed in a few hours on a rainy afternoon. Still, Konami makes up for this in the endless quest to find better loot. It feels a bit like end-game MMOs insofar that players run through the same stages over and over again looking for that one ring that will allow them to perform somersaults while snacking on a sandwich and humming the theme to the Simpsons. It sounds tiresome, but somehow Konami makes it work by adding in a little multiplayer fun.

Axe Armors, Skull Pillars, and Flea Men, oh my!

It is important to mention that for a game whose experience relies so heavily on online gameplay there are some glaring flaws with the system. It is extremely difficult to get into an online game. Players will find themselves searching for games, entering them, only to be kicked out before the game even begins. It might be a half hour or more before players are finally able to connect to a game. So please bring along a book or magazine to pass the time between online stages. Once a stage finally starts succesfully there are few, if any, hiccups. Co-operative gameplay allows players to work together to navigate difficult obstacles, fight bosses, and even collect chests that would not be accessible during a single-player session.

There is no plot that bears mentioning. A few of the stages have some small amount of voice-acting and the game does follow the traditional storm Castle Dracula to kill the count, but aside from that it really is just a collection of maps to race through. The graphics are crisp and the character sprites are quite detailed. Each characters has eight different ‘variations’ to choose from – so if two fangirls want to pick Alucard one can be pink and the other black.

Jonathan!

The dynamic function of the map also bears mentioning. At the beginning of each stage, the entire map is displayed and the final target pointed out. As characters traverse each stage they are able to zoom out or move the map from side to side to see what comes ahead — all without interrupting gameplay. This keeps gameplay moving, which is important in a race against the clock. The new map system also allows the game to be played when zoomed out so all the map can be displayed and the pathway to the boss is easily discerned.

Overall, the combination of a unique set of characters each with difference abilities to level and the chance to play Castlevania online with all the other fangirls and boys makes this game a must-have for hardcore fans. However, some of the best levels and characters are available only through DLC so be prepared to invest some money in all those little extras to truly experience the game. This game certainly will not be remembered as a paragon of the Castlevania series, but it plays well and it feels like a Castlevania game should.