Dead Space

Dead Space Developer: EA Redwood Shores Publisher: Electronic Arts Third Person Shooter - PS3 1 Save Slot 1 player

Surprise review! Actually played through half the game years ago, but life got in the way. I just set up my entertainment center and hooked up the PS3, and decided to start over from scratch.

Dead Space is... was... a new franchise from EA Redwood Shores. The IP may be sleeping/dead now, but it made a real splash during its debut. It was popular enough to spawn numerous sequels and spinoffs, after all. Capitalizing on the survival horror revival from Amnesia, revived Resident Evil games, F.E.A.R., etc., Dead Space went big budget. Like a sci-fi horror movie, there are many cinematic scenes both pre-rendered and in-engine for the player to witness. There are numerous plotlines that unravel and converge. And there are jump scares aplenty. Still, it's remarkable that there's a decent game underneath it all.

The story begins with a stranded space vessel and a SOS signal. You assume the role of an Engineer aboard a small starcraft, as part of the rescue effort. When no one in the stranded USS Ishimura answers any communication efforts, you quickly discover that things are not right with the world. Two of your other crew members are immediately torn to pieces by horrific lifeforms, and you are separated by the ensuing struggle.

One thing that makes Dead Space different is that you seem like less the main character, and more like a member of a team. In other survival horror games, you do all the exploring, and you pick up pieces of the story as you go along. Here, you do a fair amount of that, but it's in the context of assisting your crew members (and commanding officer) with their objectives. As a result, the game isn't one big open-world with massive back-tracking, but instead a number of discrete stages with its own set of maps and enemies. Nothing is lost in this structure, because there's a lot of ground to cover in each stage anyway.

The other thing that makes Dead Space different is that the third person gunplay is interesting. Rather than just generically shooting enemies by pointing in their direction a la Resident Evil/Silent Hill, or even going for headshots like Fatal Frame, Dead Space is about aiming for limbs. Body and headshots generally don't do much damage, but taking off limbs not only cripples enemies in the game, but makes them severely weaker. So when an enemy rushes at you, you may have to shoot off a leg to drop them to the ground, and as they're crawling towards you, you have to aim for an exposed arm or two before they're finished. Different weapons and a limited ability to slow them down using stasis, will assist in that endeavor. This makes the action a lot more interactive than most survival horror, and even most shooters! It's like what Bioshock was aiming for, but didn't quite achieve. Maybe because enemies in DS are much more resilient?

Whatever the case, I just found Dead Space much more fulfilling to play than most mainstream games. It definitely does do the creepy vibe thing right, with lots of attention to gory detail and intentional lighting. Add to that a mix of good puzzles, items to collect, secrets to discover, and precision-based shooting, and you've got plenty of things to entertain. The end result is a horror game that is better than it needed to be. Still, for some reason, I'm not particularly interested enough to play the sequels. I got my fill, and I'm quite satisfied.

Corpse Party

Corpse Party Developer: Team GrisGris Publisher: XSeed Games Adventure - PSP 1 player

I love Japanese horror. There is a certain quality in them that's distinct from Hollywood. In general, they don't rely on visceral scares, but instead penetrate your psyche with dark imagery and atmosphere, so that you're left with unsettled feelings long after the film is over. They also tend to have a human aspect to it, where even the "bad guy" has some relatable qualities. Enter Corpse Party. It was originally a PC-9801 game, turned PC remake, turned PSP game (and now iOS).

Corpse Party has roots in RPG Maker, with its simple 2/3 overhead RPG perspective and sprite graphics. But it's all adventure game through and through, with plenty of character dialog, cut scenes, item fetching, and branching paths. The game begins at a high school, where a group of students and a teacher gather together and perform a charm. The charm backfires, causing an earthquake that splits the group apart as they fall through the chasm, leaving them at the mercy of the evil spirits within.

The game is broken up into 5 chapters, and will often have you controlling different characters and exploring the specific area those characters are in. Every chapter has multiple endings, although generally only one of them will be "good", allowing you to progress further in the game. Your dialog choices, the objects you pick up, the objects you use (or don't use), and order of actions can determine your fate. I do like the fact that even if you choose poorly, the bad endings are worth pursuing. They can be gruesome, tragic, and accompanied by some detailed artwork. But even better is that they often fill in gaps in the story, you might not otherwise know about. So even though you "lose", you "win". That is one of the aspects that gives Corpse Party a reason to replay and explore.

As far as the actual horror aspect, it definitely delivers in the same way that I like J-horror films. Despite the simple visuals, it's able to convey a sense of creepiness through little details in the backdrops, CG cut scenes, and writing style. Retaining the original Japanese voice-work definitely helps a lot in that regard. Corpse Party is exactly what I would hoped a horror adventure game would be, but the addition of multiple endings per chapter elevates it beyond expectation.

FRACT OSC

FRACT OSC Developer: Phosfiend Systems Publisher: Phosfiend Systems Adventure - PC 1 Save Slot 1 player

Perhaps the one hobby I enjoy more than gaming is music. I love listening to music, performing music, and have a deep respect for the creation of music.  (I'd create myself if I were more talented. Maybe one day.) Combine gaming with music and you've got a recipe for hitting all my right notes.

FRACT OSC is a first-person puzzle exploration adventure game. It drops you off in a desolate, other-worldly place with strange architectures and mechanical innards. You don't know why you're there. You're not given much instruction either, other than a single hint that you have an interaction mode. While utilized, movement is a little more constrained, but you will be able to see and manipulate the objects that you need. Once you pick up on the game's language, things start to click.

At its core, FRACT OSC is all about discovery. You'll explore this strange place, hit dead-ends (some temporary), develop a mental mapping of the layout, and learn how to traverse. Similarly, you'll encounter puzzles with no directions. But as soon as you start experimenting with what you can manipulate, how you can manipulate them, and observe what happens to your surroundings both visually and aurally, you'll start to understand the world's language. Nothing is a gimme in FRACT OSC, but if you pay attention, all the clues are there. Plus the puzzles are generally relatively simple until the very end game.

What cements everything together is a brooding synthesizer musical backdrop. Initially the world is a silent place. But as you come across the puzzles, faint synth music plays. As you get closer and closer to a solution, more musical layers are added, crescendoing into an explosion of neon lights and musical resolution upon completion of the puzzle. That's one of the finer details of the game, in which it gives you immediate feedback and reward once you figured out the puzzle. The world becomes permanently brighter, and livelier. Often the world changes a little bit, offering up new passages or opening of doors that were previously closed off. By the end of the game, there is a vibrance - a flourishing in the world. You did not leave it untouched.

It should be mentioned that in addition to a exploration puzzle adventure game, FRACT OSC has an in-game music studio sequencer. Pieces of the music studio are unlocked as you complete puzzles from the game portion, which also produces one additional layer of satisfaction from solving them. The end product is not nearly as thorough or friendly as dedicated sequencing software (professional or even the KORG or KORG-likes for the Nintendo DS), but this could be someone's introduction to the world of electronica-creation, and I'm all for that. FRACT OSC makes it so you can save your settings and songs, as well as import/export. I've already seen a bunch of Youtube user-creations using the studio, so it's a pretty versatile tool.

I would be the first to say that FRACT OSC is not for everyone. Some might find the lack of hand-holding too obtuse, although I think the game provides plenty of feedback to figure things out. And whereas I thought the puzzles were varied just enough to keep me entertained, others may find that the 3 major types of puzzles too limiting. But for those who enjoy the feeling of exploration and discovery, Phosfiend Systems has completely nailed it. This was an unforgettable trip.

Papers, Please

Papers, Please Developer: Lucas Pope Publisher: 3309 LLC Simulation - PC Multiple Save Slots 1 player

Gaming has been a mixed bag for me in the last 5 years. I've somehow gotten a reputation that I hate everything. Truth to be told, if a game doesn't push any creative boundaries, it's hard for it to keep my interest. Everything's been done before, Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V'd, and re-skinned. Enter Papers, Please.

In this current age of terrorism and government paranoia, Papers, Please could not be any more relevant.  Presented as a border officer simulation, gameplay revolves around you checking passerby's documents to make sure everything is in order for entry into your country. Since it is your job, you get paid for how many people you process, and get docked money for mistakes you make. Balance that with the expenses you have (food, rent, etc), and hopefully you'll earn a living. Sounds simple enough. But attempting to cultivate a life under a backdrop of political strife and a totalitarian government is hardly simple.

What makes Papers, Please shine is that there are stories going on that you know little about. You are NOT the focus of these stories, and are often the bystander. Nevertheless, in your position as border officer, you are affected by and can affect these plotlines. Travelers will try to make conversation with you, even requesting an occasional favor. Sometimes the requests are innocuous. Sometimes they're not. However you decide, there could be consequences.

In addition, the hostile political climate makes each day uncertain. There will be times when your day is interrupted, causing the checkpoint station to close early, affecting your earnings. Conflict between nations may mean that your orders change, and you are commanded to treat one people group differently than another. Since every day brings different visitors, differing political conditions, and different orders, the gameplay ends up mirroring the volatility of the game world.

All of this adds up to an incredible emotional connection with the role that you play. When you let someone in the country that you shouldn't, or turn away those that you should let in, there is an impact. You are making judgment calls every moment. Do you follow orders? Do you do what is "right"? Are those two motivations compatible or mutually exclusive? And how do your decisions impact your family whom you support? These questions are impossible to avoid. It's all part of what makes Papers, Please more than a sum of its parts.

Even with the oppressive political overtones and multiple subplots coursing through, some have called the actual gameplay mechanics of Papers, Please uninteresting. I am not one of them. Each day in the game has its own character, events, and mechanics, so it's impossible to ever get completely comfortable. As soon as your inspector workday begins, I found it a frantic race to get people processed as quickly as possible, absorb the dialog and random events occurring, and doing it while avoiding errors. It's kind of like a Phoenix Wright-like contradiction-finding adventure game, an inspections sim and a score attack game all-in-one.

There are 20 endings in all, and an Endless Mode, if you can unlock it.  (I haven't.)

This is my 2013 game of the year.

Persona 2: Innocent Sin

Persona 2: Innocent Sin Developer: Atlus Publisher: Atlus RPG - Playstation Portable 1 player

This is the most irritating game I've played in a long time.

It's disappointing because I was really looking forward to the game. Persona 2: Innocent Sin is the first of a two-part Shin Megami Tensei spinoff RPG. Moreover, this upgraded PSP port of a Playstation game is the first time this title has been available in English.

I think part of my issue is that P2:IS is not Soul Hackers. As my first exposure to the SMT universe, Soul Hackers was a very different kind of game, with a larger emphasis on combat decisions, demon summoning, and exploration. SH was so interesting to me that even playing SMT3 Nocturne was somewhat of a letdown too. But Persona 2: Innocent Sin comes up shortest because other than some very loose SMT characteristics, it primarily plays like any other RPG, and a bad one at that.

P2:IS is based in a futuristic Japan-esque place named Sumaru. There is a mysterious presence named Joker, who is causing a ruckus, stealing souls and leaving victims in a vegetable state. As people who have had friends or surroundings targeted by Joker, a group of students and adults band together to stop him in his tracks.

The story and game unfold in a traditional turn-based RPG style. From what I understand, there were some tactical positioning elements in the first Persona game, but Persona 2 has only the typical menu commands with two additional options.

A "Persona" can be summoned for your each of your characters. Personas are spiritual beings with their own strengths, weaknesses and skills. What this means in practice here is that your party members can equip a Persona, and thus gains access to those Personas spells. If that persona is immune to fire and is weak to water, then your character takes on those attributes too. The good thing is, you can swap personas each turn without penalty. They level up and gain access to additional skills. Luckily, their skills are capped and known, so you can choose whether or not to spend the time leveling them up. In the end, Personas are more or less treated like equipment.

Demon negotiation is a little convoluted. Basically, demons can react to things you say or do in four different emotions. If you trigger one emotion 3x in the course of the dialog, then that's what the end of the negotiation. Make a demon angry 3x in that discussion, and the demon will attack you. Make a demon fearful 3x, and they'll run away.  Make a demon interested 3x, and they'll give you cards of their arcana type. Make a demon joyful 3x, and they'll ask if you want to form a pact. A pact does not mean they join you, just that if you negotiate with them in the future and make them joyful, you'll get some additional options from them. If you have a pact, and make the demon interested 3x in the future, they'll give you more cards of their arcana than you would normally get, and they'll give you bonus wild cards.

Since you can't get demons to join you, the way that you get personas in this game is to have them created using those tarot cards you collect through "interested" demons. For example, it takes 56 Hermit cards to create a Nekomata persona. You can fuse those 56 hermit cards with skill cards like "Dia" or bonus strength to give your new Nekomata those bonuses. By creating different personas, you can stock up to 10 of them for swapping in and out during battles.

So far so good. The systems themselves aren't particularly innovative or interesting, but they're competent. What went wrong? Execution.

At every level, the game mangles the details. The most cringe-worthy issue is the slowness of the game. You'll be fighting random battles a LOT. This is par for the course, given that SMT ties demon/persona creation with encounters. That's not the issue. In other SMT games, battles can occur pretty briskly, particularly after turning off battle animations. The difference in Soul Hackers of animations on vs. off was like night and day. Here? Not so much. Persona 2 has the uncanny ability to make each of the thousands of battles as painfully sluggish as possible. Even with animation skip, there are pauses before and after each action. Group damage is dealt not simultaneously, but sequentially. Demon negotiation is also frustrating, because some of your choices have animations that cannot be skipped.

This is partly aggravated by the UMD load times. P2:IS allows you to do an install to circumvent those issues. From where I'm sitting, it doesn't seem to actually do anything. Whenever you enter a battle, exit a battle, or do demon negotiation, you can hear the UMD drive whirring along. In practice, towards the end, I began running from almost every encounter, because it was such a big waste of time. When a game is so bad that you avoid playing the bulk of it, something is majorly wrong.  It's not like running mattered, because the game challenge is pretty easy. Affinities don't seem to matter as much as other SMT games, so that it hardly mattered that I was under-leveled or didn't have the right exploits from running so much.

The systems themselves don't really differentiate themselves from non-SMT RPGs out there. One of the biggest aspects of SMT is demon fusion and knowing when to summon demons. Here in P2, Personas don't seem to matter that much other than giving you a set of spells. Their affinities don't have as large of an effect as they do in other SMT games. Moreover, it takes so much more to create a Persona in this game, since they are "bought" rather than fused, that there really is just a limited selection of them.

Persona mangles what you spend the most time doing (fighting) and screws up what people play SMT games for (demon/persona creation).  Deeply disappointing.

Hotline Miami

Hotline Miami Developer: Dennaton Publisher: Dennaton Action - PC 1 Save Slot 1 player

This is my kind of game. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

Hotline Miami is an indie action game that debuted last month. It's a little unfortunate that it came out a couple weeks after Retro City Ransom, as many gamers believed HM to be a gorier, more immature take on RCR. That's really a shame, because Hotline Miami has so much to offer other than its silly gory visuals.

At its core, Hotline Miami is a frenetic and strategic action game.  It’s displayed in a top-down 2D perspective with 8-bit graphics, where your goal is to pretty much annihilate the many enemies scattered throughout a location.  You’ll use fists, pick up metal pipes, wield shotguns, and push doors to disable and gut each and every one of them.   It gives me the same feelings of suspense and exhilaration as Ninja Gaiden Black.  Enemies have pretty decent AI, where if you’re spotted, they will rush at you.  If you fire gunshots, you alert everyone in the vicinity to your presence.  Hence, the game has a stealth-like twist to it, but it never slows the action down.  Enemies here will one-hit kill you, so the difference between life and death is dependent on planning and pinpoint execution.  Your abilities are generally pretty limited, so the focus is on scoping out your environment and figure out the best tactics for survival. 

Deaths are frequent, but restarts are instantaneous.  That's what makes everything come together. Because there's no load time and the game doesn’t bombard  you with cutscenes, that means that each death and restart just propels you to plan better and try harder. The game is hard, but the challenge is reasonable. If you do something stupid, you will die.

Hotline Miami encourages perfect runs through stages, by grading you on how fast you clear stages, combos racked up by killing enemies in succession, accuracy in your kills, etc.  Even if you don’t care about scoring, Hotline Miami gives you the flexibility to take your time through levels or go for speedruns.  You can take out enemies one by one or set up mass slaughters.  You can go for perfection or you can go for survival.  And that’s what makes Hotline Miami so rewarding. It has infinite replay value.

Did I mention the fantastic bumping synth soundtrack? They not only add to the fun, but they’re great tunes to listen to away from the game. As a bonus, they’re available as .ogg files in the game directory for consumption.

Forget all those combo games called “visceral” and “flowing”.   Hotline Miami offers a true flowing experience that is brutal, smart, and engaging on all levels.  Love it.

Outland

Outland Developer: Housemarque Publisher: Ubisoft Action - PS3 3 Save Slots 1 player / Online Multiplayer

Some people recommended Outland to me before, but I only got around to playing it just now. Part action-platformer, and part Ikaruga color-switching, I was intrigued by the concept. I'd have to say I was a little skeptical, because the developer, Housemarque, is an indie studio in Finland. I never really found Western games to be able to compare to the Japanese in classic 2D genres. Thankfully, Outland blew all my expectations away.

The game sets your character up as a hero that must defeat these twin sisters of darkness and light. The story is a bit hokey, but that's fine. The real star of the show is the gameplay. For the most part, you will be jumping and slashing your way through the game. Like Metroid, you will sometimes find your path impeded until you have an ability acquired later on. The melee combat is quite satisfying, where you can get into a groove by doing limited combos on enemies. The emphasis is not on stringing together moves as much as it is timing and pattern recognition, but it's nice to know the hero has some flexibility when needed.

What Outland does right with this formula is that it's like Metroid and not Metroidvania, which I think is one of the worst atrocities in the gaming world. By NOT employing a leveling-up system, Outland always feels like the challenges laid out were carefully crafted. There is still a progression system where you can add to your life and spirit meters, but they're limited to if/when you find them.

But while that's the core gameplay, I haven't even mentioned the phase-switching aspects yet.  How it's handled here is definitely influenced by Ikaruga with its myriad of bullet hells, the ability to absorb them if you're the same phase, and the simplicity of swapping phases on-the-fly. Where it's different from Ikaruga, is that it's an action-platformer, so there are new ways to use phasing. In Outland, you generally can only damage enemies if you're the opposite phase. Sometimes the game will even penalize you for hitting an enemy of the same phase, by having it explode. Another mechanic that Outland uses is to have platforms be a particular phase, so if you're the wrong phase, you just fall through them. All of these elements definitely keep you on your toes, so you end up learning to be ever-vigilant in changing phases in mid-jump or mid-combo.

What pulls everything together is the tight controls. I was expecting that to be the Achilles heel of this game, but I think Housemarque created Outland out of a love for Japanese-game design and wanted to pay it homage. There's precision in the game controls, care in the level layouts, very few blind-jumps (those that exist seem intentional), and clever boss fights. I just got the sense that every enemy, every bullet, and every item was designed to be exactly where it is. That's exactly what I appreciate about older Japanese games, and I love it here.

Downsides? Not many, but if I were to be nitpicky, some of your earned character abilities seem more like an afterthought. The "Charge Attack" in particular seems really silly, because there's only 2-3 places in the entire game that require its usage. It almost seems like they were running out of ability ideas, so just stuck it in  the last second. Still, that's hardly a deal-breaker.

Outland is some of the most fun I've had in a game in recent times. Definitely one of the PS3's finest.

Torchlight

Torchlight Developer: Runic Games Publisher: Perfect World ARPG - PC HDD, 1 Save File 1 player

Torchlight is an ARPG made by a bunch of the former Diablo development team. As you'd expect, Torchlight is in the same mold as the original click-fest RPG, but sports a bunch of modern additions to keep it fresh. What does that add up to? Quite possibly the most boring game of all time.

I can't exactly say what went wrong. Granted, I never thought Diablo was particularly fun either, but Torchlight seems devoid of any soul. Just like Diablo, you've got your home hub and a dungeon to traverse. There's a barebones main quest where you survive to the bottom floor and fight a big boss. Along the way, you get sub-quests from other citizens in town which are either a) kill a certain goon or b) find a certain item. Fulfilling those grants you experience and/or fame points and an item.

As far as customization goes, you can choose one of three classes - a melee warrior, a ranged weapon specialist, and a wizard who relies on spells and summons. Each class not only has their own playing style, but unique skills and special attacks that you can invest in. Leveling up through experience points gives you 5 points to distribute to your stats as well as a skill point. Leveling up through fame points simply gives you a skill point. So there's two progression systems happening concurrently, which will give you access to more skills in the long run.

But it doesn't stop there. There are gem stones that you can fuse with your weapons and armor to give you stat bonuses, or fuse with an identical gem to create an upgraded version of it. You can enchant weapons and armor for a chance of gaining additional random bonuses, such as the addition of +12 electric damage or +10 knockback or +5% experience point bonus.  The systems are not deep, but they are plentiful and have a notable impact on your character abilities.

Still, for all the trouble in creating all these systems, Torchlight never becomes enjoyable. There are fundamental problems with this kind of game. First, the action isn't interesting. Although most games boil down to "just clicking", the Diablo subgenre is particularly offensive in this regard. Torchlight doesn't make an attempt to move the genre forward, so it's no wonder it has the same trappings as its predecessors. The only tension that occurs in this type of game is when you get flanked by mobs of enemies. But as the player, it's the difference of clicking vs. clicking faster. Even though you need to balance out your clicks with keyboard presses for healing, the sum experience is one slightly detached. I never feel like I'm really controlling my character, only guiding it.

Even worse than the poor gameplay is that it lacks charm. I never liked Diablo, but it has some personality with the gothic tone and the enemy death animations. On the surface,Torchlight seems like it's a better, more competent Diablo. But I'm convinced Runic Games made this game because "that's what people like", not out of any personal conviction. There's no passion in it, and it shows.

Torchlight is less than the sum of its parts.

LIMBO

LIMBO Developer: Playdead Publisher: Playdead Platform - PC HDD, 1 Save File 1 player

LIMBO is an indie 2D puzzle-platformer available in a lot of formats - PS3, XBox 360, PC, iOS, you name it. It sports a unique visual style, which mimics old black & white films, right down to the grainy textures and flickering. The aesthetic mirrors the ominous circumstances the game presents. The minimalistic audio enhances this mood.

You assume the role of an unnamed boy. There are no explanations, nor any cut-scenes. You simply wake up in a field, isolated and bewildered. As you begin to move, you encounter grisly scenes of danger and death. Your only goal: make it out alive.

The core of LIMBO is its minimalism. The audio/visual style creates an atmosphere that is that much more chilling. But it doesn't stop there. Your character only has a few possible actions. He can move left and right, jump, and has a single interaction button. My initial reaction was that it felt like a step backwards, given that most modern games utilize face buttons, multiple shoulder buttons and even dual analog sticks. But the limited abilities means that every challenge in the game is particularly designed. If you're stuck, it means you have to observe your environment more, interact with objects, and think about what you're trying to accomplish.  LIMBO makes things extremely handy by autosaving after each puzzle is solved, so the game encourages you to retry again and again if you need to.

I personally found the puzzles to be the right difficulty level. Some are obvious, while others had me stuck to the point where I had to come back to it weeks later. But after a fresh mind, I was able to figure it out. I don't think I had to resort to a walkthrough during my playtime.

LIMBO is artistically beautiful, environmentally eerie, but most of all, captivating to play. It's not a game that innovates or pushes the genre's boundaries forward.  What you have then is a well made puzzle game. Sometimes, that's enough.

Assassin's Creed 2

Assassin's Creed II Developer: Ubisoft Montreal Publisher: Ubisoft Action/Adventure - PS3 1 Save Slot 1 player

My only previous experience with this stealth parkour series came in the form of Assassin's Creed Bloodlines, a PSP title. The original Assassin's Creed might have established the framework, but public opinion is decidedly mixed. Even its fans won't hesitate to call it a flawed experience. Luckily, Assassin's Creed II suffers no such criticism. It received accolades for figuring out how to make the formula work. How does it play? Exactly how I thought it'd be like.

What I enjoyed most about Bloodlines on PSP was the exploration and the combat. The exploration came in the form of traversing through cities, hopping on roofs, and slipping through alleys. By becoming familiar with the layout, you'll find treasures, discover secret entrances to new areas, and can start participating in some race "quests" that test your mastery of the land.  There were some cool interior sections where you do some Tomb Raider observation and platforming, which were really the highlight of exploration. I also thought that the combat of the PSP game was deeper than it needed to be. It utilized timing-based combos and counters, which made fights more interesting than simply button mashing.

Playing Assassin's Creed II offers the same positives, but with some caveats. Assassin's Creed II is bigger, deeper, and grander than anything the PSP could muster. Cities are now massive, without the need to segment each neighborhood through load screens. The enemies are more varied this time, and the game can handle upwards of 8-10 enemies on-screen simultaneously. But the problem is what makes it better also makes the game worse. Yes, the cities are now 5-10x as large as the PSP areas, but all that means is you don't really get to "know" the cities. Yes, there are now many more things to collect, but with 66 viewpoints, 30 codex pages, 100 feathers, 400 treasures, etc, it's just too much. The game throws so many things at you, most of which are inconsequential, that it's really difficult to care.

Plus Assassin's Creed II has some new irritations AC:Bloodlines never had. For instance, your armor requires upkeep. As you get hit by enemies or fall off buildings, your armor loses its potency requiring you to go to a Blacksmith to repair. My only question is... why? This game mechanic isn't additive - it doesn't make the game harder or more interesting. I just ended up repairing it every couple hours when I remembered, but it seemed to have little bearing on the game. I'm not even sure why it's implemented at all. The other irritation is load time. During the game, it's generally OK. But every time you boot up the game, there's loading. There's even a loading screen to boot up the Title. Then once you get to the Title Screen, you hit start only to have load time again!

None of these irritations are deal-breakers. They're somewhat nitpicky, and won't ruin the experience for anyone. It MIGHT be the pinnacle of the series, with more story-oriented quests, larger areas, more weapon variety, and multiple ways of preserving your stealth. But at the end of the day, these refinements amount mostly to fluff. Perhaps the only thing AC2 offered that Bloodlines didn't was boredom. Don't misunderstand me. I may prefer the pacing of Bloodlines more, but AC2 is better in other ways. Those improvements just couldn't make up for the fact that the game felt completely unnecessary.

machinarium

machinarium Developer: Amanita Design Publisher: Amanita Design Adventure - PC HDD, 6 Save Files 1 player

Yes, yes, another PC point-and-click adventure game. This may be the last one I review for a while (although, I'm working on the original Myst so I could be lying) . But what an amazing point-and-click adventure this is.


What sucks you in immediately are the hand-drawn visuals and a soundtrack that feels choreographed to each situation. machinarium oozes atmosphere. You feel like you're in a post-apocalyptic alternate world populated only by mechanical entities. Characters squeak as they move.  Most of the overworld has a cold, rusty and abandoned feel to it.

One charming detail I enjoyed is the way the story unfolds. The story is told not in cutscenes or text, but through simple pictures and animations in character word bubbles. This gives the game more of a universal appeal, not having to deal with language and complements the game world that much more.

But the heart of machinarium is its puzzles. Every step of the way, you're in the midst of trying to solve one or multiple puzzles. Sometimes you're stuck in a room, and need to find items and manipulate objects to figure a way out. Other times, you come across a locked boxes which require deciphering logic puzzles to open. There are a lot of creative puzzles scattered throughout the game, and no two are the same. Many will challenge even the best puzzlers out there. I admit I had to resort to a FAQ on a couple occasions, but when I struggled through and finally overcame many of the puzzles on my own, the sense of accomplishment was incredible. Best of all, I love how machinarium offers the player an single hint for each room. It's completely optional, but will prove vital when you have no idea what to do.

machinarium is utterly brilliant. As far as puzzle-adventure games go, this is my favorite. It offers mental challenge after mental challenge, but you never feel like the game is unfair. Sure, it doesn't offer quirky humor or make you fall in love with the characters like other adventure games do. But in its focus to create a logic-based puzzle adventure game, machinarium is unrivaled. Kudos to Amanita Design for bringing it. Their next project, Botanicula, is just around the corner.

Adam's Venture Ep1

Adam's Venture Episode 1: The Search for the Lost Garden Developer: Vertigo Digital Entertainment Publisher: Iceberg Interactive Puzzle Adventure - PC HDD 1 player

The original Tomb Raider is one of my favorite games. It completely nailed the 3D puzzle-adventure and set the standard of what came next. Recently, a new title popped up on the Steam Store at $3.99 (launch discount price). The trailer looked incredible for a $4 game, and gave me the whole Tomb Raider vibe. Was it warranted?

In short, no.  I can't really say the trailer was deceptive, but they showed the most exciting parts and the rest of the game didn't quite live up.

The hero of the game is Adam, a cocky adventurer. The story starts out with him decrypting a message which shows the location of the original Garden of Eden, hence the game's subtitle.  As a result, biblical references show up all throughout the game.

I THOUGHT the game would play out like an Indie Tomb Raider with some platforming, exploration and puzzles.  But any platforming/climbing is really there to break monotony of walking.  The designers put up blockades all around you to funnel you to the next destination, for the most part, so there was little exploration to be had.  The puzzles themselves started off amusing, but devolved into repeating the same few basic types. Most of them were entirely straight-forward, and required little thinking to solve. 

Visually, the game is based off the Unreal 3 Engine. It actually looks really good for an independent game, with plenty of interior detail and lighting effects. The backdrops are fantastic, and probably helped to sell me on the purchase. But there's enough jankiness to the character animations and some odd glitches that remind you that it is not as polished as a full-fledged commercial title.


Overall, Adam's Venture Episode 1 feels like a low budget title, which should be expected given its low price.  So far there are three episodes out, but only the first is available on Steam. I should mention that the Steam version has at least one puzzle that the original indie version lacked, so there may be other differences other than the addition of achievements.  It's possible the more recent episodes have more interesting things being done.  But having completed this first episode, I ultimately found the experience unsatisfying, even at its bargain bin purchase price.

Journey

Journey Developer: thatgamecompany Publisher: thatgamecompany Adventure - PS3 1 Save Slot 1 player / Online Multiplayer

Art Game


That's what someone said to me, when I mentioned I picked up Journey. I wasn't sure what I was in for, but it seemed like this game was getting a lot of acclaim. Although I haven't played them all that much, I have had exposure to thatgamecompany's previous games, fl0w and Flower. Even though Journey is a much different beast, it has a familiarity to it that is very much in line with the other two games. But what IS Journey?  What do you DO?  Well, that's a lot harder to describe. And that's also part of the point.

You begin the game as a nameless face dropped off in a sprawling desert. There's no hand-holding, no automap, and no explanatory cutscene that puts the game into context. All you know is that you are there, and your field of view immediately centers upon a mountaintop in the distance. Everything in between is the journey.

As a game, you don't have much at your disposal. You can walk. You can interact with just a few things in the game. But there's little else. Early in the game, you acquire a red scarf. You'll see ribbons with a similar design scattered throughout. Interacting with those ribbons charges your scarf. And your "charged" scarf allows you to jump and float for a small duration of time. You're able to increase the length of your scarf, and hence float time, by finding these specific markers throughout the game. With just the ability to float and interact with a select few objects, your goal in each stage is to find the path to the next. But Shadow of the Colossus this isn't. The puzzles and platforming are quite lite.

Journey is about the experience. It's about the feeling of pursuing a single-focused goal, and not quite knowing what to expect as you explore the process. And although you could say that about any game, Journey is perfectly choreographed. Although the visuals are somewhat minimalistic in design, how they're used can be utterly breathtaking. You get the sense that every angle and every frame was intentional, even though the world is fully 3D. The moody orchestrated music only accentuates the intentionality.  Everything works together in tandem, and succeeds.

Make no mistake. This is an art game. On gameplay merits alone, Journey is a bit on the shallow side. There's little in the way of hand-eye coordination and puzzle logic.  And what's there refuses to put up much of a challenge.  Even the ability to find extensions to your scarf to increase float time is convoluted, because you don't even need any of them to finish the game. Still, you've got to admire the pretentiousness of it all. What thatgamecompany set out to do, they accomplished. They blended gaming and art in a way no other medium could have. Best game ever? Hardly. I enjoyed the Journey for what it was. At $14.99, I can't help but feel it's overpriced, beauty and all. The $10 threshold would make it much more appealing. It's ultimately not all that fulfilling, even with its artsy shell. Nevertheless, it's unique in what it does and that makes it worth a playthrough for me.

As a side note... since this doesn't really fit the flow of the review, I'll just mention that the online multiplayer is automatic. Other "Journey"ers will show up in your game in real time, and their presence helps enhance the feeling of the journey. You can't really interact with them, aside from being able to charge your scarf through contact. But their presence makes the journey feel like you have a partner walking alongside you (or apart from you, depending on the players).

Blackwell Trilogy Remastered

Blackwell Trilogy Remastered Developer: Wadjet Eye Games Publisher: Wadjet Eye Games Adventure - PC HDD 1 player

After loving Gemini Rue, I picked up the Blackwell Trilogy Remastered from the Indie Royale Xmas Bundle.  Like Gemini Rue, it's a point and click adventure game using the same underlying engine.  Nevertheless, the games have very distinct feels to them.  Whereas Gemini has a gritty detective / bleak scifi vibe to it, the Blackwell series has sarcastic humor and dark undertones.  Your primary role is that of a medium, and your partnership with a ghost.  It sounds hokey, but it works without being too far-fetched.  The good thing is, the game plays out like that of a serious investigation game.  It very much feels like what Phoenix Wright or Miles Edgeworth would be like, if it were a traditional PC adventure game, as you have to present "evidence" to get people to talk.  Here's my thoughts on each game of the package.

Blackwell Legacy - Beginning of the saga.  You get a bit of background story of Rosangela Blackwell that sets up the entire series and what it's about.  The scenario is a nice balance of unsettling deaths and light-hearted humor to break up the tension.  Solutions to puzzles can be quite varied too.

Blackwell Unbound - Interesting direction, considering the events of Legacy.  Unbound introduces a new game mechanic - the ability to switch characters, which opened up a couple of new possibilities.  But otherwise, the puzzles were much simpler than Legacy and also more repetitive, so I liked it least as a game.  Whereas Legacy leaves you with a wealth of emotions, Unbound's scenario leaves me feeling unsettled.

Blackwell Convergence - No new game mechanics here, and in fact, they simplify the game by doing away with combining notes/clues.  Still, there are still puzzles to be solved and connections to tie together.  This outing wraps up the package nicely.

I think Phoenix Wright comparison is apt for this series.  Like the Ace Attorney stuff, the Blackwell games  are heavily focused on plot and characters.  It's a great combination and has the same payoffs.  Each game is very interesting in of itself.  But as you play additional games and see how the characters interact in different situations, it's building an overall story.  It's very rewarding to see the progression.

Blackwell games are also short.  Each adventure takes about 4-5 hours to complete.  I personally love that they're so short.  It's probably why I was hooked enough to play them through.  If the length bothers you, the best way to think about each Blackwell entry is that they're equivalent to a Phoenix Wright case.  It's also priced appropriately.  Full price for the Trilogy is $20.  Not too shabby for 15 hours worth of games.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed playing Blackwell.  While Gemini Rue was really neat for its atmosphere and unpredictable story, Blackwell was more enjoyable as a game.  I always love putting pieces of a puzzle together, and the way you combine clues, present evidence, and convince characters to tell you the truth is what makes adventure gaming for me.  Combine that with a strong emphasis on character establishment and story continuity and you've got yourself a winner. I love Blackwell for the same reasons I love Phoenix Wright.  And despite the medium / ghost stuff in Blackwell, it never gets in the way like the mysticism does in Phoenix Wright.  Things don't just magically resolve themselves.  You're involved every step of the way.  In case you can't tell, I really had a blast.

Gemini Rue

Gemini Rue Developer: Joshua Nuernberger Publisher: Wadjet Eye Games Adventure - PC HDD 1 player

Point-and-click adventure games are a relic of old PC gaming.  I don't see too many of them still being made, but indie publisher Wadjet Eye Games still believes in them. I picked up Gemini Rue as part of the Indie Royale Launch Bundle a month back. After viewing the trailer, I was intrigued.

The game's initial scene is cold, clinical, and disturbing.  A group of scientists have a man called Delta Six bound.  Delta Six apparently has tried to escape, and so the scientists wipe the man's memory.  Soon after the credits, the scenery changes to something more akin to a gritty detective film.  Azriel Odin is an ex-assassin, but he's out to investigate the disappearance of his brother Daniel.  And thus the story begins.

As a point-and-click adventure game, there's no real tricks.  There are some isolated combat segments which require WASD controls, but the overwhelming majority of the game requires only left and right clicking.  A groundbreaking gameplay-driven game, this is not.  But if you're after adventure, this has got it.

The game is interesting in that it has two personalities.  The game will switch scenes between Azriel the investigator and Delta Six the captive.  Playing as Azriel, the scenery is very moody, with the pitter-patter of the rain adding to the melancholy.  Everyone you meet seems to be suspicious or desperate, intensifying the desire to figure out what's going on.  Playing as Delta Six leaves you feeling uncomfortable and awkward.  He's roughed up by his peers.  The surroundings are clinical.  The atmosphere ends up being just plain creepy.

The control interface and the puzzles themselves could be less clunky, but that's really not the point.  What Gemini Rue does so well, is to pull you into its world.  Everything is designed to make you feel what the characters are feeling.  By the time the plot kicks into gear, and philosophical questions are raised, those things end up as a bonus.  The meat and potatoes of the game is the discovery process that the characters, and you the player, engage in.  To that end, Gemini Rue is absolutely thrilling all the way through.

TRAUMA

TRAUMA Developer: Kristian Majewski Publisher: Kristian Majewski Adventure - PC HDD, 1 Save File 1 player

Continuing with my Indie PC gaming kick, I picked up TRAUMA as part of the Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle. It's a throwback to the old point-and-click adventure games, but with a little bit of a modern twist.

The game begins with a woman awakening in a hospital bed. Her memories are jumbled, first with a recollection of driving and then random bizarre imagery follows. And hence the game begins.

Like all point-and-click adventures, you will use only the mouse. Click on specific locations of the screen and you will either investigate an object or move to a different location. The interface of this game has a photograph theme, where mousing over key spots shows a translucent photo, letting you know you can move. This is extremely helpful so you're not just clicking in random locations. The game also gives you visual indicators when mousing over key objects too.

The twist to it all is that it adds some interactivity, by giving you powers only accessible through mouse movements. For instance, you can move Right just by "drawing" horizontal lines on the screen from left to right. Moving right can just as easily be accomplished simply by clicking on a navigation spot, but this is just one example of the interactivity. There are some abilities you obtain that can only be accessed by drawing with your mouse.

What's really enjoyable about the game is the whole theme of discovery. It's an adventure game, so you're trying to discover what's going on in the story, discover how to progress, discover different paths. But it also includes a collectathon element, where photographs are scattered throughout each scenario. The photographs fill in a little bit of backstory, but they can also teach you some of the mouse maneuvers in the game. Everything works together really well.

I won't say that TRAUMA is game of the year material or anything. But as far as point-and-click adventures go, I rather enjoyed it. It's mysterious and atmospheric, offers some interactivity with the mouse movements, and wraps it all in a package that emphasizes discovery. Oh, and it's pretty short too ( < 3 hours?), which is a plus in my book. Don't think I'd buy it alone, but as part of a bundle, it's a pleasant surprise.

Sol Survivor

Sol Survivor Developer: Cadenza Interactive Publisher: Cadenza Interactive Tower Defense - PC HD Backup 1 player, Multiplayer Co-op & Versus

Now that I'm packing a modern PC, I'm experimenting with PC gaming.  First order of business, some indie packs from Steam.

I picked up Sol Survivor as part of a Strategy bundle. Turns out each of the 5 games in the bundle is some sort of tower defense variation. Lucky for me, I generally enjoy them. For those of you who aren't familiar with the genre, tower defense games feature maps, where waves of enemies traverse a fixed (or not-so-fixed) path. If the enemy reaches their destination, you lose life.  Hit 0, and it's game over.  The goal of the game, then, is to build "towers" that attack the enemies and hopefully kill them before they ever reach you.  As you destroy enemies, you earn the ability to build more towers or upgrade existing ones.  The fun of the genre comes from understanding the specific nuances and special powers of your "towers" and placement of those towers to do the most damage.  For instance, most games of the genre will usually have a tower that can slow down the enemy, but does little or no damage.  That's a great supplemental strategy to use in conjunction with offensive towers, but not good by itself.  So the right blend of towers is required.

That description generally applies to all tower defense games.  Sol Survivor is a pretty standard entry to the genre, and as such, makes a good intro.  The setting is very sci-fi, with an alien invasion as a backdrop.  Instead of towers, you have turrets, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

There are two design decisions that make Sol Survivor distinct.  There's an "Orbital Support" system that makes the game more interactive than its peers.  In addition to the ability to build turrets, you have an energy bar that you can spend to alter the game.  While your turrets are shooting at the enemy, you can click on the Laser Orbital Support, point at the enemy and then hold down the mouse button.  A laser beam will follow wherever your cursor is to do additional damage.  This is especially handy to finish off foes that weren't killed by your turrets.  There are other orbital support options - some enhance the abilities of your turrets by giving bonuses temporarily; some will slow down any enemies within a radius; some will deal direct damage to an enemy like the laser.  The orbital support system helps to make the game more action-focused and less passive.

While the Orbital Support is a significant addition, the choice of Officers has an even greater impact on the gameplay.  This is the first tower defense game I've played where you don't have access to all the towers in the game.  Sol Survivor makes you choose from 10 different officers, each with their own subset of turrets and orbital supports.  What this means is that each officer has a different playstyle and strategy to employ.  This was my favorite aspect of the game.  There are a total of 20 stages in the campaign, but I found myself replaying the same stages with different characters just to get a feel of how the game changes.  By limiting the types of turrets you can build and mixing up your orbital support abilities, the developers made the game better as a result of those restrictions.  You're forced to make do with what you've got and it gives the game more of a personality.

In addition to the single player campaign, there is also a single player survival mode where unlimited waves of enemies come knocking at your door as well as a co-operative multiplayer experience.  I haven't had the opportunity to try the mp game, but according to the videos I've seen, it looks like it works really well.  If you're a completionist, there's tons of achievements both in the game and through Steam, that will keep you occupied for many many hours.

Still a generic tower defense game overall, but solid.  The addition of orbital support and multiple characters doesn't drastically change the genre, but they sure make things more interesting.

Half-Life 2 Episode Two

Half-Life 2 Episode Two Developer: Valve Publisher: Valve First Person Shooter - PC HD Backup 1 player

After four years, I finally played through all the (available) HL2 games! Picking up immediately from where. Episode One left off, you pretty much know what to expect from Episode Two. Thankfully, Half Life 2 Episode Two isn't a carbon copy of HL2 like Episode One was.

Although you have the same weapons and tools available to you, Valve tried to mix up things a little bit by adding a few new enemies and varying the settings. Sure, it does have the same feel of generic action game + occasional light puzzle. But Valve also added some new tricks, like experimenting with collectathon aspects by having you seek out supply caches. There's also a new addition to how you can use your weapons to take down some of the bigger enemies of the game. The result of their efforts pays off. Somewhat.

The biggest problem is that the additions feel a little tacked on. They're too segmented. When you're in the ant hill section, the game plays like such. When you're searching out hidden supplies, that's more or less what you do for that specific section of the game. It lacks integration. You play the game a certain way for only a fixed scene and that's it. Thus despite their best efforts, Episode Two is still pretty mediocre overall.

If you've read any of my write-ups on the series, I never enjoyed any iteration of Half-Life. One might find the setting and story interesting, but the games come out so far apart from each other, I really don't remember what events occurred previously. As far as gameplay, I find the combat scenarios to be pretty dull overall, relying too much on hordes of generic enemies than actual game design. Episode Two does little to change my opinion of the series.

Half Life 2 Episode One

Half-Life 2 Episode One Developer: Valve Publisher: Valve First Person Shooter - PC HD Backup 1 player

I never quite understood why Half-Life 2 Episode One is a follow-up to Half-Life 2. The naming convention sounds like it'd be a prequel, but it's actually a direct sequel. Semantics aside, I'm torn.

The game has no surprises. If you've played through Half-Life 2, you know exactly what to expect. The story unfolds in the exact same real-time manner. The enemies are the exact same ones you previously fought. You have the same weapons. And the kicker.... Ep 1 has you in pretty much the exact situations as HL2. I would actually say the game structure is like playing HL2 in reverse. To that end, Ep 1 is the worst kind of sequel. Uninspired. Treads no new ground. Needless existence. As much as I hated HL2, Episode One is an even worse sequel.

But that being said... had Half Life 2 never existed, Episode One would be pretty decent. One could say that Ep 1 is a streamlined version. The pacing is faster. And it removes the awful awful vehicular segments of the previous game. In a lot of ways, it's what Half-Life 2 SHOULD have been.

Thus I'm mixed. I thought Half-Life 2 was probably the worst game I've ever played. In an absolute sense, I think Half-Life 2 Episode One plays a lot tighter and removes the stuff that really made the original drag on. But as a sequel, it's the worst kind. It doesn't try to achieve anything other than more of the same. And even in that regard, it fails because there's no new situations, only a re-presenting what already was.

In the end, I'm not really sure what to think. OK on its own merits, but is the perfect example of what NOT to do in a sequel. Here's hoping that Episode Two will actually push the series forward.

Ghost Trick

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective Developer: Capcom Publisher: Capcom Adventure - Nintendo DS 1 player

From the creators of the Ace Attorney games comes a new kind of adventure: Ghost Trick. There are marked similarities between the two titles: a detective mystery backdrop, character-driven story and dialog, and plenty of twists and turns to keep you interested.

What Ghost Trick does differently is the gameplay. You begin the game as a newly departed spirit of a nearby corpse. Who are you? How did you die? Why did you die? Those are all questions that the game will answer, in time. But what this means in terms of gameplay is something completely different. As a spirit, you have two powers - tricks, if you will.

1. You can possess objects and interact with them in real time.
2. You can manipulate time to go back to a few minutes prior to someone dying.

You're thrown into the game and thrust into many confusing situations, with no immediate context. But these powers not only give you the opportunity to investigate the scenes you come across, but they also allow you to be able to influence the past to change the present outcome. In a sense, Ghost Trick isn't considerably different from other adventure puzzles where you interact with objects in a manner to solve a problem. But because the action takes place in real-time, the puzzles take on a fresh persona.

Here's an example. You rewind time to 4 minutes before a victim's death. In that rewind, you see an assailant approach the victim, raise a gun and shoot them. Now that you know what happens, how can you change that path? Well, you rewind again and get to work. The goal is to thwart the kill. So you now are moving in-real time, possessing objects, interacting with them, just as in the foreground, the events are playing out. The assailant is still approaching the victim, is still going to pull out a gun, and will squeeze the trigger. Your job is to find a way to prevent the situation, and to consider the timing in which your actions will occur. Manipulating objects too early, and the assailant may still end up killing the victim. Manipulating them too late, the victim remains dead. Because you have to consider logic and timing, the gameplay feels more like an action game than your run-of-the-mill adventure game.

As far as charm, Ghost Trick sports a similar style to the Ace Attorney games where the mood is balanced by both serious moments and light-hearted humor. What's notable about Ghost Trick are the fluid character animations. It's often a treat just to watch how the characters move on the screen, because obvious care and intention was poured out in this area. Characters will have specific animations based on the scene at hand. Gone are the static screens and functional visuals of Ace Attorney. Ghost Trick is out to impress stylistically, and it works.

I like what Ghost Trick set out to do overall. It's a unique adventure game with fun mechanics, a character-driven story, and a lot of personality to boot. I'm glad that this team decided to try something different, rather than make another Ace Attorney game, and it succeeds in its own right. Nevertheless, I found the overall plot to be a bit hokey - much like the worst parts of Ace Attorney, and it never does get as serious as the Ace Attorney games. Some of the plots/subplots of AA shocked and had an emotional impact on me. GT never did. And although GT was definitely more interactive in its gameplay, I personally enjoyed the logic-based gameplay in AA games more.

In the end, I'm glad Ghost Trick exists and it's definitely worth playing as a unique an fun DS title. I just don't know if I'd stick around for a sequel.